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audience. Just as Apple and Roku were willing to fill that role for Showtime and HBO Now, Sony may be sending the message that it too can be a valuable partner.
In the end, though, it's up to the networks to pull the trigger. Some of them might go a la carte, while others may experiment with entirely new streaming services that cater to specific tastes, such as the rumored comedy and horror networks from NBC and AMC, respectively. The result, as always, is a greater number of options for cord cutters.
But unless Sony can offer some real channels that are typically part of a cable bundle, in a way that stands out from other game consoles and streaming boxes, its claims of being the first a la carte TV service fall flat.In the wake of horrible tragedy, solace is often found in knowing that the truth will be sought, and justice will be delivered.
For the last 15 years, Jessica Lenahan, who lost her three daughters in a domestic violence incident, has been denied the truth about what really happened to her children and, therefore, the justice that she and all victims rightly deserve.
In June 1999, Rebecca, Katheryn, and Leslie Gonzales were kidnapped by their father, Simon Gonzales, and discovered dead in his vehicle after a shootout with law enforcement at the Castle Rock, Colorado, police station. For nearly 10 hours beforehand, Jessica repeatedly called the police to tell them her children were in danger, but they refused to enforce the restraining order against her estranged husband.
While law enforcement concluded that Simon had killed the girls before arriving at the police station, a proper investigation into the circumstances of the girls' deaths was never completed. To this day, Jessica doesn't know who killed her children: her estranged husband, the police, or someone else. Law enforcement's failure to investigate the girls' deaths not only leaves Jessica and her family in an unimaginable cloud of uncertainty, but it casts doubt in the minds of all citizens as to how such critical questions can fall through the cracks unanswered.
Through the years, despite the immense personal loss that she suffered and the unacceptable lack of answers provided to her by the state of Colorado, Jessica has become a renowned advocate for the rights of domestic violence victims.
In 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a landmark decision in her case that calls on federal, state, and local governments to strengthen their responses to domestic violence in the United States, while specifically calling for an investigation into the circumstances of Jessica's case. With the support of the University of Miami Law School Human Rights Clinic, Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, and the ACLU, Jessica is now seeking to implement the commission's decision.
Last week, Jessica's personal courage and 15 years of advocacy were recognized, as the Colorado legislature honored her with a formal tribute on the last day of the legislative session.
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While the legislature's recognition was certainly earned, what Jessica deserves is truth and justice. That's why the ACLU of Colorado is calling for a renewed commitment from the state to provide the answers it failed to seek in 1999. It is critical for society to have confidence in law enforcement to conduct thorough and proper investigations, each and every time the need arises. The state of Colorado has the opportunity and the responsibility to determine the exact sequence of events which led to the deaths of Rebecca, Katheryn, and Leslie Gonzales.
We call on Colorado to finally conduct the investigation Jessica, her family, and the people of Colorado all deserve.While doing some research, I ran into something called the Apron Project. This is an initiative by Progressive Insurance to shine a light on people who make progress by making something a little bit better. I was struck be these words on their website:
An apron is hard work.
An apron is pride in what you do.
An apron is not quitting until you’ve made something better.
So let’s look at this from a Masonic perspective…
An apron is hard work.
Freemasonry consists of a course of moral and symbolic instruction. One lesson that you will never hear is this: “Take a seat good and faithful Brother because your work is done!” Every single lesson we learn as Masons is about some kind of important work that must be done – with self, with others, to the greater Glory of God. Nobody, ever, said that Freemasonry was a cakewalk. It is, my friends, WORK – and I think it never ends. I read someplace that life’s heaviest burden is to have nothing to carry. We have to pray for stronger backs, not lighter loads.
An apron is pride in what you do.
When you think about giants of our Craft, they shared a common trait. They set expectations for performance of which we could all be proud. They knew the work, performed it well, visited Masonically, and were accountable for the responsibilities of any office they held.
Setting expectations is a job each and every one of us can do. My sense is that we have let the standards slip in recent years and we need to raise them back up. We have been paying far too great a price for that slippage; and of course the very best way is to role model expected behavior. With the ritual, with attendance, with volunteering, with visiting and visitations, with coaching, with study and learning, with membership development, with charity – I think you get the picture.
An apron is not quitting until you’ve made something better.
We are all rough ashlars on the same journey to becoming perfect ashlars. It is well to remember, at least from an operative perspective, that a perfect ashlar is stone made ready by the hands of the workmen to be adjusted by the fellowcraft for the builders use. In other words, it is not perfect but usable. None of us will reach perfection, but we will definitely not be of use if we stop striving for perfection.
In part, that means putting into application the lessons and examples taught you by your mentors and role models, then passing those lessons and examples those who will come after you.
So here’s my question: How’s your apron?
AdvertisementsYou are in Rubi's Room, a fully transformable room like a Rubik's Cube. But Instead of solving a cube you have put the split objects inside the room back together. There are also little animals that can be cut and put together differently.
Instructions:
- Rotate the tiles of the room to put the split objects back together
- Split animals in two and put them right together for extra points
- Merge multiple objects at once or make combos for bonus points
Controls:
- Hold Left Mouse and drag to rotate the room tiles
- Use Middle Mouse instead to also rotate the camera while dragging
- Easy Mode only: Right Mouse click on objects or animals to rotate them on the tile
Ludum Dare page: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-37/?action=preview&uid=44878
VR and more coming soon: https://twitter.com/TocoGamescom/status/810133827129671680New Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen calls Yoenis Cespedes "pretty impressive," but he said it's no slam dunk that the Cuban defector ends up in Miami.
Marlins president David Samson has already said that they would like the outfielder but don't have to have him, and Guillen reiterated that.
"I heard Mr. Samson say something very interesting yesterday," Guillen said on the "Waddle and Silvy Show" on ESPN 1000 in Chicago. "He said, 'We have a great ballclub. And we're happy with what we have.'"
Call it posturing, but Guillen said the Marlins aren't the only team in the running, saying he thinks "they're promoting this kid all over the place. That's why you have an agent. You as a player, you know where you want to go."
Cespedes met with the Marlins and toured their new ballpark on Wednesday. He was possibly headed back to the Dominican Republic, where he has obtained residency, Thursday, but it's not clear if that happened.
His agent, Adam Katz, said Cespedes did not speak to other teams while in Florida. The Cubs, White Sox and Tigers are among the teams that have shown interest.
"We went to the Dominican Republic, myself and 10 guys," Guillen said. "
We went to see this kid. He's pretty impressive. They compare this kid with a lot of people. They compare this kid with Bo Jackson. Well Bo Jackson wasn't a baseball player. This kid is a baseball player. They compare him with (Raul) Mondesi. I think Mondesi was better than him. That's my own opinion. Mondesi has a better arm, faster, but this kid is pretty good."
There has been speculation that Cespedes could command a $60 million contract. That commitment makes Guillen nervous.
"There are a lot of question marks out there," he said. "How's he going to handle major league pitching? We don't know. How's he going to handle major league media? We don't know. There are a lot of ifs. Whoever signs him is gambling."
Guillen does like Cespedes' confidence.
"I saw him say something yesterday: 'I'm not coming to the United States to play in the minor leagues.' Well, that thing can go either way. I don't blame the kid. But people don't look at that as the right answer. To me it's the right answer: 'I come here to play in the big leagues.'"
Still, there are question marks.
"The tools are there," Guillen said. "But you never know what's going to happen."Every Java developer whether beginner, novice, or seasoned has in his/her lifetime experienced NullPointerException. This is a true fact that no Java developer can deny. We all have wasted or spent many hours trying to fix bugs caused by NullPointerException. According to NullPointerException JavaDoc, NullPointerException is thrown when an application attempts to use null in a case where an object is required.. This means if we invoke a method or try to access a property on null reference then our code will explode and NullPointerException is thrown. You can follow the 7 Days with Java 8 series at https://shekhargulati.com/7-days-with-java-8/
On a lighter note, if you look at the JavaDoc of NullPointerException you will find that author of this exception is unascribed. If the author is unknown unascribed is used(nobody wants to take ownership of NullPointerException ;))
What are null references?
In 2009 at QCon conference Sir Tony Hoare stated that he invented null reference type while designing ALGOL W programming language. null was designed to signify absence of a value. He called null references as a billion-dollar mistake. You can watch the full video of his presentation on Infoq http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Null-References-The-Billion-Dollar-Mistake-Tony-Hoare.
Most of the programming languages like C, C++, C#, Java, Scala, etc. has nullable type as part of their type system which allows the value to be set to a special value Null instead of other possible data type values.
Why null references are a bad thing?
Let’s look at the example Task management domain classes shown below. Our domain model is very simple with only two classes — Task and User. A task can be assigned to a user.
public class Task { private final String id; private final String title; private final TaskType type; private User assignedTo; public Task(String id, String title, TaskType type) { this.id = id; this.title = title; this.type = type; } public Task(String title, TaskType type) { this.id = UUID.randomUUID().toString(); this.title = title; this.type = type; } public String getTitle() { return title; } public TaskType getType() { return type; } public User getAssignedTo() { return assignedTo; } public void setAssignedTo(User assignedTo) { this.assignedTo = assignedTo; } } public class User { private final String username; private String fullname; public User(String username) { this.username = username; } public String getUsername() { return username; } public String getFullname() { return fullname; } public void setFullname(String fullname) { this.fullname = fullname; } }
Given the above domain model, if we have to find the User who is assigned a task with id taskId then we would write code as shown below.
public String taskAssignedTo(String taskId) { return taskRepository.find(taskId).getAssignedTo().getUsername(); }
The biggest problem with the code shown above is that absence of the value is not visible in the API i.e. if the task is not assigned to any user then the code will throw NullPointerException when getAssignedTo is called. The taskRepository.find(taskId) and taskRepository.find(taskId).getAssignedTo() could return null. This forces clients of the API to program defensively and check for null checks as shown below.
public String taskAssignedTo(String taskId) throws TaskNotFoundException { Task task = taskRepository.find(taskId); if (task!= null) { User assignedTo = task.getAssignedTo(); if (assignedTo!= null) return assignedTo.getUsername(); return "NotAssigned"; } throw new TaskNotFoundException(String.format("No task exist with id '%s'", taskId)); }
The code shown above misses developer intent and bloats client code with if-null checks. The developer somehow wanted to use optional data type but he was forced to write if-null checks. I am sure you would have written this kind of code in your day to day programming.
Null Object pattern
A common solution to working with null references is to use Null Object pattern. The idea behind this pattern is very simple instead of returning null you should return a null object that implements your interface or class. So, you can create a NullUser as shown below.
public class NullUser extends User { public NullUser(String username) { super("NotAssigned"); } }
So now we could return a NullUser when no user is assigned a task. We can change the getAssignedTo method to return NullUser when no user is assigned a task.
public User getAssignedTo() { return assignedTo == null? NullUser.getInstance() : assignedTo; }
Now client code can be simplified to not use null check for user as shown below. In this example, it does not make sense to use Null Object pattern for Task because non-existence of task in the repository is an exception situation. Also, by adding TaskNotFoundException in the throws clause we have made it explicit for the client that this code can throw exception.
public String taskAssignedTo(String taskId) throws TaskNotFoundException { Task task = taskRepository.find(taskId); if (task!= null) { return task.getAssignedTo().getUsername(); } throw new TaskNotFoundException(String.format("No task exist with id '%s'", taskId)); }
Java 8 — Introduction of Optional data type
Java 8 introduced a new data type java.util.Optional<T> which encapsulates an empty value. It makes intent of the API clear. If a function returns a value of type Optional then it tells the clients that value might not be present. Use of Optional<T> data type makes it explicit to the API client when it should expect an optional value. When you use Optional type then you as a developer makes it visible via the type system that value may not be present and client can cleanly work with it. The purpose of using Optional<T> type is to help API designers design APIs that makes it visible to their clients by looking at the method signature whether they should expect optional value or not.
Let’s update our domain model to reflect optional values.
import java.util.Optional; import java.util.UUID; public class Task { private final String id; private final String title; private final TaskType type; private Optional<User> assignedTo; public Task(String title, TaskType type) { this.id = UUID.randomUUID().toString(); this.title = title; this.type = type; this.assignedTo = Optional.empty(); } public Optional<User> getAssignedTo() { return assignedTo; } public void setAssignedTo(User assignedTo) { this.assignedTo = Optional.of(assignedTo); } } public class User { private final String username; private Optional<String> fullname; public User(String username) { this.username = username; this.fullname = Optional.empty(); } public String getUsername() { return username; } public Optional<String> getFullname() { return fullname; } public void setFullname(String fullname) { this.fullname = Optional.of(fullname); } }
Use of Optional data type in the data model makes it explicit that Task refers to an Optional<User> and User has an Optional<String> username. Now whoever tries to work with assignedTo User would know that it might not be present and they can handle it in a declarative way. We will talk about Optional.empty and Optional.of methods in the next section.
Working with creational methods in the java.util.Optional API
In the domain model shown above, we used couple of creational methods of the Optional class but I didn’t talked about them. Let’s now discuss three creational methods which are part of the Optional API.
Optional.empty : This is used to create an Optional when value is not present like we did above this.assignedTo = Optional.empty(); in the constructor.
: This is used to create an Optional when value is not present like we did above in the constructor. Optional.of(T value) : This is used to create an Optional from a non-null value. It throws NullPointerException when value is null. We used it in the code shown above this.fullname = Optional.of(fullname);.
Optional.ofNullable(T value): This static factory method works for both null and non-null values. For null values it will create an empty Optional and for non-null value it will create Optional using the value.
Below is a simple example of how you can write API using Optional.
public class TaskRepository { private static final Map<String, Task> TASK_STORE = new ConcurrentHashMap<>(); public Optional find(String taskId) { return Optional.ofNullable(TASK_STORE.get(taskId)); } public void add(Task task) { TASK_STORE.put(task.getId(), task); } }
Using Optional values
Optional can be thought as a Stream with one element. It has methods similar to Stream API like map, filter, flatmap that we can use to work with values contained in the Optional.
Getting title for a Task
To read the value of title for a Task we would write code as shown below. The map function was used to transform from Optional<Task> to Optional<String>. The orElseThrow method is used to throw a custom business exception when no Task is found.
public String taskTitle(String taskId) { return taskRepository. find(taskId). map(Task::getTitle). orElseThrow(() -> new TaskNotFoundException(String.format("No task exist for id '%s'",taskId))); }
There are three variants of orElse* method:
orElse(T t): This is used to return a value when exists or returns the value passed as parameter like Optional.ofNullable(null).orElse("NoValue"). This will return NoValue as no value exist. orElseGet: This will return the value if present otherwise invokes the Supplier s get method to produce a new value. For example, Optional.ofNullable(null).orElseGet(() -> UUID.randomUUID().toString() could be used to lazily produce value only when no value is present. orElseThrow: This allow clients to throw their own custom exception when value is not present.
The find method shown above returns an Optional that the client can use to get the value. Suppose we want to get the task’s title from the Optional, we can do that by using the map function as shown below.
Getting username of the assigned user
To get the username of the user who is assigned a task we can use the flatMap method as shown below.
public String taskAssignedTo(String taskId) { return taskRepository. find(taskId). flatMap(task -> task.getAssignedTo().map(user -> user.getUsername())). orElse("NotAssigned"); }
Filtering with Optional
The third Stream API like operation supported by Optional is filter, which allows you to filter an Optional based on property as shown in example below.
public boolean isTaskDueToday(Optional<Task> task) { return task.flatMap(Task::getDueOn).filter(d -> d.isEqual(LocalDate.now())).isPresent(); }
Conclusion
In today’s blog we covered how Java developers can make use Optional data type to write null free code. Stay tuned for the next blog in this series.Advertisement
Situated perilously on the side of a mountain, photographs show how reliant this temple is on just one wooden pole to stop it from hurtling hundreds of feet down the slope.
Built in 1146, the Ganlu Temple is tucked inside a valley in Taining county, located in southeast China's Fujian province, with thousands of tourists making the tricky pilgrimage to the unique place of worship every year.
The awe-inspiring temple is made all the more unusual by the fact that it found 260 feet above ground, built into China's famous Danxia landform of red mountains, where the majority of the structure is supported by a single pillar.
The holy place's name, Ganlu, translates as sweet dew, due to a massive stalactite situated above the temple which drips spring water that locals say tastes 'as sweet as dew'.
It is considered to have healing properties and families who are struggling to have children make the journey to the temple, which worships Buddha, with the belief that visiting will help them to conceive.
It is said that the temple was built by Ye Zuqia, who had it built in her mother's honour after she promised to built a larger temple on the site after she visited the area having struggled to conceive, only to become pregnant shortly after.
The awe-inspiring temple is made all the more unusual by the fact that it found 260 feet above ground, built into China's famous Danxia landform of red mountains, where the majority of the structure is supported by a single pillar
Situated perilously on the side of a mountain, photographs show how reliant this temple is on just one wooden pole to stop it from hurtling hundreds of feet down the slope
Built in 1146, the Ganlu Temple is tucked inside a valley in Taining county, located in southeast China's Fujian province, with thousands of tourists making the tricky pilgrimage to the unique place of worship every year
It is considered to have healing properties and families who are struggling to have children make the journey to the temple, which worships Buddha, with the belief that visiting will help them to conceive
Tourists walk around the Buddhist temple and light candles. The holy place is situated perilously on the side of a mountain
The holy place's name, Ganlu, translates as sweet dew, due to a massive stalactite situated above the temple which drips spring water that locals say tastes 'as sweet as dew'Albert Einstein wants you to know that everything is NOT relative, America is a great country, and he might have been a happy, mediocre fiddler if he hadn't become a genius in physics.
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In this 1929 interview with a Post reporter, Albert Einstein discussed the role of relativity, why he thought nationalism was the “measles of mankind,” and how he might have become a happy, mediocre fiddler if he hadn’t become a genius in physics.
When a Post correspondent interviewed Albert Einstein about his thought process in 1929, Einstein did not speak of careful reasoning and calculations. Instead —
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am… [but] I would have been surprised if I had been wrong “I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Something else that was circling the globe in that year was Einstein’s reputation. At the time of this interview, his fame had spread across Europe and America. Everywhere he was acclaimed a genius for defining the principles of relativity, though very few people understood what they meant.
Imagination may have been essential to his breakthrough thinking, but Einstein’s discovery also rested on his vast knowledge of physical science. Knowledge and imagination let him see the relationship between space, time, and energy. Using mathematics, he developed a model for understanding how objects and light behave in extreme conditions — as in the subatomic world, where the old Newtonian principles didn’t appear to work.
Whenever Einstein explained his work to the popular press, though, reporters got lost in his talk of space-time continuum, absolute speed of light, and E=Δmc2. So they used their own imaginations to define relativity. One of their misinterpretations was the idea that relativity meant everything is relative. The old absolutes were gone. Nothing was certain anymore.
It was a ridiculous interpretation that could only have made sense if newspaper readers were no bigger than a proton, or could travel near the speed of light.
This misperception was so common that the Post writer used it to start his interview.
“Relativity! What word is more symbolic of the age? We have ceased to be positive of anything. We look upon all things in the light of relativity. Relativity has become the plaything of the parlor philosopher.”
Einstein, as always, patiently clarified his concept.
“‘The meaning of relativity has been widely misunderstood, Philosophers play with the word, like a child with a doll. Relativity, as I see it, merely denotes that certain physical and mechanical facts, which have been regarded as positive and permanent, are relative with regard to certain other facts in the sphere of physics and mechanics. It does not mean that everything in life is relative and that we have the right to turn the whole world mischievously topsy-turvy.'”
The world of the early 20th Century certainly felt like it was being inverted — with or without relativity. Even as Einstein was developing his theory about the space-time continuum and the nature of light, old Europe was dying in record numbers. Just a few weeks before Einstein released his general theory of relativity in 1916, the German Imperial Army began its assault at Verdun. In the ensuing, ten-month battle, France and Germany suffered 800,000 casualties. Four months later, the British launched their catastrophic attack at the Somme and suffered 58,000 casualties in a single day.
The survivors of these debacles were disillusioned by the waste of this war, and the peace that followed. The youth of Europe and America were looking for new truths. The old ones seemed empty and especially lethal to young men. They saw how noble sacrifice could be used for political ends. And they had seen how virtue and faith fared against massed machine guns.
This “Relativity” they read about seemed promising, if it meant that thousands wouldn’t have to die needlessly, of that could live beyond the limiting moral codes of their parents.
Einstein, himself, didn’t indulge in any of this relativism. He was a man of strong beliefs, not equivocations. For instance, his love of music was absolute.
“‘If… I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. I cannot tell if I would have done any creative work of importance in music, but I do know that I get most joy in life out of my violin.'” “Einstein’s taste in music is severely classical. Even Wagner is to him no unalloyed feast of the ears. He adores Mozart and Bach. He even prefers their work to the architectural music of Beethoven.”
He disagreed with the traditional Jewish concept of free will.
“I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect I am not a Jew… Practically, I am nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.”
He never expressed any belief in a personal God, but he believed in the historical Jesus — not the popularized prophet such as appeared in a best-selling biography by Emil Ludwig.
“Ludwig’s Jesus,” Einstein replied, “is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot.” “You accept the historical existence of Jesus?” “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.”
Einstein was no relativist on the subject of nationalism, which he saw grow violent and intolerant from his Berlin home.
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
It was different in the United States, he believed.
“Nationalism in the United States does not assume such disagreeable forms as in Europe. This may be due partly to the fact that your country is so immense, that you do not think in terms of narrow borders. It may be due to the fact that you do not suffer from the heritage of hatred or fear which poisons the relations of the nations of Europe.”
Three years later, Einstein fled Germany to seek asylum in the United States, where he became a citizen in 1940. (Not for the last time, America was enriched by the intolerance of other countries.)
It is interesting to see how Einstein viewed America three years before he made it his new home.
“In America, more than anywhere else, the individual is lost in the achievements of the many. America is beginning to be the world leader in scientific investigation. American scholarship is both patient and inspiring. The Americans show an unselfish devotion to science, which is the very opposite of the conventional European view of your countrymen.
“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves. It is not true that the dollar is an American fetish. The American student is not interested in dollars, not even in success as such, but in his task, the object of the search. It is his painstaking application to the study of the infinitely little and infinitely large.”
The only criticism Einstein could find for America was its emphasis on homogenizing its citizens into a single type.
“Standardization robs life of its spice. To deprive every ethnic group of its special traditions is to convert the world into a huge Ford plant. I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.”
Read “What Life Means to Einstein,” by George Sylvester Viereck. Published October 26, 1929 [PDF].Fulfilling his quasi-constitutional role, John Curtice and his 2017 general election exit poll sent shockwaves through Westminster.
While the blood pressure of candidates, pollsters and journalists rose, the Labour party had reason to celebrate.
Despite failing in its ultimate goal – to win - it goes without saying that the Labour Party had a relatively good election. It performed well above expectations, by all accounts ran a good campaign and gained seats from the Conservatives. The party’s jubilation, however, should not hide the fact that Labour failed to address underlying issues which prevent it from re-entering government.
Labour’s biggest gains were in areas where it didn’t need them. Reflecting Ed Miliband’s performance in 2015, this year the party managed to stack up votes in areas where they made no difference.
To have won the election decisively, Labour needed to win more than 100 new seats, including at least 92 from the Conservatives. Labour won only 28 seats from them.
And these seats are not guaranteed to be Labour again, and therefore do not mark a decisive improvement in Labour’s performance. Of the 100 seats with the greatest improvements in Labour’s vote share since 2015, only seven were in seats gained from the Conservatives, compared to 10 of the top 100 gains in 2015.
Despite being a consciously traditional left-wing platform, Labour’s problem with attracting its core vote, the working class, continued.
Skilled manual and clerical workers split between the Tories and Labour, and only unskilled manual workers and higher management workers were more obviously aligned to either of the big parties.
A lot of Labour’s success came from constituencies with high proportions of graduates and from increases in turnout in ethnically diverse, cosmopolitan areas.
Despite Ukip’s almost complete electoral collapse in the past two years, Labour only managed to secure around a fifth of 2015 Ukip voters, with the lion’s share going to the Conservatives.
If Labour fails to recapture this audience, and instead continues to be successful primarily with graduates, its chances of forming the next government will be hollowed out.
It is patently obvious, and widely accepted, that age has overtaken class as the main divide in contemporary British politics.
Labour’s outperforming of expectation largely appears to be due to increased turnout among the young, including those in their thirties, while the Conservatives have retained the support of the retired and soon to be retired.
While Labour benefited from the votes of those aged 30-44, the party cannot be complacent about its newfound success outside of the 18-24 age bracket. ComRes research has shown that adults in the middle of society’s age range are most likely to favour a new centre-ground political party (53 per cent of 35-44 year olds are in favour of this). Labour runs the risk that this age bracket may be taken from under their nose by a dynamic and renewed Liberal Democrat party.
Equally, despite what is universally described as a muddled and embarrassing U-turn on social care funding, Labour missed its great opportunity to outflank Theresa May and the Conservatives among older voters.
Despite pledges on social care and the state pension triple-lock, Labour did not manage to cut through with this key voting bloc. Labour’s message to this group clearly needs to reach beyond retail policy offers and inspire trust among retirees.
Of course, a two-point swing is nothing to be sniffed at. But, lest we forget, this is less than the swing Neil Kinnock managed in 1992, which still left him disappointed in his pursuit of the keys to 10 Downing Street.
The successes of 8 June threaten to blind the party into complacency, and embedding a "one last heave approach" which fails to take into account the underlying issues which it needs to address. With another election within 12 months on the cards, Labour must move fast to address these issues or face crushing disappointment when John Curtice’s next exit poll drops.In the first book in Diana Gabaldon's fictional Outlander series, Claire Randall, on her second honeymoon with her husband in Scotland after World War II, visits Craigh na Dun, a make-believe prehistoric stone circle near Inverness, and falls through the stones—and into the 18th century.
Written in My Own Heart's Blood is the eighth—and latest—book in the series. In all, the Outlander books have cracked the New York Times Best Seller list six times and have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, in 26 countries and 23 languages.
Well-drawn characters and vivid descriptions are part of Outlander's appeal, but Gabaldon's use of historically accurate details—aside from the time travel—also undergirds the plots. Through her writings, she's become an expert in 18th-century Scotland.
The long-awaited Outlander television show premieres tomorrow night at 9 p.m. on STARZ.
Coincidentally, National Geographic's August cover story, "The First Stonehenge," is about recently discovered Neolithic ruins in Scotland's Orkney Islands that, author Roff Smith writes, are "turning British prehistory on its head."
Gabaldon's story lines center on Scotland's ancient standing stones, so we asked her to give us a Scottish history lesson—Outlander style.
Our August story focuses on the Orkney Islands. Have you visited Orkney?
I actually just visited Orkney about 18 months ago. A guide we know in Scotland took us to a number of the places mentioned in the article. We went to Skara Brae and Maeshowe and the Ring of Brodgar, and all of that. Fascinating place!
When reading the NG Orkney story, did you connect it with Outlander at all?
Oh, yes, indeed. Not with the present book or the one I'm about to start working on, but to a different project. It will be a long time coming, but for a while now I've intended to write a book—or possibly more than one, as these things have a tendency to grow—about Master Raymond. He's the little apothecary Claire meets in Paris in Dragonfly in Amber [the second book in the series].
The moment I looked at Skara Brae, I said, OK, this is it. This book will focus on Master Raymond, and Orkney is part of his story. I don't know what the whole story is yet—I just feel this deep resonating connection with him in Orkney.
What resonated with you the most when you visited the Neolithic sites in Orkney?
The connection the culture had to the landscape. Orkney has the kind of landscape that sort of lends itself to a relationship with the people. I think that relationship is intensified because of its remoteness and the long periods of time when there was no interaction with other cultures.
One structure remaining in Orkney is the standing stones. You use a similar circle of stones as a time portal for your main character, Claire Randall. Why did you choose the stones for a time portal?
Originally, I was just going to write historical fiction, but at about the third day of writing, I introduced this English woman, just to see what she'd do. I loosed her into a cottage full of Scotsmen, and one of the men stood up and said, "My name is Dougal McKenzie, and who might you be?" Without stopping to think, I just typed, "My name is Claire Elizabeth |
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Innovative Collaboration In The Digital World
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do a lot” Helen Keller
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Rome is building up to the canonisation of not one but two Popes - the Polish Pope, John Paul ll, and John XXlll. But there is, though, one corner of Rome that always lies just a little beyond the world of Catholicism.
In the winter of 1821, in the heart of Rome, in a house by the Spanish Steps, a young Englishman lay dying.
He was the poet, John Keats. He had tuberculosis, and with death approaching he asked a friend to go and inspect the Protestant Cemetery, where he would be buried.
His companion was able to report back that it would be a fine place for the poet's bones to lie, and all these years on, it remains a rather beautiful setting.
As soon as you step through its gates, the clamour of the city traffic starts to fade. And as you walk further in, the air fills with sound of birds, and the scent of flowers. The sun slants through the tall trees and falls on the ranks of headstones.
They rise up a slope towards a wall that's nearly 2,000 years old - a wall that was once part of the defences of ancient Rome.
This place is now known as the Non-Catholic Cemetery. And when I visited early on a fine, spring morning it seemed to be sunk in a deep peace.
I took the path that leads to a far corner, and to Keats's grave.
On the grass around it there was a bright carpet of white daisies. But the words on the gravestone captured the gloom and sense of failure that engulfed the poet in his last days.
He was only 25, and the world was yet to recognise his genius. He felt he'd made no mark.
Image copyright Getty Images
The epitaph he asked for on his headstone reads: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
Keats's friend and fellow poet, Shelley, called the cemetery the most beautiful he'd ever seen. And soon he'd lie there too.
From Our Own Correspondent Image copyright Getty Images Insight and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world
Broadcast on Radio 4 and BBC World Service Listen to the programme Download the programme
Just a year after Keats's death, Shelley drowned off the coast of Italy. And his ashes are buried just beneath the Roman wall.
Above the tomb a ruined watchtower rises towards the blue of the sky. Perhaps up on the broken ramparts the ghosts of legionnaires still stand guard.
And in the earth all around Keats and Shelley, in the thousands of graves lie other poets, and painters, and writers and sculptors.
Along with them are diplomats, soldiers, tourists, and many others.
For centuries, Rome with all its history, its past glories and ancient faith has drawn all kinds of people from every corner of the world. Of course, not all of them were Catholic. And at one time, if they died here, that could be a little awkward.
They couldn't be buried in consecrated Catholic ground. But nearly 300 years ago Pope Clement Xl decreed the establishment of the Protestant cemetery - lying just within the sacred city's walls.
Some of the first to be buried there were English visitors struck down in Rome while on the "grand tour" of the sights of Europe.
Others in the cemetery had come hoping Rome's Mediterranean climate might be good for their health - but then been fatally disappointed. Malaria and cholera sometimes lay in wait on the banks of the Tiber.
The illustrious dead John Keats, English poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet
Joseph Severn, English painter and friend of Keats
Edward Trelawny, English author and friend of Shelley
Antonio Gramsci, Italian communist philosopher
Gregory Corso, US beat poet
Belinda Lee, English actress
Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, Iranian dissident
And some met death in Rome in violent ways. Among those in the graveyard is an early victim of the city's traffic - a traveller who died as he tried to fling himself clear of an overturning, horse-drawn carriage.
There were victims of hunting accidents. And an assassinated Iranian dissident also lies buried beneath the cypress trees.
Some in the cemetery will have felt very far from home as they drew their last breath. But many will have chosen to die here.
They'll have loved Rome, adopted it as theirs and lived long and happy lives in this place.
Now all these people lie together. Americans and Swedes, Russians and Irish, Serbs and Japanese - Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists. A great international community of the dead.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Pope John XXIII - featured on a church door in his home town - is due to be canonised later this month
And in this mix of peoples and traditions, you see a range of ways that they've tried to mark and make sense of death.
Some do it very simply, with just a few lines on a headstone.
One captures the feelings of a mourning relative with the words: "I shall remember while the light lasts. And in the darkness I shall not forget."
But some have tried to express their emotions in much more elaborate ways.
Standing on one headstone is a sculpture of an almost-naked angel - as tall as a man and with stone wings rising high above his head.
He looks as if he's just landed, and he stares across the graveyard, watching the butterflies flicker through the shadows and between the tombs.
How to listen to From Our Own Correspondent:
BBC Radio 4: Saturdays at 11:30 and some Thursdays at 11:00
Listen online or download the podcast.
BBC World Service: Short editions Monday-Friday - see World Service programme schedule.
Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on FacebookOculus VR founder Palmer Luckey has never been shy about sharing his vision for the potential of virtual reality (VR) technology to create wholly new experiences and computing interfaces. But some off-the-cuff statements Luckey made in the halls of PAX East last weekend have got one far-reaching question buzzing around many tech and gaming industry watchers today—will VR ever be so good that it makes traditional panel displays all but obsolete?
Luckey certainly seems to think so. Speaking to Maximum PC after a panel on the state of PC gaming, the Oculus founder (and new Facebook employee) gave it about 20 years before today's flat panels are a thing of the past.
"I think there's almost no way traditional displays will be around in a couple decades," Luckey told the site. "Why in the world would you buy a 60-inch TV that, even if it were dirt cheap for that, it's still going to cost a lot to ship it and make it from raw materials? A VR headset is going to be much better and much cheaper, and you can take it anywhere."
It seems ridiculous to think that VR displays will get so good that there's no longer demand for the billions of traditional flat-panel LCDs that make up the core of all our modern electronics. But you have to remember just how long 20 years is in terms of modern technology.
Think back to 1994. Imagine someone telling you back then that, in the world of 2014, mobile telephone technology would be so good that consumers would be dropping landlines in droves for pocket-sized phones that serve as mini-computers. Imagine the 1994 version of you hearing that it would be nearly impossible to find a record store or Blockbuster video on the streets in 2014 because people simply download the entertainment they want on demand. Think of how someone in 1994 would react to professional photographers largely giving up film cameras for high-quality digital imaging, or common consumer-level software that speaks with and understands human voice, or 3D graphics in video games that look many times better than anything in Toy Story. Actually, don't tell them that last part—Toy Story was still a year away in 1994.
The point is that a lot can change in 20 years, technologically, and that the world of 2034 is thus practically inconceivable from our current vantage point. There's a decent argument to be made that the next 20 years of tech progress will be even more rapid than the last 20 as well, meaning we have even less idea what things will be like in two decades than we had back in 1994.
Luckey has made similar arguments about the future advancement of VR in the past. In an interview last September, he told Ars that it would probably take an 8K display (that is, 4320 lines of vertical resolution) on each eye for VR images to start approaching the fidelity of actual reality. What's more, he argued that this kind of headset display technology was probably not insanely far off. "It sounds ridiculous, but HDTVs have been out there for maybe a decade in the consumer space, and now we're having phones and tablets that are past the resolution of those TVs," he said at the time. "So if you go 10 years from now, 8K in a [head-mounted display] does not seem ridiculous at all."
In other words, as Luckey put it to MaximumPC this weekend, "It's really primitive what we have right now. It's finally good enough where people can see themselves using it, but it's not where we need it to be to be really mass market."
Virtual reality versus augmented reality
Of course, pointing out that technology will inevitably get better isn't enough on its own to show that virtual reality will displace current display technology. But Luckey thinks VR also has inherent economic advantages because of the sheer scale of the physical material needed for a VR headset versus a panel display.
"The reason that VR is almost certainly going to displace traditional displays is because, to have real displays, if you want to cover a certain field of view, you literally have to have them physically there," he told MaximumPC. "[With VR], you can simulate it. Once you can get to the pixel density of a real monitor looking straight forward, you can have the simulated pixel density of a hundred monitors all around you.
"A traditional display, especially larger ones, they're very expensive to manufacture and ship... it's literally just a lot of plastic and a lot of glass in a big box that has to be shipped across the world," he continued. "Sometimes it breaks, then it has to sit on a giant store shelf until someone buys it. Once VR is commoditized, let's say 10 years from now, the tech from two years prior, you'll be able to buy a really good VR headset for $99, because there's not much material, once it's all commoditized..."
It's a decent argument, but advances in projector or traditional panel technology could also easily make ultra-thin wall-sized displays cheaper and more efficient in the next decade. Virtual reality might still have an edge, though, because a headset will be able to project an apparent image seemingly in mid-air where there isn't even a surface for a traditional display to sit on. Don't discount the stereoscopic 3D effect either, which is much more robust on a headset with a separate image for each eye than on a flat display that tries to filter out certain images from one eye or the other.
Virtual reality's big disadvantage over more traditional displays, on the other hand, is that its current incarnation forces you to block out your view of the real world around you. No matter how compelling and realistic the VR experience gets, it's not going to become a mass market, TV-and-monitor-displacing technology if using it requires ignoring everyone and everything else in the room.
Luckey addressed this concern somewhat with MaximumPC, talking about how many people can "virtually watch the same screen in a virtual environment" if that's what they want to do. But that ignores all the other things you might want to keep an eye on in your immediate vicinity while using a display, from a crying baby to an overflowing pot on the stove to a burglar sneaking through the back door. Having to fully disconnect from the VR world to even glance at these kinds of real-world concerns probably makes VR a non-starter for most people.
That's why any virtual reality that's going to even have a chance of becoming the de facto display of the future must be closer to augmented reality than to today's Oculus Rift. Users will need to somehow see the real world around them and the apparent virtual world at the same time, either through a sort of translucent display medium or a 3D camera that superimposes a high-quality image of your surroundings into the experience. We're not even close to any consumer-grade products that do this kind of thing all that well yet, but there are plenty of people working on it, not least of which is Google and its Glass project.
In 20 years, that technology could conceivably make a cell phone-level jump from nearly nonexistent to completely common. In the world of 2034, any tech-head worth their salt might be wearing a flexible piece of plastic that looks a bit like a pair of wraparound sunglasses, only without any visible frames. The translucent, super-high-resolution images projected onto that display could represent a shared 3D virtual environment projected on top of the real world. Everyone in the room would see that virtual world from their own position and viewing angle, all updated wirelessly with no noticeable latency or lag after movement.
In a world where technology like this is abundant and cheap, relying on a physical monitor or TV to display information would indeed start seeming obsolete, even if the inertia of the legacy technology would keep it going for a while longer. There's no guarantee that technology will actually get us to this point in a mere couple of decades, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. But whatever trajectory technology takes, it's worth encouraging people like Luckey to see past the current state of the art and try to conceive the almost inconceivable future of 20 years hence.About
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™ - Las Vegas, Nevada
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™ is the parent project that includes The Castles In The Desert™ project and The Castles Of Dreams™ project....
Our finest suites in The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™ will be 1000 dollars a night and up.... If you think our offer of a 1000 dollar a night suite for a 100 dollar contribution sounds too good to be true, have no fear.... It's simply our way of saying "Thank You" for your financial support at this time....
Your contributions will enable us to move forward with The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™....
The bulk of the money raised in our campaigns will be used to purchase between 25,000 to 50,000 acres of BLM land in southern Nevada…. For environmental impact studies…. For continued engineering and design…. And for many, many other things in order to start the construction of The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™.
We are Charles J. Apgar and Mildred Verlene Sullivan.... Husband and wife for over 44 years now.... With the exception of working most of our free time on the design of a multi-level city we hope to build, we are retired.... The retired part is why we are personally asking for your support at this time....
We have been working on the design of this multi-level city off and on for over forty years now.... We have been the sole financial support, out of our own pockets all of these years.... Asking no one for help.... But, now that we are both retired as of March 15, 2013, we no longer have the extra income to spend on this project....
Our small social security benefits don't go far.... It's as simple as that folks....
If our campaigns are successful in getting this project under way, it will be because of those of you that believed in the two of us and trusted that we are sincere in our intentions....
The Castles In The Desert™ project and The Castles Of Dreams™ project are both a part of the larger project called The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™....
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™ project when completely built out will employ millions of people and will be home to millions more....
Our only objective from the beginning to the end, is to make this world a little better place for ourselves and for those that will follow....
Unless you are thinking long term, "Please" pass us by.... The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™ will take years to come to past.... Years of hard work....
People have to care, people have to have compassion and vision to bring all the pieces together to build a project of this magnitude....
The future, your future, starts today....
Come Follow Us Into The Future....
A Little More About Who We Are And What We Are Trying To Do.
"The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™"
By: Apgar And Sullivan Design
Welcome To Apgar And Sullivan Design
And "The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™".
Updated December 31, 2014
To Whom It May Concern
Please consider this page an open letter to all parties that might be interested in this project. We want to hear from people that feel they have some positive and creative ideas to bring to a project of this magnitude.
This is about a little project that we have been working on, off and on for over forty four years now.
Christmas Eve 2014 was 44 years.
One might ask how someone can contemplate something of this magnitude for so long. We don't have an answer to that question. Some things are not to be questioned.
We are presently calling the project
"The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™".
We might call part of it
“Castles Of Dreams™”.
And we might call part of it
“Castles In The Desert™”.
We will probably use all three names somewhere in the project. It is that big of a project.
It does take a while to wrap one’s head around it. We haven’t been able to do it yet.
“The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™” project is four miles across at its base including the 12 mile freeway-beltway that surrounds it. It is 2700 feet tall. That is its size as of this date December 31, 2014.
The project didn't start out to be so big, but it now seems to have taken on a mind and life of its own. We work for it now. A lot of people have asked.
"WHY SO BIG".
We stopped trying to address that question a long, long time ago. The short answer is simply,
"It’s A God Thing".
Who really knows why things happen the way that they do. We believe we are only the messengers here.
We are not here soliciting negative opinions or attitudes from anyone. Anyone interested in talking to us about this project, can check the crap at the front door. We don't have the tolerance nor the life left for it.
If you have a problem believing that there are things in life that are bigger and more important than any one of us individually, then you most likely would also have difficulty understanding what this project could mean to millions and millions of people now and in the years to come.
People that will benefit from “The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™” in the future will be people that none of us will ever know. We will never know their names or their faces. We won't be here 100 years from now, 200 years from now or 300 years from now, etc.
But somebody will be here as people have been for centuries and they will need shelter and jobs and all the things that it takes for people to live. They will be people just like us.
They will be people just trying to make it in this world. They could be your children, your children’s children, etc., etc., etc. So you see, this project can not only benefit those of us that make it happen in our lifetimes, but also benefit those that we leave behind when we have walked our last mile on this earth.
If you believe in doing something in life that will benefit yourself and continue benefiting others for centuries to come, then join us in bringing something positive to the success of the project.
Who are we here at Apgar And Sullivan Design. We are private designers, developers of our designs, and overseers of our own designs. Or at least that's the way we like to look at it.
Our mission is simple. We have a multi-level city to build and we know that we can't build "The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™" by ourselves.
How many projects of this magnitude have we dreamed up and built in our lifetimes. Well, this will be our first. We are presently working, and have been working for many, many years now, exclusively on the design and development of "The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™".
Our humble design work is used exclusively in our own projects. We do not design nor develop anything, for anyone, other than ourselves and we have no interests in doing so.
Any ideas and or design work submitted from other parties interested in what we are doing, that ends up being compatible with our ideas and designs, will most likely be incorporated into the final design and development of "The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™".
We know we are in Las Vegas, Nevada, but we have decided that "The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™" will be a non-gaming property. We feel that given the diversity of Las Vegas, Nevada and the State of Nevada as a whole, that there is a place for a non-gaming property of this magnitude.
We have nothing against gaming nor those that build, invest in, or own such properties, but we aren’t interested in being a gaming property.
"The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™" will incorporate hotels, restaurants, condos, multi-level shopping malls, grocery stores, all types of retail space, financial institutions of all types, convention and meeting space and lots of mix use commercial space, a multistory parking garage and acres and acres of public space for parks and recreation, etc., into one complex.
We will have space for small manufacturing companies, etc. We will have our own post offices, police departments, fire stations and hospitals. You could be born here, live here, work here, die here and be cremated here, if you would choose to do so.
We will also have mausoleums if you choose this as your final resting place, looking out over the desert for eternity. This is where we want to be.
We intend to make “The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™” as environmentally friendly as modern technology can provide. We will accomplish this in many ways throughout the project.
For starters we will generate our own electricity, probably with solar energy. We will recycle our own waste water. The recycled water will be stored in the dry lake bed that the project will be built over. We will then use the man-made lake for various recreationally purposes for guests of “The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™”.
All private, commercial and service vehicles used above the base level parking and warehouse floors, will be electric vehicles or equally environmentally friendly.
Please don't let the size of “The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™” intimidate you nor deter you from contacting us. Know that the success of this project will require the combined knowledge, expertise, resources and resourcefulness of people from many walks of life as well as people, resources and resourcefulness from all corners of this world.
Please contact us if you're sincerely interested in being a part of this project. Keep in mind that we're not phone people. We do not have people to take your calls and answer endless questions. Your chances of talking to us on the phone are mighty slim.
We prefer email and regular mail and the paper trail of email and regular mail. Keep this in mind and keep copies of your email correspondence with us, as we will do the same. It's our simple way of keeping track of who said what, and the written word also serves to keep us all honest, for the common good of all interested parties that will be involved in this project.
We also believe in the "K.I.S.S." principle here at
“Apgar And Sullivan Design™” and
“Apgar And Sullivan Development™”.
For those of you that aren't familiar with the "K.I.S.S." principle, it's a term used in the design-build world and stands for "Keep It Simple Stupid".
We apply the "K.I.S.S." principle, not only to the design work that will be used in this project, but in our everyday lives as well. Given the scope of this project and to help minimize the waste of one another's time, we ask that those of you that contact us acknowledge and respect this simple principle.
This multi-level city will be home to millions of people and will provide millions of long term, good paying jobs, when complete and open for business, and will accommodate several million guests and visitors on a given day.
We're interested in hearing from, and talking to any sincere, creative, open minded people that feel they could bring something positive to the design, engineering, development, and ultimate construction of this project.
We're not putting anyone on the payroll at this time, we're just talking. We would like to talk to you. But, if you expect to get paid for just talking to us, then pass us by, because this project is not for you.
Once again folks, this is not a job offer at this time, so keep your day job, whatever it may be for now.
This is however, to those of you that have the fore-sight, an opportunity of a lifetime, to come forth and ultimately be a part of the thought, design, engineering, development and construction process of a project, that when built, will be a wonder in its time.
And for some the opportunities will continue for years to come, depending on what you can bring to this project. Your destiny is in your hands.
Come be a part of the dream, and follow us into the future.
This project will be built to stand for a long, long time and therefore will benefit generations of people for hundreds of years to come.
We want the designers, engineers and investors, etc., etc., that invest the time, expertise and money in this project, as well as the employee's that will work for this complex at any given time, to be the beneficiaries of whatever this project becomes now and in the future.
We're only interested in hearing from sincere designers, engineers and investors, as well as everyday people, etc., etc., that want to invest in the future and the goodwill that this project will create.
That is a little insight into what this project is all about. If you're interested in being a part of this project, then contact us via email or regular mail and state your interest. Keep an open mind and remember this is not your average project.
Let us also make it clear up front, there is no need in any of you bullshitters out there wasting our time or yours. Please be aware and know that neither your bullshit, nor any of ours will ever build this project.
We also believe big time and for the sake of time in the
“Lead-Follow-Or-Get-The-Hell-Out-Of-The-Way™”
principle around here.
We need legitimate and sincere people from many walks of life and people from many parts of this world to be successful in putting this project together and to make it happen in a reasonable amount of time.
If you feel that you have something positive and creative to contribute to this project, then we would love to hear from you. Please contact us with what you have to offer.
The following paragraph is our equal opportunity and non-discrimination policy all rolled into one. It’s not intended to piss anyone off. If you don't understand it or you are offended by it, then we probably don't want to talk to you in regards to this project anyway.
"In our effort to be fair to all interested parties, we want you all to know that we respectfully don't care where you come from, who you are, who your mama is, or what God or Gods you pray to, as long as you are legitimate and sincere in regards to your interests in this project. We want all interested parties to know, that we don't discriminate against any people of this world, and we expect all parties to be respectful of this and to conduct themselves in a like manner."
No Exceptions To These Policy's.
The Rest Of The Story Is Forthcoming
Please Check Back With Us Another Day
Please Feel Free To Come Join Us
Please Feel Free To Contact Us
And Become Part Of The Story
Of "The Multi-Trillion Dollar Dream™"
Sincerely, Charles J Apgar and Mildred Verlene Sullivan
Representing
“Apgar And Sullivan™”
“Apgar And Sullivan Design™”
“Apgar And Sullivan Development™”
“Las Vegas Mega Projects™”
“Multi-Trillion Dollar Dreams™”
“Castles Of Dreams™”
“Castles In The Desert™”
“Lead-Follow-Or-Get-The-Hell-Out-Of-The-Way™”I want to make it clear that I haven’t seen this piece myself. This isn’t empirical evidence for me, just a short anecdote from a source on a piece they glimpsed. None of the actors featured in the piece match up with actors rumored to be cast according to our source and we cannot say how important it is to the film, if at all.
Nighttime. Trees and bushes in the distance but you can see structures far out. In a clearing there’s a little girl outside a fence. Her family is on the other side. The father is shouting to the little girl and Stormtroopers are coming for them. Mom is crying, older son looks resigned. Little girl has one foot behind her as if she’s about to run. Stormtroopers had backpacks on with tubular riffles.
I can’t help but speculate that this is Felicity Jones’ character’s backstory. Or perhaps it is just something glimpsed in the film in a “why we fight” moment? When our friend told us about this I immediately thought about the 1980’s film Red Dawn:
I wonder if the backpacks on the Stormtroopers are like Sandtroopers or Flamethrower Troopers?
This does remind me a little of things we saw from Star Wars: The Force Awakens with Rey as a little girl. It doesn’t appear those scenes are in the film but they served some purpose to the production. I absolutely believe our source that this piece exists but it is very different from the majority of the pieces being done for the film we have heard minor rumblings about so far.
We will have more in depth coverage of Star Wars: Rogue One soon.UPDATE: A number of folk have been looking for the original paper – here is the link
And belated thanks and dues to Hannah Jordan at SCVO for originally circulating it to folks she thought might be interested.
Also, it seems the number might be even higher – according to HMRC last December, it estimated the number of families in Scotland losing out to be 84,900. It’s worse than we thought!
—–
I’ve been sitting on this information for more than a week now, in the hope that someone, somewhere would also come across it. It is taken from a paper that was lodged in the House of Commons publications store (I’m sure it has a suitably fancy name.. answers on a postcard please).
Because it is dynamite. And I really cannot believe that no-one else has seen it (they have) and thought it was newsworthy. Or at least blogworthy.
In the last few weeks, thousands of families all acros Scotland have been receiving missives from HMRC, regretting to inform them (not really, not at all in fact) that their tax credits are no more. For every family it will have come as a shock. But taken together, the scale of the impact of this cash grab from hardworking families (TM Labour/Conservatives/Lib Dems/take your pick) all across Scotland is quite shocking. The table below sets out how many families in each local authority area in Scotland will no longer be in receipt of child tax credits come the start of April.
Aberdeen City 2200 Edinburgh 4500 Orkney Islands 300 Aberdeenshire 3400 Eilean Siar 200 Perth & Kinross 2000 Angus 1800 Falkirk 2900 Renfrewshire 2600 Argyll & Bute 1200 Fife 5600 Scottish Borders 1800 Clackmannanshire 900 Glasgow 5000 Shetland Islands 400 Dumfries & Galloway 2500 Highland 3600 South Ayrshire 1400 Dundee 1800 Inverclyde 1200 South Lanarkshire 5200 East Ayrshire 1900 Midlothian 1400 Stirling 1100 East Dunbartonshire 1600 Moray 1700 West Dunbartonshire 1400 East Lothian 1500 |
have fully under control.
“It's difficult. It's a difficult point right now...but we take it day to day.”
George still spoke optimistically of the physical improvement he's made since breaking his leg on Aug. 1. He experiences some soreness “but I push through those days.” He's worn an elastic sleeve on his right leg the past two days in practice because his leg feels better when he does, but he has no significant pain in the formerly broken leg.
PHOTOS: Paul George Returns to Practice »
“It's all starting to come back to me as far as not even thinking about how to come off screens or how to position myself,” he said. “It's all starting to get natural again.”
George said his ability to defend at a level approximating the one that made him a first-team all-defense selection last season will be the determining factor in whether he feels he should return – but also said
he's defending well in practice.
“I've been good,” he said. “That's...the reason I say the Paul George now is blowing out the Paul George of two or three weeks ago. I'm moving better, getting the coverages down, playing stronger on the defensive end.”
SEE ALSO: PG Calls His Shot »
George had thrown out a mid-March return as his goal during interviews over All-Star Weekend last month, but isn't guessing at dates now. Coach Frank Vogel earlier in the week had nixed the possibility of him playing on Saturday, but nobody is saying yes or no to future dates. The Pacers' first game next week is Monday at home against Toronto. They follow with road games at Chicago on Wednesday and Cleveland on Friday, and then have a home game against Brooklyn on Saturday.
PHOTOS: Paul George Shoots During Pregame »
“Is there a chance you'll play next week?” he was asked.
“I have no idea,” he said.
If and when he does return, George will come off the bench and play spot minutes. He likely would continue to play as a reserve, potentially strengthening a unit that's already one of the best in the NBA.
“I don't know who I'd be playing over,” he said. “I'm not looking to come back and start and play 30 minutes.”
The bottom line: George still hopes to play this season.
“It's about how I'm feeling, how the medical staff thinks I look,” he said. “I want to. I definitely want to play still.”
Have a question for Mark? Want it to be on Pacers.com? Email him at askmontieth@gmail.com and you could be featured in his next mailbag.
Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Indiana Pacers. All opinions expressed by Mark Montieth are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Indiana Pacers, their partners, or sponsors.
Watch More Paul George Highlights:Endangered brush-tailed rock wallaby a step closer to reintroduction in ACT
Posted
The endangered brush-tailed rock wallaby has moved one step closer to reintroduction into the wild the ACT, with the creation of a new plan to protect the species.
Once common in south-east Australia, the brush-tailed rock wallaby is now mostly found only in the north-eastern part of NSW.
There is currently a captive breeding colony at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.
But the last recorded sighting in the wild in the ACT was more than 50 years ago, at Tidbinbilla in 1959.
A new action plan has been launched to help protect the species by outlining strategies for their identification, survival and eventual re-introduction.
Environment Simon Corbell said large-scale hunting for the fur trade until 1927 decimated the wallaby population so much that remaining colonies became vulnerable to foxes, hydatid disease and bushfire.
"We hope the ACT will eventually reintroduce the species into suitable habitat in the ACT in the longer term, but a significant research effort is required before that can be justified," he said.
The breeding colony at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve breeds animals for reintroduction in Victoria and NSW.
The colony has been used by the ACT Government to conduct physiological, behavioural and reproductive research, and to gain a better understanding of its conservation needs.
Social interactions between animals very important: ecologist
ACT Government ecologist Tony Corrigan has been working with brush-tailed rock wallabies since 1995.
He said a huge amount of research had been conducted over the last 10 years, but more was required before the species could be reintroduced into the ACT.
"We've done a lot of work on trying to understand the impact of things like foxes and cats on the species," he said.
"We've done some re-introductions and looked at how that's gone, so some trials in Victoria especially, to see how these animals behave when they're reintroduced and what the potential issues might be."
Mr Corrigan said they were a difficult species to work with as they were quite fragile creatures.
"But what we've found is that the social interactions between the animals are very important... family groups, once they're established and comfortable in the home range, actually avoid predators quite well," he said.
Mr Corrigan said further research on predator and landscape preparation was required.
"But also getting the right number of animals, making sure we've got the right genetic mix, making sure we're going to give them the maximum opportunity to thrive," he said.
The hope was to reintroduce the species in the ACT within the next decade, Mr Corrigan said.
"I'd love to see them [reintroduced in the ACT]... It would be a fantastic thing. It's a species I personally have a lot of pathos for," he said.
Mr Corbell said the new action plan would guide further recovery actions including continuing the captive breeding program, which played a pivotal role in the wallaby's conservation.
The plan is a continuation of the ACT Government's first strategy for the species' preservation from 1999.
"We learned so much from the first action plan for the brush-tailed rock wallaby, that we needed to update the information and develop new strategies for its continued protection with this new plan," Mr Corbell said.
Topics: animals, national-parks, conservation, environment, australia, act, canberra-2600A month ago the two top U.S. military officials told senators that retaking the western Iraqi city of Ramadi had been elevated to one of three critical objectives leading to the ultimate defeat of the Islamic State’s terrorist army.
Now that major objective is days away.
The Pentagon says “all the pieces are in place” for the Iraqi army and militias, helped by coalition airstrikes, to retake the capital of Anbar province in the heart of Sunni Arab Iraq. The invasion, possibly this weekend, would come five months after an embarrassing retreat in the face of a lightly armed Islamic State invading force.
The Iraqi government has virtually shut off in-and-out routes around the city. Government forces also have captured some neighborhoods on the city’s edge, creating a gateway for advancing troops.
This time U.S. military advisers have built up new Iraqi army brigades almost from the ground up, and believe the 10,000-man force is ready to liberate the city and stand its ground, outnumbering the enemy by a significant margin.
“They have been on the verge of retaking Ramadi for the past four, five months,” said Kenneth Pollack, a military analyst at The Brookings Institution. “They simply have to decide to do it, and take some casualties doing it. But their force outnumbers [the Islamic State] there by 10-to-1 or more. There is certainly some prospect that we finally lit a fire under them to do it.”
It will be an assault eagerly awaited by the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government, the Pentagon and members of Congress who have pressed the top brass to produce a big win against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford last month told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Iraqi city is such an important objective it is one of Mr. Carter’s “Three Rs” war strategy: retake Ramadi, drive Islamic state out of its self-proclaimed Syrian capital of Raqqa and conduct air and ground raids.
The Ramadi stalemate has stood in sharp contrast to what happened earlier this month in northern Iraq, where Kurdish peshmerga troops once again showed their willingness to defend their Iraqi homeland. They invaded and recaptured the city of Sinjar with the help of a shape-the-battlefield air bombardment.
It is the same old story. The regular Iraqi army, being pieced back together by American military trainers and advisers, lacked the fortitude to take on Sunni extremists who had routed them from Ramadi 10 months ago. And the Baghdad government has still not armed Sunni tribesman in sufficient numbers to take back Anbar province.
Gen. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said two Iraqi brigades molded by American troops and poised to enter Ramadi are “at a much higher level than the other units.”
Mr. Carter said ousting Islamic State fighters will “build momentum” to “eventually go northward to Mosul,” Iraq’s second-largest city.
The Islamic State typically defends captured urban areas with bands of improvised explosive devices, some placed in vehicles and driven at its attackers.
Army Col. Steven Warren, the top U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Islamic State occupiers are still putting up a good fight as troops move closer.
“The northern access has met with some very stiff resistance, frankly,” Col. Warren said. “The enemy has put up a good fight here in the last couple of days, so they’re continuing.”
He said the Iraqis were able to move about 200 yards on one advance. “So this is slow and incremental work, but they’re continuing.”
Allied jets are hitting targets around Ramadi each day, including fighter emplacements, a tunnel, a building and a bridge. Taking out the bridge made it more difficult for the Islamic State to drive bomb-laden vehicles at Iraqi troops.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.PALM BAY, Fla. - A Palm Bay man, who police said was apparently enraged after finding his wife in a vehicle with another man, is accused of attacking the car with a machete.
Christopher G. Mordecai, 44, faces a felony charge of aggravated battery, a second-degree felony.
A police report says Mordecai found an unknown vehicle in his driveway in the 1000 block of Northeast Dolores Avenue, and his wife was inside with another man. He then went inside the home to grab a machete, police said.
Police said Mordecai attacked the vehicle with the blade, shattering the glass and showering his wife with shards. She suffered minor cuts, and did not want to pursue criminal charges, according to the arrest report.
The machete was recovered at the scene and submitted into evidence.
Mordecai was arrested and taken to Brevard County Jail.
Copyright 2013 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Yu the Great (c. 2123 – 2025 BC[1]), born Si Wenming, was a legendary ruler in ancient China famed for his introduction of flood control, inaugurating dynastic rule in China by establishing the Xia dynasty, and for his upright moral character.[2][3]
The dates proposed for Yu's reign predate the oldest-known written records in China, the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty, by nearly a millennium.[4] No inscriptions on artifacts from the proposed era of Yu, nor the later oracle bones, make any mention of Yu; he does not appear in inscriptions until vessels dating to the Western Zhou period (c. 1045–771 BC). The lack of anything remotely close to contemporary documentary evidence has led to some controversy over the historicity of Yu. Proponents of the historicity of Yu theorise that stories about his life and reign were transmitted orally in various areas of China until they were recorded in the Zhou dynasty,[5] while opponents believe the figure existed in legend in a different form—as a god or mythical animal—in the Xia dynasty, and morphed into a human figure by the start of the Zhou dynasty. Many of the stories about Yu were collected in Sima Qian's famous Records of the Grand Historian. Yu and other "sage-kings" of Ancient China were lauded for their virtues and morals by Confucius and other Chinese teachers.[6]
Yu is one of the few Chinese rulers posthumously honored with the epithet "the Great".
Ancestry and early life [ edit ]
According to several ancient Chinese records, Yu was the eight-times-great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor: Yu's father, Gun, was the five-times-great-grandson of Emperor Zhuanxu; Zhuanxu's father, Changyi, was the second son of the Yellow Emperor.[7][8][9][10] Yu was said to have been born at Mount Wen (汶山), in modern-day Beichuan County, Sichuan Province,[11] though there are debates as to whether he was born in Shifang instead.[12] Yu's mother was of the Youxin clan named either Nüzhi (女志) or Nüxi (女嬉).
When Yu was a child, his father Gun moved the people east toward the Central Plain. King Yao enfeoffed Gun as lord of Chong, usually identified as the middle peak of Mount Song. Yu is thus believed to have grown up on the slopes of Mount Song, just south of the Yellow River.[13] He later married a woman from Mount Tu (Chinese: 塗山) who is generally referred to as Tushan-shi (塗山氏; 'Lady Tushan").[14] They had a son named Qi, a name literally meaning "revelation".[14]
The location of Mount Tu has always been disputed. The two most probable locations are Mount Tu in Anhui Province and the Tu Peak of the Southern Mountain in Chongqing Municipality.[citation needed]
Great Yu controls the waters [ edit ]
During the reign of king Yao, the Chinese heartland was frequently plagued by floods that prevented further economic and social development.[15] Yu's father, Gun, was tasked with devising a system to control the flooding. He spent more than nine years building a series of dikes and dams along the riverbanks, but all of this was ineffective, despite (or because of) the great number and size of these dikes and the use of a special self-expanding soil. As an adult, Yu continued his father's work and made a careful study of the river systems in an attempt to learn why his father's great efforts had failed.
Collaborating with Hou Ji, a semi-mythical agricultural master about whom little is concretely known, Yu successfully devised a system of flood controls that were crucial in establishing the prosperity of the Chinese heartland. Instead of directly damming the rivers' flow, Yu made a system of irrigation canals which relieved floodwater into fields, as well as spending great effort dredging the riverbeds.[9] Yu is said to have eaten and slept with the common workers and spent most of his time personally assisting the work of dredging the silty beds of the rivers for the thirteen years the projects took to complete. The dredging and irrigation were successful, and allowed ancient Chinese culture to flourish along the Yellow River, Wei River, and other waterways of the Chinese heartland. The project earned Yu renown throughout Chinese history, and is referred to in Chinese history as "Great Yu Controls the Waters" (Chinese: 大禹治水; pinyin: Dà Yǔ Zhì Shuǐ). In particular, Mount Longmen along the Yellow River had a very narrow channel which blocked water from flowing freely east toward the ocean. Yu is said to have brought a large number of workers to open up this channel, which has been known ever since as "Yu's Gateway" (Chinese: 禹門口).[9]
Apocryphal stories [ edit ]
In a mythical version of this story, presented in Wang Jia's 4th-century AD work Shi Yi Ji, Yu is assisted in his work by a yellow dragon and a black turtle (not necessarily related to the Black Tortoise of Chinese mythology).[16] Another local myth says that Yu created the Sanmenxia (Sanxia is the one on Yangzi River, Sanmenxia is on Yellow River) "Three Passes Gorge" of the Yangzi River by cutting a mountain ridge with a divine battle-axe to control flooding.[17]
Traditional stories say that Yu sacrificed a great deal of his body to control the floods. For example, his hands were said to be thickly callused, and his feet were completely covered with callus. In one common story, Yu had only been married four days when he was given the task of fighting the flood. He said goodbye to his wife, saying that he did not know when he would return. During the thirteen years of flooding, he passed by his own family's doorstep three times, but each time he did not return inside his own home. The first time he passed, he heard that his wife was in labor. The second time he passed by, his son could already call out to his father. His family urged him to return home, but he said it was impossible as the flood was still going on. The third time Yu was passing by, his son was older than ten years old. Each time, Yu refused to go in the door, saying that as the flood was rendering countless number of people homeless, he could not rest.[14][18]
Yu supposedly killed Gonggong's minister Xiangliu, a nine-headed snake monster.
The Nine Provinces [ edit ]
Map showing the Nine provinces defined by Yu the Great during the legendary flood.
King Shun, who reigned after Yao, was so impressed by Yu's engineering work and diligence that he passed the throne to Yu instead of to his own son. Yu is said to have initially declined the throne, but was so popular with other local lords and chiefs that he agreed to become the new emperor, at the age of fifty-three. He established a capital at Anyi (Chinese: 安邑), the ruins of which are in modern Xia County in southern Shanxi Province, and founded what would be called the Xia dynasty, traditionally considered China's first dynasty.[19]
Yu's flood control work is said to have made him intimately familiar with all regions of what was then Han Chinese territory. According to his Yu Gong treatise in the Book of Documents, Yu divided the Chinese "world" into nine zhou or provinces. These were Jizhou (冀州), Yanzhou (兗州), Qingzhou (青州), Xuzhou (徐州), Yangzhou (揚州), Jingzhou (荊州), Yuzhou (豫州), Liangzhou (梁州) and Yongzhou (雍州).[20]
According to the Rites of Zhou there was no Xuzhou or Liangzhou, instead there were Youzhou (幽州) and Bingzhou (并州), but according to the Erya there was no Qingzhou or Liangzhou, instead there was Youzhou (幽州) and Yingzhou (營州).[20] Either way there were nine divisions. Once he had received bronze from these nine territories, he created ding vessels called the Nine Tripod Cauldrons.[21] Yu then established his capital at Yang City (陽城).[22] According to the Bamboo Annals, Yu killed one of the northern leaders, Fangfeng (防風) to reinforce his hold on the throne.[23][24]
Yu mausoleum in Shaoxing
Death [ edit ]
Yu temple in Yu mausoleum
According to the Bamboo Annals, Yu ruled the Xia Dynasty for forty-five years and, according to Yue Jueshu (越絕書), he died from an illness.[24][25] It is said that he died at Mount Kuaiji, south of present-day Shaoxing, while on a hunting tour to the eastern frontier of his empire, and was buried there. The Yu mausoleum (大禹陵) known today was first built in the 6th century AD (Southern and Northern Dynasties period) in his honor.[26] It is located four kilometers southeast of Shaoxing city.[26] Most of the structure was rebuilt many times in later periods. The three main parts of the mausoleum are the Yu tomb (禹陵), temple (禹廟) and memorial (禹祠).[27] In many statues he is seen carrying an ancient hoe (耒耜). A number of emperors in imperial times travelled there to perform ceremonies in his honor, notably Qin Shi Huang.[25]
Historicity [ edit ]
Because no documentary evidence about Yu survives, there is some controversy as to the historicity of the figure. No inscriptions on artifacts dated to the supposed era of Yu, or the later oracle bones, contain any mention of Yu. The first archeological evidence of Yu comes from vessels made about a thousand years after his supposed death, during the Western Zhou dynasty.
The Doubting Antiquity School of early-20th-century historians, for example, theorised that Yu was not a person in the earliest legends, but a god or mythical animal, who was connected with water and possibly with the mythical Dragon Kings and their control over water. According to this theory, Yu (as god or animal) was represented on ceremonial bronzeware by the early Xia people, and by the start of the Zhou Dynasty, the legendary figure had morphed into the first man, who could control water, and it was only during the Zhou Dynasty that the legendary figures that now precede Yu were added to the orthodox legendary lineage. According to the Chinese legend Yu the Great was a man-god.
Archaeological evidence of a large outburst flood on the Yellow River has been dated to about 1920 BCE. This coincides with new cultures all along the Yellow River. The water control problems after the initial flooding could plausibly have lasted for some twenty years. Wu et al. suggest that this supports the idea that the stories of Yu the Great may have originated from a historical person.[28]
Legacy [ edit ]
Yu was long regarded as an ideal ruler and kind of philosopher king by the ancient Chinese. Beichuan, Wenchuan, and Dujiangyan in Sichuan have all made claims to be his birthplace.[29]
Owing to his involvement in China's mythical Great Flood, Yu also came to be regarded as a water deity in Taoism and the Chinese folk religions. He is the head of the Five Kings of the Water Immortals honored in shrines in Mazu temples as protectors of ships in transit.[30]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]CTV Atlantic
The chief of the Bridgewater Police Service has confirmed to CTV News he is the officer being investigated for alleged sexual assault by Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT).
“I can confirm I am the BPS member currently under investigation by the Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT),” Collyer confirmed in an email to CTV’s Kayla Hounsell.
The director of the SIRT said earlier this month the alleged offence involved a teenage girl.
“It is significant when a chief of police is being investigated, particularly for such a serious allegation as sexual assault,” Collyer told CTV News in an email Monday. “I have been placed on administrative leave until these allegations can be fully investigated. I await the results of SIRT's investigation. At this time, I will not be making any further comment on the advice of my lawyer.”
The Bridgewater Police Commission is also awaiting SIRT’s report after placing Collyer on administrative leave.
“Try to ensure that the police service will continue to operate in a high level of efficiency and do as little harm as possible to the police service, while at the same time of course protecting the public,” said Pat Cappello, chair of the Bridgewater Police Commission.
SIRT was first informed of the allegations by another police agency on Aug. 4.
In addition to sexual assault, SIRT is also investigating Collyer for obstruction of justice, in connection with possible issues surrounding evidence relevant to the case.
Bridgewater Mayor David Walker says there has been a great deal of speculation in the community since the investigation was announced.
“It was a really shocked to hear the allegations,” said Walker. “But until the SIRT investigation is over, until then, I guess I reserve judgement or comments.”
Walker says the fact that Collyer has come forward to identify himself will help his fellow members and the community.
“Credit to Chief Collyer in clearing the air that way,” said Walker. “I think he wanted to make sure that people in the town of Bridgewater realize it's not a member who is currently out policing them.”
Meanwhile, residents in the area are offering mixed reactions.
“I mean, he's a person of power and you know, should be a person we can trust,” said area resident Lyn Fleck.
“Always innocent until proven guilty, but it's sort of worrisome when you have people of that stature,” said resident Robert Todd.
Police commissioners placed Collyer on administrative leave after an emergency in-camera meeting Aug. 18. Collyer will be required to stay home with pay for an indeterminate amount of time, but he is not suspended.
No charges have been laid at this time.
The deputy chief has assumed command of the force and says his officers are trying to conduct business as usual.
“Obviously the chief is of more leadership, expecting him to show a good example, so it's more serious in that regard,” said Walker. “But I think these allegations are serious no matter which member they were made against.”
Collyer has been chief of police in Bridgewater for five years. He is a long-serving officer with 26 years on the force.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kayla Hounsell.Two of a band of wild horses graze in the Nephi Wash area outside Enterprise, Utah, April 10, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
By Jennifer Dobner
ENTERPRISE, Utah (Reuters) - A Utah county, angry over the destruction of federal rangeland that ranchers use to graze cattle, has started a bid to round up federally protected wild horses it blames for the problem in the latest dustup over land management in the U.S. West.
Close to 2,000 wild horses are roaming southern Utah's Iron County, well over the 300 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has dubbed as appropriate for the rural area's nine designated herd management zones, County Commissioner David Miller said.
County officials complain the burgeoning herd is destroying vegetation crucial to ranchers who pay to graze their cattle on the land, and who have already been asked to reduce their herds to cope with an anticipated drought.
Wild horse preservation groups say any attempt to remove the horses would be a federal crime.
On Thursday county workers, accompanied by a Bureau of Land Management staffer, set up the first in a series of metal corrals designed to trap and hold the horses on private land abutting the federal range until they can be moved to BLM facilities for adoption.
"There's been no management of the animals and they keep reproducing," Miller said in an interview. "The rangeland just can't sustain it."
The conflict reflects broader tension between ranchers, who have traditionally grazed cattle on public lands and held sway over land-use decisions, and environmentalists and land managers facing competing demands on the same land.
The Iron County roundup comes on the heels of an incident in neighboring Nevada in which authorities sent in helicopters and wranglers on horseback to confiscate the cattle herd of a rancher they say is illegally grazing livestock on public land.
In Utah, county commissioners warned federal land managers in a letter last month that the county would act independently to remove the horses if no mitigation efforts were launched.
"We charge you to fulfill your responsibility," commissioners wrote. "Inaction and no-management practices pose an imminent threat to ranchers."
The operation was expected to last weeks or months.
"The BLM is actively working with Iron County to address the horse issue," Utah-based BLM spokeswoman Megan Crandall said, declining to comment further.
Attorneys for wild horse preservation groups sent a letter this week to Iron County commissioners and the BLM saying the BLM, under federal law, cannot round up horses on public lands without proper analysis and disclosure.
"The BLM must stop caving to the private financial interests of livestock owners whenever they complain about the protected wild horses using limited resources that are available on such lands," wrote Katherine Meyer of Meyer, Glitzenstein and Crystal a Washington, DC-based public interest law firm representing the advocates.
LONG-RUNNING PROBLEM
The BLM puts the free-roaming wild horse and burro population across western states at more than 40,600, which it says on its website exceeds by nearly 14,000 the number of animals it believes "can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources and uses."
Wild horse advocates point out that the tens of thousands of wild horses on BLM property pales into comparison with the millions of private livestock grazing on public lands managed by the agency.
Wild horses have not been culled due to budget constraints, according to Utah BLM officials, who say their herds grow by roughly 20 percent per year.
Pressure on rangeland from the horses may worsen this summer due to a drought that could dry up the already sparse available food supply, according to Miller.
"We're going to see those horses starving to death out on the range," he said. "The humane thing is to get this going now."
Adding to frustration is BLM pressure on ranchers to cut their cattle herds by as much as 50 percent to cope with the drought, Miller said.
A tour of Iron County rangeland, not far from the Nevada border, illustrates the unchecked herds' impact on the land, said Jeremy Hunt, a fourth generation Utah rancher whose cattle graze in the summer in a management area split through its middle by a barbed wire fence.
On the cattle side of the fence, the sagebrush and grass landscape is thick and green. The other, where a group of horses was seen on Thursday, is scattered with barren patches of dirt and sparse vegetation.
"This land is being literally destroyed because they are not following the laws that they set up to govern themselves," said Hunt, who also works as a farmhand to make ends meet for his family of six.
"I want the land to be healthy and I want be a good steward of the land," he added. "But you have to manage both sides of the fence."
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Andrew Hay)Ryan Smith knows what it’s like to sweat: As a veteran of four Ironman competitions—an endurance triathlon that includes a 3.86-km swim, a 180.25-km bike ride, and a full 42.40-km marathon—Smith has experienced first-hand the urgent need to replenish his body’s lost fluid and electrolytes. Now, with two small children at home in Alexandria, Va., Smith’s hydration needs have changed. When he traded in his elite triathlon training for a 24-km ride to work one or two days a week, he gained a new perspective on the need for sports drinks. “The stuff I had been using for some of those more intense training sessions—I found it overkill,” Smith says. He used to be concerned about not getting enough calories on his longer workouts. Now, “lots of times, I don’t even take a sports drink with me unless I’m going on an eight-mile or longer run.”
As a recreational exerciser, Smith has entered a realm that many people occupy: working out for health and averaging under an hour of exercise per day. Sports drinks, which are designed to help people perform their best during physical activity, are a $6.6 billion market in the U.S., according to Chicago-based market research firm Information Resources. But many sports scientists agree that most people, including your average jogger, probably don’t need these rehydration drinks, even if they taste refreshing.
The essential formula for sports drinks has changed little over the years. They contain sugar for energy, water for hydration, electrolytes such as salt to help with water retention, plus color and flavoring. Formulators play around with the sources and relative concentration of these ingredients to make sure they end up where they’re needed in the body as quickly as possible.
Of course, a sports drink’s primary function is to prevent dehydration. According to Nancy J. Rehrer, an exercise metabolism expert at the University of Otago, elite athletes performing in hot environments are most at risk. The stomach can process roughly a liter of fluid an hour, so if the intensity is high enough, athletes may lose fluid faster than their gastrointestinal tract can absorb it, Rehrer says.
Both Rehrer and Stavros Kavouras, director of the hydration science lab at the University of Arkansas, recommend elite athletes follow a rehydration regimen, such as consuming sports drinks at specific times throughout a competition in extremely hot climates to combat this deficit. But both say drinking water to quench thirst is fine for your average exerciser. That being said, Rehrer warns that first-time marathoners can overdo it on the water and cautions against hyponatremia, a dangerous condition that can result from consuming too much water too quickly.
Sodium is the most common electrolyte in sports drinks. It helps the body retain fluid by maintaining osmotic pressure in blood vessels. The amount of salt released in sweat during a given activity varies by individual. Achieving the right amount can be a balancing act for manufacturers: Too much salt tastes bad, but too little won’t replace what an athlete needs. For this reason, sports drinks generally contain about 20 mM of sodium at most, which is on the lower end of what average people lose in their sweat.
Supplemental sodium can be crucial for elite athletes, but Rehrer and Kavouras agree that it’s not necessary unless you plan to exercise for a significant amount of time. “If your goal is just to go to the gym and do a 45-minute workout,” Kavouras says, “water is more than enough to keep you hydrated.” According to Rehrer, most people take in enough sodium by following a typical Western diet.
Finding the right amount of sugar is another tricky feat: Too much lowers the rate at which the drink empties from the stomach and enters the bloodstream, but too little means less energy and a possibly unpalatable drink given the added salt. As a result, an average sports drink contains about 3–7% sugary carbohydrate. Formulators experiment with mixing various types of sugars, such as glucose, fructose, sucrose, and maltodextrins, so as not to overload any one type of transporter in the gut.
This added burst of fuel can be nice, but for someone trying to lose weight, “you are taking on extra energy that isn’t necessary,” Kavouras says. “It’s like you’re eating extra food.” Even for elite athletes, Rehrer says, it may make sense to save the carbs for a big event rather than for training: “Every day is not a race. Sometimes you just want to adapt and get your body in a good place.”
In addition to these three main components, drink developers experiment with other add-ins, such as proteins and branched-chain amino acids to help with muscle repair and growth. But these also run the risk of being absorbed inefficiently in the gut and thus slowing down the overall absorption of other, more essential components of sports drinks. “You have two things to think about: How fast is it going to leave the stomach, and how fast does it get transported across the intestinal epithelia into your bloodstream?” says Robert Kenefick, a research physiologist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine.
“I haven’t seen sufficient evidence that consuming protein during exercise is going to enhance performance in any way,” Rehrer says. The ideal time to consume it, she says, is in the one- to two-hour window after exercise, when amino acid transport from the gut is heightened.
Kenefick notes that additional ingredients, such as the antioxidant quercetin, repeatedly pop up in sports drinks. Others, such as the neurotransmitter GABA, have more recently been incorporated after preliminary findings in research laboratories. “There might be a study or two that shows a benefit, and so a manufacturer will grab onto it and put it in there,” he says. “But a lot of times, these things don’t really pan out.” Industry trends in recent years have been to decrease sugar and incorporate more exotic, naturally derived ingredients, such as coconut water and sea salt. Caffeine isn’t present in every beverage, but Kenefick says its benefits as a stimulant during exercise are well established.
Smith always keeps a drink on hand for recovery after a workout and appreciates that he can now walk into a store and buy a sports drink that contains naturally derived ingredients, which hasn’t always been the case. Back in his Ironman days, Smith worked with a custom manufacturer to make his own tailor-made concoction. “There’s nothing more motivational than someone’s grandmother blowing past you at mile 24 of a marathon,” Smith says. “I’d like to know what’s in her sports drink.”Working with Canadian company Mevex, CSIRO has conducted a pilot study that shows that gamma-activation analysis (GAA) offers a much faster, more accurate way to detect gold than traditional chemical analysis methods.
This will mean mining companies can measure what's coming in and out of their processing plants with greater accuracy, allowing them to monitor process performance and recover small traces of gold – worth millions of dollars – that would otherwise be discarded.
GAA works by scanning mineral samples – typically weighing around half a kilogram – using high-energy x-rays similar to those used to treat patients in hospitals. The x-rays activate any gold in the sample, and the activation is then picked up using a sensitive detector.
According to project leader Dr James Tickner, CSIRO's study showed that this method is two-to-three times more accurate than the standard industry technique 'fire assay', which requires samples to be heated up to 1200°C.
"The big challenge for this project was to push the sensitivity of GAA to detect gold at much lower levels – well below a threshold of one gram per tonne," he says.
Dr Tickner explains that a gold processing plant may only recover between 65 and 85 per cent of gold present in mined rock. Given a typical plant produces around $1 billion of gold each year, this means hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold is going to waste.
"Our experience suggests that better process monitoring can help reduce this loss by about a third," he says. Last year, Australia produced over $10 billion worth of gold. Even if GAA only led to a modest 5 per cent improvement in recovery, that would be worth half a billion dollars annually to the industry.
Dr Tickner says that the other major benefit of GAA is that it is easily automated |
granting permission to work on their land in exchange for development assistance, while 44 have not.
Based on the needs of federation leaders, Talisman offered “social contribution programs” to improve living standards, Gomez, the spokeswoman, said. Last November, she noted, Talisman signed social community agreements with 11 federations, providing $3 million in resources to fund education, health care, access to electricity, capacity building and local job-generation initiatives in 2012.
Despite the oil firm’s investment in communities, Gregor MacLennan, Amazon Watch’s Peru program coordinator, questioned its interpretation of gaining the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples. He accused the company of winning approval in any way it can – even after indigenous groups initially say no – by presenting more money and resources.
For its part, Talisman has always engaged with all stakeholders in a direct and peaceful manner in full adherence to human rights principles, Gomez stated. However, she said, the oil firm also asks that “the rights of the people to choose to work with us, in an open and transparent fashion, also be respected”.
Talisman plans to maintain dialogue efforts with federations and communities opposing its activities.
Damaging the environment
Rounding out indigenous allegations against Talisman is environmental contamination. The Calgary firm touted new technologies with no risk of repeating the damage done by oil industry players operating in the Amazon in the 1970s and 1980s, but Ayui refuted the claim.
The exploratory wells have affected his community’s hunting and fishing grounds by producing waste which leaks into streams during the rainy season, he charged, and poisons birds and other animals. His people’s ancestors also died on the lands Talisman is now exploring, he added.
MacLennan told IPS that he addressed the drilling fluids issue during a February meeting with Talisman, which acknowledged the problem but explained it will take “several months” for the arrival of a subcontractor and the adequate equipment to undertake the clean-up to a specific standard, a task that includes correcting the poor waste-disposal job carried out by another oil company in the past.
Talisman meets, and in many cases surpasses, environmental regulations outlined by the Peruvian government, Gomez insisted. Waste products, or cuttings, are normally generated during drilling activities and have been “properly managed and stored according to environmental regulations and protection measurements” dictated under the oil firm’s environmental impact assessment, she said.
During the drilling of oil wells, the waste is stored in a “cuttings pit” complete with a roof to shield against rain water and a pit bottom protected with a “geomembrane” to prevent the direct contact of soil and waste, she noted, adding that the whole drilling pad is surrounded by an external ditch collecting fluid, mainly rain water, before it is released into the environment.
During Talisman’s drilling activities, known as SC3X and SN4X, there were no environmental incidents or claims from communities in the area of influence of its operations, Gomez said.
Talisman incorporates an indigenous environmental monitor from the local communities during the drilling projects. The monitor performs daily environmental inspections, immediately communicates problems, participates in monthly environmental monitoring and field environmental audits by regulatory agencies, helps to supervise the handling and shipping of waste and takes part in the abandonment activities and reclamation works, she added.
The company’s abandonment plan for the SC3X project, which details techniques for the treatment and final disposal of cuttings and an outline for re-vegetation and reclamation of the area, is awaiting Peruvian government approval, Gomez said.
Still, Amazon Watch and the FENAP are dissatisfied with Talisman’s environmental precautions and explanations. They dismissed oil companies’ tendencies to blame damage on subcontractors or on the challenges of working in the rain forest.
As the Canadian energy firm heads into a production phase within the next year, there are concerns that a potential spill due to human error would render the area “virtually irrecoverable”, MacLennan warned, spawning “an environmental disaster” destroying the livelihoods of thousands of people in the rain forest.
From Inter Press Service: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107718Image caption Breakfast, lunch and dinner?
A recent article about how little money someone can realistically live on generated a big response from readers.
It looked at whether it was possible to eat healthily for £12 a week, how much in the way of clothes a person needed, and other budget essentials in the wake of the new cap on benefits. Here is a selection of readers' tips, thoughts and feelings about living on a tight budget:
Murray, Edinburgh: I am a single unemployed person. My total benefit is £9,700 a year, from that amount my rent is £6,000 - it is a far cry from the £26,000 cap. From the remainder, I obviously have my normal living expenses. My biggest expense is motor insurance. Although I don't use my car, I will need it if I find work. Next big expense is broadband, which is necessary for looking for a job. These two items cost me £65 a month. My dog eats better than me.
Image caption Rent eats up half of Rachael's after-tax income
Rachael, London: In January I moved to London from Darlington. Since then I have lived on £1,242 a month after tax. Half of this goes on rent, which is twice what I was paying in the North. I also run a car, pay all of my other bills and go out at least twice a week with the money left over. The last week of the month is "porridge week". It's 99p for 500g of porridge and I eat it for breakfast, lunch and tea in the seven days before I get paid again. It sounds bad but all of my friends are in the same situation and come pay day, we are back on the town, having a good time. Having so little money at the end of the month makes you really grateful and means you make the most of what you have when you have it.
Delia, Bolton: I was made redundant in February 2013. I have not been unemployed for over 10 years and living on £71 a week is impossible. I live in a three-bedroom house (mortgaged) with two of my sons, who are also on benefits. I have always paid my bills, but this is totally impossible. There is no life to be had. You go from week to week wondering and worrying about bills and having nothing to look forward to. I live for the day when I'm back in work and so do my sons. I spend all my time searching and applying for jobs, but I'm 52 and I'm starting to think that time is not on my side. Perhaps I should allow the house to go to repossession - which may become a reality - and then the council will have to provide us with three properties, all of which will be paid for with housing benefit.
Sarah, Lancaster: The hardest part of budgeting is the way it affects your mood. Although some people argue it is possible to live on £15 a week, it is not viable. Living on so little money (£650 a month from benefits and work) and never being able to afford to buy a nice meal, for example, without having to look at your budget first and spend less on something else, would leave the most optimistic person depressed. Especially when you're constantly bombarded with advertising, living in a very consumerist society and being brainwashed into thinking you need the best of everything to be happy.
Simon, Colwyn Bay: I can't believe that people on welfare benefits can earn £26,000 or more and not budget accordingly. We (two adults, one child) live on £14,750 a year and live well. I work full-time for my partner and child. The average wage in north Wales is about £14-15,000 a year, so I guess I'm right on it. I get food from supermarkets in the evening from the "whoopsies" area and have never spent more than £3 to £4 a visit. I get bread at 10p and fruit and veg at similar prices. Admittedly you would have to eat most of it within a few days, but that is not a problem to us.
It's unexpected problems that make life expensive Graham Steel, with wife Dylys
Graham Steel, Macclesfield: We are a household of two. We are not really poor, but feel very "squeezed middle". We keep to a budget. Our average grocery bill over the past year is £105 a month, or £24.40 a week. We each allow ourselves £10 a month for clothes, and we both have a healthy budget surplus here. We don't smoke, barely drink, rarely eat out. We are vegetarian and have cut down on the amount of convenience food that we buy - it's much more expensive than preparing your own. We buy a lot of "value" items from the supermarkets, but we do not buy the cheapest of everything, and manage to enjoy a few treats. The hardest part of budgeting? Earlier this year our electric shower went "bang" and triggered some leaks which meant that the hall ceiling had to come down. Our previous car was always in the garage for repairs - very expensive - and we ended up replacing it when it was four-and-a-half years old. It is the unexpected problems that make life expensive.
Laura, London: The hardest part of living on a low budget [£1,250 a month, with £450 a month earmarked for loan repayments] is the social alienation it can cause - having to turn down drinks and meals out, being unable to contribute to birthday gifts or "new baby" gifts. Don't even get me started on Christmas and weddings, not being able to travel to visit friends and family, not being able to put credit on your phone so you can call them, not being able to go on holiday, finding that there are almost no social groups that can be undertaken without paying money, not wanting to go to someone's house for dinner because you won't be able to repay the invite from your £5 food budget a week (and there's no table in your one-room living space anyway). I can live on £5 a week for food, but it is very lonely and very boring.
Milda, Dundee: As students working part-time, my partner and I together earn £650 to £800 a month. We don't have any student loans and pay all our bills ourselves, except tuition fees and council tax. Our utility bills and rent are about £410 a month, plus about £40 for internet and phone contracts. This leaves £200 to £300 for essentials. We don't go out much (just on special occasions) and we would buy clothing and equipment only when we actually need new, not because we like something. We live a healthy lifestyle - we can buy as many fruit and veg as we like, and walk everywhere or ride bikes, as we do not own a car. We still can occasionally buy video or boardgames, have people over for dinner and pay for local gym and music streaming service. To my view, £500 - or even £350 a week for a couple - would allow us to live nearly a splashy lifestyle.
Budgeting itself just requires common sense Jackie
Jackie, London: I am a 25-year-old American living in central London, currently working full-time as an intern. I make under £950 a month after taxes, and pay roughly £770 in rent. This leaves me with less than £200 a month to spend on living expenses. Without the luxury of any financial support from my parents, I have resorted to odd jobs (from babysitting to pouring wine at events) and other creative ways of generating extra income (eg focus groups). The budgeting itself is quite easy, as it just requires common sense. It is not very difficult at all to determine what is essential v non-essential. I work very hard and, without any recourse to public funds, am able to survive and even occasionally enjoy evenings out.
Lisa, London: I have a degree but due to the current economic situation I only get paid casually. Although my income is below the living wage, I am not claiming benefits and I do not feel I need to. I'm a vegetarian, and pasta, homemade bread and bananas are cheap. I live in a shared house where we pay £3 a week to a kitty for essentials like toilet paper, cleaning products and cooking stuff (oil, spices etc). My room wasn't furnished but I've paid nothing for that. I got essential stuff like sheets and towels from friends and people who'd left it behind, and my landlord was happy to pay for paint when I did all the work for refurbishing my room. The most expensive things I buy are jeans and shoes, but I only have one pair of each and they last for a year or two.
Image caption Is having a home and car really a lifestyle choice?
There are many incredibly happy people who live on next to nothing Jamie
Jamie, Turkey: Living on a low income is only a problem when you choose to live in an environment which requires you to have large amounts of money. People choose to live a life in which they live in a house, drive a car and go to the pub, then they complain that they don't have enough money to survive. A few months ago, I walked out on my job and home and I went into Europe. For five months I was travelling around Europe with very little. I slept outside, I couch-surfed and I stayed with people I met while hitch-hiking. People introduced me to skipping - recovering discarded food - and many other forms of alternative living. I realised that there are many, many incredibly happy people who live on next to nothing.
Charley, Rawtenstall: I'm a single parent, now unemployed due to redundancy/closure of business and struggling to live on the little benefit money I get. I'm not happy at being classed as average in regards to smoking and drinking as I do neither, yet still have no money. How does anyone on benefits afford to do it? What little money I get goes on our food, my daughter's needs (nappies, wipes etc) and £15 a month on dog supplies. I am suffering from depression as a result of having little to no social contact or friends due to a lack of money for travelling or doing anything.
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on FacebookThe Trump administration wants to back down from the 54.5 mpg fuel economy mandate for automobiles and back away from the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. Businesses in general like the new plan, as do automakers and coal miners specifically. They say fewer rules lowers manufacturing costs and makes American factories competitive.
There are problems with the plans. US automakers have global operations. They still must design world cars to meet economy and pollution rules in countries that aren’t hitting the pause button. If the US retreats from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, China might also, leading to a domino effect taking out India and Brazil.
54.5 mpg standard? It’s pronounced “40 mpg”
The 2012 EPA fuel economy standards (until the current administration’s proposal) had the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, ratcheting upward until it hits a fleet average of 54.5 mpg by 2025. If that seems high to the average driver, who knows most economy cars still get in the 30s and only a few outliers such as the Toyota Prius hybrid are anywhere near 54.5, it’s because there are multiple ways to state fuel economy.
For instance, a car or SUV that is configured to burn E85 (gasoline with 51%-83% ethanol) is rated higher than its recorded test ratings because it is E85-capable — even if it’s sold to buyers who have no intention of using E85, and even if it’s sold to buyers in states where there is no E85. (E85 actually gives lower real world mpg because the mix contains fewer BTUs than pure gasoline.) This and other modifiers raise the calculated mpg number well beyond real world economy.
To reach the 54.5 mpg level the government is talking about, the average car would have to get approximately 40 real-world mpg. Real world meaning if you poured one more gallon of gasoline into the car, it would carry you 40 miles farther down the road. Real world mpg is what’s printed on the Monroney (window) sticker in the showroom. If it’s off, it’s only by 1-2 mpg.
40 rear-world mpg is easier — still not easy — to attain than 54.5 real world mpg. Right now the most efficient automaker, with a 29.5 mpg rating overall, is Mazda, and even Mazda would need to be a third more more efficient to get to real-world 40 mpg.
That’s one reason Mazda is adding high-efficiency diesel engines to the mix, starting with the highly regarded 2017 Mazda CX-5. It’s the reason why automakers sell, with small markups, small hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and EVs to offset the lower mpg of big SUVs. In California, where automakers also have to sell a certain minimum of zero emissions cars, last fall one dealer, Orange Coast Alfa Romeo-Fiat, offered Fiat 500e EVs for $49 a month with no money down.
Will hybrid and EV tax credits go away?
Automakers are worried the administration will end the tax credits of up to $7,500 per vehicle for hybrids, plug-ins, and EVs. Vehicles with batteries less than 18 kWh (hybrids, many PHEVs) are in one bucket of credits covering 200,000 cars, and EVs in another for EVs. The purpose was to jump-start sales of alternative-fuel EVs while automakers reduce the cost of EV technology.
If the credit goes away, the Bolt EV and Tesla Model 3 would cost about $37,500 (base model) versus $30,000 with the credit. Analysts estimate lithium ion battery packs cost about $300 per kilowatt-hour, and will decline to $100 per kilowatt-hour in five years. But GM managed to get LG Chem to supply batteries for its 60-kWh Bolt EV pack for $145 per kilowatt-hour, or $8,700. The same pack would cost $6,000 in 2022 at $100 per kilowatt-hour.
The Trump administration has made noises about ending the federal tax credits for buyers, saying component prices have come down a lot. At the same time, it’s possible to buy a compact gasoline-engine car with the same roominess for $20,000, which is $10,000 less than a Bolt EV or Tesla Model 3, or $17,500 less if there’s no tax credit. That’s likely to drive some buyers out of EVs and back into combustion engine cars.
How far will the administration go back to the past?
The Obama administration agreed with the vast majority of climate scientists who say climate change is real and troubling. Before he became president, Donald Trump in 2012 said, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” Trump has so far avoided saying whether he continues to agree. Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has said human activity is not a “primary contributor” to global warming.
The upshot: Buyers of EVs could see the cost go up by $7,500, even more as some of the dozen states with additional credits step back from offering them.
Toyota has already used up its allocation of 200,000 tax credits for hybrids, yet it remains the No. 1 seller of hybrids in the US. Both sides say this proves their points: Tax credits made it possible for Toyota to grow the hybrid market, versus Toyota was simply the best maker of hybrids and never needed the credits.
If the administration backs off on the push to 54.5 in 2025, we’ll see more SUVs and pickup trucks sold. They’re already the majority of new vehicles purchased; sedans are in the minority. Buyers of midsize cars will pick larger engines. SUV and crossover buyers will go for all-wheel-drive more often. Automakers will stop spending money on lightweight aluminum or carbon fiber body panels. Bigger engines and AWD can reduce fuel economy by 1-5 mpg.
Since the first safety regulations of the 1960s, automakers have often said making safety or emissions improvements would take longer and cost more, if it was possible at all. Eventually it all worked out, even if there were hassles moving to unleaded gasoline in the 1970s, shifting from carburetors to fuel injection, problems with the first 1980s cars with cylinder deactivation, and issues adding turbocharging.
How to protect future generations, current workers
President Trump has made much of the plight of coal miners. But coal is on the way out. The US is finding increasing amounts of natural gas that is cheaper to extract than coal and burns cleaner than coal. He probably can’t remove enough restrictions, for instance on coal-burning electricity plant smokestack emissions, to create a level playing field for coal versus natural gas and oil.
The majority of Americans believe climate change and global warming are real and serious issues. That puts Trump and the EPA’s Scott Pruitt at odds with the electorate. Interestingly, the vast majority of Americans surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change said climate change is real and it’s happening now. But they majority also they don’t see themselves as affected.
The danger of not dealing with climate change is what happens if and when the US backs off on the Obama administration’s climate change agreements. In 2014, US President Obama and China President Xi Jinping agreed that each country should limit its pollution. Coincidentally, Trump and Xi are due to meet next week at the southern White House in Mar-a-Lago. Hopefully, Xi likes golf.
If Trump abrogates the 2014 agreement, other countries may back away from their agreements to the Paris agreements signed a year later, starting with India. Developing nations such as China, India, and Brazil in the past have traded off pollution control for cheaper-to-run factories, trains, and cars.
Anyone who’s been in the industrial areas of China or India knows how bad the pollution is. An America First policy will damage a lot of children growing up around the world, and hasten the departure of the elderly.
Now read: Best cars of CES 2017 — almost the Car Electronics Show
(Top image credit: ExxonMobil)This was a lot to eat in one sitting. Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
It's a well-documented fact that President Donald Trump loves fast food.
And as attested to in a new book written by two of his former campaign aides, his go-to from McDonald's is quite the tall order.
The president's typical order at the Golden Arches is two Big Macs, two Filet-o-Fish sandwiches, and a large chocolate shake — malted, according to the book. That's a lot of calories for one meal — 2,430 in all.
I'm a big fan of McDonald's myself — my shameless love of the Big Mac is public knowledge. It's my go-to order at McDonald's, no less. Of course, I only order one, but who's counting? I'm assuming running a global business enterprise takes a lot of energy, never mind leading the free world.
So, I decided to try Trump's beefy and brash lunch choice to truly immerse myself in the down-to-earth culinary tastes of one of the most powerful men in the world.Citigroup (C) has claimed that it's the best-capitalized big bank in the country, a distinction that means very little given how often it's been bailed out.
But even that claim may not mean very much. Rolfe Winkler explains how a major portion of its capital base may not be as real as investors might like.
According to its recent 10-Q, Citi had $38 billion of deferred tax assets as of Sept. 30, more than a third of the bank's tangible common equity of $107 billion.
Backing that out, Citi's TCE ratio — the inverse of leverage — is reduced from 5.7 percent to 3.7 percent. And when Citi adopts new accounting rules for off-balance-sheet assets, the ratio will be reduced further to 2.8 percent.
Bank regulators should be concerned. To fortify their balance sheets so they can withstand systemic events without government support, banks need genuine capital available to absorb losses.
Deferred tax assets, or DTAs, don't fit that bill. Imagine an individual in bankruptcy court asking to pay off his credit card debt with tax-loss carryforwards.
So long as Citi generates profit, its DTAs have value. But earnings could evaporate quickly if the Fed decides it has to prick the new asset price bubble being inflated by near-zero rates, or if an unanticipated systemic event puts stress on Citi's balance sheet.
He goes onto note other circumstances, whereby a chance in the company's capital structure may constitute a change-in-control, prompting an automatic write-off of these DTAs. Presumably selling them near face value isn't really an option, because otherwise they'd probably do just that.
Winkler isn't alone sounding this alarm.
Last month, analyst Mike Mayo was making similar noises, and suggested that Citigroup could have to take a whopping $10 billion charge -- a number the bank dismissed as ludicrous.On May 1, 1969, Fred Rogers stepped before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communication and explained what exactly his job entailed.
Rogers, the man behind the PBS show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” had gone to Washington, D.C., to defend public television from budget cuts. President Richard Nixon had proposed slashing funding for programming such as Rogers’ in half as the war in Vietnam raged on.
Sitting in front of Sen. John O. Pastore, the chairman of the subcommittee, Rogers didn’t get bogged down in budgetary minutia. Instead, he talked about what he hoped to accomplish with his show. He used it, he said, to help children learn to deal with their problems in a healthy manner ― to instill a sense of confidence in the kids he worked with and who watched him. He used simple sentences and simple words to get his point across:
This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, “You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are.” And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health. I think that it’s much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger ― much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire.
After telling Pastore what he did, Rogers decided to show him as well.
“Could I tell you the words of one of the songs, which I feel is very important?” he asked. “This has to do with that good feeling of control which I feel that children need to know is there. And it starts out, ‘What do you do with the mad that you feel?’”
He then recited its words:
What do you do with the mad that you feel? When you feel so mad you could bite. When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong, and nothing you do seems very right. What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go? It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned the thing that’s wrong. And be able to do something else instead ― and think this song ― “I can stop when I want to. Can stop when I wish. Can stop, stop, stop anytime... And what a good feeling to feel like this! And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there’s something deep inside that helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a lady, and a boy can be someday a man.”
Pastore, who had never seen Rogers’ show, was visibly touched by the speech.
“I’m supposed to be a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time I’ve had goose bumps for the last two days,” he said. “Looks like you just earned the $20 million.”
Rogers’ speech became one of the most iconic moments in the history of public media. But hidden within it was Rogers’ quiet acknowledgement that shows such as his would face trouble in the free market.
“We don’t have to bop somebody over the head to... make drama on the screen,” he said. “We deal with such things as getting a haircut.”
For anyone who grew up with Mr. Rogers on the screen, it’s not hard to decipher what the ever-optimistic man was actually saying. Rogers knew his haircut discussion could excite children once he was in front of them, but he also knew it would be hard to compete for their attention as on-screen violence and special effects became ever more present outside of public media.
I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health. Fred Rogers in 1969
Rogers died in 2003, but public media has continued to provide educational programming that remains trustworthy and popular. NPR ratings reached an all-time high last fall. A bipartisan polling team found earlier this year that 73 percent of all Americans ― including more than 60 percent of Republicans ― opposed eliminating federal funding for public television.
Nevertheless, on Thursday, President Donald Trump went even further than Nixon did in 1969. The president’s budget plan proposed pulling all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports NPR and PBS. The CPB receives about $485 million annually from the U.S. government, much less than $54 billion Trump hopes to add to the defense budget.
There would be significant consequences if such a decision went through, according to Patricia Harrison, the president and CEO of CPB.
“The elimination of federal funding to CPB would initially devastate and ultimately destroy public media’s role in early childhood education, public safety, connecting citizens to our history, and promoting civil discussions ― all for Americans in both rural and urban communities,” she said Thursday.
Free-market proponents have long argued that eliminating such educational shows would be fine. If “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” can’t survive in the free market, they say, maybe it shouldn’t be able to survive at all. But to many other people, the educational programs provided by public media ― programs that might not be able to otherwise compete with the empty calories available on other channels ― remains inarguably valuable.About 90 minutes after teenagers Natalie Henderson and Carter Davis were killed behind a Roswell supermarket, Jeffrey Andrew Hazelwood used Henderson's debit card at a convenience store nearby, Roswell police said Thursday.
Investigators were able to place Hazelwood's cellphone at both the murder scene and at the convenience store, Roswell Police Chief Rusty Grant said. The phone "led us to the suspect and once we identified him, everything fell into place," Grant told Channel 2 Action News. Police also have seized Hazelwood's white Honda Passport, which they said was captured on video in the vicinity and at the time of the killings. The teens were killed at about 3 a.m. Monday and Hazelwood used Henderson's card at about 4:30 a.m., police said.
The suspect was to be transferred Thursday night from Roswell to the Fulton County Jail and will be charged with two counts of murder, aggravated assault, theft and financial transaction card fraud, Roswell police said.
The funeral for Carter Davis, 17, of Woodstock, was Thursday morning. The funeral for Natalie Henderson, also 17, of Roswell, will be Friday morning.
The two were unlikely targets, both outgoing, likable teenagers with big personalities and bigger dreams — a sharp contrast to the man accused of killing them.
Hazelwood, 20, was very close to a girlfriend — it was not Henderson — and apparently had been raised by loving grandparents. But he also had a darker side, according to his own social media posts and some who knew him as a teenager.
Julio Avendaño, now 21, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he met Hazelwood about three years ago when both were students at the former Alternative Youth Academy in Roswell. Avendaño was in a gang and had been arrested, he said, and a probation officer sent him to the military-style school. Hazelwood hadn’t been in criminal trouble but was enrolled at the academy by his grandparents, who had raised him.
“This kid just didn’t seem normal,” Avendaño said. “You could feel he was strange when you stood next to him.”
Hazelwood’s long, dark hair wasn’t allowed at the academy, which required much shorter cuts. “Cadets” spent 12 hours a day there, and teenagers went to the school for a variety of reasons, including arrests, drugs, violence or simply an inability to fit in at conventional schools. Hazelwood, it seemed, was rebellious, though he also was smart, speaking in a way that made him seem older, Avendaño said.
Hazelwood was also something of a loner at the academy, but if students didn’t know him, they likely did know his grandmother, who baked cakes or bought snacks to take to the academy and became a favorite among the students.
“We all loved her there. Who wouldn’t love a lady like her? She was like an angel,” Avendaño said. “Even the bad kids liked her, like me.”
While Hazelwood was still a baby, his parents separated and he was taken to live with his maternal grandparents, according to paternal grandmother, Trudy Darlene Dinwiddie of Moscow Mills, Mo. But Dinwiddie hadn’t seen her grandson since he was a baby, she told The AJC.
In his own social media posts, Jeffrey Hazelwood posted both inspiring quotes and statements about his girlfriend. But there are also darker, deeper messages posted:
“Eventually, the most kind hearted person will grow cold," said a poster he placed on Instagram. "That's when you know they've been pushed too far."
In a post 17 weeks ago, he said, "Why the (expletive) should i live? Cant do (expletive) right. All i do is hurt everybody even the one i love more than my own life and i swore to never hurt. Im beyond (expletive). Theres no one left."
His Facebook page and his Instagram account suggest an admiration for wolves. One week ago, Hazelwood added this message to a black and white image of a howling wolf, showing its sharp teeth: "The wolf is strong, wild and powerful… majestic in every sense… but it still crys for what it has lost and howls for the moon… a love it will never reach."
Other postings and photos contain messages about Hazelwood’s girlfriend. According to address records, it was this woman's family home that was searched Wednesday within hours of Hazelwood’s arrest, though Roswell police declined to say what type of evidence, if any, may have been found.
“I love you, as I have never loved another, Or ever will again” Hazelwood posted to go with a picture a bright blue rose. “I love you with all that I am, and all that I hope to be.”
Early Wednesday, Hazelwood was arrested at a gas station not far from the crime scene, according to police. Grant declined to discuss a motive for the killings or how Hazelwood knew Henderson or Davis.
A memorial service for Henderson will be held Friday at 10 a.m. at Roswell Presbyterian Church, 755 Mimosa Blvd, in Roswell, according to her online obituary. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to Companion Animal Connection in Waleska.George Monbiot is correct (The rich want us to believe their wealth is good for us all, 30 July) in his praise of Thomas Piketty’s proposal for a wealth tax to counteract the insane levels of inequality now generated in our world, and in pointing out that only the Green party is prepared to back this obvious idea. However, we should be careful not to let Piketty’s helpful intervention in the debate blind us to the severe limits of his own stance in political economy. I refer principally to Piketty’s utter failure to take seriously the ecological limits to growth.
A central component of Piketty’s answer to the crisis is: more of the same. More growth, the proceeds of which can then allegedly be “redistributed”. The truth however is that growth is an alternative to egalitarian redistribution, an alternative to any serious effort to create a more equal society. The promise of growth is a replacement for the need to share. It is a promise of which we should be ever more suspicious, in a world whose biological limits are being ruptured, and in a country where we are now seeing growth, none of the benefits of which are trickling down to the 99% (GDP in the UK is now above the 2007 level, but most people in the country are worse off than they were in 2007).
Piketty’s claim that a stalling of growth is bad for the majority is wrong: a stalling of growth, and a willingness to see that we can’t keep growing the pie now that the ingredients are running out, will finally be what forces the majority to take back some of the wealth being hoarded by the rich.
A wealth tax is a key component in a greener, fairer, more equal society. Its introduction will not occur until we give up our desperate attachment to the oxymorons of “green growth” and “egalitarian growth” and face up to the need to share the wealth far more equally, in a world which finally understands that perpetual growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
Dr Rupert Read
University of East Anglia, Norwich
• One of the most shocking ways the rich are going to “get away with it” is because there is almost no mainstream exposure of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the final-farewell-to-democracy investor-to-state dispute settlement, negotiations over which were suspended in January this year for three months to undertake a “consultation” with the European public. Really? Given the number of people, including those of the political norm, who look blank when you mention TTIP, never mind ISDS, the consultation must have stopped short at the Channel. Where is the campaign to expose this political nightmare and stop them getting away with it?
John Airs
Liverpool
• Aditya Chakrabortty’s diagnosis of Labour’s economic policy myopia also underpins its inability to win over voters (It’s supine Labour that lets the Tories daub lipstick on a pig, 29 July). There is an inability to break with the slavish, neoliberal worship of that abstract totem, the national economy. Ed Balls et al still fix |
, revealed an Aussie return is penciled in for February and March 2015. Also looking likely are local boys The Bennies and melodic hardcore five-piece Evergreen Terrace.
Long-rumoured Swedish metal outfit Opeth recently confirmed to Music Feeds that they had declined Maddah’s offer to join the 2015 tour. Frontman Mikael Akerfeldt said he would prefer to do a headline tour of Australia instead. He said the band were eyeing “early next year” for a return.
Music Feeds will have the full Soundwave 2015 lineup for you right here on Wednesday morning, so make sure you stay tuned. Considering some of the mega-bills that have adorned Soundwave Festival’s artwork in recent years, we’re expecting something real good so feel free to get excited.
Get everything you need to know about Soundwave 2015 over at our lineup rumours and info page!
Soundwave 2014 – RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
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Satyricon Satyricon Satyricon Satyricon Satyricon Satyricon Satyricon GWAR GWAR AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI AFI Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament Testament The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder The Black Dahlia Murder Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Five Finger Death Punch Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Mushroomhead Amon Amarth 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Photos by Rebecca Reid
Soundwave Festival 2015
Day One
Adelaide – Saturday, 21st February, 2015
Melbourne – Sunday, 22nd February, 2015
Sydney – Saturday, 28th February, 2015
Brisbane – Sunday, 1st March, 2015
Faith No More
Soundgarden
Incubus
Lamb Of God
Ministry
Antemasque
Gerard Way
Mayhem
New Found Glory
Fear Factory
Hollywood Undead
Atreyu
The Aquabats
Area 7
Godflesh
Crown The Empire
The Interrupters
Icon For Hire
Emily’s Army
Patent Pending
Fireworks
The Bennies
The Color Morale
Monuments
Nothing More
Deathstars
Ne Obliviscaris
The Treatment
Day Two
Melbourne – Saturday, 21st February, 2015
Adelaide – Sunday, 22nd February, 2015
Brisbane – Saturday, 28th February, 2015
Sydney – Sunday, 1st March, 2015
Slipknot
Slash
Marilyn Manson
Fall Out Boy
Judas Priest
Godsmack
All Time Low
Papa Roach
Of Mice & Men
Escape The Fate
Apocalyptica
Lagwagon
Tonight Alive
Crossfaith
Butcher Babies
Confession
The Swellers
Conditions
Coldrain
King 810
Dayshell
This Wild Life
+ more to be announced!
Soundwave members pre-sale begins 12pm local time Friday, 22nd August
General public tickets on sale 9am Friday, 29th August
Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
Bonython Park, Adelaide, South Australia
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 21st February & Sunday, 22nd February 2015
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Victoria
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
Olympic Park, Sydney, New South Wales
Tickets: Soundwave
Saturday, 28th February & Sunday, 1st March 2015
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane, Queensland
Tickets: SoundwaveMy name is Marc Brooker. I've been writing code, reading code, and living vicariously through computers for as long as I can remember. I like to build things that work. I also dabble in brewing, cooking and skiing.I'm currently an engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Seattle, where I lead engineering on AWS Lambda and our others serverless products. Before that, I worked on EC2 and EBS.All opinions are my own.
Snark, Chord, and Trust in Algorithms
Mars Code, in February's CACM, is a very interesting look from the outside at some of the software engineering practices that helped make the Mars Science Laboratory mission successful. The authors cover a lot of ground in the article, from code reviews to coding standards to model extraction and model checking. While writing about model checking, they tell the story of Snark, a non-blocking deque algorithm.
The Snark paper looks great. The algorithm is presented clearly, including both clear text descriptions and blocks of C-like pseudocode. It's published in a well-respected journal, LNCS. It dedicates four and a half of its fifteen pages to a well-structured and clearly written sketch proof of the correctness of the algorithm, with clear diagrams explaining some of the tricky cases. It's got Guy Steele on the author list. It's from Sun. As far as my is this paper likely to be trustworthy? heuristics go, this one doesn't raise many suspicions.
Unfortunately, Snark is broken. Not subtly broken on an obscure liveness measure, but fundamentally broken in that it's unsafe. In DCAS is not a Silver Bullet for Nonblocking Algorithm Design, Doherty et al lay out two bugs in the Snark algorithm. It's worth noting, though, that et al in this case includes most of the authors of the original paper. The paper explains the bugs well, and it's interesting how subtly 30 lines of code can be broken. It's well worth reading, especially if you are interested in non-blocking algorithms. Later, Leslie Lamport used the same bugs as a test of the PlusCal language. In Checking a Multithreaded Algorithm with +CAL he explains how he model checked the original and fixed Snark algorithms using TLC.
Snark is not an isolated example either. Another great example is Chord. The hits are similar: top authors, top journal, good institution, and a detailed sketch proof. In Chord's case, it's also widely implemented and well respected. It even won the 2011 SIGCOMM Test of Time Paper Award. Like Snark, Chord appears to be subtly broken. Pamela Zave, in Using Lightweight Modeling To Understand Chord, found a number of places where either Chord is broken, or the version presented in the paper (and proven in the proofs!) isn't safe. More details can be found in the slides for a talk titled How to make Chord Correct.
The purpose of pointing out these examples isn't self-superiority or even schadenfreude, but to demonstrate that the heuristics we use when deciding whether to trust a published algorithm don't always work. Even talented teams of really smart people get this stuff wrong all the time. Not only are multi-threaded and distributed algorithms tricky to reason about, but techniques for proving their correctness are also complex and often not approachable. Most practitioners lack the training to verify the correctness of the proofs that do exist. Often, it's even quite challenging to write down the requirements sufficiently clearly, though techniques like Refinement Mappings can often help.
Modeling, specification and model checking play an important role. Lamport demonstrated issues in Snark using TLA+, Doherty et al used Spin, and Zave used Alloy. Each of these tools has areas of strength, but each allows computer-aided checking of specifications or models. Lamport puts it this way:
a hand proof is no substitute for model checking. As the two-sided queue example shows, it is easy to make a mistake in an informal proof.
Tools like TLA+ have a big advantages for practitioners: they tend to be much more approachable than proof techniques, allow exploration of algorithm variants without starting from scratch, and allow easy exploration of the effect of a model on the correctness of a specification.The also look like code, and the tools frequently look and behave like the editors and compilers most are familiar with. If you can pick up Haskell or Scheme, and have a passing familiarity with basic set theory, you can learn TLA+, PlusCal or Spin. As another benefit, formal specifications of algorithms like Raft and Cheap Paxos are often (though not always) more complete and precise than either the text or pseudocode descriptions given in papers. Theses specifications allow automated model checking, and provide evidence that such model checking has been done. A specification provides some evidence that the author has thought through all the edge cases of an implementation, at least within the boundaries of the model.
Of course, model checking isn't a panacea. It's just as easy to make mistakes in either the specification or invariants as it is in a proof. Lamport explains some other limitations of model checking:
Model checking is no substitute for proof. Most algorithms can be checked only on instances of an algorithm that are too small to give us complete confidence in their correctness. Moreover, a model checker does not explain why the algorithm works.
Traditional software engineering practices, such as unit tests, are another promising approach. Approaches for testing distributed and multi-threaded algorithm implementations, with good coverage of ordering and failure cases, are still in their infancy, but there is a lot of very encouraging progress. More broadly, and more in industry than academia, we need a cultural shift. A developer who developed their own block cipher and dismissed concerns with it's easy to reason that it is secure would get laughed at by the security community. Somebody who proposed a new sorting algorithm and refused to demonstrate that it actually sorts things would be the target of derision. People who propose their own distributed algorithms, both in the research press and in practice, are too frequently allowed to get away with trust me and it's obvious as demonstrations of correctness. I'm not accusing the authors of the Snark or Chord papers of this, but it is very common. Depending on what you are doing, that's not good enough. You don't need to read much more than the comments on Lamport's Why We Should Build Software Like We Build Houses to see evidence of a strong anti-design and anti-specification bent in software engineering practitioners. While these formal techniques and methods aren't needed for much of the work programmers do, there are many types of systems for which they are extremely helpful (and should more often be required).
If you're looking for a distributed algorithm, and your business, your life or your reputation are on the line, don't accept I copied it from a paper. Don't accept it's obviously right. Don't accept correctness based on reputation. Think twice before trusting only an informal proof.As I pack up my Berkeley house, my posessions are going one of three ways:
1. Moved to the NYC apartment.
2. Moved to storage in Calif.
3. Sold or given away.
The vast majority of the stuff is in category 3.
Most of the stuff in category 3 was stuff that went into storage after my last move, from Woodside to Cambridge in 2003. This was the stuff I thought was indispensible, yet it all stayed in boxes in my Berkeley garage until this move.
I'm taking Bruce Sterling's excellent advice, which I heard in a speech he gave at Reboot in Copenhagen last summer. I'm taking photographs of things I can't part with but haven't looked at in 20 years. And scanning a lot of documents and publishing the interesting stuff that I can publish without hurting anyone who's alive (and most of the people are alive). I haven't found a way to scan disks in formats that I don't have hardware to read, so that stuff is going into storage. That, and stuff my grandparents left me and quilts my mother made for me. Stuff like that, that should be passed down through generations, if we get that far. ">
One of the letters I came across is relevant to the discussion about developers and Apple and Twitter, so I decided to put it up on Flickr and write it up here.
In 1987, my company, Living Videotext, had a hit product -- MORE. It was one of very few products selling on the Mac platform, having shipped in the prior year. It led a new category we called Desktop Presentations. The other product in the category was PowerPoint, produced by a company named Forethought.
I had a meeting with Bill Gates at Esther Dyson's conference in 1987, and he popped the question every developer wants to hear -- Can we buy you? I said of course. So we started negotiation, agreed on a price and due diligence began. Then I got a letter from Frank Gaudette, the CFO of the company, and a phone call from Gates, saying they decided not to do the deal. They were buying our competitor, PowerPoint.
I totally wanted the deal. In 1987 Microsoft was freshly IPO'd. The deal was for stock, and its value had doubled while they deliberated. So I sent a letter basically begging them to do the deal, but I got back the rejection above. PowerPoint became a household name, and MORE did well, but I probably would have had more fun at Microsoft, and certainly would have made more money. ">NOTE
33
45415254
01
00
0040
19
Amount of Stages (33 = 51 stages since the code stores the number in hex)
First 4 letters of stage file name (45415254 = EART)
Amount of button combinations (01 = 1 combination, the next line is how the combination works)
Amount of Random stages to load (Order by letter, _A _B _C etc.)
Buttons to activate (0140 = L which means L must be held to load the combination)
Here's a site where you can find different button inputs for controllers in the correct format
File suffix loaded (19 stands for Z, so in the example above, pressing A+L (0140) would load _Z (19)
0 = _A 1 = _B 2 = _C 3 = _D 4 = _E 5 = _F 6 = _G 7 = _H 8 = _I 9 = _J A = _K B = _L C = _M D = _N E = _O
F = _P 10 = _Q 11 = _R 12 = _S 13 = _T 14 = _U 15 = _V 16 = _W 17 = _X 18 = _Y 19 = _Z
Here's a quick tutorial on how the alt stage codes work.Start by looking for DEADBEEF BABEBEEF in the codeset, you’ll find it twice near the top and underneath each there’ll be a ton of coding, the first section below DEADBEEF BABEBEEF is for stage files, and the second one is for their module files (or RELs). (: If you cant find the DEADBEEF BABEBEEF, then search for * 45415254 01000000 instead, as it is right at the top of each section of the stage code.)* DEADBEEF BABEBEEF* 46000010 00000000* 44000000 005A7CB0* 6620000000000000000000000000so lets say I wanted to have it so that a stage had 5 versions of the main file that would load randomly, but I also wanted to make it so that holding L will load the alt stage no matter what. The code would look like this (using FD as an example)* 46494E41 01050000* 00400019 00000000Now, lets say I wanted to do the same thing but this time I wanted it so that I could load one alt stage by holding L, and another by holding A+L, it'd look like this.* 46494E41 02050000* 00400019 00000000* 01400018 00000000The first line had the 01 change to 02, which means there's two button combinations. A third line was added which is the second combination possible. Notice how I put 18 instead of 19, which means that the second combination loads STGFINAL_Y.pac instead of STGFINAL_Z.pacRemember, you need to edt the line below * 44000000 005A7CB0 for each section of code so that it knows how many lines to read, if I were to add that button combination for final destination to both parts of the code, I'd need the line that says * 66200033 00000000 to say * 66200036 00000000 instead, because there's now 54 lines of code instead of 51.The calculator program in windows has a nice programmer mode that can calculate hex and decimal back and forth, and HxD is good for finding out what the name of the stage in hex is.The Indiana Pacers added size and depth Saturday when they signed center Andrew Bynum to a contract for the rest of the season.
The Pacers will pay Bynum $1 million for the remainder of the season, a source told ESPN.
Andrew Bynum joined the Pacers because they have the "best chance of winning." David Richard/USA TODAY Sports
Bynum, who will join the Pacers next week, will back up All-Star Roy Hibbert along with Ian Mahinmi. Also featuring power forwards David West and Luis Scola, the Pacers will have some of the best depth in the NBA at the big man positions.
The move also kept Bynum away from the rival Miami Heat, who beat the Pacers in seven games in last season's Eastern Conference finals. The Pacers enter Saturday with a three-game lead over the Heat for the East's best record.
"We are obviously happy to have him join our team," Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird said in a release. "He gives us added size, he is a skilled big man and he has championship experience. With the minutes he gets, he should be a valuable addition."
Five teams were interested in Bynum, including the Heat, but it was the Pacers who had a roster spot and the space under the luxury tax to add him now.
"It really wasn't a hard decision, I think it's the right fit for me," Bynum said in a statement. "In all honesty, I think we've got the best chance of winning. It will be great to back up Roy, and I'll do whatever I can to help this team."
The Heat could have outbid the Pacers for Bynum because they had all of their mid-level exception of $3 million to spend. However, the Heat currently have a full roster of 15 players and a luxury-tax bill of $15 million, meaning creating room for and signing Bynum would have been expensive. Plus, the Heat are getting encouraging play from Greg Oden, who recently returned after missing four years due to injuries.
If the Heat do make another addition this season, it will likely be for a wing player who specializes in defense, sources told ESPN. The team has been in trade talks recently looking to trade for a wing or to open up a roster spot to sign one in free agency.
Bynum, who missed all of last season with a knee injury, averaged 8.4 points and 5.3 rebounds in 24 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers this season. The Cavs traded him to the Chicago Bulls with two future draft picks for Luol Deng on Jan. 7. The Bulls, in a salary-saving move, released Bynum the next day before the second half of his $12 million contract became guaranteed.Despite being the hometown team, Maryland is considered a major longshot by most recruiting experts in its pursuit of electric receiver recruit Stefon Diggs.
But you can't say the Terps aren't trying. A few proactive students took it upon themselves to print a creative flyer in anticipation of Diggs taking in Saturday's North Carolina and Maryland basketball game. Photo courtesy of Testudo Times.
Diggs stars for Olney (Md.) Our Lady Of Good Counsel. He's universally regarded as one of the best receivers in the country. Diggs is rated five-stars by most major recruiting services and was a U.S. Army All-American.
Recently, Missouri fans employed the same strategy, distributing flyers to fans attending the same game as superstar receiver recruit Dorial Green-Beckham. It worked great, as fans identified Green-Beckham and gave him plenty of love. Green-Beckham was impressed with the enthusiasm of the fans, and cited their passion when he signed with Missouri.
Diggs is thought to be leaning to Ohio State after a recent visit to Columbus, but is also considering Florida and Auburn. He'll make his decision on February 10.
For more on Diggs' visit and Maryland recruiting, check out Testudo Times.Well then. Western special operators may well be on the ground in Syria covertly conducting reconnaissance missions and training rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al Assad, much like Western SOF troops did in Libya last year, according to the STRATFOR documents that were recently published by Wikileaks.
Apparently, a STRATFOR analyst sat down with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's Strategic Studies Group -- a team of four Air Force lieutenant colonels along with one French and one British officer -- at the Pentagon and then wrote up a quick report claiming the SSG boys implied that Western operators are on the ground in Syria.
After a couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on recce missions and training opposition forces... They have been told to prepare contingencies and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation."
This sounds an awful lot like the earliest reports we had of Western troops secretly operating inside Libya before NATO air forces began pummeling Gadhafi's Army one year ago this month. We already know that the U.S. is moving to get the Syrian rebels humanitarian aid and possibly comms gear now that the U.S. is " aligned with enabling the opposition to overthrow the Assad regime. " These western troops on the ground could also open a door for arms shipments to the rebels, if things come to that
The report goes on to say that any air campaign against the Syrian government would likely use the Brits' bases on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus as one of its launching pads.
From Business Insider:
They then discuss the option of an air campaign in Syria and what its objectives would be, saying the situation makes "Libya look like a piece of cake" because of the geography and Syria's robust air defenses. "The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and French wouldfly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and howmuch recce comes out of there... There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve."
Let's hope the UK has enough smart bombs stored on Cyprus that it won't run out of precision weapons if it attacks Syria, you know, the way some NATO members did during the air war against Gadhafi. That was embarrassing. Show Full ArticleGregory Efthimios "Greg" Louganis (; born January 29, 1960) is an American Olympic diver, LGBT activist, and author who won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics, on both the springboard and platform. He is the only male and the second diver in Olympic history to sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympic Games. He has been called both "the greatest American diver"[1] and "probably the greatest diver in history".[2]
Early life [ edit ]
Louganis was born in El Cajon, California, and is of Samoan and Swedish descent. His teenage biological parents placed him for adoption when he was eight months old and he was raised in California by his adoptive parents, Frances and Peter Louganis. His adoptive father was of Greek descent.[3] He started taking dance, acrobatics and gymnastics classes at 18 months, after witnessing his sister's classes and attempting to join in. By the age of three, he was practicing daily and was competing and giving public performances.[4] For the next few years, he regularly competed, and performed at various places including nursing homes and the local naval base. As a child, he was diagnosed with asthma and allergies, so to help with the conditions, he was encouraged to continue the dance and gymnastics classes. He also took up trampolining, and at the age of nine began diving lessons after the family got a swimming pool.[5] He attended Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California, Valhalla High School in El Cajon, California, as well as Mission Viejo High School, in Mission Viejo. In 1978, he joined the University of Miami where he studied theater. In 1981, he transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where in 1983 he graduated with a major in drama and a minor in dance.[6]
Diving career [ edit ]
As a Junior Olympic competitor, Louganis caught the eye of Sammy Lee, two-time Olympic champion, who began coaching him. At sixteen Louganis took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event, behind Italian sport legend Klaus Dibiasi. Two years later, with Dibiasi retired, Louganis won his first world title in the same event with the help of coach Ron O'Brien.
Louganis was a favorite for two golds in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but an American boycott of the games prevented him from participating. He was one of 461 athletes to receive a Congressional Gold Medal years later.[7] Louganis won two titles at the world championships in 1982, where he became the first diver in a major international meeting to get a perfect score of 10 from all seven judges.[5] At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with record scores and leads over his opponents, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events.
He won two more world championship titles in 1986.
At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, his head struck the springboard during the preliminary rounds, leading to a concussion.[4] He completed the preliminaries despite his injury. He then earned the highest single score of the qualifying round for his next dive and repeated the dive during the finals, earning the gold medal by a margin of 25 points.[5] In the 10m finals, he won the gold medal, performing a 3.4 difficulty dive in his last attempt, earning 86.70 points for a total of 638.61, surpassing silver medalist Xiong Ni by only 1.14 points.[5] His comeback earned him the title of ABC's Wide World of Sports "Athlete of the Year" for 1988.
Acting [ edit ]
Louganis had been a theatre major in college, and in the late 1980s and 1990s, Louganis acted in several movies, including Touch Me in 1997.
In 1993, he played the role of Darius in an Off-Broadway production of the play Jeffrey.[8] In 1995, he starred for six weeks in the Off-Broadway production of Dan Butler's one man-show about gay life, The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me, taking over from Butler himself. In the play he portrayed 14 different characters.[9]
In 2008 he appeared in the film Watercolors, in the role of Coach Brown, a swimming instructor in a high school.
In 2012, he appeared in the penultimate episode of the second season of IFC's comedy Portlandia, playing himself.
Dog agility competitions [ edit ]
After retiring from diving, Louganis began to compete in dog agility competitions; he has said that being around the dogs gave him "a sense of security, company and unconditional love".[1] His dogs have included Dr. Schivago; Captain Woof Blitzer; Nipper and son, Dobby, both champion Jack Russell terriers; Gryff (Gryffindor), a border collie; and Hedwig, a Hungarian Puli. Nipper was named for the RCA dog, while Gryff, Dobby and Hedwig were named for Harry Potter characters, as Louganis is a self-described "huge Harry Potter fan."[10][11][12][13][14]
Coaching [ edit ]
Since November 2010, Louganis has been coaching divers of a wide range of ages and abilities in the SoCal Divers Club in Fullerton, California.[15] He was a mentor to the US diving team at the London 2012 Olympics and the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics.[4][16]
Personal life [ edit ]
Louganis in 1995
From 1983 to 1989, Louganis was in a romantic relationship with his manager, R. James "Jim" Babbitt. Louganis has described the relationship as abusive, saying that at one point in 1983, Babbitt raped him at knifepoint.[17] Louganis also accused Babbitt of taking 80% of Louganis's earnings.[18]
Six months before the 1988 Olympics, Louganis was diagnosed with HIV; he had contracted the disease from Babbitt.[17] His doctor placed him on the antiretroviral drug AZT, which he took every four hours round-the-clock.[17]
In 1989, Louganis obtained a restraining order against Babbitt.[18] Babbitt died of AIDS in 1990.[17]
For his 33rd birthday in 1993, Louganis held a "final birthday party" for family and friends, as a way to say goodbye; he was in failing health and thought he would die of AIDS soon.[2]
Louganis publicly came out as gay in a pre-taped announcement shown at the opening ceremony of the 1994 Gay Games, having been persuaded to do so by Gay Games organizers.[19] Even before then, he led what has been described as "an openly gay life".[17]
In 1995 he announced that he was HIV-positive, around the time of the release of his memoir, Breaking the Surface.[4] In a 1995 interview with Barbara Walters, Louganis spoke publicly for the first time about being gay and HIV-positive.
Louganis announced his engagement to his partner, paralegal Johnny Chaillot, in People magazine, in June 2013.[20] The two were married on October 12, 2013.[21]
HIV status and head injury controversy [ edit ]
After his announcement, people in and out of the international diving community began to question Louganis's decision not to disclose his HIV status at the time of his head injury during the 1988 Seoul Olympics, given that he bled into a pool that others then dove into. Louganis has stated that, during the ordeal, he was "paralyzed with fear" that he would infect another competitor, or the doctor who treated him. Ultimately, no one was infected.[17]
Experts maintain that the incident posed no risk to others.[22] The blood was diluted by thousands of gallons of water, and "chlorine kills HIV", said John Ward, chief of HIV-AIDS surveillance at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[22] Also, skin is a very effective barrier to HIV. Only a diver with an open wound would face any risk.[22] "If the virus just touches the skin, it is unheard of for it to cause infection: the skin has no receptors to bind HIV," explained Anthony Fauci.[22]
Activism [ edit ]
Louganis in 2016 at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary for the passage of the Ryan White CARE Act, which improved the quality and availability of healthcare for individuals and families with HIV/AIDS
Louganis is a gay rights activist,[23][24][25] as well as an HIV awareness advocate. He has worked frequently with the Human Rights Campaign to defend the civil liberties of the LGBT community and people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.[26]
In the October/November 2010 issue of ABILITY Magazine, Louganis stated that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was "absurd," "unconstitutional," and a "witch-hunt." He added that "gay men and women have been serving this country for years … [it's] basically encouraging people who are serving our country to lie to each other."[27]
Louganis is on the board of directors to the USA-based chapter of the charitable foundation of Princess Charlene of Monaco.[28]
Books and video diary [ edit ]
Louganis recounted his story in 1996 in a best-selling autobiography, Breaking the Surface, co-written with Eric Marcus. In the book, Louganis detailed a relationship of domestic abuse and rape as well as teenage depression, and how he began smoking and drinking at a young age.[5] The book spent five weeks at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list.
In 1999, Louganis also co-wrote the book For the Life of Your Dog: A Complete Guide to Having a Dog From Adoption and Birth Through Sickness and Health with Betty Sicora Siino.[29][30][31]
Louganis also produced a video diary called Looking to the Light, which picked up where Breaking the Surface left off.
Other media appearances [ edit ]
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team a lot, which it did, but you always wish the best for your players. Chad would have been Mr. Hockey, still highly drafted, and maybe brought us to state tournament. That was the tough part of it. At the end, hard to argue with his choice.
Over a decade later Lee still follows the accomplishments Rau is getting around the world.
- I still follow him, and am proud of all his accomplishments in hockey! He was awesome to coach.In a revealing new post to her Instagram account, Kate Beckinsale wrote that she met with Harvey Weinstein in his hotel room when she was only 17. After declining alcohol and telling him she had school in the morning she left unscathed. Years later, Harvey asked her if he had tried anything with her during that meeting. Video by: Splashnews TV / Splash News
Kate Beckinsale: Harvey Weinstein couldn't remember if he assaulted me or not 0:54
PATTRICIA Arquette has taken to Twitter to share her uncomfortable experience with award-winning Hollywood director Oliver Stone after he defended Harvey Weinstein.
In a thread of 13 tweets the Oscar-winning actress shared the moment Stone began talking to her about doing a “very sexual” movie.
She said the meeting was kept professional but “felt weird” when she received long stemmed jungle roses from the legendary film maker afterwards,
2/ then I received from him long stem jungle roses. It's not uncommon to receive flowers but something about them felt weird. I ignored it — Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) October 13, 2017
Arquette received a phone call from Stone’s assistant to make sure she received the gift and he then proceeded to invite her to a screening of Natural Born Killers.
She said something still didn’t feel right.
3/Something felt weird so I asked my boyfriend to go with me. The room was packed. Oliver stopped me coming out of the bathroom — Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) October 13, 2017
Stone then allegedly confronted Arquette about her bringing her boyfriend.
4/ He said "Why did you bring him?" I said "Why is it a problem I brought him? It shouldn't be a problem. Think about THAT Oliver." — Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) October 13, 2017
The actress then goes on to point out the “craggy and uncertain terrain women negotiate in Entertainment and all businesses.”
She said, “By all means this is a problem in Hollywood. But I have also experienced sexual impropriety in a gynaecologist office. It’s everywhere.”
Arquette said she never heard about the movie but didn’t care to.
The posts came around the same time Stone said he didn’t want to denounce disgraced Hollywood mogul, Harvey Weinstein until a trial was held to prove the sexual harassment charges against him.
Former Playboy model Carrie Stevens also recalled an uncomfortable moment with Stone.
In response to the Hollywood Reporter sharing Stone’s views on Weinstein she tweeted:
When I heard about Harvey, I recalled Oliver walking past me & grabbing my boob as he walked out the front door of a party. Two of a kind! — Carrie Stevens (@CarrieStevensXO) October 13, 2017
Stone himself is an acclaimed screenwriter, producer and director, having won several Academy Awards for his work.
At a press conference held at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea he said,
“I believe a man shouldn’t be condemned by a vigilante system. It’s not easy what he’s going through, either.
“During that period he was a rival. I never did business with him and didn’t really know him.”
He added, “I’ve heard horror stories on everybody in the business, so I’m not going to comment on gossip. I’ll wait and see, which is the right thing to do.”There isn’t such thing as a “moral victory” in the NFL. It’s a game played by paid professionals whose main task is to help their team achieve victory. Although it was a surprise how well the Green Bay Packers played at times in their 31-28 loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers, still, it was a losing effort. However, not all was lost during that game for the Packers and there have been some glimpses of actual hope since they lost Aaron Rodgers earlier this season due to a broken collarbone. There are some positives coming out of a disappointing Green Bay Packers season.
There are Some Positives Coming out of a Disappointing Green Bay Packers Season
Although we took a tongue in cheek view of the Packers in our Thanksgiving list, there are some bright spots that have come out of the Packers 5-6 season. The record might be a disappointment, but there are some players and even a coach that have given the Packers some hope, for the rest of this season and for the future.
Not all is Dim on Defense
Although the defense has once again struggled this season, many can point to the direction of defensive coordinator Dom Capers for the lack of execution by the defensive unit. There is some good young talent on that side of the ball that look to have the ability to turn around this unit, especially if the leadership is changed after this season, which is expected. Here are the players that look like they have a bright future in the NFL.
Kenny Clark came into the NFL last season as a very young and somewhat raw but talented defensive lineman. He came on late last season, but in 2017, Clark started to put things together. Before Clark hurt his ankle in the Packers loss to the Baltimore Ravens, he was playing at a very high level. Clark has been a force in the middle of the Packers defensive line, clogging up lanes and taking on blockers to create space for inside linebacker Blake Martinez, freeing him up to make tackles. At only 22 years of age, Clark should be a big part of the Packers defensive line for a long time. He and fellow defensive tackle Mike Daniels create a stellar duo on the Packers defensive line.
Clark has been a big part of the improvement of Blake Martinez this season, but not all the credit should be given to Clark for Martinez’s solid play. The Packers have been looking for an inside linebacker who could stop the run but also play the pass in their nickel and dime package. It appeared that he wasn’t going to be that type of player in his rookie campaign, but just like Clark, Martinez has started to develop into that type of player. So far this season, Martinez has registered 73 total tackles, one sack, and registered his first interception of the season last week. With so many NFL teams moving towards big safeties playing inside linebacker, Martinez gives hope that true linebackers still have a place in today’s NFL.
Damarious Randall had a very rocky start, on and off the field, at the start of this season. After a disappointing 2016 to go along with his slow start this year, many expected Randall to be lumped in the “bust” category. But the former first round draft pick of the Packers has turned things around. He has found a spot lining up against the slot receiver but also has spent time at the boundary cornerback due to injuries. Randall might not be a lock down cornerback, but what he does give the Packers is a defensive back that can create plays. With Ha Ha Clinton-Dix struggling this season and fellow cornerback Davon House being a disappointment, it has been Randall who has created the turnovers on the backside of the Packers defense. Randall leads the Packers with four interceptions, one of them being taken back for a touchdown. It hasn’t happened often, but when the Packers do make a play on defense, it has been Randall doing it.
Kevin King has had struggles during his rookie season, but he gives the Packers a cornerback that has great length and isn’t afraid to come up and make a tackle. What is even more impressive about King not shying away from contact is he is playing with an injured shoulder that will most likely require surgery this off season. When King is healthy, he is able to use his long limbs to jam opposing receivers and has the speed to keep up with receivers. King might be limping to the end of his rookie season, but the Packers should be delighted in what they see from their top draft pick from this past year’s draft.
Packers Offense not Totally Offensive
Without Rodgers, the Packers offense hasn’t been what most fans are used to. But like with their defense, the Packers have found some players who are able to make some plays. It hasn’t been all players either, one coach has held together an injured unit as well.
Davante Adams
Although Davante Adams‘ numbers would be a lot more if Rodgers would have been healthy all season, he still has produced with Brett Hundley as his quarterback. With Hundley under center, Adams has been his top target hauling in 27 passes for 363 yards with two receiving touchdowns. Adams has stood out, even with having Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb lining up next to him. Adams will be a free agent this off season and he has shown the Packers that he is worth a big money deal.
Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams
When starting running back Ty Montgomery fell to injury, although he wasn’t producing like the Packers had hoped, Aaron Jones stepped in. He produced two 100 yard rushing games, giving the Packers running game a boost. Unfortunately, Jones fell to injury during the Packers victory over the Chicago Bears. That is when Jamaal Williams stepped in. Williams and his hard charging running style has been quite a delightful surprise for the Packers. The past three games, Williams has rushed for 190 yards with one rushing and one receiving touchdown. Jones and Williams seem to have overtaken Montgomery which might allow the Packers to move Montgomery back to receiver next season.
Offensive Line Coach James Campen
There hasn’t been a unit hit harder than the Packers offensive line. But still, they have done as well as what could be expected and James Campen should be credited for keeping this unit together. Campen has coached up a guard, Lane Taylor, to play left tackle, a position he has never played before, and an undrafted former Arena Football player to start at guard, left, and right tackle, Justin McCray. A lot of the Packers coaching staff has been criticized for the Packers failures this season, but you can’t blame Campen, who has done a magnificent job.
The chances of the Packers playoff hopes are very slim. Even staying in the playoff hunt until Rodgers is healthy enough to play is remote. But the Packers do have some positives to build off of. There are some young talent on this team that give hope to Packers fans for the future.
Embed from Getty ImagesWith the release of Firefox 4 Beta 7, Mozilla returned to near the top spot in browser performance rankings.
According to tests run by Computerworld, the new browser is about three times faster than the current production version of Firefox in rendering JavaScript, and lags behind only Opera among the top five browser makers.
On Wednesday, Mozilla launched Firefox 4 Beta 7, a preview that includes all the features slated to make it into the final, polished version next year.
Beta 7 was the first to include Mozilla's new JavaScript JIT (Just In Time) compiler, dubbed "JagerMonkey," which shot the browser's performance into the No. 2 slot behind the alpha of Opera 11.
Computerworld ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite in Windows Vista Business three times for each browser, then averaged the scores.
Three of the five major browsers were closely bunched at the top. Opera Software's Opera 11 Alpha, which the Norwegian company released last month, barely edged Firefox 4 Beta 7, which in turn narrowly beat the beta of Google's Chrome 8.
Meanwhile, results for Apple's Safari and Microsoft's beta of Internet Explorer 9 put that pair significantly behind the top three. For example, Firefox 4 Beta 7 was approximately 25% faster than IE9 Beta in the trials.
Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft's primary browser, was also tested, although for all intents and purposes, it isn't in the JavaScript race: Firefox 4 was more than 12 times faster at rendering JavaScript than IE8.
Not surprisingly, Mozilla boasted of the speed improvements courtesy of the JagerMonkey compiler, and its integration with the earlier TraceMonkey optimization of the browser's JavaScript engine.
On a company blog telling users to "fasten your seatbelts," Mozilla posted JavaScript results from tests run not only in SunSpider -- a benchmark developed by the team responsible for WebKit, the browser engine that powers Chrome and Safari -- but also in Mozilla's own Kraken and Google's V8.
In two of the three tests, Firefox 4 Beta 7 proved three times faster than Firefox 3.6.12, the current production build. (Mozilla said V8's results showed Firefox 4 was five times faster than 3.6.12.)In a clear reference to a switch of vehicle type, Nakamura added: “We need to take another path. I feel Z needs more revolution than evolution. I think GT-R has to stay the most high-performance symbol of Nissan technology and Z is a more affordable sports car or a sporty car to get the younger people.”
Blog - Is a Z crossover a wise move for Nissan?
Nissan executive vice-president Trevor Mann has supported Nakamura’s view. He told Autocar: “We do know that Z, as a sub-brand if you like, has high equity. The market is not like it used to be, though, so I think that if you do something, you’ll need to do something which is quite special, to attract the segment.”
When asked to comment directly on Nakamura’s statement, Mann said: “If that’s what Nakamura said, then I guess he might be right, in terms of re-establishing the links to something people can connect to.”
That’s likely to be a reference to price. It’s thought the new Z crossover will be notably cheaper than a £30k 370Z and its range-toppers could overlap with the lower-end editions of the Qashqai.
The new Z will be similar in size to the Nissan Juke although, unlike the current version of that car, the new model will be based on the Renault-Nissan Alliance’s latest CMF B platform. Its engine line-up will be able to include the full range of 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engines.
It’s unclear if the new model will be a coupé-esque three-door or if Nissan will include a pair of rear doors with hidden handles. It’s likely that the roofline will compromise rear cabin space for adults, though, making the Z crossover a car with occasional rear seats at best. The more extreme concept, which will be designed to gauge reaction after the Frankfurt show, may even be a two-seater only.
The new platform has the flexibility to accommodate hybrid powertrains, so it’s possible the concept at least will showcase a set-up featuring an electric motor to drive one of the axles.
Nissan is likely to argue that the GT-R has managed to mix strong performance credentials with a rear-biased four-wheel drive system and that a hybrid crossover can provide some of the same character - while potentially also offering zero-emissions running for short distances.
The Z should allow Nissan to compete in the lucrative middle ground on small crossovers, attracting buyers who don’t want as large a car as the Qashqai but who find the Juke too quirky nor not sporty enough.
The demographics of Juke buyers are said to have confounded Nissan product planners. The average age of Juke buyers is in the late 40s, but this is based on really young purchasers and a surprisingly large band of elderly customers.
A Z-badged crossover would also be a legitimate choice of vehicle for the Nismo tuning division. Nissan hopes to extend the sub-brand’s influence with cars like the forthcoming Pulsar Nismo, but senior figures insist it will not be applied to models that don’t allow it to deliver genuine performance credentials.It’s thought the continued strength of Juke sales has allowed Nissan to consider adding a further small crossover to its line-up.
The Juke is expected to evolve for its next incarnation, which will bring a switch to the same CMF B platform as the new Z crossover (and the next Micra) but only mild changes to its exterior styling.Author Message
NWN PROD
Joined: 10 May 2006
Posts: 23631
Location: SF Bay Area Joined: 10 May 2006Posts: 23631Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:40 am Post subject: Abhorer and Impiety Demo Comp. LPs Coming Soon
Abhorer Oblation II: Abyssic Demonolatries LP
DSR#5
Released by Devil Slut Records and distributed worldwide by NWN! Official release of the seminal 1989 demo Rumpus of the Undead by Singaporean masters of Black/Death, Abhorer. Also included is a recently unearthed and previously unreleased demo recorded in 1991.
Side A
Oblation II : Abyssic Demonolatries Demo 91 (unreleased demo)
1. Sabbatory (Intro)
2. Heathendom Incarnate
3. Abyssic Demonolatries
4. Abandonment of Chastity
5. Outro
Side B:
Rumpus of the Undead Demo 89
6. Intro: Revivification
7. Repudiated Faith
8. Rumpus of the Undead
9. Diabolic Epitaph
10. Profaned Immolation
-LISTEN-
Impiety Salve the Goat: Iblis Exelsi LP
ANTI-GOTH 363
Salve the Goat is a compendium of Impietys earliest and most savage recordings, including the ultra rare first demo from 1991. This is arguably the most important Black Metal recordings to emerge from the early 90′s Singaporean underground along with Abhorers early spells.
Side A:
1. Cuntblasphemy: Paganistic BitchGoddess Dei-Impalation
2. Magick-consecration Goatsodomy
3. Intromancy: Of Masse Acheronic Desolation
4. Ceremonial Necrochrist Redesecration
5. Pentagramathron
Side B:
6. Fallen Blasphemathory
7. The Seventh Goatspawn
8. Outroblation: Demonoccultic Rebirthment of Mammon
9. Intro
10. The Black Goat Messiah
11. Invocation of Satanic War
12. Out
Tracks 1-2: Salve the Goat 7 EP 1993
Tracks 3-8: Ceremonial NecroChrist Redesecration Demo 1992
Tracks 9-12: Reh Demo 1991
-LISTEN-
Out November
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NWN carries all IBP releases.
IBP carries all NWN releases.
Behold, the ancient gods of war! Singaporean originators of black death metal arise!Abhorer Oblation II: Abyssic Demonolatries LPDSR#5Released by Devil Slut Records and distributed worldwide by NWN! Official release of the seminal 1989 demo Rumpus of the Undead by Singaporean masters of Black/Death, Abhorer. Also included is a recently unearthed and previously unreleased demo recorded in 1991.Side AOblation II : Abyssic Demonolatries Demo 91 (unreleased demo)1. Sabbatory (Intro)2. Heathendom Incarnate3. Abyssic Demonolatries4. Abandonment of Chastity5. OutroSide B:Rumpus of the Undead Demo 896. Intro: Revivification7. Repudiated Faith8. Rumpus of the Undead9. Diabolic Epitaph10. Profaned ImmolationImpiety Salve the Goat: Iblis Exelsi LPANTI-GOTH 363Salve the Goat is a compendium of Impietys earliest and most savage recordings, including the ultra rare first demo from 1991. This is arguably the most important Black Metal recordings to emerge from the early 90′s Singaporean underground along with Abhorers early spells.Side A:1. Cuntblasphemy: Paganistic BitchGoddess Dei-Impalation2. Magick-consecration Goatsodomy3. Intromancy: Of Masse Acheronic Desolation4. Ceremonial Necrochrist Redesecration5. PentagramathronSide B:6. Fallen Blasphemathory7. The Seventh Goatspawn8. Outroblation: Demonoccultic Rebirthment of Mammon9. Intro10. The Black Goat Messiah11. Invocation of Satanic War12. OutTracks 1-2: Salve the Goat 7 EP 1993Tracks 3-8: Ceremonial NecroChrist Redesecration Demo 1992Tracks 9-12: Reh Demo 1991Out November_________________I don't read DMs.Contact: nwnprod@gmail.com Web: https://shop.nwnprod.com/collections/new-arrivals NWN carries all IBP releases.IBP carries all NWN releases.
Last edited by NWN PROD on Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
Tireheb
Joined: 18 Aug 2007
Posts: 11299
Location: Finland
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:43 am Post subject:
Impiety shirts too with that old logo?!
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OUT OF THE DUNGEON label website and distrolist:
https://outofthedungeon.net/ Wow...Impiety shirts too with that old logo?!_________________OUT OF THE DUNGEON label website and distrolist:
NWN PROD
Joined: 10 May 2006
Posts: 23631
Location: SF Bay Area Joined: 10 May 2006Posts: 23631Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:44 am Post subject: Tireheb wrote: Wow...
Impiety shirts too with that old logo?!
Yes, I will try to make both Abhorer and Impiety shirts with old imagery.
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Yes, I will try to make both Abhorer and Impiety shirts with old imagery._________________I don't read DMs.Contact: nwnprod@gmail.com Web: https://shop.nwnprod.com/collections/new-arrivals NWN carries all IBP releases.IBP carries all NWN releases.
DogsofWar
Joined: 01 Nov 2016
Posts: 85
Joined: 01 Nov 2016Posts: 85
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:20 am Post subject: This fuckin rules!!!
Any plans of vynil re release of zygotical sabbatory anabapt?
Acid Orgy
Joined: 23 Jan 2011
Posts: 1518
Joined: 23 Jan 2011Posts: 1518
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:24 am Post subject: Best news in a while, happy to obliterate my paycheck for these, Blood, Dr. Shrinker, Bombarder, etc...
NWN PROD
Joined: 10 May 2006
Posts: 23631
Location: SF Bay Area Joined: 10 May 2006Posts: 23631Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:29 am Post subject: DogsofWar wrote: This fuckin rules!!!
Any plans of vynil re release of zygotical sabbatory anabapt?
Yes, I'm working with Demon Slut Records on that as well. DSR is Cuntshredder of Impiety's label. I believe he's going to do a CD version of the Abhorer compilation.
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Yes, I'm working with Demon Slut Records on that as well. DSR is Cuntshredder of Impiety's label. I believe he's going to do a CD version of the Abhorer compilation._________________I don't read DMs.Contact: nwnprod@gmail.com Web: https://shop.nwnprod.com/collections/new-arrivals NWN carries all IBP releases.IBP carries all NWN releases.
Zombie Dance
Joined: 18 Sep 2009
Posts: 1865
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:41 am Post subject:
Abyssic Demonolatries being an exclusive track if I'm not wrong, awesome. Abhorer is by far my favorite band from that era/area along with Blood Angel (even though there were countless incredible bands in that scene).
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Zombi Danz Zine Distribution Catalog
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xABmg-_Piu28x53_-UlmQMDNuwkyr3mD Abhorer unhearted demo is pretty much the best news from the underground in a long long while.Abyssic Demonolatries being an exclusive track if I'm not wrong, awesome. Abhorer is by far my favorite band from that era/area along with Blood Angel (even though there were countless incredible bands in that scene)._________________Zombi Danz Zine Distribution Catalog
IIIRD GATEKEEPER
Joined: 02 Jan 2009
Posts: 4070
Location: Finland Joined: 02 Jan 2009Posts: 4070Location: Finland
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:46 am Post subject: Need both of these... hands down the best Impiety material, and can't wait to hear that Abhorer demo.
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Acid Orgy
Joined: 23 Jan 2011
Posts: 1518
Joined: 23 Jan 2011Posts: 1518
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:54 am Post subject: NWN PROD wrote: DogsofWar wrote: This fuckin rules!!!
Any plans of vynil re release of zygotical sabbatory anabapt?
Yes, I'm working with Demon Slut Records on that as well.
I thought the HHB version was still easy to get, but I see now it goes for shit prices these day. Will buy this new version if it will come with nice extras (mainly old pictures).
By the way, is the unreleased demo a studio recording or rehearsal stuff?
NWN PROD
Joined: 10 May 2006
Posts: 23631
Location: SF Bay Area Joined: 10 May 2006Posts: 23631Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:07 am Post subject: Acid Orgy wrote: NWN PROD wrote: DogsofWar wrote: This fuckin rules!!!
Any plans of vynil re release of zygotical sabbatory anabapt?
Yes, I'm working with Demon Slut Records on that as well.
I thought the HHB version was still easy to get, but I see now it goes for shit prices these day. Will buy this new version if it will come with nice extras (mainly old pictures).
By the way, is the unreleased demo a studio recording or rehearsal stuff?
It probably is, but that edition was essentially a bootleg as the band members weren't involved. I remember there was a guy from Malaysia or Indonesia trying to trick labels into releasing Abhorer. I know Xtreem Music (Dave Rotten) got tricked by this asshole and released the CD. The same guy tried to trick me but I found out before it was too late.
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It probably is, but that edition was essentially a bootleg as the band members weren't involved. I remember there was a guy from Malaysia or Indonesia trying to trick labels into releasing Abhorer. I know Xtreem Music (Dave Rotten) got tricked by this asshole and released the CD. The same guy tried to trick me but I found out before it was too late._________________I don't read DMs.Contact: nwnprod@gmail.com Web: https://shop.nwnprod.com/collections/new-arrivals NWN carries all IBP releases.IBP carries all NWN releases.
amon-goethe
Joined: 04 Feb 2012
Posts: 2255
Location: The wrong side of history Joined: 04 Feb 2012Posts: 2255Location: The wrong side of history
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:11 am Post subject: Awesome news
CR99
Joined: 26 May 2007
Posts: 11014
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:14 am Post subject: Acid Orgy wrote:
By the way, is the unreleased demo a studio recording or rehearsal stuff?
Rehearsal. I remember missing a copy of the tape on ebay around 10 years ago, never saw one before or since. Can't wait for these two releases!
NWN PROD
Joined: 10 May 2006
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Location: SF Bay Area Joined: 10 May 2006Posts: 23631Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:23 am Post subject: CR99 wrote: Acid Orgy wrote:
By the way, is the unreleased demo a studio recording or rehearsal stuff?
Rehearsal. I remember missing a copy of the tape on ebay around 10 years ago, never saw one before or since. Can't wait for these two releases!
I played a song at the recent KFJC radio show (9 to 10 pm slot).
You can find the MP3 archive here:
http://kfjc.org/broadcast_archives/index2.php
Nuclear War Now 11pm to 12am Aug 12 2017 MP3
Nuclear War Now 10pm to 11pm Aug 12 2017 MP3
Nuclear War Now Aug 12 2017 Playlist
Nuclear War Now 9pm to 10pm Aug 12 2017 MP3
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I played a song at the recent KFJC radio show (9 to 10 pm slot).You can find the MP3 archive here:Nuclear War Now 11pm to 12am Aug 12 2017 MP3Nuclear War Now 10pm to 11pm Aug 12 2017 MP3Nuclear War Now Aug 12 2017 PlaylistNuclear War Now 9pm to 10pm Aug 12 2017 MP3_________________I don't read DMs.Contact: nwnprod@gmail.com Web: https://shop.nwnprod.com/collections/new-arrivals NWN carries all IBP releases.IBP carries all NWN releases.
NWN PROD
Joined: 10 May 2006
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Location: SF Bay Area Joined: 10 May 2006Posts: 23631Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:24 am Post subject: CR99 wrote: Acid Orgy wrote:
By the way, is the unreleased demo a studio recording or rehearsal stuff?
Rehearsal. I remember missing a copy of the tape on ebay around 10 years ago, never saw one before or since. Can't wait for these two releases!
It's more like a home studio recording to my ears. It's definitely not a boombox recording in a reh space.
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It's more like a home studio recording to my ears. It's definitely not a boombox recording in a reh space._________________I don't read DMs.Contact: nwnprod@gmail.com Web: https://shop.nwnprod.com/collections/new-arrivals NWN carries all IBP releases.IBP carries all NWN releases.
CR99
Joined: 26 May 2007
Posts: 11014
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:38 am Post subject: NWN PROD wrote: CR99 wrote: Acid Orgy wrote:
By the way, is the unreleased demo a studio recording or rehearsal stuff?
Rehearsal. I remember missing a copy of the tape on ebay around 10 years ago, never saw one before or since. Can't wait for these two releases!
It's more like a home studio recording to my ears. It's definitely not a boombox recording in a reh space.
I clearly remember it was titled "Reh' 91" on the artwork insert but who knows. I used to have a picture of that tape, can't find it anymore.I recently checked up on the progress on the excellent looking board game adaptation of the 1986 film by Jim Henson, Labyrinth by game maker, River Horse and boy, am I glad I did as it appears that the game is nearly finished. Squeee!
Today is the last day to pre-order the game which is set for release this summer in the US, UK and EU. Game play has two stages—one has players traveling through the labyrinth in search of the Goblin King while trying to not fall into “oubliette” (you know, the place where you put people to “forget” about them?), and the second stage pits players against David Bowie’s character in the film, Jareth the Goblin King, in an effort to set Sara’s baby brother free from his clutches.
In addition to the highly detailed game board and a replica of the clock Jareth uses to count down the thirteen hours he gives Sarah to solve the puzzle of the labyrinth, there are also five game-play figures modeled after key characters in the film, loveable Ludo; the dwarf Hoggle; the worst babysitter ever, Sarah (played by actress Jennifer Connelly), Sir Didymus and his four-legged pal Ambrosius; and of course, Jareth the Goblin King, as played by David Bowie. It appears that the game will retail for about $50 and as I mentioned earlier, can be pre-ordered through the end of today, here. Images of the soon-to-be greatest board game ever, follow.
Game board and the sculpted figures from the upcoming board game, Labyrinth.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Jennifer Connelly auditions for ‘Labyrinth’, 1986This week I’m looking at provisioning with Redhat Satellite 6.2. Redhat Satellite 6 has become a bit of a lumbering beast. It does a lot of stuff but it’s not as straight forward as the old versions. Whilst patching remains probably the key function, the provisioning tools are quite powerful. I’ve been investigating this over the past few weeks. Here’s what I found out.
One of the first thing I discovered was that although RedHat have produced quite a bit of documentation for Satellite 6.2, because it’s become quite complex, there’s still bits missing. Hopefully this article will help you with the missing bits. So, on the provisioning side, Satellite can build VMs, including the VM definition itself, act as a DNS source or update DNS, act as a DHCP server, act a tftp server and a puppet server. These parts I have tested. It can also provision to AWS and Docker containers. These remain to be tested (but will be once I have a suitable test environment). The aim of Satellite provisioning is to supply more or less push button building of servers, VMs and presumably AWS EC2 instances and Docker containers. To achieve this, quite a lot of upfront configuration of Satellite is required, so let’s take a look at the prerequisites.
Prerequisites
The following Satellite components need to be set up for efficient Satellite provisioning. Although they do not all need to be in advance and it may seem like a lot of work to set up everything, setting up these prerequisites is pretty much a one off activity. As also mentioned it also greatly speeds up and simplifies the actual deployment process.
Lifecycle environment : A logical way of dividing up hosts depending on the type of environment they serve, e.g. development, user testing and production
: A logical way of dividing up hosts depending on the type of environment they serve, e.g. development, user testing and production Content View : a subset of the Satellite content, e.g. packages and puppet modules. This will built from specified yum repositories, which may be the RedHat repositories provided by Satellite or custom (see Creating a repository and adding it to a content view). You can also add puppet modules to the content view to make those available.
: a subset of the Satellite content, e.g. packages and puppet modules. This will built from specified yum repositories, which may be the RedHat repositories provided by Satellite or custom (see Creating a repository and adding it to a content view). You can also add puppet modules to the content view to make those available. Puppet Environment: Satellite can act as a puppet master and creates its own Puppet environments when you import Puppet modules into Satellite (see Setting up Puppet for Satellite)
Satellite can act as a puppet master and creates its own Puppet environments when you import Puppet modules into Satellite (see Setting up Puppet for Satellite) Content Source: these are created when Satellite is installed and will either be the Satellite server itself (via an internal capsule) or other capsules.
these are created when Satellite is installed and will either be the Satellite server itself (via an internal capsule) or other capsules. Subnets: These define subnets, VLAN IDs and boot modes for Satellite
These define subnets, VLAN IDs and boot modes for Satellite Compute Resource & Compute Profile: For VMs, these define the vCenters and the parameters supplied to VMWare to create the VM, e.g. number of CPUs, memory, etc.
For VMs, these define the vCenters and the parameters supplied to VMWare to create the VM, e.g. number of CPUs, memory, etc. Host Group: All |
Keukeleire extends with Orica-GreenEdge
Bewley and Hepburn re-sign with Orica GreenEdge
The 28-year-old has not signed a contract for next year but his agent has confirmed that there are several interested teams.
“Yes he is leaving GreenEdge,” Martijn Berkhout told Cyclingnews.
“We asked for more support in the Classics and they honestly answered that they’ll go for a different approach.”
“Then we made the decision it's better to make a move. Sebastian is 28, and these are his most crucial years so he needs a team which is 100 per cent focussed on Classics. In terms of material, teammates, staff etc.”
Langeveld signed for GreenEdge after winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and finishing fifth in the Tour of Flanders in 2011. A heavy crash in 2012 disrupted his Classics campaign but he returned to the fore this season, finishing tenth in Flanders, seventh in Paris-Roubaix and fifth in E3 Harelbeke.
Those results, and his age, have led to a number of teams enquiring about his services for 2014. Cyclingnews understand that one WorldTour in particular is leading the chase, although Berkhout would not confirm if that was Team Sky.
“Yes there is a lot of interest, but we look for something specific. A move back to a Dutch team is not likely right now,” Berkhout added.
“For now, it's important to go for a good result in Eneco Tour and show you are still there. Talks are in progress, some already for months and we will take a decision soon. But racing goes parallel to that.”
“We’re looking for a team with a strong Classic team, from number rider 9 until 1 but as well someone to share responsibility and leadership in the finals, to pair up with. Sebastian had a very consistent Classic campaign, but didn't win one. So it's normal he is not looking specifically for the sole leadership. He likes to share leadership, and is looking for a strong collective.”LIFE&STYLE
A major medical condition closely related to one’s biorhythm is bipolar disorder.The disease is characterized by repeated episodes of depression and manic periods. Compared to the manic phase, when the person is very active, in a good mood and full of confidence, the depressive phase tends to last for longer periods. Of course, the depressive period is more difficult for the patient to go through.The main symptoms of depression include decreased levels of enjoyment of activities, poor appetite, sleep disturbance, anxiety, low energy, physical pain, poor concentration, negative thoughts, regret and self-blaming, as well as thoughts of suicide or self-harm.Major depressive disorder (depression) is a disease that only features the depressive episodes, without the manic episodes. Compared to depression, bipolar disorder tends to occur in younger people (starting in their teens and 20s), and tends to recur frequently. It can be associated with mood waves, aggression, anger, impulsivity, or binge eating or excessive sleeping.Frequently comorbid psychiatric conditions are alcohol or substance abuse, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, panic attacks, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Alcohol, binge eating and substance abuse can also contribute to worsening depressive symptoms.Bipolar disorder is a disorder of the brain caused by changes in neurotransmitters, activity of brain synapses, and hormone imbalance. It is closely related to biorhythms as it can contribute to the expression or progression of the disease.The basis of someone’s biorhythm is their circadian rhythm. Insomnia and hypersomnia are symptoms of manic or depressive episodes, but disturbances to the sleep cycle can also contribute to the aggravation of the disease.The second is the menstrual cycle in women, particularly in the premenstrual period (approximately one week before menstruation), the postpartum period, or in the menopausal period, when there are changes in hormone levels. Depressive episodes during these periods are called premenstrual syndrome, postpartum depression and involution depression.The third is seasonal variation, which is closely related to exposure to sunlight. The northern hemisphere is exposed to the least amount of sunlight during the winter. Late autumn to early winter, when there is a gradually decreasing level of sunlight, is the period when mood disorders occur most often. In South Korea, the amount of sunlight during the rainy season in July is sometimes lower than winter, and mood disorders can also occur frequently during this season.The main treatment for bipolar disorder is drugs. Mood stabilizers such as lithium, valproic acid/divalporate, and lamotrigine are strongly effective for the remission of manic episodes and relapse prevention and preferably used over antidepressants during depressive phase. It is also important to correct biorhythmic factors that have a negative effect on the condition. It is important to maintain a regular sleep cycle, by going to bed early and waking up early in the morning, and maintaining regular eating and activity patterns. Exposure to sunlight (particularly in the morning) during the less sunny seasons, and preparing in advance for depressive periods (asking for help from family/friends, sleeping sufficiently) can also help.You should try not to eat too much, reduce the amount of stressors, and avoid alcohol use, binge eating, and habitual drug use such as appetite-controlling weight loss medication.In winter, light therapy can also be used. This is done using a light treatment box, similar to a desktop light. Bipolar disorder and depression are treatable conditions that can be modified by regular medication and healthy lifestyles.By Hong Kyung-sueHong Kyung-sue is a psychiatrist at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul and teaches at Sungkyunkwan University’s School of Medicine. ― Ed.Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann set out to read off all the shocking things Donald Trump has said on the campaign trail so far. The result: a very long video — running at 17 minutes.
Here’s just a small sampling of some of Trump’s remarks that came up:
The list goes on and on, with Olbermann’s tally of outrageous comments totaling 176 remarks. (And chances are Olbermann missed some comments. Trump talks a lot.)
It can be easy to just look at these comments and laugh at them — just another show of how wacky Trump is. But this is someone who’s running for president. We shouldn’t be numb to all of this — yet it seems we are, considering most of these comments did not get major media coverage in the same way other candidates’ gaffes have and do.
Earlier this week, Matt Yglesias noted how these ridiculous remarks have become normalized. After watching an interview earlier this week in which Trump made an offhand racist remark about Sen. Elizabeth Warren — calling her “Pocahontas” — and got basic facts on monetary policy wrong, Yglesias wrote:
Seriously. Stop. Take a breath. Now imagine if Mitt Romney had run exactly Mitt Romney’s campaign but then suddenly in mid-September went on television and called Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas for no reason. It would have been huge. … But the truly scary thing is that Trump is redefining the concept of a gaffe out of existence. It turns out that if you just boldly repeat something often enough, it goes away as a story. We’ve become numb, as a society, to what Trump is doing. In the process we’ve normalized casual racism, intense personal insults as an approach to politics, and completely decentered the idea that elected officials should grapple with difficult policy questions. Half the crazy things Trump says or does barely merit a mention on Twitter, much less the front-page coverage they would have merited in previous campaigns.
Trump may lose in November — if the polls are accurate, he likely will. But he has shown future politicians that they can numb everyone to some outrageous comments by simply making many such remarks over and over again. It’s hard to say what kind of effect this will have on future presidential campaigns, but it can’t be good.
Watch: This election isn’t just Democrat vs. Republican. It’s normal vs. abnormal.President Donald Trump will call on Monday for his chief trade adviser to investigate China's intellectual property practices, website Politico reported, citing an unnamed administration official.
Trump had been expected to order a so-called Section 301 investigation under the 1974 Trade Act earlier this month, but action had been postponed as the White House pressed for China's
cooperation in reining in North Korea's nuclear program.
Politico said it was not clear how much detail Trump would provide in his announcement, but that administration officials expected U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to open a
section 301 probe.
Officials at the White House and U.S. Trade Representative's office were not immediately available for comment.
Trump has suggested he would go easier on China if it were more forceful in getting North Korea to rein in its nuclear weapons program.
While China joined in a unanimous UN Security Council decision to tighten economic sanctions on Pyongyang over its long-range missile tests, it is not clear whether Trump thinks Beijing is doing enough.
"We lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year on trade with China. They know how I feel," he told reporters on Thursday. "If China helps us, I feel a lot different toward trade."
Trump will make a day trip to Washington, D.C., on Monday, briefly interrupting his 17-day August working vacation, a White House official said on Friday.
Politico said the investigation would not mean immediate sanctions, but would ultimately lead to steep tariffs on Chinese goods.The launch was scheduled for around 5:00 pm and I liveblogged the launching below. It was canceled but information is still coming in on what the problem was and when the next launch will be so I will continue to update the post throughout the remainder of the day. For some more information on the rocket itself see the Wikipedia page here.
----
11:00 pm or so: An article here says that an official announcement of the problem with the launch will be made tomorrow at 10:30 am, which would be evening in the US (9:30 pm in New York). Another one here says that the soonest another launch could happen would be in three days, and more if the launch vehicle has to be taken apart. We'll find out the details tomorrow morning then, and that's probably the extent of what we're going to find out today.
9:00 pm: Watching the news now and they say the problem was with overly low pressure of a high-pressure tank that was to move the valves of the launcher. The Russians involved with the launch are also saying that another launch should be possible in a few days after the valves are fixed, perhaps next Wednesday (exactly one week after today), although some others are saying that the launch may not be until September.
8:54 pm: This article says that they expect another launch attempt will be possible within the next few days. First the exact glitch needs to be found though and they haven't announced exactly what the problem was yet.
8:12 pm: Watching the news now where they are all talking about the delayed launch. Some are lamenting that the rocket is only composed of some 80% domestic technology. I think the numbers are something like 60% domestic technology for the first stage and 100% for the second. Another one says that Korea intends to spend 1 trillion won (almost a billion dollars) on space development by 2016.
7:29 pm: An article here mentions a statement from the centre that these types of delays are common amongst spacefaring countries, which is very true.
6:55 pm: We know that the problem was with the launching sequence, but this article says that there are 2000 types of data to be looked over which is what is making it take so long to find out exactly where the problem was.
6:01 pm: An article here references someone at the space centre saying that the problem was software-related, an error in the software controlling the launch time for the automatic sequence from the control centre. Not sure if that is the official word or not.
5:26 pm: All the VIPs have left the seats and no word on exactly what the technical problem was. A bit more talking about how it sucks that the launch was scrubbed and since there is no word on when the announcement will be made the broadcast has just ended. As I wrote below, I'll be updating the post as soon as we find out what the problem was and when the next launch will be. One article here says that the projected economic benefit from a successful launch would be up to 2.4 trillion won, or $1.9 billion USD. Benefits would be in national branding, technological spinoffs, etc.
5:17 pm: The director of the space centre Lee Ju-jin (이주진) just said that there will not be another launch attempt today and they are still looking at the problem. Here's what he looks like if you're curious.
5:09 pm: They're still talking about what the technical problem might be, and who knows how long it will take to find it or determine the next launch date. Not much more to liveblog about at the moment, but I have the TV on so I'll update at soon as they find out what the problem is.
5:06 pm: Ah, it was a "technical problem" with the automatic launching system, so apparently not with the rocket itself. Now they're lifting up the blue claws of the rocket erector to take it down. Sigh.
5:04 pm: Here comes the official announcement...the director of the space centre just made it but the reporters couldn't hear him on the microphone with the bad acoustics in the room. Heh.
4:57 pm: Looks like the fuel is going to be removed from the rocket soon. Apparently that means that a launch won't be able to happen for at least another four days. Still waiting for an official announcement on what happened.
4:53 pm: The countdown has stopped at T-7:56. Not sure what the reason is yet, whether this is a delay or a scrub. Could be a lot of reasons such as an airplane entering the no fly area. Still waiting for the reason for this.
4:52 pm: The liquid oxygen plume from the side of the rocket can barely be seen now...
4:51 pm: More numbers - no ships allowed within a 3 km radius of the launching area, contact with the satellite will take place 13 hours after launch...
4:48 pm: Lots of numbers now as we wait. Engine firing will start 3.8 seconds before launch, this is the result of 7 years of work, Korea and Russia decided to cooperate on the rocket in 2004, Korea began its first formal research into rocketry in 1988...
4:45 pm: T-14. Still no problems whatsoever.
4:43 pm: All systems now ready for launch. Automatic launch procedure to start in 15 minutes, after which it becomes quite difficult to stop the launch.
4:41 pm: Still waiting for final confirmation, looking at the people in the VIP seats. All old men. Switching back to the rocket and there's still not a cloud in the sky...tum te tum...
4:37 pm: Just said that they will confirm the launch time in about three minutes and there don't seem to be any problems with the projected 5 pm launch. The space centre has a media centre and they're talking with a reporter that is waiting on final confirmation.
4:36 pm: Talking now about how most countries have failed in their first rocket launches, but also noting that many of these were back in the 50s and 60s and technology has developed considerably since then.
4:32 pm: Talking with a reporter in the area that is with a group of people at a beach where the rocket launch will be able to be seen. Around 26 minutes to launch, though we're still waiting for confirmation on the exact time.
4:28 pm: Now switched to a woman giving an overview of how the rocket is going to launch and the facilities at the space centre. Here's an overview of the area from Google Maps for you.
View Larger Map
4:25 pm: Still no confirmation on if 5 pm is going to be the exact time.
4:23 pm: Weather is still good, not a cloud in the sky. The rocket can be launched in a temperature of up to 35 degrees and it's 28.3 in Jeollanam-do in the south of the country where the rocket is being launched from, with wind at 4.4 m/s, well within the maximum range of 15 m/s.
4:22 pm: Some basic facts about the rocket as we wait: 140 tonnes, 33 metres in height, and is carrying a 100 kg payload. Half of the rocket was developed with Russian technology and the other half with Korean technology. Fueling of the rocket finished at 3:53 pm. Everybody's excited and nervous.
4:21 pm: Showing about two dozen staff members in the Naro Space Center keeping an eye on the launch, which is being shown on ten screens of various size in front of them.
4:19 pm: They are now starting to check the upper part and range system of the rocket now.
4:17 pm: Coverage of the launch has been going on for at least a few hours now, and launch is set to happen in 42 minutes. On SBS they have Yi So-yeon (the first Korean in space) as well with the other commentators.CAMPAIGN
Poll: Bachmann surges to primary lead
Fresh off her well-received performance in last week’s Republican presidential debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann now tops the field of candidates in a new Zogby poll of Republican primary voters.
The poll found Mrs. Bachmann of Minnesota garnering 24 percent of the vote, well ahead of businessman Herman Cain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who each got 15 percent support.
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who officially announced his candidacy on Tuesday, scored just 2 percent support.
Mr. Romney has the air of inevitability about him - 37 percent of the 998 likely primary voters surveyed said they think he will win the nomination. The next closest candidate was Mrs. Bachmann, whom 7 percent of respondents predicted would win the nomination.
CAMPAIGN
Reid picks Huntsman in Mormon primary
He may not have wanted it, but Jon Huntsman Jr. apparently has an unlikely ally in Sen. Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate.
Both Mr. Huntsman and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are Mormon, as is Mr. Reid.
So on Tuesday, as Mr. Huntsman announced his candidacy for the Republican Party’s 2012 nomination, a reporter asked Mr. Reid how he felt about having two co-religionists in the Republican presidential contest and whether the country was ready to elect one of them president.
Mr. Reid ignored the gist of the question and went straight for his evaluation of the two men, head-to-head.
“I feel very comfortable that they’re not ready for - certainly, they’re not ready for the former governor of Massachusetts,” he said, speaking of voters. “Which says in that race, if I had a choice, I would favor Huntsman over Romney.”
SOUTH CAROLINA
No money to fund 2012 GOP primary
COLUMBIA — South Carolina will not fund the state GOP’s first-in-the-South presidential primary in February, leaving officials scrambling to sort out who will pay for it.
The Republican Party insists the primary will go on, even if the GOP must come up with as much as $1.5 million to run it.
“In no way is this primary in jeopardy,” said Matt Moore, the state GOP’s executive director.
The party could go back to running the primary with paper ballots and volunteers, which is how it was done until 2008. That year, Republicans and Democrats pushed for and won state funding for the wide-open White House primaries and the state election commission started running them.
But Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, a conservative who has been making a name for herself nationally, insists that taxpayer funds be used only for what she calls core functions. She told lawmakers earlier this year that those functions don’t include primaries.
ECONOMICS
Bachmann cites Canada as economic role model
Rep. Michele Bachmann apparently is turning north for economic inspiration to that great land of freedom - Canada.
In a Twitter posting Monday, the outspoken Minnesota Republican and presidential hopeful suggested the United States could learn a lot from the economic policies of its neighbor to the north.
“Lesson in economic recovery: Consider Canada. No stimulus & unemployment is 20% lower than US,” the Bachmann camp wrote, taking a swipe at the $830 billion stimulus package that the Democratic-controlled Congress passed and President Obama signed into law in 2009. Canadian officials did try to stimulate the economy, but at a far lower level than that tried by the Obama administration.
The tweet directs viewers to a chart on a June 16 post from John Lott, where the economist and conservative political commentator compared the Canadian and U.S. unemployment rates during the recession and recovery.
Mr. Lott also points out that the president’s stimulus package was three times bigger than Canada’s on a per capita basis and that “Obama raised marginal income tax rates while Canada has cut marginal tax rates.”
In the post, the Bachmann camp doesn’t mention anything about using Canada as a model for some of America’s other problems, including the rising cost of health care.
BOOK DEAL
Giffords has deal for a memoir
NEW YORK — Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut and Navy captain Mark Kelly, are working on a memoir that Scribner will publish at a date to be determined.
The book, currently untitled, will be an intimate chronicle of everything from their careers and courtship to the Jan. 8 tragedy when a gunman shot Mrs. Giffords, 41, in the head during a political event in Tucson, Ariz. Six people were killed in the attack and 12 others besides the congresswoman were wounded.
“Since Jan. 8, it’s been really touching to us to see how much support there is for Gabby and her recovery, and how much interest there is in how she’s doing and her story,” Mr. Kelly, who on Tuesday announced his retirement from the Navy and NASA, told the Associated Press during a recent interview from Texas.
“After thinking about it, and talking about it, we decided it was the right thing to do to put our words and our voices on paper and tell our story from our point of view.”
Mr. Kelly, 47, most recently was commander of the space shuttle Endeavour’s final mission, which ended June 1. His retirement is effective Oct. 1.
ETHICS
Complaint filed against GOP senator
The union representing Boeing Co. workers in Washington state has filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Lindsey Graham, alleging the South Carolina Republican is trying to pressure the National Labor Relations Board into dropping a suit targeting the aircraft manufacturer.
Mr. Graham calls the complaint an attempt to intimidate him and others and says he won’t be intimidated.
The complaint was filed May 20 and released by Mr. Graham’s office on Tuesday. It asks the Senate’s ethics committee to investigate comments by Mr. Graham.
The NLRB sued Boeing in April, saying the company built a non-union assembly plant in South Carolina in retaliation against union workers in Washington for labor strikes. The union says Mr. Graham’s comments on the issue constitute “threats.”
Mr. Graham has threatened to push to cut off funding to the NLRB.
GEORGIA
Congressman has early prostate cancer
SAVANNAH — Rep. John Barrow says he’ll undergo treatment for prostate cancer after being diagnosed at an early stage of the disease.
Mr. Barrow, a Democrat, released a statement Tuesday saying his doctors expect him to make a full recovery. He plans to begin radiation therapy next month.
His spokesman, Christopher Cashman, said the congressman was in a committee hearing Tuesday afternoon and doesn’t plan to let the disease slow him down. He said Mr. Barrow, 55, scheduled his treatments so that they would mostly fall in August, when Congress is in recess.
Mr. Barrow is serving his fourth term representing eastern Georgia’s 12th District.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Details Category: Interviews Published on Wednesday, 23 October 2013 08:12 Written by Neil Schneider
Something MTBS has always been proud of are the brilliant minds that frequent our forums and help build up the immersive technology industry from scratch. While Palmer Luckey's Oculus Rift has captured plenty of headline space, Lionel Anton is also in the VR running with his do-it-yourself InfinitEye head mounted display (HMD). Featuring super high field of view and affordable components, there is a lot of potential behind his team's VR work in progress - check it out!
MTBS: Welcome to the interrogation chair, Lionel! How did you first get interested in VR?
MTBS: HMDs have been around for decades. What suddenly made them more practical than before?
MTBS: For years, the consumer resolution limit for affordable HMDs was 640X480 pixels per eye. What was the fundamental change in how HMDs are put together that broke this barrier?
MTBS: Tell us about InfinitEye! How did this come about?
MTBS: On MTBS, you've described InfinitEye as an open source DIY ("do it yourself") effort. What does this mean? What are the benefits and limitations of open source HMDs? Can hardware really be open source?
MTBS: Are you at this alone? How big is your team? Who's involved?
MTBS: This looks like a big honking HMD! Is it as heavy as it looks? How much does it weigh compared to other products on the market?
MTBS: What is its current resolution? Are you aiming for more? Will panels be easy enough to find?
MTBS: Field of View (FOV) is a major selling point for you. How much FOV does InfiniteEye offer, and how does this compare to what we are actually capable of seeing? What is "horizontal stereoscopic FOV" and why is this different from the bigger number?
MTBS: You repeatedly talk about Fresnel lenses. What is a Fresnel lens? What characteristics does it bring to the InfinitEye and why is this important?
MTBS: What technology are you using for head tracking? Are there ideas you've been playing with?
MTBS: What is positional tracking? Do you think positional tracking will be an important part of your HMD's future design?
MTBS: What are your thoughts on Sixsense's STEM System. In particular, do you think their STEMs (their positional tracking devices) are adequate for being used as a head-tracking add-on for HMDs like yours? Why or why not?
MTBS: The Oculus Rift, which was also founded on MTBS, had the benefit of magic. John Carmack was posting in the MTBS forums and connected with Palmer here, Oculus got instant backing that almost seemed to fall from the sky - they pretty much had every advantage. What have InfinitEye's biggest challenges been so far, and how can the industry and gamers help?
MTBS: One of the byproducts of the Oculus Rift is the software development around it. Native VR games, VR drivers, new content...there seems to be a lot of software support we never had before with devices like this. Is Oculus content compatible with InfinitEye? What VR or 3D formats are best suited for InfinitEye?
MTBS: How are you connecting the InfinitEye to a PC? Is there more than enough bandwidth to push the imagery through at a high enough frame rate?
MTBS: Is there anything about current VR software development that goes against the grain of what InfinitEye needs? What changes should developers consider if any?
MTBS: What is your next step? What do you need to get your product launched, and how are you going about making that happen?
MTBS: Can fellow gamers and users recreate your work? What are the costs involved? Do you have to be an electrical engineer to do it?
MTBS: As a VR hardware maker, what software and products are you most looking forward to and why?
Thank you for joining us Lionel! We will be tracking your progress very closely! Fellow MTBS inventors and immersive tech movers and shakers are encouraged to reach out to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for articles and interviews.
More to come!
Lionel: I can't remember exactly how I got interested in VR in the first place, but I have a memory of a video game magazine from my childhood where there was a picture of someone with an HMD and a data glove interacting with a virtual world. The graphics would seem absolutely awful nowadays! I knew then that I wanted to experience something with such an immersion, but I never had the chance to even get close to that until I decided to make my own stereoscopic high field of view (FOV) display which I posted the concept on MTBS3D forums in August 2011.Lionel: There are many reasons, but the main reason is that the new generation of HMDs is really better and cheaper than before. Due to the fast development of mobile devices, we have better screens, better tracking chips, all for really low prices. There's also the fact that with more powerful GPUs, the correction of optical flaws is managed on the software side. This allows us to simplify the optics and use tablet-sized screens compared to complex optics in older HMDs that were made with micro displays.Lionel: The first affordable HMDs that broke the 640x480 barrier are Sony HMZ-T* series which are based on small OLED displays and the ST1080 which is based on LCOS displays - but none of them are designed for VR due to their limited FOV. On the other hand, the booming of mobile devices pushed manufacturers to improve the size and resolution of their panels which then started to be used by do-it-yourselfers (DIYers) for their homemade HMDs. That was the fundamental change that led to the emergence of true VR HMDs like the Oculus Rift and InfinitEye.Lionel: Everything started back in 2006 while I was building a DIY projector. I bought an old slide projector in which I found an aspheric lens used for light collimation. I was playing with it and I noticed how easy it was to focus on close objects looking through it. Being passionate about stereoscopy for a long time I immediately thought about making a high FOV 3D display; in other words a HMD. However until 2010 this was just an idea and screens were quite expensive anyways. Then I found a 7.2" HD LCD and the same kind of lenses on the internet, which I used to design my first wide FOV HMD. I then shared my work in progress (WIP) on the MTBS3D forums in August 2011. I left it there until I saw how enthusiastic people were about VR during the Oculus Rift Kickstarter campaign.I was seeing a lot of people making their DIY Rifts and I knew that a 90° field of view wouldn't be enough to satisfy my FOV addiction. I definitely wanted to design an HMD with a bigger FOV that could get the interest of the DIY community so I started doing research on a way to achieve what seemed to be unreachable, a field of view of at least 180°. Since flexible screens are unavailable for DIYers, two screens at an angle are necessary to reach that number, so I ordered two 5.6" 1280x800 panels and a ton of different lenses on the internet - including Fresnel lenses that were made out of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). Fresnel lenses used to be very bad due to smearing and bad light transmission, but not these ones because PMMA is a very clear material. I ended up stacking them up to get enough magnification and I made some calculations to optimize the angle between the screens to get the best compromise between stereoscopic overlap and peripheral vision.Later I heard that the 5.6" screens would no longer be available when Oculus had to switch to a 7" panel for their developer kit, so I ordered 7" screens and they turned out to be a better fit. I posted the design in the MTBS forums in February 2013, iterated a bit (actually there were three lenses stacked for each eye at the beginning, and now two of them), and asked for ideas on the name. MTBS member MSat proposed "InfinitEye" and I liked it.Lionel: That's what I wanted at the beginning. I wanted the community to improve the design, share their ideas and start something like an open source SDK for it. Unfortunately, I realized that besides the fact that people were enthusiastic about it, only one guy tried to build his own prototype based on my concept; the Dual Portal project from Hannibalj2. Then a friend of mine, Stephane, who saw the potential of the InfinitEye in its early stage, convinced me to enter the Samsung contest to try to get funding to make the technology available to people through a manufactured product. I think open source hardware can be a good thing by sharing knowledge between a lot of talented people to improve the technology, but it's possibly not what most people are waiting for when it comes to HMDs. My view is that they expect an end product which is a really different thing and requires a lot of personal and financial investment that automatically conflicts with open source philosophy.Lionel: Fortunately I'm not alone at this, two very good friends and I are forming what we unofficially call the InfinitEye team. We don't have a company yet, and since all three of us have full-time jobs, we are running the project on our free time.First there was only me. I'm a Software Engineer with seven years of professional experience in image processing and compression - I've been coding for about 16 years though. As a hobby, I've always been involved in personal projects, sometimes related to software, sometimes to hardware (even if I'm much more a software guy), the current one being the InfinitEye which combines both aspects.Then Stephane joined me. He has a strong technical background in IT and works as an international Project Manager for a famous aircraft manufacturing company on behalf of an IT services company. He is the one who pushed me to try to make something out of the InfinitEye project. Without him, I would have left the project as it was in February and moved on to something different. Within the project, he's focused on the management and communications parts, building up a network and raising funds.Later, Robin joined us to take care of the software part of the project. He's a talented 3D expert Software Engineer and Software Architect. He has notably developed the 3D game engine we are using for our demos and has implemented all the specific algorithms related the head-tracking and distortion corrections.Lionel: Yes it can be seen as a little bulky, but I guess that's not really a problem since it's not as heavy as it looks. Actually the InfinitEye is only an empty box with two screens on one side, Fresnel lenses on the opposite side, and air in between. The two screens weigh 160g and the four lenses about 90g. The total weight including the case, light blocking foam and elastic band is about 390g which is approximately the same as the Oculus Rift developers kit (DK). The new prototype with a different head mount weighs 100g more but it is actually more comfortable since the weight is better distributed over the head.Lionel: The resolution of our current prototypes are 1280x800 per eye, but what really matters in terms of resolution in HMDs is the angular resolution. With the InfinitEye, the 1280 pixels are spread over a 150° FOV for each eye which gives an angular resolution of 8.5px/°. Ideally we'd like to source 7" LCDs with a 4:3 aspect ratio to increase the vertical FOV (for instance 1920x1440), but I don't think such panels exist so our best target would be WUXGA panels (1920x1200) like the ones used in the new Nexus 7. This would lead to an angular resolution of 12.5px/°for the InfinitEye Full HD compared to 10.6px/°for the Oculus Rift HD.Lionel: I would say that for a device whose only purpose is to fake the sense of vision, the FOV is the key factor to get a true immersion. To give you an idea, a 60° FOV or less is like looking at the virtual world through a window. With a 90° FOV like the Oculus Rift, you are closer to the window and you start feeling a great sense of immersion, but with the 210° FOV that the InfinitEye offers, you actually are inside the world with the window behind you. Horizontal stereoscopic FOV is the part of the vision where the two eyes see the same objects in the virtual world and the brain can make a 3D representation of them. Because of the nose, humans have a limited stereoscopic vision between 90°and 120°. Everything beyond that is only seen by one eye on each side and is called peripheral vision. The human FOV is typically 180°when looking straight forward, and up to 270° when turning the eyes left and right. The InfinitEye headset tries to mimic that as much as possible with its 210°FOV total and a 90° stereoscopic overlap.Lionel: A Fresnel lens is a type of lens invented by a French physicist Augustin Fresnel in the beginning of the 19th century. Its main advantage compared to conventional lenses is its flatness which allows it to be relatively large without a significant weight gain.The InfinitEye design takes advantage of this feature to maximize the size of the lenses without having them overly thick, so the FOV is not restricted by the lense's edges unlike other HMDs. The largest dimension of the lenses is 125mm while conventional lenses of the same size could not even be used to achieve the required magnification since it would have to be thicker than the distance between the eyes and the screens, and I can't imagine how much they would weigh.Lionel: We are using an off-the-shelf component with 3 DOF (degrees of freedom) tracking, the YEI 3-space sensor embedded. It is a really fast component, capable of streaming the data from the three axis gyro, accelerometers and compass at a 1000Hz rate. In the videos that we showed until now on my YouTube channel, we used the integrated orientation computation embedded in the chip but the perceived latency wasn't really good due to the 250Hz refresh rate and the lack of prediction. However, Robin has recently implemented the sensor fusion algorithm on the computer side and the orientation prediction based on angular acceleration to minimize the error in the best way. |
decarbonization is likely to require an ambitious, focused agenda of rapid innovation and improvement in every critical technology area, even those commercially available today, as well as substantial ‘demand pull’ efforts and policies to ensure early demonstration, industry maturation, scale‐up, and ‘learning by doing’.25, 23 Economic Costs The relative cost of goods, services, and public policies heavily influences the decisions of consumers and policymakers. The huge variance in the treatment of the costs of implementation of the various decarbonization studies—from detailed evaluations of capital and operating costs to no discussion at all—is therefore striking. Of particular interest is the incremental investment that would be required to meet aggressive carbon emissions targets by 2050. Where such additional costs are projected, they range from $350 billion to several trillion per year, based on a wide range of assumptions.4 The IAM‐based scenarios21-23 consider economics by definition, but none report incremental investment costs in an obvious way. Five of the other studies provide incremental investment data that can be compared here. Greenpeace/EREC project the incremental cumulative investment to be $7 trillion by 2030, or $350 billion per year. The IEA WEO 450 Scenario estimates the additional cumulative spending to be $18 trillion through 2035, or an average of $720 billion per year. McKinsey estimates additional investment costs over the baseline of approximately $650 billion per year in 2020 and $950 billion per year in 2030. The IEA Blue Map scenario would require an incremental investment of $46 trillion from 2010 to 2050, or $1150 billion per year over the baseline investment. In the Energy Policy papers,17, 18 Jacobson & Delucchi state that ‘energy costs will be similar to today’. However, in their Scientific American article,60 they suggest that ‘overall construction cost for a WWS system [the authors’ wind, water, and solar 100% renewables scenario] might be on the order of $100 trillion worldwide, over 20 years, not including transmission'. With the exception of the $100 trillion case cited by Jacobson & Delucchi, the range of energy system incremental investment is approximately 20–50% over the baseline investment, or in the range of 1% of global GDP. Finally, as noted below, none of the studies seriously address the costs associated with integration of large amounts of variable generation. Integration into Energy Systems and Associated Infrastructural and Operational Challenges Several scenarios depend heavily on intermittent power generation technologies, primarily wind, and solar PV. Their technical feasibility therefore also depends on their treatment of the various issues related to integration of such variable sources into power systems.61 In general, those studies that acknowledge the challenges associated with integrating large quantities of intermittent generation invoke the same set of options. Broadly these are ‘smart grid’ and demand response technologies for more dynamically balancing electricity supply and demand, high‐voltage transmission expansion and larger geographic balancing areas, some kind of energy storage, and using excess generation to produce hydrogen as an intermediate fuel. Only one study (Worldwatch) explicitly makes reference to the potential need for increased amounts of flexible gas‐fired capacity for load matching, and only one study (Jacobson & Delucchi) notes the importance of improved forecasting of variable power production. The Jacobson & Delucchi papers provide by far the most detailed and comprehensive overview of related work that has been done in the areas of integration of dispersed variable resources, storage, demand response, and vehicle‐to‐grid (V2G) technologies. The remainder of the papers that address integration issues essentially do so conceptually, simply by referring to the need for one or more of the integration methods discussed above. In general, these scenarios do not include any detailed discussion of technology status, development timeframes, infrastructure investment costs, or requisite policy frameworks needed to prompt the development and large‐scale deployment of these technologies. All of these key supportive technologies have their own research, development, and demonstration gaps that must be addressed through a significant expansion of current activities.25 The pace and cost of technology development and deployment for these supportive integration methods is therefore a critical determinant of the technical feasibility of any scenario relying heavily on intermittent electricity sources. To illustrate this point, proper system‐wide accounting of the back‐up generation and/or storage, additional transmission, and ancillary services needed to integrate large amount of intermittent generation could increase the total per MWh costs of these generation sources by twofold or more at high penetration levels.62-65 The transformation of transportation energy brings its own system integration challenges. For example, requirements for modifications or re‐building of existing local electrical distribution systems for widespread vehicle charging and/or energy storage are uncertain.63 Transitions to alternative liquid or gaseous fuels such as ethanol or hydrogen will require new production, storage, and distribution systems, with major infrastructure implications. According to NREL, the expansion of the retail infrastructure for alternative fuels may pose greater issues than fuel costs, resources, or production capacity.66 Social Acceptability and Other Noncost Barriers For the most part, the studies examined do not address social acceptability and noncost issues such as the availability of key materials, land use, convenience, labor, and governance constraints. However, these constraints may be as significant as technical and economic hurdles. Opposition to nuclear power is well known, but opposition to large‐scale wind farms, on‐ and off‐shore, as well as associated transmission, has surfaced as a serious issue in Germany, the USA, the UK, and other countries with large‐scale wind energy deployment. Likewise, large solar thermal plants or centralized PV plants as well as run‐of‐the‐river hydroelectric plants have been the subject of opposition and litigation in the USA and elsewhere. CCS has been the subject of proposed bans in Germany and opposition in principle by some in the USA.67 Areas with significant energy demand are often densely populated, and the level of infrastructure expansion required in nearly all of these studies are likely to test the limits of social acceptability; greater transparency in future studies on the infrastructure footprint and its public acceptability would be useful. Other noncost constraints are perhaps less clear but nonetheless relevant. For example, the studies which assume majority to near universal penetration of electric vehicles in every region of the world fail to acknowledge consumer attitudes and convenience factors that have so far limited market penetration. Likewise, significant governance constraints may limit the safe expansion of nuclear energy in some regions or, arguably, even CCS. More granular analysis of these issues needs to be understood by decision‐makers pursuing any of the scenario pathways.
CONCLUSION Several key findings emerge from this review as follows: First, the empirical benchmarks introduced herein, including historical carbon intensity and energy intensity improvement rates and normalized energy technology capacity deployment rates, are useful comparators to assess the relative feasibility of global decarbonization scenarios. This kind of benchmarking can (and should) both guide the scenario building community in constructing and testing actionable decarbonization strategies and help policy makers interpret the results of such studies. Second, all of the scenarios examined envision historically unprecedented improvements in the energy intensity of the global economy (see Figure 3). Since 1970, global energy intensity improved by greater than −1.5%/year during only a handful of years. Yet, even the least aggressive scenarios herein entail sustaining worldwide improvements of −1.6 to −1.9% each year for the next four decades (and beyond). Achieving these rates would require a significant and discontinuous acceleration of worldwide energy efficiency efforts. Future studies should more closely examine the relative feasibility of the wide range of energy intensity improvement rates envisioned by global decarbonization scenarios. Third, when normalized based on the scale of global economic resources available, total electricity capacity deployment rates are generally consistent with historical experience (see Figure 6). However, the decarbonization scenarios herein entail a wholesale and immediate shift to low‐carbon electricity deployment and the rapid scale‐up of several less‐mature industries (i.e., solar PV and thermal, wind, and CCS). Fourth, three studies stand out in this review as exceptional: Jacobson & Delucchi, Worldwatch, and WWF. Notably, these studies all aim to demonstrate the feasibility of energy efficiency and renewable energy‐dominated decarbonization strategies and thus normatively constrain the available portfolio of low‐carbon technologies by excluding, a priori, nuclear energy and/or CCS. To accomplish deep decarbonization with this limited portfolio, this group of studies depends on sustaining global energy intensity improvements for decades at a rate twice as fast as the most rapid energy intensity improvement experienced in any single year in recent history and roughly 3.5 times faster than the average global rate sustained from 1970 to 2011 (Figure 3). Furthermore, these studies call for normalized capacity additions of the remaining eligible low‐carbon energy technologies of 5–23 GW/year/$T of GDP (Figure 6). In contrast, normalized global generation capacity of all types grew by just 1.5–3 GW/year/$T of GDP from 1965 to 2010. Given the multiplicity of feasibility challenges associated simultaneously achieving such rapid rates of energy intensity improvement and low‐carbon capacity deployment, it is likely to be both premature and dangerously risky to ‘bet the planet’ on a narrow portfolio of favored low‐carbon energy technologies. Fifth, these studies present comparatively little detail on strategies to decarbonize the industrial and transportation sectors, despite the importance of these sectors. With multiple low‐carbon electricity generation options and the possibility of wider electrification, the power sector will invariably be central to global decarbonization efforts. Nevertheless, reducing industrial and transportation sector emissions will not be accomplished through electrification alone, and decarbonization scenarios should focus greater attention on the challenges associated with these sectors. Finally, these studies tend to only superficially address the key technical, economic, infrastructural, and societal factors that may constrain a rapid energy system transition or how such constraints can be plausibly overcome. We recognize that detailed treatment of these factors is beyond the scope and purpose of many of these studies, which are intended to address at a relatively high‐level the scope and pace of energy system transformation required under different assumptions or to suggest the portfolio of technologies necessary to decarbonize the energy sector. However, this point may be lost on lay audiences and the media through which these studies are reported. To be reliable guides for policymaking, these types of scenarios clearly need to be supplemented by more detailed analyses addressing the key constraints on energy system transformation, including technological readiness, economic costs, infrastructure and operational issues, and societal acceptability with respect to each of the relevant technology pathways. Hopefully, this paper will provide additional context to the readers of such studies and to policy makers, who must move beyond thought experiments to identify practical paths forward.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the helpful comments of Sam Thernstrom and Mike Fowler. Jesse Jenkins is also supported by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship program. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
NOTES 1 For a complementary effort to develop historical benchmarks for energy capacity expansion in decarbonization scenarios, see C. Wilson, et al. “Future capacity growth of energy technologies: are scenarios consistent with historical evidence?,” Clim Change 2013, 118: 381–395.
For a complementary effort to develop historical benchmarks for energy capacity expansion in decarbonization scenarios, see C. Wilson, et al. “Future capacity growth of energy technologies: are scenarios consistent with historical evidence?,” 2013, 118: 381–395. 2 Wilson et al. (2013) employ an alternative approach to benchmarking capacity addition rates, which normalizes capacity additions based on total primary energy consumption. However, as energy intensity of the economy declines over time, economic growth partially decouples from energy consumption. This implies that normalizing based on primary energy consumption, as in Wilson et al. (2013), may under‐estimate the scale of societal resources available to deploy energy infrastructure in the future while simultaneously under‐estimating the relative scale of societal resources invested in historical capacity additions. While the approach in Wilson et al. (2013) normalizes the capacity addition rates to reflect the growing scale of global energy systems, our approach should better reflect the changing availability of societal resources to invest in energy infrastructure over time. The practical result is that future deployment rates will compare more favorably to historical capacity addition rates under our normalization based on global GDP than under normalization based on global final energy consumption.
Wilson et al. (2013) employ an alternative approach to benchmarking capacity addition rates, which normalizes capacity additions based on total primary energy consumption. However, as energy intensity of the economy declines over time, economic growth partially decouples from energy consumption. This implies that normalizing based on primary energy consumption, as in Wilson et al. (2013), may under‐estimate the scale of societal resources available to deploy energy infrastructure in the future while simultaneously under‐estimating the relative scale of societal resources invested in historical capacity additions. While the approach in Wilson et al. (2013) normalizes the capacity addition rates to reflect the growing scale of global energy systems, our approach should better reflect the changing availability of societal resources to invest in energy infrastructure over time. The practical result is that future deployment rates will compare more favorably to historical capacity addition rates under our normalization based on global GDP than under normalization based on global final energy consumption. 3 This finding is consistent with Wilson et al. (2013) despite differing methods for historical benchmarking.
This finding is consistent with Wilson et al. (2013) despite differing methods for historical benchmarking. 4 In particular, any cost estimates are highly sensitive to the choice of baseline relative to which incremental costs are assessed.
FURTHER READING D MacKay. Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air. UIT Cambridge: 2009. Available at: http://www.withouthotair.com.
. UIT Cambridge:. Available at: http://www.withouthotair.com. Jaccard M. Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy. Cambridge University Press; 2006.
. Cambridge University Press;. Smil V. Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects. Santa Barbara: Praeger; 2010.
. Santa Barbara: Praeger;. California Council on Science and Technology. California's Energy Future: The View to 2050. CCST, 2011. Available at: http://www.ccst.us/publications/2011/2011energy.pdf.MB Media/Getty Images
Grzegorz Krychowiak has left Paris Saint-Germain on a season-long loan to join West Bromwich Albion.
The Baggies announced via their official website that Krychowiak has joined the club on a temporary basis, and the player confirmed the move via his own Twitter account:
Krychowiak has signed a season-long loan deal with West Brom and will look to give manager Tony Pulis some added steel in midfield.
The 27-year-old established himself as one of the most fearsome destroyers in European football during his two years with Sevilla, and he won back-to-back UEFA Europa League titles with the Spanish side in 2015 and 2016.
However, tasked with a more technical role in the French capital, Krychowiak struggled to make an impact with PSG, starting just 11 matches in all competitions last season.
Indeed, the midfielder's best work undoubtedly lies in regaining possession for his side rather than his technique or distribution of the ball.
Krychowiak's reading of the game is exceptional, and he shines when breaking up play, intercepting passes and winning physical duels in midfield—few can match him at his best.
While he may not have been well-suited to the demands placed on him at the Parc des Princes, if utilised correctly, he can be a magnificent acquisition for West Brom and make them far more robust in the centre.Ex-President George W. Bush has been counter-signaling the Donald Trump administration in recent days, slightly more than a month into the Trump era.
In Trump’s battle with the partisan media Bush has sided openly with the press, saying that a hostile media is “indispensable to democracy.” He went on to imply that the likes of CNN and NBC are necessary to keep Trump from abusing his power. Bush appeared to side with US Senator and neo-conservative warmonger John McCain against Trump’s assertion that the hostile media is the “enemy of the people.”
Bush attacked Trump’s Alt-Right supporters too and the growing nationalist tide, saying “Yes, I don’t like the racism and I don’t like the name-calling and I don’t like people feeling alienated.”
None of this is much of a surprise given that Trump ran strongly against George W. Bush’s record, condemned his war in Iraq and made the Bush family one of his favorite punching bags during the campaign.
Though the Trump administration is just getting started we already see the extent to which the Republican establishment (especially congressional leaders) are going to fight him every step of the way. They are far more aligned with the liberal media, past presidents and Big Business/globalist interests than they are with us. It means that the president will likely be unable to fully impliment his America First agenda even though “his” party controls the government. It reminds us that we still need truly revolutionary change. In this environment the Alt-South has much work to do in building a Southern Nationalist media platform and organizing the core of movement which can take advantage of the Trump era to point the way towards a brighter future that won’t include the likes of Bush, the hostile media and DC establishment.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Titanic Belfast is giving anyone called Jack or Rose free entry during its Movie Month.
From November 19 to December 19, anyone named after the two lead characters in the hit movie Titanic, or variants of the names, will get free entry as the attraction marks 20 years since the blockbuster's release.
This includes variants of the names ranging from French Jacques to Polish Rozycka and a full list of variants is available on its website.
Visitors should bring ID (birth certificate, passport or driving license) to gain their complimentary admission at the Box Office to the Titanic Experience.
The celebrations do not stop there, as Titanic Belfast has a blockbuster line-up of events to mark the occasion.
Kicking off its programme of events is a red-carpet movie-themed Titanic Afternoon Tea and Movie Experience on Sunday, November 19, and Tuesday, December 19.
They are also organising the Titanic Drive-In Movie Experience on November 29, where fans have the chance to win golden tickets to watch the 11 time Oscar winning tragic romance under the stars as it's screened at the exact spot where the original ship was designed, built, and launched.
And for one month only, from November 19 to December 19, guests to Titanic Belfast can star in their own Titanic Experience by following the Movie Magic trail, enjoying themed hospitality and re-creating their own'meet me at the clock' photo opportunities on the green screen.
For a full programme of events, and for full Terms and Conditions visit www.titanicbelfast.comJean Giraud, aka Moebius, was a comic book artist who combined blinding speed with boundless imagination. He shaped the look of Alien, Empire Strikes Back and The Fifth Element. He reimagined the Silver Surfer for Stan Lee. And he is an acknowledged influence on everyone from Japanese animating great Hayao Miyazaki to sci-fi writer William Gibson.
In 1996, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada published a lecture given by Moebius called “Breve manual para historietistas” – a brief manual for cartoonists – which consists of 18 tips for aspiring artists. If your Spanish isn’t up to snuff – mine certainly isn’t – then there are a couple translations out there. Someone called Xurxo g Penalta cranked out a direct version in English, but to get the true nuances of Moebius’ wise words, famed illustrator William Stout’s excellent annotated version is best.
For instance, Moebius’s first tip is “When you draw, you must first cleanse yourself of deep feelings, like hate, happiness, ambition, etc.”
Stout amplifies this with the following:
Divorcing yourself from such emotionally blinding pre-conceptions allows you to see things with fresh eyes. Solutions and ideas then flow with much greater ease. I have noticed with all the creative geniuses I have met that they all share a childlike delight with whatever or whomever they encounter in life (they can even find amusement in life’s villains). For them, all creative barriers are down; life and creative problem solving for them is like constantly playing. They gush great ideas all day long like a fountain.
This was something I learned from drawing and hanging out with another Frenchman, the brilliant cartoonist-illustrator (and regular Atlantic Monthly contributor) Guy Billout, when we were traveling together in Antarctica and Patagonia back in 1989. Until I spent time with Guy, I had no idea how many pre-conceived notions and assumptions I held within me regarding people and situations and what a block they were to the flow of my creativity.
All of Stout’s annotations are like this. It should be required reading for anyone even vaguely interested in visual storytelling. Below are Moebius’ original observations. Stout’s thoughts on Moebius can be found here.
1) When you draw, you must first cleanse yourself of deep feelings, like hate, happiness, ambition, etc.
2) It’s very important to educate your hand. Make it achieve a level of high obedience so that it will be able to properly and fully express your ideas. But be very careful of trying to obtain too much perfection, as well as too much speed as an artist. Perfection and speed are dangerous — as are their opposites. When you produce drawings that are too quick or too loose, besides making mistakes, you run the risk of creating an entity without soul or spirit.
3) Knowledge of perspective is of supreme importance. Its laws provide a good, positive way to manipulate or hypnotize your readers.
4) Another thing to embrace with affection is the study of [the] human body — it’s anatomy, positions, body types, expressions, construction, and the differences between people.
Drawing a man is very different from drawing a woman. With males, you can be looser and less precise in their depiction; small imperfections can often add character. Your drawing of a woman, however, must be perfect; a single ill-placed line can dramatically age her or make her seem annoying or ugly. Then, no one buys your comic!
For the reader to believe your story, your characters must feel as if they have a life and personality of their own.
Their physical gestures should seem to emanate from their character’s strengths, weaknesses and infirmities. The body becomes transformed when it is brought to life; there is a message in its structure, in the distribution of its fat, in each muscle and in every wrinkle, crease or fold of the face and body. It becomes a study of life.
5) When you create a story, you can begin it without knowing everything, but you should make notes as you go along regarding the particulars of the world depicted in your story. Such detail will provide your readers with recognizable characteristics that will pique their interest.
When a character dies in a story, unless the character has had his personal story expressed some way in the drawing of his face, body and attire, the reader will not care; your reader won’t have any emotional connection.
Your publisher might say, “Your story has no value; there’s only one dead guy — I need twenty or thirty dead guys for this to work.” But that is not true; if the reader feels the dead guy or wounded guys or hurt guys or whomever you have in trouble have a real personality resulting from your own deep studies of human nature — with an artist’s capacity for such observation — emotions will surge.
By such studies you will develop and gain attention from others, as well as a compassion and a love for humanity.
This is very important for the development of an artist. If he wants to function as a mirror of society and humanity, this mirror of his must contain the consciousness of the entire world; it must be a mirror that sees everything.
6) Alejandro Jodorowsky says I don’t like drawing dead horses. Well, it is very difficult.
It’s also very difficult to draw a sleeping body or someone who has been abandoned, because in most comics it’s always action that is being studied. It’s much easier to draw people fighting — that’s why Americans nearly always draw superheroes. It’s much more difficult to draw people that are talking, because that’s a series of very small movements — small, yet with real significance.
His counts for more because of our human need for love or the attention of others. It’s these little things that speak of personality, of life. Most superheroes don’t have any personality; they all use the same gestures and movements.
7) Equally important is the clothing of your characters and the state of the material from which it was made.
These textures create a vision of your characters’ experiences, their lives, and their role in your adventure in a way where much can be said without words. In a dress there are a thousand folds; you need to choose just two or three — don’t draw them all. Just make sure you choose the two or three good ones.
8) The style, stylistic continuity of an artist and its public presentation are full of symbols; they can be read just like a Tarot deck. I chose my name “Moebius” as a joke when I was twenty-two years old — but, in truth, the name came to resonate with meaning. If you arrive wearing a T-shirt of Don Quixote, that tells me who you are. In my case, making a drawing of relative simplicity and subtle indications is important to me.
9) When an artist, a real working artist, goes out on the street, he does not see things the same way as “normal” people. His unique vision is crucial to documenting a way of life and the people who live it.
10) Another important element is composition. The compositions in our stories should be studied because a page or a painting or a panel is a face that looks at the reader and speaks to him. A page is not just a succession of insignificant panels. There are panels that are full. Some that are empty. Others are vertical. Some horizontal. All are indications of the artist’s intentions. Vertical panels excite the reader. Horizontals calm him. For us in the Western world, motion in a panel that goes from left to right represents action heading toward the future. Moving from right to left directs action toward the past. The directions we indicate represent a dispersion of energy. An object or character placed in the center of a panel focuses and concentrates energy and attention. These are basic reading symbols and forms that evoke in the reader a fascination, a kind of hypnosis. You must be conscious of rhythm and set traps for the reader to fall into so that, when he falls, he gets lost, allowing you to manipulate and move him inside your world with greater ease and pleasure. That’s because what you have created is a sense of life. You must study the great painters, especially those who speak with their paintings. Their individual painting schools or genres or time periods should not matter. Their preoccupation with physical as well as emotional composition must be studied so that you learn how their combination of lines works to touch us directly within our hearts.
11) The narration must harmonize with the drawings. There must be a visual rhythm created by the placement of your text. The rhythm of your plot should be reflected in your visual cadence and the way you compress or expand time. Like a filmmaker, you must be very careful in how you cast your characters and in how you direct them. Use your characters or “actors” like a director, studying and then selecting from all of your characters’ different takes.
12) Beware of the devastating influence of North American comic books. The artists in Mexico seem to only study their surface effects: a little bit of anatomy mixed with dynamic compositions, monsters, fights, screaming and teeth. I like some of that stuff too, but there are many other possibilities and expressions that are also worthy of exploration.
13) There is a connection between music and drawing. The size of that connection depends upon your personality and what’s going on at that moment. For the last ten years I’ve been working in silence; for me, there is music in the rhythm of my lines. Drawing at times is a search for discoveries. A precise, beautifully executed line is like an orgasm!
14) Color is a language that the graphic artist uses to manipulate his reader’s attention as well as to create beauty. There is objective and subjective color. The emotional states of the characters can change or influence the color from one panel to the next, as can place and time of day. Special study and attention must be paid to the language of color.
15) At the beginning of an artist’s career, he should principally involve himself in the creation of very high quality short stories. He has a better chance (than with long format stories) of successfully completing them, while maintaining a high standard of quality. It will also be easier to place them in a book or sell them to a publisher.
16) There are times when we knowingly head down a path of failure, choosing the wrong theme or subject for our capabilities, or choosing a project that is too large, or an unsuitable technique. If this happens, you must not complain later.
17) When new work has been sent to an editor and it receives a rejection, you should always ask for and try to discover the reasons for the rejection. By studying the reasons for our failure, only then can we begin to learn. It is not about struggle with our limitations, with the public or with the publishers. One should treat it with more of an aikido approach. It is the very strength and power of our adversary that is used as the key to his defeat.
18) Now it is possible to expose our works to readers in every part of the planet. We must always keep aware of this. To begin with, drawing is a form of personal communication — but this does not mean that the artist should close himself off inside a bubble. His communication should be for those aesthetically, philosophically and geographically close to him, as well as for himself — but also for complete strangers. Drawing is a medium of communication for the great family we have not met, for the public and for the world.Transcript for Car Thieves' Hi-Tech Gadgets Baffle Police
It's after midnight the perfect time for these burglars to break into cars. They're not worried about getting caught they have technology that'll allows them to quietly commit the crime. Long Beach police say they've never seen anything like it. We've shown this video to experts in the field. And everybody right now news. They don't know what it is look closely at the suspect -- left he's holding a device in his left hand. It disables the car alarm and unlocks the door to an Acura TL. The suspect in a plaid shirt on the right has the same device and gets inside the Acura SUV. The burglars try to unlock a Ford Escape in a Cadillac but they don't succeed. Police say six other cars in Eldorado was states were broken -- -- on the same morning February 26. They -- jeeps there -- Mazda is I think one was BMW. And the victims -- we talked to them told us they were positive that -- the cargo doors. The homeowner had just installed the security cameras two weeks before the break in. Police say to avoid being victimized its best to make sure you don't leave any personal belongings in your vehicle even if you lock the doors. Detectives hope somebody will recognize the suspects in the video and come forward so police can find out what their -- -- -- giving them the upper hand. Reporting in Long Beach analysts McBride -- BC seven Eyewitness News.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.Stats based on all the characters currently released in the Japanese Version.
Level 65 Image
Character Realm HP Attack Defense Magic Resist Mnd Acc Eva Spd Tyro JOB 4482 88 87 87 87 87 23 23 113 White Mage JOB 2645 63 53 79 118 109 23 23 99 Black Mage JOB 2314 63 45 109 103 79 23 23 99 Ranger JOB 2976 79 67 75 75 79 27 23 111 Bard JOB 2645 60 63 92 101 92 23 23 99 Summoner JOB 2281 53 47 108 115 93 23 23 99 Red Mage JOB 2678 65 54 101 94 96 23 23 99 Gladiator JOB 4209 104 92 75 79 75 23 23 103 Ninja JOB 3241 105 74 79 79 79 23 23 144 Dragon Knight JOB 3508 99 91 87 63 75 23 23 123 Spellblade JOB 3157 102 83 99 79 75 23 23 113 Dark Knight JOB 3263 105 85 88 82 75 23 23 83 Viking JOB 4209 107 86 60 75 75 23 23 98 Samurai JOB 3796 103 96 75 91 75 23 23 103 Warrior of the Light FF1 5263 134 135 78 90 78 23 23 102 Wol FF1 4572 135 94 80 100 90 23 30 158 Echo FF1 3365 62 69 155 133 75 23 23 130 Sarah FF1 3498 83 67 100 120 151 22 23 115 Garland FF1 5104 142 110 100 95 70 22 23 102 Maria FF2 3753 105 76 138 125 115 23 23 121 Leon FF2 4894 130 129 109 85 90 23 23 125 Firion FF2 4600 138 98 95 90 95 23 23 119 Minwu FF2 3839 83 67 110 120 150 23 23 127 Josef FF2 4253 141 88 86 86 86 23 25 145 Gordon FF2 4228 121 89 129 119 121 23 23 127 Ricard FF2 4530 132 122 104 76 100 23 23 155 Leila FF2 4253 133 95 80 100 90 23 23 158 Luneth FF3 4400 136 132 76 71 80 23 23 91 Refia FF3 4436 138 84 82 93 95 23 23 149 Arc FF3 3451 83 77 120 135 142 23 23 127 Ingus FF3 5091 128 146 76 100 90 23 23 104 Desch FF3 4099 115 90 145 105 70 23 23 127 Rydia FF4 3408 80 68 154 130 110 23 23 127 Cecil (DK) FF4 5488 140 105 76 80 95 23 23 105 Cecil (Paladin) FF4 5260 130 148 76 100 95 23 23 105 Porom FF4 3365 64 67 159 135 155 23 23 127 Kain FF4 4832 138 116 95 76 100 23 23 155 Golbez FF4 4530 110 110 135 130 70 23 23 105 Tellah FF4 3667 70 67 140 130 145 23 23 127 Edward FF4 4208 106 85 123 110 88 23 24 138 Rosa FF4 3839 96 76 100 125 148 23 23 127 Edge FF4 4271 137 87 100 105 90 23 30 164 Fusoya FF4 3537 70 68 143 118 142 23 23 127 Palom FF4 3365 75 67 100 135 155 23 23 127 Lenna FF5 3449 83 67 118 116 152 23 23 127 Galuf FF5 5010 135 115 102 102 100 23 23 149 Bartz FF5 4700 140 105 95 90 95 23 30 130 Gilgamesh FF5 5300 132 143 120 100 95 23 23 105 Faris FF5 4010 125 80 80 93 90 23 29 164 Exdeath FF5 3800 83 78 150 130 135 23 23 105 Krile FF5 3667 80 76 154 135 75 23 23 120 Terra FF6 4314 90 76 148 130 100 23 23 127 Locke FF6 4745 137 92 80 100 90 23 30 164 Celes FF6 4452 134 94 130 150 100 23 23 129 Shadow FF6 4530 135 87 100 105 90 23 30 164 Relm FF6 3451 79 67 132 130 148 23 23 127 Cyan FF6 4616 139 109 86 86 100 23 23 129 Edgar FF6 5091 135 140 80 100 95 23 23 119 Sabin FF6 5260 142 116 76 76 95 23 23 142 Mog FF6 4665 124 104 106 120 135 23 26 149 Setzer FF6 3969 118 82 100 100 105 23 23 125 Strago Magus FF6 3710 70 74 138 120 135 23 23 127 Kefka FF6 3883 110 81 135 135 50 23 23 127 Gau FF6 4551 136 90 115 80 110 23 27 150 Sephiroth FF7 5031 153 108 97 102 97 |
bone marrow precursors, and which also regulates their migration, proliferation as well as function 35. Anti‐inflammatory properties of G‐CSF have also been known 36. A very recent study using a spontaneous metastatic memory carcinoma model showed that the number of MDSC in the spleen directly correlated with G‐CSF transcript levels 37. Differential accumulation of tumor infiltrating monocytic MDSC over granulocytic MDSC in tumor‐bearing hosts mediated by chemokines, particularly G‐CSF has also been demonstrated 38.
We further showed that the effect of THC was independent of TLR4 and mediated directly through activation of both CB1 and CB2. This observation was supported by the findings that CB1 or CB2 select antagonists could block MDSC induction by THC partially but significantly and was confirmed using CB1‐ and CB2‐deficient mice. It has been shown that bone marrow is the source of large numbers of CD11b+Gr‐1+ precursors 6, 29. In this study, THC seemed to cause the migration of CD11b+Gr‐1+ MDSC from bone marrow. THC also induced the proliferation of migrated MDSC in the periphery as evidenced by significant proportion of actively proliferating MDSC in the peritoneum of THC injected mice. Various cell types including macrophages, endothelial cells and fibroblasts are known to express CB1 and CB2 39. THC may activate CB1/CB2 on these cells to induce the secretion of mediators such as G‐CSF and KC (CXCL1). Inasmuch as, G‐CSF and KC have been shown to induce the development, migration and expansion of granulocytes, particularly neutrophils, it is highly likely that these molecules may play a crucial role in MDSC induction. We have noted that unlike the i.p. administration of THC, i.v. injection does not result in robust induction of MDSC in spleen, lungs and peritoneum although a significant induction in the liver was seen (data not shown). This may result from the fact that i.p. injection of THC may activate resident cells in the peritoneal cavity such as fibroblasts or immature macrophages that are known to produce G‐CSF 40. This is also supported by our observation that high levels of G‐CSF were found in the peritoneal cavity washings after THC injection by the i.p. route. Although G‐CSF is primarily known to promote neutrophil differentiation from bone marrow precursors, it is possible that G‐CSF by itself or other factors such as KC induced by THC or a combination of G‐CSF and THC may promote mobilization of CD11b+Gr‐1+ MDSC and arrest their differentiation into mature neutrophils or macrophages. Currently, we are further testing this possibility.
We observed that a single dose of THC, as low as 5–10 mg/kg, was able to induce significant levels of MDSC in mice, which is clinically relevant. Based on the body surface area normalization method 41, this translates to human equivalent dose of 15–30 mg/m2 (0.40–0.81 mg/kg). In cancer patients, the dose of THC (dronabinol or Marinol®) recommended is usually 2.5–20 mg/m2/day (0.068–0.54 mg/kg), as an anti‐emetic treatment during chemotherapy. Chan et al. demonstrated that rats injected with 50 mg/kg body weight of THC had a serum concentration of 10 μM THC within 10 h of administration 42. Azorlosa et al. showed that levels as high as 1 μM could be attained in the plasma of humans after recreational use of marijuana 43, and in a separate report, it was shown that THC can get preferentially concentrated 15‐ to 20‐fold in some tissues 44. Such levels of THC may lead to significant suppression of the immune response, leading to increased susceptibility to opportunistic infections and cancer. In fact, it was shown that treatment of mice with doses of 8 mg/kg significantly suppressed the responses of mice to infection with Legionella pneumophila 34. In light of these, our results suggest that THC, at a pharmacological or recreational dose, may induce MDSC and cause immunosuppression.
Studies from our laboratory suggest that cannabinoids are a double‐edged sword. On one hand, cannabinoids can suppress malignancies of the immune system by inducing apoptosis of tumors that express cannabinoid receptors 45. On the other hand, because they suppress anti‐tumor immune response, they promote growth and metastasis of cannabinoid receptor‐deficient tumors such as breast cancer that are resistant to cannabinoid‐induced apoptosis 46. Epidemiological studies have shown that marijuana smokers are more susceptible to certain types of cancer 47, 48. It is possible that induction of MDSC by cannabinoids may make an individual more susceptible to certain types of cancer, particularly those which do not express cannabinoid receptors. We previously showed that THC promotes the growth and metastasis of 4T1 mammary tumors that lack cannabinoid receptors by suppressing anti‐tumor immunity 46. Recent studies have suggested that 4T1 tumor growth is associated with MDSC induction 49. Thus, it is tempting to speculate that THC further enhances induction of MDSC which may be responsible for the accelerated growth and metastasis of 4T1 tumors and studies are in progress to address this in detail.
This study unravels a new mechanism by which cannabinoids trigger immune suppression. These findings are important in several ways: (i) THC is currently used clinically to ameliorate nausea and vomiting as well as stimulate appetite during chemotherapy in cancer patients, and HIV/AIDS‐infected patients and to lower intraocular eye pressure to treat glaucoma 50. Thus, it is important to know if such a treatment would impact the immune system and pose health hazards. As MDSC are known to promote tumor growth, our observations indicate that THC treatment in cancer patients may potentiate adverse effects. (ii) As CB2 is expressed only on immune cells, CB2 select agonists may constitute better anti‐inflammatory agents with less nonspecific toxicity than the currently available anti‐inflammatory agents. Thus, the demonstration that CB2 activation leads to MDSC which in turn may help suppress inflammation may provide novel avenues to develop anti‐inflammatory agents. (iii) Our studies shed light on the potential role of endocannabinoids that activate cannabinoid receptors on MDSC induction and consequent regulation of inflammation.The smile was priceless, a rare spontaneous moment in the Olympic pressure cooker that will go down as one of the most enduring images of the Rio Summer Games.
Andre De Grasse had cruised up alongside Usain Bolt in their 200-metre semifinal and flashed the Jamaican giant a wide grin. The slender, five-foot-nine De Grasse could have been the precocious little brother challenging the six-foot-five big brother. Bolt couldn't help but crack a smile.
It may as well have been a race between just two. Behind them, six other sprinters strained to keep up.
In his Olympic debut, and just his second true season in the sport, the 22-year-old dared to race the greatest sprinter of all time, and his youthful charm had Canadian fans smitten.
De Grasse, who raced to three Olympic medals in Rio, has been voted the winner of the Lionel Conacher Award as the Canadian Press male athlete of 2016.
"I just try to have a lot of fun when I'm competing because I know how hard it is during training," De Grasse said. "And there are always going to be ups and downs with sports, but I have to remember to always just be motivated because I know I inspire a lot of people, and I want to show them it's a fun sport, I want to lift up the sport, especially in Canada."
The Markham, Ont., sprinter earned 43 votes (66 per cent) in the annual survey of editors and broadcasters from across the country.
League of his own
De Grasse won silver in the 200 metres in Rio and bronze in both the 100 and 4x100-metre relay.
"No Canadian has ever done that," said CBC's Scott Russell. "De Grasse competes in the deepest of all sports. He competed against the greatest sprinter of all time. In addition, he helped erase a 20-year-old Canadian record in the 4x100-metre relay which had been held by a squad anchored by Donovan Bailey and which resulted in Olympic Gold in 1996."
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was second with 18 votes (28 per cent).
"Sidney Crosby is an amazing athlete so any time I'm in the conversation with him, that feels pretty good," De Grasse said from Phoenix. "I'm really happy to win the award."
High jumper Derek Drouin, who won gold in Rio, earned two votes, while Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers and tennis star Milos Raonic each received one.
"In any other year, it could have gone to Derek Drouin or Milos Raonic or Sidney Crosby or Joey Votto or... But Andre De Grasse did something we haven't seen in a generation and he did it with such a sense of enjoyment," said Bev Wake, Postmedia's senior executive producer of sports. "With Usain Bolt the best sprinter in history, finishing second in the 200-metre race was almost as good as gold."
Canada's Andre De Grasse and Jamaica's Usain Bolt share a laugh as they compete during the men's 200-metre semifinals at the Rio Olympics. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)
De Grasse recently completed his sociology degree at USC, keeping a promise he made to his mom. He celebrated his graduation with a couple of friends in Las Vegas, and is now back in Phoenix training with McMillan for the upcoming season.
He said the magnitude of his accomplishments didn't sink in until well after Rio.
"It really hit me when I went home and I saw the reaction from a lot of the fans that watched me in Rio, and just being at home in Toronto and getting lot of love whenever I go places, that's when I kind of realized what I had accomplished," De Grasse said. "A lot of people were like 'Oh you're going to be the next Olympic gold medallist.'
"I have to remember that even though all these people are telling me this I still have to continue to work hard and accomplish that because it's not going to be overnight. But it really feels good to make a lot of those people proud and especially my family and friends, they're really proud of what I accomplished in such a short time."
Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price was last year's winner of the Conacher Award, which has been handed out since 1932 and is named for the all-rounder voted Canada's athlete of the half-century in 1950. The illustrious list of past winners also includes Steve Nash, who won it three times, Crosby (three), and Wayne Gretzky (seven). Bailey was the last track and field athlete to win it in 1996.
The winner of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as female athlete of the year will be revealed Tuesday.Medical personnel removed a fan who had been injured by a broken bat in the second inning.
This story was reported by Peter Abraham, Michael Vega, Alex Speier, and Travis Andersen of the Globe Staff and Globe Correspondents Matthew MacCormack and Wayne Epps Jr. It was written by Andersen.
A woman suffered serious injuries after she was struck in the face by the shard from a broken bat that flew into the stands in front of horrified fans during the Red Sox game at Fenway Park on Friday night, officials said.
With the fans enjoying the game on a cool evening, and their team leading 1-0 in the second inning, Oakland Athletics batter Brett Lawrie hit a ball and shattered his bat, leaving only the handle in his hands while the barrel of it went screaming into the crowd. It struck the woman, who was sitting with a man and her son near the visitors’ dugout on the third base side, and her screams could immediately be heard by fans and even those listening to the game on the radio. Authorities have described the injuries as life-threatening.
Paramedics and police rushed to the seats as the game was stopped and fans covered their mouths and either stared at the commotion, or looked away intentionally.
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A Boston police officer scooped up the young boy who was with her and shielded his eyes from the scene, and players from both teams stood outside their dugouts and peered into the stands with grave expressions on their faces. Red Sox president Larry Lucchino was seen down on the field with the emergency workers.
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After several minutes of medical attention, the woman was placed on a stretcher, with blood visible on much of her clothing, and wheeled behind home plate, in front of the Red Sox dugout, and out of the park, screaming in pain while thousands looked on with concern.
Related Links View Gallery Photos from the scene
As she was rushed off the field, fans stood and applauded softly. The game resumed less than a minute after her gurney left the field.
In a video recorded by a fan at the game, and posted on the website Deadspin, the victim’s wails could be heard as EMTs rushed her toward a tunnel underneath Fenway.
The incident occurred around 7:40 p.m. as the woman sat in the second row at the ballpark, between home plate and the visitors dugout, just beyond the protective screen that shields the plate area, according to police and witnesses.
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The woman, who was not identified, was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said Boston police Officer Rachel McGuire, a department spokeswoman. There was no word on her condition late Friday night.
At 7:45 a.m. Saturday, Beth Israel spokeswoman Jennifer Kritz said the hospital is not providing any information regarding the condition of the woman at this time.
The team’s principal owner, John Henry, also owns the Globe.
Red Sox manager John Farrell said after the game that the incident was “a scary moment.”
“Our thoughts and concern and certainly our prayers go out to the woman who was struck with the bat, her, and her family,” Farrell said. “All you can think about is a family coming to a ballgame to hopefully get three hours of enjoyment and unfortunately with how close our stands are to the field of action... an accident like this tonight, it’s certainly disturbing.”
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A security guard who witnessed the accident said the woman suffered serious injuries to her face. A boy sitting near the woman was shaken up, according to the guard.
Lawrie said after the game that he did not initially realize the severity of the woman’s injuries because he was running to first base when the bat sailed into the stands. He glanced back briefly toward the stands while running out his hit.
“Then in between innings is when things kind of got serious and I realized there was a bit of an issue,” Lawrie said. “Hopefully everything is OK and she’s doing all right.... That was just unfortunate right there, no doubt.”
Asked if anything can prevent such injuries, Lawrie said, “The only thing there, you’ve got limited netting here in Boston. When you’re behind home plate and you’re along the third base side and first base side, you’ve really got to be heads-up for foul balls, anything coming into the stands, because it’s so close there’s really no time to react.
“You try to keep her in your thoughts,” he said. “Hopefully everything is all right.”
Red Sox centerfielder Mookie Betts said after the game that he heard the woman screaming and turned away at the gruesome sight of her injury.
“You never want to see anything like that,” Betts said. “You always try to focus on the game, but it’s always scary when something like that happens. Hopefully we can find some way to prevent those things but accidents happen. I just hope she’s OK.”
A number of fans also witnessed the accident, including Alex Merlas of Brookline.
“Brett Lawrie hit the ball and the bat snapped in half near the end of the bat,” Merlas said. “It hit on the forehead to the top of the head... it was a blunt trauma and it was a lot of blood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much blood.”
Arvald Karp of Boston said: “She seemed in shock, she was not aware of what was going on, pushing help away. She was pushing the towel away, and she was out of it.”
“They had so many EMTs around her face and chest area,” said Mike Pelosi of Wilimington. “You could barely see her.”
Deven O’Brien, of Lunenburg, said the bat flew into the stands at a dangerously high speed.
“People were ducking,” he said.
Bats flying into the stands is not a new issue for Major League Baseball. After several similar incidents, the league studied the issue in 2008 and made changes to bat regulations. Since 2009, the league says multi-piece bat failures are down about 50 percent.
Red Sox chairman Tom Werner echoed the thoughts of his manager.
“Just terrible,” he said of the incident. “My prayers go out.”
Peter Abraham can be reached at pabraham@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @PeteAbeA drug dealer has been jailed for life for stabbing to death a “much-loved son and brother” when he intervened to protect his friend.
Osman Musa Mohamed, 20, from Woolwich, was today sentenced at the Old Bailey to a minimum prison term of 22 years for the murder of Ahmed Ahmed in Plumstead on August 10, 2015.
The victim was knifed a number of times in the leg outside the block of flats where he lived. Police believe he was set upon at Turton House on Barnfield Road as he stepped in to prevent a group of men from attacking a friend.
His sister saw the masked mob approaching but ducked out of sight before the killers struck, the court heard. Today in a statement, Ahmed’s family said they were “heartbroken and traumatised”.
“He had his whole life ahead of him,” relatives said. “We loved him so much, the pain will never go away and we will never be the same again."
Ahmed’s partner added: "I was Ahmed's girlfriend and we were planning our future together. Two days before he was killed Ahmed proposed to me.
“I later found out I was pregnant with Ahmed's child but then suffered a miscarriage. I am now living alone in the flat we chose together. This has changed my life forever.”
Detective Chief Inspector Rebecca Reeves, of the Met's Homicide and Major Crime Command, said: "Ahmed was set upon just metres from his front door by a group of men who had clearly gone there to commit violence.
"It only took a few seconds to inflict the injuries that resulted in Ahmed's death. In that brief moment, they robbed a family of a much-loved son and brother.
“One of Ahmed's sisters found him lying in the doorway, something she will have to live with for the rest of her life."
She added: "The defendant was involved in drug dealing, and the group had gone to the flats to attack another man. It appears that Ahmed died as he tried to prevent this from happening.”
Officers continue to investigate the killing and have appealed specifically for information regarding the whereabouts of Ismail Saleban, 22, who they fear may have left the country for Denmark.
Five other men were acquitted of involvement in Mr Ahmed’s murder.
Hussein Roble, 18 (25.05.97) from Woolwich, and a 20-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons were cleared.
Sazzad Khan, 20, of no fixed address, was acquitted of murder but sentenced to six months in prison on February 17 for breach of an ASBO.
The case against Khalid Hashi and Hamza Dodi, 24, (12.10.91), both from Woolwich, was discontinued on 22 February.Sigi Schmid wants to return in 2016, but he knows there’s work to be done in the offseason if Sounders FC wants to win that elusive first MLS Cup in franchise history.
The Sounders head coach said that he’ll leave his fate up to club ownership now that Seattle’s season has come to an end, done in by FC Dallas in a wild second leg of the Western Conference Semifinals on Sunday night in Frisco, Texas. The Sounders and FC Dallas tied 3-3 on aggregate over the two-leg series before Dallas won in a penalty shootout, denying the Sounders a return to the Conference Championship for the third time in four seasons.
The 62-year-old Schmid has led the Sounders to the postseason each of their seven years in MLS, but they have yet to reach and MLS Cup final, let alone win the postseason crown, something that Schmid said is the primary goal for the franchise.
“The Cup is what we still haven’t given them yet,” Schmid said. “We’ve given them four Open Cups, we’ve given them a Supporters’ Shield. Our trophy case has a lot more in it than Dallas’, as an example.
“But I really appreciated the turnout of our fans today, the support that they gave us in those three games at CenturyLink [Field], and like I said, there’s nothing I want to do more – and there’s nothing the guys in the room want to do more – than to bring an MLS Cup back to Seattle. Hopefully one day that will happen.”
When asked if he wanted to return in 2016 to try and make that happen, Schmid said: “Yeah. But obviously that’s not my decision. That’s ownership’s decision and they’ll decide that. But I feel fine, and I still feel capable of coaching.”
Schmid signed a multi-year contract extension in December after leading the team to the Supporters’ Shield and the U.S Open Cup title, the fourth in franchise history.
Schmid added that he’s well-aware the club may need to make some player personnel moves during the offseason, and it’s unclear if the team’s core of players that won a Supporters’ Shield last year and drove the team back to the postseason this year will remain intact.
“That’s something I’ve got to think about, and we’ll make decisions on that,” he said. “I thought the team did well considering all the obstacles and all the difficulties we had this season and people being out … At the end of the day I think they showed a lot of character, a lot of desire, the three games in a week, winning all three of those games. And pulling one back today when we went down, 1-0.
“I think there’s a lot of character that’s been brought out by this team. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.”The Four Corners' expose comes just days after West Australian Liberal Senator Chris Back introduced a so-called "ag gag" bill into Australian Federal Parliament. The law, if passed, would make the type of investigation Animals Australia, Animal Liberation Queensland and Four Corners have undertaken into the greyhound industry impossible. That is, of course, the point of such legislation.
The debate over ag gag laws has already been had in the US, so we have a good idea what is coming. Ag gag laws seek to duplicate existing trespass laws, but they do so with a twist. Typically, they seriously increase penalties; make it illegal to distribute or broadcast images that have not been surrendered to the police; and create a crime of seeking employment with the aim of exposing animal suffering.
In other words, ag gag laws are intentionally designed to ensure animal activists are unable to let the community know about socially invisible animal suffering.
Greyhound racing in NSW is overseen by an independent body called Greyhound Racing NSW. That body has multiple responsibilities, including animal welfare. Yet, despite that explicit remit, Greyhound Racing NSW told a 2014 NSW Government inquiry it had no evidence live animals were being used as bait.
For its part, the RSPCA told the inquiry it had good reason to suspect the occurrence of live baiting, particularly in cases where greyhound owners were also housing small bait animals. According to Australia's premier animal welfare enforcement agency, the inference was clear "that live baiting probably occurs at these properties... [but] that the current legislation is insufficient for prosecution".Pregnant woman who was hogtied by traffic cops after they pulled her over for talking on her cell phone wins $250,000 payout
Victim says she'll forever fear police, meanwhile the arresting officers remain on the force
The pregnant Los Angeles woman who was brutally hogtied by California Highway Patrolmen in August 2011 after being pulled over for chatting on her cell phone while driving has finally received retribution in the form of a $250,000 settlement.
According to the LA Times, Tamara Gaglione, 30, was hauled away and charged with misdemeanor evading and resisting arrest and driving on a suspended license.
Those charges were dropped, however, once Gaglione's terrible treatment was revealed in footage from the cruiser's video camera.
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Busted: Tamara Gaglione's was pulled over in her minivan by California Highway Patrolmen in 2011 for using a cell phone while driving
For the additional offense of driving while using a cell phone, Gaglione plead no contest.
The footage captured from the police cruiser shows Gaglione's minivan weaving through Los Angeles traffic and eventually pulling to a stop on the shoulder of the congested 101 Freeway.
Gaglione is seen exiting her car and standing motionless, staring dazedly at the the camera.
'I'd never seen a gun for real before,' Gaglione reportedly said later. 'I just froze. I was scared they'd shoot me.'
Shocked: Gaglione said she was merely confused, but officers drew their guns nonetheless
According to the patrolmen who pulled her over, Officers Daniel Hernandez and Roberto Martinez, Gaglione then raised her arm in an aggressive manner and refused to follow their orders.
Brutalized: Though she claims she never behaved aggressively, footage shows Gaglione thrown brutally to the ground
It is unclear in the grainy video exactly how aggressive, if at all, Gaglione was toward the cops. What is clear, though, is that Hernandez and Martinez drew their weapons on the unarmed Gaglione as they approached her and forced her onto the ground.
Hernandez later claimed Gaglione did not tell them of her pregnancy until after she was on the ground, but Gaglione said she told the officers as they approached her.
Once she was face-down, Hernandez kneed Gaglione in the back, he said, to allow for Martinez to more easily handcuff her.
Maximum Force: Officers Daniel Hernandez and Roberto Martinez claim Gaglione was kneed in order to easily handcuff her
The scene became increasingly absurd as two more patrolmen came to came to the assistance of Hernandez and Martinez.
Footage then shows yet another two officers showing up to the scene, bringing the total number of police surrounding the pregnant, cuffed, and face-down woman to six.
Lots of backup: Six officers total, including Hernandez and Martinez, eventually surrounded the pregnant Gaglione
Hogtied, Gaglione was subsequently taken away in a patrol car.
Gaglione filed suit against the department and the officers involved, but the video evidence that eventually won Gaglione $250,000 this past November was not immediately forthcoming. Gaglione's attorney Howard Price claimed that Hernandez failed to check a box on the arrest report stating a video camera had, in fact, recorded the incident.
But the footage was eventually uncovered and the California Highway Police settled the case out of court and the officers were never required to testify, nor was the video ever submitted as evidence. The CHP has not commented on the case and the two arresting officers remain with the force.
Meanwhile, the now far richer Gaglione has left Los Angeles with her now 9-month-old son and, she says, she'll be forever terrified by the police.NO Payne, no gain.
Prop Jarrod Wallace believes the Queensland pack are ready for another Andrew Fifita onslaught in Wednesday night’s State of Origin decider after his teenage “clone” Payne Haas lived up to his name at Maroons training on Sunday.
Queensland wanted a member of the Maroons under 20s team to play the Fifita role at their opposed session at their Gold Coast camp but got more than they bargained for with 17-year-old Haas.
ORIGIN INDEX: Full stats for every player who’s ever played
The 117kg, 194cm Haas made his presence felt at Queensland’s main session ahead of Origin III at Suncorp Stadium, injecting plenty of venom into defence and requiring plenty to bring him down with the ball.
Australian Schoolboy Haas — 18 in December — showed why he had been pursued by up to 10 NRL clubs before signing with Brisbane until 2019.
Payne Haas celebrates NSW’s win in the under 18s State of Origin last month. Source: Getty Images
“He was a Fifita clone,” Wallace said of Haas.
“That was under 20s? You’ve got to check their birth certificates.
“I tried to go high on him (Haas) a couple of times and he just kept pushing me off.
“I can’t believe that is his name, Payne. He’s a big boy.”
Wallace believed it was the ideal tune up for them before Blues wrecking ball Fifita returns to the venue of his game one heroics with the series on the line.
“It’s good to get that 13-on-13 opposed (at training),” Wallace said.
“To actually have bodies in front and make sure you’re running the right lines in defence helps.
“They did a good job.”
Ben Ikin and Nathan Ryan reveal the target areas and identify the strengths each Origin side should exploit ahead of Wednesday’s decider.
You can also subscribe via iTunes or for Android users, listen on the iPP Podcast Player app.
Queensland will be looking to repeat their defensive effort on Fifita from their come from behind 18-16 game two win in Sydney.
After inspiring NSW to a record 28-4 series-opening win, Fifita was limited to 77m in Origin II as the Maroons pack returned fire.
But Wallace insisted the Maroons pack weren’t preoccupied by one man.
“All of their forwards really (are threats). They’ve got a role they play and a really good offload,” he said.
“They are aggressive big boys.
“I don’t think we’re focusing too much on just one player.
“For us to get on the front foot and win the game we have to do a job right across the park.”
LIVE stream the 2017 NRL Telstra Premiership on FOX SPORTS. Get your free 2-week Foxtel Now trial and start watching in minutes. SIGN UP NOW >President Bush with New Orleans jazz band at North American Leaders Summit (WND photo)
NEW ORLEANS – At a private cocktail party last night sponsored by the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, President Bush and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez openly proclaimed their determination to continue with the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership, a trilateral alliance critics calls a precursor to a “North American Union.”
Opening the fourth North American Leaders’ Summit, Bush lamented the decision of the House of Representatives to table the administration’s proposed Columbia free trade agreement.
“Unfortunately, we had a setback,” Bush admitted. “The free trade agreement with Columbia is dead, unless Speaker Pelosi changes her mind.”
Increasingly, the Bush administration is coming under fire from Democratic Party presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who have argued the North American Free Trade Agreement and other pacts should be renegotiated to be more fair to U.S. workers who have lost high-paying jobs in the continued move toward a global economy.
Gutierrez told the business leaders at the private cocktail party that the Bush administration intends to push the SPP agenda, intending to fight for new free-trade agreements with South Korea and Panama, despite Pelosi’s decision to kill the administration’s proposed Colombia agreement in the House.
This year’s summit meeting is being held among growing concern that free trade has hurt U.S. workers, while moving the U.S. toward a European Union-style continental government.
President Bush at North American Leaders Summit (WND photo)
Preceding Gutierrez and Bush to the podium, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal both emphasized the economic future of the city lay with international trade and the anticipated deepening and widening of the Panama Canal.
As WND previously reported, Gulf cities, including Corpus Christi, Houston and New Orleans, all expect a huge influx of millions of containers from China and the Far East coming though their ports once Panama builds a new canal capable of accommodating the new generation of “post-Panamax” ships that carry as many as 12,500 containers each.
Entering the cocktail party to a background of live music from a New Orleans street jazz band, Bush began by thanking the North American Competitiveness Council, or NACC, for being in the city to meet today with the three leaders and the top trilateral bureaucrats in the SPP working groups.
The NACC is a group of 30 multi-national corporations handpicked by the chambers of commerce in the three countries to provide closed-door advice to the 20 trilateral bureaucratic working groups assigned to “integrate” and “harmonize” North American regulations over a wide range of policy areas.
As WND previously reported, the NACC also dominated the agenda of the third annual SPP summit meeting held last August in Montebello, Quebec, Canada.
Stressing SPP themes, Bush told the group, “the meeting gives three friends the chance to come together to discuss our commitment to security and prosperity, to reconfirm the need for the three of us to work in harmony together for the good of our peoples. It’s a chance to talk about how we can best protect our people and extend prosperity.”
“One of the best ways to do this is through trade,” Bush continued. “The people in Louisiana understand the benefits of free trade firsthand. Many sectors of the economy were hit hard by Katrina, exports were a source for jobs and hope. Exports through Louisiana exceeded $30 billion for the first time ever in 2007. But the fundamental is whether we’re going to be a nation that continues to relate to free trade.”
President Bush joins the leaders of Mexico and Canada in New Orleans (WND photo)
Bush indicated he continues to “strongly support” NAFTA, noting “exports between the three countries have more than tripled under NAFTA and our economies have grown by more than 50 percent.”
“Tomorrow, we will be meeting with the business leaders of the North American Competitiveness Council to listen to their specific recommendations,” Bush said, reinforcing the importance of continuing the SPP agenda, even if with less publicly proclaimed fanfare. “The United States has an opportunity to continue the trading agenda, As a matter of fact, we have an opportunity with three important countries – Colombia, South Korea and Panama.”
“If we turn down this deal with Colombia,” Bush said, “it would send forth a message that America cannot be counted on. If the Columbia deal doesn’t go forward, it will embolden the voices of false populism in our neighborhood, and it will make it harder for President Uribe to do what is necessary to make Colombia a safe place in which to live.”
Are you a representative of the media who would like to interview the author of this story? Let us know.In this account, to Friedman and his acolytes, all the world’s an experimental lab in which, to quote Klein, "Bush’s exploits merely represent the monstrously violent and creative culmination of a fifty-year campaign for total corporate liberation." As she describes early in the book CIA-funded Canadian experiments in dismantling an individual’s personality to create a clean slate, a sick feeling grows: one knows where this story is going, it’s going to applied to whole societies and the results aren’t going to be pretty.
What Friedman and his technocratic/corporatist allies realized was that like an individual, a society that suffers a trauma—a natural disaster, an economic meltdown, a political upheaval—is initially so stressed in its wake that if ideologues move quickly enough, they can ram through "reforms" at what amounts to the political speed of light. Ergo, "the Shock Doctrine," with its ruthless privatization of formerly public property, elimination of social programs, busting up of worker groups, and the suspension of minimum wage laws. "Crises are, in a way," Klein writes, "democracy-free zones—gaps in politics as usual when the need for consent and consensus do not seem to apply." Of course, people eventually begin to recover from the seminal event and even the layers of free-market strangulation can’t seem to keep them down. And as they recover, they rebel. And when they rebel... carnage ensues.
Just as there is no kind, gentle way to occupy people against their determined will, there is no peaceful way to take away from millions of citizens what they need to live with dignity—which is what the Chicago Boys were determined to do. Robbery, whether of land or a way of life, requires force or at least its credible threat; it’s why thieves carry guns, and often use them. Torture is sickening, but it is often a highly rational way to achieve a specific goal; indeed, it may be the only way to achieve those goals. Which raises the deeper question, one that so many were incapable of asking at the time in Latin America. Is neoliberalism an inherently violent ideology, and is there something about its goals that demands this cycle of brutal political cleansing, followed by human rights cleanup operations?
There is more than a whiff of sociopathology in the technocrats described in Klein’s sweeping account, as they advise, tinker, pillage and plunder their way first through Latin America, then expand to Indonesia and Poland and Russia and South Africa, and ultimately turn their eyes upon the American adventure in Iraq... and then bring it home to New Orleans. The decade upon decade of fine-tuning how much death and how much misery a society can take and still be profitable is described in excruciating detail. The human lives are discarded, the indignities and suppressions that can’t be entered into a spreadsheet are discounted—unless they can be used as individual lessons to the populace that everyone better get in line, pronto:
All Argentines were in some way enlisted as witnesses to the erasure of their fellow citizens, yet most people claimed not to know what was going on. There is a phrase Argentines use to describe the paradox of wide-eyed knowing and eyes-closed terror that was the dominant state of mind in those years; "We did |
. Stereophile's founder, the late J. Gordon Holt, strongly felt that classical orchestral music was the only music worthy of being played through a true high-fidelity system. Yet just 14 pages of this "Collectors' Edition" are devoted to Classical Orchestral recordings, compared to 20 pages for Jazz. The largest category is Rock (including Pop, Alternative, and Country), at 48 pagesa statistic that I'm sure has JGH reaching for another celestial cigarette.
Extinct? Perhaps yes. According to Nielsen Soundscan, in the US in 2013, classical sales were just 2.8% of the total sales of CDs, cassettes, LPs, and downloads. This is less than half the figure I found for pre-CD 1983, when the amount of money spent in the US on classical records and tapes was 6% of the total, and undoubtedly rose through the rest of that decade as music lovers bought CDs to replace their classical LPs. But by the late 1990s, when Stereophile Inc. sold the Schwann Record Guides to Allegro, a record-distribution company, I was told by the purchaser that it was a rare classical CD that sold more than 1000 copies in its first year of release. And when you consider that schools no longer play classical music to their students and that classical radio stations are disappearing, it's difficult to see where new classical record buyers are going to come from.
Extinct? Perhaps not. Perhaps the statistics don't tell the whole truth. Audiophiles may pay large sums for classical recordings from the 1950s and '60s, when audio engineers didn't yet know enough to know how to ruin the quality of recorded sounda subject close to JGH's heart. But I believe that we are living in a new Golden Age of classical recording triggered by the advent of high-resolution digital recording and powered by the advent of, first, the SACD medium, and now by high-resolution PCM and DSD downloadsall with sound quality that listeners of Caruso's era could only dream of.
And from their existing catalogs of classical CDs, record companies are offering complete collections at bargain prices. Last year, for example, I bought Decca Sound: The Analogue Years, a boxed set of 50 CDs, for $120just $2.40 per disc. Similar collections are available from DG Archiv Produktion, DG, Philips, and L'Oiseau-Lyre, with prices per disc dropping to as little as $1.
There's life yet in the music that fueled the fabulous phonograph: If you release it, they will listen.John AtkinsonGREENSBORO, North Carolina — Moments before Gov. Mike Pence took the stage to rally North Carolina supporters for the Trump-Pence ticket, a woman in a BBQ joint shared the story of her recently passed father who, at the age of 79, had never voted in his life but was going to vote for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump if he lived long enough.
Edward Holbrook passed away in March. His daughter Ann Chandler and her daughter Gayle Holbrook decided to visit well known old fashioned barbecue restaurant Stameys in Greensboro, North Carolina. The women were surprised when Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence walked in with his family, and Pence and Chandler met.
Chandler told Pence of her father and, although he had passed away before the election, he was going to make Trump the first person he voted for.
Directly after speaking with Pence, Chandler told Breitbart News, “My father passed away March 3. He had never voted. If he had made it until the election, he said he was going to vote for Trump.”
She characterized her dad’s opinion of politicians and why he hadn’t voted his whole life thus: “I think he thought they were all pretty much talk.”
“He believed that Trump would do what he says,” Chandler said of her father. “He’s the smartest man we ever knew. He didn’t conform. So we’re trying to spread the word.”
Chandler said that with Trump in the race, even her 23-year-old son watched the debate. She added that he doesn’t ever watch that sort of thing.
Of her meeting with Pence, Chandler said she thinks he means what he says.
When minutes later Pence took the stage at the Greensboro rally to the raucous applause of the crowd, he told them of the woman he had just met and the story of her dear father. “If anybody ever come along worth voting for, he’d register and he’d vote,” Pence told the audience. “And she said, my dad passed away in March, but our whole family’s supporting Donald Trump because my dad was going to vote for Donald Trump.”
Chandler later told Breitbart News that she recalled watching news with her father as Trump campaigned and he said, “He’s getting them all stirred up; you go get ’em, Trump.”
Pence made a stop at Stameys barbecue just before the rally. He visited with 30-40 people. One family clapped from the back of the restaurant and later told Pence that the young one of the family was knocking on lots of doors for Trump. Another man sitting down to dinner with his wife said that they had voted just that day. He said he has been a Republican since 1981 and voted for Trump, but he’s working on his wife who is a Democrat.
Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton remain neck and neck in North Carolina polls, according to a RealClearPolitics average. The two are statistically tied in six out of seven recent polls listed on their website.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDianaKnow a great barber? You can vote for your favourite barbershop in our Best Shops competition by clicking here.
Grooming is booming in Dublin. A new generation of male urbanites taking pride in their appearance and self-presentation are discovering the pleasures and advantages of old-school barbering for their manly beards and barnets. That includes facials, massage and waxing, previously female preserves, spurred on by high-profile sporting and movie stars fuelling the trend. Later this year Brown Sugar’s latest venture Sugar Daddy will open in Exchequer Street in Dublin with Turkish-trained barbers and state-of-the-art Japanese chairs offering more spice to the mix. Here we profile ten of the best currently in the city.
Waldorf Barbershop 13 Westmoreland Street, Dublin 01-6778608
Founded by owner Liam Finnegan’s great-grandfather 85 years ago, this august Dublin institution has seen its fame spread internationally. Known as the godfather of barbering in Dublin, Finnegan, who runs the business with his daughter Linda and manager Christian Hoey, celebrated its birthday last year by introducing a booking service, new grooming products and a beard menu as well as bringing their social media up to speed. Well known for traditional hot towel shaves, classic styles and use of the strop and cut throat razor, Liam is a fountain of knowledge on 20th-century tonsorial trends (ask him about singeing) and there’s even a little barber museum in the shop.
It attracts everybody from rockabillies to tourists and offers a mobile service. Liam’s grandson 18-year-old Daoin Burns, an apprentice barber, is now the fourth Finnegan generation to carry on the tradition.
Barbiere 23 Camden Street Lr, Dublin 2, 01-5561764
Dublin’s latest stylish barber shop (with a red Vespa hanging on the wall) was founded by Enno Buono, a passionate fourth-generation Neapolitan barber who has been living in Ireland for the past two years.
Buono’s shop offers iPad consultations for clients who can choose between grooming treatments such as Il Bello, a basic dry cut with massage and styling, Il Magnifico, a wash, cut, blow-dry and tonic head massage, Il Formidable for those with long hair or Il Renacimiento, which offers the full package.
The basic dry cut and style is €14 and there are beard and hot oil treatments, hair colouring and advice on current style trends like the summer bounce or side sweep. The Grooming Rooms 16 South William Street, Dublin 2 01-6790777 This luxurious establishment in a renovated five-storey Georgian building opened its doors seven years ago and quickly set the bar in Dublin for high standards, offering private consultation rooms, precision cutting and traditional wet shaves. The idea, according to founder John Erraught, was to create the atmosphere of a gentlemen’s club but with proper shave and hair-cutting expertise and “prop forward” sized chairs for complete comfort. The pewter bar downstairs, where high-end products, manicure sets and gift vouchers can be purchased, was bought in France. Two new airy treatment rooms upstairs have just been added.
The Butcher Barber 11 Johnson’s Court, Dublin 2 083-3551780
ocated in what was originally one of Lord Powerscourt’s stables on the laneway near his former townhouse and lined with tiles sourced from the London Underground’s suppliers, this has become a favourite of leading Irish rugby players like Jamie Heaslip and Tommy Bowe.
Owner Emmett Byrne, who trained with Dylan Bradshaw as a hairdresser and is a member of the Wella Professionals Style Council, started the business three years ago to create a salon-style environment for men, offering 45-minute appointments and quality haircuts.
He is now expanding into upper floors and reckons that most menswear styles last about five years and that short back and sides are slowly giving way to late-1950s, early-1960s longer hair.
Bowlers Barber 24 Upper Camden Street, Dublin 2 01-4764928
Sean McHale, who trained in London, set up his business in Dublin 10 years ago after extensive experience in the City’s financial district with a high-class barbering service. Located over the famous 17th-century Bleeding Horse pub, this barber shop has the unique advantage of offering a full bar service along with towel shaves and friction treatments, so customers can quaff a pint while their tresses are trimmed.
The place gets packed with Welsh, Scottish and Italian fans during the Six Nations and other rugby weekends, though customers also include locals, students and white collar workers from nearby financial institutions. They have another shop at 7 Lower Baggot Street which opened about five years ago – though it doesn’t have a bar licence, it’s beside Doheny & Nesbitts.
Beards & Barnets Unit 3, The Granary, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 085-7877778
Opened a year ago in Temple Bar by Billy Wilkinson, a barber from Liverpool who started his career 30 years ago at the age of 16. In its bright, minimalist, relaxed interior where windows are always left open and pallets function as furniture, treatments include beard trims, hot towel shaves and classic 1950s hairstyles with a modern twist. The shop is popular with actors, solicitors and rock stars, and treatments are by appointment only.
GMale 73 Ranelagh Village, Dublin 6 01 4969954 This self-styled grooming spa with a fuss-free, chilled-out atmosphere, founded by Gavan and Joe Glynn in 2008, offers a one-stop shop for hair care, hot towel shaving, skincare, massage, waxing and tanning. Laddish attractions like free beer, live sports on plasma TV and Xbox games add to the mix. The brothers’ experience living in New York, Sydney and London anticipated the trend for male grooming and they noted, for instance in Sydney, that carpenters, electricians and painters went for manicures or body waxing at weekends while white-collar workers chose facials. Today their customers range from teenagers to guys in their 40s and 50s, with massages and facials particularly popular.
The Grafton Barber 51 Grafton Street, Dublin 2 01-6796984
With a star-studded list of celebrity clients that includes President Michael D Higgins, Gabriel Byrne, Colin Farrell, Gay Byrne, Ian Madigan, Luke Fitzgerald and Saoirse Ronan, The Grafton Barber, founded by brothers Hugh and Conor McAllister in 1994, now has 22 locations around the country.
“Male grooming is the thing at the moment,” says Conor, who is opening a training school of Excellence later this year near the Gaiety which will conform to VTCT (Vocational Training Charitable Trust) standards. The Grafton Barber has its own product range which includes volumisers, shaving soaps, hair sprays, beard oils and three newly launched colognes and will open two furthers shops in Galway and Leixlip in September.
Sam’s Barbers 28 Lr Ormond Quay, Dublin 1
This family-owned chain run by Stanley, Sam and James Donnelly has a history that goes back more than a century to Belfast in 1901. Its five locations include Lower Ormond Quay, Dame Court and Prussia Street in the city as well as Blanchardstown and Cabinteely. A multi-cultural staff of 20, mostly eastern European, is equally divided between male and female barbers with their top shaving barber being Bianca Patel from Romania.
Most popular hairstyles are classic, pompadour, quiffs, slick backs, side parts and the modern crop at prices from €10-€35. Customers range from mothers with kids and OAPs to city centre students and young professionals. Sam’s Barbers also manufacture their own styling products and pomades called Pomp & Co which are exported worldwide.
Cut & Sew 4 Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 085-165 7769 and 31 Wellington Quay, Dublin 2 083-4724447
Stylist Sean Bryan (27) from Dún Laoghaire trained with Toni & Guy and Queen before setting up his one-man operation in the heart of Temple Bar. A video viewed by some 30,000 people shows his skill in fashioning a classic raw blade fade pompadour cut on a client styled with Schorem pomade. Cheerful and low-key, it attracts a celeb clientele along with cool young hipsters, and boasts 10,000 followers on Instagram. DJs come in and use the turntable every month because, as Bryan says, “we make it like a social club”. A second shop opened two months ago and features an antique pool table and custom-made chairs. Cut & Sew is best known for an extremely tight haircut known as fade to zero.
Know a great barber? You can vote for your favourite barbershop in our Best Shops competition by clicking here.My oldest son is seven years old. When he was born, I named him a geeky middle name for one reason: To fulfill his destiny as a nerd.
Let's be honest. I am a nerd. Perhaps, you are a nerd, too. We could even been kindred nerd spirits or bitter nerd enemies nerd-raging at each other. In raising my son, I have three goals: He is polite and considerate, he works hard and he becomes a nerd. But why would I ever want to raise a nerd?
For me, I take nerd to mean someone who has in-depth knowledge on a topic. (I realize there are other connotations the word obviously has, but for me, this is my definition.) So there are video game nerds, sports nerds, anime nerds, history nerds and so on and so forth. What makes nerds so great is they are fountains of information, making some truly intriguing conversations possible — and better yet, some truly heated and even truly meaningless arguments.
But, in short, nerds care. They have fires in their bellies. They have passion.
You cannot fake that nerd passion. One either has it or not. All I can do is introduce things to him — age appropriate things. He might like them, and if he does, then he can learn more. If he hates something, then he is more than free to move on.
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Parenting is hard. I do not claim to be a great parent. Or even a good parent. But from the time he was aware of the world around him, I began introducing nerddom to him bit-by-bit. What is one man's nerddom, might not be for others, and my definition of "nerd" is perhaps far too broad.
Give The Kid A Good Nerd Name:
Mini-Bash's middle name was given to him with the utmost seriousness. Legally, Japanese people cannot have middle names. The have first names, and they have last names. So the middle name appears only on his U.S. birth certificate and will one day disappear into the ether should he pick Japanese citizenship when he has to choose between Japan and U.S. when he becomes of age. His last name is "Ashcraft" and his first name is a normal Japanese name. (We thought a normal Japanese name would help cushion the blow of his bizarro foreign last name.)
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But his middle name is from a character created by Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka is often compared to Walt Disney in scope and importance (ironically, Tezuka's Kimba the White Lion served as the basis for the Lion King). I love Walt Disney, but I'd take Tezuka over Disney any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Tezuka is from Osaka, so when Mini-Bash was younger, a visit to the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum was penciled in and off we went. Leading up to the trip I told him how his middle name was from a Tezuka character. Of course, I then had to explain what a middle name was. What seemed to impress him the most was that Tezuka was some kid from Osaka who became so successful that a museum was created in his honor.
Go Places:
Every weekend, we go somewhere. Sometimes it's the park, sometimes it is hiking, sometimes it is to go milk cows and sometimes it is to arcades. Mini-Bash really loves going to arcades and once asked if we could sell all our home consoles so we could get an arcade cabinet. I immediately hugged the child. Positive reinforcement, I'd like to think.
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Dress the Part:
A big part of geek culture is t-shirts. (Just ask Mike!) We've made sure Mini-Bash has a couple of choice game-related threads.
Have A Good Back Catalogue:
From a young age, Mini-Bash has always liked drawing. He's passively been interested in video gaming. But instead of actually playing a Nintendo DS, he'd rather draw one. Around the house there's a bunch of game consoles and portables. However, they are there. If he wants to play them, he can. If he wants to draw, he can. But, the games he has available are a box of old Famicom games and Super Famicom games Mrs. Bashcraft played with her brothers and sisters as a kid. 8-bit and 16-bit are fantastic for fueling young nerd imaginations — much more so photo real graphics. I'm happy to say the first Mario game Mini-Bash played was the first Super Mario Bros. Besides games, there is manga on the shelves, books, lots of books, good books, and stuff for him to leaf through, get lost in. He may not have read Haruki Murakami, but he knows that mommy and daddy like his books very much and that Murakami's prose sings.
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One thing that has always disturbed me is when people say things like, "I can't play this old video game, because of the graphics." Or "I can't watch black and white movies." Or "I hate subtitles." I think it's important that the value of these "old" or "foreign" things is stressed early on.
Replenish the Supply:
It cannot be said enough: Library cards and trips to the library are truly a joy. Picking out a couple of books with your kid and browsing around is endlessly wonderful. Then heading back home and reading through said books. One promise my dad made with me when I was a kid: He'd take me to the library whenever I wanted and anytime we went to book store, he would buy one book. Not a magazine or a comic book, a book. I've made the same deal with Mini-Bash.
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Find Stuff They Can Relate Too. Geeky Stuff:
When Mini-Bash saw the new Star Trek film, he could immediately relate to Spock. Spock is half-human, half-Vulcan. Mini-Bash is half-Japanese, half-American. He immediately connected with that character. And that movie led to conversations about black holes and space. And then conversations about how Star Trek and Star Wars are different, even though both have "Star" in the title. The logical conclusion that George Lucas should have never made the new Star Wars films and hopefully won't make any more. Oh, stay away from Indiana Jones, too.
A Family That Games Together, Stay Together:
Knock the Wii as you might (there's plenty to knock!), it's the go-to console when the Ashcraft family wants to play video games together. Mini-Bash isn't so good at video games! He's okay. But in the original Wii Sports, the Wii Remote is incredibly forgiving and allows him to just enjoy himself. We have a good time playing together, and it seems like a horribly embarrassing Wii ad. But who cares, it's fun. Family favorites include: Mario Kart and New Super Mario Bros.
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But doesn't being a nerd mean that he'll be picked on? I don't think so. This isn't a piece on raising an anti-social child or a target for bullies. Instead, it's about attempting to foster an interest in the world around him. To be himself. To explore. To ask questions. To find something and learn more. If anything, it will *fingers crossed* make him more perceptive and aware.
It's odd, though. When my son arrived in this world, I was dead set on all the things I would teach him. This is Shigeru Miyamoto, he made Mario. This is Jasper Johns, he's amazing. This is Kurt Vonnegut, listen to him. But, with each passing year, I've been finding that it isn't me who is always doing the introducing or the teaching. It's him. And I'm learning about things that interest Mini-Bash — whether it be Italian sports car or soccer or monsters. And I'm reading up, I'm studying, I'm learning. His interest in cars meant a road trip from Osaka to Nagoya to check out the Toyota Museum. It has made me start noticing what automobiles are on the road so I can point out his favorites. His interest in soccer means going to watch Japanese league games.
And as much as we'd like our kids to be spitting images of ourselves, they're not. They're different. They have their own life experiences. All we can do is hope that whatever we expose them to as children has a positive impact on them as adults. No doubt, he's got the nerd passion. And that's all that really matters.“Ridiculous” to oppose government encouraging citizens to report on each other for “suspicious activity,” claims founder of stasi-style slogan
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
According to the driving force behind Big Sis’ creepy Wal-Mart spy campaign, if the state encouraging Americans to report each other to the authorities causes you unease, you’re insane, similar to how critics of informant programs were also branded mentally ill and persecuted in the former Soviet Union.
In what has been dubbed “the battle of Wal-Mart” by The New York Observer, the controversy over Big Sis Janet Napolitano’s announcement that Homeland Security messages encouraging shoppers to “report suspicious activity,” without telling them what constitutes suspicious activity, will play at Wal-Mart checkouts, has “set off a rebellion among the conspiracy-theory crowd, a number of whom are among the store’s core customers,” writes Aaron Gell.
But the man behind the creepy slogan, “If you see something, say something,” claims that the likes of Matt Drudge and Alex Jones’ opposition to the campaign is “ridiculous”.
“That’s absurd. The whole reason for doing it was to save lives, and I think the sane people of the world see it as a positive slogan,” said Allen Kay, of Korey Kay & Partners, implying that anyone who perceives the state encouraging citizens to report on each other as a negative move towards an authoritarian society is insane.
Kay’s glib justification that the campaign is about saving lives can be demolished from two angles.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Firstly, even if you believe that Muslim terrorists are creeping around every street corner with bombs in their underpants, and it’s a legitimate concern given the fact that the FBI is so keen on providing such dimwits with all the explosives they need, then why has the federal government and Homeland Security instead labeled politically aware, patriotic Americans to be the number one domestic terror threat?
As we have seen from the MIAC report, DHS spying on tea Party and second amendment activists in Pennsylvania and a host of other examples in recent years, the federal government has little interest in Muslim extremists and has instead targeted Americans knowledgeable of their rights and critical of big government as the primary domestic terror threat. The feds have defined “terrorist propaganda” as any material critical of the state. The Department of Defense characterizes peaceful protest as “low level terrorism” in its own report.
Given the fact that rhetoric identifying conservative and libertarian Americans as domestic extremists has saturated the news media, don’t be surprised when ignorant Wal-Mart shoppers begin to report people who wear t-shirts with political slogans or ones that carry an image of the upside-down American flag, or merely individuals who talk about the Constitution, since federal authorities have identified all these as examples of terrorism in numerous cases over the last several years.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
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Secondly, no matter where you look, from East Germany, to Communist Russia, to Nazi Germany, historically governments who encourage their own citizens to report on each other do so not for any genuine safety concerns or presumed benefits to security, but in order to create an authoritarian police state that coerces the people into policing each other’s behavior and thoughts.
As Robert Gellately of Florida State University has highlighted, Germans under Hitler denounced their neighbors and friends not because they genuinely believed them to be a security threat, but because they expected to selfishly benefit from doing so, both financially, socially and psychologically via a pavlovian need to be rewarded by their masters for their obedience.
At the height of its influence around one in seven of the East German population was an informant for the Stasi. As in Nazi Germany, the creation of an informant system was wholly centered around identifying political dissidents and those with grievances against the state, and had little or nothing to do with genuine security concerns.
Even if you subscribe to the notion that Americans should be spied on, which is completely unconstitutional in and of itself, should that role be entrusted to untrained Wal-Mart shoppers?
If Americans are going to be policed by a 21st century KGB, can the watchers at least be professionally recruited and trained? No, because having fat slobs report on “suspicious activity” that is defined by what they were told on ABC News last night or what they saw in a plot of 24 or CSI Miami makes it a lot easier for Big Sis to chill free speech and frighten Americans away from exercising their rights.
Every example in recent history of a government enlisting its population as a swarming army of spies leads to, at the bare minimum, the evisceration of freedom and the creation of an autocratic dictatorship, and in the worst case, mass political oppression, assassination of political dissidents or outright genocide.
And Allen Kay has the temerity to imply that anyone expressing concern about a similar program arriving in America is insane and that their worries are “ridiculous,” ironically echoing how critics of the state were also branded mentally ill and sent to psikhushkas – mental hospitals – in the former Soviet Union.
Judging by Wal-Mart’s response in refusing to acknowledge the scale of the backlash they have received in reaction to the announcement on Monday, and their slavish repetition of the glib Orwellian rhetoric that the spy campaign is about safety and security, Americans are outraged, and until Wal-Mart kills this un-American insult to everything that the country stands for, their Christmas is going to be a lot less profitable than expected, with numerous boycotts already on the horizon.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
This article was posted: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 6:51 am
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Comment on this articleCVSO 30c Status Pending
In 2016, the first time in history, astronomers were able to capture a clear image of an exoplanet candidate. And you’re looking at it. Well, you will be if you just scroll down a little. It’s the tiny, brown dot to the left of the star.
The planet is known as CVSO 30c. It’s a gas giant orbiting a star known as CVSO 30, which lies around 1,200 light-years away. If validated as an exoplanet, CVSO 30c would prove that CVSO 30 has two planets orbiting it.
In 2012, astronomers found the first exoplanet in the system, CVSO 3b. Notably, this exoplanet is amazingly close to the star, roughly 1.2 million km (740,000 mi) away. For comparison, Mercury is the closest planet to our Sun, and it orbits at a distance of 57.91 million km (35.98 million mi).
The exoplanet candidate found in 2016 orbits 98.7 trillion km (61.3 trillion miles) away. This distance is 660 times the Earth’s distance from the Sun. One orbital period for this planet would take 27,000 Earth-years to complete, making astronomers uncertain whether the planet is actually part of the star system. More observations will be necessary to confirm (or disprove) this.There is nothing new under the sun, and video games are no exception to this proverbial truth. Titles boldly pioneer new mechanics or ideas yearly, but everyone is inspired in some fashion by video games and other media that have come beforehand. While most attempt to quietly imbue borrowed concepts, developer Tequila Works confidently wears its inspirations on its sleeves with RiME. Before and after playing it, it’s even more apt to bring up critic darlings like ICO, Journey, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, as all of them heavily contribute to RiME’s existence.
However, to define its worth in relation to these titles alone would cheapen what Tequila Works has accomplished with such a small team and intimidating expectations after several rough years of revision. On its own merits, RiME‘s design lacks substance in core areas, but largely overcomes these shortcomings with soulful trappings that will stir the emotions.
After witnessing a torrential storm at sea, you assume control of a young boy who has washed ashore a mysterious island. There’s no narrative context, dialogue, or imposed objectives. Throughout the story’s five sections, you explore semi-linear lands in search of many questions through light platforming, puzzle-solving, and collectibles. It’s not hard to figure out the controls and what you’re supposed to do during the beginning stages, which actually becomes troubling after some time. The majority of the game’s mental challenges may have neat concepts that toy with light and shadow, sound, and perspective, but their solutions are too evident and straightforward.
Perhaps this was purposeful to make RiME more accessible so no one gets stuck for too long. While I understand that possibility since it focuses more on storytelling and presentation, it would’ve been nice to see more steps to the main puzzles and brainteasers added to obtaining collectibles, since most of them seemed to only require thorough scavenging to uncover. This became tedious at times since they’re bogged down with lengthy, easy platforming to make them “hard” to reach. However, it should be said that the controls are responsive and consistent. Strangely enough, the snappiness and accuracy of the platforming reminded me of Darksiders’ own brand of it at a slower pace.
The third section is where all of the gameplay elements coalesce and pique to provide a glimpse into the deeper design that could’ve permeated the entire experience, which unfortunately trails off near the end. If anything, RiME is defined more by its emphasis on laid-back exploration since it leans on visual storytelling not only for its world, but also for conveying where to go, how to begin solving some puzzles, and so forth. It’s a trait the developer uses well in the vein of Fumito Ueda’s works and thatgamecompany with its command over allegorical illustrations and poetic usage of color and light.
While the game lacks in substance with its underutilized gameplay aspects and design, this is made up for with exceptionally strong content in every other area. The cel-shaded artistic direction is breathtaking with how it portrays the elements like water, wind, and fire. This is especially true for one of the last sections taking place in a gloomy castle caught in perpetual rainfall. The ways that droplets create endless waves in puddles, water glistens and flows down the stone structures around you – there’s no doubt that it is, visually speaking, one of my favorite rain-themed levels ever.
Monolithic, sprawling fortresses inspired by Grecian architecture are marvelous to gawk at from below, and seeing nature overtake the abandoned civilization around you makes the crumbling environments more vibrant and beautiful. It is annoying that this immersion during some sequences and cutscenes is interrupted on the PlayStation 4 by an unsteady frame rate dipping into 40-50 frames-per-second often with stutters as well, but they weren’t distracting enough to ruin the experience.
The audio is one of the game’s strongest suits. A primary mechanic is using the boy’s voice to open doors, move structures, and so on. It’s similar to Journey’s chime mechanic, but what makes it special is how the boy will alternate between humming, singing melodies, grunting, or even yelling depending on where his voice is used. It adds believability to the character by allowing players simple yet powerful looks into his emotional state. You’re also encouraged to experiment with it often to see if it will impact the environment or objects in surprising ways.
However, the greatest aspect of the audio is attributable to the soundtrack. I didn’t expect much from it, but composer David Garcia Diaz aurally floored me for the entire game’s length with his affecting work that reminded me of Austin Wintory’s music for Journey. His mastery over strings and the piano is captivating for the simple reason that the music is almost continuous and yet never becomes repetitive. He’ll alternate with the violin, cello, and piano taking turns guiding melodies, and his ability to turn a single one and perform it in many different ways is astounding to generate strong themes throughout the score. The occasional introduction of new elements like the tin whistle, chimes, or vocalists singing in Spanish keep the score even more interesting, which isn’t even mentioning how songs will adapt and smoothly improvise depending on your actions.
Beyond being a lost boy on the island, it would be inappropriate to divulge details about the story, which is cryptic until the final hours for good reason. Needless to say, by the time you piece together how the arcs fit together and what the tale’s allegorical imagery and themes mean, you’ll not only be impacted by the emotional message Tequila Works has to share, but also appreciate how they deliver it through the visual storytelling. Since this is accomplished through the collectibles, too, there’s good incentive to return for a second playthrough and find everything you missed while gaining a better perception of the story’s meanings. However, should that not interest you, the game clocked in at eight hours, which is an uncommon length for title’s such as this that doesn’t feel padded out in the slightest.
RiME doesn’t do anything innovative with its mechanics or design, blatantly following in the footsteps of its aforementioned muses. Under most circumstances, this and its simple gameplay wouldn’t be much to take notice of, but what it has to tell narratively, musically, and visually gives it an emotional core that will radiate enough to keep your interest afloat.
RiME was reviewed on PlayStation 4 with a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on Xbox One and PC. It will be available on Switch in the coming months.
7.5 Very Good Summary The game’s inspirations are obvious, and in terms of its safe puzzles and platforming, they don't offer much that’s new or memorable. However, the opposite is true for the cleverly conveyed story, magnificent Mediterranean setting, and a strong score that will pull you into a whimsical, emotional journey in RiME that’s well worth your time. Pros Wonderful Inspirations...
Tight Controls
Stunning Art Direction
Creative, Visual Storytelling
Everything About The Soundtrack Cons...But Leans on Them a Bit Too Much
Straightforward Puzzles
Simple Platforming
Lacking Variety Off Beaten Path
Share Have a tip for us? Awesome! Shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll take a look!Not to be confused with the British anthropologist Margaret Read
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and 1970s.[1] She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard College in New York City and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. Mead served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1975.[2]
Mead was a communicator of anthropology in modern American and Western culture and was often controversial as an academic.[3] Her reports detailing the attitudes towards sex in South Pacific and Southeast Asian traditional cultures influenced the 1960s sexual revolution.[4] She was a proponent of broadening sexual conventions within a context of traditional Western religious life.
Birth, early family life, and education [ edit ]
Margaret Mead, the first of five children, was born in Philadelphia, but raised in nearby Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and her mother, Emily (née Fogg) Mead,[5] was a sociologist who studied Italian immigrants.[6] |
identical, we just wanted to be more similar. We wanted to help users take advantage of the different platforms whilst allowing our own design values to shine through.I backed into the short road that jutted out into a small clearing surrounded by spruce and birch trees. Most of the springtime snow had melted, leaving behind cans, busted bottles, shattered TV and computer screens and about anything else that could be shot. The trees in the background were scarred with bullet holes, many of them dead.
There were two young men standing in front of a pickup, one with an AR-15 of some sort, the other with a pump 12-gauge shotgun. They stopped their shooting of a computer screen 20 yards out in the clearing.
I got out of my vehicle and took a couple of wide-angle photos of the mess. The shotgun guy hollered, "Hey, why are you taking pictures?"
"Well," I said, "I've been cleaning up this place for years, and you two are the first people I have caught in the act of trashing the place. I took the photos so I can run the license plate on your truck and when I get some of this stuff loaded up, I'll bring it over and dump it in your yard."
The lad with the shotgun said, "Can't you see we have guns?"
The other said, "This is public land, we can shoot here."
I told them that yes, I could see they had guns and that we all had guns (they couldn't see the.45 covered by my vest) and that was nice.
The shotgun guy said, "What gives you the right to harass us? What are you, some sort of cop?"
I said that yes, as a matter of fact, I was some sort of cop but that wasn't what this was about. I told them this was about people like them trashing places like this, and people like me tired of cleaning up.
"Look," I said, "I'm not going to accuse you of being stupid. We just met. But I suspect maybe you are ignorant and maybe you don't know any better but if you'll give me a minute, I try to help you out."
Public land, right?
Looking sheepish, they nodded, like kids caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I told them that public land belongs to everyone and yes, you can shoot here, but it is also sort of like a community front yard. Do you think most folks would approve of your shooting trash in their yard?
"Public land is for everyone, and so is the local landfill, where this stuff belongs," I said. "I know you are shooters; are you hunters as well?"
Yeah, we hunt, they replied.
"So when the public drives by and sees this, who do you think they think is responsible? Don't you think hunters and shooters have enough bad publicity?"
They nodded.
They asked where they were supposed to shoot. I told them about the local gun club they could join but that they could shoot here. They just couldn't leave trash.
Besides being unsightly and illegal, when you leave your trash behind, it's an invitation for others who aren't necessarily shooters to save themselves a few miles to the dump and just throw their trash in places like this. Pointing out an old couch, I suggested that it wasn't brought there to shoot. More likely, it was dumped because the trash already there implied permission for others to do the same.
I told them that I had come out to do some cleaning up and didn't have a lot of time, but if they had a minute, I would show them something. They followed me out through the mounds of plastic water bottles, energy drink cans, beer bottles and computer wreckage. It only took a moment to find what I was looking for — a busted beer bottle with a jagged edge sticking upright.
"See that," I said. Yes, they saw it.
"Now look here," I said, pointing to a fresh moose track within a few feet of the busted bottle. "You guys are hunters. As such, you are supposed to care about wildlife, so what do you think if a moose or most any other animal stepped on that bottle?"
Another sheepish look toward their feet.
The litter Nazi
My partner Christine says I'm a litter Nazi. She may have a point. There aren't a lot of things that enrage me, but trashing the planet is one of them — especially when it's associated with hunters and shooters. But it would seem there is ample evidence that some hunters and shooters are litterers.
One of the rewards for getting far back in the country is the lack of litter. Trashing a place is clearly linked to those who don't walk much. Some duck blinds we go to that are used by the public and easy to access are always full of trash, empty shot shells, often beer bottles — a fairly scary discovery. I've never understood why folks who otherwise don't litter think nothing of leaving their shot shells and empty brass where they fall.
The practice of using public land as a dump isn't exclusive to populated areas. We do a fair amount of traveling around the state with our setters for bird hunting. Places like the one described above are common along rural roads and trails that allow motorized vehicles.
You don't have to find one of these places to see the reckless disregard for public property by people that perhaps should not have firearms. Road signs seem to be a favorite target for what is undoubtedly a small percentage of gun owners.
Besides costing everyone money, bullet holes demonstrate a public safety concern. And the association with responsible gun owners is unavoidable.
Fines for littering don't seem to work. Signs along Alaska's roadways threaten a $1,000 fine for littering. Given the proliferation of litter in our state, we might be able to solve Alaska's budgetary concerns with litter fines alone. But I've never known anyone or heard of anyone paying one of these fines. Perhaps that is a sign itself.
Those two young fellows stayed and helped load my truck with garbage, apologizing for their behavior as they left. I don't know how much difference that interaction made, though I feel like it made a difference in that place at that time.
In the meantime, folks who care about litter will volunteer for the annual spring clean-up efforts. Those who love the outdoors will continue to take garbage bags to the field to collect trash they encounter in a rather desperate hope that setting the example will bring change.Bon-taek "Expession" Koo's story is similar to that of the typical South Korean esports professional: He enjoyed games from an early age and dreamed of playing them full-time. In a nation where superstar players took home six-figure salaries as early as 2002, succeeding as a competitive gamer was tantalizingly real, albeit risky career ambition.
In the fashion of his legendary predecessors -- Yo-hwan "BoxeR" Lim, Jae-ho "Moon" Jang, and Young-ho "Flash" Lee -- young Bon-taek decided to pick out a one-word English noun to be his ID. If he were to ever make a name for himself in gaming, in any title, this would be the tag he would go by. After giving it some thought, he chose the first word he memorized in middle school English: Expression.
Not half bad, except that he had left out the R.
Upon discovering he had inadvertently named himself a typo, Bon-taek was left with a choice: Rectify the slip-up and become Expression, or consider it to be a unique tag which he could truly claim as his own.
In 2012, Expession joined Team Hunters and found little success until he transferred to NaJin Shield. The team rebranded to NaJin Black Sword and qualified for the Season 3 World Championships, but failed to make it past the semifinals against SK Telecom T1. He left NaJin in 2014 for health reasons and joined Incredible Miracle in 2015, surviving the rebuilding process that plagued the roster in the 2016 offseason. Expession, a seasoned top laner today, reflected on his career with ESPN.
"I'm very surprised that foreign League of Legends fans still remember me because the last time I've played well internationally was at the Season 3 World Championship semifinals against SK Telecom T1. I'm extremely grateful," he said, blushing.
Expession had good reason to be proud of his performance. He'd faced off against Eon-yeong "Impact" Jung -- considered the world's best defensive top laner at the time -- and drew first blood in two games, leaving a considerable impression. Although Najin Black Sword ultimately fell to SK Telecom T1, the match is still considered one of the closest best-of-fives in worlds history.
Most people may remember Bon-taek "Expession" Koo's career on NaJin Black Sword, a team that eventually fell to SK Telecom T1 in the semifinals of the League of Legends World Championship in 2013. Provided by Riot Games
"I've never really won anything significant [or] made many finals," he added. "But I've been able to play professionally for a very long time, and that in itself makes for a pretty good career, I think."
It's a tad too humble, especially considering his play style. Even against former giants such as Impact, Sang-myeon "Shy" Park and Ha-woon "MakNooN" Yoon, Expession always headed to lane with all guns blazing -- and by virtue of his brawn, his inflexibly confrontational approach worked out more often than not. In many ways, Expession was the original Ho-jong "Flame" Lee: a lane dominant Korean top laner who ultimately failed to achieve as much as his peak performance warranted.
Then again, Expession was always humble to a fault. In his postmatch MVP interview after carrying Longzhu to a close 2-1 victory over the ROX Tigers, he focused little on his own play, instead spending half of his time praising jungler Dong-woo "Crash" Lee and mid laner Yong-jun "Fly" Song.
Asked why he spent such little time talking about himself, Expession said, "Our younger players have more years and a bright future ahead of them, and I felt that they haven't been receiving enough recognition. Me, personally, I've never really craved attention or popularity. I don't use social media that much, for example."
"Of course, sometimes I look at a player like PraY and think, 'Hey, yeah, being that popular would be nice.' But PraY's popularity isn't something that was just given to him. It's self-made. He earned it. He created it all through hard work, through streams, interviews," Expession said. "Me, my personality isn't cut out for that, I think. And it's a bit too late for me to start even if I wanted to."
On his way down to the first floor to greet the waiting Longzhu fans, Expession admitted, "I really would like to meet foreign fans again at a World Championship. I promise to work hard, play well, and try to make it to Worlds this season."Aloha, mutants! It’s that time of year once again when couples are forced to spend lots of money on each other while the single folk get to laugh manically whilst eating alone in their dark, empty studio apartments. (More of a laugh-cry, really.) In either case, Valentine’s Day is clearly a holiday for losers.
To help make the day a little more bearable, I’ve whipped up some free valentines for you to share, email, print out, burn, and curse.
I made 11 of these last year (find ’em here), but they ended up being very small in size. This year I upped it to 16 and they’re all much bigger – that way it’s easier to see all the terrible details. Enjoy and share with the one you love hate!The canal is a vital global trading route and major source of revenues for the Egyptian authorities
Two Iranian naval ships have passed through Egypt's Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea heading for Syria, a source at the canal authority told the Reuters news agency.
The ships entered the canal at 03:45 GMT on Tuesday and passed into the Mediterranean at 13:30GMT, the Suez Canal Authority source said.
"Their return is expected to be on March 3," the source said.
The two vessels, Alvand, a patrol frigate and Kharg, a supply ship, are the first naval vessels going through the canal since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, after which diplomatic ties between Egypt and Iran were strained.
Egypt's ruling military council, facing its first diplomatic challenge since taking power on February 11, approved the vessels' passage through the canal.
The Suez Canal cuts through Egypt and allows shipping to pass from the Middle East to Europe and vice versa without going around the southern tip of Africa. The canal is a vital global trading route and a major source of revenue for the Egyptian authorities.
Israel takes a "grave view" of the passage of the ships.
On Sunday, after a weekly meeting of his cabinet, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, denounced the ships' arrival in the region as an Iranian power play.
And last week, the prospect of the Suez crossing was described by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's far-right foreign minister, as a "provocation" by Iran.
But an Iranian diplomat said that: "This will be a routine visit, within international law, in line with the co-operation between Iran and Syria, who have strategic ties.
"The ships will spend a few days in Syrian ports for training purposes, having already visited several countries including Oman and Saudi Arabia."
The decision was a difficult one for Egypt's interim government as Cairo is an ally of the US and has a peace treaty with Israel.
However, Egypt's official MENA news agency has reported that the request for the ships to transit the canal was granted because they were not carrying weapons or nuclear and chemical materials.
The 1,500-tonne Alvand is normally armed with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, while the larger 33,000-tonne Kharg has a crew of 250 and facilities for up to three helicopters, Iran's official Fars news agency said.The Tragic Story Of Aravan: Origin Of The Third Gender Faith Mysticism oi-Sanchita
Most of us find Mahabharata to be a very confusing story. This is because Mahabharata has a lot of characters and each character is related to the other by some or the other way. As this epic has so many legendary characters such as Pandavas, Draupadi, Kauravas around whom the whole story revolves, people are not quite familiar with the other characters who also have a crucial role in the epic.
Today, we will tell you the story of Aravan or Iravan, one such minor yet crucial character of Mahabharata. It is from his lineage that the transgenders are said to have been born. That is why the transgenders or hijras are also known as Aravanis.
Image Courtesy: Kabir Orlowski/Kirk Siang
The story of Lord Aravan can be called one of the most tragic tales of Mahabharata where he sacrifices himself for the greater good. But he does leave a lineage before he dies which makes him immortal in the history of mankind. Want to know his story? Then, read on.
ALSO READ: THE STORY OF A WARRIOR WHO COULD HAVE ENDED THE MAHABHARATA WAR IN A MINUTE
Aravan: Arjuna's Son
Aravan was the son of the great Mahabharata warrior, Arjuna and his wife Ulupi, the Naga princess. Aravan is the central God of the cult of Kuttantavar. Like his father, Aravan was a fierce warrior. He participated in the Kurukshetra war with his father and the other Pandavas. He fought bravely and gave himself up for a huge sacrifice.
Image Courtesy: Robert Heng
Aravan's Sacrifice For The War
The earliest source of mention regarding Aravan is found in Peruntevanar's Parata Venpa, a 9th-century Tamil version of the Mahabharata. There it talks about a special sacrificial ritual known as the 'Kalappali', which means sacrifice to the battlefield. It was believed that whoever performs this sacrifice ensures victory on the battlefield. In this ritual, the most valiant warrior must sacrifice his life in front of Goddess Kali in order to ensure the victory of his side. Aravan volunteers to sacrifice himself in the ritual.
Image Courtesy: Praveen P
The Three Boons
In Parata Venpa, Aravan asks Krishna to grant him the boon of a heroic death on the battlefield.
Aravan is believed to have been granted a second boon - to see the entire 18-day war.
The third boon is found only in the folk rituals. This third boon provides Aravan to be married before the sacrifice, entitling him to the right of cremation and funerary offerings (bachelors were buried). However, no woman wanted to marry Aravan, fearing the inevitable doom of widowhood. In the Kuttantavar cult version, Krishna solves this dilemma by taking on his female form, Mohini, marries Aravan and spends that night with him. The Koovagam version additionally relates Krishna's mourning as a widow after Aravan's sacrifice the next day, after which he returns to his original masculine form for the duration of the war.
The Third Sex: Aravanis
Aravan is known as Kuttantavar in the cult which bears his name, and in which he is the chief deity. Here, the marriage of Aravan and Mohini, her widowhood and mourning after Aravan's sacrifice form the central theme of an 18-day annual festival either side of the night of the full moon in the Tamil month of Cittirai.
Image Courtesy: Ian Taylor Photography
The Alis or the Aravanis (transgenders) take part in the Koovagam festival by re-enacting the marriage of Aravan and Mohini. It is believed that all the Aravanis are married to Aravan and hence, when the sacrifice is re-enacted, the Aravanis become widows of Aravan and mourn his death.One of the more unsettling trends in this recovery has been the rise of part-time work.
We are nowhere near recovering the jobs lost in the recession, and the track record looks even worse when you consider that so many of the jobs lost were full time, whereas so many of those gained have been part time.
Compared with December 2007, when the recession officially began, there are 5.8 million fewer Americans working full time. In that same period, there has been an increase of 2.8 million working part time. Part-time workers — defined as people who usually work fewer than 35 hours a week — are still a minority of the work force, but their share is growing.
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When the recession began, 16.9 percent of those working usually worked part time. That share rose sharply in 2008 and 2009 and has not fallen much since then. Today the share of workers with part-time jobs is 19.2 percent.
This would not be so troubling if people were electing to work fewer hours. But that is not the case.
Basically all of the growth in part-time workers has been among people reluctantly working few hours because of either slack business conditions or an inability to find a full-time job. Together these people are considered to be working part time “for economic reasons.” Their numbers have grown by 3.4 million since the downturn began.
The number of people working part time “for noneconomic reasons,” on the other hand, has fallen by 639,000 since the recession began.
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These trends are part of the reason that many people believe the standard unemployment rate of 7.7 percent understates the extent of underemployment. If you include both part-time workers who want full-time work and people who have stopped looking for jobs but still want to work, the unemployment rate is actually 14.3 percent.
It’s not clear what’s behind the growth in part-time work. It probably has to do with companies’ not having as much need for labor today as they did when the economy was strong, or perhaps a desire to avoid paying benefits if they can. The Affordable Care Act also has incentives for employers to keep their count of full-time workers below 50, but that has probably affected only a few companies at the margin at this point.I fight the days as the trees fight the wind and the rain
endlessly pounds against the glass.
It's raining again and the Thanksgiving leaves are staining the concrete.Glassy purples, matte browns, and that washed out cardboard tan. Silhouette-footprints cling to the pavement and beg the thrashing torrents to let themrest. Heavy lungs. Can't catchmy breath. The cold seeps into my skin and I'm left raw like the undressedtrees stripped and shaken by the wind. I can't help but think of you, onthese heavy days. The damn eerie days, where ash colored clouds hover.The dense fog watches me as I scuffle by, hiding in every pocket of theforeground. So I retreat, to the warmth, where I hope to fight you off. You--the heavy, raw-damp-eerie days. You--the memory, the gutted-out shell ofa human--the fictitious monster still lurking through the unstable cavities inmy cerebrum.Written & Photographed by Alex Kahn
Boulders of every shape stand before me, some the size of a coin, others bigger than a house. If an all-powerful being and Michelangelo joined forces to create an outdoor marble playground, it would look like Chimanimani National Park. White boulders with black and grey patterns appear blank and daunting, deterring those who are impatient. For those who persist, a variety of climbing holds slowly emerge from within the depths, creating mountains and valleys of endless possibility.
Reflecting on my previous trip to Zimbabwe, I eagerly await our adventure. I’m standing at the Mango Airlines counter in Cape Town, South Africa alongside Paul Robinson and Jimmy Webb, two of the world’s strongest boulderers. We are traveling to Chimanimani National Park for Paul and I to complete the fourth section of our bouldering film, Uncharted Lines. The film stars Paul, Jimmy and Chris Sharma, adventurous and passionate climbers, who desire to establish five-star boulders in new, inspiring destinations.
We land in Bulawayo and our host, Derrick, picks us up. Derrick is the ringleader of the Zimbabwe climbers, creating topos and running a Zimbabwean climbing Facebook page. He hopes that the attention from Uncharted Lines will inspire more climbers to visit.
We arrive at the grocery store with a list detailing everything needed to survive for eleven days in the mountains. The drive will total nearly eight hours and there are very few shops, restaurants, toilets or gas stations and those that exist are unappealing at best. We have a fixed amount of American dollars, the currency used in Zimbabwe as of 2009, and with the daily bank limit being $100 and most businesses not accepting credit cards, money must be spent sparingly.
Departing at 5am, we make it to Chimanimani in time to meet the Outward Bound porters who we prearranged to help us transport our gear to the hut. We pass by the occasional traditional village of mud and straw structures. Trees appear that boast trunks wider than the village huts. As we continue on, massive granite eggs replace the trees, but most of the rock quality is poor. It grows hotter and drier. People and villages become scarce; it is quiet and desolate.
The road steepens and pine tree forests replace the dry shrubs of the desert. As the altitude increases, the temperature drops. Mountains rise up dramatically to reveal lush green forests and silver hued sheer cliffs. The granite has been replaced by endless grey quartzite rock.
Arriving at the campsite, we check in and pay the required fees. The porters are an expensive addition to the trip, but they are a blessing with the amount of gear we have. The campsite sits at the base of the mountain, but requires a strenuous hike twice a day in order to climb the boulders on the peak. We opt for the hut on the summit to spend less time hiking and more time climbing and exploring, but we must bring everything we have up the mountain at one time.
The two-hour hike initiates with steep stone steps that boast the sought after friction of the best quartzite. We traverse through forests and tall grasses, up narrow ravines and over small boulders. Continuing on, the rock increases in quality, but the small size of the boulders is uninspiring. I remember Chimanimani only reveals her hidden secrets to those who are patient. I summit the final hill and reach a grassy plateau looking out upon the first hint of magic.
The temperature is cool and the wind whips; this is one of the coldest places in Africa and I’m grateful to have brought many layers of clothing. Despite it being July, it’s easy to forget that the seasons are opposite in the Southern Hemisphere. We are here in the middle of their winter and temperatures will average 55F. It’s the perfect temperature for hiking and climbing and some of the greatest climbing weather you can find in July in either hemisphere.
Approaching the hut, I quickly notice that the outhouses have been boarded up. The sink is no longer operational; we will have to collect water from a nearby source. We locate the nearest creek and fill what jugs we have. The hut is as I remember- three large rooms- two for sleeping and the other for cooking and eating. There is no electricity and we will depend on our Goal Zero solar products: generators, lanterns, chargers, and headlamps. From the expansive front deck we have a view of plains, the river below, and the mountains bordering Mozambique in the distance. There is no one around for miles and there is a sense of peace a possibility seldom felt in the western world. Unpacking, we attempt to organize: food, stoves, fuel, dishes, pans, cutlery, sleeping bags, climbing gear, and filming gear. We take comfort in knowing that the village of Chimanimani sells some food items in case we run out.
Dinnertime consists of three hot plates, a bunch of non-refrigerated items, river water, a couple pots, and a pan. Using the lantern’s light and a dirty knife, we chop the vegetables on the hut’s tabletop, it appears to have never been cleaned. When dinner is finished, much of the water supply is gone. We have grown accustomed to morning rains as the first round of cleaning and we leave the dishes, utensils and pots outside after dinner in preparation. Sipping tea in front of a small fire, the house slowly fills with smoke due to poor ventilation. Teeth are brushed with the last of the river water and faces are occasionally cleaned with wet wipes. Bedtime comes early; without much light and no entertainment, there is no reason to stay up. Attempting to find comfort on the squishy mattresses provided by the hut, we burrow in our sleeping bags, drifting off to sleep.
In the morning we head up a nearby steep mountain, huffing and puffing until we reach the summit. The white sand ground flattens to reveal rocks in new exotic forms; they twist and arc, exposing open tunnels through their bottoms and curving horns in their tops. We are now in a boulder field created by Doctor Seuss himself! Jimmy and Paul begin brushing, chalking, and divvying up the best lines they can find, making quick work of a few climbs. The guys separately marvel at the supreme quality of the boulder problems they can now proudly call their own. Paul claims, “This is some of the most bullet hard rock I have ever climbed on,” and Jimmy wholeheartedly agrees.
Halfway through the trip, the clouds rise, revealing the sun’s gleaming face and the first hint of warmth thus far. With the unexpected heat, it becomes the one and only bathing day. Without running water, the creek that serves as our drinking water source is also the place for bathing. The water is cold and causes burning headaches. Hunching forward to scrub the shampoo into our hair, we take turns filling a pot and slowly pouring the water over our soapy scalps.
The next day we set out at a brisk pace and I look down just as a small snake slithers quickly by. “Snake,” I say casually, thinking nothing of it. As the only female in the group, I had assumed I would have the most fearful reaction to the snake. However, I had remained unfazed as the boys all yelled at me to get back and questioned my judgment. “It’s just a small snake,” I say. Derek takes a closer look, “it’s a puff adder.” My stomach tightens as I think of the repercussions. The puff adder is the fastest striking snake and extremely poisonous; the closest anti-venom is at least four hours away. Slightly shaken, the group continues the hike, walking at a slower pace with cautious eyes glued to the ground.
Over dinner Maxwell, the other videographer, turns to Jimmy and asks, “have you guys found anything in the v14/15 range yet?” Jimmy is quick with his response, “Maybe one thing, but to be honest I don’t want to spend the time on one hard line when I can put up a ton of 5-star lines of all grades.” I think about his response for a while and realize it defines the difference between a climber and a climbing pioneer. To have a passion for climbing is to be inspired by the beauty of the line and the movement of the climbing. In the new generation of climbing, there is a strong focus on grades of boulders over names of boulders. There is an emphasis on stepping up a level once the previous level has been accomplished, rather than climbing a variety of styles and rock types that build skills and ignite inspiration. I wonder what the future holds for climbing pioneers.
The next day we head to a massive freestanding boulder dubbed, “The Jessup Project,” for the Jessup grip tape-like texture on the holds. The boulder has multiple lines ripe for the picking, ranging from 15 to 40-foot top outs. Unlike many of the boulders the guys had established, this boulder had no easy way up to fix a line. When trying to put up a first ascent boulder of this difficulty and height, climbers must be on rope to test the holds for stability and the rock must be properly cleaned and chalked.
After attempting to reach the top of the boulder in a variety of ways, the boys resort to wearing their climbing shoes to make a ground-up ascent of a moderate boulder problem, while trailing static ropes from the harnesses they wear. Both guys get to work sorting through possible beta. The sun has made a surprising visit and beats down hard, making their skin hot and wet; they are unable to give valiant efforts.
As the day progresses, the clouds slowly cover the park in a flat light, providing cooler temperatures and wind. Jimmy is the first to try his climb, and after having previously sorted the beta, is able to make a quick ascent. Next up is the crimp line Paul has prepared, which runs up the tallest part of the rock, ending at approximately 40 feet. It is a no-fall situation and because of the overhanging angle of the wall, he cannot try the upper moves on a rope. Luckily, he is able to try the bottom with a pad beneath him and the moment he sticks the crux from the bottom he guns it for the top.
Jimmy has one final project to complete; it suits his style and he has sorted the beta aside from the first move. Paul comments on the humid conditions and his skin poor skin. “40%. That’s how good my skin is out of 100.” Paul says as he walks over to inspect the holds.
“Don’t touch my holds with your bad skin!” Jimmy says in a joking way, but we all know he is serious. With friction dependent holds, every detail matters. The hold must be brushed before every attempt and hands touch the rock or other cool surfaces to decrease the temperature of the fingertips. Climbers wait for the shade and the breeze, staying calm and patient. Without good conditions, the climbs are much more difficult, if not impossible. Jimmy rests between goes, conserving every ounce of energy to direct it into the first finicky move. When climbing at this level, patience and creativity are essential virtues. No path has been determined and it’s up to the climber who claims the first ascent to figure out the most logical start and route to the top of the boulder while sticking to the chosen line. Finally sorting out the correct method, he finds an easier way and completes the climb.
The six porters arriving at 6:20 AM on the last day function as our wakeup alarm. We leap from our sleeping bags in a mad rush to finish packing and hand over the heavy luggage to the porters. We pick up our packs and begin the hike down the steep mountain. Reaching base camp on wobbling legs, we are exhausted. We are drained from the living conditions, despite feeling blessed to have spent the last 11 days in a pristine, wild and virtually untouched landscape. Adventure climbing is not always easy, but the experience is worth it.
Chimanimani Park Website – Here
Outward Bound Website – Here
Zimbabwe Climbing Facebook – Here
Alex Kahn is a Professional Photographer, Film Maker & Climber who travels the world capturing some of the best climbers & adventurers of the world in action! Check out her latest film Uncharted Lines – Here
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SaveOneBlade has just announced a new razor and Sharpologist was chosen as the first website to promote this new, low-cost (!) version of OneBlade. And even better, OneBlade has reserved a number of units exclusively for Sharpologist readers. A OneBlade razor for the rest of us!
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the OneBlade razor. Many Sharpologist readers and wet shaving enthusiasts have expressed interest in OneBlade too, but the razor’s price held some back.
Now there may be no more excuses. OneBlade has created a version of their razor from inexpensive materials and have announced pre-orders at…$50!
OneBlade Core Specifications
The Stainless Steel OneBlade razor will now be known as “OneBlade Genesis.” The new razor, known as “OneBlade Core,” is very similar in design (same blade, same head specifications, visually similar) but made mostly from plastic, though there is a Stainless Steal rod (“core”) in the handle to give the razor better stiffness, weight, and balance.
Core’s dimensions are ever-so-slightly larger than Genesis: 114.3mm L x 45mm W x 19.4 D vs. 113.3mm L x 45mm W x 19.4 D (Core’s handle is 1mm longer than Genesis’). As might be expected from a primarily plastic tool, Core is lighter at 68 grams (2.4oz) compared to Genesis’ 88 grams (3.1oz). Oneblade’s spec sheet with more detail is available HERE.
The key specifications of blade angle, blade gap, and blade exposure are the same between Core and Genesis. So I imagine the shave experience with Core will be similar to the Genesis razor.
What’s Coming Next
OneBlade has reserved 250 units for Sharpologist readers. OneBlade Core was announced today for pre-order, with shipping scheduled for around June 9. Use THIS LINK to pre-order (yes, that’s an affiliate link. If you prefer you can order through OneBlade’s main website but razor availability is not guaranteed).
Am I getting a OneBlade Core to evaluate? Darn tootin’ I am! I’ve been promised one of the first production razors and I will be posting my review here on Sharpologist and on my Youtube channel soon. But if you’ve been wanting a OneBlade (or maybe get one as a Father’s Day gift?) you will probably want to jump on the link–at that price the first production run is sure to sell out quickly.A crushing moment from the turn of my 15th birthday: Staring at the ‘create-a-player’ screen in that year’s Pro Evo, having made a virtual wish-fulfilment version of the player I imagined I would be when I grew up, I saw that the game now let you enter an age that was younger than my own. This moment killed my sole childhood dream, and by extension, me.
Despite having shown scant evidence that I possessed enough ability to start for my relegation-mired under-16s side, let alone so much that I might one day be paid for the privilege at the highest level, I had always just that I would suddenly, inexplicably, develop world-class talent at some point. I just wasn’t old enough yet. I’d always had to lie about my age when creating virtual ‘me’ before as these games couldn’t even conceive of there being an 11-year-old in the Premier League, which meant there was plenty of time. These in-game avatars allowed me to circumvent the inconveniently slow ageing process and experience the career I was destined without waiting. I would put myself in the games, make myself as short as the game would allow with a ginger mop on top; whack all of my speed, dribbling and shooting stats up to 99; and then bang in enough goals for my beloved Arsenal and my beloved Wales to live on in the collective hearts, minds, and souls of every fan for all eternity.
But now you could be 13 in PES, and I was 14 already, about to be 15. I was too old, it was too late. I was never going to become a professional footballer. The in-game Tristan Crosses I’d made on countless PES and FIFAs stopped feeling like sneak-previews of my certain future and became tragic embodiments of my pathetic failures and delusions. There was no longer a chance of Arsene Wenger strolling past one of my kickabouts, clocking me as a rough diamond of a forward and signing me up. This was the point I turned to Football Manager. Managing a football team is a reasonable dream. The only true upper-age-limit for becoming a manager is: dead.
It’s hard trying to explain the unique allure of Football Manager, especially when naysayers and newcomers find themselves presented with essentially a series of spreadsheets and fictional emails. On a surface level, it seems less like a game and more like an admin job. But this is the |
Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism, and coauthored with Brad Evans, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle. Giroux is also a member of Truthout's Board of Directors. He has a new book out called is America at War with Itself?"
Listen now on Truth Out!SEOUL – A North Korean defector and activist –– who has spent more than a decade in Seoul –– plans to publicly defect back to the North in order to highlight poor treatment of refugees who try to integrate into life in South Korea.
Son Jong-hun knows that harsh punishment awaits, and that what remains of his family will condemn his decision to leave for South Korea. However, 11 years after escaping, Son told NK News in an exclusive interview published today that he feels his options have become limited:
“Compared to the political effect and benefits that could be gained from my re-defection, my life is not very important,” Son said. “I want to send a strong yet refreshing message to South Korea.”
Mr. Son, a former Northern official-turned-activist for defectors, is going through the legal channels to return after despairing over treatment of North Korean refugees. In his decade south of the border, South Koreans have shown no sincere interest in reunification or in properly treating defectors who often risk their lives to resettle, he told NK News.
Son accumulated a variety of experience, working both at a trading company under the Northern government’s umbrella and as a lobbyist for an aborted effort to boost ties between North Korea and Taiwan. Still, he said a lack of a personal network and refusal to recognize his experience here resulted in being able to do little other than work in low-paying activism, and raising awareness of defector human rights.
But Son is angered by more than his own misfortune.
“Why did I come to a land where my human rights are not respected?” he told NK News.
HOW TO RE-DEFECT
“In recent years, the North Korean human rights law that has been in the works from the Korean government has made no progress. Even in the U.S. and Japan North Korean human rights laws have been passed. Korean people and the government seem to turn away from the problems in North Korea. This shows how decadent and lousy the South Korean governmental system is.
“There is no further work that can be done to improve the lives of North Koreans in South Korea,” he said. “South Koreans see reunification as a burden for them: it means more taxation.”
Son said he wants to proceed through legal channels in returning to the North, but the Southern government has detained him since his intent was reported in mid-July. The Ministry of Unification has told him he can only be sent back if the North formally invites him to return, so instead he plans to formally renounce his citizenship through the Ministry of Justice.
If successful, he would then be deported as a stateless person, then able to return to the North.
Son fled to the South after the he was ousted from his job at a government-owned trading company for a seemingly innocuous comment about foreign nations’ military technology during an office party. He then spent three months imprisoned in harsh conditions after efforts to broker closer relations with Taiwan were abandoned.
Although Mr. Son is still no lover of the Northern political system –– his brother was executed after his escape –– he believes his re-entry into the country would focus media attention on them, thus putting them in a difficult spot too.
“The North Korean government would have to prove my wellbeing, thereby showing international society whether this nation is a legitimate one that safeguards human rights for its people, whether it is truly a nation that is fit for people to live in,” he said.
“The North Korean government would feel angry and betrayed over my defection, but my career and knowledge acquired in South Korea would be of benefit to the North Korean government. So I don’t think they would kill me right away.”
Additional reporting by Rob York and James Pearson in Seoul. Headline image: NK News.CINCINNATI -- The Patriots promoted rookie safety Kanorris Davis and rookie linebacker Ja’Gared Davis from their practice squad to fill the two open spots on their 53-man roster.
The promotions indicate that both players will likely be active for Sunday’s game against the Bengals. Their primary contributions figure to come on special teams.
Kanorris Davis had been promoted to the active roster on Sept. 28, and played on each of the “Big 4” special teams units in place of injured cornerback/punt-team gunner Marquice Cole. He was waived on Sept. 30 and re-signed to the practice squad the next day.
With Cole limited in practice this week with a hamstring injury, and potentially unable to play Sunday, this could be a case of the Patriots making a move to address a short-term need.
Ja’Gared Davis (6-0, 238) spent training camp with the Houston Texans after signing with them as an undrafted free agent this year. The Patriots claimed him on waivers from the Texans on Aug. 28, and after waiving him Aug. 31, they re-signed him to the practice squad the next day.NSA leaker Edward Snowden is a "traitor," venture capitalist Marc Andreessen told CNBC. The secrets he's revealed have hurt Silicon Valley by association, and President Barack Obama is doing nothing to change that perception on the world stage.
"The Snowden reveals keep coming out. The [Obama] administration is letting the NSA out to dry. They're letting the American tech industry out to dry," Andreessen said in a "Squawk Box" interview that aired Thursday.
Read MoreSnowden: Here's why I'm in Russia
The fallout from the Snowden leaks have hurt U.S. technology firms' ability to sell their products overseas, he added.
Read MoreIs Big Brother really watching you?
"For me obviously he's a traitor," Andreessen said. "If you look up in the encyclopedia 'traitor' there's a picture of Ed Snowden."
"I think I am in the distinct minority out here," he added. "I think most in Silicon Valley would pick the other designation."
Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year."
Read MoreApple, Google 'both winning': AndreessenThere have been many bad news days already for the still-young Trump Administration. Thursday was yet another terrible one. Former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was devastating. Whether or not his remarks revealed crimes by the President—more on that below—it revealed a President who freely lies about matters of great public import, and who either thoroughly misunderstands or knowingly violated deeply important norms that keep federal law enforcement free from political interference.
Comey, of course, was fired by President Trump from his post in May. The White House initially claimed the firing was due to Comey’s controversial handling last summer and fall of the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. But President Trump soon admitted publicly that he had in fact fired Comey due to his dissatisfaction with the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference with the presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Comey, it should be noted, is a life-long Republican. He reportedly donated to the John McCain and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, respectively. He held a senior position in the George W. Bush administration. As FBI director, Comey decided to drop his Republican party registration, apparently due to the need for the director to be perceived as apolitical. Comey has been criticized by both left and right for his handling of the Clinton email matter during the 2016 presidential campaign. But everybody agrees that Comey is a straight shooter—as honest as they come—and a devoutly committed public servant.
So Comey’s testimony on Thursday about Trump (and other matters) is highly credible. No one argues that he is misreporting the facts. What are those facts?
From the beginning, Comey did not trust Trump and the people around him and so took contemporaneous notes of conversations because he feared that Trump or his team might later lie about what occurred.
Comey stated that Trump had told “lies” to the American people when he claimed the FBI was in disarray and that FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey. (This and all other quotations and transcriptions are mine.)
During a one-on-one dinner meeting requested by Trump, the President demanded that Comey pledge personal loyalty to him. Comey demurred. (Comey also testified that Trump’s later claim that Comey asked for this meeting in order to request that he keep his job was another lie. Trump asked for the meeting, and the President had previously told Comey that he wanted him to remain as FBI Director.)
The day after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was fired, as a result of news reports that Flynn had lied about his pre-inauguration communications with the Russian ambassador, Trump cleared everyone out of an Oval Office meeting so he could tell Comey alone that he hoped the FBI would drop its investigation of Flynn.
In the context, Comey perceived this as an “order” from the President.
Comey, of course, did not drop the investigation of Flynn, or the larger investigation.
Trump later called Comey twice to complain about “the cloud” the Russia investigation was casting over the presidency and him personally, and asked Comey to make public statements that Trump was not personally being investigated into order to “lift the cloud.”
The Russia investigation—the cloud—continued. Trump then fired Comey. Why?, he was asked. Comey (my transcription): “I take the President at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation.”
Comey was repeatedly “stunned, “troubled,” “concern[ed]” and “shocked” by the President’s behavior.
There are so many extraordinary and disturbing things about the President’s conduct that it is hard to know where to start.
It may not come as a surprise anymore to hear it said that Trump frequently lies. But it should matter that such behavior was confirmed today, beyond any reasonable doubt, by one of the most credible people in public life. And these were not lies as a private citizen, or about private business or personal peccadilloes. These were lies as told in his role as President about matters of public importance.
Congress gave the FBI Director a 10-year term in office because, in the wake of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, it wanted to protect the FBI from interference or instruction by the White House. Congress and the American people overwhelmingly agreed that federal law enforcement needed to be apolitical and independent. Trump has flouted that norm in an extraordinarily damaging fashion.
The President’s claim that Comey has vindicated him is incorrect. Comey did say that Trump “personally” was not the subject or target of an FBI investigation, and that Comey had communicated this to the President. But Comey also testified that Trump’s conduct fell within “the scope of” the FBI investigation. More than that, we know from Comey and other sources that Trump’s presidential campaign, his former campaign manager, other campaign staff, Trump businesses, and other Trump associates on the campaign and in government, including Trump’s son-in-law and his former national security adviser, are being investigated by the FBI and federal prosecutors.
Comey would not comment on whether Trump’s actions constituted the crime of obstruction of justice. He left that call to Robert Mueller, the recently-appointed special counsel overseeing the Trump-Russia investigation. Whether or not Mueller might ever bring such a charge, enough is now known to say that the charge would be legally supported.
But we must remember not to focus too narrowly on whether crimes were committed. Of course it matters whether the President committed the crime of obstruction of justice. But it also matters whether he abused the power of his office, defied norms protecting the rule of law, or behaved unethically, even if those actions do not constitute crimes.
The language of criminal law is coming to dominate the discussion to an unfortunate degree, as political commentator David Frum and others have noted. Whether or not there was secret “collusion” between the Trump campaign and elements of the Russian intelligence services, and whether or not those secret dealings—if they occurred—constituted crimes, much damning information is already public. There was clearly a kind of public collusion by Trump and his campaign with the Russian hacking. “I love Wikileaks,” Trump liked to say on the campaign trail. “Russia, if you’re listening,” he said, I hope you hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. He and his campaign surrogates talked incessantly about the leaked materials. And Trump fired his FBI Director to try to stymie an investigation into Trump-Russia connections.
In the face of the unanimous opinion of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was behind the hacking, Trump as President has continued to cast doubt on that. Comey’s testimony emphasized that Russia’s attack on the U.S. election was a really “big deal.” And “they are coming after America” and its democracy again, he said. Comey was asked by several senators whether Trump seemed to be interested or concerned about Russia’s misconduct or the threat Russia posed. Comey gave long answers that can be summarized with one word: no. Although the list is long, that may have been the most troubling thing America learned today about its President.
Andrew Kent is a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City.T
his past fall, I went with seven other third-year nonfiction MFA students from the University of Pittsburgh to New York to pitch editors and agents. Incidentally, we are all women. All young women. Not a single one of us was pitching a memoir or personal essay: one of us was writing a biography of Alexander Graham Bell, one a true crime story about a coal town murder, one immersion journalism about gay square dancing, one narrative nonfiction about a highway in Peru and its impacts, one a profile of a small-town filmmaker, and finally, in my case, literary journalism about Mexican migrants returning to Mexico after years in the U.S.
We would sit around a table in a Midtown office with a generous view, and we’d each give our prepared pitch–Peru; Mexico; Alexander Graham Bell; Henry Ford and square dancing; Braddock, PA. And then the listener would sit back, digest, and say,: “So, this is a story about a young girl…”
The first time we were slightly taken aback. “Well, not really, but I mean, I’m the one writing it and so I’m guiding the narrative…” We tried to be accommodating, tried to find a way in which the story of gold mining or oralist history could also be a young girl’s journey of self-discovery. At first it seemed like a quirk. And then it became a pattern. We crammed in eight, ten meetings a day, skipped lunch, and thus got to see our pitches transform like landscapes in a time-lapse video: certain words and references were dropped, holes were filled in. And what we noticed was that two writers in particular started to emphasize the personal, because that was what drew interest: they’d given their pitches sans personal details and backgrounds, and the moment they mentioned their families, their histories, they could see the difference. “So it’s the journey of a young girl…”
Neither wanted to be present in her book; each saw it as a story apart from her own experience, although of course that experience had played a role in shaping their stories. And if we were men, I find it hard to believe that this detachment would have been questioned and the personal pushed so strongly. It seems incredible that if Chris Jones were pitching, say, climate change in South America, it’d become the memoir of a young man’s quest for self-discovery. But there seemed–not everywhere we went, but frequently enough for it to be a topic of discussion each night over nerve-calming beers–to be several presumptions at work when women pitched these stories: 1) that women would not write a journalistic story unless it had a personal angle and 2) that the personal should trump the journalistic, because what would sell was not necessarily the strength of the writing or reporting but the familiar formula of the young woman on a journey…the cover with a bright daisy and a cast-off pair of flip-flops on a serene beach. (The latter is perhaps unfair, but given all the discussion recently about the marketing of women’s writing in comparison to men’s, it doesn’t seem so farfetched.)
At the time, I read that trip as an example of the difficulty women face in establishing themselves as “serious” journalists: it seems if they go so far as to dip a toe into the personal, they’re tossed into the pool of memoir, where swim the snakes of derision and triviality (in an academic hiring meeting: “Her book is a memoir. Anyone can write a memoir.”) And so I reacted by firmly placing myself in the camp of serious/detached/impersonal, yanking myself entirely out of my book, adhering to this absorbed formula that personal writing is somehow easier, weaker, cheaper, more feminine, more frivolous, and “serious journalism” is strictly objective, hard, complicated, male.
Then, several months later, I realized I had put up an artificial wall between myself and my work and the work was suffocating for it. I was not writing a memoir, but I had to be in the narrative, shaping and directing it, and in some places my experience had to inform it. Several of my colleagues in the program were facing a similar problem: they’d become deeply wary of the personal, but certain personal experiences were intrinsic to their reported narratives and essential to deepen them. I wanted to occupy the middle ground between Reporter and Author, that fertile territory that Didion sowed, and as writers do I began looking for models who laid claim to such space. It took about five minutes to realize that many of my favorite contemporary writers lived here: John Jeremiah Sullivan, David Foster Wallace, Ian Frazier, Matthew Power, Tom Bissell…and it seemed there was not a woman among them.
The recent Port cover, which heralded “a new golden age” for print magazines with a glorifying shot of six white men in suits, has sparked an unfolding sequence of discussions about magazines, long-form journalism, and women writers and editors. At first, there was the predictable (to all but the editors of Port, apparently) flurry of well-deserved criticism–they couldn’t locate a single female editor, not Clara Jeffery of Mother Jones, not Ellen Rosenbush of Harper’s? And then the discussion shifted to women’s magazines, and why they aren’t publishing “serious”–a problematic adjective, for what constitutes “serious” anyway and what might its opposite be?–journalism. In The New Republic, Jessica Grose hinted at multiple causes for this: women’s magazines do not compete at the NMA awards in the general interest category, like men’s magazines, but rather in a “service and fashion” category; women writers fear being pigeonholed as writers for women’s mags and not getting more “serious” work; there’s a strong prejudice among men and women writers alike against women’s mags; stories at women’s magazines tend to be shorter and more middlebrow (possibly because women’s magazines have much higher circulations than men’s). Meanwhile, the editors at women’s magazines accused men of fetishizing length (wink, nudge) and fought back with a #womenatlength hashtag.
Amanda Hess, however, took aim at the root cause of this disparity: on Slate, she claimed that women’s magazines are unwilling to invest the time, money, and editorial effort in “serious journalism,” and instead choose to focus on cheaper stories that are friendlier to advertisers. She pointed out a number of stories hashtagged #womenatlength, or featured on Longreads’ list of 21 pieces of “serious journalism” by women, and explained that for as exceptional as they may be many are ultimately personal essays, which, she concluded, are “easiest to pull off with a lack of institutional support.”
I understand that Hess’s point here is that women’s magazines–and, for that matter, men’s magazines–are unwilling to provide women the funding, support, time, and editorial backing necessary for long-form and in-depth reported features. But I also think that this argument, in placing the personal squarely in the feminine camp and putting it in opposition to the “serious,” has the unfortunate consequence of reinforcing that age-old assumption that men’s writing is objective and hard and important, challenging to edit and worthy of significant compensation, whereas women’s writing is subjective and frivolous and easy, simple to edit and worth less both financially and intellectually. This stark divide between personal/easy/unserious and “objective”/hard/serious has a very real impact on women writers who want to both put themselves in their stories and be taken seriously as reporters and writers of narrative nonfiction.
I know that intensive long-form reporting does take much more money and backing than long-form stories that can be hung on the frame of a personal narrative: I take no moral or technical issue with that. But singling out women’s magazines for leaning on personal writing reinforces tired and frustrating stereotypes. It renders “personal” the domain of women: of ovaries and divulgences and memoir. (And singling out women’s magazines for catering extensively to ads is, as Jessica Grose points out, unjust and illogical: men’s magazines are chock full of ads and short service pieces.) It also has the effect of making the personal seem like a terrifying and perilous terrain for women writers: do not tread there, for thee will be struck down into the land of memoir.
And yet men’s magazines and general interest magazines also publish personal writing that includes a strong reporting element: it’s just not called personal. It’s called “criticism” or “putting yourself in the story” or “voice-driven” or “narrative,” or “travelogue” or “history” or “new journalism” or simply a “literary journey,” as The New York Times referred to Tom Bissell’s The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam. Compare that to the work of a writer like Lauren Slater, nearly all of whose books are labeled memoirs (how many memoirs can one person write?) despite the fact that several of her books use inward journeys only as frames for larger psychological and scientific questions. (It shouldn’t come as a shock that Slater writes predominantly for women’s magazines.)
The new/gonzo journalists are the most phenomenal example of this disparity: Hunter Thompson’s work is, for all of its fervent subjectivity, ultimately categorized as journalism; similarly Mailer’s and Orwell’s. But take the work of Deborah Copaken Kogan, also a badass reporting from the frontlines of a war zone: not only was her book classified as memoir (and not “nonfiction novel” or “gonzo journalism” or “new journalism”), it was given the title “Shutterbabe,” and the original cover photo involved a camera covering a vagina. (“I tell them it’s usually my eye behind the camera, not my vagina,” Kogan writes in a recent article in The Nation about the book.) Joan Didion’s work, meanwhile, is now as frequently categorized as memoir as it is new journalism.
Thus the “I” in a woman’s writing has the alchemical effect of converting it into traditional women’s work–personal essay, memoir–whereas the “I” in a man’s work is a rhetorical device, a detached or quirky or “gutsy” narrative decision. It’s a wily craft choice for men, a solipsistic indulgence for women.
Case in point: David Foster Wallace’s writing is hardly ever considered “personal,” although it’s infused with a deeply personal ethical sensibility, it adheres to a distinct personal “I,” and it is almost excessively subjective. It’s hard to imagine anyone calling out “A Ticket to the Fair” or “Shipping Out” now as lesser, easier, cheaper stories, although undoubtedly if a women’s magazine sent an up-and-coming female journalist to a county fair or a cruise ship it would be considered the height of superfluousness. Oh, let’s play this game for just a second: what if a woman had written about how Obamacare affected her family? Would it be considered “a reported but essayistic GQ piece on the political ramifications of Obamacare,” as Ann Friedman labels John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “American Grotesque,” or a personal essay?
Friedman makes it clear that “American Grotesque” is not the latter: she writes, “Sure, we all know that where politics gets interesting is where it intersects with the personal. But rarely does such an intersection make its way out of the personal essay and into a reported piece of journalism.” That is, JJS has transcended the personal essay and landed in the terrain of seriousness: the women Hess highlights, however, have failed to do so…because they are women?
From the days of uber-macho gonzo journalism–for the new journalism was an intensely virile and almost exclusively male phenomenon–men have had the permission and the authority to get personal without their work being sold or categorized as such, perhaps because a man’s experience, like a man’s magazine, is presumed to be of general interest, the standard and status quo, whereas a woman’s experience is the exception. This item sold separately. Men have always been able to live their lives in public; women’s lives have historically been personal, interior, hidden. In Mexico, the kitchen is often a teensy dark room huddled off to the side of the house; this drove me mad when I lived there. One day, surely after slamming my knee on the table a foot and a half behind the stove, I asked my husband about this. “It’s because the kitchen is a private place, a woman’s place,” he said. “That’s why it’s hidden from view.”
Men’s perspectives, meanwhile, are inherently assumed to be critical-political-intellectual. The male voice is the voice of reason, whether it is speaking of personal experience or not, and the female voice is that of emotion: interior, weaker, other.
This is partially a problem of permission and authority: Vanessa Veselka, one of the few women writers who does straddle the personal and the reported (though in GQ, not in women’s mags, which might make the difference), admits in an interview with The American Reader, “I had lot of very strong women models. And so anything I’ve done I’ve always done with a certain amount of—maybe unearned—authority.” For all of the digressive bashfulness of John Jeremiah Sullivan and David Foster Wallace’s writing, they have a tremendous amount of authority: they are simply seeing and absorbing the world, passing it through the filter of themselves and their minds, and they believe and their editors believe and we believe that this is fascinating and riveting enough. Yes, they do reporting, and yes, they do research, but in stories like “Shipping Out” and “You Blow My Mind, Hey Mickey!” what we’re buying is the writer’s consciousness, the most personal of the personal. Women, meanwhile, often struggle to achieve permission and authority to assert their views not as contingent or relative or limited: hence the need for creative writing teachers to constantly berate them to take out all those perhapses and I thinks. Can women lay claim to such authority to assert the subjective as true and essential instead of confessional and partial, personal? If women’s work was not so easily categorized as “personal,” women might be more willing to assert their voices instead of needing to hide behind facts; behind a stiff, “serious” objectivity. What if we stopped considering “memoir” and “personal” as such feminine terms, or started applying them more assiduously to male writing that is spared them by default and assumed to be serious, canonical, critical-intellectual?
I don’t doubt that women need to be trusted with more funding, support, and institutional backing for heavyweight journalism. But they also need to be trusted to write an “I” that isn’t necessarily “personal,” and by association, frivolous or confessional. They also need to be trusted to wade into the subjective without being swept away by memoir, and perhaps we’d all be surprised by the “serious” journalism that would emerge if more women found root in that increasingly lush territory between strict journalism and the essay, between the dreaded memoir and reportage. If, in other words, they didn’t have to choose between the journey of a serious journalist and the journey of a young girl.Newborn giraffe born at the Houston Zoo
PHOTOS: See the Houston Zoo's new baby giraffe
On Tuesday the Houston Zoo was happy to announce that a female baby Masai giraffe was born on the grounds, the first birth at the zoo since February.
Click through to see more of the newborn at the zoo... less PHOTOS: See the Houston Zoo's new baby giraffe
On Tuesday the Houston Zoo was happy to announce that a female baby Masai giraffe was born on the grounds, the first birth at the zoo since February.
Click through... more Photo: John Register/Houston Zoo Photo: John Register/Houston Zoo Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close Newborn giraffe born at the Houston Zoo 1 / 27 Back to Gallery
On Tuesday the Houston Zoo was happy to announce that a female baby Masai giraffe was born on the grounds, the first birth at the zoo since February.
According to the Houston Zoo, the calf was born at the McGovern Giraffe Barn at the African Forest on Monday morning just after 9 a.m.
BABY CRAZE: Houston Zoo welcomes new baby tapir into the family
Labor lasted around two hours, after a pregnancy of just over a year.
The mother, Tyra, and the newborn are currently bonding behind closed doors at the zoo with keepers and veterinarians keeping tabs on them. Typically newborn giraffes weigh around 150 pounds and stand six feet tall.
PURE JOY: No one is happier than this llama at the Houston Zoo enjoying a breeze
The new addition should be on display within a few days, according to zoo staff. As you can see in the video below the giraffe is still getting the hang of walking.
The Houston Zoo is now home to six Masai giraffes.
Stay tuned for a name for the giraffe, as that announcement usually comes within a few weeks of the animal's debut.Nintendo is teaming up with Capcom to bring another arcade game to every grown up’s favorite play place. Dave & Buster’s has the first North American cabinet of Luigi’s Mansion Arcade available to play at their Addison, Illinois location. The game is pretty similar to the 3DS exclusive, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, so fans should feel comfortable spending quarters on something they already know how to play.
The arcade game features a vacuum-like controller with a button for Luigi’s flashlight and one for the vacuum. However, in order to reel in those spooky ghosts, players must shake the controller. The 3DS version of the game was enjoyable but getting to suck up ghosts your self should be much more satisfying. Both Dave and Buster will know exactly who to call in case of an outbreak in paranormal activity.
At this moment Luigi’s Mansion Arcade is only in Addison but it should spread its way across the United State since Pokkén Tournament was tested in other cities. We’re just excited for the the year of Luigi to make a comeback.The pro-Obama media watchdog Media Matters Wednesday, defending the administration's surprise move to cancel implementation of major elements of Obamacare, said that Republicans were to blame and accused conservative media leaders like Fox News and the Drudge Report for ignoring the GOP's role.
In a release, the liberal group said that Fox and Drudge instead charged that the one-year delay was political with the goal of pushing off the expected initial implementation disaster until after the 2014 elections.
"Fox News and the Drudge Report are ignoring years of Republicans obstructing the implementation of health care reform to accuse the Obama administration of delaying the law for political gain, in the process dismissing the fact that businesses are praising the administration's move," said Media Matters.
Businesses are praising the move in part because the administration isn't ready for Obamacare to kick in. In fact one of the lead managers of Obamacare said last week that he would be "surprised" if it began without major hitches.
"Fox News and the Drudge Report reacted to the announcement by baselessly claiming that the administration's decision was politically motivated and was linked to the approaching 2014 midterm elections," said Media Matters, a regular critic of Fox.
"During the June 2 edition of Fox News' Hannity, guest host Tucker Carlson claimed he did not believe the delay until 2015 was an accident, saying to his guests 'It seems to me they have been mindful of the political calendar, Joe, from day one... You can't look, either of you, look at me straight in the eye and say that political considerations played no role in the implementation of the less popular parts of this incredibly complex law,'" said Media Matters.
Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.Expand Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez (R) and Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (L) attend a signing ceremony for a convention on preventing violence against women and combating domestic violence during the 121st session of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers meeting in Istanbul, Turkey on May 11, 2011. © 2011 Reuters
Update: On August 1, 2014, 36 of 47 Council of Europe member states signed the Convention and 14 also ratified it: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Italy, Malta, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey.
(Berlin, April 22, 2014) – A ground-breaking European treaty on violence against women moved one step closer to entering into legal force, with Andorra becoming the 10th country to ratify it. With this milestone met, the treaty will become binding on August 1, 2014. Countries ratifying the treaty are obligated to protect and support victims of violence.
The treaty, the “Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence” – known informally as the “Istanbul Convention” – is the first European treaty specifically targeting violence against women and domestic violence. It sets out minimum standards on prevention, protection, prosecution, and services. Countries ratifying must also establish services such as hotlines, shelters, medical services, counselling, and legal aid.
“This is a defining moment for women in Europe for whom the home is a place of danger,” said Gauri van Gulik, global women’s rights advocate for Human Rights Watch. “This treaty will oblige governments to take concrete steps to help women and girls facing violent attacks.”
One in three women in the European Union has experienced some form of physical and/or sexual assault since the age of 15, according to an EU Fundamental Rights Agency survey. An estimated 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner, or sexual violence by a stranger. The World Health Organization calls this a public health problem of epidemic proportions.
The treaty was adopted in Istanbul on May 11, 2011. More than half (25 of 47) of the countries that are Council of Europe members have signed the convention (the initial step before fully agreeing to be bound by the treaty through ratification). To date, ten countries have ratified: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Andorra, Italy, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, and Turkey.
The Istanbul Convention addresses gaps in national responses to violence against women. Across Europe, violence and the failure of governments to prevent it is a daily, brutal reality for women and girls, Human Rights Watch research over the past few years has shown.
In Hungary, police inaction, ineffective restraining orders, insufficient shelter spaces, and legal and policy gaps leave women survivors of domestic violence at risk of further abuse.
In Belgium, fear of deportation prevents many migrant women who experience domestic violence from getting the protection they need.
In Turkey, gaps in the law and implementation failures by police, prosecutors, judges, and other officials make the protection system unpredictable at best, and deadly at worst.
The treaty defines various forms of violence against women (including sexual violence, physical and psychological violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and stalking), and calls for their criminalization.
A group of independent experts with the power to conduct country visits and review regular reports will monitor implementation of the treaty. The experts will be elected within a year following the entry into force.
The treaty is already propelling positive changes, Human Rights Watch said. For example in Turkey, in March 2012 parliament adopted a new law that, despite flaws, improved the legal framework for protection from violence and was largely based on the Istanbul Convention.
“Violence against women is not a force of nature – it can be stopped,” van Gulik said. “This convention is set to bring about practical changes that should ultimately improve the lives of women and girls across Europe.”
Interactive Map: Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic ViolenceRichard "Red" Skelton (July 18, 1913 – September 17, 1997) was an American comedy entertainer. He was best known for his national radio and television acts between 1937 and 1971, and as host of the television program The Red Skelton Show. He has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in radio and television, and also appeared in burlesque, vaudeville, films, nightclubs, and casinos, all while he pursued an entirely separate career as an artist.
Skelton began developing his comedic and pantomime skills from the age of 10, when he became part of a traveling medicine show. He then spent time on a showboat, worked the burlesque circuit, and then entered into vaudeville in 1934. The "Doughnut Dunkers" pantomime sketch, which he wrote together with his wife, launched a career for him in vaudeville, radio, and films. His radio career began in 1937 with a guest appearance on The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, which led to his becoming the host of Avalon Time in 1938. He became the host of The Raleigh Cigarette Program in 1941, on which many of his comedy characters were created, and he had a regularly scheduled radio program until 1957. Skelton made his film debut in 1938 alongside Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Alfred Santell's Having Wonderful Time, and he went on to appear in numerous musical and comedy films throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, with starring roles in Ship Ahoy (1941), I Dood It (1943), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), and The Clown (1953).
Skelton was most eager to work in television, even when the medium was in its |
÷ 988 = 0.12551
to a lower target of 123px:
123 ÷ 988 = 0.12449
Plug that width of 12.449% into your IE-specific stylesheet, and your layout woes should clear right up.
A grid for all seasons
The above is, of course, a starting point: there are myriad other challenges that face the liquid web designer, most of which arise when you introduce fixed content (such as images, Flash, and so forth) into a fluid framework. I’ve been experimenting with a few possible solutions on my blog, but other, better workarounds are still out there.
And finally, I don’t pretend that design is easy, whether it’s fixed or fluid. But given all that we’ve achieved over the past few years—moving past tables, evangelizing standards in our companies and in our shared industry, demanding better standards of our browsers and our peers—I do wish we’d bend some of that ingenuity to break out of our reliance on “minimum screen resolution.” After all, our users’ browsing habits aren’t as fixed as our comps would suggest. I hope the promise of fluid grids has fired your imagination, and I’m excited to see how you improve on the technique. Our users will be, too.
Additional reading
As you may have gathered from my introductory crazed rant digression, two passions of mine are fluid web design and, more recently, the importance of a well-considered grid. Both of these have been fueled by the following, though this isn’t an exhaustive list:
And finally, at the end of a talk I gave last August on designing for fluid grids, someone pointed out the Fluid 960 Grid System. If you’re using a public CSS framework such as 960 Grid System already, the fluid “port” might be of interest to you.
Also in Issue № 279 The Elements of Social Architecture While our designs can never control people, they can encourage good behavior and discourage bad. In this excerpt from Information… Further reading about Code Responsive Comping: Obtaining Signoff without Mockups If you’re making websites, chances are you’ve given some thought to what constitutes a responsive-friendly design… Mo’ Pixels Mo’ Problems Mobile devices are shipping with higher and higher PPI, and desktops and laptops are following the trend as well. There’s no…
Get our latest articles in your inbox. Sign up for email alerts.April Fool's Day is an excuse for a number of tech companies, even major ones, to take some time and have some fun. Microsoft is no exception to this rule. Today the company updated its official Windows Live blog to alert the world to a new version of its SkyDrive cloud server service, SkyCMD.
Yes, Microsoft has come up with a way to access SkyDrive without the need for modern technology like a touch screen UI or even a mouse-keyboard setup. Nope, that's all done away with when using SkyCMD. Now all you have to do is head to the service's web site and type in commands the old fashioned way.
Once there you log in to the service with your real Windows Live password (you have to tell your web browser to not block pop ups first) and then you ready to explore SkyCMD. You can even turn the commands green to really get that early 1980's MS-DOS look and feel. For what it's worth, the SkyCMD April fools is actually a fully working version of the services API, so you'll learn something along the way, too.
Microsoft claims that their "entire SkyDrive engineering organization" has been working on SkyCMD for the past few months. We doubt that, but the company did go ahead and releases the source code for this April Fool's joke just in case anyone was interested in replicating their efforts.
Image via MicrosoftAs most readers will know, General Election campaigning at a local level resumed today and at a national level is set to resume tomorrow. What most readers will not know is why.
The SKWAWKBOX was attacked earlier this week by the pro-Tory Guido Fawkes site for, among other things, mentioning that Theresa May hadn’t wanted to resume campaigning until Sunday. Fawkes claimed:
In fact, this was incorrect, as this blog had stated that May wanted to suspend campaigning until Sunday, not that it had been ‘announced’. And in fact, it turns out that ‘until Sunday’ meant including Sunday, as Mrs May wanted no resumption of campaigning until Monday.
The SKWAWKBOX can exclusively reveal that the reason that this did not happen is because, in the clash between May and Jeremy Corbyn, Corbyn’s resoluteness caused May and her advisors to cave in:
A senior Labour source told this blog:
The Thursday/Friday phased start of campaigning has been a big victory for Jeremy and his team. The Tories were determined to take the suspension of campaigning through to Monday, and Labour called their bluff. The resumption of national campaigning on Friday was announced to the rest of the team by Jeremy on Wednesday morning at Labour HQ after a meeting with John McDonnell and the strategy team. Even at that point, we were aware that the Tories might try to smear us as ‘disrespectful’ to the families. But in the end, they caved in and decided to go with Friday as well. Basically the Tories were quite happy to silence the General Election campaign for as long as possible, as it has been going so badly for them. The papers know, because they were briefed that the pause was going to be 6 days, but they aren’t making it a story. Jeremy was absolutely adamant that anything longer was giving in to the terrorists. He has insisted that we not only resume the campaign but go big – large gatherings, lots of people as a statement that it’s business as usual and Britain won’t be intimidated. But the Tories really don’t want to be back campaigning, because they are running scared.
May appears to have hoped that the longer the suspension continued, the better it would be for her campaign. However, even that has backfired as the uproar about her cuts and condescension to the police has continued to grow and, by today, even all the mainstream channels were covering and discussing police cuts.
The Friday campaign restart is a clear victory for Corbyn’s resolve and makes a mockery of May’s claim about the Brexit negotiations. Yet again the Labour leader has shown that there’s only one person with the proven resolve and resilience to leave the negotiating table with a win.
The SKWAWKBOX is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you found this information helpful and can afford to, please do click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your support so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
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SALT LAKE CITY -- This month a Summit County man risked his life to save a stranger. Keenan Pearson ended up losing his right leg when he pushed a woman out of the way from an oncoming car.
However, Pearson doesn't like to think about the leg he lost, he'd rather focus on the friend he gained. He's referring to the woman he saved, Megan Hansen, of Heber.
"You don't meet many people that are as kind-hearted as you, like I feel lucky to have gotten to know you," said Pearson while speaking with her over the phone from his hospital bed Monday.
Hansen's admiration for Keenan is just as strong.
"He saved my life, he saved both of us really," Hansen said.
The two met after their cars slid off the highway in Parley's Canyon during the early morning hours of Oct. 6. They were both trying to help each other when a third vehicle lost control.
"I remember seeing the car coming at us and being like I need to get her out of the way, and so I pushed her," Pearson said.
"I was so grateful that it was him rather than someone else that maybe would have been in shock," Hansen said.
In the process of rescuing Hansen both of Pearson's legs were badly injured. His right one could not be saved. It's an incredible blow to the husband and father of two.
"I never thought anything like that would ever happen," Pearson said.
Hansen said there is only one word to describe him, "hero."
"He risked his life for me, absolutely, I'm a complete stranger and he put himself first," Hansen said.
Pearson said the injury is much easier to accept knowing the stranger he saved is now a friend for life.
"I think we were brought into each other's lives for a reason and I'm super excited to have a relationship with you guys," Hansen said.
"If I can pick someone to push out of the way of a car it would definitely be you," Pearson said.
There is still no time frame as to when Pearson will be released from the University of Utah Hospital.
A Go Fund Me Account has been set up under Pearson Recovery Fund.You have received a notification, EMS has a patient with “APE” or acute pulmonary edema. The patient arrives in respiratory distress and if you do nothing, she will require intubation. However, you are well practiced in the use of noninvasive ventilation and will prevent intubation today. You put the mask on the patient and start them on 10/5 and walk away right? WRONG!!!
It is obvious that non-invasive ventilation (NIV) is common practice in the Emergency Department today. As EM physicians we need to be well practiced in setting this up and understand what settings will benefit our patient. Our respiratory therapists are knowledgable but they are by no means experts. This is a brief review of basic terms and ideal settings to optimize specific patients in the department.
Bipap vs Cpap = These terms were for a different time (when machines were only capable of performing certain functions) and should no longer be used these days. NIV just makes you sound smarter and correctly describes the ventilation oxygenation strategy we are employing. Hospitals today should be utilizing machines for NIV that have both capabilities.
PEEP/EPAP = Peak end expiratory pressure (also sometimes referred to as expiratory positive airway pressure on some machines) is a constant pressure that is present throughout the inspiratory and expiratory cycle. It stents open the small airways and is an aid we use for oxygenating our patients. I have heard some people think that this helps patients breath out or expire. When they say this they are referring to the use of PEEP to stent open upper airway obstruction caused by soft tissue collapse when a patient sleeps at night. This is not how or why we use PEEP in the emergency department.
IPAP/PSV = Inspiratory Positive Airway Pressure (or Pressure Support Ventilation) is a tool we can use to aid in ventilation. As noted in the name, this pressure is only present during inspiration. It is an additional pressure that helps patients get their breath in quicker and requires less effort on the patients part to achieve similar tidal volumes (thereby decreasing their work of breathing). Please note that the vents we are using in our departments, the IPAP/PSV is additive to the PEEP (so an IPAP of 5 and PEEP of 5, really equals 10 of inspiratory support and 5 of PEEP).
FIO2 = I think this does not require further explanation but is a setting that you will determine.
Wrapping it up
Patients may require a combination of settings to help them breath.
Pneumonia/CHF patients typically have failure to oxygenate. These patients definitely need PEEP. Starting at 5 is reasonable but don’t be afraid to titrate up. These patients may benefit from some inspiratory support to aid in their work of breathing. The IPAP may increase with the PEEP but the money is PEEP in these patients.
Obstructive disease (COPD/ASTHMA) patients have failure to ventilate. These patients need IPAP to decrease their inspiratory time and allow them more time to breath out. IPAP, as discussed above, will aid in their work of breathing which is important in these patients as they will typically start to tire out as they get sicker. It is also important to remember that these patients are trapping air or auto-PEEPing. Large PEEPs in these patients can be dangerous and likely increase their chances for barotrauma. You may start these patients on an inspiratory pressure of 8 or 10 and PEEP of 0 to 2 and titrate accordingly.
Ultimately, all NIV requires patient specific adjustment. So please think about your settings and don’t just have a cardiac/resus room full of patients on 10/5.NEW DELHI: Sharing concern over drought in various parts of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today pitched for water conservation through a mass movement as he pinned hopes on the Monsoon which is predicted to bring upto 110 per cent of rainfall this season.In his monthly radio programme'Mann Ki Baat ', he also talked about efforts to clean Ganga and Yamuna rivers, hoping that these will show results in some time.Among other several issues, he delved on education, emphasising that the focus should now shift from enrolment to providing quality education.During his 30-minute broadcast, Modi also expressed gratitude to one crore households which gave up LPG subsidy in response to his call and exhorted media to highlight positive news.Talking about the drought situation in various parts of the country, he said concern over it is natural, particularly since prolonged drought leads to drop in water table in reservoirs."To fight the drought and water scarcity, the governments will do their work. But I have seen people also make their own efforts. In several villages, an awareness has been seen with regard to the value of water and in such places, there is sensitivity and a will to do something to conserve," he said.He referred to the weather forecast which has predicted that the country will receive 106 per cent to 110 per cent rainfall during this Monsoon and said such good news always brings peace."But this news brings new awareness also...While the news about good rainfall brings comfort, it also provides an opportunity and a challenge. Can we run a movement from village to village to preserve water?... To whatever extent possible, we must save water."The rain water should be preserved. The water of a village should remain in the village. If we make a resolve to do this, it is possible through a mass campaign. So even though we have a water crisis now, we have one and a half month to prepare (before the onset of Monsoon)," he said.Lamar Odom is currently hospitalized after he became unconscious at a Nevada brothel.
The former Los Angeles Lakers basketball player was found on Oct. 13 laying face down and unconscious in his room before being immediately rushed to the hospital. Odom had allegedly been partying at the Love Ranch in Pahrump, Nev since Saturday.
Via TMZ:
On Tuesday afternoon, someone went into Odom’s room and found him unconscious. The person rolled the former NBA star over and saw fluid streaming out of his mouth. An ambulance took Lamar to Pahrump hospital, where doctors intubated him … an indication he could not breathe on his own. We’re told Lamar is being airlifted from the hospital to Las Vegas for more treatment.
The Love Ranch South appears to be related to the Moonlite BunnyRanch which was featured on the HBO series “Cathouse: The Series.”American restaurant company
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. is an American chain of combined restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company was founded by Dan Evins in 1969; its first store was in Lebanon, Tennessee. The corporate offices are located at a different facility in the same city. The chain's stores were at first positioned near Interstate highway exits in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States, but has expanded across the country during the 1990s and 2000s. As of September 1, 2018,[4] the chain operates 645 stores in 44 states.[2]
Cracker Barrel's menu is based on traditional Southern cuisine, with appearance and decor designed to resemble an old-fashioned general store. Each restaurant features a front porch lined with wooden rocking chairs, a stone fireplace, and decorative artifacts from the local area. Cracker Barrel partners with country music performers. It engages in charitable activities, such as its assistance of victims of Hurricane Katrina and injured war veterans. Employees there wear a choice of either white, yellow, blue or pink shirts.
During the 1990s, the company was the subject of controversy for its official stance against gay and lesbian employees and for discriminatory practices against African-American customers and female employees. In 2004, a U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) investigation found that Cracker Barrel discriminated against minority customers; patrons complained of racially segregated seating and service quality. In an agreement with the USDOJ, Cracker Barrel implemented non-discrimination policies and pledged to focus on improving minority representation and civic involvement, particularly in the black community. Company shareholders added sexual orientation to the company's non-discrimination policy in 2002.
History
First location and early company history
Cracker Barrel was founded in 1969 by Dan Evins, a sales representative for Shell Oil, who developed the restaurant and gift store concept initially as a plan to improve gasoline sales.[5] Designed to resemble the traditional country store that he remembered from his childhood, with a name chosen to give it a Southern country theme,[6] Cracker Barrel was intended to attract the interest of highway travelers.[5] The first restaurant was built close to Interstate 40, in Lebanon, Tennessee.[7] It opened in September 1969,[8] serving Southern cuisine including biscuits, grits, country ham, and turnip greens.[7]
Evins incorporated Cracker Barrel in February 1970,[5] and soon opened more locations. In the early 1970s, the firm leased land on gasoline station sites near interstate highways to build restaurants.[6] These early locations all featured gas pumps on-site; during gasoline shortages in the mid to late 1970s, the firm began to build restaurants without pumps.[5] Into the early 1980s, the company reduced the number of gas stations on-site, eventually phasing them out altogether as the company focused on its restaurant and gift sales revenues.[8] Cracker Barrel became a publicly traded company in 1981 to raise funds for further expansion.[5][7] It floated more than half a million shares, raising $4.6 million.[6] Following the initial public offering, Cracker Barrel grew at a rate of around 20 percent per year;[9] by 1987, the company had become a chain of more than 50 units in eight states, with annual net sales of almost $81 million.[5]
New markets and refocus
A Cracker Barrel in Minnesota
The company grew consistently through the 1980s and 1990s, attaining a $1 billion market value by 1992.[7][10][11] In 1993, the chain's revenue was nearly twice that of any other family restaurant.[6]
In 1994, the chain tested a carry-out-only store, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Corner Market, in suburban residential neighborhoods.[11] In addition, it expanded into new markets through the establishment of more traditional Cracker Barrel locations, the majority of them outside the South, and tested alterations to its menus to adapt to new regions.[12] The chain added regional dishes to its menus, including eggs and salsa in Texas and Reuben sandwiches in New York, but continued to offer its original menu items in all restaurants.[10]
By September 1997, Cracker Barrel had 314 restaurants, and aimed to increase the number of stores by approximately 50 per year over the following five years.[12] The firm closed its Corner Market operations in 1997 and refocused on its restaurant and gift store locations. Its then president, Ron Magruder, stated that the chain was concentrating on strengthening its core theme, offering traditional foods and retail in a country store setting, with good service and country music.[9] The chain opened its first restaurant and gift store not located near a highway in 1998, in Dothan, Alabama.[13] In the 2000s, in the wake of incidents including charges of racial discrimination and controversy over its policy of firing gay employees, the firm launched a series of promotional activities including a nationwide book drive and a sweepstakes with trips to the Country Music Association Awards and rocking chairs among the prizes.[14]
Operations
The number of combined restaurants and stores owned by Cracker Barrel increased between 1997 and 2000, to more than 420 locations. In 2000 and 2001, the company addressed staffing and infrastructure issues related to this rapid growth by implementing a more rigorous recruitment strategy and introducing new technology, including an order-placement system.[15] From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, the company focused on opening new locations in residential areas to attract local residents and workers as customers.[13] It updated its marketing in 2006 to encourage new customers, changing the design of its highway billboard advertisements to include images of menu items. Previously the signs had featured only the company's logo.[16] By 2011, Cracker Barrel had opened more than 600 restaurants in 42 states.[17][18][19] On January 17, 2012, company founder Dan Evins died of bladder cancer.[20]
Restaurants
A Cracker Barrel gift shop
Food and gift shop
As a Southern-themed chain, Cracker Barrel serves traditional Southern comfort food often described as "down-home" country cooking and sells gift items including simple toys representative of the 1950s and 1960s, toy vehicles, puzzles, and woodcrafts. Also sold are country music CDs, DVDs of early classic television, cookbooks, baking mixes, kitchen novelty decor, and early classic brands of candy and snack foods.[21][22] Breakfast is served all day, and there are two menus: one for breakfast, the other for lunch and dinner. Since the first restaurant opened, the menu has featured Southern specialties, including biscuits, fried chicken, and catfish;[5] seasonal and regional menu items were added during the 1980s and 1990s.[5][12] In 2007, Cracker Barrel announced plans to remove artificial trans fats from its menu items.[23][24]
Locations, service, and decor
A Cracker Barrel guest playing peg solitaire
For much of its early history, Cracker Barrel decided to locate its restaurants along the Interstate Highway System,[5] and the majority of its restaurants remain close to interstate and other highways.[25][26][27] Cracker Barrel is known for the loyalty of its customers,[10] particularly travelers who are likely to spend more at restaurants than locals.[12]
The locations are themed around the idea of a traditional Southern U.S. general store. Items used to decorate each store are authentic artifacts,[7] including everyday objects from the early 1900s and after.[28] Each restaurant features a front porch lined with wooden rocking chairs, a wooden peg solitaire game on every table,[29] and a stone fireplace with a deer head displayed above the mantel.[30] In fact, each location has five common items: a shotgun, a cookstove, a deer head, a telephone, and a traffic light.[31] The peg games have been present in Cracker Barrel since the opening of the first store, and continue to be produced by the same family in Lebanon, Tennessee.[32] The decor at each location typically includes artifacts related to the local history of the area, including antique household tools, old wall calendars and advertising posters, and antique photographs;[26] these are centrally stored in a warehouse in Tennessee, where they are cataloged and stockpiled for future use by individual store locations.[33]
Awards
Destinations magazine has presented the chain with awards for best chain restaurant,[34] and in 2010 and 2011, the Zagat survey named it the "Best Breakfast".[35][36] The chain was selected by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America as the 2011 OBIE Hall of Fame Award recipient for its long-standing use of outdoor advertising.[37] It was also named the "Best Family Dining" restaurant by a nationwide "Choice in Chains" consumer poll in Restaurants & Institutions magazine for 19 consecutive years.[30]
Corporate overview
Investment and business model
Cracker Barrel restaurants are aimed at the family and casual dining market as well as retail sales.[9] The chain also advertises to people traveling on the interstate highways, as the majority of its locations are close to highway exits.[11] The company has promoted its cost controls to investors.[38][39] The company has stated its goal to keep employee turnover low, to provide better trained staff.[39] Since the 1980s, the firm has offered a formal training program with benefits for progressing through it to all of its employees.[5][40]
The board of directors of Cracker Barrel has repeatedly been at odds with the largest shareholder, Biglari Holdings Inc.[41] The owner of Biglari Holdings, Sardar Biglari, controls a 19.9% share of the company,[42] just short of the 20% needed to trigger a shareholder rights plan, more commonly termed a "poison pill".[43] The poison pill was adopted after Biglari Holdings sought approval to purchase a 49.99% share of the company and join the board of directors.[43]
Biglari Holdings purchased shares of Cracker Barrel in 2011, and has often been critical of the transparency to shareholders, overspending on advertising, lack of customer value,[44] capital funds mismanagement,[45] and not maximizing shareholder value.[46] Biglari has requested to be on the board of directors three times, and has been denied each time by a vote of shareholders.[41] Biglari Holdings has also put forward a request for a one-time $20/share dividend to address perceived overly conservative capitalization,[46] which was also rejected by shareholders.[45] Cracker Barrel has responded by claiming Biglari has a "hidden agenda" and a conflict of interest by holding shares in other restaurant chains such as Steak 'n Shake.[47][48]
Community involvement
Cracker Barrel has supported a wide range of charities through one-off donations, promotional events, and partnerships with charitable organizations.[49] The chain has supported charities and causes in communities where its restaurants are located, including the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005[50] and Nashville after severe flooding in 2010. In the same year, Cracker Barrel established Cracker Barrel Cares Inc., an employee-funded non-profit organization that provides support to Cracker Barrel employees.[51] Cracker Barrel has also formed a partnership with the Wounded Warrior Project, a charity for injured veterans.[52] In attempts to rebuild its image after several race-related controversies,[53] the firm has provided a scholarship through the National Black MBA Association,[54] and job skills programs and sponsorships with 100 Black Men of America[53][55] and the Restaurant and Lodging Association.[56]
Cracker Barrel sponsored the NASCAR Atlanta 500 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway from 1999 to 2001[57] and the Grand Ole Opry from 2004 to 2009. The company was the first presenting sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry.[58] This sponsorship allowed the company to make connections within the Nashville music industry, following which it entered into partnership with a number of country music performers.[59] The chain has established partnerships with artists including Alison Krauss, Charlie Daniels, Josh Turner, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Alan Jackson, and Alabama, to offer CD releases and merchandise.[59][60][61]
In 1997, the company purchased the Mitchell House in Lebanon, Tennessee. The house had been the elementary dormitory and school for Castle Heights Military Academy which both Dan Evans and his son attended. The school had closed in 1986 and the building had sat empty since then. Cracker Barrel spent two million dollars to restore the home and used it as its corporate headquarters from 1999 to 2013.[62][63]
Controversies
LGBT policies
In early 1991, an intra-company memo called for employees to be dismissed if they did not display "normal heterosexual values". According to news reports, at least 11 employees were fired under the policy on a store-by-store basis from locations in Georgia and other states.[6][12] After demonstrations by gay rights groups, the company ended its policy in March 1991 and stated it would not discriminate based on sexual orientation.[64][65] The company's founder, Dan Evins, subsequently described the policy as a mistake.[6] From 1992 onward,[66] the New York City Employees Retirement System, then a major shareholder, put forward proposals to add sexual orientation to the company's non-discrimination policy. An early proposal in 1993 was defeated, with 77 percent against and only 14 percent in support, along with 9 percent abstaining.[67] It was not until 2002 that the proposals were successful; 58 percent of company shareholders voted in favor of the addition.[64]
Cracker Barrel achieved the lowest score (15 out of 100) of all rated food and beverage companies in the Human Rights Campaign's 2008 Corporate Equality Index, a measure of LGBT workplace equality.[68] Their score for 2011 had increased to a 55. The 2011 survey noted that the firm had established a non-discrimination policy and had introduced diversity training that included training related to sexual orientation.[69] However, the company's score for 2013 dropped to a 35 out of 100, not having obtained the points related to non-discrimination toward gender identity and health benefits for partners of LGBT employees and transgender-inclusive benefits.[70]
On December 20, 2013, Cracker Barrel announced it would no longer sell certain Duck Dynasty products which it was "concerned might offend some of [its] guests"[71] after Phil Robertson, a star of the reality TV show, remarked in a GQ interview[72]
Don't be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won't inherit the kingdom of God. Don't deceive yourself. It's not right.
--Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson
Robertson also made "comments likening homosexuality to terrorism and bestiality" in the interview, and expressed views about race which attracted criticism. On December 22, less than two days after pulling the products from its shelves, Cracker Barrel reversed its position after protests from customers.[73][74][75]
Race- and gender-based discrimination lawsuits
In July 1999, a discrimination lawsuit was filed against Cracker Barrel by a group of former employees, who claimed that the company had discriminated against them on the grounds of race.[76][77] In December 2001, twenty-one of the restaurant's customers, represented by the same attorneys, filed a separate lawsuit, alleging racial discrimination in its treatment of guests.[78][79][80] Regarding both accusations, Cracker Barrel officials disputed the claims and stated that the company was committed to fair treatment of its employees and customers.[77][79][81]
In 2004, an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department found evidence that Cracker Barrel had been segregating customer seating by race; seating or serving white customers before seating or serving black customers; providing inferior service to black customers, and allowing white servers to refuse to serve black customers.[82] The Justice Department determined that the firm had violated Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The company was required to sign a five-year agreement to introduce "effective nondiscrimination policies and procedures." The terms included new equal opportunity training; the creation of a new system to log, investigate, and resolve complaints of discrimination; and the publicizing of its non-discrimination policies. They were required to hire an outside auditor to ensure compliance with the terms of the settlement.[83]
In 2006, Cracker Barrel paid a $2 million settlement to end a lawsuit alleging race and sexual harassment at three Illinois restaurants.[84][85] Cracker Barrel stores subsequently began displaying a sign in the front foyer explaining the company's non-discrimination policy,[82] and added to its website and menu the policy and details on how to make a complaint.[86]
Since the early 2000s, Cracker Barrel has provided training and resources to minority employees, to improve its image on diversity. These efforts involved outreach to minority employees, along with testing a training plan to help employees whose first language is Spanish to learn English.[53] As of 2002, minorities made up 23 percent of the company's employees, including over 11 percent of its management and executives.[54]
Cracker Barrel is on the Corporate Advisory Board for the Texas Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),[87] and is a corporate sponsor of the NAACP Leadership 500 Summit.[88] The company has been praised for its gender diversity, particularly on its board of directors, which includes three women out of eleven total board members.[89] Its chief executive officer (CEO), Sandra Cochran, is the second woman in Tennessee to hold that office in a publicly traded company.[89]
Legal Disputes
Kraft Foods vs. Cracker Barrel
In November 2012, Cracker Barrel licensed its name to Smithfield Foods' John Morrell Division in a deal to create a line of meat products to be sold in supermarkets and through other retail channels. In response, Kraft Foods filed a trademark-infringement lawsuit in February 2013. Kraft has sold cheese in retail stores under their Cracker Barrel brand since 1954. The corporation said that Cracker Barrel stores have not made significant sales of retail food products beyond their restaurant menu, and asked that the Smithfield Foods deal be nullified by the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois.[90]
On November 14, 2013, in a unanimous ruling authored by Judge Richard Posner, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by a lower District Court judge granting an injunction against the sale of Cracker Barrel's meat products to be sold in stores. The Seventh Circuit upheld the injunction based on the combined similarity of the parties’ marks, goods, and channels of trade: “It’s not the fact that the parties’ trade are so similar that is decisive, nor even the fact that the products are similar (low-cost packaged food items). It is those similarities coupled with the fact that, if [Cracker Barrel] prevails in this suit, similar products with confusingly similar trade names will be sold through the same distribution channel – grocery stores, and often the same grocery stores – and advertised together.” In Judge Posner’s estimation, these similarities – despite the differences in the parties’ respective logos and regardless of where the products are located in relation to each other in grocery stores – might lead consumers to “think all the Kraft products bearing the 'Cracker Barrel' name were produced in association with the Defendant.” In economics this behavior is referred to as 'traditional forward confusion.' The court further concluded the likelihood of confusion was exacerbated by the fact that both products at issue were inexpensive; thus, consumers were unlikely to scrutinize their respective labels.[91] In response to the ruling, Kraft Foods and Cracker Barrel made an agreement regarding the use of the Cracker Barrel name. In exchange for Kraft dropping the trademark-infringement lawsuit, Cracker Barrel agreed to sell its products under the brand name "CB Old Country Store." [92]When the Doves Disappeared
By Sofi Oksanen, translated by Lola M. Rogers
Alfred A. Knopf, 320 pp., $25.95
"When the Doves Disappeared" (Alfred A. Knopf, 320 pp., $25.95), set in 20th-century Estonia, made me scramble to get my bearings. I'd never encountered a scenario where the Nazi occupation was welcome, but that was the case for many Estonians.
Having suffered the 1940 Soviet annexation, during which thousands were jailed, executed or deported to Siberia, they saw the Germans as saviors, and hoped that once the war ended, their country would be returned to independence.
As you can guess, this is not a happy story.
Sofi Oksanen, a Finnish-Estonian novelist and playwright, moves between the war era and the 1960s, when Estonia was again squashed by the oppressive Soviet thumb. Two cousins, stalwart Roland and amoral, opportunistic Edgar, narrate, along with Juudit, Edgar's unfortunate wife.
Both men have deserted the Red Army, but while Roland goes underground to work for Estonian freedom, Edgar puts his chameleon-like talents to use to become an informant for the Nazis.
Juudit, abandoned by Edgar, tries to help Roland's cause, but finds herself swept into an affair with an SS officer. He gives her a luxurious lifestyle and, for the first time in her life, true love. She drowns any qualms of conscience in cocktails and drugs until Roland, his fiance murdered by the Germans, resurfaces in her life.
When he asks her help saving refugees, Juudit, a wonderfully drawn and complex character, can no longer suppress her loyalties.
Meanwhile, oily Edgar, with his own life-or-death secret to conceal, works his way up through the German ranks. When the narrative shifts 20 years forward, we meet him again, now flourishing as a Soviet apparatchik who writes propaganda and is more anxious than ever to hide his past. Given the chance to cement his position with the Communist Party, he doesn't hesitate to betray anyone in his path.
"When the Doves Disappeared" became an immediate best seller in Scandinavia. For ignorant Americans like me, the first pages can be rough going, and a quick cram session on Estonian history is recommended.
Translated from the Finnish, the prose is sometimes awkward but often powerfully evocative, especially in passages that reflect the countryside.
"She smelled like my land, like she was born in my land, like she would molder in my land..." Or again: "All around him, faces were growing taut and shrunken, day by day, like mushrooms drying in an oven." The last third of the book has the quick pace and plot twists of a literary thriller.
Given recent events in Crimea, many in tiny Estonia are again anxious. Their homeland and its brave, battered heart are well-served by this book.
Springstubb is a Cleveland Heights writer.Now that the election is done, the most productive thing to do is to ask what to do next. I’m all in favor of that. (One possibility would be to give money to Foster Campbell, the Democratic Senate candidate in a runoff in Louisiana. If he won, the Senate would be 51-49.) However, there are still interesting things to say about the election, and one of them relates to |
fuel-sipping plug-in hybrid running on E85 ethanol, produced from a second generation feedstock like switchgrass, miscanthus, or sorghum.
This is just one element of a three-part strategy to transition off our dependence on oil. If you visualize our nation’s oil consumption as a single barrel, we can try to eliminate it in thirds:
1/3 of it gets cut out with increases in efficiency and conservation
1/3 comes from direct replacements, like second-gen ethanol
1/3 of it comes from new technology, like plug-in hybrid, electric, and hydrogen cars
The direct replacement part is particularly important, and there’s no way all the exciting new technology like plug-in and fully electric cars will do anything to offset the millions of cars already on the road. If it only takes a few hundred dollars to convert a car to run on E85, it might only be a paycheck away.
That is, of course, dependent on the full-scale implementation of economically viable cellulosic ethanol production and refueling infrastructure. If any of a number of developments pan out, the former should be in place in the next few years, and refueling infrastructure should follow suit.
More Posts on Flex Fuel and Cellulosic Ethanol:
Photo Credit: Beth and Christina via Flickr under Creative Commons LicenseThe corporate media reports ISIS in Iraq received many of its weapons as a result of the Iraqi retreat from Mosul. ISIS, however, had plenty of weapons prior to the takeover. Most came from the United States.
The U.S. and Saudi sponsored proxy war in Syria to topple the government of al-Assad provided the terror group with its weapons, according to Michael Knights, the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who is described by Vox as “an obsessive ISIS watcher.”
“The war gave them a lot of access to heavy weaponry,” Knights told Vox.
Following the overthrow of Libya, the CIA and its partners moved weapons into Syria. The murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens was collateral damage in this operation. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi released last September dwells on the failure to protect Stevens and his staff. It also ignores the underlying operation.
Seymour Hersh, the award-winning investigative journalist who was unceremoniously dumped by The New Yorker due to his penchant for exposing uncomfortable truths, explained how the Senate buried information about the CIA and the gun-running operation in Benghazi:
A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.) The operation had not been disclosed at the time it was set up to the congressional intelligence committees and the congressional leadership, as required by law since the 1970s. The involvement of MI6 enabled the CIA to evade the law by classifying the mission as a liaison operation. The former intelligence official explained that for years there has been a recognized exception in the law that permits the CIA not to report liaison activity to Congress, which would otherwise be owed a finding. (All proposed CIA covert operations must be described in a written document, known as a ‘finding’, submitted to the senior leadership of Congress for approval.) Distribution of the annex was limited to the staff aides who wrote the report and to the eight ranking members of Congress – the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the Democratic and Republicans leaders on the House and Senate intelligence committees. This hardly constituted a genuine attempt at oversight: the eight leaders are not known to gather together to raise questions or discuss the secret information they receive. The annex didn’t tell the whole story of what happened in Benghazi before the attack, nor did it explain why the American consulate was attacked. ‘The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms,’ the former intelligence official, who has read the annex, said. ‘It had no real political role.’
ISIS Gets Weapons From Its Master
In April we reported on the fact the U.S. provides weapons to al-Nusra and other terrorists groups in Syria by way of its allegedly vetted “moderate” mercenaries. Jamal Maarouf, who runs the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) created by the CIA and Saudi and Qatari intelligence, said if “the people who support us [U.S., Saudis, Qataris] tell us to send weapons to another group, we send them. They asked us a month ago to send weapons to Yabroud [a city in Syria] so we sent a lot of weapons there. When they asked us to do this, we do it.”
According to Barak Barfi, a research fellow for the globalist funded New America Foundation, al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda-linked group known for summarily executing Syrian soldiers and other atrocities (including beheading Christians), receives weapons indirectly from SRF.
The professed leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was instrumental in the creation of al-Nusra. Following a power struggle between the two groups, al-Baghdadi announced the dissolution of Jabhat al-Nusra and the integration of its members into the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS.
“ISIS quickly announced its areas of operations publicly and took control of wide areas without facing much resistance, benefitting from the Jabhat al-Nusra fighters who defected to ISIS,” reports al-Monitor. “Some estimates suggest that about 65% of Jabhat al-Nusra elements quickly declared their allegiance to ISIS. Most of those were non-Syrian jihadists. Entire brigades joined ISIS, among them was the Mujahedeen Shura Council led by Abu al-Atheer, whom ISIS appointed emir of Aleppo, and Jaish al-Muhajireen and al-Ansar, led by Omar al-Chechani.”
Earlier this month, Obama’s top foreign policy advisor, Susan Rice, admitted the United States is providing lethal weapons to the “moderates” in Syria, although she did not mention the transfer of these arms to al-Nusra and, we can reasonably assume, other radical Islamic groups.
“We are certainly concerned that the fact that [ISIS] has gotten its hands on so many weapons, both in Syria and Iraq, is a very serious security concern for both countries,” State Department Deputy Press Secretary Marie Harf told reporters recently.
ISIS shows off its weapons.
The Pentagon is also sticking to the story ISIS picked up its equipment from retreating Iraqi security forces.
“They’re driving some of these vehicles, they’re in possession of some of this stuff, but I’d be loathe to tell you that we actually have a really solid sense of what they’ve got,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters Friday.
Most of the “stuff” Kirby mentioned came from the United States with the assistance of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the CIA, with support from MI6, as Hersh notes. It was transferred from stowed caches in Libya. The arms will now be used to enlarge the perception that ISIS is a serious threat requiring direct intervention by the United States, particularly in Syria where the proxy war against al-Assad has stalled.
Plan to Break Middle East into Ethic and Religiously Divided Vassal States
Back in 2006 Army Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Peters “suggested that a reimagining of Middle Eastern and Asian borders along ethnic, sectarian and tribal lines might ease regional tensions,” the Armed Forces Journal reported.
“Syria’s prime location and muscle make it the strategic center of the Middle East,” Robin Wright wrote for The New York Times last September in an article noting Peters’ map of a rearranged Middle East. “Syria’s unraveling would set precedents for the region, beginning next door. Until now, Iraq resisted falling apart because of foreign pressure, regional fear of going it alone and oil wealth that bought loyalty, at least on paper. But Syria is now sucking Iraq into its maelstrom.”
Iraq now appears closer than ever to dividing along religious and sectarian lines. In fact, this was the plan all along. It was previously envisioned by the Bush neocons who penned A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. The document created by the Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000 called for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and waging a proxy war against al-Assad in Syria.
Prior to the Clean Break document, Oded Yinon wrote The Zionist Plan for the Middle East. It proposed “that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units” and the “dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run.” The destruction of the Arab and Muslim states, Yinon suggested, would be accomplished from within by exploiting their internal religious and ethnic tensions.
P2OG In Action
ISIS is described as a manifestation of al-Qaeda’s influence. However, it would be more accurate to call it a manifestation of the Pentagon under the influence of the Bush neocons. In 2005, Frank Morales cited a Pentagon document suggesting the creation of P2OG, or Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.
According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization – the “Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)” – would actually carry out secret missions designed to provoke terrorist groups into committing violent acts. The P2OG, a 100-member, so-called “counter-terrorist” organization with a $100-million-a-year budget, would ostensibly target “terrorist leaders,” but according to P2OG documents procured by Arkin, would in fact carry out missions designed to “stimulate reactions” among “terrorist groups” – which, according to the Defense Secretary’s logic, would subsequently expose them to “counter-attack” by the good guys. In other words, the plan is to execute secret military operations (assassinations, sabotage, “deception”) which would intentionally result in terrorist attacks on innocent people, including Americans – essentially, to “combat terrorism” by causing it!
In the case of ISIS stimulation was apparently not enough to get the desire result. The terrorist organization was assisted by the CIA and its partners with weapons delivered from Libya to “moderates” in Syria who then transferred the arms to ISIS and other terrorist groups, including al-Nusra.
ISIS may in fact create a brutal caliphate – or it may be bombed back into the Stone Age, a solution championed by Sen. Lindsey Graham and other neocons in Congress.
Either way, the plan to fragment and balkanize the Arab and Muslim Middle East will be realized. The Kurds in Iraq have established a de facto state in response to ISIS and Iran has pledged to help defend Shia Iraqis in the south. All of this activity promotes the plan to unravel the Middle East in a more dramatic and significant way than it was originally unraveled and recomposed by the British more than century ago.Premier Daniel Andrews promoting the Melbourne Metro project last year. Credit:Penny Stephens "Melbourne is growing very quickly by world standards," said Mr Morris, the former president of the state planning tribunal. He pointed out that, when much of Melbourne's rail network was laid out in the 1880s, the city's population was just 280,000, compared to its current population of 4.5 million. He said the tunnel - which would run from South Kensington to South Yarra, beneath some of the city's most jobs-rich suburbs - would allow better access to a city that would double in size by the year 2051. He said the population increase was largely due to overseas and interstate migration to Melbourne. The growth meant that "this project is not just a good idea, rather it is absolutely essential".
The project was first proposed, in an earlier form, during Steve Bracks' time as premier, and later by John Brumby. But it was never funded by Labor and was ditched by the Baillieu government. It was resurrected by Daniel Andrews when Labor returned to office in 2014 and is now expected to commence construction in 2018. PTV argues the project will provide massive relief to rail lines in the city's outer west in particular, where train use has seen the biggest jump in the past decade, by providing more space on the rail network and allowing Metro Trains to run more services. The Werribee, Williamstown and Sunbury lines have increased in use by more than 100 per cent over the past decade. "Pretty much the last 10 years has been a massive increase in metro train [use]," Mr Morris said, due to the road system "reaching its limit" and commuters looking for alternatives.
While the project will bring benefits for Melbourne, there will also be losers. The government admits that some commuters wanting to interchange at South Yarra may be disadvantaged by the lack of a new station as part of the project. The proposed new rail line will pass under South Yarra, metres from the existing railway station, but will not stop there. The state opposition, federal Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer and Stonnington Council have all argued it would be a bad outcome if a new interchange is not built at South Yarra. But Mr Morris said there were many who would be disadvantaged by the construction of a second South Yarra railway station. Those not wanting to stop at South Yarra would have a minute or more added to their journeys as a result of stopping, he said.
And the number of minutes lost to travellers who did not want to stop at South Yarra exceeded the numbers of minutes gained by those wanting a new station, he said. The government argues a new railway station at South Yarra as part of the project will cost at least $700 million and up to $900 million. The South Yarra area is already one of the city's best served locations for trains and trams. Loading "Clearly there are some benefits [to having an interchange]," Mr Morris said on behalf of PTV. But the net benefits of building the new railway station would not be sufficient to justify it, he said. Hearings into the impact of the proposed rail tunnel will continue for the next seven weeks.Wow Valve is on a roll for Linux gamers aren't they! 39 more Linux games have been lit up to be included on Steam's store.A very hard call this time as so many great projects, but here are my personal top choices! https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=Xgv6uOZ6UrsGrave is a first person, open world survival horror experience. Explore an ever-changing world filled with frightening creatures. https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=bGRuBDoRf1UKartSim is a multiplayer kart racing game with sandbox stunt driving and serious racing game modes. https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=qLQjwHXeekgNeon Shadow is a first person shooter that aims to revive the “run and gun” gameplay of shooters from the 90′s. You play as an agent sent to deal with malfunctioning cybernetics on a space station.Already covered The Universim here, looking really great.These games below prominently listed Linux as supported platform, let us hope they all delivery on it.8BitBoyAl Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine (Enhanced Edition)AscendantCaromble!CHAOS - In the DarknessConniptionConquest: Divide and ConquerCraft, Coop, In Game Creation While You Play! - Platinum Arts Sandbox Game Maker Professional EditionCubeGunDragonEldevinExodus Wars: Fractured EmpireFLASHOUT 2GearedGrapple KnightGraveJForce: UnstoppableKartSimMaker's TaleNeon ShadowNikki and the RobotsO'CellsOutcast Reboot HDPrisonscapeRedirectionRetro WorldSilent Escape 2SourceSpace NomadsSpy Chameleon - RGB AgentSubmergeT.E.R.R.A.The TerminalTrace VectorThe UniversimVoxel QuestWoodle Tree AdventuresXenoRaptorY3030What are your stand out games this time? See the full list hereA FORMER Adelaide man fighting for his life in Mexico had travel insurance for his medical condition but the company later reneged because of a technicality, his family claims.
Ryan Maudlen, 33, has been brought out of a medically induced coma after suffering severe blood poisoning following an operation to treat Crohn’s disease, which causes bowel inflammation.
But his condition deteriorated tonight when he suffered a collapsed lung shortly after his mother, Deb, 64, arrived at Galenia Hospital’s intensive care unit in Cancun.
The family face financial ruin after being forced to pay for his urgent care following complications from emergency surgery, in which more than 60cm of his bowel was removed.
But The Advertiser can reveal Mr Maudlen, an experienced traveller who has suffered from the disease since he was 14, and his girlfriend, Katharina Reigl, 29, had travel insurance and were told by the InsureandGo company they would be covered.
His family said hospital staff were also informed he had cover because the medical facility has a policy of refusing treatment if a patient did not have insurance.
Our thoughts are with @ryanmaudlen & his family. Please help Ryan http://t.co/o3ByI5pxWa get the help he needs #getbettersoonmate — Adelaide Crows (@Adelaide_FC) November 25, 2014
But two days after he was admitted to hospital, the company told the family that because the policy was purchased online and not in Britain — where he formerly lived — the policy was void.
It was originally thought that while he had travel insurance for his trip, which began in July and involved driving from Alaska to Argentina, his existing condition meant he was not covered.
His devastated father, Robert, 64, attacked the company’s decision, saying his family had been “ripped off” because of a technicality.
After the insurance company refused to back down, he has now been forced to remortgage his Modbury Heights home “to the hilt” as first reported by advertiser.com.au.
“It is just not right. It absolutely sucks,” he said.
“Of course we felt ripped off. It feels wrong that they believed they had insurance and then they were told two days later they will not be covered.
media_camera Ryan Maudlen with his girlfriend Katharina Reigl, travelling in Mexico. Picture supplied by the family media_camera Ryan with his sisters and their grandmother.
“The fact is they took their money while they travelled but then when they need cover they are told this legal mumbo jumbo that because it was bought on the internet and not in the UK, it is null and void. How can they do that?
“If you are going to give insurance, give it. If you’re not, then don’t. But don’t renege when someone needs help.”
Medical costs are now put at more than $30,000 a day and the hospital has threatened to discharge him if they do not meet the mounting charges immediately.
They total medical bill is estimated at more than $200,000, while a medevac flight costs a further $160,000.
His medical condition means he faces the prospect of being stranded in the coastal town, more than 1600km east of the capital Mexico City.
Ryan Maudlen needs your help
Miss Reigl added: “There is no way he can get transported right now and when he can I have no idea how to come with $180,000 on top of the hospital bills? I love this man more then my own life and feel so hopeless.”
Friends and strangers have rallied around his distraught family, raising almost $30,000 in 24 hours through an online appeal and the Crows, his favourite team, sent a message of support via Twitter. Almost $59,000 has been raised in total.
Mr Maudlen, who has travelled extensively since leaving Adelaide in 2007, was placed in a coma last week after his bowel and intestines perforated, causing kidney and liver failure as well as heart problems.
After working in London as a business systems analyst and met his Salzburg-born girlfriend travelling in 2011. She remains at his bedside.
An insurance company spokesman was unavailable for comment.
* To donate please visit this website: http://www.gofundme.com/hjx040
Originally published as SA man in Mexican hospital had travel insurance ‘withdrawn’Singing, the kids audition and are accepted for a spot on Hal Barton's talent review television show. They are even more excited following the audition about being approached by the young and hip Tami Cutler, a talent agent, who implies that she wants to represent them. She and her business partner Buddy Berkman eventually meet solely with Greg because they aren't interested in representing the entire group, but Greg alone. Outfitting him a flashy matador styled suit, they want him to be a solo act and to use the stage name Johnny Bravo. Despite feeling that he is letting his siblings down by not having them included in the deal, Greg eventually gets caught up in the potential of fame and fortune and contemplates going ahead with the deal. Greg's act initially places a strain between himself and his siblings, who do feel that he acted in his own self-interest despite earlier agreeing that they are not individuals but a group, and between himself and his parents, who don't want him to... Written by HuggoNot all wrestlers are Rolex-wearin', limousine-ridin', jet-flyin', sons of a gun (wooooo)! Think of wrestling as a ladder. At the bottom are those who start off in wrestling school, who work two or three jobs just to stay afloat. Higher up the ladder are the indie wrestling circuits, where wrestlers have to make and sell their own merchandise just to make ends meet (à la Kevin Steen and Colt Cabana). Next up are wrestling companies like ROH and TNA, where wrestlers perform on TV, but are permitted to wrestle outside the company to make extra money. Finally, at the top of the ladder is WWE. Only when wrestlers get to the very top (and I mean very top) of this company, do you find wrestlers who make the big bucks. Although there are exceptions (looking at you, Lesnar), wrestlers aren't in it for the money. They're in it because they LOVE the wrestling business.It's Dale Murphy's 15th and final year on the Hall of Fame ballot, and while his chances of getting in are slim, his children are doing their part to honor him the way they remember him. Tyson Murphy isn't a sports fan—he's an artist at Blizzard Entertainment, the video game developer responsible for the World of Warcraft games. But he drew his dad this doodle for Christmas, as a tribute to the man whose non-baseball exploits meant more to him.
At his blog, Tyson writes,
[M]y professional sports knowledge is nil, and my athletic prowess is nonexistent. Most people are surprised to hear that my artistic side was actually fostered and encouraged by my Dad, but that's just the way he's always been with me. I'm not smart enough to argue his career, his numbers, or to compare him to other players (I only know a few others), and I can only remember bits and pieces of his career. But I remember perfectly sitting in our art room in Georgia, tracing the outlines of our feet onto planks of wood, whittling sticks and bars of soap on the back porch, admiring my dad's doodles that he would do of all our names, and carving our initials into trees as we tried to hunt bats with our BB guns. I don't know if he'll get in the Hall, but... it really doesn't matter to me.
Murphy's eight kids have come out firing on behalf of their father this year, his last chance before he must rely on the Veterans Committee. Since his statistical credentials are lacking, they're focusing on three factors in the HOF criteria: "integrity, sportsmanship, character." Taylor Murphy has started a petition, pointing out the inconsistency of voters only invoking those clauses as strikes against a candidate, and never as arguments in their favor.
Chad Murphy, pursuing a PhD in Organizational Behavior, has written an open letter to the BBWAA. He pleads for voters to overcome their biases toward the negative, and focus for once on a player whose personality makes him more than the sum of his stats.
To be fair, I'll grant the nerds this: In most cases things like "integrity" and "character" and "sportsmanship" are mighty difficult to quantify. I get that. Other than, say, creating a variable along the lines of "number of arrests for drug possession" or "number of ejections from a game," it's not exactly clear yet how to go about measuring those attributes. As a consequence, this so-called "character clause" does a real number on our quest for objectivity, which makes us uneasy. And so it makes sense that collectively we've emphasized the part of the voting criteria that is easier to measure and largely beyond subjective interpretation, namely, on-field statistics. Fine. But hold on, maybe not fine. The character clause isn't just totally MIA. In fact, it seems to come roaring back into the conversation every so often when certain players are mentioned, as if judging character weren't so difficult after all. And, mysteriously, this only seems to happen in cases where the point is to keep someone out (see: Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, the ‘Roid Boys). Indeed, then it gets easy: Gamblers? Out! Cheaters? Be gone! Vehement racists? Well, okay, you can stay (lookin' at you, Cap Anson). [...] These two facts-1) the difficulty of objectively quantifying qualitative characteristics about a player; and 2) our deeply-ingrained negativity bias as human beings-have led to a troubling scenario where we either ignore the character clause altogether, or we use it to keep people out, citing their public sins. But let's be honest: you can't have it both ways. Either we apply the character clause for all eligible players, equally, allowing for both negative and positive evaluations to count toward a player's HOF case, or we toss it out completely. If the latter, then say goodbye (probably) to my dad's HOF chances at the same time you say hello to Mr. Rose and Mr. he-of-no-shoes Jackson. Oh, and might as well roll out the red carpet for Mr. Bonds, too. As the voting criteria currently stand, however, there's no doubt that a fair, holistic assessment of my dad's playing years would reveal that he is exactly the type of player we should want to represent the game of baseball for future generations.
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Murphy's not going to make the Hall of Fame, but as Tyson wrote, that probably shouldn't matter. His charity work, his involvement with USA baseball, his reputation as one of the sport's good guys, and his status as one of the Braves' most beloved players are all greater honors. His kids—successful in their own right, in fields other than sports—are a pretty good legacy, too.The day after Donald Trump all but sealed the nomination with a win in the Indiana primary, Kasich follows Ted Cruz in bowing out of the field
John Kasich formally suspended his presidential campaign on Wednesday, paving the way for Donald Trump to clinch the Republican nomination with a personal concession speech that barely touched on the political maelstrom his decision unleashes.
The Ohio governor was the last of 16 candidates to see their ambitions blown away by Trump’s unconventional entry into the presidential race, but he went quietly and with little of the drama that has marked earlier exits by other rivals.
“I have always said that the Lord has a purpose for me as he has for everyone, and as I suspend my campaign today I have renewed faith, deeper faith, that the Lord will show me the way forward and fulfill the purpose of my life,” Kasich told supporters at a hastily arranged event in Columbus. “Thank you and God bless.”
The former House budget chairman and Lehman Brothers executive hinted at his belief in a softer, gentler style of politics, but pointedly did not mention Trump, nor whether he would support him as the party nominee.
“The people of our country changed me,” he said, recalling campaign highlights in New Hampshire and Ohio, and thanking his family. “We never had all the money wanted – we were probably outspent by 50:1 – but we did the best we could,” he added, in the closest the 15-minute address got to a postmortem.
His decision to suspend his campaign marks the formal end of the most extraordinary race for the Republican presidential nomination in modern political history, and leaves Trump with only the Democratic nominee – likely to be Hillary Clinton – standing between him and the White House in November’s general election.
In his first sitdown interview as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump immediately waded back into controversy, refusing to back down from his longstanding – and long-since debunked – claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and also refusing to denounce antisemitic attacks on a journalist who wrote a profile about his wife.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Trump specifically to address his supporters who had sent “vicious” messages to journalist Julia Ioffe this week. After her profile of Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, appeared in this month’s issue of GQ, the Russian-American journalist received a torrent of antisemitic and threatening messages from supporters of the Republican frontrunner.
“I don’t have a message to the fans – I’m not gonna talk about that,” Trump said, calling Ioffe’s story “nasty” and defending his wife against unspecified falsehoods in the piece.
When Blitzer asked Trump about his past support of “birtherism” – the fervent and unsubstantiated belief that Obama was secretly born outside the United States and is therefore constitutionally ineligible for the presidency, Trump pinned his past statements on his likely opponent in the general election: Hillary Clinton.
“She’s the one who started it,” Trump said. The billionaire has long argued that the former secretary of state was the instigator in the birther movement, although evidence for this assertion has not surfaced.
Trump, whose senior campaign staff have intimated to Republican party leadership that the candidate would moderate his tone in the general election, also refused to walk back statements on other hot-button issues, including his signature proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigration into the United States.
“I don’t know, I mean, look, I don’t know,” Trump said, when Blitzer asked if such a proposal would alienate America’s allies in the Middle East. “The migration is a disaster – we’re letting in thousands of people. They don’t have documentation, they don’t have paperwork, we don’t know who they are or where they come from.”
In an interview with the New York Times Trump said he would implement the ban within his first 100 days, the paper reported.
Arduous path
John Kasich spent 18 years in Congress, including six years as chairman of the powerful House budget committee, before leaving government temporarily to work as a regional director for failed investment bank Lehman Brothers. He was elected governor of Ohio in 2010 in a close race with an incumbent Democrat and enjoyed home-state popularity measured at record levels in 2015, with 62% of Ohio voters approving of his job performance.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic party said: “Since last March, Governor John Kasich has spent more than 200 days out of state, pursuing his presidential ambitions and ignoring the needs of the people of Ohio … It’s time that Ohio had a governor who was actually doing something about all of that, rather than gallivanting across the country.”
From the outset, Kasich faced an arduous path to the presidency. He came in near the bottom of the pack in Iowa’s first in the nation caucus, polling at less than 2%. He staked his hopes to New Hampshire, where he spent weeks barnstorming the tiny New England state.
In its endorsement of the governor, the New York Times editorial board called him the “only plausible choice for Republicans tired of the extremism and inexperience on display in this race”.
Kasich celebrated his second-place finish in New Hampshire as if it were a win, and Trump had not clinched an overwhelming victory. Then he pivoted to Super Tuesday, where he eked out second-place finishes in Massachusetts and Vermont. Then, like Florida senator Marco Rubio, he tied his presidential ambitions to winning his home state.
By the time Kasich declared victory at a party in Cleveland, his campaign had already conceded that it could not amass enough delegates to clinch the nomination outright. His campaign strategy was to complicate the delegate math and deny Trump the nomination, giving him the opportunity to emerge at a contested convention in Cleveland this summer.
He struck an uneasy alliance with Ted Cruz, but that foundered after the Texas senator failed to win Indiana, which Kasich had agreed not to contest. Kasich was expected to perform well in the next several contests.
In the end he leaves the race having won only one state and having amassed fewer delegates than Rubio, who exited in March after losing Florida.
On the stump Kasich portrayed himself as a “happy warrior”, in contrast to Trump and his visceral appeal. He appeared alongside a ticking debt clock, reminding voters that he balanced the national budget in 1997 and was ready to do it again. He was prone to share anecdotes from his childhood, and admitted to being overcome by emotion when he decided to run for president, the son of a mailman seeking the highest office in the nation.
In an effort to appeal to New Yorkers, the midwesterner embarked on a culinary tour, scarfing down pizza, pickles, pasta and pastrami – and on one occasion all in the same meal, attracting scorn from Trump, who said: “I have never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion.”
Though he could be awkward in his delivery, and upset some over a comment that women in the 1970s had “left their kitchens” to campaign for him, he also came across as gentle and compassionate. He appeared to try to genuinely connect with voters and often said that he enjoyed the intimacy of town hall events. In South Carolina, Kasich walked over and embraced a tearful young man who shared a personal story about overcoming hardship.
But the governor was derided by Democrats for his staunch opposition to abortion and Planned Parenthood. In Ohio, he supported measures to defund the women’s health organization.
Some senior Republican officials saw something they liked: the contrast that Kasich, a methodical centrist with a long track record, drew with Trump and with Cruz, who dropped out of the race after his loss in Indiana on Tuesday night. But he failed to gain traction in a year dominated by Trump’s unorthodox candidacy.Some critical notes on the US anarchist group CrimethInc. following the publication of their book, Days of War, Nights of Love by webmaster of the Situationist website Bureau of Public Secrets, Ken Knabb in 2001.
The reader should bear in mind the following:
Knabb: "It's merely an email response written as a courtesy to someone who asked for my opinion, so it's not quite as rigorous as it might have been if I had examined the book in detail and written a text for general circulation."
Copy of an email, June 2001]
Note: In this reponse, I was under the erroneous impression that the person who sent me the Crimethinc book ("Days of War, Nights of Love") was one of the authors.]
...Thanks also for the Crimethink book. In answer to your request for comments, I don't have time to go into any great detail, but here are some brief impressions:
On the positive side, the book is well written and communicates a number of good points. In this regard it's more interesting than most anarchist writings, which usually just repeat the same few basic ideas for the thousandth time. And it is evident that your ideas are closely linked to actual experiences -- when you talk about the feel of freedom, the reader senses that you know what you're talking about based on your own experiments and adventures.
It seems to me, however, that there are also some criticizable aspects.
Despite your cautions against ideology, your book is riddled with simplistic, unqualified declarations. In some places you are admirably open and modest, but in others you come on like you have definitive answers to practically everything from the meaning of life to whether people should wear deodorant or not.
Many of your descriptions of radical struggles are rather simplistic. One minor example out of many: To describe the Paris Commune as "a sort of continuous anarchist festival for a few months, before the usual spoilsports regained control and slaughtered everybody" (p. 83) is a really gross falsification of reality. Even if there was a festive aspect that it is important to acknowledge, the Commune was also filled with suffering, self-sacrifice, patriotism, compromises, confusions, betrayals, sordid political intrigues, conflicting ideologies. And part of the interest and importance of the Commune is precisely that its repressors were not "the usual spoilsports" -- i.e. the relation of forces and classes was complicated and in some ways unprecedented, the people involved were not totally clear about who were friends and who were enemies. Readers who know nothing about the Commune will get an erroneous and trivialized impression of what went on, while those who actually know something about it may conclude that your social analyses are not to be trusted -- that you're presenting things very selectively in order to reinforce your ideology.
Just as you present rebellious actions as almost purely GOOD, you tend to present the system as almost purely BAD. In reality, just as most revolts and radical movements have been full of mistakes and limitations, many aspects of the present society are positive, or at least potentially so. The very fact that humanity has survived to this point demonstrates this. We all have a natural tendency to define our perspectives in these good vs. bad terms -- it makes it easier to drum up enthusiasm for struggle -- but when it gets too simplistic it falsifies reality and thus actually hinders any serious struggle.
There is also a recurring moralizing simplisticness. It is good that you recognize the element of necessary hypocrisy and compromise in our lives. But a lot of your agonizing over whether this or that practice is hypocritical is, to me, a phoney, nonexistent issue. I do not view my options primarily in terms of whether I am "implicated" in capitalism, as if that were some sort of sin to be avoided at all cost. Nor, conversely, do I consider that I am accomplishing anything very notable if I avoid some such compromise, as if radical struggle were a matter of more |
known as polymerase chain reaction, which allows detection and identification of leishmania DNA.
Honduran Special Forces soldiers accompanying the expedition roast a deer over their campfire. (Douglas Preston)
The opening pages of a 1933 journal kept by archaeologist William Duncan Strong, who explored the area said to be the site of a missing city. (William Duncan Strong/National Anthropological Archives/Smithsonian Institution)
With mucosal leishmaniasis, the type that Preston had, the parasites can migrate to the mucosal tissues of the mouth and nose. Although they are often referred to as flesh-eating, the parasites don’t consume tissue. Rather, the body has a profound immune response, eventually deforming and destroying the nose and mouth.
Preston’s doctors determined that the best option for him was amphotericin B, used originally to treat systemic fungal infections. It’s also effective against mucosal leishmaniasis, but the treatment is not pleasant.
“Oh, it’s bad,” Preston said. “You know that old saying ‘the cure is worse than the disease’? Well, this isn’t even a cure, it’s just a beat-back.” This means that Preston and his fellow sufferers won’t be cured of the disease, but the medicine will kill enough of the infection that the ulcer heals and the body’s defenses can keep the disease at bay. Preston said he received the medicine intravenously in daily treatments that lasted from four to five hours.
“Doctors sometimes call it ‘amphoterrible,’ ” Preston said, “because of what it does to the body. It can really screw up your kidneys, so they’ll only give it to you as long as your kidney function stays above 40 percent.”
Preston said he endured it for six days.
“Well, the first thing,” he said drily when asked about the treatment, “is that you feel like your body is on fire.” He continued, “then you feel like you’re suffocating, and for some people, you get this psychological reaction where you’re sure you’re going to die.” He paused. “I didn’t get any of those, though. I was lucky.”
Nevertheless, he will always have the infection.
“The very general answer,” says David Sacks, an expert on leishmaniasis, “is that these are chronic infections. We are good at finding vaccines that work better than the body does on acute infections, like measles or polio. But with these long-lived infections, like leishmaniasis, we have yet to find a vaccination that works any better than the body’s own natural responses.”
It also costs a lot to develop and manufacture treatments. Because most people who need them are poor, there is very little financial incentive for drug companies to devise treatments.
Preston considers himself extremely lucky — both for the trip he took and for the treatment he received for leishmaniasis. “I’ve been to many jungle areas in my life,” he said, “but I’ve never seen anything so stunningly untouched.” Besides, he says, “I feel great. And I would have much rather have gotten leish than be bitten by one of those big snakes.”
In addition, the trip resulted in a successful book: “The Lost City of the Monkey God” made it to the top five on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list after it was published in January.
Read more:
Scientists shocked the world with a brand new species of man — but who owns the bones?
Ancient tools and bone found in Florida could help rewrite the story of the first Americans
Jamestown excavation unearths four bodies — and a mystery in a small box
Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — I found the press conference to be enlightening in the fact that we heard one, and he held one, and that’s a sign that the Fed knows that they have to be a little more responding to the demand for transparency. When I listened to what had to be said, I wasn’t too enthralled. I’ve heard it all before. Read more on Bernanke's press conference.
It’s smooth talking, to make current policy sound reasonable, and let it go at that. Because they never admit anything. When it comes to prices, it’s never their fault. I mean, how many different things did he mention about why prices go up, why we have inflation? He never admits it’s the inflation of the money supply that’s the problem.
When he was asked about the dollar, he said, “Well you know, the person in charge for the value of the dollar is the secretary of the Treasury.” Well, Bernanke can triple the money supply, and then he wants to duck the issue that he’s responsible.
He says, “Our position is a strong dollar”... with constant devaluation, even while he spoke it was devaluing. Against gold, it went down 1.5%. It doesn’t make any sense.
It was more justification for a policy that doesn’t work. There was no explanation on how he’s going to get out of this. He did recognize, though, that price increases are significant and could be a problem in the future. It could be a significant problem for unemployment. He said it softly, but there were some words in there that convinced me that he knows that when inflation is admitted – I think it’s already here – but when he really admits it’s here, he’s really in a box. Because what he’ll have to do is raise interest rates, cut back on all the monetization of all this debt, buying all these securities, and then, in a weak economy, he’s in a mess
He works on the Keynesian assumption that prices go up for other reasons than the monetary reasons.
“It’s the supply and demand...Well, third-world nations are starting to buy more oil, that’s why the price of oil goes up.” And it has nothing to do with the inflation of the monetary system.
So, I think he does a good job for what he has to do, and that is try desperately to make a very, very failed system sound plausible. But from my viewpoint, it isn’t plausible, it’s not workable.
And I so strongly oppose centralized economic planning through monetary policy, especially in a small little group that can manipulate interest rates and the money supply and bail out privileged companies that are too big to fail at the same time the little people suffer. They lose their jobs and their mortgages and their houses.
So, to me, we have to have major monetary reform, and a bit of transparency. A pretense of transparency won’t suffice.Image caption Pissamai Strehle began an online relationship with a man who claimed to live in Newtownabbey
Northern Ireland is at the centre of an elaborate international scam that deceived one woman out of a small fortune.
The victim, a divorcee from Munich, said she lost £130,000 in an internet swindle.
Pissamai Strehle, 50, started an online relationship with a man who claimed to live in Newtownabbey, County Antrim.
She recently visited Northern Ireland to try to recover her money.
"I need my money back, to pay for my car and my home and everything else," she said.
Asked if she was naïve for sending money to someone she had never met face-to-face she said: "I know, I know. I realise that now."
Planned to marry
Ms Strehle, who is originally from Thailand, joined an internet dating site after she split from her German husband.
She was introduced to a man calling himself Andrey Menezes, who said he was a widower with two small children living in Newtownabbey.
She said the pair fell in love online and planned to marry.
Then the man told Ms Strehle that he was very ill, and needed a life-saving operation in Dubai. She claims she sent him 150,000 euros (£130,000) to an address in Malaysia to pay for surgery.
Ms Strehle said he told her the money was a loan. "I trusted him and he told me he would pay the money back," she said.
She was presented with a bogus loan agreement drawn up by a law firm based in Belfast. That business does not exist.
Image copyright Facebook Image caption Ms Strehle was sent these pictures taken from a Facebook profile for a man called Aaron - an unsuspecting American whose pictures were used by the scammers
When the BBC checked the address he gave in Newtownabbey, no one there had heard of the man. The local addresses were used without the owners or occupants knowing anything about it.
It has emerged the photographs sent to Ms Strehle of who she believed was Andrey Menezes are actually of an unsuspecting American.
His personal images were copied from his Facebook site without permission and used by the scammers.
BBC News NI tracked the man down to a small town in Missouri. His name is Aaron and he asked for his surname not to be used.
When the BBC informed him that photographs of him and his family were being posted on an internet dating site, he was surprised.
"The photos were on Facebook, but they were my life," he said.
Warning
"I was probably a victim for two reasons. I have children and that story probably helped supplement the heart strings they are pulling.
"And also my Facebook setting as far as security was concerned were not very tight.
"A lot of folks might feel like a victim but I don't. I posted the pictures on social media and I know the risks involved.
"I feel regret and sadness for those that are victims of the scamming and lost time, income and emotion to these scammers."
The PSNI confirmed that a woman had reported an international scam to them in Belfast last month. Police sources said a report has been made to German police who are investigating this incident.
Because the money was sent from Germany to the Far East, sources said there was nothing to suggest that any crime took place in Northern Ireland.
"I need to warn other women about what happened to me. Never ever get involved with a man on the internet," said Ms Strehle.Joseph R. Biden Jr., a six-term U.S. Senator and former Vice President of the United States, will speak at the College's 2017 Class Day in May.
Joseph R. Biden Jr., the 47th Vice President of the United States, will be the College’s 2017 Class Day speaker.
Biden represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1972 to 2009, when he became Vice President of the United States under then-President Barack Obama. Since departing the White House, he and his wife, Jill Biden, established the Biden Foundation to promote educational programming and policy analysis in a wide array of areas, including cancer research, economic inequality, and higher education.
Biden will speak to graduating seniors from the Class of 2017 in Tercentenary Theatre on May 24, one day prior to the University’s 366th Commencement exercises. Facebook founder and Harvard dropout Mark E. Zuckerberg will return to campus the next day to deliver the Commencement address, Harvard announced last month.
“I am honored to be invited to be a part of this special day at Harvard. Today’s generation of students is the most engaged, the most tolerant, and the best educated in the history of the United States of America,” Biden wrote in a press release Wednesday. “I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this year’s graduating class about the great power they hold to shape our nation’s future.”
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The six-term U.S. senator visited Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2014, where he spoke candidly about American foreign policy and the future of the United States. The University of Pennsylvania named him the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor in February, and he will lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, the university’s new Washington, D.C.-based center focusing on diplomacy, foreign policy, and national security.
“It is an absolute honor to welcome Vice President Biden to Cambridge for Class Day,” Avni Nahar ’17, program marshal on the Senior Class Committee, wrote. “His decades-long career in public service is incredibly inspirational for all of us as we consider the impact we want to make in our communities as citizens and citizen-leaders post-graduation.”
Biden was selected by a subcommittee chaired by Nahar, an inactive Crimson Blog editor, and Victoria H. Jones ’17.
The tradition of Harvard College seniors inviting a guest speaker began in 1968. Class Day speakers are often graduates of the College and have included a cast of actors, comedians, politicians, and journalists. Last year, actress Rashida L. Jones ’97 reminisced about lighthearted memories from her undergraduate years while calling for political action when she spoke to Harvard’s seniors at Class Day.
Recent speakers have also included actress Natalie Portman ’03, Facebook executive Sheryl K. Sandberg ’91, NBC television anchor Matt Lauer, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
In addition to Biden’s address, the Class Day exercises will include the Harvard and Ivy orations given by graduating seniors and presentation of the Ames Award.
—Staff writer Kenton K. Shimozaki can be reached at kenton.shimozaki@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @KentonShimozaki.The New York Times of Sunday July 16 brought chilling new evidence that Trump attorney general Jeff Sessions, in direct contradiction of the position stated by Donald J Trump when he was a candidate, plans a federal crackdown on marijuana in the 29 states that have legalized some form of its use. At a campaign rally in Sparks, Nevada on Oct. 29, 2015, Trump said: “The marijuana thing is such a big thing. I think medical should happen — right? Don’t we agree? I think so. And then I really believe we should leave it up to the states. It should be a state situation … but I believe that the legalization of marijuana – other than for medical because I think medical, you know I know people that are very, very sick and for whatever reason the marijuana really helps them – … but in terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state.”
According to the Times, attorney general Sessions plans a 1960s style relaunch of the discredited “War on Drugs” which has proved to be an ignominious and expensive failure which has neither stemmed or slowed drug trafficking and abuse nor has rehabilitated victims while leading to mass incarceration of an entire generation of minority Americans for the nonviolent offense of possession of small amounts of drugs.
Time to buy old US gold coins
Business man Donald Trump’s skepticism about the war on drugs goes back many years with the real estate titan telling Playboy in an interview that the war on drugs program has been a failure in view of its massive financial cause for interdiction, prosecution and long term incarceration. Trump said at the time that “legalization is the obvious answer”. The Making of the Pres... Roger Stone Best Price: $1.99 Buy New $6.00 (as of 06:05 EST - Details)
Even though candidate Donald Trump pledged during the campaign to support state’s rights when it comes to the question of state legalization of marijuana, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security John Kelly, egged on by New Jersey Governor Chris Christi have been not so quietly promoting a coming crackdown on state legalized cannabis.
The Session’s strategy is even shiftier and more nefarious than originally reported. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer first floated the idea of a Trump administration crackdown on marijuana in a White House press briefing but Spicer said that the administration’s concern was not with medical marijuana but with the nine states that have now approved the legal use of marijuana for recreational purposes. Spicer seemed oblivious to the point that the arduous process of state legalization is for recreation marijuana is identical to the process of legalization for medicinal marijuana and both require the overwhelming support of the voters or the legislatures in the states that have taken this step.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions real plan was exposed when he asked the U.S. Congress to rescind a rider that the House attached to an Appropriations Bill that would have prohibited the Justice Department under Sessions from conducting a crackdown on medicinal marijuana.
The position of the Attorney General not only ignores the will of the people in the 29 states that have legalized some form of cannabis but it ignores the billions in revenue to states and counties who are balancing their books and paying for vital public services from taxes collected on legalized cannabis. It also ignores the hundreds of thousands of jobs in what is today a multi-billion-dollar industry. A crackdown on marijuana is most certainly not going to make America great again economically. More importantly, Mr. Sessions’ plan Jeb! and the Bush Crim... Roger Stone, Saint Joh... Best Price: $3.89 Buy New $6.00 (as of 06:05 EST - Details) directly contradicts the expressed position of the President while a candidate. Donald Trump is popular with the American people because he says what he means and he means what he says.
Even more appalling is the fact that drug warriors like Sessions, Kelly and Christi refuse to acknowledge that the war on drugs has failed. The so called war on drugs has clogged our courts and prisons, cost taxpayers billions and had no effect on the incidents of illegal drug use on the United States.
The effects of legalization on the other hand have proven to be most beneficial. Opioid deaths have dropped sharply in the states that have legalized cannabis as have opioid addiction and opioid related crime. In fact, petty crime from breaking and entering to armed robbery has also dropped dramatically in the states that have legalized cannabis. Just as importantly the 29 states that have legalized cannabis are experiencing an incredible windfall in revenues to states and counties with Colorado and California essentially balancing their state and county budgets with the proceeds from cannabis generated tax collections. Additionally, what is now a multi-billion dollar industry is generation thousands of new jobs in the states where the voters and the elected officials have had the wisdom to legalize cannabis.
President Trump made a solid decision when he stood up for State’s Rights on the question of marijuana legalization. I believe that Trump did marginally better with younger voters than either Romney or McCain based on this stance. It is important to understand that millions of Americans are counting on cannabis as medication to address a broad action of illnesses and maladies. The idea that we would deny veterans with PTSD cannabis if it eased their suffering is outrageous.
All of this explains why I have joined with a number of prominent Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Progressives to form the United States Cannabis Coalition. I am proud to say that John Morgan, Orlando attorney, who single-handedly mounted a dogged multi- The Clintonsu2019 War... Roger Stone, Robert Mo... Best Price: $1.06 Buy New $9.50 (as of 06:00 EST - Details) election effort to legalize medical marijuana in Florida has joined me in this important effort. John feels very strongly that Republicans and Democrats must put partisan politics aside so that millions will have the option of marijuana therapy for debilitating illnesses.
The narrow purpose of this ad hoc effort is to urge the President to protect State’s Rights in the 29 states that have legalized the sale and availability of cannabis. Specifically, the President should direct the Attorney General to continue to abide by the Obama-era Justice Department policy to withhold enforcement that they would withhold enforcement of Federal law in the states where State and Federal law have a contradiction on the sale and dispensary of cannabis. This was a good call by Attorney General Eric Holder, saving tax payers millions for Federal enforcement and potentially putting people in jail for selling or using medicinal marijuana. Sessions planned crackdown on marijuana would reverse these orders. The President must instruct him to back off to fulfill his pledge to the millions of Americans who support him based on his promise to protect their access all natural medicine they need.
Candidate Trump met with parents whose children’s epilepsy was affectively treated with a certain strain of marijuana. He knows that millions count on legal access to cannabis as a legitimate and effective form of medicine. Candidate Trump made an important and courageous declaration that he would protect the states’ rights to guarantee access to cannabis for its medical benefits if that is what the voters chose.
We at the United States cannabis coalition also hope to persuade the President to reschedule cannabis removing it as a Class 1 drug where it is grouped with heroin and other more damaging drugs so that physicians across the country could legally prescribe cannabis or its derivatives to their patients who would derive medial benefit. A bold move by President Trump would prove to be extremely popular and would disarm many of his critics – in short both a public policy and political ten-strike.
The Best of Roger StonePresident Trump is making headway on at least one campaign promise: cutting regulations.
Shortly after the election, Trump boasted that 75 percent of federal regulations could be eliminated, arguing that too much regulation was preventing businesses from growing and hiring.
“We're going to be cutting regulation massively,” the president promised business leaders in January.
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Trump has issued a series of executive orders both directing agencies to find their own rules to repeal and hand-picking which regulations must go, including former President Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
Earlier this week, Trump signed an executive order to streamline and cut certain federal permitting regulations to speed up transportation, water and other infrastructure projects.
Here’s a look at how successful Trump has been so far in cutting down regulations.
Congressional Review Act
Trump took advantage of the obscure Congressional Review Act to repeal 14 rules that had recently been finalized under former President Obama.
The law allows Congress to roll back recent rules within a limited timeframe, and it prevents a filibuster in the Senate.
This has been one of the successes of the Trump administration so far.
Trump and Republicans in Congress used the CRA to kill rules making it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase guns, forcing federal contractors to fess up to labor law violations committed in the last three years and preventing states from withholding funds for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.
Dan Goldbeck, a research analyst for the conservative American Action Forum, called the repeals “historic” and estimated they would produce an annual savings of $1.1 billion.
Before Trump, the 1996 law had only ever been successfully used once before.
Republicans are now using it to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's attempt to prevent banks and credit card companies from stripping consumers of their right to join class action lawsuits.
The House has already passed a resolution of repeal. The Senate has 60 legislative days to act.
Critics of Trump acknowledge he has had some successes, but they say the regulatory wins fall far short of his vows — and come in a context of few other legislative wins.
“I would say the quote unquote success is only striking in contrast to his utter failure elsewhere,” said Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen.
“After six months in office, most presidents would hope to say they’ve done more than tackle 14 rules. It’s nowhere near the things he’s promised and from our perspective that’s a great thing because those are public protections that need to stay in place.”
Two-for-one
Trump in January directed federal agencies to repeal two rules for every one they issue.
Experts say Trump has little to show here so far.
Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, said there’s been a slowdown of agency rulemakings, but he hasn’t seen a flurry of two-for-one repeals.
“What you’ve seen instead is a disinclination to issue new rules,” he said.
By Crews’s tally, federal agencies released 1,509 rules in Trump’s first six months in office compared to Obama’s 1,865 rules.
Of those 1,509 rules, 99 were significant, meaning they carried an annual economic impact of $100 million or more. Obama in his first six months issued 173 significant rules.
“I would say in terms of what an executive can do alone within the rule of law, he's probably done about as much as can be expected,” Crews said.
Public Citizen and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have sued to squash Trump’s two-for-one order.
The pro-regulatory groups claim the president exceeded his executive authority under the Constitution and that agencies cannot comply with the order without violating the laws under which they operate.
Regulatory Reform Task Forces
Agencies are charging on and looking for rules to eliminate.
Trump ordered each agency in February to create a Regulatory Reform Task Force to evaluate existing regulations and make recommendations to the agency head regarding their repeal, replacement or modification, consistent with applicable law.
Since then, agencies have released a flurry of requests for public input on which rules can be reworked or repealed.
Agencies must first ask for public comment under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to change or repeal a rule, as noted by Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta Rene (Alex) Alexander AcostaTrump should fire Labor Secretary Acosta for cowardice in child sex abuse case Dems call on Trump to fire Acosta White House 'looking into' Acosta role in Epstein case MORE.
In a progress report on its regulatory reform task force in June, the Department of Education said it found 150 regulations for department offices to review
Climate rule changes
In March, Trump ordered the EPA to reconsider Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which limited carbon emissions for existing power plants and methane emissions for oil and natural gas drilling.
Trump scored a victory a month later when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed to put the case challenging the Clean Power Plan on hold to give the agency time to repeal the rule.
A federal district court judge sided with NRDC and other green groups in July that challenged EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s attempt to stay the methane pollution rules for 90 days.
EPA was also reportedly forced to walk back plans to delay the Obama’s administration ozone pollution regulations by one year after 15 states and Washington, D.C. sued the agency.
NRDC claims the courts are serving as a safety net, enforcing the rule of law when it comes to health and environment.
Scott Slesinger, NRDC’s legislative director, argues Trump’s actions have been blindly focused on cost.
“You save a million by not having a requirement, but if you have a billion dollars worth of health impacts you are hurting more than you are impacting,” he said.
He claims Trump has this idea that he’s going to find useless regulations that just waste money, but that they don’t exist.Passing Channels over Channels
As most know, channels are one of the most powerful concurrency features in Go. Armed with Goroutines and the select statement, you can build correct, efficient and understandable concurrent programs that do complex things.
In essence, a channel is a shared, concurrency-safe queue. Its primary purpose is to pass data across concurrency boundaries (i.e. between goroutines). Another way to say that is: you can send or receive an instance of any type on a channel. I’m going to focus on sending that chan type over a channel.
Why
One simple reason you’d send a chan on a chan is to tell a goroutine to do work and then get an acknowledgement (ack hereafter) that it’s finished doing that work.
Here’s what such a channel looks like in Go code:
chanOverChan := make(chan chan int)
In English, this code means: “a channel on which you can send or receive a channel of ints”. When you see code that looks like the above, it’s a safe bet that the sender is telling the receiver to do some computation and send the results to another goroutine, which may be the sender. We’re going to focus on case where the sender is the receiver that the ack is forwarded to.
Patterns
You won’t always see a simple chan chan int. Sometimes, the ack channel is stored inside a struct:
type data struct { retCh chan<- int } dataCh := make(chan data)
And you might see the channel completely abstracted by a func :
type abstractedCh := chan func(int)
In this case, the sender can capture the channel inside the func(int) if they want – or they can send any other implementation they want. This strategy is called a function closure, and is extremely flexible.
In Action
Below are some code examples using the 3 strategies. In each case, We’ll simulate the work using a simple time.Sleep.
Style 1: Using a Channel Inside a Channel
Here’s the simplest of the patterns in action. Generally this style will be easiest to read and understand, but it has some limits:
Each doStuff goroutine sleeps for a set amount of time. You can’t change the sleep time when you send on ch
goroutine sleeps for a set amount of time. You can’t change the sleep time when you send on Each doStuff goroutine can only receive a chan time.Duration – no more data than that. We’ll address that problem in the next style.
package main import ( "log" "sync" "time" ) // the function to be run inside a goroutine. It receives a channel on ch, sleeps for t, then sends t on the channel it received func doStuff(t time.Duration, ch <-chan chan time.Duration) { ac := <-ch time.Sleep(t) ac <- t } func main() { // create the channel-over-channel type sendCh := make(chan chan time.Duration) // start up 10 doStuff goroutines for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { go doStuff(time.Duration(i+1)*time.Second, sendCh) } // send channels to each doStuff goroutine. doStuff will "ack" by sending its sleep time back recvCh := make(chan time.Duration) for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { sendCh <- recvCh } // receive on each channel we previously sent. this is where we receive the ack that doStuff sent back above var wg sync.WaitGroup // use this to block until all goroutines have received the ack and logged for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { wg.Add(1) go func() { defer wg.Done() dur := <-recvCh log.Printf("slept for %s", dur) }() } wg.Wait() }
See this code in action at https://play.golang.org/p/-1lY-4gd4N.
Style 2: Using a Channel Stored Inside a Struct
This code will look almost identical to the previous snippet, with 2 exceptions:
The ack channel will be stored inside a struct
The sleep time will be stored inside that same struct, so we can pass it over the channel This makes the code more flexible, because we can tell doStuff how long to sleep when we send to it, rather than when we start it
, so we can pass it over the
package main import ( "log" "sync" "time" ) // the struct that we'll pass over a channel to a goroutine running doStuff type process struct { dur time.Duration ch chan time.Duration } // the goroutine function. will receive a process struct 'p' on ch, sleep for p.dur, then send p.dur on p.ch func doStuff(ch <-chan process) { proc := <-ch time.Sleep(proc.dur) proc.ch <- proc.dur } func main() { // start up the goroutines sendCh := make(chan process) for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { go doStuff(sendCh) } // store an array of each struct we sent to the goroutines processes := make([]process, 10) for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { dur := time.Duration(i+1) * time.Second proc := process{dur: dur, ch: make(chan time.Duration)} processes[i] = proc sendCh <- proc } // recieve on each struct's ack channel var wg sync.WaitGroup // use this to block until all goroutines have received the ack and logged for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { wg.Add(1) go func(ch <-chan time.Duration) { defer wg.Done() dur := <-ch log.Printf("slept for %s", dur) }(processes[i].ch) } wg.Wait() }
See this code in action at https://play.golang.org/p/bJoiGP9ua2.
Style 3: Using a Channel Inside a Function Closure
This code will look different from the previous examples, because the doStuff function won’t know anything about a return channel. That fact is both good and bad. On the up side, you can change your code later to do anything you want inside that function (e.g. good for testing!), but on the down side, you can’t pass dynamic time.Duration s into the doStuff goroutines, as you could in the previous example.
package main import ( "log" "sync" "time" ) func doStuff(dur time.Duration, ch <-chan func(time.Duration)) { ackFn := <-ch time.Sleep(dur) ackFn(dur) } func main() { // start up the doStuff goroutines sendCh := make(chan func(time.Duration)) for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { dur := time.Duration(i+1) * time.Second go doStuff(dur, sendCh) } // create the channels that will be closed over, create functions that close over each channel, then send them to the doStuff goroutines recvChs := make([]chan time.Duration, 10) for i := 0; i < 10; i++ { recvCh := make(chan time.Duration) recvChs[i] = recvCh fn := func(dur time.Duration) { recvCh <- dur } sendCh <- fn } // receive on the closed-over functions var wg sync.WaitGroup // use this to block until all goroutines have received the ack and logged for _, recvCh := range recvChs { wg.Add(1) go func(recvCh <-chan time.Duration) { defer wg.Done() dur := <-recvCh log.Printf("slept for %s", dur) }(recvCh) } wg.Wait() }
See this code in action at https://play.golang.org/p/JAtGxdBVRW.
SummaryAnarchism without adjectives (from the Spanish anarquismo sin adjetivos), in the words of historian George Richard Esenwein, "referred to an unhyphenated form of anarchism, that is, a doctrine without any qualifying labels such as communist, collectivist, mutualist, or individualist. For others, [...] [it] was simply understood as an attitude that tolerated the coexistence of different anarchist schools".[1]
In the 1920s, synthesis anarchism emerged as a form of anarchist organizations based on anarchism-without-adjectives principles.[2]
Origins [ edit ]
The originators of the expression were Cuban-born Fernando Tarrida del Mármol and Ricardo Mella, who were troubled by the bitter debates between mutualist, individualists and communist anarchists in the 1880s.[3] Their use of the phrase "anarchism without adjectives" was an attempt to show greater tolerance between anarchist tendencies and to be clear that anarchists should not impose a preconceived economic plan on anyone—even in theory. Anarchists without adjectives tended either to reject all particular anarchist economic models as faulty, or take a pluralist position of embracing them all to a limited degree in order that they may keep one another in check. Regardless, to these anarchists the economic preferences are considered to be of "secondary importance" to abolishing all coercive authority, with free experimentation the one rule of a free society.
History [ edit ]
The theoretical perspective known as anarquismo sin adjetivos was one of the by-products of an intense debate within the movement of anarchism itself. The roots of the argument can be found in the development of anarcho-communism after Mikhail Bakunin's death in 1876. While not entirely dissimilar to collectivist anarchism (as can be seen from James Guillaume's famous work "On Building the New Social Order" within Bakunin on anarchism, the collectivists did see their economic system evolving into free communism), communist anarchists developed, deepened and enriched Bakunin's work just as Bakunin had developed, deepened and enriched PIerre-Joseph Proudhon's. Communist anarchism was associated with such anarchists as Élisée Reclus, Carlo Cafiero, Errico Malatesta and (most famously) Peter Kropotkin.
Anarcho-communist ideas replaced collectivist anarchism as the main anarchist tendency in Europe, except in Spain. Here the major issue was not the question of communism (although for Ricardo Mella this played a part), but a question of the modification of strategy and tactics implied by communist anarchism. At this time (the 1880s), the anarcho-communists stressed local cells of anarchist militants, generally opposed trade unionism as were characterized by a degree of anti-organisation. Unsurprisingly, such a change in strategy and tactics came in for a lot of discussion from the Spanish collectivists who strongly supported working class organisation and struggle.
This debate soon spread outside of Spain and the discussion found its way into the pages of La Revolte in Paris. This provoked many anarchists to agree with Malatesta's argument that "[i]t is not right for us, to say the least, to fall into strife over mere hypotheses".[4] Over time, most anarchists agreed (to use Max Nettlau's words) that "we cannot foresee the economic development of the future"[5] and so started to stress what they had in common, rather than the different visions of how a free society would operate. As time progressed, most anarcho-communists saw that ignoring the labour movement ensured that their ideas did not reach the working class while most anarcho-communists stressed their commitment to communist ideals and their arrival sooner, rather than later, after a revolution.
United States [ edit ]
Similarly, in the United States there was an intense debate at the same time between individualist and communist anarchists. There, Benjamin Tucker was arguing that anarcho-communists were not anarchists while Johann Most was similarly dismissing Tucker's ideas. Troubled by the "bitter debates" between anarchists from divergent schools of economic thought, those who did not see a need to confine themselves to one particular school of thought called for more tolerance among anarchists, with some of them explicitly terming it "anarchism without adjectives".[6]
For example, early feminist Voltairine de Cleyre labelled herself as simply "anarchist" and called on others to adopt an "anarchism without adjectives" until enough experimental examples were tried in different localities to determine its most appropriate form.[7] De Cleyre sought conciliation between the various schools and said in her essay Anarchism:
There is nothing un-Anarchistic about any of [these systems] until the element of compulsion enters and obliges unwilling persons to remain in a community whose economic arrangements they do not agree to. (When I say 'do not agree to' I do not mean that they have a mere distaste for...I mean serious differences which in their opinion threaten their essential liberties...)...Therefore I say that each group of persons acting socially in freedom may choose any of the proposed systems, and be just as thorough-going Anarchists as those who select another.[8]
Historically, anarchists who embraced " |
Reference(refclass(ClassName, L1), refclass(ClassName, L2)) :- L1 \= L2,
loadedClass(ClassName, L1, Class),
loadedClass(ClassName, L2, Class).
isWideningReference(refclass(From, L1), refclass(To, L2)) :- loadedClass(From, L1, FromClass),
loadedClass(To, L2, ToClass),
loadedSuperclasses(FromClass, Supers)
member(ToClass, Supers).
A bug in the previous rules failed to allow the same class to be treated as a subtype of itself when referenced in the context of different initiating class loaders. It's not clear if this has any practical impact (are subtype tests ever performed between types referenced from different classes?), but the first rule above addresses it.
Array types are subtypes of Object. The intent is also that array types are subtypes of Cloneable and java.io.Serializable.
isJavaAssignable(arrayOf(_), class( 'java/lang/Object', BL)) :- isBootstrapLoader(BL).
isJavaAssignable(arrayOf(_), X) :- isArrayInterface(X).
isArrayInterface(class('java/lang/Cloneable', BL)) :- isBootstrapLoader(BL).
isArrayInterface(class('java/io/Serializable', BL)) :- isBootstrapLoader(BL).
isWideningReference(arrayOf(_), refclass( 'java/lang/Object', L)) :- loadedClass( 'java/lang/Object', L, ObjectClass),
classDefiningLoader(ObjectClass, BL),
isBootstrapLoader(BL).
A bug in the previous rules fails to treat array types as subtypes of class( 'java/lang/Object', L) unless L is the bootstrap loader. Since L is the initiating loader, that rule failed to support the common case of java/lang/Object being referenced outside of bootstrap classes. The previous rules also fail to allow an array type to be treated as a subtype of an arbitrary interface type. In practice, it is possible to, say, pass an array as an argument to a method expecting a Runnable. The earlier rules for interface types address this, making it unnecessary to single out Cloneable and Serializable for special treatment.
Subtyping between arrays of primitive type is the identity relation.
isJavaAssignable(arrayOf(X), arrayOf(Y)) :- atom(X),
atom(Y),
X = Y.
Subtyping between arrays of reference type is covariant.
isWideningReference(arrayOf(X), arrayOf(Y)) :- compound(X),
compound(Y),
isWideningReference(X, Y).
The subtyping rule for arrays of primitive types is an identity conversion, not a widening; and it is already covered by the reflexive rule for isAssignable. The subtyping rule for arrays of reference types does not need to check that the inputs are reference types—if not, isWideningReference will not succeed.
Subclassing is reflexive.
isJavaSubclassOf(class(SubclassName, L), class(SubclassName, L)).
isJavaSubclassOf(class(SubclassName, LSub), class(SuperclassName, LSuper)) :- superclassChain(SubclassName, LSub, Chain),
member(class(SuperclassName, L), Chain),
loadedClass(SuperclassName, L, Sup),
loadedClass(SuperclassName, LSuper, Sup).
This relation is expressed directly with isWideningReference, above. No need to introduce another predicate.
superclassChain(ClassName, L, [class(SuperclassName, Ls) | Rest]) :- loadedClass(ClassName, L, Class),
classSuperClassName(Class, SuperclassName),
classDefiningLoader(Class, Ls),
superclassChain(SuperclassName, Ls, Rest).
superclassChain('java/lang/Object', L, []) :- loadedClass('java/lang/Object', L, Class), classDefiningLoader(Class, BL), isBootstrapLoader(BL).
This predicate is moved to 4.10.1.1 and renamed loadedSuperclasses.
4.10.1.3 Instruction Representation
...
A few instructions have operands that are constant pool entries representing fields, methods, and dynamic call sites. In the constant pool, a field is represented by a CONSTANT_Fieldref_info structure, a method is represented by a CONSTANT_InterfaceMethodref_info structure (for an interface's method) or a CONSTANT_Methodref_info structure (for a class's method), and a dynamic call site is represented by a CONSTANT_InvokeDynamic_info structure (4.4.2, 4.4.10). Such structures are represented as functor applications of the form:
field( FieldClassName FieldClassType, FieldName, FieldDescriptor) for a field, where FieldClassType is the name of the class constant pool entry referenced by the class_index item in the CONSTANT_Fieldref_info structure, and FieldName and FieldDescriptor correspond to the name and field descriptor referenced by the name_and_type_index item of the CONSTANT_Fieldref_info structure.
imethod( MethodIntfName MethodIntfType, MethodName, MethodDescriptor) for an interface's method, where MethodIntfType is the name of the interface constant pool entry referenced by the class_index item of the CONSTANT_InterfaceMethodref_info structure, and MethodName and MethodDescriptor correspond to the name and method descriptor referenced by the name_and_type_index item of the CONSTANT_InterfaceMethodref_info structure;
method( MethodClassName MethodClassType, MethodName, MethodDescriptor) for a class's method, where MethodClassType is the name of the class constant pool entry referenced by the class_index item of the CONSTANT_Methodref_info structure, and MethodName and MethodDescriptor correspond to the name and method descriptor referenced by the name_and_type_index item of the CONSTANT_Methodref_info structure; and
dmethod(CallSiteName, MethodDescriptor) for a dynamic call site, where CallSiteName and MethodDescriptor correspond to the name and method descriptor referenced by the name_and_type_index item of the CONSTANT_InvokeDynamic_info structure.
For clarity, we assume that field and method descriptors (4.3.2, 4.3.3) are mapped into more readable names: the leading L and trailing ; are dropped from class names, and the BaseType characters used for primitive types are mapped to the names of those types.
The descriptor should always be processed with parseFieldDescriptor, so its format doesn't need to be specified.
For example, a getfield instruction whose operand was an index into the constant pool that refers to a field foo of type F in class reference class type Bar would be represented as getfield(field( 'Bar' classConstant( 'Bar' ), 'foo', 'F' )).
...
4.10.1.6 Type Checking Methods with Code
...
instanceMethodInitialThisType(Class, Method, uninitializedThis) :- methodName(Method, '<init>'),
classClassName(Class, ClassName),
classDefiningLoader(Class, CurrentLoader),
superclassChain(ClassName, CurrentLoader, Chain),
loadedSuperclasses(Class, Supers),
Chain Supers = [].
...
4.10.1.8 Type Checking for protected Members
Changes to the section involve: Operating on a member reference type rather than a member reference class name, consistent with changes to CONSTANT_Class_info and CONSTANT_Fieldref_info.
and. Adjusting to replace uses of superclassChain with loadedSuperclasses, as outlined in previous sections.
All instructions that access members must contend with the rules concerning protected members. This section describes the protected check that corresponds to JLS 6.6.2.1.
The protected check applies only to protected members of superclasses of the current class. protected members in other classes will be caught by the access checking done at resolution (5.4.4). There are four cases:
If the name of a class is not the name of any superclass, it cannot be a superclass, and so it can safely be ignored. passesProtectedCheck(Environment, MemberType, MemberName, MemberDescriptor, StackFrame) :- MemberType \= refclass(_, _). passesProtectedCheck(Environment, MemberClassName MemberType, MemberName, MemberDescriptor, StackFrame) :- MemberType = refclass(MemberClassName, CurrentLoader),
thisClass(Environment, class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) CurrentClass ),
superclassChain(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader, Chain),
notMember(class(MemberClassName, _), Chain).
\+ hasSuperclassWithName(CurrentClass, MemberClassName). hasSuperclassWithName(Class, SuperclassName) :- loadedSuperclasses(Class, Supers),
member(Super, Supers),
classClassName(Super, SuperclassName).
If the MemberClassName is the same as the name of a superclass, the class being resolved may indeed be a superclass. In this case, if no superclass named MemberClassName in a different run-time package has a protected member named MemberName with descriptor MemberDescriptor, the protected check does not apply. This is because the actual class being resolved will either be one of these superclasses, in which case we know that it is either in the same run-time package, and the access is legal; or the member in question is not protected and the check does not apply; or it will be a subclass, in which case the check would succeed anyway; or it will be some other class in the same run-time package, in which case the access is legal and the check need not take place; or the verifier need not flag this as a problem, since it will be caught anyway because resolution will per force fail. passesProtectedCheck(Environment, MemberClassName MemberType, MemberName, MemberDescriptor, StackFrame) :- MemberType = refclass(MemberClassName, CurrentLoader),
thisClass(Environment, class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) CurrentClass ),
superclassChain(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader, Chain),
member(class(MemberClassName, _), Chain),
hasSuperclassWithName(CurrentClass, MemberClassName),
loadedSuperclasses(CurrentClass, Chain),
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(
class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) CurrentClass,
MemberName, MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName, Chain, []).
If there does exist a protected superclass member in a different run-time package, then load MemberClassName; if the member in question is not protected, the check does not apply. (Using a superclass member that is not protected is trivially correct.) passesProtectedCheck(Environment, MemberClassName MemberType, MemberName, MemberDescriptor,
frame(_Locals, [Target | Rest], _Flags)) :- MemberType = refclass(MemberClassName, CurrentLoader),
thisClass(Environment, class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) CurrentClass ),
superclassChain(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader, Chain),
member(class(MemberClassName, _), Chain),
hasSuperclassWithName(CurrentClass, MemberClassName),
loadedSuperclasses(CurrentClass, Chain),
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(
class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) CurrentClass,
MemberName, MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName, Chain, List),
List /= [],
loadedClass(MemberClassName, CurrentLoader, ReferencedClass),
isNotProtected(ReferencedClass, MemberName, MemberDescriptor).
Otherwise, use of a member of an object of type Target requires that Target be assignable to the type of the current class. passesProtectedCheck(Environment, MemberClassName MemberType, MemberName, MemberDescriptor,
frame(_Locals, [Target | Rest], _Flags)) :- MemberType = refclass(MemberClassName, CurrentLoader),
thisClass(Environment, class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) CurrentClass),
superclassChain(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader, Chain),
member(class(MemberClassName, _), Chain),
hasSuperclassWithName(CurrentClass, MemberClassName),
loadedSuperclasses(CurrentClass, Chain),
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(
class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) CurrentClass,
MemberName, MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName, Chain, List),
List /= [],
loadedClass(MemberClassName, CurrentLoader, ReferencedClass),
isProtected(ReferencedClass, MemberName, MemberDescriptor),
thisType(Environment, ThisType),
isAssignable(Target, class(CurrentClassName, CurrentLoader) ThisType).
The predicate classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(Class, MemberName, MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName, Chain, List) is true if List is the set of classes in Chain with name MemberClassName that are in a different run-time package than Class which have a protected member named MemberName with descriptor MemberDescriptor.
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(_, _, _, _, [], []).
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(Class, MemberName,
MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName,
[ class(MemberClassName, L) Super | Tail],
[ class(MemberClassName, L) Super | T]) :- classClassName(Super, MemberClassName),
differentRuntimePackage(Class, class(MemberClassName, L) Super),
loadedClass(MemberClassName, L, Super),
isProtected(Super, MemberName, MemberDescriptor),
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(
Class, MemberName, MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName, Tail, T).
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(Class, MemberName,
MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName,
[ class(MemberClassName, L) Super | Tail],
T) :- classClassName(Super, MemberClassName),
differentRuntimePackage(Class, class(MemberClassName, L) Super),
loadedClass(MemberClassName, L, Super),
isNotProtected(Super, MemberName, MemberDescriptor),
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(
Class, MemberName, MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName, Tail, T).
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(Class, MemberName,
MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName,
[ class(MemberClassName, L) Super | Tail],
T) :- classClassName(Super, MemberClassName),
sameRuntimePackage(Class, class(MemberClassName, L) Super),
classesInOtherPkgWithProtectedMember(
Class, MemberName, MemberDescriptor, MemberClassName, Tail, T).
sameRuntimePackage(Class1, Class2) :- classDefiningLoader(Class1, L),
classDefiningLoader(Class2, L),
samePackageName(Class1, Class2).
differentRuntimePackage(Class1, Class2) :- classDefiningLoader(Class1, L1),
classDefiningLoader(Class2, L2),
L1 = L2.
differentRuntimePackage(Class1, Class2) :- differentPackageName(Class1, Class2).
4.10.1.9 Type Checking Instructions
...
aaload
An aaload instruction is type safe iff one can validly replace types matching int and an array type with component type ComponentType where ComponentType is a subtype of Object, with ComponentType yielding the outgoing type state.
instructionIsTypeSafe( aaload, Environment, _Offset, StackFrame, NextStackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame) :- nth1OperandStackIs(2, StackFrame, ArrayType),
arrayComponentType(ArrayType, ComponentType),
isBootstrapLoader(BL),
validTypeTransition(Environment,
[ int, arrayOf(refclass( 'java/lang/Object', BL))],
ComponentType, StackFrame, NextStackFrame),
exceptionStackFrame(StackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame).
The component type of an array of X is X. We define the component type of null to be null.
arrayComponentType(arrayOf(X), X).
arrayComponentType( null, null ).
aastore
An aastore instruction is type safe iff one can validly pop types matching Object, int, and an array of Object off the incoming operand stack yielding the outgoing type state.
instructionIsTypeSafe( aastore, _Environment, _Offset, StackFrame, NextStackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame) :- isBootstrapLoader(BL),
canPop(StackFrame,
[refclass( 'java/lang/Object', BL), int, arrayOf(refclass( 'java/lang/Object', BL))],
NextStackFrame),
exceptionStackFrame(StackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame).
...
anewarray
An anewarray instruction with operand CP is type safe iff CP refers to a constant pool entry denoting either a class type or an array type, and one can legally replace a type matching int on the incoming operand stack with an array with component type given by CP, yielding the outgoing type state.
instructionIsTypeSafe(anewarray(CP), Environment, _Offset, StackFrame, NextStackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame) :- (CP = class(_, _) ; CP = arrayOf(_)),
parseConstantClassType(CP, ComponentType),
validTypeTransition(Environment, [ int ], arrayOf( CP ComponentType), StackFrame, NextStackFrame),
exceptionStackFrame(StackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame).
We don't need to assert that CP is a reference class type or array type (or, now, direct value class type). There are no other possibilities, assuming the bytecode is properly formatted (4.8, 4.9.1).
...
athrow
An athrow instruction is type safe iff the top of the operand stack matches Throwable.
instructionIsTypeSafe( athrow, _Environment, _Offset, StackFrame, afterGoto, ExceptionStackFrame) :- isBootstrapLoader(BL),
canPop(StackFrame, [refclass( 'java/lang/Throwable', BL)], _PoppedStackFrame),
exceptionStackFrame(StackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame).
...
checkcast
A checkcast instruction with operand CP is type safe iff CP refers to a constant pool entry denoting either a class or an array, and one can validly replace the type Object on top of the incoming operand stack with the type denoted by CP yielding the outgoing type state.
instructionIsTypeSafe(checkcast(CP), Environment, _Offset, StackFrame, NextStackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame) :- (CP = class(_, _) ; CP = arrayOf(_)),
parseConstantClassType(CP, Type),
isBootstrapLoader(BL),
validTypeTransition(Environment, [refclass( 'java/lang/Object', BL)], CP Type, StackFrame, NextStackFrame),
exceptionStackFrame(StackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame).
We don't need to assert that CP is not a direct value class type. That was already asserted by format checking (4.8, 4.9.1).
...
getfield
A getfield instruction with operand CP is type safe iff CP refers to a constant pool entry denoting a field whose declared type is FieldType, declared in a class FieldClass type FieldClassType, and one can validly replace a type matching FieldClassType with type FieldType on the incoming operand stack yielding the outgoing type state. FieldClass must not be an array type. protected fields are subject to additional checks (4.10.1.8).
instructionIsTypeSafe(getfield(CP), Environment, _Offset, StackFrame, NextStackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame) :- CP = field(CC, FieldName, FieldDescriptor),
parseConstantClassType(CC, FieldClassType),
parseFieldDescriptor(FieldDescriptor, FieldType),
passesProtectedCheck(Environment, FieldClass FieldClassType, FieldName, FieldDescriptor, StackFrame),
validTypeTransition(Environment, [ class(FieldClass) FieldClassType], FieldType, StackFrame, NextStackFrame),
exceptionStackFrame(StackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame).
...
instanceof
An instanceof instruction with operand CP is type safe iff CP refers to a constant pool entry denoting either a class or an array, and one can validly replace the type Object on top of the incoming operand stack with type int yielding the outgoing type state.
instructionIsTypeSafe(instanceof(CP), Environment, _Offset, StackFrame, NextStackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame) :- (CP = class(_, _) ; CP = arrayOf(_)),
isBootstrapLoader(BL),
validTypeTransition(Environment, [refclass( 'java/lang/Object', BL)], int, StackFrame, NextStackFrame),
exceptionStackFrame(StackFrame, ExceptionStackFrame).
We don't need to assert that CP is not a direct value class type. That was already asserted by format checking (4.8, 4.9.1).
...
invokeinterface
An invokeinterface instruction is type safe iff all of the following are true:
Its first operand, CP, refers to a constant pool entry denoting an interface method named MethodName with descriptor Descriptor that is a member of an interface MethodIntfName type MethodIntfType.
. MethodName is not <init>.
. MethodName is not <clinit>.
. Its second operand, Count, is a valid coUS warplanes kill dozens of civilians in Syria
By Patrick Martin
4 May 2015
US airstrikes in Syria killed dozens of civilians in a predominately Arab-populated village in the eastern part of Aleppo province Friday. The death toll was still rising as more bodies were found and missing family members were accounted for.
Initial reports had put the number of deaths at 52, but at least one US media outlet, McClatchy News Service, said it had obtained a list of 64 dead from ten families. Whatever the final figure, it is the worst atrocity perpetrated by the US-led campaign of bombing supposedly directed at Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has long supported the US-backed campaign to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, at least nine children were among the victims of the US airstrike on the village of Bir Mahali. It described them as victims of a “massacre committed by the US-led coalition under the pretext of targeting the Islamic State.”
The group had previously downplayed civilian casualties in Syria, claiming that only 60 civilians had died in the hundreds of airstrikes by warplanes of the United States, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf sheikdoms participating in the war against ISIS.
The US Central Command, which regularly reports US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq without any detail on the death toll or the exact targets struck, said the May 1 attack was among nearly a dozen in “the area of” Kobani, the largely Kurdish-populated town on the Syrian border with Turkey that became the focal point for US air strikes last fall. Bir Mahali is 33 miles south of Kobani.
McClatchy said that US warplanes had become involved in longstanding ethnic conflicts between Arabs and Kurds in the Euphrates River valley, an area with a mixed population that also includes Assyrians and other Christians. It cited reports from “activists pointing out that the fishing and farming village of about 4,000 Arabs has had tense relations with Kurds living nearby—especially with the Kurdish ‘People’s Protection Units’ or YPG.”
The implication was that Bir Mahali was targeted, not because of the presence of Islamic State forces—it is not clear whether there were any in the village—but because the Kurdish militia wanted to wreak havoc on an Arab-populated town.
The US military worked with the YPG in the months-long siege of Kobani. The YPG has political ties to the PKK, the Kurdish nationalist guerrilla force that has fought inside Turkey for decades, and is on the US State Department’s list of “terrorist” organizations.
The US-YPG connection demonstrates yet again that Washington uses the term “terrorist” in a completely cynical fashion, branding groups because they oppose US foreign policy, or fight US client states, not because of the methods they employ. When it comes to violence against civilians, as the atrocity in Bir Mahali demonstrates, the US government is the world’s foremost practitioner of terrorism.
A statement from the Combined Joint Task Force, the official name for the US-led coalition bombing ISIS targets in both Iraq and Syria, said that there were 24 airstrikes carried out on May 1-2, of which 17 were in Syria, hitting Raqqa, the lone provincial capital under ISIS control, as well as targets near Kobani, Al Hasakah and Dair Az Zawr.
The seven airstrikes in Iraq were near Mosul, Tal Afar, Baiji, Ramadi and Fallujah, the five cities controlled by ISIS either wholly or in part.
The US military did not admit the killing of a large number of civilians in Bir Mahali, but said it was investigating claims. Major Curtis Kellogg, a military spokesman, told the Associated Press, “We currently have no information to corroborate allegations that coalition airstrikes resulted in civilian casualties,” adding, “Regardless, we take all allegations seriously and will look into them further.”
The reported mass killing of civilians in Syria comes amid indications that key US client states in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are stepping up their support for anti-government “rebels” fighting the Assad government.
The Washington Post reported April 30, “The delivery of additional weapons and financial aid from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have facilitated recent advances against government forces in northwest Syria by the Army of Conquest, a newly formed umbrella of diverse rebel groups, including al-Qaeda’s affiliate and other Islamist groups, along with ‘moderate’ [i.e., pro-US] fighters.”
Last month these forces captured the northwestern provincial capital Idlib, and then the city of Jisr al-Shughur, as well as numerous bases and outposts of the Syrian army, in an offensive that threatens to cut off the capital city, Damascus, from the Mediterranean coastal region that is Assad’s political stronghold. Jabhat al-Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, has played a major role in this military push.
The Post also reported that at a meeting of the anti-ISIS coalition in early April, hosted by Jordan, “administration officials were bombarded with questions about US leadership of the 60-nation group, and how it would address the global expansion of the Islamic State.”
The New York Times, reporting on the same meeting, said that members of the US-led coalition were pressing Washington “to agree to a broadening of the campaign to include terrorist groups that have declared themselves to be ‘provinces’ of the Islamic State.”
This could include extending the military operation to include targets in Libya, where ISIS is alleged to support Ansar al-Sharia, a local Islamist formation, as well as unspecified measures against supposed ISIS supporters in “Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen, according to American counterterrorism officials.”
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It’s every grumpy passenger’s dream and every parent’s nightmare. An unhappy 3-year-old child and his undoubtedly unhappier father were kicked off an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Miami over the Memorial Day weekend after the child wouldn’t stay buckled in his seat.
Mark Yanchuk of Everett, Wash., and his son Daniel were starting the first leg of their journey toward a family vacation in the Virgin Islands. The boy’s mother, grandmother and younger sibling were seated in first class, while the toddler and his dad sat in coach. While the plane was at the gate, the boy happily played with an iPad, but when the airline requested all electronic devices be turned off, the trouble started. The toddler was unhappy that his toy was taken away and his father couldn’t get him settled. Alaska Airlines spokesman Paul McElroy told MSNBC that flight attendants went to check on the father and the boy several times before departure to try to help calm the child, but Daniel was cranky and, like many 3-year-olds, wouldn’t sit up in the oversize seat and allow himself to be buckled in. In defense of the flight crew’s actions, McElroy noted that, “The [seat] belt was across his neck and the flight attendants were worried that he would begin to choke himself.” Yanchuk said he would never allow his son to get into such a precarious position.
(MORE: iPads in the Cockpit, but Not in the Cabin? The In-Flight Gadget Controversy Continues)
The child was finally properly seated and the plane pulled back from the gate, but when a flight attendant noticed the child was lying sideways in the seat again, the captain was notified and the plane returned to the gate. Yanchuk and his son were then asked to leave the plane. His wife, mother-in-law, and 1-year-old child opted to leave as well. Their baggage, however, was able to continue on to the Virgin Islands.
(MORE: Travel Threats: America’s Most Dangerous Airports)
Airline spokesman McElroy said, “Everybody wanted to make this work, just trying to work with the child and get him to sit upright.” Yanchuk disagrees. “I think they overreacted. I know you get kicked off planes for dangerous situations like not wearing a seat belt or running around or something dangerous. But I didn’t see the situation as being dangerous at all,” Yanchuk told MSNBC.
Alaska Airlines offered to rebook them on the same flight the next day, but Yanchuk turned down the offer. He said he would not be comfortable flying the airline again. McElroy said the family would be refunded for their flight.
Yanchuk is not the first child to be kicked off a plane for unruliness. Collette Vieau and her 2-year-old daughter were removed from a JetBlue flight after the child wouldn’t wear a seat belt, according to WJAR, a television station in Providence, R.I. Another child was removed from a Continental ExpressJet flight in 2007 after his mother refused to give her child Benadryl to quiet him down. A 2-year-old autistic boy traveling with his mom was kicked off an American Eagle flight in 2008 and Pamela Root and her unhappy toddler son were kicked off a Southwest flight in 2009 because passengers could not hear the pre-flight safety announcements.
MORE: Virgin Atlantic Employs ‘Whisper Coach’ to Teach Quiet in the SkiesThese three articles appeared in the news a couple of days ago almost simultaneously in the wake of the Republican convention.
In this first article, finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 nations pledge to “share the benefits of global growth more broadly.” The article focuses on concerns surrounding “Brexit,” Great Britain’s vote to pull out of the European Union over dissatisfaction with the EU’s open border policies and with being fleeced to prop up the economies of other EU nations. But the article also takes note of Trump’s vow to pull out of trade agreements. The G20 is starting to sweat.
In the 2nd article, U.S. Treasury Secretary Lew is reported as saying that it’s time to “redouble our efforts to use all of the policy tools that we have to boost shared growth.” Why is it time to do that now? Why weren’t we doing this all along? It’s because it’s now clear that “free trade” policy is becoming more widely opposed, with the political left now opposing the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP) and with the right going further, vowing to pull out of all existing free trade deals. The globalist Obama administration is also starting to sweat.
And further evidence comes in this 3rd article about a meeting on Friday between President Obama and his Mexican counterpart. Don’t be fooled. This wasn’t just a meeting designed to stress the importance of the relationship between these two countries. Both are beginning to sense the very real possibility that their trade regime is nearing it’s end. I predict that, sometime between now and the election, there will be an announcement of some deal, a deal that had its genesis in this meeting, that will move some token manufacturing back from Mexico to the U.S. in an effort to blunt some of the trade anger.
I have written occasionally about cracks that were beginning to appear in globalization – like more and more economists beginning to openly question whether donor countries like the U.S. and Britain were really seeing any benefit at all from these trade agreements and whether they have been, in fact, a net drag on their economies. The globalization story has been very much like the annual reports that emanated from the now-defunct Enron Corporation. We were told by Enron that their business was very complicated – too complicated for analysts outside the company to understand. As it turned out, it wasn’t really complicated. It was a scam. People will only buy into such scams for so long. And so it is with globalization. The British people could no longer take it. Nor can Americans.
Without the support of its donor nations and the continued subservient acquiescence of its citizens, the globalization scheme is doomed. Good riddance.
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedLAUSANNE, Switzerland -- For wrestling, this may have been the ultimate body slam: getting tossed out of the Olympic rings.
The vote Tuesday by the IOC's executive board stunned the world's wrestlers, who see their sport as popular in many countries and steeped in history as old as the Olympics themselves.
While wrestling will be included at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, it was cut from the games in 2020, which have yet to be awarded to a host city.
Past Olympic Greco-Roman champion Khasan Baroev of Russia called the decision "mind-boggling."
"I just can't believe it. And what sport will then be added to the Olympic program? What sport is worthy of replacing ours?" Baroev told the ITAR-Tass news agency. "Wrestling is popular in many countries -- just see how the medals were distributed at the last Olympics."
American Rulon Gardner, who upset three-time Russian Olympic champion Alexander Karelin at the Sydney Games in an epic gold-medal bout known as the "Miracle on the Mat," was saddened by the decision to drop what he called "a beloved sport."
"It's the IOC trying to change the Olympics to make it more mainstream and more viewer-friendly instead of sticking to what they founded the Olympics on," Gardner told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Logan, Utah.
Even Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Roddy White, a two-time high school state wrestling champion, voiced his displeasure, tweeting: "IOC come on seriously wrestling is a sport that almost every country does and you drop it I'm pissed #saveolympicwrestling".
The executive board of the International Olympic Committee reviewed the 26 sports on its summer program in order to remove one of them so it could add one later this year. It decided to cut wrestling and keep modern pentathlon -- a sport that combines fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting -- and was considered to be the most likely to be dropped.
The board voted after reviewing a report by the IOC program commission that analyzed 39 criteria, including TV ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity. With no official rankings or recommendations contained in the report, the final decision by the 15-member board was also subject to political, emotional and sentimental factors.
"This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. "In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling; it is what's right with the 25 core sports."
According to IOC documents obtained by the AP, wrestling ranked "low" in several of the technical criteria, including popularity with the public at the London Games -- just below 5 on a scale of 10. Wrestling sold 113,851 tickets in London out of 116,854 available.
Wrestling also ranked "low" in global TV audience with a maximum of 58.5 million viewers and an average of 23 million, the documents show. Internet hits and press coverage were also ranked as low.
The IOC also noted that FILA -- the international wrestling federation -- has no athletes on its decision-making bodies, no women's commission, no ethics rules for technical officials and no medical official on its executive board.
Modern pentathlon also ranked low in general popularity in London, with 5.2 out of 10. The sport also ranked low in all TV categories, with maximum viewership of 33.5 million and an average of 12.5 million.
FILA has 177 member nations, compared to 108 for modern pentathlon.
Modern pentathlon, which has been on the Olympic program since the 1912 Stockholm Games, was created by French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement.
It also benefited from the work of Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC president who is a UIPM vice president and member of the IOC board.
"We were considered weak in some of the scores in the program commission report but strong in others," Samaranch told the AP. "We played our cards to the best of our ability and stressed the positives."
The IOC dropped wrestling from its 2020 Olympic Games program. Stephen Mally/Icon SMI
Klaus Schormann, president of governing body UIPM, lobbied hard to protect his sport's Olympic status and it paid off in the end.
"We have promised things and we have delivered," he said after Tuesday's decision. "That gives me a great feeling. It also gives me new energy to develop our sport further and never give up."
The IOC executive board will meet in May in St. Petersburg, Russia, to decide which sport or sports to propose for 2020 inclusion. The final vote will be made at the IOC session, or general assembly, in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Wrestling will now join seven other sports in applying for 2020, but it is extremely unlikely that it would be voted back in so soon after being removed by the executive board.
The other sports vying for a single opening in 2020 are a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu, a martial art.
"Today's decision is not final," Adams said. "The session is sovereign and the session will make the final decision."
Wrestling featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in Greco-Roman at last year's London Olympics, with Russia dominating the podium but Iran and Azerbaijan making strong showings. Women's wrestling was added to the Olympics at the 2004 Athens Games.
Tuesday's decision came via secret ballot over four rounds, with 14 members voting each time on which sport should not be included in the core group. IOC president Jacques Rogge did not vote.
Three sports were left in the final round: wrestling, field hockey and modern pentathlon. Eight members voted against wrestling and three each against the other two sports. Taekwondo and canoe kayaking survived the previous rounds.
"I was shocked," said IOC board member Rene Fasel of Switzerland.
"It was an extremely difficult decision to take," added IOC Vice President Thomas Bach of Germany. "The motivation of every member is never based on a single reason. There are always several reasons. It was a secret vote. There will always be criticism, but I think the great majority will understand that we took a decision based on facts and for the modernization of the Olympic Games."
Wrestling was featured in the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. Along with Russia's Karelin, it has produced such American stars as Gardner, Bruce Baumgartner, Jeff Blatnick and Jordan Burroughs.Upset About Border Patrol Cruelty? It Didn't Start Under Trump
from the speak-up dept
In the last few weeks, there's obviously been a lot of attention on the cruel actions of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a part of the Department of Homeland Security. Slate has an article detailing some of the awful stories coming out after the Trump executive order on immigration and travel (here are just a few):
At Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, CBP officers reportedly detained an elderly Sudanese woman suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure, and severe kidney stones. They refused to provide her attorney or her family with any information on her health, status, or whereabouts. Her attorney later learned that CBP officers had demanded that his client withdraw her request for admission into the United States or be barred from entering the country for five years. She signed the document and was promptly deported. Her family never got to see her. Also at D |
can’t bark, either.
Wait, you say. This dog won’t protect me against anything!
Don’t be picky, responds your benefactor smugly. This dog is the best we’ve got.
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So it goes with peer review. While some — namely, journal editors and publishers — would like us to consider it the opposable thumb of scientific publishing, the key to differentiating rigor from rubbish, some of those very same people seem to think it’s good for nothing. Here is a partial list of the things that editors, publishers, and others have told the world peer review is not designed to do:
1. Detect irresponsible practices
Don’t expect peer reviewers to figure out if authors are “using public data as if it were the author’s own, submitting papers with the same content to different journals, or submitting an article that has already been published in another language without reference to the original,” said the InterAcademy Partnership, a consortium of national scientific academies.
2. Detect fraud
“Journal editors will tell you that peer review is not designed to detect fraud — clever misinformation will sail right through no matter how scrupulous the reviews,” Dan Engber wrote in Slate in 2005.
3. Pick up plagiarism
Peer review “is not designed to pick up fraud or plagiarism, so unless those are really egregious it usually doesn’t,” according to the Rett Syndrome Research Trust.
4. Spot ethics issues
“It is not the role of the reviewer to spot ethics issues in papers,” said Jaap van Harten, executive publisher of Elsevier (the world’s largest academic imprint) in a recent interview. “It is the responsibility of the author to abide by the publishing ethics rules. Let’s look at it in a different way: If a person steals a pair of shoes from a shop, is this the fault of the shop for not protecting their goods or the shoplifter for stealing them? Of course the fault lies with the shoplifter who carried out the crime in the first place.”
5. Spot statistical flaccidity
“Peer reviewers do not check all the datasets, rerun calculations of p-values, and so forth, except in the cases where statistical reviewers are involved — and even in these cases, statistical reviewers often check the methodologies used, sample some data, and move on.” So wrote Kent Anderson, who has served as a publishing exec at several top journals, including Science and the New England Journal of Medicine, in a recent blog post.
6. Prevent really bad research from seeing the light of day
Again, Kent Anderson: “Even the most rigorous peer review at a journal cannot stop a study from being published somewhere. Peer reviewers can’t stop an author from self-promoting a published work later.”
But …
Even when you lower expectations for peer review, it appears to come up short. Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ, reviewed research showing that the system may be worse than no review at all, at least in biomedicine. “Peer review is supposed to be the quality assurance system for science, weeding out the scientifically unreliable and reassuring readers of journals that they can trust what they are reading,” Smith wrote. “In reality, however, it is ineffective, largely a lottery, anti-innovatory, slow, expensive, wasteful of scientific time, inefficient, easily abused, prone to bias, unable to detect fraud and irrelevant.”
So … what’s left? And are whatever scraps that remain worth the veneration peer review receives? Don’t write about anything that isn’t peer-reviewed, editors frequently admonish us journalists, even creating rules that make researchers afraid to talk to reporters before they’ve published. There’s a good chance it will turn out to be wrong. Oh? Greater than 50 percent? Because that’s the risk of preclinical research in biomedicine being wrong after it’s been peer-reviewed.
With friends like these, who needs peer review? In fact, we do need it, but not just only in the black box that happens before publication. We need continual scrutiny of findings, at sites such as PubMed Commons and PubPeer, in what is known as post-publication peer review. That’s where the action is, and where the scientific record actually gets corrected.
That poor peer review dog may not be good for guarding your house, but she’s probably great to cuddle with. But maybe get that home security system for the real deal.The whole Mageia community is extremely happy to announce the release of Mageia 6, the shiny result of our longest release cycle so far! It comes with many new and exciting features, a new range of installation media and the usability and stability that can be expected from any Mageia release. See the Release Notes for extensive details.
Though Mageia 6’s development was much longer than anticipated, we took the time to polish it and ensure that it will be our greatest release so far. We thank our community for their patience, and also our packagers and QA team who provided an extended support for Mageia 5 far beyond the initial schedule.
For the most eager, here are the relevant links to download and prepare your Mageia 6 installation:
Highlights of Mageia 6
The extra time that has gone into this release has allowed for many exciting additions, here are a few of the major additions and key features of Mageia 6:
KDE Plasma 5 replaces the previous KDE SC 4 desktop environment
The new package manager DNF is provided as an alternative to urpmi, enabling a great packaging ecosystem: Support for AppStream and thus GNOME Software and Plasma Discover Support for Fedora COPR and openSUSE Build Service to provide third party packages for Mageia 6 and later dnfdragora, a new GUI tool for package management inspired from rpmdrake
Brand new icon theme for all Mageia tools, notably the Mageia Control Center
Successful integration of the ARM port (ARMv5 and ARMv7) in the buildsystem, allowing to setup ARM chroots. Installation images are not available yet but will come in the future.
GRUB2 as the default bootloader
New Xfce Live images to test Mageia with a lighter weight environment
While not a new feature, Mageia 6 supports over 25 desktop environments and window managers (more details in an upcoming blog post)!
Full details of these highlights can be read in the Release Notes, and several of those will be detailed in their own blog posts in the coming weeks.
Package versions
All of the software in the repository has been rebuilt and updated to include the latest and greatest from around the open source ecosystem, here are some of the major components that make up this release:
Low-level: Linux Kernel 4.9.35 (LTS), systemd 230, X.org 1.19.3, Wayland 1.11.0, Mesa 17.1.4
Toolkits: Qt 5.6.2 (LTS), GTK+ 3.22.16
Desktop environments: Plasma 5.8.7 (LTS), GNOME 3.24.2, MATE 1.18, Cinnamon 3.2.8, Xfce 4.12.1, LXQt 0.11
Applications: LibreOffice 5.3.4.2, Firefox 52.2.0 ESR, Thunderbird 52.2.1, Chromium 57
Most user-facing applications are very recent releases, bringing Mageia users the best of free and open source software projects of 2017. Core components of the distribution use slightly more conservative versions, allowing for a good tradeoff between new developments and stability.
New ISO lineup
During this development cycle, we changed the ISO lineup to include Xfce Live images (32-bit and 64-bit), and remove 32-bit GNOME and Plasma Live images as well as the dual-arch installer.
This has had a number of benefits: it provides a lightweight Xfce live environment for both 32 and 64-bit installation, while reducing the number of supported ISOs and making it clearer what are the available install paths for each use case. Here is the full lineup of the Mageia 6 ISOs:
32-bit Classical Installer DVD
64-bit Classical Installer DVD
GNOME 64-bit Live DVD
Plasma 64-bit Live DVD
Xfce 32-bit Live DVD
Xfce 64-bit Live DVD
For those that still want to install 32-bit Plasma or GNOME, they are available on the Classical Installer or through network installation. All of these ISOs are hybrid, so they can be used on both USB sticks and DVDs; if a bootable CD is required, several network install images are available that can utilise many sources to complete an installation including a local or network mirror and the Classical Installer image. See the documentation for more info on the installation possibilities.
Mageia 6’s new look
We have created a full new theme for Mageia 6 that includes improvements with image scaling during boot time as well as a new iconset and improvements in the look of all Mageia-specific applications such as the Control Center (MCC). A big thanks to Timothée Giet for his work on modernizing and unifying Mageia’s looks!
The new theme includes a new signature background by Jacques Daugeron and additional images that include those selected by the Mageia Council from the community background contest as well as the signature wallpapers from previous releases. There are also new screensavers created from the background contest.
Support schedule
For those wondering about Mageia 5 – it will still be supported for 3 months, with an expected end of life on 31st October 2017, giving you some time to upgrade. That will make it our longest supported release so far, as it was released in June 2015!
Mageia 6 will be supported for at least 18 months, i.e. until 16th January 2019. If the support duration were to be extended as it was for Mageia 5, it will be announced on this blog and updated on the website.
Why choose Mageia?
One word: community. Mageia is a top-notch Linux distribution entirely made by and for its community. No strings attached, no company behind it, only users who have a great time developing the distribution that they use daily, at home or at work. And as a Mageia user, you are part of this rewarding experience, and you can contribute in many different ways to make it yours.
Mageia is shaped for its users, and is therefore suitable in any environment: work, home, servers, leisure. Everything is supported directly by the community through the official repositories, out of the box. Mageia always strives to offer a universal usage experience across a large set of desktop environments, integrated with some of the best control and administration tools available.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
Our team of developers, packagers, QA testers, bug reporters and triagers, documentation writers, translators and sysadmins have all worked super-hard to bring Mageia 6 to readiness, and we thank them all for their voluntary work on our community-led independent project!
We are all gratefully aware of the amazing work of all the Free Software projects that we distribute, such as the Linux kernel, the GNU project, systemd, X.org, Mesa 3D, KDE, GNOME, Xfce, Mozilla, LibreOffice and many others. This also includes the other GNU/Linux distributions we collaborate with and all the many, many people writing and testing free software – thanks to you all for inspiring us and making the great software that forms the foundation of Mageia.Spectrum of phonetic resonance in speech production, or its peak
[i, u, ɑ] showing the formants F 1 and F 2 Spectrogram of American English vowelsshowing the formantsand
In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the spectral shaping that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract.[1][2] However, in acoustics, the definition of a formant differs slightly as it is defined as a peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum.[3][4] For harmonic sounds, with this definition, it is therefore the harmonic partial that is augmented by a resonance. The difference between these two definitions resides in whether "formants" characterise the production mechanisms of a sound or the produced sound itself. In practice, the frequency of a spectral peak can differ from the associated resonance frequency when, for instance, harmonics are not aligned with the resonance frequency. In most cases, this subtle difference is irrelevant and, in phonetics, formant can mean either a resonance or the spectral maximum that the resonance produces. Formants are often measured as amplitude peaks in the frequency spectrum of the sound, using a spectrogram (in the figure) or a spectrum analyzer and, in the case of the voice, this gives an estimate of the vocal tract resonances. In vowels spoken with a high fundamental frequency, as in a female or child voice, however, the frequency of the resonance may lie between the widely spaced harmonics and hence no corresponding peak is visible.
A room can be said to have formants characteristic of that particular room, due to the way sound reflects from its walls and objects. Room formants of this nature reinforce themselves by emphasizing specific frequencies and absorbing others, as exploited, for example, by Alvin Lucier in his piece I Am Sitting in a Room.
History [ edit ]
From an acoustic point of view, phonetics had a serious problem with the idea that length of vocal tract changed vowels. It was unclear how they could depend on frequencies when everyone from bass to soprano can make the same vowels. There had to be some way to normalize the frequencies. Hermann suggested a solution to this problem in 1894, coining the term “formant”. A vowel, according to him, is a special acoustic phenomenon, depending on the intermittent production of a special partial, or “formant”, or “characteristique”. The frequency of the “formant” may vary a little without altering the character of the vowel. For a, for example, the “formant” may vary from 350 to 440 Hz even in the same person.[5]
Phonetics [ edit ]
Average vowel formants[6] Vowel
(IPA) Formant F 1
(Hz) Formant F 2
(Hz) Difference
F 1
– F 2
(Hz) i 240 2400 2160 y 235 2100 1865 e 390 2300 1910 ø 370 1900 1530 ɛ 610 1900 1290 œ 585 1710 1125 a 850 1610 760 ɶ 820 1530 710 ɑ 750 940 190 ɒ 700 760 60 ʌ 600 1170 570 ɔ 500 700 200 ɤ 460 1310 850 o 360 640 280 ɯ 300 1390 1090 u 250 595 345
Average vowel formants in a diagram
Formants are distinctive frequency components of the acoustic signal produced by speech or singing. The information that humans require to distinguish between speech sounds can be represented purely quantitatively by specifying peaks in the amplitude or frequency spectrum. Most of these formants are produced by tube and chamber resonance, but a few whistle tones derive from periodic collapse of Venturi effect low-pressure zones[citation needed]. The formant with the lowest frequency is called F 1, the second F 2, and the third F 3. Most often the two first formants, F 1 and F 2, are enough to disambiguate the vowel. The relationship between the perceived vowel quality and the first two formant frequencies can be appreciated by listening to "artificial vowels" that are generated by passing a click train (to simulate the glottal pulse train) through a pair of bandpass filters (to simulate vocal tract resonances).
Nasal consonants usually have an additional formant around 2500 Hz. The liquid [l] usually has an extra formant at 1500 Hz, whereas the English "r" sound ([ɹ]) is distinguished by a very low third formant (well below 2000 Hz).
Plosives (and, to some degree, fricatives) modify the placement of formants in the surrounding vowels. Bilabial sounds (such as /b/ and /p/ in "ball" or "sap") cause a lowering of the formants; velar sounds (/k/ and /ɡ/ in English) almost always show F 2 and F 3 coming together in a'velar pinch' before the velar and separating from the same 'pinch' as the velar is released; alveolar sounds (English /t/ and /d/) cause fewer systematic changes in neighbouring vowel formants, depending partially on exactly which vowel is present. The time course of these changes in vowel formant frequencies are referred to as 'formant transitions'.
If the fundamental frequency of the underlying vibration is higher than a resonance frequency of the system, then the formant usually imparted by that resonance will be mostly lost. This is most apparent in the example of soprano opera singers, who sing high enough that their vowels become very hard to distinguish.
Control of resonances is an essential component of the vocal technique known as overtone singing, in which the performer sings a low fundamental tone, and creates sharp resonances to select upper harmonics, giving the impression of several tones being sung at once.
Spectrograms are used to visualise formants. In spectrograms, it can be hard to distinguish formants from naturally occurring harmonics when one sings. However, one can hear the natural formants in a vowel shape through atonal techniques such as vocal fry.
Formant plots [ edit ]
The first two formants are important in determining the quality of vowels, and are frequently said to correspond to the open/close and front/back dimensions (which have traditionally, though not entirely accurately, been associated with the shape and position of the tongue). Thus the first formant F 1 has a higher frequency for an open vowel (such as [a]) and a lower frequency for a close vowel (such as [i] or [u]); and the second formant F 2 has a higher frequency for a front vowel (such as [i]) and a lower frequency for a back vowel (such as [u]).[7][8] as can be seen in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of formant plot
Vowels will almost always have four or more distinguishable formants; sometimes there are more than six. However, the first two formants are most important in determining vowel quality, and this is often displayed in terms of a plot of the first formant against the second formant,[9] though this is not sufficient to capture some aspects of vowel quality, such as rounding.[10] An example of how the vowels of a language or dialect may be plotted on a traditional auditory vowel chart and also on a formant plot may be seen in the case of Norwegian.
[11] While Daniel Jones's attempts at capturing vowel articulation resulted in the International Phonetic Association plotting vowels in a trapezoid, actual formant space may be more triangular. Shown is an idealized plot of the formants of Jones and John Wells pronouncing the cardinal vowels of the IPA.
Many writers have addressed the problem of finding an optimal alignment of the positions of vowels on formant plots with those on the conventional vowel quadrilateral. The pioneering work of Ladefoged[12] used the Mel scale because this scale was claimed to correspond more closely to the auditory scale of pitch than to the acoustic measure of fundamental frequency expressed in Hertz as in Fig. 1. Two alternatives to the Mel scale are the Bark scale and the ERB-rate scale. A comparison of these three scales is shown by Hayward, p. 141, and formant plots based on the Hertz scale and on the Bark scale are compared on p. 153.[13] Another strategy for improving formant plots that has been widely adopted is to plot on the horizontal axis not the value of F2 but the difference between F1 and F2 for a given vowel.
Singer's formant [ edit ]
Studies of the frequency spectrum of trained singers, especially male singers, indicate a clear formant around 3000 Hz (between 2800 and 3400 Hz) that is absent in speech or in the spectra of untrained singers. It is thought to be associated with one or more of the higher resonances of the vocal tract.[14] It is this increase in energy at 3000 Hz which allows singers to be heard and understood over an orchestra. This formant is actively developed through vocal training, for instance through so-called voce di strega or "witch's voice"[15] exercises and is caused by a part of the vocal tract acting as a resonator.[16][17] In classical music and vocal pedagogy, this phenomenon is also known as squillo.
See also [ edit ]Fröhliche Weihnachten. Instead of the usual McFeels and Halberstram hot takes on the past week’s political news, Halberstram and Jayoh have been given the week off, but don’t dismay – there’s a jam-packed show ahead. First up, I finally had chance to sit down with the one and only Chris Cantwell this week and do some much-needed catching up. A little later on we’ll have Autolycus himself filling in for Jayoh de la Rey with the compilation of this week’s Europa Report. Finally we’ll have some excerpts of some classic interviews with the great Paul Kersey and the beloved Andrew Anglin. Mix in some authentic Old World Christmas music along with some appropriately timed interludes and you’ve got one very comfy episode of America’s most symphonic Alt-Right podcast coming your way.
Hatreon: https://hatreon.net/JazzhandsMcFeels/
D’Nate: [email protected]
Direct Download: HERE
Show page: http://fash-the-nation.libsyn.com/
RSS: http://fash-the-nation.libsyn.com/rss
Episode Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:00 Chris Cantwell Interview
01:12:00 Special Christmas Message from Marcus
01:14:00 The Europa Report
01:24:00 Paul Kersey Interview
02:02:00 Andrew Anglin Daily Stormer Genesis
02:16:00 OutroI consider myself as a Rubyist and a minimalist. I want my tools to be few, and sharp. That means I only want few tools, but I want to master these tools. Now it’s been about a year since I started programming, this post is supposed to give you a look into my toolbox. I hope it can be of inspiration to you.
I’ve open sourced all my dotfiles on Github.
Operating System: Linux and Mac
My primary development platform is my desktop running Arch Linux. It’s a dual screen setup, which I learned to love. I also own a Macbook, primarily used for schoolwork and field coding.
As for my desktop setup of noteworthy tools besides my editor, I use bleeding-edge Chromium as my browser. I might switch to Uzbl someday. I use Openbox as my window manager. Sakura as my terminal, simply because it’s lightweight, simple to setup and it does its job.
I have Openbox configured to act like Vim, and for Chromium I use Vimium to achieve the same Vim behavior. In theory I never have to touch my mouse.
Shell
As for my shell I just use bash. I know the cool kids use zsh, but I simply haven’t bothered to set it up, and I’m really quite happy with bash.
My bash configuration is pretty simple. It just defines some default values, source a few things, and add to my $PATH. It also sets my PS1 which consists of only the current directory. I figured that I already know my username, and hostname. Furthermore I really don’t need to know the entire absolute path of the current directory.
Editor: Vim
I’ve been through many editors. Many. Believe me. A little less than a year ago, a friend recommended me Vim. And I started digging into it. In the beginning, it was hard. But he promised me it’d be worth it. So I sticked to it. In the start, I felt less productive in Vim, because it was somewhat hard to learn. After a few days in it however, I began taking advantage of the endless sets of commands, this all resulted in a more productive me. I now love Vim, and nowadays I almost do all of my text-processing in it: I take notes in Vim, I’m writing this very blog post in Vim, and I make kickass code in Vim.
My Vim setup really is nothing special. I use a few plugins, and I have a small configuration file which is just parts stolen and compiled from others. I can’t remember who I stole what from, though. So they are not credited. I use Monaco as my Vim (and terminal) font, I simply like this font a lot. Screenshot.
Syncing: Dropbox
As I have multiple computers, I sync everything with Dropbox. This also has the benefit of being (additional, I have everything under git, too) backup. My Dropbox holds mostly configuration files and code. The rest is in the cloud. With everything in my Dropbox, I make symbolic links from the Dropbox.
Configuration between multiple computers
As I have multiple computers, I want my configuration files (dotfiles) to change on other computers as soon as I have changed it somewhere else. In the beginning I had an ugly Rake task to do all this symbolic linking, but later I discovered Homesick.
Homesick is sorta like rip, but for dotfiles. It uses git to clone a repository containing dotfiles, and saves them in ~/.homesick. It then allows you to symlink all the dotfiles into place with a single command.
When you clone a castle, as they are called in Homesick, it puts the castle in ~/.homesick/repos/<repo>, for instance:
$ homesick clone Sirupsen/dotfiles # goes to ~/homesick/repos/Sirupsen/dotfiles
Instead of updating the dotfiles with Git via pulling, however, I wanted it to go through Dropbox, so changes are reflected on my other computers instantly. Later, I can commit these changes:
$ ln -s Dropbox/dotfiles ~/.homesick/repos/
Now I can symlink everything easily:
$ homesick symlink dotfiles
Using dual screen for coding
When I work, I usually work on two monitors. A 19”, and a 24”.
On my 19” I have Pidgin running. This makes me able to talk to colleagues, or friends while working on my other monitor. I might also shring my windows here, and have another terminal open with tests.
On my 24” I have my browser running in the right side, taking up about 50% of horizontal space. When i am coding, this is great for documentation and general googling, githubing and ticket managing while coding. I have experimented with fullscreen Vim, however I just don’t need more than these 80 columns horizontally, so this setup works great. More vertical space is always nice, I’ve heard great things about having a screen that can be turned around to a portrait view for coding. I usually have my terminal running beneath my Vim window, it’s super easy to switch between them with my Openbox Vim configuration.By Whatsupic
Israel's prime minister in a clear racial hatred towards African immigrants said thousands of filthy Africans who have infiltrated into Israel will be sent back home.
Benjamin Netanyahu declared Friday that the Zionist state has halted the flow of African migrants into Israel over the past seven months. He spoke while visiting the fence Israel built on border with Egypt to keep migrants out.
He said he will soon begin "repatriating the tens of thousands of infiltrators in Israel to their countries of origin."
About 60,000 Africans have entered Israel in recent years, some seeking asylum and others looking for work.
The reasons for the deportations of these Africans have little or nothing to do with the value-neutral "immigration" reasons proffered by its apologists.
"Israeli leaders have grown increasingly alarmed by the influx, calling it a burden and threat to the country's Jewish character."
"It's clear to everyone that we either return everybody home or give up on the Zionist dream. There is no other option."
These comments about preserving the country's "Jewish character" and "the Zionist dream" speak volumes about the true goals of these deportations, notwithstanding the concerted efforts of Zionist apologists here and elsewhere to paint it as purely a value-neutral "immigration" issue.
Adding insult to injury is their use of the term "illegal immigration." Coming from Zionists who financed and encouraged "illegal immigration" into Palestine in order to create Israel in the first place, this reeks of hypocrisy.Farmer in outback Queensland finds world's most intact jaw of Kronosaurus
Updated
The world's most complete lower jaw bone of an ancient marine predator has been found in outback Queensland.
The 1.6-metre long mandible of a Kronosaurus queenslandicus is thought to be more than 100 million years old.
The Kronosaurus was an 11-metre-long marine reptile with a crocodile-like head and body with powerful flippers.
The fossil was found by grazier Robert Hacon in January while spraying for weeds on his cattle property, Euraba, east of Julia Creek.
The drought had killed the grass, which helped unearth the bone.
At first Mr Hacon did not think anything of the bone and even drove over it.
But after driving just 100 metres, curiosity got the better of him and he went back.
"I was kicking a few stones around with my feet... I looked over a little bit and I thought 'oh my God what have I got here'," he said.
Mr Hacon did not know exactly what he had found, but knew it was some type of bone.
"I was very much elated because I knew instantly I had found something of great significance," he said.
"It was so perfect. It was just like it had been killed a couple of weeks before and the crows picked it clean."
Most intact fossil of Kronosaurus queenslandicus
The fossil has been put out on display this week at the Kronosaurus Korner Museum in Richmond.
Museum Curator Dr Tim Holland said it was an amazing discovery because all the other Kronosaurus jaw bones found had been eroded, damaged or were incomplete.
"It pretty much gives us the first really good, accurate idea of what a Kronosaurus jaw looks like," he said.
"It was the most complete Kronosaurus mandible in the world."
This specimen stands at 1.6 metres long but Dr Holland said a fully grown jaw would reach about 2.6 metres.
Dr Holland is in the process of writing a scientific paper on the fossil and all the new information that it has brought to light.
He said the dinosaur was a daunting creature which could have easily bitten in half any of the animals that it shared its environment with.
"The jaws of the Kronosaurus was approximately twice the power of a large saltwater crocodile and we know from fossilised stomach content associated with other Kronosaurus specimens that the animals ate turtles, sharks and giant squids," he said.
"The front section of the lower jaw has these really amazing long grooves that would accommodate teeth overhanging from the upper jaw.
"This hasn't really been well described before in any of the scientific literature so that is really exciting."
Topics: dinosaurs, science-and-technology, research, rural, julia-creek-4823, qld
First postedThe Walt Disney Company on Monday warned Cablevision subscribers in New York that the local ABC station signal may go dark this weekend in a dispute over how much it is paid.
If the fight is not resolved, the station could go dark after midnight Saturday, affecting 3.1 million Cablevision customers’ ability to watch the Academy Awards on Sunday on ABC. The signal can still be pulled from the air by homes with an antenna and a new TV or digital converter box.
Disney is seeking $40 million a year in new fees, Charles Schueler, a spokesman for Cablevision, said in a statement. Cablevision pays more than $200 million a year to Disney.
The dispute involving WABC-TV is similar to the standoff at the end of last year between the News Corporation and Time Warner Cable over how much Fox station signals were worth. That tussle, which threatened the college football bowl season, was resolved without an interruption.
Disney said it began alerting Cablevision watchers to the impasse in ads Monday night.
The company’s previous contract with Cablevision expired more than two years ago, but the companies extended it month by month as talks continued.
Under previous arrangements, Disney was paid for cable channels like ESPN and Disney Channel, but did not charge for its ABC broadcast signal.A safer, lower-cost variation on the lithium ion battery has become a realistic possibility, now that scientists have found a way to add water to it. A group of researchers has found that by eliminating the oxygen in a lithium-sulfate-and-water electrolyte solution, they were able to significantly improve the batteries' capacity retention—but only for very small capacities.
Aqueous lithium ion batteries are a less-dangerous, inexpensive replacement to standard lithium ion batteries, which use electrolyte solutions that can be toxic and flammable. However, battery makers typically avoid aqueous electrolytes for one reason: they don't work well at all.
A typical aqueous lithium ion battery retains only 50 percent of its charge capacity after one hundred cycles. As any notebook computer owner can tell you, a capacity of 50 percent after a thousand cycles is hardly acceptable in a battery, and less than that is cause for loud complaint.
However, by playing around with the aqueous solution, a group of scientists found that the pH of the liquid didn't matter much to the effectiveness of the battery. They tried removing as much oxygen as possible from the battery and readjusting the pH, and found that, in combination with carbon-coated electrodes, the batteries' capacity retention improved to 90 percent after a thousand cycles.
So will notebook batteries soon last forever, impervious to trifles like charge cycles? Unlikely— the battery with the impressive retention only provided about 10 minutes of power. Another similar battery that lasted eight hours at low current output retained 85 percent capacity after only 50 cycles.
So, the aqueous lithium ion battery is still a long way from replacing its toxic brethren. Still, the authors speculate that cheaper batteries may find use in "short-distance city-buses" and as storage for energy from wind turbines and solar panels. Notebook users will continue to wait for a capacity retention hero.
Nature Chemistry, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.763 (About DOIs).BLOWING HOT AND COLD
Anti-cyclone anti-climax. WARNING: This feature is chiefly intended for the benefit and enlightenment of those readers who have prior experience and knowledge of arcade Tempest, Tempest 2000 and Tempest X3. Sometimes, viewers, things are rare for a reason. Alert readers of World Of Stuart will be aware of both this reporter's love for the Tempest game series, and of your correspondent's attempts to secure a Nuon, a videogame console never officially released in the UK and which was the sole host of the most recent Tempest iteration, Jeff Minter's Tempest 3000. (Taking over the reins of the series again after the High Voltage-designed, Interplay-published Tempest X3 on the Playstation.) Well, to cut a long story short, your reporter recently managed to finally secure a Nuon from one of the very few sellers in Britain, paying a whopping �170 for the privilege (though to be fair, that included not one but three copies of T3K, along with a bulky step-down transformer, several S-Video leads and something called a "Digital Video Stabilizer" which your reporter doesn't even begin to understand the function of. Other than that, clearly, it stabilizes digital video in some way). With shaking fingers (never a good thing when you're handling a scalpel), the huge, extremely well-secured package was hacked open and convolutedly connected up in just 30 minutes or so, and with quickening heart your reporter prepared to experience one of the rarest, potentially greatest games of all time. Now, you might think that such expectations would be hard to live up to, and so it proved. Not, however, because a game couldn't possibly hope to survive so many years as an untouchable Holy Grail and enigmatic figure of worship. Sadly, Tempest 3000 doesn't live up to its expectations because it's rubbish. Take it from this reviewer, chums - in being unable to lay your hands on a rare Nuon and a copy of this follow-up to three of the best videogames ever, you're not missing anything. If you were considering the tortuous process of trying to get one from the USA (99% of eBay sellers won't ship overseas, so you'll need to find a friendly contact Stateside, get it sent to them, get them to send it over here - incurring terrifying total shipping costs - pray Customs don't decide to levy hefty duties on it, make sure you've got the right sort of transformer/video cabling, etc), then you should probably keep your money. Here's why. This writer's always had a love-hate relationship with the work of veteran coder Jeff Minter. For every work of pure genius like Tempest 2000 (the sole purpose for which your reporter imported an Atari Jaguar from the USA many years ago, for even more money than the Nuon cost) or the excellent Gridrunner++, there'll be a diabolical design atrocity like the abysmal Defender 2000 or Photon Storm (a monstrous, mouse-controlled slant on Sinistar published for the Amiga and ST in the early 90s). Indeed, offhand your correspondent can't think of a single instance of there being either two good Minter games or two bad ones released in a row. So in retrospect, we can see T3K as the inevitable stink-up preceding the splendid GR++, and a prime example of the work of Bad Jeff. Tempest 2000 and Tempest X3 (not a Minter game, but which was heavily based on his T2K), while in many respects significantly different games, shared one all-important common factor - a painstaking gameplay balance which ensured that even at their hardest (and both games' hardest was a challenging thing indeed) they remained utterly compelling, offering the player several possible strategies by which the small set of enemies might be overcome and hence always retaining hope. Both games also ensured, by clever use of both graphics and sound, that the player was never cheated, which is of course the other most crucial factor in giving a game the all-important quality of addiction. Tempest 3000 throws these hard-won lessons out of the window, and in doing so produces one of the most annoying, unfair and frustrating games |
And a Russian spy ship was spotted off the coast of Delaware, the first such reported deployment in two years. Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson told FP the military is “aware of the vessel’s presence,” and noted it had not entered U.S. territorial waters.
Experts cautioned the incidents may not be related to each other, or, of course, to Flynn’s resignation.
The ship “could no doubt be a test as well, but that doesn’t happen overnight,” Smith said.
Photo credit: EVGENY STETSKO/AFP/Getty Images
Correction, Feb. 15, 2017: Kasputin Yar is a missile test site in southwestern Russia. A previous version of this article misidentified the site’s ordinal direction.We’ve watched the clip a dozen times and we still can’t tell how the trick was performed.
While blanket bans on indoor smoking in public places are yet to become a reality in Japan, non-smokers are provided some relief with enclosed smoking spaces, which are a common sight in stations and shopping centres around the country. For one smoker, who goes by the Twitter name @FustDrift, an encounter in one of Japan’s indoor smoking rooms unveiled a mesmerising magic act, with a mysterious stranger putting on a gravity-defying display that involved levitating a paper cup and even the half-smoked, lit cigarette of the person filming the scene.
▼ Check out the mind-bending clip below.
While the floating paper cup is impressive, it’s not hard to imagine that thin strings or near-invisible rubber bands might somehow be involved in the illusion. But when he turns his attention to the lit cigarette, we’re stumped as to how he got it to float.
Not only does he wave his hand above and below the cigarette, he appears to make it float even higher by gesturing with his right hand beside it. And for true showmanship, he uses the cigarette of the person filming the clip, while his own cigarette hangs casually from the side of his mouth the whole time!
Since the clip was posted on Twitter a few days ago, it’s received more than 50,000 likes and retweets, with many people trying to solve the mystery behind the levitating objects.
“Wow – this is amazing! He must have some sort of extra-sensory ability.”
“Is he doing this with magnets?”
“He’s attaching it to a string and someone above is moving it. Camera guy probably in on it.”
“I can’t see any strings. I prefer to believe that this guy is an alien.”
“This man must have practised for years. He’s really skilled at the art of illusion.”
Some Twitter users even posted links to YouTube tutorials revealing behind-the-scenes tips showing how to make objects appear to levitate. However, none of them showed how to levitate a burning object. How do you think the trick was performed? Let us know in the comments section below!
Source, images: Twitter/@FustDriftSome of humanity’s technological innovations are things we would have been better off without: the medieval rack, the atomic bomb and powdered lead potions come to mind. Religions tend to invent ideas or concepts rather than technologies, but like every other creative human enterprise, they produce some really bad ones along with the good.
My website, Wisdom Commons, highlights some of humanity’s best moral and spiritual concepts, our shared moral core. Here, by way of contrast, are some of the worst. These twelve dubious concepts promote conflict, cruelty, suffering and death rather than love and peace. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, they belong in the dustbin of history just as soon as we can get them there.
Chosen People –The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. They talk about “God’s elect,” and in Calvinism these privileged few were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).
Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.
Heretics – Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don’t merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves. Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt, doers of abominable deeds. There is none [among them] who does good,” says the Psalmist.
Islam teaches the concept of “dhimmitude” and provides special rules for the subjugation of religious minorities, with monotheists getting better treatment than polytheists. Christianity blurs together the concepts of unbeliever and evildoer. Ultimately, heretics are a threat that needs to be neutralized by conversion, conquest, isolation, domination, or—in worst cases—mass murder.
Holy War – If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries. The Hebrew scriptures recount battle after battle in which their war God, Yahweh, helps them to not only defeat but also exterminate the shepherding cultures that occupy their “Promised Land.” As in later holy wars, like the modern rise of ISIS, divine sanction let them kill the elderly and children, burn orchards, and take virgin females as sexual slaves—all while retaining a sense of moral superiority.
Blasphemy – Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and that is precisely the emotion the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not, but death-to-blasphemers became part of Shariah during medieval times.
The idea that blasphemy must be prevented or avenged has caused millions of murders over the centuries and countless other horrors. As I write, blogger Raif Badawi awaits round after round of flogging in Saudi Arabia—1000 lashes in batches of 50—while his wife and children plead from Canada for the international community to do something.
Glorified suffering – Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn’t one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous torture—if it’s just intense and prolonged enough–can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during Aashura, a form of sanctified suffering called Matam that commemorates the death of the martyr Hussein. Self-denial in the form of asceticism and fasting is a part of both Eastern and Western religions, not only because deprivation induces altered states but also because people believe suffering somehow brings us closer to divinity.
Our ancestors lived in a world in which pain came unbidden, and people had very little power to control it. An aspirin or heating pad would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to lean in or make meaning of it. The problem, of course is that glorifying suffering—turning it into a spiritual good—has made people more willing to inflict it on not only themselves and their enemies but also those who are helpless, including the ill or dying (as in the case of Mother Teresa and the American Bishops) and children (as in the child beating Patriarchy movement).
Genital mutilation – Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perks—if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision serves as a sign of tribal membership in Jews, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts. In one Bible story, a chieftain agrees to convert and submit his clan to the procedure as a show of commitment to a peace treaty. (While the men lie incapacitated, the whole town is then slain by the Israelites.)
In Islam, painful male circumcision serves as a rite of passage into manhood, initiation into a powerful club. By contrast, in some Muslim cultures cutting away or burning the female clitoris and labia ritually establishes the submission of women by reducing sexual arousal and agency. An estimated 2 million girls annually are subjected to the procedure, with consequences including hemorrhage, infection, painful urination and death.
Blood sacrifice - In the list of religion’s worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Only some Hindus (during the Festival of Gadhimai) and some Muslims (during Eid al Adha, Feast of the Sacrifice) continue to ritually slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale. Hindu sacred texts including the Gita forbid ritual killing, and most Hindus now eschew the practice because it violates ahimsa, or non-harm. But it persists in some regions as a residual of folk religion.
Hell – Whether we are talking about Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, an afterlife filled with demons, monsters, and eternal torture was the worst suffering the Iron Age minds could conceive and medieval minds could elaborate. Invented, perhaps, as a means to satisfy the human desire for justice, the concept of Hell quickly devolved into a tool for coercing behavior and belief.
While Buddhism sees hell as a metaphor, a journey into the evil inside the self, many Muslims and Christians hasten to assure that it is a real place, full of fire and the anguish of non-believers. Some Christians have gone so far as to insist that the screams of the damned can be heard from the center of the Earth or that observing their anguish from afar will be one of the pleasures of paradise.
Karma – Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behavior—it’ll come back at you later—but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karma sanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something to bring their position on themselves.
Eternal Life – To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss. But it doesn’t take much analysis to realize how quickly eternal paradise would become hellish—an endless repetition of never changing groundhog days (because how could they change if they were perfect).
The real reason that the notion of eternal life is such a bad invention, though, is the degree to which it diminishes and degrades existence on this earthly plane. With eyes lifted heavenward, we can’t see the intricate beauty beneath our feet. Devout believers put their spiritual energy into preparing for a world to come rather than cherishing and stewarding the one wild and precious world we have been given.
Male Ownership of Female Fertility – The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing “she was made to do it,” most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured. Hence Catholicism’s maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs. Hence Islam’s maniacal obsession with covering the female body. Hence promise rings and gender segregated sidewalks and orthodox Jewish women wearing wigs over shaved heads.
As we approach the limits of our planetary life support system and stare dystopia in the face, defining women as breeders and children as assets becomes ever more costly. We now know that resource scarcity is a conflict trigger and that demand for water and arable land is growing even as both resources decline. And yet, a pope who claims to care about the desperate poor lectures them against contraception while Muslim leaders ban vasectomies in a drive to outbreed their enemies.
Bibliolatry – Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practice—essentially—book worship, also known as bibliolatry.
“Because the faith of Islam is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the religion,” says one young Muslim explaining his faith online. His statement betrays a naïve lack of information about the origins of his own dogmas. But more broadly, it sums up the challenge all religions face moving forward. Imagine if a physicist said, “Because our understanding of physics is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to field.”
Adherents who think their faith is perfect, are not just naïve or ill informed. They are developmentally arrested, and in the case of the world’s major religions, they are anchored to the Iron Age, a time of violence, slavery, desperation and early death.
Ironically, the mindset that our sacred texts are perfect betrays the very quest that drove our ancestors to write those texts. Each of the men who wrote part of the Bible, Quran, or Gita took his received tradition, revised it, and offered his own best articulation of what is good and real. We can honor the quest of our spiritual ancestors, or we can honor their answers, but we cannot do both.
Religious apologists often try to deny, minimize, or explain away the sins of scripture and the evils of religious history. “It wasn’t really slavery.” “That’s just the Old Testament.” “He didn’t mean it that way.” “You have to understand how bad their enemies were.” “Those people who did harm in the name of God weren’t real [Christians/Jews/Muslims].” Such platitudes may offer comfort, but denying problems doesn’t solve them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Change comes with introspection and insight, a willingness to acknowledge our faults and flaws while still embracing our strengths and potential for growth.
In a world that is teeming with humanity, armed with pipe bombs and machine guns and nuclear weapons and drones, we don’t need defenders of religion’s status quo—we need real reformation, as radical as that of the 16th Century and much, much broader. It is only by acknowledging religion’s worst ideas that we have any hope of embracing the best.
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Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society have been featured at sites including AlterNet, Salon, the Huffington Post, Grist, and Jezebel. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.Image: iStock
Yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Office released a report showing exactly how much money the Australian Government has already invested into NBN Co, and how much it is expected to cost over the next 10 years.
Including details on a recent $19.5 billion loan, which was given despite an existing government investment of $20.3 billion, and the existance of an investment cap of $29.5 billion, the report says rollout is due for competition in 2020, at a total cost of $49 billion.
By June this year the Government had given $20.3 billion to NBN Co, but the Government's equity in the company was only $13.1 billion.
The $7.2 billion deterioration is "principally due to NBN Co accumulating losses totalling $8.3 billion", the report reveals, stating the losses "reflect the early years" of the NBN rollout.
The details about the annual costs are particularly interesting.
The annual cost to the budget of the Government's investment in the NBN is estimated at around $580 million in 2016–17. Following the final drawdown of the $29.5 billion in equity and assuming the loan is drawn down from 2017–18 and paid back in full in 2020–21, the annual cost is estimated to rise to over $730 million in 2019-20 and to $2.1 billion by 2026–27.
Public debt interest payments on the money put into NBN by the Government is identified as the "key driver" of the annual cost, although the loan provided to NBN Co has an interest rate higher than usual, giving a "partial offset" to the annual cost.
"The final cost of the Commonwealth's financing of NBN Co will not be known until NBN Co is privatised and the market places a value on the NBN," the report says. "Until then the Commonwealth will continue to bear an annual cost associated with its financing of NBN Co."
The report goes on to say that if the sale price of NBN Co is less than the cost of financing NBN Co, then the NBN would have "an enduring cost to the budget".
There is also a small risk (less than five per cent chance) that the Government could be forced to meet "contingent liabilities" in relation to the NBN rollout, totalling an amount of $15.5 billion as at 30 June 2016.Share
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Samsung had them specially made for Baselworld 2017, and each has an inscription on the back panel to commemorate the occasion. The pair are a part of a larger concept collection based around the Gear S3, showing what could be possible in terms of design. Calling it a “reinterpretation of the classic pocket watch,” Samsung says the watches pay homage to watchmaking in the 16th century, when the pocket watch was common.
How does centuries old design mix with modern day technology? The body on each watch is large, solid, and heavy. One model is obviously based around the Gear S3 Frontier, with a black textured finish and a compass on the cover. Lift the cover up to reveal the Gear S3’s watch face, complete with a touchscreen and all the usual features. Flip the watch over and there’s even a heart rate monitor, although you may look a bit odd holding it against your wrist while running on the treadmill.
On the sides of the body are buttons to interact with the software, but the rotating bezel is missing. The second model has a much more ostentatious design, with an analog watch on the cover, and a flashy metal body. A bow to attach a strap is on both watches so the watch can be attached to your jacket or waistcoat, just like the original models, or adapted to work with a belt clip.
The pocket watches were joined by other Gear S3 concept watches, but were the only ones to deviate so drastically from the Gear S3’s look. They stood out in a refreshingly fun way. While not the most fashion forward version of the Gear S3, we can see lovers of retro tech (hipsters, we’re definitely looking in your direction), and those who adore tech curios being interesting in owning one. Samsung told us it’s not an official product at the moment, but there wasn’t a refusal to say it wouldn’t become one in the future.
It’s interesting to note that the pocket watch has traditionally been suitable for both men and women, with designs for women being more enduring over time than those made for men — an approach that may appeal to the wearable industry today. Additionally, not everyone wants to wear a watch, smart or otherwise, so what about one that clips to your belt and slips in a pocket? Perhaps Samsung is about to kick-off a pocket watch revival, tech-style?
If so, would you buy one?Homosexuality might be the most controversial topic in the U. S. today. It becomes extra controversial when combined with the Christian faith, and I recently dove headfirst into the tension by writing a news story for Christianity Today called “Hope for the Gay Undergrad.” The article provides a glimpse into what’s currently being done to accommodate same-sex attracted students on Christian college campuses nationwide. It was published in the January/February print edition of CT, and was the #1 most-viewed article on CT's website last week (if you haven’t read it, please do – and let me know what you think of it in the comments below).
The reader statistics on my article didn't surprise me, as the topic is a hot one - any story involving religion AND sexuality is sure to peak most readers' interest. For students enrolled in conservative Christian colleges with behavioral codes and covenants forbidding all “sexually immoral activity” which includes sex outside of marriage, it’s especially relevant. Almost every student knows someone in their family or at least in their extended circle of friends who is gay or same-sex attracted, and yet, it’s not often talked about at their conservative colleges – which presents a problem.
Based on my reporting and research, including conversations with sexual psychologists, current Christian college students, members of conservative Christian college administrations, pastors, and authors, here are three things the conservative evangelical community MUST do to provide hope for students who identify as same-sex attracted:
1) Acknowledge that LGBT individuals exist inside the walls of churches and on Christian college campuses.
LGBT and same-sex attracted students on Christian college campuses often feel “invisible” because of their inability to be honest about their attractions. Here are some direct quotes from students I’ve talked to in the past 12 months:
“When I enrolled as a freshman, I would never have said I was gay... I wanted to keep it quiet for fear of my guy friends being freaked out by me. You hear gay jokes around campus and you're afraid if you come out people will look at you differently." –“Jordan,” author of "gaysubtlety" blog and 2012 Wheaton College graduate "Sex in general was not often talked about in my church or family, let alone homosexuality, so I hid it for as long as possible." –Brent Persun, openly gay 2011 Cedarville University graduate “When I became a Christian at 17, I tucked that part of me away—I ignored it.” –current same-sex attracted Wheaton College student
These quotes are proof the conservative evangelical community makes those experiencing same-sex attraction feel it’s not okay to be completely honest about who they are. Statistics show that anywhere from 1.7 to 10 percent of the American population identifies as LGBTQ or same-sex attracted, but students experiencing same-sex attraction on a small, private Christian college campus where it’s never discussed often feel they have to "ignore" their feelings and become withdrawn, depressed, and conflicted.
2) Provide a safe space for same-sex attracted students to meet on a regular basis.
Several students have committed suicide as a result of the “shame” and “oppressive silence” they feel surrounding their same-sex attractions. According to Andrew Marin, founder of the Marin Foundation, a Chicago-based outreach ministry that hopes to build bridges between the Christian church and the LGBT community, dialogue is the answer—a balance between small-group meetings and campus-wide forums for dialogue (including guest speakers from a variety of theological backgrounds) is a healthy mix, and the Marin Foundation offers Bible-based curriculum and conversation guides on their website.
As summarized in my CT article, Seattle Pacific University started a successful same-sex attracted discussion group on their campus that hosts both small group discussions and campus-wide events hosting guest speakers who address a variety of topics surrounding sexual identity; Wheaton College regularly hosts a same-sex attracted small group with the dean of student care, and occasionally hosts guest speakers and panels that address topics of sexual identity (Andrew Marin will be on Wheaton’s campus Thursday, January 31); and Calvin College launched a “Sexuality Series” in 2006 hosts a variety of book clubs, peer mentorship groups, and counseling groups that discuss sexuality on a regular basis.
As great as campus-wide events and administration-facilitated discussions are, there’s no denying a majority of conversations about the topic of homosexuality occur in informal one-on-one or small group gatherings amongst students and professors who are open to talking candidly around campus. Therefore, it's important for conservative evangelicals to put agendas aside and...
3) Listen.
According to Jose Vilanova, founder of OneWheaton, a pro-gay alumni organization composed of Wheaton College alumni, the solution to the “oppressive silence” felt on conservative Christian college campuses is for Christians worldwide to simply be aware, present, and willing to listen:
“In a perfect world, the people who are making the rules at Wheaton would just hear our stories; would just hear them; without a need for theological answer or rebuttal or a rebuff of any sort.”
My main takeaway from chatting with Jose in fall 2011, and with other gay alumni over the past year and a half, is that imposing your personal perspectives and beliefs on a same-sex attracted student will only push them farther away from you. They’ve probably already done their research on homosexuality and Christianity, and would appreciate listening ears being open to hearing their stories and testimonies, judgment-free, like Jesus would.
So, I think there's a glimmer of hope here, but what do YOU think? Is there hope for gay undergraduates on Christian college campuses? If not, what can be done to make the situation better?
Also, what other advice, websites or resources have you found to be helpful in this conversation? List them in the comments section below, Tweet @adailymiracle, or post on my Facebook page.
To read more on the topic of homosexuality at Christian college campuses:
“Hope for the Gay Undergrad:” Christianity Today feature article
Gaysubtlety: blog about same-sex attraction in conservative Christian contexts written by two gay, celibate 2012 Wheaton College alumni
“Hope for the Gay Undergrad:” blog post about same-sex attraction on Christian college campuses by Wesley Hill, author of Washed and Waiting, gay & celibate Wheaton College alumni
The Marin Foundation
Recent news articles about pro-gay alumni organizations and movements on campuses nationwide:
TIME Magazine: "Wheaton's (Unofficial) Homecoming for Gay Evangelicals"
NY Times: "Guiding Gay Evangelicals Out of the Campus ClosetIt was a bright summer's day in the small fishing village along the Jade Lake. The sun was high in the sky, the cloud bare of all clouds save the prettiest, poofiest white ones here and there, and the breeze was just enough to keep it from being too hot. The children running down the streets and playing made it clear that school was certainly out for summer. It really was the most beautiful day of the summer thus far… but for one small girl, it felt like there was a constant ice storm hovering around her head, and her heart.
A small girl of seven was being escorted by an older man in a business suit. They had just stepped from a car, another man going to the trunk to grab a few bags. The girl was dressed in simple shoes, a skirt, and a t-shirt, all in a bright shade of pink that she didn't feel inside. She tightly clutched a stuffed doll to her chest, a bunny that had quite a bit of wear and tear to it from plenty of playing, but with plenty of stitching to keep it together for more. Her eyes were on the ground as she was led up the walkway of a large three-story building, the sign above it identifying it as Jade River Orphanage.
A woman stood at the doorway, a friendly smile on her face as she looked at the young girl, although there was a sadness in her eyes to betray her real feelings. It was never a happy thing when children had to come here, all it meant was that they didn't have anyone else.
Still, the woman, Ms. Neon, tried to look as friendly as possible, wearing a simple dress as she approached the older man first, shaking his hand and thanking him, telling him where he and the younger man could take the girl's bags. As they moved past her, the woman knelt down, putting herself on the little girl's level as she softly said, "Hello there honey." The little girl's eyes didn't raise to look at her, simply holding her bunny and looking down, orange bangs hiding her face from view.
Ms. Neon frowned some at the lack of response, but it wasn't in frustration, but in sympathy. She took a breath, replacing it with her warming smile as she said, "My name is Ms. Neon… I heard your name is 'Nora Valkyrie', right?"
The young girl still said nothing, but Ms. Neon pressed on, her voice soothing as she said, "That's a very pretty name you know… may I please call you 'Nora'?" Finally, a nod, even if it was a really small one. Smiling a bit wider, she said, "Well, Nora, I know that this isn't like what you had before, but I do hope you'll be happy here. C'mon, I'll show you to your room, okay?"
Standing up, Ms. Neon held her hand out to the girl. It seemed like Nora wasn't going to take it, Ms. Neon nearly lowering her hand, but at the last second the small hand found her own. 'Strong grip,' she thought to herself as she walked with the little girl into what would become her new home, along with many other children who had lost their families.
Nora held onto the nice lady's hand tight. The old guys in the suits hadn't tried to hold her hand… no one had since before her parents left on their trip. She gulped, shaking her head a bit to clear that thought away, peering up through her orange bangs to look around.
The building was as large as a mansion, or a small apartment complex. It definitely wasn't like the orphanages in the movies, all dirty and stuff with mean ugly people yelling at the kids in between songs. Ms. Neon definitely didn't seem like the kind of lady who would do that, and she wasn't ugly or mean. She didn't see any kids, but she could hear them playing outside and in a few of the rooms around her.
Ms. Neon led her to a room, smiling warmly as she said, "You're actually in luck. We have an odd number of kids in your age range, so you can have a room all to yourself." Nora looked down some, frowning as she thought about being all alone. Ms. Neon couldn't see her face, but could sense the uneasiness from the little girl, quickly adding, "But don't worry. The room you'll be in is actually just two doors down from mine. If you ever need anything, day or night, you just need to come over and knock, okay, Nora?"
Nora gave a small nod at the question. It didn't take long to get to her room, the two old guys were waiting outside of it and the door was open. She peeked in while Ms. Neon and the two old guys started talking about something, looking at her new room. It looked a bit bigger than her old one, even though it had a bunk bed instead of a regular bed. It looked like there was a closet and a desk too. It had a few toys and fashion accessories laying around on the floor. Her stuff had been put on the lower bed's mattress.
She heard Ms. Neon sigh in frustration and looked up to her, wondering if she'd done something wrong, but Ms. Neon was looking at the stuff on the floor, saying, "Da- ahem, darn it. I'm sorry Nora, it looks like some of the other girls got in here and used it to hang out in. Listen, go ahead and have a seat, okay? I need to talk with these gentlemen about a few things, then I'll be right back to clean this mess up for you and help you unpack, okay?" Nora nodded, taking her bunny over to the bed and sat down next to her stuff. Ms. Neon smiled, giving a little wave before she left with the old guys.
Nora sat on the bed, just holding her bunny. The room really was nice, probably nicer than her old one… but she wanted to go back to her old room. Tears began to run down her cheeks, the young girl beginning to softly cry. She wanted her old room in her old house, and she wanted to be back with her old parents. She wanted to hear her parents call her princess again, and play pretend that her room was a castle and that they were the queen and king… she wanted to go home.
A voice, older than her own, caused Nora to let out a gasp of surprise, the grating tone of an older girl asking, "What are you doing in here?!" Looking up, she saw that the girl was either a teen or close to being one. She was tall, sporting long, pretty blonde hair and wearing a very nice dress.
There were two other girls behind her, both not quite as pretty, but still pretty compared to the blonde and wearing clothes similar in standard. The blonde girl sneered at Nora, causing her to quickly look down, wiping at her eyes as she said, "Oh, guess they finally found a crybaby to be in here."
Nora winced at being called a crybaby, feeling more tears threatening to fall while the blonde's friends laughed in a nasty way. The blonde smiled, walking over to stand in front of Nora, the orange-haired girl holding her bunny tighter, keeping her gaze down. Blondie looked from Nora to the bunny she was holding, grinning wickedly as she said, "Ooh, nice bunny… I think it would look even better… in the trash!"
With that, Blondie reached down, snatching it from Nora's grip. Nora gasped, looking up at the girl, holding it much too high to reach while the other two girls laughed loudly. Blondie sneered at her, asking, "What're you gonna do about it, crybaby?" Tears came to Nora's eyes as she stared at this horrible, mean girl, the laughter of the three like nails on a chalkboard… then the little girl's gaze narrowed into a glare and she balled her tiny hands into fists.
Ms. Neon sighed as she finished signing the last of the paperwork, handing it over to the older gentleman, saying, "Alright, there it is. Hope you have a safe drive, Mr. Green." Mr. Green nodded politely before he left, the other man giving a polite nod before following after.
Getting up from her desk, she made her way out into the hall, just in time for one of the boys to come running. He was panting, quickly saying, "Ms. Neon, Ms. Neon!"
She smiled, asking, "Yes Zinc, how can I help you? Did Phos get his hand stuck in something
Zinc shook his head quickly, saying, "No, it's Honey, you said you wanted to know when she got back?"
Ms. Neon frowned, sighing in frustration. Honey had been grounded for bullying one of the other children… again. Ms. Neon loved the children as if they were her own, she really did. Everyone of them she loved and treated like her own… but Honey was such a little bitch! She hated to think of her like that, and she'd never voice it, but she was. She took a soothing breath, asking, "Thank you for letting me know. Did you see where she was going?"
Zinc nodded, pointing towards the young children's rooms, saying, "Down there, to the empty room with Fuschia and Verty."
Ms. Neon's eyes went wide in fear, terrified about how awful Honey would be to Nora, saying, "Oh fu-… f-fudge." She blushed at her near potty mouth, Zinc just tilting his head in curiosity. She quickly went past him, saying, "Thank you Zinc, go play now, okay," as she ran as quickly as her heels would allow towards the bedrooms.
She was nearly there when she heard a scream of… pain? Fear? It was hard to tell, but she could tell it came from Nora's room. The few children who were still in the home began peeking out their doors while Ms. Neon picked up the pace. She turned the corner for the hall and was nearly knocked over by Honey's cronies, the two looking afraid.
Ms. Neon could still hear shouting and crying from Nora's room over the two girls babbling, "Ms. Neon, she's crazy-" "Nuts!" "Just attacked for no reason!"
Ms. Neon felt more confused than ever, confusion that only grew as she finally saw Honey come out of Nora's room in a stumbling run. Her hair and clothes were a mess and she was crying hard, her lip cut as she quickly ran behind Ms. Neon. That was when Nora came into view. Her own clothes were a bit more messy than they were before, as was her orange hair.
She was crying as well, but she didn't look hurt, her bunny held in one hand as she shouted, "THAT'S RIGHT, YOU BETTER RUN! I am not a crybaby, I am a princess, and this is my castle, you bully! No one touches Maggie, no one! If you come back, I'm gonna kick you in the butt!"
Ms. Neon had a hand covering her mouth, her eyes wide, seemingly in shock. All three girls instantly |
Polyphenols in Western Yellow could have a greater affect on antiplatelet activity more so than the onion used in the present study [49].
It is well established that organosulfur compounds in onions change dramatically with time and depend on processing method [50]. The chemistry of Allium-derived sulfur compounds is complex because many compounds are volatile, thermally unstable, condense or decompose to form other compounds, and under different conditions, different compounds are generated. Thiosulfinates, initial chemicals formed in freshly macerated tissues, undergo transformation and decomposition. Most flavor compounds are formed from the decomposition of thiosulfinates [50]. With regard to steaming, it has been shown that during steam distillation, oils are generated. During steam distillation, tissues are heated to 100°C and initially formed thiosulfinates are rapidly converted into their corresponding polysulfide. Block et al. found that heating pure diallyl disulfide for 10 minutes at 150°C resulted in the formation of greater than 30 sulfur components [51]. Lawson et al. found steam-distilled garlic cloves were only 35% as active in inhibiting platelets compared to aqueous garlic clove homogenates [52]. Differences in reductions in antiplatelet activity were noted between our study, which involved steaming, and other studies, which have involved boiling. It is possible that the generation of oils or polysulfides is partially responsible for this effect. Because of the unstable nature and difficulty characterizing sulfur composition in onion tissues, we were unable to provide data showing specific sulfur components found in our steamed and raw extracts. It would be of interest to determine whether platelet stimulatory fractions are present in raw onion and if their activity is countermanded by platelet inhibitory compounds in raw onion. Further analysis of sulfur components from domestically prepared onion tissues would be an important and useful measurement. More importantly, it would be useful to determine if the platelet stimulatory response is reflective of a loss of specific sulfur components, formation of different sulfur components, or is reflective of other facets related to cooking.
We sought to examine antiplatelet activity inducement of other vegetables in raw and cooked forms in a pilot study. We found that raw broccoli inhibited platelet activity in three out of the four human subjects (data not shown). Additionally, cooked broccoli did not inhibit platelet activity and became stimulatory after cooking beyond 6 min. This finding is interesting because the change from inhibitory to stimulatory may not be specific for onion, but may encompass other vegetables that are platelet inhibitors in raw form. Causes of this proaggregatory response are beyond the scope of our study, but remain of great interest to our laboratory.
Lastly, we examined soluble solids and found that they did not change significantly during the cooking process. In raw form, OIAA is correlated strongly with high pungency and high soluble solids [53]. In contrast, we found high soluble solids remained when the onion was cooked, yet OIAA changed. Since soluble solids mostly consist of carbohydrates and ASCOs make up a low percentage of total soluble solids, this finding was not surprising. However, cooking decreases pungency, therefore, OIAA and pungency may remain strongly correlated.Home / Process / New microalgae clean radioactive waste cheaply
Process
New microalgae clean radioactive waste cheaply
April 21, 2014
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com
nvironment News Service reports that Coccomyxa actinabiotis, a single-celled green alga that can tolerate extreme conditions, may soon be widely used to clean up radioactive effluents and wastewater from nuclear facilities in an inexpensive and environmentally-safe manner.
The microalga is extremely resistant to radioactivity and can handle a radiation dose of 20,000 grays (Gy), about 2,000 times the lethal human dose, while it strongly accumulates radionuclides.
Scientists in France discovered the alga – which uses photosynthesis and metabolic processes to take up contaminants — in a cooling pool for spent fuel at a French nuclear facility. After analyzing the properties of this unique species, researchers now foresee new cost effective strategies for the bioremediation of radioactive contamination.
Inventors Corinne Rivasseau, Emmanuel Farhi, Alain Coute, and Ariane Atteia have applied for a U.S. patent for Coccomyxa actinabiotis as a radioactive cleaning agent. The potential of the alga is being explored by the research team, which includes scientists from Grenoble University, Montpellier University and Institut Laue-Langevin.The journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates said on Monday that he and his family would not move into a $2.1 million Brooklyn brownstone they recently bought because media coverage of the purchase had made them worried for their safety.
Mr. Coates and his wife used a limited-liability corporation to shield their identities during the transaction — a legal maneuver frequently used by celebrities seeking privacy — but word of the sale leaked to The New York Post, which published an article about the purchase with pictures of the house last week. Real estate and other news organizations soon followed suit.
“Within a day of seeing these articles, my wife and I knew that we could never live in Prospect-Lefferts Garden, that we could never go back home,” Mr. Coates wrote on Monday in The Atlantic, where he is a national correspondent, referring to the Brooklyn neighborhood. “If anything happened to either of us, if anything happened to our son, we’d never forgive ourselves.”
Mr. Coates could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Mr. Coates rose to fame in 2015 after the publication of his memoir “Between the World and Me,” which was written in the form of a letter to his son about the history of racial injustice in the United States. It was one of the most discussed books of the year and won the National Book Award for nonfiction.After Barack Obama’s eight long years of gutting America’s missile-defense capabilities, our nation has awakened to the nightmare of a North Korea armed with nuclear missiles capable of reaching U.S. territory.
Fortunately, Donald Trump, who, unlike his predecessor, takes his responsibility to defend the nation seriously, now resides in the White House, and Obama, one in a series of Democrat presidents who cleared the way for the nuclear adventurism of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is on the outside looking in.
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States," President Trump told reporters yesterday after applauding the unanimous weekend approval of the toughest U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution against North Korea to date. "They will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before."
Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis issued a statement urging North Korea to back off or suffer the consequences. “The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people," he said. "While our State Department is making every effort to resolve this global threat through diplomatic means, it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed, and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth."
But not all of the blame for the status quo can be assigned to Democrats.
North Korea has long massed troops near the border with South Korea, effectively holding the population of nearby Seoul and other densely-populated areas hostage. The DPRK is thought to have the ability to quickly assault and subdue a large chunk of South Korea, with devastating consequences for the populace. The Korean War itself began June 25, 1950 but never technically ended. Hostilities were suspended when representatives from both countries signed an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953. The “final peaceful settlement” envisioned in the pact never happened. The U.S. was a major party to the armed conflict and it still has troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula.
“I think, basically, since the end of the Korean War, we’ve had a succession of administrations – Republican and Democratic – who have faced a very unhappy reality, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney told SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Wednesday’s “Breitbart News Daily” show.
“And that is the massive, if uneven, shall we say, North Korean military … so closely positioned at the Demilitarized Zone to Seoul, the capital of South Korea, that at will, from a standing start, they could essentially devastate the 24 or so million people who live in and around that capital city.”
Kim Jong-un “greatly accelerated the development and testing programs of all ranges of North Korea’s missile systems,” according to Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “During his five years in power, he has overseen three times as many missile launches as his father did during his eighteen-year reign.”
Kim wouldn’t actually have to incinerate a U.S. population center to inflict devastating damage on the nation. There is some evidence that the North Koreans have the ability to detonate a nuclear weapon on a satellite in orbit over U.S. territory in order to create an EMP, or electromagnetic pulse. An EMP could take the nation’s electric grid offline and fry the circuitry of everything from automobiles to smartphones to toasters.
It was President Bill Clinton who cleared the way for the DPRK to go nuclear.
Nearly two years ago, North Korea sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world by claiming to have conducted a successful test of a powerful hydrogen bomb. Without the machinations years ago of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and more importantly, those of her husband, the pariah nation may not have been able to join the nuclear club.
The announcement by the DPRK came after years of appeasement and dithering by left-wing politicians in the West. In 1994 Bill Clinton unveiled an agreement between the U.S. and North Korea that he claimed would achieve "an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula."
Under the deal, North Korea "agreed to freeze its existing nuclear program and to accept international inspection of all existing facilities," Clinton said at the time. The pact "is good for the United States, good for our allies, and good for the safety of the entire world."
Years after Clinton’s presidency, North Korea today possesses what it calls its "H-bomb of justice" that can reportedly be loaded onto a missile and delivered to targets outside its borders.
Critics note that the deal with the DPRK is remarkably similar to President Obama’s loophole-ridden nuclear nonproliferation pact with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This makes sense because both Clinton and Obama share a similar core philosophy that favors appeasement and discourages national security-related preparedness.
Way back in 1999, Donald Trump presciently eviscerated President Clinton’s weak stance on North Korea.
What Clinton had agreed to “was so soft, these people are laughing at us,” Trump told the late Tim Russert on NBC. “We virtually tried to bribe them into stopping and they’re continuing to [do] what they’re doing. And they’re laughing at us, they think we’re a bunch of dummies."
On the possibility of striking at North Korea militarily before the nuclear threat got out of hand, Trump said, “You want to do it in five years when they have warheads all over the place, every one of them pointing to New York City, to Washington, and every one of our — is that when you want to do it? Or do you want to do something now?”
And Barack Obama was exponentially worse on nukes than Bill Clinton was.
While in office, Obama scoffed at the idea of missile-defense, that is, that a missile could take out another missile. The idea grew out of President Reagan’s Strategic Defensive Initiative (SDI), derided by left-wingers at the time and for years after as “Star Wars.”
According to the leftists at Mother Jones, the U.S. government “sank more than $239 billion (in 2016 dollars) into making some version of this Cold War daydream into reality, without much success.”
Whether that dollar figure provided by writer Bryan Schatz in January is accurate, really doesn’t even matter. It is money well-spent. And now that this research and development money has been spent, deploying missile-interception systems won’t be a terrible strain on the public purse because the hard part is over.
Making new missiles costs only a fraction of what it costs to design and develop those missiles. The interception vehicles may very well save America from ruin.
But the Left will still find a way to whine about those costs too. Every dollar not redistributed or spent on social welfare programs is a dollar wasted, as these people see it. And every dollar spent on defending America is an abomination in their eyes.
When seeking the presidency, Obama referred to missile defense programs as “unproven” and promised to cut them. As president, he was passive-aggressive about such programs. He undermined America’s missile defense, but eventually he supposedly acknowledged missile defense had some value.
But President Obama still put a great deal of energy into weakening America’s missile defense programs, which despite his best efforts have shown great promise in testing in recent months, successfully taking down an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on May 30. A long-range ground-based interceptor missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California hit and destroyed the ICBM launched from the U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
In 2009, Obama killed President Bush’s missile defense program for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Then he renegotiated the New START nuclear arms agreement, which curbed the U.S. missile defense arsenal while letting the Russians add to theirs. In March 2012 Obama was caught on an open microphone telling then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to wait until after the upcoming election when he would be able to make even more concessions on missile defense.
Leftists like Obama don’t lose sleep worrying about such threats because they claim climate change, not potential nuclear missile attacks by rogue nations and terrorists, is a much more serious, pressing threat to Americans and the whole world. These people don’t take seriously the provocations of Kim Jong-un that could lead directly to the deaths of millions of Americans and South Koreans. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders said during the election campaign last year that climate change was the greatest threat facing the United States, a claim echoed by President Obama who called climate change “a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.”
But that frivolous view was rejected by the electorate last November and finally we have a president who, unlike the previous occupant of the White House, wants to protect America from foreign attack.There are so many rules made for women – that they should be demure yet enthusiastic, confident yet humble, and many ways we as women name ourselves in order to better reflect who we are in society.
But what is it about the term ‘ambitious shrew who needs to get fucked’ that still makes some women flinch?
After all, women are just as likely as men to be shriveled old bags of dirt who really need to get laid for once. Isn’t it time we admit that? Isn’t it time we stop skirting those discussions and embrace them full on? For the sake of women everywhere, it’s time to take on the label of conniving frigid cow so the world can finally see we’re not ashamed to be who we are.
In the past, women who admitted to being frigid old bitches who had replaced sex with power were punished. But it’s time that’s changed. It’s 2017, for Christ’s sake. I think we’re ready for a woman to finally stand up and say, “Hey, I’m a boss bitch nasty old hag who needs a man to remind me what I’m good for.” It would be so empowering to hear that!
Imagine a world where women admitted that the only reason they were trying to claw their way up the professional ladder with their nasty vole claws was just because they weren’t having sex that was good. Is that so wrong to accept? No, embrace it!
Sure, it sounds dirty and degrading by old-fashioned standards, but millennial women are ready to embody new gender roles—ones where they fully embody the harsh feminine energy of acting like a batty old hen who’s just trying to rule the roost because she couldn’t keep the rooster crowing.
Are you with me ladies? If you’re ready to set yourselves free, say it with me: “I am an ambitious shrew who needs to get fucked and I don’t care who knows it!”First, contact your cable company at the number listed above. Be courteous and state the facts briefly, providing any additional information which supports your position. It will be helpful if you have your account number, copies of bills, receipts, Canceled checks, letters, and company notices – anything which supports your position.
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If you do not receive a satisfactory response, ask to speak with a supervisor. This is your right. If you are still not satisfied, you may contact us at the Office of Cable Communications for assistance. You may email a complaint to Y2hhbWxpbkBmY2dvdi5jb20= or call us at 970-221-6510. Please be sure to include your name, the name of the person on the account, your telephone number on the account, and the address. Describe the problem clearly.A broad coalition of insurers, hospitals, and medical groups penned an open letter to President Donald Trump on Thursday warning him not to make good on his repeated threat to cut off billions in cost sharing reduction (CSR) payments that help subsidize care for low-income Americans.
“Without these funds, consumers’ access to care is jeopardized, their premiums will increase dramatically, and they will be left with even fewer coverage options,” warned the coalition, comprised of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Benefits Council, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“These benefits are essential to making coverage and care affordable for American families who receive them. Clarity and commitment to this funding is needed to eliminate confusion and anxiety for consumers,” the letter continues. “As medical professionals, insurers providing health care services and coverage to hundreds of millions of Americans, and business leaders concerned with maintaining a stable health insurance marketplace for consumers, we believe it is imperative that the Administration fund the cost-sharing reduction program.”
The Trump administration initially promised a decision on the fate of the payments by this week, but has since suggested it would kick the can down the road to late August, when the next payment is due.
As White House officials told Politico that “Trump continues to lean towards ending the subsidies,” even Republicans on Capitol Hill who are staunchly opposed to the Affordable Care Act have pleaded with the president not to pull that particular trigger, warning that low-income and ill Americans would bear the brunt of the fallout.
Some Senate Republicans are opposed to cutting of the payments and are drafting a bill to have Congress make those payments for a year, taking the decision out of Trump’s hands and giving the insurance companies the certainty they crave.BEYOND the continuing challenge from Scotland, there are three dangers for the Tories in this General Election election and therefore a triple opportunity for the rest of us. The first of these the Tories will probably stage-manage to a minimum. The second would be a medium-sized risk for them and it could scupper their assumption that a big majority is theirs for the taking. The third, however, is the really serious one.
The first risk is that Theresa May will be allowed to meet real people or even real journalists during this campaign. The Prime Minister’s uncertainty makes Gordon Brown look like a man of the people and a quick-witted tribune of democratic accountability. Not only have the TV debates been junked with only a low-level protest from the broadcasters, the Tories have also succeeded thus far in keeping the Prime Minister out of view of real people and hard political questioning.
The contrast on the one hand between Theresa May’s visit to a hall in Banchory with the Tory faithful crammed in pretending to be attendees at a kiddies’ party and on the other Nicola Sturgeon meeting all comers at a mobbed May Day event in Turriff on Monday is a very telling one.
One showed a First Minister confident of her campaigning presence. The other showed a Prime Minister whose handlers have no confidence whatsoever in her campaigning ability. There should be a full-scale journalistic revolt against this degree of closed stage-management. It is an affront to democracy but the Tory high command are confident they can get away with it.
The second risk for the Tories is that the attempt to force a single-issue election of Brexit and leadership is rejected by the electorate. Instead, the people might have the effrontery to exercise their right to talk about other things. There was certainly some evidence of this last weekend as I spent a good deal of time on doorsteps talking about Motability vehicle cuts, the WASPI women and the disgraceful rape clause.
As the election broadens, then the Tory grip on it weakens.
By any stretch of the imagination, the Government’s record is deplorable. Even the much vaunted post-Brexit boom (or as it should be called the reverse Osborne effect) is beginning to look suspect. Plunging industrial production and retail sales figures have now been followed by confirmation in the first quarter UK growth estimates. The Tories have gone running to the country while the economic going was still looking good.
On everything else there is no case whatsoever for Tory re-election. “Nobody doubts,” said Dr Peter Bennie, chair of the BMA, in February, “that currently Scotland’s NHS is in relatively better shape than south of the Border.”
No-one that is but the tartan trolls of the Unionist press who attempt to cast doubt on that statement of obvious fact every day. But the people who have to live with a collapsing health service in England are not fooled. They know the reality and therefore the greater salience these issues come to have in this election, then so the Tory lead will shrink.
Such is Labour’s weakness even this probably won’t be enough to stop the Tories winning big in England. Nonetheless it could place some of the wilder estimates of Tory victories beyond their reach.
However, there is something which could derail the Tories entirely and that is if their election raison d’etre is under serious question: if people realise fully that this unwanted election has been sold on one big whopper.
That could happen if there were to be moves to indict a clutch of Tory candidates during the campaign on the expenses fallout of their last campaign. Such an eventuality would totally undercut May’s claim to be acting in the national interest and demonstrate instead that this is a poll called to promote Tory self-interest and to protect them from the consequences of their own dodgy dealings.
That would be dramatic but is in the lap of the gods – or more accurately in the lap of the Crown Prosecution Service.
However, there is another way that the Tories could be made to eat humble pie and that is if there are more revelations such as the fallout from last week’s dinner with the European leaders. It wouldn’t take that much for the Downing Street dinner to become May’s political last supper.
The accounts have the ring of truth and the non-denial denials from Downing Street confirm them.
Their importance is fundamental.
The reports suggest that it is not the lady but the EU 27 who are not for turning. They leave the prospect of no Brexit deal very real indeed. They suggest that the May/Davis combination has only the loosest grasp of the realities of having a defined relationship with the single marketplace and why that would necessarily involve an enforcement mechanism through an international court.
They suggest, in brief, that as far as negotiations are concerned, it is all over even before the shouting with all the consequences that will flow for real investment, real jobs and real people.
If this is anywhere close to the mark then it exposes the hollow sham at the heart of this election.
It means that May is seeking a mandate to negotiate the impossible.
The press south of the Border will do their best to minimise these revelations. The Tory press will even try to use the European bogeymen as a reason for voting Tory, even if it inevitably means a Theresa Mayhem.
However, there is at least a chance that the people realise they are being taken for a ride. If they cotton on, then the fallout might really puncture the Tory election balloon.Marcus Huffman, the 39-year-old Providence cop accused of raping a lesbian woman in a police station bathroom, was convicted of first-degree sexual assault. He faces a possible life sentence, though his attorney says he plans to appeal.
The woman testified that Huffman raped her in the bathroom of a police substation in March 2007 after picking her up outside a Providence nightclub where she was turned away for being too drunk. She said she could not remember what happened inside the bathroom, but that she woke up later with her pants undone and her undergarments removed. She then walked to her aunt’s house and was taken to a hospital, where she says Huffman showed up to take her report.
Prosecutor Maureen Keough accused Huffman of taking advantage of an intoxicated and physically helpless woman. But lawyer Robert Caron attacked the woman’s credibility, suggesting she had a consensual sexual encounter with Huffman and then lied about being raped because she didn’t want to tell her girlfriend the truth. The woman identified herself at trial as a lesbian and said she hadn’t had consensual sex with a man since early in high school.Toronto FC announced Tuesday that Spanish forward Miguel Angel Ferrer Martinez “Mista” has signed with the club. Mista’s contract will run through to the end of the 2010 MLS season. As per team and league rules financial details were not released.
“Mista adds a wealth of experience to our team,” said manager, director of soccer Mo Johnston. “He’s played at Real Madrid, Valencia CF, and Deportivo La Coruna which are all world class clubs. Mista is a different type of player from what we have and we are excited to get him in the lineup after July 15.”
Mista, 31, joins Toronto FC after spending his entire career in Spain playing almost entirely in The Primera Division (La Liga). The forward spent the 2008-2010 seasons with Deportivo La Coruna, where he was a teammate of current Toronto FC midfielder Julian de Guzman. Mista’s most successful seasons in La Liga came while he was a member of Valencia from 2001-2006 when he made 142 appearances, scoring 40 goals. He won two Spanish league titles (2001-02, 2003-04) during that time and was a member of the 2004 UEFA Cup winning squad where he scored the second goal in a 2-0 victory over Olympique de Marseille of France. By winning that title Valencia went on to compete in the UEFA Super Cup where Valencia CF defeated FC Porto of Portugal 2-0.
Mista began his career under current Inter Milan boss and former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez at Real Madrid where he spent three seasons before moving on to Tenerife where he helped that club gain promotion into the first division.
Internationally, he made his debut for the Spain on March 26, 2005 in a 3-0 friendly win over China and has two caps with the senior squad. He also was a member of the Spanish U17, U18 and U21 sides.
Due to International Transfer Rules, Mista will not be available for selection until after the July 15 transfer window opens.Israel is expected to annex a widespread ocean territory of which Lebanon also claims ownership.
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It was recently decided to bring a bill to define the maritime economic border with Lebanon to be read and voted on by the government and the Knesset. The move comes after years of delaying the ruling on Israel's maritime border, partially due to efforts by the United States and the United Nations to mediate between Israel and Lebanon.
Maritime gas drilling site (Photo: AFP)
The proposed bill includes a large territory still under dispute with Lebanon.
Israel-Lebanon maritime border
The bill is aimed to claim Israel's sovereignty over the area, mainly for the purpose of harvesting natural recourses like oil and gas.
According to international law, dividing territory between states that reside near the same maritime area is done through their mutual agreement and is largely based on the "mid-point" between the two.
Though Israel and Lebanon have been in dispute over what the mid-point between their maritime borders is, both countries are fighting over an 800 square kilometer trianglular maritime area (seen in the picture as areas 1-3), with both claiming they have the right to extract oil and gas from the area.
After Lebanon recently broke the status quo, advertising a tender to search for natural resources in the disputed area, Israel began promoting a bill that aims to define the area within the Israel's maritime territory.
Minister of Environmental Protection Ze'ev Elkin and Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources Yuval Steinitz (Likud) consolidated other agreements regarding what government body would have the authority over the area, eventually giving it to the Ministry of Energy. The Ministery of Environmental Protection agreed to stay as a non-authority advisory agency.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection responded that "the bill has many positive aspects regarding the environment, as it promises certainty of the application of environmental laws in the area. However, the ministry is not satisfied with the current arrangement which does not clarify what agency will be the one overseeing the impact on the environment."Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
Far-right French Presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has quietly pledged to close off same-sex marriage.
Front National leader Marine Le Pen is currently leading in first-round polls ahead of France’s Presidential election.
Le Pen’s party previously maintained strong ties to the anti-LGBT lobby, though it has recently made inroads with conservative gay voters, purporting to have “
But despite any “reforms”, Le Pen has now quietly confirmed plans to end same-sex marriage in the country, burying the policy announcement in a list of 144 pledges released last week.
Buried midway through the lengthy document at number 87, Le Pen promises to create an “improved” form of civil unions in the country to “replace” the equal marriage law passed under the current Socialist government in 2013.
The policy plan specifies that the changes would “not be retroactive”, sparing Le Pen the legal headache of trying to unpick or downgrade thousands of existing same-sex marriages, but the replacement plan would close same-sex marriage to new couples – meaning gays would once again only be able to enter civil partnerships.
It would be a return to the former status quo for France, which only permitted same-sex couples to enter a contractual form of civil union (PACS) from 1999 until 2013.
Le Pen’s policy document does not specify exactly what “improvements” would be made to the PACS system.
As well as plans to tamper with equality laws, Le Pen also outlines plans to restrict fertility services, ending assistance for gay couples wanting to have children.
Ironically, the plans were snuck out under a sub-heading claiming FN would “allow everyone to find their place” in French society.
The policy shift is surprising given the FN’s recently attempts to court gay voters, playing down reports of homophobia and taking advantage of fears over homophobic Islamic extremists.
Though she leads in the first-round poll, Le Pen is not expected to succeed in May’s run-off election, where she will likely face either centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron or Republicans right-winger Francois Fillon.
Macron, the only supporter of LGBT rights among the top candidates, has faced ‘gay’ smears in recent weeks from Russian state media outlets.Bismillah
Cold weather, snow, hot chocolate, thick blankets, dry skin, short days and long nights are the things that come to my mind when I think of winter. Winter, for most of us, is not our favorite season because of the cold weather and early sunset. But while many of us are shivering and complaining of this weather and darkness, our past predecessors rejoiced at the coming of winter.
Imam al-Hasan al-Basri (rahimahullah) said, “The best season to a believer is the winter, its nights are long for those who wish to pray, and its days are short for those who wish to fast.”
Winter is the season of the believer because it is so easy to do good deeds. Allah has made this a great mercy for us; we can fast these short days without any decrease in the reward and we have a huge gap between Isha and Fajr to pray some night prayers.
Umar said, “Winter is booty for the devout worshipers.”
So take advantage of these short days and long nights!
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Also now that we are in winter, we may need an extra push to keep renewing our wudu because of the cold weather. Here are some benefits of wudu to motivate yourself to keep up this sunnah, even though you’re freezing cold:
1) Expiation of sins
“He who performs the Wudu perfectly (i.e., according to Sunnah), his sins will depart from his body, even from under his nails.” [Muslim]
He who performs Wudu like this, his previous sins will be forgiven and his Salat and walking to the mosque will be considered as supererogatory act of worship.” [Muslim].
“When a Muslim, or a believer, washes his face (in the course of Wudu), every sin which he committed with his eyes, will be washed away from his face with water, or with the last drop of water; when he washes his hands, every sin which is committed by his hands will be effaced from his hands with the water, or with the last drop of water; and when he washes his feet, every sin his feet committed will be washed away with the water, or with the last drop of water; until he finally emerges cleansed of all his sins.” [Muslim]
2) The Prophet will recognize his Ummah from their traces of Wudu
Abu Hurayrah reported: The Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam) went to the (Baqi`) cemetery and said, “May you be secured from punishment, O dwellers of abode of the believers! We, if Allah wills, will follow you. I wish we see my brothers.” The Companions said, “O Messenger of Allah! Are not we your brothers?” He said, “You are my Companions, but my brothers are those who have not come into the world yet.” They said; “O Messenger of Allah! How will you recognize those of your Ummah who are not born yet?” He said, “Say, if a man has white-footed horses with white foreheads among horses which are pure black, will he not recognize his own horses?” They said; “Certainly, O Messenger of Allah!” He said, “They (my followers) will come with bright faces and white limbs because of Wudu; and I will arrive at the Haud (Al-Kauthar) ahead of them.” [Muslim]
3) The Believers will be recognized by their traces of Wudu on the Day of Judgment
“On the Day of Resurrection, my followers will be summoned ‘Al-Ghurr Al-Muhajjalun‘ from the traces of Wudu’.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] This name is explained as:
“The word “Ghurr” is the plural of “Agharr” which means shining or white. It is used for animals (like a horse), i.e., a white mark on its face. Here, it refers to that radiance which will issue from the brows of the believers on the Day of Resurrection and which will make them prominent. Muhajjalun is from Tahjil which also means whiteness but it is used for that whiteness which is found on all the four or at least on three legs of a horse. Here, it refers to that light which will shine through the hands and feet of the believers because of their habit of performing Wudu. This means that the believers among the Muslims will be distinguished from other communities by virtue of the radiance issuing from their faces, hands and feet on the Day of Resurrection in the same way that a horse with a white forehead is easily distinguised from other horses.”
4) Wudu is a radiance and the Believers are encouraged to increase in it.
Abu Hurayrah (radi Allahu anhu) said, “Whoever can increase the area of his radiance should do so.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]
5) An Angel will seek forgiveness for you
It is narrated from ibn Umar that the Messenger of Allah said, “Purify these bodies, and Allah will purify you. Whenever a slave sleeps in a state of purification, an angel sleeps within his hair and he does not turn over during the night except that he [the angel] says: O Allah, forgive Your slave, for he went to sleep purified.” [at-Tabarani and graded “good” by Sh Al-Albani]
6) The adornment of a Believer in Jannah will reach up to where the water reached his body.
“The adornment of the believer (in Jannah) will reach the places where the water of Wudu reaches (his body).” [Muslim]
7) Saying the supplication after wudu is a means of entering Jannah
“Whoever of you performs Wudu carefully and then affirms: `Ash-hadu an la ilaha illallahu Wahdahu la sharika Lahu, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan `abduhu wa Rasuluhu [I testify that there so no true god except Allah Alone, Who has no partners and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger],’ the eight gates of Jannah are opened for him. He may enter through whichever of these gates he desires (to enter).” [Muslim]
8 ) Preserving wudu is a sign of emaan
“… and no one preservers their wudu except a Believer.” [Ibn Maajah, Authentic according to Sh. Al-Albani]
9) Performing Wudu in hardship effaces the |
America. The Fish and Wildlife Service published a document in 2014 which asserted that a newly recognized species called the eastern wolf occupied the Great Lakes region and eastern states, not the gray wolf. Therefore, the original listing under the act was invalid, and the service recommended that the species (except for the Mexican gray wolf, which is the most endangered gray wolf in North America) should be removed from protection under the act. A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act may be made as early as this fall. In the new study, biologists analyzed the complete genomes of North American wolves — including the gray wolf, eastern wolf and red wolf — and coyotes. The researchers found that both the red wolf and eastern wolf are not distinct species, but instead are mixes of gray wolf and coyote. “The recently defined eastern wolf is just a gray wolf and coyote mix, with about 75 percent of its genome assigned to the gray wolf,” said senior author Robert Wayne, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “We found no evidence for an eastern wolf that has a separate evolutionary legacy. The gray wolf should keep its endangered species status and be preserved because the reason for removing it is incorrect. The gray wolf did live in the Great Lakes area and in the 29 eastern states.” Once common throughout North America and among the world’s most widespread mammals, the gray wolf is now extinct in much of the United States, Mexico and Western Europe, and lives mostly in wilderness and remote areas. Gray wolves still lives in the Great lakes area, but not in the eastern states. Apparently, the two species first mixed hundreds of years ago in the American South, resulting in a population that has become more coyote-like as gray wolves were slaughtered, Wayne said. The same process occurred more recently in the Great Lakes area, as wolves became rare and coyotes entered the region in the 1920s. The researchers analyzed the genomes of 12 pure gray wolves (from areas where there are no coyotes), three coyotes (from areas where there are no gray wolves), six eastern wolves (which the researchers call Great Lakes wolves) and three red wolves. There has been a substantial controversy over whether red wolves and eastern wolves are genetically distinct species. In their study, the researchers did not find a unique ancestry in either that could not be explained by inter-breeding between gray wolves and coyotes. “If you did this same experiment with humans — human genomes from Eurasia — you would find that one to four percent of the human genome has what looks like strange genomic elements from another species: Neanderthals,” Wayne said. “In red wolves and eastern wolves, we thought it might be at least 10 to 20 percent of the genome that could not be explained by ancestry from gray wolves and coyotes. However, we found just three to four percent, on average — similar to that found in individuals from the same species when compared to our small reference set.” Pure eastern wolves were thought to reside in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. The researchers studied two samples from Algonquin Provincial Park and found they were about 50 percent gray wolf, 50 percent coyote. Biologists mistakenly classified the offspring of gray wolves and coyotes as red wolves or eastern wolves, but the new genomic data suggest they are hybrids. “These gray wolf-coyote hybrids look distinct and were mistaken as a distinct species,” Wayne said. Eventually, after the extinction of gray wolves in the American south, the red wolves could mate only with one another and coyotes, and became increasingly coyote-like. Red wolves turn out to be about 25 percent gray wolf and 75 percent coyote, while the eastern wolf’s ancestry is approximately 75 percent gray wolf and 25 percent coyote, Wayne said. (Wayne’s research team published findings in the journal Nature in 1991 suggesting red wolves were a mixture of gray wolves and coyotes.) Although the red wolf, listed as an endangered species in 1973, is not a distinct species, Wayne believes it is worth conserving; it is the only repository of the gray wolf genes that existed in the American South, he said. The researchers analyzed SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) — tiny variations in a genetic sequence, and used sophisticated statistical approaches. In the more than two dozen genomes, they found 5.4 million differences in SNPs, a very large number. Wayne said the Endangered Species Act has been extremely effective. He adds, however, that when it was formulated in the 1970s, biologists thought species tended not to inter-breed with other species, and that if there were hybrids, they were not as fit. The scientific view has changed substantially since then. Inter-breeding in the wild is common and may even be beneficial, he said. The researchers believe the Endangered Species Act should be applied with more flexibility to allow protection of hybrids in some cases (it currently does not), and scientists have made several suggestions about how this might be done without a change in the law, Wayne said.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of California – Los Angeles. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
Bridgett M. Vonholdt, James A. Cahill, Zhenxin Fan, Ilan Gronau, Jacqueline Robinson, John P. Pollinger, Beth Shapiro, Jeff Wall and Robert K. Wayne. Whole-genome sequence analysis shows that two endemic species of North American wolf are admixtures of the coyote and gray wolf. Science Advances, 2016 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501714
Cite This Page:
University of California – Los Angeles. “Should the gray wolf keep its endangered species protection? New genomic research provides the scientific answer.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 July 2016..
http://www.livescience.com/55586-wolves-only-one-species.html
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The Gray Wolf Is The Only True King in The North
By Carli Velocci
http://gizmodo.com/the-gray-wolf-is-the-only-true-wolf-in-north-america-1784426738
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It turns out the United States has just one true species of wolf
OR7 yearling pup – Courtesy ODFW
Rachel Feltman
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/07/29/it-turns-out-the-united-states-has-just-one-true-species-of-wolf/
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Gray Wolf The Only Species Distinct To North America, Study Says
Alpha female with her pup NPS Alaska
By Mary Pascaline On 07/28/16 AT 7:33 AM
http://www.ibtimes.com/gray-wolf-only-species-distinct-north-america-study-says-2395516
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Gray wolf is the only pure wolf species in North America
Echo – Courtesy NPS
Submitted by Diana Bretting on Fri, 07/29/2016 – 21:52
http://perfscience.com/content/2144509-gray-wolf-only-pure-wolf-species-north-america
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RED WOLVES
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Posted in: gray wolf, biodiversity
All photos in this post are credited
You Tube: wwwAAASorg
Tags: gray wolf, eastern wolf a hybrid, ESA, DNA study gray wolf, red wolf, USFWS, Echo, OR7
AdvertisementsRepublicans and Democrats are engaged in a new round of blaming the media that is likely to intensify as the election comes closer.
According to Senate Democrats, reporters are too focused on ObamaCare.
According to Washington Republicans, they’re not focused enough on Democratic corruption at the state level.
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“You folks all want to ask about ObamaCare but the American people, most of them, are not directly affected by ObamaCare. They want to hear what we’re going to do for them,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said this week at as press conference touting his conference’s legislative priorities.
A day later, Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer Sean Michael SpicerFive political moments to watch for at the Oscars Sean Spicer joins 'Extra' as'special DC correspondent' White House spokeswoman leaving to join PR firm MORE turned his fire on the media, which he said was ignoring stories about Democratic state lawmakers recently charged with corruption.
If it was Republicans caught in corruption, Spicer said his phone would be ringing off the hook.
"Believe me, if all of these officials were Republican the RNC would be asked to comment on each one and whether the party would be able to recover – how this would affect 2016, the impact it would have on fundraising, etc, etc," he said before providing the number to the Democratic National Committee's office.
Prodding the press is nothing new.
Politicians and press secretaries routinely and often push back on journalists to try to influence future reporting, in the same way athletes "work the refs" to get a desired call.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gave a master's course in the practice of badgering the press during a long news conference on Friday in which he repeatedly confronted reporters on an individual basis.
But it’s a little unusual to see both sides start the game this early in the election year. The midterms remain more than seven months away, but with little attention being given to lawmaking, the focus is almost exclusively on gaining an advantage in November.
The technique will likely become more comment as the midterm elections roll closer and Republicans try to slice into the six-seat majority Democrats hold in the Senate.
Schumer said the media’s focus on ObamaCare isn’t matched by the public’s.
“I know the media is just focused on ObamaCare but that’s not what the public’s focused on. You look at all the surveys, ObamaCare comes out sixth, seventh, eighth,” he said.
It’s true that the healthcare law isn’t named as the most important issue by a majority of voters, but it’s hardly sixth or seventh.
In a Gallup poll earlier this month, 11 percent of people named healthcare as the most important problem facing the country. That trailed behind unemployment, government dissatisfaction and the economy in general.
Spicer argued that if Republicans were involved in the kinds of state corruption that has captured several Democrats, the headline in mainstream newspapers across the country would be “"Republicans in freefall amid bribery scandal."
Yet many of the Democrats in trouble are hardly household names for most people.
He specifically referenced Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon (D), who resigned Wednesday after his arrest for allegedly accepting bribes from undercover FBI agents; and California state Sen. Leland Yee (D), a candidate for secretary of state, who was arrested Wednesday on charges of corruption and conspiracy to illegally deal guns.
A number of prominent Democratic lawmakers in the state, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have called on him to resign.T he S un's V ital S tatistics The Sun is a rather commonplace celestial object. It is a star of ordinary dimensions and of ordinary brightness. But to observers on the Earth, the Sun remains an object of magnificent proportions. This fiery ball of superheated hydrogen and helium gases contains 99.9 percent of all matter in the Solar System, and a million Earths could fit inside the Sun, with room to spare. On this page, we present some of the Sun's vital statistics. We think that you might be impressed with our magnificent star too. Age At least 4.5 billion years, in present state. Distance Mean distance from Earth 1.5 X 10^8 km Variation in distance through the year +/- 1.5 percent Diameter 1.39 X 10^6 km (or 109 times the diameter of the Earth and 9.75 times the diameter of Jupiter) Volume 1.41 X 10^33 cm^3 (or 1.3 million times the volume of the Earth) Mass 1.99 X 10^30 kg (or 333,000 times the weight of the Earth) Magnetic Field Strengths (typical): Sunspots 3000 G Polar Field 1 G Bright, chromospheric network 25 G Emphemeral (unipolar) active regions 20 G Chromospheric plages 200 G Prominences 10 to 100 G Earth 0.7 G at pole Chemical composition of photosphere
(by weight, in percent): Hydrogen 73.46 Helium 24.85 Oxygen 0.77 Carbon 0.29 Iron 0.16 Neon 0.12 Nitrogen 0.09 Silicon 0.07 Magnesium 0.05 Sulfur 0.10 Density (water=1): Mean density of entire Sun 1.41 g/cm^3 Interior (center of the Sun) 160 g/cm^3 Surface (photosphere) 10^{-9} g/cm^3 Chromosphere 10^{-12} g/cm^3 Low corona 10^{-16} g/cm^3 Sea level atmosphere of Earth 10^{-3} g/cm^3 Solar radiation: Entire Sun 3.83 X 10^23 kW Unit area of surface of Sun 6.29 X 10^4 kW/m^2 Received at top of Earth's atmosphere 0.136 W/cm^2 Surface brightness of the Sun (photosphere): Compared to full Moon 398,000 times Compared to inner corona 300,000 times Compared to outer corona 10^10 times Compared to daytime sky on Pikes Peak 100,000 times Compared to daytime sky at Orange, NJ 1000 times Temperature: Interior (center) 15,000,000 K Surface (effective) of Sun 5800 K Sunspot umbra (typical) 4240 K Penumbra (typical) 5680 K Chromosphere 4300 to 50,000 K Corona 800,000 to 3,000,000 K Rotation (as seen from the Earth): Of solar equator 26.8 days At solar latitude 30 deg 28.2 days At solar latitude 60 deg 30.8 days At solar latitude 75 deg 31.8 days Source of these numbers are from the book: A New Sun: The Solar Results From Skylab, by John Eddy, NASA SP-402, 1979, page 37. The effective solar temperature came from Lang's Astrophysical Quantities, pg. 162, 1964. Another Internet site with a smaller "stats" table, but a nice overview of the important features of the Sun, can be found at Calvin Hamilton's Views of the Solar System: Sun. Home · Request Solar Posters · Site Map · Glossary · About Us · Contact Us ©2008 by Stanford SOLAR Center · Permitted Uses · CreditsOne, two, three shotguns blasts and the most dangerous robot is junk. I teleport behind the two already shooting at me, grabbing my revolvers from my hips. As they fall, I turn to look at the newcomer already firing. I grab a bullet mid-air and fling it back at him, then teleport to the other side of the street. I take another shotgun from my back and prepare for the next wave.
Robo Recall is the latest free release for Oculus Touch, this one a collaboration between Oculus Studios and Epic Games, the company behind the ubiquitous Unreal Engine, Gears of War, and Unreal Tournament. Robo Recall has been presaged by Epic’s Showdown and Bullet Train demos, but now the full results of the company’s labor have arrived.
The First Person Shooter (FPS) is one of the most revered genres of PC gaming, but it is probably the hardest to do well in VR. Most traditional FPS games move you at a pace that will make most people absolutely sick in VR. And aiming with a crosshair inside an HMD via mouse or Xbox controller isn’t very intuitive, but the arrival of motion controllers like the Vive wands and Oculus Touch banishes that limitation.
In Robo Recall, you are Agent 34 of the Robo Ready corporation. Your task is to “recall” robots that are out of control in the city, slowly uncovering that the seemingly random malfunctions are the work of an AI named Odin. Through three levels divided into nine total missions you will face him and his mechanical minions.
But is your duty as a Recall agent any fun? Well, how could teleporting around and destroying robots be anything but fun? You point with a Touch controller, gesturing with both your arm and the analog stick, painting a spot with a target. When you let go of the analog stick, you teleport there. Time is temporarily slowed, allowing you to shoot enemies leaping through the air or running at you. Just grab guns from your back or your hips and start firing away.
Waves of robots come in a variety of types with different weapons. So you are hopping around to dodge attacks, get better angles on enemies, or get away from being surrounded. And you shoot in response, managing the use of your four weapons, always balancing out the ammo so that you aren’t stuck waiting there while an empty gun is still being respawned.
If you are weaponless, you can get close and grab enemies from certain points indicated by white circles. Rather than holding the Touch’s grip button like when you hold a weapon, you press the button to hold the robot. Then you can even use the other hand to grab another part of the bot and tear it in two. Ripping your arms about in those instances is incredibly satisfying. You can also grab a robot’s guns to use against them.
The moments of just teleporting around and dispatching enemies are interrupted by Time Trials to destroy a certain amount in two minutes or capture a particular number of robots by grabbing them and throwing them into an energy funnel that will teleport them away. Other times you might defend a relay for two minutes by killing all the enemies that try to attack it. And there are of course boss battles to survive.
If the frantic turning and teleporting, weapon juggling and bullet throwing overwhelms you, you will take damage. If not enough time passes for your life to regenerate, the screen turns red and you’re dead. After a 10% respawn fee you are immediately back in the action.
This is a minor setback, except that loss of points might cost you. As you make kills, you earn points. Do more stylish things like headshots, juggles, and simultaneous kills, and you get more points. The more points you get on levels, the more stars you earn. Hitting certain thresholds of stars will unlock new weapons or upgrades for the weapons you already have, such as laser sights, bigger ammo magazines, and more.
Each level also has a variety of challenges that earn you additional stars. Kill 10 robots by ripping them apart or only use scavenged weapons for a whole mission. And after finishing all of the challenges in a level, you unlock All-Star mode for it, where the difficulty of the game is kicked up a notch. There are leaderboards so you can compare how your score in each mission or All-Star version of it compares to the rest of your friends’ or the world’s.
These challenges and leaderboards, after beating the game’s 9 missions gives you a slight reason to go back and play Robo Recall again. Completionists will find getting all the stars difficult, but it is impressive to see the guns evolve into more and more lethal weapons. And it does help to have an excuse to jump back into a mission from the beginning of the game long after you have defeated Odin.
But this replayability also points to the game’s biggest flaw: repetition. The nine levels aren’t really that different, except for a handful of new enemies that come up and the boss fights on every third level. That is a nearly identical bossfight in missions 1-3, 2-3, and 3-3. And within the levels you are either shooting freely, shooting within a time limit, capturing within a time limit, or fighting the boss. More variety would be appreciated. There is mod support available for users to tinker with, but who knows how much variety that will really bring over time — it’s up to the community.
Final Score: 7.5/10 – Very Good
Robo Recall has solid graphics and fun gameplay. As a free title for Oculus Touch it is more than worthwhile to give the game a go. Those frantic moments of shooting action are so thrilling that you are just swept up in it. But after several instances of such moments, the thrill dies and the barebones story and light humor doesn’t elevate the game enough in a meaningful way. You may not have the endurance to keep playing to beat your highscores, earn more stars, and upgrade your weapons — enabling you to beat your highscores and begin the process all over again. But even if you aren’t in the game for the long haul, the initial trip of ~3 hours is quite a ride worth taking.
Robo Recall will be available for free on Oculus Home to all Oculus Touch owners as of today. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Tagged with: Epic Games, oculus rift, robo recall, touchMay not be indicative of real world performance.
The Tamo Racemo is the first Indian sports car to be inducted to Microsoft's Forza Horizon 3 right from the day it was unveiled at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show. It gives gamers the opportunity to virtually experience Tata's first production sports car way before it hits the market.
A Youtube user by the name 'Ericship 111' has decided to virtually conduct a drag race between the Tamo Racemo and the Toyota GT 86. Both are entry-level 2-door sports cars from their respective manufacturers, although the Racemo is a mid-engined 1.2L turbocharged 3-cyl engine, while the GT 86 is powered by a 2.0l 4-cyl boxer engine placed in the front.
In the virtual drag race, the Tamo Racemo's acceleration from standstill is quicker than that of the Toyota GT 86, which is capable of sprinting from 0-100 km/h in 7.6 seconds. However, the GT 86 managed to overtake the Racemo with a higher top speed, which might have to do with the Racemo's 13 PS deficit.
Also Read: Tata Tigor starts arriving at dealerships ahead of March 29 launch
Note that its virtual performance may not be indicative of real world performance, although Tata representatives have told us that the performance in both mediums are similar.Micromax Yu has been making waves on the Indian smartphone world, and they have been teasing their first device on their Facebook page and has been conducting many competitions and contests on their official forum. All this teasing and competition has given the device much anticipation. But, just before the announcing, the device is leaked/spotted!
When the Micromax Yu was announced, I thought that they will go in a different direction by designing a phone by itself, instead of just re-branding a Chinese phone. But it looks like Micromax has done it again, Micromax Yu phone is just a re-branded version of Coolpad F2. Just check out these images, the left side of the image is the purported images teased by Micromax and on the right side is the Coolpad F2. Check out the similarities for yourselves:
More about Coolpad F2:
It is also known by the name Coolpad Great God F2. There are actually two models of Coolpad F2, one powered by a MediaTek 1.7Ghz MT6592 octacore SoC and the one powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor (This one is not confirmed, but the SD 615 version is listed in some Chinese online sites). The latter will be the one launching as Micromax Yu, as it coincides with other rumors about Yu, all of which said the device will carry a 64 bit processor.
It can also be said the the Yu phone will carry a MT6795 SoC, as the MT6595 has pin-to-pin compatibility with each other, and also that MT6795 is a true octa core 64 bit SoC. That’s because Micromax have been teasing super slow-mo videos, which is capable by MT6795 right now. For now, we can confirm other specifications, see the list below.
Specifications:
[table id=yucoolpadf2 /]
Update : The Micromax Yu has been revealed and as we spotted, this was indeed Coolpad F2 and it uses the Snapdragon 615 64 bit processor.
More Pictures:
UPDATE: Amazon just posted a page for Micromax Yu, indicating that this phone will be an Amazon exclusive, just like One Plus One!
Thanks to my friends Siddhant Talwar and Ashutos Jain, who found out this similarity between Micromax Yu’s teaser images and Coolpad F2, Ashutos is the one who made the comparison image!
Also check out :
If you liked this post, Share this and support us! Also, if you have anything more to add to this story, don’t hesitate to comment, we love to hear your opinion on this!
Disclaimer : These are all rumors and might not actually point to the actual device specifications or device (Or may be it will!).
Image Sources : Ashutos Jain, Coolpad website, GizChina, China-Review
Also : Mohammed Imran and THE_NAMELESS (both from Yu forums)Square Enix Is Giving Away Chaos Rings For Vita/PSM For Free In Japan
By Spencer. October 10, 2014. 2:09am
While the Chaos Rings series started on iOS, Square Enix is planning to publish the third entry as a retail Vita game alongside a smartphone release. To get Vita owners up to speed, Chaos Rings for PlayStation Mobile will be a free download between October 16 to October 21. The PlayStation Mobile version can be played on a Vita as well as certain Xperia smartphones.
As of now, this promotion will only be for Japan. Square Enix has not said if they will extend this to other regions and have not confirmed a Western release for Chaos Rings III on Vita.
Chaos Rings III: Prequel Trilogy comes out October 16. In addition to Chaos Rings III, this includes Chaos Rings, Chaos Rings II, and Chaos Rings Omega.
Chaos Rings III: Prequel Trilogy is aYemenis gather around the bodies of two men killed in an air-strike by the Saudi-led coalition on the capital Sanaa on July 13, 2015 (AFP Photo/Mohammed Huwais)
Sanaa (AFP) - The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday it was "extremely concerned" by a growing number of corpses being abandoned in the war zones of Yemen.
"With the escalation of the fighting, more casualties are being left behind owing to the increased danger associated with retrieving the wounded and the dead," said Nourane Houas, head of the ICRC's Protection Department in war-ravaged Yemen.
"International humanitarian law requires that dead bodies be treated properly and with respect," the ICRC said in a statement.
Houas urged all sides in the conflict "to respect the dignity of the dead and to allow their swift recovery, while taking all feasible measures to ensure their proper identification and their handover to the families".
Under Islam, the predominant religion in Yemen, the dead should be buried the same day whenever possible.
"Failure to identify the dead puts them in the ranks of the missing, and prevents the families from mourning," said Houas.
The ICRC said it has helped retrieve more than 407 dead bodies since March.
Fighting has intensified since that month after Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies entered President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's last refuge, the southern port city of Aden.
Hadi fled the country and on March 26, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab states in carrying out air strikes against rebel positions across Yemen.
The World Health Organization says the conflict had claimed 4,345 lives from March up until August 5.
Half of those killed are civilians, and 80 percent of Yemen's 21 million people need aid and protection, according to UN figures.To the Editor:
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 19801 thanks to the use of the vaccine initially developed by Edward Jenner in 1798.2 Since that time, it has generally been assumed that the smallpox vaccine is based on cowpox virus, even though it has been known since the late 1930s that the virus that is used to immunize against smallpox, now referred to as vaccinia, differs from cowpox virus. The true origin of vaccinia virus is unknown, and it is usually described as a laboratory virus without a known natural host. Smallpox vaccines from many different sources were used until 1967, when the World Health Organization standardized four vaccinia strains that were widely used in the global smallpox eradication effort, although other vaccines were also used.1
Figure 1. Figure 1. Mulford 1902 Smallpox Vaccine. Panel A shows the original wooden and glass containers that held the capillaries with the Mulford 1902 smallpox vaccine. Panel B shows a sequence-similarity plot for the Mulford 1902 vaccine virus as compared with its closest relative, horsepox virus. The gray line is a plot of the percentage similarity between the genomes of the Mulford 1902 smallpox vaccine virus and horsepox virus (GenBank accession number, DQ792504.1), with shading beneath the line used to highlight the degree of similarity. We selected horsepox virus as the closest relative on the basis of the core genome, defined as the region between and including the genes F9L and A24R (vaccinia virus Copenhagen genome annotation, GenBank accession number, M35027.1) and indicated with darker gray shading. The unique vaccinia deletions of 10.7 kb on the left and 5.5 kb on the right in the Mulford 1902 vaccine, which are not seen in horsepox virus sequence, are shown in red.
We analyzed a smallpox vaccine manufactured for use by the end of 1902 by the Philadelphia company H.K. Mulford, which merged with Sharpe and Dohme in 1929 (Figure 1A). (Because the vaccines of this time had a maximum shelf life of 6 months, we assume that the vaccine was also produced in 1902.) DNA extracted from the glycerinated vaccine was subjected to whole-genome amplification with the use of the TruSeq Nano DNA library preparation kit and was subsequently sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq instrument; the sequence was then assembled into a genome (GenBank accession number, MF477237; 196,464 bp) with the use of the bioinformatics tool SPAdes Genome Assembler. Phylogenetic analyses were based on the alignment of 65 relevant full-genome orthopoxvirus sequences with the use of MAFFT software, version 7.205.
Genomic and phylogenetic analysis revealed that the core genome of the virus in this vial of the Mulford 1902 vaccine has the highest degree of similarity (99.7%) to horsepox virus (Figure 1B). Curiously, the deletions found at each end of the sequence of this Mulford 1902 smallpox vaccine strain are also found in current vaccinia virus but not in cowpox or horsepox virus. The Mulford 1902 vaccine clustered with horsepox virus regardless of the algorithm used to determine phylogenetic relationships.3
The results of our analysis of this 1902 smallpox vaccine provide evidence of the suspected role of horsepox in the origin of the smallpox vaccine,4 a role that was suspected even by Jenner himself.2 In fact, during the 19th century, inocula derived from cowpox or horsepox were used interchangeably to immunize against smallpox. The origin of the Mulford 1902 vaccine stock is unknown, but it was probably obtained from Europe, because horsepox was absent from the Americas.5 The identification of a link between 19th-century and modern smallpox vaccines strengthens the hypothesis that the horsepox virus may be the ancestor of the vaccinia lineage.4
Livia Schrick, Ph.D.
Simon H. Tausch, M.Sc.
P. Wojciech Dabrowski, Ph.D.
Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany
Clarissa R. Damaso, Ph.D.
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
José Esparza, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Andreas Nitsche, Ph.D.
Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany
[email protected]
Supported by the German Ministry of Health and by research fellowships (to Dr. Damaso) from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)/Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ). Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org.Call of Duty: Vegetation compared (picture: PCGH, Jay.Gee) Quelle: http://www.pcgameshardware.de, Jay.Gee The original and thus first part of Call of Duty was released in late 2003 and utilized an engine that once was the basis for an id Software shooter in 1999. But back then heavily modified code enabled up-to-date graphics in extensive outdoor levels and some pixel shading for improving water surfaces.
Call of Duty 2 hit the market about two years later. The distinctive features this time: Call of Duty 2 takes place in World War II and utilizes a self developed engine that massively used DX9 features to create the possibly most realistic visualization back in 2005. Even with today's standards the game is still looking very good.
Part 3 had been for the consoles exclusively and thus the transfer to modern battlefields came to the PC in November 2007. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare offered high-tech weapons, night vision sight and helicopters: The rest was, despite the graphics, still the same: Shooting and bombing with a squad. Visually the title is up-to-date, but can't outrun its predecessors in certain situations. Here the rule of marginal profit comes into effect: Every little bit of visual improvement costs a lot of performance.
The development of the CoD series is continued with Call of Duty 5 World at War, but the origin is still obvious. New effects deliver very good graphics and the visualization of the ocean or the flames are really impressive.
So that you can get an impression of the evolution, we put some significant screenshots into the picture gallery. We compare vegetation, fire and explosions, weapon models and NPCs. Have fun.
Would you like to see more comparisons between the parts of any game series? Just give your opinion in the comments.
Reklame: Call of Duty Call of Duty jetzt bei Amazon bestellen4th Annual Nashville Veg Fest
Are you ready for the 4th Annual Veg Fest on April 6th, 2019?
Purchase Tickets Online – Click Here
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 3rd Annual VegFest in 2018 at the Nashville Fairgrounds. We can’t wait to see you again at the next Nashville Veg Fest!
We are promoting a plant based, healthy, cruelty free lifestyle.
This lifestyle is our passion. We wake up everyday so excited with life, full of energy, wanting to spread the message about this lifestyle. We encourage sustainability and minimal environmental impact.
We are still working hard to bring you the best local, regional, and national exhibitors! The VegFest will also feature several prominent guest speakers from this lifestyle.
Please check back here and be sure to LIKE our Facebook page for updates and news. This was and continues to be a huge event for everyone not only in Nashville and the state of Tennessee, but surrounding areas.
Please help spread the word about the many “veg fests” around the country that support a healthy and cruelty free lifestyle!When it comes to Republican Donald Trump repeated attacks about her husband's sex life, Hillary Clinton has one message for Donald Trump: "Didn't work before, won't work again."
Trump has spent weeks attacking former President Bill Clinton on the campaign trail, calling him "one of the great abusers of the world" and comparing him to Bill Cosby, who is facing sexual assault allegations.
"If he wants to engage in personal attacks from the past, that's his prerogative," she said. "I'm going to draw the distinctions between where I stand and where he stands," especially on issues like equal pay and the minimum wage.
"He can say whatever he wants to about me. Let the voters judge that, but I am not going to let him or any of the other Republicans rip away the progress that women have made," Clinton said. "It's been too hard fought for and I'm going to stand up and make it clear there's a huge difference between us."
Even some Democrats say that part of her husband's career is fair game, moderator John Dickerson pointed out. Clinton said Republicans can try it again if they want, but it "didn't work before, won't work again."
"I can't run anybody else's campaign. They can say whatever they want, more power to them," she said. "I think it's a dead end, blind alley for them but let 'em go."
Hillary Clinton on emails: “There was no transmission of classified information”
Clinton also addressed questions over the latest questions over her email practices and said she never sent classified information over private email server while serving as secretary of state, even though a newly-released email shows her instructing an aide on how to send talking points through a non-secure system.
"As the State Department said just this week that did not happen and it never would have happened because that's just not the way I treated classified information," Clinton said Sunday in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation."
The Democratic presidential candidate has repeatedly insisted that no classified information was sent or received through her private email server. But in one email exchange between Clinton and staffer Jake Sullivan from June 17, 2011, Clinton advised Sullivan to send a set of talking points by email when he had trouble sending them through secure means.
Part of the exchange is redacted, so the context of the emails is unknown. After Sullivan that aides were having "issues" sending the emails through secure fax, Clinton responded, "If they can't, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."
Full interview: Hillary Clinton, January 10
It's unclear whether the talking points themselves contained classified information. Typically, talking points are used for unclassified purposes (e.g. speaking with the media). But in some cases, the material contained in such memos may still be sensitive -- especially if the report originates from intelligence agencies.
Clinton said in the interview that this was "common practice." While she would have to wait |
is to ignore reality. Even had Baghdad not violated its own constitution so egregiously, the constitution itself does not allow Baghdad to interfere in the referendum. According to Professor Branden O’Leary, Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, “By virtue of the conjunction of Articles 141, 110, 115 and 121 (2) (of the Iraqi constitution) it is entirely lawful and constitutional for Kurdistan to hold a referendum on any subject it pleases.”Regardless of the legal arguments and diplomatic work, it is unlikely that Kurdistan will have the pleasure of a Czechoslovakian style “velvet” divorce. To what degree Baghdad is willing to try to use force to retain the Kurdish region is unknown. Another fear is to what degree Turkey and Iran are willing to go to stop Kurdish independence.The actual actions others may take will be dependent on the actions of the western nations. The statement by US Special Presidential Envoy for Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Brett McGurk, that the referendum is “not something that we can support” must be taken with a large grain of salt as McGurk is not likely empowered to make such pronouncements. It must be pointed out to McGurk that such statements are counterproductive and will lead to the problems he supposedly is there to stop.The second part of “What Happens on September 26th” is what form of government the new Kurdistan will adopt. The current Kurdistan Regional Government is a good place to start, however over the years some objections have arisen. To understand as well, the KRG does not have a constitution. The constitution that was written is only a draft as it was never ratified. The new Kurdish government will have an opportunity to start fresh and move forward. Some of the concerns are valid some are not. A political consideration that has been raised in the past is to change the way the president is elected. Currently it is by direct election of the people, some want to change that to parliamentary appointment.President Barzani has also indicated that the new Kurdistan will be a federalist system with much power devolved to the governates. This is a tricky problem and can work, provided enough power is retained in the central government or it can be a disaster if there is no clear authority between the various localities. For clarity on this I suggest the reader study the United States under the Articles of Confederation.A new constitution can help define the new government and should be worked on primarily with Kurds and limited assistance from the outside. This government must be Kurdish in mind, body and soul to work. The best-intentioned outsider will not fully understand the culture and needs of the population.I hope that when September 26th comes a new day will dawn and a new country will be born. It will take work and solidarity and a little luck, but it can and will happen.
Paul Davis is a retired US Army military intelligence and former Soviet analyst. He is a consultant to the American intelligence community specializing in the Middle East with a concentration on Kurdish affairs. Currently he is the president of the consulting firm JANUS Think in Washington D.C.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.With the death of writer Christopher Hitchens and the withdrawal of Sam Harris, author of “The End of Faith,” from the front lines into a study of morality and neuroscience, the American atheist movement has a void at the top.
A decade ago, atheists were brave, fierce warriors bent on battling conventional wisdom and easy piety. These days, it seems, atheists are petty and small-minded ideologues who regard every expression of public religiosity as a personal affront – not to mention a possible violation of the First Amendment and a sign of rampant idiocy among their fellow citizens.
Last week, such atheist hysteria reached a peak when Tom Flynn, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, publicly overreacted to remarks made at a news conference by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. In speaking about the devastating drought facing farmers in the Midwest, the worst in 25 years, Vilsack, who was raised a Roman Catholic, struck a tone both emphatic and personal.
“I get on my knees every day,” he said, “and I’m saying an extra prayer right now. If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance, I would do it.”
Flynn came out swinging churlishly. About Vilsack’s statement, he said, “That’s not just government entangling itself with religion, that’s government publicly practicing it, and wallowing in superstition.” Besides, he added (rather meanly), prayer doesn’t work.
The jury may be out on the efficacy of prayer, but on the question of whether the USDA chief has violated the First Amendment, Flynn is entirely wrong. Vilsack did not say he had ceased doing his day job and was collecting his government salary while devoting himself to prayer. He did not suggest using taxpayer dollars to set up an altar to the rain gods outside USDA headquarters on Independence Avenue SW, nor did he – as Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) did last year – use his authority to declare a national day of prayer for rain. Vilsack merely said that, in light of the vast consequences of the drought on human life, he was moved to prayer. And that he wished he had more, or better, prayers to alleviate the suffering of so many.
“If a leader wants to say he’s praying for help, there’s nothing in the Constitution that makes it inappropriate,” said David Beckmann, a Lutheran pastor and president of the hunger advocacy organization Bread for the World.
Beckmann added that he’s praying as well — not just for American farmers but also, and especially, for poor people around the world who need the fruits of those farms to live and who might not be able to afford the price increases that will inevitably result from food shortages. For his part, Vilsack declined to comment further.
Vilsack and Beckmann (and Perry, for that matter) are hardly the first humans on the planet to pray to God for that life-giving substance, rain. The God of the Hebrew Bible is a cousin, historically, of the Canaanite deity Baal, a sky god who controlled the weather, especially rain. When in the First Book of Kings, Elijah proposes a competition between Baal and the God of Abraham, God wins when he shoots fire down to earth, causing the assembled party to fall on their faces. In celebration of his victory, God makes the sky “black with clouds and winds, and there was a great rain.”
Rain prayers are especially potent among desert dwellers; in the arid Southwest, Native Americans have for thousands of years made prayers, songs and dances for rain, and they continue to do so today.
“Thence throw you misty water,” goes the “Rain Magic Song” of the Pueblo Indians, “all round about us here.”
Before they make such supplications, said Tony Chavarria, curator of ethnology at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, N.M., Pueblo Indians are taught to “look within yourself, your community to see what needs to be repaired, what you can to make yourself and your community a more balanced place so the deities will be more willing to convey that blessing.”
In addition to the small tempest they made over the Vilsack comment, atheists have also, in recent days, reflexively whined about a tweet from Pastor Rick Warren’s office (which they mistakenly thought was anti-evolution when it was really anti-premarital sex) and have questioned the appropriateness of President Obama’s prayers for the families of the victims of the mass shooting in Colorado. In the non-believing community, a search for inward balance might, it seems, be in order.On Monday, Apple unveiled iCloud, a new service for remote storage of user data. Some people, including our own Jon Stokes, are skeptical of Apple's chances of getting iCloud to work at scale. And history seems to be on their side. iCloud is at least Apple's fourth attempt to create a viable cloud computing service. The previous incarnations included iTools in 2000,.Mac in 2002, and MobileMe in 2008. As Fortune wrote about MobileMe a few weeks ago, "MobileMe was a dud. Users complained about lost e-mails, and syncing was spotty at best." iTools and.Mac were not exactly resounding successes either.
Apple's perennial difficulty with creating scalable online services is not a coincidence. Apple has a corporate culture that emphasizes centralized, designer-led product development. This process has produced user-friendly devices that are the envy of the tech world. But developing fast, reliable online services requires a more decentralized, engineering-driven corporate culture like that found at Google.
Designers in Charge
Apple has always been primarily a user interface company. A good UI has a minimal set of consistent, well-designed interface elements that economize on the user's scarce attention and take advantage of her muscle memory. The first iPod, for example, wasn't a major breakthrough from a technological perspective (indeed, a lot of commentators sneered at it when it was released), but the experience of using it was vastly superior to other music players on the market at the time. Removing unnecessary features can be more important than adding new ones. Steve Jobs's obsession with removing clutter can be seen in the one-button iPhone, the no-button MacBook trackpad, and the aggressive removal of outdated Mac ports.
Good UI design establishes a consistent visual vocabulary that's used across the product line. Apple uses concepts like column view, a blue circle to mark "new items," and a pentagonal "back" button across iPhone and Mac applications. And it aggressively enforces its UI guidelines on third-party applications.
Apple's UI successes are made possible by its designer-centric corporate culture. Former Apple CEO John Sculley has described designers as the most influential people in Apple's product development process. Centralizing control over product development in the hands of a single designer enables Apple to consistently produce beautiful, user-friendly products.
Google's scalable culture
But this same centralized, designer-driven culture can be a serious weakness when building scalable network services. A good way to illustrate this is to contrast Apple's culture to the dramatically different culture at Google. Google's flagship product barely has a user interface at all. A search engine comes close to the programmer's ideal of a mathematical function: it takes a text string as input and produces a list of URLs as output. When Google entered the market, it didn't even try to distinguish itself from early competitors based on its UI.
Instead, Google distinguished itself by the breadth of its index and the speed and relevance of its results. The success of the search engine, and many of its later products, was largely due to Google's obsession with scalability. And Google's structure and corporate culture are optimized for building scalable systems. Google is organized into small, autonomous teams of engineers who are empowered to make decisions with minimal oversight. Google managers are given dozens of subordinates, which prevents them from micromanaging even if they want to.
Rather than having intimate knowledge of what their subordinates are doing, Google executives rely on quantitative measurements to evaluate the company's performance. The company keeps statistics on everything—page load times, downtime rates, click-through rates, etc—and works obsessively to improve these figures. The obsession with data-driven management extends even to the famous free snacks, which are chosen based on careful analysis of usage patterns and survey results.
This decentralized, data-driven management philosophy often produces cluttered, mediocre user interfaces because there's often no one with the authority to impose a single UI vision on the entire product. But it makes Google adept at building and maintaining the complex infrastructure necessary to offer fast and reliable online services. Getting cloud services to work at scale requires careful attention to thousands of technical details—far too many for any single person to understand or even be aware of.
Improvisation is also crucial. No amount of prelaunch testing will reveal that a network service has scaling problems, because only millions of actual users will push the system to its limits. So engineers frequently have to improvise, making rapid adjustments as usage grows and performance bottlenecks are discovered. Rank-and-file Googlers need to fix problems in their own corner of the Googleplex before anyone else in the company (or the world) even notice them. The company's bottom-up structure gives them the freedom and the resources to do that.
Fourth time's a charm?
In contrast, Apple relies heavily on prerelease testing to make sure its products are perfect when they leave the factory. That works well for iPads and MacBooks, but it's impossible for a networked service. No manager can know enough about a complex online service to fully vet it for flaws. And no amount of internal testing can replicate the experience of having millions of users actually using the product.
Corporate culture matters, and it changes very slowly. Every company is good at some things and not others. Apple is much better at building user-friendly devices than Google, while Google is much better at building scalable network services. The competition between them for dominance of the mobile OS market may ultimately turn on which of these skills proves more valuable to consumers.
Steve Jobs is apparently hoping that iCloud will break Apple's losing streak on building cloud-based devices, and he's hoping that the tens of millions of dollars the company has poured into its gigantic new data center in North Carolina will make the difference this time. But he may be stuck with the strengths and weaknesses of the company he has built over the last 35 years. We wish him well, but we won't be surprised to see stories in the coming months about iCloud having performance and reliability issues.Majid Khan, who underwent ‘enhanced interrogation’, says authorities poured ice water on his genitals and hung him naked from a beam for days
The US Central Intelligence Agency used a wider array of sexual abuse and other forms of torture than was disclosed in a Senate report last year, according to a Guantánamo Bay detainee turned government cooperating witness.
Rectal rehydration and broken limbs: the grisliest findings in the CIA torture report Read more
Majid Khan said interrogators poured ice water on his genitals, twice videotaped him naked and repeatedly touched his “private parts” – none of which was described in the Senate report. Interrogators, some of whom smelled of alcohol, also threatened to beat him with a hammer, baseball bats, sticks and leather belts, Khan said.
Khan’s is the first publicly released account from a high-value al-Qaida detainee who experienced the “enhanced interrogation techniques” of President George W Bush’s administration after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
Khan’s account is contained in 27 pages of interview notes his lawyers compiled over the past seven years. The US government cleared the notes for release last month through a formal review process.
Before the Senate report detailed the agency’s interrogation methods last December, CIA officials prohibited detainees and their lawyers from publicly describing interrogation sessions, deeming detainees’ memories of the experience classified.
Khan’s detailed allegations of torture could not be independently confirmed. CIA officials have said they believed Khan repeatedly lied to them during interrogations.
The 35-year-old Khan, a Pakistani citizen who attended high school in Maryland, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in 2012 to conspiracy, material support, murder and spying charges. In exchange for serving as a government witness, Khan will be sentenced to up to 19 years in prison, with the term beginning on the date of his guilty plea.
Khan confessed to delivering $50,000 to al-Qaida operatives in Indonesia. That money was later used to carry out the 2003 truck bombing of a Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 11 people and wounded at least 80 others. Khan also confessed to plotting with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to poison water supplies, blow up gas stations and serve as a “sleeper agent” for al-Qaida in the United States.
Khan was captured in Pakistan and held at an unidentified CIA “black site” from 2003 to 2006, according to the Senate report. Khan’s lawyers declined to comment on where he was captured or held, which they said remained classified.
In the interviews with his lawyers, Khan described a carnival-like atmosphere of abuse when he arrived at the CIA detention facility.
“I wished they had killed me,” Khan told his lawyers. He said that he experienced excruciating pain when hung naked from poles and that guards repeatedly held his head under ice water.
“‘Son, we are going to take care of you,’” Khan said his interrogators told him. “‘We are going to send you to a place you cannot imagine.’”
Current and former CIA officials declined to comment on Khan’s account.
Khan’s description of his experience matches some of the most disturbing findings of the US Senate report, the product of a five-year review by Democratic staffers of 6.3m internal CIA documents. CIA officials and many Republicans dismissed the report’s findings as exaggerated.
Years before the report was released, Khan complained to his lawyers that he had been subjected to forced rectal feedings. Senate investigators found internal CIA documents confirming that Khan had received involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration. In an incident widely reported in news media after the release of the Senate investigation, CIA cables showed that “Khan’s ‘lunch tray’, consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was ‘pureed’ and rectally infused”.
The CIA maintains that rectal feedings were necessary after Khan went on a hunger strike and pulled out a feeding tube that had been inserted through his nose. Senate investigators said Khan was cooperative and did not remove the feeding tube.
Most medical experts say rectal feeding is of no therapeutic value. His lawyers call it rape.
Khan told his lawyers that some of the worst torture occurred in a May 2003 interrogation session, when guards stripped him naked, hung him from a wooden beam for three days and provided him with water but no food. The only time he was removed from the beam was on the afternoon of the first day, when interrogators shackled him, placed a hood over his head and lowered him into a tub of ice water.
Majid Khan is pictured in this 2009 handout photograph taken at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Handout/Reuters
An interrogator then forced Khan’s head underwater until he feared he would drown. The questioner pulled Khan’s head out of the water, demanded answers to questions and again dunked his head underwater, the detainee said. Guards also poured water and ice from a bucket on to Khan’s mouth and nose.
Khan was again hung on the pole hooded and naked. Every two to three hours, interrogators hurled ice water on his body and set up a fan to blow air on him, depriving him of sleep, he said. Once, after hanging on the pole for two days, Khan began hallucinating, thinking he was seeing a cow and a giant lizard.
“I lived in anxiety every moment of every single day about the fear and anticipation of the unknown,” Khan said, describing his panic attacks and nightmares at the black site. “Sometimes, I was struggling and drowning under water, or driving a car and I could not stop.“
In a July 2003 session, Khan said, CIA guards hooded and hung him from a metal pole for several days and repeatedly poured ice water on his mouth, nose and genitals. At one point, he said, they forced him to sit naked on a wooden box during a 15-minute videotaped interrogation. After that, Khan said, he was shackled to a wall, which prevented him from sleeping.
When a doctor arrived to check his condition, Khan begged for help, he said. Instead, Khan said, the doctor instructed the guards to again hang him from the metal bar. After hanging from the pole for 24 hours, Khan was forced to write a “confession” while being videotaped naked.
Khan’s account also includes previously undisclosed forms of alleged CIA abuse, according to experts. Khan said his feet and lower legs were placed in tall boot-like metal cuffs that dug into his flesh and immobilized his legs. He said he felt that his legs would break if he fell forward while restrained by the cuffs.
Khan is not one of the three people whom current and former CIA officials say interrogators were authorized to “waterboard”, a process whereby water is poured over a cloth covering a detainee’s face to create the sensation of drowning. Nor is he the fourth detainee whose waterboarding was documented by Human Rights Watch in 2012.
His descriptions, however, match those of other detainees who have alleged that they were subjected to unauthorized interrogation techniques using water. Human-rights groups say the use of ice water in dousing and forced submersions is torture.
Khan’s account also includes details that match those of lower-level detainees who have described their own interrogations. Like other prisoners, Khan said he was held in complete darkness and isolated from other prisoners for long periods. To deprive him of sleep, his captors kept the lights on in his cell and blared loud music from Kiss and other American rock and rap groups.
He said that he was given unclean food and water that gave him diarrhea and that he was held in an outdoor cell and in cells with biting insects. Other prisoners later told him they were held in coffin-shaped boxes.
Conditions improved significantly in 2005, after the US Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act. That measure includes anti-torture provisions sponsored by Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam.
Khan is scheduled to be sentenced by a military judge in Guantánamo Bay by February. His lawyers, however, want his case moved to the US federal courts because, they said, federal law allows for fairer sentences for cooperating witnesses.
“He has made a decision to trust the US government and cooperate with the US government in order to try to atone for what he did,” said J Wells Dixon of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “But it is incumbent on the United States to treat him fairly.”
Katya Jestin, a former federal prosecutor who also represents Khan, said Khan remains committed to cooperating in the military commission system. But, she said, “from a broader criminal justice policy perspective, I would like to see him sentenced in US federal court. Federal judges have more experience in assessing the value of cooperation and incentivizing cooperation from others.”Back in April, when we discussed the inception of the IMF's then brand new New Arrangement to Borrow (NAB) $500 billion credit facility, we asked rhetorically, "If the IMF believes that over half a trillion in short-term funding is needed imminently, is all hell about to break loose." A month later the question was answered, as Greece lay smoldering in the ashes of insolvency, and the developed world was on the hook for almost a trillion bucks to make sure the tattered eurozone remained in one piece (leading to such grotesque abortions as Ireland, whose cost of debt is approaching 6%, funding Greek debt at 5%). Well, if that was the proverbial canary in the coalmine, today the entire flock just keeled over and died: today the IMF announced it "expanded and enhanced its lending tools to help contain the occurrence of financial crises." As a result, the IMF has as of today extended the duration of its existing Flexible Credit Line (FCL) to two years, concurrently removing the borrowing cap on this facility, which previously stood at 1000 percent of a member’s IMF quota, in essence making the FCL a limitless credit facility, to be used to rescue whomever, at the sole discretion of the IMF's overlords. Additionally, as the FCL has some make believe acceptance criteria (and with countries such as Poland, Columbia, and Mexico having had access to it, these must certainly be sky high), the IMF is introducing a brand new credit facility, the Precautionary Credit Line (PCL), which will be geared for members with "sound policies [which just happen to need an unlimited source of rescue funding] who nevertheless may not meet the FCL’s high qualification requirements." In other words everyone. In yet other words, the IMF as of today, has a limitless facility to bail out anyone in the world, without a maximum bound in how much is lendable. One wonders who would be stupid enough to take advantage of the gullibility of IMF's biggest backers (the US), to borrow an infinite amount of money for any reason whatsoever... And just what all this means for the imminent explosion of the amount of money in circulation...Not to mention the brand new Ben Bernanke smokescreen of having a new justification to print a few trillion dollars when Europe unexpectedly collapses yet again.
In discussing the imminent need for its expanded "Crisis Prevention Toolkit" which also comes with 50cc's of adrenaline, ativan, a crash cart, and a defibrillator, Dominique Strauss-Khan (and that's Missus to you Bob Pisani), the corpulent bureaucrat said: “These decisions expand and reinforce the IMF’s crisis-prevention toolkit and mark an important step in our ongoing work with our membership to strengthen the global financial safety net. The enhanced Flexible Credit Line and new Precautionary Credit Line will enable the Fund to help its members protect themselves against excessive market volatility,” said IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. What DSK did not mention is that it is precisely the mechanisms used by the Central Banking Cartel to rise the markets ever higher in light of increasingly deteriorating fundamentals, that are precisely what makes the markets excessively volatile, primary culprit of course being HFT, which is nothing but a government endorsed positive feedback loop.
There's more spin:
This strengthening of the Fund’s insurance-type instruments is aimed to encourage countries to approach it in a more timely fashion in order to help prevent a crisis and, also, help to protect them during a systemic crisis. Mr. Strauss-Kahn added that “the revamped financing toolkit rewards countries that implement strong policies. We expect that the availability of these credit lines to a broader spectrum of countries will contribute to a more stable international monetary system.”
So as the world drowns under trillions of excess debt, the IMF's solution is to throw quadrillions (or, technically, "as much as necessary") of new debt at the problem. And why not: when you have an out of control burning oil well, you nuke it (or so the legend says). And what works for geology surely works for unstable monetary systems, correct?
For the specifics of the actual adjustments as part of today's "repackaging" the IMF provided the following summary:
The enhancements approved today by the Executive Board include:
Doubling the duration of the credit line (FCL arrangements can now be approved for either one year, or two years with an interim review of qualification after one year, whereas they were previously either for six months, or one year with an interim review after six months);
Removing the implicit cap on access of 1000 percent of a member’s IMF quota, with access decisions based on individual country financing needs; and
Strengthening procedures by requiring early Executive Board involvement in assessing the contemplated level of access and the impact of such access on the IMF’s liquidity position.
The new PCL is available to a wider group of members than those that qualify for the FCL. In practice, qualification is assessed in five broad areas, namely: (i) external position and market access, (ii) fiscal policy, (iii) monetary policy, (iv) financial sector soundness and supervision, and (v) data adequacy. While requiring strong performance in most of these areas, the PCL permits access to precautionary resources to members that may still have moderate vulnerabilities in one or two of these dimensions. Features of the PCL include:
Streamlined ex post conditions designed to reduce any economic vulnerabilities identified in the qualification process, with progress monitored through semi-annual program reviews.
Frontloaded access with up to 500 percent of quota made available on approval of the arrangement and up to a total of 1000 percent of quota after 12 months.
And since the NAB, announced with much fanfare, capped out at $500 billion, and since almost 6 months since then have passed, the IMF is now determined to create its own version of Moore's law, by doubling the amount of borrowing availability under its biggest credit facility every six months. To wit, Bloomberg reports: "Talks are ongoing with member countries to raise the IMF lending capacity to $1 trillion as part of G-20 discussions." The $1 trillion will subsequently be doubled to $2 trillion in January 2011, then $4 in June.... and you get the exponential lidea.
Also further confirming that at the end of the day it is the US that will foot these unlimited expenditures (Bernanke's inflationary wet dream has to start somewhere after all), "John Lipsky, IMF first deputy managing director, told reporters on a conference call today that the institution has enough money to fund the new credit lines. At the same time, he said he is confident that member countries will continue to demonstrate a commitment for the IMF to have the resources to make the new credit lines “credible and usable.” You hear that USA? Oh wait, it was your idea all along, we get it now.
In other words, Europe - prepare: uncle Sam is coming to bail you out once again. Just please give him a reason: our banks demand it, and let's not forget, it is your patriotic duty to bail out US bank balance sheets via semi-hyperinflation. Tonight's move in the EUR and the CHF are a damn good (if on the surface counterintuitive) start.
Lastly, for those lazy readers who always scroll to the very bottom looking for a video clip summarizing all previously said, you are in luck. Here is the IMF's Reza Moghadam condescending, and blatantly lying to all who care, as to what the purpose of tonight's "Crisis Prevention Toolkit" expansion is.The conservative magazine National Review made waves today when it published a special edition devoted to attacking Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
None of the more than 20 columns highlighted in the issue, however, took on one of the most pressing questions facing the Republican Party: If not Trump for the presidency, then who?
This point was made in a tweet today by Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist at the New York Times who is himself opposed to Trump's lasting dominance:
Against Trump, and for....? — Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) January 22, 2016
As Douthat's tweet suggests, a more helpful choice than criticizing Trump might have been for National Review to find a specific candidate to support.
The publication has published scores of pieces attacking the real estate mogul over the past several months. Seeing National Review come out against Trump is not that much more surprising than watching Barbara Bush endorse her son in Jeb’s latest campaign video.
But the publication's silence on the right choice is also part of a bigger problem: the failure of any of the party's "establishment lane" candidates to consolidate support ahead of the rapidly approaching primaries.
Candidates considered most broadly acceptable in a general election have been spending more money on attacking each other than taking on Trump.
And with Iowa and New Hampshire just weeks away, time to figure out the candidate to beat Trump — rather than the publication to criticize him — is running out.SAN JUAN, P.R. – United States Magistrate Judge Marcos E. López authorized a criminal complaint charging Joseph Neil Bronson, Jr. with one count of Attempted Sex Trafficking of Children, announced United States Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) is in charge of the investigation.
According to the information contained in the affidavit submitted in support of the criminal complaint, on September 30th, 2015, the defendant responded to an advertisement on an internet-based classified website. The advertisement was listed as an “escort service” specializing in “young girls” in Puerto Rico. Bronson wrote that he liked girls with smaller bodies, who were between the ages of 10 and 12 years of age, for “full service,” and who were clean and shaved. In the communications, Bronson agreed to pay $200.00 an hour for sex with a 12 year old female and offered the place he was staying as the location in which the sex encounter would occur.
On October 1, 2015, HSI agents approached the defendant and placed him under arrest. Bronson possessed $300.00 in cash and the phone he used to communicate with the person whom he thought was in charge of the minor he was going to have sex with.
“The sexual exploitation of vulnerable individuals is an affront to fundamental rights and will not be tolerated on our Island. The defendant came to Puerto Rico thinking that he could have a sexual rendezvous with a minor. Our attorneys and law enforcement partners will vigorously investigate and prosecute the trafficking of human beings, and will uphold the rights of those subjected to modern-day slavery, whether for labor or for sexual exploitation. The children of Puerto Rico deserve no less,” said Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Elba Gorbea. If convicted, the defendant is facing a 15 years to life in prison. A criminal complaint contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.
If you have information about any sexual predators in your community or any child exploitation activity call 1-866-347-2423. For more information, visit: www.ICE.gov.SOMA, Turkey (Reuters) - A Turkish court ordered three suspects to be kept in custody on Sunday on a provisional charge of “causing multiple deaths” in last week’s mine disaster, as the last of the 301 victims were buried.
Of the remaining 22 people detained earlier, six suspects have been released but could face prosecution later. Questioning of the other 16 people was continuing.
The detentions came five days after a fire sent deadly carbon monoxide coursing through the mine in the western Turkish town of Soma, causing the county’s worst ever industrial accident.
The disaster has sparked protests across Turkey, directed at mine owners accused of ignoring safety for profit, and at Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government, seen as too close to industry bosses and insensitive in its response.
An initial report on the possible causes of the accident indicated the fire may have been triggered by coal heating up after it came into contact with the air, Prosecutor Bekir Sahiner told reporters outside the Soma courthouse, rejecting initial reports that a transformer explosion was responsible.
“The crime of which the suspects are accused is causing multiple deaths and injuries due to negligence,” he said.
The prosecutor did not identify the three suspects kept in custody but media reports said they were the plant manager and two mine engineers.
Related Coverage Erdogan fracas amid Turkey's mourning betrays growing polarisation
Earlier, relatives of those detained joined the crowd of reporters and bystanders outside the courthouse in Soma.
“We know that we have lost 301 loved ones, but we have loved ones inside as well,” said the brother of one of the detained engineers. He declined to give his name.
Among those detained was the general manager of the mining company, Soma Madencilik, and the son of the company’s owner.
Erdogan has presided over a decade of rapid economic growth but workplace safety standards have failed to keep pace, leaving Turkey with one of the world’s worst industrial accident records.
The plant manager has denied negligence at the mine, which was inspected by state officials every six months.
FINAL BURIALS
The rescue operation at the coal mine ended on Saturday after the bodies of the last two workers were carried out. They were buried on Sunday.
General view of a coal mine site where a fire broke out on Tuesday in Soma, a district in Turkey's western province of Manisa May 18, 2014. REUTERS/ Osman Orsal
Mourners cried and prayed beside a line of recently filled graves as one of them was buried in Soma.
Holding their palms open to the sky, around a thousand people said “amen” in unison as a white-bearded imam, or Muslim prayer leader, recited verses.
“My only wish and battle will be to make sure Soma is not forgotten,” said a written note, signed “your brother”, which was left on one grave along with some flowers.
Ramazan, a worker from a mine near the one where the accident occurred, was among those paying his respects.
“My friend lost half of his family. And for what? To make a living,” he said. “Accidents can happen of course, but it’s an accident when one person, two people die. When 300 people die, it’s not an accident anymore.”
As the rescue operation wound up, police put Soma on virtual lockdown, setting up checkpoints and detaining dozens of people to enforce a ban on protests in response to clashes on Friday between police and several thousand demonstrators.
Dozens of people were detained on Saturday as hundreds of riot police patrolled the streets while others checked identity cards at three checkpoints on the approach road to Soma.
The checkpoints remained in place on Sunday but those detained, including eight lawyers from the Contemporary Jurists Association, were released by Saturday evening, media reports said.
Slideshow (5 Images)
There were fresh clashes between police and demonstrators in Istanbul and Ankara on Saturday night in protest at the government’s handling of the disaster. Protesters again gathered in both cities on Sunday night to voice their anger.
Erdogan’s opponents blame the government for privatizing leases at previously state-controlled mines, turning them over to politically connected businessmen who they say may have skimped on safety to maximize profit.
His ruling AK Party said the formerly state-run mine at Soma, 480 km (300 miles) southwest of Istanbul, had been inspected 11 times over the past five years. It denied any suggestion of loopholes in mining safety regulations.Ms. Cox said that many casting directors don’t know what they want when a script calls for a transgender character and think she looks too feminine to convincingly play someone who was born male. To her dismay, she said, she finds herself “in auditions with drag queens a lot.”
The heyday for transsexual actors on the big screen may have been the late ’60s and early ’70s. The director Paul Morrissey helped introduce America to Andy Warhol ’s transgender “superstars” like Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn, subversive heroines in art-house hits like “Flesh” and “Women in Revolt.” Jon Davies, the author of the book “Trash” (2009), about Mr. Morrissey’s 1970 film of the same name, said the visibility of transgender performers in that era coincided with a mainstream vogue for pornography and exploitation films, and the attention paid to sexual identity after Stonewall.
“There was an idea that if you could show as much flesh as possible, you would be guaranteed good box office,” he said. “I think it was a period of realizing how incredible these actors were at selling or performing these identities that they had fashioned for themselves.”
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For “Gun Hill Road,” Mr. Green said, he conducted an extensive search to find the right actor to play Vanessa (born Michael), a shy teenager trying to live openly as a girl while dealing with a dis |
disabilities get to and from the Conrad Center? How can they afford the transportation if they, as is often the case with the homeless, haven't any money?
Furthermore, the Conrad Center has anti-loitering policies, and lacks the capacity to serve the number of homeless that frequent the services provided in Monroe Park. The center, overlooked by two jails, can also be quite disconcerting for those who feel they are constantly being discriminated against due to their economic and social disposition. This proposal only serves to criminalize the homeless and place them out of sight, and out of mind.
Once renovations are complete, will the park return to normal? Will the homeless continue to be welcome in the park? The city’s master plan for the park includes the hiring of a private security firm to regulate, per the master plan, a ratio of 75:1, being the number of “non-homeless appearing” people to those who are “homeless appearing” in the park at any given time. This is a direct assault on the homeless, perpetuating a hostile and exclusive atmosphere that allows the systematic repression of the homeless, or those who “appear” homeless in our community.
Lastly, we would like to draw attention to the fact that the funds being used to renovate the park could be used more effectively towards ventures that would help create and sustain jobs and/or fill a $1.5 million dollar deficit that has plagued the public transit-dependent in the form of fare increases for GRTC services. The ability of the working poor to reach the places they need to be, at a minimal personal expense is more important than the ephemeral and aesthetic renovations of a public park.
The Richmond IWW asks, in solidarity with Food Not Bombs and the The Campaign to Keep Monroe Open and Public, that shall there be any renovation of Monroe Park, that at least two acres or 25 percent of Monroe Park (whichever is greater) be left open for the public during renovations. We also ask that charitable feeding programs be allowed during this time and post-renovation, and finally, that no private security firm be hired.
Sincerely,
Richmond Industrial Workers of the World
cc: Mayor Dwight C. Jones, Charles Samuels, Kathy Graziano, Ellen Robertson, Bruce Tyler, Chris Hilbert, Marty Jewell, Cynthia Newbille, Reva Trmmell, Doug Conner, Brian Ohlinger, Dave Clinger, Elinor Kuhn, James C. Hill, John Peters, Janice Nuckolls, Turk Sties, Alice Massie, Todd Woodson, Patricia Daniels, as wall as local and international media outlets.Either through QR codes, RFID, or near field communication, there seems to be some desire to share tiny pieces of data in a more physical and accessible form. [Chris Harrison], [Robert Xiao], and [Scott E. Hudson] of the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon have come up with a fairly interesting solution of making data more physical. They call it Acoustic Barcodes, and it’s able to store over a billion unique IDs in a small strip of plastic.
By engraving a barcode pattern into a piece of wood, stone, glass, or plastic, the guys then attached a microphone to the barcode and ran their fingernails across their invention. A computer interprets the sounds of a finger scraping against the acoustic barcode and produces a series of 1s and 0s.
This binary code can be used to look up various items in a database, or perform actions on a computer. In the video after the break, you can see these acoustic barcodes attached to a whiteboard to provide real tactile control of a video projector.
You can check out a PDF of the Acoustic Barcode paper here.Who doesn’t feel sleepy after the lunch? Scientists consider this post-lunch sleepiness to be a part of a natural day-to-day rhythm. It occurs whether you consumed your meal or not[1].
Most of us prefer to sleep while lying down in bed and people usually report that their sleep was better than when they sleep in an armchair. In 2010 Chinese researchers aimed to find out whether the position of your body during the nap actually influence sleep’s quality[2].
36 participants (18 women and 18 men) were divided into three groups: napping in bed, napping in a chair, and no napping at all. Before and after napping scientists measured their subjective mood, sleepiness, fatigue as well as brain activity (with EEG).
The results showed that napping for 20 minutes in either a chair or bed improved mood and sleepiness. Sleeping in bed, however, was also associated with greater alertness after the nap.
Here is what authors say:
“In general, having a nap, regardless of sitting or lying down, was effective in improving subjective mood and weakening mental sleepiness and fatigue than being deprived of nap among habitual nappers.”
To sum it all up – these results confirm that short napping is a good (and pleasant) way to increase your productivity (since better mood and greater alertness usually lead to better performance). And even if you don’t have a nap room in your office, it can still be beneficial to take a short nap in sitting position.
Refferences
[1] Stahl, M. L., Orr, W. C., & Bollinger, C. (1983). Postprandial sleepiness: objective documentation via polysomnography. Sleep: Journal of Sleep Research & Sleep Medicine.
[2] Zhao, D., Zhang, Q., Fu, M., Tang, Y., & Zhao, Y. (2010). Effects of physical positions on sleep architectures and post-nap functions among habitual nappers. Biological psychology, 83(3), 207-213.
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Comments!In The Obama White House, A Crisis Of 'Confidence'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Pete Souza/White House Pete Souza/White House
A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind paints an unflattering picture of rivalries and dysfunction within President Obama's first economic team — rivalries that Suskind says then slowed the administration's response to the financial crisis.
The book Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President is based on interviews with more than 200 people, including the president, and quotes internal documents from the White House, which indicate that some of Obama's decisions were either not enforced or redirected by members of his administration.
Suskind joins Terry Gross for a discussion about Obama, whom he calls "a victim of very difficult and circumstances... by virtue of being a brilliant amateur," as well as Obama's first economic team, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council chief Larry Summers.
Confidence Men Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind Paperback, 519 pages | purchase close overlay Buy Featured Book Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?
Suskind also comments on the growing controversy surrounding the publication of Confidence Men. Some of the officials quoted in the book, including Summers, are now saying they were misquoted by Suskind or their comments were taken out of context.
Larry Summers
Summers served as the secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton and was the Director of the National Economic Council for Obama from the start of his administration until November 2010, when he left to rejoin the faculty at Harvard University.
Suskind says Summers' style of leadership at the White House was to "control the show" and "lead by fiat."
"A young economist... [once told me that Larry once said] 'Here's the way it works.... I can win either side of the argument. That's my genius. That's what I do. And then I win both sides and I think about which side I won more fairly when deciding which is right. Sometimes I decide otherwise,' " says Suskind. "The young economist who recounts the story says, 'Jeez, Larry, that gives you an awful lot of power to shape everything,' and Larry sort of says, 'Yeah, that's the point.' And that's kind of how Larry sees it — the economic policy will be what Larry decides in consultation with a president who has very, very little in the way of training in economic theory or practice."
But, Suskind says, Summers didn't believe a complete overhaul of the economy was necessary.
"Larry is of the belief of 'first do no harm,' " he says. "He is very much a believer in the markets and the way the markets work and he is respectful of them.... Tim Geithner was of a similar position. Tim used to work under Larry in the Clinton administration. And Tim calls this 'Hippocratic risk.' Larry and Tim were almost always in [agreement] on these issues of Hippocratic risk."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Marissa Rauch/courtesy of the author Marissa Rauch/courtesy of the author
In his book, Suskind quotes Summers as saying, on record, that "Clinton would never have made these mistakes" that the Obama administration made. Summers has denied making those comments. He told The Washington Post last week that "the hearsay attributed to me is a combination of fiction, distortion and words taken out of context. I can't speak to what others have told Mr. Suskind but I have always believed that the president has always led this country with determined, steady and practical leadership."
Suskind tells Terry Gross that he talked to Summers as the book was going to press about his statements in the book, including the one where he said "Clinton would never have made these mistakes."
"At first Larry blurted out, 'I deny it,' and then I said, 'Look, Larry, lots of people heard you talk about this and say this. This is not something you uttered once to one person. Lots of people remember where they were when they heard it.'... Then after a few minutes, he came back with his response. He said, 'Look, we had five times as many problems, we didn't have five times as many people. It was an overwhelming time, very difficult for everyone involved.' He lays it on the door of circumstances.... The Washington walk back has a long history, as anyone who works in this town knows."
Interview Highlights
On Wall Street and President Obama
"Wall Street helped him as a candidate, but he needed to turn on his heel once it was clear he was going to win the presidency and say, 'Thank you guys, but I need people who will give Wall Street medicine and give Wall Street very Rooseveltian medicine.' He didn't do that. Instead he brought in Tim [Geithner] and Larry [Summers], who are not Wall Street guys but who are affectionate and attentive toward Wall Street. That was a key moment where the president lost his way."
On Timothy Geithner not shutting down and reopening some of the too-big-to-fail banks, as President Obama had suggested
"It can be summed up in something [economist and President Obama's former Director of the Office of Management and Budget] Peter Orszag says about Larry Summers but others said it about Geithner. He felt he knew more than the president. The president didn't understand what he was proffering or suggesting, and the president needed to be protected against himself."
On the women in the White House
"What I found, especially after many of them had left the White House, that it was much more virulent and much more contested and angry — emotional — than had been reported. I was surprised, but the folks I talked with, the women were really quite upset.... I think it was a combination of two things. One of them was the managerial chaos with Rahm Emmanuel, who was not an actual manager — he's very impulsive, he's tactical, but he's not the kind of guy that most presidents put in that job. There was chaos where people weren't aware of who was supposed to be invited to what meeting. In many cases, the women were excluded. The guys banded together. The president was not monitoring it. The women were excluded. They felt, 'Hey. What about me?' "Demonstration Videos Please note that these videos were recorded during testing and may not be entirely accurate to the final product.
Warning: If you have already installed this patch and are reinstalling it for the new color correction, you gotta back up your save, or else you might lose all of your progress!
INSTALLATION:
Dump your copy of either Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, or Green using Braindump. Once complete, eject the SD card, and find a file with a title ID and.cxi extension on the SD card. Take this.cxi to a safe place and write down the title ID somewhere. Download CTRTool, and then place it into the folder with the.cxi file. While in the folder, hold the SHIFT key and right click. You will see an option in the menu that appears called 'Open command window here'. Click on it. Type the following:
ctrtool --exefs=exefs.bin --romfs=romfs.bin PUTTITLEIDHERE.cxi
ctrtool --romfsdir=romfs romfs.bin Click to expand...
Get yourself a ROM image of the game that you want to use the patch for, and then put it somewhere safe. (GBC Pokemon game ROMs aren't too hard to find online nowadays ) Download the VC Patch Pack linked above. Locate the appropriate patch for your ROM, as well as for the language of your ROM. (For example, if you're using the German version of Crystal, you'd find 'germancrystal.bin.patch'.) Extract the appropriate patch and keep it somewhere safe with the ROM. Rename the ROM to match the patch NOT INCLUDING the.patch ending. Open up the extracted RomFS of your copy of Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow/Green. Delete all of the files in the root of the RomFS with the extension of '.patch'. (This just saves space for the long run. You can skip this step if you want to.) Place the new '.patch' file from somewhere safe into the root of the RomFS. Go into the RomFS's 'rom' folder. Delete whatever file is inside and replace it with the ROM you have from somewhere safe. If you're going to be using Pokemon Gold and Silver, listen closely. Otherwise, skip ahead to Step 15. Go back to the root of the RomFS and open up the patch file in a text editor. Go to the very last patch at the bottom of the file. Decide now whether you want to play the game in DMG (Original Gameboy) mode or GBC (Gameboy Color) mode. If you want to play DMG mode, leave the patch as is and exit. Otherwise, change the "Fixcode" to 0x80. Exit out of the RomFS entirely and move into the ExeFS.
Find the 'code.bin' within the ExeFS. Using 3DSTool, decompress the code using the following command in CMD:
3dstool -uf code.bin --compress-type blz --compress-out decompressed_code.bin Click to expand...
Using a hex editor (doesn't matter which one), go to address 0x96EB7 and change the value to 0xE1. Save, and then recompress the code using this command in CMD:
3dstool -zf decompressed_code.bin --compress-type blz --compress-out code.bin Click to expand...
Your 'code.bin' has now been fixed so that colors display properly. Go ahead and delete 'decompressed_code.bin' and copy 'code.bin' to somewhere safe.
Rebuild your RomFS using the RomFS Builder in Pack Hack. (you need to open up SetupUS.exe, and then HackingToolkit3DS.exe, and in HackingToolkit3DS.exe type RFSB) Export the newly built RomFS with a name of the last 8 digits of the Title ID you were supposed to write down earlier and the extension of '.romfs'. If you don't already have it, make a folder called 'hans' on the root of your SD, and then copy the build.romfs file into said folder. Take the 'code.bin' from earlier and rename it to the last 8 digits of the Title ID you were supposed to write down, along with the extension of '.code'. Copy this to the 'hans' folder on the SD card, as well.
Eject your SD card, put it back into the 3DS, and load up the Homebrew Launcher. Run HANS, selecting the Pokemon game that you dumped earlier. On the HANS menu, change the 'RomFS' option to 'YES', change the 'Code' option to 'YES', and then boot into the game. (You're probably going to want to save the configuration for later)
that ISO site" with the new patch already implemented, as well as professional banners and everything. So, if you're interested, keep your eyes peeled. As a small note, if all of this seems like too much work, never fear! My man @Traiver will be releasing.CIA versions of Pokemon Gold, Silver, Crystal, and Bronze onto "" with the new patch already implemented, as well as professional banners and everything. So, if you're interested, keep your eyes peeled.
TROUBLESHOOTING:
CREDITS:
@TheStoneBanana (me!) for researching and writing the new patch for Pokemon Crystal.
@Pandaxclone2, @darkalex004, and @Traiver for testing the original patch(es) to death.
@Traiver for porting my original patch to Pokemon Silver, Gold, and the Bronze ROM hack, as well as porting it to support other languages.Need a blast of the good stuff straight to the dome? These scarecrows, motorcycles, and gorgeous natural caves are here to get your juices pumping!
1. When you’re ready to open the adrenaline floodgates, just picture this scarecrow screaming out of the mouth of Chile’s stunning Marble Caves on the back of this vintage roadster, and prepare for liftoff.
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2. Imagine that four-stroke roar echoing up the icy tunnels of the breathtaking Kamchatka Cave, louder and louder, until this prince of the fields comes tearing through in a cloud of hay and diesel. Bam! Your mind’s the ignition, and the key’s right here, baby.
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3. All the pieces are there: Arizona’s Antelope Canyon is an absolute one-of-a-kind marvel of geology, and a scarecrow riding all up the sides of it like one of those carnival globes could seriously get you too jacked on piss and vinegar to sit down for like an hour. Put them together when you’re ready to rock.
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4. The painted Lascaux Caves went untouched by man for over 17,000 years and would be completely devastated by a scarecrow with a crotch rocket and a death wish. Believe us, your brain’s going to love this shit.
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5. Devetashka Cave is home to over 30,000 bats. Can you even imagine a hurricane of bats streaming out of there as this scarecrow wheelies his way right into your fight-or-flight glands? Wait, who’s that sidecar for? Could it be… you?
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6. Here comes a big-league thrill: Take the absolutely astonishing crystal formations of the Lechuguilla Cave. Now throw in this scarecrow on this Harley, exploding through one of them in a spray of crystals, whooping it up as he wields one of these machetes in each hand. And what’s thundering through the cave behind him with an unholy scream? It’s this centaur, and what’s on his back? It’s this sniper, and he’s gonna bring down that goddamn scarecrow one way or another, or die trying. And if that doesn’t light your whole nervous system on fire, nothing will.
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7. Time to blow the dam: the raw adrenal blast from imagining every one of these scarecrows swarming out of the Uplistsikhe Caves surfing on HOG after HOG after HOG would blow a hole in the side of a horse’s head. So, compañero, you ready to ride the razor wave?Evidence is rapidly growing showing vital relationships between both diet quality and potential nutritional deficiencies and mental health, a new international collaboration led by the University of Melbourne and Deakin University has revealed.
Published in The Lancet Psychiatry today, leading academics state that as with a range of medical conditions, psychiatry and public health should now recognise and embrace diet and nutrition as key determinants of mental health.
Lead author, Dr Jerome Sarris from the University of Melbourne and a member of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR), said psychiatry is at a critical stage, with the current medically-focused model having achieved only modest benefits in addressing the global burden of poor mental health.
"While the determinants of mental health are complex, the emerging and compelling evidence for nutrition as a key factor in the high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders suggests that nutrition is as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology and gastroenterology," Dr Sarris said.
"In the last few years, significant links have been established between nutritional quality and mental health. Scientifically rigorous studies have made important contributions to our understanding of the role of nutrition in mental health," he said.
Findings of the review revealed that in addition to dietary improvement, evidence now supports the contention that nutrient-based prescription has the potential to assist in the management of mental disorders at the individual and population level.
Studies show that many of these nutrients have a clear link to brain health, including omega-3s, B vitamins (particularly folate and B12), choline, iron, zinc, magnesium, S-adenosyl methionine (SAMe), vitamin D, and amino acids.
"While we advocate for these to be consumed in the diet where possible, additional select prescription of these as nutraceuticals (nutrient supplements) may also be justified," Dr Sarris said.
Associate Professor Felice Jacka, a Principal Research Fellow from Deakin University and president of the ISNPR noted that many studies have shown associations between healthy dietary patterns and a reduced prevalence of and risk for depression and suicide across cultures and age groups.
"Maternal and early-life nutrition is also emerging as a factor in mental health outcomes in children, while severe deficiencies in some essential nutrients during critical developmental periods have long been implicated in the development of both depressive and psychotic disorders," she said.
A systematic review published in late 2014 has also confirmed a relationship between 'unhealthy' dietary patterns and poorer mental health in children and adolescents. Given the early age of onset for depression and anxiety, these data point to dietary improvement as a way of preventing the initial incidence of common mental disorders.
Dr Sarris, an executive member of the ISNPR, believes that it is time to advocate for a more integrative approach to psychiatry, with diet and nutrition as key elements.
"It is time for clinicians to consider diet and additional nutrients as part of the treating package to manage the enormous burden of mental ill health," he said.Licensing laws are a simple way to make sure guns are purchased and used by responsible Americans, and yet the federal government—and too many states—have yet to put many of these smart gun laws in place. Gun licensing has been proven to reduce gun violence and trafficking, and it remains a necessary component to crafting comprehensive, effective gun laws.
Background
We require a license for many activities, such as driving, fishing, and working as a teacher, but most states do not require a license to purchase or possess a gun. Licensing laws help ensure that gun owners exercise their Second Amendment rights legally, safely, and responsibly by requiring them to get a license before buying a firearm. Licensing laws also help reduce gun crimes and thwart gun traffickers. Although licensing laws vary by state, the most comprehensive laws require all gun owners to obtain a license and regularly renew it. Licenses may only be issued or renewed after the applicant has undergone a background check, completed a safety training course, and passed written and performance-based tests showing that the applicant knows relevant gun laws and how to safely load, fire, and store a gun.
Licensing Laws Help Prevent Gun Crimes
Licensing laws are one way of closing the “private sale loophole” by ensuring that gun owners have passed a background check and by preventing prohibited individuals like felons and minors from buying guns. Other states close the private sale loophole by requiring a background check at the point of sale of a firearm. For more information about this issue, see our summary on Universal Background Checks.
In addition to stopping gun purchases by prohibited individuals, licensing laws that require periodic renewal reduce gun crimes by:
Helping law enforcement confirm that a gun owner remains eligible to possess firearms.
Facilitating the removal of firearms from people who have become ineligible.
Licensing laws also help prevent the trafficking of crime guns. A September 2010 report by Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that states requiring a license to be issued for all handgun sales were the source of significantly fewer guns used in crimes than states that do not have licensing laws. And a 2001 study analyzing data from 25 U.S. cities found that states with some form of firearm registration and licensing in place have greater success keeping firearms sold by dealers in that state from being recovered in crimes.
Allowing people to buy guns without getting a license or passing a background check would likely increase gun crimes. In 2007, Missouri repealed its requirement that handgun purchasers obtain a permit after a background check. Since the repeal of this licensing law, gun crimes in Missouri have markedly increased. For example:
The share of crime guns recovered in Missouri that were originally purchased in-state has grown by 25%.
A key indicator of crime gun trafficking—the share of guns that were recovered at crime scenes within two years of their original sale—has doubled.
The crime gun murder rate in the state has risen nearly 25%.
Licensing Laws Facilitate Safe Gun Ownership
Safety training and testing requirements in licensing laws help make sure that gun owners obey the law and understand how to handle their firearms safely. By training owners on safe firearm storage and operation, licensing laws empower responsible gun ownership, and help reduce the shocking number of unintentional shootings, firearms thefts, and accidents involving minors that occur every year. For statistics regarding these problems, see our summary on Safe Storage.
Broad Public Support
Public opinion polls show that Americans strongly support licensing laws, just as they support other common-sense measures that ensure responsible gun ownership. A survey conducted in January 2013 found that 77.3% of Americans (including 59.4% of gun owners) support requiring people to obtain a license before buying a gun to verify their identity and ensure they are not prohibited from having a gun. The licensing of handgun owners has even more support. In a 2001 nationwide poll, 85% of respondents—including 73% of gun owners—favored laws requiring handgun purchasers to get a permit and register their handguns. In fact, 70% of the respondents mistakenly believed that a national system of licensing and registration already exists (it doesn’t).
Summary of Federal Law
Federal law does not require licensing of gun owners or purchasers.
For information about the exemption that federal law provides for certain license holders to the background check required when a firearm is purchased from a licensed dealer, see our summary on Background Check Procedures.
Summary of State Law
In general, state licensing laws fall into four categories: (1) permits to purchase firearms, (2) licenses to own firearms, (3) firearm safety certificates, which indicate that the certificate-holder has completed required safety training and is licensed to purchase a firearm, and (4) registration laws that impose licensing requirements.
“Permit to purchase”: Ten states have enacted permit to purchase licensing schemes that require prospective purchasers obtain a permit or license before buying at least some firearms.
“License to own”: Three states—Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York—require a license to own firearms (New York’s law applies only to handguns). Unlike a permit to purchase, a license to own a firearm must remain valid for as long as the person owns the firearm.
Firearm Safety Certificate: Two states—California and Washington—require prospective firearm purchasers to first obtain a certificate showing that they have completed required firearm safety training. California requires this for all firearms, Washington requires it only for semiautomatic rifles.
Registration: One jurisdiction—the District of Columbia—has a registration law that also functions as a license requirement.
Any of these forms of licensing laws can be used to impose a background check requirement, or (like California’s firearm safety certificate) they can be used to supplement a separate background check system. See our summary on Universal Background Checks for further information. Permits to purchase, licenses to own, firearm safety certificates, and registration requirements can also be used to ensure that firearm owners or purchasers have undergone adequate safety training or testing.
State Laws Governing Licensing of Gun Owners or Purchasers
State Licensing Requirements for Gun Purchase or Possession
Type of firearms Type of license Safety training or exam required Duration California All firearms Firearms Safety Certificate Yes 5 years Connecticut All firearms Permit to purchase Yes 5 years District of Columbia All firearms Registration Yes 3 years Hawaii All firearms Permit to purchase Yes (handguns) 10 days No (long guns) 1 year Iowa Handguns Permit to purchase No 5 years Illinois All firearms License to own No 10 years Maryland Handguns Permit to purchase Yes 10 years Massachusetts All firearms and ammunition devices License to own Yes 6 years Permit to purchase (handguns only) Yes 10 days Michigan Handguns Permit to purchase No 30 days Nebraska Handguns Permit to purchase No 3 years New Jersey All firearms Permit to purchase No So long as eligible (long guns) 90 days (handguns) New York Handguns License to own No 5 years North Carolina Handguns Permit to purchase No 5 years Rhode Island Handguns Permit to purchase Yes Unspecified Washington (effective July 1, 2019) Semiautomatic rifles Firearms safety certification Yes 5 years
States with Licensing Requirements that Apply to All Guns
The seven states listed below have enacted the strongest licensing laws because they require licenses to possess, permits to purchase, and/or firearm safety certificates for all classes of firearms. Many of the states below also require applicants for a license or permit to successfully complete safety training courses.
California: Firearm Safety Certificate
California requires a Firearm Safety Certificate (“FSC”) prior to purchase of any firearm.
Duration: California FSCs are valid for five years from the date of issue.
No Limit on Number of Firearms Purchased: California does not impose any limit on the number of firearms that may be purchased by the holder of an FSC.
Safety Training? Yes, applicants must complete required safety training.
Connecticut: Permit to Purchase
Connecticut requires a person who wishes to purchase or receive a handgun to obtain a permit to carry a handgun or a handgun eligibility certificate. Connecticut also requires a person who wishes to purchase or receive a long gun to obtain a long gun eligibility certificate, a permit to carry a handgun, or a handgun eligibility certificate. Permits and certificates may be revoked in the event the holder becomes disqualified.
Duration: Connecticut permits and certificates are valid for five years from the date of issue.
No Limit on Number of Firearms Purchased: Connecticut does not impose any limit on the number of firearms that may be purchased by the holder of a permit or certificate.
Safety Training? Yes, applicants must complete required safety training.
District of Columbia: Registration
Details about D.C.’s registration requirements for all firearms can be found in our summary on Registration of Firearms in the District of Columbia.
Duration: D.C. registration certificates are valid for three years after the date of issuance.
No Limit on Number of Firearms Purchased: A person may not register more than one handgun in D.C. during any 30-day period.
Safety Training? Yes, applicants must complete required safety training.
Hawaii: Permit to Purchase
In Hawaii, anyone wishing to acquire a firearm must obtain a permit from the county chief of police. As part of the application process, applicants undergo a background check and must sign a waiver allowing access to mental health records. Permits may not issue until at least 14 days have passed after the date of application, and all permits must be issued or denied before the 20th day from the date of application. Permits may be revoked for good cause.
Duration: Permits to acquire a handgun are valid for 10 days from the date of issue, and long gun permits are valid for one year from date of issue.
Single Purchase: Handgun purchases are limited to one handgun per permit.
Safety Training? Yes, applicants must complete required safety training.
Illinois: License to Purchase or Possess
In Illinois, no person may acquire or possess any firearm or ammunition without a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, or a valid permit to carry concealed handguns. Each applicant for a FOID card is required to complete an application and “submit evidence” to the Department of State Police (DSP) that she or he is not a prohibited purchaser. The DSP has the authority to revoke a FOID card if the holder becomes a prohibited purchaser. Effective January 1, 2014, a private person who sells or transfers a firearm must contact DSP to verify the validity of the purchaser’s FOID card.
Duration: FOID cards are valid for ten years from the date of issue.
No Limit on Number of Firearms Purchased: Illinois does not impose any limit on the number of firearms that may be purchased by the holder of a FOID card.
Safety Training? No safety training requirement.
Massachusetts: License to Possess and Permit to Purchase
In Massachusetts, all firearm possessors are required to obtain either a Firearm Identification (FID) card or a Class A or B license to carry a firearm. FID cardholders are permitted to purchase and possess rifles or shotguns, excluding large capacity weapons. A Class A license allows the licensee to purchase and possess all types of lawful firearms; a Class B license is limited to “non-large capacity” handguns and any rifle or shotgun, but does not permit carrying concealed, loaded handguns in a public place. All applicants must undergo a background check. The licensing authority has 40 days to approve or deny the application. A FID card or Class A or B license must be revoked or suspended if the holder becomes disqualified from obtaining the card or license.
To purchase a handgun in Massachusetts, a FID cardholder must also obtain a permit to purchase. A permit to purchase is issued at the discretion of the licensing authority for a “proper purpose,” following a background check.
Duration: FID cards and Class A and Class B licenses are valid for six years; permits to acquire handguns are valid for 10 days.
Single Purchase: Handgun purchases are limited to one handgun per permit. However, there is no limit on the number of firearms that may be purchased with a Class A or Class B license, or on the number of non-large capacity rifles or shotguns that may be purchased with a FID Card.
Safety Training? Yes, applicants must complete required safety training.
New Jersey: Permit to Purchase
In New Jersey, all handgun purchasers must obtain a permit to purchase a handgun, while purchasers of rifles or shotguns must obtain a Firearms Purchaser Identification Card (FPIC). Both require the applicant to undergo a background check and waive confidentiality relating to any institutional confinement for a mental or psychiatric condition. New Jersey law also provides that no handgun transfer permit or FPIC may be issued where the transfer would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare. In addition, the applicant must be of “good character and good repute in the community” where he or she lives. The FPIC or permit must be issued within 30 days of application, or 45 days if the applicant is a non-resident. A FPIC may be revoked by a superior court after a hearing with notice, upon a finding that the holder no longer qualifies for the FPIC.
Duration: Handgun purchase permits in New Jersey are valid for 90 days, and may be extended for an additional 90 days for good cause. New Jersey FPICs are valid as long as the holder remains eligible to possess a firearm.
Single Purchase: Handgun purchases are limited to one handgun per permit and one handgun per 30-day period.
Safety Training? No safety training requirement.
States with Licensing Requirements for Certain Classes of Weapons
The seven states listed below all require licenses or permits for purchase or possession of handguns, but not other types of guns. Of the below states, only Maryland and Rhode Island require safety training to receive a license or permit.
Additionally, though it does not require a license or permit to purchase a gun, Washington requires safety training certification for purchase of semiautomatic rifles.
Iowa
Iowa requires a permit to acquire pistols or revolvers. Once an applicant passes a background check and obtains a permit, the permit is valid for 5 years. Permits may be revoked in the event the holder becomes disqualified. County sheriffs in Iowa are authorized to obtain relevant criminal history data and conduct a criminal history check annually on anyone who has been issued a five-year permit to acquire a handgun. However, Iowa law does not require a background check to be conducted on handgun permit-holders more frequently than once every five years (the duration of the permit).
Maryland
Maryland requires that a person obtain a permit before the person buys, rents, or receives a handgun. A permit is valid for 10 years. Maryland applicants must complete an approved safety training course that includes instruction on state firearms law, home firearm safety, handgun mechanisms and operation, and an orientation component that demonstrates the person’s safe operation and handling of a firearm.
Michigan
Michigan requires either a license to carry a concealed handgun or a handgun purchase license, although a person who purchases a handgun from a licensed dealer does not need either license. A handgun purchase license is valid for 30 days.
Nebraska
Nebraska issues handgun certificates, although handgun purchasers outside Omaha who purchase from licensed dealers or who have a concealed weapons permit do not need a handgun certificate. Purchasers from private sellers must obtain a handgun certificate. Handgun certificates are valid for three years.
New York
New York requires a license to purchase or possess a handgun. Handgun licenses in New York must be recertified every five years and must specify the weapon by caliber, make, model, manufacturer’s name and serial number. Specific provisions apply to permits in New York City, where the duration is three years, and in Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties, where the duration is five years.
North Carolina
North Carolina requires a handgun purchaser to obtain either a permit to purchase a handgun or a concealed handgun permit. Both are valid for five years. The handgun purchase permit is valid for purchase of a single handgun and must be revoked if the person becomes ineligible.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island requires a pistol/revolver safety certificate issued by the state Department of Environmental Management. The certificate remains valid indefinitely. In Rhode Island, anyone wishing to purchase a handgun who does not have a concealed handgun license and is not a member of law enforcement must complete a basic two-hour handgun safety course.
Washington
Though there is no formal certificate or permitting process, effective July 1, 2019, Washington requires purchasers of semiautomatic rifles to have completed a safety training program in the past five years. This program must include instruction on: basic firearms safety, safe storage, |
quick menu to send tells or invites to group. You’ll need to know their in-game character name to do this!
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A: If you purchase a bundle or a character slot, or if you buy and spend Marketplace cash in-game, you will be placed in the Premium Queue. If you buy membership, you will be placed in the Member Queue.
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A: The Ultimate Edition will give you all powers, fourteen episodes, and many other features permanently on your account. Membership grants you access to everything that’s in the Ultimate Edition and more, plus additional perks like replay badges. The content and perks that are accessible with Membership are only available while you are a Member. For more information, or to buy, visit the Xbox Store.
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A: Once Premium, you are always Premium. You would not go back to free.On Friday, the two American journalists primarily responsible for publishing the Edward Snowden documents arrived safely in the United States for the first time in nearly a year. Given their prominent role in making public the previously secret documents, many feared that Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras had indictments under seal and might be detained upon arrival on American soil.
According to a tweet by Ted Shaffrey, a video journalist for the Associated Press, Greenwald and Poitras landed at New York’s JFK airport today. Greenwald has lived in Brazil with his partner, David Miranda, for years, and Poitras lives in Berlin.
Miranda himself, carrying encrypted data between Poitras and Greenwald, was detained for nine hours at London's Heathrow Airport in August 2013 while in transit from Germany to Brazil.
As a result of her filmmaking and journalism prior to Snowden, Poitras had been stopped about 40 times over the past six years.
On Twitter, Greenwald quipped: "That form of harassment stopped after after she finally went public: like roaches, they scamper from the light."
The journalistic duo traveled to New York in part to accept the George Polk award, a prestigious journalism prize, and dedicated it to Snowden.
That Greenwald and Poitras would visit the states again was never out of the question: in August 2013, a New York Times Magazine profile of the two reporters wrote, “They do not plan to stay away from America forever, but they have no immediate plans to return.”
Further Reading New profile of Snowden’s trusted ally illustrates importance of opsec
For now, their precise plans and itinerary are publicly unknown, but Greenwald is scheduled to debate the former head of the National Security Agency, Michael Hayden, at an event in Toronto next month. Greenwald confirmed earlier this week on Twitter that he would be appearing in person.
Shaffrey also published a video on YouTube showing Greenwald, Poitras, and Miranda all together at JFK. In the 84-second video, Shaffrey asks Greenwald if he thought he would be arrested upon his return.
“No, otherwise I wouldn’t have come,” Greenwald told reporters. “We had a good sense that that wouldn’t happen. We weren’t 100 percent sure, and in fact we had counsel talk to the Justice Department and they purposely wouldn’t give them any information if we were the target of a grand jury or whether there was an indictment that was filed under seal. So they were clearly wanting us to stay in this state of uncertainty because I think that they thought that that benefited them in terms the journalistic choices we were making, to think that maybe choices that we made would swing the pendulum one way or the other.”
Shaffrey followed up by asking what gave Greenwald the confidence that he wouldn’t be taken into custody.
“Just the expectation that they wouldn’t be that incredibly stupid and incredibly destructive to try to something that in the eyes of the world would be viewed as so incredibly authoritarian that would forever undermine their ability to criticize other governments for imprisoning journalists and for having a constitutional fight over the First Amendment that successive administrations have wanted to avoid,” he said, before rejoining the rest of his party.Members of German far-right groups shout slogans during a demonstration in Cologne, Germany October 25, 2015. Neo-Nazi groups, members of Germany's football hooligan scene and HoGeSa (hooligans against Salafists) were organising what they said was a demonstration against Islamic extremism. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay LONDON — There were 600 arrest warrants for neo-Nazis outstanding in Germany last month, Deutsche Welle reports.
Some 454 arrest warrants were issued in 2016 alone for people who "have been deemed on account of relevant police information to belong to the category 'crime motivated by the political right.'" Ninety-two of them are being sought for politically motivated crimes.
Those people have "gone underground" which, according to Matthias Quent, a researcher into right-wing extremism who spoke to DW, increases the risk of creating new right-wing extremist terrorist structures.
"The discourse is incredibly uninhibited," he told DW. "If the perception is that the state is no longer capable of protecting its borders, or its people, from terrorism, there is an increase in the perceived legitimacy of forming one's own organisations, of resorting to violence oneself, of arming oneself."
German government: Far-right extremists have grown 8%
After years of decline, the number of people who are thought to be far-right extremists in Germany grew nearly 8% from 21,000 in 2014 to 22,600 in 2015, according to Interior Ministry data released in June last year.
In its annual report, the Interior Ministry added that the "intensity of right-wing extremist militancy" was observed in spring 2015 — and it has only got more pronounced since then, with in resurgence of threats against journalists and politicians.
This date coincides with the start of a mass arrival of asylum seekers in Germany. Attacks against refugee centres have grown and in October 2015, Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker — a supporter of Chancellor Angela Merkel's "welcome-policy" toward refugees — was stabbed in the neck by an anti-immigration protester.
A man takes part in a demonstration in the east German city of Bautzen, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016 after clashes between far-right protesters and migrants this week. Slogan reads 'natural hardness - born in the east (of Germany)'. AP Photo/Jens Meyer During his trial, it emerged that the attacker, known as Frank S, had previously been active in far-right movements in Germany, and participated in a demonstration in honour of Adolf Hitler's Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess.
'Exorbitant increase in right-wing violence'
The Interior Ministry report mentions an "exorbitant increase in right-wing extremist violence," and highlights that the high number of refugees coming into the country encouraged a now wide-spread connectivity between right-wing extremists.
The increase is a Europe-wide phenomenon — and the movement is not just an underground one. Everywhere in the EU, far-right parties have seen a huge resurgence in support bringing it to levels not seen sine World War Two.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders — head of the Party for Freedom — was just convicted by a Dutch court for hate speech. He is expected to come very close to power in the next elections in March.
In France, Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right Front National, is set to easily make it to the second round of the French presidential elections in May. And in Germany the anti-immigrant party, Alternative für Deutschland, has made huge strides in the last regional elections and is currently polling at around 15 percent.As I waited for Angela Dimayuga, executive chef at Mission Chinese Food, to answer the phone, all I could think was, “Why am I calling her to ask her about tape?”
She's one of the best chefs in Manhattan—I could have asked her about her grandmother’s sausage-stuffed chicken or her Filipino influence on the MCF menu, why her funky, fish sauce-y mapo tofu tastes so good, or really anything else. Instead I stared at a list of interview questions that started with “Why 3M?”
Not tape's finest moment, apparently. Photo by James Ransom
But as soon as she picked up the phone, it became clear that what I’d taken for a possibly mundane topic was anything but to her. As soon as I mentioned the word, “tape,” she was off, listing her preferences for width, color, cut, edges, stickiness, and quality faster than I could type. As she put it, “I could really nerd out on tape.” As can most chefs, it turns out.
Shop the Story
Tape—or rather, the heated, controversial, back-of-house life of tape—came to our attention when we posted an Instagram of rows of pancakes. Above the the pancakes were torn pieces of blue painter’s tape denoting the differences between each row. And in the comments were objections: “Cut your labels properly @food52!” and “‘Super cute quirky handwriting doesn't offset sloppy torn kitchen tape.”
As home cooks and food stylists we love that you can easily tear painter's tape, even one-handed when needed—so we needed to get to the bottom of this. When we brought the comments to the attention of our test kitchen chef, Josh Cohen, and his assistant chef that day, Chris Roberts, they dove into a rant that lasted the better part of an hour. In a kitchen, “everything grows out of the fertile soil that is tape,” Chris said.
@miglorious takes recipe testing very seriously. Luckily @thekitchn's #genius lofty buttermilk pancake recipe is a great subject. Peep the method behind the madness at the link in bio. A photo posted by Food52 (@food52) on Jan 28, 2016 at 4:56am PST
The Tape Rule
At Piccolo in Minneapolis, where Chris once worked, cutting tape was the first thing you learned upon starting. "Tearing it was grounds for being fired," he told me, “service would be stopped entirely if it had been discovered that the Tape Rule had not been followed.”
Doug Flicker, the chef and owner of Piccolo (and Chris's boss), explained the Tape Rule to me:
“First and foremost, the tape has to get cut with a pair of scissors in a straight line, with a small tab folded over for ease of removal. On it should be written the product name, date, and initials of the person who packed the container.”
This Tape Rule was repeated almost verbatim by each chef I spoke with, with only a few moderations. Angela, for example, specified that once the tape has been cut and properly labeled, it has to be properly affixed one inch from the top of the quart container, and never at an angle.
Not following the Tape Rule in the Food52 pantry. Photo by Mark Weinberg
Size (and Quality) Matters
Once, while working an event, Chris recalled, an intern was sent to get more tape. “When he returned with the wrong width,” he told me, “everything stopped. Our manager had to apologize and promise an intern would never be sent for tape again.” Tape—it is universally understood by chefs—is to be no larger than 1-inch wide.
Angela, who special orders 3/4-inch tape (“You don’t need more space.”), always splurges on painter’s tape. “Masking tape,” Angela told me, “leaves a sticky residue when it’s torn off. And sometimes it won’t come off at all, so people will slap another piece on top.”
Everybody Has a Favorite Color (of Tape)
“Every restaurant has a color,” Angela said, “It’s definitely a thing.”
Momofuku uses orange (which is also the most expensive color because of its relative rarity).
(which is also the most expensive color because of its relative rarity). Thomas Keller is known for his use of neon green tape (look closely and you can see it lining his kitchens). When I asked Doug what color of tape he uses, he answered, “French Laundry tape.”
tape (look closely and you can see it lining his kitchens). When I asked Doug what color of tape he uses, he answered, “French Laundry tape.” Mission Chinese (and Food52!) uses blue: "We don't cook a lot of blue food," Angela said, "so it's always easy to spot."
@danielboulud has taken over our kitchen @bouchon_bistro at @venetianvegas tonight! #UltimoDinner #KitchenTakeover A photo posted by Chef Thomas Keller (@chefthomaskeller) on Dec 17, 2015 at 9:25pm PST
But Why?
At a small level, this attention to detail sounds ridiculous. “Saying it out loud, I sound so anal retentive,” Danny Amend, who has cooked at both French Laundry and Per Se, said. But put into perspective of a walk-in refrigerator during a fully-booked dinner service, it’s necessary. Josh told me, “Cooking is about mental clarity. If your mind is cluttered with the badly cut tape and the walk-in isn’t pristine, it isn’t going to work."
Tape also functions as a means of quality control, from the bottom up. Angela said that at each prep station is a bus bin for dirty containers. “If the labels in the bins haven’t been removed,” she said, “it’s because that person is rushing or nervous—it’s something we always look for.”
Photo by James Ransom
As Danny put it, “An attention to tape shows you’re paying attention to the quality of the food, including how you’re presenting your finished product.”
For some, this respect is taken extremely literally. Chris refuses to eat at restaurants he knows are using cheap masking tape, but Doug said he wouldn’t go that far, then quickly added, “Though I certainly wouldn’t work in a kitchen where someone didn’t cut the tape.”Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said today that Google has acknowledged to his office that its “Street View” cars in Connecticut collected data, which could include emails, web browsing and passwords, broadcast over unsecured home and business wireless computer networks and kept the information.
Google called the unauthorized information gathering a software mistake. It said the data has been secured and was not used “in any Google service or
product.” The company said that it recently grounded its entire Street View fleet and ceased all WiFi data collection to address concerns about the practice.
The company also acknowledged collecting technical information about personal and business WiFi networks themselves, saying it considered that data to be public information. The data includes information on radio signals broadcast by wireless networks and the unique address of computers and other devices they serve. Google said it needs the data to “improve our location-based services.”
Google told Blumenthal’s office it “believes” it started collecting WiFi data in Connecticut in 2008.
“Google’s acknowledgment that it vacuumed up data from unencrypted wireless computer networks in Connecticut is disturbing and demands additional
inquiry,” Blumenthal said. “Google grabbed information — which could include emails, passwords and web-browsing — that consumers rightly expect to be private. Google needs to better explain how this practice happened, exactly when, where and why.
“My office is carefully considering Google’s answers and will seek additional information. Key questions include how Google learned that its software was gathering unencrypted data and why the company kept the information.
“We will consider the legality of Google’s WiFi collection practices. Google’s actions raise troubling and profound questions about privacy and whether laws need to be clarified or changed.
“I urge consumers to consider encrypting their wireless computer networks. An unencrypted network is an invitation to snooping, like broadcasting all communications on loudspeakers. Anyone with the right software and equipment can listen in.”
Google said that it will provide as soon as later this week additional information identifying Connecticut towns and cities in which it collected WiFi data and the number of networks from which it gathered information.
Blumenthal said that consumers should change their wireless network passwords from those originally provided by the manufacturer to enhance protections.
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The Wrap is reporting that "multiple individuals close to the casting process" of Marvel's upcoming Doctor Strange movie (directed by Scott Derrickson) are saying Joaquin Phoenix "has had discussions" to play the lead role, although there is no deal in place. The report, which is couched in vagueness, comes before Marvel's big Hall H panel at Comic-Con on Saturday, where people think that Doctor Strange casting might be the studio's big piece of news outside of Avengers: Age of Ultron material.
Take this news with a grain of salt, though: Phoenix is a pretty picky actor with his projects and was long-rumored for the Lex Luthor role in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which went to Jesse Eisenberg. The Wrap also says Phoenix has "been mentioned most often" for the role and is "in consideration," and even claims that his interest in playing Luthor suggests he wouldn't dismiss a comic-book franchise out of hand.
@TheInSneider Is this kinda like he was eyed to play Lex Luther? — Tatiana Siegel (@TatianaSiegel27) July 25, 2014
The mystical superhero is a long-running fixture in the Marvel comic-book universe and has been mulled for a cinematic adaptation for decades. In his origin story, he's an arrogant surgeon who damages his precious hands in a car accident and gets into the occult in an attempt to heal himself, eventually rising to the status of the universe's "Sorcerer Supreme." Because he's a more middle-aged gentleman, always drawn with greying temples, casting suggestions in the past have included George Clooney, Patrick Dempsey and Hugh Laurie. More recently, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jared Leto and Tom Hardy were said to be on Marvel's short-list. Phoenix fits that mold: pushing 40, highly-regarded by critics, and capable of elevating what could be some very silly material in the wrong hands.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Jet Set Radio HD Confirmed For PC By William Usher Random Article Blend Jet Set Radio haven't been real lucky, the closest thing PC gamers have received along those lines would be Jet Set Radio, and Street Gears from gPotato Europe, which is an MMO identical to Jet Set Radio except it's all in French.
The good news is that Sega is finally porting Jet Set Radio over to PC with their HD remake, which is also planned for release on the Sony Entertainment Network and the Xbox Live Arcade. The news comes courtesy of
Originally, the news about a Jet Set Radio HD remake came in the form of a
We'll keep you posted on the official release date(s) and in the meantime you can learn more by visiting the PC gamers wanting a really flashy, graffiti-based, counter-culture game likehaven't been real lucky, the closest thing PC gamers have received along those lines would be FreeJack from GamerKraft, which is a parkour racing version of, andfrom gPotato Europe, which is an MMO identical toexcept it's all in French.The good news is that Sega is finally portingover to PC with their HD remake, which is also planned for release on the Sony Entertainment Network and the Xbox Live Arcade. The news comes courtesy of Eurogamer who reports that Sega made the passing announcement like a light whistle in the wind.Originally, the news about aremake came in the form of a teaser trailer that simply hinted at Sega reviving the original Dreamcast exclusive (and later Xbox exclusive) but no official word followed thereafter. At least now we have some sort of positive news for PC gamers that the graffiti-art and extreme-sports, cel-shaded adventure title will be making its way onto a PC screen near you via digital distribution.We'll keep you posted on the official release date(s) and in the meantime you can learn more by visiting the Official Website Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topJohn Adams students rally for DACA recipients
SOUTH BEND, Ind.— More than one hundred South Bend teens stood in support of DACA recipients.
Many students at John Adams High School walked right out of their classes Friday afternoon, asking local and national leaders to protect immigrant students.
Students at John Adams are chanting "We support DREAMers." Quite a few told me this #DACA protest started through social media. pic.twitter.com/XVt82fCmL2 — Taurean Small (@taureansmall) September 8, 2017
Wednesday, students in Denver, Colorado walked out of class by the thousands to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind DACA.
After seeing that, teens here at home wanted to make a statement as well.
“That inspired us to know that this is something tangible that we can do,” said Bernal Cortes, a senior at John Adams High School. “And so because of that, we saw that 1000 students walked out in Denver, that was really our inspiration to start here.”
Quite a few Adams students said they were told skipping classes to participate in this rally could result in repercussions.
Some students were told by administrators they risked suspension if they decided to walk out.
A representative from the South Bend Community Schools Corporation told ABC 57 News in a statement, the school wanted to make sure students stayed safe.
It read:
"The principal met this morning with some students who spoke about walking out of school in support of DACA. Students were offered several alternatives as the school is hoping to work together with them. Students were told about potential consequences if they chose to participate. Our number one priority is safety of the students regardless of what the cause, walkouts put students’ safety at risk.”
These students felt it was worth it in order to stand up for the many DACA recipients at the school.
One DREAMer participated in the protest, Friday.
She said she felt encouraged by the support from her classmates.
“Now that I see that I have the support from my peers and everybody, I honestly feel more empowered to keep going and continue with my education,” said Nadia Gonzalez, a senior at Adams and a DACA recipient.
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emailCriminals running websites that push drive-by exploits overwhelmingly prefer the Firefox browser, according to a researcher who spent the past three months surveilling their browsing habits.
Mozilla's Firefox was used by 46 per cent of the exploit kit operators who were tracked in the study, according to Paul Royal, principal researcher at Purewire, a company that protects customers against malicious websites. One third of the Firefox users browsed using a 3.0 version, while 13 per cent had upgraded to the most recent 3.5 version.
Interestingly, Opera, which by some measures has only a 2 per cent market share, ranked second among the kit operators, with 26 per cent.
"I think that's probably because operators have a familiarity with the web threat landscape," Royal told The Register, suggesting that many black-hat hackers take a security-through-obscurity approach to making sure they themselves don't get hit. "It makes them wary of using mainstream browsers."
Royal gathered the statistics by casing 15 websites that push LuckySploit and UniquePack, two widely used do-it-yourself kits for infecting visitors with potent exploit cocktails that target dozens of vulnerabilities in programs such as Adobe's ubiquitous Flash and Reader applications, IE, and Apple's QuickTime. Just as legitimate sites log the search engines and other online properties that refer each visitor, rogue sites also check the referrer field of each visiting browser to measure which web-based scams are working and which ones aren't.
Royal was able to monitor the browser, IP address, and in some cases operating system of many of the operators of these sites by sneaking a line of JavaScript into the referrer fields of browsers he had visit the site. When the webmasters viewed the logs, their browsers secretly visited a website under his control.
Besides learning that Firefox and Opera were the top browser choices among exploit kit operators, Royal also found that most operators browse - and presumably live - in a country other than the one where their illicit website is hosted. Of the 15 sites tracked, only two were hosted in the same country where their operator resided. In both cases, the country was Latvia, where law enforcement is widely viewed as being lax.
But even in other eastern European countries where it's hard to enforce cyber security laws, the operators took steps to put space between them and their websites.
"Attackers are distancing themselves from their illicit activities geographically by at least one country," Royal said.
The US and Russia were the two most common countries for operators, with three in each. The US was also the top location of the illegal websites. Royal counted three of them, although the operators of each were located in different countries. Latvia, the Netherlands, and China tied for second place with two each. ®US Air Force via Reuters A Predator drone is shown in an undated photo from the Air Force.
Michael Reynolds / EPA U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder addresses the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26.
The Obama administration has "no intention" of carrying out drone strikes against suspected terrorists in the United States, but could use them in response to “an extraordinary circumstance” such as the 9/11 terror attacks, according to a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder obtained by NBC News.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who received the March 4 letter from Holder, called the attorney general’s refusal to rule out drone strikes in the U.S. “more than frightening.”
The letter from Holder surfaced just as the Senate Intelligence Committee was voting 12-3 to approve White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to be CIA director. The vote came after the White House agreed to share additional classified memos on targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens overseas.
Paul had threatened to hold up Brennan's confirmation on the floor of the Senate if the administration did not clarify whether targeted drone strikes could be used inside the U.S.
In his letter, Holder called the question of drone strikes inside the U.S. "entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur and we hope no president will ever have to confront. … As a policy matter, moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat."
But Holder then appeared to leave the door open to such strikes in extreme circumstances.
Read the full letter
"It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on Dec. 7, 1941 and Sept. 11, 2001."
In a statement, Paul said, “The U.S. attorney general’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans.”
Paul told NBC News that the response by Holder could lead to a situation where “an Arab-American in Dearborn (Mich.) is walking down the street emailing with a friend in the Mideast and all of a sudden we drop a drone” on him. He said it was “really shocking” that President Barack Obama, a former constitutional law professor, would leave the door open to such a possibility.
Paul said he will filibuster Brennan’s confirmation over the issue but acknowledged “we probably can’t stop him.” He did say, however, he intends to co-sponsor a bill with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to be introduced in the next few days, that would bar the president from using drone strikes in the U.S.
Related stories:
Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans
Senate panel votes to move Brennan's CIA nomination forward
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Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and FacebookPresident Donald Trump has signed a revised executive order banning refugees and citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States.
For 120 days, the US will not allow any new refugees into the country and for 90 days, visas will not be issued to people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
These are the major changes to Trump's first immigration order, which was blocked in the courts.
Iraqis off the list - Iraqis are removed from the list of banned nationals. The White House said Iraq was removed because it has imposed new vetting procedures such as heightened visa screening and data sharing, and because of its work with the US in countering ISIL.
Only new visa applicants included - Travellers from the six banned countries who already have visas, and refugees who have already been given visas will not be barred from entering the US.
"Green card" holders and dual citizens exempt - Permanent residents of the US or dual-national citizens from listed countries will not be turned away and "green card" holders travelling abroad will no longer be at risk of being unable to return home.
Implemented from March 16 - The original ban took effect immediately, without warning, causing chaos at airports as travellers already midair when the order was signed were detained in airports and others were prevented from boarding planes.
Syrian refugees not singled out - The original order banned refugees from Syria from entering the US indefinitely. The new order removes that clause.
Loophole closed for religious minorities - While the original order made an exception for refugees who are members of "persecuted religious minorities", saying they could enter the US despite the ban, the new order has no mention of religion.Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM - Review / Test Report Lens Reviews - Canon EOS (APS-C) Article Index Introduction Analysis Tweet Page 1 of 2 Review by Klaus Schroiff, published November 2014 Introduction Back in 2012, Canon introduced the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM - a full format pancake lens. Pancake lenses have a short barrel in an attempt to minimize the size of the overall setup. Because of their size, pancake lenses tend to have a rather moderate speed and, for obvious reasons, they are also limited to a rather shallow range of focal lengths. Now it seems as if the concept was successful enough to release another one - the Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM. As you may notice, this is not a full format lens but designed for APS-C DSLRs only. In this scope it actually resembles its full format counterpart because the field-of-view is equivalent to a "38mm" full format lens. Pancake lenses are easy beings in terms of build quality - they are about as simple as it can get so it is not surprising that the Canon lens has no issues here. It has a tightly assembled plastic body based on a metal mount. The focus ring operates smoothly. An inner lens tube which extends a little when focusing towards shorter distances. The focus ring is decoupled from the actual focus gear so you cannot retract the inner tube after detaching the lens from the camera. As already mentioned, the Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM uses a stepping motor for AF. AF operations are fairly fast in phase detection AF mode but, frankly, not quite as speedy as a ring-type USM AF. In a silent environment there's a slightly noticeable amount of AF noise although it remains unobtrusive.
Manual focusing works "by wire" so you are actually controlling the AF motor when turning the focus ring. This works pretty well actually. Canon advertises the STM as an innovation for movie taking. This may be true on STM-optimized EOS cameras but for older cameras this is a bit of a bold statement - the progress from USM is rather marginal in this case. Just to put this into perspective, most mirrorless systems do a better job at contrast AF (thus "LiveView"). Specifications Equiv. focal length "38mm" (full format equivalent) Equiv. aperture f/4.5 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) Optical construction 6 elements in 5 groups inc. 1x aspherical element Number of aperture blades 7 (circular) min. focus distance 0.16m (max. magnification: ~1.3.7) Dimensions 68.2x22.8mm Weight 125g Filter size 52mm (non-rotating) Hood barrel shaped, optional Other features STM motorRepublican presidential candidate retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who recently visited Syrian refugee camps in Jordan to experience firsthand the conditions, just offered up a very strange and revealing bit of circular — and some argue Onion-esque — justification for his stance that the refugees are better off staying put.
In an interview with Breitbart News Radio, Carson suggested the U.S. has to keep Syrian refugees out of the country because the public will treat them so poorly they will become radicalized.
Source: Soundcloud
"You bring a lot of people here from another culture and what they will tend to do is congregate together, that's a natural thing, which makes them much easier targets for radicalization," Carson said on the program. "Particularly if you bring them into an environment where a lot people of are resentful of the fact that they are here. That's just going to create incidents that will increase further the likelihood of radicalization."
"So again, why would anyone even be thinking about doing something like that?" he continued.
Two weeks ago, the Onion ran an article with the headline "GOP Warns Refugees Likely To Be Driven To Terrorism By Way America Would Treat Them."
"Syrian asylum seekers would in all probability embrace a radical jihadist worldview after constantly enduring anti-Muslim hate speech, racial epithets, and threats of violence and persecution by both the American people and government officials," reads the satirical piece.
The comments do appear to be the first time Carson has referenced resentfulness and suspicion towards immigrants as a part of the cycle of intolerance.
But rather than arguing that hostility is part of the problem, Carson instead appears to be arguing that alienation is somehow natural and inevitable, rather than the result of conscious action by people who wish to make refugees feel unwelcome in the U.S.
Such an argument would be consistent with previous comments by Carson suggesting a viewpoint of cultural and ethnic groups as monolithic and incompatible entities. In September, the doctor told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd the Islamic faith is "inconsistent with the values and principles of America" and said Muslims should not be able to serve as president.
Fellow Republican candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has expressed a similar belief that multiculturalism breeds social instability, arguing that any residents of the country should "assimilate into American culture and heed American values."
(h/t BuzzFeed News)Dopamine-based reward circuitry appears to play a role in encoding reward from eating and incentive sensitization, whereby cues associated with food reward acquire motivational value. Data suggest that low levels of dopamine D2 receptors and attenuated responsivity of dopamine-target regions (e.g. the striatum) to food and food cues are associated with elevated weight. There is mixed evidence that genotypes that appear to be associated with reduced signaling of dopamine circuitry, including DRD2, DRD4 and DAT, are correlated with obesity. In addition, there is emerging fMRI evidence that reduced responsivity in brain regions implicated in food reward increase risk for future weight gain among individuals who appear to be at genetic risk for attenuated dopamine signaling by virtue of DRD2 and DRD4 genotypes. However, it is vital for these relations to be replicated in larger, independent prospective studies and to use positron emission tomography to better characterize parameters of dopamine signaling, including dopamine receptor density, basal dopamine levels, and phasic dopamine release. Improved understanding of the role of dopamine-based reward circuitry and genotypes that influence the functioning of this circuitry may inform the design of more effective preventive and treatment interventions for obesity.
Copyright (c) 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel.A staunch Mayor Rob Ford ally regrets voting with Ford to quash debate over transit-funding taxes and will help the mayor’s opponents get the issue to city council. Councillor Gary Crawford’s change of heart gives a boost to TTC chair Karen Stintz and others working to overrule Ford’s executive committee and get so-called “revenue tools” discussed at city council’s May 7-8 meeting.
Councillor Gary Crawford has changed his mind after backing Toronto executive committee vote to shelve talk of new taxes for transit. ( David Cooper / Toronto Star )
“After careful consideration, I’ve decided to reconsider my vote at executive,” on Tuesday, Crawford told reporters summoned to his office on city hall’s second floor Thursday. “I do feel that this is an incredibly important issue for the city with regard to transit, and it’s a discussion that has to happen at council. “So I’m supporting and urging all of my colleagues to get this on the agenda of council so we can have a full, fulsome debate and discussion.”
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Crawford was a deciding vote in the 6-4 decision to defer consideration of city manager Joe Pennachetti’s report — which recommends a sales tax, gas tax, parking levy and development charges — until May 28. That is one day too late for Toronto to submit its views to the provincial Metrolinx transportation agency. Premier Kathleen Wynne says her government will impose region-wide levies to help fund $2 billion a year in transportation improvements and she wants to know which ones |
’s Copacabana beach congregating to watch the men’s side play. During the Women’s World Cup you’d be lucky to find one bar that was showing the games. The Copa America tournament in Chile has filled the front page of the sports sections for the last few weeks. The rest of the newspapers have been filled with analysis of the U-20 World Cup in New Zealand. The women’s team has barely been mentioned.
The problem is somewhat chicken and egg. Is it the fans that don’t care to support the Brazilian women, thus the media don’t cover them? Or is it the fifth estate’s responsibility to tell stories about both the men and women, and only then will the public become engaged? Either way the chief culpability lands at the feet of Brazilian soccer’s governing body.
The Brazil federation has failed to keep up with its elite competition. The English FA have added dollars to growing the female game and pushed them hard promotionally in the lead up to this World Cup and they’ve been rewarded as England’s Lionesses won a game in the knockout stage for the first time ever. The United States, Germany, Canada, and France have all substantially invested in their women’s programs over the last decade with extensive residency programs and the proof is in their strong displays. All four nations won their group and are still alive.
The issue of female funding is not unique to Brazil.
The men’s game is overflowing with money. According to Loretta Lynch, the United States attorney general, Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer racketeered their way to over $150 million in bribes between themselves and their associates. Blazer purchasing a penthouse in the Trump Towers just for his cats is testament that the fat cat aristocrats who have made ugly money off the beautiful game have so much of it they don’t know what to do with it.
There is no greater example of this double standard than former FIFA vice president Warner. While the current Trinidad and Tobago MP was embezzling millions and paying off his personal debts, the women’s national team could barely afford to play. So much so that coach Randy Woldrum took to Twitter after the $500 he was given for the team’s CONCACAF championship appearance ran out after their first meal.
With qualification to the World Cup on the line, Woldrum, who took time away from his job as NWSL franchise Houston Dash’s coach to voluntarily lead Trinidad and Tobago, was left no other choice. Luckily his cry for help was answered.
The soccer website KeeperNotes.com reached out to Waldrum and collected just under $10,000 via a PayPal account. Haiti’s national team also heard Waldrum’s plea from their training camp in South Bend, Indiana. The Haitians themselves had been running on donations and money raised from fundraising initiatives and only had $1,316 at the time. The Haitian players implored their coach Shek Borkowski, who is also coaching for free, to give it all to the Trinidad and Tobago squad. Local restaurants and families, the American Outlaws supporters group, plus expat Trinidadians stepped up to offer help in the form of delivering water, Gatorade, granola bars and training attire to the team’s Comfort Inn hotel.
The federation’s only response was a social media ban of the “Soca Princesses” because the public pleas were embarrassing to the federation and the country.
The madness eventually stopped when Haiti’s soccer federation received a call from the Clinton Foundation, the charitable organization run by former President Bill and Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, saying it wanted to support the women’s program.
FIFA has rules in place to make sure women’s teams get funding. The problem is that there is no oversight to enforce these rules. Sepp Blatter would never want to bite the hands that feed him and kept him in power year after year.
Each of the 209 FIFA member associations receive payments after big tournaments such as the World Cup. Of a million dollar payout, 15 percent is mandated by FIFA to be spent on their women’s program. In any other sector of society if only 15 percent of resources were allocated to females, it would be seen as grossly sexist, not progressive.
The famed women from Brazil are models not footballers. Adriana Lima and Gisele Bundchen are the worldwide female exports Brazil is known for—a dangerous message to young Brazilian girls that walking down a runway is a more redeeming skill than running away from defenders with the ball at your feet.
The coordinator for the women’s game for the Confederation of Brazilian Football, Marco Aurelio Cunha has a warped perspective on a possible fix. “Now the women are getting more beautiful, putting on make-up. They go in the field in an elegant manner,” he told the Globe and Mail. Aurelio expands: ”Now the shorts are a bit shorter, the hair styles are more done up. It’s not a woman dressed as a man.” He’s clearly missing the point. These women should be supported like men. Their support shouldn’t be contingent on them acting more “lady like” when they compete.
None of this, though, should be surprising coming from a country where up until not too long ago women weren’t allowed to play. Women’s soccer participation was forbidden by government decree and was not lifted until 1979. As a frame of reference, Title IX had already been written into law in the U.S. for seven years and the North American rise in women’s soccer participation that continues to this day had already begun.
Brazil had a proud history of women’s soccer participation dating back to the early 1900s, but it was banned in 1941. The rationale written into law was that soccer was a sport that was “considered incompatible to their feminine nature.”
Brazil isn’t alone in the blame. It’s symptomatic of an overall disinterest for the women’s side of the game by the federations that trickles down from the top. Costa Rican players preparing for the tournament had to take three buses to get to practice and then go to work afterwards. Meanwhile South Korea hasn’t played a friendly in their home country in 17 years.
Brazil has managed to have sustained success despite a lack of support. Historically, the Brazilians did not train together before tournaments. Until this February, the women had never held a training camp before a World Cup. The World Cup squad of 1999 practised once a week. In 2011 the team arrived in Germany only days before the tournament.
Despite that, Brazil has won six of the seven continental tournaments, finished third and second in the World Cups of 1999 and 2007, and brought home two silver medals at the Olympics.They have since established a residency program but in reality it was designed more so they would show well at home at next year’s Rio Olympics than it was for this World Cup.
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In Brazil it’s not just an issue for the national program, the inequities seep down into the club system.
Professional women’s soccer players’ starting salaries in Brazil are just above minimum wage.
The wage disparity is so dramatic that Nene, a former league leader in scoring, quit Santos FC because she earned more money working in a toy factory than she did toying with goalkeepers.
Few games are televised and the stands are almost always empty. The country’s most prestigious women’s soccer club, Santos FC, folded in 2012 in order to pay the salary of Neymar when European teams were trying to lure him away and Pele begged him to stay in his home country.
The women’s team operating budget was reportedly around 1.5 million reais a year ($667,000). At the time, Santos was paying Neymar one million reais ($447,000) a month. Neymar quite literally could have funded the women’s operation himself, not that he should be obligated to do so.
Barcelona eventually paid a transfer fee of more than 57 million euros to acquire Neymar. Imagine if just a fraction of that was invested in the female club? Marta, meanwhile, has struggled in obscurity, playing abroad, unable to find a league stable enough to pay her what she is worth.
One of the female players affected when the wealthy club cut its women’s outfit was American Caitlin Fisher.
Fisher and other players started the Guerreiras Project, aimed at raising awareness about discrimination against women’s soccer and women in Brazilian society as a whole. They tell the stories of the many Brazilian women, Marta included, who defied their parents’ orders and in some cases ran away from home to pursue their dreams of playing soccer.
“People really put social pressure on women not to play soccer,” Fisher told USA TODAY Sports. “Soccer is associated with masculinity in Brazil. It is a very traditional, male-defined thing. There is a lot of prejudice for women who are seen as a threat to that, just by the simple fact that they want to play.”
Of the 400,000 youth female soccer players in Brazil (Canada has 850,000) it will be harder to produce the next Marta when all signs they see are discouraging young girls from playing.
Remember the vivid images of the host men’s starting 11 crying during the national anthem at last year’s World Cup? That raw emotion comes from the same place that had the women wiping away tears when they were wiped from the 2015 tournament by Australia. The sense of sacrifice for your nation is no different.
And yet the men’s tears are out of pride knowing how much it mattered to their entire country that they won. I imagine the women’s tears are partially because they know it only matters to them when they lose. So don’t wonder how a soccer nation like Brazil was knocked out before the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Wonder how they have managed to consistently make it to the World Cup in the first place.It’s possible that most Western Buddhists are “unaffiliated.” That is, they practice alone or in small informal groups not listed in the phone book or on the web. There is therefore no record, no official trace, of their activity. They practice off the books.
If you’re unaffiliated, maybe you became interested in Buddhism through reading, or in school, or maybe you met a Buddhist practitioner whose approach to life intrigued you. Perhaps you traveled in Asia. Chances are you are unaffiliated because you can’t find a Buddhist center nearby. But I suspect that many unaffiliated practitioners do live near Buddhist centers but don’t want to go to them because they don’t like “organized religion.” This may be due to a bad experience in the past, perhaps in childhood, or because of a strongly held opinion that organized religion is always bad, on principle.
According to this essentially romantic view (that many affiliated Buddhists share ), “organized religion,” meaning all identifiable religion, is―or should be―an oxymoron. That’s because real religion, according to this view, is essentially personal and dynamic, and is killed off by all attempts to organize it into doctrine and institution. Religion as we know it kills religion. So it is better to rebel against religion, for the sake of religion.
Notice that on both counts―whether one is unable or unwilling to “join”―the assumption is the same: that Buddhism is confined to Buddhist centers. But suppose this isn’t true, or at least not entirely true. What if Buddhism―Buddhism that is as Buddhist as any Buddhism―can also be found outside conventional Buddhist institutions?
Lately I have been fascinated with the idea of the evolution of religion. When Nietzsche pronounced God dead in the nineteenth century, he was not alone. Freud quickly followed, as did others. Religion was dying because humans were growing out of it. Religion had been a necessary, if somewhat juvenile, phase of human development. There was a time when we needed comfort and fanciful explanations for things we couldn’t understand. But now that we were grown up and scientifically minded, religion would naturally fade away and be relegated to nostalgia, history, and myth.
It turns out this wasn’t true. Human beings seem to need religion, just as we need language, food, and air, and this is why religion has always existed in human societies, from earliest times to the present, and why it will probably continue to exist. Some activity, some thought, some feeling that helps us extract meaning and significance from our lives is necessary, because we human beings are creatures uniquely capable of living meaningless lives, and we desperately need to avoid this. Without meaning and significance we literally get sick or go crazy. Religion is our coping mechanism, our natural healing activity. Efforts to transpose religious practice and feeling into politics during the twentieth century (communism) failed spectacularly. Art has been significant as a substitute, but it isn’t enough. Neither is psychology. So religion is almost certainly here to stay.
Everything in human society changes over time, and religion does too. Neolithic religion was quite different from the so-called Axial religions (Buddhism, Judeo-Christianity, Confucianism, Brahmanism, etc), and these religions in their formative centuries were quite different from their this-worldly manifestations (Protestantism, Shin Buddhism, etc.), which allowed modernism to flourish.
We are now in the twenty-first century, but we still have a nineteenth-century view of religion. We see religion as a set of coherent doctrines, rituals, and hierarchies that take shape within real-estate-based institutions. We might be affiliated with such institutions or not. We may prize their doctrines without being affiliated, or we may be hostile to all of it. But whatever the case, what we affiliate with or prize or reject is a centuries-old view of religion.
Intellectual life of the last fifty or more years has been mostly about the breakdown of hierarchies, the relativism of doctrines, and the doubtfulness of real-estate-based institutions in an increasingly network-based world. Religion needs to absorb these developments. Probably it is in the process of doing so. But our thinking has not yet caught up with it.
All of this might provide context for understanding with new appreciation the position of the “unaffiliated Buddhist.” It may also help us to appreciate the distinction people these days so frequently insist on making: “I’m not religious at all! I’m spiritual.” It seems to me that some of the liveliest religion going these days is not in Buddhist centers, churches, synagogues, or other official religious institutions. It’s taking place in the solitude of the private home, in living rooms and community centers, in book groups, twelve-step meetings, women’s and men’s groups, private meditation prayer or study gatherings, corporate leadership classes, human potential workshops, yoga and improv classes, stress-reduction clinics, coaching seminars. And, perhaps, in the practice of unaffiliated Buddhists.
Everywhere I look, what I would call “religious questions,” questions of ultimate meaning and ultimate connection, are spilling out of the official religious institutions and entering the society in various way. Some of these ways, to be sure, are superficial or exploitive, but it’s natural in times of social change that the faulty comes along with the sincere. Religion is evolving under our noses, but we are not noticing it because we are stuck on old forms and old terminologies. It may be that among Buddhists, the “unaffiliated” are our leaders without knowing they are, rather than the poor souls who either by choice or by circumstances have been left out in the cold. As they fumble to find their way, perhaps they are finding the way for us all.
This is not to say that these unaffiliated individuals and small informal Buddhist pick-up groups are the good guys, while the conventional Buddhists are the bad guys, old-fashioned and moribund. If we have learned anything over the last decades, as technologies and social forms have morphed and multiplied, it is that nothing disappears; it just changes its function.
I think of the great world religions as self-contained high-rise buildings. Christianity is a massive Cathedral-like structure. Islam is a giant multi-tiered and multi-storied mosque. And Buddhism is a huge tower, like the great stupa at Bodhgaya but many times bigger. Completely enclosed within each of these separate uniquely designed yet essentially similar structures a coherent conversation has been going on for millennia among intelligent and highly committed interlocutors who share an intellectual system, a history, and a set of rituals and practices that inform them. Because the conversation is so thorough and so old, and because its theme involves what is most mysterious and most fundamental about human life, it is essential that we not lose track of it. These various conversations are human treasures, and we need them now probably more than ever.
In the past if you wanted to participate in these conversations you had to move into the building, because the rule then was that only people who permanently resided in the building could speak and listen to the conversation. At that time it was possible for people to do this, because they could be more or less content living entirely inside one of those buildings.
But times have changed drastically. In a global world where all the buildings have windows and TV screens, and where citizens are so psychologically open and aware that our various identities and impulses can no longer be sublimated or suppressed, very few people can be satisfied with moving into one of those buildings and simply remaining there. Many of us can visit one or more buildings briefly, or we can stay in one but only during the daytime, because we have to sleep elsewhere. Or maybe we can stay for several months, a year, or several years, but eventually we have to go out into the street, in the open air, among the various bazaars, stalls, and markets, where other things we also need can be found. The buildings don’t need to be knocked down. They are beautiful, and we need them. It’s just that they can no longer contain all the dimensions of who we are. They need to be used differently, understood differently.
The question for anyone interested in Buddhist practice is, “How do I discover meaning and find transformation?” This is a challenge, whether we are affiliated or unaffiliated, though perhaps a greater challenge for those who don’t enjoy the resources or the support of coherent institutions and communities. For them there is perhaps more loneliness, more doubt and confusion. But the unaffiliated practitioner can take some heart, I hope, in the reflections above. You might well be engaged in pioneering work, whether you realize it or intend it or not. Though you may feel alone, I am sure that religious practice is always a community endeavor: we always practice together, even if it seems that we are apart, each of us doing what we can, what we are given to do by our situation and our passion.One cold winter's day, a group of hedgehogs crowded together for warmth so as not to freeze to death. However, the pain from the mass of spines soon caused them to separate again, until the cold forced them back together, and thus they continued, moving from one source of discomfort to another, until they found a distance that allowed them to live but without the benefits of the full warmth of community.
Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, in the middle of the nineteenth century, published the parable of the hedgehogs (also translated as porcupines) as a way to describe the dilemma faced by human beings as we simultaneously crave and reject connection. In 1921, Sigmund referenced the parable in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego in his discussion of the "ambivalence of feeling" inherent in long-term. A character in the episode "The Hedgehog's Dilemma" of the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion sums up the problem: "The nearer we get, the deeper we hurt each other." And so we back away.
Source: freeimages: sxc.hu/photo/696954
In the twenty-first century, we can see the hedgehog's dilemma play out online, especially in the world of social.
The Lure of Social Media
I'm a morning person and always have been, up before the sun, 4:45 a.m. every day, wide awake when many people have yet to enter their last cycle of. It is my best, most alert, and most productive time of the day. Whatever work I do in those first two or three hours is what I do most efficiently.
So, how do I spend this precious time? All too often, I read and answer email (and delete spam), check (where I read about and see photos of what other people are doing), tweet and retweet, and read and comment on a few of my favorite blogs.
Do I then close all those open tabs and focus on my own work and writing?
No. I usually start the process over again.
We can think of the call of social media as a standing invitation to a virtual sitting-room. For writers and others who require long, uninterrupted time in which to create and a comfortable relationship with themselves that allows them to be alone, the problem is akin to what Virginia Woolf described in her classic essay, "A Room of One's Own":
"If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common sitting-room. And, as Miss Nightingale was so vehemently to complain,—'women never have an half hour... that they can call their own'- she was always interrupted.... Jane Austen wrote like that to the end of her days. 'How she was able to effect all this', her nephew writes in his Memoir, 'is surprising, for she had no separate study to repair to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions.'"
Unlike Jane Austen, however, we enter social media's virtual sitting-room of our own accord, and we often stay far longer than we had planned. We tell ourselves that the distractions we find there are part of our work, that we are networking or building our platforms. There is some truth in this. Writers today, for example, are told to have an online presence in the form of websites, blogs, Twitter accounts, and Facebook pages. Before they can approach a publisher, even first-time authors are expected to have built a readership to which they can market their book.
So far, so good. But we tend to forget the opportunity cost, which is often the solitary writing practice, free from all kinds of casual interruptions, that we need in order to finish the book we hope one day to finish in the first place.
Will You Opt In or Opt Out?
I am continually trying to wrap my head around social media, working to figure out the most comfortable combination, fit, level of involvement, and boundaries so as both to enjoy the process and to meet my own. I use the word "comfortable" deliberately. For anyone for whom social media is part personal and part professional, the ever increasing social media options—from Twitter to LinkedIn, Goodreads to Google+—can very quickly be a source of discomfort at the same time that they are useful and informative and oh so much fun. This discomfort is especially keen for introverts and others who are overwhelmed by crowds and noise and competing distractions, virtual or otherwise.
I am no Luddite, nor do I wish for a return to the days before the internet. On a nearly daily basis, I am amazed by and appreciative of the options both informational and communal that my 20-year-old son and the college students in my classroom take for granted. Social media can lead to very real connections. Last year, for example, I realized through a Facebook status by a Milwaukee writer whom I first met through blogging, that not only did our sons share many years together in a local children's theater company, but our husbands have known each other and worked together for 25 years. Our "circles" intersect in a Venn diagram illuminated by our online networking, making eventual face-to-face meeting even more meaningful.
My problem is not with social media, but with myself and how I use it. Until now, my default position has been one of "opting out," to borrow a marketing term. Opting out is a "tacit yes" to everything, unless we give permission to opt out in specific areas.
It's time for me to switch to "opting in," checking only those social media boxes that work best for me, with a tacit no to all the rest.
Nicholas Carr writes in The Shallows of how, when he began writing the book, he "wrote in disconnected spurts," similar to blogging, and that, in order to finish the book, he needed to disconnect almost completely, to opt in:
"There was no cell phone service at our new home, and the Internet arrived through a relatively poky DSL connection. I canceled my Twitter account, put my Facebook membership on hiatus, and mothballed my blog. I shut down my RSS reader and curtailed my skyping and instant messaging. Most important, I throttled back my e-mail application. It had long been set to check for new messages every minute. I reset it to check only once an hour, and when that created too much of a distraction, I began keeping the program closed much of the day."
Interestingly, Carr found that after he finished the book, he quickly returned to his old multi-tasking and email habits, showing just how difficult it is to resist the online siren song. Like Schopenhauer, Carr, in the end, is a. I would like to think we have more control over our attention and time and choices than he proposes.
The Challenge: Finding the Place of Stillness
Lev Grossman's TIME magazine article on best-selling novelist Jonathan Franzen is worth reading for anyone on a personal quest to create a new, more balanced relationship with modern technology and social media:
"Franzen works in a rented office that he has stripped of all distractions. He uses a heavy, obsolete Dell laptop from which he has scoured any trace of hearts and solitaire, down to the level of the operating system. Because Franzen believes you can't write serious fiction on a computer that's connected to the Internet, he not only removed the Dell's wireless card but also permanently blocked its Ethernet port. 'What you have to do,' he explains, 'is you plug in an Ethernet cable with superglue, and then you saw off the little head of it.."
Grossman continues:
"Reading, in its quietness and sustained, is the opposite of busyness. 'We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we've created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our way, that more than ever to immerse yourself in an involving book seems socially useful,' Franzen says. 'The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world..'"
The important question posed by the hedgehog's dilemma for working and living online may be to what extent we use social media as the middle, safe distance to avoid having not only closer, unplugged relationships with others, but quieter and deeper relationships with ourselves. Today's early adopters may be those who find creative ways to incorporate less of the newest technology in their lives rather than more. Finding that place of stillness is not always easy in today's world. Not easy, but also not impossible.
What is your experience of the hedgehog's dilemma as it relates to working and living online? Let's share what works.
Opt in to join me on Twitter and Facebook.Tectoy's announced the Zeebo, a 3G network-based gaming console that will supposedly launch in Brazil in July of 2009, then spread to other markets in the following months. The console will apparently be constantly connected to a 3G network for no cost to the gamer, with all games and content paid for and downloaded via said network (which sounds suspiciously like the never-realized Phantom ). In theory, this would mean lower costs for the consumer while cutting down on piracy. Titles that are to be preloaded in the Brazil launch of the system include the mobile game Action Hero 3D, Evil Prey, and Quake... not exactly state-of-the-art, but according to its manufacturers, the Zeebo is not meant to directly compete with platforms like the Wii, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Instead, the system will be aimed at "emerging" gaming markets, including those which could not normally afford expensive hardware and games. Confusingly, the price mentioned for the console is a steep $599, with games set to cost between $10 and $30 -- not exactly the most affordable item we've ever heard of, but we'll keep our ears to the wall for further updates should the Zeebo ever come closer to existence. And, comparison to the Phantom aside, we hope it does.We're aware of the craziness of the $599 US price tag, but the source does specify US dollars, though we're unsure of whether it's a typo or the actual price.Thanks to a tip from a reader, we've confirmed that the US dollar price of the Zeebo will be $258, or $599 in Brazil. Not a bad deal![Via Folha Online ; thanks Fabio V.]Russia has completed the massive task of destroying its Cold War-era chemical weapons stockpiles, winning praise from an international chemical weapons watchdog.
Russian officials reported the destruction of the country's last remaining artillery projectiles filled with a toxic agent to President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The work took place at the Kizner facility in the Urals, one of five facilities built in Russia to destroy chemical weapons
Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, commended Russia for achieving a "major milestone" with the destruction of its chemical arsenals.
The OPCW oversees global efforts to eliminate chemical weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention that took effect in 1997. It says over 96 percent of the stockpiles declared by the conventions 192 participants have been destroyed.A short while ago a friend of mine suggested I watch Vsauces video on Zipf's law, Pareto's principle and their mysterious appearances all around us. Here is a little teaser to gain your attention - 80% of all people live in 20% of most popular cities; 80% of all land belongs to 20% of wealthiest landlords; 80% of all trash is on the top 20% trashiest streets - as predicted by Zipf's law and Paretos principle.
Not enough? Well, as I discovered yesterday, the rabbit hole does not stop there... Full of scepticism, I decided to look at how much time people spend playing Steam games... Well. 80% of people's time is spent playing 20% of the most popular games... Interesting? Well, read on, there is more to this story.
Clocking in at over 20min, Vsauces endeavor is awesome and explains a lot of the big picture stuff about Zipf, however he is very shy at showing us the core mechanism that is widely believed to contribute to why Zipf works how it does. So before we go on I would like to briefly explain that.
Zipf's law explained
There are several conceptual ways to explain the intuition behind the 20/80 principle. The best example, in my opinion, is the one about Moon craters.
Basic experiment
So, imagine if you will, that there is an untouched Moon - a perfectly smooth surface. Now, say there are some randomly sized asteroids that hit the Moon willy-nilly. When the first asteroid lands, it leaves a crater. Now another one hits, leaving a crater elsewhere. Each crater is a part of the total surface area, therefore there is a chance that the next random asteroid will hit close to an existing crater and join with it, forming a group. The chance of a new asteroid hitting a given crater is then proportional to the craters and asteroids existing size. This means that the next random asteroid is more likely to join the largest existing group, making it even larger. A kind of cumulative process, which then creates a rich-get-richer poor-get-lonelier mechanism.
Keep this in mind, because that's believed to be the general explanation for "why" Zipfs law works with such mysterious universality. The asteroid example is quite simple, however the question is what will happen over many repetitions
A little bewildering?
Well, I made a gif to drive this initial point home. NB! the graph will be discussed later, just try and picture the experiment.
If we observe the actual Moon, it turns out that, as the amount of asteroids increases to large amounts, the crater diameters observed grow such that the top 20% of biggest craters approach 80% of all the surface area.
So as we go to more asteroids, the distribution of most popular to least popular groups approaches some kind of "ideal distribution" with this 20/80 property - a Pareto distribution. If you do the math, it turns out that (in general), if the largest group has size N, the second largest group is around size N/2, the third N/3 and so on and so forth. This is called the Zipf's Law. The weird thing is Zipf's Law and Pareto distribution works for a bewildering amount of elements (asteroids) and groups (crater clusters). Of course, there are skews and random disturbances, but the general trend is undeniable.
I hope you can see how asteroids being more likely to hit large craters on the Moon connects to cities being more attractive, if there are already more people living in them. However, one has to realize, cities are far from the only "groups" that behave according to Zipf.
Here are some examples from Mark Newmans research on Pareto distributions. NB! The graphs are in log-log scale which smooths out the hyperbolic form of the curves, presenting a nearly linear relation.
Initial y = aX^(-b)
Logs of both sides => log y = log a - b log X
Interestingly enough, the same trend is also displayed by religious cults... The shared property of most of these phenomenon is simply this "large-groups-get-larger" tendency. So Zipf's law is persistent in mechanisms, where the preferences of elements is positively connected to the groups size (meaning, the larger the group, the more likely it will grow). This is why I like to think of groups as clusters and elements as cluster-ers.
Zipf's Law in Steam markets
Suspicious of that last one? Here is the amount of time people spend on the most popular games on Steam.. Data from SteamSpy.
If you do the math, it turns out that 20% of most popular Steam games account for 80% of the total amount of playing, so the Pareto 20/80 mystery works like a charm here... One must notice, however that for Zipf to be true, CS:GO needs to account for 37,5%/2 = 18,8% of total time instead of a whopping 30%. But aside from this outlier (STOP PLAYING CS:GO), the Zipf-like distribution is clearly there.
Here is the amount of copies sold for the most popular games.
Looks much nicer eh? Copies sold does not have large outliers so it fits very well, which is a noteworthy difference. However, there is something more interesting to conclude from the differences of the last two graphs.
Do you notice how the "tail" going to the right is kind of fat in the second graph? Well, in simple terms, this tells us that the "relatively unpopular" games are actually quite a lot more popular than in the previous plot.
In fact, it turns out that 20% of most popular games account for only 60% of sales, versus 80% of playing. Interesting? You bet your ass it is.
What can we learn about Steam?
Well, the fact that game popularity follows Pareto distribution tell's us that, indeed there is some kind of a positive Network effect, which makes players choose games which are already being played by more people. What the difference in fatness of tails tells us is that Steam users are a lot more "group-size-blind", when buying games than they are when they play them.
Think about it - the more people buy games regardless of the "current popular opinion", the more flattened out the Pareto distribution gets, as it is less likely for large games to grow further. If nobody gave a rats butt about how many people already play a game and the availability of all games was the same, then we would expect 20% of most popular games to account for about 50% of sales and playtime (e.g. assuming individual preferences are normally distributed).
Conclusions
So there are two factors that contribute to the Pareto distribution in Steam markets - how innovative the developers are (how many new Moon craters are being formed) and how much the gamers (asteroids) value the current group size, when choosing which group to join. As it turns out, gamers are very group-size-blind when buying games, but just the opposite when they play them. Cool huh?
If you want to learn more about Zipf's Law and Power Law distributions, here is a nice lecture. Furthermore, be sure to have a look at Newman's paper!
If you want to read more of this kind of stuff, soon enough I will try to join this observation to a model, which shows that more popular multiplayer games have higher prices (which links to gamers preference to join groups of larger size). See the article here. The Piece De Resistance article will try and join these theories together explaining how multiplayer games, social networks and cities are in fact all anti-rival goods with network effects, (the more people consume a good, the more each individual consumer benefits) which has entitled them with this Zipfian mist of mystery...
Until then - enjoy yourselves!
P.S. Pop in a comment with a fun idea for a 20/80 relation you think might be true.
Mine are:
80% of peoples nostalgia is caused by 20% of their happiest memories (actually proven for the rate people forget information at)
80% of mass is concentrated in 20% of the largest space objects (actually proven for distribution of gravitational force)
And of course
80% of the mess in your toilet comes from 20% of what you eat (no academic research to speak of)phpCE is a first edition of the community conference for PHP programmers and enthusiasts. The meeting was stablished by merging two nation-wide events: PHPCon Poland and Brno PHP Conference. This edition will take place in the Ossa Congress & Spa Hotel near Rawa Mazowicka, Poland on November 3rd - 5th.
The unique feature of the php Central Europe Conference is three-path split of agenda, according to difficulty level of talks: Relaxing, Intermediate and Geek. Submitting a talk you must point a proper level and suggest the Program Committee, which one do you prefer. In general, talks given in the Relaxing path should be done in native language of hosting country (Polish this year).
We strongly encourage potential speakers to submit more than one submission on more than one topic. The more submissions you contribute, the more |
thence southeasterly along said boulevard to de la Faune Street; thence northeasterly along said street to the transmission line; thence easterly along said transmission line to Lapierre Avenue; thence southeasterly along said avenue to the southeasterly limit of the borough of La Haute-Saint-Charles (Auguste-Renoir Street), including Wendake Indian Reserve.
46. MANICOUAGAN
(Population: 94,766)
Consisting of:
(a) the Regional County Municipality of Caniapiscau, including: Lac John Indian Reserve and Matimekosh Indian Reserve No. 3; the Reserved Land of Kawawachikamach;
(b) the Regional County Municipality of Sept-Rivières, including Malioténam Indian Reserve No. 27A and Uashat Indian Reserve No. 27;
(c) the Regional County Municipality of Minganie, including Mingan Indian Reserve and Natashquan Indian Reserve No. 1;
(d) the Regional County Municipality of Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent, including: La Romaine Indian Reserve No. 2; the Pakuashipi Indian settlement;
(e) the Regional County Municipality of La Haute-Côte-Nord, including Innue Essipit Indian Reserve; and
(f) the Regional County Municipality of Manicouagan, including Betsiamites Indian Reserve.
47. MÉGANTIC—L’ÉRABLE
(Population: 88,745)
Consisting of the regional county municipalities of Le Granit, L’Érable and Les Appalaches.
48. MIRABEL
(Population: 103,536)
Consisting of:
(a) the City of Mirabel;
(b) that part of the Regional County Municipality of Thérèse-De Blainville comprised of the City of Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines;
(c) that part of the Regional County Municipality of DeuxMontagnes comprised of: the municipalities of Oka, Pointe-Calumet, Saint-Joseph-du-Lac and Saint-Placide; the City of Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac; the Kanesatake lands; and
(d) that part of the Regional County Municipality of La Rivière-du-Nord comprised of the City of Saint-Colomban.
49. MONTARVILLE
(Population: 95,095)
Consisting of:
(a) the cities of Saint-Basile-le-Grand, Saint-Bruno-deMontarville and Sainte-Julie; and
(b) that part of the City of Longueuil lying southeasterly and northeasterly of a line described as follows: commencing at the intersection of the northeasterly limit of the City of Longueuil with Sir-Wilfrid-Laurier Boulevard; thence westerly along said boulevard to the northerly production of Moreau Street; thence southerly along said production and Moreau Street to Latour Street; thence southeasterly along said street to Gaétan-Boucher Boulevard; thence southwesterly along said boulevard to the Canadian National Railway; thence southeasterly along said railway and the right-of-way of the former Canadian National Railway (along Maricourt Boulevard and its production) to the southeasterly limit of the City of Longueuil.
50. MONTCALM
(Population: 99,518)
Consisting of:
(a) the Regional County Municipality of Montcalm;
(b) that part of the Regional County Municipality of L’Assomption comprised of: the City of L’Épiphanie; the Parish Municipality of L’Épiphanie; and
(c) that part of the Regional County Municipality of Les Moulins comprised of the City of Mascouche.
51. MONTMAGNY—L’ISLET—KAMOURASKA— RIVIÈRE-DU-LOUP
(Population: 97,261)
Consisting of the regional county municipalities of Kamouraska, L’Islet, Montmagny and Rivière-du-Loup, including Whitworth Indian Reserve No. 21.
52. MONT-ROYAL
(Population: 101,258)
Consisting of:
(a) the cities of Côte-Saint-Luc, Hampstead and Mont-Royal; and
(b) that part of the City of Montréal comprised of that part of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce lying northwesterly of Jean-Talon Street West, and that part lying southwesterly and northwesterly of a line described as follows: commencing at the intersection of de la Côte-des-Neiges Road and the northwesterly limit of said borough; thence southeasterly along said road to de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine Road; thence southwesterly along said road to Victoria Avenue; thence southeasterly along said avenue to Queen-Mary Road; thence southwesterly along said road to the southwesterly limit of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
53. NOTRE-DAME-DE-GRÂCE—WESTMOUNT
(Population: 104,410)
Consisting of:
(a) the cities of Montréal-Ouest and Westmount; and
(b) that part of the City of Montréal comprised of: (i) that part of the borough of Ville-Marie lying southwesterly of a line described as follows: commencing at the intersection of the southwesterly limit of said borough and Sherbrooke Street West; thence northeasterly along said street to de la Côte-des-Neiges Road; thence generally westerly along said road to Cedar Avenue; thence northwesterly in a straight line to the intersection of the boroughs of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Outremont on the northwesterly limit of the borough of VillOne thing that I encounter frequently on the internet, on Tumblr but more often on other sites, such as Reddit, is criticism of organized religion. I also hear a lot of such criticism in my social networks–coming both from people who participate actively in organized religion, and from atheists, agnostics, and others who for whatever reason don’t participate much in religion.
Some of the criticism that I hear is criticism that I’d consider constructive, but others of it bothers me. Where do I draw the line between criticism that is healthy and criticism that is not?
Healthy Criticism
I think that healthy criticism:
shares specific experiences that people have had, things people have said or done, and gives specific reasons why people object ideas that people were teaching or putting forth, or to the ways people acted
acknowledges the good in situations, people, and organizations, when good is present
assumes a certain degree of good faith and trust in human nature, sort of like the acknowledgement that all people are doing their best in life, and refrains from reading negative intentions into people’s actions. Phrased alternatively, I think healthy criticism acknowledges the fact that good people can do bad things, and doesn’t assume that people have bad intentions or are wholly bad just because they are doing something that harms others.
I think healthy criticism tends to have an uplifting tone. When I listen to or read healthy criticism, I tend to feel empowered and hopeful. I think this sort of criticism can have great transformative power. I think it is good for solving problems in organizations and in society.
Unhealthy Criticism
Most of the criticism that I’ve seen that I consider unhealthy falls into some predictable patterns. The criticism I consider unhealthy often:
makes negative generalizations about or attacks on groups of people, or about a specific religion, its adherents, or even about religion or “religious people” as a whole. Examples would be comments that state or imply that anyone who is religious is stupid or closed-minded.
paints a person, organization, or belief system as wholly evil, wrong, or unhealthy, selectively focusing on negative aspects of the person, group, or belief system and ignoring positive aspects.
picks up, accepts, and even reinforces beliefs that the person engaging in criticism finds objectionable. For example, I frequently see people who complain about religions teaching that people who don’t accept their religion go to hell–but many of these people speak as if all religions teach things, or all religious people believe this, when this is not true.
I think this sort of criticism tends to have a negative tone. I find that it tends to create conflict and negativity, fueling unnecessary hostility, and division. I find it often distracts people from solutions to problems, and I find it can fuel depression when people get too wrapped up in it.
How to Steer Criticism in a Positive Direction
Much criticism has a combination of unhealthy and healthy elements. I think it is important to identify the unhealthy vs. healthy types of criticism. I think that learning to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy criticism can protect yourself from depression, help you to relate to people better, and can greatly improve your ability to solve problems in organizations and in society.
Often, even if someone seems to be criticizing you or someone else or some organization in a way you find unhealthy, if you search for the healthy elements within what they are saying, and focus on them, and if you lead by example, it is possible to steer someone in the direction of positive, constructive criticism. The result can be really liberating and encouraging, as it can result in an immediate boost in both people’s mood, and can lead to deep insights and solutions to problems.Get the biggest Arsenal FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Curtis Davies has seen first-hand what it takes to “panic” Arsenal at Wembley, and now aims to be part of another shock.
The Hull captain, who faces the Gunners in Saturday's FA Cup Final, was at Birmingham in February 2011 when Alex McLeish’s men lifted the Carling Cup at the Gunners’ expense.
Blues won 2-1 with a last-gasp Obafemi Martins goal from a defensive mix-up to leave Arsenal still searching for their first silverware since 2005.
Davies was ineligible, having only joined Blues that January in a £3million switch from arch-rivals Aston Villa. But despite being cup-tied, he still got a club suit and was part of the celebrations that memorable day.
Now, he cannot wait to lead out the Tigers after being named player of the season for Steve Bruce’s promoted side - who secured Premier League safety and are guaranteed Europa League football next season as Arsenal qualified for Champions League football via the league.
He hopes the underdogs will again be able to exploit the pressure and expectancy on Arsene Wenger’s outfit.
(Image: Getty)
The 29-year-old defender told MirrorSport: “It will be another massive game and occasion. That Birmingham game was strange because I was a spectator. But it was a good experience and I was especially excited as if we won we would be in Europe next season.
“It is a coincidence to come up against Arsenal again and we know the shock Birmingham put on that day. The pressure is all on Arsenal again.
“Our goal at the beginning of the season was to stay in the Premier League. We are quite satisfied with how our season has gone but going into a cup final against Arsenal we are in it to win it.
“Arsenal fans will see this as a trophy they must win though. It would be different for them if they are going into a final against Man City or Chelsea. But they will see it as a must-win against us and it will be interesting how their players handle that.
“It has been that long without a trophy it might produce some nerves.”
Hull have lost to Arsenal twice this season without scoring - 2-0 at the Emirates in December and 3-0 at home last month.
But Davies added: “A Cup final is a bit different. We weren’t too bad against them recently, but Arsenal were clinical. We need to be more solid as a team.
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“We need to match their work-rate and effort and hopefully that will give us a foothold in the game. Hopefully it will go on long enough to cause them a bit of panic - like against Birmingham that year.”
Davies’ form has been a key factor in Hull booking another season in the top-flight.
But Bruce also credited his captain with turning around their semifinal against League One Sheffied United with an impromptu, inspirational half-time rollicking.
The Tigers trailed 2-1 at the break at Wembley after Stefan Scougall scored in the 44th minute just 120 seconds after Yannick Sagbo equalised.
Davies then let rip at the interval before Hull went on to win 5-3 with a rousing second half come-back.
He explained: “Hopefully I won’t have to do that again but I will if necessary. It wasn’t pre-meditated.
“I always try to jog in first to get my half-time drinks, so when the manager does his talk I am ready. I went in and spoke to a couple of the lads and because I had gone to get my drink I was standing up and just started letting it all go in front of everyone.
“I simply thought we hadn’t performed or even turned up basically. They were first to every first ball and every second ball too. They were winning everything, they were doing the dirty things better.
(Image: Michael Regan - The FA)
“But the more embarrassing thing was they were playing better football, too. That is what I said - but with a few more expletives in there!
“I said it is not good enough being out-played and out-fought by a League One team. I said we looked no-where near it. I am just glad there were no shrinking violets and it got the reaction I wanted.
“I have the bottle to say things when they need to be said. But even in our camp I am not sure people expected that from me. And I think that is why it got the reaction it did.
“I am normally calm and pick out individual players to gee them up. But because I let loose I think that is why it was more poignant.
“The lads were a bit taken back but as much as I expected a lot of banter for it afterwards, the lads haven’t said much about it.
“Hopefully it justifies the gaffer making me captain. When the effort and application isn’t right I will do it.”
But Davies isn’t expecting his team-mates to need any extra motivation on Saturday. This, after all, is the FA Cup Final.82nd Airborne soldiers leave their forward operating base with safety on their side.
PANJWAI DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN – Army Sergeant First Class James Hargrove knows the dangers of war. The platoon sergeant — currently on a year-long deployment with the 82nd Airborne — says he’s been worried about maintaining combat effectiveness since casualties have been so high.
His soldiers have seen increasing attacks from small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, and countless improvised explosive devices (IED).
“I was really concerned about whether or not we could keep this up for another five months,” says Hargrove. “I mean, how the fuck can you take the fight to the enemy when you’re losing guys like we are?”
“So I brought up the issue to my chain of command, and believe it or not, they did something about it.”
The grizzled platoon sergeant smiles and holds up the latest addition to a soldier’s protective gear when going outside the wire. A bright yellow reflective belt.
“When the CO called us all together and told us about the new policy, I was like holy-shit, why didn’t I think of that?”
Years of Army research of course has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that soldiers who wore reflective belts during low light hours were 75% less likely to get hit by cars, motorcyclists, pedestrians, small arms fire, explosions, lightning strikes, or fat wives in base housing.
The only question soldiers are asking is “why wasn’t this implemented sooner?”
As Hargrove’s platoon gears up for another combat patrol into the heart of an enemy village, the men are all smiles, helping each other adjust the neon-yellow straps to ensure maximum visibility during the dark hours of the night.
“There’s no way we’re going to take casualties with these babies!” exlaims PFC Lance Detwiller.
As the Americans exit the compound with their Afghan partners, the ANA seem to hang back, shying away from the US soldiers in formation. When asked about this, SFC Hargrove believes it to be a simple answer.
“It’s probably just jealousy. I mean, there’s only so many reflective belts to go around, and our guys come first, ya know?”ST. LOUIS — February may be one of the iciest months of the year, but it’s a sweet time for maple sugaring. For about six weeks, from mid-January to the end of February, the sap of the sugar maple trees flows like a mountain spring, ready to be tapped for making sugar and syrup. The Maple Sugar Festival at the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Rockwoods Reservation offers a chance to see this historical process first-hand.
The Maple Sugar Festival will take place Saturday, Feb. 5, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is open to the whole family. Visitors will discover how Native Americans and early settlers harvested this sugary delight—and see how the process demonstrates good conservation at work.
“The Rockwoods Maple Sugar Festival is an excellent opportunity for people and families to experience nature at its finest,” said Kevin McCarthy, MDC Naturalist Program supervisor. “They'll learn skills to collect, boil and create their own maple syrup or sugar.”
Visitors will find out how to identify and tap sugar-maple trees. They can also take guided hikes to see sap collection in action and witness first-hand how the settlers made the sap into sugar. Tasting the sugar and syrup is one of the most popular attractions. Kids will also delight in trying sugar on snow, a unique treat created when maple sap meets the winter white stuff.
The art of maple sugaring was discovered by Native Americans, who would set up “sugar camps” near a stand of sugar maples each year to make sugar. Sugar-maple sap has the highest sugar content – about three percent – and produces the most sugar per gallon of sap collected. Still, it takes 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to yield one gallon of syrup.
Native Americans taught the process to early colonists. The settlers eventually developed a system of drilling small holes in the trees and placing hollow taps to draw the sap into wooden buckets. Back at the “sugar shed,” the sap was boiled down in large copper pots over an open fire. It’s a slow process, requiring almost 40 hours of boiling to produce a gallon of syrup.
Depending on how long the sap is boiled, a variety of products can be made, from hard sugar to syrup. The most common product was maple sugar blocks, because the sugar could be shaved off and used all year – or even traded for other goods. By 1890, cane sugar became cheaper to import as a sweetener so maple sugar production shifted to syrup instead.
In Missouri, February is prime maple sugaring season because it produces the right weather conditions. According to McCarthy, “February has the perfect combination of below freezing temperatures at night and above freezing temperatures during the day that causes the sap to ‘flow’."
The greater the night-to-day temperature difference, the more the sap flows. But come March, chemical changes in the sap end the sugar-production season.
There’s no denying the taste of maple sugar is a delight, but it also represents sweet success when it comes to living in harmony with nature.
“Conservation means smart use,” said McCarthy. “Maple sugaring is a prime example of this smart use because trees are not harmed, they can be tapped year after year, and only a small amount of sap is taken.”
The Rockwoods Reservation Maple Sugar Festival offers a fun and educational outing for the entire family. McCarthy sees it as an opportunity for people “... to connect to the natural world around them and have fun at the same time.”
Rockwoods Reservation is located at 2751 Glencoe Road, off Highway 109 in Wildwood. For more information about the Maple Sugar Festival, call 636-458-2236.Maybe due to the religious myths that have been hammered into our collective consciousness for millennia, human beings, especially in the west, have a tendency to see ourselves as once innocent, and now depraved. Once upon a time, we did it as nature intended us to, but now it’s all porno and sex toy shops. In fact, there are a lot of examples of prehistoric sex toys to be found all over the world. These “ice-age batons,” as archeologists like to call them, are clearly not your average stone tool. They are life-sized penises carved from ivory, antler and stone, in all sizes and shapes, and sometimes even with piercings. Some of these examples date as far back as 30,000 years ago. If a cavewoman wanted to tenderize some meat, why carve a penis to do it with – unless it wasn’t dinner she was working on. There are also references to dildos and depictions of them in art dating back to ancient Greece; they were apparently a popular subject in Greek comedy. So far from being some kind of post-Freudian creation, dildos are something human beings have made use of for most of our history. Check out some of these stone age dildos below!
c. 12,000 B.C.
Several portable phallic pieces with replications of totally retracted or absent foreskin, piercings, scars and tattoos.
Images via Mashable
c. 29,000 B.C.
Paleolithic stone phallus discovered at Hohle Fels Cave, southwestern Germany. Made from fine-grained siltstone, ground, polished and incised. The phallus appears to have been also used as a hammerstone.
Neolithic
Carved chalk phallus from an infilled pit in a ditch of Maumbury rings, now at Dorset County Museum.
c. 6,000 – 4,000 B.C.
Carved stag antler phallus, Sweden. 10.5 cm long, 2 cm in diameter.
Neolithic
Carved ivory phallus, France.The system looks at each driver’s license photograph stored in the state’s computers, mapping thousands of facial data points and generating algorithms that compare the images to others in the mathematical database, said State Police spokesman David Procopio. The software then displays licenses with similar-looking photographs - those with two or more images that have a high score for being the same person. Registry analysts review the licenses and check biographical information, criminal records, and drivers’ histories, in part to rule out cases with legitimate explanations, such as drivers who are identical twins.
At least 34 states are using such systems. They help authorities verify a person’s claimed identity and track down people who have multiple licenses under different aliases, such as underage people wanting to buy alcohol, people with previous license suspensions, and people with criminal records trying to evade the law. Lisa Cradit, a spokeswoman for L-1 Identity Solutions, the largest developer of the software, said it can reduce fraud by 80 percent.
Massachusetts began using the software after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue.
“Theoretically this can happen again, depending on the whims of the computer,’’ said his lawyer, William Spallina.
Neither the Registry nor State Police keep tabs on the number of people wrongly tagged by the system. But Gass estimates in his lawsuit that hundreds might have received revocation notices in error since the system was installed.
“We send out 1,500 suspension letters every day,’’ said Registrar Rachel Kaprielian, who says the system has been a powerful weapon to fight identity fraud since it was installed in 2006 but that it is not without problems. “There are mistakes that can be made.’’
And apparently, he has company. Last year, the facial recognition system picked out more than 1,000 cases that resulted in State Police investigations, officials say. And some of those people are guilty of nothing more than looking like someone else. Not all go through the long process that Gass says he endured, but each must visit the Registry with proof of their identity.
It turned out Gass was flagged because he looks like another driver, not because his image was being used to create a fake identity. His driving privileges were returned but, he alleges in a lawsuit, only after 10 days of bureaucratic wrangling to prove he is who he says he is.
After frantic calls and a hearing with Registry officials, Gass learned the problem: An antiterrorism computerized facial recognition system that scans a database of millions of state driver’s license images had picked his as a possible fraud.
“I was shocked,’’ Gass said in a recent interview. “As far as I was concerned, I had done nothing wrong.’’
John H. Gass hadn’t had a traffic ticket in years, so the Natick resident was surprised this spring when he received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him to cease driving because his license had been revoked.
Last year, State Police obtained 100 arrest warrants for fraudulent identity, and 1,860 licenses were revoked as a result of the software, according to Procopio.
“The advantage of securing the identity of 4 1/2 million drivers is of considerable state interest, and that is what this software does,’’ Kaprielian said.
In Pennsylvania, which began using the system in 2007, officials say they have directed 1,500 cases of suspected fraud to police. New York detected roughly 3,500 instances of possible fraud, resulting in 600 arrests since a system was adopted in 2010.
“Our goal is one person, one license,’’ said Jackie McGinnis, a spokeswoman for the Department of Motor Vehicles in New York. “And this is a good way to detect people who have multiple licenses for multiple reasons.’’
Gass, 41, said his ordeal began April 5 after he retrieved his mail from a PO Box in Needham. The letter from the Registry, dated March 22, 2011, notified Gass that his license had been revoked April 1.
He said he called the Registry three times, explaining in vain that he had only recently opened his mail and that he could no longer work because he drives for a living. Registry employees told him that he was flagged because his license photo was similar in appearance to another driver, his lawsuit alleges. He was told that to clear up the problem he would have to show proof of his identity to the Registry, he said.
Gass got a hearing April 11 in the Department of Transportation offices at 10 Park Plaza. There, hearings officer Kevin M. Innes showed Gass a sheet of paper with images of Gass and Edward Perry of Rehoboth, who had also received a letter. By that time, Perry had already provided the Registry with documents confirming his identity.
Gass said in the suit that he provided his birth certificate and Social Security card as proof of his identity, but that Innes insisted that he provide documents with his current address. Gass’s lawyer Spallina said he faxed the document two days later.
On April 14, Spallina called to confirm that the Registry had received the papers and was told that Gass was cleared at the hearing to drive again.
Gass is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction blocking the Registry from revoking licenses without a hearing, arguing that his job requires driving and that he lost wages while he waited to have his license reinstated. He said he has no qualms with efforts to crack down on fraud but is miffed at how his case was handled.
“No one is angry about the work they have to do to track fraud, but once they saw the error, even the words sorry would go a long way. But I got nothing,’’ he said. “The overwhelming attitude was they couldn’t care less.’’
Kaprielian said the Registry gives drivers enough time to respond to the suspension letters and that it is the individual’s “burden’’ to clear up any confusion. She added that protecting the public far outweighs any inconvenience Gass or anyone else might experience.
“A driver’s license is not a matter of civil rights. It’s not a right. It’s a privilege,’’ she said. “Yes, it is an inconvenience [to have to clear your name], but lots of people have their identities stolen, and that’s an inconvenience, too.’’
Meghan Irons can be reached at mirons@globe.com.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John Kerry: "It is urgent that we tackle climate change"
US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the global community to act against climate change in a keynote speech during a visit to Indonesia.
He said that there was scientific proof of climate change threatening not only the environment, but also the world economy.
He said "the window of time is still open" to prevent the worst consequences, but that it was closing.
The US, along with China, is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
On Saturday, both nations issued a joint statement pledging to do more to curb their carbon dioxide output.
Steps include reducing car emissions and improving the energy efficiency of buildings.
Mr Kerry said that while those nations with bigger emissions had to do more to help solve the problem, "that doesn't mean other nations have a free pass".
Nations with lower emissions must not "repeat the mistakes of the past", he said.
'Point of no return'
Mr Kerry was speaking in Jakarta, his latest stop on a regional tour.
He began his trip in South Korea on Thursday, and arrived in Indonesia on Saturday after visiting China.
It is part of President Obama's "pivot to Asia" policy, begun in 2012, shifting the US foreign policy focus more towards Asia and away from Europe and the Middle East.
In his Jakarta speech, Mr Kerry underscored the way in which climate change is affecting Asian countries.
He also highlighted the possible effects on the global economy, including "potentially catastrophic effects" on the global supply chain.
He warned against "complacency", pointing out that last year carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached their highest ever level.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption River Citarum near the Indonesian town of Majalaya is one the most polluted waterways in the world
Mr Kerry wants to help broker a global climate treaty in 2015 that will commit the US and other nations to historic reductions in fossil fuel pollution, the BBC's Washington correspondent Kim Ghattas reports.
Environmental groups have criticised the Obama administration for not doing more to reduce US fossil fuel use. Late last year, the US president appointed a new adviser on climate change.
John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff, will help Mr Obama prepare executive actions that bypass Congress, where there is deadlock on the issue.
The talks in Paris next year are aimed at finding a new international climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol which ends in 2020. The US never ratified the Kyoto agreement, signed in 1997.
Environmental groups have criticised President Barack Obama for not doing more to reduce US carbon dioxide emissions.
On Saturday, the US and China said they would "collaborate through enhanced policy dialogue, including the sharing of information regarding their respective post-2020 plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions".
Last year, a landmark report by the UN's climate panel found scientists were 95% certain that humans were the "dominant cause" of global warming since the 1950s.Pumpkin pie smells delicious… and my pumpkin ale smells just like pumpkin pie…
So here’s what I learned during this brew session…
First off, pumpkin itself isn’t very flavorful… it’s rather bland and I chose it over canned for a couple reasons…
Second, most of the flavor in pumpkin beers usually come from the spices anyways (pumpkin pie spice, ground allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, cinnamon,
etc.)…
Third, I wanted to try the ‘sweet pie’ pumpkin breed…
Canned versions like Libby’s uses Dickinson pumpkins… and some canned versions will have salt, sugar or spices…
I’ve heard that canned pumpkin is much better than using actual pumpkin, but that’s what this test is all about…
So here’s more or less what I did with this beer…
My Pumpkin Ale recipe:
9 lbs American 2-Row Barley
1.25 lbs Munich (20 L)
.5 lbs American Wheat
.25 lbs Crystal (40 L)
2 Sweet Pie Pumpkins (roughly 24 oz of pulp)
1 oz Cascade 5.5% AA (60 min)
.5 oz Cascade 5.5% AA (30 min)
1 tsp Cinnamon (5 min)
1 tsp Nutmeg (5 min)
1 tsp Ground Allspice (5 min)
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (5 min)
WLP001 California Ale Yeast (1 L starter)
RO Water
105 ppm Ca
132 ppm Cl
76 ppm SO[4]
For one, I added a bit of wheat malt to increase the body of the beer since I brewed a lighter beer… I used 1.73 chloride to sulfate ratio to help bring
out the maltyness and hopefully the flavor of the pumpkin out…
I started out with a protein rest at 134 F mostly for the wheat and then mashed at 156 F to get a slighty malty beer and give it a touch of creamyness…
I boiled for 90 minutes to bring out the flavor of the malts and the pumpkin since I added the pumpkin to the boil.
I added minimum amount of hops (around 26 IBUs) to avoid fighting the flavor and aroma of the pumpkin…
Overall, I am happy with the recipe and process and I think it will be a good way to test whether adding pumpkin to the mash or the boil is better… Once I
find that out, I may experiment with different pumpkin breeds, including canned… or I may try to incorporate darker malts…
I haven’t found much ‘good’ information on brewing with pumpkin so maybe we’ll come up with something good here… this is my first pumpkin brew so I welcome
comments, suggestions, and critiques…
Remember this is an experiment which I talked about on this past newsletter:
Brewing Pumpkin Beers
Here are the results I’ve found, plus what I’m doing to improve my pumpkin beer
Cheers!
How To Brew BeerThe year is -2367 DR. The Netherese Empire sits within central-eastern Faerun. Rivers now flow and lakes form from the melting northern glaciers, rainfall level have raised and temperatures are moderate. In some places of Netheril, vegetation is quite lush.
Netheril is a land reborn.
Hundreds of years ago a Netherese Archwizard named Ioulaum was born, one of the most powerful and oldest creatures in all of Toril, Ioulaum was a master of magic, and lead a massive assault on the orcs plaguing the land that almost lead to their extinction. However his greatest feat was inventing the Mythallar, a device that tapped directly into the weave of magic and gifting the Netherese the level of magic required to create their floating cities. Ioulaum started what would become common practice for Netherese Archwizards. Using the Mythallar, he tore off the top of a mountain, turned it upside down and gifted it with permanent levitation, founding a city atop.
Hundreds of years later, we are now in the time known in The Silver Age. The Netherese are now the uncontested masters of magic, their empire is made of a collection of thirteen massive floating cities, powered by a collection of Mythallar.
The newest floating city takes its shape high above the Netherese Skies, dubbed “Valstiir” after the Lady Archwizard that created it. As the Empire’s skies grow crowded and resources atop the cities dwindle, the Archwizards began to plan expansion beyond its borders, something they had never attempted before. It was around this time that Lady Valstiir was gifted a vision by a mysterious oracle known as the "Terraseer".
The Seer spoke of a rich and prosperous land to the west. Its earth filled with countless precious gems, forests and rivers and snow-topped mountains teaming with life and natural resources, ripe for the taking. The Archwizards, after much disagreement, came to the conclusion that their newest of Archwizards, Lady Valstiir and her city must follow this oracle's guidance and go beyond the borders of Netheril.
They are to head far west past the elven empire of Eaerlann and into the region known in modern day Faerun as; “The Savage Frontier”.1. Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that "most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals.
2. Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fit myself to them.
3. Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse nor neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding.
4. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration.
5. Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways; I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do as William James suggests, just for exercise.
6. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticize not at all, nor fault with anything and not try to regulate nor improve anyone.
7. Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not to tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime.
8. Just for today I will have a program. I will write down what I expect to do every |
ontaneous Combustion Tour with country singer Tim McGraw. At that time, Hill had recently become engaged to her former producer, Scott Hendricks, and McGraw had recently broken an engagement. McGraw and Hill were quickly attracted to each other and began an affair. After discovering that Hill was pregnant with their first child, the couple married on October 6, 1996. The couple have three daughters together: Gracie Katherine (born 1997), Maggie Elizabeth (born 1998) and Audrey Caroline (born 2001). Since their marriage, Hill and McGraw have endeavored never to be apart for more than three consecutive days.[9]
After the release of It Matters to Me, Hill took a three-year break from recording to give herself a rest from four years of touring and to begin a family with McGraw. During her break, she joined forces with her husband for their first duet, "It's Your Love".[20] The song stayed at number one for six weeks,[10] and won awards from both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. Hill has remarked that sometimes when they perform the song together, "it [doesn't] feel like anybody else was really watching."[20]
1998–2003: Pop music crossover & career breakthrough Edit
Faith Hill re-entered the music business in 1998 with her third album Faith.[20] The album showcased her progression toward a more mainstream, pop-oriented sound, although it retained a distinct country sound. "This Kiss" became a number one country hit, and was the first of her singles to place on the pop charts, peaking at number seven. More than six million copies of the album were sold. The album also delivered several other hits including another duet with McGraw, "Just To Hear You Say That You Love Me", "Let Me Let Go" and "The Secret of Life".[10]
To follow up this newfound success, Hill immediately released Breathe in November 1999, which debuted at the top of the Billboard Country and all genre charts, ahead of albums by Mariah Carey and Savage Garden.[21] Although the album had few overt country sounds, it "complement[ed] her vocal strengths."[22] For the first time, the album consisted solely of songs about love and did not venture into the more somber territory that her previous albums had touched.[22] The title track, "Breathe", reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[21] "The Way You Love Me" hit the top 10 as well, topping out at number six on the charts. The album won Hill three Grammy Awards including Best Country Album, Best Country Collaboration With Vocals for "Let's Make Love" featuring Tim McGraw and Best Country Female Vocal Performance for "Breathe."[23] It also marked a step away from her girl-next-door image, as the videos and promotional pictures all portrayed a much sexier image. Breathe has sold almost 10 million copies worldwide.[24]
2000 was an especially busy year for Hill; besides a successful tour with her husband, Hill was featured in a CBS television special, VH1's Behind the Music, VH1 Divas 2000, and the Lifetime cable channel's Intimate Portrait series.[21] She signed an endorsement deal with CoverGirl makeup,[10] performed at the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards, appeared on the cover of numerous magazines, and performed the national anthem at the Super Bowl.[21] Hill was also named to Mr. Blackwell's 10-best dressed women of 2000, the only singer listed among actresses and other celebrities. Hill and McGraw also embarked on their first Soul2Soul tour, the "Soul2Soul Tour 2000."[25]
Musically, in 2000, Hill recorded a song for the movie Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, entitled "Where Are You Christmas" (written by James Horner, Will Jennings and R&B artist[26] Mariah Carey). The song also appeared on the pop and country charts. Hill's success on the pop charts disturbed some country music insiders, who questioned whether she was trying to dismiss her country roots and move into the pop genre. Despite the grumbling, Hill won the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year Award, and in her acceptance speech announced, "I love this business, and I love this industry... and my heart is here."[21]
In 2001, Hill recorded a song for the Pearl Harbor soundtrack. The track, also titled "There You'll Be", which was originally offered to Celine Dion, has since become one of Hill's most critically acclaimed songs.[27] Because of the single's international success, a compilation album There You'll Be: The Best of Faith Hill, was released to international markets. The album featured dance mixes of "Breathe" and "The Way You Love Me" along with alternate versions of "Piece of My Heart" and "Let Me Let Go." "There You'll Be" was nominated for a 2002 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in a motion picture.
In 2002, Hill released her fifth studio album, Cry. The album "spotlight[ed] her impressive set of pipes," and also marked the completion of her "transformation into a pop diva," containing few nods to her country roots. Though the album debuted at number one on Billboard magazine's pop and country album charts,[10] the album's singles received much less country radio airplay than her previous hits, instead aiming to international and adult contemporary markets.[28] The album also won a Grammy Award and over 3.7 million copies have been sold worldwide.[23]
An album track from the album "Baby You Belong", was used as the theme song for the movie Lilo & Stitch. The music video featured clips from the movie as well as performance clips.
"When the Lights Go Down", the official second single from the album was used to promote an NBC television special which detailed the making of Cry and also featured intimate performances of Hill's hits.[29]
2005–2006: Return to country music Edit
In 2005, Hill returned with her new country album, Fireflies. The CD debuted on top of the Billboard Country and all genre album charts, placing her among only a handful of artists to have three consecutive albums debut at number one on both charts.[30] The debut single, "Mississippi Girl", became Hill's highest-debuting single. The song was written specifically for her by John Rich (of Big and Rich) and Adam Shoenfield of MuzikMafia, and tells the abbreviated story of her life. Hill recorded two other songs by Rich, "Sunshine and Summertime" and "Like We Never Loved at All", both of which became successful singles.[31] The title track "Fireflies", "Stealing Kisses" and "If You Ask" were written by artist Lori McKenna and also appear on McKenna's albums. They appeared and performed the songs together on the Oprah Winfrey Show and an awards show. The album marked a return to Hill's country roots and succeeded in reestablishing her place on country radio.[32]
In 2006, after a six-year break from touring following the birth of her youngest daughter,[9] Hill and husband Tim McGraw embarked on their Soul2Soul II Tour 2006. The tour became the highest grossing country music tour ever with a gross of $90 million.[3][33] It was named "Major Tour of the Year" by the prestigious Pollstar, beating out such heavyweights as Madonna and the Rolling Stones.
In 2007, Hill started work on her first domestic greatest hits package, titled The Hits, which was released on October 2. It contains two new tracks, "Lost" and "Red Umbrella", as well as 13 additional tracks. The album also features hits covering her entire career from 1993 to 2005. Included with the 2-Disc Special-Edition of The Hits is a DVD of 11 of Hill's music videos. The DVD substitutes the Tim McGraw duet "Just To Hear You Say That You Love Me" for their "I Need You" duet on the CD.[34]
Faith is also featured on husband's 2007 album Let It Go where she sings two duets with him, "I Need You" and "Shotgun Rider." Both of these songs were performed during the couple's critically acclaimed Soul2Soul II Tour; this tour began in June 2006 and ran through to August 2007. The song I Need You was nominated for both the Best Country Collaboration with Vocals and Best Country Song awards at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
At the beginning of the 2007 NFL season, Hill replaced P!nk (siner) as the signature voice of NFL on NBC's Sunday Night Football, singing the weekly game's introductory theme song; of which the show's producer said:[35]
It's not often that you get the opportunity to have a mega-star like Faith Hill perform the signature open to your show. — NBC Sunday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli, MSNBC
Hill performed this opening theme until April 15, 2013.[36]
In September 2008, Hill issued her first Christmas album, titled Joy to the World. The compilation was given positive reviews, including about.com, which gave the album four and a half out of five stars, calling the album, "a great collection of classic Christmas songs". Hill continually worked on the album two years prior to its official release. The album included one original track, "A Baby Changes Everything", which was released as the album's only single in late 2008 and debuted at No. 24 on Billboard's AC chart, quickly rising to the No. 1 position, becoming Hill's fourth number one on that chart.[37]
During the Super Bowl XLIII pregame show On February 1, 2009, Hill performed "America the Beautiful". Other performers at the event were Jennifer Hudson and Journey, whilst Bruce Springsteen performed the Halftime show.[38]
To celebrate the induction of ABBA into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Faith performed "The Winner Takes It All", together with keyboardist Benny Andersson, at the event held in New York City on March 13, 2010. Hill also performed a rendition of "The Long & Winding Road" as part of a tribute to Sir Paul McCartney which was held at the White House on July 28, 2010. Audience members included President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.[39]
Following these performances, Hill contributed a song titled 'Give in to Me' which appears on the Country Strong soundtrack which was released in October 2010. The film also stars Hill's husband Tim McGraw.[40] Further appearances followed, with Hill featuring in Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn, where she performs "Love Is The Foundation". Hill also contributed her vocals to the Ryan Tedder penned song "All I Ever Wanted" for the 2010 film Life As We Know It. The song was used in trailers to promote the film and also appeared during the end credits of the film.
2011–2015: Unreleased studio album and Las Vegas Residency Edit
Brendan O'Brien, known for producing projects for Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, and Rage Against the Machine, began working with Hill and producing her next album, originally set for release in 2011.[41] Hill also worked with pop producer Brian Kennedy in January 2011 to complete the album.
Faith returned to the studio in March 2011 for another round of recording. "I would like to have a record out," Hill told Billboard.com, "but it hasn't been the right thing yet. I don't want it to be just another record. It's a lot of work to support a record, so I just want it to be... really great. I want it to represent where I am as a woman. I don't want it to be fake. I want it to be authentic and real."[42] In mid-2011, Hill recorded a duet with George Strait on the song "A Showman's Life" which can be heard on Strait's album Here for a Good Time.
During the CMA Awards held on November 9, 2011, Hill performed the potential first single for her upcoming album titled "Come Home". This song is a re-working of the One Republic song heard on their "Dreaming out Loud" album.[43]
In June 2012, Hill debuted the songs "Illusion" and "Overrated" during her set at the CMA Music Festival. Following the performance, Hill confirmed that the album was done, but made no comment about when it would be released or whether the rumored title of Illusion was official.[44]
While a second single, titled "American Heart", along with its accompanying music video, was released on October 1, 2012, no further singles have since been released while an album also remains unreleased.[45]
Following a successful tour of Australia with their Soul2Soul tour throughout March and April 2012,[46] Hill and McGraw began an exclusive twenty show run of the Soul2Soul show at the Venetian in Las Vegas starting December 2012. A second leg of the show ran from October 2013, through to April 2014. The show was met with critical acclaim.[47]
During the Billboard Music Awards filmed on May 17, 2015, Hill joined Little Big Town on a performance of their single "Girl Crush".[48]
2016–present: New music and touring Edit
Hill was one of 30 artists selected to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of the songs "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again" and "I Will Always Love You". The single was released September 16 and celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards.[49]
On October 4, 2016, during a surprise show at Nashville's famous Ryman Auditorium, both Faith and her husband announced that they would once again be going back on the road together with the Soul2Soul The World Tour 2017. The tour began April 7, 2017, in New Orleans, and will continue into Europe throughout 2018, including as part of the C2C: Country to Country festival.[50]
Following the new tour announcement, Faith sent out a tweet via her official Twitter account announcing the release of a new compilation album. The album, titled Deep Tracks, is a montage of Hill's favorite songs that were previously included on her various albums but were not released as singles.[51] The album also includes three previously unreleased songs entitled, "Boy", "Why" and "Come to Jesus".[52][53] The album, which is Hill's last record to be released via Warner Bros. Records, was released November 18, 2016.[54]
It was reported on February 3, 2017 that Hill, alongside McGraw, had signed a new deal with Sony Music Nashville, also indicating that a duet album between the couple, as well as multiple solo recordings would be produced.[55][56] The new record label signing also preceded the release of "Speak to a Girl", the lead single from Hill and McGraw's upcoming joint album, The Rest of Our Life, which was released on November 17, 2017.[57][58] The release of the album coincided with the opening of an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum titled Mississippi Woman, Louisiana Man, which celebrates the careers of both Hill and McGraw.[59]NEW DELHI: India has decided to peg the peak goods and services tax ( GST ) rate at 40% in the legislation instead of 28%, giving it the flexibility to raise rates without having to reach out to Parliament.This is only an enabling provision and the highest rate levied on goods will still be 28% (14% central GST and 14% state GST). The demerit and luxury goods will attract higher 28 rate plus cess.This provision will also allow the government to remove the cess at some stage and instead have a higher GST rate only, which will make for a neater GST.The GST Council has decided to peg the peak tax rate at 40% (20% central GST and 20% state GST) in the model GST law to preclude the requirement of approaching Parliament or state assemblies for any change in future.This has been done to ensure that when the cess is removed or merged, the flexibility to impose higher rate on luxury goods is not taken away, a senior finance ministry official told ET."Some members of the council felt such an enabling provision was needed," the official privy to the development said.The Centre is looking at GST rollout from July 1.The change in the peak rate will not alter the four-slab rate structure of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% agreed upon last year, but is only a provision being built into the model law to take care of contingencies in future."There shall be levied a tax called central/state goods & services tax (CGST/SGST) on all intra-state supplies of goods and/or services... at such rates as may be notified by the central/state government... but not exceeding 14%on recommendation of the council and collected in such manner as may be prescribed," the draft GST law says. Officials said this "14%" will now be changed to say the rate will not exceed "20%".Experts said this raises the fear of rates being raised. "While it seems that it will not immediately impact the current slabs which have been envisaged, industry would be afraid that rates could increase once GST is implemented," said Pratik Jain, indirect tax leader, PwC India "It is important for the government to realise that benefits of GST will only accrue if rates are moderate and tax base is enhanced. It might be prudent for the council to reconsider this decision," said Pratik Jain of PwC India.The official dismissed these fears. "There is no thinking to tinker with the rates at present," the official said.The GST Council, headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley and comprising representatives of all states, is to take up the model laws at its next meeting.Mirroring the model GST law, the CGST, SGST and UTGST law will be firmed up by the Centre, states and Union Territories, respectively. The Centre plans to introduce in Parliament the Central GST Bill in the session beginning March 9. After it is ratified, the states will introduce the State GST Bill in their respective legislative assemblies. The central and state officials will soon start the exercise to determine which goods and services should fall in which tax bracket and the same will be taken to the council for approval.They will also decide the goods and services that would attract a cess on top of the peak rate to create a corpus that can be used for compensating states for any loss of revenue.This article is from the archive of our partner.
South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard has signed the first post-Newtown law to allow teachers to carry guns in school. Politicians in several states have introduced such laws since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school, but The New York Times' John Eligon reports that South Dakota is the first state to pass such a measure.
Gun groups have increased a push for teachers to be armed across the country since just after the shootings, sometimes unaware that guns are already allowed in public schools in their states. In Alabama, for example, state Rep. Kerry Rich proposed legislation to allow teachers to carry guns. But Alabama already allowed guns in public schools, unless the carrier has "intent to do bodily harm." (Alabama also prohibits the "habitual drunkard" from carrying a pistol.) The proposals have been met with resistance elsewhere. In Utah, lawmakers proposed a counter-measure that would require teachers to tell parents if they were carrying a concealed weapon, the Associated Press reports. The National Rifle Association's proposal to put armed guards in all 99,000 public schools has not picked up much support, either, even as the NRA calls on Congress for more funding.
The South Dakota House passed the measure in late January, followed by the state Senate last week. Supporters in the state legislature emphasized that the bill leaves decisions on whether to arm teachers up to local school boards, according to Fox News: "Rep. Stace Nelson, R-Fulton, said educators are trusted to teach students, so they also can be trusted to protect students from harm," the report continued
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.As the director of the highest-grossing movie of all time — the 3D technology-driven Avatar — when James Cameron talks new film technology, Hollywood and Silicon Valley listen.
That's why when Cameron responded to a question on Saturday about making films using a virtual-reality device such as the Oculus Rift, many ears in the tech and filmmaking community will likely perk up.
"I personally would be very interested to find a way to incorporate VR and a narrative-filmmaking experience," Cameron said during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session. "So a narrative directed experience that has individuated pathways where you have choices that you make in real-time, I think that would be a lot of fun. I think it would be very technically daunting and expensive, to do it as the same quality level as a typical feature, but it would be fun to experiment with."
But don't get too excited about the prospect of a virtual-reality Avatar coming anytime soon.
"It sounds like a lot of fun," the director said. "I don't think it would take over the feature film market though. I'm very familiar with VR, but I haven't seen the specific Oculus Rift device."
Nevertheless, Cameron will get his hands on the Oculus Rift soon — an experience that generally seems to get users even more excited about the technology.
"I'm interested in it," Cameron said. "I'm meant to see it some time in the next month or so, but I've been familiar with VR since its inception. In fact, virtual reality is a way of describing the way we work on Avatar, we work in a virtual workspace all day long. We use a 'virtual camera' which is how I create all the shots that are CG in the film, a window into a virtual reality that completely surrounds me."
If the director's history with technology is any indication, if and when he does decide to delve into virtual reality, it will likely be on his own terms, using specialized equipment developed by his own team.
One question posed by an AMA participant, which focused on Cameron's extensive experience with deep-sea diving, may be of interest to those following the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean.
Asked how he might approach the search for the black box, reportedly sending signals from the bottom of the sea, Cameron explained:
"There are a suite of tools that can operate at the kind of depth we're talking about, I believe between 4000-5000 meters. My ultra-deep submersible would not be required at those levels, that's half of the level it's designed for. The next step would be to use an AUV, an autonomous underwater vehicle, and have it run at 400 or 500 feet above the bottom and do a sonar profile of the bottom," he said. "But it all hinges on whether or not those pings [our link] are actually from the black box, and not from something else, like a scientific instrument that's drifted off course."People hold signs as they listen to a group of scientists speak during a rally in conjunction with the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
The next big march on Washington could flood the Mall with scientists.
It's an idea spawned on Reddit, where several scientists — concerned about the new president's policies on climate change and other issues, and hyped from the success of the Women's March on Washington — were discussing the best way to respond to what they feared would be an administration hostile to science.
Then someone wrote, “There needs to be a Scientists' March on Washington.”
"100%,” someone replied. Dozens of others agreed.
[Trump administration gives scientists cold shoulder, alarming research community]
One participant in the exchange, University of Texas Health Science Center postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Berman, took the conversation to heart. In short order, the march had a Facebook page (whose membership swelled from 200 people on Tuesday night to more than 300,000 by Wednesday evening), a Twitter handle, a website, two co-chairs, Berman and science writer and public health researcher Caroline Weinberg, and a Google form through which interested researchers could sign up to help.
Right now, that's all it has. But, as the women's march on Saturday demonstrated, social movements have started with less.
Weinberg said that the news Tuesday that scientists with some federal research agencies were barred from communicating with the public “lit a fire under us.”
“We were inspired (well, infuriated) by the current attacks on science from the new administration,” she wrote in an email. “Slashing funding and restricting scientists from communicating their findings (from tax-funded research!) with the public is absurd and cannot be allowed to stand as policy.”
Weinberg, Berman and others who have expressed interest will meet (virtually) this weekend to develop a more robust plan. They're looking to team up with other proponents of a scientists' march — since they're not the first people to float the idea. And "sister marches" in other cities, including Boston and Seattle, also appear to be in the works.
According to the group's website, the march is aimed not just at scientists. "Anyone who believes in empirical science [can participate]," the site reads. "That's it. That's the only requirement." Apparently aware of the conflicts over inclusion of minorities the Women's March, organizers pledged to establish a diversity committee and to ensure that the steering committee is diverse.
The group tweeted Wednesday that the date of the march will be announced next week.
This post has been updated.Philadelphia Flyers all-time player list
This is a list of all the players that played for the Philadelphia Flyers, a hockey team playing in the National Hockey League from 1967 to 2019. This list is accurate for most teams, but for some obscure teams the list may be partial. We have found 619 players.
+
† denotes that the player's career team information is inaccurate due to incomplete data made available by a league.
‡ denotes that the player only appeared in the playoffs.
Note: The totals presented here may not be exact. If there is no official breakdown when a player was traded mid-season, his statistics are only included with the team he finished with. So you may see players with all zeros for statistics. This means their exact team totals were not available. Their games-played will not be accounted for with any of the teams they played with in this case.Tragic murder committed in the early hours of the day.
New York's CBS 2 reports:
A gunman used anti-gay slurs before he shot and killed a man in fashionable Greenwich Village early Saturday, police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. Police were dispatched to the corner of 8th Street and Sixth Avenue just after midnight Saturday. They found the victim, an unidentified 32-year-old man, on the ground with a gunshot wound to the head, police said. Kelly said the gunman…first urinated on the street outside a bar, then walked into the bar, according to an Associated Press report. The man proceeded to make anti-gay remarks to the bartender and show that he had a silver pistol in his holster, the wire service reported. Kelly then said the gunman came up to the victim and his companion outside, asked if they were “gay wrestlers,” and shot the victim in the face, the wire service reported.
According to the NY Post, a suspect was apprehended shortly after the shooting: "The gunman ran five blocks before cops collared him at West Third Street and MacDougal Street."
NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn released a statement condemming the attack:
"I am horrified to learn that last night, a gay man was murdered in my district after being chased out of a Greenwich Village restaurant and assailed by homophobic slurs….There was a time in New York City when two people of the same gender could not walk the street arm-in-arm without fear of violence and harassment. We refuse to go back to that time.”
Also speaking out this morning is State Senator Brad Hoylman:
"I am outraged by the recent wave of anti-LGBT violence in our city and it is shocking and extremely distressing that a man was shot to death just this morning apparently because he was gay. Nobody anywhere should have to live with fear of harm because of his or her sexual orientation…. I applaud the NYPD for making a swift arrest in this case and call on all New Yorkers to unite against hate and gun violence."
Neither the victim or the suspect have been identified. Updates as they come in.
Update: Victim has been ID'd as Marc Carson, according to a NYT police source. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly: “This clearly looks to be a hate crime.”How NYC Could Get More Transit Funding From Developers
As the MTA capital plan funding gap has come into focus, there’s been a lot of discussion about how new development can help pay for the transit service it requires. It turns out the city already has a tool that links real estate with transit improvements, but it’s so limited that it’s been used to fund transit upgrades only 10 times in more than three decades. For a more robust model, planners should look to San Francisco.
In 1982, the Department of City Planning created the “subway bonus,” which allows developers to construct buildings up to 20 percent larger than normally allowed. In exchange, the developer must pay for and install subway station improvements requested by the city.
The subway bonus only applies to sites adjacent to a subway station. At first, it only covered qualifying sites in Midtown. The program was expanded in 1984 to more of Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn; in 1986, a slightly modified subway bonus was created for the Court Square area of Long Island City. In addition, the city requires developers atop future Second Avenue Subway stops to keep a public easement in new development for future station entrances.
Although tools to extract transit improvements from developers pop up sporadically in the city’s zoning code, only 10 projects have used the subway bonus program since it was first created in 1982, according to a DCP report [PDF]. The report also lists two completed projects and one proposal that offered subway improvements using other incentive programs.
Most of these projects brought upgrades like wider platforms, new or expanded walkways between stations, elevator installations, and redesigns to allow more natural light into subway stations, among other changes.
These projects might be familiar to regular subway users. The Lexington-53rd Street station, for example, received upgrades from office towers at 599 Lexington Avenue and the “Lipstick Building” on Third Avenue. In other locations, the developer of Zeckendorf Towers expanded the mezzanine at Union Square, new office buildings brought connections between platforms at the Court Square station, and the Hearst Building added stairs and elevators at the southern end of Columbus Circle.
The city is moving forward with a modified version of the subway bonus on Vanderbilt Avenue, where it is working with developer SL Green to swap increased density for a pedestrian plaza and station improvements beneath Grand Central Terminal.
While this handful of projects over the years have provided beneficial upgrades to the subway system, it’s hard to see them as anything more than spot improvements that occur only if a big new office building happens to be located on top of a subway station. New development a block away from the subway creates just as much demand for transit, but there’s no mechanism in the city’s zoning code to recapture the costs of providing that service. What’s missing is a more comprehensive value capture system.
The city’s biggest value capture experiment to date is the scheme it used to fund the 7 train extension to Hudson Yards. The city paid for the project by banking on future property tax revenue from new development. When that new development failed to materialize as quickly as planned, city taxpayers were left holding the bag.
Instead of making the risky decision to rely on future revenue to fund an enormously expensive project, the city could require developers to pay an up-front impact fee when a project is built. San Francisco created a transit impact fee for new downtown development in 1981, and expanded the program citywide in 2004. Today, it generates millions of dollars each year for transit. San Francisco’s decades of experience could be a starting point [PDF 1, 2]. For example, New York could tie a transit impact fee to specific transit corridors. It could also link the fee to a commensurate reduction in parking requirements to offset the cost.
Revenue from the real estate sector can be volatile, but transit impact fees have two key advantages. Unlike the Hudson Yards financing plan, which relies on promised revenues, impact fees are cash in hand for the transit provider. And unlike the regional real estate transfer taxes already collected for the MTA, a transit impact fee can be targeted to areas where new development places the greatest strain on transit services.
San Francisco’s planning and transit departments are both controlled by the mayor, making it easier to connect the two. Here in New York, the MTA is a state authority while city planning is a local concern. Nevertheless, officials are already talking about the relationship between zoning and transit funding. Council Member Dan Garodnick, for example, has been heavily involved in discussions to use zoning to pay for transit upgrades in Midtown East, and City Planning Commission Chair Carl Weisbrod has expressed interest in doing more value capture projects like it. Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg has said that zoning changes should accompany transit investment and called value capture “a valuable tool” for funding transit.
The Municipal Art Society requested the subway bonus report from the city. “We were shocked to learn it has only been used a handful of times in three decades, during a time when the MTA has been struggling with deficits of billions of dollars, and our infrastructure is in vital need of repair,” said Kate Slevin, vice president of policy and planning at MAS. “Until we find a way to funnel more of this development revenue into transit and public realm improvements, the city is leaving hundreds of millions of dollars a year on the table.”With streaming firmly established as the preferred, casual viewing choice for consumers, studios are constantly trying to satisfy the demands of consumers who want their products…well, on-demand. Paramount has launched the official Paramount Vault YouTube channel, offering 150 contemporary and classic titles to stream for free (as long as you’re in the U.S.).
Okay, so you won’t find Transformers or Friday the 13th or several of the titles that instantly come to mind, but there are some real gems in there, and the sizzle reel above seems to indicate that we’ll be seeing some of the more notable classics pop up online in due time. It’s unclear if these titles will be available permanently, or if Paramount will have a rotating library with current titles expiring and new titles being uploaded regularly.
For now, you can find classics like Ironweed, starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, and Love Streams, as well as more contemporary picks like 1900, In Dreams and Margot at the Wedding. You can (and should) also watch horror gem The Loved Ones, the feature debut from Sean Byrne, who recently premiered his awesome follow-up horror flick The Devil’s Candy at Fantastic Fest.
There are also some delightfully wacky choices in the Vault, including Masters of the Universe and the absurd John Cusack adventure-comedy Hot Pursuit. What are you still doing on this page? You have some free movies to watch.There's a paradox occurring in the trucking industry about what automation will mean for its drivers. On the one hand, since the first commercial delivery was made by a fully autonomous truck last October, commentators have opined that one of the most common occupations in the US may disappear. Yet at the same time, the industry is actually undergoing a huge labor shortage, forecast to reach 100,000 fewer drivers than needed by the end of 2017, according to the American Trucking Associations (ATA).
The ATA report's data on recorded and projected driver shortage.
Rather than seeing the path forward as a binary choice between human operators and full automation, one company, Mountain View-based Peloton, is hoping to synthesize the two with a semi-autonomous system that will augment and automate certain aspects of a truck driver's role, while increasing the safety and efficiency of heavy vehicle operation overall.
The company specializes in truck platooning, a technique in which on-board sensors and DSRC communications devices allow trucks heading in the same direction to follow each other in a tight group, syncing speed and braking patterns across the convoy to allow for closer proximity than would be safe with human reflexes. Peloton claims that the fuel efficiency gains amount to 4.5 percent for the lead truck and 10 percent for a following truck, while also functioning like an adaptive cruise control for the rear driver(s).
"If you can take some of the monotony out of driving, or make driving something which is more technology-oriented and modern, you can potentially draw younger people into a profession where right now you're not seeing a lot of them even though it pays well," saidJonny Morris, Peloton's external affairs and public policy lead, in a phone call.
Part of the elegance of Peloton's approach is that the company is connecting the dots between systems which already exist, basing its product around after-market modifications of newer model trucks rather than retrofits of older ones. On a hardware level, technology like Bendix's Wingman handles collision detection and automatic braking, while logistics provided by Omnitracs—a producer of fleet management software and one of Peloton's major investors—will help to match drivers heading in the same direction even if they belong to different fleets.
If the company's promotional video is to be believed, it's a bit like Tinder for truckers:
Given the convenience of the system, I asked Morris whether expansion plans might include a passenger vehicle equivalent somewhere down the line. In response he points out that physics and economics are against it: the aerodynamic design of modern cars means that platooning has less benefit, and fuel economy isn't as crucial as for trucking companies, for whom it can represent around a third of total operating costs, so there's less incentive to spend money improving it.
Peloton has just closed a $60 million funding round, and road tests of trucks fitted with the Peloton system are already taking place in a number of states including California, Texas and Michigan, with more expected later this year. So while the robot truck is not yet upon us, keep your eye out for augmented trucks on the roads now.
Motherboard is nominated for three Webby Awards for Best Science YouTube Channel, Best Drama, Best Tech/Science Podcast. Please vote for us!Whats Cookin Italian Style Cuisine
Boozy Ball Cookie Recipe
1/2 cup bourbon, rum |
got their tickets every day, but 3 times as many people will still be left without a reservation. That’s a whole different issue for another day.?
How do other railways cope?
Figure 2: Passenger volumes in rail markets (Source: DST Technology Commercialisation Report, IC2 Institute, University of Texas – Austin)
Of the bigger networks, there is no unified ticketing solution for all of Europe, although a start-up called Silverrail is attempting to do that. Since Japan has mainly short journeys, they would not have a huge need for advance reservation of berths. Even in Germany, the demand-supply ratio is much lower than in India and hence they may not be required to handle the peak demand at the time of opening of the Advance Reservation Period. Only China has a comparable situation. And they seem to be facing similar or even worse problems than in India.
What can be done in India?
Now for the fixes. Remember that failures compound at every stage. If we fixed anything in the innermost layer, the impact is manifold.
1. Stagger opening times
If the train leaves in the forenoon, let the opening time be 8 a.m. and if it leaves in the afternoon, let the opening time be 10 a.m. This one move alone will splice the peak-time traffic into halves, roughly. And, the demand reduction applies to the entire pipe, not just the web servers. One issue with this approach is that passengers who have an afternoon train as first preference and a forenoon train as a backup will have reduced flexibility. But, this is only a small price to pay for better experience on opening days.
2. Decouple seat selection
Tickets are commodities, while seats and berths are not! This adds to the complexity. Let’s say Amazon had an inventory of a million toothbrushes and 2 million people try to buy the same item. I’m assuming they’ll just need to decrement the counter and complete the transaction with buyers on a first-come first-served basis, without worrying about which exact toothbrush will go to whom (at the time of sale). In contrast, Indian Railways offers a precisely labelled berth or seat to a ticket buyer.
In database terms, a row-level lock is obtained on the berth, while thousands of transactions compete for that! A better way would be to sell tickets first and allot the berths later. If passengers can handle the sophistication, they can even do a check-in later, but I think we’re still quite some time away from that. The current logic for berth preference can be retained, but applied as a separate step. In reservation centres, there can be a separate berth allotment counter for confirmed ticket holders.
3. Process payments separately
Another huge bottleneck is in processing payments. It involves a series of menu selections by users each causing pages to load followed by complex handshakes between IRCTC, third party gateways, and the banks, security checks and so on. Each step is prone to failures too. On the whole, 29% of attempted payments failed.
Why not deduct money before ticket booking begins for the day and return it if booking is unsuccessful? Actually, IRCTC is instead considering a smarter move by which passengers can keep prepaid cash with them. Apart from the obvious performance improvement, the economic implications are huge. Imagine crores of rupees lying with them without a need to pay interest? Already, Indian Railways benefits from having an Advance Reservation Period of 4 months. Together, effectively, passenger money is deposited several months in advance. Remember Dell?
4. Eradicate hoarding of reservations
When we piloted Pyka in Salem Railway Division, I used to travel by the Ernakulam Express often. Whenever I checked, the tickets had a long waitlist and I invariably booked in Tatkal. However, when I boarded the train, about 10% of berths lay vacant!
I once saw a man selling reserved tickets in New Delhi Railway Station and asked him the price for a ticket to Lucknow. He quoted 8 times the price, no surprise there. I then told I need an upper berth and not a side-lower. He looked in his wad of tickets and pulled out an upper berth ticket booked in a fictitious male’s name with roughly my age.
Imagine the number of combinations for which he would’ve pre-booked tickets! He would cancel his unsold inventory at the last minute causing a loss to the railways and unserved passengers. Now you know why Ernakulam Express had vacant berths for a journey that got oversubscribed initially?
An ID card should be made compulsory to prevent proxy travel. And, it’s good to know that Indian Railways has started enforcing this rule now.
5. Infrastructure
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s audit report has pointed out a number of issues with the telecom backbone of Indian Railways among other things. The core infrastructure should be upgraded.
6. The usual suspects
Once an order of magnitude improvement has been made through the above changes, regular performance improvement measures can be undertaken which will give incremental benefits. To start with, such a high-traffic heavily-transactional website should not be using a Content Management System CMS (IRCTC uses BroadVision’s CMS). No point having banner ads and other link baits while the user is still midway booking his or her ticket.
The Windows stack should be replaced with a UNIX stack. Cloud hosting with load balancers should be considered. Web servers should be optimised to the maximum extent. Gzip compression should be enabled. Sessions should be managed better by failing gracefully. For example, when payment processing fails, why should the user start from the login page again? HTML and Javascript should be minified and compact. Once I tried editing the mark-up of the ticket so that it fits a single page. I noticed a lot of whitespace and HTML comments saying Kavitha fixed this, John changed that, and so on!
Conclusion
Indian Railways is facing scale problems almost unique to itself. While there are improvements required at every stage, there can’t be a significant improvement in ticket booking experience without making core changes. All these performance improvements can reduce passenger frustration by completing the booking experience faster without many failures, but still will not do anything to the number of people who end up not getting a reservation.
Inadequate supply is the larger issue that needs to be tackled by improving the efficiency of the system, increasing the prices a little more than the current levels, and then investing a lot in capacity building. I have met people like Prof.Raghuram who have researched transportation systems for decades and have come up with concrete recommendations. Do we have the political will to implement them taking along the powerful trade unions?
[About the author: BalaSundaraRaman (Sundar) is a co-founder of Ideophone which is a solution provider for travellers and commuters. Besides being a rail fan, he has worked with various arms of Indian Railways from the divisional level up to the Railway Board in his efforts to launch a novel wakeup call service called Pyka, based on Ideophone’s technology. Comments welcome over email at sundar@ideophone.in or @oligoglot on twitter. Image credit]
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Recommended Read : IRCTC only sold 27 tickets on day one!Over the last two years Waterman has captained State 18’s with WA, progressed to league football with Claremont and has been an AFL Academy member
Jake Waterman, son of Eagles dual-premiership player Chris, has been nominated by the West Coast Eagles as a father-son selection for the upcoming 2016 NAB AFL Draft.
With Waterman accepting the Eagles’ nomination, it gives West Coast some degree of control over his final destiny.
West Coast currently heads into the draft with picks 12, 33, 51, 69, 87 and 105 with all other clubs still having the opportunity to bid a draft selection for Waterman on draft night.
West Coast Eagles National Recruiting Manager Rohan O’Brien said the Eagles were delighted the 18 year-old had officially accepted their nomination.
“We’ve seen Jake for a three-year period since his under-16 carnival with WA and identified him as a ‘draftable’ player,” O’Brien said.
“We were really pleased to nominate Jake and while both parties understand there are no guarantees on draft night, we’re hopeful he ends up at the West Coast Eagles.”
Over the last two years Waterman has captained State 18’s with WA, progressed to league football with Claremont and has been an AFL Academy member.
Waterman played four WAFL senior matches this season, averaging 12 disposals, four marks and kicked seven goals. He returned to WAFL colts level for the finals series and helped Claremont to a premiership, gathering 20 disposals and kicking four goals in the Grand Final.JABALPUR: Unable to put up with marital rape, a 34-year-old homemaker of Jabalpur decided to end her life and bought strips of sleeping pills on April 29. A day later, she was thirsty for revenge and administered them on her husband, Lal Singh, after he raped her in the presence of her five-year-old son.Arrested on Friday for murder, the woman was remarkably calm and unrepentant. She told woman sub-inspector, Aruna Wahne, that all she wanted “death sentence and an assurance from the government that her son would be looked after well”.A widow with a son from her first marriage with an armyman, the woman was married off to Lal Singh, an FCI employee, in February this year. It was an arranged match negotiated by her elder brother. On the first day, she realized Singh was not looking for a companion, but a sex slave. The woman, according to her statement to the police, was not allowed to go to her brother’s home and was tired of being treated like a plaything. Realizing that life would be hell with Lal Singh, she finally decided to end her life, bought and stored sleeping pills.On April 30, Lal Singh returned from office and began to molest her, police said. Her protests fell on deaf ears and when she pleaded that her son who was playing in the next room could walk in any time, he marched out in a huff and brought the child inside the bedroom. He raped her in the presence of the weeping boy.The shock on the face of the little one evidently proved to be the last straw. Town Inspector, Gorakhpur, Vijay Punj, said “the woman had contested a legal battle with her in-laws for custody of her son after her first husband died of a failed kidney. This treatment to the boy shook her.”When Singh demanded tea, the woman boiled fistful of pills into the potion and served him. And the man fell asleep. Around midnight, she pinned him down and strangulated him. Next morning, she summoned her brothers and neighbours and told them that Lal Singh had died of an electric shock while trying to switch on the cooler, police said.Town inspector Vijay Punj got suspicious by her body language. She narrated the events in a calm, impassive manner. “There was no grief on her face and not once did she break down,” said the police officer.On sustained interrogation, she told sub-inspector Wahane that “she was happy to have killed the devil”. However, she does not want a protracted trial, but demanded a death sentence to put an end to her misery. Her only concern is her son who she hopes will be taken care of by authorities.hopeful of joining their teammates on the plane to Darwin this week
West Coast’s senior players have come back after their mid-season break in good shape and a few who were nursing sore spots after the victory against Richmond at the MCG are now on track for selection.
As the Eagles prepare for a clash with Melbourne in Darwin on Saturday evening, defenders Will Schofield and Jeremy McGovern, as well as forward Jamie Cripps are all expected to push for inclusion.
Full injury list
They trained yesterday, will have another run tomorrow and, provided they get through that hit-out unscathed, will be on the plane that flies to the top end with the team on board this Thursday afternoon.
Schofield appears to have recovered from a hip injury, while McGovern, who has been nursing a few sore spots over the last month, is moving freely. Cripps' quad issue has responded to treatment and rest.
In addition, another of the club’s exciting youngsters, Tom Lamb, is poised for a return to East Perth.
Destiny in our hands: Hurn
He has not played since his round one debut against the Western Bulldogs, after which he needed minor knee surgery, but all things being equal, he will play for East Perth against Swan Districts on restricted game time on Saturday.
Tough utility player Pat McGinnity is also tracking nicely and is likely to miss a further two games after fracturing his wrist a few weeks ago.This is not an official SIRT announcement. Juniper SIRT does not comment on issues in which Juniper products are not vulnerable. SIRT is still reviewing our broad portfolio and, if an issue is discovered, they will issue an appropriate advisory here.
"This is the best article and test we have to date on the BlackNurse attack. The article provides some answers which are not covered anywhere else. The structure and documentation of the test is remarkable. It would be nice to see the test performed on other firewalls – good job Craig ”
Lenny Hansson and Kenneth Bjerregaard Jørgensen, BlackNurse Discoverers
On November 10th, 2016, Danish firm TDC published a report about the effects of a particular ICMP Type+Code combination that triggers resource exhaustion issues within many leading Firewall platforms. The TDC SOC has branded this low-volume attack BlackNurse, details of which can be seen here, and here.
Over the past few weeks, Firewall vendors have been coming out with their own unique perspective on the issue. Out of those vendors who have made public statements, none have provided any information as to exactly what can be expected when this attack targets a host behind their security device.
As we were curious ourselves, we went ahead and created a lab environment to test both our products and the products of a few of our competitors. With regards as to why Fortinet and Cisco were omitted from our list, the community has taken care of testing for us (as you can see here under the list of affected products). Fortinet has posted a blog in response which recommends deploying a separate DDoS appliance to defend against these types of attacks.
For those of you interested in the makeup of a "BlackNurse" packet, I have included a screenshot from Wireshark below. These packets include a full 5-Tuple about the supposed session they're referencing: Source IP, Source Port, Destination IP, Destination Port, and Protocol. We will discuss why this is important later on.
To ensure we were comparing "apples-to-apples" between our product and our competitors, we turned to virtualization. Virtualizing our test bed provided us with the ability to abstract hardware advantages of one vendor from another. If each device has an identical amount of compute assigned, one can easily determine whose software is superior for a given task.
I will be including the exact makeup of our test bed below for those of you who wish to replicate and/or deeply analyze the results.
The ESXi 5.5 host used in our lab had the following components:
2x Intel Xeon L5520 CPUs
82GB of DDR3-1333 ECC Memory
The Attacker, Benign User, and Protected Server were configured with relatively low specifications:
2x vCPU
2GB RAM
1x VMXNET3 NIC
Running Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS with tcpdump, hping3, and wireshark-common (for capinfos) installed.
Each NGFW under test had the following resources assigned:
2x vCPU
4GB RAM
3x VMXNET3 NIC's (Management/Outside/Inside)
Latest Operating System:
Juniper vSRX was tested on Junos 15.1X49-D60
Palo Alto PA-VM was tested on PAN-OS 7.1.6
Check Point vSEC was tested on R77.30 with the latest Jumbo HFA and deployed as a standalone gateway.
Check Point's dedicated management station was powered off during testing to avoid skewing results due to increased load on the ESXi host.
Each VM is utilizing paravirtualized VMXNET3 interfaces to maximize their potential performance and interrupt handling. As our competitors do not have the capability to utilize SR-IOV, this was not leveraged by the vSRX during testing.
The Test Plan
For the purpose of our experiment, we created ideal circumstances under which to identify the maximum amount of BlackNurse traffic a given solution can support. To elaborate, each NGFW had:
A single rule which permits any source to any destination with any application No Network Address Translation (NAT) No Logging No advanced or CPU-intensive features such as IPS
The test was run in two stages, each with two degrees of flooding (Low and High)
Stage One: Using the default configuration of the device.
Stage Two: In the recommended configuration from the Vendor as outlined in their BlackNurse response articles.
Check Point article here
Palo Alto article here
A simple PASS or FAIL is assigned based on the Benign User's ability to fetch the index.html from the Protected Server's NGINX server within a generous fifteen seconds. This fetch is only executed once the flood has been active for one minute. The test attempts validate resource availability of the protected host during the Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. Failing this test indicates that the protected host has become unavailable and that the DoS attack can be considered successful.
Prior to executing the attack, each test bed is validated to ensure a successful fetch is able to complete in less than 0.01 seconds:
$ time wget 10.1.1.100 --2016-11-27 15:30:40-- http://10.1.1.100/ Connecting to 10.1.1.100:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 612 [text/html] Saving to: ‘index.html’ 100%[======================================>] 612 --.-K/s in 0s 2016-11-27 15:30:40 (74.8 MB/s) - ‘index.html’ saved [612/612] real 0m0.005s <---- user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.000s
A strict timeout is enforced during the test utilizing the 'timeout' command. If the request has not completed within the time specified, the timeout utility will kill the attempt and the process will exit.
Example of a failed attempt:
$ timeout 15 wget 10.1.1.100 --2016-11-27 15:34:32-- http://10.1.1.100/ Connecting to 10.1.1.100:80... $
For those of you following along at home, if you do not have a packet-generator at your disposal, you can use hping3 to generate the required ICMP Type 3 Code 3 packets. A word of caution: You will notice that if a device is more adept at handling an arbitrary flood, hping3 will be able to send more traffic to the target due to the increased availability of resources on the ESXi host. The numbers included in the results below have been normalized to reflect this.
Running the following string on the Attacking Machine generated 40 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) or 75,000 Packets-per-second (PPS) of BlackNurse traffic destined to the Protected Server. Each packet is 70-bytes in length.
hping3 --icmp -C 3 -K 3 -i u1 10.1.1.100
For the full flood test, this string generated 165 Mbps / 295,000 PPS from the Attacking Machine
hping3 --icmp -C 3 -K 3 --flood 10.1.1.100
The Results
At first glance, these results may surprise some of you. Why does Palo Alto suffer significantly more than others during the Low Volume attack?
The answer is relatively simple. Remember the 5-Tuple we discussed earlier? Both Juniper SRX and Check Point analyze the inner header of the ICMP packet before making a forwarding decision, while Palo Alto does not. As a result, both the Check Point and the SRX Firewalls drop the BlackNurse packets, while Palo Alto is forced to consume resources forwarding the traffic to the internal server.
Check Point looks to see if the ICMP destination matches the inner source IP defined within the packet.
You can see that here from a kernel debug:
;[cpu_1];[fw4_0];fw_log_drop_ex: Packet proto=1 1.1.1.50:771 -> 10.1.1.100:3379 dropped by fw_icmp_stateless_checks Reason: ICMP destination does not match the source of the internal packet;
Juniper SRX take this one step further by analyzing whether or not there is an established session for the embedded 5-Tuple within the packet. Using this technique, the SRX ensures that the traffic is matching a legitimate session and not being spoofed by an attacker.
From flow traceoptions:
Nov 24 22:35:26 22:35:23.626086:CID-0:THREAD_ID-01:RT: ge-0/0/0.0:1.1.1.50->10.1.1.100, icmp, (3/3) Nov 24 22:35:26 22:35:23.626090:CID-0:THREAD_ID-01:RT: packet dropped, no session found for embedded icmp pak
Check Point's solution went unresponsive under high-load due to their lack of resource separation between management and forwarding planes. The separation of Routing-Engine and Packet-Forwarding Engine is a fundamental tenet of Juniper platforms. We strongly believe that at no point should the processing of transit traffic affect the overall stability and manageability of the device in question.
vSRX included with both mitigation options
These results are more in line with what we would expect to see from top-tier vendors, with Palo Alto being the notable exception once again. It appears as though their software is not as efficient as others when dealing with high packet-rate scenarios. My current assumption is that their poor performance is due to an inefficient softIRQ handler which may not be exposed in their physical solutions. Because Palo Alto implements anti-DoS mechanisms in hardware when available, just like Juniper, it is possible these software routines have not yet been optimized to function effectively when said hardware is absent.
Check Point's anti-DoS mechanism was shown to be very similar to the SRX's ICMP Screen feature in terms of raw performance. While not an easy feature to deploy correctly (unlike Screens), it is quite effective. For those interested in seeing how complex managing these rules can be, please see here for some examples. Unfortunately for Check Point, they also lack the ability to push these rules into an ASIC or FPGA to handle these attacks at large scale. They are inherently limited by the performance of the x86 architecture.
On that note, for those curious as to why Packet-Filters are the most efficient solution at handling these types of attacks in software-based platforms, consult the SRX's flow diagram to see when packet-filters take effect on a given flow:
As you can see above, both Policers and Packet-Filters take effect before a session-lookup occurs, saving precious time and system resources when dealing with large DDoS attacks. The added benefit with our physical SRX is that flood-based Screens are pushed down into our ASIC-based Network Processors (NP's) to handle attacks like this at line-rate (up to 240Gbps per line-card) with no impact to system resources.
Now that you have seen the results, this is the baseline configuration which was used on the vSRX:
set version 15.1X49-D60.7 set system host-name vSRX set system root-authentication encrypted-password "$5$CM/Zzr55$kET7anrM32v0KxpwOVyPJcT3HTALY9pNcdx.Rw8K6U3" set system services ssh set security policies global policy Permit_Any match source-address any set security policies global policy Permit_Any match destination-address any set security policies global policy Permit_Any match application any set security policies global policy Permit_Any then permit set security zones security-zone Outside interfaces ge-0/0/0.0 set security zones security-zone Inside interfaces ge-0/0/1.0 set interfaces ge-0/0/0 unit 0 family inet address 1.1.1.1/24 set interfaces ge-0/0/1 unit 0 family inet address 10.1.1.1/24 set interfaces fxp0 unit 0 family inet address 192.168.0.5/24
To enable Screens on the Outside Zone and to enable ICMP Flood protection, these two lines were added:
set security screen ids-option BlackNurse icmp flood threshold 100 set security zones security-zone Outside screen BlackNurse
While Policers would also be highly effective for this purpose, during this test we used a simple Packet-Filter to discard all ICMP Type-3 Code-3 packets ingressing into our Outside interface:
set firewall family inet filter BlackNurse term 1 from protocol icmp set firewall family inet filter BlackNurse term 1 from icmp-type unreachable set firewall family inet filter BlackNurse term 1 from icmp-code port-unreachable set firewall family inet filter BlackNurse term 1 then discard set firewall family inet filter BlackNurse term 2 then accept set interfaces ge-0/0/0 unit 0 family inet filter input BlackNurse
Appendix
This section will include Answers to common questions not addressed above.
Q) Will you be sharing the device configurations used during testing?
You can find the vSRX config above, but Check Point and Palo Alto configurations are included below for posterity. The DoS-prevention mechanisms for each platform were configured to take action after 100 packets-per-second of ICMP flooding.
Check Point (policy was any/any/accept) Base Configuration fw samp rule for DoS mitigation was as follows:
fw samp add -a d quota source cidr:1.1.1.50/32 service 1 pkt-rate 100 flush true”
Palo Alto
Base Configuration Recommended Configuration
Q) How was CPU utilization determined?
Juniper:'show security monitoring'
Check Point: Utilizing 'ps aux' and 'top', tracking the assigned fw_worker core. Reaching 100% on this core creates a DoS scenario as seen in Test 1.
Palo Alto: There was some discrepancy with regards to dataplane CPU reporting within the VM. Generally, one would run'show running resource-monitor' to display the current utilization for the dataplane. However, this was not reporting figures in line with device behaviour. Metrics from the 'pan_task' process proved to be much more reliable when taken from'show system resource follow'.
Example: The PA-VM is suffering from 100% packet loss during Test 1 but only reporting 50% dataplane utilization, whereas pan_task is reporting 100%+.
show running resource-monitor show system resources follow(CNN) -- France has asked that the official Hamas-run TV channel Al-Aqsa not be broadcast through French-based satellite provider Eutelsat on the grounds that the station has violated a prohibition on incitement to hatred or violence based on race, religion or nationality, the French broadcasting monitoring agency said in a release.
The station has broadcast "several programs ignoring this prohibition," the Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel said in a June 9 release obtained Tuesday by CNN.
Hazem Al-sha'rawi, the head of Al-Aqsa, said the decision was politically motivated.
"What is new is the decision is now coming from France after the success of Aqsa TV in broadcasting the campaign of the 'Freedom Flotilla' and exposing the wrongdoings of the Israeli practices that took place," Al-sha'rawi told CNN.
"Always after the success of media outlets in exposing the wrongdoings of the Israeli practices, decisions are made and usually are blackmail decisions. A short time is left for France to reverse this decision," he said.
Israel says the commandos were acting in self-defense, pointing to videos that show people on the boat swinging clubs at the Israeli military members as they lowered themselves onto the ship on ropes from helicopters.The cr.yp.to blog
2016.06.07: The death of due process
Suppose someone is accused of rape, or some other horrifying crime. If the accusation is true then the perpetrator should go to jail. If the accusation is false then the source of this false accusation should pay for this slander. Clearly someone has broken the law.
A lynch mob forms to punish the alleged rapist by whatever means possible. A second lynch mob forms to punish the accuser, the alleged slanderer, again by whatever means possible. These mobs are full of angry people who want to be judges and juries and executioners. The members of the first lynch mob dismiss the possibility that the accusation is false. The members of the second lynch mob dismiss the possibility that the accusation is true.
Evidently many of these people are wrong: accidentally or maliciously deceived. At the same time all of these people are convinced that they know who deserves punishment.
Is it really so hard to recognize both of these directions of error? If I prejudge and punish alleged culprits who have not had their day in court, then I will inevitably punish some innocent people: the unfortunate reality is that many accusations of crimes are false. If I prejudge and punish accusers who have not had their day in court, then I will inevitably punish some innocent people: the unfortunate reality is that many accusations of crimes are true.
When I say "day in court", what I really mean is due process. Due process is a set of ethical principles that civilization has painstakingly developed over several centuries, recognizing that punishment is corrupted by many sources of error on both sides: communication is poor; memories are faulty; sometimes people don't tell the whole truth; sometimes people tell something other than the truth. I won't try to summarize all of the principles of due process, but here are some of the most fundamental, well-established principles:
The accused receives adequate notice of the allegations.
The accused has an adequate opportunity to respond.
Judgments are made by an unbiased tribunal.
These principles are followed by criminal courts (where, as an extra protection, defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty); by civil courts (where the winner is whichever side has the strongest overall evidence); by arbitrators; etc.
I'm not saying that judges never make mistakes. I'm saying that the lynch mobs rushing to judgment are much more likely to make mistakes, exactly because of the absence of due process.
Have you ever heard one side of a story, thought you understood what was going on, and then, after hearing the other side of the story, realized that you were wrong? Have you ever read news about liars being convincingly exposed in court as their lawyers watched in despair, shoulders slumped? You're seeing examples of the power of due process to correct errors. Again, I'm not saying that these systems are perfect; I'm saying that the alternatives are much worse.
Is any of this new? Is any of it hard to understand? I don't think so. Why, then, do these lynch mobs form like clockwork?
Imagine the least trustworthy person you can think of. Maybe it's a modern-day J. Edgar Hoover, or maybe it's some money-grubbing corporate type, or maybe it's one of the candidates for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Imagine that this person, for whatever reason, wants to destroy someone's life. Look at how attractive these lynch mobs are as weapons! The first lynch mob is a weapon to destroy the life of the accused. The second lynch mob is a weapon to destroy the life of the accuser. These weapons can be used by anyone with a moderate level of marketing skill, and cost almost nothing in the Internet age.
Is it clear that this is never happening: that these weapons are never being used maliciously against innocent victims? I don't find it at all clear. Sure, the courts can be used as weapons too, but at least the courts have some protections against abuse.
Perhaps there's never any malice. The error rate of the lynch mobs is nevertheless terribly high: so high that the existence of these mobs cannot, must not, be tolerated by society.
Now suppose an accuser or accused claims to be the victim of a crime or slander respectively—but, instead of calling for a prosecution or a civil case or at least an arbitration, calls for a lynch mob. The costs are low, the expected damage is high, and the pesky concept of due process is neatly dodged. Is this behavior any less antisocial than the behavior of the angry people who heed the call?
Perhaps you feel, intellectually, that you understand all this, and that you detest the lynch mobs on both sides. But then a new event occurs and suddenly you're faced with angry people trying to browbeat you into joining their lynch mob, screaming either "HOW CAN YOU CONDONE THIS CRIME!" or "HOW CAN YOU CONDONE THIS SLANDER!" depending on which side they're on.
It's really not that hard to stay calm and say something like this: "We weren't there. At this point we can't be sure what happened. Sometimes accusations are true, and sometimes they aren't. It's important for a neutral judge to hear testimony from the accuser and from the accused."
But not everyone stays calm. Angry people continue to join these mobs. They blog and tweet and report their ill-informed speculations in favor of the accuser or the accused, confident in their own righteousness and blithely unaware of the possibility of being wrong. Ultimately the accused and the accuser are both punished, truth be damned.
Version: This is version 2016.06.07 of the 20160607-dueprocess.html web page.MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- What do software mogul Bill Gates and banking investor Warren Buffett have in common with wanted Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera?
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, pictured in 1993, ranks 701st on Forbes' yearly report on billionaires.
They are all featured in Forbes magazine's world's billionaires report as "self-made" billionaires.
Guzman Loera, whose nickname means Shorty, escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001. He heads the powerful Sinaloa cartel, investigators say. Authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border blame the Sinaloa and other cartels for a surge in violence in the region.
He ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.
Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora expressed outrage at the publication and described Forbes' calculations on Guzman Loera's fortune as mere "speculation."
"I will never accept that a criminal could be recognized as someone distinguished, even if it is by a magazine like Forbes," Medina Mora said to local media during a drug traffic summit Thursday in Vienna, Austria.
Forbes is "comparing the deplorable activity of a criminal wanted in Mexico and abroad with that of honest businessmen," he said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon -- speaking at a business summit Thursday in Mexico City -- alluded to the report, saying, "It is very sad the intensification of a campaign, which seems to me, has been launched against Mexico."
Calderon added, "Public opinion and now even magazines not only attack and lie about the situation in Mexico, but now also praise criminals. In Mexico, it is considered a crime to praise criminals."
Guzman Loera has a three-decade history of drug trade spanning North, Central and South America. The Forbes profile of Guzman Loera reported that "the U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward" for the billionaire's capture.
Steve Forbes, the magazine's editor-in-chief, issued a statement on Saturday saying "it is deplorable that someone like this has a billion dollars." But the magazine, he said, was simply doing its job and reporting a fact.
"Forbes has listed other criminals from Meyer Lansky (1982) to Pablo Escobar (1987-1993) on our Rich Lists," Forbes said. "Don't shoot the messenger."
Its article offers a rationale as to why Guzman Loera made the list.
"So is there anywhere one can still make a fortune these days? The 38 newcomers offer a few clues. Among the more notable new billionaires are Mexican Joaquin Guzman Loera, one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the U.S."
CNN's Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report.
All About Mexico • Felipe Calderon • Forbes Media LLCIn an interview with NPR that aired today Attorney General Eric Holder said there are too many people in prison and it is time for federal sentencing reform. He could announce major changes as early as next week.
In the NPR interview Holder said: “The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old. There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There’s been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color.”
“Attorney General Holder is clearly right to condemn mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system,” said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “Both he and the president have an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy by securing substantial, long overdue drug policy reform.”
A team of lawyers at the Justice Department is reportedly working on proposals that Holder could present as early as a speech next week. Some of the proposals could include de-prioritizing low-level drug offense.
“[W]e can certainly change our enforcement priorities, and so we have some control in that way,” Holder said. “How we deploy our agents, what we tell our prosecutors to charge, but I think this would be best done if the executive branch and the legislative branch work together to look at this whole issue and come up with changes that are acceptable to both.”
Holder’s remarks are the latest in unprecedented momentum for major criminal justice reform. Several bi-partisan reform bills have been introduced in Congress and a left/right consensus is building. A few months ago, a coalition of over 175 artists, actors, athletes, elected officials and advocates, brought together by hip-hop pioneer Russell Simmons and Dr. Boyce Watkins, presented an open letter to President Obama urging him to tackle mass incarceration and drug policy reform. States have already taken the lead. Voters in Colorado and Washington, for instance, voted to end marijuana prohibition last November. Senator Patrick |
stored as fat, the energy-storing white fat, which is less desirable than its counterpart, energy-burning brown fat.
In the beginning, these same mice were fed a restricted diet and lost weight while a control group was given free-for-all access to food. Mice that had dieted gained back most of the weight they had lost, nearly catching up to the control group by the study's end.
Even though they didn't gain back the entirety of the weight they lost, the mouse equivalent to human belly fat weighed more for those that had dieted.
This kind of fat, in addition to being unsightly, is associated with the very kind of insulin resistance described above in addition to increased risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Human nutrition professor Martha Belury of Ohio State says her findings do not support the notion that eating multiple small meals over the course of a day could help you lose weight.
"But you definitely don't want to skip meals to save calories because it sets your body up for larger fluctuations in insulin and glucose and could be setting you up for more fat gain instead of fat loss," she says.
Even though mice were used, Belury says the behavior of the group that dieted matched that of human dieters, developing gorging behavior as a result of calorie deprivation that eventually made them so full they would go as long as 20 hours without food.
This bingeing-and-fasting behaviour turned the mice's metabolism topsy-turvy and the research team believes it caused insulin production to spike and subsequently plummet.
These same mice exhibited increased inflammation and higher activation of genes that promote fat storing, according to the study, published in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry.
"Under conditions when the liver is not stimulated by insulin, increased glucose output from the liver means the liver isn't responding to signals telling it to shut down glucose production," says Belury.
"These mice don't have type 2 diabetes yet, but they're not responding to insulin anymore and that state of insulin resistance is referred to as pre-diabetes."OMB Director Mick Mulvaney joined me this morning:
Audio:
05-04hhs-mulvaney
Transcript:
HH: I begin this hour with the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Director Mick Mulvaney of the wonderful state of South Carolina. Director Mulvaney, welcome back, it’s good to talk to you again. Haven’t seen you since the green room on Meet the Press.
MM: Hugh, is that Game of Thrones bumper music you’re playing?
HH: Of course, it is. We’re House of Lannister.
MM: (laughing)
HH: It’s the House of Lannister. You’re probably Starks.
MM: That’s a new one for me. No, it’s good to talk to you again.
HH: Well, that’s sort of like the West Wing. Isn’t it Game of Thrones? It’s been presented that way, at least.
MM: And a lot more parallels than people probably realize, yeah.
HH: (laughing) Let me ask you, do you have the votes to pass Obamacare repeal and replace in the House today?
MM: Yeah. Everybody I talk to says yes. All the folks I talked to who are no are yes. I think they’re going to get everybody but one in the Freedom Caucus, and they might get that one. And I think yesterday, the deal that Fred Upton and Billy Long came up with was enough to satisfy enough moderates. So they say that there are going to be about 15 noes, which is enough to pass. My guess is when it goes on the board, a lot of folks who said they were no will be yes. The margin might actually be a little bit larger.
HH: Now Director Mulvaney, if Senate Leader McConnell takes that and says we’re just going to, and gets 52 Republicans to sign a letter saying we’re going to vote this thing yes up, straight up unless you engage in serious negotiations on a number of things, Chuck Schumer, including the border wall, including immigration reform, including Defense sequestration, including entitlement reform, he’ll have a hell of a lot of leverage, won’t he?
MM: He will, and he needs to do something. I don’t know if that threat is viable, just given the telegraphing that several members of the Senate have already done on the House version of the bill. But your point is an excellent one, which is that the Senate has to do something different to break the stalemate. I mean, we’re still not full on our cabinet, believe it or not. I think Mr. Lighthizer at USTR is still not yet confirmed, and here we are in the middle of May. The appropriations process from all indications is not going to get back to regular order in the Senate this year, which means we’ll be back again in September at another CR omnibus discussion. The Senate is broken, and whatever Mitch McConnell can do to fix it, he needs to do, because well, just because the country needs it.
HH: And I think if the 52 Republicans would just act like a party for once and sign a letter saying this is an up vote, this is passing as is unless you get down to business with us, and a team from the administration, you know, six from the House, six from the Senate, 12 from the administration, and a massive bill covering all of the urgent priorities gets done. I think that is possible, Mick Mulvaney. You’d be a part of that. Good luck on that. Let me start with a specific and move to the general.
MM: Sure.
HH: Have you named an office of information and regulatory affairs assistant director of OMB, yet, because that position is so important.
MM: The assistant director? No. We’ve named a director, who is Neomi Rao. And in fact, I just met with her this week, and I wanted her to be involved in the process of picking her assistant. And I think we’re looking at that. We’re in that process right now. Of course, she’s not confirmed, yet, so it’s sort of putting the cart before the horse to name her assistant before she gets confirmed.
HH: Okay, so tell me about Neomi and what she brings to the job that Cass Sunstein used to rule basically the executive branch.
MM: Oh, and she’s fantastic. She is an academic, but this is her specialty in regulatory reform. I think she’s at George Mason. I always get those Northern Virginia schools all messed up, but she runs the office of, or the Institute of Regulatory Policy out there, something she founded. There’s an excellent Wall Street Journal, I think that Cass Sunstein may have written an op-ed right after she was named that said the name, and I could be getting that wrong, but it was someone prominent who wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal right after Neomi was named that said this more than anything sends the message that Donald Trump is absolutely serious about regulatory reform. So we’re very excited about having her on. Folks don’t know if the office of regulatory affairs, actually information that regulatory affairs does, you can call it OIRA, another really bad name for an agency. But it touches every single regulation in and out of the government, and it’s a tremendously important job. And to have her there is going to be a big win for us.
HH: Let me talk to you a little bit about the Congressional Review Act. I think the President will sign his 14th CRA bill today or tomorrow. Am I right about that, Mick Mulvaney?
MM: That’s right. yeah, 14, and we’ve got 13 in the bag already. It’ll be 14 this week.
HH: These are enormously important. I talked about this with Speaker Ryan yesterday. I don’t think the public quite gets them, but they bar the door to agencies returning to the burned over ground of the rule that has been revoked by the Congress. That’s why they’re so significant.
MM: That’s right, and people do focus on the fact that they undo something that President Obama’s administration tried to do or did, but not only that, they prevent that agency from ever doing something similar or the same in the future forever. So it’s a permanent limitation on the power of the regulatory state, and we think that is one of those unsung victories of the first 100 days, having 13 of those in the bag and still going strong.
HH: And the door is barred unless and until Congress authorized that it go forward, which brings me to my proposition. President Obama signed the Paris Agreement on September the 3rd, 2016. It went into force on November the 4th, 2016. You were still within the CRA window to take a resolution through the House and Senate to revoke the Paris Agreement and bar executive agency unilateral action on carbon emissions without Congressional authority. Will you propose that, Mick Mulvaney, and ask the House and Senate to do that?
MM: Well, we’ve already looked at it. In fact, there was a meeting of all of the lawyers yesterday. I was not in on that. I was in another meeting dealing with the budget. But we’re trying to figure out if Paris, the Paris Agreement is subject to CRA review. There is a school of thought that it is not. The effective date is actually outside the CRA lookback window, and again, I just put half of our audience to sleep. But there is an, at least an argument to be made for it not being suitable for CRA, so we’re looking at other options on how to get out of it. Is it a treaty, for example? Should it be approved by the Senate, which it was never done? So we are absolutely looking at all of the angles. The CRA is one of them, but by no means the only.
HH: I have looked at it, so you can tell the lawyers that the best lawyer that you know says it’s inside the CRA window, and what the hell, why not pass it anyway, because there’s no downside to it? That’s my view.
MM: I’m a big fan of asking for forgiveness instead of permission.
HH: Exactly. You pass it and you say it’s over, it’s done, and then the courts can work it out. Let’s go to the budget, Mick Mulvaney. Big win for you. It will pass the Senate today. It passed the House last night. But my own beef with it is shipbuilding. The President has promised a 350 ship Navy. This first $1 trillion, $1.1 trillion dollar budget, does not add even one complete extra ship. He’ll never get to 350 ships under this budget. What do you say?
MM: It’s funny, you did not say that you were going to mention that, so this is by pure coincidence. The reason I wasn’t at the Paris meeting yesterday was that I was at a meeting about the ships. And I’m not making that up.
HH: (laughing)
MM: Here’s where we stand, because there’s a discussion right now on whether or not we add some additional littoral combat ships, which are, well, sort of the shallow water Navy, the smaller ships. You know what they are, but anyway…
HH: Yeah.
MM: We did not add any of those as part of this $21 billion dollar request. And there’s a really healthy and positive debate on that, and here’s one of the issues. The Navy doesn’t want them.
HH: They don’t want the LCS.
MM: Right.
HH: It’s a crappy ship. They need frigates…
MM: They do…
HH: But you could repurpose Marinette, the shipbuilding place in Wisconsin, to build those frigates instead of the crappy LCS.
MM: All of what you just said is true. Of course, I’m not going to say crappy LCS. The people who make it are probably listening. But, so I won’t endorse that line of reasoning, but here’s the point. It does take time to do that. So can you get it done with the money from this ’17 OCO budget? Remember what we passed, the House passed yesterday, in a deal the President negotiated over the last couple of weeks, is only for the last five months of the fiscal ’17 year, which is from now until the end of September. And there’s very little we can do in that window to convert from LCS to frigates, or to do much shipbuilding at all. So the bigger debate about starting on that road to a 350 ship Navy is actually part of the ’18 budget. And in that budget, which we’re working on today, as a matter of fact, you will see additional shipbuilding.
HH: And will we see a plan to get to 350 by 2024, which is what the President promised?
MM: We’re working on it. I’ll be honest with you. It’s hard to get to 350 ships in seven years, just because we don’t have the capacity to do that right now.
HH: Actually, you know, you’ve got to go read the piece by Robert O’Brien and by Jerry Hendrix in Politico. They lay it out, the ghost ship fleet, etc. Spend the money, Mr. Mulvaney. Spend the money. Let’s go to the fence, because this really ticks me off. There’s a sneer on the, by people who don’t want any fencing at all, that there’s not enough fencing. I think a billion and a half dollars to go back and replace traffic barriers with serious barriers, some of them walls, some of them fences, is real. But they’re mocking it. What’s your response to them?
MM: Try and get through it, I guess, would be my response.
HH: (laughing)
MM: (laughing)
HH: How many miles will it cover of the repairs, because it’s only a billion and a half. It’s not the full wall. It’s a billion and a half of repairs on existing traffic barrier and cyclone fence into the real deal stuff that works in San Diego. How many miles of it will it cover?
MM: And we don’t measure in terms of miles. We’re measuring in terms of dollars right now, because we haven’t got the costs down. Keep in mind it is technically for maintenance, and that’s why the Democrats though they got such a win and thought they pulled one over on us, because they didn’t let us build any new brick and mortar wall. And what we figured out during the negotiation, and the reason we were able to close this deal, was that we figured out that maintenance allowed us to rip out old fence and put in new fence that technically, the way the statutes are written, that constitutes maintenance. So what we’re going to do is find all these places where the wall is just a complete piece of junk, rip it out and replace it with these 20 foot high steel bollard walls, which are the walls, by the way, that I think a couple of people were mimicking them for oh, you can see through them and all this kind of stuff. The DHS, Homeland Security, prefers those bollard walls to the concrete walls for exactly that reason. The border patrol agents can see through them, see what’s going on, on the other side, and it also prevents attacks on them. We actually have border patrol agents who are, who have been assaulted by people throwing things over the fence at them. And that goes away when you go to this bollard wall.
HH: And that bollard wall, if they replace those traffic barriers with, I just hope you do a before and after video, and that you measure it in miles, because Americans understand miles of fence. And if it’s 40 or 50…
MM: Yeah, we did it, we did it in the press conference, actually put in a couple of places today, as a matter of fact, so here we are, you know, we’re getting ready to sign the bill, and we’re already moving out in the field. We’re replacing the cyclone chain link fence with these walls. We’re got pictures of places where the drug smugglers and the coyotes have actually built bridges over our little four foot high fences. We’re replacing that with a 20 foot high wall.
HH: Oh, please do the video before and after. And let me ask you about, you know, you’re very patient with the media. Yesterday, someone said what about tunnels, what about tunnels, and I thought to myself, does that idiot think they’re flying the fentanyl into O’Hare? Do they think it’s landing at LaGuardia? They’re driving it across the desert, in many places.
MM: Yeah.
HH: Yes, tunnels are a problem, but this isn’t a 100% solution. This is a 75% solution.
MM: Yeah, I mean, I could have said to the guy well, you know, they could take a helicopter over it, too, if they wanted to. So I mean, yeah, the wall doesn’t solve 100% of your problem, but boy, does it solve a lot of it. And by the way, by the way, even without any of that additional fence on the ground, yet, the President in his policies has already lowered the flow of people and drugs across the border just by sending the message that we are actually enforcing the border again.
HH: Yes.
MM: It’s reduced crossings dramatically just in the first 105 days of this administration.
HH: Last question….
MM: So there are a bunch of ways to keep bad people out, and we’re doing it.
HH: Last question, hobby horse for Hugh Hewitt. We’re, I care about judges. We’ve got the Supreme Court Justice. Great. We have one nominee of 120. Once they get on the bench, we’ve got to keep them there, Mick Mulvaney. Judicial pay is not where it is. Will the 2018 budget have a significant hike for judges so that those we get confirmed can stay and put their kids through college?
MM: Yeah, I don’t know if we’re looking at a significant hike all at one time. We are aware of a bunch of different places in the government where I know it sounds awful to say this, but we just, we can’t get good people. And the judiciary is part of them. The difference now between, well, look at this, I’ll put it to you this way. When I was looking to fill some of the key positions here at OMB, and you talk about the OIRA position, talk about the deputy for management, I had some big names. I won’t name them, but you would recognize every single one of them. And a couple of them just said to me, look, Mr. Mulvaney, I’ve got three kids in grade school. I can’t afford to take the pay cut. And it was an 80% pay cut over what they’re taking.
HH: Yeah.
MM: And listen, I’m all for government service. It’s why I’m doing it here. I feel like I could make more money doing something else, but I’m having a great time doing this, and glad that I’m doing it. But not everybody’s in a position to do that. And I think the service to the taxpayers suffers at a result.
HH: And the judges, they’re lifetime appointments. We’ve got to keep these originalists that we put on. And so I’m just begging you, if it can be 20, 30, 40, 50%, it is worth it to the country and to the Constitution to pay them to stay.
MM: I hear you, and I tend to agree, and we’re going to see what we can do.
HH: Office of Management and Budget Director Mulvaney, thank you, always a great conversation, go get those ships, and thanks and keep coming back to the Hugh Hewitt Show.
MM: See you, Hugh.
End of interview.10 months ago, The Phillies outrighted utility man Andres Blanco off the 40-man roster, and almost no one noticed.
Why would we? Blanco went 13-for-47 for the 2014 Phils, with one dinger and three RBIs in just 25 games. To that team, Crashburn Alley points out, Blanco was the last in a long line of mediocre middle infielders. To most fans, Blanco was just another no-bat Caribbean glove man, a late inning defensive sub like Wilson Valdez before him. When Andres Blanco showed up on the Opening Day roster this season, it's likely that, again, almost no one noticed him.
Things have changed greatly since then. 2015 has been a career year for Blanco: he's played in 67 games this year, one less than his career-high 68 for the 2010 Rangers. In that time, he's been solid as a substitute, hitting.250 with 6 XBH and an.811 OPS, and shined as a starter, hitting.311 with a.954 OPS. His 4 home runs are a career best. Combining that production with his signature defense, "Whitey" has been a bright spot on a bad club.
But of course, we're approaching the end of the season. That means not just looking back at this year's players, but ahead to next year and beyond. And for the rebuilding Phillies, that future mainly involves names like Franco, Crawford, Altherr, Knapp, and Alfaro. The Phils are a young team full of young players who will get plenty of time to struggle, streak, and sharpen in the next few years.
But what about Ol' Whitey? Should the Phillies put him through arbitration for another year on the bench? Release him into the wild and let him try to ride his good year to another team's lineup?
The Phillies should make him a bench coach.
Blanco has already shown a willingness to teach the young players. His mentorship of Maikel Franco is a perfect example. In April of 2014, Franco and Blanco found that their AAA lockers were side by side. According to Lehigh Valley Live, IronPigs manager Dave Brundage did this on purpose, hoping that Blanco would help the raw, toolsy Franco grasp the intangible parts of the game, as well as help him improve his English.
Brundage's plan worked fantastically. Starting in AAA and continuing while they've both been on the Phillies roster, Blanco has guided Franco with advice while serving as his lifting buddy before games and his translator in interviews after. In other words, Blanco took Brundage's assignment, to help a young player reach his potential in a complicated game, and ran with it. Exactly like a bench coach.
And it's not just Franco that Blanco has been looking out for. Since joining the big league club, Blanco has reached out to many of the team's young players. Every now and then the Phillies cameramen will catch him in the dugout talking shop. Usually, he's the at the center of a group made up of him, Cesar Hernandez, Freddy Galvis, and Franco. Often, Whitey will recreate the at-bat that has just ended, bulging his eyes and miming swings while the young players look up at him like eager students. Between innings of Aaron Nola's MLB debut, Blanco sat next to the tense rookie, patting him on the back and talking him through his nerves.
That's Blanco's style. If Chase Utley is a strong, silent leader by example, Blanco is a vocal, hands-on mentor. He's more than happy to share the lessons of his experiences with anyone who will listen.
He's sure had a lot of experiences. Like Galvis, Franco, Herrera, and Hernandez, Blanco started his professional career as a teenager. He entered the Royals minor league system, according to one scout, "small, slow, and skinny" and left it a top prospect. He was the youngest rookie in Royals history when he debuted in 2003. Since then he's played for pennant-winning teams and last place teams (like this one). Multiple times, Andres Blanco has recovered from injuries that, combined with his bleak chance at ever playing regularly, could have forced him from the game. But he made it back.
That's the key aspect here: Andres Blanco has had a painfully rough career, and he's come out of it wiser and more understanding when dealing with young, struggling players. That's rare and valuable. And it's the formula that leads to a good coach. Think about it: from Kirk Gibson to Don Mattingly to Ryne stinking Sandberg, retired all-stars sometimes make gruff, unpersonable, mediocre coaches. Rather, it's former scrubs like John Farrell, Terry Francona, and Bruce Bochy, guys who've struggled and learned, who deal best with players. On a young team, the warmth and helpfulness he's already shown, the fruits of his struggles, could be hugely valuable in the clubhouse.
There are other arguments for turning Blanco into a full-time coach. For one thing, the Phillies coaching staff is hardly set in stone following the departure of Sandberg. That means the Phils front office has the chance to shake things up. In addition, naming Blanco a coach would preserve his leadership role while freeing up roster spots for the ‘youngins. 31-year old Coach Blanco could stand between the players and their much older coaches, alternatively representing both the way Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley (seemingly) did in the past. Finally, Blanco's knowledge of English and Spanish could prove helpful on a team that, currently, has five young Spanish-speaking starters.
Of course, I'm assuming that Blanco would actually want to coach right away. And that's a shaky assumption. He might want to play some more. The man has been to hell and back to play major league baseball, and now he's doing better than he ever has before. He deserves to give it another go. But baseball is a cruel business, and the coldhearted front office tacticians of the Moneyball era don't care about your comeback story when there are plenty of younger players with higher ceilings to put in the lineup. Blanco, who's been around the game for ages, knows that his value as a player is low. He'd probably only last a few more years, tops. But we've seen this year that his value as a mentor is far greater. By throwing himself fully into coaching like he already has, Blanco would help this team win for years to come.
From skinny Venezuelan youth to top prospect to benchwarmer to player-coach, Andres Blanco has been the kind of comeback story Philly fans love. His future is a question mark, and so is the Phillies'. If the stars align just right, those futures might converge. And that could be awesome for both parties.
I hope to see you back in South Philly, Whitey.The Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the impacts of the American Health Care Act was a disaster for the bill and its Republican backers. The budget office found that the AHCA, if enacted, would result in massive coverage losses over the next decade, with some 24 million people losing their health insurance. That news has left conservatives and Republicans reeling and flailing as they try to figure out how to contain the political damage.
The Trump administration, which has been actively promoting the AHCA as a “replacement” for Obamacare, reacted harshly to the budget office's estimate, insisting that it was incorrect, illogical and untrustworthy. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, a friend of President Donald Trump and an ally of the administration, seized on the Congressional Budget Office report to push the White House to abandon the AHCA altogether and pursue a different course.
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One AHCA backer, however, insisted that the report was actually quite good — not just good, in fact, but flat-out terrific. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has more riding on the success of the AHCA than anyone else, went on Fox News on Monday evening to lavish the Congressional Budget Office with effusive praise. “I’m pretty encouraged by it,” Ryan said of the report, “and it actually exceeded my expectations.” Ryan wasn’t bothered by the explosion of uninsured people forecasted by the budget office, saying the “government’s not going to force people to buy something that they don’t want to buy.”
On Twitter, the speaker was no less ebullient, arguing that the budget office “confirms” that the AHCA “will lower premiums” and “improve access to quality, affordable care.” Ryan's office put out a nifty little infographic boasting that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the AHCA will lower premiums 10 percent, reduce the federal deficit and cut taxes by $880 billion.
Wow! Sounds great! When you actually read the report and process what the budget office found, however, it becomes clear that Ryan’s celebratory jig is, in fact, some enthusiastic and elaborate turd polishing.
Let’s start with the premium reductions. The first thing to point out is that premiums would still rise under the AHCA, according to the budget office report. They would just climb 10 percent less, on average, than they would under the current law. So the top-line data point that the speaker cherry-picked from this analysis of his Obamacare “replacement” is that the growth in health insurance premiums over the next decade would be arrested a tiny bit.
Now let’s talk about why those premiums would be slightly lower. Ryan would have us believe that it’s because his bill would unleash the awesome magic of the free market. The real reason, however, is that the AHCA would make coverage so expensive for old, low-income people that they would be priced out of the market altogether. Per the Congressional Budget Office, a 64-year-old person making $26,500 a year would, under the AHCA, be on the hook for $14,600 in annual premiums. As budget office noted, these older people would simply go uninsured rather than spend 55 percent of their income on insurance premiums. That exodus of older people would result in an individual insurance market with a relatively higher concentration of healthy, younger people.
So when Ryan says the budget office “confirms” that care will be more accessible and affordable under his bill, he’s lying: The bill would make it impossible for people who need the most help to be covered.
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That brings us to Ryan’s celebration of the AHCA’s effects on the deficit and taxes. The bill would cut taxes — for rich people, almost exclusively. At the same time, it would lower the deficit. How is this possible? Well, the answer lies in the fact that the AHCA would all but obliterate Medicaid.
The AHCA would halt the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid and radically change the way the social insurance program is funded. Those two policy changes would translate into a staggering $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next 10 years. That’s ruinous, and the budget office noted that “reductions in insurance coverage between 2018 and 2026 would stem in large part from changes in Medicaid enrollment.”
The nonsense emerging from Ryan’s spin machine is designed to obscure the fact that the budget office report laid out in stark detail the absurd cruelty of the American Health Care Act: It would amount to a massive tax cut for the rich, paid for by goring Medicaid and forcing older, low-income people to go without health coverage. It’s completely unjustifiable as policy and politically toxic but fits nicely into the broader Paul Ryan agenda of taking money from low-income people and making their lives worse, so that the rich can have their taxes trimmed.Customizable and Flexible, LG’s Latest Accessory Does More Than Just Protect
SEOUL, May 22, 2014 — When LG Electronics (LG) officially unveils the long awaited LG G3 next week, it will also introduce another product which was designed to make the G3 infinitely more useful, the QuickCircleTM Case. The folder-style case lets users enjoy various features of their G3 without ever having to open the cover. Users can check the time, place calls, send text messages, take photos, listen to music or get an update of their health directly from the circular window.
More stylish than traditional rectangular-windowed smartphone cases, LG’s QuickCircleTM Case comes in five eye-catching colors: Metallic Black, Silk White, Shine Gold, Aqua Mint, Indian Pink. The case is designed to protect the side edges of the G3 and provide the best “grip-ability” while maintaining the G3’s original sleek lines. To accentuate the beauty of its circular design language, Smart Lighting emits a soft, white, circular glow inside the window whenever the case is opened/closed or a call/text message is received.
Wireless charging compatible with the Qi interface standard is also possible with the QuickCircleTM Case, adding more convenience and portability. A software development kit (SDK) will be available next month to allow developers to customize their LG G3 smartphones to perform customized functions with the QuickCircleTM Case.
“The smartphone ecosystem is constantly evolving — no longer are cases just for protection from the elements and bumps and drops,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, president and CEO of the LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “They’re the perfect accessory to build in extra features that add more value to a mobile device. With QuickCircle Case, we’ve exceeded the baseline by making it customizable to better fit users’ needs.”
* LG G3 QuickCircle™ Case preview video can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVtZAPjOcBI.
# # #The Illuminates of Thanateros (pronounced ĭ-'lū-mə-,nĭts ŭv,thăn-ə-'târ-ōs) is an international magical organization that focuses on practical group work in chaos magic. The idea was first announced in 1978, while the order proper was formed in 1987. This fraternal magical society has been an important influence on some forms of modern occultism.
Name [ edit ]
The name "Thanateros" is a combination of the names "Thanatos" and "Eros"— the Greek gods of death and sex, respectively. The idea is that sex and death represent the positive and negative methods of attaining "magical consciousness". The word "Illuminates" is used in accordance with the claimed tradition of calling such societies — in which those who have mastered the secrets of magic help bring others to mastership — "the Illuminati".
Its formal name is The Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros,[1] which is usually shortened to "the Pact".
History [ edit ]
Early [ edit ]
In the late 1970s, Ray Sherwin and Peter Carroll, two young British occultists with a strong interest in ritual magic, began to publish a magazine called The New Equinox. Both were connected with a burgeoning occult scene developing around a metaphysical bookshop in London's East End called The Phoenix. Both men quickly became dissatisfied with the state of the magical arts and the deficiencies they saw in the available occult groups. So in 1978 they published a small announcement in their magazine proclaiming the creation of a new kind of magical order, one based on a hierarchy of magical ability rather than invitation, a magical meritocracy. They described it as a "spiritual heir" to the Zos Kia Cultus and a "fusion of Thelemic Magick, Tantra, The Sorceries of Zos and Tao".[2]
Carroll and Sherwin began to publish private monographs detailing their system of magical practice, some of which had been articles in The New Equinox, others intended as instruction to members of their order. The new style of magic they introduced, focusing on practical skills as opposed to metaphysical systems, became known as chaos magic. In the 1980s they began to attract a following in England, Germany, and Austria, including influential occult writers and practitioners.
In 1980, Peter Carroll and Frater Vegtan formed The Church of Chaos in Sydney, Australia. It was, in style, what the IOT would become. The group was active for six months. In 1984 The Circle of Chaos was formed, but began to fragment after three years. In 1986 Carroll and Ralph Tegtmeier (Frater U∴D∴) jointly ran a public seminar, some time after which there was made a decision to form a new magical order. The formation of The Pact was announced in August 1987.
In late 1980s, Sherwin resigned in protest that the IOT was beginning to resemble the hierarchical orders that were once anathema to the concept of the group.
The Ice Magick Wars [ edit ]
In the early 1990s the order experienced a schism as a result of conflicts about the doctrine of 'ice magick',[3] a major proponent of which was Ralph Tegtmeier.[4] A German IoT member named Helmut Barthel created the doctrine of 'ice magick', which is related to the myth that Germanic people originated in the icy land of Thule (a name that has historicly been applied to multiple places, which have been conflated together). Ice magick is called 'eismagie' in its original German form. According to the doctrine of ice magick, only people of Scandinavian and/or Germanic descent possess the ancient dormant genes that allow a person to use ice magick. Ice magick is based upon qi gong, psionics, and martial arts. It is called 'ice magick' because it also involves imagining large amounts of ice, and drawing power from that imagined ice. The ice magick training regimen that Helmut imposed was exceptionally difficult.
Ralph Tegtmeier (Frater U∴D∴) was an enthusiastic supporter of ice magick and Helmut, and the authoritarian policies that Helmut promoted, and Ralph thus made himself Helmut's top lieutenant. Helmut and Ralph promoted that doctrine in Germany, and recruited many members who adhered to it.
Eventually, Peter Carroll learned more about the doctrines that Ralph was teaching, and criticized him for it. That led to an untenable conflict between Peter and Ralph, which culminated in Ralph and all of his followers seceding from the IoT. The vast majority of German and Swiss members left the order, which constituted about 30% of the order's total membership.[5] Ralph Tegtmeier and a few others were subsequently excommunicated.[4]
After publishing Liber Kaos, Carroll retired from active participation in the order, though he remains on good terms with many of the longstanding members.[6]
Structure [ edit ]
The order organizes itself along the somewhat "traditional" lines of a fraternal occult order, with initiations into progressive degrees denoting magickal skill, administrative responsibility and leadership within the group. It is notable that unlike other occult societies with a degree system, the order rewards progression in degree with hardly any privileges, but "punishes" it with added duties and responsibilities.
Members are obliged to keep silent on internal affairs and the identities of their fellows. The latter rule does not seem to apply to deceased persons, as it is not a secret William S. Burroughs,[7 |
was only convinced to certify Iranian compliance after an hours long argument that one aide described as “knock-down, drag-out fight.”
This emphasis on the president’s feelings make sense. Trump has spent years bashing the deal as a disaster, labeling it (among other things) an “embarrassment” and catastrophe.” In 2015, he gave the lead speech at an anti-deal rally in Washington, in which he said, “I've never seen something so incompetently negotiated.”
Being forced to repeatedly certify that his past rhetoric was misleading — that the Iran deal is, in fact, working as intended — is a kind of personal humiliation. Decertifying is way to avoid that, and to bring the administration in line with the past several years of Trump’s rhetoric.
“He seems to genuinely believe that you can get some kind of better arrangement with the Iranians despite the fact that I suspect he doesn’t actually know what’s in the deal,” Maloney says. “Fundamentally, his determination to go after the deal is as much personal as anything else.”
Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, had a more colorful way of putting this point when we spoke in September.
“[Recertifying the deal] makes him feel like a cuck every 90 days,” said Lewis.
What decertification actually does
The sense from inside the administration is that, this time, no amount of pressure from Trump’s aides will budge him. The Washington Post, Politico, and the Weekly Standard have all reported in the past few weeks that Trump has made up his mind and will not certify Iran’s compliance by the October 15 deadline mandated by INARA.
If Trump does refuse to certify by Sunday, the Iran deal won’t immediately collapse. Decertification doesn’t mean the US is withdrawing from the deal.
The nuclear agreement itself doesn’t require the US president to officially declare Iran is in compliance every 90 days. That requirement is a matter of US law, something that Congress put in place as a way to assert its oversight powers over the agreement.
Yet that doesn’t mean decertification is irrelevant to the agreement’s fate. Far from it.
If the president declines to certify the Iran deal, the law kicks the issue back to Congress. Specifically, it provides Congress with a way to fast-track legislation within the next 60 days reimposing the sanctions on Iran that were suspended as part of the deal. A bare majority vote in both Republican-controlled chambers would be enough to reimpose sanctions, as the procedures for a sanctions vote set up under INARA do not give Democrats an opportunity to filibuster.
This is by far the most significant immediate consequence of decertification: Giving Congress the ability to quickly pass legislation that would almost certainly destroy the deal.
However, decertifying doesn’t force Congress to hold a vote on new sanctions — it just gives them the ability to do so quickly if they so choose. And it seems like the Trump administration will actually oppose the reimposition of sanctions. Four people familiar with the administration’s thinking told the Washington Post’s Anne Gearan and Karoun Demirjian that “Trump would hold off on recommending that Congress reimpose sanctions.”
If that’s right, then it kind of tips the administration’s hand here. It would suggest that the goal isn’t to use the October 15 deadline as an opportunity to blow up the deal. Instead, it would seem that the move would be mostly symbolic: An opportunity for the president to stop having to embarrass himself every three months in a way that doesn’t actually have any immediate practical consequences.
“I get to say, if I’m Trump, that this deal is not in the US national interests — which is all I want to say,” Nephew guesses.
There’s no guarantee this balancing act — assuming this is what Trump ends up deciding on — is sustainable. For one thing, Congress might choose to reimpose sanctions using its authority regardless of what Trump recommends. There’s deep loathing for the deal among Republicans in Congress, and it’s possible that the issue could take on a life of its own.
For another, the political pressure this decision creates might push Trump to torpedo the deal unilaterally.
There are actually a separate set of deadlines, entirely independent of INARA, for waiving a slew of sanctions on Iran. These come up every few months as well, and need to be waived each time if the US wants to uphold its end of the bargain with Iran.
For example, the 2012 Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA) prohibits Americans from doing business with Iran’s leading energy, shipbuilding, and shipping companies. Under the terms of the Iran deal, the US is required to lift these sanctions — yet Congress did not repeal IFCA after the agreement was signed. Instead, President Barack Obama used authority provided by IFCA itself to waive its sanctions after the Iran deal came into effect. Each waiver lasts for 180 days; the deadline for the next IFCA waiver is January.
Now, imagine that Trump is weighing the decision to issue another IFCA waiver in a world where he’s said that keeping sanctions off Iran is not in the US national interest. There could be a lot of pressure for him from conservatives to reimpose sanctions unilaterally, the clearest and simplest way to detonate the deal.
“None of those [sanctions waivers] involved any legislation by Congress,” explains Elena Chachko, a doctoral student at Harvard Law School and contributor to the national security blog Lawfare. “If [Trump] wanted to, he could basically stop implementing the agreement.”
The bottom line, then, is that decertification does not formally end the Iran deal — but it creates serious threats to its continued existence.
If Trump chooses to decertify the deal, “We are on the very slippery slope that leads to JCPOA collapse,” says Nephew.
Could the US and Iran work together after decertification?
Ultimately, it’s difficult to say whether the administration will slide down Nephew’s slope.
Both he and Maloney are deeply skeptical that the agreement can survive decertification, even if Congress or the president choose not to immediately reimpose sanctions.
“The longevity of the deal comes into question if the United States is taking specific actions to undermine it, even decertification,” Maloney warns. “If the United States says we’re not willing, even for domestic political purposes, to acknowledge that this deal is still functional, it incites a process that will cause the deal to collapse over time.”
Some of the other experts I spoke to, like Cornell’s Kreps and the Washington Institute’s Singh, were more sanguine.
“If Congress can’t do anything then essentially this agreement perpetuates,” Kreps says. “The status quo, then, continues — and that’s the scenario through which we should not be terribly alarmed.”
What’s certain is that decertification would create a crisis in US-Iranian relations, as it would be the first concrete step the Trump administration has taken towards attempting to renegotiate or cancel the nuclear agreement.
The fate of the deal and, perhaps, Middle East stability more broadly would depend on how diplomats and political leaders in the two countries handled the fallout from decertification. Yet US-Iranian relations are rocky at the best of times, given the two countries have been at odds on issues across the Middle East for decades. Managing US-Iranian relations going forward is “not going to be easy, and it’s going to require a pretty deft diplomatic hand,” as Singh puts it.
Yet the Trump administration is a uniquely bad position to pull of this kind of diplomatic feat.
The administration’s attention is split by a pressing, extremely scary confrontation with North Korea. Vitally important diplomatic posts, like the assistant secretary of state supervising the Middle East, are currently unfilled. And the president and the secretary of state are at war with each other, with Trump publicly challenging Tillerson to an IQ test after reports filtered out that Tillerson had once called the president a “moron.”
What decertification would do, in short, is create yet another foreign policy mess at a time when the Trump administration is preoccupied and ill-prepared to deal with one. And the stakes — the preventing the rise of a hostile nuclear power in one of the world’s most unstable regions — are very high.Several popular game capture programs will not work with Destiny 2 on PC, developer Bungie has said, including in this month's PC beta.
Some overlays for chat and hardware monitoring will also be blocked from functioning.
"The Game Capture mode of applications such as OBS and XSplit is not supported," a new Bungie FAQ page notes. But other methods will work, including hardware capture through Elgato or AVerMedia.
This relates to Exclusive Fullscreen, where more of your PC's resources are put towards running the game. Windowed Mode/Borderless Fullscreen does not have these restrictions, and you can use OBS and XSplit here instead.
"Other recording applications, such as Dxtory, Razer Cortex, Fraps have similar restrictions to those outlined above," Bungie notes.
Voice communication notifications provided by Discord and Mumble via screen overlays will also not work - such as the ones to show who is talking. The same with framerate and stats overlays, such as those provided by Fraps and Afterburner.
Why do these restrictions exist? It sounds like Bungie is being extra careful about third-party apps which might insert code into its own game client, in order to prevent exploits which might enable cheating.
It's a little confusing - but if you want to try it all out for yourself, Destiny 2's PC beta begins on 28th August. It even has a new Crucible map to play: the sci-fi sounding Javelin-4.It was the middle of summer 2016. And every morning, right when the clock would hit 9:45 a.m., with each passing minute, the temperature in the hatch of my Prius would percolate through the tattered fabric of air, driving it up one degree higher. Salty beads of sweat gathered along my brows and armpits while I scrambled over my yoga mat and across the crusty Mexican blankets looking for my bottle of lorazepam somewhere in the crevasses of my folded seats, between the crumbled burrito foil wraps and Kirkland bottles of fermenting body fluids. I untaped some of the pillowcases draped across the back window and peeked outside for a moment.
I was parked on Ellsworth Street a couple blocks south of the Recreational Sports Facility on campus, hidden between some recycling bins in front of someone’s residence and underneath their sycamore tree.
From what I knew, it was now 193 degrees Fahrenheit inside my car.
I was watching an old Asian lady tending to her lawn right next to my parked car, and I began to feel something not dissimilar to a spiritual connection (although it could’ve been symptoms of a heat stroke) to this person. In some ways, I saw myself in her — a weathered and forgotten being spending their time raking leaves in the wind, clad in a bucket hat and paisley blouse.
My agoraphobia was peaking.
I scanned the environment around her, outside of my car. The sequence of events that were about to unfold before my bloodshot, darting eyes were a scattering image of fear and trauma coagulating into puddles of sweat flooding across my body.
“In some ways, I saw myself in her — a weathered and forgotten being spending their time raking leaves in the wind, clad in a bucket hat and paisley blouse.”
It had been a few years since I last gone to the RSF as a student. Every corner on every street that I had ever meandered across in this town connected to any other corner — where every past moment of hyperventilating humiliation or anxiety occurred, eventually lead to my nervous breakdown. It was a town filled with ghosts hiding in their own transparency, distorting the shapes and colors of everything in between us.
Fifteen minutes passed before I stepped outside and gave a toast to the hazy silhouette of the stranger inside my car window’s reflection as I chugged back the lorazepam. I had to walk over to the RSF with a backpack full of books, electronic devices and toiletries to change in the locker.
Any semblance of a routine was important for me to stay grounded, and if I couldn’t connect the dots of my assignments throughout the day for my own sense of normalcy, I would start to feel lost. And for me, scrubbing my junk in a shower filled with balding and akimbo alumni and horny teenagers playing dice behind the shower curtains was my main source of normal.
I never was able to discover what was normal for the me that was, before vanishing from Berkeley in the middle of the night without a word during midterms week. The only reference points I had were these grandiose visions of myself and their icy relationship with the sexy and financially secure prodigies molded from an ancient, monolithic kinship built from kings. I was just this ethnically amorphous amoeba that found its way out of a broken home, with nothing or no one to guide me. Once that relationship was fully and permanently severed, I found what was once blood pumping the beating heart of a bright-eyed child morph into this indescribable, boiling ailment flowing through my veins and controlling me.
I found it leaking out of my pores, dripping off my hands and feet, gradually flooding the entire campus I walked on. The water levels were rising inch by inch through each passing day, and it seemed like I was the only one who noticed. I didn’t know what it was or why it was only coming out of me, but I had this growing feeling that it would some day kill me.
And there was nowhere within my known universe, let alone any proverbial or literal infrastructure on campus, for me to step off of it. I once found myself studying in a janitor’s closet at 4 a.m. next to a large auditorium in Dwinelle, just hours before hundreds of students were going to step in and take the final exam with me. I wasn’t in there to suck on mops or engage in other traditional pastimes that those who hang out in janitor’s closets by themselves usually do. It was the best shelter I could find.
“Because of this, there was hardly anywhere for me to reside in and thrive as both a student and human.”
Although the aesthetics of diversity swamped across the landscape of this liberal bubble I tremored in and percolated through — the mixture of clothing, the saturation of flesh, the shape of our genitals — none of it seemed to find a place for me. Perhaps because what I was experiencing couldn’t manifest into any distinguished corner for me to display. It was an oddity I zigged and zagged through with only the iridescent glow of neurotypical elements shining across my horizon.
Because of this, there was hardly anywhere for me to reside in and thrive as both a student and human. There were no dark, windowless, memory foam-padded decompression chambers enforced by the ADA inside any of the buildings along the campus, or inside the confines of student housing. I was as invisible as the disability corroding inside me.
At this moment in time, I was homeless. Housing couldn’t find a designated space for me and I couldn’t afford an alternative. Much like my former self, I was living inside a town where its concept of itself clashed with the markets of reality. But as all the salty pools of sweat washed over my pink flip flops into the drain below me, I began to feel this force over me back off for just a moment, as it always would. But its ebbs and flows were now waving inside a framework that I built myself from a growing database of dots I would connect and configure into an image I understood and could live in, no matter the circumstance. The naked old man across from me watched in admiration.
Contact the Weekender at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter at @dcweekender.North Korea is something of a locked box to the rest of the world, and even one of the handiest apparatuses through which you can glimpse cultural habits—the internet—is largely inaccessible to anyone outside the country. Thanks to what appears to be an accidental reveal, however, we can now peek inside North Korea’s internet tubes.
A Reddit thread posted earlier this morning linked to a GitHub data dump that apparently includes a list of websites registered to North Korea’s official domain,.kp. Previously, little was known about the country’s web habits, including its registered domains, but yesterday, the list of registered sites—just 28 in all—became openly accessible.
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The leak, according to the GitHub post, happened when North Korea accidentally opened up a server that held the domain name information. Essentially, anyone who knew how and where to look could get ahold of the data:
On Sept 19, 2016 at approximately 10:00PM (PST), one of North Korea’s top level nameservers was accidentally configured to allow global DNS zone transfers. This allows anyone who performs an AXFR (zone transfer) request to the country’s ns2.kptc.kp nameserver can get a copy of the nation’s top level DNS data. This was detected by theTL;DR Project - an effort to attempt zone transfers against all top level domain (TLD) nameservers every two hours and keep a running Github repo with the resulting data. This data gives us a better picture of North Korea’s domains and top level DNS.
Many of the pages—which include a travel website, a cooking website, and something called friend.com—are now down, but screenshots quickly popped up on Reddit, and we were able to capture some ourselves.
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This one looks like it might be some kind of social network:
And this one appears to be the country’s maritime landing page:
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Here’s a travel website:
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And what looks to be a tour-booking website:
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A sportball page:
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A website about Korean food:
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A site for the elderly:
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The Pyongyang International Film Festival homepage:
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Reddit has a few more screenshots, but they generally all look sort of the same—a little odd and very clearly created by a governing body. In truth, they’re not any weirder than the rest of the world’s websites, though they do have a distinctly bare-bones, antiseptic feel.
“We didn’t think there was much in the way of internet resources in North Korea, and according to these leaked zone files, we were right,” Doug Madory, a researcher at Dyn, a company that looks into global web use, told Motherboard.
The million-dollar question, however, still remains: Where are they hiding all the porn?
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[Reddit]The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is celebrating after a federal judge ruled in its favor, temporarily halting the removal of refugees and immigrants detained following President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump says Kim not responsible for Otto Warmbier's death: 'I will take him at his word' Trump: I 'trust' Kim's promise he won't resume nuclear, missile tests Trump blasts Cohen, but 'impressed' with collusion comments MORE's immigration ban.
“I hope Trump enjoys losing. He’s going to lose so much we’re going to get sick and tired of his losing,” ACLU national political director Faiz Shakir told Yahoo News shortly after the decision was announced.
Shakir was referencing a similar quote from Trump that he used in cheering on his own election victory.
"Our courts today worked as they should as bulwarks against government abuse or unconstitutional policies and orders," the ACLU also tweeted.
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"On week one, Donald Trump suffered his first loss in court."
Our courts today worked as they should as bulwarks against government abuse or unconstitutional policies and orders. — ACLU National (@ACLU) January 29, 2017
On week one, Donald Trump suffered his first loss in court. — ACLU National (@ACLU) January 29, 2017
The court ruling appears to mark the first successful legal challenge to the Trump administration and affects those who have arrived in the U.S. with previously approved refugee applications or were in transit with valid visas.
U.S. District Court Judge Ann Donnelly ruled in favor of a habeas corpus petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of two Iraqi men who were detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday after Trump signed his order.
Donnelly, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaDem governors struggle for attention in crowded 2020 race Obama portraits brought more than 1 million visitors to National Portrait Gallery in first year With low birth rate, America needs future migrants MORE and confirmed to her judgeship in 2015, ruled in the Eastern District of New York that "there is imminent danger that, absent the stay of removal, there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees, visa-holders, and other individuals from nations subject" to Trump's order.
“Clearly the judge understood the possibility for irreparable harm to hundreds of immigrants and lawful visitors to this country," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement.
"Our courts today worked as they should as bulwarks against government abuse or unconstitutional policies and orders. On week one, Donald Trump suffered his first loss in court.”New Delhi: Five times in two weeks – that’s how many times US President Donald Trump has recently tweeted about ‘fake news/fake news media/fake news reports’. He probably believes in the pedagogic tactic that repetition will lead to remembering and is right to do so. Besides Fox News, which Trump quotes from often, he shares news from a variety of small, unheard of websites. For the president of the United States, those websites are credible while well-known organisations like NBC News, ABC News and the New York Times are not.
The Indian media too has come under the shadow of severe ‘feku’ activities. From the ridiculous, to the serious, the we are seeing it all. Readers were recently informed by François Gautier in the Times of India that Nostradamus prophesied the rise of Narendra Modi – ‘Narendrus’ – in the 16th century. Gautier was given the trolling of his career as his assertions were ripped apart. During demonetisation, Zee News star anchor Sudhir Chaudhary did a whole segment on how the new Rs 2,000 notes had a GPS chip in them, designed to ensure Narendrus wins the good fight against black money. The RBI had to clarify that no such advanced features had made their way into its currency notes.
Fact-checking
Globally though, the menace of fake news has made consumers and producers take the phenonmenon seriously. There was a time when the media itself would be responsible for holding people to account. Today the situation is such that external watchdogs have to keep the media accountable. But this accountability can only be extended to – and demanded of – formal news organisations. None of these rules apply to the explosion of dispersed sources of news and information that we now have through social media.
CrossCheck, for instance, is a consortium of about 37 publishers mainly from France and Britain. They began work in February for the French elections and have come together, across professional rivalries, to debunk false stories. Participants include the BBC, Channel 4 News, Le Monde, Agence France-Presse and Buzzfeed. Stories are checked and then given a ‘true,’ or ‘false,’ stamp. Some stories are flagged of as ‘caution’ for being misleading, even if not outrightly false.
It is at this point of evolution between traditional and social media that a number of organisations have stepped in to do what was once considered basic, but is today considered an almost indulgent activity – fact checking. They are trying to fill this gap of accountability. In Argentina, Chequeado, for example, shot to prominence for fact-checking the Argentinian election campaign in 2011. These organisations do a few main tasks – they fact-check information from news outlets, rumours from social media, and statements from public officials and offices.
CrossCheck recently fact-checked a rumour that tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Paris had been desecrated in March. The rumour had taken on political colour with many seeing it as an act of anti-Semitism. The reality was very different – a truck had in fact rammed into the cemetery while trying to avoid a collision with an oncoming car.
Correct!v is an investigative journalism venture based in Germany. Among the experiments that Facebook is making to crack down on fake news on the social networking site is its tie up with Correct!v. The German organisation has a four-member team dedicated to busting fake news; Facebook fields suspicious news articles to them. Quite like in India, senior reporter David Crawford notes that Europe too is always seeing elections. This is often the period where fake news spikes. “Its important to not allow people to manipulate the political system. We see media and political outfits simply invent stories. Readers don’t read anymore. The purpose of these fake stories is not to get them to read anyway. Its to just grab people by the headlines,” he says.
Fake news in India
Closer to home, an alliance of this sorts seems unlikely. Even individual efforts on this front are almost too few to be counted. If anything, the overall atmosphere seems to be one that pushes away from skepticism, criticality or questioning, and towards acceptance at face value, especially of stories and claims that are deemed politically convenient. This is inspite of the huge size of the Indian media market.
The new website AltNews.in is the one which fact-checked Gautier’s column in the Times of India, where he described the serendipitous discovery of an “old trunk” of papers that spoke of a strong leader like Modi.
Pratik Sinha, who runs the website, found that Gautier had several times in the past talked about recent discoveries of this “old trunk”. He also backtracked a video that was going viral on social media, claiming to be that of a Marwadi woman married to a Muslim man, who was beaten up for refusing to wear a burkha. Sinha used a few digital tools and managed to zero in on the source of the video – he found that it was in fact a two-year-old video and not even from India. It was a video of a woman being beaten up in Guatemala.
Some of the techniques he uses are to break up videos into frames and then search for those images online, until he can zero in on the original source. Sometimes a simple web search describing the actions in the video will often take a vigilant user to a news story about the video. This is also something that came true for Sinha in the case of the Guatemalan video. By combining Google and Facebook searches, Sinha has been able to find the original Facebook post that may have kicked off further content.
“We are seeing two things. There is an underground propaganda, where unverified content floats around on informal unregulated channels of social media. And then we have overground propaganda where well known news organisations have begun pushing news which fits certain politics,” he says. Sinha used to undertake debunking of news on his own Facebook profile but he decided to start his own website “to reach people outside of the Facebook bubble who all by and large are likeminded.”
Last week Sinha fact-checked a video being circulated on WhatsApp by right-wing groups with the mischievous cation of ‘Muslim man kills Hindu in Nawada, Bihar.” The video was sent out the day after the Bihar town saw a minor communal disturbance. Sinha discovered that the video in question was actually from Comilla, Bangladesh, and showed a clash between goons associated with rival political parties.
But given that there are ‘alternative facts’ on a plethora of alternative news portals, perhaps mainstream organisations need to play along with the new rules as well. “News organisations need to get on to the same platforms where fake news is published… and start publishing there,” says Aayush Soni, a social media consultant based in Delhi. Many organisations have already been doing this. For example, BBC, during the Indian elections in 2014, had a dedicated WhatsApp broadcast in Hindi and English. WhatsApp is also the hub for a lot of unverified content to fly easily and free. Soni says even verified news content should be shared on the same space. “It is not that we are behind other countries but it is that the digital news space in India is still young. Legacy organisations are still struggling to figure out what is the role for their way of verification and reporting, in social media.”
The fake news problem is compounded by the firm causal link that has developed between social media and the news. What happens on social media, becomes news because news editors are under pressure to produce ‘trending’ content. Sometimes, even if that social media information, is fake. In India, we saw this in the case of the JNU controversy, where several channels ran footage which was not shot by their own reporters, purportedly showing students chanting “anti India” slogans. The videos were later found to be spliced, with an audio from some other clip overlaid on the JNU clips. Channels did not run disclaimers attesting to the non-verification of the content and did not offer any apology after they were called out for it.
“How absurd that social media decides the news agenda,” says independent journalist and author Ammu Joseph. Joseph is also a core member of the Network of Women In Media. “There are times journalists send mails to the group saying, ‘Forwarded as Received.’ This is a basic skill at least journalists should possess – to not send unverified information and without responsibility.”
Combating fake news
“The credibility of the media is at rock bottom today. It is a good enough reason for journalists to come together to do something about fake news,” says Joseph. She feels that organisations should even use it to leverage themselves as being ones who do not do fake, false or misleading news. She flags off an advertisement in a newspaper that said, “Don’t go by fake news!” The same newspaper also recently published a front-page story saying that missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed had been searching for ISIS-related information online. The Delhi police promptly denied the story. The newspaper then published a 95-word statement which came from the police public relation’s office, saying that the police had not found any ISIS-related search history. This however, was on page five, very different from their front-page splash. Neither the newspaper nor the reporter issued any clarification, apology or retraction. And the fake story remains live on its website.
Between the competing forces of fake and real news, Crawford says, “People who want to use technology to manipulate the news, have found a way to do it. But there are creative people on both sides. In Germany, politicians are looking for a top-down solution to combat this. I myself go to schools to talk to students about how to recognise a problematic story. There are technical solutions and social ones.”
Instead of organisations picking up content from social media and running it as news, what would it be like if we spun that idea around – what if traditional news ran stories challenging what is making news on social media? As much as new media is challenging traditional beliefs about truth and fact, some rules could and should remain the same. “Journalists should not drop their basic hygiene practices,” says Soni. “Rumour has basically attained a social media platform. Take what you get on social media, just as you would with any other tip off, lead or leak. But even if this might be the source of one’s story, it doesn’t mean the information doesn’t need to be verified as would be the case with any non-social media tip off as well,” he says.
From his work at AltNews.in, Sinha says what can be the best expectation for the future. “I saw even right wing people sharing my stories where I debunked right wing propaganda. I guess people can disagree with me on ideological grounds but they can’t disagree with me on my fact checks.”Authorities are examining security footage taken from a gas station near where a 19-year-old Mississippi woman was found burning alive, as they hunt for the killer or killers who set the teenager and her car aflame Saturday in a gruesome murder.
No suspects or motive have been identified in the killing of Jessica Chambers, Panola County District Attorney John Champion told FoxNews.com Wednesday.
Chambers, of Panola County, was found badly burned on a road near her burning car Saturday night in what authorities have labeled a homicide.
Investigators are hoping Chambers' final words will lead them to the killer who allegedly poured accelerant down her throat before lighting her on fire in a crime that has stunned the small Mississippi community of Courtland.
[pullquote]
Panola County Sheriff Dennis Darby confirmed the young woman died after she was doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire on a road in Courtland, a town with a population of 460 people.
When first responders arrived at the scene, Chambers reportedly uttered a few words that might lead detectives to the murderer. Police have not disclosed what Chambers said -- or tried to say.
"They squirted lighter fluid down her throat and in her nose, and apparently they knocked her out," her father, Ben Chambers, told Fox affiliate WDBD-TV. "She had a big gash on top of her head."
"When the fire department got there, she was walking down the road on fire... only part of her body that wasn't burned was the bottom of her feet," said Chambers, a maintenance worker at the Panola Country Sheriff's Department.
"She told them, she told them, told him who done it," he said.
Chambers was flown to a hospital in Memphis but later died. Authorities said initial autopsy results reveal that Chambers died from severe burns that covered 98 percent of her body.
Darby said detectives are working to learn who the woman may have been with before her murder -- examining her cellphone, which was left at the scene.
"She was the most beautiful and loving and kind girl I've ever known," Chambers' best friend, Alyssa Cotten, told FoxNews.com.
"She loved to cheer. She loved softball. She loved her family and her friends. She was just a big bundle of joy," said Cotten, noting that she did not believe Chambers was dating anyone at the time she was killed.
"We have no idea who did this," she said.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is assisting Panola authorities.
Anyone with information on the murder is urged to contact the Panola County Sheriff's Office at 662-563-6230.This is a yarn about how a single press release about pot misled dozens of major media outlets.
The press release in question was published Monday on behalf of MarijuanaDoctors.com, a company that says it helps connect patients with doctors who prescribe medical marijuana.
The release stated that MarijuanaDoctors.com was buying television ads through a division of Comcast (CMCSA), marking -- its words here -- "the first time that any'major' U.S. network has ever allowed the advertising of a medical marijuana service."
Turns out that was a false claim -- the ads never actually aired.
But reporters for news organizations, including ABC News, Time magazine and The Chicago Tribune, all published stories as if the press release was fact. A CNN newscast included a mention of the alleged pot ads, too. Even "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" covered the story, despite the fact that NBC is owned by Comcast, which explicitly denies that the ads ever ran on any of its cable systems.
Related: Colorado stash: $184 million in marijuana taxes
Here's what happened, as best I can tell. The company commissioned a very creative ad that showed a shady-looking actor peddling sushi and asking the question, "You wouldn't buy your sushi from this guy, so why would you buy your marijuana from him?" The ad pitched its service as a better, safer way.
Once the ad was uploaded to YouTube, the company distributed a press release that proved hard for journalists to resist. It claimed a "first" — "first marijuana television commercial," even though other ads have aired in the past — and told a reporter-friendly tale of perseverance: Jason Draizin, the chief executive of MarijuanaDoctors.com, was quoted as saying that "securing the airtime for our commercial on a major network was extremely difficult and at the same time, extremely satisfying."
Comcast's Comcast Spotlight unit sells ad time on cable channels in local communities. (Cable channels like CNN typically reserve a portion of every hour for these kinds of ads.) The press release said the ad would run in New Jersey on A&E, AMC, CNN, ESPN, and a number of other channels. But Comcast Spotlight never gave the pot ads a final thumbs-up, so it never aired.
Unfortunately, though, the Comcast representative who initially fielded questions about the attempted ad buy didn't know that. "Comcast spokeswoman Melissa Kennedy today said the Monday night ad was the first of others that will only air in states where medical marijuana is legal," ABC's story about the ads said. "The ads will air between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., she added, but exclude children's and family programming."
Other reporters were given similar information, and stories started popping up all over the Web with variations of this very confident-sounding headline in the New York Daily News: "First medical marijuana commercial airs in New Jersey."
On Tuesday, I started to ask Comcast representatives about the ads. While I waited for answers, more inaccurate stories were published by more Web sites, hungry for the web traffic that a topic like marijuana provides.
But Wednesday, spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury confirmed what I'd suspected: "The ad has not appeared on Comcast Spotlight and media reports and press releases to the contrary are incorrect."
What happened here? It seems that MarijuanaDoctors.com jumped the gun, publishing its press release before it was sure the ad was going to air. "All commercials are subject to final review by Comcast Spotlight prior to airing and during that process it was determined that the spot did not meet our guidelines," Khoury said.
When I told Draizin this on Thursday, he disputed it. He told me that "the ads continue to be aired," adding "We are receiving phone calls from patients and doctors in New Jersey who have seen the ads." (My guess is the phone calls were from people who had seen the video on YouTube or in the media coverage that ensued.)
Related: Feds working on new pot banking rules
The media coverage, of course, put the Web site in front of far more eyeballs than the attempted ad buy ever would have. Thursday evening, the ad was even highlighted on "NBC Nightly News" with Brian Williams playing a clip from it and noting that "so far it's airing just in New Jersey."
On Friday, one of Draizin's representatives called and said what Comcast had said Wednesday — that the ads hadn't aired at all. That prompted MarijuanaDoctors.com to write a new press release. In it, the company acknowledged that "the campaign had not, in fact, launched," and said it would be speaking with Comcast executives Monday "in order to get to the bottom of this situation."
"For now, the campaign in New Jersey has ended," Draizin said Saturday in a statement. He went on to say that "we are very satisfied to have achieved our objective" — that is, informing people about its service. Presumably he meant through the news media, not through its ad |
It’s not a minuscule amount of marijuana.”
Gov. Jack Markell has said he will not sign a bill fully legalizing marijuana in Delaware. A spokeswoman said he supported this bill, however.
Bonini said the measure removed the state’s “the last vestige of truly criminal code violation for marijuana,” and lawmakers now need to focus on managing its sale and keeping it out of the hands of Delawareans less than 21 years old.
"We've created a sort of marijuana freedom zone," Bonini said.
More than 12,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in Delaware between 2008 and 2012, according to FBI crime statistics.
Contact Quint Forgey at bforgey@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @QuintForgey.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/28TE5sqJames S Spiegel has an uncomfortable thesis to propose. He contends: Religious skepticism is, at bottom, a moral problem.A professor of philosophy and religion at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, Spiegel has written a 130-page book, The Making of an Atheist, in response to the New Atheists. But unlike the numerous responses that have emerged from Christian apologists, Spiegel's book focuses on the moral-psychological roots of atheism.While atheists insist that their foundational reason for rejecting God is the problem of evil or the scientific irrelevance of the supernatural, the Christian philosopher says the argument is "only a ruse" or "a conceptual smoke screen to mask the real issue – personal rebellion".He admits that it could appear unseemly or offensive to suggest that a person's lack of belief in God is a form of rebellion. But he said in a recent interview with the Evangelical Philosophical Society that he was compelled to write the book because he is convinced that "it is a clear biblical truth".His goal in writing the book is neither to provoke people nor show that theism is more rational than atheism. Rather, his aim is to direct people to "the real explanation of atheism"."The rejection of God is a matter of will, not of intellect," he asserts."Atheism is not the result of objective assessment of evidence, but of stubborn disobedience; it does not arise from the careful application of reason but from willful rebellion. Atheism is the suppression of truth by wickedness, the cognitive consequence of immorality."In short, it is sin that is the mother or unbelief."God has made His existence plain from creation – from the unimaginable vastness of the universe to the complex micro-universe of individual cells, Spiegel notes. Human consciousness, moral truths, miraculous occurrences and fulfilled biblical prophecies are also evidence of the reality of God.But atheists reject that, or as Spiegel put it, "miss the divine import of any one of these aspects of God's creation" and to do so is "to flout reason itself".This suggests that other factors give rise to the denial of God, he notes. In other words, something other than the quest for truth drives the atheist.Drawing from Scripture, Spiegel says the atheist's problem is rebellion against the plain truth of God, as clearly revealed in nature. The rebellion is prompted by immorality, and immoral behaviour or sin corrupts cognition.The author explained to EPS, "There is a phenomenon that I call 'paradigm-induced blindness,' where a person's false worldview prevents them from seeing truths which would otherwise be obvious. Additionally, a person's sinful indulgences have a way of deadening their natural awareness of God or, as John Calvin calls it, the sensus divinitatis. And the more this innate sense of the divine is squelched, the more resistant a person will be to evidence for God."Spiegel, who converted to Christianity in 1980, has witnessed the pattern among several of his friends. Their path from Christianity to atheism involved: moral slippage (such as infidelity, resentment or unforgiveness); followed by withdrawal from contact with fellow believers; followed by growing doubts about their faith, accompanied by continued indulgence in the respective sin; and culminating in a conscious rejection of God.Examining the psychology of atheism, Spiegel cites Paul C Vitz who revealed a link between atheism and fatherlessness."Human beings were made in God's image, and the father-child relationship mirrors that of humans as God's 'offspring'," Spiegel states. "We unconsciously (and often consciously, depending on one's worldview) conceive of God after the pattern of our earthly father."However, when one's earthly father is defective, whether because of death, abandonment, or abuse, this necessarily impacts one's thinking about God."Some of the atheists whose fathers died include David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche. Those with abusive or weak fathers include Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire and Sigmund Freud. Among the New Atheists, Daniel Dennett's father died when Dennett was five years old and Christopher Hitchens' father appears to have been very distant. Hitchens had confessed that he does not remember "a thing about him".As for Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, there is very little information available regarding their relationships with their fathers."It appears that the psychological fallout from a defective father must be combined with rebellion – a persistent immoral response of some sort, such as resentment, hatred, vanity, unforgiveness, or abject pride. And when that rebellion is deep or protracted enough, atheism results," Spiegel explains.In essence, "atheists ultimately choose not to believe in God," the author maintains, and "this choice does not occur in a psychological vacuum"."It is made in response to deep challenges to faith, such as defective fathers and perhaps other emotional or psychological trials," he states. "Nor is the choice made in a moral vacuum. Sin and its consequences also impact the will in significant ways."These moral-psychological dynamics make it possible to deny the reality of the divine without any (or much) sense of incoherence in one's worldview."The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief is out now.Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Friends of Eugene Vibar rally in downtown Portland for the missing man, Nov. 12, 2015 (KOIN)
Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved Friends of Eugene Vibar rally in downtown Portland for the missing man, Nov. 12, 2015 (KOIN)
KOIN 6 News Staff - PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) --- A missing 33-year-old Portland man has friends and family worried since he was last seen on Halloween.
Friends and family of Eugene Vibar say he left his home at SE 19th and SE Stark around 2:30 a.m. on November 1 in jeans and a bright blue jacket.
Police tell KOIN that there is no indication of foul play in his disappearance. His friends and family say the classification of his disappearance has hindered efforts to access his phone's GPS and his bank statements.USA and the Netherlands, announced today that it has sequenced the entire genomes of Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica, representing two strains of the therapeutic plant. The genome assemblies, comprising over 131 billion bases of sequence, are the largest known gene collection of the Cannabis genomes and will be made publically available to the scientific community this fall. The genomic data is expected to aid in the advancement of research on the therapeutic benefits of the Cannabis plant for a wide range of health conditions, including cancer and inflammatory diseases.
“We are pleased to see an industry-renowned expert in the field of next generation sequencing recognize the value of the long reads offered with our new GS FLX+ System”
“Despite compelling evidence of the therapeutic benefits of Cannabis, very little genomics research has been performed in this area,” said Kevin McKernan, founder and head of scientific operations of Medicinal Genomics. “With the goal to sequence multiple Cannabis varieties, we initially took the approach of using short-read next generation sequencing technology on the C. sativa strain. We very quickly realized that this method was not going to provide a clear picture of the genome required to tease out the important biological pathways. This realization caused somewhat of a paradigm shift in the way we approached this project. At this point we moved to triple backcrossed cultivars and longer read technology.”
Surprised in part by the finding that genomic variation between Cannabis strains is over 1%, a figure that is 10 times the variation of human genomes, the team at Medicinal Genomics turned to Roche’s 454 Sequencing Center in Branford, Connecticut to sequence the Cannabis indica strain on Roche’s new GS FLX+ System, the latest advance in long read next generation technology. The researchers obtained roughly 18x genome coverage with the 700-800 base pair long reads, enabling a high-quality draft assembly of this complex plant genome.
“I was stunned by the data quality and more impressively the read lengths of the data coming off the GS FLX+ Instruments,” said McKernan. “With the long reads we can sort out the variation in the strain and phase alleles so that we can make biological sense of the sequencing data. We can assemble some key synthase genes into much longer phased blocks, allowing us to focus more on the biology and less on the computational concerns over collapsed polymorphic assemblies we were seeing with the shorter read systems.”
“We are pleased to see an industry-renowned expert in the field of next generation sequencing recognize the value of the long reads offered with our new GS FLX+ System,” said Todd Arnold, Vice President of Development at 454 Life Sciences, a Roche Company. “This project, along with other work on a variety of large plant and animal genomes, confirms the power of long reads for high-quality assembly and, most importantly, for correlating sequence content with biological significance.”
Later this fall Medicinal Genomics plans to release the raw sequence data of the Cannabis indica genome as well as a full genome annotation. With the genomes in hand, researchers can begin to identify non-psychoactive compounds or enzyme pathways to better elucidate the therapeutic benefits of Cannabis, including the plant’s anti-cancer properties. These pathways can be optimized in the plant or cloned into other hosts for more efficient biologic production. In addition, it may be possible through genome directed breeding to attenuate the psychoactive effects of Cannabis while enhancing the medicinal aspects.
For more information on the 454 Sequencing Systems, visit www.454.com.
About Roche
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world’s largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche’s personalised healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. In 2010, Roche had over 80’000 employees worldwide and invested over 9 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 47.5 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche.com.
About Medicinal Genomics
Medicinal Genomics is the first known organization to sequence the complete genomes of Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica. Aside from being a useful tool to discover small molecule therapeutic drug candidates, there are many other commercial applications of these sequences, including the design of genomic assays that measure genes predictive of Cannabinoid levels in the plants at seedling stages. Use of these genomic assays will help regulate the medicinal Cannabis market through better oversight and labeling and will inform selective breeding in both Cannabis and hemp production. Medicinal Genomics maintains its corporate headquarters in Marblehead, Mass. All scientific operations are conducted at the company’s research facility in Amsterdam, Netherlands in collaboration with DNA Genetics. For further information, please visit www.medicinalgenomics.com.Here on Earth, radio waves help us communicate with one another. But in deep space, they might be able to help us find the Universe’s missing matter.
There’re a lot of pretty insane things happening in space all the time, but perhaps none are so mysterious as fast radio bursts (FRBs). FRBs are immensely powerful events that can put out as much energy as our Sun can in 10,000 years. But they show up randomly and last just milliseconds, making them really hard to measure or follow up on.
Scientists have only positively identified sixteen FRBs in history. And further complicating our attempts to understand them, FRBs are rarely if ever observed in real time. For the most part, they’re discovered months or even years after they occur by astronomers combing through archived data. But trust eager scientists to devise a way to learn about these mysterious events.
In an attempt to catch an FRB before it’s gone, a team of international astronomers led by E. F. Keane set up an early warning system. If one telescope receives a signal consistent with an FRB, it alerts other scientists at other participating observatories so they can quickly slew their dishes to look in the area of the sky the signal was first heard. And it worked!
On April 18, 2015, the 64-meter Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia detected an FRB flash appropriately named FRB 150418.
The early warning system notified the collaborating astronomers who got a second telescope in Australia and a third in Hawaii looking in the right part of the sky. Visible light imaging found the FRB came from an elliptical galaxy.
Spectral analysis helped them determine that galaxy is 6 billion light-years away, an insane halfway across the visible Universe! So here’s where it gets interesting.
Based on the energy output of FRBs, astronomers assumed they were produced when stars formed. But elliptical galaxies are old and don’t have a lot of active star formation, and the event lasted longer than typical stellar formation. So they concluded that this FRB couldn’t be the result of the birth of a star.
Instead, it’s more likely that the burst was caused by a pair of coalescing neutron stars, the superdense remains of exploded stars merging together to form a black hole. This is an incredibly powerful and violent event that releases a lot of energy in a short burst that would last milliseconds. This is consistent with an FRB.
The key to this project was the rapid localisation of the FRB and identifying the host galaxy
But the story gets even better and has to do with finding missing matter in the universe.
said Benjamin Stappers.
Discovering more FRBs will allow us to do even more detailed studies of the missing matter and perhaps even study dark energy. To do this, we are starting projects with arrays of telescopes like eMerlin and MeerKAT, which will allow us to have a localisation directly from the burst itself.
The total mass/energy makeup of the Universe can be roughly divided into three components: dark energy makes up about 70 percent, dark matter about 25 percent, and normal matter the remaining 5%. The problem is that we only see half the normal matter; the rest is the hard to detect gas between galaxies.
But this FRB helped us find that missing matter. Radio waves traveling through the Universe are dispersed as they pass through all the gas and dust distributed through space, and dispersion depends on what the radio waves are passing through.
So measuring the way the radio waves from this FRB were altered as they traveled through space AND knowing how far they traveled, astronomers can determine the Universe’s makeup, including that missing matter. Scientists observed the radio waves produced from the FRB passed through something that changed them in a way that was measurable, and that something turned out to be the missing matter.
The good news is our observations and the model match, we have found the missing matter
explained Dr Keane.
It’s the first time a fast radio burst has been used to conduct a cosmological measurement.
Super neat, eh? Well, some astronomers don’t think so. A paper has come out since this initial study saying that Keane’s team may have jumped the gun on their FRB conclusion.
The rebuttal paper from P. K. G. Williams and E. Berger looks at the lingering radio luminosity of the host galaxy and concludes the signal is consistent with an active galactic nucleus, not an FRB.
We argue that the properties of the long-term radio emission from the proposed host (FRB 150418) point to a different interpretation: that the observed variable radio emission is instead due to AGN (active galactic nucleus) activity and that the variable emission and galaxy are unrelated to FRB 150418, hence negating the claimed demonstration of a cosmological origin
said P. K. G. Williams author of the paper.
Basically that would mean the location and distance of the observed event couldn’t be used to measure the composition of the universe. So that means we kinda have to come to everyone’s favourite conclusion: more research is needed!PKHD Linux Beta Released
Open-source GPU drivers (Gallium rx00, radeonsi, Intel) may not work.
Those drivers may lack support for the necessary OpenGL extensions. For the
best experience we recommend the latest proprietary, vendor-supported GPU
drivers.
We just set the Beta to our Linux version live.Please mind these known issues:Please note that these issues are temporary and being worked upon!After several hotfixes and additional testing we have revised our standpoint andactually advise open-source drivers for all non-NVIDIA GPUs. Especiallyif the proprietary ones crash for you!* Loading times may be slow because of shader compilations.Not much can be done about this because of the way the Unreal Engine 3handles shaders. :(* Loading screen movies have no sound.* Game controllers have no force feedback.* No multiplayer compatibility with Windows.* Multiplayer host might crash when a client is trying to join.This is a bug in the Steam Client fixed in the beta - if it happens, opt infor the beta: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/1/864957817328247556/ ==================================You have to own Painkiller Hell & Damnation to get access to the Linux Beta version.We would be glad for any relevant feedback. Thanks!IMAGE COMICS: Rafael, what's your overall approach to your artwork on this series? How do you want to make it feel for the reader?
RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE: Since the beginning, Mark and I, we tried to bring a heartwarming approach to the art. Something that brought a vintage Americana feeling, and overall brought joy to the reader. My main reference art-wise was Norman Rockwell, because, well, nobody captured this era as well as he did. My art is a bit cleaner than I usually do in American Vampire, for example, and my ink washes are lighter, so that, combined with Dave's beautiful palette, would make it all look more pop and colorful.
IC: Were you at all nervous when it came to constructing a scene like this, where the visual storytelling from you and Dave is so important, or are you completely comfortable with silent passages?
RA: I love working in silent sequences. Especially when they are so well-written like this. Don't get me wrong, it's challenging, but since it's not so usual in modern comics, I enjoy every chance I have to stretch my storytelling muscles and it feels great when it comes out nicely.
IMAGE COMICS: Mark, this scene was the first look the general public got at HUCK, in addition to being the first scene in the comic proper. Why was this the right opener for the series? What's it say about the series-to-come?
MARK MILLAR: I wanted to establish the character as efficiently as possible. He isn't about cool one-liners or jokes or threats. There's no pay-off quips with this guy. He just gets the job done and very much in the tradition of the old Hollywood heroes from black and white movies. Back in early cinema, all the dialogue went to the antagonist and the protagonist was a reactive force who just sorted things out. Tarzan I guess was the ultimate example of this, and of course the Fleischer Superman cartoons where the title character virtually had no dialogue. I liked the idea of a character who just very bluntly gets things done. He doesn't hang around. He doesn't really speak to anyone or have any friends, and that's all planned out here, having him running through empty streets at night and doing the seemingly impossible for someone we establish he not only doesn't want thanks from, but someone he's never met. Everything about that character is covered here in these six pages and we know everything about him without him saying a word, right down to his little quiet joy as he watches from behind a bush at the pleasure he's brought to someone.
IC: How early in the conception of HUCK did you come up with this scene? Did this scene feel significant when you were scripting it, or just part of a whole?
MM: I think it was the first scene I conceived. This doesn't always happen. Wolverine: Old Man Logan, for example, started with a sketch of an old Wolverine being threatened by one of the Hulk family on his farm. Then there's an almost-slash as his claws are popped for the first time in years and he takes the Hulk down. But then we cut back to his tired old eyes and realise he's only thinking about it. Wolverine is just an old man now and putting up with even the most unreasonable demands. The next scene I put together was the reason he hadn't popped his claws in all that time, the flashback to him being tricked into killing the X-Men. This was five issues later, but sometimes the most important, defining scenes in a series need to be nailed down before the actual drafting properly begins.
HUCK was different. It came in a very linear fashion. The first two scenes I put together, which actually both mirror one another in terms of structure, was this opening and the origin story of where he came from we used as the opening to issue 4. There's an economy of dialogue with both, which always works best in comics. The more dialogue on an opening page, the less chance the reader will turn over for page two. Page one should be like a headline. That's your hook to turn the page and by page three they shouldn't be able to put it down.
IMAGE COMICS: Dave, this scene progresses from nighttime to sunrise to deep underwater. You go from deep blues to bright yellows, rather than doing something strictly representative of real life. Why was this the right approach for HUCK? What feelings do you want to evoke here?
DAVE McCAIG: Color in comics has a lot of jobs to do. Setting mood, establishing locations, and helping the reader understand passage of time. Creating depth, too.
HUCK really lets me stretch out color-wise, trying to hit all those points. I've worked with Rafa for a while now, and love the way that once he establishes a scene with his line art, he tends to leave the backgrounds in panels nice and open. It gives me a lot of room to push color around and hit emotional cues. Mark really wanted to establish a happy, upbeat tone in this series. The first scene in the series starts off at night, so the reader is not sure of what sort of mood the book might have yet, and once we realize that Huck has basically run through the whole night and covered a huge amount of ground, there's suddenly this explosive, saturated yellow morning sky. It's got a warm, prairie feel to it, and you can almost hear this swelling, uplifting music playing as he leaps into the ocean. Basically, this series lets me treat the color more like color-scripting an animated feature than many other comics would allow for. It's like creating musical beats with the color.
IC: The backgrounds underwater are really interesting to me, the way you use varying values of blue to trace the arc Huck is following in the sea. Can you talk a little bit about how you created this effect? Are you working entirely digitally, or is it a mix of analog and digital?
DM: My work is strictly digital, but I use a lot of brushes based on natural media. Rafael does a lot of work with ink washes on his pages, and I try to integrate those with my color work as much as possible to make it all look seamless. I paint into his washes, under them, and tone the whole thing afterwards with color overlays in Photoshop. It's really one of the most integrated team-ups I have in comics. Also, any chance I get to color underwater scenes makes me happy. I used to scuba dive quite a bit.
HUCK #1-3 are available now. HUCK #4 arrives 2/17.Jeremy Wells' was accused of racism after his satirical impersonation of Mike Hosking.
Radio Hauraki has been rapped over the knuckles after a Mike Hosking impersonation by DJ Jeremy Wells was labelled racist by some listeners.
The radio station apologised after Wells' appearance on the Hauraki Breakfast show on May 15, presenting a segment called Like Mike.
Wells, in character as broadcaster Hosking, said he preferred "Maoris to keep to themselves in marae, rural rugby clubs or on-stage cultural performances in Rotorua hotels coinciding with a hangi buffet".
Broadcaster Mike Hosking presents Newstalk ZB's morning show.
"Maoris are loose units. They're often tattooed. The women smoke too much and are free and easy with their affections.
"The world's media are watching us this week. As right-thinking New Zealanders we should be asking: is this the image we want to convey to the world?"
The act drew hundreds of comments on the station's Facebook page; many expressed outrage, although others said the item was clearly satire and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Areti Metuamate, a PhD student in Pacific Studies at the Australian National University, said it didn't matter that the comments were satire - they were still deeply offensive to anyone who had experienced racism.
"If you're a regular listener you might realise that it had this particular slant. You post it to Facebook and it's taken out of context. People might not realise that it's satire.
"Anyone who's been subjected to this abuse, which I have... would not find it funny. You go find someone out there who puts up with discrimination because of their heritage or their sexual orientation, they won't find it funny.
"I think he's lost a lot of respect from Maori.
"Good on you wealthy privileged Pakeha saying that on your radio station. You must think it's funny because you're sitting in your highly paid radio station job."
The segment aired on May 15. This week, the station issued an apology of sorts.
"Hi folks, we hear you on the latest Jeremy Wells Like Mike rant, this was meant to be satirical as all his 'rants' are. Sorry if we offended you guys, it was not designed to tip anyone over the edge."
Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy was not impressed.
"Sometimes when satirists try to be clever, funny and edgy they fall flat. Regardless of the intention many people were offended by this and it clearly missed its mark," she said.
Hosking often expounds his Right-wing views on his Newstalk ZB show and as host of Seven Sharp. His opinions have inspired several parodies, including the "Perfect Mike Hosking" Twitter account.
Radio Hauraki content director David Ridler said the Like Mike segment was attempting to satirise conservative Pakeha perceptions around Maori stereotypes.
The segment is a series of parodies that satirise current events in New Zealand. It has been running for 10 months in a weekly slot on the Hauraki Breakfast show.
"It is common for satirical pieces to push the boundaries and certainly this one did. We are sorry if it made some people uncomfortable," Ridler said.On the morning of Sunday 21st September 1578, between seven and eight o'clock, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, married Lettice Devereux (née Knollys), widow of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, at his house in Wanstead, Essex.
Leicester's chaplain, Humphrey Tindall officiated, and the guests at this secret and private ceremony included Sir Francis Knollys, father of the bride; Richard Knollys, the bride's brother; Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick and brother of Leicester; and Leicester's friends, the Earl of Pembroke and Lord North. Tindall described Lettice as wearing a “loose gown”, which has led to people thinking that the marriage was a shot-gun wedding, but there is no evidence that Lettice was pregnant. She did not give birth to their first and only child, Robert, Lord Denbigh, until June 1581. The marriage was low-key because Leicester had not told Elizabeth I of his relationship with Lettice, whom Elizabeth dubbed “the she-wolf”. Elizabeth never forgave Lettice.
The couple remained married until Leicester's death on 4th September 1588. Leicester was buried in the Beauchamp Chapel of the Collegiate Church of St Mary in Warwick, the same place as his and Lettice's son. Lettice joined her husband in the chapel when she was buried in 1634.
You can click here to read more about Lettice Knollys and you can click here to read more articles on Robert Dudley.
Part of this article is an extract from On This Day in Tudor History by Claire Ridgway.Fulham boss Rene Meulensteen says he has received support from ex-Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
The Dutchman, first-team coach when Ferguson was in charge at Old Trafford, has only won four of 15 games since replacing Martin Jol in December.
"Sir Alex Ferguson was the first man to reassure me and say'stick to your beliefs and know what you're capable of'," said 49-year-old Meulensteen.
Fulham, who travel to United on Sunday, are bottom of the Premier League.
Meulensteen at Man United Rene Meulensteen became first-team coach at Manchester United in September 2008 and he remained at the club until June 2013. During that time they won: Premier League: 2008-09, 2010-11 and 2012-13
2008-09, 2010-11 and 2012-13 Club World Cup: 2008
2008 League Cup: 2008-09 and 2009-10
2008-09 and 2009-10 Community Shield: 2008, 2010, 2011
Ferguson's former right-hand man added: "We speak to each other about different things. It's very valuable to speak to him, he knows what I can do.
"It will be brilliant going back to Old Trafford. It has been such a special club for me and still is. I've got a lot of friends there and I will enjoy every moment of it."
During his spell as Manchester United's first-team coach, they won the Premier League title on three occasions, the Club World Cup once and the League Cup twice.
However, he has struggled in his first managerial role in England.
Fulham have lost their last four league matches and suffered a shock 1-0 home defeat against League One side Sheffield United on Tuesday in an FA Cup fourth-round replay.
"People keep saying about pressure, but it's a challenge and life throws challenges your way," said Meulensteen. "You have to rise up to the challenge and it's not one I will walk away from.
"I'm in a privileged position to be in a job like this and the fact things have gone against us means we have to work hard to turn it around.
"We need to stay positive and I can't fault the effort from the players on the training pitch."
Sunday's game could see a debut for 25-year-old Greece striker Konstantinos Mitroglou, who joined Fulham from Olympiakos for about £11m on the final day of the transfer window.
"He is an absolutely class player," said Meulensteen. "He has lifted the whole place with his energy and he is such a bright personality with a great knowledge of the game."Major League Baseball is expected to announce suspensions for the players connected to the Biogenesis PED scandel on Monday and it appears MLB has evidence showing Alex Rodriguez had been using steroids consistently since 2009, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.
Rodriguez is being threatened with a lifetime ban for his involvement with the Biogenesis clinic, but Heyman reports few people in baseball see that as a likely outcome. His sources say that the commissioner's office is hoping to work out deals with the players involved, but Rodriguez's camp remains far apart from MLB on the issue. Commissioner Bud Selig does have the power to ban a player under the Collective Bargaining Agreement's "best interest of baseball" clause, but Heyman's sources believe that he is unwilling to invoke that power and risk upsetting a players' union that has been very cooperative in the Biogenesis investigation to this point.
Rodriguez's side believes that he should not be suspended longer than Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun, who was given a 65-game suspension earlier this month. Unlike Braun, Rodriguez has not failed any test for performance-enhancing drugs under MLB's current agreement. He did admit to using PEDs in 2009 in an interview with Peter Gammons of ESPN. Rodriguez said he had taken banned substances as a member of the Texas Rangers from 2001-2003 after a Sports Illustrated report came out claiming the Yankees star had failed an anonymous 2003 survey test. If Heyman's sources are correct, Rogriguez would appear to have continued buying and using banned substances even after his admission and apology.
At the time of his admission, he said he had never used PEDs as a member of the Yankees (he joined the team in 2004) and he asked people to judge him on what he did before and after that time. Given those statements, evidence of his continued use would seem to be particularly damaging to his case and that could explain MLB's aggressive stance on his punishment.
More from SB Nation:
• David Roth: On Alex Rodriguez, the performance artist
• Report: MLB sets deadline of Sunday for Biogenesis pleas
• Grant Brisbee: In search of baseball’s dumbest rule
• ’Good chance’ Braves make another trade
• Making AL logos fan friendlierFive children between the ages of five and15 have died in Mwamba village in Trans Nzoia county in a span of three weeks after complaining of stomach ache and headache. The fifth child died on Tuesday afternoon as journalists and other health officers from the county were visiting the area.
Sospeter Shikuku father of a nine-year-old girl, a pupil at Mwamba Primary School, who died last week, said he is yet to know what ailed their daughter.
“We really don’t know what killed our daughter, we visited a local health centre and was treated for malaria but her condition kept on deteriorating until she died,” he said.
Residents claimed that the disease could have originated from the neighbouring Uganda as there have been reports of symptoms similar to the ones residents are suffering from there.
The county chief officer for health Dr Maurice Wakwabubi said health personnel are working to ascertain the cause of the death that is sending panic in the county, adding that soon the spread will be under control.
He refuted claims that the disease could be highland malaria saying that his department will release full report after examination on the blood samples collected is finalised.
“We want to be certain on the kind of the disease killing our people, that is the reason residents should wait for the full report and should not be swayed over by opinion of people who are not medics,” he said. He urged Trans Nzoia residents to report to the nearest health centres when they get stomach and headaches.SECTIONS of AAMI Park’s diseased pitch will be replaced in the coming week as the stadium’s maligned surface threatens to impact Melbourne City’s push for a maiden A-League title.
City plays its home games exclusively at AAMI Park.
But given the impact rugby union and rugby league games are having on the pitch, Etihad Stadium may become Football Federation Australia’s ground of choice for any final played in Melbourne next month if improvements aren’t made soon.
The sight of players slipping and the ball bobbling was all too common during City’s 3-0 win over Wellington on Monday night, a result that took it to the top of the table with two rounds to play.
AAMI Park general manager Shane Mates said on Tuesday the clash of A-League, NRL and Super Rugby seasons that occurs at this time of year was taking its toll.
“High humidity has also created some challenges for us which we’re addressing, and we plan to replace areas of high wear — particularly the south end — in preparation for the last round of the current A-League season,” Mates said.
“The quality of our pitch is a huge source of pride, and we will continue to take all necessary actions to ensure AAMI Park delivers a high quality playing surface.”
The finals start on April 15 and FFA determines where games are played.
City is on track to host a playoff for the first time in its six-year history and its preference is to play at AAMI Park, a ground at which it is undefeated in 10 matches.
The rectangular stadium’s 30,000 capacity is far better suited to the club than Docklands’ 56,000-seat venue.
But while FFA has previously confirmed Etihad will host the grand final if it is played in Melbourne, AAMI’s chances of hosting a City elimination or semi-final could be impacted by rugby games being played there on the Friday night of both of those weekends.
A grass disease is affecting sections of the turf, but it is Melbourne Rebels games that have had the biggest impact on the surface for soccer games.
Marking of different playing lines and sponsorship signage are also impacting on the grass’ ability to recover from game to game.
Etihad Stadium is available for A-League finals on Friday, April 15 and Friday, April 22.
When AAMI was last year voted by players as the A-League’s best ground for the third time in four seasons, its weekly pitch rating averaged 4.3 out of five.
Prior to the two games played there on the weekend that figure this season had dipped to 3.8.
Both Melbourne teams are away this weekend.
But City plays Adelaide in a crucial Round 27 showdown the following Friday (April 8), while Melbourne Victory takes on fellow finalist Brisbane Roar the following night.Where the confection of the MI6 building currently stands, there should be a gigantic tower block — the green giant.
The site of the spooks head-office and what is now flats opposite was originally cleared back in 1953 and 1963 respectively, and despite many attempts remained that way until the Green Giant was proposed in 1979.
It was in 1979, the Conservative politician and businessman, Keith Wickenden MP proposed a development on the land, which at the time was owned by European Ferries.
He had a vision |
Flask itself writes the stack trace of any exceptions that aren't handled before ending the request with a code 500 error. As an extra option, we have also enabled an email based logger that will send the people in the admin list an email when an error is written to the log message.
So for a bug like the one above we would get some debugging information captured in two places, the log file and an email sent to us.
A stack trace isn't much to go on, but it's far better than nothing. Assuming we know nothing about the problem, we now need to figure out what happened from the stack trace alone. Here is a copy of this particular stack trace:
127.0.0.1 - - [03/Mar/2013 23:57:39] "GET /delete/12 HTTP/1.1" 500 - Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1701, in __call__ return self.wsgi_app(environ, start_response) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1689, in wsgi_app response = self.make_response(self.handle_exception(e)) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1687, in wsgi_app response = self.full_dispatch_request() File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1360, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.handle_user_exception(e) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1358, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.dispatch_request() File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1344, in dispatch_request return self.view_functions[rule.endpoint](**req.view_args) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask_login.py", line 496, in decorated_view return fn(*args, **kwargs) File "/home/microblog/app/views.py", line 195, in delete db.session.delete(post) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/scoping.py", line 114, in do return getattr(self.registry(), name)(*args, **kwargs) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 1400, in delete self._attach(state) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 1656, in _attach state.session_id, self.hash_key)) InvalidRequestError: Object '<Post at 0xff35e7ac>' is already attached to session '1' (this is '3')
If you are used to reading stack traces in other languages, then be aware that Python shows the stack traces in reverse order, with the bottom frame being the one that caused the exception.
Now how do we make sense of this?
From the above stack trace we can see that the exception was triggered from SQLAlchemy's session handling code, which is safe to assume from the sqlalchemy/orm/session.py filename in the bottom most frame.
With stack traces it is always useful to find out what was the last statement in our own code that executed. If we start at the bottom and we go up one frame at a time we'll find that the fourth frame is in our app/views.py, more specifically in the db.session.delete(post) statement in our delete() view function.
Now we know that SQLAlchemy is unable to register the deletion of this post in the database session. But we still don't know why.
If you look at the text of the exception in the bottom most line of the stack trace the problem appears to be that the Post object is attached to a session '1' from before, and now we are trying to attach the same object to another session '3'.
If you Google the exception message you will find that most people having issues with this are using a multithreaded web server, and they get two requests trying to add the same object to different sessions at the same time. But we are using Python's development web server which is single threaded, so that could not be our case. There is a different problem here that causes two sessions to be active at the same time, while there should only be one.
To see if we can learn more about the problem we should try to reproduce the bug in a more controlled environment. Luckily, trying to do this in the development version of the application does reproduce, and this is a bit better because when the exception occurs in development mode we get Flask's web based stack trace instead of the 500.html template.
The web stack trace is nice because it allows you to inspect code and evaluate expressions all from the browser. Without really understanding much of what's going on in this code we know there is a session '1' (which we can assume is the first session ever created) that for some reason didn't get deleted like normal sessions do when the request that created them ends. So a good approach to make progress would be to figure out who is creating this first session that never goes away.
Using the Python Debugger
The easiest way to find out who is creating an object is to put a breakpoint in the object's constructor. A breakpoint is a command that interrupts the program when certain condition is met. At this point it is possible to inspect the program, like obtaining the stack trace at the time of interruption, checking or even changing variable values, etc. Breakpoints are one of the basic features found in debuggers. For this task we will use the debugger that comes with Python, appropriately called pdb.
But what class are we looking for? Let's go back to the web based stack trace and look some more there. In the bottom most stack frame we can use the code viewer and the Python console (note the icons to enable these on the right side when you hover over the frame) to find out the class that is used for sessions. In the code pane we see that we are inside a Session class, which is likely the base class for database sessions in SQLAlchemy. Since the context in the bottom stack frame is inside the session object we can just get the actual class of the session in the console, by running:
>>> print self <flask_sqlalchemy._SignallingSession object at 0xff34914c>
And now we know that the sessions that we are using are defined by Flask-SQLAlchemy, because likely this extension defines its own session class, which is a subclass of SQLAlchemy's Session.
Now we can go and inspect the source code for the Flask-SQLAlchemy extension in flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask_sqlalchemy.py and locate class _SignallingSession and its __init__() constructor, and now we are ready to play with the debugger.
There is more than one way to insert a breakpoint in a Python application. The simplest one is to just write the following at the place we want the program to stop:
import pdb; pdb.set_trace()
So we'll go ahead and temporarily insert this breakpoint in the _SignallingSession class constructor (file flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask_sqlalchemy.py ):
class _SignallingSession(Session): def __init__(self, db, autocommit=False, autoflush=False, **options): import pdb; pdb.set_trace() # <-- this is temporary! self.app = db.get_app() self._model_changes = {} Session.__init__(self, autocommit=autocommit, autoflush=autoflush, extension=db.session_extensions, bind=db.engine, binds=db.get_binds(self.app), **options) #...
So let's run the application again to see what happens:
$./run.py > /home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/flask_sqlalchemy.py(198)__init__() -> self.app = db.get_app() (Pdb)
Since there is no "Running on..." message printed we know the server didn't actually complete its start up procedures. The interruption that brought us to the pdb prompt occurred because in some part of the application someone requested the creation of our mysterious session!
The most important question that we need to answer right now is where are we in the application, because that will tell us who is requesting the creation of this session '1' we can't get rid of later. We will use the bt command (short for backtrace) to get a stack trace:
(Pdb) bt /home/microblog/run.py(2)<module>() -> from app import app /home/microblog/app/__init__.py(44)<module>() -> from app import views, models /home/microblog/app/views.py(6)<module>() -> from forms import LoginForm, EditForm, PostForm, SearchForm /home/microblog/app/forms.py(4)<module>() -> from app.models import User /home/microblog/app/models.py(92)<module>() -> whooshalchemy.whoosh_index(app, Post) /home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.6/site-packages/flask_whooshalchemy.py(168)whoosh_index() -> _create_index(app, model)) /home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.6/site-packages/flask_whooshalchemy.py(199)_create_index() -> model.query = _QueryProxy(model.query, primary_key, /home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.6/site-packages/flask_sqlalchemy.py(397)__get__() -> return type.query_class(mapper, session=self.sa.session()) /home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.6/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/scoping.py(54)__call__() -> return self.registry() /home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.6/site-packages/sqlalchemy/util/_collections.py(852)__call__() -> return self.registry.setdefault(key, self.createfunc()) > /home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.6/site-packages/flask_sqlalchemy.py(198)__init__() -> self.app = db.get_app() (Pdb)
As we did before, we start from the bottom and locate the first stack frame that has code that we recognize as ours. That turns out to be our models.py file at line 92, which is the initialization of our full text search engine:
whooshalchemy.whoosh_index(app, Post)
Hmm. We are not doing anything intentional that would trigger the creation of a database session this early in the application's life, but it appears that the act of initializing Flask-WhooshAlchemy does create a database session.
This feels like this isn't our bug after all, maybe some sort of interaction between the two Flask extensions that wrap SQLAlchemy and Whoosh. We could stop here and ask for help from the developers of these two fine extensions or the communities around them. Or we could continue debugging to see if we can figure this out and have the problem solved today. I'll keep going, if you are bored already feel free to jump to the next section.
Let's have another look at the stack trace. We call whoosh_index(), which in turn calls _create_index(). The line of code in _create_index() is this:
model.query = _QueryProxy(model.query, primary_key, searcher, model)
The model variable in this context is set to our Post class, we passed it as an argument in our call to whoosh_index(). With that in mind, it appears Flask-WhooshAlchemy is creating a Post.query wrapper that takes the original Post.query as an argument, plus some other Whoosh specific stuff. And here is the interesting part. According to the stack trace above, the next function in the call stack is __get__(), one of Python's descriptor methods.
The __get__() method is used to implement descriptors, which are attributes that have behavior associated with them instead of just a value. Each time the descriptor is referenced the function __get__() is called. Then the function is supposed to return the value of the attribute. The only attribute that is mentioned in this line of code is query, so now we know that this seemingly simple attribute that we have used in the past to generate our database queries isn't really an attribute but a descriptor. The remainder of the stack trace then is dealing with computing the value of the model.query expression that appears in the right side, in preparation of creating the _QueryProxy constructor.
Let's continue down the stack trace to see what happens next. The instruction in __get__() is this one:
return type.query_class(mapper, session=self.sa.session())
And this is a pretty revealing piece of code. When we say, for example, User.query.get(id) we are indirectly calling this __get__() method to provide the query object, and here we can see that this query object implicitly brings a database session along with it!
When Flask-WhooshAlchemy says model.query that also triggers a session to be created and associated with the query object. But the query object that Flask-WhooshAlchemy requests isn't short lived like any normal queries we run inside our view functions. Flask-WhooshAlchemy is wrapping this query object into its own query object, which it then stores back into model.query. Since there is no __set__() method counterpart, the new object will be stored as an attribute. For our Post class that means that after Flask-WhooshAlchemy completes its initialization we will have a descriptor and an attribute with the same name. According to the precedence rules, in this case the attribute wins, which is expected, since if not our Whoosh searches would not have worked.
The important aspect of all this is that this code is setting a persistent attribute that inside has our session '1'. Even though the first request handled by the application will use this session and then forget about it, the session does not go away because it is still referenced by the Post.query attribute. This is our bug!
The bug is caused by the confusing (my opinion) nature of descriptors. They look like regular attributes, so people tend to use them as such. The Flask-WhooshAlchemy developer just wanted to create an enhanced query object that can store some state useful for Whoosh queries, but didn't realize that referencing the query attribute of a model does way more than it seems, as there is hidden behavior associated with this attribute that starts a database session.
Regression Testing
For many, the most logical thing to do at this point would be to fix the Flask-WhooshAlchemy code and move on. But if we just do that, then what protects us from this or a similar bug happening in the future? For example, what happens if a year from now we decide to update Flask-WhooshAlchemy to a new version and forget that we had applied a custom fix to it?
The best option every time a bug is discovered is to create a unit test for it, so that we can make sure we don't have a regression in the future.
There is some trickiness in creating a test for this bug, as we need to simulate two requests inside a single test. The first request will query a Post object, simulating the query that we make to request data for displaying in the web page. Since this is the first query it will use the session '1'. Then we need to forget that session and make a new one, exactly like Flask-SQLAlchemy does. Trying to delete the Post object on the second session should trigger this bug, because the first session would not have gone away as expected.
After taking another peek at the source code for Flask-SQLAlchemy we can see that new sessions are created using the db.create_scoped_session() function, and when a request ends a session is destroyed by calling db.session.remove(). Knowing this makes it easy to write a test for this bug:
def test_delete_post(self): # create a user and a post u = User(nickname='john', email='john@example.com') p = Post(body='test post', author=u, timestamp=datetime.utcnow()) db.session.add(u) db.session.add(p) db.session.commit() # query the post and destroy the session p = Post.query.get(1) db.session.remove() # delete the post using a new session db.session = db.create_scoped_session() db.session.delete(p) db.session.commit()
And sure enough, now when we run our test suite the failure appears:
$./tests.py.E.... ====================================================================== ERROR: test_delete_post (__main__.TestCase) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Traceback (most recent call last): File "./tests.py", line 133, in test_delete_post db.session.delete(p) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/scoping.py", line 114, in do return getattr(self.registry(), name)(*args, **kwargs) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 1400, in delete self._attach(state) File "/home/microblog/flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/orm/session.py", line 1656, in _attach state.session_id, self.hash_key)) InvalidRequestError: Object '<Post at 0xff09b7ac>' is already attached to session '1' (this is '3') ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ran 6 tests in 3.852s FAILED (errors=1)
The Fix
To address this problem we need to find an alternative way of attaching Flask-WhooshAlchemy's query object to the model.
The documentation for Flask-SQLAlchemy mentions there is a model.query_class attribute that contains the class to use for queries. This is actually a much cleaner way to make Flask-SQLAlchemy use a custom query class than what Flask-WhooshAlchemy is doing. If we configure Flask-SQLAlchemy to create queries using the Whoosh enabled query class (which is already a subclass of Flask-SQLAlchemy's BaseQuery ), then we should have the same result as before, but without the bug.
I have created a fork of the Flask-WhooshAlchemy project on github where I have implemented these changes. If you want to see the changes you can see the github diff for my commit, or you can also download the fixed extension and install it in place of your original flask_whooshalchemy.py file.
I have submitted my fix to the developer of Flask-WhooshAlchemy, so I hope at some point it will get included in an official version (Update: my fix has been included in version 0.56).
Test Coverage
One way we can greatly reduce the chances of having bugs after we deploy our application is to have a comprehensive test suite. We already have a unit testing framework, but how do we know how much of our application are we currently testing with it?
A test coverage tool can observe a running application and take note of which lines of code execute and which do not. After execution ends it can produce a report showing what lines have not executed. If we had such report for our test suite we would know right away what parts of our code need tests that exercise them.
Python has a coverage tool that we can use called simply coverage that we installed way back when we started this tutorial. This tool can be used as a command line tool or can also be started from inside a script. To make it easier to not forget to run it we will go with the latter.
These are the changes that we need to make to add a coverage report to our test suite (file tests.py ):
from coverage import coverage cov = coverage(branch=True, omit=['flask/*', 'tests.py']) cov.start() #... if __name__ == '__main__': try: unittest.main() except: pass cov.stop() cov.save() print("
Coverage Report:
") cov.report() print("HTML version: " + os.path.join(basedir, "tmp/coverage/index.html")) cov.html_report(directory='tmp/coverage') cov.erase()
We begin by initializing the coverage module at the very top of the script. The branch = True argument requests that branch analysis is done in addition to regular line based coverage. The omit argument makes sure we do not get coverage report for the modules we have installed in our virtual environment and for the unit testing framework itself, we just want coverage for our application code.
To gather coverage statistics we just call cov.start(), then run our unit tests. We have to catch and pass exceptions from the unit testing framework, because if not the script would end without giving us a chance to produce a coverage report. After we are back from the testing we stop coverage with cov.stop(), and write the results with cov.save(). Finally, cov.report() dumps the data to the console, cov.html_report() generates a nicer HTML report with the same date, and cov.erase() deletes the data file.
Here is an example test run with coverage report included (note I left an intentional failure in there):
$./tests.py.....F ====================================================================== FAIL: test_translation (__main__.TestCase) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Traceback (most recent call last): File "./tests.py", line 143, in test_translation assert microsoft_translate(u'English', 'en', 'es') == u'Inglés' AssertionError ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ran 6 tests in 3.981s FAILED (failures=1) Coverage Report: Name Stmts Miss Branch BrMiss Cover Missing ------------------------------------------------------------ app/__init__ 39 0 6 3 93% app/decorators 6 2 0 0 67% 5-6 app/emails 14 6 0 0 57% 9, 12-15, 21 app/forms 30 14 8 8 42% 15-16, 19-30 app/models 63 8 10 1 88% 32, 37, 47, 50, 53, 56, 78, 90 app/momentjs 12 5 0 0 58% 5, 8, 11, 14, 17 app/translate 33 24 4 3 27% 10-36, 39-56 app/views 169 124 46 46 21% 16, 20, 24-30, 34-37, 41, 45-46, 53-67, 75-81, 88-109, 113-114, 120-125, 132-143, 149-164, 169-183, 188-198, 203-205, 210-211, 218 config 22 0 0 0 100% ------------------------------------------------------------ TOTAL 388 183 74 61 47% HTML version: /home/microblog/tmp/coverage/index.html
With this report we know that we are testing 47% of our application. And we are given the list of lines that didn't execute during the test run, so we just need to review those lines and think about what tests we can write that use them.
We can see that our coverage for app/models.py is pretty high (88%), since we have mostly focused on testing our models. The app/views.py coverage is pretty low (21%) because we aren't executing view function code in our tests yet.
In addition to lines of code that were missed, this tool gives us branch coverage information in the Branch and BrMiss columns. Consider the following example script:
def f(x): if x >= 0: x = x + 1 return x f(1)
If we run coverage in this simple function we will get 100% coverage, because when the function gets 1 as an argument its three lines execute. But we have never executed this function with the argument set to 0 or less, and that causes a different behavior. In a more complex case that could cause a bug.
Branch coverage tells us how many branches of code we have missed, and this is another pointer to the kinds of tests we might be missing in our suite.
The coverage tool also generates a very nice HTML based report that displays the source code annotated with color coded markers for line and branches covered and missed.
Continuing with our testing strategy centered in testing the models we can look at the parts of our app/models.py file that have no test coverage. This is easy to visualize in the HTML report, from where we can obtain the following list:
User.make_valid_nickname()
User.is_authenticated
User.is_active
User.is_anonymous
User.get_id()
User.__repr__()
Post.__repr__()
User.make_unique_nickname() (only for the branch case where the given name is already unique)
We can put the first five in the list in a new test:
def test_user(self): # make valid nicknames n = User.make_valid_nickname('John_123') assert n == 'John_123' n = User.make_valid_nickname('John_[123]
') assert n == 'John_123' # create a user u = User(nickname='john', email='john@example.com') db.session.add(u) db.session.commit() assert u.is_authenticated is True assert u.is_active is True assert u.is_anonymous is False assert u.id == int(u.get_id())
The __repr__() functions are really used internally, so we don't need to test them. For this, we can mark them as not interesting as follows:
def __repr__(self): # pragma: no cover return '<User %r>' % (self.nickname)
Finally, back when we wrote the test for make_unique_nickname() we focused only on how the function resolves a name collision, but we forgot to provide a test case that is unique and requires no handling. We can expand our existing test to cover that case as well:
def test_make_unique_nickname(self): # create a user and write it to the database u = User(nickname='john', email='john@example.com') db.session.add(u) db.session.commit() nickname = User.make_unique_nickname('susan') assert nickname =='susan' nickname = User.make_unique_nickname('john') assert nickname!= 'john' #...
And with these simple changes we get to almost 100% coverage on our models.py source file. When running on Python 2.7 there are only two Python 3 specific lines of code that are missed.
For now we'll call it good. Some other day we may decide to pick this up again and figure out a good way to test view functions, but we should feel good that we have full coverage on the code that talks to the database.
Profiling for performance
The next topic of the day is performance. There is nothing more frustrating for users than having to wait a long time for pages to load. We want to make sure our application is as fast as it can be so we need to take some measures to be prepared to analyze performance problems.
The technique that we are going to use is called profiling. A code profiler watches a running program, pretty much like coverage tools do, but instead of noting which lines execute and which don't it notes how much time is spent on each function. At the end of the profiling period a report is generated that lists all the functions that executed and how long was spent in each. Sorting this list from the largest to the smallest time will give us a pretty good idea of where we should spend time optimizing code.
Python comes with a nice source code profiler called cProfile. We could embed this profiler into our application directly, but before we do any work it is a good idea to search if someone has done the integration work already. A quick search for "Flask profiler" tells us that the Werkzeug module used by Flask comes with a profiler plugin that is all ready to go, so we'll just use that.
To enable the Werkzeug profiler we can create another starter script like run.py. Let's call it profile.py :
#!flask/bin/python from werkzeug.contrib.profiler import ProfilerMiddleware from app import app app.config['PROFILE'] = True app.wsgi_app = ProfilerMiddleware(app.wsgi_app, restrictions=[30]) app.run(debug = True)
Starting the application with the above script will enable the profiler to show the 30 most expensive functions for each request (the syntax for the restrictions argument is documented here).
Once the application starts, each request will show a profiler summary. Here is an example:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PATH: '/' 95477 function calls (89364 primitive calls) in 0.202 seconds Ordered by: internal time, call count List reduced from 1587 to 30 due to restriction <30> ncalls tottime percall cumtime percall filename:lineno(function) 1 0.061 0.061 0.061 0.061 {method 'commit' of'sqlite3.Connection' objects} 1 0.013 0.013 0.018 0.018 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/dialects/sqlite/pysqlite.py:278(dbapi) 16807 0.006 0.000 0.006 0.000 {isinstance} 5053 0.006 0.000 0.012 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/nodes.py:163(iter_child_nodes) 8746/8733 0.005 0.000 0.005 0.000 {getattr} 817 0.004 0.000 0.011 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/lexer.py:548(tokeniter) 1 0.004 0.004 0.004 0.004 /usr/lib/python2.7/sqlite3/dbapi2.py:24(<module>) 4 0.004 0.001 0.015 0.004 {__import__} 1 0.004 0.004 0.009 0.009 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/dialects/sqlite/__init__.py:7(<module>) 1808/8 0.003 0.000 0.033 0.004 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/visitor.py:34(visit) 9013 0.003 0.000 0.005 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/nodes.py:147(iter_fields) 2822 0.003 0.000 0.003 0.000 {method'match' of '_sre.SRE_Pattern' objects} 738 0.003 0.000 0.003 0.000 {method'split' of'str' objects} 1808 0.003 0.000 0.006 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/visitor.py:26(get_visitor) 2862 0.003 0.000 0.003 0.000 {method 'append' of 'list' objects} 110/106 0.002 0.000 0.008 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/parser.py:544(parse_primary) 11 0.002 0.000 0.002 0.000 {posix.stat} 5 0.002 0.000 0.010 0.002 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1549(_execute_clauseelement) 1 0.002 0.002 0.004 0.004 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/dialects/sqlite/base.py:124(<module>) 1229/36 0.002 0.000 0.008 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/nodes.py:183(find_all) 416/4 0.002 0.000 0.006 0.002 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/visitor.py:58(generic_visit) 101/10 0.002 0.000 0.003 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/sre_compile.py:32(_compile) 15 0.002 0.000 0.003 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/schema.py:1094(_make_proxy) 8 0.002 0.000 0.002 0.000 {method 'execute' of'sqlite3.Cursor' objects} 1 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 flask/lib/python2.7/encodings/base64_codec.py:8(<module>) 2 0.002 0.001 0.002 0.001 {method 'close' of'sqlite3.Connection' objects} 1 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sqlalchemy/dialects/sqlite/pysqlite.py:215(<module>) 2 0.001 0.001 0.002 0.001 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wtforms/form.py:162(__call__) 980 0.001 0.000 0.001 0.000 {id} 936/127 0.001 0.000 0.008 0.000 flask/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/visitor.py:41(generic_visit) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 127.0.0.1 - - [09/Mar/2013 19:35:49] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -
The columns in this report are as follows:
ncalls : number of times this function was called.
: number of times this function was called. tottime : total time spent inside this function.
: total time spent inside this function. percall : this is tottime divided by ncalls.
: this is tottime divided by ncalls. cumtime : total time spent inside this function and any functions called from it.
: total time spent inside this function and any functions called from it. percall : cumtime divided by ncalls.
: cumtime divided by ncalls. filename:lineno(function): the function name and location.
It is interesting to note that our templates will also appear here as functions. This is because Jinja2 templates are compiled to Python code. That means that the profiler will not only point us to slow code we have written but also to slow templates!
We really don't have a performance problem at this point, at least not in this one request. We can see that the most time consuming functions are related to the sqlite3 database and Jinja2 template rendering, which is totally expected. Note in the header at the top that the this request took just 0.2 seconds to complete, so the scale of these per-function times is so small that it is in the noise.
As the application grows, it is useful to run new requests we add through the profiler, to make sure we are not doing anything that is slow.
Database Performance
To end this article, we are going to look at database performance. We've seen above that our database handling is at the top of the profiler report, so it would be good to have a system in place to get an alert when and if our database becomes too slow during production use.
The Flask-SQLAlchemy documentation mentions a get_debug_queries function, which returns a list of all the queries issued during the request with their durations.
This is very useful information. The intended use appears to be to time queries during debugging or testing, but being able to send an alert when a query takes too long is useful as a feature for the production version, even if it adds a little bit of overhead.
To use this feature during production we need to enable it in the configuration (file config.py ):
SQLALCHEMY_RECORD_QUERIES = True
We are also going to setup a threshold for what we will consider a slow query (file config.py ):
# slow database query threshold (in seconds) DATABASE_QUERY_TIMEOUT = 0.5
To check if we need to send any alerts we'll add a hook after each request. In Flask this is easy, we just set up a after_request handler (file app/views.py ):
from flask_sqlalchemy import get_debug_queries from config import DATABASE_QUERY_TIMEOUT @app.after_request def after_request(response): for query in get_debug_queries(): if query.duration >= DATABASE_QUERY_TIMEOUT: app.logger.warning("SLOW QUERY: %s
Parameters: %s
Duration: %fs
Context: %s
" % (query.statement, query.parameters, query.duration, query.context)) return response
This will write to the log any queries that took longer than half a second. The information in the log will include the SQL statement, the actual parameters used in that statement, the duration and the location in the sources from where the query was issued.
With a small database like ours it is unlikely that we will have slow queries, but as the database and the application grow we may find that some database queries need to be optimized, for example with the addition of indexes. By simply checking the log file from time to time we will learn if some of the queries we are issuing need optimization.
Final words
Today we have done a number of mundane, yet important things all robust applications must have. The code for the updated application can be downloaded below:
Download microblog-0.16.zip.
Users comfortable with github can also get the code from here.
It feels like we are reaching the end of this tutorial series, as I'm running out of ideas for what to present. In the next, possibly last chapter we will look at deployment options, both traditional and cloud based.
If you have any topics that you feel have not been given coverage in this tutorial please let me know in the comments below.
I hope to see you next time!
MiguelThe US has imposed sanctions on Ukrainian officials deemed guilty of ordering violence against pro-EU protesters.
Its embassy in Kiev said on Wednesday (22 January): “In response to actions taken against protestors on the Maidan in November and December of last year, the US embassy has revoked the visas of several Ukrainians who were linked to the violence.”
Student, retired or simply can't afford full price? No worries.
It added: “We are considering further action against those responsible for the current violence.”
Its decision comes amid reports that three demonstrators were killed in fighting with police on Wednesday morning.
The American visa ban list is confidential under US law.
But EUobserver understands it includes Ukrainian interior minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko and up to 19 others.
It is likely to include Andriy Kluyev, President Viktor Yanukovych’s national security chief, said to have ordered riot police to beat up demonstrators last November.
EU foreign service chief Catherine Ashton also said in a statement on Wednesday: "I strongly condemn the violent escalation of events in Kiev overnight leading to casualties. The reported deaths of several protesters is a source of extreme worry.”
She added: “I am deeply concerned about attacks on journalists and about reports of missing persons.”
An EU source said the Union’s position - that it is still willing to sign an association pact with Yanukovych - remains unchanged, with its top negotiator, commissioner Stefan Fuele due in Kiev on Friday.
Meanwhile, Ashton-type comments by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite on twitter earlier |
13) found that such PbI 2 -enriched perovskite layers are n-doped and contain a high level of defects that were eliminated by the deposition of a PCBM overlayer. In most of these cases, the influence of excess PbI 2 was studied using devices with poor or moderate performance (PCE ⪅ 12%). Hence, it appears that it is difficult to attribute these sometimes contradictory effects to the mere presence of excess PbI 2.
RESULTS Here, we report for the first time on a perovskite solar cell (PSC) using a new PbI 2 -enriched composition that exhibits both very high solar-to-electric PCE and intense electroluminescence. We produce the mixed-cation mixed-halide perovskite films in a single step from a solution of FAI, PbI 2, MABr, and PbBr 2 in a mixed solvent containing dimethyl formamide (DMF) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). We vary the molar ratio for PbI 2 /FAI ( ) from 0.85 to 1.54 while maintaining a fixed molar ratio of 5.67 for PbI 2 /PbBr 2 in the precursor solutions. By using this technique, we fabricate PSC with the structure Au/Spiro-OMeTAD/perovskite/mesoporous TiO 2 /compact TiO 2 /FTO. We achieve the highest PCE (20.8%) with, corresponding to a 3% weight excess of PbI 2 in the perovskite. The photovoltaic metrics of the device are as follows: short-circuit current density (J SC ) = 24.6 mA cm−2, open-circuit voltage (V OC ) = 1.16 V, and fill factor (FF) = 0.73 (Fig. 1A). By integrating the incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiency (IPCE) spectrum over the AM 1.5 photon flux, we obtain J SC values that agree within 4% of the measured values. One of the devices was sent for certification to Newport Corporation, an accredited photovoltaic testing laboratory, confirming PCEs of 19.90% (backward scan) and 19.73% (forward scan) with a J SC of 23.2 mA cm−2 and a V OC of 1.13 V (fig. S1). The normalized IPCE spectrum is shown in fig. S1 as well. The commonly observed hysteresis (13, 21) is not pronounced in our devices, as proven by J-V curves shown in Fig. 1C (table S1), where the voltage sweep rate was varied from 10 to 5000 mV s−1. A cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of a champion PSC is shown in Fig. 1B, visualizing a thick perovskite capping layer of around 500 nm. A histogram of 40 devices (figs. S2 and S3) indicates good performance reproducibility, with an average PCE of 19.5%. A preliminary stability investigation shows that the devices stored in the dark at room temperature are relatively stable, with a PCE drop of only 0.3% for 1 month (fig. S4 and table S2). Fig. 1 Basic characteristics of fabricated perovskite solar cells. (A) J-V curves for the champion solar cell under AM 1.5 G illumination, measured from V OC to J SC. (B) Cross-sectional SEM image of the champion cell. (C) Hysteresis measurements of one PSC at different scanning speeds under AM 1.5 G illumination. The photovoltaic metrics of the PSCs made by varying in the precursor solution are summarized in Fig. 2 (A to D). For or, the device performance deteriorates considerably. However, in the range of, J SC and FF show a plateau, whereas V OC increases substantially, reaching a maximum of 1.17 V at (1.18 V without aperture; see discussion in Materials and Methods). This is the highest V OC observed so far for lead iodide–based PSCs on mesoporous TiO 2, resulting in a PCE larger than 19%. During the rise of V OC, J SC maintains a large value (more than 23 mA cm−2) because the band gap does not alter strongly for the different perovskite compositions, as shown by the absorbance spectra in fig. S5. The FF is around 0.72, indicating that a moderate excess of PbI 2 does not retard charge collection, which is efficient in these mixed perovskites, allowing for the use of 500-nm capping layers to obtain a sharp IPCE onset and extraordinarily high photocurrents. Thus, overstoichiometric PbI 2 in this range does not strongly influence the composition and optical properties of the perovskite films but improves their electronic quality. This allows for simultaneously high J SC and V OC but avoids the commonly observed “tradeoff” between V OC and J SC when tuning the band gap (22, 23). In the following sections, we quantify and characterize the PbI 2 content remaining in the film. Subsequently, we investigate the role of PbI 2 in reducing nonradiative recombination. Fig. 2 Influence and characterization of remnant PbI 2 in the fabricated solar cells and films as a function of the ratio between PbI 2 and FAI in the precursor solution. (A to D) Photovoltaic parameters J SC (A), V OC (B), FF (C), and PCE (D) versus, measured under AM 1.5 G illumination (100 mW cm−2). (E) Fraction of remnant PbI 2 (left axis, orange line) and relative perovskite absorbance (right axis, blue line). (F) Mean crystallite sizes of FAPbI 3 (left axis, green line) and PbI 2 (left axis, orange line) phases determined by Rietveld refinement of thin-film XRD patterns and mean crystallite size ratio of PbI 2 /FAI (right axis). SEM images of perovskite films deposited on a mesoporous TiO 2 /compact TiO 2 /FTO substrate with varied are shown in fig. S6. The film morphology changes when and, indicating a modification of the perovskite morphology or the appearance of new phases. To further explore the film composition, we conducted thin-film x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements for perovskite films deposited again on mesoporous TiO 2 /compact TiO 2 /FTO substrates (table S3 and figs. S7 and S8). Except for the sample with, a peak at 12.5° is observed, which is attributed to the (001) lattice planes of hexagonal (2H polytype) PbI 2. The PbI 2 content (Fig. 2E) increases with, showing a 3.8% excess in weight for the most efficient device ( ) and a 7.5% excess in weight for the highest V OC device ( ) (table S1). These values are close to those expected from the molar ratios of the precursors in the spin-coating solution, which correspond to approximately 3 and 10 weight percent, respectively. The relative amount of perovskite (Fig. 2E) deduced from absorption measurements shows a reverse trend as compared with the remnant PbI 2 but follows the J SC values (Fig. 2A), indicating that losses in J SC are due to reduced light harvesting rather than reduced charge collection. Because the thicknesses of all perovskite films are similar (fig. S9), the changes in absorbance indicate a significant ratio of nonperovskite material. The opposite trends in the mean crystallite sizes of PbI 2 and perovskite (Fig. 2F) could be due to the competitive expansion of two crystal domains. Coincidentally, the mean crystallite size of the perovskite phase follows the same trend as V OC (shown in Fig. 2B). The trend in the crystallite size ratio of PbI 2 and perovskite (Fig. 2F) mirrors that of V OC and reaches 0.35 for the film with the highest V OC. Thus, excess PbI 2 not only exists as a crystalline phase but also influences the morphology and crystallite size of the perovskite phase. The observed correlation of the open-circuit voltage with the mean crystallite size is likely due to the fact that larger perovskite crystallites exhibit a reduced area of grain boundaries. Consequently, the overall density of defect states is lower.
DISCUSSION To study the electronic quality of the device and to identify the recombination mechanisms limiting V OC, we performed electroluminescence measurements in which we applied a forward bias to the solar cell in the dark and operated it as a light-emitting diode (LED). Figure 3A contains data for the device ( ), with a V OC of 1.18 V. The blue curve shows injection current versus voltage, where the signature of a shunt for low voltages is followed by an exponential region dominated by recombination in the device. For voltages larger than 1.2 V, limitations by the series resistance become apparent. The red curve shows the emitted photon flux, which increases exponentially with voltage. The diode ideality factor derived from the “slope” is approximately 2 for the current and 1 for the emitted photon flux, indicating that much of the recombination happens through defects [Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH)], whereas emission originates from band-to-band recombination. The external electroluminescence quantum?efficiency (EQE EL ) increases linearly with injection current (fig. S10), as expected from a device with an ideality factor of 2 (24), and approaches 0.5% for currents in the range of J SC. This value translates into a voltage loss of kT/e ln(1/EQE EL ) = 0.14 V, confirming the measured V OC = 1.32 V − 0.14 V = 1.18 V [where 1.32 V is the theoretical maximum V OC (radiative limit)], which we determined for this solar cell using its IPCE action spectrum and following the approach of Tress et al. (11). Fig. 3 Characterization of recombination mechanisms and rates. (A) Current-voltage curve in the dark (blue), emitted photon flux (red), and external electroluminescence quantum efficiency (EQE EL ) (green) of a device with. Lines are a guide to the eye, indicating the slopes for an ideality factor of 2 and 1, respectively, assuming a temperature of 320 K. au, arbitrary units. (B and C) PL decay for a film with and. Lines are calculated according to the rate equation in the text. (D) V OC as a function of short-circuit current I SC proportional to the light intensity, which was varied for blue and red illuminations. An EQE EL of 0.5% is a record for solution-processed solar cells such as organics, where it is commonly <10−6 (25), and approaches that of the best silicon solar cells (26). Even when compared to perovskite-based LEDs, our EQE EL is among the highest. Our solar cell LED delivers an overall electric power to light conversion efficiency of as high as 0.5% at a voltage of 1.5 V (which is still below E g /e), whereas reported LEDs show the same efficiency at voltages higher than 3 to 4 V (27, 28). An LED efficiency of 3.5% has been obtained recently, but under much larger charge carrier densities [that is, not under solar cell operating conditions (2.2 V, 160 mA cm−2, and 50-nm layer thickness)] (29). Our high EQE EL indicates a high-quality perovskite film and a very good charge selectivity of the contacts, accompanied by a high built-in potential and/or very balanced injection and transport of electrons and holes. To analyze the dynamics of recombination, we performed time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) measurements at different excitation fluences. The photoluminescence (PL) decays for perovskite films with and deposited on mesoporous TiO 2 /compact TiO 2 /FTO substrate are shown in Fig. 3 (B and C) (for all samples in figs. S11 and S12). For the highest light intensity generating approximately n = 2 × 1017 charges per cubic centimeter, the overall decay becomes faster as a result of direct electron-hole recombination, where the recombination coefficient β ≈ 2…4 × 10−11 cm3 s−1 in dn/dt = −βn2 − kn describes radiative recombination resulting in the expected V OC of ≈1.3 V (derivation in Materials and Methods). For long time scales or decreased excitation intensity, the PL shows monoexponential decay characteristic of SRH recombination. We deduced 220 and 350 ns, respectively, as nonradiative lifetimes 1/k for the two perovskite films with and, consistent with the trend in V OC. In addition, the signal drops strongly in the first few nanoseconds as a result of trap filling. The loss of PL is more significant for the stoichiometric device, in particular when illuminated from the TiO 2 side. This indicates that the trap density is lower for as a result of either a better passivation of traps at the perovskite/TiO 2 interface or a better quality of the perovskite crystallites. To further elucidate this, we investigate V OC as a function of illumination intensity, represented by J SC in Fig. 3D (J SC ∝ intensity). The dashed lines visualizing the theoretical slope for SRH recombination indicate that V OC is mainly limited by SRH recombination. The device with shows a reduced slope toward higher intensities. This is consistent with the bending seen in EQE EL as a function of injection current (fig. S10). Because V OC is still below the radiative limit, this reduced slope is most likely due to losses of charges at a nonperfectly selective contact. We use illumination with different wavelengths to tune the absorption profile in the perovskite film. Because of the strong dependence of the absorption coefficient on wavelength (fig. S5), red light (630 nm) and blue light (460 nm) penetrate the film to varied extent: 90% of the blue light is absorbed over a distance <200 nm away from FTO, whereas red light penetrates much farther. Figure 3D shows a significant difference only for the stoichiometric device, where V OC is lower for blue illumination despite the fact that the generated charge carrier density is higher. This is in accordance with the PL decay and proves that this device shows its highest defect density close to TiO 2, the impact of which is reduced in the presence of overstoichiometric PbI 2. From the PL decay and the monochromatic V OC study, we contend that the role of excess PbI 2 is to reduce recombination close to the perovskite/TiO 2 interface. Thus, PbI 2 crystallites, which are located within the mesoporous TiO 2 scaffold, prevent recombination of holes photogenerated in this region of the absorber. Furthermore, PbI 2 crystallites, which are present within the mesoporous TiO 2 layer, favor the growth of bigger perovskite crystallites, which exhibit a reduced area of grain boundaries and, therefore, fewer defects. To conclude, we have shown that an excess of PbI 2 of up to ≈8 wt % can enhance the electronic quality of the perovskite/TiO 2 film. With the adoption of this approach, devices based on mixed perovskite enabled a PCE of 20.8% and an open-circuit voltage of 1.18 V, accompanied by a high external electroluminescence quantum efficiency of 0.5%, which is attributed to reduced recombination via defects due to a moderate excess of PbI 2. Further optimization along this path will lead to solution-processed solar cells approaching the theoretical limits for open-circuit voltage and efficiency.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Materials All materials were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich and used as received, unless stated otherwise. Synthesis of inorganic/organic halide materials NH=CHNH 3 I was synthesized by slowly dropping 15 ml of hydroiodic acid (45 wt % in water) (Applichem) to a solution of 5 g of formamidine acetate in methanol cooled at 0°C. The solution was further stirred for 5 hours at room temperature. The light-yellow solution was concentrated by rotary evaporation at 80°C until no obvious liquid remained. The crude solid was then dissolved by a minimum amount of methanol, reprecipitated in diethyl ether, and filtered. The procedure was repeated three times, and the resulting white solid was collected and dried at 80°C under vacuum for 2 days: 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (DMSO-d 6 ) δ 8.76 (s, 4H), 7.85 (s, 1H) ppm; 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (DMSO-d 6 ) δ 157.05 ppm. CH 3 NH 3 Br was synthesized by slowly dropping 31.1 ml of hydrobromide acid (48 wt % in water) (Fluka) to a solution of 27.86 ml of CH 3 NH 2 (40 wt % solution in absolute methanol; TCI) cooled at 0°C. The solution was further stirred for 5 hours at room temperature. The colorless solution was concentrated by rotary evaporation at 50°C until no obvious liquid remained. The crude solid was then dissolved by a minimum amount of ethanol, reprecipitated in diethyl ether, and filtered. The procedure was repeated three times, and the resulting white solid was collected and dried at room temperature under vacuum for 2 days. Solar cell preparation The fluorine-doped tin oxide–coated glass (NSG) was sequentially cleaned using detergent, acetone, and ethanol. A 20- to 30-nm TiO 2 blocking layer was deposited on the cleaned FTO by spray pyrolysis, using O 2 as carrier gas, at 450°C from a precursor solution of 0.6 ml of titanium diisopropoxide and 0.4 ml of bis(acetylacetonate) in 7 ml of anhydrous isopropanol. A 200-nm mesoporous TiO 2 was coated on the substrate by spin coating at a speed of 4500 rpm for 15 s with a ramp-up of 2000 rpm s−1 from a diluted 30-nm particle paste (Dyesol) in ethanol; the weight ratio of TiO 2 (Dyesol paste) to ethanol is 5.5:1. After spin coating, the substrate was immediately dried on a hotplate at 80°C, and the substrates were then sintered at 500°C for 20 min. The perovskite film was deposited by spin coating onto the TiO 2 substrate. The precursor solution was prepared in a glovebox of 1.35 M Pb2+ (PbI 2 and PbBr 2 ) in a mixed solvent of DMF and DMSO; the volume ratio of DMF to DMSO was 4:1. The molar ratio for PbI 2 (specified purity >98%; TCI)/PbBr 2 (purity, 99.999%; Alfa Aesar) was fixed at 0.85:0.15, and the molar ratio for MABr/PbBr 2 was fixed at 1:1. A comprehensive analysis carried out by an analytical institution and covering more than 70 elements showed that the purity of the TCI product (PbI 2 ) exceeded 99.99%. Thus, it was much purer than specified, implying that changes in molar ratio within the range of some percentages in the precursor solutions are not superimposed by the effects of impurities. By changing the amount of FAI, we obtained different molar ratios for PbI 2 /FAI varying from 1.54 to 1.37, 1.23, 1.16, 1.10, 1.05, 1.00, and 0.85. The spin-coating procedure was performed in an argon flowing glovebox: first, 2000 rpm for 10 s with a ramp-up of 200 rpm s−1; second, 6000 rpm for 30 s with a ramp-up of 2000 rpm s−1. Chlorobenzene (110 μl) was dropped on the spinning substrate during the second spin-coating step 20 s before the end of the procedure. The substrate was then heated at 100°C for 90 min on a hotplate. After cooling down to room temperature, Spiro-OMeTAD (Merck) was subsequently deposited on top of the perovskite layer by spin coating at 3000 rpm for 20 s. The Spiro-OMeTAD solution was prepared by dissolving Spiro-OMeTAD in chlorobenzene (60 mM), with the addition of 30 mM bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (from a stock solution in acetonitrile) and 200 mM tert-butylpyridine. Finally, FK209 [tris(2-(1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-4-tert-butylpyridine)-cobalt(III) tris(bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide); Dyenamo AB] was added to the Spiro-OMeTAD solution (from a stock solution in acetonitrile); the molar ratio for FK209 and Spiro-OMeTAD was 0.03. Finally, 80 nm of gold was deposited by thermal evaporation using a shadow mask to pattern the electrodes. Characterization Current-voltage characteristics were recorded by applying an external potential bias to the cell while recording the generated photocurrent with a digital source meter (Keithley model 2400). The light source was a 450-W xenon lamp (Oriel) equipped with a Schott K113 Tempax sunlight filter (Praezisions Glas & Optik GmbH) to match the emission spectrum of the lamp with the AM 1.5 G standard. Before each measurement, the exact light intensity was determined using a calibrated Si reference diode equipped with an infrared cutoff filter (Schott KG-3). To specify the illuminated area, we used an aperture (shadow mask) with an area of 0.16 cm2, whereas the total device area defined by the overlap of the electrodes was approximately 0.36 cm2. This approach allows for an accurate determination of the short-circuit current density but has drawbacks when determining the open-circuit voltage (V OC ) as V OC depends on the dark current flowing through the device according to the equation: V OC = n ID kT/e ln(I SC /I 0 + 1). If there is a mismatch between the illuminated area and the dark area, the ratio between the photocurrent I SC and the dark saturation current I 0 is artificially changed by this ratio. Therefore, the open-circuit voltage was additionally measured without aperture. XRD spectra were recorded on an X’Pert MPD PRO (PANalytical) equipped with a ceramic tube providing Ni-filtered (CuKα, λ = 1.54060 Å) radiation and on an RTMS X’Celerator (PANalytical). The measurements were performed in Bragg-Brentano geometry 2θ = 8° to 88°. The samples were mounted without further modification, and the automatic divergence slit (10 mm) and beam mask (10 mm) were adjusted to the dimension of the films. A step size of 0.008° was chosen for an acquisition time of 270.57 s deg−1. A baseline correction was applied to all x-ray thin-film diffractograms to compensate for the broad feature arising from the FTO glass and anatase substrate. The presence of strong thermal diffuse scattering and turbostratic disorder, mainly in the PbI 2 films, thwarted a successful Rietveld refinement of up to six phases. Finally, the areas of the (001) maximum of PbI 2 and the (011)/(101) peaks of FAPbI 3, calculated by means of a pseudo-Voigt function, were used to estimate the weight fractions. These pseudo-Voigt functions also furnished the full widths at half maximum, which were subsequently used to compute the sizes of the coherent domains along the diffraction vectors by means of Scherrer’s equation, setting K = 1. SEM images were recorded using a high-resolution scanning electron microscope (Zeiss Merlin). Electroluminescence yield. The emitted photon flux was detected with a large-area (1 cm2) Si-photodiode (Hamamatsu S1227-1010BQ) positioned close to the sample. Because of the nonconsidered angular dependence of emission and detector sensitivity, EQE EL was expected to be slightly underestimated (on the order of 10%). The driving voltage was applied using a Bio-Logic SP300 potentiostat, which was also used to measure the short-circuit current of the detector at a second channel. Absorption spectra were measured on a PerkinElmer ultraviolet (UV)–vis spectrophotometer. Absorbance was determined from a transmittance measurement using an integrating sphere. We used the “PerkinElmer Lambda 950 nm” setup with the integrating sphere system “60 nm InGaAs integrating sphere.” The sources were deuterium and tungsten halogen lamps, and the signal was detected by a gridless photomultiplier with Peltier-controlled PbS detector. The UV WinLab software was used to process the data. PL and TCSPC experiments. PL spectra were recorded by exciting the perovskite films deposited onto mesoporous TiO 2 at 460 nm with a standard 450-W Xenon CW lamp. The signal was recorded with a spectrofluorometer (Fluorolog; Horiba Jobin Yvon Technology FL1065) and analyzed with the software FluorEssence. The PL decay experiments were performed on the same samples using the same Fluorolog with a pulsed source at 406 nm (Horiba NanoLED 402-LH; pulse width <200 ps, 11 pJ per pulse, approximately 1 mm2 in spot size), and the signal was recorded using TCSPC. The samples were excited from the perovskite and glass side under ambient conditions. Analysis of the PL decay. From the pump fluence, we estimated an initial photogenerated charge carrier density on the order of 2 × 1017 cm−3 upon excitation at the highest intensity. For a filter with a transmittance of 2.5%, we expected 5 × 1015 cm−3. Assuming that most of the charge carriers in the perovskite are photogenerated (that is, the intrinsic charge carrier density is low), we can set the electron density equal to the hole density and write the continuity equation for photogenerated electrons: dn/dt = −βn2 − kn, assuming that changes in the charge density n are due to either a bimolecular process or monomolecular recombination. Solving this equation for n(t) and assuming that the PL signal is proportional to n2(t), we can calculate the PL decay (solid lines in the main paper). The ideal solar cell without nonradiative recombination should have k = 0. Then, V OC can be calculated, assuming that the charge carrier generation rate G equals the recombination rate R: G = R = βn2. For a semiconductor using Boltzmann statistics and effective mass approximation, V OC can be written as eV OC = E g − kT ln(N c N v /np), with the effective densities of states in conduction and valence band: N c,v = 2 × (2πm e,h *k B T/h2)3/2. Thus, knowing the effective mass m e,h, temperature T, β, band gap E g, and light intensity, V OC can be calculated as V OC = E g /e − kT/e ln(N c N v β/G) ≈ 1.3 V, where we approximated G = J SC /(e × thickness) = 3 × 1027 m−3 s−1. This is a rough estimation where the order of magnitude of the input parameters—but not their exact values—is known. Effective masses have been taken from Giorgi et al. (30).
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2/1/e1501170/DC1 Fig. S1. Independent certification from Newport Corporation confirming PCEs of 19.90% (backward scan) and 19.73% (forward scan) and a normalized electroluminescence quantum efficiency. Fig. S2. Photograph of two real devices (front view and back view) showing the active area of the solar cell, the high reflectivity of the smooth gold electrode, and the densely opaque optical appearance of the perovskite film. Fig. S3. Histogram of solar cell efficiencies for 40 solar cells, with the optimized PbI 2 /FAI = 1.05. Fig. S4. Initial stability test of PSCs sealed using epoxy and stored in a desiccator in the dark. Fig. S5. Absorption spectra of perovskite films on m-TiO 2 /c-TiO 2 /FTO substrate with varying measured in transmission. Fig. S6. Top-view SEM images of perovskite films on ms-TiO 2 /c-TiO 2 /FTO with varying PbI 2 /FAI ratios (0.85, 1, 1.05, 1.1, 1.16, 1.23, 1.37, and 1.54) in the precursor solutions. Fig. S7. XRD patterns of perovskite films on ms-TiO 2 /c-TiO 2 /FTO with varying PbI 2 /FAI ratios (0.85, 1, 1.05, 1.1, 1.16, 1.23, 1.37, and 1.54) in the precursor solutions. Fig. S8. Normalized (001) peaks of PbI 2 phase showing the variation in full widths at half maximum with increasing ratios of PbI 2 /FAPbI 3 fraction. Fig. S9. Cross-sectional SEM images of perovskite films on ms-TiO 2 /c-TiO 2 /FTO with varying PbI 2 /FAI ratios (1, 1.05, 1.1, 1.23, 1.37, and 1.54) in the precursor solution. Fig. S10. External electroluminescence quantum efficiency as a function of the injection current for the device with PbI 2 /FAI = 1.16. Fig. S11. Normalized PL spectra of perovskite films on ms-TiO 2 /bl-TiO 2 /FTO with varying PbI 2 /FAI ratios (1, 1.05, 1.1, 1.23, 1.37, and 1.54) in the precursor solution. Fig. S12. PL decay of perovskite films on ms-TiO 2 /bl-TiO 2 /FTO with varying PbI 2 /FAI ratios (1, 1.05, 1.1, 1.16, 1.23, 1.37, and 1.54) in the precursor solution. Table S1. Photovoltaic parameters for PSCs measured using forward scan (from J SC to V OC ) and backward scan (from V OC to J SC ) at different scanning speeds (B, backward; F, forward). Table S2. Photovoltaic parameters for the stability of PSCs measured under AM 1.5 G illumination (solar cells were sealed with epoxy and stored in a dessicator). Table S3. Composition of perovskite composite film determined by Rietveld refinement.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.QPR appoint Lee Hoos as Chief Executive Officer
53-year-old will join from Burnley Football Club
Hoos has previous worked for Southampton, Leicester City and Fulham
Lee Hoos will be joining Queens Park Rangers Football Club in the role of Chief Executive Officer.
The 53 year-old, who hails from Baltimore, USA, will officially join QPR for the 2015/16 season from Burnley, where he has held the CEO position since December 2011.
QPR Chairman Tony Fernandes believes Hoos’ arrival completes the new-look senior management set-up at the club, commenting: “Lee was the stand-out individual from a very impressive list of candidates we spoke to during an extensive interview process, so I’m delighted he’s accepted the role of CEO.
“He has experience of working in football, which was key. He’s been responsible for creating and implementing strategies across all areas at his previous clubs, as well as overseeing the day-to-day running of the business, so he is exactly what we were looking for.
“With Lee’s arrival this summer, complementing the recent appointments of Chris Ramsey (Head Coach) and Perry Suckling (Academy Manager), we will have a full senior management team in place at a hugely important and transitional time for this club.
“We know there is a rebuilding job required here, and with Lee, Ruban Ghandinesen (Finance Director) and Les Ferdinand (Director of Football) working closely with myself and the shareholders, I believe we’ve got a structure in place to achieve our objectives of getting the club back on a level footing and re-establishing the traditions of QPR.”
APPOINTMENT: Tony Fernandes has appointed Lee Hoos as CEO of QPR
Hoos has vast experience in football, having worked for Southampton, Leicester City and Fulham prior to his appointment at Turf Moor, and he is relishing the challenge of his new role at Loftus Road.
“I'm excited about working for QPR and the challenges that come with the role of being a CEO,” he told www.qpr.co.uk.
“I'm fully aware of the transitional phase this club is going through following its relegation to the Championship, but I am encouraged about the vision of the owners, and Les and Ruban, who I am looking forward to working alongside.
“I join with high hopes about the shared vision of everybody at the club. In my opinion, everybody has a part to play – from the owners, to the staff, to the fans.
“I’d like to think I’ve proved myself over the years I've been in the game. I’ve worked at four clubs now and gained lots of experience.
“This is a challenge, but one I'm going to relish.”
See also...Anybody who makes confident predictions about the future of today's fast-growing global higher-education marketplace should be reminded that education trend lines can shift unexpectedly and relatively quickly.
In the 19th century, for example, American students flocked to Germany, which pioneered the modern research university, combining teaching and research under one roof. Soon, Americans were copying the model, founding institutions such as the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago. Before long, they had perfected it, building universities that achieved worldwide renown after World War II. Today, in a 180-degree turnaround, Germany is looking to the competitive ethos of American universities for inspiration as it seeks to revive its floundering higher-education system.
But if humility is in order when forecasting the exact form that university globalization will take in the years ahead, it seems safe to say that the trend is here to stay. The sheer degree of global activity in higher education is extraordinary. Some three million students worldwide now study outside their home countries—a 57-percent increase in just the past decade. Branch campuses have seen similarly rapid growth, with more than 160 around the world. Almost everywhere, governments eager to reap the economic benefits of an educated citizenry are trying to boost overall enrollment (China's has quintupled in a decade) and achieve "world class" status for at least some of their universities. Global college rankings, and global for-profit universities, are booming.
To what extent will each of these trends continue? Student mobility, for one, seems likely to surge: By one estimate, the number of globally mobile students will nearly triple, to eight million, by 2025.
At the same time, the overall direction of mobility could change significantly. India and China are likely to continue to be the world's leading single-nation exporters of students, but China has already started taking in more foreign students overall—mostly from other Asian countries—than it sends overseas. Indeed, with the emergence of Europe's Bologna Accord, which standardizes degree requirements across the European Union, together with similar efforts in Asia, Don Olcott Jr., head of the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, suggests that a new "regional globalism" may emerge, in which students study abroad within their regions.
On the branch-campus front, it would be a mistake to read too much into setbacks like Michigan State University's recent decision to close most of its Dubai programs. Even as some branch campuses fail, many new ones open. That is in keeping with the entrepreneurial nature of such efforts, which vary significantly and face very different financial expectations and regulatory constraints.
An even more significant movement to watch, however, will be the efforts under way in so many countries—including China, Singapore |
and tell the rest of the country that his crude character, horrible values and dumb Democrat ideas don’t represent Republicans.
If it can’t stop Trump, it may cost Republicans the Senate as well as the White House — which means forgetting any chance of a conservative filling Antonin Scalia’s spot on the Supreme Court.
If Trump represents where the GOP has gone to, or if party leaders are willing to accept a fraud like him, then the GOP is no longer the Party of Ronald Reagan.
To paraphrase what my father said once about why he left the Democratic Party, if Trump gets the nomination, we conservatives will be saying we didn’t leave the Republican Party, the party left us.
Send comments to Michael Reagan at Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.
Read or Share this story: http://leafne.ws/1XF1gFdTRENTON — Rosemary Marchetto said she took her shih tzu, Bijou, to PetSmart for a routine grooming.
“The pet groomer told me ‘I hope this dog doesn’t give me a hard time. I had a hard day,’” Marchetto, a Northvale resident, told the state Assembly Regulated Professions Committee today. “In 45 minutes they called me that 'the dog is dead.'”
The committee today debated a bill Marchetto has been lobbying for: “Bijou’s law,” which would require pet groomers in New Jersey to be licensed.
"I never thought in a million years that nobody had to be licensed," Marchetto said. #8220;I’m pleading with you to please make pet grooming a registered profession,”
Under the bill (A2264) — which the committee discussed but did not vote on — groomers would have to be at least 18, pass an exam approved by the State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, and “be of good moral character.”
Applicants would have to pay a fee that would be determined by the board.
“I did some of my own homework and investigation. There have been multiple injuries and deaths related to dog grooming,” said Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen), the bill’s sponsor. “And when you look at the rest of the professions, whether they are nail salons or any type of profession that serves the public, there needs to be oversight.”
Huttle said that pet groomers are currently unregulated, and that no state currently has such a law, though she said New York City and Miami-Dade County, Florida do regulate them.
Pet grooming businesses would also need to prove they have liability insurance and keep “incident files” and submit them annually to the veterinary board. Their workplaces would have to be sanitary and have water for the animals. And the groomers would be barred from using drying cages, which are kennels in which warm air is circulated.
Marchetto said that she settled out of court with PetSmart, and that while her lawyer knows exactly how BiJou died, she chose not to know.
The bill was opposed by several groomers who showed up to testify.
“Most of the groomers that I know that I deal with are very compassionate, caring people,” said Charles Simons, owner of The Pet Salon in Margate. “They would not be in this industry and be bitten every day and scratched every day unless they had a passion for the pet grooming and the pets. Of course, in any industry you’re going to find accidents.”
Joseph Villani, a groomer who goes by “The Dogfather” on an XM Radio show he hosts, said he agrees with the concept of licenses but not the specifics of the bill. He said costs associated with getting the licenses would ultimately be passed on to customers, and that giving the veterinary board oversight could pose a conflict because many veterinary offices offer grooming services.
“They’d be playing with house money,” he said.
Huttle said she was willing to work with supporters and opponents of the bill to amend it before it gets a vote.
Matt Friedman may be reached at mfriedman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattFriedmanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Dermatology A to Z
What causes tinea versicolor?
Tinea versicolor is a harmless skin disorder caused by a yeast living on normal skin. Usually this yeast, which is present on everyone’s skin, grows sparsely and is not visible. In some individuals, it grows more actively. This causes slightly scaling patches on the trunk, neck, or arms known as tinea versicolor. On untanned skin, tinea versicolor rash is a pink to coppery tan. On tanned skin, the tinea versicolor patches are lighter, since tanning doesn’t occur in the rash areas. The failure to tan is temporary; the skin tans normally after the rash has cleared up.
Tinea versicolor is not contagious. Tinea versicolor is more common in hot, humid climates and often comes back in the summertime. A person who has tinea versicolor will commonly get recurrent outbreaks each summer.
Treatment
Selsun Lotion: Treatment with one overnight application of selenium sulfide (Selsun) suspension is usually effective. Individuals with sensitive skin should only leave the medication on 15-20 minutes instead of overnight. At bedtime, massage the medicine thoroughly into the affected areas. Spread the medicine over large areas: if you have spots on your chest, apply medicine to your entire trunk. (chest, back and abdomen)from the knees to the neck. The next morning, wash off all the medicine in the shower. Usually a single treatment will make tinea versicolor gradually disappear over the next few weeks. I favor two treatments one week apart. If you still have the rash (new areas appearing) after one month, repeat the treatment once. If the rash hasn’t gone away one month after this second treatment, please come to the clinic for re-evaluation.
Selsun Blue Shampoo: Selenium sulfide is the active ingredient in this shampoo. Develop a good lather over the trunk and affected areas in the shower and leave on the skin for 5 minutes before washing off. Do this daily for one week if an active infection is evident. To prevent further outbreaks, use in the shower weekly during spring and summer and monthly in the fall and winter.
Nizoral Shampoo: The active ingredient is ketoconazole, which is used in pill form for extensive tinea versicolor. This shampoo is used in a similar manner as Selsun Blue.
Other Topical Agents: Other antifungal creams and ointments can be used but are difficult to apply over large areas and more expensive. Lamisil is available over-the-counter and is quite successful in treating tinea versicolor.
Oral Agents: For widespread or resistant cases, oral ketoconazole is given. One dose is taken on day one and the same dose is repeated seven days later. The pill is taken in the morning before activity. Activity which induces sweating (the drug is excreted in the sweat onto the skin) should then be performed. The sweat should remain on the skin throughout the day (do not shower, swim or bath until the evening).
Prophylactic Treatment: Individuals who have tinea versicolor are subject to recurrences. Some people find it simpler to use Selsun or Nizoral once or twice a month than to wait for the lesions to appear. If this is your first episode of tinea versicolor, you might just wait and see what happens after initial treatment. If you have already had several outbreaks, try using Selsun or Nizoral once or twice a month whether you notice lesions or not. Most physicians say it is not a matter of if tinea versicolor will recur, but when and how often.The Dog that travelled 70 miles through a warzone to be with his friend
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Their loyalty is one of the reasons we love our dogs so much. There are very few animals on this earth that devote themselves to us humans, quite they way that dogs do.
Thankfully, more often that not, we are pretty good at reciprocating that love. And this story is a fine example of the bond that occurs when we do.
Back in 2007, when Maj. Brian Dennis was on a tour of duty in Iraq he spotted a scruffy German Shepard-Border collie mix living in one of the Iraqi border forts the unit patrolled.
‘At first the dog wasn’t interested in making friends’, the marine explained to his mother in emails home.
The dog was suspicious of humans. He lived in the wild with a pack of desert canine companions, and it was evident in his condition that he had already been through a lifetime’s worth of pain and neglect.
His ears had been cut off as a puppy, and he had been trained as a fighting dog. Now free from his tormentors, he did not want to interact with people.
However, Dennis saw something special in the dog. Because of his missing ears, he gave him the nickname ‘Nubs’.
Dennis was patient with Nubs, taking small steps to earn his trust every time they visited the fort. Eventually, he was able to get the dog to eat out of his hands.
Their friendship slowly developed, until one day Nubs showed up with a deep wound in his side. Someone, somewhere had stabbed the dog in the stomach with a screwdriver.
Dennis immediately did all he could to fix up the dog, nursing him back to health over a number of weeks. From that point on, Dennis and Nubs were inseparable.
Sadly, the time came when Dennis’ unit was forced to relocate to a new base.
His superiors said that Nubs would not be allowed to join him.
In his emails, the contents of which were later reported by ABC News, Dennis described what it felt like to watch as Nubs raced alongside the convoy, even attempting to jump in the back of one of the utility trailers as his unit drove away from the fort for the last time. It was heart breaking, and he was positive he would never see the dog again.
However, just two days later, a familiar face turned up at Dennis’ new base.
Somehow, Nubs had managed to follow the trail of the Marine unit through the Iraqi desert. The base was 70 miles away and the dog had travelled through unimaginable conditions to get there.
“I won’t even address the gauntlet he had to run of dog packs, wolves, and God knows what else to get here,” Dennis wrote, “When he arrived he looked like he’d just been through a war zone.”
“Uh, wait a minute, he had.”
Although it was against military protocol, Dennis’ unit did make efforts to give the dog a home. A doghouse was built at the new camp, but they were quickly informed by the military police that Nubs would have to live elsewhere.
At this point, Dennis made the executive decision to do all that he could to take Nubs home to the United States with him.
“This dog who had been through a lifetime of fighting, war, abuse, and had tracked down our team over 70 miles of harsh desert was going to live the good life,” Dennis wrote.
In February 2008, the dog crossed the border out of Iraq and into Jordan, where friends of Dennis were waiting for them.
There, Nubs received the proper vaccinations so that he could be transported back to San Diego where Dennis was stationed when on home soil.
And there, the good life for Nubs truly began. Living with Dennis he has been able to play on Dog Beach, be fed gourmet dog food, and bask in the Californian sunlight, far, far away from the harsh brutality he had experienced in the war torn Iraqi desert.
[Source: ABC News, Image Credits: AnimalShakLaDarrius Jackson was arrested on charges of sexual battery and false imprisonment on Wednesday, the same charges he’s facing from a May 1 arrest in a separate incident.
The University of South Florida football player who was turned himself in to police following an alleged assault that occurred on March 27, when a woman said Jackson forced himself on her after refusing to allow her to leave the room. He was dismissed from the team after this arrest.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the woman told police that Jackson, a 6-foot-4, 248-pound defensive end, was pressuring her to shower with him while the two were at her Hillsborough County, Fla., home. She said she denied his requests, but Jackson blocked her from leaving the bathroom.
To pacify him, she said she washed her hair in the sink without removing her clothes before Jackson grabbed her, took off her clothes and committed sexual battery as she protested.
The report said Jackson allegedly drove the woman to a pharmacy to pick up an emergency contraceptive, then made her take it while he watched.
This is the second set of charges brought against the 22-year-old Jackson. Before he was kicked off the team, the junior had been removed from all team activities following his arrest last week, after another accuser said that on May 1 he allegedly “pushed her on the bed, straddled her, rocked himself back and forth until he ejaculated on her chest,” the police report read. In that account, too, he allegedly would not allow the woman, a female USF student who was in her on-campus residential hall, to leave the room before forcing himself on her.
Jackson is a friend of Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston, who has referred to the two as “family,” and who was accused of rape while at Florida State.
“We are aware of the charges filed against [Jackson],” new South Florida coach Charlie Strong said after the first set of charges. “While we find the allegations troubling, we will continue to gather information and support the judicial process before providing further comment.”John D. Halloran, a veteran high school soccer coach and a frequent ASN contributor, believes that the exclusionary policies of U.S. Soccer's new girls' development academy are destructive and unnecessary.
BY John D. Halloran Posted
March 01, 2016
5:30 PM SHARE THIS STORY
LAST TUESDAY the United States Soccer Federation announced the launch of a Girls' Development Academy, slated to begin play in 2017.
As expected, this new initiative included a ban on high school soccer for those girls participating in the academy, stating in a press release, “The players in the Girls' Development Academy clubs will play exclusively within the Academy program and will not play in any outside competition, such as ODP or high school.”
This latest move is only one of a number of foolhardy steps youth clubs have taken over the past decade to weaken the game at the high school level.
Fifteen years ago, the move toward full-year club soccer began in earnest as a number of self-designated “elite” clubs began to offer that option. Then, in 2007, U.S. Soccer launched the Boys’ Development Academy, which went to a year-round model in 2012.
Built on a series of misconceptions, these actions have put players in a difficult position, and at the same time ignore the many benefits that often accompany high school play. (Full disclosure: I have coached 19 seasons at the high school varsity level—my bona fides are listed here.)
MYTH OF THE “FAILED AMERICAN SYSTEM”
One myth popular with those who criticize high school play and the American youth system is that the U.S. cannot grow into a leading soccer nation without year-round club soccer. However, a quick look at the roster of the 2015 World Cup-winning United States women’s national team dispels that notion. Of the 23 players on that roster, 21 played high school soccer. And anyone who thinks that this stat only represents an older generation of players is ignoring the facts.
The U.S.’ current roster is full of young, technical players who played high school soccer—and other sports. The vast majority of those players did not play full-year club soccer and many even played multiple high school sports.
Morgan Brian, who won the Golden Ball at the 2016 CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament, played high school soccer. So did Christen Press, who over the past year has scored some of the most technically impressive goals in U.S. soccer history.
Tobin Heath and Lauren Holiday, widely regarded as the two most technical players in the last World Cup cycle, both played high school soccer. So did Becky Sauerbrunn, who many regard as the best defender in the world.
For good measure, add in American stars Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd (the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year), Ali Krieger, and Kelley O’Hara—all of whom played at the high school level. Mallory Pugh, the 17-year-old phenom who recently broke into the national team, plays high school soccer, as did Emily Sonnett, the No. 1 pick in this year’s NWSL draft.
To produce world-class players, the American system does not need to be a year-round club system. Nor does it need to be a soccer-only system.
What a first half from Mallory Pugh. #USWNT pic.twitter.com/Dw0IwP5t6Y — John D. Halloran (@JohnDHalloran) February 16, 2016
Abby Wambach, the world’s all-time international goal-scorer, built a career on her aerial prowess. However, she doesn’t credit that success to her youth soccer days—she says it came about from playing basketball. “Learning the timing of your jump, learning the trajectory of the ball coming off the rim, all those things play a massive role,” Wambach told USA Today during the 2015 World Cup.
Brian played four years of high school basketball and won All-State honors on the hardwood. Press lettered in track and tennis. Morgan ran varsity track and played volleyball.
Lauren Holiday also played varsity basketball. In the same USA Today article, Holiday added this: “Having that variety is an awesome thing and I would encourage any young athlete or parent not to restrict themselves. Doing different things develops different parts of your body. It can help prevent injuries and definitely help prevent burnout.”
THE LIE OF THE COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP
One benefit U.S. Soccer is touting with the new academy system is the “college track”—the same “advantage” elite clubs have pushed for years. However, that argument has many flaws.
First, anyone associated with the current process of college recruiting knows it is deeply flawed. The process starts entirely too early with players commonly being recruited—through surrogates to avoid NCAA restrictions—when they are 15 years old. Top players commonly make their verbal commitments as sophomores. In 2014, The New York Times published a terrifying piece detailing how the recruiting process is now beginning with eighth graders. In the article, even the coaches themselves conceded the process is broken.
This tendency presents a number of problems. Colleges have no idea how these players will develop—or worse, regress—during the next two years before they ever step onto a college soccer field.
Schools also completely miss out on any late bloomers, or players they missed who didn’t happen to have the right club pedigree. Top schools often completely ignore players who have breakout seasons as seniors because they are already finished recruiting that class. It’s impossible to imagine that scenario in a sport like football or basketball, but in girls’ soccer, it happens every year.
Worse yet are the players who skip high school completely only to find no offers coming their way via the club route. Many club players, who mistakenly believe they are Division I prospects, end up at DIII schools (which can’t offer athletic scholarships) they could have easily played at even if they had played at the high school level.
In recent years players have gotten around the high school ban—it already exists in the boy’s academy and many clubs either explicitly or implicitly prohibit it—by playing high school soccer during their senior year when the club no longer holds anything over their heads.
In some unfortunate cases, Division I-quality players go completely unnoticed, either because they didn’t start for their respective clubs, or play with the club’s “B” team. (Another dirty little secret of many clubs are their “C” and “D” teams, where they will gladly dump less talented players if their parents are willing to write a check).
Ironically, some of these same players would have had a better chance at a scholarship had they played high school ball, instead of exclusively focusing on the club game. Although rare, some players with nothing greater than recreational club experience end up securing Division I scholarships solely through their high school play.
Even scarier are the vast number of players who quit the game entirely by the time they graduate high school because they are burned out from a half decade of specialization. And many who do start their college careers don’t finish it (47 of my former players went on to play collegiately—18 finished a four-year career, 20 quit or transferred—nine are still active).
Often, it is parents pushing their children into the idea of playing in college. In almost every case, 13- or 14 year-old kids don’t realize what they are getting into. Interests change as children go through their formative teenage years, but the academy system still begins at the U-14 level. Most elite clubs start even earlier than that.
Additionally, most players have no idea what playing in college is really like, especially at the Division I level where it is basically a full-time job that must be done in addition to their studies.
When a 15- or 16-year-old does finally commit, they are essentially saying they already know what they want in college two years down the line. To expect any kid to make a well-informed decision at that age is just plain crazy.
Parents also don’t realize the enormous financial costs of the whole process. In their minds, they are thinking of full-ride scholarships like the ones they see in basketball or football. In reality, these are virtually non-existent in the college soccer world. Most players are getting a few thousand dollars a year to help with tuition. Stacked next to the thousands of dollars spent for six years on club fees; flights; hotels associated with “showcase” tournaments; gear; commutes to daily practices; and weekend ECNL or MRL games—the margins disappear completely.
In reality, parents would be much better off spending those six years putting that money into a mutual fund to pay college costs down the line.
Still, it’s not as if anyone should expect parents to know better. Most of them have no experience in the process and, like most parents, they fear inaction on their part will leave their child behind. This is a fear U.S. Soccer is counting on when U.S. women’s technical director April Heinrichs says things like this: “They’re still going to have that choice [to play high school] if they want to, but girls that want to play on a college track aren’t going to be able to do that.”
For whatever reason, the United States is in a massive rush to develop child soccer prodigies without thinking about the thousands of players they will sacrifice to the scrap heap in the process. Skip high school, forego all other sports, dedicate your life to this—maybe it will all work out.
Many HIGH SCHOOL COACHES are good
Closely tied in with the myth that playing high school stunts player development or will cost girls a scholarship is the idea that high school coaches—who are mostly teachers—are tactical Neanderthals, espousing a “boot it forward, athleticism above all else” mentality. That presumption ignores the vast majority of high school coaches who dedicate a significant amount of time to honing their craft, attending clinics, reading books, reviewing film, working on tactical evolutions, and becoming students of the game.
Many elite club coaches and college coaches are the ones embracing this direct and regressive style, basing their entire strategy on winning with athleticism and set pieces. Winning then gives them legitimacy in the eyes of parents and the uninformed. Top Drawer Soccer’s Will Parchman examined this phenomenon among Division I coaches in an excellent piece published just last week.
The coaching myth also ignores the many benefits of having teachers acting as coaches—the first being that they are professional educators. Their job, and life experience, is teaching concepts and skills to youngsters, and then getting those children to implement those concepts and demonstrate those skills.
Interestingly enough, The Atlantic recently shared a wonderful piece on U.S. Soccer’s effort to bring famed educator Doug Lemov into the fold. Why? Because U.S. Soccer realized its coaches needed to know how to be better teachers.
The article quotes Dave Chesler, U.S. Soccer’s director of coaching development, on the fundamental reason teachers make great coaches: “For 20 years, we had focused almost exclusively on closing our global gap in the technical and tactical components of the game. In doing this, perhaps we had lost perspective on the quality of our delivery—aka the essential mechanics of teaching. ”
It’s hard not to appreciate the irony.
In most cases, teachers functioning as coaches boast decades of experience working with kids—and are professionally trained to do so. Worrying to many teacher-coaches are the standards of respect often lacking in the club environment. Coaches throw temper tantrums on the sidelines, verbally abuse referees and belittle their own players. Sometimes the players mimic the behavior of their coaches and miss out on scholarship opportunities as a result, misbehaving in front of college scouts.
And that’s just what happens on the field. Over the years, stories have circulated about club coaches acting inappropriately with their players at out-of-state tournaments, and even having sexual affairs with the parents of their players. Some egomaniacal coaches destroy clubs and move on to form their own—leaving the children they coach, painfully, in the lurch.
Not surprisingly, the new academy specifically mentions coaching behavior in its new plan, saying the new program will have “zero tolerance for poor behavior from coaches.”
Finally, most teachers realize the long-term end goal of the process is developing world-class human beings, not soccer players. The lessons soccer should be teaching children have nothing to do with tactics, or techniques. Those lessons should be about perseverance, team work and sacrifice—lessons that will serve players the rest of their lives.
Anson Dorrance, the legendary coach at the University of North Carolina who also coached the U.S. women to a World Cup title in 1991, recently shared a story that epitomizes this view. Amos Alonzo Stagg coached football at the University of Chicago at the turn of the century. Upon winning the 1913 national championship, a reporter asked him, “Coach, what did you think of your team?”
Stagg replied, “I’ll tell you in 20 years.”
THE SCRAP HEAP OF BROKEN DREAMS
U.S. Soccer has stated that it is building its academy system “in an effort to accelerate the development of world-class female players.”
Besides the fact the United States are the reigning World Cup and Olympic champions and already producing world-class players, there seems to be little concern about the thousands of academy players each year who won't reach "world-class" status.
Sold a bill of goods, they forego the high school experience and dedicate years of their lives and thousands of dollars for a chance at a partial college scholarship. They do so at 15 years of age, having no idea what they will really want two or three years from now.
Some players skip all four years of high school to focus on preparing for collegiate play and the recruiting process. Too many quit the game completely before ever stepping onto a collegiate field.
For those who do make it through the system, playing professionally is only a reality for a select few. In the 2016 NWSL draft, teams drafted 40 players from the college ranks—even fewer will make their teams’ regular season roster. Achieving national team status is far more difficult than even those limited odds.
Everyone also seems to ignore the role of money in this system. Most club coaches are well paid, but their reliance on that income leads to many problems. Winning takes precedence over development because wins are required to sell the club to parents looking for the “best” clubs. This competitive environment also leads to unethical behavior like player poaching, prioritizing recruitment over developing the players already on the team (the ones who are already paying customers), and coaches exaggerating their ability to get players scholarships.
Meanwhile, parents are too willing to gobble up this narrative, fork over their hard-earned cash and walk down the primrose path—one that ends with a cliff for far too many families.
High school programs, on the other hand, are free or accessible with a small fee participation fee—most schools include uniforms, coaching, practice facilities, referee fees and transportation in the cost.
ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE
The club-only route also takes away one of the most formative experiences of high school, namely sports. Playing with one’s friends and for ones’ school is a missed experience that club soccer players will never get back. Most former athletes are still friends with their high school teammates and anyone who has experienced it will tell you there is something special about game day on a school team. Teachers throughout the day wish the athletes good luck. Friends and classmates come to the games. Rivalries and tradition abound. Most schools go out of their way to celebrate special victories and championships. Trophies and banners are displayed forever.
Eric Wynalda, certainly no friend of the “American system” of developing soccer players, shared this at the 2016 NSCAA Convention.
Eric Wynalda, one of biggest critics of the American system, said this in January. pic.twitter.com/tTCdFHkVdm — John D. Halloran (@JohnDHalloran) February 23, 2016
The club experience often feels like a sanitized version of high school sports. Friendships exist, but players tend to shift rapidly among clubs from year to year. Club athletes go about their school day without their classmates, teachers, or friends knowing about games occurring that afternoon or weekend. Parents are usually the only spectators at sparsely attended games. Rivalries and traditions are invariably short-lived. No one outside of the players and their parents know, or care, about successes or failures. Clubs are formed, switch locations, and are sometimes dissolved. Players are worried about exposure; coaches are worried about bottom lines.
WHERE THE ACADEMY GETS IT RIGHT
None of this is to say the academy system, or club soccer, are without benefits. Nor is it to say that America’s current system doesn’t have flaws. Nor is it to say high school soccer is perfect.
In addition to the positive coaching initiative, the academy has the potential to reduce prohibitive club costs through scholarships—a feature already in place among some academy teams on the boy’s side. How fast that happens and how broad that financial aid might be is anyone’s guess.
The academy system is also proposing a “no re-entry, limited substitutions” model that should force teams to rely less on their depth and more on possession. High schools allow free and unlimited substitutions—placing an emphasis on more participation—while current club models and the college game rely on no re-entry for first-half subs and one re-entry for second-half substitutes.
It’s also difficult to argue that the concentration of talent in a club model doesn’t force players to get better. It does. However, that doesn’t mean club soccer needs to be year-round, or that a soccer-only model is best.
The high school season represents a much-needed break for many players from the unrelenting pressure of the club environment. Many club players remark how much “fun” they have playing high school soccer—an idea of just how badly some clubs have missed the original purpose of youth sports.
Younger players also benefit from playing varsity soccer as a freshman or sophomore, essentially “playing up” against girls bigger, faster and stronger than they are. Heinrichs herself indicated the advantage of this when she recently said, “Playing up is a really important part of development.”
In some cases, the club environment does serve players better than their high school program will. As much as this piece details the bad behavior of club coaches, there are bad high school coaches. There are coaches who scream too much and teach too little. Not every girl who plays high school has a good experience.
There is also a greater disparity between teams in high school play, lowering the level of competition throughout a season. It’s understandable why a top player with an ultra-competitive mindset might not want to play for their high school club if their team is downright terrible.
There are also great club coaches, ones who place life lessons and development ahead of a “win-now” mentality. Many of them are good people who do things the right way and have the best interests of their players at heart.
The academy system, however, has taken away that choice and banned high school soccer. Many current clubs do the same, whether explicitly or implicitly. In both cases, they are forcing players into the “one system fits all” mindset.
Heinrichs—a two-time All-State selection at Heritage High School in Colorado—claims that players don’t really want to play high school soccer, but are being pressured to do so.
Heinrichs-"Girls play HS soccer out of a responsibility to their friends-more of the push back is coming from the coaches" @NSCAAhs @cboehm — Glenn Crooks (@GlennCrooks) February 23, 2016
She then seemingly ignores the fact that the academy system does the exact same thing when it takes the choice away from players.
Heinrichs also sees the academy program as the future of the national team program, stating, “The [academy] games will be scouted by U.S. Soccer and the program will serve as a pathway to U.S. Soccer's Youth National Teams.” She also indicated 80-90% of youth national team players will now come from U.S. Soccer’s internal system.
Two questions emerge from those statements:
1. How well has that system worked out on the boys’ side—which has had an academy system in place for nearly a decade and where U.S. youth teams continue to perform poorly in international competitions?
2. Why on earth would anyone want to limit their player pool in this manner?
Don’t take the decision away from the kids; don’t limit their freedom of choice. As they’ve done for years now, if given a choice, some players will go year-round club, some will play both club and high school.
The trick isn’t to create a single path to a college scholarship or the national team. The trick is to scout the various pathways that are in place and find the talent that already exists—as the U.S. has done in winning three World Cups and four Olympic gold medals.
The current system, and high school soccer, helped develop Morgan Brian, Tobin Heath, Mallory Pugh, Christen Press, Ali Krieger, Lauren Holiday, Becky Sauerbrunn, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Kelley O’Hara and Emily Sonnett.
It would be foolish to change it.
John D. Halloran is an American Soccer Now columnist. Follow him on Twitter.I've heard that Ghandi said that he couldn't become a Christian because of all of the Christians he saw who were nothing like Jesus in the Scriptures. Maybe he was a "good" man by this world's standards but with an attitude like that I wonder if this parable Jesus gave pertains to him.
Luke 18:9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.' 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Martin S · 1 decade ago 1 Thumbs up 0 Thumbs down Report AbuseArgentine-born and a banker by training, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands early on embraced economic empowerment as her cause.
In developing countries in particular, poorer families live uncertain lives and work in the informal economy—not by choice, but by necessity. They need access to financial services to lower their vulnerability and increase their opportunities. Yet when Queen Máxima started working on financial inclusion, more than half of working-age adults globally were excluded from the formal financial system.
To change that requires a massive effort—from smart policies to innovation on the ground. With her firm grasp of the technical issues, political savvy and boundless energy, Queen Máxima has masterfully used her role as the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Advocate, her empathy and her easy laughter to cajole, encourage and support decisionmakers—from the hallowed halls of the financial-standard-setting bodies in Basel, Switzerland, to the female leaders of savings groups in rural villages.
Ehrbeck is a partner at the Omidyar Network
Contact us at editors@time.com.The possibility of the age-related reemergence of foodborne Mycobacterium bovis (bovine tuberculosis) as a vector for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD or human Mad Cow Disease) and Mad Cow disease itself is real. The CDC reported last May of an outbreak of CJD linked to the consumption of meat contaminated "with the agent causing" bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a New Jersey racetrack between the time frame 1995-2004. In the opinion of experts, ample justification exists for considering a similar pathogenesis for Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and the other spongiform encephalopathies such as Mad Cow disease. In fact, Creutzfeldt-Jakob and Alzheimer's often coexist and at this point are thought to differ merely by time-dependent physical changes. A recent study links up to 13% of all "Alzheimer's" victims as really having Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Bovine tuberculosis, which includes Mycobacterium bovis and M. avium-intracellulare or paratuberculosis, is and has always been the most prevalent threat to the cattle industry, and the USDA reports that between 20% and 40% of US dairy herds are infected with paratuberculosis alone. The health risk for milk tainted with M. bovis has been known for decades and there was a time not so long ago when "tuberculin-tested" was printed on every milk container. Schliesser stated that meat from tuberculous animals may also constitute a significant risk of infection. At the turn of the 20 |
working with BBC teams in Birmingham and Bristol to forge even better relationships with our audiences and build new partnerships across the country to make sure our key bases keep making great content, develop great people and have a thriving future. As with our move to Salford an increase of jobs in Birmingham can help us with property savings in London so we can spend more on the services our audiences enjoy."
Notes to Editors
Departments moving to Birmingham announced today:
The BBC Academy (except a core of London-based training) plus the core of our HR and Internal Communications areas
Departments moving to Birmingham announced in November 2013:
The Space, the BBC’s pioneering digital arts partnership with Arts Council England, will be based at the Mailbox from 2015 after its re-launch in London later this year
A new Digital Innovation Unit will start in open in Digbeth in 2015 – working closely in partnership with the city's education sector
The BBC induction programme, Upfront, for new staff will be delivered from Birmingham
The BBC Academy’s entry-level talent including our apprenticeships and traineeships will be run from Birmingham
Local Live – a recommitment from the BBC that the Mailbox in Birmingham is the headquarters for all local news and digital innovation
BBC Outreach and Corporate Responsibility Team – to relocate from Salford and build important links with our hard-to-reach audiences from Birmingham across the UK.
BBC Press OfficeRattan Mall was a young student at Delhi University in 1973, when Indira Gandhi, the last Indian prime minister to visit Canada, conducted a dazzling tour that seemed to signal a new era of co-operation between the two countries.
Instead of a breakthrough, however, the bilateral relationship cooled dramatically in 1974, when India violated an accord by testing a nuclear bomb using plutonium produced by a CANDU reactor, and the connection was further strained in 1985, when Canadian-based extremists bombed Air India Flight 182.
Forty-two years after Ms. Gandhi's tour, Mr. Mall and many other Indo-Canadians are wondering if the promise offered then will be realized now by the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a controversial Hindu nationalist whose right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in India last year.
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His visit is stirring emotions within the Indian diaspora in Canada, raising hopes of increased trade and a blossoming strategic partnership, but also aggravating old political tensions within the Indo-Canadian population, which numbers more than one million.
Indian immigration to Canada began early in the 20th century, and expanded starting in the 1980s, with settlement mostly in Toronto and Metro Vancouver, although several other cities also attracted large South Asian communities.
Mr. Mall, a veteran journalist and editor of the Indo-Canadian Voice in Vancouver, said he was shocked when he first heard Mr. Modi was coming to Canada and would stop not just in Ontario but also in British Columbia, where there is a history of Sikh extremism.
"I couldn't believe it. This is such a hotbed of Khalistan stuff, although that has kind of died out now," he said, referring to the movement to create an independent Sikh state in Punjab.
Mr. Mall said there is a great deal of excitement, but also deep concerns surrounding the visit of Mr. Modi, who was the chief minister in the state of Gujarat when riots erupted in 2002, leaving some 2,000 Muslims dead. Since the election, his pro-business policies have won praise, but his failure to speak out against the persecution of minorities in India has brought criticism.
So what do Indo-Canadians think of him?
"The mistake mainstream media guys make is that they think the South Asian community is one whole. But it's badly splintered, every which way," Mr. Mall said of the feelings about Mr. Modi. "He received like a hero's welcome in the U.S., in New York and in Australia, and he'll be getting the same reception in Toronto [where there is a large Hindu population] … but in Vancouver it's more tightly scripted, for obvious reasons. They are not sure what the situation is here."
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Kasi Rao, a member of the National Alliance of Indo-Canadians committee organizing Mr. Modi's appearance at Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto, where attendance has been limited to 8,000, said there is tremendous excitement about what many see as an historic event.
"The significance of this visit is this is truly a transformative visit in the Canada-India relationship," he said, predicting it will lead to increased economic and cultural linkages.
Mr. Rao said Mr. Modi has met in India with Canadian federal, provincial and municipal politicians in recent years and has a familiarity with this country that no Indian prime minister has ever had before. He is also leading the first majority government in decades and has a reputation for getting things done.
"And therefore the optimism the international business community feels for the prospect for reform is grounded in political reality," Mr. Rao said. He said optimism "resonates at an emotional level with the diaspora as well," and that explains why Mr. Modi's visit is generating such a buzz.
Vinay Sharma, vice-president of the Vedic Hindu Cultural Society, which is hosting a speech by Mr. Modi at the Laxmi Narayan mandir, a Hindu temple in Surrey, B.C., said they were overwhelmed with the response when people were asked to preregister for the event. The 5,000 tickets were taken in three days.
"Especially for the people of Indian origin, this is very important," he said of Mr. Modi's visit. "It will better the relationship between Canada and India, for sure. I can see that this is going to be a huge, huge transformation whatever is being done between Canada and India."
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Gurpreet Singh, a popular broadcaster on Spice Radio, agrees Mr. Modi will draw big crowds – but says not everyone will be a fan.
"He comes with that political baggage and there's a lot of anxiety in our community, especially among minorities in India," he said. "Ever since his government has come to power, minorities feel intimidated, especially the Muslims and Christians. So he's coming here and obviously there will be some protests… There are a lot of people coming together to show their anger and their dissent … we'll be seeing a lot of fireworks."
Mr. Singh said Mr. Modi will be able to win over some critics if he reduces a so-called blacklist that restricts travel to India by anyone suspected of links to extremism, if he takes steps to protect the rights of minorities in India, and if he acknowledges past atrocities against Sikhs.
Palbinder Kaur Shergill, a B.C. lawyer and legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization, said she hopes the visit will open a dialogue about more than trade.
"There was a recent spate of attacks against churches in the New Delhi area, and one of the church priests said there was not even an acknowledgement by the government that the attacks had occurred. So there is certainly a belief amongst many people that [Mr. Modi's] silence can be interpreted as acquiescence," she said. "What I'd like to see and what many others would like to see is for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to actually raise these concerns."
Aditya Tawatia, B.C. president of the Overseas Friends of BJP, said he hopes Mr. Modi's critics will set aside their differences and celebrate the visit for the economic opportunities it presents. "This is a very important moment for both countries," he said. "This is a big milestone, a turning point, a titanic shift in the relationship of both countries."
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Mr. Tawatia, whose organization supported the BJP election campaign in India and worked for years promoting a visit, was asked if it marks a breakthrough in the often wary relationship between the two countries. "Definitely it is," he said. "This is the time we've been waiting for."
Dave Hayer, a former Liberal MLA, said it is "very significant" that an Indian prime minister is visiting after a 42-year absence. "It's been too long," he said. "I think with that long gap both countries are equally at fault. We should have done a better job of keeping our relationship close."
B.C. Finance Minister Michael de Jong, who has made nine trips to India, sees Mr. Modi's visit as a sign that the importance Canada attaches to the bilateral relationship "is now being reciprocated." He said the trade opportunities for Canada in the huge India market are obvious, but if a new, more open and prosperous partnership is to develop, leaders in both countries will have to continue working long after the speeches and state dinner are over.
"There undoubtedly is excitement," Mr. de Jong said of the visit, "but here's the challenge we have to overcome, and I'll speak rather bluntly. The cultural ties between the countries are very, very strong, have been, continue to be. The challenge we both face is to convert that incredibly strong cultural link into a more powerful economic link."“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.” — Anonymous
In 2010 the pro-corporate Roberts’ 5/4 Supreme Court decided, in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling that favored right-wing multimillionaire businessmen and amoral multinational corporations by making it easier for them to steal US elections by allowing unlimited, anonymous monetary contributions to political campaigns, political action groups and politicians.
This ruling, called by many fair-minded observers to be the worst Supreme Court decision of the past century, has emboldened the already powerful and corruptible corporations (that already have dominion over the economy) to now also be able to thoroughly bribe any number of favored pro-corporate politicians to do their will but also to more effectively brain-wash voters through multi-million dollar ad campaigns (that can’t be effectively countered by small contributions from average voters).
The US Supreme Court has thus made legal the absurd notion that inanimate paper corporations like PolyMet and Glencore should have the same privileges (but not the same responsibilities) as living humans. Both of those out-or-state companies are potential despoilers of northern Minnesota’s irreplaceable wetlands, rivers, aquifers and aboriginal land and water rights.
After the ruling came down, there was only a brief bit of outrage from the so-called national and state leadership of our essentially “one-party system” (one-party, that is, when it comes to the Republican and Democratic Party’s corporate and militarist agendas).
What Should be the Punishment for Corporate Entities That Plunder and Pillage?
But if corporate America has new privileges, shouldn’t it be honoring the responsibilities of personhood as well?
Any thinking person would agree that if any entity enjoys the privileges of a human, it should also bear the same responsibilities as humans. Thus it should incur the same punishments as individuals do when it hurts people, commit crimes, poisons the water, fouls the air or rapes the land?
One of the rare victories against corporate giants occurred at Shapleigh, Maine, when that town managed to protect their water rights from the insatiable water-extracting corporate giant Nestle. (See video and more information on this episode at:
(http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40335).
Nestle, one of many multinational corporate exploiters around the world, has no allegiance to any state or municipality or any location where it tries to extract water or minerals that never were theirs to begin with. But when the minerals are gone and the water has been used up or polluted, Nestle, PolyMet, Glencore, et al will be long gone, which has always been the case of giant resource-extractors and polluters like Exxon/Mobil, Shell, Chevron, British Petroleum, Halliburton, Deep Water Horizon, Coca-Cola, Perrier or whatever other corporate intruder that covets the people’s resources.
And who benefits? Why, of course, the major benefactors will be faceless, out-or-state investors, corporate shareholders and CEOs living and doing business at some luxurious corporate headquarters, none of whom will have to live with the poisoned environment that they will be leaving behind.
Move to Amend: Overturning Citizens United
Shapleigh, Maine’s small victory against injustice should inspire the rest of us to do what must be done if America’s fragile democracy is ever to thrive again. The outrageous Citizens United decision must be overturned with a constitutional amendment. (See www.movetoamend.org for more.) The future of the nation, our children, the planet, our drinking water, natural habitat and aboriginal rights are all at stake.
Exploitive corporations don’t really seem to care. They are mainly interested in next quarter’s profits, the outlook for future share prices and who or what might be their next victim They have lots of laws on their side and a surplus of legislators and corporate lawyers to defend their unethical activities.
It should be emphasized that the allegiance of big corporations is to its fellow co-investors, its private or mutual fund shareholders, and its executives and management teams. Their responsibilities are not to the people whose lives and health depend on the usability or sustainability of the land, water, air and food supplies that they will be inevitably depleting or poisoning.
Corporate shareholders and executives from the trans-national corporations that make up Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Agribusiness, Big Oil, Big Finance, etc are selfishly motivated by profits and not the common good, and therefore they are not really concerned about the struggling, degraded communities that are left behind to fend for themselves.
”Trust us, We’re the Experts”; “Toxic Sludge is Good for You”; “We’ll Clean up After Ourselves” — and Other Corporate Lies
Conscienceless mega-corporations that swoop down on naïve and unsuspecting people and local governmental bodies, usually ask them to “trust us, we’re the experts” and that — at some time in the uncertain future – they will un-poison the usually permanently-toxified environment that they secretly intend to leave behind. Under-employed or laid off workers, understandably desperate for jobs, jobs, jobs, are easily fooled into believing the well-crafted disinformation – until it is too late and the mess is no longer the corporation’s problem. It’s an old con.
Promises made during the courtship phase are likely to be broken with impunity when these foreign corporations pull out, merge with other entities or file for bankruptcy. Silver-tongued CEOs and their shyster lawyers are very good at getting us rubes up north all starry-eyed over a relatively small number of temporary jobs while (that will last until the inevitable bust) discounting the huge risks of permanent dead zones that will be created from the poisonous chemicals.
The Crimes of WalMart, Coca-Cola and Union Carbide/Dow Chemical and Henry Kissinger
A good example of the many tax-avoiding mega-corporations is WalMart. Most of its profits go to a handful of Walton family multi-billionaires in Arkansas. WalMart successfully – and legally – avoids paying for healthcare insurance and other benefits for most of their exploited, underpaid, part-time employees, who are also victims of the corporation’s notorious union-busting policies that conservative politicians are always pushing for (ask any Wisconsinite about the success that Scott Walker and his paymasters, the Koch Brothers have had in destroying Wisconsin’s unions)..
US taxpayers are left holding the bag while WalMart legally avoids what should be their corporate responsibility: to be fair to their employees and the region in which they are doing business. WalMart’s (and McDonald’s, and every other fast food chain) notorious below-subsistence level wages forces many of their workers to work a second or third job and also seek welfare benefits from the local government entity – a cunning cost-shifting tactic that places unfair economic burdens on tax-payers.
Another example is Coca-Cola. Coke depends on water that it extracts from any and every publically-owned water source from which the corporation can extract it, including, as a particularly egregious example, the aquifers that are situated beneath thirsty, struggling, impoverished, starving (and then suicidal) Indian farmers who are losing their farms in newly drought-stricken India.
Millions of gallons of water from aquifers that have traditionally been used for farmland irrigation are being depleted by Coca-Cola in order to meet the artificial demand that has been created for the sweet, sugary (or chemically sweetened), caffeinated (and therefore addictive), nutritionally useless, obesity-inducing and diabetes-producing soft drink that contains a few pennies worth of ingredients and then is sold to poor people everywhere for as much as the market will bear.
Coke’s predation of poor people in India and elsewhere brings to mind another bunch of corporate criminals who have never been brought to justice. The infamous 1984 Union Carbide cyanide catastrophe in Bhopal, India that killed 25,000 slum-dwellers left 100,000 permanently poisoned – and often blinded – impoverished, sometimes homeless victims whose lives were ruined, with uncounted thousands of others living on poisoned soil, drinking poisoned water and breathing poisoned air.
Every Bhopal victim that was exposed to the Union Carbide cyanide plant environs is chronically ill, with women – 30 years later – still delivering malformed babies and dead fetuses because of the pesticide residues that cannot be detoxified. Union Carbide, the American corporation responsible for the disaster, has consistently shirked, as criminal entities typically do, its moral responsibilities to their suffering victims. Carbide eventually sold itself to the equally infamous Dow Chemical, the company that brought us Agent Orange, napalm, immune-destroying silicone breast implants, polyvinyl chloride, and plutonium contamination from the Rocky Flats, Colorado plant that manufactured the plutonium triggers for hydrogen bombs.
Carbide’s corporate executives have been indicted for their crimes and have been repeatedly subpoenaed to appear in Indian courts. But the US has not honored the extradition treaties it has with India. These amoral executives have refused to appear and are therefore in contempt of court. There are warrants out for their arrests in India, just as there are warrants out for the arrest of Citizen Henry Kissinger for his part in the international war crimes and crimes against humanity that he was a part of in Chile, East Timor, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. All of these accused criminals remain at large, and America’s Big Business-friendly, corporate-controlled nation has been proudly harboring them.
The Common Denominator Linking Human and Corporate Criminals
There are a number of common denominators that link human criminals and the multinational corporations that populate the Fortune 500 and the Dow-Jones 30 Industrial Average lists (like WalMart, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Exxon/Mobil, du Pont, British Petroleum, Halliburton Monsanto, Merck, Pfizer, Proctor and Gamble, Nestle, Perrier, Nike, Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan Chase, etc, etc). For one, the corporations, are just as afraid of facing the music as were Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay, Kissinger, Mr Ponzi, and the other multibillionaires of their ilk (that are rich enough to employ rafts of cunning defense lawyers). Be certain that they will use any means necessary to evade or delay justice. Similarly, none of them can be expected to show any genuine remorse for the human suffering that their actions have caused.
There are checklist diagnoses for various supposed personality disorders in the billing bible and diagnostic manual for psychiatrists (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel [DSM] which, by the way, contains no statistics). One of the 374 disorders that are listed in the 4th edition of the DSM is antisocial personality disorder (code number 301.7), which identifies pathological liars, chronic cheaters, abusers, thieves and killers whose cunning and lack of morals, ethics or consciences commonly enable them to avoid being caught or punished for their crimes and misdeeds.
These “sociopaths” (aka psychopaths) typically refuse to accept blame or responsibility for their actions and typically run away to avoid prosecution (as per the recent Whitey Bolger case). In the case of sociopathic mega-corporations that are occasionally successfully sued in court, business-friendly judges will often impose a “gag rule” for the successful human plaintiff and a slap on the wrist and a plea bargain for the guilty “non-human” corporation. On top of that, corporate-friendly judges often allow the corporation to officially deny any wrong-doing as it accepts the penalty!
Those corporate entities have always met the definition of antisocial personality disorder. They are famously incapable of showing genuine remorse if or when they are caught and/or convicted for their crimes. (Learn more about corporate sociopathy at http://www.thecorporation.com/, especially by watching the 2003 Canadian documentary titled The Corporation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHrhqtY2khc.)
Below are seven diagnostic criteria that are used to diagnose antisocial (aka, sociopathic or psychopathic) personality disorder in humans (in the DSM, it only takes three of the seven to make the diagnosis):
1) callous disregard for the feelings of other people
2) incapacity to maintain human relationships
3) reckless disregard for the safety of others
4) aggressiveness
5) deceitfulness (repeated lying and conning others for profit)
6) incapacity to experience guilt and
7) failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law.
Other common traits manifested by sociopaths include:
Lack of conscience
Lack of remorse for evils done to others
Indifference to the suffering of its victims
Rationalizes (makes excuses for) having hurt, mistreated or stolen from others
Willingness to exploit, seduce or manipulate others
No sign of delusional or irrational thinking
Cunning, clever
Usually above average intelligence
Always looking for ways to make money or achieve fame or notoriety
Willing to cause or contribute to the financial ruin of others
Untrustworthy
Cannot be trusted to adhere to conventional standards of morality.
Sociopaths do not have delusional thinking and are not considered mentally ill. Sociopaths are, for all intents and purposes, totally sane but are also incurable of their personality disorder. These individuals make up at least 4% of the US population, although certain professions tend to attract larger percentages of them (read The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us, by Martha Stout, PhD – buy it at: https://www.google.com/#q=The+Sociopath+next+door).
Actually the exact number of sociopaths – humans or their corporate counterparts – is not precisely known, but, lacking empathy or a conscience, neither truly feels guilty about their frequent misdeeds. Believing that there is nothing wrong with them, human sociopaths rarely ask for help (and corporations are no different) especially when the law (and the markets, in the case of corporate sociopaths) is on their side. And therefore they never truly try to change.
If and when human sociopaths are court-ordered to submit to evaluation and “treatment”, they may acquiesce but only pretend to change until the pressure is off and their unethical or criminal activities look doable again. Academic psychologists tell us that attempts to rehabilitate full-fledged sociopaths are useless, but nonetheless, the often charming, charismatic, silver-tongued sociopath is often able to fool the treatment team into thinking progress is being made.
Likewise, sociopathic corporations don’t have much trouble seducing regulatory agencies, local governmental entities, the public and desperate underemployed workers by promising jobs and a secret un-tested plan to prevent environmental catastrophes. Only when it’s too late and the corporation has skipped the country with the loot will all the painful realities be revealed.
What Should be the Punishment for Sociopathic Corporations Who Poison the Environment?
Experienced psychologists tell us that sociopathic individuals that have committed crimes have to be locked away to protect society from them.
So a number of questions need to be asked. Given the fact that human sociopaths need to be avoided, marginalized or locked up, we need to ask what needs to be done with the corporate entities that meet the criteria above. What needs to be done with corporations that have a history of false advertising, deceiving the public, lying, cheating, poisoning the water, fouling the air, raping the land or otherwise acting unethically?
Given the anti-constitutional 2010 Citizen’s United ruling granting personhood to corporations for political bribery purposes, shouldn’t sociopathic corporations be dealt with just like their human counterparts when they act criminally? Shouldn’t long prison sentences be given to the CEOs, Boards of Directors and management teams? Shouldn’t there be confiscation of property or even capital punishment in the case of egregious cases involving mass deaths as in the cases of Union Carbide, Coca-Cola and Merck (over the Vioxx and Gardisil deaths and disabilities)?
I hasten to add that I am against capital punishment for humans, but any person with a conscience and more than a double digit IQ knows that corporations are not really human. Corporations don’t bleed and don’t cry out in pain during the execution process, although their executives may plead for mercy while shedding insincere crocodile tears. Capital punishment for corporations, contrary to the data on capital punishment for humans, would prevent a lot of future sociopathic behaviors.
What Should be Done
Corporations that plunder, pollute or poison Mother Earth or ruthlessly execute hostile mergers and acquisitions of weaker companies meet some of the above definitions for rape. Most of us would agree that our society should punish corporate rapists as severely as it punishes the human kind.
What about the known lethal poisons that thousands of unregulated chemical corporations knowingly discharge into the water, air, soil of Mother Earth? Shouldn’t their acts of desecration be regarded as rape, assault and battery, reckless endangerment or premeditated ecocide?
Their poisonous actions that threaten the survival of portions of the planet have already caused a multitude of die-offs of thousands of species of animals in the increasing numbers of dead and dying zones in aquifers, wetlands, rivers, lakes, rivers and oceans all around the planet. What about the dead zones in human brains from neurotoxic pharmaceuticals (like the mercury and aluminum in childhood vaccines), drugs that were allowed on the market before being tested for either short- or long-term safety?
What about the extractive mining companies that, with their poisonous explosives, blow the tops off mountains in Appalachia or the Philippines (and were planned by GTac for the Penokee Mountain range of northern Wisconsin) in order to extract and export the non-renewable mineral resources beneath? Does it make any sense to believe the foreign mining officials and their cunning lobbyists who claim innocence when living things downwind and downstream are sickened or die off? Who should be responsible for the toxins that contaminate the previously pristine streams and aquifers that once provided safe drinking water and a healthy natural environment for fish, wildlife, wild rice and humans (especially the aboriginal First Nation brothers and sisters that had their lands and livelihoods stolen from them a century or more ago)?
Zero Tolerance for Corporate Predators; Stop Them Before They do it Again!
How many strikes should any out-of-state extractive industries be allowed before they are called out for the predators that they are and thrown out? Shouldn’t corporate intruders be stopped before they despoil even one more aquifer, one more stream, one more lake, one more mountain or our only planet? Shouldn’t politically-connected corporate exploiters be banned, arrested, tried and punished just like human predators that relentlessly stalk their sexual prey? And shouldn’t there be generous monetary restitution to the victims of past corporate criminality?
Shouldn’t industrial thieves, liars, rapists and killers be treated the same as human thieves, liars, rapists and killers, especially since they received the privileges of personhood in 2010? Shouldn’t we be suspicious of untrustworthy corporations that have lied to us – even once – even after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on multicolored Power Point presentations, feel-good commercials, “green-washed” billboards or highly-paid lobbyists that are on the make bribing politicians and paying off the media so they will not oppose or expose their agendas?
What about those despised sociopathic executives that are addicted to their wealth, profits, prestige, corporate jets, vacation homes and quarterly bonuses?
We regularly intervene for society’s human addicts who need help overcoming their gambling or drug addictions and are thus a danger to themselves or others. Shouldn’t there be interventions planned for these power addicts before they do any more damage to us, the planet or our (or their) progeny?
The answer, in a fair society, should be yes to all these questions, no matter how often the smiley-faced, well-dressed corporate spokespersons – in their most cunning damage-control mode – try to convince us that their companies are “responsible citizens”. We star-struck celebrity-worshippers of high profile corporations and well-coiffed CEOs seem to sucker for that line again and again. But the stakes are higher this time. The survival of the planet and its creatures is at stake.
Should Multinational Corporations be Judged Guilty Until Proven Innocent?
One wonders what should be the best approach for dealing with cold-blooded, non-human corporate entities. Rather than applying the standard American constitutional guarantee for human citizens (to be judged innocent until proven guilty), shouldn’t we be judging dangerous non-human entities as guilty until proven innocent?
I like that notion. I have often advised my psychologically traumatized patients (falsely diagnosed, by the way, of having mental illnesses of unknown etiology) who were victims of physical, sexual, emotional or spiritual abuse in childhood to not give respect and forgiveness to their abusers unless they have truly earned it, have sincerely and contritely asked to be forgiven and therefore deserve to be respected, forgiven or obeyed.
Psychologically speaking, not obeying – and also not respecting – one’s victimizers (even if they were parent-figures) should be the norm in interpersonal relationships. Psychologically speaking, the existence of significant parental neglect or abuse in a family should be one of the exceptions to the 4th commandment rule (that commands children to honor their father and their mother). Likewise, we should only do business with companies that have earned and truly deserve our trust and respect.
Being suspicious of sociopathic entities is an important strategy to follow if one is to protect oneself from being cheated, used or abused. Staying out of a sociopath’s grasp is the proper thing to do, even if the person or corporation appears on the surface to be charming or honorable, for both traits can be easily faked. Staying clear of vipers, hungry alligators, hungry grizzly bears or anybody or anything that one suspects has no conscience makes good sense, since conscienceless entities are also likely to be liars and thieves and are thus fully capable of rape, pillage and even murder if they can get away with it.
Staying away from (including advocating the boycotting of) corporations that have behaved unethically in the past is a simple thing that a person can do to combat corporate criminals, but in our largely brainwashed, advertised-into-submission culture, only small minorities of people recognize – until it is too late – that they are being chumped.
Has the Corporate Coup d’etat Been Completed?
The concept of corporate power and privilege has massively benefited Big Businesses at the expense of the “consuming” public, but the reality is that it has been going on for generations. Multinational corporations and multibillionaires are increasingly in control of the White House, the US Congress and the court system, especially since Citizens United. Both political parties have been seduced by corporate campaign “contributions”/bribes.
And now, sadly, it appears that the judicial branch of the federal government is being bought off – and it appears that they are staying bought. It is not just the politicians that are controlled by corporate money anymore.
Actually, the mythical “unbiased”, “non-politicized” US Supreme Court has always been heavily influenced by corporate power and money. Throughout US history, it has always been wealthy corporations, wealthy businessmen, wealthy politicians, wealthy judges and wealthy attorneys that have been installed in federal judgeships by equally wealthy presidents – many of whom have been members of the same bipartisan “old boy’s clubs” such as Yale University’s elite, secretive Skull and Bones. America’s courts have always had judges that were in bed with capitalist, racist and union-busting elites that have never held the common good as a priority.
Say Hello to Friendly American Fascism
The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is said to have proclaimed that “fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power:” He should know, he invented the term and the concept. Italy’s right-wing, anti-worker, union-busting corporations loved and supported him as much as most 1930s German corporations loved and supported Hitler and that fascist dictator’s anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-union agendas.
Fascism is a right-wing, nationalistic, authoritarian political ideology that rules with military discipline and police state power, backed up by a secretive national security apparatus, aggressive propaganda, control of the media and suppression of trade unions. Therefore Big Businesses, notably the weapons industries and other war-related or police state industries thrive in fascist nations that suppress workers and keeps workers’ wages low.
Fascist nations commonly violate the human rights of their own citizens as well as the rights of the nations that they invade and occupy). Fascist leaders try to unify the people by creating enemies, scapegoating them and then, usually via false flag operations, going to war against them. Dissent is not tolerated in fascist nations and often elections are fraudulent. Oftentimes there is some sort of a merger of church and state and the fostering of anti-intellectual/anti-scientific attitudes, thus appealing to the ignorant or uneducated. And there is always an obsession with law and order.
Who can deny that there has been a slow, rolling corporate, quasi-fascist coup d’etat that has gradually been overturning America’s one person/one vote democracy? America has all the marks of a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy privileged class) that prefers fascist rule and favors corporatism.
Who can deny that wealthy corporations and their plutocratic billionaires have inordinate control over the economy, foreign and domestic policy and both major political parties? And now these inhuman entities have their privatizing eyes on our water, our land, our breathable air, our Social Security, our Medicare and even our food (as Bob Dylan sang in Union Sundown, “I can see the day comin’ when even your home garden is gonna be against the law”.).
Elections will continue, although the choice of candidates, the so-called “debates” (that exclude minor party candidates) and the value of small monetary donations will be increasingly meaningless. There will be fewer viable anti-establishment candidates like Paul Wellstone (or a Green Party candidate like Jill Stein or a Democratic Socialist Party candidate like Bernie Sanders) for whom to cast votes. The American dream (that “you have to be asleep to believe in”, as George Carlin put it) appears to have vanished. And we sheep were asleep at the wheel when it disappeared and became a nightmare for the under-privileged.
Corporate Rights vs. Corporate Responsibilities
It is the greedy, conscienceless, under-regulated multinationals (and NOT “man”) that are poisoning the planet’s ecosystems. It has been nonhuman corporations that have been causing the economic and environmental crises – including global climate changes and wars. And, because they rarely get indicted, much less punished, for their crimes corporations are continuing to get away with planetary rape, pillage and murder – and they don’t seem to care. Their motto seems to be: “grab everything you can steal by any means necessary; enrich and privilege your CEOs, your boards of directors, your shareholders, spokespersons, lawyers, lobbyists, legislators, judges, and military and law enforcement officials so they are on your side; don’t get caught; hunker down in your gated communities with your chauffeurs and your bodyguards while the revolutionary riots are raging outside; and let the devil take the hindmost.”
Wrist slaps seem to be the norm for corporate sociopaths and the superrich if and when they are “brought to justice” for their crimes. If there are any consequences for reckless or destructive business practices at all, the corporation usually gets assessed a relatively small and very affordable fine. For large corporations, punitive fines for criminality are just a part of doing business. (The $2.2 billion fine against Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals for illegally marketing the antipsychotic drug Risperdal didn’t much affect its share price nor did it seem to stir up its shareholders.)
Sometimes though, a corporation about to be brought to justice will threaten to move its headquarters or its operations to another state or nation, leaving their smelly and toxic messes to be cleaned up by somebody else, just as one would expect of a conscienceless sociopath.
The brazen action of the Roberts’ court in Citizens United might be one of the final nails in the coffin of America’s mortally wounded democracy. Given the fact that the myth of corporate personhood is now the law, it is past time that the 99% and its representatives in Congress insist that the 1% be punished at least as severely as are human criminals. The 99% needs to exercise its duty to preserve and defend the constitution (and the planet) from all enemies, foreign or domestic, human or corporate, even if the corporate criminals are hiding behind boardroom walls during the day or living the celebrity high life at night.
We must identify and courageously name America’s domestic enemies even if they are corporations or members of the executive, legislative or judicial branches of our federal and state governments. Naming the evil-doers (and naming the evil that they do) must be done in order to effectively confront them.
Simultaneously, we need to demand that our basic human right to have access to healthy, uncontaminated water, food, soil and air (and access to affordable education, health care and dental care as well), be safe-guarded from the greedy exploiters and predators in the plutocratic classes who extract the wealth and resources wherever and from whomever they can. The fate of our children, grandchildren and planet Earth depends on those safe-guards.
Among the first of the many steps that must be taken if we are to reverse the multinational corporate takeover/privatization of the planet is to demand that our local, state and federal legislators reverse the Citizens United ruling and correct the damage done. (See www.movetoamend.org and http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed for more information.)
Dr. Kohls is involved in peace, nonviolence and justice issues and therefore writes about fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, imperialism, totalitarianism, economic oppression, anti-environmentalism and other violent, unsustainable, anti-democratic movements. Most of his Duty to Warn columns have been archived at http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/ |
easy outrage that proposes as a solution replicating yesterday’s recipes and spending money we don’t have”.
The young centrist this week also put Mélenchon in the same basket as Le Pen and Fillon, accusing all three of his closest election rivals of harbouring a fascination for Putin. “If the peace that Jean-Luc Mélenchon is defending is Putin’s peace, that’s not for me,” Macron said, caricaturing Mélenchon’s pacifist foreign policy. “If the peace that Mélenchon is proposing is to unilaterally disarm France before those who attack us and terrorist groups, that’s not for me.”
Mélenchon, meanwhile, seems unbowed. The left-wing iconoclast is focused on wrapping up his race in style. After an experiment with the gimmick in February, holograms are back. Mélenchon plans to hold a rally next Tuesday in Dijon that will see him beamed with a snap of his fingers to six satellite rallies in Nantes, Clermont-Ferrand, Montpellier, Grenoble, Nancy, and Le Port, on the French Indian Ocean island of La Réunion.
Five days later, he will be hoping, fingers crossed, that his newfound supporters won’t disappear into the ether the way they did in 2012.The Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets met on Saturday. Normally this wouldn’t be a cause for writing an article, but it was quite historic!
Minnesota had won 12 straight games. Columbus had won 14 straight games. It was the first time in professional sports history (MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL) that two teams with such long streaks had met in the same season while streaking at the same time.
And the Blue Jackets, like they did all season long, survived the encounter. With a 4-2 win on New Year’s Eve, Columbus rides into the first week of 2017 with a real chance at breaking the NHL record (17 straight wins) set by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1993.
“If you flip a coin 100 times in a row, you're going to get maybe six heads in a row or seven tails in a row,” Texas Tech University professor Alan Reifman said when I spoke to him on Friday. “And it has nothing to do with the coin being confident or well-rested.”
Reifman, who teaches statistics at Texas Tech, has maintained a blog dedicated to sports streakiness called The Hot Hand since 2002. His book, also called The Hot Hand, examines the statistical and psychological aspects behind some of the most famous streaks in sports history. The book tries to “bridge the gap,” in his words, between the idea that streaks are based purely on ability and the idea that streaks are purely based on chance.
And as far as chance is concerned, the Blue Jackets’ streak seems pretty chancy.
“I think if you can rank the sports in terms of the amount of chance, hockey's high up there,” Reifman said. “The record is 17 straight. Basketball is 33 (straight wins). So it suggests that it's much harder to maintain a streak (in hockey). And of course until a few years ago, games could end in a tie. The Blue Jackets had three of their 15 (straight wins) end either in shootouts or overtime. There's certainly a certain amount of luck in that.”
Which makes sense. Both the Wild and the Blue Jackets had things go their way at the right times. Minnesota’s offense surged at the right time. Goalie Devan Dubnyk is having a sensational year, but his lowest monthly save percentage (.942 in November and.952, with three shutouts, in October) came in December during the Wild’s streak. Columbus has outshot its opponents in the third period by an average margin of +4.71.
If some chance led the Wild and Blue Jackets to their historic meeting on Saturday, emotion helped separate them.
There’s a key moment in the game on Saturday that marked the point where the two streaking teams diverged into their current fates. In a highly charged atmosphere, one team couldn’t control itself, and the other channeled its emotions into a win.
It all happened in the second period. The Blue Jackets held a flimsy one-goal lead, but the game was definitely up for grabs. Jackets winger Josh Anderson and Wild winger Chris Stewart got tangled up in a faceoff skirmish, which led to a fight and the turning point of the game.
More background before we get to the relevant video: Jackets forward Matt Calvert had previously gotten tangled up with Wild defenseman Mathew Dumba in a post-play scrum in the first period.
All right, back to the second period Turning Point™.
Stewart runs Seth Jones. Anderson finally decides to drop the gloves. Meanwhile, away from the play, Dumba gives into his anger (much to his Jedi master’s chagrin) and drops the gloves with Calvert to settle their score.
That was not a good idea.
Two factors came into play here.
The first, and most important: Mathew Dumba got ejected. You can’t start a fight after someone else already is fighting. Look, it’s in the rulebook:
Columbus could afford to lose Calvert, a talented and useful player but ultimately a smallish cog in its machine. Losing Dumba changed the game. Not only was the Wild without one of their best defensemen, they were down to playing five defensemen against one of the best offensive teams in the league. Not to mention the league’s best penalty kill.
And Columbus knew it:
Hartnell & Tortorella stressed importance of Matt Dumba getting game misconduct for second altercation. Wild lost one of their best players. — Tom Reed (@treed1919) January 1, 2017
The other factor is one that we don’t like talking about these days because of heightened awareness about concussions and their role in fighting: A good, well-timed fight in a big game can fire a team up. I admit it’s impossible to exactly quantify with stats whether a fight truly affects momentum, or whether momentum even exists. But I can point to two things:
Columbus scored twice in 15 seconds almost immediately after the fights.
And then possession stats for the two teams went from being intertwined to spiraling apart the rest of the game:
Oh, and a third thing. The players and coaches felt the change:
Tortorella said the bench was "10-feet tall" after the twin altercations. Jackets scored twice in 15 seconds after fights. — Tom Reed (@treed1919) January 1, 2017
From Reed’s article in the Columbus Dispatch (emphasis mine):
Stewart was hoping to spark his team and the crowd in a tense, highly-charged atmosphere. Instead, it was the Jackets who surged. Johnson, who had an outstanding all-around game, and Atkinson scored 15 seconds apart to build the lead to 3-0. “I’ve seen Stewart fight a bunch and he’s put some guys down,” Jackets winger Scott Hartnell said. “A lot of credit to Andy for stepping up there. It really got the bench going.” The intensity and effort both teams put into trying to preserve their streaks was evident to everyone in the building. The Wild kept pushing to get back into the game, but Bobrovsky made a handful of huge stops, including a pair on Zach Parise, to stifle any thoughts of a rally.
In his book, Reifman writes about the presentism theory from psychologist Daniel Gilbert. Presentism is the state of expecting present conditions to last indefinitely. The idea is that if a player in basketball makes many shots in a row, the team around him would keep feeding him the ball expecting his “hot hand” to continue. Seems like a common thing across sports, right?
“However something is now, you think it’s going to continue,” Reifman said. “So if the Columbus players have this belief that ‘we own the third period’ because they’ve been owning the third period, that could continue on.”
And you could extrapolate that to Columbus playing with a lead. They got the first goal against Minnesota on Saturday; during this 15-game win streak they’ve scored first 10 times. Repetition feeds into that presentism: the belief that wins follow from those certain events. And streaks are born.
So toss that energy from those two fights onto that built-in confidence, and is it any wonder that the Blue Jackets emerged from the #UnsustainaBowl victorious?
As Reifman indicated, belief is a powerful thing. Just as powerful as the combinations of skill and luck that create the kind of run the Blue Jackets are on right now.
Both can coexist and feed into each other.
Everything can fall in place at the same time, as it did for Columbus and the Wild to close out 2016. But when those forces of statistical marvel collided on Saturday, the deciding factor was two minutes of raw emotion and confidence.Transit advocates sought to revive interest in the Baltimore Red Line light-rail project on Tuesday by recasting it as one link in a statewide rail network that would run from Delaware to Southern Maryland to West Virginia while connecting the Baltimore and Washington Metro systems.
The newly formed Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition called on Gov. Larry Hogan to redirect $8 billion proposed for a highway widening project on I-270 and the Washington Beltway to construct the Red and Purple lines, fund the planning and development of a $25 million Southern Maryland Light Rail line and increase the frequency of the MARC commuter trains.
Hogan has supported the Purple Line for the Washington Metro, but withdrew state funding for the Red Line to connect East and West Baltimore last year.
Ben Ross, who's chairing the new coalition, said its members had been working separately to promote local transit projects for years — but now want to work together on a statewide approach.
"We developed a plan," said Ross, the former president of the Action Committee for Transit in Montgomery County. For the same cost as a single highway project that's been proposed on I-270 and the D.C. Beltway, we could build a transit network all across Maryland from Elkton to Frederick, from Waldorf all the way to Towson."
Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer said the governor "was elected to bring a balanced approach to transportation, which includes building roads, bridges, and mass transit. That is why the administration invested $2 billion in transportation projects across the state, while moving forward with a more affordable Purple Line, and supporting innovative public transit initiatives like the new BaltimoreLink bus system. As with any taxpayer-funded project, we must be sure that Marylander's hard-earned tax dollars are being spent in the most cost-effective and efficient ways possible."
The coalition is made up of the Action Committee for Transit, the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition, the Prince George's Advocates for Community-based Transit and the Southern Maryland Alliance for Rapid Transit. Local politicians and a representative from Sen. Ben Cardin's office attended the group's news conference Tuesday morning outside Baltimore's Penn Station.
CAPTION Councilman Leon F. Pinkett speaks at a stop along the prayer walk Tuesday night in West Baltimore. (Jessica Anderson, Baltimore Sun video) Councilman Leon F. Pinkett speaks at a stop along the prayer walk Tuesday night in West Baltimore. (Jessica Anderson, Baltimore Sun video) CAPTION The Stronach Group has spent almost 90 percent of its state renovation subsidies to pay for improvements at Laurel Park rather than at Pimlico Race Course, state records show. (Kevin Richardson, Baltimore Sun video) The Stronach Group has spent almost 90 percent of its state renovation subsidies to pay for improvements at Laurel Park rather than at Pimlico Race Course, state records show. (Kevin Richardson, Baltimore Sun video)
Ross said coalition members will attend Department of Transportation road shows to make their case directly to the public.
"Our basic strategy is to make the public understand what the possibilities are here," he said. "Over the next 10 to 20 years there will be several governors. I think it's more a matter of what the public wants than who is in office. Elected officials respond to the public."
Hogan, a Republican, pulled state funding for the $2.9 billion Red Line, the long-anticipated east-west rail line that was planned to run across Baltimore from Woodlawn to Bayview. He called it a "wasteful boondoggle."
At the same time, the governor gave conditional approval to a slimmed-down Purple Line project in the Washington suburbs that reduced much of the state's contribution, leaving Prince George's and Montgomery counties to pay more of the cost. The line would run from Bethesda through Silver Spring and College Park to New Carrollton.
The coalition asked the governor to resume work on the Red Line and reintroduce a decade-old MARC plan that would provide all-day, two-way service between Washington and Frederick and Camden Yards, and between Baltimore and points north such as Aberdeen, Elkton and Delaware.
Del. Brooke Lierman said better public transit has far-reaching effects, such as increasing employment opportunities that benefit the overall economy and removing congestion caused by single-occupant, commuter vehicles from Maryland's roads.
"Our state has very far to go in addressing the dire need for public transit options — light rail, bus, heavy rail, rapid but transit, bikes, water transit — and we must do so now," the Baltimore Democrat said.
Southern Prince George's County is "a traffic nightmare," county Councilman Mel Franklin said.
"We're not going to be able to build enough highways to keep up with the growing population," said Franklin, a Democrat. "We need transit in Southern Maryland. We need to connect Southern Maryland to our Baltimore region, and we need to connect all of our regional partners so we're thriving in terms of economic development."
State Sen. Jim Rosapepe, who represents parts of Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties, blamed traffic on I-95 for making him late to the news conference.
"If this program had been in effect, I wouldn't've been late," the Democrat said. "I would've been here. I could've walked from my house to the Purple Line station in College Park, taken the Purple Line to New Carrollton, gotten the MARC train and gotten off right here at Penn Station."
Rosapepe said his suburban constituents' biggest complaint is that they can't get to jobs.
"Sometimes, transit is postured as an urban-versus-suburban issue. Not true," he said. "The major beneficiaries of getting a 21st-century transit system in this state are going to be suburban working families."
An earlier version of this story misstated the status of an $8 billion proposal to widen Interstate 270 and the Washington Beltway.Media Matters conducted an analysis of education coverage on weeknight cable news programs so far in 2014 to determine how many of the shows' guests who discussed the topic were educators. The analysis found that across MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN, educators made up only 9 percent of guests during education segments.
Only 9 Percent Of Guests In Education Segments Were Educators
Across MSNBC, CNN, And Fox, Only 9 Percent Of Guests In Education Segments Were Educators. On segments in which there was a substantial discussion of domestic education policy between January 1, 2014, and October 31, 2014, there were 185 guests total on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, only 16 of whom were educators, or 9 percent:
On CNN, Educators Made Up 4 Percent Of Guests In Education Segments. CNN hosted 27 total guests in education segments. Twenty-six were non-educators, and only one was an educator, or 4 percent.
On Fox News, Educators Made Up 5 Percent Of Guests In Education Segments. Fox News hosted 81 total guests in education segments. Seventy-seven were non-educators, and only four were educators, or 5 percent.
On MSNBC, Educators Made Up 14 Percent Of Guests In Education Segments. MSNBC hosted 77 total guests in education segments. Sixty-six were non-educators, and only 11 were educators, or 14 percent.
MSNBC Was The Only Network Above The Average. MSNBC, at 14 percent, was the only network above the average of 9 percent, while CNN and Fox were behind at 4 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
Methodology
Media Matters conducted a Nexis search of transcripts for programs that aired from 5 p.m. through 11 p.m. on weeknights on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News from January 1, 2014, through October 31, 2014. We identified and reviewed all segments that included at least five mentions of any of the following keywords: school!, teach!, educat!, and Common Core.
The following programs were included in the data: The Situation Room, Erin Burnett OutFront, Crossfire, Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Tonight, The Ed Show, PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, Hardball with Chris Matthews, All In with Chris Hayes, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, The Five, Special Report with Bret Baier, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, The O'Reilly Factor, The Kelly File, and Hannity. For shows that air reruns, only the first airing was included in data retrieval.
Media Matters only included segments that had substantial discussion of domestic education policy issues, including but not limited to: education reform, teacher tenure, early education, guns in schools, the Common Core educational standards, religion in schools, and school choice. We included each segment where education policy was the stated topic of discussion. We also included segments that were not limited solely to education but that featured significant discussion of the topic. We defined significant discussion as at least two speakers in the segment talking about education to one another (e.g. the host asking a guest a question about education during a multi-topic interview).
We defined an "educator" as someone who either is or has been employed as a K-12 teacher, a school administrator such as a principal, a professor of education at the college or university level, or someone with an advanced degree (master's or Ph.D.) in education.
We counted all guests who appeared in relevant segments, using bios, profiles, resumes, and news stories available online to determine as best we could each guest's educational background and professional experience.Law enforcement are conducting an aerial search of the C&D Canal and surrounding areas after a missing Dover Air Force airman's truck was found on the shoulder of the Del. 1 bridge Sunday. (Photo: COURTESY OF FAMILY)
Law enforcement on Friday resumed its search for a missing Dover Air Force airman whose pickup truck was found on the shoulder of the Del. 1 bridge, police said.
Delaware state police and the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control are conducting aerial and maritime searches of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal and surrounding areas, said Master Cpl. Mark Hoffman, a spokesman for Dover police, which is leading the missing person investigation of Senior Airman Keifer Huhman.
Huhman, 21, was last seen between 6 p.m and 6:30 p.m. Sunday leaving his home in the Blue Hen Apartments in Dover. He was operating a blue 1997 Ford Ranger with Florida tags, according to Dover police. State police found the truck and towed from the Del. 1 bridge over the C&D Canal about 10 p.m. Sunday.
Buy Photo Law enforcement on Friday resumed its search of a missing Dover Air Force airman whose pickup truck was found on the shoulder of the Del. 1 bridge (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
The first sign that Huhman, a member of the 436th Communications Squadron, was missing came the following morning when he failed to report to duty at Dover Air Force Base. His family then filed a missing person's report with Dover police on Wednesday.
As Dover police, assisted by the state police's aviation unit, started conducting an aerial search throughout Kent County for Huhman's truck, detectives learned the truck had been towed from the bridge.
While the bridge has cameras, Hoffman said they do not record video.
Dover police are processing the truck for evidence.
Huhman's disappearance has been getting a lot of attention on social media, where people have set up the hashtag #BringKeiferHome.
Huhman's disappearance has been getting a lot of attention on social media where people have set up the hashtag #BringKeiferHome. (Photo: COURTESY OF FAMILY)
Family and friends have been thankful for the efforts by police and the public, said Kerry Patton, a friend of Huhman's father, who is speaking for the family.
Patton told The News Journal on Friday that the family will be gathering this weekend to evaluate what their next step will be.
Huhman's father had flown in from Okinawa, where he is stationed. Other family were also traveling to Delaware.
"Honestly, right now we are at a loss," he previously said. "We're trying to stay focused and still hope for the best because right now it's just not good."
Patton said neither he nor Huhman's family was aware of any ongoing problems with the airman. He did say, however, that family learned a couch at Huhman's apartment had been flipped over but Patton said they are not sure why that was.
"No one knows if it's foul play or he voluntarily went missing," he said. "Nobody really knows right now."
Despite the discovery of the truck and its location, Hoffman said they continue their investigation as a missing person’s case.
Anyone with information on this case should call Dover police at (302) 736-7130 or a local law enforcement agency.
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1TffopwRichard Nixon, hero of the American Left He's justifiably reviled by historians, but Nixon's politics were far more progressive than we give him credit
Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly." — Richard Nixon, August 8, 1974
¤
ON APRIL 27, 1994, outside a small home in Yorba Linda, California, President William Jefferson Clinton delivered the final eulogy at the funeral of Richard Milhous Nixon. At first, the speech seemed to abide by the unspoken rules of decorum that had informed every eulogy before it: praise the former president in broad terms; highlight his triumphs in foreign policy. Pay homage to his enviable family life. Do not, under any circumstances, say “Watergate.”
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Do not talk politics. Do not talk resignation. China? Sure. Alger Hiss? Why not? A joke about Dick Nixon’s late-in-life affinity for rap music? That’d be okay. Any mention of the downfall that made the 37th president a synonym for corruption and a pariah even within his own party for the last 20 years of his life? Might dampen the mood — best to avoid it.
For almost 10 minutes, Clinton did just that. He praised Nixon’s love for his wife Pat, for his valuable counsel to every subsequent administration — including Clinton’s own — in matters of national security, for his many goodwill trips overseas. By all accounts, it looked like he was just trying to get through this thing with as little pain as possible and get back to DC. Then something happened: Clinton broke the rules. Halfway through a paragraph that began like yet another iteration of the deceased’s remarkable family life, the president paused. With a tilt in his voice that almost betrayed what he knew he was about to say, he continued:
“Today is a day for his family, his friends, and his nation,” Clinton intoned, “to remember Nixon’s life in totality. To them let us say: may the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.”
No, he didn’t use the word “Watergate.” But in a way that every member of the audience, both in Yorba Linda and on national television, understood, he said it.
¤
I knew Nixon the Idea long before I knew anything about Nixon the Man. As the child of baby boomers who had come of age cheering his downfall, some of my earliest lessons in American history had centered on Tricky Dick’s irredeemable fuckery. It wasn’t just me: by the time we millennials came to civic self-awareness, Richard Milhous Nixon had long been solidified as the archetypal villain of American political mythology, a consensus Bad Guy we inherited from our parents.
Surveying my friends and peers confirmed it. Whether they had grown up in liberal or conservative families, my fellow millenials' earliest memories of Nixon were largely the same — the guy was a criminal, a crook, a paranoid madman; hell, most of them reported knowing the epithet “Tricky Dick” before they were even aware that it referred to a former president of the United States. One friend, a native of deeply conservative Alabama, summed it up by recounting his parents watching Nixon’s funeral on television:
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There was no, “now this guy was the President, but he made some mistakes,” or even that he’d been good in some ways but bad in many more. No. What I’d been told, as early as when I was a five-year-old, was that the guy they were burying on TV was a traitor to the office of the presidency, whose election was a national disgrace. And my parents are die-hard Republicans. I guess by the early 90s, Nixon-bashing was as important to child-rearing as weaning your kid off the bottle.
There were, of course, other figures we were taught to hate — Reagan if your parents were Democrats, Carter if they were Republicans — but Nixon was different, and not just because the loathing was universal. Carter and Reagan were meant to be tried in the court of one’s political persuasion and found guilty of embodying its opposite. But with Tricky Dick, the cart came before the horse: we knew he was bad before we knew politics at all; indeed, in the realm of public life, millennials grew up with Richard Nixon not as an example of badness, but as its definition. Nixon was bad the same way that God is good, or that Trix are for kids. Sure, your parents might teach you to despise Hillary Clinton or the dreaded Speaker Newt, but they were just examples of malice, and what’s that compared to being malice itself?
The archetype was useful. In my early life, the consensus around Richard Nixon frequently served as a much-needed salve when my peers and I began to develop our dueling political identities — no matter what, Nixon was still common ground. Take, for example, the Monica Lewinsky scandal. By the fall of 1998, the House had impeached Bill Clinton. He was facing trial in the Senate. The whole country was debating his worthiness to hold high office, from the talking heads on CNN down to me and the other students in my somewhat tony Los Angeles elementary school. It wasn’t exactly a fair fight. Out of 20-odd kids in our third-grade class, there was exactly one Republican: a prematurely grey-haired kid named Gavin who, by virtue of his minority politics, had faced more than his fair share of bullying and consequently knew his shit pretty well for an eight-year-old. He had been dispatching Clinton defenders left and right, and one day in the lunch line, he decided it was my turn. Standing behind me, he started in on the failings and corruption of President Clinton, telling me how in his (or at least his father’s) opinion, the president was a crook, a liar, and had done something bad with a lady who wasn’t his wife, even if he didn’t exactly know what that something was. Slick Willy, he said, should be thrown out of office, and we should all take this as a lesson in how untrustworthy the Democrats were in general.
I still had some of my baby teeth; I wasn’t looking for a fight. Trying to find a way to diffuse the situation, I affected my best reasonable-grown-up voice (the one my parents used when they wanted to politely complain at a restaurant), and said, “Well, sure. But both sides have bad guys, don’t they? We’ve got Clinton, but what about you guys? The Republicans have Nixon.”
“Fair enough,” Gavin said, and that was that. We ate lunch in peace, neither of us really having the slightest clue why that argument made sense, neither of us — I’m fairly certain — knowing any more about Watergate than we did about whatever President Clinton had or hadn’t done with that woman. It didn’t matter: we knew Nixon was a bad guy, and in this case, it balanced the scales.
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¤
Our parents saw Nixon fall in real time. They saw him go from another Republican politician to a new American pariah. They watched as he fulfilled every suspicion they had entertained since his sweat-stained five o’clock shadow sold Checkers like a used car. They wrote the history of his condemnation, and made it so universal that I have never met a boomer who doesn’t swear they voted for McGovern in ’72 — an impossibility when you consider that Tricky Dick took over half the 18–25 vote that year. For them, the decision to despise Nixon was conscious, a result of seeing the man through the lens of not just their politics, but also their sense of decency. We didn’t get to do any of that. We didn’t get to see history; we just received it in the same way we received George Washington’s honesty. Unlike boomers, millennials know Nixon’s evil not as a conclusion but as an axiom of our political calculus, as a fundamental tenet of our civil religion. Why would our parents bother with the details? As Hunter S. Thompson said, “This is not a generational thing. You don’t have to know who Richard Nixon was to be a victim of his ugly, Nazi spirit.” So it was simple: Nixon was a crook, despite his renowned protestation to the contrary. That was how it was. It was how we’d always known it to be. For the first half of my life, I never doubted the conclusion; doubt didn’t even occur to me as an option. Until it did.
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My teenage descent into Nixonalia started the same way my Boomer parents got into drugs: with the toke that didn’t kill. Back in the 1950s and 1960s — before the golden days of comprehensive education, before D.A.R.E., before even Nancy Reagan had the gall to suggest that the nation’s drug problem was a matter of pure personal perseverance, willed behind thee as easily as Satan — America’s drug education was the stuff of "Reefer Madness." The children of the Eisenhower era were told that marijuana led, at best, to heroin addiction and madness; at worst, it meant instant death. In the short term, the strategy worked: a generation of schoolchildren was successfully scared shitless. In the long term, as we all remember, it all backfired.
When a young person finds out that taking a toke doesn’t unleash an unimaginable horror into their lives, it does violence to their faith in received wisdom. Boomers decided that everything they had been told about drugs was a lie. For me, it meant that, for about five years of my life, I absolutely loved Richard Nixon. It just took one toke.
That toke was Nixonland. The second in a trilogy about contemporary movement conservatism by liberal Chicago historian Rick Perlstein, Nixonland presented itself not as a biography of the disgraced former President, but as the history of the American voting public between 1964 and 1972. As Perlstein puts it in his introduction:
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The main character in Nixonland is not Richard Nixon. Its protagonist, in fact, has no name — but lives on every page. It is the voter who, in 1964, pulled the lever for the Democrat for President because to do anything else, at least that particular Tuesday in November, seemed to court civilizational chaos, and who, eight years later, pulled the lever for the Republican for exactly the same reason.
I was 18-years-old and a budding American history buff. Newly high on a misguided enthusiasm for Howard Zinn’s genius, Nixonland seemed right up my alley — the “invisible protagonist” of the American voter tickled my sense of populism, if nothing else. The time was ripe. I was taking AP U.S. Government and, when I wasn’t taking non-lethal tokes, spent my free time reading my way through our nation’s history, maintaining and updating my personal “Top Five” lists (of presidents, battles, Supreme Court configurations, et al. I was like an overeducated, grossly uncool Rob Gordon). I’d just finished "A Conspiracy So Immense" on Joe McCarthy. The 1960s were next, and a people’s history of the Nixon years made perfect sense. Plus, I figured, I’d finally get the full story behind the man I’d hated all my life. It would be simple, it would be clear, and I’d finally have those long-absent facts on my side.
Then something strange happened. In an early chapter of the book, Perlstein takes us through the buildup and fallout of Nixon’s infamous 1952 Checkers speech. In retrospect, it hardly feels like fact at all: Perlstein’s account reads less like an actual history of an actual man named Nixon giving a speech, and more like a critical analysis of a George Saunders story about a fictional candidate giving a fictional speech who just happened to be named Richard Nixon. All the tropes are there: a down-on-his-luck, ambitious, morally flexible sad sack is facing a potentially humiliating crisis. It is an irrevocable moment of decision, born of his own flaws, although he insists — and, one gets the sense, is not entirely wrong in insisting — that this moment came from an unfair world that wants to kick the Loser while he’s down. He’s scheming, sure, but he’s also being sincere. He doesn’t understand, but he’s fighting for his integrity and his life. Like in a Saunders parable, you want to hate the antihero for his corruption, you want to cast him out for his weakness, and sigh a little bit for the failings of the American Dream. But you can’t. You can’t, because in a way you feel for the embattled Loser; you identify, just a little more than you’d like to, with the old sad sack. You feel ambivalent. As Perlstein points out, the story does not lend itself to easy conclusions, because “this wasn’t just an act. And it wasn’t just sincere. It was a hustle; and it was from the heart. It was all of those things, all at the same time.”
So maybe Thompson was right to eulogize Tricky Dick as a man with “the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds,” who “would kill you as a lesson to the others” because “badgers don’t fight fair.” But who doesn’t root for the badger in a dogfight, even if he is a duplicitous bastard?
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Of course, none of this proved that Nixon was a good guy or a great president — all it did was show that Nixon was complex. For me, that was all it took. By feeling the slightest identification with a man for whom I’d been taught reflexive disgust my entire life, the world changed. There was nothing to fall back on, no way to drown this tiny stirring in a sea of contrary evidence, precisely because I’d never received contrary evidence: Nixon-hating was a given. Suddenly, deprived of certainty, I had nothing left. My faith was shattered. My teachers had lied to me.
From there, things went pretty quickly. With the reverse intensity of a convert, I began to see everything in Nixon’s favor. The press, the Democrats, the Ervin Committee, Woodward and Bernstein — they were all out to get my guy, my Nixon, the man who represented everyone who had ever been shit on by the establishment. He could do no wrong, and even when he did, it was fair play considering the treatment he was getting. My parents just didn’t get it. Nixon had become — for me — the misunderstood, tortured icon that every teenager must have been. Of course, in retrospect, I suppose I could have gone for Dylan, but it was 2008 and I wanted to be a rebel.
What worried me most was what this would mean for my politics. Was my sudden adoration for Nixon the inciting incident that would lead me over to the right side of politics? That’s when I discovered the second, and ultimately more substantial, truth about Tricky Dick.
As I kept reading, I rapidly concluded that the least interesting things about Richard Nixon are the very faults that inform his caricature. His anger, his resentment, his corruption and paranoia — they were the stuff of freshman psych, easily diagnosed by anybody who could even spell “Freud.” In fact, we can clear the whole thing up right here: why was Richard Nixon so defensive, bitter, and paranoid? He grew up so poor that, despite receiving a full scholarship to Harvard, he was forced to attend Whittier College because his family couldn’t afford books or transportation. Two of his brothers died in childhood. His mother was an unironic user of the plain speech. His father beat him regularly, and on at least one occasion came very close to drowning a prepubescent Richard in a ditch.
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Done.
Far more interesting was just how progressive Nixon seemed to be. No less a liberal luminary than Gore Vidal endorsed in "Not The Best Man’s Best Man" as:
The first President who acted on the not-exactly-arcane notion that the United States is just one country among many countries […] [Nixon] went to Peking and Moscow in order to demonstrate to all the world the absolute necessity of coexistence.
The foreign policy accomplishments are well documented and, however begrudgingly, praised in left-wing circles. It was these very accomplishments that were seen as safe subject matter for the funeral. They are remarkable not just for their success, but for the fundamentally progressive content of their character: disarmament in the form of the SALT treaties, restraint in support of Israel, choosing trade with China over the |
with obstacles like groupthink that discourage players from trying new ideas.
“That’s one reason why we have to sometimes print the ‘silver bullet’ cards that we do. I don’t really like to use that word because, you know, it has a negative connotation with card game players. Like, ‘Oh, a silver bullet. I just use it to beat your card, and then I win the game.’ And I don’t think they’re at that level with Netrunner. We’re talking about very specific answers to cards that aren’t actually going to straight up win you the game if your opponent is playing it. It doesn’t end the game with a headshot. You’re still going to be able to play the game and compete in the game. But we do have to make sure that as the card pool grows and we want to push it in a new direction and create new deck archetypes, it’s going to take a lot of time for people to find the most efficient, consistent builds out of those archetypes. When it comes down to a tournament, a lot of players would rather just go with something they’re more comfortable with. And so you have to print some cards sometimes that are perceived as silver bullets just to force the meta to be shook up and to make tournament players think, ‘Well, if I do play this deck, which is very consistent and strong and has been winning for a long time, I might run into X, Y, or Z.’ And so you want to make the equation just a little bit more complicated, and you don’t want any strategy to be just so consistent that you don’t even have to think about it. Because then the game will just stagnate.”
I mentioned that many of those perceived silver bullet cards, such as Cyberdex Virus Trial, rarely see play in most competitive games. Lukas countered:
“You don’t really see them played, but part of the reason you don’t see them played is you are sacrificing the consistency of your deck, and therefore you won’t put it in unless you think the meta is going to be dominated by the type of deck that it’s there to counter. In a way, just having those cards exist is enough because they serve as a check. If viruses did get really big all of the time, you might actually see Cyberdex Virus Trial being played. Perhaps it will with Order and Chaos coming out. There are a couple strong virus cards in there. It’s nice to have those safety valves in the meta just to keep things in check if they get out of hand. You know, Plascrete, for example, is a card that you always have to take into consideration if you’re trying to do a scorched tag’n bag sort of strategy. And even if your opponent isn’t playing it, it’s still going to affect you when you’re building your deck. You have to think, ‘How can I deal with Plascrete. I have to play Posted Bounty perhaps and maybe use Reclamation Order to get my scorches back to do it twice.’ Just having those [cards] in the game creates meta choices that payers can make. There’s one area of skill, which is building your deck. There’s another area of skill, which is playing the game. And then there’s a third area of skill, and that’s predicting what your opponents are going to play. That’s what those cards are there for, so that if you see something, a weakness, you think, in the current meta, then you’re able to potentially use those to your advantage.”
Online Card Games
While Lukas obviously wasn’t able to talk about any plans Fantasy Flight has to make a digital version of Netrunner (OCTGN plug-in notwithstanding), I did get his thoughts on porting a tabletop game to PCs.
“I think card games can work very well in an online space. Obviously there are a lot of challenges with porting a card game over to a digital space. One thing you lose is the tactile nature of being able to shuffle your cards and mess around with your decks and lay out your whole cards. And [there’s] the social play of Netrunner; there are bluffing elements. You look at poker, online poker is very different from playing poker around the table because you can’t read your opponents in the same way, so you have to rely more on the straight-up math and statistical probabilities that you’re looking at in the game. Whenever you move a game into the digital realm, you’re going to a lose some of that interpersonal interaction that makes the game really fun and memorable. On the other hand, you can very easily find opponents to play with because they’re a click of the mouse away. That can be a great boon for the game because sometimes it’s hard to build player-bases in your area. Or it’s 11 o’clock at night, and you’re not going to go to a game store to get into a game, but you can just log on, start something up, and enjoy the game. I think digital implementations can really reinforce a game by allowing people to enjoy it any time of the day and let you find somebody who enjoys it as much as them, and throw down.”
He’s made sure to check out a few online card games, too:
“I played [Wulven Studios’s Shadow Era] for a while. That’s a good game. Hearthstone has incredible polish. Blizzard puts a lot of detail into everything they do. Hearthstone is very impressive on a technical level. I enjoy playing it; it’s a fun game. It’s definitely a different space when you have like a card game created digitally from the very beginning. You can do different things with it. And Blizzard has experimented with that a little bit. But when it comes down to it, it’s still a very traditional experience, I think, because people are familiar with the genre and they’re kind of looking for that outlet. It’s exciting to see the growth of digital games and digital card games in particular. I think that is definitely something you’ll see more of as time goes on.”
Dirty Hands and Lucky Find
I asked if the Netrunner community ever came up with surprising strategies or took the game in directions that were completely unexpected, but he struggled to pinpoint many examples of developments that weren’t anticipated.
“There’s always surprises, but sometimes it’s hard to remember what you expected when you first [designed something] because by the time the cards come out, you hear so many different opinions from everybody. ‘Did I anticipate that or am I just spitting back out what somebody has told me now?’ But whenever you finish a play-test set, you think you have a pretty good idea of where those cards are going to land and what are going to be the general deck archetypes, but you never know. The community is always really creative, and you’re never going to be able to predict everything that they come up with. For example, Travis Chance has a dirty hands Exile deck, where he just takes pawns and keeps double installing the pawns. His version of the [Dirty Hands/Street Chess] deck he played and tweaked over and over and over again. I never would have expected you could actually achieve success with something like that at the level he has. It’s fun to see players push decks in a certain direction and come up with unique builds using some cards that some people think are underutilized or weak or just like ‘Oh that would never actually be able to win anything.’ But a lot of times if you put in the work and the effort, and you play the deck over and over and over again and tweak every single card, if you’re comfortable with it, that’s the most important thing. You can netdeck all you want, but if you haven’t played with the deck before, you’re not going to win with it. You have to put in the time and the experience and the effort.”
As for Lucky Find, it was clear from the start that the card would have a huge impact for runners, especially in Prepaid VoicePAD economies:
“There’s a reason that card is two influence, and that’s because it’s one of the best economy cards in the game, hands down. The burst it gives you, the fact that it only has a threshold of three credits, that’s incredible value. And we talked for a long time in play-testing like, “Is this a one-influence card? Is this a two-influence card?” It was never actually going to be a faction card because that would be just too good for any one faction. But there were people arguing for one influence and people arguing for two influence. And at the end of the day, it came down to… I see the card at one influence going into every deck. I think it’s that good. There’s no reason you wouldn’t spend influence for it. It would almost be like a Jackson Howard for the runners., and that wasn’t really something that we wanted it to be. That just lowers the deck diversity on the runner’s side. So let’s put it at two influence and actually make it a hard choice because if you’re running three, that’s six influence, and that’s over a third of most runners’ influence, and you can’t run some other card that’s really helpful to shore up a weakness in that faction by going all-in on economy. You can do it, but you just have to give up something in the process, and giving up three influence didn’t feel like enough for running three of them.”
Netrunner Drafting and its Future
As fun as Netrunner drafting can be, the format hasn’t taken off like we’ve seen in Magic the Gathering and other card games. Why hasn’t drafting become more popular in the community?
“Draft is kind of a tough sell because people are used to Magic [the Gathering] draft. They’re like, “Oh, maybe I buy a couple packs. It’s $15 or something like that. At the end of the draft, I can sell off the cards or sell off the packs, and it’s not going to cost me that much to play.” With Netrunner, when you’re dealing with an asymmetric game, you’re going to have to draft twice in one go. That’s going to drive up the price. You could do a half draft, but most people want the full experience of drafting corp and drafting runner. And because of our LCG model, you don’t really have the same secondary market that you have for Magic. You kind of have to look at draft as an experience. This is another way to play the game. I’m going to get entertainment out of this. It’s not going to have quite the same value as a Magic draft if I’m looking at it as a semi-investment or something like that. But I think the draft experience is as close to the original Netrunner as you can come in Android Netrunner because we’ve basically removed faction limitations. … It’s an experience that for a long time we didn’t think we could offer in the LCG environment, but it was something our competitive players really wanted, so we wanted to find a way to get it to them. Doing print-on-demand cards was a way to do that, so it’s pretty awesome to see that, you know, maybe we’re not selling a bazillion of them, but the people who are playing it are really enjoying it. That’s kind of what it’s there for.”
I asked if Fantasy Flight has reached its goals with drafting format, and how the format could be further improved, beyond including cards/spoilers from unreleased data packs:
“I think in a way we reached our goal. One thing that we might want to do in the future is to put a more competitive focus on it because it is such a high-skill test. There is a high-skill cap to draft. We’re running kind of casual draft events [at Nationals and Worlds], but we could start running a little more competitive drafts or just actually kind of push that as a slightly more competitive format.”
Order and Chaos Expectations
What can we expect from the Order and Chaos deluxe expansion pack coming out this winter?:
“Anarchs and Weyland should get a boost. It’s interesting; when Creation and Control was first announced, people were like, ‘Oh no, Haas-Bioroid and Shaper? Haas-Bioroid, the best faction in the game right now? They’re getting a box? They’re going to dominate forever!’ And then the general feeling after the box came out was that ‘Oh, Haas Bioroid didn’t get much stronger. They got more diverse, but they didn’t really get stronger. There’s more deck types for them, but their core decks didn’t get that much better.” For a while, they actually got worse because people were trying out all these new cards, so obviously your deck isn’t quite as efficient as it was before you threw in all these new cards. And then the same kind of thing happened with Honor and Profit. “Jinteki? Awesome. Jinteki could use a little boost. But Criminal? Whoa, Criminal is so good. This is going to be crazy.” But the same thing kind of happened there. Order and Chaos on the other hand, it’s like, 'Anarch, Weyland, balls to the wall.’ They are just going to get awesome cards, both sides. And we’re going to also try to give them both the deck diversity and archetypes that the other ones have in the process. But even something like [Because We Built It], the Weyland identity that has the 1 recurring credit for ICE, that everyone’s like, “Oh, I would never play that. It’s so bad.” We want to bring that advanceable-ICE-style play back to Weyland. And Anarch, the crazy run destruction play that’s been pioneered with Imp and Whizzard and Scrubbers. We want to push those factions to be diverse in deck archetype but also reinforcing all their main themes with strong cards that are going to have an impact when they’re released. And so I think you will see those factions get a boost in popularity hopefully at the top-tier level when the box comes out.”
Valencia Estevez
One of the Anarch identities from Order and Chaos that’s seen a lot of buzz is Valencia Estevez, who forces corps to start the game with one Bad Publicity. Will she be a competitive identity, or will she be more jank like all the Blackmail combo decks I’ve built in the past?
“Honestly all three of the runners in the Anarch box, I think are competitive. They’re very strong. Even [Quetzal] is really fun. That’s actually probably my favorite Anarch identity to play. I think Bad Publicity Anarch is going to be a thing. I don’t like to predict.. You never quite know how things are going to shake out. I would be surprised if a Bad Publicity Anarch deck didn’t do incredibly well at next year’s GenCon. I think it will be a strong archetype that a corp will have to start playing around dealing with in the future.”
Future Netrunner Events
Since I didn’t start playing Netrunner until this March, I missed out on the Plugged-In Tour last year. I also missed out on the Chronos Protocol tour this year, being based in North America. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t sound like Fantasy Flight will keep holding events like these:
“So the Plugged-In Tour and Chronos Protocol Tour, those were awesome fun. Will we do something like that in the future? It’s possible. It was great to travel around and meet fans, but I wouldn’t expect something like that to happen every year. [The Plugged-In Tour was] kind of a one-time exclusive thing to promote the game and to meet fans. You know, the community wasn’t incredibly strong at that point in time. That just gives us developers and employees [a chance to] get a pulse of what’s going on with the game right now. Obviously having Worlds, having people come to Minnesota in the winter, I know it sounds crazy. It might be a little bit crazy, but it’s so much fun, having all of these gamers, LCG gamers and X-Wing gamers in the same place just playing all day, our various games. It’s going to be awesome. In Minnesota in the winter, you definitely need to warm up. There will be some after-hours partying and stuff. It will be a lot of fun. Worlds will be good. It will be interesting to see how the meta has shifted with the packs that have been released since GenCon and Worlds. We’ll get a couple more releases out.”
Breaking Gender and Racial Barriers in Netrunner
I talked quite a bit with Lukas about the game’s remarkable gender and minority representation amongst its runners, also going into why the actual community doesn’t reflect that diversity. If you want to read a couple more thousand words about that and Netrunner, check the piece out at Gamasutra.
Barrier of Entry
Lastly, I brought up an issue some are hoping Fantasy Flight addresses soon — the perceived rising barrier of entry, in terms of costs:
“The barrier of the entry remains at buy a core set of one of our products, open the box, try it out, see if you like it. That’s the entry point, and that’s always going to remain at about 39.95 [or $30 if you buy it at Amazon]. However, buying everything, which is what a competitive player is going to do, is definitely going to get more expensive over time. It’s still not the same as a collectible card game with blind buy boosters where nobody expects you to have everything. It’s just not kind of the business model. There are people who will do it, but for the vast majority of players, you are never going to get a complete set with all of the rares and everything else. Saying the barrier of entry is getting higher is true at a competitive level, but I don’t think it’s true at a casual level. The thing you have to be careful about is the casual player will just see all these packs. If you have a collectible card game, you say ‘Oh, booster packs. I just buy one of these. It’s all the same. They all look the same.’ You don’t see all the things you’re not actually buying. You get a couple cards in that pack. With an LCG, you see all these chapter packs or data packs lined up on a wall. “Whoa, there’s way too much stuff for this game.” That’s the part we have to be careful with and cognizant of. It just feels overwhelming to a new player if they expect to buy everything at once. So usually we suggest, you know, buy a core set. See if you like the game. Start looking up cards. We tell you what is in every pack. And so even our newer cards, they have QR codes in the back. If you’re at the store like, “I don’t remember what’s in this pack,” you can at least pull out your phone. We want players to know what cards are in a pack, and buy the packs that have the cards that you want. If you can buy everything, that’s awesome. You have a complete set. You can play everything you want in the game. But as the games go on, it is definitely something we want to address. So at Worlds this year, we’re going to announce some sort of policy and provide players with information about what the plan is for all of our LCGs moving into the future.”
Thanks for reading all of this!Update (11:55AM EST): After weeks of speculation, the #MeToo movement has just claimed its latest conquest with Senator Al Franken of Minnesota officially confirming his resignation on the Senate floor.
“Today I am announcing that in the coming weeks I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.”
Sen. Al Franken: “Today I am announcing that in the coming weeks I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.” https://t.co/VdXwEXAW0J pic.twitter.com/hDnUs8IuOB — CNN (@CNN) December 7, 2017
Of course, Franken's resignation came only after he once again denied the validity of the allegations against him saying "some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others I remember differently."
Sen. Al Franken: "Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others I remember differently." https://t.co/f7XdWdiEFY pic.twitter.com/AOuyW6Q7Jo — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 7, 2017
It's unclear if Franken recalls this picture "differently"...
* * *
Yesterday, following the "retirement" of John Conyers (D-MI), the chants for Senator Al Franken to follow suit reached a fevered pitch on the suggestion that anything less would simply be racist. The chaos gradually escalated throughout the day with Minnesota Public Radio eventually "confirming" that Franken would resign today...a confirmation that Franken subsequently denied (we covered the chaos here).
Now, The Hill is seemingly once again "confirming" an imminent resignation by reporting that Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton would likely tap Lt. Governor Tina Smith to replace Franken should he choose to resign in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations.
Alas, the back and forth suspense over Franken's future in the Senate has nearly come to an end as he is set to deliver a speech on the Senate floor at 11:45AM EST.
Senator Franken is scheduled to deliver a speech from the Senate floor at 11:45 AM ET. — Sen. Al Franken (@SenFranken) December 7, 2017
So what say you? Will Franken remain defiant amid growing calls for his resignation or step down in disgrace? Tune in below to find out...Thirty years ago, in the dead of night, a group of six Parisian teenagers pulled off what would prove to be a fateful theft. They met up at a small café near the Eiffel Tower to review their plans—again—before heading out into the dark. Lifting a grate from the street, they descended a ladder to a tunnel, an unlit concrete passageway carrying a cable off into the void. They followed the cable to its source: the basement of the ministry of telecommunications. Horizontal bars blocked their way, but the skinny teens all managed to wedge themselves through and ascend to the building’s ground floor. There they found three key rings in the security office and a logbook indicating that the guards were on their rounds.
But the guards were nowhere to be seen. The six interlopers combed the building for hours, encountering no one, until they found what they were looking for at the bottom of a desk drawer—maps of the ministry’s citywide network of tunnels. They took one copy of each map, then returned the keys to the security office. Heaving the ministry’s grand front door ajar, they peeked outside; no police, no passersby, no problem. They exited onto the empty Avenue de Ségur and walked home as the sun rose. The mission had been so easy that one of the youths, Natacha, seriously asked herself if she had dreamed it. No, she concluded: “In a dream, it would have been more complicated.”
This stealthy undertaking was not an act of robbery or espionage but rather a crucial operation in what would become an association called UX, for “Urban eXperiment.” UX is sort of like an artist’s collective, but far from being avant-garde—confronting audiences by pushing the boundaries of the new—its only audience is itself. More surprising still, its work is often radically conservative, intemperate in its devotion to the old. Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.” The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris.
What has made much of this work possible is UX’s mastery, established 30 years ago and refined since, of the city’s network of underground passageways—hundreds of miles of interconnected telecom, electricity, and water tunnels, sewers, catacombs, subways, and centuries-old quarries. Like computer hackers who crack digital networks and surreptitiously take control of key machines, members of UX carry out clandestine missions throughout Paris’ supposedly secure underground tunnels and rooms. The group routinely uses the tunnels to access restoration sites and stage film festivals, for example, in the disused basements of government buildings.
UX’s most sensational caper (to be revealed so far, at least) was completed in 2006. A cadre spent months infiltrating the Pantheon, the grand structure in Paris that houses the remains of France’s most cherished citizens. Eight restorers built their own secret workshop in a storeroom, which they wired for electricity and Internet access and outfitted with armchairs, tools, a fridge, and a hot plate. During the course of a year, they painstakingly restored the Pantheon’s 19th- century clock, which had not chimed since the 1960s. Those in the neighborhood must have been shocked to hear the clock sound for the first time in decades: the hour, the half hour, the quarter hour.
Eight years ago, the French government didn’t know UX existed. When their exploits first trickled out into the press, the group’s members were deemed by some to be dangerous outlaws, thieves, even potential inspiration for terrorists. Still, a few officials can’t conceal their admiration. Mention UX to Sylvie Gautron of the Paris police—her specialty is monitoring the city’s old quarries—and she breaks into a wide smile. In an era when ubiquitous GPS and microprecise mapping threaten to squeeze all the mystery from our great world cities, UX seems to know, and indeed to own, a whole other, deeper, hidden layer of Paris. It claims the entire city, above- and belowground, as its canvas; its members say they can access every last government building, every narrow telecom tunnel. Does Gautron believe this? “It’s possible,” she says. “Everything they do is very intense.”
It is not at all hard to steal a Picasso, Lazar Kunstmann tells me. One of UX’s early members and the group’s unofficial spokesman, Kunstmann—the name is almost certainly a pseudonym, given its superhero-like German meaning, “Art-man”—is fortyish, bald, black-clad, warm, and witty. We’re sitting in the back room of a student café, downing espressos and discussing the spectacular theft in May 2010 of 100 million euros’ worth of paintings from the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. He disputes the contention of a police spokesperson that this was a sophisticated operation. According to an article published in Le Monde, a solitary individual unscrewed a window frame at 3:50 am, cut a padlock from a gate, and strode through the galleries lifting one work each by Léger, Braque, Matisse, Modigliani, and Picasso. “The thief was perfectly informed,” the officer told the newspaper. If he hadn’t known the window had a vibration detector, he would’ve just broken it. If he hadn’t known the alarm and part of the security system were broken, he wouldn’t have wandered throughout the museum. If he hadn’t known the schedule of night rounds, he wouldn’t have arrived in the middle of the longest quiet period.
Impressive, right? No, Kunstmann says. “He ascertained that nothing was working,” Kunstmann sighs, knowing full well the shoddy security of the museum in question. “The exterior is full of graffiti artists, the homeless, and crack smokers,” he goes on. This would have made it easy for the thief to blend in and surreptitiously watch the windows all night, observing how the guards circulated.
A serious thief, Kunstmann says, would have taken an entirely different approach. In the same building, a sprawling and grand old structure called the Palais de Tokyo, is a restaurant that stays open until midnight. An intelligent thief would order a coffee there and then wander off through the building. “Lots of things have alarms,” Kunstmann goes on. “But you try to set them off and they don’t sound! Why? Because they don’t get turned on until 2 am.” (The museum claims that the alarms work 24 hours a day.) Moreover, there are whole stretches of wall where all that separates the museum from the rest of the building is a flimsy drywall partition. “You just—” Kunstmann makes a punching motion with his hand. “If the guy had been at all professional, that’s what he would have done.”
UX has made a study of museum security, in keeping with its concern for Paris’ vulnerable treasures—a concern not always shared by the city’s major cultural institutions. Once, after a UX member discovered appalling security lapses in a major museum, she wrote a memo detailing them—and left it, in the middle of the night, on the desk of the security director. Rather than fix the problems, the director went to the police, demanding they press charges against the perpetrators. (The police declined, though they did tell UX to cool it.) Kunstmann feels sure that nothing has changed since the break-in at the Museum of Modern Art; the security remains just as subpar as ever, he says.
Kunstmann has a gloomy view of contemporary civilization, and in his eyes this affair illustrates many of its worst faults—its fatalism, complacency, ignorance, parochialism, and negligence. French officials, he says, bother to protect and restore only the patrimony adored by millions—the Louvre, for example. Lesser-known sites are neglected, and if they happen to be out of public view—underground, say—they disintegrate totally, even when all that’s needed is a hundred-dollar leak repair. UX tends the black sheep: the odd, the unloved, the forgotten artifacts of French civilization.
It’s difficult, though, to give an accounting of just how extensive those labors of love have been: The group cherishes its secrecy, and its known successes have been revealed only inadvertently. The public learned of the group’s underground cinema after a member’s bitter ex-girlfriend told the police. Reporters caught wind of the Pantheon operation because UX members erred in supposing they could safely invite the building’s director to maintain his newly fixed clock (more on that later). In general, UX sees communicating with outsiders as perilous and unrewarding. Kunstmann does tell me a story from a recent job, but even that is shrouded in misdirection. Some members had just infiltrated a public building when they noticed kids horsing around on the scaffolding at a construction site across the street, climbing through open windows, and doing dangerous stunts on the roof. Pretending to be a neighbor, one member phoned the foreman to warn him but was chagrined at the response: “Instead of saying, ‘Thanks, I guess I’ll close the windows,’ the guy says, ‘What the fuck do I care?'”
An outsider might wonder whether the teens who founded UX were really so different from those thrill seekers across the street today. Would they rat out their former selves? But when UX members risk arrest, they do so with a rigorous, almost scientific attitude toward the various crafts they aim to preserve and extend. Their approach is to explore and experiment all through the city. Based on members’ interests, UX has developed a cellular structure, with subgroups specializing in cartography, infiltration, tunneling, masonry, internal communications, archiving, restoration, and cultural programming. Its 100-odd members are free to change roles and are given access to all tools at the group’s disposal. There is no manifesto, no charter, no bylaws—save that all members preserve its secrecy. Membership is by invitation only; when the group notices people already engaged in UX-like activities, it initiates a discussion about joining forces. While there is no membership fee, members contribute what they can to projects.
I can’t help but ask: Did UX steal the paintings from the Museum of Modern Art? Wouldn’t that be the perfect way to alert the French to the appalling job their government does protecting national treasures? Kunstmann denies it with a convincing curtness. “That,” he says, “is not our style.”
The first experiment by UX, in September 1981, was an accidental one. A Parisian middle schooler named Andrei was trying to impress a couple of older classmates, boasting that he and his friend Peter often snuck into places and were about to hit the Pantheon, an enormous former church that towers over the fifth arrondissement. Andrei got in so deep with his boast that to save face he had to follow through—with his new friends in tow. Like Claudia and Jamie in that famous children’s book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, they hid out inside the building until it closed. Their nocturnal occupation turned out to be shockingly easy—they encountered no guards or alarms—and the experience electrified them. They thought: What else could we do?
Kunstmann, a classmate of Andrei and Peter’s, joined the group early on. They quickly branched out from mere infiltration. Obtaining the tunnel maps from the ministry of telecommunications and other sources greatly expanded their access. Many Parisian buildings connect to these passages through their basements, which are as badly secured as the tunnels themselves. Most officials, Kunstmann says, act as if they believe in this absurd principle: Tunnel access is forbidden, thus people don’t go there. This, he adds sardonically, is “a flawless conclusion—and what’s more, a very practical one, because if people don’t go there, then it’s unnecessary to do more than lock the entrances.”
It wasn’t until I went down into the tunnels myself—which is illegal and punishable by a fine of up to 60 euros, though explorers rarely get caught—that I understood why French officials are so complacent. Finding an unlocked entrance, without UX’s know-how, required a 45-minute walk from the nearest subway. UX has access to dry and spacious tunnel networks, but the more easily entered ones that I traveled that day were often tiny and half-flooded. By the time I’d retraced my steps, I was exhausted, filthy, and bleeding all over from scrapes.
In some places, UX has been able to create covert connections between networks, using (among other tricks) an invention they call the rolling basin. This is a passage in the bottom of a tunnel that appears to be a grate with water under it; in fact, both grate and water are part of a movable tray on rollers. Voilà—a trapdoor to another tunnel in a different network. The tray itself is made of concrete, so even if someone raps it with a stick, it sounds solid. Kunstmann says UX has a certain weakness for such contrivances but will never possess enough time and cash to build them as extensively as he’d like. “If tomorrow everyone in UX became billionaires, we’d set dues at a billion euros,” he jokes. (But, he adds, “we’ll never be billionaires, because we’re working as little as possible so we can spend as much time as possible on UX.”)
So what does the group do with all this access? Among other things, it has mounted numerous clandestine theater productions and film festivals. On a typical festival evening, they screen at least two films that they feel share a nonobvious yet provocative connection. They don’t explain the connection, leaving it up to the audience to try to discover it. One summer, the group mounted a film festival devoted to the theme of “urban deserts”—the forgotten and underutilized spaces in a city. They naturally decided the ideal venue for such a festival would be in just such an abandoned site. They chose a room beneath the Palais de Chaillot they’d long known of and enjoyed unlimited access to. The building was then home to Paris’ famous Cinémathèque Française, making it doubly appropriate. They set up a bar, a dining room, a series of salons, and a small screening room that accommodated 20 viewers, and they held festivals there every summer for years. “Every neighborhood cinema should look like that,” Kunstmann says.
The restoration of the Pantheon clock was carried out by a UX subgroup called Untergunther, whose members are devoted specifically to restoration. The Pantheon was a particularly resonant choice of site, since it’s where UX began, and the group had surreptitiously screened films, exhibited art, and mounted plays there. During one such event in 2005, UX cofounder Jean-Baptiste Viot (one of the few members who uses his real name) took a close look at the building’s defunct Wagner clock—an engineering marvel from the 19th century that replaced an earlier timepiece. (Records indicate the building had a clock as far back as 1790.)
Viot had admired the Wagner ever since he first visited the building. He had meanwhile become a professional horologist working for the elite firm Breguet. That September, Viot persuaded seven other UX members to join him in repairing the clock. They’d been contemplating the project for years, but now it seemed urgent: Oxidation had so crippled the works that they would soon become impossible to fix without re-creating, rather than restoring, almost every part. “That wouldn’t be a restored clock, but a facsimile,” Kunstmann says. As the project began, it took on an almost mystical significance for the team. Paris, as they saw it, was the center of France and was once the center of Western civilization; the Latin Quarter was Paris’ historic intellectual center; the Pantheon stands in the Latin Quarter and is dedicated to the great men of French history, many of whose remains are housed within; and in its interior lay a clock, beating like a heart, until it suddenly was silenced. Untergunther wanted to restart the heart of the world. The eight shifted all their free time to the project.
They first established a workshop high up in the building, just below its dome, on a floor where no one (including guards) ever went anymore—”a sort of floating space,” as Kunstmann describes the room, punctuated by narrow slits for windows. “It looked down on all of Paris from a height of 15 stories. From the outside it resembled a kind of flying saucer; from the inside, a bunker.” The workshop was outfitted with eight overstuffed armchairs, a table, bookshelves, a minibar, and red velvet drapes to moderate the ambient temperature. “Every element had been conceived to fold up into wooden crates, like the ones visible throughout the monument,” Kunstmann says. In the dead of night, they climbed endless stairs, hauling up the lumber, drills, saws, clock repair equipment, and everything else required. They updated the workshop’s outdated electrical wiring. They spent 4,000 euros on materials, in all, out of their own pockets. On the terrace outside they set up a vegetable garden.
Like at the Museum of Modern Art, where a thief |
sued the Force India driver for breach of contract.
The Briton, 27, has since left Formula 1 and rejoined Mercedes in the German Touring Car Championship.
"I wish Paul the very best for the future," Hamilton said.
The spat between driver and manager became public when Hamilton took Di Resta to court for breach of contract and loss of earnings.
Anthony Hamilton with his son Lewis
The case has now been resolved but Grenada-born Hamilton, who also managed his son Lewis, expressed regret over the bitter end to the relationship.
"I am very sorry Paul and I fell out to the extent we did and I am pleased to put this matter to bed," Hamilton said.
"Paul is a very talented driver, and it is a real shame he does not have the F1 seat in 2014 that he deserves."
The Scot won the DTM championship for Mercedes in 2010 and will partner Englishman Gary Paffett - the winner in 2005 - this season.
"This has been a difficult year and I am just pleased to put it behind me and to concentrate on my racing," said Di Resta.Based on the data in the documents, the drivers had to take over from the self-driving system every mile for one reason or another. They include navigation issues related to unclear lane markings, the system missing a turn or bad weather preventing it from working properly. Drivers also had to take over due to auto-detected hard decelerations or abrupt car jerks more frequently last week than in January.
Uber didn't count events that might have led to serious accidents, such as those that would have damaged property or hit a person -- those were counted as "critical interventions." Thankfully, the vehicles drove an average of 200 miles between these critical interventions last week. The average used to be 114 miles between each one, so there's definitely some improvement. But Uber testers didn't see a steady rate of progress either, since the average seems to dip and rise back up.
The ride-hailing firm is currently testing its autonomous vehicles in Pennsylvania, Arizona and California, though a lawsuit filed by Google could put a stop to the trials. Google is accusing Otto, an autonomous trucking company Uber acquired last year, of using materials stolen from Mountain View's self-driving car division Waymo. It's now asking the court to block the firm's autonomous car operations.As supporters of Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City watch their teams vie for glory this year, the fans of lowly Rochdale, who saw their 'heroes' lose 3-0 on Saturday, have been named the longest-suffering in English football history.
The English National Football Archive (Enfa) was asked to compile a "Long-Suffering Fan Index" and, after crunching data from 220,000 results since the first Football League season in 1888-9 - ranking the current 92 Football League clubs by their lack of success, and weighted by extra factors including the size of their average home crowds - Rochdale came out bottom... or top, depending on your point of view.
Enfa's "Suffering Index" also marks 125 seasons since the Football League's birth - and 150 since the launch of The FA and the rise of modern football.
On the flip side, Manchester United fans, who have endured a fairly torrid season by their own high standards, are historically the least long-suffering in the English game.
So why Rochdale? Well, according to the survery, they have spent more seasons in the bottom flight of English football (78 including this season) than any other team. Indeed, during their 36-year unbroken residence in football's basement from 1974-2010, fans of other clubs have begun to refer to League Two as 'the Rochdale division'.
They also have the lowest average league placing of any team in the Football League - 76th. Rochdale have not won a football competition since joining the Football League in 1921.
The mockers were briefly silenced when the club gained promotion to League One four years ago, but such heights were short-lived, lasting just two seasons.
The 10 clubs with the longest-suffering fans:
Rank
Club
Suffering Index rating
1
Rochdale
66.12
2
Hartlepool United
64.72
3
Exeter City
64.08
4
Newport County
65.53
5
Colchester United
63.39
6
Southend United
63.12
7
Torquay United
62.96
8
Mansfield Town
62.90
9
Leyton Orient
62.83
10
AFC Wimbledon
62.45
Longest-suffering fans in each division:
• Premiership: Stoke City (Fan Suffering Index: 54.72; national rank: 43)
• Championship: Bournemouth FC (Fan Suffering Index: 60.26; national rank: 23)
• League One: Colchester FC (Fan Suffering Index: 63.39; national rank: 5)
• League Two: Rochdale AFC (Fan Suffering Index: 66.12; national rank: 1)
Survey commissioned by the makers of Warren United (www.warrenunited.net), a new animated sitcom, starting April 22 on ITV4, about a long-suffering fan of a chronically struggling football clubGo big or go home. That's the theory behind petitions presented by Conservative MPs calling for either the end of government funding for the CBC or the sale of the broadcaster.
Conservative MPs Colin Carrie and Brian Jean have called for the government to stop giving public funding to the CBC, while Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant has asked for its sale, according to to iPolitics.
"Government of Canada funds the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to the sum of $1.1 billion per annum, that vast amount of Government of Canada funding gives the CBC an unfair advantage over its private sector competitor," Jean said, according to Canoe. "(We) call upon Parliament to end public funding of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation."
Meanwhile, it was revealed Monday that about 730 CBC employees are paid more than $100,000 a year.
The salary info was released by Heritage Minister James Moore in response to order paper questions submitted by Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber. Under parliamentary rules, the government is obligated to give a response in the House to such requests within 45 days.
Rathegeber had asked for the salary info for top CBC personalities, Peter Mansbridge and George Stroumboulopoulos, but Moore declined to provide those details, citing privacy laws.
When Rathegeber initially filed his request, NDP MP Tyrone Benskin responded by filing order paper questions requesting details about the Prime Minister's Office. The questions used identical wording to Rathegeber's request so that there would be no doubt about what prompted them.
However, Treasury Board President Tony Clement has refused to provide the same info regarding the PMO that Moore has released on the CBC, according to The Ottawa Citizen's Glen McGregor. Clement cited the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act in arguing that exact salaries cannot be released.
In September, HuffPost reported that the Conservative government is planning to cut 10 per cent from CBC spending. We'll have to wait until the budget to find out if the Tories will take the advice of their own MPs and cut deeper.
Also on HuffPostAN UNUSUAL-shaped strawberry caused s-creams of laughter when a Dartford mother found it growing on her vegetable plot.
Carole Collen discovered the strawberry resembling the shape of a penis growing in her garden in East Hill.
The 52-year-old told News Shopper: “I thought oh my word!
“I showed the family and they thought it was very funny.
“Who would have thought it would grow like that? It is just puzzling.
“We were quite shocked.”
The mother-of-two added: “Strawberries don’t usually last long.
"It is probably the wrong phrase to use but it is getting smaller.
“The kids think it is hilarious. We all had a good old chuckle.”
Mrs Collen, who also grows tomatoes and cucumbers in her garden, says each member of the family will be taking a bite from the phallic shaped fruit.
Here are some other strangely shaped vegetables from the News Shopper archive:
This Bromley pensioner found an enormous mushroom in his garden
This bizarrely-shaped Kohlrabi won first prize at the Meopham Garden Show in 2007
Quirky courgette spotted in Petts Wood
And here are more stories from our Weird News section:
Have you grown any unusually shaped fruit or vegetables? Email us your photos.Most of the time when you wash your hand knit, hand crocheted items you treat them like the precious babies they are, right? Of course you do. With all the work that goes into making something, you’d be crazy to plop them in the washing machine, in super hot water, with regular laundry soap, and hit the high agitation cycle. Crazy!
Unless you’re felting and then its okay!
Technically, you’re “fulling”, not felting. As it was explained to me by a cheerful but very precise crafter one day, felting is done to unspun, loose fiber with needles and/or some sort of wet, mechanical process. If you are doing mean things to shrinking down a piece that’s been knitted or crocheted, its called fulling. Don’t you just love grammar nazis? Yeah, me neither.
So when you’re felting (I’m such a rebel) you need a yarn that is untreated and 100% animal fiber. Acrylic blends and superwash won’t shrink. Normally that would be an awesome thing in a yarn but in this case. Wool yarns work great. Single ply wool yarns work really great. For my first attempt I used Noro Kureyon in color 332.
I decided I wanted a felted yarn bowl. I just love yarn bowls and I really love the hand thrown ceramic one-of-a-kind yarn bowl a knitting student gifted me. But… it doesn’t travel well. In fact it doesn’t travel at all, lol. I’m too afraid it will get broken so I always leave it at home. Since I am a RovingCrafter and I rove around, I had to come up with a solution: felted yarn bowls.
Working with two strands of Kureyon held together and size 11 (8 mm) needles got me this big floppy sack:
Before putting this baby in the torture pot washing machine, I used cotton thread to sew a loose running stitch along the upper edge of the bowl. If you’ve tried felting before, you may have found that edges can get pulled out of shape. Criblet, a wonderful and talented lady from my crafting group, taught me this trick to keep edges smooth and it has worked for me every time.
(Since this is Kureyon, I gave the knitting a quick soak in ice water in my kitchen sink while the washing machine filled with hot water. Kureyon is lovely and no one does colors quite like Noro, but they do overspin their singles somewhat. That can make the yarn resist felting. A pre-soak in ice water helps.)
Here is how it looked fresh out of the washing machine:
After trimming the fuzzies, and pulling out the running stitch, and setting in a cute little clasp…. I found that it was too big.,lol. Pretty (and completely felted down) but too big. I’m telling ya, for a yarn bowl it makes a good hand bag. Nice edges though if I do say so myself!
So I decided for my second attempt I would use different yarn. What? Did you think I would just give up? Noooo. I love yarn bowls! Also, I’m 6 weeks (and counting) behind in my Mary Lennox shawl mystery knit-a-long and when I get that far behind in a project, I start looking for something else to do.
Using Paton’s Classic Wool Roving (two strands held together again) in colors Pacific Teal and Yellow, I made another sack. This time I improvised a simple two-color stranded knit pattern…
… and put in a running stitch with cotton thread
… and ta-da! A felted yarn bowl.
The big one seems to be the right size to hold 4 oz of roving. Maybe it will be a roving bowl, lol. Maybe it will just be decorative. But the smaller one is perfect. I may have to make another. I may have to make one for each WIP.The former World Rally Championship driver returns to his stage rally roots in a Subaru XV Crosstrek.
Chris Atkinson has seen some success in the Red Bull Global Rallycross championship this year, with podium finishes in Connecticut, Atlantic City, and Seattle. But according to some recent posts on social media, Atkinson has returned to his roots in stage rally to pilot a Subaru XV Crosstrek rally car in China.
Though "Atko" is best known these days as a rallycross driver, he drove for Subaru in the World Rally Championship from 2005 to 2008 alongside Petter Solberg.
According to his website, Atko's first visit to the Chinese Rally Championship was in 2015, where he helped the FAW-VW Rally Team win both the driver's and manufacturer's championships. He rejoined the FAW-VW Rally Team in China last year, where he competed against Subaru Rally Team USA's David Higgins.
More from TheDrive
This year, it's Atko in the Subaru, an XV Crosstrek. Chinese Rally Championship rules require cars to be available in China, which the usual WRX is not. So Vermont SportsCar has given their full rally car treatment to this XV Crosstrek. This may be the same car that Higgins' teammate Han Han drove to a third-place finish last year.
- Vermont SportsCar Vermont SportsCar
UPDATE: We reached out to Vermont SportsCar for more information. This is a brand new car that VSC just completed a couple of months ago. In the previous Chinese Rally Championship round, the Zhang Ye Rally, it was driven by WRC up-and-comer Karl Kruuda, who finished third overall. The team's leading Chinese driver, last season's Driver Champion Han Han, finished second overall in the same XV he drove last year.
Chris Atkinson, along with co-driver Dale Moscatt, is driving this car at Liupanshui, a 98% tarmac event and the third stop of the Chinese Rally Championship. "I am looking forward to driving the XV for the first time this weekend," Atkinson says. "It looks awesome and is very similar performance wise to the cars David Higgins and Travis Pastrana run in the USA. I am sure it will take a few stages to get up to speed on pace notes again after only doing Rallycross this year, but it will be nice not having to watch my mirrors, haha!"Israel has refused a US request to extradite an Israeli-American teenager suspected of making hundreds of bomb threat calls to American Jewish institutions over the last several months, a report said Sunday.
According to Channel 2, Israel intends to hand down a severe indictment of its own on Monday against the hacker from Ashkelon, and therefore denied the US Department of Justice request to extradite the teen.
The 18-year-old is expected to be charged with crimes involving extortion with menaces, causing panic and money laundering.
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On Friday, he was charged in the US with 28 counts of making threatening calls and conveying false information to police, according to the indictment filed in federal court in Orlando. Separately, he was charged with three more counts of making threatening calls, conveying false information and cyberstalking in an indictment filed in federal court in Athens, Georgia.
Investigators from both countries have been questioning the youth since his arrest last month, and new details of his alleged crimes are continuing to emerge.
The youth, whose name is under a gag order in Israel, also reportedly charged for his phone threat services on occasion, specifying incidents in which he issued bomb threats to US educational institutions, forcing their evacuation, on behalf of students who wanted exams postponed. He was paid in Bitcoins for these threats; almost 2 million shekels (more than half a million dollars) worth of Bitcoins was found in his internet bank account.
If tried and convicted in the US, he would face a lengthy jail term, and US prosecutors are set to seek his extradition, Channel 2 reported Saturday. However, it is not clear that Israel’s state prosecutors, proceeding with their own case against him, will readily agree, the TV report noted.
It added that the youth has expressed no sorrow or regret for his actions.
His lawyer has said that he has a brain tumor and suffers from autism. His parents have also argued that he is unfit to stand trial, though they have apologized for his alleged actions. On Thursday an Israeli court extended his remand until April 24.
The teen living in Israel left scores of messages graphically describing children’s deaths in calls to Jewish community centers and schools across the United States, using an online calling service to disguise his voice as a woman and hide his identity, according to the federal indictment filed in Florida.
The calls to the Jewish community centers and schools stoked fears of rising anti-Semitism and led to campus evacuations.
The Florida indictment said that he made 245 threatening calls, most of them to Jewish community centers and schools, from January to March. He recorded each of the calls himself and kept them in organized files at his home in Ashkelon, along with news articles describing the police responses to the threats, the indictment said.
A large antenna at his apartment building allowed him to make long-distance, outdoor wireless connections.
The Florida indictment said recordings of the calls stripped of the software-enabled disguise revealed a speech impediment in the caller’s voice that matched his.
The Georgia indictment connects him to several incidents of “swatting” in which authorities are called to respond to an emergency that ends up being fake. The indictment alleges that in January the University of Georgia Police Department received a phone call about a home invasion that ended up being untrue.
The JCC Association of North America said in a statement that it welcomed the charges and that it was “enormously proud of the extraordinary commitment to safety and security” at the community centers.
“Today’s charges into these violent threats to Jewish Community Centers and others represent this Department’s commitment to fighting all forms of violent crime,” US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday. “These threats of violence instilled terror in Jewish and other communities across this country and our investigation into these acts as possible hate crimes continues.”
FBI Director James Comey added: “This kind of behavior is not a prank, and it isn’t harmless. It’s a federal crime. It scares innocent people, disrupts entire communities, and expends limited law enforcement resources. The FBI thanks our partners for working with us here at home and around the world.”
The suspect, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth E. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, “allegedly took extraordinary steps to conceal his identity and location through several technological means, including voice alteration, use of proxy IP addresses, virtual currencies and caller ID spoofing.”
A wave of bomb threats to American Jewish institutions since the start of the year helped spread fear amid an apparent increase in hate crimes and anti-Semitic acts in the United States. Some said that the rise of Donald Trump as US president encouraged the extreme right and emboldened hate groups.
The arrest of the Jewish teenager over dozens of the threats complicated the debate, however.
He is also alleged to have made threatening phone calls over the past two to three years targeting schools and other public institutions in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
In addition, Israeli police say he is suspected of a bomb threat to Delta Airlines in February 2015 that led to an emergency landing.
During a remand hearing on Thursday in Rishon Lezion, the teenager’s parents asked the court to replace their son’s attorney with a public defender, but the defendant insisted that his current lawyer, Shira Nir, remain on the case, Channel 10 reported. The court ruled that Nir should remain the suspect’s counsel.
“After I saw documents related to the suspect’s past, I decided to ask his parents to bring a private psychiatrist to the prison, in order to help clarify that he is not fit for detention,” Nir told Channel 10. She said the suspect’s father refused to pay for a private psychiatrist and subsequently asked the court to replace her with a public defender.
AFP contributed to this report.I know a lot about the south. I lived there for 25 years. I've heard all the jokes (I've even made them myself), and I lived there through some of the best times, and some not so good times, of my life. What I don't know is what other people think about the south -- or at least I don't know why they think what they think. So, I listened. I wasn't shocked by what I heard, but it did show me that the south is not the only place where prejudice exists.
Here are some things I heard while I lived in the south:
"I don't mind black people. I have plenty of black friends."
"Gay marriage is like global warming -- something the government made up to make money."
"If the Bible says it, it's true. It doesn't matter what scientists say."
"If you think like us, you can stay. If you don't you oughta move on."
I moved to New York City three years ago, and here are some things I have heard here:
"You have all your teeth?"
"You mean, you wear shoes?"
"Do you really have paved roads down there?"
"Don't they hate black people?"
"Did you ever see the KKK?"
"You're gay, right? That must have been hard!"
I'm from Hueytown, Alabama. It's smack dab in the middle of Dixie, so it's fine if I say something about the south -- it's part of me. But these loaded questions from people who've never been there -- where do these ideas come from?
The truth is, I do have all my teeth. I wear shoes (almost) on a daily basis. The south has paved roads including the busiest tractor-trailer route in the country, Highway 78. The south has a sordid past, but no -- to set the record straight, southerners don't hate black people. Though there are still pockets of the south where the KKK resides, I never saw them in person. I am gay, and I couldn't have picked a better place to grow up than Hueytown.
Now, I realize that there's a reason people perceive the south the way that they do. For most of my life, I lived in fear. Mortal fear. The kind of fear that you get when you're deep in a nightmare and you wake up screaming. I thought, "If I tell anyone that I'm gay, I'll die." I cried many nights until I had no tears left. My heart was broken not because I lost love but because I thought I could never love at all.
It's true -- there are people in the south that hate black people and gay people. Those people live everywhere. Proof? Here are things that have recently happened to me:
This past weekend, I visited Boston. As I de-boarded the bus, I walked confidently into South Station. I donned my leather overnight bag, my purple button up shirt, and my blue cardigan with the large wooden buttons. My jeans were rolled up and my gray shoes stopped just below my bare ankle. Clearly, I was dressed the part. If I were not gay, I would be missing a great opportunity. So, as I walked towards the exit, this man passed me and hit my shoulder. I made eye contact with him. "You're fucking gay!" he screamed. It startled the entire station, and without breaking eye contact, he shuffles on his way. That was in Boston, Massachusetts.
About a week ago, I was holding hands with my boyfriend. I was walking at the top of the West Village. I was basically in Chelsea. As if from the sky, this woman swoops in. "Men," she says as she looks at our clasped hands. "Be careful. God is the judge. He will judge you, and he will judge me." Then she simply walked away. That was in Manhattan, New York City.
Just two days ago, my roommate was approached on the train. Vulgarities screamed in his direction, and then two punches landed square on his face. With a black and blue lip, he described the man's appearance to detectives that visited our apartment the next day. The assailant still hasn't been caught. That was in Brooklyn, New York.
When I moved to New York, I assumed that the tolerance and diversity here were big enough and strong enough to keep out the hate and cruelty that people assume is so rampant in the south. However, a few short weeks ago, in the shadow of Stonewall -- the bar where much of the gay liberation fight took place -- a 32-year-old man was followed, assailed with homophobic slurs, and fatally shot in the face. Why?
I was never accosted, threatened, or harassed in Alabama. I understand that some were and some people still are, but it's not a southern exclusivity. If it happens in Boston and New York City, it can happen anywhere.
Good always triumphs over evil. It's time to start telling the story of the good guys. It's time to start heralding the positive reactions and the stories of equality.
When I came out, I thought that I'd be ostracized and ridiculed. However, I had friends that welcomed the real me with open arms. My dear friend Emilie was amongst the first people I ever told. It was that moment of truth that has allowed us to remain such good friends to this day (almost ten years -- and I thought everyone would hate me).
I also told Cliff Simon -- my college professor and several decades my senior. He kissed my cheek and told me that I was a blessing to the world.
I told my parents, and they are still wrapping their minds around it -- but that's okay. Though they are supportive in their own way, for some it takes time.
Kindness isn't exclusive to the south either. I have met a plethora of friendly people here -- some, like me, are young, gay men. Some, like Ken and Joann, have invited me into their lives and made me feel so welcome in The Big Apple. All of them are just regular, nice people.
Also, we can't forget that most of this part of the country is open to change. Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont have all passed marriage equality laws.
I think when we're separated (by region or race or class or sexual orientation or whatever) we can create realities that aren't real at all.
I don't know what to do, but I do hope that the questions I am asked start sounding lots less like "Do you hate black people?"
Are we doing a disservice to the south by propagating the idea that everyone that lives in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Florida, Virginia, and Alabama is a little less intelligent, a little less tolerant, a little less globally minded?Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Saturday invoked the specter of the Holocaust to criticize President Barack Obama for his decision to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program.
“This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven," Huckabee said in an interview with Breitbart News.
The presidential contender, a social conservative who is seen favorably by Republican voters, has promised to rescind the deal with Iran on his first day in office.
"This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people. I read the whole deal. We gave away the whole store. It’s got to be stopped," he said in the interview.
Huckabee currently polls at 5.6 percent in the GOP presidential primary, according to HuffPost Pollster:
Update: Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz called on Huckabee to apologize on Sunday.
"This rhetoric, while commonplace in today’s Republican presidential primary, has no place in American politics. Cavalier analogies to the Holocaust are unacceptable," the Florida congresswoman said in a statement. "Mike Huckabee must apologize to the Jewish community and to the American people for this grossly irresponsible statement."Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.
In his nationally televised speech about Syria on 10 September, Obama laid the blame for the nerve gas attack on the rebel-held suburb of Eastern Ghouta firmly on Assad’s government, and made it clear he was prepared to back up his earlier public warnings that any use of chemical weapons would cross a ‘red line’: ‘Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people,’ he said. ‘We know the Assad regime was responsible … And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.’ Obama was going to war to back up a public threat, but he was doing so without knowing for sure who did what in the early morning of 21 August.
He cited a list of what appeared to be hard-won evidence of Assad’s culpability: ‘In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighbourhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces.’ Obama’s certainty was echoed at the time by Denis McDonough, his chief of staff, who told the New York Times: ‘No one with whom I’ve spoken doubts the intelligence’ directly linking Assad and his regime to the sarin attacks.
But in recent interviews with intelligence and military officers and consultants past and present, I found intense concern, and on occasion anger, over what was repeatedly seen as the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague, called the administration’s assurances of Assad’s responsibility a ‘ruse’. The attack ‘was not the result of the current regime’, he wrote. A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening. The distortion, he said, reminded him of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, when the Johnson administration reversed the sequence of National Security Agency intercepts to justify one of the early bombings of North Vietnam. The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along?”’
The complaints focus on what Washington did not have: any advance warning from the assumed source of the attack. The military intelligence community has for years produced a highly classified early morning intelligence summary, known as the Morning Report, for the secretary of defence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; a copy also goes to the national security adviser and the director of national intelligence. The Morning Report includes no political or economic information, but provides a summary of important military events around the world, with all available intelligence about them. A senior intelligence consultant told me that some time after the attack he reviewed the reports for 20 August through 23 August. For two days – 20 and 21 August – there was no mention of Syria. On 22 August the lead item in the Morning Report dealt with Egypt; a subsequent item discussed an internal change in the command structure of one of the rebel groups in Syria. Nothing was noted about the use of nerve gas in Damascus that day. It was not until 23 August that the use of sarin became a dominant issue, although hundreds of photographs and videos of the massacre had gone viral within hours on YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites. At this point, the administration knew no more than the public.
Obama left Washington early on 21 August for a hectic two-day speaking tour in New York and Pennsylvania; according to the White House press office, he was briefed later that day on the attack, and the growing public and media furore. The lack of any immediate inside intelligence was made clear on 22 August, when Jen Psaki, a spokesperson for the State Department, told reporters: ‘We are unable to conclusively determine [chemical weapons] use. But we are focused every minute of every day since these events happened … on doing everything possible within our power to nail down the facts.’ The administration’s tone had hardened by 27 August, when Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, told reporters – without providing any specific information – that any suggestions that the Syrian government was not responsible ‘are as preposterous as suggestions that the attack itself didn’t occur’.
The absence of immediate alarm inside the American intelligence community demonstrates that there was no intelligence about Syrian intentions in the days before the attack. And there are at least two ways the US could have known about it in advance: both were touched on in one of the top secret American intelligence documents that have been made public in recent months by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor.
On 29 August, the Washington Post published excerpts from the annual budget for all national intelligence programmes, agency by agency, provided by Snowden. In consultation with the Obama administration, the newspaper chose to publish only a slim portion of the 178-page document, which has a classification higher than top secret, but it summarised and published a section dealing with problem areas. One problem area was the gap in coverage targeting Assad’s office. The document said that the NSA’s worldwide electronic eavesdropping facilities had been ‘able to monitor unencrypted communications among senior military officials at the outset of the civil war there’. But it was ‘a vulnerability that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces apparently later recognised’. In other words, the NSA no longer had access to the conversations of the top military leadership in Syria, which would have included crucial communications from Assad, such as orders for a nerve gas attack. (In its public statements since 21 August, the Obama administration has never claimed to have specific information connecting Assad himself to the attack.)
The Post report also provided the first indication of a secret sensor system inside Syria, designed to provide early warning of any change in status of the regime’s chemical weapons arsenal. The sensors are monitored by the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that controls all US intelligence satellites in orbit. According to the Post summary, the NRO is also assigned ‘to extract data from sensors placed on the ground’ inside Syria. The former senior intelligence official, who had direct knowledge of the programme, told me that NRO sensors have been implanted near all known chemical warfare sites in Syria. They are designed to provide constant monitoring of the movement of chemical warheads stored by the military. But far more important, in terms of early warning, is the sensors’ ability to alert US and Israeli intelligence when warheads are being loaded with sarin. (As a neighbouring country, Israel has always been on the alert for changes in the Syrian chemical arsenal, and works closely with American intelligence on early warnings.) A chemical warhead, once loaded with sarin, has a shelf life of a few days or less – the nerve agent begins eroding the rocket almost immediately: it’s a use-it-or-lose-it mass killer. ‘The Syrian army doesn’t have three days to prepare for a chemical attack,’ the former senior intelligence official told me. ‘We created the sensor system for immediate reaction, like an air raid warning or a fire alarm. You can’t have a warning over three days because everyone involved would be dead. It is either right now or you’re history. You do not spend three days getting ready to fire nerve gas.’ The sensors detected no movement in the months and days before 21 August, the former official said. It is of course possible that sarin had been supplied to the Syrian army by other means, but the lack of warning meant that Washington was unable to monitor the events in Eastern Ghouta as they unfolded.
The sensors had worked in the past, as the Syrian leadership knew all too well. Last December the sensor system picked up signs of what seemed to be sarin production at a chemical weapons depot. It was not immediately clear whether the Syrian army was simulating sarin production as part of an exercise (all militaries constantly carry out such exercises) or actually preparing an attack. At the time, Obama publicly warned Syria that using sarin was ‘totally unacceptable’; a similar message was also passed by diplomatic means. The event was later determined to be part of a series of exercises, according to the former senior intelligence official: ‘If what the sensors saw last December was so important that the president had to call and say, “Knock it off,” why didn’t the president issue the same warning three days before the gas attack in August?’
The NSA would of course monitor Assad’s office around the clock if it could, the former official said. Other communications – from various army units in combat throughout Syria – would be far less important, and not analysed in real time. ‘There are literally thousands of tactical radio frequencies used by field units in Syria for mundane routine communications,’ he said, ‘and it would take a huge number of NSA cryptological technicians to listen in – and the useful return would be zilch.’ But the ‘chatter’ is routinely stored on computers. Once the scale of events on 21 August was understood, the NSA mounted a comprehensive effort to search for any links to the attack, sorting through the full archive of stored communications. A keyword or two would be selected and a filter would be employed to find relevant conversations. ‘What happened here is that the NSA intelligence weenies |
by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement activities, it is believed that the two detained confidential sources have been involved with the Al Qaeda terrorist network. One of the sources has been involved with Al Qaeda for several years and is believed to have been involved in the terrorist activities of Al Qaeda. The other sources is also believed to have been involved in planning and preparing for terrorist activities of Al Qaeda. It is believed that these confidential sources have not been completely candid about their association with Al Qaeda and their terrorist activities. Much of the information from these sources has, however, been corroborated and proven accurate and reliable. Some information provided by the sources remains uncorroborated and may be part of an effort to mislead or confuse U.S. officials. One of the sources, for example, in a subsequent interview with a U.S. law enforcement official recanted some of the information that he had provided, but most of the information has been independently corroborated by other sources. In addition, at the time of being interviewed by U.S. officials, one of the sources was being treated with various types of drugs to treat medical conditions.
Gergel doesn’t say it, but we all know that one of those “confidential informants” is Abu Zubaydah and the other is probably Binyam Mohamed. Presumably, Zubaydah was the one “being treated” with drugs. And given the reference to US law enforcement, he is also presumably the one who recanted his statements about Padilla.
But more importantly, Gergel doesn’t say, but we know, that both Zubaydah and Mohamed had been subjected to extreme sleep deprivation–and possibly a great deal more–by the time they made their statements tying Padilla to terrorism. Gergel also doesn’t say that other cases based on Mohamed’s torture-induced testimony had been dismissed.
Gergel also doesn’t acknowledge that the federal conspiracy charges of which Padilla was convicted have nothing to do with the charges laid out in these documents related to his designation as an enemy combatant; that doesn’t stop Gergel from emphasizing that Padilla is a “convicted terrorist.”
Nevertheless, his discussion of Padilla’s designation using torture-induced evidence, appearing as it does right between his establishment of “special factors” as the guiding principle and his dismissal of the suit betrays that this torture-induced evidence is a key part of these “special factors.”
That background, though, makes it clear why Gergel thought those special factors should trump Padilla’s constitutional rights.
Padilla’s counsel would likely seek information on intelligence methods and interrogations of other Al Qaeda operatives. All of this would likely raise numerous complicated state secret issues. A trial on the merits would be an international spectacle with Padilla, a convicted terrorist, summoning America’s present and former leaders to a federal courthouse to answer his charges. This massive litigation would have been authorized not by a Congressionally established statutory cause of action, but by a court implying an action from the face of the American Constitution.3 3 Plaintiffs’ counsel urged the Court at oral argument to delay consideration of the practical realities of allowing a Bivens claim to go forward under these facts and circumstances until after the motion to dismiss stage. This approach, however, would result in the Court failing to timely consider “special factors” counseling hesitation, which include here the potential disruption and burdening of national security, intelligence and military operations arising from discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
You can’t have a “convicted terrorist” summon someone like Rummy to a federal courthouse to answer questions about the torture the government used to justify Padilla’s own designation as an enemy combatant so we could in turn torture him. That would be a “spectacle.”
It all makes so much sense!It’s been a tumultuous couple of years for Mark Hunt fighting for (and with) the UFC, and he’s ready to move on to the next stage of his career.
The 43-year-old MMA and kickboxing veteran recently appeared on Submission Radio to talk about where he stands with the world’s largest fight promotion. Hunt had a disagreement with the UFC recently after he was pulled from a Nov. 19 show due to comments he made to “Players Voice”. In that article, Hunt admitted to having issues with his memory and that he sometimes slurred his words, which prompted officials to seek further testing before allowing Hunt to compete again.
Hunt was not happy with the decision and suggested that it was tied to his ongoing lawsuit against the UFC, company president Dana White, and Brock Lesnar over the promotion allegedly knowing that Lesnar was taking performance enhancing drugs ahead of a fight with Hunt at UFC 200 in July 2016.
Regardless, the UFC has since deemed Hunt fit to fight and he meets Curtis Blaydes at UFC 221 on Feb. 11 in Perth, Australia. According to Hunt, that’s one of the last three fights on his current contract, and he was asked if his run in the Octagon will soon be over.
“Well, for the UFC, yeah,” Hunt said. “That will be the end of my career in the UFC. I have two fights left and that’s it. You probably know the path I’ve had with the UFC, but you know, it’s business. I haven’t done nothing wrong, I just don’t like to be treated like s**t – even if I’m an employee or whatever and I speak my mind about it and, you know, I’ll go from there. So like I said, three fights left and I’ll move on.”
As for where the New Zealand native will go, Hunt would like to continue fighting overseas both in the Oceanic region and in Japan, where he started his MMA career with the PRIDE promotion back in 2004.
“Well, of course I’m looking at going and fighting global fights for New Zealand, Australia and probably Japan,” Hunt said. “It depends on what happens. Like I said, I’m still chasing the dream of that world title. I’m in a good position to get a finish in this fight, beat this guy, then move on to the top end. It’s not gonna be easy, but I’ll see what happens and hopefully I get next in line for the world title shot, go from there. So, see what happens.”
Listen to the full interview below:Guns have been much in the news recently, but you don't see much talk, such is the tilt of the country, about the disappearance of the gun registry. The assault on Parliament might have stirred some protest. Where did Michael Zehaf-Bibeau get the rifle? Was it registered? The information might have been useful to the police. Then came the 25th anniversary of the slaughter at Montreal's École Polytechnique. Then the massacre over the holidays in Edmonton. Through it all, hardly a whimper from gun control advocates who were so outraged when the registry was killed.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, realizing what a mess his party made of the registry, doesn't want it back.
The NDP's Thomas Mulcair wants to bring in a new registry of some kind, though not the Liberal-styled one. After all, police favour the tracking of firearms. And he wonders: Is it really that much of a burden on gun owners? New Democrats, he said, "have confidence in the ability of farmers and duck hunters to fill out a form."
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But Mr. Mulcair has been low-key on it. No shouting from the rooftops. He knows how the Conservatives can turn the registry into a lethal political weapon.
The NDP leader might have better luck going after the Conservatives on other aspects of their criminal justice package, such as the slammer-is-the-answer philosophy. Though criminologists repudiate it as a throwback to the Dark Ages, Justice Minister Peter MacKay is much in favour. As well, he likes hard anti-prostitution laws and a hard approach to soft drugs. In the Defence portfolio he wanted to militarize to the hilt. In Foreign Affairs he was a China-basher.
In the tilt of our society he has been a central player. He presided over the death of the Progressive Conservative party, which was swallowed up by the more ideological Canadian Alliance Party.
Though never a Red Tory, Mr. MacKay used to be viewed as a Brian Mulroney conservative, someone who espoused the party's moderate traditions from John A. Macdonald through Robert Borden, John Diefenbaker, Mr. Mulroney, Jean Charest, etc. He tried to get Bernard Lord, hardly a hardliner, to run against Mr. Harper for the Conservative leadership.
But in government he became a clone, much like Rob Nicholson, another Mulroney Tory, of Stephen Harper. He drank the Kool-Aid, as the saying goes, and although it is not easy to do otherwise under a ruler so resolute, the extent of his allegiance has been striking.
In Nova Scotia, from where Mr. MacKay hails, Reform-type Conservatives are not a populous breed. The party is currently faring miserably in the Maritimes and odds-makers doubt whether he can hold onto his seat in Central Nova. His ideological casting of himself in the vicinity of Jesse Helms hardly helps.
Moreover, if Mr. MacKay had any designs on a future leadership bid, a pitch to the moderate side would have been in his interest given the right flank is covered off by Western guys like Jason Kenney. Perhaps he realized there was hardly any moderate side left.
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His evolution is an example of the tenacious strength of the right's grip. In the days of past Tory leaders, those who control the party today would have been regarded as reddish-necked fringe players. In the new Canada, they are entrenched.
There is still some bleating in Conservative circles about them not having made much headway under Mr. Harper on social conservatism and about federal intrusions into the economy.
But they should pause to consider the conservative gains. Gains on criminal justice, on making taxation such a dirty word that progressives are terrified to utter it, on moving Canada to a radical right foreign policy unheard of in the past, on relegating the environment – Mr. Mulroney used to win green awards – to low priority, on shrinking civil liberties, on union bashing, on guns.
Peter MacKay has been comfortable with it all. His trajectory mirrors that of his party and much of the country.How can TV turn people into torturers? A documentary broadcast on French television depicts a game show where participants willingly give electric shocks to rival contestants.
The game, Extreme Zone, is fake and the victim an actor – but those taking part and the audience think it’s for real. The documentary aims to illustrate the hold TV exerts on people.
“It’s really the notion of power that’s the issue, much greater than that of the individual”, said documentary maker Christophe Nick. “He’s alone when he’s on the set, without any bearings, without anyone telling him, ‘hey, watch what you’re doing, have you seen what he’s doing to you?’. You’re on your own, and when you’re on your own, faced with a power that abuses its authority, you become very easy to manipulate.”
The documentary was inspired by an American psychological experiment from the 1960s. Contestants gave what they thought were increasingly violent electric shocks to rivals who gave wrong answers. Eight out of ten pushed it to the maximum level.
“I never believed in the power of television,” said social psychologist Jean-Léon Beauvois. “I believed in its influence, certainly, but not in television’s power. So, I was very surprised, I never expected those kind of figures,” he added.
Of eighty people invited to take part in the spoof show, none refused. Programme makers say what it reveals about human behaviour is frightening.Circle round everyone, as we embark on a magical journey with the 1976 horror classic, ‘Carrie’ for this week’s edition of Throwback Thursday, ScienceFiction.com’s ongoing column that looks back at great examples of the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres of the past! Huzzah!
With it being October and all, we figured what better way to kick off the season of the spook with a horror gem like ‘Carrie’. The movie was based on the novel by Stephen King (aka someone whom we should all admire and fear) and directed by Brian De Palma (who went on to direct ‘Scarface’ – holy sh*t that’s a talented man). Talk about power couple!
The original film starred Sissy Spacek (as Carrie White) and Piper Laurie (as Margaret White), both of whom received Emmy nominations for their roles in the movie. ‘Carrie’ is amazing and I don’t use that word lightly. For those of you that have yet to discover this cinematic time-capsule of awesome, I highly suggest you stop tweeting for five seconds and watch this movie immediately.
The story centers on Carrie (Spacek), a timid 17 year old girl facing the womanly issues of going through puberty in high school without a friend in the world. She is constantly at the unmerciful hands of her cruel classmates and suffers from a lot of physical and mental bullying. Her mother (Laurie) isn’t any help in the ways of growing up, as she’s too concerned with her relationship with God (and everyone else’s for that matter). She truly believes that pretty much anything Carrie does is a sin (even getting her period is a rule breaker with this lady) and forces her to pray in a locked closet for forgiveness. Carrie slowly starts to discover, however, that she has certain ‘gifts’ that may help her deal with the harsh environment around her. But when the girls at school take a prank a little too far, a series of unfortunate events unfolds, all culminating at Carrie’s tragic prom (think Red Wedding from ‘Game of Thrones’ but in high school).
Spacek’s portrayal of a shy loaner with telekinetic powers blew my mind. I re-watched this movie last night so it would be fresh and it was as good as ever. When watching, you really feel for this poor girl and you REALLY want things to turn around for her. At times, it seems like she really could have a normal life if she could get away from her crazy mother and learn to use her powers to her benefit. She begins to gain confidence in herself and it’s really hopeful for awhile. We all hated high school and had our own versions of mean girls, so of course, you’re rooting for Carrie the whole way through.
The score to the film is also pretty exceptional, it’s sweet but then really creepy at the same time. Kind of like Carrie in a way, so in my opinion, they really nailed it in that aspect.
The film as a whole really has withstood the test of time and deals with issues that are still extremely relevant in today’s society. I remember my first viewing was with my mom (she’s not evil, she’s totally awesome and doesn’t lock me in a closet like ‘Harry Potter’ or our girl Carrie) at the age of 15 and I’ve loved it ever since.
The film really is a warning to all bullies: that if you mess with the wrong ‘nerd’, you will get the proverbial horns. Or in this case, you will die at prom and you will deserve it. So there. OMG like Totes unfair.
This movie has something for everyone – suspense, high school teen-angst-bulls*it, pretty cheerleaders, buckets of blood, telekinetic powers, triumph over evil, knife fights, shower scenes and John Travolta. Did you hear that guys, JOHN FU*KING TRAVOLTA. Case closed.
Rent this movie or stream it on Netflix before the release of the revamped ‘Carrie’ hits the big screen tomorrow!My oldest son has been involved in a folk dancing group at school over the past few months. He loves to participate in any extra curricular activity that is offered. Kilometre Club, Cross Country Team, Boy’s Book Reading Club and Folk Dancing are just a few he is doing at the school during the month of May. It is wonderful seeing him eager to be involved and his enthusiasm draws and influences others to get involved.
Tonight was the culmination of all the folk dancing practices as they took part in a big jamboree. Approximately ten local schools got together at a nearby outdoor concert venue. There were hundred’s of kids doing the polka, traditional Indian and Filipino dances, Cotton Eye Joe and others. They ended the jamboree with YMCA and had all the parents come in to dance with them. Ben was nervous I wouldn’t know the dance moves to YMCA because I never practiced with him. I told him I was born in ’72 and dancing to YMCA was a way of life for people living in the 70s and 80s. It was a lot of fun!
Today’s salad is bright, fresh and packed with flavour. I love avocados and they, along with tomatoes, shrimp and lime juice make one amazing salad!
We used this as a side salad but it could easily be made as a salsa to go with nacho chips or even used to fill a soft taco with Mexican cheese or feta.h tomatoes, make the base of this salad. I diced the shrimp so that there would be more in each bite. Cilantro and lime enhance the salad providing a Mexican kick.A baby starfish scoops up snacks by spinning miniature whirlpools. These vortices catch tasty algae and draw them close so the larva can slurp them up, scientists from Stanford University report December 19 in Nature Physics.
Before starfish take on their familiar shape, they freely swim ocean waters as millimeter-sized larvae. To swim around on the hunt for food, the larvae paddle the water with hairlike appendages called cilia. But, the scientists found, starfish larvae also adjust the orientation of these cilia to fine-tune their food-grabbing vortices.
Scientists studied larvae of the bat star (Patiria miniata), a starfish found on the U.S. Pacific coast, by observing their activities in seawater suffused with tiny beads that traced the flow of liquid. (Watch a video of the experiment.) Too many swirls can slow a larva down, the scientists found, so the baby starfish adapts to the task at hand, creating fewer vortices while swimming and whipping up more of them when stopping to feed.Saturday night, tens of thousands of people filled San Bernardino’s Glen Helen Amphitheater to hear Tool play a song about California sinking into the sea. While the band hasn’t released a note of new music in 11 years, their audience has only snowballed, and the group used a date on their current tour to play their largest non-festival headlining show ever. For their part, they delivered a whopping 15-song set – their longest of the tour.
This victory lunge also meant a long parade of high-profile alterna-metal opening acts that played from the broiling afternoon to just around sundown. These bands, like Tool, found unlikely success in the unlikely Nineties performing headbanger fare with varying degrees of uncompromising strangeness.
…Tool’s visuals had to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and, luckily, they only get better as the band’s popularity catches up to their song durations. Blue lights shot into the night sky for “The Grudge,” lasers scattered into chaos for “Ænema,” kaleidoscopic animations throbbed in time to the screams and car alarm guitar of “Third Eye.” [Christopher R. Weingarten for Rolling Stone]When Sam Allardyce masterminded another Sunderland’s survival, few eyebrows were raised. For months, most neutral observers commented that a team notorious for late escapes led by a manager who had never been relegated created a perfect storm for staying in Premier League.
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However, the Wearsiders survival campaign was far from “typical Allardyce” as he faced a number of obstacles which threatened to destabilise their quest for safety.
When Big Sam was appointed in October, most expected Sunderland to start keeping clean sheets whilst playing attritional percentages football to keep them up. This assessment looked spot on as they moved out the bottom three with back to back wins and clean sheets by the end of November.
To Allardyce’s frustration, this was short lived; a disastrous December saw The Black Cats suffer five consecutive defeats including inept performances away at Chelsea and Manchester City.
This prompted the Sunderland gaffer to act and totally change the way his side were playing. He inherited a squad which on the surface may have seem perfect for his perceived style of play. The team was littered with workmanlike players but Big Sam evidently felt the squad lacked quality and delved into the transfer market with huge success.
He showed intelligence and pragmatism in making a number of controversial decisions which have proved critical in the Premier League run-in. The departures were perhaps as key as his signings. Faced with the 7th highest wage bill in the top flight he had to trim the squad.
The departures of Danny Graham, Will Buckley, Liam Bridcutt, Charias Mavrias and Sebastian Coates were mourned by nobody. But in terms of freeing up extra wages, he demonstrated a ruthless streak with the other two outgoings.
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Just weeks after being Sunderland’s undisputed number one, Costel Pantilimon was sold to Watford. The impressive Jordan Pickford was recalled from Preston to provide competition for the new number one, Vito Mannone. The decision caused much debate at the time, with many feeling Pantilimon’s superior command of his penalty area combined with Mannone’s poor confidence should have resulted in Mannone being moved on instead. But Allardyce took the bold move, based upon Pantilimon being the highest wage earner of the three goalkeepers as well as the Romanian being an inferior shot-stopper to his Italian counterpart.
He also had success in moving on Steven Fletcher, despite being far from a fan favourite, the Scotsman had formed a promising link with Defoe and on his day was capable of scoring goals. Again, Sam took the view that his contribution in comparison to his wages was disproportionate and to make the improvements necessary he had to move on.
Both these decisions have borne fruit with Mannone producing a string of excellent displays towards the back end of the season as well as Fletcher’s wage freeing up funds for signings who have been pivotal in Sunderland staying up.
Jan Kirchoff was the first arrival from Bayern Munich, despite his undoubted pedigree there were doubts over his signing. He had not played regular first team football for over a year and he endured a nightmare debut at Tottenham. But after impressing against Manchester City, he produced a series of superb displays, breaking up play and his range of passing being a prominent feature of his game.
Lamine Kone was eventually brought in from Lorient and has formed an excellent centre-half partnership with Kaboul, as well as scoring two vital goals in the decisive final home game against Everton.
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Although Khazri has been inconsistent, his work rate has never wavered and has proven his quality with threatening set pieces and a stunning goal against Chelsea.
Although tightening the defence and playing with two holding midfielders may on the surface look like a typical Allardyce trait, the style of football produced was far from “typical Big Sam.” The two holding midfielders, M’Villa and Kirchoff both excelled in breaking up opposition attacks but more importantly their ball retention was of a level higher than Sunderland’s Premier League standing.
In previous years, Sunderland’s midfielders had been energetic but often gave the ball away too cheaply, which in a counter attacking side proved costly. The defensive midfield duo provided an essential calmness on the ball. This combined with Kone and Kaboul’s strength at the back gave a good base upon which the more forward minded players flourished.
Not only have Wahbi Khazri and Fabio Borini benefitted from improved service in wide areas, but attacking full backs DeAndre Yedlin and Patrick Van Aanholt now feel confident overlapping safe in the knowledge that Kirchoff and M’Villa are happy to cover their positions.
This is not to say that Allardyce has not been pragmatic. After five straight defeats, his main priority was to make his side harder to beat and gradually performances improved, losses became draws and Sunderland suffered just one defeat in their final 11 games, which was to table-topping Leicester.
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The season ended on a real high, Big Sam’s side ended the season playing high intensity, positive, attractive football which resulted in an impressive 3-2 win over Chelsea and an emphatic 3-0 win over Everton.
When the national media or opposition fans comment on Allardyce they have certain expectations of his side which involves a dependency on set pieces and long ball football. However, whilst being pragmatic, he has been astute in the transfer market and played a decent style of football whilst removing dead wood from the squad and improving the connection between the fans and the players.
Of course, Sunderland have been here before. But with the steadying influence brought by Big Sam, there is a real sense that The Wearsiders are in a great position to capitalise on the feel-good factor at the club and establish them as a mid-table side.
Featured Image: All rights reserved by Jonathan SosaThis article is about the section of Interstate 70 in Colorado. For the entire route, see Interstate 70
Interstate 70 (I-70) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from Cove Fort, Utah, to Baltimore, Maryland. In Colorado, the highway traverses an east–west route across the center of the state. In western Colorado, the highway connects the metropolitan areas of Grand Junction and Denver via a route through the Rocky Mountains. In eastern Colorado, the highway crosses the Great Plains, connecting Denver with metropolitan areas in Kansas and Missouri. Bicycles and other non-motorized vehicles, normally prohibited on Interstate Highways, are allowed on those stretches of I-70 in the Rockies where no other through route exists.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) lists the construction of I-70 among the engineering marvels undertaken in the Interstate Highway system, and cites four major accomplishments: the section through the Dakota Hogback, Eisenhower Tunnel, Vail Pass and Glenwood Canyon. The Eisenhower Tunnel, with a maximum elevation of 11,158 feet (3,401 m) and length of 1.7 miles (2.7 km), is the longest mountain tunnel and highest point along the Interstate Highway System. The portion through Glenwood Canyon was completed on October 14, 1992. This was one of the final pieces of the Interstate Highway System to open to traffic, and is one of the most expensive rural highways per mile built in the United States. The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) earned the 1993 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers for the completion of I-70 through the canyon.
When the Interstate Highway system was in the planning stages, the western terminus of I-70 was proposed to be at Denver. The portion west of Denver was included into the plans after lobbying by Governor Edwin C. Johnson, for whom one of the tunnels along I-70 is named. East of Idaho Springs, I-70 was built along the corridor of U.S. Highway 40, one of the original transcontinental U.S. Highways. West of Idaho Springs, I-70 was built along the route of U.S. Highway 6, which was extended into Colorado during the 1930s.
Route description [ edit ]
Westbound I-70 on a viaduct inside Glenwood Canyon paralleling the Colorado River and former Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (now Union Pacific) main line
Colorado River [ edit ]
I-70 enters Colorado from Utah, concurrent with US 6 and US 50, on a plateau between the north rim of Ruby Canyon of the Colorado River and the south rim of the Book Cliffs. The plateau ends just past the state line and the highway descends into the Grand Valley, formed by the Colorado River and its tributaries.[2] The Grand Valley is home to several towns and small cities that form the Grand Junction Metropolitan Statistical Area, the largest conurbation in the area regionally known as the Western Slope. The highway directly serves the communities of Fruita, Grand Junction and Palisade. Grand Junction is the largest city between Denver and Salt Lake City and serves as the economic hub of the area.[3] The freeway passes to the north of downtown, while US 6 and 50 retain their original routes through downtown. US 6 rejoins I-70 east of Grand Junction; US 50 departs on a course toward Pueblo.[2]
I-70 exits the valley through De Beque Canyon, a path carved by the Colorado River that separates the Book Cliffs from Battlement Mesa. The river and its tributaries provide the course for the ascent up the Rocky Mountains. In the canyon, I-70 enters the Beavertail Mountain Tunnel, the first of several tunnels built to route the freeway across the Rockies. This tunnel design features a curved sidewall, unusual for tunnels in the United States, where most tunnels feature a curved roof and flat side-walls. Engineers borrowed a European design to give the tunnel added strength.[4] After the canyon winds past the Book Cliffs, the highway follows the Colorado River through a valley containing the communities of Parachute and Rifle.[2]
Glenwood Canyon [ edit ]
East of the city of Glenwood Springs, the highway enters Glenwood Canyon. Both the federal and state departments of transportation have praised the engineering achievement required to build the freeway through the narrow gorge while preserving the natural beauty of the canyon.[4][5] A 12-mile (19 km) section of roadway features the No Name Tunnel, Hanging Lake Tunnel, Reverse Curve Tunnel, 40 bridges and viaducts, and miles of retaining walls.[6] Through a significant portion of the canyon, the eastbound lanes extend cantilevered over the Colorado River and the westbound lanes are suspended on a viaduct several feet above the canyon floor.[5][7] Along this run, the freeway hugs the north bank of the Colorado River, while the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad (formerly the Denver and Rio Grande Western) occupies the south bank.[2]
The western portal of the Hanging Lake Tunnel ; at this point in the canyon both the river and railroad are directly below the freeway viaducts
To minimize the hazards along this portion, a command center staffed with emergency response vehicles and tow trucks on standby monitors cameras along the tunnels and viaducts in the canyon. Traffic signals have been placed at strategic locations to stop traffic in the event of an accident, and variable message signs equipped with radar guns will automatically warn motorists exceeding the design speed of one of the curves.[8] The USDOT makes provision for bicycles, which are usually prohibited along Interstate Highways, along the freeway corridor in Glenwood Canyon.[9]
Rocky Mountains [ edit ]
The highway departs the Colorado River near Dotsero, the name given to the railroad separation for the two primary mountain crossings, the original via Tennessee Pass/Royal Gorge and the newer and shorter Moffat Tunnel route.[10] I-70 uses a separate route between the two rail corridors. From this junction I-70 follows the Eagle River toward Vail Pass, at an elevation of 10,666 feet (3,251 m). In this canyon I-70 reaches the western terminus of U.S. Highway 24, which meanders through the Rockies before rejoining I-70. US 24 is known as the Highway of the Fourteeners, from the concentration of mountains exceeding 14,000 feet (4,300 m) along the highway corridor.[11] Along the ascent, I-70 serves the ski resort town of Vail and the ski areas of Beaver Creek Resort, Vail Ski Resort and Copper Mountain.[2]
The construction of the freeway over Vail Pass is also listed as an engineering marvel. One of the challenges of this portion is the management of the wildlife that roams this area. Several parts of the approach to the pass feature large fences that prevent wildlife from crossing the freeway and direct the animals to one of several underpasses. At least one underpass is located along a natural migratory path and has been landscaped to encourage deer to cross.[1][12]
The highway descends to Dillon Reservoir, near the town of Frisco, and begins one final ascent to the Eisenhower Tunnel, where the freeway crosses the Continental Divide. At the time of dedication, this tunnel was the highest vehicular tunnel in the world, at 11,158 feet (3,401 m).[13] As of 2010, the facility was still the highest vehicular tunnel in the United States.[6] The Eisenhower Tunnel is noted as both the longest mountain tunnel and highest point on the Interstate Highway System.[13] The tunnel has a command center, staffed with 52 full-time employees, to monitor traffic, remove stranded vehicles, and maintain generators to keep the tunnel's lighting and ventilation systems running in the event of a power failure. Signals are placed at each entrance and at various points inside the tunnel to close lanes or stop traffic in an emergency.[13] There are several active and former ski resorts in the vicinity of the tunnel, including Breckenridge Ski Resort, Keystone Resort, Arapahoe Basin, Loveland Ski Area, Berthoud Pass Ski Area and Winter Park Resort.[2]
Clear Creek [ edit ]
The freeway follows Clear Creek down the eastern side of the Rockies, passing through the Veterans Memorial Tunnels[14] near Idaho Springs. Farther to the east, I-70 departs the US 6 corridor, which continues to follow Clear Creek through a narrow, curving gorge. The interstate, however, follows the corridor of US 40 out of the canyon. The highway crests a small mountain near Genesee Park to descend into Mount Vernon Canyon to exit the Rocky Mountains.[2] This portion features grade-warning signs with unusual messages, such as "Trucks: Don't be fooled," "Truckers, you are not down yet," and "Are your brakes adjusted and cool?"[15] Runaway truck ramps are a prominent feature along this portion of I-70,[4] with a total of seven used along the descent of either side the Continental Divide to stop trucks with failed brakes.[1]
Warning sign stating, "Trucks, Don't be Fooled—4 more miles of steep grades and sharp curves."
The last geographic feature of the Rocky Mountains traversed before the highway reaches the Great Plains is the Dakota Hogback. The path through the hogback features a massive cut that exposes various layers of rock millions of years old. The site includes a nature study area for visitors.[4][16]
Great Plains [ edit ]
As the freeway passes from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains, I-70 enters the Denver metropolitan area, part of a larger urban area called the Front Range Urban Corridor. The freeway arcs around the northern edge of the LoDo district, the common name of the lower downtown area of Denver. Through the downtown area, US 40 is routed along Colfax Avenue, which served as the primary east–west artery through the Denver area before the construction of I-70. Through downtown, US 6 is routed along 6th Avenue before departing the I-70 corridor to join Interstate 76 on a northeast course toward Nebraska.[2] The freeway meets Interstate 25 in an interchange frequently called the Mousetrap.[4] From I-25 on to I-225, I-70 serves—together with those two Interstates—as part of an inner beltway around Denver.[17]
Downtown Denver
I-70 has one official branch in Colorado, Interstate 270, which connects the interstate with the Denver–Boulder Turnpike. Where these two freeways merge is the busiest portion of I-70 in the state, with an annual average daily traffic of 183,000 vehicles per day.[18] While State Highway 470 and E-470 are not officially branches of I-70, they are remnants of plans for an I-470 outer beltway around Denver that were cancelled when the allocated funds were spent elsewhere.[19]
Leaving Denver, the highway serves the redevelopment areas on the former site of Stapleton International Airport; runway 17R/35L crossed over the Interstate at the runway's midsection.[2] East of Aurora, I-70 rejoins the alignment of U.S. Highway 40 at Colfax Avenue. The freeway proceeds east across the Great Plains, briefly dipping south to serve the city of Limon, which bills itself as Hub City because of the many rail and road arteries that intersect there.[20] I-70 enters Kansas near Burlington, a small community known for having one of the oldest carousels in the United States.[21]
History [ edit ]
As first proposed in 1944, the western terminus of I-70 was Denver, along the corridor of US 40. The portion across the Rocky Mountains was added to the plans, after lobbying by Colorado officials, following the US 6 corridor.[12] The origins of both the US 40 and US 6 pre-date the U.S. System of numbered highways, using established transcontinental trails.[22]
Earlier routes [ edit ]
Before the formation of the United States Numbered Highways, the U.S. relied on an informal network of roads, organized by various competing interests, collectively called the auto trail system. The surveyors of most trails chose either South Pass in Wyoming or a southern route through New Mexico to traverse the Rocky Mountains. Both options were less formidable than the higher mountain passes in Colorado, but left the state without a transcontinental artery. When the planners of the Lincoln Highway also decided to cross the Rockies in Wyoming, officials pressed for a loop to branch from the main route in Nebraska, enter Colorado, and return to the main route in Wyoming. While the Lincoln Highway was briefly routed this way, the loop proved impractical and was soon removed.[22]
After losing the connection to the Lincoln Highway, officials convinced planners of the Victory Highway to traverse the state. The highway entered Colorado from Kansas along what was previously called the Smoky Hill Trail. The highway crossed the mountains along a trail blazed by a railroad surveyor and captain in the American Civil War, cresting at Berthoud Pass.[22] After a round of political infighting between Utah and Nevada, the Victory Highway would become the Lincoln Highway's main rival for San Francisco-bound traffic.[23] When the U.S. Highway system was unveiled in 1926, the Victory Highway was numbered U.S. Highway 40.[22]
While US 6 was also one of the original 1926 U.S. Highways, the road originally served the portion of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The highway was not extended to the Pacific coast until 1937, mostly following the Midland Trail.[24] Around the time the U.S. Highway system was formed, the portion of the Midland Trail through Glenwood Canyon, known as the Taylor State Road, was destroyed by a flood.[22] When US 6 was extended, the Works Progress Administration was rebuilding |
sad fate" unless he urgently carried out reforms and reconciled with the opposition.
And EU states extended their sanctions against Syria, adding more names to a list including President Assad and 34 other people as well as firms linked to the military. They stopped short of targeting the oil industry and banks, however.
Dozens of people are believed to have been killed in a five-day military assault on Hama, with residents saying on Thursday that tanks had shot their way into Assi (Orontes) Square, in the centre of the city of 800,000 people.
Activists said as many as 30 more people were killed in Hama late on Wednesday, after Ramadan prayers.
Communication with the city is all but completely cut off, as are water and electricity, correspondents say.
One resident who escaped the city on Wednesday told the BBC it looked "exactly like a battlefield... like a Gaza Strip kind of city. Like some villages in Iraq when the US army invaded it. That's how it looks like".
He said artillery was firing at buildings and snipers were shooting at anyone they saw on the streets.
Many people had left the city, he said, but for those left, food and medicine were running low.
Another resident said "people are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street.
"I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank," the man told Associated Press news agency.What is System on Chip?
SoC acronym for system on chip is an IC which integrates all the components into a single chip. It may contain analog, digital, mixed signal and other radio frequency functions all lying on a single chip substrate. Today, SoCs are very common in electronics industry due to its low power consumption. Also, embedded system applications make great use of SoCs. SoCs consists of:
microcontrollers, digital signal processors etc. Control Unit: In SoCs, the major control units are microprocessors, digital signal processors etc.
Memory Blocks: ROM, RAM. Flash memory and EEPROM are the basic memory units inside a SoC chip.
Timing Units: Oscillators and PLLs are the timing units of the System on chip.
Other peripherals of the SoCs are counter timers, real-time timers and power on reset generators.
Analog interfaces, external interfaces, voltage regulators and power management units form the basic interfaces of the SoCs.
SoC Structure: Design Flow
Design flow of SoC aims in the development of hardware and software of SoC designs. In general, the design flow of SoCs consists of:
Hardware and Software Modules: Hardware blocks of SoCs are developed from pre-qualified hardware elements and software modules integrated using software development environment. The hardware description languages like Verilog, VHDL and SystemC are being used for the development of the modules.
Functional Verification: The SoCs are verified for the logic correctness before it is being given to the foundry.
FPGA, simulation acceleration, emulation and other technologies. Verify hardware and software designs: For the verification and debug of hardware and software of SoC designs, engineers have employed, simulation acceleration, emulation and other technologies.
Place and Route: After the debugging of the SoC, the next step is to place and route the entire design to the integrated circuit before it is being given to the fabrication. In the fabrication process, full custom, standard cell and FPGA technologies are commonly used.
Advantages of SoC
Low power.
Low cost.
High reliability.
Small form factor.
High integration levels.
Fast operation.
Greater design.
Small size.
Disadvantages of SoC
Fabrication cost.
Increased complexity.
Time to market demands.
More verification.
SoC Varieties
NVIDIA Tegra 3
NVIDIA Tegra 3 is a SoC of the Tegra family and this is used in various Android devices. Some devices like Asus Eee Pad, HTC One X and Google Nexus Tablet is using the Tegra 3 on the board. This comes with a CPU and five cores. Each core is a Cortex A9 ARM chip, while the fifth core is made of a low power silicon process and has a speed of 500MHz.
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4
Qualcomm is important when Android smart phones and tablets are being used. It has a processor which is similar to the ARM Cortex A15 CPU.
Samsung Exynos 4 Quad
This SoC is based on the ARM architecture. It has a 1.4GHz ARM Mali-400 MP4 quad-core GPU and Quad-core ARM Cortex – A9 CPU. This processor supports many applications like 3D gaming, multi-tasking and video recording and playback.
Intel Medfield
Medfield SoCs are not based on ARM architecture. It uses the x86 technologies to make these SoCs. Medfield SoCs can offer OEMs a 1.6-2GHz single-core processor and PowerVR’s SGX540 GPU.
Texas Instruments OMAP 4
It is the fourth generation OMAPs where ARM Cortex A9 45nm architecture is being used. Some Android devices that use this SoC are Motorola Atrix 2, Motorola Droid RAZR, LG Optimus 3D and LG Optimus Max.
SoC Design Challenges
The different SoC design challenges are given below:
Architecture Strategy Design for Test Strategy Validation Strategy Synthesis Backend Strategy Integration Strategy On chip Isolation
Architecture Strategy
The kind of processor that we use to design the SoC is really an important factor to be considered. Also, the kind of bus that has to be implemented is another matter of choice.
Design for Test Strategy
Most of the common physical defects are modeled as faults here. While the necessary circuits included in the SoC design help in checking the faults.
Validation Strategy
Validation Strategy of SoC designs involves two major issues. First issue is that we have to verify the IP cores. While the second issue is that we need to verify the integration of the system.
Synthesis and Backend Strategy
There are many physical effects that have to be considered while designing the SoC synthesis and strategy. Effects like IR drop, cross talk, 3D noise, antenna effects and EMI effects. Inorder to tackle these issues, chip planning, power planning, DFT planning, clock planning, timing and area budgeting is required in the early stage of the design.
Integration Strategy
In the integration strategy, all the above listed facts have to be considered and assembled to bring out a smooth strategy.
On chip Isolation
In on chip isolation, many effects like impact of process technology, grounding effects, guard rings, shielding and on- chip decoupling is to be considered.
ARM Holdings and SoC
System on Chip devices became popular because of some major breakthroughs provided by ARM Holdings, a British company that has contributed significantly to the field of embedded systems. ARM developed and licensed processor designs that could be used by other companies to develop chips. This enabled greater flexibility in design and manufacture of chips. Chip manufacturers could build upon these CPU designs and add other necessary components to come up with SoC.
IP Cores
IP Cores or Intellectual Property Cores are fundamental building blocks of SoC. It is a reusable layout of IC design that is provided by companies like ARM to chip manufacturers subject to license agreements. IP Cores can be Soft cores or Hard cores. Soft cores are generally RTL schematics written in some hardware description language. They are called so because they can be subjected to small changes suiting the design. Hard cores are mostly analog components and certain digital cores whose function cannot be changed by designers.
Open Cores
One of the advantage of having reusable IC design layouts is that it facilitates a more open approach to designing. Having philosophies similar to the Free Software Movement an open source hardware community exists that develops digital open source hardware. This community called Open Cores publish core designs under Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Their aim is to develop tools and standards for open source cores and platforms and provide documentation for the same.
Software and Protocol Stacks
Hardware is not the only focus during SoC design. The chips developed must be supported by software drivers that control the operation of hardware. Since an SoC has to manage networking also the protocol stacks have to be written along with drivers. These stacks are software implementations of networking protocols.
Functional Verification
Functional verification is a very important task in SoC manufacturing. It is the process of verifying that the hardware developed follows the logic intended by the designer. This involve testing the performance of the hardware against the various permutations and combinations of situations. The very number of such possibilities make this process extremely challenging. Experts use various methods to reduce this number and take help of software tools like Aldec at this stage.
On-chip debugging
On-chip debugging is emerging as a cheap alternative to simulative and emulative verification techniques. Simulations are not very close to physical hardware and methods to improve simiulation capabilities can be very costly. The cost can be brought down and more effective debugging can be ensured by the use of instrumentation techniques for on-chip debugging. On-Chip debugging for a component in an SoC is different from others. We may look into on-chip debugging of a processor as an example.
On-Chip Debugging of a Processor
This On-Chip Debugging System(OCDS) uses JTAG interface. It consists of three blocks – the OCDS module, core debug port and the JTAG module. The debugging operation is controlled using breakpoints. Breakpoints are triggers that alter the sequential operation of a processor. The processor is driven into required modes using breakpoints for performing analysis.
Instruction Breakpoints
Instruction breakpoints are triggers set against instruction value of the processor. This helps in tracking the occurrence of instructions in the processor. A processor OCDS monitor concurrent instructions by having multiple instruction breakpoints. Instructions are evaluated by comparing the data or register values set by instructions.
Fabrication of SoC
Most common methods for fabricating SoCs are as a standard cell, full custom designing or using FPGAs. Full custom designing involves specifying the layout of every component of hardware design. Due to the labor intensiveness of this method it is preferred only when large number of repetition is needed. A more common method is the use of standard cells which are libraries already written by full custom designing. FPGAs allow implementation of complex combinational logical functions by a user with the help of programmable logic blocks and interconnects.
Applications of SoCs
Most common use of SoCs has been found in the mobile devices industry. The use of SoCs have enabled manufaturers of such devices to come up with devices good of very small form factor that offer ample performance. It also enables them to focus on features they project to the target customers than relying on capabilities of chips provided by some other company. SoCs also brought about a revolution in embedded systems by paving way for very small and portable single-board computers.
Examples of SoCs
Most of the SoCs available in the market today are ARM based. Some examples among SoCs in smartphone industry are Qualcomm's Snapdragon SoCs, Apple A4, and Nvidia Tegra series. Raspberry Pi 2 comes with Broadcom BCM2836 SoC. Several SoCs have been developed by the Open Cores community.The United States judicial system, like its fellow federal branches of government, hasn't fared very well in the public eye lately. New data from Democracy Corps, a Democratic-aligned polling consortium, shows that the public thinks the court is a political creature. And the public does not care much for political creatures in 2014.
Source: Democracy Corps
A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that the public regard for the court has been lower than usual lately (although it's made a slight recovery from the historic lows it hit the last time Pew polled on this subject).
Historical Gallup data show the same thing. The Supreme Court may be in a better place public opinion-wise than the president or Congress, but it has been following the same downward trend.
Soruce: Gallup
There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that backs up that perception.
In an interview with USA Today in 2011, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "What I care most about I think most of my colleagues do, too, is that we want this institution to maintain the position that it has had in this system, where it is not considered a political branch of government." She declined to answer questions about any potential political motivations of her colleagues.
Although Supreme Court law clerks in the '70s and '80s were usually not appointed on a partisan basis, since then, clerks increasingly match the ideology of the president that appointed their chosen justice, as a 2010 New York Times report highlighted.
Source: The Washington Post
There is no doubt that many Supreme Court decisions land along partisan 5-4 lines under the Roberts court, but these surveys and data points miss one crucial point: Politics have always been a part of the Supreme Court.
Presidents have long sought to calibrate the court to achieve their political ends. After the Supreme Court struck down one of the most important parts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, he proposed adding a few seats to the court to give the old justices a hand — and to perhaps dilute what he saw as an increasingly conservative bench. No one fell for it. President Ulysses S. Grant was also accused of court packing.
In 1987, the Robert Bork confirmation hearings lifted the politicization of the Supreme Court to new heights, and ushered in an era in which the legislative branch saw the increased political utility of the Supreme Court.
As the New York Times wrote in September 1987,
The battle raging over Judge Robert H. Bork, from the Senate caucus room to the television screens of America, has thrust electoral politics and public opinion into the Supreme Court confirmation process more deeply than ever before. With the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings entering their third week, that process may have been permanently transformed, especially if the Bork opponents who have seized the momentum in the last two weeks carry their string of tactical victories through to final triumph. ''We're getting perilously close to electing a Supreme Court Justice,'' Lloyd N. Cutler, a leading Washington lawyer who has been the most prominent Democrat so far to testify for Judge Bork, said gravely in a hallway interview last week.
With the decisions reached in Bush v. Gore, the Affordable Care Act decision, the Citizens United decision, Shelby County v. Holder and many others, justices were blamed for guiding American politics based on their own ideology rather than simply interpreting the law. New vacancies on the court are now treated as events of the utmost historical and strategic importance.
The process is self-fulfilling at this point. As justices' decisions mirror the ideologies of those that set them up on the political chess board, presidents and legislators can't help but keep playing the game. As Ezra Klein wrote right before the Affordable Care Act decision,
The people who serve as judges on the Supreme Court have been vetted by political parties, have often worked for political parties, frequently have loyalties to people in political parties who helped their career, and spend much of their time in Washington, where they sort into social groups they find congenial. They are, in other words, more, not less, political than most Americans.
All of the political factors weighing on the Court have created the most partisan bench in history, according to a study by Richard Posner and Williams Landes. And while the Supreme Court has always been political, the fractious confirmation hearings and the media attention surrounding high-profile decisions have left the public more attuned to the politicking.
The Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey also asked respondents if they would support reforms to the Supreme Court. Unsurprisingly, the people unhappy with the Supreme Court's performance were open to changing how the system is run.
Source: Democracy Corps
(The second question is a bit odd, however... seeing as the Court already discloses their outside activities in financial disclosure reports.)
Despite the American public's complaints about politicking on the Supreme Court, public opinion of the Court is completely dependent on whether partisans agree with the decisions the justices reach. The Pew Research survey released on Tuesday has a chart that tracks public opinion of the Supreme Court since 2008, broken down by political party. When the Supreme Court made a decision that aligned with their ideology — or a justice nominated by a president from their party was confirmed to the court — opinion jumped up. When the Supreme Court's decision did not align with their ideology, opinion dropped.
The public may say they are miffed with the Supreme Court's politics, but their opinion of the court is completely guided by the perceived political bent of the Supreme Court's decisions. The chart also reveals that although the public thinks the Court is guided by politics, they aren't entirely sure what kind of politics. Like with many other things, the public tends to correlate much of what is happening in national politics with the White House. If the economy is good, the public gives the president a thumbs up. If they like the president, Americans typically give Congress a boost, too — especially the legislators who come from the same party as the president. The same is true of the Supreme Court, this data seems to suggest. And, not only that, but the public also assumes that the ideology of the Court matches the ideology of the president. Here's a look even further back in history.
Since 2010, Democrats have had a higher approval rating of the Court than Republicans have, despite the fact that many smart people have crunched the numbers and found that the current court is more conservative than it has been in decades.
Like most issues, the public's understanding and evaluation of the Supreme Court isn't always logically consistent. However, since the Supreme Court is also the branch of federal government most shielded from the whims of public opinion, the conflicting signals won't necessarily have any effect on where politics and ideology take the court in the future. The court may be political, and the public might say they don't care for it much, but there isn't much they can do about it.The FBI announced this week the arrest of two members of The New Black Panther Party in Ferguson. The arrest comes in the backdrop of increased tensions as the community waits on the grand jury decision in the shooting death of unarmed black team Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The individuals were identified as Brandon Orlando Baldwin and Olajuwon Davis. Their ages and addresses were not made public.
The pair were charged in a federal indictment with making false statements to obtain firearms for their “straw purchase” of two Hi-Point.45 ACP pistols. The federal indictment claims that Baldwin claims he was the buyer when actually they were purchasing guns for another unidentified party. During the undercover sting operation, which has spanned several months, federal authorities discovered explosives and plans to make pipe bombs. According to an unnamed law enforcement official, the pair planned to detonate bombs during the ongoing protests in Ferguson.
Racial tensions have increased during the past few weeks as the KKK distributed flyers and went on national TV promising violence against peaceful protesters. According to Frank Ancona, KKK grand wizard, he believes that the protesters are in fact criminals and Michael Brown was a criminal whose killing was justified. There have been warnings from the FBI to law enforcement throughout the nation, to be on heightened alert over possible civil unrest if Wilson is not indicted.
A YouTube video has emerged of Olajuwon Davis, a.k.a. Bro. Ali, speaking on his beliefs that he is a “sovereign citizen” and a member of the Nation of Moors. The video can be viewed below:Simply by telling 44 hotel maids that what they did each day involved some serious exercise, the Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer and Alia J. Crum, a student, were apparently able to lower the women’s blood pressure, shave pounds off their bodies and improve their body-fat and “waist to hip” ratios. Self-awareness, it seems, was the women’s elliptical trainer.
At the start of the study, Langer and Crum quizzed 84 maids at seven carefully matched hotels about how much exercise they got. Fully a third of the women said they got no exercise at all, while two-thirds said they did not work out regularly. Langer and Crum took several measures of the women’s basic fitness levels, which indicated that they, indeed, had the poor health of basically sedentary people. Then just over half the women were told an unfamiliar truth: cleaning 15 rooms daily — pushing recalcitrant vacuum cleaners, scrubbing tubs, pulling sheets — constitutes more than enough activity to meet the surgeon general’s recommendation of a half-hour of physical activity daily. The researchers even provided specifics: 15 minutes of scrubbing burns 60 calories, 15 minutes of vacuuming burns 50. The basic message and the details were then posted in the maids’ lounges in the hotels where the 44 women worked, to serve as reminders, while a control group was left in the dark.
A month later, Langer and Crum checked back with the women to find, as they reported in the February issue of Psychological Science, remarkable results. The average study-group maid had lost 2 pounds, while her systolic blood pressure had dropped by 10 points; by all measures the 44 women “were significantly healthier.” Yet there were no reported changes in behavior, only in mind-set, with the vast majority of the women now considering themselves regular exercisers. Langer sees the study as a lesson in the importance of mindfulness, long a subject of her research, and which need not involve Buddhism or meditation, she stresses. “It’s about noticing new things; it’s about engagement,” she says.
But for the study’s white-collar readers, a corollary to its results might be dispiriting: Made freshly aware — mindful — of just how sedentary their work lives are in contrast to a housekeeper’s, might they not suffer a corresponding decline in health?Anyone who follows football on television would no doubt be subject to the ai???expertai??i?? remarks and opinions of the ai???punditsai??i?? hired by that particular TV channel. The importance of these pundits in a match cannot be underestimated, for their opinions and views can singlehandedly make or break the viewerai??i??s interest in the match!
While there are divided opinions over the most popular pundits in the current setup, there seems to be a wide consensus over the worst ones ai??i?? those who make ludicrous comments that betray their astonishingly poor understanding of the game. Jamie Redknapp, Mark Lawrenson, Andy Gray(of late), David Pleat, Carlton Palmer and Andy Townsend, to name some,Ai?? make it to this elite list for their repeatedly unabashed, biased and foolish statements, making them a good topic over breakfast.
With Carlton Palmer being a part of the Ten Sports punditry team that covers the Champions League in Asia, it comes as no surprise that the former England midfielder has managed to become the butt of many a joke for his inane comments. Hereai??i??s a list of the top five ai???sensibleai??i?? comments uttered by this ai???top punditai??i??.
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5. ai???Peter Crouch is a better striker than Ibrahimovicai???
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This comes on the back of Tottenhamai??i??s stunning victory over AC Milan at the San Siro in the first leg between the two teams. A brilliant counter-attacking run by Aaron Lennon resulted in the ball landing at the English strikerai??i??s feet, and he buried the ball into the wide-open net. If this sort of goal is enough to merit such lavish praise for Crouchy, then even Emile Heskey deserves to be mentioned in the same bracket as Ronaldo, Del Piero, Raul, Henry and other legendary strikers!
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The monumental win was the result of Tottenhamai??i??s defensive solidity, and their defenders did very well to keep Ibrahimovic in their pockets for 180 minutes, aided by the lack of assistance to the big Swede in Pirloai??i??s absence. It is true that Zlatan has been known to falter on the big stage despite his skills and talent, and has been more of a ai???small-team bullyai???, but his pedigree can definitely not be surpassed by Crouch. One can understand Palmer being biased towards his fellow countrymen, but making such a bold, albeit ridiculous, statement in public warrants a spank on the bottom for him.
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4. ai???Kenny Dalglish is neither a legend, nor was world classai???
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One could imagine Palmer saying this with an air of resentment, perhaps ruing the fact that he was unable to emulate the feats of the Liverpool legend in his footballing days. The Scot is one of the greatest players to have graced English football, and his record of 169 goals in 501 games in the Liverpool jersey is nothing short of extraordinary. He was voted No. 1 by Liverpool supporters in the “100 players that shook the Kop” poll. He is also the most-capped player for his country, scoring 30 goals in 102 appearances; had he been born in a bigger football nation like Germany or England, he would have become even greater.
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But his success story doesnai??i??t end here; he has won many honors with Liverpool, both as player and manager, and also helped Blackburn secure their first and only Premier League title since the competitionai??i??s inception in 1992, beating his compatriot Sir Alex Ferguson. Seeing as how Liverpool have picked themselves up from disaster under his current tenure, it is obvious that the wrinkled-eyed gentleman exerts an aura of calm and confidence, very much like Fergusonai??i??s personality.
Kenny Dalglish is considered the best player in the all-conquering Liverpool sides of the 1980’s; one of the best sides ever in the history of football. Thus, why Carlton Palmer made such a claim is beyond comprehension, unless he is just let out all that bottled-up bitterness from his chest.
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3. ai???Steven Gerrard was never world class.ai???
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Now, this is one thing that astonished everybody ai??i?? Carlton Palmer refusing to acknowledge that an English star was actually good! Perhaps, the most complete of midfielders in modern times, ‘Captain Fantastic’ – as they refer to him on Merseyside – would’ve walked into absolutely any club in the world. However, he chose to stay loyal to his boyhood club.
Steven Gerrard had been the mainstay of Liverpoolai??i??s pursuit of the elusive Premier League crown and had helped his side come perilously close to achieving their dream in 2008/09. Not to mention his heroics on that day at Istanbul against the mighty Milan, helping his side claw back from a 3-0 deficit at half time and nicking the ai???Big Earedai??i?? Champions League trophy on penalties.
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He is universally regarded as one of the greatest English footballers by the press and other players, especially Zinedine Zidane, and was voted second – only behind King Kenny – in the Liverpool fan poll ai???100 Players who shook the Kopai??i??. Despite having never won a Premier League medal, Gerrard has been at the heart of Liverpoolai??i??s successful campaigns in the last decade, and has also been an integral part of Englandai??i??s squad; his six nominations for the Ballon Dai??i??or and FIFA World Player of the Year puts all doubts about his abilities to rest.
Palmerai??i??s rubbish statement about the Englishman only serves to outline his absolutely disgraceful grasp of football, much like his own playing style; the day he makes some sense will be the day the world ends, as things stand.
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2. ai???Paul Ince was better than Roy Keaneai???
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In contrast to other proclamations, this one required some actual research to find out of Palmer had finally made a sane comment. Ince was one of Unitedai??i??s influential midfielders and was a part of the side which won the inaugural Premier League in 1992 and the double in 1993/94; he had a stormy relationship with Ferguson, and was shipped off to Internazionale in 1995. His record at United reads as two league titles, two FA Cup medals, one European Cup Winnersai??i?? Cup medal, one Football League Cup medal, and runners-up in League Cup twice and once in FA Cup.
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Roy Keane, who was Inceai??i??s natural replacement after the latter left for Italy, had a ruthless winning streak in him and instilled a ai???never-say-dieai??i?? spirit in the team with his on-field displays. He was at the fulcrum of Unitedai??i??s treble winning season in 1998/99 and their subsequent domination in the next two years. However, like Ince, he had well-documented disciplinary problems, and his temper often got the better of him, leading to unwanted incidents like the horror tackle on Haaland and his outspoken comments against his own team-mates and Ferguson.
His tenure at Old Trafford saw him win seven league titles, four FA cup medals, four community shield medals, and one medal each for Champions League and Intercontinental Cup; in 480 appearances in the famous Red shirt, he has scored 59 goals, most of which were game-changing ones. He has been credited as one of the greatest midfielders of his generation and has earned the respect of fans and players alike for his football abilities, though his brutally frank nature has landed him in hot water more often than not.
Sorry Mr. Palmer, but you just got egg on your face again. Maybe you have a soft corner for Ince as a fellow Englishman, but Roy Keane will always be remembered by Red Devils as a greater player.
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1. ai???Maldini is neither a legend nor a world class player!ai???
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Joke of the century, without doubt! Paolo Maldini was more than just a great footballer; he was the perfect role model for every child wishing to pursue a career in football, one of the greatest players ever to have plied his trade for the beautiful game. He spent 25 whole years at a single club, AC Milan, and his unflinching loyalty to the Rossoneri is matched only by Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes.
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In a whopping 902 appearances in the celebrated Red and Black jersey, the legendary defender had accumulated 26 different trophies, including 7 Serie A titles and 5 Champions League titles, a feat that is unlikely to be overtaken sooner than later. Such is his stature and contribution to the game that Milan has retired the number 3 jersey, but will hand it to one of his sons should the latter join the senior team. Any follower of football would know about Maldini, and would also be dying to know what Carlton Palmer was smoking when he uttered this totally bizarre statement. Perhaps, someone slipped some absinthe in his water bottle?
A few other laughable comments of his, like ai???Unless Manuel Neuer plays in England, he is not a proven world class playerai???, shows how really short-sighted a pundit Palmer is. From his playing days to his managerial days, the Englishman has often failed to present a good picture of his abilities. By giving him and other people like Redknapp and Lawrenson a lifeline as a TV pundit, these channels are more likely to end up with a lot of discontented football followers!
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the way care is given. “It is having that cohesive mechanism to put everyone into the loop, which I think hasn’t existed in the past and it is something that people need.”
Among the projects IoTUK is involved with is a £5.2m venture, funded by NHS England and run by the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust.
One of two NHS test sites embracing the internet of things, the trust has created two living labs at the University of Surrey to explore a variety of connected devices aimed at helping those living with dementia. Eventually such systems could be offered by the NHS to those diagnosed with the condition.
“The vision is to provide and early intervention and prevention approach – we don’t have a cure for dementia, so it is really about being able to keep people as well as possible,” said Helen Rostill, director of innovation and development at the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust.
Within the next two weeks, says Rostill, the devices will be trialled in the homes of six to 10 volunteers, allowing the team to iron out any issues ahead of a six month randomised control trial, involving 700 pairs of people with dementia and their carers, that will begin in January. “I think this really is personalised medicine,” said Rostill. “This really is about understanding individuals’ patterns of behaviour and deviations from those patterns.”
Amongst the technological developments are scales that monitor an individual’s hydration levels, smart wallets that track how many pills have been removed from a blister pack, bottles that dispense the correct dose of medication at the correct time and can send reminders to smartphones, avatars to guide people through care routines and even sensors that can be attached to chairs to monitor how long someone has been sitting. The data collected will then be processed using machine-learning algorithms, and the resulting information shared with the monitoring team and carers, allowing phone calls, visits or other arrangements to be made.
While individual sensors are currently on the market, says Rostill, creating a system based on a suite of connected devices could prove a boon. “What we are doing here is combining the data from different types of devices which I think will provide a unique window of insight into these very complex conditions that are multi-dimensional,” she said.
Also involved in the trial is a monitoring system called Howz, from health tech company Intelesant. Set to launch for consumers before Christmas for around £200, the system incorporates egg-shaped sensors that monitor activity in different rooms, as well as devices to track electricity consumption, revealing insights such as whether the kettle has been turned on, or if the fridge is open. The data is then sent to a mobile app, providing carers or relatives with real-time information.
It isn’t only smart devices that are under development. Dementia Citizens, a project backed by Nesta, aims to improve support for those living with dementia through a variety of apps. Set to launch next year, but currently undergoing pilot testing, are Playlist for Life, an app that explores the impact of music on those living with dementia and Book of You, a digital memory book of images, sounds and comments.
Ben Fehnert, co-founder of Ctrl Group, a company that worked with Nesta, the Department of Health and the charities Book of You and Playlist for Life to develop the apps, said that innovations like the digital book could improve dementia care.
“When people are visiting someone who is living with dementia sometimes they don’t know quite how to engage with them or what to do,” he said. “It is a method of engaging with them which helps reminiscence and it helps the quality of life for the individual and it helps with the quality of the relationship with the carer.”0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
His victory speech after becoming Speaker demonstrated that Paul Ryan has no idea what he is getting into, and he is being set up to fail, because no one person can fix what is broken inside the Republican Party.
During his speech, Ryan said, “Let me be frank. The House is broken. We are not solving problems. We are adding to them. I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean. Neither the members nor the people are satisfied with how things are going. We need to make some changes starting with how the House does business. We need to let every member contribute, not after they’ve earned their stripes, but now.”
Ryan wants the committees to take the lead in writing the legislation. Ryan said, “A neglected minority will gum up the works. A respected minority work in good faith. Instead of trying to stop the majority, they might try to become the majority. In other words, we need to return to regular order.”
John Boehner made similar points when he took the gavel in 2010, “For too long – under Democrats and Republicans alike – Congress has been too closed and too insular. Both parties are guilty. I want to change it. I’ve wanted to change it for a long time. And now we have a chance to do it…Reform should be an ongoing and inclusive effort. I don’t have all the answers, and wouldn’t pretend to. I welcome ideas and helping hands from any lawmaker, expert, or citizen about how we can make this institution function again.”
Boehner failed miserably, and the same forces that doomed the Ohio Republican are likely to take down Paul Ryan.
Speaker Ryan is dealing with a caucus that isn’t united. The party doesn’t control the House Republican caucus because most of the members only have to answer to their donors. They reside in gerrymandered districts that are safe from any consequences. In short, House Republicans can do whatever they want with nothing to fear. They don’t need Paul Ryan for fundraising, and since many of them occupy safe districts, passing legislation isn’t a priority.
House Republicans have no incentive to get things done, and Ryan has no power to make them do anything. Speaker Ryan has taken up an empty post that ironically, thanks to Citizens United, has no real power outside of committee assignments and controlling the House floor.
What is broken in the Republican Party is that there are two or three parties operating inside the House Republican caucus. They will play nice with Ryan for a while, but old tensions will soon surface, and the same forces that sent Boehner running back to the Buckeye State will have their way with Paul Ryan.
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:Blogger for BuzzFeed and HuffPost Caught CHEATING at Race, Tweets Article Saying She’s a Good Runner
Blogger For Fake News Websites Caught Cheating
A New York woman admitted to cheating in a marathon last week after being caught by an internet sleuth according to a report from CBS Miami.
From CBS Miami:
Jane Seo, 24, was busted by Derek Murphy, a marathon investigator whose mission is to “analyze race results, detect course cutters, bib swappers and other questionable results.” Data gathered from Seo’s own Garmin 235 fitness tracker proved to be the smoking gun, according to Murphy’s investigation. Seo initially finished Sunday’s race with a time of 1:21:46, including a 6:15 per mile pace. However, Murphy noticed a discrepancy in Seo’s course split times when it showed her running the first 10 kilometers at a time of 44:22. “These results would equate to a 7:09 minute/mile pace for the 1st 10k and a 5:25 minute/mile pace for remaining 11.08 kilometers,” Murphy writes on his investigative blog.
Seo is a blogger for fake news BuzzFeed and for the ultra-liberal Huffington Post. Seo claims on her Twitter to be a graduate from Harvard in 2014. It is very fitting that these two “news” outlets hire people like Seo.
Seo’s liberal colors were on display in her apology that she posted to her now deleted Instagram account.
Click photo to ENLARGE
Instead of just taking responsibility for cheating she blamed her cheating on illness saying “I wasn’t feeling well so I CUT THE COURSE and headed to the finish line.”
What makes this story even more pathetic is the fact that only a week after the race Seo tweeted out an article she had previously written about how she is a good runner.
Excerpts from her article:
Like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building, I scaled an 8 foot wall to the finish line at the City Challenge Race in New York City this past weekend. Though I have participated in and conquered numerous obstacle races in the past year, including the Urban RAID Championship, Rugged Maniac, Spartan Race, as well as another City Challenge Race in Jersey City…
Click photo to ENLARGE
Jane Seo, delete your account.
Follow Ryan Saavedra On Twitter @NewsRevoltRyanOn Thursday night, Seth Meyers went inside the “alternate reality where Trump actually isn’t president” that many Fox News viewers are currently experiencing.
After playing a clip of Trump’s recent boasts about his Ivy League education and “one of the great memories of all time,” the Late Night host said, “to be fair, you might also have an inflated ego if there was a whole TV channel dedicated to showering you with praise.”
“Ugh, usually when you see an old dude slobber that much, he has a nurse with him,” Meyers said of Lou Dobbs’ fawning interview with the president this week.
Because Trump has been “massively unpopular” and “dogged” by the Russia scandal, Meyers said when Fox isn’t interviewing Trump, they are “much more interested in talking about the candidate who didn’t win the election: Hillary Clinton.”
“In particular, they’ve tried to dredge up a series of debunked and overblown stories to muddy the water and make it seem like it was actually Hillary who colluded with Russia,” Meyers said. He highlighted how one phrase has dominated Fox News programming in recent weeks: “The real Russia story.”
Behind this latest “Fox News freakout,” he explained, is the report that Clinton’s campaign and the DNC helped fund the research that led to the infamous Russia dossier on Trump. And “there is no one more obsessed” with the specific allegations in the dossier than Sean Hannity, a bizarre trend Meyers first pointed out in July.
“Yeah, who would be dumb enough to repeat such an embarrassing rumor?” the host asked. “I mean, besides BMW Frankenstein here.”
“Fox News would much rather talk about Hillary than Donald Trump,” Meyers said. “That’s because the right in the Trump era doesn’t have coherent principles or an ideology, it just has enemies, which is why they prefer to inhabit an alternate reality where Hillary Clinton is president.”David Ramon Toschi (; July 11, 1931 – January 6, 2018) was an American law enforcement officer widely known for his efforts in the San Francisco Police Department as an inspector in the Zodiac Killer case. His personal style was the model for Bullitt and Dirty Harry.
Biography [ edit ]
Toschi was born to the Italian-American family of Sam and Millie Toschi in San Francisco, and was an alumnus of Galileo High School. Immediately upon graduation, he joined the U.S. Army, and became a member of the 24th Infantry Division during the Korean War, honorably discharged in 1952.[2]
Returning to San Francisco, Toschi joined the San Francisco Police Department, where he served from 1952 to 1987. He was assigned to the S.F.P.D. homicide detail from 1966 to 1978.[3] He is best known for his role as a chief investigator in the Zodiac Killer case, which he and partner, Inspector Bill Armstrong, began to work on after the murder of taxi driver Paul Stine; however, he also was assigned to the Zebra murders team, and in 1985 received a meritorious conduct award for curtailing the career of a rapist/burglar. Toschi also received attention for his style of dress, including bow-ties, 'loud' plaid suits, bounteous curls, and an exaggerated trench-coat.[4] In 1976, his quest for attention led him to send anonymous letters admiring his own efforts to Armistead Maupin, then a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle; revelation of that led to him being removed from the case in 1978.[5][4] Toschi was also accused (though later exonerated) of writing one of the Zodiac letters to Duffy Jennings, which the USPS crime lab verified as authentic but was later impeached by other experts; the suspicion ended Toschi's chance of replacing S.F.P.D. chief Charles Gain.[6]
Shortly after he left the S.F.P.D., Toschi became Director of Security for St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco's Mission District, and later served the same role for San Francisco's Pan Pacific Hotel. Toschi was vice president of North Star Security Services in Daly City.[7] He was a technical advisor to the producers of the 2007 film Zodiac.[8]
Toschi married Carol Bacigalupi in 1957, they had three daughters.
In popular culture [ edit ]
Actor Mark Ruffalo portrayed Toschi in the David Fincher film Zodiac.
Screenwriters Harry Julian Fink and R. M. Fink also modeled Harry Callahan, the main character of Dirty Harry portrayed by Clint Eastwood, on Toschi;[9], while the film's villain - based on the Zodiac Killer - was called "The Scorpio Killer".
Steve McQueen claimed he copied Toschi's distinctive style of quick-draw shoulder-holster by wearing his gun upside down for the 1968 movie Bullitt. McQueen also modeled much of his Bullitt character on Toschi.[10]
George Lucas gave an interview to Empire magazine once stating that the Zodiac murders captured his imagination at the time as as a college student at USC, and he always felt like Toschi was harshly judged for how the investigation was handled. He explained this is why he named a location on Tatooine Tosche Station, "in honor of the SFPD inspector."[11]President-elect Donald Trump is set to meet on Monday with Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum — two of his former 2016 GOP presidential rivals.
Mr. Trump is also scheduled to meet on Monday with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and GOP Rep. Raúl Labrador of Idaho.
The meetings, to take place at Trump Tower in New York, were announced on a Friday conference call with Mr. Trump’s transition team.
Mrs. Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, briefly served as Sen. Ted Cruz’s running mate after quitting the race in February. In October, she called for Vice President-elect Mike Pence to replace Mr. Trump on the top of the GOP ticket after a video surfaced of Mr. Trump bragging about leveraging his celebrity status to force himself onto women.
Mr. Trump also turned some heads during the campaign for remarks about Mrs. Fiorina’s face that were attributed to him in a Rolling Stone article.
Mr. Trump later said he was referring to her persona and not her looks, and he said at a GOP debate last September that Mrs. Fiorina is a beautiful woman.
Mr. Santorum, the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio after dropping out of the race following the Iowa caucuses. He later threw his support behind Mr. Trump.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Donald Trump’s done a lot of bad things in his 10 months in the White House, but until Thursday, none of them constituted a direct attack on the well-being of millions of Americans. With his health-care executive order and then his late-night announcement that the government would be immediately ending cost-sharing reduction payments (CSRs), he has created a situation that will throw millions of Americans—sick Americans, people with diabetes and cancer and other diseases—into turmoil.
I suspect he has no idea what he’s uncorked, and the price he and his party are likely to pay politically. We’ll get to that, but first let’s talk about the real price being paid by real people.
These payments, about $7 billion this year, are made by the government to insurance companies to help them afford the cost of covering sick people. They’ve been fundamental to the whole idea of making sure that sick people, people with pre-existing conditions, could purchase health coverage.
Now, because of this decision—announced in the dark of a Thursday night when Washingtonians were mostly focused on that endless Nationals game—insurance companies are contemplating a future in which they are no longer subsidized for covering people it’s expensive to cover. What are they going to do? Pretty simple: Jack up rates, or stop covering them. The Congressional Budget Office in August estimated premiums will be 20 to 25 percent higher than with the subsidies.
And get this. The decision will dramatically increase the budget deficit! That’s because even though premiums will increase, the people buying the coverage won’t magically have more income, so someone has to cover the cost of the premium hikes. Who? Yep, the federal government, but this time in the form of direct subsidies to purchasers. Which is $194 billion more expensive! Party of fiscal responsibility.
I can’t think of a time a president has gone out of his way, and he really did, to put citizens at direct risk—deliberately and openly causing people to suffer. And for what? To erase from the books a law that bears the name of his hated predecessor. This isn’t close to normal. Other presidents want to undo the work and legacies of predecessors with whom they disagreed, sure. But they haven’t done it like this, playing with the lives of Americans, and with no Plan B to replace what they’re taking away.
And then Trump tweeted at 5:30 Friday morning:
“Has stopped”? Has stopped? He stopped it! And now it’s on the Democrats to come to him? That’s political extortion.
Well, the Democrats won’t come to him. And they won’t need to. The political impact of this move should be clear enough. Going back to 2010, it was obvious that whatever problems and disruptions in health care the Affordable Care Act caused were going to be blamed on the Democrats. They owned it politically, and that was reasonable and proper.
Since Trump’s been president, it’s been more of a jump ball. But over the course of these 10 months, we’ve seen public opinion move pretty dramatically in support of Obamacare, or at least in support of keeping the law on the books and improving it, and very dramatically against repealing it. I don’t think anyone’s yet polled sabotaging the law through executive actions, but it’s bound to be down there with root canals. And people will know. Now when premiums go up or coverage is canceled, they’ll know which side to blame.
And it won’t be just Trump. It will be the Republican Party. Many of them stood there cheering yesterday as Trump signed his executive order. They’re applauding the CSR decision. And crucially—it’s important that people understand this part—they could be doing something about it.
That’s right. All that needs to happen right now to fix what Trump has created is for Congress to step in and authorize the CSR payments. So this is something that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell could address starting today if they wanted to.
But I know of only one Republican who has indicated in any way that he’d extend these payments for even a short time, and that’s Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, who chairs the relevant Senate committee. He was negotiating in good faith with his Democratic counterpart, Patty Murray, but as I wrote last month, Alexander was given little room to maneuver by his caucus, and then was undercut by the White House and by Ryan, who announced that even if the Senate reached a bipartisan deal extending the payments, there was no way the House would pass it.
Enrollment for 2018 starts in about two weeks, on November 1. Insurance companies are scrambling right now to set new rates for next year and to start telling customers what they are. There are going to be lots of stories of people with serious illnesses finding they’re paying 20 and 25 percent more than they were, and they’re going to be red-staters and blue-staters and Trump voters and Clinton voters and nonvoters and everyone.
And the stories will be heard. And people will know who did it.Ikea's line of flat-pack refugee shelters are going into production, the Swedish furniture maker announced this week, after being tested among refugee families in Ethiopia, Iraq, and Lebanon. The lightweight "Better Shelter" was developed under a partnership between the Ikea Foundation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Each unit takes about four hours to assemble and is designed to last for three years — far longer than conventional refugee shelters, which last about six months.
That's important considering the prolonged refugee crisis that has unfolded across the Middle East. The ongoing war in Syria has spurred nearly 4 million people to leave their homes, according to UN figures, and as the conflict enters it's fifth year, there's still no end in sight. Many have sought refuge in neighboring countries, while others have tried to cross into Europe.
The crisis has put considerable strain on refugee camps, but the Ikea Foundation, Ikea's philanthropic arm, hopes the Better Shelter could make life a little easier for those staying there. Measuring about 188 square feet, each shelter accommodates five people and includes a rooftop solar panel that powers a built-in lamp and USB outlet. The structure ships just like any other piece of Ikea furniture, with insulated, lightweight polymer panels, pipes, and wires packed into a cardboard box. According to Ikea, it only takes about four hours to assemble.
"Putting refugee families and their needs at the heart of this project is a great example of how democratic design can be used for humanitarian value," Jonathan Spampinato, the Ikea Foundation's head of strategic planning and communications, said in a statement Tuesday. "We're incredibly proud that the Better Shelter is now available, so refugee families and children can have a safer place to call home."
Production of the Better Shelter is scheduled to begin soon. The UNHCR has agreed to buy 10,000 of the shelters, and will begin providing them to refugee families this summer.
Grid View Each shelter measures 17.5 square meters (188 square feet), accommodating up to five people. (© BetterShelter.org)
A look at the interior of a Better Shelter prototype used in the Kawergosk Refugee Camp in Erbil, Iraq (© BetterShelter.org)
Each shelter takes about four hours to assemble. (© Ikea Foundation)
The ongoing civil war in Syria has triggered a refugee crisis across the Middle East, forcing millions to seek shelter in Iraq and other neighboring countries. (© BetterShelter.org)
According to UN figures, Ethiopia has received about 200,000 new refugees since the beginning of 2014, mostly from South Sudan. Above, families assemble a Better Shelter prototype in the Hilawyen Refugee camp in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia. (© BetterShelter.org)
The Better Shelter is designed to last for up to three years, far longer than conventional tents. (© Ikea Foundation)
A young Somali refugee stands with her baby in front of a Better Shelter prototype. (© Ikea Foundation)
The shelter's textile sheet is designed to reflect sun during the day and retain heat at night. (© Ikea Foundation)
Production of the Better Shelter is scheduled to begin soon, and the UNHCR will begin providing them to families this summer. (© Ikea Foundation)
Solar panels on the top of the shelters power its lights and a USB connector. (© Ikea Foundation)The European Commission has today made two legislative proposals to amend the founding Regulations of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA).
This follows last week's agreement in the margins of the General Affairs Council (Article 50 format) to move the EMA and the EBA from London to Amsterdam and Paris, respectively.
The Commission is acting swiftly in order to provide legal certainty and clarity, ensuring that both Agencies can continue to function smoothly and without disruption beyond March 2019. Under the ordinary legislative procedure, the co-legislators (the European Parliament and the Council) are expected to give priority to the handling of these legislative proposals. These proposals are strictly limited to confirming the new seats of the Agencies in the two founding Regulations.
Background
The relocation of these two Agencies is a direct consequence of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, as notified to the European Council on 29 March 2017. The decision to relocate both Agencies was for the governments of the 27 Member States to take. It does not form part of the Brexit negotiations.
For More Information
Decision on the procedure for relocation of EU agencies currently located in the UK (including criteria)On Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled again that the Constitution does not stand in the way of addressing gun violence.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) (C) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) speak to reporters after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the Capitol in Washington, June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The court refused to hear a challenge to a Connecticut law that broadly restricts access to the kind of semi-automatic rifles used in the 2014 Sandy Hook shooting — and, more recently, in San Bernardino, California, and Orlando, Florida. That lets the law stand.
It was the latest confirmation that the Second Amendment does not impede most laws designed to reduce gun violence. The Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision in 2008 established that a broad range of gun regulations are “presumptively lawful.” The court has driven this point home repeatedly, leaving in place dozens of lower court decisions upholding a wide range of gun laws.
Yet, just hours after the court’s action, the Senate reaffirmed another truth about American democracy: The likelihood of this Congress passing meaningful gun reform is close to zero.
Even as the urgency of American gun violence increases—not only in light of the horrific incident in Orlando, but also the fact that the 49 killed at the Pulse nightclub were fewer than half the number of Americans killed with guns that weekend — Congress does nothing.
It may not be realistic to expect congressional consensus on contentious gun issues, or even seemingly easy ones, like keeping suspected terrorists from buying the kind of guns used in the Orlando massacre.. But when the Senate, along partisan lines, rejected four bills aimed at curbing gun sales on Monday, it looked like even meaningful compromise was off the table.
That’s not to say there’s no talk of bi-partisan collaboration. Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, has been working with a bi-partisan group of colleagues to break the log jam with a compromise proposal. But the odds are stacked against it. The stalemate is hardening because neither side displays genuine interest in giving any ground.
Many Republicans depend on support from the powerful gun lobby. They have every reason not to bend. Ditto the Democrats. Having taken so many political hits on gun politics over the last two decades, and sensing a sea-change that gives them the political upper-hand, why ease up now? The Democratic Party has every incentive to exploit the issue for political gain rather than concede even an inch and settle for a bill that can garner support from an increasingly elusive group of moderates.
The Republican intransigence on guns stems from fear of a powerful gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association. The NRA once took a bi-partisan approach, supporting members of either party it trusted on guns. But no more: Now the NRA is all in on the GOP. It spends tremendous amounts of money and mobilizes its membership base on behalf of the Republican lawmakers who toe its line.
GOP officials rightly fear that any willingness to compromise on gun issues will provoke the NRA’s wrath— which could result in the gun lobby backing a future primary opponent. In the middle of a presidential campaign where many fear that usually engaged political supporters may sit on the sidelines, to anger the NRA could be political suicide.
Democrats used to cower in fear of the NRA as well. For a generation, the party viewed gun issues as an untouchable third rail of politics.
Monday’s vote reveals a significant change in their thinking. But it isn’t any more likely to lead to bi-partisan compromise on a bill.
Democrats clearly aren’t afraid of gun politics anymore. In fact, they’re pulling out the stops to show voters that they’re smart on guns, and strong on public safety. The public agrees overwhelmingly —- as new polling shows. So why should they meet the hard-line, gun-lobby opposition half-way?
The Democrats’ new approach became obvious during the presidential primary, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was proud to have made an enemy of the NRA and repeatedly attacked Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for his past votes against background checks and for gun-industry immunity.
The change was also visible when Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut led a filibuster to demand votes on background checks and the terror gap just days after the Orlando shooting. No response to a mass shooting has led to a vote in Congress as quickly.
And the change was visible in Monday’s voting, when Democrats drew sharp lines in the sand and signaled that they plan to make guns a political litmus test they’ll exploit through Election Day.
This new, vocal engagement on gun violence may help Democrats win seats in Congress, and it may help usher Clinton into the White House — especially given the emergence of an engaged, passionate and increasingly well-resourced gun-violence-prevention movement.
But it’s not likely to produce any meaningful action in Congress in the near-term, given the persistence of America’s hyper-polarized, gridlocked politics.
The Senate on Monday didn’t do anything about the “terror gap” that allows those on the no-fly list to buy firearms legally. And it swung and missed on adopting comprehensive criminal background checks for gun sales—a policy supported by nine in ten Americans, and three-quarters of NRA members.
Collins’ efforts to identify a bi-partisan middle ground are commendable, but they face extraordinary odds.
In all, it’s a recipe for inaction through Election Day—and, likely, beyond.
If there’s hope, it’s that the public is increasingly fed up with the never-ending drumbeat of gun violence that claims more 90 American lives each day. Only when the public demands that Congress elevates public safety over partisan politics—and makes that demand in the voting booth—will there be any real hope for federal legislation that will meaningfully combat American gun violence.Have you been wondering whether Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is leaving some key details out in the chronology of his negotiations with AIG CEO Edward Liddy?
Since Geithner knew about Liddy’s plans to pay out the company’s now-infamous bonuses before they became public on Saturday — and since the bonuses have been common knowledge in the media for months — it’s worth asking how directly Treasury was involved in okaying the payouts.
But it’s too bad for Democrats that Republicans are the ones seeking the information.Reps. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) introduced a resolution of inquiry today that would force Geithner to reveal the full extent of his department’s communications with AIG.
The resolution would affect not just talks over bonuses but about the very structure of the Federal Reserve’s investment in the company — which appears to have included built-in limitations on the government’s influence over management.
This is the real deal, folks: resolutions of inquiry (ROIs) are a crucial procedural tool for the minority party to seek information from the executive branch. Democrats did this during the Valerie Plame/Spygate scandal and the debate over the Bush administration’s extraordinary rendition. The Congressional Research Service found in a November study that ROIs oftentimes succeed in prying out information even if they fail on the House floor.
But could Democrats conceivably vote against LaTourette and McCotter’s move?The Coalition’s chances of winning a third term in WA will be boosted thanks to One Nation preferences, but only if the agreement holds at the ballot box
A resurgent One Nation is looking to the Western Australian state election, on 11 March, as its first opportunity to demonstrate its growing support since last July’s federal election. Recent polling suggests One Nation is on track to win numerous seats in Western Australia’s upper house, and could even break through in the lower house.
Tony Abbott says Liberals should always preference Nationals ahead of One Nation Read more
One Nation’s prospects were given a further boost at the weekend when the Liberal party announced a preference swap with the minor party: Liberal preferences will favour One Nation in the upper house, while One Nation will give the Liberals a boost in lower house marginal seats.
The Liberal/National government in WA is facing an uphill battle to win a third term in office, and One Nation preferences will give them a boost. When One Nation first broke through in the late 1990s, they took a hefty chunk out of the Coalition vote, and that vote often did not return as preferences.
Recent polls have put One Nation on as high a vote as 13% in Western Australia. In contrast, the party polled just over 4% in the Western Australian Senate race in 2016. Last week on my blog I analysed where One Nation did best in that Senate election, and what the One Nation vote could look like if it jumped to 13%.
One Nation vote in WA, based on the 2016 federal senate vote, projected on to state seats
One Nation’s vote is strongly concentrated in regional areas, with a much lower vote in Perth. This reflects how One Nation performed in the 2001 Western Australian state election, where they won three upper house seats in regional areas.
Conveniently for One Nation, the Western Australian upper house is severely biased in favour of country voters. Approximately three-quarters of the state’s population lives in the Perth metropolitan area, but Perth voters only elect half of the state’s upper house. These regional voters overwhelmingly favour parties on the right, and this has helped give the current government a sizeable majority in the upper house.
If One Nation was to poll 13%, they would easily poll over a quota in the Agricultural, Mining and Pastoral, and South West regions, and could do reasonably well in the East Metropolitan region, giving them four seats in the upper house. This is made easier thanks to those Liberal preferences.
One Nation could well be a threat to Nationals seats in the lower house, too, but they won’t benefit from Liberal preferences in those races. Liberal preferences to One Nation in the lower house could have had a devastating effect on the Nationals, wiping out quite a few of their MPs and making it much harder for the Liberal party to form government. In the upper house, on the other hand, One Nation are likely to win multiple seats with or without Liberal assistance, and a re-elected Liberal government would have an interest in working with a One Nation bloc in the balance of power.
There is a four-way contest for conservative votes in regional Western Australia. The Liberals and Nationals will be competing against each other for seats in both houses, alongside One Nation and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, who hold two seats in the upper house.
One Nation dissidents say'mercenary' preference deal is a tattoo that will mark Liberals Read more
Upper house preferences were formally lodged on Monday, and we saw some unusual decisions motivated by the Liberal-One Nation deal. The Nationals have decided to favour the Greens over their Liberal coalition partners, while the Shooters have gained preferences from many parties, including the Nationals.
The Liberal-National government’s chances of re-election will be boosted thanks to One Nation preferences, but only if the deal can hold. Upper house preferences in Western Australia are required to be lodged ahead of time, and they will flow regardless of whether a party can find the volunteers to distribute how-to-vote cards at polling place, thanks to the group voting ticket system (the same system which was used for the Senate prior to law changes in 2016).
In contrast, One Nation preferences in the lower house are only as good as the party’s capacity to hand out how-to-votes making the recommendation. One Nation voters have traditionally been happy to follow their party’s recommendations, but there are signs that some One Nation candidates are not willing to go along with their party’s deal. If candidates in key seats refuse to go along with the deal, the Liberal party could be left empty-handed, after giving away something quite valuable.ABOVE: ET Canada‘s Natasha Gargiulo recaps the Juno Awards on Global’s The Morning Show.
TORONTO — One of the most telling moments at this year’s Juno Awards was the silence that greeted host Jacob Hoggard when he declared: “Welcome to the very last Junos ever.”
It was a joke, presumably, but the lack of audible shock spoke volumes about the waning interest in Canada’s annual celebration of music. (Indeed, there was plenty of empty space in the arena.)
Viewers at home could hardly be blamed for being as bored as many in the live audience appeared to be.
Sunday’s two-hour show from the FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ont. was plagued by out-of-tune singers, awkward staging and production problems.
Canadian comedian Jeremy Hotz summed it up. “If I produced the Juno’s, I’d do such a s*** job the show was cancelled forever,” he tweeted. “Forget it, they already did that this year.”
Awards were handed out from a platform in the middle of the arena so at least two winners didn’t know where to look once they had a trophy in hand.
“Which way do I face?,” asked Kiesza, who literally turned her back on viewers while accepting Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
Then there were the numerous cuts to random camera shots, at least one missed cue for Hoggard and some transmission issues.
Live performances varied from the strong vocals of Shawn Mendes (doing “Life of the Party”) and solid musicianship of the Arkells (doing “Come to Light”) to the pitchy vocals of Magic (performing “No Way No” and “Rude”) and Lights, who performed with Sam Roberts Band.
Other performers included The Weeknd, Bobby Bazini, deadmau5 and show openers Hedley.
Two of the night’s six winners didn’t show up — 80-year-old Leonard Cohen won Album of the Year (Popular Problems) and Michael Bublé was the winner of the Fan Choice Award.
The hometown Arkells won Rock Album, Toronto’s Magic picked up Single of the Year (for “Rude”), Calgary-born Kiesza was named Breakthrough Artist and Toronto’s The Weeknd was honoured as Artist of the Year.
READ MORE: Dallas Smith, Kiesza among early winners at Juno Awards
American songwriter-producer Glen Ballard, who collaborated with Alanis Morissette on her breakthrough album Jagged Little Pill, was on hand to pay tribute to her as she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
As Morissette’s parents Alan and Georgia looked on, the Ottawa-born singer spoke about the uniqueness of Canadians.
“I am |
in the village and is safe. But his three Christian brothers, Saleem, Imtiaz and Nawaz, witnessed the incident and spoke to NBC News through Javed Maseeh. They have escaped and are claiming their lives are now in danger.
Four suspects remain in custody and another 50 were booked and are being investigated, according to local police.
Pakistan’s Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, brother of Prime Minister Sharif, is promising the family five million rupees (around $50,000) and 10 acres of land in compensation.
According to the National Minority Alliance, Christians form under three percent of Pakistan’s estimated 180 million people.
Pakistan's much-debated "Blasphemy Law" is often used to target Christians and other minorities. In 2012, 14-year-old Rimsha Masih was falsely accused of burning the Quran, the sacred Islamic text. Charges were later dropped amid international concern for her safety, but the law, remains on the books.
Alexander Smith contributed to this report from London.CLOSE After twisters and heavy rain already tore through the region, more severe weather is heading that way over the weekend. USA TODAY NETWORK
Crews work to clean the aftermath of a tornado that touched down in Manzanita on Friday, Oct. 14, 2016. (Photo11: Tillamook County Emergency Management)
PORTLAND, Ore. — Two tornadoes touched down Friday in Oregon, including one that damaged several city blocks in the coastal town of Manzanita, as heavy rain walloped the Pacific Northwest.
The Manzanita tornado hit at around 8:20 a.m. PT and had maximum winds between 125-130 mph, according to the National Weather Service in Portland.
There were no reports of injuries.
Tillamook County Sheriff Andy Long said the Manzanita tornado path was about "10 streets long" and traveled "right through the center of town."
Manzanita Mayor Garry Bullard declared a state of emergency.
Debbie Harmon, owner of the Amanita Galley, said most of the damage is near the beach and downtown.
“It was a normal beach storm, which we get a lot of, and then out of nowhere the wind went ‘whoooo,’” she said. “Suddenly the whole sky was filled with debris. It was just crazy. And then it just stopped.”
City manager Jerry Taylor said Manzanita has a permanent population of about 620 people. Many people own second homes there, he said.
"Many of our houses, especially this time of year, are not occupied," said Taylor.
The Red Cross opened a shelter at the Calvary Bible Church in Manzanita.
"I haven’t seen anything like this in my 20 years here. Maybe a small waterspout 20 years ago," Taylor said.
Julee Ward, who lives between Manzanita and Nehalem, said she awoke to violent thunderstorms and an eerie, dark sky. Her husband went outside to check on things after 8 a.m. and called for her to come out.
“Behold there was this big tornado flying about a mile away from our house,” she said. “There was debris flying everywhere … you could see the debris up in the funnel.”
Video shot by her husband showed a massive funnel spilling down from dark clouds.
“You could hear it howling too, which was the crazy part,” she added.
The NWS confirmed a second tornado came near Oceanside at around 9 a.m. There were no immediate reports of damage.
The last time there were two tornadoes in Northwest Oregon was Nov. 12, 1991, when three tornadoes touched down, according to the NWS.
CLOSE A tornado struck an Oregon beach town as strong winds and heavy rain walloped the Pacific Northwest. Video shot by residents near the town shows a dark funnel cloud moving across the skyline. (Oct. 14) AP
Elsewhere, thousands of people were without power as utility crews in the region prepared for what’s expected to be an even rougher storm on Saturday.
In Seattle, a 4-year-old boy and his father were injured by a falling tree branch. The Seattle Fire Department said the child suffered serious injuries and the father minor injuries.
The heavy rain created dangerous conditions throughout the region, as drivers tried to see out rain-pounded windshields and navigate through standing water on roads.
In Oregon, Portland General Electric reported that more than 4,000 customers were without power early Friday. Pacific Power reported that 2,800 customers in coastal communities had no lights, down from a peak of more than 15,000.
At one point, 15,000 customers were without power in Seattle.
Portland had the rainiest Oct. 13 in its history. In addition, the National Weather Service says a 103-mph wind gust was recorded at Cape Meares.
Meteorologists expect a lull before the remnants of Typhoon Songda, which wreaked havoc in the western Pacific days ago, hit the Pacific Northwest on Saturday. Forecasters say wind gusts as high as 70 mph could sweep through Seattle. Mayor Ed Murray urged residents to avoid the city’s many parks during the wet weekend weather.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2efBaHOMohali: A 25-year-old woman has accused a man she came in contact with on Facebook of raping her over a period of two months on the promise of getting her a job in Chandigarh.Baltana resident Naresh Kumar has been charged with sections 376 (rape) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code at Zirakpur police station. However, he is yet to be arrested.Though the woman had filed the complaint in January, the police registered the case on Monday, after it verified the rape claims during a preliminary probe.In her complaint, the woman has claimed that her friendship with the accused grew over a year through chats on Facebook. She alleged that they even exchanged photographs and phone numbers. Later, he promised to get her a job in Chandigarh, the complaint said.After intimating the man that she was coming to Chandigarh in November 2014, the girl met the accused in Mohali, it has been claimed in the complaint. She alleged that when they met, the accused took her to the room of a hotel in Phase I of Mohali, where he gave her a drink laced with sedatives and raped her. However, as the woman had not intimated her parents and feared social stigma, she did not say anything.Later, she alleged that she again met the man in person and developed an intimate relationship with him as he had promised to get her a job. However, when she came to know that the man had no contacts and could not get her a job, she approached the police and filed a complaint of rape and cheating.The investigating officer of the case said the accused is yet to be nabbed. "He has left his rented accommodation already and we are trying to ascertain his hideouts," he said.Here are some tips that would keep you safe when you meet a stranger you have befriended online:Meet and stay in public place: Meet for the first time in a public location. Ensure that it is never in a private or remote place, and never at your date's home or apartment. It is best not to go back to your date's home or room. If the other person pressures you, don't give in.Inform a friend, or take him/her along: Always remember to intimate a friend or trusted family member if you have plans to meet a person you befriended onlibe. Ensure that your mobile phone is alway with you.Don't drink: Stay away from alcohol. Avoid doing anything that would impair your judgment and cause you to make a decision you would end up regretting later. Also, even if you don't drink, never let the soft beverage that you have be away from you sight at anytime. The other person can lace it with an intoxicant.Use your own conveyance: Don't sit in the other person's car at anytime. If you do not have a car, use a radio taxi or public transport instead.Donald Trump left Glenn Beck with egg on his face Tuesday night during a Nevada Republican caucus when he crashed a speech the talk radio host was giving in support of rival Ted Cruz.
The GOP front-runner walked into the gymnasium at Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas while Beck was singing Cruz's praises.
But as soon as word spread that Trump was there, most of the audience – and all the network TV cameras turned away from Beck and scrambled to chase him down.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS
MAKE AMERICA INTERRUPT AGAIN: Donald Trump crashed pro-Ted Cruz speaker Glenn Beck's speech and started one of his own at a Nevada Republican caucus site in Las Vegas on Tuesday night
SCRUM: When Trump entered, most of the caucus-goers scrambled to see him (at upper right) even though Beck was still talking
WHERE DID THEY GO? As Beck was waxing on about Cruz and the U.S. Constitution, he was left hearing crickets
HURRICANE DONALD: Beck looked on as The Donald overshadowed his big moment
'America was great,' Beck was saying, 'not because of a president, but America was great because of two reasons: the Constitution of the United States and that its people were good. We have almost lost our country and our Constitution!'
But that was the last line anyone could hear as chants of 'Trump! Trump! Trump!' rang out alongside loud cheers – in the back of the room, where Trump was holding court.
And a tweeted photo from a Mashable reporter shows a bewildered Beck left listening to crickets as his audience fled to the other side of the gym.
MSNBC, which happened to be broadcasting live from Palo Verde at the moment Trump entered, showed a camera shot from the top of the bleachers as people swarmed from one side of the gym to the other.
'We are going to have hopefully a historic night,' Trump said as someone handed him a microphone and Beck wrapped up with few staying to hear him. 'I appreciate everybody being here. I wanted to be here myself and say a few words.'
The real estate tycoon had said on Twitter that he would show up 'at various caucus sites' through the evening, but he didn't tip his hand and provide any locations.
Trump also appeared at a few Iowa caucus sites to speak on his own behalf. Candy Carson spoke at Palo Verde to support her husband Ben.
PHENOMENON: Trump draws massive crowds wherever he goes
On 'Fox & Friends' Wednesday morning, Trump said he hadn't intended to disrupt Beck's pro-Cruz speech.
'No, I didn’t, but when I walked in I saw that he was on the podium, and there were thousands of people in the room – not too many people listening to him.'
'He’s not a very good guy to listen to, frankly. He's boring,' Trump jabbed.
'Everybody told me the place went crazy' when he entered, Trump explained.
'They all ran away from him, his whole crowd. And he was standing up there talking to nobody, and he steamed out of the room,' he said.
'And I didn’t do it on purpose, but I happened to be there, and we had such – I bet 95 percent of the people in the room, in that particular area, went with us.'By Ben Lorica
For companies in the early stages of grappling with big data, the analytic lifecycle (model building, deployment, maintenance) can be daunting. In earlier posts I highlighted some new tools that simplify aspects of the analytic lifecycle, including the early phases of model building. But while tools are allowing companies to offload routine analytic tasks to business analysts, experienced modelers are still needed to fine-tune and optimize, mission-critical algorithms.
Model Selection: Accuracy and other considerations
Accuracy1 is the main objective and a lot of effort goes towards raising it. But in practice tradeoffs have to be made, and other considerations play a role in model selection. Speed (to train/score) is important if the model is to be used in production. Interpretability is critical if a model has to be explained for transparency2 reasons (“black-boxes” are always an option, but are opaque by definition). Simplicity is important for practical reasons: if a model has “too many knobs to tune” and optimizations have to be done manually, it might be too involved to build and maintain it in production3.
Chances are a model that’s fast, easy to explain (interpretable), and easy to tune (simple), is less4 accurate. Experienced model builders are valuable precisely because they’ve weighed these tradeoffs across many domains and settings. Unfortunately not many companies have the experts that can identify, build, deploy, and maintain models at scale. (An example from Google illustrates the kinds of issues that can come up.)
Fast and/or scalable
scikit-learn is a popular, well-documented package with models that leverage IPython’s distributed computing features. Over time MLbase will include an optimizer that simplifies model selection for a variety of machine-learning tasks. Depending on their performance requirements, scikit-learn and MLbase users may still need to recode models to speed them up for production. Solutions like VW, H20, and wise.io give users access to fast and scalable implementations of a few algorithms: in the case of wise.io, the company focuses only on Random Forest. Statistics software vendors like Revolution Analytics, SAS, and SPSS have been introducing scalable algorithms and tools for managing the analytic lifecycle.
The creators of a popular open source, machine-learning project recently launched a startup, focused on building commercial-grade options and tools. GraphLab provides fast toolkits for a range of problems including collaborative filtering, clustering, text mining (topic models), and graph analytics. Having had a chance to play with an early version of their IPython interface, I think that it will really open up their libraries to a much broader user base.
Scaling and speeding up accurate algorithms
One startup has been particularly focused on speeding up a wide range of machine learning methods. Skytree offers highly optimized, distributed5 algorithms for all the standard machine-learning tasks6. The company has proprietary implementations of highly accurate algorithms (e.g., kernel density estimation or k-nearest neighbors), that are fast and that scale to very large7 data sets (Skytree integrates and is used with Hadoop). By giving access to a broader set of methods, Skytree enables users to make decisions across different factors (accuracy, speed, simplicity, etc.).
To assist users in navigating their library of algorithms, Skytree organizes them by tasks and industry solutions. Early this week the company announced a program called Second Opinion, that pairs users with Skytree experts, testing techniques and tools. Sometime in the near future, the company’s library of algorithms will be accessible via Skytree Adviser – an intuitive interface that empowers business analysts to handle advanced analytics. Among other things, Skytree Adviser automatically matches machine learning methods to users’ data sets. Once that happens, ordinary users will have fast, scalable, and accurate algorithms at their disposal.
This post originally appeared on O’Reilly Strata ("Gaining access to the best machine-learning methods"). It’s republished with permission.Krita 2.6 in use: a curve adjustment to a frame from the Blender Foundation’s VFX short Tears of Steel.
Open-source digital paint package Krita has been updated, adding features important to high-end work.
Krita 2.6 now supports the OpenColorIO colour-management system, originally developed at Sony Pictures Imageworks, and – less futuristically, but equally importantly, can now save layered PSD files.
The Vc library, which enables code to take advantage of the vectorization features of modern CPUs, has also been integrated, improving performance when working on complex multi-layered documents.
There are also new keyboard shortcuts and brush options, and improvements to the OpenGL canvas.
Industry testimonials
Krita 2.6 also includes a set of templates for digital imaging work from TD Simon Legrand, a veteran of Weta and Digital Domain London, who says: “Krita has been instrumental to my work in VFX for the last year.”
“With the support provided by the community and the main developers, I believe Krita will soon become the standard in 2D image editing and painting on the Linux platform in feature film visual effects.”
Fighting talk indeed. Even if you don’t share Legrand’s views, Krita now looks like a much more powerful tool – and, with the UI themes introduced in the previous release – a slicker and more professional-looking one.
System requirements
Krita is packaged by many Linux distros: you can find a guide to which are considered stable and which are not on the download page of the Krita website, along with information on compiling the source code yourself.
There is also a “highly experimental” Windows installer, maintained externally. No OS X version yet, alas.
Read a full list of features in Krita 2.6 (PDF download)
Visit the Krita website
Tags: 2D, Digital Domain, digital painting, free, image editing, Krita, Krita 2.6, Linux, OpenColorIO, paint, PSD, Simon Legrand, WindowsPresident Barack Obama has $250 coming to him, Linux pioneer Linus Torvalds is owed a hundred bucks and change, and even O.J. Simpson has a sawbuck waiting for him if he ever manages to get out of jail.
This information comes courtesy of Hacker News forum users who this week decided to scour California's online unclaimed property listings for interesting tidbits like the fact that the late Steve Jobs apparently left three shares in Oracle floating around when he died in 2011.
Additionally, Steve Wozniak has $5.61 he can pick up from the California State Controller's Office should he wish to do somoney owed to him by Apple, the company he co-founded with Jobs in 1976.
The Hacker News thread was started by user octonion, who said he built the bulk of California's SCO-based unclaimed property database on a state contract a decade ago.
Meanwhile, participants in the thread didn't just check the site for cash and property being held for notable people. Many were happy to discover their own caches of found wealth, which is accessible upon providing a social security number to the Controller's Office, filling out a form, and mailing it in.
One user even discovered that his cat is mysteriously owed $5.98 by Ace Hardware. Others helpfully identified similar databases run by other states, such as one operated by the state of Illinois.
But unless you're owed a decent amount of cash yourself, poking around the unclaimed property site to snoop on celebrities is clearly the most rewarding use for it. And the database serves up a lot of details about who's owed what. For example, Obama's unclaimed $250 stems from uncashed First Republic Bank cashier's checks. You may also be delighted to learn that Arnold Schwarzenegger is owed 15 cents worth of "Miscellaneous Intangible Property" by Upromise, Inc.
The Hacker News gang also dug up some real oddities on the site. One user discovered that "Jesus Christ" has several bundles of unclaimed cash and assets being held for him. And then there's this person, or thing, or concept, or something whatever, you'll just have to click on the link.TL;DR answer: GPUs have far more processor cores than CPUs, but because each GPU core runs significantly slower than a CPU core and do not have the features needed for modern operating systems, they are not appropriate for performing most of the processing in everyday computing. They are most suited to compute-intensive operations such as video processing and physics simulations.
GPGPU is still a relatively new concept. GPUs were initially used for rendering graphics only; as technology advanced, the large number of cores in GPUs relative to CPUs was exploited by developing computational capabilities for GPUs so that they can process many parallel streams of data simultaneously, no matter what that data may be. While GPUs can have hundreds or even thousands of stream processors, they each run slower than a CPU core and have fewer features (even if they are Turing complete and can be programmed to run any program a CPU can run). Features missing from GPUs include interrupts and virtual memory, which are required to implement a modern operating system.
In other words, CPUs and GPUs have significantly different architectures that make them better suited to different tasks. A GPU can handle large amounts of data in many streams, performing relatively simple operations on them, but is ill-suited to heavy or complex processing on a single or few streams of data. A CPU is much faster on a per-core basis (in terms of instructions per second) and can perform complex operations on a single or few streams of data more easily, but cannot efficiently handle many streams simultaneously.
As a result, GPUs are not suited to handle tasks that do not significantly benefit from or cannot be parallelized, including many common consumer applications such as word processors. Furthermore, GPUs use a fundamentally different architecture; one would have to program an application specifically for a GPU for it to work, and significantly different techniques are required to program GPUs. These different techniques include new programming languages, modifications to existing languages, and new programming paradigms that are better suited to expressing a computation as a parallel operation to be performed by many stream processors. For more information on the techniques needed to program GPUs, see the Wikipedia articles on stream processing and parallel computing.
Modern GPUs are capable of performing vector operations and floating-point arithmetic, with the latest cards capable of manipulating double-precision floating-point numbers. Frameworks such as CUDA and OpenCL enable programs to be written for GPUs, and the nature of GPUs make them most suited to highly parallelizable operations, such as in scientific computing, where a series of specialized GPU compute cards can be a viable replacement for a small compute cluster as in NVIDIA Tesla Personal Supercomputers. Consumers with modern GPUs who are experienced with Folding@home can use them to contribute with GPU clients, which can perform protein folding simulations at very high speeds and contribute more work to the project (be sure to read the FAQs first, especially those related to GPUs). GPUs can also enable better physics simulation in video games using PhysX, accelerate video encoding and decoding, and perform other compute-intensive tasks. It is these types of tasks that GPUs are most suited to performing.
AMD is pioneering a processor design called the Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) which combines conventional x86 CPU cores with GPUs. This approach enables graphical performance vastly superior to motherboard-integrated graphics solutions (though no match for more expensive discrete GPUs), and allows for a compact, low-cost system with good multimedia performance without the need for a separate GPU. The latest Intel processors also offer on-chip integrated graphics, although competitive integrated GPU performance is currently limited to the few chips with Intel Iris Pro Graphics. As technology continues to advance, we will see an increasing degree of convergence of these once-separate parts. AMD envisions a future where the CPU and GPU are one, capable of seamlessly working together on the same task.
Nonetheless, many tasks performed by PC operating systems and applications are still better suited to CPUs, and much work is needed to accelerate a program using a GPU. Since so much existing software use the x86 architecture, and because GPUs require different programming techniques and are missing several important features needed for operating systems, a general transition from CPU to GPU for everyday computing is very difficult.A member of the Egyptian Presidential Guards gives a signal to a car outside the congress hall in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on March 13, 2015 (AFP Photo/Khaled Desouki)
Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt) (AFP) - Egypt plans to build a new administrative and business capital east of Cairo that will house five million people and feature a theme park "four times bigger than Disneyland", a minister announced at a global investor conference.
Housing Minister Mustafa Kamel Madbuli said the new city would relieve pressure on overcrowded Cairo, with its population of 18 million expected to double in coming decades.
"The idea to build the new city originated from our awareness that Cairo's current population will double in the next 40 years," Madbuli said Friday in a presentation showcasing the details.
Madbuli said the new city would have large green spaces and provide a better standard of living.
It will also have "an international airport, a theme park four times bigger than Disneyland in California, 90 square kilometres of solar farms, and an electric train" to link with Cairo, he added.
Parliament, presidential palaces, government ministries and foreign embassies would move to the new metropolis, the minister said, adding these projects would be executed over the next five to seven years at a cost of $45 billion (42.9 billion euros).
The overall cost of the new city was not revealed, nor were details on how it would be funded.
The plans were presented at a three-day investor conference which President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hopes will help kick-start Egypt's troubled economy.
- 'Cornerstone of stability' -
Sisi, who has positioned himself as a bulwark against jihadists, said investing in the Arab world's most populous country would help stabilise the entire region.
Egypt's stability "is a cornerstone in regional stability," he told the conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Arab states pledged $12 billion in investment aid but the United States came empty handed, with Secretary of State John Kerry only affirming that Washington stood beside Egypt as it seeks to recover from years of turmoil.
A visibly irritated Kerry, who was slotted as the 15th speaker at the opening session, promised Washington's "full commitment" for the security and prosperity of Egyptians, which he said they "desire and deserve."
Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia pledged $4 billion each. Most of the funds will be invested in projects while $3 billion will be deposited in Egypt's Central Bank.
Kerry, who earlier met Sisi and the leaders of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, told businessmen that Washington was "eager and ready and willing" to help Egypt's economic development.
But a US diplomat travelling with him said there had been "no decision" on freeing up $650 million in military aid frozen during the height of a crackdown on Sisi's Islamist opponents that left hundreds dead.
Washington had released some of the aid, including the delivery of Apache helicopters Egypt says are important for its fight against Islamist insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula.
- 'Putting Egypt back on the map' -
Sisi, who won elections after toppling Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, has been criticised for unleashing a crackdown on Morsi's supporters.
The former army chief has portrayed his Islamist opposition as no different from radical militants such as the Islamic State group, which has affiliates in Sinai and Egypt's neighbour Libya.
"Egypt presents a model for Arab civilisation," Sisi said on Friday.
"A country that rejects violence and terrorism and extremism, a country that strengthens regional stability and peace."
Restoring the economy and attracting foreign investment have been key tenets of Sisi's presidency.
In one of the biggest deals expected at the conference, British Petroleum is to sign a $12 billion agreement -- shared with its Russian partner DEA -- to develop Egyptian gas fields.
Conference consultant Richard Attias told AFP that "more than 30 projects will be unveiled, which can attract billions of dollars of investment."
GE unveiled plans to set up a $200 million training and manufacturing facility in the canal city of Suez.
"For Egypt this is not an economic event, but rather a political one," a Western diplomat told AFP.
Representatives from about 100 countries and international organisations are attending the event, giving the conference a firm diplomatic push in a bid to strengthen Sisi's international status.One of the most significant developments in the law school world over the past few years has been the explosion in so-called “merit scholarships.” The definition of a scholarship can be tricky: traditionally the term was used to describe money generated by endowed funds given to a school for the purpose of offsetting attendance costs, but now it tends to be used more generally to mean any discount off the advertised price of attendance, from whatever source. In fact at present the vast majority of “merit scholarships” offered to prospective law students don’t come from endowment income, but rather from tuition cross-subsidization. (Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, who are in the unique position of not really competing with other law schools for students, claim all their financial aid is need-based. Need-based financial aid at other law schools ranges from skimpy to non-existent. I’m not going to discuss in this post the dubious practice of handing out “merit scholarships” that come with continued eligibility requirements that, because of law school grading practices, guarantee that many recipients will lose those scholarships after their first year).
It works like this: Suppose a school nominally charges $40,000 per year in tuition, and admits 200 students per class. In theory each class pays eight million dollars per year in tuition, but in fact it only pays $6.4 million. This is because the school uses the tuition money it receives from the class to distribute “merit scholarships” equivalent to 20% of nominal tuition to each class. The majority of students pay $40,000 per year, and the vast majority pay more than the “average” (mean) tuition of $32,000. What this means, of course, is that the students who are paying full tuition are subsidizing students who are paying less. Essentially, schools are charging some students to pay some or all of the costs of buying the attendance of other students.
This system, like so many other aspects of contemporary American legal education, has arisen as a consequence of the ratings game. The entrance qualifications of each class, in terms of LSAT and GPA numbers, make up 22% of the USNWR ratings formula, and so schools invest resources in buying students who would otherwise go to higher ranked schools. Unfortunately, the bulk of those resources are extracted quite directly from other students (Merit scholarships in the traditional sense of endowed funds exist, of course, especially at higher ranked schools, but most “scholarships” are simply tuition cross-subsidization).
Since on average a student’s combined LSAT and GPA numbers to some extent predict how well the student will do in law school (with many individual exceptions of course) the upshot of all this is that the students who are the most likely to get good legal jobs, or any legal jobs at all, are those who are paying significantly less, on average, for their law degrees than their classmates who are getting worse jobs, or no jobs at all — and indeed the latter group is paying for much of the legal educational costs of the former.
While this arrangement is no doubt pleasing to Ayn Rand, wherever she may be currently located in plus soul time or minus space time, those of an even mildly egalitarian political bent ought to find it quite troubling.
Another interesting question raised by this system is the extent to which the scholarship game is an efficient market. In other words, to what extent are students who choose to go to School A over School B because School A is much cheaper as a consequence of tuition cross subsidization making decisions that are likely to benefit them in cost-benefit terms? Because of the wonders of the internet, it’s now possible for prospective students to get an excellent sense of how much money they’re likely to be offered in “scholarships,” and to play schools off each other in the application process. Consider this site, which provides 0Ls with an amazing amount of information regarding exactly what schools they can expect to get into, and exactly how much money they can expect those schools to offer them.
Let’s take a look at an applicant from last year’s admissions cycle to see how this game works. Vegenator sported excellent LSAT and GPA numbers — high enough to get her admitted to one T6 school and wait listed at two others, although she was rejected by the top three. She was accepted by most of the rest of the T14 to which she applied, as well by every non T-14 school to which she sent her application.
Eventually, Vegenator had to decide whether to:
(a) Attend Chicago at sticker, meaning she would end up paying around $150K in tuition.
(b) Attend Michigan for $15,000 per year off listed tuition, meaning she would end up paying around $100K in tuition.
(c) Attend Duke for $19,000 per year off listed tuition, meaning she would end up paying $85K in tuition
(d) Attend Texas for $25,333 per year off listed tuition, meaning she would end up paying around $40K in tuition.
(e) Go to WUSL, Illinois, Iowa, or Indiana, pay no tuition, and have most or all of her living expenses during law school covered as well.
(I am omitting a host of various other options she had, as they were by comparison non-starters).
Now, in order to make this decision in a reasonably rational (and therefore “efficient”) manner, what this applicant had to do was to calculate the probable differences on ROI from a law degree from these various institutions. In order to do this, of course, she needed to have reasonably transparent employment and salary data available to her at the time she made her decision, which, given that she made it a year ago, she for the most part did not.
If she were making her decision today, her situation would be somewhat better, but still very far from optimal. As more and more prospective law students get savvier about the fact that they have the choice of either being subsidized by their fellow classmates, or subsidizing them, the pressure on law schools to disgorge the information 0Ls need to make these decisions rationally will build. And that’s all to the good.
Whether the current system of tuition cross-subsidization is defensible in moral and political terms is of course a wholly different question.Quote Industry standard APIs like Vulkan are a critical part of enabling developers to bring the best possible experience to customers on multiple platforms. Valve and the other Khronos members are working hard to ensure that this high-performance graphics interface is made available as widely as possible and we view it as a critical component of SteamOS and future Valve games.
It has been officially announced now, so Vulkan API it is! We are entering a new era of graphical performance.The good news, is that Vulkan will be able to work on any chip that supports OpenGL ES 3.1 and upwards. So, it looks like it could work on cards as old as the Nvidia 400 series, but we still need to wait and see what cards the official proprietary drivers and open source drivers actually support before people with older cards get too excited.I can't imagine them leaving it to only the newest generation of chips, as that would lock out too many people.It may be a while before we see support for it in drivers, as the API probably isn’t completely finished just yet, and the open source drivers don’t have full OpenGL support just yet either.Here's a choice quote from Gabe Newell, Valve:It will be interesting to see what demos they have in store for us later at GDC!See the official press release here.There’s also the official Vulkan site here as well.And finally, there’s the slides to look over that give you an overview.Orem police arrested five men on charges of growing marijuana in the basement of a home, not far from an elementary school. It happened at 1155 S. 200 West on Tuesday around 10 p.m.
Someone called police to report a strong odor of marijuana. Officers arrived and confirmed the smell but couldn't get anyone to answer the door, so they filed for a search warrant.
In the meantime, those inside the house went to work to destroy the evidence, at least what they could fit down the toilet.
When officers got the search warrant and went inside, they couldn't find any marijuana but did recover drug paraphernalia, as well as several other items used for indoor growing.
Lt. Doug Edwards, with the Orem Department of Public Safety, said, "They did find evidence of quite a large grow operation, but all of what was growing or had been growing had been flushed down the toilet, so we don't know exactly how big it was, how many plants it was, they had destroyed, but there certainly was evidence they had gotten rid of it in a hurry."
Officers seized all of the evidence and believe they will still have a strong case against the men for cultivating marijuana, even though the pot is gone.
Mitchell Johnson, 20, Alexander Cordner, 22, Chad Hohrein, 22, Benjamin Hoffman, 20, and Nathan Swena, 23, were arrested on charges of cultivating marijuana, possession with intent to distribute, possession of paraphernalia -- charges all enhanced because it was close to Westmore Elementary, which is a drug-free zone.
All of the men also face charges of obstructing justice, for getting rid of the marijuana.
E-mail: spenrod@ksl.comWhen starting a complex construction project, there is a wide range of tasks that need to be carried out and among the most important services you will need to resort to are building services. Although finding a firm that can support you in this department might seem like a simple thing, considering the amount of offers you are able to find with just a simple search on the web, if you want the professionals you hire to be the right ones for the job, analyzing a few selection factors in advance can be necessary. So regardless of the exact service level you are requiring, these are the things that make a company a reliable choice:
Industry expertise and experience
A thorough practical knowledge of the industry is, of course, the first aspect that needs your attention. You have to be 100 percent certain that the firm adheres to all local laws, regulations, and rules, and the specialists working there can easily adapt to new changes and advancements. Experience plays an essential role when it comes to these types of services, so opting to rely on a company that is characterized by industry longevity is usually the safest choice to make. Request details regarding their experience and industry expertise and make a choice based on the answer received or on the research you have done in this department.
Vision and work coordination
A good building management company should be able to take your vision into account and stick to your own requirements and preferences, in order for the outcomes of your project to truly be those you desire. Also, considering there are several workings that will need to be done, the firm you hire should manage to handle all tasks and potential issues that might arise. The right company will need to include electrical building services in their offerings as well, for example.
Feedback
One last thing that requires your attention and might help you select the right building services, is the firm’s feedback received from past clients. When it comes to important building projects, any detail can make a difference, and although the variety of available offers is extensive, few of them are actually worth your interest, so receiving a few recommendations can truly come in handy. A company that is known for being trustworthy will not have any problems in sharing references with you, and will not take any means of actions to hide feedback. When the majority of those who have resorted to the firm in the past seem pleased with the support received, you will be able |
3001 There are identical sub-expressions 'u.TypeArguments.Length' to the left and to the right of the '!=' operator. generic.cs 3135
The code of MonoDevelop (C#) project:
Accessibility DeclaredAccessibility { get; } bool IsStatic { get; } private bool MembersMatch(ISymbol member1, ISymbol member2) { if (member1.Kind!= member2.Kind) { return false; } if (member1.DeclaredAccessibility!= // <=1 member1.DeclaredAccessibility // <=1 || member1.IsStatic!= member1.IsStatic) // <=2 { return false; } if (member1.ExplicitInterfaceImplementations().Any() || member2.ExplicitInterfaceImplementations().Any()) { return false; } return SignatureComparer.HaveSameSignatureAndConstraintsAndReturnTypeAndAccessors( member1, member2, this.IsCaseSensitive); }
PVS-Studio warning: V3001 There are identical sub-expressions'member1.IsStatic' to the left and to the right of the '!=' operator. CSharpBinding AbstractImplementInterfaceService.CodeAction.cs 545
The code of Haiku (C++) project:
int __CORTEX_NAMESPACE__ compareTypeAndID(....) { int retValue = 0;.... if (lJack && rJack) { if (lJack->m_jackType < lJack->m_jackType) // <= { return -1; } if (lJack->m_jackType == lJack->m_jackType) // <= { if (lJack->m_index < rJack->m_index) { return -1; } else { return 1; } } else if (lJack->m_jackType > rJack->m_jackType) { retValue = 1; } } return retValue; }
PVS-Studio warning: V501 There are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the '<' operator: lJack->m_jackType < lJack->m_jackType MediaJack.cpp 783
Just below there is exactly the same error. As I understand, in both cases a programmer forgot to replace lJack with rJack.
The code of CryEngine V (C++) project:
bool CompareRotation(const Quat& q1, const Quat& q2, float epsilon) { return (fabs_tpl(q1.v.x - q2.v.x) <= epsilon) && (fabs_tpl(q1.v.y - q2.v.y) <= epsilon) && (fabs_tpl(q2.v.z - q2.v.z) <= epsilon) // <= && (fabs_tpl(q1.w - q2.w) <= epsilon); }
PVS-Studio warning: V501 There are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the '-' operator: q2.v.z - q2.v.z entitynode.cpp 93
Pattern: Evaluating the Size of a Pointer Instead of the Size of the Structure/Class
This type of error occurs in programs written in C and C++ and is caused by incorrect use of the sizeof operator. The error in evaluating not the size of the object, but the size of the pointer. Example:
T *a = foo1(); T *b = foo2(); x = memcmp(a, b, sizeof(a));
Instead of the size of the T structure, a size of the pointer gets evaluated. The size of the pointer depends on the used data model, but usually it is 4 or 8. As a result, more or less bites in the memory get compared than take the structure.
Correct variant of the code:
x = memcmp(a, b, sizeof(T));
or
x = memcmp(a, b, sizeof(*a));
Now let's move on to the practical part. Here is how such a bug looks in the code of CryEngine V (C++) code:
bool operator==(const SComputePipelineStateDescription& other) const { return 0 == memcmp(this, &other, sizeof(this)); }
PVS-Studio warning: V579 The memcmp function receives the pointer and its size as arguments. It is possibly a mistake. Inspect the third argument. graphicspipelinestateset.h 58
The code of Unreal Engine 4 project (C++):
bool FRecastQueryFilter::IsEqual( const INavigationQueryFilterInterface* Other) const { // @NOTE: not type safe, should be changed when // another filter type is introduced return FMemory::Memcmp(this, Other, sizeof(this)) == 0; }
PVS-Studio warning: V579 The Memcmp function receives the pointer and its size as arguments. It is possibly a mistake. Inspect the third argument. pimplrecastnavmesh.cpp 172
Pattern: Repetitive Arguments of Cmp(A, A) Type
Comparison functions usually call other comparison functions. At the same time one of the possible errors is that the reference/pointer is passed to the same object twice. Example:
x = memcmp(A, A, sizeof(T));
Here the object A will be compared with itself, which, is of course, has no sense.
We'll start with an error, found in the debugger GDB (C):
static int psymbol_compare (const void *addr1, const void *addr2, int length) { struct partial_symbol *sym1 = (struct partial_symbol *) addr1; struct partial_symbol *sym2 = (struct partial_symbol *) addr2; return (memcmp (&sym1->ginfo.value, &sym1->ginfo.value, // <= sizeof (sym1->ginfo.value)) == 0 && sym1->ginfo.language == sym2->ginfo.language && PSYMBOL_DOMAIN (sym1) == PSYMBOL_DOMAIN (sym2) && PSYMBOL_CLASS (sym1) == PSYMBOL_CLASS (sym2) && sym1->ginfo.name == sym2->ginfo.name); }
PVS-Studio warning: V549 The first argument of'memcmp' function is equal to the second argument. psymtab.c 1580
The code of CryEngineSDK project (C++):
inline bool operator!= (const SEfResTexture &m) const { if (stricmp(m_Name.c_str(), m_Name.c_str())!= 0 || // <= m_TexFlags!= m.m_TexFlags || m_bUTile!= m.m_bUTile || m_bVTile!= m.m_bVTile || m_Filter!= m.m_Filter || m_Ext!= m.m_Ext || m_Sampler!= m.m_Sampler) return true; return false; }
PVS-Studio warning: V549 The first argument of'stricmp' function is equal to the second argument. ishader.h 2089
The code of PascalABC.NET (C#):
private List<string> enum_consts = new List<string>(); public override bool IsEqual(SymScope ts) { EnumScope es = ts as EnumScope; if (es == null) return false; if (enum_consts.Count!= es.enum_consts.Count) return false; for (int i = 0; i < es.enum_consts.Count; i++) if (string.Compare(enum_consts[i], this.enum_consts[i], true)!= 0) return false; return true; }
PVS-Studio warning: V3038 The 'enum_consts[i]' argument was passed to 'Compare' method several times. It is possible that other argument should be passed instead. CodeCompletion SymTable.cs 2206
I'll give some explanation here. The error in the factual arguments of the Compare function:
string.Compare(enum_consts[i], this.enum_consts[i], true)
The thing is that enum_consts[i] and this.enum_consts[i are the same things. As I understand, a correct call should be like this:
string.Compare(es.enum_consts[i], this.enum_consts[i], true)
or
string.Compare(enum_consts[i], es.enum_consts[i], true)
Pattern: Repetitive Checks A==B && A==B
Quite a common error in programming is when the same check is done twice. Example:
return A == B && C == D && // <= C == D && // <= E == F;
Two variants are possible in this case. The first is quite harmless: one comparison is redundant and can be simply removed. The second is worse: some other variables were to be compared, but a programmer made a typo.
In any case, such code deserves close attention. Let me scare you a little more, and show that this error can be found even in the code of GCC compiler (C):
static bool dw_val_equal_p (dw_val_node *a, dw_val_node *b) {.... case dw_val_class_vms_delta: return (!strcmp (a->v.val_vms_delta.lbl1, b->v.val_vms_delta.lbl1) &&!strcmp (a->v.val_vms_delta.lbl1, b->v.val_vms_delta.lbl1));.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V501 There are identical sub-expressions '!strcmp(a->v.val_vms_delta.lbl1, b->v.val_vms_delta.lbl1)' to the left and to the right of the '&&' operator. dwarf2out.c 1428
The function strcmp is called twice with the same set of arguments.
The code of Unreal Engine 4 project (C++):
FORCEINLINE bool operator==(const FShapedGlyphEntryKey& Other) const { return FontFace == Other.FontFace && GlyphIndex == Other.GlyphIndex // <= && FontSize == Other.FontSize && FontScale == Other.FontScale && GlyphIndex == Other.GlyphIndex; // <= }
PVS-Studio warning: V501 There are identical sub-expressions 'GlyphIndex == Other.GlyphIndex' to the left and to the right of the '&&' operator. fontcache.h 139
The code of Serious Engine project (C++):
inline BOOL CValuesForPrimitive::operator==(....) { return ( (....) && (vfp_ptPrimitiveType == vfpToCompare.vfp_ptPrimitiveType) &&.... (vfp_ptPrimitiveType == vfpToCompare.vfp_ptPrimitiveType) &&.... );
PVS-Studio warning: V501 There are identical sub-expressions '(vfp_ptPrimitiveType == vfpToCompare.vfp_ptPrimitiveType)' to the left and to the right of the '&&' operator. worldeditor.h 580
The code of Oracle VM Virtual Box project (C++):
typedef struct SCMDIFFSTATE {.... bool fIgnoreTrailingWhite; bool fIgnoreLeadingWhite;.... } SCMDIFFSTATE; /* Pointer to a diff state. */ typedef SCMDIFFSTATE *PSCMDIFFSTATE; /* Compare two lines */ DECLINLINE(bool) scmDiffCompare(PSCMDIFFSTATE pState,....) {.... if (pState->fIgnoreTrailingWhite // <= || pState->fIgnoreTrailingWhite) // <= return scmDiffCompareSlow(....);.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V501 There are identical sub-expressions 'pState->fIgnoreTrailingWhite' to the left and to the right of the '||' operator. scmdiff.cpp 238
Pattern: Incorrect Use of the Value, Returned by memcmp Function
The memcmp function returns the following values of int type:
< 0 - buf1 less than buf2;
0 - buf1 identical to buf2;
> 0 - buf1 greater than buf2;
Please note that '>0' can be any number, not only 1. These numbers can be: 2, 3, 100, 256, 1024, 5555, 65536 and so on. This means that this result cannot be placed to a variable of the char and short type. The high bits can be lost, which might violate the logic of program execution.
Also this means that the result cannot be compared with constants 1 or -1. In other words, it is wrong to write this:
if (memcmp(a, b, sizeof(T)) == 1) if (memcmp(x, y, sizeof(T)) == -1)
Correct comparisons:
if (memcmp(a, b, sizeof(T)) > 0) if (memcmp(a, b, sizeof(T)) < 0)
The danger of this code is that it may successfully work for a long time. The errors may start showing up when moving to a new platform or with the change of the compiler version.
The code of ReactOS project (C++):
HRESULT WINAPI CRecycleBin::CompareIDs(....) {.... return MAKE_HRESULT(SEVERITY_SUCCESS, 0, (unsigned short)memcmp(pidl1->mkid.abID, pidl2->mkid.abID, pidl1->mkid.cb)); }
PVS-Studio warning: V642 Saving the'memcmp' function result inside the 'unsigned short' type variable is inappropriate. The significant bits could be lost breaking the program's logic. recyclebin.cpp 542
The code of Firebird project (C++):
SSHORT TextType::compare(ULONG len1, const UCHAR* str1, ULONG len2, const UCHAR* str2) {.... SSHORT cmp = memcmp(str1, str2, MIN(len1, len2)); if (cmp == 0) cmp = (len1 < len2? -1 : (len1 > len2? 1 : 0)); return cmp; }
PVS-Studio warning: V642 Saving the'memcmp' function result inside the'short' type variable is inappropriate. The significant bits could be lost breaking the program's logic. texttype.cpp 338
The code of CoreCLR project (C++):
bool operator( )(const GUID& _Key1, const GUID& _Key2) const { return memcmp(&_Key1, &_Key2, sizeof(GUID)) == -1; }
PVS-Studio warning: V698 Expression'memcmp(....) == -1' is incorrect. This function can return not only the value '-1', but any negative value. Consider using'memcmp(....) < 0' instead. sos util.cpp 142
The code of OpenToonz project (C++):
bool TFilePath::operator<(const TFilePath &fp) const {.... char differ; differ = _wcsicmp(iName.c_str(), jName.c_str()); if (differ!= 0) return differ < 0? true : false;.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V642 Saving the '_wcsicmp' function result inside the 'char' type variable is inappropriate. The significant bits could be lost, breaking the program's logic. tfilepath.cpp 328
Pattern: Incorrect Check of Null References
This error pattern is typical for C# programs. Sometimes in the comparison functions programmers write the type casting with the help of the as operator. The error is that inadvertently a programmer verifies against null not the new reference, but the original one. Let's take a look at a synthetic example:
ChildT foo = obj as ChildT; if (obj == null) return false; if (foo.zzz()) {}
The check if (obj == null) protects from the situation, if the obj variable contains a null reference. However, there is no protection from the case if it turns out that the as operator returns a null reference. The correct code should be like this:
ChildT foo = obj as ChildT; if (foo == null) return false; if (foo.zzz()) {}
Typically, this error occurs due to negligence of the programmer. Similar bugs are possible in the programs in C and C++, but I haven't found such a case in our error base.
The code of MonoDevelop project (C#):
public override bool Equals (object o) { SolutionItemReference sr = o as SolutionItemReference; if (o == null) return false; return (path == sr.path) && (id == sr.id); }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'o','sr'. MonoDevelop.Core SolutionItemReference.cs 81
The code of CoreFX (C#):
public override bool Equals(object comparand) { CredentialHostKey comparedCredentialKey = comparand as CredentialHostKey; if (comparand == null) { // This covers also the compared == null case return false; } bool equals = string.Equals(AuthenticationType, comparedCredentialKey.AuthenticationType,........ }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'comparand', 'comparedCredentialKey'. CredentialCache.cs 4007
The code of Roslyn project (C#):
public override bool Equals(object obj) { var d = obj as DiagnosticDescription; if (obj == null) return false; if (!_code.Equals(d._code)) return false;.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'obj', 'd'. DiagnosticDescription.cs 201
The code of Roslyn (C#):
protected override bool AreEqual(object other) { var otherResourceString = other as LocalizableResourceString; return other!= null && _nameOfLocalizableResource == otherResourceString._nameOfLocalizableResource && _resourceManager == otherResourceString._resourceManager && _resourceSource == otherResourceString._resourceSource &&.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'other', 'otherResourceString'. LocalizableResourceString.cs 121
The code of MSBuild project (C#):
public override bool Equals(object obj) { AssemblyNameExtension name = obj as AssemblyNameExtension; if (obj == null) // <= { return false; }.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'obj', 'name'. AssemblyRemapping.cs 64
The code of Mono project (C#):
public override bool Equals (object o) { UrlMembershipCondition umc = (o as UrlMembershipCondition); if (o == null) // <= return false;.... return (String.Compare (u, 0, umc.Url,....) == 0); // <= }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'o', 'umc'. UrlMembershipCondition.cs 111
The code of Media Portal 2 project (C#):
public override bool Equals(object obj) { EpisodeInfo other = obj as EpisodeInfo; if (obj == null) return false; if (TvdbId > 0 && other.TvdbId > 0) return TvdbId == other.TvdbId;.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'obj', 'other'. EpisodeInfo.cs 560
The code of NASA World Wind project (C#):
public int CompareTo(object obj) { RenderableObject robj = obj as RenderableObject; if(obj == null) // <= return 1; return this.m_renderPriority.CompareTo(robj.RenderPriority); }
PVS-Studio warning: V3019 Possibly an incorrect variable is compared to null after type conversion using 'as' keyword. Check variables 'obj', 'robj'. RenderableObject.cs 199
Pattern: Incorrect Loops
In some functions, collections of items are compared. Of course, different variant of the loops are used for its comparison. If a programmer writes the code inattentively, it's easy to mix something up, as it is with the comparison functions. Let's look at a few of these situations.
The code of Trans-Proteomic Pipeline (C++):
bool Peptide::operator==(Peptide& p) {.... for (i = 0, j = 0; i < this->stripped.length(), j < p.stripped.length(); i++, j++) {.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V521 Such expressions using the ',' operator are dangerous. Make sure the expression is correct. tpplib peptide.cpp 191
Note that the comma operator is used in the condition. The code is clearly incorrect, because the condition, written to the left of the comma is ignored. That is, the condition on the left is evaluated, but its result is not used in any way.
The code of Qt project (C++):
bool equals( class1* val1, class2* val2 ) const {... size_t size = val1->size();... while ( --size >= 0 ){ if (!comp(*itr1,*itr2) ) return false; itr1++; itr2++; }... }
PVS-Studio warning: V547 Expression '-- size >= 0' is always true. Unsigned type value is always >= 0. QtCLucene arrays.h 154
The code of CLucene project (C++):
class Arrays {.... bool equals( class1* val1, class2* val2 ) const{ static _comparator comp; if ( val1 == val2 ) return true; size_t size = val1->size(); if ( size!= val2->size() ) return false; _itr1 itr1 = val1->begin(); _itr2 itr2 = val2->begin(); while ( --size >= 0 ){ if (!comp(*itr1,*itr2) ) return false; itr1++; itr2++; } return true; }.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V547 Expression '-- size >= 0' is always true. Unsigned type value is always >= 0. arrays.h 154
The code of Mono project (C#):
public override bool Equals (object obj) {.... for (int i=0; i < list.Count; i++) { bool found = false; for (int j=0; i < ps.list.Count; j++) { // <= if (list [i].Equals (ps.list [j])) { found = true; break; } } if (!found) return false; } return true; }
PVS-Studio warning: V3015 It is likely that a wrong variable is being compared inside the 'for' operator. Consider reviewing 'i' corlib-net_4_x PermissionSet.cs 607
Apparently, there is a typo here, and the variable j instead of i should be used in the nested loop:
for (int j=0; j < ps.list.Count; j++)
Pattern: A = getA(), B = GetA()
Quite often in the comparison functions a programmer has to write code of this kind:
if (GetA().x == GetB().x && GetA().y == GetB().y)
Intermediate variables are used to reduce the size of the conditions or for optimization:
Type A = GetA(); Type B = GetB(); if (A.x == B.x && A.y == B.y)
But inadvertently, a person sometimes makes a mistake and initializes temporary variables with the same value:
Type A = GetA(); Type B = GetA();
Now let's take a look at these errors in the code of real applications.
The code of LibreOffice project (C++):
bool CmpAttr( const SfxPoolItem& rItem1, const SfxPoolItem& rItem2) {.... bool bNumOffsetEqual = false; ::boost::optional<sal_uInt16> oNumOffset1 = static_cast<const SwFmtPageDesc&>(rItem1).GetNumOffset(); ::boost::optional<sal_uInt16> oNumOffset2 = static_cast<const SwFmtPageDesc&>(rItem1).GetNumOffset(); if (!oNumOffset1 &&!oNumOffset2) { bNumOffsetEqual = true; } else if (oNumOffset1 && oNumOffset2) { bNumOffsetEqual = oNumOffset1.get() == oNumOffset2.get(); } else { bNumOffsetEqual = false; }.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V656 Variables 'oNumOffset1', 'oNumOffset2' are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code. Check lines: 68, 69. findattr.cxx 69
The code of Qt project (C++):
AtomicComparator::ComparisonResult IntegerComparator::compare(const Item &o1, const AtomicComparator::Operator, const Item &o2) const { const Numeric *const num1 = o1.as<Numeric>(); const Numeric *const num2 = o1.as<Numeric>(); if(num1->isSigned() || num2->isSigned()).... }
PVS-Studio warning: V656 Variables 'num1', 'num2' are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code. Consider inspecting the 'o1.as < Numeric > ()' expression. Check lines: 220, 221. qatomiccomparators.cpp 221
Pattern: Sloppy Copying of the Code
A large amount of errors, cited previously can be called the consequences of sloppy Copy-Paste. They fell under some categories of the erroneous pattern and I decided that it would be logical to describe them in corresponding sections. However, I have several errors that have clearly appeared because of sloppy code copying, but I have no idea how to classify them. That's why I collected these errors here.
The code of CoreCLR project (C++):
int __cdecl Compiler::RefCntCmp(const void* op1, const void* op2) {.... if (weight1) {.... if (varTypeIsGC(dsc1->TypeGet())) { weight1 += BB_UNITY_WEIGHT / 2; } if (dsc1->lvRegister) { weight1 += BB_UNITY_WEIGHT / 2; } } if (weight1) {.... if (varTypeIsGC(dsc2->TypeGet())) { weight1 += BB_UNITY_WEIGHT / 2; // <= } if (dsc2->lvRegister) { weight2 += BB_UNITY_WEIGHT / 2; } }.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V778 Two similar code fragments were found. Perhaps, this is a typo and 'weight2' variable should be used instead of 'weight1'. clrjit lclvars.cpp 2702
The function was long that's why it is shortened for the article. If we examine the code of the function, we'll see that a part of the code was copied, but in one fragment a programmer forgot to replace the variable weight1 with weight2.
The code of WPF samples by Microsoft project (C#):
public int Compare(GlyphRun a, GlyphRun b) {.... if (aPoint.Y > bPoint.Y) // <= { return -1; } else if (aPoint.Y > bPoint.Y) // <= { result = 1; } else if (aPoint.X < bPoint.X) { result = -1; } else if (aPoint.X > bPoint.X) { result = 1; }.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V3003 The use of 'if (A) {...} else if (A) {...}' pattern was detected. There is a probability of logical error presence. Check lines: 418, 422. txtserializerwriter.cs 418
The code of PascalABC.NET project (C#):
public void CompareInternal(....) {.... else if (left is int64_const) CompareInternal(left as int64_const, right as int64_const);.... else if (left is int64_const) CompareInternal(left as int64_const, right as int64_const);.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V3003 The use of 'if (A) {...} else if (A) {...}' pattern was detected. There is a probability of logical error presence. Check lines: 597, 631. ParserTools SyntaxTreeComparer.cs 597
The code of SharpDevelop project (C#):
public int Compare(SharpTreeNode x, SharpTreeNode y) {.... if (typeNameComparison == 0) { if (x.Text.ToString().Length < y.Text.ToString().Length) return -1; if (x.Text.ToString().Length < y.Text.ToString().Length) return 1; }.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V3021 There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains method return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless NamespaceTreeNode.cs 87
The code of Coin3D (C++):
int SbProfilingData::operator == (const SbProfilingData & rhs) const { if (this->actionType!= rhs.actionType) return FALSE; if (this->actionStartTime!= rhs.actionStopTime) return FALSE; if (this->actionStartTime!= rhs.actionStopTime) return FALSE;.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V649 There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains function return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless. Check lines: 1205, 1206. sbprofilingdata.cpp 1206
The code of Spring (C++):
bool operator < (const aiFloatKey& o) const {return mTime < o.mTime;} bool operator > (const aiFloatKey& o) const {return mTime < o.mTime;}
PVS-Studio warning: V524 It is odd that the body of '>' function is fully equivalent to the body of '<' function. assimp 3dshelper.h 470
And here is the last, particularly interesting code fragment that PVS-Studio analyzer found in MySQL project (C++).
static int rr_cmp(uchar *a,uchar *b) { if (a[0]!= b[0]) return (int) a[0] - (int) b[0]; if (a[1]!= b[1]) return (int) a[1] - (int) b[1]; if (a[2]!= b[2]) return (int) a[2] - (int) b[2]; if (a[3]!= b[3]) return (int) a[3] - (int) b[3]; if (a[4]!= b[4]) return (int) a[4] - (int) b[4]; if (a[5]!= b[5]) return (int) a[1] - (int) b[5]; // <= if (a[6]!= b[6]) return (int) a[6] - (int) b[6]; return (int) a[7] - (int) b[7]; }
PVS-Studio warning: V525 The code containing the collection of similar blocks. Check items '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '1', '6' in lines 680, 682, 684, 689, 691, 693, 695. sql records.cc 680
Most likely, a programmer wrote the first comparison, then the second and got bored. So he copied to the buffer a text block:
if (a[1]!= b[1]) return (int) a[1] - (int) b[1];
A pasted it to the text of the program as many times as he needed. Then he changed indexes, but made a mistake in one place and got an incorrect comparison:
if (a[5]!= b[5]) return (int) a[1] - (int) b[5];
Note. I discuss this error in more detail in my mini-book "The Ultimate Question of Programming, Refactoring, and Everything" (see a chapter "Don't do the compiler's job").
Pattern: Equals Method Incorrectly Processes a Null Reference
In C# the accepted practice is to implement the Equals methods in such a way, so that they correctly process a situation, if a null reference is passed as an argument. Unfortunately, not all the methods are implemented according to this rule.
The code of GitExtensions (C#):
public override bool Equals(object obj) { return GetHashCode() == obj.GetHashCode(); // <= }
PVS-Studio warning: V3115 Passing 'null' to 'Equals(object obj)' method should not result in 'NullReferenceException'. Git.hub Organization.cs 14
The code of PascalABC.NET project (C#):
public override bool Equals(object obj) { var rhs = obj as ServiceReferenceMapFile; return FileName == rhs.FileName; }
PVS-Studio warning: V3115 Passing 'null' to 'Equals' method should not result in 'NullReferenceException'. ICSharpCode.SharpDevelop ServiceReferenceMapFile.cs 31
Miscellaneous Errors
The code of G3D Content Pak project (C++):
bool Matrix4::operator==(const Matrix4& other) const { if (memcmp(this, &other, sizeof(Matrix4) == 0)) { return true; }... }
PVS-Studio warning: V575 The'memcmp' function processes '0' elements. Inspect the 'third' argument. graphics3D matrix4.cpp 269
One closing bracket is put incorrectly. As a result, the amount of bites compared is evaluated by the statement sizeof(Matrix4) == 0. The size of any class is more than 0, which means that the result of the expression is 0. Thus, 0 bites get compared.
Correct variant:
if (memcmp(this, &other, sizeof(Matrix4)) == 0) {
The code of Wolfenstein 3D project (C++):
inline int operator!=( quat_t a, quat_t b ) { return ( ( a.x!= b.x ) || ( a.y!= b.y ) || ( a.z!= b.z ) && ( a.w!= b.w ) ); }
PVS-Studio warning: V648 Priority of the '&&' operation is higher than that of the '||' operation. math_quaternion.h 167
Apparently, in one fragment the && operator was accidentally written instead of ||.
The code of FlightGear project (C):
static int tokMatch(struct Token* a, struct Token* b) { int i, l = a->strlen; if(!a ||!b) return 0;.... }
PVS-Studio warning: V595 The 'a' pointer was utilized before it was verified against nullptr. Check lines: 478, 479. codegen.c 478
If we pass NULL as the first argument to the function, we'll get null pointer dereference, although the programmer wanted the function to return 0.
The code of WinMerge project (C++):
int TimeSizeCompare::CompareFiles(int compMethod, const DIFFITEM &di) { UINT code = DIFFCODE::SAME;... if (di.left.size!= di.right.size) { code &= ~DIFFCODE::SAME; code = DIFFCODE::DIFF; }... }
PVS-Studio warning: V519 The 'code' variable is assigned values twice successively. Perhaps this is a mistake. Check lines: 79, 80. Merge timesizecompare.cpp 80
The code of ReactOS project (C++):
#define IsEqualGUID(rguid1, rguid2) \ (!memcmp(&(rguid1), &(rguid2), sizeof(GUID))) static int ctl2_find_guid(....) { MSFT_GuidEntry *guidentry;... if (IsEqualGUID(guidentry, guid)) return offset;... }
PVS-Studio warning: V512 A call of the'memcmp' function will lead to underflow of the buffer 'guidentry'. oleaut32 typelib2.c 320
A pointer is written here as the first argument. As a result, the address of the pointer gets evaluated, which has no sense.
Correct variant:
if (IsEqualGUID(*guidentry, guid)) return offset;
The code of IronPython and IronRuby project (C#):
public static bool Equals(float x, float y) { if (x == y) { return!Single.IsNaN(x); } return x == y; }
PVS-Studio warning: V3024 An odd precise comparison: x == y. Consider using a comparison with defined precision: Math.Abs(A - B) < Epsilon. FloatOps.cs 1048
It's not clear what is the point of a special check against NaN here. If the condition (x == y) is true, it means that both x and y and different from NaN, because NaN isn't equal to any other value, including itself. It seems that the check against NaN is just not necessary, and the code can be shortened to:
public static bool Equals(float x, float y) { return x == y; }
The code of Mono project (C#):
public bool Equals (CounterSample other) { return rawValue == other.rawValue && baseValue == other.counterFrequency && // <= counterFrequency == other.counterFrequency && // <= systemFrequency == other.systemFrequency && timeStamp == other.timeStamp && timeStamp100nSec == other.timeStamp100nSec && counterTimeStamp == other.counterTimeStamp && counterType == other.counterType; }
PVS-Studio warning: V3112 An abnormality within similar comparisons. It is possible that a typo is present inside the expression 'baseValue == other.counterFrequency'. System-net_4_x CounterSample.cs 139
How Do these Programs Work at all?
Looking through all the errors, it seems miraculous that all these programs generally work. Indeed, the comparison functions do a very important and responsible task in program.
There are several explanations of why these programs work despite these errors:
In a lot of functions, only a part of the object is compared incorrectly. The partial comparison is enough for most of the tasks in this program.
There are no situations (yet) when the function works incorrectly. For example, this applies to the functions that aren't protected from null pointers or those, where the result of the memcmp function call is placed into the variable of char type. The program is simply lucky.
function call is placed into the variable of type. The program is simply lucky. The reviewed comparison function is used very rarely or not used at all.
Who said that the program is working? A lot of programs really do something wrong!
Recommendations
I demonstrated how many errors can be found in the comparison functions. It follows that the efficiency of these functions should be checked with unit-tests by all means.
It is really necessary to write unit-tests for the comparison operators, for Equals functions and so on.
I am quite sure that there was such an understanding among programmers before reading this article, that unit tests for such functions is extra work and they won't detect any errors anyway: the comparison functions are just so simple at the first glance... Well, now I showed the horror that can hide in them.
Code reviews and using static analysis tools would also be a great help.
Conclusion
In this article we mentioned a large amount of big-name projects that are developed by highly qualified experts. These projects are thoroughly tested using different methodologies. Still, it |
1 — 747-300 B743 56 56 — 747-300M 21 21 — 747-300SR 4 4 — 747-400 B744 / BLCF[c] 442 442 — 747-400ER 6 6 — 747-400ERF 40 40 — 747-400F 126 126 — 747-400M 61 61 — 747-400D B74D 19 19 — 747-8I B748 47 47 — 747-8F 107 83 24 747SP B74S 45 45 — 747 Total 1,572 1,548 24
Source for orders and deliveries: Boeing data through end of December 2018
Accidents and incidents
The 747 has been involved in 146 aviation accidents and incidents,[221] including 61 accidents and hull losses[222] which resulted in 3722 fatalities.[13] The last crash was Turkish Airlines Flight 6491 in January 2017. There were also 24 deaths in 32 aircraft hijackings,[13] such as Pan Am Flight 73 where a Boeing 747-121 was hijacked by four terrorists and resulted in 20 deaths.[223]
Few crashes have been attributed to design flaws of the 747. The Tenerife airport disaster resulted from pilot error and communications failure, while the Japan Airlines Flight 123 and China Airlines Flight 611 crashes stemmed from improper aircraft repair. United Airlines Flight 811, which suffered an explosive decompression mid-flight on February 24, 1989, led the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to issue a recommendation that the Boeing 747-100 and 747-200 cargo doors similar to those on the Flight 811 aircraft be modified to those featured on the Boeing 747-400. Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet fighter aircraft in 1983 after it had strayed into Soviet territory, causing U.S. President Ronald Reagan to authorize the then-strictly military global positioning system (GPS) for civilian use.[224]
Accidents due to design deficiencies included TWA Flight 800, where a 747-100 exploded in mid-air on July 17, 1996, probably due to sparking electricity wires inside the fuel tank;[225] this finding led the FAA to propose a rule requiring installation of an inerting system in the center fuel tank of most large aircraft that was adopted in July 2008, after years of research into solutions. At the time, the new safety system was expected to cost US$100,000 to $450,000 per aircraft and weigh approximately 200 pounds (91 kg).[226] El Al Flight 1862 crashed after the fuse pins for an engine broke off shortly after take-off due to metal fatigue. Instead of dropping away from the wing, the engine knocked off the adjacent engine and damaged the wing.[227]
Aircraft on display
As increasing numbers of "classic" 747-100 and 747-200 series aircraft have been retired, some have found their way into museums or other uses. In recent years, some older 747-300s and 747-400s have also found their way into museums as well.
Other uses
Upon its retirement from service, the 747 number two in the production line was dismantled and shipped to Hopyeong, Namyangju, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea where it was re-assembled, repainted in a livery similar to that of Air Force One and converted into a restaurant. Originally flown commercially by Pan Am as N747PA, Clipper Juan T. Trippe, and repaired for service following a tailstrike, it stayed with the airline until its bankruptcy. The restaurant closed by 2009,[233] and the aircraft was scrapped in 2010.[234]
A former British Airways 747-200B, G-BDXJ,[235] is parked at the Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, England and has been used as a movie set for productions such as the 2006 James Bond film, Casino Royale.[236] The plane also appears frequently in the BBC television series Top Gear, which is filmed at Dunsfold.
The Jumbohostel, using a converted 747-200 formerly registered as 9V-SQE, opened at Arlanda Airport, Stockholm in January 2009.[237][238]
The wings of a 747 have been recycled as roofs of a house in Malibu, California.[239][240][241][242]
Specifications
^ split numbers denote different limits depending on exit types installed ^ JT9D, 276 passengers a b JT9D, 366 passengers and baggage ^ 400 passengers and baggage ^ PW4000, 416 passengers and baggage ^ 410 passengers and baggage
Notable appearances in media
Following its debut, the 747 rapidly achieved iconic status, appearing in numerous film productions such as Airport 1975 and Airport '77 disaster films, Air Force One, Die Hard 2, and Executive Decision.[255][256] Appearing in over 300 film productions[257] the 747 is one of the most widely depicted civilian aircraft and is considered by many as one of the most iconic in film history.[258] The aircraft entered the cultural lexicon as the original Jumbo Jet, a term coined by the aviation media to describe its size,[259] and was also nicknamed Queen of the Skies.[260]
See also
Related development
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era
Related lists
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further readingInternet users have decided that time travel is real after a 1,500-year-old mummy was pictured wearing what appear to be Adidas boots.
The fashion-forward mummy was found 10,000 feet up in Mongolia’s Altai mountains - and dates from more than a millennia before the rise of the iconic German footwear brand.
One Liveleak user commented, ‘The mummy had on some Adidas in the first pic?’
Experts believe that the foot wrappings are, in fact, a sign of high status - rather than devotion to the sports brand beloved of Run DMC.‘‘This person was not from elite, and we believe it was likely a woman, because there is no bow in the tomb,’ B. Sukhbaatar, researcher at Khovd Museum, told the Siberian Times.
‘Now we are carefully unwrapping the body and once this is complete the specialists will be able to say more precisely about the gender.’Top-Ten Reasons why Catholicism is So Goth.
1.) We speak an arcane tongue.
Latin is one of the most mysteriously beautiful and ancient languages.
Its sound, rhythm and flow are almost magical, timeless and can be quite creepy in the dark. Our millennia-old Latin may seem cold as stone, foreboding as death, angry as fire or ecstatic as the throes of passion.
2.) We pray and worship over tombs.
Yep, at least our predecessors did. A prime place for early Christian worship was deep in the catacombs, right over a martyr’s tomb. In this dark place, we lit candles, sang psalms and celebrated Mass. For centuries, tombs reminded us of our hope for eternal life, the shortness of mortality and our fear, pretty much, of nothing.
3.) Ash Wednesday.
Where can you go, have black ashes smeared on your forehead and get told “Remember man, thou are dust and to dust, you shall return.”? At any Catholic church on Ash Wednesday of course! Is there anything more grim, harrowing and true than this classic, Catholic one-liner?
4.) The Exorcist.
Evil demons possessing a little girl, making her neck spin around and emit green vomit. What unholy thing is this! Well, we are pretty informed about it. Catholic priests actually receive training specifically to deal with crises such as these. They have been doing it since Jesus himself drove out the first demon in 33 AD. Some Christians don’t believe in exorcism, some trivialize or explain away the powers of darkness but we stand strong, ready to kick some demonic-ass.
5.) The stigmata.
Holes suddenly appear on your hands and feet, bleeding profusely, causing excruciating pain. Might be a scene from the latest horror-flick… or maybe you have a case of old-fashioned stigmata. Yeah, we actually believe in this. No one has been really able to explain this supernatural phenomenon, which has happened to a rare, few people. Creepy ain’t it?
6.) Candlelight and Gregorian chant.
Until you’ve been in a pitch-black room, watching light grow gradually as numerous candles are lit, one-by-one, whilst midlevel chant echoes overhead, you haven’t lived!
7.) The Requiem Mass.
Yes, we have Masses specifically for someone who has just died. The Requiem Mass is so gothic that the priests wear black vestments, often with dancing skeletons on them, burn incense and recite prayers for the departed one’s soul.
8.) We actually drink the blood of Christ.
Legends of vampires may actually have their origin from Catholicism. In the ancient, Roman Empire, Catholics were accused of cannibalism. This is because we believe that when consecrated, the chalice of wine becomes the literal blood of Jesus Christ. Morbid as such a belief sounds, it appears in Scripture where Jesus says, “My flesh is true meat and my blood is true drink.”
…yeah, we love our Lord so much, we have no qualms about sipping his most-precious blood!
9.) Gothic cathedrals.
Artistically speaking, the term “gothic” means “barbaric, crude, grotesque”. Many of Europe’s old, Catholic cathedrals proudly bare this name. It’s hard to believe that the most beautiful churches in human history were once denounced as “gothic”. Yet, those pointed arches, gargoyles, dark niches and stained-glass eventually found way into our hearts. Kind of like the subculture right?
10.) We have no fear of death.
Catholics can walk fearlessly into the darkest graveyard, stroll besides nameless tombs, solemnly lift a skull in their hands and laugh. Our God became flesh and conquered the hellish powers of death long ago and promised that we would also. “O death, where is thy sting? Silly skull, are you amused yet?”
Advertisements#2. Law & Order: SVU Takes On Gamergate By Making Everyone Unhappy
NBCUniversal Television Distribution
For those unaware, Gamergate was a brief hashtag movement in 2014 which helped women gain a voice in the gaming community (Woo! Nice job, Gamergate!) before unceremoniously dissolving like a dead raccoon in a vat of pickle brine. Other than that, the most worthwhile thing to come from the hullabaloo is undoubtedly one of the most hilariously tone-deaf episodes of Law & Order: SVU ever. That's right, folks -- we're back in Dick Wolf's mind palace, and it's just as we left it.
NBCUniversal Television Distribution
This is about ethics in shitty television.
The episode follows a mashed-together caricature of Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn getting kidnapped and gratuitously brutalized. It's the worst depiction of online harassment ever to be narrated by Ice-T, who fumbles his way through gamerspeak like a blind man with a coloring book:
Like some kind of asshole magic trick, the episode manages to insult everyone. The loner video game misogynists of not-Gamergate are depicted as ISIS-level terrorists, men are painted as mindless violence junkies, and the female game developers who get victimized are ultimately punished for standing up for themselves. In the end, the villains are gunned down while the victim quits the industry, lamenting, "Women in gaming. What did I expect?"
If I had to find a silver lining, it would be the consolation prize of seeing the singer of "Body Count" be monetarily strong-armed into vomiting hackneyed video game references like a rapping granny. Well, a rapping granny who kills a teenager and jokes about it.
NBCUniversal Television Distribution
In the original draft, they throw Lipton teabags at the corpse while saying this.
It's excruciating for everyone. And still, this isn't the worst thing to come out of SVU...
#1. Paula Deen Killed Trayvon Martin On Law & Order: SVU
NBCUniversal Television Distribution
In case you haven't noticed, every Law & Order: SVU episode I've put on this list manages to take a recent controversy and exaggerate it in such a grotesque way that you kind of feel bad for the terrible people they are lampooning. And with her folksy vacancy and silver mane of the frightened aged, Paula Deen already looks like the ideal personification of racism. It was only dumb luck that the discrimination lawsuit against her surfaced in the exact same month George Zimmerman was put on trial for shooting Trayvon Martin, causing what I'm guessing was a fever of panic at the SVU production offices. And as the writers frantically jumped for both stories like a dog attacking the rain, they eventually landed on smushing the two narratives together like a campfire treat:
NBCUniversal Television Distribution
She kills him with a gun made entirely out of butter.
That's "Jolene Castille," a fictional celebrity chef played by Cybill Shepherd, who shoots a young black boy named "Craybon Marvin" or some shit while walking alone at night during a recent rape scare. You see, it turns out that Craybon matches the description of a serial rapist in the area (read: young and black), whom the cops have been hunting down with the bulletproof investigative technique of tactfully prejudiced stop-and-frisks:
NBCUniversal Television Distribution
"Uh, yeah, I'm not an actor. You're filming in front of my house, asshole."
Terminally lacking in self-awareness, the police are then forced to choose between probable cause and blatant racism, as it is revealed that our Paula Deen lookalike once referred to her black employees as "field hands". Any pretense of subtlety is brutally strangled to death in an alley when the episode reveals that the cartoonishly racist chef is so racist she refuses to touch Ice-T:
NBCUniversal Television Distribution
At this point, Ice-T just has that face during the entire process of making this show.
The episode ends with the obviously guilty chef being exonerated, same as with George Zimmerman. While that might be the realistic outcome, SVU is so batshit crazy that I was half hoping she'd turn into a snake-person whom Ice-T would then have had to kill with a pickax. Every episode seems like an over-the-top fictional cop show that exists in the Arrested Development universe, so much so that I'm seriously wondering if my very existence is a cog in some satirical GTA-like simulation left blinking on standby in a warehouse somewhere. Frankly, that's way less disturbing than picturing the writers' room of Law & Order: SVU.
Dave owns the world's largest collection of medieval dog armor. Hit him up on Twitter.
Also check out 5 Historic Sex Scandals That Put Bill Clinton to Shame and The 6 Worst Attempts at Damage Control in Political Scandals.
Be sure to follow us on our Facebook and also our YouTube page, where you can catch all our video content like After Hours, Cracked Responds, New Guy Weekly, and other videos you won't see on the site!Hector Bellerin is patiently waiting for Barcelona and Arsenal to being talks over his transfer. He's currently focused on the U21 European Championships, but he knows first hand that negotiations will be long, complicated and that, at the moment, it's likely there will be no major movement until July.
But Barça are aware of Bellerin's desire and feel it could be their biggest weapon when trying to do a deal which Arsenal are no keen to do: the player wants to play at Camp Nou next season.
The Arsenal right-back has already taken the first steps to return home. For several weeks his family have been back living in Catalonia. It's not a minor detail if we consider the tight links he has with his parents, who have accompanied through his development with Barça and then his move to London. Bellerin has acquired a residence and the family move has happened.
Absolute discretion from Bellerin who doesn't want his transfer to become the centre of Spain's U21 campaign. On Sunday, in quotes to Radio Marca, he was asked about his future and his probably signing for Barcelona.
"I am completely focused on the U21s and I don't want to think beyond this tournament," he said. Bellerin doesn't want to fuel any type of controversy around an operation which will be long and delicate.Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, is pocketed with cold, dark craters, several of which are layered in ice, raising the prospects that this frigid dwarf planet once had perhaps an ocean’s worth of liquid water early in its history when the Solar System was still forming.
Scientists from the Dawn mission to Ceres and Vesta presented their findings on Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, California.
The DAWN space probe began its extended mission phase to Ceres in July, following a visit to the neighboring protoplanet Vesta, and has been sending back copious amounts of data that have allowed mission scientists to create a more intricate picture of the surface and sub-surface environments. As the closest dwarf planet to the Sun and about a third the size of our moon, Ceres is considered a bridge between the inner and outer solar system and offers a window into the role of water in the evolution of the planets.
“The DAWN mission is trying to look back in time to the very earliest stage of the Solar System. We’re interested in what happened right up to when Ceres accreted water and it separated from the granular material,” said Carol Raymond, the deputy principal investigator of the Dawn mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We can’t investigate the habitable environment of Ceres other than to look for chemical fingerprints on the surface or shallow subsurface. We have ample evidence to say the presence of an ocean on the surface was likely.”
Raymond said newly published research is supporting the theory that ice separated from rock early on in Ceres’ past and formed a rocky core covered by an ice-rich crystal layer that has persisted throughout its history. Water, of course, is an essential ingredient for life as we know it and finding evidence of water-rich bodies from the distant past can offer clues to where life might have existed in the early Solar System.
As a comparison, Vesta, dry and rocky, is more akin to the stony, terrestrial planets that comprise the Inner Solar System, while Ceres is more akin to icy moons like Europa in the Outer Solar System, Raymond said.
Using Dawn’s gamma ray and neutron detector (GraND), scientists were able to determine that Ceres’ poles are abundant in hydrogen, likely in the form of frozen water mixed into the pores of rocky materials, rather than a solid icy layer. The uniformity of the hydrogen layer suggests that the processes that produced it once acted globally across the dwarf planet.
In the far northern hemisphere of Ceres, scientists also closely examined several cold, dark craters called “cold traps” and found that brights spots residing there are comprised of ice. Persistent shadowing casts these spots in near universal darkness, making them so chilly at -250º Fahrenheit that very little of the ice would have turned into vapor over the course of a billion years.
Norbert Schorghofer, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, who studied the cold traps, said he’s uncertain whether the ice came from Ceres’ own ice-rich crust or whether it was delivered from space by impacting bodies, as is believed to have occurred in small ice traps on our moon and on Mercury. “In any case, Ceres shows us that ice does get caught in these cold traps,” he said.
Perhaps the best known area on Ceres is the 92-kilometer wide crater Occator, where scientists have discovered the source of the bright spots as highly reflective salts. “The question is, where is the material in this impact coming from?” said Ralph Jaumann, planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center. He speculates that the impact that created the crater could have triggered an upwelling of a briny liquid from inside Ceres, which flowed out, froze and then vaporized, leaving behind the salts.
Dawn entered orbit around Ceres in March 2015, reaching its lowest altitude that December at 240 miles, where it was able to photograph 90 percent of the surface. It’s currently on the sixth science orbit at more than 4,500 miles above the surface, a vantage point that’s allowing the measurement of cosmic rays. The purpose is to eliminate the ‘noise’ radiation from space to allow for more accurate GRaND detector measurements.BEIJING — Chinese security officials have issued a list of six men suspected of being members of a militant group that they said used Asian nations as staging grounds for terrorist attacks in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang.
The group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, has claimed responsibility for a series of knifings and explosions that killed at least 18 people last July in Xinjiang, home to ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking and largely Muslim people who make up about 40 percent of the region’s population. The July attacks, in the city of Kashgar, were among several in recent years, apparently mounted by Islamic separatists protesting the heavy-handed rule of Uighurs by China’s Han majority and seeking independence in what they call East Turkestan.
In a posting on its Web site late Thursday, China’s Ministry of Public Security displayed the names and photographs of the six suspects, calling five of them major figures in the East Turkestan group, and it gave accounts of the crimes they were accused of. The ministry said all six had engaged in terrorist activities in Central, West and Southeast Asia as well as in “a certain South Asian country,” a veiled reference to Pakistan. China has repeatedly said that Islamic terrorists who strike in Uighur areas are trained in Pakistan.
Some human rights advocates discount the importance of the East Turkestan group, widely referred to as E.T.I.M., saying that the movement is small and largely ineffective, and that many attacks, which involve crude weapons like knives, do not bear the earmarks of a terrorist organization’s support.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
But a more serious picture of the militant group’s significance has been emerging, according to Muhammad Amir Rana, the director the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, based in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. The institute, which receives support and financing from Western research groups, universities and governments, has been profiling radical groups inside Pakistan since 2005, drawing on researchers and public sources.Ausilio: 'Inter in Banega talks'
By Football Italia staff
Inter director Piero Ausilio confirms talks for Ever Banega, who will be a free agent in June from Sevilla.
The director of sport spoke to Mediaset Premium ahead of tonight’s Derby d’Italia with Juventus.
Follow the action as it happens and give your views on our LIVEBLOG.
“There is the possibility of closing a deal for Banega and we’ll see what happens over the next few days. An official communication has been made, because those are the rules.
“I won’t even comment on the stories of us going for Diego Simeone, as they are patently laughable. Roberto Mancini is at the centre of our project and does not need to be confirmed.
“We are building something with him and we’d love to win straight away, but it will take time. He is happy at Inter and the feeling is mutual.
“We did very well until January 6. I consider this squad to be strong and competitive. The drop in results was excessive considering the performances.
“We changed a lot and need time. We are still up there fighting for our objectives. It’s not our last chance for a Champions League spot, as there are 12 rounds to go after this.
“We’re coming off a fine victory and must try to get a result tonight too.”In a sexy psychological thriller, you have to have a good soundtrack to go with it, right? The same goes for any TV show, and especially when it comes to the theme song. That being said, who sings the Gypsy opening credits? The new Netflix series is about a therapist who gets too deeply involved in her patients’ lives to the point of living a double one of her own, so "Gypsy" is probably the perfect song for the opening credits to showcase.
Stevie Nicks re-recorded the popular Fleetwood Mac song, which just so happens to share the same title as the Netflix series. But that's no coincidence. In fact, the song is the reason the series was given its name. "I didn’t know the song 'Gypsy,' so when it came on, the tone felt so right," Gypsy creator Lisa Rubin told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview. "I looked up the lyrics and what it meant and it resonated, all of that longing and feeling, it felt fitting for the show, so it became part of the fabric."
And for her part, Nicks was more than happy to play with the original song and come up with a different version for the Netflix project. "I’m very excited for the world to hear 'Gypsy' more like I wrote it — on piano," Nicks stated in the same Entertainment Weekly interview. "I am very proud of this version." And if Nicks is involved, you just know it's going to be good. But hey, don't just take my word for it. You can listen for yourself below...
Netflix on YouTube
"It suggests this idea of grounding yourself in who you used to be and the different versions of yourself," Rubin added to Entertainment Weekly. "There’s melancholy in it, but something that also feels romantic… It feels bare and haunting. It’s still the same song, but there’s a darker element… Tonally, there’s both an eeriness and something bare that speaks to the ideas of identity and everything that’s going on at Jean’s core."
Once Rubin developed her script and production had already begun, the original recording of "Gypsy" still didn’t quite fit it for her. So after some scrambling and writing a letter to Nicks herself, the singer eventually agreed to rework the song for the opening sequence of the new Netflix series. And when you listen to the lyrics and think about Naomi Watts’ character Jean Holloway’s foray into living this intense double life while discovering whole new parts of herself, it really works to help you can see how the inspiration was drawn from the song alone.If you have ventured across the World Wide Web much further than cat pictures, recipes and nudie pics you might know of two eccentric movements in modern politics: the “social justice” Left and the “Alt-Right”. Both of them exist largely on the Internet and both of them represent extreme forms of the identitarian elements of left and right wing ideology. Both of them approach the culture war meaning business.
The social justice left came first. Fusing anti-racist, feminist and LGBTQ concerns, it is not a particularly coherent ideological or political movement, encompassing both communists as well as liberals. The left wing elements represent the tendency of Marxists, disillusioned by the lack of Western revolutionary potential, to pursue what Rudi Dutschke called a “long march through the institutions of power“.
Yet what made social justice so ubiquitous was its potential for subsummation by the capital class. As Rory Ellwood has argued, businesses have financial incentives to support immigration and female labour — and, importantly, one can seem cool and countercultural by endorsing progressive social opinions even if one is a millionaire corporate executive.
As cultural attitudes regarding race, gender and sexuality have changed, social justice activism has become counter-intuitively more radical. Kristian Niemietz argues that this represents the “economics of political correctness,” meaning that the status earned from holding progressive opinions is diminished as those opinions are normalised and so progressive standards have to become ever more extreme for its advocates to maintain their status.
Germaine Greer, then, once an icon of counterculturalism, is now deemed too regressive for public consumption. The radical representatives of social justice have been named, with both affection and disdain, “social justice warriors”. The older “SJWs” are often journalists and academics while their younger comrades tend to be students; protesting on campuses or posting on Tumblr.
Enter the Alt-Right. This is a catch-all term applied to different ideological strands, from the more anarchic elements represented by Milo Yiannopoulos and Paul Joseph Watson to the white nationalists grouped around websites like Radix and The Right Stuff. Its leading voices range from libertarians to national socialists, sharing a hatred of the progressive establishment and a desire to transcend their prolix, ranting, unpopular predecessors and appeal to a wider, younger, tech-savvier audience. What has energised them is an influx of ideological recruits from 4Chan fora and subreddits: young adults, mostly white and male, who have bombarded journalists and politicians with critical and insulting videos, memes and invective.
To a great extent the Alt-Right evolved as a response to the social justice left: its politicisation of pop culture, such as in Anita Sarkeesian’s infamous analyses of women in video games; its censoriousness, such as when Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla, was drummed out of the corporation for opposing same-sex marriage; and its hypersensitivity, immortalised in “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces”. Young men began choosing sides in the culture war, and picked against the people who seemed authoritarian and hysterical. They developed a political consciousness.
Such young men were obviously used to being irreverent but the idea that everything was offensive enabled the assumption that nothing was offensive. Faced with humourless hyperanalysis of “problematic” elements of Halloween costumes and music videos, and increasingly absurd and trivial “microaggressions”, they began to take a perverse pride in “triggering” people and, unencumbered by sensible standards of decent behaviour, some became ever more aggressive and obscene.
The white nationalist wing of the Alt-Right has also been inspired by the rhetoric of social justice, with its heavily polemical emphasis on identity. While “social justice warriors” would define themselves as opposing white privilege, sexism and heteronormativity, they often seem more simply against whites, males and heterosexuals. Like it or not, if a straight white man sees Lena Dunham post a video that features someone like him being crushed by a high heel, he will embrace his straightness, whiteness and maleness more fiercely.
The logic of social justice also leads, ironically, to conclusions favourable to the far right. When progressives emphasise the disproportionate amount of white men in positions of power and wealth, for example, and maintain that this can be reduced simply to bias and favouritism, their opponents follow this train of thought and apply it to Jewish individuals. This obsessive focus on identity and discrimination feeds right into a malignant anti-semitism.
What SJWs and the Alt-Right share is a sense of being enlightened as to the true, dark nature of society (“woke” for the former and “red-pilled” for the latter). In many this is an inchoate and non-ideological sense of the world not quite functioning as it should, but in others it has triggered fixation on obscure research, polemic and even outlandish conspiracy theories. Leftists have internalised the fashionable works of social critical theory while members of the Alt-Right have nosedived into odd areas of historical revisionism and fascist apologetics.
Recently, both of these movements have plunged into conflict. Leftists have begun to question the “identity politics” that some believe cost them the presidential elections, while the more libertarian wing of the Alt-Right have criticised the identitarian nature of their racialist cousins.
With no wish to lose myself in the nuances of these arguments, I think that both reactions are at least somewhat naive. SJWs and the Alt-Right may rise and fall but their identitarian inspirations will remain. “Identity politics” does not occur in a vacuum but arises when identity is unstable or endangered. Behind various, often anonymous, Twitter accounts and YouTube channels are young people who have little loyalty to the culture that produced them and little hope for the future that it offers them.
Beyond them, tens of millions of people who have never heard of SJWs or the Alt-Right are bitterly conflicted on matters of immigration, trade, war and culture. As different as they are, they are both products of atomisation and insecurity which will outlast all of these fleeting Twitter trends and memes.
Ben Sixsmith (@bdsixsmith) is an English writer living in Poland. Visit his website here.Peeps, Smoking & Alcohol
A Three-Part Study
Introduction: Physicians are continually warning the public of the risks involved in smoking and drinking. Here, we investigate whether these same health risks apply to Peeps.
Methods: To fully understand the effects of these substances, we decided to expose Peeps to each condition individually, and then in combination.
Step 1: Peeps and Alcohol Step 2: Peeps and Cigarettes Step 3: Peeps, Alcohol and Cigarettes
Step 1: Peeps and Alcohol
Materials:
This study began (as many do) with one gallon of 95% [190 proof] ethyl alcohol. The precise text on the label may be viewed by clicking on the image to the right.
Methods: The peep imbibed liberally. Note that this Peep is having trouble swimming upright. This same peep bumped into the sides of the experimental chamber several times over the duration of this study.
Results: The test subject did report a moderate headache and some nausea the day following this study. Otherwise, however, this Peep was not substantially or permanently impaired.
Step 2: Peeps and Cigarettes
Materials: Our Peep subject was permitted to select the cigarette brand of its choice. Please remember that representatives of the tobacco industry insist that they have never marketed their products to young chicks.
The peep grabbed a smoke...
And lit up.
The subject began smoking...
and continued until its nicotine craving was fully satiated.
Results: The Peep showed no adverse signs to smoking this cigarette, although it expressed concern that it might someday be forced to huddle outside public buildings in the snow. Of course, it can quit anytime it wants to...
Step 3: Peeps, Cigarettes and Alcohol
Lesser scientists might have decided that alcohol and tobacco are benign substances after seeing the first two studies. We decided, however, to plunge deeper into this investigation...
Materials: Here, we bring together the elements from the first two parts of the study.
Unfortunately, the subject began to show some adverse signs to the combination of treatments. Note in particular the blackening along the lower extremities, the faint flame surrounding the subject, and the mild scent of caramelizing sugar.
The initial symptoms began to be expressed more definitively...
...soon the flames became quite substantial, initiating a metamorphosis. The subject entered the stage which scientists call "ball of charred goo".
Flames were extinguished shortly thereafter.
Conclusion: The synergistic effect of smoking and alcohol in Peeps produces a rapidly exothermic oxidation reaction, leading to a chemical and morphological divergence from the wild-type Peep phenotypes.
Assistant lab members described these divergent Peeps as "less sweet," "crunchier," and "gross" when compared to the Peeps which used either alcohol or tobacco, but not both. For these reasons, it is our strong recommendation to JustBorn Corporation that they supervise young Peeps and educate them of the risks associated with smoking and alcohol.
Return to the Peep home pageDid you know that panda bears do headstands when they pee? It's not a circus trick or some weird, depressed captive behavior, but actually part of their scent-based mating ritual. With pandas being endangered, it's crucial for those in the wild to find each other. And so they go around, rubbing their bodies on trees and peeing all over the place. Their urine contains some kind of stinky secretion that communicates their sex and age. And the higher up off the ground, the better, as it maximizes their odor field. So male pandas do handstands and shoot their pee backwards.
According to a study published in the journal Animal Behaviour, pandas are very deliberate with their scent-marking because they have a lack of energy, due to a poor diet of strictly bamboo, which only contains little more energy than is needed to consume it. "We are not surprised that pandas are efficient with their use of chemo-signals, as mounting evidence suggests that many aspects of giant panda life history are constrained by their energetically poor diet," said researchers. So basically, male pandas are lazy and want to do as little as possible when it comes to wooing females.
Why Pandas Do Handstands When They Pee [Business Insider]Overview
volatile is probably the less known/understood/documented keyword in Java. I have recently read an article on one of my favourite blog about the volatile keyword. The author shows a piece of code where the volatile keyword seems to have an influence. This example was not easy to understand and the role of the volatile keyword on the behaviour of the JVM was not really defined. So I have decided to browse the web to find a better code example for the volatile keyword. After one hour, nothing! Only wrong examples, articles comparing volatile with synchronized and other confused examples where the author seems as lost as the reader...
Basic Example
The following show a basic example where volatile is required
public class VolatileTest { private static final Logger LOGGER = MyLoggerFactory.getSimplestLogger(); private static volatile int MY_INT = 0; public static void main(String[] args) { new ChangeListener().start(); new ChangeMaker().start(); } static class ChangeListener extends Thread { @Override public void run() { int local_value = MY_INT; while ( local_value < 5){ if( local_value!= MY_INT){ LOGGER.log(Level.INFO,"Got Change for MY_INT : {0}", MY_INT); local_value= MY_INT; } } } } static class ChangeMaker extends Thread{ @Override public void run() { int local_value = MY_INT; while (MY_INT <5){ LOGGER.log(Level.INFO, "Incrementing MY_INT to {0}", local_value+1); MY_INT = ++local_value; try { Thread.sleep(500); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } } }
With the volatile keyword the output is :
Incrementing MY_INT to 1 Got Change for MY_INT : 1 Incrementing MY_INT to 2 Got Change for MY_INT : 2 Incrementing MY_INT to 3 Got Change for MY_INT : 3 Incrementing MY_INT to 4 Got Change for MY_INT : 4 Incrementing MY_INT to |
Obama years, warrantless surveillance programs vastly expanded, giving the government more power than ever to monitor American citizens -- including political opponents -- by collecting emails, texts, phone records, chats, locations, purchases, and other private information en masse.
Under the new rule, only communication to and from those targets will be collected.
Via Reuters:
The decision to stop the once-secret activity, which collected messages sent to or received from people believed to be living overseas, arrives as a sudden and unexpected triumph for privacy advocates who were long critical of the program, which U.S. officials had defended as both lawful and important to national security. The halt is among the most substantial changes to U.S. surveillance policy in years and comes as issues of digital privacy remain contentious across the globe following the 2013 disclosures of broad NSA spying activity by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. "NSA will no longer collect certain internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target," the agency said in a statement. "Instead, NSA will limit such collection to internet communications that are sent directly to or from a foreign target." NSA also said it would delete the "vast majority" of internet data collected under the surveillance program "to further protect the privacy of U.S. person communications." The decision is an effort to remedy privacy compliance issues raised by rules implemented in 2011 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which operates in secrecy, sources familiar with the matter said.
It took six years and a new Republican administration, but now hopefully the government will stop gathering massive amounts of information on innocent Americans.
Section 702, the statute that allows the NSA to collect internet communications and data in bulk, is due to expire at the end of the year unless Congress reauthorizes it. Thanks in part to Edward Snowden, the NSA will be facing a bigger uphill battle than usual when renewing the statute.
Julian Sanchez, a privacy and surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called the decision "very significant" and among the top priorities of surveillance reform among civil liberties groups. "Usually you identify a specific individual to scrutinize their content; this was scrutinizing everyone's content to find mentions of an individual," Sanchez said.
Senator Ron Wyden (D- OR), a longtime privacy advocate, said in a statement that he would introduce legislation "banning this kind of collection in the future."
“This change ends a practice that could result in Americans’ communications being collected without a warrant merely for mentioning a foreign target,” Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. “For years, I’ve repeatedly raised concerns that this amounted to an end run around the Fourth Amendment. This transparency should be commended. To permanently protect Americans’ rights, I intend to introduce legislation banning this kind of collection in the future.”An Alabama man is lucky to be alive after nearly being electrocuted while he was sleeping with his phone charging in his bed.Wiley Day, 32, was treated for second and third degree burns on his neck and hands."Thursday morning is probably the most scariest morning I've ever been through in my life," Day told WAAYTV Day said he fell asleep on his bed wearing his dog tag around his neck and with his phone plugged in. The chain on his dog tag slipped between the charger and his extension cord."And my necklace became the conductor," Day said.He said the shock jolted him down to the floor."I kept yelling, 'Jesus,'" Day said.Day said after his near death experience, he's breaking the habit of sleeping with his phone on the charger in the bed.Doctors said Day is expected to recover.For those who like to unwind with a little weed at the end of a long day, it seems that less is more. And more could be way, way too much.
When you ask cannabis users what the drug does for them, "relaxation" is the most common answer. A Yahoo News-Marist survey published in the Washington Post found 37% of participants cited this benefit, compared to just 19% who turn to marijuana for pain relief, 16% who use it "to have fun" and 3% who report its effectiveness both as a sleep aid and a sexual booster.
With more U.S. adults consuming cannabis these days, the number of people who enjoy its stress-relieving qualities is certainly growing apace.
Yet as many who have tried marijuana are acutely aware, pot can also trigger anxiety or panic attacks depending on the person, dosage and situation — nothing chill about that. Meanwhile, the scientific evidence of relaxation in cannabis users is thin at best.
What's a cannabis enthusiast to do?
A new study should clear a few things up
Researchers at the University of Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago set out to determine precisely how much THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound in weed that gets you high) is enough to put a person at ease — and the threshold at which THC actually begins to increase your overall level of stress.
To accomplish this, they had healthy volunteers participate in two experimental sessions under the influence of THC. One involved a "nonstressful task," but the other consisted of "psychosocial stress" in the form of the Trier Social Stress Test, known as the TSST.
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, this testing platform "induces stress by requiring participants to make an interview-style presentation, followed by a surprise mental arithmetic test, in front of an interview panel who do not provide feedback or encouragement."
Two and half hours before this nerve-wracking task began, the test subjects received capsules of varying THC content under double-blind conditions, meaning neither they nor the experimenters knew who was getting what.
Some took a placebo, which is to say no THC at all, while others took 7.5 milligrams (the lower dose) or as much as 12.5 milligrams (the higher dose).
During the TSST, the researchers "measured subjective mood and drug effects, vital signs and salivary cortisol before and at repeated times after the capsule and tasks." Before and afterward, the subjects were also asked to share their impressions of the test itself, in particular how it affected their mood.
Here's what they found
The results confirmed what cannabis enthusiasts have claimed for many years: THC does deliver "subjective stress-relieving effects" — in low doses, anyway.
"THC does deliver'subjective stress-relieving effects'— in low doses." Tweet
Compared to those who took the placebo, the 7.5 mg group experienced less distress in the course of the TSST and were less likely to view it as "threatening and challenging." The stress they experienced also didn't last long.
Things didn't go so well for the 12.5 mg cohort, however, who reported "increased negative mood" before and throughout the test; they were also more disposed to find the task threatening and challenging, even before they had begun. Finally, they demonstrated impaired performance on the test itself.
So, with weed and relaxation, less is more. But how much less exactly?
What does this mean for people who use marijuana to take the edge off?
For starters, they can probably cut their consumption. With the positive anti-anxiety effects kicking in at just 7.5 mg, it's worth pointing out that smoking half of an "average joint" can mean the intake of 11 to 13 mg, while a full joint containing a gram of cannabis may deliver as much as 78 mg — over 10 times the "relaxing" dose. You might take this as an argument in favor of microdosing, the practice of limiting your doses to the bare minimum for the desired effect.
Of course, experienced stoners probably have a decent intuitive sense of their ideal dose. By High Times' math, "most smokers, dabbers or vapers inhale about 10 to 30 mg of THC every time they get high." Then there's the fact that ingesting THC alone is different from consuming marijuana, which contains other cannabinoids, including CBD (cannabidiol), a compound that may counteract the negative psychological effect of THC. And because the researchers administered THC orally, their conclusions may have more bearing on the world of cannabis edibles, which are processed differently by the body than inhaled smoke or vapor, accounting for a different range of effects.
All of which is to say that it can be tricky to extrapolate the 7.5 mg figure when calculating the pluses and minuses of your own consumption rate — especially given that the study had just 42 participants. Nevertheless, it's hard to argue that a modest dose looks better on the merits: While physical stress markers were essentially uniform across all the experimental groups, the low-dose subjects — without knowing how much THC they'd taken (if any) — rated themselves less nervous than the other participants on either side.
So maybe the next time you're settling down for a relaxing night with a bowl and Netflix, stop after a few puffs instead of torching the whole thing without a second thought. You might find it doesn't take as much to calm you as you thought or that your mood improves with a minimal amount.
And hey — it couldn't possibly hurt.Researchers from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and Wageningen University in the Netherlands used satellites to measure levels of ozone in a layer of atmosphere called the mid-tropospheric region, which is between 10,000 and 30,000 feet above the Earth's surface. They then used the measurements in computer models that traced the origin of ozone seen in the troposphere above the western United States.
The authors found that overall, ozone levels in the western United States not drop in some areas over that time period, contrary to expectations. Some of areas where nitrogen oxide levels dropped the most did see slight decreases in ozone, but the region as a whole saw no change.
Read MoreScenes from the devastating Tianjin explosion
"We tend to think of pollution as a local issue that can be addressed at the local, state or national level," said Jessica Neu, a researcher at the jet propulsion laboratory and one of the paper's co-authors. "This paper is really showing that long-range transport of pollution is an international issue, in the same way that climate change has become an international issue."
Natural processes were responsible for a little more than half of the ozone increase. A particularly strong El Niño in 2009 and 2010 drew a large amount of ozone out of the stratosphere—the one of the outermost layers of the atmosphere. Ozone naturally occurs there—it's produced by solar energy reacting with oxygen molecules and forms the "ozone layer" which protects the Earth from solar radiation.- "All told, every man, woman and child in the United States will spend more than $2,700 on these programs and agencies next year. By way of comparison, the average Japanese spends less than $330; the average German about $520; China's per capita spending is less than $100." - Cato Institute
- "The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes." - Hearst Newspapers
- "President (Obama) is on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars, than any other president has in one term of office since World War II." - National Journal's Government Executive MagazineBernie Sanders, the Independent senator who is running for president in 2016 is pro-working class according to his campaign message. On Friday, September 4, Sanders put his words into action. Sanders joined workers in a picket line at the Penford Products Plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Workers may go on strike if a deal is not made between their union and the company.
null
Bernie grabbed a microphone and voiced his opinion about corporations.
“We are sick and tired of the war against working families……That’s what we’re seeing here…. We have got to stand together and tell this company that greed is not acceptable.”
This is not the first time Sanders has joined in solidarity with those who are oppressed. Sanders has a 50-year history of not only standing up for minorities and civil and human rights, but for workers as well. On Sander’s senate.gov website, there are pictures of him standing with workers rallying for a minimum wage of $15. Sanders has publicly decried how greedy corporations are wiping out the middle class in an interview with Meet the Press last year.
“I know that the middle class in this country is collapsing. I know that the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider. I know there is profound anger at the greed on Wall Street and corporate America. Anger at the political establishments. Anger at the media establishment.”
When Sanders first threw his hat into the presidential race, he was deemed “unelectable” by the pundits. Most likely this was because of Sander’s Independent party affiliation, but he declared himself on the Democratic ticket. As of September 1, polls were showing Sanders to be winning the Democratic nomination. His rallies have drawn thousands of people and his popularity is beginning to surge. Among some of the topics of Sanders’ platform are wealth inequality, worker’s rights, racial justice, women’s rights, and a “living wage.” He is also pushing for free higher education.
Sanders is definitely in the running for president, in spite of his early naysayers. Clinton is indeed getting a run for her money, and Sanders just might nudge her out of the race. The working class make up the majority of the American voters, so if Sanders can gain their vote, he has a clear shot of winning.
Will Bernie Sanders become the new “Working Class Hero”?
[Photo: Jason Noble/The Register]This little glass frog father has a very important job. He is looking after the eggs of several female frogs, protecting them from hungry wasps with a series of sharp ninja kicks.
For weeks on end, he faces off against wasps whose sting could kill him.
Jungles are the richest places on Earth. They cover less than six percent of land, but are home to over half the world's plants and animals. In the third episode of Planet Earth II, we jourmey into a magical jungle world filled with unforgettable characters including indri, jaguar, birds of paradise and spider monkeys.
Using these photographs from the series as your inspiration, we want to see your shots of Earth's jungles and jungle life.
Interpret the challenge however you want. Show us your skills, experiences and celebrate life on our incredible planet. It's up to you.
Send them to us here (and don't forget to add your name and a caption to your upload) or download the Earth Capture app for Apple and Android. Don’t forget to add your name and a caption to your upload.
Join over six million BBC Earth fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.KARACHI: A dolphin that beached in the Sonmiani area of Balochistan was rescued and helped swim back to the sea on Tuesday.
The species identified as an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin was about 5.5 feet long. It’s a near threatened species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.
“The incident took place at a distant place in Miani Hor (a swampy lagoon near the coast of Lasbela district). The stranded dolphin was rescued by Naseer Ahmad and Tahseen, two fishermen who were returning from a fishing trip when they noticed the species,” said Mohammad Moazzam Khan working as a technical adviser on marine resources with the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P).
Also read: Big sunfish caught, released into sea
They initially thought that the dolphin was dead but it was alive when they had a closer look, he added while quoting the fishermen.
“They are trained in rescuing stranded marine species by the WWF-P and the Sonmiani Development Organisation (SDO). After releasing the dolphin back into the sea, they both remained in the area for about an hour, just to ensure that the dolphin swim into the offshore waters,” he said.
The Indo-pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis), he said, was a coastal species found in shallow waters as well as in creek systems and lagoons.
“It faces serious threats in Pakistan due to degradation of habitat, pollution and entanglement in fishing nets. Previously, a resident population of the dolphin was found within the Karachi port but it is no longer seen in the area. We must appreciate dolphin rescue efforts on part of the communities,” he said.
The SDO, he pointed out, had successfully implemented a project titled Marine Dolphin Conservation through Community Education and Capacity Building in collaboration with the WWF-P. Under the project funded by the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, Hong Kong, a number of fishermen have been trained to rescue entangled dolphins and other endangered marine animals.
According to Master Abdul Rasheed, SDO coordinator, about 30 fishermen have so far been trained to rescue endangered marine species and collect information about the population of dolphins residing in the coastal area.
“A study carried out with the assistance of the WWF-P has shown that about 80 dolphins resided in the Miani Hor lagoon whereas a similar population exists in the coastal waters of Sonmiani Bay,” he said.
The fishermen and communities of the coastal area of Miani Hor, he said, had been educated on the importance and conservation of dolphins, whales and turtles that were earlier got unnecessarily killed due to ignorance.
The secretary of the Coastal Association for Research and Development, a local community-based organisation in the area, Abdul Qayyum lauded fishermen’s efforts in rescuing the dolphin and said that it’s great achievement that communities now wanted to preserve the diversity of the marine ecosystem.
Kalimullah Mirbahar representing the Balochistan Mahigiri Network said that fishermen of the coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan were “conservationists” by nature who struggled hard to save protected species.
In March 2009, about 250 pantropical spotted dolphins were beached in Gaddani. Almost all were rescued and safely released back into the sea with the help of coastal communities. Last month, an observer working for WWF-P residing in Kakapir village rescued an Arabian common dolphin (Delphinus capensis tropicalis) in the Sandspit area.
Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google PlayMonday, October 4th 2010, 6:23 AM EDT
Britain 'in for another big freeze winter' by Stephen Adams
Britain is in for another bitterly-cold winter, with widespread snow and Siberian temperatures, according to a forecaster who claims to have accurately predicted last year's big freeze.
The UK media still ignore Piers Corbyn's long range weather forecasts at WeatherAction.com and instead use the "crystal ball" service from Jonathan Powell of Positive Weather Solutions, why!WeatherAction is the ONLY service that can produce long range forecasts with any accuracy, and it achieves this using the effect of predictable solar activity. To use any other service that relies on any other method just DOES NOT WORK as our climate is controlled by the SUN. Well done to Jonathan Powell for having a go but unless you use the service from Piers Corbyn your onto a loser in the long term.Jonathan Powell of Positive Weather Solutions said the country should prepare itself for "back-to-back" harsh winters.Last winter was the coldest for 31 years, with the average UK-wide temperature from 1 December to 24 February being only 34.7F (1.5C), compared to the long-term average of 38.6F (3.7C).The mercury plunged as low as -8.1F (-22.3C) in Altnaharra, Scotland, while Benson, Oxon, recorded 10.8F (-11.8C).The Met Office had predicted there was only a one-in-seven chance of a cold winter, which was caused by strong anti-cyclonic activity bringing persistent icy winds off the continent, and keeping milder Atlantic breezes at bay.Click source to read FULL report from Stephen AdamsBetsy DeVos waits to be sworn in as U.S. Education Secretary at the White House on Feb. 7. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday delivered her first public message since her rocky confirmation hearing, promising her new staff that she is committed to working with it to “protect, strengthen and create new world-class education opportunities for America’s students.”
DeVos pledged in a nine-minute speech to challenge the Education Department to examine its policies and practices — and to listen to her new colleagues. “Let us set aside any preconceived notions and let’s recognize that while we may have disagreements, we can — and must — come together, find common ground and put the needs of our students first.”
DeVos addressed more than 200 employees at the headquarters in Washington, with others tuning in online for what was billed as an all-hands meeting. She enters office as a polarizing figure, with supporters calling her a change agent and critics charging that she is unqualified and would undermine public schools. She was confirmed Tuesday by the narrowest of margins, with Vice President Pence casting a tiebreaking vote after senators deadlocked on her fitness for the job.
She became fodder for late-night comics — including on “Saturday Night Live” — after suggesting that she opposed a ban on guns in schools because of “potential grizzlies.”
On Wednesday, she joked about the confirmation battle, saying it had been a “bit of a bear.”
(The Washington Post)
[With historic tiebreaker from Pence, DeVos confirmed as education secretary]
“In all seriousness,” she continued, “for many, the events of the last few weeks have likely raised more questions and spawned more confusion than they have brought light and clarity. So, for starters, please know, I’m a ‘door open’ type of person who listens more than speaks.”
She also gently urged employees to keep an open mind about her. “All of us here can help bring unity by personally committing to being more open to, and patient toward, views different than our own,” she said.
DeVos’s confirmation hearing raised questions about her commitment to enforce civil rights and disabilities laws meant to ensure that the nation’s children have access to public education. On Wednesday, she won applause from employees when she acknowledged the department’s “unique role in protecting students.”
“We believe students deserve learning environments that foster innovation and curiosity, and are also free from harm,” she said. “I’m committed to working with you to make this the case.”
So far there have been no major policy changes at the department. But many staffers are unsure what to expect, given that DeVos in the past said bluntly that “government really sucks”; that as a candidate, President Trump suggested dismantling their agency; and that this week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a one-sentence bill to abolish the department as of Dec. 31, 2018.
[The popular uprising that threatened DeVos’s confirmation]
Phil Rosenfelt, a longtime career employee who served as acting secretary until DeVos was sworn in Tuesday, spoke before DeVos. He compared the transition process to a wedding, merging two families into one. “We are one team,” he said.
But Rosenfelt also delivered something of a pep talk. Education may not be specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, he said, but “it’s at the heart of the opportunity that the Constitution provides for our nation.”
He said the agency’s basic mission — to press for equity and opportunity for all students — is unchanged. And he praised the work of its employees, calling them “nimble, innovative, thoughtful, creative and open to new ideas.”
“I wake up every day excited to come to work with all of you, and I always knew that the Education Department was the best place to work,” he said to applause.
DeVos said the department’s mission — to serve the next generation — is “noble and consequential.”
“My challenge to you is simple: Think big, be bold and act to serve students,” she said. “And I will promise you this: Together, we will find new ways in which we can positively transform education.”
Her opponents, including Democrats, teachers unions and civil rights activists, have promised to keep close watch. Outside the headquarters Tuesday afternoon, nearly two dozen protesters chanted, “Welcome to your first day, we will not go away!” They were organized by an arm of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.An undated screenshot of the new Yahoo home page. REUTERS/Handout
(Reuters) - Google Inc and Yahoo Inc are in talks with the U.S. Justice Department in an effort to head off an antitrust challenge to their proposed advertising agreement, The Wall Street Journal said citing lawyers close to the effort.
The settlement negotiations are at an early stage and it isn’t clear whether they will resolve U.S. objections or be acceptable to the two companies, the paper said citing the lawyers.
Advertisers, who have raised objections to the deal, told Justice Department officials that the partnership will limit competition, raise prices and reduce choices, the paper said.
Under the agreement, Google would supply Yahoo with advertising services to run alongside Yahoo’s own Web search system. Yahoo runs the Web’s second most popular search service.
Yahoo struck the agreement in June with Google, the world’s dominant supplier of Web search services, as it sought to shore up its advertising business and ward off pressure to merge from Microsoft Corp.
In the settlement talks with the government, both companies have discussed concessions, the paper said.
Even as senior Justice Department officials weigh the companies’ proposals to resolve antitrust issues, its trial staff continues to prepare a lawsuit to block the deal, the paper said citing lawyers and executives contacted by the government.
The companies have been cooperating with the Justice Department’s investigation and recently agreed to delay implementing the deal until at least October 22 to give federal and state antitrust officials time to complete their separate investigations, according to the paper.
Yahoo, Google and the Justice Department could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.The plan to transform LaGuardia Airport from what former Vice President Joe Biden called a “third world country” into a state-of-the-art transportation hub took off a year ago and is now in high gear.
Representatives from LaGuardia Airport and Port Authority attended a Community Board 1 meeting on April 19 in Astoria to give updates on the project. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the $4 billion overhaul in July 2015, which includes a brand new Terminal B 600 feet closer to the Grand Central Parkway, parking garage, retail and hotel complex and a unified terminal.
Currently, construction on the 3,200 parking garage is underway and should be operational by February of next year, said Richard Smyth, Executive Director of Port Authority. He added that the garage will be “an important milestone” that will help with traffic circulation.
Smyth said workers are driving piles into what will be the new headhouse location – where customers will board – and should be done within 6 to 8 weeks. The structure will be substantially completed by the end of this year and should be in full operation by the end of June 2018.
Roadways around the airport will also be replaced and most will be elevated. A flyover road will also be constructed over the Grand Central Parkway.
Delta has also agreed to completely rebuild Terminal C and D. The four new concourses would be connected with a canopy and walkway so passengers can easily get to Terminals B, C and D. The board at LaGuardia Gateway Partners finalized the terms of the agreement in January 2016 and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) also reviewed the plan.
After a public hearing on May 3 to gather feedback from the environmental assessment, it will take around six weeks to incorporate the comments and receive approval. Delta will then proceed with construction and has promised to catch up so that all terminals can open at the same time.
An engineer has been selected to conduct detailed ridership studies, financial studies, feasibility studies and technical studies for the possible implementation of an air train.
The AirTrain would provide a six-minute ride from LaGuardia to Willets Point. A new LIRR station and 7 line station are in the process of being constructed at Willets Point, which would make travel from Midtown Manhattan to LaGuardia easier, Cuomo said in February.
“We think it’s something very important it not only gives us connection to the LIRR and 7 train but it allows us to essentially create an extension of the airport,” Smyth said. “We have the opportunity to build a car rental center where we can consolidate all the car rental facilities.”
Lisa Scully, general manager of LaGuardia Airport said employees have implemented several plans to ease congestion during construction. In February, the area around the airport saw massive gridlock after a snowstorm.
They have instituted a short-term parking area where people can wait for free for three hours, increased their bus fleet from 8 buses to 30 vehicles a day and created a westbound service ramp along the 94th Street Grand Central Parkway exit. About 250 to 600 cars use the service ramp every hour, she said.
A parking space for employees at 94th Street and 23rd Avenue has also freed up parking for passengers in the airport. As of April 5, private and for-hire vehicles have been directed to pick up passengers on the west side of Terminal B.
LaGuardia Airport is also busing and walking customers from Terminal B to the pickup lot. So far, they have bussed 60,000 customers to the lot.
Scully said these changes, along with an effort by traffic professionals who constantly monitor the airport to stop gridlock before it happens, have resulted in heavily mitigating traffic around the area, and has especially stopped cars from being backed up along the eastbound side of the grand central.
“It’s really a big win to our operational team and our construction team,” she said.
Shanel Thomas, community outreach liaison for Port Authority, said the agency host quarterly job fairs for the surrounding community including one at Vaughn College in East Elmhurst on April 27. More than 25 companies will attend and the event will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Later this month, the Port Authority will also produce a newsletter to keep people “constantly up-to-date” with construction, other community benefits provided by the agency and other partners and to answer questions. Email shthomas@panynj.gov to be added to the newsletter, which will be called The Redevelopment Times.“Molly, question for your blog. As someone who is addicted to exercise, how can you know when you are overtraining? I’ve read a lot about how overtraining can release stress hormones such as cortisol and actually be counter-productive!” – Wesley L.
Wesley,
Thanks so much for this question! You’re exactly right! “Overtraining” can be extremely counter-productive if done for long periods of time. But first let me clarify what I mean by “overtraining.”
There is a lot of back-and-forth in the training community about whether or not “overtraining” really exists. Those in the camp that say that is doesn’t, point out that a huge number of athletes train 2-8 hours at a day at extremely high intensities over a long period of time and keep getting better at their sport, and that it’s highly unlikely that some Joe Schmoe is going to “over-train” by working out 3-4 days a week with the intensity of a sloth, at a commercial gym.
I absolutely, 100%, see their point. And I agree that Joe is probably not overtraining. Instead, I think Joe is under-recovering. Joe probably has a super stressful job, eats like garbage, has a ton of debt, has crazy family obligations, and doesn’t get much sleep. So even when he’s not in the gym, his body is on “high alert” from all of the life stress he is under, and he doesn’t get the opportunity to recover properly.
On the flip side of the coin, for many of those professional athletes who train 2-8 hours a day, their entire job is centered on their training, and recovering from their training. Sleeping, eating, and getting massages is literally part of their job. Sure, there are exceptions. I know some high-level athletes that train twice a day and still work another 60 hour a week job, and get better over the long haul, but they are the exception to the rule, not the norm.
Plus, since Joe has probably never trained consistently in his life, he has almost zero work capacity. Heck, 3 sets of 10 body weight squats will probably leave him sore! Now if Joe had started working out as a teenager and had consistently hit the gym 3-4 times a week and done intelligent weight training, he probably wouldn’t get sore from 3 sets of 10 relatively heavy squats, because his body would be adapted to that movement.
So, do I think TRUE overtraining is an issue? Not often, but under-recovering absolutely is.
At our gym, J&M Strength and Conditioning, it’s funny, we seem to attract a very high number of people who overdo it. We often have to reign our clients in and get them to do less in order to get them the results they are looking for, because they are doing 10-12 hours a week of cardio with very little true strength training. When they come to us they are absolutely “cooked” as we call it, because they never allow themselves to fully recover.
If you haven’t read it yet, you should really check out, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky. In short, your body doesn’t know the difference between stress from life and stress from exercise. Yes, your body is producing the same hormones in your 60 minute super high-intensity spin class as it is when you’re being held at gunpoint or being chased by a lion.
Still think that crazy spin class is awesomely healthy for you? (Hint: it’s probably not).
Even scarier? Your body is producing that same stress response when you’re freaking out about sitting in traffic, fighting with your spouse, overdrawing your bank account, late for an important meeting, and up all night with your sick kid. Think about your life and the last several days or weeks. When have you really had the opportunity to chill out? When you were watching The Walking Dead, and your heart was racing because you weren’t sure what was going to happen next? Oh riiiiiight. So you weren’t really chilled out then, either.
And yes, I am the pot calling the kettle black. I struggle BIG TIME with truly relaxing and letting myself recover. I have to literally schedule recovery time to get a massage or meditate in my planner. No joke. But I do it, because it’s important.
The other issue is that most of us don’t know how to breathe properly. This is an extremely important topic that is just now getting some attention in the strength and conditioning community. To prove just how important breathing is, what else do you do 20,000 times a day and if you go several minutes without doing it, you die? The only other thing that comes close is your HEART BEATING. I’d say most of you consider that pretty important, right? Right.
Check out these awesome resources for more information on breathing properly:
Breathing, Anterior Pelvic Tilt, and Voodoo Witchcraft by Jim Laird
The Breath-Stress Relationship by Mike Robertson
Are You Full of Hot Air by Mike Robertson
IFAST Assessment Breathing Patterns by Bill Hartman
So, after that little rant…back to your question. What are some signs you might not be recovering properly from your training? This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a start:
Experiencing more muscle soreness than normal and/or taking longer for the soreness to subside than normal. Lack of motivation to lift/train. Major change in appetite (usually a decrease). Decrease in leanness despite not changing nutrition program/exercise regimen. Decrease in sex drive. Decrease in overall strength/performance in the gym or in other workouts. **Keep in mind that one bad workout doesn’t count, but several workouts in a row where you are forced to decrease the weight you are using or decrease the number of reps you can do, that counts.) Bouts of moodiness, mild depression, fatigue, or malaise. Getting sick more often than usual. Adverse reactions to foods that may not normally bother you. Struggling to fall asleep and decrease in sleep quality.
So if you realize that you might not be recovering from your training, what can you do about it? You have a few options.
Read more about de-loading here. Take time to de-load. In this article Make priority a recovery.I discuss things you can do to help your body recover faster. Here are 4 tips to do that. Manage your stress more effectively. Take a good, hard look at your training. Does it make sense? Does it match up with your goals? Seek the advice of an expert who understands managing stressors, and one who can help you plan a training program you can recover from.
Hope you find this helpful Wesley. And remember, if you really do feel “addicted” to exercise, there are often a couple of culprits. You may be so “cooked” physically that the only time you feel good is when you exercise, and force your body to kick into super-hardcore-fight-or-flight mode (not good). Or you may use exercise as a way to escape from problems or stressors you don’t want to deal with (also not good). And finally, of course, there is the chance that you truly love exercise, and that’s fine. Just make sure you are earning your right to exercise by taking care of yourself outside of the gym. Good luck!In an aggressive move, the House speaker’s office has put out a blow-by-blow on how the debt talks collapsed:
The White House is misleading reporters tonight by claiming that new revenue in the framework that was discussed would have been generated by letting the current tax rates expire. That is simply false. Under the framework, a CEILING was offered by the White House that would generate $800 billion in new revenue over ten years. This would be done through comprehensive tax reform that would clear out deductions, credits, and loopholes in the system – and spur economic growth.
After the gang of six plan came out, the White House moved the goal posts and insisted on $400 billion more in higher taxes – a 50% increase in revenue – and wanted that to be the FLOOR instead of the ceiling. The President acknowledged this in his remarks tonight. “Letting tax cuts expire” was never part of the tax reform agreed to. Please let me know if you have any questions. – steel
Summary of the White House ‘walk backs’ during discussions of the ‘framework.’:
TAXES
•The White |
being that is lost, the more intense our feelings of grief. How entwined are your emotions and your identity with your home and all of your possessions? With your spouse or partner and all that relationship represents in your life? What about with your career? Your place of worship? Your friends? Your pets? Your investments? Your family? Various places and things and distinctive aspects of all that makes you who you are and which you hold dear? What if by some tragic turn of events any of those things were gone tomorrow?
The most important thing in getting through grief and loss, coming through to the other side, is having hope and having support. Research has shown that grieving people, no matter how acute the loss, who are able to identify some aspect of hopefulness, are able to move through grief with a better outcome. What is a “better outcome”? I think that means with the ability to feel functional, to feel as though you can contribute to the world, that you can feel happiness again, that you can begin new endeavors, and even though you may be left with a scar, you can move forward and not only survive, but thrive, in your life after loss. You may be in a place where hope seems hard to reach. But sometimes just hoping that you can get out of the bed today may be enough. You may hope to get out of the grocery store without crying, or hope that tomorrow will be a little bit better than today, or hope that you can get through the next five minutes. Honestly, having that little remnant of hope may get you through it. Without hope, you’d likely find yourself breaking down in the cereal aisle.
Find someone you can talk to who will not tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing. Non-judgmental support that will allow you to express and explore your feelings. Look for a support group in your area. Finding others who have experienced similar losses can be very encouraging and empowering. If you feel that you need some extra help, seek out a counselor or therapist experienced in working with people dealing with grief and loss. Above all, do mourn your loss. Find a way to express your feelings, do something, create something, engage in some activity that allows you express your grief, even if only for yourself. While you are hurting, remember to be gentle with and take care of yourself.
© Copyright 2011 by Karla Helbert, MS, LPC, therapist in Richmond, Virginia. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org.
The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.Saturday 16th of July saw Wales’ first Pokemon Go lure party and Gear4Geeks was on hand to check it out.
Normally bad weather is enough to seriously affect a public event but in Swansea the weather is often on the dreary side and even the mild rain wasn’t enough to dampen the spirits of Pokemon Go players. Swansea is one of those towns which isn’t as busy as it used to be thanks to three out of town retail parks nearby but as I wander through the city it is busier than it has been in quite some time as children, parents and groups of 20 somethings all migrate towards the Castle Square for the first ever Lure Party.
Organiser Ryan Slee has managed to create a monster as 200-300 people are expected to attend this free public gathering to hunt down rare Pokemons, an event that has only had 5 days of build up but Ryan has posted repeatedly to remind players that safety needs to come first as Pokemon Go players have unfortunately been getting so engrossed in the game that they aren’t paying attention to their surroundings. As the gathering starts, two police offers stand at the top of the mini amphitheatre steps prompting Ryan to go and ask them if there’s anything he needs to do to ensure that from a police standpoint there’s no issues. It turns out there isn’t and the officers seem to have simply shown up as they too are excited about the Pokemon hunt.
There are Pokemon fans here of all ages congregating in small groups all transfixed by the phones but the event isn’t as lively as expected due to the game servers going offline about half an hour before start time which turns out to be due to a DDOS attack by hacking group PoodleCorp. Despite the disappointment, there’s still a positive atmosphere and after an hour people are still in good spirits as the crowd starts to break up with people heading home. We managed to chat with quite a few players to see how they’d fared.
Name: Emily
Age: 25
Favourite Pokemon: Espurr
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 3 Name: Steffani
Age: 28
Favourite Pokemon: Corsola
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 2 Name: Charlie
Age: 25
Favourite Pokemon: Jigglypuff
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 1
Name: Tammy
Age: 22
Favourite Pokemon: Sylveon
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 2 Name: Becky
Age: 24
Favourite Pokemon: Growlithe
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 0 (but has so far caught 153) Name: Abi
Age: 22
Favourite Pokemon: Teddiursa
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 1 Name: Scott
Age: 18
Favourite Pokemon: Articuno
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 3
Name: Alex
Age: 23
Favourite Pokemon: Chandelure
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? 1 Name: Kai
Age: 23
Favourite Pokemon: Wailord
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? None but 6 on the bus here.
Name: Rhiannon
Age: 23
Favourite Pokemon: Pikachu
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? I don’t play the game so none. Can you get my awesome leggings in the photo? Name: Daniel
Age: 25
Favourite Pokemon: Haunter
How many Pokemon did you catch at the party? None but 10 before getting here.
I talk further with Ryan who has posted regular updates to Facebook to keep attendees up to date, “It’s disappointing and I don’t want anyone travelling a long way to find that the server is down. Some people were travelling 30 miles to come today” All is not lost though as next weekend is the Heroes and Legends convention in Margam Castle and Ryan has been asked to host another Lure Party on the Sunday.
While some people have been negative of Pokemon Go’s popularity Ryan points out the positives of how it’s getting people outdoors and meeting new people as Pokemon hunting is proving to help people who have difficulties socialising. As Ryan says, the game is gender neutral and appeals to all people regardless of background. One of the most poignant things I notice is that all the attendees are friendly and none at all are standoffish, some may be a bit shy but everyone is very happy to talk about Pokemon and the gathering is less like strangers meeting up but almost like one massive family.
Fingers crossed for Sunday!
You can see Gear4Geeks’ range of Pokemon products here.
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Like this: Like Loading...In a matter of weeks my family will double, making my 2-year-old daughter a big sister. For the first time, she will have to share my attention, her playthings and her room.
I don’t expect my first-born to internalize these changes quickly or easily. In fact, nervous about how she will adjust, I have recently reached out to other parents who have more than one child for advice. To my relief, I’m often assured that while chaotic at first, life will quickly settle down and normalize.
My baby’s brainwaves will be exclusively focused on getting his immediate physical needs met, not the pink area rug that’s three feet away from his crib.
But these conversations with other parents have offered a surprising—and depressing—insight into the way gender stereotypes continue to be perpetuated in American families. To my distaste, some parents have expressed skepticism and even concern over the idea that our daughter will have to share her room with her new sibling. This concern is not motivated by the pair’s age difference or worries over potential sleep disruptions, but because the new baby is a boy—and will be moving into a space currently adorned with a pink and green color scheme.
I have no plans to change this. Even if I had the time or energy for a spontaneous redecoration project, I see no need. As far as I’m concerned (and I have research on my side here), there is zero harm in my son looking at pink curtains.
In the minds of some of my peers, however, the idea of exposing my son to such a “feminine” environment during his formative years is a troublesome one. Comments like, “I sure hope he isn’t influenced by pink,” or “you better get some blue in there!” have infiltrated my world more than I ever anticipated (which, for the record, was not at all).
Considering the sources (friends and family, mostly), I am sure such comments aren’t mal-intended. But they nonetheless expose a deeply entrenched gender essentialism that requires dismantling.
These opinions expose a deeply entrenched gender essentialism that requires dismantling.
Beyond ignoring history, which reminds us that department stores told parents to dress their boys in pink until World War II, these comments ignore the fact that newborns and infants have no cognitive grasp of concepts like gender identity, anyway. My baby’s brainwaves will be exclusively focused on getting his immediate physical needs met, not the pink area rug that’s three feet away from his crib.
And when he does begin to develop a sense of self-identity, that’s precisely when I believe he should be exposed to so-called feminine realms, whether that’s pink stuff in his shared bedroom, kitchen chores or his sister’s beloved princess toys.
Children’s perceptions of gender roles are learned at an early age. My son’s formative early years are the perfect time to show him that his identity extends beyond all-things blue or male-oriented.
While some people may express concern over my son learning to be comfortable around “girly” things, I’m highly uncomfortable with the idea of him eschewing the feminine and running headfirst to embrace hyper masculinity.
In the minds of some of my peers, however, the idea of exposing my son to such a “feminine” environment during his formative years is a troublesome one.
Why? Because the social constructs of femininity and masculinity can be quite harmful.
As Jayson Gaddis pointed out in Role Reboot, when we box children into pink-and-blue binaries of gender expression, we send the message to kids that their fundamental nature is wrong if they don’t adhere to the “norm.” And when we judge or put down children—or people of any age, for that matter—for their self-expressions, we teach them that they are lesser.
The result? Kids learn to perpetuate disgust, hatred and even violence towards the outliers of mainstream gender expression. And those boys and girls who don’t embody traditionally masculine or feminine identities learn to be ashamed of who they are. And that is simply tragic.
So, when asked whether my son be influenced by pink, my honest answer is: Who cares?
I genuinely don’t care if my son—or daughter, for that matter—doesn’t adhere to some outdated, unnecessary concept of what it means to be a boy (or girl). I simply want my kids to be healthy, happy, and full of love and acceptance for themselves and others.
This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.The Union Banking Corporation (UBC) was a banking corporation in the US whose assets were seized by the United States government on October 20, 1942 during World War II under the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act and Executive Order No. 9095.
Seizure [ edit ]
According to an October 5, 1942, report from the USA's federal Office of Alien Property Custodian, Union Banking was owned by Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V., a Dutch bank. The memo from August 18, 1941, states "My investigation produced no evidence as to the ownership of this Dutch bank."[1] The Dutch bank was alleged to be affiliated with United Steel Works,[relevant? – discuss] a German company. Fritz Thyssen and his brother, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, had the Dutch bank and the steel firm as part of their business and financial empire according to the US. government agency. Fritz Thyssen resigned from the Council of State after November 9, 1938 Kristallnacht, was arrested in 1940, and spent the remainder of the war in a sanatorium and in concentration camps.[citation needed] The APC documents say "Whether any or all part of the funds held by Union Banking Corporation, or companies associated with it, belong to Fritz Thyssen could not be established in this investigation."[2][3][4][5][6][7] The assets were held by the government for the duration of the war, then returned afterward; UBC dissolved in the 1950s.
See also [ edit ]Greetings, Saviors.
We will be performing maintenance on the [SA] Silute server in order to relocate the server to São Paulo, Brazil.
Please note that this maintenance is NOT a server transfer, meaning we will not be transferring teams from one server to another. The maintenance will not change any aspects about your team, items, etc. so if you are playing in [SA] Silute, you do not have to take any special measures before the maintenance.
This maintenance is expected to take place during the following period:
BRT April 19th 23:00 ~ April 20th 09:00 (EDT April 19th 22:00 ~ April 20th 08:00) [10 hours]
- The server may be opened earlier than the notified timeline depending on the circumstances
The following compensation will be provided to all players on the [SA] Silute server due to the long maintenance time.
They will remain in your Postbox until April 23rd, 2017 so please remember to claim them before they expire.
- 7 day Token * 1 ea
- Superior Instanced Dungeon Reset Voucher (14 days) * 1 ea
- Instanced Dungeon Multiply Token (14 Days) * 2 ea
- EXP Tome * 3 eaToday we take a look at process of creating a scroll. This may be a scroll with a magic spell or treasure map as an ingame element or an icon. Such tools as Spiral Tool, Pencil Tool and several path operations will help us in this.
Though I’ll be using Inkscape to show the process, the principles given below can be more or less applicable to drawing process in any other vector editor. This is not the only way, it's just how I do it.
Basic shape
1. Take Pencil Tool (F6) and draw one side curve line. You can also use Bezier Tool (Shift + F6) and ‘from node to node’ method as well...
I have not quite standard pencil settings, I set its smoothing to 50%. With this setting, my hand line is more curved and have a less number of nodes, so it’s much easier to edit paths.
... duplicate created curve line, move it to the side so you could imagine two sides of the scroll and scale it down a little. Grab Nodes Tool (F2) and connect two top and two bottom nodes using “Join selected endnodes with a new segment” button at the Tool Controls Bar. Curve the upper line a little.
2. Take Spiral Tool (F9) and create two shapes at the top and at the bottom of the scroll to get the effect of a curled paper. Adjust the Spiral shapes with Inner and Outer handles using Spiral Tool (F9) or Nodes Tool (F2).
3. Draw other curled paper elements using Pencil Tool: the front bend and the back one. According to the angle at which we see the scroll, the back bend is barely visible, so there is no need draw it entirely. A hint of it’s presence will be enough.
Coloring
4. We will use warm colors which have nothing to do with the color of the new paper. However, in such colors the scroll looks more ancient. Convert spirals to paths (Shift + Ctrl + C) and complete their shapes with Pen Tool to make their paths closed.
You can download SVG-file with color palette for practice here
5. The light is coming from the top left, so we should add highlights and shadows to the top of the scroll and to the front bend. You can learn more about Highlights and Shadows from my earlier tutorial. The darkest color from the palette will help us to make scroll stand out. Select all scroll elements, duplicate them (Ctrl + D) and go to Path > Union. Scale the object up, fill it with dark color and ‘Lower it to Bottom’ (End key). ‘Simplify the Path’ (Ctrl + L) to get rid of unnecessary nodes and then adjust the shape.
More details
6. In addition to special color palette we need to add some torn places to make the ancient scroll. Grab Bezier Tool (Shift+F6) and draw triangular shape. Duplicate this shape and create difference with edge of the scroll using ‘Difference’ path operation. Grab the original triangular shape, scale it down and create difference with outline. Use this method to create torn places anywhere on the scroll where you like.
Treasure map
7. It’s very easy to create a small treasure map. For this we need to create a cross using two rectangles. Also we need one line with dashed pattern. We can set pattern to the path in Stroke Style tab in the Fill and Stroke Dialogue (Shift+Ctrl+F).
Magnifying glass
8. Basic elements of the magnifier are circles and a rectangle with rounded corners for a handle. Use Ellipse Tool (F5), Rectangle Tool (F4) and Difference operation to form magnifier. Don’t forget to add a highlight for the glass.
Video process
Here is a video process of creating a scroll. Take a look, if you got stuck on something.
That’s all for now! Please, post your results in the comments. And if you like this tutorial, please, share it :)
* Download this tutorial in PDF
buy(Reuters) - A groundbreaking deal between Allergan Plc and a Native American tribe to shield the company’s patents in administrative proceedings could also be used be to protect them from challenges in federal court, legal experts said, potentially dealing a blow to generic competition.
FILE PHOTO: A trader works at the post that trades Parsley Energy Inc. and Allergan Plc., on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) April 5, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Allergan said on Friday it had transferred patents on its blockbuster dry eye medicine Restasis to the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, which will exclusively license the patents back to the company in exchange for ongoing payments. The deal takes advantage of the fact that the tribe is treated as a sovereign nation immune to civil lawsuits.
In announcing the deal, Allergan said it believed the Restasis patents would no longer be subject to review by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board, an administrative court empowered to cancel patents through a process called inter partes review. The company said it would not claim immunity in an ongoing lawsuit in federal court by generic manufacturers seeking to revoke the same patents.
“This was directed at and only affects the flawed IPR process,” Allergan Chief Executive Brenton Saunders said in an interview.
But judges across the country have found tribal immunity applies to litigation in federal court. That means other brand-name drug companies could be motivated to follow Allergan’s lead and transfer their patents to tribes, severely limiting generic manufacturers’ ability to challenge those patents.
Drugs made by brand-name manufacturers like Allergan, Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co are usually protected by patents for up to 20 years after they are introduced. But generic companies can bring their versions to market earlier if they can successfully sue to have those patents invalidated.
The price of a drug drops dramatically once generic versions enter the market. Restasis sales were $1.4 billion last year.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which Congress created in 2011 to make it easier and cheaper to challenge patents, has been embraced by generic drug companies. Earlier this year, the board invalidated some of the patents held by Abbvie Inc on its $16 billion immunosuppressant Humira, raising the possibility of low-cost competition for the country’s best-selling drug.
Challenging patents in federal court is slower and more expensive, though generic companies certainly do it. Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc and other generic drug companies are suing Allergan in federal court seeking a ruling that the latter’s Restasis patents should not have been granted in the first place because they cover obvious concepts.
Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School, said drug companies may fear a public outcry if they use tribal immunity to remove their patents from scrutiny by both the board and federal court. A spike in drug prices, for example, could lead Congress to pass a law limiting the scope of that immunity in such cases.
Saunders said the industry is unlikely to try to shield its patents from federal court litigation. “I’d be very cautious about creating this parade of horribles,” he said.
But Rachel Sachs, a patent law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said it was likely only a matter of time.
“Once the industry begins engaging in a practice, even at a low level... there are actors who will take it to its logical extreme,” she said.In the email rioting students found offensive, Bret Weinstein objected to racial segregation. 'On a college campus, one's right to speak--or to be--must never be based on skin color.'
A public college in Olympia, Washington, shut down yesterday due to a threat of violence telephoned to police after months of screaming sessions and angry accusations of racism precipitated by a college diversity coordinator’s call for white people to vacate campus.
Evergreen State College traditionally holds a “Day of Absence” in April, when nonwhite students would leave campus, “leaving white students to consider the importance of their fellow community members by sensing the real loss of their presence,” according to the student newspaper. This year, Director of First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services Rashida Love announced plans to “encourage” white students to leave campus instead, because identity politics groups “voiced concern over feeling as if they are unwelcome on campus, following the 2016 election.”
Biology professor Bret Weinstein objected to this in an email to Love that was later made public, prompting approximately 50 students to burst into his classroom on May 23, calling him a racist and demanding he resign, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
In the email students found offensive, Weinstein explicitly objected to racial segregation and volunteered to host a discussion about race “through a scientific / evolutionary lens,” a lens related to his academic specialty. But, he wrote, “On a college campus, one’s right to speak–or to be–must never be based on skin color.”
“There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles…and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away,” he wrote in the private email. “The first is a forceful call to consciousness which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.”
Weinstein says the Day of Absence went as planned. Its activities included “Radical Self-Care for Students, Faculty, and Staff of Color,” “Know Your Fascists,” and “Can White People Ever Be Woke,” and screenings of the LGBT-themed films “Moonlight” and “Major,” a movie about a black transgender activist.
More than a month later, an “angry mob” of students invaded his classroom, complaining about his private email, Weinstein wrote. Someone called the police. Students went berserk about the presence of police on campus amid their increasingly provocative behavior, and blocked the entrances of buildings they were occupying with furniture to impede police access. They then invaded administrative offices with demands for Weinstein’s resignation and more. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Weinstein gives a short summary of the sequence of events.
The events kicked off a series of groveling sessions with campus administrators. College President George Bridges ordered campus police to stand down even as students grew increasingly aggressive, forcing Weinstein to hold classes in a public park, because “the chief of our college police department told me she could not protect me on campus. Protestors were searching cars for an unspecified individual—likely me.” Videos show groups of students refusing to allow administrators to leave a conference room until they submitted to students’ “demands,” which included:
“Disarming Evergreen Police, with no expansions of police facilities or powers on campus
Sensitivity and cultural competency training for all faculty and staff
The creation of an Equity Center
The coordinator of Trans & Queer Center be hired in a permanent full time position
The creation of a permanent position dedicated to supporting undocumented students”
And “police services sell all of their lethal and less than lethal weapons and donate the money to manifestation of demands enumerated here”;
“Bret Weinstein be suspended immediately without pay but all students receive full credit.”
You can see more here in a video compilation of recent incidents around campus. The protesters have also demanded the college remove the video, and insist it was made by “white supremacists.” To be clear, colleges have no power over YouTube.
In objecting to what they call racism, students make statements and actions that if performed against minorities would probably be enough to bar the perpetrators from polite company forever. For example, students repeatedly shout “Black power.” What if it were “White power”? Also check out a sampling of the things they scream in this video, compiled by The College Fix, and imagine “blackness” or “black” or any other racial description substituted for “white” and “whiteness.”
— “Whiteness is the most violent f-ckin’ system to ever breathe!” — “I’m tired of white people talking about what black and brown people need.” — “These white-ass faculty members need to be holding HIM, and HIM, and ALL these people accountable!” — “I’m tellin’ you, you’re speakin’ to your ancestor, all right? We been here before you. We built these cities, we had civilization way before you ever had … comin’ out your caves.”
In response, Bridges gave a self-parodying public statement. Here’s just the opening.
I’m George Bridges, I use he/him pronouns. I begin our time together today by acknowledging the indigenous people of the Medicine Creek Treaty, whose land was stolen and on which the college stands. I would like to acknowledge the Squaxin people who are the traditional custodians of this land and pay respect to elders past and present of the Squaxin Island Tribe. I extend that respect to other Native people present. In response to Native Student Alliance requests, we commit to opening every event with this acknowledgement.
Bridger went on to tell students who shortly began to scream obscenities at him, “We are grateful to the courageous students who have voiced their concerns…we’ve been working on the concerns you’ve raised and acknowledge that our results have fallen short. We should have done more to engage students in our work on equity and inclusion. This week, you are inviting us into the struggle you have taken up. We share your goals and together we can reach them.”
Obviously Bridges does not get it, and neither does an Evergreen alumnus who works at an in-state paper and attempted to make apologies for the students in a recent column. Although his column is long, nowhere in it does Matt Driscoll give one single fact that justifies students’ menacing behavior. Search the article. The closest he comes to explaining why any adult human being ought to be allowed to act this way in a civilized society is: “When it comes to issues of race, equality, and social justice, there’s a lot going on at Evergreen — like so many college campuses across the country right now.”
Okay, what exactly is “a lot going on”? Did anyone use a racial epithet, besides the protesting students? Does anyone not have equal access to education facilities or activities based on race, except the white students on campus? Have police roughed anyone up, or really done much of anything at all? Seems not, given that professors and students must hide off campus so roving bands of punks don’t find and beat them up. I’m sure we would have heard any of these things if they had occurred. We haven’t heard, because they haven’t occurred. These students are protesting make-believe grievances.
Why would they do that? Because that’s precisely what they’ve been taught to do. They’re cultivated ground troops for the self-styled intellectuals who have chairs of this studies and that studies on their campus. Some of these intellectuals can’t believe that the kids take their preposterous theories about institutional racism and white privilege seriously. Others are in the hallways, egging them on.President Obama deployed a top Cabinet secretary Wednesday to assure Hispanic leaders that the White House will take executive action this year to stop deportations for more illegal immigrants, trying to revive Hispanic voters’ backing of Democrats ahead of November’s elections. “The question of executive action, my friends, is a ‘when’ question,” Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez assured attendees at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s convention. Mr. Obama likely will deliver the same message when he speaks to the gathering Thursday — and will be met by protesters furious over his broken promise to issue executive action by the end of the summer to halt many deportations. [Hispanics promised Obama will act on immigration by year's end, by Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, October 1, 2014]
While Ebola and the Islamic State dominate the headlines, President Obama is still assuring his newly imported auxiliaries that he will throw away the laws that negatively affect them, as long as they give him their votes.The fact that such "citizens" can only be mollified by promises from the government that it will break the law in the interest of their co-racials is sufficient evidence in itself for a total immigration moratorium. And it's now abundantly clear that the laws of the United States do not matter if they conflict with the interests of a sufficiently numerous and organized ethnic tribe. We are already living in the post-American eraLenovo Mirage Solo Daydream VR Headset Revealed by the FCC
A few months back, we reported on the HTC Vive Daydream VR partnership being dropped between the two companies, with no further news on the Lenovo headset other than it was slated for release late this year. It’s unlikely we’ll see it before the turn of the new year, but new information discovered from FCC documents and uncovered by LetsGoDigital shows that it is likely coming very soon. We also have a name for the device- The Lenovo Mirage Solo with Daydream. It has the model number Lenovo VR-1541F, and also seems to come with a Daydream VR controller.
There’s currently no information on the specs other than some small tidbits, such as that it comes with a 4,000mAh battery and Bluetooth 5.0 support. We don’t know anything else, but it’s not unimaginable to think we’ll be seeing the device announced in the near future. With the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas running in early January, it’s likely that we’ll see the device announced there – or at least mentioned or teased in some way, shape or form. We’re already going to be seeing the Samsung Galaxy S9 and news on Huawei’s further expansion into the west, so it’s not unlikely we’ll be hearing more about the Lenovo Mirage Solo Daydream VR headset.
We also have no information on the price, but given the undercutting nature of the Oculus Go and the fact that HTC dropped out of the partnership with Google shows that the price may be steeper than the competition. The Oculus Go retails at $200, which the Lenovo Mirage Solo will have to aim to beat in order to be the lowest priced option on the market. If it can offer a better experience at a higher price, then we should still expect it to move some units, given the lack of competition in the VR space. At this point, more players entering this space is only a good thing.The Boston Police Department is attempting to locate the above-pictured motor vehicle in relation to a hit-and-run motor vehicle crash involving a cyclist that occurred at about 3:19 AM on Sunday, April 30, 2017 at the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street. The motor vehicle is believed to be a 2015-2017 silver Toyota Camry with out-of-state (possibly New York) license plates. The motor vehicle is also believed to have damage to the front end and roof, as well as above the driver's side door.
Anyone with information is strongly urged to contact detectives at (617) 343-4470. Community members wishing to assist this investigation anonymously can do so by calling the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1 (800) 494-TIPS or by texting the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463). The Boston Police Department will stringently guard and protect the identities of all those who wish to help this investigation in an anonymous manner.Hey there, I just wanted to introduce you to a long time friend and great wingman of mine named Peter Grimm. He recently wrote a great post filled with some basic as well as advanced concepts. As you guys know I like my discussions about Seduction or Dating to be FIELD TESTED advice, and Peter brings a LOT of experience as well as success to the table. I am excited about this post and I know you’re both find it a fun and informative read.
Here we go!
Peter Grimm: Myths and Truths about Pickup
First, let me introduce myself. My name is Peter Grimm, I’m a good friend of Ronnie’s and was asked to join this group to lend a hand and help bring along some of the new guys who want to experience as much success with women as possible.
First, let me say, I applaud you guys for taking that leap – for dedicating yourselves, for putting yourselves and your egos out there for the sole purpose of grabbing life by the balls and getting the absolute most out of it. I wish you all the success in the world and I sincerely hope that my experiences can help you speed up your growth and get you to where you want to be as quickly and painlessly as possible.
About me: I’m nothing special. I don’t have a silver tongue. In fact, I’m a pretty quiet, introverted and reserved guy for the most part. I’m not the center-of-attention pickup type you normally associate with this sort of thing. I’m not rich either. I don’t have a flashy job. I’m a middle manager at an oil company, and my job bores women to tears.
That said, I have had quite a bit of success with women in my lifetime, particularly in the last couple years. I lost track, but I believe my “count,” if you want to call it that, is somewhere around 200 women at the moment. A good number of them are quite beautiful. I am currently sleeping with seven beautiful women…. I would characterize it as I have that part of my life handled.
I don’t say any of that to brag, but rather to encourage you readers – I want you to know that if you really put your mind toward your goal of getting better with women, that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel and that you WILL find the success you are looking for.
How I did it was mainly trial and error. I joined the Dallas Lair in 2008, and I was your typical newbie from that era running around with leather wrist cuffs, feather boas, bedazzled tshirts and 52 rings on my fingers, using canned openers straight out of The Game (hint: you don’t need that stuff). I read everything under the sun, I took a couple bootcamps, and I went out constantly. Like 4/5 days a week for a couple years. I got better and eventually moderated the dallas lair for a little while, then I got burned out from lairs, got in and out of a couple serious relationships, and did my own thing for a while (still going out every weekend).
Anyway, enough about me. Im gonna go ahead and post this, and below, I will do a writeup of my general thoughts about pickup and how I believe you should structure your learning in order to get good as fast as humanly possible, so you can start enjoying the success you deserve.
Where to begin.
First of all, what you should know about pickup is that it’s EASY. There is so much material and advice out there, one can easily get overwhelmed, but it shouldn’t be that way. When you really break it down, the fundamentals and principles of meeting and sleeping with women (and everything between and after) are NOT complicated and can be easily understood by everyone.
Second, pickup is FUN. Never lose sight of that. Never view this as a job or a chore, you’re trying to get your rocks off… it’s not that serious, and it’s not the end of the world if you get blown out every now and then. This is part of your life, a diversion, it’s not your WHOLE life.
Alright, now let’s get to some meat and potatoes.
Keep in mind that everything I post below is MY OPINION. Based on MY EXPERIENCES. It’s not gospel, and there are many ways to skin a cat. If anyone disagrees with anything I write, that’s fine…. what works for me works for me…. but ultimately you each need to decide for yourselves what your beliefs and philosophies are going to be.
1.) Myth #1: Looks don’t matter.
You read this in almost every pickup book you’ll ever buy. Sorry to burst your bubble, but this one is bullshit. Looks absolutely do make a difference. You’re just going to have to learn to accept that reality. That’s not to say that ugly guys can’t get girls, or even hot girls, but the good looking guy is going to have a lot more chances. Let me put it to you this way, using a baseball analogy. An average guy is going to get three strikes before he’s out. An ugly guy might get one. A good looking guy will get many more chances to fuck up because the girl wants him to succeed.
Now if you’re thinking about getting discouraged…. DON’T. Understand that what |
Amazon has already pulled out of states like California, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Arkansas, Illinois and Rhode Island for similar reasons.
The online giant called Minnesota’s E-Fairness legislation “unconstitutional” in its lette, and called for federal lawmakers to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act to resolve the confusion of online sales tax policy from state to state.
“Congressional legislation is the only way to create a simplified, constitutional framework to resolve interstate sales tax issues and it would allow us to re-open our Associates program to Minnesota residents,” Amazon said.ADVERTISEMENT
"Never, ever mess with a diva who wears stilettos and diamonds," said Lisa Gutierrez in The Kansas City Star. On her new single, "Obsessed," Maria Carey "throws some mean musical punches at—everyone assumes—Eminem," in retaliation for his jabs at her in one of his latest songs. It could also be "shrapnel from a long-standing battle between the two, who disagree on whether they got romantic a few years back—Eminem says they did, she says they didn't."
"Could this be the first time a diva trumps a rapper in a hip-hop beef?" said Glenn Gamboa in Newsday.com. Carey goes for the jugular on "Obsession," referring to Eminem's "Napoleon complex" and delivering lines like, "You're a mom-and-pop, I'm a corporation." And even while she "throws some elbows," she still "coos confidently." Eminem has been "torn down by Mariah"—this round goes to her.
This is certainly "a feistier Mimi than we're used to," said Todd Martens in the Los Angeles Times. "Obsessed" features "put-down after put-down," but "the high road would have been" for Mariah to "ignore" Eminem's attacks against her. "But the sophisticated route doesn't always generate hype," which is clearly all she's trying to do here—and it seems kind of desperate.John McAfee surveys the woods surrounding his Tennessee home while his 100-pound komondor, Marley, shits on his neighbor’s property. The computer-security guru and sometime murder suspect believes he has discovered proof that the Sinaloa cartel is tracking his movements.
It has something to do with a schmear. The 70-year-old McAfee resembles an ocelot, with his striped and streaked hair. He is probably still a multimillionaire, but he chain-smokes generic cigarettes the way a toddler eats Goldfish crackers. He exhales, as a hawk circles above.
“All they eat is cream cheese,” McAfee says between phlegmy hacks. “Must be for the protein. I find cream cheese packets everywhere. Some of them are out-of-date.”
Inside, somebody named Bob writes down the license plate of every car that drives by the property. McAfee believes Bob’s brother is working for the cartel, but that’s really neither here nor there. McAfee scans the dirt for plastic.
“If there’s cream cheese, I know the cartel has been here.”
Say what you will about John McAfee — and people say a lot of nasty things — but he was one of the first nerds to warn the world of an impending computer-security crisis, a pioneer whose paranoia served a legitimate purpose.
Long before the Y2K freak-out, he — after stints as a computer programmer at Lockheed and NASA — built McAfee Associates out of his home in the late 1980s, creating an antivirus program for corporations before most companies knew what a virus was. At first, he gave it away to individuals, then he began to license it to companies. Oh, and he had the self-promotional skills of a young Johnny Knoxville. He transformed an RV into a Ghostbusteresque antivirus mobile unit, arriving in the parking lots of threatened firms. In 1997, he warned of the coming Michelangelo virus and claimed it would destroy whole corporations. It turned out to be just a computer fart in the wind. By then it didn’t matter. McAfee sold his shares in McAfee Associates for $100 million.
He headed into semiretirement, working on some projects — including a before-its-time chat program — and bugging the fuck out of people. He bought a sprawling property in Molokai and proceeded to take out newspaper ads pointing out drug houses. McAfee then sold his property, amid rumors he was going to develop it into condos. Neither act endeared him to locals. He moved to New Mexico and created an aircraft business, renting out ultralight planes that could swoop in and out of canyons. That ended in tragedy when his nephew and a passenger flew into a canyon wall. McAfee was recently found negligent in their deaths to the tune of $2.5 million. (McAfee claims they were shot down by a drug cartel hiding in the canyons.)
McAfee lives by the Liberty Valance credo: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” He moved to Belize in 2008 and, depending on his mood, told reporters that he was either seeking to create antibiotics out of natural herbs, developing female Viagra, or manufacturing bath salts, a synthetic hallucinogenic. (Regarding the last claim, McAfee later said he was just pulling the chains of reporters.)
What isn’t up for debate is that McAfee had a posse of teenage girls living with him. They were misfits, runaways, and troublemakers; one pulled a gun on him. (His stay in Belize is so notorious that there is a libidinous, perhaps insane, gun-wielding character living in Belize in novelist Jonathan Franzen’s upcoming Purity that bears a resemblance to McAfee.) Ask him what he was thinking when he decided to shack up with a harem one-third of his age, and McAfee will flash a devilish smile and say simply he was single and having fun. The “fun” took a sour turn in April 2012, when a Belizean SWAT team raided his island estate looking for criminal activity and shot and killed his dog. That November, his American expat neighbor was murdered by gunshot.
Considering his past run-ins with the government, McAfee feared a frame-up. He went on the run, causing a media frenzy largely created by McAfee himself, who allowed two staffers from the website Vice to tag along as he fled for Guatemala. This backfired magnificently when the Vice crew posted a picture of McAfee in hiding but forgot to scrub the geo data that pinpointed them to a Guatemalan resort. Oops! McAfee was arrested for entering the country illegally, and authorities considered deporting him to Belize. Guatemala eventually grew sick of the drama, didn’t press charges, and allowed him to head home to the United States.
Promoting his antivirus software in 1989.
That was more than two years ago. McAfee laid low for a while, sometimes literally: under cars to avoid his purported enemies. But he resurfaced earlier this year, touting new business partners and apps to fight off data stealers. He warned of security anarchy that would ruin families, governments, and perhaps Western civilization.
And that’s when I meet him. Tanned but hardly rested, McAfee is ready for his comeback. But things are different now. Once, McAfee was seen as a semidangerous rogue; now he has to prove he’s not just an eccentric sideshow. A half-decade ago, he posed for magazines on his beachfront estate surrounded by girls and guns. Now he is staying in no-tell Alabama motels while spreading his message, managing a mortal-coil-cutting cough, and living in rural Tennessee, not far from a casket store called Til Death Does Us Part. The question now is: Will anybody buy what John McAfee is selling?
John McAfee looks like an elderly man who has driven through the night while inhaling nicotine instead of oxygen. That’s because he has, motoring 313 miles from his Lexington, Tennessee, home to the main offices of his new venture, Future Tense Central, in Opelika, Alabama. Future Tense is located within Round House, which is basically a storefront with some cubicles for Web entrepreneurs taking advantage of the fact Opelika has one of the six fastest internet services in the country. For McAfee, he’s using that bandwidth to peddle two apps he says will keep you safe. There’s D-Vasive, which prevents malicious apps from infiltrating your phone’s vulnerable points — camera, WiFi, recorder — the minute you’re done using them, and D-Central, a program that ranks the risk of your apps from one to 100.
Some computer experts say this kind of protection is crucial, suggesting that your smartphone is as secure as a vacation cottage with a come on in sign posted on the mailbox.
“Your phone is no different than a house,” says Babak Pasdar, a security expert and CEO of?Bat Blue Networks. “That house has doors designed to have people come and go, and windows designed to see out. The doors can be used to compromise the system and steal information or spy.”
Like any good salesman, McAfee says his apps are the only thing that can save you from the coming apocalypse.
“I can guarantee you, there are thousands of teenage girls taking showers right now with waterproof phones, texting, who are being watched by somebody,” says McAfee.
Maybe five years ago, McAfee would have been dismissed as a giant nut bag, but too many holes have been punched into our computer systems to dismiss him now. Last spring, thousands of emails detailing the petty personal thoughts of Hollywood’s dream makers were laid bare when Sony had its email system pried open for the world to see. The email lists of Adult FriendFinder and Ashley Madison, naughty services for men and women seeking extracurricular sexual shenanigans, were released on the Web. There are now rumors that China has wormed into the mainframes of Pentagon subcontractors.
With his wife, Janice, in Tennessee in 2014.
We no longer have the tools to judge the sanity of people saying paranoid things about privacy and security because so many things we would have written off as dystopian delusions have come true. Now we have to judge our nut bags on a case-by-case basis. Reality has caught up to McAfee’s paranoia.
An hour or two after his arrival, I’m sitting in his office as his wife, Janice, brings him coffee. His business partner, Tom Gusinski, a stoic middle-aged man, stands with his arms folded. Despite McAfee’s multicheckered past, Gusinski kept bugging him to join Round House, and his patience has been rewarded with D-Vasive and D-Central. He accepts McAfee as he is and probably wouldn’t even mind that John could not recall his last name in a later conversation.
Outside the door lingers a man with a pistol tucked between his shirt and waistband. It’s John Pool, McAfee’s driver and gofer, and a guy who accessorizes with no fewer than five handguns. He asks McAfee if he needs anything but is ushered out of the way when Gusinski brings in Round House’s youngest entrepreneur, Taylor Rosenthal, an eighth-grader. The kid’s idea is a chain of first-aid vending machines — think Redbox and Coinstar — that could be positioned at rock festivals and sporting events, or wherever drunken people gather. He’s skipped school today to meet McAfee, who is impressed. McAfee makes a joke about keeping Rosenthal on the premises in a cage.
“You’ll actually like it in the cage. We’ll put puppies in that cage with you every now and then.”
The boy looks confused, shakes McAfee’s hand, and retreats.
McAfee rubs his eyes and says he needs a nap. Before he goes, I ask him why he thinks people take such pleasure breaking into other people’s private lives.
“People are people,” says McAfee. “There is dissatisfaction in all of us. Some of us take out that dissatisfaction by attempting to ruin whatever you are attempting to do. This is a fact of life.”
That evening, I meet McAfee in the lobby of the Microtel, a budget motel whose name says it all. A fellow guest eats Doritos and watches the Weather Channel while the rain turns the Alabama red dirt into brown clay.
“I don’t have any credit cards or anything in my name, so we try to do things cheaply,” McAfee tells me as Janice sleeps upstairs. He’s letting her rest because tomorrow will be a long day: a dawn flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas, where McAfee is giving a speech before the National Association of Broadcasters, and then back on a red-eye. (Obviously, McAfee can’t overnight in Vegas for security reasons.) “If nothing is in my name, it’s harder to find me.”
McAfee insists he wants this story to be about his future and not his past, but he can’t help recounting prior glories. He explains that after his Belizean property was raided and his dog was killed, he gave all the cute governmental secretaries laptops, knowing their minister bosses would steal them. What they didn’t know, McAfee says, was, in order to find out why the government was targeting him, he had installed spyware on the computers, which fed him reams of information on bureaucratic malfeasance. (Despite numerous requests and promises, McAfee never provided any damning documents or any documents at all.)
“There was not a single word about me in the files,” he explains, sounding disappointed. “But everything else under the sun. Scary shit. I became addicted. I couldn’t stop looking.”
McAfee believes it was his discovery of Belizean corruption that eventually forced him to leave the country. Well, that and the murder of his neighbor, Gregory Faull, another American expatriate sunning his life away in Belize. McAfee admits that Faull was pissed about McAfee’s dogs roaming on the beach but says that he held no rancor toward the man. Faull was found dead of a single bullet wound on November 11, 2012. While the local police insisted they wanted McAfee only for questioning — 300 yards separated their properties — he hightailed it into the bush, eventually hooking up with Vice News and publishing online pieces proclaiming his innocence.
The Belizean government’s response was succinct: “John McAfee is extremely paranoid, even bonkers,” said Prime Minister Dean Barrow.
After Vice gave away his location, McAfee was arrested by Guatemalan authorities. As he tells it, McAfee was given his own cell, WiFi, and good food but still feared extradition to Belize. He suffered a heart attack while detained, and footage of his body being loaded into an ambulance received global coverage.
But that’s not what happened. According to McAfee, the Belizean government had only one more day to get the Guatemalans to deport him, so he faked a heart attack. He offers a mischievous smile.
“I fell on my face very authentically in the cell,” says McAfee. “I busted my nose, blood everywhere, and they took me to the hospital.” He magically recovered that afternoon and was soon sent to the United States.
Very little of this, of course, is verifiable, and even McAfee admits that he’s lied about his past before. Some of the lies are sort of genius. When Dateline did a piece on his life, he nearly convinced an NBC producer that he had a decades-old contract with former NBC head Dick Ebersol that he be described as “the nation’s preeminent security expert.” This was not true.
Not all of the lies have been of the yuk-yuk variety; many have been self-serving Machiavellian chess moves minimizing his wealth to make himself less appealing to lawsuits. In 2009, the New York Times ran a story about gazillionaires scaling down as a result of the recession, and McAfee was the star. “What I said was absolutely false,” says McAfee. “Because it made a great story. A guy at the top is now at the bottom. At the time, I owned nine mansions around the world that had not been sold.”
Who knows, maybe he’s lying about the lying. He excuses himself to wake Janice. A few minutes later, John Pool brings around a tricked-out truck raised three feet off the ground, resplendent with a siren and a blinding spotlight, to take us to a sushi restaurant for a Future Tense dinner.
“I took this in for service and someone broke into the garage and attached a control board to the grille so they could make us wreck,” says McAfee, as Pool and Janice nod in agreement. At dinner, McAfee throws back a half-dozen sake shots even though he’s been telling reporters for years that he doesn’t drink. He promises to show me the control board when we get back to Tennessee. (He doesn’t.)
On our way back to the Microtel, McAfee tells me he spent most of 2014 on the road, bouncing from Ireland to Scotland and then to the Southwest, fleeing, he says, the Sinaloa cartel. McAfee believes the Belizean government has hired the cartel to either a) kill him, b) capture him, or c) drive him bananas. (He offers no proof.) One afternoon, they pulled into an Arizona truck stop and Janice noticed a Ford F-150 pickup truck was trailing them. McAfee pulled out of the station, playing cat and mouse on single-lane roads with the truck. He remembers punching his Focus up to 120 miles per hour before the F-150 backed off. When I ask why the truck didn’t just run him off the road, McAfee smiles.
“He’s just doing a job. We are running for our life.”
As the sun comes up, McAfee, Janice, and I wedge into the last row of a Delta flight bound for Vegas. Across the aisle sits Andrew, a Future Tense assistant, and John Pool, who insisted we get to the airport two hours early because Janice was checking some guns.
“It’s probably a good idea,” reasons McAfee, simultaneously gobbling a croissant and a bag of chips. “A black woman with dreads and a past checking guns could raise some questions.”
Janice is a nervous flier. One of the reasons McAfee loves her, he told me once, is that she’s just as suspicious as he is. McAfee holds her hand until we reach cruising altitude, and she falls asleep. He then tells me how they met.
“After I got out of Guatemala, I was resting in Miami, and a woman came into a diner and offered to blow me for a hundred bucks,” says McAfee as he scarfs another croissant. “I was exhausted and told her, ‘No thanks, but if you’d like to cuddle, I’ll compensate you.’ ” The two began a whirlwind romance on the run, but first McAfee had to tell her pimp to bug off or he’d send him home in a body bag. (The only verifiable part of this story is that Janice was once a call girl.)
“I felt like I was a lost soul,” Janice told me later. “I felt like everyone had given up on me. I just didn’t know where to start to turn my home life around, and he’s been there for me. I don’t like to let him out of my sight.”
They briefly bounced around the U.S. and Canada in hopes of ditching their pursuers, but McAfee says they were unsuccessful. The couple eventually wound up in Portland, Oregon. Their secluded bliss ended in the summer of 2013, when the Belizean soccer team came to Portland to play the United States.
“The Belizean team had never played a game out of Belize,” says McAfee. He beckons the flight attendant to bring him a Jack and Coke. “A coincidence? I don’t think so. My sources told me 22 of them stayed behind after the game.”
In reality, Belize had been in the country to play the USA as part of the concacaf tournament, for which Belize had qualified for the first time. (A quick check later proved that the team had played many games outside of its nation.)
John McAfee with business partner Tom Gusinski in Alabama in February.
Shortly after the game, according to McAfee, Janice and John looked out the window of their Portland condo and saw a fleet of cars idling in the middle of the night. So they fled. “You see two police officers, a limousine, a black fucking garbage truck all in a line pull up — it’s a scary scene.”
He didn’t file a police report, and local media stories suggest in reality McAfee was evicted from his condo for lack of payment.
McAfee orders another drink and pulls out a scrap of paper for his speech this afternoon. He has a trick up his sleeve to demonstrate how vulnerable all of us are to data breaches. He takes my Android phone — which McAfee claims is the easiest phone to hack — and taps the Facebook app. He touches a few buttons and gets into the Permissions sections.
“This is what you have given Facebook license to do. Directly call phone numbers, read your text messages, take pictures and videos, record audio, approximate where you are, read and modify contacts, send emails without owner’s knowledge, modify calendar events, read contact cards, modify contents of storage.”
I confess to McAfee that I didn’t know I’d consented to all of this. He shoots me a contemptuous glare and polishes off drink number two.
“Because you didn’t bother to look,” says McAfee. “You’re like 99.99 percent of Americans. If they choose to get in the porn business, because they’ve taken hundreds of thousands of pictures of people doing sex acts, that’s their right to do so. And you can do nothing about it.” He cackles and pats Janice on the head. “But this is Facebook, for chrissakes, they’re not going to get into the porn business. You’re lucky.”
McAfee gives me an example of how easy it is to tap in to someone’s smartphone, most of which have the data capacity of a desktop computer. With some basic information and a guessed password, McAfee can now monitor all the echats and emails sent by Janice’s daughter, living in the Bay Area. He fears some of her online friends are not on the level.
“They’re just dirty old men,” says McAfee. “I do know the people she’s talking to are not who they claim to be. End of story. Now, do I, as a father, have a right to spy on my 13-year-old daughter? That’s the fundamental question.”
After four and a half hours, we descend into Vegas. Janice frantically taps McAfee on the shoulder and shows him her phone.
“I got a 1-800 call.”
McAfee sighs. He pops out the battery of her phone and pauses before reinstalling.
“Don’t call it back. That’s an easy way to trace our movements.”
Backstage at the Las Vegas Convention Center, McAfee and Andrew huddle and work their phones, setting up a stunt for 200 attendees of the broadcasters convention. I sit with Pool, a balding, white-haired man with a penchant for endless Southern-fried chatter and a devout belief in his boss. “He doesn’t go anywhere without me,” says Pool, blowing on his coffee. He won’t exactly say what he did before working with McAfee, but it involved a “connected” family in Chicago. “I know there are bad guys out to get him and it’s not going to happen on my watch. I don’t need sleep, I can watch all day and all night.” Pool makes a face and excuses himself. A few minutes later, he returns holding a napkin to his bleeding mouth. I ask him what happened.
“I had a tooth that was bothering me so I went outside and asked a construction worker if I could borrow a wrench.” He shows me an off-color fang that was in his mouth 10 minutes ago. Pool tosses it into the trash. He flashes a gap-toothed smile. “Now I can enjoy my coffee.”
It’s showtime before this can be fully processed. McAfee takes the stage. Andrew sits off to the side on a stool. McAfee asks for a volunteer from the audience who is willing to give him a personal phone number and the number of someone in a contact list.
A man takes the stage and gives him the number of his friend Katie. McAfee pushes some buttons on his phone and calls the man. It rings and the number comes up as Katie’s, but when the man answers he doesn’t hear Katie’s voice — he hears McAfee’s.
“What I did was a simple test called spoofing; I can make anybody look like they’re calling anybody,” says McAfee. “What I just did could be done by any 12-year-old boy. Our mobile phones have become the greatest spy on the planet.”
McAfee says he is going to dial Andrew from his phone. Andrew has an ordinary phone except for the fact McAfee has in-stalled a flashlight app on it. But unlike most flashlight apps that provide light, this flashlight app forces on the camera on Andrew’s phone. Almost immediately, McAfee receives a photograph on his phone. It is of Andrew’s face.
The room oohs and aahs.
“These apps are not all designed by Google or IBM,” says McAfee. “Some of them are designed by two guys in Korea. We know nothing about these people.”
McAfee then moves into a pitch for his D-Central and D-Vasive apps. The red light flashes, and his time is up. Offstage, he looks depressed. “That audience doesn’t get it or they don’t care.” He looks around backstage. “Well, at least I made 25 grand.” He brightens only when a fat man with a parrot on his shoulder asks for his email. McAfee scribbles down the parrot guy’s email. “I think that guy is the only one here who knows what I’m talking about,” says McAfee.
At the airport, McAfee isn’t selected for further TSA screening. He is perplexed and a little angry. He downs a large gulp of vodka he had poured into a juice bottle. Pool makes a joke.
“John, maybe it’s because you’re too old.”
At dawn, we land in Atlanta, and the six-hour drive to Lexington passes in a haze. The Blazer fills up with cigarette smoke as Pool and McAfee check their arsenal: a Smith & Wesson.40, a.380 Ruger, and another three or four handguns in the front seat. “I like to have a small one in my waistband,” says McAfee. “Sitting on the toilet is a real vulnerable position.”
Pool eyes a fellow driver nervously before gunning the truck out of range. McAfee tells me that when he was fleeing whomever, the safest place at night was parked between two truckers at a rest stop. “Those truckers don’t fuck around.”
The drive goes on, and McAfee promises he will play for me an audio smoking gun: a conversation he taped with John Zabaneh, a shadowy Belizean businessman and known drug trafficker who, McAfee says, admitted that the cartel is after him. I fall asleep to Pool and McAfee singing along to Paul Simon’s “Slip Slidin’ Away.”
The next day, John McAfee welcomes me to his home or, more correctly, the main floor, because the rest of the place is booby-trapped. The dining room table is covered in bullets, a semiautomatic rifle, a pistol, and a handful of burner phones. The Zabaneh listening party is delayed because McAfee wants to walk the property. It’s two hilly acres with plenty of trees, and sunlight slipping through the branches. He tells me to be careful because there are fish hooks strung between trees to lasso intruders. Just last month, he says, two gunshots were fired at his property. Unfortunately, the only ones home were McAfee and a 10-year-old boy who was helping with yard work.
He tells me the cream cheese theory and then pauses underneath a tree, looking at the ground. “See how smooth that is, no leaves? That shows me someone was here and they were dragging something. Now where does this go?” Within minutes, McAfee is on the ground underneath his deck. There’s a slight indentation in the dirt. “They were digging down here, but why? To pump nerve gas into the house, that’d be easy to do.” McAfee lets out a yelp and holds up a copper-colored rock.
“See this rock? It’s from a Mexican village. The cartel guys bring it with them to remind them of home. You won’t find another rock like this on the property.”
Except I do, 50 feet away, a great big pile of copper rocks. McAfee triumphantly holds up a blue lighter. “This lighter is fresh. Now tell me someone wasn’t here.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that’s his own lighter, which he used to light his cigarette 15 minutes ago. McAfee keeps digging for a half-hour before holding up a fistful of wire. Bob wanders outside at the ruckus. He takes a look at the wire.
“I think that’s just cable wire from the Nineties. Every house has it.”
McAfee looks crestfallen.
“OK, fair enough.”
Sunlight is fading and McAfee looks at his watch.
“Jesus, it’s going to be dark soon. I can’t have anyone over after dark; it’s a security risk. You have to go; we’ll listen to the tapes tomorrow.”
That night I creep my rental car past John McAfee’s property twice, but I don’t see any activity, no spotter in the window, no Mexican cartel dudes eating cream cheese. The next morning, I ring McAfee’s door at 10 am, and despite his dog howling, no one comes. I return a couple of hours later, and there’s no answer, but as I walk to my car I hear McAfee’s voice. He’s in a robe and his eyes are unfocused. He tells me to come in and wait at the gun table while he takes a shower. He reappears, better dressed but still wobbly. It was a rough night. He swears he saw four men outside in the dark but couldn’t get a picture because of the mattresses covering his windows. He charged after them, brandishing a gun. He heard only one voice. It was John Pool.
“Get the hell back in the house!”
McAfee makes us tequila sunrises. I ask him what he thinks his father — who committed suicide when McAfee was 15 — would think of his life. “He would be proud,” says McAfee unsteadily. “But he was an alcoholic and abusive; it would have been better if he’d killed himself sooner.”
I wonder aloud whether his reduced circumstances — Belizean estate to ramshackle home in Tennessee — are real this time or another contrivance. He shrugs and says nothing, offering a Cheshire grin. Then I ask a simple question: Maybe he is too paranoid, while the rest of America needs to be more paranoid?
“Probably true, but you’d be paranoid if you’ve lived through what I lived through,” says McAfee. He takes a long slug from his drink and suddenly looks very old. “America is in a state of somnolence. It’s an avoidance of paranoia through ignoring reality. Mine is an enhanced paranoia, but I may be enhancing reality.”
He then plays the Zabaneh tape. It’s a scratchy recorded cell conversation, in which Zabaneh seems more baffled as to how McAfee got his number, and actually denies having anything to do with the cartel chasing him across the known world.
The tape is inconclusive, like all things McAfee. With Janice gone and Pool sleeping off the night, John is at loose ends. While the D-Central app is free, he admits that the more sophisticated D-Vasive app has been a commercial failure, selling about 5,000 copies at $5.98. But he swears they both will vault to the top of the apps charts as soon as the Russians or the Chinese or the Koreans post those pics of American teens in the shower.
Other cyber-security experts doubt his faith. Jarret Raim at Rackspace brings up an interesting point about last year’s hacking of celebrity nudes. “Most of the ire was at Apple; it wasn’t like, ‘We need to buy McAfee.’ It was, ‘Why the fuck did you let this happen?’ Apple is the big kid on the block; they’re going to fix that.”
In other words, people aren’t likely to run out to McAfee in case of security Armageddon. They’re going to turn to their overlords at Google and Apple to fix things, and fix they will, because they have billions at stake. The best McAfee can hope for is to have his concept bought out.
Just as significantly, other apps are already passing D-Vasive by. Security expert Babak Pasdar estimates there are 25 or so apps that do what McAfee’s do. He told me about a company called CopilotFamily that allows parents to remotely deactivate their kids’ phones if they think they’re interacting with someone dangerous. Still, McAfee trudges on, a not-quite-false prophet without honor. He pours another drink and stirs it with his long fingers. “I’m doing this because people need to wake up,” he says. “If they don’t, I’m going to resign from this society and live in a fucking cave for the remaining years of my life.”
We leave his current cave and drive around town, the same streets where, in August, McAfee will be pulled over for DUI and possession of a firearm while intoxicated. (He’ll blame a new Xanax prescription.) McAfee wants me to meet the police commissioner, who he swears is his friend. But he forgets it’s Saturday and no one is around. It’s time for me to go. McAfee gives me a final warning.
“Be careful: Now that you know me, they’re watching you, too.”
We never did find those cream cheese packets.As the country's 22 refugee centres overflow, the zoo is being used to handle those picked up on the streets
There are so many African migrants in Libya wanting to make the dangerous trip to Europe that Tripoli zoo has been turned into a processing centre for them.
With the country's 22 refugee centres overflowing, the zoo – closed since the 2011 uprising – is being used to handle those picked up on the streets. More than 50 people are brought there every day.
"The numbers arriving here are changing in an unbelievable way," said Said Ben Suleiman, deputy commander of 20 Support Brigade, which operates the detention centre. "We deport 10 and we find hundreds coming back."
The smuggling gangs stay one step ahead of the authorities. As police have stepped up their ability to catch people traffickers, so smugglers have developed a new and dangerous way to avoid capture.
"Traffickers make sure they're nowhere near the migrants when the boats arrive to pick them up," Suleiman said. "What they do, they buy a cheap boat, then they give one of the migrants the keys, so the captain is chosen from among them. It means they go to sea with no training."
He thinks this practice may have led to the Lampedusa boat disaster, as migrants head to the sea with neither training nor navigational skills.
However, he does not expect the disaster to deter would-be migrants. "These guys don't care, all they are thinking is get to Europe."
Many arrive in Tripoli unable to afford the journey, with prices for a place on a boat starting at €1,000 (£850). "They all have in the back of their mind that Europe is better than Libya, but the trip is a lot of money," he said. "They all want it [Europe], but they can't all afford it."
For those facing deportation it is hard to know what to feel: pity that all those hard miles have come to nothing, or relief they won't be attempting the parlous journey north.
Abdul Rahman Ali, a 27-year-old from Niger who is expecting deportation after being picked up by police, paid smugglers a total of 700 dinars (£350) to make the long journey north across the Sahara to Tripoli.
Dressed in a gold-and-white striped shirt and sandals, he said the first leg of his trip was the crossing from Niger over Libya's Sahara desert border to Sabha, capital of Libya's southern Fezzan province: "It was a four-day trip to Sabha in a 4x4. When we got there there was a new group [of smugglers] and we had to pay again.
"They took us in another pickup, 14 of us crammed under canvas so we would not be spotted. We drove up the main highway, but there are checkpoints so we kept having to detour through desert."
Ali said he made the journey with two friends: one became sick in Sabha and returned to Niger, the other was arrested two days after arriving in Tripoli.
Back home, he says, conditions are grim and wages low. "In Niger there is work, but its maybe 10 [dinar] a day. In Libya you can earn five times that. Everyone I know wants to migrate."
People smuggling is big business in a country where economic stagnation is the rule. The most popular embarkation point in the capital is not some out-of-the-way port, but Gagaresh, the capital's equivalent of Oxford Street.
A glass-fronted branch of Debenhams has just opened here, across the road from Marks and Spencer, but a few streets away the beachfront is home to a very different trade.
The long smooth beach is ideal for the people-smugglers to bring their boats, and local residents are used to the tell-tale lanterns of the migrants on the beach at night.
"Just before Ramadan we caught 90 people trying to leave Gagaresh beach in a little boat for Italy. They have pregnant women on these boats – there was a baby a few months old," said Suleiman.
The International Office of Migration said Libya has yet to request an assistance programme, and repatriation flights it runs for some Africans to return home are rejected by asylum seekers from the horn of Africa. "We have an active program of voluntary repatriation but nobody goes back to Somalia or Eritrea," said IOM spokesman Chris Lom.Update, 5.2.2016: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is not compatible due to extra long secrets.
We are proude to announce the release of a beta firmware containing a new feature of one time passwords: OATH One time passwords are (another) way to securely authenticate users (but not to encrypt data). Other than proprietary mechanisms, OATH is a young and open standard (RFC 4226, |
point in working so hard, having a blind eye on your deteriorating health, just to make some money and support your loved ones. In the end, it's your life, your retirement and you deserve to do the things you love in life.
The best way to be healthy is to act NOW. Don't take your health for granted -- your knees aren't going to be same as they are today. Exercise and strengthen your body, refine your mental health through practising mindfulness and meditation. You are what you eat; eat a healthy diet to boost your immune system. And most importantly, stop blaming your busy schedule for the lack of time. It all comes down to our determination. We always seem to have no problems finding time for lunch and coffee, then why can't we schedule a workout?
2. Realise Your Goals
Knowing your purpose in life is a difficult journey and requires a lot of soul searching.
Your goal should never to be happy -- happiness is just a byproduct of doing something that you are passionate about.
Your goal should never to be wealthy -- who doesn't want money? Money should be a natural byproduct of your work and the value you provide to others.
Call me idealistic, but if you don't like your job and you are miserable, maybe that job isn't for you. If you find your work mundane, see no light at the end of the tunnel, what does it matter that it pays your rent and bills? Every moment of your life is your life. If you are not passionate about what you do, if your job is not in align with your higher purposes in life; the chances of earning more and getting that promotion at your workplace is slim to none. Realise your dreams and visions, when you know what you want in life, the opportunities, the people and the resources will naturally gravitate towards you.Premier Rachel Notley says by opposing Bill 24, Jason Kenney is failing to stand up for some of the most vulnerable youth in Alberta.
Bill 24, an Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances, would make it illegal for teachers to inform parents if their child had joined a GSA, unless the child consented.
Kenney, United Conservative party leader, said Tuesday the act gives the education minister unnecessary powers and is a “desperate attempt” by the government to deflect attention away from its failed fiscal policies.
He also accused the NDP of introducing Bill 24 as “a political instrument to attack their partisan opponents as part of their desperate effort to talk about anything but their failed economic record.”
Notley dismissed that suggestion Tuesday.
“Jason Kenney had a chance to show Albertans that he had changed and would not be trying to drag the province backwards, but he’s not taking that opportunity,” she said.
“What it also means is he’s not prepared to stand up on behalf of the most vulnerable kids in our school system.”
Kenney said the UCP caucus — which has been under his direction for a little over a week now — reached a consensus to oppose Bill 24.
At a news conference Tuesday, he said the unique circumstances of each child should be the key factor in determining when parents are told their child is in a GSA, “not the blunt instrument of law.”
“We believe that highly trained educators are in a much better position than politicians to exercise their discretion on whether it is in the best interests of children to engage parents,” he said.
Notley fired back that the bill ensures better protections for kids who need it.
“It ensures overall that we have inclusive schools that respect the basic human rights of kids who are part of any minority,” she said. “This is basic stuff.”
Protecting kids
Education Minister David Eggen said last week the government felt the new legislation is necessary to protect students against being “outed” to their parents.
He blamed Kenney for making Bill 24 necessary, pointing how Kenney told Postmedia in March that “parents have a right to know what’s going on with their kids in the schools unless the parents are abusive.”
The GSA issue was brought up time and again during the push for conservative unity and the recent UCP leadership race.
Notley said although her government has been working on the bill for a long time, the section that makes it crystal clear gay kids cannot be outed was added in the summer in response to those conversations.
UCP house leader Jason Nixon confirmed Tuesday UCP MLAs will not be told by the party leadership how to vote on Bill 24.
Kenney’s position ensures Bill 24 will become the focal point of debate between the NDP and UCP during the fall sitting of the legislature.
Kenney also used his news conference Tuesday to demand Notley call a byelection in Calgary-Lougheed to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of UCP MLA Dave Rodney.
Rodney stepped down last week to give Kenney an opportunity to win a seat in the legislature.
Notley said she will call the byelection “in due course.”
egraney@postmedia.com
twitter.com/EmmaLGraneySen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee rebuked President Donald Trump amid reports he was "disappointed in the Justice Department" for "not looking at the Democrats."
"Like me, most Americans hope that our justice system is independent and free of political interference," Corker said in a statement.
"President Trump's pressuring of the Justice Department and FBI to pursue cases against his adversaries and calling for punishment before trials take place are totally inappropriate and not only undermine our justice system but erode the American people's confidence in our institutions," Corker's statement continued.
On Friday, Trump railed against the Justice Department and FBI in a series of statements and tweets.
"People are angry," Trump tweeted. "At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!"
Trump expanded on his feelings towards the Justice Department while speaking to reporters.
"I'm really not involved with the Justice Department," Trump said Friday. "I'd like to let it run itself."
"But, honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats," the president continued, referring to Hillary Clinton and the contentious 2016 US Presidential campaign.
Trump also refused to rule out firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, after reports emerged that Sessions was a target of Trump's ire, particularly after his decision to recuse himself from the ongoing Russia investigation.
"I don't know," Trump said in response to whether he was firing Sessions.
Corker, a vocal critic of Trump, has long been at odds with the administration. After Corker announced he would not be seeking reelection, Trump, in a series of tweets, ragged on the senator.
"Senator Bob Corker 'begged' me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee," Trump said in a pair of tweets. "I said 'NO' and he dropped out (said he could not win without...my endorsement). He also wanted to be Secretary of State, I said 'NO THANKS.' He is also largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal!"It looks more like a kinetic sculpture than those modern, iconic wind turbines turning atop the hills of Southern California in great number. But the Eddy vertical axis wind turbine produces up to 600W of renewable energy–using wind from any direction.
The Eddy (which comes to us via Ecofriend) weighs around 17 pounds and is around 4.5 feet wide and 5 feet tall, with a rated power output of about 600W and a cut-in speed of just 3.5m/s. It’s safe in winds of more than 120mph and has an engineered lifetime of about 20 years. Its carbon fiber and fiberglass turbine blades top out at 200 rpm.
Urban Green Energy, the makers of Eddy, are–as the name would suggest–dedicated to renewable energy solutions for urban centers. Towards that end, this lightweight, omnidirectional turbine only generates about 38dB at 12m/s wind speed–a level of noise which they claim is halfway between a whisper (15dB) and normal conversation (60dB).
Like what you are reading? Did you know EarthTechling writes up in-depth reviews of green technology products? Check it out!Last Huntress - Chapter 7
-Bad Blood-
The roar of Bumblebee generated a rather pleasant sense of power as Ruby weaved around another car, catching a good look of the angry expression dominating the driver's face as she moved in front of him. Once the road ahead was free, she opened up on the throttle and increased her already reckless speed. Already more rain was beginning to fall, stinging her face and arms as the drops whipped against her skin as she cruised through the streets leading into the depths of the Human side of the Residential District.
Rows and rows of apartment buildings, painted a variety of colors and towering over the size she was used to, were of much higher quality than anything she had seen closer to the Line. It was rare she came this far into the upper class areas of Vale; most of her targets resided in the filth near her own home. It seemed alien after all this time, the idea that someone was living in luxury. That not everyone was looking up from the gutter.
Ruby eased on the brakes as she approached a red light, coming to a full stop at the intersection and letting a boot down to hold the bike upright. She flicked her wolfish ears in an attempt to shake off some of the rain that was trickling through her fur, causing an itchy sensation. The sunlight that had lit up so many of the streets on her journey here was slowly beginning to dwindle away as the storm clouds rolled overhead, finally having arrived.
But the temperature did not drop with their arrival, maintaining the warmth that would slowly be drained away over the next few hours. A thought that she should have worn a jacket was brushed aside almost instantly, Ruby knew that she would not need long to get the information she wanted.
Re-balancing the motorcycle towards the middle, she pulled back on the throttle and resumed her way to the Crimson Quarter, a growing knot gnawing on her stomach as she grew closer to her destination. She hated the Crimson Quarter. It was officially part of the Entertainment District, a small sliver of real estate that lay between the Residential and Industrial Districts, but it was so different from the other Quarters.
Where the southern stretch of Entertainment encompassed an area of upscale bars and classy joints like Junior's club, the Crimson Quarter was a place of unbridled debauchery and untamed passions. An endless swath of clubs and outdoor raves, where one party would blend into another and whole blocks were nothing but a mess of music and flesh. Drugs were used openly, clothing was optional as often as not, and even Ruby had avoided the place unless at the lowest of her lows.
It was a symbol of everything the city had become since the Barricade was erected, a monument drenched in shit to the fact the Grimm could no longer reach them here. Without the threat of monsters who were drawn by powerful emotions, a society that had repressed themselves for decades had suddenly unleashed all its desires. Ruby had once jokingly referred to the Quarter as an unending orgy, but now she was the one who would be careful where she stepped on the streets.
An involuntary shudder traveled through her spine as she pulled Bumblebee into a parking garage and headed up the ramp to the second floor, because she knew the sex and drugs were far from the worst things about the Quarter. At the northernmost tip lay an area of four blocks that had been demolished a few years ago and remade into a club named 'Jack o' Hearts', the base of The Gentlemen, a gang so violent that their only remaining rivals were the militant White Fang.
It was in the 'Jack o' Hearts' that the Crimson Quarter earned its namesake, as well. The center of the club was a colosseum that had been dug into the earth. A vicious pit filled with traps and captured animals where those who crossed The Gentlemen were indentured as gladiators and sacrificed to the amusement of a crowd. Not officially, of course. But it was one of those secrets that everyone knew, and no good natured person could do anything about it without incurring great harm to themselves.
As the good Captain Nikos would say, 'A battle for another time, when we are better prepared and backed by a less corrupt city.' It was always a charming thought that the faction of the police force that remained incorruptible would ever be powerful enough to tackle this Quarter.
Ruby twirled the keys of the motorcycle around her index finger once before slipping them into her front pocket, patting it once before making her way to the exit of the garage. The roads of the Quarter from this point on would be too packed to traverse safely on anything other than her feet. A sigh escaped her lips at that thought, but she stepped forward into the street nonetheless.
Immediately her senses were assaulted. The dull thud of electronic music became a blaring siren that caused her wolf ears to fold back over her hair, the smell of sweat and the musky scent of sex caused her sensitive nose to wrinkle, and she was greeted by the hundreds of neon signs that signaled places of business as if calling out to some god of neon. Ruby was glad that she was only a few blocks from her destination at this point.
Unfortunately, the streets surrounding the 'Jack o' Hearts' were home to the greatest parties, and as such were also packed to the point of bursting. She dodged a drunkard who stumbled past, and slipped through the middle of a group of older men who smelled of drink and a scent that she had come to associate with strip clubs. Equal parts sweat, pent up desperation, and glitter.
A more creative sidestep was required to get out of the way of two police officers who almost walked right over her, never once glancing in her direction as they passed. For a Quarter so often patrolled by dedicated officers, Crimson never lacked for open and brazen crimes. In truth, anything short of drawing blood wouldn't get someone arrested here, not with all the cops in Quarter on the payroll of The Gentlemen.
The police kept the streets from getting too violent or drawing too much attention. Then, if they looked the other way when faced with the various lesser crimes that dominated the Quarter, they got paid. Officers who didn't fall in line quickly found themselves cut out of the force entirely, and it wasn't difficult to see what the true status quo was.
On the flip side of that, it was also the only place in the city that Faunus could make a decent wage as servers, or.. Ruby paused her thought as she was winked at by a fox-girl who was pressed up against a nearby pillar, a human slobbering on her neck as her legs were hoisted up. A smirk slid over Ruby's lips as she noticed the hungry look that came her way. Escort or not, it was good to have someone look at her and approve.
But those were the two options for Faunus who sought after better work than most got in the factories of the Industrial District; join the legion of waitresses, valets, and busboys within the Crimson Quarter, or peddle in flesh and let yourself be used by the fetishists that came seeking an animal to tame. Of course, some humans even encroached upon that territory, with the advancement in cybernetics in recent years. While it wasn't common, because of the stigma attached to being a Faunus, some spent exorbitant amounts in order to swing a tail or twitch an ear of their own. But the truly devoted, the ones that really got off on sleeping with a Faunus, they wanted ears and tails you could feel a pulse through.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a pair of dainty hands that took her own and pulled her to the side of the road. For a brief moment, Ruby was concerned she was either under attack or being distracted for a quick pick pocketing, but her assailant's goals were not so nefarious. The shorter wolf-girl instead pulled her close until their bodies were flush to one another.
Ruby's hand brushed a warm ear as she leaned into the embrace, lips meeting the other woman's in a strange sort of passion. It was a kiss that tasted of hunger, of desire, as the other Faunus' tongue grazed her own. Ruby was more than happy to oblige, at least until her wits returned and she pulled back from the stranger. Though it wasn't disgust that had prompted the retreat - in truth it was rather enjoyable, but curiosity caused clarity to wash over her mind.
The shorter wolf-girl peered up at her with light blue eyes, eyelashes fluttering and bottom lip caught between teeth. A warm blush had flooded through both their cheeks, but the shuddering gasp that escaped the other Faunus was one of pleasure. "Damn, I might just let you have it for free." It wasn't hard for her to guess what the younger girl's profession was, even before the strange compliment.
Gently wrapping her fingers around the other wolf's wrists, Ruby pulled the hands that were settled on her chest away from her body. A low growl of frustration sounded as she looked the shorter Faunus over. Sky blue eyes, gray fur. It worked well in the most agonizing way.
"Maybe some other time." Ruby stopped the woman from slipping away immediately, instead reaching down and drawing a business card from her back pocket. It wasn't anything fancy, just a name and scroll number. She carried a few of these around, just in case she ever came across a prospective client. They weren't used often, and the corners were frayed from the time they had spent alongside her wallet. She held it up between two fingers, and sly smirk playing across her lips. "Call me?"
A brief nod was her only answer as the card was snatched away, but a dainty hand snaked its way around the back of her neck to pull her down into a more chaste kiss. This one lasted mere moments, leaving her a bit off balance by the sudden feel of another's lips on hers that disappeared as quickly as they had arrived as the other wolf slipped out from under her and continued on her way.
Ruby took a moment to collect herself as she stared at the crowds that now obscured the woman, her hands dipping down to her belt and pockets to make sure that everything was accounted for before she turned to resume her journey. One could never be too careful in a place like this.
It wasn't often she was in the Crimson Quarter, only a handful of times in the last four years, but each trip had opened Ruby's eyes to the habits of her own species, and pillow talk with a working girl had revealed it was her ears that led to such incidents like the one she had just experienced. Recent years of unleashed libido had generated a number of theories, and large, healthy ears supposedly meant a good lay. Not that she had ever bragged as being such, but it certainly didn't hurt her chances when she was the one carrying the torch.
Crimson was a whole other world from Vale, where laws and things like personal space no longer mattered. Ruby still wasn't used to it. She wasn't sure she ever would be, she wasn't sure she ever should be.
The 'Jack o' Hearts' was a large, imposing building. A square foundation was built two stories up from the ground before revealing the rounded structure that rose into the stormy sky, standing taller than all the other buildings in the Quarter. It made her lips twist into a frown, as the structure reminded her of the sinister nature hidden within, of the Crimson Pits. Home to the violent death matches between the unfortunates of Vale; the addicted, the poor who had loaned money from the wrong person, those who no one else would come looking for. There were even rumors that wild animals were let loose into the colosseum's ring, just to keep things interesting.
Another haunting chorus of cheers rose from the building as Ruby stepped out of the alley she had been traveling through, now on the other side of the street from the club. The entrance lay straight ahead, but the road was packed full of the line that weaved from one end of the block before coming all the way back. It was the most exclusive club in the city, and there was a large appetite to whet for a population that had been starved of such entertainment their whole lives.
Bloodletting was a favorite pastime. A natural evolution from the combat tournaments and rock star fame of the now-disbanded hunters, she supposed.
Natural or not, the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth. Sure, she had killed things before. Mostly Grimm during her time at Beacon, some stray animals that wandered the city streets at night and had to be put down when hunger drove them to insanity. A couple of bounties had ended with her target on a slab in a morgue, though those had met their ends due to running from her, not her own hands. In the end, it didn't matter where the fault lay in the eyes of the law. She still saw them, all of them, even the monstrous misshapen beasts of Grimm. Death haunted her sleep without reservation. To think that some cheered for it, watched with glee as those who had never held a sword were cut down, that is what bothered her most. After all, who would ask for such memories? She had tried her best to drown them out with all the vices that dulled the mind, and at best they had simply been temporarily muted for all her efforts.
Swallowing back the feelings that churned within her stomach, Ruby stepped out into the street. She did not move to join the end of the line, but instead pushed through the rows of humans that had come for a evening of fine liquor and bloodshed. A new chorus rose around her, building quickly from annoyed grumbling to shouts directing her to the back of the line. All fell on deaf ears as she slid around a rather large gentleman to sidle up in front of the two bouncers that flanked the door. In the center stood a third man, looking even more wiry than he normally would have, an effect caused by being placed between two meatheads with biceps larger than his head.
Behind him, the massive door to the 'Jack o' Hearts' pulsed with a stylized version of a jack-o'-lantern. It was similar to the kind that Yang and her used to carve during Salem's Hallows, but the differences were what made it disconcerting. Instead of solid edges and a badly carved smile, this lantern sported a vicious grin with jagged teeth. Where solid edges should have been, they only melted down and dripped from the electronic dance before the whole image faded away. Pitch black against the uniform stone of the structure's walls, the massive holoscreen repeated its dance once more as the man leaning against the door lazily glanced up at her over the edges of his clipboard, looking mildly interested in finding what was causing all the complaints.
Ruby stood tall under the studious gaze, quietly watching as dark red eyes traveled down her body before sliding back up. Without so much as a blink, the doorman jerked a thumb to the side of the club. "Employee entrance is in the back." His eyes returned to the clipboard.
"I want to see him." Those irises snapped back up to her, their previous lethargy gone. Instead, a dangerous fire burned within those orbs now. Anger. Ruby felt her ears flick as she took another step forward, ignoring the sweaty hand that pawed at her shoulder as one of the patrons thought to put her back in the line himself. But it seemed the poor man wouldn't leave it alone, as he fumbled at her one more time. Short, fat fingers closed about her bare shoulder.
In an instant, the atmosphere changed. A low growl came from her throat as she bared her teeth. Her hand slipped down to the grip of her revolver, pulling it free of the holster with a practiced ease as she aimed it at the fool who had suddenly quieted his protests that she was cutting the queue. All the while Ruby's eyes never left the door man, even as he glanced over her to peer at the civilian who now had both hands in the air. "He'll want to see me," Her thumb pulled back the hammer. "Right now."
Silence descended on the previously loud street, and for a moment all that could be heard was the dull beat of club music from inside the structure they stood outside of. At least until some moron excitedly whispered if they'd get to see the show for free. Ruby remained unperturbed as she stared daggers into the doorman, who finally reacted. Maroon eyes rolled as he gave a heavy shrug and reached down to pull a scroll from his pocket.
He turned away from her to mask his conversation, and spoke quietly enough that even a Faunus like her had trouble picking up more than a couple words. She was fairly sure she had caught 'wolf' and'silver' though. It was more than enough to get what she wanted. He hung up almost as quickly as he had dialed the call, giving a grunt and moving to the side, his hand pushing the door to 'Jack o' Hearts' open. "Go on."
Letting her thumb click the hammer back into place, Ruby smirked as she glanced back at the man she had threatened. Beady eyes watched her warily as she spun the revolver once before placing it back at her hip, and she strode through the open door, not the least bit worried how she would now become a story that would be told around the clubbing scene for weeks to come.
This wasn't a hunt, it wasn't a bounty. This was a job that did not require stealth, and this club held information that she would have to come by with force.
From the moment Ruby entered the club, she was shepherded towards her destination. A man in a finely tailored black suit with red sunglasses barred her way into the main part of the club, instead pointing towards the stairs that lay to the right. Once she had turned and begun to ascend, he and another of The Gentlemen followed her silently, flanking on either side as if she was going to try something.
As she drew closer to her goal, the roaring of the well lubricated crowd grew ever louder. Even the thick stone that separated the stairs from the levels of the club could not silence the sudden intensity that obvious marked a kill in the Pits below. These cries grew louder each time she passed one of the doors that led into the main area, guarded as they were. It seemed that paranoia at her arrival had taken root, each of these exits from the circular stairwell had gangsters posted out front of them, wearing the same uniforms as the two that were escorting her.
When she finally reached the top, seven levels above where she had entered the building, the seemingly endless stairs that circled around the strange structure finally took a sharp left into a short hallway. Two more stood guard at the open door, their red-tinted glasses angled, revealing a slight glance in her direction before resuming the straight ahead stare they had been wearing before her arrival.
It seemed as good an invitation as any, as she stepped into the penthouse at the top of the club. The walls and ceiling, even the floors were made of glass, affording a bird's eye view of the arena below. Various couches of love seats were arranged all around the enormous room, housing the VIPs and their escorts. It seemed shame was as prevalent here as the rest of the quarter, as a couple of the guests had paused in mid-thrust to stop and stare at her intrusion.
But what the room truly was, when it boiled down to it, was a throne room. The seat of an empire built on blood and cash. And it's king sat at a table, his conversation with several other important looking citizens on hold as he stared over the lip of a crystal cocktail glass at her, the black bowler hat atop his head tilted to the side.
Her view of him was interrupted when a woman slid into view in front of her. Shorter than her and sporting a hairstyle that incorporated three different colors, Neo impatiently waved a hand, beckoning her to raise her arms. Ruby did as she was asked by the mute, musing in her thoughts how little the other woman had changed in the time since she had last seen her. Small hands ran down her sides, taking their time as she was searched for weapons before fingers hooked over the edges of her belt.
Ruby glanced down at the pause, finding two mismatched eyes beaming up at her above a wicked smile as fingers deftly unbuckled the belt that held her holstered weapon. Not one to be intimidated by the little psychopath's flirtatious game, she gave a bored expression and allowed the search to resume. After a quick pat down of her legs, Neo seemed satisfied and walked back towards the table she had risen from, winding the leather belt around the holster that carried Ruby's revolver.
By then the man had risen from the table and was standing in the center of the room, a grin on his face as he spoke to her. "Little Red, Little Red.. It's good to see you again." Roman Torchwick made a show of flinging his arms out wide as if playing the part of a generous host. "Welcome to the Crimson Quarter! Where the lien never stops flowing and the party never ends!" The slight growl that his words took on at the end of his greeting made it very clear that her presence her was, at best, unwelcome.
His white suit was as impeccable as she remembered, and the styled flourish of makeup beneath his left and only visible eye fitting right into place and accentuating the bright green iris above it. "Been almost four years now, hasn't it? Four years.. You never call, you never write. Here I thought we meant something to each other, Red."
With her lips set into a decisive frown, Ruby felt no need to play into his games or distractions. "You heard about Russel, I assume?"
Sitting at his side, Neo bristled at the comment, the short woman's dark brown eyes carrying a whole new layer of crazy. Roman raised a hand to still her before calmly answering. "I did. I also heard it was you who took him down." Dragging his cane off the table he had been sitting at, the man her twirled the weapon once before setting its point down against the floor and leaning slightly forward on it. "Quite a dangerous game to be playing, walking in here after doing that. Most people would think you've come here to take your revenge, go down fighting trying to bring down an evil gang lord. 'Course you never were that bright, so would I really be surprised if that were the case?"
"Relax, Torchwick. I just came for information." Ruby raised her hands up, palms outward as she spoke. This was a long shot to begin with, and agitating the situation was going to get her nowhere very quickly. "Now I know that Russel was your guy, your muscle over in the Residential District. But I don't think you're stupid enough to order a hit on the White Fang. Not with that treaty you fought so hard to get established."
The man before her barked out a laugh as his grin grew ever wider. "That piece of paper? All it's done for me is make it much harder to put down the unruly animals that run about Vale and make a mess of things." Roman turned away from her, moving to the side towards a woman Ruby had not paid much attention to before. "Luckily, some of you beasts.."
The woman looked to be around the the same age as her, wearing a skin tight mesh leotard, it's material revealing enough skin to be enticing while hiding enough to keep things interesting. A paisley pattern of vines connected to a bright orange symbol set above her stomach that mirrored the vicious jack-o'-lantern on the club's entrance, and while a beautiful girl in lingerie could draw her gaze, what stunned Ruby was the leather collar around the slender neck, bearing a name stamped across it. Auburn.
One of Roman's fingers grazed along the collar while his other hand scratched at the fur of a fox ear that rose from the young woman's hair. "Some of you beasts know your place in the world." Auburn nuzzled into his hand while shooting Ruby a smile that whispered of sin. She glared back at the whore, an expression that brought some amusement to her adversary. "You want to punish her? I could let you, you know. Because she's mine, because she wants to make me happy."
There was no change in the expression on Auburn's face, but Ruby dropped the glare and instead let out a long sigh, signaling to Torchwick that the torment was over. That she was not going to play into his hands any further. He seemed to take the hint, releasing the fox girl and turning back to face her. "I didn't order the hit, and I wasn't the one holding Russel's leash."
The revelation caused the pressure in her chest to abate for a moment, just long enough to let her take in a breath of relief. "I don't use assassins. You know that, though." An involuntary growl escaped her, rumbling from her throat before she had a chance to rein in it. She knew it intimately, having seen the effects of his traps and explosives on her friends during the years she spent hunting him down.
A snicker came from the man in the bowler hat, a jovial sound laced with a sense of danger as he watched her. "You knew that, and still you walked in here. Because you hoped I wouldn't kill you on sight, that I wasn't the one you were looking for? Or.. Is it that you hoped I was, so that you could finally deliver that justice I so richly deserve?" This time he threw his head back and laughed, thinking he had the right answer. "And in doing so, you could end your own miserable existence trying to finish what you started all those years ago!"
Ruby took a step back from Torchwick, from his unsettling grin. She fought the urge to strike out at his words, to attack him. She forced herself to not take what he had said to a personal level. "Whatever happened back then.. It doesn't matter now." Slowly unclenching her fists, she turned to leave, only to find her way blocked by the two gangsters that had followed her up here.
"Oh I think it matters now, Red." She whirled back around to face him as the other occupants of the room, likely city officials and officers from the upper echelons of the police force, watched their conversation with a macabre interest. "I think I'm owed some back pay for.. Hm, let's call it grievances. Emotional damage? I guess it doesn't really matter so long as I get my pound of flesh."
The anger that had been stewing within her chest since she had realized just how complacent Auburn was with the situation finally boiled over. Roman had poked and prodded her too much, and her fists clenched so hard that she felt nails dig into the skin of her palms as her knuckles turned an even paler white. Ruby bared her teeth and snarled as she took a step toward her target, breaking into a run with the very next movement.
She only made it a few feet before two pairs of arms closed about her and yanked her back. From her captured position, she thrashed against the gangsters that held her and screamed at the man who hadn't even bat an eye at her actions. "Lost a lot of your touch haven't you, Red? A few years ago it would have been poof! Rose petals and you were right next to me. Now look at you. So disappointing.." He reached out to grab her chin, only to retreat when she bit at him like a rabid dog. "But unsurprising for a mutt."
Ruby kicked her legs against the air in a futile attempt to find purchase on the ground or one of her captors to get a chance at the man who mocked her, all rational thought swept away in the face of fury. "Oh well, a warm body is always good for something in the arena. I'm sure I can even sell out a crowd on the chance to see a former Huntress in the ring."
"But, oh, wait.." His green eye caught her gaze as he grinned down at her, and she glared back up at him. "You never really were a Huntress. Were you, Red?"
Ruby bit at him again, crying out in an inarticulate scream as the anger tore at her and allowed the power of speech to return. The fingers wrapped about her arms tightened and large hands pushed down on her shoulders to keep her on the floor, and all her straining accomplished was a feeling of pain that lanced through her chest, across the section of ribs that she had bruised earlier. "I'll kill you, Torchwick!"
He had walked a few feet away from her at that point, and glanced back with a bored expression as she yelled, but his gaze did not settle on her. Instead, he looked to the men holding her. "Muzzle that bitch."
She tried to fight, but she could not stop the collar that was wrapped about her throat from behind and pulled back. It cut off her ability to breathe, and air became an even more precious resource as a fist was driven into her gut and forced the air from her lungs, causing her to go slack long enough for the leather band to be tightened and secured around her neck.
Forced onto her knees and panting, Ruby strained her back against the muscled arms that pressed down upon her so she could set her eyes upon Roman Torchwick, who was twirling his hat on the end of his cane. "The lien never stops flowing, Red." With a flick of his wrist, he hopped the bowler from its perch onto his head, it's position straightened by the gliding of fingers along the brim. "Not in my town!"
As her vision swam from the rolling waves of agony emanating from her battered body, Ruby caught sight of a pair of white knee-high boots that meandered over to her. Wearily, she raised her gaze to look up into a pair of violently pink eyes that sat above a sadistic smirk. Before she could do more than glare, the handle of a parasol smashed against the side of her head, and she fell limp as she was caught in the cold grasp of unconsciousness.
Author's Note: So it's been a month. Sorry about that! I hope this chapter makes up for it. As some of you have noticed, I've upped the rating to 'M'. Stuff is getting a little bit too much on the dark side for me to justify a 'T' and honestly there's gonna be a few scenes that may incorporate some smut(nothing too lemony, but enough that I wouldn't feel comfortable rating it anything less than an 'M') So there's that. Jump ship if you need to, but you've been warned. Anyway on to better things! First up, I've |
lot outside a Pittsburgh Steelers football game.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. (Since the Ravens beat the Steelers 17-14 that day, who could be mad at these guys for “allegedly” dulling the pain with a little herbal medicine?) Pittsburgh police claim State Rep. Paul Costa, 51, was caught sharing a joint with another man in the parking lot of Heinz Field on October 3. Undercover Officer Alex Lee Myers claims he saw Costa (D-Wilkins) and another man passing the joint between them, reports the. (Since the Ravens beat the Steelers 17-14 that day, who could be mad at these guys for “allegedly” dulling the pain with a little herbal medicine?)
“He adamantly denies that he smoked any marijuana,” said Costa’s attorney, Phil DiLucente. “No narcotics of any kind were found on him. In fact, he detests marijuana,” DiLucente added.
Myers and police Sgt. Steve Matakovich were walking through the parking lot when they said they saw Costa and Mitchell Brourman, 50, of Edgewood, “smoking and passing between them a hand-rolled white cigarette,” while standing next to a 2008 white GMC Yukon.
Myers claimed he could smell “the overpowering scent of burning marijuana coming from the smoke surrounding both Brourman and Costa.”
The officers claimed they watched Costa and Brourman pass the joint back and forth, and then they approached to stop the party. When the showed their badges and identified themselves as police, Brourman dropped the joint, Myers claimed.
“You got us,” both men said, according to the affidavit. Officer Myers said he picked up the discarded joint.
DiLucente said those words were never spoken. His theory is that Costa, like many other fans, was wearing a Steelers jersey and police just got the wrong guy, reports WTAE
“I think, very easily, he could be mistaken, and I think in this case, that the officers were mistaken,” DiLucente said.
Costa and Brourman told the officers they didn’t have any other illegal substances, but the cops claimed an ensuing search of Brourman’s Yukon turned up more marijuana in an orange pill container. Police said they took the evidence to the county crime lab.
DiLucente, who is also representing Brourman, said he doubts Myers and Matakovich could have seen what they claimed, because they were standing about 100 feet away when they began to approach his clients. He said police did not ask Costa to submit to a blood test for marijuana.
“We can’t stress enough how anxious we are to get to court and clear his name,” DiLucente said of Costa.
Records show that Costa did not sign on as a co-sponsor of House Bill 1393, Rep. Mark Cohen’s failed bill to legalize medical marijuana during the 2009-10 legislative session.
Both men are charged with one count of “prohibited acts” and are due in court November 24.Men in a pool chicken fighting Japanese students participating in kibasen
Chicken fight, also known as shoulder wars, is an informal game, often played in a lake or swimming pool, characterized by one team member sitting on the shoulders of his or her teammate or riding piggy-back. The object of the game is to knock down or separate an opposing team through team effort. The person on top is considered to be the "attacker" while the person below is considered to be the "vehicle". The person below may not use arms or hands and must rely on momentum to attack by running into the other team. The person on his/her shoulders is the "attacker" and may use any means possible of separating the other team or knocking them to the ground. If a team is separated or knocked down in any way, they are required to resign from the game and the last team to remain together is considered the winner. It is not uncommon for this game to be banned in swimming pools due to safety concerns.
A similar Japanese game called kibasen (騎馬戦, literally "cavalry fight") is commonly played as part of an annual sports day event at elementary and junior high schools. It is a field event rather than a swimming event. In it, a team of four competitors work together, with three carrying the fourth, who wears a bandana (hachimaki) or hat. The team is defeated if they are knocked over or, more commonly, if their bandana/hat is removed by an opponent. Competitors are often divided into opposing red and white factions. In recent years some schools have removed physically demanding events such as the kibasen from sports day programs due to the risk of serious injury; in a 2003 incident a high school student in Fukuoka Prefecture was left quadriplegic after falling from his teammates' shoulders.[1]
In Brazil this game is called "briga de galo" (literally "cockfight") and in Mexico it is known as "Camel Fighting".[citation needed]
References [ edit ]
^ "体育祭の騎馬戦で落下、県を提訴 福岡の男性、首から下まひ" [Fukuoka boy left paralysed from neck down after falling from kibasen at school sports festival, sues prefecture]. Sports Nippon (in Japanese). 3 September 2013. Archived from the original on 8 September 2013.THE COLOR OF RAP
It’s a Tough Climb for Asian Hip-Hop Artists
By Daisy Nguyen
The story of how the Mountain Brothers, a Philadelphia-based rapping trio, found instant fame is the stuff that thousands of hip-hop kids dream about. In 1996, the threesome, all Chinese-American students at Penn State University, entered a national singing contest sponsored by Sprite - and won. For rapping about their love for the lime-flavored soft drink, they received an invaluable prize: instant exposure on the radio. Their 60-second commercial spot was heard on urban frequencies throughout the country.
Soon, Ruffhouse Records, known for producing albums for such successful hip-hop groups as The Fugees and Cypress Hill, knocked on their doors. The Mountain Brothers became the first Asian-American hip-hop act to sign with a major label. But the rocky story following their triumph is what many aspiring Asian hip-hop artists worry about.
After they recorded an album for Ruffhouse, the Mountain Brothers say that some executives there displayed remarkable ignorance about the group’s Asian background. "Apparently, they thought we were a difficult act to sell," said Scott Jung, 27, the group’s producer whose stage name is Chops. One executive, says the baritone voiced Jung, complimented their music, but bluntly explained, "There’s only one problem. You’re Asian." Another wanted to use their ethnic backgrounds as a marketing vehicle and suggested they perform onstage wearing karate outfits and wielding gongs.
Eventually, the group severed its relationship with Ruffhouse, whose former president Joe Nicolo, declined to comment on the breakup. The Mountain Brothers added that they broke the contract because of "artistic differences," because they disagreed with Ruffhouse about putting samples on their songs.
As more Asian-American rappers such as the Mountain Brothers enter the fiercely competitive hip-hop recording industry, they face an uphill battle among skeptical label executives and audiences. Because hip-hop has been seen strictly through the black-white lens of American race relations, artists and music industry observers say, the inclusion of Asian-American performers has complicated matters.
Furthermore, persistent stereotypes about Asians run counter to the most common manifestations of hip hop, making it difficult for Asian performers to break into the musical mainstream. The prejudicial depiction of Asian men as self-effacing, for instance, collides with rap’s machismo culture.
"Asian hip-hoppers already have a strike against them," said Oliver Wang, 27, a University of California-Berkeley graduate student in ethnic studies who writes about Asian-American youth culture. "They don’t fit the mold and people are skeptical."
According to Wang, there is a long history of seeing Asian men as emasculated. "Asians have always been seen as foreigners in America," he added. "They’re not accepted as a part of the American fabric and there’s nothing particularly sexy about being Asian." While a recent Newsweek article suggests that the image of Asian men may be improving, the magazine also notes that American society has labeled them as "weak, sexless geeks."
"People are surprised when they see an Asian man who can rap," said 26-year-old Steve Wei, a member of the Mountain Brothers whose stage name is Styles. The baby-face rapper with a closely shaven head was sitting in Jung’s West Philadelphia apartment that doubles as the group’s recording studio. He said that listeners initially had difficulty accepting them after seeing their ethnicity.
"In the beginning," he said, "when we appeared on stage, people would be so thrown off because they hear us rhyme skillfully but we weren’t black."
Wei, Jung and Chris Wang, 25, the third group member who is known on stage as Peril-L (because he creates rhymes in parallel format), came together in 1991 when, as college students, they discovered a common love for hip-hop music. The three men grew up listening to and admiring such rappers as Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane and KRS-1. Jung, who majored in biology, was taking a course in electronic music and began to record demo tapes with Wei and Wang. In 1996, when they decided to enter the Sprite singing contest, they named their group after a Chinese legend.
"The Mountain Brothers were a bunch of bandits that lived on a mountain," Wang explained. "They stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Each one had special powers; we liked that idea."
Since the beginning of their musical career, the group has been careful about their presentations. They say they are more quickly accepted by the hip-hop community if their music precedes any knowledge of their ethnicity.
"We avoid initially making explicit references to ethnicity so that we can be given a fair unbiased listen based on the merits of our music, lyrics and style," said Jung. "As opposed to avoiding making explicit references to ethnicity so that we can pass for black."
Over the years, they have created two separate sets of promotional material, one directed toward Asian-American audiences that includes explicit references to their ethnicity and another in which their Asian-American identity is methodically concealed. When they mailed their cassette and press kit to Sprite for the contest, for instance, they did not include photographs and referred to themselves only by their hip-hop names.
After breaking off their contract with Ruffhouse, the Mountain Brothers released their first album in 1999 under their own independent label, Pimpstrut, and promoted it on the Internet. The album is entitled, "Self, Vol. 1," but none of the songs alludes to the group’s ethnic background. It received favorable reviews (SF Weekly praised the album’s "clever wordplay, stellar organic production, and sense of humor") and the group has sold about 20,000 copies. The Mountain Brothers have established a small but loyal fan base and their music video has appeared on MTV. At the height of its fame, the group opened for the venerable hip-hop group Tribe Called Quest at Chicago’s House of Blues, performing to an audience of 3,000.
The Mountain Brothers say that they are glad they produced and promoted the album by themselves, saying that they’ve succeeded in getting a small but loyal fan base. But they are pessimistic about reaching a mainstream audience. Currently, they are working on second album and plan to promote it by using the Internet and targeting sales to their fans. While all three hold day jobs - Wei and Wang work in pharmaceutical laboratories, Jung produces and promotes albums for other Philadelphia rap groups - they occasionally perform for Asian-American community events and in smaller "underground" hip-hop concerts. Last month, they played to a packed house in New York’s popular Knitting Factory club.
"The mainstream hip-hop listener these days is white, and we’re not really white or black, so people don’t know where to put us," Jung said. "We want to focus on our musical and rhyming skills rather than worry too much about our presentation."
Other Asian-American hip-hop artists say that they must exhibit a wide range of skills to win over skeptical listeners. Kuttin Kandi, a female deejay of Filipino origin, says that she rarely emphasizes her ethnicity or gender on stage. "I don’t want to use the race card to win respect," she said, "but out there people see me that way so I have to spin and mix really well to prove them that I’m as good as any other deejays."
Deborah Wong, an ethnomusicologist at University of California-Irvine, said that historically Asian-American artists tend to have a more powerful role in the world of "turntablism," or the art of scratching records and selecting samples to perform with a group of deejays. Many Asian-American artists, she points out, have dominated national deejaying contests.
"There’s less of an element of race when it comes to performing on a turntable," Wong said. "There’s more of an emphasis on with what you can do with your hands as opposed to words coming out of an Asian mouth."
Some, however, argue that Asian-American artists should be encouraged to express their culture and not hide their heritage. James Chang, a Korean-American musician from Queens, is known on stage as Jamez. He said that Asian-American artists should "be real," echoing the mantra of hip-hop culture. "We should be proud of our own culture, music and Asianness," Chang said.
Chang released his first album, entitled "Z-Bonics," in 1998, under his own label, F.O.B. Productions. He explains that he named his label FOB, or fresh off the boat, as a way to reclaim a derogatory term for newly arrived Asian immigrants. "‘Fresh Off the Boat’ acknowledges this immigrant history and celebrates it," Chang said.
Chang blends Korean folk instrument and hip-hop beats, along with lyrics that make pointed commentary about the status of immigrants, the Asian-American experience and the clash between Manhattan’s wealthy and the working class masses of Queenss. According to Chang, the style emerged from his visit to Korea several years ago.
"I went to a Korean record store and Seotaiji, the preeminent rap group in Korea, was everywhere, but to me they were just yellow people imitating black people," he said. "Then I saw another section [in the store] with traditional Korean folk music, and bought some CDs of what I later found out was pansori, an operatic Korean form that often deals with folk themes. It was used as a metaphor to satirize the ruling classes while they were singing right in their faces. At the heart of it, it was social protest for the people-just like rap."
But according to Babito Garcia, host of a hip-hop show on a local New York radio station, arguing for or against revealing one’s ethnic identity is pointless. "It shouldn’t matter," he said. "Asians should feel accepted in the hip-hop world whether they rap about being Asian or not. What matters is if they display their musical talent."
Garcia, who writes about hip-hop music for Vibe and The Source magazines, says that hip-hop culture, with its roots in the African-American community, has become more diverse over the years. He points out that Eminem, who is white, and the late Big Pun, who was Latino, are both well-known rappers because they displayed great rhyming skills. The color of their skin, in effect, did not affect their success. "I think hip-hop embraces all colors and culture, but maybe I’m being too idealistic," he said.
Jason Kao Hwang, a composer who teaches a course on Asian-American music at New York University, is more skeptical. "Often I hear artists and music fans talk about the inclusiveness of hip-hop," Hwang said. "But I see a lot of contradictions. It hasn’t shown a lot of openness towards homosexuality or gender equality. I don’t see the One World-ness that so many tout about."
Hwang points out that some form of Asian culture has seeped into hip-hop culture, but that it is black rappers who are successful at selling it. The Wu-Tang Clan, a group from Staten Island, are fans of the martial arts. "This group has been able to sell a certain sort of 70s nostalgia for kung-fu movies, and has done pretty well doing so," Hwang said. But, he asked, could an Asian group do the same thing and not be laughed at?
Jung, Wang, and Wei of the Mountain Brothers say that it is possible for an Asian-American group to succeed in hip-hop’s mainstream without having to resort to selling gimmicks or revealing a performer’s ethnic background, but it may take several years for listeners to adjust to seeing an Asian-American rap. "You can impress people musically and artistically," said Wang. "That’s how you make it."
-- END --Tom Tavares Finson, the attorney for Vybz Kartel says a decision about whether to appeal the sentence expected to be imposed on the convicted entertainer will be made after today’s hearing.
Justice Lennox Campbell is expected to reveal his decision on the fate of Vybz Kartel and three others in the Home Circuit court this morning.
Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, Shawn Campbell otherwise called, Shawn Storm, Kahira Jones and Andre St John were found guilty of the August 2011 murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams almost two weeks ago.
They are facing life sentences.
Tavares Finson says hearing of the appeal against Kartel’s conviction is expected to begin early next year.
The police say there will be restricting access to the area surrounding the Supreme Court where sentencing will take place.
They say several roads in the vicinity will be closed between 9 o’clock in the morning and 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
King Street, on which the Supreme Court building is located, will be closed to vehicular traffic between Harbour Street and South Parade.
Merchants and business operators will be allowed limited access to this area.
Police personnel will man all points of closure, and members of the public are being asked to obey all instructions given by the police.
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Email: onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.comMcDonald’s – love it or hate it, we can’t deny its presence. And if you’re anything like UK grime artist JME, (an ex-Big-Mac-a-day kinda guy) you may appreciate a veganized version.
This recipe uses vegan alternatives which can be just as healthy or as unhealthy as you choose – for example, our patties were sourced from The Very Good Butcher here in British Columbia and are created from simple, natural ingredients such as beans and veggies.
Epic Vegan Big Mac
INGREDIENTS
2 sesame seed burger buns
2 vegan patties (we recommend The Very Good Burger if you can get your hands on them)
½ medium white onion, minced
1 iceberg lettuce leaf
2 slices vegan cheese
Dill pickle, thinly sliced
Big Mac sauce
2 tsp vegan mayonnaise
1 tbs gherkin/hamburger relish
2 tsp American mustard
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp sweet smoked paprika
METHOD
– Sauce! Mix all of the Big Mac sauce ingredients together in a bowl and set aside or refrigerate
– Fry or grill the patties evenly on either side, at a medium heat for approximately 8-10 minutes or until preferred. Leave to rest in the pan as you assemble the buns
– Spread the sauce evenly across the bottom layer of bun #1 then add your favourite vegan cheese (you can break into quarters to get the authentic square shape if your slices come in circles)
– Sprinkle some minced onions on top of the cheese, then top with your first patty
– Add bread layer #2 which is the bottom half of bun #2 (the top part can be kept for another occasion or another burger!)
– On the top of this layer, add more sauce, more onions and a few slices of pickles. If you’re feeling extra peckish, add some more cheese!
– Top with your final patty and crown with a sesame seed bun hat
Best served with iced cola and skinny fries
Become a CLUBKINDLY member today!WASHINGTON — If President Obama tuned in to the past week’s bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself.
Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of President George W. Bush finds himself cast as a present-day Mr. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country’s core values in the name of security.
The debate is not an exact parallel to those of the Bush era, and Mr. Obama can point to ways he has tried to exorcise what he sees as the excesses of the last administration. But in broad terms, the conversation generated by the confirmation hearing of John O. Brennan, his nominee for C.I.A. director, underscored the degree to which Mr. Obama has embraced some of Mr. Bush’s approach to counterterrorism, right down to a secret legal memo authorizing presidential action unfettered by outside forces.
At the same time, a separate hearing in Congress revealed how far Mr. Obama has gone to avoid what he sees as Mr. Bush’s central mistake. Testimony indicated that the president had overruled his secretaries of state and defense and his military commanders when they advised arming rebels in Syria.Now that we have discussed contributions, conversions, and qualified distributions, we will now look at the distribution ordering rules and penalties on "early" withdrawals from a Roth IRA.
IRS Ordering Rules
The IRS does not care from which Roth IRA you take a withdrawal. If you have multiple IRAs, they are considered as one Roth IRA for withdrawal purposes. Further, the IRS has deemed that Roth IRA distributions MUST be withdrawn in a specific order, and that order applies regardless of which Roth IRA is used to take that distribution. Roth distributions should be made in the following order:
From non-taxable annual contributions to a Roth IRA (other than conversion amounts) From conversion contributions, on a first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis From earnings
Who cares? You might -- especially if you find that you have to take an early withdrawal. Let's look at some examples.
Penalties on Earnings from Contributions
Unless an exception applies, most distributions from a Roth IRA before the owner reaches age 59 1/2 will be subject to an "early withdrawal penalty" of 10% on the amount of the distribution. Be very careful NOT to confuse the early withdrawal penalty with the taxes imposed on a non-qualified distribution (discussed in Part III). A non-qualified distribution imposes an ordinary income tax on the distribution, but the early withdrawal penalty will be imposed in addition to that tax.
Example #1
Jim, age 30, made a Roth IRA contribution of $2,000 in 1998. In 2005, Jim's Roth IRA has a balance of $3,500. Jim decides to close his Roth IRA in a non-qualified distribution that year. Since the distribution is non-qualified, Jim will owe taxes on his Roth earnings of $1,500, and will pay tax on this amount at his marginal tax rate. In addition, since the distribution took place before Jim reached age 59 1/2, and since Jim did not meet any of the exceptions, Jim will also be assessed a 10% early withdrawal penalty on the earnings. If we assume that Jim is in the 28% marginal tax bracket, he will pay $420 in tax on the earnings, and will pay a penalty in the amount of $150 on the early distribution. This is a very steep price to pay.
Exceptions
The early withdrawal penalty does not apply to distributions that:
Occur because of the IRA owner's disability. (This can be a very narrow definition, so if you get a severe paper cut, don't consider a Roth IRA distribution for a disability until you review IRS Code Section 72(m)(7) and IRS Publication 590.) Occur because of the IRA owner's death. Are a series of "substantially equal periodic payments" made over the life expectancy of the IRA owner. Are used to pay for unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7 1/2% of adjusted gross income (AGI). Are used to pay medical insurance premiums after the IRA owner has received unemployment compensation for more than 12 weeks. Are used to pay the costs of a first-time home purchase (subject to a lifetime limit of $10,000). Are used to pay for the qualified expenses of higher education for the IRA owner and/or eligible family members. Are used to pay back taxes because of an Internal Revenue Service levy placed against the IRA.
Penalties on Conversions From a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA
The penalty rules regarding conversions are a bit different than those for annual contributions, which may be taken at any time for any purpose free of income taxes and penalty. An early withdrawal of a conversion contribution has a different twist. The early withdrawal penalty applies to a distribution of conversion money from a Roth IRA when:
The distribution is made within the five-tax-year period starting with the year that the conversion was distributed from a regular IRA; and Only to the extent that the distribution is attributable to amounts that were includable in gross income as a result of the conversion.
Example #2
Paul made a $20,000 conversion from his regular IRA to a Roth IRA in 1998. The entire amount converted was includable in Paul's income for 1998. Paul made no additional contributions or conversions to a Roth IRA in 1998 or in later years. In 2001, before he is age 59 1/2, Paul withdraws $10,000 from the Roth IRA. Paul will have no tax to pay on this withdrawal because he paid income taxes on the full $20,000 he converted in 1998; however, he WILL have to pay a 10% penalty (or $1,000) unless one of the IRA early withdrawal exceptions apply. Why? Because Paul didn't keep the conversion amount in his Roth IRA for the required five-tax-year period since his original conversion.
So, if you are going to take funds "early" from your Roth IRA, weigh your conversion decision very carefully -- especially if you made non-deductible contributions to your original IRA. If you did make non-deductible contributions to your regular IRA, you'll generally be worse off by converting to a Roth IRA and taking the funds early than you would be by simply taking the funds from the regular IRA.
Why? Because a pro rata part of all withdrawals from a regular IRA are treated as coming out of non-deductible contributions. But, amounts withdrawn from Roth IRA conversions are treated as coming out of income taken into account on the conversion first.
Not quite clear on how this works? Let's take a look at an example:
Example #3
Karin has a traditional IRA with a balance of $12,000 -- $6,000 of that IRA balance was from prior-year deductible contributions and total IRA earnings. The other $6,000 represents prior-year non-deductible contributions. Karin is contemplating a Roth IRA conversion, but also wants to take a distribution of $4,000. Karin's options are as follows:
She can leave her money in the traditional IRA and take the $4,000 distribution. She'll be taxed on half of the distribution ($2,000) because half of the account is deductible contributions and earnings. She'll also pay a 10% penalty, but only on the $2,000 taxable distribution. The other $2,000 is tax- and penalty-free since it came from prior non-deductible contributions to the IRA. She can convert the entire traditional IRA to a Roth IRA and then take the $4,000 distribution. This is a bad choice for Karin. Once Karin takes the $4,000 distribution, she'll be subject to a 10% penalty on the entire distribution, or $400, because of the ordering rules. She won't have to pay any tax on the distribution (since the tax was paid when she converted the traditional IRA to the Roth IRA), but making this choice causes Karin to pay an additional $200 in penalties that could have been avoided with proper planning.
On the other hand, if you are reasonably young (under age 50) and expect to need to withdraw funds from your IRA in five years (and can't use any exceptions to avoid the 10% penalty), you might be better off converting funds from your regular IRA to a Roth IRA now. If you wait until after the five-tax-year period to withdraw money from a Roth IRA, the 10% penalty won't be imposed, even if you aren't yet 59 1/2 and don't meet any other exception to the penalty.
Why? Because, for a Roth IRA, you have met the five tax-year exception on the converted funds and therefore dodge the 10% penalty on these distributions. But, there is no five-tax-year exception for a traditional IRA. So, while you would still pay tax on the earnings in either case, you would escape the 10% penalty by converting to a Roth IRA.
Still not clear on this? Another example might be in order.
Example #4
Rick converted $15,000 from his traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in 1999, and another $20,000 from a second traditional IRA in 2003. These conversions were all taxable to Rick when they occurred because he had made no non-deductible contributions to his traditional IRAs. He has no other Roth IRAs and he has not made any additional contributions to this Roth IRA since the original conversions.
In 2006, when Rick is still under age 59 1/2, he takes a distribution of $15,000. Is this distribution subject to tax? Nope, since the taxes were paid on these funds at the time of the conversion from the traditional IRA to the Roth IRA. Is this distribution subject to the 10% penalty? Nope again, because Rick held the conversion funds in the Roth IRA account for longer than the required five-tax-year period.
But what if Rick took a distribution of $20,000 in 2007? In that case, he would still receive $15,000 of that distribution tax- and penalty-free because it has been more than five tax-years since his first conversion of $15,000. But the second IRA was converted less than five tax-years ago. Therefore, the remaining $5,000 of his $20,000 distribution will be penalized 10% for an early withdrawal because he has not yet met the five-tax-year rule to tap into the second conversion contribution of $20,000. And when he takes that sum, he will have only $15,000 of conversion money left before he begins to take earnings from that Roth IRA.
As you can see, the tax-planning implications on Roth IRA withdrawals are numerous -- too numerous to mention here. Different tax and penalty rules can apply to distributions coming from contributions, conversions, or earnings.
Not only that, the rules regarding the 10% penalty on "early" (less than five tax-years) distributions relative to conversion amounts are determined for each conversion, and might not necessarily be the same five-tax-year period that you use to determine if a distribution is "qualified" for income tax purposes.
And, the penalty rules are different for conversions than they are for earnings from contributions. It can be a real mess.
If your Roth IRA consists of only contributions or only conversions, these rules aren't too difficult to follow. But if your Roth IRA consists of contributions, conversions in different years, and earnings on both, then the "qualified" distribution rules and the penalty rules can get very complex.
So, you really need to know the tax impact of your decision prior to removing any of your Roth IRA funds -- you can't just guess. Guessing could be hazardous to your wealth.
Your best bet? Keep your paws off your Roth IRA account unless your distribution is qualified and you meet one of the penalty exceptions. It'll make your tax life much easier.We are excited to announce that October is Down Syndrome awareness month and the official start of WilCanFly.com – the website where we are selling the 2016 Wil Can Fly calendar. Yesterday I approved the final proof and we are now officially printing our first run of 2016 Wil Can Fly calendars!
I was a little emotional in the parking lot of the print house as I thought back to March of this year when I told my wife that I wanted to create a calendar with the photos of Wil flying to help raise awareness. We weren’t sure if anyone would be interested in buying them and there were a few times that I told myself it wasn’t going to work. With the help of some good friends and my amazing wife we have now reached people all across the world and plan on sharing the message for many more years to come.
You all had a part in making this happen and we thank you once again!
As you know, half of the proceeds from the sale of these calendars will go to two incredible Down Syndrome foundations:
http://reecesrainbow.org/
https://www.rubysrainbow.org/This month's release of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is an interesting prospect. A new, full-sized Assassin's Creed game, it's neither a simple spin-off nor a true sequel, but in continuing the story of both Ezio and Desmond while incorporating series-first multiplayer, it looks likely to be the biggest AC release yet.
On a recent trip to Ubisoft Montreal, we got the chance to sit down with the game's Producer and Director and go seriously in-depth on all things Assassin's. In a couple of very revealing and honest interviews, they told us all about where the franchise is now, where it's going, its successes and failures, and their hopes and fears for it both as a series of games and potentially something much bigger. Have even a passing interest in Assassin's Creed? Then read on.
PATRICK PLOURDE, AC: Brotherhood Game Director
GR: The AC series has one of the largest dev teams and budgets in the entire games industry – so much so that previous gems in Ubi’s crown like Prince of Persia are very much following in your wake. How does that feel, to go from zero to the biggest franchise in Ubi’s portfolio.
PP: Well I don’t think Assassin’s was ever not big...
GR:...but it was unknown.
PP: Ever since the first time it got revealed the hype went through the roof, so we’ve always had to deal with that. With the first game we knew it had some weaknesses; at the same time we didn’t want to go out in public and say ‘don’t expect the earth,’ so that was challenging.
GR: I’m finding this hard to phrase, but – essentially – do you think you had to release AC1 in order to achieve the franchise’s potential with the sequel? After all, the core tech and mechanics are essentially the same in all three games; you’ve just been furnishing the world with better missions, more things to do...
PP: Yeah. I think AC1 – when it was complete the reception, the feedback... it helped us refocus. For AC1 we wanted to push the envelope in all areas: we didn’t want regular cut scenes, we wanted to climb every wall, have two alternate realities... maybe that was a lot of stuff to get right the first time. So we succeeded with the core, but there wasn’t enough variety, the missions had problems, the exposition wasn’t the best...
GR: That said, Ezio’s a far more compelling character than Altair. Was that why Brotherhood came about – a desire to flesh his character out even more?
PP: To some extent. Having Ezio and the rest of the cast as established characters – it’s easy to continue writing their story. Altair was different, because most of his story was contained within the codices of AC1, Bloodlines... Ezio’s quest had ended, so it was a chance for us to create a fresh new story for him.
GR: Altair was so cold, Ezio’s warm, passionate...
PP: That’s the other thing we got with feedback. We went too epic with AC1 – it was traditional ‘save the world’ style. The mistake we realised and corrected in AC2 was that even with epic movies there needs to be an element of stress relief, comedy relief. It’s not necessarily normal that people are as formal as they were in AC1.
GR: Desmond’s also changed for the better. More banter in the sequences we just played than the entire two previous games. Obviously he’s free now and not a lab rat, but even so...
PP: I think the pressure – I was just game designer for AC1 so I wasn’t necessarily involved with story that much – but I think all that pressure on the team during Assassin’s 1 – it made everybody a little stiff. The atmosphere in which games are designed, it’s reflected in the product. This one... there’s even optional dialogues with characters when you exit the Animus...
GR: I was exploring that...
PP: The dialogue, it’s more... I think our characters in the present like Desmond, Lucy and Sean, the way they talk to each other. That’s the real Brotherhood. People get to know each other, that’s something we want to build on for the future.
GR: You mentioned Brotherhood had the most fleshed-out ‘present’ narrative. Do you now prefer that era to the Renaissance stuff?
PP: Mmmn, no – because I think the balance is still more leveraged toward the Renaissance. But the one thing I really wanted for Brotherhood was for the present to be validated.
GR: But also, I think people will respond much more to the present narrative now. The bonds... when you fulfil Desmond’s story down the line, people are gonna be really excited about that.
PP: Definitely. That, for me, is the big thing. This is not AC3, and at the start of Brotherhood I was like: ‘If we’re going to make a game that’s remembered in five years when people are going to look back at previous Assassin’s entries and what each brought to the table, I wanted this game to be the one where we fully embraced the present, made it part of the gameplay.
GR: AC2 made big strides. At the beginning I was like: ‘not this again’, but by the end the present bits were great fun... culminating with the escape, the fight etc.
PP: Definitely.Oil refineries a risky business Dangerous industry seen as self-regulating system with gaps in authority where insiders set safety rules
Chemical Safety Board investigators who are probing the Aug. 6 fire at Chevron's Richmond refinery show photos of the scene. |
bed. Plenty of people of all ages cough through live events, spoiling it for audiences and I dare say affecting performers’ concentration. But to bring age into it seems to me unforgivable. I want to hug parents I see bringing children to classical concerts. This is music for every one, for every age, and how better to experience it than live in one of London’s great concert halls played by one of the world’s top performers? (I personally find far more offensive the oafs who shout “BRAVI” the nano-second a truly great performance has finished, the notes still floating in the air. But I digress....)
If, as Chung seems to be suggesting, we reserve the wonders of Bach and Mozart and Prokofiev et al for when we’re older then at what age are you old enough? Live music is a thrilling and enriching experience and I, for one, will put up with the occasional coughing child if this child comes to love classical music rather than think of it as an intimating, closed and “grownup” world.PLANS for Scotland’s first major film studio are now more than six times bigger than originally envisaged and on the same scale as the vast complex where Game Of Thrones is filmed in Northern Ireland.
Scotland on Sunday can reveal that around 100,000sq ft of studio space would be created on up to 30 acres of land on the Clyde Waterfront in Glasgow if the £15 million scheme is given the go-ahead by the Scottish Government.
Although it has yet to back the plans for the Glasgow site, it has emerged that ministers have ring-fenced £2m for a film studio project in their budget for the next financial year.
Film City Glasgow, an existing film industry hub based in the old Govan Town Hall, has dramatically increased the scale of its plans since winning a separate £1m pledge from Creative Scotland for a studio development last year. It is now being advised by experts at the renowned Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire over its plans.
The far bolder vision for the project in Glasgow – which has been in development for around two years – was drawn up after the government and Scottish Enterprise got involved with the scheme. Culture secretary Fiona Hyslop has declared there is “clearly an appetite” for a large-scale studio in Scotland.
Details of the new plans have emerged in the wake of a row over the level of support for the film industry from the government and Creative Scotland, which spends just £3m of its £97.5m budget on film productions. That figure is expected to increase in the next financial year after a review of the film sector is published in the new year.
The industry hub at Film City Glasgow is already home to some of Scotland’s leading filmmakers and has been used for a string of recent movies such as Filth, Perfect Sense, Under The Skin and Sunshine On Leith.
Tiernan Kelly, the director of the complex, says work could be under way by the end of next year if it wins official backing over the next few months, with around a third of the cost being met by private finance.
The film studio would be built over several years on two vacant plots of land in the “Creative Clyde” area – near BBC Scotland’s headquarters and the Glasgow Science Centre. Two major sound stages are planned, as well as fully equipped bases for film and TV production companies.
The decision to pursue a much more ambitious scheme came following visits to the Titanic Studios complex in Belfast, which has around 100,000sq ft of space, and the Sharp Project in Manchester, which has around half that amount of space for film and TV productions.
Representatives from the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Creative Scotland took part in the trips.
Kelly said: “We had our eyes opened to the kind of scale that we needed here to compete internationally. Belfast has 100,000sq ft of studio space in what is essentially a land-locked space.
“It really ramped up our ambition from the original vision that we had, which was quite modest. Our original plans covered around four acres and would have created 15,000sq ft of studio space, but the proposal at the time would only have involved a facilities village, with a small studio bolted on.
“There’s big plots of land lying empty in this area which are the same size as sites that big studios have been built on around Europe.”
He added: “The cost is between £12m and £15m. We were actually asked to come up with a bolder vision and we’ve taken that challenge on.”
However, despite spending more than two years on the project, Film City Glasgow has been warned it may not now be guaranteed the funding, as several other options for a film and TV studio around the country are being explored.
Among the favourite sites is an industrial estate in Cumbernauld where US fantasy series Outlander, which is partly set in Scotland, is about to start filming. Its owners are converting several warehouses on the site and hope to retain a permanent facility for production companies. Two sites at Gartcosh, in north Lanarkshire, and Dalmarnock, in the east end of Glasgow, are also in the running.
Scotland on Sunday understands two major new studio centres could be created on different sites.
Industry insiders say an expensive complex being used for TV productions could be tied up for years for a major series such as Game Of Thrones or Outlander.
Film producer Gillian Berrie, one of the co-founders of Film City Glasgow, said: “It’s just so obvious for us to do the film studio here. We’re bursting at the seams, everybody is actually fighting for space now and it’s been a great success.
“Incoming productions find it so incredibly easy because they can just walk in here and there is a ready-made office for them.
“It’s also so close to the city centre, the airport, decent hotels and cafes. They can just come in and pitch up.
“If we are going to do the job properly in future and want to have a studio to compete with places like Belfast we are going to need 100,000sq ft of shooting space. That’s what we’re being told by the industry and studio operators around the world.”
Scottish Enterprise has pledged to publish its analysis of the various studio options by the end of this year.
The Scottish Government confirmed it has set aside £2m in its forthcoming budget to “support the longer-term development of production infrastructure for commercial film and television in Scotland”.
SEE ALSO:
• Lack of TV studios ‘cost Scotland Game of Thrones’
• Scottish sites in running for major film studioAn off-duty Northwestern University police officer is accused of firing a gun into the air while celebrating the Fourth of July holiday on the South Side, according to Chicago Police.
Wesley Jackson, 30, of the 5400 block of Hyde Park Boulevard, was charged with felony reckless discharge of a firearm, police said.
He appeared in court today and was ordered held in lieu of $50,000 bail, said Andy Conklin, a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office.
Chicago police officers responded to the 5400 block of South Shore Drive to assist University of Chicago police with a "man with a gun" call about 10 p.m. Wednesday and university police told them they heard three shots and saw muzzle flashes coming from behind a tree in the park, according to a police report.
They saw Jackson standing, facing Lake Michigan, with a gun in his hand and he placed his hands up and dropped the weapon when they asked him to, according to the report.
Prosecutors said that Jackson fired several rounds across the Lake Shore Drive and toward Lake Michigan.
A witness identified him and during an interview with Chicago police, Jackson said he was: "Just shooting at the lake -- it's the 4th of July and everyone is doing it,'' the report said.
He explained repeatedly that he was intoxicated after drinking five beers and was "f----- up,'' the report said.
Jackson was taken into the Wentworth District police station where his supervisor identified him as a member of their police department.
Police said no one was injured during the incident.
rsobol@tribune.com
Twitter: @RosemarySobol1Early life
Philip's heir
King of Macedon
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Main article: Historiography of Alexander the Great Apart from a few inscriptions and fragments, texts written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander were all lost. Contemporaries who wrote accounts of his life included Alexander's campaign historian Callisthenes; Alexander's generals Ptolemy and Nearchus; Aristobulus, a junior officer on the campaigns; and Onesicritus, Alexander's chief helmsman. Their works are lost, but later works based on these original sources have survived. The earliest of these is Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), followed by Quintus Curtius Rufus (mid-to-late 1st century AD), Arrian (1st to 2nd century AD), the biographer Plutarch (1st to 2nd century AD), and finally Justin, whose work dated as late as the 4th century. Of these, Arrian is generally considered the most reliable, given that he used Ptolemy and Aristobulus as his sources, closely followed by Diodorus.
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SourcesThe US and Russia may be working on Mars missions, but the galactic ambitions of the Swiss are far more modest: they want to tidy up the Earth's atmosphere. The clock-and-choc-making country today announced plans for a rubbish-grabbing space bot.
The tiny 30cm-long (11.8-inch) CleanSpace One from the Swiss Space Center at the University of Lausanne will claim the title of the first janitor satellite.
The satellite will target a specific bit of junk, align its orbit with the hurtling space rubbish, grapple it with a four-pronged gripper and chuck it down into the earth's atmosphere in a fiery death plunge.
Of course the satellite will only work once before it too is burned at 1,000°C (1,832°F).
The grappling mechanism will be "inspired from a plant or animal example", according to a vague description on the EPFL website.
It's high-risk rubbish removal: if it goes wrong and there's a collision then we'll all end up with even more bits of debris, requiring even more debris-clearers.
Junk in orbit is a serious problem: jettisoned rocket and satellite components can - and have - damaged functioning space satellites. NASA are tracking approximately 16,000 objects larger than 10cm in diameter, but hundreds of millions of smaller particles are ripping around the Earth at speeds of several kilometers per second.
The international space station had to alter its course to avoid some flying junk as recently as 29 January, according to the EPFL. And it's not just space research that's at risk – systems from GPS to TV rely on satellites, as the Aussie PM recently pointed out, and the cost of a junk collision could be huge.
The Swiss want to create a "family" of the junk cleaners, and they hope that eventually the janitor-bots will be able to survive their rubbish-clearing trips and take out more than one piece of space crap in their lifetimes.
According to the Swiss Space Center, the design and construction of CleanSpace One, and setting it on its maiden voyage, will together cost about 10 million Swiss francs (£6.87m). The Swiss hope to have the grabber in the air within three to five years. ®By Michael Mandelkern
Most New York Mets fans do not see eye to eye on the 2014 season. The Ike Davis versus Lucas Duda debate has been contentious and never ending. Some believe Curtis Granderson will be another Jason Bay while others are optimistic about the three-time All-Star. What keeps these arguments alive in January is that Opening Day is not until March 31st and fans are itching for baseball. No one knows for sure how the Mets will perform this year. Many players on the roster have not played one full season in the majors going into 2014. Predicting performances based on a small sample size is difficult, but minor league statistics must be taken with a grain of salt.
I compiled my own predictions of 12 Mets hitters for the 2014 season. They are based on past MLB performance and my gut feeling from watching games. There are no correct answers because I am inherently biased and did not apply a computer formula. If you have something to say about it leave a comment or tweet me @metsonmymind.
Eric Young Jr.
.247/.316 /.337 with 2 HR and 22 RBI
Last season is the most accurate evaluation of Young since he played 14 games shy of a full season. He got off to a hot start when the Rockies traded him to the Mets in June, but then he became an easy out for considerable stretches. He is overeager at the plate and does not draw many walks. However, he posted OBPs of.342 and.377 in 2011 and 2012, respectively, as a part-time player so he has potential. He has virtually no pop and drove in just 32 runs in 2013, so he won’t produce much. With the additions of Chris Young and Curtis Granderson, he likely won’t play as many games as he did in 2013. Speed kills, but only if the runner is on base.
Josh Satin
.252/.330/.377 with 5 HR and 26 RBI
Prior to 2013, Satin only played 16 games with the Mets: 15 in 2011 and 1 in 2012. He had an impressive.376 OBP in his 75 games last season. Satin demonstrated plate discipline and an ability to work a count over his 221 plate appearances in 2013. He has earned a roster spot as a bench player, but maintaining that on-base percentage is not realistic. Between the platoon, pinch-hitting and utility starting, he could see a similar amount of at-bats to last season. His extra-base power is scarce, yet he can connect with singles.
Wilmer Flores
.272/.321/.377 with 7 HR and 28 RBI
Flores only played 27 games in 2013. He was scorching in his first week with 9 RBI in just first six games, but then he twisted his ankle and was not the same for the rest of the season. He sat out of games down the stretch and looked tentative in the batter’s box. Although it was just one week, he showed a capability to drive in runs. Since the infield is booked there is no everyday position for him. Flores needs to make the most of every opportunity presented to him, and maybe one day he will earn a starting role.
Lucas Duda
.218/.337/.418 with 6 HR and 16 RBI
These numbers are underwhelming because Ike Davis will likely get the majority of starts against right-handed pitchers. If Davis prospers then Duda will spend a lot time on the pine and possibly not even live up to these meager projections, but he could see some playing time if Davis struggles. He hit an atrocious.145 with runners in scoring position last season and only drove in 33 runs on 15 homers. The past two seasons do not suggest that he can hit for an even decent average, and his RBI production fell dramatically from 2012 to 2013. Duda could even spend all of 2014 with the Las Vegas 51s.
Ruben Tejada
.224/.301/.304 with 1 HR and 22 RBI
Tejada’s regression last season was alarming. Hitting a pathetic.202 with a.259 OBP in 2013, he was an automatic out who could work counts but he ultimately grounded out instead of drawing walks. Tejada has never played over 114 games in one season. He is injury prone, sometimes from trying to do too much. Relying on him to even play 130 games is irrational. Tejada showed some promise in 2012, but it was not sensational enough to buy himself a lot of time. With just two home runs and 86 RBI throughout his entire career, it would not be surprising if he does not hit a single home run this season.
Travis d’Arnaud
.262/.331/.372 with 12 HR and 51 RBI
Evaluating d’Arnaud beyond his minor league performance is difficult because he played just 31 games in his Major League debut last season. Despite a strong performance in AAA, he has not even lived up to a portion of the hype. But d’Arnaud looks intimidating at the plate and seems to have a good eye. He showed an ability to hit line drives into the gap, which would serve well in Citi Field’s vast outfield. With just one homer and 5 RBI in a small sample size, it is difficult to predict whether he has big league pop. He is a top prospect who is skilled at framing pitching and had success in AAA. The catching position is his to lose this season. If d’Arnaud he excels his disappointing 2013 will be forgotten.
Juan Lagares
.258/.302/.364 with 7 HR and 46 RBI
Lagares is in the lineup for his stellar glove and strong arm, but he may not be a complete liability on offense. He posted a below-adequate.242 batting average and.281 on-base percentage in 121 games last season. Lagares will be less of a burden at the bottom of the order if he can lay off pitches in the dirt and far outside of the strike zone. Although not a slugger, Lagares has opposite field power and is capable of belting more than a few long balls. At 24 years old, he has plenty of time to grow. If he makes significant improvements at the dish he could play in a Mets uniform for many years to come.
Chris Young
.224/.303/.440 with 19 HR and 64 RBI
Young’s peak season average is.257 and his OBP has never surpassed.341. His highest average and OBP over the past three years was.236 and.331 in 2011 and the power has been reliable. He hit 20 home runs or more in all four of his seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks in which he played 148 games or over. However, Chase Field is a friendlier ballpark to hitters than Citi Field. Unless he struggles his way onto the bench or gets hurt he will be a starter and bounce back candidate from his dreadful 2013 season.
Daniel Murphy
.282/.315/.429 with 11 HR and 74 RBI
Murphy has proven that he can drive in runners in scoring position. During a slump he is ice cold, but when Murphy is on fire he hits the ball to all parts of the field and comes through in the clutch. He is a streaky, impatient two-bagger machine with 144 doubles over the past four seasons. Since he is aggressive and expands the strike zone, it would be difficult for Murphy to get more hits and reach base at a higher clip. Taking pitches is not part of his game: his batting average and OBP have been on the decline since 2011. He had career highs in 2013 with 13 homers and 78 RBI. Sustaining this level of production would come at the expense of his average and OBP.
Ike Davis
.239/.328/.455 with 24 HR and 82 RBI
Davis is a gamble. The Mets could send him down to the minors before the All-Star break, yet he has the potential to be an All-Star first basemen. He hit.290 with a.468 OBP in August 2013 before suffering an oblique injury on August 31 that ended his season. He only hit nine home runs in 2013, but most of them were majestic and reminiscent of his monster second half in 2012. If Davis can combine everything he has achieved in isolation he will emerge as a top-tier first baseman in the National League.
Curtis Granderson
.241/.342/.472 with 28 HR and 88 RBI
With the exception of 2011, Granderson’s batting average has been declining since 2009. He became pull happy with the New York Yankees and slugged 41 and 43 homers in 2011 and 2012, respectively, but two hit-by-pitch injuries cut his 2013 season to just 61 games. He is not injury prone; Granderson played at least 136 games every season from 2005 to 2012. Granderson will provide much-needed pop in the middle of the order to protect David Wright. The vast Citi Field could reduce his home run total, but the large gaps in Citi Field will suit him well. What would have been a long ball in the Bronx will turn into doubles and triples. If the batters ahead of him set the table he will be cooking up plenty of rib eye steaks, as Keith Hernandez calls them.
David Wright
.306/.384/.502 with 24 HR and 91 RBI
Wright is the most consistent and productive hitter in the Mets lineup. Aside from 2011, when he had a stress fracture in his lower back, Wright’s season-low batting average is.283 in 2010, when he also hit 29 homers and drove in 116 runs. Dan Szymborski of ESPN’s 2014 ZiPS projections for the Mets uses a computer formula that predicted Wright will hit just.276 with a.358 on-base percentage and.467 slugging with 19 HR and 74 RBI. His career slash line is.301/.382/.506. His 2012 season (.306/.391) is nearly identical to his injury-shortened 2013 season (.307/.390). Wright’s power numbers are not what they used to be, but he has legitimate protection from Granderson in 2014. Even if the homers decrease he has a track record of slugging doubles. At 31 years old he could decline, but a drop as steep as Szymborski’s calculations suggest would be shocking.Illmaculate at Blue Monk
March 1, 2014 - Illmaculate was the final performer in a line up of three hip hop artists featured at the Blue Monk Saturday night, but he left the venue, refusing to perform after more than a dozen police officers showed up. Portland Police closed off the street and cut off access to the club, which they said was over capacity. Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian
In March, after police presence cut short a Southeast Portland rap show, Portland's
division pledged to examine the relationship between the police bureau and hip-hop artists.
Rappers such as
had accused officers of targeting rap shows. Police denied the claim. They showed up only when problems arose, they said.
After nine months of interviews, the review team released its findings Wednesday. The 27-page report is heavy on historical context but light on indictments or finger-pointing: The biggest issue, investigators say, is communication.
"The city needs to have clearer expectations that it articulates to members of the hip-hop community," said Constantin Severe, the review board's director. "What does it want from club owners, promoters and artists so they can engage in lawful activity and everyone can have a good time and be safe?"
Severe and a team of three others
after a dozen police showed up a concert headlined by Illmaculate and Luck-One.
March 1, 2014 - Illmaculate, minutes before deciding to leave the Blue Monk without performing, in protest to police presence at the event.
"I will not perform in this city as long as the blatant targeting of black culture and minorities congregating is acceptable common practice," Illmaculate wrote on Twitter.
Review board members interviewed 30 people and went on ride-alongs with multiple fire and police bureau details. Those interviews took time. Many rappers and rap fans didn't initially trust the city office enough to participate, Severe said.
The IPR's report, officially dubbed a policy review, traces the history of gentrification in North and Northeast Portland and examines the economic potential of being a hip-hop artist in America's whitest major city. It quotes from the U.S. Census and city property records.
Those forces of demographic and economic change are relevant, the group writes, because the ultimate question looming over Portland's rap artists is whether they will be able to sustain themselves financially here. Yes, Portland Police and other enforcers are a piece of the puzzle. But so is the loss of local record shops and black-owned clubs.
"A neighborhood's identity is dying," rapper
. "That's what strains at people's hearts, you know, and that's what people see, and that's on people's psyches, too."
Independent Police Review's recommendations
.
Hip-hop artists told the review team -- a group of three lawyers and one investigator -- that the city's rapid changes had left them without places to perform.
"We used to perform at Backspace, they got closed down," said Rasheed Jamal. "Used to perform at Someday Lounge, it got closed down. Used to perform at Crown Room, they got closed down. Ted's/Berbati's, we used to perform there, and now it's a strip club."
Rappers have said for years that clubs are afraid to book them, in part, because of fears that police will target the shows. Organizers of the indie-rock festival PDX Pop Now! told investigators that they got their first taste of that treatment this year. Festival planners booked four hip-hop acts for this year's show. Police patrolled during three of those, organizers told the auditors.
Officers asked to see permits. A fire marshal inspected the space three times for capacity issues. The attention was "unprecedented," they said.
"While they are in their right to ask for this, it has not been standard in our experience," organizers told the review board.
Rappers told the board that kind of scrutiny was standard. In sharing their thoughts, the rappers mentioned the Vanport Flood and Kendra James, a 21-year-old woman fatally shot by a Portland Police officer 10 years ago.
"If you're in Northeast Portland or you work in Northeast Portland, then you might get pulled over for how you look," said Terrance "Cool Nutz" Scott. "Then your mindset at a hip-hop show is, 'Are they here to be cool, or are they here to mess with me?'"
Portland Police Sgt. Pete Simpson, now the bureau's spokesman but previously a member of the entertainment detail, said officers find it hard to address the perception rappers hold of them. Officers aren't targeting hip-hop clubs, he said, but many of those clubs have had troubles.
"Fontaine Bleau, 915, you have outside Seeznin's on 82nd, people killed," he said. "That's not what we want. If people were doing their job running the business right, that wouldn't happen."
Scott said rap clubs may have had their rowdy times, but so have other bars.
"Stuff happens at rock shows," he said. "People get beat up and knocked out outside of the white clubs. Country bars, you know, they like to drink and fight, too."
The report stops shy of accusing any officers of targeting hip-hop shows. But it does say the perception that they do "runs against this city's values of inclusion and diversity."
"Such a belief, if allowed to persist, will continue to do lasting damage to the community's perception of its city government and will undermine the trust and openness city leaders have publicly embraced," the board wrote.
The board suggested five actions for the city. The police bureau should establish clear standards for bar checks. The city should publish a checklist of expectations. Police should better document their walk-throughs of clubs. Fire bureau leaders should publish a list of the businesses it has inspected.
And most importantly, Severe said, city leaders should talk more with rappers.
"What I would hope would happen next is people in the city and people in the hip-hop community have a real dialogue so people can really talk these issues out when there isn't a concert happening," Severe said. "You can't have a dialogue when it's 12:30 at night and a bunch of people have paid to go to a show but they can't go inside to see it because of some government regulation."
-- Casey ParksA elderly Florida man faces charges of a hate crime, arson and attempted second-degree murder after allegedly trying to burn down the home of his neighbors, who are a lesbian couple.
As NBC Miami is reporting, Braulio Valenzuela-Villanueva set fire to a mattress that was leaning against a trailer owned by Norma Beteta Fonseca and her partner, Latanya Dinsy, after an ongoing feud in the wee hours of March 31.
Authorities told the Associated Press that 73-year-old Valenzuela-Villanueva, who is also a registered sex offender, did not admit to the blaze but nonetheless said he despised the couple and believed they did not deserve their eight children because of their sexuality.
“Although he did not admit setting the fire, he stated that he despised the two adult victims for the simple fact that they were lesbians,” the arrest affidavit read, according to CBS Miami. “According to the defendant, every time he saw them kissing he felt a deep repugnance and in his opinion, they did not deserve children.”
Still, Fonseca said she wasn't aware of Valenzuela-Villanueva's contempt for her and her partner.Create account | Log in All sections News Commentary Announcement Review Interview All categories DNC Education Environment Gender Gentrification GLBT/Queer Globalization Human Rights International Labor Media Occupy Boston Organizing Palestine Police and Prisons Politics Race Radical Culture Social Welfare Technology War and Militarism Comment on this article | Email this article | Printer-friendly version News :: Race Labor Unions to Mobilize on May Day Against Racist Police Killings - May Day Protest Labor Unions to Mobilize on May Day Against Racist Police Killings - ILWU Dock Workers to Shut Port of Oakland and March on City Hall - South Carolina AFL-CIO Calls for Worker Solidarity Across the US Click on image for a larger version
( photo: ILWU Local 10 dock workers march in San Francisco on May Day 2008 in the first-ever strike action by U.S. workers against U.S. imperialist war. The work stoppage shut down all 29 West Coast ports demanding an end to the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as support for immigrant rights. )
Police murders of unarmed black and brown people continue without letup across the United States. Despite the national uproar this fall over the grand jury verdicts letting off the cops who chokeholded Eric Garner to death in Staten Island, New York and shot 17-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the forces of racist “law and order” are still on a deadly rampage. On April 4 in North Charleston, South Carolina, Walter Scott, a black worker, was shot eight times in the back by a police officer in a traffic stop. The cold-blooded murder was caught in a bystander’s cellphone video that has been seen by millions.
Working people across the country are outraged. Now key unions have decided they’ve had enough, the time has come to act. In an April 16 statement, the South Carolina AFL-CIO announced it would “reach out to workers around the country to join with us on May 1st in actions to protest the continuing unjustified killings.” The labor federation added, “We want to commend ILWU Local 10 for your courageous actions of solidarity.” The reason? On May 1 the West Coast longshore local will hold a stop-work meeting, shutting down the Port of Oakland and marching on City Hall to demand “Stop Police Killings of Black and Brown People.”
This could be huge, which is why the bosses, bureaucrats and Democrats may try to block it – and why class-conscious workers and all opponents of racism should take it up and spread it. There have been numerous protests against police killings in recent months, but this is the first union appeal specifically for bringing out the power of working-class action. Organized labor together with millions of African American, Latino, poor and working people and all defenders of democratic rights are the social force that can bring the wheels of society to a stop in protest against the police murder machine. But we must use that power.
We urge workers across to country to mobilize on May 1 against racist police terror! With rallies, marches and strike action, unions and labor supporters should bring our collective strength to bear, demanding these killings must stop!
Cold-blooded murder. Above: Cellphone video shows killer cop shooting Walter Scott in back. Below: Photo of Walter Scott with his family.
Police in the U.S. killed 1,100 people last year. So far in 2015, from January 1 to April 19, at least 350 civilians have been killed by cops. And that’s just based on published accounts. Young and not so young black men are particularly at risk: in 2012, once a day a black man was killed by cops or vigilantes. Often under-reported, black women have also been in the crosshairs of police terror. Immigrants, too, are prime targets, including Mexican workers like Antonio Zambrano Montes, killed in February by cops in Pasco, Washington. With or without papers, workers must rely on their own strength and demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants!
Union workers and their families have felt the scourge of racist police terror. In New York City, Eric Garner’s sister, mother and aunt were all transit workers, members of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 100. In South Carolina, the brother of Walter Scott, a fork-lift operator, and two other family members belong to International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422. Anti-union terror is rampant in this Lowcountry redoubt of the Old South. Recently the International Association of Machinists (IAM) called off a vote on union representation at the Boeing aircraft plant in North Charleston after organizers were threatened at gunpoint.
And the police kill with impunity: even after massive protests, despite calls for special prosecutors and federal investigations, nothing has stopped – or even slowed – the wanton police violence. When a bystander records the cold-blooded murder on a cellphone, as Ramsey Orta did on Staten Island, it is the witness who is jailed, while the killer cops go free. It’s not a matter of a few “bad cops,” it’s a whole system of racist repression. The system is capitalism, and since the days of chattel slavery it has been based on the brutal exploitation, oppression and repression of black people.
Wanton police murder goes hand in hand with military repression of demonstrators. The U.S.’ endless “war on terror” abroad is directly linked to the unending police killing spree that is terrorizing African American, Latino and immigrant populations “at home.” Taking action on the burning question of state repression can and must also spur labor to use its muscle to unionize low-wage workers. On April 15, over 60,000 marched in union-sponsored protests demanding a $15/hour minimum wage. But even that minimal increase won’t be won by looking to Obama’s Democratic Party of imperialist war, racist repression and poverty pay.
Internationalist contingent calling for workers action at August 23 Staten Island march against police murder of Eric Garner, Michael Brown. (Internationalist photo)
Last summer following the choke-hold killing of Eric Garner we said that the TWU should strike to shut down the mass transit system which is vital to the world center of finance capital. After the police murder of Michael Brown we wrote, “The fight to put a stop to racist cop terror must mobilize the force that has the power to bring the capitalist system to a grinding halt: the millions-strong multiracial working class.” Calling for “Labor/Black/Immigrant Mobilization Now!” we urged: “Mobilize Across U.S. Against Racist Police Terror in Missouri” (The Internationalist, August 2014).
In the face of mass outrage, some unions did protest then. In New York City, the United Federation of Teachers, 1199 hospital workers and 32BJ janitors of SEIU, nurses, PSC university faculty and staff joined a “March for Justice” on Staten Island. Calling to “Mobilize NYC Unions’ Power Against Racist Police Terror!” and denouncing the Democratic and Republican parties of war and repression, the Internationalist Group, CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Class Struggle Education Workers organized a contingent.
Many unions have issued statements against trigger-happy police, but declarations will not stop this deadly plague. It is high time for labor action. The South Carolina AFL-CIO appeal and ILWU Local 10 action in Oakland, California point towards what needs to be done. In Portland, Oregon, Painters Local 10 and IATSE Local 28 have passed resolutions of solidarity with immigrant workers facing police repression in Pasco, Washington, and have voted to march against police killings on May 1. Class Struggle Workers Portland and the Internationalist Group urge other unions and all workers to take up this struggle.
San Francisco/Oakland dock workers of ILWU Local 10 have shown the world what labor solidarity action means. Time and again they have put into practice the union’s slogan, “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All.” They shut down the port to demand freedom for class-war prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. They boycotted ships to protest South African apartheid and Zionist Israel’s wars. On May Day 2008 they spearheaded the shutdown of all Pacific Coast ports to stop the U.S. war on Iraq and Afghanistan, the first strike by U.S. workers against a U.S. imperialist war. Today they’re targeting racist police terror. Their action speaks for us all!
The May 1 action by ILWU port workers should be taken up by Bay Area labor and unions across the country. The Internationalist Group calls upon workers everywhere to unite with the African American, Latino and immigrant population in a massive show of our strength. We have the power, the working-class power, to send the bosses and their hired guns packing. Now is the time to use it! Turn May Day 2015 into a clarion call for working-class action against racist police terror. Join together to stop the killer cops! Turn the watchword into reality: Asian, Latin, Black and White – Workers of the World, Unite! ■ See also:
http://www.internationalist.org/unionsmobilizemaydayvsracistrepression1505.html
This work is in the public domainHack Week
We are always trying to improve Roblox by enhancing the fidelity and the scale of our simulation. In particular, our lighting engine has served us well over the years but limits the creative power of our developers, which is why over the last few years we have built several lighting prototypes during hack week:
Hack Week 2015 (Next Generation |
slow to read the play or got stuck on a block. Credited with 4 solo tackles. He was around the ball more than that. I think that’s important in a MLB. If someone misses the tackle, you want the MLB there to help finish the play off. Casey showed promise. Needs to get to the ball more next week. Must cut down on the mistakes.
Chased down Williams on outside run for his first NFL tackle. Rams got 10 yds on the play. Came up with a good stop on Rams 2nd drive. Casey came upfield, shed block of the LG and tackled the RB for only a gain of 2. Penetration by Dixon helped the play. Flew upfield on draw play where Jenkins got his TFL. Casey got in on the play. Looked quick, decisive. STL ran a run to his area late in the 1st Qtr. Casey read it and got to the spot, but couldn’t get off the block. RB got 11 on the play. Got in on tackle of RB late in 1st Qtr. Laws had RB and Casey got in on pile. Tackled FB on dive play, but only after the guy ran for 12 yds. Hustled outside on run play and forced Williams out of bounds after just 2 yds. Got out of position on 3rd Qtr run up the middle that went for 9. Looked like he went around the block. Got in on tackle of RB started by Tapp in the 3rd Qtr. Read a screen pass perfectly and flew over to blow it up. Got shoved in back by OL and that let the RB get going up the field for small gain. Missed tackle of Salas on WR screen. Should have been easy tackle.
FOKOU — Good game, but started real slow. Fokou was major weak spot vs early runs. We all know that he’s a guy that can get overly excited and that’s exactly what happened. He was the main culprit on Jackson’s long TD run. Got out of position early on and that hurt us. Settled down and played really well at times. Had 5 solo tackles, TFL, PD.
Got cut on early outside run play and that allowed Cadillac to get free to the edge. Has to keep his feet and funnel that back to the middle. Made an outstanding tackle of Amendola on short crossing route. Got there just after the ball and Danny had no chance for RAC yards. Only gave up 2 yds on the play. Got pinned inside on another run up the middle and Cadillac got 15 on the play. Got over to the left side and made solid tackle of RB and held him to 3 yds. Made real good play vs pass in the early 3rd. Read crossing pass immediately and flew up to hit WR as ball got there. Incomplete. Smart read, quick burst. Made a good open field tackle of Williams after short catch and run. Made a quick, strong tackle of Cadillac after short catch in flat in the early 4th Qtr.
K CLAYTON — Played some in the GL defense.
JORDAN — Got hurt in the game. Must have been on STs.
ROLLE — Solid debut. Played in the Nickel. Had one awesome play. Rams tried to run vs our Nickel just inside 10 min. mark of 3rd Qtr. Rolle ran up and hit their C. Knocked the dude on his butt. Brian then grabbed the RB and put him on the ground. That forced long FG attempt, which was no good. Rolle might be undersized, but doesn’t play like it. Almost made a great play on 4th/1. Got RB down for just 1 yd. Had a chance to get him down in the backfield, but couldn’t make the play. Failed to make a play on inside run late in the game. To be fair, Rolle was blocked by 2 different OL.
COLEMAN — Disappointing game. I’m a big Kurt Coleman fan, but he started slow. Struggled with getting off blocks early on. STL had a couple of good runs where Coleman should have been up quickly in support, but some WR was blocking him. Can’t have that. Made good tackle of Amendola after catching pass on trick play in the early 3rd. Took out the FB on an outside run play, but didn’t do it well enough to slow down the RB. Kurt has to get the FB out wide to box in the RB. Good effort. Tackled Kendricks after a gain of 18 on TE screen. Finished with 4 tackles, but didn’t play with the kind of attacking, confident style that we’re used to.
J PAGE — Very good game. Tackled well. Had a solid day in coverage. Came up to quickly tackle Cadillac on run play on 2nd drive. Good tackle. Helped stuff FB after he’d gotten loose for 12 yds. Forced RB out of bounds on pass play where he got by Chaney. Best play was when he flew up and made sure, physical tackle of WR on 3rd down. Kept the receiver from getting the extra yard he needed to move the chains. Page wrapped up and drove him to the ground. Looked comfortable playing in the box when he needed to. Got in on tackle of RB right by the LOS in the early 3rd. Almost made a great play while covering TE in the flat on 2nd/GL. Read the route and jumped it. Got his hands on the pass, but could not secure it. Page was good Red Zone defender in a couple of preseason games. Great to see him getting the job done in a real game as well. Tied for the team lead with 6 solo stops and broke up the one pass.
ALLEN — Didn’t see him on defense.
C ANDERSON — Only on STs.
ASOMUGHA — Didn’t have a strong debut. He and Coleman had some confusion about who was covering the TE on a certain play. Looked like Nnamdi might have been at fault. That catch was good for 19 yds. There was a play in the 2nd Qtr where we blitzed. Rolle and Nnamdi both went for player in the flat and left WR over the middle wide open. Guy dropped the pass, but once again there was a missed assignment or poor communication. Hard to say who at fault on this one. Blitzed on 3rd down in the early 3rd, but Sam got the pass away. Had a deep ball thrown his way in the late 3rd. Gibson went deep on trick play. Nnamdi was in decent position, but had a hand on Gibson and drew the flag for PI. Since that was in the endzone, gave them the ball at the 1. Got beaten by Gibson for gain of 31 down the sideline in the mid-4th. Andy challenged the play, but it was upheld.
SAMUEL — Good game. Covered well and had a solid day as a tackler. Gave up 3 yd completion early on. Tackled Amendola right after he caught it. Broke up a 3rd down pass to TE Kendricks…by hitting him as the ball got there. Asante Lott? Ronnie Samuel? What the heck? Bradford fired a short pass to his side in the late 1st. Ball was off target due to pressure by Babin. Better throw might have been picked by Sammie. Had tight coverage on 3rd down pass to TE. Ball was incomplete. Asante had a chance to tackle FB on inside run where he got loose. Asante “made a business decision” and was more spectator than participant on that play. Called for illegal contact in early 2nd Qtr. Actually looked like Asante missed the receiver. Made solid tackle of Mike Sims-Walker (6’2, 215) after giving up short completion in the early 3rd Qtr. Broke up 3rd/3 short pass to Gibson in the early 4th. Asante went low and helped to tackle Cadillac on a run play coming right at him. Rambo Samuel? Almost picked off deflected pass in the mid-4th. Looked like easy catch, but Sammie couldn’t get hold of it.
RODGERS-CROMARTIE — Gave up a 2nd Qtr completion to Amendola on 3rd/10. DRC was in the slot. You could see he’s not 100% comfortable in there. Amendola used quickness to get open and gain 18 on the play. Lost Amendola in coverage on trick play in the early 3rd. We gave up 16 yds on the play. Had tight coverage of Amendola on 3rd down in 3rd Qtr. Pass was incomplete, but penalty on DL moved chains. Had okay coverage of Amendola on 3rd/GL pass that was off target.
SPECIAL TEAMS
CHAS HENRY — Rough day. Averaged just 36.3 per punt. Must have been those trick winds in the dome. Long punt was 39. The good news is that the punts were so short they weren’t returned. Must improve.
ALEX HENERY — 1 of 1 on FGs. KOs were okay.
PR — 1 fair catch, 1 downed.
KOR — Dion Lewis was desperate to make something happened. So he returned a deep KO and only got us to the 12. Ugh. To make matters worse, did the same thing later on and only got us to the 13. Needless to say, Dion didn’t bring out any other KOs.
MISC —
* Up-man on punts is Kurt Coleman. Gunners are Anderson and Hughes.
* Colt Anderson was terrific in punt coverage. Part of that is due to the short punts.
* Schmitt got held on Rams KOR to open 2nd half. Billick said “I don’t see a hold”. Ugh. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder saw the guys hand holding Schmitt’s arm to his body.
GAMEBOOKOCALA, Fla. - An 87-year-old Central Florida man allegedly beaten by his son with a pipe and sledgehammer has died, according to officials.
Ocala police said 55-year-old Allen Croskey admitted he beat his father with a pipe and then hit him in the head twice with a sledgehammer.
Police were called to their home Wednesday because of a disturbance, and said they found a pool of blood on the carport and the 87-year-old's body lying next to some bushes in the yard.
Croskey was outside with a pipe in his hand, according to an arrest report.
Croskey told police he left the house Tuesday morning to go to the soup kitchen. He said when he returned, his father accused him of damaging a vacuum cleaner, according to the arrest report. Croskey said his father then threatened him with a sledgehammer and told him to leave the house, according to police.
Croskey told police he went to his neighbor's yard and got a metal pipe from a broken chain-link fence. He went back to the house and hit his father in the head, according to the report.
When his father fell, Croskey then hit him twice in the head with a sledgehammer, according to police.
Croskey said he then dragged his father's body outside near some bushes, the arrest report stated. He told police he went back to the house and got two blankets, covering his father's body. He said he was going to wrap him up and "bury his body," according to police.
When police were transporting Croskey to jail, Croskey was asked if he beat his father.
"I believe he deserves to have about two or three years in the hospital," Croskey said.
The 87-year-old later died, Ocala police tweeted on Saturday.
Local 6 reporter Louis Bolden asked Croskey, "What do you deserve after beating an 87-year-old man?"
"Red is blood. Jesus' blood takes care of all of us," Croskey said.
Croskey was arrested on attempted murder charges, but those will likely be upgraded to murder.
Copyright 2014 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Mears
A A
Columbia Police are looking for a woman who has not been seen since October 26 and may be with a man who has assaulted her in the past.27-year-old Cassandra Leaann Laronge was last seen leaving a home in the 100 block of Oak Street where she was staying with a friend. She called an out-of-state relative on November 2.She is believed to be with 35-year-old Christopher Brett Mears, who is wanted on a felony warrant out of Callaway County. The warrant is for domestic assault against Laronge with a bond amount of $50,000.Mears and Laronge may be in an unknown color 1996 Ford Pickup pulling a camper trailer. The Missouri license plate on the pickup is 3UT609.Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Laronge or Mears is urged to call local law enforcement or Crime Stoppers at (573) 875-TIPS.“There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better [than a human]”, Elon Musk famously announced at the World Government Summit in February. For many, statements like this result in a chorus of concern about how we humans need to stay on our toes, lest intelligent machines displace our jobs and cause mass unemployment. However, there are many opportunities that automation brings and what we need to be focusing on is how it can be used to improve, rather than replace existing roles.
As we all know, there are aspects of jobs that are tedious and repetitive, and this is where automation can add value. Take chatbots that answer basic customer queries, speech recognition tools that transcribe text, advanced analytics technologies that analyse unstructured data, and natural language processing tools that schedule appointments. Rather than replacing skilled workers, these capabilities are augmenting their roles by undertaking the ‘robotic’ aspects of the workplace allowing humans to be more efficient in other aspects of their roles.
On top of performing simple administrative tasks, even more, advantageous is artificial intelligence (AI) driven automation that mimics the complex process of human learning and decision-making. This is known as intelligent automation (IA) or cognitive automation. From research Avanade commissioned, we found that over half of business leaders worldwide are confident that IA will augment rather than replace existing roles. In addition, 86 per cent believe their business should implement IA solutions in the next five years to be a market leader, according to the same research.
However, to deploy IA effectively, an understanding of its correct role is fundamental. IA certainly can increase efficiency in the workplace, but greater productivity will only follow if the technology is aligned with the right objectives. For this reason, IA needs to be firmly goal-oriented, and implemented within a well thought out digital transformation strategy – not as a disparate point solution that saves a few minutes for a handful of employees across the business each day.
[easy-tweet tweet=”There is a substantial “fear factor” when it comes to IA” hashtags=”IA, AI”]
It is also important to understand that to implement new technologies and ways of working effectively, heads of department may require new skills and capabilities to successfully bring the collective workforce on board.
Eliminating the IA fear factor
There is a substantial “fear factor” when it comes to IA, likely stirred by the media driven panic around the subject. These technologies enhance our day-to-day activities, and free us up to focus on more interesting, higher level tasks – rather than, say, bearing the frustration of waiting in a call queue for an answer to a simple question.
Relating these capabilities to a typical modern working environment such as a call centre further sheds light on the benefits of IA in the workplace. Answering the similar questions about store opening times is hardly going to give an employee job satisfaction. Applying their knowledge to help solve more complex customer queries may be more rewarding though.
To succeed with IA, we need to recognise both the strengths and shortcomings of humans and IA technology, as the right balance of human and IA capabilities will help optimise each other’s performance. Then, implementing IA within the right framework will result in a more engaged and more productive workforce.
People may fear the rise of automation, but they also dislike performing robotic tasks. IA gives us significant opportunity to improve the way we work, eliminate meaningless tasks and give us greater job satisfaction. It’s time we embraced robots to start working with us, not in place of us.The Perth Mint opened in 1899 in response to the discovery of rich gold deposits in Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. It was Australia's third branch of Britain's Royal Mint - the others being the Sydney Mint and the Melbourne Mint (both closed).
Diggers, who flocked to the then colony of Western Australia in huge numbers from other parts of Australia and from around the world, deposited their raw gold with us where it was refined and minted into gold coins.
Gold refining continually took place at our original Hay Street premises until April 1990, when the operation was moved to a modern facility in Perth’s eastern suburbs. Between 1899 and 1931, we struck more than 106 million gold sovereigns and nearly 735,000 half sovereigns for use as currency in Australia and throughout the British Empire.
The visionary leader Sir John Forrest, the first Premier of Western Australia, is regarded as our founding father. 'Big John' foresaw the importance of gold in the development of Western Australia's economy, and successfully lobbied the British Government to establish a branch of the Royal Mint in Perth.
Forrest laid our foundation stone in 1896. Designed by George Temple Poole, our heritage building is one of Perth most impressive colonial-era monuments. In recognition of the quality of the architect's work, we possess the highest classification from the National Trust and are one of the first buildings entered on the State's heritage register.
We stopped making gold sovereigns when Britain abandoned the gold standard in 1931. Nevertheless, our refinery remained busy as staff turned their skills to making fine gold bullion bars. But it was not long before we were involved again in the production of coins.
In 1940, with Australia on a war footing, an urgent telegram arrived from the Commonwealth Treasury in Canberra: "Heavy demand for Australian coin and Melbourne Mint working full capacity. Could you undertake minting copper coin?"
We produced hundreds of millions of Australian pennies and half pennies between 1940 and 1964. We also fulfilled an order for 1.3 million shillings in 1946. Our considerable output was boosted further when Australia introduced decimal currency in 1966 for which we produced a staggering 829 million 2 cent coins and 26 million 1 cent coins by 1973.
Meanwhile, we achieved "arguably the purest of all gold" in 1957. Refinery Officer Leo Hickey and Senior Craftsman Alexander Osborne produced a proof 'plate' of almost six nines - 999.999 parts of gold per thousand - as measured by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London. The Royal Mint was so impressed that it ordered some of the gold as the benchmark for its own standards.
We remained under Britain's jurisdiction until 1 July 1970, when ownership transferred to the Government of Western Australia. The change came at a fortuitous time, preceding by a few years the beginning of a new gold boom. With the price of gold rising dramatically, we became the focus of renewed interest and opportunity.
Our new direction was formalised in 1987 with the creation of Gold Corporation by a State Act of Parliament. Under an agreement with the Commonwealth Treasury, our new operator was empowered to mint and market gold, silver and platinum Australian legal tender coinage to investors and collectors worldwide.
At a glittering ceremony in Sydney on 23 April 1987, Prime Minister Bob Hawke helped launch the Australian Nugget Gold Coin Series. The first day's trading yielded sales of 155,000 ounces of gold worth AUD 103 million, well above the sales target of 130,000 ounces to the end of June.
Today, we are a member of an elite group of world mints whose pure gold, silver and platinum legal tender coins are trusted without question. Like the Australian Nugget, our Australian Kookaburra Silver Coin Series, Australian Koala Silver Coin Series, Australian Platypus Platinum Coin Series, and Australian Lunar Gold and Silver Coin Series are extensively sought after by bullion investors worldwide.
We also issue 'proof' quality collector coins featuring iconic Australian designs, and commemoratives celebrating major international and Australian anniversaries. The stunning quality of these coins reflect the importance of our traditional skills, and through the use of modern treatments such as colour and gilding, we demonstrate the ability to set new market trends.
In 2003, we officially opened an 8,400 square metre state of the art manufacturing and commercial facility next door to our original limestone building. Dominating the Mint's heritage precinct, these two important buildings are powerful symbols of more than 100 years of minting excellence in Western Australia.A group of Republican lawmakers is protesting the removal a reference to God in the patch logo for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO).
The 35 lawmakers, led by Rep. Randy Forbes James (Randy) Randy ForbesToo much ‘can do,’ not enough candor Trump makes little headway filling out Pentagon jobs Why there's only one choice for Trump's Navy secretary MORE (R-Va.), wrote a letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz urging them to restore the logo with a reference to God.
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Forbes warned that the action taken by the RCO could set a “dangerous precedent” when it comes to religion and the military.
"The action taken by the RCO suggests that all references to God, regardless of their context, must be removed from the military,” Forbes wrote. “As we are confident that your legal advisors would not suggest that censorship is required for compliance with the First Amendment, we ask that you reverse this perplexing decision.”
The patch logo was changed after a military atheist group, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, protested the reference to God on the patch. The patch has a saying on it in Latin, which is common for military patches, that tranlates to: “Doing God’s Work with Other People’s Money.”
The saying was then changed last month to say: “Doing Miracles with Other People’s Money.”
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The RCO is an office created in 2003 that expedites weapons systems and reports to a board of directors that includes the Air Force secretary and chief of staff.
This isn't the first time Forbes has gotten invovled with God and the government.
In November, Forbes introduced a bill to reaffirm "In God We Trust" as the country's motto. The bill supports showing the motto in all American public schools and buildings.
In response, President Obama suggested the legislation was a waste of time.
"I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work," Obama said in November according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
House Republicans also passed a bill last month that allows for religious symbols to be displayed a military memorials and cemeteries in response to a federal appeals court decision that found a cross on a San Diego war memorial was unconstitutional.
The Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
112th SENT Letter to AF Ab RCO Motto ChangeFFmpeg can be considered the Swissknife of audio and video applications, with many options and possibilities. You probably already have it installed on your computer as a dependency of a program you use to watch videos or listen to music. In this article we will see some use from the command line without using graphics applications.
But first, a presentation of ffmpeg:
FFmpeg is a free software / open source project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line program for transcoding multimedia files. FFmpeg is published under the GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1+ or GNU General Public License 2+ (depending on which options are enabled)
Components
The project is made of several components:
ffmpeg is a command line tool to convert one video file format to another. It can also grab and encode in real time from a TV card.
ffserver is an HTTP and RTSP multimedia streaming server for live broadcasts. It can also time shift live broadcast.
ffplay is a simple media player based on SDL and on the FFmpeg libraries.
ffprobe is a command line tool to show media information.
libavcodec is a library containing all the FFmpeg audio/video encoders and decoders. Most codecs were developed from scratch to ensure best performance and high code reusability.
libavformat is a library containing demuxers and muxers for audio/video container formats.
libavutil is a helper library containing routines common to different parts of FFmpeg. This library includes adler32, crc, md5, sha1, lzo decompressor, Base64 encoder/decoder, des encrypter/decrypter, rc4 encrypter/decrypter and aes encrypter/decrypter.
libpostproc is a library containing video postprocessing routines.
libswscale is a library containing video image scaling and colorspace/pixelformat conversion routines.
libavfilter is the substitute for vhook which allows the video/audio to be modified or examined between the decoder and the encoder.
First, check the formats available
FFmpeg supports most of the popular formats, we don’t need to worry a lot about that. Formats supported by FFmpeg include MPEG, MPEG-4 (Divx), ASF, AVI, Real Audio/Video and Quicktime. To see a list of all the codecs/formats supported by FFmpeg, run the following command:
ffmpeg -formats
This will print a long list of formats, on the left of any format you will see an E (means that it can encode in that format) and/or a D(means that it can decode that format)
#1 Audio Conversion
Say you have the audio file named my_audio.wav and want to convert it in a mp3.
ffmpeg -i my_audio.wav my_audio.mp3 ffmpeg -i my_audio.wav my_audio.mp3
-i is input file
Really easy, it isn’t? change the extension of the output file with any supported format to get different formats.
#2 Video Conversion
The basic usage it’s like the example saw for the audio so you can simply write:
ffmpeg -i my_video.mpeg -s 500×500 my_video.flv
-s ‘size’ set video resolution size (Width x Height)
This will convert my_video.mpeg file to my_video.flv and will resize the video resolution to 500×500
#3 Extract images from a video
Sometimes is useful to extract some images from a movie, and ffmpeg can do this easily:
ffmpeg-i my_video.flv my_video.mpeg ffmpeg-i my_video.flv my_video.mpeg
This will create 25 images for every 1 second, but it may serve us to have more or less images, this can be achieved with the parameter -r
-r fps Set frame rate (default 25)
ffmpeg -i my_video.mpeg -s 500 × 500 my_video.flv ffmpeg -i my_video.mpeg -s 500×500 my_video.flv
With this command you’ll get 1 image for every second.
Start e duration
You can also give a start time and the duration with the flags:
-ss position Seek to given time position in seconds. “hh:mm:ss[.xxx]” syntax is also supported.
-t duration Restrict the transcoded/captured video sequence to the duration specified in seconds. “hh:mm:ss[.xxx]” syntax is also supported.
This command will take 25 images images every second beginning at the tenth second, and continuing for 5 seconds
ffmpeg -i test.mpg image % d.jpg ffmpeg -i test.mpg image%d.jpg
#4 Extract audio from a video
With ffmpeg you can also mix video and audio, so we can extract an mp3 track from a video:
ffmpeg -i test.mpg -r 1 image % d.jpg ffmpeg -i test.mpg -r 1 image%d.jpg
In this example we have used the flag -f.
-f fmt Force the format.
To get the same result it’s also possible to use the option to disable video capture:
-vn Disable video recording
ffmpeg -i test.mpg -r 25 -ss 00:00: 10 -t 00:00:05 images % 05d.png ffmpeg -i test.mpg -r 25 -ss 00:00:10 -t 00:00:05 images%05d.png
#5 Create a screencast
With ffmpeg it’s also possible to create a simple screencast, capturing your desktop.
To do this we’ll use some of the flags show in the former example:
ffmpeg -i video.avi -f mp3 audio.mp3 ffmpeg -i video.avi -f mp3 audio.mp3
Note: 0.0 is display.screen number of your X11 server, same as the DISPLAY environment variable.
This will save 25 frame per second of your wxga screen (or you can use -s with a resolution like -s 1024×768) and put them in a mpg video in /tmp.
#6 Convert images to movie
Say you have a lot of images named `img001.jpg’, `img002.jpg’ and so on in sequence, you can convert them into a movie with this command:
ffmpeg -i video.avi -vn audio.mp3 ffmpeg -i video.avi -vn audio.mp3
#7 Capture a video from the webcam
To record video run ffmpeg with arguments such as these:
ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s wxga -i : 0.0 / tmp / outputFile.mpg ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s wxga -i :0.0 /tmp/outputFile.mpg
To record both audio and video use:
ffmpeg -f image2 -i img % d.jpg / tmp / a.mpg ffmpeg -f image2 -i img%d.jpg /tmp/a.mpg
These are just some examples, ffmpeg can do a lot in editing audio and video, and in the net there are a lot of examples about it.
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References:
Project site with documentation http://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-doc.html
Youtube channel with information on ffmpeg http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E0AACC679489E4ED
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None FoundDid God have a wife? Asherah Worship in Israel
by Rich Deem
Introduction
Queen of Heaven? Did the Israelites worship the "Queen of Heaven"? The answer is "yes," since the Bible clearly states that it was so. Does this make the "Queen of Heaven" God's wife?
The recent claim that God had a wife was made by a Francesca Stavrakopoulou, admitted atheist at the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.1 The claim is not new, but was revived in time to promote the upcoming BBC series, "Bible's Buried Secrets."2 Although the claim seems ridiculous on the surface, there is actually a fair amount of evidence that groups of ancient peoples of the Middle East worshipped different gods and goddesses, one of whom was named "Asherah." However, contrary to the claims of many scholars, the Bible does not try to cover up these facts, but brings them to light as the idol worship they were. This page examines this evidence and the ways it has been interpreted.
Asherah in archeology
Fueling the claim that God had a wife was an inscription found at Kuntillet Ajrud, an 8th centuries B.C. site in the northeast Sinai peninsula, that said, "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah" and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah." Yahweh is the Hebrew word for God. A similar inscription has been found at a tomb from the same time period at Khirbat El-Qôm. Other religious artifacts, such as horned altars, small altars, ashes, animal bones, scepter heads and terra cotta female figurines, have been found scattered about the Middle East, primarily in isolated homes of individuals rather than sites of official worship (e.g., Jerusalem). William G. Dever, who did much of the research on these artifacts, believed they represented a cult of Asherah,3 as he had suggested over 20 years ago. During the 8th and 9th centuries, these female figurines were common throughout the Middle East, suggesting their widespread use.
Asherah in the Bible
Contrary to the claims of scholars, the Bible does not attempt to cover up the existence of Asherah or that she/it was worshipped in Israel. In fact, Asherah is mentioned in the Bible books of Exodus,4 Deuteronomy,5 Judges,6 1 Kings,7 2 Kings,8 2 Chronicles,9 Isaiah,10 Jeremiah,11 and Micah.12 Most of the descriptions suggest the Asherah was a carved tree or pole, probably representative of the goddess known as Asherah, Ashira or Athirat. Most often in the Bible, Asherah was associated with the god Baal.6-9 The Bible also describes a "queen of heaven,"13-14 which would presumably be God's "wife." However, in one of Jeremiah's accounts, it is God Himself who told Jeremiah that He was grieved by the idol worship of the "queen of heaven."13 The women who were making offerings to the "queen of heaven" admitted doing so out of their own superstitions.14 God was not keeping them safe enough, so they were covering their bases by making offerings to other gods and goddesses of the surrounding peoples.
According to biblical history, about half of the kings of Israel worshipped other gods and built altars and Asherah to them. The Bible even indicates that some of the Asherah were made in Samaria,8 which is where archeologists have found them. So, the fact that archeologists have found Asherah in Samaria is not surprising. It would be more surprising if they didn't find them! Was the Bible trying to keep this worship of other gods and goddesses secret? No!
God has a wife!
The Bible actually says outright that God has a wife. Yes, I admit it! However, that "wife" is not Asherah or any other cultic goddess. The wife is none other than God's people:
For your Maker is your husband-- the LORD Almighty is his name-- the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. (Isaiah 54:5)
As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:5)
"Return, faithless people," declares the LORD, "for I am your husband. I will choose you--one from a town and two from a clan--and bring you to Zion. (Jeremiah 3:14)
The New Testament extends this concept, saying that followers of Jesus will be "married" to Him in heaven, and He will be our spiritual "husband."15 In the book of Revelation, a marriage is described in heaven, where the "bride" is composed of all believers in Jesus Christ.15
Conclusion
Yes, the atheists are at it again, just in time to promote their upcoming Bible bashing series, "Bible's Buried Secrets," on the BBC. It is the same tired allegations - the Israelites were really polytheists and Yahweh, the God of the Bible was just one of many players. Accordingly, the Bible tried to cover up the fact that all the Israelites were polytheists. The problem with the claim is that the Bible readily admits that the kings would go astray and worship other gods. The fact that archeology confirms such examples of idol worship in Israel is no surprise. It would be surprising if such evidence were not found. And just to set the record straight, the Bible does say that God has a wife - consisting of none other than His people.
Related Pages
References
Jennifer Viegas. Did God have a wife? Scholar says that he did, MSNBC, March 18, 2011. Did God Have a Wife, BBC, March 22, 2011. William G. Dever. Did God Have A Wife? Archaeology And Folk Religion In Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005. "But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim (Exodus 34:13) "But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. (Deuteronomy 7:5)
"You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. (Deuteronomy 12:3)
"You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the LORD your God, which you shall make for yourself. (Deuteronomy 16:21) The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth. (Judges 3:7)
Now on the same night the LORD said to him, "Take your father's bull and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; (Judges 6:25)
and build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of this |
both have profound anti-Semitism present in them. They both have rules that govern individual’s most trivial aspects of life, especially one’s sexual life. Both of them are plagiarisms of Judaism. Both intend to oppress one’s faculty of reasoning and would punish anyone who dares to point out to the contradictions in them. Both attempt to punish one for heretical thought, that is to say to offend Abrahamic dogma you really don’t have to engage in an act of heresy, entertaining a thought that is dimmed to be heretical in the privacy of your own skull should do the job in qualifying you for eternal sufferings and torment.
Neither Islam nor Christianity can be a force behind enlightenment. It’s disappointing how people despite their lack of belief in religion, still give it the credit for being a positive source for unity and enlightenment. None of the members of the triangle of evil (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) deserve such credit. They indeed have been one of the greatest barriers in any progress that our civilisations have made. They are against enlightenment, reason, self-awareness, freedom and justice. Theistic dogma is as despotic as any ideology can get. The most disturbing indicator of such revolting despotism is the possibility of being convicted for thought crime under both Christianity and Islam.
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People who use cocaine ‘recreationally’ may be closer to becoming a drug addict than they think
People who use cocaine “recreationally” may be closer to becoming addicted than they think, a study has warned.
Even among non-dependent cocaine users, visual cues associated with consumption of the illicit drug lead to dopamine release in an area of the brain responsible for cravings, according to research published in the medical journal Scientific Reports.
Dopamine is a chemical that causes people to seek pleasurable activities, and researchers have known for years that cocaine use triggers the release of the neurotransmitter.
The research suggests that using cocaine just once may cause an addiction.
NRL plunged into cocaine scandal during representative round Read more
“The study provides evidence that some of the characteristic brain signals in people who have developed addictions are also present much earlier than most of us would have imagined,” said Prof Marco Leyton, an expert on the neurobiology of drug use and addictions at McGill university in Montreal, Canada.
In people with addictions, visual cues – such as seeing someone using cocaine – are often enough to trigger dopamine release.
This cue-induced release of dopamine shifts to the dorsal striatum, a structure deep inside the brain thought to be particularly important for when people start to lose control of their reward-seeking behaviours.
To better understand how soon this effect might be seen, Leyton’s team used positron emission tomography (Pet) scans to look at what happens in the dorsal striatum of recreational cocaine users.
The scientists created highly personalised cues by filming participants ingesting cocaine in the laboratory with a friend with whom they had used the drug before.
During a later session, subjects underwent a Pet scan while watching the video of their friend taking cocaine.
Exposure to the cocaine-related cues increased both craving and dopamine release in the dorsal striatum.
“An accumulation of these brain triggers might bring people closer to the edge than they had realised,” said Prof Leyton.
The findings also underscored the importance of providing help early to avoid the severe effects of dependency, he said.The FIA is taking steps to ensure there is no repeat of the failures seen at Silverstone © Getty Images Enlarge Related Links Race:
German Grand Prix
Pirelli has asked the FIA to ensure that the teams use their tyres under certain conditions at this weekend's German Grand Prix.
Following the tyre failures at the British Grand Prix, Pirelli issued a statement highlighting a list causes, with low pressures, aggressive cambers and swapping tyres from side-to-side among them.
Ahead of FP1 at the Nurburgring, the FIA issued a not to the teams which said it must satisfy technical delegate Charlie Whiting that their cars comply with a set of conditions. The conditions include minimum starting pressures and stabilised running pressures, maximum cambers and a banning of swapping tyres from side-to-side.
On Thursday Lewis Hamilton said he had "been swapping tyres since I started Formula One, so it's been done for many years", but the practice has now been banned by the FIA.
The decision from the FIA to enforce the guidelines on tyre operating procedures comes after the Grand Prix Drivers' Association threatened to boycott the race if there was a repeat of the problems seen at Silverstone.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.NEW YORK – THUNDER BAY – SPORTS — The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) and Major League Baseball (MLB) today announced a global professional players agreement for the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup 2017, which will be staged 1-10 September in Thunder Bay, Canada.
As part of the new MLB-WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup partnership, MLB affiliated players (born 1999-2001) are eligible to participate with their respective National Teams.
Twelve nations — Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, South Africa and the United States — will be competing in the official junior baseball world championship, and the respective national governing bodies will have until 27 August to finalize their rosters for the U-18 Baseball World Cup.
“This landmark agreement further raises baseball’s international profile, particularly following the unprecedented success and popularity of this year’s World Baseball Classic,” said WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari. “The National Team is intended to be a representation of a country’s best players, and together with Major League Baseball’s shared vision, the top young baseball players in the world will be able to wear their nations’ jerseys in Thunder Bay.”
“We are pleased to work with the WBSC to give our young affiliated players the opportunity to play on this international platform,” said MLB Chief Baseball Officer, Joe Torre. “MLB remains committed to our youth all over the world and playing against the best competition in their age group will only enhance their development. As I had the honor of doing at the World Baseball Classic, there is no greater feeling than that of representing your country on the ball field.”
“Major League Baseball continues to be a great partner in targeting youth, in evolving the culture of our sport and in building the National Team brand, which is resonating with fans and players at unprecedented levels,” said President Fraccari.
Tickets for the XXVIII WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup can be purchased at www.thunderbay2017.com.About This Game
Key Features
Great Value: Enjoy over 60 original missions from Toy Soldiers, Toy Soldiers: Cold War, with accompanying DLC packs in Toy Soldiers: Complete.
Multiplayer:Lead your toy soldiers to victory against friends! Engage in head-to-head battles across both games in Toy Soldiers: Complete. That’s right: you can now pit Commando against Kaiser in “historic” multiplayer action.
An Arsenal of Weapons: Take direct control of over 50 units including machine guns, howitzers, tanks, fighter planes and bombers to defeat over 57 different enemy units.
DLC is free!: Enjoy the content of the original Toy Soldiers, Toy Soldiers: Cold War, The Kaiser’s Battle, Invasion!, Evil Empire and Napalm DLC packs, absolutely free.
Endless Action: Over 60 hours of intense combat combined with addictive, action strategy gameplay.
Toy Soldiers
Kaiser's Battle DLC
Invasion! DLC
Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Evil Empire DLC
Napalm DLC
The award-winning smash hit returns withBring your toys back to life with the originaland, now bundled together with all DLC packs:and. That's bothgames and all DLC in one $45-value bundle!One of the top 10 best-selling Xbox LIVE® Arcade games of all time, Toy Soldiers is a unique, action-packed strategy-based game in which players command antique WWI toy soldiers vying for control of the trench-filled battlefields of Europe. Deploy an exciting arsenal that includes tanks, cavalry, biplanes, and flamethrowers in vintage WWI toy dioramas.Position your defenses and take direct control of your artillery to bomb the enemy positions, pilot your bi-plane against the enemy trench, or maneuver your tanks across No-Man’s Land and lead your Toy Soldiers to victory!Enjoy all new French inspired content with THE KAISER'S BATTLE! Enter the fray as the French Army and battle into the midnight hours in new multiplayer and Survival Mode maps. Take on the new experimental boss, the fearsome K-Wagen!The British are bringing brand new secret weapons of tiny toy mayhem in 'Invasion!,' the second add-on to Toy Soldiers from Signal Studios!Put on your Kaiser’s helmet and command the German Army against a mad menagerie of new antagonistic toys, including flying saucers, chivalrous knights, and the “Rolls Royce of the Sky,” the WWII Mustang.Defend Germany in a new Mini-campaign topped by the most calculating, head-strong boss of all (batteries not included)! Raise your saber, soldier, and lead the charge against… is that a spaceman? The Invasion has begun!The Cold War ignites when '80s era action toys come alive and wage war! Toy Soldiers: Cold War delivers hours of intense combat combined with addictive action strategy gameplay.Superpowers collide in this playful homage to '80s action toys and films. Command the powerful Cold War arsenals of the USA or USSR armies! Control base turrets, modern combat vehicles, fighter jets, attack helicopters, and commando action figures. Whether lighting up the Toy Box alone or jumping into the fray with your friends, battle in campaign, co-op, or competitive modes.Fight for the high score in the addictive mini-games, and while you're at it, don't forget to BLOW EVERYTHING UP!It’s time to step into the boots of our Russian comrades and fight back as the Evil Empire! Deploy turrets, modern combat vehicles, attack helicopters and a slew of new tricks to destroy your capitalist foes—all while enjoying expanded single player, online co-op, and online competitive modes.Eager to return to your freedom-fighting American army? Turn up the heat and invade a harsh new world in the jungle-themed Napalm; the final expansion for Toy Soldiers: Cold War.With challenges focused on torching your enemies, additional weapons at your disposal, a brand-new vehicle, and expanded single-player, online co-op, and online competitive modes, Napalm is sure to set a new standard for startling authenticity and intense action.Search resumes for man swept away in Brisbane River while retrieving remote-controlled boat
Updated
A major search is underway for a man swept away in the Brisbane River when he tried to retrieve a remote-controlled boat.
The 44-year-old was caught in a strong current when he went into the river to retrieve his boat at the Brisbane Corso about 4:30pm on Saturday.
His partner followed him along the river bank for about 200 metres until he disappeared near the Indooroopilly Golf Club.
Acting Police Inspector Andrew Dupere said the man could not be found despite hours of searching by land, air and sea.
"We all got here quickly but the current was flowing fast and he has gone downstream pretty quickly," he said.
The search was suspended about midnight.
Acting Inspector Todd Sucic said there were grave fears for the 44-year-old's safety.
"We will resume searching for him today with water police, the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service and the SES, so hopefully we will be able to locate him sooner rather than later," he said.
He said a command post at the Somerville House Water Sports Centre at Yeronga is coordinating the operation.
Topics: missing-person, police, emergency-incidents, brisbane-4000
First postedLex the police dog from central Illinois is far from top dog in drug-sniffing skills.
That's the core finding of a potentially influential new ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which considered the question of how much police should rely on their K-9 partners to justify searches when a dog's own competence, as in Lex's case, is itself suspect.
The opinion stems from an appeal by Larry Bentley Jr, a St. Louis man serving 20 years in prison for drug possession. He argued the 20 kilograms of cocaine Bloomington police found in his car during a 2010 traffic stop derived from an illegal search triggered by Lex.
While the court upheld the conviction, it disparaged Lex and suggested it might have considered tossing Bentley's conviction if police had relied solely on Lex's nose.
"Lex is lucky the Canine Training Institute doesn't calculate class rank," a 15-page opinion said. "If it did, Lex would have been at the bottom of his class."
Lex's trainer at the Bloomington-based dog school staunchly defended the 10-year-old Belgian Malinois on Wednesday, a day after the court's decision.
"The opinion is unfair and very one-sided," Michael Bieser said in a phone interview. He added about Lex, who remains on the job, "He's is a very, very good dog."
As a consequence of the decision, he added, some effective drug-sniffing dogs could be kept out of service for fear their performance records will be similarly misconstrued by courts.
Tuesday's ruling pointed to records showing Lex nearly always signals drugs are present — 93 percent of the time. And it cited other figures that indicated he is frequently wrong — more than 40 percent of the time.
"Lex's overall accuracy rate... is not much better than a coin flip," the ruling says.
Bieser argued Lex's alert and false-positive rates on the street are misleading because they don't factor in times he detects drug residue or larger quantities police simply fail to find. Lex's success rates in controlled tests required for certification have been over 90 percent, he said.
He conceded Lex did fail one controlled test during the evidence-gathering stage of Bentley's case, calling it an anomaly. As a result, Lex was pulled from service for a two-week refresher course.
The court said it upheld Bentley's conviction in part because other indications at the traffic stop, including his contradictory statements, may have separately justified a search. It added that Lex's overall performance likely rose just above minimally acceptable levels according to criteria laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the judges make clear their concern that dogs that almost always signal for drugs could potentially provide police with a "pretext" to search anyone's car.
They also highlighted the practice of Lex's police handlers giving him a reward — a toy hose stuffed with a sock — each time he alerts, whether he's right or wrong about drugs, saying that "seems like a terrible way to promote accurate detection."
Lex's trainer says the institute doesn't instruct police to reward dogs after each alert. But dogs are so eager to please, he went on, they perceive pats or even encouraging tones of voice as a reward, so whether they get a toy reward is irrelevant.
Still, he says the Bentley case has forced the institute to alter one recommendation to police: From now on, while dogs are out on a job, never offer them a reward.
"We didn't do it because we agree rewards confuse dogs," he said. "But they will use the practice against us in court."
Associated PressPunctuation Style [ edit ]
When punctuating quoted passages, I believe punctuation can belong inside or outside the quotation marks, depending on the meaning, even though the British style calls for them to be always within the quotation marks.
As an American, I have never quite accepted the idea that punctuation should go inside the quotes as often as style manuals seems to insist. I'm not clear what the British alternative is, however. Are there any links here, or could someone provide a brief set of examples? --Ryguasu
Example added. Ortolan88
Thanks. How about punctuation for As John Doe points out, "The man with the most cheese molds the least." Americans would obsessively put the period inside the quotation marks. Is this true for British folks as well? --Ryguasu
Um, there's no obsession about it. If it is a complete sentence, the punctuation goes inside in both countries. The MOS has always said that. Ortolan88
Ortolan88 is right. If you were to be perfectly logical about it, you would write
As John Doe points out, "The man with the most cheese molds the least.".
because there the quotation is a complete sentence (requiring a period) while it sits at the end of another complete sentence (requiring its own period). I will often use just this style, since I'm a hyperlogical person, but most people regard it as too ugly, so the usual style convention is to keep only the period inside the quotation marks. (It might just as easily have gone the other way, however.) What distinguishes the two countries' systems is:
John Doe called him "the man with the most cheese".
Here the quotation is not a complete sentence (thus requiring no period), so the style above is the one demanded by pedantic logic. Since this style is not ugly, we can use it in ordinary writing, and the British do; the Americans, however, move the period inside the quotation marks, because... I dunno why, they just do. — Toby 09:14 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)
As I understand it, it is a prejudice of American printers that little bits like periods look "bad" hanging outside the "quotes". I don't agree and I have to catch myself when I'm writing commercially to do it the American way, but in everything I write for myself I do it British style and I was delighted to note when I was working up the Manual of Style that British was already the convention in Wikipedia. Ortolan88
On quotations and punctuation marks [ edit ]
Right now our official policy is to put punctuation marks inside quotation marks if it is a full quotation, but outside the quotation marks if it is a partial quotation. I've been looking at many encyclopedias and found that this is uncommon even in British publications. does anybody else feel that the current policy is needlessly confusing... or am I simply being an Ugly American here? I'd like to change it to have a uniform "punctuation goes inside quotation marks" style, but I really don't want to step on anyone's toes – just looking for a few comments on the issue. ;) [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 16:52, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
The present official policy is in agreement with what is done in many (most? all?) other languages. You should consider the fact that many contributors here do not have English as their first language and have in fact learnt in school/university that the punctuation only goes inside the quotation marks if it actually belongs there in the first place. The only reason to do otherwise is, I guess, typographical, and I don't really find it much of an aesthetic improvement to get the empty space in one place rather than in an other./Tupsharru 17:19, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The rule has been in there since the first draft. I believe it is clearer that way. There were many examples of this usage in the Wikipedia already. I tried to make the first draft reflect what was already "best practice" in Wikipedia. Ortolan88 22:21, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC) Personally, I can never remember what the policy is, so I generally just fake it. (I've read enough British authors over the years that my sense of such things is confused. In other words, my gut instinct is unreliable.) There would be something to be said for a system that is entirely consistent (and therefore easier to remember). However, at the moment there is so much inconsistency with regard to punctuation that I almost wonder if it is worth the effort to have a rule. (Trying to enforce any change would be very difficult. Not that the current "rule" is enforced.)--[[User:Aranel|Aranel
("Sarah")]] 22:30, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Like the rest of the Manual of Style, none of the rules here are enforced, but when someone who loves copy-editing comes along to tend to an article, maybe quite an old one, they can look in the Manual of Style for guidance on consistency. Not that the rule is all that hard to remember: If the punctuation is part of what is being quoted, put it inside the quotes, and if it is not part of what is being quoted, leave it out. That is, the quotation marks contain only what is being quoted. Ortolan88 22:57, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The current Wikipedia policy is often called "logical quotation". I far prefer it, despite what I was taught in school, and always use it when not prevented. Proponents of "typographical quotation" claimed it "looks better". Too often, I believed, it did not look better. It looked stupid. This is especially so in lists of words and meanings. For example, using logical punctuation: Three French words with related meanings are maison 'house', domaine 'estate, property', and château 'castle'. This seems to be me to be more understandable and better looking than: Three French words with related meanings are maison 'house,' domaine, 'estate, property,' and château 'castle.' (The use of single quotation marks here rather than double quotation marks is standard linguistics usage when indicating a meaning of a previous word or phrase regardless of whether in the article as a whole double quotation marks or singlular quotation marks are used for top level quoting. I use it in Wikipedia since I prefer it and guideliness currently don't specify and the convention has spread to technical writing outside of linguistics. But using double quotation marks wouldn't change the point.) Now if you aren't at all concerned with meaning, it is possible that at some level of abstract design that always putting a small base-line punctuation mark before a small high punctuation mark is aesthetically better, if there is an absolute in asethetics. But in parsing a sentence we are concerned with meaning. This is only my personal feeling, not binding on anyone. If the Wikipedia Style Guide specifications had specified typographical quotation, I would bend to its whims. But considering that logical punctuation is specified in prestigious British style guides and in some general technical style guides, it is doubtful that such a rule would have stayed fixed in Wikipedia. The only reasonable choices are between letting the editor choose and logical quotation everywhere. From The Canadian Web Magazine for the Writing Trade: Placement of Punctuation and Quotation Marks: In a literary work, we recommend the American style of always placing periods and commas inside the quotation marks. In a technical or legal work, where accuracy is essential, we recommend the British practice of placing periods and commas within quotation marks only when they are part of the quoted material. I take Wikipedia as more technical than literary and this recommendation to come from noting increased use of logical punctuation in academic and technical writing outside of Britain. Jallan 00:17, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Various observations: The comma and period inside the quotes "look better" only when true typography is used to place the quote over the punctuation, so that's not really an argument for doing it. My arguments for doing it come from Chicago and many other American style guides, but most acknowledge the historic reasons for the punctuation order. In technical style guides here, it is not the general case for punctuation to go outside the quotes, only when what's inside the quotes is an exact value (as in: type this URL into the field: "http://www.foo.com".). However, I have no problem using the Wikipedia style guide and editing according to that. Elf | Talk 15:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Quotation marks: New policy proposal [ edit ]
With quotation marks, we have no rigid rule. Some users prefer using one style (punctuation goes outside the quotation marks when quoting only part of a sentence, but inside when quoting a compete sentence), while other prefer another style (punctuation always goes inside quotation marks).
I prefer the "rigid rule" that is presently in place, not because it is a rigid rule, but because it gives guidance to editors, that is, if the punctuation is part of the quote, quote it, if not part of the quote, don't quote it. Keep in mind, that which is frequently forgotten in these discussions, the purpose of any manual of style is consistency. This proposal will result in inconsistency and gives no guidance to editors. Contributors in general don't pay much attention to the Manual of Style so far as I can tell. This is good, because a lot of the Manual of Style is intimidating to people not accustomed to editorial markup.
If I am reading correctly, this "no rigid rule" paragraph is the only part of this proposed policy that is actually new, the rest is pretty much as it already is in the Manual of Style. Ortolan88 03:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) PS -- I should state my bias. I wrote the first draft of the Manual of Style, basing it on what I found in the Wikipedia at that time, and the rule about "logical quotes" was in that first draft because many carefully written articles, including mine, already used it. Ortolan88 Have to agree. Seems like we should just pick one system and move on. (Also, it seems like we already have, so lets.) Chuck 04:17, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) Punctuation should go inside quotes because every legit style manual says to do it this way. It makes Wikipedia look unprofessional to allow otherwise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.44.144.59 talk ) 15:13, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Keep in mind that if you're quoting several paragraphs, there should be quotes at the beginning of each paragraph, but only at the end of the last paragraph. For longer quotations, an indented style may be better. Since quotations are already marked by quotation marks or indentations, they need not be italicized.
It is probably best to use the "double quotes" for most quotations, as they are easier to read on the screen. Use'single quotes' for "quotations 'within' quotations," or to mark words for attribution.
Note that if a word appears in an article with single quotes, such as 'abcd', the Wikipedia:Searching facility will find it only if you search for the word with quotes (when trying this out with the example mentioned, remember that this article is in the Wikipedia namespace). Since this is rarely desirable, this problem is an additional reason to use double quotes, for which this problem does not arise. It may even be a reason to use double quotes for quotations within quotations as well.
For uniformity and to avoid complications use straight quotation marks and apostrophes, not curved (smart) ones or grave accents: Correct:'" Incorrect: ‘ ’ “ ” `
If you are pasting text from Microsoft Word, remember to turn off the smart quotes feature by unmarking this feature in AutoEdit and "AutoEdit during typing"! [1]. Many other modern word processors have a smart quotes setting - please read the appropriate documentation for your editor.
The grave accent (`) is also used as a diacritical mark to indicate a glottal stop; however, the straight quote should be used for this purpose instead (e.g., Hawai'i, not Hawai`i).
I'm planning on adding this revised policy in a week if there are no objections. Comments? [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 03:07, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Except for the punctuation issue (addressed above) I'm fine except for the Hawaii example. Why are we even addressing a rare character here. My understanding of that character, also used for other Hawaiian words, is that the preference of character use is (i) the Unicode character (there is a specific unicode character defined), (ii) opening left apostrophe, (iii) grave accent, (iv) straight apostrophe. Straight apostrophe might be the most cross-platform, but is the least accurate. Anyway, is this really the right way to open up the rare character can-of-worms. There are plenty of other characters and diacritic marks we would need to address as well. We can start a section to address such characters, but it doesn't belong with quotes. Chuck 04:17, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I don't see what this change would improve. Maurreen 04:33, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The only real change here is removal of long-standing Wikipedia preference for logical quotation. But editors have long time been writing articles by this standard and correcting articles to fit this standard. As with any change here, consensus is needed. And I don't see that occurring. I agree with Chuck on the Hawai'i issue, which is controversial and not clear and also not altogether folllowed. Does this mean that when referring to Hawaiian names in an English context one should use the straight quotation rather than the grave, or that even when quoting Hawai'ian forms natively one should do the same? I don't think the latter is intended, or at least would not be understood now as being a reasonable rule. That should be made clear. There is an increasing tendency in general for use of rarer Unicode characters to appear throughout Wikipedia as fonts increasingly support them. I have seen use of the ‘ character in Hawaiian names and the only objector I've seen to it backed down at once when the user made an issue of it, even saying that if the editor wanted to persist in using it against the standard, he'd support the user. It is hard to remember that even as short a time as three years is was considered rather daring on the web to display even common characters outside of ISO Latin-1 without special downloadable fonts and how a few cranks were still raving away on usenet claiming that Unicode couldn't work and that no-one was using it. That no-one is generally addressing the matter of rare characters may indicate that there is no problem to be addressed, that is, that those using rare characters are largely doing so with reasonable restraint and issues raised are being solved reasonably by individual discussions. Jallan 17:32, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The manual recommends British-style punctuation on US topics??!?! [ edit ]
Where on Earth did people writing the style manual come up with the idea that all articles should use British-standards of punctuation, even on explicitly U.S. topics? I refer here to the sections on quotation marks and serial commas. We follow the spellings of the country of the topic, but not the punctuation? That makes no sense at all. I would strongly encourage that we standardize on the rules used by the appropriate country for topics about that country, both for fairness reasons and for not teaching our readers bad habits. OH,and not to mention that following these rules would mean every US-article would always have major errors for anyone reading it: US readers would see screwed up punctuation and International English readers would see nonstandard spelling. A style decision that guarantees an article is going to be wrong for everyone who reads it is just plain useless. DreamGuy 22:50, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
DreamGuy, please see my proposal above, which, if implemented, would get rid of this problem in its most general form. Perhaps you would like to add your support/constructive comments, jguk 23:22, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Consider these my supportive/constructive comments. But then if the above says that articles about US topics written erroneously using British rules because someone British first started the article, or vice versa with a British topic using US rules, that part is nonsense. It should conform to the country of that topic when thetopic is clear. I did a lot of edits to Jack the Ripper, for instance, and when someone came and said that that's not how they use certain words and punctuation there, I said, fine, I don't know how you were taught, change it to that. If I had insisted that it stay with American rules I would be imposing my rules on another country, which is wrong. DreamGuy 23:41, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
jguk, I don't follow how it addresses this. the MoS has only one set of punctuation rules. It has two (or so) sets of spelling rules (US and British/International ones), and a set of "meta-rules" (topics specifics to a given country, generally acceptable usages, first major contributor, etc) as to which to use. Aren't you proposing to change the latter set of (meta-)rules? If you plan on expanding the scope to include things, that there's a unitary rule for at the moment, you should say so explicitly. (I suppose these are all strictly speaking "guidelines", if none of the MoS is policy as such.) Alai 00:01, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Punctuation and quoting style is just that: style. There are common conventions that are often followed in the US or UK, but they're not universal, and using a different convention isn't an error. I don't feel strongly about it, but it seems to me that the UK convention is more explicit, requires fewer exceptions for special cases, and is closer to how programmers and computer people often write, anyway. —Michael Z. 2005-03-14 00:44 Z
Ugh, the US punctuation rules are rules, not mild suggestions that people feel free to violate. If you write a paper for school or write a book, like, say, an encyclopedia, and you do it any other way, it's wrong. It is an error. The fact that computer programmers are notoriously bad at grammar and spelling should not be used as an indication that an encyclopedia should start following their style. If that were the case we should just give up and require everyone to make plurals out of everything by adding an apostrophe and an s and go with L33tspeak spellings. The "computer people" can make contributions all they want, but they ought to let the people who understand spelling and grammar to clean up after them instead of arguing with them. DreamGuy 01:40, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
Far be it for the likes of us to argue with you and your dreadfully impressive understanding. It's just too bad that some incompetent rule-breakers like George Orwell, George Bernard Shaw, and Gertrude Stein didn't have you to clean up after them, too. —Michael Z. 2005-03-14 06:27 Z
Non-contemporary UK authors using non-contemporary British rules wouldn't be breaking their rules, so that argument makes no sense. I'm sorry, you aren't even trying to support your side with logical reasons, you are just assuming British rules are better than the US ones in general and being rude about it on top of it. That's not support for your side, that's evidence that your opinion is based solely on bias. DreamGuy 06:49, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
Those are examples of famous British and American authors who broke a lot of their their contemporaries' "rules" of punctuation, including ones that are still conventional. I'm not assuming any rules are better than others; I'm saying your assertion that they must be followed slavishly is wrong, and I'm sure most writers would disagree with you.
Sorry for my tone, but I thought your highbrowed implication that computer programmers and technical writers were illiterate was rude. In many contexts there are good stylistic and practical reasons to diverge from convention. To do so is not automatically an error. For example, from Quotation mark:
In some subject areas (such as software documentation and chemistry), it is conventional to include only what is part of the quoted phrase within the quotes, for clarity:
Enter the URL as “www.wikipedia.org”, the name as “Wikipedia”, and click "OK".
Publishers adopt style guides that are appropriate to their publications. It makes sense for Wikipedia to do so, and there's nothing wrong with using essentially British punctuation conventions when they are easy for volunteer editors to apply and will avoid confusion in thousands of technical articles. —Michael Z. 2005-03-17 19:37 Z
Re "British-style punctuation". Up until 28 December of last year, the MoS described its guideline as "splitting the difference" between UK and US usages: punctuation inside or outside according to sense (per British rules), but preferring "double" quotation marks to'single' ones (per American practice). Sounds like the original framers were trying to strike a compromise between the two, and it's a shame that language was lost from the Manual. –Hajor 04:15, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The WP-mandated serial comma is also something of an Americanism, if we're keeping score. (Though also popular with Lynne Truss, Oxfordians, and other pedants. Well, some pedants, as I don't personally care for it...) Alai 05:51, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Two points: first, the current MoS says that spelling and "usage" of a country should be used in articles "specific to" that country. That ought to include punctuation. The MoS is just a bit inconsistent here. Second, the MoS is a guideline, not policy, so no one should be changing people's commas or quotation marks. Even though when I last looked the MoS advocated the use of the serial comma, I never add serial commas to British-related articles (although the serial comma is used in the UK, there are lots of British writers who don't like them). It's best to use commonsense and be sensitive to the views of the editors who've spent most time on the page, as well as to the topic. SlimVirgin 06:58, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
I don't think "usage" covers punctuation. It may not be terribly consistent per se, but it says what it says, and says it fairly clearly. Your interpretation of "not policy" seems to be in essence to ignore it entirely. Aren't the guidelines guidance for among other things, copy-editting? If it's not a good idea to edit text to make it conform better (well, more, at least) to the MoS, why have it at all? Bin the whole thing and just have "holding the ring" policies for the on-going edit-warring between US and non-US copy? (I suppose that the latter is probably a practical necessity anyway, on the evidence.) Sensitivity to both of those things is certainly a good idea, but some clarity about what's an ultimately desirable goal would be very useful. Alai 07:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Further to the comment above by Hajor, I agree that the "split |
That doesn't mean, of course, that fast starts aren't welcome. A strong pro debut can help a draftee jump on a faster track to the big leagues, especially for the college set. Earning a promotion can point to a more aggressive assignment when the first full season comes along. If nothing else, it can give a player a good confidence boost heading into the offseason.
No one expects new draftees to figure everything out about the professional game right out of the gate. The first professional summer for a Draft class is really about just getting acclimated to the game, learning about things like preparing to play on a daily basis, or hitting with/pitching to wood bats.
No one expects new draftees to figure everything out about the professional game right out of the gate. The first professional summer for a Draft class is really about just getting acclimated to the game, learning about things like preparing to play on a daily basis, or hitting with/pitching to wood bats.
That doesn't mean, of course, that fast starts aren't welcome. A strong pro debut can help a draftee jump on a faster track to the big leagues, especially for the college set. Earning a promotion can point to a more aggressive assignment when the first full season comes along. If nothing else, it can give a player a good confidence boost heading into the offseason.
A number of players from the 2017 Draft class have gotten off to good starts to their pro careers. Below is a list of hitters and pitchers from the first round who have been impressive from the get-go.
First-round hitters
1. Keston Hiura, DH, Brewers
Hiura has yet to play the field, though the Brewers feel the No. 9 overall pick will avoid Tommy John surgery. But he certainly has shown why some thought he was the most advanced bat in the Draft class, reaching full-season ball and hitting.404/.456/.679 over his first 134 pro at-bats.
Hiura's RBI double
2. Heliot Ramos, OF, Giants
Ramos might have been a bit of a surprise to go No. 19 overall, but he's hitting like he belongs there, with a.347/.389/.614 slash line, along with three homers, seven steals and 16 RBIs over his first 101 at-bats in the Rookie-level Arizona League.
3. Pavin Smith, 1B, D-backs
The other one who got "most advanced college bat" votes, Smith hasn't hit for power just yet, but his.336/.420/.423 line in 137 at-bats is impressive, and he's continued a trend he set in college by walking more often than he strikes out.
Smith notches fourth hit
4. Jo Adell, OF, Angels
There may have been concerns about Adell's swing and miss entering the Draft, but that certainly hasn't been a problem during his time in the Arizona League, as he's hit.345/.389/.643 with four homers and four steals in 22 games, with an acceptable strikeout rate (18 K's).
5. Chris Seise, SS, Rangers
The Florida high school shortstop has already earned a promotion up to the short-season Northwest League, hitting.313/.366/.484 with a dozen extra-base hits and five steals in 128 total at-bats.
First-round pitchers
1. MacKenzie Gore, LHP, Padres
The high school southpaw hasn't pitched a lot, but Gore has been awfully impressive with the innings he's been given, yielding just three hits and one walk over 8 2/3 scoreless innings while striking out 13 in the Arizona League.
2. Nate Pearson, RHP, Blue Jays
Pearson has brought his elite-level fastball to the short-season Northwest League after a quick stop in the Gulf Coast League. Again pitching sparingly, he's given up two hits over five scoreless frames, striking out seven while not allowing a walk.
3. Kyle Wright, RHP, Braves
Wright has advanced farther than any other first-round arm, up to the Class A Advanced Florida State League. He's gone four scoreless, allowing just one walk and one hit after giving up one run in the Gulf Coast League, with a combined.125 batting average against.
4. Brendan McKay, LHP, Rays
McKay's long-term future might be as a first baseman, but he's given up just one hit and struck out seven in five innings on the mound in the Class A Short-Season New York-Penn League.
McKay notches a K
5. Tanner Houck, RHP, Red Sox
Houck has given up four earned runs in 10 1/3 innings, but he's whiffed a dozen in that time while holding New York-Penn League hitters to a.205 batting average against in five outings.
Beyond the first round
Of course, strong debuts are not limited to those taken in the opening round of the Draft. Here are five more hitters and pitchers from beyond that first round who are off to good starts.
Hitters
Brent Rooker, OF/1B, Twins (Competitive Balance Round A)
The Mississippi State product is already up in the Florida State League, and while Rooker is hitting just.252, he leads all draftees with 11 homers across two levels.
Michael Gigliotti, OF, Royals (fourth round)
After a huge summer in the Cape Cod League, Gigliotti slumped for much of his junior season at Lipscomb. He did get it going late and that has carried over to the Appalachian League, where he's hit.331/.445/.486 with 15 steals.
Bryce Johnson, OF, Giants (sixth round)
The switch-hitter out of Sam Houston State stole 33 bases during his college season, and Johnson has led draftees with 17 more. The center fielder is also hitting.333 with a.402 OBP in the Class A Short-Season Northwest League.
Ben Breazeale, C, Orioles (seventh round)
The backstop went from Wake Forest to the New York-Penn League, where Breazeale is currently leading the league in batting average (.371), OBP (.474) and OPS (1.009).
Ryan Noda, 1B/OF, Blue Jays (15th round)
The Cincinnati product has been making it look easy in the Appalachian League, leading draftees (with more than 100 ABs) with his.416 average, his.553 OBP and his 1.210 OPS. Noda's.657 SLG is second only to Hiura.
Pitchers
Corbin Martin, RHP, Astros (second round)
Over Martin's 16 innings of work, the Texas A&M product has allowed just six hits for a.113 batting average against. He's walked just two and struck out 19 while allowing two runs in the Gulf Coast and New York-Penn Leagues.
Hans Crouse, RHP, Rangers (second round)
The SoCal teenager has been dominant in the Rookie-level Arizona League, striking out 17 in his 13 innings of work to date. Crouse has allowed just six hits (.136 BAA) and four walks (0.77 WHIP) while allowing just one earned run.
Zac Lowther, LHP, Orioles (Competitive Balance Round B)
The 74th overall pick out of Xavier, Lowther is tied among all draftees with 35 strikeouts in his 28 1/3 innings of work in the New York-Penn League. He's walked just four and given up 21 hits while posting a 0.95 ERA.
Ricky Tyler Thomas, LHP, Cubs (seventh round)
The southpaw struggled at times during his final season at Fresno State, but Thomas has thrown well so far in the Northwest League, putting up 10 shutout innings, allowing seven hits and five walks while striking out 14.
Elijah Morgan, RHP, Indians (eighth round)
Pitching almost entirely out of the bullpen, the former Gonzaga righty has struck out 32 in 18 1/3 innings, for an eye-popping 16.0 K/9 ratio in the NY-Penn League. Hitters are managing just a.203 BAA and Morgan has a 0.98 ERA.Out-going District Medical Officer (DMO) of Moyamba District, Dr. Denis Mark and Dr. Joseph S. Bangura have called on the Government to establish ebola survivor’s clinic to address complications like blindness and deafness after being treated for ebola.
They made this statement as a result of cases being reported to them from ebola survivors who suffer complications like blindness and deafness after surviving the ebola virus.
Dr. Mark said presently he is working with Sight Savers to treat an ebola survivor who has gone blind immediately after he was discharged from the ebola treatment centre in the Moyamba district.
He stated that the high dose of antibiotic in ebola patients is relatively responsible for most of the complications and therefore urged the Government to establish a survivor’s clinic that will help monitor them for a period of time.
Dr Mark explained his fears as a medical doctor during this trying moments, when ebola is eating up the country’s development and social lives.
He said his greatest fear was self-infection and also his medical team working with him directly as they were always at risk.
He notes that at his command, he only lost an ambulance driver and nurse and commended all the medical personnel at Moyamba Government hospital for their resilient job.
“Post ebola, I want the Government to ensure we have a fully-equipped laboratory and isolation centres, enhance human resource, financial motivation for medical personnel and strengthen surveillance to track ebola’. Dr. Mark stated.
By Mariam Sulaiman-Bah
Monday February 09, 2015The Australian Federal Police have been called to investigate a leak of highly classified information concerning the culling of Japan from the bid process to build Australia's next fleet of submarines.
Just days before Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is expected to announce Adelaide as the site where the subs will be built, and possibly which company will build them, The Australian Financial Review has been told news about the Japanese being excluded has infuriated defence officials.
Sources said Defence Department secretary Dennis Richardson called in the AFP on Thursday following reports the competitive evaluation process was now between France's DCNS and Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS).
The Australian Financial Review has been told news about the Japanese being excluded has infuriated defence officials. Department of Defence
Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had missed out on the $50 billion contract.
The reports follows a round of meetings this week by the national Security Committee of cabinet and an announcement next week which will be used to bolster the Coalition's electoral prospects in South Australia.Friday on his radio show, conservative talker Sean Hannity responded in detail to The Wall Street Journal’s deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens, who had referred to Hannity as Fox News Channel’s “dumbest anchor” in a tweet that included a link to a story that detailed Hannity expressing his frustration with some Republicans that had been critical of their party’s presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Fox News' dumbest anchor had a message for y'all: https://t.co/AMQutLDeow via @Yahoo — Bret Stephens (@BretStephensNYT) August 5, 2016
Hannity had rattled off a number of his own tweets in response to Stephens, referring to his as a “dumbass” and an “asshole.”
Wsj genius. Where were u when Boehner punted on the power of the purse a added nearly 5 trillion in new debt? https://t.co/oaH1b92PFS — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) August 5, 2016
Where were you when R party refused to use the power of the purse to defund Obamacare? https://t.co/oaH1b92PFS — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) August 5, 2016
Where were you dumbass when in 2014 R's said the would stop Obama's illegal and unconstitutional exec amnesty? https://t.co/oaH1b92PFS — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) August 5, 2016
If Hillary wins I will hold assholes like you accountable. You will be responsible for her Supreme ct selections..,, https://t.co/oaH1b92PFS — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) August 5, 2016
Hannity expanded on those attacks on his show, once again calling Stephens a “dumbass,” but adding that he had “his head up his ass” as well.
“So you have this arrogant elitist typical individual writing for the prestigious Wall Street Journal and his 21,000 Twitter followers – he seems incapable of understanding the plight of these people, the danger of record debt, deficits and unfunded liabilities, incapable of recognizing the danger of open borders,” Hannity said.
“This is an elitist that with all his purity towards the Republican Party – you know, I’m the dumb one,” he added. “Well, he’s a dumbass with his head up his ass because this is why this country is in decline.”
Stephens has been vocal in his opposition to Trump. Back in May, he said that Trump must be defeated so badly in the upcoming presidential election that Republican voters “learn their lesson.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorThe least trusted cable news network in America, CNN of course, has been caught red-handed lying about its viewership numbers on the day President Trump was inaugurated. Trump himself baited the trap by publicly ridiculing "Fake News CNN" over its sorry viewership numbers:
Congratulations to @FoxNews for being number one in inauguration ratings. They were many times higher than FAKE NEWS @CNN - public is smart! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017
Seemingly determined to prove Trump correct, CNN responded with a lie that claimed CNN tied with Fox News on Inauguration Day:
"According to Nielsen cumulative numbers, 34 million people watched CNN's inauguration day coverage on television. 34 million watched Fox News," the CNN communications account said in a tweet[.]
This is a two-part piece of Fake News from CNN.
First off, no one in the history of television has ever counted cumulative ratings. Viewership numbers are counted only on an hour-by-hour basis.
Adding up the cumulative number of viewers is anti-science.
Simply put, brand new viewers don't appear every hour. Many of those viewers are the same viewers from the previous hour.
What CNN is doing is like counting 5,000 shopping mall customers at 10 a.m., counting 6,000 at 11 a.m., and then claiming 11,000 customers visited the mall in two hours.
Some of us call that lying.
Secondly, CNN's cumulative number does not even appear to be correct. During the actual Inauguration, Fox News beat The Least Trusted Name In News by nearly four-times as many viewers:
Noon to 12:30 p.m. (oath of office and inaugural address):
CNN: 3.375 million total viewers
Fox News: 11.768 million total viewers
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
CNN: 3.047 million total viewers
Fox News: 10.483 million total viewers
1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
CNN: 2.326 million total viewers
Fox News: 7.901 million total viewers
Primetime (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.)
CNN: 4.528 million total viewers
Fox News: 6.958 million total viewers
As Business Insider reports, prior to Trump trolling CNN into adding to its growing pile of provable lies, the leftwing outlet admitted in a press release that it had come in second to Fox:
"CNN ranked a strong #2 in cable news during the Inauguration of President Donald Trump yesterday, January 20th," the release said.
If CNN, in its zeal to damage Trump, is willing to so shamelessly lie and openly contradict itself over small, meaningless things…
What more do you need to know?
And do you want to know who else lied? HITLER.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNCClimate Change Puts Alaska's Sled Dog Races On Thin Ice
toggle caption Emily Schwing/NPR
For more than 30 years, the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog race, which begins Saturday, has followed the Yukon River between Whitehorse, Canada, and Fairbanks, Alaska.
A little open water along the Yukon Quest trail is nothing new, but in recent years, long unfrozen stretches of the Yukon River have shaken even the toughest mushers.
Last year, musher Hank DeBruin of Ontario had stopped along the Yukon River to rest his dog team in the middle of the night, when the ice started to break up.
"I was sleeping in my sled bag and I heard a roar, sounded like freight train," DeBruin says. "So I threw all my stuff in the sled bag, pulled my dogs and my sled up the bank a bit and turned around, and there was wide-open water where the sled was sitting five minutes earlier."
Stories like DeBruin's have become more common, raising concerns about the impact of climate change on Alaska's state sport.
Mushers have plenty of anecdotal evidence of warming temperatures and the impact on their sport. Cody Strathe of Fairbanks says warmer temperatures and dwindling snow have changed how he trains his dog team.
"Normally dogs like to run at colder temperatures, usually like below zero," Strathe says. "So we try to run more at night so they have those nice cold temperatures, which they tend to like more with their nice big fur coats."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy Yukon Quest Courtesy Yukon Quest
Dog teams need snacks during the race, so Strathe and other mushers cut up frozen chunks of meat and tripe. Eventually all that meat gets packed into drop bags and sent out to checkpoints along the trail.
"If it's really warm out, our meat can thaw and spoil, and then that is bad for the dogs," he says. "They can get sick or have nothing to eat, so we have to package our food in ways so it can stay cold longer."
Strathe insulates his bags with bubble wrap to help keep them frozen. Other mushers add blocks of ice or even snow. Mushers are also packing gear for a wider variety of trail conditions. In recent years, they've carried rubber boots and chest waders in anticipation of open water. They've also packed raincoats for themselves and their dogs.
National Weather Service Climatologist Rick Thoman says a day will come when climate change delivers a more serious blow.
"We will reach a point where this starts to affect the ability to have these races," Thoman says. "Whether this is in five years or 50 years or 100 years is an open question."
That open question looms large for Alaska's state sport and the economy surrounding it. Unseasonably warm winter weather has slowed other dog races. Paige Drobny, a musher for eight years who will drive a dog team in the 1,000-mile Iditarod in March, says she's not sure how long her racing career will last.
"With the weather that we're having, if we don't get winters here soon, I think that there's going to be no choice but for the sport to die out, if we don't get some snow in the state," Drobny says.
Drobny says she and her husband spend upwards of $70,000 a year to raise and maintain their dogs. The potential loss of mushing both as a sport and a draw for tourists could have a big economic impact in Alaska.
This year, Yukon Quest officials considered moving the start line of the race because of open water and thin ice on rivers near Whitehorse. A last-minute drop in temperature and a snowstorm gave race personnel a reprieve.
Mushers are hoping for a smooth run, but their sleds are still packed with extra gear, just in case.George Soros has paid for the organizing of violent protests, his interviews, and his own postings have said he wants to subvert the will of the US people. Using any means possible at his and others disposal. This is sedition, treason, and conspiratorial against the US Constitution. His previous world governments involvement on the over throwing of countries governments is documented. He must be prosecuted for all he has done to over throw our legally elected President Trump and his cabinet, by paying for and direction of the illegal protests in the US. Since the UN, and the EU will not prosecute him, it is up to the US to do it. This must be done swiftly and all others prosecuted involved in the sedition, treason, and violent assaults upon the US citizens, and their property.The International Olympic Committee has been playing with a lake of fire, and it's everybody else that's going to get burned. You can feel it coming, can't you? One of these days there's going to be a catastrophe. The Olympics will be lucky to escape a large-scale disaster in Rio de Janeiro, and if it happens we'll all wonder why we didn't do more to stop IOC officials from dragging us all down into their suck.
Half a million people will descend on Rio for the Summer Games, with a security force of just 85,000 to keep them safe from terrorists and roving bandits. Many of them are resentful underpaid law enforcement officers with out-of-gas cars and grounded helicopters in the midst of the country's worst economy since the 1930s, who were already trying to cope with one of the most seething, crime ridden cities on earth. In the last year state hospitals have lacked basic supplies, and medical facilities have cut hours. So yes, by all means, let's accept the IOC's confident declaration issued on Monday that "Rio is ready." And just hope that if there's real trouble, Mother Gaia or some invisible super hero Skyman will descend to save everyone should the hour turn darkest.
The IOC declares that Rio is ready because 44 test events have been held there - neglecting to mention that competitors in some of those events have been stricken by rashes and vomiting from the trash and raw human feces flowing into Guanabara Bay, the toilet bowl of Rio. Or that a group of Brazilian scientists this week detected a drug-resistant super-bacteria growing off the beaches which can cause meningitis, and pulmonary, gastro and bloodstream infections, or that a dismembered foot recently washed up near the volleyball venue.
The IOC's head inspector assures us cheerily that Rio "is ready to welcome the world," to the epicenter of the mosquito-borne Zika virus outbreak, even though 150 scientists, doctors and researchers have called for the Games to be postponed or moved. The IOC has dismissed their concerns of a global epidemic, apparently because Rio's views are divine. In their judgment, it's worth injecting half a million foreign visitors and tourists into a viral urban petri dish. "I cannot imagine more spectacular backdrops for the world's top sportsmen and women to showcase their talents to a watching world," Nawal El Moutawakel said in a statement from the IOC on Monday. As for Zika, she mentioned as an aside that Rio's "organizers are working to minimize the risk to visitors."
How reassuring, since those organizers have been so very organized up to this point. They are so organized that in June a new railway lost power just a week after it opened. So organized that a $3 billion subway line isn't finished yet and won't be fully tested before it takes on Olympic passengers. So organized that a few weeks ago a newly built seaside bike path collapsed, killing two people, because the builders failed to take into account the fact that it might be struck by one of those surprising things that often come from the sea - a wave.
The truth is that a large-scale catastrophe is already happening in Rio, but it's been happening in slow motion over a period of years. The state is running a $6 billion deficit. These Olympics will cost it $4.6 billion, overrunning the projected budget by 51 percent.
There is only one reason why the IOC doesn't do the prudent reasonable thing and postpone or move the Rio Games: money. The right thing is to get a grip on Zika, finish venues properly without being fleeced at the mercy of contractors, and launch an environmental cleanup. But too much cash and loss of face is at stake for sponsors and organizers. So they will double down on a risky bet and let it ride. "There is this element," says Oliver Stuenkel, assistant professor of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, "that they will somehow wing it."
Mario Tama / Getty Images Workers continue preparations at the Olympics site for beach volleyball on Copacabana beach on July 14, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. Workers continue preparations at the Olympics site for beach volleyball on Copacabana beach on July 14, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. (Mario Tama / Getty Images) (Mario Tama / Getty Images)
The Olympics themselves are the catastrophe: an unwieldy cash-and-corruption-engorged monster that descends on the host country with a ravenous maw and leaves a swathe of human and economic casualties in its wake, from Athens, to Beijing, to London, to Sochi, to Rio, and presents a terrorism target that requires a massive security effort to defend against. At what point will world capitals stop participating in this folly? The answer may be sooner rather than later, as more and more cities conclude its just not worth it.
According to a report issued this week by investigators from Oxford University's business school, the Olympics over the past decade have cost an average of $8.9 billion dollars, with an average cost overrun of 156 percent. Not another megaproject project in the world has a record of such irresponsible and suspiciously large cost overruns, no bridge, tunnel, or dam. The report notes, with emphasis, "All Games, without exception, have cost overrun. For no other type of megaproject is this the case."
The report declares, "For a city and nation to decide to stage the Olympic Games is to decide to take on one of the most costly and financially most risky type of megaproject that exists, something that many cities and nations have learned to their peril."
At least some of this financial risk is due to corruption. According to a report from the Institute of Russia, about a third of Sochi's budget was lost to graft. Two Rio government officials have been accused, and denied, of engaging in bribery schemes around Rio's new $2.7 billion rail line. "There is general expectation as happens with all large projects that a lot of money will be lost on the way or will be stolen, and the long term benefits for the population will not necessarily be significant at all," says Stuenkel.
This is the real Olympic game: cash. Ask yourself a question: Why doesn't the IOC ever go back to cities that have built-and-paid-for Olympic structures?
The IOC counts on our romanticism to cover over the fiscal insanity and scandal. For two weeks, the gold medal performances and pretty screen shots on NBC will give us temporary amnesia. Only afterwards will the real cost kick in, and it will hit Rio harder, and longer, than most places given its $6 million deficit. For a comparison of the likely effect, just look to Athens in 2004, where the Olympic debt deepened a financial crisis that still exists today. "The high average cost overrun for the Games... should be cause for caution for anyone considering hosting the Games, and especially small or fragile economies with little capacity to absorb escalating costs and related debts," the Oxford report concludes.“The war began in my front yard and ended in my parlor.” This statement about the start and the end of the U.S. Civil War was spoken by Wilmer McLean and is surprisingly almost perfectly true.
A little background- Wilmer McLean was born on May 3, 1814 in Alexandria, Virginia, one of fourteen children. When his parents passed away at an early age, McLean was raised by various family members. At 39, McLean married a widow by the name of Virginia Mason, who had two daughters from a previous marriage. Mason also inherited her family’s 1,200 acre Yorkshire plantation located in Bull Run, Virginia.
Life was peaceful at the Yorkshire plantation with McLean working as a fairly successful wholesale grocer. As tensions mounted between the North and South, McLean, a retired military man (former member of the Virginia militia with the rank of Major) and current slave owner, offered to let his plantation be used by the Confederate army and it was soon put into service as the headquarters for General P.G.T. Beauregard of the Confederacy.
McLean welcomed General P.G.T. Beauregard to stay at his house on July 17, 1861. The next night, July 18, 1861, General Beauregard was sitting at McLean’s dining room table when a cannonball exploded through the fireplace and into the kitchen. General Beauregard wrote about the event in his diary, “A comical effect of this artillery fight (which added a few casualties to both lists) was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff by a Federal shell that fell into the fireplace of my headquarters at the McLean House.”
What followed was the First Battle of Bull Run (also known as “The Battle of First Manassas”). Although the Civil War technically started at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, besides being the first major land battle of the war, the First Battle of Bull Run is generally marked as the point when the war began in earnest.
During the Battle of Bull Run, the Union soldiers were initially able to push back the Confederate troops, despite the impressive efforts of Confederate Colonel Thomas Jackson- Jackson earned his nickname “Stonewall”, for holding the high ground at Henry House Hill (shown in the background of the picture above). In the afternoon, Confederate reinforcements arrived and were able to break through the Union lines. The Union troops were forced to retreat all the way back to Washington D.C. Their retreat was a slow one, as it was delayed by onlookers from Washington who wanted to watch the battle unfold.
After the First Battle of Bull Run, the McLean household was used as a Confederate hospital and a place to hold captured Union soldiers. The Confederate army paid rent to the McLean family during their stay, a total of $825 (about $21,000 today) over the course of the war. McLean also made a small fortune running sugar and other supplies through the Union blockade to the Confederacy.
McLean started to fear for the safety of his growing family when the Second Battle of Bull Run started in 1862. His house and land were in disarray from the war, so he decided to make a fresh start in southern Virginia. After scouring the area, McLean found a nice two story cottage in Appomattox, Virginia about 120 miles south of his home in Bull Run. Here he hoped to stay away from the war and all of the problems it had caused for his family.
The McLean family enjoyed a few years of peace and quiet in this way, but in 1865 McLean found the Civil War at his front steps once again with the Battle of Appomattox Court House started on the morning of April 9, 1865.
Prior to this battle, General Robert E. Lee was forced to abandon the Confederate state capital of Richmond, Virginia after the Siege of Petersburg. Heading west, Lee hoped he would be able to connect with Confederate troops in North Carolina. The Union troops pursued Lee and his forces until they were able to cut off the Confederate retreat. Lee then made his final stand at Appomattox Court House and was forced to surrender as his troops were overwhelmingly outnumbered, four to one.
A messenger sent to McLean informed him of the Confederates intentions to surrender and asked him to find a location where the surrender could take place. On the afternoon of April 9, Palm Sunday, General Robert E. Lee met with Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant in McLean’s parlor to officially surrender. The terms of the surrender were generous to Lee and his army: none of his soldiers were to be held for treason or imprisoned; his men could take their horses home for spring planting; and the starving Confederate troops received food rations.
While this time around McLean’s house didn’t get partially blown up, after the Confederates surrendered, Union soldiers started taking tables, chairs, and any other household items from McLean as souvenirs to remember this historic event. A few soldiers gave McLean money as he protested the theft of his household items. For instance, the table that General Lee signed the surrender document on was purchased by General Edward Ord for $40 (about$1000 today).
In the days that followed the surrender, the McLean house was used as the headquarters for Major General John Gibbon of the United States Army. It was also at this time that local civilians started visiting the house… and taking any part of the home that they could get their hands on. McLean did manage to continue to make some money off of this for a time, selling many items supposedly in the house during the signing; he reportedly sold enough items in this way “to furnish an entire apartment complex”.
If you liked this article and the Bonus Facts below, you might also like:
Bonus Facts:
General Lee was offered the position of the head of the Union army by Abraham Lincoln, but decided to lead the Confederate army instead as he couldn’t bring himself to lead troops against his native Virginia. Despite the Confederates being vastly outnumbered and not as well equipped as the North, Lee and his right hand man, Stonewall Jackson, managed to post victory after victory against the North, primarily due to Lee’s brilliance, Jackson’s audacity, and the North’s moronic and sometimes timid Generals.
Albert Woolson was the last known person to die who fought in the Civil War, living all the way until August 2, 1956. He was a member of the Union Army.
Joshua L. Chamberlain was the last Civil War soldier to die of wounds incurred in the Civil War, managing to live until 1914 with lingering health problems from wounds inflicted during the war. He also has the distinction of being one of the few soldiers to be battlefield promoted to General.
It is estimated that during the First Battle of Bull Run, there were 4,700 total casualties during this battle, 2,950 for the Union and 1,750 for the Confederacy.
Even though McLean made some money during the war by renting out his house and much more running sugar for the Confederacy, he had little to show for it after the war. McLean was paid entirely in Confederate notes- a currency that no longer existed after the fall of the Confederacy. In 1865, his house was foreclosed on for $3,060 (about $46,000 today).
After losing the house and having very little money to his name, McLean moved his family back the Alexandria, Virginia. There McLean lived out the rest of his life as an IRS auditor. He retired at the age of 66 and passed away two years later.
The McLean cottage in Appomattox lay in ruins until Congress bought the house in 1930 and rebuilt it. The Appomattox house became a tourist site starting in 1949. Today, McLean’s Yorkshire plantation no longer remains but there is a historic marker where it once stood.
1 in 13 veterans of the Civil war became amputees because of the war.
During the American Civil War, the Union soldiers blocked many supply lines to the Confederacy. Due to this, there were mass shortages of a variety of things. One such shortage that resulted was that newspaper offices ran out of paper. Instead, some took to using wallpaper to print their newspapers (this was not ripped from parlor walls as some books mistakenly state, but rather new rolls of wallpaper that were available). Some editions of the Confederate papers were even printed on other substitutes like brown wrapping paper, blue ledger paper, and even tissue paper.
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[Image via ShutterstockIdentity theft is often a multi-layered process. Once a thief gets one bit of your information, they try to use it to get more. The hackers behind the 2015 data breach of the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), for example, used personal information they’d previously stolen from thousands of Americans to answer security questions on the IRS website, and in turn get access to their tax returns.
The security questions asked about personal details, like, “On which of the following streets have you lived?” and, “What is your total scheduled monthly mortgage payment?”
The hackers in the IRS case successfully got through that security measure, but what if the agency had a system in place that could detect whether the person answering the questions really was who they claimed to be? In a recent study conducted in Italy, researchers demonstrated how such a system could work.
In the study, published recently in PLoS One, the researchers quizzed 40 respondents about their personal details. Half of the respondents were asked to answer the questions truthfully, but the other half were given details about fake identities they had to memorize and use in the quiz.
The computer quiz kept track of the movement of each respondent’s mouse as they answered the questions, and noted how the fakes differed from the truth-tellers when they moved the cursor from the bottom of the screen to the answers at the top.
The quiz consisted of 12 questions like, “Do you live in Padua?” and “Are you Italian?” That covered details an identity thief could easily remember and answer, but then the quiz threw them a curve ball.
“What is your zodiac sign,” it asked in the second series of 12 questions, which were designed to be easy for the genuine respondents, but more difficult for the fakers to work out.
“While truth-tellers easily verify questions involving the zodiac,” the study says, “liars do not have the zodiac immediately available, and they have to compute it for a correct verification. The uncertainty in responding to unexpected questions may lead to errors.”
After the researchers took the mouse-movement data collected from the quizzes and trained a machine-learning algorithm to analyze it, they found that was indeed the case. It was able to discern the fake responses from the real ones 95% of the time.
“From a cognitive point of view,” the study said, “it is confirmed that unexpected questions may be used to uncover deception.”
The study also noted, however, that “unexpected questions require answers to be carefully crafted and this may be a limitation in online automatic usage of the technique.”Motorola’s Moto 360 was ironically probably the most-coveted smartwatch at Google I/O this year, because despite high interest it’s also the only one that wasn’t available. It’ll still be shipped out to all conference attendees |
entire record. As a visual aid, the blue lines present monthly means of background data as they are presented under Recent Monthly CO 2 at Mauna Loa.
These data are still preliminary, pending recalibrations of reference gases and other quality control checks.
PNG Version of plot
PDF Version of plot
This figure shows the atmospheric increase of CO 2 over 280 ppm in weekly averages of CO 2 observed at Mauna Loa. The value of 280 ppm is chosen as representative of pre-industrial air because it is close to the average of CO 2 measured and dated with high time resolution between the years 1000 and 1800 in an ice core from Law Dome, Antarctica. [Etheridge et al., 1996]. Although the time resolution of old air locked in ice cores is not enough to preserve seasonal cycles, there is no doubt that the seasonal cycle, which is mostly caused by photosynthesis and respiration of ecosystems on land, was similar to what we observe today. Therefore, for the comparison with pre-industrial times the Mauna Loa weekly data have been first deseasonalized by subtracting the observed average seasonal cycle, and then subtracting 280 ppm. The enhancement of the CO 2 mole fraction in the atmosphere over pre-industrial is expressed both as ppm and as a percentage change since the year 1800.People’s Defense Center (HSM) Headquarters Command stated that the AKP government has made an alliance with Ergenekon and the MHP on the basis of enmity towards Kurds and launched a comprehensive attack against Kurdish people. HSM said “The colonialist Turkish state targets the gains of Kurdish Freedom Movement not only inside Turkey but also abroad, and is trying to manipulate the international public and powers with an intense campaign of misinformation and manipulation.”
In its statement, HSM Command noted that the Turkish state is bothered by Rojava Revolution, where Rojava forces play an important role in the struggle against ISIS and cooperate with international powers, and has been fabricating false reports in order to delegitimize it and cut its international relations. HSM recalled that many Turkish state officials suggested that the arms that were given to the “PYD/YPG” have been used against Turkey, and Erdoğan claimed that they had the serial numbers of the guns international powers gave to Rojava forces and were later found on HPG guerrillas killed in action.
HSM Command emphasized that such claims are Erdoğan and the AKP government’s efforts to manipulate NATO forces and international powers, and said that as the HPG, they have never received arms or ammunition from any organization. HSM invited Erdoğan to make public the serial numbers and similar documents he claims to have, and said that Erdoğan is insisting on making these false claims, which he knows can easily be verified by international powers’ technical experts, as mere ‘diplomatic moves’ in order to stop the rise of Kurdistan freedom struggle and cut the international support to Kurdish people’s righteous cause.
Lastly, HSM Command stated that it made this statement because the fascist Turkish state, which has been spilling blood employing state terror in order to defeat the righteous and legitimate struggle of Kurdish people, has been fabricating lies in the international arena in a way that no serious state would dare to do.The good news is Senate Democrats defeated an amendment introduced by Republicans that would have stripped protections for Native American women from the Violence Against Women Act. The bad news is Senators Tom Coburn and John Cornyn believe protecting Native women from being raped is “unconstitutional” and a “special interest.”
“What we’ve done with this solution is to trample on the Bill of Rights of every American who’s not a Native American,” Coburn said. “And I have no doubt — I am a hundred percent certain that this portion of the bill is going to be thrown out by the first federal judge that hears it.” [...] Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) said the provision was a product of the “unconstitutional demands of special interests,” characterizing it as the reason for his opposition to the bill.
To say this ‘tramples on the rights of non-native Americans’ is to say that we’re trampling on the rights of rapists and domestic abusers to commit rape and beat their girlfriends without consequence which, last time I checked, is not included in the Bill of Rights. Maybe I should read it again to make sure I didn’t miss that part.
As we’ve covered here before, Native American women are twice as likely to be raped as other women and the overwhelming majority of attackers who assault and abuse Native Americans are non-native, American men who do not fall within the jurisdiction of local tribes.
In some rural villages, rapes are 12 times more common than the national rate, and for Native American women, generally sexual assault is more than twice as common as the national average, according to The New York Times. The Alaska Federation of Natives cites a 2010 report by the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center, finding that while only 15.2 percent of Alaskans are Native American, they are the victims of 50 percent of the domestic violence and 61 percent of the sexual assaults committed in the state. [...] The men who commit these crimes are often not Native American themselves. Indian Country reports that “non-Indians commit 88%” of rapes and domestic violence against Native American women, but they are beyond the reach of local justice: “antiquated jurisdictional laws” prevent tribal justice systems “from prosecuting non-Native criminals.”
A “special interest.”
No thanks to Republicans, Senate Democrats passed the Violence Against Women Act today by a margin of 78 to 22. And the question once again is this — will Republican leadership in the House allow the bill to come to a vote? The bill will pass if they allow it to be voted on, but Speaker Majority Leader Eric Cantor still has a host of objections and perceived slights.
Update… Marco Rubio, the GOP’s next great hope, voted against the Act today along with 21 other Republican men. All Republican women in the Senate voted for the act.
I’m sure this is all a part of their outreach effort.Karla Lee, mother of slain Chicago 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, is under fire for using the money from the GoFundMe account set up to bury her son to buy a new car just five days after he was brutally executed, according to the Beverly-Mt. Greenwood Patch. Tyshawn's mother said he would have wanted her to have the new car, and she bought it because she feared for her life.
More than $17,500 was raised in just four days when a friend of hers set up the GoFundMe account, saying the mother wanted "To Help Me Lay My Baby To Rest." Instead, Lee purchased a new 2015 Chrysler 200.
Lee was hospitalized for shock after she discovered her son's body in an alley on Nov. 2. Chicago police believe that Tyshawn was lured into an alley and shot execution-style due to his father's gang ties, as previously reported by HNGN.
Karla Lee can be seen in profanity-laced Instagram videos she has posted, blasting social media and everyone condemning her mismanagement of the charity, according to Fox News.
In addition, Pierre Stokes, Tyshawn's father, has been selling Tyshawn memorial T-shirts online for between $25 and $45 apiece, also to raise funds to bury his son.
"Used the money to buy a car, rather than either return it or donate it to charity. It was given to her to offset funeral costs and instead she used it to benefit herself," says GoFundMe user Joe Smith.
Karla Lee says her son's funeral will be held at St. Sabina Church, in Auburn-Gresham on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 10 a.m. according to NBC Chicago.
The reward for any information leading to arrest of those involved in killing Tyshawn is now at $54,600.Abstract: In this article, we’ll create a simple blog app using ASP.NET MVC 3 and SignalR, that will allow multiple collaborators to review the same article in real-time
In this article, we’ll create a simple blog app using ASP.NET MVC 3 and SignalR, that will allow multiple collaborators to review the same article in real-time.
What is SignalR?
By the book – It is an asynchronous signaling framework that helps maintain persistent connections between client and server.
Not by the book – A real cool framework built on top of ASP.NET (server side) and a JavaScript library (on the client side) that helps build collaborative web apps in a jiffy. David Fowler and Damien Edwards maintain the SignalR project on GitHub
SignalR abstracts the raw technique of keeping connections open between a web client and a web server. Behind the scenes it uses an existing technique called long polling. However as the WebSockets protocol crystallizes, it could very well use WebSockets transparently, behind the scenes.
SignalR uses the task parallel library on the server side. It scales well as of now. However, work is in progress to make it better.
Why do I need SignalR?
Most common examples where long polling is used are stock tickers or chat clients. However as we will see today SignalR throws open a whole new set of possibilities, enabling rich collaborative applications on ASP.NET.
Solving a business problem with SignalR
Enough theory, let’s get down to the real world. I am sure most of us have at some point used Google docs and recently if you have noticed, you can share it with multiple people and now you can even have two people edit it at the same time. Each person gets a different colored caret to track who is doing what.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could embed such ’Review’ functionality to your app? Imagine filling out a form and then sending it out for review only to find out someone down the chain rejected it after a week because of a typo? Now imagine what if you could do instant reviews and everyone could give their inputs and sign off on the document at the
same time?
In this article we’ll create a simple blog app that will allow multiple collaborators to review an article at real-time.
Step 1: Create new ASP.NET project.
In Visual Studio From File > New Project, select the MVC 3 Web Application template
Select ‘Intranet Application’. This results in creation of a project that works by default with Windows Authentication mode.
We use the Razor View engine and keep the Use HTML5 semantic markup checked.
If you already have Nuget Package Manager installed, skip to Step 2. Else go to Tools > Extension Manager, and from the ‘Online Gallery’ install ‘NuGet Package Manager’.
It will require a Visual Studio restart. Restart once installed.
Step 2: Setup SignalR dependencies using Nuget
Bring up the Package Manager Console from the View->Other Windows->Package Manager Console menu item.
In the console type Install-package SignalR
Wait for the packages to be downloaded and setup. The jQuery dependencies will be refreshed too.
Step 3: Setup Data Model
We will use EF Code First to setup our model. The entity is called BlogPost and it has three properties for simplicity, Id, Title and BlogBody.
Note: Since the focus of the article is SignalR I am cutting some ‘pattern corners’ by putting Display attributes in my Entity Model and skipping the View model abstraction.
Create a BlogPostContext class that derives from DbContext. Build the Solution.
Step 4: Scaffold the Controllers and Views
We will use the built in scaffold tooling to generate the controller and views.
Select the Template, Model class and Data context class in the ‘Add Controller’ dialog
Step 5: Add the ‘Review’ Controller and View
By default, the scaffolding generates Index, Create Edit and Delete views each mapping to their respective actions. We will leave these as is and add a new Action called ‘Review’. To do this we’ll simply copy the Edit Action and rename it.
In the BlogPostController, add the Review action methods as follows:
Under Views\BlogPost add the Review.cshtml
In the Index.cshtml, add a new link to the ‘Review’ view.
Step 6: Getting SignalR into action
On the Server Side
In your web project create a folder called SignalR (You can call it anything you want, in a real life project this as server side component and could very well reside in a dll of it’s own). In the SignalR folder add a class BlogHub.cs. Update the class to look as follows:
The class is decorated with the ‘HubName’ attribute that takes a string parameter. The string parameter is the ‘client side’ name of the ‘Hub’. The Hub as the name suggests keeps track of the ‘subscribers’ and ‘publishes’ or broadcasts the messages that are passed to it by the subscribers.
In the above snippet, the Send method is called from the web page via JavaScript. SignalR framework takes care of the appropriate hookups.
Each ‘client’ that is web page, interested in receiving events from the hub subscribes to it and then implements the addMessage function. So when the Hub fires back, all clients handle the event.
On the Client Side
Open Review.cshtml and add the following references
The jQuery and signalR dependencies will be available for you from the SignalR nuget package installation, however json2.min.js is not. You have to download it separately from https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js. This library is written by Douglas Crockford and is a public domain license. The minified version is available at http://code.google.com/p/webscan/source/browse/trunk/ui/js/third-party/json2.min.js?r=80 (or in the code package of this article).
The ‘/signalr/hubs’ reference is showing the green squiggly for a reason. It doesn’t exist as design time. It will be generated at run-time.
Bringing Diff-Match-Patch into the party
We will use Neil Fraiser’s excellent implementation from http://code.google.com/p/google-diff-match-patch/ There are multiple implementations available and you could use it on the server side (C# library) or client side (javascript library). I decided to let the client do all the hard work, so I used the javascript library. Add the script reference to Review.cshtml
Add a placeholder to Review.cshtml that will hold the session id. This session Id is used to identify which client initiated the request.
Hooking up the hub and the publish handlers
Add the following script block to the Review.cshtml
The code comments are pretty self-explanatory and the sequence of events is as follows:
Two clients come to review the same BlogPost One makes changes to the BlogPost’s Article (aka BlogBody) that is ‘Send’ to the hub with an identifier as to who initiated the change (Session Id). The hub simply lobs it back to all the clients by calling the ‘addMessage’ method. Now both the clients receive the addMessage ‘signal’. Only the one that has a session Id that doesn’t match goes ahead and does a diff-match-patch.
Other Miscellaneous changes
Update _Layout.cshtml ‘s jquery script reference to the version you have.
Make things pretty by changing the default title of the app from ‘My MVC Application’ in the _Layout.cshtml to something nicer.
Change the Index.cshtml and update the header from ‘BlogBody’ to ‘Article’
Change the Global.asax ‘s RegisterRoutes method to navigate to the BlogPost’s Index directly
Step 7: Let it Roll
Run the application and create a new Post. Save it. Your Index page should look something like the following
Click on Review to go the review page. Press Ctrl+N to fire up a new browser instance with same page. Hit F5 to update session Id in the new Browser instance.
Line up the browsers side by side. Type in one and watch the other one change.
Conclusion
SignalR is a powerful and easy to use framework that enables permanent connections and Asynchronous signaling in ASP.NET. Its potential uses include but not limited to
Collaborative editing tools like the one we saw here.
Highly dynamic apps where certain changes can be pushed in near real time for example, a Cart can signal a purchase completion enabling dynamic updates of ‘stock numbers’ for end users
News tickers with real-time feeds and many many more.
Long-polling is not a new thing, however now we have a fantastic abstraction to use in ASP.NET.
So what will You do with SignalR?
Full Disclosure: I have reproduced parts of this article from an article on the same topic in my personal blog.
The entire source code of this article can be downloaded
over here
C# and.NET have been around for a very long time, but their constant growth means there’s always more to learn. We at DotNetCurry are very excited to announce the The Absolutely Awesome Book on C# and.NET. This is a 500 pages concise technical eBook available in PDF, ePub (iPad), and Mobi (Kindle). Organized around concepts, this eBook aims to provide a concise, yet solid foundation in C# and.NET, covering C# 6.0, C# 7.0 and.NET Core, with chapters on.NET Standard and the upcoming C# 8.0 too. Use these concepts to deepen your existing knowledge of C# and.NET, to have a solid grasp of the latest in C# and.NET OR to crack your next.NET Interview. Click here to Purchase this eBook at a Discounted Price!Did you know that the US railways had their fastest growth, and improvements when they were completely privately owned and operated. Now the US is mixed private/public ownership and some trains are on a slow death, while others a leaching off of the tax dollar.
NOTE: Every time you see public funded, government grant, government loan, etc, replace those terms with the correct term tax dollar, and you will see a whole new perspective. However, let me top that, replace that term with stolen private income, and you will have the truth of the matter. So let me restate the first paragraph with this information.
Did you know that the US railways had their fastest growth, and improvements when they were completely privately owned and operated. Now the US is mixed private/government ownership and some trains are on a slow death, while others a leaching off of the stolen private incomes.
I will complete this post with these correct terms replacing the government approved terms.
So if the train industry can grow, shrink, and change hands according to market flows, what else can? Automotive industries, space travel, cruise ships, high rises, private roads, housing, private and community security, mall and retail security, private fire departments (Already in existence), private and home schooling, private and volunteer healthcare… pause…
You know when growing up, the free clinic programs were huge, and they had many volunteers, but when these recipients started suing over the same trivial stuff that doctors in hospitals and doctors in medical groups were, then the clinics ran out of money quickly. I remember hearing about whole chains of volunteer and sponsored medical clinics being closed due to legal issues. The problem, the patients stopped seeing that they were receiving something from the goodness of the hearts of the donators, and started to see the clinics as a right. But the patients weren’t the only failures, there was also the cities. Even now with food banks, the laws regulating the receiving and distribution of food is causing the food banks from being able to distribute the food to the needy. Rather the food is going to the garbage, because the cities have salt laws, or meat sourcing laws, or other laws the forfeit human rights over fucked up cronyism.
…un-pause…. Everything listed here is already private in one or more places in the US, and in some cases other countries. If it can be done, then do it. If it cannot be done, then it probably shouldn’t be done.
Public sidewalks, why cannot the business who the sidewalk is attached to own the sidewalk. It is to their advantage to maintain it. I’ll go one step further, many businesses do own their own sidewalks. Do more of this.
Public roads. The roads in NYC were private for the longest times. It wasn’t until the 1900s that they really became consumed by the state and converted into stolen private income funded roads. Before then, they were owned by the stores that straddled them, and the trolley companies that ran down the middle of them. However everybody saw the quick buck they could make by selling them to the state for a wad of money stolen from the private sector. The public didn’t mind, they didn’t have the foresight to understand that their hard earned income that was being stolen in small traces would be used against them in the future. It all seemed benevolent at the time. Originally the department of NY that took over the road was formed out of the same group of people that used to take care of the water ways. This information is freely available on the NYC website.
Policing used to be easy. Someone try some funny business, and any bank with a sense about them would have armed security, and armed tellers.
In the west, if you had a problem and the judge found that you had just cause, he would deputize you, so that you could bring in the person. There was a serious drawback. A lazy judge could deputize someone from each side of the problem, which would cause a conflict of interest. A great example of this is the early years of the outlaw Jessie James. Before he was an outlaw, he worked as a cattle hand, when his boss was killed by a competitor with government connections to the military. Jessie got to a judge and was deputized, but he never got his man.
So lets look at the military. The US military has had a very long and proud history of being one of the largest volunteer military force in the world. What is even more, is that the original draft wasn’t to bring people into the military, it was to slow down the number of enlisted to what they could competently train and release into battle. However, after the two wars to end all wars, the US government blemished that great effort of volunteerism with the rewrite of the draft to be a mandatory military service in a war that should never have been, and a 2nd war that shouldn’t have ever been. (Mind you, I believe that with free trade, all wars could have been prevented. A hungry man is more likely to pickup a gun against his neighbor than a well fed one.)
So with all of this volunteerism, why don’t we volunteer to defend our neighbors, our towns, our country side? I would say our borders, but borders are just imaginary lines created by politicians to control the populous, and create a false send of identity.
I’m going to stop here, because it is after midnight, which makes this April 2nd, and I still need sleep. Expect more on this topic in future posts.A new study finds that deaths from opioid overdose fell by 25 percent in states that legalized medical marijuana, rebuking recent claims to the contrary by Attorney General Jeff Sessions
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/legalized-marijuana-could-help-curb-opioid-epidemic-study-finds-n739301
Humboldt farmers continue to lead the way in developing sustainable farming methods
https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/03/29/Pot-Growers-Environmental-Footprint/
Illegal grows are still popping up on federal lands, and law enforcement is struggling to keep up with the environmental and social damage
http://www.biographic.com/posts/sto/backcountry-drug-war
Sonoma State University becomes the first major U.S. university to offer a medical cannabis course
http://www.petaluma360.com/news/education/6825300-181/north-coast-colleges-wrestle-with
Salinas County is staking its claim in the coming Green Rush with old defunct greenhouses
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/california-weed/article140700623.html
Mendocino real estate agents relax on weed and start advertising “Awesome Marijuana Farm for Sale”
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/6815049-181/advertisements-openly-lure-marijuana-growers?artslide=0
Low-THC bud, technically hemp, is gaining popularity with smokers in Switzerland
https://cannabisnow.com/switzerland-low-thc-cannabis-big-money/
Humboldt County tax collectors receive their first payment from legal farms, $373,000
http://www.times-standard.com/general-news/20170328/first-round-of-pot-tax-collection-to-bring-in-373kYou can climb Washington in January… It’s just a little on the slow side and kind of painful. Good news, indeed.
I knew that there was a reason why there weren’t going to be a ton of people out there at Index over the weekend, but I didn’t really think much of it until we got started.
We rolled in sometime around 9pm or so – two friends and I in a Volvo station wagon – and all I could think was, “Oh jesus, I didn’t plan this very well.” There was thick snow. Everywhere.
Given that I’d only packed an ultralight backpacking tent intended for Washington’s more pleasant summer months and a 20 degree sleeping bag, I knew that it was going to be a cold night… or that I was going to have to find a cuddle buddy. And I wasn’t about to third-wheel in the back of a Volvo with a couple I’d recently met.
Cuddle buddy it was.
We met up with a fellow Bellingham climber, Stamati, and even though I knew it was rude…
“Hey Stamati! How are you? Can I sleep with you tonight?”
Yeah, I went there. But he was cool with it, so it turned out okay.
The four of us clambered into his camper and waited for the light to come back so that we could get down to the granite business we came to Index for.
Stamati and I watched the sun come up over Mount Index sometime around 9am and each wrestled with the internal struggle: to begin the day and get to climbing or to stay cozy beneath two sleeping bags, two blankets and two jackets in the back of the truck. Eventually, the urge to climb motivated us to begin making breakfast. Coffee helped, too.
Layered up and ready to rock, we made our way over to Japanese Gardens where I volunteered the first belay. It was the first time I had to decide whether or not to give a gloved belay… Definitely chose the gloves because I trusted that they would provide good traction.
Stamati boldly took the first frigid lead and proceeded to run up an Index 5.9 followed by an Index 5.11c. Jesus christ, the guy’s an animal. I guess warming up in 36 degree weather isn’t much of an option.
He took one whip. Then another. And then took a fat whip that made him decide to come down for a moment to rethink his life choices.
Another friend of mine put up a rope on Godzilla, an absurdly-trying-but-worth-it 5.9 on the Lower Town Wall. Feeling cocky and cozy in my numerous layers, I said to my party, “I think I’m going to try it on top rope and then decide whether not not to lead it.”
I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a praying mantis do it’s praying mantis thing, but that’s basically how climbing this crack went.
If you don’t have the patience for video nonsense: It was really stupid slow. There was no way in hell I was going to lead that beast of a crack when I felt like my body was too cold to function.
There’s a reason why you’re body says, “Nope, nope, nope,” to climbing Washington in January. But I assure you, your body doesn’t know what it’s missing out on. It’s a slow and painful but good time.
#worthit
AdvertisementsMaster builders from the VirtuaLUG online LEGO User Group (previously featured here) teamed again to create another awesome collaborative build. This time they’ve turned their attention from Ancient Greece to 1980s American cinema with a phenomenal diorama depicting all of the locations and unforgettable scenes from The Goonies.
Builders contributing to this project include Tyler Halliwell, Davey Sterling, Stacy Sterling, Dennis Price, Betsy Sandberg, Heath Flor, Lee Jones,Chris Phipson, Hans Dendauw, and matt rowntRee. They constructed Mikey’s and Data’s houses, the wishing well park, One-Eyed Willie’s ship, and so much more.
Trying to take in all of the details they worked into this massive build is like going on your own treasure hunt. It’s a LEGO masterpiece and a wonderfully geeky love letter to an awesome movie. The VirtuaLUG team just displayed this diorama at the 2014 BrickCon in Seattle, where it was awarded the prize for Best In Town.
Click here for additional images.
[via Nerdist]Android smartphone users can now place calls to their Android smartphone user contacts around the world absolutely free thanks to an updated app from Rebtel. Based in Sweden, Rebtel--which claims to be the world's largest independent mobile VoIP provider--may not be familiar to many users, but this app may change that.
When you think of VoIP service on smartphones names like Skype, Google Voice, or even Vonage pop to mind. All three offer clients for smartphones--including Android smartphones, but Rebtel has a unique approach that changes the game some.
Skype is recognized as a leader in VoIP. However, Skype requires calls to be made over Wi-Fi rather than 3G connections on the iPhone, or it requires a fixed broadband connection for the PC client. Skype does allow free Skype to Skype calls on Android phones with Verizon Wireless--but only with an expensive Verizon calling plan.
Contrast that with Rebtel. According to the Rebtel press release, "Rebtel works using any phone, landline, feature phone, or cellphone, for just the cheap price of local call, or now free with the Rebtel Android app."
The Rebtel app runs in the background of the default Android dialing pad and seamlessly intercepts calls intended for international long distance recipients. The calls are automatically converted to a local number and routed via Rebtel's VoIP network. Android to Android calls are completely free (other than the minutes used ticking off of the calling plan), and calls to other phones result in a savings of 90 percent off standard long-distance rates.
Juniper Research forecasts there will be more than 100 million mobile VoIP users within two years. Rebtel is squarely in the middle of a second wave of mobile VoIP growth, joining the likes of Skype and Google Voice in terms of growth pace.
"Over the past five years we've made international calling as close to free as possible from any phone," said Andreas Bernström, CEO of Rebtel in the Rebtel for Android 1.1 press release. "The new Rebtel for Android app marks our next phase of innovation coupled with a keen interest in expanding our presence in the U.S. and key growth markets around the world."
Mobile VoIP, like its broadband predecessor, has the potential to drastically cut the cost of voice communication. As 4G networks emerge and evolve, voice may be treated as simply another IP packet--erasing the distinction between voice minutes and data bandwidth. In the meantime, apps like Rebtel for Android 1.1 provide smartphone users with a tool to utilize VoIP over the existing cellular network.
You can follow Tony on his Facebook page, or contact him by email at tony_bradley@pcworld.com. He also tweets as @Tony_BradleyPCW.Part of the Muehlhauser interview series on AGI.
Luke Muehlhauser is Executive Director of the Singularity Institute, a non-profit research institute studying AGI safety.
Ben Goertzel is the Chairman at the AGI company Novamente, and founder of the AGI conference series.
Luke Muehlhauser:
[Jan. 13th, 2012]
Ben, I'm glad you agreed to discuss artificial general intelligence (AGI) with me. There is much on which we agree, and much on which we disagree, so I think our dialogue will be informative to many readers, and to us!
Let us begin where we agree. We seem to agree that:
Involuntary death is bad, and can be avoided with the right technology. Humans can be enhanced by merging with technology. Humans are on a risky course in general, because powerful technologies can destroy us, humans are often stupid, and we are unlikely to voluntarily halt technological progress. AGI is likely this century. AGI will, after a slow or hard takeoff, completely transform the world. It is a potential existential risk, but if done wisely, could be the best thing that ever happens to us. Careful effort will be required to ensure that AGI results in good things for humanity.
Next: Where do we disagree?
Two people might agree about the laws of thought most likely to give us an accurate model of the world, but disagree about which conclusions those laws of thought point us toward. For example, two scientists may use the same scientific method but offer two different models that seem to explain the data.
Or, two people might disagree about the laws of thought most likely to give us accurate models of the world. If that's the case, it will be no surprise that we disagree about which conclusions to draw from the data. We are not shocked when scientists and theologians end up with different models of the world.
Unfortunately, I suspect you and I disagree at the more fundamental level — about which methods of reasoning to use when seeking an accurate model of the world.
I sometimes use the term "Technical Rationality" to name my methods of reasoning. Technical Rationality is drawn from two sources: (1) the laws of logic, probability theory, and decision theory, and (2) the cognitive science of how our haphazardly evolved brains fail to reason in accordance with the laws of logic, probability theory, and decision theory.
Ben, at one time you tweeted a William S. Burroughs quote: "Rational thought is a failed experiment and should be phased out." I don't know whether Burroughs meant by "rational thought" the specific thing I mean by "rational thought," or what exactly you meant to express with your tweet, but I suspect we have different views of how to reason successfully about the world.
I think I would understand your way of thinking about AGI better if I understand your way of thinking about everything. For example: do you have reason to reject the laws of logic, probability theory, and decision theory? Do you think we disagree about the basic findings of the cognitive science of humans? What are your positive recommendations for reasoning about the world?
Ben Goertzel:
[Jan 13th, 2012]
Firstly, I don’t agree with that Burroughs quote that "Rational thought is a failed experiment” -- I mostly just tweeted it because I thought it was funny! I’m not sure Burroughs agreed with his own quote either. He also liked to say that linguistic communication was a failed experiment, introduced by women to help them oppress men into social conformity. Yet he was a writer and loved language. He enjoyed being a provocateur.
However, I do think that some people overestimate the power and scope of rational thought. That is the truth at the core of Burroughs’ entertaining hyperbolic statement....
I should clarify that I’m a huge fan of logic, reason and science. Compared to the average human being, I’m practically obsessed with these things! I don’t care for superstition, nor for unthinking acceptance of what one is told; and I spent a lot of time staring at data of various sorts, trying to understand the underlying reality in a rational and scientific way. So I don’t want to be pigeonholed as some sort of anti-rationalist!
However, I do have serious doubts both about the power and scope of rational thought in general -- and much more profoundly, about the power and scope of what you call “technical rationality.”
First of all, about the limitations of rational thought broadly conceived -- what one might call “semi-formal rationality”, as opposed to “technical rationality.” Obviously this sort of rationality has brought us amazing things, like science and mathematics and technology. Hopefully it will allow us to defeat involuntary death and increase our IQs by orders of magnitude and discover new universes, and all sorts of great stuff. However, it does seem to have its limits.
It doesn’t deal well with consciousness -- studying consciousness using traditional scientific and rational tools has just led to a mess of confusion. It doesn’t deal well with ethics either, as the current big mess regarding bioethics indicates.
And this is more speculative, but I tend to think it doesn’t deal that well with the spectrum of “anomalous phenomena” -- precognition, extrasensory perception, remote viewing, and so forth. I strongly suspect these phenomena exist, and that they can be understood to a significant extent via science -- but also that science as presently constituted may not be able to grasp them fully, due to issues like the mindset of the experimenter helping mold the results of the experiment.
There’s the minor issue of Hume’s problem of induction, as well. I.e., the issue that, in the rational and scientific world-view, that we have no rational reason to believe that any patterns observed in the past will continue into the future. This is an ASSUMPTION, plain and simple -- an act of faith. Occam’s Razor (which is one way of justifying and/or further specifying the belief that patterns observed in the past will continue into the future) is also an assumption and an act of faith. Science and reason rely on such acts of faith, yet provide no way to justify them. A big gap.
Furthermore -- and more to the point about AI -- I think there’s a limitation to the way we now model intelligence, which ties in with the limitations of the current scientific and rational approach. I have always advocated a view of intelligence as “achieving complex goals in complex environments”, and many others have formulated and advocated similar views. The basic idea here is that, for a system to be intelligent it doesn’t matter WHAT its goal is, so long as its goal is complex and it manages to achieve it. So the goal might be, say, reshaping every molecule in the universe into an image of Mickey Mouse. This way of thinking about intelligence, in which the goal is strictly separated from the methods for achieving it, is very useful and I’m using it to guide my own practical AGI work.
On the other hand, there’s also a sense in which reshaping every molecule in the universe into an image of Mickey Mouse is a STUPID goal. It’s somehow out of harmony with the Cosmos |
newspaper office. He was known for his work on the cultural life of Clermont-Ferrand and held several positions in the municipality, France 3 Auvergne reported. Hide Caption 7 of 13 Photos: Victims of the Paris terror attacks Elsa Cayat, the only woman killed in the newspaper attack, was a psychoanalyst and twice-monthly columnist for the paper. Hide Caption 8 of 13 Photos: Victims of the Paris terror attacks Ahmed Merabet was a member of the 11th arrondissement police force that pursued the attacker of the newspaper office. Merabet was Muslim, his brother Malek told reporters. "He was killed by false Muslims," the brother said. "Islam is a safe religion." Hide Caption 9 of 13 Photos: Victims of the Paris terror attacks Yoav Hattab, 21, one of the four hostages killed at the kosher grocery on January 9. He was the son of the chief rabbi of Tunis, Tunisia, JSSNews reported. Hide Caption 10 of 13 Photos: Victims of the Paris terror attacks Yohan Cohen was a 22-year-old student, according JSSNews and a French news outlet. He liked rap, particularly French rapper Booba.
Hide Caption 11 of 13 Photos: Victims of the Paris terror attacks Philippe Braham was in his 40s, and no further details were immediately available, JSSNews reported. Hide Caption 12 of 13 Photos: Victims of the Paris terror attacks François-Michel Saada, 63, was a retired senior executive, according to French news outlets RTL and Agence-France Press. Hide Caption 13 of 13
The terror group's claim of responsibility for those killings referred to an operation in the 18th arrondissement, but none occurred there. That statement, along with a reference to eight attackers when there had only been seven, led to speculation an eighth jihadist had planned an attack in the district but backed out.
Regis Le Sommier, co-editor of Paris Match magazine, said he was inclined to think the latest attack was self-directed, rather than coordinated by the central command of ISIS or another terror group, since it took place on the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo assault.
Since 9/11, he said, jihadists had not shown any particular interest in striking on the anniversaries of terror attacks despite the sensitivities around the dates. "That probably makes me think that he decided to do it on his own," he told CNN.SOUTH SALT LAKE — The Salt Lake City Police Department tweeted that an officer-involved shooting has left one man dead.
The shooting took place at about 7:15 p.m. Monday in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven located at 2102 S. State, according to the tweet.
Police responded to a 911 call about a man "waving a gun around," according to Sgt. Darin Sweeten from the South Salt Lake Police Department. When officers arrived, they saw three men exiting the 7-Eleven, and one of the men matched the description of the man described in the 911 call, police said.
When officers confronted the man, he was "visibly upset" and became agitated, Sweeten said.
Witnesses said they heard two shots, but their accounts vary beyond that.
Police have not yet identified the man nor did they release any further information about the incident Monday night.
The two men who were with the man who was shot are being questioned by police but have not been arrested.
South Salt Lake police are investigating the incident.
More information will be posted when it is available.
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PhotosTimes & TV Announced For Four UW Football Games
The game times for four UW football games this fall were announced today as the Pac-12 Conference and its television partners revealed the kickoff times and TV arrangements for the first three weeks of the 2015 season, as well as weekday games later in the season.
Washington's home opener Sept. 12 vs. Sacramento State will begin at 11:00 a.m. PT and air on the Pac-12 Networks. The following Saturday, the Dawgs play host to Utah State at 2:00 p.m. PT, also on Pac-12 Networks.
The Huskies' Thursday night game Oct. 8 at USC will begin at 6:00 p.m. PT and air on ESPN while the Apple Cup, Friday, Nov. 27 at Husky Stadium, will get underway at either 12:30 p.m. or 1:00 p.m. PT and will be broadcast by either FOX or FOX Sports 1.
Earlier this spring, the Mountain West Conference announced that Washington's season opener, Friday, Sept. 4 at Boise State, will air on ESPN and kick off at 8:15 p.m. MT/7:15 p.m. PT.
All remaining kick times and TV information will be released by the Pac-12 Conference during the season, generally the Monday 12 days before each game, as in years past.I mentioned to my secret santa that I had recently begun taking up 3d printing as a hobby with the monoprice select mini. I did not expect this amazingly generous gift... they sent me an entire DIY 3d printer kit (Anet A8). I was (and still is) in complete shock!
What I enjoyed most about this gift was that it was a hands-on project from start to finish. It took several enjoyable hours to completely assemble and during that time I learned so much about how 3d printers actually work... I learned how to fix all the small problems that came up when trying to print for the first time on it. And, because of this gift I even began to learn Fusion 360 and how to create my own 3d Models.
I'm just really overjoyed by this gift.... Every day I learn something new.
Thank you.The latest hack revealed over the weekend has nothing to do with the Democratic Party or George Soros, and instead a mysterious hacker group by the name “The Shadow Brokers” claims to have hacked the Equation Group - a government cyberattack hacking group associated with the NSA, and released a bunch of the organization's hacking tools. The hackers are also asking for 1 million bitcoin (around $568 million) in an auction to release more files.
“Attention government sponsors of cyber warfare and those who profit from it!!!!” the hackers wrote in a manifesto posted on Pastebin, on GitHub, and on a dedicated Tumblr.
How much you pay for enemies cyber weapons? Not malware you find in networks. Both sides, RAT + LP, full state sponsor tool set? We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame. Kaspersky calls Equation Group. We follow Equation Group traffic. We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files.
In February 2015, Ars Technical dubbed The Equation Group "the most advanced hacking operation ever uncovered." According to Kasperky, the "Equation Group" is a threat actor that surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques, and that has been active for almost two decades." While Kaspersky Lab stopped short of saying it’s the NSA, its researchers laid out extensive evidence pointing to the American spy agency, including a long series of codenames used by the Equation Group and found in top secret NSA documents released by Edward Snowden. The Equation Group, according to Kaspersky Lab, targeted the same victims as the group behind Stuxnet, which is widely believed to have been a joint US-Israeli operation targeting Iran’s nuclear program, and also used two of the same zero-day exploits.
The global "victims" of the Equation Group are laid out in the map below: it is no secret that the group is not particularly enthused by either Iran or Russia.
It is this secretive hacker collective that the "Shadow Brokers" claimed to have hacked, and allegely stole some of its hacking tools. They publicized the dump on Saturday, tweeting a link to the manifesto to a series of media companies.
According to Motherboard, the dumped files mostly contain installation scripts, configurations for command and control servers, and exploits targeted to specific routers and firewalls. The names of some of the tools correspond with names used in Snowden documents, such as “BANANAGLEE” or “EPICBANANA.” The hackers have released 60% of the files they claimed to have taken from the Equation Group. The Shadow Brokers said they would release the remaining data to the highest bidder in a Bitcoin auction (they’ve received three bids so far). If they received an extraordinary 1,000,000 Bitcoins, worth roughly $560 million, they would release all the files.
A review of the files revealed what appear to be vulnerabilities and exploits for some widely-used firewalls — network security technologies that aim to block digital snoops from entering. Suiche posted a handy rundown of the products affected. He said at the very least the exploits for the Cisco products included “real code” designed specifically to take control of the firewalls. “It’s not automatically generated or something like that.”
Alongside those alleged exploits were implants — malware that is covertly dropped on the network once the firewall and other security mechanisms have been bypassed. There were also some scripts and basic instructions for the malware’s usage.
While it was initially unclear if the data is legitimate, some security experts agree that it likely is.
“The code in the dump seems legitimate, especially the Cisco exploits … and those exploits were not public before,” said Matt Suiche, founder of UAE based cybersecurity start-up Comae Technologies. “The content seems legit.”
“If this is a hoax, the perpetrators put a huge amount of effort in,” the security researcher known as The Grugq told Motherboard. “The proof files look pretty legit, and they are exactly the sorts of exploits you would expect a group that targets communications infrastructure to deploy and use.” Claudio Guarnieri, an independent security researcher who’s investigated other hacking operations by the Western intelligence agencies, said that the files might be from a hacked NSA server used in an operation. He also cautioned that this is a preliminary analysis and that more analysis is needed.
The most recent file is dated June 2013, though the hackers could have tampered with the dates. Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder of security firm CrowdStrike, theorized that “the leakers were probably sitting on this information for years, waiting for the most opportune time to release.” CrowdStrike is best known for immediately 'concluding' that all recent hacks of Democratic-linked servers have been under the guidance of the Kremlin.
A Kaspersky Lab researcher declined to comment. Another Kaspersky Lab researcher noted on Twitter that there is “nothing” in the dumped files that links them to the Equation Group, but some of their names are from the ANT Catalog, an NSA hacking toolset published by Der Spiegel in late 2013. It’s worth noting that while the files dumped by The Shadow Brokers might not have a direct connection with the Equation Group, they could come from a different operation that those seen by Kaspersky Lab.
The Shadow Broker claimed to have gotten the files by following Equation Group “traffic,” hacking the group and finding its “cyber weapons.” (The hackers did not respond to a request for comment, and neither did the NSA.)
As Motherboard concludes, while the motives behind this dump are unclear, if legitimate, this could be one of the most shocking hacks ever.
As of Monday afternoon, the Bitcoin wallet where the hackers accept auction offers has received three offers so far; it has a long way to go to reach 1 million. If this hack is confirmed to be indeed of an NSA-related organization, we assume much more leaks will follow, even if the payment will ultimately take place behind the scenes.
As for the origins of the new "mysterious" hacker group, speculation is already rife that Russians are (again) behind it. However, as Forbes notes, whatever the alleged hack’s origins, the NSA does have something to worry about: Someone is out to embarrass the agency and might have the tools to do just that at a particularly heated time in US politics. The agency should, of course, have a response plan. Snowden managed what the Shadow Brokers are shooting for on a far greater scale.KeyCDN Includes Let's Encrypt Integration - Free SSL Certificates
By Brian Jackson Updated on January 13, 2017
“HTTPS everywhere” is happening and that is why KeyCDN recently became a sponsor of Let's Encrypt, a free, automated, and open certificate authority. We have been working very hard behind the scenes and are happy to announce, as of December 2015, that we offer an integration with Let’s Encrypt that is available to all KeyCDN customers!
What Does This Mean for You?
KeyCDN is excited to be one of the first providers around the globe to offer this integration. For KeyCDN customers, this means no more buying an SSL certificate if you want to use a custom Zone Alias! That’s right, you can now deploy your https://cdn.domain.com for free. You will still need to purchase an SSL certificate for your web host, but we’ve now got you covered our end. Web hosts such as Cyon have already added integrations with Let’s Encrypt and as time goes on you can expect to see more pick it up. Or you can deploy it on your server yourself by following the Let's Encrypt installation guide.
For companies with Let’s Encrypt integration, this makes the deployment for the end user much easier. There is no more generating a CSR, saving your private key, uploading your certificate and all the back and forth emails. For most deployments, it will now be a simple one-click process.
Also, you have probably noticed we keep referring to them as SSL certificates. Technically they are Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is actually the predecessor to TLS, but they are both frequently referred to as SSL.
Advantages
Besides the performance benefits of HTTP/2, there are also some advantages when using a custom Zone Alias (URL) vs shared SSL.
If you use the custom URL you can use the sitemap method to view indexed images data. If you use the shared SSL Zone URL, you will not be able to view this data. You could still use the URL search operator. You have full control over it and can switch CDN providers more easily while retaining the same URLs. The domain name will contain keywords relevant to your site. This can make for better branding, as people will see your URLs.
Let’s Encrypt
Back in 2012, Josh Aas and Eric Rescorla, two Mozilla employees; felt the need to increase the rate of SSL/TLS deployment and decided to create a new free certificate authority (CA). This eventually turned into the organization Let’s Encrypt. It is built on a foundation of cooperation and openness, that lets everyone be up and running with basic server certificates for their domains through a simple one-click process. Let’s Encrypt officially entered public beta on December 3rd, 2015.
According to the Let's Encrypt stats, there has already been over 1.5 million certificates issued.
There are quite a few invalid challenges still happening. But this will get better over time.
Here is a look at the TLDs being used by the certificates. After.coms, it is interesting to note that the European market seems to be heavily adopting Let’s Encrypt at a fast rate.
Let’s Encrypt Transparency
Let’s Encrypt is also dedicated to transparency in their operations and submit all certificates to certificate transparency logs as they are issued. You can view all issued Let’s Encrypt certificates at crt.sh, a free CT log certificate search tool from COMODO.
Certificate Transparency is an open framework for monitoring the TLS/SSL certificate system and auditing specific TLS/SSL certificates. It aims to remedy certificate-based threats by making the issuance and existence of SSL certificates open to everyone.
Domain Validation Only
Let’s Encrypt only supports domain validation certificates, which means you will get a green padlock in your address bar.
They have no plans at the moment to offer organization validation or extended validation certificates because these require human interaction and some form of payment.
How to Enable Let’s Encrypt Certificate
Follow the steps below on how to enable your Let’s Encrypt certificate in your KeyCDN dashboard. Note: Let’s Encrypt is now officially out of beta.
Navigate to your Zone’s advanced settings in the KeyCDN dashboard by going to Zones → Manage → Edit → and select Show Advanced Features. Scroll down to the SSL section and from the drop-down list select the LetsEncrypt option. Add a CNAME record in your DNS (Zone Alias → Zone URL). DNS changes take some time depending on the TTL. Check that your new DNS record is active with the DNS Check Tool. Create a Zone Alias for that Zone. Note: If your Zone already has a Zone Alias, you must either remove it before changing the SSL option to LetsEncrypt or recreate it afterwards. Further, you cannot add a Zone Alias if the CNAME record is not fully propagated.
Once the above steps are completed you will have secured your website with SSL for content delivery between the KeyCDN edge servers and your end users. Note: It will take a minimum of 5 minutes to deploy your new Let’s Encrypt certificate to the edge servers around the globe. We also recommend purging the cache on your Zone.
You can also obtain a Let’s Encrypt certificate for your origin server using Certbot. Certbot is an easy-to-use automatic client that fetches and deploys SSL/TLS certificates for your webserver. Certbot was developed by EFF and others as a client for Let’s Encrypt and was previously known as “the official Let’s Encrypt client.”
Some Important Things to Note
Since Let’s Encrypt is still in beta, there are some limitations you should be aware of.
Currently you are limited to only one Zone Alias per Zone when using Let’s Encrypt.
when using Let’s Encrypt. There are currently restrictions in place regarding the amount of certificates per domain. The current limitation on certificates / domain is 20 certificates for a registered domain per week.
. Let’s Encrypt certificates are trusted by all major browsers. See list of known issues and March 2016 update in regards to Windows XP Let's Encrypt certificate support.
Currently these free certificates offer no warranties as compared to other SSL certificates. Warranty is an insurance for an end user against loss of money when submitting a payment on an SSL-secured site.
Let’s Encrypt certificates expire every 90 days, but KeyCDN renews them for you automatically on the back-end. There is no need for you to do anything.
Summary
The Let’s Encrypt integration is very exciting and it brings us one step further to a more secure web! By allowing people access to free SSL certificates, we can expect the TLS adoption rate to dramatically increase as this eliminates both the cost and complexity of deployment.
Haven’t migrated to HTTPS yet? Now is the time to do so. Check out our HTTP to HTTPS migration guide. Already running shared SSL? Now you can move to a custom Zone URL for free, give it a try in your KeyCDN dashboard.With her first produced screenplay, 2007’s Juno, Diablo Cody won an Oscar and became something of a rarity in the screenwriter world: a celebrity herself, à la Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Kaufman, and Matt and Ben. Juno made her an in-demand writer in Hollywood, and she followed it up with two more films (Jennifer’s Body, Young Adult), a TV show (The United States of Tara), and much uncredited rewriting work. Her next script is also her directorial debut, Paradise, the story of a pious young woman (Julianne Hough) who, after suffering through a fiery plane crash, heads to Las Vegas to experience sin (the film is currently on VOD, and in theaters October 18). In six short years, Cody has experienced wild success, backlash, and everything in between, so for our How to Make a Movie series, we asked her to share the seven things nobody tells you about being a top screenwriter.
1. You will be held accountable for your words.
Writers drink, and therefore we often exhibit poor judgment. In 2007, when Juno came out, people were wearing rhinestone-embellished trucker caps and I was making bad decisions, too. I said a lot of stupid things in interviews because I figured no one was paying attention — who cares about screenwriters, generally? But my big mouth got me into trouble countless times. As a “visible” writer, you have to learn to conduct yourself like an actor. Say what you’ve been coached to say. Don’t talk shit about anyone. Behind closed doors, I’m still a drunk train wreck, but in interviews, I try to channel Sandra Bullock or someone else the public finds charming.
2. You will be a big deal for about ten seconds.
Since I “broke through” (ugh) six years ago, countless younger, funnier, smarter writers have flocked to Hollywood and TOOK MY JERB. That’s the nature of this business. Just ask any of the actresses who were on the cover of Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue in the nineties. Believe me, they all want to murder Emma Stone right now. You will be replaced. Keep your head down and work as much as you can.
3. You can make money doing things nobody knows about.
I occasionally do uncredited “secret” rewrites on scripts. I like that, because then people who would ordinarily avoid my projects are tricked into buying tickets for films I’ve worked on. I entertain frat guys without their consent!
4. But you have to say no to people constantly.
I turned down a pretty great job last week, and I thought long and hard about it because, Oh God, what kind of spoiled asshole have I become that I wouldn’t do this? But when I thought about the time commitment that it required and what it would pay me and how it could take me away from my children — I just couldn’t do it. My 27-year-old self would hit the roof if she knew I turned it down.
5. Meetings get way better.
I have friends who are lesser-known writers, and they get very nervous before a pitch because they feel like they’re in service of the people that they are pitching to. Whereas sometimes when I go in and pitch, it’s like being an honored guest. The assumption is there that they’re probably interested in what I have to say. People don’t look out the window. Also, you get to park right in front of the studio instead of having to go way off to P6.
6. Everyone you know will suddenly aspire to be a screenwriter.
I’ve never heard of a dozen people applying to dental school because their friend or family member became an orthodontist. But if you become a screenwriter and have success at it, at least five of your non-writing acquaintances will spontaneously decide to try writing a screenplay. And you know what? I don’t blame them. I genuinely believe I have the best job in the world, other than Katy Perry. Besides, it’s not like I know what the fuck I’m doing. Go ahead, guys! Take a crack at it!
7. The guy who refused to date you in college comes asking for a job.
The best.
Jeff Goldsmith is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the digital magazine Backstory and is also the host of the popular iTunes podcast “The Q&A With Jeff Goldsmith.” You can follow him on Twitter at @yogoldsmith.MK lose bubble
Image courtesy of Facebook
Kamen "bubble" Kostadinov has announced his departure from the Bulgarian roster.
Kamen "bubble" Kostadinov has recently announced his departure from the MK starting roster, following the steps of former teammate Emiliyan "spyleadeR" Dimitrov, who left on the premise of internal friction. Kostadinov seemed to share the opinion that the team had a rather unhealthy ecosystem as of recent.
The former MK representative has stated that this departure will not see the end of his professional CS:GO career, stating that he is already looking for a team. Additionally Kostadinov expressed that many a good memory were shared with the team over the time they were together.
The MK roster is composed of the follow three:
Nikolay "nkl" Krastev
Simeon "dream3r" Ganev
Viktor "v1c7oR" DyankovA reader named Rebecca Bitsko contacted Tucker Patch to relate what happened to her at the local when she attempted to buy an iPad.
I wanted to share my story with you in order to give other consumers a heads up, and to try to get my problem resolved.
I bought an iPad from the Tucker Walmart on Saturday during the tax-free holiday. When I opened it at home, the box contained pads of paper - no iPad (see photo). This has happened before (I wasn't aware of it at the time):
I immediately returned the box of paper to the store, but Walmart would not, and still will not, "give" me an iPad (that I paid $600 for). They claim the switch did not occur in their store and therefore is not their responsibility. They told me it was my responsibililty to contact Apple, which I have, and am still waiting on their investigation.
It is five days later and I've tried to get a response from Walmart at the store level, through an online message to Walmart headquarters, through Twitter, and through two calls to headquarters.
On my call to headquarters today, Thursday, Aug. 16, Walmart said they needed three (more?) full business days to investigate. I don't understand. It seems like there must be something in place to protect consumers against this kind of scam.
The management at the Tucker Walmart has been so extremely rude to me it is unbelievable. When I returned the iPad, I spent about two hours in the store trying to get some kind of resolution, or at least documentation of the problem.
I didn't think I'd get too far with a receipt and box of paper. They wouldn't document anything, but called the DeKalb police for me. But, when they called, they didn't know the address (of their own store). I ended up calling the police back and waiting forever for them to come.
Meanwhile, the managers/employees were running around with the box and wrapper and not communicating with me at all. They told me that they couldn't even start their investigation until Monday and they'd call me in a few days. That just doesn't seem acceptable to me.
I don't think I got an apology, although one of the managers claimed she apologized. They claim they are confident that the switch didn't happen in their store, but regardless, I think they should be the ones following up.
I called headquarters from the store on Saturday, and then again today, and today headquarters said they would have it investigated, and get back with me in three business days. I think it is crazy to treat a customer like this.
Tucker Patch is following up on this story and is waiting to hear back from Walmart and Apple officials with their responses.
Has anything similar happened to you? Tell us in the comments below-WASHINGTON -- Texas is closer than ever to building the first high-speed train in the United States, thanks to President Donald Trump's fascination with these transportation projects and a well-timed pitch to his administration.
Now developers nationwide are looking to the privately owned Texas Central Railway as a test case of what can get done with Trump in the White House.
Former Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr., a member of the company's board of directors, met recently with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in Washington. He wasn't seeking any of the taxpayer-funded grants sought by high-speed rail projects in California and the Northeast.
What the $10 billion Texas Central Railway really needs is a green light from the agency Chao oversees.
"It was an opportunity to make a first impression," said Tim Keith, president of Texas Central Railway.The Vectrex has always been a mystery to me, I haven’t really read up on it or anything, but it has crossed my path of hunting down retro games all over the web more than ones. I’ve always been intrigued and thought many times about whether I should get it on eBay or not. It was always pretty expensive, and I had no clue if I would be able to play it or not (because of power outlets and such). I didn’t even know what to expect from it, but it sure looked cool! :D Recently though a friend found an ad in Sweden from a guy who was selling one! I got so excited I rushed to buy it instantly! I might sound like a total n00b, but I actually prefer not knowing about games and even systems until I get them in my possession, that way I can experience them the same was as I would if they were new, the only thing I basically research when game shopping are the prices so I don’t overpay ^^
This one was originally sold in Sweden (I didn’t even know it was released here!!) and it had a bunch of games and extras :D
The first problem I encountered was how to turn the Vectrex off?! It started immediately when I plugged in the power cord.. but I didn’t wanna change cartridge or move it until I figured out how to turn it off first! I had to google for about 40 minutes before I found out! I discovered an old original users manual for the Vectrex as a PDF that someone had scanned in (THANK YOU!!) and finally read my way to understanding that the volume lever IS ALSO the on/off button. At first I didn’t believe it, because I kept turning it to max and the minimum but nothing happened, but like with any old machinery you have to be patient! After turning the volume knob all the way to the left (turning the volume down) until you hear a click, just leave it there for a little while, the system will power down after all the juice has run out of it! Haha, this was trippy >.<
It has a cartridge slot on the right side of the screen, and that’s where you insert the games. It comes with one built in game as well called MineStorm :D
The system has two controller ports, I got two controllers with the system ^_^ One controller can be folded into the front of the system so it’s not lying around :D The controller is kind of awkward when used though. It’s big and bulky, not really comfortable to hold so the best way to play is to put it in front of you on a flat surface in my opinion.
On the above picture you can see the controller folded into the bottom of the system, it’s got the logo on the back of it :)
I also got 19 games with it, they were:
Armor Attack Art Master Bedlam Berzerk Blitz! Clean Sweep Cosmic Chasm Flipper Pinball Fortress of Narzod Hyper Chase! Rip Off Scramble Soccer Football! Solar Quest Space Wars Spike Star Hawk! Star Ship WebWarp
When I added them to my collection on retrocollect.com it said I had all the games for it, but I haven’t researched it any further. Perhaps there are more games that came out in North America? Then again, I’m not sure whether this system is region free or not…
Every game that I got had it’s overlay! Overlays are a colorful transparent plastic cards that you put in front of the screen to give the illusion that you’re playing in color ;D Since every game displayed on the Vectrex is white on black it sure provides some variation :) My favorite overlays are Bedlam and Scramble:
Here’s some other really pretty ones:
Another amazing accessory I got for the system was the Light Pen! This is used together with the Art Master program. You can Sketch, Connect or Animate ^^ It works amazingly well! :D
If anyone knows if there are more games released for it that I don’t know of, please enlighten me :DWayne, a homeless man in London, asks passersby for change. DoNotPay will now help homeless people apply for emergency housing in the U.K. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Remember the DoNotPay bot? The world’s first “robot lawyer” (that we know of, I have questions about some of the attorneys I’ve met) made a name for itself disputing hundreds and thousands of parking tickets in London and New York City. Creator Joshua Browder, a Stanford student born in the United Kingdom, told Venture Beat that his bot had successfully challenged 160,000 of 250,000 British parking tickets as of June. (DoNotPay opened its “practice” across the pond last fall and came to the states in March.) “I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society,” Browder said at the time. “These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government.”
DoNotPay is essentially a chat bot that asks the user questions to determine what the best course of legal action might be. For instance, it might inquire, of the newly ticketed, whether a sign was visible above the parking space. Or maybe the only nearby lot was too small—it’s unreasonable to ticket drivers for not parking in a too-small lot. Once the user has figured out the basis for his appeal, DoNotPay generates an official letter automatically.
That was several months ago. Now, the bot is turning its pro bono efforts to homelessness. The new service launched Aug. 10 in the United Kingdom; Browder wants to take it to San Francisco and New York next. It’s a story of unanticipated demand: When DoNotPay began receiving messages about eviction and re-possession, Browder realized his digital Saul Goodman could help people apply for emergency housing. According to the Guardian, he consulted a team of volunteer (human) lawyers and pored over FOIA-obtained documents to “figure out trends in why public housing applications are approved or denied.”
That data made its way into the algorithm that shapes DoNotPay’s responses to user input. Though the project was only released on Wednesday, Browder told the Guardian he’s already seeing people use it to help tackle their housing problems. For instance, to a person evicted from her home, the bot might ask: “Do you have a legal right to live here?” It might say, “Are you legally homeless?” and elaborate with a definition: “Usually, this means that you have no legal right to live in accommodation anywhere in the world.”
The more complicated and delicate cases will likely continue to require a human touch, but DoNotPay may reduce the shame and bother that can come with seeking certain forms of legal aid. With his automated attorney, Browder has bottled the efficiency of statutory expertise, made it convenient to access, and left out the sticky interpersonal stuff. Who—law school grad or otherwise—would object to that?And you know where this is going. There was no difference in knee pain at any time point across the two groups, though pain did decrease a bit in all patients. Thank you, placebo effect. No changes in function, stiffness or walk time either.
In fact the only thing that changed significantly between the groups was the change in cartilage thickness. Those who got steroid lost 0.16mm more cartilage than those who got saline, a statistically significant, if clinically indeterminate result.
Do steroids still have a role? I spoke with an Orthopedic Surgeon who pointed out that steroids should really only be used for flares of osteoarthritis, not as a long-term treatment strategy. He also mentioned that the pain relief is real, but short-lived, and may not have been captured by the every-three-month pain surveys the researchers conducted.
But with this trial showing potential cartilage loss, and somewhat shoddy older data, it’s hard to justify the procedure without citing anecdotal evidence. Hyaluronic acid injections, look out. You might be the next to feel the pinch.BEIJING: In what could be the first case of racial attack on a China citizen, a woman hit a man on a bus in New York, saying she hated Chinese. The Chinese man, 68-year-old Wang Zenxin, was whacked on the head with an umbrella on March 7.When Wang asked why she was behaving in a violent manner, the middle-aged Hispanic woman said, “Because I hate Chinese people”. She asked Wang to go back to his country, saying the US was no place for the Chinese.The woman also shoved and pushed Wang until he got off at the next stop, according to a witnesses, who made a video of the scene that has gone viral.However, the state media, which is usually alert to cases of injustice against Chinese living abroad, has soft-pedalled this issue.They have toed the line of Chinese officials, who have taken a conciliatory approach to China-US relations ahead of the meeting between President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. “I feel sad,” Wang said. “I think NY is a nice city, many kinds of races of people, all of them together.Now I know that some people hate Chinese. I have to be careful.” Wang has been living in New York since 1986.Jameel Jaffer, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued in the Supreme Court on behalf of the plaintiffs challenging the 2008 law, said that someone in the Justice Department should have flagged the issue earlier and that the department must do more than change its practice going forward.
“The government has an obligation to tell the Supreme Court, in some formal way, that a claim it made repeatedly, and that the court relied on in its decision, was simply not true,” he said. “And it has an obligation to notify the criminal defendants whose communications were monitored under the statute that their communications were monitored.”
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. The department’s practices came under scrutiny after a December 2012 speech by Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee. During debate over extending the 2008 law, she warned that terrorism remained a threat. Listing several terrorism-related arrests, she added, “so this has worked.”
Lawyers in two of the cases Ms. Feinstein mentioned — one in Fort Lauderdale and one in Chicago — asked prosecutors this spring to confirm that surveillance under the 2008 law had played a role in the investigations of their clients so they could challenge it.
But prosecutors said they did not have to make such a disclosure. On June 7, The New York Times published an article citing Ms. Feinstein’s speech and the stance the prosecutors had taken.
As a result, Mr. Verrilli sought an explanation from national security lawyers about why they had not flagged the issue when vetting his Supreme Court briefs and helping him practice for the arguments, according to officials.
The national security lawyers explained that it was a misunderstanding, the officials said. Because the rules on wiretapping warrants in foreign intelligence cases are different from the rules in ordinary criminal investigations, they said, the division has long used a narrow understanding of what “derived from” means in terms of when |
with warfarin in patients with severe renal impairment.
2. Answer the drug information question “Should high dose methylprednisolone be given for intraoperative spinal cord injury?”
3. Share a resource for understanding CMS quality measures.
Article
Comparison of the Safety and Effectiveness of Apixaban versus Warfarin in Patients with Severe Renal Impairment
Lead author: Brooke E. Stanton
Published online in Pharmacotherapy January 2017
Background
When a new medication comes to market, renal dosing guidelines are rarely based on randomized controlled trials. Instead, pharmacokinetic studies are usually extrapolated to provide renal dosing guidelines. This is exactly what happened with apixaban. Clinical trials of apixaban excluded patients with a CrCl less than 25 mL/minute or a serum creatinine concentration (SCr) greater than 2.5 mg/dL. The FDA used pharmacokinetic data to base its approval of apixaban use in patients with a CrCl less than 15 mL/minute or hemodialysis. The authors of this study sought to examine the safety and effectiveness of apixaban versus warfarin in patients with severe renal impairment.
Methods
The study was a retrospective, matched cohort study in a single community hospital. 73 patients with severe renal impairment who received apixaban were matched 1:1 with 73 patients with severe renal impairment who received warfarin. The primary outcome was major bleeding, and the secondary outcomes included the composite of bleeding (major bleeding, clinically relevant non-major bleeding, and minor bleeding) in addition to documented ischemic stroke or recurrent venous thromboembolism.
Results
Although the patients who received apixaban had numerically fewer bleeding events, this difference was not statistically significant. The risk of stroke between groups was identical.
Conclusion
The authors concluded:
Apixaban appears to be a reasonable alternative to warfarin in patients with severe renal impairment.
Discussion
Using apixaban in patients with severe renal impairment makes me nervous, even though only 27% of the medication is eliminated in the urine.
Do you use apixaban in patients with end-stage renal disease? — Pharmacy Joe 🇺🇸 (@PharmacyJoe) February 8, 2017
A recent case report described a 65-year-old patient with end-stage renal disease who had massive gastrointestinal bleeding while on apixaban. This matched cohort study does provide better evidence to base a judgment on than a case report or pharmacokinetic study. Although I have no data to support it, I would feel more comfortable checking at least one anti-Xa level once the apixaban has reached steady state.
Drug information question
Q: Should high dose methylprednisolone be given for intraoperative spinal cord injury?
A: No one knows, but you can bet the surgeon will request it.
Intraoperative spinal cord injury is a nightmare scenario for surgeons. It may occur accidentally from an instrument or screw being misplaced during surgery. Most data on using methylprednisolone to treat spinal cord injury comes from the National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study (NASCIS) which only looked at blunt, closed spinal cord injury.
I cannot find any prospective data on using methylprednisolone in open spinal cord trauma that may occur intraoperatively. The potential risks of postoperative GI bleeding, infection and hyperglycemia from using methylprednisolone will probably be overshadowed in the surgeon’s mind by the theoretical benefit of reducing the spinal cord injury. If requested, the NASCIS protocol calls for a methylprednisolone bolus dose of 30 mg/kg of body weight over 15 minutes, followed by a 45-minute pause, and then a 23-hour continuous infusion of 5.4 mg/kg/hr.
Resource
Pharmacists are often involved in helping hospitals achieve success on the quality measures set forth by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and The Joint Commission (TJC). Examples of such measures include those for the Surgical Care Improvement Project or Community Acquired Pneumonia treatment. Often, success hinges on a detailed knowledge of the rules related to the measures. If you find yourself in need of knowing the exact rules for any CMS/TJC quality measures, you can read the current specifications manual found on the website qualitynet.org.
If you like this post, check out my book – A Pharmacist’s Guide to Inpatient Medical Emergencies: How to respond to code blue, rapid response calls, and other medical emergencies.
<– Previous Post Next Post –>Zune has been all but dead for years, but Microsoft is finally — offically — putting its online service out to pasture.
Even though Microsoft ended production of its Zune MP3 players in 2011, it maintained Zune online services until Sunday, when it killed Zune for good. Microsoft is currently selling and streaming music and video as Groove Music and Movies and TV, respectively.
See also: The coolest kitchen gadgets of 2015
Microsoft launched its first Zune-branded MP3 player in 2006, and while it was a fundamentally good product, it never managed to dethrone the iPod as the king of MP3 players. When Microsoft decided to kill Zune hardware in 2011, the MP3 player was already obsolete to the smartphone, by virtue of being one device that handled both functions.
Even though it offered Groove (née Xbox Music), Microsoft maintained a music streaming and download service under Zune branding. Microsoft announced that it would kill Zune services in September 2015, with its demise set for Nov. 15, 2015.
That day has come. Zune Music Pass subscriptions, which offered unlimited streaming and 10 downloads per month, will be converted to Groove Music Pass, which essentially offers the same thing, minus the free monthly downloads. Zune subscribers who don't want Groove Music Pass may be eligible for a prorated refund.
For the few out there who still have Zune players, good news: Microsoft hasn't completely resigned them to paperweight status. They'll still work as basic MP3 players, though they won't be able to stream music.
While it's easy to poke fun at the fact that Zune existed for as long as it did, it's impressive Microsoft continued supporting a years-old device that never even made a dent in the iPod's market share when it was new.
Rest in peace, Zune. We hardly knew ye.Image copyright Reuters
Heathrow Airport says it has launched an internal investigation after a USB stick containing security information was reportedly found on the street.
The Sunday Mirror reported that the USB stick had 76 folders with maps, videos and documents, including details of measures used to protect the Queen.
A man found it in west London and handed it into the paper, it said.
Heathrow said all of its security plans had been reviewed and it was "confident" the airport was secure.
"We have also launched an internal investigation to understand how this happened and are taking steps to prevent a similar occurrence in future," it said.
The Sunday Mirror said there were at least 174 documents on the stick, which it said was found on the pavement, and some were marked as "confidential" or "restricted", but could be read.
Some files disclosed the types of ID needed to access restricted areas, a timetable of security patrols and maps pinpointing CCTV cameras, the paper said.
One document highlighted recent terror attacks and talked about the type of threat the airport could face, it said.
The information has been passed to Heathrow intelligence chiefs, the Sunday Mirror said.
The statement from the airport said Heathrow's "top priority" was the safety and security of passengers and staff.
"The UK and Heathrow have some of the most robust aviation security measures in the world, and we remain vigilant to evolving threats by updating our procedures on a daily basis.""Where is the Doctor?" The BBC has released the first official synopsis and a first sneak peek trailer for "The Magician’s Apprentice," the opening episode of Season 9.
The short but exciting trailer opens with a kid lost on a strange alien planet filled with a sea of muddy hands with eyes in their palms. So far, so Doctor Who. Then we have Clara (Jenna Coleman) and Missy (Michelle Gomez) seemingly joining forces to look for the Doctor (Peter Capaldi), who’s on the run and hiding from someone, or something (I'm looking at you, hood-guy), by the time the show returns.
We’re also introduced to another cool Gallyfrean artifact: a Confession Dial, being the Last Will and Testament of the Doctor. Oh, and as you can see below, those space pepperpots the Daleks are making another, terrifying return with "maximum extermination" in mind. I have a feeling it's going to be a brilliant episode. Check it out:
Video of HV1tfG7uDtI
Where is the Doctor? When the skies of Earth are frozen by a mysterious alien force, Clara needs her friend. But where is the Doctor, and what is he hiding from? As past deeds come back to haunt him, old enemies will come face-to-face, and for the Doctor and Clara survival seems impossible.
Writer: Steven Moffat. Director: Hettie Macdonald. Producer: Peter Bennett
Cast: Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman
Guest cast: Michelle Gomez, Jemma Redgrave, Kelly Hunter, Clare Higgins, Jaye Griffiths, Harki Bhambra, Daniel Hoffmann-Gill, Joey Price, Aaron Neil, India Ria Amarteifio, Dasharn Anderson, Demi Papaminas, Jami Reid-Quarrell, Benjamin Cawley, Stefan Adegbola, Shin-Fei Chen, Lucy Newman-Williams, Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, Jonathon Ojinnaka.
Doctor Who returns on Sept. 19. on the BBC in the UK, BBC America in the U.S., and Space in Canada.
(via Doctor Who TV)With Arch Motorcycle Company, Reeves and bike builder Gard Hollinger are turning a passion project into a thriving business.
I knock on the door of an unmarked red brick industrial building in southwest Los Angeles, and the actor Keanu Reeves answers. He doesn’t lead me onto a movie set, but instead into a motorcycle shop— his motorcycle shop, in fact. Arch Motorcycle Company, a bespoke studio he founded with master builder Gard Hollinger in late 2011, produces tailor-made bikes for those with at least $78,000 to spare. Each example of Arch’s KRGT-1 model, pictured here, is individualized to fit a customer’s tastes and style, with creative oversight from Hollinger, who has been building custom motorcycles for the better part of three decades.
“Sometimes the second you meet somebody, you think, I’m going to be connected to that person,” says Hollinger, who has built some of the most imaginative and eccentric choppers in the world. “I remember having that feeling with Keanu.” In the mid-2000s, Reeves had begun blindly modifying his ’05 Harley-Davidson Dyna without any real purpose or objective. “I fucked it up,” jokes Reeves, who went to one of Hollinger’s earlier shops, L.A. County Choprods, hoping the self-taught designer and fabricator could transform his botch job into a beautiful custom cruiser. The belabored build wound up taking four years, continually delayed by the movie star’s busy shoot schedule. But as the bike took form over the years, Reeves and Hollinger grew close, and Reeves began bugging Hollinger about building more bikes together.
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Keanu Reeves at Arch Motorcycle Company's L.A. headquarters.
“At that point, I was just like, ‘Let me get this one done,’ you know?” says Hollinger. “And that happened a few more times and then the bike was done. I’ve been riding since I was eight years old, and Keanu has owned a lot of motorcycles, but we both were sort of struck by the fact that this was like nothing we’d ever ridden. It was a big, American V-twin that was like a cruiser you fit inside of, but it handled. All the things you wouldn’t expect that bike to do, it did.”
What Hollinger eventually created didn’t have the character Reeves had initially been looking for, but something about the pair’s first bike struck the actor. “I really do believe the machine was telling us that it had to be in the world,” says Reeves. “I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. It was there. It was asking.”
Reeves and cofounder Hollinger take the KRGT-1 through its paces.
Reeves took it one step further and floated the idea of starting a business, but Hollinger tried to dissuade him, saying it would be the worst thing he could do and that he’d probably lose all of his money. “He was very patient with me,” says Hollinger, “and he said a couple of things that started to turn me. The first one was, ‘You know, someday we’re not going to be here, and it would be really great to leave something that matters to us, something we love.’” Apparently, a catalog of blockbusters wasn’t quite enough for Reeves, who eventually won Hollinger over, becoming the builder’s creative counterpoint and the financier for the newly formed company.
The small, six-person shop does all design and assembly in-house, as well as much of the parts fabrication. Off the main showroom, which is stocked with sample KRGT-1s, is a mini factory, complete with CAD computer stations, CNC machines that mill small, precision parts from aluminum blocks, and a bone yard of scrapped and forgotten project bikes awaiting new life. Adjacent to the factory is the warehouse, where hundreds of brackets, casings, and other odd parts are laid out on ceiling-high shelves, each labeled with unbelievably meticulous sticky notes by Hollinger.
Thus far, Arch has produced a pristine handful of bikes, which have found homes in America, Australia, Malaysia, and Russia, and volume will stay low on purpose, with a maximum of 50 to 100 motorcycles made each year. While Arch sells only one model at the moment, the plan is to offer three within the next five years: an evolution of the mainstay KRGT-1, a small-batch, two-person motorcycle, and a low-production, high-dollar hyper-exotic. Hollinger says he hopes every bike Arch builds will feel like the gruff-but-docile KRGT-1 that first catalyzed his collaboration with Reeves.
If Hollinger is the levelheaded architect of Arch, the actor is the dreamer who’s drawn to the creative freedom the company provides. “Arch definitely has similarities to some of the work that I’ve been a part of, like The Matrix or A Scanner Darkly or The Devil’s Advocate or Bill and Ted’s or Speed or Point Break, projects that I really enjoyed and that changed my life and were so satisfying as an artist,” says Reeves.
Both founders are very clear about one thing, however: Arch is not the “Keanu Reeves Motorcycle Company.” As Hollinger says, “We want people to understand we’re serious and we want to be here for the long-term”— though he’s first to admit how nice it is when Keanu Reeves answers Arch’s front door.
Arch's KRGT-1 specs:As promised, a new TiVo for Amazon Fire TV (Beta) app has just been added to the Fire TV appstore. The app is compatible with the brand new TiVo Bolt, TiVo Roamio Plus, and TiVo Roamio Pro. It will also work with the 4-tuner TiVo Roamio and TiVo Premiere if paired with a Tivo Stream. This new app allows TiVo owners to stream recorded content from their DVR through a 2nd-gen Fire TV, 1st-gen Fire TV, or Fire TV Stick. For TiVo owners who want their recordings accessable from multiple TVs in their home, this new app paired with a Fire TV Stick, while not as functional, is a much cheaper option than a TiVo Mini. If you’re the type who likes to travel with their Fire TV, the app also supports streaming on the road while out of your home, but with restrictions. Depending on the copy protection assigned by content providers, not all content can be streamed out of home. You’ll also be limited to stream to only one out of home device at a time. Oddly enough, the TiVo Bolt, TiVo’s latest and greatest box, does not support out of home streaming at this time. The new TiVo app is free and is compatible with all Fire TV devices.
Follow AFTVnews on Twitter / Facebook and subscribe via email to be the first to learn when new articles go live. Follow me, Elias Saba, on Twitter and Instagram to see what I'm working on before it's posted here.
ShareTweetShare+1Nations that have ratified the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty Countries that have signed but not ratified Countries that have not signed
The African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Pelindaba (named after South Africa's main Nuclear Research Centre, run by The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation and was the location where South Africa's atomic bombs of the 1970s were developed, constructed and subsequently stored),[1] establishes a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Africa. The treaty was signed in 1996 and came into effect with the 28th ratification on 15 July 2009.
Treaty outline [ edit ]
The Treaty prohibits the research, development, manufacture, stockpiling, acquisition, testing, possession, control or stationing of nuclear explosive devices in the territory of parties to the Treaty and the dumping of radioactive wastes in the African zone by Treaty parties. The Treaty also prohibits any attack against nuclear installations in the zone by Treaty parties and requires them to maintain the highest standards of physical protection of nuclear material, facilities and equipment, which are to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. The Treaty requires all parties to apply full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards to all their peaceful nuclear activities. A mechanism to verify compliance, including the establishment of the African Commission on Nuclear Energy, has been established by the Treaty. Its office will be in South Africa.[2] The Treaty affirms the right of each party to decide for itself whether to allow visits by foreign ships and aircraft to its ports and airfields, explicitly upholds the freedom of navigation on the high seas and does not affect rights to passage through territorial waters guaranteed by international law.
Area of application [ edit ]
"African nuclear-weapon-free zone" means the territory of the continent of Africa, island states that are members of OAU, and all islands considered by the Organization of African Unity in its resolutions to be part of Africa; "Territory" means the land territory, internal waters, territorial seas and archipelagic waters and the airspace above them as well as the seabed and subsoil beneath.[3]
The African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (ANWFZ) covers the entire African continent as well as the following islands: Agaléga Islands, Bassas da India, Cabo Verde, Canary Islands, Cargados Carajos, Chagos Archipelago - Diego Garcia, Comoros, Europa Island, Juan de Nova, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Prince Edward & Marion Islands, São Tomé and Príncipe, Réunion, Rodrigues Island, Seychelles, Tromelin Island, and Zanzibar and Pemba Islands.[4]
This list does not mention the mid-ocean islands of St. Helena 1,900 km west from southern Angola[5] or its dependencies including Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, Bouvet Island 2,500 km southwest from Cape Town, the Crozet Islands 2,350 km south of Madagascar, Kerguelen, or Île Amsterdam and Île Saint-Paul, which, with American Samoa in the Pacific Ocean, are the only Southern Hemisphere lands not in any of the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones.
History [ edit ]
The quest for a nuclear free Africa began when the Organization of African Unity formally stated its desire for a Treaty ensuring the denuclearization of Africa at its first Summit in Cairo in July 1964. The Treaty was opened for signature on 11 April 1996 in Cairo, Egypt. All the States of Africa are eligible to become parties to the Treaty, which will enter into force upon its 28th ratification; the Protocols with also come into force at that time for those Protocol signatories that have deposited their instruments of ratification. It was reported in 1996 that no African Arab state would ratify the Treaty until Israel renounces its nuclear weapons program.[6] However, Algeria, Libya, and Mauritania have since ratified the Treaty.
The United Nations General Assembly has passed without a vote identical resolutions in 1997 (twice),[7][8] 1999,[9] 2001,[10] 2003,[11] and 2005[12] calling upon African States that have not yet done so to sign and ratify the Treaty as soon as possible so that it may enter into force without delay, and for States contemplated in Protocol III to take all necessary measures to ensure its speedy application. A resolution had been passed in 1995 in support of the final text of the Treaty.[13]
Ratified or acceded states [ edit ]
As of October 2018, the Treaty has been ratified by 40 states and the Sahrawi Arab Republic,[14] and entered into force on 15 July 2009.
States that have signed but not ratified [ edit ]
All countries are members of the African Union
Non-signatory states [ edit ]
State South Sudan - (part of Sudan until July 2011)
Nuclear weapons states and the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone [ edit ]
The Treaty has three Protocols.
Under Protocol I, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and the People's Republic of China are invited to agree not to use or threaten to use a nuclear explosive device against any Treaty party or against any territory of a Protocol III party within the African zone.
Under Protocol II, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Russian Federation and China are invited to agree not to test or assist or encourage the testing of a nuclear explosive device anywhere within the African zone.
Protocol III is open to states with dependent territories in the zone and obligates them to observe certain provisions of the Treaty with respect to these territories; only Spain and France may become Parties to it.
As of 11 March 2011, the United Kingdom, France, the Russian Federation and China have signed and ratified the Protocols, but the United States has yet to ratify.[18][19] Spain has neither signed nor ratified Protocol III.[20]
The United States has supported the concept of the denuclearization of Africa since the first United Nations General Assembly resolution on this issue in 1965 and has played an active role in drafting the final text of the Treaty and Protocols. The United States signed Protocols I and II in 1996, but has not ratified them. In May 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the Obama Administration would submit these protocols to the U.S. Senate for advice and consent to ratification.[21]
The status of the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, controlled by the United Kingdom and used as a military base by the United States, with regard to the Treaty is unclear. Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago claimed by Mauritius. The other islands of the Chagos Archipelago are considered in Africa and are under the treaty, but neither the United States nor the United Kingdom recognizes Diego Garcia as being subject to the Treaty.[22][23]
Enforcement [ edit ]
To allow for the verification of its nuclear non-proliferation undertaking, the Treaty requires parties to conclude comprehensive safeguards agreements with the IAEA equivalent to the agreements required in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Twenty-one States in Africa have yet to bring such agreements into force. The IAEA encourages them to bring these agreements into force as soon as possible.[24]
According to Article 12 (Mechanism for compliance) of the Treaty, after entry-into-force, the Parties agree to establish an African Commission on Nuclear Energy (AFCONE). In addition to being a compliance mechanism, the Commission will be responsible for encouraging regional and sub-regional programmes for co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. The establishment of AFCONE would also: encourage African states to take responsibility for their natural resources, and in particular nuclear material; and protect against the dumping of toxic waste.[18]Universities minister Jo Johnson (pictured) has said universities have a duty to 'open minds' after it emerged some students avoid writing pro-Brexit essays for fear of being marked down
University students have revealed they avoid writing pro-Brexit essays because they fear being marked down.
Some fear that free debate on the issue is being ‘shut down’ by pro-Remain lecturers.
They include undergraduates studying law, politics, and philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) degrees, which often deal with the subject directly.
Last night, universities minister Jo Johnson reacted by saying universities had a duty to ‘open minds’ and allow proper debates on controversial topics.
But Jamie Hollywood, a PPE student at Goldsmiths, University of London, told the Sunday Telegraph yesterday: ‘I’ve experienced incredible Brexit bias. In my first lecture in philosophy, the lecturer, who is European, told the class that Brexit was a nationalist enterprise.
‘He also said that he would be kicked out of the country, which was clearly inappropriate – and absurd.’
A law and politics graduate at Cardiff University said: ‘There was a genuine culture of contempt in our faculty for Brexit. I was told explicitly by my tutor, “do not advance Eurosceptic arguments in your essays, because you will irk the examiner”.’
A law and politics graduate at Cardiff University (pictured) claimed there was a 'genuine culture of contempt in our faculty for Brexit'
William Bates, a politics and international relations student at the University of the West of England said: ‘Our essays are often marked based on how receptive lecturers are to your arguments.
‘You can take a Left-wing or centrist stance, but you’d be mad to write anything Eurosceptic.’
Dr Andrew Dunne, former programme leader for Social Policy at the University of Lincoln, told the Daily Mail: ‘I don’t blame students for not wanting to take a risk, and it is a genuine risk.
‘I’ve met one or two academics in my career who would look unfavourably on a paper that was very good, but was written from the wrong political perspective.’
Jamie Hollywood, a PPE student at Goldsmiths, University of London (pictured), said a lecturer, who is European, told the class that Brexit was a nationalist enterprise.
He said one colleague at another university had claimed a student was not intelligent because he was interested in the Right-wing theories of Friedrich Hayek.
And, guess what, top prizes go to Remainers A university competition for essays on Europe awarded nearly every prize to a pro-EU effort. The contest at Canterbury Christ Church University was judged by Professor Amelia Hadfield – who receives a grant from the EU of up to £44,000 over three years as the Jean Monnet Chair. Professor Amelia Hadfield Her title is a teaching post with a specialisation in European Union studies for university professors. The ‘blog on Europe’ competition was for first and third-year politics undergraduates, with winners getting £250 each in book vouchers. Ten of the 12 winning entries were pro-EU, one was neutral, and only one – talking about the EU’s failure to intervene in Catalonia – was negative. Eight made reference to Britain’s exit from the union, claiming that it was damaging and chaotic. An article published by The Bruges Group, a Thatcherite think-tank, argued that the scheme is ‘propaganda’. It added: ‘It’s not just academics who can rely on EU backing. ‘There is funding for British students to write research papers about the positive aspects.’
Alan Sked, emeritus professor of international history at LSE, added: ‘[Universities have been] galvanised like Soviet universities were under the Soviet system – the whole academic force mobilising to come out in favour of the party line.
'You just have to rely on the good sense and intelligence of students who will stand up against the propaganda.’
It is understood that the new Office for Students (OfS), a regulator with powers to strip universities of their degree-awarding status, will be monitoring the issue.
Mr Johnson said: ‘Universities must open minds not close them. That’s why I have asked for the OfS to ensure that all universities fulfil their duty to promote freedom of speech and the role it plays in generating rigorous debate...’
Sir Michael Barber, chairman of the OfS, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘The duty to protect freedom of speech also applies to academics, and diverse views should be encouraged.’
A spokesman for Goldsmiths said that the lecturer mentioned had been trying to ‘stimulate discussion’ and was not involved in the marking of course assignments.
And a Cardiff spokesman said they had been unaware of the allegations, adding that the university encouraged students with concerns to report them.
UWE said it was ‘very surprised’ by the claims, adding that it would ‘never expect’ students to ‘self-censor assignments’.
It comes after Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris was vilified on social media for writing to university vice chancellors requesting information on any teaching on Brexit. Chris Patten, the chancellor of Oxford University, described the request as ‘idiotic Leninism’.
We have since been contacted by Professor Hadfield, who said in response:
‘As the Jean Monnet chair, I am responsible for promoting world-class teaching and research on Europe, objectively and analytically. Not for promoting the EU, or attitudes for or against it.
‘In the 2017 CCCU Fresher’s Blog Competition, students were encouraged to write on any aspect of European democracy, migration, security, identity, economics or Brexit-EU relations. Of the 12 winners, four wrote on Brexit, three on European identity, two on economic and fiscal matters, two on Austria and Spain and one on foreign policy. Hardly a pro-EU outpouring.
‘Jean Monnet structures are a key part of encouraging students to think critically and creatively about future UK-EU relations'.The 2000 Campaign Recounting the controversial campaign.
Who Is Bob Gates? The secret world of Defense Secretary Gates
John McCain's 'Straight Mess Express'
John McCain has been in Washington for 26 years and, as he says, he’s voted with George W. Bush more than 90 percent of the time.
McCain also admits he knows little about economics, and he has surrounded himself with corporate lobbyists and other advisers who have pushed a determined anti-regulatory agenda.
(The written story continues below.)
But McCain now – in the face of a major economic crisis – insists he’s the right agent for change to deal with it, even though much of the trouble can be traced to the slashing of regulations and to President Bush’s policies.
TheRealNews.com is an independent news network that produces stories of global interest.
To comment to us by e-mail, click here.
Back to Home PageProminent Green Party supporter and environmentalist Guy Dauncey is urging Vancouver Island voters to forsake all Green Party candidates and vote NDP and Liberal in ridings where they can defeat Conservatives.
Dauncey, who says he wrote the national Green Party's climate platform, calls on voters to support four NDP candidates and one Liberal candidate. Dauncey makes no recommendation between an NDP and Liberal candidate in another riding.
Green leader Elizabeth May has said she is strongly opposed to strategic voting.
Here is Dauncey's complete email:
Dear Friends,
Voting on Vancouver Island
I know it hurts to vote against your instinct, to make that all-important democratic tick for a party other than the one you believe in.
Under our antiquated, colonial, discriminatory, stupid, undemocratic, first-past-the-post voting system, however, when we split the progressive vote not two but three ways, every vote for a candidate who has little chance of winning makes Conservatives cheer.
They are laughing all the way to a possible majority government, packed with Conservative MPs many of whom, If the disgraced MP Maxime Bernier is anything to go by, think climate change is a joke, a Rocky Horror Show of doom and gloom dreamed up by us eco-freaks.
I have been a member of the Green Party in Britain and Canada, on and off, for 35 years. I wrote our Canadian Green Party's climate platform, that was awarded the highest rating by the Pembina Institute. And I am urging all people of a progressive hue not to vote Green, but to vote strategically, to put aside party loyalty for greater loyalty to our Planet Earth.
We absolutely must stop the Conservatives from getting back into power. A Liberal/NDP/Green coalition government (hoping Elizabeth May gets elected) would get Canada back on track with committed action on climate change.
In Vancouver Island North, this clearly means voting for Catherine Bell, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/31
In Nanaimo-Alberni, this clearly means voting for Zeni Maartman, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/75
In Nanaimo-Cowichan, this clearly means voting for Jean Crowder, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/95
In Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, it's a close race between Keith Martin (Liberal) and Jennifer Burgis (NDP) - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/129
In Saanich-Gulf Islands, this clearly means voting for Briony Penn, Liberal - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/127
In Victoria, it clearly means voting for Denise Savoie, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/155
This is also what 120 of Canada's top climate scientists are urging us to do - vote strategically - see http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/07/scientists-environment.html
Just as a comment - if all these candidates won, with Jennifer Burgis in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, 100% of Vancouver Island's MPs in Ottawa would be women - which would be amazing.
To all those committed Greens who think this means I am betraying my deepest principles - I apologize. Our undemocratic voting system turns good friends into bickering enemies, which is a drag. I have good green friends who are running for the Green Party, and I'd love to support them - but it just does not make sense.
And yes, we all want to see Proportional Voting in Canada.
We will NEVER get this with a returned Conservative government. But we MAY have a slim to good chance with a new progressive coalition government.
with best wishes,
Guy Dauncey
VictoriaTeacher, 33, jailed for sex in her home with pupil of 16: Drama mistress met strangers for outdoor trysts while pursuing boy
Janette Kilner had sexual relationship with student from her London school
33-year-old taught the boy at school and then took him home for sex
She had also been going dogging for sex with men and women in car park
Kilner was struck off as teacher and jailed for 14 months
A senior teacher who had sex with a 16-year-old pupil has been jailed.
Janette Kilner, 33, pursued a relationship with the pupil, who is described as ‘bright’, after he gave her a bracelet as a Christmas gift.
In her position as her school’s deputy head of drama, she arranged for him to have extra tuition after classes and at weekends before exchanging explicit text messages and emails.
Crime: Kilner met the schoolboy at St Thomas the Apostle College, pictured, where she taught, and then took him home for sex
Kilner then cavorted with the boy in her car and took him back to her home for unprotected sex.
During this period she was also using the internet to meet women and men for night-time trysts in their vehicles in car parks – a practice known as dogging.
Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London heard that at the time of the boy giving her the gift Kilner was going through a difficult time. She had broken up with a boyfriend and her father was terminally ill.
Sentencing: Snaresbrook Crown Court heard the teacher had also been dogging at a public car park
She started spending more time with the pupil, who was studying for his GCSEs, after being flattered by his attention.
Prosecutor Gary Pons said Kilner taught the boy during his final year at St Thomas the Apostle College in Nunhead, South London.
‘It was during 2013 that their relationship developed beyond a teacher-pupil relationship and it did so gradually,’ he said. ‘First, it was with him among other children on a Saturday when they began to talk to each other and they became more and more personal.
‘They exchanged private email addresses and phone numbers in and around June 2013 and they began sending each other text messages clearly sexual in nature. She made arrangements to pick him up and it was improper behaviour during these car journeys.
‘Matters progressed to kissing as they would drive around the neighbourhood. On July 10 the defendant picked up the victim by a park and drove him to her house where they began to kiss.’
Mr Pons said Kilner began removing his clothes as they watched television. ‘She wanted him to go upstairs and he at first said no but eventually they do go upstairs and have full intercourse,’ he added.
Mr Pons said they had unprotected sex and that Kilner was meeting unknown men and women in car parks for sex during this time. The relationship came to light when the boy told two of his friends, who reported the incident to another teacher at the college.
The teacher informed the police and Kilner was arrested. She was suspended from the school on July 27. She made full admissions in police interviews but said the boy was not forced into anything.
Rebecca Blain, defending, said: ‘She made it clear there was no coercion. She does not have an attraction to children as this was a specific offence and that is made clear in the pre-sentence report.’
Kilner, who lived in Dagenham, Essex, pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual activity with a child by an adult in a position of trust. Sentencing her to 14 months imprisonment, Judge Judith Hughes QC, said: ‘This is a tragic case, having read the reports about you.
‘Clearly this is an offence of a serious breach of trust as you were his teacher.
‘It must be noted that the boy was a willing participant but that does not excuse the behaviour.The International Syria Support Group ( |
used to be refugees in Gaza, before 1948, after all. The grandparents of today’s refugees were living in their own homes, which their ancestors had lived in for centuries if not millennia.
After Germany created Jewish refugees in WW II, it was made to pay reparations to the victims, right?
Israel hasn’t paid a dime to any of the Palestinian families it expelled in 1948, [pdf] which is itself a violation of international law.
Palestinian refugees created by Israeli military actions, 1948.
Update: Israel continued to bomb Gaza on day 7 of blitz. The airstrikes continued Friday morning.
Israel has killed 37 children and 17 women since it began its bombardment last Saturday. About a fourth of the over 400 persons killed are estimated to be obviously civilians because they were children or women; the proportion of the civilians killed is likely actually higher because a lot of the men are probably noncombatants, too. Likewise, large numbers of the over 2000 Gazans wounded have been innocent civilians.
Gazans are facing starvation and death, according to UN humanitarian chief John Holmes. The power plant has been knocked out, making it impossible for the hospitals properly to treat the over 2000 wounded in the airstrikes, or indeed, for patients needing oxygen & etc. to get it. Hospitals have resorted to generators, but they run on fuel, which is in short supply and many Gazans are without electricity. Some 20,000 a day are not getting the UN wheat rations and other foodstuffs on which they rely, given that Israel long ago destroyed their economy. That is, there is real and increasing hunger in Gaza, 50% of the population of which is children.
Tzipi Livni said the purpose of the operation was to weaken Hamas.
Wasn’t that the purpose of all those assassinations carried out by Ariel Sharon in 2003-2004? Didn’t they assassinate Sheikh Yasin and Rantisi & etc. then? Did Hamas disappear? If Livni and Ehub Barak think that aerial bombardment is the right way to deal with a group like Hamas in a place like Gaza, they are just as out of touch with reality as George W. Bush.A Gloucester County Superior Court judge rejected Washington Township police officer Joseph DiBuonaventura's motion to dismiss a grand jury's indictment on Friday.
DiBuonaventura, who is currently suspended without pay, is facing 14 criminal charges including official misconduct and falsifying a police report in connection with his July 2012 arrest of Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-4 of Washington Township) on charges of driving while intoxicated.
Judge Christine Allen-Jackson denied the motion filed in February by DiBuonaventura's attorney Louis Barbone, of the Atlantic City-based Jacobs and Barbone law firm, stating that it did not show the grand jury did not have access to evidence that was exculpatory, or able to prove DiBuonaventura's innocence.
Barbone argued that the grand jury was not told the full story of DiBuonaventura's arrest of Moriarty that would show the officer was fulfilling his duty as a police officer to stop Moriarty after hearing the assemblyman was possibly intoxicated and operating a motor vehicle.
Moriarty, a former township mayor, confronted a manager of a car dealership in the township that afternoon, and the manager's concerns he was acting erratically and was possibly intoxicated were unofficially relayed to detectives at the police station. A detective then mentioned Moriarty might be "drunk at Nissan" to DiBuonaventura during an unrelated phone call, but directed him not to act on the incomplete information.
Moriarty's actions inside the dealership, the manager's and employees statements and details of the subsequent arrest were not included in the testimony given to the grand jury, Barbone said, adding jurors' questions regarding some of those details were deemed irrelevant.
"This grand jury never heard a peep about an officer's duty," to stop any intoxicated driver, Barbone said, adding later they "don't have a problem with an indictment," but they "want a grand jury to know what it's doing."
First Assistant Prosecutor Michael Curwin, however, called the defense's argument a "red herring" that was meant to distract from DiBuonaventura's crimes.
In his brief responding to the motion to dismiss, Curwin stated the video from DiBuonaventura's police vehicle clearly shows the officer waiting for Moriarty to pass by, speeding up to 80 miles per hour without lights or sirens to catch up to Moriarty -- who is in the right lane the entire time -- and then pulling him over. Curwin wrote that the video evidence contradicts DiBuonaventura's initial police report, which states he pulled Moriarty over for cutting him off in traffic.
Curwin said DiBuonaventura believed his motor vehicle recorder only turned on when lights and sirens were activated, and after learning the entire video was retrievable, wrote additional reports to cover his tracks.
The purpose of the grand jury is to deem only whether or not criminal charges should proceed, Curwin argued, and that Moriarty's actions before or after the arrest were irrelevant in that setting.
"What matters is what he did as a public servant," Curwin said, adding they may never know whether Moriarty -- who denies drinking at all that day -- was intoxicated.
"We'll never know," he said. "But it doesn't matter. What matters is [DiBuonaventura] made up lies... They want to look at everything but what he did."
All charges against Moriarty have been dismissed.Who do they sing for? On Sunday, the answer was nobody. Then on Monday, we found out why.
The Red and Black Bloc’s silent protest might have been effective in drawing attention to their apparent plight, but it might not have actually helped it.
The Western Sydney Wanderers were certainly lacking inspiration in their 2-0 loss at home to the Newcastle Jets. Was that because of the silence from the stands? We’ll never get an answer, but surely another boisterous backing at Pirtek Stadium wouldn’t have hurt the cause.
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The Wanderers now have a fight on their hands – not just with Brisbane Roar for the premier’s plate, but with a suddenly resurgent Adelaide United for second place.
And so do the RBB, with the powers that be.
Their protest, we now know, wasn’t because they were stripped of their flags, banners and such in response to the ignition of multiple flares during the club’s AFC Champions League match with Ulsan Hyundai last week. So they say.
Instead, this one’s about an e-mail. One that, according to the RBB’s statement issued on Monday, was an attempt to “divide us, the fans, by pitting the active and non-active supporters against each other”.
The group has taken umbrage with many things the authorities have done in their dealings with the fans in the home end, and if you’ve got a spare couple of days, you should read the whole thing. Rest assured, there’s nothing in the long-winded airing of grievances you haven’t heard before.
Ignoring their failure to give reason for the protest before it happened, the scattergun manifesto does raise some reasonable points. But none of them change the fact that how things pan out from here is really up to them.
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These active supporters would do well to remember why they’re there, and who really holds the whip hand.
The e-mail in question from HQ might have been decried as “poorly worded” but large swathes of it couldn’t have been clearer – including this grab, which all but tells the RBB how it’s going to be:
“The majority of members who continue to support our club with the wonderful pride, passion and exemplary behaviour they do should be aware… an absolute zero tolerance will now be enforced even more strongly than it has been in the past until this (rogue) element is removed from our game.”
Nobody would deny the RBB is the benchmark for active support right now and a massive part of why Western Sydney is already considered a powerhouse club of the A-League.
But they are fast running out of goodwill with their petulant collective attitude towards authority, convenient excuses for their misgivings and inflated sense of self-importance.
When your team is already one punch-on away from losing three points, you’d think as an active supporter you’d be on guard at all times to the threat of ‘anti-social behaviour’.
Oh, but wait – whoever ripped the flares on Wednesday night got in with a general admission ticket, and must have scooted out of there before anyone could catch them. Rats!
Every flare is a blow-in’s fault. Every fight is blown out of proportion by the media.
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Come on, in what universe is that going to fly with an organisation like the FFA? Especially when you can go on any fan website these days and discover multiple users who display a childish glorification of flares and pyrotechnics.
So, what is this, then? A grand masterplan to destroy the RBB and annex the Wanderers’ biggest strength – right before the club’s sale, one that is crucial to the short-term finances of the FFA and, thus, the game itself? Genius.
No, after a litany of ‘anti-social’ incidents throughout the course of the club’s short history, Western Sydney executives have been backed into a corner.
If the RBB wants to be given respect, then they have to give it in return. Nothing will change for the better until the group loses the antagonistic vibe it gives off.
The best advice? Simmer down and just do what you’re told for a while. You’ll be amazed where that gets you.
The league does not revolve around the RBB and the lukewarm response to their protest, even from other WSW fans, is proof positive of a fatigue on this issue.
The RBB statement says the club is ignoring the “common principles of society”. Brilliantly, it doesn’t say what those principles are.
But in the interest of wrapping this whole saga up, here’s one suggestion the RBB themselves should abide by – treat others how you want to be treated.
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Everybody wants to see the RBB in full flight again and hear them in full voice. But it’s about time they sang a different tune.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mark Lowen reports from Istanbul where the attack took place
A suspected member of the Islamic State (IS) group has killed 10 people, at least eight of them German tourists, in a suicide bomb attack in the Turkish city of Istanbul, officials say.
They say the Syrian national carried out the attack in the Sultanahmet district, near the famous Blue Mosque.
Fifteen people were wounded, many of them also German.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was the "top target for all terrorist groups in the region".
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: "We have determined that the perpetrator of the attack is a foreigner who is a member of Daesh [IS]."
Analysis: BBC's Paul Wood in Istanbul
The shops and restaurants around the Blue Mosque are open tonight but deserted - no surprise when the German government has warned its tourists to stay away from crowded open areas.
The Turkish government now firmly believes this was an attack by the so-called Islamic State - a reflection of Turkish foreign policy, with Turkey an increasingly active part of the US coalition against IS.
One source said Turkey had taken the lead recently at a meeting of anti-IS armed groups on the Syrian border. IS has been losing territory in Iraq and in Syria. The Syrian town of Manbij may be next to fall - there are reports of IS commanders pulling out.
As IS comes under pressure, it has warned of more attacks against its enemies - not only in Turkey, but in Europe and the US.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed the deaths of at least eight German nationals.
"I mourn for our compatriots and express my sympathy for the relatives. They now have to live with the terrible pain of knowing that a loved one will not return," Ms Merkel said.
She added: "International terror chooses different locations for its attacks but the target is always the same: our free life in free societies... It is precisely this freedom and our determination together with our international partners to act against these terrorists, that will go on."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "We have to be united against the scourge of terrorism"
Turkey's Deputy PM Numan Kurtulmus said the suicide bomber had been identified as a Syrian. The suspect, said to have been born in 1988, was identified from body parts. Some Turkish media said the suspect was born in Saudi Arabia.
Mr Kurtulmus said the suspect was not on Turkey's militant watch-list and was believed to have recently crossed into Turkey from Syria.
Turkey last year took a more active role against IS in Syria, carrying out air strikes and allowing US warplanes to use its Incirlik base for missions.
'Further trouble'
Eyewitness Murat Manaz said: "It was a suicide bomb. I went there and saw it and came back to the hotel. There was chaos. Everybody was running somewhere.
"Policemen did not see this coming. They were distressed but at the same time they were trying to evacuate the area because they said there was a possibility that a second bomb could go off."
Image copyright EPA Image caption Turkey's PM vowed to find and punish those linked to the bomber
Bishop Pat Buckley, from Northern Ireland, had been taking photos in Sultanahmet Square shortly before the blast and had moved on into the Blue Mosque.
He told the BBC: "I have lived in Northern Ireland since the 70s, and I have heard explosions, and this was incredibly loud. I saw dust through the doorway of the mosque and I could smell the explosives."
He added: "I am slightly worried because there is talk here that they are expecting further trouble and we have been warned to avoid crowds."
One Norwegian was confirmed among the injured.
Germany currently provides the largest number of tourists visiting Turkey. In 2014, 23.6 million people visited, with the top three:
Germans - 5.1 million (21.5%)
Russians - 3.7 million (15.6%)
Britons - 1.5 million (6.3%)
Image copyright AP
What is the security situation in Turkey?
Turkey faces many security threats and establishing which group is behind this latest attack will be a matter of urgency. The Islamic State group has been blamed for three bombings in Turkey in the past year, including an attack in Ankara that killed more than 100 people. Violence has also soared between Turkish security forces and PKK militants, battling for more autonomy for the Kurds, after a ceasefire agreement broke down in July. A PKK offshoot, the TAK, fired a mortar at Istanbul airport last month. Far left groups are also active in Turkey, and a female suicide bomber attacked a police station in Istanbul's Sultanahmet district last year.
Who could be behind the latest attack?
President Erdogan has blamed a "suicide bomber of Syrian origin". The conflict in Syria has not only seen the rise of IS but also strengthened the PKK's offshoot in Syria, known as the YPG. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but correspondents point out that IS was similarly silent following previous attacks last year that were widely blamed on the jihadist group.
How is the Turkish government responding?
Last year Turkey agreed to take a more active role in the US-led campaign against IS, carrying out air strikes in Syria. It also allowed US warplanes to strike IS targets from its base in Incirlik and moved to tighten security along its 900km (560 mile) border with Syria. Meanwhile Turkish forces have also been targeting Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. And violence has flared in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east, where the Turkish military says it has killed some 600 PKK militants over the past month, according to Anadolou Agency.
Turkey violence: How dangerous is instability?
Turkey v Islamic State v the Kurds: What's going on?
Image copyright AP Image caption The explosion happened just after 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT)Mohamed Elneny says one of the first things he learned from Arsene Wenger after joining Arsenal was to shoot less from distance.
Elneny was Arsenal's only January signing and has quickly become a regular in central midfield for the Gunners in recent months. But the 23-year-old, who scored several goals from distance for Basel in the first half of the season, says he's had to adjust that part of his game to fit in with Arsenal's style of play.
"I used to shoot a lot when I was at Basel but sometimes that doesn't suit our style here," Elneny said in an interview with the May edition of Arsenal Magazine. "[Wenger] taught me to be more of a team player and to be intelligent in terms of when I shoot. I also paid attention to my teammates and took their advice. That has helped me to improve my performances already."
Arsenal have struggled to score from outside the box this entire season, and had only netted twice from long range in the Premier League before Alexis Sanchez doubled that tally against West Brom last week. Elneny's only goal for Arsenal so far came with a well-placed shot from just outside the box against Barcelona in the Champions League.
Arsenal players are sometimes criticised by fans and pundits for not taking enough shots from long range and eager shouts of "shoot!" usually ring out around the Emirates every time Elneny gets the ball in a promising area.
The Egypt international has taken just eight shots in as many Premier League appearanes, but just one of them was on target.
Mohamed Elneny's only Arsenal goal to date came in the 3-1 Champions League defeat at Barcelona.
Elneny said he started watching Arsenal games before joining the club to learn their style of play, and that Wenger has helped him adapt to the team.
"The most important thing for me has been listening to Arsene Wenger's advice and putting it into action," he said. "The manager has been giving me advice since the first day I arrived at the training ground. He always talks to me about the game and my position and that gave me a lot of confidence. He often instructs me to press the opponent and not give them time on the ball in our half. He's also helped me to understand the system and playing style he prefers to see us playing."
Elneny hasn't been able to prevent Arsenal's title hopes from derailing as the Gunners are fourth in the league with three games remaining, without a chance to catch leaders Leicester. But the midfielder hopes next season will be more successful.
"If it's not meant to be this season, we need to work hard and fight to win the title next year," he said. "Personally I am here to help Arsenal win trophies. We want to make the fans happy and bring back the golden times."
Mattias is ESPN FC's Arsenal correspondent. Follow him on Twitter: @MattiasKaren.Another Baltimore Police Department officer has been arrested after authorities say he stole more than $90,000 from victims in a racketeering conspiracy.
49-year-old Sgt. Thomas Allers has been charged with nine counts of robbery and extortion for allegedly stealing money from victims, some of which had not committed any crimes, and submitting false reports.
Allers is the eighth Baltimore City police officer indicted in connection with a corruption scandal involving an elite gun task force.
RELATED: 7 Baltimore Police Officers Charged In Racketeering Conspiracy
One of the victims he is accused of stealing from was later shot and killed because he could not repay a drug-related debt.
In another case, Allers and other officers found $6,000 while serving a search warrant at a Baltimore home. They are accused of stealing $5,700, and then filing a false report that said they only found $233.
Allers is also accused of stealing a girl’s birthday money from her mother’s purse, along with money the woman was going to use to pay her rent and gas bill.
His lawyer, Gary Proctor, once represented one of the officers charged in the Freddie Gray case.
“I have nothing to say at this time, I’ll see you in court tomorrow at 11:30, and no doubt, there’ll be a lot more details made public then,” Proctor said.
The acting U.S. attorney, Stephen Schenning, spoke about the breach of trust involving the gun unit, two members entered guilty pleas, the rest maintain their innocence.
“It’s just so serious. The first thing that any law enforcement agency requires is the trust and faith of the community, and this kind of conduct just makes it incredibly difficult to achieve,” Schenning said.
He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the conspiracy, the robberies, and for racketeering.
The Baltimore Police Department released the following statement:
“The Baltimore Police Department remains dedicated to constitutional policing. I condemn any and all criminal activity that erodes our trust with the community. We are and have been embedded with the FBI /Baltimore field office’s Public Corruption Task Force. This partnership ensures that police officers that commit criminal misconduct will face the certainty of accountability.”
Follow @CBSBaltimore on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on FacebookCharasmatic, fiery and unbelievably talented, Hristo Stoichkov, who turns 45 today, will most likely never be overtaken as the biggest name ever in Bulgarian football. Willy Gannon explains why.
“There are only two Christs; one plays for Barcelona, the other is in heaven,” so said Hristo Stoichkov before collecting his award for European Footballer of the Year in 1994.
With Hristo directly translating as Christ, you could be forgiven for thinking he was joking and that it was a play on words…but you’d be wrong. Stoichkov had three massive elements to his person, a God-given skill, a God-sized ego, and a Devil of a temperament.
Starting his career as a mere 16-year-old with local team Hebros, Stoickov quickly became the bright young star of Bulgarian football. Even then, his technical skills stood out. As a left-sided winger, he terrorised teams with his pace and precision and it came as no surprise to see CSKA Sofia, the biggest team in the country, come in for the young prodigy. Within a year of signing for CSKA, they began to realise that this precocious talent also had a wild temper, and in 1985 he instigated a brawl in the Bulgarian Cup Final against Levski Spartak. The game had become a wild affair with both sets of players guilty of X-rated assaults.
Although CSKA Sofia won 2-1, Stoichkov and six other players were suspended for three months each and both teams were formally disbanded in disgrace after the game. CSKA Sofia had their name changed to CFKA Sredets and our young Stoichkov returned to action a couple of games into the next season. He came back in imperious form and began to add goals to his game with Sredets now employing him as a left-sided forward in their new 4-3-3 formation.
Around the same time, a Golden Generation of players were beginning to come of age and none summed this up more than Stoichkov. Players like Yordan Letchkov, Illian Kiriakov, Krassimir Balakov, and the goal scoring machine of Emil Kostadinov were all starting to shine and European football was starting to realise that a new force was emerging. With Stoichkov as the focal point, Sredets swept all aside in Bulgaria on their way to yet their third title in a row. Our prodigy was finally beginning to fulfil his promise and scored an incredible 38 goals in 30 games as he won the European Golden Boot.
Although it really wasn’t until Sredets made a run in the European Cup Winners Cup that people outside Bulgaria finally realised just how ridiculously talented Stoichkov was. During the journey to the semi finals, Sredets knocked out Panathinikos and Roda JC, before coming face-to-face with Johann Cruyff’s “Dream Team” at Barcelona. La Blaugrana won the two legged affair to progress to the final but it was Stoichkov who stole the show. Cruyff put in a bid immediately and snapped the young star up for the following season. However, Stoichkov’s fragile temper was to get the better of him. In his debut season at the Camp Nou he disagreed with a refereeing decision and starting shouting at the official before stamping on his foot, leaving the ref injured! He was given a two-month suspension and Cruyff’s decision to bring the volatile Bulgarian to the club was questioned at all levels. Despite the suspension, Stoichkov still managed to score 20 goals from midfield that season and the inquisition relented. But not before Stoichkov questioned Barcelona’s director’s parentage…live on television!
The signing was to be the inspiration behind Barcelona’s best-ever period. With Stoichkov pulling the strings from the left side of midfield, Cruyff’s Barca went on to win the league for the next four seasons (91, 92, 93, 94), the European Cup (92), the European Super-Cup (92), the Copa Del Rey (90), the Super Copa de Espana (91, 92, 94). The name “Dream Team” was truly deserved with players like Ronald Koeman, Bakero, Salinas, Michael Laudrup, Nadal, and current manager Josep Guardiola, not to mention Gheorghe Hagi, Romario, and Stoichkov himself, as Barcelona played some of the best football ever seen in Europe. Hristo had come of age; he orchestrated every Barca attack with the skill of a composer. His rapier-like attacks, slicing though every opposition, his technical skill unsurpassed, his dribbling sheer perfection, his passing impeccable, and his shooting laser perfect. Stoichkov deservedly won the European Footballer of the Year award in 1994.
During his time at Barca, he regularly clashed with his idol, Cruyff where the relationship between the two could be described as fractious at best. After one massive argument with Cruyff and the press, Stoichkov told them “I am not talking to any of you bastards until November!” Cruyff’s response? Another argument!
It would be unfair to say that Stoichkov was a volcano constantly on the verge of eruption. In 1992, he paid for the 1992 European Cup Finals broadcasting rights for Bulgaria after the National broadcaster could not afford the fee and his amazing acts of benevolence have become the stuff of legend back home. But something else was happening in Bulgarian football. Stoichkov, its undoubted star, now had ample support. Most of the country’s best players had been exported to the top leagues in Europe and as the World Cup in America came around Bulgarian football was at an all-time high.
Stoichkov may have been part of the Dream Team at Barca, but he was also the centrepiece of Bulgaria’s Golden Generation.
Without a World Cup win in their country’s history, Stoichkov led a quietly confident Bulgaria team to USA ’94 but few gave them any chance of progressing after drawing Nigeria, Greece and Argentina in the group stage. Their lack of experience showed in the first game when they froze against Nigeria who swept them aside with a comprehensive 3-0 win. With Greece up next before Argentina, a win was the minimum that Bulgaria needed to progress. With Nigeria registering a big win against them and with Argentina destroying Greece 4-0, goal difference was always going to be a factor in deciding this group. Bulgaria took to the pitch against Greece like men possessed and hammered them 4-0, with Stoichkov bagging two. Argentina beat Nigeria 2-1 to set the group up on a knife edge going into the last game. Mathematicians all over the world still suffer headaches with this one.
As we entered the last group game, Argentina were top of the group with 6 points and a goal difference of +5, Nigeria had 3 points and +2, and Bulgaria had 3 points and +1. Depending on the result any team could go out as it would come down to a head to head battle. The cut and thrust of it meant that Bulgaria had to win by two clear goals. Their cause was helped by Diego Maradona’s disqualification from the tournament after cocaine was found in his urine sample, something he strenuously denies to this day. With Argentina reeling from the loss of their prime inspiration, Stoichkov missed out on the chance of a master vs. master battle that so many had looked forward to. But he was not going to let Maradona’s absence spoil his World Cup. The game was a tight affair, with Argentina spoiling throughout, and Bulgaria found it hard to find a rhythm. Despite Stoichkov being under close attention from Argentinian defenders he was still the best player on the pitch.
In the 61st minute, Stoichkov and Bulgaria got the moment they had been waiting for. Balakov intercepted a cross from Caniggia and headed the ball wide to Kostadinov whose perfect pass sent Stoichkov racing through three Argentina defenders. As the keeper came out, he was coolness personified as he passed the ball into the back of the net to give Bulgaria a fighting chance. Argentina packed out their defence and Bulgaria crashed upon their wall time and time again as they searched for that elusive goal. As the game headed into injury time Argentina were actually top of the group but all that changed in the 92nd minute as Sirakov pounced to break Argentinian hearts and send Bulgaria through. Argentina also went through as the best third-place team, but the damage had been done and they crashed out to a Hagi-inspired Romania in the next round.
Bulgaria’s opponents in the Last-16 were Mexico who had topped a group containing Ireland and Italy. Once again Stoichkov was on the mark, scoring his country’s only goal in the 1-1 draw. Bulgaria eventually progressing after they won the penalty shootout 3-1. Germany were next up and in a match regarded by many as being the best of the tournament, Bulgaria won 2-1. Lothar Matthaus had given Germany the lead right on the stroke of half time, but two goals in the space of three minutes from Stoichkov and Letchkov gave Bulgaria a memorable win.
After becoming the fans favourite because of their beautiful expansive football, Bulgaria found themselves paired in the semi finals with Italy. Of all the teams remaining, Bulgaria were the only total footballing side left in the tournament. Italy and Brazil had been grinding results out from the start and Sweden were a tough well organised team, so Bulgaria found themselves as the people’s favourites. As the pressure grew Italy produced their best performance of the competition. Roberto Baggio scored twice before Stoickov replied, but there was to be no way back and Bulgaria went out of the World Cup at the semi final stage. It was a glorious defeat as Stoichkov won the Golden Boot, and was heralded as one of the world’s greatest players.
Two years later, he left Barca for high-flying Parma in Italy. With Stoichkov gone Johann Cruyff’s team failed to live up to the heights they had set and he was sacked the following year. His time in Italy was an unhappy one, marked tightly by overzealous defenders, Stoichkov and his volatile temperament found it a difficult place to play. Defenders constantly wound him up, and their “agricultural” play frustrated him deeply as he only managed to score five goals in an injury-plagued 23 games.
In 1996 Bobby Robson, seeking a leader and an inspiration for his Barcelona team, brought an aging Stoichkov back to the Nou Camp. Although he could not inspire Barca to the league title, Barca did manage to win the UEFA Cup, the Copa Del Rey, and the European Super Cup in his two seasons there.
By the time the 1998 season rolled around, an injury hit 32-year-old Stoichkov was on the wane, and he went back to Bulgaria and CSKA Sofia to try to inspire the next generation. Frustrated with his lack of game time, he decided to earn his coaching badges, and travelled the world for the next five years, gaining experience at lower levels. The biggest impact he had during this time was when he smashed a student’s leg apart while playing for DC United in the MLS; he was sued for this horrendous challenge and eventually settled out of court.
In 2004, he took over as manager of the Bulgarian national team and over the next three years they failed to make any kind of progress until he was sacked in 2007. One of the best players ever to play in Europe was also one of the most volatile, but was also one of the most generous.
Stoichkov played like a God, lived like a God…and fought like a Devil.Syjuco's complaints uses as exhibits 23 news reports
Published 1:47 PM, December 15, 2017
MANILA, Philippines – Augusto “Boboy” Syjuco Jr filed on Friday, December 15, a rather bizarre complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman over the controversial vaccination program that was launched during the administration of former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
His 8-page complaint – which accuses Aquino and the latter's health secretary, Janette Garin, of “mass murder, and other related and resultant crimes through reckless imprudence, and negligence, and plunder and graft and corruption” – was adorned by clip art.
A computer-generated ghostface is pasted across the part of the complaint that likens the Dengvaxia immunization program to the killing of elite cops in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, which also happened in Aquino's watch. To illustrate the speed by which the contract with French pharmaceutical company was approved and the program was implemented in the Philippines, Syjuco pasted a lightning clip art.
Syjuco, the chief of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority under the Arroyo administration, submitted exhibits comprising of 23 news reports. He indicated that “the authors and investigative reporters may readily be called upon to render expert testimonies.”
News reports are considered hearsay in a criminal proceeding, unless substantiated.
Syjuco cites supposed “life-threatening” effects of the vaccine Dengvaxia, which came under fire after pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur revealed that individuals who have not had dengue before who got the vaccine may acquire severe dengue symptoms.
"I welcome the case filed by Syjuco. This will give us a platform to be fully heard, present all documents without bias and prove our innocence. This is an opportunity to put a closure to this issue and let the truth come out," Garin said.
Complaint
Boy Syjuco’s ’mass murder’ complaint vs Aquino over dengvaxia by Lian Nami Buan on Scribd
“What horrors or dengue-related deaths await our 733,000 9-year-old or older loved ones in the National Capital Region (NCR), Central Luzon and Calabarzon, who received the Aquino Dengvaxia inoculations?” Syjuco said.
During the Senate hearing, Sanofi Pasteur Asia Pacific head Thomas Triomphe said Dengvaxia is safe and effective and there should be no cause for scare, although Sanofi's November 29 announcement said Dengvaxia could cause "severe dengue" in persons who had not have not had the infection before they got the vaccine. Its clinical data showed there is risk of dengue before and after getting the vaccine.
Aquino attended the Senate hearing and said they opted not to risk waiting longer, when dengue could be prevented through the vaccine during his time. "I just want to state for the record, what we had then, none of these warnings in November 2017," Aquino said, referring to Sanofi's latest disclosure.
Medical experts said Aquino could have been fed with wrong information, since Garin ignored the recommendation of local experts against the commercial use of Dengvaxia.
Both houses of Congress, as well as the Department of Justice (DOJ), are investigating possible irregularities in the approval, procurement and distribution of the world’s first dengue vaccine.
Syjuco called Aquino a “sick-o” who must not be forgiven for his “crime against humanity.”
Syjuco also said the Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales must be impeached for selective justice, citing the corruption cases he’s facing before anti-graft court Sandganbayan.
Syjuco is a political rival of the Garins in Iloilo.
WATCH: Syjuco jumps in on the calls for impeachment of Ombudsman Morales pic.twitter.com/LosG57tupt — Lian Buan (@lianbuan) December 15, 2017
– Rappler.comLotus Evora 400
The Lotus Evora 400 is the fastest road car ever made by the English performance car maker. The new car promises better performance in every way. It is lighter, better handling and of course faster than the company’s past vehicles.
Lotus has announced the price of the new Evora. Interestingly, the mid-engined 400 is priced very close to the Porsche Cayman GT4, so we should get some good head to head testing of those two very soon.
To find out the pricing of the Lotus Evora 400 click past the jump (or scroll down if you came directly to the full article).
Jean-Marc Gales, Lotus CEO: “We know that the Lotus Evora 400 can deliver the performance of a car costing significantly more and we are conscious that the pricing is highly competitive. Yet, the greatest merit which no other sports car or supercar can deliver is a peerless Lotus driving experience.
The Evora 400 is the fastest road-going Lotus that we have ever produced. It delivers supercar looks allied to supercar performance and our global dealer network of 179 dealers which will grow to 200 by the end of the year is excited to be able to deliver this high performing benchmark handling supercar to the ever growing customer waiting list.”
So, just how much will this lightweight high high performance machine cost you? In the US prices start at $89,900. While not cheap, it is just a few thousand more than the Cayman GT4.
Of the two what would you choose? Would you go for the German Porsche Cayman GT4 or the English Lotus Evora 400?“Honesty prohibition is what we are going through right now. Going to a comedy club and hearing jokes are like going to a truth speakeasy. You have to go pay money to hear the truth,” says comedian Mark Normand.
Good stand-up shocks with its delivery of the intimately personal — the brutal, sad truths. Each performance for a comedian onstage is unique, deriving different interactions from |
. And 20 cents a ride is even less than 5%.
So why worry? Precedent. The problem with death by a thousand cuts isn’t any one cut.
*Of course we can argue about whether they do enough of that. There may be a tragedy of the commons if there’s asymmetric information between people looking to make human capital investments and businesses looking to gain access to specific human capital. Such a situation might create an opportunity for government to do some good by investing in public goods or subsidizing on-the-job training. But if that’s the case, it calls for very different programs (education reform, etc.) than taxing successful companies to subsidize their competition.
**Why is this good news? Because if cab companies did change their behavior it would imply they’re doing something where cost exceeds benefit. It would destroy value. Remember those stories of WWII rationing? Imagine that situation but with cab companies buying twice as many tires and just storing extras in the garage. It would clearly be a bad thing. Scarcity isn’t so urgent nowadays, but the basic logic remains the same.The atheist delusion
Updated
When I was a child I was the only person who didn't believe in God that I knew. Everyone else had either been born into one of the major brands of Christianity, or at very least they'd accepted, by a process of social osmosis, the idea of God, even if they remained, for all practical purposes, indifferent.
And that's the good thing about the recent ascendancy of our belief, or rather our disbelief. For atheism does not presuppose, let alone impose, a set of views. All it does is unite us in religious scepticism about the existence of gods. Gods plural because, of course, even within one of the religious brands quite a few variations on God are made available.
So today is important because it tells people that atheism is all right. I didn't know it was all right. This greatly intensified my loneliness as a child. When I tried to tell my grandmother my doubts - I was raised by grandparents on a tiny farm -she boxed my ears. Ah, the solitary dissidents, the lonely thinkers, the people who may be the only disbeliever in a family or community. To that extent we need to borrow from our enemies and have some missionary zeal. Whilst we should avoid messiahs we need disciples to go out and spread the word and seek converts. But as I'll be arguing this morning we must also have to use our intellectual convictions to calm down the frenzies of faith.
I see some parallels here between atheism and homosexuality.'The love that dare not speak its name' as Oscar Wilde pronounced it. Leading to millions living their life in the closet. Atheism was, and to a large extent remains, the view that dare not speak its name. And it's only recently that I've observed atheists coming out. Finally confident enough to be, to borrow a gay slogan, loud and proud (Incidentally, spare a thought for gay atheists).
But in becoming prouder and louder I want to argue that we should not be too loud. And that we should not overestimate our importance as the tectonic plates of religion move slowly, rubbing against each other to cause mental and social earthquakes. By all means let us congratulate each other - but let us not fall prey to hubris.
The disintegration of many a previously monolithic faith cannot be attributed or credited to us. Roman Catholicism founders because conservative prelates have tried to undo the progress of Vatican II. The faithful refuse to comply with anachronistic instructions on the pill and the condom.
They're embarrassed by their Church's archaic stance on women and appalled by the ongoing attempts to cover up paedophilia scandals. Others bitterly resent the undermining of liberation theology - those valiant social justice campaigns. Or the stacking of the pulpits of Western Europe with arch conservative priests from Poland.
The woes of the Catholic Church are self inflicted. We've barely laid a glove on them. Ditto for the Anglican Church which is increasingly stacked to the rafters with agnostics while Australian Anglicanism and US Episcopalians self destruct over the issues of women priests and continuing ecclesiastic homophobia.
But even the foundering of major faiths doesn't necessarily swell our numbers. There's evidence that the major faiths have atomised, Balkanised into the ongoing nonsense of cults, the New Age and pseudo science. Religious energy, like energy itself, cannot be destroyed. It tends to morph into new forms.
Twenty years ago Dick Smith and I aided and abetted the creation of the Australian Sceptics, the local branch of CSICOP - the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. CSICOP deals with displaced religiosity. Much of the loss of the market share for big brand religious beliefs was split up between the Pentecostalists with their shopping mall religions or the fast faith franchises, largely generated in California, right alongside the dream factory of Hollywood. Two worlds that overlap to an extraordinary extent.
Far from winning, the Sceptics and CSICOP have lost ground to Millenarian and Shirley Macleanish madness. Turn on cable or free to air telly and you'll see an ever increasing number of programs based on paranormal detectives while John Edwards and his fellow frauds talk to the dead. And the amount of space in newspapers given to astrology has by no means decreased. We live in a parallel universe to these people. The beliefs and behaviours that came from the Baptismal font in mainstream faiths have simply deformed and reformed.
Yes, atheism is on the march in the US, according to statistics. But we're starting from a very, very low base. And we should look across the census figures at the equally dramatic growth of Islam in the US. It's not coming from immigration but from conversion. Conversion within the prison system! Malcolm X and Mohammed Ali certainly started something.
So beware of triumphalism. Over the last half century I've learnt that my euphoria about atheism's progress, inevitable to us, about the advance of science leading to the retreat of God, was wildly optimistic. Yet the triumph of science, even in the scientifically triumphant US, has failed to convince the vast majority of Americans that evolution is a fact rather than a blasphemy.
Members of religions see atheists as their mortal enemies. Not immortal, of course, because atheists don't linger on through all eternity. We simply return to the nothingness that preceded our birth. Religions' immortal enemy is religion. We might shake our puny fists at the Vatican, at Islamic fundamentalism, at the religious right who turbo-charge the US Republican party - but it is the ancient and modern squabbles, the murderous contests between faiths and within them, that dwarf our dissent.
Hitchens, Dawkins and the rest of us are, at best, at worst, the most minor of irritants. The ancient and recent Christian crusades against Islam, the titanic struggle of the Protestant heretics against Mother Church, the recent internecine horrors in the Balkans, the genocidal hatred of the Jews incited by Martin Luther that evolved into Holocaust - these are the big stories. Savanarola was burnt at the stake by fellow Catholics - as was Joan of Arc. Atheists neither gathered the faggots nor fanned the flames. When religions are not at war with each other they tear themselves apart.
We cannot take the credit for the dramatic decline in religious observation in most Western nations. At last count, 90 per cent of Australian Catholics were not attending Mass. But that's not because of our arguments. It's because of their arguments with their priests, bishops and the more recent Popes, particularly those from Poland and Germany. Take us out of the equation and that rapid erosion will continue, perhaps accelerate.
It's even observable in the United States amongst the Pentacostalists. Just as the hippies were a reaction against stultifying and emotionally stunted parents, a great many children of US fundamentalists are shrugging off the dogmas of Mum and Dad. At very least they're moving at least fractionally towards the left. And American religious excess has certainly helped dim the flames of faith as far away as Western Europe. But it is important for us to realise - and let me borrow a couple of metaphors from the realms of cutlery - that it's self inflicted wounds that have done the most damage - particularly the Christian variants - than the cut and thrust of the atheists' arguments. We are, perhaps, the beneficiaries of this process but we cannot claim the credit.
Nor have we laid a glove on Islam or Hinduism. They are indifferent to us and our arguments. No, indifferent isn't the word, as in some Muslim countries our lives might well be at risk. You could argue, perhaps, that secular atheistic Jews are in constant conflict with the orthodox and ultra orthodox in Israel. Not that they seem to have won too many rounds (After all, Israel began its life as a secular state and, over the generations, has had to abandon territory to the religious right. They mightn't yield territory to the Palestinians but the religiously xenophobic don't seem to have lost much influence).
So perhaps we should reconsider our role, our allotted tasks, as people who believe in none of this nonsense we might see ourselves as honest brokers. Negotiate in their all consuming conflicts. Given our anthropological detachment from Messianic and Milleranian madness, from the boiling hatreds between Sunni and Shiia, we might share the role of the Norwegians. They're not particularly powerful or numerous but fight above their weight in hosing down dangerous situations. Confronted by rabid religiosity people who don't believe could try to ameliorate the hatreds of those who do. Mind you, you could mount an argument that that's exactly what the likes of us have been doing for the past few centuries. As to trying to convert the believer to disbelief - I tried that for the last half century and found it not only a fruitless but thankless task.
A confession I must admit to is being swept up in a religion as a teenager. I became, during the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its coldest and McCarthyism at its height, a member of the Australian Communist Party. I was 15 when I signed up and 18 when I was kicked out. And one of the reasons I lost my faith in atheistic communism was because it revealed itself as a parody of the Catholic Church. Catholicism had Rome, Communists had Moscow. Catholics had God the Father and his son Jesus. Communists had Karl Marx as God and Lenin as the saviour. They had the Bible, we had Das Kapital. They'd had Martin Luther and we'd had Trotsky. Both of us had forms of dogma, the show trial, confession, heresy, expulsion. Both published an Index of books not to read.
I remember noticing the eerie parallels between cheap Catholic tracts sold by the Catholic's Evidence Guild and cheap Marxist tracts sold at the international book shop perhaps a mile from where we are today. One tract would warn against heresy. The other against revisionism. One would have the upturned bearded face of Christ on the cover, the other the upturned bearded face of Lenin. Towards the end of my involvement in the party I used to swap them over, putting communist tracts into the racks surrounding a Gothic column in St Patrick's Cathedral - and smuggling the Catholic counterparts into the small Marxist bookshop. God knows, Marx knows, what happened as a consequence. How many Catholics were converted to communism, how many Commos accepted Christ as their own personal saviour.
I mention these parallels to dramatise that the atheist can be as susceptible to authority and dogma as the Catholic. And that's one of the reasons I differ in emphasis from Christopher and Richard. Just as I differed totally from Christopher on the war in Iraq. I've been an atheist for 66 years. I became atheist at the age of five, a decade before I knew what an atheist was. Before I'd even heard the word. But as a little boy, the son of a Christian minister, I realised I couldn't believe, that the notion of God was totally redundant. The great argument for God was that there had to be a Creation, a beginning. Some sort of cosmic orgasm that got things going. But my objection was simple. If God was the beginning who began God?
When I was discovering why I was not a communist I read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian. In it he explained that he was 18 or 19 when he asked himself that all important question. If God was the beginning who began God? And it was at that moment that he lost the last vestiges of faith.
But I understand the yearning for belief. The poignancy, the wanting to believe. It is driven, principally, by the fear of death. Christians postulate a lopsided creation in which personal existence goes on and on and on for billions of years in Heaven. Yet that creation had a sudden, magical beginning with God.
I realised, at the age of five, that I'd already been dead forever. Because what happened before birth - all those billions of years of non-existence was identical to what happened after death.
Now, although I share much of the anger, indignation and rage that Hitchens and Dawkins express I am well aware of that vastation of terror that greets anyone who considers their mortality.
I started writing about that terror in columns almost half a century ago. It was, I believe, the first time these issues were raised in an Australian newspaper. As I took advantage of the fact that they were evolving from newspapers to viewspapers. Unable to compete with the urgency and immediacy of electronic media newspapers were opening their pages to interpretation of last night's news and could be encouraged to give space to philosophical meanderings. So I used that window of opportunity to start discussing, in newspapers like The Age, The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald, the notion of living in a meaningless universe, without author or purpose - its only destiny to go cold and dark in obedience to the second law of thermo dynamics.
The notions of personal mortality, our denial of death or its burial in euphemism - are central to most religious belief.
For a while the attacks in response were deafening and strident but, little by little, I got a sort of a dialogue going with people of faith - which I still find valid. Because on a vast variety of the social issues - the social justice issues that I care about - people whose beliefs I find ridiculous can become my colleagues.
A decade ago Australia went through the most appalling wave of bigotry in the way it addressed the so-called problems of a few refugees. Building on the paranoia of white Australia, the Pauline Hansons and John Howards - and sadly some on my side of politics - prove that under the veneer of tolerance Australians remained deeply racist. On that issue amongst the first people to sign up for justice for refugees were Jesuit intellectuals and Josephite nuns. Just as Jews played a major role in the civil rights movement in the US - yes, largely secular Jews but nonetheless operating within a Jewish religious tradition - just as Jews joined with black leaders like Luther King to overthrow America's apartheid, members of Australian religious organisations (by no means enough of them, in very small numbers) manned the barricades.
As they did on Aboriginal rights. As they do on a wide variety of issues. While it's true that atheists have to put up with bullshit from the religious that deny us any claim to ethics or morality we must not make the same mistake. There are atheists who refuse to accept the possibility that Christians, for example, can be taken seriously as social reformers. They argue that they do it for the religious counterpart to frequent flyer points. In its crudest form, they argue that only the atheist can be truly ethical. Well, tell that to the Reverend Martin Luther King or the many black and white Christians who played a leading part in overthrowing the repulsive race laws that had been established by the Dutch Reform Church and justified by their distorted theology. We saw much the same thing with slavery. Christians, even Quakers, could justify the slave trade. Nonetheless, Christians following Wilberforce worked mightily to destroy it.
Atheists, finally, don't believe. But that doesn't make us better or nobler or finer people. At least, not necessarily. Many of the great crimes of the 20th century can be laid as much at our door as at the doors of the churches. Atheists, like Christians, can be the best or worst of people. We do not have a monopoly on intelligence, on ethics or decency. Yes, their beliefs - whether New Age nonsense or full blown Catholicism - range from the ludicrous to the loathsome. Yes, the Catholic Church's sickening attitude to human sexuality leads to paedophilia on a monstrous scale.
Its nonsense about virgin births and immaculate conceptions and the superiority of celibacy so distorts the human psyche that, decades ago, when making a film on prostitution and the sex industry, I discovered an overwhelming majority of prostitutes had had convent educations. And when I pointed this out in a series of newspaper columns, linking it to similar findings in the UK, which found that a remarkably high percentage of men and women in the sex trades were Roman Catholics, led to me being the target of a Catholic fatwah. On one particular Sunday an edict was read out from every Catholic pulpit in this country saying that it was a sin to read any newspaper that printed me or to listen to any radio station that broadcast me. And I hadn't even mentioned the paedophilia problem because, at the time, I didn't know it existed.
But when I look at these phenomena I am not moved to hate Roman Catholics so much as I am to pity them. And I want atheists to view these people, dragooned into belief since childhood, or coming upon them later in life as a consequence of the most profound of fears, the fear of death, with a degree of understanding and compassion.
It's true that such tolerance has never been extended to us and remains singularly absent in most major religions. The atheist remains an ultimate outsider, someone to be demonised, feared and detested. But that's their problem, not ours.
The current frenzy for faith, and fundamentalism, may be as I've occasionally speculated, the storm before the lull. The last gasp of religion as it yields to the mighty analysis and discoveries of science. That might be the case. But the confidence that I had in my teens - that religion would be dead by the end of the 20th century - that the synagogues, cathedrals and mosques would be museums - was foolhardy in the extreme. Indeed, while the religious monoliths did seem to be crumbling, the spontaneous combustion of ever more foolish faiths in the supernatural smorgasbord of cults, largely created in California, and in the tenacity of superstition to remain alive and well even in its trickle-down form of those astrological features in daily newspapers, remains awesome.
Furthermore I'm assailed by people who argue that while God didn't exist, doesn't exist, he she or it is coming into existence through the new technologies. That the internet is the harbinger of a vast new form of consciousness that will fill the galaxies and will, in some strange way, neutralise the second law of thermo-dynamics. Now I think this is twaddle. But it shows that even amongst people who claim to be totally secular, who would see themselves as being atheists of some degree, there's always a danger of creating a new ism or ology that, like communism at its worst, may have a disastrous impact.
Yes, we must rage against religious extremism. But we must also be intelligent enough to understand its origins, in the individual and in society. We are not strong enough, we don't have sufficient numbers to change the balance of power. The fact that religious belief may have evaporated in western Europe, that it really ceased to exist in Japan, that does not mean that we've won. It simply means that in many areas religion has lost. But giving up on religious belief is not the same as becoming a thoughtful, highly rational atheist. There may be 2,500 of us here today but we are still a tiny minority.
Most people who've abandoned religion have not embraced the thoughts and values we might try and articulate. They've taken up shopping. They are dulling the pain of existence in the mall, by buying things they don't need with the credit cards they can't afford. Or they're dulling the pain in alcohol or narcosis. Or they're just sitting in front of the telly or the computer screen bathing themselves in violent drama or hyper violent games. In pornography or the pornographies of violence.
Don't be fooled into thinking that we're at the edge of victory. That would be a delusion. It concerns me that by becoming too arrogant, too strident, too aggressive we will stultify rather than intensify debate. I've known Christopher Hitchens for decades and know how he operates. In any area, on no matter what he's tackling, he has two positions. On or off. And when he's on he can be absolutely exhilarating.
I remember chortling with delight at his attacks on Mother Theresa - when he called for Henry Kissinger to be tried as a war criminal. But I was horrified when he threw his lot in with the Bush administration and the neo cons. Mind you, many of the neo cons started their intellectual life as Christopher did, as Trotskyites. In other words whenever Christopher is writing something he cannot help but pound the keyboard like a pianist playing one of the noisier works of Rachmaninoff. His response to what he correctly sees as Islamist fascism brooks no argument and takes no prisoners. It goes straight to shock and awe, to the botched invasion of Iraq and ends up with up to a million dead (Not that we'll ever know the figure because a body count has always been studiously avoided) and Abu Ghraib. And Christopher remains unapologetic. Because that's the way he thinks and that's the way he writes. And nobody does that sort of thing better. Much of what Richard writes and says and broadcasts has the same... energy.
I propose, if you like, a third way while recognising how devalued that notion has become in politics. But a willingness to sit down and talk to these people who are not necessarily our enemies and who may, on a raft of issues, be our friends. Sometimes their efforts to be our friends are grotesque and ludicrous. I think of the Templeton prizewinners, the long list of scientists, almost all of whom I have either known or interviewed at length, cop a million dollars for building bridges of understanding - usually misunderstandings between science and Christian beliefs. But when it comes to human suffering, whilst I can see that much of it has been exacerbated by religion, we must accept the reality that we need 'em on our side if we are to effect social change.
There was a time when, for example, the Christian world seemed wholly unsympathetic to the climate change crisis. But there is now a strong movement, within Christianity, to see the destruction of the planet as a form of blasphemy.
People of religious faith are, in my view, more to be pitied than blamed. They are, I believe, victims of the faiths they profess. But there are countless millions of them who are decent human beings. As decent as the 2,500 gathered here today. And I return to that notion of the atheist as honest broker. Of the atheist as go-between. Of the atheist who can sit down with Protestant, Catholic, Sunni and Shiia, Muslim and Hindu and try to talk some sense into them.
And I've done it. I've conducted little experiments along these lines by getting myself invited to some very strange places. For example, Australia's leading Pentecostal ministers - running vast churches - had me along to talk to them about atheism. I described myself as a mangy old lion in a den of Christians and got a very good hearing. And by the end of the discussion I like to think that they would not be so quick to condemn, demonise of vilify atheists in the future.
In running this line at this conference I realise that it will not be popular, that it's much more fun to shake the fist and pound the table. But in a world where the religious have done so much of that for millennia, and continue to do it in the 21st century, somebody's got to be sane. And sanity is, or should be, a characteristic of atheism.
And may the blessings of Bertrand Russell rain down upon you.
Footnote
While I do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ I'm here to tell you that other apparent corpses have a remarkable ability to resurrect themselves. Only moments ago Obama's victory signalled the end of the Republican Party. Now, a little over a year after his inauguration day, the Republicans are reviving. Not by compromising, not by changing the packaging, but by becoming even madder than ever. The Rush Limbaughs, Sarah Palins, Tea Parties, Fox News and its loony luminaries, are looking forward to the mid-terms where there will be a bounce back. The pundits, as ever, were totally unreliable. Ditto for the death of religion. It rises like Lazarus, like the phoenix from the ashes. In some cases it does some repackaging. So that Creationism is slightly redefined as intelligent design. But much of it goes in the opposite direction, becoming even more reckless and Fundamentalist, more mediaeval. Faith, blind faith in all its forms, in all its weird and wacky variations, behaves like a virus. Just when you think you've got it on the run it mutates into something even more infectious, even deadlier. And the immune system of human societies isn't getting significantly stronger.
In the last century 150 million people died in wars and genocides. We would argue that religion played a major role in those statistics. There's little evidence of it ameliorated fanaticism and much that exacerbated it.
How will we fare in the 21st century? It certainly not off to an encouraging start. Truly world wars may be fading but the intensification of local, nationalist, civil and other forms of conflict are on the increase. And we have yet to see what will happen when, inevitably, terrorist groups, motivated by religion, get their hands on biological or nuclear weapons. When one or more of scores of would-be Saddam Husseins really do get weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, there are pockets of progress. But they're offset by black holes of brutal beliefs. It's a fight that's been going on for centuries, millennia. And it's not over yet.
This is an edited version of a speech Phillip Adams gave last weekend at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention.
Topics: atheism, community-and-society, religion-and-beliefs, australia
First postedCourtesy U.S. DOT
Connected vehicles — the so-called "internet of cars" — could be the biggest transportation advance since the car itself.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—"This curve here, you wouldn't think much of it," Debra Bezzina is saying, "but somebody was killed here two years ago, and they didn't even find him right away." Our van, driven by Bezzina's University of Michigan colleague Rick Byrd, is coming up on a curve that indeed looks relatively benign, even in this icy January weather. But Bezzina shares the story of the man who took the curve too quickly and skidded off the road. He wasn't the first to do so. I brace myself as we approach, and something unusual happens: an alarm sounds from the dashboard, and an alert flashes in a corner of the rearview mirror. I realize the mirror doubles as a heads-up display — it shows a right-turn arrow against a blue background that suddenly turns red to warn of danger. Byrd, at the wheel, slows down. Series The Future of Transportation Go What had just happened was both simple and profound, and people like Bezzina and Byrd, employees of the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI or "um-tree" for short), say it could transform the way American drivers experience their commutes. The van in which we're driving — an UMTRI van with a splashy yellow decal that reads "Connecting the Future" — has been equipped with technology to alert its driver in a range of situations. In this case, a piece of roadside equipment nearby was broadcasting to vehicles like ours the speed at which to safely take the coming turn. A router-like device in the van caught the signal, noted that the van was at risk, and issued the alert we just heard. The UMTRI van isn't the only vehicle on the road here that's so futuristically equipped. I've come to Ann Arbor in the last weeks of an 18-month large-scale trial of connected vehicle technology. The trial was funded largely by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which wants to know about the safety benefits of such devices. There are 2,800 vehicles in Ann Arbor participating in this "Safety Pilot," as the program is called. All are equipped with devices that communicate their vehicle's speed and position. A select 400 also include alert systems like the one I've just witnessed in the UMTRI van, together with cameras to capture further information — including how drivers react to such alerts. Cars, trucks, tractor trailers, and even a bicycle are wired for the pilot. Courtesy UMTRI.
"It's the largest deployment of vehicle-to-vehicle technology in the world," says Scott Belcher, chief of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a trade association of which UMTRI is a member. The sharp-bend alert isn't the only kind Ann Arbor drivers have been experiencing over the last year and a half: there has been a symphony of them, some triggered by communications between a pair of cars, others triggered by an interaction between a car and transmitters along the road. In all manner of hairy situations — a tricky left turn, an approaching train at a railroad crossing, a car looming in a blind spot, or a car suddenly slamming on brakes up ahead — technology like that in the UMTRI van has been making driving in Ann Arbor safer. Many have heard by now of high-profile research into autonomous cars that can drive themselves by using fancy sensors to detect their surroundings. The automotive revolution we're likely to see sooner, say experts here in Michigan, may not come from cars that sense but from cars that talk. These experts speak of a coming "internet of cars" — and some think it could bring about the biggest change in how we transport ourselves since the car was first invented. • • • • •
Courtesy UMTRI and U.S. DOT. The first and most important application, of course, would be safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has already estimated that vehicle-to-vehicle communications technology like what's in these Ann Arbor cars and on these Ann Arbor roads could reduce "non-impaired crash scenarios" (read: crashes caused by sober drivers) by 80 percent. "That's bigger than seatbelts, bigger than airbags," says Belcher. "Basically, you're creating cars that don't crash."
Though it's still crunching the Ann Arbor data, NHTSA recently announced that given the "overwhelming safety benefits" of connected vehicles, it would soon propose mandating such technology in new cars by a future date. The announcement signals to manufacturers that connected vehicles represent the next phase in American automotive safety (some car makers may even offer inexpensive devices to retrofit vehicles already on the road). It also addresses a common concern that the full safety benefits of connected vehicles won't emerge until the entire fleet can converse on the road. Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... But spend enough time interviewing car futurists and soon you realize that safety applications could be just the beginning. Because once you create a ubiquitous "internet of cars" — a world where vehicles, roads, traffic signals, and transportation authorities are all sharing information in real-time — the results could be as wide-reaching, dynamic, and creative as they've been for that other Internet. Belcher and others point to small-scale experiments designed to hack traffic problems around the country. In midtown Manhattan, for instance, E-Z Pass readers glean traffic data to dynamically alter the timing of traffic lights and lessen gridlock. San Francisco has used sensors to experiment with the variable pricing of parking spaces in parts of the city. And applications like Google Maps already give traffic flow estimates by using various types of traffic sensors. But experts think that these three applications could be improved upon — and many others invented — in a world where every car shares information about its position and velocity. Connected vehicles could be the biggest transportation advance since the car itself. Some of these futurists foresee a day when communications technology and self-driving technology combine to create a veritable transportation utopia. Kirk Steudle, the director of Michigan's Department of Transportation, remembers his own conversion moment on a GM test track, when a combination of communications and safety technology brought the Cadillac in which he was riding to a sudden, automatic stop — mere feet from a parked car. "I used to say that for civil engineers and mechanical engineers, the only interface we ever had was the tire," says Steudle with a chuckle. Now those who build cities and those who build cars have a lot more to talk about. Because new realities become possible in a future where cars are so good at communicating that they just don't crash. You can pack self-driving cars right next to each other, creating space for a whole new lane on highways. You can huddle cars together in tight platoons, creating NASCAR-like drafting effects that save gasoline. You can rethink the design of a car altogether, slimming it down. And you can rethink business models, selling travel time in shared cars that act like automated taxis.
"If you've got a communications platform that's reliable and secure, what you can do with it — how you leverage it — is really limited by your own imagination," says Belcher. • • • • • Of course, countless questions remain, many of them thornier than the relatively simple question that the DOT is currently exploring with Safety Pilot's data: How well does this technology work? Some experts wonder whether it makes sense to require manufacturers to use the kind of basic technology being used in Ann Arbor — "dedicated short-range communications," a Wi-Fi like technology — just as advanced cellular networks like 4G LTE grow more widespread. "There are skeptics out there who think we're invested in Betamax," says Belcher, who nevertheless thinks a commitment to some form of technology is necessary, even if future generations may laugh at it. "It's like buying the first cell phone," he says. "You spend $2,000 for that thing you can't really use. But if people didn't buy those, we wouldn't have what we have today." Other questions center around whether Americans will want to use some of this technology even if it works perfectly. Car ownership represents a kind of freedom for many; these folks might scoff at the idea of ceding any control of their vehicle. This may be a generational matter, though, since studies have shown that today's teens don't have the same love affair with driving as have generations past. Courtesy U.S. DOT.
Researchers and policymakers will also need to assuage fears over security and privacy. Could the "internet of cars" be hacked, with one or more vehicles broadcasting dangerous lies about their velocities? And can drivers be assured that their anonymity is nonetheless being safeguarded even as their on-board devices broadcast information about the state of their car? Connected car evangelists will not only need to solve these problems but to explain these solutions to average drivers. A recent collaboration between UC Berkeley and U.S. DOT researchers imagining smart transportation systems in the year 2050 concluded that "social, political, economic, legal, and environmental dimensions" could be even tougher hurdles to clear than technological ones. Regardless of the questions ahead, the NHTSA announcement has sent a strong signal to auto manufacturers that it is time to "switch gears from research to development," in the words of Hidekia Hada, a Toyota manager who oversees the automaker's forays into connected vehicles in the United States. He adds that Toyota's participation in a young but sweeping vehicle-to-infrastructure communications platform in Japan has well prepared the manufacturer to spring into action. Ann Arbor may not have a Jetsons-like display of futurism on its roads just yet, but as we take another turn in the UMTRI van, I begin to realize that the simple beep and flash coming from the mirror may be like the bleating of an old dial-up modem: a sound I'll recall one day with a smirk, and with awe at how far we've come. Because all the experts here are telling me the future is hurtling towards me, just around the bend, unseen but detected. "It's my strong belief that the ability to connect vehicles to other vehicles, to traffic lights, to signs, to parking spots, and to traffic operation centers will transform the way that you and I are traveling," says Andreas Mai, who studies connected vehicle technology for the communications giant Cisco. "The auto industry is really at the cusp of this transformation right now," he promises. "It's not that far away." Images: Courtesy of U.S. Department of Transportation (top). This article is part of 'The Future of Transportation,' a CityLab series made possible with support from The Rockefeller Foundation.Undocumented Teachers Shielded by DACA in Legal and Emotional Limbo
—LM Otero/AP
Undocumented educators on edge as Trump policies evolve
Jose Gonzalez’s parents brought him to the United States from Mexico just before his second birthday.
In the 23 years since, he graduated high school with honors, earned an Ivy League degree, and received recognition from the Obama White House for his work teaching students in immigrant-filled Los Angeles charter schools.
Now, Gonzalez faces a potentially cruel twist of fate: he could go from being lauded by the White House to being a target for deportation as part of President Donald Trump’s widespread immigration crackdown.
Before joining Teach For America in 2014, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Trump’s alma mater.
“Honestly, it kind of makes having been honored by the White House a bit of a joke. It feels like a slap in the face,” said Gonzalez, a 6th grade math teacher at Community Charter Middle School in Los Angeles.
Gonzalez is among the more than 700,0000 undocumented immigrants awaiting word on the fate of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama-administration policy that grants temporary deportation reprieves and work permits to people brought to the United States illegally as children.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to repeal the executive order the day he took office. Since the election, he’s been less clear on what his intentions are.
Four weeks in, he has yet to take action on DACA. In a marathon news conference on Thursday, he promised to address the issue “with heart.”
“DACA is a very, very difficult |
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Thank you for your support and love!Algae has been floated again and again as a possible means of biofuel production, usually through chemical processes that extract sugars or other organic compounds that can be processed into fuel. But what if we could simply steal electricity from algae, no processing or chemical wizardry necessary? We can, says a team of researchers who recently stole electrons directly from algae for the very first time
; it just isn't very efficient to do so.
Animals have been stealing energy from algae for eons, but like current biofuel production methods, they usually steal it in the form of stored-up chemical energy like sugars or starches. But a collaboration of Korean and Californian researchers wanted to take raw electricity directly from algae themselves by harvesting electrons.
Using the common Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a test subject, the researchers applied what's known as an overvoltage -- a tiny current that shocks the cells into motion. If the algae are shocked while simultaneously being exposed to sunlight, they begin to produce current that can be siphoned from the colony and put to use.
But naturally there is a downside: the power produced even from a rather large colony of algae isn't enough to power any consumer electronic device. In fact, to get a single amp one would need trillions of cells. And even then there's a net energy problem: the amount of energy derived is no more than that expended in the over voltage.
Which kind of makes it all sound like a waste of time, if not energy.
But in a larger context, the process has only recently been proved possible for the first time. The fact that the team was able to coax the algae into giving up any current at all is fairly remarkable, and could push open the door for further study into how we could sustainably siphon electrons from other natural processes without resorting to burning every hydrocarbon we can lay hands on. Other larger ecosystems could provide higher net gains and increases in technology could further increase yields. All of that is most likely a long way off, but in the meantime the idea is interesting to think about.
After all, we already know that if you can harvest the electrical charges within larger organisms, you can power a fairly sizeable robot civilization.Just months after leading them to the Western Conference Finals Kevin McHale has been fired by the Houston Rockets, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The decision comes on the heels of Houston's 111-95 home loss to the Celtics on Monday, a defeat that dropped the Rockets to 4-7 on the season.
In McHale's stead assistant coach J.B. Bickerstaf will take over head coaching duties on an interim basis, while assistant coach Chris Finch will become the team's associate head coach, per Wojnarowski.
The Rockets' issues this season have started on the defensive end, where their 106.5 rating is the second-highest mark in the league. That the team's once prolific offense is scoring just 98.5 points per 100 possessions, the seventh-lowest number in the NBA, has contributed to the disappointing start.
"No excuse for not being able to guard guys," McHale said after the team's loss to the Celtics Monday night, via ESPN, later adding: "We're hanging our head. Things aren't going our way and we hang our head. Bottom line, we haven't put together really good basketball, all year."
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The next day the team called a players-only meeting.
"It was good for us to sit down and talk, but it's a long season and you can't get caught up in losing a couple of games and getting upset and so frustrated and feel like it's the end of the world," Rockets center Dwight Howard said, via ESPN. "It is embarrassing. We hate to lose but at the same time we have a long season and we can't think negative when we lose."
McHale's firing comes less than a year after the Rockets signed him to a three-year, $13 million extension.
McHale took over as Rockets head coach 2011. In five seasons he went 193-130 and led Houston to the playoffs three times. His.598 career winning percentage is the best mark in franchise history.
Houston's next game is Wednesday night at home against the Blazers.Richard G. Olson - File photo
Following the resignation of Cameron Munter from his position as the US ambassador to Pakistan, President Barack Obama has appointed Richard G. Olson to the office.
Before he officially takes over at the office of the ambassador in Pakistan, Olson will need confirmation by the Senate. He would serve in Pakistan as his country prepares to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan in 2014, a transition that also profoundly impacts rocky relations with Pakistan.
Munter, who had been an advocate within the Obama administration for reconciliation with Pakistan, resigned in May after a turbulent tenure in which US forces secretly killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. People close to him said he was frustrated that the CIA and Pentagon took the lead on Pakistan policy, with Munter’s job effectively to contain the fallout.
After a half-year standoff, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this month said sorry to Pakistan for the deaths of 24 troops in an air raid near the Afghanistan border, leading Islamabad to reopen key supply routes.
Olson, the nominee to be ambassador to Pakistan, is a veteran of the State Department with 30-year experience, who served as the envoy to the United Arab Emirates from 2008 to 2011.
Until last month, Olson served in the US embassy in Kabul as the coordinator for development and economic affairs, a key priority for Washington as the United States prepares to withdraw its forces.
Olson joined the US Department of State in 1982, with an undergraduate degree in law, history and society from Brown University. Besides his recent appointments in the UAE and Afghanistan, Olson has also served tenures in Mexico, Uganda, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Iraq.
Olson has also served as the deputy chief of mission at the United States Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).
In United States he was stationed to work on various assignments including state department operations Nato desk and the office of Iraqi affairs.
Olson received various accolades for his services to the United States. His awards include, Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the State Department’s Superior Honour Award and the Secretary of Defense’s Exceptional Civilian Service Award for his services in Iraq.For more than 200 years, the federal government has regularly taken an immense survey of American business called the Economic Census. Though not as well-known as the decennial census, the big population count in which enumerators tally Americans house to house, it has been conducted at least every five years since 1905, with a gap only during World War II. Its basic measurements of economic activity, like jobs and revenue, are crucially important to companies, policymakers and anyone trying to track the nation’s economic health.
The next Economic Census was supposed to start in January, five years after the previous one, as usual. But earlier this year, the Census Bureau quietly changed its deadline, pushing it back at least six months. The agency told POLITICO that it has not publicly announced the delay but confirmed that aspects of the Economic Census were "re-planned," and the results would be out six months late.
“If the Obama guys had quietly suggested delaying the Economic Census by six months, there’d be holy hell to pay,” said a former high-ranking appointee in the Commerce Department.
According to multiple statistical experts who spoke with Census Bureau officials, the reason was money: The Census needed the money earmarked for the Economic Census to prepare for the 2020 decennial, which Congress has underfunded by hundreds of millions of dollars. In a tight budget environment, the bureau was effectively forced to choose between two of Washington’s most important efforts to collect data on the country. Even if it’s conducted on the new schedule, the delay of the 2017 Economic Census will have negative effects down the line; it leaves outdated baseline numbers in place for policymakers, and creates problems for companies that need to comply. Said another census-watcher of the 2017 survey: “It will always have this asterisk.”
Such asterisks are popping up more and more in the sleepy world of federal statistics. As wonky as it may sound, collecting and publishing information on Americans and U.S. businesses is one of the most important roles of the government: Information provided by Washington helps small businesses decide the next town in which to expand, and determines the destination of more than $400 billion in federal spending each year. The government has no fewer than 128 agencies that collect and disseminate numbers, including 13 whose primary responsibility is statistics. Its surveys cover topics from inflation to oil prices to mink pelt production. As technical and dry as they are, the data overall form the backbone of U.S. economic planning.
“There are very few things you can get a bunch of economists to agree on, but this is it,” said Tom Beers, executive director of the National Association for Business Economics, about the importance of federal statistics.
But today, under pressure from nearly a decade of budget stagnation, the system is nearing a breaking point. Conversations with more than two dozen statistical experts, present and former officials, find agencies sharply cutting back on the scale and ambition of their data-gathering, reducing sample sizes, delaying investments and, in some cases, eliminating surveys altogether—a last-resort measure that forever leaves a hole in what we know about how the nation is changing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, for instance, which publishes the nation’s monthly jobs report, has seen its funding fall by nearly 10 percent since 2005, after adjusting for inflation. In turn, the agency has scaled back its quarterly survey on employment and wages, which serves as a benchmark for the jobs report; in 2013, it was forced to stop a survey on mass layoffs and another on green jobs. The little-known Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which collects national transportation data, has seen its budget decline by 21 percent and has been unable to collect data on the number of trucks and their use in the United States.
Getty Images
The biggest anxiety looming over this landscape is the 2020 census. Mandated by the Constitution and conducted without fail every 10 years, the census is the most important and expensive project of any kind that the government regularly undertakes. But it’s already well behind schedule. Strapped for funding in the 2016 and 2017 budgets, it has canceled two of the three field tests scheduled for 2018 and pushed back its advertising campaign designed to get people to answer the survey. When the Census Bureau asked for money in the three-month stopgap spending measure that passed in early September, Congress denied those funds.
“The 2020 census is still in significant trouble, budget-wise,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, former co-director of the Census Project, an organization that tracks the census. “That keeps me up at night.”
The troubles at the census, as well as many other statistical agencies, predate Donald Trump’s presidency; they’re part of a discretionary budget squeezed hard by Congress and the 2013 sequester. But the Trump administration has brought a fresh wave of concern in the form of a president skeptical about the value of government overall, and whose administration doesn’t seem to be concerned about the gaps it could leave. Early anxieties about a “war on data” by the new administration haven’t borne out, but indifference is a risk too: While both George W. Bush and Barack Obama put a great deal of emphasis on the value of data, Trump still hasn’t nominated anyone to run the Census Bureau and the BLS, arguably the two most important statistical agencies.
Beyond the tight budgets and neglect from the White House, a larger risk lurks around the corner, one that threatens the very reliability of statistics: People simply aren’t answering surveys the way they used to. Because of demographic and technological changes, response rates for federal surveys have been falling for years, a trend that shows no sign of reversing. This makes surveys more expensive to conduct—exacerbating the budget problems at agencies that run them—and raises something of an existential threat to what we know about our own country. “It’s a slow-moving train wreck,” said Erica Groshen, who led the BLS from 2013 to 2017.
As data become ever-more important to business and governance, federal statistics are becoming more expensive—and, the fear is, less reliable. There is one bright spot, however: New ideas and techniques are giving the government lots of ways to replace, even improve upon, its collection of information. By using data already collected by the government and purchasing data from the private sector, Washington can provide a fuller, timelier picture of America—from quicker numbers on economic growth to more accurate information about our health. Nancy Potok, chief statistician of the United States, calls this opportunity a “watershed moment,” and many experts said an update is long overdue; the federal statistical system has essentially been unchanged for decades, even as the economy has become globalized and technology has reshaped industries.
“We’re doing about the same set of indicators that we did 20 years ago,” said Robert Groves, who led the Census Bureau from 2009 to 2012 and recently chaired a National Academies panel on improving federal statistics. “Name something in the economy that is done precisely the same way as 20 years ago.”
But for all the promise of so-called Big Data, so far, the agencies have made little progress incorporating it—in large part, experts said, because they simply don’t have the money for the upfront investment it requires. Buying data from companies, testing it and researching alternatives can be expensive. And as statistical agencies are always in search of areas to cut, such research and development is often the first casualty.
The question now is whether Congress will actually realize the threat facing federal statistics and make the necessary investments to modernize the system, using the vast swaths of data unlocked by new technologies to produce more accurate, timely information. Or whether continued neglect will undermine the federal statistical system, dooming one of the America’s great economic advantages.
PERHAPS NO STATISTICAL agency faces as tough a budgetary environment than the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2,400-person agency founded in 1884. Every month, it produces two of the most important and closely watched economic statistics: Its 60,000-person survey of American households generates the unemployment rate, and a different survey, which asks people about the price of recent purchases, produces the inflation rate.
For all its importance, though, the BLS budget has flatlined for almost a decade—and sharply declined, if adjusted for inflation. In 2010, Congress funded the agency at $611 million; for 2017, that number was $609 million, an inflation-adjusted decline of more than 10 percent. At the same time, survey response rates have gone down, making it more expensive to produce the same reports. For the survey that estimates the unemployment rate, called the Current Population Survey, response rates have fallen from around 92 percent in 2010 to 87 percent today. That may not seem like much, but for statistics that are watched to the tenth of a percentage point—the unemployment rate is currently 4.2 percent—small changes in response rates can create subtle biases that affect the data, making the results less reliable.
In 2013, faced with a large budget cut of $30 million, about 5 percent of its previous budget, BLS canceled surveys on green jobs and on mass layoffs, and discontinued a program that made it easier to compare international and domestic statistics. The agency got just half of that cut restored in 2014, forcing it to curtail its quarterly survey on employment and wages; BLS also announced it was canceling a price index on exports but reinstated it after facing a backlash from the business community.
With current programs already underfunded, the agency has been unable to invest in new innovative approaches and upgrade its current surveys. For instance, for years, BLS has tried to get money to fund a survey on alternative working arrangements, such as independent contractors like Uber drivers—currently a significant gap in what we know about the job market. BLS last conducted the survey in 2005, before the rise of the so-called gig economy, and policymakers haven’t had up-to-date data since. Even after it gained a congressional champion in Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Congress failed to provide the $1.6 million to run the survey. The agency conducted the survey again last May, by shifting money internally, but with just two data points in a 12-year stretch—and no money for future surveys—it’s tough to get an accurate picture of how the labor market is changing. “I worry that there’s lots of issues like that where we are going to be behind the curve,” said Beers.
Some surveys remain grounded altogether: The last time the agency measured employer-provided job training—a top policy priority for Democrats and Republicans—was 1995. Other surveys are out of date. The BLS is currently trying to update the geographic locations in its inflation estimates and reduce the complexity and time required for a survey on consumer expenditures. But funding shortfalls have forced it to scale back its plans: It has reduced the number of cities in the inflation measure, and the update to the consumer expenditures survey could take 20 years.
THE BLS REPRESNTS an extreme example of the challenges facing the entire statistical system—but it isn’t alone.
At the Bureau of Justice Statistics, response rates for its high-profile national crime victimization survey fell from 90 percent in 2008 to 76 percent today. At the same time, budget cuts have forced the BJS to suspend surveys on public defense functions and indigent defense. The Bureau of Transportation hasn’t had the money to update its survey on truck use since 2002, and the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture has cut surveys on smaller commodities, like strawberries. “If you are going to drop something, you drop the minor ones,” said Katherine Smith Evans, a former head of the ERS, “even though, to some extent, the information is more valuable to small markets than to large ones.”
Charlie Rothwell, director of the National Center on Health Statistics, a little-known agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that produces statistics on births, deaths and drug overdoses, said that flat budgets and declining response rates were forcing the NCHS to “innovate around the edges.” Response rates for the NCHS’s big survey on the health of adults and children have dropped from the high 60s to the mid-50s in recent years, forcing the agency to spend more money to achieve a representative sample—money that can’t be used to research and develop new innovative survey techniques and experiment with alternative data. “It’s like driving an Indy car,” said Rothwell. “We keep messing around with the engine, but maybe we ought to replace the engine at some point.”
Of course, a lot of data collected by the government aren’t of broad national importance; the fate of our democracy doesn’t rest on the strawberry or mink count. But it does depend greatly on the big kahuna—the Census Bureau, which dwarfs the rest of the statistical system. Its decennial census is a massive undertaking that requires a huge administrative ramp-up in the three years prior to the national count. After technological problems in the 2010 census led to a $3 billion cost overrun, Congress put the bureau on a tight budget, a big challenge as response rates declined, requiring expensive in-person follow-ups. “The only thing you can do as the country gets more diverse, living arrangements get more complicated—you need more bodies,” said John Thompson, who resigned as director of the Census Bureau in June. “And that costs a lot.”
Typically, Congress dramatically boosts the agency’s funding in the run-up to the decennial so it can hire hundreds of thousands of people and launch dozens of field offices. The Census Bureau did receive an increase this year, but one that was $200 million below its budget request—and, at 7 percent, significantly below the 11 percent increase it received during the ramp-up a decade ago. In turn, the agency has canceled two of the three sites where it intended to hold its 2018 dress rehearsal, a crucial test for the decennial; it also canceled tests of special procedures to count Americans living in rural communities and in areas recovering from natural disasters. Ironically, Thompson said, the tests were intended to save money by trying out new techniques; without the testing, the agency will have to revert to techniques that worked well in 2010 but are more expensive. “If you want to save money on the census, you need to spend money in Year 7, not Years 9 and 10,” said Groves, Thompson’s predecessor.
In the Trump era, experts worry that the most powerful advocate for the Census Bureau and other statistical agencies—the executive branch—is no longer going to play that role. During the Obama administration, the statistical agencies repeatedly asked for funding hikes, only to be denied by Congress. Agency heads defended those figures at hearings on Capitol Hill, passionately advocating for more money. But Trump’s 2018 budget, which includes huge cuts to discretionary spending, proposes cuts to many of the statistical agencies. Its $1.5 billion request for the Census Bureau—even if Congress funds it at that level—falls $350 million short of what the Obama administration projected the agency would need. When Trump officials trek to Capitol Hill, they’ll have to defend these cuts, rather than press to reverse them.
An official in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget defended the budget requests as viable. “We are committed to having an accurate 2020 Census, and are working closely with the Commerce Department to make sure that the resources necessary to assure a successful census will be available,” the official said.
That has left statistical experts especially discouraged and concerned about the future of the federal statistical system. In the past, statistical experts and agency officials could appeal to certain lawmakers who championed the mission. But when I asked who championed the agencies now, I was met with silence. “The BLS is without champions right now,” said Groshen.
Said Beers, “A lot of other functions of the government have well-funded lobbying groups to make sure that a program continues. There’s nothing like that for statistics.”
FOR ALL THE angst about the future of government data-gathering, there’s a lot of excitement as well. The world is awash in data like never before—a shift that offers huge opportunities to update a statistical system that relies on the age-old techniques, like phone surveys and knocking on doors.
Nearly everyone who tracks government statistics believes this means Washington will be able to produce more accurate statistics at a much lower cost. And there are hopes that it will also reduce survey complexity, saving respondents hours of time finding paperwork and attempting to understand complicated questions—but it also comes with some big challenges and risks. The first is the biggest: rethinking how our statistical system operates. Julia Lane, a professor at New York University, has worked with federal agencies on this issue and seen the challenge up close. “You start with masses of data from all sources,” she said, “and you have to figure out how to link those sources, figure out what’s missing, deal with very rapid updates, how to make sense of it, protect confidentiality.”
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A big part of the challenge is personnel, and the new kinds of data scientists the government will need to recruit. “You can think of the statistical agencies as being data factories,” said Lane. “You have to retool an entire production line. … It’s like retooling a factory when your machines are actually people.” The problem is that when agencies prioritize resources, programs like training are often first cut, said Potok, the U.S.’ chief statistician.
Some of the data the government needs come from elsewhere in the government—or, theoretically, they could. For instance, instead of asking about a person’s income—a question that causes many respondents to drop off—an agency could get that information directly from the IRS, which records it from federal tax returns. Similarly, unemployment insurance records could provide data on wages.
So far, such data sharing has occurred only sparingly. The statistical agencies aren’t built to use third-party data—even data from the rest of the government—and they don’t have the institutional capacity or money to develop ways to incorporate it. But there are some signs of progress: In one notable example, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis have tested a new way to estimate retail sales, a monthly report that financial analysts complain is too slow and does not provide enough geographic detail. As Americans increasingly use plastic to purchase clothing and other retail goods, the government has experimented with purchasing credit card data from third-party aggregators, and so far, the data have tracked the retail sales figures pretty closely.
“You don't know what an individual purchased, but in an aggregated way, you can see sales of washing machines in Chicago yesterday,” said Potok, who previously was deputy director of the Census Bureau. “You can produce it faster. It's probably cheaper.”
For skeptics of Big Government, the idea of replacing the retail sales survey with credit card data is a perfect example of how, in many cases, the private sector can track statistical information better than the government; a job that once required the vast network and infrastructure of the federal government can now, through the help of new technologies, easily be completed by private companies. But Potok also warns that commercial data isn’t a “magic solution.” What happens if the third-party aggregator changes its methodology or jacks up the price of the data? There’s real value in producing the data in-house, where agencies must follow a careful set of rules in their surveys, so that users and respondents alike know exactly what is being collected, how it’s going to be used and its reliability. “It’s all very transparent,” said Potok. “When you are buying data from a company, it's not transparent at all. If they change their methods at all, it could skew the numbers and you wouldn't know it.”
Privacy advocates are also concerned that linking administrative data could cause the inadvertent disclosure of respondents’ personal information. “The more you link stuff together and provide that data, you have a greater chance to identify someone,” said Rothwell, head of the National Center for Health Statistics. Privacy was also a top concern for the Commission on Evidenced Based Policymaking, which was created under a 2016 law championed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). In a 138-page report released in September, the commission recommended ways to increase the availability and use of data, including strong privacy protections.
“I thought I understood about privacy and confidentiality from my time spent at BLS,” said Katharine Abraham, an economics professor at the University of Maryland who co-chaired the commission. “But I didn’t really understand the set of people who think about these issues, how deeply they feel about them.” One idea popular among people who prioritize expanding access to data—a central clearinghouse for all federal data—was heavily opposed by privacy advocates on the commission who said it would be a perfect target for cyberattack. “In the end, I was convinced it wasn’t a good idea,” Abraham said.
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As agencies attempt to link more and more data, these are the types of big, important questions they are going to face, and experts aren’t exactly sure how to answer them. But they do know that the traditional surveys that have been the backbone of federal statistics for over two centuries are not enough in the 21st century. “It’s an existential challenge,” said Lane. “They can’t keep collecting data through surveys. They know that.” Said Potok: “If we don't do something now, we could have a crisis in the future. I don't think we're in a crisis state now.”
The hope, experts agree, is that we are on the verge of something of a statistical revolution, one that will update the current slow, outdated system to meet the challenges in the fast-paced, globalized economy. “We’re still measuring on a monthly cycle—that’s the best we can do—yet there are massive decisions being made on a faster cycle,” said Groves. “We have a statistical system that did quite well for an economy that no longer exists.”
The risk, though, is that budget cuts and declining response rates undermine data quality before agencies can research and incorporate new data sets. So far, we haven’t reached the breaking point—a big mistake in the unemployment rate, for instance—but no one can say for sure that such a crisis won’t hit soon. “When a bridge falls down, then suddenly people realize, wow, we needed that bridge,” said Groves. “It’s just like that. We’ve enjoyed a wonderful run. But this needs attention.”
Danny Vinik is the assistant editor of The Agenda at POLITICO.Looking for news you can trust?
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From Ben Bernanke, in testimony before Congress today:
The recovery is close to faltering.
It’s good to see that someone is noticing. In Bernanke’s prepared remarks, after noting tight credit, slow consumer spending, financial stress in Europe, and other problems likely to hurt the economy, he got to this:
Another factor likely to weigh on the U.S. recovery is the increasing drag being exerted by the government sector. Notably, state and local governments continue to tighten their belts by cutting spending and employment in the face of ongoing budgetary pressures, while the future course of federal fiscal policies remains quite uncertain….In setting tax and spending policies for now and the future, policymakers should consider at least four key objectives. One crucial objective is to achieve long-run fiscal sustainability….A second important objective is to avoid fiscal actions that could impede the ongoing economic recovery.
This isn’t really new. But every time Bernanke says it, he edges slightly closer to calling GOP members of Congress idiots for obsessing about short-term austerity and spending cuts when they should be obsessing over how fast they can shovel money out the door. What’s more, he’s being as clear as he can that if Congress does this, the Fed’s monetary policy won’t get in the way.
But poor old conservative Ben Bernanke is now, in the view of most current Republicans, a dangerous radical lefty hellbent on debasing the currency and getting his Kenyan pal in the White House reelected. I wonder if he ever sees any humor in this?So far, Darrell Castle, the Constitution Party nominee, has 178,517 votes, with more being tallied during the next few weeks, especially in Washington state. The Constitution Party presidential vote increased in every state (for the states in which the party was on in both elections). The Constitution Party 2012 presidential vote had been 122,389.
Castle was on the ballot in fewer states than the 2012 nominee. The 2012 nominee, Virgil Goode, had been on the ballot in states containing 50% of the voters who voted, but Castle was only on in states containing approximately 39%.
The order of the five leading political parties, for president, for the popular vote, is the same in 2016 as it had been in 2012: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution. Of course there were no higher-ranking independent presidential candidates in 2012, but in 2016 Evan McMullin, an independent, placed fifth, bumping the Constitution showing down to sixth.
Castle polled over 1% of the vote in Alaska, South Dakota, and Hawaii. The December 1 2016 BAN will have the vote for president by state, for all candidates who were on in at least two states, even though the results at that time still won’t be complete.To subscribe to Capitol Fax, click here. Kennedy: Pritzker would be “product of the Madigan machine” if elected Friday, Jun 30, 2017 * Chris Kennedy was interviewed today by WLS AM’s Bill Cameron… KENNEDY: I won’t be someone who’s tied to the status quo, indebted to them for my election and reliant upon them for all good things in the future. […] The establishment in both parties has failed to do the basic things like pass a budget. The fact that they can’t get that done is an indictment of their capacity across the board. CAMERON: Why couldn’t JB [Pritzker] get that done? KENNEDY: I think the manner in which he might get that done would be in a way that is completely reliant on the status quo and the current leadership. I think he’ll arrive there, if he were to be elected, as the product of the Madigan machine and as such he’ll be indebted to them. Yikes. * Kennedy also said this… The reason we don’t pay for our schools at the state level is it would mean we’d shrink the reliance on property taxes. But the leadership in our party and many of the people in both parties make their money in the property tax appeals business. So, if the property tax is a smaller part of our economy, then they’re going to make less money. So they’re not free of the conflict of interest to vote on what really matters to the future of our state. They can’t embrace a new system because they’re making money off the old one. Someone needs to stand up to that. Man, that’s quite an indictment. Later, though, he said he thought Madigan would be willing to “sacrifice” by giving up his property tax assessment business. I’m not so sure I agree. * Kennedy also went after the governor later in the interview, saying Gov. Rauner has created a “culture of fear” in his party and in the state. He also said this about Rauner… I think his hope, really, is to cripple it - cripple government’s functionality by leaving it with such incredible debt that it’s capable of doing little else than to service that debt. * Full interview… - Posted by Rich Miller
28 Comments Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.Everyone out safe, chief says
Fire officials say they have determined the cause of Thursday night’s apartment fire in Winooski was electrical in nature and accidental.This is a breaking news update. The original story appears below.Firefighters responded to a fire at an apartment building in Winooski on Thursday evening.On the WPTZ App? Tap here to see the video.Just after 8 p.m., crews responded to 102 Malletts Bay Ave. for a report of flames shooting from the building. Fire trucks were stationed at the intersection of Malletts Bay Avenue and Union Street.On the WPTZ App? Tap here to see photos from the scene.Crews were finally able to search the inside of the building around 10:30 p.m.Winooski Fire Chief David Bergeron said everyone who was inside at the time of the fire made out it safely. Bergeron said the building has three apartments and that all the units were occupied when the fire started.Bergeron said the building was starting to collapse around 10:30 p.m.Two kittens were pulled from the rubble. Tap here to view the touching images on your mobile device.Traffic will be closed Thursday from Spring Street to Union Street.Those affected are being directed to the O'Brien Community Center on Malletts Bay Avenue. Red Cross volunteers are helping 10 people who lived in the building and first responders, spokesman Doug Bishop said.
Fire officials say they have determined the cause of Thursday night’s apartment fire in Winooski was electrical in nature and accidental.
This is a breaking news update. The original story appears below.
Firefighters responded to a fire at an apartment building in Winooski on Thursday evening.
On the WPTZ App? Tap here to see the video.
Just after 8 p.m., crews responded to 102 Malletts Bay Ave. for a report of flames shooting from the building. Fire trucks were stationed at the intersection of Malletts Bay Avenue and Union Street.
On the WPTZ App? Tap here to see photos from the scene.
Crews were finally able to search the inside of the building around 10:30 p.m.
Winooski Fire Chief David Bergeron said everyone who was inside at the time of the fire made out it safely. Bergeron said the building has three apartments and that all the units were occupied when the fire started.
Bergeron said the building was starting to collapse around 10:30 p.m.
Two kittens were pulled from the rubble. Tap here to view the touching images on your mobile device.
Traffic will be closed Thursday from Spring Street to Union Street.
Those affected are being directed to the O'Brien Community Center on Malletts Bay Avenue. Red Cross volunteers are helping 10 people who lived in the building and first responders, spokesman Doug Bishop said.
AlertMeThe verdict in Michael Henderson’s attempted-murder trial was about to be announced in a Hennepin County courtroom, but he wasn’t waiting around to hear it.
The 26-year-old Richfield man bolted, fighting off deputies and fleeing down 16 flights of stairs to the street and a getaway car.
Like most defendants at courtroom hearings, Henderson, who was recaptured several hours later, hadn’t been required to wear handcuffs or other restraints at the September 2014 hearing. Neither was a man who screamed obscenities at a judge and broke a deputy’s finger on another recent occasion.
Such incidents have inspired an initiative from Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek that got a chilly welcome this week from some of the county’s 73 judges and court referees.
Come December, every defendant who couldn’t make bail and was thus jailed will be cuffed during pretrial courtroom hearings, provided the judge signs off. Handcuffs won’t be used during trials or for juveniles and people with disabilities. And defendants released from jail on bail won’t have to wear them because a judge has already determined they aren’t safety risks, Stanek said.
Many outstate counties already have such a practice, he said.
Currently, judges must sign off on a deputy’s request to restrain a defendant who acts up when escorted from jail to the courtroom or those with a history of disruptive behavior.
“In the 30 years I’ve been in the legal profession, there is always something that comes up in a courtroom every now and then,” said Chief Judge Pete Cahill. “We have to be smart and not overreact. I appreciate the sheriff’s safety concerns, but I think the status quo is working.”
More than 35,000 people, including |
gression.LinearRegression val lr = new LinearRegression().setMaxIter(100).setElasticNetParam(0.8).setTol(0.000000000001) val lrModel = lr.fit(training)
MaxIter is the maximum number of iterations. More deliver a better result, but will take longer. Before the MaxIter is done it is checked wit Tol (for tolerance). Sometimes the difference between two iterations (the tolerance) is so small that we’re happy with the result and can stop processing. The final parameter is ElasticNetParam. I’m not able to explain what this parameter does, fiddling around with it will speed up the process of finding a good answer (have no clue about this parameter won’t affect the quality of the result, just the speed).
Interpreting the results
In this model we have to variables :
println(s"Coefficients: ${lrModel.coefficients} Intercept: ${lrModel.intercept}")
The coefficient is the ‘direction’ of the line (the A in x*A + B).
Intercept is the B in x*A + B.
Now you have a formula that gives you the speed at a given heart rate.
Conclusion
The library is still marked as experimental so please let me know if anything stops working and I’ll update the article.
I’m not sure if there really is a linear relation between heart rate and pace, quadratic seems more logical, but that might be something for next time.
I hope to find the time to test things with Spark 2.x, it will probably makes things a bit easier.
sources
AdvertisementsGetty Images Police announced that 17-year-old David Joseph did not have a weapon on him when he was fatally shot by police.
A black teenager who was naked and acting erratically in an Austin, Texas, neighborhood Monday was unarmed when he was fatally shot by police, the Austin Police Department says.
Police say that on Monday morning they received multiple calls from residents of the neighborhood in the northeast of the city reporting the teen, now identified as 17-year-old David Joseph, was "acting erratically" and "chasing" another male in a nearby apartment complex.
Austin Police Chief of Staff Brian Manley told reporters Tuesday that when police arrived at the scene, the teen was not wearing any clothes and proceeded to charge at veteran Officer Geoffrey Freeman, who is also black. Manley said the officer ordered Joseph to stop, but that he did not comply.
"Mr. Joseph ultimately charged at the officer and that's when shots were fired," Manley said, noting Freeman fired just seconds after the confrontation began.
Manley wouldn't say if a stun gun was deployed by the officer during the incident.
The teen died Monday at Round Rock Medical Center.
Nelson Linder, president of the Austin chapter of the NAACP, told local news station Fox 4 that he questions whether the shooting was legal.
On Tuesday, the Texas Civil Rights Project called for a "full, fair and open" investigation into the shooting.
"It's almost incomprehensible that a young naked man would be considered dangerous such that a police officer would kill him," Jim Harrington, director of the TCRP, said in a statement. "There have been way too many police killings over the years simply because police do not know how to deescalate situations and end up resorting to violence. This has to stop."
Freeman is a veteran of more than 10 years on the Austin force. He has been placed on administrative leave.
Police say part of the incident was recorded on the officer's dashboard camera, but the shooting itself occurred off camera. Audio from the shooting was recorded and police say the officer can be heard ordering the teen to stop repeatedly after he began charging at the officer.
Manley said there are two investigations into the incident, both an internal one and a criminal one.
"This is a tragic event. It's tragic for the community and for the police department," Manley said.
UPDATE: 10 p.m.
Joseph's family released a heartfelt statement on the death of the teen late Tuesday:
Statement from the family of David Joseph, killed by an Austin police officer on Monday. pic.twitter.com/F6rSpSBulD — Philip Jankowski (@PhilJankowski) February 10, 2016
Also on HuffPost:Researchers from UC Berkeley are searching for pulsars and more effective AIDS therapies, and you can help by offering the university access to your idle Android smartphone. Like Stanford University's famous Folding@Home project, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) has relied on the public to donate processing time with desktop and laptop computers. But with its new app, UC Berkeley will be able to tap into the largely untouched world of mobile devices to boost its research efforts.
Donors can choose to help a specific research project
Projects that use BOINC's processing power include Einstein@Home, which analyzes telescope data in search of pulsars and Asteroids@Home, which calculates the shape of asteroids by analyzing scattered light reflections. There are currently six different projects listed in the Android app and users are able to choose a specific research group to help. By default, the BOINC app is intended to run when you're not using your phone, and will automatically activate when the device is plugged in, has a battery level of over 95 percent, and is connected to a Wi-Fi network.
The app is currently Android only, but that still provides plenty of potential processing power to the project. "There are about a billion Android devices right now," said Anderson. "Their total computing power exceeds that of the largest conventional supercomputers."Cabanas No Rio Huts, located one hour south of Lisbon, Portugal, on the Sado River, were built for 40,000 euros ($47,000).
Courtesy of Taschen
Before the tiny house or the microapartment, there was the cabin in the woods, planted in the collective imagination by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and later by Le Corbusier’s little wood Cabanon de Vacances, completed in 1952 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in France. The small dwellings featured in Cabins, a new coffee table book by Philip Jodidio from Taschen, offer escapist eye candy in the form of small dwellings located in tranquil natural settings around the world. The book includes building costs for many of the projects, a handful of which happen to have been built for less than $60,000.
Cabanas No Rio Huts (top) were built for less than $50,000 in 2013 in Portugal. At 280 square feet total, they are now used as a microhotel that rents for $237 a night.
Made from recuperated scrap wood, the mini compound of Cabanas No Rio Huts (above) consists of a single seaside residence that is divided into two structures intended to mimic nearby fishermen’s huts.
Courtesy of Taschen
Built by architect Manuel Aires Mateus, the huts (which total 280 square feet) operate as a microhotel that rents for $237 a night. Courtesy of Taschen
The bedroom of Cabanas No Rio Huts in Portugal was conceived as a cozy little nest.
Courtesy of Taschen
In a similar style is the nomadic Flake House, built in Frossay, France, from 2008–09 as part of a design competition. It is 236 square feet and cost 21,000 euros (less than $25,000) to build.
The Flake House built by Olgga Architects. Courtesy of Taschen
Interior of the Flake House. Courtesy of Taschen
Built for 10,000 euros (less than $12,000), the 97-square-foot Nido in Sipoo, Finland, by Robin Falck was completed in 2011. Designed to be constructed from locally sourced wood and without a permit, the cabin is insulated with flax and is warmed during the winter with a small heat fan.
Robin Falck was 19 years old when he designed Nido. Courtesy of Taschen
Another view of Nido. Courtesy of Taschen
Inside Nido. Courtesy of Taschen
The 100-square-foot Franke-Mirzian Bunkhouse in Ontario, Canada, was designed and built in 2010 by Dan Molenaar of Mafco House as a presentation booth for a trade show in Toronto. At a cost of $20,000, it was repurposed as a permanent cabin on Drag Lake, Haliburton.
The Franke-Mirzian Bunkhouse. Courtesy of Taschen
Close-up of the Franke-Mirzian Bunkhouse. Courtesy of Taschen
Inside the Franke-Mirzian Bunkhouse. Courtesy of Taschen
Guesthouse, a 280-square-foot structure built by AATA in Chile in 2006 for 15,800 euros ($18,700) is a two-story wooden cube designed to have a minimal carbon footprint. Windows let in winter sun and encourage natural air flow in summer. Thermally efficient, inexpensive local bales of hay coated with mud were used for construction, and the roof is covered with grass.
Guesthouse is designed to have a minimal carbon footprint. Courtesy of Taschen
Close-up of Guesthouse. Courtesy of Taschen
Inside the Guesthouse.
Courtesy of Taschen
The 430-square-foot Green Box, built by Act Romegialli in the Alps in Northern Italy in 2011 for 48,000 euros ($57,000) is a renovated garage. Lightweight galvanized metal and steel wire were wrapped around the existing building to turn it into a 3-D support structure for climbing vegetation. The inside is used for gardening storage and has a kitchen and dining area for entertaining.
Green Box turned an unused garage into a little green wonder of an out building. Courtesy of Taschen
The structure includes a main pavilion that has storage for gardening tools as well as an entertaining space that includes a galvanized steel kitchen, wooden larch plank floors and sliding doors. Courtesy of TaschenVideo / November 5, 2013 / Project number: 13-0122-3
Archival footage from a Canadian Army Newsreel featuring Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders playing hockey on the frozen Imjin River.
Fade up to archival film – Title on screen – “Department of National Defence presents, Korea Brigade, produced by Directorate of Public Relations (Army)
(Fade to wide shot of soldiers playing hockey on frozen Imjin River)
Narrator: All possible was done to care for the welfare of the men in this strange land which afforded none of the amenities to which they were accustomed at home.
(Cut to closer shot of soldiers playing hockey)
An outstanding success was the hockey rink, which with the advent of winter was built on the frozen Imjin River. Back on skates again,
(Cut to ground level shot of hockey game, large crowd of spectators are seen on other side of the ice)
the Canadians were in their element and hockey games were arranged for the various units in the brigade.
(Cut to shot of hockey players crawling on all fours on the ice)
One of the more amusing afternoons
(Cut to close up of puck drop, cut to hockey action and players fall down)
was provided by teams representing the Australian and New Zealand troops who donned the skates and played with right good will to the edification of a large crowd of their comrades.
While not up to the standards of Maple Leaf Gardens,
(Cut to wide shot of spectators)
the boys from down under put on a good show and were quick to pick up some of the more rugged aspects of the game.
(Music plays, cut to one player sitting on ice watching a small fight occurring in background where the referee is trying to keep two players apart)
Their efforts were certainly entertaining.
(Montage of shots over silly music, Australian and New Zealand players falling on ice, cut to close up of player falling. Dissolve to graphic “Korea Brigade, The end. Fade to black.)Reactions to the Sharapova-Tendulkar saga reveal the full extent of human stupidity
Musab Abid FOLLOW EXPERT COLUMNIST Feature 95.69K // 03 Jul 2014, 13:06 IST SHARE Share Options × Facebook Twitter Flipboard Reddit Google+ Email
Maria Sharapova to Sachin Tendulkar: “Do I know you?”
There comes a time in every person’s life when all he can do is sit back, look around and try to identify the exact moment when the collective wisdom of the world’s population went flaming into the gutter.
Yes, Maria Sharapova was quoted as saying she does not know who Sachin Tendulkar is. No, that is not a reason why a whole host of Sachin-worshippers from India should feel duty-bound to defend their idol by whatever means necessary. And when I say ‘whatever means necessary’, I mean that literally.
Last heard, a sizeable number of Indians were spending their leisurely afternoons posting nasty, unspeakable abuses on Sharapova’s official Facebook page and Twitter handle. Millions of others, meanwhile, were putting up outraged status updates that aimed to uphold the dignity of their man by vilifying the character and supposed sexual indiscretions of the Russian star.
And the slightly wittier (but no less childish) ones were busy combining their jingoistic and creative sides by coming up with funny tweets and memes.
The way some people have gone about ‘defending’ Tendulkar, you’d think the man has personally appointed every single Indian as his virtual bodyguard. “Defend my honour like it’s the last thing you’re ever going to do. And if anyone so much as dares to remotely bring disrepute to my records or my place in sporting history, bring down the wrath of a thousand Rakhi Sawants upon that undeserving piece of shit,” Tendulkar might have said during the hiring process. At any rate, that’s what it seems like.
I’m not even exaggerating here. The politest descriptions of Sharapova after her blasphemous revelation have ranged from ‘bitch’ to ‘slut’, with some even branding her an ‘atheist’. You can only imagine what the less polite adjectives must sound like.
This is not the first time Sharapova has earned the ire of people for her supposed lack of knowledge. During the French Open she sent a flutter through the British media by claiming she didn’t know who Judy Murray was. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Sharapova is developing some kind of pattern here. What is she going to say next, that she doesn’t know who Rajnikanth is? HOW DARE SHE!!!
Of course, lost amid all the brouhaha is the fact that for a professional athlete, not finding the time to delve into other sporting events that have nothing to do with your ultra-competitive field is completely natural. You don’t have to be a sports historian to be a sportswoman; to qualify as a champion of your own sport, you don’t need to familiarize yourself with the names of great players from other sports that are completely alien to your country and culture. If you are so focussed on your own game and training routines that you neglect going through the sports section of your daily newspaper, it’s perfectly understandable.
But does any of that matter to the apoplectic Indian social media populace? Aw hell naw! (read like the popular Internet meme). The only thing that matters is that Sharapova has ‘insulted’ the legacy of the great Tendulkar. Oh the abomination!
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So yes, all of this has prompted me to sit back and wonder: how could things have come down to this level? How could we have ever let ourselves turn into a raging mass of revolting stupidity? Where did it all go wrong with humanity?
As with all metaphysical questions, there’s no straight answer to this. Some would say it all began with the advent of social media. Giving people the power to make their voice known might have sounded like a good idea at first, but clearly, we forgot that power is a dangerous thing to give away so freely. “With great power comes great responsibility”, goes one of the more cliched Hollywood lines of our generation, but times like this make even comic books and Spider-man sound like treasure troves of exalted wisdom.
Will the dumbness ever end? Probably not, unless Sharapova personally issues an apology for her supposed gaffe. And even then, there might still be scores of unconvinced b%#^-hurt Sachin-worshippers who would find it easier to brand Sharapova a bitch than take a look at how little they themselves know of athletes from other countries.
It’s a weird world we live in, and I for one am just sorry that the likes of Sharapova and Tendulkar have to put up with the kind of ‘sports fans’ that they’ve been saddled with.
AdvertisementIt's Better to Have High-Fived and Lost Than Never to Have High-Fived at All
The high five is dated. Once the handshake's cool younger brother, it's now watching out the window from its room in the Home for the Aged Greetings & Celebratory Gestures, just down the hall from the doffed hat, as those whippersnappers the fist bump and the "bro hug" run rampant throughout most segments of society.
The decline in the high five's popularity may be due to the "putting yourself out there" vulnerability we've all felt, in those nervous seconds when the naked hand is raised and you're praying the move won't end in the High-Fiver's Worst Nightmare: getting left hanging. Just ask the El Paso school superintendent who last month was celebrating test scores by high-fiving a line-up of school principals, one of whom charged him with assault.While serving as home secretary, Prime Minister Theresa May downgraded the surveillance of an extremist who fled Britain to become an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighter and suicide bomber after his release from Guantanamo Bay, it has been claimed.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson has refused to discuss whether the monitoring of Jamal al-Harith ceased in 2014, when May had been running the Home Office for four years.
IS claims the 50-year-old suicide bomber, born Ronald Fiddler in Manchester, also known as Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, blew himself up in an explosives-laden vehicle in a village south of Mosul last week. The terror group says there were many casualties, although this has not been officially confirmed.
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Two ex-Labour home secretaries, David Blunkett and Jack Straw, have suggested government surveillance of al-Harith was stopped before he traveled to Syria to join IS.
Lord Blunkett said: “I am not aware as to the length of time such monitoring continued after I left the Home Office at the end of 2004. It is clear however that in 2010 under the new Coalition government... continuing contact and awareness of these individuals must have been present.
“What happened between then and 2014 is of course a matter of speculation that can only be answered by the present government.”
Straw followed up the attack, telling the Independent: “One of the things that she [May] did do [as Home Secretary] was weaken the ability of government to keep terror suspects under effective surveillance.”
While security officials confirmed al-Harith and other Guantanamo detainees were monitored after their release, they said the scale of it depended on the extent of the threat they posed to the public.
“There is a finite amount of resources and a valued judgement has to be made on how these resources are allocated,” a senior source told the Independent.
Richard Barrett, the former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, told the newspaper: “This guy came out of Guantanamo Bay ten years before he left for Syria. That would be a hell of a long time to keep someone under close surveillance, almost impossible, and against his civil liberties.
“When he came back from Guantanamo Bay the assessment was made by the British and Australian services that he posed no threat and for the ten years that he was in the UK and maybe even for a period after that, he did not pose any direct threat to the British public in the way that we would understand it.”
On Wednesday, it was revealed Tony Blair’s government lobbied for the release of al-Harith despite never regarding him as innocent.
Straw told the BBC: “Neither Mr Blair or I ever said that [al-Harith] was innocent. Whenever you’re making decisions about the release of prisoners, you have to make a judgment and sometimes those judgments are not borne out by events.”
Blair has accused the media of “utter hypocrisy” over criticism of the release, “which followed a parliamentary and massive media campaign led by the Daily Mail … and strongly supported by the then Conservative opposition.”
‘Al-Harith did not receive £1m from UK government’ - family
The disclosure that al-Harith had received a compensation payment of £1 million from the UK government after ministers lobbied to secure his release from Guantanamo Bay in 2004 has sparked a political blame game.
David Cameron’s government agreed a total package of £10-20 million in damages for British citizens and long-term residents who were held in Guantanamo in an out-of-court settlement in 2010.
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Blair took the unusual step on Wednesday of issuing a statement denying his administration had paid compensation to al-Harith.
“He was not paid compensation by my government. The compensation was agreed in 2010 by the Conservative government,” Blair said.
A Number 10 spokesperson declined to comment on compensation payments on the grounds that it was an “intelligence matter.” The spokesperson also refused to say why May as Home Secretary allowed al-Harith to travel to Syria.
The Tory government is now facing pressure to prove that £10-£20 million paid to terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay did not end up in the hands of IS, after it emerged that four of the 17 British detainees thought to have been given compensation have been accused of links to Islamic groups or individuals in Syria.
Writing in Thursday’s Daily Telegraph, Lord Carlile QC, the former terror law watchdog, said: “I hope that what he [al-Harith] did with the money was the subject of careful monitoring, something on which we are entitled to some reassurance from the authorities.”
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Lord Carlile, who said the payment should never have been made, added: “I am concerned about the monitoring of money received by people who have been identified as terrorists. I would hope that the money was followed with care to avoid large sums being paid over to terrorist groups.”
In a statement to the BBC al-Harith’s family denied he received as much as £1 million in compensation, claiming the figure was “a group settlement including costs for four innocent people including Jamal.”
They blamed his treatment at Guantanamo Bay, where he was held by the US, for his subsequent involvement with the terror group.
The statement said: “The Jamal they knew up until 2001 when he was taken to Guantanamo Bay would not have become involved with a despicable organisation such as so-called ISIS. He was a peaceful and gentle person. Whatever he may or may not have done since then they believe from their own experience he was utterly changed by the physical and mental cruelty and the inhuman treatment he endured for two years at Guantanamo.”
Meanwhile, the lawyer who helped British detainees at Guantanamo Bay win a multi-million pound compensation claim against the government, Sapna Malik, could be struck off by a professional tribunal.
She faces a seven-week misconduct hearing, scheduled to start in April, over allegations of misconduct for the now discredited claims brought against the British army for its behavior during the Iraq war.
Al-Harith ‘mentally tortured’ by Taliban
Catherine Philp, correspondent for the Times, wrote on Thursday that al-Harith was barely able to speak when she met him in a Kandahar jail shortly before he was taken to Guantanamo Bay in 2002.
“He doesn’t speak. He was mentally tortured by the Taliban,” she wrote.
The father-of-five flew to Pakistan after the September 11 attacks and spent time in a Taliban jail, alongside political prisoners and foreigners, before American forces moved in and took him to Guantanamo Bay.
Interrogators found he provided useful information about the Taliban’s methods, and believed he had spent time with Osama Bin Laden in Sudan. But he was released from the notorious prison camp in 2004, after two years, repatriated to the UK by private jet and released without charge.
Speaking to the BBC soon after his return to the UK he described being frightened to leave Guantanamo because he was so used to life there, and his hatred for the Americans who held him there.
“When they were taking us out I could see the British plane waiting for us - they had to walk us over the 300 metres - and we got put in front to the British Bobby and the American soldier was taking off my chains I wanted to spit in his face but you have to hold yourself inside.”
He also spoke of his determination to sue for compensation, and revealed the Americans were only convinced he had a clean criminal record because he worked for MI5, which he laughed about on live TV.Downloading movies for free has become mainstream, much to the chagrin of the film industry. Especially starting film makers are finding it increasingly difficult to make a living because of this. But there are many films and shows that are free to download and stream, without harming the people who made it. How is this possible? Well, in most cased because the films are too old so their licenses have expired. In other cases the maker make money in a different way through advertising, or, last but not least, stupid mistakes caused the work to slip into the public domain. One of the best websites with public domain films is www.archive.org, which also has a wonderful collection of public domain texts and music. Here are some of my favorites as the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Nosferatu (1922) / Sunrise (1927)
An F.W. Murnau double billing to start things off with. Why? Well, both films are considered pinnacles within their respective genres. And, although Nosferatu is more interesting copyright wise, I couldn’t resist adding the wonderful Sunrise, which is regarded by many as the best silent film ever made.
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens was Murnau’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. There was only one problem. He did not have the rights to the novel and Stoker’s heirs went to court demanding all copies to be destroyed. They won the case, but, luckily, five copies survived which we can see up to this day. These five copies found their way into the world, making Nosferatu one of the most influential horror films of all time.
Murnau’s other masterpiece is not as famous, but perhaps even more important. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans tells the story about a farmer who falls under the spell of a city woman who convinces him to drown his wife. The story sounds simple but is told so poetically and with such technical skill that it is widely regarded as one of the best films ever made. The scene that demonstrates Murnau’s ambition the best is when the couple is kissing in the streets of the bustling city and the city transforms slowly into the country side. Not so impressive in our computer age, but revolutionary for the time. A must see.
Watch Nosferatu
Watch Sunrise
The General (1926)
Buster Keaton’s greatest film. It tells the story of a young train driver who has two loves in his life, his girlfriend and his locomotive, called The General. So when Yankee soldiers kidnap the love of his life and steal his livelihood he pursues them with another train. Despite its age the films still surprises and makes you wonder constantly how Keaton pulls off one amazing stunt after the other that have to be seen to be believed. This film is not only a testament of what he could do, but also what was lost with the advent of the talkies.
Watch The General
The Stranger (1946)
The Stranger is a film full of contradictions. Orson Welles considered it his least favorite film, but it is the only film he directed which made a profit on its original release. The film is widely ignored by film historians, but it has a place in American history as the first film to show the atrocities of the German concentration camps. The film tells the story of a member of the War Crimes Commission, played by the wonderful Edward G. Robinson, who travels to Connecticut in search of the Nazi war criminal Franz Kindler, who he thinks has taken the alias of Professor Charles Rankin, played by Orson Welles. Although not as revolutionary as his master pieces Citizen Kane or Touch of Evil, The Stranger is still an excellent film noir, and very original by adding World War II in an otherwise straightforward crime story.
Watch The Stranger
Night of the living Dead (1968)
George A. Romero wrote cinematic history in more than one way with Night of The Living Dead. He directed the quintessential zombie film and cast a black man as the lead in 1968. The plot is not very original, but similar to many Westerns, with the zombies standing in for the Indians (or Native Americans as they should be called, though when they’re used as cannon fodder politically correct terminology is the least of their worries) and the humans as the cowboys, fighting off the attackers from behind their enclosure. But the paranoia between the humans is wonderfully staged. The film is shot in black and white to save money but the lighting is fantastic and the ending is a real punch in the gut, showing the true nature of man. It is a shame that Romero’s bravery did not pay off financially for him. The original distributor neglected to place a copyright indication on the prints which according to American copyright law of the time meant that the film slipped into the public domain. Sad for the creator of the film, but it allowed millions of people to see and later buy the film for next to nothing. In short, this is the film where the zombie madness all began. Essential viewing.
Watch Night of the Living Dead
Sita Sings the Blues (2008)
Sita Sings the Blues is one of those films that I can’t help but love. It mixes the true story of director Nina Paley’s relationship problems with the stories of the Ramayana, one of the key epic Hindu books. The film was praised by film critics for its unique cinematic voice, but criticized by part of the Hindu community for neocolonialism. They did not like that Paley juxtaposed their cultural heritage with her personal life. Luckily, she also found supporters in the Hindu community. And rightly so, because the film is beautifully animated and works on so many levels. Just like with Night of the Living Dead and Nosferatu, Sita Sings the Blues also had its copyright problems. Paley used 1920’s Annette Hanshaw recordings for the music which she believed were in the public domain. Later it turned out that this was only true in part and Paley had to pay $ 220,000 to be able to distribute the film. She couldn’t cut out the music without compromising the story (watch the film and you’ll see why) so she decided to release the film under a creative commons license, making it free to download for everyone. She also released a limited 4,999 run of the DVD and the film can be seen on Netflix. Unlike Romero, Paley’s hard work did pay off and she actually made a higher profit than she would have had if she’d taken the normal route.
Watch Sita Sings the Blues
Follow Henk-Jan @hjvinkeIt may not have swords and dragons, but the future of education looks more like drama class than a lecture hall. In 2009’s Nuture Shock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman spend a long time following a promising teaching method called Tools of the Mind, originally developed by Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Merryman discusses the process of how kids are engaged through Tools of the Mind in this interview.
So for “Tools of the Mind,” which is Elena and Debbie’s program, they have kids go through a scenario. Like they’ll decorate the classroom like a firehouse, and they’ll spend a week talking to the kids about fire stations. Maybe a fireman came and gave a lecture, or they went to a fire station. Then they have this week where they can play fireman. They say, “Okay, who are you going to be?” And one of the boys says “I am going to be the fireman” and the other kid says, “Well, I am going to be rescued.” The other kid says, “Well, I am going to be the dispatcher, the 911—I tell people where to go.” Then they have to role play that through for a half an hour. And they stay in character.
Sounds like a role playing game, doesn’t it? Another article in the NY Times describes it this way.
“At the heart of the Tools of the Mind methodology is a simple but surprising idea: that the key to developing self-regulation is play, and lots of it. But not just any play. The necessary ingredient is what Leong and Bodrova call “mature dramatic play”: complex, extended make-believe scenarios, involving multiple children and lasting for hours, even days.”
For very young kids, Tools of the Mind has been shown to reduce agression, increase self-regulation, and promote vocabulary and spelling. To me this makes sense. It is much easier and less frustrating to grasp a new subject or skill when you need to learn it in order to complete a higher level objective. In school, learning itself is the objective and that seems backward and perverse. It comes out in the “when are we ever going to us this?” complaint heard in math classes everywhere. Structured “pretend” time or role playing helps manufacture that need where it didn’t exist before, and according to research, that’s enough. The only trick now is trying to come up with innovative role playing scenarios or games to learn every subject. Here are some ideas for various ages:
1. History – Have them play war games out to learn the mechanics of war, but also have them role play out the damage done to to families by war.
2. Math – Have a casino party to learn probabilities. Good games are roulette and craps. If you think it would promote gambling among students, then you probably don’t understand the math enough either.
3. Vocabulary – Who’s Line is it Anyway?, a sketch comedy game show, used to have a great game called “party quirks” where one person was the host of a party and three guests were some person, place or thing and had to act it out until the host guessed who they were.
In relation to Dungeon Adventure, there are lots of ways these ideas can be incorporated into it to make it more educational. For example:
1. Money management
2. Mathematics to keep track of hit points, probabilities
3. Expansion of vocabulary, especially if you target certain words or phrases
What are some tools you have used in Dungeon Adventure that your child was able to take away and use later?Fares really, really wants people to play A Way Out together in-person, sitting side-by-side on a couch and truly sharing the experience. This emotional connection is crucial -- because while A Way Out looks like an action-heavy, prison-break game featuring guns, crime, violence and hardened criminals, Fares promises there's soul behind this tough facade.
"There's a lot of heart in this," he says.
It's not surprising that A Way Out is founded on a deep emotional reservoir, considering the team's debut game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Brothers is a heart-wrenching adventure about two young men on a quest to cure their father's illness, forcing one player to control both characters with a single gamepad in order to solve puzzles and traverse dangerous lands. It came out in 2013 to widespread acclaim, and A Way Out feels like a natural evolution of this creative, sentimental aesthetic. It feels like Brothers grew up.
"All decisions that are made on A Way Out are based on the heart," Fares says. "Even if someone tells me me, like, 'If you do this you will sell 1 million copies more,' my answer is 'Fuck you.' Look at me, I don't have scripts and nobody tells me what to say. I say what I want to say. Passion is what drives this. That's why it's been great working with EA. They don't tell us do this, do that. We decide what comes in, what goes out of the game."
EA is publishing A Way Out via its Originals program, and the company showcased the game at its big E3 press conference in Los Angeles, putting Fares center-stage.
Fares takes his role as a leader at his studio, Hazelight, to heart. He's the founder, writer and director at Hazelight, and for A Way Out, he's even the person in the motion-capture suit. Leo's movements in-game are Fares himself, whether he's running, leaping, ducking, shooting a gun or drinking a beer. Vincent's mo-cap was done by Oscar Wolontis, Hazelight's production coordinator. In terms of appearance, Fares' brother serves as the model for Leo, the more trigger-happy of the two convicts.
It's still rare for smaller, independent studios to use motion-capture technology, though it isn't unheard of. For example, the powerful adventure game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday recently employed mo-cap to resounding critical and consumer success. A Way Out's animations are reminiscent of 1979, in fact. This doesn't mean the game's graphics are perfectly polished and the animations always smooth (1979 doesn't quite reach this goal, either) -- A Way Out is due to hit PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in early 2018, so developers are still tweaking its systems. But, there's only so much they can do.
"You want the honest truth? This machine is not so strong as you think," Fares says, pointing to the PS4 running his game. "This is like a five-year-old PC. If consoles were as powerful as PCs are today, you would see all different games. Most of the work developers put out there is to make them work on consoles."
A Way Out is a passion project for Fares. You can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice when he talks about the game's split-screen control scheme and its surprisingly emotional story. Though A Way Out is reminiscent of his previous project, Brothers, in a few ways -- it stars two men and features a twist on a classic control scheme -- Fares says it's a completely different beast.
"We can't be categorized," he says. "It's about whatever makes us, our heart go, that's what we're going to do. There's no one-trick-pony or anything like that. I'm telling you, this game is going to be even better than Brothers, and the next game is going to be even better than that."
Fares is endlessly excited for people to discover another way to play video games together, as a shared yet wholly unique experience -- ideally, while they're sitting side-by-side on the couch.
"I believe you can make a big, AAA, big-budget title |
highlight the threat of climate change, said Trump’s decision to leave the Paris accord has energized the global community to unite behind the agreement.
“It's galvanized the rest of the world. And it's galvanized a lot of states, and cities, and business leaders here in the U.S.,” Gore said.
“The rest of the world is expressing determination to go even further even faster, and that's a really good thing. Those who were worried the U.S. would be isolated, there are some dangers there. But it's really the president who's more isolated now in the aftermath of this. At least that's what it looks like to me,” he continued.
Gore’s comments follow several of Trump's trips abroad in an effort to build stronger ties with key U.S. allies.
French President Emmanuel Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday that he and Trump discussed the U.S.’s climate stance during his visit to Paris last week, according to The Associated Press.
“He said he would try to find a solution in the coming months. We spoke in detail about what could allow him to return to the Paris deal,” the French leader said.
The leaders said last Thursday they did not reach a breakthrough on the deal during Trump's visit, but would discuss the matter in the future.The Occupy London movement has agreed its first specific set of proposals about corporations, just over six weeks since it first set up camp outside St Paul's cathedral to campaign against the perceived excesses and injustices of the global financial system.
While the protest has gathered considerable publicity and expanded to three sites – as well as St Paul's, there are offshoot camps in Finsbury Square, further east, and inside a vacant office complex nearby owned by the Swiss bank USB – it has faced criticism about a lack of concrete demands. Agreeing these has proved a complicated process, as all decision are reached by consensus at mass meetings.
The first policy statement on corporations calls for an end to tax havens and tax avoidance, more transparency over business lobbying, and legal reforms to make individual executives more liable for the consequences of their decisions.
"Globally, corporations deprive the public purse of hundreds of billions of pounds each year, leaving insufficient funds to provide people with fair living standards. We must abolish tax havens and complex tax avoidance schemes, and ensure corporations pay tax that accurately reflects their real profits," the statement said.
On lobbying, it calls for laws to ensure "full and public transparency of all corporate lobbying activities". Finally, the statement argues that executives must be "personally liable for their role in the misdeeds of their corporations and duly charged for all criminal behaviour".
Soon after the first camp was set up on the western edge of St Paul's, after police prevented activists basing themselves near the headquarters of the London Stock Exchange, the group issued general proposals, calling the current economic system "unsustainable" and opposing public spending cuts. The only other such statement called for more transparency and democracy within the Corporation of London, the governing authority within the City district, which owns some of the land adjoining St Paul's and which is taking legal action to evict the campers.
"From the moment the Occupy London Stock Exchange occupation started, in the full glare of the media and in the court of public opinion, we have continually been asked, 'What do you want?' "What are your demands?'" said Jamie Kelsey, a member of the corporations policy group.
"We are calling time on a system where corporates and their employees pursue profit at all costs. Just as corporates have played their role in the iniquities of the current system, they are also part of the solution and we invite them to join this important conversation."The Media Research Center criticized everyone from Perez Hilton and Gossip Girl to the cast of Jersey Shore for using the word “slut,” but after right-wing talk show host tagged law student and women’s rights advocate Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute,” the group that claims to stand up for “people and institutions that hold traditional values” has repeatedly come to Limbaugh’s defense. MRC’s Scott Whitlock said NBC’s depiction of Limbaugh’s sexist remarks as “ugly” represented “a left-wing attack” and Brent Baker dubbed coverage of Limbaugh’s rant a “left-wing effort to impugn and silence Rush Limbaugh.” The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer and Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber even tweeted in defense of Limbaugh, Barber even saying that Limbaugh “showed class.”
Apparently, the word “slut” is only acceptable when it is used by a right-wing ally.
Concerned Women for America, which describes itself as committed to promoting “decency” in the media, has been completely silent about Limbaugh’s tirade. But the group is happy to post a statement regarding the talk show host’s praise for CWA, along with claims about the supposedly sexist treatment of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin by the media.
Focus on the Family considers the word “slut” a profanity and blamed “hip-hop/rap culture” for making it “become acceptable and even in vogue to be called a ‘slut,’” and urged people to stop buying music with words like “slut” that “objectify women.” But the organization still hasn’t commented on Limbaugh’s misogynist rants. In 2009 the group defended Limbaugh with a video, “When the liberals came for Rush.”
While these so-called “pro-family” organizations love to claim that they promote decency and values on the airwaves, they are either unwilling or uninterested in criticizing a prominent conservative who spent four days straight calling a student a “slut” on national radioJerry Brown's state won't be what it was politics
Lawmakers applaud Gov. Jerry Brown as he enters the Assembly Chambers to give his State of the State address at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Brown delivered a State of the State address that laid out the legacy-building ideas he will work on during the second part of his term, including K-12 education reform, high-speed rail and the largest upgrade to the state't water-delivery system in decades. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) less Lawmakers applaud Gov. Jerry Brown as he enters the Assembly Chambers to give his State of the State address at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Brown delivered a State of the... more Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Jerry Brown's state won't be what it was 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
With the state budget balanced for the first time in years, Gov. Jerry Brown is roaring that "California is back," painting a rosier future for California with gauzy predictions of its "rendezvous with destiny."
But beneath the governor's flowery evocations of "bold pioneers" who followed "every failure with an even greater success," Brown tacitly acknowledged during his State of the State speech last week that California's present isn't what it once was.
Before they rendezvous with destiny, Californians must confront their stark new reality.
"What everybody is struggling with now is how to set expectations," said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.
"The governor is trying to find a way to create expectations and keep a lid on them. And that's tough to do," Baldassare said. "Economically, we're not at a point where we can take care of all of these needs."
'An era of limits'
The booming California of the 74-year-old Brown's youth in San Francisco, or of his first stint as governor in the 1970s, doesn't exist. Then, payrolls in the state were growing at roughly 4 percent a year. Now, more than 1 in every 5 California children lives in poverty. In Fresno County, 35 percent of kids are poor.
"That is the new reality. We are in an era of limits," said Edward Leamer, a professor of management, economics and statistics at UCLA and director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, an economic barometer that has studied the state's payroll growth. "Jerry Brown is the first governor we've had who has to deal with the fact that over a whole decade there has been no growth.
"We cannot let loose another burst of spending the way we did in the Gray Davis era (1999-2003) because the revenue suddenly seems like it's there. It isn't there," Leamer said. "The Gray Davis era had a kind of a false invocation of the California Dream because we had that Internet rush."
California's reality now includes 6 million residents who live in poverty, more than at any time in its history. While the state's general fund may have stabilized, California must cover $27 billion in debt from past years and owes billions in pension obligations to state employees.
Nearly 10 percent of the state's residents remain unemployed, the third-highest rate in the country.
Brown and the Legislature were able to balance the budget because voters passed $6 billion worth of tax increases in November. The poor have made the biggest sacrifices on the altar of the budget's bottom line, as the state has cut $15 billion in health and welfare benefits to low-income Californians since 2009.
While Brown's budget this year doesn't include any additional cuts to health and welfare programs, the new reality means many poor Californians won't be getting additional help soon.
"We've cut a lot of benefits in the past few years, and we know that, unfortunately, a lot of those benefits aren't coming back," said Michael Herald, legislative advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Sacramento, which advocates for low-income Californians.
Rebounding from recession
Brown acknowledged as much during his Thursday speech, saying, "It is cruel to lead people on by expanding good programs, only to cut them back when the funding disappears. That is not progress; it is not even progressive. It is illusion. That stop and go, boom and bust, serves no one. We are not going back there."
Stephen Levy, an economist who directs the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, said: "We are still rebuilding from a very deep recession. Our ability to put back money into health and welfare will depend on the success of the economy."
Should the economy pick up, Levy said, "I suspect that there will be some rebuilding of those programs, but (the health programs) are not going to go back to the levels they were, simply because the caseload and the costs will continue to rise. It's a health-care-cost and aging-population new reality."
While Brown wouldn't commit to patching the holes torn in the public's safety net, he did support big projects such as his plan to build tunnels to ship water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. He compared the cost of the water proposal to the London Olympics, which "lasted a short while and cost $14 billion. But this project will serve California for hundreds of years."
Still, some Democrats in the Legislature hold out hope of squeezing some additional funds for the poor from this economic uptick.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said that if there is any new revenue, one-third of it should go to paying down the state's debt, another third toward a rainy day fund, and the remaining third to backfilling social service and education programs that have been cut.
"The poor have taken the harshest cuts over the past few years," Steinberg said.
Aiding low-income students
Brown is eyeing a different way to aid the poor. He's proposing changing how public education is funded in California by redirecting "supplemental funds," as he calls them, to low-income districts.
"Equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not justice," Brown said.
Ann O'Leary, who advocates for children and families at the Center for the Next Generation in San Francisco, applauded Brown's proposal for helping low-income students.
But in California's new economic reality, "There are two pieces of that puzzle," said O'Leary, who is vice president at the Center. California also needs to expand its social safety net, "and he didn't take that step."
Republican Assembly Leader Connie Conway, R-Tulare, liked Brown's focus on fiscal responsibility, which had him "channeling his inner Republican," she said.
Then again, the optimism of any State of the State speech usually doesn't have a long shelf life.
"Everybody is upbeat and positive today," Conway said on the floor of the Assembly after Brown's speech. "But then reality gets in the way down the road."Imagine if ABC’s news shows covered the videos exposing Planned Parenthood 15 times more than they actually did. But, to ABC executives, a taxpayer-funded abortion giant harvesting aborted baby parts doesn’t warrant the same attention as the shooting of Cecil the Lion.
Since the release of the first Center for Medical Progress video on July 14, ABC covered the story in a mere 46 seconds. In contrast, ABC spent 12 minutes and 14 seconds on the story of Cecil, a famed African lion shot by an American dentist.
In other words, ABC covered Cecil 15 times more (almost 16 times more!) than the trafficking of baby parts by Planned Parenthood.
Not since July 16 has ABC glanced at the Planned Parenthood videos, which means the network completely censored the second video out July 21, the third video unveiled July 28, and the fourth video released July 30.
Since Tuesday night, every broadcast news show from ABC, NBC and CBS has poured minutes into the story about Cecil. Not so for the videos exposing Planned Parenthood.
During Good Morning America on July 31, ABC touted an “exclusive” about Cecil with an interview with an accompanying hunter’s lawyer. “Now it’s the dentist being hunted,” correspondent David Wright commented, “if only they could find him.”
Past ABC coverage included ABC co-anchor Lara Spencer highlighting the “very disturbing story” with “international outrage” on July 29 to conclude, “There are no words.”
While broadcast news shows covered Cecil the lion more in one day than they spent on the Planned Parenthood videos in two weeks, CBS and NBC did cover Planned Parenthood after the release of the fourth video.
Here’s the breakdown of time by network on Cecil:
ABC: 12 minutes, 14 seconds NBC: 16 minutes, 54 seconds CBS: 13 minutes, 51 seconds
Here’s the breakdown of time by network on the Planned Parenthood videos:
ABC: 46 seconds NBC: 5 minutes, 12 seconds CBS: 12 minutes, 4 seconds
In all, the networks have spent 42 minutes, 59 seconds on Cecil the Lion and 18 minutes, 2 seconds for Planned Parenthood videos.
Again, this is the death of one lion versus countless babies being sorted and picked apart.
According to MRC Latino, neither of the nation's leading Spanish-language television networks, Univision and Telemundo, have devoted any air time in their national morning and evening newscasts to the ongoing Planned Parenthood scandal.
Other Cecil Coverage
Aside from the network news, others chimed in on Cecil, from a teary-eyed Jimmy Kimmel to PETA’s death threat. “He needs to be extradited, charged, and, preferably, hanged,” the animal-rights group’s press release read.
British journalist Piers Morgan went one step further, saying, “I will sell tickets for $50,000 to anyone who wants to come with me and track down fat, greedy, selfish, murderous businessmen like Dr Palmer,” Morgan wrote, before adding “Then we’d calmly walk over, skin him alive, cut his head from his neck, and took [sic] a bunch of photos of us all grinning inanely at his quivering flesh.”
The History: Planned Parenthood and Network Bias
After CMP released its first video, the liberal media raced to defend Planned Parenthood. In the first 9 hours and 30 minutes of news shows broadcast after the story broke, ABC, NBC and CBS, spent only 39 seconds on the first video. It took more than 24 hours before all three covered the story. In the week after the first video, the networks gave a mere 9 minutes and 11 seconds to the story (in contrast, the networks devoted more than three times that to the Susan G. Komen controversy, when the charity temporarily decided to defund the abortion giant).
Back to ABC, the network acted as if a threat posed to sharks by a beauty pageant contestant was twice as important as the Planned Parenthood story.
Similarly, the media stayed silent on the case of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Gosnell's trial, in which witnesses described baby abortion survivors “swimming" in toilets “to get out,” attracted a scant 12 – 15 reporters. Only after 56 days, multiple letters from members of the House of Representatives and a public outcry, did all three broadcast networks report on Gosnell.The Jacksonville Jaguars made a handful of moves during the 2016 free agency period, and none were more intriguing (and necessary, in my opinion) than the signing of former Cleveland Browns free safety Tashaun Gipson.
Signed to be the "franchise free safety" Gipson comes to Jacksonville as head coach Gus Bradley's new prized possession -- the hole in the secondary that has been left void for Bradley's three seasons in Jacksonville has finally been filled.
A reason for us all to be hyped that Gipson has filled the void at free safety? He has recorded 14 interceptions in four seasons. Can you guess how many interceptions the Jaguars have recorded from the free safety position over Bradley's three years as head coach?
One -- one interception by a Jaguars free safety since Gus Bradley took over as head coach, by Sherrod Martin in 2014, according to ESPN.
Here enters nerdy, wanna-be math genius Zach -- Tashaun Gipson has quattuordecuple (yes, this is the actual Latin word for 14 times) the interceptions that the Jaguars mix of free safeties have had combined since 2013, and that's with only one extra season, as 2012 was Gipson's rookie season.
FILM ROOM: Tashaun Gipson Over time, Tashaun Gipson worked to establish himself as a leader of the Browns defense. What can he accomplish at free safety in Jacksonville?
After the free agency period finally came to a rest, I had a chance to hold an interview with Tashaun Gipson, and he is just the man we heard and saw during his introductory press conference -- poised, yet humble; enthusiastic, yet cool, calm, and collected; a leader and respectful man who brings so much more than just talent on the football field to Jacksonville.
Big Cat Country: What made Jacksonville so attractive during the free agency period, from both a football and a lifestyle perspective?
Tashaun Gipson: Jacksonville was on a lot of guys' [free agents] radar and when you look back you can see why -- it's a wonderful, beautiful city, and everyone wants to come to Florida. I did my homework and I see where this organization is going with Mr. Caldwell. It's a first class organization that's on the turnaround. I believe the Jaguars are over the hump when it comes to the team rebuild, and I'm excited to be on board.
BCC: You signed a five year, $36 million contract to dress in black and teal on Sundays'. Did any other team's offer you that kind of contract? If so, what made Jacksonville the better option?
Gipson: We had talked to Philadelphia [Eagles], Pittsburgh [Steelers], Tennessee [Titans], and San Diego [Chargers] throughout the process, and all of the [contract] numbers became very similar and that's when I asked myself, "Where do I want to call home for the next four or five years?" And when it came down to it, Jacksonville made me feel the most wanted.
It wasn't even all about the dollar signs because we had opportunities to go with other teams and I'd become a very rich young man, but Jacksonville just felt right. They made me feel needed and wanted, like the recruiting process all over again -- making me want to bring that swagger here.
BCC: In 2012, you went undrafted and signed a deal as an undrafted free agent with Cleveland. Four years later, you're one of the highest paid safeties in the league, you have a Pro Bowl on your resume, and have even been selected by your former Browns' teammates as one of the top 100 players in the NFL. How surreal is all of this to you, considering you went undrafted?
Gipson: I will say this is all really surreal, looking back on my journey of making it to the NFL, it was just one of those deals where I never would have been able to imagine and been able to fathom this in my mind. It's not that I have ever doubted myself or my skill set, but I just know the reality of going from being an undrafted guy and let alone go to a Pro Bowl and being named one of the top 100 in just three years after going undrafted.
It's all very surreal and I even tell everybody it's an uphill battle and I personally don't think I've even played my best football yet, so I'm excited to see this thing go next season.
BCC: Do you believe that you fit the mold for the team's "franchise free safety" as head coach Gus Bradley and general manager Dave Caldwell label it?
Gipson: Absolutely. This role in this defense is what I predicate my game off of, and if you look at this defense it suits me well, which made Jacksonville an even more attractive option. Not only did I sign a big contract, not only is this a beautiful town, not only is this a great organization, but the scheme fits me perfectly.
One of the things I pride myself in is that I am a see-ball, get-ball football player, and if I get the ball, I'm gonna catch it, and that's what Coach Bradley wants from me. You know, he said that the team isn't going to ask me to do anything that is not Tashaun Gipson, and I just feel that this is the place for me, that I fit the mold.
BCC: What do you bring to the Jaguars from a leadership perspective?
Gipson: A lot of people say, "Man, you came from Cleveland, you know, winning wasn't part of the culture" but I've been around a bunch of great leaders. D'Qwell Jackson took me under his wing in Cleveland and guys like him and Karlos Dansby and Donte Whitner are born leaders and have helped me along in my NFL journey who have developed me into a leader as well. I've learned as an undrafted player that nothing is handed to me and I have to work for what I've got and I'll bring that mentality to the Jaguars locker room.
BCC: Throughout your years in Cleveland, you had times where you were limited by injuries. Would you consider yourself to be fully recovered from what appeared to be nagging injuries?
Gipson: Absolutely, I think if you look back at it my MCL injury in 2014 wasn't fully healed until I got to training camp and when I started to practice I had a small hamstring problem and a high ankle sprain. However, I think I'm well rested and I know I'm fully recovered, cleared to practice and I have a full offseason of training ahead of me for the first time and I feel really, really good.
BCC: At what age did you find football to be your passion?
Gipson: I would say, which is crazy, is that I discovered football to be my passion in my junior year of high school because my father sat me down and told me I need to choose one sport to focus on -- basketball or football, and that's when I realized how much football meant to me. Football was already embedded in me, I started playing when I was six years old, but it took that drive from that talk with my dad to realize that my passion is football.
BCC: Who were your football role models growing up? Do you shape the way you play the game of football after any player who roamed the field before you?
Gipson: I truly admire two guys from the NFL, I grew up watching Ed Reed and the way he attacked the ball and I have so much respect for his game, and another current player is Jarius Byrd, the Saints safety, he's a turnover machine and you've just got to respect his game.
However, the guy who I shape my game after the most is my older brother Marcell Gipson, we played college football together -- he started at one corner[back] and I started the other. I always wanted to play the game like he did, and I always thought, "Man if I could be better than him than I know I'll make it." I just always looked up to him.
BCC: Now that you are in Jacksonville, are you happy you live this close to the beach?
Gipson: Man, before this offseason I had never even been to the beach. I finally went after I signed with Jacksonville, you know, they had me stay at a nice hotel on the beach and I told myself, "I could get used to this." I don't want the people in Cleveland to hate me but I told myself after I signed how great it is to not have to play in 20 degree weather and snow. It'll be nice to play in Jacksonville in December, in the winter, and know that it'll still be 72 degrees outside.
BCC: Although your job as an NFL player is huge, being a father is always a priority. What is it like raising two kids, Nala and Tashaun Jr., on such a busy schedule by playing football?
Gipson: Those kids keep me going, they're truly my motivation and nothing can contest to how much of a blessing they are. I had my son in my senior year of college and it just put a lot of things in perspective for me as a man and I know I need to provide them the best life possible.
I try to be the best role model and to lead by example for them, even when I have a bad day or bad game, I know God blessed me with those kids and they get me through it all, I love them to death.
BCC: Numerous sports writers, websites, NFL experts, etc... are calling the Jaguars "a team to watch for in 2016" and "a team that's on the rise". How does it feel to be in an environment where the nation is starting to set high expectations?
Gipson: I think that this recognition is well overdue. On paper, this team looks amazing and that's going to put a lot of pressure on this team. We have all of the parts, we have key guys at key positions, plus guys coming back from injuries in Dante Fowler Jr. and Sen'Derrick Marks, we've had a great offseason in free agency, as well as the draft ahead of us, we can pull in even more talent through the draft.
We have a stellar offense, we're building a great defense and I relish this feeling and excitement. How could you not? I want people to know we're coming -- the Jacksonville Jaguars are serious this year.
BCC: Last question: Based off of this team's emergence as a top offense in the NFL, combined with the additions made to the defense and the leadership of the team, are you setting any expectations for how far the Jaguars should go this season?
Gipson: I came here to win football games and I'm all for putting in the work and doing whatever it takes to win. Everyone's got their expectations and for me, I want to be playing meaningful games in November and December because that's when the playoff hunt is on, and I want to be playing games in January, in the playoffs.
I'm not gonna say, "I want to win 10 games this year." I can't control that. But I do want to play meaningful games down the stretch near the end of the season, because that means we've done our jobs to secure games in January. My expectations are soaring through the roof and I hope the fans in Duval share the same enthusiasm as I do.
Read more about how Tashaun Gipson fits into the Jaguars' defensive scheme here.Basil Borutski was a man who liked to enumerate his enemies.
Neighbours said Borutski once posted a handwritten sign on his property on Round Lake Road that listed the names of those forbidden to set foot on his property. The house burned down under mysterious circumstances in 2011 during Borutski’s acrimonious divorce from his wife, Mary Ann.
Neighbour John Dixon once counted 27 signs posted on the Borutski property that warned people off his land. At least one contained a threat to shoot intruders. Another named individuals who were to stay away.
“One sign did have a long list of people, but he had 27 of them (signs) stuck into snowbanks all around his entranceway. I went out and counted them. I couldn’t believe it,” said Dixon, who lives directly across Round Lake Road from Borutski’s former home.
“They were all negative, things like ‘Keep Out,’ and ‘Stay Out,’ (and) ‘My Dog Has A.45-Calibre Bite,’ ” he said.
“There was a list of names of people that were not allowed on the property. I believe one was his wife, and somebody else told me there were three OPP there.”
Jeff Stewart, manager of the Round Lake Centre Food Market, said the sign with its list of names went up on the Borutski property four or five years ago. A big white corrugated plastic sign was nailed to a hydro pole by the road, and names were handwritten on it.
He and his wife checked it once in case their names were on the list. “We went down and took a peep. Our names weren’t on it so we were OK. There were at least, oh, close to 20 names on that sign.”
Though he doesn’t remember the wording of the sign, “it was definitely threats … It was definitely a threat directed at the people on the sign.”
He knows some were police officers because their ranks were listed. And he remembers many of the local detachment — the OPP in Killaloe — were listed. When he saw the number of names, Stewart said, he thought, “This guy’s got it in for everybody.”
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Stewart said he never had any real problem with Borutski, but checked the sign just to be sure there was no ill will.
“He (Borutski) was in the store several times and we knew who he was. We had to tread with itsy bitsy steps. We didn’t want to tee him off in any way.”
When real estate agent Doris Murray saw the property with Borutski’s ex-wife after the fire in January 2011, the sign was down. However, she recalled seeing a two-foot-by-two-foot white sign stashed in the garage. “I told her to get rid of it or we would never sell the property,” Murray said she told Mary Ann Borutski.
There are other indications Borutski kept careful track of those he didn’t like. Ottawa lawyer Richard Morris said he was warned by the prosecutor’s office that Borutski may be unhappy with him after police investigated an alleged 2012 assault against Nathalie Warmerdam.
As police hunted for Borutski on Tuesday, police locked down the downtown Ottawa office of Morris’s law firm and the school his children attend and moved his wife to a safe place.
“It was pretty non-specific, threatening language from two years ago and the police got involved because they were taking no chances,” said Morris.
Morris served as Borutski’s lawyer when he was sentenced in December 2012 to 150 days in jail after pleading guilty to several charges related to Warmerdam. Among other things, Borutski admitted to threatening to harm her son, threatening to kill an animal and breaking a mirror.
Borutski also admitted to assaulting an OPP officer and a relative. With credit for time served, Borutski had 33 days in the sentence.
During the investigation of Tuesday’s triple homicide, police found documents in the home of victim Anastasia Kuzyk that led them to another one of the crime scenes.
Jim McClement, who once helped Borutski by letting him live in a run-down farmhouse across from his mechanic shop, said he too was warned he could be a target. A friend of Borutski told him Borutski had a beef with him, although he wasn’t sure why.
McClement said he believed the sign in front of Borutski’s house was in response to an impaired driving charge the accused killer faced in 2010.
“They (police) raked him over the coals and a bunch of stuff so he had a whole list of people who weren’t allowed on the property,” McClement said.
Borutski faces three charges of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Kuzyk, Warmerdam and Carol Culleton, all women with whom he had had relationships.
— With files from Meghan HurleyThe board game space is expanding at a rapid pace, and there's still plenty of room for popular licensed IP. That goes for Saban's Power Rangers, which recently received a live-action reboot, and is more than due for a tabletop adaptation. The Power Rangers are primed for a tabletop debut. The series has loads of characters, Zords, enemies, and eras to choose from, and the on-screen action can take the form of miniatures, cards, dice, meeples, or pretty much any other mechanic you can think of. Now, it is true that the reboot did not light the box office on fire, though it did get a positive reception from fans and critics. Still, the beauty of the Power Rangers is that their popularity extends beyond just one avenue. The television series continues to thrive, including a brand new one this year called Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel. The toy lines are also some of the most popular (and profitable) toys on the market and in the comics BOOM! Studios has added another ongoing series to its Power Rangers universe for launch later this year. All said the franchise is doing quite well, so now the question becomes who's going to do it? All said the franchise is doing quite well, so now the question becomes who's going to make the game? That would fall to the talented crew over at Cool Mini Or Not (CMON for short). For those who have played their games, you know their visuals are second to none, and they have a penchant for developing systems for cooperative gameplay. Not only that, but their miniatures sculpts are stellar, and can either come in more realistic styles like those seen in Zombicide or more chibi styles like those in Arcadia Quest. Hit the next slide to see what storyline will bring this all together. (Photo: Saban)
Slide 1/4 – The Premise So for inspiration, the game will pull from a few sources, including the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as well as Zeo, Turbo, and the movies. This is the first game in the series though, so you have to start with Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd. Rita and Zedd have found a way to reach through time and space to pluck some of the deadliest enemies the Rangers have ever faced and brought them to the present. That includes notable names like Koragg (Power Rangers Mystic Force), Ivan Ooze (Power Rangers Movie), Lord Drakkon (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers comics), Astronema (Power Rangers In Space), and more. This being Rita, these generals will lead an army made up of smaller fodder consisting of notable monsters like King Sphinx and Pudgy Pig and soldiers like Goldar and Scorpina. It will be an invasion that will demand the Rangers and Zordon pull out all the stops, including an upgrade to the Thunderzords and recruiting some help from their future forms as well.
Slide 2/4 – The Gameplay The game will have 1 to 6 players take control of the original 5 Power Rangers, including a Kickstarter exclusive of the Green Ranger. Each player takes control of a Ranger and pulls a random objective card. Each player takes control of a Ranger, who all have various special abilities that speak to their personality. Each player then pulls a random objective card. Players can attack their individual objectives in any order but will need to get all of them done before they can take on one of the major generals, which will also be pulled a random. At the beginning of every round, a draft of new enemies will be put on the board, mostly consisting of putties, but you can also pull bigger threats like Goldar and Scorpina. As players make their way through the objectives, you'll have the chance to pull ability cards that will let you take additional actions, including calling in your Zords. You can also once each round purchase select cards from Zordon, but this mechanic will only last until you get to the scenario's general, so you need to prepare for later battles early and often. This includes getting needed extra abilities for Megazord, which will help you in the final battle. Once you all complete your objectives you will enter the next phase of the game, taking on the general and their minions in a larger scale fight. Once that is complete the randomly chosen main Boss will appear, who has a character card illustrating his reactions and movements. At a random point in the battle, he or she will take on a more powerful form, and while you can attempt to battle him without your Zords, it isn't recommended. This is where your Zord cards come into play. Some players might have access to them while others won't, and it will limit what you can do in battle. If you all have a Zord card in hand you can form the Megazord, allowing you access to an increased power set. Once the villain is beaten the scenario is over, but the game can be played in a campaign like fashion with story elements tying it all together if you've got time.Geographical Index > United States > Oregon >
Tillamook County > Report # 13653 Report # 13653 (Class A)
Submitted by witness on Wednesday, January 25, 2006. Dusk sighting by a US Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer on the beach south of Tillamook (Show Printer-friendly Version) YEAR: 1995 SEASON: Summer MONTH: August DATE: 14 STATE: Oregon COUNTY: Tillamook County LOCATION DETAILS: [Removed from report] NEAREST TOWN: Tillamook NEAREST ROAD: 101 OBSERVED: Back several years ago, I reported this sighting to Peter Byrne, who took it very seriously. I agreed to talk on camera, to "Good Morning America" back in 1996. My conditions were that only my voice would be used, and not my name. They interviewed me, but then showed me completely. I felt betrayed by "Good Morning America".
I and my |
theorized by Bowlby. They range from individual therapy to public health programmes to interventions designed for foster caregivers. For infants and younger children, the focus is on increasing the responsiveness and sensitivity of the caregiver, or if that is not possible, placing the child with a different caregiver.[191] An assessment of the attachment status or caregiving responses of the caregiver is invariably included, as attachment is a two-way process involving attachment behaviour and caregiver response. Some programmes are aimed at foster carers because the attachment behaviours of infants or children with attachment difficulties often do not elicit appropriate caregiver responses. Modern prevention and intervention programmes have proven successful.[192]
Reactive attachment disorder and attachment disorder [ edit ]
One atypical attachment pattern is considered to be an actual disorder, known as reactive attachment disorder or RAD, which is a recognized psychiatric diagnosis (ICD-10 F94.1/2 and DSM-IV-TR 313.89). Against common misconception, this is not the same as 'disorganized attachment'. The essential feature of reactive attachment disorder is markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate social relatedness in most contexts that begins before age five years, associated with gross pathological care. There are two subtypes, one reflecting a disinhibited attachment pattern, the other an inhibited pattern. RAD is not a description of insecure attachment styles, however problematic those styles may be; instead, it denotes a lack of age-appropriate attachment behaviours that may appear to resemble a clinical disorder.[193] Although the term "reactive attachment disorder" is now popularly applied to perceived behavioural difficulties that fall outside the DSM or ICD criteria, particularly on the Web and in connection with the pseudo-scientific attachment therapy, "true" RAD is thought to be rare.[194]
"Attachment disorder" is an ambiguous term, which may be used to refer to reactive attachment disorder or to the more problematical insecure attachment styles (although none of these are clinical disorders). It may also be used to refer to proposed new classification systems put forward by theorists in the field, and is used within attachment therapy as a form of unvalidated diagnosis.[194] One of the proposed new classifications, "secure base distortion" has been found to be associated with caregiver traumatization.[196]
Clinical practice in adults and families [ edit ]
As attachment theory offers a broad, far-reaching view of human functioning, it can enrich a therapist's understanding of patients and the therapeutic relationship rather than dictate a particular form of treatment.[197] Some forms of psychoanalysis-based therapy for adults—within relational psychoanalysis and other approaches—also incorporate attachment theory and patterns.[197][198]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Arthur Allen is eHealth editor at POLITICO.
In late 1942, German troops were dying of typhus at the Eastern Front, and the SS medical chief Ernst-Robert Grawitz was impatient for vaccine—as was Heinrich Himmler himself. Typhus terrified the Nazis more than the allied armies did at the time. Nazi ideology had identified typhus, which is spread by lice, as a disease characteristic of parasitic, subhuman people—the Jews—and the Nazi medical profession was taking outrageous measures ostensibly to combat it. This included walling in or closing off Jewish ghettos in cities like Warsaw, Krakow and Lviv, assuring that the disease would indeed spread widely among Jews. That result didn’t bother the Nazis in the least. They had no concern about typhus and its terrifying burden of pain, high fever, psychosis and death—not until the germ began afflicting the German forces locked in battle with the Russians.
But the vaccine production plans of Joachim Mrugowsky, the head of the SS Hygiene Institute in Berlin, kept getting delayed. When British bombers destroyed Mrugowsky’s headquarters in 1942, he decided to produce the vaccine at Buchenwald, thinking that allied bombs would not fall there. Jewish inmates of the concentration camp—those whom the Nazis condemned to death as mere human lice—would be employed to manufacture it, thereby saving the German troops at the front.
Story Continued Below
The question was: What kind of vaccine should they make? Rudolf Weigl, a famous zoologist credited with creating the first effective typhus vaccine, was employing thousands of Poles in the city of Lviv (Lemberg, the Germans called it; the Polish name was Lwow) in the production of a vaccine made from typhus germs that grew in the intestines of lice after they had fed on human blood. Weigl’s product was approved for the Wehrmacht, but there was no way to create a louse farm at Buchenwald. It would mean introducing millions of lice into a concentration camp, and the SS were terrified of lice. Another approved method—a vaccine produced in chicken eggs— was also impossible at Buchenwald. German civilians, let alone concentration camp inmates, could not be trusted around chickens or their eggs.
So on Dec. 11, 1942, Mrugowsky decided to produce a third type of typhus vaccine, which French scientist Paul Giroud and others had developed at the Pasteur Institute. The vaccine was produced from typhus bacteria grown in the lungs of immune-compromised rabbits. “This vaccine has been tested among concentration camp inmates with excellent results,” Mrugowsky wrote in a memo. Dr. Erwin Ding-Schuler, an ambitious but callow Nazi officer and Mrugowsky’s deputy, was chosen to lead production, and began assembling captive scientists with the help of his new clerk, an imprisoned German intellectual named Eugen Kogon. Among those drafted was a gentle Jewish biologist named Ludwik Fleck, who was a former assistant of Dr. Weigl whom Weigl had protected during the Nazi occupation of Lviv.
Dr. Ludwik Fleck, the Jewish biologist who master-minded the vaccine scheme in Buchenwald. | Credit: Archiv fur Zeitgeschichte, Zurich
Thus began one of the most effective but least-known deceptions of World War II, one that is wondrously thick with irony: For 16 months, working under the noses of his clueless Nazi overseers—in particular Ding-Schuler, whom Fleck described as a “ dummkopf”—a Jewish doctor managed to send fake typhus vaccine to the Nazi soldiers at the front, even as he provided the real thing to inoculate his fellow condemned Jews in a concentration camp.
***
The deception began on Aug. 10, 1943, when Ding-Schuler and Kogon moved themselves into Block 50, a three-story masonry building at Buchenwald. Block 50 stood half a mile down the hill on the mud road from the camp entrance, in the last row of buildings within the central grounds. From the windows of Block 50, the inmates could peer across a triple line of barbed wire into the notorious Little Camp, where the most hopeless among the concentration camp inmates were brought to die, or to be shipped out to terrible work details where they perished of starvation, disease and exposure.
Staffing the vaccine laboratory seemed to be quite easy. There were plenty of doctors at Buchenwald, and others who’d posed as doctors to save their skins or to follow the directives of the camp leadership. (“I had a foot injury and was operated on by a mechanic and a butcher,” one inmate remarked.) Willy Jellinek, a bright young Austrian pastry chef known as Jumbo, was in charge of the tubercular ward for a while and helped write the SS doctor Waldemar Hoven’s dissertation on lung disease for the University of Heidelberg. Jellinek came to Block 50 to prepare culture broths for the vaccine. August Cohn, a charismatic former communist labor leader, was rescued from a death sentence and put in charge of the rabbits. Ding-Schuler found a doctor with some infectious disease experience, the 36-year-old Marian Ciepielowski, to lead the vaccine production team. Ciepielowski had spent his first year at Buchenwald working with pick and shovel on a road detail. “Every day, dozens of people around me were suffocated, clubbed, stoned and shot to death, and we were all mistreated sadistically,” Ciepielowski wrote later. Handsome and blue-eyed with a well-defined widow’s peak, Ciepielowski was extremely crafty when it came to sabotage. Other inmates remarked upon his sangfroid. He was also a dedicated physician and treated many of the experimental typhus patients in Block 46.
But making the vaccine was hard—much harder than the Nazis would ever realize. In fact, Ding-Schuler from the beginning was wrestling with problems well beyond his understanding. Leading microbiologists had found it terribly difficult to produce the vaccine at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Now, Ding-Schuler was trying to do it with a group that included a baker, a physicist, a politician and a gym coach.
Even in the best of circumstances, making vaccines is a very subtle trial-and-error process, one that requires deep specialized knowledge and years of hand-to-hand training. When producing a vaccine, each step in the process might need to be altered at the same time to accommodate a particular change in the production method. For example, the Rockefeller Institute scientists who developed the yellow fever vaccine in the 1930s found that after a certain number of passages—that is, after the virus had grown in a particular sequence of animal-flesh cultures—for some reason it became weakened enough to be injected into people in a way that provided immunity but not disease. The Nazi medical bureaucracy, of course, had not considered such challenges. Ding-Schuler pressed the prisoners as soon as they set up Block 50 to produce something. He wanted tangible results.
Ding-Schuler would get results, but not what he expected. The Block 50 crew worked from a 70-page German instruction manual, apparently translated from Pasteur Institute papers. The recipe was not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for the anti-vivisectionist—it involved transmitting the typhus bacteria through four different animals.
Normally, typhus germs grow only in lice and people. To get them to grow outside those species, the germs had to be modified by serial passage through animals—a rather mysterious process, but the only way, at the time, to produce the flourishing typhus cultures required to make a vaccine.
Lice cages on a subject's leg. | Credit: Emil-von-Behring Bibliothek, Philipps-Universität Marburg
First, blood was injected into guinea pigs after being taken from feverish Block 46 “passage people”—inmates whom Ding-Schuler had purposely infected with typhus so they could serve as reservoirs for the experimental bacteria. When the guinea pigs were infected, technicians ground up their brains or testes, where for some reason the bacteria grew well. After removing most of the host tissue, the remaining liquid was injected into mice. After they sickened, the mice were killed and their lungs ground up and diluted into solutions used to infect the rabbits. These creatures, pure-blood Angoras and mixed chinchilla breeds, were infected at five months of age by stabbing a thick needle through their necks into the tracheal tube.This article is over 4 years old
The US National Security Agency began tapping into North Korean computer networks in 2010, an effort that ultimately helped provide evidence that Pyongyang was behind the cyber attack on Sony Pictures, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Citing former US and foreign officials and an NSA document, the Times said the spy agency was able to penetrate North Korean systems with the help of South Korea and other allies after first tapping into Chinese networks that connect North Korea to the rest of the world.
The newspaper quoted officials as saying the program grew into an effort to place malware that could track many networks and computers used by hackers in North Korea.
Such activity proved crucial in persuading President Barack Obama to implicate the North Koreans in the Sony attack, the officials told the paper.
It was the first time the US directly accused another country of a cyber-attack of such magnitude on American soil.
Obama “had no doubt” in this case, a senior US military official told the Times.
North Korea has described the accusation as “groundless slander”.
Sony’s network was crippled by hackers in November as the company prepared to release The Interview, a comedy about a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The attack was followed by online leaks of unreleased movies and emails that caused embarrassment to executives and Hollywood personalities.
US officials could not immediately be reached for comment.A Better America
As dictated by the American Secession Society Head Official and Leading Executive,
Karl K. Kasper
Transcribed by Punch Bowl Sophomore Dan Gillis
This country is going down the shit hole, but I didn’t have to tell you that. You saw the election results. Hell, you’re probably one of the godless heathens who chose to ruin this glorious Freedomland of ours. Too many people voted without thinking about the far reaching consequences of their actions. It’s a sad day, indeed, when our people decide that continuing to send welfare checks to the Oval Office for another four years is more important than the welfare of this country. Government officials talk about trying to help the poor, but they know damn well that they will never be too successful to piggyback on Uncle Sam’s declining, moribund shoulders. For example, it’s a commonly known fact that our government spends way too much on bullshit programs year after year. Thanks to the idiot majority in this country (and voter fraud, fingers crossed), the rich will now be taxed to the point where they too will need government assistance. And you know this “government” is just going to frivolously spend this new income like they’re drunkenly stuffing hundred dollar bills into a stripper’s thong, in order to support their liberal-fascist causes. That’s what happens when you elect imbeciles. Everyone knows the only way to get rid of debt is to reduce revenue, not raise it.
Fortunately, thousands of Americans have decided to rise to the occasion and help claw our way out of this godforsaken political quagmire. Our first patriots protested a lack of representation. Now in honor of those rich, self-interested aristocrats we continue to fight for our freedom by protesting the results of an election we lost fair-and-square. We’ve tried and failed to fix this country legitimately. It’s time for something radical. A revolution was our first choice. Unfortunately, thanks to all those gun “control” laws, we lack the firepower to successfully carry that out. Instead, we must turn to our next best option: the almighty petition.
It began with one great citizen from Louisiana. Watching the election slip away from the Republicans, Michael E. from Slidell knew there was still a country that needed his saving, even though it didn’t know how to properly ask. He did what any angry man would do: he went straight to the White House (website) to complain. Once there, he realized that our government can easily ignore one man, but it couldn’t sweep aside several dozen. So he created a petition, eloquently calling for our political leaders to “Peacefully grant the State of Louisiana to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.” This bold message and EMPHATIC USE OF CAPITALIZATION didn’t go unnoticed for long. Thousands of people have signed the petition, and every state – I mean every goddamned state – including communist strongholds like California and New York, has created their own version, realizing the only way out is, well, out. So far, Texas valiantly leads the charge. Over 100,000 people have signed the petition supporting its secession. That’s nearly an incredible 0.4% of the Texan population! If our government continues to let the whims of minorities dictate the actions of this country, then you can say goodbye to the Lone Star State within the next couple of weeks.
Listen, I come from a place with family values. A place where human rights apply only to humans. A place where abortion is the man’s right, not the woman’s. A place where we’ll give the death penalty for any crime just because we want that new electric chair to be a worthwhile investment. All we want is to live in a land where there will always be someone worse off than any heterosexual, white man. But, by the time the next four years are over, this beautiful society will have completely collapsed. I can’t stand to see all the peoples that my forefathers had worked so hard to oppress frolicking around with their freedom. The idea that two men could kiss each other in matrimony in the same sacred spot where our preacher molested all the choir boys makes me sick to my stomach. And the mosques! If we don’t put a stop to this now, there will be a mosque on every corner. How are concerned Christians supposed to spread malicious lies about Muslims, when there are more and more real Muslims around helping to combat those lies! We didn’t vote for this, and you can bet your ass that we will sign any petition you give us, so long as we don’t have to read it and don’t have to sign on game day.
All I ask is that you sign the petitions too. You don’t even need to be from these states. I know you liberals want us out just as much as we want to leave. It’s time for the real Americans to show their patriotism. If you actually loved this country, you too would be willing to leave forever just because democracy won.
AdvertisementsSAMOHI ‚Äî Hundreds of students, community members and others surrounded Santa Monica High School in a “chain of unity” Monday morning to counter a handful of protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church.
The event remained peaceful, with students holding signs and wearing T-shirts with slogans like “2 4 6 8 We teach our children not to hate” and “Jesus had 2 dads” in response to the church members‚Äô signs declaring the end of America and their deity‚Äôs hatred of homosexuals.
At least 500 students and members of the community lined up on the north side of Pico Boulevard, directly across the street from the handful of Westboro Baptist Church protesters who set up shop on the southern side of Pico where it intersects with Sixth Street.
At least 25 Santa Monica police officers attended on foot, on motorcycle and in squad cars to ensure that the protest went peacefully and that both sides followed the law.
Samohi Gay Straight Alliance leaders were pleased with the turnout, which stretched along the sidewalk at Pico Boulevard and around the corner on Michigan Avenue.
“We‚Äôre trying to turn something negative into something positive,” said Ruhi Bhallu, a junior at Samohi and co-president of the GSA.
Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church spokesperson Stephen Drain remained undeterred.
“God doesn‚Äôt rule by majority,” Drain said, and quoted a passage from the Bible that condemns homosexuality.
The protest wrapped up by 7:45 a.m. without incident. Students cheered at the receding backs of the Westboro Baptist Church members.
The church members, in town primarily to protest the Academy Awards, declared their intention to picket outside of the high school two weeks ago.
The organization has made a name for itself by going to high-profile locations like military funerals and glitzy events like the Oscars to express their conservative point of view.
The announcement galvanized the high school’s Gay Straight Alliance, which spent the intervening two weeks organizing the peaceful counter protest and discussions to be held each period in English classes.
Community members, school and district administrators and elected officials also attended the event to support the students.
“We‚Äôre proud of our students and administration for organizing this, and to the community for coming out to support it,” said Superintendent Sandra Lyon.
Judson Yaker, a Santa Monica resident, was concerned with the role that school officials and faculty played in the counter demonstration, and confronted two high school employees about signs that referenced hatred toward the Westboro Baptist Church.
He questioned whether or not teachers would have escorted a student protest which opposed homosexuality and gay marriage, or took a position that teachers disagreed with.
“I asked if they could imagine what it‚Äôs like to be a student on the other side, and the angst of not being able to speak,” Yaker said.
Roughly 175 students from New Roads, a small private school in Santa Monica, came to join the counter protest, and members of the faith community in Santa Monica, North Hollywood, Pasadena and elsewhere also gathered to lend their support to Samohi’s students.
It was difficult for some local church leaders to watch the Westboro Baptist Church members express their intentionally-antagonistic views.
“It makes me feel a variety of things to have such a divide on something that seems so basic,” said Rev. Robert English of the First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica.
Members of the faith community said that they were there not to be against Westboro, but to support students in their efforts to demonstrate support for members of the lesbian, gay and transgender community.
“We‚Äôre not going to be able to change their minds,” said Pastor Terry Allen of Trinity Lutheran Church in Pasadena.
As for Drain, he had another opinion of the clergy involved in the counterprotest.
“They‚Äôre Christians like I‚Äôm Aretha Franklin,” he said.
Whatever Westboro Baptist Church’s intentions, its presence on Monday was a boon to the high school GSA.
Organizers had raised $4,600 by 10 a.m. Monday through a fundraiser on the CrowdRise website entitled “Raise money for GSA Network in (Westboro Baptist Church‚Äôs) name!”
The Gay Straight Alliance Network is an organization that helps schools bring support and awareness to gender issues and homophobia. Counterprotestors hope to raise $6,000, or $100 for every minute the Westboro Baptist Church members protested.
ashley@www.smdp.comBusyBeach
Magic Cloth Images
Loving my new Gitzo… heavy to lug around, but wonderful to be able to get to any height.
Some scenes are just worth persevering with, this is maybe take 10, The mix of sea and sand is just right.
The Magic Cloth Photography Trick
“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers
The Magic Cloth Photography Trick is a a unique way to expose a high dynamic range scene.
When you like to avoid burning the highlights in the sky like a normal aurora display, the The Magic Cloth Photography Trick is a great accessory to carry – so convenient and inexpensive.
Hints for Magic Cloth photography
What you need:
Be sure to choose the right equipment for Neutral Density photography. A lens with a large= element is essential, I get poor results with anything smaller than 62mm filter size. The larger the lens element, the truer the cloth shadow. Lenses can be so wide, they create their own problems, such as the famous Nikkor 14-24mm. The lens is great for long exposures at night, but dark filters for day time Neutral Density photography becomes complicated.
Great features and total manual mode
Amazing live view can see auroras before humans!
Essential features can be edited with external buttons.
A little Red light on the back lets you know you are taking a shot. (nice feature in the dark) Canon pro-DSLRs are perfect for Neutral Density photography.
Nikkor 14-24mm Essential Gear Nikkor 14-24mm
ND Filter: (only if you are shooting during the day)
I prefer round filters for damp conditions.
sturdy Tripod:
I love to get low down for an interesting perspective so quickly adjusting legs are definitely great options to have on your tripod. Stabilize your tripod so it becomes heavy. Vibrations can be caused by the movement of the Magic Cloth. But, this is good practice for fine art long exposure photography.
Avoid extending the center column unless it is essential. The center column is the weak spot of the tripod.
If your tripod has a hook underneath, suspend things from it to help with better strength. Often Travel photographers carry an empty “rock bag” to put stones in to give a better stability which will hold the tripod steady – even in strong winds.
Some more Long Exposure hints…
Link
Exposures can be longer than the 30 seconds the camera will let you do. Having a Remote release (sometimes called “infra red Shutter release) will allow you to expose: as long as your battery pack allows.
Black cloth:
Choose a large cloth like a hat, or the same size black card. Should be able to completely cover the whole surface of the glass. Better to be Dark. A non-reflective colour is better. You can normally make a straight edge out of any cloth.
What to do:
Camera settings
Start with a filter or darkness for a longer exposure time, then over expose the image by 2 – 3 stops.
Shutter speed
There are benefits to using a long Shutter speed. 2-5 seconds requires a quick, but controlled action to burn the sky within a split second. 5-10 seconds lets you have a controlled exposure of the middleground.
Magic Cloth Action
In most situations I bring the cloth down with a fast action and up slowly.
Variations
Change the Action to allow several short exposures of the clouds, instead of a single medium exposure (30 seconds & over exposures only).
Spot meter for the highlights and {multiply that shutter speed by three or four|then times four to get the total exposure time.
See more Ice and Auroras on our Photo Tours.
Thanks for reading!
Check out more photography Pages:
LinkCanadians turned out by the hundreds to watch Germany beat Argentina in the World Cup final on Sunday, with many braving either a scorching sun or heavy downpour.
Supporters gathered in public spaces across the country to cheer on their teams, watching Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in extra time to claim its fourth World Cup win.
In Toronto, hundreds of sweat-drenched fans gathered downtown near the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and watched tensely as the game went through a scoreless 90 minutes.
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While many donned the striped jerseys of Argentina, Germany's supporters seemed to be greater in number and a lot more vocal.
Chants of "Germany!" and "Deutschland!" filled the air and grew louder each time either goalkeeper blocked off a shot.
"If you're German, you just cheer for every moment," said Nicole Hauvisen, who has lived in Toronto for five years.
While Germany's supporters — many with their faces painted and some shirtless — erupted into dance at the end of the match, Argentina's supporters slinkered away silently, with some declining interviews.
One man who was cheering for Argentina, Rhys Wakeham, said he thought the game was done as soon as Germany put in its single goal with just seven minutes left in the game.
"It was like hopeless," he said. "I though that was it. I though that was the end right there, when they scored... Germany's defence was just too strong."
In Montreal, several hundred people braved overcast skies for an outdoor party at Montreal's Parc Jean Drapeau, which is on the same island where the Montreal Grand Prix is held.
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Rain spat at the enthusiastic crowd gathered before two large screens before turning into a downpour as the match went into the final minutes. The mob erupted with cheers as Germany was declared the winner and then scattered amid the driving rain. Some hung around to savour the win.
Jonathan Lohe Chung, who had supported Argentina, said he didn't expect it to take so long for someone to score.
"I was expecting two or three goals in this whole game but how they played everything was pretty conservative on both sides," he said. "Great game no matter what."
In Vancouver, there were mixed feelings about Germany's win amongst the hundreds who gathered to watch the game.
"Vancouver is the city of bandwagons," said Patrick Koo. "I'm pretty sure everyone's a Germany fan now."
"I was rooting for Germany, I bet a little bit of money on them." said Craig McKimm. "I think I'll win $26 or something like that — don't tell my girlfriend though."
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In Edmonton, where sports hoopla is typically reserved for hockey or the other type of football, hundreds gathered under a baking Prairie sun to watch the final on a big screen in the city's downtown.
"I'm from Toronto and I didn't expect this much support for the World Cup in Edmonton," said Arsh Sidhu, who was wearing an Argentina jersey.
Rob Welte and his family, who were on their way back to Fort McMurray after a holiday in B.C., were also surprised to see such a large crowd.
Welte, a Germany supporter, explained that his family were such big soccer fans that they took a break from camping during their trip to drive to Kamloops to watch Germany beat France in the quarter-finals.
"This is perfect for World Cup," Welte said as he sat among the crowd in Edmonton. "You get a lot of people in public rooting for their country. It's just awesome."
With files from Steven Chua in Vancouver, Nelson Wyatt in Montreal and Rob Drinkwater in Edmonton.(Estimated Reading Time: 4 min)
I was 17.5 when my mom died…Cancer.
That was 18 years ago… more than half my life. I was a very different person back then. I couldn’t vote or drink (legally…), I hadn’t been to university, and the best job I had was working the drive-thru at Wendy’s.
When you have a dead parent, you eventually start to learn who else has a dead parent. At 17, the only other person I knew in that club was my sister.
Nowadays at 35, I know enough people in the dead parent club that we could have a mediocre party (despite the unfortunate circumstance for being on the invite list). Yet still, when I look at my peers, we’re in the minority.
So, what’s it like to be in the dead parent club?
1) It sucks
The sky is blue, and losing a parent sucks. These are facts.
There is no escaping the anguish of first watching a parent suffer physically, mentally and emotionally, and then suddenly facing your own life without them.
Is there any pain heavier than loss and grief?
Everyone reacts to their situation and sense of unfairness differently. All are appropriate reactions, especially in the phase immediately after the death. Anger, depression, pessimism, a black hole of thoughts and emotions, an impossible to imagine future…
Because, it IS unfair.
It’s no wonder that some people lose themselves after such a heavy loss and turn to alcohol, drugs, self-destruction or any other vice or state where the pain can be ignored.
As time passes, and life becomes less about surviving, the pain finds a place to bury itself inside. It pops out to say hello from time to time. Sometimes it’s to be expected – major life milestones or family gatherings. Other times, the pain is triggered, like catching the scent of freshly baked banana bread or the sight of a mom and her son at the beach. And then there are the sudden random memories, dreams, or thoughts that jump into your mind out of nowhere.
The pain is always there, even when you don’t directly feel it. When you think about it, it doesn’t take long to find it. You can call it sadness, or grief, or loss. But it needn’t a name. It’s there and it always will be
2.) It’s bizarre
Some say a “new normal” sets in after a while. While that sentiment is partly true, I’d describe it as a new reality. You come to realize with absolute clarity that life can change on a dime, and nothing can be expected. This feeling is fresh shortly after the loss, but it starts to fade over time as you settle into your next new reality and cover up parts of the past.
I lost sight of this clarity a few years after my mom died and wasn’t reminded of it until my dad died in 2015. All of the old pain came back, layered with new pain and combined with the remedial lesson that everything is impermanent.
It’s still so bizarre to know that I’m a double card-holding member of the dead parent club. Once again, I find myself in a club where my only other peer is my sister.
It doesn’t feel “normal”, and sometimes it doesn’t even feel real. As bizarre as it is, it IS my reality and there’s nothing I can do to change that.
3) It’s never ok
You don’t ever get over the death of a parent.
You move forward. Life continues to happen. You experience joy, love and happiness again. But it’s never ok that you watched your mom or dad suffer and die.
It just is, and so you remember and carry on as best you can because it’s just a matter of time before the next major crisis or challenge hits.
4) (It can be motivating)
This one goes in parenthesis because it can go either way. It doesn’t have to be motivating, but it can be.
When my dad died, it lit a fire under my ass that said I need to be more present and grateful, I need to make the most of whatever time I’ve got. At some point when I’m about to die, I’ll look back and think about what I did, how I lived, and how I feel about that.
How will I assess that? Well, I’ll look back at all the happy moments, all the people I spent time with, and all the contributions I feel like I made. I’ll consider the impact I had on others – from the small interactions to the big projects I dedicated myself to. I’ll assess what others have said about me and to me. I’ll reflect on what I’m leaving behind that will live on.
That all sounds nice, but how can that change what I am doing right now?
Here’s a practice I started shortly after my dad died… Every morning I cross the previous day off my calendar and I think about how I lived it. I consider the conversations I had, the work I did, the effort I made. I remind myself that another day in my life is gone. One less day in what may be a long or a short life.
Life is random, so my time, like yours, could be up in any moment. It almost always happens before we expect it to…
It happened to my parents. My mom was 53 and my dad was 68.
They got ripped off.
It still makes me both sad and angry.
But people die younger than them all the time. Lots of people get ripped off, and not just with death. Some people are born into extreme poverty or with a terrible disease, others are treated inhumanely because of what they look like or who they love. We lose important jobs, natural disasters happen, relationships blow up.
Life is unfair.
Sooner or later, we ALL get ripped off.
And after that, if we’re still alive, we all have a choice of how to respond.
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You’ll get a few messages per month with featured posts and recommended material. Crappy stick people art also included.Keith Olbermann rants about the president-elect, saying his behavior is not normal. He suggests boycotting Uber based on their connection to Rudy Giuliani.
He continues: "That man who was elected by a minority says he will immediately incarcerate or deport 2-3 million undocumented Americans -- which is roughly the same number of people who live in Houston, TX -- which is roughly the same number of people who are already in all of the federal, state, and county jails and all the city jails, and al the ICE detention facilities, and all the Navy brigs, and all the Army stockades combined. Which leaves no inference possible, except that he somehow means to take 2-3 million people off our streets and keep them somewhere until they can be jailed or deported. And we have to pretend that this somewhere... will not involved concentration camps. But don't worry, he's unifying the nation!"Flickr | Krista76
Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. - Oscar Wilde
An article in The New York Times last week made note of the lower mobility in the work force: "Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage." So add another to the economic woes; not only unemployment, but less mobility if you are employed.
There is less mobility in the workforce because the computers are not simply displacing jobs, they are taking out the middle. Computers are good at routine cognitive tasks in the middling white-collar range, the desk jobs, the jobs that require keeping track of things, making arithmetic calculations. They are not so good at motor tasks, the blue collar jobs that require coordination, manual dexterity and sense-of-the-world adjustments. Computers can crunch numbers but they can't drive a truck or make up a hotel room. When it comes to computers taking on human tasks, as Steven Parker notes, the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard.
Because they take out the middle, it is a lot harder to pursue the American dream by working your way up the ladder. Climbing up rung by rung, you will find a machine staring down. And it won't retire or move up the ladder to make room for you. Once in place, a retirement or promotion is not going to happen, it isn't going to be opening up a spot.
Futurists have seen this coming for along time, sort of. As automation got started, they saw robots taking over the manufacturing tasks and our day-to-day activities (serving us our dinner and the like), leaving people to do other things - leisure activities or getting jobs making the robots. Futurists always get it wrong because they take the present and multiply it by some number to get the future, and they have the essence of the issue wrong here as well. Although there are robots in industry, the biggest effect of computer technology is in the area no futurist imagined. It is not improving the production of industrial goods, it is supplying the increasing demand for virtual goods. So the picture is not one of producing what we have always produced, but doing it with less labor, it is that we now want things produced that have not been produced in the past, and those things by their nature require less labor. That is, we are meeting the computers halfway by increasing our demand for |
common symptoms.
If you are going to receive radiation therapy to the head, neck or chest (specifically, anywhere near the esophagus), Glutamine can be helpful to reduce the development of severe mucositis in these tissues.
**Did you know that honey is also a proven therapy for mucositis? Read my previous blog entry on honey and mucositis.**
Here are three commonly used regimens in the prevention of mucositis (oral, throat or esophageal) and peripheral neuropathy:
You can buy glutamine (usually in the form of L-glutamine), in powder, capsule, tablet, or liquid form. However, I recommend using the powder form of L-glutamine, and mixing it in with cold or room temperature liquids (water or juice.) It should not be added to hot beverages because heat destroys glutamine. Glutamine therapy works best if started at the time of beginning radiation therapy or chemotherapy. It will be less effective if you start this after already showing signs or symptoms of mucositis or peripheral neuropathy.
For The Prevention Of Oral mucositis (OM)
DOSE : Mix 10 grams of powdered glutamine in a small glass (6-8 ounces) of water or juice. Swish and gargle for 30-60 seconds and swallow. You can continue to do this until the 6-8 ounces are gone. Repeat every 8 hours (schedule: morning, mid-day, evening)
Start this regimen on the first day of chemotherapy and continue for 14 days after the last dose of chemotherapy in patients who do not develop OM or until 5 days after resolution of OM for patients who experienced OM.
Other recommendations: Refrain from eating or drinking for 30 minutes after dosing. Adhere to good oral hygiene practices and gently brushed their teeth twice daily, 30 minutes or more after using glutamine, using a soft toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste. Daily flossing and an alcohol-free fluoride rinse is recommended.
This is based on a study that showed a significant reduction in OM among patients using oral glutamine. These investigators used a proprietary glutamine suspension (Saforis, MGI Pharma, Inc., Bloomington, MN), which was administered at a dose of 2.5 g per 5 mL 3 times per day for a total daily dose of 7.5 g. This product reportedly is able to be better absorbed into the oral mucosa than standard glutamine. (I believe that this can be compensated for by using a higher dose, 10 grams, 3-times per day, of standard glutamine, as recommended above.) Various chemotherapy regimens used in this study (21-day cycle): cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and 5-fluorouracil (CAF); 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide (FAC); or doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (AC). Compared with placebo, glutamine significantly reduced the incidence of moderate-to-severe OM 39% vs. 50% (placebo.)
For prevention of mucositis of the throat and esophagus (esophagitis) from radiation and chemotherapy:
DOSE : Mix 10 grams of powdered glutamine in a small glass (6-8 ounces) of water or juice. Drink (swallow). Repeat every 8 hours (schedule: morning, mid-day, evening)
Start this regimen 1 week before radiation therapy and continue for 2 weeks after completion of radiation therapy.
This is based on a study that showed a significant reduction in esophagitis among patients receiving this regimen versus no glutamine: There was minimal-to-no-esophagitis was seen in 71% of the glutamine supplemented patients versus only 44% without glutamine By the end of treatment, the glutamine supplemented patients gained 2.6 kg (median), while those without glutamine lost 3.3 kg (median) There was a significant delay to the time of first noticing esophagitis in the glutamine patients versus the non-glutamine patients: 25 days versus 16 days. There were also fewer treatment breaks, hospitalizations and late esophageal toxicities among the patients who took glutamine versus those who did not. Importantly, there were no differences in cancer recurrence rates at 24 months of follow-up (the glutamine did not reduce the effectiveness of treatment.)
For the prevention of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (studied with oxaliplatin and paclitaxel)
DOSE : Mix 15 grams of powdered glutamine in a small glass (6-8 ounces) of water or juice. Drink. Repeat every 12 hours (schedule: morning and evening)
Start this regimen on the day of oxaliplatin infusion and continue for seven days thereafter. Repeat with each infusion.
This is based on a study that showed a significant reduction in chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy among patients receiving this regimen versus no glutamine: After all 6 cycles of chemotherapy, 48% of patients in the glutamine group had no peripheral neuropathy (PN) versus only 27% in the non-glutamine group. After all 6 cycles of chemotherapy, 12% of the patients in the glutamine group had moderate-to-severe PN versus 32% in the non-glutamine group. Glutamine supplementation significantly improved cold intolerance and lessened the interference to activities of daily living. Chemotherapy dose-reductions were less frequently needed in the glutamine patients (7%) versus those not taking glutamine (27%) There were no differences found in the response to chemotherapy or survival between the two groups.
How Does Glutamine Reduce Mucositis and Esophagitis?
Glutamine has been shown to reduce the degree of mucositis through:
anti-inflammatory mechanisms (inhibition of one of the main switches that turn on inflammation, NF-kappaB)
inhibition of bacterial toxins
increased tissue healing (increased fibroblast and collagen synthesis.)
How Does Glutamine Reduce Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy?
We don’t know exactly, however it is believed that glutamine may exert its neuroprotective effects by upregulation of nerve growth factor. In animal studies, supplementation with glutamine appears to increase NGF.
Is Glutamine Safe To Give To Patients With Cancer?
This is an area of controversy, as it is well-known that under certain circumstances cancer cells use glutamine for energy even more voraciously than glucose.
However, no human study, have ever shown that glutamine increased tumor growth rates or decreased the efficacy of other cancer therapies.
Over the last 20 years, 36 clinical studies have demonstrated the tolerance, safety and effects of glutamine (oral and IV) in patients undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. In each of these studies, researchers have reported that glutamine supplementation in cancer patients improves their metabolism and clinical situation without increasing tumor growth. Potential Side Effects and Drug Interactions: Generally, very well-tolerated and is considered safe for use by most people for the duration of cancer care (chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy) in doses up to 40 grams per day (adults.) Do not use glutamine if you: Have kidney failure, kidney dysfunction, or if your kidney function is impaired or abnormal.
Have liver failure, liver dysfunction, or if your liver function is impaired or abnormal.
Have ever been diagnosed with or had a period of hepatic encephalopathy (liver function that affects your mental, emotional, or cognitive state).
Have a history of mental illness, especially bipolar depression (manic depression), mania, or hypomania.
Have a history of seizure disorders, such as epilepsy or are taking medications to control a seizure disorder.
Have a history of allergic reaction to monosodium glutamate (MSG), a flavoring agent sometimes used in the preparation of Chinese food in restaurants.
Are taking or have been prescribed to take a medication called lactulose. Adverse drug-glutamine interactions are not common, but (as with any supplement) always check with your physician before starting glutamine. Read about side effects and potential drug interactions here: WebMD Additional References: Examine.com (glutamine scientific references) Oral Cancer Foundation (mucositis information) National Cancer Institute (mucositis information) American Cancer Society (peripheral neuropathy) Cancer.Net/ASCO (peripheral neuropathy)Welcome to this chapter on Quantitative Easing, or “QE”.
Here in 2014, the developed world is currently in the middle of the largest monetary experiment in all of history, one that spans the globe.
This is very important because when you strip away a lot of economic gobbled-gook, money is really a social contract. We agree that it has value, but otherwise it is backed by nothing more substantial than that; our mutual agreement.
Given this context, we should view money printing as really more of a social experiment than a sophisticated monetary practice.
And so we're going to study it here as such because, when a nation’s money system breaks down, society as a whole is impacted. Commerce is heavily disrupted, shelves are cleared, careers are ruined, and the future is badly diminished.
So what exactly is quantitative easing? It's money printing, simple as that.
However, today we don't actually print all that much physical cash. So when I say ‘money’ being printed, don't think of big stacks of one hundred dollar bills; think instead of digital ones and zeros - mainly a lot of zeros - showing up on electronic ledgers.
We discussed QE briefly in the chapter on the Fed, but here we’ll go into it in more detail.
Again, the way the Fed creates money is simply by creating an accounting entry that says the money exists. Imagine if one day you woke up, checked your bank account, and found a billion dollars in it.
Looking into it, you discovered that the Fed had deposited that money there last night.
This money would be very real to you and would completely change your financial circumstances. You could spend it just the same as if you had earned it over sixty-six thousand three hundred and thirteen years working at the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and saving every dime.
But where did the Fed get that billion dollars? What did it do to earn that money?
This quote tells the tale.
Let me highlight that last line...
"When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money."
In our example, the Fed simply created money when it sent it to you. Tap - tap - tap...a few keys were clicked on a keyboard and - voila! – your billion dollars was created and deposited in your account.
At the end of 2013, this process was being used to the tune of $85 billion dollars per month, only that money was not going into your account, not unless you were a very large financial institution.
The Fed creates that money when it buys either Treasury bonds or mortgage-backed securities, which is what “MBS” stands for.
The mechanism is easy to explain. Say the Fed wants to buy $40 billion of Treasury notes. First, it will under the Fed, announce to the market, which means the big banks who play in this game, that it wants to buy $40 billion of Treasury bonds and the price range it is willing to pay.
A variety of banks will then offer up the specific bonds at specific prices and the Fed chooses which among them to actually buy and then buys them.
These bonds are now assets on the Fed’s books. So if we were to take a look at the Fed balance sheet we should see it growing by leaps and bounds over the past few years.
Indeed that's exactly what we see.
The Fed’s balance sheet is now nearly $ 4 trillion in size, and every single one of the dollars represented by that $4 trillion number was literally printed, or mouse clicked into existence, out of thin air.
Now to really make the point that these are extraordinary and unusual times, I shall point out that the Fed’s balance sheet was only some $880 billion before the economic crisis struck in 2008.
That is, to grease every economic transaction throughout the nation's entire history up until 2008 required the cumulative injection of $880 billion of circulating base money that the banks could use to lend out via fractional reserve banking.
But since 2008, an additional $3 trillion has been created by the Federal Reserve and injected into the system.
So where did all that newly created money go? Well, we should be able to detect it if we look at a chart of circulating money in our system known as 'base money.'
And, yep, that's exactly what we see.
This additional $3 trillion has found its way into various corners and crevices of the financial universe, but the majority of it, around $2.3 trillion is parked right back at the Fed in the form of something called excess reserves.
Recall, banks keep some money in reserve when they make a loan out of deposits and if they keep more than is required that money is called an excess reserve.
So this chart tells us that the Fed has been pumping money into the financial system but the majority of that money has not been made available to Main Street in the form of new loans. Instead it has been idly parked at the Fed earning 0.25% interest.
But this still leaves us with some $700 to $800 billion that has not been parked in the form of excess reserves
Which is out there bidding up stocks, bonds and real estate, mainly due to large institutions buying up vast quantities of all three asset classes using money the Fed printed out of thin air.
This chart showing the relationship between the S&P 500 and Fed printing tells the tale. It's a safe prediction to make that the US stock market will fall, and fall a lot, if the Fed suddenly stopped printing up money. The stock market is now hooked on this artificial stimulus.
So, how long can this money printing continue? At some point, it needs to stop, right? I mean, we’ll destroy the value of the dollar if we print too many of them. Right?
The answer to this is “yes”. But it’s a lot easier to say than to do.
A huge and poorly understood concern is that this freshly-printed money, once created, is going to be very very difficult to retrieve should that be necessary.
You see, quantitative easing works really well when the money is going out the Fed's front door, but it's not going to work very well in reverse.
In fact it may be impossible without crashing the stock and bond markets -- creating all sorts of difficulties for both the Fed and our leaders in Washington DC.
Here's why.
When the Fed is out there buying a huge proportion of something, say Treasury bonds, the price of that asset class is driven up in the marketplace by the demand being artificially created by the Fed.
That's just Economics 101.
Because the Fed pre-announces its asset purchases, the folks it buys these assets from have a huge advantage. Here’s why.
When the Fed announces it plans to buy a bunch of Treasury bonds, the banks rush out and buy them first. This is called “front running”, Then the banks turn around and sell these very same Treasury bonds to the Fed at a higher price than they bought them for, allowing them to pocket fat profits. Pretty sweet deal, huh?
Everyone is happy playing this game. Show US government enjoys a strong market for its debt, plus gets ultra low interest rates as part of the deal. The banks make big money with no risk. And the Fed gets lots of freshly printed money out into the system further driving down interest rates – which boosts the bond market, the stock market and housing prices.
That's a win, win, win situation right there. In this scenario, everyone loves the Fed and its magic checkbook, which makes all these popular results possible. Well, at least everyone in power that can skim easy profits from the system.
But now let's try running that process in reverse. What happens when the Fed decides it’s time to stop flooding the world with free money, and instead attempts to reduce the money supply?
Where the Fed was buying Treasury bonds from the banks at a profit to the banks, when the Fed turns around to sell these same assets back to them, the reverse will, by definition, be true – meaning the banks will be buying Treasury bonds that are falling price, not rising.
The Fed will be demanding money from the banks and in return, will be giving them bonds that it is flooding the market with. Prices in a flooded market only head one direction: downwards.
And at the same time, the US government will still be selling plenty of new bonds into the market. Only now, the Fed won't be there buying them.
What does this mean? It means that the new bonds from the government, plus the new ones being sold by the Fed will be competing for a dwindling supply of money. And mathematically, that also means that interest rates will be rising.
And as interest rates go up, the bond markets will suffer losses, as will stocks and home prices.
That is, everything the Fed has worked so hard to engineer since the 2008 will be undone. And likely within a very short time period – perhaps just a few months.
If you’ve been wondering why the Fed spent most of 2013 hemming and hawing about whether or not to decrease – or “taper” – its ongoing $85 billion in monthly asset purchases,, this is the main reason. It feared undoing all the years of hard work it spent getting the stock, bond and housing markets to inflate.
But if the Fed cannot easily undo its quantitative easing efforts, then what are the risks we all face?
Well, here's where history is really quite clear. You can get away with printing for a while, but when it catches up with you, it does so with a vengeance.
The reason is not terribly hard to understand. You cannot print true prosperity. Real wealth does not come from printed money. Real wealth only comes from real people performing actions that create real value.
If it were possible to print up prosperity, every central bank should simply cook up enough new money to hand it out to its citizens and eliminate poverty.
But, of course, that cannot work. Money is not real wealth, it is merely a claim on wealth. You can make as many claims as you wish, but the amount of real stuff remains the same and will shrink in relation to all that printed money.
Quantitative easing and the other central bank shenanigans of the past several years are not ordinary. They aren’t normal and they haven't been tried before. They signal a huge and abnormal departure from everything we know about what works and doesn't work economically.
We'll each need more to our wealth strategies besides complacency and hope.
Perhaps this time is different. But if not (and it almost never is), then we should all be crystal clear on the risks.
At the exponential pace at which the Fed is increasing the money supply, and knowing the huge challenges the Fed – and most other world central banks - face in trying to stop or even slow down their money printing, the potential for a disruptive global inflationary period is very real.
Which brings us to the next Chapter on Inflation.
Thank you for listening.Vote for pro-life candidates
To the editor:
Registered voters, you have the power in your hand to stop murder. When you go to the poll you have the choice to vote Pro-life. You can stop Clinton from negating everything we have worked for since Roe v. Wade. Planned Parenthood has aborted 57 million babies since 1973.
Just recently, Right to Life of Michigan has passed laws that women have an ultrasound of their baby before they have an abortion and that they cannot be coerced by anyone into having an abortion. Right to Life has uncovered the fact that Planned Parenthood is selling baby parts when performing partial birth abortions up to the moment of birth. Your tax dollars are going to fund Planned Parenthood. Right to Life has never received state or federal funds. Planned Parenthood claims to help women’s health care but they do not even do mammograms. They make money by performing abortions for underage females, human traffic victims and women of all ages.
Everyone who believes in God should be Pro-life. God is the one who creates life, and only He has the right to end that life.
Marilyn Stacer, representative
Huron County Right to LifeThe Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced the appointment of the Honourable Arthur Joseph LeBlanc as the next Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia and Ms. Margaret M. Thom as the next Commissioner of the Northwest Territories.
Justice LeBlanc is an accomplished barrister, litigator and judge, and has sat on a number of boards for private sector and voluntary organizations. Ms. Thom is a former Deputy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories who has spent her career as a respected educator, counselor, facilitator and volunteer.
Prime Minister Trudeau today also announced the extension of the Honourable Vaughn Solomon Schofield as Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan until December 2017.
The Prime Minister took the opportunity to thank the outgoing Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, the Honourable John James Grant, for his hard work and dedication to serving the citizens of Nova Scotia, as well as Mr. Gerald W. Kisoun, the Deputy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, who has fulfilled the duties of Territorial Commissioner over the past few months.
Quotes
“Joseph Arthur LeBlanc is an exceptional Nova Scotian, well respected for his legal background and his many contributions to private and volunteer organizations and the legal and academic communities. He is an excellent choice as Nova Scotia’s next Lieutenant Governor and I have no doubt that he will make many important contributions to the future of his province.”
– Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
“Ms. Margaret M. Thom is a proud Northerner, a former Deputy Commissioner, and an admired educator and counselor. She brings experience and a solid understanding of the role. I know that she will represent the people of the Northwest Territories with pride and dedication.”
– Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
Quick Facts
Lieutenant Governors are the personal representatives of Her Majesty The Queen of Canada in their respective provinces. They fulfill the roles and functions of The Queen, including granting Royal Assent to provincial laws, and visiting communities.
Lieutenant Governors are appointed by His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. They serve terms of at least five years.
Territorial Commissioners are Governor in Council appointments, and fulfill many of the same duties as the Lieutenant Governor of a province. They are responsible for swearing in Members of the Legislative Assembly and the Executive Council, as well as opening the Legislative Assembly and providing assent for legislation it passes.
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Associated LinkOn a Saturday night in the summer of 1998, an undercover officer logged in to a child-pornography chat room using the screen name Indy-Girl. Within minutes, a user named John introduced himself and asked her, “Are you into real life or just fantasy?” Indy-Girl said that because of the “legality of it” she had never acted on her fantasies. But she soon revealed an adventurous spirit. She was a bisexual college sophomore, she said, and had learned about sex at an early age. “My mother is very European,” she explained. John, a thirty-one-year-old soldier stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, had been using the Internet for less than a year. He began downloading child pornography after watching a television special about how Internet child porn had become epidemic. He hadn’t realized that it existed. In the five months since he’d seen the show, he had downloaded more than two thousand images from child-pornography news groups. In the anonymous chat rooms, he felt free to adopt a persona repugnant to society. He told Indy-Girl that he was a “real-life pedophile,” adding, “At least here I can come out and admit it.” “What’s the kinkiest you’ve done?” Indy-Girl asked. John said he’d had sex with a ten-year-old while her parents were skiing, and with a fourteen-year-old at a night club in Germany. Indy-Girl recognized that she was too old for him, which was “depressing,” but she offered that her little sister liked older men. “Maybe you could intro me,” John wrote. “We could meet somewhere discreet.” John had been in the Army for eight years, serving in Desert Storm and Bosnia, and had graduated from Penn State with a degree in history. He was thinking of leaving the service, in part because he felt picked on by other soldiers. He had been commended for having a memory for technical details, but he was also nervous, nerdy, and eager to please. At all stages of his life, he had been afflicted with the sense that he was just a “wannabe.” Unlike other people John met online, Indy-Girl seemed to like him. After a week of conversations, she asked John if he was “r/l” (real life) about the meeting, and when he said that he was she sent him a soft-focus digital image of a girl who she said was her fourteen-year-old sister. “Now don’t be mean when you see it,” she warned. “She still has some of her baby fat, she’s kinda embarrassed.” Undeterred, John described how the three of them would enjoy one another’s company: they could have sex in the shower or in a field of flowers. He encouraged Indy-Girl to “talk dirty” and “let your imagination go wild,” but she cut him off, explaining, “I’m not the cyber type.” She preferred to discuss the logistics of their meeting, a subject that John approached hesitantly. During the following week, Indy-Girl repeatedly expressed concern that John was avoiding her: “You’re usually so fun to chat with... and now... I feel like just... blaaaahhh.” She apologized for getting “a bit too gabby” and for “being so weird” and “reading into things.” John said it wasn’t her—he worked long hours and was tired. He also admitted that he wanted a relationship more than he wanted sex. He hoped to find someone who “could accept me the way I am.” “Give it a chance,” Indy-Girl encouraged. “If you like her... and she likes you... things will work out.” She added, “It’s not like she’s gonna die if you don’t.” They decided to meet at a park in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where they could have a picnic or go boating on the lake. Two weeks after their first conversation, John drove three hours to the appointed meeting spot. He brought lacy undergarments in his briefcase. The Military Police Investigations unit, working with the F.B.I., had recruited two young officers to play the roles of the two sisters. They arrived early, spread a blanket on the grass, and waved at John, who was sitting at a picnic table, writing in his journal. An athletic man with light-brown hair and green eyes, John slowly walked over to the girls, who were playing with a beach ball. He offered them sodas, and they chatted about what they liked to drink—Indy-Girl said she preferred beer—and about how long the drive had taken. It was a “normal conversation,” one of the cops later wrote, until John “saw the agents approaching him, and he began backing away.” A plainclothes officer whom John had seen standing by the lake, holding a fishing pole and a tackle box, shouted at him to put his hands behind his back. John waived his right to a lawyer, hoping to end the humiliation quickly. (His mother, for the sake of John’s two younger brothers, has asked that I not use the family’s last name.) In an interview with the agents, John confessed that he frequently downloaded child pornography, storing it on his hard drive in a folder labelled “2Young.” He was sexually attracted to the girls in the photographs, he admitted, but he had never had sexual contact with anyone below the age of eighteen. He insisted that he had invented his sexual exploits to impress Indy-Girl. According to an F.B.I. report summarizing the interview, “Everything that he said on the Internet was a lie.”
John pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and to using the Internet to persuade a minor to have sex, and was sentenced to fifty-three months in federal prison—a relatively light sentence by today’s standards. In the past fifteen years, sentences for possession or distribution of child pornography—a federal crime, since images cross state lines—have increased in length by more than five hundred per cent. The average sentence is now a hundred and nineteen months, which is about the same as the average punishment for a physical sex crime. Child pornography didn’t become a priority for federal law enforcement until the mid-nineties, when the Internet, offering a fun-house reflection of the spectrum of human sexuality, exposed a previously invisible population of pedophiles. Chat rooms have spawned an underground subculture in which social status is based on comprehensive libraries of images. Many users consider themselves “collectors,” trading pictures until they assemble sets that feature certain children, stars on the Internet, being sexually abused over time. In a study of child pornography, the historian Philip Jenkins, of Penn State, found that chat rooms foster a kind of “bandit culture.” Self-described “Loli fans” see themselves as part of a subversive fraternity, unified by the pursuit of forbidden pleasures. There is a hierarchy of users: newbies, lurkers, traders, and, at the top, the pornographers themselves—“kings of the rooms,” as John told me. He said that the most sought-after images were new and made in America, and showed interracial couplings. The more taboos broken, the better. Members reinforced one another’s desires, engaging in communal rationalization. “We’d pull at evidence from the dawn of photography to prove that child sexuality was once acceptable,” John said. “Then we could say, ‘See, it’s society—not me!’ ” When U.S. obscenity laws were first relaxed, in the fifties, no special stipulations were made for photographs of minors. “If the First Amendment means anything,” the Supreme Court wrote in 1969, “it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.” But, by 1982, the public seemed to have discovered child sex abuse, both its trauma and its prevalence. The Supreme Court made child pornography an exception to the First Amendment, since “a child has been physically or psychologically harmed in the production of the work.” Early efforts to suppress the American child-porn trade—a small network of adult bookstores and mail-order services—were so successful that within a decade the market was all but nonexistent. But the Internet undid those achievements. Controlling the flow of images is nearly impossible, because pornography is posted online from other nations, which have different definitions of who is a child and what is obscene. In arguing for harsher penalties for viewing child pornography, lawmakers have tended to conflate the desire to view photographs (a crime that can be detected by tracing a computer’s I.P. address) with actual sex abuse, which is notoriously difficult to prosecute, since young victims are easily silenced. In 2002, the chief of the F.B.I.’s Crimes Against Children Unit told the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security that the online pornography trade had created a “vast network of like-minded people, who believe it is acceptable to engage in sexual fantasies about children, thus lowering their inhibitions... and increasing the likelihood that they will actually molest children.” Child-pornography sentencing laws have been passed rapidly, with little debate; it’s nearly impossible, politically, to object to harsh punishments for perverts. Melissa Hamilton, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, told me that lawmakers have treated pornography possession as if it were an “inchoate crime.” She said, “It has become a kind of proxy—a way to incapacitate men who we fear have already molested someone, or will in the future.” “And exhale.”
In prison, the only friends John made were other child-pornography convicts. “We picked each other out like black beans in a pile of rice,” he told me. He adjusted poorly, feeling overwhelmed by a sense of failure. “I was supposed to be the successful child,” he told a prison psychologist. In therapy, he refused to share intimate details. “When asked to describe adult relationships with women,” the psychologist wrote, “he appeared to be making up details of these as he spoke.” On the Internet, John said, “I can be whoever I want to be.” John’s father, an engineer, said that he would have disowned his son if he had been the one “standing behind the camera, taking the pictures.” But he forgave him for “acting like a schmuck.” In 2003, after completing his prison term, John moved into his parents’ suburban home and began a three-year term of probation; he was not allowed to use the Internet or to go places where children congregate. He got a job at a bakery but chafed under his legal restrictions, complaining to his case manager, “I am not allowed to use my skills.” (After his arrest, he had been “other than honorably” discharged from the Army.) To comply with the terms of his probation, his parents put their computers in one room of the house and padlocked the door. John’s mother was a member of the local Day Lily Club, and spent much of her free time in her garden, where she had seven hundred and fifty varieties of lilies, whose growth she documented in scrapbooks. Warm and self-deprecating, she said that she identified with John’s tendency to become compulsively immersed in his hobbies. He’d spent long periods of his life absorbed in role-playing games, like Dungeons & Dragons—he became so caught up in this world that he nearly flunked out of college—and the Society for Creative Anachronism, a club that reënacts aspects of medieval culture. His mother believed that John might have ignored Indy-Girl if only he’d been less “prone to fantasy.” John’s imagined sexual encounters had always surpassed his real ones. The first time he saw nude models was in middle school, when he discovered a copy of Playboy belonging to his father. He was surprised and disappointed that the models weren’t his age. By twelfth grade, he noticed that the girls at school whom he found most attractive were freshmen. But his desires seemed academic, his classmates having nicknamed him Fungus. “If anything, girls wanted me to be their friend—never their boyfriend,” he said. When male classmates boasted about their sexual escapades, John made up his own. He paid for the majority of his sexual encounters; he lost his virginity at the age of nineteen to a prostitute at a twenty-four-hour health spa, he said. Pornography became an outlet for assuming an invented role. “You pick exactly which girl you want, when you want her—you control everything,” he said. “It was pure pleasure without the stuff of reality.” During John’s first year out of prison, his parents were confident that he was “straightening out.” He, too, felt that he was on track to acquire the “trappings of success: a wife, a house, children, a beautiful garden.” Then the conditions of his supervised release were loosened, permitting him access to the Internet. “It filled some deep hole in me that I didn’t even know existed,” he said. He visited online forums devoted to medieval culture and war games, and began downloading adult pornography. His downloads became increasingly explicit, but the procession of submissive young females proved monotonous, and he found himself looking on a news group called Youth and Beauty for images that were more extreme. John couldn’t quite get himself to believe that he would ever get caught. Crossing the boundary was part of the “mystique,” he said. When he received a letter from Gary, another child-pornography ex-convict, he said, he “fell right back into it.” He wrote to Gary about new software that would enable them to view child pornography safely, and marvelled at porn titles as if they were collector’s items. In a chummy, rebellious tone, he assured Gary that when their probation terms were over they would cross the border into Mexico and pick up a young brunette or fly to Cambodia and make some “homemade product.” During a routine home visit, John’s probation officer spotted questionable images on his computer, and sent the machine to the F.B.I. for a forensic analysis, which revealed twenty images of underage females. Two months later, the letters to Gary were discovered. John pleaded guilty to viewing illicit images and to failing to obtain authorization from his probation officer to have unsupervised contact with his five-year-old niece. (An investigation found no indication that he had behaved improperly toward the child.) At his probation-violation hearing, in 2005, John was sentenced to two more years in prison. In his testimony, he described pornography as an addiction. “I really don’t have enough control over it,” he told the judge. “I would like to figure out how to make it stop, I really would. I just don’t know how to do it yet.”
John had been back in prison for a year when, in 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which its sponsor described as the “most comprehensive child crimes and protection bill in our Nation’s history.” It allows the federal Bureau of Prisons to keep inmates in prison past their release date if it appears that they’ll have “serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.” Their extended confinement is achieved through civil commitment, a legal procedure more often used to hospitalize patients who have severe mental illness, usually bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The law is named after Adam Walsh, a seven-year-old boy who was kidnapped at a mall and decapitated. (His father went on to host “America’s Most Wanted.”) Since the nineties, twenty states have passed similar statutes, known as sexually-violent-predator laws, for offenders who suffer from “volitional impairment”—a legal term that does not correspond to any medical diagnosis. The laws have been passed in the wake of gruesome, highly publicized sexual abductions and murders by men who repeatedly preyed on strangers. The crime is statistically rare—most molestation is committed by family members or friends—but, for nearly a century, has loomed large in the public psyche. One of the first films about a sex offender, Fritz Lang’s “M,” from 1931, dramatized the plight of this insidious type. “I can’t help myself!” the killer cries. “I have no control over this—this evil thing inside of me.” According to the largest study of released prisoners, conducted by the Bureau of Justice, the re-arrest rate for sex offenders is lower than that for perpetrators of any violent crime except murder. But the notion that sex offenders have a unique lack of self-control has been repeated |
records, Schiller was eastbound on I-94 shortly after 9 p.m. near Delafield when he tried to pass other cars on the shoulder and struck and killed Peter Enns, 48, of Alberta, Canada, who was helping another driver change a flat tire on a minivan.
A 56-year-old woman and an 11-year-old were taken to hospitals for treatment for injuries.
Schiller was also taken to the hospital, where deputies immediately smelled the odor of intoxicants. Because of his record of OWI convictions, Schiller could have a blood-alcohol concentration no higher than 0.02, a quarter of the legal limit for most drivers.
Sheriff's deputies called a judge and got approval for a warrant to take a blood sample from Schiller. The results have not yet been returned.
Besides Schiller's car and the disabled minivan, two other cars that swerved to avoid the crash were also involved in an accident, according to Waukesha County court records.
According to the criminal complaint in Schiller's pending drunken driving case in Milwaukee County, witnesses on March 9 reported a man passed out in the driver's seat of a Ford Taurus in the 9200 block of W. Blue Mound Road. Investigators arrived and found a hypodermic needle on the roof of the car, and Schiller appeared to be overdosing.
He was taken immediately to a hospital and admitted having used cocaine and heroin. His case was postponed twice while lawyers awaited the results of blood tests. On June 29, the case was set for a plea and sentencing on Aug. 29.
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In all, Schiller has a criminal history involving drugs, bail jumping, battery and other offenses dating back to 1998.
Read or Share this story: https://jsonl.in/2ubu9E8Yokohama F. Marinos have agreed to deals for defender Milos Degenek and midfielder David Babunski pending medical, the J. League first-division side announced Monday.
Degenek, 22, joins from 1860 Munich in the German second tier. He represented Serbia at youth level before making his senior debut for Australia in May last year, winning five caps to date.
Babunski, a former Barcelona youth product, has been capped 22 times by Macedonia. The 22-year-old is the second player to join Marinos from Serbian side Red Star Belgrade this winter following the arrival of Portuguese forward Hugo Vieira.
Winger Manabu Saito, meanwhile, is set to stay put at Marinos after he rejoined the squad on Monday. The 26-year-old has been eyed by German second-division side Bochum and Marinos’ local rival Kawasaki Frontale, but is now negotiating to renew his contract that runs out at the end of this month.True to his word, Joe Eszterhas did possess a tape of Mel Gibson during one of the latter’s rampages, and has now released it to the media.
Eszterhas and Gibson have been feuding bitterly and publicly over their work on “The Maccabees,” which was to be a “Jewish Braveheart.” When Warner Brothers pulled the plug on the project, Eszterhas accused Gibson of anti-Semitism and deranged behavior, while Gibson claimed Eszterhas’ work was “substandard.”
Eszterhas told The Wrap that he released the recording because “Gibson called me a liar. And I also have some reason to believe he’s creating a PR blitz questioning my truthfulness.”
In the two minute and 35 second recording, which depicts the formerly beloved star in full Mayor of Crazytown mode, Gibson rages against Eszterhas over the lack of a first draft of “The Maccabees.” Eszterhas says the recording was made at a packed dinner party at Gibson’s house by his son Nick, who feared for their safety.
The recording and a transcript of it can be read here. Amazing how Mel Gibson has ensured that his depiction on “South Park” be considered an accurate representation of his behavior rather than a parody. Previous Critic Speak coverage of the feud can be found here.
Source: The WrapA 19-year-old woman was found half-naked and gagged, with her hands and feet tied, behind the pulpit at an Aizawl church at 6.30 am on Wednesday.
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Members of the congregation, who were making preparations for the service after the early morning prayer at the Bethlehem Veng Presbyterian Church, found the woman.
The congregation members untied her, but she refused to give details of what had happened. The only thing she said was that a man and woman whom she did not know tied her up and left her there.
She also said she wanted to see another woman, with whose family she had been staying for about a month in the locality. An eyewitness said the woman and her father then came to identify her.
Police suspect the woman belonged to a cult and was being taken care of by the family for the past month.
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Police later took the woman for questioning. They have also registered a case under IPC section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs).A council has painted under-sized car parking bays and is hitting motorists with fines for being outside the space.
Retired architect Stan Green toured the town's car parks in Newbury with a measuring stick to confirm his fears.
The Government has recommended since 1994 that all council parking bays should be a minimum of 2.4 metres by 4.8 metres, but Mr Green has found bays up to a metre short.
West Berkshire Council admited that last year alone it fined 142 motorists £50 for "not parking wholly within the bay" in Newbury. It said it will not display warning signs, but continue to rely on the "discretion and common sense" of its traffic wardens.
Drawing on a lifetime of measuring and planning, Mr Green is now calling on the council to reimburse every motorist it has fined for not wholly parking in a bay.
He said: "It seems as many as 90 per cent of the bays in Newbury are below the Government's recommended dimensions. Some are even too small for a Mini!
"And I failed to find one big enough to accommodate fully a 4 x 4 model or many larger saloon cars.
"During my investigation, I discovered that up to 30 per cent of vehicles were not fully in their bay so, technically, were breaching regulations, and making their owners liable for a fine.
"Bays were a whole metre short in one car park, which is absurd."
Mark Edwards, head of West Berkshire Council's highways and transport department, and Mark Cole, the county's traffic manager, both accepted the bays did not meet the recommended dimensions.
Yet they ruled out putting up signs to warn motorists they risked breaking regulations, insisting it should be left to the county's 14 civil enforcement officers to decide whether or not to issue Fixed Penalty Notices.
In a personal exchange of emails, Mr Edwards told Mr Green: "I can confirm that in the past financial year, 142 Penalty Charge Notices were issued in off-street car parks [in Newbury] for having parked beyond bay markings.
"I don't have a breakdown of the statistic, and I won't be issuing instructions to my CEOs. They are quite capable of using their discretion when considering parking contraventions, and will issue PCNs in accordance with the regulations, using their common sense."
Mr Cole said: "I can categorically state that our bays have not been deliberately built smaller in order to collect fines.
"Probably not enough attention was paid to building them to the standard size. However, it does mean that we can provide more car parking for more people coming to the town.
"If we built new bays tomorrow, they would all be 2.4 metres by 4.8 metres, as that is the standard we would be expected to provide, but we won't be doing anything to the ones in place at the moment.
"Regulations state that it is an offence not to park entirely within a bay. Even a wheel on a white line adjoining the next bay will leave an owner liable to a fine, which would depend on the CEO's discretion. Some might issue a fine, others might not."
Mr Green added: "It would be an absolute scandal if fines have been issued to motorists whose vehicles have been found outside a bay, when the bay was not the right size.
"I don't think West Berkshire's transport and parking people have deliberately made the bays smaller to mug motorists.
"In truth, it looks like incompetence, and a failure in its duty to provide a proper infrastructure. It merely required simple observation, a tape-measure, white paint, a brush, and a desire to do the job properly.
"It also seems that CEOs have failed to realise that a vast number of bays were the wrong size."
The Telegraph has tested the new Smart car to see how easy it is to park in a small space.Last month the Metal Gear Solid fan remake, Shadow Moses Project, was unceremoniously shut down, ostensibly due to legal pressure from Konami. But now the folks behind that, the Fan Legacy Team, have started a new MGS-related project with another person spurned by Konami: the original Solid Snake voice actor David Hayter.
That's right, The Fan Legacy: Metal Gear Solid will be a virtual museum honouring the legacy of Hideo Kojima's storied series. Players will explore it in first-person with VR support confirmed.
The developers behind this project have called it "an unofficial, non-profit production" and referred to it as "a gift, from the fans, but also addressed to the fans; to share our affection for the seminal franchise."
"The Fan Legacy: Metal Gear Solid will feature many pieces of amazing fan art from devoted lovers of the series and our collaborators," the folks behind the tribute have stated on its Facebook page.
This will be David Hayter's first time reprising the role of Snake since Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker in 2010. He was later replaced by Kiefer Sutherland in Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain, a fact he still begrudges Hideo Kojima for.
Barring any legal foibles, The Fan Legacy: Metal Gear Solid will launch in May.Forever ever?
Last week, the State Department suggested that it would not push for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, because doing so might “bias one side over the other.”
This was a perplexing statement. The two-state solution had been America’s official position on the conflict for decades precisely because it’s the only framework that could (however, superficially) accommodate the fundamental, internationally validated demands of each side: for Israel, the ability to maintain a democratic, Jewish ethno-state insulated from the “demographic threat” of Arab procreation; for the Palestinians, independent political power and an end to military occupation.
The Trump administration is not going to support a one-state solution that grants all of the region’s residents equal-citizenship rights, as such a proposal would jeopardize Israel’s identity as a Jewish state (as opposed to a binational one). So, the State Department was ostensibly saying that it would be “biased” for the U.S. to rule out a one-state “solution” in which Palestinians in the occupied territories are treated as second-class citizens, by virtue of their ethnicity, in perpetuity (an arrangement that Israel’s own leaders have likened to apartheid).
This implication was not lost on the Palestinian leadership. As the Times of Israel reported:
On Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a group of dovish Israeli lawmakers that he had met with Trump officials 20 times, but had no idea what their stance on issues was, describing the administration as “in chaos.”
Other officials have expressed dismay as well and accused the US of being biased toward Israel, even as a delegation led by Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner arrives in the region to try and find a way forward.
On Tuesday, Ahmad Majdalani, a top aide to Abbas, said the Palestinians asked Kushner for the US position on two key issues — Israeli settlements and support for Palestinian independence — during his last visit to the region in June.
“Since then we didn’t hear from them,” he said.
Such silence may be unnerving for Abbas, but it seems to have been liberating for Benjamin Netanyahu. On Monday, the Israeli prime minister vowed that Israel would never uproot any of its (illegal) settlements in the West Bank — a pledge that’s (all-but) impossible to reconcile with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
“We are here to stay, forever,” Netanyahu said, at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, according to Haaretz.
“There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel. It has been proven that it does not help peace,” the prime minister continued. “So we will not fold. We are guarding Samaria [the biblical name for part of the West Bank] against those who want to uproot us. We will deepen our roots, build, strengthen and settle.”
It has been clear for some time now that Netanyahu’s government has no interest in two states. The status quo works well for the Likud government and its constituents — or, at least, well enough that it has little incentive to offer controversial concessions to the Palestinians. This basic fact was clear to the last American diplomat to push for peace, John Kerry.
But Netanyahu’s remarks Monday were unusually forthright in their contempt for Palestinian independence. To the extent that the Trump administration’s abandonment of the two-state framework contributed to this candor, it may actually prove productive. Now, we can stop pretending that the Likud government is interested in granting Palestinians political autonomy of any kind. To avoid genuine “bias” in their pursuit of peace, future U.S. policymakers will have to accept this fact — and resolve to make indefinite occupation less comfortable for Israel than it currently is.Stanford signed a contract with Google last month to have Google Apps — including Gmail — replace the communication services Zimbra offers to the campus.
The move came after an 18-month evaluation period, during which time Stanford, as part of an informal consortium of 10 research universities, scanned the marketplace for comprehensive collaboration solutions for combining email, calendar, instant messaging, document sharing and more, according to Executive Director of Information Technology Services (ITS) Matthew Ricks in an email to The Daily.
“This consortium issued a Request For Proposal (RFP) to multiple vendors, evaluated responses and entered into contract negotiations with selected vendors,” Ricks wrote.
The transition will begin during spring quarter, allowing undergraduate students to self-select the timing for the switch to Gmail. Google Docs will be enabled for the entire campus in the summer — including faculty, staff and graduate students. A full transition cannot happen until Google enters a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with the University.
“In delivering Google Apps to Stanford, we’re responding to the desires of the majority of our community,” Ricks said. “Both Stanford’s Law School and Graduate School of Business have migrated to Google Apps successfully, as well as members of the Stanford Alumni Association.”
According to Ricks, the transition is necessary due to consistent feedback from the student body preferring Gmail to Zimbra. Ricks said that 95 percent of students who currently send their email outside Stanford forward their messages to Gmail.
Ricks also said that while Zimbra has been a viable platform for email and calendar for the past three years since implementation, cloud-based solutions such as Google Apps provide unique advantages and familiarity.
“Cloud-based solutions offer greater scalability, higher availability, greater storage quota, continual feature enhancements and greater business continuity capabilities,” Ricks said.
ASSU Vice-President Stewart Macgregor-Dennis ’13 said he began speaking with ITS administrators last year about the possibilities for a transition to Google Apps because it was something that he said strongly aligned with his own sense of what students should have.
Macgregor-Dennis also said that the number of students already forwarding email to personal Gmail accounts demonstrated a need for such a transition.
“If the two email services were pretty much equivalent, you would expect very few students to transition, but the proportion of the Stanford student body that has transitioned to Google Apps means that most students see it as a superior service,” he said.
Owen O’Neal ’15 is one of the many students who currently forwards his Zimbra emails to a Gmail account. He said he agrees that Google has several advantages over Zimbra.
“I do really like Google products in general because the formatting of Gmail is pretty intuitive, and I can find anything really smoothly,” O’Neal said. “I found the old Zimbra program to be almost blocky and not as easy to navigate — and I’d always had Gmail, so I knew it better.”
According to Macgregor-Dennis, Stanford is also moving forward with the transition because of financial savings to the University due to ending investments with Zimbra.
According to ITS Computing Support Specialist Christopher Boshers at Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt made the full transition to Google Apps for Education in mid-2010 due in part to the superior service Google offered, but also due to expenses.
“We transitioned because the cost of storing emails is a great cost to us and because it’s really effective for all student emails to be stored on Google servers rather than ours,” Boshers said.
According to a case study released by Google Apps for Education, Vanderbilt saved approximately $750,000 due to the transition. Boshers confirmed that the student responses were overall positive.
While Ricks said that, “[Stanford’s] switch is more of a programmatic effort than a cost intensive effort,” Macgregor-Dennis said there will be a lower cost for maintaining an email server after the transition.
According to Boshers, Vanderbilt had no issue with privacy concerns during the transition.
“Google has sound security standards, but the lack of a BAA prevents a large portion of the University from adopting Gmail at this time,” Ricks said.
“For all Stanford Google Apps core services, privacy of Stanford’s data is contractually assured,” he added. “The operational access to Stanford at Google Apps is subject to the same policies, and Stanford employees are still the service administrators.”
Macgregor-Dennis said that, moving forward, there will still be some issues to work out with handling the transition.
“I think the main issue is, how do we communicate this to the student body, and how do we transition students in a way that’s minimally disruptive and maximally beneficial to their experience,” Macgregor-Dennis said.
Overall, Ricks said that Zimbra was still an accomplishment for ITS and that Google Apps is a move forward.
“Stanford IT Services is very proud of the email and calendaring services we provide to our user community,” he said.Season two of The Hub Network's original series "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic" debuted last week.
The latest incarnation of Hasbro's "My Little Pony" franchise follows the adventures of unicorns Twilight Sparkle and Rarity - along with their pony friends Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy - as they gallop through life in the village of Ponyville and its outlying kingdom, Equestria.
I'm tempted to say something along the lines of: Depending on your age, "My Little Pony" is either a warm, fuzzy '80s memory or something that the children in your life are into... but back when Marquee covered "My Little Pony's" Katy Perry song parody, I got schooled by some members of a group known as bronies (as in, bro-pony).
It's true: "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic" has a large fan base of males who are mostly in their teens to early 30s. The Katy Perry parody (produced by The Hub) even mentions the bronies by name.
In the post, I (apparently mistakenly) implied that "My Little Pony" fans were mostly seven-year-old girls. Boy was I wrong! A handful of bronies went so far as to track down my e-mail address and office number and leave me messages. To the bronies, I say "thank you." You exposed me to a world I otherwise wouldn't have known existed. There are multiple web destinations for bronies, but Equestria Daily appears to be the most concise at the moment.
As Wired.com so aptly put it, "Most people over the age of, say, 20 remember 'My Little Pony' as a saccharine-smelling Hasbro toy and cartoon from the 1980s." Wired's article goes on to explain that most bronies cite excellent storytelling, clever nods to pop culture and a healthy smattering of irony as the reasons why they gravitate toward a show that wasn't originally intended for their demographic.
Heck, the bronies can even count Bill Clinton among them!
The former president aced a "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic" quiz when he was a guest on NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me" in June. True story! In the interest of full disclosure, however, Clinton was asked just three multiple-choice questions, two of which had answer choices that were comically incorrect, e.g. "Q: The ponies' most powerful enemy is which of these? A) Krastos the Glue Maker B) the evil pony Nightmare Moon or C) the cynical grown-up Chester"... the answer being C.
Just last month, Stephen Colbert gave a shout-out "to all my bronies who may be watching" on "The Colbert Report."
A high school boy's physics presentation became a YouTube sensation when the student applied real-world principles of physics to explain exactly why the magical world that the ponies inhabit isn't possible. For example, he shows a scene in which a group of butterflies catches one of the ponies in mid-air and explains that this couldn't actually happen, due to the pony's mass in relation to the collective mass of the butterflies, providing charts and exact scientific data.
And for the "Throwback" portion of this week's "Throwback"... I am part of the demographic for whom "My Little Pony" means extremely hazy memories of "My Little Pony's" predecessor, "My Pretty Pony," a 10-inch toy pony that was a more organic shade (brown with blonde hair) before she was miniaturized and pastel-ized, becoming the iconic "My Little Pony" that was a huge part of my childhood.
I have fond memories of playing with my barn play set for hours, and watching the ponies' adventures with resident barn girl, Megan, on the cartoon TV show that was half "My Little Pony and Friends," half "Glo Friends." My most prized ponies were Blossom, Lemondrop and the unicorn named Moondancer.
What does "My Little Pony" mean to you?Source: ESB Networks
Updated 8.20pm
A TOTAL OF 330,000 customers around the country are currently without electricity after Storm Ophelia caused major damage across Ireland.
ESB Networks has said impacted customers should prepare to be without power overnight and for a number of days.
It has also confirmed that between 1,650 and 3,300 premises will not see a return to service for up to 10 days.
Fallen trees on overhead lines are responsible for most of the damage to the network.
In its latest statement, issued at 8.15pm, ESB Networks said emergency crews have been deployed across the country and are dealing with emergencies and restoring power where it is safe to do so.
A spokesperson noted that loss of service to this scale is “unprecedented”.
As you can see from the map, areas across the entire country are affected.
In a statement, ESB Networks said: “Based on previous experience of Storm Darwin in 2014, where about 280,000 customers were left without supply, we can predict that it will take a number of days to restore power to all customers. Five to ten per cent of this number will be without power for up to ten days.”
It also issued a warning about customers who use electrically powered medical devices and who are without power:
It is very important that any customers who use electrically powered medical devices should contact their healthcare professional to make alternative arrangements if necessary.
Affected areas
The ESB has warned customers not to approach fallen electricity wires under any circumstances.
#Ophelia Update Our priority will be taking calls relating to emergency & dangerous situations on ESB Networks on 1850 372 999 #staysafe pic.twitter.com/wHyTOD31bo — ESB Networks (@ESBNetworks) October 16, 2017 Source: ESB Networks /Twitter
To keep up to date with the areas affected by power outages, click here.
DO NOT APPROACH If you come across fallen trees there may be fallen wires that could be live & dangerous. STAY CLEAR phone 1850 372 999. pic.twitter.com/SyXx8Uyy4H — ESB Networks (@ESBNetworks) October 16, 2017 Source: ESB Networks /Twitter
The ESB has asked customers not to call the network about normal power outages in order to keep phone lines open for emergencies.
To report emergency and dangerous situations on ESB Networks please call 1850 372 999 or +353 21 2382410.
Meanwhile, 11,000 Eir customers are without broadband, telephone and mobile services.
The company said 90 of its mobile sites are off=air with the worst affected areas being the southwest, west and midlands. The number of outages is expected to rise as access for crews to problem areas is limited because of road closures. In a statement, the company said Ophelia had “delivered unprecedented and widespread levels of damage to Eir’s infrastructure throughout the country”. This includes damage to poles, cables and mast infrastructure. We anticipate that the network damage will extend as the storm tracks across the country. It said the repair work will take some time given the “overhead nature of the network in rural Ireland”. If damaged infrastructure is causing a public safety risk, people are asked to contact 1850 245 424 or An Garda Siochana. Customers can find the latest information via www.eir.ie and can also log faults on the “Log a Fault” section of www.eir.ie or through an automated customer service line 1901. Faults can be reported to either service 24 hours a day, seven days week.
With reporting by Sinead O’Carroll, Orla Ryan and Christine BohanUnless Shane Ross changes his tune pretty smartly Enda Kenny will have no choice but to sack him and take the chance that his minority government will be able to survive the fallout.
Since the Government took office in May, Ross has flouted the constitutional principle of collective Cabinet responsibility and done a number of solo runs on issues that have nothing to do with his portfolio as Minister for Transport.
Within his own area of responsibility he has been conspicuous by his failure to carry out the basic functions of a minister, but has had the nerve to make a virtue of his indecision.
Over the past week the Minister has inflicted further embarrassment on the Government by continuing his long-running campaign against the judiciary and following it up by demanding the right to support a Sinn Féin proposal to hold a referendum on neutrality.
The question now is how long the Taoiseach can tolerate the behaviour of his rogue minister. Linked to that is the question of how long Ross’s colleagues in the Independent Alliance are prepared to indulge their most prominent figure as he threatens to undermine their efforts to make a constructive contribution to the running of the country.
Unsurprisingly Ross is now perceived by the Opposition as the Achilles’ heel of the Government and over the past week Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and Sinn Féin have all sought to exploit his antics for their own advantage.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin rightly pointed out in the Dáil that it was unacceptable for a minister to utilise his position to attack the judicial pillar of democracy in a politically populist way.
“Deputy Ross, has been very cavalier, untruthful and disingenuous on the judges. It may play well, but it is not right for a minister to use his ministerial platform to engage in such behaviour,” Martin told the Dáil in the course of asking Kenny how he could stand over such behaviour.
Personal comments
The Taoiseach responded by saying that he had already made the point that Ross’s comments on the judiciary were personal and did not reflect the view of the Government.
However, the Kenny’s position is not sustainable in the long term. A Taoiseach cannot simply wash his hands of a Minister who continually attacks a basic principle of the Constitution and pretend that nothing is wrong.
It is difficult to disagree with Labour leader Brendan Howlin’s contention that Ross’s behaviour gives an impression of Cabinet chaos. He also pointed to the Minister’s failure to make a single appointment to a State board since his appointment. “Apparently it is beyond his ability to short-list candidates from a list of qualified candidates provided to him by the Public Appointment Service, and beyond his abilities to give the PAS guidance as to the type of short-list he wants,” said Howlin.
And if further proof were needed of Cabinet chaos, Ross demanded the right at last Tuesday’s meeting to have a free vote on a Sinn Féin Bill which would trigger a referendum on neutrality as a step to enshrining the principle in the Constitution.
Kenny and Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan strongly resisted the move. Flanagan pointed out in the Dáil that the Sinn Féin Bill would have the effect of shifting power from the Dáil to the judiciary for interpreting the meaning of neutrality in specific cases where the United Nations requested support from this country.
Paradox
The paradox of attacking the judiciary on the one hand and supporting a measure that would give judges power to determine national policy on such a fundamental issue appears to have been lost on Ross although he appears to have backed down in the face of implacable opposition from Kenny and Flanagan.
The fundamental problem with Ross is that he is behaving in Government as if he were still a controversial newspaper columnist. Writing in the aftermath of the Brexit vote the British political commentator Nick Cohen lamented the baleful influence former journalists Boris Johnson and Michael Gove had played in the Leave campaign.
“If you think rule by professional politicians is bad wait until journalist politicians take over,” wrote Cohen, who pointed out that Johnson and Gove had prospered in journalism by treating public life as a game. “Here is how they play it. They grab media attention by blaring out a big, dramatic thought. An institution is failing? Close it. A public figure blunders? Sack him. They move from journalism to politics, but carry on as before.”
Ross practised this form of journalism for years, attacking established financial institutions like Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Banks and a variety of semi-State companies while simultaneously praising unorthodox banking buccaneers like Seán FitzPatrick and Michael Fingleton.
He brought the same tactics into politics, first as a long-serving member of the Seanad for Trinity College and when he became a TD in 2011 brought the same headline-grabbing style to bear in the Public Accounts Committee.
Ross was politically clever enough to spot the opportunity the last election was likely to bring to put himself at the centre of national politics. He was the moving force behind the Independent Alliance, which won five seats in the election and made itself indispensable to the formation of Government.
Being in Government, though, is very different from being a controversial journalist or an Opposition denouncer of the failures of others. Ross has so far shown himself hopeless at the basic task of being a Minister. If he doesn’t change his ways in the near future the Taoiseach and his Independent Alliance colleagues will have to cut him loose if they want to stay in power.The federal government has decided to extend the life of one of Canada's largest scientific research vessels, the CCGS Hudson.
It means months of work replacing corroded steel on the Halifax-based ship, as the federal government delays a replacement date for the ship, first launched in 1962.
The Hudson is the main platform for Canada's marine research, a floating home base for generations of Canadian scientists.
Transport Canada forced the issue after a survey by its ship safety branch in January detailed steel corrosion above Hudson's waterline.
"Ship safety is the certifying body. Once you get to a 30 per cent wastage, you have to replace things," said Capt. Dave Martin of the Hudson.
The rust problem left the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with a dilemma — spend about $1 million to make Hudson seaworthy or idle the ship and find other vessels to carry out scientific programs.
In the end the department opted for repairs.
Two Northern science expeditions planned for Hudson this year have been moved to other vessels while repairs continue.
"They say we wont issue a certificate to sail unless repairs are made. The department has made the choice to keep Hudson going until a replacement gets here," Martin said.
The date for a replacement isn't known.
As recently as last fall Ottawa was predicting Hudson's replacement would be in service by 2014. Now DFO says the date has been pushed back to 2016.
The repairs underway at Bedford Institute of Oceanography give the department more time.
"With the repairs that are going on now and at the end of the month of August and into September, we should be good to go for another several years," Martin said.
Repairs are ahead of schedule and Hudson is set to return to sea for three science programs this fall.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
IDF soldiers opened fire on a cell trying to infiltrate Israel from Lebanon on Sunday.
An IDF unit dealing with operational security identified the men crossing the border, heading into Israel.
The soldiers opened fire with small arms, apparently hitting one of the infiltrators.“The cell fled back into Lebanese territory,” the army said.“The circumstances of the incident are being checked. The IDF will continue to safeguard the State of Israel’s sovereignty in the border region.”According to Lebanese media reports, Israeli cross-border fire wounded a Lebanese soldier near Kafr Shuba.Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar television reported that Lebanese soldiers clashed with an Israeli unit that tried to enter Lebanese territory in the Shaba area.The Beirut-based’s Daily Star reported that Lebanese troops returned fire on the IDF soldiers.The report added that the Lebanese army was investigating the incident in coordination with UN peacekeepers in the area.Meanwhile, at least 16 insurgents from Syria’s al-Qaida wing, Nusra Front, were killed in battles with Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon on Sunday after opening a major offensive, a source close to Hezbollah said.Hundreds of the Sunni insurgents attacked at least 10 Hezbollah bases along a mountainous range close to the Syrian border, killing two Hezbollah fighters, in the latest spillover of violence from the civil war next door.“There are at least 16 dead from Nusra Front,” the source said.“Fighters from Hezbollah in the Bekaa region are joining the areas where the clashes are,” he added, referring to the region stretching across eastern Lebanon.Hezbollah had issued a call to its fighters to defend the area, the source close to Hezbollah and other security officials said. They say Nusra Front has so far failed to control any of the positions it attacked.Earlier, officials said fighters from Islamic State, another insurgent group based in Syria, were also involved in the clashes, but the source close to Hezbollah said only Nusra Front appeared to have taken part.The attacks took place in a large area stretching from south of the town of Baalbek up to areas close to the border town of Arsal.The Sunni insurgents see Iranbacked Hezbollah among their chief foes.Fighters from the Lebanese group have been aiding President Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war.Violence from Syria has often spread into Arsal and surrounding areas, where the Lebanese army has battled insurgents.In August, Islamic State and Nusra Front fighters stormed Arsal in the worst spillover of Syria’s war into its neighbor to date, killing and capturing members of the Lebanese military. They have since killed at least three of the captive soldiers and are holding an unknown number of others.Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>According to some who believe in signs and prophecies, based on the ancient Mayan calendar, the world may have ended by the time you read this, in which case you won’t be reading it! Maybe those people know a thing or two because, given the current state of play, would it come as a great surprise if the world were to actually come to an end?
But, regardless of any prophecy, I can guarantee right now that the world will shortly be coming to an end – for many people. US-backed conflict in Syria will fuel even more death and destruction in that unfortunate country. The US is banking on it. Where would its plans be to dominate the world if it could not rely on killing and brutality brought about by stoking ethnic and sectarian conflict? Such tactics have already caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. The strategy persists and the killing goes on.
What is happening in Syria at this moment is symptomatic of a criminality that too often goes unquestioned, that is too often regarded as normal and thus acceptable thanks mainly to the mainstream media. People have been softened up to accept barbarity as normal and thus as acceptable by a global corporate media that takes as fact whitewashed official statements and press releases justifying militarism and consequent mass murder by the US government, the British government or any other number of governments.
The result is that this criminality pervades all aspects of life in 2012.
Thanks to a toothless mainstream media, it is regarded as normal and thus acceptable that the international system of trade and finance has allowed capital to be shifted around the globe at ease, resulting in big profits and environmental degradation, easy money and cheap labour, private gain and public havoc. All of this is done according to the warped rationale of the market, supported by dogma masquerading as economic theory.
It is regarded as normal and thus acceptable that the food and pharmaceuticals industries work to sicken and treat us and that ‘big oil’ works hand in glove with agribusiness to impose a system of water intensive, chemical-industrial agriculture at the expense of biodiversity and environmental |
my finger at him, saying, ‘All right, you.’ Then he beat me the entire way from the airport to the hotel. When he fought,” claims Tina, “he used things and not just his hands. By the time we got to the hotel, the left side of my face was swollen like a monster’s. I never cried, though. I laughed. I laughed because I knew I was leaving. No more of this.” Upstairs in their suite, Tina says, “I massaged him and cooed, ‘Can I order you any food, dear?’ Then he made the mistake of going to sleep.” With only 36 cents in her pocket and a Mobil credit card in her wallet, Tina split. A friend bought her a plane ticket home to L.A. and out of Ike’s life. “I felt proud,” Tina says. “I felt strong. I felt like Martin Luther King.”
She went into hiding with some friends in Hollywood, but after about two weeks, she says, Ike found her. “I looked out the window and there was a Rolls-Royce and Ike in his boots with what seemed like 500 people with him. I screwed up my courage and said, ‘No way am I going back there.’ ”
After she got a lawyer and filed for divorce, she says, “Gunshots were fired into my home, one of my girlfriends’ car was burned and there were threats. I’m not saying that Ike did it. I don’t think he would have hurt me, but he wanted to get close and scare me.” Tina says that the ultimate divorce settlement in 1978 gave him everything. “My peace of mind was more important,” she explains. “Whatever was involved in our lives—property, masters, royalty rights—he got.”
Ike, whom Tina says she hasn’t seen in nearly six years, declines to be interviewed. He has dropped out of the music business and was arrested earlier this year for allegedly shooting a Los Angeles newspaper deliveryman in the ankle.
Growing up in Brownsville, Tenn., little Anna Mae Bullock (as Tina was christened) longed to go into showbiz. Daughter of a sharecropper, she saw her happy rural life end at age 11 when her parents divorced. Her mother, Zellma, left for St. Louis, and the next year her father left for Illinois. Annie and her sister, Ailene, moved in with their grandmother, but when she died they went to live with their mother in St. Louis. Near Annie Mae’s high school was the Club Manhattan, where a young Mississippian, Ike Turner, and his Kings of Rhythm band were playing. Entranced, she started hanging around and eventually was allowed to sing. “When Ike heard me,” she remembers, “he said, ‘My God!’ He couldn’t believe that voice coming out of this frail little body.” Before long she was performing in juke joints on the weekend. “First I made a little spending money, then Ike gave me a wardrobe, rings all over my fingers and bare-backed shoes,” she adds. “There were Cadillacs, Buicks—it was very exciting for a young girl like me.”
A while later Annie was pregnant—not by Ike, but by another member of his band. After the baby boy, Craig, was born in 1958, the father left for Mississippi and didn’t return. Annie landed a day job at a hospital while singing at night. Then Ike turned the charm on both Annie and Zellma. “He came to her very respectfully,” Tina says, “and said he’d take care of me, and she gave her consent.” In 1960 they went on the road together, and their relationship was soon far more than just professional. “I trusted him,” Tina says. Even her stage name came from Ike, but in private he always called her “Ann.”
That same year Ike and Tina signed with Sue Records and soon had a couple of soul-chart hits. By the time they moved to Los Angeles and married in 1964, they had a son, Ronnie. Ike had previously fathered two sons by another woman; those boys, too, were raised by Tina, who, to simplify matters, told interviewers they were hers.
By the mid-’60s the Ike and Tina Turner Revue had become a crossover pop sensation. Phil Spector produced their extraordinary River Deep Mountain High, a lavishly overdubbed “wall of sound” spectacular that hit the top of the charts in England but, disappointingly, peaked at only 88 in the U.S. Meanwhile, personal problems were developing between Ike and Tina. She had diamonds, furs and fancy cars (including a 12-cylinder hardtop convertible Jaguar), but, she confesses, “I was just a shadow. Ike took care of everything—the sound, the band, hiring people, management and money.” Tina found herself cooking for the band on the road at 4 in the morning after playing three sets. “Damn it! Sometimes I didn’t feel like making breakfast at that hour!” Ike’s control even extended to designing furniture for their home, including a guitar-shaped coffee table and a couch with huge cushions and arms that looked like dinosaur tails.
“He was very loving,” Tina concedes. “He helped a lot of people in trouble. But you owed him your life. He didn’t give freely.” (One ex-employee, however, remembers being destitute and going home from a visit with Ike to find $1,000 in his coat pocket.)
After seven years the passion in their marriage existed mainly onstage. Ike had also become involved with one of his backup singers. Both Ike and Tina had dabbled with astrology and psychic phenomena. But it was Buddhism that changed Tina’s life. She began meditating, studying and chanting. “When Ike saw me chanting,” she says, “the veins in his face popped out. He didn’t want to hear about anything that would give me power.”
But Tina had been exercising her own independence since 1966. At that point the ITT Revue hired a musician who, Tina says, “gave me back my self-respect. He never touched me—but he would just give me a look or say a few words to me. He’s the only man I ever saw stand up to Ike. I loved him and still love him.” Every night this mystery man—Tina won’t identify him—would warm up with the band and play a “dutta-dutta-dutta” riff. She began to call her private, vulnerable offstage personality “dutta,” and her closest friends used the nickname as a kind of code.
In contrast, Tina’s pulse-stopping stage persona led the Who’s Pete Townshend and director Ken Russell to cast her as the Acid Queen in the film of Tommy, for which she received critical acclaim and which began the liberating process that led to her Texas escape. She recalls: “When I left, I was living a life of death. I didn’t exist. I didn’t fear him killing me when I left, because I was already dead. When I walked out, I didn’t look back.”
Today Tina lives alone in a spacious Oriental-flavored four-bedroom house in Los Angeles. She occasionally sees her now-grown sons and has a few close friends (including Ann-Margret). She regularly has sessions with a psychic, Carol Dryer, who Tina says guided her spiritually through her liberation.
It all makes Tina recall the first psychic reading she had done back in the ’60s. The reader, she says, told her: “You will be among the biggest of stars. A partner of yours will fall, like a leaf from a tree in autumn. You will survive and go on.”In the New York City police officer’s recollection, a man who was leaning against a pillar outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Midtown in 2015 looked just like the person he was supposed to arrest, a suspect in a credit card fraud ring who the officer had been told might be armed.
Appearing at a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday at Police Headquarters, the officer, James Frascatore, said that when a supervisor told him to move in, he charged across East 42nd Street, grabbed the man’s arm and swiftly took him to the ground. It was his first public account of the encounter with the man, who turned out to be James Blake, the retired professional tennis player.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates accusations of police abuse and misconduct, is prosecuting Officer Frascatore on a departmental charge of using excessive force to take down Mr. Blake. A Police Department judge will decide the case, and Commissioner James P. O’Neill will determine any punishment. The board is seeking to have the commissioner fire Officer Frascatore, who has been reassigned to an administrative job in the Detective Bureau.
The incident — which was captured on surveillance video — highlighted the kinds of encounters with the police that many black and Latino civilians have complained about for years but that have rarely resulted in officers facing discipline, even after drawn-out proceedings. Mr. Blake, who was in town for the United States Open, had nothing to do with the theft.We sent our reporters out to scour the best second-hand stores in the main cities and choose favourites. If you have other picks from around the country, let us know in the comments.
CHRISTCHURCH
Madam Butterfly, 477 Ferry Road, Monday-Saturday 10.30am-4.30pm, Sundays 11am-4.30pm.
Danielle Colvin Jo Pannett and Alastair Evans own Vintage Wonderland.
From fine fabrics to strings of pink pearls and sparkly buckled shoes, Madam Butterfly rescues gorgeous things from an uncertain future.
The boutique is a time capsule of all things feminine since the turn of the Century, absolutely stuffed full of fashion, jewellery, shoes, hats and handbags. Think satin elbow-length gloves, delicate embroidered purses and ornate antique hairbrushes.
Vintage Wonderland, 179 Ferry Rd, Weekdays 10am-5pm, Saturdays 10am-4pm.
Danielle Colvin Diane Ramsay of Retropolitan in Christchurch.
This shop specialises in the truly unusual. It's not every day you spot a antique gramophone or a set of wood and leather crutches. At Vintage Wonderland a surprise is around every corner, in every cubby hole and hanging from every beam.
You could pick up an antique doll, a Kiwiana retro picnic set or some salvaged brass window sash catches.
Ferry Antique Centre, 282 Ferry Rd, Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm, Sundays 11am-4pm.
This is a collaboration of five dealers, and the result is a shop stuffed full. You'll find racks of walking sticks and ties, leather handbags, porcelain ducks and art deco-style dresses. Pick up a vintage Lloyd's tobacco tin or replenish your set of bone handle cutlery. It's nice to see so many personalities and styles in one space. There's a little something for everyone, and if they don't have it, they'll put feelers out in their network to see what they can rustle up.
Retropolitan, 158 Fitzgerald Ave, Tuesday-Friday 11.30am-5pm, Saturday 11am-3pm
Retropolitan - look out for the butterflies on the roof and all things deliciously, sometimes hideously, retro. It's like a museum of the period, showcasing everything from floral tupperware to furniture. The shop is packed to bursting with retro gems. It has, by far, the largest menswear collection in town and can kit you out with walking shorts (paired with walking socks, of course), blazers, vests, ties, cravats and even a pair of genuine retro, rather revealing, mens swimming trunks. Shelves heave with wool blankets, multicoloured crochet throws and piles of the best crockery around.
READ MORE:
* Nelson's top spots to op shop
* Are vintage lovers ruining op shops for those who need them?
* Op shops are the new cool
FACEBOOK/Tatty's Designer Recycle You can afford to step out in designer style at Tatty's.
Etcetera, 194 Edgeware Rd, Weekdays 10am-4pm, Saturdays 10am-2pm
Etcetera is a combination of vintage clothing and jewellery alongside slices of military history. Husband and wife have teamed up and combined their interests and specialities in one space. You'll find old medals, helmets, jackets and military photo albums, fur stoles and costume jewellery with beautiful women's vintage clothing.
– Abbie Napier
AUCKLAND
FACEBOOK/The Rainbow Opshop Sift through the shelves and find treasure, for just dollars at The Rainbow Opshop.
Salvation Army Store, 652 Dominion Rd, Balmoral
We can't speak for all Sallies stores but the one in Balmoral certainly has it going on. From tiny little collectables - cutlery, crockery, jewellery, ornaments - to an impressive range of pre-loved furniture, once you've finally found a park on busy Dominion Road you may need a trailer to get your finds home. A small amount of clothing is on offer, but this store's more about home furnishings, practical pieces and decor. If you're a lover of old art, picture frames and 80s kitchenware then best you get yourself there.
Tatty's, 159 Ponsonby Road & 47 High Street
Who said you can't afford high-end fashion? An Auckland institution with two stores on Auckland's busiest shopping strips, Tatty's is the go-to for those seeking local and international designer pieces or fabulous vintage finds. The retail assistants are renowned for their friendliness, flair, and great advice, and are very selective of what makes it to coathanger status. Quality is paramount, so your newfound designer item could still look a million bucks, while costing you a smidgen of the retail price. You can also shop via their social media.
FACEBOOK/Paperbag Princess A favourite along K Road, Paperbag Princess will set your vintage-hunting heart aflutter.
The Rainbow Op Shop, 1288 New North Road, Avondale
Those who frequent Rainbow for threads and trinkets believe they find the best bargains here, and it's $1 rack attracts visitors like bees to honey. With good selection of mens and womens clothing, plenty for the kids, porcelain dolls, and house trinkets like vases, crockery and decor, you can deck out your house, bach or perhaps caravan for just dollars.
Paper Bag Princess, 145 Karangahape Road (also stores in Wellington, Dunedin and Whangarei)
Emporium Vintage Boutique, Wellington.
Being one of the largest second-hand stores, PBP can be a little overwhelming at first. But dig a little deeper and you'll find clearly-marked sections for anything you're looking for, most of the time colour-blocked too. Whether you're after something casual, creative, vintage, corporate, elegant or - the best bit - kitsch, you'll find it here in droves. The huge range also plays home to cheerful theatre costumes or dress-up attire. While not always the cheapest in price (compared to non-CBD opshops), their frequent 50% off and two-for-one deals make it pretty easy to bag a bargain.
St Vincent de Paul, 43 Onehunga Mall, Onehunga
It's been hailed, "the dopest of the dopest", but the general consensus is that when it comes to thrift stores this one's right up there. If you've got the time and patience to go through the endless racks there's some gems to be found. If you're a crockery addict then put this store on your list of places to visit as the variety is often massive and mesmerising.
– Pamela McIntosh
WELLINGTON
Recycle Boutique, 143 Vivian Street, Wellington
Just off Cuba St, Recycle Boutique has long been on the must-visit Wellington shopping circuit. We've found birthday dresses, everyday staples, and even a killer leather skirt that gets comments to this day. It'll take a bit of sifting, but it's absolutely worth your time. They work on consignment, and getting your clothes on the racks there can be a bit of a mission, but as a shopper this place is great.
Emporium Vintage Boutiqe, 103b Cuba Street, Wellington
An absolute winner. Staff here do regular buying trips in the United States, and it pays off. We rarely walk in without becoming obsessed with some sequined top, slinky dress or denim skirt. For the dudes, their collection of Western shirts is unparalleled, ranging from the high-key embroidered to those simple enough to wear to work. They've got an excellent selection of shoes and accessories, too.
Thrift, 162 Cuba Street, Wellington
These guys have only opened recently, but we found a lot to love when we popped in. Thrift is definitely on the higher end of things, but if you're looking for quality designer goodies, it's your spot. We saw Kate Sylvester, World and Karen Walker designs on their racks, and left before we ruined our financial lives.
St Vincent de Paul, 109 Aro Street, Aro Valley, Wellington
Neighbourhood op shops live and die by their locations, and Aro Valley is a winner. It's an arty, student-heavy area, so this Vinnies benefits from the end-of-year flat cleanout, and the fact that it's between home and work for many. We've found Dr Denim jeans there before, so keep looking.
Opportunity For Animals, 90 Riddiford Street, Newtown, Wellington
Newtown is overrun with op shops, but this is our pick of the bunch. They support the Black Sheep Animal Sanctuary in Otaki, and the store itself has a very respectable range of clothes and homewares.
– Harriet Pudney“The first thing you should know about sex is that it’s a word,” writes Cory Silverberg, Toronto sex educator and author of Sex is a Funny Word. This educational kids’ book, in bookstores this month, stars four children of different genders, races and abilities. It tackles the usual—changing bodies, fuzzy hair, extra nipples—before it dares go where few other kids’ books have gone. “Having a penis isn’t what makes you a boy,” it reads. “The truth is much more interesting than that!”
As such, it may be one of the first kids’ sex ed books—it’s aimed at eight- to 10-year-olds—to explore the concerns of transgender and gender-diverse youth. Silverberg’s last book for kids, What Makes a Baby, touched on sperm donation and unconventional families, but Sex is a Funny Word takes a big step into gender and identity politics. “When we are born, a doctor or midwife calls us boy or girl. But that’s based on our outside, our cover, and who they think we are,” Silverberg writes. “What about who we think we are?”
Silverberg is posing big questions at a crucial time. In the age of Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce) and Orange is The New Black’s trans star, Laverne Cox, trans awareness is slowly filtering down to younger ages; Stealth, the story of a 12-year-old transgender girl, screened this year at the TIFF Kids Film Festival. This week TLC launched I Am Jazz, a show starring 14-year-old transgender activist and author Jazz Jennings.
Gender as a spectrum, rather than a binary, is a very comprehensible concept for today’s kids, Silverberg argues. According to a poll of 1,000 Millennials conducted by the media company Fusion, 57 per cent of females and 44 per cent of males aged 18 to 34 believe gender is a spectrum. Long before then, however, children understand. “Kids don’t have the language, but they’re in the playground, they know there are boyish-girls and girlish-boys,” says Silverberg. “They’re actually very open, and some people are afraid of that.”
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Today’s Parent: Sex Is a Funny Word: A must-read for kids…and parents
Those people are usually parents, says Christine Baldacchino, a nursery teacher in Toronto. “There was a four-year-old boy in my class who really loved this gold dress,” she says. “One day, his mom saw him and told the director she didn’t want him wearing it.” Because the director thought it would be easier, she removed it from the dress-up centre. “For days, he asked about his favourite dress—where it went, if it was out getting cleaned or fixed, if it was coming back.”
Eventually, the boy caught on. “He said, ‘If you bring the dress back, I promise I won’t wear it,’ ” says Baldacchino, once a tomboy and very familiar with gendered rules of play. “It broke my heart, so I wrote a book about it.” Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress was released by House of Anansi’s Groundwood imprint in April 2014 to glowing reviews—mostly. “A librarian told me that a boy had taken out the book and his mother made him return it,” says Baldacchino. “She proceeded to try to get the book taken out of the library.”
Baldacchino had trans kids in mind but speaks equally to “cisgenders”—those who identify as the gender they were born with, i.e. most of us. Grown-ups don’t always appreciate the ambiguity. “Many parents want an answer as to whether Morris is gay or trans. I don’t know,” she says. “He’s only four.”
There are many kids like the fictional Morris, but only a few of these children will make a full gender transition, says Miriam Kaufman of the new Transgender Youth Clinic at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. In the meantime, she says that hormone blockers “give young people some breathing space to think about their identity and live in their body as it is.”
Books like Baldacchino’s and Silverberg’s, which was brought to Kaufman for expert input before publication, represent shifting ideas and the inevitable parent-kid conversations around them. “This is a great opportunity for parents to have a talk that doesn’t use the word ‘I,’ ” says Kaufman.
Silverberg also invited kids as early readers. They embraced Sex is a Funny Word, he says. “The book is awesome because you put lots of effort into it,” said eight-year-old Bronwyn from Ottawa. “One of my favourite things is that all of the people were different.”So my fabulous present arrived today! EEE! It arrived this morning, but I had a choice of either opening my present, or actually catching my bus to school. So alas, I had to abandon my present at home and leave it for eight hours. It was an agonising wait, but after buying my daily cake from the bakery, I pretty much catapulted myself into the house, grabbed the present and my camera and immediately filmed a vlog. I didn't even change from my school uniform, hence why I look like a Hufflepuff cosplayer in this vlog. ANYWAY! It took a good five minutes to get the sellotape off the box and I nearly stabbed myself about seven times in pure excitement, but I finally got the wrapping off and I was greeted with the most beautiful sight ever. In the box, I saw: ~A letter from my fabulous Santa ~MOUSTACHES AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE ~A fantastic homemade fez which I am wearing as I write this post ~A homemade bowtie ~A poster of the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who wearing a Photoshopped moustache.
Can we just talk about how THIS IS THE BEST PRESENT EVER?! I have an adoration for moustaches, and Doctor Who is one of my favourite TV shows ever. Man, this is simply the best present EVER. I am so ridiculously pleased! Thank you ever so much! I'm off to stick moustaches onto all my cats now, because I'm a good pet owner like that. Tally-ho, everyone! Happy January! I'll see ye all next Christmas!Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) reluctantly announced he's resigning his seat Thursday after multiple women accused him of groping them spanning a decade.
Franken had apologized for making these women “feel badly” but never admitted he did anything wrong. He was even less apologetic in his resignation speech, saying some of his eight accusers remembered his actions differently and suggesting other accusations flat-out didn't happen. He had no choice but to resign after Senate Democrats abruptly said he had to go.
Here's his resignation speech, annotated. Click on the highlighted text to read the annotations and add your own comments.
Sen. Al Franken: Thank you Mr. President. A couple of months ago I felt that we had entered an important moment in the history of this country. We were finally beginning to listen to women about the ways in which men's actions affect them. The moment was long overdue. I was excited for that conversation and hopeful that it would result in real change that made life better for women all across the country and in every part of our society.
Then the conversation turned to me.
Over the last few weeks a number of women have come forward to talk about how they felt my actions had affected them.
I was shocked. I was upset. But in responding to their claims I also wanted to be respectful of that broader conversation, because all women deserve to be heard and their experiences taken seriously. I think that was the right thing to do. I also think it gave some people the false impression that I was admitting to doing things that in fact I haven't done.
Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others, I remember very differently. I said at the outset that the ethics committee was the right venue for these allegations to be heard and investigated and evaluated on their merits, that I was prepared to cooperate fully and that I was confident in the outcome.
You know an important part of the conversation we've been having the last few months has been about how men abuse their power and privilege to hurt women. I am proud that during my time in the Senate I have used my power to be a champion of women. And that I have earned a reputation as someone who respects the women I work alongside everyday. I know there's been a very different picture of me painted over the last few weeks, but I know who I really am.
Serving in the United States Senate has been the great honor of my life. I know in my heart that nothing I have done as a senator — nothing — has brought dishonor on this institution, and I am confident that the ethics committee would agree. Nevertheless today I am announcing that in the coming weeks I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.
I of all people am aware there is some irony in the fact I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party. But this decision is not about me. It's about the people of Minnesota. It has become clear that I can't both pursue the ethics committee process and at the same time remain an effective senator for them.
Let me be clear. I may be resigning my seat but I am not giving up my voice. I will continue to stand up for the things I believe in as a citizen and as an activist. The Minnesotans deserve a senator who can focus with all her energy on addressing the challenges they face every day.
There is a big part of me that will always regret having to walk away from this job with so much work left to be done. But I have faith that the work will continue because I have faith in the people who have helped me do it.
I have faith in the dedicated, funny, selfless, brilliant young men and women on my staff. They have so much more to contribute to our country, and I hope that as disappointed as they may feel today, everyone who has worked for me knows how much I admire and respect them.
I have faith in my colleagues, especially my senior senator, Amy Klobuchar. I would not have been able to do this job without her guidance and wisdom. And I have faith — or at least hope — that members of this Senate will find the political courage necessary to keep asking the tough questions, hold this administration accountable and stand up for the truth. I have faith in the activists who organized and helped me when my first campaign, and who have kept on organizing to help fight for the people who needed us: kids facing bullying. Seniors worried about the price of prescription drugs. Native Americans who have been overlooked for far too long. Working people who've taken it on the chin for a generation. Everyone in the middle class and everyone aspiring to join it.
I have faith in the proud legacy of progressive advocacy I have had the privilege to be a part of. I think I've probably repeated these words ten thousand times over the years. Paul Wellstone's famous quote: “The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard.” It's still true. It will always be true.
And most of all, I have faith in Minnesota. A big part of this job is going around the state and listening to what people need from Washington. But more often than not when I'm home I am blown away. By how much Minnesota has to offer the entire country and the entire world. The people I've had the honor of representing are brilliant and creative and hard-working, and whoever holds this seat next will inherit the challenge I've enjoyed for the last eight and a half years: being as good as the people you serve.
This has been a tough few weeks for me. But I'm a very, very lucky man. I have a beautiful healthy family. That I love. And who loves me very much. I'm going to be just fine.
I just like the end with one last thing. I did not grow up wanting to be a politician. I came to this relatively late in life. I had to learn a lot on the fly. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't always fun. And I'm not just talking about today.
This is a hard thing to do with your life. There are a lot of long hours, and late nights, and hard lessons. And there is no guarantee that all your work and sacrifice will ever pay off. I won my first election by 312 votes. It could have easily gone the other way. And even when you win, progress is far from inevitable. Paul Wellstone spent his whole life working for mental health parity, and it didn't pass until six years after Paul died.
This year a lot of people who didn't grow up imagining that they'd ever get involved in politics have done just that. They've gone through their first protest march or made their first call to a member of Congress. Or maybe even taken the leap and put their names on a ballot for the first time. It can be such a rush to look around a room full of people ready to fight alongside you.
To feel that energy if you imagine that better things are possible but you too will experience setbacks and defeats and disappointments. There'll be days when you will wonder whether it's worth it. What I want you to know is that even today — even on the worst day of my political life — I feel like it's all been worth it. Politics, Paul Wellstone told us, is about the improvement of people's lives. I know that the work I've been able to do has improved people's lives. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
For a decade now, every time I would get tired or discouraged or frustrated, I would think about the people I was doing this for and would get me back up on my feet.
I know the same will be true for everyone who decides to pursue politics that is about improving people's lives. And I hope you know that I will be fighting alongside you every step of the way. With that Mr. President, I yield the floor.A new hacking threat has the medical community alarmed as a security researcher says he's discovered a way for hackers to change the dosage of medications delivered by a patient's drug pump.
The security expert, Billy Rios, has been testing the vulnerabilities of various models of drug pumps manufactured by Hospira, Wired reports.
© Fotobank.ru/Getty Images / Win McNamee McCain: Cyberattacks Should Hasten US Congress to Pass Cyber Legislation
Earlier this year, he discovered that a hacker could change the maximum allowable limit for a particular drug, meaning that the device wouldn't respond with an alert if too much of a drug was administered by a caregiver, for example.
The devices all used a "drug library" that contained information about maximum dosages for different medications, and Rios had discovered that access to that library didn't have to be authenticated, and anyone on the hospital's network could load a new one, with higher maximum dosages.
This wasn't too alarming, since Rios hadn't seen any way to actually change the dosage being administered itself.
But then he kept on digging.
Rios discovered that the same connection that exists in the pump allowing Hospira to access and update the device's firmware, can also be accessed by hackers to upload a faulty update. The system doesn't require authenticated and digitally signed updates.
"And if you can update the firmware on the main board, you can make the pump do whatever you like," Rios says.
— Healthcare Tech Talk (@Healthtechtalkn) June 6, 2015
According to Rios, Hospira at first denied that such a problem existed with their pumps when he first reported his findings to them. The company insisted there was sufficient "separation" between the communications module in question and the device's circuit board.
Rios explains that although, yes, the parts are physically separate, "when you open the device up, you can see they’re actually connected with a serial cable, and they’re connected in a way that you can actually change the core software on the pump."
Rios says he plans to demonstrate a proof-of-concept attack at the SummerCon security conference in Brooklyn, NY, in July, to call Hospira out on the claims of security.
Hospira has various models of pumps, and Rios found this particular vulnerability in their PCA3 LifeCare and PCA5 LifeCare pumps; its Symbiq line of pumps (not currently manufactured); and its Plum A+ model of pumps, of which at least 325,000 are installed in hospitals worldwide.
© Fotolia / Yaroslav Pavlov Cyberattack on US Health Insurer Compromises Over 1 Million Users
The Food and Drug Administration has even issued an alert about the devices, making various recommendations to the manufacturer about how to remedy the vulnerabilities, including making sure the device's network is isolated from that of the wider hospital. However that alert only mentioned the Lifecare PCA3 and PCA5 since Rios had not yet tested other models at that time.
In a blog post Monday, Rios described reluctance on the part of Hospira to take seriously or act on his reports.
"Over 400 days later, we have yet to see a single fix for the issues affecting the PCA 3," he explains.
Rios has not tested all the Hospira models current in use though and told Wired that he strongly suspected that several other contained the same vulnerabilities. After his initial report on the LifeCare models, he urged the company to inspect others, some of which he ended up buying and examining himself.
— Billy Rios (@XSSniper) June 8, 2015
"In May of 2014," he writes, "I recommended Hospira conduct an analysis to determine whether other infusion pumps within their product lines were affected. Five months after my request for a variant analysis, I received notification that Hospira was 'not interested in verifying that other pumps are vulnerable.'"
According to the FDA notice, there had been no reported incidents so far of a malicious manipulation of the pumps settings to harm someone by changing their medication dosages.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Roberto Hernandez is back
The pitcher formerly known as Fausto Carmona is scheduled to arrive in Cleveland on Saturday night after receiving his visa from the U.S. Consulate in the Dominican Republic on Thursday. The visa was approved Monday, but it had to be OK'd by the Department of Homeland Security.
Hernandez will meet with reporters Sunday at Progressive Field.
Stephen Payne, a visa expert and lobbyist who worked with Hernandez's agents, said Hernandez will serve a "brief' MLB-imposed suspension before he is able to join the big league club.
The suspension, which starts Saturday, will last three weeks. Hernandez would be eligible to rejoin the Indians on Aug. 11.
It will probably take that much time for Hernandez to get back in pitching shape. He has been throwing simulated games at the Indians baseball academy in the Dominican.
"I do know Roberto will be playing baseball for the Cleveland Indians -- if he's physically ready -- sometime in August," said Payne.
Hernandez is scheduled to throw a simulated game next week for the Indians coaching staff. He will then go on a rehab assigment to the minors. He'll need at least three to four starts to get ready.
The suspension comes as a bit of a surprise because the Indians insisted that Hernandez renegotiate his contract once they found out he'd been pitching for them under a false identity. Hernandez, who is 31 instead of Carmona's listed age of 28, forfeited a possible $7.5 million when he re-did his contract in spring training.
It was believed that by taking such a cut in pay, Hernandez could avoid a suspension.
Miami right-hander Juan Carlos Oviedo, formerly known as Leo Nunez, was arrested in September in the Dominican Republic for the same offense. He is currently serving an eight-week suspension. Oviedo's suspension ends Monday, but he sustained an elbow injury earlier this week while pitching for Class AAA New Orleans.
Hernandez was arrested on Jan. 19 in Santo Domingo when he tried to get his visa renewed to report to spring training. Dominican authorities held Hernandez in custody for one day before releasing him on $13,000 bail.
Officials in the U.S and Dominican Republic were tipped of Hernandez's true identity by a woman who claimed she doctored a false birth certificate for Hernandez at the request of Hernandez's father. When Hernandez's father didn't pay her a reported $26,000, she went public.
Sources with MLB's Investigative unit said the woman's story, along with other evidence, helped lead to Hernandez's arrest.
Before Hernandez's arrest, he was guaranteed a spot in the Tribe's rotation. When he returns, he could be reinserted in a rotation that is leaking oil in several places.
This is Hernandez's 12th year with the Indians. He signed on Dec. 28, 2000.
His best year was 2007 when he went 19-8 with a 3.06 ERA. Outside of that season, the 6-4, 230-pound right-hander has been wildly inconsistent.
Last year Hernandez was 7-15 with a 5.25 ERA. |
and you’ll find a more detailed look at each of the sites.
To read more visit: http://comparecamp.com/where-to-list-b2b-saas-software-products-heres-top-10-review-directories/CLOSE The Ark Encounter confirms beliefs to some in Williamstown as others protest the message and tax use of the $100 million dollar wooden edifice. Matt Stone, The CJ
Buy Photo A woman walked away from the replica of Noah's Ark, at the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Ky. july 5, 2016. (Photo: Pat McDonogh, The CJ)Buy Photo
Kentucky has suspended tax breaks to the Ark Encounter, saying it breached a deal that provides the religious-themed attraction with $18 million in state tax incentives.
The Northern Kentucky theme park, dubbed the "Ark Park" because it features a 510-foot-long model of Noah's Ark, was notified by state officials on Tuesday that the owners have violated an agreement with Kentucky by transferring the property from a for-profit company to a nonprofit company.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national group that promotes separation of church and state, released a July 18 letter from the state Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet notifying the Ark Encounter that it is in violation of its agreement for the tax incentives. The agreement provides Ark Encounter with up to $18 million in subsidies through annual tax rebates, the foundation said.
A spokesman for Ark Encounter said Friday it did not believe it was in violation of the agreement.
"We don't believe that the transfer of the property created a default, but we will comply with the concerns that the tourism department may have related to the transfer," said spokesman Mark Looy. He added the Ark Park officials "look forward to maintaining a positive relationship with the state long into the future."
Background: Ark Park tax incentives worth up to $18M approved
Most recent Ark news: Ark Encounter thrills gay nation with rainbow light display; Twitter explodes
The tourism cabinet's letter says state officials learned July 10 that owners had transferred the park from Ark Encounter LLC, a for-profit company, to Crosswater Canyon, a nonprofit subsidiary of Answers in Genesis, a Christian creationist ministry that runs the Creation Museum in Petersburg. The cabinet suspended the tax breaks effective June 28, the date of the property transfer, the letter said.
The property was transferred for $10.
If the property is deeded back to the for-profit entity within 30 days, the tax incentive will be restored, said Laura Brooks, spokeswoman for the tourism cabinet.
Earlier in the week, Mike Zovath, chief action officer with Answers in Genesis and principal of Crosswater Canyon, couldn't say why the property was transferred to a nonprofit.
"However this works out, we want to do things that are in the best interest of the Ark Encounter, Crosswater Canyon and everybody that's involved here and works here," he told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
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But Williamstown Mayor Rick Skinner fears the move was taken to avoid paying taxes.
"We're skeptical of their thinking and their lack of communication right now," Skinner said.
The deed to transfer the property to a nonprofit could exempt it from property taxes. The city already gets a limited amount of the tax money from Ark Encounter. The creation of a tax-increment finance district means 75 percent of the state and local property taxes generated by the ark go back into the site.
To pay for police and fire services, Williamstown imposed a 50 cent per ticket fee. Based on Ark Encounter projections of 1 million to 2 million visitors a year, city officials hope the fee will generate $715,000 a year.
The Ark Encounter owners appealed to the city for an exemption because they claimed Crosswater Canyon was a charity. But the city rejected that appeal.
Contact reporter Deborah Yetter at 502-582-4228 or at dyetter@courier-journal.com. Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Scott Wartman contributed to this story.
Recap: More than 400,000 visitors flood Ark Park
More: Rainbow offers hope while Ken Ham sows hate | Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons
Read or Share this story: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/07/21/ark-park-violation-deal-over-18-million-state-tax-breaks/500245001/Contents:
Basics
Conjurer Skills
Skill Use
Inscription
Technology vs. Magic
Regional/Racial magic variations
Basics
Regardless of the narrative source of your character’s magical ability, mechanically it’s all the same: characters require an aspect indicating they are a Conjurer in order to make use of the special Conjurer skills. The only exceptions are Speed Freak Gadget Conjuration and Bayou Charm Conjuration (more on that below). If you want to add a Conjurer aspect as a result of character advancement (as opposed to at character creation), the PC must visit a (hopefully qualified) surgeon, pass a resources roll to afford the biomodification surgery, and take a moderate consequence to indicate the process of surgical recovery.
Conjurer Skills
There are four Conjurer skills that cover the broad mechanics of spell-casting. Potentially the four skills may have some overlap in the effects they could generate (the same could be said about the non-magical skill list), but the concepts behind each are reasonably distinct. These skills are:
Concentration : Increasing the concentration or density of energy and matter. This includes effects such as heat, electrical charge, generating light, speed, crushing matter, creating matter from energy, and speeding the ability of the body’s cells to heal damage or fight disease.
: Increasing the concentration or density of energy and matter. This includes effects such as heat, electrical charge, generating light, speed, crushing matter, creating matter from energy, and speeding the ability of the body’s cells to heal damage or fight disease. Dissipation : Reducing the concentration or density of energy and matter. This includes effects such as cooling, draining electricity, dimming/scattering light, slowing, deteriorating matter, converting matter to energy, and slowing the progress of disease or poison.
: Reducing the concentration or density of energy and matter. This includes effects such as cooling, draining electricity, dimming/scattering light, slowing, deteriorating matter, converting matter to energy, and slowing the progress of disease or poison. Manipulation : Moving or conducting energy and matter. This includes effects such as transferring/directing heat/electricity/light, changing the direction of moving objects, changing the shape or type of matter, animating dead or inanimate matter, knitting wounds and broken bones, and altering the perceptions or even thoughts of others.
: Moving or conducting energy and matter. This includes effects such as transferring/directing heat/electricity/light, changing the direction of moving objects, changing the shape or type of matter, animating dead or inanimate matter, knitting wounds and broken bones, and altering the perceptions or even thoughts of others. Attunement: Sensing the presence and nature of energy. This includes effects such as detecting heat/electricity/light, detecting life, diagnosing disease/poison/injury, reading emotions, motives, and even thoughts.
Magical energy is usually invisible to non-Conjurers until cast as a spell, however, Conjurers with very strong abilities will begin to develop a glowing aura which is visible to Conjurer and non-Conjurer alike. This indication of unmistakable power can inspire great awe and respect, or great fear and mistrust depending on the disposition of the observer. To conceal such symptoms of great magical power is difficult at best, even with concerted effort and practice.
If a character has any Conjurer skill at Great ( +4 ) or higher, that character will begin to give off a blue glow, dimly visible in daytime and plainly visible at night. In rules terms, characters will get +1 bonus to their Notice or Attunement rolls to notice/sense a Conjurer’s magical ability for each of his/her Conjurer skill levels beyond Good ( +3 ). This is not cumulative; only the character’s highest Conjurer skill is taken into account for this calculation.
Skill Use
All spells require some kind of movement (usually hand movement). There is no requirement for a verbal component to any spell (unless you particularly feel like shouting). As an exception, a limited number of spells can be Inscribed to be used without movement (more on that below).
The movements are immensely complex and delicate, and are complicated further by the fact that they will be slightly different for each spell caster; as all casters are physically different in shape and size, the movements must be tuned to the individual caster through careful practice, so a theoretical knowledge of a spell is not enough to cast it properly. Imperfect spell casting movements can at best have lesser or no effect, and at worst lead to entirely unexpected and usually undesirable results. While extremely patient and intelligent mages have been known to modify or, more rarely, invent new spells, it is far more common for spells to be taught in some fashion. A well-connected, socially-savvy, or financially persuasive mage may be able to convince a more experienced mage to pass on his or her knowledge, though such knowledge is often well-guarded. Additionally, more empirical mages have, over the years, developed a vast array of arcane symbols into a sort of language which broadly and generally describes the required movements to cast their spells. While recorded instruction of this sort is unambiguous and usable by anyone familiar with the language, the personalized nature of spell casting requires a great deal of practice beyond a simple reading of instructions before the student will be able to successfully cast the spell. Neither personal magical instruction nor written spell tomes are commonly available; a prospective student will need to spend many diligent years in pursuit of instruction before amassing any quantity of spells.
To keep things simple mechanically, we will say the skill level of the caster vs. the difficulty of the spell accounts for this. Also, Conjurer skills cannot be used at default and require narrative justification for skill increases and stunt additions.
Some spells appear simpler to cast with predictable results than others. Generally, the more complex, powerful, or delicate the desired result, the more skill required to satisfactorily cast the spell.
Conjurer skills are rolled against passive opposition equivalent to the difficulty of the spell. The following numerical list equates to shifts of difficulty. Broadly, the difficulties are:
Interaction with raw energy types in a basic way, in a roughly targeted area. Interaction with raw energy types in a more specific way, or in a more specific area or direction. Interaction with matter (condense/deteriorate/move), or basic identification of energy pattern types (eg. life, thought, electronics). More complex interaction with matter (eg. basic conversion to/from energy and shaping), or patterns of energy (eg. identify basic emotions/intentions/programs). Very complex interaction with matter (eg. conversion to/from specific types of matter/energy), or patterns of energy (eg. understand thoughts and detailed programs).
The degree of magical aptitude has an effect on both the skill and power of spell casting. The higher the Conjurer’s skill, the more likely the success of spell casting, and the more powerful the effect.
Conjurer skills are used per the Channeling rules.
Inscription
In rules terms, Inscription allows a PC to directly cast a specific effect without having to use Create an Advantage first, and without the requirement for movement. This process involves several steps:
The PC must have the related Conjurer skill at Great ( +4 ) or higher. The player must succeed a roll of the related Conjurer skill against opposition two shifts higher than the spell difficulty. Eg. for a Great spell ( +4 ), the opposition to overcome would be Fantastic ( +6 ). Failure means the spell fizzles, or succeeds at cost (eg. backfire, different spell, etc.). The player must succeed a Craft roll equal to the spell difficulty. Regardless of success or failure, take the Mild Consequence Exhausted. This consequence recovers as usual. Failure means the PC is unable to craft an inscription, or succeeds at cost (eg. the Inscription will not exactly have the desired effect). The player must succeed a Physique roll equal to the spell difficulty. Regardless of success or failure, take the Moderate Consequence Lacerated. This consequence recovers as usual. Failure means the PC passes out from the pain without completing the Inscription, or succeeds at cost (eg. the Inscription will not exactly have the desired effect, or the consequence is upgraded from Mild to Severe). If any of the rolls are failed, the process fails and cannot be re-attempted for X sessions, where X = the number of shifts of failure. If the player succeeds all rolls (even with cost), the PC takes the Inscribed aspect. This only needs to be done once, regardless of how many Inscriptions the PC possesses. Additionally, success means the desired stunt can be purchased (as long as the PC has the required refresh to do so).
Technology vs. Magic
An Anti-magic Web (yeah… help me come up with a better name) is an item that acts as an Extra with its own Aspect. You can invoke the aspect to get a +2 or a re-roll on defence against a spell. They are a new technology and are temperamental; be creative with the downside to the aspect such a device grants.
Regional/Racial magic variations
The Speed Freaks have a special ability to make working technological items out of seemingly inadequate parts. Neither Speed Freaks themselves nor anyone else knows exactly how they do this, but these items function nonetheless…
The witch doctors of the southeastern Bayou area perform a type of magic involving charms and suchlike.
The Speed Freak racial aspect and Witch Doctor high concept aspect each grant permission to buy a special type of stunt. Once per session, Speed Freaks and Witch Doctors can use Crafts to create a magical item of simple or moderate complexity. For example, a Speed Freak could create a small engine (for a chainsaw, moped, or similar), or makeshift repairs on a larger vehicle or piece of machinery, but could not build an entire working car from scratch. A Witch Doctor could create small charms that cause slow flesh damage to a person, increased chance of weapon misfire, faster rate of healing, etc., but could not cause mass destruction or severe and sudden damage. What types of items these stunts can be used to make is something the players and GM need to discuss. Such items only last between one scene and one session, depending on the number of shifts of success on the skill roll.Founded in 2014 by Arvind Gupta of SOS Ventures, Indie Bio has already backed cultured milk start-up Muufri (pronounced ‘Moo-free’), which inserts DNA sequences from cattle into yeast cells to grow milk in the lab; and Clara Foods, which is using yeast to produce animal-free egg whites; and is looking for the next wave of companies to support, said program director Ryan Bethencourt.
“Cultured versions of animal products have the potential to overhaul the food industry and help address major global issues of sustainability and public health. This is one area in which biotech developments could improve the lives of billions of people and animals… "
The move was welcomed by LA-based animal rights group Mercy for Animals, which said: "This move could spare billions of future animals from a lifetime of misery as biotech food companies replace cruel and unsustainable factory farms.”
What is cultured meat?
Cultured meat (read a great guide HERE from New Harvest) is meat produced in the lab, in a cell culture, rather than from an animal. However, the production begins by taking cells from an animal and growing them in a nutrient-rich medium. As they multiply, they might be attached to a sponge-like ‘scaffold’ and soaked with nutrients or mechanically stretched to increase their size and protein content.
The resulting cells can then be harvested, seasoned, cooked, and consumed as a boneless, processed meat, such as sausages, hamburgers, or chicken nuggets.
Interested parties have until July 31 to apply for the money. Click HERE for full details or email elna.orgurapbheg@fbfiragherf.pbzMost Christians today probably can’t imagine Christmas on any other day than December 25, but it wasn’t always that way. In fact, for the first three centuries of Christianity’s existence, Jesus Christ’s birth wasn’t celebrated at all. The religion’s most significant holidays were Epiphany on January 6, which commemorated the arrival of the Magi after Jesus’ birth, and Easter, which celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. The first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honoring Jesus’ birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from 336 A.D.
But was Jesus really born on December 25 in the first place? Probably not. The Bible doesn’t mention his exact birthday, and the Nativity story contains conflicting clues. For instance, the presence of shepherds and their sheep suggest a spring birth. When church officials settled on December 25 at the end of the third century, they likely wanted the date to coincide with existing pagan festivals honoring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra (the Persian god of light). That way, it became easier to convince Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion
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The celebration of Christmas spread throughout the Western world over the next several centuries, but many Christians continued to view Epiphany and Easter as more important. Some, including the Puritans of colonial New England, even banned its observance because they viewed its traditions—the offering of gifts and decorating trees, for example—as linked to paganism. In the early days of the United States, celebrating Christmas was considered a British custom and fell out of style following the American Revolution. It wasn’t until 1870 that Christmas became a federal holiday.
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website(Newser) – A family aboard a 1948 Cessna 170 attempted a takeoff from Florida's Williston Municipal Airport around 3pm Saturday. Instead, they crashed 150 feet before a tree line at the taxiway's north side, reports the Gainsville Sun. But though some 20 to 30 planes took off from the airport later Saturday—and nearby pilots should have registered the signals from the plane's emergency locator transmitter—the crash was only reported to police some 22 hours later. Authorities say a pilot first spotted the wreckage and called it in around 1pm Sunday, per WXIA. Inside, authorities found Nathan Enders, 37, of Williamson, Ga.; his wife Laura, 42; and their two young sons, Jaden, 7; and Eli, 5. All four were dead. A GoFundMe page has been set up to provide for funeral expenses and a scholarship fund for a surviving son who was not on the plane.
"For all that traffic, no one thought to call us," says Williston's deputy chief of police. "This is really a huge complacency issue." Nathan's sister expressed her heartache on Facebook: "It is so awful still, thinking of... what was going through their minds, if they knew what was happening or felt any pain as they sat there [upside down] waiting... to be found." The Sun reports the airport has a full-time manager and two part-time employees, but couldn't confirm whether they were at work Saturday as Enders, an experienced pilot and air traffic controller himself, was taking off. The National Transportation Safety Board is compiling a preliminary report but says it could be months before officials determine the cause of the crash, which occurred in fair weather, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (This pregnant mom lost her husband and two kids in an instant.)Mike Roemer/Associated Press
No team has been better at plucking game-changing receivers in the second round of NFL drafts than the Green Bay Packers.
Another hit for general manager Ted Thompson may be waiting in the wings.
A unique mix of some of the game's best receivers, Davante Adams—picked 53rd overall by the Packers—now has a real chance to continue the legacy started by Greg Jennings and extended by Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb in Green Bay.
Despite not using a top-35 pick on any of the three above-mentioned receivers, the Packers have still cashed in to the tune of 863 catches, 12,889 yards and 103 touchdowns from the second-round trio of Jennings, Nelson and Cobb. Expect Adams to add to those bargain-bought numbers.
The Fresno State product blends a touch of Dez Bryant, Michael Crabtree and Jennings into the body of James Jones, creating a high-potential NFL pass-catcher with a relatively low bust factor. In some drafts, Adams would have been a first-rounder. In 2014, which featured a loaded class of receivers, he fell to Green Bay with the 21st pick in the second round.
Here's how Adams compares to NFL receivers in several of the position's most important attributes:
Catching the Football: James Jones
Making the catch is the most important aspect of playing receiver. You can be as physically dominant as Calvin Johnson or as fast in a straight line as DeSean Jackson, but if you can't consistently catch the football, nothing else really matters.
In this area, Adams gets mostly high grades. His best comparison is probably Jones, a former Packers receiver who occasionally let good throws hit the ground but who also matured into one of the league's best catchers in traffic.
While not perfect, Adams consistently displayed the ability to high-point the football and catch passes away from his body. Rarely did it matter if a defender or two were in his immediate vicinity.
Derek Carr, Adams' former quarterback at Fresno State, appreciated these pass-catching abilities.
"I just had to put it somewhere in his vicinity and he was going to come down with it," Carr said, via Tyler Dunne of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It could be underthrown. It could be way too wide. Or it could be 13 feet in the air and he'll go up in the air and grab it. It won't be a problem for him."
Below, we see Adams making a Jones-esque catch for the touchdown:
Draft Breakdown
The defending cornerback is right in Adams' hip pocket, driving him toward the sideline and increasing the difficulty of the catch and throw. For the most part, it's good coverage.
But watch as Adams goes up to get the football, high-pointing the catch and eliminating any chance for the corner to disrupt the connection. His strong hands complete the process with relative ease. How many times has Jones snatched away a similarly tough catch in traffic in recent years? Adams then has no problem getting two feet in bounds, making this a legitimate score whether it came in college or the NFL.
More highlights of Adams making all kinds of difficult catches can be found in this six-minute clip:
The video shows difficult catch after difficult catch. No receiver, save for maybe Mike Evans at Texas A&M, bailed out his quarterback more often with off-target receptions than Adams did over the last two seasons.
Yards after the Catch: Greg Jennings
Jennings has consistently been one of the NFL's better receivers in yards after the catch (YAC). Since entering the NFL in 2006, Jennings has averaged 353 YAC per season. And his 2,829 career YAC represent almost 39 percent of his eight-year receiving total.
The Packers offense is part of the reason why. Last season, Green Bay ranked fourth overall in total YAC, with almost 55 percent of the team's total passing yards coming after the catch was made.
But Jennings, who spent his first year away from the Packers in 2013, still brings special qualities to the table that make him hard to bring down. While not the biggest or the fastest receiver, he uses lightning-quick acceleration, running back-like moves and impressive field vision to elude defenders.
Watching Adams, I found it hard not to see some of the same twitchy moves Jennings still makes to turn simple five-yard catches into explosive 20-yard gains.
Here is one example:
Draft Breakdown
Jennings became the NFL's very best at catching the comeback and then making a quick swivel inside, helping him to circle past the pursuing cornerback and get upfield. Adams does the same here.
He first secures the catch in front of the corner before feeling the defender closing in on his outside shoulder and spinning away inside from the tackle attempt. This was against inferior competition, but the resemblance to Jennings and his ability after the catch was too obvious not to share.
One more example, just for good measure:
Draft Breakdown
Adams' move is once again Jennings-like. He squares his shoulders, forces the defender to commit one way and then jukes the other. Adams turns the catch from a 10-yard play into a 15-yard one, which in some scenarios (not this one) can mean the difference between a first down and punting.
Adams should fit right in with the Packers' YAC-heavy passing game.
Red-Zone Production: Dez Bryant
You can see elements of Bryant's playing style throughout Adams' game, especially in terms of catching the football and chewing up yards after the catch. Both players attack the football with strong hands and show a suddenness to their movements once the catch has been secured. Bryant is the more explosive player overall, but the similarities are there.
In no area does Adams remind more of Bryant than in the red zone.
Production inside in the 20-yard line requires many traits of the receiver position. The best in the business combine route-running, body control and the rare ability to track and attack the football in the air to rack up touchdowns for their offense.
Bryant might be the best receiver in the game at exploiting cornerbacks inside the red zone. His size and length (6'2", 34" arms) are great tools, but he wins mostly with an unparalleled ability to create and utilize an inch of separation. And when the football is in the air, few are better at adjusting their body and outworking the defender for the catch.
The same goes for Adams.
"And when there is a situation where it’s tighter, more of a competitive-type throw, you see a guy with strong hands and physicality that can go up and make a play, make the tough catch,” Packers receivers coach Edgar Bennett said, via Jason Wilde of ESPN Milwaukee.
Adams enters the NFL as the best fade runner in this year's draft class. He made a killing at Fresno State catching short to intermediate fades from Carr, who was completely unafraid to loft balls his way in the compressed area.
Here's one example of Adams winning at the line of scrimmage and making the catch in the corner of the end zone:
Draft Breakdown
There's so much to like about the entire sequence. For starters, Adams supplies himself a free release with a devastating shoulder-dip fake to the inside. This might be against San Jose State, but rarely do you see a cornerback getting completely turned around just a few steps into a receiver's route, especially down in the red zone.
Once the corner is soundly beaten, Adams shows off his 39.5-inch vertical leap—again high-pointing the football—before securing the catch and holding on throughout the entire process (the NFL, as Megatron can attest, is very particular about this).
This is just one example of Adams winning inside the 20. His 38 career touchdowns offer numerous others. In addition to his mastery of the fade, he's also shown an ability to make plays over the shoulder, on the back shoulder (look up his one-handed catch against Wyoming in 2013) and with the slant. Expect Aaron Rodgers and the Packers offense to give him opportunities to score touchdowns from inside the red zone early on in his NFL career.
Route Running: Michael Crabtree
Crabtree was one of the more savvy and skilled route-runners to come out of college in some time. Adams isn't nearly on the same level, but you can see certain qualities—such as the ability to sell a fake—that evoke memories of Crabtree at Texas Tech.
Of course, Crabtree has translated that ability to create separation in and out of his breaks into over 100 catches and 10 scores over his last 21 regular-season games. And he also burned the Packers for eight catches and 125 yards in the San Francisco 49ers' Wild Card Round win over Green Bay last January.
The example from Adams below has hints of Crabtree's deceptiveness:
Draft Breakdown
Adams sells the inside breaking route and becomes wide open on the stop-and-go. He completes the big play by going up and high-pointing the football (sensing a theme here?), which was thrown somewhat short. A good throw and Adams walks in for a score.
Crabtree has become one of the game's best at selling his routes with head and shoulder fakes (the same can be said for Jennings). When combined with quickness out of the break, a good sell job can create the necessary separation for a receiver that might lack the breath-taking speed sometimes needed to keep cornerbacks honest.
Adams still has refinement to do in this area. He's in no way slow, but as a long-strider, he'll need to get very good at running deceptive routes on every snap. And almost all incoming college receivers need work on consistently beating the press from NFL corners.
The tools appear to be in place. It will now take continued work with Bennett and the offensive staff in Green Bay to refine and then master the craft.
Overall: Somewhere between Jones and Bryant
Bryant and Jones both show up consistently in Adams' game.
He isn't as effortless an athlete as Bryant, who appears to be playing at a different speed—almost gliding at times—during most Sundays. But in terms of body control and attacking the football in the air, especially in the red zone, the two play the receiver position very similarly.
Jones is the easier comparison given the catching styles and body types. Like Jones, Adams wins consistently in traffic and shows deceptive long speed.
In a worst-case scenario, Adams would occasionally struggle to separate and have untimely mental lapses catching the football but still remain a mostly productive pro receiver. Best case, he becomes a touchdown vulture who can win over the top or underneath with deceptiveness and is a nightmare with the football in his hands.
The range is wide, but both the ceiling and floor should be high for Adams' NFL career. He has the array of tools to become the latest in a long line of second-round success stories for Thompson and the Packers.
Zach Kruse covers the NFC North for Bleacher Report.
Follow @zachkruse2It’s been a very good year for Warner Bros. at the box office, as the studio crossed the $2 billion mark at the domestic box office on Sunday. It’s only the second time in studio history that WB has hit this mark, and comes just days after the studio hit $5 billion worldwide.
Though the studio’s latest film, “Justice League,” hasn’t performed as well as analysts hoped with $212 million domestic through four weekends, WB has had plenty of other big successes this year, most notably “Wonder Woman,” which became the movie of the summer with $412.5 million. WB also had the big surprise of the year with “It,” which became the highest grossing horror movie and highest grossing September release of all time with $327.3 million.
Also Read: Warner Bros. Crosses $5 Billion at Global Box Office
Other films that have performed well for WB are Oscar contender “Dunkirk” ($188 million), “The Lego Batman Movie” ($175.7 million), “Kong: Skull Island” ($168 million) and “Annabelle: Creation” ($102 million). That gives WB seven films that have grossed more than $100 million, the most of any studio, as well as an industry-best eight No. 1 opening weekends for 2017.
Warner Bros. is currently first on the domestic charts with 20 percent market share, though Disney will overtake them once “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is released. Even still, WB has been remarkably consistent over the past decade, finishing in first or second among all studios in eight of the last ten years, including a studio record $2.13 billion made in 2009. WB is also the only studio to gross more than $1 billion domestically every year since 2000.Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have reportedly not yet inspected several Superfund sites in the Houston metro area that were flooded in the aftermath of Harvey.
The Houston metro area includes more than 12 Superfund sites, the Associated Press reported.
According to the AP, these are areas that the EPA has said are some of America's most contaminated places.
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A spokeswoman for the EPA said agency experts had previously gone to two such sites in the Corpus Christi area, which is near where Harvey first made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane.
No significant damage was found in those sites, spokeswoman Amy Graham told the AP.
“We will begin to assess other sites after flood waters recede in those areas,” Graham said.
Last month, EPA head Scott Pruitt ordered his staff in a memo to take a handful of actions to streamline cleanups at contaminated Superfund sites.
He ordered changes — like taking quick action at sites with high risks of human exposure to human contaminants and focusing resources on sites with the best potential for reuse — based on the recommendations of a task force he convened earlier this year.
The memo sent to high-level staff and regional offices is part of Pruitt’s highly-visible effort to make Superfund cleanup a top priority for his time at the EPA.
Harvey, which made landfall last weekend, has devastated Houston and other areas of Texas.
Thousands of people have been displaced and recovery efforts in the region are ongoing.Formula 1
Häkkinen uskoo: Räikkönen nuijii Alonson
Häkkinen uskoo: Räikkönen nuijii Alonson
10.9.2013 9:46
Mika Häkkinen uskoo, että Kimi Räikkönen pystyy päihittämään ensi kaudella Fernando Alonson, jonka edelleen odotetaan jatkavan Ferrarin toisena kuljettajana.
Häkkisen mielestä uudet turboautot sopivat Räikköselle paremmin kuin Alonsolle.
- Mielestäni Kimin ajotyyli on aika ihanteellinen niihin autoihin, joilla ensi vuonna ajetaan. Alonso ajaa paljon rajummalla tyylillä, joten pidän hyvin mahdollisena, että Kimi saisi hänestä yliotteen, Häkkinen kirjoittaa Ilta-Sanomien uudessa kolumnissaan.
Häkkinen pitää Räikkösen siirtymistä Ferrarille loogisena ratkaisuna, vaikka vuoden 2007 maailmanmestari joutuikin lähtemään italialaistallista aiemmin vastoin omaa tahtoaan.
- Kaikki tietävät, että Ferrarilla on valtavasti voimavaroja kehittää autoa koko kauden. Kehitystyö ei pysähdy, vaikka hyviä työntekijöitä lähtisi pois, eikä Kimin tarvitsisi pelätä sitäkään, että tallin rahat loppuvat kesken.
Häkkinen painottaa myös Ferrarin suurta kokemusta turbomoottoreista.
- Ensi vuonna autoihin tulee niin suuria muutoksia, että kuljettajan on silloin hyvä olla isossa tallissa, ja Kimi tietää sen.
Lue Mika Häkkisen koko F1-kolumni tiistain Ilta-Sanomista.Hamas said on Thursday that Mossad agents carrying Bosnian passports were behind the assassination of Mohammed Zawahri, the Palestinian militant group's drone expert, in Tunisia last year.
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Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas' political bureau, said during a press conference in Beirut that an investigation showed that, as part of the preparations for the assassination, two apartments were rented. He Zawahri was under close Mossad surveillance for four months prior to his killing, and that the Mossad agents were aided by other intelligence agencies. Nazzal added that Mossad agents carrying Bosnian passports were responsible for his death.
Following the assassination, Hamas formed an investigation panel headed by Nazzal. "We've reached clear conclusions about who was behind the assassination," he said.
>> With killing of Hamas' drone expert, long list of alleged Israeli assassinations grows
Members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, hold a banner bearing a portrait of one of their leaders, Mohammed Zawahri, during a ceremony in his memory on December 18, 2016 in Gaza City. AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD HAMS
This is not the first time Hamas has accused Israel of being behind the assassination. Shortly after the assassination, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, Hamas' military wing, Said that Zawahri was developing drones for the group, accusing Israel of his killing.
According to reports, Zawahri was shot at close range with six bullets, three to his head, while in his car. The reports said that the assassin was highly professional and skilled, and didn't leave a trace.
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Zawahri, 45, was a former Tunisair pilot. He served as head of a south Tunisia civil aviation organization, and trained youth to fly drones.
Reports in Tunisia and around the Arab World said following the assassination that Zawahri was an enthusiastic supporter of the Palestinian cause. United Arab Emeritus' newspaper Al-Khaleej claimed that Zawahri received threats over the past few years due to his involvement with the manufacture of drones. The newspaper quoted a source saying that foreign elements are responsible for the assassination, but did not single out any particular country or intelligence organization.
The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which is identified with Lebanon's Hezbollah Shi'ite militia, reported that Zawahri had worked with the military wing of Hamas since the 1990s, as well as with Hezbollah.
Tunisian authorities pursued Zawahri |
a herd of 300 to 400 bison.
The Fish and Wildlife Services preferred alternative returns to the tribe control of their traditional lands and cultural resources, according to the announcement. The land would assume the status of other reservation lands, being held in trust by the Department of the Interior for the benefit of the tribes.
The announcement also identifies two other alternatives: maintaining the status quo, or creating an annual funding agreement under which the tribes would assume control, but to a lesser extent.
In a press release on Wednesday, the tribes hailed the agencys proposal.
We look forward to cooperating with the service in its preparation of a comprehensive conservation plan, including evaluation of Bison Range restoration, Tribal Chairman Vernon S. Finley stated in the release. The Tribes look forward to the day when we can extend our record of natural resources management to the Bison Range, including its bison that descend from the herd managed by Tribal members a century ago.
A national advocacy group, Public Employees for Environmental Sustainability, was quick to condemn the agencys move as a last-minute maneuver by the outgoing Obama administration. The organization is currently suing the Fish and Wildlife Service, alleging that it illegally advocated for the transfer proposal before conducting an environmental review.
The agency has maintained it simply began discussions at the time, and had not pushed for the transfer.
Filing a notice saying that the service finally intends to follow the law does not defeat a lawsuit to force it to comply with the law by a judicially enforceable date, Paula Dinerstein, the groups Senior Counsel, stated in a press release Wednesday. The haste to squeeze this into the Federal Register just before the Trump inauguration suggests a desperate Hail Mary pass.
The proposed transfer would require Congress to pass new federal legislation. Last year the tribes developed a proposed bill to do so, available at bisonrangeworkinggroup.org. It has yet to be introduced.
It remains unclear whether newly anointed President Donald Trump will continue moving forward with the proposal. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., has been selected by Trump to lead the Department of the Interior, although he was still awaiting Senate confirmation as of Saturday.
Zinke hasnt publicly taken a position on transferring the Bison Range.
I have no doubt that the Salish-Kootenai tribes are capable of managing buffalo, Zinke previously told the Inter Lake. But he added, I want to make sure that the land does not get sold Montanas not for sale. And I want to make sure that theres provisions in there to ensure that the land does not get sold and remains public land.
The Fish and Wildlife Services announcement initiated a 30-day public comment period, ending Feb. 17.
To view the proposal or submit comments online, visit bit.ly/2jhAx3v.
Comments can be mailed or hand-delivered to: Toni Griffin, Refuge Planner; NBR CCP, 134 Union Boulevard; Lakewood, CO 80228.The rent really is too damn high: Why American renters have never had it worse You're not the only one struggling to keep up. San Franciscans are spending half of their income on rent
If you’re having trouble keeping up with rent, you’re not alone. Renting in the U.S. has never been as expensive as it is right now.
According to a new report by the online real estate database Zillow, rents have never taken up this much of the American paycheck. Mortgage prices have remained relatively stable over the last several years, while rent has skyrocketed. A Bloomberg article points out that the cost of homeownership is actually at a historic low, while the rate of homeownership is also lower than it has been in years. With home ownership is at its lowest rate in five years, apartment living has become increasingly competitive and some landlords appear to be taking advantage of the situation.
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To come up with its estimates, Zillow tracked data going back to 1979. It found that while the longstanding average income percentage an American spent on rent between 1985 and 1999 was 24.4, today a median renter is spending an average of 30.2 percent of her income on the rent for a median-priced apartment. This is up from 29.5 percent one year ago.
In Los Angeles, residents are spending half of their incomes on rent. San Francisco residents are just shy of LA, spending 47 percent of their incomes on rent.
For people like me who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, this news isn’t exactly shocking. Rent in California has always been high compared with much of the country, but it’s been especially bananas in recent years. Thanks mainly to the influx of billionare-backed tech companies from Silicon Valley, San Francisco is the most expensive city in America. The artists and non-techies who once called the city home are moving en masse to Oakland and surrounding parts of the East Bay. This is creating a damaging domino effect in which primarily white, middle-class people priced out of SF are in turn pricing lower-income minority families out of their longtime East Bay homes.
Gentrification isn't just a San Francisco trend, of course, and California’s not the only place where city dwellers are spending close to half of what they earn on shelter. In Miami, rent accounts for an average of 45 percent of income, and in the New York metro area, the number is 41 percent.
Here's a pretty staggering graph Bloomberg put together to show the "Affordability Crunch," based on Zillow's data:Women shout slogans and hold placards reading "Rape is a human crime" (L) and "AKP get your hands off our children" during a demonstration in Istanbul on November 18, 2016 (AFP Photo/Ozan Kose)
Istanbul (AFP) - Thousands of people, including women and children, marched Saturday in Istanbul against a controversial bill that would overturn men's convictions for child sex assault if they married their victim.
"We will not shut up. We will not obey. Withdraw the bill immediately!" the around 3,000 protesters shouted amid claps and whistles as they marched to Kadikoy square on the city's Asian side.
Others waved banners emblazoned with slogans such as "#Rape cannot be legitimised" and "AKP, take your hands off my body," a reference to the ruling party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which introduced the bill.
The opposition, celebrities, and even an association whose deputy chairman is Erdogan's daughter have expressed alarm over the move.
But the government insists the legislation was aimed at dealing with the widespread custom of child marriages and the criticism was a crude distortion of its aim.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag on Saturday moved to reassure opponents that the bill would not pardon rapists.
"The bill will certainly not bring amnesty to rapists.... This is a step taken to solve a problem in some parts of our country," he told a NATO meeting in Istanbul.
After the controversy, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim late Friday ordered his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to hold talks with the opposition in parliament on the planned measures.
- 'Women will take to streets'-
The measures were approved in an initial parliamentary reading on Thursday and will be voted on again in a second debate in the coming days. Critics have said the government is encouraging the rape of minors.
"We will not allow the AKP to acquit and set free rapists in this country," one of the women protesters who gave her name as Ruya told AFP.
"Women will resist and take to the streets until this law and similar other laws are withdrawn."
Another protester, a middle-aged man named Ugur, was at the protest with his 14-year-old daughter.
"I am concerned about my daughter's future," Ugur told AFP. "AKP is passing any law they want in the parliament."
The AKP enjoys a comfortable majority in the 550-seat parliament, holding 317 seats.
"That's the maximum we can do. To protest," he said.
If passed, the law would allow the release from prison of men guilty of assaulting a minor if the act was committed without "force, threat, or any other restriction on consent" and if the aggressor "marries the victim".
The legal age of consent in Turkey is 18 but child marriage is widespread, especially in the southeast.
Another protester, Yagmur, called the bill "nonsense".
"In which century are we are living? Forgive me but we are talking about rape while other issues should be up for discussion," he said.
"A country cannot advance with more bridges or roads. We are against the bill and we will not remain silent."
- 'Violence against children a crime' -
The UN children's fund said Saturday it was "deeply concerned" over the bill.
"These abject forms of violence against children are crimes which should be punished as such, and in all cases the best interest of the child should prevail," spokesman Christophe Boulierac told AFP.
The latest controversy comes after Turkey's constitutional court in July annulled a criminal code provision punishing as "sexual abuse" all sexual acts involving children under the age of 15.
Defenders of that law argued it made a distinction between cases of sexual acts involving a young teenager as opposed to a much younger child.
The bill comes amid widespread concern at what the UN rapporteur on freedom of expression on Friday described as a "grim" situation in Turkey following an attempted coup in July.
Since a rogue military faction tried to oust President Erdogan from power, over 100,000 people within the judiciary, media, military and civil service have been arrested, suspended or sacked.Critics dismiss #OccupyWallStreet as a bunch of dirty, whining hippies and trustafarians. But many of the protesters at Zuccotti Plaza are actually hacker-minded geeks bringing an engineering mentality to bear on politics and several high and low-tech problems. See Also: 'Arab Spring' on the Hudson The #OWS encampment runs on generators that power a media center packed with laptops, Wi-Fi and video equipment. Live updates and operational messages propagate over Twitter as well as over closed alternative networks resistant to sniffing by unwanted observers. Digital donations are funneled through Kickstarter, and material donations arriving from around the country supply a kitchen and a medical station -- which treats minor protest hazards such as pepper spray and cuts. The DIY nature of the movement evokes the spirit of the Maker Faire and Hackathon events, with participants contributing their skills and creativity to support a larger, loosely defined movement or goal. Here are our favorite scenes and hacks from the protest so far. Top photo: Michael Mozart, 45, live-broadcasts at the #OccupyWallStreet protest in Zuccotti Plaza. Mozart is a beta-tester for YouTube Live (JeepersMedia channel), a live-streaming feature of the popular video site, which also integrates directly into his Facebook and Google+ pages. Although Mozart is neither "supporting or not supporting" the ideals of Occupy Wall Street, he still feels compelled to use his status as a beta-tester to show what was actually happening after hearing a TV news report of "only a few dozen protesters" at the plaza where he was certain there were hundreds. Bottom photo: An outlet for phone chargers is plugged into a generator at the media center. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Protesters volunteering for the internet and information boards of #OccupyWallStreet work and broadcast from their media center. 3G and 4G hotspots provide Wi-Fi. Protesters spend a lot of their time broadcasting their efforts on social networking sites as well as updating their own www.nycga.cc. They also have Kickstarter pages to help them take in donations from around the world to support the protest. Video volunteers work in shifts to cover #OccupyWallStreet activities and log footage. On and off-site editors cut the video together and post to YouTube. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Amelia Marzec, 30, displays her creation called Signal Strength. The hack involves using a device to send peer-to-peer signals between mobile phones, making a traditional network unnecessary and preventing conversations from being surreptitiously monitored. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
A dishwasher pours dirty water into a grey water system. The system filters dirty dish water through woodchips, soil and plant roots to create cleaner water suitable for watering the flowers and trees around Zuccotti Plaza. Larry Left, 27, right, gives Zaqiy Brewer, 22, left, a haircut. Left, a licensed barber in Staten Island, says, "I've been fed, I've gotten free cigarettes. I'll give something out for free too." Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Shon Potado, 33, briefs the medic volunteers on how to use a solution to relieve the effects of pepper spray. Potado says the solution is half Mylanta and half water and is used to treat "chemical weapon exposure." Potado has also treated baton wounds and handcuff injuries as a result of protesters' run-ins with police. The medic station boasts a number of supplies. Volunteers man the station but only give out homeopathic medicine, since they are not licensed professionals. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Justin Wedes, 25, does a live broadcast for the Global Revolution TV Livestream. Wedes is showing viewers how the photos Erik McGregor posted of a minor being arrested during a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge were blacked out by Facebook. Verónica Bayetti Flores, 28, left, and Veda Myers, 27, right, make free screenprints reading "Bring Down The Wall" for anyone willing to wait in line. They use a catalyst in the ink that helps it dry without heat lamps. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Volunteers pass out copies of the Occupied Wall Street Journal. The broadsheet was funded through Kickstarter and created and printed in two days. Passersby gather to read the protest signs at the encampment's gallery. The plaza is just across the street from Ground Zero and attracts lots of tourists on their way to the site. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Justin Wedes, 25, shouts a mic check. The protesters are not allowed to use amplification to project their voices so they rely on shouting and repeating to disseminate information among the group. A hack they call the People's Mic. Jon Keane, 24, set up his camera to get reactions from people at #OccupyWallStreet. His partner, Andrew Reiner, 24, holds a mic to record their opinions. The duo does not have a specific affiliation, but are interested in better understanding the event. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Milo Gonzalez, 20, left, rolls tobacco with friends. #OWS is providing cigarettes to all the protesters. Paddy Dore, 23, in yellow, says smokers can "pay if they can, or not if they can't." Anam Farooqui, 24, lies down inside the "box castle." Farooqui works for a FedEx retail store that used to also ship for UPS. Since they canceled their account, the store was left with hundreds of UPS boxes. Farooqui took as many as he could carry to Zuccotti Plaza and used the adhesive strips "like brick and mortar" to block the wind and rain and make for "a more comfortable space that would have been a total waste at his store." However, dwellings are prohibited in Zuccotti Plaza and Farooqui was later asked to disassemble the structure by the police. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Erik McGregor, 43, plays ping-pong on a makeshift table. McGregor, who has been at the protest since it first started two weeks ago, erected the ping-pong net by taping down books from the occupation's library. Clothes dry on handrails on the west side of Zuccotti Plaza. The protesters deal with a near daily dose of rain. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Kitchen staff prepare donated food for lunch. They are not allowed open flame at the plaza so most of the food is cold, unless volunteers cook in Brooklyn kitchens and bring meals to the plaza. A spread of sandwiches and cold food is laid out for lunch. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Heather Haskell, 41, reads a book called "Give Me Liberty" by Naomi Wolf at the makeshift library during the Occupy Wall Street Protest in Zuccotti Plaza on Oct. 2, 2011. Mrs. Haskell flew in from Boulder, Colorado for the protest and stumbled upon this book that she says "outlines exactly why we're here." Ethan Wolfert, 4, holds a sign at #OccupyWallStreet. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Police huddle underneath a statue to avoid the rain across the street from #OccupyWallStreet. A large police presence remains throughout the area even on days when no demonstrations or activities are planned. A police officer works in a mobile unit near Zuccotti Plaza. Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.comMore All About Cheese Everything you need to know about eating and cooking with curds
As far as singing the praises of the Jucy Lucy goes, I'm hardly qualified to add to the choir. I've never been to Minneapolis and I can't confirm whether or not Matt's Bar should be credited with its invention. Heck, I can't even tell you if I like the darn things. Fact is, and I'm going to admit this up front: I've never even had one.
Which, in a way, has helped me out on my mission this week to create a foolproof Jucy Lucy. When you have no prior experiences with something, you have no built in biases, and this naiveté can occasionally lead to great results. Would I have ever have considered sticking vodka in pie crust to foolproof it had I been raised making pie crusts on my grandma's knee? Probably not, and good thing I wasn't.
First off, if you've been living under a rock and/or outside of Minneapolis, a Jucy Lucy is essential an inside-out cheeseburger. To be honest, I believe that the appeal lies more in the ability to surprise unsuspecting eaters-by with a liquid hot cheese burn rather than with any real culinary appeal. But, seeing as I like pretty much anything with a liquid center, I was game to work this one out.
Now as far as I can see, there are two problems with the thing.
Problem the First: Blowout
Adam had this problem when he initially examined homemade Jucy Lucys a few years back. As the burger cooks it begins to contract, putting pressure on the melted, liquefied cheese in the center. If any faults occur in the structural integrity of the patty, the cheese bursts out in a miniature lava flow and burns on the griddle.
Pricking the surface of the burger with a toothpick seems to be the recommended solution for this problem, but when I tested it out, there didn't seems to be much benefit. Poorly constructed burgers exploded nonetheless. The real answer lay in construction. In order to get the patties thin and intact, I took a hint from my arepa-loving wife's Colombian cuisine and decided to flatten the ball of meat between two pieces of plastic using the bottom of a pan. With two perfectly even, intact patties, it was a simple matter to insert the American cheese, and tightly seal the edges. I cooked eight burgers this way, without a single explosion.
Problem the Second: Temperature
In order to get the cheese to melt into an oozy, gooey mess, the patty needs to be cooked well done. Thus far, I don't think anyone has come up with a really good solution to this problem. Most people just accept it for what it is, hoping that the gooey cheese will make up a bit for some of the lifeless meat. Others have tried adding a milk and breadcrumb panade to the burger meat to keep it tender even when fully cooked. Of course, the (pitiable) results are like meatloaf on a bun. Not exactly what I'm after.
The first step to improving the texture of well-done beef was to ditch the pre-ground stuff from the store in lieu of home-ground (in this case, I went for straight ground chuck, with a bit of hanger steak scraps added to it).
The difference in quality is pretty striking. Store-bought ground beef is usually ground too finely, and always compressed into a block on a Styrofoam tray. Rather than having the distinct grain and almost fluffy texture of fresh ground beef, it comes across as mealy—pulpy, almost. The tightly packed beef shrinks during cooking, squeezing out juices and fat. Fresh ground meat, on the other hand, has a much looser texture. As it cooks, fat melts, forming little nooks and crannies in its internal structure for juices to rest in, rather than being forced out of the patty. with fresh ground beef, even a well-done burger can be juicy.
Still curious, I tested one last theory. Perhaps the whole well-done-in-order-to-melt-cheese thing is a myth. I tried melting slices of American cheese in water baths set at different temperatures. You know what? Even at 120 degrees, American cheese is almost completely liquefied.
This means that even a completely rare Jucy Lucy can still have a molten cheese core, albeit one mixed with red meat juices. It's doable, but not too pretty:
With construction method and meat in place, the rest was simple. To be truly authentic, the cheese should be folded in half once before inserting between the patties, but I discovered that once the burger is cooked, as long as the molten center stays put, it really makes no difference how you fit it in there.
Now doesn't that just make your insides melt to pieces?
Click through to the slideshow at the top for full instructions!
More from 'The Burger Lab'
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Today, we take a look at hate letters sent to Dallas following the assassination.
After John F. Kennedy was shot 50 years ago, hundreds of folks mailed letters to Dallas, many of them furious at the city.
The letters wound up at Southern Methodist University.
The KERA Radio story.
One recent afternoon, Pamalla Anderson pushed a cart into the SMU DeGolyer Library. On it were two boxes filled with hate.
“So we’re going to get some folders out,” she said. “The first one is actually from letters dated the day of the assassination.”
Anderson, the library’s head of public services, knows these letters better than anyone.
Just hours after President Kennedy was killed, people whipped out their pens and typewriters and dashed off their thoughts.
They came from across the country – California, Minnesota, New York – and started pouring in to the Dallas Mayor’s office.
"Screaming into the wind"
Just 48 hours later, Lee Harvey Oswald was killed blocks away from the site of the assassination – and more letters arrived.
Many drip with anger.
Take this one from Massachusetts: “You and the people of your city should hang your heads in shame for the grievous and heinous crime committed in Dallas. This is not a mere accident.”
And this letter from California: “How in heaven could you let Oswald get shot? What kind of police protection do you have there? They must be incompetent.”
Jeffrey A. Engel, director of SMU’s Center for Presidential History, is surprised by the letters, even after reading them many times.
“They’re not writing their congressman,” he said. “They’re not writing their mayor. They’re writing someone else’s mayor. This is almost a sense of just screaming into the wind, which apparently is something people throughout the world feel the very human need to do.”
In recent months, more scholars and researchers have sought out these letters, yearning to know more about the mood of the country in the fall of ‘63.
Some letters are scrawled on scraps of cream and pale blue paper – the ink is smudged, the handwriting hard to read. Others are written in black ink in the neatest cursive. Some typed on business letterhead.
"Stinkin' police department"
All were sent to Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, who gave his personal papers to SMU.
During JFK’s fateful visit, Cabell rode in the presidential motorcade. Soon after Kennedy was killed, reporters asked him if what happened would tarnish the city’s reputation forever.
“I don’t think that this will hurt Dallas as a city,” Cabell said. “Because I believe that the people of the nation realize that this was not an act of Dallas, not an act of the true thinking of Dallas. This was the act of a maniac.”
But many Americans disagreed.
One letter writer declared: “And if the police were any good, perhaps our president would still be alive.”
Another wrote: “What kind of stinkin’ police department lets a striptease criminal records man kill [Oswald]?”
And another wrote: “I hope the people Dallas are proud of their behavior. Southern hospitality, indeed.”
"Do you own a horse?"
Cabell responded to several of the letters, often defending his town.
But there were notes of support. One even came from Buffalo, where President McKinley was killed. The letter expressed sympathy and understanding for what Dallas was going through.
One child from Minnesota sent a note, saying her teacher had informed her of what had happened to Kennedy.
But she had more pressing questions: Did the mayor have a big home?
More importantly, did he have a horse?
The mayor wrote back.
“I do not live in a house that is nearly so big as the president,” Cabell said. “My house is medium size, has a nice lawn and a few trees in the front and back yard. I have not owned a horse for many years.”
Tucked away in all those folders filled with hate: a little laughter.
Read the letters
Excerpts of some of the hundreds of letters sent to Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, courtesy of SMU's DeGolyer Library:
Los Angeles: "You've taught us to loathe the lowly ignorance of your citizens -- to loathe your lack of national respect -- & to loathe your complete absence of pride for your own country."
London: "This whole Scandal is like turning over a rock, which your City represents, and to see all crawling lice beneath it."
A junior-high social studies class from Kenmore, N.Y.: "We hope you will have faith in your future and not let this incident destroy your progress."
Waco: "It has been very clear, that the city of Dallas is not so much interested in its own intrinsic fault... as it is in leading others to believe it was not at fault at all."
Kenton, Ohio: "It is not right that all Dallas should take all the blame for the President's death. Enclosed is a poem (if you can call it that), it expresses of what I'd like to think all America should think and feel."
Little Rock, Ark.: "We have appreciated very much your leadership in the midst of this great tragedy.... [I]f we remain steadfast in our thoughts and our ideals, if we keep busy with our families and business responsibilities, we will emerge more prosperous, more self confident and with greater character than we otherwise could ever have achieved."
Huntington Park, Calif.: "Of the thousands of ridiculous actions riding the wave-crest of national hysteria, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the inclination to make the City of Dallas Texas a shameful scapegoat for this historical incident, certainly hits an all-time high in zany thinking, but perhaps a retelling of an ancient Islamic Fable may be the key to help us regain our senses."
KERA wants to hear your JFK stories and memories. Email us at jfk@kera.org. We may contact you or use your memory in an upcoming story.PHOTO: Rebels with a defaced statue of late President Hafez al-Assad during the capture of Idlib last month
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Video and Full Translation: When Famous Colonel “The Tiger” Hassan Appealed to Damascus for Reinforcements?
After weeks of near-silence on rebel advances across Syria, including the capture of key towns and cities in the northwest and south, the Assad regime said on Tuesday that “malicious media outlets” are lying about the developments.
The Information Ministry said that “satellite channels, newspapers, magazines, and websites, along with Facebook and Twitter accounts, are carrying out a propaganda campaign timed with the clashes with terrorists taking place in the provinces of Idlib, Hasakah, and Daraa”.
The Ministry claims that “lies and rumors regarding the security, military, economic, and political situation” are being spread “to affect the morale of the Syrian civilians and soldiers alike”. It said the attempt was to show “a shift in the course of the battles between the Syrian Arab Army and terrorists, with some outlets employing fake images and exaggeration”.
In the past three months, the rebels have captured the provincial capital of Idlib in the northwest; taken territory across southern Syria, including the historic town of Busra al-Sham; repelled a major regime offensive north of Aleppo and then carried out high-profile operations, including underground bombs, in Aleppo city; checked another regime offensive south of Damascus; and held out an announced push by Hezbollah and Syrian forces near the Lebanese border.
Last week, a rebel coalition announced an offensive across southern Idlib and northern Hama Provinces. They have already taken the key town of Jisr al-Shughour near the Turkish border, moved into much of the al-Ghab Plain to the south, and threatened to cut off the Syrian military between southern Idlib and Latakia on the Mediterranean coast. On Monday, the coalition finally captured one of the two last Syrian military camps south of Idlib after a month-long campaign.
State media have not acknowledged any of these defeats for the Syrian military.
A map from “Archicivilians” of the state of rebel offensive across Idlib and Hama Provinces — green areas are held by the rebels, while the red is the under-threat regime corridor between southern Idlib and Latakia in western Syria:
See larger image
Claim: Syrian Army Fighting With Pro-Assad Militias in Homs, 2 Killed
Citizen journalist Hadi al-Abdallah claims, from sources in Homs, that Syrian army units are clashing with pro-Assad militia in the city.
Abdallah claims that at least two people have been killed in the fighting.
The journalist says the militiamen have been accused of car bombings, theft of gold, and kidnappings for ransom. There are even claims of a plot to assassinate Homs Governor Talal al-Barazi.
Jaish al-Islam Claims “Graduation” of 1,700 Fighters
The leading rebel faction Jaish al-Islam, based in East Ghouta near Damascus, claims that it has “graduated” 1,700 fighters in a mass ceremony:
The ceremony — the largest of the 17 held so far by Jaish al-Islam — is a victory against the threats of regime forces, located a few miles away, who have long tried to break the faction’s positions in Damascus suburbs such as Douma. Meanwhile, it has been prominent in recent rebel offensives throughout Syria.
Rebels Execute Captured Regime Soldier in Ishtabraq, South of Idlib
Graphic video confirms that the rebel faction Ansar al-Din executed a captured regime soldier when they took over Ishtabraq in Idlib Province this week.
The clip shows the man talking to a group of fighters, saying he is an Alawite from a unit which has been accused of abuses and killings of civilians. The fighters suddenly open fire with a volley of shots, killing the soldier immediately.
Pro-Assad outlets have been claiming a mass killing by Ansar al-Din in the village, captured on Monday. The only evidence at this point is audio, broadcast by a pro-regime radio station, claiming to be of families describing abductions and killings, and a prominent pro-Assad activist citing information from the “girl who used to babysit” him.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is circulating the unconfirmed claim that Islamist factions are holding 100 people, including soldiers and their families, from Jisr al-Shughour and Ishtabraq.
Pro-rebel sources say that Syrian forces fled in panic under fire as Ishtabraq was captured. More casualties occurred in road accidents when the fleeing troops drove over each other.
Meanwhile, Syrian Civil Defense has posted an image of bodies in Jisr al-Shughour, with activists claiming they are civilians executed by Syrian forces as they withdrew from the town last weekend.This post is a transcript of Reverse the ‘Verse: May 2016 Subscriber Edition, material that is the intellectual property of Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) and it’s subsidiaries. INN is a Star Citizen fansite and is not officially affiliated with CIG, but we reprint their materials with permission as a service to the community. INN edits our transcripts for the purpose of making the various show participants easier to understand in writing. Enjoy!
Reverse the ‘Verse: May 2016 Subscriber Edition – Partial Transcript
This edition of Reverse the ‘Verse is for subscribers that happens once a month where subscribers get to ask today’s guests questions from the RSI subscriber chat.
Matt Sherman is a Technical Designer, He works on ships for the most part. He’s currently designing the Reliant to become flyable and working on the Buccaneer which is going live on Friday.
Matt Interieri works on tools, optimizations and various behind the scenes for Star Citizen.
Calix Reneau works a lot on mechanics and design for ships. He’s currently been working a lot on the Caterpillar and helping it along towards the hangar stage eventually.
Now it’s question time from the subscriber chat on the RSI website.
[Hello Matt and Calix, after watching Ship Shape Caterpillar two, Ship Shape is looking great, I’m looking forward to noncombat ships. My question is what kind of gameplay will there be for multi crew ships like Caterpillar or Carrack?] Well there will be the basics of being able to control various aspects of the ship through terminals like shields, guns, engines. Also defending your ship from borders and opening airlocks to suck them out into space.
[How is the multisource shield rework coming along?] Matt S: Really well so far. We’ve had someone working on the backend stuff to get it to where it needs to be, but it’s looking really good to be able to have more flexibility when it comes to managing shield and understanding how much damage they can actually take and where to focus the power.
The shields are also changing from a bubble to more of a skin tight shield that coats the ship.
*[Will fire and other effects be added to damage states?] We’re currently designing out ways to add it in, but making it more than just an effect and how the fire would affect a module over a longer period of time for example.
[Are you guys involved in the localized physics grids?] Yup! we work to make sure that the grid is properly setup to be optimal
[How hard has it been with explosions and conveying their momentum in space?] We’ve had some problems with explosions and how they interact with space, but we’ve overcome some problems and had some temp code in, but we’re working on something that’ll make it viable in the long term.
Matt Sherman talks about how the PTU has been very useful for testing the physics grid on the larger ships like the Starfarer and how landing a ship like a Merlin inside and having it stay properly.
[More info on the Mako and how you plan to implement it’s broadcasting] They’re still figuring stuff out, when it was originally pitched, it was a bit lofty, but because of the community they’ve wanted to make sure they have that kind of gameplay. It will be a layered system and may not be what they expect right away, but in the very beginning if you’re a co-pilot on a Reliant you’ll be able to capture whatever you’re looking at and be able to do it from a safe place. Long term is laying on more things like info running and who was in what system and when, what things are happening to make that role more exciting. So, someone commits a crime and a reporter saw it, do you kill the evidence? Stuff like that is what they want to work towards in the future.
[Question regarding explosions: Ship explosions don’t inherit momentum, will chasing ships become less dangerous in the future after you kill your target and avoid the wreckage?] Yeah right now the debris doesn’t have active physics right now and we will be looking into turning it back on for that. We will have to attach the effects that come from the debris, but that’s something we can do without too much issue.
Components: They will have their own individual explosive effects. We want the modules to have their own effects and that the death of a ship isn’t just when the ship reaches zero health and explodes, but a combination of components going critical and setting off a chain reaction.
[Why can big ships be pushed around so easily by small ships?] The physics do need a little work. When things blow up it’s like paper mache. It will be something we’ll address, but we’re just in a transition period with tech and the physics is taking a bit of a backseat until we’ve gone through this stage. The process of refining that involves multiple layers of code geometry which Itemport 2.0 will allow us to give better performance and more control over physics.
[Million Mile High Club Port modification system?] Jared will find out Friday.
[What is going on with the Star G?] The Starfarer Gemini is still a Starfarer that was simply bought by Aegis and refitted with their components, not a redesign. It’s not going to be a big visual difference because there’s no point as it does what they need and refitting it for the military is all that’s needed.
[Plans for Optimisation?] They just finished a full pass on all shields with LOD meshes. Right now you may see them switch them a little too slow, but they’re hoping to have that in soon. They’re also working on combining meshes so that it transitions better and uses less resources.
One thing to keep in mind with optimization is while they’re making improvements, it’s not a one-shot solution to fix everything because the game is still being built and other things can affect performance that were unforeseen in current optimization. It’s something patch to patch, but it’s a little more than one and done.
[Org 2.0?] Ask about that on Friday.
[Is the plan for most or all large ships be made with flying FPS level in mind? Most of us want FPS, but with ship layout in |
Affair,” the Scooby Gang teamed up with Batman and Robin to battle the Joker and Penguin and expose a counterfeiting operation. In “The Caped Crusader Caper,” the Dynamic Duo and the Mystery Inc. crew once again took on the Joker and Penguin after they stole an experimental flight suit. In 2011, “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” revisited these meetings in the anthology episode “Bat-Mite Presents Batman’s Strangest Cases!” In this brief segment, Scooby-Doo and his friends were trapped by the Joker and Penguin after attending a “Weird Al" Yankovic concert. Batman and Robin rescued the Scooby gang from the Joker’s deathtrap and defeated the villain.
40 TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER
In the mid-2000s, several big-budget movies were released in conjunction with shorter, supplementary animated films. While this trend only lasted a few years, it provided a logical solution for one of the problems posed in adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Watchmen.” In the seminal miniseries, “Tales of the Black Freighter” was an allegorical pirate tale that showed what comics looked like in a world that grew weary of superheroes long ago.
In director Zack Snyder’s original plans for his 2009 “Watchmen” movie, the Black Freighter segment would’ve been a live-action interlude, visually modelled in a similar style to his adaptation of “300.” After those plans were scrapped, the animated version of the Black Freighter, which starred Gerard Butler, was supposed to be included in the film’s theatrical release. Since that film was already nearing the three-hour mark, the 26 minute Black Freighter segment was excised and released on DVD with some other supplemental material. Later in 2009, this “Ultimate Cut” of “Watchmen” reincorporated this segment into a 215 minute-long cut of the film.
39 THE NEW TEEN TITANS' ANTI-DRUG PSA
While “New Teen Titans” was one of DC’s most popular titles in the 1980s, the Titans wouldn’t make the jump from page to screen until 2003. In 1983, Hanna-Barbera was putting together a cartoon that would’ve featured a team consisting of Cyborg, Kid Flash, Raven, Starfire, Changeling, and team leader Wonder Girl. While Robin would’ve remained on “Super Friends,” the series would’ve featured several of the Titans’ usual villains. While ABC never picked that series up, this version of the Titans made their only animated appearance in an anti-drug public serve announcement.
As part of the President’s Drug Awareness Campaign, this ad featured the familiar Titans and a new character named the Protector. Since the Keebler Company co-produced the ad, the Protector, an original character, was included in place of Robin, who was licensed to Nabisco at the time. While the one-minute commercial reportedly aired during Saturday morning cartoons in the 1980s, the complete ad has been lost to time. The only extant footage of the cartoon comes from a marketing video released by DC in 1984.
38 THE AQUAMAN AND FRIENDS ACTION HOUR
After decades of being a punchline to tired jokes, Aquaman seems like he’s finally poised to be taken seriously by the general public. While DC has spent decades trying to rebuild the character’s reputation, a short-lived 2003 series threatened to cement his status as a laughing stock to a new generation. In the days when Adult Swim was filled with shows that remixed old Hanna-Barbera cartoons into absurd comedies like “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” Wild Hare Studios produced “The Aquaman and Friends Action Hour.”
Over seven episodes on Cartoon Network Latin America, the show reconfigured the Aquaman of “Super Friends” into a Krusty the Clown-esque kids show host. While most of the other “Super Friends” were off-limits due to their roles on “Justice League,” the Legion of Doom appeared as a cash-strapped organization that was subletting space in the Hall of Doom. While a conceptually similar series of interstitials involving Aquaman, Wonder Woman and the Powerpuff Girls aired in the United States, none of these shorts has even been released in the U.S.
37 ZATANNA
In another early Flash-animated web-series, DC’s magical hero Zatanna appeared in two shorts as part of the Noodle Soup Productions contest anthology “Cartoon Monsoon.” “Zatanna” featured a teenage version of the title character that was heavily indebted to then-popular shows like the “Sabrina: The Animated Series.” Despite the fact that the two-episode series can be viewed entirely in less than five minutes, Klarion the Witch Boy and her father Zatara both appeared. They were joined by her brother Damon, an original character who did not have any powers. Although the shorts had a mildly catchy theme song, the series was critically derided and no further episodes were produced.
After the failure of this series, a teenage version of Zatanna was featured in the recently-revived “Young Justice” to considerably better results in 2011. Once again, her father Zatara appeared and she fought Klarion the Witch Boy as a member of the teenage hero team.
36 GOTHAM GIRLS
In a move that predated the ongoing shorts series “DC Super Hero Girls” by over a decade, “Gotham Girls” gave a spotlight to some of the DC Animated Universe’s most popular characters. Like “Lobo,” this Flash-animated web-series debuted in 2000 and featured interactive mini-games that killed time while the short episodes loaded. Over three seasons, the show’s 30 episodes chronicled the adventures of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Batgirl, Zatanna and Renee Montoya.
As a spin-off of “The New Batman Adventures,” the web-series featured Arleen Sorkin, Tara Strong, and much of the same voice cast as the iconic cartoon. While earlier episodes of the series were more humorous, the last season of the show told a dramatic serialized mystery. The show even garnered its own spin-off comic miniseries in 2003. Years later, the complete “Gotham Girls” was released on DVD with the first and only season of the live-action show “Birds of Prey.” While the animation is primitive by today’s standards, “Gotham Girls” remains a worthwhile entry in DC’s most popular cartoon universe.
35 GREEN LANTERN: THE ANIMATED SERIES
After "Justice League Unlimited" successfully brought the DC Animated Universe to a close in 2006, Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment gave the Green Lantern his own show in 2011. Even though John Stewart had popularized the character on "JLU," Hal Jordan was the star of "Green Lantern: The Animated Series." Released in conjunction with the 2011 film, "Green Lantern," this show appeared on Cartoon Network's DC Nation programming block and was the first DC series that primarily used CGI animation.
Over one season of 26 episodes, "Green Lantern: The Animated Series" mixed classic parts of the Green Lantern mythology with original concepts and Geoff Johns' then-recent work in comics' "Green Lantern." Along with Jordan, the series featured fan-favorite characters like Guy Gardner and Kilowog and villains like the Manhunters and Red Lantern Corps. Despite the show's solid reviews, the movie's failure ultimately tainted the show's success. After the movie's action figures went unsold, Mattel's plans for a cartoon-based toyline were abandoned, and the series was canceled.
34 SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED
The long-running “Spider-Man: The Animated Series” of the 1990s was one of Marvel’s biggest animated successes. After that show ended in early 1998, Marvel and Fox were contractually obligated to come up with a new Spider-Man series. At the same time, Marvel and Sony had just signed a multi-media deal that would ultimately lead to the 2002 feature film “Spider-Man.” As a result, Marvel and Fox were forced to combine disparate elements together to create “Spider-Man Unlimited.”
The new series premiered in 1999 as part of Fox’s well-remembered Fox Kids programming block. It starred a familiar Spider-Man who had been transported to Counter-Earth, a strange world ruled by the High Evolutionary and his human-animal hybrid Beastials. The show lasted for 13 episodes before the series was canceled. Although ratings were decent, the show was eclipsed by a surging “Pokémon” and “Batman Beyond,” which had already discouraged producers from adapting “Spider-Man 2099” for this series. Despite the show’s brevity, this Spider-Man garnered a six-issue tie-in series by Marvel, and unofficially appeared as a corpse with a broken neck in 2014’s “Spider-Verse” crossover.
33 SILVER SURFER
After some guest roles on the moderately successful “Fantastic Four” cartoon of the mid-1990s, the Silver Surfer made the leap to his own series in 1998. In the show, Norin Radd became the Silver Surfer, a Herald of Galactus in order to save his home-world Zenn-La from the Devourer of Worlds. After discovering Earth, he was struck by the planet’s similarities to his home and broke free of Galactus’ control. While the Fantastic Four were not featured, this show explored a slightly rearranged version of the cosmic Marvel Universe, featuring future “Guardians of the Galaxy” players like Gamora, Drax and Thanos.
“Silver Surfer” blended traditional cel animation with computer generated effects to create a distinct facsimile of Jack Kirby’s dynamic artwork. The Fox Kids show even garnered some acclaim for its highly-serialized, relatively complex stories. Despite robust ratings, only 13 episodes of the show aired. Although more were written, the second season never materialized due to complications from Marvel’s 1998 bankruptcy.
32 DRACULA: SOVEREIGN OF THE DAMNED
Marvel’s “Tomb of Dracula” was one of the best comics of the 1970s. Even if it hadn’t introduced Blade the Vampire Hunter, the series would still be remembered as a landmark horror comic and one of the first finite stories in the Marvel Universe. After Toei Animation adapted that series as a 94-minute TV movie in 1980, that anime was called “Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned” on its 1983 American release.
In that brief runtime, Dracula went on a frantic series of adventures where he fell in love, fought Devil worshipers, befriended children, lost his powers, and became a mugger. While Blade didn’t appear in this densely-plotted anime, Quincy Haker, Rachel Van Helsing and Frank Drake firmly planted the roots of the Marvel title into this anime adaption. As knowledge of the film’s existence has grown in recent years, it’s become something of a minor cult classic. The anime was released on home video in the 1980s but has long since gone out of print.
31 BLACK PANTHER
In the early-2010s, Marvel experimented with directly adapting some well-received stories as motion comics, where comic panels are lightly animated and combined with dialogue and sound effects. “Black Panther” was arguably this effort’s most successful venture. This 2010 series was based on Reginald Hudlin and John Romita Jr.’s 2005 story “Who Is the Black Panther?” The six-episode show was a fairly straight adaption that made a few minor changes to the story where T’Challa avenged his father’s death, teamed up with the X-Men and defended Wakanda from a group of super-villains.
After a long development process, the series debuted on the Australian channel ABC3 in 2010 before airing in the United States on BET in November 2011. The animation studio Titmouse brought Romita’s art to life with a surprising fluidity that recalled the studio’s frequent Adult Swim work. With an all-star cast including Djimon Hounsou, Kerry Washington, and Alfre Woodard, the show was backed by an incredibly strong roster that elevated the material beyond a standard motion comic.
30 THE INCREDIBLE HULK
Thanks to his long-running live-action show, the Hulk has been one of Marvel's more successful characters on television. After a string of successful Marvel cartoons on other networks, UPN Studios developed "The Incredible Hulk" for the UPN Kids programming block in 1996. Although live-action Hulk Lou Ferrigno reprised his famous role for the cartoon, the show only lasted for 21 episodes over two seasons.
While most of the other superhero shows on UPN Kids were reruns of well-received Marvel shows like "X-Men: The Animated Series," "The Incredible Hulk" struggled to find a consistent tone over its brief run. In the show, Bruce Banner's allies like Betty Ross, Doc Samson and Rick Jones helped the Hulk take on villains like Gen. Thunderbolts Ross and the Leader. After a relatively dark first season, She-Hulk became a regular cast member in the show's considerably lighter second season. Despite its brief run, the cartoon spawned a ToyBiz action figure line and featured a plethora of guest stars including Ghost Rider, Thor and Doctor Strange.
29 SPIDER-MAN: THE NEW ANIMATED SERIES
In 2003, “Spider-Man: The New Animated Series” premiered on MTV after impacting the development of “Spider-Man Unlimited” a few years earlier. This 13-episode series was a byproduct of the Marvel/Sony deal that produced 2002’s “Spider-Man” movie and was loosely set in that film’s continuity. The series followed college student Peter Parker as he fought a mixture of new and classic Spider-Man villains while trying to live a normal life with his friends Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn and original character Indy Daimonji. Brian Michael Bendis served as a producer on the series, which coincided with the first peak of his long run on the “Ultimate Spider-Man” comic series.
Today, the series is perhaps best remembered for Neil Patrick Harris’ turn as Spider-Man. With its cel-shaded computer-generated animation and then-contemporary clothes, the show has a distinctly early-2000s feel. While Spider-Man has traditionally been Marvel’s most kid-friendly character, this show was geared towards MTV’s older audience. This Spider-Man couldn’t connect with that audience, however, so the show was canceled by MTV due to poor ratings after one season.
28 FRED AND BARNEY MEET THE THING
Despite this show’s title, the two “Flintstones” characters never actually met Marvel’s Thing on this short-lived 1979 NBC cartoon. This hour-long program featured a half-hour “Fred and Barney” cartoon and two 11-minute segments starring a character loosely based on the Thing. In this series, the Thing was Benjy Grimm, a high school student who could transform into the Thing at will by putting his “Thing Rings” together and shouting “Thing Rings, do your thing!”
Neither the Fantastic Four nor any of their classic villains appeared on the show. Instead, Benj spent his time with his friends at Centerville High School fighting generic mad scientists and “Scooby-Doo”-esque monsters. While only 26 “Thing “segments were produced, they aired for just over a year on “Fred and Barney Meet the Thing” and its successor “Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo.” While this show seems like an odd paring today, it was possible at the time because of a partnership between Marvel and Hanna-Barbera that saw both companies producing projects with the other’s characters.
27 IRON MAN: ARMORED ADVENTURES
While the idea of a teenage Iron Man might strike fear into the hearts of older fans who lived through the much-derided 1995 Avengers storyline “The Crossing,” it seemed like an idea worth revisiting in 2009. In the haze of success following 2008’s blockbuster “Iron Man,” “Iron Man: Armored Adventures” spent two seasons following teenage versions of Tony Stark, James Rhodes, and Pepper Potts. Taking another cue from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the primary villains of the series were Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer.
Since it wasn’t beholden to any pre-existing continuity, this Nicktoons series featured several Marvel heroes and villains in reworked takes on the classic Iron Man mythology. This show’s version of the Mandarin started out as Tony’s friend Gene Khan and ultimately became more of an anti-hero than an outright villain in one of that character’s few redemptive portrayals. While the show focused some on teenage Tony’s social life, both Rhodey and Pepper had assumed their traditional roles as War Machine and Rescue by the series’ end.
26 MARVEL ANIME
In 2010, Marvel teamed up with anime giant Madhouse to create four 12-episode series based on “Iron Man,” Wolverine,” “Blade,” and “X-Men.” Working from rough plots by Warren Ellis, these four loosely-connected series all featured Japanese settings and aired on the Japanese channel Animax before airing in the United States on G4 between 2011 and 2012. In “Iron Man,” Tony Stark traveled to Japan to battle the Zodiac. The X-Men’s show saw the mutants fight the U-Men and the Hellfire Club in Japan. “Blade” showed its lead fighting Deacon Frost and hunting vampires, while “Wolverine” featured its title character fighting his classic foe Shingen.
After these series concluded, Madhouse made two direct-to-video anime films. The first, “Iron Man: Rise of the Technovore,” saw Iron Man and Punisher team-up in 2013. The second film, “Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher” saw a handful of Marvel characters work to defeat the espionage organization Leviathan in 2014. Reviews for all of these series and films were mixed, but all four shows remain the most recent series dedicated to their respective main characters.
25 SPIDER-WOMAN
As CBR has reported, Marvel created Spider-Woman in 1977 to secure the trademark before Filmation could release a cartoon named “Spider-Woman.” While that cartoon was ultimately released as “Web-Woman,” Marvel’s own “Spider-Woman” premiered on ABC in 1979. While the cartoon starred Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman, the alienated spy of the comic was replaced by a magazine editor who gained powers after being injected with an experimental “spider-serum” as a child. This Spider-Woman lacked her comic counterpart’s super-strength, but made up for it with a precognitive spider-sense, “spider-telepathy” and the ability to fly.
Over the show’s 13 episodes, Jessica and her friends from “Justice Magazine” mainly dealt with original threats. Spider-Man, Kingpin, and Marvel’s Dracula all managed to make guest appearances during the show’s brief run. While this Spider-Woman only lasted for one season, Julia Carpenter, the second Spider-Woman, was a regular member of the team Force Works on the "Iron Man" cartoon of the 1990s.
24 FANTASTIC FOUR: WORLD'S GREATEST HEROES
Despite some excellent comics, the past decade has been a little rough for the Fantastic Four. Between 2005’s “Fantastic Four” and 2007’s “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” the Four’s fourth animated series, “Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes” premiered in 2006. This show depicted a younger version of the Fantastic Four in a blend of traditional and computer-generated animation. During the show’s brief run, the Four fought many of their traditional adversaries and teamed up with several of their regular allies, including a brief stint where She-Hulk joined the team.
Although the cartoon only lasted one season, the show’s 26 episodes premiered out of order over four years in the United States. After debuting on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block in 2006, the series was pulled after eight episodes. Shortly before “Rise of the Silver Surfer” was released, the show returned to the network’s airwaves for another nine episodes. After a brief stint on Cartoon Network’s sister network, Boomerang, the series moved to Nicktoons in 2009, where the final nine episodes aired in 2010.
23 MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN
While “Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned” has a degree of cult status, its companion film, “Monster of Frankenstein” has been almost entirely forgotten. Loosely based on Marvel’s short-lived “Monster of Frankenstein” series, this 98-minute film was the second collaboration between Marvel and Toei. While the 1970s Marvel comic built on Mary Shelly’s original Frankenstein novel, the anime borrowed more from the monster’s other famous film appearances.
After its Japanese premiere in 1981, the anime aired on American cable in 1984. The shockingly gory movie offered a fairly familiar take on the story of Victor Frankenstein and his monster’s trail of death and destruction in the Victorian Age. With philosophically heavy themes and an ending involving a double suicide, this cartoon was firmly targeted towards an adult audience in an era when the concept of adults watching animated features not made for kids was still a novel idea in the West. While Marvel’s comic featured several original characters, none of them appeared in this anime, making this seem more like another take on the overall Frankenstein mythos than an adaptation of Marvel’s Frankenstein.
22 PRYDE OF THE X-MEN
For a failed pilot, Marvel’s “Pryde of the X-Men” has a rich legacy. Originally airing in syndication in 1989, this pilot was meant to sell what would have been the X-Men’s first cartoon series. The show featured a fairly simple plot involving a team of X-Men including Dazzler and an Australian Wolverine taking on Magneto’s “Brotherhood of Mutant Terrorists.” While the cartoon’s plot and animation are typical of the era, they were a poor match for the more complex themes that define the X-Men.
RELATED: Pryde of the X-Men: 16 Things The Failed Cartoon Got Right
Shortly before the long-running “X-Men: The Animated Series” premiered in 1992, the cast and plot of “Pryde of the X-Men” were used as the basis for Konami’s beloved X-Men arcade game. In that game, one-to-six players could take control of an X-Man in a side-scrolling ‘beat ‘em up’ that became a pinnacle of the genre. Just as the X-Men franchise soared to new heights in the 1990s, “Pryde of the X-Men” was released on home video with the now-laughable caption “The only X-Men animated adventure ever created!”
21 SOLARMAN
By any metric, Solarman is a footnote in the history of comics. Originally created in 1979 by David Oliphant and Deborah Kalman, the Pendulum Press character was meant to teach children about alternative energy during the energy crisis of that era. After the success of “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” in the early 1990s, Stan Lee and Marvel-president Jim Galton approached Oliphant about redesigning and reviving the character for Marvel Comics. The resulting two-issue series starred Ben Tucker, a teenager who could become the super-powered Solarman by exposing his "Circlet of Power" to direct sunlight.
On October 24, 1992, the pilot for a proposed “Solarman” cartoon aired on the Fox Kids programming block. The show adapted Lee’s origin for the character, including the friendly alien scientist Sha-han and the impressively-named space tyrant Gormagga Kraal. Although Oliphant has claimed that studios were initially interested in a “Solarman” series, nothing ever came of the pilot. Earlier this year, Scout Comics revived the character in a new comic series by Joe Illidge and N. Steven Harris.
20 AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND
After the success of “X-Men: The Animated Series” and “Spider-Man: The Animated Series,” Marvel launched “Avengers: United They Stand” on the Fox Kids block in 1999. With major characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor tied up in other licensing deals, the core group of Avengers was the eclectic group of Hank Pym's Ant Man, Wasp, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Vision, Tigra and Wonder Man. Due to the popularity of “Batman Beyond,” the series took place at an undetermined point in the near future, where several team members had toy-friendly battle-armor.
This one-season show is generally regarded as one of Marvel’s least successful animated efforts. Although this kooky octet faced several classic Avengers villains and featured occasional cameos from the likes of Captain America and Iron Man, the low-rated series was canceled after 13 episodes. Like its sister program “Spider-Man Unlimited,” the cartoon garnered a short-lived comic series that was canceled shortly after the animated series.
19 MARVEL DISK WARS: THE AVENGERS
Although “Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers” is the most recent entry on this list, it may also be the most unknown to a Western audience. Developed in conjunction with Marvel’s old “Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned” partners, Toei Animation, this anime started in 2014 on the TXN Network as an attempt to localize Marvel’s heroes for the Japanese market. The show begins with Iron Man presenting his new DISK system as a way to safely detain super-villains in a Poké Ball-esque technology. Thanks to Loki, several heroes were captured inside DISKs that could only be opened by kids using a special “biocode.”
Although the series focused on Avengers characters, it served as a crash course to the Marvel Universe that featured characters from Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy and the X-Men. In addition to garnering a Nintendo 3DS game, this series was the basis for “Bachicombat” - a POG-like collectible game by Bandai. While the 51-episode series was dubbed into English for the Malaysian market, there are tragically no current plans for an American release.
18 MEN IN BLACK: THE SERIES
While “Men in Black” may be one of the more memorable films of the 1990s, it’s easy to forget that the sci-fi franchise started out as an independent black-and-white comic book published by the Malibu Comics imprint Aircel Comics. “The Men in Black” ran for two three-issue miniseries by Lowell Cunningham and Sandy Carruthers in the early 1990s before Marvel purchased Malibu in 1994.
After the blockbuster success of 1997’s “Men in Black,” Agent K and Agent J starred in their own cartoon on the Kids’ WB programming block. Over four successful seasons, “Men in Black: The Series” greatly expanded the mythology of the alien-policing organization and turned minor characters like the coffee-loving Worms into fan favorites, who would take on larger roles in later films. While the darker “MiB” of the comics dealt with aliens and supernatural monsters, the 53-episode cartoon mimicked the movie’s lighter approach and focused on extra-terrestrial threats. Though the animated series was successful at the time, its star has faded as the franchise’s cultural prominence has diminished.
17 THE MASK
Before Jim Carrey turned the Mask into a living cartoon in 1994’s “The Mask,” the character formerly known as Big Head regularly appeared in titles published by Dark Horse Comics. While several people became the Mask in those dark, hyper-violent comics, the film and its subsequent animated series starred Stanley Ipkiss as a mild-mannered banker who could become the powerful, chaotic Mask.
Over three seasons starting in 1995, “The Mask: The Animated Series” replicated the cartoon logic of the film in an actual cartoon. The zany 55-episode series loosely followed the movie’s continuity and had a similar sense of humor, which led to one episode being pulled over risqué content. In the CBS show’s series finale, the Mask crossed over with “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” another show based off of a Jim Carrey movie. This version of the Mask also garnered its own 12-issue comic book series “Adventures of the Mask.” While the character has rarely appeared on television or in comics since 2000, Dark Horse reprinted that series as one volume in 2009.
16 WILDC.A.T.S
While the WildC.A.T.s have been property of DC Comics since the late 1990s, the WildStorm heroes were the first Image Comics characters to jump to television. Jim Lee and Brandon Choi launched their comic about “Covert Action Teams” in 1992, and the successful series was one of the few comics that could legitimately challenge the X-Men’s popularity. When CBS launched its Action Zone programming block in 1995, they hoped that “WildC.A.T.s” could also be a match for the X-Men’s animated popularity.
Despite a marketing push that included a toy line and a video game, “WildC.A.T.s” only lasted for one 13-episode season. Like the comic, the series followed a team of superheroes and aliens that was caught up in an ancient interstellar war between the heroic Kherubim and the evil Daemonites. Although most of the characters looked like their comic book counterparts, the series recast most of the team’s core members into slightly different, more kid-friendly roles. Years after this series ended, team-member Grifter appeared in “Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox,” an animated direct-to-video feature based on DC's "Flashpoint" crossover.
15 DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH
While comedic comic strips like “Garfield” and “Peanuts” have been the basis for plenty of cartoons, a handful of adventure strips have been turned into shows, too. In 1986, King Features Syndicate brought three very different heroes together in “Defenders of the Earth.” In that series, space adventurer Flash Gordon, jungle hero Phantom, Mandrake the Magician and their children teamed up to fight Ming the Merciless in the far-off future of 2015. The Marvel-produced show lasted for one season consisting of 65 episodes and garnered a four-issue miniseries that was partially written by Stan Lee.
While Dynamite Entertainment has recently had success teaming up those characters in “Kings Watch,” two of the characters had their own future-based animated series later in the 1990s. In 1994, a later incarnation of the Phantom starred in “Phantom: 2040,” a 35-episode series that was praised for complex storytelling and distinct designs by “Aeon Flux” creator Peter Chung. Later, Flash Gordon starred in his own self-titled 24-episode sci-fi series in 1996.
14 SAVAGE DRAGON
With over 200 issues published as of this writing, Erik Larsen’s “Savage Dragon” has quietly become one of the longest-running works by a single creator in modern comics. While the title doesn’t top the sales charts, its endurance is a testament to creator-owned comics and the power of a singular creative vision. In 1995, the USA Network gave the Dragon his own show as part of their Action Extreme Team programming block. “The Savage Dragon” ran for two seasons and offered a kid-friendly take on Officer Dragon’s struggle to save Chicago from Overlord and the Vicious Circle.
“The Savage Dragon” also participated in one of the odder crossovers in television history. In 1996, an original character called the Warrior King appeared in Dragon’s show, “Street Fighter: The Animated Series,” “Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm,” and “Wing Commander Academy” all on the same day. While the crossover between the Action Extreme Team shows was not promoted as such, it remains the only interaction between some of the most prominent franchises in video games.
13 ULTRAFORCE
During the collecting boom of the early 1990s, Malibu Comics launched a line of superhero comics called the Ultraverse. Defined by a strong creative roster and advanced-for-the-time digital coloring techniques, that line was the short-lived publisher’s signature success. In 1995, Malibu’s premiere team book Ultraforce was adapted into animated form as part of USA’s Action Extreme Team. Over 13 episodes, “Ultraforce” chronicled the adventures of Malibu’s relatively noteworthy heroes like Prime, a Shazam for the ‘90s who received his own video game. Despite the show’s brief single season, “Ultraverse” killed off the young hero Pixx, a bold move for the time.
RELATED: The Malibu Ultraverse: 15 Things We Still Miss
Shortly before the show’s only season, Marvel bought Malibu, reportedly to keep DC from buying the young publisher. In 1994, Marvel rebooted the Ultraverse and loaned it some Marvel characters like Loki and Juggernaut. The last Ultraverse title was published in early 1997. Despite a few revival attempts, the Ultraverse has not been seen in two decades for undisclosed reasons.
12 CYBERSIX
While largely unknown in the United States, the Argentine comic book “Cybersix” became a short-lived cartoon on the Fox Kids programming block in 1999. The series followed Cybersix, an "artificial human" created by the evil geneticist Dr. Von Reichter. By night, she and her panther sidekick Data-7 hunted his other creations for “Sustenance,” a liquid she needed to survive. By day, she hid from her creator by posing as a male high school teacher named Adrian.
After one season of 13 episodes, this conceptually rich series ended. Even though the series toned down some of the comic’s darker, more mature themes, it earned a small cult following due to its fluid animation. Although a second season was planned, an alleged dispute between the show’s international co-producers, Canada’s NOS and Japan’s TMS Entertainment, caused the show’s premature cancellation. While the cartoon series was released on DVD in 2014, the original comics have still not seen an English language release, as of this writing.
11 SPAWN
While most of the cartoons on this list toned down the more graphic content and mature themes of the comics they were based on, “Spawn” doubled down on darkness. Debuting a few months before Spawn’s live action film in 1997, this HBO series embraced the bleak world of Todd McFarlane’s best-selling comic over three seasons. Despite a few small alternations, the show was largely faithful to its source, chronicling the fallout of the Faustian pact that turned commando Al Simmons into the supernatural Spawn.
The series was critically acclaimed for its detailed, fluid animation and Keith David’s performance as the title character. While the show’s 18 episodes were edited into three films for home release in the 1990s, the complete series has since been released on DVD, complete with McFarlane’s endearing live-action introductions to first-season episodes. While Spawn has receded some from the larger cultural landscape, talk of a new live-action Spawn movie has continued in recent years. Regardless of the character’s future, “Spawn” remains one of the few non-comedy Western animated series meant for adults.
10 THE ELTINGVILLE CLUB
Over two decades, Evan Dorkin’s multiple Eisner Award-winning series “The Eltingville Club” took a dark comedic look at the ugly underbelly of geek culture. The irregularly-released Dark Horse title followed the four members of the Eltingville Comic Book, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Role-Playing Club. In 2002, Adult Swim produced a pilot for an Eltingville series called “Welcome to Eltingville.” With heavy involvement from Dorkin, the pilot brought his manic cartoony art to life with a faithful adaption of the first full-length Eltingville story “Bring Me the Head of Boba Fett”
Despite a positive critical reception, the ahead-of-its-time pilot didn’t become a series. Back when the episode premiered, Dorkin said that the show would have carried on the comic’s unrelenting dark humor, mixing original stories with adaptations of older Eltingville stories. Though those plans didn’t come to pass, Adult Swim has occasionally re-aired the pilot episode as a special, and even released it on DVD with a few other failed pilots in 2009.
9 THE MAXX
While most of their programming is live-action today, it’s easy to forget that MTV was one of the strongest venues for adult-oriented animation in the early 1990s. Besides shows like “Beavis & Butt-Head” and “Daria,” the network also showed anthology series like “MTV’s Oddities,” which showcased an animated version of Sam Kieth’s surreal Image series “The Maxx.” The mind-bending series followed the Maxx, a homeless man in the real world who protected the Jungle Queen in a realm called the Outback. Back in the real world, the Jungle Queen’s unaware human form was a “freelance social worker” named Julie who looked after the Maxx.
Over 13 short episodes, the cartoon faithfully adapted the first dozen issues of the comic series, using a variety of animation styles. While the comic series would go on to expand its characters’ backstories and cover a future storyline before its conclusion, the cartoon ended after adapting the first story arc of the comic.
8 ARCHIE'S WEIRD MYSTERIES
As comics like “Afterlife with Archie” and “Archie Vs. Predator” have shown, mixing the traditionally wholesome world of Archie with darker subjects can produce an intriguing narrative friction. While nowhere near as dark as those series, Archie’s most recent animated show, “Archie’s Weird Mysteries,” took the classic Archie gang in a similar direction. In the 1999 cartoon, Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead investigated various monsters and supernatural occurrences for the Riverdale High newspaper.
Much like its spiritual ancestor “Scooby Doo,” the series mixed teen hijinks with light tension over one 40-episode season. After premiering on the American network Pax TV, the series was widely syndicated to fulfill an “educational/informative” programming requirement. Although the show only lasted one season, it garnered a comic book tie-in also called “Archie’s Weird Mysteries,” which lasted for 25 issues before becoming “Archie’s Mysteries,” a non-supernatural procedural. While the upcoming CW drama “Riverdale” appears to be a decidedly more adult affair, it seems like it will also recontextualize Archie and his friends in a darker setting.
7 INVINCIBLE: THE SERIES
While Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” and “Outcast” have reached massive new audiences on television, his other long-running creator-owned series, “Invincible,” wasn’t quite as successful. Back in 2008, when motion comics seemed like a promising new way to bring comics to the masses, MTV produced “Invincible: The Series,” a 13-episode adaption of the first dozen issues of Kirkman |
ious man needs a woman who drinks and represents him, and I, fortunate guy, have one that does so without getting drunk… most of the time.
No one in Cuba knows what he or she will end up working as. I am a biologist myself…
Running low on time — story of my life! — I walk up Jovellar Street at almost an Olympic pace up to the Hotel Colina, and then I walk rapidly down L, saying hi to my uncle Roberto, a PhD graduated from Rostock — now in the extinct East Germany — who now doesn’t make a living off his hard-earned degree in maritime transport, but as a teacher and translator of the splendid German he learned during his studies. No one in Cuba knows what he or she will end up working as. I am a biologist myself…
My uncle usually sits in the terrace of the Colina, to watch girls passing by, and in case a German-speaking foreigner shows up… Now he’s calling me, always somewhat mysterious, imperative and dramatic. I say hi to him; he wants to talk to me about how worried he is for his son, Rainer, recently a graduate in tourism, and his Swiss girlfriend and the apartment they want to buy… but I don’t have time.
Why does everyone think that if you are a writer and aren’t on a payroll or have to work for a boss then you can happily waste your hours each day? We writers write. Once in a while, at least.
* * *
I have gone Monday through Friday to the Guille Gym since 2010, when they closed the much closer, more primitive, and cheaper one that belonged to my friend Irolán. It is on L between 17th and 19th, exactly seven blocks away from my house, but it’s far enough that I have to put on pants to go. You must pass in front of the hotel Habana Libre, the film theatre Yara, and the Coppelia Ice Cream, the heart of the Vedado and Havana.
The gym has equipment that is for the most part native — that is, made by hand by the owner. And it is a little expensive, for Cuban standards: normally, fifteen convertible pesos the first month, ten the next… and now they even want to raise it to fifteen. But there are a lot of machines, and Dania and I, both regulars, manage a significant discount if we make a single payment for the whole year — sixty convertible pesos for twelve months, when paying month by month it would be double. Will they now let us pay 90 convertible pesos, when the year is worth 180 instead of 120? Hopefully, because this place is not bad at all.
In fact, considering that the establishment, which is improvised in the basement garage of an apartment building, has mirrors in almost all the walls, air conditioning, and a TV on which they constantly run videos (which aren’t always reggaeton or salsa, a weird fact being that house music predominates, even though rock is almost totally absent), it is quite good. It even has treadmills, stationary bikes, and an elliptical trainer. The things missing are showers and a sauna… but that is for the hotels, which — logically! — cost thirty convertible pesos a month and upwards… when they have available rooms. Which never happens in the summer, of course.
Leaving aside the delicious mental rest of looking for a while at beautiful twenty-somethings with lots of makeup and keratin-straightened hair, their spandex clothes girding their youthful volumes sweating close to you, the truth is that I cannot conceive my daily routine without my session at the gym, regardless of how “un-intellectual” it may seem.
Eduardo Heras León…always says that a writer’s career is measured in hours per buttock. That is, the time one stays sitting in front of the keyboard…
I am an organized and methodical guy. Today is my legs day… and surrounding muscles. Eduardo Heras León — friend, mentor, creator of the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Center of Literary Formation, key in the literature of the past fifteen years, and, although very censored in the ’70s, an excellent storyteller himself, recently awarded the National Literature Prize, after years of being a candidate — always says that a writer’s career is measured in hours per buttock. That is, the time one stays sitting in front of the keyboard… so I, pretty lacking in buttocks, compensate my almost pathological deficiency in rear region fat by hardening it to the fullest with intensive squats and presses.
Squatting, abs-work, roller, sweat… time flies in the gym. Especially when I, between one set and the next, read a pair of pages on my Kindle, the best invention that has fallen into my hands in the past ten years. Now, whenever I travel to the provinces or another country, I don’t have to carry many heavy volumes in my backpack to avoid boredom on the bus or the plane, and I can read as fast as I want without the fear of running out of reading material… as long as the battery lasts, at least. This Paperwhite model, bought last year in the Barajas Airport in Madrid, is the fourth one I have. Yes, two have broken in the gym. The truth is that they are a little more delicate than paper books. But all the free literature — long live piracy! — that I can now have easy access to makes up for it; I can’t stand reading on the computer, not even on the laptop.
Between sets, a splendid idea for a story develops: a group of pawnshop owners and antiquarians get together periodically to tell each other anecdotes about their purchases and sales, and suddenly they all discover that they have bought a series of strange artifacts. Waste products from an alien exploration group? Remains of a team of time tourists? All speculations are fair game…
Make a mental note… Let’s see when can I write it. Nothing like exercising the body to stimulate the mind; some of my best stories have emerged between a chest press and a squat. Or in the afternoon while running on the boardwalk. Something that, by the way, I won’t be able to do today, with such a tight schedule.
Sweaty and feeling glorious, I weigh myself at the end: seventy-seven kilos, which is, subtracting the weight of clothes and shoes, seventy-six kilos… not bad for a forty-six-year-old Cuban intellectual with a height of 1.70 meters. I won’t be able to compete in UFC nor in Mr. Olympia, but at least I clash with the stereotype of the writer as tall and skinny or fat, little, and with glasses. Blessed be gas-permeable contact lenses, by the way. And that the farsightedness hasn’t hit me yet with all its strength.
* * *
I check my phone, because I can’t hear my cavalry bugle with the racket of the house music and the clanking of weights, which is the de facto soundtrack at Guille Gym. Two missed calls. One is from Aramis, the drummer and leader of Tenaz, the heavy metal band in which I’ve sung since 2007. Best not to call him; I guess it’s just to confirm that Sunday at noon we have a rehearsal in our locale in the Casa de Cultura de Centrohabana. And he does it reluctantly but also using the opportunity to complain for the eleventh time that the band is lifeless, threatening that if we don’t get serious he will dismantle it, because he, after all, is playing covers in El Submarino Amarillo with another band, Challenger.
By the way, they’re performing today and they don’t sound bad. If it weren’t a Tuesday and Dania did not have to work, it would be worthwhile to go, but with so much walking, surely after leaving the Peña de La Mazorca my Fluffyone will fall defeated when we get home, on the bed or on the sofa — she doesn’t care as long as I’m close.
The stage offers instant feedback, without having to wait for a publisher to get you out there. And it is addictive.
I have been a rocker by heart since I was eleven. And my looks and attire proclaim loud and clear my musical preferences. It would be a shame that Tenaz stopped existing, especially now that our first music video, for the song “El que a hierro mata,” has circulated a few times on national TV and is even on YouTube. Obviously, I’m not going to leave literature to dedicate myself exclusively to rock; I’m not that good. There was only one Freddy Mercury and he died already. But singing is something special. The stage offers instant feedback, without having to wait for a publisher to get you out there. And it is addictive.
* * *
The other missed call is from my friend Aymara, who works in the Czech embassy. During the past year I have collaborated a lot with the Czechs’ intensive cultural program: conferences on the novelist Bohumil Hrabal, on Jaroslav Hásek and his great novel The Good Soldier Svejhk (or something like that… these Czech words with five consonants and a single vowel… or none at all), opening expositions and the like. Soon I will talk about the great plastic artist Mucha. Also, Jan, the young Czech cultural consultant, is a fan of short-range firearms, like me… with the advantage that he can own some, while I, with the strict Cuban regulations on gun possession, limit myself to dreaming of Berettas, Lugers, and Colts, and accumulate digital and print books on the subject. Nevertheless, we still affectionately call each other “gunpowder brothers.”
Hopefully it is something good. After sticking out my hand and climbing into an ancient ’49 Chevrolet heading to Miramar, I call Aymara. She — charmed that I liked the little chronicle she last posted on her blog, about the semi-abandoned but still beautiful Jardines de La Tropical — tells me very enthusiastically that if they give me the American visa this time, hopefully for five years instead of for another wretched six months… we could make an old project a reality: going to the annual LASA congress, which will be in New York in 2016.
Well, I pay for the call, but friends are friends. So that, resigned but smiling, while the old Chevy goes through the Línea Tunnel towards Miramar, I let her expand on the idea of forming a panel on syncretic religion in contemporary Cuban plastic arts and both of us going to the Big Apple next May… Yes, very well, the deadline is on September 8, so we must hurry, I say almost mechanically, and soon she congratulates me on the award.
Eh? Award? What award? Ah, but didn’t I know anything! Didn’t I submit to the Franz Kafka Novel competition? Yes… and they haven’t told me yet? Niet, tovarich. Well, how nice to tell you the news! Mr. Jan told her that I had won the prize.
Coooooño! I scream and stick my hand out of the almendrón, despite the other passengers thinking I’m mad… Well, with my attire, I am something unusual already. Not only does the competition pay well (like five hundred convertible pesos, I think), but the Prague publisher Fra also publishes the winning novel in Czech and Spanish!
Additionally, the prize has a certain prestige already, and not only for its dissidence. Last year my friend Angel Santiesteban won it, a great storyteller now doing five years in prison, supposedly for a common felony — hitting his ex-wife! — even though the whole world knows that it is really for screwing the government too much with his blog “Los hijos que nadie quiso.” His award winning book, El verano en que Dios dormía, is an amazing novel about rafters. I was at his presentation in the Readers Club, right in the Czech embassy, a few months ago. So they will also invite me there when my book comes out! With the difference that I’m free (for the moment, at least) and the recalcitrant Santiesteban was not even let out of jail for his own book launch…
Well, very good: since that very far off Pinos Nuevos Prize in 1995, I hadn’t won another national award that wasn’t in science fiction, popular science, or fantasy. And in realism I have only published the short story collection W and one or two stories in magazines. Surely many had already forgotten that Yoss doesn’t only write fantasy…
I wrote the text and sent it to the competition, Puntos del no retorno, ten years ago already, in 2005. A more unpublished novel is hard to find.
Babbling, and with my heart ringing with joy, I hang up on Aymara to better revel in the amazing news. How ironic: I wrote the text and sent it to the competition, Puntos del no retorno, ten years ago already, in 2005. A more unpublished novel is hard to find. Although in my case, the fact that it remained unpublished up to now is not because it was a bit uncomfortable to the Cuban cultural authorities (all realist fiction these days ends up being so, more or less), but because it is one-hundred-percent autobiographical. I wrote and finished it a few weeks after ending a marvelous and tormented relationship with a gorgeous trigueña who, when she read it — because I sent it to her by email, of course — asked me not to publish it for at least another ten years, so that I didn’t “damage her and her girls’ personal reputations”; she worked and still works in a serious international body, and her daughters were fourteen- and sixteen-years-old at the time.
Well, a lot of water and things-that-are-not-water have run under the bridge of the Almendares River since that day… The girls are not so young anymore; one of them even became a mother a year ago. And my beautiful ex, so worried then for what others would say, later dated half of Havana, above all singers and guitarists in the closed world of rock cover bands, so I imagine that she won’t get too angry if I vent some of her past whims. And I won’t have a problem in sending her the book when I have it on my hands.
I think I learned the lesson of that scuffle with my non-fiction piece Aporías de Ayalí; when it was published in 2000, the text — that had nothing fictional to it, and did reveal some things about the protagonist that she evidently wanted to forget — made the girl’s grandfather, a retired colonel, accuse me of libel. And even though in Cuba, in practice, that juridical-criminal figure doesn’t exist, the former serviceman influenced his connections so that the UNEAC put me through an ethical commission and suspended me for two years. Yes, the little joke cost me dearly.
It’s a literature thing. Or a gossip thing, which sometimes, as in this case, is almost the same thing.
But the only animal that trips over the same rock twice is… Julio Iglesias. While I mentioned Ayalí and her boyfriends with names and last names in that story, the Chaconauta in Puntos del no retorno, and her daughters, and my other relationships and figures… no way. Not even one name. Although I don’t think that anyone who knows them will have the least trouble in identifying them… It’s a literature thing. Or a gossip thing, which sometimes, as in this case, is almost the same thing.
We are already at 3rd and 96th, a block away from the location of Artex, so I pay the ten pesos and step out of the car, stinking of gas like a worker at a drilling station, but jumping with happiness.
An award overseas, checks in sight, a collective birthday and a reading of erotic stories in public…
What more can a Cuban writer ask for?
* * *
In practice, following the rules of realism, now I should narrate the rest of my day right with the same amount of detail. If I managed to sign both checks, if the power came back to my mother’s house in time for me to go over my extremely slow emails at cubarte.cult.cu, if I arrived in time at the Loynaz Center, which has a buffet menu, if Dania left the embassy in time and caught up with me to eat and drink something, if the public applauded a lot or little for my story “Ana Who Takes Care of Me” in the Peña de La Mazorca with Ariete’s boys, if later I left with everyone to celebrate the peña and my award with a drinking spree (I, for my part, drinking Tukola) in the fountain on the park by H and 21st… in short, another ten more pages.
…I prefer to leave you supposing that, for once, the plans of a Cuban writer were carried through… more or less.
But this is already too long, so I prefer to leave you supposing that, for once, the plans of a Cuban writer were carried through… more or less. Finishing this chronicle tonight, sitting in front of the superb black keyboard that Dania bought herself last Sunday to match the rest of her computer. And describing myself, while she sleeps cuddled on the sofa, tired of the day’s hustle, but satisfied to be close to me, and I writing, quite inspired, the beginning of the story about the antiquarians, that for the moment is called “Circumstantial Evidence”…
Because walking around Havana to sign checks that God-knows-when you will be able to cash in, going to the gym, changing windows, and all the rest of daily preoccupations of the modern Cuban Tarzan are all very entertaining, varied, and picturesque… but, here as in Hong Kong, now and in a hundred years, the most important thing, what really makes a writer, is one thing only: writing.
Writing, writing always, all you can. Writing even though you do not know if you will be able to publish it, and less when it will be published, nor if you will be paid for it. Writing, from your sense of humor, from the gut, from what you live and what you dream, because if you do not write you can always reinvent. And because that is, after all, what we writers do.
And the rest — whether it turns out glamorous or cumbersome, or both — is nothing but mere collateral.Doctor Who left Netflix and Hulu at the beginning of February, but fortunately for Whovians the show isn’t gone from the Internet for good. It just regenerated onto a new streaming service.
Amazon puts out a monthly list of shows and movies arriving and leaving Amazon Prime’s streaming service, and it released a short teaser of what will arrive in March. We already knew about some of the selections, which were announced last week, but Amazon surprised Prime subscribers by announcing that eight seasons of the current run of Doctor Who would be available to stream on its site.
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While it had been rumored that Doctor Who would come back as part of a BBC subscription service, it went with another streaming service instead.
Doctor Who has long been a Netflix staple among TV fans, and the accessibility on Netflix allowed new audiences of binge-watchers to catch up to the current season airing on TV. Doctor Who was supposed to leave Netflix around this time last year, but the fan outcry may have led to a new deal between Netflix and the BBC.
There doesn’t appear to be a date attached to Doctor Who’s return, but once it does come back, many fans will be binge-watching the beloved show as usual during its long hiatus.
H/T Decider | Photo by Jeff Bell/deviantART (CC BY-NC-ND-3.0; used with permission)BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Bethlehem Steel FC announced on Monday the selection of 2016 PDL All-Eastern Conference selection Santi Moar. The deal is pending league and federation approval.
"We are very excited to have Santi on board. We were able to scout him through the summer and fall and think that he will add a new dimension to our attack in 2017,” Steel FC Head Coach Brendan Burke said. “He has goals in him and very good vision to match. We hope that he will compete to start right away."
A fourth-round selection by the Philadelphia Union in the 2017 MLS SuperDraft, Moar led the PDL’s Charlotte Eagles to a South Atlantic Division title with eight goals and four assists in the 2016 season. His performance earned him All-Conference honors as Charlotte claimed back-to-back division titles.I am working on time series prediction using RNN and tensorflow. I am not sure how to get confidence interval from the distribution which may or may not be defined in the internal memory state of the rnn_decoder.
This way I can plot the distribution like ARIMA:
or Gaussian Process
Here is the code I am working on:
https://github.com/guillaume-chevalier/seq2seq-signal-prediction
Here is the definition for tf.contrib.legacy_seq2seq.basic_rnn_seq2seq.
with variable_scope.variable_scope(scope or "basic_rnn_seq2seq"): enc_cell = copy.deepcopy(cell) _, enc_state = rnn.static_rnn(enc_cell, encoder_inputs, dtype=dtype) return rnn_decoder(decoder_inputs, enc_state, cell)
And rnn_decoder
It should be similar to logits in the discrete case(namely softmax cross entropy). I have tried passing a custom loop function in the decoder but the code was not working at all. My second guess was to write a custom decoder but need someone pointing to the right direction.John is one of the cofounders of Techworld, having previously edited several technology titles including Network World, Network Week and LAN Magazine.
Hacker forums have become a critical global channel through which aspiring criminals are inducted into the ranks of professional cybercrime, an analysis of some of the most popular discussion sites by security company Imperva has found.
Hacker forums are often seen as sinister sideshows to the main story, little more than places cybercriminals go to let off steam, make contacts and do business.
Imperva’s Monitoring Hacker Forums report, which carried out a content analysis of 18 of the most popular forums frequented by up to 250,000 criminals from around the world, suggests that this might be only part of a more complex picture.
Imperva’s initial hunch was that security researchers might learn something by paying attention to what hackers actually talk about as opposed to the end results of their handiwork.
On the face of it, the analysis yielded few surprises. The two biggest interests were SQL injection and DDoS, each with 19 percent discussion volume, both mainstream themes among security hats.
Facebook and Twitter were also the most widely-discussed social networks, largely in relation to buying and selling bogus endorsements. These are exactly the sort of things one might expect hackers to be talking about. It would be more surprising if these weren’t important topics.
On a deeper level, however, a lot of activity on these forums was directed towards ‘beginner hacking’ (28 percent of threads) and ‘hacking tutorials’ (5 percent).
“Posting a good tutorial can gain its author reputation in the community, and can lead to job offers, collaborations, and invitations to deeper, invitation-only forums. Taken together, about a third of the conversations are dedicated to hacker training and education, which make them the main topic of the forum,” noted the report’s authors.
Add to this the fact that hacker forums are now a global phenomenon, covering every language and interest imaginable, and their importance for researchers could simply be what they imply about the nature of professional hacking as an industry.
Forums are clearly now critical means through which the industry finds, trains and equips new talent to take up roles as cybercriminals. Indeed, many often start with the most basic rungs of the profession as social engineering “e-whores”, selling porn in which they impersonate women to unsuspecting punters looking to make digital contact with strangers.
“By examining what information hackers seek out or share in these forums, we can better understand where they are focusing their efforts,” said Imperva CTO, Amichai Shulman. “If organisations neglect SQL injection security, we believe that hackers will place more focus on those attacks.”
An alternative interpretation is that disrupting forums might fragment and dilute their importance, slowing the flow of new hackers into an industry the authorities seem to have lost all control over. This hope seems far-fetched. For now, forums remain an important intelligence-gathering tool for security researchers that few would be happy to lose access to.In the last month of the year, MySQL has been flooded by a set of zero-day exploits. This set was revealed by Kingcope and he has published proof-of-concept (POCs) for all these vulnerabilities.
The newly discovered set of 0-days affects MySQL in multiple ways, such as application crash/denial of service, privilege escalation, authentication bypass, remote root on Windows systems, and heap/stack overrun. These vulnerabilities have been acknowledged by the vendor and assigned to CVE ids CVE-2012-5611, CVE-2012-5612, CVE-2012-5613, CVE-2012-5614, and CVE-2012-5615 respectively.
Two of the critical security issues, ExploitDB: 23073 & 23083 in MySQL allow remote authenticated attackers to get the shell of a Windows system by sending specially crafted requests.
Below are the rest of the critical issues:
(CVE-2012-5611). This is triggered by sending an overly long argument to GRANT FILE command, which in turn leads to stack buffer overflow. It permits remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or may even cause database crash. However, to exploit this vulnerability valid username and password are required.
(CVE-2012-5612). A heap buffer overflow vulnerability caused by a series of crafted commands like USE, SHOW TABLES, DESCRIBE, CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE, ALTER TABLE, DELETE FROM, UPDATE, SET PASSWORD, etc. If exploited, it allows a remote, authenticated attacker with low privileges to change a current user’s password to an undefined value.
(CVE-2012-5614). This leads to a service crash via SELECT command with an UpdateXML command containing XML with a large number of unique, nested elements. The successful exploitation of this vulnerability also needs to be authenticated by a valid username and password.
(CVE-2012-5615). Enumeration vulnerability exists in MySQL which lets remote attackers to learn all valid usernames based on the error messages generated.
(CVE-2012-5613). This is not considered as a security bug since it’s a result of misconfiguration, however, it can lead to remote authenticated users gaining administrator privileges. In this case, an attacker with ‘FILE’ privilege is leveraged to create a new user that has full access similar to the MySQL administrator.
MySQL Database is famous for its high performance, high reliability and ease of use. It runs on both Windows and many non-Windows platforms like UNIX, Mac OS, Solaris, IBM AIX, etc. It has been the fastest growing application and the choice of big companies such as Facebook, Google, and Adobe among others. Given its popularity, cybercriminals and other attackers are definitely eyeing this platform.
To help users address these issues, Trend Micro Deep Security has released an update 12-032 with new set of DPI rules. Users are recommended to apply the following DPI rules released in the update.
*Out-of-box Coverage – These vulnerabilities are covered by our existing DPI rules.
Trend Micro’s DPI rules can protect users against all known exploits so far. As of this writing, we haven’t seen any attacks leveraging these POC exploits.China Launches World’s First All-Electric Cargo Ship, Will Use It To Haul Coal
December 2nd, 2017 by Steve Hanley
Here’s the good news: China has launched the first all-electric cargo ship. According to China Daily, the 230 foot long vessel is equipped with a 2,400 kWh lithium-ion battery that stores enough electrical energy to transport 2200 tons of cargo a distance of 50 miles on a single charge at a top speed of about 8 miles per hour. Time to recharge the battery is given as 2 hours, which is approximately the time needed to unload the ship at its destination.
“As the ship is fully electric powered, it poses no threats to the environment. The technology will soon be likely … used in passenger or engineering ships,” said Huang Jialin, chairman and general manager of Hangzhou Modern Ship Design & Research Co, which designed the electric cargo vessel. The battery for the ship is comprised of 1,000 individual lithium-ion packs. Adding enough power to carry more cargo is simply a matter of adding more battery packs.
The ship was built at Guangzhou Shipyard International in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, which is located on the Pearl River north of Hong Kong. The shipyard is a wholly owned subsidiary of CSSC Offshore & Marine Engineering Company. CSSC stands for China State Shipbuilding Corporation.
The new ship has two primary benefits. First, it will emit no carbon emissions while underway. Cargo vessels tend to be some of the biggest carbon pollution sources in the entire transportation sector. Second, it will lower the cost of transportation for bulk cargoes because the price of electricity is lower than the price of diesel fuel
Here’s the bad news: The all-electric cargo ship will be used primarily to transport coal to generating stations along the Pearl River. So, imagine this — the world now has a ship that can claim to be zero emissions even though it is powered by electricity generated by burning coal, one of the dirtiest of fossil fuels in terms of carbon emissions, and is used to transport coal more cheaply.
“This kind of ship takes into consideration the harmony between humans and nature and can protect water quality and marine life, and should be copied by other ships sailing on local rivers,” says Chinese environmentalist Wang Yongchen. That much is correct. The same technology that makes the new electric collier possible can also be used to power ferries, container ships, or other vessels used for short haul coastal shipping.
The Chinese should be applauded for advancing the idea of electric propulsion for ships, but using clean power to lower the cost of shipping coal to electric generating plants illustrates how far the world has to go before a zero-emissions world becomes a realistic possibility.So easily overlooked, most of the time I completely forget they are there. But if I take the time to look a whole world of photographic opportunity reveals itself.
This is a collection of tiny critters that I’ve stumbled upon while scrambling through natural areas mostly in southern New Jersey.
Spiders and snails, bees and butterflies, crickets and caterpillars. To shoot these less-than-pint-size invertebrates requires a specialized macro lens and often additional lighting.
I don’t mount my macro lens onto my camera nearly enough but when I do, it is always so much fun.
Crawling through the tall grass, staring at the ground or waiting for a tiny flying insect to land in just the right spot can be such a challenge, but very rewarding.
If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend taking a few extra moments to slow down and really look for these amazing animals. You’ll be pleasantly surprised if you do.[Intel-gfx] [PATCH 0/5] Enabling DRRS support in the kernel
Dynamic Refresh Rate Switching (DRRS) is a power conservation feature which enables switching between low and high refresh rates based on the usage scenario. This feature is applicable for internal eDP panel. Indication that the panel can support DRRS is given by the panel EDID, which would list multiple refresh rates for one resolution. The patch series supports idleness detection in display i915 driver and switch to low refresh rate. Pradeep Bhat (3): [Intel-gfx] drm/i915: Adding VBT fields to support eDP DRRS feature [Intel-gfx] drm/i915: Parse EDID probed modes for DRRS support [Intel-gfx] drm/i915: Add support for DRRS to switch RR Vandana Kannan (2): [Intel-gfx] drm/i915: Idleness detection for DRRS [Intel-gfx] drm/i915/bdw: Add support for DRRS to switch RR drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_drv.h | 30 ++++++ drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_reg.h | 1 + drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_bios.c | 23 +++++ drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_bios.h | 29 ++++++ drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c | 13 +++ drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_dp.c | 180 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_drv.h | 35 ++++++- drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_pm.c | 112 +++++++++++++++++++++ drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_sprite.c | 3 + 9 files changed, 425 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) -- 1.7.9.5School voucher programs are being debated everywhere you turn — in courtrooms, in state governments, and even in popular culture. Just Thursday, Republicans in Florida tried and failed to expand their state’s voucher program. On Friday, Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled that using state funds to pay for children’s education at religious and private schools was constitutional. And perhaps most importantly, “True Detective,” which was already one of the best shows ever to be on TV, became the best show ever to go after vouchers when a villain explained his desire to use the school voucher system to achieve his nefarious ends:
The whole idea was to provide an alternative to the kind of secular globalized education that our public schools were promoting. When we get the school voucher program instituted we’ll reintroduce the idea. People should have a choice in education, like anything else.
So why are vouchers so justifiably vilified? Where to start! As I have written previously, school voucher programs, which allow parents to use public dollars to pay for private education, are not only ineffective but they fail to address the rampant inequality that plagues our nation’s schools and weaken the public school system as a whole. Despite these facts, voucher schools are on the rise — and many of them are religious schools using public money to teach a distorted version of reality, which I had thought only existed 50 years ago or in over the top parodies of the right wing.
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Where do these religious voucher schools get their so-called “facts”? One place is Christian publisher A Beka Book. Founded in 1972 by Arlin and Rebekah (aka, “Beka”) Horton, A Beka churns out a significant number of the textbooks used by such schools. Forty-three percent of the religious voucher schools that responded to a 2003 Palm Beach Post survey based their curricula on texts published by either A Beka Books or Bob Jones University Publishing. A Beka Book estimates that around 9,000 schools utilize their books.
And just what does A Beka Book — which in 1998 paid a $44.5 million fine to the IRS for masquerading as a non-profit while reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in profits — teach students about, say, the creation of the world, or modern American history?
In an article I wrote for AlterNet late last month, I highlighted the “ 7 Most Absurd Things America's Kids Are Learning Thanks to the Conservative Gutting of Public Education.” But these 7 examples didn’t even begin to do justice to the way textbooks published by A Beka Book empower religious schools engaged in voucher programs to distort the truth in order to further an extremist political agenda. And I would be remiss if I failed to include additional disinformation campaigns being launched in schools around the nation.
So here are 10 further examples of totally dishonest lessons brought to you by "school choice" (aka, your tax dollars). This time I focus on five of the scariest history lessons kids are learning thanks to the popular A Beka Book title, America: Land I Love In Christian Perspective, plus five of the publisher’s most notable profiles of historical figures, taken from a variety of its books.
1. The Great Depression: Made Up to Spread Socialism
In a section titled "More Rumors," America: Land I Love In Christian Perspective takes on the origins of the Great Depression. The book explains that,
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"Some people wanted to create an imaginary crisis in order to move the country toward socialism. They spread rumors of bank mortgage foreclosures and mass evictions from farms, homes and apartments. But local banks did all in their power to keep their present tenants. The number of people out of work in the 1930s averaged about 15 percent of the work force; thus 85 percent continued to work. Most had to take a pay cut, but prices also declined during the Depression, enabling people to buy more for their money."
See! The Great Depression was really a great hoax!
In the “Propaganda” section, under the subhead “Exaggerated Fiction,” students learn that,
"In 1939, John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath. This novel described the plight of the Okies, farm families from Western Oklahoma who went to California in search of jobs. Most families who went west did not experience the hardships that Steinbeck presented in his novel. Steinbeck openly supported labor violence and strikes instigated by socialist groups to keep the Okies from earning a living as migrant farm laborer in California.... Socialist photographers and artists produced misleading pictures of the... mountaineers of Appalachia. These mountaineers did not have the modern conveniences of homes in the town or cities but they did not consider themselves to be poor. The Depression actually had little effect on their lives.”
So, the Great Depression was a figment of the liberal, socialist, artistic imagination... a figment that happens to be supported by indisputable empirical evidence of a severe economic crisis.
2. Nazis: Brought to you by Karl Marx and Charles Darwin
The book also teaches students that "as a socialist, Hitler believed that the government should own the nation's industries and take responsibility for its people." Through socialism, the book tells us, Hitler became “the absolute dictator of Germany. By embracing socialism, the German people lost their freedoms to a tyrant."
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Not to mention the role evolution played in selling the Germans on the whole Holocaust thing: "Hitler combined Marxist socialist thought with Darwin's theory of evolution. Because many Germans believed the notion of evolution, they accepted Hitler's ideas."
So in short, we have Charles and Karl to thank for the massacre of 9 million people.
3. The Post-WWII Era: A Time of Crusades and Constant Praying
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According to the book’s authors, preceding the 1960s, the “moral values of biblical Christianity provided a just standard of law, order, and mutual respect, which in |
and bankruptcy filing. He did not respond.
AdvertisementWe found the BlackBerry PlayBook to be a pretty solid piece of hardware, but it seems there was a problem batch -- an inside source tells us that nearly 1,000 faulty tablets were shipped to Staples, and now they're being recalled. We're hoping that Staples (and any other affected retailers) will reach out to customers and inform them of the problem right away, but just in case that doesn't happen, we've compiled a searchable spreadsheet of all 935 alleged serial numbers for you to check against your own. Find it right after the break.RIM tells Crackberry that the faulty batch of the 16GB tablets was indeed limited to the approximately 1,000 units described here, and that they had a faulty build of the OS "that may result in the devices being unable to properly load software upon initial set-up." Furthermore, the company says that only a few went out to customers and that most are still in distribution, so with any luck you'll never have to deal with this problem to begin with.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Simon Jones explains how the men were rescued from this dinghy
Two Iranian men have been rescued after spending eight hours in the English Channel in an inflatable dinghy.
The suspected migrants were picked up about a mile and a half off the Kent coast in the early hours by a lifeboat crew concerned for their safety.
They were located after staff on a passing ferry spotted the light from their mobile phone.
Both men had not eaten for two days and were said to be cold and in a state of shock.
They were taken into Dover Harbour and treated by paramedics before being handed to the authorities.
Andy Roberts from Dover RNLI said: "The Pride of Canterbury P&O ferry, leaving Dover harbour, spotted a very weak light that flashed occasionally and they slowed down and diverted towards this light.
"It was a mobile phone that was being held up.
"They [the migrants] had been at sea for in excess of seven hours and they were very cold and rather shaken up but Dover lifeboat diverted because of their condition and concern."
The pair had called 999 for help at about 02.30 BST saying they did not know where they were but the RNLI were unable to locate them until they were spotted by the ferry.
A spokesman for the Home Office said the two man were "handed to immigration officials by Kent Police for questioning".
He said border security was "paramount" and they always worked with partners to "detect and deter" people who tried to reach the UK illegally.JERSEY CITY -- Jersey City has lost the breach-of-contract case filed by the assessment firm hired in 2011 to oversee the long-stalled citywide property revaluation, with the judge presiding over the case using the decision to slam Jersey City's "unfair" tax system.
Hudson County Superior Court Judge Francis B. Schultz ruled this afternoon that the city showed bad faith when Mayor Steve Fulop stopped the reval in 2013 and ordered the city not to pay West New York firm Realty Appraisal Co. the remainder of its $3.2 million contract.
The city must pay the firm $984,511 plus interest and attorney's fees dating to Realty Appraisal's October 2015 settlement offer, Schultz ruled.
The firm, which sued for breach of contract after Fulop stopped the reval, was "simply doing a job that it was hired to do," Schultz said today after dismissing almost every argument city attorneys made during the seven-day trial.
"The evidence in this trial is clear and convincing," the judge said. "The city simply does not want a revaluation. Period."
READ THE DECISION
Phil Elberg, Realty Appraisal's attorney, and Neil Rubenstein, a co-owner of the firm, embraced after Schultz ruled in their favor.
The decision is a blow for Fulop, though not an unexpected one. His administration vowed to appeal back in February when Schultz dismissed the city's final counterclaim in the suit. A request for comment on whether the city still intends to appeal was not returned.
It was clear from the start of Schultz's decision -- which he delivered from the bench in this non-jury trial -- that Jersey City was headed for defeat. He began the ruling by calling Jersey City's tax system one of "the most unfair" in New Jersey and he ended by calling the city's continued delay of a reval "intransigence."
&lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2806167-Judge-Schultz-s-April-14-Decision/annotations/290283.html"&gt;View note&lt;/a&gt;
Asked to comment on the judge's ruling, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said the Fulop administration agrees with Schultz about the unfair system "which we inherited." Fulop was elected mayor in 2013.
"However it doesn't change the fact that a faulty reval will further create hardship and residents across the city will lose their homes which we will continue to fight," Morrill said. "We will explore next steps over the next few weeks and continue to advocate for tax fairness."
The decision prompted a response from Gov. Chris Christie's office late this afternoon. Christie's administration last week ordered Jersey City to complete a reval by November 2017, saying the ratio of assessed to true value in the city had dipped so low it violates state laws and the New Jersey Constitution.
"We agree with the court that Mayor Fulop is presiding over 'one of the most unfair' tax systems in the state of New Jersey," the statement reads. "The recent actions by the court and the state government prove that tax fairness can prevail in Jersey City."
Revaluations bring the assessment of every property into line with its market value. When a municipality goes a long time between revals -- Jersey City's last reval was in 1988 -- the more out-of-whack some properties' assessments are with their market value.
The city made multiple arguments in pre-trial hearings and during the seven-day trial. Its main case was that the 2011 contract was void from the start because Realty Appraisal had hired Brian O'Reilly, a former city tax assessor, after his city retirement. O'Reilly's job with the firm gave it an unfair advantage, city attorneys argued.
Schultz today dismissed that argument.
The city's own witnesses "testified clearly and unambiguously that O'Reilly was not present at any meeting and had nothing to do with the revaluation" before his city retirement, Schultz said.
Schultz also noted the "curious" decision by the city to call as a witness Konstantin Belenky, who in 2009 admitted stealing $475,000 from an Elks club so he could pay off Atlantic City gambling debts. As a witness in the reval trial, Belenky, a tax assessor, challenged the amount of work Realty Appraisal said it completed for the reval was halted.
<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2806167-Judge-Schultz-s-April-14-Decision/annotations/290512.html">View note</a>
See documents from the case:
&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/public/search/projectid%3A%2024880-realty-appraisal-v-jc%20"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View/search document collection&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.Gillingham's on-loan Queens Park Rangers defender Michael Harriman has dedicated his first Gills goal to the memory of his friend Kiyan Prince.
QPR academy player Prince was 15 when he died after being stabbed trying to intervene in a fight outside a school in May 2006.
"I always said that when I scored my first goal, I'd dedicate it to my best mate Kiyan Prince.
"That was for him. I hope he's up there watching me," he told BBC Radio Kent.
Harriman, 21, added: "It was a great moment for me - my first professional goal in the League. It's a moment you'll never forget."
Media playback is not supported on this device Gills confident ahead of Bees trip - Harriman
The 2-0 win against the Robins was a morale-boosting result for Gillingham ahead of Friday's visit to in-form Brentford.
Second in League One, the Bees are unbeaten in 15 matches.
But having already beaten promotion chasers Swindon and Wolves, Harriman believes the Kent side have shown they are capable of troubling any team in the division.
He said: "We're looking forward to it and are going to try to stop the run they're on at the moment.
"We want to go there and show Brentford why we beat the other teams that are up there.
"If it's a good, positive, performance again then we should be okay."NEO is dubbed by many as the “Chinese Ethereum”. And with Ethereum struggling throughout 2018’s bear market, it may be that NEO can make moves to become the #1 smart contract platform in the blockchain sphere. Or at least the most valuable smart contract cryptocurrency.
Despite its high profile and rabid fanbase, NEO is not as widely available as other large cap coins. It is possible, though, if you know where to go. This guide is going to take you through a step-by-step process of buying NEO on the Bittrex Exchange.
What is NEO?
NEO is a smart contract platform, much like Ethereum, EOS or Cardano. Their idea is to enable people to build decentralized applications, to support areas such as digital identity and industrial uses of the blockchain. There have already been a number of successful ICOs and blockchain projects built upon the NEO network, by a passionate base of NEO developers.
The biggest point of difference for NEO over other platforms is its token model. For a start, the NEO token is non-divisible. This means you can only trade whole tokens – tokens can’t be split into 0.5 or 0.25 NEO, for example, as you can with tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
To enable microtransactions on the NEO platform, it has a secondary token, GAS, which is used to pay for things such as usage fees (like ETH is on Ethereum). People who hold NEO will steadily earn GAS proportionate to their NEO holdings, making a NEO investment also a way to earn a passive crypto income.
Instead of a token supply that is always increasing, as with mining currencies like Bitcoin, NEO has a fixed supply of 100 million tokens. Hence, as the network grows and sees more use, the token will naturally rise in value due to scarcity.
Now, let’s see how to start investing in NEO.
Step 1: Register on Bittrex
If you haven’t already, you will have to sign up for a Bittrex account. Click “Sign Up” on their homepage to begin.
Step 2: Verify your account
Before you can start trading, Bittrex requires you to verify your account.
You’ll need to create a profile, including your name, birthdate and residential address. You’ll also have to submit one form of identification (passport, driver’s license or national ID) and a current selfie.
The process is usually very short, and can take as little as a few minutes to be successfully verified. Though the site says it can take up to 24 hours in some cases.
Step 3: Deposit Bitcoin or Ethereum
Few places allow you to purchase NEO for Fiat currencies such as USD or EUR, and that includes Bittrex. So you’ll have to purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum first, and then trade for NEO.
If you don’t have either of these coins, people from most places in the world can buy with a credit or debit card on Coinmama, Changelly or Coinbase.
Once you have Bitcoin or Ethereum, you’ll need to transfer your coins to your Bittrex account. To do this, click on “Wallets” on the top navigation bar.
The next page will show all your individual wallet balances on Bittrex. Search for the coin you wish to deposit (BTC, for example). Click the green icon next to the coin’s name to make a deposit.
If it’s the first time you’ve deposited this type of coin, you’ll need to generate a wallet address. Click “New Address”, and wait a few moments as Bittrex creates a new wallet for you. Once it is complete, copy the wallet address as the sending address for your Bitcoin/Ethereum.
Depending on the network load, you may have to wait several moments to see the coins in your Bittrex wallet.
Step 4: Find the BTC or ETH pair For NEO on Bittrex Exchange
Once your deposit is complete, go into the Bittrex Exchange to trade for NEO.
Click on “Markets” to go to the exchange screen.
Coins with USD pairs will be listed at the top. Scroll down to the “Bitcoin Markets” section (or “Ethereum Markets”, if you are trading with Ethereum). Enter “NEO” in the search bar, and a pair for NEO will show up.
Click on BTC/NEO or ETH/NEO to bring up the NEO order screen.
Step 5: Choose how much NEO to buy
From the trading screen, scroll down to where it shows the option to buy or sell NEO. Make sure “Buy” is selected.
You will have several order options. The default option is “Limit” – you put in how much NEO you want to buy, for how much, and Bittrex will try to make that trade. Alternatively, you can choose a “Conditional” order. This means you choose how much NEO to buy, and tell Bittrex to only make the trade if the price is lower than/greater than the price you specify.
For a Limit Order:
Set the amount of NEO you want to buy
Set your “Bid Price” – the cost in BTC/ETH at which you want to buy (select “Last” to take the most recent price)
Check the amount of BTC/ETH your order will cost (that you have enough funds to cover the order)
Choose how long you want Bittrex to try and make your order. They will only be able to make your trade if someone else is trading in the other direction (i.e. NEO-BTC or NEO-ETH). The default option means Bittrex will keep trying to find a trading partner until your total order is completed, or you cancel the order. Otherwise, you can choose to cancel the order if it can’t be completed straight away.
Conditional orders work the same way. The only difference is to choose your condition (Greater Than Or Equal To, or Less Than Or Equal To).
Be aware that Bittrex has a withdrawal fee of 0.025 NEO. Since NEO is a non-divisible cryptocurrency, you will only be able to take out a whole number. If you hold 100 NEO, for example, it will become 99.975 NEO with the transaction fee, which you won’t be able to take out.
Keeping this in mind, add 0.025 on to the amount of NEO you want to buy, to ensure you can withdraw the total amount in your wallet later.
Step 6: Buy NEO!
Once you’ve finalized the conditions of your trade, click “Buy NEO”. And you’re done! Bittrex will notify you once your trade has been completed successfully.
Step 7: Withdraw your NEO tokens to a secure NEO wallet (and start earning GAS!)
The best practice in crypto is always to hold your coins in a secure wallet, off an exchange, when not trading. This is even more important for NEO, as it allows you to earn GAS (free money!!!) just from holding NEO.
To withdraw your coins, you’ll need a wallet that supports NEO (and GAS). The most secure option is a hardware wallet such as the Ledger Nano S. A cheaper option is the NEON wallet, a desktop wallet for Windows, Mac and Linux, made by NEO developer group the City of Zion.
To make a withdrawal from Bittrex, click on “Wallets”. Now search for NEO – the wallet should show the new balance with your newly purchase NEO coins. Click the red symbol to withdraw.
From the next screen, put in the amount of NEO you want to take out (remember it can only be whole units), and the destination address (from your NEO wallet). Check the address is correct, and click “Withdraw NEO” to complete.
So that’s it! Now you know how to buy NEO on the popular Bittrex Exchange. See here for our guide on buying NEO from the Binance Exchange.
Andrew is a writer and digital marketer from New Zealand, now based out of South East Asia. Along with his work in many areas of the e-commerce space, Andrew has a keen interest in cryptocurrency, especially altcoins and projects focused on mainstream crypto adoptionMedia playback is unsupported on your device
After Iran's Islamic Revolution secretive courts were set up to try suspected ideological opponents of the regime, with no jury, no defence lawyers and often no evidence beyond a confession extracted from the defendant by means of torture. Those who survived them still bear the psychological scars today.
In the living room of their flat in Calgary, Canada, Shohreh Roshani and her mother Parvin are watching a flickering video. Shohreh has her arm around her mother, and both women are weeping softly.
The grainy footage, which only recently came to light, is of a trial in 1981 and shows the final hours in the life of Shohreh's father, Sirus.
Shortly after it ended, he and the other six defendants were taken away and shot.
Their crime was to have been leading members of a religious minority called the Bahais - heretics, in the eyes of the rulers who had swept to power two years earlier in Iran's Islamic revolution
Former members of the Shah's government were the first targets of their revolutionary justice, but the Bahais were also high on the list.
Find out more Iranian Revolutionary Justice, directed by Mark Williams for BBC Persian, will be shown on BBC World on Saturday 17 October at 04:10 and 15:10 GMT, and on Sunday 18 October at 09:10 and 21:10 GMT
After Roshani and the other Bahai leaders were seized, the only news that emerged was a letter from another member of the group, Kamran Samimi to his wife Farideh.
"Don't worry," it said. "We are all happy together and we are being treated well."
But two weeks later they were dead.
In the early days of the Revolutionary Court, trials were usually held in secret, with no defence lawyers and no jury. Some lasted no more than a few minutes.
"There was no need to investigate if people had committed a crime," says Iranian academic Dr Majid Mohammadi. "Just being against the regime was enough."
In the case of the Bahai leadership the proceedings lasted for a couple of hours. The defendants can be seen in the footage sitting on a row of chairs facing the judge, who can be heard constantly berating and interrupting them as they try to respond to a series of Kafkaesque charges.
Image caption Sirus and Parvin Roshani
"The clear pattern in trials before the Revolutionary Courts is not giving the defendants an adequate opportunity to contest the evidence against them," says Payam Akhavan, a former UN prosecutor, and an expert on the courts.
"Very often there is little to no evidence against them at all."
There is a marked and painful contrast in the footage between the articulate and well- mannered tone of Sirus Roshani and his colleagues, and the crude hectoring of the judge. It ends abruptly before the verdict is announced.
A witness told Parvin later that the firing squad cut them down before they had even finished saying their final goodbyes to each other.
That year, 1981, had been a turning point in Iran - the moment when the new Islamic Republic had begun to face serious opposition.
The People's Mujahedin, a group originally allied to the clerics who led the revolution, had taken up arms against the government and as many as 1,000 state officials had been killed in a wave of bombings over the summer.
In response, the authorities launched a ruthless crackdown.
Thousands of people suspected of belonging to the Mujahedin, and also to leftist opposition groups, were arrested and sent before the Revolutionary Courts.
Among them was Shokoufeh Sakhi, an 18-year-old left-wing activist, who was taken from the family home, in front of her distraught parents, sister and baby son.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Shokoufeh Sakhi describes interrogation
"The look on their faces will always be with me," she says. "I thought, this is the last time I will ever see them."
Sakhi was taken to a detention centre in Tehran where she was beaten and interrogated for three months before being brought before a Revolutionary Court.
"My own interrogator stood behind me," she remembers. "The interrogators would interrupt and say she hasn't co-operated, she's stubborn. Give her the most severe punishment."
The courts took their cue from the father of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, who had declared that confession was the "best evidence", thus dispensing with the need for either witnesses or other evidence.
In order to obtain the desired confession, torture was routine.
"I was handcuffed to the ceiling for six or seven hours," says Abbas Rahimi, a young man accused of giving weapons from a state firearms depot to the People's Mujahedin.
Image caption Abbas Rahimi (left) as a young man
"They shaved my head and made me eat my own hair. That's the kind of thing they did."
Shokoufeh Sakhi was sentenced to five years in jail, Abbas Rahimi to 10.
Before either was released, though, the authorities began to worry about the destabilising effect of allowing all the jailed dissidents back into society. The long-running Iran-Iraq war had just finished, Ayatollah Khomeini was unwell, and the clerics feared for the future of the regime.
It was Ayatollah Khomeini himself who came up with the solution, according to Hadi Ghaemi, a leading New York-based Iranian human rights activist.
"It began with a written fatwa," he says, "[It] says we have to verify the loyalty of these prisoners, and anyone who is not repentant should be executed."
So in the summer of 1988, thousands of prisoners who had served their sentences were brought before special three-man tribunals, which came to be known as the "Death Commissions".
The justice they dispensed was swift and brutal, and to the survivors it seemed terrifyingly arbitrary.
"They chose people at random, from different cells," says Shokoufeh Sakhi. "We were all waiting for our turn to come."
Abbas Rahimi was asked to sign a piece of paper expressing repentance, and he complied.
"They would say, go and sit down over there on the right," he remembers." And the people who were sitting on the left would be taken out and executed."
He survived, but his two sisters, Mehri and Soheila, did not.
"The mass executions were held in secret," says former UN prosecutor Payam Akhavan. "Many were quietly hanged in mass groups and their bodies dumped in mass graves."
But the Death Commissions ended as suddenly as they had started and the survivors, Shokoufeh Sakhi among them, were quietly released.
To this day the Iranian government has not publicly acknowledged what happened.
The Revolutionary Courts continued to function in the years that followed, but in the mid-1990s changes were made allowing defence lawyers to be present during interrogations and trials - except in cases involving national security, when it was at the discretion of the judge.
A new generation of lawyers emerged during this period, who were prepared to take on political cases, often at considerable risk to themselves. One of them was Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.
"As a result of my activities my sister and my husband have been to jail," says Ebadi. "I've been to jail too and I've been threatened with death on several occasions."
It took the protests following the disputed elections of 2009, however, to bring the Revolutionary Courts fully out of the shadows.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
After a week of unprecedented street demonstrations, the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei intervened, calling in a sermon at Friday Prayers in Tehran for the demonstrations to stop.
Very quickly, the protesters were violently dispersed. Thousands were arrested and before long mass trials were being shown on television.
Among the defendants were student activist Omid Montezari and Hossein Rassam, a political analyst at the British embassy. Montezari had been taking part in the protests, while Rassam had been monitoring them as part of his job.
Image copyright Getty Images
Unlike their counterparts from the 1980s, and some others who took to the streets in 2009, neither was physically tortured. Instead they were subjected to a subtler form of pressure.
"When someone turns to you and says your child might get hit by a car, that's not something you can deal with easily," says Rassam, whose only son was 13 years old at the time.
Montezari's father had been executed under the Death Commissions in 1988, and his interrogators constantly reminded him he could share the same fate.
Image caption Omid Montezari, who was arrested after attending protests in Iran in 2009
Both recall being made to rehearse their lines and to deliver specially prepared confessions expressing repentance.
Eventually they were released, and by comparison with those who were executed, such as Montezari's cellmate, student activist Arash Rahmanipour, they got off lightly. But the experience has left an indelible mark.
Hossein Rassam is troubled by the fact that in his confession he was forced to implicate three other people.
"For this I can never forgive myself," he says. "I am not the same person as I was before."
Image caption Hossein Rassam and his son
Earlier generations who suffered at the hands of the Revolutionary Courts remain similarly haunted.
"I know that because I was in prison my son and my immediate family were all tortured too," says Shokoufeh Sakhi, who now works in Canada as a human rights activist. "My son has been damaged massively. I know those lost years will never come back. This will always stay with me, but I can't change who I am."
Abbas Rahimi, now 62, lives in London.
There's a deep sadness in his eyes. It's hard to recognise him in the photograph of a jaunty young man taken before his arrest.
"Of course it affects you," he says. "You think about it from time to time. You remember your family, the children. They're always the ones who haunt you the most."
His teenage nephew is one of those who died - arrested to provide information about another family member, he was beaten to death in jail.
In Calgary, Parvin and Shohreh Roshani who left Iran in 1995, still think of Sirus every day of their lives.
Shohreh remembers him as a man dedicated to his family and his job as a doctor, who loved swimming and hiking.
She gazes at the last blurry image of her father on the screen - seven men, sitting side by side, already understanding the fate that awaits them.
"When I was in Milan I saw the Last Supper," she says. "It's so beautiful. I wish I could paint. I would have turned this into a painting."
More from the Magazine
Image copyright AFP
Thirty-five years ago this week, Iraq invaded Iran and what has been described as the 20th Century's longest conventional war began. Both sides suffered terrible casualties but they had different motives for fighting and now, looking back, two soldiers see their experiences in a very different light, writes Mike Gallagher.
The 'beauty' and the horror of the Iran-Iraq war
Iranian Revolutionary Justice, directed by Mark Williams for BBC Persian, will be shown on BBC World on Saturday 17 October at 04:10, 15:10 GMT; and Sunday 18 October at 09:10, 21:10 GMT
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.Ottawa's cost-cutting measures have put it on a sound fiscal track for the future, but the provinces are left holding the bag, says Canada's budget watchdog.
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page's latest long-term projection on government finances suggests Ottawa has little to fear from the loss of revenue and rising costs tied to the aging population.
Mr. Page also judges the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan fiscally sound.
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But the report, released Thursday, shows provinces and municipalities adding so much debt over the next 70 years or so they would resemble Greece and Italy if something is not done.
The report calculates that provinces and their municipalities have a fiscal gap of about 2 per cent of gross domestic product now – or $36-billion – and by 2086 will have debt worth 350 per cent of GDP. Meanwhile, Ottawa will be in a structural surplus.
Mr. Page cautions that this is a "what if" scenario and is not a forecast, but adds that governments need to be aware of the fiscal track they are following to ensure they make the right policy decisions.
"We're not saying in the report that the provinces have to panic and start taking measures right now," Mr. Page said in an interview.
"But in terms of dealing with aging demographics…if they wait five years the gap goes from something like 2 to 2.3 (per cent of GDP). If you wait 10 years it goes to 2.6. If you wait 20 years it's well over 3 per cent [and] it starts increasing exponentially."
In essence, the federal government has already taken "decisive" measures to address the fiscal gap, Mr. Page said.
While he has been critical of the Harper government in the past for failing to acknowledge it was in a structural deficit several years ago – for which he took personal blow-back – Mr. Page said Ottawa has acted to rectify the situation.
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In the past two years, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty put a limit to growth on health transfers to provinces, essentially froze program spending for five years, and raised the age of eligibility for benefits under Old Age Security to 67 from 65.
The change in health transfers alone is responsible for about three-quarters of the provincial fiscal gap, Mr. Page says, or about $25-billion in fiscal room.
"Health care is the Pac-Man that will eat up their budgets," he said of the provincial situation.
He notes health-care spending has been rising at about 7 per cent a year for the last decade, and he projects it will rise on average by 5 per cent going forward. But even that is too much, given that the expected trend speed of the economy will slow to between 3 or 4 per cent in nominal terms.
"You can't have health-care spending growing that much faster than GDP and not have some type of sustainability problem when health care is such a big part of your budget."
Not all provinces have a fiscal gap. The report does not separate out resource rich provinces like Alberta from the have-nots, so the 2-per-cent estimate is in fact larger for provinces like Ontario and Quebec and some in the Atlantic region.
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Mr. Page said the provinces with a structural deficit will find it more difficult than Ottawa to unload their problems, in part because they can't peg health care expenses to GDP, as Flaherty has.
As well, demographics impact provinces more than Ottawa because as the population ages, health-care costs are expected to explode.
Some provinces have begun to pinch in other areas in anticipation of the coming squeeze. Quebec attempted to raise tuition fees, triggering massive protests.
Following receipt of a report from economist Don Drummond in February, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty introduced a two-year wage freeze on all public servants, among other measures.
Mr. Page's report says the provinces do have time to react. Because of current measures and sustained, if weak, growth in the economy, he calculates overall government debt as a percentage of GDP will fall to 31.9 per cent in the next 20 years from the current 53.5 per cent.
But that's not true of all governments. When you put the provinces together, their debt as a percentage of GDP starts rising, albeit slowly in a few years.The short link to this list is j.mp/nicar17 (case sensitive).
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For previous years’ tutorials, videos, presentations and tips see the lists from 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011.Twin Peaks might be the perfect synthesis of popular art we’ve ever seen. From the story, to the visuals, to the music, it was the ideal of what art could be on television. Appealing to a broader audience, while still keeping it weird.
When it was announced that Death Waltz Records was remastering and reissuing Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks – Original Score, excitement in the fan community was palpable. Long forgotten in the Warner Bros. archive, with fans thirsty for anything Twin Peaks and the emerging interest in soundtracks and scores on vinyl, a release by a respected label like Death Waltz was universally embraced.
Death Waltz founder and manager, Spencer Hickman explains that at the time, getting the ability to do the re-release was surprisingly easy.
“Weirdly, at the time, when we acquired the permission to reissue Twin Peaks there was only Death Waltz and Mondo doing this kind of thing. Now there’s a huge amount of labels doing similar things to us but at the time there wasn’t,” said Hickman. “It was one of those odd things where I couldn’t believe somebody hadn’t asked for it or it wasn’t in Warner’s own schedule to re-issue. It just kind of blew my mind that it wasn’t already snapped up.”
“I literally just asked because I had a contact and really good friend, Billy Fields, who’s Warner’s vinyl master and I just said ‘I’d love to re-issue Twin Peaks’ and he was like ‘OK, let me put you in touch.’ And weirdly that was the simplest part because it’s been delayed and delayed and delayed through no one’s fault. Sometimes these things happen.”
Ah, the delays. Fans waited. And waited. And waited. The promised release date of 2014 came and went and the internet grumbled, giving up hope. Sure, vinyl releases are delayed for all kinds of reasons, but fans don’t care. Without reasons and explanations, fans wondered if it would ever happen at all.
“Because this record in particular has been so hard to put out, it’s taken three years because we originally said it was going to be released in 2014, sometimes you lose sight of things,” said Hickman. “As much as I am a fan, this is my job and when things get delayed it can become frustrating. When it’s done, like the day we put it into production, that’s cool. And then it lands and you’re like ‘oh man’. Then the reaction the records got it just makes you fall in love with it all over again.”
“Interestingly it’s a better release for me now that we’ve joined with Mondo. Because we didn’t have a die cut sleeve until Jay Shaw (Mondo’s Brand Director) said ‘oh man we should do this’. I actually think the release has benefited from the delays. If it had come out in 2014, we wouldn’t have sleeve notes from Angelo (Badalamenti), we wouldn’t have had test pressings approved by Angelo. So it’s been beneficial for this, although it’s also very incredibly frustrating. And I do understand people were upset it’s taken so long, which is why we decided to make one edition and make it affordable. It’s kind of like a thank you for waiting.”
So after this long wait, how is it?
It’s stunning. It’s absolutely stunning.
This is a release that sounds magical, has some of the best art/packaging I’ve seen on a soundtrack release, includes notes from the composer and was signed off by David Lynch himself.
“Obviously David has been incredible. We’ve been getting artwork signed off by him because he has to approve it personally,” Hickman said.
“When you get that that email that says ‘Spencer, Mr. Lynch approves’, you’re like ‘yeeeessss’. It’s really interesting because we sent three or four different die cut ideas (to Lynch) and I said in my email that I think the third one works best for the cover. The email came back and it was like ‘David thinks so as well’ and we were like ‘yeeeeeeeaaaahhhh!’. You know that’s like when you turn into the little fanboy again. I’m very lucky that this is my job. It’s very cool.”
The time honestly paid off for this release because every ounce of work and love shows. There’s an intangible “thing” to the release that just feels top notch. The sound? Just a little clearer and more crisp. The packaging? Feels a bit heavier and well-constructed. I’ve seen really high quality records, but this one just feels different. Like Mondo and Death Waltz knew the stakes were high and wanted to do everyone right with the release.
And man, that sound. I dare you to put on the “Twin Peaks Theme” and not be immediately transported to the swaggering cool of the show.
When I got my record, it was an overcast day in Cleveland and rain clouds were rolling it. The |
: how we would express in English the fact in question, assuming that it is a fact).
In other words, as we Davidsonians say, the concepts of belief and meaning are interconstitutive, and whenever we speak we do both of these things: we manifest both our doxastic and semantic commitments simultaneously (as well as our existential commitments, but that's another story). That's why, as I like to put it, inquiry is interpretive, and interpretation is … well, “inquiry-ish” isn't a word, so I have to say that in order to make judgments about meaning, or to mean anything ourselves for that matter, we must make factual judgments as well (that is, about how things are).
But wait: what is my own attitude toward these assertions? Is mine not a philosophical theory, a typically philosophical attempt to establish a non-empirical truth about the world? After all, it seems that if what I say is false – and I have given no argument for its truth, but instead simply plunked it down, just as if preceded by “we would surely say here that …” – then surely it is worthless, a failed dogma to be tossed on the junkheap of history, to rot there with alchemy, logical positivism, and the phlogiston theory. And indeed, like any assertions, they purport to express my beliefs on the matter.
But what are they? What do I mean by these assertions? As they themselves say – and as I believe – their point is not that you can rip them out of their philosophical context and hold them up as an accurate picture of reality in the dogmatist manner. Instead, it is that in grappling with their significance, and the arguments for their truth, we uncover and diagnose the conceptual tangles underlying the traditional dogmatic conception of philosophy, at all levels. Talking this way, I believe, allows us to bypass most of the traditionally intractable problems and cast them in a new light. Something like this dissolution is what led Richard Rorty to declare the “end of philosophy”, but the reality is not nearly so apocalyptic. And in fact experimental philosophy, more broadly construed, may have much to contribute once we show the old traditional formulations of our problems out the door.
In any case, Wesley agrees with me about the acceptability of factive knowledge … but for experimental reasons; which suggests that you can defend almost anything if you designed the experiment the right way. Is this a bad thing, as this wording suggests? As I have already mentioned, I think we should be prepared to say that words have different senses, and that philosophers might have perfectly good reasons, given the context of what they are doing, for using terms in the way they do, even when there are other uses as well (which is all that the original experiment shows, the one to which Wesley is responding with his own counter-experiment).
So the issue is not whether NFK or FK is the correct conception of “knowledge.” After all, here's another use still. Sometimes people use “know” (and “believe”) in such a way as to acknowledge their lack of objective evidence for a belief to which they are nevertheless committed, thus:
(3) “I believe P, but I don't know it.”
For example, maybe P is a religious conviction (as I recall, Dinesh D'Souza uttered [3] in his debate with Daniel Dennett, where P was something like “there's a God”). In such cases the speaker seems to assert that a) the objective evidence available to him fails to rule out the possible falsity of P, and that yet b) further inquiry is unnecessary or even futile, as his belief is already fully established. We might say this whenever we “take something on faith,” whether a religious conviction or not; and indeed it seems that some beliefs are like this.
Now I can perfectly well acknowledge this phenomenon, and even concede the rationality of this attitude, without granting that this refutes the idea that (as I would rather say, for philosophical purposes) that if one believes something, one generally takes oneself to know it. For all we have here is a different use of “know”, used to make precisely this point about certain beliefs “taken on faith.” And naturally if you insist on making the point in this way, I can't stop you, nor – as the relevant experiments would surely suggest – do I have a right to complain. But saying this doesn't show my conception of knowledge and belief to be false.
Because that conception is not a philosophical theory. Speaking the way I do allows us to capture succinctly the ideas I use for philosophical ends – e.g. fighting the pernicious dualisms characteristic of modern and pre-modern philosophy (so in this sense I suppose I count as a “post-“”modernist”). If you insist on speaking “with the folk” in saying either [3] or NFK when defining knowledge, again, I can't stop you; but if you do it will take much, much longer for me to explain what I think we should do in philosophy: I'll have to invent new words, for example, and scrupulously address in tedious detail all the inevitable misunderstandings which will arise from shoehorning all of our uses of “know” and “believe” into one correct definition. And why would you want that?* Crown buys site of former Frontier casino on the strip
* Purchase follows other recent forays into US market
* Crown’s growing empire to include Macau, Sydney, Manila and Sri Lanka (Updates with analyst comment, share price, more detail on casino developments)
By Jane Wardell
SYDNEY, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Australian gaming mogul James Packer is taking another crack at the lucrative U.S. casino market, with his Crown Resorts Ltd buying a vacant site on the famous Las Vegas Strip in the latest sign of a resurgence of interest in the U.S. market.
Crown said it had established a joint-venture resort company to develop the site with former Wynn Las Vegas president Andrew Pascal, with financial backing from U.S. private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management.
The move is another attempt by Packer to gain a foothold in Las Vegas after he scrapped plans to build a resort there in 2008, and comes as analysts tip something of a turnaround in the sluggish U.S. gaming market.
While revenues in Macau, the only place in China where gambling is legal, now far outstrip Las Vegas, some analysts see the Nevada strip benefitting from a recovery in U.S. discretionary spending and a rise in international guests, particularly high-rolling Chinese gamblers who want to venture outside their own backyard.
“You can’t be in the gaming industry and not have a special reverence for Las Vegas - that’s where it all began,” Packer said in a statement. “As we have built Crown Resorts into a thriving international company with successful casino ventures in Australia, Macau, and London, we’ve always kept our eye on Las Vegas.”
Packer’s renewed interest in Las Vegas comes after Genting Bhd, southeast Asia’s biggest gaming group, said in May it plans to begin construction of a $4 billion resort on the strip in the second half of this year.
Australian gaming machine maker Aristocrat Leisure Ltd last month agreed to buy privately owned U.S. peer Video Gaming Technologies (VGT) for $1.28 billion in a deal that will help Aristocrat grow in the United States.
Crown paid around $280 million for a controlling interest in the 35-acre (14-hectare) vacant site, the former home of the famous Frontier Casino which was demolished in 2007.
The company said plans for the new development were still being finalised, but it expected to break ground in the latter half of 2015 and complete the project in 2018.
Brian Han, an equities analyst at Morningstar covering Crown, said Packer’s latest venture into the bright lights of Las Vegas looked like it had more chance of succeeding.
“I think the choice of partner is pretty good,” Han said. “Compared to the previous foray, I think this time, these parameters are much more different. Overall I think it’s a pretty good deal.”
Crown shares were down 0.9 percent at A$15.85 on a broadly lower market.
NEW GAMBLE
Packer scrapped plans to develop a $5 billion casino in Las Vegas with private equity partner York Capital Management in 2008 as the global financial crisis crunched the credit market, with Crown writing off A$44 million in the process.
Crown also lost money on investments in U.S. casino firms Fontainebleau Resorts LLC and Cannery Resorts LLC.
“While we fell short in past attempts to enter that market, we now have the ideal opportunity,” said Packer, the biggest shareholder in Crown, which jointly owns Macau casino operator Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd.
Han said Crown’s balance sheet was stronger this time and the new site was in a prime location. Crown bought the land in a foreclosure auction after plans over the years to build a new version of the Frontier and then a replica of New York’s Plaza Hotel on the site were abandoned.
“The previous development site was at the northern tip which not many people go to, relatively speaking,” Han said.
Packer is ranked Australia’s third-richest person with a fortune of $6 billion, according to Forbes. Last year, he cashed out of his family’s publishing and broadcasting assets for about $1 billion to concentrate on his gambling business.
His growing gaming empire include multibillion dollar projects underway in Sydney, Manila and Macau. Crown is also planning a casino resort in Sri Lanka and together with Melco partner Lawrence Ho, Packer is positioning for a casino in Japan should the government liberalise gambling.They gained worldwide fame as the two defense attorneys in the wildly popular Netflix series "Making A Murderer." Dean Strang and Jerry Buting joined Jim to talk about the case of convicted murderer Steven Avery.
Much of the internet was collectively outraged by the Steven Avery case. After he wrongfully served 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, Avery was charged for the murder of another young woman two years later. The documentary follows him and his family throughout the case, detailing claims of police bias against the family.
Many people believe Steven Avery is innocent, leading to theories about other potential murderers. "I think whoever killed this young woman understood full well, that suspicion would fall immediately on Steven Avery, and took advantage of that," Strang said. "And indeed the police did focus immediately and essentially exclusively on Steven Avery.”
“The problem was… we were not allowed to point the finger at anybody else as a suspect," said Buting. “It opened the door for the state to make that argument that they must be saying that the police are the ones that killed her and burned her because who else. And that was never our pre-trial theory that we wanted to advance.”
Strang said they had identified eight other people, in total, who could have potentially committed the murder. However, due to Wisconsin law, they were unable to introduce any of them before the jury. The pair said that it would be unfair to name these people now, outside of a courtroom. However, according to Buting, public court documents detail the list of names.
"The great benefit [of the series] … for Steven Avery and Brendan Dassy is it's harnessed a hundred thousand motivated minds who are thinking about technological advances, tests that might be done now," said Strang. They are hopeful that such discoveries could lead to Avery's exoneration, just as advancements in the science of DNA testing led to his release from wrongful imprisonment before.
Avery’s new lawyer has also suggested that there is more evidence, which was never presented to the jury, that could clear her client’s name. She’s indicated there are cell phone records that would demonstrate the victim made a phone call while driving away from the Avery property—just one of several pieces of information that was not previously brought before a jury.
For Buting, the moral of this story is that "people need to wake up and see what happens in their court houses, and they need to take ownership of them.” Both attorneys are hopeful that the both the Netflix series and their tour will get people talking about the issues at play so that they can get involved and make changes to their justice systems. "The things that are raised in this documentary, the things that outrage people, questions we've gotten, are things that have outraged Dean and me for years," said Buting.
Strang remains optimistic. "You either keeping trying, or you quit,” he said. “The thirst for justice is universal,” he added. "With grassroots efforts... it's really possible to make change in the long term."
You can watch Jim moderate the discussion, A Conversation On Justice, with Strang and Buting here.I first posted this Final Fantasy themed article about 2 years ago. Since then I’ve found a bunch more fantastic Final Fantasy themed models. Rather than make a second post I’ve decided to update this one with all the new models. Enjoy!
There’s a ton of really awesome video game themed origami out there that I haven’t really seen highlighted much. Therefore I’m starting a series all about video game origami!
This first part is all about Final Fantasy themed origami. I’m a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series and a lot of these models are quite awesome.
Firstly, it wouldn’t be a Final Fantasy themed post if it didn’t have Chocobos and here’s a great Chocobo design by Andrey Ermakov
Chocobo, Designed by Andrey Ermakov and Folded by Eyal
Diagrams available in III International Origami Internet Olympiad
Chocobo, Designed by Andrey Ermakov and Folded by Damian Malicki
Diagrams available in III International Origami Internet Olympiad
Chocobo, Designed by Andrey Ermakov and Folded by Alexander Kurth
Diagrams available in III International Origami Internet Olympiad
Chocobo, Designed by Andrey Ermakov and Folded by Adriano Davanzo
Diagrams available in III International Origami Internet Olympiad
Chocobo, Designed by Andrey Ermakov and Folded by Natalia Romanenko
Diagrams available in III International Origami Internet Olympiad
Satoshi Kamiya has also designed a great origami Chocobo and I totally bought his book Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003 just so I could have the diagrams for it.
The Yellow Bird, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Michael Novio
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
The Yellow Bird, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Gonzalo
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
Satoshi Kamiya also has a picture of an adorable baby Chocobo in his book and Gonzalo figured out how to fold it.
8-Bit Chocobo, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Gonzalo
Instructions not available
Here’s one more completely different Chocobo design by Mathieu Gueros. The design of Chocobos changes slightly with each Final Fantasy game and this particular one really looks like the ones from Final Fantasy V I think.
Chocobo Ver. 2, Designed and Folded by Mathieu Gueros
Instructions not available
After all these chocobos it’s quite fitting to have this Chocobo Eater. The Chocobo Eater is a boss from Final Fantasy X that’s causing trouble for some Chocobo owners. Hyun Seok Kang perfectly captured it here, especially the round body and mouth.
Amazingly enough this is folded from a simple Bird Base.
Chocobo Eater, Designed and Folded by Hyun Seok Kang
Instructions not available
Here’s another boss monster, this time from Final Fantasy IV.
Asura, Designed and Folded by Hubert Villeneuve
Instructions not available
This next model is a bit more obscure, this is a monster found in Final Fantasy XI which is pretty much the only Final Fantasy I haven’t played so I didn’t recognize this at first. This is folded from one square of paper!
Peiste, Designed and Folded by Andrey Ermakov
Instructions not available
The Final Fantasy series has several different classes that usually have a similar and distinct costume design. Hubert Villeneuve designed this fantastic White Mage and the paper he used captured the white and red pattern you usually see on White Mages perfectly.
White Mage, Designed and Folded by Hubert Villeneuve
Instructions not available
Hubert Villeneuve later designed this second version of his white mage and it’s absolutely incredible. This is folded from a single square of paper and the colour changes here are astonishing!
I really love the pose of this model too. The hood can apparently be folded down too which is a very nice touch.
White Mage (gen. 2), Designed and Folded by Hubert Villeneuve
Instructions not available
The Malboro is a very powerful enemy found in most Final Fantasy games. It’s got a very complex design and it’s very impressive that people were able to fold these with origami.
Malboro, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Xu Daniel
Instructions not available
Malboro, Designed and Folded by Andrey Ermakov
Instructions not available
Tadashi Mori designed a great origami Leviathan and even made a video tutorial showing how to fold it.
Leviathan, Designed and Folded by Tadashi Mori
Video instructions available from Tadashi Mori’s YouTube Channel
Here’s another artists excellent take on the Hydrean as it’s referred to in Final Fantasy XV.
Leviathan, Designed by Tadashi Mori and Folded by Joe Adia
Video instructions available from Tadashi Mori’s YouTube Channel
Sephiroth, the villain from Final Fantasy VII is one of the most iconic characters in the entire Final Fantasy series so of course someone designed an amazing looking origami version of him.
Sephiroth, Designed and Folded by Brian Chan
Crease pattern available from Paulius Mielinis’s Flickr
The Divine Dragon Bahamut might be the most famous summon from Final Fantasy and Satoshi Kamiya has designed a really awesome origami one.
Divine Dragon Bahamut, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Lucas Honor
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
Divine Dragon Bahamut, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by 簡單的度過-2
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
Divine Dragon Bahamut, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Emre Ayaroglu
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
Divine Dragon Bahamut, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Francisco José González
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
Divine Dragon Bahamut, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Hiroaki Kobayashi
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
Divine Dragon Bahamut, Designed by Satoshi Kamiya and Folded by Bong Gu Han
Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
This model started out as Son Byeong Hun’s devil (2014 version) but Hyun Seok Kang altered the structure and the shaping to turn it into Bahamut.
Rage of Bahamut, Designed by Son Byeong Hun, Modified and Folded by Hyun Seok Kang
Instructions not available
Next we have this incredible model of Bahamut Fury from Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core. This is folded from 15 squares of paper.
Bahamut Fury, Designed and Folded by Yoshimasa Tsuruta
Instructions not available
Our “Final” model for this post is another Bahamut design and this one is absolutely incredible. Hyun Seok Kang started with Satoshi Kamiya’s Bahamut design and over a period of several weeks he designed this amazing version 3.5.
It’s version 3.5 because Satoshi Kamiya has a version 3.5 of some of his other super complex designs such as his Ryujin and Phoenix.
The original plan was to make the Final Fantasy X version of Bahamut but the weird disc thing on it’s back ended up being too difficult to incorporate into the design.
In the end though everything about this model is amazing, especially the details on the wings and the scales.
Bahamut Version 3.5, Designed and Folded by Hyun Seok Kang
Based on Satoshi Kamiya’s Bahamut with Diagrams available in Works of Satoshi Kamiya 1995-2003
That’s it for this post let me know which one of these Final Fantasy origami models was your favourite in the comments. And if you just want to talk about Final Fantasy in general in the comments feel free to do that too!Dwight Buycks has reached agreement on a multi-year contract with the Toronto Raptors, a source told RealGM.
The Portland Trail Blazers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat had pursued Buycks as a potential third-string point guard, but he ultimately couldn’t pass up the opportunity to back up Kyle Lowry on the Raptors. For the Raptors, Buycks’ defense and playmaking served as enticing factors to give him a chance.
Buycks has starred for the Thunder’s summer league team this month, ranking third in assists per game, and he will travel for his physical exam with the Raptors over the weekend.
Buycks, 24, averaged 15 points and 2.6 assists in the NBA D-League last season.
The Oklahoman first reported that Buycks had agreed to be the Raptors’ backup point guard.When it comes to new student housing around Temple University, Civic Design Review may as well be Civic Parking Review.
On Tuesday, the Goldenberg Group presented its plans for The View II to the Civic Design Review (CDR) committee. The building is 450,000 square feet, with 352 student apartments—designed to accommodate 874 beds—along with retail, amenities, and an “Innovation Center.”
From the perspective the near-dozen residents who attended the afternoon hearing, that translates into a whole lot more alien cars taking up space on their neighborhood’s streets.
The vacant lot where the View II will be erected upon is zoned CMX-4 and the construction is by right, meaning no zoning variances will be required.
The CDR committee enjoys no binding power, nor is it meant to be used as a forum for concerns about parking in the surrounding neighborhood. Nonetheless that’s what almost everyone who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting expressed concerns about.
Residents of the neighboring Yorktown community see the first View complex, just to the north, as an eyesore. The 14-floor building contains 832 beds and almost 90 parking spots.
“It's too much, the parking is out of hand already,” said one woman, who refused to provide her name. “You are just adding more cars to the neighborhood. People shovel out their parking spaces but then students park there.”
CDR chair Nancy Rogo Trainer tried to explain that this board could do nothing about the issue—and that, in any case, the building is by right.
“Nothing you do in our community is right,” the woman snapped. “You just do it and we have to suffer the consequences. So don’t talk about right.”
The View II provides 94 parking spots, including six for car-share vehicles, in a sunken area at the interior of the complex. Plentiful bike parking spots are provided as well and the Goldenberg Group liked the Planning Commission’s proposal that more be added on the perimeter.
There are also four bus stops around the site of The View II, including the heavily trafficked Route 23. The Broad Street Line’s Cecil B. Moore stop is a mere two blocks away and the Temple University Regional Rail Station is also nearby.
The number of parking spots in The View II—one for every three units, with bonuses for bike parking and ride share—is allowed under the zoning code that went into effect in 2012.
Community residents fiercely argued that students and university employees were already parking their cars in front of the private residences and congesting the streets of the neighborhood. If nothing changed, and The View II goes up, they feared the community would be crippled.
“We’re just sick and tired of Temple and these developers coming in and taking over our neighborhood,” said Lenore Washington, who intimated that if the developers and CDR members liked The View II so much, they should put it in their own backyards.
The Goldenberg Group’s representatives were unable to provide statistics on how many residents of The View I used private automobiles as their primary means of conveyance, drawing derisive snorts from the audience. Trainer encouraged them to get better data on the subject.
The Goldenberg Group could confirm however, that only half of the View I’s parking spaces are being utilized by residents. It costs $89 a month for residents to secure a parking spot.
Community residents argued that fee pushes the students into the neighborhood, where parking is free.
Jeffrey Young, legislative counsel for Council President Darrell Clarke who represents the area, attended the meeting as well. His office echoed community concerns about parking.
“I do think that being a former student myself, it’s the price of parking that keeps students from using those parking lots,” said Young. “But the price associated with it, most students don’t have it. If you charge $5 a month for parking, the lots would be full and there will be 100 people on the waiting list.”
Young said that the students don’t utilize the public transit, especially the bus system, around the complex.
“I know that there is a view within planning that you are going to discourage parking,” said Young. “But people are still going to have cars….Those developments around public transit are well intentioned, but the expected outcome isn’t happening.”
A few design questions did come up over the course of the nearly two-hour meeting. Community members roundly bashed the red panels on the building, much like those on the original View complex, too.
But parking remained the primary antagonist.
Solutions proposed included establishing a permit-parking zone in Yorktown, to keep students and their guests off of residential streets, or dropping the price of registering to park at the complex as Young suggested.
Architect Cecil Baker, however, offered a more ambitious solution.
“Maybe that 3 [parking spaces] for 10 [units] works on a general community basis,” said Baker, in reference to the zoning code’s provisions for parking within high density zones. “But perhaps that should be reinvestigated for areas around institutions.”
Young, for one, agreed. He said Council President Clarke is supportive of the idea of increasing parking requirements in areas zoned for dense developments.
“But we don't know if we can get the support of other council members or the community at large,” said Young. “Every time we introduce something in regards to parking we get a lot of flack from certain interest groups throughout the city.”
In the end, the committee voted 4-to-3 to conclude the CDR process on The View II. Trainer explained that she voted to conclude despite the contentious meeting because, she sighed, CDR isn’t the appropriate venue for debating parking policy.Why Taste Buds Dull As We Age
Enlarge this image toggle caption CSA Images/Getty Images CSA Images/Getty Images
Sometimes people develop strange eating habits as they age. For example, Amy Hunt, a stay-at-home mom in Austin, Texas, says her grandfather cultivated some unusual taste preferences in his 80s.
"I remember teasing him because he literally put ketchup or Tabasco sauce on everything," says Hunt. "When we would tease him, he would shrug his shoulders and just say he liked it." But Hunt's father, a retired registered nurse, had a theory: Her grandfather liked strong flavors because of his old age and its effects on taste.
When people think about growing older, they may worry about worsening vision and hearing. But they probably don't think to add taste and smell to the list.
"You lose all your senses as you get older, except hopefully not your sense of humor," says Steven Parnes, an ENT-otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat doctor) working in Albany, N.Y.
To understand how aging changes taste, a paean to the young tongue might be appropriate. The average person is born with roughly 9,000 taste buds, according to Parnes. Each taste bud is a bundle of sensory cells, grouped together like the tightly clumped petals of a flower bud. These taste buds cover the tongue and send taste signals to the brain through nerves. Taste buds vary in their sensitivity to different kinds of tastes. Some will be especially good at sensing sweetness, while others will be especially attune to bitter flavors, and so on.
A taste bud is good at regenerating; its cells replace themselves every 1-2 weeks. This penchant for regeneration is why one recovers the ability to taste only a few days after burning the tongue on a hot beverage, according to Parnes.
Aging may change that ability. Though taste buds generally seem to be good at regenerating even with age, older taste buds are less adept at regenerating after injury. In addition, some kinds of medication can interfere with taste. Parnes says based on his clinical observations, the amount of loss varies from one individual to another, but women generally report losing taste in their 50s and men in their 60s.
Parnes sympathizes with people with a dampened sense of taste, because he's never had a sense of smell. (The condition is called anosmia, and Parnes figured out he had it at 8 years old, when his friends would complain about odors that he couldn't detect at school.)
"Sometimes people who come in complaining of a loss of taste are actually losing their sense of smell," says Parnes.
While the tongue only detects a handful of flavors, the nose detects thousands of smells and is intimately related to the ability to detect the tastes we associate with certain foods. But loss of smell is also reported with aging.
For people suffering from a loss of taste or smell, Parnes recommends seeing an ENT to be sure something treatable or dangerous isn't going on. Sometimes viruses or head trauma can result in cell degeneration or in nerves tearing. But in many cases, Parnes says there's not a lot aging gourmets can do, except take nasal spray to stay decongested, and seek out bold tastes — Parnes enjoys spicy flavors.
"I'll gravitate toward things that have a certain texture, too," says Parnes. "I like filet mignon better than a sirloin in part because of texture."
And if that fails? Dunking everything in ketchup and Tabasco would probably work, too.
Gnawing Questions is a semi-weekly column answering the food mysteries puzzling us and our readers. Got a question you want us to explore? Let us know via our contact form.The Philadelphia City Council voted Thursday to remove bulletproof glass from the windows of some local businesses, despite a backlash from shop owners who cited safety concerns.
The council voted 14-3 to approve legislation that could eventually force business owners to remove the protective glass outside their storefronts that some lawmakers believe operate as drug fronts and facilitate loitering and public urination, Fox 29 reported.
The bill, which was passed by the city’s Public Health and Human Services Committee on Dec. 4, enables Philadelphia's Department of Licenses and Inspections to regulate the bullet-resistant barricades that stand between customers and cash registers in many neighborhood corner stores.
OUTRAGE AS PHILLY PUSHES THROUGH BAN ON BULLETPROOF GLASS IN CRIME-PLAGUED NEIGHBORHOOD SHOPS
The approved bill, according to Philly.com, instructs the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections to, by Jan. 1, 2021, “promulgate regulations to provide for the use or removal of any physical barrier” in stores that sell food and alcohol.
The approved bill “does not require mandatory removal” of the bulletproof glass, but rather a careful consideration, Councilwoman Helen Gym told Philly.com. The bill does, however, call for "tighter rules on seating, public restrooms and what can be sold at these stores," Fox 29 reported.
Storeowners on Thursday pleaded to keep the bulletproof barriers on their storefronts.
"I was the victim of a robbery when I was ten years old, and I don't want that to happen again,” one storeowner told Fox 29.
Another shopkeeper, through an interpreter, said: "If you took the bulletproof glass from our store, there will be more people die."
City councilman David Oh had similar sentiments, calling the possible outcome of the situation “worse … than what we have today.”
“If we take down the safety glass, they're not changing their business model. They're not moving. What they will do is purchase firearms. I think that is a worse situation than what we have today,” Oh said ahead of Thursday’s vote.
PHILADELPHIA BUSINESS OWNERS CRY FOUL AT BILL TARGETING BULLETPROOF GLASS
Councilwoman Cindy Bass, who originally sponsored the bill, said the stores — many of which are delis — are “masquerading as restaurants.”
“They sell almost everything you need to get high, and if they don’t have it, someone loitering inside or outside, has the rest,” Bass said.
Bass told Fox News that the storeowners, who reportedly operate with restaurant licenses, in “more than 90 percent of cases they are breaking the law in terms of operating outside the requirement of their license.”
Fox News' Greg Norman and Frank Miles contributed to this report.I don’t know about you but I have an emotional attachment to old platforms and APIs. They are often sweet and nice in their primordial simplicity, even with their well-understood limitations. Even when they become obsolete, we developers still remember and miss them.
In case of Android, version 1.5 / API level 3 is technically obsolete but is far from being extinct from the device market. In fact, as of the day I write this article, it is one of the most widely installed Android versions on the market. (And if you add the not-so-different 1.6, they take almost half of the market together.) While subsequent versions brought us a lot of goodies in various areas of the platform API, 80% or more of all functionality our apps need today is present in 1.5.
Sure, there are cases when your app just isn’t meant to run on 1.x. For example, its core functionality is based on the APIs that are absent from API level 3 (e.g. you’re making a live wallpaper), or when you don’t want to support old devices for performance reasons, or due to a marketing decision. However, in many cases what makes developers raise the minSdkVersion bar is the need to use some of the 1.6+ APIs, such as the new contact management facilities, signal strength detection or better animation support.
The good news I’m trying to bring in this article – to those who aren’t yet familiar with this trick – is that you can actually use the new API yet keep minSdkVersion at 3. This trick might not work in all cases, and might look like a hack, but it will work for many situations like this – and who knows, might allow your app to reach out to its grateful, ready-to-pay customers who still use 1.5.
Example problem
Let’s say we’re developing an app that would benefit from supporting “reverse pinch zooming” – that is, zooming something by moving two fingers away from each other on the touch-screen. Everyone knows this cool gesture that was first popularized on iPhone and then spread to other multitouch devices. For example, it could be a photo app or a 3D app or whatever.
Android does support multitouch since API level 5 / version 2.0, and some of the built-in apps support the pinch-zoom gesture. I’m not going to go deep into the subject of gestures in this article. In few words, if we forget about 1.5 support for a moment, we can just use this ScaleGestureDetector class from the built-in 3D Gallery app in our own app. (API level 8 / version 2.2 actually includes this class in the core API, but for now, let’s not complicate the situation further ). In order to use it in your custom view, you have to do the following:
Add the class to the source Instantiate the class by giving it a reference to the Context and to a listener implementation that will handle all captured pinch zoom events Override onTouchEvent() in the view and pass the captured MotionEvent to the ScaleGestureDetector instance The detector will magically call your listener when pinch zoom event are detected
If you have an app where you could try this, then do. Pinch zooming really adds some wow-effect to your app’s UI.
However, the big issue is that ScaleGestureDetector won’t work on 1.5. In fact, it won’t even compile if your project is targeted at 1.5. Unfortunately, there is just no way to make it work on 1.5 because API level 3 just does not support multitouch. The MotionEvent version that is there on 1.5 only contains information about one pointer.
Without knowing the right tricks, at this point you would be standing in front of a dilemma – either not supporting pinch zoom for those who have newer devices and expect this kind of gesture, or dropping support for a large part of the target audience who are still at 1.5 or 1.6. (Well, in fact, there is a third option – keeping two separate versions of the app, but that’s such a horrid, pain-in-the-ass idea that I won’t even discuss it.)
The solution
First of all, in Eclipse we set the target API level of the project to 2.0 or 2.1, while setting the minSdkVersion to 3 in the Android manifest. As a result, you will get a warning on the AndroidManifest.xml file. Sorry, but you’ll have to live with it if you want to use this trick.
What we just did was allowing usage of 2.x binary APIs while declaring support for API level 3. From this moment, our app will be accepted as installable on 1.5 devices. However, it’s now up to us to avoid using 2.x API classes that are actually not present on 1.5. But we do use them in ScaleGestureDetector, so let’s do something about that – or the app will break with a low-level linkage or method not found error as soon as it tries to access those 2.x APIs.
Our solution is the following:
Extract an interface from the ScaleGestureDetector class. You can use a standard Eclipse refactoring for that. (You might choose not to include methods that you’re not going to use, into the interface.) |
, so “we have to get this wolf, it’s not an if, its a must, because he’ll go to any measure to eat. They’re the worst kind.”
We then meet Courtney, a local mother, who’s scared that the wolf could eat her young daughter. Charlie agrees, “if we turned our backs for a couple of minutes, that baby would be gone.”
“There have been twenty fatal wolf attacks in the last ten years”, the voiceover intones.
Charlie kills the wolf in the next episode, pursuing it on a snowmobile and shooting it outside town with an AR-15, the same semi-automatic assault rifle used by the Sandy Hook school shooter. “The only good thing about a wolf is the quality of their nice fur”, says Charlie, holding up the blood-smeared pelt. Courtney agrees: “Dirty little rotten bastard.”
Another scene shows Stan, a fur trapper, dealing with a wolverine. Wolverines, about as big as a medium-sized dog, are the largest members of the weasel family. One has been caught by its front paw in one of Stan’s steel leghold traps and is trying to get away, squealing and snarling as he approaches. “He’s really dangerous”, says Stan, “I don’t think any human being could keep an attacking wolverine from killing them.”
Stan chops down a small tree, which he bashes the struggling wolverine with — to “stun” it, he says. Once the wolverine’s strength is somewhat depleted, he approaches it with a small handgun. The animal’s head turns, tracking the gun, and he shoots it. The camera zooms in to show steam rising from the carcass.
Charlie, too, sets a leghold trap for a wolverine, and catches it. As it squeals in the trap, trying to run away, the voiceover tells us dramatically that “wolverines are capable of tearing human beings apart.”
“He could gut me”, says Charlie, before raising his AR-15 and opening fire on the hapless animal. Many of his shots miss, but he eventually kills it.
All through Yukon Men we see predatory animals being killed: a leghold-trapped lynx is strangled to death with a wire noose by Stan’s son, a grizzly bear is shot in the head, etcetera, and every time the producers use the techniques of the reality TV genre to convince us that the animals are man-woman-and-child killers which are best turned into fur coats.
Frenetic edits and manic music are used to build drama, authoritative-sounding voiceovers combine with the tightly edited words of the on-screen characters tell how dangerous, vicious or deadly the creatures we’re seeing on screen are. I spot occasions where animal noises seem to have been overdubbed to make them sound scarier. It makes for gripping viewing, but I wondered if Discovery wasn’t betraying its viewers who trust it to deliver reliable, factual TV. As a trained zoologist and filmmaker, much of what I was seeing didn’t make sense to me.
Take wolverines for example: I lived in Alaska for almost a year and never saw one. They’re extremely shy and avoid humans. Although they’re capable predators of small animals and found in many cold, high-latitude regions of the northern hemisphere, I’d never heard of a wolverine killing a person.
I searched the web and could not find a single documented case of a wolverine even attacking a person anywhere in the world, ever.
To double-check, I emailed Jeff Copeland of the Wolverine Foundation, who told me that “we are not aware of any instance in which a wolverine has killed a human, or even attempted to do so”, which perhaps explains why the wolverines in Yukon Men are doing their desperate best to get away from their human assailants.
Wolves are a lot larger than wolverines, of course. But even though the US and Canada hold over 60,000 wolves, I found only two records of fatal attacks by wild wolves in these countries in last ten years; one controversial case in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 2005, which some experts think was actually a bear attack, and another in Alaska in 2010.
Why did the producers of Yukon Men tell their viewers that there had been twenty fatal wolf attacks in the last ten years, implying that these had taken place around Tanana? Why does a ‘factual’ show portray Alaskan wolves as man-eating monsters straight out of Victorian fairytales, a serious threat to life and limb, when the data show that wolf attacks are extremely rare in North America?
Idaho-based wolf expert Suzanne Stone told me that she’d once been surrounded by a howling pack of gray wolves while sitting by a campfire in the twilight, armed only with a marshmallow on a stick. The animals were only twenty or thirty yards away. Was she scared, I asked? “No, not at all. It was an incredible experience. I howled back and forth with them”, adding that people and domestic livestock were the most dangerous creatures she’d encountered in many years of walking in wolf-inhabited backcountry.
Yukon Men isn’t the only ‘factual’ show about people who kill wild animals that seems to hysterically hype up the danger the animals pose to humans while minimising (or completely failing to address) their important ecological roles.
The Louisiana alligator hunter stars of the History Channel’s blockbuster show Swamp People use huge baited hooks to snare alligators and various guns to blow their brains out, all the while telling us how desperately dangerous they are. Despite Louisiana having almost two million alligators, I could not find a single record of a fatal alligator attack there in the last century, although Florida ‘gators do occasionally eat people. (Swamp People gets record ratings for the channel, despite the contemporary alligator hunt’s tenuous connection to history.)
Animal Planet’s Rattlesnake Republic shows Texan snake wranglers capturing dozens of rattlesnakes at a time while repeatedly playing up their lethality. In the episodes I watched I never saw anything about how snake hunters have helped make the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake so rare that it’s now a candidate endangered species. Rattlesnake Republic sends a clear meta-message that the only good rattlesnakes are dead ones, sewn into boots.
Discovery and the BBC Natural History Unit have arguably similar status in the wildlife filmmaking industries on their respective sides of the Atlantic, and have co-produced high-profile series like Planet Earth and Africa. The BBC displays its editorial guidelines for natural history shows on a public website which, on the face of it, Discovery’s Yukon Men seems to fall afoul of. The BBC guidelines say that “audiences should never be deceived or misled by what they see or hear”, that “we [the BBC] should never be involved in any activity with animals which could reasonably be considered cruel”, for example.
This begs the question: What are Discovery’s editorial guidelines?
After numerous calls and emails to the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, I’ve yet to find out. I’ve not received any indication that either of these channels (which are owned by the same company) even have editorial guidelines or an ethics policy. The Discovery Channel gave me only one line in response to my questions: “We are committed to the highest standards of natural history filmmaking.”
Despite partnering with them on multimillion-dollar shows, the BBC’s Natural History Unit also seems to have no idea what Discovery’s policies are; when I asked, the BBC would only say that they expected any versions of their programs aired by co-producers to adhere to BBC standards.
The History Channel told me that their standards and practices department ensures that all their shows meet “the standards of good taste and community acceptability while also allowing our creative departments the freedom to explore new and innovative ideas.” Each programme is individually evaluated, but “given the subjective judgments that are required, it is difficult to come up with a detailed list of guidelines.” History’s statement said nothing about factual accuracy or animal cruelty.
I contacted National Geographic TV, assuming that this flagship brand would have a policy something like that of the BBC’s. Christopher Alberts, the Senior Vice President of Communications for the National Geographic Channels, told me that they have “one of the best policies there is”, but refused to send it to me or tell me anything about it.
Why are these factual networks, whose survival depends on building trust with their audiences, so reluctant to clarify their ethics policies with respect to wildlife?
What does it mean for conservation if high-rating shows on leading channels are portraying wildlife in a negative, seemingly misleading way to millions of viewers worldwide? And why are so few people saying anything about it?
AdvertisementsCommunist rebels warned President Duterte yesterday that they may be forced to end their monthslong ceasefire and resume fighting if he does not suspend the government’s counterinsurgency program and withdraw troops from rebel-influenced areas.
The Communist Party of the Philippines said if Duterte fulfills the demands by January and releases remaining political detainees through an amnesty, it can guarantee the ceasefire’s extension, helping to foster peace talks brokered by Norway.
New People’s Army guerrillas, however, will be forced to engage troops if the President presses the military’s deployment of troops in what the rebels claim as “guerrilla zones” in the countryside, the outlawed party said in a statement.
“He will only have himself to blame if this forces the hand of the Communist Party of the Philippines to terminate its unilateral cease-fire declaration,” it said.
While no fighting has erupted since both sides declared separate ceasefires in August, the Maoist guerrillas have complained that troops continued to be deployed in rebel areas to carry out surveillance and other counterinsurgency operations in what they say are violations of the government’s own truce.WWE’s Xavier Woods Pledges Support to Pokemon Go’s Team Valor, is Booed by a Stadium of People
WWE Superstar Xavier Woods pledged his support to Pokemon Go‘s Team Valor during last night’s episode of RAW, with his allegiance to the squad of Pokemon trainers sparking a chorus of boos from those in the Rhode Island stadium.
In a segment during the show, Woods bragged about his Pokemon Go skills, saying: “Considering the fact I am a level 21 – yes, level 21 – Pokemon Go trainer… Team Valor for life.” A large portion of the crowd then began booing Woods, who as a member of the popular stable The New Day is one of the biggest “babyfaces” (wrestling vernacular for “good guy”) on the show’s roster. It seems that even the Power of Positivity that The New Day promotes couldn’t hide the vocal disdain for Team Valor.
You can check out the moment at the 3:20 mark in the below video:
Woods is a noted video game fan, with him hosting the WWE’s dedicated gaming YouTube channel UpUpDownDown. This also isn’t the first time that Pokemon Go has been mentioned by a WWE Superstar, with tag team partners Tyler Breeze and Fandango having previously appeared in a a backstage segment in which Breeze attempted to explain the game to his teammate.
Pokemon Go players are asked to choose between joining three teams when they reach level 5 in the game – Team Instinct, Team Mystic and Team Valor – though there are no key differences between each group outside of their respective colors. However, that still hasn’t prevented players from becoming pretty dedicated to their chosen team, with Woods learning this the hard way following his RAW promo.Hi Friends,
Hope you are all well. In this post let’s see how to do a simple video streaming functionality in your Angular 2 app using the simple-peer library. I already made a similar post using peerjs library. But that library doesn’t seem to be maintained nowadays and the last commit was 2 years back. So let’s use simple-peer today.
A video screencast of this post
The code for this post is available here.
Let’s scaffold out our angular 2 app using the angular-cli.
ng new simplepeer 1 ng new simplepeer
Just to make it simple we’ll make use of a cdn to provide simple-peer file in our app.
Open up index.html and add the script as shown below.
<!doctype html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Simplepeer</title> <base href="/"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="favicon.ico"> <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/simple-peer/6.2.1/simplepeer.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <app-root>Loading...</app-root> </body> </html> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 <! doctype html > < html > < head > < meta charset = "utf-8" > < title > Simplepeer < / title > < base href = "/" > < meta name = "viewport" content = "width=device-width, initial-scale=1" > < link rel = "icon" type = "image/x-icon" href = "favicon.ico" > <script src = "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/simple-peer/6.2.1/simplepeer.min.js" > </script> < / head > < body > < app - root > Loading... < / app - root > < / body > < / html >
Open up app.component.html and add the below code.
<input type="text" [(ngModel)]="targetpeer"> <button (click)="connect()">Connect</button> <button (click)="message()">Send Message</button> 1 2 3 < input type = "text" [ ( ngModel ) ] = "targetpeer" > < button ( click ) = "connect()" > Connect < / button > < button ( click ) = "message()" > Send Message < / button >
Now open up app.component.ts and add the below code.
import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core'; @Component({ selector: 'app-root', templateUrl: './app.component.html', styleUrls: ['./app.component.css'] }) export class AppComponent implements OnInit { title = 'app works!'; targetpeer: any; peer: any; ngOnInit() { this.peer = new SimplePeer ({ initiator: location.hash === '#init', trickle: false }) this.peer.on('signal', function(data) { console.log(JSON.stringify(data)); this.targetpeer = data; }) this.peer.on('data', function(data) { console.log('Recieved message:' + data); }) } connect() { this.peer.signal(JSON.parse(this.targetpeer)); } message() { this.peer.send('Hello world'); } } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core' ; @ Component ( { selector : 'app-root', templateUrl : './app.component.html', styleUrls : [ './app.component.css' ] } ) export class AppComponent implements OnInit { title = 'app works!' ; targetpeer : any ; peer : any ; ngOnInit ( ) { this. peer = new SimplePeer ( { initiator : location. hash === '#init', trickle : false } ) this. peer. on ('signal', function ( data ) { console. log ( JSON. stringify ( data ) ) ; this. targetpeer = data ; } ) this. peer. on ( 'data', function ( data ) { console. log ( 'Recieved message:' + data ) ; } ) } connect ( ) { this. peer. signal ( JSON. parse ( this. targetpeer ) ) ; } message ( ) { this. peer. send ( 'Hello world' ) ; } }
Okay. Let’s break this down.
The peer.signal is to simply signal the peer to which a connection is to be established, or rather an ‘offer’ is to be made. When such a signal is made the peer data(JSON format) is simply logged on to the console. The message function is simply to send a message when a connection is established. When data is received it is simply logged onto the console again.
Now you might encounter an error while creating the peer since we haven’t declared SimplePeer anywhere.
To fix this create a file called typings.d.ts in your src directory and include this line to that.
declare var SimplePeer: any; 1 declare var SimplePeer : any ;
Now open up main.ts file and add the below code. (at the top of the file)
///<reference path="typings.d.ts"/> 1 ///<reference path="typings.d.ts"/>
Now run the app using ng serve.
Open up your browser and navigate to
http://localhost:4200/#init
This will be the initiator peer and if you open up the console you would see the JSON data of that peer. Copy this.
Open a new tab and navigate to
http://localhost:4200
Paste it in the input field and click on connect button. Open up the console and copy the JSON data here too.
Go back to the first (initiator) tab and paste this in the input field there and click on connect. Now a peer to peer connection is established. To verify the connection. Just click on Send Message button in both the tabs and you would see the message in the console.
Adding Video
Now that we know how to establish a connection and send data over the channel let’s see how to stream video over the network.
Open up app.component.html and add a video element to it as shown below.
<video #myvideo></video> 1 < video #myvideo></video>
Then open up app.component.ts file and add the below code to it.
import { Component, OnInit, ViewChild } from '@angular/core'; @Component({ selector: 'app-root', templateUrl: './app.component.html', styleUrls: ['./app.component.css'] }) export class AppComponent implements OnInit { @ViewChild('myvideo') myVideo: any; title = 'app works!'; targetpeer: any; peer: any; n = <any>navigator; ngOnInit() { let video = this.myVideo.nativeElement; let peerx: any; this.n.getUserMedia = (this.n.getUserMedia || this.n.webkitGetUserMedia || this.n.mozGetUserMedia || this.n.msGetUserMedia); this.n.getUserMedia({video:true, audio:true}, function(stream) { peerx = new SimplePeer ({ initiator: location.hash === '#init', trickle: false, stream:stream }) peerx.on('signal', function(data) { console.log(JSON.stringify(data)); this.targetpeer = data; }) peerx.on('data', function(data) { console.log('Recieved message:' + data); }) peerx.on('stream', function(stream) { video.src = URL.createObjectURL(stream); video.play(); }) }, function(err){ console.log('Failed to get stream', err); }); setTimeout(() => { this.peer = peerx; console.log(this.peer); }, 5000); } connect() { this.peer.signal(JSON.parse(this.targetpeer)); } message() { this.peer.send('Hello world'); } } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 import { Component, OnInit, ViewChild } from '@angular/core' ; @ Component ( { selector : 'app-root', templateUrl : './app.component.html', styleUrls : [ './app.component.css' ] } ) export class AppComponent implements OnInit { @ ViewChild ('myvideo' ) myVideo : any ; title = 'app works!' ; targetpeer : any ; peer : any ; n = < any > navigator ; ngOnInit ( ) { let video = this. myVideo. nativeElement ; let peerx : any ; this. n. getUserMedia = ( this. n. getUserMedia || this. n. webkitGetUserMedia || this. n. mozGetUserMedia || this. n. msGetUserMedia ) ; this. n. getUserMedia ( { video : true, audio : true }, function ( stream ) { peerx = new SimplePeer ( { initiator : location. hash === '#init', trickle : false, stream : stream } ) peerx. on ('signal', function ( data ) { console. log ( JSON. stringify ( data ) ) ; this. targetpeer = data ; } ) peerx. on ( 'data', function ( data ) { console. log ( 'Recieved message:' + data ) ; } ) peerx. on ('stream', function ( stream ) { video. src = URL. createObjectURL ( stream ) ; video. play ( ) ; } ) }, function ( err ) { console. log ( 'Failed to get stream', err ) ; } ) ; setTimeout ( ( ) = > { this. peer = peerx ; console. log ( this. peer ) ; }, 5000 ) ; } connect ( ) { this. peer. signal ( JSON. parse ( this. targetpeer ) ) ; } message ( ) { this. peer. send ( 'Hello world' ) ; } }
Let’s break this down.
We use ViewChild to reference/access our video element from the view in our component here. We are simply getting the video stream from the device using navigator.getUserMedia and passing it on in our connection. We are using a setTimeout function so that our peer doesn’t go undefined since this whole operation would happen before the view elements come into picture.
Now run the app using ng serve and perform the same steps you did last time.
If everything goes fine you would see a video of yourself in both the tabs when the connection is established.
Please watch the video for a little bit of detailed explanation and have a look at the code in github (click here) if you run into any errors.
If you found this helpful share this with someone else and help them too.
Special thanks to Feross for providing us the simple-peer library.
Thanks for reading guys. Peace.WIKIMEDIA, LOUISA HOWARDReducing mitochondrial output increases lifespan in mice and nematode worms, according to research published today (May 22) in Nature. Researchers found that reduced expression of a protein important for mitochondrial protein production triggered the mitochondrial stress response and increased lifespan in both mice and nematodes. A few known drugs affect this pathway, raising the possibility of designing longevity-enhancing therapies.
“It’s a provocative set of findings,” said Richard Miller, who studies the genetics of aging at the University of Michigan and was not involved in the research. Although previous work had indirectly suggested that changing mitochondrial function affected lifespan, “this is the first clear demonstration [that it] extends mouse lifespan,” Miller added.
It’s well known that mitochondria are linked to health. Some evidence suggests that inhibiting mitochondrial function can be harmful—as in the case of diabetes or obesity—but earlier data from nematodes and fruit flies also suggest a link to lifespan increase. The latest findings are a step toward untangling one of the current debates in the field—whether inhibiting mitochondrial function is detrimental or beneficial, said Pankaj Kapahi, who studies the genetics of aging at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging but was not involved in the study.
In order to identify genes linked to longevity in mammals, researchers led by Johan Auwerx at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne combed the genomes of the BXD family of mouse strains. The average lifespan of BXD mice range from 1 year to almost 2.5 years. The researchers were able to link 3 genes to longevity variability, including mitochondrial ribosomal protein S5 (Mrps5), which encodes a protein integral to mitochondrial protein synthesis. They found that BXD strains with 50 percent less Mrps5 expression lived about 250 days longer than BXD mice with more robust Mrps5 expression.
Turning to the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to tease out the genes’ role in controlling lifespan, the researchers found that using RNAi to knock down mrps-5 and other mrp genes increased the worms’ month-long lifespan by up to 60 percent. This suggested that inhibiting their mitochondrial function was in fact enhancing their longevity.
When Auwerx and his colleagues looked closer, they found that reducing mrps-5 expression in the worms altered the ratio of mitochondrial- versus nuclear-derived proteins involved in ATP synthesis, a situation they termed “mitonuclear protein imbalance.” This, in turn, activated the protective mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPR). This explains how reducing mrps-5 expression can actually increase lifespan, said Auwerx. The unfolded protein response is “reparative, adaptive, and makes better mitochondria,” which help retard aging. Reducing expression of a gene involved in this stress response reversed the lifespan extension seen in worms with mrps-5 knocked down.
The researchers were also able to activate the mitochondrial UPR via pharmacological means. Dosing worms with the antibiotic doxycyline, which inhibits bacterial and mitochondrial protein translation, also activated the mitochondrial UPR and extended worm lifespans. Rapamycin, shown to enhance longevity in mice, also extended worm lifespan and induced mitonuclear protein imbalance and the mitochondrial UPR in mouse hepatocytes.
Though Auwerx and his team haven’t yet tested their hypothesis by mutating mitochondrial genes in mice, the study is “supportive of the idea that inhibiting mitochondrial function might extend lifespan”—even in mice, said Kapahi.
But mitochondrial ribosomal proteins are not to be trifled with. “There are a number of well-defined severe disorders in humans, including neonatal lethality, due to defects in those exact proteins,” observed Michael Ristow, who studies energy metabolism at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Additionally, long-term doxycycline use is toxic to humans, and rapamycin suppresses immune function so effectively that it’s given to transplant patients to prevent tissue rejection.
If mitochondria can be targeted to influence lifespan, the interventions may be tissue specific or restricted to a particular developmental window. Auwerx and his colleagues found that mitochondrial responses to doxycycline depended on tissue of origin, and knocking down mrps-5 after early development no longer affected nematode lifespan. This mirrors work in mice showing that caloric restriction most affects lifespan if it occurs within the first few weeks of life, said Miller.
Auwerx’s group is beginning to cast a wider net, looking to see whether mitonuclear protein imbalance could explain longevity induced by other means, such as caloric restriction. Auwerx hopes that the work will aid in designing a drug intervention “to pump up this response via pharmacological tools.”
In the meantime, he’s optimistic that his team has identified a “common thread” demonstrating that longevity is not affected so much by inhibiting or stimulating mitochondria, but how the organelles “deal with proteins.”
R. H. Houtkooper et al., “Mitonuclear protein imbalance as a conserved longevity mechanism,” Nature, 497:451-457, 2013.More from Tasha Kheiriddin available More fromavailable here
Red, blue or purple? As it nurses its bruises from the election, the Conservative party is asking itself what its complexion ought to be in the future.
Much of this will depend not just on the new leader, but on his or her team. Will they hail from the western wing of the party, or the eastern? Will they take up the anti-elitist tone favoured by grassroots populists, or the less strident strains of ‘Red Tory’ centrists? And how will they rebuild the “big tent” needed to gain and hold power?
Some say this tent was torn apart in the recent election. Truth is, it was never rebuilt after the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Alliance parties in 2003. Instead of a big tent, the Conservatives created a series of pup tents, formed of niche voter bases. But while each niche got its own policy plank, there was no overarching cover — no shared narrative or idea — to keep them together and out of the rain. And sometimes, promises to one group actually had the effect of turning off other groups critical to re-election.
A salient example of this is the series of Tory policies, small and large, designed to please the party’s fundamentalist Christian base, situated chiefly in Western Canada. These included the 2010 decision to explicitly exclude funding for abortion from Canada’s UN Maternal Health Initiative, reaffirmed in 2013 even for victims of rape. Over the years, this aspect of the initiative became a rallying cry for every pro-choice group in the country, overshadowing all the good things the initiative did — things which would have appealed to a broader group of voters.
Called on to defend the decision to withhold funding for abortion at the Munk Debate, Stephen Harper said that “we fund things that unite, not divide”. Coming from a party that loved wedge politics, this didn’t quite convince. The real rationale went more like this: since nothing would be done for “the base” on the abortion issue at home, something would be done overseas.
Keystone and other pipeline projects would have shifted more economic and political power to the West; the damage done to the Conservatives’ long-term prospects arguably outweighed any benefit they got from anti-science votes in the fundamentalist ‘base’. Keystone and other pipeline projects would have shifted more economic and political power to the West; the damage done to the Conservatives’ long-term prospects arguably outweighed any benefit they got from anti-science votes in the fundamentalist ‘base’.
This type of thinking also informed the creation of an ‘Office for the Defence of Religious Freedoms’ in 2013 to help persecuted religious minorities (such as Christians in China). Creating a new $5 million bureaucracy just as Ottawa was cutting back the diplomatic service elsewhere seemed counter-intuitive to many small-government conservatives — but it appealed to fundamentalist voters.
Then, during the 2015 election, it was revealed that the PMO was involved in suspending refugee applications for several weeks earlier that year, allegedly to give preference to certain groups that were being persecuted due to the conflict in the Middle East, notably Christians. This decision contributed to alienating voters in other bases key to re-election, such as new Canadians and Liberal-Tory swing voters. It also opened up the Conservatives to accusations of hypocrisy: Harper argued against religious fundamentalism when it offended the expression of gender equality rights (such as in the context of a citizenship ceremony), but then appealed to the religious beliefs of other supporters to get votes. Worse, it fueled charges that Harper was an Islamophobe who wanted to keep Muslims out of the country.
Then there’s the matter of the Conservative party’s support for the state of Israel. While there are many reasons for Canada to support Israel as a strategic ally, a beacon of democracy and a homeland for the Jewish people, to fundamentalist Christians Israel also represents the Holy Land — the place to which they are convinced the Messiah will someday return. For many voters, Harper’s refusal to criticize any actions taken by Israel — ever — went far beyond the bounds of an alliance and bred a sense of cynicism about his motivations. Ironically, this could end up hurting Israel instead of helping it, by undermining Canada’s status as a strong but fair defender of the Jewish state on the world stage.
Similarly, the Conservatives’ handling of the environment portfolio backfired against the greater interests of both the party and the country. The Conservatives’ hostility towards the science of climate change went well beyond mere skepticism — and it held a certain appeal to anti-science fundamentalist voters. But dragging Canada down to environmental pariah status had the perverse effect of killing the Tories’ pet project, the Keystone Pipeline, by giving President Barack Obama no political cover for approval. Keystone and other pipeline projects would have shifted more economic and political power to the West; the damage done to the Conservatives’ long-term prospects arguably outweighed any benefit they got from anti-science votes in the fundamentalist ‘base’.
The Conservative party’s future as a big tent party cannot rest on religious factionalism of any kind. Navigating the separation of church, party and state will be an important challenge for the next leader — right up there with balancing geography, ideology and all the other elements needed to rebuild the party.
The next person to assume the mantle of leadership must be a unifying, inclusive figure with a team to match. And Conservatives of all stripes need to recognize that while religion has a place in public discourse and the social fabric of our nation, faith should not drive party policy.
Tasha Kheiriddin is a political writer and broadcaster who frequently comments in both English and French. After practising law and a stint in the government of Mike Harris, Tasha became the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and co-wrote the 2005 bestseller, Rescuing Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution. Tasha moved back to Montreal in 2006 and served as vice-president of the Montreal Economic Institute, and later director for Quebec of the Fraser Institute, while also lecturing on conservative politics at McGill University. Tasha now lives in Whitby, Ontario with her daughter Zara, born in 2009.
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.Official Site Review
Creative Assembly has taken the groundwork set out by Ensemble’sand improved on some of the areas that were lacking in the original, all while still keeping the game accessible and easily playable using a controller. It feels as if the campaign has been released in an unfinished state, but it still offers a decent amount of action and a compelling story. The relatively low number of missions, the unsatisfying conclusion and the fact that 343 Industries and Creative Assembly have already announced that campaign DLC will be coming in the near future can't help but leave a bitter taste in the mouth. The new Blitz mode adds a different approach to the RTS combat to which we have become accustomed, and the shorter, more action-oriented, matches give newcomers and veterans alike something into which to sink their teeth.Serie A viewing figures drop
By Football Italia staff
The viewing figures for Serie A have dropped by around three million compared to this time last season.
While attendances in the stadiums are up, those watching on television have dropped, just as the rights are up for renewal.
According to the website Calcio e Finanza, the first six league games attracted a total of 35.1m viewers, compared to 38.5m last season.
It should be noted that one game less has been played - the postponed Sampdoria-Roma match - but that wouldn’t account for the drop in viewers.
In addition, last season had the Derby d’Italia between Inter and Juventus in the early rounds, but despite those mitigating factors Sky have seen an eight per cent drop, and Premium Sport 10 per cent.
The most watched game in the opening six weeks was Saturday’s Derby della Mole between Juventus and Torino, which attracted just over two million viewers and a 9.84 per cent audience share.
In second place is Inter’s trip to Roma which attracted 1.8m viewers, with an audience share of 11 per cent.
Every match in Serie A is broadcast on television, and that leads to some very low viewing figures for the so-called lesser fixtures.
Premium Sport showed Genoa-Chievo to just 3,587 viewers for a 0.01 per cent audience share, while Sky got 6,992 to tune in to Udinese-Chievo for a 0.04 per cent audience share.Even less effective was the paper currency, for obvious reasons.
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Cuckoo!! Did you hear that? Cuckoooo!! Whoa, what is that? Wait, it’s just my trusty carrier pigeon, he has arrived with a message. Buttersafe Expo? A celebration of the amazingness of pizza? Also, balloons and old arcade machines that eat all your quarters? Yes, please! If you would like to partake in this celebration with me, Alex, Arthur, and a bunch of really nice people at BSX Pinole, all you have to do is show up! But, if you can’t join us for pizza, you should know that there are people all over the world setting up their own satellite pizza-eating BSX parties–just check out the forum! Thank you, carrier pigeon, for bringing me this message.
-RayWhy the EU's disengaged enlargement approach has stalled forward momentum in the Western Balkans.
No business as usual in the Western Balkans
The Western Balkans remain Europe’s unfinished business, not only for the continuing stalemate in Bosnia or tensions in Macedonia and Northern Kosovo, but also because broader geopolitical developments shaping the EU’s neighbourhood are materialising in this region too - and in ways that could be detrimental to European interests.
Tensions and perception of a stalemate in the Balkans are enhanced by "the five year freeze", while emerging forms of rule are at odds with the EU’s founding tenets and the integration narrative. Indeed, the same competition of models, that we see in other parts of Europe, which pits more or less pluralist democracies against populists or illiberal democracies in the mould of Viktor Orban or even “Putinism”, is played out in the Western Balkans too, with uncertain outcomes for this fragile region. Ironically, in the very part of the world where the EU is in the lead and where its influence, through its transformative power, should be at its most potent, local experts concur that the EU is no longer the leading actor and that its leverage has decreased.
Should Europe prove unable to reverse, or at least neutralise, the most negative aspects of such developments, the Western Balkans could enter a sort of strategic limbo close to “Europe”: neither truly in, nor truly out, pray to geopolitical encroachment by other actors, poorly democratised and with latent security challenges.
The Western Balkans could enter a sort of strategic limbo close to “Europe”: neither truly in, nor truly out.
That the “Pax Europeanna” is in question in the Western Balkans has been for some time now the subject of analysis by pundits and a matter of growing concern in some capitals. Yet, beyond ‘policy speak’ about “European re-engagement” or keeping enlargement alive, there seems to have been thus far precious little in terms of a purposeful, pan-European strategic discussion on what is the actual shape of these challenges and, importantly, what should |
How do you target Internet Explorer in your CSS? Do you use CSS hacks, conditional stylesheets or something else?
It’s the perfect trollbait. There have been plenty of discussions about this, and I don’t mean to start a new one. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but the thing is that it’s not purely a philosophical matter. I am writing this article because I noticed there’s a lot of misunderstanding on the subject of CSS hacks.
People have been advocating three different approaches: conditional stylesheets, CSS hacks, or conditional classnames. All these techniques have their pros and cons. Let’s take a look.
Conditional stylesheets
Conditional comments make it very easy to specify stylesheets that should only be loaded in Internet Explorer, or even in specific versions of that browser. Non-IE browsers treat conditional comments as any other HTML comment. Here’s an example:
<!--[if lte IE 8]><link rel="stylesheet" href="lte-ie-8.css"><![endif]-->
<!--[if lte IE 7]><link rel="stylesheet" href="lte-ie-7.css"><![endif]-->
<!--[if lte IE 6]><link rel="stylesheet" href="lte-ie-6.css"><![endif]-->
This snippet will cause lte-ie-8.css to be loaded in IE8, IE7, IE6 and even in IE5. (Older IE versions don’t support conditional comments.) In IE7 and older versions, lte-ie-7.css will be loaded as well. In IE6 all three additional stylesheets will be loaded.
If you want to use this technique to style an element differently in specific versions of Internet Explorer, it’d look something like this:
/* Main stylesheet */
.foo { color: black; }
/* lte-ie-8.css, for IE8 and older */
.foo { color: green; }
/* lte-ie-7.css, for IE7 and older */
.foo { color: blue; }
/* lte-ie-6.css, for IE6 and older */
.foo { color: red; }
Pros
The conditional comments snippet is valid HTML.
Since there’s no need to use CSS hacks, you can even write valid CSS if you want to.
Cons
Performance decreases due to the multiple additional HTTP requests, depending on the browser.
Conditional comments block downloads in IE unless another (possibly empty) conditional comment is included earlier in the source.
The total file size increases, since the conditional comments have to be repeated for every HTML single document, and you’ll have to repeat the selector in every CSS file. More typing work!
Maintainability is negatively affected. You now have to maintain four separate stylesheets instead of just one. Whenever you make changes to your main CSS file, you need to remember to change the IE-specific CSS files if necessary.
Conditional classnames
Those not willing to use CSS hacks can always apply conditional classnames to the <html> or <body> element. This approach allows you to write clean and hack-free CSS at the cost of adding hacks conditional comments to your HTML.
<!--[if lt IE 7]><html class="ie6"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7]> <html class="ie7"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]> <html class="ie8"><![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--><html><!--<![endif]-->
This allows you to keep your browser-specific CSS in the same file:
.foo { color: black; }
.ie8.foo { color: green; } /* IE8 */
.ie7.foo { color: blue; } /* IE7 */
.ie6.foo { color: red; } /* IE6 and IE5 (but who cares, right?) */
Pros
The conditional classes snippet is valid HTML. (Prior to HTML5, you would have to add the classes to the <body> element instead.)
element instead.) Since there’s no need to use CSS hacks, you can even write valid CSS if you want to.
No additional HTTP requests are being issued to get the IE-specific styles.
In this particular case, the conditional comments don’t block downloads.
Cons
This technique increases the file size of every HTML document you use it for.
The use of the IE-specific classnames automatically increases the specificity of your selectors, which may not be what you want.
Since you’ll need the classnames in the selectors, you’ll have to use separate CSS rules for IE-specific styles.
The character encoding declaration (e.g. <meta charset="utf-8"> ) should be placed within the first 1024 bytes of the HTML document. Using this technique, you may cross this limit, especially if you’re adding lots of other attributes to the <html> element (since you’ll have to repeat them inside every conditional comment).
) should be placed within the first 1024 bytes of the HTML document. Using this technique, you may cross this limit, especially if you’re adding lots of other attributes to the element (since you’ll have to repeat them inside every conditional comment). Using conditional comments around the opening <html> tag throws IE into compatibility view unless you set the X-UA-Compatible header in a server-side config.
tag throws IE into compatibility view unless you set the header in a server-side config. Simon Pieters reports that using conditional comments before <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible"> causes IE to ignore the <meta>. So again, you’ll need to set the X-UA-Compatible header in a server-side config.
CSS hacks
Paul Irish maintains a comprehensive list of CSS hacks for various browsers. In reality, you’ll rarely need to specifically target anything but IE. Here’s an overview of the three most popular CSS hacks and which browsers they’re supposed to target:
.foo {
color: black;
color: green\9; /* IE8 and older, but there’s more… */
*color: blue; /* IE7 and older */
_color: red; /* IE6 and older */
}
Note the use of the \9 CSS hack. Web developers noticed it could be used to easily target IE8 and older versions, so that’s what they did. But then there was IE9, and as it turned out, the final IE9 release was still affected by this hack (despite my bug report on the matter). All those CSS declarations that were meant to be for IE8 and earlier versions only, now got interpreted by IE9 as well. Needless to say, stuff broke, since IE9 doesn’t need most of the IE8-specific CSS fixes.
This is the perfect example of an unsafe CSS hack.
Safe CSS hacks
So what constitutes a “safe” CSS hack? What makes me even think there is such a thing?
Let’s face it — CSS hacks are still hacks. There’s no way to accurately predict how future browser versions will parse these rules. But we can make an educated guess — some hacks are less hacky than others. A safe CSS hack is a CSS hack that:
works in specific versions of a given web browser;
is unlikely to be parsed by all other browsers, including future versions.
Take the _property: value hack, for example. The CSS 2.1 spec says the following:
Keywords and property names beginning with - or _ are reserved for vendor-specific extensions.
A property name is an identifier.
In CSS, identifiers (including element names, classes, and IDs in selectors) can contain only the characters [a-zA-Z0-9] and ISO 10646 characters U+00A0 and higher, plus the hyphen ( - ) and the underscore ( _ ); they cannot start with a digit, two hyphens, or a hyphen followed by a digit.
So who’s to say there will never be a property name starting with an underscore character? To quote the CSS3 spec:
Although [the underscore] is a valid start character, the CSS Working Group believes it will never define any identifiers that start with that character.
Both the _property: value and *property: value hacks (as seen in the above code block) are examples of safe CSS hacks. They were discovered, identified as bugs, and patched in a browser update. Since then, it’s very likely that Microsoft and other browser vendors added checks for these CSS hacks to their layout tests, to make sure no new browser version is shipped with a regression this significant.
If you discover a CSS hack in the latest version of a certain browser, it won’t be a safe hack until an updated version of that browser is released where the parser bug is fixed. For example, some people (myself included) have been looking for an IE9-specific CSS hack. Recently, one was found, but we’ll have to wait at least until the final IE10 release to use it, because IE10 may or may not be shipped with the same CSS parser bug. We can’t risk repeating the history of the \9 hack.
Pros
You don’t have to add conditional comments to every single HTML page.
No additional HTTP requests are being issued to get the IE-specific styles.
The specificity of your CSS selectors is preserved.
There’s no need to repeat CSS rules — you can just add extra declarations (with the hacks) to the declaration block.
Cons
They’re called CSS hacks for a reason — only use safe CSS hacks.
There’s no safe CSS hack for IE8 (yet?).
Contrary to conditional comments, most CSS hacks don’t validate. But then again, CSS3 properties and vendor-prefixed properties don’t validate either.
Combining conditional classnames with safe CSS hacks
Safe CSS hacks are preferable to conditional stylesheets or classnames, but what if you have to write IE9-specific styles? By definition, there won’t be a safe CSS hack for IE9 at least until IE10 is released. Also, what about IE8? There is no safe CSS hack (that I know of) that targets IE8 but not IE9. What to do?
In the HTML, we can use a minimal version of the conditional classnames technique, like so:
<!--[if lt IE 9]><html class="lte-ie8"><![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--><html><!--<![endif]-->
We can then use.lte-ie8 as a styling hook in CSS selectors to target IE8 and older versions. Combined with safe CSS hacks, we can finally target IE8 and older versions without also affecting IE9:
.foo {
color: black;
}
.lte-ie8.foo {
color: green; /* IE8 and older */
*color: blue; /* IE7 and older */
_color: red; /* IE6 and older */
}
This technique combines all the advantages of safe CSS hacks and conditional classnames, while minimizing the drawbacks.Etorphine (M99) is a semi-synthetic opioid possessing an analgesic potency approximately 1,000–3,000 times that of morphine.[1] It was first prepared in 1960 from oripavine, which does not generally occur in opium poppy extract but rather the related plants Papaver orientale and Papaver bracteatum.[2] It was later reproduced in 1963 by a research group at MacFarlan Smith in Gorgie, Edinburgh, led by Kenneth Bentley.[3] It can also be produced from thebaine.[citation needed]
Veterinary use [ edit ]
Etorphine is available legally only for veterinary use and is strictly governed by law. It is often used to immobilize elephants and other large mammals. Diprenorphine (Revivon) is an opioid receptor antagonist that can be administered in proportion to the amount of etorphine used (1.3 times) to reverse its effects. Veterinary-strength etorphine is fatal to humans. For this reason the package as supplied to vets always includes the human antidote as well as etorphine.
The human antidote is generally naloxone, not diprenorphine, and is always prepared before the preparation of etorphine to be immediately administered following accidental human exposure to etorphine. The LD 50 in humans is 30 μg which led to the requirement that the medicine include an equal dose of an antidote, diprenorphine or naloxone.
One of its main advantages is its speed of operation, and more importantly, the speed that diprenorphine reverses its effects. The high incidence of side effects, including severe cardiopulmonary depression, has caused etorphine to fall into disfavor in general veterinary practice. However, its high potency, combined with the rapid action of both etorphine and its antagonist, diprenorphine, means that it has found a place for use in the capture of large mammals such as rhinoceroses and elephants, where rapid onset and rapid recovery are both very important. The high potency of etorphine means that sufficient etorphine can be administered to large wild mammals by projectile syringe (dart).
Large Animal Immobilon is a combination of etorphine plus acepromazine maleate. An etorphine antidote Large Animal Revivon contains mainly diprenorphine for animals and a human-specific naloxone-based antidote, which should be prepared prior to the etorphine. A 5–15 mg dose is enough to immobilize an African elephant and a 2–4 mg dose is enough to immobilize a black rhino.[4]
Pharmacology [ edit ]
Etorphine is an extremely potent, non-selective full agonist of the μ-, δ-, and κ-opioid receptors.[5][6] It also has relatively weak affinity for the nociceptin receptor.[7] Etorphine has an LD 50 of 30 μg in humans.[8]
Legal status [ edit ]
In Hong Kong, etorphine is regulated under Schedule 1 of Hong Kong's Chapter 134 Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. It can be used legally only by health professionals and for university research purposes. The substance can be given by pharmacists under a prescription. Anyone who supplies the substance without prescription can be fined $10,000 (HKD). The penalty for trafficking or manufacturing the substance is a $5,000,000 (HKD) fine and life imprisonment. Possession of the substance for consumption without license from the Department of Health is illegal with a $1,000,000 (HKD) fine and/or 7 years of jail time.
In the Netherlands, etorphine is a Schedule I drug of the Opium Law. It is used only for veterinary purposes in zoos to immobilize large animals.
In the US, etorphine is listed as a Schedule I drug with an ACSCN of 9056, although its hydrochloride salt is classified as Schedule II with an ACSCN of 9059. For both, the 2013 annual aggregate manufacturing quota for both was zero so presumably veterinary supplies of the hydrochloride are imported from Germany and/or the UK.
In the UK, under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, etorphine is controlled as a Class A substance.
See also [ edit ]
6,14-Endoethenotetrahydrooripavine - the central nucleus of all Bentley compound opioids under which class etorphine falls
Dihydroetorphine – a close analog of etorphine that has been used as an opioid painkiller for human usage in China
ThienorphineWeekend breakfast is meant to be indulgent and slow–a contrast to the eat-and-run routine of Monday through Friday. This weekend, I experimented with a recipe that I’d never been able to master before: French toast, sans milk or eggs. I must say that the proportions below delivered the perfect balance of crispy and soggy, and kept me feeling full and satisfied without the guilt of extra calories. Try it with your family or at your next brunch party, and I bet no one will be able to tell it’s a healthy, vegan twist on a classic.
Indulgent “Fre-gan” Vegan French Toast
For 4 slices of toast:
2 T. flax meal + 6 T. cold water
3/4 c. soy milk, or other non-dairy milk of your choice
2 t. vanilla extract
Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
4 slices whole wheat bread, or day-old French bread
Combine the flax meal and water in a wide, shallow bowl and let stand for 2-4 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients except for the bread, stirring briskly with a fork. Lightly coat a frying pan or skillet with non-stick cooking spray. Dip slices of bread into the wet mixture, allowing the bread to be fully saturated before transferring to the pan. Cook each slice until the top starts to bubble, then flip. Serve with a drizzle of pure maple syrup or agave nectar and an extra dash of cinnamon.
Tip: I find that the flax/egg tends to separate, so be sure to coat the bread evenly with whatever might settle on the bottom of the bowl. This will also aid in the bubbling and crisping while cooking.
Also by Jennifer: How to Keep Your Feet Healthy and Stylish
Are You in Danger of a Burnout?
Vegan Cornmeal Berry Crumble
Photo: Peaceful DumplingBig Gipp spoke with DJ Smallz Eyes and had high praise for fellow Dungeon Family group OutKast in light of its reunion tour last summer.
“They proved to everybody that they are the greatest Hip Hop group to ever touch the mic,” he says. “They bigger than Run-DMC. They bigger than everybody. They the biggest. Nobody sold more records than them, nobody achieved musically what they achieved.”
OutKast played more than 40 shows across the country, including three shows in their hometown of Atlanta.
The Goodie Mob member says that OutKast’s success is especially extraordinary because they are from the South, not from New York or Los Angeles. Gipp says that the group’s legacy, along with that of Dungeon Family as a whole, is unmatched.
“You can’t tell me we didn’t do something,” he says. “We did it, you can’t beat us. You have to wait ‘til we die. You have to come back and do it again.”
Please enable Javascript to watch this videoThe Chicago Bears gained a season-high 408 yards in last Sunday’s win over the Lions partly because they achieved some balance between the run and pass. More specifically, they built on Jordan Howard’s effectiveness running the ball by incorporating some play-action and misdirection into the passing game.
Four times offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains dialed up a throw off a bootleg, and quarterback Brian Hoyer completed all four for 47 yards. Each of those plays occurred on first down.
“We’re kind of starting to do more of that just because we had some protection issues,” coach John Fox said. “I think anytime you can get the quarterback on a different spot is important in football.”
And why is that important? Let Chuck Pagano, coach of the Indianapolis Colts, the Bears’ opponent Sunday, explain.
“It's difficult (to defend), especially when they’re having success running the football, and everybody's committing to their run gaps, and linebackers are getting downhill, and chase defenders on the backside are closing to make sure there's no cutback, and all of a sudden the ball is pulled and it looks the same,” Pagano said Wednesday in a conference call with Chicago media.
“Any time you're having success running that scheme, and then you run the play-action, the misdirection, the boots, the waggles off of it, it opens up things on the perimeter—quick throw to the flat, a crosser coming over the middle, all kinds of things. If you don't get one thing calmed down you're going to have two problems on your hands.”
That’s exactly what happened to the Lions. They ended up with two problems — Howard’s running, and defending some high-percentage play-action passes.
Let’s take a closer look at one of the Bears’ successful throws in the bootleg game to understand how they might continue to manipulate defenses.
On the first play of the fourth quarter, the Bears had first-and-10 at their 49-yard line leading 14-6. Howard already had 77 yards on 15 carries for a 5.1-yard average. The score and time remaining enabled the Bears to be multi-dimensional and unpredictable, which wasn’t the case in the fourth quarter of any of the first three games.
The play is a 13-yard completion to Eddie Royal. The first picture below, from the end zone camera, shows the play design. It’s very busy with a lot of lines, so let me call your attention to a couple things, in particular.
First, notice the five offensive linemen move in unison to their left to simulate an outside zone run in that direction. Tight end Logan Paulsen began the play with the same type of movement as a decoy, but he actually ran an arrow route, leaking back to the right. Hoyer and Howard also faked a run to the left.
Notice Royal, who began in the left slot, ends up in the right flat, having gone against the initial action of the play.
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In the second picture, this time from the TV sideline camera, we again see the pre-snap alignment. Take note of two things:
1. Four Bears — Royal, Paulsen, Cameron Meredith and Deonte Thompson — are running routes to the right half of the field, even though the run action is going left.
2. The two Lions linebackers, Antwione Williams and Tahir Whitehead, are positioned at the Detroit 47-yard line. The play-action is designed to screw with their depth.
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The next picture is just after the play-action fake to Howard. You can see the backs of every offensive lineman as they sold a run to the left. But notice how Hoyer had pulled the ball and turned to sprint back to the right side. Meanwhile, the two Lions linebackers were sucked up two yards to the 49 because of the run fake. They also were pulled to the outside of the “C” logo at midfield. Their priority had to be stopping the run, and the fake got them out of position to defend the pass because of insufficient depth and misdirection.
Another reason this play worked was safety Rafael Bush (No. 31) gave up any coverage responsibilities and sold out trying to stop the run. When Hoyer kept the ball, Bush rushed him. Royal bluff-blocked Bush as he got into his route, freezing Bush and leaving Royal wide open in the flat.
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In picture below from the blurry All-22 camera, you can see how open Royal was and how much open space he had after the catch. Also, notice how Hoyer’s receiving options were at different depths downfield. That helps Hoyer go through his progressions and see the field.
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In the final picture, this one from the end zone camera, notice how disorganized the Lions defense was because of the misdirection. You see Hoyer had multiple receiving options. He smartly made the easy flip to Royal, who had room to run.
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If the Bears run the ball well, these misdirection passes should be an important part of their offense. They’re a staple of the coaching tree from which Loggains comes (think Mike Shanahan, Mike Heimerdinger, Kyle Shanahan), and both quarterbacks are athletic enough to execute it.
But I’ll leave you with this. Hoyer was asked Thursday about these plays and their effectiveness.
“Against Detroit we were able to do that,” he said. “Indy, they’re a little more disciplined. I don’t know if that will be as much part of the game plan. We’ll see. It’s just a week-to-week basis.”Cary
As the campaign to be the Republican Presidential nominee moves further and further to the right, Rock & Roll music might not be the first thing the party’s big convention brings to mind. Nonetheless, the RNC is headed for the city where the term was first coined, and where the biggest tourist attraction is the excellent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. With all the recent campaign talk about restoring America’s greatness, Cleveland is an excellent choice, a comeback city enjoying its moment in the sun.
I covered Cleveland as a growing vacation destination a year ago for my Great Urban Weekend Escapes column, and there is a lot more nitty-gritty detail there, but here’s a quick recap.
Besides its love of rock music, Cleveland is home to the nation’s second largest live theater district after New York’s Broadway, with fourteen major theaters in one concise spot, Playhouse Square. The Cleveland Orchestra is globally renowned and widely regarded as one of the best in the nation. So is the Cleveland Museum of Art - even before its recent staggering $350 million upgrade, which added two entire wings, an interactive learning center, the world’s largest interactive touch screen, a fine dining eatery, and a new central glass atrium to an already permanent collection full of Renoir, Monet and Dali. Much ado has been made of pro basketball star LeBron James’ prodigal son return to his hometown, but more significantly, Cleveland is one of the few mid-sized American cities that fields teams in the NBA, NFL and MLB, and all stadiums are very convenient to downtown and thus tourist friendly.
Then there is a the burgeoning food scene, combining old and new, creating star chefs while honoring the region’s Eastern European roots and culinary history. You’ll find loveable old standards such as classic wursts and pierogis all over, and at the same time, you can find these dishes being reinvented in haute forms by folks like James Beard Award winner Michael Symon, Cleveland’s biggest celebrity chef (also an Iron Chef, host of The Chew, and author of multiple cookbooks). When he is not doing his fine dining thing, Symon also makes what has been named the best burger in America at his casual B Spot burger and wurst local chain, and visitors will also love Greenhouse Tavern, the flagship of another local food star with multiple spots, Jonathan Sawyer (Food & Wine Best New Chefs in America, 2-Stars from NY Times). The city has become a craft beer hub, and you can't go more than a few blocks without passing another local brewery. The 102-year old West Side Market is a must-visit, one of the few still thriving European-style central food markets left in the country that has not turned to arts and crafts. This landmark features one hundred vendors of food only, ready to eat along with every imaginable type of meat, fish, produce, and ethic ingredient for home cooking.
Cranes are towering over the city as new commercial and residential buildings rise, and there is much buzz about Cleveland as the next big “meetings” destination. Last year I visited the then new Metropolitan at The 9 hotel, and a new Kimpton property is scheduled for next month. But the biggest addition is the host of the RNC, the 600-room Hilton Cleveland Downtown, opening in June. A new central figure of the Cleveland skyline, it towers 32 stories with its Skybar overlooking Lake Erie and direct underground links to the Cleveland Convention Center. The $272 million hotel also sits close to the Cleveland Browns’ FirstEnergy Stadium. The industrial modern interior design will boast a notable art collection, curated photo gallery, and a contemporary restaurant featuring patio seating. In keeping with Cleveland’s serious current farm to table devotion, the eatery will focus on local ingredients in season. Like Cleveland itself, the large new modern “design” hotel is part of the chain’s contemporary “not your grandfather’s Hilton” brand reinvention. The Hilton also plays a major role in the city’s convention and meetings future well beyond the RNC in July.
Follow Me on Twitter Here @TravelFoodGuyLegends The 10 Most Stylish Fighters of All Time Before Conor McGregor, these guys—Muhammed Ali, Jack Dempsey, Joe Frazier, and more—were the OGs of fight fashion.
The fight game has always been about exuding confidence and swagger, and as GQ Style cover star Conor McGregor knows, the suavest way to flex on your opponents is in a luxurious mink or a razor-tailored suit. While Conor may go down in history as the best-dressed fighter of all time, he certainly wasn’t the first to realize the psychological edge a piece of clothing can lend. Therefore, allow us to present the ten men who created the killer blueprint and forever changed the way we look at professional fighters outside of the ring. Steal their looks at your own risk.
Jack Johnson
The first black boxing champion didn’t just strike fear into white America with his punishing style in the ring, but with his brash and haughty suits outside the ring, too. Even with the law breathing down his neck during the Jim Crow era, Johnson refused to be viewed as lesser than, refused to stop being himself. If you want to talk about rebel style, you have to start with Jack Johnson.
Yoshihiro "Sexyama" Akiyama
Not since Prince has there been a man who looked this good in purple velvet. The Japanese MMA legend may not have the name recognition of a McGregor, but Akiyama is easily the swerviest UFC fighter around. Graphic prints, double-breasted suits, Panama hats, scarves on scarves on scarves—you never know what you’re going to get from Akiyama on any given day. But you will know that he’s going to look great in it. Most importantly, the man they call Sexyama proves that sometimes the best accessory for any look is an adorable toddler.
Jack Dempsey
Looking at photos of Jack Dempsey during the height of his reign in the 1920s, you would swear the world heavyweight champ was a British dandy rather than a kid who grew up poor in the middle of Colorado. The newsboy caps, the cable-knit sweaters, the pristinely tailored three-piece suits—they’re moves straight from the playbooks of style gods Idris Elba and Tom Hardy. Wonder who they got their inspiration from…
Marvin Hagler
Marvin Hagler is one of the few men in history who could slip into a suit and tie or an Adidas track suit and make either one look like a suit of armor. Which is fitting considering our favorite style moments from the legendary middleweight are when he would don a snapback with aggressively declarative statements like “No Mercy” stitched on the front for the entire world to see. The red and white “War” hat Hagler touted before his showdown with Thomas Hearns is truly a lost artifact in the annals of sports style—the type of statement piece hypebeasts across America would be scrambling to track down had the World Wide Web existed in 1985.
Joe Louis
Joe Louis may have learned a thing or two about wearing a suit from his time spent in the military during World War II—the Brown Bomber’s off-duty looks were fly as can be. Any man can wear a polo, but it takes a keen eye like Louis’s to perfectly nail the proportions and transform a menswear staple into a best-dressed moment. That expertise came in handy when Louis finally decided to hang up his gloves in favor for some golf clubs and broke the PGA Tour’s color barrier in the early ‘50s.
Amir Khan
Historically, most fighters looking to up their style game in hopes of standing out immediately add striped or plaid suits to their closets. It’s a technique that Conor McGregor has mastered, and now every UFC up-and-comer seems to be following his lead, with varying success. But when you ooze as much masculine confidence as Amir Khan, the better play is laid-back put-together-ness with an occasional flare of high-fashion. It’s no wonder Floyd Mayweather dodged the speedy Brit for years.
Sugar Ray Robinson
There is only one fighter in history with a legitimate claim over Muhammad Ali for the title of Greatest of All Time, and you’re looking at him. Outside of the ring, Sugar Ray Robinson knew that the only thing that garners more attention than six world titles is an in-your-face suit. But what made Sugar Ray so stylish wasn’t necessarily the clothes he wore on his back (which, mind you, were very stylish), but how effortless he looked in even the loudest Tartan plaid. He dressed with a perennial ease that made clothing seem fun.
Alexis Argüello
While the ‘70s and ‘80s were rampant with wide-legged pants and Technicolor prints, El Caballero [the Gentleman] had a penchant for streamlined grey suits that would look right at home on a red carpet in 2017. The way he dressed his svelte frame almost perfectly mirrored his style in the ring. You see, Arguello was a fundamentalist. On the surface, it all seems rather unassuming, but the tiniest of details are what can knock you out.
Joe Frazier
It’s hard enough to stand out in a room with Muhammad Ali, but Joe Frazier was arguably the only man in the world who actually made you take your eyes off the People’s Champ, thanks in large part to his trademark Stetson hat. There’s nothing we appreciate more than a man who can turn a fashion risk into a uniform. Thirty-plus years after the Thrilla in Manila and Smokin’ Joe was still rocking that hat.
Muhammad Ali
He could fight. He could talk. And holy hell could he dress. It’s like bow ties and tuxedo jackets were invented specifically with Ali in mind. A modern day Greek statue in a shawl collar, where every proportion was slaved over for hours to ensure his oh-so pretty face was perfectly presented to the world. Simply put, he’s The Greatest. Period.Would You Get the New Ara if You Could? Why/Why Not?
Project Ara went through quite a transformation since we last heard about it. The phone is still going to be modular, but the level of modularity we previously expected has been cut down, meaning components such as processors, screens and RAM won’t be upgradeable nor easily-replaceable.
That being said, there is still a lot of potential with Project Ara. The device looks more polished now, and developers will be getting their hands on it before the year is up. It’s safe to say that it’s becoming a reality, meaning it’ll likely be an option by the time you upgrade your new phone. So we ask you,
Would you get the current version of Ara, as advertised, if you could? What do you like most about the project, and what is holding you back? Do you think smartphone modularity will take off at all now that other OEMs are implementing it in part as well?
Give us your thoughts below!A reader from an Australian metropolis wrote me a little while back to describe the social and emotional difficulties of being a Right-thinking outlier in an overwhelmingly, and so often unreflectively and oppressively, Leftist culture. He needed some bucking up, I thought, and so I offered the following (slightly edited) reply. I don’t think he’ll mind my reprinting it here in the hope that it might offer some comfort to others in the same lonely predicament.
Dear ____,
I understand what you’re going through. I face exactly the same issues in my own relationships, all the time.
It’s very hard to push back effectively. There is a tremendous soggy weight of dogma always pressing down; it’s as if you are caught under a big wet circus tent that you have to lift every time you want to stand up to speak your mind.
Or perhaps the better metaphor is the one I’ve always used in the past: that we are swept along in a powerful stream, and as long as we drift with the current we don’t feel its power. Most people drift along in little groups, focusing only on each other, but some of us look at the banks of the river, and notice that we are being swept away to an unfamiliar landscape far from our home. We plant our feet on the bottom and try to grab hold of the people we care about, but immediately we feel the enormous power of the current, and it is all we can do to resist. Meanwhile our friends just think we’re acting very strangely indeed, and making things very unpleasant for ourselves and for them. It’s so much more pleasant to drift, you see, especially when everyone else is — and as soon as we put our feet down on the bottom everyone else is suddenly moving away with the current. (To them, it seems as if we are moving backward.)
All I can say is to tell you what I do — how I’ve managed to live in such a condition without going mad:
I tell myself that no matter what everyone else thinks, I’m going to look at the world as frankly as I can, gather my own information, and understand it as clearly as I can manage. I read a lot of history, and I learned a while back that if I want to learn the truth about history, I can’t learn it just from people writing about it now; I also have to read the books that were written while it was happening.
I seek out people who are also resisting the current. They are out there, and it is important to know that they are out there.
I refuse to be broken. I am blessed with reason and intelligence and wisdom, and I will not lay them aside. I will believe in myself, and I will be faithful to myself.
I have friends who respect my intelligence. I try to show them a living example of someone who doubts and questions and denies their secular religion, and who is yet still a friend they can respect. This is, I think, the most effective thing I can do: to show them that a decent, intelligent man of firm moral principles can question the things they take for granted and not be struck by lightning.
I want to make them doubt, even just a little, even just for a moment, the unholy doctrine of this new secular religion. If I can do that, if I can make that tiny crack in the wall, the flowing power of Truth will do the rest. I will believe that Truth is real, that it is mighty, and that it will prevail.
And I write. I write for people that, like me and you, need to know there are others out there. And I do it for myself, to bind and organize my understanding.
Okay, that’s enough, I think. Sorry to ramble on so. But you get the picture.
As Churchill said:
“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
Best,
Malcolm
P.S. Be of good cheer. The tide may be turning. The great, sustaining comfort is that we are Right, and they are wrong. Magna est veritas!The Cleveland Pipers was an American industrial basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1950s and early 1960s. The P |
members even call it quits from the troupe. The omnipresent taunt of being a 'cheater' starts echoing in Suresh's mind all the time. That's why in order to prove himself and gain the lost respect; he decides to participate in an ultra-prestigious global dance competition that is to be held in Las Vegas. It is out of pure co-incidence that he 'accidentally' meets an alcoholic Vishnu (Prabhu Dheva), whom he considers as their sole ray of hope to Las Vegas. After much persuasion, Vishnu decides to choreograph 'Mumbai Stunners', who now have to clear the national auditions that are being held in Bangalore, in order to participate in the global championship. As luck would have it, Vishnu's intense training helps 'Mumbai Stunners' find their way to Las Vegas. It is here that the second half of the story unfolds, which sees Vinnie badly injuring her leg during the competition, Vishnu's hidden agenda and many other things. After all the ups and downs, 'Mumbai Stunners' manage to reach the finals of the global dance championship, when calamity strikes the team's performance, thus stunning everyone present there, including the judges. What is this calamity that strikes the 'Mumbai Stunners', what secret is Vishnu hiding, do 'Mumbai Stunners' make India proud by winning the dance championship... is what the rest of the film is all about.
Much like the first film, ABCD - ANY BODY CAN DANCE 2 too has its story plot woven into the theme of dance. To start with, director Remo D'souza gets full brownie points for making no mistakes in directing the film that is at par with international dance themed movies. He needs to be applauded for extracting some of the best dance movements out of his lead actors Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor. Despite the fact that the film is devoid of any concrete story as the whole, it solely concentrates on the basic premise of dancing, around which the movie is based. In that context, the film's screenplay (Tushar Hiranandani) does justice to the film. With the film being mounted on such a large canvas, Remo D'souza justifies every rupee of the money that's spent on the film. Full marks to him for making ABCD - ANY BODY CAN DANCE 2 as one of the best dance based films that Bollywood has ever witnessed, with stunning visuals that look splendid in 3D. The film also mirrors the immense growth and the transformation of Remo D'souza from being a choreographer to a fine director. While the film makes for a wholesome entertainer, it is the second half of the film that qualifies to be better than the first, especially the last 20 minutes of the film, which look spectacular on the big screen. While Remo stays true to the film, he could have taken cinematic liberties especially in the culmination of the movie, which he avoids.
As far as the performances are concerned, the film undoubtedly belongs to the lead pair of Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor. Varun is so sincere and dedicated in his work that it reflects in his performance. What really works in the favour of the film is the fresh pairing of Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor. This film acts as a perfect platform for Varun to exhibit his dancing skills. His chemistry with Shraddha is simply 'picture-perfect'. The same applies to Shraddha as well who delivers a beautiful performance in this film. She also impresses immensely with her brilliant dancing skills. Prabhu Dheva, on the other hand, delivers what is expected of him. He does surprise the viewers in a handful of situations, but, overall, he delivers a power-packed performance. Of the other actors, Dharmesh Yelande, Lauren Gottlieb, Raghav Juyal shine in the supporting cast. Pooja Batra, Kapil Sharma and Navjot Singh Sidhu do their bit in their respective cameos.
The music of the film (Sachin-Jigar), impress with a couple of hum-worthy songs like 'Bezuban phir se' and 'Sun Saathiya', but sadly the impact of the music fizzles out the very moment the movie ends. As the film is totally based on dance, Remo D'souza's choreography is simply outstanding.
While the film has extremely amazing production value and production designs, one really reserves the special points to the choreographer of lights, who does a stunning job in this film. The cinematography by Vijay Arora is top class, especially in the Grand Canyon sequences and Las Vegas dance sequences. The 3D technology only adds glitter to the film. While the film's editing (Manan Sagar) is good, there are scenes, which, if edited out, could have added to the novelty value of the film. Also, the real reason why the 'Mumbai Stunners' copy the dance steps from a foreign band is not explained. The film's dialogues (Mayur Puri) are good, if not exceptional. Amidst all the highly production values, the culmination of the movie fails to leave a smile on the face of the audience when it ends.
On the whole, ABCD - ANY BODY CAN DANCE 2 makes for a good viewing and this film will surely find its way to its target audience - the youth, as the film has the right mix of content and visuals in it.Category: Horror
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Alien 5 Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller Ridley Scott has now begun production on Alien: Covenant, the sequel to his film Prometheus (the quasi-prequel to Scott’s original 1979 Alien movie), as evidenced by photos from the film’s sets in New Zealand and Australia having started to make… Read More »
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The Purge 3 Election Year Action, Horror, Sci-Fi The Purge: Election Year is an upcoming 2016 American social science fiction action horror film written and directed by James DeMonaco, a sequel to the 2014 film The Purge: Anarchy and a third installment in The Purge series. The film… Read More »
The Pack Horror, Thriller A farmer and his family must fight for survival after a ferocious pack of wild dogs infiltrates their isolated farmhouse. Through a series of frightening and bloody encounters they are forced into survival mode to make it through the night…. Read More »
The Other Side of the Door Horror, Thriller The Other Side of the Door is a 2016 British-Indian supernatural horror film directed by Johannes Roberts and co-written by Roberts and Ernest Riera. Starring Sarah Wayne Callies, Jeremy Sisto, Javier Botet, and Sofia Rosinsky, the film was released in… Read More »
The Forest Horror The Forest is a 2016 American supernatural horror film directed by Jason Zada and written by Ben Ketai, Nick Antosca, and Sarah Cornwell. It stars Natalie Dormer and Taylor Kinney. The film was released on January 8, 2016 in the… Read More »
The Disappointments Room Horror The Disappointments Room is an upcoming American horror film. D.J. Caruso directed a script written by Wentworth Miller. Kate Beckinsale and Lucas Till are the leading stars of the film. The film is scheduled to be released on November 18,… Read More »
The Conjuring 2 Horror The Conjuring 2 is a 2016 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes, Wan and David Leslie Johnson. It is the sequel to the 2013 film The Conjuring, and is the second… Read More »
The Boy Horror The Boy (previously known as The Inhabitant) is a 2016 American-Chinese psychological horror film directed by William Brent Bell and written by Stacey Delay. The film stars Lauren Cohan and Rupert Evans. Filming began on March 10, 2015, in Victoria,… Read More »
Regression Horror, Thriller Regression is a 2015 Canadian-Spanish-American psychological thriller horror film directed, produced and written by Alejandro Amenábar. The film stars Ethan Hawke and Emma Watson with David Thewlis, Lothaire Bluteau, Dale Dickey, David Dencik, Peter MacNeill, Devon Bostick and Aaron Ashmore…. Read More »
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Comedy, Horror Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (stylized as Pride + Prejudice + Zombies) is a 2016 British-American comedy horror film based on the 2009 novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith that parodies the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice… Read More »
Martyrs Horror Martyrs is a 2016 American horror film directed by Kevin and Michael Goetz and written by Mark L. Smith. It is a reboot of Pascal Laugier’s 2008 film of the same name.en-year-old Lucie (Troian Bellisario) flees from the isolated warehouse… Read More »Enlarge By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY Maryland State Police Cpl. Christopher Corea pulls an e-citation for speeding out of a printer in his patrol car. Police agencies and troopers in several states are tossing out handwritten tickets in favor of electronic citations as a way to improve accuracy and save time. With the quick swipe or scan of a driver's license, officers are able to enter the location, type of violation and print the ticket all from a handheld device, said Chief Deputy Derrick Cunningham of the Montgomery County (Ala.) Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's office has ordered 25 of the e-citation systems to be in place by mid-July, and is already looking at expanding the system to all 40 of its cruisers, Cunningham said. "What we're trying to do is go paperless as much as possible," he said. To cover the cost of the e-citation devices, the sheriff's office received a $27,000 state grant for the first 25 machines and another grant for an additional 15, Cunningham said. All of Alabama's 350 state troopers are equipped with the e-citation machines, which save time for the officers, Sgt. Tracy Nelson said. In addition to saving time, Cunningham suspects the e-citations will cut down on two complaints his office often receives: poor handwriting and ticket fixing. "No more can people call and say, 'I just got a speeding ticket, can you do something about it?'" he said, because the ticket is electronically transferred directly to court. Elsewhere: •In California, the San Jose Police Department has 222 e-citation devices. The program began in 2007 and the department wants to add 500 to 600 more units to equip its entire fleet, Lt. Ruben Chavez said. Chavez said the system improves the efficiency of the ticketing process by reducing officer errors. "Some of the officers write like they should have gone to medical school and they'll leave boxes empty," he said. "Typed in — it's a lot easier to read." •In Maryland, 75 state police cruisers are using e-citation software, called e-tix, that the agency created from scratch, said Sgt. Doug Baralo. The state police are partnering with local agencies to provide the software free-of-charge, he said. By next year, 1,500 officers throughout Maryland, including state and local police, could have the software installed. The cost for hardware runs about $1,000 per cruiser, all of which is covered through grants from numerous agencies, Baralo said. Time spent on a routine traffic stop goes from eight to three minutes using e-citations and allows officers to quickly identify stolen vehicles or wanted persons by scanning driver's licenses to match up information in the database, Baralo said. •In Florida, the Miami-Dade County Police have 35 of the devices and hope to eventually install 3,500 in all of their police cruisers, Lt. Tony Perez said. The equipment, which includes a handheld unit, printer and software, costs about $4,500 per officer, but the department hasn't secured grants for the devices, Perez said. The machines reduce normal ticket writing time from 10 minutes to just two, Perez said. •In Oklahoma City, 750 police vehicles will have electronic ticketing capabilites in the next year, said Kerry Wagnon, public safety program manager. The e-citation function is part of a larger project aimed at putting more tools in the hands of the officers, Wagnon said. "You're able to speed up the process of getting information both from the field and to the field," he said. "For the police officers, information is critical." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreTata Steel has put on hold the sale process of its UK business, which includes its steelworks plant at Port Talbot. The move comes after the UK decided to leave the European Union (EU) at the 23 June referendum.
According to unnamed sources cited by The Times, the Indian parent company has taken the decision amid uncertainty over the impact of the Brexit vote. The company is said to be assessing the situation and awaiting the outcome of negotiations between the UK and the EU. Jens Weidmann, president at Germany's Bundesbank, had just last week asked the EU not to treat the UK roughly for its decision and instead ensure a quick and fair exit deal.
The Indian steel maker had before the referendum vote told its employees that Europe was very important to the company. "The EU is by far our largest export market, with over a third of our UK steel heading there... access to that market is fundamental to our business," it had said.
Tata Steel is also said to be awaiting incentives from the UK government that could motivate the company to retain its UK operations. This among others could include a deal to cut its £14bn (€16.70bn, $18.60bn) pension liabilities.
Tata Steel, which had put up the loss-making UK business for sale in March, said: "The strategic review of our UK business continues... Like businesses across the UK, parties involved will be considering implications from the referendum. We remain committed to working towards the best possible outcome for our UK business."
The move is said to come as a blow to potential bidders such as Endless, Liberty House and management buyout firm Excalibur. A source cited by The Telegraph said: "There's no point hiding behind Brexit. The company has been in limbo for nearly four months. This needs to be resolved and there are people ready, willing and able to resolve it."
Liberty had in June said it will consider other acquisitions if the current bid fails to materialise. Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of the company, had said that his company already had an eye on a few steel plants in the US, Africa and India.× Expand To Jackson's credit, Toto were given the space to shine on Thriller.
In the week following Michael Jackson's death, his landmark album Thriller has, predictably, seen its share of spins. (Not that it ever really sat collecting dust previous to this week, but I digress.)
You could imagine Billie Jean playing in unison across the world, while his audience weighed the King of Pop's musical contributions against allegations of child molestation.
Often you'll hear Jackson described as a talent. But give Thriller an active listen, and you'll hear much more than MJ's raw talent. He reached across the aisle for much of the album, recruiting Paul McCartney and Quincy Jones, to name a few. But most impressive was MJ's use of the band Toto.
Toto, a soft rock band made up strictly of session musicians, were true heroes on Thriller, playing in nearly every song.
Human Nature, the heartfelt ballad in the middle of the album which more or less set the bar for Adult R&B, was written by Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro.
Jones, Thriller's producer, said of the song:
"All of a sudden, at the end, there was all this silence, there was: 'why, why, dah dah da-dum dah dah, why, why'. Just a dummy lyric and a very skeletal thing-I get goosebumps talking about it. I said, 'This is where we wanna go, because it's got such a wonderful flavour.'"
The guitar work on Beat It, often credited to Eddie Van Halen, who is only responsible for unfinished soloing, is the work of Toto's Steve Lukather.
Here's Lukather on Beat It:
"Quincy Jones and Michael took a skeleton version of it up to Eddie Van Halen's place as they wanted him to solo over the verse section. However, he played over a section that had more chord changes. So to fit his solo to where it went in the song, they had to cut the tape which took a lot of time to synchronise together."
During the making of Thriller, Jackson was a young and still unproven performer. He was also a full fledged egoist, aiming to the be the best pop performer in the world. For him to take input from Toto was nothing less than visionary.
Jackson will be remembered for many things, least of which should be that he was a great friend to session musicians. [rssbreak]* Families hiding infected loved ones, burials not reported
* Some villages with suspected cases closed to inspection
* WHO says has drawn up 6-9 month Ebola strategy plan
* WHO criticised for underestimating virus, slow reaction
GENEVA, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The scale of the world's worst Ebola outbreak has been concealed by families hiding infected loved ones in their homes and the existence of "shadow zones" that medics cannot enter, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
The U.N. agency issued a statement detailing why the outbreak in West Africa had been underestimated, following criticism that it had moved too slowly to contain the killer virus, now spreading out of control.
Independent experts raised similar concerns a month ago that the contagion could be worse than reported because suspicious local inhabitants are chasing away health workers and shunning treatment.
More than 1,300 people have died from the disease and many experts do not expect the epidemic to be brought under control this year.
Under-reporting of cases is a problem especially in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The WHO said it was now working with Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to produce "more realistic estimates".
The head of MSF, which has urged the WHO to do more, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that the fight against Ebola was being undermined by a lack of international leadership and emergency management skills.
The stigma surrounding Ebola poses a serious obstacle to efforts to calibrate the outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, which has claimed far more victims than any other episode of the disease that was first discovered nearly 40 years ago in the forests of central Africa.
"As Ebola has no cure, some believe infected loved ones will be more comfortable dying at home," the WHO statement said.
"Others deny that a patient has Ebola and believe that care in an isolation ward - viewed as an incubator of the disease - will lead to infection and certain death. Most fear the stigma and social rejection that come to patients and families when a diagnosis of Ebola is confirmed."
Corpses are often buried without official notification, the WHO said, while an additional problem is the existence of numerous "shadow zones", or rural villages where there are rumours of cases and deaths that cannot be investigated because of community resistance or lack of staff and transport.
In other cases, where treatment is available, health centres are being immediately overwhelmed with patients, suggesting there is an invisible caseload of patients that is not on the radar of the official surveillance systems.
STRATEGY PLAN
The WHO said it had drawn up a draft strategy plan to combat Ebola in West Africa over the next six to nine months, implying that it does not expect to halt the epidemic before the end of the year.
"WHO is working on an Ebola road map document; it's really an operational document how to fight Ebola," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said at a news briefing. "It details the strategy for WHO and health partners for six to nine months to come."
Chaib, asked whether the timeline meant that the United Nations health agency expected the epidemic now raging in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to continue into 2015, said: "Frankly, no one knows when this outbreak of Ebola will end."
Ebola will be declared over in a country if two incubation periods, or 42 days in total, have passed without any confirmed case, she said. Nigeria is the fourth country with known cases.
"So with the evolving situation, with more cases reported, including in the three hot places - Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia - the situation is not yet over," Chaib said.
"So this is a planning document for six to nine months that we will certainly revisit when we have new developments."
The WHO expects to issue details of the plan early next week, she said.
In a sign of spreading international alarm, Senegal, West Africa's humanitarian hub, said it had blocked a regional U.N. aid plane from landing and was banning all further flights to and from countries affected by Ebola, potentially hampering the emergency response to the epidemic. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Ben Hirschler in London and Emma Farge in Dakar; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.Bytom Weekly News（November 1st week）
BYTOM BLOCKCHAIN Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 3, 2017
1. Bytom Released 0.1.3 Version, Creating A New Public Chain Model Along with Bitcoin And Ethereum
Bytom Released 0.1.3 Version
According to the news published on November 2, 2017, Bytom has released Bigbang 0.1.3 version. This version allowed and enabled multi-party trading model, as well as adding docker model that facilitates developers’ testing so as to fully realized the asset release and transfer. Detailed coding has been posted to Github, https://github.com/bytom/bytom.
2.The Visit of Blockchain in the USA
The Start-up in Garage
From October 25 to 31, Bytom Founder and CEO Duan Xinxing led the team across the East and west coasts of the USA and visited several blockchain companies in New York, San Francisco and Seattle. In San Francisco, Bytom visited several start-ups, including Augur, Augment Partners, Paradex, Ox, Uphold and Oben, as well as incubators such as Plug and Play and Draper University.
Duan Xinxing, Bytom Founder and CEO, and Bill Shihara, Co-Founder and CEO of Bittrex
In Seattle, Bytom team visited Bittrex HQ and held an in-depth discussion of industry developments and policy regulation with Bill Shihara, co-founder and CEO of Bittrex.
Duan Xinxing, Bytom founder and executive CEO of 8btc, discussed with Bill Shihara with the common concern.
Both sides discussed the issues of common concern. Bill Shihara said Bittrex now has more than 200 projects online. He said that China had also experienced a wave of tokens economy and asked Duan Xinxing, the founder and chief executive of 8btc, as China’s largest blockchain media, how did your previous 8btc platform pick which project to be online?
Duan Xinxing shared 8BTC platform standard:
1. 8BTC and Bittrex are consistent in the vision of serving and incubating innovators in the blockchain. 8BTC’s founder Changjia, is also one of the earliest entrepreneurs in the blockchain industry in the country and even in the world. After several turmoil, 8btc will be stringent in the selection of projects, paying attention to review the white paper and code, considering the project specific innovation, any imaginative growth, solving the real problem. The project should not just focus on powerpoint without any code.
2. In addition, we also look at the composition of the team, whether the developer has been long-term engaged in research and development and promotion of blockchain industry, or just new comers trying to scam.
3. We will look at whether the project team has an open and cooperative attitude, such as whether Bitcoin, Ethereum and other open source communities have contributed codes, which are constructively and ecologically.
4. In addition, we have a preference for legally compliant projects that actively embrace regulation, work tirelessly and have long-term growth, in line with what Bittrex has said “pump and dump”.
In addition, China also faces challenges and cooperation in its entry into the United States and vice versa. Both parties also exchanged views and believed that we can expect to expand in depth cooperation.
3.Experience Sharing Sessions of BTM
Experience Sharing Sessions of BTM
This week, in the experience sharing sessions of BTM, the senior of 8bc Forum shared the experience of forums website operation.
4.Bytom Will Attend the Blockchain Conference in Japan Next Week
Blockchain Conference in Japan
On November 11, Bytom will attend the Japan Blockchain Industry Conference, and communicate with blockchain firms from dozens of countries. By then, Bytom founder and CEO Duan Xinxing, will make a keynote speech for the conference.
5. We are Hiring Jobs！
Oversea Community Specialist
Oversea Community Specialist
Job Description：
1. Be responsible for planning, organizing and carrying out the oversea promotion and increasing and enhancing Bytom oversea influence.
2. Be responsible for the operation of oversea social media like reddit, slack, facebook and twitter.
3. Be responsible for the monitor and analysis of the data of oversea community including fans, posts and comments.
4.Other operation work.
Qualifications：
1.More than one year experience in blockchain field
2.Bachelor degree or above(marketing or management degree will be favored)
3. Good English and Chinese dictation competence(the background of studying abroad and experience of community operation will be favored)
4.Be familiar with oversea community and social media and be highly sensitive about hot issue.
Email:houly@bytom.ioMany in the industry will tell you there’s a good reason car companies don’t do things this way. Toyota, which is proceeding much more cautiously with its own plug-in car, has made no secret of its belief that neither GM nor anyone else can keep the Volt’s promises. When I called Menahem Anderman, a prominent battery consultant in California, he said the lithium-ion battery will be expensive—far too expensive to make sense as a business proposition as long as gas is $3 or $4 a gallon. (“At $10 a gallon we can have a different discussion.”) Its life is unproven, and unprovable in the short time GM has allotted. To deliver tens of thousands of vehicles in 2010, Anderman said, “they should have had hundreds of them already driving around for two or three years. Hundreds. Not everybody can say it publicly, but everybody in the high-volume industry is saying, ‘What are they thinking about?’” An executive with a GM competitor, after making some of the same points, offered forthrightness in exchange for anonymity: “They’re making a huge mistake.”
The people at GM understand very well the reasons they’re not supposed to do what they’re doing. They offer a variety of retorts. Batteries will improve and get cheaper. Gas prices will rise. They have two decades’ worth of experience with electric drive. They have smart algorithms to test the battery. Strict new fuel-economy standards will vindicate the business case. But, at bottom, what they say is that the challenge is part of the point. They have something to prove.
In conversations with everyone from staff engineers to Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO, I heard references to the Apollo program. “John Kennedy didn’t say, ‘Let’s go to the moon and, you know, we’ll get there as soon as we can,’” Wagoner said in a recent interview in his office, atop a high-rise in Detroit. “I asked our experts, ‘Guys, do we have a reasonable chance of making it or not?’ Yes. ‘Well, then, let’s go for what we want rather than go for what we know we can do.’” With the Volt, GM—battered, beleaguered, struggling for profitability—hopes to re-engineer not just the car but the way the public thinks about cars, the way the public thinks about GM, and the way GM thinks about itself.
‘That Could Have Been Us’
The company turns 100 this year, but amid the birthday celebrations it can expect a slap in the face: in 2008 GM is likely to be demoted to No. 2 among the world’s carmakers. Memories of past glory make being overtaken by Toyota all the more galling. In the 1950s and 1960s, GM poured forth a stream of innovations in design and technology. In the 1960s, it manufactured nearly 60 percent of the cars sold in America. Then, of course, the Japanese arrived, the energy crisis hit, and GM began to look like the company that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In the 1970s, when gas prices rose, GM proved incapable of building a decent small car. In the 1980s, when the Japanese redefined quality, GM failed to respond, because its brands were competing against each other instead of the imports. In the 1990s, when minivans and SUVs took off, GM was caught unprepared. In the early part of this decade, it decided hybrids were too unprofitable to pursue, leaving a gap in the market that Toyota, with its Prius, brilliantly and mercilessly exploited. By the time GM recognized its blunder and launched its own hybrids, Toyota dominated the field.After launching the well-received U11, HTC looks to add one more device to its U-branded lineup before the end of 2017. One of our sources has confirmed that the HTC Ocean Life, which has been subject to a handful of leaks in recent months, will come to market as the HTC U11 Life later this year.
As you can see in the image attached above, the U11 Life will sport a similar front panel to that of the HTC U11 or HTC 10. Below the phone’s 5.2-inch Full HD display sits the front-mounted fingerprint sensor, and above the screen you’ll find the earpiece and 16 MP Panorama Selfie camera. That’s right — the HTC U11 Life will feature a 16 MP front camera sensor just like its big brother. It’ll also come with a 16 MP rear-facing camera with phase-detection auto-focus.
The U11 Life will come with Edge Sense, signaling the HTC's efforts to bring this unique feature to non-flagship devices
Moreover, the U11 Life will come with HTC’s Edge Sense, signaling the company’s efforts to bring this unique feature to non-flagship devices. We’re glad to see Edge Sense spread to more phones, since we found it to be useful and intriguing on the U11.
Elsewhere, the U11 Life is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 630 Mobile Platform, which differs from the Snapdragon 660 that the phone was reported to feature in July. RAM amount is unknown at this time, though the phone sports 32 GB of storage that can be bumped up by an additional 2 TB through the microSD card slot.
Finally, the U11 Life features IP67 certification and included HTC USonic earbuds with active noise cancellation. This leads us to believe the phone does not feature a headphone jack, though we can’t be sure.
As for availability, we have confirmation that the U11 Life will be sold through T-Mobile. We’re expecting it to be sold unlocked through HTC.com as well, though we unfortunately don’t have further availability details at this time.
What do you think of the HTC U11 Life and would you buy a cheaper version of HTC’s flagship? Let us know your views in the comments below!The writer with his wife at the summit of Grand Teton. (Photo courtesy of Joe Plenzler)
I joined the Marine Corps in 1995 – after a failed winter attempt to summit the Grand Teton in Wyoming. Our team climbed to 11,000 feet before bad weather forced us to hunker down. Forty-eight hours later, we retreated in the face of extreme avalanche conditions. Our team belonged to the Ohio State University mountaineering club, where one-third of the members were women.
My early climbing heroes included Catherine Desteville, the first woman to solo the Eiger’s north face, and Lynn Hill, who completed the first free ascent of the Nose on El Capitan in 1993. Hill’s accomplishment, in particular, cannot be overstated. Many thought the Nose was unclimbable, yet Hill completed the route in four days. Today, she is known as one of the world’s best climbers.
From an early age, I knew that women could “hack it” in the backcountry. Many of my female colleagues could climb harder routes than most men, and I respected them for it. These women built mental and physical toughness by challenging themselves in extreme conditions and willing themselves past perceived limits. Therefore, it was a shock when I arrived at my first infantry battalion in 1996, a unit that seemed to be fueled in part by snuff, pornography and a heavy dose of misogyny. It was clear that many of my brother Marines did not consider women as peers – and their pejorative view extended to women serving in the Corps.
Watch average civilians attempt the Marine combat fitness test. This video was posted by the Marines and shot during 2011Marine Week in St. Louis, Mo. (Marines)
The Marine Corps is the only service that trains men and women separately at boot camp and gender bias within the Corps is systemic – fostered by double standards. For decades, the Corps has recruited women under lower standards and trained them to lower expectations. These gender-normed standards undermine the achievements of all women – especially those who can outperform men. Male Marines are expected to do more pull ups and run faster than women to achieve maximum scores, and consequently many view the accomplishments of women pejoratively.
[How Marine Corps boot camp became the new battlefield for gender integration]
The Corps’ systemic gender bias is most visible in the initial rifle marksmanship training at boot camp. The Corps places a premium on marksmanship and holds Marines who achieve expert qualifications in higher regard. One of the Corps’ iconic mottos is, “every Marine is a rifleman.” Ironically, the Corps has deployed women to combat for the past 14 years while failing to train them as well as men. Women were first allowed to shoot the M-16 at boot camp in 1986, and women have underperformed men on their initial qualification pass rate by more than 20 percentage points for decades. The leadership simply expected women to underperform and accepted the status quo. There are no biological differences between men and women in marksmanship. The only reasons for female underperformance in marksmanship are inferior training and what’s known as the Golem Effect, in which lower expectations lead to lower performance.
Airmen attempt the Marine Corps combat fitness test at Osan Air Base in 2012. (The Washington Post)
There are many parallels between mountaineering and the infantry. While the goal of each endeavor is vastly different – summiting a mountain versus killing the enemy –similarities exist, including a premium on endurance and strength, heavy loads, austere conditions, constant risk management, strategic planning, tactical execution, small unit leadership, and courage in the face of severe injury or death.
My wife, Lt. Col. Kate Germano, and I returned to the Grand Teton in August to finish the summit attempt I began in 1995. We hired a mountaineering guide to refresh our training and lead the route. During our time in the Tetons, we encountered many superb guides and found their culture to be inclusive. In fact, 20 percent of guides we encountered were women. We were impressed by the group dynamics and compared this with our experiences as Marines. Most notably, and in stark contrast to our military experiences, gender differences among the guides were trivial—secondary to a culture of ability, courage and respect. Each guide hauled the same load, shared the same risks, and led with confidence.
Exum Mountaineering guide Brian Smith prepares a rappel on |
waited until Saturday to quote Marilyn Tavenner, who was ObamaCare's creator in the Obama administration and now heads the insurance industry lobby, saying that "the status quo is not sustainable."
Wasn't that a Big Lie when Republicans were saying the same thing just a few days ago? Go figure.
Why are these ObamaCare-is-in-peril stories appearing now, and not while repeal was being considered, when such information might have informed the debate?
For one simple reason: Publishing stories suggesting that ObamaCare is unsustainable would have been seen by reporters and their editors as — gasp! — helping Republicans. That's a cardinal sin for any mainstream news outlet.
Now, with repeal apparently off the table, it's safe to talk about ObamaCare's warts, because Democrats are now eager to talk about "fixing" ObamaCare with, well, more ObamaCare.
It is a crass display of how today's agenda-driven news media does a huge disservice to the public.
RELATED:Getty Images
Calais Campbell hasn’t been a member of the Jaguars for too long, but he’s been in Jacksonville long enough to know that there’s nothing like a little bit of unbridled optimism about the team during offseason workouts.
When the record is 0-0, it’s time to make big pronouncements about the team’s potential to turn in a winning season for the first time in a long time even if last year’s (and 2015’s and 2014’s and so on) fell flat. Campbell, who signed with Jacksonville as a free agent in March, said that he doesn’t think there’s any holes on the roster.
“I truly believe this team has every piece to the puzzle,” Campbell said, via the team’s website. “We don’t need anything else. … All we have to do is take care of the small details, and put the things in place. The front office is doing a great job making it competitive, bringing the right guys in to compete. That will allow us to continue to get better. I have confidence in this coaching staff to prepare us so we’re all moving in unison. And I have confidence that my teammates are going to leave it all on the field every day, trying to win now. We have big goals, lofty goals, but all of that will take care of itself. Right now we’re going to take care of the details.”
One lesson Campbell likely learned in Arizona is that having the right (or wrong) quarterback can make all the difference for a team. It was a lot easier to win with Kurt Warner or Carson Palmer than it is with Ryan Lindley or John Skelton regardless of how the rest of the roster looked and that brings us to another recurring Jaguars theme.
There’s plenty of talent populating the Jaguars roster, but it’s mitigated by questions about whether Blake Bortles is a quarterback who can lead a team to great success. Unless those questions are answered in the affirmative, the Jaguars may remain a team that always looks better in May than it does in November and December.Padua Academy grads playing Big Barrel
Born Sisters -- Padua Academy graduates Kristen and Kara Zagorskie -- will perform Saturday at Dover's Big Barrel Country Music Festival. (Photo: Michael A. Lawrence)
Muddy Waters once sang, "The blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll."
This weekend, they will be singing a slightly different tune in Dover: "Firefly had a baby and they named it Big Barrel."
The organizers of the 90,000-person Firefly Music Festival, which just wrapped up a successful fourth year with Paul McCartney as a headliner, will launch their second festival in Delaware starting Friday: the Big Barrel Country Music Festival. (Three-day passes are $149-$499.)
CLOSE County music fans arrive at Big Barrel Music Festival in Dover
And while the new fest has plenty of its own big-time headliners – Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Big Barrel does stray from Firefly's formula in one area: the inclusion of a Delaware-based act.
Over the years, everyone from Rehoboth Beach blues band Lower Case Blues and Wilmington indie rock act The Spinto Band has had their opportunity for Firefly glory. Six Delaware bands have found themselves on one of Firefly's stages in the festival's four years.
Merle Haggard at the 2015 Stagecoach Country Music Festival in California. (Photo: Frazer Harrison)
Even though none of Big Barrel's 39 acts are from Delaware – to be fair, rock bands easily outnumber country bands in the state – there will be a taste of The First State opening Saturday's performances.
Kennett Square, Pa.-based country act Born Sisters, led by Padua Academy graduates Kristen and Kara Zagorskie, will be the first act on the main Big Barrel stage at 2:45 p.m. – the same main stage used at Firefly and the same stage that Shelton, Lambert and Underwood will strut across.
A total of 35,000 country/Americana/folk fans are expected for the festival's debut – 5,000 more than the first Firefly in 2012. And the opportunity to perform to the biggest crowd in the young act's career comes at an exciting time.
Kara, 17, just graduated from Padua. She and her sister, who is 21 and graduated from Padua in 2012, moved to Nashville two week ago to pursue their dreams. They've already performed at the CMA Music Festival in their new, adopted hometown.
Born Sisters has played plenty of shows in Delaware throughout its 7-year run, whether it be a pair of sold out CD release shows at World Cafe Live at the Queen in Wilmington or a concert at the Delaware State Fair in Harrington.
When they heard about Big Barrel and its A-list line-up, they knew they had to do everything they could to get on the bill.
So the sisters sent in a submission.
And then another.
And another.
And more.
How many exactly?
Carrie Underwood will close out the first Big Barrel Country Music Festival Sunday night. (Photo: Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
"Let's just say we sent a lot. We don't want to make ourselves sound crazy," Kristen says. "We sent in so many, it was just short of harassment, basically. You have to be annoying to make it to the top."
The strategy worked. They received a phone call about a month ago from a festival representative telling them they made the cut. "We thought it was a joke and one of our friends calling, but it was really them," Kara says.
Kristen (guitar, banjo, piano) and Kara (mandolin, guitar, piano) will be joined by their three-piece band in The Woodlands of Dover to make the most out of their 40-minute slot.
The sisters have been supported year after year by their parents Chuck, a salesman, and Janet, an office manager. The couple just might move to Nashville one day to continue to shepherd their daughters' budding careers.
"Some people think we're crazy to try to break into the music industry and my dad always says, 'You have to be a little crazy to do this,'" Kristen says. "There's never a question about their support. It's always, "I'll drive you to the show. Let's pack up the car. I just got off the phone with this guy and the gig is here...'
"It's in their blood."
A week after McCartney stood at the center of the festival's main stage and loaded a lifetime of hits, Born Sisters will now get their shot while standing at the very same spot.
No pressure. No pressure, at all.
IF YOU GO
What: Big Barrel Country Music Festival
When: Friday through Sunday
Where: The Woodlands near Dover International Speedway, Dover
Cost: $149 (three-day pass) or $499 (reserved seating/standing)
-- Ryan Cormier, The News Journal. Facebook: @ryancormier. Twitter: @ryancormier. Instagram: @ryancormier.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1NeKeIeA technique that General David Petraeus used to communicate with his lover Paula Broadwell (with whom he was having an illicit affair.), is now become a data-stealing technique for hackers.
Now hackers have learned the same trick. Only instead of a mistress, they’re sharing their love letters with data-stealing malware buried deep on a victim’s computer.
Back in August, Germany’s anti-malware solutions provider G Data Software identified stealthy malware that had gone undetected since 2012.
They dubbed the remote administration tool (RAT) Win32.Trojan.IcoScript.A and remarked that it was particularly nasty due to the way it abused webmail for its command and control (C&C) communications. Although IcoScript was using Yahoo email, G Data predicted that it could just as easily abuse Facebook, LinkedIn or Gmail. And now a variant of that malware is using Gmail drafts that open in invisible Internet Explorer windows and act as the command and control to steal data.
As written on wired.com :
Williamson (a security researcher at Shape) says the new infection is in fact a variant of a remote access trojan (RAT) called Icoscript first found by the German security firm G-Data in August. At the time, G-Data said that Icoscript had been infecting machines since 2012, and that its use of Yahoo Mail emails to obscure its command and control had helped to keep it from being discovered. The switch to Gmail drafts, says Williamson, could make the malware stealthier still.
Thanks in part to that stealth, Shape doesn’t have any sense of just how many computers might be infected with the Icoscript variant they found. But given its data-stealing intent, they believe it’s likely a closely targeted attack rather than a widespread infection.
For victims of the malware, Shape says there’s no easy way to detect its surreptitious data theft without blocking Gmail altogether. The responsibility may instead fall on Google to make its webmail less friendly to automated malware. A Google spokesperson responded to an email from WIRED with only a statement that “our systems actively track malicious and programmatic usage of Gmail and we quickly remove abusive accounts we identify.”Yes, you can wear your sneakers outside of the gym, but there are rules! Okay, okay, I know some are eager to say that it’s just fine to mix the two, your gym shoes and your non-gym sneaks, but really … unless you are in a pinch, there are better choices to make than to wear your stinky running shoes to dinner. When not trying to sweat, take it up a notch with tried-and-true brands (think Nike, New Balance, Converse), since the retro sneaker look is HUGE. And consider some slip-on sneaks, as these may just be your go-to shoe that puts some spring in your step. Whether it’s sneakers with jeans or with skirts and dresses, we have five tips to share so you’ll know how to wear sneakers with jeans … and even skirts!
How to Wear Sneaker with Jeans and Skirts
Tip #1: Cuff those pants and show your ankle bone.
When wearing sneakers, make them a statement … something to show off. The best way to do that is to make sure they are seen, so your pants need to fall right above your ankle bone. Cuff them, hem them, cut them. Do something to make them that perfect length.
Here are a few of our favorite sneakers to pair with cuffed pants:
Tip #2: Don’t wear socks, or at least don’t let them show.
This one can be hard, I know. Especially if you like the espadrille take on your sneaks or slides, as that roping is just not comfy. So find some low-rider socks that don’t show if the thought of naked feet in your closed-in shoes makes you squeamish.
Tip #3: Go for a solid color or classic look.
For most of us, a solid color or maybe just some classic stripes, or a pair of slides with a classic print like leopard, is really all we need. And look at the pictures throughout this article … notice the retro vibe that is consistent with all of these sneakers? Yep, these aren’t your fancy running shoes, but your super comfy, all-day shoes.
Here are a few of our favorite classic slip-ons:
Tip #4: Sure, wear them with a dress or skirt, just be careful.
Admittedly, this is almost painful to write, as I just can’t help but conjure up the sight of long skirts, socks, sneakers and fanny packs. But a thoughtful approach to elevate the style of the sneaks and be modern and playful to boot CAN happen. Just look at that photo above! But be careful, okay? It’s harder than it looks to showcase this skirt + sneakers look without looking like a 1980s secretary. Tips for how to accomplish this look are found in the captions below.
Tip #5: Grab a couple pair and some of those low-rider socks
It’s summer, and there will be times you will welcome not showing off your pedicure, which needs some work. A closed-toe slide or two or a sneak that makes you happy will be a welcome relief from flip-flops and such.
Here are the socks you need:
And, our pick for 2018? We’re still loving the Nike Cortez, which had a moment in 2016. We’re also loving the Classic Adidas Superstars, which have made a major comeback this past year and the Vans unisex old-skool lace-up sneakers in the ever-popular millennial pink are being styled by bloggers and fashionistas alike. But, pick what you like best and enjoy! Your feet certainly will.Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa can make phone calls and do web searches, but they're not necessarily great for kids to talk to. That's where several toys out this holiday season come in, able to listen and interact with kids during playtime.
The Zoomer brand by Spinmaster has a number of voice-activated friends for kids to play with, including the Zoomer Chimp and Zoomer Marshall.
Sarah Tew/CNET
The Marshall toy represents a character from Nickelodeon's "Paw Patrol" television show, and has about 80 missions and 150 Paw Patrol sounds and phrases. The toy retails for $53 in the US, converting roughly to £40 in the UK and AU$75 in Australia.
Sarah Tew/CNET
The Zoomer Chimp can respond to basic voice commands such as "Do a flip" and then flip. It can also be controlled with hand motions by gesturing in front of the toy's face to make it move forward and back. The Chimp costs $120, converting roughly to £95 and AU$165.
Sarah Tew/CNET
If you are looking for a toy that can hold more of a conversation, the CogniToys Dino could be someone your child could chat with. The toy connects to Wi-Fi and can listen to a child's responses to provide information and play games. The Dino can solve simple math problems, tell stories and jokes. And the artificial intelligence it uses is partly enhanced by IBM's Watson. The Dino retails for $99 (roughly £80 and AU$135).
Sarah Tew/CNET
And does your child want to be a singer? The Brightlings toy could be their new karaoke buddy. In addition to speaking about 100 phrases, the toy can listen to a child while they sing and then repeat the words in its own wacky voice.
Check out more of these voice-activated toys in our gallery below.Dec. 19, 2013
IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Junior Josh Oglesby is available to play when the University of Iowa men's basketball team takes the floor Sunday in its nonconference finale against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
"I am looking forward to getting back on the court with my teammates," Oglesby said Thursday while meeting with media. "It stinks sitting on the bench and watching them play."
The guard from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has missed the first 12 games of the season after breaking a bone in his right foot during practice Nov. 6. Oglesby has played in 72 career games as a Hawkeye, averaging 5.4 points in 17.4 minutes.
"It's getting better," said Oglesby of his injured right foot. "Defensively, it kind of bugs me, but each day I can feel it getting better and better."
It has been a process for Oglesby to work his body back on the conditioning front.
"The first week or so when I got back on the court, I was dead," he said. "Recently I feel like I have been getting in much better shape, but nowhere near where I was before (the injury)."
The Hawkeyes haven't played since Dec. 13 -- an 85-82 loss at Iowa State. Junior Mike Gesell says the team is using the road setback as a learning experience.
"You can't dwell on a loss like that," he said. "Iowa State is a very good team, so we have to learn from it and move forward. We have a lot of games left to play, starting Sunday, then we focus on the Big Ten."
Gesell says the feeling of disappointment lingered following the loss to the Cyclones. He missed two free throws with Iowa trailing 83-82 with 12 seconds remaining.
"I talked to my old high school coach and my parents, but you just have to move on," he said. "Things like that happen. You just have to step up (to the line) confident and knock them down. I got in the gym and fine-tuned my form, but something (in situations) like that you have to shoot them with confidence."
Gesell says the team's focus has been on academics in the midst of finals week and working on improving themselves.
"We've worked on a lot of our stuff, fine-tuning what we do," he said. "We've been scrimmaging and working on late-game situations because that's something you can always improve."
Sunday's game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff will begin at 1 p.m. (CT) on Mediacom Court inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The game will be streamed live on ESPN3.com with BJ Schaben and Kevin Lehman on the call.RAND PAUL: We are incredibly generous people, but realize that could slip away from us if we let government grow big enough that it gets between us and the people trying to buy and sell things.
That's what really alarms me about -- not Hillary Clinton, though she would be a disaster, terrible -- but the fact that there's a significant amount of people in this country who think Bernie Sanders would be good for us scares me to death.
Bernie says he's gonna give everyone free education. That would be great, wouldn't it? Free education! There is no free lunch. There is nothing that is truly free. If someone offers you something, realize: Who are the only people who get something for nothing? Theives.
When you steal something is the only way you get something for nothing. If someone offers you a free education, ask them to tell you the truth? Who is really going to pay for it?
Somebody's got to pay. The education will not be free. The professors will be paid, the buildings will be built, there'll be electricity and heat, somebody will pay for the education. Maybe its going to be a carpenter or a plumber who never went to college, or somebody who doesn't have kids. Or maybe you are going to pay for it.
No, no, Bernie says its going to be free.
Maybe we print out money, we have a Federal Reserve and we print out money, and we give everybody money so they can pay for education.
What happens? The value of the dollar shrinks. You know, over the last hundred years, 96% of the value of the dollar has disappeared, so what happens when the value of the dolar shrinks? Prices go up. So if gas costs more or food costs more, who do you think it hurt the most? The rich or the poor?
The poor...
People like Bernie say socialism is gonna be good and we're gonna give you free stuff, realize the people that are hurt the worst are actually the people they are trying to help. Same with Obamacare, it was supposed to help poor people. Guess what, the price of insurance has gone up dramatically under Obamacare for those who pay for it.
But you say, I'm getting it for free, I'm one of the subsidized people.
It isn't free. Somebody is paying for it...
The main reason I oppose Obamacare, and the main reason I oppose Bernie Sanders and everything he represents is he wants to take away my choices.
He says he's not a Stalinistic kind of socilaism, his is a 'democratic' socialism, right? The thing is, if government takes away your choice to make something and sell it to somebody voluntarily, whether they do it with a majority vote or whether an authoritarian does it with a club, it ends up being the same.
It may seem a little kinder and gentler, but if the majority says 'well we should have segregation or slavery again' or we shouldn't have a 2nd or 1st Amendment, if a majority says it would that make it any better?Coyotes' Sam Gagner skates past Blues' Patrik Berglund (21) as he comes down the ice in the first period at Gila River Arena in Glendale, AZ on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014. (Photo: Patrick Breen, Patrick Breen/The Republic)
He had been with one organization — his first NHL address — for seven years before he was traded.
And although he had been a productive player before, the move didn't illicit immediate results.
Actually, he was with his new team for two weeks and hadn't contributed a single point.
This aptly describes center Sam Gagner's back story and transition to the Coyotes, but it also applies to coach Dave Tippett.
As a player, Tippett started his career with the Hartford Whalers, and a trade to the Washington Capitals wasn't an overnight fit.
"(General Manager) David Poile, after about two weeks, sat me down and said, 'Tip, just play,'
" Tippett recalled. "'You're thinking a lot. Just play.'"
MORE: Coyotes recognize it's Mike Smith's job in net for now
The former player in Tippett certainly can empathize with Gagner's journey, but the coach is also eager to embrace some tangible contributions. So is Gagner, who enters Thursday's road game against the Wild on the heels of what he considered his best performance so far in a 4-3 shootout loss Tuesday in Nashville to the Predators.
He was held off the scoreboard, but his line, with wingers Martin Erat and Lauri Korpikoski, was active in the offensive zone — even adding a third-period power-play goal.
"It's the first time I've been through this before," Gagner said. "I feel like it's coming and dealing with the injury in preseason was a little frustrating for me and kind of took a little wind out of my sails. But I'm feeling better and better. I feel like our line was creating last game and building some chemistry. Hopefully we continue to find that (Thursday) and find a way to help us win a game."
The Coyotes, Tippett especially, understand that it'll take some time for Gagner to fully acclimate to the style and structure that the team expects, and Gagner has been particularly mindful of that because he believes a detail-oriented approach all over the ice will boost his two-way game.
But goals and assists are the barometers that have measured Gagner's success when he was with the Edmonton Oilers, and the Coyotes are waiting for that production to materialize.
"He's trying to figure things out, how he's going to be used, so is there an adjustment period? Yes there is," Tippett said. "But that being said, we're relying on him to be a good player for us, have an impact on games and we're hoping that he has more impact than he's had so far."
Surrounded by a slew of bonafide goal scorers in Edmonton, it was easy for Gagner to be the set-up man, and he's always had a tendency to look for the pass first. While the Coyotes are hoping to capitalize on that playmaking ability, they also want him to be on the finishing end of some plays.
With only nine shots through the first five games, Gagner recognizes he can be a little more selfish with the puck.
NEWSLETTERS Get the Sports Breaking News newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Can't wait to read sports news? Get crucial breaking sports news alerts to your inbox. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Varies Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Sports Breaking News Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters
"You can create a lot of chances off just getting the puck to the net," he said. "It's something I've got to focus on, getting around the net and shooting the puck."
Five games is too short a span to make any lasting judgments. Still, Gagner expects to deliver and the fact he isn't shying away from that responsibility should be encouraging to the Coyotes.
"That's where my head's at now," Gagner said. "I've got to figure out a way to produce and just continue to create chances — and when you create, the numbers come. So I think that's the focus for me."
Ice chips
Captain Shane Doan took a maintenance day Wednesday and did not practice but is fine to play Thursday, Tippett said.
•Center Martin Hanzal, who is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, has not joined the team in Minnesota and has not skated yet, Tippett said.
Thursday's game
Coyotes at Wild
When: 5 p.m.
Where: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, Minn.
TV/radio: FSAZ/KTAR-AM (620).
Wild update: This is only the second home game of the season for the Wild and their fifth game in 15 days. Minnesota last played Sunday in Los Angeles, a 2-1 loss to the Kings. The team's 1.00 goals-against average is tops in the NHL, and goalie Darcy Kuemper has a 0.67 goals-against average and.972 save percentage. He'll get the start against the Coyotes. Up front, winger Zach Parise has two goals and two assists. After scoring eight goals in their first two games, the Wild have managed only two in their past two.The laptops initially disappeared a few months ago and were recovered in early December with little issue.
Is this the worst winter ever? Weather-wise, the answer might be “yes,” given blistering cold temperatures and massive snowfalls. For corporate America, which has seemingly been plagued by one customer data breach after another, the answer is also almost undoubtedly an affirmative, and the trend of disastrous events doesn’t seem to be slowing. Over the past few months, chain stores like Target and Neiman Marcus have been dragged through the proverbial mud due to a series of payment terminal hacks that compromised credit and debit card information for tens of millions of Americans. Now, Coca Cola is getting its own taste of the action, albeit in slightly different fashion.
According to a report published today by Reuters, Coca-Cola recently had a major employee privacy scare when several of its company laptops went missing. The soft drink corporation said that an undisclosed number of laptops were stolen from the Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and could have compromised the information of over 74,000 people. The laptops reportedly held access to sensitive data – including names, addresses, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and credit card information – for thousands of employees, both in the United States and Canada.
The laptops initially disappeared a few months ago and were recovered in early December with little issue. Spokespeople for the company have stated that the computers were taken by a former employee who worked in the maintenance and disposal of old equipment.
Regardless of the finer details, however, Coca-Cola did discover that the computers had held sensitive information and quickly notified its employees of the potential privacy breach. Luckily, only about 18,000 social security numbers were stored on the computers, with less sensitive data – such as driver’s license information – being exposed for the other 56,000.
Still, the data breach is a serious one. Coca-Cola normally maintains a policy that all information on company computers must be encrypted to prevent theft of sensitive information. However, the company learned after recovering the laptops that they had not been given any level of encrypted protection. Because of this blunder and the breach it may have caused, Coke is offering its employees a year of free identity theft protection as an apology.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
So it has finally happened. It has been called the blackest day in Irish history and the fall of the Irish Republic: after a tumultuous series of denials, spin and secret discussions, the IMF and the European Union has intervened to try to stop the death spiral of the Irish economy.
This is hardly surprising; indeed, it has been expected for well over a year. What is surprising to many is that the Irish government, led by Fianna Fail in coalition with the Green Party, allowed the situation to deteriorate to such an extent – and indeed, that they did not admit failure and throw themselves at the mercy of the IMF and the European Union months earlier.
Up until November 18th, the Irish government has insisted that it did not need a bailout, and that the State was fully funded at least until the middle of next year. Never believe anything until it has been officially denied, right?
In a deal published this week, the IMF and EU will lend the Irish state €85bn ($114bn). This astronomical figure will be used primarily to prop up confidence in the failed Irish banks.
Meanwhile, the Irish government has published its so-called four year recovery plan, which is a euphemism for the fourth austerity budget to be imposed on the Irish people. It promises to be far more draconian than previous austerity measures. The aim of this budget is to make an adjustment of €15bn in government spending over the next four years, starting with €6bn this year. The Irish can expect minimum wage pay cuts, tax hikes, VAT hikes and savage cuts in the health sector, welfare payments, child benefits and education. The Irish government will not publish the full details of the horror to come until December 7th, further prolonging the miserable uncertainty the nation is facing.
The latest austerity budget will be the final blow to low- and middle-income families. This is not going to be a matter of spoiled spongers moaning about fewer free welfare goodies to avail of. It will be a matter of whether to pay off your mortgage or your electricity bill or feed your children. This is not an attempt at melodrama. It is happening already, and the new austerity budget has not even been implemented yet.
The first basic presumption underpinning these measures is that every citizen of Ireland, young or old, is to blame for the implosion of the Irish economy. Even the Irish media, exuberant in its celebration of the official Fianna Fáil party line during the good old days of the Celtic Tiger and gentle in its criticism now, supports this view. We must all share the burden equally, we are told.
This is not true. Reckless bankers and enabler-politicians are to blame for this mess, which was created behind closed doors and a smoke screen of spin. Astoundingly, even at this late hour the official government line can still be summed up thusly:
This would never have happened if Lehman Brothers hadn’t collapsed, this would never have happened if you people hadn’t spent all your money on new handbags, this would never have happened if the international bond markets hadn’t been so cruelly unfair to us – these are not the droids you are looking for, our full banking guarantee of September 2008 was a fantastic idea, there are no other options and now it’s time to get ready for our brilliant new measures.
The second presumption is that it is possible to slash and burn your way out of a recession. However, the fact that Ireland has already suffered through three austerity budgets while the Irish economy continues to contract should be an obvious indication that this is not so.
The third basic presumption is that the international money markets must be appeased at all costs – and that in order to do this, the Irish state must borrow and borrow anew, pouring billions into a black hole of debt. Fears are already being voiced by several economists that the €85bn bailout will not be enough to save the Irish state, and that it will have to default on this debt anyway. The doomsday scenario is thus: if the Irish state is forced to default on its gigantic debt in the near future, at a time when Spain and Portugal may approach the EU/IMF for a similar bailout, there simply will not be enough money. This in turn could threaten the entire euro zone.
It is likely that the Irish will head for the polls in a general election in January 2011. It is less likely, however, that the current Fianna Fáil/Green Party government will even last that long. The Irish nation is facing complete economic and political meltdown, and the debate about the future now takes place amid a storm of accusations and denials.
In a statement on the new for year recovery plan, Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Cáolain told the Dáil (Irish parliament):
“This is not a plan for national recovery in our view. It is a plan for national impoverishment. It is a savage plan which will force the people to pay dearly for the economic treason committed by the Fianna Fáil/Green government. This government has no right to impose such a plan on the people. The Dáil should be dissolved now on its publication, the budget should be suspended and there should be a general election. It is a travesty that a four-year plan should be devised by the most reviled government in the history of the state – a government whose life is now measured in mere weeks.”
Joe Higgins, Socialist Party MEP for Dublin was equally scathing in his comments. In a statement to the European Parliament, Mr. Higgins said:
“I represent the capital city of the Republic of Ireland, or the former Republic perhaps at this stage, in the European Parliament. The EU Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank are acting as agents for international speculators in financial markets in demanding that the Irish working class pay for the tens of billions that these speculators gambled in property deals in Ireland.”
Mr. Higgins went on to state that there is no moral justification for forcing the Irish people to suffer savage austerity measures and pay for the gambling losses of property speculators.
Mr. Higgins and Mr. Ó Cáolain are not lone voices of dissent, far from it. A march has been arranged for tomorrow by the Irish trade union association to protest further austerity. As many as 60,000 people are expected to march to express their feelings of betrayal, anger and humiliation. One journalist mused that the behavior of the protesters at tomorrow’s march will be a good indication of the level of anger among Irish people. After a students’ protest march turned bloody when riot police charged a few weeks ago, a more sobering view would be that the mood and behavior of the Irish police will be a good indication of how the State will choose to deal with dissent over the coming weeks.19th-century penny lick glasses
A penny lick was a small glass for serving ice cream, used in London, England, and elsewhere in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Street vendors would sell the contents of the glass for one penny. The glass was usually made with a thick glass base and a shallow depression on top in which the ice cream was placed. The customer would lick clean the glass and return it to the vendor, who would reuse it.[1]
The thickness of the glass made the contents appear greater than they were, often disappointing the customer, and the glasses commonly broke or were stolen.[2]
The penny lick was banned in London in 1898 due to concerns about the spread of disease, particularly cholera and tuberculosis, as the glass was often not washed between customers.[3] Questions of hygiene led Italo Marchiony to introduce a pastry cup in New York City in 1896,[4] which he patented in 1903. The waffle ice cream cone rapidly became popular soon afterwards, displacing the penny lick.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]The circle is unbroken: After six months of uncertainty, WAMU-FM (88.5) has found a home for Bluegrass Country, its signature bluegrass music offshoot.
The station announced Thursday it had reached an agreement with the Bluegrass Country Foundation, a nonprofit group run by familiar names in the District’s bluegrass community, to take over the service.
Randy Barrett, president of the DC Bluegrass Union and a director of the Bluegrass Country Foundation, said the foundation raised $150,000 in the months before the agreement, but the deal, which takes effect Feb. 6, ultimately was made for no cash.
“No one thought this was possible, but we pulled it off,” he said.
Bluegrass Country will continue broadcasting for at least two years on 105.5 FM, as it had under WAMU, and on a WAMU HD channel. The foundation also received much of WAMU’s digital music library and rights to the Bluegrass Country name and logo.
[Group moves to keep bluegrass on Washington’s airwaves]
Dick Spottswood and Gary Henderson, who began producing bluegrass shows for WAMU 50 years ago, are among the DJs who will move with the station. Bluegrass Country will continue working out of WAMU’s offices at American University for at least a year.
“We all had the same desire, which was to have the WAMU Bluegrass legacy continue,” WAMU General Manager J.J. Yore said in a statement. “With a mutual goal in mind, we worked quickly and collaboratively so there would be no loss of service for our bluegrass community.”
[After nearly 50 years, bluegrass could disappear from Washington’s airwaves]
Though bluegrass was first broadcast on WAMU in 1967 and gained a large following in the Washington region, the station announced in July that it was selling Bluegrass Country, citing changing demographics and a greater interest in news programming among listeners.
Bluegrass Country, which was running an annual deficit of up to $250,000 at WAMU, costs about $325,000 a year to keep on the air, Barrett said. The station will need financial contributions from supporters to keep bluegrass |
– Complete
As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – Arthurians
Additional polearm concept art. – Complete
Polearm v2: Complete. – Complete
Update completed weapons scale to better convey weight and fit better in hands. – Complete
As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – TDD
Polearm v1: Complete. – Complete
Polearm v2: Complete. – Complete
Polearm v3: Complete. – Complete
Update completed weapons scale to better convey weight and fit better in hands. – Complete
As a Developer, I’d like to have a selection of weapons that visually represent each Realm’s identity. – Viking
“Epic valentines” axe model created. – Complete
Update completed weapons scale to better convey weight and fit better in hands. – Complete
As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to be able to pick an item up off the ground, put it in my inventory, and if applicable, equip it.
Optimizing gear slot information sent by packed/fast entity writers. – Complete
As a Developer, I’d like the Camelot Unchained ability system to fully support the design scope of the game for B1.
Health bar heal/damage events are based off of combat events passed from the server. – Complete
As a Developer, I’d like to prototype various combat animations to support future system improvements during Beta.
Two-handed greatsword animations:
Offensive stance death. – Complete
Defensive stance death. – Complete
Animation improvement testing: Two-handed axe swings using four part setup. – Complete
Polearm animations:
Skirt and cloak secondary animation improvements. – Complete
Update torso to better blend to lower body – based on improvements to tech. – Complete
As a Developer, I’d like to improve the visuals of our current characters and armor, and note lessons learned to move forward into our next iterations.
Improve Arthurian heavy armor materials. – Complete
As a Backer and Developer in B1, I’d like to see improvements in the visual quality of armor for CU.
Fall Court heavy armor test:
Armor has stats and is available in player inventory. – Complete
As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to be able to further personalize my character through the use of the Banes and Boons system.
B&B Icons:
Additional Banes and Boons icons. – Complete
As a Developer, I’d like to pull the physics server out to its own process for improved network performance.
Setup standalone AWS instance. – Complete
As a Backer, I want an animation system that blends multiple animations together, allowing for immersive and fun combat.
Skeleton cogs now contain a list of all the AnimSets and their tags. – Complete
New AnimSetComponent chooses a new AnimSet from various things about the owning Entity. – Complete
AnimSetComponent will re-choose whenever gear or modes change. – Complete
Walk controller will only rotate the character’s body if we’re in an AnimSet with a Travel tags. – Complete
Unify sound effects creation with existing animation creation using tags. – Complete
Prevent client from starting animations unless all requirements are met. – Complete
First pass: data entry anim set tags. – Complete
New Cards:
We needed a new version of our 1 siege weapon item for Beta 1 as we’ll be using the new ability system, and, time allowing, unique realm versions.
As a Backer in Beta 1, I’d like to use a siege weapon.
First pass: Realm-specific siege weapon concept art. – CompleteOne of Brisbane busiest train stations - Fortitude Valley - needs millions of dollars of work to prevent a repeat of flooding that stopped all trains in both 2014 and 2015.
A six month Queensland Rail investigation has blamed drainage pipes under the station that are too small, rail tracks that are six metres lower than the rest of Fortitude Valley and one drainage pipe that was 80 per cent blocked.
These three facts – plus torrential rain in November 2014 and May 2015 – combined to put 30 centimetres of water over the train tracks in November 2014, cancelling hundreds of trains for hours.
The blunt report, by consultants Jacobs, has put forward four options to fix the problem and puts the cost of repairs by widening drainage pipes at between $17.1 million and $19.2 million.By Alexandra Zaslow
Melissa Dohme Hill met her husband in a fairly unconventional way by most people’s standards.
At 20 years old, the Tampa resident seemed to have everything going for her. She was a straight-A college student with tons of friends, but on the inside she was terrified.
Melissa was in an abusive relationship and didn’t realize it at the time.
“I was young and naive and thought he was just angry and would get over it, so I didn’t tell anyone,” Melissa, now 24, told Yahoo News.
It wasn’t until her ex-boyfriend threatened to kill her that she decided to take action.
In October 2011, she broke up with him and turned him in to the police, who arrested him for battery. She thought that would be it and she’d never see him again, but she thought wrong.
Three months later, on Jan. 23, 2012, she received hundreds of texts and calls in the middle of the night from him and, against her better judgment, she responded. He claimed he needed closure and wanted to come by for a few minutes to give her a hug.
Little did she know that by walking out to his truck, she was entering a danger zone. He already had a switchblade in hand, and when she went in for a hug, he flipped open the blade and started stabbing her 32 times until she was unconscious.
She may not remember anything about that night, but Cameron Hill does. He was one of the first responders on the scene, and as he watched her get airlifted to the closest hospital, he had a weird feeling that their paths would cross again soon.
Sure enough, they reconnected 10 months later, when Melissa was being honored at a luncheon. To her surprise, all the firefighters from the night of the attack showed up.
The couple immediately hit it off, and Hill ended up inviting her to the Clearwater Fire Department for dinner.
“I told myself I was never going to date again,” Melissa said. “I had been through too much, but there was something irresistible about him.”
After they got engaged at a Tampa Bay Rays game in May 2015, a local wedding planner who knew their story offered to throw them a wedding at no cost.
All the paramedics and the trauma surgeon from that infamous night attended their March 4 wedding.
Melissa has become such good friends with the police officer who found her that she asked her to be a bridesmaid.
She has now dedicated her life to advocate for domestic violence prevention and works at Hands Across the Bay, a nonprofit that does just that.
“As much as I wish I didn’t go through what I did, it brought my life purpose and led me to meet my soulmate,” she said.NEW YORK -- Morris Claiborne was so stunned that he lost his breath. Was that really Jerry Jones on the line asking whether he wanted to join the Dallas Cowboys, a team that had not even bothered to check to make sure it had his correct contact information leading up to the NFL draft?
The Cowboys had not interviewed Claiborne at the combine or invited him to Valley Ranch. To his knowledge, they hadn't contacted his agent or his college coach. Nothing. Radio silence.
"Who is it?" someone asked.
"The Cowboys," Claiborne mouthed.
"The look in their eyes, my dad sitting beside me, oh my God," Claiborne said nearly an hour later, still shocked. "It says a lot when a team comes that far to come all the way up to get you."
The story of the first round of the draft Thursday night was the frenetic pace at which teams struck deals to move up. We knew weeks ago that the Washington Redskins were willing to move up four spots to select their next franchise quarterback, Robert Griffin III, second overall.
But Cleveland? And Jacksonville? And Dallas? And Philadelphia? And New England (twice!)? And Minnesota? And Tampa Bay?
All made trades to move up, sending a message that was received loud and clear: We want you so much we were willing to give up valuable assets in order to get you. Don't let us down. We expect you to make an impact right away.
Talk about pressure.
Cleveland was so concerned someone might jump up to No. 3 to take Alabama running back Trent Richardson that it gave Minnesota a fourth-, fifth- and seventh-round pick in order to move up one spot to take him. Jacksonville sent a fourth-round pick to Tampa Bay to move up two spots to take Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon.
When Philadelphia's desired player was shockingly still on the board at No. 12, the Eagles made a trade with Seattle to move up three spots to select Mississippi State defensive tackle Fletcher Cox.
New England moved up to take Syracuse defensive end Chandler Jones at 21 and then moved up again to select Alabama linebacker Dont'a Hightower at 25. Minnesota moved up to take Notre Dame safety Harrison Smith at 29, and then Tampa Bay moved to 31 to take Boise State running back Doug Martin.
That was an unprecedented amount of movement.
"It means a lot," Richardson said. "For [the Browns] to trade up for me, I've got a lot to prove."
Yes, he does. All the picks do. Richardson admitted, "There's going to be pressure," and he was right. There is pressure enough as a first-round pick. To be a first-round pick who cost additional picks, that takes the stakes to an even higher level. These players must start. They must produce. They must make an impact.
The funny thing was Claiborne said he didn't feel any of it, and really, why should he? He already had endured the indignity of reports of his Wonderlic score. Claiborne scored a four, tying the lowest known score by a draft prospect.
He was castigated on Twitter and Facebook, called stupid and much worse.
"I'm human," Claiborne said. "You can probably try to act like things don't hurt you and try not to show it, but on the inside, things do hurt. Some people are just heartless. They don't have a heart about some of the things they say, but it would take more than that to knock me down."
Claiborne accurately said of the Wonderlic: "That test don't tell me who I am and what kind of guy I am." He said he didn't try on the test, finishing only 15 to 18 of the 50 questions because he didn't think the test applied to football. Believe him or not, Claiborne was persuasive and appeared savvy, not stupid.
"I came to the combine for football," he said, adding of the test, "There weren't any questions about football."
An embarrassingly low Wonderlic score could have scared off the Cowboys. Instead, they aggressively moved up to take a player who should at some point this season challenge Mike Jenkins for the starting spot opposite Brandon Carr, the Cowboys' biggest offseason acquisition.
Dallas didn't move up eight spots to select Claiborne No. 6 overall for Claiborne not to have a big role.
Still, Claiborne was most stunned that Dallas made the move at all.
"I don't think they looked at me," he said of the months leading up to Thursday night.
No contact at all?
"You know how people call to update your number? I didn't even get that call," Claiborne said.
He thought he was going to Minnesota or Tampa Bay, the teams most frequently thought to have interest in Claiborne.
But Dallas?
"It says a lot," Claiborne said.
"I always had it in the back of my mind that no pick is in stone," he added. "Everybody trades up and trades down by the minute. I wasn't sticking myself into any of those teams. I was just ready to get off the board, really."
Claiborne got off the board and jumped into what should be a stressful, pressure-filled situation. In Dallas, he now is the chosen one. Being a high pick brings high expectations. When a team gives up the 45th overall pick to move up to get you, the expectations only become higher.
There are plenty of players who will feel that. Claiborne should feel it, but after all he went through leading up to the draft -- the humiliation, the hurt, the anger -- he won't. He will feel relief.I found Essena O’Neill’s story to be depressing but unsurprising.
I’ve written before about the high cost of having a high profile on social media and the dangerous addictiveness of having constant attention paid to you—but that attention being superficial “fan” attention that can turn hostile in the blink of an eye. I think her story is likely only the beginning of many online celebrities turning against the toxic side of online fan culture and the way young people in 2015 are encouraged to live their whole lives in public.
But the side of the story I find most interesting is the tawdry, bottom line side of the story—the economics of being “Instagram famous.” I was especially interested by The Daily Mail shaming her for directly appealing to her online fans for donations to support her now that she’s quit Instagram modeling and therefore lost her corporate sponsorships.
My first reaction is I’m against people shaming other people for starting crowdfunding campaigns in general, unless the campaign directly supports a hateful or destructive cause.
But more importantly, I feel like O’Neill’s been placed in a tough position many other people have found themselves in: once you’re famous or notorious enough, going back to a “normal life” is difficult, sometimes impossible. Most of the advice we give to job seekers about how to handle social media is to either keep a low profile or to carefully craft an online profile so a Google search of your name shows a hiring manager what they want to see—for most “normal” jobs this means being a quiet, hardworking, uncontroversial person who doesn’t make waves.
That’s not an option for Essena O’Neill, whose original reputation as an Instagram model was already inescapable and who will now be inescapably known as the Instagram model who couldn’t handle the life and quit. It’s even worse for people whose Google searches show only incidents they’ve been publicly shamed for. The worst is to imagine being someone like Monica Lewinsky, who became a nationwide headline and then a nationwide punchline, and was essentially given no options for a career for a decade besides making fun of herself on reality TV.
But the interesting thing about O’Neill’s story is the degree to which her online presence was already a job, how her glamorous “Instagram girl” lifestyle was in reality a daily act of labor that took from her more than it gave. It was the worst kind of job lock-in, too; it was the kind of job that required creating the illusion that she wasn’t working at all, and therefore leaving her with a reputation as “spoiled,” “privileged” and unemployable once she quit.
Essena O’Neill is just another example of one of the most dangerous trends of the New Economy. She was making a living giving away content that was “free” to users, creating the illusion of a “sharing economy” where money was of no concern. Her customers didn’t know they were customers. She had no paywall. She was ad-supported.
It’s an education, reading through O’Neill’s edited captions for her old Instagram pics, revealing the unpleasant details of how the social media sausage gets made. Being an “Instagram model,” it turns out, is not as simple as taking candid selfies while living a glamorous life and making money from nowhere while doing so.
It turns out that it’s the same kind of work as being an old-fashioned model. Detailed, micromanaging spec sheets from corporate sponsors who have exacting standards for what they expect from you in order for you to be the right face to link to their brand. Long, grueling photo shoots where she has to choose exactly the right makeup and the right clothing and the right lighting to get the “perfect” simulation of a candid selfie. Constantly playing the game of self-promotion to keep herself visible to marketers and advertisers so she can keep the sponsorship checks rolling in so she can make rent.
What’s most striking is how the life of a modern Instagram model seems, if anything, more exploitative and stressful than the horror stories we hear about “traditional” models. The figures she quotes—$400 here, $400 there, $2,000 for a particularly lucrative endorsement—are paltry compared to rates in the world of modeling for magazines and billboards. She does the bulk of her own work—she schedules her shoots, she dresses herself and does her own makeup and hair, she even takes many of her own photos. Unlike traditional models, she takes tons of shots—just as meticulously posed and edited as the ones she gets paid for—for free, in order to “build her brand” and increase her follower count so she has something to sell to the people who do pay her.
Even compared to the horror stories about abuse and exploitation in traditional modeling, this sounds exhausting and thankless. And yet it’s typical for New Media and for industries that have been “disrupted” by tech.
I don’t hang out with a lot of Instagram models in my day-to-day life. I do hang out with bloggers, freelance writers, webcomic artists, actors and comedians who all make money on social media. The story is the same in all creative fields: incredible pressure to ply your trade gratis “for exposure,” doing nine gigs that pay little to nothing for every one gig that pays just enough to keep the lights on, rates that keep on getting lower and lower.
And a whole ton of unpaid, invisible labor. Phenomenally successful “YouTube stars” are, unlike actors or standup comedians of the past, completely responsible for doing all their own camera work, editing, post-production, marketing and advertising, and they make much less per hour for their labor than their “traditional media” predecessors. The idea of ever making a steady paycheck for your work in a creative field is becoming obsolete; everyone has to be an entrepreneur, with all the risk and all the extra backend labor that entails.
It’s a bad situation. It’s a situation largely caused by the expectations of an audience that’s addicted to getting things “for free.” It’s, in other words, our fault.
Subscription-based models where the readers pay directly for content that they want lead to a relatively stable revenue model that lets you pay your contributors on a stable basis. “Free” content sponsored by advertising, by contrast, leads to a per-click or per-view economy that requires a constant push to get more eyeballs, and where the budget for compensation is wildly unstable and uncertain.
No wonder there’s so much anger around adblocking and native advertising. It’s an arms race between advertisers and consumers, which is another way of saying it’s an arms race of ourselves against ourselves—our contradictory desire for “authentic” content that wasn’t paid for by someone else and for “free” content we don’t have to pay for ourselves.
Small wonder that the “prestige” media outlets still known for risk-taking and quality—that, for instance, have the courage to speak out against the “native advertising” trend—are the ones that still have a subscriber base, and outlets known and beloved for “free content” are sparking uprisings among their user base by trying to bring subscription fees back.
What we seem to prize most in the modern media landscape—and in the New Economy in general—is a particularly appealing illusion: the illusion of abundance, of a pure “gift economy.” The insulting and ceaseless demands that artists do art “for exposure” comes from an illusion promulgated by artists themselves—that we blog or draw webcomics or film YouTube sketches or take gorgeous fashion selfies for the sheer joy of it, and we’re inviting our audience in to freely partake in that joy. In the supposedly enlightened and open society of the Internet, we still treat as taboo any frank discussion of the ugly fact that artists have to pay bills and can’t afford to make art if making art isn’t a paying job.
So of course this will lead to your work being compromised, when you have to find hidden, sneaky ways to get paid that preserve the illusion you’re just an ordinary girl taking photos of her beautiful life, or an ordinary dude just streaming video games you happen to love, or a well-respected newspaper whose journalistic integrity has been totally unaffected by the fact that no one buys the paper anymore.
People are accusing O’Neill of hypocrisy for asking for donations from her fans after turning her back on her Instagram career. But the real hypocrisy is from the people who were happy to consume her photos “for free,” remaining blissfully, willfully ignorant of the money they must have known was changing hands behind the scenes, but who are now offended because she’s making explicit that her online presence is a job she does for money.
I’ve always felt that the New Economy’s dependence on the illusion of abundance and “free content” was unsustainable. Anything built on an illusion will be. Of course when you encourage people to think of your content as “free” they’re going to try to get it with as few hassles as possible, and think of blocking ads as removing a nuisance rather than stealing from creators. Of course if you build an online presence around a fake narrative of a beautiful worry-free life where money is not a concern for you, you’re going to find your fan base falling apart when you broadcast to them that you do in fact have money concerns.
I’m a fan of paywalls, subscriptions, and crowdfunding because they’re honest. They involve selling a product or service to the people who are actually consuming it, not involving shadowy third parties. They make you aware and keep you aware that the photos you like looking at or the blog posts you like reading cost someone time and energy to create, rather than appearing magically from the ether.
O’Neill used to make her money by creating in her audience’s minds the idea that they had an intimate relationship with her—a peek into her daily life—when really it was a three-way relationship: a relationship between her, her audience, and her advertisers, with the advertisers being the key member in the partnership.
Now she’s offering the real version of what she was offering an illusion of. She’s offering to let people see videos and blog posts about what she really believes and thinks, in return for their directly giving her money if they like what she’s doing so she can do more of it.
It’s not an ideal situation. But it’s a better situation than the one she was in—one that, at least, involves much less of her bullshitting her followers and her followers bullshitting themselves. It’s a healthier model on which to build a career out of living your life in public, and one I think has far more of a future.IN SPACE: In this handout from NASA/ESA, an artist's concept illustrates a quasar, or feeding black hole. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) revealed millions of potential black holes in its survey of the sky in 2011. The WISE telescope, which ceased operation is February of 2011 after it ran out of coolant to keep its electronics cool, made the full sky image and was released to the public in March with hopes of astronomers making discoveries. (Photo by NASA/ESAvia Getty Images) (Photo by NASA/ESAvia Getty Images)
Physicists predict the universe is primed for a “cosmological collapse” that will cause the universe to stop expanding at its current rate and ultimately collapse in on itself to wipe away all known matter.
Physicists Nemanja Kaloper at the University of California Davis and Antonio Padilla at the University of Nottingham proposed the “imminent” collapse – which on the cosmological scale is a few tens of billions of years from today, Phys.org reports. Their paper published in Physical Review Letters focuses on the “dark energy” causing the constant expansion of the universe that is predicted to ultimately continue on a path toward collapse.
The researchers sought to answer the massive physics quandary of why the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate and to identify what the dark energy is causing the acceleration.
“I think we have opened up a brand new approach to what some have described as ‘the mother of all physics problems,’ namely the cosmological constant problem,” Padilla told Phys.org. “It’s way too early to say if it will stand the test of time, but so far it has stood up to scrutiny, and it does seem to address the issue of vacuum energy contributions from the standard model, and how they gravitate.”
The “cosmological constant problem” is that the predicted vacuum energy density expanding the universe is far greater than what is observed. Previous research on vacuum energy predicts the universe will collapse – but physicists are looking to pinpoint what specific mechanism will trigger the “slow roll” collapse.
According to Phys.org, the new mechanism proposes that “the universe originated under a set of specific initial conditions so that it naturally evolved to its present state of acceleration and will continue on a path toward collapse. In this scenario, once the collapse trigger begins to dominate, it does so in a period of “slow roll” that brings about the accelerated expansion we see today.”
The approximately 13.8 billion-year-old universe will ultimately cease its expansion and hit a turnaround point in which it will begin a sloped shrinking that ends in a “big crunch.”
“The ‘technically natural’ size of the slope controls when the collapse trigger begins to dominate, but was it guaranteed to give us slow roll and therefore the accelerated expansion?” Padilla said. “Naively one might have expected to have to fine-tune some initial conditions to guarantee this, but remarkably that is not the case. The dynamics of vacuum energy sequestering guarantee the slow roll.”
The researchers say “there is much to do” still in identifying the specific mechanism which will cause the universe to stop expanding and begin shrinking. The researcher paper concludes that “the present epoch of acceleration may be evidence of impending doom... A detailed analysis to better quantify these predictions is certainly warranted.”Having wrapped up another semester, one of my final class projects came near and dear to my heart. We were given the assignment to create short podcasts using E.B. White’s Here is New York as inspiration, resulting in a collection of miNY Stories pertaining to New York in 1949. At this time, the last of Manhattan’s now extinct elevated trains was still standing…but not for long. While creating the podcast The Third Avenue El: Noise-talgia, the longstanding admiration for the above ground transportation system that once loomed above the avenues of Manhattan became apparent. The Third Avenue El being the most adored and romanticized of rides.
A focal piece of research was Sunny Statler’s article “Farewell to the El: Nostalgic Urban Visuality on the Third Avenue Elevated Train” (2006), Statler explores the unique experience of riding on the El. This commute not only induced straphangers to daydreaming, but also gave inspiration for artists alike. Works such as Gnir Rednow, the collaborative film between Joseph Cornell and Stan Brakhage, depict the Third Avenue El in a dream-like sequence of reverse frames, reflections, and shadows. A trip on the Third Avenue El allowed riders to view the city in an intimate way; glimpsing into the private sanctuary of apartment life, catching the aroma kitchen concoctions, and all the daily chores and pastimes of compact Manhattan life. Statler eloquently explains how the El encouraged the imagination of its passengers:
“The embodied connection to city space should not suggest that El riders experienced a more real version of the city than subway riders did – it was a wholly different one. Subway car views alternated between dark tunnels and stations distinguishable only by name; lone riders retreated into internal fantasy through reading, daydreaming or dozing. El passengers, on the other hand experienced fantasies that were directed outward into external city space. Technologies of transportation reinforce urban subjectivity by literalizing views of the city: moving underground, New York became a space of invisibility and isolation; moving above ground and in close proximity to city life opened up otherwise invisible space to fantasies of communion.” (p. 872)
Being in the School of Information and Library Science, the focus of our assignment was research and the use of collections as resources. While the New York Transit Museum and NYPL Digital Gallery fueled El imagery, this post is dedicated to the website NYCSubway.org. Ran by enthusiasts and volunteers, NYCSubway.org is an extensive and comprehensive digital archive for all eras of New York City transportation. The endless pages of photos of train cars, stations, tracks, and maps sends the heart of the little boy fascinated with trains inside all of us into a flutter. The Third Avenue El has a collection of 770 images alone. Audio of the rumble that was ultimately the El’s demise, was taken from the below film hosted on the Prelinger Archives. Sometimes, noise pollution can be sorely missed.
Stratler, S. (2006) Farewell to the El: Nostalgic urban visuality on the third Avenue elevated train. American Quarterly. 58(3). 869-890. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/This video shows the entire, new all black uniform that the Utes will sport in the annual blackout game. Rumor has it though, the matte black helmets with the classic Utes logo highlighted in red that are seen in this dramatic video, will likely be showcased against ASU Saturday.
The Utes' first "blackout game" in 2008 got players and fans alike excited. "We just got together and thought of things we can do to get people into the game and get the crowd excited," former Ute Brandon Godfrey said.
That game ended in a thrilling come-from-behind Utes victory against TCU.
However, Godfrey recognized that the black uniform wasnt going to be a miracle worker.
"It's a uniform and you put it on the same way," he said. "It's just a different color."
"It looked nice. The whole stadium was dark," former Utah linebacker Stevenson Sylvester said regarding that first blackout game. "It was a huge advantage for us on the field, just the atmosphere on that type of game."
Although Utah will not be dressed in their entire blackout uniforms against Arizona State, that same excitement could be a factor if Utah showcases their new black helmet Saturday.Bailly joined OH Leuven in 2012
Belgian goalkeeper Logan Bailly has agreed in principle to join Celtic, according to his club OH Leuven.
The 29-year-old, who has eight caps for his country, will command a transfer fee as he is still under contract with the Belgian club.
Bailly came through the youth ranks with Standard Liege and also spent time with Borussia Monchengladbach.
Celtic are seeking cover for Craig Gordon following the summer departure of Lukasz Zaluska.
Manager Ronny Deila confirmed following his side's 5-3 friendly defeat by Dukla Prague on Saturday that he was looking for a third goalkeeper ahead of the Champions League qualifiers.
Leo Fasan played the second half after replacing Gordon but was uncomfortable with his kicking throughout.
Bailly made his senior debut with Racing Genk in 2002 before moving to Monchengladbach in 2009.
He moved on to Leuven in 2012 and helped the club gain promotion to the Belgian top flight last season.This weekend, Amazon.com will release the entire first season of their television show based on one of the greatest works in the genre, The Man in the High Castle. The novel is one of the best known from Philip K. Dick, and its release helped to establish his career as a novelist and as one of the genre's more interesting authors.
Philip K. Dick was born prematurely on December 16th, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois: his twin sister, Jane, died just over a month later. Dick would later be haunted by the death of his sister. Throughout his childhood, his family moved across the country, eventually settling in California. He discovered books at a young age, reading fantasy tales such as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and L. Frank Baum's Oz novels, as well as magazines like Astounding Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. He taught himself to type and began writing stories of his own, eventually writing a novel before reaching high school.
In 1952, Dick published his first short story, “Beyond Lies the Wub,” in the July issue of Planet Stories, and soon after started to publish in other magazines like Imagination, If, Galaxy Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and others. He found representation through the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and attempted to sell several books before Ace picked up his first science-fiction novel, Solar Lottery. It was published in 1955 as an Ace Double, along with Leigh Brackett's The Big Jump. Around the same time, Dick began to suffer from depression and paranoia, his symptoms exacerbated by a pair of FBI agents who came to question him (likely due to his wife Kleo's leftist activities). Despite this, Dick published a number of other novels throughout the 1950s: The Man Who Japed (1956), The World Jones Made (1956), Eye in the Sky (1957), The Cosmic Puppets (1957), Time Out of Joint (1959), Dr. Futurity (1960) and Vulcan's Hammer (1960).
By 1960, science fiction publishing entered a very rough period. Financially struggling, Dick began working in a store owned by his third wife, Anne, selling jewelry. He didn't enjoy the work, and ended up taking frequent trips to a family cabin, where he sat down to write. "I started with nothing but the name ‘Mister Tagomi’ written on a scrap of paper, no other notes," Dick said in his final interview with Rod Sterling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine. He started referring to the I Ching, an ancient Chinese divination text, for help in figuring out the plot of a novel, which would eventually become The Man in the High Castle. In an interview with Vertex in 1974, he noted that at points, he used the I Ching in the same way his characters did: "In each case when they asked a question, I threw the coins and wrote the hexagram lines they got. That governed the direction of the book. Like in the end when Juliana Frink is deciding whether or not to tell Hawthorne Abensen that he is the target of assassins, the answer indicated that she should. Now if it had said not to tell him, I would have had her not go there." Dick was also aided by several years of research that he'd done at UC Berkley, reading up on German history and language, from which he incorporated details into the book.
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Dick noted that relying on the I Ching was useful to a point, but was also frustrating: "That’s why the ending is so unresolved…I did throw the coins for the characters, and I did give what the coins got—the hexagrams—and I was faithful to what the I Ching actually showed, but the I Ching copped out completely, and left me stranded." He finished the manuscript, and showed it to his wife. "She said, 'It’s all right, but you’ll never make more than $750 off of it. I don’t even see where it’s worth your whil e to submit it to your agent,' " Dick mentions in the his interview with The Twilight Zone Magazine.
The Man in the High Castle depicts an alternate history in which the Axis Powers had triumphed during World War II. Franklin D. Roosevelt had been killed in an assassination attempt in 1933, leading to a continued depression in the United States: by the time World War II erupted, the U.S. wasn't able to defend itself against either the German or Japanese militaries. By the end of the war, Japan had conquered Western North America, while the Germans took over much of the East Coast, with only part of the Rockies dividing the two. As both Japan and Germany become dominant powers in the world, tensions between the two rise. With this as the background, several characters come into contact with a mysterious book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts a world in which Germany and Japan lost the war, and glimpse the possibility that their world is not entirely what it seems.
Dick ended up selling the novel to Putnam for $1500, where it was then picked up by the Science Fiction Book Club. Upon its publication in October 1962, The Man in the High Castle earned overwhelmingly positive reviews. In 1963, it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. In 1964, Dick began writing a sequel to the novel, completing a couple of chapters, but ultimately abandoned the project.
The Man in the High Castle was one of the first examples of what would become Dick's signature style: his stories are complex, featuring regular characters altered by much larger events surrounding them, often influencing their perceptions on reality. Adam Roberts in his History of Science Fiction notes that Dick was "most celebrated for the complexity and thoroughness with which he interrogates the notion that reality might not be what it appears," while John Clute, writing for the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, notea that Dick's writing "became more and more fascinated by the various unreal worlds he created....Throughout, in this first entirely 'typical' Dick novel, an ontological insecurity—about one's physical being, about one's position in a complexly inimical world, about the ultimate nature of reality and appearance (see Perception)—abysmally interpenetrates all other concerns." This style continued with many of Dick's following books, many of which became famous only after his death in 1982, and only then due to the sheer number of adaptations of his works for other media.
In October 2010, the BBC picked up the rights to adapt the novel with Ridley Scott's production company, Scott Free Productions, and the project eventually drifted to the SyFy channel in 2013. Neither channel picked up the series, but in 2014, Amazon Studios picked up the show and filmed the pilot episode. They released it for an open vote from viewers in early 2015. According to Amazon Studios VP Roy Price, the pilot was the most watched episode that the company had produced, and a month later, they green lit the show for a first season of 10 episodes. The story that helped create Dick's career will find a new audience, who will almost assuredly be drawn in to his alternate world.
Andrew Liptak is a freelance writer and historian from Vermont. He can be found online at his site and on Twitter @andrewliptak.This article initially appeared on eastpendulum.com, a French-language blog about the Chinese military and aerospace industry
On November 24th, 2017 |
home with him, only to then 'load up on trash' and take her to the garbage dump with him.
Vimbly also asked participants, speaking from their various bad date experiences, to list their top turn-offs.
Both men and women stated their number one turn-off was simply that the date 'just wasn't my type.' Women then took issue with men who were 'arrogant, rude, unattractive and cheap' respectively.
Men were most turned off by dates who were 'rude, selfish, arrogant and unattractive'.
No-one is safe: Emma Watson (left) had a date tell her he couldn't be friends with 'fat people', Jennifer Love Hewitt (center) was once gifted an 'N Sync T-Shirt and Katie Couric (right) had Larry King 'lunge' for a kiss
TOP FIVE BEHAVIORAL NO-NO'S FOR WOMEN 1. He was too touchy-feely 2. He was too serious/depressing 3. He drank too much 4. He cursed too much 5. He was too shy
TOP FIVE BEHAVIORAL NO-NO'S FOR MEN 1. She was too serious/depressing 2. She cursed too much 3. She was too shy 4. She smoked too much 5. She was too giddy/excited
Interestingly, the top conversational turn-off for women was men who 'only talked about themselves'. For men, it was women who 'didn't say much at all.'
The number one behavioral no-no from the women's perspective was men who were 'too touchy-feely.' For men, it was women who were 'too serious/depressing.'
And it's not just us mortals who have fallen prey to cringe-inducing first dates.
Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt once relayed a date she went on with an older man when she was 25. Apparently, the man in question surprised with her an 'N Sync T-Shirt as a gift, then gave her a box of Altoids to 'prep' her for a goodnight kiss.
British actress Emma Watson told News.com.au last year: 'The worst date I’ve ever been on was a guy who told me he couldn't be friends with fat people or anyone who was unattractive. I realized pretty quickly that he was a nutter.'Hundreds of thousands of Iranian demonstrators gathered to protest President Trump in Tehran on Friday, while celebrating the anniversary of the nation's 1979 revolution.
According to Reuters, Iran's state television reported that the crowd gathered to pledge its allegiance to the clerical establishment in opposition to Trump's administration stating that U.S. has put Iran "on notice."
"America and Trump cannot do a damn thing. We are ready to sacrifice our lives for our leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]," an Iranian man told state television, according to the news source.
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According to the report, the crowd chanted "Death to America" while carrying effigies and banners of Trump.
State television also showed Iranians carrying a banner that read "Thanks Mr. Trump for showing the real face of America."
Trump has been highly critical of Iran in recent weeks following the country's launch of a ballistic missile, and his immigration and refugee executive order has led to rage across the Middle East.
“Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile. Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!” he tweeted last week.
“Iran was on its last legs and ready to collapse until the U.S. came along and gave it a life-line in the form of the Iran Deal: $150 billion,” Trump added in another tweet.There are a hundred reasons out there which tell us why we should buy gold on Akshaya Tritiya, an "auspicious" or "holy" day for Hindus and Jains.
On Monday, the Akshaya Tritiya day this year, gold sales went up by about 15 percent across India and trading in gold ETFs went up by 14 percent. Gold stocks also went up by 7.5 percent.
In Kerala, where every street corner is dotted with jewelry shops, gold sales reportedly went up as high as about 35 percent.
In the midst of his average IPL scores, our cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar lent his face to a 10 gm coin that was sold at a premium price of Rs 3,000. The company that he endorsed with a broad golden smile minted about 100,000 coins.
The basic premise of the auspiciousness is an instinct that fuels greed for the rich, uncertainties for the middle class, and desperation for the poor. If you buy gold on this day, you propitiate certain god(s) who reward you with prosperity. The rich want to accumulate more, while the poor, who don't want to be left behind, want a short cut out of their pits. The middle class wants to stay secure.
If buying gold on Akshaya Tritiya can bring in more gold and money, why not? And if you don't have enough money, the marketers are very kind - they will let you buy on EMIs.
The small-town pawn brokers of yore, which were seen as "blood suckers" by local people till they appeared on national TV as gold finance companies, also sold gold coins because they have so much gold left behind by poor defaulters.
It was not just the gold and jewelry traders who cashed in on the beliefs of auspiciousness or quest for prosperity. Supermarkets, car and finance companies and almost everyone who had something to sell found some reason to tell people why they should buy their products.
From a day of giving years ago, Akshaya Tritiya has become a day of consumption in anticipation of divine dividends for one whole year for both the rich and the poor - it reminds you of George Bush: consume more, you will get more. That even the Christian and Muslim jewelers had no qualms in propitiating the Hindu gods made the day quite secular as well.
Amazing how frantic buying becomes an auspicious activity. Isn't it? Does it really work?
Who knows. Don't question beliefs. It's personal and hurting them is sacrilege.
Akshaya Tritiya is a fantastic example of the great Indian superstition industry which may be worth several billion dollars. As the gold rush ended on Monday, Indians had consumed an estimated 25 tonnes of the metal in a single day and had pushed up the country's trade deficit by US $ 17.7 billion.
Add every bit of astrology, numerology, vaastu, pendants, rings, precious stones, sacred-threads and "yantras" that are sold on TV, internet and newspaper classifieds - it makes a parallel universe of trading in fantasy that no consumer law can ever question. A fantastic business with zero investment, zero laws and windfall returns. You can be a professor of astrology or numerology, by calling yourself one. Nobody will ask you for a certificate or the name of the university where you studied.
If you further expand the ambit by adding businesses such as faith-healing, magical remedies and so called traditional medicine that can cure every ailment from cancer to AIDS, it becomes a bigger universe. Interestingly, no Indian law governs this divine space - no questions asked, no need for peer-reviewed studies and no need to prove anything to anybody. Just believe and buy.
That is the power of marketing superstition and the media.
For instance, Akshaya Tritiya has always been there in the annals of the ritualistic and the religious. They got up in the morning and started giving away things to the poor. Many of them also bought new things to distribute to the poor. Of course, the intentions were not purely charitable - the gods that one propitiated by doing this incidentally had something to do with wealth. Obviously, some smart marketer turned the charity angle inwards - just buy and bring prosperity to yourself.
And gold captured their imagination better than anything because Indians are (numerically several times - according to World Gold Council) crazy about the glitter of the yellow metal.
China, which is closely behind India in its appetite for gold, has a similar penchant for superstitions which the authorities are struggling to curb. This article highlights how since liberalisation, China has created a "Feng Shui" economy. Apparently, in China, Feng Shui masters have become the guests of honour of the Chinese elite and "people have become psychologically dependent on it".
In India, Vaastu has made an equally pervasive impact on the psyche of people who are willing to buy irrational suggestions on their bedrooms, doors or kitchen in the hope of warding off evil or inviting prosperity.
Ask the Vaastu folks if they know civil engineering or architecture or the local government rules on construction or minimum standards of construction to advise people on buildings. They will get into a barrage of "ancient" texts and "science" that smack of the pseudo-science of astrology. Ask them where they were before the construction boom and if they will go to slum tenements to advise people or advise on low-cost community-housing - you draw a blank.
A Reuters report quoted Wang Zuoan, head of the State Administration of Religious Affairs in China, who said that there had been an explosion of religious belief in his country along with the nation's economic boom, which he attributed to a desire for reassurance in an increasingly complex world. The trend of rising superstition keeping pace with economic growth is true in India as well.
As they say, money begets more money. And a little bit of superstition is a great reassurance when uncertainties grow.
Looking at the ever increasing grip of events such as Akshaya Tritiya and tele marketing of superstition, it is clear that the belief-marketers have cracked the basic human tendency to be irrational, particularly when people are uncertain.
If emotions cannot be rational, how can humans be?
So, happy Akshaya Tritiya and many more such new discoveries that may be in the pipeline.
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.This map shows the general areas and specific locations of winter non-breeding territories for ovenbirds from New Hampshire (in red) and Maryland (in blue). Source: Scientific Reports
To track a tiny songbird, you need a tiny tracker. This has been a problem plaguing ecologists who wished to study the movements of small animals for years, until now.
Researchers at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's migratory bird center have managed to precisely track the migration patterns of tiny ovenbirds as they flew south for the winter by equipping the birds with barely-there GPS chip "backpacks." They published their findings Wednesday in a study in Scientific Reports.
"Tracking an animal this small, with a device of this size, and with this degree of precision has never been done," Peter Marra, head of the migratory bird center, said in a press release. "Now we can identify the exact territories these birds occupied on their tropical wintering grounds. Miniaturizing technology so we can track animals throughout their annual cycle is an essential ingredient of effective conservation."
Other tracking devices have been used to successfully track the movements of larger animals, but with the smallest similar option weighing about 12 grams, they were too heavy for the delicate, little ovenbird, according to the study. Ovenbirds are about the size of tennis ball and weigh the same as four quarters. Strapping them with a bulky, heavy GPS tracker would mean they wouldn't be flying very far at all. And many of the other tiny trackers were imprecise, only able to track the animal's location within about half a mile, and expensive, costing upwards of $3,000 per unit.
In the spring of 2013, the researchers at the bird center tested out the latest in micro GPS trackers: a miniaturized tracking chip that weighs just 1 gram but is able to pinpoint an animal's location within 32 feet. The chips were programmed to begin collecting data on July 1, and switch on for 70 seconds during the night eight to 10 times throughout the year to grab location data.
The next spring, 24 of the tagged birds returned to the same location to breed, but nine of the birds' chips were either damaged or lost. Still, the researchers were able to collect location data from 15 birds, revealing better-than-ever details about exactly where the birds go during the winter months and how the species behaves.
Even this small slice of data already has significant implications for conservationists. Though general migratory patterns are known—scientists already knew, for instance, that the oven birds head down to Mexico, Central America, Florida, and the Caribbean in the winter—the exact locations have been a bit of a mystery. The location data revealed for the first time that ovenbirds from different parts of North America didn't hang out together when they got down south: birds from Maryland settled down in Florida and Cuba, while those from New Hampshire chilled in the Dominican Republic. This knowledge can help conservationists do more accurate population estimates and understand how different groups of the same species interact.
And since some little songbird populations have been declining for decades without any explanation, this technology will be crucial for future conservation efforts. Bonus: tiny birds look pretty cute wearing tiny microchip knapsacks.An Irish city has emerged as a popular destination for workers in the tech industry looking for better career opportunities.
An Irish city has emerged as a popular destination for workers in the tech industry looking for better career opportunities.
Tech workers all over the world are moving to this Irish city for a better life
A new survey has revealed that seven out of ten tech professionals move to Cork for this reason - in addition to obtaining a better work-life balance and quality of life.
Shorter commutes and lower living costs were also reasons for the city's draw according to The Cork Tech Talent Relocation Survey, which included responses from workers of 27 different nationalities.
The respondents - two thirds of whom have relocated to Cork during the last two years - came from countries such as China, the US, South Africa, France, Egypt and the Netherlands.
More than 85pc of those surveyed said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their relocation while 80pc say they now have a better balance between their work and home lives.
"The Cork region is experiencing a surge in the number of international professionals who are moving to the region for the work life balance that both the culture and economic environment can facilitate," Rory Walsh, Cork Regional Manager at Collins McNicholas, which carried out the research in conjunction with Cork Chamber, IDA Ireland and Cork City Council.
"Many expanding global organisations and indigenous companies are offering competitive salaries and interesting projects while the region also provides an unrivalled local charm and thriving social scene."
Out of those surveyed, 78pc said they did not have a difficult time finding a job in Cork and 85pc now have a commute of less than 40 minutes to their workplace.
While just over one quarter of those who relocated were originally from Ireland, some 73pc relocated from outside of Ireland.
"Over the last seven years, Cork has seen consistent growth in the numbers gaining employment across international companies — an increase of 11,500 people since 2009," Ray O’Connor, IDA Regional Manager South West, said.
"A University City with over 30,000 full and part-time students across several colleges; strong established industry clusters; an expanding international airport on its doorstep; a cosmopolitan city with a rich mix of different nationalities; a rich heritage and history; and a great quality of life – these are some of the factors that have attracted both international companies and people with skills and talent to the area."
Online EditorsGreen Party Leader Elizabeth May has vowed to do everything in her power to stop Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline from being built -- and she’s willing to spend time behind bars.
In an impassioned exchange on CTV’s Power Play moments after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his government’s approval of the project -- along with Line 3 -- May swore that the “as long as there’s breath in my body, I’ll fight this damn thing.”
“Of course I’ll go to jail. I’ll block pipelines, I’ll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with First Nations. This is not an issue you compromise on,” said May, a Vancouver Island MP and longstanding voice among Canadian environmentalists.
“We are not giving up. This is a terrible blow and a betrayal. But we do not give up.”
The major announcement on Tuesday afternoon is one of the most pivotal policy decisions since Trudeau’s government took office last fall, and is already being heralded as an economic boon by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Kinder Morgan’s $6.8-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C., and Enbridge’s $7.5-billion Line 3 pipeline replacement, from Alberta to Wisconsin, would increase the province’s pipeline capacity by more than 1.1 million barrels per day and create thousands of jobs.
The Liberal government also said it will block the Northern Gateway project, which would’ve seen a pipeline cross through the Great Bear Rainforest to Kitimat, B.C., and make good on its campaign promise to introduce a tanker moratorium in B.C.’s northern waters.
For May, the most serious concerns come from a boost in tanker traffic along B.C.’s southern coast, which she estimates will increase seven-fold thanks to the Trans Mountain project and threaten tourism, the fishing industry and B.C.’s southern resident killer whale population.
“It’s not a question of if there will be a spill, it’s when there will be a spill,” May said.
May said the type of oil product being carried through the pipeline – a mixture of bitumen and a diluent -- is also cause for concern because “there is no evidence that you can clean up a spill” of that type.
Conservative Interim Leader Rona Ambrose said “thousands of jobs” have been lost with the rejection of the Northern Gateway project, and said she doubts the Liberal government can follow through on the Trans Mountain pipeline project.
“With Kinder Morgan, what I will say is that I don’t think that this pipeline will be built,” Ambrose told reporters in a briefing after the announcement. “I think that the protests will ensue, the fight is on. And so I think today what we saw is one project be rejected -- which is 4,000 jobs (lost) -- and another project sadly be approved that I think all of us know has very little chance of being built.”
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair accused the prime minister of hiding the approval of the Trans Mountain project behind the rejection of the much maligned Northern Gateway project.
“What Mr. Trudeau is trying to do is use Northern Gateway as cover, as camouflage, for the announcement on Kinder Morgan, which breaks a fundamental solemn promise he made to British Columbians. That’s what this is about,” Mulcair said outside the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Mulcair added that he is “very concerned” about the direction Canada’s environmental policy is headed.
“There’s no plan in Canada to reduce greenhouse gases, and there’s no possible way to reduce our overall greenhouse gas productions, because Mr. Trudeau still hasn’t done the hard work of coming up with a plan.”
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley cast a sunnier outlook on the announcement. She said that after “a long dark night” for Alberta’s economy, the province is “finally seeing some morning light.”
“We're getting a chance to sell to China and other new markets at better prices. We're getting a chance to reduce our dependence on one market, and therefore to be more economically independent. And we're getting a chance to pick ourselves up and move forward again,” she said at a press conference in Ottawa.
Notley reiterated Alberta’s plan to eliminate coal-derived energy by 2030 and its carbon tax, both of which are seen as ways to temper environmental policy with oil production.
“To all Canadians, I say this: We don't have to choose between the environment and building the economy. Canada is going to going to be a global leader on climate change. And our country will still create jobs and greater economic equality,” she said.
Indigenous leaders echoed May’s call for action in light of the announcement.
"The struggle will simply intensify," said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of British Columbia Chiefs. "It will become more litigious, it will become more political and the battle will continue."
Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said the federal government will have to answer to Canada’s indigenous community.
"They're not going to exclude us the second time. They don't have consent to come through our treaty lands without us," he said.
"Now's our opportunity to send a clear message that we demand that we're listened to. The standard of consent is one of consensus amongst our people. And I don't see a day where our people will consent to destruction of the land, to destruction of the water. I just don't see it."
With files from the Canadian PressChelsea Clinton has a Variety article. [I refuse to link and reward these guttersnipes.] The media–Politico, The Hill, the New York Times–wants you to know that Chelsea Clinton is wonderful, award-worthy, even. Michelle Malkin has more to say about that.
Why are these publications doing this? Yes, Chelsea has a great P.R. team but unless they’re giving out Rolls Royces as inducements, the various media outlets are pushing this pap of their own free will.
Here’s my theory: The editors and reporters who are still steamed that Hillary lost are angry for more reasons than policy and politics. These folks saw their power diminish greatly. They put every ounce of reportorial and message energy behind Hillary Clinton. Like Barack Obama, they staked their personal success on her election.
Hillary lost. They lost.
Like the fallen U.S.S.R., the tastemakers seek to regain what they’ve lost. Americans will comply with their views or be beaten with Chelsea Clinton until they surrender the narrative.
The media has a will to power. They thought that they could force Hillary Clinton on the American populace. It worked with Barack Obama. Their unabashed cheerleading was an attempt to make people feel stupid, sexist, racist, other for not wanting her as president.
Their relentless browbeating pushed otherwise sympathetic voters into the Trump camp.
For some reason, they believe that their aggression will win Chelsea Clinton favor. It won’t. It will, however, make normal people loathe the media even more, if it’s even possible.White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks to reporters at a news briefing at the White House in August. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
All the women who have accused President Trump of sexual harassment are lying, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday when asked for the official White House position on the issue.
The question was posed during a White House briefing at a time when numerous men in high-profile positions have been undercut of late by allegations of sexual misconduct, including journalist Mark Halperin, who faced accusations this week from former colleagues.
“Obviously, sexual harassment has been in the news,” Jacqueline Alemany of CBS News asked Sanders. “At least 16 women accused the president of sexually harassing them throughout the course of the campaign. Last week, during a press conference in the Rose Garden, the president called these accusations ‘fake news.’ Is the official White House position that all of these women are lying?”
“Yeah, we’ve been clear on that from the beginning, and the president’s spoken on it,” Sanders said, before quickly pivoting to another reporter to ask a question.
[‘My pain is everyday’: After Weinstein’s fall, Trump accusers wonder: Why not him?]
During the Rose Garden news conference that Alemany referenced, Trump was asked about allegations made by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on his television show, “The Apprentice.” She has accused Trump of forcibly kissing her and touching her breast.
“All I can say is it's totally fake news. It's just fake. It's fake. It's made-up stuff, and it's disgraceful, what happens, but that happens in the — that happens in the world of politics,” Trump told reporters.
Eleven women came forward during the 2016 campaign to accuse the then-Republican presidential candidate of unwanted touching or kissing. Other women accused Trump of walking in on them when they were undressing at beauty pageants he owned.
Besides Halperin, other men whose behavior has been called into question in recent weeks include Bill O’Reilly, the star Fox News anchor who was ousted less than a year after Roger Ailes, the network’s co-founder; and Harvey Weinstein, once regarded as one of the most influential figures in the entertainment business.Joe Yerdon joins the show to discuss where it all went wrong for Tim Murray in Buffalo, whether it made sense for the Sabres to clean house in the manner which they did, and where they go from here as an organization now.
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Kellyanne Conway told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday that Senate Democrats’ “congenital, presumptive obstruction and negativity is very concerning.”
The counselor to the President told Hewitt he is “right about the Democrats.”
“They’re obstructing regardless of who the individual is that’s being considered, regardless of the post that needs to be filled,” she continued, “and it’s very frustrating.
“You see a record number of cabinet nominees being obstructed, and they’ve attempted to humiliate them.”
“So far, all but one have gotten through,” she added. “It’s just, we need a government that functions.”
“We still don’t have the Commerce Secretary approved. We don’t have Agriculture. We don’t have HUD. We don’t have any number, and some of the others are new, just in the last week or so.”
You can listen to the entire interview below.
LISTEN:
Follow Datoc on Twitter and FacebookExtra Credits slander
I'd like to take this opportunity to address what I view as slander from James Portnow of Extra Credits at his MAGfest panel. During his panel he was questioned about Gamergate, during which he made some statements which were questionable and one in particular that is flat out factually false. I would like to exercise my right of reply and make sure that people know the truth. This is not the first time Extra Credits has tripped up due to lack of research, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume ignorance rather than malice.
During his panel, James stated that I was a "leader of Gamergate". I would like to know exactly what constitutes this. Does a leader set an agenda for a group? One imagines they have to be involved in that group, perhaps the hashtag, they have to give out orders and objectives. Can you prove that I have done any of these things? Indeed if I recall correctly I have used the hashtag twice, once in a Thunderclap and once in a purely descriptive context regarding Blizzcon. At no point have I ever engaged with the hashtag or had conversations within it, not that that's a sin in any way even if I had. Have I declared myself a leader of this, thing.. whatever it might be? Absolutely not, indeed I've stated in several occasions that it appears leaderless by necessity, due to the very attempts at character assassination that we see levied at any and all with any prominence that would dare speak up for the people (yes, a reminder that these are people not subhumans you get to bully) involved and suggest that maybe, they actually have a point and you should engage them like adults while freezing out trolls and 3rd party bad actors. So the claim that I am a leader of anything other than my own channel is spurious at best, you can quibble over it but I have never declared it, nor ever attempted to mobilize this hashtag or this movement in any way for any specific goal.
The very idea that I am a leader of a movement that I go out of my way to avoid mentioning at every possible opportunity is ridiculous. He talks of deflection and yet that's exactly what I see, the attempt to deflect the legitimate discussion of ethical concerns in this industry, a discussion I've been having since at LEAST 2011 and focus on the actions of bad actors and 3rd party trolls instead. It is a fruitless completely unconstructive notion and I reject it's validity.
Now we go onto the actual falsehood. James makes the outrageous claim that I was paid $20,000 to endorse the game Guns of Icarus. He sources for this an article on Gamasutra written by Howard Tsao of Muse games which can be found here - http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HowardTsao/20140626/219785/Guns_of_Icarus_Online_PostMortem__Epilogue_How_Youtube_Steam_and_Our_Players_Got_Us_This_Far.php
Unfortunately, nowhere in this article is a dollar amount for this promotional deal ever mentioned, so this number is literally pulled from thin air. The $ amounts, none of which are the number James gave out, are for total sales, sales over a specific 2 week period and sales after one video. This number is a lie. It is grossly exaggerated vs what those involved in the deal were actually paid and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he didn't do it to try and make us look bad by picking a huge number to shock the audience. I imagine some people would do that but I'd like to think James is a better person.
Now onto the "endorsement" claim. At no point was any endorsement given to Guns of Icarus by myself. The deal was simple, be involved in a "celebrity deathmatch" style tournament which would be shot from multiple angles, the purpose of which was to raise awareness of the title. This is native advertising, clearly disclosed native advertising in which Youtubers are compensated for their time to play a game. Opinions are not stated about the game at any point, it is live gameplay which for the most point involved shouting at our teammates and little more than that. Does that constitute endorsement? To me, endorsement requires opinion, a specific statement of support. This was never given. Indeed the first Guns of Icarus brand deal took place after my independent assessment of the title. We were asked to play in their tournament only after we'd already come to a conclusion about the game, where no money was ever involved. A weak claim can be made that it is endorsement by association, but as we've seen over the last 6 months, "by association" has become synonymous with "I can't actually criticise you for anything valid so I'm going to tie you to someone else and claim you are responsible for their actions". I reject this as fallacy.
I will however admit some fault in that our disclosure of this deal was initially inconsistent and in the wrong places. Disclosure on Youtube has vastly improved this year, after the discussion in early 2014 which I not only fully cooperated with but admitted I could have done much better and enhanced my disclosure to be absolutely unavoidable as a result. Previously disclosure was given on things like twitter, podcasts and to be found in potentially missable annotations and in the description of the video. As it stands all the promotional videos on our channel are unavoidably disclosed, its impossible to miss. Our hub channel Polaris also suffered a similar issue and has since enhanced disclosure, not that I have any control over what they do.
If James honestly thinks that a disclosed Youtuber tournament is a far larger ethical concern than the various conflicts of interests and distinct lack of disclosure in several proven instances then while he is entitled to his opinion I am also entitled to call it grossly misguided. James shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the roles of Youtubers, the number of hats we where, the fact that we are not traditional journalists (though that certainly does not stop us abiding by the disclosure rules that so many sites seem to conveniently forget every now and again). While traditional outlets claim to have a wall between editorial and advertisement wings, Youtubers are often solo operators. Games sites promote titles constantly with huge site skins and ads. Sites like PCGamer have and continue to write advertorial content (disclosed). Sites such as Kotaku frequently use affiliate links for which they receive a small kickback for each game sold, which naturally includes games that have either been reviewed on the site or advertising on the pages themselves. These are all fine, if properly disclosed. What Youtubers are doing with advertorial is no different, it just happens to be a much newer, more innovative form which conveniently, at least in the case of these tournaments which I've been involved in, avoids the need to state any opinion or give any endorsement to the title and produces enjoyable content for our viewers. It's a win/win, it's ethical (when properly disclosed) and it works, which is why some companies are choosing to do it.
I am extremely disappointed in James poorly researched argument. I expect better of him and the Extra Creditz team. It's another knife in the back from a person that we assisted and promoted in the past and at this point thats ceasing to become a surprise every time it happens.The dramatic rise of antipsychotic prescribing in youth occurred in conjunction with the illegal marketing of the drugs by their makers, resulting in multibillion-dollar settlements with the government
Since 1993, the rate of antipsychotic drug prescribing to children increased by a factor of nearly eight, while prescribing to teens quintupled and in adults nearly doubled, according to a new study.
Virtually all of this growth was seen in prescriptions for second-generation, or so-called atypical antipsychotic medications, which are often dispensed off label — meaning the drugs are prescribed for conditions that they are not specifically approved by the government to treat. Once a drug is allowed on the market, however, doctors are at liberty to use the drug for other conditions: antipsychotics were originally approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but these disorders are uncommon in adults and even more rare in children.
There is much evidence that the vast increases in atypical antipsychotic prescribing in recent decades were fueled by the aggressive marketing tactics of drug companies. In recent years, every major manufacturer of atypical antipsychotics has been involved in the illegal marketing of the drugs (while doctors can prescribe drugs off label, it is against the law for drug makers to market them for off-label uses), each ultimately paying hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in fines for their sales and marketing tactics. The settlements with the U.S. government were among the largest in history.
(MORE: Drugging the Vulnerable: Atypical Antipsychotics in Children and the Elderly)
In June, for example, Johnson and Johnson reportedly agreed to pay up to $2.2 billion for illegally promoting a variety of drugs, primarily the atypical antipsychotic Risperdal — and even that giant settlement with the government doesn’t resolve several other state lawsuits against the company, seeking billions more, for related offenses. In 2009, Eli Lilly was similarly made to pay $1.4 billion in fines related mainly to the illegal marketing of its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa — $615 million of that to settle criminal charges. Further, as we reported last year:
The charges against Lilly involved selling Zyprexa to doctors for use in children, despite the fact that it was not approved for this age group. Bristol Myers Squibb paid $515 million in 2007 to settle charges that it also illegally pushed its antipsychotic Abilify to child psychiatrists. Pfizer paid out $301 million in a similar case related to its drug Geodon. AstraZeneca paid out $520 million to settle charges over the drug Seroquel. In all of these cases, the drugs were sold for unapproved use in youth.
The new study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found that in 2005-09 nearly two thirds of all antipsychotic prescriptions for youth were written for ADHD and other disruptive behavior disorders; these conditions accounted for 34% of all antipsychotic prescriptions for teens. Yet there is little data supporting the safety or efficacy of the drugs for those conditions. The drugs’ effect on children’s brain development is also not known, but their side effect profile is clear: aytpical antipsychotics are known to cause weight gain and diabetes, side effects to which children seem particularly prone.
“As the actual evidence base that would support [such off-label prescriptions of antipsychotics] is scant to non-existent, and the evidence of permeating undue influence of pharma on prescribing practices in psychiatry is abundant, one is led to the conclusion that this is another example of irrational prescribing that can be traced to both the overt and tacit influence of [drug companies] on practitioners,” says Dr. Bruce Perry, a senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy. [Full disclosure: Perry and I have co-authored two books.]
Perry testified for the state of Texas in a case that resulted in a $158 million settlement with Johnson and Johnson in January to resolve claims that it fraudulently marketed Risperdal and swindled the state’s Medicaid program. One aspect of the case involved misleading claims about the drug’s effectiveness for behavior disorders in children.
(MORE: Marijuana Compound Treats Schizophrenia with Few Side Effects: Clinical Trial)
The new Archives study examined thousands of medical records in the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys, comparing antipsychotic prescribing rates in 1993-98 to those in 2005-09. It found that while, on a population level, adults received more prescriptions for antipsychotics from their doctors than did children or teens, the rate of prescription is skyrocketing in younger patients. By 2005-09, the proportion of youth and adult visits to psychiatrists involving antipsychotic prescriptions were roughly equal: 31% and 29%, respectively.
The authors conclude: “In light of known safety concerns and uncertainty over long term risks and benefits, these trends may signal a need to re-evaluate clinical practice patterns.” The authors also call for more clinical trials of antipsychotics’ effect on conditions they are already being used to treat.
The study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, but some of the authors reported prior funding from industry.
Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.Designing a Deep Learning Project
Eren Golge Blocked Unblock Follow |
.
Google is also part of a lobbying group in Germany that opposes the proposed law there, as well, though the company hasn't sent a similar position paper to the German government, a Google spokesman said.The husband of homicide victim Jagtar Gill has been charged with first-degree murder today more than two months after her body was found in the home they shared.
Bhupinderpal Gill, shown above outside of the Ottawa courthouse last week, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Jagtar Gill. (CBC) Bhupinderpal Gill, 38, appeared briefly in court Monday in a courtroom packed with relatives and friends of the Gill family.
His next court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday, by video.
Last week Bhupinderpal Gill showed up at the courthouse with his children to watch as Gurpreet Ronald, a neighbour he was close to and worked with at OC Transpo, was charged with first-degree murder in Jagtar Gill's death.
He was arrested on Sunday.
Jagtar Gill, 43, was found dead in her home on Jan. 29 by her husband and 15-year-old daughter. (Gill family) Ronald's next court appearance is also scheduled for Wednesday.
'The worst has happened' says brother-in-law
Jagtar Gill's family and friends within Ottawa's Sikh community were at the courthouse Monday for Bhupinderpal Gill's appearance, and many left the courtroom in tears.
Family and friends of Bhupinderpal and Jagtar say they've known of marital difficulties in the couple's relationship for several months. Police sources also told CBC News the motive for the killing may have been a love triangle.
Kulwindher Sidhu, Jagtar Gill's brother-in-law, said "the worst has happened" for his family.
"I never expected, but after... they arrested Gurpreet, it was feeling like it was coming," said Sidhu.
Gurpreet Ronald was charged with first-degree murder in Jagtar Gill's death. She was arrested and charged last week. (Facebook) The three children of Bhupinderpal and Jagtar Gill are staying with family, said Sidhu.
Family friend Sarabjit Bajwa said the killing of Jagtar Gill and the arrest of Bhupinderpal Gill has been hard for the family and community to understand.
"You really can't put it all together, the pieces are so apart... so now as police investigate and now we know all that is happening, let's put the pieces together," said Bajwa.
Bloody metal bar became new lead
Jagtar Gill, 43, was found dead by her husband and their 15-year-old daughter on Jan. 29 in the living room of their home at 174 Brambling Way.
That was one day after she had hernia surgery and it was also the day of her 17th wedding anniversary.
Police said they found a bloodstained metal bar in a wooded area on the west side of Cedarview Road, about 300 metres north of Cambrian Road.
Bhupinderpal Gill's next court appearance is Wednesday, via video link. (Sketch by Laurie Foster-Macleod/CBC) Sources told CBC News police believe the bar — a metal weightlifting bar — was used to strike Jagtar Gill before she was stabbed.
Police had asked the public if anyone saw the bar thrown into the wooded area.
Both accused had been under surveillance
Police sources also told CBC News both Bhupinderpal Gill and Gurpreet Ronald had been under surveillance for several weeks.
Video footage from a grocery stores shows Gill and his daughter shopping for flowers and cake on the day Jagtar was killed.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Bhupinderpal Gill's lawyer Rob McGowan said his client was "calm" and understands the impact his arrest has had on the community. McGowan said his client intends to ask for bail.Trades are usually named after the biggest player involved. Ask somebody about the recent Dion Phaneuf trade and they know what you’re talking about right away. Could they name all the other players involved in the trade though?
Along with Phaneuf, the Toronto Maple Leafs sent four prospects to the Ottawa Seantors including Casey Bailey, Ryan Rupert, Cody Donaghey and Matt Frattin, who got to stay with the Leafs’ AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, on loan.
Who came to Toronto? Surely you’ve seen Milan Michalek‘s toe-drag goal, Colin Greening has been getting power-play time and Jared Cowen‘s bizarre contract situation got plenty of attention. Ottawa also gave the Maple Leafs a second-round pick.
There was one more part to that trade that hasn’t seen much, or any of the Toronto spotlight yet: Tobias Lindberg.
“I didn’t even have the slightest idea that I even could get traded,” Lindberg said after a recent Marlies practice. “So yeah, big surprise.”
What was a big surprise for Lindberg could be a big addition to the Maple Leafs. The six-foot-three, 215 pound Swedish winger was a fourth-round pick of the Senators in 2013. He also won the Memorial Cup with the OHL’s Oshawa Generals last year, a team that was coached by current Leafs assistant coach D.J. Smith.
“I was a little nervous and didn’t know what to expect in the beginning, but as soon as I got here and I met the guys, I met the staff, and I saw all the facilities and how professional everything is, I was very excited,” said Lindberg. “The Leafs are rebuilding and that’s an exciting opportunity for a young player so I’m happy.”
It didn’t take long for Lindberg to notice that the Marlies, as well as the Toronto organization as a whole, simply have some things that other teams around the league don’t.
Amenities such as a Marlies strength and conditioning coach, available skills coaches and a focus on statistics that Lindberg didn’t have at his disposal with the Binghamton Senators.
“Video is a thing they do exceptionally well here but we did video, good video, in Binghamton and Ottawa,” said Lindberg. “But here they have I don’t know how many guys that analyze the games and do statistics, but I can only imagine.”
With resources like that at his disposal, Lindberg’s development is up to himself just as much as it is up to the Leafs organization.
Marlies head coach Sheldon Keefe is cautiously optimistic with Lindberg.
“Lindy’s a guy that has teased us at different times to being a dominant player, with his size and skill set, the way he can shoot the puck,” said Keefe. “The challenge for him here has been to consistently do it all the time and to trust himself, and trust his body, that he can be a dominant player all the time.”
“We think he’s capable of doing it a whole lot more than he’s done it. If he’s going to take the next step as a a player that’s what he’s going to have to do.”
Lindberg, 20, began the season with a seven-game goal drought before scoring twice against the Utica Comets on Oct. 30. He failed to score a goal in 10 January games, a slide that featured his final three games in Binghamton and first seven in Toronto. He followed up that slump with a two-goal performance to start February that began a run of five goals in five games.
Lindberg has 10 goals and 23 assists in 52 AHL games this season, tying current Leafs call-up Zach Hyman for 23rd in AHL rookie scoring in two fewer games.
Keefe believes he can crack into Lindberg’s dominant ability through video sessions.
“The approach we’ve taken with him to this point has been showing him on video the times when he’s not competitive enough on the puck or he comes out second and loses a battle,” said Keefe.
“We reference a guy like Zach Hyman. His work ethic and his competitiveness is what’s got him in a solid position to be a productive NHL player in a short time there, and it’s just his hunger and competitiveness that does that.”
Hyman fought off Ryan Getzlaf to assist on the overtime winner on Thursday when the Maple Leafs beat the Anaheim Ducks 6-5.
It’s Hyman’s work ethic that has Keefe wondering if that’s what Toronto is looking for from Lindberg.
“Guys tend to take notice and perhaps that’s something that needs to happen for Lindy,” said Keefe. “He’s a great kid, he’s a good teammate, easy guy to have around, we just want him to keep pushing everyday to be his best.”
Maybe Tobias Lindberg just ends up being a footnote on the Dion Phaneuf trade. Not all prospects pan out, after all.
By the sounds of it, though, the Leafs, and Lindberg, think he could be a lot more.**Intro**
This isn't just a casual music album, this is a snapshot of electronic music as it was in 1977, back when people weren't even sure if electronic music was going to be something that you enjoyed at a dance club or in a concert hall. Also, there weren't really very many commercially made electronic instruments, so a lot of the music that you hear on this album is made from instruments that Kraftwerk made themselves. This means that no only did they write a compose the songs on this album, they designed the timbre of each sound!
**The songs**
There are relatively few songs on this album, but they are all fairly long, and one gets the sense that Kraftwerk worked on each one a lot before they decided they were satisfied and approved the album for release. One gets the impression that every small note shape, timbre, rhythm, and embellishment is there because the band decided to put it there, and nothing was accidental. The stereotypical German attitude toward precision certainly seems to be here.
1.) Europe Endless - A gentle start to the album, a happy beat that suggests the forward motion of travel. Bright percussive electronic sounds and occasional vocals with a pleasant German accent, sometimes distorted and sometimes not. Music already suggests train sounds and train travel, though the song does not commit explicitly toward trains.
2.) The Hall of Mirrors - A darker song, focuses on self consciousness and self-image issues. Repetitive, echoing, and with electronic sounds that suggest pacing footsteps. The vocals seem forlorn to me.
3.) Showroom Dummies - Somewhat silly in some ways, and more dark and ironic in others, this song is about mannequins in a store window, the lyrics are from the mannequins' first person perspective.
4.) Trans-Europe Express - This is the masterpiece of this album. The electronic instruments that they are using seem to perfectly capture the sound and spirit of a train and its sounds. It seems to suggest a train ride at night, because there is a dark mood to it. There is a highly distorted voice that just repeats "Trans-Europe Express" repeatedly as a sort of degenerate chorus, but then there is also non-distorted lyrics that have more content, and are not distorted. Both sets of lyrics are fairly dark and a little creepy. It is amazing to listen to how their notes and sounds artfully imitate a train.
5.) Metal on Metal - The previous Trans-Europe Express song seamlessly transitions into this song. For this reason, it is important that you purchase and enjoy both of these songs after each other. This song is very good for all of the same reasons as Trans-Europe Express is.
6.) Franz Schubert - This song is brighter and happier than the previous four songs. I like to think of it as when the sun comes up in the morning after a long night on the train, and you are looking at the beautiful green countryside of Germany.
7.) Endless Endless. This song is a seamless continuation of Franz Schubert, but with highly distorted, bright vocals that chant "Endless Endless" repeatedly. The timbre, tempo, and accompaniment evolve slowly over time, creating a trance-like atmosphere. The point is not really to listen to the lyrics, it is to study the subtle evolution of the song as it progresses, as with more modern Trance and House music.
**Buying and Listening Advice**
This is an incredible album that offers the modern listener a view of what very early electronic music was like, and the origins of where essentially all of our electronic music came from. Because this album was made well before the days of M3P's, and songs 4&5 and 6&7 continuous transition from one onto the next, it is best to buy this album as a whole, rather than picking out single songs. The Trans-Europe Express/Metal on Metal pair of songs is probably the best part of the album, but all of the songs are rather deep and provocative. Unlike most electronic music, it isn't really something you would play at a party. Instead, consider listening to this music if you feel quiet and meditative.
It is easy for me to give this album 5 stars because it is *so unique*. Enjoy!UA: 112/16 Index: MDE 25/4019/2016 United Arab Emirates (UAE) Date: 13 May 2016
URGENT ACTION
JO URN ALIS T AR RES TE D FOR F ACEB OOK P OS T
Jordanian journalist and poet, Tayseer al-Najjar, was arrested on 13 December 2015 in
Abu Dhabi in the United A rab Emirates in connection with a comment he posted on his
Facebook account in 2014. He has yet to be charged. He may be a prisoner of conscience
detained for the peaceful exerc ise of his right to freedom of expression.
Tayseer Salman al-Najjar, a ged 43, a journalist specialising in culture for the Abu Dhabi al - Dar newspaper, was
about to travel to the Jordanian capital Amman to visit his family on 3 December 2015 when he was told at the
airport that he was banned from leaving the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I n the morning of 13 December, he
received a phone call summoning h im to attend the Security Department in Abu Dhabi at 7pm. H e spoke to his
wife, who was in Jordan, by phone just before he entered the building and was arrested shortly after.
Tayseer al- Najjar’s family were unaware of his whereabouts and the reasons for his ar rest until he was allowed to
call them on 18 February 2016. He told them that he was being held at the Sta te Security Department in solitary
confinement and put under “heavy pressure”. About ten days later, he made another call to his wife stating that he
had been transferred to al-Wathba prison in Abu Dhabi. He has been able to phone his family on a wee kly basis.
Tayseer al-Najjar said that he was accused by security officers of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, of
collaborati ng with Qa tar and of insulting the UAE and its leaders in connection with a 2014 posting on his Facebook
account, in which he praised the Palestinian’s r esistan ce in Gaza and criticized countries including the UAE.
On 11 May he told his wife that for the past two weeks he had been suffering from severe toothache that kept him
awake at night and that he had no t been referred to a dentist but instead given a mild painkiller.
Please write immediately in Arabic, English or your own language:
Calling on the UAE authorities to explain to Tayseer Salman al-Najjar why has he been arrested, and urging
them to either charge him promptly w ith a recognizable criminal offence or else release him immediately and
unconditionally if he has been held solely for peacefully exercising his righ t to free dom of expression;
Urging them to ensure that while he is deta ined, he is protected from torture and other ill -treatment, and given
prompt access to a lawyer of his choice and any necessary medical treatment he may requ ire.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 24 JUNE 2016 TO :
Vice-President and Prime Minister
HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin
Rashid al-Maktoum
Prime Minister’s Office
PO Box: 212000
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Fax: +971 4 330 4044
Email: info@primeminister.ae
Twitter: @HHShkMoh
Salutation: Your Highness
Minister of Interior
Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan
Zayed Sport City, Arab Gulf Street, Near
to Shaikh Zayed Mosque
POB: 398, Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
Fax: +971 2 402 2762/ +971 2 441 5780
Email: moi@moi.gov.ae
Salutation: Your Highness
And copies to :
Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi
HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al
Nahyan
Crown Prince Court
King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz
Al Saud Street,
P.O. Box: 124
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Fax: +971 2 668 6622
Twitter: @MBZNews
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredite d to y our country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email Email address Sa lutation Salutation
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the abo ve da te.Image caption The draft report found specific failings in all 58 of France's nuclear reactors
Hundreds of problems have been found at European nuclear plants that would cost up to 25bn euros (£20bn) to fix, says a leaked draft report.
The report, commissioned after Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster, aimed to see how Europe's nuclear power stations would cope during extreme emergencies.
The final report comes out on Thursday. The draft says nearly all the EU's 145 nuclear reactors need improving.
Anti-nuclear groups say the report's warnings do not go far enough.
For its part, the regulatory body for European nuclear safety has urged the Commission not to use language that could undermine public confidence, says the BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels.
French failings
The report - the wording of which could change before Thursday's final version is published - points out that in the EU, 47 nuclear power plants with 111 reactors have more than 100,000 inhabitants living within a circle of 30km.
"On the basis of the stress test results practically all [nuclear plants] need to undergo safety improvements," says the leaked draft. "Hundreds of technical upgrade measures have already been identified.
The Commission should be recommending the closure of unsafe or ageing reactors Rebecca Harms MEP, Greens/European Free Alliance
"Following the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, urgent measures to protect nuclear plants were agreed. The stress tests demonstrated that even today, decades later, their implementation is still pending in some member states."
Four reactors in two unnamed countries would have less than an hour to restore safety functions if electrical power was lost, it adds.
In France, Europe's largest nuclear power producer which relies on 58 nuclear reactors for 80% of its electricity, specific failings were found in all 58 nuclear reactors.
Earlier this month, a blast of escaping steam burned two people at the Fessenheim power station in eastern France - one of the country's oldest nuclear reactors which has long been the target of regular anti-nuclear protests.
Fessenheim, close to France's borders with Germany and Switzerland, opened in 1977 and draws water for cooling from the Rhine, but campaigners say its location makes it vulnerable to seismic activity and flooding.
Shortcomings were also reported in the UK. Most of the country's power plants lacked an alternative emergency control room to use if the main one became contaminated by high radiation, says the report.
The UK's Department of Energy said there was no evidence UK nuclear facilities were unsafe.
"However, the Government is committed to the principle of continuous improvement," a spokesman told the BBC.
"We are working closely with the Office for Nuclear Regulation to ensure that operators address any site specific issues using the existing robust UK regulatory regime, which requires operators to take all reasonably practicable steps to reduce risk and seek continuous improvements to safety."
Call for closures
While the stress tests found deficiencies in many of Europe's nuclear reactors, campaigners say they failed to address risks in crucial areas, such as ageing technology, terrorist attacks or human error.
"If this exercise was serious, the Commission should be recommending the closure of unsafe or ageing reactors," said Rebecca Harms, co-president of the Greens/European Free Alliance at the European Parliament.
"At the very least, the Commission should be pressing for the security deficiencies identified in the report to be rectified."
As of June, all 145 nuclear plants in the EU were to be reassessed using criteria covering both natural and man-made hazards.
Some governments have reappraised their nuclear energy strategy in the aftermath of last year's Fukushima disaster, with Germany deciding to abandon nuclear energy for green technology and cleaner gas- and coal-powered plants by 2022.
Others, like France, have boosted investment in nuclear power since the meltdown.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's cooling systems were knocked out by the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The disaster caused a meltdown at three of the reactors.Funds set aside to promote the interests of energy consumers are being granted to one of Australia’s largest business groups to campaign against renewable energy, a solar industry group says.
The Consumer Advocacy Panel (CAP) was set up by the state and federal governments in 2008 and is funded from a levy on energy bills. While offering funds to many groups, it claims to have made “outreach to under-represented groups a strategic priority”, including households, small businesses and rural users, its website says.
Funds for consumers: The Consumer Advocacy Panel claims to prioritise households and other under-represented groups in the energy debate.
Among recipients of its $2.6 million in grants for 2013-14 was the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. On February 6, the chamber received $50,000 to fund the group’s submission “and associated modelling” for the Abbott government’s hand-picked expert panel that is reviewing the renewable energy target.
The chamber is opposed to the current target, which mandates that large generators lift annual supply of renewable energy to 41,000 gigawatt hours by 2020.The annual Fire Kickoff Luncheon is the final signal that the season is upon us. New York City FC will visit Toyota Park on Sunday at 1pm and the Fire are still looking to add players. MLS roster/budget compliance regulations take effect today but General Manager Nelson Rodriguez says the team is currently in good shape when it comes to available space with which to supplement the roster.
"We have no issues with roster compliance at all. As you all know, we've tried to be very patient in assembling a group moving forward," Rodriguez told media on Monday morning. "It's still not complete. We'll get there. We're satisfied with the progress that we're making with some of the players with whom we're negotiating currently around the globe. We hope to bring those to conclusion as soon as we can, but always with eye toward building something that's sustainable."
Even if agreements are reached this week with any of the international prospects, it is not likely that they'll be available for the opener due to the time necessary to complete the visa process. Rodriguez said that the club is still uncertain whether John Goossens will have his visa in time for the match this weekend. Goossens will add depth when he's available but a central midfielder and attacker are still on the shopping list. "We still think we need some help in there. John Goossens has proved to be a really good find for us, and he'll help. His versatility is really important to us. We think he can play any of the midfield spots. We also think he can play out on the wing for us, so that's comforting. I don't know that he'll have his visa in time for this weekend. We'll adjust if that's not the case, but we would like to add another midfielder and we still need some support front. We need to find some more goals," said Rodriguez.
Shaping the roster
When asked if the progress for completing the roster had met his offseason expectations, Rodriguez noted that was still work to be done before a full assessment could be made. "I don't know yet because we know that we're still looking for some pieces. Even after you acquire them it takes some time to see how it comes together. It's part science, but in large part it's also art. At the core of it all, and what we always strive for is the people. One of the things brings us a good degree of comfort so far is that we think that the group we have assembled has really meshed well in terms of its chemistry. Now again, we haven't been punched in the face yet. We haven't lost four games in a row yet. We haven't lost 4-0 yet. We haven't had the media criticize us yet. The real test of that character will come when we face genuine adversity, but for the moment we're very pleased at how the character of the group has come together," he replied.
"I think that Pauno's style and his demands are great. There's no substitute for time and experience in that setting and five weeks is plenty long enough for preseason in my mind but it's not the same as five months or five years. One thing that will benefit us I'm sure, is more time together. Keep in mind that every time you add or subtract a piece you stunt that timeline a little bit because you have an evolution and an adjustment that is always required. Broad based, I'd say we need more time together and we need more time when we incorporate parts. Looking at Sunday as a microcosm of where we are, I think we still need to do better in possession. I think we gave the ball away a little bit too easily. Our back line, which is still getting to know each other, will get better and I think we'll start to limit chances against us. We'd better before Sunday because there's a lot of firepower on New York City FC. Lastly, I still think there's still room for us to generate even more opportunities on the offensive side."
Preseason success
The Fire have had success in recent preseasons and that failed to translate into anything once the games started to count. Rodriguez takes some pride in the results so far but realizes that those wins are quickly forgotten.
"We're very satisfied with the progress. Winning is nice," he said. "It was especially nice Saturday night to end preseason with a championship and a good performance against the reigning MLS Cup Champions, but twenty-four hours later it meant nothing. This Sunday will be the real first test that the team faces. We still have to get better, but I'm satisfied with the progress that we've demonstrated that the team has the capability to continue to improve."
"Our expectations remain the same. What we strive for is improvement on a daily basis. Excellence, on a daily basis. If we can get the process right, we're comfortable that the results will come in the end. The team is not complete yet and it remains a work in progress. I think a lot of credit should go to the players for putting in a great deal of effort, and an intelligent effort in the preseason. It was nice to see them rewarded."
Facing NYCFC
The Fire will need to get off to a good start with six of their first eight games this season played at Toyota Park. Rodriguez said the game isn't a must-win but it could set the tone for the season. "It's important. It's not crucial because we're going to lose a game over the course of the year. The way we look at it is fifty points is pretty much the barometer for playoffs, so we've broken the season down in bites. We'll approach the season that way. To win at home would be an energizing moment. We also recognize that NYC is desperate for similar reasons. Perhaps they feel disappointed in their performance and their results last year. It's two marquee teams in the league so it will be an interesting first game," he said.
Buying into the system
The style of play, and the effort required to maintain that style seems to have taken among the players this preseason. Coach Veljko Paunovic complimented them for the progress to date.
"We are very happy so far, with how the preseason went and how the guys did," said Paunovic. "They worked very hard during the preseason and they worked very well. Right now, I think they are not only trying to do what we are asking or demanding, they are doing that and they want to do it, and they believe. I think they've achieved that so far by the games that we've played in the preseason and how we've performed and how they feel that the system could work. Everything is on the players in the end. Obviously, we have to prepare them. We have to give them that support. We are there to serve them and at the same time guide them, and demand (from) them."
Adaptability was a main theme this winter when asked about how he wanted the team to play. Paunovic believes that the tactical switches made during the final game in Portland shows that the players are catching on.
"This is something that we announced as soon as I arrived here. The team was prepared. At least they were prepared from the standpoint of we are going to do that. When the moment came, they were ready. They wanted to accept and play the way that we asked. Slowly, but firmly, this team is starting to understand the advantages of playing like that. Having different styles and adaptability."
Back line
The Fire posted a clean sheet against the Timbers this past weekend but there presumed defensive starters haven't had much time to play together. Paunovic believes that cohesive will come with more minutes as a unit.
"This is a process. It takes time. The guys are new. Some are coming from not playing for six months, like (Joao) Meira. Kappelhof is another guy who's coming from playing the whole season. Adaptation, adjustment, that we have to have in order to get know each other, it takes time but I can tell you that these guys are doing one hundred percent the best they can do," he said.
Starting GK in question?
Matt Lampson started the last two Simple Invitational tournament matches leading to speculation that Sean Johnson may not start in goal on Sunday afternoon. Paunovic didn't do much to dispel that notion, offering some praise for the recently signed 'keeper while making sure to note that all jobs are open for competition. "(Lampson) did very well," said Paunovic. "They all have to work and earn it. This week and every week. Everyone has to earn his spot and we are working very good. We are very happy with that. We believe that is the approach that we have to have in order to have all our guys one hundred percent for every session and for every game."
When asked if he was ready to name a starting goalkeeper for the NYCFC match, he remained coy. "We are working on that. We have seven days to prepare for the game," he said.
Johnson told reporters that he had not discussed the starting spot with Paunovic yet, but was a bit surprised that he did not see more action after joining the team from USMNT camp. "Definitely expected to play more than I did. Playing 75 minutes in Portland, I would have liked to have played a little bit more but that's the coach's decision and not mine," he said.
It's possible that the Fire's current most tenured player could get the nod on Sunday but it appears Lampson will get serious consideration. There may not be international suitors on the table at the moment but Johnson reiterated his desire to play overseas when asked whether he's still keeping an eye on taking that step.
"For me, my ambitions are to play and to play as long as I can, and play at the highest level I can. This league has come a long way. I think if the opportunity still presented itself to play overseas, I'd have to weigh the options. The situation being the right place and the right time, I'm definitely not opposed to still going overseas," he said.
Johnson's last start came in a 3-2 win over Vancouver on February 21.
Accam's status
David Accam missed time due to illness last weekend and the coaching staff decided to protect him from potential turf-related injury in Portland, where he experienced some issues last season. Paunovic alluded to other ailments that require evaluation during training this week before committing him to availability for the opener.
"We have to see how feels (Tuesday). We're still not ready to say if he's going to be ready for the game," he said.
"He had some small muscular problems but we believe he is going to be fine soon, but we are not going to push him because he is very important for our team. We don't want him to feel under stress now when we are starting. When he's ready, he will be great for us."
Notes
The current roster includes 22 signed players.
Arturo Alvarez is expected to be officially added to that list soon.
Kingsley Bryce and Vincent Keller have been waived. Alex Morrell remains in camp.
Per Paunovic, no decisions have been made on possible USL loans.
The coach's expectations right now - "We want to reach the playoffs this year, and that is what we're going to fight for. It's going to take a lot of time, process, and energy, as we've said but we have to have faith that we can do it."
The Fire currently have 6 international spots taken (Kappelhof, Meira, Ramos, Goossens, Gilberto, Igboananike)
Current "signed" roster
GOALKEEPERS: Sean Johnson, Matt Lampson, Patrick McLain
DEFENDERS: Jonathan Campbell, Joey Calistri, Patrick Doody, Eric Gehrig, Michael Harrington, Johan Kappelhof, João Meira, Rodrigo Ramos, Brandon Vincent
MIDFIELDERS: David Accam, Razvan Cocis, Drew Conner, Collin Fernandez, John Goossens, Nick LaBrocca, Matt Polster, Michael Stephens
FORWARDS: Gilberto, Kennedy IgboananikeWashington (CNN) Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday backed his fellow contender for the Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump in the billionaire's recent feud with NBC -- which was ignited over Trump's controversial comments about Mexican immigrants.
"I like Donald Trump. I think he's terrific, I think he's brash, I think he speaks the truth," Cruz said Tuesday morning on Fox News. "And I think NBC is engaging in political correctness that is silly and that is wrong."
Cruz's defense of Trump came after NBC severed its business ties to the billionaire and TV reality star after Trump deplored illegal immigration in his presidential announcement speech, singling out Mexican immigrants whom he said are "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists."
Trump added that "some, I assume, are good people" and in the following days would go on to clarify that he loves Mexico and Latinos and that he has many friends who are both.
Read MoreCopyright by WWLP - All rights reserved This architectural rendering released by Wynn Resorts shows a daytime view of a redesign of it's proposed Massachusetts in Everett, Mass., unveiled Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, at the state gaming commission meeting in Boston. Wynn Resorts was awarded...
Copyright by WWLP - All rights reserved This architectural rendering released by Wynn Resorts shows a daytime view of a redesign of it's proposed Massachusetts in Everett, Mass., unveiled Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, at the state gaming commission meeting in Boston. Wynn Resorts was awarded...
Gintautas Dumcius, State House News Service - BOSTON (SHNS) - State gambling industry regulators on Thursday sounded supportive notes for a revamped design of the proposed Wynn Resorts casino in Everett.
The design, presented by Wynn Everett President Robert DeSalvio, mirrors the Wynn resort in Las Vegas, a bronze glass tower that curves and has a "swooping" top. The signature of the casino mogul Steve Wynn, who was personally involved in the design, is featured at the top of the proposed 24-story building.
The new design boosts the number of luxury hotel rooms to 629 from 504, and includes duplex suites overlooking the Mystic River. The number of parking spaces has been reduced to 3,400 from 3,700, and a planned convention and meeting space has been placed at the end of a proposed esplanade.
"It's a way to combine a signature Wynn look with a local harborwalk and waterfront that's representative of the Mystic River here in New England," DeSalvio said.
Wynn officials will likely return to the commission in a month or two with additional details on the interior and the footprint for a formal sign-off on the changes to the $1.6 billion project.
Gaming Commissioner James McHugh, who oversaw the process which awarded the casino license to Wynn over Mohegan Sun's bid to build a casino at Suffolk Downs in Revere, said the original Wynn plans were "uninspired." The new design is showcases a "much more energetic, much more inviting building," he told reporters.
Asked about Mohegan Sun yesterday joining a lawsuit against the gambling commission, McHugh said "that's in the hands of the lawyers."
Mohegan Sun joined a suit launched by the city of Revere and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103 demanding that commission's decision be vacated due to an alleged "flawed and inconsistent process" in the awarding of the casino license.
Officials in Somerville and Boston, including Mayor Marty Walsh, have filed separate suits against the commission.
Gaming Commission chair Stephen Crosby said "there's nothing new" to Mohegan Sun joining Revere's suit.
"We're accustomed to lawsuits. There are always disappointed losers in these things," he said. "The stakes are big and the law is part of the process, and you know, we're comfortable that we had as transparent, and fair and open and widely viewed process, with widely understood rules, as a process could possibly be. But the legal process will take its course."
When asked about Wynn's new building design, Crosby called the original plans for the building "way below the Wynn norm for design quality."
"This is just one commissioner speaking, and it's only very top-of-mind, we haven't seen very much, but I think the general sense is that this is a striking building, it is representative of the work that Wynn has done in other places, Macau and Las Vegas, and those are pretty distinguished buildings," Crosby told reporters after the presentation. "So from one commissioner's point of view, yeah I think this is a big step in the right direction."
DeSalvio, the W |
Care Act.
“You can’t have revolutionary change and have a system of checks and balances, the two are mutually exclusive,” Stanford said, Vice News’ Alexandra Jaffe reports. “And so when they talk about ‘full repeal’—that doesn’t fit with the nature of our political system, unless you were to get a bunch of Democrat votes on board which wasn’t going to happen.”
Democrats’ have on whole refused to consider bills that would gut Barack Obama’s signature healthcare laws, though most party leaders have acknowledges major flaws with the ACA, and offered to work with Republicans to find solutions for the bill’s problems.
As Politico’s Jake Sherman points out, Sanford’s acknowledgment means Republicans campaigned for eight years on a “pipe dream” platform.To go along with their Crime Bundle being featured right now on Comixology, Dynamite has given us Uncanny #1 by Andy Diggle and Aaron Campbell for you to read for free. The bundle contains 48 comics for $9.99, which is a savings of 89%. The bundle includes the full six-issue run of Uncanny and the six-issues of Uncanny Season Two along with Miss Fury, Sherlock Holmes and Ex-Con.
For those of you not familiar with Uncanny, here is the synopsis: “Weaver is unique, or so he thinks. Born with an uncanny ability, he can steal other people’s skills – their memories, abilities, and expertise – for a limited time. A man with a power like that could change the world; but as a professional gambler, con-man, and thief-for-hire, Weaver prefers to look out for number one. That is, until he finds himself drawn into a dangerous game of international intrigue where the rules keep changing, the players are hidden… and the first thing he stands to lose is his life. And maybe, just maybe, he isn’t so unique after all…”
About Dan Wickline Has quietly been working at Bleeding Cool for over three years. He has written comics for Image, Top Cow, Shadowline, Avatar, IDW, Dynamite, Moonstone, Humanoids and Zenescope. He is the author of the Lucius Fogg series of novels and a published photographer.
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Warning - The surgeon general warnsCigarette smoking is dangerous... DangerousHazard to your healthA person was pulled over and robbed at gunpoint Monday night by a man in a white Crown Victoria that was equipped with a red flashing light and white spotlight.
The victim was driving on Dehesa Road near Dehesa Ranch Road in an area between Harbison Canyon and Alpine Heights about 11 p.m. when the car pulled up behind, sheriff’s Lt. Jim Duffy said.
The victim believed the person in the car was a law enforcement officer, Duffy said.
The thief wore a bandanna over half of his face and was armed with a black, semi-automatic handgun. He was described as white and in his 30s, 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds, wearing a red, hooded sweatshirt.
The victim lost an undisclosed amount of cash, Duffy said.
debbi.baker@uniontrib.com • (619) 293-1710Japanese biologists have described a new species of spoon worm from the sandy tidal flat Hachi-no-higata of the Seto Inland Sea, Japan.
Spoon worms, scientifically called Echiura, are a small group of exclusively marine animals. They derive their name from elongated and spoon-like projection (the proboscis), issuing from the barrel- or sweet potato-like roundish body proper (the trunk).
Although spoon worms are members of annelid worms, most of which has segmented structure, they have lost segmentation during their evolutionary history.
Most spoon worms live in shallow waters, but some are connected with deep sea waters. They are deposit feeders – they use their ‘spoon’ to collect organic particles or fragments from their surroundings.
Previously confused with a different species, the newly discovered spoon worm Arhynchite hayaoi used to be in fact rather abundant and collected in great numbers from intertidal to subtidal sandy bottoms for fish bait in the Seto Inland Sea, Japan.
Dr Masaatsu Tanaka and Dr Teruaki Nishikawa, both from the Toho University in Chiba, have described the new species in a paper published in the open access journal Zookeys.
Like most spoon worms, the animal has the typical peculiar spoon shaped proboscis. It is of a pinkish-yellow color, and its body length reaches about 4 inches (10 cm) in total.
______
Bibliographic information: Tanaka M, Nishikawa T. 2013. A new species of the genus Arhynchite (Annelida, Echiura) from sandy flats of Japan, previously referred to as Thalassema owstoni Ikeda, 1904. ZooKeys 312: 13–21; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.312.5456Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen took a hard line in the Ryan Johansen contract talks on Monday.
Johansen, who’s an unsigned restricted free agent, is playing hardball with the Blue Jackets brass, but Kekalainen has had enough and drew a line in the sand, per the Columbus Dispatch.
“Our success is going to come from being a team, not a bunch of individuals or stars, or whatever,” Kekalainen said during the NHL prospects tournament.
“To me, it’s huge that you go through training camp together and get ready.
“When training camp starts, that’s it. After that, the focus is on the guys who are there on tryouts or guys who are under contract. That’s it. That will be the only focus.”
The Blue Jackets have offered Johansen a two-year deal worth between $3 million and $3.5 million per season.
However, Johansen’s agent Kurt Overhardt is seeking about $6.5 million a year for his client. When asked if Kekalainen will no longer negotiate with Overhardt, he was pretty emphatic with his answer.
“Draw your own conclusions,” he said.
Johansen led Columbus in scoring during the 2013/14 season with 33 goals and 63 points. However, Kekalainen is aware of his talent, and is willing to pay him like a franchise player.
“[Johansen’s] potential is great,” Kekalainen said. “But we’re not there yet, after one year, where we’re willing to invest franchise-type money into his future. Do it once or twice more. Make us pay. Go ahead and make us pay.
“We have no problem paying the dollars when it’s earned, but the key word there is ‘earned.’ While we believe in his future, we want to see him do it a little bit longer than just one year.
“We’re going to exhaust every option to get a contract done before camp,” Kekalainen said. “After that, we’ll focus just on the team, the guys who are here.”
Both sides have two more days to settle, or else Johansen will have to clear out his locker.These days, to even suggest the possibility that a fiscally conservative economic outlook is compatible with faith is a matter of hypocrisy.
"I am afraid that (Rep. Paul) Ryan's budget reflects the values of his favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ," the Rev. Thomas Reese of Georgetown University told The Huffington Post not so long ago. "Survival of the fittest may be OK for social Darwinists, but not for followers of the gospel of compassion and love."
Surely, you recall this Bible passage: "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Smite the supply-sider. I will utterly blot out the memory of all who back block grants from under heaven.'"
So it's refreshing, then, to hear would-be fusionist Rand Paul point out the distinction libertarian critics will not. At Robert P. George's American Principles Project last week, Paul argued that a dose of libertarianism not only would help the GOP broaden its base but also would be philosophically compatible with socially conservative values.
"Libertarian and liberty doesn't mean libertine," he explained. Paul might have added that libertarianism isn't synonymous with "being uncharitable" or "selfishness" or "social Darwinism," either. He might have argued that libertarianism would do a lot more than just help orthodox Christians politically. It may even be the most conducive political philosophy for their thriving.
Obviously, for those who measure the nation's virtue by the size of the Department of Health and Human Services budget, Rand's proposition must seem absurd. Take Elizabeth Stoker, who believes that "Rand Paul's audacious new sham" is "a phony religious epiphany." She wrote in Salon:
"If what Paul intends to say here is that Christianity and libertarianism are amenable to one another because Christianity provides the moral compass libertarianism doesn't have... the question is: Why would someone with such a commitment to Christianity ever commit themselves to a political philosophy without a similar commitment?"
Why? Because these are two distinct and often nonconflicting ideas. Though votes are often informed by a person's faith, for many Americans, a political philosophy isn't a religion.
I'm no theological scholar, but I tend to believe that one can do good works without supporting a top marginal tax rate increase. Christians commit themselves to God, which, as far as I can tell, doesn't prohibit them from supporting a political philosophy that emphasizes free will over a state-ordained "morality." No doubt, most Christians appreciate that our collective national political decisions and their personal moral compasses will not always be synchronized. That's where the religious freedom comes into play.
Should social conservatives "commit themselves" to a political philosophy that not only strives for gay equality but also seeks to impel others to participate in these new norms despite religious objections? Should they commit to a philosophy that impels them to fund contraception coverage and abortions—through either direct funding or fungible dollars? A philosophy that continues to force them to send their kids to crappy public schools that often undermine their faith-based beliefs? A philosophy that attacks parents who seek alternative means of education, such as home schooling? Or should they be more interested in wedding themselves to a political philosophy that downgrades the importance of politics in everyday life and allows citizens to work together to structure their communities without interference?
The growing state, after all—not the atheist—is religion's biggest rival. And intentionally or not, government is crowding out parts of community life that have traditionally been taken care of by civil society. It's draining resources once used by communities to implement services and take care of their own. And even more destructive, perhaps, is that government is becoming a source of moral authority for so many.
Admittedly, it seems counterintuitive to suggest that social conservatives embrace a laissez-faire political philosophy. And I'm definitely not Pollyannaish about my fellow human beings. Paul is right to advocate sentencing reform and a more judicious foreign policy, but he's also right when he says that libertarianism doesn't mean: "Do whatever you want. There is a role for government; there's a role for family; there's a role for marriage; there's a role for the protection of life." (Abortion is a debate about when life is worth protecting. Despite the misconception by many in the media, there is no single libertarian position.) As is often pointed out, Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments before he wrote The Wealth of Nations. One does well with the other. There is no conflict between political freedom and faith.A startlingly candid snapshot of the views and beliefs of Muslims living in Britain today has been uncovered by the first-ever study of Islamic interfaith relations across the world. The reseach, a collaboration between Gallup and the Coexist Foundation, challenges the view that the country's 2.4 million Muslims are largely intolerant of the British way of life. British Muslims were found to identify more strongly with the UK than the rest of the population, and have a much higher regard for the country's institutions.
However, the poll also found that the vast majority of Muslims have extremely conservative views on moral issues such as homosexuality and the death penalty, which differ dramatically from those held by the rest of the UK population. The wide-ranging study, entitled The Gallup Coexist Index 2009, was based on data collected through polls of residents in more than 140 countries. More than 1,500 interviews were conducted in the UK alone.
77% said they strongly identified with UK
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.
Perhaps the survey's most surprising finding was that more than three-quarters of British Muslims (77 per cent) said they identified "very strongly" with the UK, compared to just half (50 per cent) of the general public. This contradicts the idea that Muslims are outsiders who have little in common with the UK, and is further borne out by a second statistic: 82 per cent said British Muslims were loyal to the country. Professor Ziauddin Sardar, a London-based scholar who specialises in the future of Islam, said that British Muslims with Pakistani or Middle Eastern heritage are all too aware of the troubles in their homelands and can see the UK's benefits better than those who have lived here for generations. "They look at the stability of Britain and appreciate it deeply," he said.
0% thought that homosexuality was morally acceptable
Not a single British Muslim said homosexuality was morally acceptable, compared to 58 per cent of the general public who believed it was. In other European countries with large Muslim populations such as France and Germany, the difference was far less pronounced: more than a third of French Muslims said they did not have a problem with homosexuality.
However, Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, who has written a book about growing up in Britain as a Muslim woman, said the UK's apparently stark contrast did not necessarily point to a divided society. "Part of the British way is that you can have your own opinions as long as you can live harmoniously with others."
76% had confidence in the police
British Muslims were found to have faith in the police, with 76 per cent saying they trusted them compared to 67 per cent of the general public. They were also found to be more likely to have confidence in the Government, the judicial system, financial institutions and the media. "British Muslims and their parents have sometimes had personal experience of societies which are not democratic and where the rule of law is not always followed," said Professor Sardar. "They are not yet disillusioned with the systems of governance, in the way that those who have lived here for generations might be. There is still a lot of expectation."
3% felt that sex outside marriage was morally acceptable
Extra-marital sex was deemed morally acceptable by only three per cent of Muslims, compared to 82 per cent of the general public. And while 15 per cent of the general public considered adultery morally acceptable, only two per cent of Muslims felt the same way. The attitudes of Muslims in France and Germany is very different, where 48 per cent and 27 per cent had no problem with sex outside wedlock. This discrepancy is likely to be caused by the fact that British Muslims mainly originate from rural parts of conservative Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, whereas French and German Muslims tend to be from Morocco, Algeria and Turkey, where the culture is different.
63% thought that the death penalty was morally acceptable
More Muslims said they believed in the death penalty than the general public, of whom 50 per cent said they regarded such a policy as morally acceptable. This stance tallies with Sharia law, which allows for both corporate and capital punishment. Sharia still provides a moral framework for many moderate Muslims, and many would have answered this question without hesitation.
3% believed people belonging to other religions threaten their way of life
British Muslims appear to be a lot more tolerant than the rest of the UK population when it comes to accepting other religions. More than a quarter of the general public (26 per cent) said they felt the above statement was accurate. According to Professor Sardar, tolerance of other faiths is an important part of Islam and the handful of British Muslims who felt it was under attack could safely be called extremists. "The vast majority of Muslims believe that Christianity and Judaism are not just viable religions but also contain part of the ultimate truth," he said.
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 nowKerkorian sheds Ford shares,could dump stake
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-10-22 11:30
If Kirk Kerkorian's $1 billion shares of Ford in April gave investors some confidence in the reeling auto markets in the United States, the billionaire's latest decision of a sell off may have shattered investors' last ray of hope.
This combo shows Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian stands in front of a Ford car.
Kerkorian sold part of his $1 billion shares, or 6.49 percent, of the Ford Motor Company on Tuesday after a "huge loss", according to The New York Times. The remaining 133.5 million shares, which accounts for a 6.09 percent stake in the world's No. 2 automaker, will be probably dumped in the future, the paper reported.
Kerkorian's holding group Tracinda said it had sold 7.3 million shares in Ford for an average price of $2.43 per share – a big loss compared to $8.50 dollars per share in June.
"We intend to further reduce our holdings of Ford common stock, including the possible sale of all of its remaining 133,500,000 shares, depending on market conditions and available sales prices," The New York Times cited a Tracinda Corp spokesman.
In a statement, Tracinda explained that "current economic and market conditions" and other investment shifts toward "gambling and energy" led to its move on Ford.
Kerkorian's divestment underscored the waning state of Ford and its two Detroit rivals, General Motors and Chrysler, which are in merger talks.
"Investors are becoming more pessimistic about the Detroit Three's prospects in the environment of a deepening recession and restricted access to credit," wrote Sean Maher, an analyst for Economy.com, referring to the US motor industry giants.
Ford shares fell 6.9 percent to $2.17 on Tuesday in a broadly negative market. They have shed about 65 percent of their value since the beginning of the year while G.M. has seen its stock fall more than 80 percent from a year ago.
Kerkorian, 91, built a position in Ford earlier this year. The billionaire investor, who made a fortune from running and selling Las Vegas casinos, bought the shares in Ford after referring at the time to a "meaningful traction in its turnaround efforts."
But despite Kerkorian's high profile buying, circumstances worsened for Ford and the auto industry. Ford lost $8.7 billion in the second quarter and was forced to abandon its goal of returning to profit in 2009.
Since then the Detroit giant has battled to sell its heavy vehicles in its domestic market as consumers struggle with rocketing fuel prices and recent financial crisis has also hit sales.
In a recent announcement, Ford said sales in the US fell 34 percent to 116,734 vehicles in September while year-to-date sales were down 17.3 percent at 1.5 million vehicles.
Kerkorian, renowned for turning around troubled companies with his smart investments, has a mixed history in the auto industry, often failing to achieve his ambitions.
He was at a time, Chrysler's biggest shareholder and launched his own bid for the auto giant in 1995 before backing a deal to sell the firm to Germany's Daimler-Benz.
In 2006, Kerkorian increased his stake in General Motors, the largest US automaker, and won a board seat for one of his associates, but later reduced his holdings after failing to motivate an alliance with Nissan-Renault.
He announced another bid for Chrysler in 2007 before the announcement of the sale of the US division to private equity firm Cerberus.
New York Time contributes to the storyThe Los Angeles Times today reports on the TSA’s VIPR program, in which roving teams of security agents bring the joys of the airport security experience into bus and train stations, highways, the subway, and other transportation facilities around the country (a Daily Caller story on the program from earlier this year is here).
This program represents nothing less than a direct assault on the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. It’s also an exceedingly dumb security measure. But never underestimate the mindless force of a government bureaucracy seeking to expand its power, domain, and budget.
The TSA describes VIPR (which stands for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) as “a team that's made up of Federal Air Marshals, Surface Transportation Security Inspectors, Transportation Security Officers, Behavior Detection Officers and Explosive Detection Canine teams.”
This is a classic case of the slippery slope. The Fourth Amendment says that the government cannot carry out a search without probable cause. Over the years, the courts have carved an exception to that plain language for airports, where the government can carry out a limited “administrative” search solely for the purpose of protecting the safety of air travel (it cannot be a general law enforcement stop).
But the TSA’s power to conduct administrative searches at the airport does not mean the Fourth Amendment does not apply (click here for the ACLU’s Know Your Rights When Traveling guide). It means that the government has a very strong public interest that makes suspicionless searches reasonable in this context. But the TSA is trying to expand and manipulate that exception for law enforcement purposes – and drive a permanent hole in the Fourth Amendment.
Aircraft are special. Weapons and explosives pose unique dangers on airplanes that make them different from our other public spaces like crowded sidewalks, shopping centers, movie theaters, buses or trains. The justification for carving out an exception to our constitutional freedoms does not extend to these other venues. Ground transportation like trains and buses are regular public spaces, and they have been for ages (think of all the classic movie goodbyes that have taken place on train platforms).
Some might say, “Well we’re living in different times.” But security risks are not exactly something new. There is a long and varied and history of terrorist activity in the United States. The first decades of the 20th century, for example, saw numerous terrible bombings and assassinations (including of President William McKinley), the explosion of a bomb in the U.S. Senate, and many other incidents. Americans have lived through civil war, economic collapse, a surprise military attack on U.S. territory, dictators and world war on two fronts, and, for 50 years, the threat of nuclear Armageddon. Through all these threats, we mostly stayed true to our values and preserved our freedom. And when we didn’t, it didn’t make us safer and we always came to regret it.
Anyone who has traveled across America knows just how gigantic our nation is. In our country of over 300 million people, the 25 VIPR teams wander around, randomly searching and harassing citizens going about their private business, just in case they happen to intercept a terrorist attack. The government has never created bands of agents to roam around American society looking for those who are about to go on a shooting spree in their campus, office building, or local McDonald’s. The essential silliness of such an idea is self-apparent. But such shooting sprees – though they are basically freak occurrences – are far more common than terrorism.
In one example of the VIPR teams in action, agents screened people who had just gotten off a train in Savannah, Georgia. This incident was only publicized because this video was posted of TSA agents searching the passengers (including a 9-year-old), ordering them around, etc., just like in an airport. The TSA later issued a partial apology, acknowledging that the screening did not make sense – but only because no more trains were leaving the station. It did not admit the fundamentally misguided nature of the program itself.
Americans need to be strong and not give away their privacy and freedom to government security agencies. The fact is, if we keep trading away our freedom bit by bit in exchange for false promises of safety every time a new threat appears, we will end up living in a country we won’t recognize and won’t much like.
Learn more about your rights: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.Posted on by steveblank
Om Malik runs Gigaom, probably the most interesting and technically accurate sites on the blogosphere.
He had me in for an interview. We covered a wide range of topics.
0:22 – the Entrepreneurial explosion
1:45 – Are we in a Bubble?
3:20 – The Last Bubble
6:30 – Rules for the New Bubble
8:05 – Metrics for Success
10:10 – Total Available Market in the Billions
11:45 – Is this a Really a Bubble – the greater fool theory
13:00 – VC’s – The Pact With the Devil
14:10 – What to Use VC’s $’s for?
15:36 – How to Get Customer Centric – an unnatural act
17:00 – The Secrets to Social Networks – Bowling Alone
17:45 – Who Are the Best Entrepreneurs?
18:45 – Entrepreneurs are Artists
21:39 – What Makes Silicon Valley Special?
22:50 – Risk and Culture in Silicon Valley
Filed under: Customer Development, Teaching, Venture Capital |“You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people.” -Dieter Rams
The Future of Design Education is… No Design Education
The modern designer has a breadth of human experiences, not degrees.
Yazin Akkawi Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 3, 2017
Have you ever seen a door and have been unsure whether to push or pull? Or worse, have you ever pushed a door that was meant to be pulled? This classic design error — the Norman door — was named after Don Norman, who explored the phenomenon in his best-selling book The Design of Everyday Things.
In his book, published in 1988, Norman argued that if you’ve ever felt ashamed of crashing into a door because you thought it was meant to be pushed, hoping no one was watching, it’s not your fault — it’s the fault of the person that designed the door.
The premise of his philosophy was simple: make things that understand people, instead of forcing people to understand what you make. His application of cognition, the way our minds work, to design things, everyday things, was the foundation for what eventually became to be known as User Experience (UX) Design (Norman is credited with inventing the term when he joined Apple in 1993).
Today, UX design has caught on and grown dramatically: it’s said that every dollar spent on UX brings in between $2 and $100 dollars in return. Moreover, according to a report by Adobe, 87 percent of managers said hiring more UX designers is the top priority for their organization.
But as more companies jump on the UX bandwagon, they’ll need to fight for good talent. But where should they look?
Not design schools.
I’m not suggesting that design schools are failing designers and employers (although famed designer Gadi Amit believes so in his write up: American Design Schools Are a Mess, and Produce Weak Graduates).
But what I am suggesting is that, in today’s tech-driven world, there’s a new kind of designer, and there are more designers emerging that look less like a traditional designer. According to Norman, this is likely due to the notion that more of what we make today is invisible.
“When you do the sort of work I do, it’s not physical.” he said. “Traditional designers don’t consider me a designer, in part because I’m not making beautiful objects. For example, the most important part of Uber’s UX has nothing to do with what’s on the screen, it’s the convenience of not having to pay your driver. You’ll never find that work exhibited in a museum.”
Now the Director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego, Norman applies this perspective into his curriculum by not siloing the design program into a singular department. Rather, his program is designed to incorporate coursework from various disciplines.
Don Norman, author of “The Design of Everyday Things”—a must read for every designer.
“Design is not about interacting with a computer; it’s about interacting with the world.” he adds. “To deal with today’s large, complex problems, design education needs to change to include multiple disciplines, technology, art, the social sciences, politics, and business.”
Steve Jobs also described this approach well in his 1996 interview with Gary Wolf:
“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”
But of course one still needs to understand the principles of traditional design to be successful. The reality, though, is that a majority of design students today are learning those skills outside of their coursework. That’s likely because UX is still a new field, but it might also be because of the growing number of tools and resources available online for designers today — from blogs to templates to online courses.
To help consolidate the learning resources available, design icon Aarron Walter and Stanford University lecturer Eli Woolery co-authored DesignBetter.co, a digital education portal on product design and design thinking.
“There are lots of great resources for designers to learn best-practices in product design and design thinking, but we found a lack of a centralized a repository.” Woolery said, when asked why he and Walter decided to create DesignBetter.co.
The first three books published on the platform include The Principles of Product Design, Design Thinking Handbook, and Design Leadership Handbook — areas in design that have become so valuable for digital transformation.
What’s more, Walter and Woolery aren’t just consolidating independent design education, they’re providing insight into the most cutting-edge design methods and frameworks.
Because of the velocity that the tech industry changes today, traditional universities and design schools are having difficulty continuously updating their curriculum to prepare emerging designers for real work. According to Walter, the best way to deliver modern best-practices is to go straight to the source.
“We’ve had a lot of opportunities to peer into different teams to see how they work and where they struggle — companies like Netflix, Spotify, Disney and IBM among others. From our research, we were able to solidify our processes and understand how the most important tech companies today make products successfully.”
If there’s anything that I’ve learned from my conversations with Norman, Walter and Woolery, it’s that there’s no one right path to growth. For companies seeking design talent, it can come from anywhere. For young, aspiring designers, there are a seemingly infinite number of resources to master the craft.
Even for Norman, there is no one right path.
“It seems like everything I’ve done in my career has been by accident. If I were to do it all over again, knowing what I know today, I don’t know if I would have taken the same path.”A gag order was lifted on Wednesday on the recent arrests of seven members of a Jewish terrorist group suspected of attacking Palestinians across the West Bank.
The group includes six settlers and an Israeli soldier, and the Shin Bet and Israel Police believe the suspects were inspired by the deadly firebombing of a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Duma in late July, which killed three members of the same family and wounded a fourth.
After the Shin Bet announced the lifting of the gag order, Military Police arrested an officer who had been interrogated twice in recent months for being involved with the group, Honenu, an non-profit organization that provides legal aid to right-wing activists. The officer is the brother of some of the detained suspects.
Hate graffiti sprayed on a home at the Palestinian village of Beitillu, October, 2015, Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP
The suspects admitted to “widespread terrorist activity,” the Shin Bet said in a statement, “including attempted terrorist attacks on homes of Palestinians while the occupants were inside, attacking minorities, arson and vandal assaults on Palestinian vehicles, and stone throwing from a passing car at Palestinian vehicles.”
The Shin Bet said most of the suspects being questioned are residents of the West Bank settlement of Nahliel, among them members of the Shendrofi family of 17 children. Yigal Shendrofi, the father, is a rabbi identified with the extreme right.
Among the suspects from Nahliel are two minors, aged 16 and 17, and a 19-year-old IDF soldier, whose identity has been barred from publication under a Military Court order. Two other suspects, Itamar Ben Aharon and Michael Kaplan, both in their 20s, are also from Nahliel. Another suspected cell member is Pinhas Shendrofi, 22, of Kiryat Arba.
The suspects' most serious offense, officials say, was tossing a tear gas grenade into the home of a Palestinian family in December. The head of the Palestinian household was awakened by irritation to his eyes from the gas but managed to get the baby out of the house in time to avoid any injury.
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Military Police arrested a soldier from the Netzah Yehuda battalion on suspicion of supplying the cannister. The soldier has refused to answer questions but others have implicated him as allegedly taking part in the incident.
The suspects were also said to have admitted to throwing firebombs at a Palestinian home in Mazraa al-Qabliyah. The firebombs struck a window without penetrating the home. The word "revenge" was found scrawled on the outside of the home.
In October, cell members allegedly torched a Palestinian vehicle in revenge for a terrorist attack in which two residents of the settlement of Neria, Naama and Eitam Henkin, were killed. The suspects are also accused of torching a vehicle in 2014 and assaulting a 60-year-old Palestinian man who sustained moderate wounds.
"This is a positive sign that the security forces are taking Jewish terrorism against Palestinians seriously," Rabbis for Human Rights said in response, adding that there were still other cases of abuses of Palestinians that haven't yet been addressed.
"Unlike the sorts of attacks that attract greater media coverage, there have been dozens of attacks of Palestinian farmers and incidents in which [they] are being removed from their lands we see a clear incompetence on the part of security forces and sometimes even direct or indirect assistance to the attackers," the statement said.
The human rights group added that inappropriate measures were being used against the suspects, such as denying them legal counsel. "Even a positive step cannot rely on improper procedures," RHR's statement said.
Aharon Roza, a lawyer for Honenu, a group which provides assistance to Jews accused of using violence against Palestinians, said that "contrary to all kinds of rumors and quasi-reports, the vast majority of the offenses investigated in this case involve no harm to human life."
Roza also alleged he had been denied access to his clients.
"Regardless of the type of offenses investigated, this system of preventing contact with a lawyer in every investigation designated as a security-related investigation is not proper and not right," Roza said.
"In retrospect, when I meet with the clients, the moment that it is advised that contact is prohibited, I see there had been no real reason to prevent the contact beyond exerting very severe pressure on those being investigated, who are isolated from their lawyers and became prisoners at the hands of their interrogators.”VANCOUVER, B.C. – Alessandro Riggi had a goal and two assists as Phoenix Rising FC earned a 4-0 victory against Vancouver Whitecaps FC on Sunday afternoon at Thunderbird Stadium. Phoenix took the lead in the fourth minute when Jason Johnson flicked home a header from Alessandro Riggi’s cross from the left into the top-right corner. Two minutes later Riggi made it two with an outstanding chipped finish from the right channel to the left corner that left WFC2 goalkeeper Sean Melvin helpless as Rising FC sprang forward on attack. WFC2’s first good chance came in the 24th minute as Terran Campbell’s shot forced a save from Rising FC goalkeeper Jake Cohen, and Campbell threatened again four minutes later. Phoenix went close through Chris Cortez in the 31st minute as his low free kick to the left corner that was well-saved by Melvin. Cortez gave Rising FC a three-goal lead five minutes into the second half when his shot from the left took a wicked deflection to loop over Melvin. Vancouver tried to get back into the game, and both Gloire Amanda and Cole Seiler had chances saved by Cohen, but Phoenix put the game away with 14 minutes to go as a good move saw the ball fall to Gladson Awako for a low finish to the right corner. WFC2’s David Norman Jr. forced a good save from Cohen with six minutes to go, while Marco Bustos also tested the Rising FC goalkeeper three minutes later, but Cohen earned his sixth shutout of the season as Rising FC rolled on.
Scoring:
4’ – PHX – Jason Johnson (Alessandro Riggi)
6’ – PHX |
area.
Mr Ring also wrote to Communications Minister Denis Naughten's office seeking assistance but up to this weekend had not received a response.
"The minister's office didn't have the manners to answer me. Irish citizens have to be protected by Irish government," he said.
BAI chief executive Michael O'Keeffe wrote directly to the minister about one constituent whose landlines was similar to a phone number advertised by the Babe Station channel on Sky TV.
Mr O'Keeffe said the BAI has no statutory responsibility over telephone numbers as it is under the remit of Comreg.
However, he said the BAI contacted Babe Station on behalf of the constituent and spoke to a representative about the issue.
"It is unfortunate that this issue is still continuing. However, the BAI is not in a position to address the problem as it is not within our remit and he was advised at all times we were assisting him as a matter of courtesy," Mr O'Keeffe said.
Mr Ring said he has not received a satisfactory response from Comreg.
However, he has spoken to the Phone-Paid Services Authority in the UK, which is examining the issue, and he expects a response soon.
Sunday IndependentSTMicroelectronics Attracts Linux Users to Free Embedded Development on STM32 Microcontrollers
Free high-productivity tools now available on Linux and Windows platforms, making STM32 an easy choice for fans of all major software OSes
Geneva / 09 Feb 2016
, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, has extended opportunities to design free of charge with its popular STM32 microcontrollers for Linux system users including professional engineers, academics, and hobbyists.
Most Linux distributions are free, and open-source application software makes the Linux world attractive to technology enthusiasts. Until now, however, most development tools for embedded computing have been available only for Windows® PCs.
The STM32CubeMX configurator and initialization tool and the System Workbench® for STM32, an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) created by Ac6 Tools, supported by the openSTM32.org community, and available at www.st.com/sw4stm32, are now both available to run on Linux OS.
ST’s latest move means Linux users can now start their own embedded projects on STM32 devices, free of charge, without leaving their favorite desktop environment. By welcoming these innovators to choose STM32, ST expects to further extend its lead in the market for advanced microcontrollers based on 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M cores.
“The Linux community is known to attract creative free-thinkers who are adept at sharing ideas and solving challenges efficiently,” said Laurent Desseignes, Microcontroller Ecosystem Marketing Manager, Microcontroller Division, STMicroelectronics. “We are now making it ultra-easy for them to apply their skills to create imaginative new products, leveraging the features and performance of our STM32 family.”
ST’s commitment means users can now benefit from free software for configuring microcontrollers and developing and debugging code, together with manufacturer-supported low-cost evaluation boards, allowing greater focus on product development. Tools installation is very easy and fast, which contrasts with established practice in the Linux world, where users often have to create or adapt their own tools with minimal support.
“Since the launch of the System Workbench for STM32 in early 2015, its popularity has grown both on Windows and Linux platforms,” said Bernard Dautrevaux, Ac6 Tools Chief Technical Officer. “ST’s new tools for Linux both validate and complement our work and the openSTM32 initiative, and we plan to further support ST with major upgrades to System Workbench for STM32 in the future, including the support of OS/X as a development host.”
Further Technical Information:
System Workbench for STM32 supports the ST-LINK/V2 debugging tool under Linux through an adapted version of the OpenOCD1 community project. Each of these tools can be used in conjunction with ST’s low-cost development hardware including STM32 Nucleo boards, Discovery kits, and Evaluation boards, as well as microcontroller firmware within the STM32Cube embedded-software packages or Standard Peripheral Library.
The STM32 microcontroller family contains devices for almost any embedded application, from extremely energy-conscious or cost-sensitive projects to sophisticated designs that demand high performance and high feature integration. The range supports all ARM Cortex-M cores from the entry-level M0 to today’s highest-performing M7 core, as well as devices based on the M0+, M3 and DSP-extended M4 cores, creating the industry’s largest portfolio in the Cortex-M class.
In all, over 500 STM32 variants are currently available, with choices including high memory density up to 2MB Flash, versatile package styles and sizes, integrated features such as USB, Ethernet, or CAN controllers, audio interfaces and accelerators, precision analog peripherals, general-purpose or precision timers, PWM generators, and cryptographic modules. In addition, the ultra-low-power STM32L0, L1, or L4 series feature extensive power-management options, dynamic voltage scaling, and special adaptive accelerators for applications where minimum energy consumption is the prime concern.
About STMicroelectronics
ST is a global semiconductor leader delivering intelligent and energy-efficient products and solutions that power the electronics at the heart of everyday life. ST’s products are found everywhere today, and together with our customers, we are enabling smarter driving and smarter factories, cities and homes, along with the next generation of mobile and Internet of Things devices.
By getting more from technology to get more from life, ST stands for life.augmented.
In 2015, the Company’s net revenues were $6.90 billion, serving more than 100,000 customers worldwide. Further information can be found at www.st.com.
About Ac6
Ac6 focus is on embedded systems training, expertise, engineering and software tools with a dual expertise on both hardware and software.
Through its partnerships with STMicroelectronics and the ARM community, Ac6 provides its customers with the guarantee of a deep knowledge of the newest embedded products, SoCs and software. Ac6 also develops Eclipse-based tools for embedded application development either on bare metal, RTOS or Linux.
Each year more than 800 engineers are trained by Ac6, all over the world. More details can be found at www.ac6.frShara Tibken/CNET
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- I was late to the 5:30 p.m. class, and the air-conditioned room was packed when I arrived. I slipped off my sandals, customary when visiting Vietnamese homes and businesses, and joined two dozen men crammed into rows of workstations in the sparse, white-walled space.
This small room is a 10-minute walk from the Reunification Palace, where South Vietnam's president lived and worked during what's known here as the American War. It's best recognized as the place where a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the compound's gates in the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
But the image projected on the classroom's wall isn't a scene of war. It's a lesson on coding. The mostly 20-something students are all here for one reason: to learn to develop apps for the iPhone and iPad using Apple's new Swift programming language.
"What you learn in school isn't for the real world," instructor Pham Khoa told me over banh xeo (Vietnamese pancakes) and noodle soup after the class. The reason? Classes here focus more on the theoretical than on the practical. That's why the 28-year-old self-taught programmer now teaches others to write applications for Apple's iOS, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows operating systems -- skills they couldn't easily learn elsewhere.
That need to educate oneself is part of a broader shift as the country -- best known to Americans for the controversial war during the '60s and '70s -- is working to become one of the world's leading technology manufacturers. There's just one problem: Even after they graduate, students need additional training to do more than assemble devices, say more than a dozen manufacturers and startups I met with in Vietnam as part of Road Trip 2015. Many require months, if not years, of supervision.
"The training program in universities in Vietnam is not suitable for working after graduation," said Pham Dong Phong, plant director of LG's factory in Haiphong, a port city in northeastern Vietnam. "After university, just having general knowledge to make it in an actual job is really difficult."
To help close the knowledge gap, a number of global tech giants, including Samsung and LG, have launched their own programs to educate their Vietnamese workers. Their readiness to invest illustrates the country's appeal.
Vietnam has a stable -- albeit conservative Communist -- government that's willing to give tax breaks to foreign companies. It also boasts a cheap labor force, particularly compared with China, where wages have risen with the country's improved economy. A tech worker in Vietnam typically makes about a third as much as a Chinese employee (in 2013, a factory worker in Hanoi made $145 a month versus $466 a month in Beijing, though wages have risen since then). The Vietnamese population is also younger -- the median age of 29 is eight years younger than the US and China -- and speaks English as the country's de facto second language.
Enlarge Image Shara Tibken/CNET
And while skills don't yet meet the need for high-tech work, education standards have rapidly risen. Vietnam's 15-year-olds had higher scores in reading, math and science than their counterparts in many developed countries, including the US and United Kingdom, thanks to the government's investment in education.
The Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training didn't respond to a request for comment.
When it comes to manufacturing in Vietnam, business is booming. Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, opened a $1 billion factory in Ho Chi Minh City in 2010, and US-based contract manufacturer Jabil builds the majority of its customers' retail point-of-sale terminals in the same city. Microsoft's Nokia handset business shifted its manufacturing to the capital of Hanoi from China, Apple LCD supplier Wintek runs operations in Vietnam, and LG makes everything from mobile devices to televisions in Haiphong.
And last year, consumer electronics giant Samsung assembled nearly a third of its smartphones here.
Technology manufacturing has helped boost Vietnam's economy. The country's gross domestic product in the first half of 2015 grew 6.3 percent from the same period in 2014, according to Vietnam's General Statistics Office. That growth was powered by $14.7 billion of worth of "telephone and spare parts" exports. That sector (largely mobile phones) accounts for about 19 percent of Vietnam's total exports, topping every other category.
The Samsung effect
The country can thank Samsung for the boost. In 2012, about two years after Samsung opened its first mobile device factory in the northern part of the country, Vietnam started exporting more than it imported for the first time in 20 years. After Samsung flipped the switch on its second phone factory in the north last year, 17 percent of Vietnam's total 2014 exports came from Samsung.
Samsung remains serious about its investment here. Over the past seven years, the South Korean electronics maker has earmarked nearly $9 billion for facilities in Vietnam. That doesn't include the billions spent by other Samsung divisions and suppliers, such as a recent approval by the Vietnamese government for a $1 billion smartphone and tablet display factory in Bac Ninh province.
Already, Southeast Asia -- Vietnam in particular -- has eclipsed China in terms of total Samsung workers, and the region even overtook Korea last year as the largest employee base. Samsung employs about 110,000 workers in Vietnam, with the vast majority in its two smartphone factories in the Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen provinces outside Hanoi. When the company's new $1.4 billion consumer electronics factory opens in Ho Chi Minh City in the first half of 2016, Samsung will add about 5,000 more employees to its payroll.
"Vietnam is now a growing country, so we have opportunities not only for business but also for workforce," Nguyen Van Dao, vice president of corporate marketing for Samsung's Vietnam operations, told me in the company's office in the Bitexco Financial Tower -- Ho Chi Minh City's tallest skyscraper.
Shara Tibken/CNET
When hiring tens of thousands of workers in a developing country, it's difficult to find employees with extensive backgrounds in high-tech. Samsung assumes it will have to train all its workers, Dao said, and the company selects new hires based on their background and basic knowledge.
"Education in Vietnam is mostly based on theory and a lack of the practical," he said. "We still need a lot of practical skills and soft skills to work not only in the factory but the sales office and others."
Samsung struck agreements with universities so its workers can take free courses at night right in the factories. They're able to study English and Korean, as well as accounting and electronic engineering.
The company is also digitizing books and sponsoring 50 "Smart Libraries" in major cities and rural parts of the country. Samsung is working with the Vietnamese government to digitize textbooks, advanced reference manuals and other books, which are then made available through an Android app called Classbook. Users must have a Samsung phone run the app.
Years of training
Samsung isn't the only company addressing the education gap. LG, which in March opened a 800,000-square meter facility in Haiphong, tends to hire workers first, and deal with training and education later.
"For now, we just do on-the-job training," said Phong, the plant director. "But now we're discussing, thinking about the next three years, how to get experienced operators and managers."
Vietnam's third-largest city, Haiphong is a vital port gateway about three hours east of Hanoi by car. LG has 1,000 employees there and intends to double the workforce over the next year. While there are plenty of young, able workers in Vietnam, LG has had trouble hiring experienced employees for more intensive tasks such as supervising assembly line workers or conducting R&D, Phong said.
And it's the R&D operations, for areas such as software and automobile infotainment, that LG is now focused on in Vietnam. Along with making the Vietnamese government happy, doing R&D inside the country makes it easier to troubleshoot manufacturing problems, as well as develop products for the local market.
On average, LG has to train R&D-centric employees for three years before they can work on their own projects, Phong said. About 30 percent of the white-collar staff members overseeing factory line workers and handling tasks like quality and assurance testing can work independently after four months. The rest need close supervision for a year. About 90 percent of line workers, the people actually putting together TVs and phones, work alone after a month.
To deal with these long on-the-job training times, LG sponsors scholarships and internships. It's also considered partnering with universities on speciality training.
Jabil operates a factory at the opposite end of the country in Ho Chi Minh City, building products for customers such as Ingenico and Sierra Wireless in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park. Jabil likes to refer to itself as the biggest $18 billion (in sales) company no one's ever heard of.
Enlarge Image Shara Tibken/CNET
The industrial park feels more like Silicon Valley than any other part of Vietnam I've visited -- but there's no way to forget you're in the midst of a developing country. The road in front of Jabil's facility was dirt up to about a month before I arrived. Soil-filled ditches still surround the factory.
For US-based Jabil, the biggest problem with candidates is their poor English language skills. And what many students learn "is a bit outdated for what we need," said Patrick Tan, operations manager of Jabil's Vietnam facility. "It's kind of difficult to get people right out of the university and be able to plug into the work at the factory," he said. "It's so much different from other countries."
Jabil runs a year-long training program for new employees who show potential for advancement. At the end of the program, the participants present a report on what they've learned and where they'd like to work in Jabil if they continue at the company. They're then plugged into roles requiring greater expertise.
Other companies have taken more drastic measures beyond instituting their own training courses. In 2006, FPT Group, a Vietnamese information technology and telecommunications conglomerate, started FPT University, its own private university in Hanoi. In a letter to potential students, university rector Dam Quang Minh called the school "Inside Corporate University," and the school said its mission is "to provide a global competitive advantage for students, thus expanding our nation's intellectual horizon."
Getting up to speed
One of the biggest US companies to move into Vietnam is Intel. The Santa Clara, California, chipmaker, which opened an assembly and test factory in Ho Chi Minh City in 2010, quickly ran into the same problems as its tech brethren.
Intel turned to Arizona State University to figure out how to get engineering students up to speed. They decided the best thing to do was train Vietnamese professors from eight universities on more modern ways to teach engineering. Together they formed the Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program, or HEEAP, which is also funded by the US Agency of International Development, or USAID.
Others -- including Siemens, Danaher and Pearson -- have since joined in.
"The concept is very simple, but to make it happen is not easy," said Le Van Khoi, the director of HEEAP in Vietnam.
Enlarge Image Shara Tibken/CNET
HEEAP is showing results. Since its 2010 launch, HEEAP has trained 291 Vietnamese lecturers -- including 71 women -- in its six-week summer programs, along with hundreds of other professors in workshops offered throughout the year.
Nguyen Ba Hai, who holds a Ph.D. in the field of biorobotics, is director of the digital learning center at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education. He took part in the program in 2012 and says it's dramatically changed the way he teaches.
"In Vietnam, the educational system is very not flexible," Hai said. "If we want to change something, it takes a long time..... But really for me, I changed everything."
After the HEEAP training, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education started offering introductory engineering courses, including Mechanical Engineering 101, which didn't previously exist in Vietnam. Students now spend more time learning how to define and solve problems. They're also required to have a lab credit and create a hands-on final project. Last year, the school launched a digital learning center -- which Hai leads -- to better integrate online learning with in-person classes.
HEEAP now is seeking new funding to help schools add labs, said Jeffrey Goss, ASU vice provost and director of the university's program in Vietnam. That includes four "advanced maker spaces" throughout the country, which build on the popular global do-it-yourself movement that encourages tinkerers, engineers and kids to invent and build whatever they think up.
"The hope is that when students graduate, they're not just prepared to go work for a company, but also have more of a maker's mindset," Goss said.
Enlarge Image Shara Tibken/CNET
The government has been open to suggestions about how to educate future workers, according to the companies I talked to. Most are growing their operations despite the skills gap. Samsung is planning a $3 billion expansion to the Thai Nguyen mobile facility it opened last year, and Jabil last week signed an agreement with the management board of the Saigon Hi-Tech Park to more than double its workforce of 2,600 over the next five years, as well as build another factory in 2017.
The skills gap has also opened up an opportunity for education startups. Topica, which teaches English online and partners with universities to offer courses a la University of Phoenix, now has about 1,400 instructors teaching more than 20,000 students over the Internet. Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms Formation 8 and Learn Capital recently funded Rockit Online, a site that teaches English, math and science to Vietnamese students and is looking to add other skills-focused courses. Most Rockit users are Vietnamese college students or working professionals.
"There's a big flaw in our education model that's not being fixed fast enough to keep up with the needs of the economy," Rockit CEO Dao Thu Hien, a former AP reporter and staffer in New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration, said in the company's Hanoi offices. "That leaves opportunities for companies like us to come in and help students."
Then there are people like Pham Khoa, the 28-year-old who teaches app development.
Back in his classroom in Ho Chi Minh City, the students peppered me for nearly an hour with questions about Apple and Samsung and what the tech industry is like in the US. They told me why they were spending their precious free time -- two hours a day, three days a week, for a month -- learning to make iPhone and iPad apps.
Trinh Minh, who at 54 is the oldest person in the class, signed up for the $183 course to expand his knowledge beyond his normal IT career. He also decided to enroll his 15-year-old son, Trinh An, in the class to give his son an edge in the tech world after he finishes school.
"I want to learn more and more," Minh said through an interpreter. "And I want to be the mirror for my son to follow."
Tune back to CNET for more reports from Vietnam and Road Trip 2015.Thomas Mulcair and the NDP are riding an unprecedented high months before an election, but their weakness is still the same: Voters worry they would be big spenders.
This time, their major spending promises seem modest when they cost them out over a four-year mandate. But over the longer term, eight or 10 years from now, they are growing commitments that would eat up a big, increasing portion of the federal budget.
Politically, their saving grace is that those promises focus on things Canadians really care about: health care and child care. The question is whether they're willing to commit to a track of substantially higher spending down the road.
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Mr. Mulcair and his party have worked to shed the big-spender image. They rely on the same fiscal projections as the Conservative government and promise there will be no increase in personal taxes. Their economic policies are middle-of-the road: Although they would increase corporate taxes, they would cut small-business taxes and provide tax breaks to aid manufacturers.
And they have constructed their major social-policy promises so the near-term price tag – for the four years of a government mandate – isn't huge.
The two biggest – uncapping health transfers to the provinces and a national child-care program – would cost about $3.5-billion a year in 2018-19. In federal budget terms, that's relatively modest, just more than 1 per cent of spending.
The problem is the costs of those commitments will spiral after that, so 10 years from now the additional cost will be $15-billion to $18-billion a year.
One reason the near-term costs are more affordable is that the NDP's child-care program would be phased in, so it wouldn't be universal for eight years. It will be expanded as Ottawa strikes agreements with the provinces, Mr. Mulcair has said. The NDP says it would cost $1.9-billion in 2018-19 but $5-billion in eight years.
But the bigger impact comes from the NDP's pledge to undo the planned tightening of federal health transfers.
Right now, Ottawa transfers $34-billion a year to the provinces for health care, and that amount goes up 6 per cent a year. Stephen Harper's Conservative government plans to slow down those increases so that after 2017 transfers will increase in line with nominal growth in the economy, which the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates at 3.9 per cent a year.
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The NDP promises to undo those "cuts" and keep the 6-per-cent annual increases.
That seems to match what the public wants. Polls place health care atop the list of public concerns and suggest Canadians would accept sacrifices to pay for it.
Costs are rising: Health care accounts for half of provincial program spending, and it's on track to grow at 6 or 7 per cent a year, says economist Don Drummond, the Matthews fellow in global public policy at Queen's University. Under the Conservatives' plan for health transfers, the federal share of health-care funding will fall dramatically, he noted. Ottawa would shrink its role in medicare – and its leverage to insist on national rules.
But there's a long-term fiscal problem with the NDP plan: Costs would accelerate quickly. If a major budget item grows much faster than the economy, it squeezes out other things. Ten years from now, NDP health transfers would be at least $10-billion more per year than the Conservative plan. Eventually, other things would have to be cut or taxes increased.
Mr. Drummond argues the public is probably willing to allow health care to crowd out some budget items, but 6-per-cent annual increases might be too much. He thinks it's possible to find reductions in health-care costs so they grow at a somewhat slower rate, so Ottawa might set transfer increases at 5 per cent.
For the NDP, the problem isn't just two promises, on child care and health care, that would grow in cost. They also favour other policies, like national pharmacare and undoing Mr. Harper's plan to raise Old Age Security eligibility from 65 to 67, which entail big, growing costs 10 or 15 years from now.
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Now that Mr. Mulcair is on a roll, perhaps even the front-runner, his party still faces voters' concerns about how they'd spend – and they should be explaining not just how much they'd spend over four years, but the cost they'd commit to for the next decade.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Facebook said the changes would allow "our team to make fewer individual decisions" on topics
Social media giant Facebook has overhauled the Trending feature on its site to make posts more automated after claims of left-wing bias.
Facebook's 1.7 billion users see news stories and topics picked using a mixture of AI and human input.
Under the changes, descriptions of stories are no longer written by editorial staff, the company said.
Earlier this year Facebook was accused of suppressing conservative views, prompting complaints from Republicans.
A former journalist who worked for the company had alleged that Facebook workers "routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers".
In a blog post, the company said an internal investigation found no evidence of systematic bias.
But Facebook said it was making the changes to allow "our team to make fewer individual decisions about topics".
Image copyright Facebook Image caption Facebook unveiled the changes in a blog post
Users will still see personalised news, but the wording will be simplified and entries will focus on how many people are talking about them.
Staff will remain involved to ensure posts are still topical and based on news events.
"Facebook is a platform for all ideas, and we're committed to maintaining Trending as a way for people to access a breadth of ideas and commentary about a variety of topics," the company said.
As their user bases grow, tech firms like Facebook have faced increasing scrutiny over whether their platforms are neutral.Paul Walker was buried on Saturday after a private funeral service in Los Angeles, according to reports.
The Fast & Furious star, who died in a fiery car crash on Nov. 30 that also killed his friend and business partner Roger Rodas, was cremated and his remains were interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills.
The funeral service for the 40-year-old actor was an intimate gathering for his family and close friends, including his father Paul Walker Sr., his mother Cheryl Walker and his brothers Caleb Walker and Cody Walker, according to eonline.com. A second memorial service is reportedly being planned and will be attended by his Fast & Furious cast mates and crew.
Walker’s body was released to his family earlier this week after the coroner completed an autopsy, which revealed that the actor, who had a 15-year-old daughter, died as a result of traumatic and thermal injuries sustained in the crash that happened during a charity event. An investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing.
Thousands of fans have paid tribute to Walker at the scene of the crash in Valencia, Calif., laying flowers, candles, notes and toys at a makeshift memorial and staging a slow-moving car and motorcycle procession past the spot.In 1993, James Cameron was hired to rewrite an existing draft for "Spider-Man" for Carolco Pictures. The script was going to feature Liz Allen as Peter Parker's love interest instead of Mary Jane Watson, and the villain was Doctor Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus. Unlike the comics, Octavius was a professor who would be a mentor to college senior Peter Parker, and Otto called himself Professor Octopus after his four mechanical arms become accidentally fused to his body. During the accident that turns Octavius into Doc Ock, Otto is also bitten on the back of the neck by the same radioactive spider that turns Peter into Spider-Man. To make the film more kid-friendly, the company had Doc Ock constantly use the phrase "Okey! Dokey!" and Ock had an assistant named Weiner that later kills Peter's Uncle Ben Parker instead of a burglar that Spider-Man lets get away. Arnold Schwarzenegger was Cameron's first choice for Doctor Octopus and Edward Furlong was considered for Peter Parker. Cameron later wrote a new draft that featured Peter Parker as a high school senior in love with Mary Jane Watson and Spider-Man would fight two villains, Electro and Sandman. However, Electro was changed from electrical lineman Max Dillon to billionaire businessman Carlton Strand and Sandman was changed from crook Flint Marko to Strand's hired henchman, Boyd. Cameron had intended to cast Michael Biehn as Peter Parker. This is foreshadowed in earlier Cameron movies featuring Michael Biehn when his character gets bit on the hand in The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), and The Abyss (1989). This is a reference to the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker's hand. However, the director couldn't make his Spider-Man movie when Carolco went bankrupt and soon after the movie rights to Spider-Man went into limbo for several years.BOSTON -- College admissions officers and high school guidance counselors regularly engage in racism, keynote speaker Shaun R. Harper told thousands of attendees at the National Association for College Admission Counseling's national conference Thursday, imploring them to change their ways.
“Your profession is 80 percent white,” said Harper, a professor at the University of Southern California's school of education and executive director for the university's Race and Equity Center. “It's even whiter when we get to those who are at the top levels. It sure would be nice if a mostly white professional association and its members more powerfully, more responsibly and more loudly advocated for racial justice on behalf of those who don't have the resources that they deserve in high schools across our nation.”
Harper's keynote comes weeks after white nationalists shocked the country by marching through Charlottesville, Va., the home of the University of Virginia. Days after the Virginia events, Harper addressed that university's faculty and staff members, arguing that the university is complicit in maintaining white supremacy in society and asking them to change. He wrote about the experience in an essay on Inside Higher Ed.
His NACAC speech in Boston made some similar points. Harper asked conference attendees to raise their hands if they were disgusted by the racism displayed in Virginia. Then he argued against being “selectively horrified and disgusted” by racism and its manifestations. Those manifestations include those in the college admissions process, he said.
“Racism isn't just tiki torch-carrying white nationalists,” he said. “It's not just the things Donald Trump says. It's also the things that happen in high schools and in college admissions offices.”
Harper listed numerous areas where he sees structural racism in the admissions process, drawing upon his own research visiting colleges and universities across the country to determine how young black men navigated higher education.
His list started with valuing “black lives differently” in counseling -- guidance counselors not investing as much time or energy for black students who are applying to college as they do for white students. It continued with “undermatching,” or telling students that they should not try to enroll in top colleges or universities because “kids from here don't get into schools like those,” even if those students were top performers and in all likelihood would be admitted to the country's top institutions.
Harper also spoke against telling students that historically black colleges and universities are of poor quality and against recruiting black students from only a select handful of cities and high schools. He argued that “curricular racelessness” in programs producing professionals who work in higher education is racist because it allows graduates to enter the field with implicit biases that were never challenged.
He added that racial stratification in college admissions offices is racism as well, saying top administrators are usually white while those at the bottom of the organizational chart are more likely to be people of color.
Some of his most withering criticism was targeted at the idea that colleges can't find enough college-ready, highly qualified black applicants.
“You can find them when you want them to play on the football team and the men's basketball team,” he said. “You can find them easily when you want them to earn millions of dollars for your universities. You will go to the ends of the earth to find them.”
Harper drew his presentation to a close by showing a picture of the torch-bearing marchers in Charlottesville.
The events in Charlottesville led to a loss of life, he said, referencing the death of Heather Heyer, who was killed when an Ohio man drove his car into demonstrators protesting white nationalists in Charlottesville.
But lives are also ruined when guidance counselors and admissions officers misdirect students, Harper said. Students are locked out of opportunities. They are negatively affected by counselors who say they are not smart enough.
An association as large as NACAC should be able to do something about issues like the low number of counselors serving primarily minority students in low-income communities, Harper said.
“This isn't just a one-time occurrence on a bad night in Charlottesville,” he said. “This is something that happens every day in high schools and on college campuses around the country.
“Please, do better.”
The View From Inside
The keynote came after NACAC President Nancy T. Beane laid out a host of issues in her opening remarks. The admissions profession faces challenges related to degree completion, economic disparity, student debt, mental health and systemic inequalities in the college admission process, she said.
Meanwhile, NACAC has had to weigh in after President Trump's administration took new positions on highly charged issues, such as when it moved to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and introduced an immigration ban targeting nationals of six Muslim-majority countries. NACAC is attempting to draw a line between addressing those issues and taking political stances.
“We have taken strong positions and issued statements,” said Beane, associate director of college counseling at the Westminster Schools in Georgia. “I hope you understand this: they are honestly not political but are rather aimed at protecting students, just as we always have done since NACAC was established.”
This is not the first time the issue of race has been prominent at a NACAC conference. Last year, the outgoing president, Phillip Trout, faced sharp criticism after saying “all lives matter” during the conference's opening general session.
His statement upset many who felt saying “all lives matter” amounted to minimizing the Black Lives Matter movement and its message against police killings of black men and women. Trout apologized.Europe bans 'naked' airport scanners over cancer fears
Controversial ‘naked’ body scanners, already in use at Manchester Airport, could be withdrawn after EU chiefs warned that they could pose a health risk due to the radiation they emit.
The £80,000 security scanners, introduced to detect suspicious items hidden on passengers, have already been criticised as an invasion of privacy due to the apparent ‘naked’ image that they produce of travellers.
But the new information from the European Commission raises fears that the radiation from the machines could cause long-term health damage such as cancer.
Going through: The scanners are used widely in the U.S. and at Manchester Airport in the UK, where the machines were trialled
The EC has halted all new trials of the machines while a safety report is compiled. A final decision about rolling out the scanners across Britain and the Continent will be made next year.
The decision comes after American academic Dr David Brenner warned last summer that he believed the scanner could deliver up to 20 times more radiation to the skin than previously thought - potentially increasing the risk of skin cancer.
However, other scientists disagree and the Health Protection Agency in England says the scanners are safe for travellers to go through as many as 5,000 times a year.
The scanners are widely used in America and at Manchester Airport in the UK, where the machines were trialled - 16 are now in use.
Risks? The Civil Aviation Authority said radiation received from scanning is equal to two minutes radiation received on a Transatlantic flight
The machines were also used at Heathrow, but scrapped amid complaints about invasion of privacy.
They have been tested in Germany, France, Italy, Finland and Holland but will be completely banned in April if experts rule they are dangerous.
Of the three million people that have passed through Manchester Airport since the scanner trial, only 14 people have refused to be subjected to a scan, despite ongoing negative publicity about privacy fears and health issues.
The scanner uses ionising radiation to penetrate beneath a user's clothing and skin and give a 'naked' outline image of their body.
However, strict rules mean that the member of security staff analysing the images must be in a separate room and unable to see the passenger, maintaining their anonymity.
Security scanners also must not store or copy any of the images, meaning they are deleted immediately after they are viewed.
A Manchester Airport spokesman said: ‘We will carry on using the body scanner because it is safe.
‘The UK and American governments say it is safe - the EU is taking its time to make its mind up but there's nothing to suggest it won't come to the same conclusion as the UK and America.’
The scanners were introduced after 24-year-old Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted in 2009 to blow up a plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit with plastic explosives he had hidden in his underwear.
A spokesman for the Department for Transport stood by the technology, saying: ‘The security of the travelling public is paramount and the government firmly believes the use of security scanners is both a legal and proportionate response to a very real terrorist threat.
‘Advice from the Health Protection Agency is that any health risks from backscatter scanners are minimal.
‘The machines involve a very low dose of x-rays equivalent to less than two minutes of flying at altitude.
‘We await the Commission's final decision on whether it will add backscatter type scanners to its approved technology list, which is expected in March 2012.’Thom Milson started learning French a few months ago, with the aim of eventually immigrating to Montreal, the French-speaking metropolis located in the province of Quebec, in eastern Canada.
Before I start off telling you when and why I learned French, let me give |
group1; CREATE ROLE music1 LOGIN PASSWORD 'change'; GRANT group1 to music1; CREATE ROLE music2 LOGIN PASSWORD 'change'; GRANT group1 TO music2;
With the above, music1 and music2 can insert into ratings2 each privately by setting user_role_name for any rows they insert to their respective role names. Plus, by setting the user_role_name to group1 on an insert they can both access the row.
This can get complicated but in certain situations can be invaluable. Also, when doing this don't forget that PostgreSQL abstracts users and groups into roles. The user role merely categorizes roles that have the LOGIN privilege. They are still just roles.
Not Standard SQL but Widely Implemented
Many database systems implement some form of RLS. It will not be the most used feature of PostgreSQL 9.5+ but in some situations Row Level Security is invaluable.The most unusual thing about this car is that it’s still there! By that, I mean that most 70’s Fiats I’ve seen have rusted beyond all recognition. I’ve heard all kinds of stories that they were rusty when unloaded from the boat; that Fiat used poor-grade Eastern-bloc sourced steel at the time; and that the paintwork was sub-par. To be honest, I don’t know the reasons for sure. I just know most of them have ended up very perforated! This low-mileage, almost rust-free example located in Northbrook, Illinois is up for auction here on eBay with the reserve not yet met.
Let’s get the rust out of the way first. The seller has included a picture of the corrosion in front of the left rear wheel to show the extent of the damage. To have that much rust-through on the left and nothing on the right would surprise me, and I suspect the panels under these left-side holes won’t be pretty either. I admire the seller for being so upfront with pictures of the issue. I didn’t have any luck finding a ready-made patch panel, but there were plenty of stories on Fiat forums about people fabricating their own.
X1/9’s were powered by small SOHC four-cylinder engines, in this case a 1.3 liter making 75 horsepower. Here’s hoping the rags stuffed in the carburetor throats are a signal of preparation for long-term storage rather than the car just being parked. The seller states it was last registered in 1980, so the low quoted mileage is probably true, but what’s happened since then?
Moving on to the interior, does anyone else remember fake sheepskin seat covers? I had a pair for my first Triumph Spitfire–those houndstooth seat covers that Josh likes the look of so much didn’t hold up very well for me. One can see the tears in the driver’s cushion in the pictures. I’m not worried about the seam separation, I can easily understand the stitching going bad after 40 years, but I’m surprised to see what I think is a torn bolster as well. That has me wondering how well the car was taken care of while it was on the road.
Strut tops and other vulnerable areas look rust-free, and even what you can see of the rubber weatherstripping looks uncracked. I can’t say I’m in love with the green color, it looks like they borrowed the mid-70’s British Leyland palette, but getting the chance to pick up a mid-engined icon with so few miles outweighs my distaste for the color. If you’re interested, let us know in the comments!CENTENNIAL, CO. - JULY 27: Catherine Williams fires her handgun during a Multi-State Concealed Carry class at the Centennial Gun Club shooting range in Centennial, CO July 27, 2013. The number of people seeking a concealed carry gun permit in Colorado has increased by 87 percent from last year. Williams said she decided to take the class after seeing a recent video of a New Jersey mother being beaten during a home invasion. (Photo By Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post)
In a year that saw some of the nation's most strict gun control laws pass in Colorado, demand for the concealed-carry permit is soaring.
Between January and June of 2013, nearly 32,000 background checks were performed for concealed-carry permits by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, according to The Associated Press. That's up 87 percent from 2012 which saw fewer than 17,000 checks processed for the concealed-carry permit.
The demand was so high that Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson told The Denver Post that he had to hire more staff to keep up with the number of applications coming in.
The reasons for the surge of interest in concealed-carry permits is not entirely clear, but The Denver Post reports that for some it may be about personal protection and for others it may be a reaction against the gun control laws passed this year in the state.
Earlier in 2013, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a package of gun control measures into law that included requiring universal background checks on all gun sales and transfers and a ban on ammunition magazines that can hold more than 15 rounds.
As Colorado lawmakers passed these sweeping gun control laws during the first quarter of the year, gun sales surged, breaking new records in the state.
From January to March there were 146,949 background checks processed for potential firearm buyers -- that's an increase of 69,628 checks from the same period just a year ago, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation data.
"The demand has been artificially created," State Sen. Morgan Carroll (D-Aurora), a sponsor of the universal background check bill, said. "Many groups have been telling people these laws will take guns away, which is not true."
It appears as if 2013 could be another banner year for gun sales in Colorado. According to data from the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), there were 414,838 background checks processed last year in Colorado -- and that was an increase of 23 percent, or 78,542 checks, from 2011. The largest volume of checks came in December at 53,453.
A background check generally takes minutes in Colorado, but during the end of December 2012 and into January 2013, the CBI's queue hovered around 10,000 checks, causing a wait time of more than nine days. That more than doubled the wait time just from earlier in December when gun buyers saw background checks taking 100 hours or more.
In 2012, there were also several unusual surges in gun sales in Colorado. A large spike in gun sales took place immediately following the tragic Aurora movie theater shooting that left 12 dead and nearly 60 wounded. Just days after the shooting, background checks for people wanting to purchase firearms in the state jumped more than 41 percent. And another sales spike occurred following the Jessica Ridgeway tragedy, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigations.
Then, on Black Friday, the CBI set a new record in the state processing over 4,000 background checks on people purchasing firearms -- that's nearly 1,000 more checks than were run in 2011 when CBI set a single-day record of checking 3,031 gun buyers, according to 9News. So busy was the CBI that the flood of new applications crashed the system twice on Black Friday.
The tragic Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn., also caused a surge in gun sales in Colorado and across the nation. Fox31 reported that the AR-15, a military-style assault weapon that was used in the Sandy Hook shooting as well as the Aurora shooting, was virtually sold out in Colorado gun shops last December.
Although the spike in firearm sales has grown dramatically in Colorado, when compared to the rest of the nation, people were less enthusiastic about buying new guns at the end of 2012 in the Centennial State, as well as in Connecticut -- the homes of two of the nation's bloodiest mass shootings last year.
The perceived fear of new restrictions on guns driving firearm purchases is nothing new. Nationally, a gun sales bump was observed close to President Barack Obama's election in 2008 due to a fear that he would take people's guns away, as Newser reported. And gun sales spiked again following Obama's reelection in November 2012.
The Associated Press reports that there were nearly twice as many more background checks performed for gun purchases between November and December 2012 than during the same two months in 2011.
And as the debate over gun control intensified in Washington at the start of 2013, the FBI received a historically high number of gun background checks during that same period, according to CNN.
February marked the fourth month in a row that background checks topped 2 million -- though the number did drop from the prior month. Before that streak, the number of gun background checks per month had never exceeded 1.8 millionI've lived here in Sheffield my whole life and I love it for a number of reasons. When I decided to stay here to study at University, everybody asked me why."Aren't you sick of being in Sheffield?" Honestly? No.Just over a month ago I landed a job as a Student Ambassador for The I Paper. Given that this was my first stint working for a newspaper, I was over the moon. Our first task was to organise a charity music event in our hometown.iSessions, which was launched by The Independent this year, is a nationwide competition that aims to promote unsigned acts, giving them the chance to bag a professional recording session. For this, I had to secure at least three musical acts, one venue, a sound system with sound engineer, a photographer, somebody to video and of course, get people to come down on the night."Piece of cake" I hear you say.Now despite having a positive outlook on life, I was the first to admit that this wouldn't be a walk in the park. I hadn't so much as held a car boot sale before, never mind a live gig. The students I knew were not part of bands, and the bands and singers I knew, simply weren't students. Rounding up my nearest and dearest, we took to Facebook, Twitter and Sheffield Forum to advertise the event. This would be a challenge, but that's what the role was all about. Getting stuck in!Despite a few setbacks, I was adamant that the event was going to happen. Sheffield has some reyt talent to offer and I wanted to help showcase that. Queens Social Club, a pretty renowned place to hold gigs, kindly agreed to host the event at no cost. I had secured three bands that were original, fun and happy to be involved in a charity event. I had someone to video the event and a photographer who had tonnes of experience with gigs. Things slowly started coming together.On 20th November, the day of the Sheffield event, I was still short of a PA system and the videographer had called in sick. Frantically, I took to LinkedIn in search of anyone who knew how to operate some basic sound equipment.Driving around town in a rusty little Corsa that was jam packed with sandwiches, balloons and any equipment that could be salvaged from the storeroom at Uni - I was on the verge of a breakdown. I desperately didn't want my first ever event to be a shambles and I didn't want to let anybody down.Luckily my constant nagging on social media paid off as friends and old work colleagues had spread the word to anyone they thought could be of help.After a painfully slow start, the game was on! Everyone seemed to be having fun, each of the bands played really well and, along with fellow ambassadors from other Universities, the iSessions event helped us all raise money for the ABF British Soldier's Charity.The night had been a success and hosting an event wasn't that scary after all.So when people ask me what it is I love about Sheffield, my answer is definitely the people. We may not have the most exciting clubbing scene or the fanciest shopping centre or the best bloody accent, but we know how to be helpful. We know how to be nice and have manners.And manners don't cost a thing.For more info on iSessions or to vote for your favourite Sheffield act, visit www.ind.pn/isessionsHear Palo Alto Weekly journalists discuss the ins and outs of code enforcement in the city, from violations of promised "public benefits" to construction practices to retail zoning on "Behind the Headlines."
After more than two years of providing counseling to Palo Alto teenagers dealing with mental health issues out of an office at the First Baptist Church, Jill Cooper received a letter from the city last week informing her that she has until Sept. 30 to leave.
Cooper, whose clients include teenagers who have experienced suicidal ideation, said she was surprised to learn in the letter that the services she provides "are not a permitted use within the single-family residential district and are not compatible with the surrounding R-1 neighborhood." She told the Weekly she found this odd, given that she deals with exactly the type of teenagers that residents have been worried about since 2009, when a cluster of suicides sparked a community effort to promote youth well-being.
The notice from the city's Lead Code Enforcement Officer James Stephens gave her until Sept. 30 to "cease medical services." Failure to do so, it stated, may result in an administrative citation and/or a notice to appear at a hearing at City Hall. The fines for the violation, the letter noted, are $500 per day, subject to go up to $750 per day after a second violation and to $1,000 per day after a third.
Cooper described her job as a "labor of love." After paying the church for her lease and paying her taxes, she estimates that she makes about $5 an hour. She is also well-aware that with Palo Alto's sky-high office rates, the chances of her finding an affordable new location are very slim.
"The sad thing about this is that I'm going to have to close my practice because there's no office space in Palo Alto for the cost of what the church leases me space for," Cooper said. "I'm hoping all my patients will be able to find a therapist."
Cooper, who sees about 15 patients per week, isn't the only tenant of First Baptist Church who is facing tough choices. Last week, the city sent out notices to First Baptist and to 11 organizations that rent space within the Old Palo Alto neighborhood church, informing them that they are violating the zoning code, which "enumerates the permitted and conditionally permit uses for single-family residential districts."
"The City of Palo Alto is a great place to live and work because of our dedicated residents and businesses who continue to show pride, care and concern for their property and community," each letter states. "Palo Alto's Code Enforcement Division has received a complaint regarding your use of the subject property."
The city's crackdown on tenants at First Baptist Church began in early 2016, when it targeted one of the church's largest tenants: the New Mozart School of Music. After initially requesting that the music school apply for a conditional-use permit to remain at the church, planning staff determined that its operation in a residential neighborhood would be illegal even with a permit. Last month, the Planning and Transportation Commission affirmed staff's decision to require New Mozart to leave, though officials also later agreed to give the school an extension of four to six months so that it can improve the space at a new location.
The city also requested the church submit a list of all of its tenants, which the church did. Then last week, the tenants began to receive their notices of violation. Those include iSing Girl Choir, Tuesday Night Tango, Bisheh Toddler Class, Chinese Global Artist Association, Resounding Achord (a concert and musical event organization), Palo Alto Philharmonic, Jennifer Merrill, Joellen Werne (both Merrill and Werne are characterized as "medical services"), Moveable Feet (a folk dancing program), Stanford Folk Dance and Tango Argentina.
Most of the tenants were asked to vacate and cease operations within 30 days. Others, including the three medical-services providers and the toddler class, were given until Sept. 30. In some cases, tenants were notified that they may be eligible to apply for a conditional-use permit or a special-use permit to continue using the church space.
"We're not just trying to put anyone out," Stephens said. "There has to be an end to activities that can no longer be there. However, we are willing to work with people."
Stephens said the city has heard from some groups who had requested more time (much like New Mozart).
From the city's perspective, the issue with these organizations is the same one that it encountered with New Mozart. Even though a church is allowed to operate within the single-family residential (R-1) zones with a conditional use permit, the uses within the church are tightly restricted by city code.
On July 18, Stephens sent a letter to the church itself, notifying it of its own violation.
"Here, First Baptist Church does not possess any use permit that might allow continued use of the church for activities other than regular organized religious worship and religious education," the letter states. "The frequency with which the church hosts such activities and the resulting intensity of the church's use is not compatible with the surrounding R-1 neighborhood, which is... intended to create, preserve and enhance areas suitable for detached dwellings with a strong presence of nature and with open area affording maximum privacy."
The letter asks Pastor Randle Mixon of First Baptist to "cease operations of all uses other than those that provide regular organized religious worship and religious education, or those uses that are permitted or conditionally permitted in R-1 districts at the subject property to the satisfaction of a Palo Alto code enforcement officer, no later than Aug. 17, 2017."
But for Mixon, the city's decision marks a huge break with past practices and a significant shift in the city's interpretation of the zoning code. And for the church, the decision carries huge ramifications. Mixon told the Weekly that it gets about $110,000 annually in rental income from the tenants, an amount that makes up about a third of its operating budget.
The funding, he said, is critical for the church's ability to maintain the property.
"If we can't rent the facility, we can't keep up the property, and we really can't continue to exist in the property," Mixon told the Weekly. "We'd be forced to do something drastic if the city takes such a hard line."
The problem, he said, isn't limited to First Baptist. Because Palo Alto is dominated by R-1 zones, almost every church will have to face a similar dilemma (there are some exceptions, including All Saints Church, which is located in a commercial zone downtown).
"This is precedent setting," Mixon said. "No church in 2017 can maintain these large buildings without renting space in them. And for us, most importantly, it enables good stewardship of the facility.
"To me, it would be irresponsible for us to hold a large space like that and not make it available for community good," Mixon said.
The church, he said, has been around for about 70 years, since long before anything like the current use-permit had existed. And with the city now clamping down on uses, both First Baptist and iSing — a choir group that was launched in the church — have hired attorneys to potentially contest the violation, Mixon said.
"The city has a very narrow definition of what a religious institution is and what it can provide, and they're making a very strict interpretation of a very narrow definition," Mixon said.
Regardless of whether the church's legal challenge proceeds and succeeds, it'll probably be too late for Cooper to remain in her current location. This week, she was notifying parents of her clients about her forthcoming departure from First Baptist. Some, she said, were pretty upset. Some offered help in finding a new location, either in Palo Alto or elsewhere.
One option, she said, is conducting some appointments at her clients' homes and referring out a "significant portion" of the others. Another is renting in Palo Alto where she would be paying twice the rate she is paying now, which would require her to double the rate she charges.
"For some families, this might not be an issue at all," Cooper said. "For others, it might be."
Related content:
• Code enforcement: one of City Hall's most controversial, and misunderstood, jobs
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Follow the Palo Alto Weekly/Palo Alto Online on Twitter @PaloAltoWeekly and Facebook for breaking news, local events, photos, videos and more.Documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis is trying something new on the web. It's unearthing a secret, patchwork history that reads like a novel. It's about Afghanistan, and what he calls "our dreams of Afghanistan, and their dreams of us".
As part of a mission to unearth lost gems from the BBC archive, it's full of extraordinary stories - how hippies created the heroin business, for example, or how American engineers tried to build a model democracy in the 1950s. It's old fashioned journalism, the kind that TV news seems reluctant to do. Adam kindly offered to explain it to us.
If you've missed it, here are Kabul, City Number One Kinshasha, City Number Two, and The Secret History of Helmand. Much of what we discussed follows on from the latter - which explores the grand, techno-utopian designs of US nation building in the 1950s.
Q. When people read it, people who know your work, they'll recognise a few familiar Adam Curtis themes. What was it that caught your eye?
I was completely shocked by the way it was being reported. Our relationship to Afghanistan the way it's reported now is not even two-dimensional, it's one-dimensional.
Documentaries, and a lot of television now, is possessed by the mantra that people will only watch your film, or listen to your program, if it "touches something in them". So the reporting has to find something in Afghanistan that's some terrible thing that has happened "to somebody like you, or just like your child".
It's done with the best intentions, and a certain kind of desperation to keep an audience. But it makes it more and more incomprehensible. Because it becomes a land full of victims and out there in the darkness, dark forces we don't understand.
I'm trying to build up a body of evidence of just how complicated our relationship to that country has been.
One thing that fits in to your canon is psychologists, and another is nation building, with both sets of people trying to form society to a model.
I did not know America had tried a kind of nation building before. The whole idea that you could use scientific ideas to substitute for what was essentially a political project. That instead of political fallabilities you have a series of certainties - scientific principles - on which you could build nations. They really did believe that. But they tried it on Afghanistan and it's one of the biggest they ever did. It shocked me.
Like everyone else I have watched the picture of Helmand, and had the impression that this is a dusty old landscape where we've disturbed something really complicated. To quote: "It has been there a long time, we're better out of it."
It's not, it's a bit more like Ancient Greece, we're fighting amongst the ruins of one of the giant American technocratic projects. In five years nobody's done a proper history.
Documentary strands have become very worthy - it's as if they're not addressing us as an audience, but policy makers. And they start with the basis that it's an intractable problem.Trump’s bestie Roger Stone is going above and beyond in his effort to be scummy on behalf of The Donald. Stone is the Trump ally who probably planted the fake Ted Cruz sex scandal story in the National Enquirer. He’s also a big piece of crap. And lately, he’s been making threats. Today he took it to a whole new level.
Speaking with Stefan Molyneux Monday, Stone promised to disclose the hotel room numbers of delegates who are insufficiently loyal to Dear Leader, in order that angry Trump die-hards can go to their rooms and challenge them. Which will definitely be totally peaceful and fine. You should note that Freedomain Radio, which is where the interview is from, is pro-Trump, not a liberal site.
If Trump does not run the table on the rest of the primaries and the caucuses, we’re looking at a very, very narrow path in which the kingmakers go all out to cheat, to steal, and to snatch this nomination from the candidate who is overwhelmingly selected by the voters, which is why I have urged Trump supporters: come to Cleveland. March on Cleveland. Join us in the Forest City. We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal. If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed.
Stone is openly attempting to intimidate delegates. Stick with Trump, or else. Imagine being assigned as a Trump delegate. Imagine you intend to vote for someone else on the second ballot. Imagine the promise from the Trump campaign that they will send goons to your room. Get the picture? Intimidation. A literal threat.
These threats from the Trump camp regarding the convention are increasing in their frequency and scope, and show two things. First, that They are getting desperate because they see the writing on the wall. His campaign failed to understand the process because he is incurious and dumb and so are those who work for him. And now they realize they can lose the whole thing. That’s the first thing it tells you.
The second thing it shows is, not only do Trump and his surrogates give zero craps about rules, order, even basic respect for our political process, but they are 100% certain that their loyal followers don’t care either. They are not only anticipating rioting if Trump loses fair and square, they are not only promising it, they are actively soliciting it.
Stone, like Trump, has no problem using actual threats of retribution against his enemies. Trump is a tin-pot amateur dictator with designs on going pro. And it seems his army of hooligans are just fine with that. Until and unless Donald Trump personally objects to these statements being made on his behalf, he is willingly endorsing them, and should be treated as someone willfully inciting violence. You know, a dirtbag. Just like Roger Stone.Non-Player-Characters (NPCs), as found in computer games, can be modelled as intelligent systems, which serve to improve the interactivity and playability of the games. Although reinforcement learning (RL) has been a promising approach to creating the behavior models of non-player characters (NPC), an initial stage of exploration and low performance is typically required. On the other hand, imitative learning (IL) is an effective approach to pre-building a NPC’s behavior model by observing the opponent’s actions, but learning by imitation limits the agent’s performance to that of its opponents. In view of their complementary strengths, this paper proposes a computational model unifying the two learning paradigms based on a class of self-organizing neural networks called Fusion Architecture for Learning and COgnition (FALCON). Specifically, two hybrid learning strategies, known as the Dual-Stage Learning (DSL) and the Mixed Model Learning (MML), are presented to realize the integration of the two distinct learning paradigms in one framework. The DSL and MML strategies have been applied to creating autonomous non-player characters (NPCs) in a first person shooting game named Unreal Tournament. Our experiments show that both DSL and MML are effective in producing NPCs with faster learning speed and better combat performance comparing with those built by traditional RL and IL methods. The proposed hybrid learning strategies thus provide an efficient method to building intelligent NPC agents in games and pave the way towards building autonomous expert and intelligent systems for other applications.File photo of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today slammed Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for not inviting Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for the inauguration of Badarpur extension metro line."The DMRC is a professional body and usually does not indulge in such petty politics. DMRC is a joint venture of the Centre and the Delhi government."In the past, when there was proposal of extending Delhi metro in other parts of the NCR, the DMRC would take Delhi government into confidence but this has not happened this time," Saurabh Bhardwaj, AAP's Delhi unit secretary and former transport minister, said.Meanwhile, a senior DMRC official said today's inaugural programme was not organised by them."DMRC did not organise the inaugural programme for the new Badarpur-Faridabad metro line. Instead, Haryana government organised this programme. DMRC did not invite anybody including media for the same," the official said.The official also said that Haryana government has funded this extension project of Metro (Badarpur to Faridabad) as nine stations of the new line come under the jurisdiction of Haryana."Delhi government gives funds to DMRC for the projects which are only executed in the capital. Today's programme was not organised by the DMRC," the official added.However, a senior Delhi government official said the city government gives 50 per cent of the fund to DMRC for its project executed in the national capital.DMRC has equal equity participation from the Centre and Delhi government, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the much-awaited Badarpur-Faridabad Metro that will connect the national capital with the satellite town.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
Nick Clegg today accused the controversial mayor of Tower Hamlets of "arrogance" as he backed an investigation into the borough's chaotic election process.
The Deputy Prime Minister launched an extraordinary attack on Lutfur Rahman amid allegations of voter intimidation at polling stations – and said police should be called in if the claims are found to be true.
Watchdog the Electoral Commission has confirmed an investigation into what happened after claims of "arguments, threats and chaos" at the vote count.
Speaking on his LBC Radio show, Call Clegg, the Lib Dem leader said: "I totally share your anger about what is alleged to have happened. I want the Electoral Commission to do what they said they were going to do and look into these incredibly serious allegations of intimidation.
"If these allegations do turn out to be of a criminal nature where people are being intimidated from allowing the democratic process to run its course then of course the police need to be called in."
A key adviser to Mr Rahman yesterday warned that violence will "spill onto the streets" if the results of the election were not accepted. The controversial mayor narrowly defeated a challenge by Labour's John Biggs to secure four more years of power at last week's polls.
But Mr Clegg today branded the warning "outrageous" during a scathing attack on Mr Rahman's newly-formed Tower Hamlets First party.
"I find the whole Tower Hamlets First movement and the pronouncements of Lutfur Rahman... just the kind of arrogance of it that they can swagger about in Tower Hamlets and do what they like."
He went on: "This is a democracy. This is a mature democracy, and you neber try and even suggest that you have a right to kind of push people about when democracy is all about people pushing politicians about, not the other way round."
Labour and Mr Rahman's party are now battling to secure a majority in the council chamber, with a crucial by-election still to be held after a candidate's sudden death.Let's say you want your own stadium, because who doesn't want their own stadium? They're big, shiny, and fit a lot of people. But you don't want an affordable stadium, like some antiquated, abandoned dome that costs less than most New York City apartments. You want a state-of-the-art, modern structure. You may be able to afford a billion dollar stadium -- lucky you! -- but why bother spending your own money when it's just so easy to have someone else pay for it instead? I mean, as the old saying I'm just making up now goes: it takes other people's money to make money.
Still, it must be hard to convince hundreds of principled public officials and millions of citizens to give you money, right? Oh, you could not be more wrong even if you were Matt Millen analyzing a draft board. With my handy, 20-step guide, you too can have your own stadium in no time.
Here's how you're going to do it:
Infinite thanks to Neil deMause at Field Of Schemes for his tireless research on all things stadia.vshivkova/Getty
Nearly two-thirds of the mutations that drive cancers are caused by errors that occur when cells copy DNA, mathematical models suggest.
The findings, published in Science on 23 March1, are the latest argument in a long-running debate over how much the environment or intrinsic factors contribute to cancer. They also suggest that many cancer mutations are not inherited and could not have been prevented by, for example, making different lifestyle choices. It’s a finding that could change how researchers wage the “war on cancer”, says study co-author Bert Vogelstein, a geneticist at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
Researchers have tended to emphasize the role of environmental factors in generating cancer mutations, he says. “If we think of the mutations as the enemies, and all the enemies are outside of our border, it’s obvious how to keep them from getting inside,” Vogelstein explains. “But if a lot of the enemies — in this case close to two-thirds — are actually inside our borders, it means we need a completely different strategy.”
That strategy would emphasize early detection and treatment, in addition to prevention, he says.
Bad code
Each time a cell divides, it provides an opportunity for errors to crop up during DNA replication. In 2015, Vogelstein and one of his co-authors, mathematician Cristian Tomasetti of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, created a stir with an analysis2 that looked at possible explanations for why some cancers occur more often than others. They concluded that differences in the number of stem-cell divisions in an organ correlated with the frequency of cancers in that area. There aren't as many stem cell divisions in areas with less common cancers, including in the brain, than in sites with more common cancers such as colorectal cancer.
There were fears that the study’s conclusions could undercut prevention efforts, and it sparked hundreds of follow-up papers3. “It reignited a debate about how much cancer is due to environmental factors,” says Robert Noble, who specializes in mathematical models of cancer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in Basel.
Vogelstein counters that the study never intended to challenge efforts to combat known causes of cancer, such as cigarette smoking and sun exposure, which can create cancer-causing mutations. Epidemiological studies suggest that about 42% of cancers are preventable, he says, and his results do not contradict that. (Because his study looks at the number of cancer-causing mutations — and it typically takes more than one such mutation to cause cancer — the numbers are not directly comparable.)
The latest study addresses two criticisms of the 2015 paper. It expands the analysis beyond the United States, to include databases of cancer incidence from 69 different countries, and it includes two common cancers — breast and prostate — that were omitted from the first study. The results of the expanded analysis support the conclusions from the earlier paper, says Tomasetti.
He and his colleagues then calculated the relative contribution of the environment, heredity and random DNA-replication errors to cancer-causing mutations. The team used data from a UK cancer database and, in some cases, cancer genome sequencing efforts, and looked for mutations that are indicative of particular environmental exposures.
The researchers found that these percentages vary from cancer to cancer. In some lung tumours, for example, environmental factors account for 65% of all cancer-causing mutations, whereas replication errors comprise only 35%[1]. Yet in prostate, brain and bone cancers, more than 95% of cancer drivers are caused by random DNA-copying errors.
Overall, calculations across 32 cancers indicated that about 66% of cancer-driving mutations are due to random DNA replication errors, with only 29% due to environmental factors and 5% to inherited mutations.
Coming into focus
The method the authors used is sound, says Noble, although they did have to rely on a number of assumptions to simplify the analysis.
Yusuf Hannun, director of the Stony Brook Cancer Center in New York, worries that the study underestimates the contributions of environmental and heritable factors because researchers do not yet know how to fully predict these on the basis of sequence and epidemiological data. For example, although it may be possible to estimate how much smoking contributed to someone’s lung cancer, it would be more difficult to fully capture the impact of air pollution or exposure to radon, he says.
And overall, Noble says, the controversy has served a purpose by galvanizing the field to develop better models of cancer’s causes. “A lot has come out of this debate,” he says. “It’s been very useful.”
Vogelstein hopes that the results will alleviate some of the guilt felt by patients and their families — especially parents of children with cancer — about their condition. Many turn to the Internet for answers, and are greeted with a common message: something in their lifestyle or genes caused the disease. “They need to understand that these cancers would have occurred no matter what they did,” he says. “We don’t need to add guilt to an already tragic situation.”NEWS: 3 Reasons Why BDR is the Best Way to Backup Your Company’s Data
June 21, 2017
If we asked you how you back up your data, would you be able to respond with enough knowledge to seriously talk about the topic? Many small organizations are under the impression that data backup is only necessary if your business suffers from a data breach or data loss incident. However, the truth is that if you want to ensure the future of your business, data backup is absolutely crucial.
However, tape backup can only do so much. While tape backup is certainly better than no backup at all, it takes much more than tape to properly secure your data infrastructure from harm. If you want a truly dynamic solution, Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) is the ideal choice. All it takes is a stroke of bad luck to cause even a hint of data loss, so you should do all that you can to preserve your organization through any means necessary.
BDR Provides an Ideal Recovery Point Objective
Your recovery point objective should be one that allows for the minimal amount of data loss. In other words, how recent your last backup was, has a lot to do with meeting this objective. The last thing that you want to ask yourself is how much data you’re willing to part with in the event of a data loss incident. The bottom line is that no amount of loss |
-free vs. vegan.
Tashina is constantly checking in with brands and updating her lists.
Paula’s Choice. Their list is broken into cruelty-free, not cruelty-free, and unknown status. They contact brands directly, as well as rely on the National Anti-Vivisection Society for information on whether or not brands are testing.
Paula’s Choice Brand List
As a reminder, here is my personal stance on cruelty-free. I understand that cruelty-free can vary from person to person. I am not pushing my beliefs on anyone but I do want to educate people so that they can make an informed decision.
I purchase cruelty-free beauty products whenever possible. I will purchase from cruelty-free companies that belong to a parent company that is not cruelty-free because I want to encourage that company to see the value in cruelty-free. Example: I will purchase from NARS (owned by Shiseido), Urban Decay or the Body Shop (L’Oreal).
I own non-cruelty-free products that I am finishing up and will not repurchase once I run out. Example: I own a ton of MAC and Make Up For Ever, purchased when they were cruelty-free. I am using that up but once it’s gone I will not repurchase unless MAC or Make Up For Ever are cruelty-free again.
Because I have rosacea, some products I use are under the recommendation of my doctor, such as Cetaphil, though I am so happy to have found Abbey St. Clare Aniba Cleanser for Rosacea, which is a perfect replacement for Cetaphil. If you have rosacea and feel like you can only use Cetaphil, please consider checking out Abbey St. Clare Aniba Cleanser, because it has worked wonders on my skin.
As far as I am aware, there are no contact manufacturers that are cruelty-free. I wear contacts because I am -9 in each eye. I also wear glasses, but because of how bad my vision is, I don’t ever drive in my glasses. My peripheral vision in glasses is too limited for me to feel comfortable driving. I hope to get Lasik surgery this year so that I can stop wearing contacts and glasses. I really need to find the best Lasik surgeon in Tampa to get my vision corrected, because it is so bad.
I will always do the best I can to be honest and disclose about a brand’s cruelty-free status. With makeup I find that it’s easy to find cruelty-free products. I find it more difficult to find cruelty-free skincare that works with my rosacea. Hair related products can be very difficult as well. I do get frustrated when I contact a brand and I’m told that they are cruelty free, only to find out later on that they’re not.
If a company is not cruelty-free but decides to go cruelty-free, I will support them. I want companies to be encouraged to change their status to cruelty-free.
Whether or not you are cruelty-free, I hope you find this post informative and helpful.
Are there other companies that you would like to see me cover that are cruelty-free?See earlier Ann Coulter: OK, Who Ordered The Mexican Heroin? and much earlier, by Sam Francis: What We Really Get From Mexico, November 21, 2002.
Anne Case and Angus Deaton (right) Princeton University economists, published a paper back in October 2015 entitled Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century. For most Americans, however, death rates are falling and life expectancy is increasing. But the paper finds that white, middle age Americans, especially those with less education, have rising death rates. Increased suicides and drug poisoning are the leading causes of the rise. Steve Sailer has dubbed this phenomenon “The White Death”. In contrast, some in the Main Stream Media have expressed doubt, but Professors Case and Deaton are exactly right and the numbers are easily accessible.
At only six pages, the paper makes quick and enlightening reading.
The primary source for death data is the Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics. The CDC publishes annual reports on deaths. Death data are collected from death certificates. The CDC has a U.S. Standard Certificate used by most states and counties use these forms to electronically transmit to states and then states to the CDC.
The CDC reports contain many tables but you can also view data from the CDC Wonder Compressed files. The most current death report for 2012 shows the 15 leading causes of death and the number of deaths and death rates for each cause. In 2012, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death. Drug poisoning was not among the top 15.
For all ages, suicide death rates rose from 10.5 per 100,000 in 1999 to 12.9 per 100,000 in 2012. For those who died between the ages of 45 to 54, the death rate rose from 13.9 to 20 per 100,000.
Hmm, that is a big spike. Who is committing suicide? The answers are in CDC reports.
First, between 2008 and 2012, age-adjusted suicide rates increased significantly in a number of states including: West Virginia and Kentucky. The states with the highest suicide rates in 2012 were: Wyoming (29.6 per 100,000), Alaska (23), Montana (22.6) and New Mexico (21.3).
All of these states, except New Mexico, have a large population of non-Hispanic, white residents. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates for 2012 are 62.1 percent of US residents were non-Hispanic whites but West Virginia, for example, was 92.5 percent white.
New Mexico has a large population of Native Americans and the CDC mortality data show their suicide rate is the highest among all racial and ethnic groups.
In, Deaths: Leading Causes for 2012, one finds that 40,600 people committed suicide, mostly by use of firearms. Of these suicide deaths, 31,780 (78%) were committed by men. The CDC distribution by age shows the span in which the suicide rate is greatest is 45 to 54 years of age and of the 8,832 suicides of these middle-aged people, 6,578 (75%) were committed by men.
Of the 6,578 middle-aged, male suicides, 87 percent were committed by white, non-Hispanic males. Additionally, for all suicide deaths, those with less education committed suicide most frequently.
Professors Case and Deaton are right about suicides. They say, “Although the epidemic of pain, suicide and drug overdoses preceded the financial crisis, ties to economic insecurity are possible. “ White, middle-aged men who live in states such as West Virginia and Kentucky are committing suicide at very high rates. Are they feeling economically insecure? Yes, they are.
The good professors also found that drug poisonings are on the rise. Most are unintentional.
In Deaths: Final Data for 2011, the CDC reports that “unintentional poisoning death rates in the United States have increased each year since 1999”. In 2012, 79 percent of poisoning deaths were unintentional. From 1999 to 2012, annual deaths for drug induced causes more than doubled from 19,128 to 43,819.
WOW!
(Data for 2012 drug deaths and rates are available on the internet in PDF here. See Table I-4) Most of the deaths are caused by overdoses of controlled prescription drugs (CPDs).
Non-Hispanic whites have the highest drug death rates of any group. Between 1999 and 2012, the age-adjusted death rate for all non-Hispanic, whites rose from 6.8 per 100,000 to 17.6 in 2012. In contrast, the 2012 age-adjusted death rate for Hispanics was 6.8 per 100,000 and for non-Hispanic blacks, it was 9.6 per 100,000.
The highest death rate of poisoning by age is 45 to 54 years but the rates for ages 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 are close behind.
Drugs are a huge problem for men and women although the male drug-death rate is about 60 percent higher than that for females.
Where are drug poisonings on the rise? Again, West Virginia, Kentucky, and New Jersey according to the CDC.
In July, the CDC issued a press release entitled “Today’s Heroin Epidemic.” It states: “From 2002 through 2013, the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled.”
The CDC does not state what the problem is. But the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) does. Last October, the DEA released, 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary. (PDF) Acting Director Chuck Rosenberg said
The trafficking and abuse of illicit drugs pose a monumental danger to our citizens....The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 46,471 of our citizens died of a drug overdose in 2013.... Overdose deaths, particularly from prescription drugs and heroin, have reached epidemic levels.
The Executive Summary of the DEA report says that the increased use of heroin is being caused by increased availability.
Repeat, because this is important: the increased use of heroin is being caused by increased availability. Controlled prescription drugs are expensive relative to abundant heroin—and heroin overdose deaths are increasing all over the United States but especially in the Northeast and Midwest. [US Heroin Epidemic: Growing Rates Of Addiction And Overdose Reported In New Jersey, Kentucky, Indiana, By Elizabeth Whitman, IBTimes, May 10, 2015]
DEA Director Rosenberg continued:
The most significant drug trafficking organizations operating in the United States today are the dangerous and highly sophisticated Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) that continue to be the principal suppliers of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
According to the DEA report, Mexican TCOs serve primarily as wholesale suppliers to the United States. There they rely on US-based gangs to distribute retail drugs. The report contains a color-coded map that shows the areas of influence of major Mexican TCOs in the US.
In August 2015, the Feds conducted Operation Mountain Justice in West Virginia. Most of those arrested were white men.(The names on the list of suspects are mostly white, Anglo-Saxon.) [Authorities Release Names Of Suspects Arrested In Huge Drug Roundup, by Jeffrey A. Morris, August 27 2015] According to local news sources, many had been workers in the local mine—but most of those jobs are gone. Eastern Kentucky has the same issue. [Obama promotes anti-heroin strategy in coal country, By Tara McKelvey BBC News,October 22, 2015]
In Washington State, on the left side of the country, the Seattle division of the DEA arrested twelve involved in a drug trafficking ring earlier this month. Most are probably Mexican nationals, judging from the names, even though the residences listed are mostly in Snohomish County, north of Seattle. Unfortunately, the suspected ring leader, Carlos Antonio Villa-Alvarez appears to be in Mexico. [Twelve Arrested in Major Meth & Heroin Trafficking Organization,DEA.gov, November 5, 2015]
Large numbers of Mexicans have poured into Washington State in recent years and are facilitated in drug operations because the state gives drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens. Does anyone want to wager on whether or not Villa-Alvarez has a license…or for that matter, that the whole enchilada of the trafficking organization drive with state licenses?
Drugs are a huge problem in Snohomish County and the cost falls on locals. According to the Everett Herald, the County Sheriff says that 90 percent of the inmates in the jail medical unit are withdrawing from heroin. The story also says, “Heroin use exploded in recent years as people addicted to prescription pain medications looked for a cheaper alternative.” As Snohomish is a white-bread county, these people are most likely whites. [12 arrested after big heroin and meth indictment, By Diana Hefley, Herald.net, November 5, 2015]
On the DEA website are photos of the “Most Wanted Fugitives” by area. For Seattle, 16 people are shown. 13 were born in Mexico, two (white)were in Canada, one (black) is liested as POB unknown, but presumably born in America.
Check to see what is happening in your neck of the woods.
What is the outlook for abating the flow of drugs from Mexico? According to the DEA the drug assessment study:
Mexican TCOs will continue to dominate the trafficking of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana throughout the United States. There are no other organizations at this time with the infrastructure and power to challenge Mexican TCOs for control of the US Drug market.
Drugs are a huge public health and crime problem and the Mexicans seem to be in control—not the U.S. Government.
The DEA skewered the Mexican TCOs—most people call them "cartels"—in its October report.
Has anyone heard about the Federal Government hammering the Mexican government? Where was the MSM on this?
Just wondering.
White Americans are in a world of hurt and suicides and drug poisoning are at epidemic levels and rising. The CDC concluded that. The increased use of heroin is being caused by increased availability. The DEA concurs.
The problem is…Fill in the blank. There are lots of alternatives beginning with Mexico.
Linda Thom [email her] is a retiree and refugee from California, now living in Washington State. She formerly worked as an officer for a major bank and as a budget analyst for the County Administrator of Santa Barbara.In his final New Rule of the night, Bill Maher argued against the conventional wisdom that the economy is in a really bad place, saying that the economy is actually better than all the fearmongering would otherwise suggest. Maher acknowledged it’s a game played by both Republicans and Democrats, even President Obama himself, but said that politicians need to start being honest about the economy and not perpetuating the idea that it is a “complete shambles.”
RELATED: Bill Maher Trashes Undecided Voters: ‘Ignorant Jackasses Bullsh*tting About The Election’
Maher opened the New Rule by saying that in order to help Obama make an effective argument that the country is improving, the next presidential debate should be held in a mall. Maher said that for the most part, society is doing fine, and the people sleeping on the sidewalks are just in line for new iPhones.
Contrary to what many Republicans would argue, Maher contended that “it just doesn’t feel like Obama has ruined America.” He touted the Dow Jones doubling under Obama, which he said the GOP considers “devastating economic news.” Maher wondered why the Republican party is so concerned with the economy being a “rotting compost heap” when, as he put it, many of them don’t care about the middle class to begin with.
Maher acknowledged that Obama has to keep acting like the economy is doing horribly because he does not want to appear out of touch. However, he bucked conventional wisdom to insist that “we can keep blaming Bush” for the economy, saying that just because people are sick of hearing it doesn’t make it untrue.
Maher summed up Mitt Romney‘s pitch to voters thusly: “I’m going to fix the economy by restoring the policies of the party that destroyed it.”
Watch the video below, courtesy of HBO:
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comWonder Girls will be appearing on “I Can See Your Voice”!
On June 29, Mnet’s “I Can See Your Voice” confirmed Wonder Girls’ guest appearance on the show. Park Jin Young has been on the show before, so fans are excited that another JYP artist is going to be on the show.
“I Can See Your Voice” is a show where the panel has to try to figure out whether the contestants are truly talented singers or just people faking it, based on their looks alone. The episode starring Wonder Girls will air on July 14.
Meanwhile, Wonder Girls is currently gearing up to make their comeback with their new album and title track “Why So Lonely” on July 5.
Are you anticipating Wonder Girls’ appearance?
Source (1) (2)Read our reviews of the entire Cosmos series.
Yes, “that’s messed up.”
That’s how Neil de Grasse Tyson (host of the new Cosmos TV series) responded to statements TV commentator and comic Bill Maher (falsely) claimed I had said about the possibility of life in outer space and aliens supposedly going to hell.
So what did Tyson mean when he said on Maher’s HBO program last week that I was “messed up”? Well, as is usual for any language, there can be a number of definitions, including wrong, crazy, weird, or being intoxicated.
In context, I suspect Tyson meant “messed up” in the sense that he believed I was just plain wrong and considered what I supposedly said also to be weird. Assuming Tyson was saying I was just wrong, I would simply reply that Bill Maher is “messed up” and Tyson is also “messed up”!
Maher, in typical style, told outright untruths last week on his HBO TV program Real Time to demean me and try to get some laughs for his vulgar TV show.
A website called MEDIAite reported yesterday about the segment on this atheist’s TV show, with this headline:
‘That’s Messed Up’: Neil DeGrasse Tyson Responds to Creationist Ken Ham’s NASA Claims.
Here is what Maher said:
Creationist Ken Ham who runs the Creation Museum... said this week that we should call off the search for extraterrestrial life because aliens haven’t heard the word of Jesus and thus are going to hell anyway.
He then had astronomer and Cosmos TV host Tyson respond, and Tyson said “that’s messed up.” (You can watch the Bill Maher lie here on this short YouTube clip.)
I used a theological reason to argue that I did not believe there were aliens in outer space.
Yes, it is messed up. Maher outright lied (but then, to an atheist who has no basis for morality, what is a “lie” anyway?). As anyone who has read my post about supposed alien life knows, I didn’t say “aliens haven’t heard the word of Jesus and thus are going to hell anyway.” I used a theological reason to argue that I did not believe there were aliens in outer space. For instance, in the short blog post I stated,
I do believe there can’t be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel.... An understanding of the gospel makes it clear that salvation through Christ is only for the Adamic race—human beings who are all descendants of Adam.
I also stated that “I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life.” (You can read the entire post on my blog.)
Many secular websites (including Huffington Post and Salon.com) are also spreading Maher’s false information, as part of their ongoing attempts to malign me and the ministry of AiG. We shouldn’t be surprised.
Propagating Untruths
Science (observational science) can’t be used to disprove the Bible in Genesis—in fact, it confirms it! So what do these secularists do instead? Well, they propagate untruths and attack us personally.
For instance, the Huffington Post stated the following:
Creationist Ken Ham's strange comment about aliens rendered the usually loquacious Neil deGrasse Tyson almost speechless during his recent appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Ham, the president and CEO of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., said in a July 20 blog post that humans should stop searching for extraterrestrial life because aliens likely don’t exist. Even if aliens do exist, he added, they would almost certainly go to Hell.
I challenge Huffington Post to document where I supposedly said this. They can’t! HuffPost is guilty of spreading a lie, and it only demonstrates its hatred of Bible-believing Christians.
The popular website Salon.com is also spreading the same lie. In an article about Tyson’s statement, a Salon author stated the following:
Last week Ken Ham, president and founder of creationist organization Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, called for the end of the U.S. space program. The pseudo-science promoter does not believe we should be searching for extraterrestrial life. Why? Well, for starters, if we found alien life it would be damned to hell.
I also challenge Salon.com to document where I actually said that I “called for the end of the U.S. space program,” and where I supposedly said that “if we found alien life it would be damned to hell.” I have made no such statements.
Salon.com, HuffPost, and many other secular sites (as well as Maher himself) are guilty of spreading outright lies for the sake of maligning those of us who stand for God’s Word beginning in Genesis.
It is an obviously deliberate attempt to denigrate biblical creationists!
In regard to what I did say about aliens, these secularists have not only taken my comments completely out of context, but they have actually made up false quotes attributed to me. It is an obviously deliberate attempt to denigrate biblical creationists!
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Tyson actually seemed to believe what Maher claimed. After all, Tyson also believes the fairy tale of evolution, and so he is easily deceived.
What’s interesting is that if you do an Internet search, you will find many examples over the years of both Christians and non-Christians who have made comments similar to what I said, in essence saying that Bible-believing Christians would have a problem with a belief in aliens because Jesus died for the human race, and thus only humans in this universe can be saved—thus Bible-believing Christians don’t (or can’t) accept the belief there are aliens on other planets.
So, Do I Believe Aliens Are Going to Hell?
I don’t believe in aliens, so there will be no aliens in hell!
I don’t believe in aliens, so there will be no aliens in hell! But unless people like Bill Maher, who are alienated from God because of their blatant rebellion against Him, repent before a Holy God and receive the free gift of salvation, they will end up in a real place called hell.
Pray with me that God will open Maher’s heart to the truth of His Word and the saving gospel.
Actually, everyone in this world has “messed up” because we are sons and daughters of Adam and Eve:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ( Romans 3:23 )
And so every one of us needs to repent and live in Christ:
No longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. ( Ephesians 4:17–25 )
Let’s pray that one day the following can be said of both Maher and Tyson:La Sape, an abbreviation based on the phrase Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes ( French ; literally "Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People") and hinting to the French slang word sape which means "attire", is a subculture centered on the cities of Kinshasa and Brazzaville in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of Congo respectively. An adherent of La Sape is known as a sapeur. [1] The movement embodies the elegance in style and manners of colonial predecessor dandies. [ citation needed ]
La sape can be traced back to the period of colonialism in Africa, and in particular Brazzaville and Kinshasa. The French mission was to civilize the "uncouth" and "naked" African people. They brought second hand clothing from Europe as a bargaining tool to gain the loyalty of the chiefs. Brazzaville soon became the "most favored residential area for whites and the seat of colonial government." By the end of the 19th century their "houseboys" were the first to embrace European modernity because they would be given clothing instead of money as compensation for their work. The Congolese elite not only included the houseboys, but also those who held lower positions as clerks in colonial offices and other places.
The noted musician Papa Wemba was an important supporter of La Sape in Congo
A major influence on the Congolese elite, present during the 1920s (the so-called Roaring Twenties), was West African colonial workers who came to the Congo. These Bapopo or Coastmen, as they were called, served as inspiration for the Congolese elite "to combat ingrained charges of inferiority leveled at them" by French and Belgian colonialism. Young Congolese men took the style of their masters’ and made it their own. In the historian Didier Gondola's essay titled "La Sape Exposed!: High Fashion Among Lower-Class Congolese", he says:
Captivated by the snobbery and refined elegance of the Coast Men’s attire, Congolese houseboys spurned their masters’ secondhand clothes and became unremitting consumers and fervent connoisseurs, spending their meager wages extravagantly to acquire the latest fashions from Paris.
The houseboys used their connections in France to acquire their clothing. One colonist[who?] looked down on the habits her houseboys in Brazzaville because while they may have been half-starved, they would still don their expensive clothing once their monthly wages came in.[citation needed]
According to Gondola, Camille Diata frontlined the sape movement in Brazzaville in the 1930s, but also had a deep influence in France. He was also part of L'Amicale, "a loosely organized anti-colonial movement," formed in France in 1926 by the imaginative Congolese revolutionary André Matsoua. The organization mainly helped Africans new to Paris get settled in the city because they were not really welcomed by French, facing imprisonment and deportation. By the time of Matsoua death in 1942, his political developments gained prominence in the Congo and were "hijacked" by the Congolese intellectual elite. They not only adapted the fashion sense but also his anti-colonial views. This movement became a distinctly ethnic Bakongo and Balari one characterized by potent political symbolism and ideology that would manifest in postcolonial era.
A Brazzaville sapeur being interviewed for Spanish documentary filmmakers (2010)
The 1950s gave rise to the cosmopolitan, thus bringing prominence to the music scene. Nightclubs and beer halls made up the venues home to the music and young urbanites of the Congolese townships of Kinshasa and Brazzaville. La Sape was synonymous with the Congolese rumba scene that surfaced and which Papa Wemba, a Congolese musician, made music about the La Sape style. During the postcolonial years, the unique dynamics of La Sape coalesced in 1960 when both Congos were granted independence. Economic chaos ensued and many were left jobless. This caused numerous Congolese people to move abroad to western cities like London and Paris. Since they were also not very welcome, La Sape acted as refuge for them to cope with European life.CLOSE One man, Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, has been a constant in the controversy between the Trump administration and Russia. USA TODAY NETWORK
Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, speaks with reporters on Sept. 6, 2013, at the Center for the National Interest in Washington. (Photo11: Cliff Owen, AP)
WASHINGTON — The Russian ambassador who met with then Sen. Jeff Sessions last year has left a path of repeated involvement in the U.S. presidential election campaign.
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s staff became embroiled in an election monitoring brouhaha last fall, and President Obama expelled 35 members of Kislyak’s team late last year for their alleged interference in the election campaign to help Donald Trump.
Kislyak's telephone conversations with Gen. Michael Flynn before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration got Flynn fired as national security adviser after less than a month in office. Flynn admitted he had misrepresented to Vice President Pence that he talked to Kislyak about the steps Obama took in response to charges that Russia hacked and disseminated emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Multiple conversations between Flynn and Kislyak had been intercepted by U.S. intelligence.
The White House also acknowledged Thursday that Flynn and Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, met with Kislyak at Trump Tower in New York last December.
More coverage:
Now Attorney General Jeff Sessions may be in hot water over meetings he had with Kislyak last year, when he was a senator and Trump campaign adviser. Sessions testified during his Senate confirmation hearing that he "did not have communications with the Russians" while he was acting as a campaign surrogate for Trump.
The Russian embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
Sessions on Thursday said he would recuse himself from any investigation into Russia's role in the U.S. election.
During a news conference, Sessions said when he met with Kislyak at the ambassador's request, he found the ambassador to be "a little bit of an old style Soviet type."
When the conversation turned to Ukraine, Kislyak expressed the opinion that "everybody else was wrong about Ukraine, and the discussion got pretty testy," Sessions said.
Kilsyak also met other Trump staffers, former Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon and Carter Page, at the Global Partners in Diplomacy conference in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention there last summer. The program schedule and social media photographs show ambassadors from dozens of countries attended, alongside many of the original national security advisers to Trump’s campaign.
The newly-revealed communications contradict months of repeated denials by Trump officials that his campaign had contact with officials representing the Russian government.
The types of interactions Kislyak had with Sessions and Flynn "happen all the time," between diplomats and government officials said Derek Chollet, who worked in the Defense Department and Obama White House. "The difference is the context of the Russian-American relationship, the debate about Russia's role in our election, and the pattern of denying" that such contacts took place, Chollet said.
Last October, as Trump was charging that the U.S. election was “rigged” against him, Kislyak's staff around the country sought to send election monitors to U.S. polling stations in several states. The bid was rebuffed as “a PR stunt” by the State Department, and one state election official threatened criminal action if Russian monitors showed up.
Kislyak’s press secretary at the time, Yury Melnik, told USA TODAY that Russia was not trying to influence the election because it recognized that appearances can be damaging in the current political climate.
“We're trying to stay as far away as possible from this election, since any move that we do has a chance to be used in political discussion and interpreted in a wrong way,” he wrote in an email. “Our main goal is to let everyone understand that Russia in fact is not trying to interfere in the elections in any way.”
Kislyak, 66, worked on disarmament issues and would be familiar with U.S. monitoring of diplomatic communications and spycraft. He graduated from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and the USSR Academy of Foreign Trade and has spent his entire career as a diplomat, representing his country in Washington for the past nine years.
During the last decade of the Cold War in the 1980s, he served at the United Nations in New York and the Russian embassy here. As the Soviet Union collapsed and current President Vladimir Putin took power in the 1990s, Kislyak worked on disarmament issues in Moscow. In addition, he served as ambassador of the Russian Federation to Belgium, where he also was Russia’s representative to NATO.
Kislyak is known as a diplomat who frequently appears at speaking events and interacts with lawmakers and other U.S. officials in Washington, said Chollet. "When you talk to Kislyak you know he’s talking for the government of Russia, and that he’s going to faithfully report back to Russia what you’re talking about."
Kislyak would help arrange meetings between U.S. Defense officials and their Russian counterparts about ways to work together on issues, but much of that interaction dried up in 2014, after Russian seized Ukraine's Crimea Province, putting U.S.-Russian relations on ice, Chollet said.
John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine said he crossed paths with Kislyak when the Russian was an arms control official in Moscow. Herbst called him a "by-the-book Soviet class Russian diplomat" who is cautious, reflects government policy and doesn’t take risks.
When he spoke at the Atlantic Council in September 2014, Kislyak delivered the Kremlin talking points on Ukraine: Crimea was voluntarily returning to Russia, and Moscow was not behind a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. Herbst called the delivery "unimaginative and completely non-persuasive."
"And he did it without batting an eye," Herbst said.
Herbst said he's not surprised he took a series of calls from Flynn in December, when the former general was in line to become the next national security adviser to the U.S. president-elect.
The Russians were happy with Trump's candidacy and while they didn’t expect him to win they definitely preferred that he win. And when he won they were pleased," Herbst said. "If Flynn calls, Kislyak is going to take the call. He’d want to know what’s on Flynn’s mind."
Contributing: Steve Reilly in McLean, Va.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2mxd9UXA group of Alhambra residents is suing the city in an attempt to block a controversial development project that will bring a Lowe’s home improvement store and two six-story office towers to a 12-acre lot on South Fremont Avenue.
Neighborhood activist group Grassroots Alhambra filed the lawsuit Monday in the Los Angeles Superior Court, as the Pasadena Star News reports. The suit alleges that the project did not undergo sufficient environmental review before being approved by the city’s planning department in January.
According to a press release from the group, the project, which also includes a six-floor parking structure, would be “located in one of the most congested and contaminated areas in the city of Alhambra.”
The contamination part of that statement refers to the possibility that toxic materials could be left over from a manufacturing plant that previously occupied the project site. Residents maintained this position in an appeal of the project rejected by the city council in February.
The project is being developed by the Charles Company, which is also working to redevelop the long-abandoned Hawthorne Mall into an outdoor shopping complex.
Dr. Ron Sahu, a leader of Grassroots Alhambra, said the group has nothing against the developer—or development in general. “We are simply against the illegal manner in which the City of Alhambra sought to approve the project,” he maintained.Toys For Alcoholics
Product: Skull Beer Bong
Product: Beer Belt
Product: Beer Gun
Product: Octain 120 from Dream Arcades
So you think you have every drinking gadget under the sun? Well think again chump. No matter how manly or how big of an alcoholic you are, chances are you don't have these killer drinking gadgets. These boozer gadgets will run you anywhere from $13.99 all the way up to $7000 US dollars. I'll show you five awesome pieces of liquor gear ranging from cheapest to the most expensive!Price: $13.99So you are a pro at the beer bong huh? When was the last time you beer bonged a beer through a skull and a spinal chord? Well, for a measly $14, you can pretend you are a serial killer and get hammered sucking fluids out of a fake spinal chord! This one might be a little more appropriate around Halloween!Price: $18So Batman has a utility belt that contains tools to protect the world, but what does your utility belt carry? Don't you think there should be a few holsters for brewskies? I thought so, and that's why Urban Outfitters carries the manliest tool belt of all time, for a measly $18, you can lug around 6 beers while your woman makes you vacuum or cut the grass. Never be without a beer again!Price: $21.73Next time you and your buddies get all cozy to sit around the TV to watch some Sunday football, break out the shot gun alcohol dispenser. You can hook it up to a bottle of beer and dispense brewskies into your buddies' cups, or attach it to a bottle of moonshine and distribute toxic shots of booze. If you want to be really creative get out your lighter and some high proof alcohol and.... actually, on second thought I better not put any ideas into your head!Price: $48Have you ever gone for a hike and when you got to the top of the mountain, fully intending to celebrate your grueling hike, you realize you don't have any booze on you? Well with these bad-ass sandals by Reef that will never happen again. Fill each sandal with 1.5 oz of the nastiest booze in your liquor cabinet and next time you reach the top of Mount Everest wearing sandals you will be prepared with a few shots of mind altering booze.Price: $7000Finally, the ultimate drinking tool! I like to call this bad boy, the drinking and driving simulator! Why? Because for a measly $7000 you get a 120 inch projection screen, a home theatre PC loaded with 12 games, a fully functional PS3 Compatible steering wheel, pedals and a 5.1 surround sound system. Oh yea, and the most important part, the machine has a keg hooked up to it!So let me just get this straight for you, this machine is a driving simulator that comes with a keg attached to it, as well as a handy cup holder right beside your steering wheel. If you ever wanted to be an idiot and drink and drive, this is your chance to do it without screwing up anyb |
parcel box?
Your parcel can travel for thousands of miles and be tracked every step of the way until it arrives at your doorstep. What happens then?
Boxillion is the missing piece of the puzzle! You can now track your parcels from the moment they are shipped until they are safely resting in your hands.
Boxillion only opens to those who are given access, like your courier
With Boxillion you will always know that you can get parcels delivered to your home even if you aren’t there or don’t want to be disturbed. It gives you peace of mind that your parcels are going to be protected and will still be waiting for you when you get home.
How does it work?
Shop the way you normally would, but generate a one-time pin and add it to the delivery notes.
A one time pin code can be generated from your smartphone
The courier arrives at your Boxillion and opens it with the one-time code. Your system knows the size of your parcels so an the appropriate compartment will be opened.
The courier delivering your parcel
You immediately get a notification on your phone when your delivery arrives.
Receive a notification at the time of delivery
Now open your Boxillion with your smartphone or the keypad. Your system known which compartment your delivery is in and it will open the appropriate door!
Retrieving your delivery from your Boxillion
Alternatively, if the online shop uses our toolkit, no code generation is necessary and the order will just appear on your Boxillion application (See the FAQ - "How does the toolkit work?").
Boxillion completely revolutionises the way you shop! It enables a whole new world of advantages:
Get notified as soon as something is waiting at home for you.
You can order valuable things and know that they will be protected from theft.
Family and friends can share your Boxillion so they can receive their parcels too.
Local Shops like Grocers can deliver at any time of day.
You never have to sign for a parcel again.
Your friends and family can pick something up from your place without you being around.
You get to avoid unnecessary and unwanted trips to the post office.
Your sensitive deliveries are kept out of the wrong people’s hands.
You can share your order with someone so that they can pick up your parcel if you're away.
Deliveries are successful on the first attempt.
Couriers can avoid driving unsuccessfully delivered parcels back to the depot.
Services like dry cleaners can pick up and deliver to your Boxillion.
Sharers of your Boxillion have control over who gets access to their deliveries.
Your loved ones can spontaneously deliver to your house safely when you’re not home.
Shops and services can schedule recurring deliveries and reserve your Boxillion.
Couriers can just enter a one-time keypad code for a faster delivery.
Boxillion accepts deliveries 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Deliveries can now take place outside evening rush hours.
You can pick up goods from a small business's Boxillion system after hours.
And so much more…!
Now for the details...
Boxillion is a completely integrated system. There is the Boxillion smart parcel box and the phone application, but there’s also a powerful scheduling service that automates your parcel exchange dates, a business application for small businesses and couriers and also a toolkit for online stores.
The Boxillion smart parcel box sits at your doorstep and safeguards your parcels while you’re not around. It is told when to grant access to your courier, a friend or a family member.
The security guard for your deliveries
It connects to your home internet using WiFi or an Ethernet cable, but can also be used with a SIM card for use with a GSM network. It connects with your phone using Bluetooth (dual mode) and also has a USB connection for configuration and updates.
How big is it?
Boxillion is flexible and can be powered in multiple ways:
12V Power Supply Cable
USB Port (cabled or using a USB power bank)
'D Cell' Alkaline or rechargeable batteries
The batteries keep it powered for well over a year! Boxillion is low-power and is normally sleeping to save energy.
The electronic components that have been selected are already certified and used widely in mass production to reduce lead times in production and ensure a high quality circuit board.
The Boxillion brain
It is even equipped with a temperature sensor to warn you if your perishable items may be getting affected. In the future we will include additional sensors like this (Humidity / Barometric sensors). These will be available in hardware expansion kits so you can add them later on. It also warns you when your battery needs replacing!
Boxillion has been designed to maximise security and endure all weather conditions. It is available in two materials – choose between a beautiful metal or a durable plastic Boxillion to safeguard your parcels. The plastic version is shown below.
The Plastic Boxillion enjoying some dappled sunlight
The Boxillion application is your systems control centre.
With the app you can:
Register as a Boxillion user
Open your Boxillion over Bluetooth
Create new orders
Manage existing orders
Configure your Boxillion System
Receive notifications about your parcels
Share your Boxillion with family and friends
Get updates about the state of your Boxillion including temperature and battery level
...And more to come!
Boxillion's smartphone application
When your Boxillion recognises that a delivery has been made, it will notify your smartphone.
Receiving a delivery notification
This way you’ll know that your courier has delivered your new laptop or a friend has dropped off the glassware you left at her house the previous evening. Simply swipe your phone’s screen and the door pops open.
Opening the Boxillion with the Smartphone application
The Home screen of your app is the Dashboard where you can manage your orders and generate one-time key codes (More in FAQ – “How do one time keypad codes work?”).
Application Dashboard
Sharing is caring! We encourage you to share your Boxillion system with those around you like family, friends and neighbours.
Share with Family and Friends
You can give others access to your Boxillion at any time you wish. This way when you are out of town, you can organise a family member or friend to collect your parcel for you.
Expansions are you find that you need extra capacity. For the time being we have designed one expansion with more to come in the future. Boxillion can support up to 5 expansions, but more can be added with the Hub (See FAQ - "How many expansions can I have?").
The Metal Expansion Box
How big is it?
This is just the start – our vision is to have a huge variety of sizes to suit any need. We might even be able to have custom sizes in the future! Tell us the sizes that you’d like to have available at suggestions@boxillion.com
Where can I put a Boxillion System?
We have created Accessories to ensure that everyone can take advantage of Boxillion.
If you live in an apartment then the door attachment is perfect for you! It fixes Boxillion to your front door.
Boxillion fixes to the door of your apartment
The door attachment fixes the Boxillion to your front door and comes with three small straps. If your building has a door code, make sure to add it to the delivery notes when ordering so they can access your Boxillion.
There is also a Hub for apartments and businesses to have one centralised Boxillion system for everyone. The Hubs can be stacked allowing for almost unlimited expansions.
The Boxillion Hub allows more than 5 expansions
The Pole allows the Boxillion to sit curb-side and lifts it off the floor for easy access. It's perfect for home owners.
The pole in all its glory
The pedestal doesn't have to be bolted to the ground so it’s perfect for rental properties or for those of you who are indecisive about where you’d like to place your Boxillion.
The Heavy Duty Pedestal
The Scheduling Service “automagically” manages the traffic to and from your Boxillion behind the scenes. It keeps track of your exchanges in the background so you don’t have to (More in the FAQ – “How does the scheduling service work?”.
The Business App is our way of supporting local communities. It is tailored for local and small businesses owners. It allows your favourite local shops to manage a delivery after you order from them. All you need to do is accept their delivery request and pick up the order from your Boxillion after they drop it off!
Boxillion's business application
Now local bakeries, butchers and grocery stores can deliver right to your doorstep. Your everyday life is eased. Even services can pick up and deliver to your Boxillion, like your local laundry service.
The Toolkit enables Businesses to “plug into” the scheduling service using so they can manage all exchanges to your Boxillion System on an easy-to-use web interface (More in the FAQ – “How does the toolkit work?”.
The web panel for the Boxillion Toolkit
Why you are going to love Boxillion
We are perfectionists! We are dedicated to giving everyone the opportunity to safely receive deliveries when they’re busy working or doing what they enjoy. That’s why we have spent over two years (and all of our pocket money) developing the best possible product. Boxillion is now the ultimate, feature filled smart parcel box for all of your exchanges with shops and services.
Why are we on Kickstarter?
Boxillion is ready for the market. The products that you saw in the video are real, working prototypes and we are preparing for the certification of our electronics and hardware. The Boxillion smartphone application is up and running and we are finalising feature improvements. The back end is fully functional and the courier application is in its final stages of development.
The primary reason for running a Kickstarter campaign is to cover tooling and supply chain costs so we can finally start production and get a Boxillion to your home. We want Boxillion to be a very affordable product and of course the higher the production quantity, the lower the price. This is why we are lowering the cost of Boxillions when we reach certain funding levels!! See our stretch goals for more information.
Additionally, we have been approached by investors that want to involve themselves, but instead we want to give the Kickstarter community the opportunity to decide what you want out of Boxillion. This way You can help to shape Boxillion into a product that Everyone will love! We want you to tell us what you want. There are still a few tweaks that we can make. The sooner you send your idea to suggestions@boxillion.com the more likely we are to deliver Boxillions with your feature included. All ideas are welcome!
Our Timeline
Rewards
As part of our pledges we are offering combinations of Boxillions and Expansion Boxes and all available accessories.
As suggested the prices of the Boxillion Boxes depend on the number of backers. The more backers, the lower the price! See stretch goals for more details.
Most of the rewards are organised by your living circumstance so it’s easy to select the appropriate solution!
They include:
The Apartment Solution
The Renter/Tenant Package
The Home Owner Package
The Deluxe Custom Designer Package
And more!
Stretch Goals
Our stretch goals run a little differently to other Kickstarter projects'! Instead of creating new features or adding new hardware we are going to give you money back based on how many Boxillions the Kickstarter community pledges for! This is because we all know production prices decrease with higher volumes and we want to be transparent.
If you've pledged for a plastic Boxillion:
and we reach 1500 plastic Boxillion backers, you will get $25 back.
and we reach 5000 plastic Boxillion backers, you will get $40 back.
and we reach 10000 plastic Boxillion backers, you will get $90 back!!
The same deal applies for metal Boxillions so if you've pledged for the metal version and we reach those numbers in pledges then you will get the same amount back.
We will update the price of the Boxillions as pledges increase. This is how we give back to our supporters, the Kickstarter community.
The Boxillion Story
The name “Boxillion” is composed of Box and the old French and German word “Postillion” for the horseman delivering mail. It is our tribute to the many hard working couriers that carry over 2 billion of parcels every year for your benefit. Fast exchanges with Boxillion smart parcel boxes makes their working lives much easier.
Couriers enjoy a fast and simple delivery
After more than two years of preparatory work Boxillion was founded in November 2014. It is head-quartered in the industrial centre of Germany and our first branch in the USA was set up in January 2015.
Our Team
Roland (Bossman/Boxman) is an entrepreneur, business angel and founder of Boxillion. He’s the angry “Bossman” of Boxillion. He breathes fire and eats children. Jeremy always compliments him on his great haircuts. He enjoys catamaraning and mountain-bike riding.. even though he’s old.
Jeremy (Jez) is an entrepreneur and the technical expert in shaping the product. The team suffers through his perfectionism and pranks. He loves ketones.
Roald (Rolo) is the Brand manager and graphic designer in the team. Women follow him in flocks - we’re always fighting them off with sticks. The only thing he loves more than himself are his biceps and wears a tight sleeveless shirt wherever possible so others can enjoy them too.
Deniz (Deniz the Meniz) is the development manager. He’s the crying guy in the video… Roland said that his tears taste like victory.
Danielle (Daniel) drives Sales & Marketing of Boxillion in order to attract important business partners. She loves taking pictures of us unwillingly and posting them around the internet. She’s always coming up with great ideas like making an edible Boxillion version.
Constantin (Pretty Boy) is involved in the technical production and quality management. He’s the guy without pants in the video. He’s been working his pants off. Many ladies have inquired if he’ll be working his underpants off next.
James, is our treasurer and at the same time working on our US operations. Based in Bloomington, MN he volunteered testing in low temperature winter environments and Boxillion’s safety against Coyotes.
Franziska is our specialist in process quality control. She tries to keep Boxillion’s and her own carbon footprint to Stiletto heel size.
Who is helping us on this journey?
inFullMobile (Software - Poland)
Neosteq (Electronics and Firmware - Romania)
BMK-Group – (Electronics and Manufacturing - Germany)
2e Systems GmbH (Back end performance - Germany)
Lago Accessori – (Box Design, Tooling and Production - Italy)
Esedra srl. – (Industral Design - Italy)
Nardello Stampi – (Injection Moulding - Italy)
Me.co.m. S.r.l (Metal design and production - Italy)
Edelstahl design GmbH - (Metal prototyping and customisation - Germany)
Southco and Euro-Locks (Lock design and production - Germany)
So far we have had many fantastic people help us with the project of whom we are extremely grateful for. They've invested time and money because they share our vision – to provide a safe and secure solution when exchanging parcels (just take a look at our video credits showing the Boxillion community). They have helped us create Boxillion as a product of the highest quality. With their help, we will place Boxillion at the doorstep of millions of households so everybody can benefit from this innovation alongside the hard working people at all parcel and delivery services worldwide. With your support we know we can achieve this.One big question looking forward is whether Obama will once again turn to the Beltway-insider deficit hawks for alleged wisdom. Let’s hope not.
For one thing, the election offered confirmation of something that was actually pretty obvious: some of the most self-righteous deficit hawks are actually much more concerned with using deficits as an excuse to dismantle the social safety net than with, you know, reducing deficits. Notably, David Walker decided, a week before the election, to endorse Mitt Romney — even though Romney had proposed a $5 trillion tax cut to be offset by loophole closing he declined to specify, not to mention an increase in defense spending the Pentagon said it didn’t need.
As an aside, Walker’s timing was interesting. If you were following the election quants, you already knew that Obama was a clear favorite to win — 3 to 1 according to Nate Silver, much more than that according to Sam Wang. So why would Walker — whose popular following might include some but not all of his immediate family — throw his support to the likely loser? Probably because he was listening to the wrong people, and actually believed the stuff about Romneymentum.
Yet despite what should have been a major discrediting of the whole deficit-hawk establishment, the word is that Wall Street is pushing for Obama to appoint Erskine Bowles as Treasury Secretary.
Erskine Bowles? The man who, charged with producing a deficit-reduction plan, decided that a key feature of this plan should be … cuts in marginal tax rates on high incomes? The man who warned, in dire terms, of a looming fiscal crisis, with soaring US borrowing costs, within two years — almost two years ago? Just for the record, here’s how it’s going:
Photo
As I said, let’s hope that Obama knows better than to give these people any credence.The PayPal founder’s support for Donald Trump made him an outlier in liberal Silicon Valley. What do we know about this controversial billionaire?
Controversial Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel will be a member of Donald Trump’s transition team, the campaign has confirmed.
Thiel’s involvement in a Trump administration has been the subject of frenzied speculation in Silicon Valley, where the businessman was the sole prominent advocate for the divisive Republican candidate.
Peter Thiel faces Silicon Valley backlash after pledging $1.25m to Trump Read more
On Wednesday, Thiel told the New York Times that he would not move to Washington or seek a seat on the supreme court, but said: “I’ll try to help the president in any way I can.”
It is not known what role Thiel will play in the transition team. The transition team and Thiel’s representatives did not respond to requests for further details. But it is likely that he will be expected to help the president-elect build bridges with Silicon Valley, a place where Barack Obama is hugely popular and where many people regard Trump with either distrust or outright disdain.
Thiel’s vocal and financial support of Trump made him an outlier in the largely socially liberal world of Silicon Valley. While other tech CEOs and venture capitalists railed against Trump’s aggressive xenophobia, anti-free trade saber-rattling and threats to individual companies such as Apple and Amazon, Thiel delivered a keynote address at the Republican national convention in July and donated $1.25m to support Trump’s campaign.
“I build companies and I’m supporting people who are building new things, from social networks to rocket ships,” he said at the convention. “I’m not a politician. But neither is Donald Trump. He is a builder, and it’s time to rebuild America.”
Thiel, 49, is a Stanford-trained lawyer who co-founded the online payments system PayPal in 1998. After PayPal was acquired by eBay, he launched a hedge fund, Clarium Capital, which at first grew to $8bn in assets but floundered after the 2008 financial crisis. His current wealth and stature derives in large part from his early investment in Facebook.
In 2004, Thiel was the first outside investor in the budding social network. His bet on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has provided him with a seat on the board of the world’s most powerful distributor of news, as well as the wealth to fund various eccentric interests, such as life-extending technologies and a fellowship for college dropouts.
On Thursday, one of those fellows, Cosmo Scharf, announced that he would be turning down the balance of his $100,000 grant from the Thiel Foundation, citing his disgust with Thiel’s support of what he called “our next Hitler-elect”.
Thiel also co-founded Palantir Technologies, with early investment from the CIA. The secretive data analysis firm was recently sued by the Department of Labor for allegedly discriminating against Asians in hiring.
Thiel has distanced himself from some of Trump’s core campaign proposals, such as banning Muslims from entering the country and building a wall along the US-Mexico border.
“I don’t support a religious test. I certainly don’t support the specific language that Trump has used in every instance,” he said during a question and answer session at the National Press Club on 31 October. He added that Trump voters interpreted the promise of the border wall to mean “we’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy”.
“Build a Wall on the Southern Border” is the first item on the immigration plan published on Trump’s official transition website. Other items include blocking funding for sanctuary cities, which include San Francisco.
Other members of Trump’s transition team, however, clearly take the president-elect more literally. “If he says he’s going to build a wall and make the Mexicans pay for it … my guess is he’s going to build the wall and the Mexicans are going to pay for it. I think that’s going to happen,” Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s economic adviser and Thiel’s fellow on the transition team told New York magazine on Friday.
Representative Marsha Blackburn, another member of the transition team, wrote in an op-ed for Breitbart News that Trump’s plan to temporarily suspend Muslim immigration into the United States “could not be any more common-sense”.
Thiel’s personal politics are intensely libertarian. He has expressed interest in building floating colonies on the oceans free of the restrictions of government regulation, a movement known as seasteading. He has also bemoaned the extension of the vote to women, a constituency that he noted was “notoriously tough for libertarians”, in an essay.
Thiel co-founded the conservative Stanford Review as an undergraduate at Stanford. The publication became a home for many future Silicon Valley magnates, including venture capitalist Keith Rabois and Zenefits CEO David O Sacks, who shared his disdain for the left-leaning campus culture of the early 1990s.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Peter Thiel speaking at the Republican convention in July. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Much of Thiel’s and Sacks’ work on the Stanford Review formed the basis for their 1995 book, The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus. The book lambasts the movement to diversify student bodies and university faculties, the inclusion of writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and Rigoberta Menchú in the Stanford freshman curriculum; and campus groups such as the Black Students Union and MECha (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán).
The book also discredited the idea of date rape, writing that the definition of rape had been stretched to include “seductions that are later regretted”.
Peter Thiel, Trump campaign donor, sorry for date rape comments Read more
Thiel apologized for his “insensitive, crudely argued statements” on rape after the Guardian reported on the book’s contents in October. He also rebuked Trump for his boast that he sexually assaults women, saying that the comments were “clearly offensive and inappropriate”.
Despite this, the tech investor will find much common ground with Trump on their shared disdain for the press.
In May, it emerged that Thiel had secretly pursued a vendetta against the news and gossip blog Gawker, funding a legal case brought by the wrestler and reality TV star Hulk Hogan. Gawker had published a sex tape excerpt of Hogan with Heather Clem, the wife of his friend Bubba “The Love Sponge” Clem, which Gawker published along with a scathing descriptive article.
The suit led to an unprecedented $140m judgement by a Florida court against Gawker and its founder Nick Denton which pushed both into bankruptcy. Gawker Media, which includes the sites Jezebel, Jalopnik, and Gizmodo, was sold to Univision, but its flagship site was shuttered. A separate suit, also funded by Thiel, leveled against a Gawker writer, AJ Daulerio, is ongoing.
The suit caused consternation among first amendment activists concerned that the ability of a billionaire to use the courts, in secret, to destroy media outlets based on a private grievance – Gawker had previously outed Thiel as gay – would have a depressive effect on freedom of the press.Thursday, May 15
By John Bonney of Springfield, Oregon, USA
My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
—Ezekiel 37:27 NRSV
People often gloss over their life’s events until they come to their later years and wonder, “How did I get here? How did I miss so much?” I, too, wish I had taken more time, paid better attention, explored under the surface of my experiences to appreciate every sight, sound, taste, scent, or touch.
My contact with life is like a cosmic waltz with my Creator, the Lord of the dance. That connection and embrace with the One who leads in the dance—is where I find depth and meaning. Like most, I did not always see or hear the Leader reaching out to me and saying, “Let’s dance.”
This poses some difficulty for my journey. It is still an enjoyable and memorable experience. I am glad that I at least have this seemingly shallow experience to enjoy. However, we cannot get to know the land where we travel if we remain merely tourists.
I write this while I tour southeast Alaska. It excites me to see two orcas, a little owl, and bald eagles. I marvel at blue ice, endless forested hills, and mountains with snow-covered peaks. However, now I realize that isn’t the splendor of the trip.
For me, people are the wonders. I enjoy the endless diversity and responses of my companion travelers—the crew of the ship and the people of the towns and ports. To me they hold the divine Presence. Here I find the Lord of the dance. Here I see the endless faces of creation.
I hear it in a string quartet that plays in the ship’s atrium. I see it in faces and hear it in voices of the often-unaware people sitting near the musicians. They pay no attention to the gift of the music offered. They talk loudly—some on cell phones to others far away—missing all that is around them. Have I also done that?
I sit here writing in a journal and almost miss seeing a beautiful passage of water. I will put my journal away now and go to a deck closer to the water. Closer? Is that the answer? Do I need to come closer to the Source? Do I need to hear music of voices, feel the rhythm of the sea, and find my partner—the Lord of the dance?
Prayer for Peace
God of life’s journey, travel with us. Help us be aware of each person as a blessing. Help us be aware of ways we can share peace and be at peace with companion travelers.
Spiritual Practice: Breathing with the Ocean
Sit or lie in a relaxed posture. Pay attention to your breathing. Let the rhythm become calm and even. Imagine sitting or lying on a warm, sandy beach with ocean waves rolling in and out near your feet. Listen to the waves as they “breathe out” and “breathe in.” Begin to breathe in time with the waves. With each breath receive what the ocean of God brings you. Let go of what you carry into the sea of God’s presence. Offer a prayer of thanksgiving. Ask how you can share God’s healing and peace today.
Peace Covenant
Today, God, I will keep time with the dance of your creation.
AdvertisementsFive months out of the year — starting in September and ending in March — the Norwegian town of Rjukan remains cast in the shadow of surrounding mountains. But officials are erecting a new installation that will permanently shed light on the small valley town during the dark winter months.
As part of The Mirror Project, engineers have begun installing three enormous rectangular mirrors on the face of the mountains that hem Rjukan in on either side. The mirrors will reflect sunlight down into the town square and become a sunny meeting place.
SEE ALSO: 10 Amazing Parts Created Outside the Body
The 328-square foot mirrors are heliostatic mirrors, which are normally found on solar farms, and are controlled by a central computer. A solar-powered sensor will track the sun and allow the mirrors to tilt so that the most optimal amount of sunlight is reflected. The city is spending $835,000 on the project. Helicopters recently installed the mirrors this month, as first tests are slated for September.
Image: Karl Martin Jakobsen
SEE ALSO: Pay For Stuff With Your Face
A 2,000-square foot circle of sunlight will eventually light up the town square, which will soon install an ice skating rink. How this sunshiny project will effect Norway's infamous black metal scene remains to be seen. I for one would love to see some face-painted Satan-worshiping metal heads don pairs of ice skates as they perfect their butterfly jumps and triple axels. I mean, they've already taken up surfing.
via Inhabitat
Image: Flickr, Thomas Magnusson
This article originally published at Discovery News hereTrump calls for tax on all Mexican imports to pay for border wall
Trump calls for tax on all Mexican imports to pay for border wall
The diplomatic rift between the US and Mexico has deepened after Donald Trump's administration suggested taxing imports from the southern neighbour to fund a controversial border wall.
Donald Trump wants to slap a 20% tax on all imports from Mexico, which would raise $10bn (£7.9bn) a year and "easily pay for the wall", according to a White House spokesman.
Mr Trump has said US taxpayers will initially fund the wall, while insisting its southern neighbour will eventually "100%" foot the bill as he accused Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto of not treating America "fairly" and "with respect".
The two leaders had been scheduled to discuss the matter at the White House next week.
Image: Donald Trump wants Mexico to foot the bill for his border wall
The war of words between the pair saw Mr Nieto suggest he would scrap the meeting after Mr Trump himself earlier threatened to cancel the talks.
Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who is in Washington, said his country was willing to talk to the US, but paying for the wall "is not negotiable".
Mr Trump, who flew to Philadelphia to meet leading Republicans at a party retreat, tweeted: "The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers...
"... of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting."
The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017 of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017
Mr Pena Nieto then hit back, tweeting: "This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the @POTUS."
In a speech in Philadelphia, Mr Trump cast the cancellation as a mutual decision.
He said that "unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless, and I want to go a different route. We have no choice".
In a further tweet on Friday, he added: "Mexico has taken advantage of the U.S. for long enough. Massive trade deficits & little help on the very weak border must change, NOW!"
Mexico has taken advantage of the U.S. for long enough. Massive trade deficits & little help on the very weak border must change, NOW! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2017
The relationship between the two countries has been strained since Mr Trump promised the construction of a 2,000-mile wall along the border with Mexico in a clampdown on illegal immigration.
In a televised message to his country, Mr Pena Nieto reasserted that Mexico would not pay a single peso towards it.
Mr Trump would need to get approval from Congress for any new funding for the wall - with costs estimated at £5.2m ($6.5m) per mile for a single-layer fence by the Government Accountability Office.
Donald Trump confirms construction of Mexico border wall
Soon after the US commander-in-chief tweeted, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the wall will cost between $12bn (£9.5bn) to $15bn (£12bn).
He added he expected the move to get congressional approval by the end of September.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox Quesada, who has repeatedly attacked the idea of a barrier, wrote on Twitter: "Donald, don't be self-indulgent. Mexico has spoken, we will never ever pay for the #F******Wall."
Mr Trump, whose campaign rallies were filled with supporters chanting "build the wall", signed the documents giving it the go-ahead on Wednesday - just as a Mexican delegation led by foreign minister Luis Videgaray arrived at the White House for talks.
Donald Trump makes his point in Philadelphia
The US President said: "Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders."
Sky's Diplomatic Editor Dominic Waghorn said: "Mexico and America have had difficult relations over previous decades but they are neighbours, they rely on each other economically, and they have an interdependency which would be dangerous for both sides to threaten.
"At the moment Donald Trump is going down the road of escalating this war of words with Mexico with a pretty uncertain outcome."
Meanwhile, the head of the agency in charge of securing US borders with Mexico and Canada has left the organisation.
Image: Former Mexican president Vicente Fox Quesada responds to Mr Trump's tweets
Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan was asked to step down as the agency moves towards tougher immigration laws, an official said.
Also, a number of senior career diplomats are leaving the State Department.
None of the departures has been linked directly to the Trump presidency but many diplomats have expressed private concerns about serving in the administration.
:: Watch President Trump: The First Week - a Sky News special at midnight.
Read more
:: May says 'opposites attract' about Trump
:: Analysis - US relationship only special to UK
:: US government workers defy Trump on TwitterPOST FALLS, Idaho - A Post Falls company has come under fire for what many are calling a racist image posted on the side of its trucks.
The drawings feature a caricature of a young African-American girl eating watermelon.
Some are calling for Dixie Services to take those images down, but the owner says they are historical, and not racist.
Jim Valentine, the owner of Dixie Services, says it fits the image he wants to portray, which promotes the good and happy times for many people in American history.
His landscaping company also uses the confederate flag as a logo.
“This kind of hatred thing that's been built up around the Confederate flag, there's a lot of goodness and happiness and it's a part of history and a part of heritage, so we put the name on our company,” he said.
Valentine says his company is about promoting the happy spirit that was alive in the South.
So when he saw this image of a smiling young black girl eating watermelon, he saw nothing wrong with the drawing.
But reaction to the picture was quick online.
Nick Lee, a Coeur d'Alene resident, posted the picture to his Facebook page, expressing his outrage.
Soon, hundreds of other Facebook users chimed in.
“There is nothing more obscene than seeing an exaggerated, racist version of an African on a business logo on a business truck cruising around town,” said Lee.
Ask Valentine, though, whose wife is West Indian, and there's nothing racist about the image.
“I was looking at it saying, 'is it the watermelon? Is it her hair?'” Valentine said. “And I know why they don't like it. It's cause she's smiling and a very happy child like a lot of children were in the 1800's.”
Valentine assured us he is not racist, and does not support how slaves were treated in the South.
“I'm sorry for anyone during that time that was mistreated,” said Valentine. “Sometimes you hear about the chains and all kinds of horror stories, and I'm sure they're there and I'm against all of that for any race.”
But Lee says there is only one way for the company to rectify this situation.
“Take it down, take it down immediately,” he said. “You can rock Confederate flags all you want, it doesn't bother me. But when you are targeting me with an image like that, it's not free speech anymore. It's obscene.”
This is not Valentine's first run-in with controversy.
A little more than ten years ago, the business made headlines when a readerboard outside appeared to lump pedophiles and gay people into the same category.
He told me today that the sign was in reference to his outrage over murderer Joseph Duncan.Getty Images / Getty Images
It’s easy to think of the highly self-disciplined as being miserable misers or uptight Puritans, but it turns out that exerting self-control can make you happier not only in the long run, but also in the moment.
The research, which was published in the Journal of Personality, showed that self-control isn’t just about deprivation, but more about managing conflicting goals. Since most people associate highly disciplined folks with being more task-oriented — they’re not likely to be the life of the party, for example, or eager to act on a whim — the scientists decided to correlate self-control with people’s happiness, to determine if being self-disciplined leaves people feeling less joyful.
Through a series of tests — including one that assessed 414 middle-aged participants on self-control and asked them about their life satisfaction both currently and in the past — and another that randomly queried volunteers on their smartphones about their mood and any desires they might be experiencing, the researchers found a strong connection between higher levels of self-control and life satisfaction. The authors write that “feeling good rather than bad may be a core benefit of having good self-control, and being well satisfied with life is an important consequence.”
The smartphone experiment also revealed how self-control may improve mood. Those who showed the greatest self-control reported more good moods and fewer bad ones. But this didn’t appear to linked to being more able to resist temptations — it was because they exposed themselves to fewer situations that might evoke craving in the first place. They were, in essence, setting themselves up to happy. “People who have good self-control do a number of things that bring them happiness — namely, they avoid problematic desires and conflict,” says the study’s co-author Kathleen Vohs, professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota.
(MORE: With Age Comes Happiness)
That became clear in the study’s last experiment, which investigated how self-control affects the way people handle goals |
It is estimated to lose $27,000 for the franchisee and a $94,000 loss for head office, with comments next to the financials saying "behaviours address and ongoing focus on standards". The review of that store ends with a one word determination: "Exit".
Several of the worst off stores are also owned by franchisees who are operating more than one store. The revelations on the parlous state of the financial position of many 7-Eleven's stores around Australia follows the joint media investigation's expose on systemic exploitation of workers within the stores. Business Day and Four Corners have since been inundated with emails, letters, readers comments and social media messages by current and former staff and franchisees. Hundreds of concerned Australians have also signed up to a change.org petition urging 7-Eleven Australia to put an end to slavery-like conditions for workers at its stores. The company also issued a statement over the weekend vowing to take "appropriate action" against franchisees that broke the rules.
American Office Talks On Saturday night, the Dallas-based chief operating arm of the convenience store chain, 7-Eleven Inc, was forced to respond to a series of tweets from Australians concerned about the exploitation of workers at the company's Australian arm. "We're aware of the matter here in the USA & do understand that 7-Eleven Australia is currently investigating this matter fully," one tweet read.
BusinessDay and Four Corners have also sent a series of questions through to head office in America. It has yet to respond. As also revealed today, a database containing extracts of on-the-record interviews between franchisees and field investigators from head office show the extent of the wage abuse. It also shows that head office has been aware of systemic wage abuse within its stores for over a year but is still yet to act. Half-Pay Scam A common payroll fraud employed by 7-Eleven franchisees is known as the "half-pay scam", where staff members are paid for only half the hours they work.
Under the half-pay scam, a worker is forced to work for 40 hours a week for an average of $12 per hour against an award rate of $24.69 per hour.Welcome to the XCOM Barracks
Welcome to the XCOM Barracks - a place to upload, share, explore, and download characters created in XCOM 2! Recruit new soldiers, VIPs, and Dark VIPs from the universes of other XCOM Commanders, and share your own XOCM heroes (and villains)with the world. Check out our character upload/import guide to get started.
Featured Characters
Top Commanders
Earn EXP on the XCOM Barracks through site participation, and rise up the ranks to become one of the top commanders on the Barracks. The Top Commanders list is updated every five minutes. Check out the FAQ for full details on how to earn EXP.
News from XCOM Barracks HQ
(09/11/2017) War of the Chosen DLC Support Enabled, and an update
The XCOM Barracks now supports the new War of the Chosen DLC! Get to it, Commander!
Hello, old friend. It's been a while - well over a year - since our last update. I'm late, I know, I know. Life's been a busy whirlwind for me lately, and I haven't had as much time as I would like to play games like XCOM, and since then,I've moved to a lot of other new projects. That doesn't mean I'm giving up support for the Barracks - I just don't have time to build big and bold feature updates like before.
Fortunately, I'm quite proud with how the website has turned out over the years - I think we have over a thousand characters now, and counting, with no big incident crashes or bugs. Given the site's success, I'm removing the Beta tag. Boom. Done. We're stable! And I am incredibly grateful for those who have supported the site over the years, shared characters, and participated in our little community, despite silence on my part.
I'm still casually monitoring the site subreddit for any issues that might arise, but until then, the site will simply remain as it is - running and functional. I personally consider the Barracks to be feature complete. But of course, I do value your feedback, even if it takes a while for me to get back to you.
As the councilman likes to say: we are watching. Good luck, Commander.
(05/14/2016) Alien Hunters DLC Support Enabled
The XCOM Barracks now supports the new Alien Hunters DLC! A flag has been added in the upload form that you can check to indicate use of Alien Hunters character attributes, and a corresponding search filter is also now available. We're looking forward to your uploads, Commander. (And feel free to feature your favorites over at the XCOM Barracks subreddit!)
(04/20/2016) Announcing the XCOM Barracks EXP System
It's been a while since we last updated the XCOM Barracks, and today we're proud to announce one of the biggest updates yet - the EXP system. Users can earn EXP points through site participation, such as uploading, voting on, and commenting on characters. These points are tallied on user profiles, and the top twenty commanders on the Barracks will earn a spot on the XCOM Barracks homepage (see above)!
Uploading a character awards 20 EXP (removed on deletion).
(removed on deletion). Voting on a character awards 5 EXP (except on your own characters).
(except on your own characters). Commenting on a character awards 3 EXP (except on your own characters).
You can also earn EXP from the participation of other users on your characters:
Receiving a high vote (4 or 5) on a character upload awards 8 EXP.
. Receiving a low vote (1, 2, or 3) on a character upload awards 3 EXP.
. Receiving a comment on a character upload awards 2 EXP.
Our goal with the EXP system is to encourage site participation and high quality character uploads. EXP totals are visible in the user box on the upper right hand corner when signed in, and on user profiles. Those of you who have been active on the XCOM Barracks already will be pleased to hear that EXP has been awarded retroactively to existing users on the Barracks. You can sign in now to view your current EXP value, and if you're lucky, you could be in the top twenty!
In the future, we hope to launch a visual ranking system much like soldier ranks in XCOM. These ranks will come with cosmetic profile bonuses and other small perks to further incentivize site participation. We're still tweaking the current system, so we'd love to hear your feedback on the XCOM Barracks subreddit.
Thanks for keeping up the fight against the ADVENT occupation! We're looking forward to your character uploads.
(03/17/2016) Anarchy's Children DLC Support Enabled
We've enabled support for the new Anarchy's Children DLC (which releases today!) on the XCOM Barracks. Characters that use elements from Anarchy's Children can now be flagged as such during the upload or edit process, and a corresponding search filter has been added as well. We've also fixed a minor bug where set DLC flags appear unflagged in the edit form. Let us know if everything works smoothly (or doesn't) over on the XCOM Barracks subreddit!
(03/15/2016) XCOM Barracks Video Guide Is Up
The missing character upload guide from the Guide/FAQ page is now filled with a three-minute quick start video that goes through all the necessary steps for exporting and importing a character to XCOM 2, featuring voiceover by Brian (actually, myself!). We hope it encourages more uploads to the site and all around increased participation. The video is can be directly viewed below:
Other small XCOM Barracks updates include new restyled file select buttons on the upload page, and more entries in our FAQ. We're cooking up a number of longer term projects which will take some time to release, so general updates will be a bit less frequent than usual. As always, we're around on the XCOM Barracks subreddit to hear your feedback!PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Officials say a woman is dead after a fatal accident involving a SEPTA bus. The incident took place on Monday afternoon in Center City.
Authorities say that shortly after 5:00 p.m., emergency crews responded to 23rd and Chestnut following the incident that involved a route 9 SEPTA bus and a woman. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Eyewitness News has learned that the victim was in her 60’s and was pushing a child in a stroller at the time of the accident.
BREAKING: Woman killed after being hit by SEPTA bus. She was pushing stroller. Baby is OK. Happened at 23 and Chestnut. @CBSPhilly pic.twitter.com/VskItdqqiQ — David Spunt (@DavidSpuntCBS3) November 28, 2016
The SEPTA bus was making a left turn onto Chestnut and Eyewitness News has learned that the woman appeared to be crossing the street, near the crosswalk.
Philadelphia Police continue to investigate.
Stay with CBSPhilly.com for updates on this developing story…A South Korean Buddhist monk is in critical condition after setting himself on fire to protest the country’s settlement with Japan on compensation for wartime sex slaves, officials said Sunday.
The 64-year-old monk suffered third-degree burns across his body and serious damage to vital organs. He’s unconscious and unable to breathe on his own, said an official from the Seoul National University Hospital, who didn’t want to be named citing office rules.
The man set himself ablaze late Saturday during a large rally in Seoul calling for the ouster of impeached President Park Geun-hye, police said. In his notebook, the man called Park a “traitor” over her government’s 2015 agreement with Japan that sought to settle a long-standing row over South Korean “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s World War II military, police said.
Under the agreement, Japan pledged to fund a Seoul-based foundation that was set up to help support the victims. South Korea, in exchange, vowed to refrain from criticizing Japan over the issue and try to resolve the Japanese grievance over a bronze statue representing wartime sex slaves in front of its embassy in Seoul.
The agreement has so far come short of bringing a closure to the emotional issue. The deal continues to be criticized in South Korea because it was reached without approval from victims, and students have been holding sit-in protests next to the Seoul statue for more than a year over fears that the government might try to remove it.
On Friday, the Japanese government reacted angrily to the placing of a similar statue in front of its consulate in the city of Busan, announcing a recall of its ambassador to South Korea and suspension of economic talks.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged South Korea to remove the statues and implement the 2015 agreement.
“The South Korean side should show its sincerity,” he said in a NHK TV program aired Sunday, according to the Kyodo News service. He said the agreement should be implemented regardless of leadership change as a “matter of credibility.”
At the time of the deal, Seoul said there were 46 surviving South Korean victims.The cookiecutter shark (Isistius brasiliensis) is a member of the “sleeper shark” family, Dalatiidae. This group in turn belongs to Order Squaliformes, the dogfish sharks. Physically it looks like a typical dogfish, with a long thin body, a short cone-shaped snout, and no anal fin. The skin is greyish brown, with a darker brown area around the throat and gills, and a lighter belly.
The cookiecutter shark is named after the cookie-shaped wounds that it leaves on the bodies of its prey. This small fish is also known as the cigar shark because of its body shape. It lives in the deep-waters of warmer areas worldwide. Adult males can grow up to 42 cm (16.5″) long, and females grow a little larger, up to 56 cm (22″) in total length.
Cookiecutter Shark Facts
Okay, check this out. These little sharks are crazy cool, in many ways:
Relative to its body size, the cookiecutter has the largest teeth of all sharks. It uses them to take round chunks out of larger marine creatures – their trademark bites can be seen on large fish and whales of the deep ocean. In fact, this shark is such a motivated hunter that it will try to eat the sonar domes of submarines (hmm, I bet rubber doesn’t taste as good as tuna).
When the teeth of this critter are shed, they are sometimes swallowed and digested. This is thought to aid in strengthening the skeleton with calcium (remember that all shark’s skeletons are made of cartilage ) – a process known as calcification. Having a fortified skeleton might be helpful for the deep diving this species does. The cookiecutter shark also has an oily liver that is larger compared the liver of similar sharks, which might also aid them in swimming to greater depths.
The genus name Isistius is in honor of the Egyptian goddess of light, Isis. Why might that be, you ask? The entire lower surface of the body (except for the darker throat) isbioluminescent, being able to emit a greenish glow. It is covered in tiny light-producing organs called photophores. These are thought to attract the attention of potential prey, giving this fish yet another of its common names: “luminous shark”.
Habitat and Range
The cookiecutter is a wide-ranging pelagic shark that lives in the temperate and tropical waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, around the globe.
It is often found close to islands: this could be because there is a higher concentration of prey, for better mating opportunities, or because areas around islands provide ideal nursery habitat. All of these possibilities have been suggested but no evidence is available to distinguish among them.
These fish are typically found in deep water below 3,281 feet (1000 m) in the daytime, but have been recorded to depths of 3.7 km (2.3 mi).
Feeding Behavior
At night, cookiecutter sharks move closer to the surface to feed, but they still stay at least 90 m (300 ft) deep. The feeding method is very curious: although this species is rather small, it uses the unique teeth in its round mouth to take cookie-sized bites from the flesh of larger marine creatures, like dolphins. The bites are not fatal.
This shark’s mouth is unmistakable: the small teeth in the upper jaw are erect, and the teeth in the lower jaw are large and triangular.
The light emitted from the shark’s belly attracts larger fish. The dark patch of the throat, against the glow of the underside, is thought to appear like a small fish when viewed from deeper waters. This draws in the larger prey that are looking for a meal.
Then, just prior to reaching the cookiecutter, the larger fish is surprised by the shark. (Pretty ingenious and brave of the little guy, huh?) The shark attaches to the prey using its strong, sucking lips, and then the efficient teeth go to work, almost like a can-opener. Targets commonly include large fish such as marlin, tuna, other sharks and stingrays, and marine mammals including seals and whales. The diet can also include whole squid and crustaceans.
Social Behavior
Aside from the feeding method, little is known about these sharks’ biology. They are believed to be mostly solitary, interacting with other members of the species mainly to mate. (However one report suggested that “schools” of these sharks would be very attractive to large prey items, for the bioluminescence would make them look like a school of tiny fish).
Other species that feed on the cookiecutter include sharks and other larger fish.
Rare Video Of The Cookiecutter Shark
Breeding
Male cookiecutters reach maturity at about 36 cm (14″) and females mature at roughly 40 cm (16″). This species is ovoviviparous, giving birth to pups that develop inside egg cases within the mother. Each litter contains 6-12 live young that are born after 12-22 months. They are fully developed at birth, already able to hunt.
Humans and Conservation
Fishers only occasionally trap cookiecutter sharks, because they are so small. This usually happens at night, when the sharks move toward the surface to feed and are thus more likely to be netted. The species targets larger, sought after fish as prey, but this does not have much of an economic effect on fisheries.
Cookiecutter sharks are not considered dangerous to people because they reside in deep-water habitat. However, the first documented bite of a human – a long-distance ocean swimmer – was reported recently (Honebrink et al. 2011). The authors suggest that people entering deep waters at night, in the range of this shark, should be aware.
The conservation status of this species, according to the IUCN Red List, is “Least Concern”.
There is little worry because of its wide distribution, deep-water habitat (making it harder to catch accidentally), and lack of interest to fisheries.
Written By: by Kara Lefevre
Sources
Page Created By: Mike Rogers
From Cookiecutter Shark To All Types Of Sharks
The Shark Sider HomepageThe House on Monday passed legislation to help prevent veterans' suicides that failed to clear the last Congress due to now-retired Sen. Tom Coburn Thomas (Tom) Allen CoburnThe Hill's Morning Report — Presented by PhRMA — Worries grow about political violence as midterms approach President Trump’s war on federal waste American patients face too many hurdles in regard to health-care access MORE (R-Okla.).
Members of both parties overwhelmingly supported the bill by a vote of 403-0. It now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to be approved easily.
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Coburn used his final days in Congress last month to block multiple bills with wide bipartisan support, including the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act and an energy efficiency measure.
The House passed the measure by voice vote last month. But Coburn objected to passing the veterans bill by unanimous consent because he didn't think it would effectively hold the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA)accountable, arguing the programs authorized by the measure would be redundant.
The bill is titled after a Marine veteran named Clay Hunt who took his own life after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hunt, who earned a Purple Heart for his military service, became an advocate for veterans on Capitol Hill when he returned home to the U.S. But he shot himself in 2011 as he struggled with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Lawmakers noted that thousands of veterans have committed suicide since then, with an average of 22 per day.
"Since we passed this legislation and it failed in the Senate, over 750 veterans have taken their own lives," said Rep. Tim Walz Timothy (Tim) James WalzMinnesota governor rips lawmaker for saying gun control backers should be ‘run over' This is what leadership looks like Coalition urges Congress to pass bipartisan infrastructure bill MORE (D-Minn.), the bill's sponsor. "We can't wait another day."
Under the legislation, a third party would conduct an annual evaluation of the VA's mental health and suicide prevention programs. The measure would further establish a three-year pilot program to pay for psychiatrists' education loans if they work at the VA for at least two years. It would also allow the VA to jointly carry out its suicide prevention programs with nonprofits dedicated to promoting mental health.
House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller Jefferson (Jeff) Bingham MillerTrump should focus on veterans during his address Presumptive benefits to Blue Water Navy veterans are a major win It’s time to stop stereotyping veterans MORE (R-Fla.) argued the legislation would do more than simply give the department more funding.
"The last several years have seen significant increases in the Department of Veterans' Affairs mental health and suicide prevention budget, its staff and its programs. However, we have not seen a corresponding decrease in the number of our nation's heroes who take their own lives," Miller said. "We have got to do more to help these veterans."
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the measure would cost $22 million over five years.According to Google's Ryan Hurst and Gary Belvin, most people have a hard time using encryption methods like PGP or even encrypted messaging apps because they require users to manually verify the recipients' account. The idea behind Key Transparency is to build out a framework that regular people can use to verify that someone's online persona matches their public key. In other words, Key Transparency is a directory that will not only verify that your messages are properly secured, but will also make it simpler for developers to audit that account data and build simpler security features.
The project is in its first open source release, but Google hopes to keep iterating based on feedback from the security community. You can follow the developments over on Github or at KeyTransparency.org.Dallas Area Rapid Transit and city officials are close to deciding where to put a second downtown Dallas light-rail track. And DART this week threw a 10th potential alignment into the mix for consideration.
The agency and city for years have wanted a second track through the downtown hub of the nation’s longest light-rail system.
All four DART train lines currently run on the same track through downtown, limiting the frequency of trains across the entire network. And whenever there’s a problem downtown like a car wreck, shooting, electrical outage or nearby fire, there are delays for passengers all over the system.
DART plans to seek federal funds for construction. Agency officials said they will have a better chance if both the agency’s board and the Dallas City Council sign off on the same proposed route.
“They want to see the whole community is behind the same alignment,” said Dallas transportation committee chair Lee Kleinman.
dartgrafic
DART officials presented the options to the council’s transportation committee this week and included a new alternative. It is based on an existing proposed route that runs underground from Victory Station, rises to street level near Field and Young streets, heads east along Young and then connects to existing track in Deep Ellum.
The new proposed alignment follows the same path until it gets near City Hall, then heads two blocks north and runs along Jackson before connecting into the Deep Ellum tracks. That shift on the route’s eastern portion is meant to avoid a church parking lot and new townhomes near the Farmers Market.
“Based on comments we’ve received, the homeowners association and the church are appreciative of the fact we’ve come up with an avoidance alternative,” said Steve Salin, DART’s rail planning vice president.
Both those routes would cost about $511 million to build. The original route is expected to provide 40,462 trips a day. The agency hasn’t yet estimated potential ridership of the “avoidance” version, but Salin said it will be in the 40,000 ballpark.
All 10 routes run to or near the Convention Center station, which is expected to be a connection for a Dallas-Houston bullet train station planned on the southern edge of downtown.
The cheapest light-rail route would cost about $493 million. The most expensive would be more than $1.1 billion. Some routes run along Marilla Street, others farther north along Commerce.
Kleinman and Dallas transportation committee member Sandy Greyson said they like the proposals that run along Young Street. They hope that spurs more economic development along downtown’s southern end, near several government and office buildings.
“I’ve always thought it should go farther south to try and develop that area,” Greyson said.
The transportation committee on Aug. 24 will recommend preferred alternatives for full council approval. The DART board is expected to make a final decision next month.
“I’m excited,” Kleinman said.Several UK employers and business representatives have expressed concern that Brexit could damage the country’s ability to attract skilled workers from the rest of the EU. Matthias Busse (left) and Mikkel Barslund (Centre for European Policy Studies) use LinkedIn data to examine whether these concerns are justified. They find support for the view that Brexit has reduced the attractiveness of the UK for recent high-skilled graduates from the EU, but it is far from clear whether the magnitude of this decline will have a significant lasting effect on the UK economy.
Since the beginning of the year, several reports have surfaced of UK companies and employment agencies having difficulty recruiting a sufficient number of foreign (EU) workers, such as fruit-pickers and health care providers. During the referendum campaign, business representatives also stressed the importance of the EU labour pool for the UK economy and voiced concerns that Brexit could potentially stifle this inflow.
Brexiteers argued, however, that a key reason why the UK should leave the EU was precisely to allow the country to regain the ability to curtail the inflow of low-skilled people from the EU. But by no means did “taking back control” mean to restrict the influx of highly-skilled talent from Europe, as their benefit to the economy was not in dispute in the political debate.
Data from the UK National Statistics Office reveal a slight overall decline in immigration from the EU27 (EU member states excluding the UK) over the last quarters of 2016 and a marked rise of emigration of EU citizens from the UK. There are several reasons why EU citizens, both low- and high-skilled, might be less inclined to seek employment in the UK in the wake of Brexit:
The feeling of no longer being welcome in the country. Concerns about the performance of the UK economy, e.g. relocation of business activity to the EU27. Losses in (home country) purchasing power of retained earnings due to unfavourable exchange rate movements. Potentially restricted access to social rights in future, including, among other things, the right to long-term residency, access to social benefits, family reunification rights and the exportability of pensions claims.
The above-mentioned stories of labour shortages are concentrated in low- and medium-skill professions. Granted, some high-skilled sectors had also experienced shortages prior to the referendum and competition to recruit international talent was intense. But the question arises to what extent have high-skilled workers changed their attitude towards the UK as an attractive destination for work?
Data from the business-networking website LinkedIn may provide some answers to migration questions, just as it has done in the past (see our previous analyses here and here). LinkedIn features advertisements for job openings and it is possible to track the number of persons living in the EU, for example, who have browsed through UK vacancies on its website. Figure 1 shows the share of those adverts that EU27 citizens clicked on which were from the UK, as a share of all clicked on ads (domestic job listings are excluded from this calculation). We only looked at the behaviour of recent graduates – that is, individuals who had graduated within the previous year – from the EU27 since they are more likely to be willing to move across borders to find a job, and because they are likely to be on LinkedIn.
Figure 1: Clicked UK vacancy ads on LinkedIn as a share of all ads clicked on by recent EU graduates, 2015-16 vs 2016-17 (%)
Source: Authors’ own calculations based on LinkedIn data
For example, in April 2015 (light green line), 23% of the job ads which recent EU graduates clicked on were from listings from the UK. To avoid seasonal effects, we compare months of 2016-17 with 2015-16 (April to March). One can see that all points in 2017 are below the previous year. In other words, there is a general decline in the UK’s share which started even before the Brexit shock hit.
What is striking is the stark dip in searches just around the referendum on 23 June 2016. Between May and July, the share of UK clicks in all clicked ads dropped by 16%. However, the subsequent recovery suggests that this was largely a temporary effect, likely due to the high uncertainty of what Brexit means for EU nationals in the UK, for EU newcomers and for the economy as a whole. After the Brexit shock had been digested, the share of UK job ads rose back to the grey dashed line which signifies the level that one would obtain if the growth rates of the previous year are applied. Thus by spring 2017, the share is back on trend and there is little evidence that recent graduates have been permanently put-off by the prospect of the UK leaving the EU.
Moreover, looking into specific sectors where the competitiveness of the UK post-Brexit had been of particular concern, interest in UK job ads also bounced back. For the financial and insurance sectors, in particular, a higher share of searches was recorded in the spring of 2017 than in the previous year around the same time (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Share of UK ads in all clicked ads, searches by recent EU graduates of UK ads, by sector, 2015-16 vs 2016-17
Source: Authors’ own calculations based on LinkedIn data
Of course, not all of these movements are necessarily driven by the behaviour of job-seekers since they can also reflect a demand-side effect. Businesses in the UK might have been concerned about the rising administrative burden associated with foreign hires, the general uncertainty of what Brexit will mean for them, exchange rate volatility for exporting firms or even fear of an impending recession. These prospects may have brought recruitment to a temporary halt, thereby causing the share of UK adverts listed among global listings to decline. In LinkedIn data, this could show up as a relative decline in UK ad clicks, simply because there are fewer UK ads posted online. Aside from this demand-side effect, the counterfactual development in clicks on UK ads may have evolved differently than the trend in the past, due to other factors.
One way to address these issues is to compare the development in job-seeking behaviour of EU and non-EU graduates. The recovery in job interest since the referendum has been more pronounced for non-EU than EU jobseekers (Figure 3). This points to a small permanent impact on high-skilled EU citizens’ interest in UK-based jobs following the Brexit vote. While this comparison is not perfect, since non-EU citizens’ rights are affected by Brexit too – not least the possibility of moving to the continent at a later stage – it does provide some indication of the decline in attractiveness of the UK.
Figure 3: Trends in the share of UK job ads clicked on by recent graduates (EU and global), April 2016-May 2017
Source: Authors’ own calculations based on LinkedIn data
Our interpretation of LinkedIn data supports the view that Brexit has reduced the attractiveness of the UK for recent high-skilled graduates from the EU. It is far from clear, however, that the magnitude of this decline is sufficiently great to significantly affect the UK’s ability to recruit high-skilled individuals or to have a large impact on the aggregate real economy. Of course, this does not change the fact that for individuals directly affected by the Brexit negotiations – whether UK or non-UK citizens – a swift agreement on the future arrangement of mutual rights would allow for more certainty to plan their future, whether in or out of the EU.
This post represents the views of the authors and not those of the Brexit blog, nor the LSE. It first appeared at LSE EUROPP.
Matthias Busse is a Researcher in Economy and Finance at the Centre for European Policy Studies.
Mikkel Barslund is Research Fellow in Economy and Finance at the Centre for European Policy Studies.As someone who pays close attention to politics, I don’t know which I found more unsettling—the many conspiracy theories making the rounds on the right that I’d never heard of, or the ones that I’m familiar with because they have made their way into the mainstream.
If you want to check your conspiracy literacy, the Southern Poverty Law Center, originally founded to monitor the progress of the Civil Rights movement, has compiled a handy list of the Top 10 conspiracy theories, and how they have found their way into the Body Politic with the help of “enablers” in the media and on the campaign trail.
“There’s a boon in these theories,” says Mark Potok, senior fellow with the SPLC. “They’ve ratcheted up in the last six years since Obama has been in office, and they’re on steroids now.”
Americans love conspiracy theories, and they’re great fundraising vehicles. President Eisenhower’s detractors said he was a secret Communist, and that the introduction of fluoride into the water was how Ike would indoctrinate children. The Clintons were accused of killing several people and running a drug ring out of Mena airport in Arkansas. Today, some Americans still question President Obama’s birthplace and his religion.
Donald Trump was the major force behind the popularization of “birtherism,” as that phenomenon is called. He said repeatedly that Obama was not born in the United States, and that he had investigators on the ground in Hawaii looking into Obama’s parents. “They can’t believe what they’re finding,” Trump boasted. Now he doesn’t want to talk about it, and his investigators never told us what they found.
Trump didn’t deliver on his claims, yet a September Public Policy Poll found that 66 percent of Trump’s supporters believe Obama is a secret Muslim, and 61 percent believe he was not born in the United States and is therefore not eligible to be president.
Trump’s “birtherism” is emblematic of the impact that a wacko theory can have. At the same time, it is so entrenched as part of the contemporary political dialogue that it doesn’t even make the SPLC’s Top 10 list.
Number 1 concerns Common Core, a nationwide effort to lift education standards that some on the right believe is a not-so-secret plan by liberals to indoctrinate children into the “homosexual lifestyle.” Eagle Forum founder and anti-feminist crusader Phyllis Schlafly links it to Nazism, saying its ultimate goal is internment or re-education.
Next comes the “Jade Helm” military exercises in Texas earlier this year, which were portrayed as a prelude to martial law. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott fueled the conspiracy, continuously monitoring some 1,200 special ops forces training mostly on private land for overseas deployment. Rumors took hold that Texans would be interned at seven closed Walmarts in the Southwest, and that Blue Bell ice cream trucks would be used to transport bodies.
Then comes Agenda 21, a 1992 plan to encourage global sustainability signed by 178 world leaders, including the first President Bush. It wasn’t a treaty, and none of its provisions are binding—yet it is portrayed as a first step on the way to totalitarianism. “It’s a feel-good plan that wouldn’t make people do anything,” says Potok. It does mention bike lanes, which Sen. Ted Cruz has seized on to declare it would abolish golf courses and paved roads.
There’s also the old North American Union theory—that there exists a secret plot on the part of elites in the United States, Mexico and Canada conspiring to make North America a single country, forcing us to spend the hypothetical currency of “ameros” instead of dollars.
And while the idea that Sharia could be imposed on American courts is not within the realm of possibility, eight states have passed sharia bans and another eight have measures in the works to ensure U.S. judges don’t consult Sharia. In 2012, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, then campaigning for president, called Sharia a “mortal threat” that should be banned throughout the United States.
Next there’s the persistent notion of a looming gun grab. The NRA and related gun-rights groups have spent millions spreading the idea that Obama wants to take guns away. Fox analyst and former Bill Clinton pollster Dick Morris claims the UN treaty on small arms, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 2013, allows Obama to confiscate and destroy small firearms even though the treaty only affects the international arms trade and has no effect on any country’s internal gun laws. Rand Paul calls the treaty a plot by anti-American globalists. A TeaParty.org fundraising appeal says “Obama is activating secret ‘death squads’ to target gun owners.”
And the theories just get more and more outlandish. After the gun grab comes FEMA’s secret concentration camps to intern Americans who resist. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a popular target for anti-government rhetoric, and Alex Jones, whose Wikipedia page identifies him as an American conspiracy theorist, actively promotes the FEMA theory and other discredited conspiracies on his popular syndicated radio show, which is based in Austin, Texas. “This idea as whacked out as it is has really spread out across the country,” says Potok.
Other ideas go back decades, if not centuries, such as conspiracies concerning money manipulation. This has a long history in American politics, and in its current iteration focuses on suspicion about the Federal Reserve as a secret bank driven by private interests ripping us off. Rand Paul, like his father Ron Paul, is pressing for an audit of the Federal Reserve. People who are paranoid about the Fed generally believe that going off the gold standard destroyed the legitimacy of the U.S. financial system.
And lest we forget the secret jihadi training camps that are supposedly popping up across the country, there are between 22 and 35 in the United States depending which version you follow. “It is as utterly baseless as it is adopted by quite a few people in the mainstream,” says Potok. He cites Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity exclaiming, “It’s a frightening thought, Islamic training camps right here in America,” based on an unsubstantiated “documentary” by the Christian Action Network.
Finally, there’s the plot against Christians to promote the so-called “homosexual agenda.” Janet Mefferd, host of a nationally syndicated Christian radio show, says the country may be turning “toward a day when every Christian who supports real marriage might be made to wear a yellow patch on the sleeve…to identify us as anti-gay haters.”
Maybe this is just light reading, the political equivalent of science fiction or a summer beach novel. A country that values the First Amendment and freedom of speech surely can withstand some crackpot theories. But they take a toll, such as when fears that immigrants would spread leprosy helped kill a bipartisan plan to overhaul the immigration system in 2007.
“They’re extremely destructive to democracy because they make it that much harder to solve problems,” says Potok. And the impasse in Congress over passing universal background checks on all gun purchases would be Exhibit A.Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O has announced her first solo album, Crush Songs. That's the cover above. It's out September 9 in the U.S. and September 8 in the UK via Julian Casablancas' label Cult.
She also shared a note about the album on her website:
Though Crush Songs is her first solo album, Karen O has stayed busy outside Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Most recently, she received an Oscar nomination for "The Moon Song", which was co-written with Spike Jonze for Jonze's Her. She also composed the soundtrack for Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, which was credited |
institutions — especially in places like Libya, Syria, Yemen, and post-invasion Iraq. Military force is useful for certain purposes, but the ability to blow things up and kill people does not translate into a workable set of governing institutions. In fact, the more the United States relies on military force to “manage” these problems, the more it encourages others to take up arms against us or against our clients, which in turn allows those with a taste and talent for violence to dominate the political landscape. Case in point: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State.
You’d think we know all this by now, but U.S. leaders keep reaching for the same failed tools even though it is clear that they can’t solve the underlying problem. Like a cardiac surgeon who prescribes open-heart surgery for every malady from influenza to athlete’s foot, the United States now reaches for drones, special operations, or training missions not because they will cure the disease, but because that is all we know how to do.
Second, U.S. officials have never seriously questioned the underlying set of policy commitments that have turned much of the Middle East against us, made the jihadi narrative seem appealing to some listeners, and made our friends in the region look like lackeys. U.S. officials from both parties have sometimes recognized that Israel’s occupation was a problem for the United States (as well as a threat to Israel’s long-term future), and they have sometimes understood that many of our Middle East “partners” were less than fully reliable. Unfortunately, such moments of clarity never led any serious reconsideration of U.S. support for its various questionable clients.
The final reason for recurring failure is the tendency to rely on the same people, no matter what their past track records have been. We’ve seen a revolving door of (unsuccessful) Middle East peace negotiators who then spend their retirements giving advice on how future peace negotiations should be conducted. We’ve got a CIA director who’s been centrally involved in U.S. counterterrorism policy since the early 1990s, and who continues to enjoy the president’s confidence despite a dodgy relationship with the truth and a conspicuous lack of policy success. We’ve got famous generals who were better at self-promotion than at winning wars, yet whose advice on what to do today is still eagerly sought. And of course we’ve got a large community of hawkish pundits offering up the same bellicose advice, with no acknowledgement of how disastrously their past recommendations have fared. The result is that U.S. policy continues to run on the same familiar tracks, and with more or less the same unhappy results.
Just like the war on drugs.
MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty ImagesBelow is the written version my remarks to the Society of Patrician’s meeting held 9 March 2015 at Saint Veronica’s in Chantilly.
Do you believe in Santa Claus? Most adults do not.
When addressing the question of how to give atheists the chance to give God a chance to save them, we must recall we look to them like adults who believe in Santa Claus. They dismiss our faith as being as childish and irrational as belief in Santa Claus, and far more dangerous.
The question before us this evening is a hard question, for that is the degree of skepticism we face.
Before I address the hard question, I should like to say why I am qualified to answer it.
From my youth upward, I was an atheist, and not just an atheist, but a vituperative, aggressive, evangelical atheist; one who successfully talked people out of faith in God.
I hope no one will mind if I take a few minutes to describe my personal conversion story, since all conversion stories are actually love stories, and I hope we all love love-stories.
My conversion was in two parts: a natural part and a supernatural part. The natural part involved the slow erosion of my hatred of Christianity.
All my adult life, I had lived according to reason. At least to my own satisfaction, I had deduced from self evident first principles a set of logical conclusions about all the deep questions of how best to live. My philosophy was ironclad and airtight.
There was no room for the least particle of sentimentality, superstition, nor supernaturalism in my answer.
Now, it is hard work to forever reject every credible report of miracles, since these things are commonplace. It can only be done if you coat your logic with a thick layer of emotional lard, in my case, pride and contempt.
The first chip in the wall of contempt, surprisingly, came from a friend of mine who was a witch, who hated Christians as much as I. I asked him once some questions about mortality and morality, and found he had simply never faced those questions before.
Where heretofore I had held the Christians to be utterly irrational, I realized then that they were not, for I had found someone more irrational than they. Any illiterate farmer in the Dark Ages who learned his Nicene Creed by rote knew more about how to answer these deep issues than did my friend.
When I became as father, I discovered that my fellow atheists were not merely illogical, but abhorrently inhuman, on the question of abortion. An atheist has nowhere to look for a moral code outside of nature, or human nature; and if human law allows a mother to kill her own baby in the womb, human nature is apparently not strong enough to convince the atheist such an act is monstrous.
Abortion is as deep a moral challenge to our generation as the abolition of slavery was to our forebears. In those days, it struck me as odd that my hated enemies the Christians were right on this issue, and my side was wrong.
As my married life went from bliss to bliss, my youthful belief in sexual liberation (as it is ironically called) evolved into a belief in the beauty and wonder of romance, love, and matrimony.
Even if one does not believe matrimony is a sacrament, logic will eventually drive any honest thinker to realize that before engaging in the act of sexual reproduction, one must make prudent provision for the reproduction which is the natural result of sex, which requires that the parents of the offspring be bound in unbreakable bonds of union.
The modern world preaches the opposite doctrine, and says that sexual gratification is sacred, but the act of reproduction abhorrent, and that all bonds are to be broken at will.
This doctrine is ugly. It filled me with a visceral disgust. To my atheist friends, the only sacred women are the harlot, the lesbian, and the divorcee. I had no disgust for my Christian enemies, to whom mothers are as sacred as virgins, and divorce is the abomination.
My best friend, although a Christian, was raised with this ghastly modern doctrine. He reported that sexual reproduction was nothing more than a sport, like mixed doubles tennis, where one happened to require two persons of the opposite sex to play.
That shocked me to the core of my being.
All the beauty, chivalry, the dangerous adventure of courtship and had been lobotimized from the life of my best friend, without his knowledge.
Who had robbed him? Logic forced me to only one conclusion: contraception was to blame. It was a grave moral evil, one not to be tolerated.
I was thunderstruck that not only were my atheist friends dead wrong on this issue, my hated enemies the Christians correct on this issue, but the most repressive, reactionary, backward, superstitious and obscurantist denomination of them all, those crazy Catholics were dead right.
This happened again and again with issue after issue.
I could not explain it: how could the Christians be right on all the great issues of life, and the atheists be wrong, when the atheists had a hammerlock on reason, and yet the Christians believed in Santa Claus?
I read C S Lewis, and GK Chesterton, and Thomas Aquinas, and they spoke like men whose common sense was as solid as old oak stumps and whose common decency was as deep as fathomless wells.
Whereas meanwhile my atheist friends perverted every natural emotion of patriotism and filial piety, either by despoiling World War One memorials or by pretending that the Founder Fathers of the United States were Deists or Atheists. What nonsense. What humbug.
They were a disgrace to the forces of evil.
The final stroke was simply a question of honesty. A friend of mine asked me what I would do if I saw undeniable proof that God existed. I answered that I would doubt my eyes.
This of course is the wrong answer, but I could not see the wrongness of it until my hatred of Christianity had been entirely wiped away.
I knew it was the wrong answer, and it vexed me that my precious, airtight philosophy had no way to acknowledge that the supernatural existed if it did indeed exist. My vaunted philosophy I had worked so hard to make perfect now was just a circular argument.
So, as a firm believer in the empirical method should do, I performed an experiment. I prayed.
Dear God, I know that you do not exist, and that, even if you did, there is no way you can present to me convincing evidence that you are what the Christians claim you are. Nonetheless, as a philosopher, I am forced to entertain the hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove your case. If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you lack the power to convince a skeptic, in which case you are not omnipotent hence not God, or you lack the desire to save the fallen, in which case you are not benevolent, hence not God; in which case, to hell with you. Thanking you in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter, John Wright
I had a heart attack two days later. God obviously has a sense of humor as well as a sense of timing.
Now for the supernatural part.
My wife is a Christian Scientist, and called a practitioner, who heals through prayer. He prayed and the pain vanished. If this was a coincidence, then, by God, I could use more coincidences like that in my life.
I went to the emergency room not because I was in any more pain, but merely to discover what had happened. I was in the hospital a few days.
Those were the happiest days of my life. A sense of peace and confidence, a peace that passes all understanding, entered me. I felt the Holy Spirit enter my body like wine being poured into a dirty cup. I grew aware of a spiritual dimension of reality of which I had hitherto been unaware.
I saw visions; I was visited by the Father and the Son, the Virgin Mary and an Apostle or two. My visitors asked me not to speak of my visions to others, but I can assure you there was nothing in them you cannot find by reading your Gospel.
I will speak of one thing: Jesus said to me was that God judges no man, but that He, Jesus, would be my judge on Judgment Day.
Now, at that point, I was kind of relieved, because I realized this had to be a dream or a hallucination, since everyone knows God is very judgmental, even vindictive, and no Christian in my hearing had ever said otherwise.
I should mention that about a month after I was out of the hospital, and I was reading the Bible for the first time since my school days, I came across the very phrase Christ had quoted to me: It is John 5:22
For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son
As a philosopher, I have been in love with the truth my whole life. But this was the day when the truth turned and looked at me, and it had a human face, and returned my love with a love greater than I can know or express.
Enough about me. Let us return the basic question confronting us tonight. I believe we can generalize from experiences like mine to what can reach the atheist lost and floundering out in the darkness he calls enlightenment.
The first thing to recall is that we alone can do nothing.
It is the Holy Spirit that converts the skeptic.
For reasons too mysterious to comprehend, God, who created us in His own image, gave us freedom of the will akin to His own. He will allow us freely to fling ourselves into the hellfire if that is what we freely wish.
Therefore the Holy Spirit will stand at the door of the atheist heart and knock, but not enter unless invited.
My own experience shed light on what might convince an atheist to extend that invitation.
There are two ways to reject God: the rational and the irrational. Different atheists may a different admixture of the two.
The rational atheist suffers doubts such as mine, where a man finds he has no need to include God in any explanation of the world around him.
He has no reason to credit Jehovah with any more credit than we extend to pagan Gods, Jupiter or Buddha or Mumbojumbo. He has no reason to credit a God who is allegedly benevolent and omnipotent, but who allows the innocent to suffer.
However, the Christian God is not like other gods, all of whom are created beings or personifications of natural forces. The Christian god is both the unmoved mover of Aristotle and the Tao of Lao-Tzu, both the ideal of ideals of Plato, and the nirvana of the Buddhists. The claim being made is fundamentally different, because our god has a philosophical as well as a mythical and a historical character to him.
As for why God allows suffering, that answer can only be answered from inside Christianity. An onlooker outside Christianity looking in cannot see the answer. The answer is not something that can be put into words. The answer is a deed. The answer is a great and horrible deed called the crucifixion.
There are two ways to reach the rational atheist. First, every honest man has something he holds as his highest good, a paramount value or principle or rule of life which serves him in the place of God. The rational atheist will give God a chance once he realizes that his paramount value is arbitrary and irrational in a universe where there is no God.
Second, the rational atheist, if the arguments are put before him, will come to see that the Christian worldview was as worthy of respect as the worldview of Aristotle or Confucius or that of any other pagan sage or philosopher. This can only be done by Christians being willing, as Lewis and Chesterton were, of supporting the reasons behind Christianity.
And, once he sees this, he will see that only monotheism can support the highest value he regards as valuable.
The way to cure ignorance is through knowledge.
The ignorance of the atheist has seven very powerful allies keeping him blind: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. We for our part have very powerful allies shining light in that darkness, brighter than the lightningbolt:
The first is justice: no coherent account of life can truly be erected on a logically consistent atheist foundation. A fair examination of the various worldviews offered to the modern man will always award the Christian view the laurel.
The second is prudence: the atheist culture, and the atheist man, have no means to avoid floundering in the mire of lust and powerlust, lust of the eyes and the rat’s-race of chasing after material possessions, which, in the long run, never bring the satisfaction at first glance they seem to promise.
The third is fortitude: no atheist can stare without flinching into the utter abyss of the infinite death that confronts him, death that will one day consume wife, children, nation, race, and the whole earth.
We Christians can rejoice in the smallness of the Earth in the cosmic scheme of things for the same reason we rejoice in the humbleness of our prince being born in a smelly stable in the remotest corner of the Empire, or the humiliation of a god suffering the death of a slave.
But the atheist can only be aghast at the smallness of all human efforts: we live on a speck of dust circling a medium sized star in the smallest Arm of the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy is ten times our size, and will collide with us in three billion years. At that point in time, there will be no record of anything you can name, for even the constellations will be gone. The atheist can be an atheist only one of two ways: by pretending to possess a philosophical stoicism in the face of death which no real person can long maintain, or by pretending to be a philistine who ignores the grand scheme of things to concentrate on pleasures and distractions, growing ever more frustrated as they pall.
And atheism is terribly lonely. There is no companionship with anything other than frail and treasonous fellow man to look to for comfort. There is no forgiveness.
The final is temperance: the fact of the matter is that human beings do not have the power, by exercise of their own self control, to live happy, prosperous, virtuous and peaceful lives. If we all lived like Mother Theresa of Calcutta, lives of incomprehensible joy in the face of suffering, we could conquer the current world order just as our ancestors conquered the Roman Empire, without ever drawing a sword or raising a fist in our own defense.
So much for the rational atheist.
The irrational atheist does not doubt God but instead hates him. This leaves the irrational atheist free to indulge in every vice and sin their darkened hearts can conceive, and indulge in every slander against the Church the dishonest imagination can supply, or otherwise their hatred cannot be maintained.
The only way hatred of God can be eroded is by love.
You, my fellow Christians, must be willing and able, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to live lives so remarkable for your charity and love and peace and joy that the irrational atheist will be shocked and surprised and ask you about your source of joy.
You have to live lives he envies, without abortion, without divorce, without the sins that create such misery.
Once the atheist sees that his answers answer nothing, that his code of conduct leads to barren misery, selfishness, wrath or despair, he can perhaps be lead to see that our answer answers everything and more: answers too good to be true, but which are true because they are so good. Be ready to bind up his wounds and stow him at the inn at your own expense, because eventually the sharp difference between the world and his false picture of the world will wound him.
And in the meantime, pray. We Catholics have all the seraphim, thrones, dominions and powers as our allies, not to mention the saints, including Saint Nicholas, the patron of mariners. Considering the fact that we Catholics actually do believe in Saint Nicholas, the least we can do is try to get our atheist friends to open the Christmas present Christ gave the world, the gift of infinite life and endless bliss.McGinty's campaign released a statement Monday quoting her saying she regrets the language she used and apologizes to Toomey.
Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Katie McGinty is apologizing for using an expletive to describe her Republican opponent, Pat Toomey, in Pennsylvania's closely watched race.
McGinty called Toomey an "asshole" during a news conference.
She made the comment Monday in Philadelphia while appearing with labor leaders and others calling for an increase in the federal minimum wage. Video of her comment later surfaced online.
McGinty's campaign released a statement Monday quoting her saying she regrets the language she used and apologizes to Toomey.
The Toomey campaign replied on Twitter that it accepted the apology. It noted that her campaign chairman, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, once called Toomey "a man of uncommon decency."
Toomey is seeking a second term in the November election. The race could tip control of the U.S. Senate.
Copyright Associated PressWe are bombarded with "facts" every day: This is the "hottest [pick a season] ever"; the ice caps are at a record low; we'll all be dead in 10 years.
For former president Barack Obama, the ever-changing and often contradictory "facts" about global warming (which liberals now call climate change because the globe stopped warming) was simply "settled science."
But now it turns out the Arctic sea ice is thicker than ever and, oh yeah, the global temperature trend has not warmed for 19 years. That's right -- 19 years!
The Telegraph newspaper in the UK has published a fascinating article detailing data from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI).
Ever since December temperatures in the Arctic have consistently been lower than minus 20 C. In April the extent of Arctic sea ice was back to where it was in April 13 years ago. Furthermore, whereas in 2008 most of the ice was extremely thin, this year most has been at least two metres thick. The Greenland ice cap last winter increased in volume faster than at any time for years. As for those record temperatures brought in 2016 by an exceptionally strong El Niño, the satellites now show that in recent months global temperatures have plummeted by more that 0.6 degrees: just as happened 17 years ago after a similarly strong El Niño had also made 1998 the “hottest year on record”. This means the global temperature trend has now shown no further warming for 19 years. But the BBC won’t be telling us any of this. And we are still stuck with that insanely damaging Climate Change Act, which in this election will scarcely get a mention.
But wait, there's more -- much more.
"Experts told Daily Star Online planet Earth is on course for a “Little Age Ice” within the next three years thanks to a cocktail of climate change and low solar activity," the Brit paper writes on Monday.Google founder Sergey Brin and wife Anne Wojcicki have gotten divorced (GOOG)
Google cofounder Sergey Brin and 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki have gotten divorced after eight years of marriage. They married in 2007 and have two children together.
The divorce was quietly approved in May by a court in Santa Clara County.
In 2013, the pair separated, and then Brin had a relationship with another woman at Google who worked in the Glass division, Re/code's Liz Gannes and Kara Swisher reported at the time. Brin's affair, with a woman named Amanda Rosenberg, reportedly blindsided Wojcicki. Rosenberg had also been romantically tied to another powerful Googler at the time, Hugo Barra.
Rosenberg and Brin are no longer romantically linked, a source familiar with the couple tells Business Insider. Both Wojcicki and Brin have gone on to date other people since their separation, but they live close by each other in Los Altos and continue to raise their children as a team, the source said.
Brin is dating Nicole Shanahan, founder of the patent technology company ClearAccessIP; the pair attended a Jamaica wedding together in June.
Wojcicki and Brin had a prenuptial agreement in place, so their divorce shouldn't affect Google very much. The pair reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount of money. Brin is worth an estimated $30 billion.
A spokesman for Brin declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Wojcicki.
Wojcicki, who is also a successful tech executive, has raised more than $110 million for her human genome startup, 23andMe; Google is one of the company's investors. Susan Wojcicki, Anne's sister, was one of Google's earliest employees and is now the head of Google's YouTube business.
Sergey Brin divorced his wife Anne Wojcicki. Sergey Brin divorced his wife Anne Wojcicki. Photo: KIMIHIRO HOSHINO, AFP/Getty Images Photo: KIMIHIRO HOSHINO, AFP/Getty Images Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Google founder Sergey Brin and wife Anne Wojcicki have gotten divorced (GOOG) 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
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SEE ALSO: SEX AND POLITICS AT GOOGLE: It's A Game Of Thrones In Mountain ViewMicrosoft "destroyed development culture" at FASA - Weisman MechWarrior and Shadowrun developer never had a chance claims founder - and Microsoft almost did the same damage to Bungie
Kath Brice Wednesday 26th August 2009 Share this article Share
Companies in this article FASA Studios
FASA Interactive founder Jordan Weisman has spoken out about Microsoft's acquisition of his highly-regarded studio, saying that the corporation "destroyed" its development culture and came close to doing the same with Halo developer Bungie.
"When Microsoft bought FASA Interactive and incorporated it into Microsoft... the two reasons they bought us was, one, they wanted the catalogue of intellectual properties and, two, they felt that we had developed a really good development culture. And the reality is that, pretty much from the day we moved to Redmond, that development culture was destroyed," Weisman told GamesIndustry.biz.
"I don't think the studio ever really had a chance. It was destroyed right in the beginning."
And Microsoft came close to repeating its mistakes with Bungie, added Weisman, who was working for the corporation as creative director at the time the Chicago-based studio was acquired.
"When we were acquiring Bungie, they wanted me to sit down with the owners of Bungie and tell them how well the transition went," he explained. "And it was like - 'what planet are you guys on?' This transition did not go well. And actually I became the lead vocal pain in the ass to get things done very different for Bungie.
"I tried to convince them to leave Bungie in Chicago, but not winning that I did succeed in getting them to put them in a walled off room, which didn't follow any of the other Microsoft stuff. We were much better able to defend Bungie's culture than we were FASA's culture."
Weisman established FASA Corporation (which later became FASA Interactive) in 1980, and the company was subsequently merged with Virtual World Entertainment then acquired by Microsoft in 1999.
In 2007, FASA became one of the first studios closed by Microsoft as part of a series of cutbacks.
The reasons for this are clear for Weisman, who had already left the company to start up new venture WizKids by the time Microsoft pulled down the shutters on FASA.
They moved everybody into Microsoft's standard organisation, he said, and then changed his role so his staff were no longer reporting to him. "I was creative director for the entire group - all 300 people, not just the 60 that came with me from Chicago - so that didn't help either."
Since FASA's downfall, Weisman has successfully licensed some of his own IPs back from Microsoft and today plans to, in turn, licence them out to creative teams and publishers. The venture forms a part of his new company - Smith & Tinker - which yesterday announced it had successfully raised capital of USD 29 million to further fund its first release, Nanovor, and subsequent kids' entertainment projects.
The game designer plans to work with Vancouver-based studio Piranha Games to make a new MechWarrior title - "if we can put a deal together with a publisher - we're operating under some pretty tight restrictions of the licence that make publishing the games kind of challenging."
It's a situation Weisman admits is far from ideal.
"I guess one of the disadvantages to being old is that you outlive your children sometimes. And in this case, my children are owned by different people around the world and so it becomes a different kind of relationship."The National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States eavesdropped on civil rights icon Martin Luther King and heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali as well as other leading critics of the Vietnam War in a secret programme later deemed "disreputable," declassified documents have revealed.
The six-year spying programme, dubbed "Minaret," had been exposed in the 1970s but the targets of the surveillance had been kept secret until now.
The documents showed the NSA tracked King and his colleague Whitney Young, boxing star Ali, journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post, and two members of Congress, Senator Frank Church of Idaho and Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee.
The documents were published on Wednesday after the government panel overseeing classification ruled in favour of researchers at George Washington University who had long sought the release of the secret papers.
The intensity of anti-war dissent at home led President Lyndon Johnson to ask US intelligence agencies in 1967 to find out if some protests were fuelled by foreign powers. The NSA worked with other spy agencies to draw up "watch lists" of anti-war critics to tap their overseas phone calls.
The programme continued after Richard Nixon entered the White House in 1969, and historians say it reflected a climate of paranoia pervading his presidency.
US Attorney General Elliot Richardson shut down the NSA programme in 1973, just as the Nixon administration was engulfed in scandal.
Recent violations
The NSA has been accused of overstepping its authority and flouting civil rights protections since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The agency carried out warrantless wiretapping between 2001-2004 and recent revelations from US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden have exposed far-reaching electronic surveillance of phone records and internet traffic.
The researchers who published the documents said the spying abuses during the Vietnam War era far surpass the excesses of the current programme.
"As shocking as the recent revelations about the NSA's domestic eavesdropping have been, there has been no evidence so far of today's signal intelligence corps taking a step like this, to monitor the White House's political enemies," wrote Matthew Aid and William Burr for George Washington University's National Security Archive, a research institute that seeks to check government secrecy.Columbus Blue Jackets center Ryan Johansen threw out the first pitch before the Cincinnati Reds hosted the Detroit Tigers at Great American Ballpark on Monday.
"It was great. I got to know a few of the guys," Johansen told FOX Sports Ohio. "We were just talking about the difference between the sports and things like that, and schedules and travel and those kinds of things. It's interesting how many similarities there are between us and the two sports and really every sport. First time down on a field and getting to know a few of the guys, it was a pretty cool experience today."
Johansen's toss from the mound sailed high and required Reds rookie center fielder Ryan LaMarre to leap to catch the ball.
"I was worried he wouldn't be able to jump up and get it in time," Johansen said.
Johansen, 23, set NHL career highs in assists (45) and points (71) last season, his fourth in the League.
The Blue Jackets, who lost an NHL-high 508 man-games to injury last season, finished nine points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference into the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs. They acquired two-time Stanley Cup champion Brandon Saad in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks on June 30, and signed free agent center Gregory Campbell, who won the Cup with the Boston Bruins in 2011, on July 1.
"We made a couple new big additions to our team and we've got a lot of confidence going into this year," Johansen said. "Everyone is kind of getting back into town now and we're gearing up for the season, and there's a lot of excitement around our team."If a deal is made, the actress will be the female lead opposite Paul Rudd.
Evangeline Lilly is in early talks to star as the female lead in Marvel’s Ant-Man.
If a deal is made, the actress, best known for her work in TV’s Lost, would star opposite Paul Rudd as the title hero with the ability to shrink to down to insect size. The movie is being directed by Edgar Wright.
Also cast so far are Michael Douglas, playing classic Marvel character Dr. Hank Pym, the inventor of the shrinking technology, and Michael Pena, in an undisclosed role.
STORY: 'Fantastic Four' Screen Tests: Emmy Rossum, Kate Mara and Miles Teller in the Mix
It is unclear who Lilly would play but it is not intended to be a one-off appearance.
Ant-Man has a release date of July 17, 2015.
Lilly broke though with her role as Kate in ABC’s Lost, where she was part of a love triangle with actors Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway. She appeared briefly in The Hurt Locker, acted opposite Hugh Jackman in Real Steel, and most recently proved that female elves are just as deadly as male ones when she portrayed Tauriel in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
She is repped by Silver Lining Entertainment.
Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com
Twitter: @borys_kitBrothel fire fuelled by rubber materials
Updated
Fire authorities say foam bedding and "other rubber items" fuelled a fire at a South Melbourne brothel this morning.
It is expected the brothel will have to be demolished.
The blaze started before 7:00am (AEST) in the roof of the Top on Tope brothel in Tope Street.
No-one was inside at the time and damage is estimated at more then $500,000.
The cause is unclear but police will inspect a door that appeared to have been kicked in.
Fire Commander Wayne Garrard says the building contained lots of material that fuelled the blaze.
"There's a lot of combustible material in there and, you know, in the massage parlour there would have been foam bedding and quite a few other rubber items in there so it has given off quite a bit of smoke," he said.
"John" works at a factory opposite the brothel and called the fire brigade.
He says the flames were huge.
"They were pretty high at the time and big black smoke - it was just that thick," he said.
"It was incredible the smoke that was coming out of the place."
Topics: fires, south-melbourne-3205
First postedSarah Palin
Sarah Palin scored points Wednesday at a Minnesota fundraiser for Rep. Michele Bachmann when she framed her view of President Obama’s nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia in “common sense” terms: “You know, that’s kind of like getting out there on the playground, a bunch of kids ready to fight, and one of the kids saying, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face, and I’m not going to retaliate. Go ahead, and do what you want to with me!’ No, it is unacceptable.” In this era of unintelligible, lawyerly doubletalk, Palin’s refreshing use of childhood imagery could launch a breakthrough in political discourse. Imagine how it might work with other issues.
On the war in Iraq
“You’re wrestling Molly behind the bus garage, and you finally got her into a headlock so you can wail on her, but somebody ran off and told the principal, and now, old man Biden is coming to break it up. You’ll both get put on detention, and it won’t be over with Molly, because you’ll have to fight her on the walk home tonight, so you’re thinking, ‘If I can put some good gouges onto Molly’s pretty little face, she won’t want to tangle with me again! Don’t bind my hands, Biden! Molly needs to learn her lesson!’ “
On immigration
“You’re holding a birthday party, and Maria Rodriguez is not invited—but not because she’s Spanish or anything. Anyway, you’re trying to keep it hush-hush, so Maria doesn’t find out. Unfortunately, the teacher’s pet, Barack Obama, gets up in class and says, ‘Who-all is going to Sarah’s party? Let’s carpool so our mommies can save on gas!’ So now, everybody knows, and Maria not only will come, but she’ll bring her relatives, and there won’t be enough cake, and your birthday will be ruined.”
On protecting wilderness areas
“You’re wearing your favorite jacket, when the richest kid in school, Kennedy, comes up and says, ‘That coat is so nice, everybody should enjoy it. Give it to me, so I can hang it on the flag pole, so we all can see it.’ And you go, ‘No way, it’s my jacket, and I want to wear it.’ And he goes, ‘It’s too nice for just you. Besides, the Earth is heating up, so you don’t need a jacket anyway!’ Then, he takes your jacket and doesn’t even put it on the flag pole, but he and his coat-hugger pals run around the school, wearing it.”
On the banking bailout
“In the lunch line, the fattest kid in school asks for your ice cream cup. Now, you’re willing to give him your green beans or mashed potatoes, but not the ice cream. So he says, ‘If I can’t have your ice cream, I’ll fake a heart attack, they’ll close the cafeteria, and nobody will get their ice cream cups.’ So you give him your ice cream cup. Later, when Principal Summers finds out, he says, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, giving Fatty your ice cream! Because of you, he’s fat.’ As punishment, nobody gets ice cream, except Fatty, because he moved to another school, where he’s pulling the same deal.”
On unemployment
“You and Molly have nothing to do and want to go to mall. So you go to your mom, who’s sitting around feeling sorry for herself, watching TV, because she doesn’t have a job, and you go, ‘Hey, Mom, we need a ride to the mall!’ But she can’t leave the house, because she’s waiting for a phone call from Barack Obama, who is supposed to call any minute, offering her a job. But the phone never rings, because Barack Obama is talking about health care, so nobody goes to the mall, and it closes.”
On universal health care
“You’ve got a tough math test coming up, so you tell your mom your head hurts and you need to stay home. But you don’t get to skip classes and hook up with your boyfriend after hockey practice, because the school nurse comes to your house and spends the whole day taking your temperature and asking you trick questions. You end up having to lie in bed and study math, it costs the school so much money that they cut hockey, and then you find out you’re pregnant!”
Become a fan of Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.Photo by ingridtaylar via Flickr CC
Cargill, a Minnesota-based agribusiness goliath, is looking to spread its real estate ownership to San Francisco. However, its planned development of as many as 30,000 residents is aimed at an ecologically vital area of the bay -- the Redwood City salt ponds. Cargill calls it an industrial wasteland, but agencies who issue permission for development stress that the 1,436 acres of wetlands-turned-salt-ponds are anything but, and need |
today, he notes that few people are thinking about the significance of culture and aesthetics in shaping our tech-driven culture.
"Current trends toward entrepreneurship and resisting hierarchy, as well as the desire to create egalitarian work spaces, are nothing new," said Turner. "It is a rhetoric that comes right out of the 1940s."
As director of Stanford's Program in Science, Technology and Society (STS), Turner is showing students the value of understanding the potential societal and cultural impact of technological change.
Popular with a wide range of undergraduates, STS focuses on this interaction and has boomed in the past three years to become one of the leading majors on campus. It is the only major to offer both a BA and a BS degree.
"STS is a liberal arts major for an era suffused with science and technology. To be a good humanist now, you have to engage with current science and technology, much as one had to in the Middle Ages and in the Enlightenment," he said.
In STS, students essentially take two-thirds of a humanistic or social science major and two-thirds of a science or engineering major. English and computer science is one of the most frequent combinations.
"Humanities is a field willing to ask questions such as how should we live, and what's the right thing to do," Turner said.
"It's hard to keep track of how these moments in which we live have been shaped by others in the past. Of course, I want people to 'Be Here Now,' but I also want them to know how they got here."
Tom Winterbottom is a doctoral candidate in Iberian and Latin American cultures at Stanford. For more news about the humanities at Stanford, visit the Human Experience.
Media Contact
Corrie Goldman, director of humanities communication: (650) 724-8156, corrieg@stanford.eduSome days, Josh Alpert said, he feels like the most knowledgeable real estate guy in Portland.
For more than a year, Mayor Charlie Hales' director of strategic initiatives has searched for a new home for Right 2 Dream Too, the homeless camp approaching four years at the base of the Chinatown Gate.
He's browsed Craigslist, perused online listings, driven by properties and called would-be sellers, looking for a 10,000-square-foot plot near transit for roughly $850,000.
"That's incredibly difficult," Alpert said, citing Portland's red-hot real estate market. "The land goes quick, and the land is expensive."
One year after the Portland City Council approved a complex deal that set aside $846,000 in public money to buy or rent a new home for R2D2, the campers are no closer to leaving Old Town Chinatown - despite motivated parties on all sides.
About 70 people check in each night to sleep at R2D2 in the heart of downtown Portland, inside a fence of colorfully painted doors that block views from Burnside Street. Little has changed.
Elsewhere in the neighborhood, momentum is everywhere. New businesses are opening. The Portland Development Commission is selling off key properties. A plan to remake the Grove Hotel is advancing.
David Gold, an adjacent property owner and developer in Old Town, said R2D2 remains a stagnant presence in a neighborhood that's seen positive change. "I can't say R2D2 is stopping anything specific, but I don't think it's adding anything positive either."
Even complaints about the camp to the city's Development Services Bureau have dried up, with just one filed during the past 12 months.
"People that are concerned about their presence have given up," said Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees the Housing Bureau. "They've given up on us [city leaders]. I think that has a lot to do with it."
Ibrahim Mubarak, co-founder of R2D2 and the Dignity Village homeless camp in Northeast Portland, said he's noticed a pattern during the past year. "When land is available and we say we want that land, all of a sudden, it's not available anymore."
In addition, he said, donations to the camp are down 30 percent.
"I don't know that people really understood what the money is supposed to be used for," Mubarak said, emphasizing that the money isn't available to R2D2. "The general public says, 'Y'all got all this money, what are you doing?'"
Background
R2D2 set up shop on the 7,762-square-foot former home to Cindy's Adult Bookstore in October 2011. Owner Michael Wright welcomed Mubarak and the homeless community to the empty lot amid the Occupy Portland protests.
The area provides a safe, covered place for people to sleep off the street. Gold said it's the overflow crowd -- those who are turned away and sleep and urinate in doorways -- who pose issues for business owners.
Staffers at the front desk screen visitors, and explicit rules are posted on the front gate. The property includes a portable toilet, recycling bins and garbage containers, tents for those seeking privacy, and large open communal sleeping quarters.
Food and supplies are stored in an employee-only area in back. An office has Internet access for resume writing and job searches. A gravel walkway meanders through the mostly tidy lot.
Last week, Melissa Rodriguez stood outside R2D2, petting the community's unofficial canine mascot, Paige. Rodriguez spent about a year living at site, but has since moved into an apartment with her husband.
She still hangs out at the site occasionally, calling the residents her family. "When I moved in here, it just felt like home instantly," she said. "Everybody cares about you; everybody was here to help you out and protect you no matter what happened to you on the streets."
For years, the city fined R2D2 for violating city code. The fines eventfully topped $20,000, and R2D2 and Wright sued the city.
In September 2013, Commissioner Amanda Fritz announced a settlement agreement and a plan to move the camp to a city-owned parking lot, called Lot 7, under a Broadway Bridge on-ramp.
But developers Homer Williams and Dike Dame, with a Marriott hotel set to open nearby, pushed back, as did the Pearl District Neighborhood Association.
Months later, Alpert helped broker a deal: The developers bought the parking lot for $142,000, and paid an additional $896,000 to escape an agreement to pay $1.5 million for 10 years of parking at a city-owned garage.
The city, in turn, agreed to set aside $846,000 to find a new home for R2D2. Everyone, it seemed, won.
Saltzman walked out
The City Council vote to approve the deal one year ago was unanimous, once Saltzman walked out.
Saltzman said he couldn't vote in favor. Now, he said, he's not surprised R2D2 is still there. "They're not going anywhere anytime soon," he added.
Last October, the Portland Development Commission signed an agreement with Wright to pay him $10,000 a month for 30 months -- or, if R2D2 moved, whatever was left of the $300,000 at once. Wright and his partners would also receive an additional $1.2 million - as long as R2D2 moved no later than October 2016.
"That will be funny to watch how that plays out," Saltzman said. "My prediction is they're not going anywhere."
What's Next
Fritz said she remains optimistic that the city will find a new home that is "not only better than Fourth and Burnside, but better than Lot 7."
She said one challenge is finding a property that allows a recreational campground permit. Fritz added that despite the outcry from Pearl residents in 2013, she has no plans to appease potential neighborhood opponents.
"I will not be doing extensive public involvement to ask permission of neighborhood associations for something that's allowed by right," she said.
Mubarak said he isn't surprised one year flew by without finding a home. He always figured it would take two years, citing the real estate market and neighborhood opposition as top factors. Even if the camp found a new home, he said, moving and setting up the new site could take months.
But Mubarak said there are plenty of reasons to feel positive. He's flown to Tucson, Arizona; Jackson Mississippi; Brooklyn; Chicago; Denver and other cities to talk about R2D2's success in the past year.
The trips are occasionally funded by nonprofit organizations or cities, Mubarak said. Right 2 Survive, R2D2's parent group, also uses grant funding to pay for his travel if necessary.
Alpert said it's "been made clear" R2D2 must move from the entrance to Chinatown. But given the lack of shelter space and affordable housing, the camp plays a valuable role. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Alpert spent a night at R2D2, and called the experience one of the most eye-opening of his life.
"When you take the politics out of their situation on that location, they are a community asset for us," he said, calling their compassion remarkable.
When asked whether the city will be in the same predicament a year from now, Alpert said: "I certainly hope not."
-- Andrew Theen
atheen@oregonian.com
503-294-4026
@cityhallwatchPhoto
SAN FRANCISCO — China’s largest Internet company, Alibaba, is adding to its modest presence in Silicon Valley, but not in the way many expected.
In an announcement on Wednesday, Alibaba said it planned to open a data center in Silicon Valley, its first outside China. Instead of supporting the company’s hugely popular e-commerce sites, the center will help Alibaba spread a less prominent but growing side of its business: cloud services for businesses.
Alibaba has been wooing clients in China to use its services, which are similar to those offered by Amazon that lease computing power to businesses. Many vendors who sell on Alibaba’s e-commerce sites use the services, but the company has been slowly adding larger clients.
The company said the new data center would first cater to Chinese businesses operating in China but, in the second half of the year, do more to aim at foreign clients. The company did not specify when the center would open, how much it was investing in it or how large it would be.
Using the name Aliyun to refer to the company’s cloud operations, Ethan Sicheng Yu, a vice president, said, “Aliyun hopes to meet the needs of Chinese enterprises in the United States, and the ultimate objective of Aliyun is to bring cost-efficient and cutting-edge cloud computing services to benefit more clients outside China to boost their business development.”
Though Alibaba has a significant share of the market selling computing services to businesses in China, it is an open question whether the company can win over more foreign clients. Primarily a Chinese company, it will have to rely on English-speaking staff members to support and sell to the businesses, while also making its software easy to use in other languages.
Still, with a labor force mainly in China, the company may be able to compete on cost. It will also no doubt be helped by the growing number of Chinese companies that are seeking to invest and advertise in the United States.Everyone in media wants a piece of the US election pie. On both ends of the political spectrum, traditional party politics are being rocked by new personalities. Voters frustrated with the establishment see this as an opportunity for protest. On the left they’re Feeling the Bern and on the right they’re hoping to Make America Great Again, but in both cases voters have expressed a cocktail of emotions from anger to optimism.
Front and centre of this circus act sits an orange caricature. To cynics, Donald Trump is a parody of himself, a charlatan who wins support by pandering to public fear. To supporters, he represents the anti-establishment and has the ability to “drain the swamp” from within. And while the media fumbles over his unexpected rise, the rest of the world is watching in shock, horror and awe as the prospect of President Trump becomes achingly real. At the surface, it’s easy to condemn the media for falling prey to his shallow tactics; but deep down I’m relishing every bite of this amuse-bouche under the naive assumption that it won’t last.
However, I’m not here to push my opinion. Instead, I want to uncover what the numbers tell us: who are the likely candidates for each party? Are the pundits’ claims backed by hard statistics? What insights can we achieve with voting data and a simple predictive model? Let’s find out…
The Data
With the primaries/caucuses of the four carve-out states just passed (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada), we have a rich set of county-level voting data for each of the candidates. Using US census records, we can associate each of these counties with demographic features (such as race, education, income and homeownership) which we assume are adequate predictors of voting outcome. Ultimately, the results of our election predictor are only as good as this assumption.
With that in mind, here’s a sample of what our data looks like:
state county party candidate votes fraction_votes income black hispanic bilingual senior college homeownership firms Iowa Adair Republican Donald Trump 104 0.256 47892 0.4 1.7 1.1 22.1 16.3 77.1 0.098 Iowa Adams Republican Donald Trump 68 0.249 45871 0.4 1.1 1.2 22 13.7 78.5 0.108 Iowa Allamakee Republican Donald Trump 193 0.281 48831 1.4 5.7 8 21.3 14.9 79.5 0.114 Iowa Appanoose Republican Donald Trump 292 0.348 39208 0.7 1.5 2.3 21.4 18.3 72.5 0.11 Iowa Audubon Republican Donald Trump 99 0.265 48313 0.4 1.1 1.2 24.3 16.6 80.4 0.074 Iowa Benton Republican Donald Trump 410 0.251 56669 0.6 1.3 2 16.9 18.8 80.4 0.091
For each candidate we have the number and fraction of votes they received as well as eight representative features per county:
Median household income % black population % hispanic population % population speaking more than one language at home % population over 65 years % population with a bachelor’s degree or higher Homeownership rate # of firms per capita
Initial Findings
A quick run through the data reveals some of the correlations that our model will rely on. If we examine the counties where different candidates have won, Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders attract higher income voters. Trump wins in lower income counties overall, but seems to appeal to a broader range of voters. [For those wondering how the chart works, the boxed area represents the interquartile range while the lines represent the min/max range #GCSEmaths].
Diving a bit deeper, Rubio dominates in the few states with the highest rates of college education (bachelor’s degree or higher), while Trump and Cruz jockey for position among the remaining demographic.
A look at race demographics further reveals Trump’s widespread dominance, even winning in counties with the largest black and Hispanic populations. It’s worth caveating that this does not necessarily imply that black and Hispanic people are voting for Trump, but rather that he has won counties where such populations exist. Given his political agenda, there may be other hidden dynamics at play – for example, the Republican voting population may be relatively small and predominantly white. This theory has some basis given that caucus and primary voting is typically restricted to registered party members, which in the case of Republicans is white-dominated.
Among the Democrats, Clinton won overwhelmingly in black counties. It’s a striking chart, but one that has been reaffirmed by other news sources, which cite Clinton as securing 86% of African-American votes vs. 16% for Sanders in the latest South Carolina primary.
Predicting Voting Outcomes
Our predictive model will use the implied insights above – such as Rubio’s relative popularity among high income, college educated people – to project winners in each of the remaining states. We’ll use a random forest classifier to achieve this. In simple terms, a random forest classifier constructs a set of “decision trees” that relate each of our demographic features to a voting outcome (i.e. a candidate). You can think of it as a flow chart that asks a series of yes/no questions about the features (e.g. is median income higher than X?), descending the appropriate branch of the tree after each question until it reaches the leaf (the winning candidate).
Traditional decision tree-based learning algorithms tend to “overfit” to their training data. What this means is that decision trees are often grown very deep to fit to irregular patterns in the data. This makes them good at matching to the original dataset, but bad at predicting outcomes with new data. Consequently, random forest classifiers randomly select a subset of data points and features to construct an ensemble of decision trees. When the prediction algorithm is run, it chooses the outcome that is most commonly output by the various decision trees (i.e. the mode). This has been found to reduce the problem of overfitting.
And The Winner Is…
Hillary Clinton wins for the Democrats, with a notable East-West divide. Clinton wins 31 states including her home of New York versus 19 for Sanders.
Clinton Sanders
And a landslide victory for Donald Trump among the Republicans. A tad exaggerated, perhaps? Only time will tell!
Trump Rubio Cruz
Some caveats: As mentioned earlier, these predictions are only as good as the assumptions upon which they are based. In this case, we assume that demographic features are universally strong predictors of voting outcome. There’s also the simplification of the presidential nomination being based on votes, when in reality it’s based on the number of delegates assigned to each candidate. Finally, we face the typical problem of limited data: in some instances (e.g. Rubio), the model had little information to go on given the small number of wins, while in others (e.g. Trump) it may be exaggerating future success.
In any case Super Tuesday is today, so we’ll see how the model fares!Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps will test his speed in the water — and perhaps his courage — by racing a great white shark.
Phelps, who has 23 Olympic gold medals and 39 world records under his belt, will compete against a shark in an upcoming Discovery program during “Shark Week,” the cable channel said in a news release Thursday.
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“They are one of the fastest and most efficient predators on the planet: Sharks. He is our greatest champion to ever get in the water,” Discovery said. “But he has one competition left to win.”
Details about the race, including whether Phelps would be in the same pool as the predator or how his safety would be ensured, are unclear. The race airs July 23 at 8 p.m. ET.
Discovery called it “an event so monumental no one has ever attempted it before.”
Contact us at editors@time.com.By Nicholas West
Google has received vast criticism for its Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Streetview systems that have essentially removed the inherent right to privacy and transferred it to the whim of corporate terms and conditions. However, this would seem to pale in comparison to what is being announced from the largest U.S. defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, working in tandem with commercial space imagery vendor, DigitalGlobe.
According to Lockheed, they are making final preparations for a next-generation global imaging satellite called DigitalGlobe WorldView-4. If all remains according to plan, the new satellite will be launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base as early as September 15, 2016.
While Google rightly takes heat for its government connections, publicly traded DigitalGlobe’s relationship to the U.S. government is about as fascistic as could ever be constructed. As The Denver Post reported in 2014, DigitalGlobe successfully petitioned the U.S. government to remove previous restrictions on the sale of higher-resolution images to non-government buyers thus opening up new domestic and international commercial applications. The previous generation of this satellite, WorldView-3 at the time, contained an alarming level of accuracy:
WorldView-3 can produce 31-centimeter-resolution images, and several of its already-orbiting satellites already can capture 41-centimeter images. But DigitalGlobe was prohibited, until Wednesday, from selling anything sharper than 50-centimeter resolution to non-U.S. government customers. The 31-centimeter resolution images allow viewers to discern, for example, the windshield of a car and the direction the car is facing. ….offers short-wave infrared resolution that sees through dust, smog and smoke as well as things on Earth invisible to the naked eye. DigitalGlobe executives told The Denver Post last month that its new sensors allow them to see minerals, identify tree and plant species and gather soil composition. When analyzed, this information can decipher what’s beneath the surface — insight that can then be sold to industries including mining or oil and gas exploration. [emphasis added]
The Post goes on to reveal the key reason why such a lenient permission might have been granted: the largest customer of DigitalGlobe is the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, also known as GEOINT. The incredible scope and applications of GEOINT is laid out on the.mil website’s About page – keep in mind the revolving door between military and private companies across the planet, and the choice to offer selective image sales becomes even more troubling.
From the discovery of atrocities in Kosovo, to support for the cities hosting the Olympics, through the response to Hurricane Katrina, and our work in Haiti and Japan, NGA has provided critical GEOINT support when our nation needed it most. In the White House report reviewing the response to Hurricane Katrina, NGA was specifically commended for our timely response during the crisis. GEOINT offered an early version of the same total picture for responders that the administration later recommended for the entire nation as its plan to address major disasters in the years ahead. …. Download Your First Issue Free! Do You Want to Learn How to Become Financially Independent, Make a Living Without a Traditional Job & Finally Live Free?
Download Your Free Copy of Counter Markets In fact, NGA helped track down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladin and shared insights with the special operations team that successfully stormed his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 1, 2011.
[emphasis added]
It is of paramount concern that the functions of Lockheed’s upgraded globe-spanning satellite will no doubt be shrouded by the impenetrable cover of military National Security, while the collected images can be sold to private buyers around the world.
Scouring the planet from 400 miles overhead, the new parameters for the WorldView-4 system are described as follows from a recent Lockheed press release:Liverpool Football Club has today announced airline Garuda Indonesia as its very first official training kit partner, for two seasons kicking off on June 1, 2014.
The national airline of Indonesia became the club's official airline partner in 2012 and, following the success of Liverpool's 2013 pre-season tour to Asia and Australia, Garuda Indonesia has decided to take their partnership with the club to the next level by becoming its training kit partner.
"Last year we flew Liverpool FC to their tour destinations," said Emirsyah Satar, president and CEO of Garuda Indonesia.
"We saw first-hand the following that this club has, not only in Indonesia but in Thailand and Australia too. We knew then that this football club would be the perfect partner for Garuda Indonesia as we grow our airline across the world.
"As a global player and the flag carrier of Indonesia, Garuda Indonesia is committed to bringing the beauty of Indonesia and its rich culture to the world. With a co-branding partnership with LFC, we are confident Indonesia will be increasingly recognised by the world and especially by Liverpool fans worldwide."
The Reds enjoy a massive following in Asia and particularly in Indonesia, a country which boasts more Liverpool fans on Facebook than anywhere else in the world - more than 1.5million.
Watch the video here »
Indonesia also lays claim to having the most followed official LFC international Twitter account - @OfficialLFC_ID - with more than 90,000 followers, while the official Indonesian local-language website - Indonesia.liverpoolfc.com - also helps to bring the club closer to fans in the country.
"We are delighted to be extending our partnership with Garuda Indonesia, who will become our very first training kit partner," claimed Billy Hogan, chief commercial officer at Liverpool FC.
"Liverpool Football Club has a huge following in Indonesia, which makes this award-winning airline a perfect partner for us as we work to connect with fans all over the world.
"It makes us extremely proud that Garuda Indonesia has chosen to partner with Liverpool FC as they increase their coverage and continue their transition from a regional airline to a global carrier.
"As one of the world's biggest football clubs, we will be able to help grow their reach in new markets while strengthening our relationship with a partner that we have already shared two fruitful years with. Together we are building on success."AHMEDABAD: Hardik Patel, the Patidar quota agitation leader, will be reserved for a girl from his home town. Hardik's parents on Saturday announced that they will conduct their son's engagement ceremony with a girl from their home town Viramgam, Kinjal Patel, after he comes out on bail.Hardik's mother Usha said she is the girl whom they wanted for their only son. "She has also taken an interest in the agitation led by Hardik and that seems to be the reason she said yes to the marriage," Usha said.Hardik's father Bharat Patel said Kinjal used to come to their home as she was studying with Hardik's sister. "Actually, Kinjal's family is from Surat, but they settled in Viramgam some years ago. Hardik got into touch with her when she came to our home in Viramgam," Patel said."As Hardik and Kinjal befriended each other, we also thought that they will make a good couple. This led us to go to Kinjal's family to ask for her hand for our son and her family accepted the proposal," Patel added.My son has been a heartthrob among Patel girls as he took forward the cause seeking OBC quota for Patidars. This may have also caught Kinjal's attention who did not hesitate to say yes to Hardik, he said.Kinjal studies at the city-based Sahajanand Commerce College and lives in Ahmedabad at present, he said.Sources close to Hardik said he used to talk about Kinjal when he was preparing for the quota agitation in July last year. However, he never mentioned that he would marry her.Once, Hardik comes out on bail, the family will arrange his engagement ceremony. His marriage ceremony will be as grand as the Patidar community convention at GMDC ground on August 25, claimed Bharat Patel.However, a lot depends on the government's stand on the sedition case for which the young Patel leader is seeking bail from the Gujarat high court. The HC is going to hear Hardik's bail plea on April 7. Beside this, intelligence agencies are on their toes to know more about Kinjal Patel.Delhi: Pakistan's chief justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali has hit out at some political parties of the country for endorsing terrorism.
As per India Today, Justice Jamali told a Pakistani TV channel, "It is disappointing to see some political parties supporting terrorists for their own interest."
He added that terrorists were targeting courts in Pakistan to instill fear among lawyers and judges and pointed out that terrorism was flourishing in Pakistan due to internal patronization.
At the same time, Justice Jamali urged that various institutions of governance must function properly so that Pakistan could be stable.
"The constitution allows all faiths to practice their religion without fear of being persecuted," he was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and top security brass of the country on Monday met to review the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in the border areas, in the wake of the terror attack in Uri.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag and top officials of the ministries of Home and Defence, paramilitary forces and chiefs of intelligence agencies briefed the meeting on the latest situation in Kashmir Valley as well as along the Line of Control, official sources said.
Parrikar and General Suhag had visited Kashmir yesterday in the aftermath of the terror attack in Uri where 17 soldiers were killed.
Possible strategies to deal with the fresh challenges arising out of the terror attack at the Army Brigade Headquarters, located along the LoC, was also discussed in the meeting, the sources said.
Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, who has postponed his visit to Srinagar, also attended the meeting.
The Home Minister, Defence Minister and the top officials also reviewed the security situation across the country, particular along the western border - from Punjab to Gujarat, the sources said.
Heavily armed militants suspected to be from Pakistan-based JeM had yesterday stormed an army base in Uri in Kashmir, killing 17 jawans.
India had reacted strongly to the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency that sparked an outrage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemning it.
"We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," PM Modi had said.
The HM, who had yesterday called an emergency meeting in Delhi, had pointed a finger directly at Pakistan, saying it is a "terrorist state" and should be isolated while BJP leader Ram Madhav said days of strategic restraint are over and suggested that "for one tooth, the complete jaw" should be the policy after the attack.
(With PTI inputs)Well, Anyone can easily differentiate between good, bad, great and worst acting. If one has a good taste of cinema, he/she can easily figure out the quality of acting. I'll give some examples based on good and bad acting.
Crying
How a bad actor cries
How a good actor cries
Breaking down
How a bad actor breaks down
How a good actor breaks down
How a bad actor smiles
How a good actor smiles
How a bad actor gets surprised
How a good actor gets surprised
How a bad actor gets angry
How a good actor gets angry
How a bad actor gets scared
How a good actor gets scared
Look at her,
Look at her facial expression, look at her eyes. She is crying. Does she look fake? Nope. Because she is expressing her emotions through her eyes. We can easily see her pain in her eyes and even in her skin. She isn't overacting or making weird faces in order to express her pain. Just simply natural. Because when we feel pain, our eyes simply reflect it. We don't have to try too hard to show that we're in pain.
So, It's all about believable expressions
A good actor - A good actor is one who can express his emotions through his eyes. One who acts but doesn't look like he's acting. One who can make us believe in his/her character. One who doesn't try too hard to make audience emotional. One who lives in the character. One who is versatile. One whose dialogue delivery is as powerful as fire. One who can change his/her facial expressions and body language within seconds (as required). One who steals the show and has a great screen presence. One who plays challenging roles and make them look real and easy. One who has the knowledge of a good script. One who interacts, connects and relates with the audiences through his expressions more than the dialogues. And there are many actors whose acting abilities are exceptional. They even make us believe in angels and vampires. Natural actor is what we call a good or even a great actor.
A bad actor - A bad actor is one who can't act. One who is unable to express his feelings through his eyes and body language. One who makes acting look like acting. One who overacts and makes us cringe out loud. One whose facial expressions don't match with the situation. They make everything look fake, cheesy and kinda funny. They try to hide their bad acting skills with heavy clichéd dialogues and action. They make real things look unreal. When they cry, it looks like they're laughing. When they laugh, it looks like they're crying. When they're excited, it looks like they're gonna slash someone, when they make love, they look like perverts. There's no depth in their actions. They have same facial expressions all the time because that's what they are best in. It is because acting is not their cup of tea. So they put more effort into their acting, they try too hard just to come up as the below average actors. They are scared of real good scripts and challenging roles. So they never sign those films which have unique concepts and great productions. And they end up in doing mindless crappy movies where the acting is not that much required. And if you're an Indian, you know whom I am talking about. These ‘bad actors’ must seriously join the acting schools.
A good actor is never afraid of taking risks and portraying the unconventional roles on the screen. They dare to take challenges and can do much more than what they're expected to do. Some movies even break all the social norms and stereotypes. Mass audiences can't get these types of movies because they are used to ordinary ‘masala movies' that are made only for entertainment. So the good films with good acting and good storyline often fail to make an impact at the box office. However, they also make us realize that good actors and good movies still exist.
The really good actors aren't afraid to get out of their comfort zone and always want to try something new. They are so passionate about their characters that they don't give damn about their looks and appearances. They just give their 100% and win the hearts of their fans, audiences (who have great cinematic taste) and critics. And that is what we call ‘good acting' and a ‘good actor'.
Hope you enjoyed :)
- ThankyouCreating Visual Studio Code Snippets
Jacob E. Dawson Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 9, 2017
Visual Studio Code is fast becoming my favourite code editor. After trying Sublime, Atom and WebStorm, I began using it after a bunch of my developer friends started raving about it. While there are a few features from each of the other editors that I still miss, IMO for a free, speedy and nice-looking editor VSC is hard to beat.
I’ll share some of my favourite extensions and add-ons over time, but for now I want to share a really quick way to speed up your workflow with the handy snippets editor.
Anyone who codes for a living (or even just for fun) in JS probably types ‘console.log’ a few hundred to a few thousand times a year. I know I do :) With VSC code snippets, you can reduce the amount of typing you do for repetitive tasks with code snippets.
Here’s how making a VSC code snippet for console.log works.
) Go to File > Preferences > User Snippets:
2.) You’ll be prompted to choose a language (in this case JS)
3.) There is an example at the top of the file (also for a console.log). However, I wanted to customize mine. The settings file is JSON. Here’s how I built my console.log snippet:
There are some variables that you can add in to the snippet for tab stops, cursor positions and placeholders. In this case I’m using the string ‘clg’ to create a console.log statement and place the cursor between the brackets.
And that’s it! Now I go from typing ~10 characters for a console.log statement to just 3. Of course you can play around with what suits you, and there are many more code snippets to be added to suit your workflow.
To go further into depth creating your own code snippets (and finding comprehensive language-based snippets in the marketplace), check out the VSC docs on snippets here: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/customization/userdefinedsnippets
Happy coding!Negative Population Growth, Inc. (NPG) is a national nonprofit membership organization. It was founded in 1972 to educate the American public and political leaders about the devastating effects of overpopulation on our environment, resources and standard of living. We believe that our nation is already vastly overpopulated in terms of the long-range carrying capacity of its resources and environment.
We urgently need, therefore, a National Population Policy with the goal of eventually stabilizing our population size at a sustainable level, far below today's. after an interim period of negative growth.
Most politicians, big business and its supporting economists call for growth as a solution to all our problems. Apparently, they believe in perpetual growth, which is a mathematical absurdity on a finite planet. There must be limits. Science is demonstrating that human population and consumption in the United States and the world are already far too large and are destroying the natural systems that support us. We must eventually stabilize our national as well as world population size, so that they would be sustainable indefinitely.Saturday morning the Woodson Terrace Police Department were called to a house in the 9200 block of Harold for a juvenile that had been bitten by a dog. The caller said the had not yet been captured.
The parents of the girl who had been bitten said the dogs came from a house down the street. The girl, 15-year-old Michaela Brown, said she was bit in the hand, side and chest.
"it just like attacked me out of nowhere," she said.
As police arrived at the dog owner's home, one of the dogs attacked the officer, leaving him with a deep bite mark on his right hand. According to responding officers, the second dog began to charge toward the officer while he was still being bitten by the first dog.
In an effort to defend himself, the officer shot both the attacking dog and the other dog that was charging at them.
The officer was transported to an area hospital for serious injuries.
Both dogs — a doberman and a pit bull — were captured by St. Louis County Animal Control and transported to an area animal hospital.
As of Sunday morning, both dogs were alive and being treated for their injuries.
The child that was bitten was also transported to a local hospital for treatment of her injuries.
This is a developing story that will be updated as we receive more information.The number of people who could have provided BuzzFeed News with a copy of the infamous Trump dossier is vanishingly small. Only a few people had access to the full document, which consists of 17 memos dated between June 20, 2016 and Dec. 13.
One person who was provided a copy of the salacious document, written by former British spy Christopher Steele, is Arizona Sen. John McCain. But McCain, who has already acknowledged providing an |
interviewer: What do you know about the Houston Rockets?
Player: I know you are in Houston.
Rockets interviewer: Which foot did you hurt?
Player: I have been telling people my right foot.
Player: Coach and I did not see eye to eye.
Rockets interviewer: On what?
Player: Playing time.
Rockets interviewer: What else?
Player: He was shorter.
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Ten years of grilling extremely tall people had reinforced in Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, the sense that he should resist the power of any face-to-face interaction with some other person to influence his judgment. Job interviews were magic shows. He needed to fight whatever he felt during them—especially if he and everyone else in the room felt charmed. Extremely tall people had an unusual capacity to charm. “There’s a lot of charming bigs,” said Morey. “I don’t know if it’s like the fat kid on the playground or what.” The trouble wasn’t the charm but what the charm might mask: addictions, personality disorders, injuries, a deep disinterest in hard work. The bigs could bring you to tears with their story about their love of the game and the hardship they had overcome to play it. “They all have a story,” said Morey. “I could tell you a story about every guy.” And when the story was about perseverance in the face of incredible adversity, as it often was, it was hard not to grow attached to it. It was hard not to use it to create in your mind a clear picture of future NBA success.
But Daryl Morey believed—if he believed in anything—in taking a statistically based approach to decision making. And the most important decision he made was whom to allow onto his basketball team. “Your mind needs to be in a constant state of defense against all this crap that is trying to mislead you,” he said. “We’re always trying to figure out what’s a trick and what’s real. Are we seeing a hologram? Is this an illusion?” These interviews belonged on the list of the crap trying to mislead you. “Here’s the biggest reason I want to be in every interview,” said Morey. “If we pick him, and he has some horrible problem and the owner asks, ‘What did he say in the interview when you asked him that question?’ and I go, ‘I never actually spoke to him before we gave him 1.5 million dollars,’ I get fired.”
And so, in the winter of 2015, Morey, along with five members of his staff, sat in a conference room in Houston, Texas, waiting for another giant. The interview room contained nothing worth seeing. A conference table, some chairs, windows obscured by blinds. On the table rested a lone coffee mug, left by mistake, with a logo—National Sarcasm Society: Like We Need Your Support. The giant was... well, none of the men knew all that much about him except that he was still only 19 years old, and that he was huge even by the standards of professional basketball. He’d been discovered five years earlier in a village in Punjab by some agent or talent scout—or so they’d been told. He was then 14 years old, 7 feet tall, and barefoot—or, at any rate, wearing shoes so tattered they revealed his feet.
They’d wondered about that. The kid’s family must have been so poor that they couldn’t afford to buy him shoes. Or maybe they’d decided it was pointless to buy shoes for feet that grew so rapidly. Or maybe the whole thing was a fiction invented by an agent. Either way, what lingered in the mind was the image: a 7-foot-tall, 14-year-old-boy, barefoot in the streets of India. They didn’t know how the boy had found his way out of the Indian village. Somebody, probably an agent, had arranged for him to travel to the United States to learn how to speak English and play basketball.
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To the NBA he was a complete unknown. There was no video of the guy playing organized basketball. He hadn’t played, so far as the Rockets could determine. He hadn’t participated in the NBA Draft Combine, the formal audition for amateur players. It was only just that morning that the Rockets had been permitted to take his measurements. His feet were size 22, and his hands, from fingertip to wrist, were 11 ½ inches, the biggest hands the staff had ever measured. Shoeless, he stood 7-foot-2 and weighed 300 pounds, and his agent claimed he was still growing. He’d spent the past five years in southwest Florida learning basketball—most recently at IMG, a sports academy built to turn amateurs into professionals. Although no one they knew had seen him play, the few people who had laid eyes on him were still talking about it. Robert Upshaw, for instance. Upshaw was a thick 7-foot center who had been dismissed from his team at the University of Washington and was now auditioning for NBA teams. A few days earlier, in the Dallas Mavericks gym, he’d worked out with the Indian giant. Hearing from the Rockets scouts that he might be about to do it again, Upshaw’s eyes went wide and his face lit up and he said, “The dude is the biggest human being I’ve ever seen. And he can shoot the three-ball! It’s crazy.”
* * *
Back in 2006, when he was hired to run the Houston Rockets and figure out who should play pro basketball and who should not, Daryl Morey had been the first of his kind: the basketball nerd king. His job was to replace one form of decision making, which relied upon the intuition of basketball experts, with another, which relied mainly on the analysis of data. He had no serious basketball-playing experience and no interest in passing himself off as a jock or a basketball insider. He’d always been just the way he was, a person who was happier counting than feeling his way through life. As a kid he’d cultivated an interest in using data to make predictions until it became a ruling obsession. “That always seemed the coolest thing to me,” he said. “How do you use numbers to predict things? It was like a cool way to use numbers to be better than other people. And I really liked being better than other people.” He built forecasting models the way other kids built model airplanes. “It was always sports I was trying to predict. I didn’t know what else to apply it to—what, am I going to forecast my grades?”
His interest in sports and statistics had led him, at the age of 16, to pick up a book called The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Bill James was then busy popularizing an approach, rooted in statistical reasoning, to thinking about baseball. With some help from the Oakland Athletics, that approach would trigger a revolution that ended with nerds running, or helping to run, virtually every team in Major League Baseball. In 1988, when he stumbled upon James’ book in a Barnes & Noble, Morey had no way of knowing that people with a gift for using numbers to predict things would overrun professional sports management and everyplace else high-stakes decisions were being made—or that basketball would be, in effect, waiting for him to grow up. He simply suspected that the established experts maybe didn’t know as much as everyone thought they did.
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That particular suspicion had been born the year before, 1987, after Sports Illustrated splashed his favorite baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, on its cover and picked them to win the World Series. “I was like, ‘This Is It!!!! The Indians have sucked for years. Now we’re going to win the World Series!’ ” The Indians finished that season with the worst record in the major leagues: How did that happen? “The guys they had said were going to be so good were so bad,” recalled Morey. “And that was the moment when I thought: Maybe the experts don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Then he discovered Bill James and decided that, like Bill James, he might use numbers to make better predictions than the experts. If he could predict the future performance of professional athletes, he could build winning sports teams, and if he could build winning sports teams... well, that’s where Daryl Morey’s mind came to rest. All he wanted to do in life was to build winning sports teams. The question was: Who’d let him do it? In college he’d sent dozens of letters to professional sports franchises in the hope of being offered some menial job. He received not a single reply. “I didn’t have, like, any way to penetrate organized sports,” he said. “So I decided at that point that I had to be rich. If I was rich I could just buy a team and run it.”
His parents were middle-class Midwesterners. He didn’t even know any rich people. He was also a distinctly unmotivated student at Northwestern University. He nevertheless set out to make enough money to buy a professional sports team, so that he might make the decisions about who would be on it. “Every week he’d take a sheet of paper and write on top, ‘My Goals,’” recalls his then-girlfriend, Ellen, now his wife. “The biggest life goal was, ‘I’m going to someday own a professional sports team.’” “I went to business school,” said Morey, “because I thought that’s where you had to go if you wanted to get rich.” Upon leaving business school, in 2000, he interviewed with consulting firms until he found one that got paid in the shares of the companies it advised. The firm was advising Internet companies during the Internet bubble: That sounded, at the time, like a way to get rich quick. Then the bubble burst and all the shares were worthless. “It turns out it was the worst decision ever,” said Morey.
There are reasons basketball experts could be blinded to the value of Marc Gasol, or might never see the next Shaq if he happened to be Indian.
From his stint as a consultant he learned something valuable, however. It seemed to him that a big part of a consultant’s job was to feign total certainty about uncertain things. In a job interview with McKinsey, they told him that he was not certain enough in his opinions. “And I said it was because I wasn’t certain. And they said, ‘We’re billing clients five hundred grand a year, so you have to be sure of what you are saying.’” The consulting firm that eventually hired him was forever asking him to exhibit confidence when, in his view, confidence was a sign of fraudulence. They’d asked him to forecast the price of oil for clients, for instance. “And then we would go to our clients and tell them we could predict the price of oil. No one can predict the price of oil. It was basically nonsense.”
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A lot of what people did and said when they “predicted” things, Morey now realized, was phony: pretending to know things rather than actually knowing things. There were a great many interesting questions in the world to which the only honest answer was, “It’s impossible to know for sure.” “What will the price of oil be in ten years?” was such a question. That didn’t mean you gave up trying to find an answer; you just couched that answer in probabilistic terms.
Later, when basketball scouts came to him looking for jobs, the trait he looked for was some awareness that they were seeking answers to questions with no certain answers—that they were inherently fallible. “I always ask them, ‘Who did you miss?’ ” he said. Which future superstar had they written off, or which future bust had they fallen in love with? “If they don’t give me a good one, I’m like, ‘Fuck ’em.’ ”
By a stroke of luck, the consulting firm Morey worked for was asked to perform some analysis for a group trying to buy the Boston Red Sox. When that group failed in its bid to buy a professional baseball team, it went out and bought a professional basketball team, the Boston Celtics. In 2001 they asked Morey to quit his job consulting and come to work for the Celtics, where “they gave me the most difficult problems to figure out.” He helped hire new management, then helped to figure out how to price tickets, and, finally, inevitably, was asked to work on the problem of whom to select in the NBA draft. “How will that nineteen-year-old perform in the NBA?” was like “Where will the price of oil be in ten years?” A perfect answer didn’t exist, but statistics could get you to some answer that was at least a bit better than simply guessing.
Morey already had a crude statistical model to evaluate amateur players. He’d built it on his own, just for fun. In 2003 the Celtics had encouraged him to use it to pick a player at the tail end of the draft—the 56th pick, when the players seldom amount to anything. And thus Brandon Hunter, an obscure power forward out of Ohio University, became the first player picked by an equation. (Hunter actually started for the Celtics for a season and went on to a successful career in Europe.)
Two years later Morey got a call from a headhunter who sait that the Houston Rockets were looking for a new general manager. “She said they were looking for a Moneyball type,” recalled Morey.
The Rockets’ owner, Leslie Alexander, had grown frustrated with the gut instincts of his basketball experts. “The decision making wasn’t that good,” Alexander said. “It wasn’t precise. We now have all this data. And we have computers that can analyze that data. And I wanted to use that data in a progressive way. When I hired Daryl, it was because I wanted somebody that was doing more than just looking at players in the normal way. I mean, I’m not even sure we’re playing the game the right way.” The more the players got paid, the more costly to him the sloppy decisions. He thought that Morey’s analytical approach might give him an edge in the market for high-priced talent, and he was sufficiently indifferent to public opinion to give it a whirl. (“Who cares what other people think?” says Alexander. “It’s not their team.”) In his own job interview, Morey was reassured by Alexander’s social fearlessness, and the spirit in which he operated. “He asked me, ‘What religion are you?’ I remember thinking, I don’t think you’re supposed to ask me that. I answered it vaguely, and I think I was saying my family were Episcopalians and Lutherans when he stops me and says, ‘Just tell me you don’t believe any of that shit.’”
Alexander’s indifference to public opinion turned out to come in handy. Learning that a thirty-three-year-old geek had been hired to run the Houston Rockets, fans and basketball insiders were at best bemused and at worst hostile. The local Houston radio guys instantly gave him a nickname: Deep Blue. “There’s an intense feeling among basketball people that I don’t belong,” said Morey. “They remain silent during periods of success and pop up when they sense weakness.” In his decade in charge, the Rockets have had the third-best record of the thirty teams in the NBA, behind the San Antonio Spurs and the Dallas Mavericks, and have appeared in the playoffs more than all but four teams. They’ve never had a losing season. The people most upset by Morey’s presence had no choice at times but to go after him in moments of strength. In the spring of 2015, as the Rockets, with the second-best record in the NBA, headed into the Western Conference Finals against the Golden State Warriors, the former NBA All-Star and current TV analyst Charles Barkley went off on a four-minute tirade about Morey during what was meant to be a halftime analysis of a game. “… I’m not worried about Daryl Morey. He’s one of those idiots who believe in analytics. … I’ve always believed analytics was crap. … Listen, I wouldn’t know Daryl Morey if he walked in this room right now. … The NBA is about talent. All these guys who run these organizations who talk about analytics, they have one thing in common: They’re a bunch of guys who ain’t never played the game, and they never got the girls in high school and they just want to get in the game.”
There’d been a lot more stuff just like that. People who didn’t know Daryl Morey assumed that because he had set out to intellectualize basketball he must also be a know-it-all. In his approach to the world he was exactly the opposite. He had a diffidence about him—an understanding of how hard it is to know anything for sure. The closest he came to certainty was in his approach to making decisions. He never simply went with his first thought. He suggested a new definition of the nerd: a person who knows his own mind well enough to mistrust it.
One of the first things Morey did after he arrived in Houston—and, to him, the most important—was to install his statistical model for predicting the future performance of basketball players. The model was also a tool for the acquisition of basketball knowledge. “Knowledge is literally prediction,” said Morey. “Knowledge is anything that increases your ability to predict the outcome. Literally everything you do you’re trying to predict the right thing. Most people just do it subconsciously.” A model allowed you to explore the attributes in an amateur basketball player that led to professional success, and determine how much weight should be given to each. Once you had a database of thousands of former players, you could search for more general correlations between their performance in college and their professional careers. Obviously their performance statistics told you something about them. But which ones? You might believe—many then did—that the most important thing a basketball player did was to score points. That opinion could now be tested: Did an ability to score points in college predict NBA success? No, was the short answer. From early versions of his model, Morey knew that the traditional counting statistics—points, rebounds, and assists per game—could be wildly misleading. It was possible for a player to score a lot of points and hurt his team, just as it was possible for a player to score very little and be a huge asset. “Just having the model, without any human opinion at all, forces you to ask the right questions,” said Morey. “Why is someone ranked so high by scouts when the model has him ranked low? Why is someone ranked so low by scouts when the model has him ranked high?”
He didn’t think of his model as “the right answer” so much as “a better answer.” Nor was he so naive as to think that the model would pick players all by itself. The model obviously needed to be checked and watched—mainly because there was information that the model wouldn’t be privy to. If the player had broken his neck the night before the NBA draft, for instance, it would be nice to know. But if you had asked Daryl Morey in 2006 to choose between his model and a roomful of basketball scouts, he’d have taken his model.
That counted as original, in 2006. Morey could see that no one else was using a model to judge basketball players—no one had bothered to acquire the information needed by any model. To get any stats at all, he’d had to send people to the offices of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), in Indianapolis, to photocopy box scores of every college game over the past twenty years, then enter all that data by hand into his system. Any theory about basketball players had to be tested on a database of players. They now had a twenty-year history of college players. The new database allowed you to compare players to similar players from the past, and see if there were any general lessons to be learned.
A lot of what the Houston Rockets did sounds simple and obvious now: In spirit, it is the same approach taken by algorithmic Wall Street traders, U.S. presidential campaign managers, and every company trying to use what you do on the Internet to predict what you might buy or look at. There was nothing simple or obvious about it in 2006. There was much information Morey’s model needed that simply was not available. The Rockets began to gather their own original data by measuring things on a basketball court that had previously gone unmeasured. Instead of knowing the number of rebounds a player had, for instance, they began to count the number of genuine opportunities for rebounds he’d had and, of those, how many he had snagged. They tracked the scoring in the game when a given player was on the court, compared to when he was on the bench. Points and rebounds and steals per game were not very useful; but points and rebounds and steals per minute had value. Scoring 15 points a game obviously meant less if you had played the entire game than if you had played half of it. It was also possible to back out from the box scores the pace at which various college teams played—how often they went up and down the court. Adjusting a college player’s stats for his team’s pace of play was telling. Points and rebounds meant one thing when the team took 150 shots a game and something different when it took just 75. Just adjusting for pace gave you a clearer picture of what any given player had accomplished than the conventional view did.
The Rockets collected data on basketball players that hadn’t ever been collected before, and not just basketball data. They gathered information on the players’ lives and looked for patterns in it. Did it help a player to have two parents in his life? Was it an advantage to be left-handed? Did players with strong college coaches tend to do better in the NBA? Did it help if a player had a former NBA player in his lineage? Did it matter if he had transferred from junior college? If his college coach played zone defense? If he had played multiple positions in college? Did it matter how much weight a player could bench-press? “Almost everything we looked at was nonpredictive,” says Morey. But not everything. Rebounds per minute were useful in predicting the future success of big guys. Steals per minute told you something about the small ones. It didn’t matter so much how tall a player was as how high he could reach with his hands—his length rather than his height.
The model’s first road test came in 2007. (The Rockets had traded their picks in 2006.) Here was the chance to test a dispassionate, unsentimental, evidence-based approach against the felt experience of an entire industry. That year, the Rockets held the 26th and the 31st picks in the NBA draft. According to Morey’s model, the odds of getting a good NBA player with those picks were, respectively, 8 percent and 5 percent. The chance of getting a starter was roughly one in a hundred. They selected Aaron Brooks and Carl Landry, both of whom became NBA starters. It was an incredibly rich haul. “That lulled us to sleep,” said Morey. He knew that his model was, at best, only slightly less flawed than the human beings who had rendered the judgments about job applicants since time began. He knew that he suffered from a serious dearth of good data. “You have some information—but often from a single year in college. And even that has problems with it. Apart from it’s a different game, with different coaches, different levels of competition—the players are twenty years old. They don’t know who they are. So how are we supposed to?” He knew all this and yet he thought maybe they had figured something out. Then came 2008.
That year the Rockets had the 25th pick in the draft and used it to pick a big guy from the University of Memphis named Joey Dorsey. In his job interview, Dorsey had been funny and likable and charming—he’d said when he was done playing basketball he intended to explore a second career as a porn star. After he was drafted, Dorsey was sent to Santa Cruz to play in an exhibition game against other newly drafted players. Morey went to go see him. “The first game I watch he looks terrible,” said Morey. “And I’m like, ‘Fuck!!!!’” Joey Dorsey was so bad that Daryl Morey could not believe he was watching the guy he’d drafted. Perhaps, Morey thought, he wasn’t taking the exhibition seriously. “I meet with him. We have a two-hour lunch.” Morey gave Dorsey a long talk about the importance of playing with intensity, and making a good impression, and so on. “I think he’s going to come out the next game with his hair on fire. And he comes out and sucks the next game, too.” Fairly quickly, Morey saw he had a bigger problem than Joey Dorsey. The problem was his model. “Joey Dorsey was a model superstar. The model said that he was like a can’t-miss. His signal was super, super high.”
That same year, the model had dismissed as unworthy of serious consideration a freshman center at Texas A&M named DeAndre Jordan. Never mind that every other team in the NBA, using more conventional scouting tools, passed him over at least once, or that Jordan wasn’t taken until 35th pick of the draft, by the Los Angeles Clippers. As quickly as Joey Dorsey established himself as a bust, DeAndre Jordan established himself as a dominant NBA center and the second-best player in the entire draft class after Russell Westbrook.
This sort of thing happened every year to some NBA team, and usually to all of them. Every year there were great players the scouts missed, and every year highly regarded players went bust. Morey didn’t think his model was perfect, but he also couldn’t believe that it could be so drastically wrong. Knowledge was prediction: If you couldn’t predict such a glaringly obvious thing as the failure of Joey Dorsey or the success of DeAndre Jordan, how much did you know? His entire life had been shaped by this single, tantalizing idea: He could use numbers to make better predictions. The plausibility of that idea was now in question. “I’d missed something,” said Morey. “What I missed were the limitations of the model.”
His first mistake, he decided, was to have paid insufficient attention to Joey Dorsey’s age. “He was insanely old,” says Morey. “He was twenty-four years old when we drafted him.” Dorsey’s college career was impressive because he was so much older than the people he played against. He’d been, in effect, beating up on little kids. Raising the weight the model placed on a player’s age flagged Dorsey as a weak NBA prospect; more tellingly, it improved the model’s judgments about nearly all of the players in the database. For that matter, Morey realized, there existed an entire class of college basketball player who played far better against weak opponents than against strong ones. Basketball bullies. The model could account for that, too, by assigning greater weight to games played against strong opponents than against weak ones. That also improved the model.
Morey could see—or thought he could see—how the model had been fooled by Joey Dorsey. Its blindness to the value of DeAndre Jordan was far more troubling. The kid had played a single year of college basketball, not very effectively. It turned out that he had been a sensational high school player, had hated his college coach, and didn’t even want to be in school. How could any model predict the future of a player who had intentionally failed? It was impossible to see Jordan’s future in his college stats, and, at the time, there were no useful high school basketball statistics. So long as it relied almost exclusively on performance statistics, the model would always miss DeAndre Jordan. The only way to see him, it seemed, was with the eyes of an old-fashioned basketball expert. As it happens, Jordan had grown up in Houston under the eyes of Rockets scouts, and one of those scouts had wanted to draft him on the strength of what appeared to him undeniable physical talent. One of his scouts had seen what his model had missed!
Morey—being Morey—had actually tested whether there were any patterns in the predictions made by his staff. He’d hired most of them and thought they were great, and yet there was no evidence any one of them was any better than the other, or the market, at predicting who would make it in the NBA and who would not. If there was any such thing as a basketball expert who could identify future NBA talent, he hadn’t found him. He certainly didn’t think that he was one. “Weighting my personal intuition more heavily did not cross my mind,” he said. “I trust my gut very low. I just think there’s a lot of evidence that gut instincts aren’t very good.”
In the end, he decided that the Rockets needed to reduce to data, and subject to analysis, a lot of stuff that had never before been seriously analyzed: physical traits. They needed to know not just how high a player jumped but how quickly he left the earth—how fast his muscles took him into the air. They needed to measure not just the speed of the player but the quickness of his first two steps. That is, they needed to be even more geeky than they already were. “When things go wrong, that’s what people do,” said Morey. “They go back to the habits that succeeded in the past. My thing was: Let’s go back to first principles. If these physical tools are going to matter, let’s test them more rigorously than they’ve ever been tested before. The weights we placed on production in college had to go down, and the weights we placed on raw physical abilities had to go up.”
But once you started to talk about a guy’s body and what it might or might not be able to do on an NBA court, there was a limit to the usefulness of even the objective, measurable information. You needed, or seemed to need, experts to look at the tools in action and judge how well they would function playing a different game, against better competition. You needed scouts to rate a player’s ability to do the various things they knew were most important to do on a basketball court: shooting, finishing, getting to the rim, offensive rebounding, and so on. You needed experts. The limits of any model invited human judgment back into the decision-making process—whether it helped or not.
And thus began a process of Morey trying as hard as he’d ever tried at anything in his life to blend subjective human judgment with his model. The trick wasn’t just to build a better model. It was to listen both to it and to the scouts at the same time. “You have to figure out what the model is good and bad at, and what humans are good and bad at,” said Morey. Humans sometimes had access to information that the model did not, for instance. Models were bad at knowing that DeAndre Jordan sucked his freshman year in college because he wasn’t trying. Humans were bad at... well, that was the subject Daryl Morey now needed to study more directly.
Freshly exposed to the human mind, Morey couldn’t help but notice how strangely it operated. When it opened itself to information that might be useful in evaluating an amateur basketball player, it also opened itself to being fooled by the very illusions that had made the model such a valuable tool in the first place. For instance, in the 2007 draft there had been a player his model really liked: Marc Gasol. Gasol was twenty-two years old, a seven-foot-one center playing in Europe. The scouts had found a photograph of him shirtless. He was pudgy and baby-faced and had these jiggly pecs. The Rockets staff had given Marc Gasol a nickname: Man Boobs. Man Boobs this and Man Boobs that. “That was my first draft in charge and I wasn’t so brave,” said Morey. He allowed the general ridicule of Marc Gasol’s body to drown out his model’s optimism about Gasol’s basketball future, and so instead of arguing with his staff, he watched the Memphis Grizzlies take Gasol with the 48th pick of the draft. The odds of getting an All-Star with the 48th pick in the draft were well below one in a hundred. The 48th pick of the draft basically never even yielded a useful NBA bench player, but already Marc Gasol was proving to be a giant exception. (Gasol became a two-time All-Star in 2012 and 2015 and, by Houston’s reckoning, the third-best pick made by the entire NBA over the past decade, after Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin.) The label they’d stuck on him clearly had affected how they valued him: names mattered. “I made a new rule right then,” said Morey. “I banned nicknames.”
* * *
All of a sudden he was right back in the mess he and his model had been hired to eliminate. If he could never completely remove the human mind from his decision-making process, Daryl Morey had at least to be alive to its vulnerabilities. He now saw these everywhere he turned. One example: Before the draft, the Rockets would bring a player in with other players and put him through his paces on the court. How could you deny yourself the chance to watch him play? But while it was interesting for his talent evaluators to see a player in action, it was also, Morey began to realize, risky. A great shooter might have an off day; a great rebounder might get pushed around. If you were going to let everyone watch and judge, you also had to teach them not to place too much weight on what they were seeing. (Then why were they watching in the first place?) If a guy was a 90 percent free-throw shooter in college, for instance, it really didn’t matter if he missed six free throws in a row during the private workout.
Morey leaned on his staff to pay attention to the workouts but not allow whatever they saw to replace what they knew to be true. Still, a lot of people found it very hard to ignore the evidence of their own eyes. A few found the effort almost painful, as if they were being strapped to the mast to listen to the Sirens’ song. One day a scout came to Morey and said, “Daryl, I’ve done this long enough. I think we should stop having these workouts. Please, just stop doing them.” Morey said, “Just try to keep what you are seeing in perspective. Just weight it really low.” “And he says, ‘Daryl, I just can’t do it.’ It’s like a guy addicted to crack,” Morey said. “He can’t even get near it without it hurting him.”
Soon Morey noticed something else: A scout watching a player tended to form a near-instant impression, around which all other data tended to organize itself. “Confirmation bias,” he’d heard this called. The human mind was just bad at seeing things it did not expect to see, and a bit too eager to see what it expected to see. “Confirmation bias is the most insidious because you don’t even realize it is happening,” he said. A scout would settle on an opinion about a player and then arrange the evidence to support that opinion. “The classic thing,” said Morey, “and this happens all the time with guys: If you don’t like a prospect, you say he has no position. If you like him, you say he’s multipositional. If you like a player, you compare his body to someone good. If you don’t like him, you compare him to someone who sucks.” Whatever prejudice a person brought to the business of selecting amateur players he tended to preserve, even when it served him badly, because he was always looking to have that prejudice confirmed. The problem was magnified by the tendency of talent evaluators—Morey included—to favor players who reminded them of their younger selves. “My playing career is so irrelevant to my career,” he said. “And still I like guys who beat the shit out of people and cheat the rules and are nasty. Bill Laimbeer types. Because that’s how I played.” You saw someone who reminded you of you, and then you looked for the reasons why you liked him.
The mere fact that a player physically resembled some currently successful player could be misleading. A decade ago a six-foot-two-inch, light-skinned, mixed-race guy who had gone unnoticed by major colleges in high school and so played for some obscure tiny college, and whose main talent was long-range shooting, would have had no obvious appeal. The type didn’t exist in the NBA—at least not as a raging success. Then Stephen Curry came along and set the NBA on fire, led the Golden State Warriors to an NBA championship, and was everyone’s most valuable player. Suddenly—just like that—all these sharp-shooting mixed-race guards were turning up for NBA job interviews and claiming that their game was a lot like Stephen Curry’s; and they were more likely to get drafted because of the resemblance. “For five years after we drafted Aaron Brooks, we saw so many kids who compared themselves to Aaron. Because there are so many little guards.” Morey’s solution was to forbid all intraracial comparison. “We’ve said, ‘If you want to compare this player to another player, you can only do it if they are a different race.’” If the player in question was African American, for instance, the talent evaluator was only allowed to argue that “he is like so-and-so” if so-and-so was white or Asian or Hispanic or Inuit or anything other than black. A funny thing happened when you forced people to cross racial lines in their minds: They ceased to see analogies. Their minds resisted the leap. “You just don’t see it,” said Morey.
During the 2011 NBA lockout, when a dispute between players and owners caused the whole league to shut down for several months, Morey enrolled in an executive education course at Harvard Business School and took a class in behavioral economics. He’d heard of the discipline (“I’m not an idiot”) but had never studied it. At the start of the first class, the professor asked him and everyone else in the class to write down the last two digits of their cell phone on a sheet of paper. Then she asked the class to write down their best estimate of the number of African countries in the United Nations. Then she collected all the papers and showed them that the people whose cell phone numbers were higher offered systematically higher estimates of African countries in the United Nations. Then she took another example and said, “I’m going to do it again. I’m about to anchor you. Here. See if you aren’t screwed up.” Everyone had been warned |
Mercia Police officers said the raid was carried out after they "received intelligence" that the stolen cup had been seen in the pub.
A spokesman said: "We were told it was still there and so executed a search warrant to try and find it."A little worker placement, a lot of resource management, and some area control all in a competitive real-time game.
Ten months ago Kate says "make a game that'll fit in this!"
A tin that's less than half the size of Mint Tin Pirates & Mint Tin Aliens!
Well here it is: Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse and a short 20 Day Kickstarter.
Kickstarter Staff Pick! Thank you backers!
This guy is awesome! - Jason Hancock & Jason Washburn
Tons of laughter and a bit of contention. This is another great Mint Tin Game! - Amy Pitt
BGG's cinderbike made a microbadge for MTMA. It's awesome!
This game is fast and furious addictive fun!!! - MTMA Tournaments at STGCON
You feel a lot of anxiety in a good way. - Spaghetti Meeples
Increase your odds of survival by backing this project. - Chaz Marler, PairofDice Paradise
David’s design practices are really interesting and thought provoking - TabletopTorch
Expect total chaos. - Creaking Shelves
Some madman was challenged to create a game that would fit in an Altoids Small tin. - Purple Pawn
Freakin' amazing! A ton of replayability. - NVS Gameplays
I find myself thinking about what I might do next time. - BGG Admin Roger
Frantic, dice chucking awesome! - BoardGameDuel
Plays as well as some big games. - Bored? Games!
Ingenious. More than meets the eye. - Christopher Richter
You will have fun with this tiny game. - Kurt Aumueller
Simple, fast, chaotic, very fun. Great satisfaction! - LilloJEUX
This project is to fund a really tiny apocalypse. A microgame that can be played almost anywhere - waiting for lunch, hanging out in the kitchen with friends, or even in a tent (or a doomsday bunker).
Fast-to-learn, easy-to-play, and frantically fun!
The funding's for the game components - not labor, post office trips, or coffee - just the meeples, dice, and tins I need to build the games and get them into your hands.
This game is from maker to player and all of the components come from US vendors.
Backing this project has a tiny positive impact on real people in these places.
It’s a nice day in Meepleton. You and your friends are enjoying the day without a care in the world when suddenly...
BOOM! Transformers blow, cars crash, people fall to the ground. Phew, you’re wobbly but okay.
RAWR! Nearby a giant, nefarious monster wreaks havoc! Be forewarned: this is no B-movie monster. It has its own intelligence, specifically level 2 AI (artificial intelligence) as defined by Tom Jolly.
Hurry! Get your team to the school's forgotten fallout shelter.
Once two or more of your team members make it inside the shelter, send out a reconnaissance pair to grab supplies. One box is plenty and it doesn't matter who grabs it. But the monster spots you once you do - you gotta be fast!
The shelter holds a max of 7 and it takes 4 from the same team to pull the door closed.
Do what you must to survive - If you're standing outside, knock down an opponent and make them scramble to their feet again. If you're in the shelter, shove them out and make room for your team.
Once the fallout shelter is closed, it sucks to be outside!
But wait! It might not be over if you spot a manhole cover. Grab it and knock the monster down or use it to pry open the fallout shelter. If you grab the cover before you secure the box of supplies, the nefarious monster notices you. Don't waste time and be careful!
This is a simultaneous, competitive, and frantic 2 player game all packed into a tiny tin. So ridiculously small that it makes other microgames look monstrously huge!
Luck is no longer chance - it’s your predominant resource. Maximize it with your best split-second decisions. Relentless decisions until the very end.
Events outside your control require high situational awareness and demand an overall strategy supported by instinctual tactical actions.
A single wrong action can determine your survival. A few wrong decisions by both of you can mean the end of humanity.
Here are the basic game components:
hand-pressed game tin (the fallout shelter or FoS)
five 12mm d6 Chessex dice (in 3 colors)
ten 12mm mini meeples (2 colors)
a standard 16mm meeple (the nefarious monster)
two 8mm cubes (your survival supplies)
instructions on waterproof REVLAR paper
a mini game poster (sleeved but doesn't fit in tin)
PLUS a solid brass manhole cover token
Manhole Expansion token & instructions not shown
They may be tiny, but these components have the power to make or break you. Here’s more background:
The game tin
As the fallout shelter (FoS), the game tin is a component itself. Made of steel, it fits the rugged doomsday apocalyptic theme. In keeping with the maker to player philosophy, I emboss the tins myself; I designed a pair of embossing plates and had them 3D printed in stainless steel then use an arbor press (29 second video).
The result: A super tiny game box tough enough for doomsday preppers and unique enough for avid gamers.
The dice
You might think you’re in charge, but no matter how much strategy you have, luck always plays a part in your survival. Chaos and unpredictability oppose you at every turn. This is, after all, the apocalypse!
When you use dice head-to-head like this, it's no longer just luck - there are 1,876 books on Craps - a 2 dice game! Dice are often a random event mechanic in games, here they're your resources.
The manhole cover
At the last minute, a manhole cover was added as an expansion - the Manhole Expansion!
Ready for more high-pressure strategy? With the Manhole Expansion, the monster's after you the moment you claim the manhole cover.
Why would anyone do that? To pressure their opponent!
The little solid brass manhole cover is a minted coin – not cast - so rest easy, it will survive many apocalypses.
The instructions
The game tin isn't the only rugged thing. Game instructions are printed on REVLAR paper - a waterproof and tear-resistant paper used for geocaching and maps. Since everything's dumped out for each game, the instructions have to be tougher than that non-apocalyptic glossy paper.
PairOfDice Paradise - Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse Overview
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NVS Gameplays - Kickstarter Preview! - Mini apocalypse, Major fun?
.. freakin' amazing! You're totally engaged. Like an actual mini apocalypse happening on the table.
... pulled off so awesome and so simply...
Your strategy has to change based on what the other player's doing. A ton of replayability and a ton of fun. - NVS Gameplays
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[Roger's Reviews] Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse: The Magnificent Seven Minutes
I find myself thinking about what I might do next time.
You get engrossed in the race to the shelter, especially if you dial up the monster.
When I want a short game, a small footprint, and fun, this is a game I'll be reaching into my pocket for.- leroy43
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The Cardboard Dungeon: Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse Review
I like the game a lot. - The Cardboard Dungeon
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Bored? Games! First Impressions: Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse
The feeling of constant hope is invigorating. And a mix of disappointment and rage. You work so hard and your opponent knocks your hard work down.
An emotional roller coaster. To get this across in such a small game is really a large feat. It plays as well as some big games.
I think everyone should have a copy and fall in love with this game. - Bored? Games!
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Board Game Duel - Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse Review
Frantic, dice chucking awesome!
To make the game even more exciting, there's a soundtrack. The soundtrack provides an awesome ambiance.
The Manhole Expansion adds strategy and depth. - Board Game Duel
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Boardgaming For The Win - The Apocalypse has come to Meepleton
David creates ingenious worlds. More to this game than meets the eye.
Super affordable, easy to learn and play, and very portable as it will fit right into your pocket. I recommend backing Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse. - Christopher Richter
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Bad Moon Rising: An MFGCast review of Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse
Some companies have a knack for light games and that’s subQuark Games with Mint Tin Min Apocalypse.
You will have fun with this tiny game. You can also make up your own fun rules to spice it up! - Kurt Aumueller
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LilloJEUX - Notre critique du jeu Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse (French)
"It's really crazy! I got carried away by the theme!
The metal game box makes all the difference - we move our pieces into it, throw out opponents, and then you close it with great satisfaction!
Simple, fast, chaotic, very fun - brings out a nice competition.
The extension adds even more chaos that I love.
I recommend it highly! - LilloJEUX
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ClubFantasci - Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse Kickstarter Review
You feel like you’re barely hanging on, as it should in an apocalypse.
A short, tense game that tests your hand-eye coordination and rapid decision making skills.
A good fit for families since you can slow the game down by switching to single rolls at a time. This makes for a good exercise in counting, prioritizing and lite decision making, great skills to learn in a fun way.
If you love micro games, this is one to certainly back! - Maurice Fitzgerald
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Crowdfunding Highlights
A worker-placement, resource-management, area-control dice game.
A crazy little game about the apocalypse that you can play during the apocalypse: the rules are on a waterproof, tear-resistant paper!
Grab your copy! - Thomas Deeny
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Creaking Shelves Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse
Expect total chaos and maybe even tales of noble sacrifice, as players can feed their meeples to slow the monster, and gain respect points even if they don’t get into the shelter. - Creaking Shelves
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Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse – Episode #49 Startup Gamers Podcast
I flippin' love this game! The quality is superb. - Matt Ballert
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Spaghetti & Meeples Looks at Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse
You feel a lot of anxiety in a good way.
And it's great! A lot of fun packed into it. - Spaghetti Meeples
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Sweet Kicks with Bricks 64: Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse
A podcast interview of me talking Barry Rick's ear off!
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Homemaker Hobbies - Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse
Do you enjoy worker placement games? How about area control? Trying to survive the impending doom of the apocalypse?
This game is a lot of fun! It's fast paced with no down time at all. It plays quickly and can be played anywhere.
It's also a great way to help teach kids math. You need to be able to add quickly but is easy enough that children can play. Whenever this game is played, there is tons of laughter and a bit of contention. This is another great Mint Tin Game! - Amy Pitt
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Click for Instagram link in tweet
Here's a 5 minute run through of the basic game with annotations. This is standard play without the Manhole Expansion. Fine tune the game with three different play modes and/or dial down the monster to make it attack faster.
This game may seem to be luck based, but it's all about using that luck as your resources. Almost every action needs a roll of 7s but it's what you do with those 7s that matters - both for your survival and the survival of the human race!
Click for full-size
Kickstarter exclusive PnP
This reward has the PDF instructions ready to score, cut, and fold. It has the manhole cover art, the game mat (its actual size is 8.5 by 11 inches, so you'll need to shrink it for most printers), and the journal.
And the art for the mini game poster and the epic downloadable MP3 soundtrack.
Add your own tin, meeples, cubes, and dice, and let the apocalypse begin!
This reward will be available Sunday August 23rd with an update for backers only.
Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse (MTMA & ME)
Manhole Expansion token & instructions not shown
Everything you need to unleash the apocalypse onto the world! (Well, to play the game with a friend.)
The basic game with meeples, monster, cubes, dice, instructions, and the tin (FoS). It comes with a sleeved mini game poster and the downloadable MP3 soundtrack. Plus the Manhole Expansion manhole cover and its instructions.
Our friend Nick Shaw has created solo, three-player (someone is the monster), and four-player variants. And we will have French, German, and Portuguese translations on subQuark.com.
Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse Deluxe (MTMA DELUXE & ME2)
Manhole Expansion token, instructions, & Mini Journal not shown
The basic game with meeples, monster, cubes, dice, instructions, and the tin (FoS). It comes with a sleeved mini game poster and the downloadable MP3 soundtrack. Plus the Manhole Expansion manhole cover and its instructions.
And this reward comes with the added deluxe components of a mini game mat, mini journal, and an extra manhole cover.
These can enhance and extend the tiny pandemonium of Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse. The mini game mat provides a dice rolling surface, similar to full-sized mats, which helps keep excited rolls close at hand.
The game mat is themed with an isometric view of Meepleton. Extend the chaos with your own scenarios, such as "get Alice out of prison" or "Cordelia was in the Burrito place, we gotta save her!"
The game mat rolls up and is easy to carry. It doesn't fit in the tin, though, which is so tiny it fits into a Levis' watch pocket! (Finally, something for that kooky pocket!)
The mini journal is a 4.75-inch square booklet that lets you record game scores to earn bragging rights and claim virtual victory badges. Kind of like box-topping on the go.
Prove your mettle and pwn your opponents with documented proof of your awesome apocalyptic survival skills!
Speaking of mettle - or metal - the extra manhole cover is for your own variants. Maybe one's an entrance and the other's an exit, or each team has their own. On the back is the subQuark hand - maybe that's a radiation hot zone or a locked area - you decide and make the game your own.
The only thing we gave the artist, Ing, were the game instructions. No other guidance.
Ing captured the 10 players, high school setting (Meepleton High - Home of the Cavaliers - a reference to the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse?), fallout shelter, and terror perfectly.
Your Mini Game Poster comes in an Ultra Pro Deck Protector Sleeve to help it survive the apocalypse!
Art by Ing
Ross Bugden, film composer, is incredibly talented and generous. He lent us his phenomenal soundtracks for this game.
We edited in apocalyptic sounds and cues. The first two tracks start with pleasant Meepleton ambiance to give you 30 seconds to setup before the mini apocalypse ensues. The third is a quick start for pros and preppers.
Track One RUN on YouTube (city sidewalk)
on YouTube (city sidewalk) Track Two UNSTOPPABLE (town carnival)
(town carnival) Track Three CHAOS RAPTURE (quick start)
These tracks are also available with added repeats as extended play (EP) versions plus an instrumental track without the sound effects for a more relaxed and less intense experience. You get 7 tracks as MP3 downloads.
I love Kickstarter. Regular people can share their dreams with all of us.
Keeping this close to home is key for this maker to player project. Like the map shows, we source in the US with dice from Indiana, game pieces from Florida, plastic bags from Ohio, tins from New Jersey, instruction paper from New Hampshire, labels from Rhode Island, and minted coins from Ohio.
It comes together in Portsmouth, New Hampshire - on a dining room table. But none of this happens without you.
Nope. That's because this game is complete.
The Manhole Expansion would have been a great stretch goal. But the added play and strategy it adds makes it obvious to include.
Minted in Ohio by a private mint founded in 1835
Will these games be in stores?
There are no plans for normal distribution because of the mark-ups:
designer -> manufacturer -> distributor -> store -> you
As maker to player games we skip that to keep the game affordable:
maker -> you
Will this be available online?
This Kickstarter's only for fulfilling rewards - getting this game into your hands.
A second printing may be available later for $16 or $17 for the basic game and $24 or $25 for the deluxe version.
For our last Kickstarter, we donated games to troops, a veterinary fund, and children's' hospitals. This was possible through generous pledges.
Thank you for looking at this project and sharing the word. =)
We use USPS Priority Mail in the US.
For international shipping, we use USPS First-Class Package International Service.
Here's what we declare for customs:
MTMA - $6
MTMA Deluxe - $12
MTMA DELUXE TWO PACK - $24
MTMA SIX PACK - $36
MTMA TWELVE PACK - $72
COLLECTOR'S EDITION - $200
Label on the back of the game
Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse will be registered with the US Copyright Office.
A copy of the game will be housed at the US Library of Congress. That's kind of cool.
Maybe if the President gets ushered to a top secret bunker, he or she will ask for Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse as a way to pass the time.
We'll send the MTMA Deluxe version because the President of the United States deserves that added luxury.
The first Kickstarter was a blast and both games have ratings on BoardGameGeek around an 8 each.
I know many of you have a Kickstarter budget (I do too), so I really appreciate your support.
Use as a share image if you likeAbout
After five commercially successful live-action movies, and another two to come, the Transformers have become household names that need little introduction. They are sentient ‘robots in disguise’ that can transform into the cars, trucks, tanks, planes and all manner of everyday objects.
But where and when did the Transformers brand all start?
Perhaps the simplest and most straightforward answer is that the Transformers’ brand started as transforming robot toys that were released by Hasbro in late 1984; of which the fiction was crafted by Marvel Comics to accompany and flesh out the backstory for these figures.
1984 - [G1] Bumblebee
In the USA, Transformers toys were released by Hasbro from 1984 to 1990, before the toyline's cancellation. In Japan (and many parts of Asia), Takara released Transformers toys from 1985 to 1992; and in Europe, Transformers were released from 1984 to 1993. Hasbro revamped the line and revived it thereafter as “Transformers: Generation Two”. This “Generation Two“ etymology resulted in fans, collectors and later Hasbro retroactively referring to all the Transformers toys that came before, as “Generation One” or “G1” Transformers.
Unfortunately, Generation Two itself was short-lived. But it did spark a strategy where over the following years, Hasbro would continue to reinvent and reinvigorate the Transformers brand with fresh ideas and innovations on an almost yearly basis, such that for predominantly every year since 1993, there has been an unbroken chain of new Transformers toys and toy-lines.
1984 - [G1] Soundwave
For the Transformers brand, which has been going strong for the past 34 years and counting, the significance of the G1 toys cannot be underestimated. In fact, the G1 toys are often the cornerstone and inspiration for subsequent Transformers lines.
It is the G1 Transformers toys that are the key and only focus of our project.
The Transformers G1 Unofficial Photographic Archive consists of two volumes featuring only G1 Transformers toys, turning back the clock and shining a spotlight on these true classics of the Transformers brand that ‘started it all’!
Only vintage original G1 era toys were used in the production of the books. We were stringent in specifically excluding the use of any modern day reissue or knockoff toys.
The books total approximately 500 pages, 99% of which showcase full color photograph layouts. They are split into the following two volumes:
• Transformers G1 Unofficial Photographic Archive [Volume 1] - Vintage Toys, U.S. Releases from 1984 to 1990.
• Transformers G1 Unofficial Photographic Archive [Volume 2] - Vintage Toys, Japanese and European Exclusives
[Volume-1] features G1 Transformers released by Hasbro in the USA between the years 1984 to 1990. [Volume-2] features G1 Transformers that were exclusively released (a) in Japan (and many parts of Asia) by Takara and (b) in Europe by Hasbro, Milton Bradley or Ceji, between the years 1985 to 1993. In other words, [Volume-2] features G1 Transformers that were ‘exclusive’ to their individual markets but never saw release in the USA.
We see these books as part photographic record, part historical tome, and 100% labor of love. We intend for these books to be out there among some of (if not) the most comprehensive identification guides and photographic archives available on G1 Transformers.
[Volume-1] will cover every G1 Transformer toy that was released by Hasbro at retail in the USA, between the years 1984 to 1990.
Included are the early Series 1 (1984) and Series 2 (1985) toys that were based on Takara's Diaclone and Micro Change toy lines, such as Optimus Prime, Megatron, the Autobot cars (Jazz, Prowl, Wheeljack, etc), the Decepticon Seekers (Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp) and Minibots such as Bumblebee, Cliffjumper and Huffer.
Toys that were licensed by Hasbro for Series 2 from other toy companies like Takatoku, Toybox and ToyCo, such as Roadbuster, Omega Supreme and Shockwave are featured in [Volume-1] as well. [Volume-1] also contains a comprehensive record of the toys tied into 1986's The Transformers: The Movie cinematic animated feature and toys from the Headmasters and Targetmasters subgroups (1987; 1988), Powermasters and Pretenders subgroups (1988; 1989), Micromasters subgroup (1989; 1990), and Action Masters subgroup (1990).
1985 Omega Supreme [Parts & Accessories are on a 3rd page]
[Volume-2] will cover G1 Transformers toys that were released by Takara at retail in Japan (and many parts of Asia) and by Hasbro, Milton Bradley or Ceji in Europe between the years 1985 to 1993, but which never saw a domestic USA release. [Volume-2] contains the following ‘exclusive’ toys in general.
Toys which had completely new molds that never saw release outside its originating market. Examples of this are the Trainbots or Star Saber, released by Takara in Japan and parts of Asia only.
Toys that had mold changes and were exclusive repaints will also be featured in [Volume-2]. For example, D-309: Black Shadow and D-310: Blue Bacchus which were respectively based on the Hasbro's Thunderwing and Crossblades but with modified significantly different colors.
Toys that were straight out exclusive repaints, without mold changes. For example the Japanese release of C-305: Ranger which is a predominantly light blue repaint of the same mold released in dark green in the USA as Joyride. Other examples of straight repaints are C-312: Sixknight (Japanese release of Quickswitch), C-313: Hardspark (Japanese release of Guzzle), D-321: Javil (Japanese release of Sparkstalker) and etc. A sub-set of this category is where the toy is a straight repaint but had different stickers (eg: C-303: Minerva) or different tampograph graphics (eg: C-301:GoShooter).
The European section of [Volume-2] features region exclusive toys using the same format and logic as the Japanese exclusive toys mentioned above. Some examples of European exclusive toys that were based on unique new molds are Thunder Clash, Rotorstorm, Stalker, Skyquake and Actionmasters Omega Spreem, Sideswipe, Tracks and Windmill, which were released by Hasbro in the European markets only.
Lastly, toys which are predominantly the same mold and the same colors but released in different region specific packaging will not be featured in [Volume-2]. For example, Japanese “C-38”: Broadblast which is predominantly the same mold and same colors as Hasbro’s Series 2 Blaster (who is in [Volume-1]) will not be repeated as an entry in [Volume-2]. However Japanese C-116: Twincast which is based on a Broadblast / Blaster modified mold and in a different color scheme, will be featured in [Volume-2].
The robot mode, alternate mode, every official transformation mode (as per a toy’s instructions) and every accessory will be documented and feature prominently against an infinite black background, laid out in a manner such that details of each toy can be viewed to optimum effect (we felt that a black background makes the toy and the details stand out and ‘pop’ more so than against a'standard' white background).
Each toy is showcased in its full glory.
Rather than having 10 to 20 toys on a page, we worked on the principle that each toy should have sufficient space to "breathe" and be properly displayed on the page. In most cases, there will be only one toy character per page. For characters with smaller sized toys, there might be two toy characters per page. And for certain even smaller toys like Micromasters, there will be four or more toys laid out. This is balanced out by other toys like City-bots, who will be featured on two to three pages due to their larger size, number of modes and amount of accessories.
These are all our toys!
Except for small (but much appreciated) assists from friendly collectors in relation to less than 20 figures, every toy that is featured or photographed in these books belong to either one of the authors.
If we did not own a nice enough specimen among the three of us, one of us would go out of their way to buy a sample that would fit the quality standards required for this project.
Due to practical constraints, these two volumes only feature Transformers that were released and were available for retail in the USA, Japan (and parts of Asia) and Europe. Other non-retail or licensed merchandise will not appear in these books. For example ‘Happy Meal’ toys, cards / bedsheets featuring Transformers or gumball Transformers, etc, will not be showcased in the books.
Nevertheless, in the spirit of completeness, promotional insert figures and mail-away items that were available from Hasbro in the USA during 1984 to 1990 are also featured in the books, such as the Minispies, Decoys, the Omnibots, S.T.A.R.S. and more.
However, Mailaways that are packaging variants (such as Cookie-Crisp Mailaways or ‘brown box’ Mailaways related to the 1986 animated movie, etc) will not be featured, because the books’ current focus is on the toys, not on packaging. If these books are successful, subsequent books featuring G1 Transformers packaging are not beyond the realms of possibility!
For reasons that would be too lengthy to delve into here, it is well known that Transformer toys of the same character might have different (often minor) variations, even if the toy itself might look predominantly the same. Variations could come in many forms, for example, metal vs plastic toes / chest / feet, painted vs non-painted details, chrome silver vs chrome gold accessories, rubber vs plastic wheels, etc. Due to space constraints and really for practical reasons, the books will cover some, but not all such possible variants of each toy character.
As far as color / paint variants were concerned, we featured them to a reasonable extent as a smaller image in a window nested in that character’s page.
1985 Slag & Snarl [Canadian Slag Variant in window]
In very special cases, we documented key variants of a significant toy. An example of this is Optimus Prime, where three key variants were documented: the pre-rubsign grey Roller metal plates trailer version, the pre-rubsign 'blue' parts version, and the more standard dark blue/purple Roller version. Again, the extent in which we could do this was limited by space and page considerations.
1984-1985 Optimus Prime [Accessories and Variants spread]
Additionally, there were also what is popularly known as ‘stamping’ variants, where depending on where a toy was manufactured and which set of molds were used, the copyright / trademark details that are molded onto the toy might differ. Whilst an area of unique interest and intense discussion, stamping variants are not within the scope of this project.
[Volume-1]: Transformers G1 Unofficial Photographic Archive Volume 1: Vintage Toys, U.S. Releases from 1984 to 1990, is planned to contain approximately 301 pages.
[Volume-2]: Transformers G1 Unofficial Photographic Archive Volume 2: Japanese and European Exclusives, is planned to contain approximately 211 pages.
Note that the page count breakdown below is only indicative, for the purposes of illustrating the proportion of that Volume that will be dedicated for each year. Page allocation will be finalized prior to publication.
Transformers G1 Unofficial Photographic Archive [Volume-1]
Vintage Toys, U.S. Releases from 1984 to 1990
[Approximately 301 pages in total]
-Foreword, by a very special person (Soon to be revealed)
-Table of contents
-Introduction, by Brandon M.Y. Yap of “www.HeroicDecepticon.com” (community alias “heroic_decepticon”)
-Photographic Archive of US released Transformers featuring the work of Bryce Rutledge (community alias “brr-icy”) and Sebastien Harton (community alias “Hyperoptic”), with text by Brandon M.Y. Yap:
1984 Autobots (22 pages) [all are pre-rubsign toys]
1984 Decepticons (10 pages [all are pre-rubsign toys]
1985 Autobots (34 pages)
1985 Decepticons (18 pages)
1986 Autobots (28 pages)
1986 Decepticons (24 pages)
1987 Autobots (28 pages)
1987 Decepticons (22 pages)
1988 Autobots (22 pages)
1988 Decepticons (26 pages)
1989 Autobots (14 pages)
1989 Decepticons (14 pages)
1990 Autobots (18 pages)
1990 Decepticons (12 pages)
-Glossary / Index of toys in alphabetical order.
Transformers G1 Unofficial Photographic Archive [Volume-2]
Japanese and European Exclusives
[Approximately 211 pages in total]
-Foreword, by a very special person (Soon to be revealed)
-Table of contents
-Introduction, by Brandon M.Y. Yap.
-Photographic Archive of Transformers released in Japan (and parts of Asia) and in Europe, featuring the work of Bryce Rutledge and Sebastien Harton, with photo assist and text by Brandon M.Y. Yap:
1985 to 1986 Japan Exclusives: Fight! Super Robot Lifeform / Transformers 2010 (4 pages)
1987 Japan Exclusives: Headmasters (15 pages)
1988 Japan Exclusives: Super God Masterforce (24 pages)
1989 Japan Exclusives: Victory (28 pages)
1990 Japan Exclusives: Zone (12 pages)
1991 Japan Exclusives: Battlestars – Return of Convoy (13 pages)
1992 Japan Exclusives: Operation Combination (20 pages)
Japan Exclusives: Transformers “Juniors” (13 pages)
1991 European Exclusives: Autobots (9 pages)
1991 European Exclusives: Decepticons (9 pages)
1992 European Exclusives: Autobots (6 pages)
1992 European Exclusives: Decepticons (7 pages)
1993 European Exclusives (12 pages)
1994 European Exclusives (4 pages) [1994 was technically G2, but we decided to cover these extra 8 figures as they completed this European run nicely.]
-Glossary / Index of toys in alphabetical order.
Volume One:
• Trim size: 8.5 x 11 inches / 215.9 x 279.4 mm
• Cover: 157 Gsm glossy / 4c / matte lam / spot UV x 0c / Embossed
• Hardcover: 3mm boards
• Inside: Approximately 301 pages / 157 Gsm matte art / 4c x 4c
• Binding: Smyth sewn / square backed / fully cased in / H&T bands
• Spine Width: Approximately 1.2 inches / 30.5 mm
• Weight: Approximately 3.77lbs / 1.71kgs
Volume Two:
• Trim size: 8.5 x 11 inches / 215.9 x 279.4 mm
• Cover: 157 Gsm glossy / 4c / matte lam / spot UV x 0c / Embossed
• Hardcover: 3mm boards
• Inside: Approximately 211 pages / 157 Gsm matte art / 4c x 4c
• Binding: Smyth sewn / square backed / fully cased in / H&T bands
• Spine Width: Approximately 0.9 inches / 22.9 mm
• Weight: Approximately 2,8 lbs / 1.27 kgs
We know that this quality level and price point is unconventional for books covering this particular subject matter. However, lower quality materials, or sacrificing on page count to bring down production costs, was never an option. The goal since the start of this project was to put together our dream reference books. The printing, the paper choice, and the embossed scuff-free hard covers, are all contributing factors in the making of what we humbly believe will be true masterpieces.
Furthermore, the unified sleek look and overall high quality will enable us to welcome the possibility of future expansions to the one cohesive set. If this campaign is successful, other volumes might be added to the Archive.
Over the years, it is apparent that the G1 Transformers era is much loved and remembered fondly by kids who grew up in the 80s (including us!) and by many fans and collectors both young and old.
We undoubtedly love the G1 era. We love the brand, the fiction and above all, the G1 Transformers toys that started it all.
We thus wanted to share with the world our showcase of G1 Transformers toys, in our own unique way, in the best possible light, photographed to exacting standards, with page layouts that are reminiscent of the purity and sleekness that has been a timeless hallmark of the G1 era packaging and paraphernalia design.
G1 is not just history, it is historic, and therefore should be well documented and preserved, which we humbly aim to do with these two volumes.
To even embark on our vision of a comprehensive photographic archive, we first had to own the G1 toys: every-single-G1 (unique) toy mold ever released during the G1 era. This was no easy bar to reach, but we charged ahead anyway.
The high mountain to climb was made even more challenging because we required - no, we demanded! - that the condition of each toy specimen had to be as mint as possible before they were worthy of being photographed for these books.
For each of us, it was only after about a decade of collecting that we managed to, as a whole, completely acquire the G1 era toys that would enable us to make this project a reality.
More than 10,000 high resolution photos have been snapped and some are still being shot, with the aim of ensuring that each and every toy that appears in the books are photographed from a mint sample, with mint stickers (which are correctly applied in accordance with official instructions), and with complete and mint accessories.
Although we have made this monumental effort to ensure every sticker was properly affixed, any dust brushed off before shooting, all angles consistent within the overall layout, and tons of other items too numerous to list here. We however need to acknowledge that there still might be some things we missed.
A small number of images had to be digitally enhanced to bring out the proper lighting/balance and sometimes key details of a toy. We have done our very best to avoid resorting to such tinkering, even after countless reshoots. This was done in only a few cases to create a better overall outcome for the books.
As we approach the finish line here, we are proud to say that these books are truly a labor of love. Created by collectors for collectors.
The production is currently 90% complete, and we now need your support for this Kickstarter campaign to make the books a published reality.
These books are the brainchild of Sebastien Harton and are being put together by him along with Bryce Rutledge and Brandon M.Y. Yap. The authors “met” online in forums and on collector social groups approximately eight years ago and quickly became good friends. They have been collaborating on these books for the past 18 months.
• Ocular Echo, LLC: The company that will initially release these books, if the Kickstarter campaign is successful.
• Sebastien Harton (Author): Also known to the online community as “G1-Junkie” or “Hyperoptic”, Sebastien |
Eichler, and it wasn’t particularly powerful or all that unusual on an astrophysical timescale.
After completing his research, Eichler says he is most surprised by the fact that we’re still here to tell the tale.
“I didn’t realize the solar system was such a dangerous place,” said Eichler. “Just the fact that we’ve gone as long as we have without worse things happening may be why we’re here.”
Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Google +.In response to this item and its follow-on discussion, Alf Eaton shows how you can, in fact, discover the (open access) scientific commentary surrounding an (open access) scientific article. Outstanding!
Here’s the interactive version of the service. You can feed it an URL, a DOI, or a PubMed id, and it fetches conversations about that item from Postgenomic, PubMed, Connotea, and Scopus.
I took the liberty of converting this service into a bookmarklet which I’ve labeled sc (scientific conversations). It’s the analog to my standard dc bookmarklet (del.icio.us conversations) and bc bookmarklet (bloglines conversations).
WordPress won’t let me post javascript: URLs so I can’t post the installable versions of these bookmarkets, but here they are in textual form:
sc: javascript:location.href=’http://scintilla.nature.com/conversations?uri=’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)
dc: javascript:location.href=’http://del.icio.us/url?v=2&url=’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)
bc: javascript:location.href=’http://bloglines.com/search?q=Bcite:’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)
If you make a new bookmarket, edit its properties, and copy one of these javascript: thingies into the URL or Location box, you’ll be good to go.
So, this is great! Now if I’m visiting a PLoS Medicine article I can just click dc, bc, and sc to assess how both the general-interest and scientific communities are reacting to it.
Thanks Alf!Idolatry is a horrible, dangerous thing.
Sadly, far too many of us are guilty of it.
You can see it in the way we complain on social media, in the way we comment on the news of the day; in the defeatist, alarmist language that we use to describe the world.
You see it in the way we furrow our brows, and throw up our hands and slam our pulpits.
It shows up in the lazy stereotypes and the religious rhetoric that flows so easily in church lobby coffee chats and extremist blog rants. It’s as if everything has now become an imminent threat: Muslims, Atheists, Gays, The President, inner-city criminals, Hollywood, illegal immigrants, The Government, school hallways.
The world outside the church building is broadly painted as a vile, immoral war zone, with “God’s people” hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.
Parroting the politicized talk show hosts and reposting the latest terrible news stories, we perpetuate the now comfortable, Evangelical Christian narrative of impending destruction, and we make it clear at every opportunity: The sky is falling.
Though we will loudly, repeatedly and confidently proclaim Christ as Lord, in reality, many of us no longer practice faith in a God that has any real power, any true control or inherent God-ness. We seem to have little more than a neutered figurehead Deity, who doesn’t seem to be able to handle much at all anymore. He’s lost His Old Testament swagger.
Dig just beneath the sunny “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Bible covers, and the “God’s judgment is coming” bullhorn warnings and you’ll find that much of America has imagined a powerless God who’s mostly just keeping Heaven tidy until all the Christians get there. In the meantime, we live in perpetually frightened freak-out mode.
The truth is, Fear has become a false God, one too many of us worship with complete and undying devotion.
The symptoms of Fear Idolatry are pretty easy to spot.
When you’re not sure that God is there or that He’ll really come through, you start to spend most of your time defending Him in absentia. You become a self-appointed Crusader of Truth, whose mission is to do the holy work of policing the world, just in case God can’t or won’t.
You spend a lot of time calling out evil, forecasting disaster and predicting damnation.
When Fear is your God, you start majoring in exterior sin management. You slowly yet ultimately turn all of your attention to the things in other people that you’re certain really tick God off, and you make it your sacred business to modify their behavior in the name of Jesus.
When your God isn’t big enough, you’ll try to do in others what you’ve decided He wants, instead of actually trusting Him to “finish the good work He began.”
You believe in a Jesus who is integral to personal salvation in the afterlife, but is useless for the life we live now. He may be able to save souls, but He’s apparently freaked out by a Muslim prayer breakfast or school prayer policy.
Is that really God? Is that Divinity?
Is that the One about Whom the psalmist wrote: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.”
Is that the God who spoke the world into being, calmed the seas, healed the blind and raised the dead?
So let’s pray. Let’s pray that all of us learn to stop worshipping the false idol of Fear.
Let’s pray that our churches recapture a sense of the God who is worthy; not just of defending and quoting, but trusting.
Let’s pray for the rest, joy and humility that comes from putting faith in someone greater than ourselves and in the things we fear.
Every day, even with the mystery that grows on the journey, my security is growing.
I know how big my God is.
Do you?
This article was originally posted on johnpavlovitz.com.On Thursday morning, the Today show aired a light piece about Donald Trump’s prized Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida. “It’s a storied estate, steeped in history,” declared NBC News’ Kristen Welker, before throwing to audio of Anthony Senecal, Trump’s longtime (and now retired) butler. Perhaps ironically, the Today show piece about Mar-a-Lago’s history did not once mention Senecal’s own history, which includes being investigated for the Secret Service over threats to President Obama’s life he made on Facebook.
Senecal’s troubling habit of representing himself in a disturbing manner on social media is no secret. In May of this year, Mother Jones’ David Corn found several appallingly racist and sexist posts on Senecal’s Facebook page. More than one offered the suggestion that President Obama be hanged. The Secret Service confirmed that month that it was investigating Senecal as a result of his social media activity.
“Mr. Trump has spent the last 20 Thanksgivings here. But now, as president-elect, everything is different,” declared Welker in Thursday morning’s Today show piece. For example, post-Nov. 8, security at the Mar-a-Lago estate is much tighter, and a major network just aired a light segment starring a man who as recently as last year called Hillary Clinton a “LYING DECEIVING C**T!!!!!!!,” a “bitch,” and a “slut.” Everything is different.
During the segment, Senecal, who has also suggested on Facebook that Ferguson, Missouri, should be carpet-bombed, showed off photos of himself and the Trump family at the estate. “Tony Senecal knows a thing or two about Mar-a-Lago,” declared Welker, either ignorant or apathetic about the fact that Senecal posted a photo of the Confederate flag less than two weeks after the Charleston church shooting and frequently railed against “negroes.” He once signed a petition requesting Jay Z and Beyonce be arrested for supporting terrorism.
“It’s just Mr. Trump and Miss Melania and myself—excuse me, president-elect Trump,” said Senecal to close his portion of the Today show piece. “Gotta get used to that.”
NBC did not immediately respond to a request from The Daily Beast for comment.As part of an interview with The Onion A.V. Club website last June, Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk agreed to answer a few fan questions, including one from someone named MollyPocket, who wondered if true underground movements were still possible, or was "the Internet making everything too readily available to everyone?"
Palahniuk's answer, in short, was yes and no. "There will always be an underground," he replied, and predicted "a backlash of veiled, hidden societies" in response to the overload of information provided by reality television and confessional memoirs.
The underground, and especially the subcultures that inhabit it, have been much debated and examined since British academic Dick Hebdige published Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), a groundbreaking examination of the symbols and rituals of the punk subculture in London. Almost a decade after Subculture, in an essay reflecting on youth culture, Hebdige wrote: "Subculture forms up in the space between surveillance and the evasion of surveillance, it translates the fact of being under scrutiny into the pleasure of being watched. It is a hiding in the light."
Palahniuk's answer suggests that while the technological infrastructure of how culture is distributed has changed dramatically in the past 15 years, the psychology of subculture remains stable. But what if the pleasure of being watched has so thoroughly overwhelmed the evasive component of subculture as to make it non-existent? What if the problem with contemporary subcultures isn't only Google and YouTube and blogs and MySpace, but the participants themselves?
To better understand the relationship between technology and the underground, let's visit the blog Dead Things on Sticks. It is there that Toronto-based television writer Denis McGrath provides a useful reminder of how the cultural fringe operated in the 1980s.
"To a one, those high school teachers didn't understand this `humour,' this irony that we all were sucking up from Letterman like air," he writes.
"We were like ravenous zombies scouring the world for things to make us laugh... No Internet, no 176 cable channels devoted to our tiny slice of interest; no marketers catering directly to us. It was Letterman or teen ski-and-sex movies. That's it."
While it is difficult to argue for physical restrictions on cultural distribution, there is something to be said for the pre-DVD, pre-MP3, pre-binary era of culture. As McGill's Erin MacLeod writes in a 2004 article for the online journal FlowTV, "My somewhat fuzzy full season of The Ben Stiller Show was a prized possession that became worthless on 11 December 2003, the date that the complete 1992-93 season was released on DVD for the low price of $26.99."
MacLeod is not so much upset about the improved quality the DVD offered, but the loss of community it represents: "The community that is created as a result of love for a TV program –especially a short-lived one – is disrupted by this instantaneous availability."
Physical restrictions on cultural access in the pre-digital era not only created fan communities by necessity, but also influenced the politics of the end product. Punk, for example, was forced to create a parallel system of marketing and distribution, a series of nodes, be it mail order or alternate venues in order to be seen and heard.
While few yearn for a return to the age of VHS samizdat, something is lost in the otherwise superior delivery of culture provided by file-sharing networks and Netflix. However, if all YouTube and the ubiquitous file-sharing application BitTorrent do is make it easier to see old TV shows and movies, this article would end here. But this same technology is also altering the output of the current underground.
IN MARCH 2004, New York Times Magazine columnist Rob Walker described how a non-mainstream sensibility, combined with a file-sharing infrastructure, has led to the "mass underground." Using DJ Danger Mouse as an example, Walker argued that the Grey Album – the wonderful, illegal "mash-up" of Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' so-called "white album" – was easily accessible to anyone with Internet access and a bit of computer savvy, yet it still hovered below the mainstream radar.
The mass underground is filled with thousands of poorly kept secrets, a new cultural category that includes lonelygirl15, that OK Go video with the treadmills, and any number of legally free-for-the-taking words and music, such as Cory Doctorow's novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town and Nine Inch Nails' new album The Slip. These cultural expressions can be downloaded once, or a million times, at no additional cost to anyone. (As if to underscore the importance of this new cultural arena, New York's Parsons New School for Design has announced a course on being "Internet Famous.")
The mass underground sounds like a good idea, and suggests a kind of cultural meritocracy, where the best video or free song wins. But the mass underground distorts the equilibrium suggested by Hebdige's hiding in the light. Because built into the technology and logic of the mass underground is the possibility of blowing up huge. As the title of an October 2006 New Yorker article about YouTube fame suggests, "It Should Happen to You."
And it happened to Andrew Struthers, a Victoria-based filmmaker and journalist. In the summer of 2006, he went into his backyard with a Super-8 camera and created Spiders on Drugs, a funny and very short little film that cost $300 to make. It did well in film festivals, where, as he writes in a 2007 article for B.C. Web mag The Tyee, "it was seen by tens of people." But Struthers wanted to reach a larger audience, so in January 2007, he decided to post it to YouTube.
In less than a week, the spider flick received more than a million views, but not before Struthers had to shut down a rival YouTuber who had illegally claimed the spider video as his own. The success of the film was vindication for Struthers, who had the idea seven years ago but never convinced anyone to provide him with funding. YouTube gave his film the audience it deserved. Cue happy ending.
Except that the act of observing alters the thing being observed, along the lines of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The "Total Plays" and "Views" counters on MySpace and YouTube are not neutral odometers, which helps to explain why Struthers' article reads like a frenzied day trader riding a volatile stock to success. "Six days in, the hit count was up to 750,0000 and I had over a thousand emails. I was shovelling them out like snow."
A FEW PARAGRAPHS later: "It's 3 p.m. on Tuesday, one week since I had the idea. I've just hit the million mark, and there are 55 pages of comments."
We're excited for spider guy, of course, but ultimately his YouTube rollercoaster is reduced to a numbers game. Spiders on Drugs was an offline piece of underground humour that exploded, unexpectedly, online. But what about Struthers' next short film?
For participants in the mass underground, the possibility of becoming a sensation can eventually be hardwired into the act of creation itself. That is, the cultural output of the mass underground internalizes the logic of Amazon.com sales rankings, or the most-emailed articles list from newspaper websites. In the mass underground, evading surveillance is neither possible nor desirable. Once subcultural expression is converted into binary format, the thinking goes, not only can everyone have access to it, but everyone should.
It would be wrong, however, to simply blame the technologies for eroding subcultural incubation. Ego and the desire for fame and fortune are hardly recent inventions. For Andrew Wernick, a professor at Trent University, the problem is that our desire for attention and fame is leeching into the creative groundwater. As he writes in his 1991 book Promotional Culture: "When a piece of music, or a newspaper article, or even an academically written book about promotional culture, is fashioned with an eye to how it will promote itself – and, indeed, how it will promote its author and distributor, together with all the other producers these named agencies may be identified with – such goods are affected by this circumstance in every detail of their production."
Thus, Terryworld, the 2004 coffee-table collection of work by cutting-edge fashion photographer Terry Richardson, includes a significant number of images of Richardson himself, posing with his models, because taking photographs of other people is passé in the world of promotional culture. A May 2007 Wall Street Journal article about expectant parents who are selecting baby names based on Googleability shows the extent of the promotional culture mentality. As reporter Kevin J. Delaney writes, "Many people aspire for themselves – or their offspring – to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking sites' member lookup functions."
We imprint our desires onto technology as much as technology attempts to reshape our mental circuit boards. At the same time, Web 2.0 allows delusions of grandeur to float ever higher, and naturalizes the logic of promotional culture.
Or, to put it another way, Google can't force you to name your baby Featherblanket Smith. But the prominence and importance we place on Google search rankings means that if you do name your child Featherblanket, people might not think it's a bad idea.
The exception to the rule is graffiti artist and provocateur Banksy. His entire artistic practice is built around remaining anonymous, about managing to spray-paint works of art onto the sides of buildings without being caught. Of course, we reward his ability to avoid surveillance by paying thousands of dollars for his work, which is collected by celebrities such as Christina Aguilera and Angelina Jolie. His art is both a commentary on surveillance and a record of the process of avoiding it.
But Banksy is not hiding in the light (like Kurt Cobain did, when he appeared on the cover of the April 1992 issue of Rolling Stone wearing sunglasses and a T-shirt that said "Corporate magazines still suck") so much as hiding in plain sight, (which is what Jason Bourne does in The Bourne Supremacy when he eludes capture by arranging a meeting in Alexanderplatz, a large public square in Berlin).
Hiding in plain sight is also the idea behind TrackMeNot, a Firefox plug-in that automatically creates fake, random search strings for Google. The resulting info-garble is meant to scramble attempts at surveillance and data-profiling attempts. Specialized barcodes called Quick Response codes, meanwhile, are being used by marketers and subcultures alike to scramble information. These large barcodes, which can be "read" by cellphones with the right software, are another way of deflecting a bit of the light that shines on the underground.
Which means Palahniuk is wrong. The next subculture or underground movement will not be discovered behind the door of a secret handshake speakeasy somewhere in East Berlin, but in the center of Alexanderplatz; hiding in plain sight, everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously.
Note: Portions of this article appeared in a different form in Broken Pencil.There is no doubt that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with a total outlay in excess of US$62 billion (S$84.5 billion), is a key pillar of China's One Belt, One Road (Obor) programme.
Coverage of the CPEC, however, has focused on only a sliver of Chinese interests in Pakistan: development of road and rail infrastructure to link Xinjiang to Gwadar, known as the western corridor, and investments in Pakistan's crippled power sector. While critical components of CPEC, these investments are what the government of Pakistan calls "early harvest" projects meant to kick-start the economy. The real thrust of CPEC comes after.
Attention to what comes after these "early harvest" projects was first drawn by Pakistani newspaper Dawn in an article by Khurram Husain. According to the Long Term Plan acquired by the paper, the main focus of Chinese interest in Pakistan is the country's agricultural sector.
China is interested in leasing "thousands of acres of agricultural land" to set up "demonstration projects" in Pakistan. To facilitate these investments, the Chinese government would "actively strive to utilise the national special funds as the discount interest for the loans of agricultural foreign investment".
Recent events in Pakistan suggest that there is increased focus on these investments. Pakistan recently released the National Food Security Policy, which lays out plans to develop "agricultural development zones" as part of CPEC. The policy document lays out several objectives that can be achieved through the development of these zones, such as increasing yields and benefiting farmers.
A delegation of Chinese entrepreneurs also visited Islamabad last month to discuss Chinese investments in Pakistan's agriculture sector. Qatar, given the country's blockade by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and close business ties between Qatar's ruling al-Thani and Pakistan's Sharif families, has also sent its own trade delegation to Pakistan to discuss similar investments.
Workers labour at a construction site at the Sahiwal coal power plant, in Sahiwal, on June 14, 2017. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
There is no doubt that Pakistan's agricultural sector and food supply chain need both foreign expertise and capital. India, which also needs investments to develop modern food-processing and cold-chain logistics capabilities, has been making policy changes to attract companies such as Walmart and Amazon.
Given Pakistan's burgeoning population, stagnant yields and the negative impact of climate change on food security, it is essential for the country to modernise its agricultural sector. Sophisticated agricultural and food-processing capabilities will not only increase output and efficiency, but also enable Pakistan to export its agricultural products to countries such as China and Qatar.
Pakistan's current account deficit has widened to a record US$12 billion and, with exports at a six-year low, the country needs to diversify its export base to meet its loan-repayment obligations and prevent a balance of payments crisis.
What is of concern, however, is the way the programme is being rolled out. The government-run CPEC website, which is meant to be an information portal for all CPEC projects, contains no information about these agricultural zones. There has been no debate in Parliament about Chinese investments in agriculture and, besides the National Food Security Policy document, no official policy document has laid out a framework that governs significant investments in Pakistan's agricultural sector.
In a country where politically connected power brokers continue to control vital sectors of the economy, the lack of transparency makes it likely that new investment opportunities will be captured by the elite. These power brokers, many of whom do not pay taxes, have resisted efforts to push through structural reforms in the economy, particularly those that seek to loosen their grip on power and tax their wealth.
There is also the issue of Chinese domination of Pakistan's economy at the expense of local industry.
Given the secretive nature of these deals and no local-sourcing and hiring guarantees, Chinese companies may not source inputs and labour from Pakistan, dampening the benefits of increased Chinese participation for the local economy.
There is absolutely no debate on how Pakistan will deal with China if a macroeconomic crisis makes it unable to meet repayment obligations. During such a crisis, will China bail out Pakistan or ask the country to go back to the International Monetary Fund? In exchange for a bailout, will Pakistan agree to give Chinese enterprises full or part ownership of leased assets such as agricultural land?
Pakistan's Attorney-General has said that "a bilateral institution for arbitration" is being discussed so that the two countries do not have to refer their cases to international arbitration, but it is anyone's guess as to how this institution will function.
The real focus of the CPEC is more than simply connecting Xinjiang with Gwadar, and it is important to focus on what comes after Chinese-backed infrastructure and power projects in Pakistan.
For countries participating in Obor, what Pakistan signs up for could determine the nature of the deals China negotiates with other Obor participants.Looking for news you can trust?
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A nine-year-old in Arizona accidentally killed her gun instructor on Monday when the Uzi he was teaching her to fire recoiled out of her control and shot him in the head. A video of the incident shows 39-year-old Charles Vacca switching the gun into automatic mode, then standing at the girl’s side as she pulls the trigger and the weapon’s force wrenches her arm in his direction.
Many commentators have since expressed disbelief—though not the NRA, which was busy talking up fun for kids at gun ranges—that a child was permitted to wield a weapon with such firepower.
It’s illegal to eat a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg in America, on health grounds. It’s fine for 9yr olds to use Uzi submachine guns. — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) August 27, 2014
But the shooting lesson was just normal business at the firing range where Vacca worked. Its “Bullets and Burgers” website advertises vacation packages like “Extreme Sniper Adventure”: “At our range, you can shoot FULL auto on our machine guns,” it reads. “Let ’em Rip!” It also says children between 8 and 17 can use its guns as long as a parent is present. The mother and father of the girl, whose name has not been made public, both were on Monday. Still, questions linger about the tragedy.
How did Burgers and Bullets get all those weapons in the first place? Isn’t it illegal to possess fully automatic weapons in the US?
Under the federal Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, it became a crime for civilians to own machine guns, but with a huge exception: Any gun made before the law went into effect is exempt. It’s fine for civilians to resell and buy those old guns, too, as long as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives approves the sale. The approval process involves a $200 transfer tax and an FBI background check. A few states have banned automatic weapons entirely, but Arizona, one of the most gun-friendly states, is not one of them.
Can it really be legal for an elementary school kid to shoot an Uzi?
“Assuming it was a pre-1986 machine gun and the sale was legal, then yes,” says Laura Cutilletta, senior staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Federal law prohibits children under 18 from buying guns, but they can still fire them with adult supervision.
Less than three days after the tragedy, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office said it didn’t expect to file criminal charges, according to CNN. Arizona authorities say the situation is being treated as an industrial accident, and job safety officials are investigating. So is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
How hard is it to handle one of these guns?
Quartz’s Gwynn Guilford did the math: With the average American nine-year-old girl weighing about 60 pounds, and the average Uzi weighing seven to nine pounds, “That would be roughly equal to a 40-year-old man firing a 25-pound gun like, say, the Hotchkiss M1909 used in trench warfare in World Wars I and II—a weapon so heavy it sat on a tripod.” (Ironically, the Uzi is designed to be relatively light in the hands of an adult, which can also make handling its powerful recoil more tricky.)
The shooting range’s manager said that the girl’s parents had signed waivers and understood the range’s rules. Still, he told the Associated Press, “I have regret we let this child shoot, and I have regret that [Vacca] was killed in the incident.”
Has anything like this happened before and what might it mean for the national gun debate?
Sadly, this tragedy is not the first of its kind. An eight-year-old Massachusetts boy died at a gun show in 2008, when an Uzi he was firing at pumpkins kicked back and he shot himself in the head. The former police chief who organized the show and provided the child with the weapon was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter.
That incident did have one positive outcome, in Cutilletta’s view: It inspired neighboring Connecticut to pass a law banning anyone under 16 from using a machine gun at a shooting range.
Shannon Watts, the founder of the advocacy group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said in a statement Wednesday that she hopes the Arizona case will galvanize the national debate about guns specifically with regard to children. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victim and the young girl involved in this tragedy,” Watts said. “We hope this event spurs dialogue on the importance of gun safety and responsibility.”
Do deadly gun accidents involving children usually result in nobody being held legally responsible?
Indeed, that’s the outcome in the vast majority of cases. A recent Mother Jones investigation found that out of 72 cases in 2013 in which kids handling guns accidentally killed themselves or other kids, adults were held criminally liable in only 4.The Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league have signed Daisuke Matsuzaka, tweets Chris Cotillo of SB Nation. Terms of the agreement are not known.
The return to Japan could mark the end of Matsuzaka’s major league career. The 34-year-old was originally signed by the Red Sox in 2007 for a total price of $103.11MM. That included a then-record $51.11MM posting fee and six-year, $52MM contract. His performance over eight major league seasons was a disappointment given the hype surrounding him. Over 790 and one-third innings, he posted a 4.45 ERA, 8.22 K/9, and 3.82 BB/9.
Matsuzaka drew early criticism when he struggled to adjust to the five man rotation. Injuries dogged him in Boston, where he eclipsed 200 innings pitched only once – his first season. He spent time with the Indians Triple-A affiliate in 2013 before moving on to the Mets. He experienced a modest resurgence as a swingman with New York, posting a 3.89 ERA, 8.42 K/9, and 5.40 BB/9 in nine starts and 25 relief appearances (83 and one-third innings). In Japan, he’ll be returning to a career 2.95 ERA in over 1,400 innings.With a month to go before a Pan Am/Parapan Games he has already declared a “fantastic success,” the head of the Canadian Olympic Committee says Toronto is now set to get back in the race for the Summer Olympics. “My view is this country should look at the Summer Games as a priority and there’s not any other city in the country other than Toronto that could offer the site to do this,” said Marcel Aubut in an exclusive interview with the Star.
Canadian Olympic Committee president Marcel Aubut, centre, visits in 2013 what would become the site of the Pan Am athletes' village in the West Don Lands. ( David Cooper / Toronto Star file photo ) Marcel Aubut says an Olympic bid would benefit from rule changes that make it easier to use existing venues. ( Bernard Weil / Toronto Star )
The 41-nation Pan Ams open July 10 and, while greeted tepidly by many Torontonians, Aubut believes the world-class sporting venues built for the event and the impressive work of the organizing committee make it a dress rehearsal for something bigger. Aubut’s enthusiasm, even after two previous failed Toronto Olympic bids, is heightened by changes to the Olympic philosophy and bidding process announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in December. The IOC, under president Thomas Bach, adopted 40 changes, many aimed at financial reform. Those alterations were largely in response to the boondoggle of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi that cost a staggering $51 billion. Only two cities — Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan — bid on the 2022 Winter Games after four dropped out in the face of soaring costs.
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Among the IOC’s philosophical changes was a decision “to actively promote the maximum use of existing facilities” and the use of temporary venues. In other words, venues built for the Pan Ams may not have initially met IOC requirements but they could be adapted to comply under the new approach. A velodrome in Milton and an aquatics centre in Scarborough are among the new facilities built for the Pan Ams. Related:The 40 countries coming to town “We’d be a big part of the way already done,” said Aubut, who is on the board of the Toronto Pan Ams and has attended 12 Olympics in various capacities. “Toronto is going to benefit from that new open-mindedness of the IOC. Now (it will accept) good infrastructure of good calibre... before they would have said. ‘You build a new one and here’s the minimum capacity.’ This is all changing.”
Tell us what you think
Tokyo, which will host the 2020 Summer Games, has shaved $1.7 billion (U.S.) from its winning bid by using existing venues rather than proceeding with construction proposed in its bid, according to an IOC report. The IOC also agreed that not all competitions must be held in the host city, which would make it easier to adapt the large footprint of the Pan Am Games.
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Aubut would not indicate which Olympics Toronto should target but said he would foster bid discussions as soon as the Pan Ams are finished. Cities have until Sept. 15 to declare their intent to apply for the 2024 Games. The selection of the host city will be in the summer of 2017. The declared candidates so far are Boston, Rome, Paris and Hamburg, Germany. In January 2014, Toronto’s economic development committee voted not to spend $1 million on a pre-bid analysis for the 2024 Games because it believed Toronto had no chance of winning. Rob Ford (open Rob Ford's policard), mayor at the time, said an Olympic bid and attempts at landing the 2025 world’s fair “should be shelved indefinitely right now.” A feasibility study indicated it would cost $50 million to $60 million to go through the bidding process and then an estimated $3.3 billion to $7 billion to stage the competition. But that report noted that some of the Pan Am venues are “not designed to Olympic standards and/or are too dispersed geographically.” Using existing facilities would lower the price tag. The Pan Ams/Parapan Games has a budget of $2.5 billion. Aubut also believes the election of Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard), succeeding Ford, will make this city more amenable to a bid. The COC president said he has spoken with Tory. “Yes, one time,” he recounted. “And we are agreed that it was important to wait until the end of the Pan Ams but the excitement of exploring this exists. We didn’t talk about the detail or any year (but we) guaranteed to each other that this is going to be a serious discussion after the Pan Am Games.” Tory could not be reached for comment. Aubut said his public encouragement for a Toronto bid is meant to spark discussion and, he said, “I hope my voice will influence people.” His term as COC president ends in 2017 and he’d like his legacy to be a “very serious process” underway to bring the Olympics to Toronto. “I’m absolutely convinced that Toronto is ready,” he said, noting the city could follow the Brazilian model. Rio de Janeiro hosted the Pan Ams in 2007 and then used that momentum to create a winning Olympic bid in 2009. It will host the Summer Games next year. Toronto bid for the 1996 and 2008 Olympics but lost out to Atlanta and Beijing respectively. There are many factors that would cause the IOC to look kindly on Toronto, said Aubut, including the cultural diversity of the city, the 63,000 people who applied as volunteers to help stage the Pan Ams, the generous corporate involvement in amateur sport in Canada and the Pan Am organizing committee that he says is “very, very close to an Olympic level.” “Also Canada has a great reputation from having hosted three fantastic Olympic Games,” said Aubut. “When it’s Canada you can sleep at night.” While only 400,000 out of 1.4 million tickets have been sold for the Pan Ams, Aubut says that’s not a concern. He said the Pan Ams typically rely on a large walk-up crowd. “The Pan Am Games today is already a fantastic success,” he said. “I’m not saying, ‘Let’s see how it will end up and if it’s a good success, that will help us talk about something else (the Olympics). I’m saying where it is now is enough to talk about the future of Toronto at the international level for Games.”Sen. John McCain exploded with full-on RINO fury on the Senate floor today when he accused his colleague Sen. Rand Paul, and anyone else that disagreed with him on a bill to allow Montenegro entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of working for the Kremlin.
“You are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin…trying to dismember this small country which has already been the subject an attempted coup,” McCain exclaimed.
“If they object, they are now carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin and I do not say that lightly,” he added.
McCain then sought unanimous consent to progress the bill, and not long after, Paul headed to the mic to express his objections before he left altogether.
“I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken. That is really remarkable, that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number—perhaps 98, at least, of his colleagues—would come to the floor and object and walk away,” McCain whined.
“The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians,” he continued.
This was followed by McCain out-and-out claiming that Paul is working with the Russians: “So I repeat again, the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.”
Seriously.
A McCain spokesperson attempted to clarify the senator’s comments in a statement to The Daily Beast, but did no such thing:
“Senator McCain believes that the person who benefits the most from Congress’s failure to ratify Montenegro’s ascension to NATO is Vladimir Putin, whose government has sought to destroy the NATO alliance, erode confidence in America’s commitments to its allies, overthrow the duly-elected government of Montenegro, and undermine democratic institutions throughout Europe.” His office further stated: “Senator McCain, and certainly the people of Montenegro, would appreciate an explanation from Senator Paul as to why he sought to prevent this small, brave country from joining in the defense of the free world.”
Paul told the Daily Beast in response: “Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively |
that much of the same material was posted on a Taliban website last week, a rare instance of the militant group’s political speech matching that of the government it is fighting to topple.
The misleading information was, according to officials, passed around to explain to the Afghan people why Karzai is holding off on signing a long-term security agreement with the U.S., which would order some U.S. forces to extend their stay in the country to guard the government from falling into the Taliban's hands. In November, Karzai announced that he would serve out his term, through April, without signing an agreement, leaving his successor to decide how to proceed. The dossier could also be a type of overture towards the Taliban itself — essentially a preliminary way of reaching out for peace negotiations.Post submitted by Ashley Fowler, former HRC Global Coordinator
Lithuanian television broadcasters have refused to air a video clip that features several LGBT couples as well as allies. The video was produced by the national LGBT rights organization LGL and was meant to be a positive representation of the LGBT community, as a part of their larger campaign “Change It”.
While the video itself does not contain anything provocative, commercial broadcasters fear that it may be in violation of the Law on the Protection of Minors Against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information. This law forbids information “which expresses contempt for family values, encourages the concept of entry into a marriage and creation of a family other than stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania.”
In an interview with Delfi, television representatives said the video raised some red flags because it spoke about various family models that differ from what is traditionally accepted. The video will now be reviewed by the Inspector of Journalist Ethics, though that could be a lengthy process.
LGL’s “Change It” campaign, which encourages people to learn more about the LGBT community and combats common stereotypes and misconceptions, began in response to recent survey data that revealed that only 12% of Lithuanian citizens say they know at least one gay, lesbian, or bisexual person.
This is not the first time that censorship has occurred in Lithuania with regard to the LGBT community. Last fall, a video promoting Baltic Pride was found to be in violation of the minors’ protection law. The video included a man wearing a shirt saying “For Family Diversity” and was therefore rated “S” for adult content and only showed after 11 PM.
Lithuania’s so-called anti-propaganda law is very similar to laws in Nigeria and Russia that aim to limit or prevent the distribution of pro-LGBT messages and information.Game Will Be Skill-Based and Focused on PvP
Players have been excited for a return to the high seas ever since Skull & Bones was announced at UbiE3. Though a spiritual successor to Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, the game will offer a more intricate adventure as a pirate. Ubisoft creative director Justin Farren provided more answers on the upcoming experience.
In an interview with GameSpot, Farren talked about the focus on PvP, obtaining in-game loot, and long-term plans. Among the first things he addressed was boarding actions. According to him, the act of boarding another player’s ship is a mechanic the team is still working on. “We want boarding to be something that’s very intense and visceral,” he said. “If you think about other games where they have quick-time events, we didn’t want that. We wanted it to be skill-based.” Thus, it doesn’t look like there will be any first-person perspective in PvP crew battles. Albeit, the team hasn’t ruled it out. Ubisoft’s priority is making the mechanic work in a game that has several other ships in action.
Additionally, Farren promised there would be post-launch content for Skull & Bones. As he said, they will include “new gameplay, modes, new content for the player to earn, and then of course, new regions to explore.” While he promised this was a part of the “service” players get with the game, he didn’t specify whether it would be free or come in the form of a season pass.
Then there’s the question of PvP vs PvE. Many, many players enjoy their single-player experience. What will that look like for Skull & Bones? Apparently, there is no story experience without multiplayer. Farren did not mention a single-player mode in the traditional sense.
“Yeah. It’s woven into it, so the story itself will be woven into everything you do, from the time that you build your relationships with your crew until the time that you take down your first kingpin, building up your hideout, all of those things are woven into the modes that you play.
“I certainly hope that people will try to do our PVP, because we think it’s pretty compelling and it’s not a different, like Call of Duty when you play campaign and you go online, [and you get something very different]. I worked on Gears for a while and the players who play Gears multiplayer, they are different some times than the players who really invest in campaign. We want to bring those experiences closer together. For it to be a, you know, a one off campaign that’s consumed, would be a shame.
From what it sounds like, Skull & Bones’ campaign may even require a constant internet connection. But the game releases in Fall 2018, so we’ll be waiting some time before official news arrives. Expect it on PC, PS4, PS4 Pro Xbox One, and Xbox One X. No Switch confirmation.
Lastly, Farren said it was too early to talk about the possibility of microtransactions. However, they want to encourage loot through participation in in-game events. The team wants to avoid a pay wall, but he didn’t rule it out. Since Ubisoft is constantly implementing micro transactions, the question here is – What form will it take? Time will tell.
SOURCEWASHINGTON (Reuters) - (This version corrects story originally published on April 13 with changes in headline and paragraphs 1, 2, and 4 after Microsoft issued corrected figures for U.S. surveillance requests it received in first six months of 2016. Paragraph 5 is deleted as the numbers are no longer relevant, additional paragraphs recasted to reflect new numbers with comments from Microsoft on official correction.)
FILE PHOTO: A sign marks the Microsoft office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. January 25, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said this week it had wrongly reported that a sharp increase in U.S. government surveillance requests took place during the first half of 2016, revising its official numbers to show the amount remained flat over previous intervals.
Microsoft on April 13 released its biannual transparency report stating the company received between 1,000 and 1,499 U.S. surveillance orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for user content between January and June of 2016.
On Tuesday it corrected that number to between 0 and 499 requests, or the same amount received during both January-June 2015 as well as the second half of 2015.
“Microsoft corrected the mistake as soon as we realized it was made to ensure the accuracy of our reporting,” the company said in an editor’s note dated April 25 and appended to an official blog post. “We’ve put additional safeguards in place to ensure the numbers we report are correct. We apologize for the error.”
A Microsoft spokeswoman said human error was the cause of the misreported numbers.
The U.S. government allows companies to report the volume of FISA requests only in wide bands rather than specific numbers.
The scope of spying authority granted to U.S. intelligence agencies under FISA has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks, sparked in part by evolving, unsubstantiated assertions from President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the Obama White House improperly spied on Trump and his associates.
FISA orders, which are approved by judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, are tightly guarded national security secrets. Even the existence of a specific FISA order is rarely disclosed publicly.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the Federal Bureau of Investigation obtained a FISA order to monitor the communications of former Trump adviser Carter Page as part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign.
Parts of FISA will expire at the end of the year, unless U.S. lawmakers vote to reauthorize it. Privacy advocates in Congress have been working to attach new transparency and oversight reforms to any FISA legislation, and to limit government searches of American data that is incidentally collected during foreign surveillance operations.
Microsoft also for the first time published a national security letter in its transparency report, a type of warrantless surveillance order used by the FBI.
Other technology companies, including Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Yahoo Inc YHOO.O, have also disclosed national security letters in recent months under a transparency measure of the USA Freedom Act that was enacted into law by the U.S. Congress in 2015.POLICE scrambled their helicopter and followed a family for “stealing” twigs from an Oxfordshire woodland.
Gareth Pope was enjoying a stroll through Chinnor Hill Nature Reserve, near Thame, with his five-year-old twin daughters Kali and Asten and wife Kirsty on Bank Holiday Monday and picked up some twigs from the ground to use as firewood.
But when he returned to his car in Hill Top Lane, a nature reserve warden demanded he leave the twigs at the woodland and threatened to call the police. Mr Pope ignored him but spotted the police helicopter hovering above his home as he pulled into his drive in Stratton Road, Princes Risborough, about 15 minutes later.
The sales director, who works in Thame, said: “I’ve never experienced anything so ridiculous in my life.”
Police confirmed it cost £350 to send the helicopter to the incident.
Doug Mackay, Chiltern Air Support Unit executive officer, said: “Information available to police suggested that a crime was in progress with a suspect still at the scene in a rural area.”
Police spokesman Craig Evry said four officers in two cars were also sent and found no offences had been committed.
Matt Jackson, of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, which owns the land, said: “There is an issue with people starting to take large quantities because the dead wood from twigs is an integral part of the way a nature reserve works.”
The Forestry Commission said it was technically illegal to take anything from land without permission of the landowner.Get the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Thousands of families face being made homeless as the new Tory benefit cap comes into force today.
The total amount of benefits a household can receive will be cut from £26,000 to £20,000, or £23,000 in London.
Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green says: "I think people recognise there’s something wrong about families able to get more on benefits than the average family can earn by going out to work."
But worried charities, unions and campaigners say 112,000 families - including 42,000 single parents - will lose up to £115 a week each.
Billions of pounds in welfare is housing benefit, so the'recipients' never see it as cash. Instead it goes straight to landlords, some of them reaping a property boom.
Prime Minister Theresa May has been accused of punishing hundreds of thousands of children for their parents' lives.
Rehana Azam, the national secretary of the GMB union, said: "She is unleashing a monstrous new assault on 40,000 single mothers, which risks shattering the life chances of children up and down our country.”
So who are the people behind these statistics? And what do they think?
Last week we asked our readers to send in their experiences of the benefit cap.
The majority of replies we received happened to be from single mums.
Some told us of children with many needs, partners who walked out, and the desire to get a job - but being trapped by the pressures of parenthood.
Here are three desperate cases that were sent to us. If you're affected, you can find out more about the cap here.
1. "I will be homeless for Christmas"
"I am a single parent of five children, four of which are under 10 - my youngest being seven months old.
"I will be left homeless for Christmas.
"I received a letter saying that I will have to pay between £150 and £200 out of my benefit each week towards my rent.
(Image: Toni Ramsden)
"Even if it is £115 a week [the maximum possible under the new cap] I would still struggle.
"I am in a private rented property and the rent is £184 a week."
Toni (above) says she had to pay £8.75 a month more when the first benefit cap came in, but her landlady waived that.
"As I have to pay this I will be left with hardy anything to feed my children, or pay my gas or electric and other bills.
"The fact this all comes into play right before Christmas, which my children will have with nothing, means it's a cruel step from the government.
"My third-eldest son is getting assessed for autism and I have to be literally on-call at home all the time.
(Image: Getty)
"I do want to work, don't get me wrong, just for my own sanity, but I can't with the way he is in school, and my baby is seven months old."
Toni, 38, from Leeds and now living in Aberdeenshire, said she worked in bars and stables, but has not worked for around 10 years.
"I think everyone has the assumption that because you are getting benefits you've got loads of money. It's just not the case."
Toni Ramsden
2. "I have no idea how I'm going to manage"
"I'm a single parent of 4 children aged from 16 to 20 months and in receipt of universal credit.
"I have been informed that my money will be cut by £300 a month, and I need to find a job ASAP.
"Trying to find part time work is near impossible, with a lot of part time work doing weekends or nights which I am unable to do.
"My second child has health issues and is unable to be left alone at any time as she exercises when I'm not there and she's not allowed to walk to and from school.
"I have to take her and pick her up as well as take her to all her appointments.
(Image: Getty)
"I totally get why the benefits cap is coming into place, as it is not fair that two-parent families who work full-time are getting less than some on who are on benefits.
"Some do milk the system for all it's worth.
"But when you have someone like myself who really wants to work and provide for my children, but I can't, the pressure on me is immense and so stressful.
"I have no idea how I'm going to manage especially a month before Christmas.
"I feel that more families will turn to pay day loans and get more in debt than ever before."
Emma
(Image: Getty Images)
3. "I'm scared for my kids"
"I'm one of those really affected by the new benefit cap.
"I privately rent a three-bed semi for myself and my four kids aged four, six, eight and nine.
"My kids already share bedrooms and now I've found out I will have a £150-a-week shortfall on my rent.
"That's 600 every four weeks. At present I get child benefit, child tax credit, income support, housing benefit and council tax reduction.
"From today I will lose £150 a week rent and have to find that myself out of £345 a week.
"I was paying £85 a month towards my rent but now I will have to pay £600.
"I am desperately looking for work, but as a single mum with four kids it's really hard finding work to fit in to school hours.
(Image: Getty)
"I'm not from Leeds, where I live, so have no family to help with childcare.
"My kids' dad hasn't seen his kids for over a year now since we split up.
"I'm beside myself with worry about how on earth I'm expected to feed and clothe my kids, pay my rent, bills and council tax with £345 a week when over half of that is for my rent now.
"I know I will be evicted because there's no way I can afford to stay here.
"The council haven't any three-bed properties available and my landlord won't lower the rent at all.
"I've looked for other privately-rented homes but they're all well out of my price range, and if they're not they will only take people working.
"I'm a nervous wreck and it's all getting too much for me to cope with. The truth is I am scared for my kids."
KendraA survey of former military officials and defense experts finds broad support for Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE and deep suspicion of Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE, even among Republicans.
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Data provided to The Hill by Capital Point, a Washington-based research firm, finds that top military experts — Republicans and Democrats alike — are alarmed by the prospect of Trump handling the nation’s foreign affairs from the White House.
Capital Point interviewed 100 high-ranking former military officials and national security experts, selecting 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats.
On the question of which candidate is more qualified to deal with foreign policy issues, all 100 chose Clinton.
“Trump shows ignorance by threatening to destroy seven decades of alliances,” one Republican said. “Four years as secretary of State alone makes her more qualified plus several years on Senate Armed Services Committee.”
Many Republicans interviewed for the survey — they were allowed to comment anonymously to encourage candor — expressed concern with the Democratic nominee's judgment and record in some areas of the world.
But all said that she would make a far better commander in chief than Trump.
“While Clinton has made a number of missteps in her time as secretary of State, overall she did an excellent job and has a firm grounding in the threats facing the United States, as well as how to deal with them (e.g., putting additional pressure on Iran through sanctions to combat its support for terrorism),” said another Republican.
“Trump, in contrast, does not seem to have a firm grasp of the nature of the threats facing the United States, in particular Russia.”
The GOP nominee has repeatedly been stung by high-profile GOP defections, including by military leaders and former administration officials from both Bush presidencies.
The former defense officials surveyed by Capital Partners didn’t only express opposition to Trump; they also praised Clinton as having the knowledge to handle complicated issues in sensitive parts of the world.
“Clinton is well-versed in national security issues. Trump is a neophyte,” said one Republican. “Trump argues we can deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin as a normal partner, believes China should handle North Korea, wishes to exacerbate China's aggressive behavior with a trade war, believes Brexit is good for Europe, wants to walk away from nation-building.”
Seventy-one percent of Republicans interviewed by Capital Point said Clinton would be effective in limiting Russia’s aggression against neighboring countries, compared to only 7 percent who said the same of Trump.
Seventy-three percent of Republicans said they trust Clinton to handle the North Korean nuclear threat, compared with 7 percent for Trump.
And 71 percent of Republicans said Clinton could be trusted to appropriately engage with China over the nation’s expansion into the South China Sea, and 14 percent said the same of Trump.
“Clinton's comments as secretary of State on China's behavior in the South China Sea raised the profile of the issue among the international community, she deserves credit for a gutsy diplomatic move,” one Republican said. “Trump is a con artist and a clown, nothing else.”
Clinton scored worse among Republicans on the question of fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with only 50 percent expressing confidence in her. That was Trump’s best question, but he still only scored 21 percent approval among Republicans in the poll.
Clinton tallied her worst showing on how she would handle the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 36 percent support among Republicans. Trump scored 7 percent.
“I have little confidence in either candidate; however, one scares me less than the other,” a Republican said. “It's too obvious for words.”
The former defense officials were asked to grade the quality of military talent they believe each candidate would attract to their administrations. Clinton received a “B” from Republicans, and Trump got a “D.”
And they were asked where the candidates rank in foreign policy expertise compared to past presidents.
Republicans put Clinton in the top half of all presidents, while Trump was in the bottom 10 percent.
“Trump has zero experience, zero credentials, and from much (not all) of what he says, he shows every sign of being a presidential disaster,” one Republican said.
“Clinton has vast experience, obviously. She has also a thin record of accomplishment that, were she a Republican would be well understood by all. She has committed vast errors in honesty and judgment — all rather well documented. Still, she's far better gamble.”Image caption Mark Duggan was shot dead in Tottenham in August 2011, sparking riots that spread across England
Mark Duggan appeared to be surrendering when he was shot by police in Tottenham, north London, an inquest into his death has heard.
A man, identified as Witness B, said he saw him from a flat on the 9th floor of a building near the scene in Ferry Lane in August 2011.
He said Duggan was "definitely" holding a phone when he was shot.
The witness later denied he had changed his statement after other evidence said he initially thought it was a gun.
The inquest heard Witness B looked out of an open window after hearing the screech of tyres and shouting.
He filmed the aftermath of the shooting and supplied the footage to the BBC, but said he did not want to give evidence or meet the police or the police watchdog.
Witness B told Leslie Thomas QC, who also represents the Duggan family, that the 29-year-old appeared "trapped" and "baffled" and had his hands raised as if to surrender.
"Are you saying Mark Duggan was shot when he looked as if he was surrendering?", the barrister asked.
Witness B said: "Yes".
"Any doubt about that?" Mr Thomas asked.
"None whatsoever," the witness replied.
Previously, the jury heard a gun was found about 20ft (6m) from where 29-year-old Mr Duggan, who police thought was armed, was shot.
Witness B said when he looked out of the window of the flat after hearing people shouting "put it down" or "get down", he saw a man next to a people carrier.
'Played on my mind'
He said: "When I saw him he was on the sidewalk and he tried to run off towards Tottenham Hale but there was a police officer there so he turned around towards Blackhorse Road."
Ashley Underwood QC, counsel to the inquest, asked Witness B: "Could you see his hands?"
Image caption Jurors visited the scene of the shooting in Ferry Lane
He replied: "Yes. It looked like a phone clutched in his hands. And he had his hands up above his shoulders near his face. This was when he was running towards Blackhorse Road.
"There was a police officer standing in front of him… That was definitely a phone clutched in his hand."
He said Mr Duggan was then shot twice by a police officer who was about five to seven steps from him.
When Mr Underwood asked how he knew Mr Duggan had been shot, the witness replied: "I heard the shots. The way he fell as well. He just collapsed."
Witness B said he then went to get his phone and started filming the scene, which the jury was shown in court.
"I took the video, I gave it to the BBC so they could put it out there. I had to move out of London because of it. I wanted to be left alone."
When asked what worried him, Witness B said: "It's not every day you see someone get shot in London and dying.
"It played on my mind a bit."
'20/20 vision'
Under cross examination by Ian Stern QC for the police firearms officers, he was asked why the notes suggested he had originally thought Mr Duggan had a gun.
The handwritten notes, made by a BBC employee, said B "initially thought gun but then read n/papers (newspapers) then thought it was Blackberry."
Witness B said he could not remember saying that and denied changing his mind.
Mr Stern asked: "How are you sure from 150 metres away that it was a phone?" to which Witness B replied: "20/20 vision."
He then said he had always said it was a phone.
However, Mr Stern replied: "But with respect, you haven't have you?"
Witness B was also asked why he had originally said police shouted "put it down" but during evidence at the inquest he had said he was unsure if it was "get down" or "put it down" or both.
The inquest was shown more of the BBC notes of its meeting with Witness B which read: "split second, then fire, 2 shots, then phone went flying."
Witness B said: "Thinking about it, I didn't see the phone flying. He dropped with the phone in his hand."
He said that parts of what he said to the BBC in 2012 "must be wrong" but his account of events given in court were correct.
The inquest continues.With the historic landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon, the summer of 1969 was quite memorable for me as a budding seven-year-old space enthusiast. And among my arsenal of reference material for that event, I had a map of the Moon prepared by the National Geographic Society which had been released earlier in February 1969. While I had seen maps of the near side of the Moon for use by amateur astronomers at that stage and had seen a smattering of images of the lunar farside in books and magazines, this National Geographic map of the Moon was the first time I got to see the entire lunar surface rendered in one cartographic product.
This map of the Moon, as well as the more detailed versions used by NASA scientists to select the landing sites for Apollo 11 and subsequent missions, were made using photographs acquired by the sometimes underappreciated series of missions that were part of NASA’s Lunar Orbiter program. As its name implies, this series of spacecraft was designed to orbit the Moon. But unlike the earlier Soviet and American lunar missions which briefly imaged limited parts of the lunar surface, the primary objective of the Lunar Orbiter series was to map most, if not all, of the lunar surface with emphasis on the equatorial region of the lunar near side which was the prime location for the first Apollo Moon landings. Along with the earlier Ranger impact photography missions and the contemporary Surveyor unmanned lunar landings, the Lunar Orbiter missions were among the necessary precursors for the Apollo Moon landings.
The Origins of Lunar Orbiter
Ironically, the very first probes the US launched towards the Moon back in 1958 were intended to be lunar orbiters. Originally part of a USAF program, these first three Pioneer missions attempted to send a simple 38-kilogram spacecraft close enough to the Moon so that they could fire a solid rocket motor to enter lunar orbit. Unfortunately they all failed to reach the Moon due to problems with their Thor-Able launch vehicles (see “Pioneer 1: NASA First Space Mission“). A follow up program using a trio of much more advanced spin-stabilized Pioneer lunar orbiters launched during 1959 and 1960 using the more capable Atlas-Able rocket likewise suffered from launch vehicle problems and were even less successful (see “NASA’s Forgotten Lunar Program”). Afterwards, NASA turned its attention towards developing a new series of lunar orbiters with the goal of mapping the Moon in support of its new Apollo lunar landing program.
Initially the task of building a lunar mapper was part of the Surveyor program managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). While the “Surveyor A” spacecraft was designed to soft land on the Moon, the “Surveyor B” variant would be placed into a 100-kilometer high lunar orbit to perform television reconnaissance of the Moon’s surface as well as perform other measurements of the lunar environment for a period of six months (see “Surveyor 1: America’s First Lunar Landing”). On January 19, 1961, Hughes Aircraft (whose space division is now part of Boeing) received the contract to build Surveyor with the goal of launching the first Surveyor lander in 1963.
Unfortunately, the ambitious Surveyor program fell far behind its original schedule over the course of the next two years as did the development of the temperamental Atlas-Centaur which was needed to launch this advanced one-ton spacecraft (see “50 Years Ago Today: The Launch of Atlas-Centaur 5”). Coupled with a string of failures with JPL’s Ranger program attempting to hard-land a seismometer package on the lunar surface during 1962 (see “NASA’s First Moon Lander”), there were concerns among many in NASA’s management that JPL would not be able to deliver the promised lunar mapper in time to support the Apollo program. In the end it was decided to restructure the Surveyor program to concentrate just on the lunar landing mission. Responsibility for the lunar mapper was transferred from JPL and given to NASA’s Langley Research Center in August 1963 with JPL relegated to a support role.
Langley issued a request for proposals on August 30, 1963 for a spacecraft which would acquire one-meter class images of potential Apollo landing sites between 45° east and west longitude and within 5° of the lunar equator. In addition, the new spacecraft would use the already-available Atlas-Agena D launch vehicle along with a new and larger launch shroud based on the UNIPAC design NASA was developing. The Atlas SLV-3, built by General Dynamics, was a “Standard Launch Vehicle” derived from the Atlas ICBM while the Agena D, built by Lockheed Space and Missile Company (which, after decades of corporate mergers, is now part of the aerospace giant Lockheed Martin along with what was General Dynamics Space Systems Division), was the latest version of the adaptable Agena upper stage designed for use with the Thor, Atlas, and Titan IIIB launch vehicles. NASA had already chosen the Atlas-Agena D to launch its pair of Mariner Mars 1964 spacecraft because of the ongoing issues with the Atlas-Centaur (see “50 Years Ago Today: The Launch of Mariner 3”). In December 1963, NASA selected the bid by Boeing and on May 10, 1964, the company received an $80 million contract to build five spacecraft as part of a $200 million (or $1.6 billion in today’s money) Lunar Orbiter program.
The Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft
Lunar Orbiter was designed for a single task: orbit the Moon and take medium to high-resolution images of the lunar surface in order to identify and characterize potential Apollo landing sites. The 385-kilogram, three-axis stabilized spacecraft was designed around a 66-kilogram photographic package built by Eastman-Kodak. A photographic system, where the exposed film was developed onboard and subsequently scanned for transmission to Earth, was chosen over a television-based system originally envisioned for Surveyor B because of the former’s superior resolution and image storage capacity. Soviet engineers adopted a similar approach with the photo-television systems used in their early lunar and planetary probes for precisely the same reasons.
Lunar Orbiter’s photographic subsystem, based on Kodak’s previously classified reconnaissance satellite work for the Department of Defense, was housed in an ellipsoidal aluminum alloy shell pressurized with dry nitrogen at 120 millibars. Viewing through a quartz window in the side of the shell were a wide-angle 80 mm focal length, f/4.5 lens and a 610 mm focal length, f/5.6 narrow angle lens which would provide medium and high-resolution views of the lunar surface, respectively. These lenses simultaneously produced a pair of images on a single roll of 70 mm Kodak SO-243 high-contrast, fine grain aerial mapping film using exposures of 1/25th, 1/50th, or 1/100th of a second.
About 80 meters of film were carried aboard Lunar Orbiter, allowing as many as 212 high and medium-resolution image pairs to be taken. The 610 mm lens was also used by an electro-optic velocity/height sensor that slowly moved the photographic film during an exposure as part of a motion compensation system to reduce the effects of image smearing caused by spacecraft orbital motion. During its 15 to 30 day-long photography mission in a nominal 45 by 1,850-kilometer mapping orbit, the best resolution for the narrow and wide-angle images was expected to be one and 8 meters, respectively.
The exposed film was developed as the photographs were taken using Bimat Transfer Film, which employed spools of a webbing impregnated with the appropriate developing and fixing chemicals that would come into contact with all parts of the exposed film for at least 3½ minutes. The process was similar to that employed by Polaroid instant cameras of that era. Since the photographs could be taken faster than they could be processed, a set of takeup reels were included, allowing up to 21 image pairs to be stored. Once the images were taken and the film was developed, the images were scanned by a 5 micron wide beam of high intensity light at a resolution equivalent of 287 lines per millimeter.
A photomultiplier tube detected the light beam, whose intensity was altered by the film’s image density, and the appropriate electronics converted this signal into a form to be transmitted back to Earth. Each image pair could be transmitted in 43 minutes when both the Earth tracking station and the Sun were visible. The scanned photographs were the equivalent of a 8,360 by 9,880 pixel image for the wide-angle and a 8,360 by 33,288 pixels for the narrow-angle views. The effective storage capacity of this photographic system was the equivalent of several tens of gigabytes of data compared to 615 kilobyte storage capacity of the then state-of-the-art digital magnetic tape recorder employed by the imaging system on Mariner 4 during its historic flyby of Mars in July 1965 (see “Mariner 4 to Mars”).
The photographic subsystem was mounted on a 1.4-meter diameter equipment deck located at the base of the 2.0-meter tall, roughly conical-shaped spacecraft. Also mounted on this deck were a Canopus star sensor, five Sun sensors, and an inertial reference unit all used to determine Lunar Orbiter’s attitude to an accuracy of ±0.2°. A flight programmer possessed a 128-word memory that was able to control spacecraft activities for 16 hours worth of photography work. Under the control of this unit, the photographic system could be programmed to take groups of four, eight, or sixteen photographs in a variety of patterns of selected sites during each orbital pass.
Data were returned via a boom-mounted, 92-centimeter diameter high-gain dish antenna. A ten-watt S-band transmitter used this to transmit the images back to Earth. A low-gain antenna, dedicated to a one-half watt transmitter, was also mounted on the equipment deck opposite the high-gain antenna. This antenna was used to return engineering telemetry. Four solar panels, spanning a total of 5.2 meters, were also mounted here to provide the orbiter with 375 watts of electrical power. When the spacecraft was in shadow, power was provided by nickel-cadmium batteries recharged by the solar panels.
Mounted on an open truss frame above the equipment deck was the upper structural module. This unit housed the velocity control engine used to place Lunar Orbiter in orbit as well as trim that orbit once there. This engine, based on the Apollo attitude control thruster, produced 445 newtons of thrust using the hypergolic propellants hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. These propellants were stored in tanks also located in the upper structural module. Eight nitrogen gas jets mounted at the top of the spacecraft provided attitude control. For temperature control, the entire spacecraft was shrouded in aluminized Mylar-Dacron thermal blankets. The underside of the equipment deck, which would normally face the Sun, was covered with a white thermal paint. These measures were expected to maintain the temperatures of the orbiter’s systems between 2° and 29° C.
The only instruments other than the photographic subsystem carried by Lunar Orbiter were a ring of twenty pressurized meteoroid detectors and a pair of dosimeters to assess any radiation hazards to manned spacecraft in the near-lunar environment. By monitoring the orbital changes of the spacecraft, the mass distribution of the Moon could also be mapped. This knowledge would be essential for the pinpoint accuracy needed for the Apollo landing missions. While the photographic portion of the mission was expected to last no more than one month, these other investigations would employ the spacecraft for up to one year.
Preparing for the First Mission
For the first Lunar Orbiter mission, the primary objective was to secure medium and high resolution images covering 30,000 and 10,000 square kilometers, respectively, from an elliptical 45 by 1,850-kilometer mapping orbit inclined 12° to the lunar equator. Based on recommendations drawn up from various sources including NASA’s Apollo and Surveyor programs, nine primary and seven backup sites near the lunar equator were selected by a committee for close scrutiny to help scientists establish a “calibration” of the lunar surface’s major terrain types. The targets included potential Apollo landing sites as well as that of Surveyor 1 which landed on the lunar surface on June 2, 1966. Surveyor’s mast-mounted solar panel and high gain antenna would be purposely oriented to cast the largest shadow possible in hopes that it would be spotted in the high resolution photographs.
The first piece of mission hardware to arrive at Cape Kennedy for this first mission was Atlas SLV-3 number 5801 on February 18, 1966. The Atlas was erected on the pad at Launch Complex 13 (LC-13) on March 10 for the start of a series of prelaunch checks. But as preparations continued towards a tentative July 11 launch date, NASA’s hopes for being first to orbit the Moon had been dashed on April 3 when the Soviet Luna 10 probe successfully entered lunar orbit (see “Luna 10: The First Lunar Satellite”). Although Luna 10 did not carry an imaging system, it did return a wealth of scientific information about the Moon and its environment as well as transmit the Communist |
portend a changing philosophy by the head coach in who starts each match and has he put them "on notice"? Robert Warzycha obliquely addressed this issue. "In the first half I think the guys got too comfortable, maybe, playing four games, some of them. They're thinking that they're going to be on the field all the time. That's not the case." Hard work will be rewarded is the message being sent.
The Black and Gold got the equalizer in the 72nd minute as Danny O'Rourke wins the ball in the Union end and then finds Gaven. He makes a sublime pass to Oduro, who positively smashes the ball past Union 'keeper MacMath on the near post. Dominic Oduro on his goal, "I saw Eddie [Gaven], we made eye contact, I made the movement and he made the right pass. I was just praying for glory, hitting the ball from that angle. I was hoping that it would go off somebody to tuck it in. I'm glad it went in."
That's the way the match would end, a 1-1 draw and one solitary point. The stand-out was the two-way play of Eddie Gaven. Coming off an injury prior to the DC United match, he had the bye week to fully heal. Although he missed finishing a chance, he was a man on a mission, seemingly all over the field. On more than one occasion, he bailed out the defense by coming back to make a play for the ball.
With Ben Speas playing opposite of Eddie Gaven and "Freaky Fast" Oduro up front, the options open up for Higuain to orchestrate the attack. The only thing that would be more "deadly", would be to have both Oduro and Arrieta up front to start the match. With Higuain being double-teamed on a constant basis, a two-striker front would be very hard for the opposition to defend against. For this to work, the communication must be much better than it was in the first half against the Union. Will we see this formation in the near future? I put the odds at 60/40 against this happening.
Chad Marshall played his 20,000 minute (coming in the 59th minute), becoming the first Crew player to reach that milestone. He joins a very small list (four players, including him) to have played all 20,000 minutes with one club. Congratulations to you, Good Sir.
With the draw, Columbus sits at 2-1-2 on the season in 4th place in the Eastern Conference. They begin a two game road trip next week that starts in Montreal. The Impact are the hot team right now and the Crew need to start from the first touch with their guns blazing. Smart passing, keeping possession and above all, communication to keep Montreal at bay. These "keys" should earn them three points north of the border.Fan-Yee Suen, CTVNews.ca
Rocking out to his own rendition of the hit song "Bohemian Rhapsody," a Canadian physics student's online music video explaining the concept of string theory has attracted the attention of Queen guitarist Brian May, who happens to hold a PhD in astrophysics.
With its heavy-duty science lyrics and smooth harmonies, McGill University student Tim Blais, who recently submitted his master's thesis, says the reception to his "Bohemian Gravity" has been "fairly incredible."
The eight-minute video -- which has garnered more than 1.5 million hits as of Friday afternoon -- has been reposted on "Star Trek" alumni George Takei's Facebook page and even on May's website.
"That was a really nice feather in my cap. I was really hoping that (May) would see it," Blais told CTVNews.ca on Friday.
In the parody music video, Blais rocks out to the finer points of the complicated string theory, which, at its most basic level, proposes that all fundamental particles in the universe are made of oscillating filaments. According to the theory, these vibrating "strings" determine the charge and mass of a greater particle.
"Guess Einstein's theory wasn't complete at all," Blais belts out, before an animated puppet version of the famous scientist appears on screen. He's surrounded by 16 panels of Blais singing backup.
The self-professed musical-science geek says his love for all things lab-related partly comes from William "Bill" Nye, the host of the popular educational television program, "Bill Nye the Science Guy."
"He was sort of the reason I went into science. He always had these musical parodies at the end of each episode," Blais said.
But "Bohemian Gravity" isn't Blais' first foray into science-musical greatness.
Last year, Blais released "Rolling in the Higgs," a parody of Adele's chart-topping song "Rolling in the Deep," which he composed in honour of last summer's announcement that scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) had discovered a particle which they described as Higgs-like.
Physicists later announced that the search for the elusive subatomic particle -- also known as the "God particle" -- was over after scientists said this year that the data "strongly indicates that it is a Higgs boson."
The Adele parody video earned Blais a spot on the popular social and entertainment website Reddit and he was mentioned in a Scientific American blog.
But Blais' real musical masterpiece is the "Bohemian Gravity" video, which he said he began working on before "Rolling in the Higgs."
"I very quickly realized that it was going to be a massive project."
He said after a few days "Bohemian Gravity" was posted on YouTube, his thesis advisor messaged him: "Hey, congratulations. I see that you're famous again."
Blais, who says he comes from an "incredibly musical" family, says he plans on taking a break from research and nurture his creative side. He plans on writing more science-based music as well as releasing an album of original compositions.
"When you allow yourself to be creative with the things you love, it really keeps the research fresh."EXCLUSIVE: James Wan has closed a big two-pronged deal with New Line Cinema. He will return to direct The Conjuring 2, with shooting to begin next summer. In addition, the hit-making Australian who had a major hand in launching the Saw and Insidious franchises and The Conjuring and most recently Annabelle, has made a first-look producing deal with the Warner Bros-based film label. The directing deal follows New Line taking The Conjuring sequel off its October 23, 2015 slot and moving it to 2016, which gives Wan time to promote the film he just finished, Fast & Furious 7. Universal releases that film April 3, 2015 after moving it from summer 2014 following the tragic death of star Paul Walker.
At New Line, Wan will develop and produce modest budget films in the science fiction, horror, and comedy genres through his Atomic Monster production banner. The overall deal comes after the latest hit for New Line, Annabelle, which Wan produced. It’s the only filmmaker deal that New Line has with a director, and the hope of the Warner Bros label is that this leads to Wan continuing to grow as a filmmaker there. Universal had options on Wan for more Fast & Furious installments and that studio allowed him to go direct The Conjuring 2 as his next film. No final decisions have been made about Wan’s involvement in future installments of Universal’s street racing film series, I’m told.
“We had a great experience with James on The Conjuring, and we give him a lot of credit for that movie working so well,” said New Line president/COO Toby Emmerich. “He worked on the screenplay and came to the table with very inventive things that were not in the script and cast it fantastically well. Add to that his work in producing Annabelle, and he is one of the masters of the genre and we’re happy to have him. You go through the list of possible directors of The Conjuring sequel, and his is the name you stop at, which is why we tried so hard to make this work.”
Wan has kept a relatively low profile for a filmmaker whose resume is stocked with low-budget films that became massive global hits. That began with directing Saw and producing six sequels that have collectively grossed around $871 million worldwide. Budget on the first was $1.2 million, with the rest of them averaging $10 million and the final 3D effort topping out at $20 million. He then co-created and directed the first two installments of Insidious. The first cost $1.5 million and grossed $97 million worldwide, and the $5 million sequel grossed $161.9 million. He is producing the third installment, which is being directed by Leigh Whannell, with whom Wan partnered in hatching both the Insidious and Saw franchises.
He was a hands-on producer on Annabelle — even sketching the scary title doll after an original attempt to secure Raggedy Ann was understandably rebuffed — and that $6.5 million budget film has so far grossed $166 million worldwide and should vastly better that mark by the time it is done scaring up business through Halloween.
“It was during the editing of Fast & Furious 7 that my brain started sparking ideas for The Conjuring sequel,” Wan said. “Taking a break from horror has allowed me to be creatively rejuvenated. I’m excited to tell the story of the next case-file of Ed & Lorraine Warren and expand on this world we’ve created.”
The overall deal is for producing, but Emmerich said the studio sees him as an emerging major filmmaker and they hope he will grow in that capacity on the Warner Bros lot. “New Line has always been a big believer in great filmmakers emerging from the horror genre, and he has the potential to grow like Frank Darabont did, from writing A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 to writing and directing The Shawshank Redemption,” Emmerich told me. “James will make an important movie for New Line and Warner Bros or DC, and that is definitely part of the plan, and a reason for bringing him into the family. He’s the only overall director with a deal here, because we see him as a class of one.”
As for his goals with the producing deal, Wan said his hope is to “continue the successful and creative partnership with the studio, and to produce projects that excite me from across all genres of film — thriller, sci-fi, action, comedy, horror. I look forward to collaborating with young and passionate filmmakers — actors, writers, directors, designers — to produce films that connect with today’s audiences.”
His deal was made by Paradigm, Stacey Testro International and attorney David Fox.NEW YORK—The National Hockey League announced Thursday that it had finished freezing an estimated 480,000 gallons of water, ensuring that every opening game of the 2010-2011 season would be played completely on ice.
Ice-making factories have reportedly been working around the clock for the better part of a month, and dozens of insulated trucks were employed to transport the slabs of frozen water to all 30 professional hockey arenas, some of which are located as far south as Los Angeles, CA or Sunrise, FL.
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"We learned our lesson last year," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters. "We started freezing water a week before the season, and by the opening face-off only eight arenas had ice. It was embarrassing because not only did we not deliver as an organization, but you really need to play hockey on water that is frozen."
"We also now completely understand—and agree—that all parts of the rink have to be covered with ice," Bettman added. "Even the parts behind the nets."
A shortage of frozen water on hockey rinks in the beginnings of previous seasons meant that players were forced to adapt to less than ideal conditions, skating on whatever frozen water was available and then trudging clumsily over the exposed dirt or wooden floors.
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Historically, teams have not been pleased with having to play hockey on mixed surfaces, complaining that injury would often result when someone tried to retrieve a puck that had fallen into gaps in the corners of the rink where ice was not present.
The last time the NHL froze enough water to completely fill all the rinks with ice by the opening of the season was 1972.
"As hockey players, we prefer to play on water that's been frozen expressly for the purpose of playing hockey," said Phoenix Coyotes captain Shane Doan, who watched as NHL technicians lowered a 200-foot-long, 80-foot-wide slab of ice onto the playing surface of Jobing.com Arena. "Ideally, there should be ice in the middle of the rink, right where you leave the locker room tunnel, in front of the benches. Pretty much everywhere, really."
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Continued Doan, "We wear special skates for the purpose of locomotion on a sheet of frozen water, after all."
In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of past seasons, representatives of the NHL Players' Association contacted the league in August to be certain that sufficient water was being frozen for the season's opening. In addition, Commissioner Bettman hired Mindy Donegan in the offseason to act as Senior Vice President of Frozen Water Oversight.
Donegan's main job was to work as a liaison between arena managers and frozen-water providers, thereby ensuring all arenas had ice by opening night.
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"Working with Mindy was great because, well, look at that perfect, rink-shaped sheet of ice out there," Rangers facility manager Phil Hesselbein said. "Last couple seasons at Madison Square Garden, we were scrambling to cover the floor. We gave fans $5 off ticket prices if they brought a bag or tray of ice from home, and even the players were going to liquor and grocery stores to get some."
"A lot of it was in cube form, or even cylinders with a hole through the middle, so it wasn't smooth to skate on," Rangers captain Chris Drury said. "But it was better than nothing."
NHL officials told reporters they were pleased with their efforts this season, citing the fact that all hockey games thus far have been played on ice.
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"This is certainly a new era in the NHL," a press release from the league read in part. "We'd like to thank the players for being patient during the preseason and extend particular gratitude to the NBA for allowing us to play exhibition games on their courts in our stocking feet."
When asked if the league had a plan to solve the age-old problem of the frozen water thawing and becoming liquid by the third game of the season, Commissioner Bettman said investigations were continuing.LAS VEGAS—Perplexed and disoriented as he accompanied WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev to the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena Saturday, local man Derek Hoff confirmed to reporters that he has absolutely no idea how he wound up in the boxer’s entourage. “I was just sort of walking around outside the casino, and the next thing I know I’m caught up in a big swarm of guys heading down to the ring,” said the 43-year-old claims adjuster, adding that amid the flurry of lights and blaring music inside the arena, he was somehow outfitted in a sponsor’s T-shirt and then found himself holding a title belt over his head while walking behind Kovalev. “Two minutes later, I’m holding down the ropes with my foot while he climbs into the ring. I didn’t really know what was happening, so I kind of just stood quietly in his corner until everyone else went to go sit ringside.” According to sources, Hoff was equally confused immediately after the fight when he was given a handgun and guided into the back of a limousine bound for a nearby strip club.
AdvertisementTransport Minister Michelle McIlveen today announced the £400 million A6 Derry to Dungiven dualling scheme is to proceed subject to future funding.
The announcement follows public inquiries into proposals to provide around 18.6miles (30kilometres) of new dual carriageway from Derry to Dungiven, including a dual carriageway bypass of Dungiven.
Commenting on the scheme the Minister said: “This announcement is very good news for the north-west and for the local economy in Northern Ireland. The A6 is a key transport route between Belfast and the north-west and the construction of a new dual carriageway will help to reduce journey times and improve road safety.”
The public inquiries were held in September 2012 and the Inspectors reported their findings to the Department in March 2013. Following a thorough examination of the issues raised, the Department has concluded that the scheme should proceed with amendments to reflect the Inspectors’ recommendations.
The Minister said: “There is no doubt that this scheme represents a significant investment in our economy and will create hundreds of jobs. Businesses too will benefit from improved transport links while the public will enjoy a safer and better journey.
“The indicative allocations for the 2017/18 – 2020/21 period will fund construction of part of the A6 Londonderry to Dungiven dualling scheme. My Department is currently considering the extent of the scheme, including a bypass of Dungiven, that could be delivered. It is envisaged that priority will be given to construction from Dungiven towards Londonderry.”
The Department will now publish the formal Notice of its Intention to Proceed and the making of the Direction Order for the scheme, along with a Departmental Statement setting out its response to the recommendations in the Inspector’s report, which is now also being made available.AMSTERDAM – Wiener Neustadt midfielder Conor O'Brien enjoyed a monster outing as the Austrian basement dwellers revived their survival hopes with as 2-0 victory over visiting Europa League chasers Wolfsberger AC on Wednesday night.
The New York native was involved in positive actions in virtually every area of the pitch, helping the hosts record a 19-9 shots advantage despite ceding 58 percent of the ball in the match. In addition to leading all players with four tackles and four pass interceptions to routinely spring the Blau und Weiß counter attack, O'Brien took the desperate occasion to pull the trigger on a game-high six shots.
After O'Brien saw his effort from near the spot well-blocked in the 19th minute, the American began setting up his cannon from long range. Just past the half-hour mark, his blast from distance was shoved out of the bottom corner. He would later buzz the frame from 25 yards and have a second rocket kept out of the corner by a diving save in the span of four early second-half minutes.
On top of all that, O'Brien worked without a foul while adding five clearances. The win, Wiener Neustadt's first in 11 games, lifted the club to within three points of the last safety slot with two games left to play.
Over in Armenia's Premier League, Cesar Romero scored the opener as FC Pyunik raised the crown with a 3-1 home triumph over Gandzasar.
The former Chivas USA forward applied the finish to a lightning break after just three minutes for his 20th goal of the season. The strike pulled Romero level with Shirak's Jean-Jacques Bougouhi in the race for the league scoring title.
He also boosted his total across all competitions to 25, joining Jozy Altidore and Aron Johannsson as the only Americans to reach the quarter-century mark in a single European top-flight campaign.
For Pyunik, the championship was the 14th in club history and first since 2010. By virtue of celebrating the title, the Phoenix earned a ticket to the Champions League first qualifying round.Terry Hoknes of http://www.hoknescomics.com and http://www.investcomics.com does great articles looking at the numbers of books sold, and sold out. Here is his list of every first issue printed thus far in 2013.
The first column is the comics rank for the month for #1 issues. The second column is its overall
EVERY #1 ISSUE OF 2013 – All new comic book series debuted this year and sales stats
Report by Terry Hoknes of http://www.HoknesComics.com
The following massive chart is to be a basic index to all the new comic series that debut each month. Its a quick look at the most ordered and best selling #1 issues of every single month plus a great reference to look back at and see what comics are likely to be future hot books. As we all know the industry has always invested the most in #1 first issues So now you have a list of all of them at your fingertips showing their print runs. This list also includes one-shots, Annual #1′s and #0′s as well.
The first column is the comics rank for the month for #1 issues. The second column is its overall rank for all comics that month.
so far this year Marvel has had the #1 ranking #1 issue of the month 4 out of 6 times.
Jupiters Legacy and Walking Dead: Governors Special are the only #1 issues non-DC/Marvel to sell over 50,000 copies.
Only 13 #1 issues so far this year had sales of over 100,000 copies.
Only 3 #1 issues so far this year had sales of over 200,000 copies
Top Selling #1 issues so far of 2013 (plus how many copies Diamond still has in inventory as of today)
1 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1 311,000 – Diamond has 3,500 copies left
2 SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #1 251,456 – Diamond 22,000 copies left
3 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1 211,000 – Diamond 1,000 copies left
4 SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #1 188,000 – Diamond 0 copies left
5 UNCANNY X-MEN #1 177,000 – Diamond 1,800 copies left
6 X-MEN #1 177,000 – Diamond 0 copies left
7 AGE OF ULTRON #1 174,000 – Diamond 1,200 copies left
8 BATMAN SUPERMAN #1 143,457 – Diamond 15,700 copies left
9 WOLVERINE #1 117,000 – Diamond 1,800 copies left
10 NEW AVENGERS #1 116,000 – Diamond 0 copies left
11 THANOS RISING #1 114,000 – Diamond 0 copies left
12 JUPITERS LEGACY #1 105,000 – Diamond 0 copies left
13 SAVAGE WOLVERINE #1 102,000 – Diamond 100 copies left
JUNE 2013
1 1 Superman Unchained 1 $4.99 DC 251456
2 2 Batman Superman 1 $3.99 DC 143457
3 10 Kick-Ass 3 1 $2.99 Marvel 78035
4 34 Lazarus 1 $2.99 Image 48030
5 46 True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys 1 $3.99 Dark Horse 42613
6 59 Larfleeze 1 $2.99 DC 36638
7 75 Bubblegun 1 $1.00 Aspen 28517
8 77 Astro City 1 $3.99 DC 27700
9 87 Daredevil Dark Nights 1 $2.99 Marvel 25736
10 94 X-Files Season 10 1 $3.99 IDW 24270
11 124 100 Bullets Brother Lono 1 $3.99 DC 17489
12 128 Masters of The Universe Origin of Hordak 1 $2.99 DC 17113
13 136 Extinction Parade 1 $3.99 Avatar 16061
14 137 American Vampire The Long Road To Hell 1 $6.99 DC 16042
15 139 Herobear and the Kid Special 1 $3.99 Boom 15491
16 158 Uncanny 1 $3.99 Dynamic Forces 13192
17 163 Marvels Thor Dark World Prelude 1 $2.99 Marvel 12528
18 177 Thumbprint By Joe Hill 1 $3.99 IDW 11185
19 184 Wild Blue Yonder 1 $3.99 IDW 10840
20 197 Godzilla Rulers of The Earth 1 $3.99 IDW 9813
21 211 Marvel Backlist Reading Chronology 1 $1.99 Marvel 8837
22 214 Transformers Monstrosity 1 $3.99 IDW 8562
23 217 Baltimore The Inquisitor One Shot 1 $3.50 Dark Horse 8309
24 222 Malevolent Mr Burns 1 $3.99 Bongo 8048
25 227 Six Gun Gorilla 1 $3.99 Boom 7730
26 238 Mouse Guard Legends of the Guard Vol. 2 1 $3.50 Archaia 7116
27 243 Crow Curare 1 $3.99 IDW 6607
28 246 Breath of Bones A Tale of the Golem 1 $3.99 Dark Horse 6465
29 251 Captain Midnight 0 $2.99 Dark Horse 6290
30 254 Spongebob Comics Annual Giant Swimtacular 1 $4.99 United Plankton 6137
31 258 X-Men 1 $3.99 Marvel 5664
32 259 Screwed 1 $2.99 Zenescope 5656
33 262 Fathom Elite Saga 1 $3.99 Aspen 5499
34 264 Grimm Fairy Tales Annual 2013 1 $5.99 Zenescope 5396
35 265 All New Secret Skullkickers 1 $3.50 Image 5346
36 266 Superman Unchained 1 Combo Pack $5.99 DC 5336
37 267 Liberator 1 $3.50 Black Mask 5266
38 274 Grimm Fairy Tales Demons Unseen 1 $3.99 Zenescope 5142
39 286 My Little Pony Color Me Treasury Ed 1 $9.99 IDW 4810
40 306 A1 1 $3.99 Titan 3981
41 310 Atomic Robo Savage Sword of Dr Dinosaur 1 $3.50 Red 5 3848
42 330 Aspen Splash 2013 Swimsuit Spectacular Anniversary Ed 1 $3.99 Aspen 3310
43 339 Sesame Street 1 $3.99 Ape 3175
MAY 2013
1 1 X-Men 1 $3.99 Marvel 177633
2 24 Ten Grand 1 $2.99 Image 57216
3 40 Wake 1 $2.99 DC 44867
4 44 Batman The Dark Knight Annual 1 $4.99 DC 43175
5 49 Earth 2 Annual 1 $4.99 DC 41325
6 56 Regular Show 1 $3.99 Boom 38466
7 63 Avengers Enemy Within 1 $2.99 Marvel 34205
8 70 Adventures of Superman 1 $3.99 DC 30992
9 72 Red Hood And The Outlaws Annual 1 $4.99 DC 30157
10 74 Movement 1 $2.99 DC 29246
11 77 Green Team 1 $2.99 DC 27775
12 90 Charismagic Vol. 2 1 $1.00 Aspen 25212
13 95 Bounce 1 $2.99 Image 24259
14 96 Catwoman Annual 1 $4.99 DC 24228
15 98 Sesame Street 1 $3.99 Ape 23765
16 104 Chin Music 1 $2.99 Image 22383
17 112 Adventure Time Annual 1 $4.99 Boom 20975
18 133 Black Bat 1 $3.99 Dynamic Forces 16328
19 137 Uber 1 $3.99 Avatar 16109
20 139 Iron Man Coming of Melter 1 $3.99 Marvel 15871
21 143 Grimm 1 $3.99 Dynamic Forces 15455
22 148 Image Firsts Walking Dead 1 $1.00 Image 15254
23 153 Battlestar Galactica 1 $3.99 Dynamic Forces 14356
24 156 Dream Merchant 1 $3.50 Image 14024
25 157 Smallville Season 11 Special 1 $4.99 DC 13988
26 172 King Conan Hour of the Dragon 1 $3.50 Dark Horse 12566
27 174 Shadowman 0 $3.99 Valiant 12252
28 179 Archer & Armstrong 0 $3.99 Valiant 12076
29 183 12 Reasons To Die 1 $3.50 Black Mask 11834
30 195 X 1 $2.99 Dark Horse 11071
31 196 Suicide Risk 1 $3.99 Boom 10913
32 199 Clive Barker Next Testament 1 $3.99 Boom 10797
33 206 Doomsday.1 1 $3.99 IDW 10230
34 213 Lobster Johnson Satan Smells A Rat One Shot 1 $3.50 Dark Horse 9846
35 215 Grimm Fairy Tales Wonderland Down Rabbit Hole 1 $2.99 Zenescope 9734
36 221 Injustice Gods Among Us (3rd print) 1 $3.99 DC 9162
37 223 Occupy Comics 1 $3.50 Black Mask 8977
38 224 Transformers Prime Beast Hunters 1 $3.99 IDW 8975
39 226 Image Firsts Peter Panzerfaust 1 $1.00 Image 8756
40 230 Image Firsts Invincible 1 $1.00 Image 8424
41 231 Transformers Spotlight Hoist 1 $3.99 IDW 8373
42 233 Grimm Fairy Tales Robyn Hood Wanted 1 $2.99 Zenescope 8242
43 237 Image Firsts Saga 1 $1.00 Image 8091
44 238 Dream Thief 1 $3.99 Dark Horse 7927
45 243 Edgar Allan Poes Fall of the House of Usher 1 $3.99 Dark Horse 7650
46 249 Half Past Danger 1 $3.99 IDW 7048
47 259 Damsels Mermaids 1 $3.99 Dynamic Forces 6564
48 268 Avengers 1 $3.99 Marvel 5963
49 279 Grimm Fairy Tales Hunters Shadowlands 1 $2.99 Zenescope 5408
50 281 Grimm Fairy Tales Werewolves Hunger 1 $3.99 Zenescope 5356
51 288 Akaneiro 1 $3.99 Dark Horse 5172
52 292 Uber 0 $4.99 Avatar 5084
53 293 John Carpenters Asylum 1 $3.99 Storm King 5081
54 296 East of West (3rd print) 1 $3.50 Image 5024
55 334 Cyborg 009 Chapter 000 One Shot 1 $1.00 Archaia 4131
56 337 Solid State Tank Girl 1 $3.99 Titan 3985
57 338 X-O Manowar One Dollar Debut Edition 1 $1.00 Valiant 3953
58 343 Harbinger One Dollar Debut Edition 1 $1.00 Valiant 3816
59 346 Archer & Armstrong One Dollar Debut Edition 1 $1.00 Valiant 3759
60 347 Bloodshot One Dollar Debut Edition 1 $1.00 Valiant 3722
61 352 Shadowman One Dollar Debut Edition 1 $1.00 Valiant 3593
62 365 Legend of Oz Scarecrow 1 $3.50 Big Dog 3334
APRIL 2013
1 2 Thanos Rising 1 $3.99 Marvel 114720
2 3 Jupiters Legacy 1 $2.99 Image 105437
3 41 Ultron 1 $3.99 Marvel 44854
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23 202 Transformers Spotlight B |
he did, and so did Byrne.
Nov-30-18 PJs Studio : As to the GM’s in the other room commenting on the game? David Levy in his book “How Fischer Plays Chess” points out that Byrne thought there were GMs commentating on the game but they were US senior masters. The masters did claim it was “madness” for Byrne to resign. Levy also pointed out that Byrne thought for a long time before resigning. Byrne was a great player in those days. He knew full well he had run into a buzzsaw.
Dec-01-18 Howard : Rossolimo was one of the commentators, according to Soltis.
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Detroit Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy called athletes who protest during the United States national anthem to call attention to social injustice "brave and patriotic."
Van Gundy argued in a Time commentary piece released Tuesday that those athletes are using their freedom of speech to spotlight an important topic:
"Honoring America has to mean much, much more than standing at attention for a song (one which, by the way, contains racist language in later verses). One of the most important freedoms that our military has fought for over two-plus centuries is the freedom of speech. When these professional athletes protest during the anthem, they are exercising one of the very freedoms for which our military men and women fought so valiantly, thus honoring our highest values and, in turn, those who have fought for them."
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the trend of refusing to stand for the anthem during the 2016 NFL preseason. On Monday, he was named Citizen of the Year by GQ for his efforts to spark conversation about racial inequality.
The issue was brought back to the forefront in September when U.S. President Donald Trump suggested NFL owners should fire players who don't stand for the anthem.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said before the 2017-18 season he expected all players to remain standing during the song.
"It's been a rule as long as I've been involved with the league, and my expectation is that our players will continue to stand for the anthem," he told reporters.
While no member of Van Gundy's Pistons roster has opted to kneel, he wrote he'll support any athlete who uses their place in the public spotlight to push for change:
"I stand with these athletes—in support of both these causes and their patriotism. I hope others will join me in supporting them. These athletes could take the easy route and not place their livelihoods at risk by standing up for what they believe in. They've put in their hard work. They could accept their paychecks and live lives of luxury. Instead, they are risking their jobs to speak up for those who have no voice. They are working to make America live up to its stated ideals. We should all join them in ensuring their collective voice is heard."
Van Gundy added Americans should "never forget that this country was founded by protesters" and noted individuals shouldn't "be permitted to feel comfortable while trampling the rights of others."
A CNN poll released in September showed 49 percent of respondents called kneeling for the anthem the "wrong thing" to do, while 43 percent said it's the "right thing."Mitt Romney sure knows how to woo the ladies, doesn't he?
In Tuesday night's debate—a full six months after his campaign evaded the simple question of whether he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act—Romney still didn't have an answer. Instead, he had this:
CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women? ROMNEY: Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are — are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we — can't we find some — some women that are also qualified?"
Pause right there. Mitt Romney is a highly educated man. He's traveled the world. He's run a business. But it's only after he's elected governor that he realizes, gosh, all these jobs are for men? He'd somehow managed to live for more than half a century without noticing the absence of women in the halls of power—not to mention the boardrooms?
Sure must be nice to be the rich white son of a governor. But let's continue:
ROMNEY: And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.
Binders full of women. Yup. That was tonight's pitch to the lady voters. He once looked at some binders with women in them.
Wow. Ooooh. Ahhhh. What a man. What a leader. What a feminist. What a guy chicks should totally vote for because binders.
Just one teeny, tiny little problem with Mitt's "Vote for me 'cause binders!" pitch. As David S. Bernstein explains, it's bullshit:
What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor. They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected. I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I've checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I've just presented it is correct -- and that Romney's claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.
Got that? Mitt Romney didn't go out of his way to look for women. He didn't ask for anyone's help. He didn't say, "My goodness, where are the women?"
The women came to him. They told him he needed to hire more women. And you know what he did, right?
None of the senior positions Romney cared about -- budget, business development, etc. -- went to women. Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration[.]
Mitt Romney doesn't love women. He didn't go out of his way to hire them. He didn't give a good goddamn about filling his cabinet with women. And he still hasn't told us whether he supports equal pay for equal work.
Mitt Romney is just like the rest of his fellow Republicans waging their War on Women. And it's time to end the war.
Please give $3 to each of our Daily Kos-endorsed women candidates for the House and Senate so we can send more, better women to Congress to end the damn war.It’s high noon for the Israel lobby at last. The American establishment is balking at the idea of war with Iran, and calling out the neoconservatives for pushing it; and Netanyahu’s tantrum is allowing liberal American Jews to declare they’re not on his side. There seems a likelihood that the “special relationship” with our closest ally will at last be politicized, or at least that war with Iran will come up in the presidential debates– and Romney forced to say he doesn’t want it either, because Americans don’t want it.
Joe Klein’s intervention on NBC this morning, saying he’d never seen an ally try to drag us into war (below), is big. He was surely emboldened by the daring Times lead front page piece saying that Netanyahu is injecting himself into the US election in an effort to foment a US war with Iran while he has the most leverage over Obama.
But Obama has defied Netanyahu, and he has support from Joe Klein and David Remnick. Obama is making a bet that American Jews don’t want a war with Iran (a very safe bet indeed) and that he won’t hurt his campaign warchest by failing to do the Israel lobby’s bidding.
I believe we will at last see a breakup of the monolith, with the Likud and anti-Likud voices in the US establishment battling it out openly– Adelson’s Republicans versus Soros’s Democrats. Notice Remnick (below) attacking Netanyahu “neocons”– Remnick’s former allies in the Iraq war push. Maybe he will explain how they took over the US government under Bush.
We can only hope that Netanyahu’s government will fall over this battle. Because just as American Jews don’t like dual loyalty suspicions (and if called on to choose, they’ll side with the U.S.), Israelis don’t like to be alienated from Uncle Sam. Shamir fell after he took on Bush in ’91. The lobby surely overreached with the Iran war push. As it overreached with the devouring of the West Bank.
Does this fight portend a US domestic battle over ethnocracy versus democracy in the one state of Israel and Palestine? Yes. And American establishment condemnations of apartheid…. And liberal media coming home to the principle of one-person-one-vote? Patience my dear, that’s a few years off.
Joe Klein stand, from Paul Mutter at lobelog:
Morning Joe later featured TIME’s Joe Klein on the same show. Responding to [Knesset Deputy Speaker Danny] Danon’s remarks [that it is absolutely time to attack Iran], Klein argued that the Netanyahu government is trying to push the US into a war with Iran that would not serve US or Israeli interests: “As for Israel, and the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and the Prime Minister, I don’t think I’ve ever, in the forty years I’ve been doing this – and I’m trying to search my mind through history – have heard of another example of an American ally trying to push us into war as blatantly, and trying to influence an American election as blatantly as Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud party in Israel is doing right now. I think it’s absolutely outrageous and disgusting. It’s not a way that friends treat each other. And it is cynical and it is brazen.” Klein contested Danon’s dismissal of the effectiveness of sanctions and argued that if Iran did make the decision to obtain a nuclear weapon, it would use it as a deterrent and not operationally “unless provoked.”
David Remnick is also outraged, at the New Yorker. He takes on the neoconservatives and Netanyahu with the same shot. “Neocon Gambits.” So neoconservative has become a dirty word at last. I’ve long said that Remnick could bring down the Netanyahu government by solidifying establishment Jewish opinion against him. Well at least now he’s trying:
Netanyahu seems determined, more than ever, to alienate the President of the United States and, as an ally of Mitt Romney’s campaign, to make himself a factor in the 2012 election—one no less pivotal than the most super Super PAC. “Who are you trying to replace?” the opposition leader, Shaul Mofaz, asked of Netanyahu in the Knesset on Wednesday… Adding to the outrage is the fact that Netanyahu is performing not just for his allies on the Israeli right but for those he perceives as his allies on the American right, including those in the Jewish community. His performance is in the same neocon voice as the one adopted by the Romney campaign
MJ Rosenberg says the lobby operated with intimidation and bribery and that regime is coming to an end:
The only force in the United States that favors war is the Israel lobby (AIPAC and its satellite organizations), neoconservative pundits and some Christian rightists (although the latter are more enthusiastic about going to war against a woman’s right to choose and gay rights than against Iran). War with Iran could destroy Romney’s presidency and he surely knows it. The bottom line then is that all Netanyahu is accomplishing with his ugly saber-rattling is threatening the survival of the US-Israel relationship. Don’t kid yourself. No matter what Obama says publicly, he is furious with Netanyahu. Privately, it is hard to imagine that even Republicans like seeing the United States being treated with such contempt by a tiny country we sustain with $3.5 billion a year in aid (exempt from all cuts, unlike every other program) and UN vetoes that make America look like Israel’s satellite. The only thing that keeps them all quiet is intimidation and campaign contributions. That won’t last forever, particularly as younger American Jews have moved toward indifference to Israel due to the policies it has pursued since an Israeli fanatic killed Yitzhak Rabin.
By the way, here’s the lobby striking back. A state senator in Brooklyn, David Storobin (R-Brooklyn) issued the following statement today after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was denied a meeting with President Obama. A little feckless:Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?" Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington, DC. And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator. It is paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll. But all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business; business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veteran's Administration and get some information about his GI policy — items of that type, for example. But there are other expenses that are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.
Do you think that when I or any other senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home State to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers? Well I know what your answer is. It's the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem: The answer is no. The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.~~*The Goddess*~~
The audience chamber was vast, fading into the distance with no walls in sight. Crystalline columns, carved with arcane runes, pulsed with a dim blue-white light as they stretched upwards before vanishing into pitch-black darkness. The floor of the chamber was a smooth red stone, speckled with black. In the center of the chamber, on a dais of silver and gold, the Goddess reclined upon an obsidian throne so dark that it seemed to absorb the light.
The throne wasn’t real in the physical sense, any more than the impossible audience chamber itself could have been. The Goddess had created it in the Realm of Dreams, forging the chamber and its accoutrements through sheer force of will.
She had created the chamber in response to a brief synchronization between the Veil of her world and Equus, the world of the ponies. The smallest of portals was all that was needed to allow the Infiltrator to appear and offer its report, and the Goddess found it pleasant to receive the report in a suitable environment.
The form the Infiltrator took superficially resembled the changeling that hosted its mind, though with green scales in place of chitin and a stripe of blue scales that ran down its back from muzzle-tip to dock. The Goddess pursed her lips at the sight of it. Apparently, some remembrance of its previous form had managed to survive after all this time.
“Speak, Infiltrator,” the Goddess intoned.
“The Child of Chaos is no longer in the garden.”
Veins of sullen red shot through the Goddess’ throne, pulsing with a magma-like glow, a reflection of the Goddess’ reaction at the news. Anger, and the frustration of hopes once again dashed.
Thus, I am once again reminded of the futility of planning, the Goddess thought as she struggled to keep her temper in check.
At the beginning of her incarceration, the Goddess had formed many plans. The barrier that imprisoned her had been formed in a rush, amidst the chaos of war. And so, she had reasoned at the time, it must have a weakness that could be exploited.
The most obvious vector of attack had been her control over her world’s Veil. But, no matter how she tried, she still couldn’t extend her magic through a portal she herself had created. Not to mention that each time she tried had caused the Caretaker to wake from his magically-induced suspension.
It was the barrier’s sheer simplicity that had defeated her in the end. Her power was absorbed by the smaller twin moons that circled her world and used to create the very barrier that prevented her influence from reaching the world below, the planet named Paradise by its former inhabitants. The barrier radiated some of that magic down over the world, but it was magic thoroughly stripped of her influence.
And, so, the Goddess had abandoned planning, opting instead to arrange matters as advantageously as she could. Her power over Paradise’s Veil allowed her miniscule influence over other worlds, nudging certain worlds closer to her own if she thought they could be of use to her.
When the humans of Earth had first created an artificial portal, that had been the first rekindling of hope in the Goddess’ heart in many thousands of years. When the humans had first reached Equus, with its diverse and powerful magics, the Goddess had once again begun to make plans.
And now the Child of Chaos had gone missing.
As the Goddess regained her composure, she noted that the Infiltrator was waiting patiently. She lifted one thin-fingered hand and gestured towards it. “Explain,” she said.
“The one called Discord was freed from stone. Apparently, one of the Equestrian princesses had a vision.”
A vision? Interesting… Future sight had been very nearly non-existent amongst her people. Only the Goddess and a small number of the priesthood were capable of such a feat, at least on her own world.
“A vision of what sort?” she asked.
“I was unable to ascertain that,” the Infiltrator replied. “The palace staff has only baseless speculation. However, I do know where Discord is. He is constrained to a small town called ‘Ponyville’.”
“Constrained? How so?”
“Powerful wards of Order magic keep him trapped there.”
“Can you break these wards?” the Goddess asked. “Can you free Discord?”
The Infiltrator hesitated before replying. “Possibly,” it said eventually. “It would take a considerable amount of time. The wards are very strong, and very complex.”
“Hmm… Show me.”
Memory flooded from the Infiltrator, springing fully-formed into the Goddess’ consciousness. She examined the wards in minute detail, impressed at both their complexity and their self-reinforcing nature. They were obviously the work of at least one very skilled and powerful spellcrafter.
Which made the single large, obvious flaw in the ward so puzzling at first. It had to be deliberate, especially when considering the reinforcements around the flaw itself. As she studied the flaw, it became clear that the purpose was to allow Discord to escape confinement, but only upon the completion of a very specific ritual. The ritual would work like a key in a lock, immediately summoning the Child of Chaos to the very spot where the ritual was cast.
“Clever,” the Goddess murmured. “Very clever.” She looked down upon the patiently-waiting Infiltrator. “There is an intentional flaw in the wards, used as a means of summoning Discord. We can use that ritual to bring him where we need him when the time comes.”
“I am not familiar with the ritual,” the Infiltrator replied. “Should I attempt to learn it?”
“No. Any attempt to do so may compromise your cover. You must remain disguised and in the palace whenever you are not aiding the changeling queen. I can work out the general shape of the ritual by examining the flaw itself. There are only so many ways to shape the magic that will unlock this ward.”
“Very well. Shall I wait here until the spell is completed?”
“No. The gateway will be closing soon. I shall contact you again once I have the summoning spell ready. In the meanwhile, this place where Discord is trapped… Ponyville? I seem to recall that this location had some importance.”
The Infiltrator nodded. “Those bearing the artifacts called the Elements of Harmony reside there.”
“Harmony. Yes, I do recall them.” The Goddess considered her options carefully while the Infiltrator waited silently at the foot of the throne. “It could be that these ‘Elements’ may make for a good fallback plan, should both Discord and Chrysalis fail.” She frowned, then. “How is the so-called queen progressing in her plans?”
“She is on pace,” the Infiltrator replied. “Nearly all of the Arcanum has been compromised by this point, and her changeling army is moving into key positions. So far, the ponies are none the wiser.”
“Very good.” Plans within plans within plans, though the necessity of this particular one was something that she found herself regretting. The ponies had no business being caught up in her war. But worse was still to come. “Let her know that ‘the Caretaker’ wishes for her to keep those six alive and unharmed. Tell her that he has a use for them, and will be able to transfer their powers to her. She may separate the bearers from their Elements if she considers them dangerous, but she is to keep both the ponies and their Elements safe and unharmed.”
“Yes, my Goddess,” the Infiltrator replied with a bow.
The report continued on for a short while, and the Goddess issued a few more instructions. After a while, the Infiltrator departed to carry out the next leg of its mission. Once again alone in the space she had created, the Goddess allowed herself time to revel in the freedom that she could only find in dreams. She stood from her throne, stretching her four thin arms towards the boundless sky, enjoying the nearly-forgotten feeling of stretching muscles and shifting scale. She called up a breeze and felt the air moving through the crest of feathery scales that ran from the crown of her head to the tip of her tufted tail.
Even in dreams, however, time still passed. She had plans to oversee and preparations to make. With a regretful sigh, the Goddess allowed the dream to fade back into the aether, returning once again to her captivity.
~~*Erin*~~
There was a tense moment of anticipation in the darkened theater, a tension which Erin shared—albeit for a different reason than the rest of the audience. She had her hands up over her eyes, having no desire to see what she knew was going to happen next. There was a crashing sound as the pony on the screen let out a distressed cry, followed shortly after by the glug, glug, glug sound of paint pouring out of an upturned can.
The audience started laughing uproariously, of course.
“I say, the picture quality is quite impressive, darling,” Rarity said from the seat next to her.
“Yeah,” Erin replied sourly. She glared up at the screen and the image of her first pony form, which was hunched up on the ground while paint dripped down across her coat.
“I expect this movie equipment must have set you back a fair amount of money,” Rarity continued. She held out a paper bag in her glowing blue aura. “Popcorn?”
“No thanks,” Erin muttered.
“Still, all of this is a very generous gift. And believe me, I know something about generosity.” Rarity took a dainty sip of her small diet soda. “One wonders what you were expecting in return.”
Erin frowned and glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Nothing, it was a gift.”
Rarity arched an eyebrow back at her. “You truly want nothing in exchange?”
“No, of course not…” Erin began, then broke off with a groan as she saw what the screen was showing now. “Oh, not the jump. Really?”
The image on the screen had shifted, this time showing a thirteen-year-old version of herself on her black and yellow BMX bike. Little Erin was wearing cargo shorts and a Minnesota Vikings jersey as she braced herself on the top of a hill, looking down the slope towards a dirt ramp.
“I can’t believe I was dumb enough to not wear a helmet.” Erin frowned. “You know, I could have sworn that ramp was a lot higher.”
“Well, memory can often exaggerate, dear,” Rarity replied. She straightened in her seat. “Oh, there you go!”
Just as Erin remembered, her younger self put on a lot of speed. And, also as Erin remembered, her takeoff was a grand thing, launching her teenage self high up into the air. The landing, however…
“Ooof! Oooohh….” the screen version of Erin groaned. The theater audience groaned in sympathy.
“Oh, my. That looked painful.”
“It’s not my fault! Nobody told me I was supposed to be standing when I landed.” Erin scowled over her shoulder as the audience behind her began chuckling. “I was walking funny for days. You’d think they’d be a little more sympathetic.”
“Comedy equals tragedy plus time, and this was quite a while ago, yes?”
“I suppose…”
There was a moment of silence between the two of them as the little Erin on the movie screen gingerly got off of her bike and began limping her way home.
“Have I ever mentioned the importance of trust?”
Erin gave Rarity a confused look. “No? I don’t think so.”
“Well, it’s very important. Don’t you agree?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Erin frowned at the unicorn, who was too busy eating popcorn while staring at the screen to notice. “What’s this about?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Rarity replied casually, smiling over at her. “Only the fact that you don’t trust us very much.”
Erin’s mind went momentarily blank, uncertain of what she’d heard. When it finally registered, she blurted out, “I trust you guys!”
Rarity glanced over at her, arching that eyebrow at her again. “Do you?”
“Well, yeah? Why wouldn’t I?”
“No idea.” The unicorn sighed and placed the popcorn into the empty seat next to her. “Well, I’m afraid we’re out of time for now. It’s time for you to be waking up.”
“‘What? ‘Waking up’?”
“We’ll talk again soon, darling,” Rarity promised as the dream fragmented around them. The audience was already gone, and the screen was blank as the theater itself faded into darkness.
“Rarity, wait!”
Erin woke up with a pained groan, blinking her sandy eyes as she looked around, momentarily wondering why she’d fallen asleep in front of her computer monitor. An orchestra of aches and pains began to hit her, playing an ode to the many various reasons why it’s a bad idea to fall asleep while sitting up at your desk.
Memory from the previous day hit her like a freight train, and her discomfort was forgotten as her head whipped around to her screen. The probe’s data feed was black, which caused a moment of panic until Erin noticed the angry red “0%” for the probe’s power display.
I guess running it all night with the night-vision on isn’t the best idea, she mused.
Still, that didn’t answer her worries about how Fluttershy was doing. Erin grabbed her saddlebags, still packed from the night before, and slung them over her back. She was out the door a minute later, galloping down the road in the early-morning sunlight.
~~*~~
By the time Erin neared Fluttershy’s cottage, most of the kinks had worked themselves out of her muscles and joints. She shot a grin at a nearby cloud standing oddly alone in the sky. It was unremarkable except for the wisp of prismatic tail hanging over the edge. It looked like Rainbow Dash had kept up with her own vigil—though judging by the loud snores ripping across the countryside, she hadn’t been able to stay awake all night either.
Then she saw the cottage, much sooner than she should have, and galloped the rest of the way, stopping by where the cottage’s front door should have been. Instead, the cottage was suspended in midair while rotating lazily, the roof now pointed towards the ground.
“Fluttershy!” she yelled.
“Oh, good morning, Erin,” Fluttershy’s tired voice said from behind her.
Erin turned to see her friend lying on the ground next to a bush. Pinkie Pie was lying next to her, and between them was an open box half-full of muffins.
“Hiya, Sunflower!” Pinkie picked up the box and twirled it on one hoof in a display of dexterity that made Erin a little bit jealous. “Muffin?”
Erin was about to turn her down when her stomach rumbled and restored her to sanity. “Sure, thanks,” she said as she took one. “Fluttershy, are you okay? You look kinda ragged.”
The pegasus, ordinarily well-groomed, was sagging everywhere. Her coat was matted and dull, her eyes puffy and bloodshot, and her mane was a mess of tangles.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Fluttershy confessed. “Mostly, we sat up and talked all night. He’s really a very interesting person!” She frowned, adding, “Though, I think some of the stories he told me weren’t completely true. I’m pretty sure jellyfish don’t grow that large.”
Crisis momentarily over but with hunger still unabated, Erin took a bite of her muffin. It turned out to be blueberry, and still slightly warm from the oven. There was a moment of shocking early-morning violence as she devoured the whole thing, only narrowly avoiding eating the paper wrapper along with it.
“Well, you look exhausted,” Erin said once she was done chewing. “Can you get him to put your house back so you can get some sleep?”
Fluttershy sighed. “I would, but he vanished about an hour ago. I have no idea where he is.”
“Well, that isn’t at all worrying,” Erin replied with a shudder.
“He hasn’t gone far,” Pinkie said confidently. “Twilight said we’d know if he tried to leave town.” She hummed and tapped her chin. “Something about the wards setting off alarms, or something?”
That wasn’t much comfort, as far as Erin was concerned. Still, nothing in town was on fire as far as she could tell, so maybe the spirit of chaos was behaving himself?
And maybe the Equestrian moon was actually made of cheese. Erin decided to ask Luna the next time she saw her.
There wasn’t much she could do about Discord and whatever shenanigans he was up to, Erin decided. But Fluttershy was a different matter. “Well, you can always sleep in my house.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to be a bother…”
“You’re not going to be a bother, Fluttershy. I’ll be at Applejack’s this morning, and I’ve got my wing therapy this afternoon, so the place will be empty for a while.”
Granted, she’d want to take a shower before she went to the hospital, but she was pretty sure Applejack wouldn’t mind letting her use the one at the farm.
“Oh, thank you, but I can’t leave Angel Bunny behind.”
Fluttershy gestured at the bush next to her. Erin spotted the rabbit hunched amidst the branches and glaring out at the world with such an intensity that Erin was mildly surprised that the leaves hadn’t caught on fire. The little white rabbit turned his glare her way.
“Good morning, Angel-rah,” Erin said solemnly, following it up with a salute. “You’re welcome to stay in my house as well.”
If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn that the rabbit had given her a suspicious look before finally relaxing a little and nodding.
“Oh, well… if you’re sure... I don’t want to be any trouble.”
Erin shook her head. “It’s no trouble at all, Fluttershy. You can even use my shower. I won’t mind, and you’ll feel a lot better.”
“O-okay, well… thank you.” Fluttershy started getting to her hooves, with Pinkie helping her up. “I’ll head over now, if that’s okay.” Another yawn put the conversation on pause for a moment. “I really am quite tired.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Pinkie offered, putting her shoulder against the gently-swaying Fluttershy. Erin noticed for the first time that Pinkie’s stuffed rabbit, Mister Hugglebunny, was perched on her back, held in place by a small saddle-like device. “I’ll come back after the morning rush to check on your house.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that!” came the inevitable protest.
“It’s okay, I want to,” Pinkie said. “Come on, now, let’s get you over to Sunflower’s place, and Auntie Pinkie will tuck you into bed all nice and snuggly-wuggly.”
Pinkie didn’t notice the exasperated frown Fluttershy shot her way. “You know I’m a year older than you, right?”
Pinkie giggled. A moment later, Angel Bunny stepped out of the bush he’d been hiding in, gave Erin a courteous nod, and hopped after the pair.
“Strange rabbit,” she muttered before shaking herself. She stepped off the path, opting to take a direct line through the fields towards Sweet Apple Acres instead of taking the road.
~~*Rainbow Dash*~~
The sun shouldered its way steadily upward into the early morning sky—not always a sure thing in Equestria—and released a beam of glowing golden light. This light sped past lakes and valleys, through forests and towns, avoiding many obstacles only to strike Rainbow Dash directly in the face. The pegasus let out an annoyed grunt and rolled over, instinctively reshaping the cloud behind her in order to block out the offending light. She was just on the verge of falling back asleep when a stray thought started poking around in her still-drowsy brain.
She was apparently sleeping on a cloud which, in itself, wasn’t all that weird. What was weird was that she could hear the birds singing and smell the dew on the grass, which meant that it was early in the morning. It also meant that she was outside. Her fuzzy brain examined these two facts independently, scrutinizing them and moving them around like jigsaw puzzle pieces for a minute or so before it clicked.
For some reason, she’d spent the night sleeping outside on a cloud, rather than in her bed at home. That realization also sparked a few other thoughts, which rushed at her with all the grace and subtlety of an avalanche.
Rainbow’s eyelids snapped open just in time to catch another of the sun’s golden rays square in the eyes. She flinched back with a pained hiss even as a hind hoof lashed out, dispelling the cloud and dropping her earthward. Well-muscled wings snapped open, catching the air enough to turn her fall into a directed dive, meaning that Rainbow made the short flight to Fluttershy’s house in the blink of an eye.
Or, rather, where Fluttershy’s house should have been. Now the whole cottage was hanging sideways in the air, with the whole thing revolving slowly in a clockwise direction.
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow yelled, rushing up to the currently horizontal door of the cottage and pounding it with a hoof.
There was no answer, so Dash zipped inside an open window. “Fluttershy!” she called again.
There was no sign of her friend. All of her furniture had tumbled to the lowest point of the house, skittering and rolling along the wall to the floor as the cottage slowly revolved upright again.
“That jerk!” Rainbow snarled. There was a certain draconequus that Dash was going to give a piece of her mind to. But first, there was something a lot more important to take care of. “Fluttershy!”
It was easy enough for Dash to avoid the falling furniture and personal effects, though the constantly-changing orientation of the cottage made it a little hard to keep her perspective. She flitted her way to Fluttershy’s bedroom, hoping to find some sign of her friend.
The sound of running water brought her up short, coming from the home’s small bathroom.
“Is she taking a shower?” Dash muttered, incredulous. “Wait… how is the plumbing working?”
There was no answer when Rainbow knocked on the bathroom door, so she let herself in. Typically, it was considered rude to barge in on another pony in the shower, but these weren’t typical times.
There was definitely a shadowy shape behind the shower curtain. A high-pitched voice was humming away, some directionless little tune echoing off the walls.
“Hey, Fluttershy. You okay?” Dash asked. When the figure behind the curtain didn’t reply, she got closer. “Fluttershy?”
Still no response.
Her heart began pounding in her chest like she’d just flown a race against the Wonderbolts, adding to the fear she’d felt since she’d first seen Fluttershy’s cottage rotating in midair, and she knew it wouldn’t settle down until she saw that her friend was okay. Muttering a quiet apology under her breath, Dash reached out and yanked the curtain back with a forehoof.
“Eeek!” Discord shrieked, cringing up against the wall and holding a scrub brush defensively across his chest.
“Gaaah!” Dash shouted in reply, startled half out of her skin by the sight of the sudsed-up spirit of chaos.
The two of them |
Longer Futuristic
Long the stuff of science fiction, self-driving vehicles are quickly becoming an everyday reality. As many as a half-dozen automakers will be offering semi-autonomous capabilities on some of their 2018 models. The Cadillac CT6 sedan with Super Cruise will be able to operate hands-free on well-marked, limited-access highways. Audi’s Traffic Jam Assist will handle virtually all driving duties at speeds up to 37 mph, even stopping and restarting in heavy traffic.
Related: Some Uber and Lyft Riders Are Already Ditching Their Own Cars
The first fully autonomous vehicles are expected to go into production by as early as 2020. But those vehicles are widely expected to still require an “operator” to be stationed at the controls, ready to take over in an emergency — or if the vehicle goes beyond specific, geo-fenced areas where it can no longer drive on its own.
But Ford is taking a different tact from many of its competitors like Nissan and Tesla, targeting what is known in industry terms as Levels 4 and 5 autonomy. The goal is to come up with vehicles that never need human intervention and likely won’t even have steering wheel and pedals.
Last year, the automaker announced plans to launch these driverless vehicles by 2021, but stressed that it would target ride-sharing services and other Fleet customers. Both Uber and Lyft have set up their own autonomous vehicle development programs. And they are betting they can change the equation by eliminating the most costly part of running their businesses: the driver. That, they claim, would reduce prices to the point where it will be cheaper to hail a ride than to own a personal vehicle. But that strategy does raise concerns about the long-term impact on retail vehicle sales in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
A Cheaper, Safer Ride
A study by the Boston Consulting Group earlier this year said it will likely cost half as much per mile to use ride-sharing compared to owning a vehicle, estimating that more than one-quarter of the miles Americans spend in automobiles by 2030 will be in models that are electrified, driverless, and operated by ride-sharing services. A more controversial report by reThinkX put that at closer to 90 percent.
With driverless technology coming to production, that is leading towards a point where “we humans become riders, instead of drivers,” said Doug Davis, an Intel vice president and co-author of another new study looking at the so-called passenger economy. “At the end of the day, this presents a huge opportunity.”
But it also creates potentially serious challenges. Automakers like Ford have based their business model on ever-increasing sales, largely to the retail market. In fact, a number of manufacturers have actually been trying to pare back lower-profit fleet business in recent years.
But Ford has said that it plans to sell its autonomous products exclusively to fleet customers, at least for the first few years. One reason is the high cost of the technology that will be needed for fully driverless vehicles. They’re expected to cost tens of thousands more than conventional, human-operated vehicles.
There will, of course, be a lot of those driverless vehicles on the road, operating in artificial-intelligence controlled swarms aimed at ensuring they will be positioned where potential riders will need them most. But since one vehicle will serve lots of customers over the course of the day, there will still be far fewer needed.
At the Frankfurt Motor Show earlier this month, Daimler AG Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche showed off a prototype version of his own company’s vision of a driverless ride-sharing vehicle, the two-seat Smart Vision EQ. “We will need half as many” of such driverless ride-share vehicles as privately owned car, Zetsche said. That will not only lower the cost of getting from Point A to Point B but also speed things up by reducing traffic congestion.
Related: How a Driverless World Could Look
But what would that mean for an automaker like Daimler or Ford? Mark Fields, the former Ford CEO and architect of his company’s future mobility strategy, acknowledged earlier this year that this will pose a challenge for automakers, though he also stressed that with ride-sharing vehicles routinely operating 24/7 they will likely need to be traded in more often than personal vehicles that are typically owned and operated for as long as 20 years before being scrapped.
What’s clear is that there are plenty of challenges getting driverless technology to market. But, once it does, the future for the auto industry is anything but clear. This transition from science fiction to everyday reality will almost certainly require automakers to completely rethink the way they do business as consumers change the way they get from one point to another.Matt Betts/Oregon State University
Old-growth forests in the Northwest have the potential to make the extremes of climate change less damaging for wildlife. New research out of Oregon State University shows complex forests do a surprisingly good job of regulating temperature on the ground – even compared to fully mature tree plantations.
“On a sunny day, if you were sitting underneath them, you’d get a similar amount of shade,” says study co-author Matt Betts, an Ecologist at OSU.
But the kind of forest makes a big difference on temperature.
“The more structurally complex the forest, the more big trees, the more vertical layers - the cooler it was,” he says.
The research showed differences as much as 4.5 degrees on warm days. Old growth forests also held in heat during cold weather. Overall, these forests have a moderating effect on temperature extremes.
One reason, researchers suspect, is that tree plantations, even mature ones, don’t have nearly the understory material – small trees, shrubs, ground cover – as more complex stands. Nor do these single-age plantations have a lot of big trees – unlike old growth stands.
“We think one of the mechanisms causing this is thermal inertia,” Betts says. “That takes these trees longer to warm up and longer to cool down. And that could be providing some of the buffering capacity of these older forests.”
Betts says these stands of old growth could provide refuges for temperature-sensitive wildlife in the face of climate change.
“It gives us some hope that how we actually manage our forest, can influence positively those species that are declining,” he says.
The study was published Friday in Science Advances.The scandal surrounding Loretta Lynch continues to evolve, this time bringing with it some questions regarding a secret email account and the mysterious alias of Elizabeth Carlisle.
For some reason, it appears that the Obama administration had real issues in regards to emails, servers, and secret aliases. Most notably Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic nominee for president, was investigated for the misuse of classified information on a secret server under a previously undisclosed email address. In the midst of that investigation, it was revealed that Eric Holder, Lynch’s predecessor at the DOJ, and Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense, had also used secret email accounts to correspond on official departmental business. Even former President Barack Obama used a secret alias at some point to communicate with Hillary Clinton on her infamous email account.
Now it is Loretta Lynch’s turn to deal with an email scandal, and it’s simply the cherry on top of the pile of woes for the former attorney general. Lynch’s secret email address and alias were discovered following the release of 413 pages of DOJ documents to watchdog groups Judicial Watch and American Center for Law and Justice, who were seeking answers regarding the infamous meeting between Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on a tarmac in Arizona. The meeting put into doubt the credibility of the investigation into Hillary Clinton and was a key deciding factor for former FBI director James Comey in the decision to release further information on the investigation directly to the public. Furthermore, it appears that this statement directly contradicts testimony that was given under oath to Congress where she stated that she did not use any email aside from her official Justice Department email, an action that brings up the potential criminal charge of perjury.
I previously detailed in July the story behind Loretta Lynch and the ties between her scandals and those of the Clinton campaign. There is a constant stream of information that for the most part is ignored by a majority of media sources that shows consistent levels of dishonesty and potential criminal activity that spans not just through Loretta Lynch, but also the Clinton campaign and even into the territory of former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. First came the infamous meeting on the tarmac, followed by instruction by Lynch to Comey to refer to the investigation of Clinton as a “matter” and not a “investigation.” Following Comey’s testimony to what Lynch ordered him to do, we discovered through a New York Times article that a “Democratic operative…expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far,” information that according to the Washington Post came from Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In accordance with that information, the Senate Judiciary Committee launched a fresh investigation into Loretta Lynch’s activities, and their House counterpart wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to request a second special counsel to investigate the ties between Clinton, Comey, and Lynch. Furthermore, we are now hearing that multiple news agencies were not interested in covering the tarmac incident until their management forced them to do so, calling into question the credibility of our media (which we already know wasn’t too high already.)
When will we get answers on this topic? The Democrats are eager to discuss the “drip-drip” news in regards to Donald Trump’s still-unsubstantiated ties to Russia, but no one, not even the media who could have headlines for days, wants to discuss the flood of information that continuously comes out through watchdog groups like Judicial Watch. The American people deserve answers about why Loretta Lynch instructed James Comey to discredit the seriousness of the Clinton investigation, and if Lynch was asked to do so by a member of the Clinton campaign. We deserve answers about what really occurred on that tarmac in Arizona. We deserve answers about all of these email accounts and why it was necessary for the Attorney General to go by Elizabeth Carlisle when talking with DOJ staffers. The reason why people are discontent with their government and with the media is directly linked to the dishonesty of our public officials and increasingly our mainstream media.
The House Judiciary Committee is right: we need a second special counsel to investigate this, and we need one quickly.L.A. Approves Cycle Tracks, But Council Motion Could Derail South Fig. Plans
At long last, it looks like the City of Los Angeles is ready to build some cycle tracks. Earlier this week, the City of Los Angeles certified the environmental documents for the South Figueroa Streetscape Project, known to social media buffs as MyFigueroa! The plan calls for reducing South Figueroa from five mixed-use travel lanes to four and adding cycle tracks, buffered bike lanes, improved sidewalks, better transit access and Continental Crosswalks.
Streetsblog has uploaded the formal recommendation letter from LADOT, Report from City Planning, and the Notice of Determination form.
The project proved somewhat controversial with the local business improvement district bemoaning the loss of some 38 parking spaces along the four and a half mile stretch of road that will be improved with bike lanes. Local businesses, which includes the Automobile Club of Southern California (AAA) and a slew of car dealerships argued that reducing car access was bad for their business model.
The environmental documents swept aside those concerns. While the city did not try to claim there were no economic impacts for the plan, especially in Level of Service, i.e. how many cars can use the street at a given moment, it did argue those issues were not as important as they might appear.
For example, the city points out that most of the “lost” parking spaces will be at the southern end of the corridor, near USC. The added bicycle access, plus the addition of free and low-cost off street parking in the surrounding buildings will more than make up for any lost parking spaces. In fact, the increased access for bicycles will be a boon for businesses up and down the corridor.
Others raised concerns about traffic on South Figueroa during special events at Staples Center or the Coliseum. LADOT has agreed to create new traffic plans for events in either of those arenas to insure that access to the parking lots is not hindered unduly.
As we’ve seen before, the city is justifying the project not just as the right one for the immediate community, but also in terms of completing a bicycle network for the city. With new bike lanes coming online over the next year on 7th Street, 16th Street, Vermont Ave. and Grand Ave., the city needs the bicycle infrastructure planned for South Figueroa to complete a network to make bicycling safe, comfortable and attractive between Downtown Los Angeles and South Los Angeles.
While the certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report is a good sign that the project is moving forward, it faces one opponent larger than AAA and car dealerships: time. The project is funded through funds from State Proposition 1C, and funding is default if the project has not completed construction by the end of December, 2014. LADOT and the project team are confident it remains on track to completion, but any significant delay could prove fatal.
And the attempt to delay could come from the South Figueroa Corridor’s own City Council Member. The MyFigueroa! project area rests in the 9th City Council District, represented by Curren Price. His predecessor, Jan Perry, was a strong supporter of the project, but Price seems lukewarm at best. This week, he introduced legislation requiring more study of the traffic impacts of the proposal specifically of alternatives to a road diet on Figueroa, more details on impacts after a trolley line is added, the impact on emergency vehicles, and how LADOT will mitigate increased traffic from the I-110 as a result of the ExpressLanes Program.
The motion was assigned to the Transportation Committee which has not scheduled a hearing for Prices’s motion yet. Their next hearing is September 11. Committee Chair Mike Bonin seconded the motion, but staff for Bonin point out that just means he believes the legislation is worthy of discussion, not that he supports it.
The motion does not call for LADOT to stop work on the project, and word out of the Mayor’s Office is that the agency will continue planning for construction if/when this motion moves forward. At this point, we don’t know if Price plans on waging a campaign against the project or if he just wasn’t satisfied with the information provided in the Environmental Impact Report.Just days ago, I wrote an article claiming that the talk of the Kansas City Chiefs firing Todd Haley and drafting Andrew Luck was absurd. I thought it was premature to completely give up on a coach and a QB that led the team to a 10-6 season just a year ago. I was trying to be optimistic about a terrible situation. I am a fan, after all, so I am just as prone to deluding myself about the Chiefs as the next guy.
I can’t do that any longer. I was wrong. The Chiefs are in big trouble and it is going to take bold changes to right the ship, but that does not mean it is time to tear the whole team apart. In fact, if GM Scott Pioli makes the right decisions over the next few months, the Chiefs could have another turnaround season in 2012.
The 2011 Chiefs are not going to the playoffs. The problems they have on both sides of the ball, combined with the loss of key starters to injury, is not something that is going to be fixed over the course of a couple of weeks. If Pioli is smart, he will turn his attention to getting the team ready to be competitive again in 2012.
Here is how he can do it.
The first thing Pioli has to do is admit he made a mistake and fire Todd Haley. Over the course of the next three games, Haley is going to demonstrate just how bad of a job he has done coaching this team. If you thought the Chiefs looked bad playing the Bills and the Lions, that is nothing compared to what awaits them in San Diego next week. It is going to get much uglier and the calls for Haley’s head are going to get louder.
I think the Chiefs will also lose to the Vikings in Week Four. After that, a loss to the woeful Colts in Indianapolis would seal Haley’s fate. Even if the Chiefs manage to win that game, it likely won’t be pretty.
The bye week is the perfect time for Pioli to cut ties with Haley. There will be enough evidence that Haley massively failed to prepare his team and allowed them to get off to a historically bad start. Nobody will be able to fault Pioli for cutting ties. Leaving Haley on board will only delay the inevitable and further damage the team’s psyche. Haley has to go and he has to go before the end of the season.
Pioli should immediately name Romeo Crennel the interim head coach. The change won’t necessarily make things much better in the win column but it will hit the reset button for the players. Romeo is notoriously popular with players and he’ll be able to get the Chiefs to keep fighting down the stretch. It will be a win-win situation for both Pioli and Crennel. Romeo can mentor KC’s young talent, minus the Todd Haley head games. At the same time, Crennel can audition for another head coaching job. The rest of the season can be used to evaluate guys like Jon Asamoah, Rodney Hudson, Jerrelle Powe, Jalili Brown and Allen Bailey.
Depending on how the rest of the season plays out and how the team responds under Crennel, Pioli will have a big decision to make and he’ll have to get it right. If the team plays really well under Crennel, Pioli may be tempted to leave Crennel on as coach. I think that would be a mistake.
No, the minute after Pioli fires Todd Haley, he should be on the phone with Bill Cowher. I can think of no better choice to succeed Haley. Cowher is a proven winner with ties to the Chiefs. His teams in Pittsburgh were build to run the ball and play a tough, 3-4 defense. The Chiefs run a 3-4 so there would be no major scheme changes. Cowher is the kind of hire that would excite and inspire the players. The move would re-energize a fan base that is sure to be extremely angry by the conclusion of the 2011 season.
Since the Chiefs won’t be in the playoffs, the team could bring Cowher in quickly and get to the business of evaluating the roster for 2012. The first order of business will be devising a plan for obtaining a true franchise QB. By the end of the 2011 season, even the staunchest of Cassel supporters will be forced to relent. The Chiefs will need to do whatever it takes to get themselves the best possible QB for 2012.
The Kansas City Chiefs are a talented team. One thing Scott Pioli has done right was re-signing guys like Derrick Johnson, Brandon Flowers and Jamaal Charles. The talent base is there. It is not crazy to think that Bill Cowher, paired with a capable QB, could not get the Chiefs back on track quickly.
Pioli is fond of saying that he values substance over sizzle. Bill Cowher is both substance and sizzle.
Is Scott Pioli bold enough to make these moves? I’m not so sure. It would mean admitting he was wrong about Haley and Cassel, and he might not be willing to do that.
Things didn’t get this bad by accident, and they won’t be fixed by doing nothing. If Pioli takes bold action to correct his mistakes, he could save this team. If he doesn’t, he may find himself out of a job as well.Members of Toronto’s Tibetan community are demanding an apology from the TTC after the agency refused to remove subway ads that critics say are racist propaganda sanctioned by the Chinese government. “These ads basically portray Tibetans as backwards, as undeveloped and dirty,” said Sonam Chokey, national director of Students for a Free Tibet Canada. “Basically they are trying to legitimize the colonization of Tibet.”
The TTC ad for visiting Tibet, from the China National Tourist Office.
The TTC says the agency had no choice but to run the ads because they’re not in contravention of any law or of the transit agency’s advertising policies. The posters, which have been on the transit system since Nov. 28, depict two images of Tibet. One is colourless, and shows a clutch of ragged tents and faceless figures in a barren valley, while the other is in colour and shows a modern city in the same mountain setting. The accompanying caption is “Old Culture, New Tibet.” The posters direct readers to the internet address for the China National Tourist Office.
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Chokey said that the China National Tourist Office is a state-sponsored agency and the ads are “blatantly racist.” In addition to demanding that they be taken down immediately, Students for a Free Tibet is calling on the TTC to issue an “official apology” and supporters of the group are expected to speak and protest a meeting of the TTC board Tuesday afternoon. Tibet has been under control of the Chinese government since a 1950 army takeover that Tibetans refer to as an invasion. China claims it was an act of liberation. In response to questions about the ad, the China National Tourism Office issued a short statement to the Star on Monday. It said the poster “is supposed to show a Tibet, which enjoys both tradition and modernity now. All Canadians are most welcome to visit Tibet.” The statement included a link to the tourism agency’s Tibet webpage. According to the TTC, the tourism agency paid about $20,000 for the ads. Two hundred of the posters were placed on subways and eight installed in stations. They’re set to run until Friday, Dec. 23. Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the budget committee at city hall, TTC CEO Andy Byford defended the agency’s decision to run the ads. He said the Supreme Court of Canada has determined that transit agencies must accept offensive advertising, as long as it isn’t discriminatory or otherwise illegal.
According to TTC policy, advertising on the transit system must adhere to “all applicable laws,” including the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards and the Ontario Human Rights Code. If five or more people complain about an ad, it’s referred to the TTC advertising review working group. Byford said that in this case, the group reviewed the ad and “concluded that we did apply the rules correctly.”
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“I understand the concerns that the Tibetan community have made, but the simple facts are the TTC, as TTC staff, are simply not able to make subjective judgments. We are bound by the rules regarding use of adverts on the TTC,” Byford said. Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14) said the transit agency should consider changing its rules. His ward of Parkdale-High Park is home to the largest Tibetan community in North America, and he said he had received dozens of complaints from constituents who have been “profoundly hurt” by the posters. “If the TTC found that these ads don’t violate these policies, there’s something wrong with their policies,” he said. This isn’t the first time that ads on the transit system have stoked controversy. In 2013, the agency rejected an ad from a group called Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East that included a series of maps showing how Palestinian territory has shrunk since the founding of Israel. At the time, the transit agency said some people might interpret the posters as advocating “for violence or hatred against Israel or the Jewish people.” The TTC recently refused to carry ads from Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club that showed a man wearing little more than a pair of gold underwear. The transit agency said the posters violated the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards prohibition against “unacceptable depictions or portrayals.” With files from Jennifer PagliaroThe submarine saga promises to be a story that will keep on giving for decades, that will make the Collins class submarine saga appear a shining example of quality canoe construction indeed.
If Morrison was telling the truth on Sunday and we've already agreed a price without knowing what the subs might be, the foundations have just been laid for our biggest defence boondoggle ever.
Under pressure from Laurie Oakes with an allegation that the French subs are nearly twice as expensive as the German offering, Morrison said: "This bid we have entered into a negotiation on, so it's a negotiation now, the designs have not even been drawn up yet on what the submarines might be."
Already there's a strange mix of yarns brewing around the announced contract (or negotiation, or whatever it is). Some of them have the whiff of coming from the inevitably unhappy failed bidders, while others carry the stamp of buying into the official PR spin.
For example, The Australian's Robert Gottliebsen claims anonymous "defence officials in the US, Japan and Germany are shocked at what is now being revealed". Well, losers sometimes do that.
(It's been widely suggested some American defence types wanted us to buy Japanese to suit their anti-China strategy. It would be of little comfort to Australian submariners 40 years hence to find themselves at depth in a sea alive with anti-submarine drones, knowing their boat was purchased primarily to encourage the development of the Japanese arms industry.)
Or there's the Reuters story on how the French outflanked the over-confident Japanese with superior salesmanship and Tony Walker's AFR piece suggesting the French won because they were considered most likely to be able to build the things in Adelaide without embarrassing cost over-runs. Throw in the Oakes angle of the French being vastly more expensive than the Germans and maybe they've just been wise enough to get their over-runs in first.
Morrison tried to tell Oakes that the economic benefit of these very expensive boats of unknown value 50 years down the track was that they would transform Australia's manufacturing capabilities. That would be a big effort for boats that haven't been designed yet and that won't even start being delivered until well into the 2030s. Till then, Australian manufacturing presumably has to mark time.by Tanya Gazdik @TanyaGazdik, December 16, 2013
JetBlue Airways is the first tr avel company to tie the health of the Caribbean’s beaches to its bottom line.
The airline is partnering with The Ocean Foundation, which will work with the airline to develop a plan to protect the region's natural resources, show the value of clean beaches and directly tie ecology and the importance of nature to the airline's base measurement -- revenue per available seat mile (RASM).
JetBlue’s TrueBlue loyalty club members can donate points to The Ocean Foundation. Points will be converted to cash to benefit the non-profit's Coral Reef Fund.
True Giving, a unique enhancement to the airline's TrueBlue customer loyalty program, provides members with an alternate way to use their points. Customers now have the choice to redeem their points for future travel or donate them to benefit others. Points can be donated locally or globally to millions of causes at Truegiving.jetblue.com.
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Destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean now make up one-third of JetBlue's route network. The health and appearance of a destination has a direct impact on the company’s revenue, says James Hnat, JetBlue's executive vice president corporate affairs and general counsel.
"We have a vested interest in preserving the ocean and maintaining clean beaches," he says in a release. "By putting actual dollar numbers to the importance of ocean conservation, we will strengthen interest in protecting the destinations and ecosystems we depend on both financially and ecologically.”
The long-term health of the Caribbean's oceans and beaches is a Commitment to Action developed at the Clinton Global Initiative Latin America meeting.
CGI connected JetBlue with The Ocean Foundation, whose mission is to advance global ocean conservation. The organizations will develop a Commitment to Action to measure the value of clean beaches in the Caribbean, tie it to JetBlue's revenue, and devise a business-relevant plan to preserve and protect the ocean.
Travel companies make money off of nature and its beauty. Yet this investment is rarely reported in financial documents and almost never tied to revenue, says Sophia Mendelsohn, JetBlue's head of sustainability.
“To change that, we are calculating how much revenue per customer we owe to the Caribbean's beauty," she says. "The value of beaches depends on many factors. Clean beaches ultimately affect our bottom line and therefore are worth tracking and investing in cleaning and protecting. We will work with The Ocean Foundation to first understand the connection between our revenue and this natural resource -- and then develop business-related solutions to marine pollution and conservation."
JetBlue will focus on key destinations with The Ocean Foundation for a joint Caribbean ecology valuation template. The purpose is to conduct an economic analysis that determines the percentage of RASM from beach-oriented locations due to a clean oceanfront.
Destinations include San Juan; Ponce; Santo Domingo; Punta Cana; Kingston; Montego Bay; Barbados and Grand Cayman. These locations were chosen based on their diverse ecosystems, number of tourists, volume of coastal debris, average tourist spend and country GDP.
In the Caribbean, JetBlue is the largest carrier in terms of capacity in both Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, offering more flights than any other airline. The carrier operates one of its six focus cities at San Juan's Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport.
JetBlue is a leading airline in the Caribbean, soon offering nonstop service to 25 destinations across the region. This winter JetBlue will operate an average of 200 flights to, from, and within the region.Best-selling author Tom Clancy, best known in the video game world for his work on big franchises like Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon, has passed away.
The New York Times confirms that Clancy died in a hospital last night. He was 66.
In 1996, Clancy helped found a video game development studio called Red Storm Entertainment, where he would go on to develop a number of big video game franchises—some based on his books; others original. Red Storm was later purchased by Ubisoft, the publisher that continues to make games under Clancy's name. His most recent release was the stealth-action game Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
"We are saddened to learn of Tom Clancy’s passing and our condolences go out to his family," Ubisoft wrote on their Facebook page this morning. "Tom Clancy was an extraordinary author with a gift for creating detailed, engrossing fictional stories that captivated audiences around the world. The teams at Ubisoft, especially at the Red Storm studio, are incredibly grateful to have collaborated with and learned from him, and we are humbled by the opportunity to carry on part of his legacy through our properties that bear his name."
Other games that bear Clancy's name include the Rainbow Six series, The Hunt For Red October, and the upcoming next-gen game Tom Clancy's The Division.
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Photo: Kathy Willens/APQuality horror films rarely make a huge amount at the box office, at least since the grindhouse days. Word-of-mouth only counts for so much, and many movies we now recognize as genre classics have had to wait for their cult followings. But 1994 was an exception.
Tom Hanks’ soulful depiction of the chocolate-loving shrimp-profiteer Forrest Gump and Disney’s stridently pro-Royalist piece of anti-hyena propaganda, The Lion King, occupied the top spots in 1994. But this was also the year that snuck into the house at night and left true terror under our tree, in the form of the year’s 4th-highest grossing feature, The Santa Clause.
On the surface, The Santa Clause is a film about imagination and family. But like its predecessors The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Stepfather, this is a veneer that director John Pasquin (Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous) and Space Jam scribes Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick meticulously strip away, revealing the angst beneath. Dig deeper into The Santa Clause and you’ll find a morally conflicted engagement with the ethics of self, the ways in which we both are and are not whole, and the routes by which our cherished delusions come to infect those we love most.
For those who don’t recall, The Santa Clause focuses on a sociopathic advertising rep named Scott Calvin (Tim Allen at his most nefarious). Introduced accepting corporate congratulations for a record-setting sales year in the Midwest, Calvin is a social climber and narcissist, a seething Patrick Bateman-like figure in the world of toy hucksterism. He lies as easily as he breathes, but his charm is palpable.
Calvin is divorced from Laura (Wendy Crewson, excellent), though they share custody of their frighteningly sincere son Charlie (Eric Lloyd, a modern-day Damien). Laura has remarried, building a new life with the film’s protagonist, Dr. Neil Miller (Judge Reinhold). Neil is a sensible psychiatrist and the only character in the film who consistently recognizes Calvin’s descent into yuletide madness; tragically, his observations go unheeded by a world so confused it desires its own self-annihilation. Time and again, there are opportunities to pull back from the brink, but the force of malevolence embodied by Calvin’s psychosis proves too appealing.
One night, Calvin returns to his house and murders a man he finds on his roof. In a dramatically resonant sequence, he steals the dead man’s clothes, a metaphorical skinning that pointedly invokes one of Freud’s stories of infantile dysphoria in The Interpretation of Dreams. Like Bateman, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, and The Cobbler‘s Max Simkin, Calvin’s uncanny power is rooted in bodily transference, his fetishization of skin and cloth marking the emptiness that defines him. (Later, this tendency is underlined by a repeated focus on Reinhold’s sweaters, as key to The Santa Clause‘s symbolic universe as the fur muff in Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”.)
Flash forward: Calvin now believes he is Santa Claus, the fictitious “man from the north” commonly associated with rigid surveillance and tyrannically moral calculation. After the murder, he imagines a trip to the “North Pole”, doubling both as physical and erotic location, where he lords his power over a factory staffed by child slaves. Upon waking, Calvin puts on a huge amount of weight and grows an improbable beard, becoming a living embodiment of unrestrained Id. (And also an embodiment of Allen’s commitment to the villainous role, as he actually gained and lost nearly 300 pounds for the part.)
As Dr. Miller, school administrators, and the police try to stave off his worst impulses, Calvin’s sociopathy just increases, and the structures of sensibility and shared experience give way. Young Charlie comes to believe in his father’s frightening lies, and slowly the wider community succumbs to their appeal. That appeal is, at root, about the erasure of passion in favor of symbolic neutering, a genuflection before the altar of discursive affect. As Lacan notes:
The sufferings of neurosis and psychosis are for us a schooling in the passions of the soul, just as the beam of the psychoanalytic scales, when we calculate the tilt of its threat to entire communities, provides us with an indication of the deadening of the passions in society.
Further, the Lacanian notion of castration — as a rupture between body and law — finds its corollary in The Santa Clause‘s final moments. After the entire town is drawn into Calvin’s delusion and rendered passive and compliant, Reinhold’s Dr. Miller is the final hold-out, much like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
But he is himself finally undone by Calvin’s master-stroke — the delivery of a phallus-shaped fetish item (a so-called “Oscar Meyer Weiner Whistle”) that the doctor desired as a pre-critical child. While positing an emotional return to genital wholeness, The Santa Clause actually emphasizes the original separation. It’s impossible to watch Reinhold’s tortured reaction without awe.
That “awe,” of course, is at the root of all horror — the quickening of the sublime, our powerlessness in the face of the universe’s absurdity. This is what The Santa Clause understands so painfully.
We may not recognize it at first, but it is felt to our core, waiting to manifest. As Little Elf Judy says, “Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing.” The Santa Clause sees, believes, and ruthlessly takes stock. That’s all we can really ask from horror narratives.The NIU Department of Public Safety is seeking information on the whereabouts of a female NIU student who was reported missing over the weekend.
Antinette J. Keller was last seen by friends around noon on Thursday, October 14, 2010. She reportedly told friends that she was going for a walk in a area adjacent to W. Lincoln Highway near the Junction Center retail complex not far from the NIU campus.
Ms. Keller is described as a white female, 18 years of age, 5 feet 6 inches in height, approximately 130 lbs., brown hair, and blue eyes.
She was last seen wearing blue jeans, a gray jacket, and a scarf. Ms. Keller was believed to be carrying an art portfolio, and a professional camera.
Anyone who may have seen or who may have information on a person fitting the above description is asked to please contact the NIU Department of Public Safety at 815-753-1212.KRUEN, Germany (Reuters) - Joking that he wanted to buy a pair of lederhosen leather shorts, U.S. President Barack Obama drank beer and mixed with Bavarians in a light-hearted start to his trip to Germany, before turning to more serious talks on the conflict in Ukraine.
Introduced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama spoke warmly to a crowd of men in feather-plumed green hats and women in corseted “dirndl” dresses in the picture-postcard village of Kruen, at the foot of snow-speckled Alpine mountains.
“I have to admit that I forgot to bring my lederhosen but I’m going to see if I can buy some while I’m here,” a smiling Obama told locals who were swigging beer and munching on ‘weisswurst,’ or traditional Bavarian sausage, and pretzels.
The U.S. president, who is in Bavaria for a summit of the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations, said he had hoped the meeting hosted by Merkel would coincide with Munich’s annual Oktoberfest folk festival, which pays homage to beer.
“But then again there’s never a bad day for a beer and a weisswurst and I can’t think of a better place to come to celebrate the enduring friendship between the German and American people,” he added.
He later sat down with Merkel and the locals in Bavarian dress to sample the beer and told reporters: “It was a very fine beer. I wish I was staying.”
He and Merkel then headed off for talks on issues including the Ukraine crisis, climate change and extremism.LONDON, UK — Vladimir Putin is gripped by a deep hatred of NATO, an alliance he believes is hell-bent on belittling Russia. As |
our concerns" about "baseless lawsuits" against Suarez. (You can read Renacci and Suarez's letters here.)
Grodhaus sent a letter to Harris asking that her "Consumer Protection staff review the actions of the NAPA county District Attorney and his purported investigation" of Suarez's company. (This letter was sent after Grodhaus told Suarez in another letter that it is inappropriate for Ohio to intervene. Kasich's office ignored Suarez's list of demands and never told him that it sent a letter to Harris.)
There's also an important addendum to Renacci's contact with Kasich's office. Renacci's letter to the governor, sent via email from the congressman's legislative director to a Kasich staffer, included a note essentially telling him to ignore the letter about Suarez.
"We’re sending this over merely as a courtesy to our constituent, and in no way realistically expect your office to take any action on this," the note said.
So, Renacci sent the letter though he didn't believe it was really worthy of his signature or governor's attention. That's disingenuous. (Renacci's office is adamant that it handled the Suarez letter appropriately by passing to the governor because it involved state issues, not federal ones.)
Suarez should have received the same form letter congressional offices send all the time to constituents who make outlandish charges. (Renacci's office disagrees. It says the congressman received a large packet of information from Suarez that merited some attention because the company is a large employer in Stark County.)
If you still don't believe that Suarez makes wild accusations, consider the letter his company sent Kasich in February, after the Federal Bureau of Investigations began looking into the campaign donations. (You can read this letter below.)
The letter, signed by Suarez's human resources director, Julianne Dalayanis, accuses U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach and another attorney of "malicious prosecution" that benefits their careers and helps Democrats such as U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.
Dettelbach is a Democrat, but it's impossible to make the case that he is doing Democrats' bidding. While Suarez was passing out money like candy to Republicans in 2009, 2010 and 2011, Dettelbach's office was busy investigating, indicting and convicting Cuyahoga County Democrats.
My favorite among the many absurd charges in the letter is that the U.S. Justice Department has ignored "the fact that Barack Obama received hundreds of millions in donations from overseas by untraceable prepaid credit cards."
I hope Suarez's company makes tin foil hats because Dalayanis sounds like someone who would wear one.
Kasich's office politely told Dalaynis to take a hike after getting this one.
I can't explain why Ohio officials didn't' look more closely at Suarez's company or into California's legal complaints before lending their names to Suarez's charges. Or, why they didn't just blow off the letter.
I guess that they wanted to cover themselves. They wanted to look like they tried to help an Ohio company in case Suarez laid off employees as a result of his legal troubles.
All the politicians mentioned here fiercely argue that their actions represent perfunctory constituent services and not an endorsement. If that's the case, they need to change the model of constituent services.
<a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/816684/dalayanisletter.pdf">Dalayanisletter (PDF)</a> <br /> <a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/816684/dalayanisletter.txt">Dalayanisletter (Text)</a>
Forwarding Suarez's letter and promoting his agenda does represent an endorsement. As elected officials, their names mean something. They ran for office so they would have a powerful name. But their interaction with Suarez illustrates that they have hurt their brands.More broadly, he said, Microsoft decided it was necessary given the company’s dependence on contractors. “The research shows that employees who do get these kinds of benefits are far likelier to be happier, have higher morale and are far more likely to be productive,” he said.
“If people are sick,” he added, “it’s not necessarily good to have them go to work because they can infect their colleagues.”
The United States is the only advanced economy that does not require paid sick leave, and 43 million workers do not have it, the president said in his address.
In the absence of federal action on workplace issues including minimum wage, some companies like Aetna and Starbucks have made changes themselves. Three states (California, Connecticut and Massachusetts) and a smattering of cities have passed paid sick leave policies.
But an approach like Microsoft’s is much more unusual.
Derecka Mehrens, executive director of Working Partnerships U.S.A., said it was the responsibility of the bigger companies that employ the contractors to raise the standards.
“When you follow the money, the money comes from the tech companies, so ultimately they could raise the floor for our contract work force,” she said.
Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, said she was less optimistic that it would become common for big, wealthy companies to play this role.The Arizona Cardinals took the field for their second practice of training camp on Sunday. Here are some takeaways and observations from practice that I got.
Off day for Carson Palmer
Quarterback Carson Palmer’s workload has been managed closely since the start of the offseason. With a great practice on Saturday and the pads coming out on Monday, Palmer got the afternoon off. That gave Drew Stanton reps with the first team and Blaine Gabbert with the second team. Trevor Knight, who got no reps at all in 11-on-11 drills on Saturday, worked the entire afternoon with the third team. Palmer will be back on the field for practice in pads on Monday.
Palmer off day QB play Players who sat out Player rotation changes Phil Dawson’s leg strength Players who stood outGet the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Simon Harris married his long-term love Caoimhe Wade on Friday as the nurse said ‘Yes Minister’.
The Fine Gael representative, from Greystones, arrived in Kilquade, Co Wicklow at 1pm with his stunning bride arriving on time in a striking satin and lace Sharon Hoey wedding dress.
Caoimhe was driven to the church in a vintage-style Beauford, while her bridesmaids, including her sister Ruth, made their way to the ceremony in a black Chrysler limo.
Caoimhe, 29, from Courteencurragh, Gorey, Co Wexford, accepted the marriage proposal in April 2016 and over 150 guests were present for the nuptials.
(Image: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin.)
She is a cardiac nurse at the Children’s Heart Centre at Our Lady’s Hospital, Crumlin in Dublin.
Simon’s younger brother Adam was best man for the happy occasion, while the groom’s mum and dad Mary and Bart beamed with pride after they emerged from the church.
Mary, who spoke with Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and former Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his wife Fionnuala outside the church, laughed as she said: “That’s another one off the payroll.”
Meanwhile other well known political colleagues of the 30 year-old attending included Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald, Finance Minister Paschal O’Donoghue, super junior minister Mary Mitchell-O’Connor and Defence Minister Paul Kehoe.
Former Ireland and Chelsea football star Damien Duff, 38, was also among the guests.
He arrived with his wife Elaine, 33, who is originally from Bray.
There was rapturous applause and cheers around the church shortly after 2pm when they were officially proclaimed husband and wife by Simon’s uncle and chief celebrant Fr Michael Cahill.
(Image: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin)
There was some laughter outside the church as one eager photographer asked the groom: “Could you put your arm around the bride?”
Speaking to the Irish Mirror after the ceremony Simon Coveney, who was accompanied by his wife Ruth, said he was very pleased for his party colleague.
He added: “I’m delighted for Simon and I know that [Caoimhe] is a huge support for him. And when you have the type of lifestyle that Simon has, having a very strong, steady home-life is a huge help to it, as it is for me. So I’m really pleased for him and he seems very happy.”
The bride, groom and guests are celebrating the wedding reception this evening at Tinnakilky Country House Hotel in Rathnew, Co Wicklow.
There was glorious sunshine after the couple emerged from church.
There was laughter when one photographer asked Simon, who had been kissing his new wife’s forehead, if he could put his arm around the new bride.As the guy who made that one Lord of the Rings comic years ago and did that one LP of Lord of the Rings Online, and as someone who has professed to have read Fellowship more times than I care to recount, I've gotten something of a reputation as a Tolkien expert. The truth is I'm pretty much a lightweight among the serious Tolkien fans. I'm nowhere near a Tolkien scholar and I'm not even a huge fan of The Silmarillion.
But I still think The Lord of the Rings stands near the top of the list of the most important works of fiction in the 20th century. It's a masterfully crafted work and its cultural influence is difficult to measure due to its enormity. Tolkien spin-offs have become an industry in their own right, and as someone standing at the intersection of games and Tolkien fandom a lot of people are wondering what I think of Shadow of Mordor.
When a book or movie is adapted to video games, we often get hung up on the small details of lore and whether or not the writers get it "right". And that's fine, up to a point. It's nice when the writers take the time to get all the little details just so. It feels good to see that thing from the book or movie, fully realized in a game world that meshes with our prior experience or imagination. But when you're adapting a work of fiction, getting the lore right isn't nearly as important as matching the original in tone, themes, and aesthetic texture.
Imagine a Batman game where they butcher all the lore: Alfred is Batman's uncle, Gordon is the mayor instead of the commissioner, and it takes place in Chicago instead of Gotham. That would be really annoying. But it would be far less offensive to me than a Batman property that gets all the lore details right, but re-imagines Batman as a vigilante who goes around shooting criminals and torturing them for information. This is how Shadow of Mordor feels to me. It's a Lord of the Rings game in name and lore only, because the tone and themes are jarringly wrong.
The developers tried. They really did. You can find bits of poetry, heaps of lore details, and there's a loading screen where someone sings a song. The developers looked at Tolkien and thought what people really wanted was lots of text to read and lots of little stories about incidental items in the world. And I guess they succeeded at that. It's all shoved off to the side in collectibles that magically turn into "money" (not really money, but it's the currency you use to buy upgrades) and not part of the core game, but it's there. There are references to legendary characters that do not appear directly in the books or movies, and they even manage to shoehorn in a barely-justified appearance by Gollum. (Which is a wonderful re-creation of movie Gollum, doing a fine impression of the original performance by Andy Serkis.)
But these things are the skeleton of Middle-earth, not its soul. They failed to grasp anything resembling the heart of the elements that give the world its identity.
First let's start with the small stuff: The dialog is all wrong. Gone is the artful and varied speech of the various peoples of Middle-Earth. In the books, each group of people had their own take on English. Hobbits were simple and folksy. Dwarves were brusque and direct. Wizards and elves were almost Shakespearean in their flowery speech. Humans were varied, going from the quasi-cockney style of Bill Ferny to the nearly-Elven patterns used by kings.
In Shadow of Mordor, all of that is lost. People talk in generic "movie medieval", and the lines are bristling with cringeworthy anachronisms. One Orc (an Orc!) even says, "Visualize your goals," to the player, which I guess is supposed to be funny. But making jokes at the expense of the setting is something you do in a parody (like my web comic) and not something you should do in a story that's trying so hard to be taken seriously.WordPress has made great strides in its effort to democratize publishing, making the ability to publish content on the web accessible to a very large number of people all over the world. Today, it powers roughly 28% of the websites on the web making it the most widely used platform in the world by far in terms of market share. However, with the status of being number one comes the attention of those who wish to exploit it.
In this article, we’ll look at what you can do to make your site more secure to weather the eternal storm of bad guys.
Isn’t WordPress Secure Already?
Just as it is not possible to secure your home 100%, no site is 100% secure. Every lock has a key which is possible to open by anyone who has something that fits the same way. That is not to say that WordPress is not secure though. As an open-source project with literally thousands of developers working on it, in it, and around it all the time, the collective effort of so many people makes it very strong because it only takes one person to find a vulnerability and report it. WordPress also has a dedicated security team responsible for making sure WordPress core is as secure as possible.
The WordPress Security Team is made up of approximately 50 experts including lead developers and security researchers — about half are employees of Automattic (makers of WordPress.com, the earliest and largest WordPress hosting platform on the web), and a number work in the web security field. The team consults with well-known and trusted security researchers and hosting companies.
https://wordpress.org/about/security/
WordPress core is only one component of the complex system that makes up your website. The majority of WordPress sites are much more than a bare WordPress install. Most plugins and themes, both free and premium do not get nearly the same level of attention, let alone purely auditing for vulnerabilities. If it can happen to some of the largest and well-supported plugins such as Jetpack and WooCommerce, the possibility of concocting a site which has some vulnerability is almost inevitable.
Meet Your Opponents
If we’re going to protect ourselves, it’s important to know what we’re up against to best orient ourselves for success. Where are these attacks coming from? The good news is that the vast majority of attacks are completely automated and not very sophisticated. Much like a search engine which crawls your site for content to index, most attacks start as simple bots which crawl your site looking for known vulnerabilities which are then exploited in an automated way.
Another common source of attacks is from other sites which are already compromised. Think zombie apocalypse. This could be in the form of another site on the same host which tries to reach other sites on the same server, or even in the form of a “botnet” which a swarm of hundreds or even thousands of compromised machines which could be used together to be used in a very powerful way.
Contrary to what you may think, the least common attacker is from an actual human. This is the hardest to protect against as a human can execute a much more intelligent attack, from vectors which are otherwise not possible by a machine (like pick up the phone and call you). The chances of being the target of a human cyber attack are quite low due to the sheer ratio of sites to hackers. Higher profile sites are generally at higher risk as they are of more interest to humans than a blog about cat-shaped knitting templates.
By following the tips in this article you will be poised to be stronger against attacks from all sources.
Perhaps the most obvious and easy to do (as well as neglect) would be keeping WordPress core, and all installed plugins and themes updated to the latest stable versions. As a well-known platform, there are large, publicly available databases of known vulnerabilities for WordPress core, plugins, and themes. If your site uses older versions of any software, you are essentially gambling that an attacker does not come and find it.
In addition to keeping your software up-to-date, you can easily further harden your site by hiding the version numbers which are installed.
The two most important pieces of data an attacker can find out about your site in order to compromise it are: what software it is using (WordPress in this case, and which extensions are installed), and what versions they are. Given these bits of information, attackers can be extremely efficient in compromising your site. All they need to do is look up what you have in their playbook, and find the best exploit available to compromise your system with sniper-like accuracy.
Hiding the fact that you’re using WordPress isn’t easy, but not broadcasting the version you are using is.
Remove the WordPress version from the <head> tag (no plugin necessary)
add_filter( 'the_generator', '__return_empty_string' );
WordPress also uses versions as the default version for enqueued styles and scripts in the ver parameter for cache busting.
You could use a plugin like Version Assets (shameless self-promotion of OSS) to replace these with content hashes which both obscures the version while optimizing for browser caching.
Use Strong Login Credentials
You can do everything right, but if your login credentials are admin and password you are essentially parking your car with the windows down and the keys on the seat.
Start by requiring a strong password for all users. It’s not as hard as you might think.
A simple alternative to coming up with your own password is to use a password manager such as LastPass or 1Password to generate something long and ugly for you. This saves you the trouble of remembering so many passwords. For web developers, your password manager is close to oxygen and coffee in terms of necessity due to the often large number of sites and services we need to maintain credentials for.
One important policy which no plugin can do for you is to not reuse any password that you have used on another site. This is because if the other site becomes compromised (something you likely have little to no control over) and your password known (which it shouldn’t because the password should not be stored in plaintext, but it has happened) or cracked, then the attacker may try using the username/email and password to login to other sites or services.
Whatever you do, don’t use any of the passwords on this list.
Relevant plugins:
Force Strong Passwords – Require a minimum level of password strength using the WordPress password strengh meter.
Expire Passwords – Require users of selected roles to change their passwords every X days.
Don’t use common administrator usernames
This is another easy one which unnecessarily exposes you to risk simply by using obvious common usernames such as admin or administrator.
If your site uses one of these usernames, create a new admin, and delete the old one (you can always associate all posts/content from the old user with another user when you delete it).
Limit Login Attempts
Chances are you and the users of your site know your respective login credentials fairly well. By default, WordPress does nothing to prevent someone from trying to login hundreds of times per minute or more (besides the fact that your site would probably crash). Does that sound like something you would ever need? Didn’t think so. Let’s not allow that because there are reasonable limits to how many times someone should be able to attempt to log in before we need to let them cool their jets for a few minutes.
The Limit Login Attempts plugin has become a staple among many managed WordPress hosts which you get out-of-the-box when hosting with them. Once a user has X failed login attempts within a given time period, they will be prevented from logging in for the next 10 minutes (or whatever it is set to), even with a correct password. The user then needs to wait for the login ban to expire or contact an administrator on the site who can remove the temporary ban for them.
Use 2-Factor Authentication
2-Factor authentication is an added layer of login security. Your password is the first layer. After the correct password is provided, you must pass a second challenge before you are able to login. This is usually in the form of a 6-9 digit number provided by your phone or another device which you provide in an additional input. The possession of a device you have configured for 2-factor authentication with your site confirms that it is you attempting to log in and not an attacker who happens to have your password.
My favorite 2FA app is a rather new one called 2FAS which is named after the company behind it. It’s really quick to get started with and has a few really nice features which most others do not: trusted devices, and backup codes in case you lose your device or otherwise need to get in without it. They have their own app for your phone, but you can also use Google Authenticator, or Authy (my favorite as you can use it on your computer too).
Put WordPress in its Own Directory
Not all hosts give you the freedom to do this, but if you can, putting WordPress in its own directory is a very effective way to sidestep a significant amount of malicious traffic knocking on your door.
There are other reasons to do this but from a security standpoint, some bots will simply assume your site is using a standard install. Requests for /wp-login.php and /wp-admin/ will fail as 404s because they now reside at /wp/wp-login.php and /wp/wp-admin/. Even if you have a vulnerable plugin installed, if a bot comes by and attempts to exploit it with an assumed standard install path, it will simply miss the target.
Putting WordPress in its own directory also hardens your site to directory traversal attacks, which basically means an attack which exploits a vulnerability in a plugin to say, read the contents of your wp-config.php file by using an expected relative path to it from the plugin file.
E.g.
GET /wp-content/plugins/abcxyz-slider/slide-loader.php?image=../../../../wp-config.php
Keep Regular Backups and Keep Them Far Away
If your server evaporated today, would your site be up and running again tomorrow? Backups are an integral part of running a site which is valuable to you. If your site is hacked somehow, and the damage is irreparable, you should be able to restore to a point before your site was compromised.
In order to be able to restore to a point before your site was hacked without notice, you will need automated backups going back several days. 30 days of backup history is a good number to start with and adjust as necessary for your situation.
Never store your backups on your server
This is important for two reasons:
If your site is ever compromised, the attacker may delete or infect your backups If your backups became accessible (some plugins create backup files right in the uploads directory) a hacker could download your backup and use that to gain access to the live site
Test performing a restore from backup
The last thing you want to happen when things go wrong is to reach for your trusty backups and for them not to work, or even worse: find out they weren’t being created the whole time. After restoring, make sure any database dumps or other sensitive files that were part of the backup are deleted or not publicly accessible.
Use a Good Host
Having a solid host for your site can really go a long way in keeping your site safe. Particularly a host which specializes in WordPress specifically should offer:
A dedicated instance for your site, isolated from all other sites they host
Daily offsite backups of your file system and database
Daily malware scanning and cleaning of WordPress files
Disable Errors From Outputting to the Screen
If you’ve ever seen PHP errors or notices showing on your screen (usually near the top) then your site is leaking information which could be used against you by an attacker such as what plugins you have installed, or paths on the filesystem. Whether this is enabled or not is largely dependent on how PHP is configured on your server, but it can also be controlled by WordPress’ debugging constants. You may want to add the following to your wp-config.php to prevent errors from being output to the screen. The best way to observe or audit the errors on your site is to enable debug logging, so the errors will be written to a file instead.
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false ); define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
You should also block access to the wp-content/debug.log file via HTTP for the same reason.
Plugins and Themes
The vulnerabilities most affecting WordPress website owners stem from the platform’s extensible parts, specifically plugins and themes. These are the #1 attack vector being exploited by cyber criminals to hack and otherwise misuse WordPress sites.
Codex – Hardening WordPress
Auditing your extensions is critical to being on top of keeping your site secure. Try to limit your extensions to those provided by reputable sources, both the author and where you are downloading it from. For free plugins and themes, be sure to get them from wordpress.org if available. For premium extensions, only download them directly from the vendor. Avoid free or “nulled” premium extensions as these can be modified to contain backdoors to allow the “street vendor” to easily gain full access to your site. Remember how your parents always told you to never take candy from strangers? THIS IS THAT CANDY.
Beware of themes which bundle plugins in the theme itself rather than requiring plugin dependencies be installed normally. This is because plugins that are bundled in a theme are not possible to update through the normal auto-update process thus relying on the theme to release updates for its dependencies as well.
Don’t keep plugins or themes installed that you are not using. Even an inactive plugin can be a vulnerability because it is still a part of your codebase and publicly accessible from the web.
Prefer extensions which are updated regularly, and again, update your extensions regularly.
Exercise the Principle of Least Privilege
The principal of least privilege is a term from the information security world which basically says that each part of the system should only have the access and permissions to the resources it needs to do its job and nothing more. Don’t give any more power or access than is required. In WordPress terms, the easiest thing you can do is not make anyone an administrator on your site that doesn’t need to be.
Security Plugins and Services
Reviewing all of the security plugins available for WordPress could be a series in itself, but what article about security in WordPress would be complete without at least mentioning them?
At the time of this writing, the top 3 security plugins on the wordpress.org plugin repository are (in order of most active installs to least):
1. Wordfence Security
2. iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security)
3. Sucuri Security – Auditing, Malware Scanner and Security Hardening
These plugins offer many features to address the issues and practices outlined above and more. This post is not sponsored by any third-party, but it should help you make a more informed decision as to which plugin might be right for you, should you be considering one.
A few other products worth mentioning are ManageWP and the self-hosted InfiniteWP. These are third-party services which let you remotely administrate your WordPress installs and offer some great security functionality such vulnerability scanning and backups, even at the free tiers. ManageWP gives you more on the free tier but InfiniteWP is something you host yourself and uses add-ons for premium features.
Closing
Securing your website is like trying to keep squirrels out of your birdfeeder; there are always going to be squirrels, you just have to make your feeder harder to reach than the others. Throughout this article, we’ve learned about many different ways that your site can be at risk of being hacked and how to harden it against them.
Of course security is a topic which can hardly be covered comprehensively in a single post, but hopefully, you learned a thing or two that you didn’t know before. Once you’ve covered the fundamentals, you might want to tackle penetration testing for WordPress.
What do you do to keep your site secure? Have any tips which you think everyone should know about WordPress security? Sound off in the comments below.Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is an action-adventure video game developed by Big Red Button and published by Sega for the Wii U console.[1] Along with Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for the Nintendo 3DS, the game is a spin-off of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series and is a part of the Sonic Boom franchise, which also consists of an animated television series (whose games serve as prequel), a comic series by Archie Comics, and a toyline by Tomy.[2][3]
The two games together formed the third and final part in Sega's exclusivity agreement with Nintendo, following Sonic Lost World and Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games in 2013. Both games were released in North America, Europe, and Australia in November 2014,[4][5] and in Japan the following month.[1][6][7] The game was retitled as Sonic Toon: Ancient Treasure for its Japanese release.
Rise of Lyric was met with a very negative response from critics, where it was heavily criticized for its numerous glitches, camera system, controls, combat, story, dialogue, and character development. The game did not perform well commercially, with the combined sales of Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal totaling 620,000 copies by May 2015.[8]
Plot
Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy pursue Eggman until they encounter an ancient tomb with carvings of Sonic and Tails on the entrance. Sonic is stopped twice by Amy from opening the door, but when Metal Sonic ambushes the group, Sonic opens the door and the group escape. Inside, they encounter an imprisoned, but powerful snake villain named Lyric the Last Ancient.[9] Lyric recognises Sonic from events transpiring one thousand years ago and captures the group, but Tails deactivates the shackles and turns them into beams named Enerbeams for the group to use.
After meeting Cliff, the group discovers that Lyric planned to power an army of war robots with the Chaos Crystals to create a world of twisted metal and robots, but was imprisoned by The Ancients when they discovered the plan; the group then set out to retrieve the Chaos Crystals before Lyric. At an abandoned research facility, they meet MAIA, a robot who rebelled against Lyric, who assists them by creating a portal, allowing Sonic and Tails to go one thousand years back in time to retrieve a map showing the location of the Chaos Crystals. Sonic and Tails are then attacked by Shadow, but defeat him, enter the portal, successfully retrieve the map from inside Lyric's weapon facility and trap him inside for future imprisonment by The Ancients.
Lyric reluctantly forms an alliance with Eggman, but after no success, Lyric turns on Eggman by programming Metal Sonic against him. The group defeat Metal Sonic and Eggman and retrieve the final Chaos Crystal, but Sonic is then surrounded by Lyric and his robots. Lyric demands the Crystals; Sonic refuses to give them up, but Tails, Knuckles and Amy agree to do so. Sonic is then attacked by Lyric's robots and buried under rubble, but recovers and the group set out to Lyric's Lair to stop him. During the battle, Lyric reprogrammes the Enerbeams to ensnare the group, but before he can take advantage of the situation, Eggman ambushes Lyric from behind, freeing the group. Sonic then ties up Lyric with assistance from his friends and removes Lyric's technopathy device to incapacitate him; Knuckles discards it. The group celebrate, but in a post-credits scene, Eggman recovers the device and uses it to revive Metal Sonic.
Gameplay
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric An example of gameplay in
Sonic Boom is an action-adventure game with a stronger emphasis on exploration and combat compared to previous Sonic the Hedgehog installments, featuring four main characters whom players control: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. Each character has their own unique abilities and gameplay mechanics: Sonic can use his speed and homing attacks, Tails can fly and use various gadgets, Knuckles can burrow underground and climb on walls, and Amy can use her hammer to swing on poles. Each character also possesses a whip-like weapon called the Enerbeam, which allows them to perform various actions such as hanging from speeding rails, removing enemy shields, and solving puzzles. There is also a focus on collaboration, with player's switching control between multiple characters and using their abilities to progress. The game will support local co-operative multiplayer for two players, with additional modes for up to four players locally.[10][11][12][13]
Rise of Lyric is divided into at least three main gameplay styles: speedy platforming stages akin to main-series Sonic games like Sonic Generations, exploration stages, and boss battles.[14]
Development
On May 17, 2013, Sega announced a worldwide agreement with Nintendo for the next three games in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series to be developed exclusively for Nintendo devices.[15] This included Sonic Lost World and Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.[16] On February 6, 2014, Sega announced Sonic Boom as the official title for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The game ties in with Sega's Sonic Boom franchise, which includes a television series and other merchandise, and is the third release in Sega's exclusivity agreement with Nintendo.[17] The franchise is designed for Western audiences[18] and serves as a prequel to the television series. Sega announced the game would feature Sonic's traditional speed alongside a new exploratory game mechanic called "Enerbeam". Sega of America's marketing director Marchello Churchill explained that the new franchise was not designed to "replace modern Sonic".[17] The Western developer's CEO explained that Sonic Boom's Sonic is "very different... both in tone and art direction".[17]
Los Angeles based game studio Big Red Button developed the game under supervision by Sonic Team[17] and long-time Sonic game designer Takashi Iizuka.[18] The game was built on CryEngine and is centered on "combat and exploration".[17] Sega outsourced the game to Western developers in order to increase the game's appeal in Western markets, culminating in a separate westernized Sonic franchise.[18] The video game concept came after the television series plan. Big Red Button was chosen due to the studio's adventure game portfolio and leader, Bob Rafei of the Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted, and Jak and Daxter series.[18] Portions of the game were co-developed by IllFonic, who assisted with some of the game's level design, art assets, and code.[19] The game remains a separate continuity to the main series, and was originally not intended to be released in Japan.[20] However, it was later revealed that the games would be released in Japan, under the name Sonic Toon (ソニックトゥーン, Sonikku Tūn).[21]
British composer Richard Jacques composed the music. Jacques was selected because of his experience with previous Sonic games, including Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.[22]
Release
Unlike with previous games, Sega did not provide reviewers with advance copies of either Shattered Crystal or Rise of Lyric; they could only begin reviewing once the game was on sale.[23]
On the first day of release, a glitch was discovered that allowed players to jump to infinite heights by pausing the game during Knuckles' jump, which could be used to bypass most of the game. Speedrunners managed to beat the game in under an hour using the glitch.[24] In January 2015, a patch was released to fix a few problems with the game, including the "Knuckles Jump" glitch.[25][26]
Reception
Pre-release demos featured at E3 2014 received mixed reception from journalists. Destructoid nominated Rise of Lyric for "Best Platformer" and "Best Nintendo Exclusive" for their "Best of E3" awards.[37] In contrast, GameCentral was much more negative in their preview stating, "the very worst game in the line-up was Sega's Sonic Boom, which was so unspeakably awful we couldn't even force ourselves to play through the whole demo".[38]
The game's final release was critically panned, becoming the lowest scoring game in the entire series and is notable for its exceptionally negative reception from critics. It has a Metacritic score of 32/100,[28] the lowest for any Sonic game so far, and a GameRankings score of 33.15%.[27] Don Saas from GameSpot panned the game for its repetitive level design, dull puzzle-solving, numerous bugs, and uninspired combat system. He stated that "Through a combination of unwieldy controls, a broken camera system, and a total lack of responsiveness, the platforming and exploration elements of Rise of Lyric are totally unworkable". He summarized the review by saying that the Sonic name deserves better than Rise of Lyric, and so do consumers.[32] Similarly, Tim Turi from Game Informer criticized the poor visual quality, frame rate, dialogue, unfunny jokes, and shoddy level-design.[31]
Mikel Reparaz from IGN was slightly less negative, praising its multiplayer gameplay, but criticizing the game's simple and tedious combat, stating that "Rise of Lyric isn't fundamentally broken or unplayable; it's just thoroughly disappointing and unpolished, and while it does have some fun to offer, it's fun that's been done better in countless similar games. Rise of Lyric falls well below our already-low expectations".[33] Sam Gill of the Independent called its graphics "bland" whilst criticizing its poor gameplay and irritating glitches but praising its soundtrack. He concluded the review by stating while it could be argued the game is primarily aimed at children, it "doesn’t excuse the general lack of quality apparent in this poorly executed piece of software".[39]
David Jenkins from GameCentral was overwhelmingly negative about the game, citing a "terrible camera", dull combat, "insipid" level design, "broken" graphics and "serious" bugs. He stated it is "definitely the worst game of 2014". GameCentral was appalled with the E3 demo of the game, and David stated one of the positive things about Sonic Boom is that "it proves previews do give a relatively accurate impression of a game’s final quality".[36]
Sega announced that the total sales of Sonic Boom (includes both Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal) has shifted 620,000 copies as of May 11, 2015, making it the lowest-selling game in the franchise.[8] |
bet to be an above-average third baseman in the majors carried by a plus hit tool and strong approach at the plate.
Why He Might Fail: While it’s not hard to find evaluators that see average or better pop for Senzel eventually, that’s not a sure thing, and there isn’t a standout tool here generally. He may just end up an unspectacular role 5 third baseman.
16. Brent Honeywell, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays
Why He’ll Succeed: They’re good screwballs, Brent. Honeywell also features mid-90s velocity, and an assortment of average-or-better secondaries. He also knows how to deploy his whole arsenal, and the profile is better than the sum of its parts. It might very well add up to a number two starter.
Why He Might Fail: Honeywell doesn’t always have that mid-90s velo in every outing, and he can be a bit more hittable at times than you’d expect given the stuff. That kind of sounds like one of those frustrating mid-rotation arms we write about 25-50 spots lower on this kind of list.
17. Mitch Keller, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates
Why He’ll Succeed: Two plus or better offerings, advanced present control and command, a starter’s body, If you were sculpting a pitching prospect from scratch, he might look a lot like Keller.
Why He Might Fail: Even the Venus de Milo’s arms fell off.
18. Sixto Sanchez, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies
Why He’ll Succeed: Sixto may have the best stuff on this list of the guys not currently sitting out the season due to Tommy John surgery. He can touch 100 when he needs it, but prefers to sit mid-90s with a fastball he can cut or run. He shows above-average fastball command already. Sixto will throw five to seven pitches in total—depending on how strict your categorizations are—and all of them could end up plus. There’s a legitimate ace outcome on the table here.
Why He Might Fail: Sixto is listed at six foot. He is probably not six foot. There are general concerns here about fastball plane and durability, and the Phillies have been very careful with his usage in A-ball this year. We simply don’t know if the frame can hold up to the rigors of a starting workload, at least not without bleeding some of his top-level stuff.
19. Walker Buehler, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why He’ll Succeed: You can make an argument Buehler has the best raw stuff in the minors right now. The fastball can touch 99, and he complements it with two advanced breaking pitches, both of which are potentially plus major league offerings.
Why He Might Fail: His frame and mechanics don’t exactly scream “this is a safe starting pitching prospect.” He has been healthy for only the last ten months. I’m not going to overuse “also, he’s a pitcher” on this list, but it feels appropriate here at least.
20. J.P. Crawford, SS, Philadelphia Phillies
Why He’ll Succeed: We will be the last place to give up on JPC, and there’s good reason for that. He’s a good shortstop glove with an advanced approach at the plate. You can handwave some of his offensive struggles in the upper minors to a series of minor injuries and focus on a potential plus hit tool with surprising raw pop lurking within as well.
Why He Might Fail: We implore you not to scout the statline, but he’s a career.232/.328/.323 hitter in over a season worth of PA in the International League. He might just not be that good a hitter?
21. Austin Meadows, OF, Pittsburgh Pirates
Why He’ll Succeed: He has a long track record of minor league success. He has a well-rounded tool box that would look nice as an everyday outfielder in PNC Park.
Why He Might Fail: He has a recent track record of struggling against Triple-A pitching. He doesn’t have much of a track record of staying healthy.
22. Fernando Tatis, Jr., SS, San Diego Padres
Why He’ll Succeed: The plus power/speed combo ends up carrying the profile at whatever position he ends up. And hoo boy are the early returns there encouraging.
Why He Might Fail: That position is unlikely to be shortstop and there is risk that he whiffs enough that the power doesn’t play in games, and he isn’t on base enough to utilize his speed.
23. A.J. Puk, LHP, Oakland Athletics
Why He’ll Succeed: An explosive, upper-90s fastball from a 6-foot-7 lefty will cover a multitude of sins. A wipeout upper-80s slider should hide the rest. There is significant upside here.
Why He Might Fail: That’s a lot of limbs to corral. Puk is mechanically inconsistent, his command is below-average, and his changeup a work in progress. There is significant downside risk here.
24. Kolby Allard, LHP, Atlanta Braves
Why He’ll Succeed: If there is a recurring theme to the list, it would be “19-year-old Braves dudes killing the Southern League.” Allard came back from a 2016 back issue, skipped Advanced-A and hasn’t missed a beat. He features a low-90s fastball, paired with a potential plus hook, and enough control and command to slot into a mid-rotation spot before he can legally drink.
Why He Might Fail: The fastball is merely above-average. There’s a history of back issues. Also, he’s a pitcher (who might end up profiling as a command and control no. 4 lefty type) (okay this may show up a couple more times).
25. Michael Kopech, RHP, Chicago White Sox
Why He’ll Succeed: The 105 report may have been a wonky gun, but Kopech is no stranger to triple digit heat, and he may have the highest sitting velocity of any pitcher at any level, majors or minors (sorry Thor). There’s a plus slider lurking in the profile too. He doesn’t need much of a change or command bump to be a scary starting pitching prospect.
Why He Might Fail: He does need a change and command bump though. And while you don’t need to be too fine with 100-mph gas, Kopech has struggled to throw strikes with his arsenal and has already set a career high for IP in a season in 2017. There’s legitimate questions about his ability to start, and 100 mph and a plus slider isn’t as special in the pen as it was even five years ago.
26. Willy Adames, SS, Tampa Bay Rays
Why He’ll Succeed: He continues to stick at shortstop (pretty likely now). He maintains his hit tool against major league pitching (we’re reasonably confident). And he adds some more game pop (not impossible)
Why He Might Fail: He ends up at second base (It’s the Rays, they might even play him at first). His hit tool only plays to average against major league arms (major league baseball is hard, man). And he tops out around 10 bombs a year (that’s been about the number so far).
27. Alex Verdugo, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why He’ll Succeed: If you’re going to have one carrying tool, the hit tool is a good one to have. Verdugo’s might be double plus. He’s got a dynamic arm too, which should serve him well in right field if he can’t stick up the middle.
Why He Might Fail: There’s a decent chance he doesn’t stick up the middle as his speed is average and he could slow down as he matures. If the hit tool isn’t what we think it is, there’s not a ton to fall back on.
28. Yadier Alvarez, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why He’ll Succeed: The raw stuff is so good you could open a restaurant in a trendy part of NYC. It’s really easy, elite velocity paired with two potential plus secondaries. He’s long, lanky and has the athleticism to make it all work as a starter.
Why He Might Fail: The control and command are loose enough, and the changeup far away enough that he might not be a starter if it one or more of those aspects don’t take a significant step forward.
29. Bo Bichette, SS, Toronto Blue Jays
Why He’ll Succeed: While we predicted Bichette would make the 2018 101, he was the biggest jumper from our preseason rankings in terms of pure real estate and arrived here a few months early. Why? An advanced approach paired with the controlled violence in his swing led him to blitz Midwest League arms and dispel concerns about the risk in the offensive profile. It looks like the bat might play anywhere.
Why He Might Fail: The bat might play anywhere, but the glove likely won’t play at shortstop. The length and leverage in the swing means he won’t hit.380 at higher levels. He may not hit.280.
30. Leody Taveras, OF, Texas Rangers
Why He’ll Succeed: Tools play, the old adage goes, and Taveras has enough of them to stock your local Ace Hardware (stop giggling, Craig), assuming your local shop carries exactly five tools. That’s more than enough to make him one of the better center field prospects in baseball though and a potential star, albeit one that carries a lot of risk, because…
Why He Might Fail: …those tools haven’t actually played yet. There’s enough fallback on the center field glove to get him to the majors, but we are a ways from the bat allowing for more than that,
31. Lucas Giolito, RHP, Chicago White Sox
Why He’ll Succeed: I mean, it will look really bad if the only OFP 8 reports we have in the archive are all Giolito and he’s just a setup dude. So here’s hoping the stuff is starting to come back as reports have indicated.
Why He Might Fail: Well, we now have a few years of reports that the fastball velocity is down, the fastball command is fringy, and the curveball command is worse than that. There is no such thing as a pitching prospect, I have been told, and a late-inning reliever outcome doesn’t look so bad now.
32. Mike Soroka, RHP, Atlanta Braves
Why He’ll Succeed: Soroka is a precocious arm, already carving up Double-A hitters at 19 by hitting is spots with a plethora of average or better offerings. He has the frame to start and the stuff to sit in the middle of a big league rotation.
Why He Might Fail: While his success at Double-A gives us more hope for the profile (and gave him a big bump from his preseason ranking), it’s still not clear that there’s an out pitch here, and all his polish and pitchability may not miss enough major league bats to be more than a backend starter.
33. Nick Gordon, SS, Minnesota Twins
Why He’ll Succeed: He’s an everyday shortstop with plus hit and speed tools that round out a well-balanced profile on both sides of the ball at the 6.
Why He Might Fail: He’s an everyday second baseman who hits some, but never develops enough power to be an above-average regular at the 4.
34. Jorge Alfaro, C, Philadelphia Phillies
Why He’ll Succeed: Long-heralded catching prospect with huge raw tools, questions about whether he will stick behind the dish, and some post-hype fatigue around him…hmm, sounds familiar.
Why He Might Fail: Long-heralded catching prospect with huge raw tools, questions about whether he will stick behind the dish, and some post-hype fatigue around him…hmm, sounds familiar.
35. Triston McKenzie, RHP, Cleveland Indians
Why He’ll Succeed: He already dominates with a fastball in the low-90s and a potential plus curve. Just imagine the potential above-average major league starter he’ll be 30 pounds and three extra mph from now.
Why He Might Fail: His physical comp is closer to Christian Bale in The Machinist than it is a major league starter. Despite gaudy age-relative-to-league performance you are still betting on projection that may or may not come.
36. Carson Kelly, C, St. Louis Cardinals
Why He’ll Succeed: Kelly’s continued to hit in 2017, dispelling concerns that his 2016 was the offensive outlier. He’s a plus glove behind the plate and that should carry the profile even if his newfound power doesn’t translate against major league arms.
Why He Might Fail: Catchers are weird, man.
37. Chance Adams, RHP, New York Yankees
Why He’ll Succeed: He’s probably a MLB fourth starter already.
Why He Might Fail: It’s more of an overall package with no obvious out pitch, and he’s only been a starter since his first full pro season last year.
38. Isan Diaz, SS, Milwaukee Brewers
Why He’ll Succeed: There’s the potential for an above-average hit/power combo with a mature approach from an up-the-middle position with Diaz. He can already shorten his stroke versus same-side arms for contact and muscle up against right-handers for power.
Why He Might Fail: He might be up the middle but it’s unlikely to be at short. That puts pressure on a bat that can be short to the ball, but still entails a lot of swing and miss. If he can’t make enough contact, the power isn’t going to play to the point to support a three true outcomes player.
39. Sandy Alcantara, RHP, St. Louis Cardinals
Why He’ll Succeed: Number one regularly hits 100 and he’s got developing secondary stuff.
Why He Might Fail: As with many pitchers in this area, command is a more theoretical construct, leading him to struggle some at Double-A. The bullpen may await.
40. Ozzie Albies, IF, Atlanta Braves
Why He’ll Succeed: He hits (a bunch) and runs (very quickly) until they tag him out while manning an up-the-middle position.
Why He Might Fail: The hardest thing to be sure of is how a hit tool like this will play against major league arms, and well, if he doesn’t hit there isn’t a ton more to the profile.
41. Ryan Mountcastle, SS, Baltimore Orioles
Why He’ll Succeed: He can hit and hit for power. He’s got above-average bat speed, the ability to control the bat head, and impressive hands that add together for potential plus power.
Why He Might Fail: He really has to hit because he’s not a shortstop and he might not be an infielder. If he has to move off the dirt, his arm makes him a liability anywhere but left, so…it’s a good thing he can hit.
42. Alec Hansen, RHP, Chicago White Sox
Why He’ll Succeed: He’s a big, durable righty that projects to have a plus fastball, plus curve, and average change. Yes, we are still in that mid-rotation starter range.
Why He Might Fail: The change isn’t there yet, the command isn’t there yet. He might be better suited to relief. You know the drill here.
43. Jason Groome, LHP, Boston Red Sox
Why He’ll Succeed: He may have already surpassed Lucas Giolito for the title of “prettiest natural curveball in the minors,” and he also brings a MLB quality fastball and change to a power pitcher’s body.
Why He Might Fail: He’s only pitched slightly more pro innings than you have.
44. Riley Pint, RHP, Colorado Rockies
Why He’ll Succeed: There’s potentially four average-or-better offerings here with the fastball comfortably plus-plus with the shot for even more if he refines his command.
Why He Might Fail: So about that command part…
45. Forrest Whitley, RHP, Houston Astros
Why He’ll Succeed: He’s a big, durable righty that projects to have plus fastball, plus curve and average change (plus a pretty good cutter). Yes, we are still in that mid-rotation starter range.
Why He Might Fail: He’s a big guy with long levers, and the command may never even be average. The change might also never be average. He might be better suited to relief. You know the drill here.
46. Magneuris Sierra, OF, St. Louis Cardinals
Why He’ll Succeed: An above-average hit tool paired with high-end speed is a good place to start. Mix in quality center field defense and a successful cameo at the major-league level, and baby, you got a stew goin’.
Why He Might Fail: There’s just not a ton of power and if MLB pitchers find out he can’t punish them for being in the zone, it could sink the profile down to a reserve outfielder.
47. Justus Sheffield, LHP, New York Yankees
Why He’ll Succeed: He’s a lefty with a mid-90s fastball that shows good late life and a potential wipeout slider.
Why He Might Fail: He’s a short lefty who doesn’t always command that fastball and only shows occasional feel for the changeup.
48. Ian Anderson, RHP, Atlanta Braves
Why He’ll Succeed: He’s an cold-weather arm, so there’s possibly more projection here than your standard issue athletic prep righty. The stuff is already pretty good with a fastball that can bump the mid-nineties and a curve that flashes plus.
Why He Might Fail: Command, change-up, relief. Darmok and Jalad with the third starter projection.
49. Adrian Morejon, LHP, San Diego Padres
Why He’ll Succeed: Morejon has more upside than most of the arms in this range, with a fastball that will sit plus, a potential above-average curve, a (gasp) change that projects as an out pitch, and (double gasp) advanced command for his experience level.
Why He Might Fail: His experience level is a couple starts in the Northwest League.
50. Scott Kingery, 2B, Philadelphia Phillies
Why He’ll Succeed: After percolating through the low-minors as a quality slash-and-dash second base prospect with minimal power, Kingery suddenly broke out into one of the minor’s best overall and power hitters. Baseball is weird.
Why He Might Fail: Bluntly, nobody thinks the 2017 statistical power surge is completely composed of MLB-quality game power; if we did, he would be dozens of spots higher.
N.B. From the reports we were able to compile, it seems obvious that Luis Robert is—broadly speaking—a top 50 prospect in baseball. Picking where he falls on the top 50, however, is akin to throwing a dart until we have actual stateside looks to add to our portfolio of information. This is a continuation of sorts from my Lourdes Gurriel essay from our preseason Blue Jays list. It’s probably unavoidable that we’ll have to deal with this in the offseason—we did rank Kevin Maitan preseason after all—but the backbone of our work is live looks, and those just aren’t in the offing for Robert right now.Got an old paperback of Moonraker gathering dust on your bookshelf? Get it down to this year’s Antiquarian Book Fair and it could make you £55,000. But unearth a first edition of Marilyn Monroe’s favourite book and you could REALLY hit the jackpot...
While Marilyn Monroe used to enjoy reading James Joyce’s challenging novel Ulysses aloud to make sense of it, if you find a first edition in good condition complete with dust jacket, you could make £250,000
Sometimes, you really should judge a book by the cover – it might make you money.
Blow the dust from that old James Bond hardback propping up a spider plant in the sitting room.
Does it reveal a first edition, complete with slightly sinister dust jacket by acclaimed British illustrator Richard Chopping?
Then it could be worth £3,100 (as long as you haven’t watered the plant recently). That’s the asking price for a skull-adorned copy of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger at the 58th London Antiquarian Book Fair, which opens at Olympia on Thursday.
Ten years ago Fleming collectors would have been at the front of the queue to claim it, but now there are likely to be just as many Chopping fans.
The increasing popularity of dust-jacket collecting is just one aspect of a burgeoning rare book market that runs from modernists such as James Joyce to mammoth examples of the printer’s art.
The Birds Of America by early 19th century painter and naturalist John James Audubon sold for an astonishing £7,321,250 in 2010 at Christie’s London auction rooms.
Internationally, the rare book market is worth over £322.25 million annually, big enough to ensure that crowds of enthusiastic bibliophiles will be pushing through the doors of Olympia next weekend.
Among them will be the legendary book dealer and international Booker Prize judge Rick Gekoski.
‘Nobody gets rich doing this,’ says Gekoski, now 70, ruefully.
‘The biggest book firms might have a turnover of say £10 million or £15 million, and profits of even a few hundred thousand in a year are very rare in the trade.
'Rather it’s the possibility that this time you’ll find something special.’
For Gekoski, that something special is often in the small personal details.
‘I have a copy of The Return Of AJ Raffles by Graham Greene,’ he says.
‘It’s not a particularly important play but Greene signed the book to Catherine Walston, the great love of his life.
'She was a femme fatale who caught Greene by asking him to be her godfather when she joined the Catholic Church. I’d say it’s worth £3,600, but more importantly that copy of the book brings back the wonderful story of this fantastic seduction.’
Copies signed by the author are increasingly sought after by collectors. They add both value and what Gekoski calls the ‘alchemy of the writer’s presence’.
However, some writers are more generous inscribers than others.
‘Ernest Hemingway was a very sociable guy,’ says Gekoski. ‘He liked to drink and when he did, he liked to give people his books, so he signed many.
'TS Eliot signed a little bit but Thomas Pynchon rarely ever does.’
Which is good news if you own one of his books. In the U.S., signed first editions of Pynchon’s 1997 novel Mason And Dixon fetch over $50,000, but how can you be sure a signature is genuine?
‘There have been a number of faked Hemingway inscriptions,’ says Gekoski.
‘Though they wouldn’t fool somebody who really knew Hemingway’s hand. A good forger can even make ink from the Twenties but at the £2,500 price level and below people take it for granted that things are all right and 99 per cent of the time they are.’
More than 30 years in the business has taught Gekoski a simple rule that equally applies if you are just starting to collect or are an established dealer with a list of rich clients.
‘The earlier the book,’ he says, ‘then the less known the author. The less known the author then the less copies they’ll print. The less copies they print, the higher the price.’
He cites a first edition of Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone as an example.
‘When Bloomsbury signed JK Rowling an editor took her to lunch and said: ‘We are happy to publish this but nobody makes money out of children’s books.’
Consequently Bloomsbury only printed 500 copies of the first edition of The Philosopher’s Stone in 1997. I’ve had a copy of that first edition reach £20,000.’
If that’s slightly out of your range we’ve picked ten other fascinating books you can find on the stands at this year’s show.
The London International Antiquarian Book Fair is at Olympia from Thursday to May 30, www.olympiabookfair.com
Ten rare titles to look out for at this year’s fair
1. Moonraker (1955), Ian Fleming
Value: £55,000
Ian Fleming’s adventurer brother Peter is often cited as the prototype Bond, but the hawkishly handsome Ivar Bryce, his close friend at Eton and a renowned womaniser, inspired 007’s sexual success
It’s hard to think of a 007 book with better provenance than this first-edition copy of Moonraker, inscribed and presented by Ian Fleming to Ivar Bryce, his close friend at Eton. Bryce was also a fellow employee of British intelligence during the Second World War, working in New York alongside Roald Dahl (who would go on to write the screenplay for the 1967 film You Only Live Twice, starring Sean Connery). Such personal details from a truly world-famous author can have a startling effect on price and the Bryce Moonraker is expected to demand upwards of £55,000. Fleming’s adventurer brother Peter is often cited as the prototype Bond, but the hawkishly handsome Bryce, a renowned womaniser, inspired 007’s sexual success. Ironically, Bond’s charms fail in Moonraker. Shortly after she has helped 007 launch a nuclear missile into the North Sea, Special Branch officer Gala Brand rejects him for her fiancé.
2. The Lord Of The Rings (1954-55) /Songs For The Philologists (1936), JRR Tolkien
Value: £20,000/£13,550
Near-pristine sets of the three-volume Lord Of The Rings first editions don’t come up for sale often, which is why this copy – complete with maps and illustrations by the author – is expected to fetch over £20,000
Near-pristine sets of the three-volume Lord Of The Rings first editions don’t come up for sale often, which is why this copy – complete with maps and illustrations by the author – is expected to fetch over £20,000. The fair also offers a glimpse of a younger Tolkien. In the early Twenties, he and colleagues at the University of Leeds formed the Viking Club, meeting to drink ale and write poetry inspired by Norse sagas. The poems were gathered together as Songs For The Philologists in the Thirties, but most copies were destroyed in a disastrous fire as the One Ring one day would be. That makes this rare survivor worth £13,550.
3. The Mysterious Affair At Styles (1921), Agatha Christie
Value: £13,000
Agatha Christie joined a Voluntary Aid unit on the South Coast nursing the wounded from France, assisting at operations. Having seen so much blood in real life, she kept her fictional world relatively gore-free
This faded first edition of Christie’s first novel – the inaugural outing for detective Hercule Poirot – was published in 1921 when First World War rationing meant books were still printed on inferior paper. So to find a copy in this condition – ‘exceptional’ according to the experts – is a rare event, pushing the price to £13,000. The conflict also had a marked effect on the author. Christie joined a Voluntary Aid unit on the South Coast nursing the wounded from France, assisting at operations and, as she later remembered, ‘putting amputated limbs in the furnaces’. Having seen so much blood in real life, Christie kept her fictional world relatively gore-free. In The Mysterious Affair At Styles the murder is by strychnine poisoning.
4. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland (1865) and Through The Looking-Glass... (1871), Lewis Carroll
Value: £9,250
Lewis Carroll completed Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and its sequel Through The Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There in daily ten-hour stints at his writing lectern
Lewis Carroll prefigured the current health fad for standing up as you work by 150 years – he completed Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and its sequel Through The Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There in daily ten-hour stints at his writing lectern. Elsewhere at the fair, an 1867 third edition of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland is expected to fetch only £950. But these unique editions were re-bound by the famed 20th-century English bookbinder George Baytun – the smock-wearing master craftsman who became Queen Margaret’s personal binder in later life. His outstanding craftsmanship pushes the price up to £9,250.
5. A Farewell To Arms (1929), Ernest Hemingway
Value: £2,500
The first edition of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arm is notable for the complete absence of the profanities with which the writer littered the manuscript of his First World War love story
If you ever come across James Joyce’s personal book collection then look out for the Irish author’s signed copy of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel. The first edition is notable for the complete absence of the profanities with which Hemingway littered the manuscript of his First World War love story. Each one has been replaced with a dash to placate the censors in the U.S. (even that wasn’t enough for Italy, where the book was banned as an ‘insult to the honour of the Italian army’). Hemingway was so put out by the changes that when he gave a personal copy to Joyce he inked in each missing profanity by hand. A fine copy like this is worth £2,500 but Joyce’s, with added swear words, could be worth millions.
6. The House At Pooh Corner (1928), AA Milne
Value: £2,000
Although The House At Pooh Corner is one of a special run of 250 copies of the American first edition signed by AA Milne and illustrator EH Sheppard, expect to pay only about £2,000 for it
Published in 1928, the third Winnie-the- Pooh story introduced the ‘bouncing’ Tigger. Although it is one of a special run of 250 copies of the American first edition signed by AA Milne and illustrator EH Sheppard, expect to pay only about £2,000 for it, as AA Milne would often sign books to increase his revenue. In 1905 he had published his first novel, Lovers In London; it was so bad that Milne used the money made from Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures to buy up the copyright and prevent it ever being republished in the hope it would ‘never be read again’. It worked.
7. Childhood’s End (1953), Arthur C Clarke
Value: £1,750
Arthur C Clarke's Childhood’s End inspired songs by Pink Floyd (sample lyric: ‘As the sail is hoist/you find your eyes are growing moist’), Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator
Richard M Powers’ artwork for the cover of Childhood’s End invented psychedelia 15 years before it actually happened. This makes the alien invasion novel that launched Arthur C Clarke a favourite of both sci-fi dust jacket collectors, who will pay £1,750 for a copy in good condition, and progressive rock musicians. Childhood’s End inspired songs by Pink Floyd (sample lyric: ‘As the sail is hoist/you find your eyes are growing moist’), Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator. Before that, Stanley Kubrick tried and failed to get the film rights. Rebuffed by the lawyers, Kubrick turned instead to a Clarke short story called The Sentinel. It became the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
8. The Pothunters (1902), PG Wodehouse
Value: £1,500
The Pothunters is one of PG Wodehouse’s rarer early works – had you heard of it? – and a copy in good condition can make £6,000
The Pothunters is one of PG Wodehouse’s rarer early works – had you heard of it? – and a copy in good condition can make £6,000. This one has miraculously survived a lifetime in public libraries reasonably unscathed, and at £1,500 should slip away faster than Bertie Wooster fleeing an aunt. The great humourist part dedicated his public school adventure to Bill Townend, Wodehouse’s best friend at Dulwich College. Wodehouse went on to correspond with Townend for half a century and his letters occasionally reveal the darker Plum within. Wodehouse told Townend in 1923: ‘I am undergoing one of my periodical fits of depression about my work. I don’t seem to have the vim I used to have.’ Happily the vim came back.
9. You Only Live Twice (1964), Ian Fleming
Value: £1,250
Although there are many copies of You Only Live Twice in circulation – 56,000 were printed in the first run – enthusiasm for Chopping’s cover art means a copy in this condition will go for at least £1,250
Published in the year of Ian Fleming’s death, this sought-after first-edition has the distinctive, if disturbing, ‘Toad’ dust-jacket design by acclaimed British trompe l’oeil artist Richard Chopping. Although there are many copies in circulation – 56,000 were printed in the first run – enthusiasm for Chopping’s cover art means a copy in this condition will go for at least £1,250. Why the toad? Chopping had previously employed guns and playing cards but Fleming’s last full Bond novel has dark themes of despair and alcoholism. To mirror them, Chopping borrowed a pet toad. It proved to be a reluctant life model, at one point attempting to escape Chopping’s studio.
10. If – A Poem (1914), Rudyard Kipling
Value: £700
Repeatedly voted the nation’s favourite poem, If was first published in Kipling’s 1910 collection of stories and poems, Rewards And Fairies. The poem’s championing of manly virtues was hugely popularApparently Uncle Louie LLC and The Fat Boys don’t like to repay their debts.
Now, that was the response I got since I have brought this up directly to Uncle Louie on Twitter.
UPDATES:
Devo Spice releases a video explaining the situation:
Devo Spice posts chronological order of events:
http://devospice.livejournal.com/360237.html
Help in the Reddit thread here:
http://t.co/Hypg3R4k
Anyways, I’ll let Tom Rockwell, aka DevoSpice of (The Fump) fill you in with the details.
“The Lawsuit I Wish Never Happened
(July 16, 2012) Source.
I’ve talked about this briefly in the past but didn’t want to say too much until things were finalized. I don’t really know why. I’ve just heard that’s what you do with lawsuits, I guess so you don’t jinx them. This is the short version. I’ll talk about this more on this month’s episode of The Insider which I’ll try to have done by this weekend.
In 2009 I had an opportunity to have Prince Markie Dee of The Fat Boys appear on one of my songs. If you know me you know I grew up a huge Fat Boys fan so I jumped at this opportunity. I was so excited for this. I believe the technical term is “I plotzed.” I paid his manager for the verse, and as you can probably guess since this article is called “The Lawsuit,” it never arrived. Mark kept promising he would get me the verse and then I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks at a time. My album’s release date came and went in 2011 without the song on it but he kept telling me he would get it done. Finally in August of 2011 he told me he recorded the verse. I was psyched, thinking this was finally going to happen, but he never sent it. My patience finally ran out this spring and I gave Mark and his manager until the end of April to get me the verse. That didn’t happen. Then I gave them until the end of May to give me my money back. That didn’t happen either. So I sued in small claims court. That happened.
The lawsuit was against Mark’s manager’s company, the Uncle Louie Music Group. My case was heard this morning and Mark’s manager didn’t show up. They are based in Florida and the trip would cost them more than they owe me so I wasn’t expecting them to show. But the judge wouldn’t just give me a default judgement until I presented my case. So I did. It was a lot of “this happened, here’s a print out showing that, then this happened, here’s a print out showing that,” etc. In the end he ruled in my favor, so now I get to try to collect on the judgement which is going to be fun. Fun in the scratching-your-eyes-on-a-thorn-bush kind of way.
The song is called “7 Deadly Sins.” It’s about a guy using the 7 deadly sins as a checklist on how to live his life. My plan was to have Prince Markie Dee interrupt me during the Gluttony verse and then go into a classic Fat Boys verse about all the food he can pound down. It also features The Great Luke Ski on the Pride verse because duh. The song is done, except for Mark’s recording. Since it’s so close to completion I am going to finish the song with a different vocalist. I already have someone lined up for this and I’m very happy to have him on board. So the song should come out great anyway.
Listen to this month’s episode of The Insider for the entire long, excruciating story.”
The Insider episode can be found here:
The Insider Podcast MP3
Detailed explanation about the lawsuit starts at 6:45
What was the response from The Fat Boys?
It’s in my opinion that Uncle Louie knows exactly what he is doing, how much he owes DevoSpice, and should get off his fat ass and pay what he owes.
The record industry needs to be put in it’s place in situations like this, because larger corporations will continue to try to stomp out the little guy.TRISTRAM Hunt will not stand in the Labour leadership contest after finding out he was actually a Conservative all along.
The shadow education secretary made the discovery after some basic research on Wikipedia to find out his weaknesses as a candidate.
He said: “I knew I was a Blairite, but when I found out my father is a life peer in the House of Lords and that I went to Westminster School I thought ‘how odd’.
“I then discovered that my cousin is Virginia Bottomley, the former Tory cabinet minister. That is deeply suspicious.
“And, of course, my name is ‘Tristram’.
“Tristram.”
On checking his beliefs, Hunt found that he supported low taxes on wealth creators, cutting benefits for low-income households and tighter immigration |
plant recognised by the National Electricity Market, while Infigen, the Moree solar consortium and other groups have applied for funding from the newly established Australian Renewable Energy Agency is scaled down versions of the flagships applications. The investment bank Investec is also considering a solar PV project in WA, which enjoys the richest resource of solar in the country, and the highest energy costs.
It is ironic to note that the Greenough River farm was developed because WA government was determined to have a slice of the Solar Flagships scheme, but its plans did not qualify. The Rudd government wanted only massive projects of 250MW, later diluted to a slightly more palatable 150MW. That would not have been possible in regional WA because of grid issues. The irony is that this project is built, while construction on the flagships projects will not commence for another two years. It highlights what a wasted opportunity the flagships program was.
Even so, the WA government is not quite as excited about the opportunities as it might have been. WA Premier Colin Barnett is opposing the 41,000GWh fixed renewable energy target, and energy minister Peter Collier, while praising solar at the opening of the Greenough River Faarm today, was also hedging his bets about the future of the LRET. WA has nearly doubled its renewable energy penetration from around 5 per cent to just over 9 per cent, but it would need to do a lot to meet 20 per cent. But he did notice the swarms of flies. “They must all be greenies,” he quipped.Members of the Westboro Baptist Church showed up at Central Junior High School in Moore., Okla., on Sunday to picket -- but the people of Moore were not having it.
As the hate group waved their trademark "God Hates Fags" signs in the rain, hundreds of people lined up across the road to stand together against WBC.
Moore was hit by a deadly tornado last year, and the school has been housing Plaza Towers Elementary students since the natural disaster. On their website, WBC explained that they believe the tornado was an example of "God's wrath."
Amanda Eccles said to KFOR-TV, “It’s just sickening. You know, it’s just innocent kids that lost lives and it’s sickening for them to even think that way.”
Though WBC reportedly had a permit to picket for half an hour beginning at 2:00 p.m., they stayed for a mere eight minutes before hastily getting into their cars and driving away when Moore residents began to cross the picket lines. Police intervened to separate the protestors and counter-protestors as the WBC rushed to leave.
The Westboro Baptist Church posted a Vine video afterwards which failed to mention their hasty departure:
A video posted by a counter-protestor shows what really happened:
“I thought it was hilarious. I mean I really did. We sat there and laughed the whole time,” Tina Johnson, a counter-protester, commented. “They were running, yeah.”
Dan Eccles told KFOR, “They shagged tail, got in them cars and was leaving in a hurry. Oh yeah, they was gone!”Venue: Dilli Haat, INA
Date: 1-15 January, 2015
Dastkaar has organized its first event this year at the INA Dilli Haat (INA Metro Station).
Given the great exhibits displaying the best of Indian (and Tibet) handicrafts, this is a great beginning to the crafts calendar. The handpicked artisans from all over the country have set up their bases at the Haat this fortnight. They have got along with them hand woven materials, clothes and saris, winter wear comprising woven as well as knitted items, clothes, light furniture, ornaments, bags, masks and artifacts and, of course, handmade flowers!
Additionally, some of the artists are displaying their skills. Consequently, a potter has been tirelessly engaging with children and teaching them how to make pots using the potter’s wheel. Weavers have also got along full looms and weaving away pieces of fabrics while explaining the technology to curious visitors.
Various folk performances like Rajasthani dances, vocal music as well as puppet shows are adding to the ambience.
The greatly aesthetic and festive environment coupled with the state wise food stalls is a great winter do that is a great way to usher in the year. Further, by moving away from Kisaan Haat at Chhatarpur, the organizers have succeeded in breaking the monotony and making the fair more accessible to people.
Only word of caution – the parking scene is quite messy – you may be better off taking the metro.Michael founded GeeklyInc with Tim Lanning way back in 2013 when they realized they had two podcasts and needed a place to stick them. Since then, Geekly has grown and taken off in ways Michael could have never imagined.
The victory over the Oakback troops is short lived since, well, there is still that tank thing causing mayhem. With our heroes already in pain this dreadnaught will be a tough foe indeed. Will overconfidence be the downfall of all that they have strived to achieve? Will they all just die? Probably not, but listen to find out!
The adventure continues with Titus Harper (Tim Lanning), Jett Razor (Mike Bachmann), Aludra (Jennifer Cheek), Jaela (Nika Howard) and your Dungeon Master (Michael DiMauro). Don’t forget to follow our editor Steph Kingston (@stephokingston)!Twitter is down 9.88% at $16.87 a share on Thursday morning after the social media company missed analysts' expectations for its fourth-quarter revenue but beat on earnings.
Advertising spend lagged behind a recent boost in daily use of the platform. Twitter's monthly active users grew to 319 million, up from 317 million in the prior quarter. Daily active use grew 11% year-on-year, up from growth of 7% in the third quarter, which the company credited to product improvements, marketing, and "organic trends."
Advertising revenue in the quarter was down 1% year-on-year. The company said strength in its video ads was being offset by declines in its marquee ad format — promoted tweets — and direct-response ads. US ad revenue declined 7% year-on-year to $382 million in the quarter.
Twitter continues to be a loss-making company, reporting a net loss of $167 million in the quarter and a net loss of $457 million for the full financial year.
Here are the key numbers:
Q4 revenue: $717 million versus $740.14 million expected by analysts
Q4 EPS (adjusted): $0.16, versus $0.12 a share expected by analysts
Q1 guidance: Adjusted EBITDA to be $75 million to $95 million, adjusted EBITDA margin to be 17% to 17.5%.Story Highlights
Author Rashmi Bansal says Murthy touched her inappropriately at a cafe in Mumbai during a business meeting in 2004; another woman, Anamika, says she had a similar experience at the same cafe around six months earlier
Murthy has denied the allegations, which he said were “not only false, but also very old”
Murthy’s founding partners at Seedfund said they do not endorse or condone the alleged behaviour and added that there were at least two instances when the fund’s LPs (limited partners) asked about allegations against Murthy
Allegations of inappropriate verbal and physical conduct against Mahesh Murthy, a prominent venture and angel investor in India, continue with two more women talking openly about instances of sexual advances made by him — bordering on, if not outright, sexually predatory behaviour — 13-14 years ago.
It has also emerged that Seedfund Advisors LLP, the venture capital firm that Murthy is still a managing partner with, knew of his transgressions with women who met him in professional contexts. But, the firm did not receive a single complaint or otherwise did not have proof to take action against him, two of its partners have said.
Murthy has denied the allegations, which he said were “not only false, but also very old”. He said he has filed a case of defamation in the Delhi High Court against “specific defendants.”
Digital publications YourStory Media and She The People had published articles on the allegations after Wamika Iyer accused Murthy of alleged misconduct in February this year. A source said Iyer, YourStory, Deccan Chronicle, and Twitter India were among the defendants, but this could not be independently confirmed.
The new allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Murthy — ranging from verbal propositioning to suggestive gestures to physical touch — have been made by Rashmi Bansal, an author and well-known speaker on entrepreneurship, and Anamika, an HR director at the Bangalore unit of a multinational, who has requested FactorDaily not to use her second name in this report.
Murthy sent an emailed reply to FactorDaily — reproduced in entirety at the end of this report — to questions that FactorDaily had sent Thursday evening.
“I take any allegations of impropriety seriously and have retained legal help on similar stories published in February. Before I start, my lawyers, also copied on this mail, ask me to tell you the following (in italics): I have already filed a suit in the Delhi High Court and sought reliefs against specific defendants (who happen to be known to you and Sharad Sharma) as also to “Ashok Kumar” (which is in the nature of seeking a John Doe order i.e against members of the public at large) in respect of publication of certain defamatory allegations against me. The suit also refers to members of the public conspiring to do so,” he said in the email.
The Sharad Sharma Murthy refers to is the co-founder of iSpirt, a think tank and advocacy group on software products in India. Elsewhere in his reply, Murthy alleges Sharma has been encouraging FactorDaily “to write this piece about me”. The basis of that charge is not immediately clear.
FactorDaily takes its journalism seriously, and its ethics are spelt out in our code of conduct, and public interest forms the bedrock of our journalism. By way of disclosure, Murthy is an investor in The-Ken, a subscriber-only, Bangalore-based business journalism digital media company. To the extent that The-Ken reports on technology as part of its broader remit, FactorDaily could be seen as a rival.
“I felt cheap and violated and disgusted”
Bansal and Anamika’s stories date back to 2004 and 2003 respectively — barely six months apart.
When Bansal, now in her mid-40s, met Murthy in February 2004 for a cup of coffee at Mocha, a popular cafe in Bandra, Mumbai, she says, the agenda was to discuss and take advice on running a media business. Back then, Bansal used to run JAM (Just Another Magazine), a publication for the youth, and Murthy had the experience of having run Channel V in India during January 1999 to October 2000.
Two months before the meeting 13 years ago, Murthy and Bansal had first connected on Ryze, an online networking platform launched in 2001 and with around 100,000 members by 2004.
“It was a pretty good concept in those days, like you had a website and you also had a monthly meeting in different cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and so on. So I attended one of these Mumbai meets, which was called a mixer, and everyone basically came and exchanged their cards… that kind of a thing,” she recalls.
I am meeting her at cafe located inside Mumbai’s Laxmi Mills, a compound of decades old, abandoned ruins of textile factories, now leased out to new-age businesses.
“He asked me how’s JAM doing, and I said yeah we’re doing fine, but of course it’s tough to get advertising…we had some conversation like that. So he said okay, let’s meet up and let’s discuss… I didn’t even think twice… so many people you meet like this. It’s part of my profession and my job is to meet people,” says Bansal, who grew up in Mumbai and did her MBA from IIM Ahmedabad in 1991-1993.
“Then, couple of months later, he sent me a message saying let’s meet for chai, or coffee or whatever, and I met him at Mocha… I mean not for any particular reason, but thinking ok may be exchange of ideas…something…how to take JAM forward. I mean the way you meet anybody,” says Bansal, who has authored seven books since then, including the book “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” on entrepreneurship, which has sold over half a million copies.
“Very quickly he just started talking personal, he himself mentioned about his ‘open marriage’… Ok…the first thing after a few.. couple of, you know, may be 10 minutes, he started talking about open marriage. I didn’t even know what an open marriage was… and was just curious ki ye kya hota hai (what is it)… and I had never met a person who had an open marriage. The way he said it, made it sound like everyone has an open marriage… that’s the way to be,” she says.
Then, according to Rashmi, he shifted to sit on her side, closer to her.
“He leaned forward and touched me inappropriately,” she recalls. “So basically he had the guts to actually reach across and touch me.”
In a later conversation with FactorDaily, we asked Bansal whether she remembered anything more specific, she said: “Well I do remember there was an unwanted advance towards me which I didn’t like… like… I just….”
Was it verbal? “Yeah, verbally, and then he put his hand on my thigh — I remember that — and maybe he touched my cheek. I cannot recall the details now. But I just, I just get a creepy feeling… like (thinking)… about it.”
Shocked and confused, Bansal got up and left the cafe.
“But in the car, on my way to my office I started crying. I felt cheap and violated and disgusted.”
For his part, Murthy says in his email that while he knows of Bansal and remembers meeting her at Mocha cafe, “It was cordial but unpleasant meeting (sic)”.
“We disagreed on at least two issues that I recall: her plans and potential funding needs for JAM Magazine which she used to then run and which I said I had little faith in. And second, a philosophical disagreement about MBAs from IIMs tending to become employees more than entrepreneurs,” says Murthy.
“I am not sure what Ms. Bansal’s allegations are but if, as you imply, they are about ‘inappropriate verbal or physical contact’ then I absolutely deny them as a complete and utter lie and fabrication. Nothing of that sort happened or could have happened. It was in a cafe where others were present, in broad daylight,” he adds.
“Oh, and it’s certainly strange that she or you should choose to air them now, 13 or 14 years later,” he says.
Bansal also talks about an article on business networking in the September 2004 issue of Businessworld magazine, where she hinted at the Mocha cafe incident without naming Murthy.
“There is one last issue with online networking – that of trust. Most of the people you meet online are genuinely helpful, good, decent folks. But don’t forget that rotten apples do exist. This is something to keep in mind, especially if you’re female — single or married. If a prominent Mumbai Ryzer suggests ‘let’s meet at Mocha’, be warned the stimulation he’s seeking ain’t intellectual,” she had written in the Businessworld column.
According to her, though he was not named and the “prominent Mumbai Ryzer” could have been anybody, Murthy wrote an email to her responding to the article.
“I hear from quite a few Ryzers and others back in India that you’ve written an article in Businessworld about networking that makes a pointed gossipy reference to me in a deeply disparaging way,” Murthy said in the email. Other parts of the email also alleged Bansal was talking behind his back to others about his alleged inappropriate behaviour.
Murthy, in his email reply to FactorDaily, asked for time to respond to this. “I am traveling in Europe now and do not have online or mobile access to the email account Passionfund which I used back in 2003 and 2004. I stopped using this account over a decade ago and the emails you refer to may be backed up on a hard drive in Bombay and I arrive back only on April 24. I request you to give me time to get back, find the drive and access this, if at all possible.” FactorDaily will update this report when and if Murthy responds to it.
Back to my meeting with Bansal in the Laxmi Mills compound.
As we’re talking, Bansal looks broken, sad and just stops short of crying.
What took her more than 13 years to come out in public and share her story?
“I saw him doing this to other people and people like Wamika who’s hardly in her twenties. I mean she’s a young girl, obviously didn’t approach him for that purpose and she went through the same shit,” she says, referring to Wamika Iyer’s complaints that surfaced in February this year. Murthy responded to the charges that have surfaced in the past few months (and an incident dating back to 2007) in a Medium post titled “The confessions of a serial offender.”
For Bansal, mother of an 18-year-old daughter, the recent developments have been the trigger for sharing her own experience.
“I am sorry but girls always think may be I have done something to encourage him or you know… this is how stupid we are. We actually think maybe I gave him some signals… I should have got up and left when he started talking about open marriage,” she says.
“I feel like it’s kind of an unfinished business for me, why did I let it happen to me and I would not like to see more and more young girls get into this,” she says.
Mocha Cafe Part II
Anamika, who asked for only her first name to be used in this report, had just moved to Mumbai in March 2003 after getting married. She, too, had joined the Ryze network for making new connections and got pinged by Murthy, she says.
“My husband saw that he (Murthy) had pinged me, and he asked me to respond to him since he was an influential, cerebral writer,” Anamika recalls. After she responded, a meeting was set up. The venue, again, was the Mocha cafe.
Anamika can’t remember the exact date and month of the meeting. She says it was September or October of 2003. She drove to the cafe from her office in Andheri West for the noon meeting.
“We sat in a corner, it was an ‘L-shaped’ table and we were sitting at the far ends,” she says.
“Would you like some tea, coffee,” Murthy asked, according to Anamika.
“No.”
After Murthy’s coffee came and they got chatting. He said she was cute.
Then, he offered Anamika a sip from his cup. “Why don’t you also take a sip?”
“I don’t want,” Anamika recalls saying, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. She was 26 back then and was a newbie in Mumbai. She had grown up in Chandigarh, not a small town by any stretch, but was still in awe of the metropolis, its people, and, at that moment, of Murthy, she says.
“And all of a sudden, he asked me to sit closer, and I said, no, I’m good,” she says.
“Are you scared?” he asked.
“And then he put both his hands around me, and touched my cheek.”
“I was very scared, I got up and said, let’s go,” she says.
As she walked out, several questions kept hounding her.
“Why did he say I was cute?”
“Why would he offer me to sip coffee from his cup?”
“I came out, cried and later told my husband.”
“I also thought maybe this is what happens in Mumbai and it’s an acceptable behaviour. It’s only later that I realised that wasn’t the case, people in Mumbai too had questions on such behaviour,” she says.
Responding to allegations made by Anamika, Murthy told FactorDaily he doesn’t recollect meeting Anamika.
“I have no memory of talking to, chatting with, coming across or ever meeting any such person. In fact I just logged back on to Ryze after more than a decade just to check who this person might be – and it appears that there was no person by that name or by variations of that name who even existed on Ryze in the period you refer to. I can’t even seem to find this person on LinkedIn today,” he wrote in his email.
Meanwhile, Anamika said she’s still not forgotten the incident. “Now that I lead a large HR organisation, I can stand up and say that I would not like this to happen with anyone else.”
As we’ve been reporting over past few months on FactorDaily, sexism and unfair treatment of women across India’s technology and startup ecosystem is worsening. Like Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily flagged in this Outliers Podcast, Indian founders and investors shouldn’t be getting inspired with Silicon Valley’s “bro culture” and “asshole culture.” And as Ashwini Asokan, the cofounder of artificial intelligence startup, MadStreetDen, had pointed out in this Outliers Podcast, sexism in the Indian ecosystem needs to be arrested urgently.
The Seedfund view
Murthy’s founding partners at Seedfund said they do not endorse or condone behaviour alleged of and added that there were at least two instances when the fund’s LPs (short for limited partners) asked about the allegations against Murthy. LPs are investors who come together in forming a venture or private equity fund.
“They (LPs) had heard and they called also. Can’t remember the dates, but I think this conversation with one of the LPs took place may be in 2014-15,” said Pravin Gandhi, one of the three founding partners at Seedfund. The other two are Bharati Jacob and Murthy.
“I think there’ve been two instances where I had to do Facebook posts saying that we (Seedfund) have nothing to do with it… May be 2013-2014 is when they (LPs) saw the first of that behaviour, and our message to them was that it has been dealt by the Facebook post. But till (you have) proof you can’t do much,” Gandhi, who works and lives in Mumbai, said in a phone interview.
Jacob too expressed pain and regret and said that Gandhi and she had stopped working with Murthy since 2013.
“The fact that there were murmurs about his behaviour with women and his style of working and he wasn’t putting much effort into doing what is right by the fund and was busy building his personal brand… all these factors came into play when we decided not to continue working with him,” Jacob said in an interview in Bengaluru.
While the role of Murthy at Seedfund was reduced, he continued to be seen as a founding partner for the outside world.
“It pains me to think that people believe we would support or endorse allegations about his behaviour with women. It is one of the big the reasons why we said we won’t work with him. Even if it was the only reason and he was a brilliant worker we would have made the same call,” said Jacob.
Murthy said it is incorrect to link the changes in his role at Seedfund to allegations of impropriety with women entrepreneurs or executives.
“You seem to allege that either or both of the above (allegations from Rashmi Bansal and Anamika) has somehow impacted Seedfund and my place in it. That is completely untrue. Pravin Gandhi and I came up with the idea of doing Seedfund and Bharati Jacob joined the team subsequently in 2005 / 2006. The three of us are still managing partners and will continue to be till 2020, when the fund will sunset as planned, and this is because Pravin has announced that he will retire from the business. Bharati and I are doing different things going forward,” he wrote in his email.
“Each of the founders, myself included, has been and continues to be fully involved in an operational capacity in Seedfund in helping grow our current investments, helping find good exits for them and finding a good return for our investors. I am as involved as any of my co-founders and staff in managing the investments we look after as I’ve always been,” Murthy added.
But Gandhi said Murthy has had no role in managing or mentoring any companies since three years, though he remains a partner.
“We told the LPs that we (Gandhi and Jacob) are managing the companies ourselves, there is really no role Mahesh has in any of the companies that we are looking to exit,” said Gandhi, declining to name the LPs.
“We have this whole process by which people who brought the deals become mentors. So all the companies he had brought to the table either died or disappeared. Other companies being managed are my deals or Bharati’s deals,” Gandhi said.
He added that Murthy’s “my way or the highway” management style often riled people around him. These included Jacob. Her decision to go separate ways with Murthy was “not only related to this” (the alleged sexual transgressions), Gandhi said. “I would not say that decision of not working with him was purely related to his alleged behaviours.”
Meanwhile, if Seedfund knew about what was going, why did the other founding partners not act on it?
Both Jacob and Gandhi said they never received any formal complaints or real evidences to support the allegations.
“When we spoke to people who worked in the ecosystem, you know other investors, saying that we aren’t going to work with him anymore, then a lot of stories stumbled out and my thought was why didn’t you say it earlier. But I guess they didn’t want to share with us as they probably thought that since we are working with him, they shouldn’t bias us in any manner,” said Jacob.
Gandhi cited similar reasons.
“I thought about it (disassociating with him). But there’s not really any provision that on suspicion I can do something and do I want to go to court. There was no provision anywhere to do anything substantial about it, except to counsel,” he said.
What would you advice be to women when they are faced with improper behaviour as is being alleged against Murthy, I ask Gandhi. “I would say very clearly that if they have grouse, please come out and say it. My advice would be that they should not tolerate this…,” he said.
“When people have asked me about association with him, in some manner or another, I have warned them. These are issues you should think about. If somebody came to me, I would advice them and warn them to the extent,” he added.
Email exchange between Mahesh Murthy and FactorDaily:
Below is the text of the emailed questionnaire share by FactorDaily with Mahesh Murthy. His responses (in italics) follow the questions and do not correspond to the serial numbers of our questions.
1. Do you know Rashmi Bansal, now an author and speaker, and earlier the editor of JAM Magazine?
2. When and where have you met her?
3. Did you meet her in February, 2004 at Cafe Mocha on Hill Road in Mumbai?
4. What was the purpose of the meeting?
5. Ms Bansal has alleged that at the Cafe Mocha meeting you indulged in inappropriate verbal and physical communication/contact with her. Do you have anything to say about such an incident?
6. In an article on business networking in September 2004 for Businessworld magazine, Ms Bansal wrote: “There is one last issue with online networking – that of trust. Most of the people you meet online are genuinely helpful, good, decent folks. But don’t forget that rotten apples do exist. This is something to keep in mind, especially if you’re female — single or married. If a prominent Mumbai Ryzer suggests ‘let’s meet at Mocha’, be warned the stimulation he’s seeking ain’t intellectual.” To which, you reacted in an email thus: “I hear from quite a few Ryzers and others back in India that you’ve written an article in Businessworld about networking that makes a pointed gossipy reference to me in a deeply disparaging way.” Could you confirm this?
7. Is there anything you would wish to say in response to Ms Bansal’s allegations?
8. Do you know Anamika (second name redacted), an HR professional, who says you met her on Ryze in 2003?
9. Did you meet Anamika at Cafe Mocha on Hill Road in Mumbai around September-October 2003?
10. What was the purpose of the meeting?
11. Anamika alleges you had inappropriate verbal and physical communication/contact with her. Do you have anything to say about this?
12. What is your role and responsibilities at Seedfund?
13. We understand that Seedfund founders knew as early as 2008-09 about your inappropriate advances on women entrepreneurs and executives who might have met you in professional contexts. Are you aware of this?
14. Did you have conversations with them (Seedfund partners) on your inappropriate behaviour?
15. We understand that you’ve not been part of Seedfund in any operational capacity since 2014 and that the fund’s LPs were informed as much then. Would you say this is the case?
16. At least one of the LPs, we are told, had been in touch with Seedfund partners about your inappropriate behaviour. Were/are you aware of this?
Murthy’s emailed response:
“As you may know, Seedfund started in late 2006 and your questions relate to the years 2003 and 2004 – several years before Seedfund was even thought of – and are of no relevance to Seedfund in any way.
If you are to publish my reply as part of your piece, please do so in full.
I am also copying Sharad Sharma of iSpirt on this as I understand that he has been encouraging you to write this piece about me. (Hi Sharad, happy to connect with you again – we last spoke when you wanted my support to help get Yogi of Stayzilla out of jail. We’re both glad he came out.)
1. Mr. Mishra, you say in your mail that I barely have 12 hours over a night to reply to you – despite your request that I confirm email messages sent over 13 years ago. As a seasoned journalist (and you and I have interacted before over the years) you’d agree that this is a pretty drastic imposition and I wonder about the motivations behind this undue haste that you’re displaying.
2. I am traveling in Europe now and do not have online or mobile access to the email account Passionfund which I used back in 2003 and 2004. I stopped using this account over a decade ago and the emails you refer to may be backed up on a hard drive in Bombay and I arrive back only on April 24. I request you to give me time to get back, find the drive and access this, if at all possible.
3. If your story has apparently waited 13 years perhaps it can wait a few days more? I’m not sure what the urgency is, unless Sharad or whoever is behind this really wants you to publish it tomorrow for some reason known only to them.
4. You state in your email that you will publish tomorrow morning regardless of any response from me. Again, this is unusual form, but since you seem to be presenting it to me as a fait accompli, I have to set aside your seeming disregard for journalistic protocol and try to answer your questions to the best of my memory.
5. I take any allegations of impropriety seriously and have retained legal help on similar stories published in February. Before I start, my lawyers, also copied on this mail, ask me to tell you the following (in italics): I have already filed a suit in the Delhi High Court and sought reliefs against specific defendants (who happen to be known to you and Sharad Sharma) as also to “Ashok Kumar” (which is in the nature of seeking a John Doe order i.e against members of the public at large) in respect of publication of certain defamatory allegations against me. The suit also refers to members of the public conspiring to do so.
6. The Delhi High Court has already passed an interim order in my favour. (Sharad may be aware of this, and hence may be urging you to publish your piece quickly.)
7. These matters are sub-judice. Any defamatory or scandalous publication by you will legally necessitate me to also file a suit and seek appropriate orders against you and those encouraging you to do so. (I understand that in a phone call that just happened with Sumanth Raghavendra, Sharad has not denied this. FactorDaily seems to be some pawn in his plan.)
(Editor’s note: Sumanth Raghavendra is a co-founder of and writer with The Ken.)
8. I must also point out that the allegations you refer to in your email are not only false, but also very old. No complaint has been made for all these years which in itself clearly shows that the allegations are false and made maliciously. (The timing makes me suspect that it is part of a concerted effort. First – allegations in February 2017 of things that supposedly happened a year ago. When the Court moves against those, then in April 2017 to allege things that supposedly happened 13 and 14 years ago. And to somehow tie it to a well-known business, Seedfund, that I co-founded 11 years ago. What next – will a publication be urged to examine stories of what may have happened when I was 6 and 7 years old?)
9. Now to answer your questions. Your first set is about Rashmi Bansal. Here is my response: I know of Rashmi Bansal and respect her for her work. I have not read much of what she’s written, but understand she now writes stories that support and encourage entrepreneurs. I have met her, to my knowledge, just once. This was some 13 or 14 years ago, at Cafe Mocha in Bandra, in broad daylight when she used to run JAM Magazine. It was cordial but unpleasant meeting. We disagreed on at least two issues that I recall: her plans and potential funding needs for JAM Magazine which she used to then run and which I said I had little faith in. And second, a philosophical disagreement about MBAs from IIMs tending to become employees more than entrepreneurs. Again it was something we both had written about and disagreed on. (I used to write a column then in a national business magazine.) There was no inappropriate verbal or physical communication or contact whatsoever. The only other reference I remember was a few years later knowing that she had taken on Arindam Chaudhary and IIPM and had to back down when sued by them. While Maheshwar Peri, myself and others helped continue the fight against them and perhaps had a more positive result. There has been no contact since.
10. I am not sure what Ms. Bansal’s allegations are but if, as you imply, they are about “inappropriate verbal or physical contact” then I absolutely deny them as a complete and utter lie and fabrication. Nothing of that sort happened or could have happened. It was in a cafe where others were present, in broad daylight. Oh, and it’s certainly strange that she or you should choose to air them now, 13 or 14 years later. If Ms. Bansal’s allegations are about “inappropriate communication” then I have no memory of the exact words that were exchanged at the meeting. We certainly disagreed – but I recall vaguely that it was in a civilised and cordial manner and I don’t recall either of us resorting to verbal abuse. As far as the email exchange you asked about, I have requested time for me to get details on it – as I’ve mentioned earlier, I stopped using that email account over 10 years ago and have no access to it at the current moment.
11. Now to the issue of some Ms. Anamika (second name redacted). I have no memory of talking to, chatting with, coming across or ever meeting any such person. In fact I just logged back on to Ryze after more than a decade just to check who this person might be – and it appears that there was no person by that name or by variations of that name who even existed on Ryze in the period you refer to. I can’t even seem to find this person on LinkedIn today. So, to your questions, no – I do not remember knowing any such person, or meeting them anywhere at any time, let alone behaving in any inappropriate way with them. To your question, if this person is alleging inappropriate behaviour, then I completely and absolutely deny it as a total fabrication and lie. Again, it is quite incredible that such an allegation should surface spontaneously 14 years later – this is either a remarkable coincidence or alternatively a sign that you or people on whose urging you seem to be acting have engaged in a willful conspiracy to defame me for reasons best known to you. On paper, both Ms Bansal and Anamika seem to be well-educated professionals with a sound knowledge of their rights and the social and economic stature to raise an issue if there was ever one. The fact that neither did so for 13 and 14 years respectively – but are now suddenly doing so in concert with a failed effort 2 months ago and with Sharad Sharma’s urging at the current moment is more than just mysterious. A reasonable person would even call it suspicious.
12. Now to your questions regarding Seedfund. You seem to allege that either or both of the above has somehow impacted Seedfund and my place in it. That is completely untrue. Pravin Gandhi and I came up with the idea of doing Seedfund and Bharati Jacob joined the team subsequently in 2005 / 2006. The three of us are still Managing Partners and will continue to be till 2020, when the fund will sunset as planned, and this is because Pravin has announced that he will retire from the business. Bharati and I are doing different things going forward.
13. The only issue that ever came up in the period that is even remotely relevant is of the nuisance legal notices sent by one Ms. Seema Pagey. At various times, this lady had claimed that she invented venture capital (and sent Seedfund a notice saying she wanted a 1/3rd share as we “stole” her idea); that she invented digital marketing (and sent my investee Pinstorm a notice demanding 1/3 of the company as they “stole” her idea); that she invented instant messaging (and sent my investee Geodesic a demand to similar effect); that she was my wife and wanted me to give her a flat in Bombay |
fill those positions are trained.The NFL season is still a few months away, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to think about fantasy football. Our Consensus ADP is available, and we’ve seen players move up and down over the last month.
As with any set of rankings, you may or may not agree with them. To evaluate this, we’ve asked the experts to name who they feel is undervalued at each position according to their ADP.
Q: Based off of our Consensus ADP, which RB, QB and WR is currently the most undervalued in drafts?
Running Backs
Latavius Murray, Raiders
ADP: #49 Overall | #20 RB
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“If Latavius Murray was named the clear Oakland starter today, he’d move towards the top-10 in ADP among all RBs. You saw what he was capable of late last season—he looked like the next coming of Adrian Peterson. He’s a 6’2”+/225+ monster of a Running Back who runs a 4.4+ 40-time with high-end agility, a big bench press (22 reps) and a nice vertical (36”). He is built to be a superstar. I get we all fear Oakland will mess this up somehow, and that’s a legit/very real fear, but are we really still scared of Trent Richardson stealing anyone’s job or touches? Roy Helu is nice, and will get some action, but he has not been a feature RB but for a brief glimpse his rookie season. We think Murray wins this job outright, because he’s just too damn good, and with his elite speed and terrific hands as a receiver—he could be a shock top-5 PPR RB for 2015–if he can stay healthy, which is a concern, but don’t we say that about all RBs?”
– R.C. Fischer (Fantasy Football Metrics)
Arian Foster, Texans
ADP: #15 Overall | #9 RB
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“It may be a hard sell to say at RB9 Arian Foster is undervalued, but I wouldn’t blink if he ended up as the highest scoring RB this season and would rather make a play for him than Matt Forte, LeSean McCoy and even Eddie Lacy who are ahead of him. Of course, injury concerns are keeping Foster depressed below those guys, but on the field, his average weekly finish was RB9.4 in PPR leagues in 2014, behind only Le’Veon, Murray and C.J. Anderson. Houston ran 51.9 percent of their offensive plays, most in the league and haven’t really upgraded their passing game. Given that to go along with their expected defensive improvement and supremely light schedule, I’ll take Foster at the turn all day with another alpha talent.”
– Rich Hribar (The Fake Football)
Theo Riddick, Lions
ADP: #NR Overall | #NR RB
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“The “larger role” Riddick had last season was still forgettable from a fantasy aspect, and, at best, he was a bye-week pick-up if you were desperate or in anything bigger than 12-team leagues. In terms of what makes him underrated this upcoming year though, you have to look at the games and his production when Reggie Bush was out from one of his normal 153 ailments. Take a look at Week 6 and Week 8, and you’ll see that he was essentially Reggie Bush. Granted, Riddick’s value is probably geared a bit more towards PPR leagues, but don’t let that take away from the fact that production is production. And what I mean by that is Shane Vereen (during the times when Bill Belichick wasn’t trolling the fantasy population), Danny Woodhead, and even Darren Sproles were considered solid flex plays and most certainly rosterable on your bench. And there’s no reason why Theo Riddick can’t be either.”
– Jason Longfellow (Razzball)
Wide Receivers
Eric Decker, Jets
ADP: #100 Overall | #39 WR
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“Apparently nobody likes Eric Decker. I believe last season was a proxy for his floor, and all it took for that to happen was a season long hamstring injury and attachment to an offense that ranked 25th in yards per drive. In 2014 he still notched eight top-36 scoring weeks and six top-24 ones and in Week 17, you got a reminder of the ceiling he still possesses. I’m not concerned about Geno Smith because of all the players Smith has targeted 50 or more times over his first two seasons, his 9.5 adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A) when targeting Decker is a full two yards better than anyone else and right on par with the 10.0 AY/A Peyton Manning had targeting Decker while in Denver. Brandon Marshall is now 31, coming off of his third hip surgery and going 18 receiver spots ahead of Decker who is WR39. I’ll take Decker today to not only to best his ADP, but to outscore Marshall as well.”
– Rich Hribar (The Fake Football)
Brandon LaFell, Patriots
ADP: #102 Overall | #40 WR
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“My long-time readers likely believe this section got mixed up with some other analyst’s work. I’ve disliked Brandon LaFell, as a talent, since he came to the NFL out of LSU. However, I realize Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are magic fairy dust that makes all things better for fantasy. After his first two games of doing nothing for his new team last season (0 rec. on 6 targets), LaFell and Brady found chemistry in their final 14 regular-season games: LaFell averaged 9.8 FF PPG (15.2 PPR) in that stretch on 5.3 receptions, 68.1 yards. and 0.50 TDs per game. LaFell is not a major threat to become a top-10 fantasy WR, but he’s a much better value than his current #40+ ranking. LaFell may actually be stable/better with Jimmy Garoppolo for the first four games because Garoppolo isn’t likely as attached to Julian Edelman as Brady is, and Garoppolo likes to work downfield a little more than he does dinking and dunking. I’ve never been a LaFell guy, but I can’t deny his 2014 fit with Brady. There’s no reason to assume Brady will abandon their connection in 2015… and what if it gets even better?”
– R.C. Fischer (Fantasy Football Metrics)
Dontrelle Inman, Chargers
ADP: #NR Overall | #NR WR
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“If there’s one thing going for Dontrelle Inman, it’s Philip Rivers. If there’s two things going for him, it’s that Philip Rivers loves spreading out the love. With the departure of Eddie Royal, there is a gap that could be potentially filled by Inman, but the signing of Stevie Johnson almost assuredly means that he will be on the outside of the depth chart looking in. But the current lack of opportunity is far from a damning fate. Keenan Allen isn’t going anywhere, but counting on Malcom Floyd for an entire season seems folly, and there are questions with what Stevie Johnson can bring to the table. Starting only two games last season, he will most assuredly get more opportunities with a year in the team’s system, and even with such a small sample, Inman put up per-game averages that were on par with the rest of the Chargers’ receiver core…”
– Jason Longfellow (Razzball)
Quarterbacks
Nick Foles, Rams
ADP: #198 Overall | #27 QB
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“He’s the #27 ranked QB via the latest ADP rankings…10 spots behind Jameis Winston, are you kidding me? What else does Nick Foles have to do to earn an ounce of respect? In his last 16 starts, he sports a 13-3 record with 34 TDs/12 INTs and 4,432 yards passing and two rushing TDs—18.5+ Fantasy PPG (4pts per pass TD)! In his last 16 games, he’s posted three 300+ yard passing games, and three 400+ yard efforts. I know, it’s all Chip Kelly, right? Why is it Michael Vick and Matt Barkley have losing records/flopped in this system… and Mark Sanchez blew the division and the playoffs, floundering down the stretch? I thought Kelly ‘makes’ these QBs into instant ‘winners’? All QBs, but Foles, have under-whelmed under Kelly in the NFL to-date. Foles now moves to a tougher division, but now has a fast track dome/turf to work with. He should not be the QB27 in ADP among all fantasy QBs. Foles can push towards the top-12 with St. Louis.”
– R.C. Fischer (Fantasy Football Metrics)
Carson Palmer, Cardinals
ADP: #183 Overall | #24 QB
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“Palmer at QB24 is far too low and a freebie pickup for the streaming crowd. He’s coming off of a major injury and will be 36 years old this season, but is reportedly at full strength. We only got to see him for six games in 2014, but he was 10th in points per game (17.6) and eighth in passing points per attempt (.460) out of all quarterbacks. In the five games he finished, he averaged 19.2 points per game and was QB5, QB16, QB13, QB10 and QB7 those weeks. Given the ambiguity of their offense, he’s a play on everyone and is also the cheapest piece.”
– Rich Hribar (The Fake Football)
Teddy Bridgewater, Vikings
ADP: #158 Overall | #19 QB
What’s your take: Is he undervalued?
“I’m still a huge fan of Norv Turner and what he can do with quarterbacks. There is definitely a growth factor to think about, and no matter what you think the potential is for Bridgewater (I admit, I was skeptical for a while), the numbers don’t lie. If you split last season into halves, there’s clear improvement across the board, and I especially like that his “long” average raised substantially as the season went on (the touchdowns and rating followed suit). It’s sometimes folly to cherry pick stats and then pro-rate them into a full season, but no one said I was perfect. If you were to take Bridgewater’s second half and pretend it was a full season, he’d have 3,648 yards and a 26/16 TD/INT ratio. That was essentially Jay Cutler, who finished with 256.3 Points and the 14th ranked quarterback last year…”
– Jason Longfellow (Razzball)
—
Thank you to our experts for contributing their thoughts, you can follow them on Twitter here.AOL Inc. (NYSE:AOL) CEO Tim Armstrong has been meeting with top shareholders to push the idea of a sale to Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) sale, according to reports. The scheme allegedly would allow the AOL and Yahoo partnership to stop competing against each other and start dominating digital publishing.
But AOL shareholders shouldn’t be fooled. This is just the latest boondoggle from AOL’s inept CEO Armstrong, a quick-fix meant to prove that he has accomplished something in his tenure in the corner office — or at least provide a smokescreen so he can make a quick getaway.
Yahoo isn’t a target because AOL is trying to grow a business long-term. It’s a target to cover up Tim Armstrong’s mistakes.
Take it right from the words of an inside source, quoted in The New York Times recently:
“As far as Armstrong’s desire for an exit, he doesn’t want to be doing what he is doing 18 months from now. He wants to be out,” said a source familiar with Armstrong’s thinking. “He’s an ambitious sort of guy and AOL is such an afterthought. But he would definitely put his hat in the ring to run a combined Yahoo/AOL.”
Who the heck cares what Armstrong wants? Is AOL his personal plaything, or a publicly traded company with a clear obligation to its shareholders? If he’s such an ambitious fellow, Armstrong should have something to show for his tenure at the company.
Armstrong took over AOL in March 2009, and it has been ugly ever since. The stock was spun off from Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) in 2010 and is off 40% since then while the broader stock market is up by double digits. Armstrong was supposed to be a heavy hitter, snatched away from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) for his online advertising savvy, and AOL had hoped he would breathe new life into the struggling media company.
Not so much. AOL’s revenue dropped by 25% from fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2010. The company has seen 10 straight quarterly reports with year-over-year revenue declines — the most recent being a surprise quarterly loss in August.
The culprit a few months ago? Weaker-than-expected advertising growth. In fact, operating income for the year could be down as much as 20% because of weaker ad sales.
To be fair, not all the blame can be laid on Armstrong. He was brought into a company that was rapidly losing revenue from its dial-up Internet access business and charged with plotting a new way forward with an ad-supported business. Some of the revenue bottlenecks would exist even if ad sales were booming.
But they are not — and that’s the most disturbing thing of all. The decline of AOL dial-up access is inevitable, and in the absence of a coherent strategy to provide another revenue stream, the decline of AOL is inevitable, too.
Armstrong claims an AOL partnership with Yahoo could produce more than $1 billion in cost savings for the combined companies, according to sources. But that’s wishful thinking. After flailing around with an in-house editorial strategy, AOL simply threw up its hands and bought out Huffington Post for $315 million earlier this year — admitting defeat and hoping someone else could fix the problem. This Yahoo buyout would be another version of that — an admission that AOL can’t compete for eyeballs on Facebook and Google and Yahoo, so it would rather just throw money at the problem.
That’s not fair to shareholders. And it’s just an easy out for Armstrong — a way for him to try to save face for his very unsuccessful run at the helm of AOL.
For the record, I don’t have any venom towards Mr. Armstrong. His job can’t be easy, and working in digital publishing, I know first-hand the challenges of building out a quality website that meets the needs of both readers and advertisers alike.
But based on SEC filings, his original compensation deal equates to a $1 million base salary, cash bonuses up to $4 million, and staggering awards of $10 million worth of Time Warner equity in 2009 and 2010 before the spinoff. That’s to say nothing of his current AOL stock options — which are surely mighty plush even after the sharp decline since 2010.
He gets paid good money to fix this mess. And to anyone at AOL who’s reading, I would be happy to give it a shot. If the standard is to continue losing money and seeing shares decline, I’m pretty sure I could perform just as well for half the pay.
In all seriousness, InvestorPlace.com contributor Jonathan Berr — a former AOLer himself — might have had the best idea of all when he suggested taking AOL private. There have been hints that AOL might be taking his advice, but this Yahoo plan would fly in the face of any effort to buy up AOL and take it off the market and away from shareholder scrutiny. If anything, it would only expose AOL to more Wall Street criticism.
A Yahoo-AOL partnership is ill-advised, and simply window dressing for Tim Armstrong. Shareholders should not allow AOL to become just a pawn in the game to assuage his ego.
But take heart, AOL stockholders. The original Tim Armstrong contract only runs until April 7, 2012. Just hold your nose until then.
Jeff Reeves is editor of InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing, he did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter via @JeffReevesIP and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.Mrs. Clinton, who doggedly remained in the 2008 primary contest against Barack Obama until June despite his insurmountable delegate lead and Democratic calls for her to bow out, has said she will not call on Mr. Sanders to withdraw, but she has bristled at the implication that he could overcome her big leads in both pledged delegates and the popular vote.
Mrs. Clinton’s aides and allies are pressuring Mr. Sanders to run on issues rather than continuing to attack Mrs. Clinton’s ties to Wall Street or her previous support for global trade deals — attacks that Republicans are likely to use in the fall.
“If he tones down the rhetoric and continues to fight, he’ll go out on a very high note with a lot of people, including me, thinking he did a great service to American democracy,” said Edward G. Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor, who supports Mrs. Clinton. “But if he keeps it up, it could be brutal.”
Mr. Sanders, whose sole win on Tuesday came in Rhode Island, did not attack Mrs. Clinton directly in his remarks on Tuesday night, but argued insistently that he would be a superior general-election candidate. As voters went to the polls earlier in the day, the Sanders campaign sent out a fund-raising email with an image of Mrs. Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, at Mr. Trump’s 2005 wedding, and accused Clinton allies of being “traitors” in their treatment of Mr. Sanders.
Still, Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders, on Tuesday said that the campaign would not mislead voters about his chances at winning the nomination.
“If we are sitting here and there’s no sort of mathematical way to do it, we will be upfront about that,” he said.
Democrats supporting Mrs. Clinton have pointed to Senators Harry Reid of Nevada, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Chuck Schumer of New York as potential peacemakers, should the Sanders campaign keep up its pointed attacks on Mrs. Clinton.New Rewards: I've add new rewards for Original Sexy Stormtrooper drawings! All drawings will be on a piece of 8x10 textured paper hand drawn and colored and one of a kind!
I'm a lonely Stormtrooper with the Galactic Empire and after a long day on the battlefront I noticed morale was pretty low with my fellow Stormtroopers so I drew this lady to lift their spirits.
Are you the droid im looking for?
Now I'd like to turn this drawing into a sticker, that's where you can help.
The goal is to print this sticker on 2x3 die cut vinyl. If funding reaches over $300 they will be upgraded 3x4 stickers! Grab a few for yourself, and tell your friends! These stickers make a perfect gift for the Star Wars fan in your life.
Stretch Goals:
$300- If we can reach this stretch goals anyone pledging 5$ or more will receive a print of this new lady! If we can get to $500 everyone will get bonus stickers of her! Together we can do it!Influential Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, also one of the world’s most renowned activists, is sending two of his monumental works to Austin.
The vibrant "Forever Bicycles," a grouping of 1,200 bicycles previously seen in different configurations with different names in New York, Washington, Venice, London and elsewhere, will stand at the mouth of Waller Creek at Lady Bird Lake. It was inspired by the Forever brand bicycles that zip around Beijing.
The visually quieter "Iron Tree Trunk" draws on Chinese cultural traditions and on images the artist collected in the mountains. The 18-foot-high metal sculpture will be seen in the Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria. The pieces are meant to spark talk about the environment and human rights, among other ideas.
The extraordinary, long-term loans — no end dates have been announced — were arranged by the Contemporary Austin and the Waller Creek Conservancy with help from a $1.1 million grant from the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation. Family-friendly activities are scheduled for the Waller Creek site from 10 a.m. to noon June 3.
"This project taps into one of my greatest passions — bringing art directly to the public in ways and in places that they may not expect it," said Louis Grachos, director and CEO of the Contemporary Austin. "When I started at the Contemporary, I spoke of creating a ‘Museum Without Walls,’ and these projects with Ai Weiwei are exactly what I dreamed of bringing to Austin: works that inspire wonder while addressing important social and political issues that affect us all."
"‘Forever Bicycles’ is a monumental work," said Peter Mullan, CEO of the Waller Creek Conservancy. "Ephemeral, yes, but monumental all the same, so it is incredibly exciting to see it realized and to witness the impact that it will have on the public. The piece is also a window onto the future of Waller Creek and the changes that are coming to the entire Waller Creek District, so it is doubly exciting."
Ai, whose relatives were sent to labor camps during the Cultural Revolution, lived in the United States from 1981 to 1993. He now runs multipurpose studios in Beijing and Berlin, using unorthodox materials to produce sculpture, photography, film, writing, architecture and social media.
Ai Weiwei’s 18-foot-tall "Iron Tree Trunk," 2015, will stand at the Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria. © Artwork Ai Weiwei Studio. Courtesy Lisson Gallery. Photograph by Jack Helms.
American-Statesman Staff
Since the 1990s, his work has been critical of the regime in China. As early as 2005, he blogged openly about the Chinese government, especially in the wake of a deadly 2008 earthquake. He established the Citizen Investigation Group, which independently researched the disaster and provided profiles of the children killed when shabbily constructed schoolhouses collapsed. He used the international media to publicize what the government had hushed up.
Ai was held under house arrest in 2010 and physically detained April 3, 2011. He spent 81 days in a Beijing jail, isolated in a small room with two guards monitoring him at all times.
A designer as well, Ai consulted with Herzog & de Meuron — the firm once slated to design the Blanton Museum of Art before interference from University of Texas regents caused the Swiss group to walk away — on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics, a project he later criticized.
"Forever," an earlier version of Ai Weiwei’s "Forever Bicycles," shown in London. The Austin edition will rise on the Waller Creek Delta. © Artwork Ai Weiwei Studio. Courtesy of the artist, Lisson Gallery and Sculpture in the City/City of London. Photograph by Nick Turpin.
American-Statesman Staff
He has made quite a few celebrated videos and won a number of awards and honors, including Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award.
"This strikes me as the perfect fit for Austin," said Melba Whatley, chairwoman of the Dallas-based Marcus Foundation and an ardent backer of the Contemporary Austin and the Waller Creek Conservancy. "For the first time in our city, not one but two singular groups will install great sculpture in their unique and cherished public spaces. If, as a citizen, one cares about art and the public realm, it’s hard to imagine a happier collaboration."Freddie Mercury: Rock 'N' Roll's Humble Showman
Enlarge this image toggle caption Steve Jennings/Wire Image Steve Jennings/Wire Image
Freddie Mercury chose a stage name in perfect harmony with his voice.
The mercurial rock star and lead singer of Queen was born Farrokh Bulsara on the East African island of Zanzibar on Sept. 5, 1946. The Bulsaras were Parsi — a group with ties to ancient Persia. Both his parents were from India.
The film Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story portrays him as an artist who mastered his craft in the West, but came of age in the East. To hear it in Mercury's music, director Rudi Dolezal points to the song "Mustapha," from Queen's album Jazz.
Hear The Song 'Mustapha,' on YouTube
"If you listen to a song like 'Mustapha,' you think this is very strange," says Dolezal. "What kind of cultural influences, where does it come from?"
"If you know that Freddie was born in Zanzibar, then went to India, then came to London, which was like a culture shock, then you can see that it was multiculturalism that was combined in Freddie Mercury and the way he used his voice," Dolezal says.
Mercury's voice was untrained and unpredictable, sometimes soaring from an earthy baritone to a wild but heavenly tenor.
"It's supersexy," says American Idol star Adam Lambert. He spent hours upon hours listening to Queen, trying to figure out how Mercury did it. And when he auditioned for Idol, he sang Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."
"Freddie's voice has so much texture to it," Lambert says. "He kind of grabs at everything, he squeezes it."
The Mercurial Showman
Mercury's connection with his audiences, huge stadiums full of people, was intensely personal.
Jacky Smith, Queen's fan club manager, first met the singer in 1982 after responding to a want ad for the job. Smith always had a backstage pass to Queen's stadium shows, but she says she preferred to watch Mercury from the stands.
"The atmosphere was incredible out front," Smith remembers. "There were — I don't know — 120,000 people at the last show, which was Knebworth, and it was like you were still part of an intimate crowd because Freddie reached every single one of those people, even those right at the back."
Smith says one of Mercury's hallmarks were "Freddie's Day-ohs." He would call out to the audience, and they would respond. Mercury could go from directing huge crowds to singing a ballad at a baby grand, to high-stepping like a rock star and wielding a microphone that looked like it was just ripped from its base.
"He was completely over the top in the best possible way," says Lambert. "Music, most of the time, is about sexuality, whether you are straight, gay or in between. It's about love and sex. That's rock 'n' roll."
Lambert, as an openly gay performer, says he owes a debt to Mercury's flamboyance decades ago.
"There's definitely something missing in today's music scene," he says. "We don't have a lot of men on stage doing flamboyant or theatrical. We have a lot of female pop stars doing it, but where are the guys? Where's the classic pop-rock showman?"
Substance Before Style
As skilled as he was at performing, Dolezal says that Mercury was humble and always put his voice before his image. He cites one story as an example.
"We all know that Freddie Mercury had very strange teeth," Dolezal says, "and we would all ask ourselves, 'A guy who was that rich, why didn't he change his teeth?' He was very afraid that if he changed his teeth that his particular sound of [his voice] would go away. So he was more concerned with his voice than his looks, and I think that says a lot about the man."
In 1991, the humble showman with a quicksilver voice died of complications from AIDS.
"The spirit of Freddie Mercury is alive and well," says Lambert. "He made it rock."The United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on Saturday, an accord targeting intellectual property piracy.
The European Union, Mexico and Switzerland – the only other governments participating in the accord's creation – did not sign the deal at a ceremony in Japan but "confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the agreement as soon as practical," the parties said in a joint statement.
The United States applauded the deal.
"As with many of the challenges we face in today’s global economy, no government can single-handedly eliminate the problem of global counterfeiting and piracy. Signing this agreement is therefore an act of shared leadership and determination in the international fight against intellectual property theft," said Mariam Sapiro, deputy United States trade representative.
The deal, more than three years in the making and open for signing until May 2013, exports on participating nations an intellectual-property enforcement regime resembling the one in the United States.
Rashmi Rangnath, a staff attorney with Public Knowledge in Washington, D.C., said the deal "clearly, is an attempt to foist U.S. law on other countries."
Among other things, the accord demands governments make it unlawful to market devices that circumvent copyright, such as devices that copy encrypted DVDs without authorization. That is akin to a feature in the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States, where the law has been used by Hollywood studios to block RealNetworks from marketing DVD-copying technology.
The accord, which the United States says does not require Congressional approval, also calls on participating nations to maintain extensive seizure and forfeiture laws when it comes to counterfeited goods that are trademarked or copyrighted. Most important, countries must carry out a legal system where victims of intellectual property theft may be awarded an undefined amount of monetary damages.
In the United States, for example, the Copyright Act allows for damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. A Boston jury has dinged a college student $675,000 for pilfering 30 tracks on Kazaa, while a Minnesota jury has awarded the Recording Industry Association of America $1.5 million for the purloining of 24 songs online.
A U.S.-backed footnote removed from the document more than a year ago provided for "the termination" of internet accounts for repeat online infringers. U.S. internet service providers and content providers, however, have brokered such a deal toward that goal.
Until European Union authorities began leaking the document's text, the Obama administration was claiming the accord was a "national security" secret.
Photo: MikeBlogs/Flickr
See Also:- ACTA Draft: No Internet for Copyright ScofflawsThis enhanced-color image of Pluto, taken by NASA’s New Horizons probe during its historic flyby on July 14, 2015, shows the dwarf planet’s famous “heart.”
One year ago today, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft lifted the veil on mysterious, faraway Pluto.
Astronomers hadn't been able to get a good look at Pluto since its discovery in 1930; even NASA's superpowerful Hubble Space Telescope could only resolve the distant dwarf planet into a blur of pixels. But that all changed on July 14, 2015, when New Horizons performed history's first-ever flyby of Pluto, zooming within just 7,800 miles (12,550 kilometers) of the frigid world's surface.
New Horizons' observations revealed Pluto to be a staggeringly complex and dynamic world, with towering water-ice mountains, vast plains of frozen nitrogen, surprisingly blue skies and a myriad of other intriguing features, including a huge "heart" that found its way onto Twitter feeds and T-shirts around the globe. [New Horizons' Pluto Flyby: Complete Coverage]
The probe's images also showed that the nitrogen-ice plain, known as Sputnik Planum, harbors no detectable craters, indicating that the region has been resurfaced quite recently. This came as a huge surprise to scientists, who had not expected that a world as small as Pluto could remain geologically active without some sort of gravitational interaction with a big body (such as Saturn or Jupiter).
And there are undoubtedly more discoveries to come: New Horizons is still beaming flyby data home, and likely won't be done doing so for another three months, mission principal investigator Alan Stern has said.
This enhanced-color image of Pluto, taken by NASA’s New Horizons probe during its historic flyby on July 14, 2015, shows the dwarf planet’s famous “heart.” (Image: © NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)
The spacecraft has other science work in its future as well. Two weeks ago, NASA officially approved an extended mission for New Horizons, which will allow the probe to fly by a small object called 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019.
Astronomers think 2014 MU69, which lies about 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) beyond Pluto, is just 13 to 25 miles (21 to 40 km) wide. So it's a very different object than the dwarf planet Pluto, and studying it up-close should reveal new insights about the far outer solar system's formation and evolution, Stern has said.
"The capstone exploration of Pluto that completed humankind's first era of reconnaissance of the planets in our solar system is now behind us," Stern, who's based at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, wrote in a blog post last week.
"We are very proud of how well that went and how much new knowledge resulted from it," he added. "But we are also excited to explore further — another flyby a billion miles beyond Pluto — and to see what knowledge and inspiration that exploration will bring just 2.5 years from now."
The $700 million New Horizons mission launched in January 2006. The nuclear-powered probe has plenty of juice left to take it through the 2019 flyby and beyond, mission officials have said.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.Veteran referee Herb Dean will oversee a a light heavyweight grudge match between current UFC champ Daniel Cormier (17-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) and former title holder Jon Jones (21-1 MMA, 15-1 UFC).
The Nevada State Athletic Commission voted unanimously during a meeting today in Las Vegas to appoint Dean to officiating duties in the contest, which serves as the main event of UFC 197. The five-member commission also selected veteran judges Sal D’Amato, Junichiro Kamijo and Chris Lee to score the title fight.
Dean will receive $1,900 for the assignment. The judges will receive $1,600 each.
UFC 197 takes place April 23 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena. The main card airs live on pay-per-view following prelims on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.
Cormier did offer a brief objection to the assignment, though his concerns were raised after the appointment had already been made for the headlining contest. Cormier, who joined the meeting by phone, admitted he wasn’t thrilled with Dean’s handling of his UFC 182 matchup with Jones, specifically his decision to allow the contest to remain in the clinch for long stages of the latter rounds of the fight.
“I’ve got a question,” Cormier chimed in.” So, this last time Jon and I fought, Herb Dean was the official that time, so UFC guys said that they reached out, and I don’t have the hugest concern, but, yeah, that would be my little issue. It would be the same exact official as last time.
“Last time, late in the fight, we actually didn’t do much, and maybe we should have been broken up a couple of times. I don’t know if that matters – I just wanted to say that, as this, you know, a big event in my life.”
UFC 197’s co-feature sees UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson (23-2-1 MMA, 11-1-1 UFC) take on undefeated challenger Henry Cejudo (10-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC).
NSAC officials today also elected John McCarthy to oversee that five-round matchup, while Derek Cleary, Jeff Mullen and Glenn Trowbridge will serve as judges. Compensation levels for the co-feature equal that of the headliner.
Additional referees considered for both assignments included Yves Lavigne and Mark Smith. Marcos Rosales was also considered for UFC 197’s featured bouts but was not selected.
In additional NSAC-related officiating news, Dan Miragliotta – long a fixture as the third man in the cage in big fights on the East Coast – was granted a referee license in Nevada.
For more on UFC 197, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.Providence, RI: Governor Lincoln Chafee, an Independent, last week signed legislation into law that significantly reduces the penalties associated with the possession of marijuana for personal use.
Under the new law, the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana by an individual 18 years or older is amended from a criminal misdemeanor (punishable by one year in jail and a $500 maximum fine) to a non-arrestable civil offense - punishable by a $150 fine, no jail time, and no criminal record.
Rhode Island's decriminalization law takes effect on April 1, 2013.
Rhode Island is one of 15 states that have reduced marijuana possession to a fine-only offense.
Eight states - California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, and Oregon - similarly define the private, non-medical possession of marijuana by adults as a civil, non-criminal offense.
Five additional states - Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio - treat marijuana possession offenses as a fine-only misdemeanor offense. Alaska imposes no criminal or civil penalty for the private possession of small amounts of marijuana.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500 or Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org.More and more intelligent tutoring systems begin to adopt intelligent agent as the support technology of building architecture, and thus form a new research direction of teaching aglet.
Balci A, Sollie-Szarynska KM, van der Bi jl AGLet al Prospective validation and assessment of cardiovascular and offspring risk models for pregnant women with congenital heart disease.
When his family decides to undergo a procedure to become "undead," the thought of dying for just a few minutes terrifies Mortimer so much that |
reasons. For one thing, remember that most of this research is correlational, meaning we can’t always establish cause and effect, so it’s important to exercise a bit of caution before drawing too many conclusions. However, perhaps even more important is the fact that when people start forcing themselves to have sex because they think they’re supposed to do it, it doesn’t turn out well.
As some evidence for this idea, consider a recent study in which some couples were asked to double their sexual frequency while others were not instructed to change their sexual habits one way or another. The results revealed that the doubling group not only reported lower levels of happiness in the end, but they also enjoyed sex less and ultimately had less desire for it.
What this tells us is that when we start to see sex as a chore—as another thing we need to check off the list—it seems to reduce our sexual motivation. The fact that sex may benefit our health is great, but the way to think about this is that these health effects are just a potential bonus or side effect of being sexually active. They are not necessarily reasons to push yourself into having more frequent sex.
In short, don’t force yourself to have sex because the results of some study suggest that it might be good for you—instead, have sex when it’s something you want to do.
For more answers to readers' sex questions, click here. To send in your own question, click here.
Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates.
Image Source: 123RF/anyaberkut
You Might Also Like:First, it was the endorsement of David Duke. Then, old Orange Face just couldn’t stop retweeting known white supremacist supporters. And even after that, there was the report of William Johnson, the leader of the white supremacist American Freedom Party, being selected as a Trump delegate in California. Trump’s name overlapping with racists has come to be the new normal this election cycle.
So it should come as a shock to absolutely no one that apparently there are more white supremacists waiting in the wings as Trump delegates. According to Mother Jones, the white supremacist group posted a Facebook comment reading, “Here is what they don’t know: we have more delegates!” The post was soon deleted, but screen shots are forever.
Screen shot below:
William Johnson told reporters that he doesn’t run the AFP Facebook page, but confirmed the page is run by his cohort Robert H. DePasquale. DePasquale has a long and well-documented history of white supremacy, building websites for white supremacist groups and posting over 20,000 racist and anti-Semitic message on the online hate forum Stormfront.
Well, I guess DePasquale just couldn’t keep the cat in the bag. But I’m sure Donald Trump doesn’t condone any of this and will half-heartedly denounce it. It’s all just a strange and interesting coincidence that white supremacists flock to Trump like flies on sh…well, you know.For hundreds of millennia, humans have depended on wood as a basic but reliable source of fuel. Today efforts to grow that dependence in the face of an evolving energy landscape are widespread. But they're also contentious.
The debate over biomass, an umbrella term that encompasses a range of organic materials used for energy, rests primarily on the question of "carbon neutrality." It's taking place at the federal level — the House Appropriations Committee voted during the summer to designate biomass "carbon neutral" — and across the states.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced in August that his administration would move to designate fuel derived from felling trees and clearing brush in forests as renewable energy. In Arizona the state's Public Service recently ordered to research forest bioenergy as part of its power portfolio. The biomass industry's main trade group is part of a just-hatched PR and advertising blitz planned for later in September by an umbrella renewable-energy consortium that also includes wind and solar and has dubbed itself National Clean Energy Week.
A small, 1,000-kilowatt-hour wood-pellet power plant — generally enough to power 1,000 homes — produces a total of 1,275 grams of CO 2 per kilowatt hour of electricity generated, according to Dr. Puneet Dwivedi, a research professor at the University of Georgia. In comparison, a 1,000-kilowatt-hour coal plant emits 1,048 grams of CO 2 per kilowatt hour — 227 grams less than the biomass plant.
So when it comes to emissions, burning coal is technically more carbon-efficient than burning woody biomass. But forests have the ability to act as a "carbon sink," absorbing and storing the CO 2 released from electricity generation. This lends credence to the claim that with appropriate forestry management, including the immediate replacement of trees that are cut down, biomass can be a "renewable" and a carbon-neutral source of energy.
The industry also claims that there would be no market for leftover logging residues if they were not used for biomass. When left on the forest floor, these organic scraps decay and emit methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more potent than CO 2. On its website the Biomass Power Association states that "biomass power generates carbon-neutral electricity from natural organic waste, providing sustainable energy." It does not qualify this claim with the aforementioned details about appropriate forestry management.
Today these nuances have rendered woody biomass an oddity in the realm of polarized debate about non-fossil-fuel sources of energy.Telstra is giving all its customers free mobile data all day Sunday following a mass outage that impacted 3G and 4G services across the country.
The carrier's customers will automatically get the free data offer, according to a blog by chief operating officer Kate McKenzie, who added that she was "incredibly disappointed the outage occurred and deeply sorry for the inconvenience we caused".
The problem arose following a technical fault on one of Telstra's 10 major connection points, or nodes, after which the node was taken offline to fix. "This normally wouldn't impact services as we have processes in place to make sure any customers currently connected to a node are transferred to another node before it is taken offline," said McKenzie.
"Unfortunately on this occasion the right procedures were not followed and this resulted in customers being disconnected and consequent heavy congestion on other nodes as customers attempted to reconnect to the network."
In an interview with 702 ABC Sydney radio, McKenzie admitted the problem was down to human error.
"While the outage was short in duration we fully realise the impact it had on our customers, which is why we are offering all of our customers a day of free mobile data this Sunday."An Illinois man has been charged with felony computer hacking related to a phishing scheme that gave him illegal access to over 300 Apple iCloud and Gmail accounts, including those belonging to members of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.
Edward Majerczyk, 28, was named in information filed last week in United States District Court in Los Angeles. Majerczyk has signed a plea agreement in which he agrees to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, specifically, one count of unauthorised access to a protected computer to obtain information.
Jennifer Lawrence was one of the prominent celebrities targeted in the hack.
Although Majerczyk has been charged in Los Angeles, the parties have agreed to transfer the case to the Northern District of Illinois for the entry of his guilty plea and sentencing. Once he enters the guilty plea, Majerczyk will face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
Majerczyk is the second man to be charged over the incident, following Ryan Collins earlier this year.The Game Developers Choice Awards were held last night at GDC 2015, hosted by legendary game designer and Fantastic Arcade alumnus Tim Schafer (or was it Devin Faraci? There is a resemblance). The big winners included Shadow of Mordor, Monument Valley and Hearthstone, but the Twitter fallout had nothing to do with the awards.
It centred on a joke by Schafer, who opened the ceremony saying he wasn't going to talk about GamerGate, and that all of the GamerGate jokes would be delivered by "this sock puppet." Specifically, a cute yellow sock puppet, with little wobbly antennae to represent the Gamergate ant. It would continue to appear throughout the ceremony, but the joke that won it the most notoriety was the one embedded above and quoted below, in an intro to the Best Visual Art category:
How many GamerGaters does it take to make a single piece of armour? Fifty! One to do the modeling, one to do the materials, and forty [sic] to tweet that it's not your shield.
That's a pretty funny joke - certainly for an awards show. It operates on multiple levels, playing on GamerGate's mob tactics and irresponsibility, as well as on shields and armour. The response from the industry and many following this pathetic seven-month saga was generally a variation of "nice one." The response from GamerGaters was predictable, hilarious and demonstrative of the joke's accuracy. Despite a couple exceptions who apparently didn't even get the joke, the hashtag immediately erupted with outrage.
Yes: the harassment campaign so fond of telling its victims to "grow a thicker skin" was driven positively incandescent with anger over a joke delivered by a man's hand in a sock.
They claim the joke is "racist" and "sexist" because it makes fun of #NotYourShield, a major part of GamerGate's disingenuous narrative, wherein minorities supposedly separate themselves from "Social Justice Warriors" and defend their toxic movement. It's amusing enough hearing these serial abusers* suddenly cry oppression. But here's the thing about #NotYourShield: it's a shield. It's what GamerGaters invariably scream to deflect criticism. It's "some of my best friends are black" as hashtag. First conceived as pure "gotcha" tactic on 4chan, many of its Twitter adherents have been found to be sock-puppet accounts under false identities. Any actual minorities or women using it, while they may have genuine intentions themselves, are 100% being used as shields by the overwhelming white-male majority** of GamerGate. Like everything Gator, it's largely used by people wishing to harass from under a veil of barely-plausible deniability.
On that note, it's important to remember that while #GamerGate is a joke, the harassment at its core - the harassment that existed long before it had bullshit hashtags to shield it - is not. Another major announcement at GDC (which saw the unveiling of new game engines, VR headsets, and more) was the launch of the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, a nonprofit organisation "dedicated to reducing and mitigating online abuse." It's founded by Randi Harper, creator of the astoundingly useful GG Auto Blocker, who is joined on the board of directors by Crash Override Network founders Alex Lifschitz and Zoe Quinn, and Design Direct Deliver CEO Sheri Rubin. OAPI will research the patterns of online abuse and put its findings to work, in association with relevant other organisations, to help mitigate existing and discourage further harassment. As with Crash Override Network (which functions as the triage to OAPI's preventative healthcare), it will be interesting to see the impact that the organisation makes in the coming months and/or years. It seems the one positive legacy of the Neverending August will be its unintentional foregrounding of abuse issues, resulting in actual, much-needed change.
For now, we can all rest comfortably, knowing that last night, thousands of game developers from across the industry laughed heartily at a joke - a joke that hopefully heralds GamerGate's inevitable spiral into history's footnotes.***
* No, not everyone in GamerGate is a serial abuser, but in a leaderless, anonymous movement defined by a hashtag, every single person using the tag represents the whole, by definition. Grow up, Goats.
** I say "overwhelming white-male majority" because the whole hashtag just screams of honky manbabies.
*** Down here, where it belongs.Anti-whaling activists the Sea Shepherd published video evidence Sunday of Japanese whalers slaughtering protected whale species in a marine preservation in the Southern Ocean.
The conservation group obtained footage of three dead minke whales, a protected species, on the deck of the Nisshin Maru, and a fourth whale, also believed to be a minke, being butchered on the ship, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Crew members are seen mopping up large pools of blood on the deck.
After documenting the slaughter, the three-vessel Sea Shepherd fleet—which includes the Steve Irwin, the Bob Barker and the Sam Simon—drove the five Japanese whaling ships from the New Zealand maritime sanctuary in the first encounter of the current whaling season.
The Guardian reports:
The whaling boats were operating within the whale sanctuary in New Zealand’s territorial waters, located in the Ross Sea in Antarctica, according to Sea Shepherd. Conservationists argue that Australia should enforce its own Antarctic territory by cracking down on whaling, which has been deemed unlawful by the federal court. However, only four nations – which do not include Japan – recognise Australia’s claim to Antarctic land and sea territory.
Though condemning the actions of the Japanese whalers, neighboring governments have thus far done little to deter the practice.
According to the Sea Shepherd crew, "there was no sign of either the HMNZS Otago, which is patrolling New Zealand’s southern waters during whaling season, nor an Australian government aircraft, which was put forward by the country's environment minister Greg Hunt in lieu of the customs vessel he promised before the election."
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"The Australian government have effectively said to its fleet, 'Don't intervene on this crime.' That's the problem here," said Bob Brown, Sea Shepherd Australia chairman. "They're Australian whales, effectively, and they're been slaughtered, illegally."
"The pictures speak for themselves. It's a bloody outrage," he added.
Though agreeing the Japanese operation is "pointless and offensive," New Zealand foreign affairs minister Murray McCully added that the area of the slaughter constituted "international waters and not within New Zealand's maritime jurisdiction."
Following a season of intense confrontation during which the whalers reportedly rammed into Sea Shepherd vessels and fired both water cannons and stun grenades, this initial episode ended without violent confrontation.
“We are keeping on their tail and they aren’t whaling at the moment so we’re happy about that, at least,” Jeff Hansen, the managing director of Sea Shepherd Australia, told Guardian Australia. “There is no need for confrontation, the number one priority is the protection of whales.”
Below is the video evidence obtained by the Sea Shepherd crew. The footage contains both graphic and disturbing images.
_____________________The downward revision to last month's recent record high appears to have been the warning flag but this is a disaster. ISM Manufacturing dropped by its most since 2008 to levels not seen since May, missed by the most on record, and new orders collapsed at the fastest pace since December 1980. The employment sub-index also tumbled from 55.8 to 52.3. "Poor weather" was blamed by some respondents and still hangovers from the government shutdown but these numbers are simply unprecedented as the data came in at a 6-sigma miss to "economist" expectations.
Surprisingly, even the ISM is sick and tired of the generic excuse:
ISM'S HOLCOMB SAYS WEATHER DOESN'T ACCOUNT FOR ENTIRE SLOWDOWN
So, one needs to come up with new and improved generic excuses for biggest miss on record:
6-Sima from smart people's expectations...
And New orders dropped by the most sicne 1980...
The full component breakdown with New Orders highlighted:
The respondents were still hopeful, but "scapegoaty," as some were crushed by the lack of balmy 73 degree weather in the deep of winter:The resignation ends nearly three weeks of tumultuous political controversy. Weiner resigns from Congress
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — In the same room where he launched his first campaign for City Council two decades ago in the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) announced his resignation from Congress on Thursday.
“Today I’m announcing my resignation from Congress so my colleagues can get back to work, my neighbors can choose a new representative and more importantly that my wife and I can continue to heal from the damage I have caused,” he saaid.
Story Continued Below
Weiner said he had hoped to be able to get back to work after getting embroiled in a scandal stemming from his tweeting of a photo of his crotch nearly three weeks ago and then lying about it, but “unfortunately, the distraction that I have created has made that impossible.”
Seeming much more at peace than at his teary press conference 10 days ago, Weiner entered the room to applause from seniors. A few seniors did jeer at him as he read his four-minute statement — which he wrote himself — but most of the jeering came from a “Howard Stern Show” staffer who yelled out questions about Weiner’s genitals.
Weiner did offer a note of contrition to the 40 cameras and more than 100 reporters and camera crews here — “I’m here today to again apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused,” he said — but also touched on old campaign themes of middle class values, including growing up as the son of a man who went to law school on the GI bill and a public school teacher.
Weiner did not take questions from reporters at the event, and when the press tried to follow him out the side door he entered from, the catch on the door got flattened by the crowd.
The resignation comes after President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and dozens of other congressional Democrats called for him to step down, and ends nearly three weeks of tumultuous controversy that began on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend.
Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, did not appear with him.
Weiner had repeatedly told people that Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton who returned early Wednesday from a week-long State Department trip to Africa, wanted him to fight back and was involved in his poitical comeback.
But multiple sources described a very different perspective on the part of Abedin, who’s pregnant with their first child. Abedin spent extensive time consulting with Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s top adviser and her best friend, and Band’s wife, sources said, as she tried to make sense of the circumstances her husband had thrust her into. Other sources used one word to described Band and his wife: “Disgusted.”
Abedin reportedly was with Band when she watched Weiner’s press conference admitting his lewd messaging and lying last Monday.
The Clintons, the sources said, and their extended world, are furious and want no contact with Weiner. But they are deeply supportive and protective of Abedin, whom Clinton called a “second” daughter when he officiated her wedding.
“They are livid,” said one source affiliated with Hillary Clinton.
Several sources with ties to the couple said the immediate problem for Weiner is a lack of income, especially with his first child on the way. He started working in politics right out of college, and has never worked as anything but a staffer or elected official, lacking private sector experience on his resume that will let him do much beyond being an elected official. Part of what Weiner has been focused on for the last several days, according to sources, was exploring possible places where he could land.
But according to two sources, Weiner made up his mind to resign Wednesday night, and shortly after began making calls to inform them of his decision.
Weiner and DCCC chair Steve Israel — who had also called for his resignation — were in touch by phone and e-mail throughout the day on Wednesday. It was during a phone conversation toward the tail end of the White House picnic on Wednesday night when Weiner told Israel he would resign, according to a Democratic aide. Israel gave Pelosi his phone so she could get word from Weiner directly.
CORRECTION: Corrected by: Vivyan Tran @ 06/16/2011 12:18 PM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.While Halo is a vast source for iconic weaponry, the distinctive Energy Sword is one of the most famous, and you can make its toy version even better.
An official prop sold by Mattel, this $60 (~R812) toy certainty looks the part. The people over at Adafruit, however, were not impressed with the paltry 11 LEDs it uses to achieve the energy effect, and they recently created a guide to make it better.
You can follow the video below, or their written tutorial, to see how it was upgraded with 43 NeoPixel LEDs per blade, resulting in 86 LEDs lighting up this project.
Since this is an Adafruit project, and most of the hardware used in the video is sold by the company, you may be worried about getting those components if you live outside of the US. Luckily for us over here in South Africa, Adafruit products are sold by the local company RS Components. If you do want to do this kind of mod, you don’t have to follow the video so closely with the same components, but having them doesn’t hurt.
The toy prop that forms the basis for this project is more difficult to acquire. In the video, and on Gamestop’s site, it states that it’s being sold exclusively through that US store, but we found it on Amazon too. It is more expensive on Amazon, and you’ll need to use a service such as Aramex to get it into the country, so keep that in mind before you make any purchases.
[Source – Adafruit BlogVerizon is protesting a broad subpoena the company received from Malibu Media, one of the most active copyright trolls in the United States. The ISP is fighting a deposition of its employees and is refusing to hand over private correspondence and information about modems and other equipment, citing the copyright holder's "extortionate" practices.
Malibu Media, the Los Angeles based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies, is one of the most active copyright trolls in the United States.
The company has filed thousands of lawsuits in recent years, targeting Internet subscribers whose accounts were allegedly used to share Malibu’s films.
These cases generally don’t go to trial. Instead, the adult movie studio obtains a subpoena from the court so it can ask Internet providers to expose the accused subscribers.
Verizon is one of the ISPs which is often targeted, and the company has responded to thousands of subpoenas from Malibu alone, without complaining. However, a broad subpoena that arrived a few days ago is a bridge too far for Verizon.
The subpoena was issued in a case currently before the Southern District of New York.
To prove that a Verizon subscriber is guilty, Malibu Media requested additional information from the ISP including private communications with the subscriber, technical details about its modems and a deposition of Verizon employees.
Verizon, however, does not plan to comply and has asked the court for support. The ISP begins its reply with a general overview of how copyright trolls work, noting that their practices cost providers a lot of time and resources.
“These ‘Doe’ cases impose undue burdens upon the ISPs, including Verizon, who have been asked to respond to thousands of subpoenas from Malibu Media. The subpoenas have required a large amount of Verizon’s employees’ time to evaluate and respond to competing and sometimes overlapping requests for information,” the ISP writes (pdf).
Verizon points out that these piracy lawsuits are increasingly being scrutinized by the courts, some of which have compared it to an “extortion scheme.”
Aside from the general burdens Verizon notes that Malibu should not be allowed to call in Verizon employees from another state for a deposition on such a short notice.
“The subpoena here improperly demanded that Verizon’s employees, who work in Arlington, Virginia, and reside nearby, travel to San Angelo, Texas, on short notice for a deposition and to bring documents with them.”
In addition, the information requested by Malibu Media is not relevant or outside the scope of the Cable Act, which prevents certain privacy sensitive data from being shared.
“The additional information now sought by Plaintiff’s subpoena — correspondence between Verizon and the subscriber, information about the rental of modems or other equipment, and Verizon’s general policies and procedures — is either irrelevant, more properly sought from a party to litigation, or outside the scope of discovery contemplated by the Cable Act,” Verizon writes.
The above clearly shows that Verizon is taking a stand. This could mean that Malibu Media’s request may hurt the company’s litigation efforts in the long run, as copyright troll watcher SJD suggests.
“The critical gear of the well-oiled extortion machine is the relationship between the troll and ISPs. We see a small crack in this gear, and I really hope this crack will grow over time,” she writes.
Currently, Verizon and other ISPs don’t oppose subpoenas that request personal details of subscribers based on an IP-address, but this may change in the future.
It’s now up to judge Katherine Forrest to decide whether the requested subpoena for additional information indeed goes too far. Forrest previously likened Malibu’s practices to “harassment,” which may be factored into the decision.UFC champion Michael Bisping has never been afraid to speak his mind but I don’t even think the great Nature Boy Ric Flair expected Bisping to unleash a flurry of insults at Brock Lesnar during a recent podcast appearance.
The Nature Boy had a chance to interview Bisping shortly before his fight at UFC 204 against Dan Henderson. Bisping came on the Ric Flair Show and had a great time talking to the WWE Hall of Famer. Bisping is a Flair fan but one guy he is not a fan of is Brock Lesnar.
Flair asked Bisping about CM Punk and Bisping put Punk over, telling Flair took a lot of guts for Punk to get into the octagon and understood that the UFC is a business. Flair then asked Bisping about his buddy Brock Lesnar and what came next was one of the best and most controversial promos ever from Bisping…and that says a lot.
Ric Flair – “How tough do you think Brock Lesnar is?”
Michael Bisping – “How tough do you think Brock Lesnar is? Listen I respect any man that steps into the octagon because it takes balls. But if you have to go in there and take steroids to do it? F*ck you, you cocky son of a b*tch. Kiss my a$$. I will knock Brock Lesnar out with one f*cking punch. I will take him and throw him out of the octagon like the pu$%y that he is. Am I making myself clear? F*ck Brock Lesnar! F*ck steroids! F*ck all you f*cking f*aggots that want to come in here and take steroids. Am I making myself clear? Steroids have destroyed the sport and anyone that takes them, kiss my a&%.”
Flair – “I don’t have a comment because I have to see him next week (laughs).”
Bisping – “Tell him I said hi.
He’s a big son of a b*tch but as I said. Real men don’t cheat in a real fight. In your world you have to look good, you have to be big and it’s expected for the audience. You guys good for you, good for you. In a real fight we shouldn’t be cheating and taking steroids.”
For those unaware, Lesnar had positive drug tests come back before and after his fight at UFC 200 against Mark Hunt. Lesnar was popped for estrogen blockers. Estrogen blockers are commonly used to combat the side effects of steroids.
“An official with knowledge of Lesnar’s samples identified the banned substance as the fertility drug clomiphene, one of the two banned substances found in a June sample taken from former UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones.”
To be fair to Lesnar, he has not had his day in court yet. Lesnar has reportedly hired a prominent PED attorney and has been granted extra time to defend his case.
As strong as Bisping sounded against Brock, he was then asked about Jon Jones. Jones also recently failed a test for estrogen blockers. Ironically Bisping was sympathetic towards Jones which was odd considering he just blasted Lesnar a minute earlier for the same infraction.
Regardless, the interview is worth a listen to and whether there are any ramifications from this or not is anyone’s guess. My hunch is that there very well could be if any groups want to make waves. Quite frankly I am surprised that this has flied so far under the radar at this point.
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Eric G. Eric is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Camel Clutch Blog. Eric has worked in the pro wrestling industry since 1995 as a ring announcer in ECW and a commentator/host on television, PPV, and home video. Eric also hosted Pro Wrestling Radio on terrestrial radio from 1998-2009. Check out some of Eric's work on his IMDB bio and Wikipedia. Eric has an MBA from Temple University's Fox School of Business. More Posts - Website Follow Me:The Rolling Stones' 1967 recordings are a matter of some controversy; many critics felt that they were compromising their raw, rootsy power with trendy emulations of the Beatles, Kinks, Dylan, and psychedelic music. Approach this album with an open mind, though, and you'll find it to be one of their strongest, most eclectic LPs, with many fine songs that remain unknown to all but Stones devotees. The lyrics are getting better (if more savage), and the arrangements more creative, on brooding near-classics like "All Sold Out," "My Obsession," and "Yesterday's Papers." "She Smiled Sweetly" shows their hidden romantic side at its best, while "Connection" is one of the record's few slabs of conventionally driving rock. The best tracks on the American edition were the two songs that gave the group a double-sided number one in early 1967: the lustful "Let's Spend the Night Together" and the beautiful, melancholy "Ruby Tuesday," which is as melodic as anything Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would ever write.A little late, but it's only "unusual" for the cruisers of certain nations not to have torpedoes. (Especially the heavy cruisers, like Zara.) American cruisers were almost entirely devoid of torpedoes except for the Atlanta-class, which, for an American ship, was more like an oversized destroyer than a typical cruiser. (It also had plenty of ASW.)
Torpedoes on heavy cruisers were notably more trouble than they were worth, ESPECIALLY the notoriously volatile Long Lance/"Oxygen Torpedoes". Any ship with an 8" gun or larger (which had much more range than a destroyer's 4" or 5"ers) was unlikely to ever close with the enemy close enough that they could use a non-homing torpedo. More heavy cruisers were sunk by their own torpedoes being hit in combat than they actually sank using them offensively. Just ask Ckoukai, the cruiser with the ignominious distinction of being the only ship ever sunk by an aircraft carrier's tiny 5" self-defense weapon thanks to a lucky shot to the torpedoes detonating the whole ship.Highlights from this afternoon's eventful presser (video available here)
--We have pretty much a brand new team. We built a great culture of winning the last three years, and now we're concentrating on building on that culture.
--When you have so many foreign players, you're not just working on getting them physically and mentally stronger, you're working on getting them adjusted to the culture. It takes a lot of patience, especially when you're dealing with 7-footers.
--The good news is that we have a great starting five. Those guys are really good and they're doing a great job of trying to pass our culture along to the newcomers.
--Our bench has to get better, which is why these red-white games are so important. Sometimes when you play exhibition games they don't tell you a lot, but that's not going to be the case this year.
--Chris Jones has been back over a month from his injury. Akoy Agau and Jaylen Johnson have just been back this week. Jaylen hasn't practiced a day yet. First it was because he wasn't cleared, recently it's been because he's had tendonitis in his quad.
--I think this will be one of the best backcourts I've coached, because they play so well together. We asked Chris Jones to lose a certain amount of weight and he has. He's like Mighty Mouse right now because he's so small and so strong.
--Terry's playing great basketball, Wayne has been terrific, Montrezl has added some things to his game, and Mangok has made the jump that we expected. All five guys are meeting our expectations right now.
--Montrezl has added a reliable 16-foot jumper and he's shooting free-throws better, but he's not playing the same defense he played last year, and we need to fix that.
--Mangok's goal is to be as good as Gorgui someday. He always talks about that. He's a much better basketball player today than he was.
--We're a new basketball team, so I don't know how we fit into the ACC yet.
--Four years ago we asked the players to put Louisville first, and they've done such a tremendous job of that, and the players today see that. They see Luke Hancock, who if he doesn't make it in the NBA already has two offers to work in business. They see Tim Henderson who already has a job. They see Russ Smith and Stephan Van Treese already with guaranteed contracts. So it's easy for our guys now to see how those guys were rewarded for playing for the name on the front and not the back.
--It's a little bit harder with this group to show them how successful our past guys have been because we have a big Egyptian and a big Norwegian who don't know anything about that.
--I asked some of our players to stop using a certain word in practice, and now they're all swearing in Norwegian. They're using the Norwegian version of the word that was banned.
--I don't expect either Matz Stockman or Anas Mahmoud to play this season. It's not because they're not going to be good, it's just because the transition for bigs takes so much longer than it does for guards. One of them needs to get bigger and the other needs more mental toughness. If we needed them to play they could play, but we don't need them because Mangok and Chinanu look so good.
--Chinanu is 17-years-old. He won't turn 18 until November. When he first got here he couldn't get through one conditioning drill. His mom and best friend didn't recognize him when he went home recently. He has become a physical specimen. He's 255 pounds of solid muscle. He really needs to improve his free-throw shooting because he shoots free-throws like Montrezl. We're trying to get both him and Chinanu to develop a soft touch at the line. Montrezl has really improved.
--Teaching defense is the biggest adjustment when you have six new players. It's why when we get into the season and are rolling, we're not going to focus too much on teaching from 9-13, because we need to focus on teaching our first 8.
--I didn't want to play the game against Minnesota, but Richard insisted on it, which told me that he thinks he can win the game. Of course that was before Montrezl Harrell made his decision. But he still thinks he can beat us. He's got four seniors and he won 25 games last year. We have the same handicap on the golf course but he recently beat me five times in a row. After the last time he patted me on the ass and said, "it's been a tough summer for you, hope it's not a tough fall." So he fully expects to win that game.
--If we are like we've been the last three seasons, we won't beat Minnesota, because we always wait to play our best ball sometime in January.
--Those Red-White games are crucial, because we've got to be ready to go in just a few weeks.
--I'm impressed with Quentin because he's gotten so much physically stronger. He's typical of most freshmen in that he's gifted offensively but can't guard anybody. Shaqquan's different because he got sick and came in 20 pounds lighter than we thought he was going to be. Like Francisco Garcia, he's very weak physically. He's a talented young man, but Wayne Blackshear dominates him every day in practice physically. He can pass and score, but he's got to get bigger.
--I can't recruit a kid now because he wears Nike on the AAU circuit. I never thought that shoes would be the reason I couldn't recruit a player, but it's a factor now. I think we need to deal with that. I think we need to get the shoe companies out of the lives of young athletes and get it back to where coaches and parents have more of a say than peripheral people, but I don't know how to do that. It's easier said than done.
I think our pool shrinks because we're not a Nike school. That said, we've had the best recruiting classes we've had since I've been here the last few years.
It's not the kid who actually cares, it's the outside influence. The AAU people are being told that if your kid goes to a school that doesn't wear our clothes, you may not get renewed with our stuff next year. It's a bigger problem than the guaranteed scholarships, but nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it because it's money related. Anytime money is involved, people don't want to talk. But I think it needs to be cleaned up.
I wish the NCAA would run the camps in the summertime, that way they would get to explain all the rules. They could tell us when we could come in and when we could watch; they could legislate all of that. That would be a great way to spend all that money that they have, but I don't think they want to do that.
I'm not speaking about a personal situation that just happened to us. That really was not the case, believe it or not. I'm talking about how in the last five years I've seen such a tremendous change. These shoe companies are going out in the summer and recruiting like we recruit players. It's very tough to address because our pockets are lined with their money.
Some of these programs are run very well. But what I've learned the last few years |
bounded 62-32 in that 121-118 win on Feb. 27, and the Warriors can't even believe they pulled off that one.
"I have no clue," swingman Draymond Green said. "That's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. That's not supposed to happen."
Golden State won all three regular-season meetings with the Thunder on the way to its record 73-win season, but slowing down Russell Westbrook and Durant will be a chore after the Thunder beat San Antonio 4-2 in the Western Conference semifinals.
"They're an explosive team. They're clicking right now and found a good recipe to beat a tough Spurs team," said Curry, who made a record 402 3-pointers to top his previous top league mark of 286 from last season. "That says a lot about how they're playing right now."
The Warriors are optimistic Curry's sprained right knee will stay healthy for the entire round when he best-of-seven series begins Monday night at Oracle Arena.
After being sidelined in the first round with an ankle injury and then missing the first three games against the Trail Blazers, Curry came off the bench and overcame a slow start to score 40 points in a 132-125 Game 4 overtime win at Portland on Monday night, including an NBA-record 17 in overtime. He then started and scored 29 points Wednesday night in the clincher at home.
"The last three years against them it's been pretty entertaining games, most of the time going down to the wire, so you can only imagine what it will be like in the playoffs," Curry said. "Every possession's going to be key."
Here are some things to watch for in the West finals:
BOGUT'S LEG: Golden State 7-foot-center Andrew Bogut returned to practice Sunday to test a strained muscle in his right leg between the hamstring and groin. The Warriors didn't scrimmage, so Bogut was listed as questionable for Monday's series opener. With no shootaround Monday, coach Steve Kerr said he would go through a strenuous warmup before the game to determine his status.
Meanwhile, Curry said Sunday his knee hasn't improved much the past week and it will just be about "pain tolerance" and he expects to be able to handle his regular load and production.
THOMPSON'S D: First, Klay Thompson chased James Harden around for five games and held him in check. Then Damian Lillard for five more. And now he draws Westbrook in another daunting defensive assignment.
Yet Thompson spent Thursday's day off at a dog park - so, yes, his legs are still plenty fresh, thank you.
"It's been a lot of fun," Thompson said. "My energy on both offense and defense never really withered. I was locked in for five straight games. I shot the ball well. That helps.... It's nice to have home court. You've got to set yourself up mentally each series, you've got to reset. Guarding James and guarding Damian, and hopefully now up for the challenge of Westbrook and Durant, you've got to get your rest but mentally prepare yourself for no rest, really."
CRASH THE BOARDS: The Thunder were the NBA's top rebounding team, by a long shot. While sending Durant, center Steven Adams, power forward Serge Ibaka and others to the glass at every chance, Oklahoma City outrebounded opponents by 8.4 - twice that of any other team. Even Westbrook crashes the offensive boards as well as anybody from the point guard position.
"It's a different type of series, we're absolutely going to have to play better," Kerr said. "This is a much bigger team. Rebounding will be key."
That means the Golden State guards doing their part.
"We got outrebounded by like 30 in OKC and we won. I've never heard of a team doing that," Curry said.
EXPERIENCED THUNDER: Oklahoma City is in the West finals for the fourth time in six years and lost to Miami for the 2012 title.
First-year coach Billy Donovan is trying to pull of the feat that Kerr did a year ago in his rookie season leading Golden State to its first championship in 40 years.
"We know exactly what we're up against," Kerr said. "They've been one of the best teams in the league for the last six-seven years. The reality is in this league all you can ask for is to give yourself a swing at the plate every year, and they've had a lot of swings and they've come really, really close."
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: This series could be quite an offensive show for basketball fans.
"You've got amazing athletes, amazing scorers," Thompson said. "You've got everything you want in a series."
Durant shot 50 percent against the Spurs.
The Warriors have a long list of play-makers.
"They're going to make demoralizing plays all the time," Adams said.
---
AP Sports Writer Cliff Brunt in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
Copyright 2016 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibitedIn the wake of the Orlando attack, Republicans have expressed a willingness to compromise on the purchase of guns by people on terrorist watch lists but legislation is still far from a certainty. Here’s why
Democrats ended a 14-hour filibuster in the Senate overnight with the promise of some progress on proposed gun control legislation. Republicans leaders agreed to take a vote on amendments to expand background checks and ban gun sales to those who are on the government’s terror watch list, closing what is known as the “terror gap”.
It’s unknown how Republicans would vote on the proposals. But in the wake of the nightclub shootings in Orlando, a small handful of them in the Senate are now showing greater willingness to compromise on the terror proposal than they did last December, when rival measures from the two parties to close the terror gap in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting both failed.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the White House, is scheduled to talk to the NRA on Thursday to help formulate his own policy position on the so-called terror gap – a not-so-subtle acknowledgement of the extraordinary power that the gun lobby wields over legislators and candidates for high office alike. Here’s what you need to know about the terror gap.
What is the terror gap?
The terror gap is the notion of a legislative hole whereby US citizens can purchase deadly firearms even if they are under investigation for suspected terrorist activity. The Government Accountability Office found that between 2004 and 2014, some 91% of suspected terrorists who attempted to buy a gun – 2,043 out of 2,233 – succeeded.
Attempts to close the gap, going back to the George W Bush administration, have repeatedly failed despite broad public support because of pressure on congressional legislators from the NRA.
Is this another case of partisan gridlock?
Not entirely. The Bush and Obama administrations have both supported the same set of proposals, and the legislation most hotly contested by the NRA has been proposed jointly by Dianne Feinstein of California, a Democratic senator, and Peter King of New York, a Republican congressman. That said, Republicans tend to be in lockstep with the NRA more consistently than Democrats. Fifty-four senators voted against the Feinstein-King legislation last December, 53 of whom were Republicans. Just one Republican, Mark Kirk of Illinois, voted in favor.
The FBI has different ways of categorizing people it is investigating for possible terrorist ties. In addition, there is a federal no-fly list of people deemed too dangerous to be allowed to board an airplane. Some in the Senate, including Republican Pat Toomey, want to create a single consolidated list and have it subject to the authority of the foreign intelligence surveillance, or Fisa, court.
What are the ideas for fixing it?
Feinstein and King want to give the Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, sole discretion over which terrorist suspects get to purchase weapons and which do not – in part so that the FBI has the option of allowing sales to go ahead as part of their investigative process. Anyone who feels unfairly targeted would still have a chance to appeal against any denial of gun rights in the courts.
The NRA’s preferred approach, currently championed in the Senate by Republican John Cornyn, would require the government to respond to a contested gun sale by filing a brief in federal court, offering the targeted individual the opportunity to make his or her case in response, and convincing the judge to rule within 72 hours. Without fulfilling all of these conditions, the sale would go ahead. The president of Michael Bloomberg’s group Everytown for Gun Safety said this week: “The Cornyn bill has an absurdly high standard that applies only to people who are proven to be about to commit a terrorist act. At that point, we shouldn’t be debating about terrorists’ gun rights – just about the quickest way to incapacitate them.”
Among those seeking a compromise is Toomey, a Republican facing re-election in Pennsylvania, a key swing state. He wants to address concerns about government overreach leading to people being put on a list erroneously by consolidating the many different ways the FBI has of tracking terror suspects, as well as the federal no-fly list, and putting it under the authority of the Fisa court.
If closing the terror gap is so popular, what is the argument against it?
Detractors on the left and the right are worried that a list of terror suspects used to curtail individual liberties would be prone to abuse and inadequate constitutional safeguards. The no-fly list has come under fire for exactly this criticism. Many people have not been informed that they are on the list, making it difficult or impossible to get themselves removed, and many others have not been given a reason for their inclusion. The American Civil Liberties Union is engaged in a five-year-old legal battle to challenge the constitutionality of the no-fly list and would accept it as a basis for denying individual gun rights only “with major reforms”.
The NRA, for its part, cites the risk of governmental overreach as a cornerstone of its argument for subjecting any contested gun purchase to the scrutiny of a judge. In principle, the NRA says it wants to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists, but in practice it has set almost impossibly high bars to making this happen.
If the terror gap had been closed, would it have prevented the massacre in Orlando?
Probably not. The Feinstein-King legislation as written last December would not have covered Omar Mateen because the FBI twice put him on a list of suspected terrorists and then took him off again. They now have new language, tailored to the events in Orlando, to extend a weapons purchase ban for five years after an individual is put on a terrorism suspect list.
Of course, there are many other ways to obtain an assault rifle and a machine pistol such as the weapons used at the Pulse nightclub than by going into a gun store – for example, at a gun show, where there are no background checks. Another bill that will now go up for a vote to require background checks at gun shows is much less likely to pass.
Are the chances of closing the gap now any greater than they were after any of the other recent atrocities?
Slightly, but don’t hold your breath. Senators such as Toomey and Rob Portman of Ohio, also facing re-election this year, are indicating an interest in finding compromise language. Feinstein, however, said on Wednesday that her own efforts to find a middle ground were not working. “I don’t think it’s going to work out,” she said.
Why is Trump talking to the NRA before announcing his own position on the issue?
Because, as Ari Freilich, a staff attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, put it: “The NRA sets the term of the debate.” That applies even to a presidential candidate who famously claims to be beholden to nobody. The NRA has endorsed Trump, and Trump is doing what many, many other NRA endorsees have done before him.Whether based on reactionary headline trades or disappointed gamers, Sony\’s big announcement of the PlayStation 4 console late Wednesday gave a boost to the shares of its more troubled rival Nintendo.
Reuters Sony talks about PlayStation 4 at NYC event.
The two stocks traded in opposite directions on Thursday. Sony\’s U.S.-listed shares were down 2.7% to $14.08 by midday, with Nintendo\’s U.S. shares up 2% to $11.79. Earlier trades on the Tokyo market followed the same pattern, with Sony slipping about 1.8% by the close of that session, and Nintendo gaining about 1.3%.
What gives? Sony hosted a high-profile event in New York City on Wednesday night to introduce the PlayStation 4. But while the company spent two hours discussing the new capabilities of the console and the games that would be developed for it, the device itself was never shown, leading many to speculate as to what the company is currently keeping under wraps.
Though both are rivals in the videogame market, Sony and Nintendo also have many differences. Nintendo is mostly dependent on its console and games business, while Sony is far more diversified across the consumer electronics spectrum. And Nintendo has tended to appeal more to the family and casual gaming crowd, so the launch of a new PlayStation wouldn\’t necessarily kill off demand for its own new Wii U console that hit the market in November.
But both are also going after a market that has been hammered by the emergence of smartphones, tablets and social gaming. Nintendo has struggled to sell the Wii U since its launch, leading the company to cut its sales forecast for the year. And while analysts say they liked what they saw from Sony on Wednesday night, many questions remain unanswered, such as what the new PS4 will cost when it finally comes out this holiday season.
It\’s possible that Thursday\’s trades are a mix of profit taking and hedging. Sony\’s U.S.-listed shares have jumped more than 30% over the last two months in anticipation of the new console. Nintendo has lost about 30% since the launch of the Wii U in mid-November.
— Dan Gallagher
Follow The Tell blog on Twitter @thetellblogPresident Donald Trump is slowly filling his ranks of top tech advisers in the White House.
Weeks after hiring an ally to Peter Thiel as his first deputy chief technology officer, Trump has hired himself another aide: Matt Lira, a longtime digital aide to leading Republican lawmakers and GOP causes, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Specifically, Lira will serve as a special assistant to the president for innovation policy and initiatives, the White House confirmed to Recode on Thursday. He joins the Trump administration most recently from the office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., where Lira helped advance an entire initiative focused on tech policy issues.
It was Lira, for example, who aided McCarthy’s efforts to pass a bill that allows tech engineers to serve brief tours of duty for the federal government — a measure that Barack Obama signed into law in the final hours of his presidency.
Lira himself did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday, but an email to his old congressional inbox says he departed on March 17.
Before joining the GOP leader’s office in July 2015, Lira served as top aide to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm that helps fund and elect GOP candidates for the U.S. Senate. Lira has also served as a senior adviser to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and he worked as a digital director for Paul Ryan while Ryan was running as a vice presidential candidate on GOP contender Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential ticket.
Lira joins a White House that’s slowly but surely forming its tech ranks. As I scooped earlier in March, the White House hired Michael Kratsios, the chief of staff at Thiel Capital, as its first deputy chief technology officer. (Trump, who Peter Thiel advised during the early days of his presidency, has not named a chief technology officer.)
The administration also has drafted Grace Koh, a former congressional staffer, for a key posting on the National Economic Council that touches on telecommunications issues. The NEC is led by Gary Cohn, the Goldman Sachs banker who’s a familiar face to the likes of Uber in Silicon Valley.1967
In celebration of Canada's centennial year, plans for a commemorative International and Universal Exposition (or Expo '67) were underway. Members of various ethnic groups, including the Caribbean and West Indian diaspora, were invited by the province to stage a cultural event, as a tribute to the diverse communities that comprise Canada.
"Caribana" (the name, says founding member Maurice Bygrave, is a hybrid of Caribbean and bacchanal) was the one-time event produced by the West Indian community who drew inspiration from Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival celebrations in their home country.
× Expand Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library The Canadian Pavilion at Expo '67
The members of the Caribean and West Indian community who formed the Caribbean Centennial Committee (pictured below), a non-profit later to be known as the Caribbean Cultural Committee (CCC), included doctors, lawyers and engineers. Among them were Joseph "Alban" Liverpool (chair), Archibald Bastien (deputy chair), Leslie Forbes, Peter Marcelline, Maurice Bygrave, Monica Pollard, Rita Cox, Romain Pitt, Charles Roach, Elmore Daisy, Sam Cole, Alpha Walter King, Fred Cole, Jeff Henry, Russell Charter, Joan Alexander, Melbourne Thompson and Eric Lindsay.
× Expand via caribana.ca archives Some of the founding members of the organizing committee behind Caribana '67
"We produced Caribana to commemorate Expo 67, Canada’s 100th birthday celebration, and we started the festival to show the different Caribbean islands and their camaraderie. We had people from Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, St. Vincent working on it," recalled founding member Maurice Bygrave in a 2015 interview.
× Expand Frank Lennon/ Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library Dancers at the Caribana '67 ball in the Royal York Hotel
1968
Caribana was so successful that members of the CCC organized to put the fest on again the following year. Caribana '68 included a pageant to crown Miss Caribana, a series of shows at the Toronto Islands, and a grand ball at the Royal York Hotel.
× Expand via caribana.ca Caribana archives Brochure promoting Caribana '68. Produced by the newly minted Caribbean Committee for Cultural Advancement
× Expand York University Libraries, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, Toronto Telegram fonds, ASC06104 Drummers for the BWIA Sunjets Steel Orchestra of Trinidad perform outside of the Collonade on Bloor in 1968 via York University Libraries archives.
Caribana was established as more than just a parade. It comprises three distinct art forms: steelpan, calypso and the mas (masquerade) parade of costumes, music and dance. It was at the shows and the marquee parade where the festival's two other components, steelpan and calypso, got to shine and dazzle attendees.
× Expand Boris Spremo, Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library Young Caribana observer Nicole Persad and her father
× Expand Frank Lennon, Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library Peter Marcelline, Trinidadian-Canadian, Social activist, Caribana co-founder pictured in 81 in his role as chairman.
1970
The Grand Parade, which was scheduled on the first Saturday of August to commemorate passage of the Slavery Abolition Act throughout the British Empire in 1833, moves to University Avenue from Yonge Street. But a car accident along the route mars celebrations when two children are killed.
Late 80s
Participation in the parade expands to groups from Central and South America, Africa, the Bahamas and Haiti.
× Expand Frank Lennon, From the Toronto Star Archives via the Toronto Library 20-year-old Judy Lewis is crowned Miss Caribana in 1984
1991
Straying from it's tradition of starting at Varsity Stadium, the parade makes its move to Lake Shore Blvd.
1993
Ontario Premier Bob Rae describes Caribana as a "beacon of hope" for racial harmony in Canada at the event's official launch at Nathan Phillips Square. The Caribana Marketplace of West Indian food vendors is added along the parade route.
× Expand Anne Munro, Toronto Star Photographic Archive via the Toronto Library
2004
"Caribana" goes to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's tourism board requested a group of 50 organizers, dancers, masqueraders, artists and more to bring the Toronto festivities to the massive Chinese New Year celebrations.
The event was such a success that the group is invited back the following year.
× Expand Caribana Mas in Chinese New year's Celebration in Hong Kong.
2006
Caribana would grow to become one the largest celebrations of its kind in North America. Spawning similar celebrations in other cities including Hamilton, New York, Buffalo and Chicago.
Amid financial woes and unfortunate incidents involving gun violence, the city withdraws support for the CCC, and forms a new committee, the Festival Management Committee (FMC). An ensuing lawsuit over the name of the fest prompts the renaming of Caribana to the Toronto Caribbean Carnival.
2009
In come the tall barriers along the parade route.
2011
Scotiabank signs on as the main sponsor, prompting a name change to the Scotiabank Caribbean Carnival Toronto after a legal fight over ownership of the caribana.com domain name. Scotiabank would end its sponsorship of the festival in 2015.
2016
After much criticism, organizers decide to ditch the tall barriers along the parade route, opting for barricades that are no more than one metre high.
2017
The festival acquires a new sponsor, a social media and tech company, and becomes the Peeks Toronto Caribbean Carnival. Month-long programming includes the debut of the Carnival Night Market and masquerade showcases, as well as a photo retrospective at Scarborough Civic Centre created and curated by long time Caribana photographer Horace Thorne. This year's parade takes place Saturday, August 5.
shantalo@nowtoronto.com | @Shantal_OtBOINC is an open-source volunteer distributed computing platform which utilizes the spare computer resources on 500k+ computers to attempt to cure diseases, map the milkyway, search for extraterrestrial life, and any other kind of distributable computation.
Anyone who needs a serious amount of distributed computing power (100k+ CPUs) almost entirely for free can create a BOINC project to create a distributed cloud service of their own desire (fairly easily) whilst the Gridcoin network potentially rewards your project's volunteers on your behalf.
What is project-rain?
'Project Rain' is the practice of distributing crypto assets to BOINC users based on their verified BOINC computation; it was initially devised within the Gridcoin network and has been expanded to multiple cryptocurrencies and all BOINC teams through the proposed BOINC web server changes.
Think of Project Rain as a new share-dropping vector that doesn't require end-users handling wallet private keys nor providing proof of IRL identity.
Rather than earning one token for your BOINC computation, you could be merge crunching many BOINC distributed tokens!
Project-Rain merging into the BOINC repo?
Rather than running my own BOINC project solely for the purpose of providing the project-rain functionality, I have created a pull request to merge the changes into the BOINC GitHub repo. If it is merged then all future or updated BOINC projects will have project-rain functionality.
What cryptocurrencies are currently supported?
Gridcoin, Steem, Bitshares, Peerplays, Storj, NEM, IBM Bluemix Blockchain, ColoredCoins, Antshares, Lisk, Decent, Synereo, LBRY, Wings, BoardRoom, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Expanse, Golem, NXT, Ardor, Hyperledger Sawtooth Lake (Intel), Hyperledger Fabric (IBM), Waves, Peershares, Omnilayer, CounterParty, Hyperledger (MISC), Stratis, Metaverse, Cosmos, Stratis, Zcash & Heat Ledger.
Is there a mandatory team requirement?
There is no mandatory team requirement for joining the website, all BOINC teams/users are welcome to join!
Assets may however be distributed by rain makers to specific teams since they have full freedom of choice to do so.
Who decides upon asset distribution details?
The 'rain maker' planning on 'raining' an asset is fully responsible for picking the projects and/or teams to target as well as the desired 'rain weight' for each project.
Sneak peak!
Old screenshots (don't have the latest version running at the very moment, sorry):
The following screenshots show the old project-rain version, the pull request version auto-hides the fields when blank (so as to not immediately spam the profile view with crypto links).
User profile (self-view)
Browsing another user's profile
Example user xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <user> <id>2</id> <cpid></cpid> <create_time>1497573052</create_time> <name>derp</name> <country>United Kingdom</country> <bitshares>123</bitshares> <steem></steem> <gridcoin></gridcoin> <ethereum></ethereum> <ethereum_classic></ethereum_classic> <golem></golem> <nxt></nxt> <ardor></ardor> <hyperledger_sawtooth_lake></hyperledger_sawtooth_lake> <hyperledger_fabric></hyperledger_fabric> <hyperledger_misc></hyperledger_misc> <waves></waves> <peershares></peershares> <omnilayer></omnilayer> <counterparty></counterparty> <peerplays></peerplays> <storj></storj> <nem></nem> <ibm_bluemix_blockchain></ibm_bluemix_blockchain> <coloredcoins></coloredcoins> <heat_ledger></heat_ledger> <antshares></antshares> <lisk></lisk> <decent></decent> <synereo></synereo> <lbry></lbry> <wings></wings> <hong></hong> <boardroom></boardroom> <expanse></expanse> <akasha></akasha> <cosmos></cosmos> <metaverse></metaverse> <zcash></zcash> <stratis></stratis> <echo></echo> <tox></tox> <retroshare></retroshare> <wickr></wickr> <ring></ring> <pgp></pgp> <total_credit>0</total_credit> <expavg_credit>0</expavg_credit> <expavg_time>1497573052</expavg_time> <teamid>0</teamid> <url></url> <has_profile>0</has_profile> </user>
Best regards,
@cm-teemWADA Director General, David Howman: “After a thorough examination of the evidence contained within the file, WADA has decided to lodge its independent right of appeal to the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).”
We have now completed our independent review of the full case file on the AFL Anti-Doping Appeals Tribunal decision regarding 34 current and former Essendon players.
After a thorough examination of the evidence contained within the file, WADA has decided to lodge its independent right of appeal to the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
As with all pending cases, and adhering to the proper and normal respect for the integrity of the legal process, WADA will refrain from commenting further on the subject until a decision has been made by CAS.Part of the unmatched charm of this Tiki Bar is that this little hideaway - and much of the current decor - dates all the way back to 1958, when it was opened by brothers Ace and Ed Libby at the height of the mid-century Tiki craze. After a period of being run down, the bar was thankfully restored to its former Tiki glory in 2005. Now, the original fountains are running, there’s new, period-appropriate artwork, and vintage, eclectic tunes in the jukebox. If you're a local barfly, you can join The Loyal Order of the Drooling Bastard by ordering every drink in the Grog Log (which runs over 80 drinks deep) within a year. Whether you want a $2 PBR or a classic 1934 Zombie made according to Don the Beachcomber's original recipe, the Tonga Hut is your Valley watering hole.If you haven’t listened to this special version of The Talk Show, live from WWDC, take a few minutes and go here. It’s a great listen. Terrifically entertaining.
Next, go to Marco Arment’s absolutely brilliant insider’s look at the podcast, replete with pictures.
From the review:
But after a brief introduction from Merlin Mann and Adam Lisagor, John introduced, “and I shit you not,” Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, Phil Schiller. Being familiar with John’s dry humor, I’m not sure most of the audience believed him. Many cheered. Some hesitated. For a few seconds, nobody walked out, and people started laughing, thinking they got the joke. And then Phil Schiller really walked on stage.
And this next bit is critical:
Apple executives rarely speak publicly outside of Apple events, especially for live interviews. One of the highest-ranking executives of the world’s highest-profile company being subjected to questions, unprepared and unedited, in front of a live audience full of recording devices, is rarely worth the PR risk: the potential downside is much larger than the likely upside. Do well, and a bunch of existing fans will like you a bit more; do poorly, and it’s front-page news worldwide. Both Apple and Phil Schiller himself took a huge risk in doing this. That they agreed at all is a noteworthy gift to this community of long-time enthusiasts, many of whom have felt under-appreciated as the company has grown.
Phil took the risk. John Gruber made it pay off. And Marco caught the true essence of the moment. Nice.David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin have talked about what a natural Jesse Eisenberg was at delivering Sorkin's dense, mile-a-minute dialogue in "The Social Network." And a conversation with the 27-year-old actor will convince you that there's good reason for that.
Eisenberg isn't anti-social or awkward like Mark Zuckerberg, his real-life character and founder of Facebook, but the words spill out of him in torrents – even when Sorkin isn't writing the dialogue.
Fincher's film has turned the indie-bred Eisenberg into a serious Best Actor contender, and already landed him awards from several critics groups and the National Board of Review.
Zuckerberg is a pretty public figure. How careful were you to pick up his mannerisms, his style?
It was important to me initially, but I soon realized that it was not important to David. I asked him if I could dye my hair red to look like Mark, and he said, "You need to think about what it's like to start this company and to be 23 and be defending it. You need to think about what it’s like to be in awe of somebody who might be a little bit dangerous, and what it's like to have to cut a friend out of a company. You should be focusing on the psychological aspects of the character, rather than the outward appearance or vocal style of the character."
It's a lot more interesting to go into the psychology of somebody so unique, rather than to do some kind of mimicry.
So, in the end, do you think the movie is honest, and fair to Zuckerberg?
I have no idea. First of all, I've only seen the movie once. But I don’t know the real story. I wasn’t in those rooms. My only concern, really is the character of Mark: did I do the character justice? Is the character consistent? Is the character acting in a way that feels authentic? Are the character's desires and hopes and conflicts all evidenced in what I did?
And that's kind of hard to judge, because I have all this other stuff in my head about what I intended to do and what I thought I was doing and how I thought what I was doing would be perceived. So its impossible for me to think about how the real person would feel, and to gauge the accuracy of what we were doing.
Fincher's known for doing 40 or 50 takes. How do you not think, "What am I doing wrong?"
You think that the first scene, and then right away you realize, oh, this is just how he works. And then it becomes immediately enjoyable, because you have a wonderful opportunity to experiment.
The first scene we did 99 times, and that gave us the opportunity to try different characters out. There's the character of somebody who's really emotionally detached, or somebody who's maybe more personable. There's a character who's more aggressive, a character who's very passive. And having 99 different shots to try different things is great – you can spend 20 takes trying to get something right, even if the idea is wrong.
In the DVD commentary, you talk about doing a running scene when you had a pill stuck in your throat.
That's true. I swallowed several pills without water, and then I had to run through the snow. Yeah. Whoa. I should not have said that, probably. (Laughs)
Are you sorry you told the story?
Uh … No, I guess it’s probably OK. It's just that I talked about putting an anti-depressant inside an herbal remedy pill. I don’t want to take pills, but I was taking an anti-depressant. And I was too nervous to ask anybody for water, because it was the first day of the shoot. And then after that I asked people for so many things, because I was throwing up and had to shoot more.
Did you feel at home with Aaron Sorkin's style of writing right away?
I suppose that in many ways I was ready for his dialogue. My background is in theater, where the kind of writing that Aaron is doing is not as rare as it is in film. Long scenes, subtle emotional shifts within a scene, fast dialogue, clever speeches –
Are there particular and specific challenges to saying so much, so fast?
I think you want to understand what you're saying so well that when you say it it's not just you being clever. In Aaron's writing, there's so much happening underneath. The words themselves are facile, but there's a thinking process that is happening there, if you look for it.
As an actor, you'll find the thought process woven into the dialogue. And so the trick is to understand it so well that you can find the thoughts.
So how do you get to that point?
What I like to do a lot of times is improvise a little bit during rehearsal. You don’t change the dialogue when you're shooting, but I like to improvise in rehearsal, because it forces me to understand what the character is saying.
One of the things Andrew Garfield and I would do is improvise together in character, with him playing kind of the doting mother and me the detached, annoyed younger brother. It established for us how our characters interacted with each other outside of the movie.
Let's talk about all the accolades you're getting. Can you enjoy them, or do you try to ignore them?
Well, I try to not know about it. I mean, it's impossible to not know about the awards that I've been given, but it's possible to ignore the ones that you haven't been given.
I didn’t realize that every major city, and even some of the minor cities, have their own critics awards. And it's such an honor to hear that you've been named best actor in the city – but then I think, my goodness, if every city that size has an award, then I've lost many more than I've won. So it's maybe just the nature of my defective personality that I find this overwhelming.
I think there's only one city so far that hasn't named "The Social Network" best movie.
I didn’t know what. Where is that? And what other movie could they have picked?
San Diego. They picked "Winter's Bone."
They probably haven't seen our picture. Can we send them screeners?centre half has been sent off 12 times in his career
Pepe divides opinion among football fans but the Portugal defender proved a Good Samaritan as he paid for nine tonnes of food to be distributed to poor families of the Las Rozas district in the Spanish capital.
The 31-year-old, who comes from a working-class background in Brazil, lives in the area and ensured that the people of his neighbourhood will have a memorable Christmas.
Pepe was personally involved in distributing the packages to almost 200 impoverished families.
Pepe has played 180 for Real Madrid since the Portuguese defender signed from Porto in 2007
Pepe organises the food containers to be distributed among the families of the Las Rozas region
Pepe (left) closes down Liverpool forward Raheem Sterling during the Champions League clash at Anfield
Pepe lives in the district of Las Rozas (above); one of the largest townships in Madrid
It is not the first time Pepe has helped the people of Las Rozas, either.
After scoring the winner for Real Madrid against Espanyol last December, he donated money to the people of his town before turning up the following day to hand out almost five tonnes of food packages.
Pepe's quality as a footballer is not in doubt - he has represented the Spanish giants 180 times since he joined in 2007, winning the Champions league and La Liga titles. He has also won 65 caps for his adopted country Portugal.
The defender, however, is partial to the red mist and has been sent off 12 times in his career, including a dismissal against Germany at the World Cup in Brazil after butting Thomas Muller.
Real face Almeria in La Liga on Friday night as Carlo Ancelotti's men seek a 20th consecutive victory.Routes of the South–North Water Transfer Project
The South–North Water Transfer Project, also translated as the South-to-North Water Diversion Project[1] (Chinese: 南水北调工程; pinyin: Nánshuǐ Běidiào Gōngchéng; literal meaning: Project of diverting the south water to the north) is a multi-decade infrastructure mega-project in the People's Republic of China. Ultimately it aims to channel 44.8 billion cubic meters of fresh water annually[2] from the Yangtze River in southern China to the more arid and industrialized north through three canal systems:[3]
The Eastern Route through the course of the Grand Canal;
The Central Route flowing from the upper reaches of the Han River (a tributary of Yangtze River) to Beijing |
fan groups advance, none of the regulators that have the power to change things are willing to consider. Not, I think, out of pure cussedness, but because if by some freak chance an accident were to happen the regulator that changed the rules would likely lose their job.
What I conclude from all this is that the German ownership model is not in itself much better at meeting the needs of the fans than the models used in other countries. There are some advantages, but there are drawbacks too. In fact, competition between rival leagues operating under different structures have helped to maintain European football and make it the globally dominant force it remains today. Whenever people start to think that things can be done in one way and one way only, that way madness lies.
However, German football is a waking giant. It already has the largest sponsorship income of any league, thanks to the backing of the large German industrial corporations. If it became internationally popular it could generate a lot more broadcast income, and it has a wealthy population that is experiencing rapidly increasing ticket prices that may rise to levels we see in the EPL in the not too distant future. With large stadiums recently built or refurbished for a World Cup, they have the greatest revenue potential, and as we at Soccernomics can always be relied upon to tell you, in the end it is money that buys success. Financial Fair Play might accelerate that process if it creates a meltdown in the Spanish and Italian leagues, but that might be a sideshow. The interesting part comes when the giant is fully awake.A fierce competitor, brilliant engineer and astute businessman, Brabham claimed the Formula One titles in 1959 and 1960 for Cooper Racing before going on to win a third in 1966 for the Brabham marque.
He died at his home on Australia's Gold Coast.
"It's a very sad day for all of us," his youngest son David, who also raced in Formula One, said in a statement.
"My father passed away peacefully at home at the age of 88 this morning. He lived an incredible life, achieving more than anyone would ever dream of and he will continue to live on through the astounding legacy he leaves behind."
Described by 1980 world champion Alan Jones as "inspirational" to the Australian drivers that followed the trail he blazed, Brabham was also the subject of a tribute from his country's Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.
"Australia has lost a legend," Abbott said in statement. "With his pioneering spirit, Sir Jack Brabham personified many great Australian characteristics.
"He was respected and admired for his spirit, and for his great skill as an engineer."
Jack Brabham avait inauguré une statue à son effigie en 2013 lors du GP d'AustraliePanoramic
Brabham attends the unveiling of a bust cast in his honour before the Australian Formula One Grand Prix in 2013
Brabham became the first Australian to win the Formula One title in 1959, famously pushing his car uphill to the finishing line to seal the triumph after running out of fuel on the final lap at the U.S. Grand Prix at Sebring.
After his second triumph for Cooper, Brabham set up a company with friend and fellow Australian Ron Tauranac to design and build their own cars, one of which he drove to the Formula One title in 1966 at the age of 40.
"On track he was always the toughest of tough competitors, tough sometimes to the point at which I'd wonder how could such a nice bloke out of a car grow such horns and a tail inside one," his British rival Stirling Moss recalled in the foreword to the "The Jack Brabham Story" in 2004.
"You'd always know when Jack was on a charge because he'd crouch down and almost disappear within the cockpit. Tail-out, broadsiding, showering me with gravel and tuffets from the verge.
"Dear me, you could take the Aussie out of the dirt tracks but you couldn't take the dirt tracks out of the Aussie. But the greater side of Jack's character was always his natural sportsmanship."
Nicknamed "Black Jack" for his mop of dark hair and taciturn nature, Brabham would become "Geriatric Jack" as he raced on into his 40s, his last victory coming at the 1970 South African Grand Prix in his final season when he was 43.
In total, Brabham raced in 126 grands prix, taking pole position 13 times and winning 14 races.
After retirement, Brabham sold his his team to Bernie Ecclestone, the Briton who would go on to run the sport, and returned to Australia. He was knighted for services to motor sport in 1979.
Jack Brabham au volant de sa Brabham-Honda en 1966 à Monthléry en FranceAFP
His sons Geoff, Gary, and David later forged their own careers in motorsport, while the Brabham team name remained in Formula One until the early 1990s.
"The word 'legend' is often used to describe successful sportsmen, but often it exaggerates their status. In the case of Sir Jack Brabham, however, it's entirely justified," McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, who worked on the Cooper and Brabham teams in the 1960s, said in a tribute.
"A three-time Formula One world champion, he remains the only driver to win a Formula One world championship driving a car bearing his own name - a unique achievement that will surely never be matched."Patients are well ahead of providers in demanding online access to health information (IT) and communication tools, according to a new survey. Consumers are eager to use both the internet and mobile devices to connect with their healthcare data and their providers in much the same way they have come to conduct business with other professionals.
In June 2012, the Optum Institute surveyed physicians, hospital executives, and adult consumers about health IT and aspects of patient-centered care. Researchers found that while physicians are rapidly adopting health IT, functions that would facilitate patient engagement are falling short. Other results from the study include:
75% of patients are willing to go online to view their medical records (76% are willing to view test results), but only 41% of physicians have EMR systems capable of giving patients timely access to this information.
62% of patients want to correspond online with their primary physician about their health, but only 46% of physicians have EMR systems capable of communicating patient-specific information to help patients make decisions about their health
65% of patients want appointment reminders via e-mail, but only 44% of physicians have EMR systems that provide guideline-based follow-up or screening reminders.
The report also found that nearly two-thirds of consumers are interested or very interested in receiving appointment reminders by e-mail; 40% want text reminders. Only 28% want mailed appointment reminders, which are typically still the norm today.
The report concludes that Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements set the bar too low, requiring that at least 50% of patients have access to their health information and that only 5% use that information and communicate with providers.
“Consumers are well ahead of providers in their willingness and ability to go online, communicate, and access important and usually confidential information. Indeed, consumers are in the digital, online world every day in their interactions with banks, merchants, schools, and employers. And the failure to recognize the potential of online and especially mobile IT threatens to widen healthcare disparities.”
View full report here.
Physician’s Weekly wants to know… does the onus fall on physician to meet patients’ expectations, or are they doing enough by meeting weak Meaningful Use requirements?A lobby group representing Quebec landlords says that authorizing the possession, consumption and production of marijuana could be a danger to the rental housing market and renters’ social lives.
According to the president of the Association des propriétaires du Québec, Martin Messier, the Trudeau government isn’t taking into consideration the impact legalizing marijuana would have on the “small communities” that are residential buildings.
More and more, Messier said, people are looking to live in smoke-free apartments. The odour coming from marijuana, he added, is an even greater nuisance and the root of many complaints.
Related
Messier also pointed out that growing marijuana inside can cause serious damage to buildings. It is “extremely worrying” that the possibility of growing four plants at home is being considered, he said, adding that makeshift growing systems can cause extreme moisture and mould.
According to a survey conducted by the Corporation de propriétaires immobiliers du Québec (CORPIQ), an association that represents 25,000 landlords, 75 per cent of apartment building owners are worried about marijuana legalization.
Questioned on how confident they are that police would be able to enforce a proposed limit per residence, 81 per cent of those who answered the survey said they had either little or no confidence it could happen.
CORPIQ is asking the federal government to not allow marijuana production in rental properties unless the owner is the one living there.Having allowed Chinese money launderers to create a massive bubble out of the Vancouver housing market for the past several years despite loud warnings from numerous sources (this site included) until its inevitable crackdown this summer, when it imposed a tax on offshore purchases, popping the ultra high end housing bubble and sending Chinese buyers south of the border to Seattle (although after a sharp drop may be staging a quick rebound as the latest chart from the MLS shows)...
... British Columbia is now focusing on the low end of homebuyers, where the British Columbia government is repeating all the worst mistakes of the first bubble, and has offered to "help" first-time homebuyers to cover the cost of a mortgage down payment with an interest-free loan.
The B.C. Home Owner Mortgage and Equity Partnership program will provide a maximum of $37,500, or up to 5% of the purchase price, with a 25-year loan that is interest-free and payment-free for the first five years. In other words, homebuyers will soon be able to once again buy homes with no money down, leading to a repeat bubble, only this time on the lower end of the price range..
"The dream of home ownership must remain in the grasp of the middle class here in British Columbia," said Premier Christy Clark cited by CBC.
While the stated intention of the program is noble, to assist people who can afford the mortgage payments on a new home but are challenged to make the down payment, based on historical precedent, with no "skin in the game", buyers will now scramble to bid up everything that is available for sale, sending the green (and red) lines in the chart above soaring.
The province will start accepting applications for the program on Jan. 16, 2017.
Furthermore, homebuyers will pay no monthly interest or principal payments over the first five years as long as the home remains their principal residence. After the first five years, homebuyers begin making monthly payments at current interest rates. Homebuyers will repay the loan over the remaining 20 years, but may make extra payments or repay it in full at any time without penalty.
Making sure that Chinese oligarchs do not take advantage of Canadian generosity, the program is capped with a maximum purchase price of a home that qualifies for the loan is $750,000.
That said, there are substantial eligibility requirements. Applicants must be permanent Canadian residents for the past five years and B.C. residents for the past year. The income or combined income of applicants must be $150,000 or less. Homebuyers needs to be pre-qualified for a high-ratio insured mortgage and can buy anywhere in B.C.
The loan support will run for three years and the province estimates about 42,000 new homebuyers will take advantage of the program.
There is even a pretty infographic for those who like these things explained with the help of cartoons.Putin Brings Real-World Experience to the Graduate School Seminar Crowd
My Shadow colleagues Inboden and Tobey offer insightful advice for the Obama administration regarding Ukraine; here, I offer a reason why we have come to need their advice.
Vladimir Putin has managed to drag us all back into the 19th-century balance-of-power politics that were supposed to have been vanquished by our enlightened age of international law and institutions. How did he accomplish this? The pundits and experts have been scrambling to explain how their predictions of a non-interventionist Putin were so wrong. Is it because Putin is just extra-mean and aggressive and caught everyone by surprise?
No, the problem is the mindset of the Obama administration, its foreign-policy thinking, and that of many in the media and academia. It is a problem of fundamentals. To be sure, Putin is responsible for his own actions and nothing can absolve him of the crime of taking by force a country that he wishes would just fall into his arms willingly. But he could not do what he is doing if the Obama administration and the EU were not who they are. Perhaps the EU should get less blame for this state of affairs than the United States does because Europe has had to rely on the U.S. to do the leading and the heaviest lifting for a long time now. When the United States doesn’t, Europe tends to bow to pressures with France’s incursion into Mali being a notable and laudable example.
While there are many theories and approaches to understanding foreign affairs, all of them boil down to two basic views: the realism-based view that accepts that the world is an anarchy and power is the final arbiter of disputes; and the idealism-based view that insists that the world is a community and international law should be the final arbiter of disputes. Note that the first view doesn’t have room for the word "should" because it doesn’t wish or hope for something that is not quite there. Note also that the power it understands is multifaceted and it definitely includes the control of territory — that’s quite important in the present circumstances.
This divide doesn’t neatly capture conservatives on the one side and liberals on the other because people locate themselves at points on a spectrum rather than sitting in a box labeled realism or idealism, and they afford themselves some wiggle room depending on the issue. But fundamentally, this is about human nature as the American founders understood it. That is, some policymakers believe the natural state of human affairs is one of conflict and self-seeking while others believe it is one of cooperation and consensus-building.
Putin is in the former group. He watched as he got his way with Georgia, Syria, and Iran, and also on missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic; he further observes the U.S. doing little in response to China’s saber rattling in the East China Sea. He has seen that by the exercise of power (through others or his own) the West shows weakness and so he can enhance Russia’s interests — as he defines them. And he does not define them by being on the right side of history, being a member in good standing of the G-8, or being spoken well of in diplomatic circles. He certainly does not define them by being a good partner in the global effort to thwart climate change. He’s been rebuilding the prestige and power of Russia since before he became president the first time and for the last five years he’s been able to do that quite vigorously with muscle and might and intimidation.
He has been motivated to do this because of his view of the world and his strategy for Russia’s place in it both in offensive terms as well as defensive terms. But why act so boldly now, to literally threaten the peace of Europe and thus the world? Because he can. Because he’s taking Obama up on that "flexibility" promised to Medvedev. But most importantly because the Obama administration’s posture toward Russia is based on the idealist view and thus assumes mutually desired cooperation, dialogue and accommodation. In short, Obama has been treating Russia as an ally and assumes it shares our interests in supporting and furthering a community of nations built on international law and institutions.
Of course, the assumption is flatly wrong and easily dismissed by a review of Putin’s tenure in office. Putin understands all politics — domestic and international — as zero-sum. This past weekend he demonstrated that conclusively. The Obama administration has no choice now but to throw out absurd notions of resets, major cuts to troop levels, and every other policy based on the flawed notion that their idealist reasoning produces.
How is it that the president, a smart man, and his advisors, also smart, have been so wrong about Putin, the Iranian mullahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Syrian dictator, and others? Because they want to believe that the realist view where power and anarchy reign is wrong and that the idealist view of cooperation and international law is right. No amount of facts on the ground has dissuaded them of this belief until, one hopes, now.
Henry Kissinger famously notes that those powers that seek peace above all else are at the mercy of those powers that are willing to deny it to fulfill their interests. Putin is demonstrating that he knows this. He wants territory around Russia or at least control over it and he can get that, but only if the United States and the EU actually act. If they don’t, he’ll continue to operate in the world of power politics and keep gaining back the Russian empire, while Obama continues to insist on a community of international law and keeps losing.
Obama and his advisors, from grad school until now, have apparently seen the entire world as a single collection of nation-states just waiting to cooperate if the right people came into power in the United States to midwife it through dialogue and nice-making. Surely that belief has evaporated. It is time for the Obama administration to embrace reality and do what Putin did long ago and the rest of Russia’s reluctant neighbors are doing: Make two lists, one of your friends and the other of your enemies; support the first and torment the second. It might be distasteful to some, but it is the real world.Lionel Bonavanture, AFP | French presidential election candidate for the En Marche! movement Emmanuel Macron attends a debate organised by the French private TV channels BFM TV and CNews on April 4, 2017 in La Plaine-Saint-Denis near Paris.
French centrist Emmanuel Macron sought to establish his presidential credentials on Thursday by calling for international military intervention against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad if he is proved to have used chemical weapons.
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The former economy minister is favourite to win France’s presidential election but faces criticism from his opponents that he is too inexperienced for the top job. His comments about a military intervention in Syria were made just a few hours before US President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airfield from which a deadly chemical weapons attack was reportedly launched.
Macron, 39, who was interviewed for two-and-a-half hours on France 2 television, took a tough stance on the top foreign policy issue of the day, calling for military intervention against Assad if his government was found to have carried out a suspected chemical attack that killed at least 70 people on Tuesday.
“An international intervention is needed... My preference is that there should be an intervention under the auspices of the United Nations. A military intervention,” Macron said.
However, he said a military operation must be part of a "diplomatic and political roadmap."
Russia has repeatedly used its veto in the past to protect the Syrian government from U.N. Security Council action.
Polls show Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen each winning about a quarter of the vote in the April 23 first round of the election, with Macron tipped to easily defeat Le Pen in the May 7 runoff.
Scandal-hit conservative candidate Francois Fillon is holding on to third place in the latest polls, followed closely by 65-year-old Jean-Luc Melenchon, a veteran far-left maverick, who has moved up fast in the ratings.
Macron, a pro-European former banker who has never held elected office, aims to transcend the traditional left-right divide in French politics and boost economic recovery by reducing public spending and cutting taxes.
Le Pen wants to curb immigration, ditch the euro and bring back the franc, and hold a referendum on European Union membership.
Candidates
Macron sought to answer questions on Thursday about how he would govern, if elected, since the En Marche! (Onwards!) political movement he created a year ago has never taken part in an election.
That has prompted opponents to cast doubt on his ability to win a majority in the lower-house National Assembly, which would hamper his ability to push through planned reforms.
Macron presented on Thursday the first 14 candidates who will represent his party in June legislative elections, headed by Jean-Michel Fauvergue, 60, a former director of an elite police counter-terrorism unit.
A Harris Interactive poll of a sample of viewers of the France 2 interview with Macron found 51 percent thought he would make a good president, compared with 38 percent who thought the same of Le Pen and 33 percent in the case of Fillon.
Fillon, whose campaign has struggled as he seeks to defend himself from nepotism allegations, was hit by flour on Thursday thrown at him by a young man before a rally in Strasbourg.
Fillon has alleged he is the victim of a government-orchestrated smear campaign and has urged prosecutors to investigate outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande over allegations made in a new book by three journalists that the results of judicial wiretaps were sent to Hollande’s office.
But, in a letter to six Fillon allies who had demanded an investigation into Hollande, prosecutor Eliane Houlette said there was insufficient evidence to open such a probe.
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)John M. Buol Jr. MilitaryMarksman, SensibleShooter, Shooting
I received the following from Gabe Suarez at http://www.suarezinternational.com and it brilliantly sums up some of the issues with differing training ideas.
Blind Men, Elephants, and The One-Eyed Man
by Gabe Suarez
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know. We have heard that term before, but I want to discuss it a little bit more because recently, at warriortalk, and other places, I have seen the resurgence of stuff that we dealt with many years ago. It seems as if every so often, the same people “rediscover” the things that they thought they knew.
We all recall the story of the blind men and the elephant. In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement. The problem was that no one man, had the vision that would have allowed him to see the elephant for what it truly was.
Do we see that in the training world today? Oh you bet we do. The problem is that there are some blind men that like to wear what they have done in the past like a flag…or perhaps a billboard, in the hope of giving them more credibility over the other blind men. These guys will grab on to the elephant’s tail hard (or other body part if you will) and exclaim loud and hard, “You see. I have personally grabbed this elephant therefore I, or others who have grabbed this tail right here, like me, can tell you the truth about this animal”.
And the billboards they wear coupled with the vociferocity of their message makes them almost beyond reproach. “Good heavens”, their devotees would say. “How could you possibly question him….he was assigned to……”
But the sad part of it is that they do not realize that they themselves are in fact blind to the rest of the massive animal before them. The blind leading the blind.
Take for example a police SWAT shooter. The man may have been in a half dozen gunfight on SWAT operations with his team. One would say this man surely has seen the whole elephant no? He went to battle with six or seven other guys, and attacked a target when the bad guys were at a disadvantage with overwhelming force and superior weapons. Certainly a noble action, but how does that compare to the nature of entire animal? That’s only one part, and as we will see, the trunk has little to do with the tail, and neither of them is indicative of what an elephant is like.
Another example is the military operator. The man may have killed 200 or more enemy soldiers while on infantry operations, or direct action assignments. Surely this man has an understanding about the elephant does he not? He assaulted a compound that had been under satellite surveillance for a week, where he knew contained exactly how many guys. The fast movers above softened it for them and they attacked the enemy and shot them to pieces. The courage of this man is beyond question, but again, what about the entire animal?
Do either one of those sound like a gunfight you might be in tonight, or during the next riot or unexpected event?
A third example is maybe that of a CCW man. He is not and was never a cop nor a soldier, but he carried a pistol and one day some bad guy tried to carjack him. He did everything wrong, but he still managed to prevail in the fight. Alright…certainly this guy has an understanding of the animal right? No…only another body part.
All three of these fictional examples are like the blind men who are very good at explaining the nature, texture, and smell of their particular experience, but all of them have only seen that, and are missing the complete image and experience.
The HRT/SWAT guy crashing a door into a fortified “crack house” has very little in common with what a lone private citizen CCW operator may have to face when dealing with a trio of gang members bent on his death. And the Delta shooter hitting a target with his team has little to do with how a trio of business owners caught behind the curfew in New Orleans, or Los Angeles need to operate to stay alive and get home. And none of them have much similarity in tactics to the lone operator in a third world country, finishing an assignment and then having to get home.
Trunks and tails, eyeballs and a**holes – they are all a part of the animal, but nobody, and I mean nobody, no matter what their background was, has been everywhere and done everything. And if they tell you that, or insinuate that, they are liars my friends.
So where does that leave us. Our goal is still to identify, study and dissect that massive beast – the elephant. Fortunately, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. And the one-eyed man has enough vision to gather all the blind men and debrief them.
That is exactly what I have tried to do with my organization. To gather as many blind men as I can, citizens, cops, soldiers from many armies, even some guerrilla fighter irregulars, good guys, bad guys, and the undecidedand, and bring them under one roof taking lessons from them all, offering some positions as instructors, and getting the information out to our students, regardless of position, or assignment, or status, what in the hell this elusive animal, the elephant, looks like.
AdvertisementsNestle reveals secret project to build food'replicator' that can create personalised meals to give people exactly the nutrients they need
Firm developing a machine that bosses describe as 'the next microwave'
Would create personalised supplements and food from nutrient capsules
Aims to create a kitchen'replicator' within five years
Nespresso machine have taken the coffee world by storm - and now Nestle hopes a new food making system could have a similar effect on the way we eat.
The firm is developing a 'food replicator' that bosses describe as 'the next microwave'.
It will deliver meals personalised for each user, with exactly the right balance of nutrients they need for a healthy diet.
The next Nespresso: Nestle is developing a 'food replicator' that bosses describe as 'the next microwave'.
HOW IT WORKS The Nestle machine would work by first testing the person for a variety of nutrients and other health factors - such as diabetes or obesity. This would results in a 'nutrient profile' for the person, showing exactly what their diet is lacking - for instance, zinc or vitamin D. Nutrients would be supplied in a powder form, possibly in capsule like the Nespresso system. A'replicator' machine could then create food infused with the nutrients, or even a shake or vitamin tablet.
According to Bloomberg, Nestle’s Institute of Health Sciences is developing a system that can test people's health and work out what nutrients they are missing.
Codenamed 'Iron Man', the project will eventually lead to a kitchen machine that can create tailored supplements - or even food.
'Iron Man is an analysis of what’s missing in our diets, and a product, tailored to you, to help make up that difference,' NIHS director Ed Baetge told Bloomeberg.
'In the past, food was just food. We’re going in a new direction.'
The Nestle machine would work by first testing the person for a variety of nutrients and other health factors - such as diabetes or obesity.
Nestle bosses hope their Iron Man device could be 'the next microwave'
This would results in a 'nutrient profile' for the person, showing exactly what their diet is lacking - for instance, zinc or vitamin D.
Nutrients would be supplied in a powder form, possibly in capsule like the Nespresso system.
Baetge says the final device,expeected in 5-10 years, could resemble the replicator' that synthesized meals on demand in Star Trek.
'Out comes your food at the press of a button,' Baetge said.
'If we do this right, it can be the next microwave in your kitchen.'HARRISON, N.J. (June 28, 2017) – The New York Red Bulls have signed goalkeeper Luis Robles to a new MLS contract, the club announced today. Additional details of the multi-year deal were not disclosed.
“We are pleased to reach new terms with Luis,” said Red Bulls Sporting Director Denis Hamlett. “Luis has been an important part of our club on and off the field, and we look forward to continued success with him as our goalkeeper.”
Robles first signed with New York in August of 2012, after spending time playing in Germany. Robles first appeared for the club in Fall of 2012, and has not missed an MLS match since. His MLS-record iron man streak currently sits at 157 consecutive, complete regular season matches.
Robles is the franchise’s leader in career shutouts (43), goals-against average (1.30), wins (73), games played (157) and minutes played (14,130).
He earned MLS Goalkeeper of the Year honors in 2015 when he tallied nine shutouts, 86 saves, a 1.26 goals-against average and posting a record of 18-10-6.The community is a home for several Jewish organizations and it offers a platform for variety of interests to all its members from sports to music, from library and literature to senior citizen club. Most of the activities and functions are organized purely by volunteers, including Chevra Kadisha, the burial association, established in 1864. Also, the mikve of the community is run by volunteers thanks to many active people.
The Jewish Community has created good relations within the Finnish society and it is represented in several committees and NGO’s dealing with minority issues in the society. The community is represented also in the international arena through the Central Council of Jewish Communities of Finland which is a member of the World Jewish Congress and the European Jewish Congress.
On our website you may read a multilingual blog highlighting different perspectives of the Jewish Community and Jewish life in Finland. We publish also video clips.
A Short History of the Finnish Jewry
Prehistory of the Community
The territory which is now Finland was for more than half a millennium – until 1809 – part of the Swedish Kingdom. Under Swedish law, Jews of that period were allowed to settle only in three major towns in the Kingdom, none of them being situated in the territory of Finland.
In 1809, as a consequence of the defeat of Sweden in the Finnish War of 1808–1809, part of the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden lost control of Finland, and an autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland was established within the Russian Empire. The Swedish constitution and legal system was, however, maintained in the Grand Duchy, and the prohibition on Jewish settlement in Finland thus continued.
Arrival of Jews in the Czar's Army
Finnish Jewish history effectively began in the first half of the 19th century when Jewish soldiers (so-called Cantonists), who served in the Russian Army in Finland, were permitted to stay in Finland by the Russian military authorities following the soldiers' discharge. Subsequently, the presence of Jews in the country was governed by the decree of 1858, under which discharged Russian soldiers and their families, without regard to their religion, were allowed to stay temporarily in Finland. The occupations open to discharged soldiers were defined in a decree of 1869 which was applied also to soldiers of Jewish origin. In 1889, the Government issued an administrative decree expressly governing the presence of Jews in Finland. Under this decree a number of Jews mentioned by name were allowed to stay in the country only until further notice, and to settle only in certain towns assigned to them. They were given temporary visit permits with a period of validity not exceeding six months. The occupations open to the Jews, being the same as under the decree of 1869, meant in practice that they were to continue supporting themselves mainly as dealers in second-hand clothes. They were forbidden to attend fairs or perform their activities outside their town of residence. The slightest violation of any of these limitations served as grounds for expulsion from Finland. Children were allowed to stay in Finland only as long as they lived with their parents or were not married. Jews conscripted to the Russian Army within Finland were not allowed to return to Finland after their discharge.Tim Montemayor, who used to host a late-evening show on KHTK before going to work in St. Louis and now in San Francisco for KNBR and KGO Radio, had some interesting tweets late Wednesday. They've been discussed in other threads, but I wanted to boil them down for folks who couldn't get through the 1,000+ comments we're getting each "slow news day."
There is an effort to satisfy both cities in the #NBAKings saga: I am told there is a plan being talked about where #Seattle would... — Tim Montemayor (@TheMontyShow) April 24, 2013
...get an expansion team in 2014/2015 and most of the requirements for that process are already met through the current situation #NBAKings — Tim Montemayor (@TheMontyShow) April 24, 2013
The #NBA has gone to great lengths to find a way to satisfy both situations without creating more "disfunction and animosity" in either city — Tim Montemayor (@TheMontyShow) April 24, 2013
The lone sticking point is the #Seattle groups willingness to wait another year which I am told they have fought hard against #NBAKings — Tim Montemayor (@TheMontyShow) April 24, 2013
I have also confirmed via two sources that David Stern has told #Seattle this is the only path that assures an #NBA return to the market — Tim Montemayor (@TheMontyShow) April 24, 2013
Stern has made it clear he will not push or force any other club to relocate to #Seattle he feels the process is bad 4 all parties involved — Tim Montemayor (@TheMontyShow) April 24, 2013
If the #Seattle chooses to move ahead with the #NBAKings #Stern told them "it's would be tough to overcome Sacramento's obvious advantage" — Tim Montemayor (@TheMontyShow) April 24, 2013
So if Monty's report is accurate, the only thing holding back expansion -- the best solution for both cities and the league -- is Chris Hansen, who refuses to wait another year. For the sake of the people of Seattle, I hope he comes off that position and gets those fans a team. Assuming the report is accurate.
As for the report's accuracy, I'm cautiously optimistic. Montemayor has reported some info on the relocation battle a couple of times, but nothing as major as this. Let's hope other reporters step in and confirm or deny quickly.It seems that whenever I fight anywhere but in England, I’m watched by thousands of fans praying I get my butt kicked in the most humiliating fashion possible.
As everybody will know by now, I’m set to return to Australia on February 27 to face Jorge Rivera at UFC 127 and, to be honest, I’m expecting the same kind of abuse I faced last year. So, with that in mind, I’m trying to figure out why.
For starters, I’d just like reassure everybody that the reaction of the crowd never affects the way I prepare for a fight or the way I fight. For all those fans that may be attempting to unsettle or fluster me by shouting abuse, give your voice box a rest because it won’t work. I can guarantee you that. I’m great at blanking it all out and just focusing on the task at hand. You can’t get caught up emotionally in things like that, otherwise you’ll just go crazy and your head will be a mess of mixed signals and negative thoughts.
Obviously I’d prefer it if everybody liked and respected me, but I also realise that won’t always be the case. You’ve got to take your lumps in this sport, both inside and outside the octagon. I know that not everybody will like me or want me to win. I don’t mind being booed and having to play the bad guy. To be honest, I quite like the idea of proving the majority wrong and sticking it to them with a big victory.
I get to experience the best of both worlds in my career. I’m a hero whenever I fight in the UK and I’m a villain everywhere else I go. I’m Chuck Liddell one fight and Josh Koscheck the next! I get a passionate reaction either way so at least I know no-one is going to take a hot dog break when I fight.
I love my British supporters. I feel weird using the word “fans” because I’m not a rock star or anything, I’m just a bloke from the north of England who has a talent and has been lucky enough to use that talent to make a living. I never, ever take my support for granted and I know I owe the British fans a lot.
It’s actually humbling to have kids and parents wait hours just to get a photo with you. You try and be as friendly as you can be and pray it was worth their time to meet you.
The reasons for the abuse outside the UK are still confusing to me, though. I live in a tiny little town in the north-west of England and yet I generate this huge amount of ill-feeling outside |
of Šumadija and Braničevo regions south of the Danube (but not the capital city of Belgrade).
Between 1941-44, during World War II, Nazi Germany and its allies, Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia, divided and occupied Vojvodina. Bačka and Baranja were annexed by Horthy's Hungary and Syrmia was included into the Independent State of Croatia. A smaller Danube Banovina (including Banat, Šumadija, and Braničevo) existed as part of the area governed by the Military Administration in Serbia. The administrative center of this smaller province was Smederevo. However, Banat itself was a separate autonomous region ruled by its German minority. The occupying powers committed numerous crimes against the civilian population, especially against Serbs, Jews and Roma; the Jewish population of Vojvodina was almost completely killed or deported. In total, Axis (German, Croatian and Hungarian) occupational authorities killed about 50,000 citizens of Vojvodina (mostly Serbs, Jews and Roma) while more than 280,000 people were interned, arrested, violated or tortured.[8]
Axis occupation ended in 1944 and the region was temporarily placed under military administration (1944–45) run by the new communist authorities. During and after the military administration, several thousands of citizens were killed - this affected mostly ethnic Germans, but also one part of Hungarian and Serb populations. Both the war-time Axis occupational authorities and the post-war communist authorities ran concentration/prison camps in the territory of Vojvodina. (see List of concentration and internment camps). While war-time prisoners in these camps were mostly Jews, Serbs and communists, post-war camps were formed for ethnic Germans (Danube Swabians).[citation needed]
Most Vojvodina Germans (about 200,000) fled the region in 1944, together with the defeated German army.[9] Most of those who remained in the region (about 150,000) were sent to some of the villages cordoned off as prisons. It is estimated that some 48,447 Germans died in the camps from disease, hunger, malnutrition, mistreatment, and cold.[10] Some 8,049 Germans were killed by partisans during military administration in Vojvodina after October 1944.[11][12] It has also been estimated that post-war communist authorities killed some 15,000-20,000[13][14] Hungarians and some 23,000-24,000[15] Serbs during Communist purges in Serbia in 1944–45. According to Professor Dragoljub Živković, some 47,000 ethnic Serbs were murdered in Vojvodina between 1941-48. About half were killed by occupational Axis forces and the other half by the post-war Communist authorities.[15]
The region was politically restored in 1944 (incorporating Syrmia, Banat, Bačka, and Baranja) and became an autonomous province of Serbia in 1945. Instead of the previous name (Danube Banovina), the region regained its historical name of Vojvodina, while its capital city remained Novi Sad. When the final borders of Vojvodina were defined, Baranja was assigned to Croatia, while the northern part of the Mačva region was assigned to Vojvodina.[citation needed]
At first, the province enjoyed only a small level of autonomy within Serbia, but it gained extensive rights of self-rule under the 1974 Yugoslav constitution, which gave both Kosovo and Vojvodina de facto veto power in the Serbian and Yugoslav parliaments, as changes to their status could not be made without the consent of the two Provincial Assemblies.[citation needed]
The 1974 Serbian constitution, adopted at the same time, reiterated that "the Socialist Republic of Serbia comprises the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, which originated in the common struggle of nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia in the National Liberation War (the Second World War) and socialist revolution".[citation needed]
Under the rule of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević and following a series of protests against Vojvodina's party leadership during the summer and autumn of 1988, which forced it to resign and eventually accept Serbia's constitutional amendments that practically dismissed the autonomy of the provinces in Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo finally lost elements of statehood in September 1990 when the new constitution of the Republic of Serbia was adopted.
Vojvodina was still referred to as an autonomous province of Serbia, but most of its autonomous powers – including, crucially, its vote on the Yugoslav collective presidency – were transferred to the control of Belgrade. The province, however, still had its own parliament and government and some other autonomous functions as well.[16]
Contemporary period [ edit ]
The fall of Milošević in 2000 created a new political climate in Vojvodina. Following talks between the political parties, the level of the province's autonomy was somewhat increased by the omnibus law in 2002. The Vojvodina provincial assembly adopted a new statute on 15 October 2008, which, after being partially amended, was approved by the Parliament of Serbia.
Geography [ edit ]
Vojvodina is situated in the northern quarter of Serbia, in the southeast part of the Pannonian Plain, the plain that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried out. As a consequence of this, Vojvodina is rich in fertile loamy loess soil, covered with a layer of chernozem. The region is divided by the Danube and Tisa rivers into: Bačka in the northwest, Banat in the east and Syrmia (Srem) in the southwest. A small part of the Mačva region is also located in Vojvodina, in the Srem District.[citation needed]
Today, the western part of Syrmia is in Croatia, the northern part of Bačka is in Hungary, the eastern part of Banat is in Romania (with a small piece in Hungary), while Baranja (which is between the Danube and the Drava) is in Hungary and Croatia. Vojvodina has a total surface area of 21,500 km2 (8,300 sq mi).[17] Vojvodina is also part of the Danube-Kris-Mures-Tisa euroregion. The Gudurica peak (Gudurički vrh) on the Vršac Mountains, is the highest peak in Vojvodina, at an altitude of 641 m above sea level.[citation needed]
Politics [ edit ]
The Assembly of Vojvodina is the provincial legislature composed of 120 proportionally elected members. The current members were elected in the 2016 provincial elections. The Government of Vojvodina is the executive administrative body composed of a president and cabinet ministers.[18]
The current ruling coalition in the Vojvodina parliament is composed of the following political parties: Serbian Progressive Party, Socialist Party of Serbia and Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians. The current president of Vojvodinian government is Igor Mirović (Serbian Progressive Party), while the president of the provincial Assembly is István Pásztor (Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians).[citation needed]
Vojvodina is divided into seven districts. They are regional centers of state authority, but have no powers of their own; they present purely administrative divisions. The seven districts are further subdivided into 37 municipalities and the 8 cities of Kikinda, Novi Sad, Subotica, Zrenjanin, Pančevo, Sombor, Sremska Mitrovica, and Vršac.
Demographics [ edit ]
Ethnic map of Vojvodina (settlement data)
Language map of Vojvodina (municipality data)
Religion map of Vojvodina (municipality data)
Vojvodina is more diverse than the rest of Serbia with more than 25 ethnic groups and six languages which are in the official use by the provincial administration.[19]
Population by ethnicity:[20]
Population by mother tongue:
Population by religion:
Largest cities [ edit ]
Culture [ edit ]
There are two daily newspapers published in Vojvodina, Dnevnik in Serbian and Magyar Szó in Hungarian. Monthly and weekly publications in minority languages include Hrvatska riječ ("Croatian Word") in Croatian, Hlas Ľudu ("The Voice of the People") in Slovak, Libertatea ("Freedom") in Romanian, and Руске слово ("Rusyn Word") in Rusyn. There is also Bunjevačke novine ("The Bunjevac newspaper") in Bunjevac.
Public Broadcasting Service of Vojvodina was founded in 1974 as Radio Television of Novi Sad, as an equal member of the association of JRT – Yugoslav Radio Television. Radio Novi Sad's first broadcast was on November 29, 1949. During the NATO bombing in the spring of 1999, the RT Novi Sad building of 20 thousand square meters was completely destroyed along with its basic production and technical premises. The Venac terrestrial broadcasting site was heavily damaged.
The Radio-Television of Vojvodina produces and broadcasts regional programming on two channels, RTV1 (Serbian language) and RTV2 (minority languages), and three radio frequencies: Radio Novi Sad 1 (Serbian), Radio Novi Sad 2 (Hungarian), Radio Novi Sad 3 (other minority communities).[21]
Economy [ edit ]
Serbia's breadbasket Vojvodina is known as
The economy of Vojvodina is largely based on developed food industry and fertile agricultural soil. Agriculture is a priority sector in Vojvodina. Traditionally, it has always been a significant part of the local economy and a generator of positive results, due to the abundance of fertile agricultural land which makes up 84% of its territory. The share of agribusiness in the total industrial production is 40%, that is 30% in the total exports of Vojvodina.
The metal industry of Vojvodina has a long tradition and consists of smaller metal processing companies for components manufacturing and, to a lesser extent, of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) with their own brand name products. Vojvodina Metal Cluster gathers 116 companies with 6,300 employees. Other branches of industry are also developed such as the chemical industry, electrical industry, oil industry and construction industry. In the past decade, ICT sector has been growing rapidly and has taken significant role in Vojvodina's economic development.
High- tech sector is a fast-growing sector in Vojvodina. Software development represents the main source of revenue, particularly development of ERP solutions, Java applications and mobile applications. IT sector companies mainly deal with software outsourcing, based on demands of international clients or with development of their own software products for purposes of domestic and international market. Vojvodina pays particular attention to interregional and cross-border economic cooperation, as well as to implementation of priorities defined within the EU Strategy for the Danube Region.[1]
Some of the companies from Vojvodina:
Vojvodina promotes its investment potentials through the Vojvodina Investment Promotion (VIP) agency, which was founded by the Parliament of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
Transport [ edit ]
There are many important roads which pass through Vojvodina. First of all, the motorway A1 motorway which goes from Central Europe and the Horgos border crossing to Hungary, via Novi Sad to Belgrade and further to the southeast toward Niš, where it branches: one way leads east to the border with Bulgaria; the other to the south, towards Greece. Motorway A3 in Srem separates the west, towards the neighboring Croatia and further to Western Europe. There is also a network of regional and local roads and railway lines.
The three largest rivers in Vojvodina are navigable stream. Danube River with a length of 588 kilometers and its tributaries Tisa (168 km), Sava (206 km) and Bega (75 km). Among them was dug extensive network of irrigation canals, drainage and transport, with a total length of 939 km, of which 673 km navigable.
Tourism [ edit ]
Tourist destinations in Vojvodina include well known Orthodox monasteries on Fruška Gora mountain, numerous hunting grounds, cultural-historical monuments, different folklores, interesting galleries and museums, plain landscapes with a lot of greenery, big rivers, canals and lakes, sandy terrain Deliblatska Peščara ("the European Sahara"), etc. In the last few years, Exit has been very popular among the European summer music festivals.[22]
See also [ edit ]January 12, 2011 is a day I will never forget, visiting the Samouni family could not possibly be anything but a life-changing event. Words simply cannot describe the devastation wrought upon this family by a marauding band of Israeli psychopaths, otherwise known as the Givati Brigade of the Israeli Defence Forces.
Today my team heard from mothers and fathers and children the story of the hell on Earth created by Operation Cast Lead. Twenty-nine people were killed in this family, children shot in front of parents, parents shot in front of children, a group of 97 in one home blasted to bits by rockets and mortars. Made to live amongst the mutilated and dead for several days, ambulances were kept away and some died slowly over hours and even days.
If you knew the details of this story you would conclude as one mother did, those soldiers that committed these acts, could not be considered human. These were demons with the latest high-tech weapons, courtesy of the US tax-payer and if the good people of the US knew what was done in their name here, they would be sick to their stomachs. Shame on all of us for allowing this to happen and to go completely unpunished.
But amidst all the horrifying memories the children still have their moments of childhood, even if they quiver with terror in the night as the Israeli jets fly overhead as they do to this day nearly every night. I love these people, we are all touched beyond words by the experience of being with them, I wish we could take the whole world on a date with this most incredible family.January 10, 2015; Seattle, WA, USA; Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin (89) celebrates with quarterback Russell Wilson (3) after catching a touchdown pass against the Carolina Panthers during the first half in the 2014 NFC Divisional playoff football game at CenturyLink Field. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The Seahawks have been fortunate in their consistency at quarterback over the years
54 players have thrown a pass in Seahawks history. This list includes players like Marshawn Lynch, Jon Ryan, Steve Largent (who threw seven in his career, completing two), among others. Receivers Golden Tate and Doug Baldwin each threw one pass and have perfect QBRs (quarterback rating) of 158.3. Both of their passes ended up as touchdowns.
22 different quarterbacks have started a game for Seattle. These include Steve Myer, Gale Gilbert and Jon Kitna. 710 ESPN Seattle‘s Brock Huard started four games, though Seattle lost them all. Huard was not bad, however: He threw four touchdowns against two interceptions and had a QBR of 80.1.
Four quarterbacks have started 80 or more games. That total of 22 in 41 years is really good and shows Seattle has not had to stress about the quarterback position most of the time since the team’s inception in 1976. (On the flipflop, the Cleveland Browns have had 22 quarterbacks start games since 2003. Seriously.)
Here are the five best quarterbacks in Seattle’s history.
5. Warren Moon
Moon was only in Seattle for a couple of years and he was not on great teams. He was also aged for a quarterback. Still, a team that really had no business coming close to the playoffs in 1999 should have made it. A blown call in the final game of the season versus the New York Jets ended Seattle’s season and Moon’s time as quarterback of the Seahawks. Moon was 11-13 as a starter with a QBR of 81.3.
Now 12s know Moon as Steve Raible’s sidekick during radio calls of Seahawks games. Moon is pretty good at that too.
4. Jim Zorn
Zorn was a rookie quarterback in 1976 on a team in its inaugural season. Zorn was terrible. He could not help it. The whole team was. By season three, Zorn was good enough to lead his team to a 9-7 record, exceeding expectations for the franchise. Zorn was excellent at moving around the pocket (again, he had no real choice) and often made plays on the move (sound familiar to another Seahawks quarterback?).
Zorn started 100 games with Seattle and won 40 of them. Seattle never made the playoffs when Zorn was the full-time quarterback.
3. Dave Krieg
Krieg was the quarterback who first took the Seahawks to the playoffs. After replacing Zorn in 1983, Krieg led Seattle to two playoff wins. Krieg went to several Pro Bowls in his Seattle career and the team was mostly successful. Though never the most consistent quarterback – Krieg ranged from terrific to terrible – he made the team better than a replacement would have.
Why Krieg over Zorn? By the time he left Seattle, Krieg held the Seahawks record for touchdown passes, which he still holds, at 195. His QBR (82.3) is second only to Russell Wilson for any quarterback with more than 14 career starts. Krieg’s Seahawks career record is 70-49. His teams simply won games. He was a huge part of that.
2. Matt Hasselbeck
Hasselbeck led Seattle to its first Super Bowl appearance during the 2005 season. He holds the Seattle record for most passing yards in a career. Under Hasselbeck, Seattle won four straight NFC West titles. He was never the centerpiece of the offense but allowed his talent to augment the talent of those around him. Hasselbeck was extremely well coached by Mike Holmgren and went from backup in Green Bay to star in Seattle.
That said, Hasselbeck was a leader. His teams respected and trusted him. Three different Seahawks teams won 10 or more games when he was the quarterback. The reason he is not number one on this list is he never won The Game.
1. Russell Wilson
Here’s the list: Wilson has never missed the playoffs, even though he started as rookie; he won a Super Bowl in which he played well; he has to do most of his quarterbacking while playing against a bad offensive line. Wilson is a winner. He is 56-23-1 during his time in Seattle. He is athletic enough to create successes from plays that should be losses, like this
He is the Seahawks all-time leader in playoff wins, QBR and completion percentage. No team he has played on has won fewer than 10 games. Sure, he plays on teams with a great defense. But give him the line that Hasselbeck had, for instance, with Walter Jones, etc. Not only would Wilson have to do less scrambling, he would most likely do more passing.
Plus, did I already say Russell Wilson has won a Super Bowl?Fire crews battled a 4-alarm fire at an apartment in Grosse Pointe Park, 7 Action News has learned.
The apartment is located at Mack and Nottingham and is above Bootleggers and Rockefellers bars.
We're told the tenant had a space heater catch fire around 5:30 a.m. Sunday, and the tenant tried to put the fire out. It didn't work and it spread out of control.
Right now, crews say there is a lot of damage, and they fought the fire for hours. Late Sunday morning, they were still putting out hot spots, but said the fire was mostly out.
The fire happened in the same building where Bob Bashara allegedly had his sex dungeon as well. That was below Hard Luck Lounge, which has since closed and been replaced by Bootleggers.The World Health Organization has just released a shocking global study that shows air pollution levels are rising at an “alarming rate” in cities across the world.
In the past five years, outdoor air pollution has grown 8% globally, meaning that over 80% of people living in cities breathe in air that exceeds WHO standards on average. While this finding may be totally terrifying for most of mankind, it’s actually not all that bad for China.
Overall, the fast-growing cities of the developing world have been hit the hardest. But China is slowly developing its way out of the developing world. While it may have been hard to see, what with the various airpocalypses, China has been making some commendable strides in cleaning up its environment before it’s too late.
So, in this WHO study of some 3,000 cities worldwide, a mere 8 Chinese cities ranked in the top 50 most polluted, judged by their average PM2.5 count:
9) Xingtai, Hebi – 128
10) Baoding, Hebei – 126
14) Shijiazhuang, Hebei – 121
19) Handan, Hebei – 112
24) Hengshui, Hebei – 107
29) Tangshan, Hebei – 102
37) Langfang, Hebei – 96
48) Cangzhou, you guessed it, Hebei – 48
Jesus Christ, Hebei.
Other notable cities include: Tianjin (51), Beijing (56), Nanjing (81), Shanghai (242). Honestly, once you start getting to the hundreds and two hundreds, there are just giant blocks of Chinese cities, but hey, China has a whole lot of cities.
And generally speaking, the ones in the East are cleaning up their act, at the expensive of those in the West. More and more factories are fleeing restrictive pollution policies in eastern China for the Wild West, where they can open up a coal-driven power plant and burn baby burn.
Therefore, in a recent Greenpeace study, the cities with the higest PM2.5 counts in China were all in Xinjiang, with levels double, triple and even quadruble the already high national average of 60.7 micrograms per cubic meter. The WHO associates PM2.5 levels of 35 and above with significantly higher mortality risks, and suggests living in places with levels under 10.
Anyway, stealing away China’s mantle as the world’s most extreme polluter is India, with an insane 22 cities in the top 50. At the top of the PM2.5 list is Zabol in Iran with an average level of 217. Cities in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and a couple of African countries also make it into the top 50.
Of course, this isn’t to say that China is doing particularly well. According to research done by American Cancer Journal of Clinicians, 4 million people were diagnosed with cancer in China last year, while almost 3 million died from it. The data is the worst in China’s industrial “rust belt” provinces, where lung cancer rates have quadrupled.
Just remember.
Also, stay the hell away from Hebei.
[AD]: Experience a 10-day culinary adventure in top restaurants around China from May 20 to 29!Federal officials raid three Lansing medical marijuana dispensaries Copyright by WLNS - All rights reserved Video
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) - Federal officials raid three Lansing medical marijuana dispensaries and now those tied directly to the business are speaking out.
The moves comes after state police and the FBI raided several locations of HydroWorld Tuesday.
And it comes just days before Lansing City Council considers a moratorium on medical marijuana shops in Lansing.
6 News was there when federal, state and local officials carried out marijuana plants, supplies, personal belongings and cash from three Lansing medical marijuana shops Tuesday.
"Initially when I got there I thought they were robbed. I didn't know they were robbed by the FBI said Trisha Burch.
It's an experience HydroWorld vendor Trisha Burch says she will never forget.
"Everyone that was inside the building, was in handcuffs on the floor," said Burch.
6 News spoke with the DEA about the raids.
Agency officials confirm they executed federal search warrants to seize paraphernalia and medical marijuana at three different HydroWorld locations on Cedar Street.
"It's like a catch 20-20 you can be legal you can be legal but we can take it from you we can prosecute you anytime," said Burch.
HydroWorld owner Danny Trevino says he was surprised how authorities dealt with his pot business.
"To me they could have handled it a little better. go after it civilly like a public nuisance instead of criminally," said Trevino.
So what's next for HydroWorld?
"I'm going to stay in the business man. This is what I do. This is all I know." said Trevino.
Trevino says the raids won't drive him out of business.London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he's not sure it's "appropriate" to roll out the red carpet for President Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE.
"State visits are different from a normal visit," Khan told CNN in an interview Monday.
"And at a time when the president of the USA has policies that many in our country disagree with, I am not sure it is appropriate for our government to roll out the red carpet."
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Khan said, though, he is ready to play his role if someone has views he thinks he can change.
"If you somehow think it is not possible to be a Muslim and a proud Westerner," he said, "I am happy to disabuse you of that idea, whether you are a reporter for CNN or Donald Trump."
Trump is expected to make a state visit to the U.K. next year, according to a report earlier this month.
Khan has in the past called for the British government to cancel a state visit from Trump and has spoken out against Trump's travel ban.
Trump previously went after the mayor after an attack in London earlier this year. After the attack, Khan said there was no reason to worry about increased police presence in London.Story highlights 12 people have died; 119 infected from outbreak of fungal meningitis
Outbreak is linked to injectable steroid that pain patients were receiving
Even if symptoms are mild, possibly infected people should call doctor immediately
Twelve people have died so far from an outbreak of a rare non-contagious fungal meningitis, an inflammation of membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
The discovery of the outbreak, linked to an injectable steroid the patients were getting to treat pain, was first reported late last week by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
On Tuesday the CDC said 119 people had been infected, and warned that the number will likely rise. Fungal meningitis is very rare and, unlike viral and bacterial meningitis, is not contagious.
How has this happened and does it touch your life?
Who is affected?
The patients were injected in their spine with a preservative-free steroid called methylprednisolone acetate. Some time after their treatment, the patients began reporting that they were feeling the hallmark symptoms of meningitis -- headache, fever, stiff neck and a sensitivity to bright lights.
The potentially contaminated injections were given starting May 21, 2012, with Tennessee so far reporting the most number of overall cases -- 39 cases, including 6 deaths. Other states reporting deaths are Florida, Maryland, Michigan and Virginia. Updated case counts can be followed on this link to the CDC's site.
In addition to the states where deaths have occurred, other states with confirmed cases are Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Ohio.
The CDC says as many as 13,000 people may have received medicine from the potentially contaminated injections.
What should you do if you think you were infected?
According to the CDC, 76 facilities in 23 states received products from the company that produced the steroid. Health officials say any patients who received an injection at one of the facilities beginning May 21 and who began showing symptoms between one and four weeks after being injected should see their doctor right away.
JUST WATCHED Meningitis outbreak exposes lax rules Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Meningitis outbreak exposes lax rules 02:25
Even if symptoms seem mild, call your doctor anyway.
In addition to typical meningitis symptoms like headache, fever, nausea and stiffness of the neck, people with fungal meningitis may also experience confusion, dizziness and discomfort from bright lights. Patients might just have one or two of these symptoms, medical experts say.
Once diagnosed, patients are treated with anti-fungal medication, which is given intravenously. That means a likely hospital stay, the CDC said. Patients may need to be treated for months.
Where specifically did the infectious material allegedly originate?
A Massachusetts-based pharmacy, the New England Compounding Center (NECC), has been linked to the injections. The NECC has voluntarily recalled all products that were distributed from its facility in the Boston suburb of Framingham. The company's web site was replaced with a note about the recall.
Products from NECC can be identified by markings that indicate New England Compounding Center by name or by its acronym, the note said.
How did officials know to focus on the New England Compounding Center?
A doctor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, was recently treating a patient with meningitis. The patient wasn't improving for weeks and the doctor was growing increasingly concerned so the physician ordered more labwork. The tests revealed that the patient's spinal fluid had a fungus -- an extremely rare occurrence. The doctor asked the family if the patient had been treated for anything unusual recently, and the family explained that the patient had gotten injections for pain. The doctor then notified the Tennessee Department of Health.
Federal health inspectors began inspecting a New England Compounding Center plant on October 1 and found foreign particles in unopened vials. They ran tests and determined the substance was a fungus.
What is a compounding center?
Compound pharmacists create customized medication solutions for patients for whom manufactured pharmaceuticals won't work, according to the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists.
Those mixed-batch drugs can range from children's cough syrup -- like adding a yummier grape flavor -- to complex concoctions that treat cancer, according to Kevin Outterson, an associate professor of health law and bioethics at Boston University
There's little federal oversight of drug safety and quality at compounding pharmacies compared to big drug manufacturers, he said.
How does a steroid become contaminated with fungus, and how does the fungus hurt you?
It's unclear in this case how the steroids became infected.
Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said that when a company is creating a sterile pharmaceutical product, the facility as well as workers must adhere meticulously to good manufacturing practices.
"There's a whole book on these practices," he told CNN Monday. "Clearly, there was some violation."
Fungal spores are in the air around us, he points out, and they don't cause harm when they are inhaled. "When they are injected, it's a different story," he said.
If injected, the fungus invades small blood vessels and can cause them to clot or bleed. That can lead to stroke-like symptoms, Schaffner said.
In addition to typical meningitis symptoms like headache, fever, nausea and stiffness of the neck, people with fungal meningitis may also experience confusion, dizziness and discomfort from bright lights. Patients might just have one or two of these symptoms, Schaffner said, and they might not present for more than a month.
"That can make it very difficult to diagnose," he said. "That could be a huge challenge in this case."
Is the practice of compounding common in the United States?
Physicians and clinics are increasingly getting material from compounding pharmacies because they typically sell at a much lower cost than major drug manufacturers, according to Outterson.
"There's a lot of compounding that's going on. And there's been an increase in reliance on these pharmacies to deliver a product that couldn't be had otherwise -- for financial or medical reasons," he said.
One to three percent of all prescriptions dispensed in the United States are compounded on prescriptions for individual patients, according to the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists which has 2,700 local pharmacists who provide a compounding service.
The academy estimates that there are 7,500 pharmacies in the United States that specialize in complex compounding services.
"It's good because drugs are expensive and that's a reality we have to deal with," Outterson said. "But it also begs the question, 'Should the FDA be regulating compounding pharmacies?' Some would say yes."
Why doesn't the FDA regulate compounding pharmacies?
All pharmacies are regulated by the state where they are located, but regulations vary state by state, Outterson said.
The FDA has tried to oversee these pharmacies, but the attempt failed. The FDA developed rules for compounding but litigation led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2002 that struck down the idea, Outterson said.
Congress has been unable to reestablish the FDA's authority over the pharmacies since.
What are officials doing about the outbreak?
The FDA, the CDC and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy are all investigating the outbreak.Detecting the Theme in Windows Phone 7
As you probably know, users can change their theme in Windows Phone 7 to be either Dark or Light. This choice has the effect of making your applications look drastically different depending on which theme was chosen. Don't let this scare you though. When designing your application, as long as you don't go out of your way to override the default brushes, you do not have to think a whole lot about this. The system will automatically adjust your application's colors to match the colors defined by the Dark or Light theme. In other words, things just work TM. With that said, there may be times where you want to do something special given the theme a user is in. After all, seeing only the colors change when a user switches themes seems kind of boring! Let me demonstrate what you can do. The following video shows an example of a small application that displays a different image depending on whether you are viewing this application through the Light theme or the Dark theme:
[ the graphics were created by Daniel Cook of LostGarden fame! ] In this article, you will learn the few lines of code that are needed to help you detect the theme at runtime. So, let's get started! Getting Started
Make sure you have everything up and running to do Windows Phone development. You'll definitely need to use either Expression Blend or Visual Studio to follow along or to build the sample application you see above. Approach for Detecting Themes
The approach we will be taking for detecting the theme is not particularly clever, but it works! By default, all of the colors that define your application are provided via brushes defined by the operating system itself. When you change the theme, a handful of these brushes are updated to match the new colors the theme specifies. One such brush is the PhoneBackgroundBrush. For example, here is what the color of the PhoneBackgroundBrush is in the Light theme: Here is the same brush in the Dark theme: Notice that its color changes from a white color in the Light theme to a black color in the Dark theme. Let's use this to our advantage. In our application, by checking the color of the PhoneBackgroundBrush brush, we can infer what theme a user has set. If this brush's color is black (#FF000000), then we know the user is in the Dark theme. If this brush's color is white (#FFFFFFFF), then we know the user is in the Light theme. Let's translate this into code! Looking at the Code
The code for detecting the theme using the approach described in the previous section is: private Color lightThemeBackground = Color. FromArgb ( 255, 255, 255, 255 ) ; private Color darkThemeBackground = Color. FromArgb ( 255, 0, 0, 0 ) ; public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); DisplayState(); } private void DisplayState() { SolidColorBrush backgroundBrush = Application. Current. Resources [ "PhoneBackgroundBrush" ] as SolidColorBrush ; if ( backgroundBrush. Color == lightThemeBackground ) { // you are in the light theme } else { // you are in the dark theme } } Now that you have the code, let's look at it in greater detail to understand how it works. The first thing I do is hard-code two variables that define the light and dark colors the PhoneBackgroundBrush brursh will have: private Color lightThemeBackground = Color. FromArgb ( 255, 255, 255, 255 ) ; private Color darkThemeBackground = Color. FromArgb ( 255, 0, 0, 0 ) ; Like I mentioned earlier, PhoneBackgroundBrush has a Color value that is #FFFFFFFF in the Light theme and #FF000000 when in the Dark theme. I am explicitly defining those colors in the Color objects lightThemeBackground and darkThemeBackground. I will use these values to compare with the actual color of the PhoneBackgroundBrush in my application. What we need now is our application's PhoneBackgroundBrush. Since it is an application-level resource, you can extract it as follows: SolidColorBrush backgroundBrush = Application. Current. Resources [ "PhoneBackgroundBrush" ] as SolidColorBrush ; Notice that the key I pass in to our Resources collection is the name of the brush itself - PhoneBackgroundBrush. What gets returned is something of type SolidColorBrush, and I associate that brush with the variable called backgroundBrush. Now that I have the current value for PhoneBackgroundBrush in my backgroundBrush object and the two color values the background brush can be (lightThemeBackground and darkThemeBackground), all that is left is to do a simple comparison: if ( backgroundBrush. Color == lightThemeBackground ) { // you are in the light theme } else { // you are in the dark theme } If my backgroundBrush object's Color value is the same as the lightThemeBackground Color, then you know that our application is currently in the Light theme. If the values aren't equal where my backgroundBrush.Color value returns #FF000000 for the Dark theme, then the else portion of this if/else statement will kick in. Conclusion
Already! You are now done with this short article. Like I mentioned earlier, the OS will take care of swapping all of the colors automatically for your application when the theme or accent color is changed. If you want to perform some custom tasks such as displaying a different starting page depending on the theme selected, the code presented here should help you out. Below, in case you want to see a working example, you can download the source files for the small project I showcased in the video earlier: If you liked the graphics used in my example, please visit Daniel Cook's excellent blog, LostGarden. If you have a question about this or any other topic, the easiest thing is to drop by our forums where |
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