text
stringlengths 627
100k
|
|---|
Terry Firma
In Troy, NY, a part-time child-care worker for the Troy Housing Authority, Willie Bacote, said he hurt his back on the job two years ago. Bacote began drawing worker’s comp insurance.
But the State Insurance Fund thought there might be something fishy about Bacote’s claim, and had investigators keep an eye on him.
They monitored Bacote at his other job; he is also a pastor of Missing Link AME Zion Church, and runs a flea market at the church to support its operations. There, the insurance team repeatedly observed and video-recorded Bacote lifting and schlepping objects like couches, chairs, and heavy boxes.
The state reviewed his case and ruled that the pilfering pastor has to pay back the workman’s comp money.
While lesser men would have been given additional fines (most thieves don’t claim the mantle of godly goodness), the state of New York decided to let Bacote off lightly.
It appears from the video evidence that he is making valuable efforts on behalf of his community,
the ruling noted.
|
In addition to its new trio of GT factory drivers for 2017, Porsche has announced at its Night of Champions that it will send a factory squad to the 2017 FIA WEC to race in the GTE Pro class with its new 911 RSR.
“This is a significant boost for our motorsport involvement and underlines that we have chosen the right platform with the WEC,” said Michael Steiner, member of the executive board for research and development at Porsche AG.
The Porsche Motorsport GT team will campaign a pair of new 911 RSR in the top GTE class, after the brand was represented by just a sole Proton Competition-run 911 this season. The drivers confirmed so far are Michael Christensen, Frédéric Makowiecki and Richard Lietz.
Next season the GTE Pro class has been granted FIA World Championship status for the first time, with factory efforts from Porsche, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Ford all confirmed.
The mid-engined 2017 Porsche 911 RSR was fully officially unveiled last month by the brand, and shown off to the WEC paddock at the Bahrain season finale.
|
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave a speech in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Oct. 1. He also issued a statement in response to a bombshell New York Times story about his taxes. He said 12 false things: 1. Falsely said, “We have the support of the Hispanics and the African-Americans.” (Trump is losing by massive margins with Hispanics and African-Americans.)
Donald Trump's battle with the truth continued Saturday. ( Evan Vucci / The Associated Press )
2. Falsely said the New York Times “illegally obtained” his tax information. (A reporter simply opened her mail; the documents were sent to her.) 3. Falsely said, “They say she’s worth $200, $250 million.” (Reports the Washington Post: “In the Clintons’ 2015 personal financial disclosure form, they reported valued assets ranging from $11.3 million to $52.7 million. This number does not reflect homes that the Clintons own. In 2015, Forbes estimated their combined net worth at $45 million.”) 4. Falsely said, “She also wants to shut down production of shale energy.” (Clinton has called for strict new restrictions, but not a shutdown. “With strong safeguards in place, natural gas can play an important role in our transition to a clean energy economy,” she has said.)
Article Continued Below
5. Falsely said, “We don’t make anything anymore.” (Manufacturing represented 12 per cent of the American economy in 2015.) 6. Falsely said the U.S. has China “trade deficits of $400, $500 billion a year.” (The deficit was about $330 billion last year including services, $367 billion with goods alone. It may be lower this year.) 7. Falsely said: “It’s not like, ‘Oh gee do you think she’s guilty?’ They’ve actually admitted she’s guilty.” (No authority has “admitted” that Clinton is guilty of crimes related to her emails.) 8. Falsely said of Bill Clinton, “He can’t practise law. He can’t be a lawyer. He was a lawyer. He can’t be a lawyer.” (Clinton was not disbarred over his sex scandals. His Arkansas law license was suspended for five years. While he can’t currently work as a lawyer, he could do so within a week or so if he wanted to: Applications for reinstatement are “routinely approved,” a senior official of the Arkansas legal body said in 2006, when he became eligible for reinstatement.) 9. Falsely said, “Like the European Union, she wants to erase our borders.” (Clinton is not proposing to erase borders or create anything like the European Union.)
10. Falsely said of Clinton’s refugee policy: “She wants people to pour into our country without knowing who they are.” (Clinton is not proposing a loosening of the strict screening process for refugees.) 11. Falsely said, “Here’s a person who’s only worked for government, essentially.” (Clinton’s private-sector career was cut short by Bill’s political career, but she worked non-government jobs for several years as a young woman: Lawyer at the Children’s Defense Fund and later Rose Law Firm, and instructor at the University of Arkansas law school. She also served on corporate boards, including Walmart’s.)
Article Continued Below
12. Falsely said, “Favours and access were granted to those who wrote checks. She put the secretary of state up for sale.” (There is no evidence Clinton sold favours or tried to.) 13. Misleadingly claimed endorsements from “the Border Patrol, ICE.” (Unions representing officers of these agencies have endorsed him, not the agencies themselves.)
Read more about:
|
It is now a week on from the election and it's clear voters have delivered a firm rebuff to the Greens' campaign that farmers were not doing enough to protect the environment.
It seems the message has finally got through – farmers are working hard to clean up rivers, keep their stock out of streams, and to plant more trees.
Hopefully, this will mean the mainstream media will pay less credence to the Greens' antifarming claims – and those from their cohorts Fish & Game, Forest & Bird and others – in future.
In fact, the media were shown by the election result to have been well out of touch with what New Zealanders regarded as the main issues of the campaign.
Dirty politics, while not to be condoned, was seen to be secondary to the more important issue of maintaining the country's economic progress. Increased taxes on the wealthy and on hardearned capital gains were firmly rejected.
And when patronising outsiders tried to tell us we were being spied on and that our leaders were lying to us – at the same time as Australia discovered terrorists in its midst – we punished the people who brought them here.
Some in the new National Government must now feel they have a mandate for some of the policies that failed to make traction in the last term.
But they should heed the prime minister's caution against showing arrogance. That will be hard for some.
It's true the win was a recognition of the Government's sound economic stewardship as well as the calm air of capability, with a touch of patient worldweariness, displayed by John Key as he found himself at the centre of a media maelstrom.
But it was also a rejection of people who tried to hijack the elections. And it was a rejection of the unimpressive alternatives to a National Government.
So, the mandate is not as strong as some might think.
Voters might think well of farmers now, but a move to change the Resource Management Act, for example, to make it easier for controversial water schemes, has to be carefully thought through.
The economic advantages may be obvious, but the environmental gains less so. Taking the frustrations out of a scheme like Hawke's Bay's Ruataniwha would be rewarding, but at the risk of alienating a large section of the community.
It has taken a lot to turn the environmental tide in farmers' favour.
It wouldn't take much to turn it back.
* Jon Morgan is the editor of the NZ Farmer print edition.
|
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
Investments in research and technologies in electrical generation and storage are highlighted in the plan to begin the movement toward carbon reductions. These are critical in two respects: appropriate technology varies depending on regional differences, and consequent economic benefits are substantial. This highlights a clear Canadian energy policy involving investments in clean energy, support for emerging clean-technology companies and a Canada Green Investment Bond to support both large and community-scale renewable-energy projects. Federal agencies could provide their facilities as test beds for prototype testing.
Climate change is correctly addressed as a technical problem on a world scale that can be corrected with appropriate technology. Climate scientists' calculations indicate the atmosphere currently holds about 400 parts per million (ppm): the ratio of carbon dioxide molecules compared to all other atmospheric molecules. Reducing this ratio to 350 ppm is the agreed-upon goal to neutralize human impacts.
There is much to commend, particularly the reliance on facts and research driving the plan. What a breath of fresh air after a decade of these being ignored. The plan weaves several major issues into a cohesive whole, including climate change, economic productivity, protection of special ecological systems and a revamp of Canada's decimated environmental-assessment capacity. Clearly, this vision derives from a team of experts, thinking long-term and focused on Canada's future economic and environmental viability.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 4/7/2015 (1333 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 4/7/2015 (1333 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has released the Liberal party's policy statement outlining a comprehensible forward-looking plan for "Canada's Environment and Economy".
There is much to commend, particularly the reliance on facts and research driving the plan. What a breath of fresh air after a decade of these being ignored. The plan weaves several major issues into a cohesive whole, including climate change, economic productivity, protection of special ecological systems and a revamp of Canada's decimated environmental-assessment capacity. Clearly, this vision derives from a team of experts, thinking long-term and focused on Canada's future economic and environmental viability.
Climate change is correctly addressed as a technical problem on a world scale that can be corrected with appropriate technology. Climate scientists' calculations indicate the atmosphere currently holds about 400 parts per million (ppm): the ratio of carbon dioxide molecules compared to all other atmospheric molecules. Reducing this ratio to 350 ppm is the agreed-upon goal to neutralize human impacts.
Investments in research and technologies in electrical generation and storage are highlighted in the plan to begin the movement toward carbon reductions. These are critical in two respects: appropriate technology varies depending on regional differences, and consequent economic benefits are substantial. This highlights a clear Canadian energy policy involving investments in clean energy, support for emerging clean-technology companies and a Canada Green Investment Bond to support both large and community-scale renewable-energy projects. Federal agencies could provide their facilities as test beds for prototype testing.
The plan shows how science can be used to understand environmental problems and the consequences of options to solve them. These are linked with economic theory and analysis and explain how environmental solutions also solve economic dilemmas. Investments in green technologies will improve productivity, instead of the current policy of spending public funds on petroleum-development subsidies, a cost that exacerbates climate change.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper argues the economy takes priority, implying addressing climate change cannot be an economic generator, but a luxury to be considered — when? This assumes climate change does not seriously impact Canada's economic foundations, now or in the future. Harper recently accepted an international political agreement to eliminate greenhouse gases by 2100. This is simply ridiculous. Before 2050, greenhouse gases must be significantly reduced to prevent global warming becoming self-generating.
While Harper is busy collecting data from the provinces to add them up for political advantage, the comprehensive Liberal plan involves working with provincial and territorial governments to address the actual fundamentals of climate change.
Trudeau's plan recognizes each province and territory has different resources, different energy sources and, therefore, different effects from climate change. It acknowledges effective solutions must account for these. One size does not fit all. Given the disrespect climate change impacts have for provincial boundaries, intergovernmental co-operation is essential. The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Agency, a former federal agency for addressing Prairie drought, is cited as an example of an integrating model. The Liberal proposal recognizes at times a federal emergency agency may need to pick up some of the overload, perhaps by equipping Canada's military to be world-class leaders in responding to weather-related emergencies.
Hopefully, new funding for the Experimental Lakes Area will evolve over time to the establishment of "ecological research stations" in all 15 major ecological systems in Canada. These would provide significant data and research to improve knowledge of the complexities within each ecological system and better insights into local climate change and how they might be mitigated.
A specific mechanism isn't spelled out to achieve all this. However, within a national framework, federal agreements will be needed with each province and territory to facilitate working together to identify, for each jurisdiction, specific circumstances, objectives and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate impacts. Where necessary, adjacent provincial governments should be included in such co-operative arrangements. This approach is not without precedent.
The Liberal plan is a beginning and basis to build a way forward to improve productivity while dealing with Canada's responsibilities for climate change and long-term ecological vitality.
Jim Collinson consults on the complexities among energy, environment and economy, and was assistant deputy minister for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion (Western and Northern Canada) and Parks Canada.
|
- Kane and his wife have started a new insurance company in Knoxville, TN called The Jacobs Agency. They offer auto, home, motorcycle, RV, boat, life and commercial insurance, as well as retirement planning.
Kane has told people in the area that he's been planning on retiring from WWE for some time now but it's hard to walk away from the money, so he's going to continue wrestling while he can still make the big money.
There's also a feeling locally in the political world that at some point Kane would be interested in running for public office as a Libertarian party candidate.
Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Subscribe to The Wrestling Observer by clicking here. Each issue has coverage and analysis of all the major news, plus history pieces. New subscribers can also receive free classic issues.
|
OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Even though it’s been a dry day in the Oakland Hills, water continues to seep out of a hillside with homes on it, causing a landslide.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) said it is their treated water coming from a leak somewhere above.
EBMUD spokeswoman Tracie Morales-Noisy said, “We’re currently listening for leaks in an area where there are aging pipes. These pipes are about 60 years old.”
Leak detection specialists drilled holes, even dug up the ground to inspect nearby pipes, but couldn’t find any leaks.
Morales-Noisy said crews were installing sound devices today so that they can listen for leaks at night, when it’s the most quiet.
Homeowner Kevin Best watched the hillside on Oak Hill Road go down more than a week ago.
The next day, a land surveyor he hired got stuck knee-deep in the mud and firefighters had to pull the man out.
Best said he just hopes his house won’t get swallowed up.
“Your house is your security. Anytime that security is invaded it’s pretty difficult,” Best said. “We’re weathering the storm, no pun intended.”
Across the bay, a home near Mount Davidson in San Francisco, had to be demolished before it could slide down the hill and onto houses below. That homeowner has said he suspects a leaking 8-inch water main caused the landslide, but that the city is investigating and hasn’t yet claimed responsibility.
|
There’s no disputing the fact that good bud can turn a decent movie into an awesome experience. But when it comes to video games… well, it’s sort of like a movie that allows you to get into the action personally. Over the past few decades, certain games have emerged that have truly revolutionized the way stoners the world over entertain themselves. From the all-time classics to some of the more recent titles to hit the scene, arm yourself with the right games and killing a whole night in what feels like seconds is guaranteed.
“But which games to choose? And which strains?”
Well, there’s some really informative cannabis news on the 420 Blog of SeedSupreme – also the best place to legally buy high grade marijuana seeds. As for the games, it’s a case of trying your hand with a few obvious titles and one or two you probably wouldn’t expect to be as mind-blowing as they are. And if you’re willing to risk scaring yourself senseless, you could be in for one hell of a ride!
So after pulling together the thoughts and opinions of the masses, what follows is a brief rundown of quite simply the best stoner video games of all time.
And if you’re interested in marijuana lifestyle and legalization issues, check out the mega-popular LIWTS website or on a side note: for growing marijuana with hydroponics checkout Hydrosys as a really good online hydroponics shop.
Here is the undisputable list:
The Curse of Monkey Island
The fact that Monkey Island comes from the same studio that cooked up Star Wars says quite a bit about its pedigree and awesomeness. But it was and always will be the third installation that took things to a whole new level for stoners. Guybrush Threepwood took center stage, presenting players with the seemingly endless challenge of finding hidden stuff right in front of you and doing something productive with it. There’s nothing quite like the frustration of spending hours clicking every pixel on the screen, or the satisfaction of finally finding what you were looking for!
Street Fighter II Turbo
It’s not as if there haven’t been thousands of fighting games to emerge since the 90s. Nevertheless, there will only ever be one fighting game that pretty much started the whole scene off and defined a genre in one fell swoop. Street Fighter II Turbo isn’t just a well-earned trip down memory lane – it still plays like a dream by 2016 standards. If you’re planning on playing between bong hits, you’ll be right at home with the comparative simplicity of the king of ’90s fighters.
Mario Kart
The question so many stoners have lost friendships debating – the original Mario Kart, or Mario Kart 64? Truth is however that the answer really doesn’t matter – either will get the job done in a big way. Once again, it’s what’s technically genius simplicity that makes Mario Kart one of the ultimate games for stoners. The single player mode might not win you over, but in terms of multiplayer action…well, red shell induced tantrums and party storm-outs usually come as standard.
GoldenEye 007
There’s only one very slight problem with GoldenEye 007 – there’s always one smug sod in the group that’s nailed the trick of picking you off with one shot the second you spawn. If it’s you, great. If it’s not, get set to have your patience tested. Still, the game based on the first Bond movie to start Pierce Brosnan is known far and wide for being one of the best multiplayer games on any platform and in any genre. Master the art of using those Remote Mines precisely and you’re golden…pun intended.
Ridiculous Fishing
The concept is clearly ridiculous…no surprises there. But what did surprise gamers the world over was just how much substance there was behind the bizarre façade. So much so in fact that Ridiculous Fishing netted a boat-load of awards when it landed. You play as Billy the fisherman, yanking fish out of the water and summarily shooting the living hell out of them for fun. And fun is exactly what it is – especially if you rip a few bong hits in between turns.
Super Mario Bros
It’s not until you take a step back from Mario that you really get an idea of how surreal it all is. Undisputed prince and hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, he spends his time jumping on local residents, throwing turtles all over the place, eating mushrooms, ridings a dinosaur, throwing fireballs and repeatedly throwing himself to his death. Yep, just a normal day all-round. Exactly which of the Mario titles takes the top prize is a subject of frenzied debate, though you won’t do much better than Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES or Super Mario World on the SNES.
GTA IV
What’s cool about the GTA franchise in general is how you know Sam and Dan must have been hitting the herb pretty hard when they came up with the concept. Every installment had its own unique charms, but GTA 4 excelled in ways nobody saw coming. Even playing alone, the fact that you can take a midnight stroll through an alternate version of New York City and cause mayhem along the way is epic on a whole new level. Throw in a little multiplayer and well…what more could you want?
Fifa
Is Fifa a better football sim than Pro-Evo? Perhaps not better as such, but it’s certainly more satisfying and easier to handle stoned. It really doesn’t matter which year you choose as it’s not the graphics you’ll be interested in anyway. It’s of course all about the multiplayer, which can transform the shy and placid members of your gang into fired-up raging beasts when there’s any kind of bet involved. Get yourselves a tournament going and you can kiss goodbye to your weekend!
Roller Coaster Tycoon
Another wonderful hit of nostalgia combined with a game that’s genuinely addictive, entertaining and hilarious like almost nothing else out there. There are really only two ways of playing the original Roller Coaster Tycoon – one being to succeed as its creators intended, the other being to find the most creative and amusing ways of killing innocent part visitors. Suffice to say, about 99% of the game’s most loyal fan-base opt for the second strategy. If you’ve ever played it yourself, you’ll know why.
Wii Sports
Even if fresh air and exercise aren’t your kind of thing when you’re high, it’s guaranteed you’ll get a massive kick out of Wii Sports. It was and is the game that makes it worth forking out for a Nintendo Wii in its own right…the first-gen console being practically given away for free these days. It’s always a blast when you’ve got a bunch of games all brought together in one package, but chances are it’ll be the golf, tennis or bowling that has you hooked for the whole night.
Red Dead Redemption
It might be cliché and some would argue wrong to compare Red Dead Redemption to GTA. But then again, how can the idea of crossing GTA with a fantasy Wild West setting be anything other than ridiculously awesome? Everything about Red Dead Redemption takes immersion and atmosphere to new heights. Stunning graphics, a glorious day-night cycle and so many ways of killing hours and days outside the set missions. This is a franchise that absolutely needs and deserves a brand-new installment.
Limbo
The words ‘thought-provoking’ are the first that spring to mind when looking to tackle Limbo after a joint or two. The whole game was designed to make you question your beliefs and think a little deeper than you otherwise might. Exploring a world of shadows, encountering characters that are already dead and all while on a mission to track down your little sister.
Super Smash Bros
Most Nintendo classics are perfect pairings for high-quality bud. Super Smash Bros is an all-time favourite in stoner circles if for no reason other than bringing together every character you knew and loved in your childhood. The result is a whole world of surreal pairings and square-offs the likes of which never get dull. And the fact that it’s brilliantly easy to control makes it ideal even for those barely willing/able to move even a finger.
Online Slots Games
When you’ve tasted some of the high-grade and you get to playing some slots at online casinos you can really forget about everything and just watch the flashing colors and noises. Some of the slots games available are movie and some are just so colourful and mesmerizing.
Resident Evil
In a technical sense, Resident Evil just kept on getting better. In a game-play sense, there’s just no beating the first couple of installments. It came from an era where it wasn’t possible to make horror titles with movie-quality graphics, so it was a case of relying on tension, jump scares and solid game-play. Three boxes ticked in spades by the first Resident Evil, which only gets better after a bong hit or two.
Silent Hill
The very first Silent Hill was less a game and more a raw test of your nerve. They managed to nail the concept of making you practically soil yourself with fear, even in instances when there was nothing happening. Low visibility, eerie calm and the knowledge that at any time, something hideous might be just about to creep out of the fog. Awesome while stoned, just as long as you don’t play it alone.
GTA Online
While it was GTA 5 that initially took the world by storm, GTA Online has become the definitive installment for stoners. Why? Well, quite simply because you can guarantee that at any time day or night, there are no doubt hundreds of thousands of other stoners just like you ripping bong hits and causing chaos online. A world of maniacs with nothing better to do than wail on each other and live out their semi-twisted competitive fantasies. You’ll get so much time out of GTA Online that it totally justifies the price of the console on its own.
Outlast
Diving back into the horror genre for a moment, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Outlast would be the opposite of a stoner classic. But it isn’t, in fact it’s loaded with the kind of tension and atmosphere that will always take your buzz to the next level. You’d need some serious balls to play it for more than a few minutes alone, but bring a few friends along for the ride and you’ll never tire of watching your mates silently soil themselves. If you’re looking for the best online head shops to take the fear to the next level, the LIWTS website will tell you exactly where to go!
PaRappa the Rapper
Right at the other end of the spectrum comes a true classic you totally forgot existed. What makes PaRappa the Rapper an ideal stoner game is the fact that a heavy dose of weed makes it borderline impossible. With your reaction times a little on the slow side, even the easiest levels will present the kinds of challenges you never anticipated. Things get faster, you get slower, the results become more hilarious and you have to stop yourself launching the controller across the room… pure genius!
Lego Games
Pick up any game at all from the Lego series and you’re golden. Star Wars might be the obvious choice, but there’s much to be said for Batman, Harry Potter and all the more obscure variants you can pick up online. There’s the promise of all the joy of building things, odd worlds to explore, shiny goodies to discover and the kinds of one-line catchphrases you’ll wish you’d have made up yourself.
Rock Band
Technically speaking, Guitar Hero was nothing more or less than a way of upping the ante with your air guitar. Rock Band on the other hand gave a world of wannabes the opportunity to at least pretend they’ve got the skills and charisma to become real rock stars. The addition of drums and vocals to the mix was nothing short of genius, though it’s still the guitar that gets argued over the most. Awesome tunes, psychedelic visuals and the guarantee of at least one of your group throwing a primadonna strop after screwing things up for the eleventh time in a row.
Slender
Last but not least, you’ll find more than a few seasoned experts out there consistently rating the game: Slender as the number-one stoner game of all time. First of all, there’s really no game out there that does a better job recreating exactly what you get from an epic Hollywood horror movie. Secondly, there’s the way in which it is uncomplicated and minimal in every way, which makes it a thousand times more terrifying than even the most advanced AAA horror titles. Thirdly, there’s the fact that the Slender Man himself is spectacularly scary – you only have to catch sight of him for your sanity to be quickly drained away. And finally, the fact that it is FREE makes it an absolute no-brainer in every way!
|
(CNN) — Until 1996, two of Egypt's greatest cities were missing. Then along came French archeologist Franck Goddio, who made an extraordinary discovery underwater.
For 1,000 years, Thonis-Heracleion was completely submerged. Fish made their homes among the rubble of mighty temples; hieroglyphs gathered algae. Gods and kings sat in stasis, powerless, their statues slowly withdrawing from the world, one inch of sand at a time. Goddio spent years surveying this find, as well as neighboring Canopus, which was rediscovered by a British RAF pilot in 1933 who noticed ruins leading into the waters.
Thanks to a new exhibition at the British Museum, Goddio's incredible finds will soon be open to the public.
Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds opens May 19, and according to museum curator, Aurelia Masson-Berghoff, the exhibition pulls back the curtain on what was once one of archeology's greatest mysteries.
"(Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus) were known from Greek mythology, Greek historians and Egyptian decrees, and now we know where they were."
Objects discovered in the Mediterranean Sea are helping archaeologists uncover the history of two Egyptian lost cities.
Related content Did ancient Egypt suffer from climate change?
Why did they sink?
Likely founded in the 7th century BC, Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus acted as major trade hubs between ancient Egypt, Greece and the wider Mediterranean, located as they were at a handy intersection. But circumstances ultimately conspired against them, explains Masson-Berghoff.
"Several natural phenomenon caused these cities to sink by a maximum of (32 feet) below the sea," she says, noting that a naturally rising sea level, subsidence and earthquakes (which ultimately triggered tidal waves) all played a hand.
Revealing excavations in the north of Egypt show how Greeks and Egyptians lived together thousands of years ago.
Gods of yester-millennium
Masson-Berghoff explains they also learned a lot from the form taken by the religious statues dug up from their watery grave. The statues were mainly of Ptolemaic gods with human features that represented the same qualities Egyptians prescribed to animals
"The Greeks were not exactly into animal-shaped gods nor into animal worship," she explains. "The Ptolemies, the Greco-Macedonian rulers of Egypt after Alexander the Great, created a human-shaped version of a very old Egyptian god, the sacred bull Osiris-Apis. In its 'Greek' form, he became Serapis, combining the aspects and functions of major Greek gods."
CNN gets a special tour of the "Sunken cities: Egypt's lost worlds" exhibition at the British Museum in London.
One of the statues was that of a colossal head representing the god Serapis, a Greek human-shaped version of the Egyptian god Osiris-Apis.
"We will show in 'Sunken Cities' a variety of sculptures depicting these Greco-Macedonian rulers as Egyptian Pharaohs, wearing Egyptian crowns and acting as if they were Egyptian Pharaohs," the curator says.
It was not vanity that prompted their change in style, but shrewd political maneuvering. "The Ptolemies really understood that they needed the support of the local priesthood and population, to legitimize their rule," Masson-Berghoff argues. "To achieve this, they adopted Egyptian beliefs, rituals and iconography."
Colossal statue of Hapy, made from pink granite and over five meters high. Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio / Hilti Foundation
Related content Madagascar marvel: Divers find fossils of extinct giant lemurs
The largest item on display is a statue of Hapy, ironically the god of flooding. Over 16-feet tall and weighing 12,000 pounds, the pink granite sculpture dates from the fourth century BC, long before Thonis-Heracleion disappeared into the sea.
Also worth noting is what Goddio's team left on the seabed. The archeologist discovered 69 ships: "the largest assemblage of boats ever discovered," Masson-Berghoff claims -- one of them likely used on a Grand Canal which linked Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, upon which a sacred barge made of sycamore would travel during the Mysteries of Osiris, a celebration of the god of the underworld.
All of this, however, is just a drop in the bucket.
|
A week ago, Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber phoned the board of directors of his constituency association at their monthly meeting and announced his resignation from the Conservative caucus. One board member, Doug Elniski, resigned in support.
Then Rathgeber informed the Speaker, the Prime Minister’s Office, the chief government whip, and finally, he posted a tweet to the world. He acted by the book. More important, he acted: his resignation was an event, an unpredictable interruption of routine procedures. Accidents are unpredictable too. Rathgeber’s resignation was no accident, but the result of that internal deliberation we usually call thinking. Moreover, because it was public and concerned matters of public policy, it was political in the fullest sense of the term. Public action means the actor bears responsibility for his deed, which gave an unusual gravity to Rathgeber’s words of explanation.
In the past few weeks, the Canadian government has used words in the opposite way, to veil and obscure rather than to reveal the meaning of their deeds. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Nigel Wright/Mike Duffy affair. To date, no words at all have been uttered by anyone that make sense of why Wright cut a cheque to Duffy so he could repay taxpayers for claiming expenses improperly.
To put it another way, when Rathgeber resigned, he revealed who he was. He disclosed a unique and distinct personality, which is always risky. This is why even those who thought his action rash at least admitted he was brave. His supporters called upon others to emulate him. They thought his deed was glorious and Rathgeber a hero.
As with the Homeric meaning of hero, Rathgeber had a story to tell. Much of it he told over the past few months on his blog.
He is a lawyer, a Queen’s counsel who understands that by the law of the Constitution, his job is to represent his constituents in Parliament and the job of Parliament is to hold the government to account, especially over its stewardship of public resources. It is not his job to present the views of the executive to the people of Edmonton-St. Albert. Reformers used to call the latter process “becoming Ottawashed.”
The occasion for his resignation was the amendments made in committee by seven Conservative MPs (six of whom were from Ontario and so devoid of Reform party recollections) of his private member’s Bill C-461, The CBC and Public Sector Disclosure and Transparency Act. Had the bill become law, it would have made the salaries of senior mandarins and CBC operatives public. Now, it may be true that making salaries public does not necessarily reduce costs. But no one made that argument in committee. In fact, no one made any arguments, because months ago, the executive decided to raise the threshold for salary disclosure. No one said a word about that either.
Why the PMO is protecting disclosure of senior bureaucrats’ salaries, let alone refusing to widen access to information criteria for the CBC, is a mystery. That would be the same CBC that refused to answer an access to information request about the size of its vehicle fleet on the grounds of “journalistic integrity.”
Rathgeber knows he will suffer the consequences of his action. In response to a blog post last summer, “Of Orange Juice and Limos,” dealing with ministerial opulence, when the House reconvened in the fall, Rathgeber’s desk had been moved to the back row.
There are consequences for the government as well. Like a Rhinestone Cowboy, “there’s been a load of compromisin’ on the road to the Tory horizon.” And as Rathgeber said, “I can only compromise so much before I begin not to recognize myself.”
In the months to come, the rest of the country will ask whether the Conservative government, as Rathgeber said, had “morphed into what we once mocked,” namely a new incarnation of the principle-free, entitlement-obsessed Liberals of Chretien’s day. If the Tories are oblivious of compromise because they have lost principles to compromise on, then they owe Rathgeber a vote of thanks for providing a reminder of what they have lost.
Barry Cooper is a senior fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and a columnist with the Calgary Herald.
The editorial pages editor is Gordon Clark, who can be reached at gclark@theprovince.com. Letters to the editor can be sent to provletters@theprovince.com.
|
Recently I had a chance to catch up with Robert Grzesek, one of the founders of Carbide and also of the easy to use MeshCam CAM software. I wanted to get an update on the Nomad as well as some idea of what he’d learned from the whole Kickstarter process and manufacturing the Nomad. For those who haven’t seen it, Nomad is a very cool vision for a CNC Mill that was a very successful Kickstarter campaign recently. Be sure to check out our article on Nomad (that link just before this line) for more detail. They raised a total of $513,665 against a goal of $30,000, so this campaign definitely knocked the ball right out of the park.
Here’s what I learned from my interview of Robert:
Carbide had a phenomenally successfully Kickstarter campaign for your Nomad CNC Mill. What advice do you have for would be Kickstarters about how to maximize their success?
I think you can distill it down into a few categories: product, preparation, and follow through.
Product:
First, we picked a product who’s time had come. I knew from my work on MeshCAM, and my partners knew from our product development work, that there was a need for a ready-to-run CNC machine that doesn’t have the massive learning curve of traditional machines.
We spent something like 10 months working on the Nomad before launching our campaign. It was not an idea or a concept, it was an almost-ready-to-make product. I think a lot of people go wrong by showing a product too early so it requires the potential backers to make a greater leap to understand what the product will end up being.
By putting the work in up-front, we were also able to commit to a much earlier shipping time than “normal” Kickstarter campaigns that might ask you to wait a year before you’ll see your product. This was very important given the amount of money we were asking people to spend.
One of the other huge benefits though was my partner Apollo, who is an industrial designer. He was able to take the work that the engineers did and make it look like something that people wanted to buy. We knew design would be significant but, based on customer feedback, it turned out to be way more important than we expected.
Preparation:
There are lots of writeups out there for what you need to know to launch a Kickstarter campaign and Jorge, my other partner, read every one and made sure we did everything right.
1) If you meet something like 30% of your goal in the first 24 hours then you have an 80% chance of getting funded. (Don’t quote me on the numbers but it’s something like that) We presold 10 machines to local people before we ever went live (those 10 were for people who wanted machines- not our friends or moms). The pitch was, give us your phone number and we’ll call when we push the “launch” button. You’ll have limited time to jump on and get a machine incredibly cheap. In the end, every one bought even though a couple missed the window to get the cheap machine. Every Kickstarter campaign should be doing this.
2) Have a press list ready to go with all of the “need to haves” and all of your “want to haves” listed out with names, emails, and examples of things they’ve written about before. We approached a couple of them the day before launch to try and a story or post on day one. This was WAY harder than we thought. Traditional PR, where you write a release and then blast it out, is a complete waste of time from what we can tell. The only stories we got were from Jorge or I emailing people on a more personal level. The good news is that if you get a few stories or posts, then others will pickup and write their own. We got Engadget with no contact from us after a story on another site.
3) Watch the videos from a other projects like yours and copy the good ones. It’s amazing how many people have videos with no call to action, they just end. What are viewers supposed to do next? Others have horrible production value or look like they’re trying to make the video “all about them”, not the product or the potential backer. Finally, style the video to fit in to the Kickstarter ecosystem. Our video would be very different if we made what we wanted, but we decided to copy the types of shots and music that others use. People reacted very well to it so I think there’s a lot of merit to this.
Follow-through:
We spent the next 30 days answering every email, message, or comment. When we weren’t doing that, we were reaching out to new press contacts to try to get links. Managing a campaign if a full-time job for at least one person if you’re doing well. There were days with all three of us working on it.
What did you learn during the course of the Kickstarter campaign that helped you refine your product vision and what would you do differently for your next Kickstarter?
Kickstarter is amazing. There is a huge group of people out there monitoring Kickstarter looking for cool projects and I have no doubt that those additional backers more than covered all of the Kickstarter fees. Also, just being on Kickstarter seemed to make the project more legitimate in the eyes of the people we talked to. I do not think backers would have been as enthusiastic to preorder from our webpage instead of Kickstarter.
We also got great support from our Kickstarter contact, who did his best to get us featured because he really believed in the product. We have nothing but positive things to say about them.
What would we do differently next time? I’d be more open in the leadup to the campaign and make more of an attempt to build an email list. We did well without that but I think having more potential customers to contact at launch would be better.
I’d also make more of an attempt to reach out to press before launch. Knowing how hard it is to get coverage from even a tiny blog, I’d start earlier and have a bigger list.
In terms of how it changed the vision, our Kickstarter campaign was more successful than we ever anticipated and we attracted an even more diverse set of users than we expected. Because a lot of our backers had no CNC experience, we saw that they had really high expectations. We did not want to let them down under any circumstances after the trust they were putting into us. We ended up upgrading the machine a lot (at no additional cost). We built a good machine from the start but the one we’re shipping blows it away; I think it’s safe to say that no machine is our price range has anywhere near the capabilities or quality.
How do you best describe the vision for Nomad and Carbide today?
Everyone we talked to has an idea in their head for something they’d like to make. We’d like to provide to software and hardware to get it from their heads, into 3D.
How are things going as you move towards shipping the first Nomad units to your Kickstarter supporters?
The machine upgrades where a huge delay because we ended up having to redo almost every part of the machine in some way. We’re just getting all of the parts from our machine shop and starting to put the first couple of machines together now. They’re looking really nice so far.
Here’s Jorge putting the first production frame together:
Jorge assembling the first production Nomad frame at Carbide LLC’s shop…
What have you learned about manufacturing that you’d pass along to others who want to make and sell products like Nomad? Any shortcuts? Things to avoid? Things that will help make the process a lot easier?
-If I could go back, I’d look for ways to make parts on a waterjet or a laser. The idea of dropping a sheet of stock on a machine and having enough for a batch of machines in an hour is really appealing.
-When your parts are running in a mill, watch them run at least one time. We kept getting delays until I had the shop foreman let me watch our parts run. The operator had slowed the machine down because “the drill bit was dull” and the owner was out of town. He turned a couple of minute job into a 20 minute job. There were lots of delays like this because the owner was stretched too thin and the operators would do random things. We’ve got that under control now.
-When it comes to milling, modern 5 axis machines are great. We did a bunch of simplifications where we combined three 3-axis parts into a single 5-axis part and the results are great. For us, the total cost is about equal but we get a much better finished product and less labor.
-Don’t send a PDF if the shop can take a Solidworks file. Way less goes wrong when they work from a solid.
-After a few months, I turned over the whole CAD file to them because they wanted to understand how the parts went together. This was a big turning point for us- they felt more ownership of the project and they even found a couple of errors in the design. If you can get to this point quicker than we did, you will benefit.
Robert, last time we talked you were planning to get a brand new Haas VMC and bring it in-house. Did you get the VMC? Any thoughts for new buyers of a machine like that?
I have that Haas quote on my desk right now- a VF2-SS with a 4th axis. We can’t wait. We’re trying to find new shop space with enough power but the areas we’d like to work in have really limited inventory. It looks like we’ll make an offer on a new place this week, and if they accept the lease terms, the Haas will be ordered.
It’s worth noting that the Haas will be a second production line and for R&D. We’d like to keep the current machine shop running so that we’re not dependent on any single location.
Robert, what do people do who want a Nomad but missed out on the Kickstarter? Are you thinking about transitioning to taking new orders yet?
We just put our heads down and worked for about a week after Kickstarter and then we started getting requests from people who wanted to preorder a machine but missed the Kickstarter deadline. Coincidentally, we happened to be approached by a company called Celery that does nothing but handle preorders post-Kickstarter. It turned out to be a good system so we put a preorder link on our website and it’s been active since. We received a significant number of orders through that system so it’s something that I’d recommend to anyone after a Kickstarter campaign.
Nomad for yourself, go to Of course, if you’d like to get afor yourself, go to http://carbide3d.com to preorder.
Here’s Apollo running a Nomad at their offices from the pre-Kickstarter days…
Thanks Robert for the great interview!
Postscript
I continue to think the Nomad is a great idea because it brings Apple’s Vertical Integration ideas to the entry level CNC space by combining hardware, software, and key accessories like tool probe in one well-designed packages. I’m hoping to get to play with one myself at some point. Robert has also given some great advice for folks who are dreaming of their own Kickstarter projects. It’s rare that you can benefit from the insights of someone who has been as successful on Kickstarter.
|
This conceptual see-through bike by German studio Designaffairs would be made from the same strong and lightweight plastic used in fighter jet canopies.
The frame of the Clarity Bike would be made from a polymer called Trivex, according to Designaffairs. First developed for helicopter windscreens and fighter jet canopies, Trivex is extremely lightweight but can also withstand high impacts.
The polymer is resistant to very hot and cold temperatures and can also be injection moulded, which would enable mass production at an affordable price and in a variety of shapes and colours.
Trivex is one of more than 2000 material samples collected by Designaffairs to provide a resource for manufacturers, designers and engineers. "What sets our library apart from the other material libraries is the fact that all materials and technologies presented are tailored to meet production-processes' needs," explained Designaffairs' Stefan Ulrich.
Lots of bicycles have been published on Dezeen, most recently a bike with a cardboard frame and wheels and a bike that carries heavy loads front and back.
We've also featured a couple of other projects by Designaffairs – a conceptual hearing aid that forms a flesh tunnel through the wearer's earlobe and an inhaler designed for a future scenario where oxygen is scarce.
The images are visualisations by Designaffairs.
Here's some more information from the designers:
No, this bike is not made out of glass. The Clarity Bike is the next project within the material focus of designaffairs studio projects which focus on using amazing materials of our library in new contexts. We believe that the Clarity Bike could be a giant leap forward in bicycle frame engineering and production. The design takes advantage of an advanced polymer which combines high impact resistance, lightweight properties and a gentle flexibility that usually would only be expected on an old Italian steel frame.
The polymer is injection moulded, which allows affordable and precise mass production while enabling unique form factors and a multitude of possible colour combinations. Initially the polymer was used in military applications. Even though the compound has a lower density than polycarbonate & acrylic its advanced performance includes exceptional impact resistance and ultra-lightweight performance. It also offers outstanding chemical resistance and thermal stability as it is virtually unaffected by most organic and inorganic chemicals and withstands very hot and cold temperatures.
In our understanding the perfect material match for creating a low cost bicycle characterised by convenience and an unmatched unique style.
|
Imagine if 70 percent of Americans commuted to work using electric cars, but then new internal combustion engine technology came along that made driving much cheaper and could liberate another 15 percent of the population from reliance on buses. Well, it’d face some daunting obstacles. Sure, you could buy a bunch of gasoline to store in your garage to refill the vehicle at night but not everyone who owns a car has a garage. What’s more, even though on the typical day you’re just driving to and from work a big part of the appeal of homeownership is freedom. With an electric car, you and your family could just drive off to Toledo or Charleston or wherever on a moment’s notice and stop at a charging station whenever you need to power up. With a gasoline-powered care you have a range anxiety problem. Of course if lots of people already owned gasoline-fueld cars, we might have a nationwide network of gasoline depots at which it was possible to refill with all the convenience of a plug-in station. But you can’t get the chicken without the egg and you can’t get the egg without the chicken.
Which is exactly why Tesla Motors is so eager to publicize its early deployment of a handful of state-of-the-art charging stations in key coastal corridors to make the case that you can drive all up-and-down without a worry. If you can get a critical mass of early adopters excited about that limited set of existing infrastructure, you build momentum for more infrastructure and more electric cars. So John Broder’s nightmare story in The New York Times of misleading energy counts, freezing temperatures, and ending up stranded on the roadside is a disaster for Tesla. Except Tesla says they put equipment in the car to monitor driving patterns and charge levels, and according to their data Broder is just lying about what happened. Allegedly he didn’t drive the route he said he drove in the article, didn’t set the temperature where he said he sent it, didn’t charge the car as much as he said he charged it, and didn’t go the speeds he said he went. Broder fires back here.
|
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are scrambling to find a legislative fix for the embattled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as it faces a crucial legal challenge.
DACA grants a work permit and protection from deportation to about 750,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
Ten states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), have threatened to challenge DACA in the courts unless the Trump administration cancels the program by September 5.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Trump administration has not said if it will defend the program in court.
Concerns that the program could be terminated by the administration or court ruling has led to a flurry of legislative proposals over the last two weeks designed to protect immigrants under the program, commonly known as Dreamers, through legal status or a path to citizenship if the program ends.
House Democrats presented the American Hope Act Friday, garnering 117 co-sponsors within the Democratic Caucus, so far.
And in a bipartisan move, earlier this week, Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Lucille Roybal Allard (D-Calif.) presented a new version of the Dream Act, a bill that was first presented in 2001.
It's similar to a bill presented in the upper chamber by Sens. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamHouse to push back at Trump on border Trump pressures GOP senators ahead of emergency declaration vote: 'Be strong and smart' This week: Congress, Trump set for showdown on emergency declaration MORE (R-S.C.) and Dick Durbin Richard (Dick) Joseph DurbinKids confront Feinstein over Green New Deal Senate plots to avoid fall shutdown brawl Overnight Energy: Trump ends talks with California on car emissions | Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal | Climate PAC backing Inslee in possible 2020 run MORE (D-Ill.).
A bill presented by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) in the House in March, the Recognizing America's Children (RAC) Act, is gaining support among centrist Republicans.
"There's an added urgency to deal with the Dreamers. As you know there's all these lawsuits out there now," said Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a co-sponsor of the RAC Act.
In order to apply for DACA, potential beneficiaries were forced to register with the government, admit to being in the country illegally, and pass a background check.
That process has supporters of the program worried that the administration could turn that information into a deportation list if the program is ended administratively or by the courts.
"The administration has said they don't want to deport them, but the reality is if those lawsuits happen and succeed, then these are folks that have registered, so they're in a really precarious situation," said Díaz-Balart.
Trump renewed the program in a June memo but cancelled two other Obama-era executive orders on immigration, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and an expansion of DACA.
Both of those programs were previously halted by their courts, so Trump's decision didn't directly affect any immigrants.
But immigrant-rights activists are making it a priority to protect DACA, and are pushing administration officials to weigh in on a legislative fix to protect Dreamers.
The appeals targeted John Kelly as Homeland Security secretary. Kelly on several occasions expressed his support for Dreamers while also questioning the legality of the program. But Kelly never supported any specific bill and was named Trump's White House chief of staff Friday, replacing Reince Priebus.
Before the Senate bill was unveiled, a White House spokesman said the administration had not supported earlier bills and was unlikely to do so.
"The fact that the president indicated he wouldn't sign it means to the secretary that it's not a viable option," said David Lapan, Kelly's spokesman, Tuesday. "[Kelly's] not going to support any legislation that’s not going to become law."
Still, Ros-Lehtinen and Roybal Allard unveiled their bill in hopes of sparking debate in the House.
Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez Luis Vicente GutierrezDHS to make migrants wait in Mexico while asylum claims processed Coffman loses GOP seat in Colorado Trump changes mean only wealthy immigrants may apply, says critic MORE (Ill.), a vocal advocate on immigration, has proposed his own bill, the Hope Act.
"Defense [of Dreamers] includes putting legislation that charts a way forward," said Gutiérrez at a press conference Friday.
Gutiérrez added he would support any of the bills put forward if they kept in place protections for DACA recipients and other young immigrants in similar situations.
Between 750,000 and 800,000 people have received DACA benefits and a Migration Policy Institute study found over one million people would benefit from the House version of the Dream Act.
Supporters of the bills insist they would pass if they received a floor vote.
"This doesn't have to be complicated," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). "The speaker makes the decision on what gets voted on, on the floor."
"I am confident that if the speaker makes a decision to put this bill on the floor we have time to debate it and pass it," she added.
A spokeswoman for Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.) said any bills would have to make it through committee first.
Curbelo said it's his priority to convince the Republican Conference to bring a bill protecting Dreamers to the House floor.
"It's one of my goals for this Congress," Curbelo told The Hill earlier this month.
But it's unclear if lawmakers will be able to coalesce around any one bill.
Díaz-Balart said having multiple bills is a good first step.
"It's good to have markers out there. I think I have an idea as to how maybe we can get something done -- it is going to require that the stars line up," said Díaz-Balart.
"I think there may be opportunities, hopefully this year, to actually see some legislation take place," said Díaz-Balart.
|
You'll find option in the settings menu; when you turn it on, Whatsapp asks you to create a six-digit passcode that you'll need to enter every time you try and log in to the service on a new device. You'll also need to add an email address that you can use to reset your passcode in the event that you forget it.
Once that's set up, the phone number associated with your Whatsapp account will be protected. Since Whatsapp logins are tied to a phone number rather than an email address, the usual method of texting a randomly generated authentication code to your phone won't work here -- hence the user-generated passcode. Either way, it's good for the service to finally add a way to keep accounts more secure.
|
WikiLeaks cables and the Iraq War Yet another accomplishment for the leaker of the cables: preventing an agreement to keep troops in Iraq
From a CNN report on why the Iraqi Government rejected the Obama administration's conditions for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline:
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top brass have repeatedly said any deal to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the withdrawal deadline would require a guarantee of legal protection for American soldiers. But the Iraqis refused to agree to that, opening up the prospect of Americans being tried in Iraqi courts and subjected to Iraqi punishment. The negotiations were strained following WikiLeaks' release of a diplomatic cable that alleged Iraqi civilians, including children, were killed in a 2006 raid by American troops rather than in an airstrike as the U.S. military initially reported.
That description from CNN of the cable's contents is, unsurprisingly, diluted to the point of obfuscation. That cable was released by WikiLeaks in May, 2011, and, as McClatchy put it at the time, "provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi." The U.S. then lied and claimed the civilians were killed by the airstrike. Although this incident had been previously documented by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the high-profile release of the cable by WikiLeaks generated substantial attention (and disgust) in Iraq, which made it politically unpalatable for the Iraqi government to grant the legal immunity the Obama adminstration was seeking. Indeed, it was widely reported at the time the cable was released that it made it much more difficult for Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain beyond the deadline under any conditions.
Advertisement:
In other words, whoever leaked that cable cast light on a heinous American war crime and, by doing so, likely played some significant role in thwarting an agreement between the Obama and Maliki governments to keep U.S. troops in Iraq and thus helped end this stage of the Iraq war (h/t Trevor Timm). Moreover, whoever leaked these cables -- as even virulent WikiLeaks critic Bill Keller repeatedly acknowledged -- likely played some significant in helping spark the Arab Spring protests by documenting just how deeply corrupt those U.S.-supported kleptocrats were. And in general, whoever leaked those cables has done more to publicize the corrupt, illegal and deceitful acts of the world's most powerful factions -- and to educate the world about how they behave -- than all "watchdog" media outlets combined (indeed, the amount of news reports on a wide array of topics featuring WikiLeaks cables as the primary source is staggering). In sum, whoever leaked those cables is responsible for one of the most consequential, beneficial and noble acts of this generation.
And yet (or more accurately: therefore) the person accused of accomplishing all of this, Bradley Manning, has been imprisoned for more than a year without trial, and, if convicted, is almost certain to remain in prison for many more years (with the possibility, albeit unlikely, of death, and as the Obama administration continues to block an unmonitored visit by the U.N. official investigating what had been the inhumane conditions of his detention). If one believes the authenticity of the chat logs produced by Wired, Manning's goal in leaking those cables -- "hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms . . . i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public" -- have been fulfilled beyond what must have been his wildest dreams. Assuming the truth of those chat logs, he was motivated precisely by seeing cables of the sort that detailed this civilian slaughter and subsequent cover-up in Iraq, and the extreme levels of theft and oppression by Arab dictators, and the desire to have the world know about it. Meanwhile, those responsible for the Iraq War, and who suppressed freedom and democracy in the Middle East by propping up those tyrants, and who committed a slew of other illegal and deeply corrupt acts, continue to prosper and wield substantial power.
History is filled with examples of those who most bravely challenged and subverted corrupted power and who sought reforms being rewarded with prison or worse, at the hands of those whose bad actions they exposed. If Bradley Manning did leak these cables, his imprisonment is a prime example of that inverted justice.
|
Columbus Crew SC, the New York Red Bulls, FC Dallas and the Portland Timbers have all reached the Conference Championship after an arduous 34-game season and at least two Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoff games (three for Portland).
The ways in which they have been able to make it this far are varied. Each have relied on a particular style of play that has defined their season and ability to get this far.
You can see those styles of play in some statistics that these four teams have been able to produce throughout the course of the season. Here's one for each:
Columbus Crew SC: Crosses from Open Play
When you have Kei Kamara on your team, it is no surprise that Crew SC led the league in crosses attempted from open play.
As you can see from the table above, Columbus attempted 115 more crosses from open play than any other team in the league. The difference between Crew SC and the No. 2 ranked Portland Timbers is about the same as the difference between Portland and the No. 12 ranked Toronto FC.
Gregg Berhalter's team wasn't just attempting a ton of crosses but they were completing them at a high rate. Crew SC completed 27.26 percent of their open play crosses, the second highest rate in the league. The only team to complete a higher percentage is FC Dallas (27.46), who attempted almost 400 fewer crosses than Columbus.
New York Red Bulls: Opponent Passing Accuracy in Own Half
When Jesse Marsch was hired as the new head coach of the New York Red Bulls, he built his team to do one thing.
High press.
And they have been successful in that endeavor as the Red Bulls won the Supporters' Shield this season and were able to do so largely because of their style of play.
With their high-press system, the Red Bulls haved allowed their opponents to complete just 84.14 percent passes in their own half. That may not sound all that impressive but consider that is the lowest percentage any team has held their opponents in that statistic since 2010. It was also easily the lowest this season.
Portland Timbers: Shot Conversion Rate
This stat is a bit different as we are only taking a look at portions of the Timbers' season.
Portland's late-season surge to the No. 3 West and ultimately the Conference Championship was at least in part sparked by the formation shift to put Darlington Nagbe in the center of midfield.
The main reason they were unable to collect maximum points before this time came down to their inefficient finishing. Despite taking the second-most shots per game in the league, they had the second-fewest goals.
But since the formation switch, all that has changed.
Despite taking fewer shots, the Timbers have actually seen their goals scored per game skyrocket. Their shot conversion rate, which is goals divided by totals shots, has gone from a miserable 6.98 percent to a respectable 17.07 percent.
Timbers Before/After Formation Switch Period Shots/Game Conversion Rate Before 14.32 6.98% After 13.67 17.07%
FC Dallas: Dribbles
Ever since Fabian Castillo joined FC Dallas back in 2011, he has been the most prolific dribbler in MLS. That did not change this season.
Opta defines a dribble as "an attempt by a player to beat an opponent in possession of the ball." Basically it's when a player tries to take on another player in a 1v1 situation.
Like Crew SC, not only did they exceed other teams in a specific area, they also were efficient.
Even though they attempted the most dribbles of any team, they completed those dribbles at a rate of 43.08 percent, good for the fourth highest rate in MLS.
Castillo led the way attempting 265 dribbles just by himself and completed them successfully 43 percent of the time.
Michael Barrios (92), Mauro Diaz (79) and Ryan Hollingshead (62) also attempted more than 50 dribbles individually.
|
From renderings to reality, changes are coming to Cleveland's skyline.
Billions of dollars are being spent on construction in the city ahead of the Republican National Convention this summer.
But the upgrades, renovations and development projects won't end when the convention leaves town.
Here's a look at some of the projections that may change Cleveland in the next four years:
Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic Health Education Campus
What: The 485,000 square-foot building will house students from Case Western Reserve's schools of medicine, dental medicine and nursing.
Location: East 93rd Street between Euclid and Chester Avenues
Timeline: Completion expected in summer 2019
Rendering of Health Education Campus
Hilton Cleveland Downtown
What: The hotel will feature a 28-story tower with 600 guest rooms.
Location: 100 Lakeside Avenue East, Cleveland, Ohio
Timeline: The hotel will start accepting reservations for arrival on June 15, 2016.
RELATED: Hilton breaks ground for Convention Center hotel
Hilton Cleveland Donwtown rendering
Huntington Bank Building
What: Renovation ideas include a high-end hotel, apartments, office space and rooftop restaurant and bar.
Sign up for the daily Top 3 Newsletter Thank you Something went wrong. This email will be delivered to your inbox once a day in the morning. Thank you for signing up for The Top 3 Newsletter Please try again later.
Submit
Where: 905 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio
Timeline: Renovation completion expected in 2018
RELATED: Big plans for one of Cleveland's most historic buildings
Huntington Bank Building
Nautica Waterfront District
What: Changes include an additional 664 residential units, a 150-room hotel, a 15-story office building and 3,175 new parking spaces.
Location: 2014 Sycamore Street, Cleveland, Ohio
Timeline: The project has a seven-year development plan. It's set to break ground in 2018.
RELATED: Major expansion announced for Cleveland's Nautica waterfront
Nautica rendering.
NuCLEus
What: A $300 million project that includes a 30-story office tower, parking garage, 500 apartments, shopping and restaurants.
Location: 501 High Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio
Timeline: Completion expected early 2017
RELATED: New nuCLEus Project would change Cleveland's skyline
Jan. 9, 2015: Image rendering of the nuCLEus project in downtown Cleveland. The project will be at E. 4th, Prospect and Huron with a 30-story office tower, retail space, residential units, parking and more. It could be complete by 2017.
515 Euclid
What: The project will add approximately 200 apartments above an existing parking garage and retail space.
Location: 515 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio
515 Euclid
Public Square
What: A $50 million project to increase the square's green space, close it to traffic except for buses and open a cafe at the site.
Location: Near 91 Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio
Timeline: Completion expected on June 1, 2016
RELATED: Public Square renovation progress one year later
PHOTOS | Public Square renovation renderings
Terminal Tower
What: Plans include turning the building's lower floors into 300 apartments.
Location: 50 Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio
Timeline: Construction could begin as early as 2018
RELATED: Company plans apartments in Terminal Tower
Terminal Tower
Restaurant Additions
Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville
Location: Front Avenue across from Punch Bowl Social
Timeline: Set to open in late 2016
RELATED: Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville coming to Cleveland's Flats
Nuevo Modern Mexican Restaurant & Tequila Bar
Location: East 9th Street Pier, Cleveland, Ohio
Timeline: Expected to open in July 2016
RELATED: Cleveland Rising: Lakefront development begins
Rascal Flatts Restaurant
Location: Flats East Bank, between Crop's On Air Studio and Beerhead Bar & Eatery
Timeline: Expected to open in 2016
RELATED: Rascal Flatts opening restaurant/bar in Cleveland's Flats
MOBILE USERS: Click here for locations on map
|
Spy Shots: Exposed 2019 RAM 1500 Interior Shows Vertical Touchscreen
The interior of the upcoming 2019 Ram 1500 pickup is going high-tech.
New images show that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has designed a full-length digital touchscreen for its top-selling full-size truck. Spy photographers recently captured the prototype during testing.
The 2019 Ram 1500 will debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this January to compete against Ford’s F-150 and the Chevrolet Silverado, which also is expected to unveil a next-gen model at the show.
In recent months spy shots have shown a quick glimpse of the Ram 1500 interior as well as a full view of its exterior design.
Now we know how the full interior controls will look.
Ram has adopted a large vertical screen that is reminiscent of those in the Tesla Model S sedan and Model X SUV.
Unlike the Teslas, however, the Ram 1500 will retain physical buttons along the sides of the screen for climate control and menu options. There are buttons at the top of the screen for safety features like lane-keep assist and parking assist. There also are switches on the bottom of the screen for traction control, parking sensors and other functions.
The screen itself is operated by the latest fourth-generation version of the UConnect 8.4 system in other FCA products such as the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Dodge Challenger. It is compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
The key fob for the new vehicle was also spotted in the vehicle’s center console. It reveals buttons for a power-activated tailgate and remote control of the truck’s air suspension system – potentially making it possible to load items into the pickup bed without turning the vehicle on.
The current Ram 1500 is the only full-size pickup truck that offers air suspension.
Read Next: Spy Shots: 2019 Ram 1500 Full Design Exposed
Learn more about Specs & Pricing
Research
|
September 10, 2011
To All:
I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.
As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.
I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.
So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.
I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,
“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”
Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!
Source
|
A provincial court judge who teed off on a man accused of sexual assault, calling him “utterly incredible” and accusing him of staging a “dramatic and insincere” crying jag in the witness box, didn’t try the case fairly and has been overturned on appeal.
The decision came Wednesday from the Ontario Court of Appeal, which found that Ontario Court Judge Stephen Brown used “intemperate and insulting language” towards the accused man, one P.G., and “let his personal feelings” about him “overtake his objectivity.”
The three-member appeal court, in a decision written by Justice Jean MacFarland, set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial.
Alas for P.G., he has already served his sentence, six months in jail.
He is identified only by initials in order to protect the teenaged complainant in the case.
Now 42, P.G. was at the time of the alleged assaults the live-in boyfriend of the girl’s mother.
At first blush, it seems to be a very shaky case
The appeal court was critical not just of the trial judge, but also of Superior Court Judge Bruce Durno, who heard the first, or summary conviction, appeal of the case, and dismissed it — failing, the high court said, to recognize that the trial judge had improperly cut off proper cross-examination of the complainant and that his decision disclosed a reasonable apprehension of bias that rendered P.G.’s trial unfair.
P.G. was convicted by Brown on April 2, 2014 of three counts of sexual assault — all involving alleged touching and fondling — on the girl, who was 15 at the time.
The appeal court was particularly harsh on Brown not only for his treatment of P.G., but also for how he characterized the conduct of the witness who testified in P.G.’s support (the girl’s mother) and even his lawyer, David Bayliss.
The case was complicated — as even Brown said once, “At first blush, it seems to be a very shaky case” — and the evidence of the girl problematic.
After all, she had sworn an affidavit recanting her allegations 17 months after she made them, then recanted that recantation at trial.
She also has serious and troubling personal issues, a history of suicide attempts and cutting herself, and was distressed by her parents’ acrimonious separation.
Bayliss was asking her what she understood her psychiatric diagnoses to be – not what they actually are, but how she perceived them – when Brown ruled the question inadmissible.
The point of the question, the high court said, “related to certain evidence that the defence had obtained from the complainant’s social media account.
“This was not an overwhelming case; there were serious issues with the complainant’s evidence… The thrust of the defence position was that (she) fabricated the allegations. Her credibility was the key issue.
“To preclude proper cross-examination in a key area was a serious error on the trial judge’s part,” the court said, and prevented P.G. from making what’s called “a full answer and defence” to the charges.
It’s probably the most fundamental right of an accused person — the right to completely answer and respond to each and every allegation made against him.
It’s also probably the most central duty of the defence lawyer, to see that this is done.
Yet for his efforts, Bayliss’s cross-examination was described by Brown as a “prolonged and brutal attack on her (the complainant’s) character.”
Here it is apparent that this trial judge let his personal feelings about (P.G.) and his witness overtake his objectivity
Brown also said Bayliss had “mocked and belittled” the girl and launched “a full-scale attack on a disturbed and vulnerable teenager” that was “distasteful.”
Brown went even further in his characterization of the girl’s mother, who testified as a defence witness and whom he described as “such a biased and unbelievable and unpleasant witness that she ranks in my Top 10 of witnesses in my entire career both as a lawyer and as a judge that I can say that I do not believe a word that she says.”
He said she “relentlessly pressured her daughter to recant her allegations” (though the daughter did have an independent lawyer advising her at the time) and that “she would say anything to paint her boyfriend in a positive light and her daughter in a negative one.
“She was utterly despicable in my view and a totally unbelievable witness.”
The appeal court was clearly shocked, calling “the use of this intemperate and insulting language” inappropriate “and uncalled for and demonstrates a clear lack of impartiality.”
“The trial judge’s task is to impartially assess the witness’s credibility.
“It is not part of his role to denigrate her character… Here it is apparent that this trial judge let his personal feelings about (P.G.) and his witness overtake his objectivity.”
The case is reminiscent of another high-profile sexual assault trial now under review.
When now-retired Ontario Court Judge Marvin Zuker convicted York University graduate student Mustafa Ururyar of sexually assaulting fellow grad student Mandi Gray last year, he too used florid language to describe Ururyar and was sneering and contemptuous of him.
The cases appear to illustrate a schism in the bar, between lawyers (they are the ones in the courts every day) who demand to be able to as vigorously defend their clients accused of sexual assault as those accused of any other crime, and those who write learned papers (they are the ones rarely in the courtroom) about the pervasiveness of stereotyping female sex assault complainants and who essentially urge lawyers to rein themselves in.
• Email: cblatchford@postmedia.com | Twitter: blatchkiki
|
Carlos Beltran understands who he is as a hitter. But that doesn’t mean he’s always the same hitter. The 37-year-old New York Yankees outfielder adapts according to feel and he focuses better in some situations than in others. Still, you can’t argue with the results: He’s hit .283/.356/.497 with 363 home runs since breaking into the big leagues with the Royals in 1998. In 51 postseason games he’s hit .333/.445/.683 with 16 home runs.
Beltran talked hitting prior to last night’s game at Fenway Park.
——
Beltran on mechanical adjustments: “Every year, you don’t feel the same so you have to find a way. You find a position where you feel comfortable mechanically and work with that. The way I hit last year compared to how I’m hitting this year is a little bit different. One thing is the position of the bat. Last year I felt good with my hands like this [slightly forward] and this year that feels a little uncomfortable. This year they’re back a little bit.
“When I was coming up in the big leagues, I talked to a lot of guys I looked up to. One of those guys was Edgar Martinez. I asked him if every year he feels the same. He said ‘No, every year I don’t feel the same.’ Your body feels different. Maybe some years you’re into your legs a little more, and other years you’re more comfortable a little bit taller. It’s basically how you feel. For me, left and right are two different swings. Depending on how I feel, I might be the same from both sides or I might be different.
“You need to feel comfortable, but you can’t be doing one thing in one at bat and in the next at bat do something different. You need to be confident with what you’re doing.”
On having a strong base: “I have to feel I’m in my legs. For example, if a pitcher takes a long time to release the baseball my legs are going to get tired. When I feel like the wind is moving me back and forth… like if it’s windy and I feel off-balance, I don’t like that. I need to step out and reset. When I feel set, I feel good hitting-wise. After every swing I take, I try to reset myself and think about my lower body. Once I feel like my lower body is there, then I transfer all my concentration on the pitcher.”
On his approach: “I concentrate on my strength. I’m not a guy who hits the ball a lot to the opposite field. I hit more center and right center and concentrate on getting a pitch in an area I know I can handle. If it’s a pitch on the outside corner, I know I can’t do much with that pitch. Unless I have two strikes, I don’t want to swing at it. If it’s a pitch on the inside corner and I don’t have two strikes, I don’t want to swing at it. That’s a pitch where, even if I take a good hack, I feel I’m not going to do much with it. I have to look for a pitch out over the strike zone, in or away. Basically, near the middle. Pitchers are going to miss and you have to be ready to hit and take advantage of that pitch when they miss.”
On hitting with runners on base: “I love RBIs. I love to drive in runs and take a lot of pride in those situations. I believe I’m a different hitter with guys on base. Leading off an inning, I feel like maybe my concentration is not there. When I have guys in scoring position I concentrate more because I know if I get a hit we can tie a ballgame, take the lead, add to our lead or shorten a deficit.
“You don’t want to make an out, but you have to be realistic. You’re going to fail a lot. I’m not trying to give away at bats, but like I said, I’m a different hitter with guys in scoring position.”
|
After Harvey, Houston's sprawling developments have been blamed for contributing to flooding of those downstream by paving over the prairies and ecosystems that once stored and drained water. The outer-ring suburbs of the Houston region, it turns out, are more complicated than that and, in some cases, have been places of design innovation that could teach the rest of Houston some lessons about living in floodplains.
The story of our flooding problem, like most environmental hazards, starts with natural resources sold as commodities. From about the 1830s to 1870s, "earlier settlers made a ton of money off plantations because [the land along Houston's bayous] was so fertile," says Keiji Asakura, Principal Designer at Asakura Robinson, a planning, urban design, and landscape architecture firm. Well before urbanization, farmers raising cattle and growing crops like cotton and rice fundamentally changed the soil. In addition, farm-to-market roads and railroads displaced organic drainage patterns. Coastal prairie that took root in Houston for thousands of years was decimated in a few decades.
Urbanization further altered soils and drainage. Bayous were dug up then paved over. More and more highways, more and more parking lots. And as the Chronicle reported, the detention of water in new developments was not mandated until 1984 and is not enforced well over time.
In this past half-century, a different story has unfolded in some master planned communities along Houston's periphery where designers and developers have tested bold ideas.
Design with nature: The Woodlands
"Let us abandon self-mutilation which has been our way and give expression to the potential harmony that is man-nature. ... To do this he must design with nature," the chief landscape designer for The Woodlands, Ian McHarg, implores in his book "Design with Nature."
This principle — work with, not against, a site's natural condition — was first promulgated in The Woodlands in the 1970s and continues to hold sway in developments surrounding Houston. Two of the most notable master planned communities currently under construction are Springwoods Village — just south of The Woodlands — and Cross Creek Ranch out in Fulshear. You wouldn't guess it from the repetitious McMansions, but these three developments are unique — indeed, radical for their time — with their respect to the piney woods and coastal prairies they replaced.
The Woodlands was conceived from the most unlikely of sources: George Mitchell, an oil tycoon hoping to develop a piece of land thirty miles north of Downtown Houston along I-45. His conversion was recently written about in the Chronicle by Loren Steffy and unfolds in greater detail in Ann Forsyth's book Reforming Suburbia:
"McHarg suggested using the natural drainage system of the Woodlands site to structure development. This would, he noted, help reduce the prospects for flood damage. Ever the geologist, Mitchell asked. 'All right, natural drainage works, but what does it mean to me?' 'First, George, it means you'll get $50 million from HUD and, second, it will save you even more money,' McHarg responded. 'For instance, you won't have to build a storm drainage system. This will save you $14 million for the first phase alone.' And so McHarg converted the oilman into an ecologist."
This conversation vastly underplays the technology needed to employ natural drainage systems. Dr. Phil Bedient, now a professor in Rice University's Civil Engineering Department, reminisced about being a hydroengineer on the project some four decades ago. A preliminary survey of the site showed Dr. Bedient and his team that one-third of the property was on the 100-year floodplain, with flat land and thick woods promising stagnant rainwater throughout.
Undeterred, Mitchell and McHarg planned for retention ponds, golf courses and forest preserves to be in the most flood-prone areas. This accomplished two goals: it kept personal property away from low elevation sites and instead programmed a dual purpose for recreation on otherwise clement days.
The early stages of planning had very little to do with return on investment for number of buildings on the land; rather "landscape [was] used very consistently as a basic framework underlying the urban design of The Woodlands, with villages, transportation corridors, and commercial centers having secondary importance," as Forsyth writes.
It was a special set of circumstances that made The Woodlands possible: I-45 had just been completed; the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) had a well-endowed yet unaccomplished new program, Title VII, for the country's first round of master-planned communities; and the Mitchell family could bankroll an entire city's worth of development during the first few decades of growth.
The Woodland's greatest advantage, though, was having Ian McHarg as the lead landscaper. It was this canvas, in all its flood-prone glory, where he first applied this revolutionary theory of landscape.
The Woodlands was indeed an anomaly for its time. Recent reincarnations copy the natural aesthetic of The Woodlands — its most lucrative attraction — and paste it onto landscapes without thinking through the differences in context. A retention pond with a fountain does not a Woodlands make.
Most of the 6-million-plus people in Houston's metropolitan area live in these more mundane suburbs. I grew up in one myself. But the Greater Houston area has a handful of exceptional master-planned communities improving upon The Woodlands legacy. I learned a bit about two of the most intentionally sustainable master-planned communities currently being developed — Springwoods Village and Cross Creek Ranch — but the list could go on. Up in Cypress is Bridgelands, with landscape design by OJB, which normalizes green roofs and rain gardens, and in Fort Bend County there is Harvest Green with landscape design by SWA Group. I will focus on just the two: Springwoods Village and Cross Creek Ranch.
Springwoods Village
Before writing this article, I knew that all the lakes in Texas were manmade and that all the "lakefront" properties of the suburbs were really retention-pond-front properties. After interviewing Keiji Asakura about his firm's role in the planning of Springwoods Village, I came to realize these "fake" lakes represent a major shift. The goal of flood management infrastructure, especially after World War II, was to move large volumes of water away from development as fast as possible.
This strategy didn't work for a number of reasons, mostly because channel intersections became flooded bottlenecks. Not so nice to those downstream.
More recently, since the '80s, the goal became "to first slow the water to lower the peak in any way we can," says Asakura.
The new question is how to create more time for rainwater, thereby lowering peak volume. Rather than expunge rainwater as channels do immediately or detention ponds do eventually, retention ponds collect rainwater from the source and retain it for slow evaporation into the atmosphere and percolation into the soil.
Retention ponds do one of two things that every landscape architect and environmental engineer seems to agree will mitigate Houston's flooding: one is "holding water where it falls," says Bedient, and the other is "increase vegetation with good roots and open up that soil mass," says Asakura.
This latter method, "good roots," is the same one I mentioned that was destroyed by early settlement of the coastal prairie. The benefits of deep-rooted, tall grass are numerous. Typical lawn grass sequesters approximately 100 pounds of carbon per acre. The grasses seeded in Springwoods Village and Cross Creek Ranch sequester 6,000 pounds of carbon per acre. They also are flexitarians, adept at absorbing large volumes of water or surviving without such luxuries.
You can very easily find both of these methods — the retention and the roots — in Springwoods Village. Off I-45 and Grand Parkway, you are immediately met with traffic medians lined with detention ditches for capturing water at the source. These medians, along with the lakes, parks and all other opportunities for landscaping, were outfitted with tall grasses indigenous to the region. All the utilities of a community have been bundled into its infrastructure, bringing together roads, pipes, drainage and vegetation and freeing up the remaining space for parks, lakes, houses and, of course, ExxonMobil's campus.
Cross Creek Ranch
Fifty miles west then south of Springwoods Village on Grand Parkway is Cross Creek Ranch. Houses there are suspiciously similar to those of Springwoods Village (and all their lakes similar to those of Minnesota), but the land upon which they stand are not.
Despite driving past the same empty ranch and plantation land surrounding both developments, 50 miles of separation left room for the piney woods of The Woodlands to become the Katy Prairie of Cross Creek Ranch.
Johnson Development Corp. purchased the property as nuded pastures with the early intention of "doing something that was green and sustainable," says Matthew Baumgarten, SWA's lead landscape architect on the project.
They did so through a number of means, both familiar and novel. "Just like any other master-planned community, there's a very large basin that stores a 100-year event" but, on a normal day, acts as a wetland park, says Baumgarten. There's that dual purpose again. Like Springwoods Village, traffic medians at Cross Creek Ranch are lush with "Tall Grass Zones" and backyards are resplendent with lake views. There is also the development's namesake, a three-mile-long restored creek that used to be a watering hole for cattle.
Baumgarten planned for "all those things to look like landscape features" to the casual observer but subtly detain a "100-year" flooding event. From my experience in Cross Creek Ranch, subtlety verged on invisibility. Finding the creek was surprisingly laborious: The band of bordering wetlands were maybe five- to 10-feet wide and recessed well-below street level. Once I spotted it, I arbitrarily parked and stepped into 110-percent humidity to walk through muddy, freshly mowed grass which gave way to unmowed tall grasses and wildflowers recently soaked by rain the night prior.
At last, there was a narrow stream with a smattering of plant diversity modeled after the Katy Prairie. The creek resembles Buffalo Bayou Park, which is no coincidence. SWA's success in creating "synthetic nature" along the bayou caught Johnson's attention, which requested a similar approach here.
Unlike Buffalo Bayou Park, there weren't paths or a recreational space to lure neighbors to the creek. This might explain why my guide, Christian, a five-year resident of Cross Creek Ranch, didn't know there was an actual Cross Creek. His high school buddies and his little brother didn't know they were participating in a natural restoration project, either.
Reform
In the wake of Harvey, flooding is understood as an existential threat to this region. As the Cite magazine editorial committee noted: "Three major flooding events in little over two years time, the Memorial Day floods (2015), the Tax Day floods (2016), and now Harvey (2017)" that should only be happening once every century are symptoms of an ongoing crisis.
I began writing this article months before Harvey and the conclusion I had in the works is suddenly far more urgent. Though I have moved to Chicago, it is impossible for me to disconnect from the deluge of friends checking themselves in as safe, the articles proclaiming "catastrophe," the texts and phone calls from friends and family promising me they are OK. The eyes of the world are on the place I will always consider home. And everyone has an opinion.
Journalists, experts, and politicians are keen to draw or deny a causal relationship between Houston's lack of zoning and Harvey's destruction. A voice that breaks through the discordant noise is Mayor Sylvester Turner's, who tweeted, "Zoning wouldn't have changed anything. We would have been a city with zoning that flooded."
It's tempting to overextend the importance of zoning, which is about separating different types of land uses (residential, commercial, industrial), and to equate the lack of zoning with Houston's sprawl. What we lack in zoning inside Houston tends to be made up for with other types of development codes for everything from the number of parking spaces to elevation above the 100-year floodplain.
Danny Samuels, Professor of the Practice at Rice Architecture, observes that "zoning made no difference," but newer houses up to stricter building code weathered the storm far better. In addition, Albert Pope, also at Rice Architecture, and many others have argued that we should not be building in the 100-year floodplain at all, and that vacating this space would open opportunities to organize dense developments around bigger green spaces.
In other words, Houston would do well if it learned from and adapted lessons from its master-planned fringes.
The Woodlands, Springwoods Village and Cross Creek Ranch appear to be doing well, on the whole, considering the magnitude of the storm. The Woodlands had water on its streets during Harvey, and 220 people had to be rescued, or 0.2 percent of the total population, according to Steffy's report in the Chronicle, with "the hardest-hit areas border[ing] Spring Creek."
Nearby, Springwoods Village volunteered themselves and their resources for afflicted Houstonians. About five houses flooded in the Audubon Grove section, according to two sources. The Kinder Institute tool showing where buildings are expected to have flooded marks a few properties in that section of Springwoods Village along Spring Creek.
I checked in with Christian about his family and neighbors in Cross Creek Ranch; he said they are "really lucky ... no one got flooding in their house." The systems the architects put in place appear to have performed the way they were designed to. They captured water and absorbed it as quickly as possible.
While these master-planned communities received Harvey well, they are not the solution to Houston's flooding problem. Even if a single well-designed development manages to hold more floodwaters than before it was built, all the energy and infrastructure required to service it is not sustainable in terms of maintenance costs, carbon emissions or any other measures. Think of the billions of dollars spent on new and widened highways like the Grand Parkway. They are still suburbs and lack the diversity of uses, people and building types that make cities thrive over time.
Neither the landscape architect, Asakura, nor the engineer, Bedient, expect Houston to be retrofitted along the lines of The Woodlands after decades of unconstrained development. But these case studies in sustainably designing Houston's native ecosystems is evidence that the city can do better. That we don't have to combat nature, but can design with nature. That we must do better for more than just the folks who can afford a quarter-acre plot of land in a refurbished prairie or the 385-acre ExxonMobil campus in former greenfields. With the stormwaters receded, it's time for those who can plan for reconstruction to do so immediately.
My favorite issue of Cite was published in Fall 1997, when I was just 2 years old — Cite 39: Texas Places. The magazine opens with an interview of a personal hero of mine, Larry McMurtry, who is best known for his novel "Lonesome Dove," which, for so long, I read as a tragic romantic comedy about Texas' Wild West glory days.
The interview reveals otherwise. McMurtry calls his work "a critique of ... the myth of the cowboy" and expansion to the West "a failure because of the destruction of the environment, the landscape and the indigenous population." In the myth's wake are ghost towns squelched of any optimism that settled the damned place.
It is unsurprising that McMurtry sets many of his novels and movies in Houston. Like the western plains of Texas, Houston "never really has been controlled ... it's always been fairly wide open, filled with graft and corruption." Correlations between Houston's unconstrained development and that of the Wild West have been made for as long as it's been heralded as America's largest unzoned city. But this relationship is often used as justification for continued expansion. Our Manifest Destiny.
For so many years, development patterns in Houston have approached nature as an adversary, laying ever more concrete and exploiting its flat surface, ever chasing the bottom line. Perhaps Harvey has exacted extreme enough damage for us to take what has worked in a few parks and neighborhoods here and there and scale up working with nature.
Geneva Vest is a graduate of Rice University and a writer living in Chicago. This article originally appeared on OffCite, a publication of the Rice Design Alliance, a community engagement program of Rice Architecture.
Bookmark Gray Matters. Everyone has an opinion.
|
Sean Payton continues to beat that drum.
After insisting all last season that he never planned to leave New Orleans, the longtime Saints coach reiterated his commitment to the team and city this week.
"The grass isn't always greener at some spots. I've heard that talk about, you're approaching 10 years, for me it's nine, 10 for our program," Payton said, per The Times-Picayune. "And yet, it's different now. Players transition much quicker, and so, I don't feel like I'm sitting in front of the same team that maybe that you had five or six years ago."
Said Payton: "I like this locker room, I like the way we finish. And I love New Orleans. So, there was that period of, 'Hey, this is where I see myself finishing.'"
Whether or not you buy it, Payton came on strong about why the Saints remain a better fit for his services than elsewhere.
"Aside from the great things in our city, I'd also say our structure," Payton said of the franchise. "Ownership, front office, general manager, head coach."
As Gregg Rosenthal mentioned on the Around the NFL Podcast this week, team structure, ownership and franchise stability are more important than ever in the NFL. We previously pegged Payton as a candidate to test the coaching waters, but his actions speak louder: He's not giving up on the Saints.
|
Sebastien Buemi set the fastest time of the day for the second day in a row at Donington Park. His lap time of 1.31.050s is the fastest set by a Formula E racing car to date in testing and breaks his own benchmark lap time from 2014 (1.31.083).
Buemi was driving the blue and yellow Renault e.dams which looks to be a formidable machine. We understand that the car is running a twin speed gearbox supplied by SADEV.
Last summer’s testing showed that Donington Park can be a difficult place to compare teams’ performance, with the street courses used for racing being very different environments and asking very different things from conventional track such as Donington. That means we won’t really know just how competitive the Renault package is until the racing starts in October. However, Buemi and the French squad proved a particularly effective combination last season and it looks as though he is set to mount an even stronger challenge for the drivers’ title in 2015-16.
Meanwhile, the man who beat him to the first season title, Nelson Piquet, had a quiet day as NextEV TCR reportedly shipped equipment to Germany for analysis.
|
UPDATE: Scalise tweeted a picture of himself at the Capitol, with the caption "I'm back."
Scalise's first interview since the shooting will air this Sunday on 60 Minutes.
Welcome back, Representative Scalise.
---Original Post---
Some wonderful news to kick off Thursday morning: More than three months after being nearly assassinated while at practice for the Congressional Baseball Game, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) is back at work. Scalise's office made the announcement just after 10 a.m.
#BREAKING House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) returns to the Capitol today for the first time since the June shooting — Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) September 28, 2017
NEWS! Scalise's office announces "he's back" - will be in House floor today — Deirdre Walsh (@deirdrewalshcnn) September 28, 2017
Starting today, Whip Scalise will be resuming his work at the Capitol, his office says. — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) September 28, 2017
Scalise had quite the difficult road to recovery after being shot in the pelvis. He was the worst injured in the shooting, and spent more than a month in and out of the intensive care unit at MedStar Washington Hospital Center before being discharged to rehabilitation at the end of July. Scalise underwent numerous surgeries and blood transfusions, and battled infections as well.
In the aftermath of the shooting, there was an impressive display of bipartisanship among Congress. The Congressional Baseball Game raised a record amount of money for its charities.
This post has been updated.
|
The House Republican leadership has billed American taxpayers $3 million to defend the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, but GOP leaders did a deep dive on Wednesday as the high court heard the legal challenge to DOMA.
The growing approval of same-sex marriage, and declining popularity of anti-gay laws, seems to have gotten under House Speaker John Boehner’s orange skin.
Boehner was tweeting Wednesday on familiar topics — “Time to Build the Keystone Pipeline,” “Bad News for Obamacare” — but said not a tweet about a federal law that discriminates against same-sex couples and denies them federal benefits.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was carrying on about an Indiana Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for school vouchers.
By contrast, freshman Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., whose district includes conservative rural areas, was trumpeting the fact that she was one of 200 Democratic House and Senate members who signed legal briefs advocating that DOMA be overturned.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who voted for DOMA in 1996, tweeted that she hopes the Supreme Court will overturn the law. She is a cosponsor of legislation that would throw out the anti-gay law.
With public opinion rapidly changing, House Republicans have tried to disguise the big legal bill, used to hire ex-Solicitor General Paul Clement. The House leadership assumed defense of DOMA when the Obama administration decided the law was no longer defensible.
Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., scoured House rules in January, seeking to find the legal bill for DOMA’s defense. He finally discovered it on page 17, disguised as a $3 million spending authorization for something called the “Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.”
Nina Totenberg, the veteran court correspondent for National Public Radio, reported on Wednesday morning: “Those defending DOMA have been strangely unwilling to make their arguments outside of the court. House Speaker John Boehner declined to be interviewed for the article, as did Clement and leading House members who voted for the law.”
|
It’s nearly 2015, and I’m still not sure any of us know exactly what we’re supposed to be doing with Google+. The increasingly invasive social network has been one of Google’s most puzzling platforms for years, surviving despite what seems to be a generally negative public reaction. But it turns out the users aren’t the only ones trying to figure out Google’s game plan.
FROM EARLIER: Whether you like it or not, Google+ is here to stay
Last week, former Google+ UX designer Chris Messina took to Medium to share a few thoughts on the social network which he’d worked on for years prior to leaving Google in 2013. He begins with three simple questions:
What’s going on with Google+? Where is it headed? What the f*** is it for, anyway?
Messina wasn’t satisfied with the answers provided in the recent Re/code interview, slamming the Googler David Besbris for providing “no vision” and “no insight” into the future of the platform. So why does Messina still care?
“[The] future of digital identity should not be determined by one company (namely, Facebook). I still believe that competition in this space is better for consumers, for startups, and for the industry. And Google still remains one of the few companies (besides Apple, perhaps) that stands a chance to take on Facebook in this arena — but Google+, as I see it, has lost its way.”
Be sure to check out Messina’s full blog post in the source link below.
|
The Solar Cube: A Solar and Wind Powered Water Source for Remote Areas
September 22nd, 2008 by Ariel Schwartz
Carbon nanotubes may be the water filter wave of the future, but Spectra Watermakers’ Solar Cube works pretty well in the meantime.
The Cube (AKA the Spectra Solar Brackish Water System) is a portable solar and wind powered desalination unit that can produce 950 to 1500 gallons of fresh water each day. Attached photovoltaic cells generate up to 1240 watts, while the wind generator can produce up to 1000 watts.
The Cube generates more power than is necessary for water production, so excess energy can be used for other things—such as the operation of emergency equipment.
And the Solar Cube has already been tested in tough environments. Recently, it was deployed for testing by the Chilean military and civilian services, where it was used in identical conditions to those found in Iraq. During the past year, the Cube was also introduced to remote areas of South America and Asia. Prototypes were used in Pakistan after the major 1995 earthquake in the country.
The Cube has performed well—the system has a recovery rate of 30% and produces high quality water that contains less than 170 mg/L of seawater.
While the Solar Cube probably won’t be used in major metropolitan areas anytime soon, it is ideal for disaster sites and locations that have limited access to fresh water. Personally, I’d like to keep one in storage in case of emergency. I just need to come up with $38,000 to cover the asking price.
Posts Related to Solar Power:
|
Joshua () or Jehoshua (Hebrew: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ Yehoshuʿa)[a] is the central figure in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua. According to the books of Exodus, Numbers and Joshua, he was Moses' assistant and became the leader of the Israelite tribes after the death of Moses.[3] His name was Hoshea ( הוֹשֵׁעַ) the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, but Moses called him Joshua (Numbers 13:16), the name by which he is commonly known. The name is shortened to Yeshua in Nehemiah (Nehemiah 8:17). According to the Bible he was born in Egypt prior to the Exodus.[2]
According to the Hebrew Bible, Joshua was one of the twelve spies of Israel sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan. In Numbers 13:1–16, and after the death of Moses, he led the Israelite tribes in the conquest of Canaan, and allocated the land to the tribes. According to biblical chronology, Joshua lived some time in the late Bronze Age. According to Joshua 24:29, Joshua died at the age of 110.
Joshua also holds a position of respect among Muslims. According to Islamic tradition, he was, along with Caleb, one of the two believing spies whom Moses had sent to spy the land of Canaan.[4] Muslims also see Joshua as the leader of the Israelites, following the death of Moses. Some Muslims also believe Joshua to be the "attendant" of Moses mentioned in the Quran, before Moses meets Khidr and Joshua plays a significant role in Islamic literature with significant narration in the Hadith, therefore he is a point of study in comparative religion, see Joshua in Islam.
Name [ edit ]
The English name "Joshua" is a rendering of the Hebrew language Yehoshua, meaning "Yahweh is salvation".[5][6] The vocalization of the second name component may be read as Hoshea—the name used in the Torah before Moses added the divine name (Numbers 13:16).[7]
"Jesus" is the English derivative of the Greek transliteration of "Yehoshua" via Latin. In the Septuagint, all instances of the word "Yehoshua" are rendered as "Ἰησοῦς" (Iēsoūs), the closest Greek pronunciation of the Aramaic: ישוע Yeshua, Nehemiah 8:17).[8][9] Thus, in modern Greek, Joshua is called "Jesus son of Naue" (τοῦ Ναυή) to differentiate him from Jesus. This is also true in some Slavic languages following the Eastern Orthodox tradition (e.g. "Иисус Навин", Iisús Navín, in Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian, but not Czech).
Biblical narrative [ edit ]
The Exodus [ edit ]
Moses Blesses Joshua Before the High Priest (watercolor circa 1896–1902 by (watercolor circa 1896–1902 by James Tissot
Joshua was a major figure in the events of the Exodus. He was charged by Moses with selecting and commanding a militia group for their first battle after exiting Egypt, against the Amalekites in Rephidim (Exodus 17:8-16), in which they were victorious.
He later accompanied Moses when he ascended biblical Mount Sinai to commune with God,[10] visualize God's plan for the Israelite tabernacle and receive the Ten Commandments. Joshua was with Moses when he descended from the mountain, heard the Israelites' celebrations around the Golden Calf,[11] and broke the tablets bearing the words of the commandments. Similarly, in the narrative which refers to Moses being able to speak with God in his tent of meeting outside the camp, Joshua is seen as custodian of the tent ('tabernacle of meeting') when Moses returned to the Israelite encampment.[12] However, when Moses returned to the mountain to re-create the tablets recording the Ten Commandments, Joshua was not present, as the biblical text states 'no man shall come up with you'.[13]
Later, Joshua was identified as one of the twelve spies sent by Moses to explore and report on the land of Canaan (Numbers 13:16-17), and only he and Caleb gave an encouraging report, a reward for which would be that only these two of their entire generation would enter the promised land (Numbers 14:22-24).
According to Joshua 1:1-9, God appointed Joshua to succeed Moses as leader of the Israelites along with giving him a blessing of invincibility during his lifetime (Joshua 1:5).[14][15] The first part of the book of Joshua covers the period when he led the conquest of Canaan.
Conquest of Canaan [ edit ]
Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon by by John Martin
At the Jordan River, the waters parted, as they had for Moses at the Red Sea. The first battle after the crossing of the Jordan was the Battle of Jericho. Joshua led the destruction of Jericho, then moved on to Ai, a small neighboring city to the west. However, they were defeated with thirty-six Israelite deaths. The defeat was attributed to Achan taking an "accursed thing" from Jericho; and was followed by Achan and his family and animals being stoned to death to restore God's favor. Joshua then went to defeat Ai.
The Israelites faced an alliance of five Amorite kings from Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon. At Gibeon, Joshua asked Yahweh to cause the sun and moon to stand still, so that he could finish the battle in daylight. This event is most notable because "There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel" (Joshua 10:14). God also fought for the Israelites in this battle, for he hurled huge hailstones from the sky which killed more Canaanites than those which the Israelites slaughtered. From there on, Joshua was able to lead the Israelites to several victories, securing much of the land of Canaan. He presided over the Israelite gatherings at Gilgal and Shiloh which allocated land to the tribes of Israel (Joshua 14:1-5 and 18:1-10), and the Israelites rewarded him with the Ephraimite city of Timnath-heres or Timnath-serah, where he settled (Joshua 19:50).
Death [ edit ]
When he was "old and well advanced in years",[16] Joshua convened the elders and chiefs of the Israelites and exhorted them to have no fellowship with the native population, because it could lead them to be unfaithful to God.[17] At a general assembly of the clans at Shechem, he took leave of the people, admonishing them to be loyal to their God, who had been so mightily manifested in the midst of them. As a witness of their promise to serve God, Joshua set up a great stone under an oak by the sanctuary of God. Soon afterward he died, at the age of 110, and was buried at Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.[18]
Historicity [ edit ]
The prevailing scholarly view is that Joshua is not a factual account of historical events.[19] The apparent setting of Joshua is the 13th century BCE,[19] a time of widespread city-destruction, but with a few exceptions (Hazor, Lachish) the destroyed cities are not the ones the Bible associates with Joshua, and the ones it does associate with him show little or no sign of even being occupied at the time.[20] Archaeologists generally agree that the Israelites had Canaanite origins: the culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains are in the Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether even this is an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.
There is a consensus that the Joshua traditions in the Pentateuch are secondary additions. The spy story of Numbers 13–14; Deut. 1:34–7, in an earlier form only mentioned Caleb. E. Meyer and G. Hoelscher deny Joshua's existence as a historical reality and conclude that he is the legendary hero of a Josephite clan.[22]
Carolyn Pressler, in her 2002 commentary for the Westminster Bible Companion series, suggests that readers of the Book of Joshua should give priority to its theological message ("what passages teach about God") and be aware of what these would have meant to audiences in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE.[23] Richard Nelson explains, "The needs of the centralised monarchy favoured a single story of origins combining old traditions of an exodus from Egypt, belief in a national god as 'divine warrior,' and explanations for ruined cities, social stratification and ethnic groups, and contemporary tribes."[24]
Authorship of the biblical Joshua narrative is ascribed to Joshua himself by Bava Batra 15a (Talmud) and early church fathers, but in 1943 Martin Noth published an argument that behind Joshua and other books was a unified "Deuteronomistic history", composed in the early part of the Babylonian captivity (6th century BCE). Most scholars today believe in some such composite, containing the epic history of the premonarchical period.[25]
Internal evidence of the book of Joshua, and the repeated use of the phrase 'to this day' suggests that the events that it recounts took place some time before they were recorded.[26]
The first record of the name Israel occurs in the Merneptah stele, erected for Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah c. 1209 BCE, "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not."[27] William Dever sees this "Israel" in the central highlands as a cultural and probably political entity, well enough established to be perceived by the Egyptians as a possible challenge to their hegemony, but an ethnic group rather than an organised state.[28]
The number of villages in the highlands increased to more than 300 by the end of Iron Age I[29] (more and larger in the north), with the settled population rising from 20,000 in the twelfth century to 40,000 in the eleventh.[30] The villagers probably shared the highlands with other communities such as pastoral nomads, but only villagers left sufficient remains to determine their settlement patterns.[31] Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between these highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Age Canaanite culture.[32] Certain features, such as ceramic repertoire and agrarian settlement plans, have been said to be distinctives of highland sites,[33] and collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses have been said to be intrinsically "Israelite", but have also been said to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Canaan.[34] While some archaeologists interpret the absence of pig bones from the highland sites as an indicator of ethnicity,[35] this is not certain.[36] Villages had populations of up to 300 or 400,[30][37] which lived by farming and herding and were largely self-sufficient;[38] economic interchange was prevalent.[39]
According to Ann E. Killebrew, "Most scholars today accept that the majority of the conquest narratives in the book of Joshua are devoid of historical reality".[40][41][42][43]
The question of the date and degrees of conquest and/or assimilation of the indigenous population is uncertain, as academics and archaeologists differ in their interpretation of the archaeological and other evidence.[44]
Views [ edit ]
Joshua and the Israelite people, Karolingischer Buchmaler, c. 840
In rabbinical literature [ edit ]
In rabbinic literature Joshua is regarded as a faithful, humble, deserving, wise man. Biblical verses illustrative of these qualities and of their reward are applied to him. "He that waits on his master shall be honored" (Pro. xxvii. 18) is construed as a reference to Joshua (Midrash Numbers Rabbah xii.), as is also the first part of the same verse, "Whoso keepes the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof" (Midrash Yalk., Josh. 2; Numbers Rabbah xii. 21). That "honor shall uphold the humble in spirit" (Pro. xxix. 23) is proved by Joshua's victory over Amalek (Midrash Numbers Rabbah xiii). Not the sons of Moses—as Moses himself had expected—but Joshua was appointed successor to the son of Amram (Midrash Numbers Rabbah xii). Moses was shown how Joshua reproved that Othniel (Yalḳ., Num. 776).
God would speak to Moses face to face, like someone would speak to his friend. Then he would return to the camp. But his attendant, Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not leave the tent. Joshua never moved from the tent.[45] Didn't Joshua leave the tent to eat, sleep or attend to his needs? This praise shows that Joshua had complete faith in Moses, the Tzaddik. One who has this faith is cognizant of the tzaddik in everything he does; he remains steadfastly with the tzaddik whatever he does.[46]
In Christianity [ edit ]
Most modern Bibles translate Hebrews 4:8–10 to identify Jesus as a better Joshua, as Joshua led Israel into the rest of Canaan, but Jesus leads the people of God into "God's rest". Among the early Church Fathers, Joshua is considered a type of Jesus Christ.[47]
In Islam [ edit ]
Joshua (Arabic: أو يُوشَعُ بْنُ نُونٍ jooʃʌ' bin noon) is not mentioned by name in the Quran, but his name appears in other Islamic literature. In the Quranic account of the conquest of Canaan, Joshua and Caleb are referenced, but not named, as two "Allah-fearing men", on whom God "had bestowed His grace".[48]
They said, "Moses, there is a fearsome people in this land. We will not go there until they leave. If they leave, then we will enter." Yet the two men whom God had blessed among those who were afraid said, "Go in to them through the gate and when you go in you will overcome them. If you are true believers, put your trust in God. Qur'an, sura 5 (Al-Ma'ida), ayah 22–23, Haleem translation[49]
Joshua was regarded by some classical scholars as the prophetic successor to Moses (موسى).[50] Tabari relates in his History of the Prophets and Kings that Joshua was one of the twelve spies and Muslim scholars believe that the two believing spies referred to in the Qur’ān are Joshua and Caleb. Joshua was exceptional among the Israelites for being one of the few faithful followers of Allah.
Joshua is further mentioned in Islamic literature, and significant events from his Muslim narratives include the crossing of the Jordan river and the conquest of Bait al-Maqdis.[51]
The traditional Muslim commentary al-Julalayn says, "Ahmad [b. Hanbal] reported in his Musnad, the [following] hadīth, 'The sun was never detained for any human, except for Joshua during those days in which he marched towards the Holy House [of Jerusalem]'."[52]
Muslim literature includes traditions of Joshua not found in the Hebrew Bible. Joshua is credited with being present at Moses's death and literature records that Moses's garments were with Joshua at the time of his departure.[53] In Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, Joshua is mentioned as Yusha' bin Nun and is the attendant to Moses during his meeting with Khidr.[54][55][56]
Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin of Muhammad, was asked about the prophets that had special names. He narrates in Hadith that Yusha' ibn Nun was known as Dhu al-Kifl.[57]
Joshua is believed by some Muslims to be buried on Joshua's Hill in the Beykoz district of Istanbul.[58] Alternative traditional sites for his tomb are situated in Israel (the Shia shrine at Al-Nabi Yusha'), Jordan (An-Nabi Yusha’ bin Noon, a Sunni shrine near the city of Al-Salt[59][60]), Iran (Historical cemetery of Takht e Foolad in Esfahan)[citation needed] and Iraq (the Nabi Yusha' shrine of Baghdad[59]).
In art and literature [ edit ]
Yahrtzeit [ edit ]
The annual commemoration of Joshua's yahrtzeit (the anniversary of his death) is marked on the 26th of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. Thousands make the pilgrimage to the Tomb of Joshua in Kifl Haris on the preceding night.
Yom HaAliyah [ edit ]
Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day) (Hebrew: יום העלייה) is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate Joshua having led the Israelites across the Jordan River into the Land of Israel while carrying the Ark of the Covenant.
Joshua tree and Joshua's blind snake [ edit ]
Legend has it that Mormon pioneers in the United States first referred to the yucca brevifolia agave plant as the Joshua tree because its branches reminded them of Joshua stretching his arms upward in supplication, guiding the travelers westward.[62]
Joshua is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of snake, Joshua's blind snake (Trilepida joshuai ), the holotype of which was collected at Jericó, Antioquia, Colombia.[63]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
|
The Wolf of Gysinge was a man-eating wolf which, in three months, attacked and killed many children in Gysinge near central Sweden in the early 1820s.
Attacks [ edit ]
During a three-month period between December 30, 1820 and March 27, 1821, the wolf attacked 31 people, which resulted in a total of 12 fatalities,[1] most of whom were partially consumed by the wolf. The attacks occurred near Gysinge (within present-day Sandviken Municipality) in Uppland, near the border of Dalarna and Gästrikland in central Sweden.[2]
With the exception of one 19-year-old woman, all victims of fatal attacks were children between the ages of three and a half, and 15; in addition, the 15 injured victims were mostly children, except for one 18-year-old male.
Wolf [ edit ]
The wolf was killed on March 27, 1821. Historical accounts indicate that before becoming a man-eater, the wolf was captured as a pup in 1817, and kept in captivity for several years before escaping. In captivity, wolves tend to lose their natural shyness of humans and thus attack more frequently after escape from captivity.[3]
Dramatisation [ edit ]
The incident was dramatised in the BBC Two TV series Manhunters in the final episode, "The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge", which aired on 16 December 2005.[4] The episode took artistic liberty in portraying the number of wolves involved in the attacks, showing two animals instead of one. The man-eating wolves were portrayed by Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs.
See also [ edit ]
|
Michael Barryte has done the world the huge, frustrating favor of figuring out exactly how to improve the much-aligned Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. No, really. He figured out how to make it not just a good Star Wars movie, but a good movie. To watch. And not want to throw things at. If you can spare about 12 minutes to hear Michael out, join us after the jump and see how this movie could have been excellent.
By the end of this video, you will be so angry that Barryte’s ideas are about a decade and a half too late.
Seriously, filmmakers: if you have any doubts about your sci-fi script, get in touch with Michael Barryte. He will fix all of the problems.
(via Topless Robot)
Previously in Star Wars
|
Page Content
Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated ten current or former Venezuelan government officials pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13692. These individuals are associated with undermining electoral processes, media censorship, or corruption in government-administered food programs in Venezuela. This designation follows October 15, 2017 state elections in Venezuela, which were marked by numerous irregularities that strongly suggest fraud helped the ruling party unexpectedly win a majority of governorships.
Despite calls for an independent audit of the election results, the Venezuelan government proceeded to swear in the winning candidates through an oath of office before the illegitimate Constituent Assembly (Asamblea Constituyente or AC), further illustrating the authoritarian nature of the Maduro regime. In addition, the environment in which these elections were held – including censorship, the abuse of state media, and rampant corruption extending even to the distribution of food to Venezuela's starving population – raises questions concerning the freedom and fairness of the electoral process.
"As the Venezuelan government continues to disregard the will of its people, our message remains clear: the United States will not stand aside while the Maduro regime continues to destroy democratic order and prosperity in Venezuela," said Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin. "We will maintain our vigorous efforts to sanction Venezuelan government officials who are complicit in Maduro's attempts to undermine democracy, violate human rights, inhibit the freedom of expression or peaceful assembly, or engage in public corruption, unless they break from Maduro's dictatorial regime."
Today's designations consist of the following ten current or former officials of the Government of Venezuela. As a result of today's actions, all assets of these individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.
Sandra Oblitas Ruzza is the Vice President and a Rector of Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) and the President of the Civil and Electoral Registry Commission maintained by the CNE. Oblitas Ruzza announced the relocation of polling stations only four days before the election. This activity disrupted the elections, as voters arrived and found that their polling stations had been moved.
is the Vice President and a Rector of Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) and the President of the Civil and Electoral Registry Commission maintained by the CNE. Oblitas Ruzza announced the relocation of polling stations only four days before the election. This activity disrupted the elections, as voters arrived and found that their polling stations had been moved. Socorro Elizabeth Hernandez De Hernandez is a CNE Rector and a member of Venezuela's National Electoral Board. Hernandez de Hernandez was involved in the changes that were made to polling station locations in the days prior to the elections.
is a CNE Rector and a member of Venezuela's National Electoral Board. Hernandez de Hernandez was involved in the changes that were made to polling station locations in the days prior to the elections. Carlos Enrique Quintero Cuevas is an Alternate Rector of the CNE, and a member of Venezuela's National Electoral Board.
is an Alternate Rector of the CNE, and a member of Venezuela's National Electoral Board. Elvis Eduardo Hidrobo Amoroso is the Second Vice President of Venezuela's AC and was previously the First Vice President of the AC. Prior to joining the AC, Hidrobo Amoroso was the Director General of Legal Consulting of the Ministry of the Office of the Presidency, and he is also a former National Assembly deputy for Aragua state. Hidrobo Amoroso has publicly condemned an opposition governor-elect who refused to take the oath of office before the illegitimate AC.
is the Second Vice President of Venezuela's AC and was previously the First Vice President of the AC. Prior to joining the AC, Hidrobo Amoroso was the Director General of Legal Consulting of the Ministry of the Office of the Presidency, and he is also a former National Assembly deputy for Aragua state. Hidrobo Amoroso has publicly condemned an opposition governor-elect who refused to take the oath of office before the illegitimate AC. Julian Isaias Rodriguez Diaz is the Venezuelan Ambassador to Italy and was previously the Second Vice President of the AC. Rodriguez Diaz, along with Hidrobo Amoroso, signed the decree requiring the oath of office before the illegitimate AC for governors elected on October 15.
is the Venezuelan Ambassador to Italy and was previously the Second Vice President of the AC. Rodriguez Diaz, along with Hidrobo Amoroso, signed the decree requiring the oath of office before the illegitimate AC for governors elected on October 15. Ernesto Emilio Villegas Poljak is Venezuela's newly appointed Minister of Culture and the former Minister of Communication and Information, and he has also held the position of President of Venezolana De Television (VTV), a state-run television channel. Under Villegas Poljak, VTV has curtailed freedom of the press and used state control of the media to restrict the democratic electoral process.
is Venezuela's newly appointed Minister of Culture and the former Minister of Communication and Information, and he has also held the position of President of Venezolana De Television (VTV), a state-run television channel. Under Villegas Poljak, VTV has curtailed freedom of the press and used state control of the media to restrict the democratic electoral process. Jorge Elieser Marquez Monsalve is Venezuela's newly appointed Minister of the Office of the Presidency and the former Director General of the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL), a Venezuelan public institution. In August 2017, CONATEL removed two Colombian television channels from the air in Venezuela due to their coverage of former Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, who fled Venezuela. In February 2017, CONATEL announced the suspension of CNN en Español from Venezuela after the network issued various reports detailing allegations against the government.
is Venezuela's newly appointed Minister of the Office of the Presidency and the former Director General of the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL), a Venezuelan public institution. In August 2017, CONATEL removed two Colombian television channels from the air in Venezuela due to their coverage of former Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, who fled Venezuela. In February 2017, CONATEL announced the suspension of CNN en Español from Venezuela after the network issued various reports detailing allegations against the government. Manuel Angel Fernandez Melendez is the President of Venezuela's National Telephone Company (CANTV), and the President of Movilnet, C.A., a subsidiary of CANTV. CANTV has drastically increased censorship and blocked multiple websites from the Venezuelan public, including social media websites.
is the President of Venezuela's National Telephone Company (CANTV), and the President of Movilnet, C.A., a subsidiary of CANTV. CANTV has drastically increased censorship and blocked multiple websites from the Venezuelan public, including social media websites. Carlos Alberto Osorio Zambrano is President of Venezuela's Superior Organ of the Transport Mission. He was previously the Minister of the Office of the Presidency, the Vice President of Security and Food Sovereignty, and the Minister of Food. In 2016, Venezuela's National Assembly audit commission alleged that Osorio Zambrano was complicit in swindling the state out of up to $573 million through corruption in Venezuela's food program.
is President of Venezuela's Superior Organ of the Transport Mission. He was previously the Minister of the Office of the Presidency, the Vice President of Security and Food Sovereignty, and the Minister of Food. In 2016, Venezuela's National Assembly audit commission alleged that Osorio Zambrano was complicit in swindling the state out of up to $573 million through corruption in Venezuela's food program. Freddy Alirio Bernal Rosales is Venezuela's Minister of Urban Agriculture and heads the National Command and Control Center for Local Committees of Supply and Production (CLAP), Venezuela's government-run food distribution program. Bernal Rosales was previously designated by OFAC as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act on September 8, 2011 for acting for or on behalf of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
View identifying information on the individuals designated today.
View more information about Executive Order 13692.
####
|
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
HANOVER TOWNSHIP -- Should PennDOT be making money by selling our personal information? That's a question some drivers are asking after we discovered that PennDOT is making tens of millions of dollars every year by selling the personal information of drivers. And there's no way for drivers to stop it.
Drivers walking into the DMV in Hanover Township near Wilkes-Barre know they have to follow the rules of the road to keep their licenses.
But what your driver's manual doesn't tell you is the state is cashing in on your driver's license data.
Since 2010, PennDOT earned $157 million selling driver information, like your name, address and up to 10 years of traffic violations.
PennDOT uses the money to fix roads and the information is sold to insurance providers and companies that provide background checks. But there's no way for drivers to opt out of that information sharing.
Now, a new report is raising concern that your personal driver's license information could potentially end up in the wrong hands, like the hands of hackers or identity thieves.
Sterling Infosystems is one company that bought driver data from PennDOT. An audit obtained by Newswatch 16 reveals Sterling was not following the state's required procedures when handling driver's information.
According to the audit, Sterling was, "unable to provide a complete and accurate listing of their customers, "which, "increases the risk that the responsible party would not be identified if there was a security breach."
Experts do not think someone's identity could be stolen with just the information you hand to PennDOT. But they warn hackers could use your name, address, and driving history, to find information about you that could lead to identity theft.
"Any piece about you is just a piece of the puzzle," said Jeff Chopick, Custom Computers. "They could take that and then with other information, steal your identity."
PennDOT admits it relies on drivers to come forward and report any possible abuses of their personal information. But officials also point out there are consequences for any companies that buy the data if PennDOT discovers those companies are not following procedures.
"This particular company, Sterling, was a little sloppy in their procedures, and as a result, are now cut off from the records," said PennDOT official Rich Kirkpatrick.
"PennDOT points out while Sterling ignored some procedures that could lead to data, the audit did not indicate any personal information was compromised.
Click here to read the results of the audit.
|
The first commercial for the [email protected] television anime series aired in Japan on Friday.
The story follows a hikikomori (shut-in) named Sasami Tsukuyomi (voiced by Kana Asumi) who is unmotivated about even changing clothes or eating. Her brother Kamiomi (Houchu Ohtsuka) takes care of her, even though she despises his slave-like nature. Sasami spends her days viewing the outside world via a "Brother Surveillance Tool" on her computer. In the outside world, the three beautiful Yagami sisters (played by Chiwa Saito, Kana Hanazawa, and Ai Nonaka) and Sasami's brother are in the middle of relationships worthy of a romantic comedy.
Akiyuki Shinbo is teaming up again with his Madoka Magica and Bakemonogatari studio SHAFT to make the television anime of Akira's [email protected] light novel series. Katsuhiko Takayama (And Yet the Town Moves, Love, Election & Chocolate ) is in charge of the scripts, and Hiroki Harada (Romeo × Juliet, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal) is designing the characters.
The series will premiere on the TBS and BS-TBS channels in Japan on January 10.
|
Hassan Rouhani's message to mark start of Jewish new year unexpected in Israel, which has identified Iran as security threat
Amid a global exchange of greetings and good wishes to mark Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, which began at sunset on Wednesday, there was one from a particularly surprising quarter.
Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, tweeted: "As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah." A picture of an Iranian Jew praying at a synagogue in Tehran accompanied the tweet.
According to a 2012 census, there are fewer than 9,000 Jews among Iran's population of about 75 million.
The message from Rouhani was unexpected in Israel, which has identified Iran as a huge threat to its security. It says the regime is developing a nuclear weapons programme that could be used to annihilate the Jewish state.
Rouhani, who was elected in June, has pledged to tone down the "hate rhetoric" used by his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Barack Obama, also sent new year greetings to Jews around the world, wishing them "shana tova" from the Great Synagogue in Stockholm during a stopover en route to the G20 summit in St Petersburg.
Other wellwishers included the British prime minister, David Cameron, who sent "best wishes to Jewish communities in the UK and around the world observing the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur".
His message continued: "At this important time for the Jewish faith let us join you in praying for a new year that will achieve progress towards a lasting peace for Israel and the Middle East."
Rosh Hashanah marks the start of the year 5774 in the Jewish calendar and about a month of religious holidays. Yom Kippur, the solemn day of atonement and fasting for Jews, begins at sunset next Friday. It is followed by Sukkot, or the Feast of the Tabernacles, an eight-day holiday in which observant Jews take meals in a sukkah, an outdoor structure traditionally covered in palm fronds.
|
Welcome to the latest installment of “Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does,” a series on Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s blog that highlights Planned Parenthood’s diverse array of services — the ones Jon Kyl doesn’t know about.
When talking about Pap tests — particularly when discussing abnormal Pap results — one procedure that comes up a lot is the colposcopy.
It can sound intimidating and clinical on its own. And if you’re anything like me, you may have — ahem — occasionally confused it with the significantly more internal colonoscopy. For the sake of everyone’s anxiety levels, it may be best to set the record straight.
What is a colposcopy, and what should you expect from the procedure?
Why am I getting a colposcopy?
The most common reason for undergoing a colposcopy is having an abnormal Pap test result, particularly one that, when tested for DNA of human papillomavirus, yielded a positive result. Effectively, there are some abnormal cervical cells with HPV present. Because this could potentially progress to cervical cancer down the line, this combination makes health care providers want to get a closer look at what’s going on.
That said, colposcopies are sometimes performed for other reasons, such as genital warts on the cervix, cervicitis (inflamed cervix), or benign cervical polyps.
What does a colposcopy do exactly?
A colposcope, used to perform a colposcopy, basically looks like a pair of binoculars on a stand:
A colposcopy, then, uses a colposcope to get a better view of abnormal cervical cells than a health care provider could obtain via unaided visual examination or a Pap test.
Depending on what the provider sees during the colposcopy, a cervical biopsy or endocervical curettage might also be performed. Both procedures involve removing small amounts of potentially abnormal cervical tissue and sending the samples to a pathology lab.
How should I prepare for my colposcopy?
While most colposcopies are done in a standard doctor’s office, you may be referred to another provider — often a specialist who has a colposcope in their office — for the procedure. At present, Planned Parenthood Arizona is able to provide colposcopies at three of its health centers — in Flagstaff, Central Phoenix, and Tucson — with hopes to expand service locations in the coming year.
Planned Parenthood advises scheduling the procedure for a time when the patient isn’t expecting to be on their period. They also recommend that colposcopy patients refrain from douching, using tampons or penetrative sex toys, putting medications in their vaginas, or having vaginal intercourse for at least 24 hours before the procedure. It can also be a good idea to take an over-the-counter pain reliever about an hour prior to the procedure, particularly if a biopsy is scheduled.
What happens during the procedure?
The first part of a colposcopy is similar to a pelvic exam. The patient lies on the examining table, usually with their feet in stirrups or on other supports. A health care provider will insert a speculum into the vagina so that the cervix is easily visible.
Next, the provider applies a solution to the cervix and vaginal walls. This solution both clears away mucus and also turns any abnormal cells white, which makes them easier to see. Some people report a mild burning from this solution.
After that, the provider places the colposcope right next to the vaginal opening — but still outside the vagina. From there, the provider will examine the cervix for any abnormal cells.
At that point, if the procedure will include a biopsy or endocervical curettage, this is the point at which one will be performed. A punch biopsy involves taking a thin sample of cervical tissue about 3 to 4 millimeters in length while an endocervical curettage involves inserting a small scooplike instrument into the cervix to collect some of the cells inside. After the biopsy, the provider may apply a solution to help stop any bleeding.
From start to finish, the procedure usually takes between 10 and 20 minutes.
Will it hurt?
Pain is an individual thing, so the safest answer is — maybe, though most reports of pain or discomfort suggest that, if such pain is felt, it’s usually fairly mild.
As previously mentioned, during a colposcopy, the doctor will probably use a speculum to hold open the vaginal walls. This generally involves a feeling of pressure, which does end up being uncomfortable or painful to some people. Additionally, the vinegarlike solution used to prepare the vagina and cervix may burn or sting a little. Finally, if a biopsy is performed, it may feel like a momentary sharp pinch or menstrual cramp.
What risks are associated with colposcopies?
Overall, colposcopies — with or without biopsies — are very safe procedures, and the risks associated with them are rare. That said, those rare risks include infection and bleeding heavily enough to require treatment. According to Planned Parenthood, symptoms that require a call to a health care provider include:
heavy bleeding (the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists quantifies this as using more than one sanitary pad per hour)
abnormally heavy, yellow, or foul-smelling vaginal discharge (aside from the normal after-colposcopy discharge outlined below)
fever
chills
severe abdominal pain
Aside from that, as with any medical test, there’s a risk that a colposcopy and/or biopsy could yield a false result (either negative or positive).
Though colposcopy during pregnancy is safe, some providers recommend delaying further testing until after the birth, especially if a biopsy is indicated. According to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, one type of biopsy — endocervical curettage — is considered unacceptable during pregnancy due to the risk of premature membrane rupture.
What side effects can I expect after the procedure?
For a colposcopy without biopsy, there should be little to no discomfort as well as little to no bleeding (spotting only, if anything). Regular activities — including tampon use and all forms of sex, if applicable — can resume right away.
For a colposcopy with biopsy, it’s fairly common to have vaginal pain or soreness lasting for a few days after the procedure, as well as some bleeding for the same amount of time. It’s also normal to have dark vaginal discharge that may look like coffee grounds: This is the solution that was applied to stop the bleeding. It’s advisable to refrain from inserting objects inside the vagina for a few days — including penetrative sex and, depending on the individual provider’s recommendations, tampons — to allow time for the cervix to heal.
I have my colposcopy results. Where do we go from here?
Essentially, this depends on what those results say. For results with lower grade changes — check here for what that means — careful monitoring (such as with repeat Pap tests and/or HPV DNA tests in 6 to 12 months) may be the recommended approach. Other higher grade changes may warrant a procedure, such as cryotherapy or a LEEP, to remove the abnormal cells.
If you have further questions about colposcopies or would like to make an appointment for your own colposcopy, you can contact your nearest Planned Parenthood health center for information about resources in your area.
|
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most conservative societies, with capital punishment dealt out regularly for violations of religious moral codes. Saudi citizens have been killed by the state for things such as adultry, disobedience and political dissidence.
But these rules apparently do not apply to the children of wealthy Saudi elites, according to a US State Department communication published by secrets outlet WikiLeaks.
Instead of adhering to a strict behavioral code as most other Saudis do, the elite youths are fond of parties featuring staples of many high-dollar Western blowouts, like copious amounts of alcohol, cocaine and hashish, along with a few “working girls” to boot.
The document shows how, behind closed doors and away from the country’s religious police, the rich stage elaborate parties and casually violate the very laws their government regularly, and many times brutally, upholds.
The revelation exposes a stunning duality in Saudi society that could provoke greater civil dissent as to how the nation is governed, at a time when many media critics have accused WikiLeaks of solely aiming to humiliate the US government with a cache of sensitive documents it lost control of.
Over the past year numerous stories have surfaced detailing a push-back against morals of old among Saudi women, a growing movement that came to a head in two instances where religious police were attacked after confrontations. In another such flare-up, from 2007, a Saudi woman sprayed a religious policeman in the face with pepper-spray while her friend filmed it on a cellphone.
The cable, which was marked “confidential,” also noted that an American energy drink supplier had sponsored one particularly lavish party thrown by an unnamed Saudi prince. The company’s name and the name of the party’s organizers were withheld. There are more than 10,000 princes in Saudi Arabia, one of America’s key allies in the Middle East.
“Saudi youth get to enjoy relative social freedom and indulge fleshly pursuits, but only behind closed doors — and only the rich,” the cable’s unnamed author observed. “Parties of this nature and scale are believed to be a relatively recent phenomenon in Jeddah. One contact, a young Saudi male, explained that up to a few years ago, the only weekend activity was ‘dating’ inside the homes of the affluent in small groups.
“It is not uncommon in Jeddah for the more lavish private residences to include elaborate basement bars, discos, entertainment centers and clubs. As one high society Saudi remarked, ‘The increased conservatism of our society over these past years has only moved social interaction to the inside of people’s homes.'”
Another recently leaked cable showed that the US believes Saudi financiers are still the chief supporters of Sunni militant groups like al Qaeda. A “Blue Ribbon” report on the 9/11 attacks had instead noted that al Qaeda raised money in Saudi Arabia but that no senior officials had provided material support.
President Obama recently provided a military aid package to Saudi Arabia estimated to be worth over $60 billion, according to the Pentagon. The package included the sale of advanced aircraft, such as F-15 fighter jets, and Apache and Black Hawk helicopters.
The complete cable was still available online mid-Wednesday. Saudi Arabia has over 27 million citizens, according to a recent estimate.
|
When is a record not always a record? When it's twinned with the word "debt". To have a hope of knowing what's happening with the economy, you need to learn the rules of a childish game, says Michael Blastland. Here's a game that's all the rage with politicians and the media. Take any number of pounds that's bigger than it was before: the price of a hotel room, the size of the health budget, whatever, but particularly at the moment, government borrowing. Shout: "It's a record!" Apportion blame or praise, as desired. The game is fatuous, but don't let that stop you. After all, it doesn't stop them. Here are some examples. The numbers are all correct. 1. In 17 years of power up to 1997, the Conservatives made net debt repayments in four years, totalling nearly £17bn. Since coming to power in 1997, Labour made net repayments in three years, totalling about £41bn. (A record!)
Praise be to Labour prudence, the Conservatives were rubbish. 2. In 1993, during the last recession, the Conservative government borrowed about £51bn. This year, Labour is expected to borrow about £64bn. (A record!)
All hail Conservative prudence, Labour are rubbish. 3. After World War II, the national debt was about £24bn. In September this year, after repeated Labour and Conservative governments, public sector net debt had reached about £645bn. (A record!)
They are all rubbish. Getting a taste for it? Try these top tips: Don't try to inform or enlighten - just generate as much heat as possible (with extra points at a time of public anxiety)
Ignore inflation - this makes it impossible to say how any quantity of pounds genuinely compares with another some years apart, but does allow many absurd, baseless comparisons
Assume that wealth doesn't matter, as if £10,000 owed by someone earning £5,000 a year is as serious a debt as it would be to Roman Abramovich And it's game on! Although, there are problems. One is that it treats the public like fools. Another is it soon becomes boring. Both are clear when we play the game with the national debt since the war, which would have allowed us to shout "record!" in the following years: 1946, 1947, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Records of this type come round almost like the calendar because economies grow, and there's almost always some inflation. We might as well report that the date, 2008, is a record number of recorded years. More than in any other year since records began 2008 years ago. Beating by one the record held only last year, of 2007. And that if the trend continues we will see another record number of years recorded in the year as early as next year. Stating the obvious In short, our media and politicians on both sides have been talking a good deal of rubbish. What's the alternative? We could look at debt and borrowing in context. This is admittedly less easy to shout about. If we do, cash records can be seen for what they are: often misleading. "Labour triples spending on the NHS"
"Labour borrowing hits record" Such boasts and criticisms - and both of these have appeared frequently - tell us little. To many, this will be obvious. So how do we work out if the numbers are genuinely better or worse than in the past, and by how much? First, we compare them with the size of the economy in pounds (or what's called "money GDP"). This takes account of the combination of inflation and how well off we are, and is the method used by statistical authorities worldwide. The first chart plays the game, and shows the government deficit now and in 1993 (the former "record"). If we talk only in pounds - and also chop off the bottom of the graph so it doesn't start at zero - we can make things look terrible. Here are the same numbers with a little context. This time, they are also compared with the size of the economy. Now we see rising inflation and economic growth have more than doubled the size of the economy in pounds. But have they also doubled the deficit in pounds? Not even nearly. If we updated the 1993 deficit to a 2008-sized economy after 15 years of inflation, it would be over £110bn, compared with this year's projected deficit of about £64bn. So is borrowing already a record, as recent wild headlines have suggested? Evidently not, at least not in any meaningful sense, or certainly not yet, however many zeros there are on the end of the figure (and that is also true in the US). In 1993 in the UK, borrowing reached 7% of GDP; today it is about half that. Does this mean Labour's borrowing is actually lower in this downturn than Conservative borrowing at the last? No. These are early days - and it will rise. So we can't compare the peaks in borrowing, but we can compare borrowing at the point that each recession began. We can also say that we don't expect borrowing to be as high in good times as in bad. If we take all this into account, and look at how much each government was borrowing just before the storm hit, we find no meaningful difference. Adjusted for the economic cycle, Conservative borrowing then was about 2.6% of GDP. Labour borrowing now is about 2.7% of GDP. But the best analysis - from the Institute for Fiscal Studies - suggests that borrowing is beginning to rise more quickly this time. That's borrowing from month to month. What about the total stock of all debt still outstanding - what was once called the National Debt but is now referred to (and measured differently) as public sector net debt? Labour did reduce it from the level inherited in 1997, relative to GDP (as did the Tories in 1979) but it soon started to rise again (as it did with the Tories). It's still lower than some other big, rich countries like France, Italy, or Japan, but higher than most countries in the OECD. Here's another chart. It shows the UK's public sector net debt, as a proportion of GDP, of course. (Why do we show the debt without the cost of Northern Rock? Because unlike ordinary government debt, Northern Rock is also worth something, an asset that we can probably cash in one day. If we include it, today's line would be at about the level of 1997). So how do they compare overall? Arguably, Labour's plight is worse because it is starting a recession from a higher net debt position than the start of the recession in the early 1990s. Borrowing also seems to be beginning to rise faster. But things are not yet remotely as bad as they have been on many previous occasions. Claims the country is in a better debt position than it was in 1997 are true, but less relevant than the comparison with the start of the last recession in the early 90s, by which measure today's debt is higher. Context takes only a moment. A good and simple start would be to present figures as a percentage of GDP, whether for spending, taxation or borrowing. Of course, there's the small matter of what the government actually does with the money. But when it comes to how much money we're talking about, handle records with care. Michael Blastland is the author, with Andrew Dilnot, of The Tiger That Isn't. Below is a selection of your comments: Good article. About time we saw some balance and rationality from a journalist. I am fed up with journalistic sensationalism, even if it does sell papers, how are we able to have any sense of objectivity if the information is constantly twisted. As for politicians, their self serving has turned most of the people off the whole subject.
Chris, London Michael Blastland is to be congratulated on providing a balanced and informative article - head and shoulders above the attempts of his colleagues! This is what journalism SHOULD be about. Why do we not get this kind of insight in other pieces? Particularly with climate change, where so much rubbish is presented as if it were true.
T Massingham, Gloucester - UK I agree entirely with the need for context, but as soon as anyone starts qualifying the numbers most people either stop listening, accuse them of "fiddling" or just don't understand. Dumbed down populist news means anything more than a mono-syllabic sentence (with just one number in it) is too much for most people. Try explaining to people that 10% growth in house prices followed by a 10% loss is actually an overall 1% loss, and you might as well be trying to tell them the moon really is made of cheese.
Alan Marson, Aberdeen, Scotland But isn't the Beeb just as guilty of hype as the politicians? How often is % used in news items to sex up the figures? Statistics are sprayed round by the media and politicians generally, usually generating more heat than light. Look at the present BBC coverage of the recession-plunging graphs, doom laden pronouncements, - those facing unemployment or wrecked pensions must feel like slitting their wrists! Less reputation burnishing, more truth please!
Gordon Thompson, Crich, Derbyshire U.K. This article is the longest on the BBC News website today ... a record!
Jon D, huddersfield 2008 is not a record number of recorded years The Mayan calendar extends back over 5000 years (a record) - check your facts!
Oz, Cambridge, UK Inspired Article. At last someone at the BBC reporting with an element of common sense! Bravo Michael!!
Nick Pollins, Brighton What happens if you include PFI obligations, unfunded public sector pension liabilities and state pension liabilities. I suspect the result would be terrifying.
Dave, London Very enlightening - and something that I have often suspected! Why isn't there any regulation on this when newspapers etc report these matters? Equally, why doesn't the accused stand up and ask for the beans to be re-counted? BBC, we expect you to lead the way!
Allan, Surrey I knew it! Anything can be made witty and entertaining with the judicious application of sarcasm. Thank you, I feel both well informed and vindicated.
Kat Murphy, Coventry Another record where inflation is ignored appears to be box-office takings. Every year sees a new film smashing the previous record for box-office takings, but it's not a surprise as inflation isn't taken into account. So as the price of a cinema ticket rises, so the amount of sales required to beat the previous record falls. However, as Michael Blastland points out, people like reading about records being broken. Even if they would have been broken merely by the passing of time.
DS, Croydon, England
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version
|
SALT LAKE CITY — A prominent Utah defense attorney is feared dead after slipping and falling down a waterfall in Norway.
Kent Hart, executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, was hiking at the top of a large waterfall Sunday near Oslo when he fell. Hart has not been located since the incident, his son reported on Facebook.
"The outlook … for his survival does not look good," the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said in a statement.
The waterfall is about 750 feet high, according to the organization, which also published a link to a GoFundMe page in Hart's name* dedicated to supporting his family.
Hart has served as executive director for the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers since 2009. He has also served as a federal public defender in the U.S. District Court in Utah.
In 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah presented Hart with the Mickey Duncan Award, an honor given for his defending of civil rights.
Hart received his law degree from the University of Utah.
His son, Evan Hart, said he is about to begin college in Norway and that the family was sightseeing there.
----
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
|
As every musician knows, to have a great band you need a great drummer.
It's true. Try to imagine The Beatles without Ringo Starr. Or The Rolling Stones without Charlie Watts. The Police without Stewart Copeland. Metallica without Lars Ulrich. Rush without Neil Peart. Unthinkable, right?
Even so, drummer jokes abound. But we're going to let you in on a little secret: We drummers love the jokes. We trade them and e-mail them to one another. The more the merrier. And so, with that in mind, MusicRadar has compiled the 23 best drummer jokes of all time.
Why 23 you ask? What, you expect us to actually count to a normal number?
How do you tell if the stage is level?
The drummer is drooling from both sides of his mouth.
How can you tell a drummer's at the door?
The knocking speeds up.
What's the last thing a drummer says in a band?
"Hey, how about we try one of my songs?"
An Indian chief and a cavalry captain climb to the top of a tall hill and look out upon the entire Indian tribe. The captain says worriedly, "I don't like the sound of those drums." The chief says, "I know. It's not our regular drummer."
What do you call a drummer that breaks up with his girlfriend?
Homeless.
What do Ginger Baker and black coffee have in common?
They both suck without Cream.
How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Five: One to screw the bulb in, and four to talk about how much better
Neil Peart could've done it.
An amateur drummer died and went to heaven. He was waiting outside the pearly gates when he heard the most incredible fast and furious drumming coming from within. Immediately he recognized the playing and rushed to ask St. Peter if that was Buddy Rich playing drums inside the gates. St. Peter responded: "No, that's God. He just thinks he's Buddy Rich."
How do you get a drummer off of your porch?
Pay him 10 bucks for the pizza.
Why didn't the Little Drummer Boy get into heaven?
Because he woke up the baby, for Christ's sake!
What do you call a drummer with half a brain?
Gifted.
What does a drummer use for contraception?
His personality.
What do you say to a drummer in a three-piece suit?
"Will the defendant please rise?"
"Hey buddy, how late does the band play?"
"Oh, about half a beat behind the drummer."
Hey, did you hear about the drummer who finished high school?
Me neither.
Why do guitarists put drumsticks on the dash of their car?
So they can park in the handicapped spot.
How is a drum solo like a sneeze?
You know it's coming, but there's nothing you can do about it.
What's the first thing a drummer says when he moves to LA?
"Would you like fries with that, sir?
What is the difference between a drummer and a savings bond?
One will mature and make money.
Why do drummers have lots of kids?
They're not too good at the Rhythm Method.
What do you do if you accidentally run over a drummer?
Back up.
What did the drummer say to the band leader?
"Do you want me to play too fast or too slow?"
Deep in the African jungle, a safari was camped for the night. In the darkness, distant drums began a relentless throbbing that continued until dawn. The safari members were disturbed, but the guide reassured them: "Drums good. When drums stop, very bad." Every night the drumming continued, and every night the guide reiterated, "Drums good. When drums stop, VERY bad." This continues for several days until one morning the drumming suddenly stops and all the natives panic and run screaming. The man asks the guide what's the matter? The guide looking very frightened says: "When drums stop, VERY, VERY bad," he said. "Why is it bad?" asked a member of the safari. "Because when drums stop, bass solo begin!"
|
For the world, as for his family, the birth of Adnan Nevic was cause for celebration. No less an eminence than the secretary-general of the United Nations attended his arrival, posing with the swaddled child as camera strobes lit a maternity room in central Sarajevo. He was born four minutes past midnight on October 12, 1999, and Kofi Annan had made his way to the hospital like a wise man following a star. There were 5.999999999 billion people on the face of the planet, depending on whose “population clock” you went by. The time had come to designate a six billionth.
The challenges that lay before this infant reflected those of human populations around the globe. His parents, Jasmin and Fatima, were poor. The family lived cheek by jowl in a bleak apartment. His father needed work. Ethnic conflict remained a dormant but ever-present threat to their country. The UN chief offered words of hope, saying this “beautiful boy in a city returning to life should light a path of tolerance and understanding for all people.” But a long and happy life? For that, Adnan Nevic would need a few breaks.
Today, as demographers look ahead to a 10-billion-strong global population, the future of No. 6,000,000,000 is no less clouded. By day, he is an apple-cheeked sixth-grader who loves dogs and cheers on the fabled Spanish soccer team, Real Madrid. At night, he watches over a father stricken by bowel cancer, and sleeps in the same bedroom as his parents in their two-room flat in Visoko, a run-down town 28 km outside Sarajevo. Adnan’s plight could never really stand in for that of all humanity. But it does, to borrow the UN boss’s trope, illuminate the road we will travel over the course of his life.
By 2050, according to the UN’s mid-range estimates, Adnan will count among some 9.3 billion people on the face of the Earth, and 10.1 billion if he lives to see the turn of the next century. Each new addition will pose the same challenges he does. Can we feed, clothe and house them? School them? Provide them with health care and drinkable water? Encoded within these questions are broader ones that speak to our capacity to co-operate, perhaps even to our fate as a species. Will we devise a means to share land and resources? To bring wealth to the planet’s most deprived places? Or will we succumb to the inevitable competition for space and commodities, consigning ourselves to endless wars and humanitarian crises?
In some places, the challenges are so vast as to steal one’s breath. Within two decades, the population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is expected to balloon to 148.5 million, up from 66 million today. Congo and other poverty-stricken African countries, where fertility rates remain high, will produce much of the world’s future population growth: Germany and Ethiopia now have comparable populations (82 and 83 million people respectively), a UN report notes, but by 2050, Germany’s population is expected to decline to 75 million people, while Ethiopia’s will hit 145 million. It makes the problems of one child in Visoko, Bosnia, look eminently solvable—though even there our best intentions don’t add up to much. Despite brave promises of lifelong financial support at the time of his birth, Adnan’s family now survives on about 250 euros per month. “Had I known back then what I know today, I would never have allowed the UN to declare him the six-billionth person,” Fatima Nevic recently told Maclean’s. “Basically, everyone forgot about us.”
Yet speak to experts whose careers revolve around the population equation, and you’ll also hear notes of surprising optimism—in part because population growth is moderating toward a more manageable pace. With fertility levels slipping in many parts of the world, it will take an estimated 14 years, from 2011 to 2025, for the world to add its eight-billionth person, and another 18 years to add its ninth. Adding number 10 billion won’t happen until 2083, a full 40 years after the nine billionth is born. These forecasts are based on the UN Population Division’s “medium-variant” scenarios, which are considered the most likely to come to pass. The bureau’s highest possible projection puts the world population at an appalling 15.8 billion in 2100, but its lowest would have us at 6.2 billion. That latter figure bears repeating: the human race might actually shrink.
In the meantime, confidence in our capacity to adapt is growing, easing primordial fears about the consequences of unchecked procreation. The debate is increasingly framed by thinkers who view population growth as an expansion of human capital, rather than simply a drain on resources. “Ten billion people is only about one-third more than we already have, and we have plenty of land and activities to occupy them,” says Robert Fogel, Nobel laureate in economics and head of the Center for Population Economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “We’re not going to run out of food, and we won’t run out of factories to employ them. I’m very optimistic that progress will not only continue, but accelerate.”
The cost to the environment remains a key concern, Fogel acknowledges. Global warming, deforestation and the steady extinction of species all speak undeniably to the damage humankind does as it grows. So too does disparity. Countries like Canada and the United States remain disproportionate beneficiaries of human development, while the likes of Somalia and Zimbabwe remain afflicted by misrule, virtually untouched by the transformative forces of women’s education, maternal health programs and contraception. Change must come fast to these places if we are to avert the proliferation of human misery their population curves would suggest. But it will come, say optimists, as surely as it has to parts of the planet once thought impervious to hope.
Last year, Indian entrepreneur Mukesh Ambani and his family moved into the world’s first billion-dollar home. At 27 stories, it boasts a yoga studio, a cinema, and reportedly has an “ice room” with man-made snow flurries to cool off its guests. There are three helipads, and parking spots for 160 vehicles underground. The rooftop offers a view all the way to the Arabian Sea.
The notion of such an extravagant home towering over Mumbai—a city where eight million live in slums—would strike many as crass. But it’s also a sign of the incredible growth India has experienced over the last few decades, a story reflected in the arc of Ambani’s own company, Reliance Industries Ltd., which his father started back in the 1950s; it’s now the largest private sector company in India. At the forefront of the country’s breathtaking economic expansion, observers say, is its demography. India’s population is young and growing: in 2010, the median age in India was about 25, UN figures show (in Canada, the median age last year was 40). In Mumbai, sprawling slums are slowly—and often painfully—making way for strip malls, condos and residential complexes.
This isn’t the traditional portrait of population growth. From 1960 to 2000, the world’s population doubled from three to six billion people, a change that University of Michigan economist David Lam calls “absolutely, historically unprecedented.” Observers were worried we’d run out of resources and room for everybody, yet people are wealthier, healthier and better fed than ever—and it wasn’t just oligarchs like Ambani who benefited. In fact, “the biggest improvements were in the poorest countries, with the exception of Africa,” says Lam, president of the Population Association of America, a professional organization for those who study population issues. In developing regions, the number of people living on less than $1.25 per day dropped from 46 per cent in 1990 to 27 per cent in 2005, according to UN figures. Although the absolute number of hungry people has climbed since 1990 (from 815 million to 925 million) due to population growth, the proportion of them has actually gone down. In the developing world, about one in four children under age five was underweight in 2005, the UN says, down from almost one in three in 1990. And as India’s population more than doubled from 1960 to 2000, Lam says, its food production more than kept up: it tripled.
This did not come as a surprise to academics delving into the relationship between wealth and population enlargement. Every new wave of humanity, reasoned the American economist Julian Simon in 1981, makes more resources available, because “productive and inventive minds help find creative solutions to man’s problems.” Simply put: there are more people with big brains around, hatching ever more ingenious ideas.
Larger populations also mean bigger markets, which allow for mass production and greater specialization of skill. “Consider an assembly line in a car factory,” says Walter Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Va. “You have many individuals, each performing very specialized tasks. If there were only 100 people to buy the cars, why would you do it?” The result, adds Williams, manifests itself at the other end of the production chain, in the form of lower priced goods available to more people. Specialization has proven particularly important in keeping food prices low, as technology and mechanization allow for mass harvesting and processing.
More people speak to the value of big cities, which concentrate labour and talent, while permitting efficient movement of goods and services. The virtues of high population density can seem hard to believe when confronted with the masses of humanity in, say, the shanties around Dhaka. But it is central to the story of Asia’s economic rise. Yes, the number of people living in India’s slums has grown. But so too has the life expectancy of its people, from 44 in 1960 to 66 today. Similarly in China, where cities have been the engine of its three-fold GDP growth over the past decade—so much so that they are draining the countryside of peasant farmers.
What these numbers don’t show is the toll all this activity takes on the planet, and that’s where human-capital theory starts to wobble: our company of 10 billion people won’t be much fun if we’re all living on a barren, overheated planet. If the big brains of the future are half as smart as these economists say, they will weigh the benefit of every new strip mall, coal mine and billion-dollar house against increases in the Earth’s temperature, decimation of farmland, or fish species lost.
Growing up in Colombia, Camilo Mora recalls seeing an ad about population growth on television. “It showed a small aquarium,” he says, “with two fish, then four, then eight, then 16. Eventually, you couldn’t fit any more in there, and it said, ‘Start thinking.’ ” Now a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Mora studies the impact of human population on coral reefs, Earth’s most diverse ecosystems. In a new study, he and colleagues found that a reef’s biomass (its amount of living matter) was directly impacted by human density, since nearby populations bring overfishing, land use and coastal development. It’s potentially very bad news, since 75 per cent of the world’s coral reefs are near human settlements, and 82 per cent of countries with coral reefs are expected to double their populations within the next century.
Scientists believe our planet could be entering its sixth mass extinction—one comparable to the asteroid impact that may have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago—largely propelled by human activity. (A mass extinction occurs when Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short period.) Beyond countless plants and animals that may be wiped off the planet, other resources are under strain. Per capita water consumption is rising twice as fast as the global population, and over the next two decades our need for fresh water will be 40 per cent greater than today’s, the UN predicts. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water-stressed conditions (when demand can’t be fully satisfied). Dwindling oil reserves have many worried about an impending energy crisis. Climate change threatens to destroy crop yields through drought and storms. With the planet already under such pressure, many question if we can support another three billion people—let alone the nearly seven billion we’ve got.
Over-consumption is a rich-world problem, and the world is getting richer. Canadians consume about 25 tonnes of four important resources (minerals, fossil fuels, ore and biomass) per year, according to a new report from the UN Environment Programme, compared to four tonnes for the average Indian. And one American’s carbon dioxide emissions are equal to those of about 250 Ethiopians. As the standard of living rises in developing countries, people there are also consuming more: humanity is set to eat up three times more resources by 2050, driven largely by increasing population and prosperity, the UN Environment Programme says.
Even given these challenges, Charles Kenny, a development economist in Washington, believes we can sustainably support 10 billion people. “It will take political action and big dollar amounts,” he says, “but amounts we can afford.” Whether governments and voters will agree, though, is another question. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently reported that renewable energy sources—like solar and wind power—could meet as much as 77 per cent of global energy demands by the year 2050, but it will cost $5.1 trillion up to 2020, and another $7.2 trillion from then to 2030.
While Kenny admits he gets “depressed” at the state of global agreements on climate change, there is some precedent for success. The Montreal Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1987 with the aim of reducing the hole in the ozone layer, put controls on the use of ozone-thinning chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (or CFCs) and has been called a resounding success: experts now say the ozone layer should return to its pre-1980 levels by mid-century (repairing the hole over Antarctica will take a bit longer). Addressing environmental concerns “will get easier as technology improves,” Kenny says, and with some of the world’s greatest minds turned to solving this problem, we might actually be able to figure it out. Whether we’ll have the political and personal will to reconsider energy policy, water use—even our commute to work, or red meat intake—is a more immediately pressing question.
It is a query properly directed at the G20 countries, because the part of the world where the population is growing fastest remains, developmentally speaking, stranded at the roadside. Sub-Saharan Africans use less power, water and food than anyone on Earth, but they’re the first to feel the effects of consumption in other parts of the world. In 2008, for example, while North Americans were complaining about a surge in the price of barbecue steaks—a direct result of growing global demand for grain and energy—families in Mauritania stopped sending their children to school so they could afford to buy bread.
On its face, the band of despair reaching from Benin to Africa’s eastern horn would seem to contradict any theories suggesting that humanity is, in fact, a resource. This region is home to the world’s worst levels of life expectancy, education, disease and poverty, despite runaway fertility rates. A woman in Rwanda has, on average, 6.4 children in her life; in Mali, the rate is even higher (compare that to Canada, where it is below the replacement level of 2.1). Each year, more of these children pour into cities, crowding slums in places like Bulawayo, Kinshasa, or Nairobi. Reducing birth rates would, at first glance, seem a solution to these scenes of despair.
Not so, argue free-market thinkers like Walter Williams, the George Mason University economist. Sub-Saharan Africa might have high birth rates, he points out, but its population per hectare of land is relatively low, suggesting these countries are not overcrowded. What they are is crooked: 16 central African countries rank in the bottom quartile of Transparency International’s most recent annual corruption list—Somalia and Sudan chief among them. As Williams notes, corruption and privation go hand in hand. Development money gets embezzled or stolen. Food shipments get commandeered and sold on black markets. “Africa’s problem is not population growth,” he says. “It’s bad government.”
There are potential remedies to the region’s problems any good politician would try. One is improved farming practices—a long-standing goal of agronomists who have watched in despair as crop yields in African countries stagnated. “We don’t have to do new research to make gains in productivity,” says Ryan Cardwell, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Manitoba. “There is still a lot of arable land available in some of these countries.” But the proper use of resources to make that happen—from seed stock to chemical fertilizer to irrigation equipment—requires reliable local governments on board with the project.
Another step is investing in education, which would carry the added benefit of pushing down fertility rates. Schooling girls, in particular, leads to sustainable populations, notes Lam, because better-schooled women tend to have fewer children, and invest more in their kids. Yet in 19 African countries, fewer than five per cent of girls finish secondary school. “The 20th century began with very few people completing primary education, and ended with almost everyone doing it,” observes Joel E. Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University, who notes that some areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia remain the exception. “I believe we will see, by the middle of the next century, a universal acceptance that every child should have a good secondary education, too.” All sorts of societal advantages would flow from this. “Educated people demand a more responsive government,” he says. “They have a better understanding of their bodies, a better capacity for work, and a preference for children of quality, rather than quantity of children.”
It’s the sort of transformation that can take hold when long-held precepts are set aside, when authorities stop treating population growth itself as the root of all evil. If that sounds naive, consider the crisis unfolding in Russia, where—far from enhancing life—population shrinkage has unleashed a cascade of economic and social ills. The country’s population is expected to shrink from 142.9 million people today to 111 million by 2100, with one in five people projected to be over the age of 65 by 2025. With the country’s economic growth in peril, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced plans to invest billions in baby bonuses and health initiatives aimed at boosting the average life expectancy. Yet the obvious remedy of mass immigration remains off the table. The perceived threat to Russian identity has triggered a wave of nationalist xenophobia that has discouraged newcomers and limited the options of political leaders.
Here is where nations like Canada enjoy a huge advantage. This country welcomes more immigrants per capita than any other in the developed world (about 250,000 each year), and our immigration system increasingly targets the world’s best and brightest. We are also comparatively open to the movement of labour, and with some 13 per cent of us expected to be age 80 or older by the year 2100, we will need all of the newcomers we can get. But unlike Russia, we hold the remedy in our hands: we are, and always have been, a country geared to maximize human capital.
For those in less blessed corners of the world, this is a familiar story. Rich countries get richer; the poor trudge on. Our test lies in our capacity to help those whose lives are comprised of equal parts promise and struggle. People like Adnan Nevic, who boasts an 80 per cent average in school, yet lives in a world circumscribed by poverty. Back in 1999, the UN helped find his father a job as boiler operator at Visoko’s main cinema. But Jasmin is now too sick to work. Private “donors” who seized on the occasion of Adnan’s birth to gain a bit of publicity promised money to help buy the family a house—then gave less than half what they pledged. Even with 100 euros per month committed by the City of Sarajevo to celebrate Adnan’s birth, the Nevics can’t afford to enroll him in organized soccer.
Each year on his birthday, friends, family and the occasional government official stop by to wish Adnan happy returns. “They stroke my head,” he tells Maclean’s, “and then they disappear.” This October, the UN Population Fund plans to mark the next billion-person milestone with an international campaign around themes like poverty reduction and educating girls. It will not, however, include the ceremonial designation of a seven-billionth person, say officials, and that’s probably just as well. The measure of humanity, after all, lies not in the number of people we can cram onto the face of the planet, but how we treat the ones already here.
|
Jonah, I agree with you on the general tin-ear of Romney. He’s extremely un-nimble on the stump, which means that Republicans will be gambling that he can be sufficiently insulated and managed across the finish line without offering up any campaign-detonating hostage to fortune.
But, beyond that, I’m less sanguine about the underlying worldview that “I’m not concerned about the very poor” betrays. Romney:
We will hear from the Democrat party, “the plight of the poor,” and there’s no question, it’s not good being poor. . . . We have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it, but we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.
Advertisement
The Pundette responds:
I know Romney gives generously to charity but what a cold fish he is… A conservative candidate would talk about increasing opportunity for the very poor, about lessening the need for food stamps and housing vouchers by reducing government and invigorating the economy, rather than touting the awesomeness of our massive, dependency-inducing welfare state and suggesting it might need some beefing up.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Romney’s is a benevolent patrician’s view of society: The poor are incorrigible, but let’s add a couple more groats to their food stamps and housing vouchers, and they’ll stay quiet. Aside from the fact that that kind of thinking has led the western world to near terminal insolvency, for a candidate whose platitudinous balderdash of a stump speech purports to believe in the most Americanly American America that any American has ever Americanized over, it’s as dismal a vision of permanent trans-generational poverty as any Marxist community organizer with a cozy sinecure on the Acorn board would come up with.
After half-a-century of evidence, what sort of “conservative” offers the poor the Even Greater Society? I don’t know how “electable” Mitt is, but, even if he is, the greater danger, given the emptiness of his campaign to date, is that he’ll be elected with no real mandate for the course correction the Brokest Nation in History urgently needs. In last Monday’s debate, Newt said he wasn’t interested in going to Washington to “manage the decline”. Mitt’s just told us that he’s happy to “manage the decline” for the poor – but who knows who else?
|
Updated at 1.20pm
A THREE HOUR train strike led to significant problems across the country’s travel network this morning.
Irish Rail is not currently reporting any delays to evening services.
The stoppage ended at 9am, but commuters face another day of headaches if a dispute between drivers and management isn’t resolved.
Drivers have served notice on the company that they will carry out the same action – striking between 6am and 9am on a Friday – two weeks from today on 6 November.
The strike
All rail services – DART, Commuter and Intercity – were affected by the rush-hour strike, which began at 6am after late-night talks between Irish Rail management, Siptu and the NBRU failed to resolve the dispute over drivers’ claims for compensation for past productivity measures.
Bus Éireann provided some additional capacity and Dublin Bus sent its full fleet out.
Traffic volumes were up significantly on most routes however. Problems in Dublin city were compounded by a number of crashes, including one on the south quays. The city-bound bore of the Port Tunnel was also closed for a period due to a broken-down truck.
Heavier than usual traffic on and around the quays in Dublin as train strike begins. pic.twitter.com/rc8Q1vMKXk — Daragh Brophy (@DaraghBroph) October 23, 2015 Source: Daragh Brophy /Twitter
Refund arrangements
Online customers who were booked to travel during the hours of disruption can use their tickets on any of the following services and no surcharge will apply, Irish Rail says.
Friday 23rd October, at a later time.
Saturday 24th October, at any time.
Or they may submit their ticket for a full refund.
Updated service information is available on www.irishrail.ie.
|
Since last April the stock of Sigma Labs Inc (OTCMKTS:SGLB, SGLB message board) has been largely going in only one direction – down. The situation got even worse during the last couple of months with the stock registering new 52-week lows almost daily. Yesterday the negative momentum picked up even more speed and SGLB crashed by more than 17% closing the session at $0.043. The 5.5 million shares that changed hands surpassed the 30-day average for the company by nearly 5 times. Compared to its high of around 18 cents so far the ticker has wiped 77% of its value.
The depressing performance can be attributed to the fact that in 2014 SGLB decided to move away from consulting and focus more on their product offering. The transition has resulted in significantly worse financial results. The latest quarterly report covers the period ending September 30, 2014, and contains the following:
$3.7 million cash
$3.8 million total current assets
$143 thousand total current liabilities
$92 445 thousand total revenue
$539 thousand net loss
As you can see the numbers are far better than what can be found in the balance sheet of the typical pennystock venture. Still, investors were far from pleased to see the drastic increase of SGLB’s net loss – for the nine month period during 2013 they reported a net loss of $504 thousand while for the same period in 2014 they incurred a net loss of $2.8 million.
Recently the company has been able to announce some positive news. They launched their PrintRite3D INSPECT quality assurance software and expected to start generating revenue from it during the fourth quarter of 2014. In fact, in a recent PR SGLB announced that on a preliminary basis they expect the revenue for the quarter to be $200 thousand.
In November Sigma received a contract from Honeywell Aerospace as part of a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Phase II award. The contract is expected to continue until mid-2016 with a total value of $500 thousand. More recently, on January 15, SGLB were granted their first contract also worth around $500 thousand from GE Aviation. Before the end of the first quarter of 2015 SGLB’s second product - PrintRite3D® DEFORM, should be launched.
Will this be enough to stop the devastating slide of their stock though? So far the answer is far from positive. Investors should also keep in mind that as of November 12, 2014, SGLB had 618 million outstanding shares out of the 750 million authorized. On December 22 the S-3 registration statement was declared effective and now the company has the right to sell up to $100 million of its common stock, preferred stock, debt securities, warrants and units. The issuance of more shares could easily demand an increase of the authorized amount.
SGLB have a lot going for them but the risks around the company should not be underestimated. Do extensive due diligence and plan your trades carefully.
|
Photo: The flogging of Raif Badawi has sparked public outcry around the world. © Aleksandra Zielińska
Tomorrow marks eight weeks since the Saudi Arabian authorities publicly flogged the blogger and activist Raif Badawi, sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for “insulting Islam” and founding an online forum for political debate.
After his first session of 50 lashes in front of a mosque in Jeddah on 9 January, a doctor advised prison authorities that his wounds had not healed sufficiently for him to undergo the second round of this brutal punishment.
The following Friday, while a medical committee had advised that Raif Badawi should not be flogged because of high blood pressure, another prison doctor insisted that there was nothing wrong with him and that he should be flogged. Then, for five consecutive weeks the Friday floggings were not carried out for reasons that remain unknown. It is anybody’s guess whether the next part of his sentence will be carried out tomorrow.
Raif Badawi has made headlines around the world. But his case is just the tip of the iceberg for the Gulf Kingdom’s appalling human rights record. Here are 10 sobering facts from Amnesty International’s research:
Cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments Saudi Arabia’s courts continue to impose sentences of flogging as punishment for many offences, often following unfair trials. Besides Raif Badawi, in the past two years the human rights defenders Mikhlif bin Daham al-Shammari and Omar al-Sa’id were sentenced to 200 and 300 lashes, respectively, and Filipino domestic worker Ruth Cosrojas was sentenced to 300. Amputations and cross-amputations are also carried out as punishment for some crimes. Spike in executions Saudi Arabia is among the world’s top executioners, with dozens of people being put to death annually, many in public beheadings. So far this year 40 people have been executed – almost four times the equivalent number for this time last year. Crackdown on activists Besides Raif Badawi, dozens more outspoken activists remain behind bars, simply for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. The authorities have targeted the small but vocal community of human rights defenders, including by using anti-terrorism laws to suppress their peaceful actions to expose and address human rights violations. No space for dissent All public gatherings, including demonstrations, remain prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those who defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as “inciting people against the authorities”. Systematic discrimination against women Women and girls remain subject to discrimination in law and practice, with laws that subordinate their status to men, particularly in relation to family matters such as marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. Women who supported a campaign against a de facto ban on women drivers face the threat of arrest and other harassment and intimidation. Routine torture in custody Former detainees, trial defendants and others have told Amnesty International that the security forces’ use of torture and other ill-treatment remains common and widespread, and that those responsible are never brought to justice. Arbitrary arrests and detentions Scores of people have been arrested and detained in pre-trial detention for six months or more, which breaches the Kingdom’s own criminal codes. Detainees are frequently held incommunicado during their interrogation and denied access to their lawyers. Some human rights activists have been detained without charge or trial for more than two years. Entrenched religious discrimination Members of the Kingdom’s Shi’a minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face entrenched discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Shi’a activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Mass deportation of migrant workers According to the Interior Ministry, a crackdown on irregular foreign migrant workers in November 2013 led to the deportation of more than 370,000 people. Some 18,000 were still being detained last March. Thousands of people were summarily returned to Somalia, Yemen or other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses. What happens in the Kingdom, stays in the Kingdom The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organizations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact us.
Take Action: Five ways you can help Raif Badawi
|
He sees the global West, led by the US, Britain, and Nato, as guilty of unprovoked aggression against Russia. He supports the separatist movement in east Ukraine, but repeats the Kremlin’s (long debunked) line that there is “no proof” of Russian involvement in the war there.
And he harbours a near-religious veneration for the Second World War as the foundation of a sense of Russian exceptionalism – the nearest thing contemporary Russia has to an official state ideology.
A sign of just how far the convergence of hawkish public ideology with football terrace nationalism came after the now infamous assault on England fans in Marseille Old Port and Velodrome stadium in June.
The discipline, brutality, and obvious preparation of those attacks provoked outrage in Britain, but barely disguised glee amongst some Russian officials in Moscow.
Mr Khuslyutdinov says this was pure political opportunism, rather than evidence of collusion between hooligans and the state.
“They were just saying what the broad electorate wanted to hear. With the exception of Vladimir Putin’s personal rating, these officials have basically no popularity. So allegedly supporting us is a way of showing they are in tune with the public mood,” he said.
“Besides, the day before that Russian and English fans were on the same side fighting some of the French, and no one mentions that.”
And he vigorously rejects the suggestion that the Marseilles hooligans included soldiers sent by the Kremlin in an act of "hybrid warfare."
In fact, he claims, they were not even Russia's best hooligans.
“You have to make a distinction. There’s the kids and there’s real fighters, the osnova,” he says, using a word that roughly translates as “the base” or “foundation.”
This praetorian guard of Russian hooliganism is made up of older, more experienced men who train hard, seldom drink, and follow health and fitness regimes that make them the diametric opposite of “getting drunk and having a go.”
“These are the best fighters, the first line. They’re people who never run from a fight. But they stayed away because we expected a much more serious policing operation from the French, especially given the recent terror attacks there.”
To prove the point, he sketched a map of Marseilles' Old Port and described in detail how the Russian attackers missed an opportunity to outflank French riot police and failed to set a second ambush.
“I could see those mistakes immediately just by watching on TV, and no experienced fighters would have made them,” he said. “In Marseilles it was kids, youngsters.”
“If we’d known the policing would be so limp-wristed a lot of other guys would have gone, and it would have been a very different story.”
To illustrate the point, he pointed out a well-built but far from muscle-bound man strolling past the training ground. “He’s in the osnova. He once killed a man with one punch and did five years inside for it. Now, you can imagine what it would have been like if they were there.”
“The authorities don’t really know what attitude to have to us. We have a lot of people who just don’t like the system, they don’t recognise the state, its authority, or anything like that. And people like that cannot be ruled,” he said.
“On the one hand we’re useful to the government, because they can point at us and say ‘you see how terrible and violent and scary these people are? that’s why we need so many police!’”
“But at the same time, some people in power are very fearful that this ‘army’ could be turned against them.”
As a result, Russian police have pursued a no-nonsense crackdown on domestic hooliganism in recent years that has seen mass brawls mostly banished from stadiums and many hooligans jailed.
“That’s why there will be no trouble at the 2018 World Cup. We will be strongly repressed in advance,” said Mr Khuslyutdinov. “There will be no repeat of what we’ve seen in France. It’s impossible.”
|
Plus: The greatest director of his generation on who he considers his one true peer, which Oscar he thinks should be named after him—and whether he really will quit after his tenth movie
Quentin Tarantino lives up in the Hollywood Hills, in the same house he’s had since 1996, with a movie theater built into one wing of the house and a terrace with a swimming pool and an orange tree and a Planet of the Apes statue out back. That’s where he’s sitting one night in October, glass of red wine in hand, watching the sun go down. He’s still got to finish the sound mix and work on the colors, but his newest film, The Hateful Eight, is otherwise pretty much done. He shot it on 65-millimeter film, like Paul Thomas Anderson did with The Master, and then he had his studio buy up pretty much every existing 70-millimeter projector in the country so he could personally equip 100 theaters with them and show the movie the way he thinks it should be shown.
He describes The Hateful Eight as “a claustrophobic snow Western”—a chamber piece, like Reservoir Dogs or The Iceman Cometh, but set in the wintry post–Civil War 1800s. It’s about a bounty hunter (Kurt Russell) escorting a prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to justice, only to be diverted into Tarantino-land—a.k.a. a tavern of sorts called Minnie’s Haberdashery, which doesn’t sell hats—where six other men are waiting out a snowstorm, and nobody’s who they say they are. It also stars Sam Jackson and Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern; everyone wears giant furs. “I think it could be my best movie,” Tarantino says. “If not, at least in my top four.” Which is a hilarious qualifier, since he’s only made eight. People count Tarantino movies because he’s maintained for a while now that he’s only making ten. Maybe not even ten. “If film projection goes the way of the dodo bird, well, then, maybe I might not even get to ten,” he says.
He sounds weirdly at peace saying that—anticipating the end of the work he’s given his life to. He seems, frankly, weirdly at peace in general, holed up with his costume-designer girlfriend, every memorabilia-crammed room here like some exhibit in a future Tarantino museum, with a Charro! poster on the bathroom wall and a couple of muscle cars out front and a glittery view of the Valley’s fading light. He’s still the antic, emphatic, maniacally gesticulating guy of ’90s popular imagination, but he also turned 52 recently. “I tend to always think of myself as perpetually 35 or so,” Tarantino says. “So, you know, it’s a bit of a drag, in certain regards. And in other regards, I’ve really enjoyed it. I mean…a lot of shit that used to really be on my mind is kind of gone now.”
He sits up in his chair, tries to explain. “I’m over a whole lot of stuff,” he says. He places his finger at the precise center of the table we’re sitting at. “If the universe was this table, I’m right here where I wanted to be at this point in time, at this point in my life, at this point in my filmography. I’m right where I wanted to be.”
How did you spend your time off between Django and The Hateful Eight?
Quentin Tarantino: Usually, when I’m done, I want to spend two months on my couch. I want to just pretty much nail the door shut, fuck the phone, and just go to sleep whenever. I have a completely erratic sleeping schedule. I fall asleep whenever I want. I get up whenever I want. Just two months of just watching movies and doing cinema writing and just vegging out that way. And I start emerging and just start, you know, getting back into the swing of things of life.
The people in your life must want to murder you during that sleep-whenever-you-want phase.
One of the privileges you have of living the life of an artist and creating your own world and everything is the fact that, in-between times, you can kind of spend them however you want. Because, you know, once you open up your candy store again, you’re open for business. And you have to be responsible. You have to be available. But, you know, that in-between time, I get to really live the fun life of a graduate student.
The legend is that you wrote Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam with no phone. Are those the conditions you need to write?
No, I don’t need to go anywhere to write. It can be fun. I have a cell phone, and the only person who has the number is my girlfriend. Because I don’t need anyone to call me as I’m walking down the street or driving from hill to dale. You know, my landline is my phone. And so I unplug it, or I don’t listen to it for a while. I’m good. I’ll play some of the messages. I’ll hear them when they come in. Okay, fine.
And that doesn’t cause you anxiety?
No, no. My problem is the opposite. It causes me no anxiety whatsoever. A lot of people figure that’s my problem: I have no anxiety about shutting the world out at all.
How does something like The Hateful Eight emerge from that process?
I liked the idea of creating a new pop-culture, folkloric hero character that I created with Django, that I think’s gonna last for a long time. And I think as the generations go on and everything, you know, my hope is it can be a rite of passage for black fathers and their sons. Like, when are they old enough to watch Django Unchained? And when they get old enough—14 or 15 or something like that—then maybe it’s something that they do with their fathers, and it’s a cool thing. And then Django becomes their cowboy hero. And so I like the idea of maybe like a series of paperbacks coming out, Further Adventures of Django, and so I was really kind of into that idea. And then I started writing it as a book, as prose. And that’s what ended up turning into The Hateful Eight. The number one thing I had to do was get rid of Django. [laughs]
Django felt like a political turn for you.
You know, it was very political, as opposed to, say, Inglourious Basterds, which was not necessarily political. It’s a little bit more wish fulfillment. All right? Django is still a bit of wish fulfillment, but I was trying to show America itself, you know? Django was definitely the beginning of my political side, and I think Hateful Eight is the…logical extension and conclusion of that. I mean, when I say conclusion, I’m not saying I’ll never be political again, but, I mean, I think it’s like, in a weird way, Django was the question and Hateful Eight is the answer.
What do you mean by that?
Well, I mean, in the way of, like, talking about America’s culpability in their past is what _Django’_s about. The white supremacy that has existed since and that is rearing its ugly head again, to such a degree that it’s being dealt with by the Black Lives Matter movement and all that stuff, is where we are now. And that’s what The Hateful Eight deals with. The thing that was really wild is, I wasn’t trying to bend over backwards in any way, shape, or form to make it socially relevant. But once I finished the script, that’s when all the social relevancy started.
You’re referencing the fact that Hateful Eight is in part about the tension between Sam Jackson’s post–Civil War bounty hunter and the various Confederates and Confederate sons he faces off against in Minnie’s Haberdashery. Do you think you’re just reading patterns subconsciously, or is it a coincidence?
No, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think I was tapped into the Zeitgeist. That is the issue I was dealing with. All right? And now all of a sudden, it’s such a real issue that it’s now not under the surface anymore in American life, and people are having to deal with it.
Django came out at an interesting moment, when you also had Spielberg’s Lincoln, and then, a year later, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, in theaters, dealing with the same material.
There literally was a moment where Lincoln was playing in one theater in the multiplex and Django was playing in another one. Which was actually kind of fucking groovy.
I interviewed McQueen around the time his movie came out and asked him about Django, and he said, “I’m just happy to see black actors on-screen who actually get work.” That sounded like a shot to me.
Yeah, I’m sure it was.
What did you think of his movie?
I never saw it.
Is that because it was too close to what you were working on?
No, I just spent a year and a half in the antebellum South. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was go back. I was so not the audience for that movie, after I literally created the worst possible decade of the last 200 years and lived in it every single solitary day. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was visit it in any way, shape, or form. There’s no shade going toward his movie when it comes to that. I just didn’t want to subject myself. I was in a depression a bit. Even though it was my biggest success, I was in a depression for about nine months after the film came out, because I couldn’t really allow the pain and the misery that I was orchestrating to get into my inner fibers and those little pockets of your lungs, and it all got there when it was done.
Django made $425 million—what do you chalk that success up to?
People liked the movie. I mean, [laughs] I take a little bit of pride about the fact that Westerns aren’t supposed to work, black-lead movies aren’t supposed to work, and if they’re not supposed to work, slavery movies are really, really, really not supposed to work, and I made almost a half a billion dollars around the world and was actually even more of a success and greeted with more open arms in other countries. But ultimately, I think it was the movie. People just responded to the movie.
Do you have high expectations for the new one?
No. If anything, I have the opposite. It’s like, I’m hoping that my movie will do well, but it’s not the third in line to Inglourious Basterds and Django. It’s a different beast. And I love the fact that, like, people are so excited about it and they’re talking about it and everything at the end of the year, and it seems a little crazy that, like, my movie Hateful Eight, this claustrophobic snow Western, all right, that owes more to Iceman Cometh than anything else, you know, is being talked about at the end of the year in the same sentences as Star Wars. [laughs]
And presumably the Oscar conversation.
Well, that is understandable. I think we are a contender. We’ll see. But it is one of those weird things. Wow—have I gotten so popular that I can do weird-ass shit like this, and it actually is a commercial entity? Well, that remains to be seen. But if that’s the case, that would be fucking awesome.
How do you feel about going out and campaigning for Oscars?
Well, you know, it depends on what you call campaigning. Sitting down with every chucklehead that has a podcast, because, well, why not? Can’t hurt! No, I’m not going to do that. You know, but I’ll go to an event. I’ll go to a party. I’ll go to this screening. I’m happy to do that.
The real turnoff for lots of people is when their film doesn’t win.
I’ve felt that way a little bit on Inglourious Basterds. You know, it was like…I didn’t shamelessly promote Inglourious Basterds in any way, shape, or form. But I did what was asked of me. I did a genuine campaign, all right? And maybe I did a little too much. And yeah, we won Supporting Actor, but I was a little pissed off by the results. And I probably won’t ever do that much again.
Are you competitive as a director?
I’m not competitive as a director. But the thing about it is, if I win a third screenwriting Oscar, I will tie with Woody [Allen]. I can’t beat Woody until I tie with him.
But you want to beat him?
I want to have more original-screenplay Oscars than anybody who’s ever lived! So much, I want to have so many that—four is enough. And do it within ten films, all right, so that when I die, they rename the original-screenplay Oscar “the Quentin.” And everybody’s down with that.
Tarantino’s girlfriend emerges from the house: “You are insane. I just heard that. That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said.”
I just find it hard to believe that you’re down to see other people go up there and get Best Director.
I’m just telling you what I want. I want that third one. I want to tie Woody. All right? Look: When it’s your time, it’s your time. And actually, you can barely do anything to stop it from being your time. There’s almost nothing Danny Boyle could have done to stop the success of Slumdog Millionaire. There’s almost nothing that the Coen brothers could have done to stop the success of their Sherman’s March through Hollywood for No Country for Old Men. So if I end up getting lucky and having one of those ones, then all things will be taken care of.
You’re such a scholar of the medium. You know the history. No offense to Danny Boyle, but aren’t you like, “How the fuck is Danny Boyle winning Oscars when I’ve directed eight films?”
It’s whatever. You know, I don’t make Oscar kind of movies. So the fact that I’m invited to the party when I don’t—and I’m not saying he’s pandering, I mean, it was hardly pandering doing Slumdog Millionaire—but, you know, there’s no pandering to mine. I mean, actually, the idea of winning three screenplay Oscars, maybe four, all right, with only ten films, and never doing it for that purpose, only following my own muse—that’s about as great a testament to an artistic career as I can imagine. But I’m also keeping it in perspective, because I actually think, you know, Preston Sturges is maybe a better writer than all the guys who have ever won before, and he didn’t win shit. [Sturges did win once, for 1940’s The Great McGinty*—make of this slip what you will]*
EDITOR’S PICK
It surprised me that you reacted so angrily to the leak of the Hateful Eight script—you know you’re a good writer. So why sue Gawker over posting a link to it?
Well, it was a mistake to sue Gawker, and the mistake was—I was just pissed off at the time, and, like, “They can’t do that! Okay, let me sue them!” And it got kind of exciting for a second, because it looked like, you know, even though there was no precedent for it, it looked like it might be one of those things that could create a precedent. And that became very exciting. Well, it didn’t happen. So I dropped it. But I regret it now, because it actually took the spotlight off where I thought it deserved to be, which was on Hollywood practices of passing out stuff by artists’ representatives.
Did you sue Gawker before or after they posted about the girl who went on a date with you?
No, that [post] was before. I had no idea. If Gawker was involved—I don’t think Gawker was involved with that. I think they hired her after the fact. So I don’t think they were involved with her. But if they were, I wouldn’t even have known about it.
So it wasn’t about—
No, no. They’re putting my fucking script—there’s a copyright issue going on here, you know, and if the judge had saw it our way, maybe things would be different now. But they didn’t.
Ennio Morricone did the sound track for The Hateful Eight, but he also was in the news in 2013 for saying that you place music in your films “without coherence.”
I think he was talking to a class, and he was just saying that he didn’t care for my all-over-the-map approach in the case of Django and some of the other things that I’ve done and whatever. But it wasn’t necessarily a criticism of me, per se. It’s just not his cup of tea. I think it’s kind of a generational thing, and that I completely understand. He apologized. And he said nothing he needed to apologize about. He later clarified it, because it was blown out of proportion. Some asshole nimrod who wants some sort of power thing leaked it to whatever thingy so he can just have the fun of watching it in three hundred outlets. I felt [Morricone] was betrayed by that person. I knew that was where he was coming from! I knew that’s how he felt about my shit! It was nothing new to me. And almost in a generational way, he was left out to dry. He is such a great artist, he can say any fucking thing he wants.
Twenty years ago, would you have worked with that guy after he said something like that in public?
Well, people made a bigger deal out of it than what, you know…you know, there used to be a time where I could go to Austin and have my QT fest and sit there in front of the audience, in either a question-and-answer session about my own shit, or introducing some movie that I’m a big fan of that I’m talking about, and I could be honest and off the cuff and funny and profound and whatever, and complicated, and it was fine, because it was just for the people in that room. That world doesn’t really exist anymore, and that’s not Ennio’s fault.
Do you mourn that?
I mourn it terribly. Yeah. But where I’m coming from is they don’t deserve it. If the only way they can experience it is by filming it so they can put it online, then they don’t deserve my candor. They don’t deserve a special moment that we might be having amongst us. They don’t deserve it. And if that’s what they ultimately want, well, then, okay. I’ll clean up my act. [laughs]
You’re on film number eight. How could you plan to make only two more after this?
Hopefully it’s like I’m getting down to the tip of the arrowhead. I’m getting better and better. And that means I still have two more to go. All right? And two more to go is gonna be six years, at least. But we’ll see what happens. And, you know, if that tenth film is a stinker, well, maybe the plan goes into the house fan. You know, in shreds. But so far so good. And I love the idea of taking my vitality to its furthest point, and then stopping, leaving you wanting a little bit more. Not staying too long at the party. Not working with dulled senses. Not working with dulled intentions. Not working with compromised intentions—i.e., age, vitality, wealth, wife, kids, you know, all those kind of things that get in the way.
That seems like a bleak thing to say, that last part.
My filmography comes first. My artistic journey comes first. I’m not saying I can’t have kids. But the last two movies, can’t have kids, can’t have a wife, you know. That’s the deal. Now, now it’s not so scary. You know, conceivably, I could have a kid tomorrow, and by the time I’m done with a career, they’re six. And I have the whole rest of their life to dedicate myself one hundred and twenty percent. Well, not the rest of their life. The rest of my life. And if I have a kid two years from now or three years from now, then they’re age three or age four. Now I’m, boom, that guy. And that’s okay. But there is an excitement when you’re hanging on the next film of a director as they’re doing their climb to immortality. I felt that way about De Palma in the ’70s and the ’80s. I felt that way about Scorsese in the ’70s and the ’80s, and I felt that way about Spielberg in the ’70s and ’80s.
Who do you think is currently working at your level?
I think my real filmmaking peer is probably David O. Russell right now—i.e., his ability to write, the movies he does, and his relationship that he has with the actors that he likes to work with. And I think along with myself, I think he is the best actor’s director out there. And I feel he’s pushing it. I actually think, as terrific as Robert De Niro was in Silver Linings Playbook, I think his cameo in American Hustle is maybe the best work he’s done in the last seven years. It’s a small little thing, and he was a diamond bullet in it! He was perfect. And you would think, Oh, you never need to see De Niro ever play a mob guy again, but you never saw that guy. And that was a fucking cameo! But no one treated it like a cameo. And the fact that, like, they have that trust and that relationship is just such a lovely thing. I think [Russell] and Jennifer Lawrence are the closest thing we have to Bette Davis and William Wyler. I mean, it’s fucking exciting.
Can you still access the person that you were at the beginning of your career—the guy who went to jail for parking tickets and who’d never left Los Angeles?
Oh, very much so. I mean… [pause] I still touch base with that person all the time, and I still have their thoughts. I still have their perspectives. I mean, you know, the way the police are killing black males out there, unarmed black males, shooting them down, um…you know, it’s a different story for me now. All right? The police protect this house. And I need them to do that. And I want them to do that. If I have a problem here, if I think somebody jumped my fence and is fucking around on my property, I’m gonna call the cops. But I’m rich now. I’m rich and white now. All right? When I was in my twenties, I wasn’t rich. They looked at me, and they saw a criminal. They saw a scumbag. They saw someone to be fucked with. I went through a county-jail system four different times. I saw how the county sheriffs talk to you when you’re down there. I saw what it’s like when you have absolutely no power and you’re on the wrong side of the social strata, and what they think of you, and the judgments they make of you. I see that, and I see that now. So when I watch this stuff, I say, “God, shit, that, you know, that could have been me in 1984. That could have been me in 1986.” Now, I have white skin and they have black skin, and that’s a huge difference.
Back in the ’90s, you used to approach the press cycle like an actor would, and you became famous in your own right. Did you later regret that decision?
I joke I’m not really that famous, I’m just that recognizable. If you know what I look like, you’re gonna know me when you see me. But no—I wanted me to be enough when I’m making a movie. I didn’t want to have to go and get a star who respected my movies. I wanted to be enough to get it made, and if I get a star, well, that’s all great. Okay, now we’re talking Hitchcock and Cary Grant. Awesome! All right? But, you know, Hitchcock and Farley Granger is okay, too.
So many people in your industry have early success and then burn out. How did that not happen to you?
I worked too long to be here. I mean, I had such incredible good luck and fortune to make Pulp Fiction and just, in this weird pocket of time, that it could be appreciated for what it was. If I’m gonna fuck that up, I don’t really deserve to have any of this. But I was never afraid of the burnout scenario that you described. I was more afraid of like—I didn’t want to open up a shingle and a shop and now I’m a factory. You know, I do my movie that I do every two or three years, but then I produce a bunch of stuff, and my name’s always out there, Quentin Tarantino Presents this movie, that movie, and I’m rewriting this, because they’re paying me a lot of money, I do a two-week dialogue polish on Transformers 3, this and that and the other, and I keep making money and money and money, and I’m, like, you know, giving my special magic well water away to these people—and now all of a sudden my name doesn’t mean jack fucking shit.
Have you seen The Wolfpack, the documentary about the kids who love and reenact your films?
Yes, I have. Those kids are fucking awesome, man. I think they’re fantastic. And, like, you know, and literally, watching acting out the scenes, that was so entertaining and lovely and glorious. But watching them writing the script, i.e. just jotting it down, but the way they talk about it, it’s as if they wrote it. “I’m working on the script. I’m writing the script.” And I know exactly what they mean! I got it. Watching the kid writing the dialogue down word for word on a yellow legal pad was fucking fantastic.
There’s still a lot of random Tarantino floating around in the culture in 2015—whether it be in film dialogue or nonlinear storytelling or the basic eternal persistence of the Reservoir Dogs suits. Where do you most encounter your work or your influence in the wild?
In the ’90s, from like ’97 through ’99 or 2000 or something like that, it would be going in young people’s apartments and seeing the Pulp Fiction poster up, or seeing the head shot from Pulp Fiction, which is Jules and Vincent pointing their guns. Or seeing their cinder-block used-video library—you know, that they bought for $9.99 from the local video store—and they have Godfather 1, they have Godfather 2, they have Scarface. And then they have Reservoir Dogs and they have Pulp Fiction.
|
The Scariest Graph I've Seen Recently
Everyone knows Moore's Law: the number of transistors on a chip doubles every couple of years. We can take the process roadmap for Intel, TSMC or GF and pretty much see what the densities we will get will be when 20/22nm, 14nm and 10nm arrive. Yes the numbers are on track.But I have always pointed out that this is not what drives the semiconductor industry. It is much better to look at Moore's Law the other way around, namely that the cost of any given functionality implemented in semiconductors halves every couple of years. It is this which has meant that you can buy (or even your kid can buy) a 3D graphics console that contains graphics way beyond what would have cost you millions of dollars 20 years ago in a state of the art flight simulator.But look at this graph:This shows the cost for a given piece of functionality (namely a million gates) in the current process generation and looking out to 20nm and 14nm. It is flat (actually perhaps getting worse). This might not matter too much for Intel's server business since those have such high margins that they can probably live with a price that doesn't come down as much as it has done historically. And they can make real money by putting more and more onto a chip. But it is terrible for businesses like mobile computing that don't live on the bleeding edge of the maximum number of transistors on a chip. If you are not filling up your 28nm die and a 20nm die costs just the same (and is much harder to design) why bother? Just design a bigger 28nm die (there may be some power savings but even that is dubious since leakage is typically an increasing challenge).If this graph remains the case, then Moore's Law carries on in the technical sense that you can put twice as many transistors on your chip if you can think of something clever to do with them and can find a way to keep enough of them powered on. But it means there is no longer an economic driver to move to a new process unless you have run out of space on the old one.Since EDA mostly makes money on designs in new processes (because they need new tools which can be sold at a premium) this is bad for EDA. It actually doesn't make money on the first few designs coming through a new process because there is so much corresponding engineering to be done. But if the mainstream never moves, the cash-cow aspect of selling EDA tools to the mainstream won't happen. And just like there is no business selling "microprocessor design tools" since there are too few groups who would buy them and their needs are too different, there might never be a big enough market for "14nm design tools" to justify the investment.So that's why this is the scariest graph in EDA.
|
The title is not something I just made up for attention. It is straight from the child abusing mouth of Zach Rosenberg, to and about his four year old son, now gracing the pages of the post-Matlack version of the Good Men Project. The unfortunate youngster had informed his father that he had tried to kiss a girl at school, and that the girl didn’t like it.
Rosenberg told him that the attempted kiss was rape.
As most of you who follow my writing know, I am a pacifist. I can think of very, very few situations in life, almost none, where I think violence is an answer.
Zach Rosenberg almost tested that today.
What kind of father tells his four year old son that trying to kiss a girl is rape? Take that back, what kind of human being does it? I have literally hundreds of adjectives that come to mind, none of which I will bother sharing here. Besides, I hope that I cannot compete with what you are now thinking yourself.
The real question here is not what kind of human being Zach Rosenberg is. We don’t even need to ask because he tells us himself in the article, when he discloses that he is more comfortable talking to his son about rape than he is sex.
◊◊◊
There was a twenty minute pause before I starting typing this part of my commentary. That is a rarity for me. I typically form what I want to say in my head it flows out pretty evenly. I have spent more time mentally stuttering on this one than writing. I am simply at a loss on what to say.
I will start with the obvious. Zach Rosenberg is a child abuser. Let me say that again in a headline tag so it will Google all the better.
Zach Rosenberg is a child abuser.
And the abuse he is delivering is sexual, because the sexual shaming of children is sexual abuse. He is so ideologically driven that he is uncomfortable talking with his son about healthy sexuality, but has no problem calling him a rapist as he sits at the dinner table. He has taken the innocence of childhood and criminalized it in the mind of his own child. He has taken his son’s normal sense of curiosity and desire to express affection and twisted it into a sex crime.
His son, courtesy of a really fucked-up father, has now internalized the word rape into his personal identity.
That is the thing about childhood, especially at that age. Children see their parents in the light of gods. They are the providers and protectors. They are the teachers and the all-important mirrors of their children’s identity. This is why what parents say to children about who and what they are is so goddam important. They internalize it. They become it.
To a four year old, parents are often infallible. If Dad says you raped someone, you did. Even if you don’t know what the word really means.
In Zach Rosenberg’s narcissistic need to create a Mini-Me of gender ideology, or perhaps just a cheap and base desire to appeal to female readers whose approval he craves, he has sacrificed his four year old boy. Rosenberg has taken what at worst is a common opportunity to teach a boundaries lesson to a child, and turned it into something vile.
◊◊◊
OK, I have just spent a few more moments stuttering again, struggling for what else to say. I find that I have nothing. I never want to think about this motherfucking child abusing asshole again for as long as I live.
I will instead close with a note to Lisa Hickey. You know this shit is wrong. Shame on you.
Oh, and one more thing. Some day Zach Rosenberg’s son will get old enough to read this. Hopefully by then he will have figured out that it was his father, not him, that is so fucked up.
Note: This article is also available in Spanish.
|
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption David Sillito explores how Lowry was influenced by his surroundings
The works of LS Lowry will continue to divide opinion within the art establishment, predicts the co-curator of a major new Tate exhibition.
"He became a football in a certain kind of culture wars - and I think that will go on being the case," said Professor Tim Clark.
Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life opens at Tate Britain on Wednesday.
The show is the first to be held by a public institution in London since Lowry's death in 1976.
Born in 1887, Lowry is best known for his paintings of the industrial landscapes of the north of England.
Many works depict the factories and terraced houses - and their working class inhabitants - around Salford and Pendlebury where Lowry lived and worked.
"He is not an artist who fits into the Home Counties, Eton and Oxbridge view of England and Englishness," said Professor Clark, speaking at a preview of the Tate show on Monday.
Image caption Two of Lowry's Industrial Landscape paintings from the 1950s on display at Tate Britain
"He is not a subscriber to the cult of the countryside, country manors or the ambiguity or fatality of Empire. His subject is industry and the form of life that it made.
"It puts him outside things - it makes him very hard for the actual cultural elite of England to take seriously."
The exhibition, co-curated by art historians Clark and Anne Wagner of the University of California, features more than 90 works - including loans from public and private lenders.
Highlights include Ancoats Hospital Outpatients Hall (1952), painted in the early years of the NHS, and The Cripples (1949), which shows people disabled by war and illness.
The paintings include the Tate's own Coming Out of School (1927), The Pond (1950), Industrial Landscape (1955) and Hillside in Wales (1962).
LS Lowry 1887-1976 LS Lowry is known for his paintings of the industrial landscapes of the north of England.
Lowry was born in Stretford, Manchester on 1 November, 1887 to middle class parents.
On leaving school in 1904, he began work in Manchester as a clerk with a firm of chartered accountants, studying painting and drawing in the evenings.
In 1910 he became a rent collector and clerk with the Pall Mall Property Company in Manchester; he remained a full-time employee and eventually chief cashier until his retirement in 1952.
He drew inspiration from his surroundings, particularly Pendlebury, near Manchester, where he lived from 1909 to 1948.
From 1948 until his death he lived in the same small, unmodernised house in Cheshire.
Lowry died on 23 February 1976, aged 88, at Woods Hospital, Glossop, following an attack of pneumonia.
In September 1976, the largest exhibition of Lowry's work to date took place at the Royal Academy. Your Paintings - LS Lowry
The Lowry exhibition comes after critics from the art world called on Tate to show its collection of paintings or put them up for sale.
Some had questioned whether the gallery on London's Millbank had purposely not shown the Manchester artist's work because he was "too northern".
Speaking on Monday, Tate Britain director Penelope Curtis said the Lowry exhibition was for "believers and also for cynics".
"What we'd like to think is this show will delight people who love Lowry, but also open the eyes to those who thought that Lowry was not part of mainstream painting," she said.
The exhibition also explores Lowry's connections with French art and shows his work alongside French-themed paintings of Vincent van Gogh and Camille Pissarro.
The French impressionist, Adolphe Valette, taught Lowry in Manchester for many years.
Lowry's works online Watch a slideshow of L.S. Lowry's works, and discover more about this intriguing artist at BBC Your Paintings
"The myth says Lowry's an isolated weirdo completely off on his own," said Professor Clark. "Actually he very early on decided he was more likely to get sympathetic attention in Paris than in London."
He added: "Lowry's a very English artist indeed, but in order to have the confidence to take on the industrial scene he built on his understanding of the French painting of modern life."
Hidden painting
The Tate revealed on Monday that a little-known painting on the back of another work at the exhibition shed new light on the way Lowry would revisit and refine his favourite scenes over the years.
The unnamed painting on the wooden panel behind The Mission Room (1937) is an earlier version of two works featured in the exhibition: Our Town (1941) and A Town Square (1928).
"What this tells us is that Lowry was perfecting and developing his compositions with great care," Professor Wagner told the BBC.
"He is possessed with certain compositions throughout the years - he can't get them out of his mind. It's not that he had a paucity of invention, but that these are the works he wants to depict."
Image caption The Pond (left) is one of Lowry's large urban panoramas on display
The final room of the exhibition brings together, for the first time, seven large-scale panoramas of northern industrial landscapes and the Welsh mining valleys.
"They represent a step up in style and a move forward to a deliberate effort to lay hold of this stage industrial society as it was passing away," said Professor Clark.
"The paintings do have a valedictory, memorialising tone, though I don't think they are relentlessly glum and gloomy," he added.
Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life is at Tate Britain from 26 June - 20 October.
|
Movies are fantastic. They exfoliate all forms of emotions. For that short duration of time:
You are transported to a whole new world.
You are introduced to strangers.
You get sucked into their lives.
You travel along an epic journey with them.
You witness them in their most powerful states.
You witness them in their most vulnerable states.
You feel their strengths and burdens.
For that short time you forget about reality.
You go on your own fictional journey.
Then it ends.
All those feelings are torn off like umbilical cords. Sometimes you feel satisfied. You enjoyed your experience and you received closure. However, most of the time, you are left wanting more. There are still untraveled roads to traverse through. Questions remain unanswered. Will Astronaut Taylor ever escape this ape dominating post apocalyptic world? What more monstrous actions will Michael Corleone do as the new Godfather?
These questions will linger for a long time. After a while, all these emotional ties will be severed. You will move on. But then arrives that announcement you have been waiting for. The announcement of a SEQUEL. The journey continues. You have invested so much time in the previous adventure that you are fully prepared for the next one!
The only problem is that you have probably joined the most half ass trip of your life, filled with garbage, along with disrespect for your fellow ‘strangers’. Lets take a look at some examples to better avoid these torturous trips.
Continue reading →
|
OTTAWA — It might have seemed like a straightforward proposition at the time: tying the strands of securities regulators across this country into one federal body with a unified set of rules.
[np_storybar title=”Terence Corcoran: 70 thumbs down for new national securities regulator plans” link=”https://business.financialpost.com/2014/12/22/terence-corcoran-70-thumbs-down-for-new-national-securities-regulator-plans/”%5D
On Sept. 8, 2014, Finance Minister Joe Oliver and the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick (together with P.E.I.) issued consultation drafts of a Provincial Capital Markets Act (PCMA) and a federal Capital Markets Stability Act (CMSA) — which, together, create the legislative framework that underpins the proposed Co-operative Capital Markets Regulatory System (CCMRS) and creates the Capital Markets Regulatory Authority (CMRA).
If you think that’s a bummer of a title for a proposed National Securities Regulator, wait till you read the reviews. Not since Ishtar, the Golden Raspberry-winning film of 1987, has a piece of proposed legislation accumulated so much official negative critical reception in such a short period of time.
Continue reading.
[/np_storybar]
But Canada — now a respected member of the Group of 20 industrialized nations — has for decades fallen short of that goal, leaving it out of step with global peers who long ago established national oversight of their respective capital markets.
Despite piling on study after study — some dating back nearly 60 years — along with numerous false starts, Ottawa is still less than halfway to its goal of creating some form of federal watchdog here.
It could be said that the most recent attempt, with the Conservative government pushing in 2013 to create the yet-to-be-launched Cooperative Capital Markets Regulatory System, the concept has finally reached the critical mass of signatories necessary to legitimize its existence and move forward.
Even now, of the country’s 13 provinces and territories, only five — Ontario and British Columbia in 2013, and Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Prince Edwards Island in 2014 — are officially on board, while eight remain outside the framework. And of those, at least three — Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba — have vowed not to join.
The Cooperative System, nevertheless, is scheduled to be launched in mid-2015, although that may be an unrealistic deadline — regardless of how many jurisdictions sign up for it.
“These things take a ridiculous amount of time in Canada,” says Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa-based think-tank focusing on federal policy issues.
The Constitution Act of 1867, he says, “was supposed to tear down the barriers between the provinces, and here we are today with the provinces [only] saying, ‘we think we might make some progress on this’.”
“[But] I’m just delighted that we’ve made more progress in the last year than we probably made in the previous 60.”
For now, Canada’s landscape remains a patchwork of regulators — not the single securities blanket envisioned by Jim Flaherty, who was named finance minister when the Conservatives came to power in 2006 with unifying the capital markets system as one of their goals.
In fact, Ottawa had almost nothing to show for its efforts to create a national body until 2009.
We’ve made more progress in the last year than we probably made in the previous 60
That’s when the federal government — having watched dust collect on previous research documents and taken to heart a more recent set of recommendations by the so-called Expert Panel on Securities Regulation — turned up the heat on the provinces and territories, creating the Canadian Securities Transition Office, tasked with making the single national regulator a reality.
Trouble was, then as now, not all of the country’s 13 jurisdictions were ready or willing to be folded into a federal system. There was also a not-so-insignificant matter of the Constitution, which made it pretty clear the provinces had the overriding authority in these local matters.
Even so, Ottawa struck an advisory committee of the Transition Office to begin building a consensus on the shape and form of an overarching regulator.
But the process stalled again in 2011, after the Supreme Court of Canada, indeed, ruled the federal government lacked the constitutional authority to impose a national regulatory structure on the provinces and territories. Quebec and Alberta had argued in favour of such a ruling.
The high court did, however, acknowledge Ottawa’s role as the legitimate guardian over systemic market risks and also left open the option of pursuing a cooperative regulatory approach between the levels of government.
After allowing for some breathing space, Mr. Flaherty in 2013 unveiled a new version of a national regulator — this one taking the “cooperative” approach suggested by the court. Present for that Ottawa announcement were the finance ministers of Ontario and B.C., representing the first provinces to join the fledgling national regulator. They were followed by Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island the next year, when Joe Oliver replaced Mr. Flaherty as finance minister.
“What has surprised me is that this process hasn’t happened faster,” says Ian Russell, president and CEO of Investment Industry Association of Canada.
“After the agreement between Ontario and B.C. and the federal government, we would have expected Atlantic Canada to come in more quickly. What turned out to be the case, is we saw Saskatchewan come in and then we saw New Brunswick. And then it’s taken some time for other Atlantic provinces to come in . . . and we still don’t have Nova Scotia in yet. And no Newfoundland,” says Mr. Russell.
Saskatchewan and New Brunswick decided to join the Cooperative System after key changes were agreed to by participating parties. These included the creation of two regional deputy chief regulator positions — to be based in those two provinces — along with the previously agreed to regulator offices in Ontario and B.C. As well, two similar positions would be created should Alberta and Quebec decide to join in.
Prince Edward Island’s decision to sign on came after fixes to the cooperative agreement in August 2014 to emphasize “local economic development initiatives and it also emphasized regional representation,” says Steven Dowling, general counsel with PEI’s Consumer, Labour and Financial Services division of the Department of Environment, Labor and Justice.
“Specifically for PEI, that amended agreement outlined that there would be two additional regional deputy chief regulators,” he adds.
“And one of those deputy chief regulators will be representing New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia [should those two join] and PEI. You can expect that for all those participating jurisdictions will there will be regional representation for all the Atlantic Canadian provinces. That was a significant development.”
Mr. Oliver, the federal finance minister, says the Cooperative Regulator “will strengthen investor protection, provide more robust oversight of systemic risk, enhance efficiency, and bolster the reputation of our capital markets,” adding that the national regulator “will accomplish that while respecting regional interests and jurisdictions.”
“The door is open for every provinces and territories to participate. If they choose not to join at this time, they will have a constructive partner in the new Cooperative Regulator,” he adds.
“Discussions with provinces and territories interested in joining the Cooperative System are ongoing.”
So, where will the Cooperative System be a year now? Probably not much farther along than it is now.
The legislation to formally create the Cooperative System won’t be tabled in Parliament until sometime in early 2015 and implementation likely won’t happen until later.
First of all, the new regulator will still be under construction for much of the year — the necessary bureaucratic architecture needs to be formulated, accommodations found, staff hired, and a board of directors named and convened.
Some don’t see all of this completed until the end of 2015, or beyond.
“We have to get down to the brass tacks, which is really hammering this thing together into a viable organization. And you can’t do that without the board of directors and the board will play a very key role, beginning with appointing a CEO,” says Mr. Russell, at the Investment Industry Association of Canada.
“First of all, you’ve got the big job with the legislation and the regulations, but then you’ve got a very heavy task of trying to move out in building this thing,” he says. “The deadline for getting this up and running in the middle of 2015 . . . . It’s hard to believe that will happen. So, we’re obviously going to get slippage in deadlines.”
But, he adds, “hopefully, towards year-end next year, it might be going.”
Who will be next to join the Cooperative System, up and running or not? Five provinces may grow to six or seven in the coming year, with the likely addition of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The three territories still appear hesitant about the idea and determined to give it more study — and that could take them past 2015.
For sure, there will be no Alberta and no Manitoba, at least not in the next two or three years, depending on which way the local political winds blow, and — most certainly — no Quebec.
“We [have] made clear that Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba are not going to join the Cooperative Capital Markets Regulator,” Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao said after meeting with his provincial counterparts in Ottawa on Dec. 15.
“Those three provinces together account for almost 50% of capital markets activity in Canada. So, we cannot ignore that either,” he pointed out.
“Whatever happens we have no intention, of course, of putting up obstacles [to the Cooperative System].”
A spokesperson for Alberta Finance Minister Robin Campbell says that, “based on consultations with industry, it is clear that industry representatives in all three provinces do not support the [Cooperative System] initiative, preferring a provincially-led approach instead.”
“It is far better for everyone concerned that we are all on the same page,” says Kevin Zagara. “Our worry is that Ottawa will proceed without the support of two of the country’s largest markets, leaving us with a more fractured system than the one we have today.”
Manitoba’s view is similar to that of Quebec and Alberta.
“We’ve always supported the Passport system and will continue to do that,” says a spokesperson for Finance Minister Greg Dewar.
“This system remains one of the best and most respected in the world. In our consultations with representatives of Manitoba’s financial sector, they have expressed strong support for continuing to have a local securities regulator that is responsive to local needs.”
Meanwhile, other current outliers to Ottawa’s proposed Cooperative System are taking a wait-and-see stance on the debate.
Diana Whalen, Nova Scotia’s finance minister and treasury board head, says “the issue is what kind of influence am I going to have in the [cooperative] model and what kind of compensation am I going to get from the federal government for giving up the revenues . . . of securities regulators for the provinces.”
The securities industry in Nova Scotia is “almost universally in favour of what we’re doing right now,” she says. And that includes continuing with the “passport” system that allows domestic and foreign issuers approved in one jurisdiction to operate in other Canadian capital markets — all except Ontario, which did not sign the one-fits-all agreement but considers applicants on an individual basis.
“Right now, I don’t see a risk in us continuing to be part of the Passport system that has other large provinces — certainly Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta — standing in that group,” says Ms. Whalen.
“But in the bigger picture, we’re looking at keeping the door open.”
As for the three territories, “I think they’ll fall in as soon as the others do,” says Mr. Crowley, at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute.
Perhaps, but governments in northern Canada believe they have ongoing issues with the Cooperative System that need to be resolved before any can join up.
David Ramsay, the Northwest Territories’ Minister of Justice and Industry, Tourism and Investment, says “in particular, there’s no provision for a local office in the Northwest Territories in the MOA (memorandum of agreement), as there is for all the participating provinces.”
“We’ve had assurances in the past that there would continue to be a local office here in the NWT, but this has not been provided for in the MOA,” he argues.
“I have to underscore the willingness of our territory to be at the table, to work together to try to come to an agreement on all of the issues.”
The Macdonald-Laurier’s Mr. Crowley believes that “ultimately, we’ll get all the provinces and territories [in the Cooperative System], with the exception of Quebec and Alberta. I think Alberta one day will come in.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever get Quebec on board. But getting nine provinces — or even eight — and three territories . . . will be a huge advance from where we are now.”
In fact, Heather Zordel, a lawyer with Toronto law firm Cassels Brock who specializes in securities regulation, says “it’s not really necessary to push this down everybody’s throats.”
“It’s necessary to work with some of the people that want to work with it and try to get it up and running . . . . If you sit there and try to make it perfect before you launch, you’ll just never to get anywhere,” says Ms. Zordel, who worked with the earlier ground-setting Expert Panel on Securities Regulation.
“We would all agree that this is a work in progress. The main issue is just to get it launched and then we will go from there. A securities regulator will never be perfect. It’s always evolving and it evolves quickly. And that is why we need to have a body that will be able to move effectively, quickly on a go-forward basis for the next hundred years.”
“I’m very positive. It’s been 60 years in the making.”
Financial Post
gisfeld@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/gisfeld
Correction: The Canadian Securities Transition Office continues to assist in the establishment of a national cooperative securities regulator in Canada. Incorrect information appeared in Monday’s edition of the Financial Post.
|
If you were to throw ROM Manager, MetaMorph, Titanium Backup, and SetCPU into a blender with a dash of steroids, then the result would most definitely be ROM Toolbox from JRummy. Clearly this is a root only app, and it is probably the most beastly one that I've ever laid eyes on. All of the features encompassed by ROM Toolkit will blow your mind, just take a look at the feature list, taken directly from the Market listing:
ROM Settings: Access the ROM Manager with hundreds of zips to download & install
Install ROM from SD card
Check for ROM updates/patches
Backup/restore nandroid
Wipe data/cache/dalvik/battery stats Theme Settings: Change your battery icon (Beta)
Restart status-bar
Change system fonts for your entire device
Set your boot logo (for supported phones)
Manage Theme Chooser themes (CM7 themes) Application Management: Remove, Freeze, unfreeze, launch, backup, wipe data/cache for any System or Data app
Backup and restore your apps
Set app install location (apps-to-SD)
Batch install apps to either System or Data Performance Settings: Set CPU (max/min frequencies & scaling governor)
Apply CPU at boot
Change sysctl values to improve performance
Free system memory Start-Up Tasks: Zipalign system/data apps on each boot-up
Clear cache on each boot-up
Fix permissions on each boot-up
Run your own custom script each boot-up Quick Commands: Mount system read/write
Reboot, Fast Reboot, Reboot Recovery, Shutdown, Reboot Bootloader
Zipalign apks to optimize performance
Block ads shown from other apps
Remove or enable the boot animation Build Properties: Change the lcd density (screen resolution)
Change the call ring delay to ring faster when dialing out
Set the VM Heap size (performance increase)
Set any property in any .prop file Extra Tools: Use your camera led as a torch/light
Quickly access: Terrminal Emulator, Hidden settings menu, all System app settings
Show ROM info
That is a serious amount of features jammed packed into one app. To accompany all these features is an equally massive amount of screenshots showing them off:
|
Danish-headquartered decentralized exchange (DEX) OpenLedger has received seed funding to the tune of Dkr11 million (c.$1.6m) from a group of Chinese, American and European investors after a recent tour of blockchain and cryptocurrency events in the U.S., China and South Korea designed partly to sound out and attract potential crypto investors.
The Pandrup-based exchange operator up in the north of Denmark plans to use these proceeds to “start immediate production” on four major projects, which will be split equally between the initiatives.
The names in the frame are eDEV.one (EDEV, JOYY), a blockchain-based freelancing platform, GetGame (REALITY), a platform for gaming, Apptrade (APPX), which creates portfolios of apps and has been dubbed the ‘Wall Street of Apps’, and OCASH, a new BitShares token representing an ‘all-in one crypto’ debit card solution.
The announced slug of seed capital comes following an Asian-U.S. Tour initiated by the exchange operator after it attended blockchain conferences in New York, Seoul and Shanghai.
Among other outcomes from this globetrotting led by the exchange’s CEO Ronny Boesing was the forging of a partnership with the first public blockchain in China, ViewFin, as well as an agreement to have OBITS, the official currency of OpenLedger, listed on two Chinese exchanges based in Shanghai - SZZC and Lhang.
Add to that Chinese ICOs and their tokens are to be added to the OpenLedger's DEX, which is designed for high-speed transactions. To date some twenty Initial Token Offerings (ITOs), Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and their tokens are supported by OpenLedger’s ecosystem.
Investing In The Projects
ITOs for the above mentioned projects will be announced over the coming months, with funds raised from these crowdfunds being invested into the development of each project individually, while simultaneously allowing investors to participate.
At the end this month, OpenLedger intends to announce three individual sharedrop snapshots for OBITS holders who hold tokens related to eDEV.one, Getgame and OCASH. A sharedrop snapshot is where a picture of all Blockchain balances is taken at one specific time. In essence by holding an amount at that time, you are joining the sharedrop with it.
GetGame is claiming to offer “many different facets for both game creators and investors.” Its platform is based on “game-related ideas” with a focus on Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and any blockchain-based creations that can demonstrate a chance of success.
Before being accepted by the GetGame platform, each game must be validated, and agree to share 10% of their future revenue with GetGame ApS, and all its ITO token (REALITY and JOYY) holders.
Like Kickstarter, it is explained that each game can create their own profile where investors can start investing in games that they believe in.
“Each game will be given their own unique token that investors will be receiving in proportion to the sum invested. These tokens can be traded within the platform,” said Boesing.
eDEV.one is currently preparing for its pre-ICO stage this August with the platform slated to launch during the first quarter of 2018. Its mission is to help clients hire freelancers that suit the skills and requirements that are needed, while freelancers browse available jobs. Freelancers and clients agree on the terms of engagement, including the amount that a certain job is worth.
The eDEV.one ‘Escrow Milestone Payment System’ serves as a neutral third-party between freelancers and clients and is created on the base of a Smart contract.
OCASH, a new BitShares token that is currently held by early backers, plans to present what is claiming is the “first all-in-one debit card” at the end of next month, with its own customized app and website for people to sign up for the debit card.
It brings a major cards’ payment system to the OpenLedger and BitShares networks, thereby allowing token holders to use the world's only Stablecoins (SmartCoins) - including bitUSD, bitEUR, bitGBP, and Rubles - plus other OpenLedger tokens such as OBITS, bitcoin (BTC), and ethereum (ETH), to enable users to purchase items anywhere that accepts debit cards.
OCASH will be offered to all future ITO investors, with tokens expected to be available from early September 2017. Holders of OCASH will receive a monthly dividend based on a distribution model using “50% of the future revenues generated” according to Boesing.
Apptrade
Powered by the digital token APPX, OpenLedger's Apptrade, a start-up based in Santa Monica, California, and domiciled with an address in Denmark, creates portfolios, or groups, of apps, where if one of those apps becomes the next Instagram or Angry Birds, then the value of the portfolio rises. Well, that’s the theory.
“Each app portfolio is designed to ensure that every app included within it is supporting all the others through regularly scheduled updates, highly visible cross promotion, and a high standard of quality,” Boesing said.
He added: “App creators can launch a portfolio of their own, or join an existing portfolio, raising awareness and revenue for their applications.”
It is understood that OCASH’s new website is expected to be launched shortly and will provide additional information about the project.
|
Just as I love reading cookbooks I also love going into grocery stores frozen sections and looking at their prepackaged meals for ideas. I recently found a package of Polenta Provencale with Peas and Spinach in a Spicy Cream Sauce. I took a picture of the ingredients which included creme fraiche and cheese and set out to make my own. Not sure what it should have tasted like but it turned out delicious. This is not a low-fat meal by any means but if you have friends that think they couldn’t live without dairy this dish might change their mind!
I had made extra so I would have left overs for lunch but Hubby wasn’t going to let that happen. He has been craving Alfredo sauce for a long time and this definitely filled that void. I had this butterfly pasta for a while that the Little Vegan had really wanted to use so I opted for that instead of the polenta.
Notes:
*The little vegan liked the blended raw portion of the sauce and ate it over her pasta.
*If you don’t want the spice leave out the cayenne.
*As is the spice was very mellow, adding flavor rather than bite. If you want more of a bite add more but I would recommend doing it a little at a time.
*I would recommend sticking with garlic powder rather than fresh garlic for its subtle flavor.
Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cashew cream
1 roma tomato
1 tbs miso
2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/4 cup Braggs liquid aminos (tamari would work)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup diced sweet onion
1 carrot thinly sliced
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp or more of cayenne (optional)
1/2 cup diced red, yellow or orange bell pepper
1 cup frozen peas – defrosted
1 cup frozen spinach – defrosted
2 tbsp vegan butter
1 tbsp flour
1 lb pasta
Directions:
Put ingredients from cashew cream to Braggs in blender and blend until creamy. Set aside.
In a large frying pan saute onion, carrot, garlic, basil, thyme, salt and cayenne until carrot is tender and onion is translucent (about 10 minutes.)
Start water for pasta and cook once it is ready.
Add bell pepper, peas, spinach and butter to the onion mixture. Once butter has melted add flour and stir in gently as to not smash the peas. Cook for 10 minutes on medium-low. After 10 minutes reduce heat to low and add cashew cream mixture and stir gently until well blended. Once pasta is finished serve with sauce.
Like this recipe? Consider backing our Kickstarter. Click here.
|
Despite making progress on "bread and butter" issues, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said differences remain between Canada and the U.S. on a number of key chapters of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Speaking to reporters as the fifth round of negotiations concluded in Mexico City, the Toronto-area minister said "significant" sticking points include the U.S. push to change the rules of origin — which could be detrimental to the Canadian auto industry — and demands for a five-year sunset clause in the deal.
"There are some areas where some extreme proposals have been put forward, and these are proposals that we simply cannot agree to," she said, while adding the U.S. position of these contentious issues, which were introduced in earlier rounds of negotiations, are largely unchanged.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer issued a statement expressing similar pessimism Tuesday, saying he remains concerned with the "lack of headway" on some issues.
"Thus far, we have seen no evidence that Canada or Mexico are willing to seriously engage on provisions that will lead to a rebalanced agreement. Absent rebalancing, we will not reach a satisfactory result," he said in the statement.
When asked if Canadians should prepare for life without NAFTA, Freeland said Canada's position is to "hope for the best and prepare for the worst and Canada is prepared for every eventuality."
Freeland said the addition of a sunset clause would be redundant as there is already an exit mechanism — by simply giving six months' written notice — that any of the three countries could invoke to leave NAFTA. Indeed, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to do so on a number of occasions, although, despite the rhetoric, he has kept his negotiators at the table through successive rounds of talks.
For Canada, the sunset clause is one of its so-called "red lines," at least as it is currently written.
Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to reporters just before Question Period 2:03
"I've been married for 19 years, when my husband asked me to marry him he didn't say every five years we're going to check whether we want to get divorced or not. We don't think that's a good foundation for a lasting relationship," Freeland told reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons ahead of question period.
Canada is reluctant to plunge the partners into protracted talks every five years, which would add a generous dose of uncertainty to the continental economy.
Another area of disagreement is a U.S. proposal that would alter rules around autos. The Trump administration wants half of the content of all North American-built autos be produced in the United States and the broader, North American allotment to be increased to 85 per cent from 62.5 per cent. There is currently no rule governing U.S.-only production.
The U.S. also wants to expand an existing "tracing list" to demand more products — including all steel — originate in North America.
Trump has continually rallied against the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico and has proposed these stringent requirements to reverse the flow of work to the lower-wage jurisdiction and rebalance the country's large automotive trade deficit with its southern neighbour.
But the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group of car makers operating in the U.S., including GM and Ford, has warned such requirements are too onerous and would actually lead to further job loss as companies could simply move manufacturing offshore to China — use whatever parts they want — and then export the car back to the U.S. paying a relatively marginal tariff of just 2.5 per cent.
Freeland said both Canada and Mexico feel the plan is entirely unworkable, and would damage an already deeply integrated North American auto manufacturing market. "The net result would be negative for both of our countries," she said.
Much of the "good progress" achieved at the latest negotiations in Mexico were on areas highly technical in nature. She said the three parties agreed to provisions on anti-corruption and good regulatory practices, telecommunications, areas relating to sanitation, and customs and trade facilitation.
|
The title is specifically about CloudFront and Laravel, but for the most part, this will apply to most web applications behind a reverse-proxy of some sort, be it a CDN, load balancer, or some other proxy type.
What we'll cover here:
What changes when using a reverse-proxy on your application What your application needs to do to get around these issues How to use the TrustedProxy Laravel package to take care of the details for you in a Laravel Application
Applications behind a proxy
For the launch of https://course.shippingdocker.com, I put CloudFront in front of a Laravel application running inside of a Docker container.
I wanted CloudFront for a few reasons:
Primarily, I wanted to make use of AWS's free, auto-renewed SSL certificate. This frees me from paying for an SSL certificate and/or managing something like LetsEncrypt. Secondly, I was planning on using a t2.nano instance on AWS and wanted to save it some CPU cycles from serving static assets. These instances are tiny, and start eating away at its small number of given CPU credits when it hits just 2% of CPU usage. (Having the site be as speedy as possible for those overseas was also part of this decision).
So, imagine this setup - HTTPS connections are made to course.shippingdocker.com . CloudFront receives this HTTPS request, and then forwards it to my site runnning on an EC2 instance (the "origin server"). The EC2 instance is listening on port 80 for HTTP connections.
Since CloudFront won't forward to an IP address, we need to give it a hostname to use. We can use the EC2 instance's public DNS name - I used http://ec2-34-197-131-119.compute-1.amazonaws.com in the case of my server (try it out, that URL will work).
What your application sees
So, CloudFront is receiving an HTTPS request and decrypting it (terminating the SSL connection). It then sends the decrypted HTTP request to my server (the origin server) using the network address ec2-34-197-131-119.compute-1.amazonaws.com .
Laravel only sees that 2nd request, and thus assumes:
It's receiving requests over http:// instead of https:// , and thus will generate URI's with the the http:// scheme, including form submit URLs and redirect locations The domain name used and thus seen by the application is ec2-34-197-131-119.compute-1.amazonaws.com . Laravel will generate URL's with that domain by default.
Proxy Configuration
Most reverse-proxies (e.g. load balancers, CDNs) will add HTTP headers which can be used by your application to determine the correct information to use.
The important headers are:
Host header - even if the proxy reaches your site by an IP address or hostname such as ec2-34-197-131-119.compute-1.amazonaws.com , they can often still forward/set the original hostname in the Host header. In other words, we can tell CloudFront to forward the Host header, so our server sees domain course.shippingdocker.com instead of ec2-34-197-131-119.compute-1.amazonaws.com . X-Forwarded-For - set to the IP address of the original client (e.g. you, sitting in front of your computer), so the application knows the client's IP address. Otherwise it would only see the IP address of CloudFront. X-Forwarded-Proto - the scheme used by the original client ( https or http ) X-Forwarded-Port - the port used by the client to connect (80, 443 or anything else)
There are more, but those are the important ones.
With that information, we can move onto what we need to adjust to fix the situation.
CloudFront
Within CloudFront, we need to set a few things to get Laravel working properly.
There are two main places to make adjustments:
Cookie Whitelist Header Forwarding
Cookies
CloudFront and other CDNs typically strip out cookies, as cookies effect caching. They're effectively used as part of the cache key. If each persons cookie is unique (it will be!), then everyone effectively gets their own cached copy of what could be just one copy. That sucks, but it's a typical case for applications. CDNs most effectively cache static assets which don't have cookies.
Most cookies are used by Javascript libraries (GA and other marketing libraries) and thus don't need to be sent to your server in order for them to function.
However, Laravel needs at least 2 to function as you'd expect, but ideally 3. We need to set CloudFront to forward the following two:
laravel_session (or whatever you name the sessions, as that's configurable within Laravel) - this is what Laravel needs to identifier a user, even if sessions are stored on-server or in something like Redis XSRF-TOKEN - used to protect against cross site request forgery
This one is more optional but recommended:
remember_* - used for the "remember me" function on login. This is typically remember_web but can be other values. Whitelisting cookie names with a wildcard is supported in CloudFront.
Headers
CloudFront will set the X-Forwarded-For header, but will not forward the Host header nor send along the a X-Forwarded-Proto header (to say if the request is http or https ).
Furthermore, CloudFront, for some reason, won't set a X-Forwarded-Proto header, opting instead to use a custom header CloudFront-Forwarded-Proto .
So, we'll have CloudFront forward those two:
The Application (Laravel)
Finally, we need Laravel to use these headers so it can properly generate correct URI's and send redirect responses to the right place.
First and foremost, the easy part is setting the APP_URL environment variable. Set this to the URI you intend to use in the browser ( https://course.shippingdocker.com in my case).
Secondly, we need to tell Laravel to listen for the headers and adjust the application as needed.
The Symfony classes luckily do this for us by allowing us to set a "Trusted Proxy". If a proxy is trusted, Symfony will check for the X-Forwarded-* (and other) headers and adjust as needed.
To help with that, I created the TrustedProxy package.
There's basically just 3 steps with this package:
In the trustedproxy.php config file, set it to trust all proxies (since we don't know the IP address the CloudFront servers forwarding requests, we need to trust all proxies) Add the HTTP Middleware that the package uses to set the trusted proxy setting. All this does is tell the underlying Symfony HTTP Request object to recognize that a proxy is used Tell the trustedproxy.php config file what headers to expect. We can use the the default ones, except for the proto header, which we know is going to use the CloudFront-Forwarded-Proto header
That config file will look like this:
return [ 'proxies' => '*', # Trust all proxies 'headers' => [ \Illuminate\Http\Request::HEADER_FORWARDED => 'FORWARDED', \Illuminate\Http\Request::HEADER_CLIENT_IP => 'X_FORWARDED_FOR', \Illuminate\Http\Request::HEADER_CLIENT_HOST => 'X_FORWARDED_HOST', # \Illuminate\Http\Request::HEADER_CLIENT_PROTO => 'X_FORWARDED_PROTO', \Illuminate\Http\Request::HEADER_CLIENT_PROTO => 'X_FORWARDED_PORT', # 2. Adjust to CloudFront's header \Illuminate\Http\Request::HEADER_CLIENT_PROTO => 'CLOUDFRONT_FORWARDED_PROTO', ] ];
Note that we have the opportunity to set what $_SERVER['HTTP_*'] variables to use for each header-type. We'll change the PROTO header to expect the CloudFront header.
After all of this, the Laravel and underlying Symfony classes will correctly generate URI's and redirect locations!
|
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
MIKE BURKE: Interestingly, one of the more active relief efforts that we came across in the Rockaways was done by a group calling themselves Occupy Sandy Relief. And this is a group of—pretty much of alumni from Occupy Wall Street who started organizing really in the hours after the storm, about ways that just, you know, regular members of the community could help. And we talked to one organizer named Catherine Yeager. She lives in the Rockaways, and we talked to her outside of the—a restaurant called the Veggie Island, which had been transformed into a relief hub. And this is part of what she had to say.
CATHERINE YEAGER: My name is Catherine Yeager. I moved down to the Rockaway in March of this last year. I am good friends with Elizabeth Gilchrist, who owns Veggie Island. I have a bungalow down on 89th Street, and I was here for the entire hurricane. You know, it’s been a whirlwind. We’ve been trying as much as possible to organize things. We’ve been putting food out as much as possible. Lots of stuff has been coming in. And I just love Rockaway, and I want it back to where it was before the storm.
MIKE BURKE: So what’s happening behind you right now?
CATHERINE YEAGER: What’s happening behind me right now is basically we’re working with Sandy Relief and OWS. The people are bringing by the car loads in clothes, food, cans goods, diapers, batteries, flashlights, everything under the sun, you know, that we kind of need right now. And so, people are able to come up and sort of pick through the different things they need, be handed the things. We have warm food that we’re making all the time for people. And so, it’s really, essentially—I mean, we have cars that come in, and things are dropped off, and within 30 minutes it’s all gone. You know, I mean, it’s that desperate down here. People have literally lost everything.
Right now, the biggest issue that we need is generators, and we need pumps, because we can’t get the electricity turned back on until all of the basements are pumped out. And there’s still—if you walk Rockaway and you knock on any door, someone—every single door, someone is going to need help.
The water that came in is toxic, OK? We had water from the beach. I watched the waves that morning. They were already incredibly dirty. The bay and the ocean met every single part of Rockaway during the storm. There was at least two feet of flooding everywhere, sometimes up to six or seven feet of flooding, depending on where you lived. Everyone’s been affected, doesn’t matter who you are, doesn’t matter where you are. Every single person’s been affected. And so, a lot of right now is getting those basements pumped out, debris getting pulled out, you know, sweeping out huge chunks of just gunk and junk, and trying to figure out where it all goes. The boardwalk is destroyed. You know, I watched the boardwalk out my window come rushing down. The water level here got up to about five feet, and the winds were almost 20 miles per hour, so it looks like the ocean coming through this entire place. I watched cars rolling down the street. I mean, it was—it was scary. And out the window, you could see the fire. You could see this huge flame of fire coming from Breezy Point. And they really—I mean, there were, I think, 80 homes lost over there—and just devastated.
So, the last couple days have been very inspiring, because we’ve had so many people coming. People are starting to realize that Rockaway was hit as bad as it was hit, and they’re coming to start helping and starting to think about us a little bit more. So, we’ll see what happens. I don’t know when we’re going to get electricity back. I don’t know. A lot of the people’s homes are heated by baseboard heaters, and it’s just—this is salt water we’re talking about. So salt water is going to kill everything, you know? Anything, any kind of tools or cars or anything that runs on these different motors or electricity, when that salt water hits it, it’s destroyed, you know?
MIKE BURKE: Now, how are the relief efforts that are taking place here different from what we’re seeing with FEMA and the National Guard down the street?
CATHERINE YEAGER: FEMA down the street, from what I understand, is handing out pieces of paper that tell you to call a phone number to get help. Here, you come, and you get help immediately.
We’re going to start organizing and having people come down with their—we’re encouraging people who come down and want to do manpower help, bring your own cleaning supplies. Be your own self-sufficient cleaning person, so that we can start sending you to homes, and you just knock on the door, and you can go in, and you can start cleaning. You don’t have to come here and grab cleaning supplies. You’ve got your own to go out.
We’re going to start trying to put signs up at the ends of streets and do red flags, so that people can put red flags out if they do need help, so that we have a better idea of who’s doing things on their own, who’s OK, who’s not. You know what I mean? Because it’s hard. You walk around, and it’s just such devastation that you don’t even quite know where to start. And sometimes when it’s that overwhelming, you don’t quite know where to go.
FEMA is providing cellphone charging down there, but you’ve got to wait in line—I don’t know—for an hour to be able to get your cellphone plugged in, you know? Besides that, I don’t know what they’re doing. You know? I’ve seen some cleanup. There was definitely a lot of the boardwalk that’s been moved. But, you know, nothing that I would—I’m sure is happening on Wall Street or cleanup that’s happening in other parts of Manhattan, you know?
MIKE BURKE: Speaking of Wall Street, what is the connection with Occupy Wall Street and this relief effort?
CATHERINE YEAGER: Sandy Relief—basically, you know, Occupy Wall Street were one of the main people who started immediately knowing that Rockaway was the one that was the hardest hit. I was contacted pretty much immediately from friends of mine who are in Occupy Wall Street, like Bobby and Olivia Katz, you know, who contacted me and were reaching out and saying, “We want to bring Occupy down there. We want to help with the relief effort,” you know? And it’s—they’ve been the only ones that I—that have really helped, you know what I mean? And really been able to make real, tangible things that are going on right now.
We’ve been open since 8:00 this morning. We have been giving things away all day long. People are walking away with smiles on their faces. People are able to, you know, for one night be able to not be in a totally dark room, because they’ve gotten flashlights. You know, they have warm clothes for their children. They have clean diapers, you know. They’re going to actually be able to eat tonight.
MIKE BURKE: Amy, that was Catherine Yeager. I spoke to her in the Rockaways on Friday outside Veggie Island, which had been transformed into this really impressive relief hub. While we were there, there were several cars that came by. They were able to ask for specific items, and then volunteers would search the building. In one case, someone asked for baby food, which is something that FEMA and the National Guard did not have down the street. And they had a box of baby food. They were able to run it out to the car and give it to them, and they drove off with the baby food. It’s interesting. There was an article in Slate yesterday titled “Is Occupy Wall Street Outperforming the Red Cross in Hurricane Relief?”
AMY GOODMAN: Well, that’s an interesting question. We’re going to go to break, and when we come back, we’re going to Staten Island, where the Staten Island borough president has said, stop supporting the Red Cross. Stay with us.
|
Hawaiian term for individuals who are not descendants of the ethnic native Hawaiians or other Polynesians.
Haole (; Hawaiian [ˈhɔule])[1] is a Hawaiian term that refers to individuals who are not Native Hawaiian or Polynesian, usually white people. In Hawaii, the term has been used to describe any foreigner or anything else introduced to the Hawaiian islands of foreign origin.[2]
The origins of the word predate the 1778 arrival of Captain James Cook, as recorded in several chants stemming from antiquity. Its connotations have ranged from merely descriptive to invective, while today it is considered to be mildly pejorative.
History [ edit ]
Haole first became associated with the children of European immigrants in the early 1820s. It unified the self-identity of these Hawaii-born children whose parents were as much culturally different as they were similar.[3] With the first three generations of Haole playing key roles in the rise of the economic and political power shifts that have lasted through the current day,[4] Haole evolved into a term that was often used in contempt especially after the missionaries imposed strict rules prohibiting games, singing, and playing. It evolved further to racial meaning, replacing "malihini" (newcomer)[5] in addressing people of Caucasian descent who move to Hawaii from the U.S. mainland by the 1860s.[6] A 1906 phrase book sometimes translates it to "English (language)".[7]
Etymology [ edit ]
The 1865 Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language, compiled by Lorrin Andrews, shows the pronunciation as ha-o-le. A popular belief is that the word is properly written and pronounced as hāʻole, literally meaning "no breath," because foreigners did not know or use the honi (hongi in Māori), a Polynesian greeting by touching nose to nose and inhaling or essentially sharing each other's breaths, and so the foreigners were described as breathless. The implication is not only that foreigners are aloof and ignorant of local ways, but also literally have no spirit or life within.[8]
St. Chad Piianaia, a Hawaiian educated in England, said the word haole implies thief or robber (from hao, thief, and le, lazy).[8] In 1944 Hawaiian scholar Charles Kenn wrote, "In the primary and esoteric meaning, haole indicates a race that has no relation to one's own; an outsider, one who does not conform to the mores of the group; one that is void of the life element because of inattention to natural laws which make for the goodness in man. In its secondary meaning, haole ... implies a thief, a robber, one not to be trusted.... During the course of time, meanings of words change, and today, in a very general way, haole does not necessarily connote a negative thought.... The word has come to refer to one of Nordic descent, whether born in Hawaii or elsewhere."[8]
Native Hawaiian Professor Fred Beckley said, "The white people came to be known as ha-ole (without breath) because after they said their prayers, they did not breathe three times as was customary in ancient Hawaii."[8]
New findings have proven all of these theories to be incorrect. The earliest use of the word "haole" in the Hawaiian language was in the chant of Kūaliʻi; in which a pre-European voyager from the island of Oʻahu describes Kahiki, a term used for all lands outside Hawaiʻi:
Ua ʻike hoʻi au iā Kahiki He moku leo pāhaʻohaʻo wale Kahiki ʻAʻohe o Kahiki kanaka Hoʻokahi o Kahiki kanaka – he Haole
This roughly translates to:
I have seen Kahiki Kahiki is an island with a puzzling language Kahiki has no people Except for one kind—a foreign kind
In this chant, the word "haole" has no glottal stops or elongated vowels. The pronunciation of the word to mean "breathless" is conjecture and should be disregarded as myth, as there is absolutely no evidence of anyone using the word "hāʻole" prior to Western contact.[9]
Discrimination [ edit ]
In Hawaii's "Rainbow" ethnic melange of peoples, "Haole" is the slang word used to describe Caucasians, and by itself is not a racial slur and has no pejorative connotations. Many visitors are haole, and may be targeted by criminals, but this is because they are vulnerable tourists, not because they are haole. There are rumors that in Hawaii the last day of school is called "Kill Haole Day". According to this rumor, on this day, "local" (nonwhite) children beat up, bully, and harass the "haole" or "white" children in their school. Some residents say there is little to no evidence or documentation of incidents involving "Kill Haole Day" or of Caucasian students being assaulted on specific days. Other residents dispute this. Hawaii schools have responded by saying that they take the initiative to achieve tolerance, safety, compassion, and acceptance for all students.[10]
The word "Haole" is used as a racial slur or insult in incidents of harassment and physical assaults by Native Hawaiians and members of other "minority" (nonwhite) groups on white people in Hawaii—tourists as well as residents and military personnel.[11]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
|
An inquest has heard that Paul Rossington should receive Australia's highest bravery award. The officer in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Michael O'Keefe, said Mr Rossington should be recognised for his bravery with Australia's highest honour, the Cross of Valour. "He must have known that jumping out would most likely end with him losing his life," Mr O'Keefe said. Advocate assisting the Coroner Erika Mulligan said the evidence suggested the couple's deaths were a "tragic accident" and Ms Schroder was not intending to commit suicide. Mr Rossington, a paramedic, acted on instinct in attempting to save her. "He has not thought about his safety at all … that is certainly an act of bravery," Ms Mulligan said.
Paul Rossington and Kristen Schroder had been dating for about 10 months. The couple had been on an 11-day cruise of the South Pacific aboard the US-based Carnival Cruise's 12-deck Carnival Spirit liner with Ms Schroder's parents, siblings and their partners. Mr Rossington, a paramedic based in Barraba, 90 kilometres north of Tamworth, and Ms Schroder, a real estate agent, had a "turbulent relationship" and the cruise was seen as a "make or break" holiday, after which they would decide whether to stay together or break-up. Kristen and Paul Rossington. Credit:Facebook In a conversation with her sister, Ms Schroder said she had told Mr Rossington if he left her, she would kill herself, but there were no other indications she was suicidal.
The couple largely kept to themselves and didn't spend much time with Ms Schroder's family. They spent more than $2000 in the ship's onboard casinos, bars, restaurants and shops. Aron Dennis and Roxene Dennis, mother of Kristen Schroder, leave Glebe Coronor's Court. Credit:Christopher Pearce Mr O'Keefe said the couple had been seen arguing at dinner about an hour before they went overboard and Mr Rossington had stormed back to their fifth deck cabin, telling her to "go f--- yourself". Earlier that evening CCTV footage captured them having a "terse conversation" while playing a poker machine. Mr O'Keefe said lip reading experts were unable to determine what was said. The on-board swipe card system recorded Mr Rossington enter their cabin at 8.19pm. He apparently took off his shoes, clothes and underwear and got into bed. When Ms Schroder went back to the cabin she asked a steward to unlock the cabin's mini-bar fridge so she could stow a bottle of wine. The steward said he assumed Mr Rossington was asleep.
The ship docked at Circular Quay about 6.15am on May 9. By 10am the captain was told Mr Rossington and Ms Schroder hadn't disembarked. A sweep of the ship was completed by 11.20am and by 11.30am police were notified. The couple's personal items remained in their cabin, which was declared a crime scene. At 1.50pm crew reviewing the infrared footage saw two bodies go overboard from the proximity of the couple's cabin when the liner was 65 nautical miles due east of Crowdy Head and travelling at 22 nautical miles or 41 kilometres an hour. A search and rescue operation was launched but by this time the couple had been in the water for 16 hours. The inquest heard it was likely Ms Schroder had been rendered unconscious by hitting a railing before she entered the water and didn't surface. Mr O'Keefe said a consultant sea survival expert, Dr Paul Luckin, had opined Mr Rossington was probably seriously injured from jumping from a height of 19.35 metres into a one-metre-high swell in darkness and even if he wasn't, he would not have survived for very long. Mr Dillon addressed the families who attended the inquest, including 14 members of the extended Rossington clan, some who were dressed in Scottish kilts.
"It's a terrible price to pay but perhaps the loss of their lives will result in other people's lives not being lost in some way," Mr Dillon said. Mr Rossington's mother Christeen said she hoped her son's death "will see the introduction of safe cruise ship practices and protocols to reduce the risk of another tragedy occurring". Denise Minakowski, the director of shore-side operations for Carnival Australia told the inquest the company and other cruise line operators were committed to finding an effective "man overboard" alert system. "I think we're very close …. based on some of the trials we've had recently they've been much more successful than what we have had in the past," Ms Minakowski said. She said passengers are given a safety briefing upon embarkation and placards located around the ship instructed passengers to immediately contact crew in case of any emergency.
Mr Dillon told the families he was inclined to recommend passengers be given a specific safety briefing on what to do in the event of a man overboard. Mrs Rossington said her son had been a junior rugby league representative player with an easy-going nature. "Our son died as he lived – an honourable man," she said. Mr Dillon will hand down his findings on June 29.
|
Tufts University scientists have developed a silk-based bio-ink that could allow for printing tissues that could be loaded with pharmaceuticals, cytokines (for directing stem cell functions), and antibiotics (for controlling infections), for example, or used in biomedical implants and tissue engineering.
Current 3-D printing processes are limited to simple body parts such as bone. And most inks currently being developed for 3-D printing are made of thermoplastics, silicones, collagen, gelatin, or alginate, which have limits. For example, the temperatures, pH changes and crosslinking methods that may be required to toughen some of these materials can damage cells or other biological components that researchers would want to add to the inks.
To address these bio-ink limitations, Tufts Stern Family Professor of Engineering David L. Kaplan and associates combined silk proteins, which are biocompatible, and glycerol, a non-toxic sugar alcohol commonly found in food and pharmaceutical products. The resulting ink was clear, flexible, stable in water, and didn’t require any processing methods, such as high temperatures, that would limit its versatility.
The researchers reported their research findings in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.
Abstract of Polyol-Silk Bioink Formulations as Two-Part Room-Temperature Curable Materials for 3D Printing
Silk-based bioinks were developed for 2D and 3D printing. By incorporating nontoxic polyols into silk solutions, two-part formulations with self-curing features at room temperature were generated. By varying the formulations the crystallinity of the silk polymer matrix could be controlled to support printing in 2D and 3D formats interfaced with CAD geometry and with good feature resolution. The self-curing phenomenon was tuned and exploited in order to demonstrate the formation of both structural and support materials. Biocompatible aqueous protein inks for printing that avoid the need for chemical or photo initiators and that form aqueous-stable structures with good resolution at ambient temperatures provide useful options for biofunctionalization and a broad range of applications.
|
@cmb:
@dgcom: Any plans to get such patches easier in the future? As much as I like to hope, but I do not think this is the last one :( It depends on the issue. This one's difficult because it requires recompiling a slew of PBIs, which is very time consuming, and building an entire release. If it were as simple as "here's a file, copy this and you're fixed", we would have provided that file 24 hours ago. It's also not something that's exploitable in the common uses of the system and where people are using reasonable security practices. Spend a lot more time looking at your web servers, mail servers, etc. right now, and follow my recommendations in the post above.
I perfectly understand implications of this particular issue, and yes - it is not just a matter of replacing openssl executable… What I am saying is that recompiling everything is not very efficient. But, I guess, you know your product :)
As for "not something that's exploitable in the common uses" - my major concern is web UI, which I would think is exposed often for remote management and packages like stunnel, HAProxy, Squid... Whatever deals with SSL frontend in any way - shouldn't build system be smart enough to recompile only if dependencies changed?
I, personally, do not run anything, based on recent versions of openssl - except pfSense.
|
Preview: The Guild 3 – Guild things come to those who wait
Role Play Convention is more than just a popular hub for cosplayers, it’s becoming more and more of a final rehearsal for us to mentally prepare for gamescom. This time, additionally, we got the chance to lay eyes on gameplay material from the alpha of The Guild 3.
Places, everyone
Europe in the year 1400: The dark middle ages, once dominated by nobles and the clergy, came to an end and a new era begins: the age of free, prospering cities, trading and an open mind-set! One of the goals in the The Guild series is to create a family dynasty which can last for centuries. While the world around you and your dynasty rearranges itself time and time again – all non-player characters (NPCs) make their own decisions –, you have to prove your skills in artisan craftwork and trading, participate in social occasions and perfect your political schemes and malicious intrigues.
Starting the game we have to choose our dynasty. Male? Female? Name? Physique? We already know about that. But since The Guild 3 is a mix of strategy, economic simulation and life simulation, we’re allowed to further refine our character. Not just regarding voice, hair or clothes, but also our vocation, and if we wish so, our task. Because the makers of The Guild 3 actively opposed the idea of a campaign, this task bascially becomes our life goal. Become rich, become a famous lady-love, a well-known orator, noble, obtain a mansion or become a sovereign. The dark age told you to go big or go home, base goals are for plebs.
To achieve those goals you may choose between taking one of various paths. You can concentrate on economy, take the religious path or completely indulge in roleplaying. The so-called tasks accompany us through the game by giving us quests and are some kind of a mini campaign. Of course you might as well focus enitrely on the sandbox – choosing a task at the beginning of the game is totally optional. Besides your choice of task you may also settle a course for your career choice. For example, you may choose to specialize in craftsmanship, which won’t restrict you later on, since you have the option to specialize in any career you’d like to, thanks to the skill tree.
Incorporating a bit of roleplaying, you’re allowed to define the attributes of your first character. This covers strength, agility, charisma, courtesy and cleverness. You really want to bash stuff? Strength might not be amiss. You’re aiming for social goals? Charisma could help you out. To further enhance those attributes, one can find certain artifacts in game, which also fulfill other functions to easen the burden of your task.
|
Sitting down for the first time with reporters this year, House Republican Majority Leader Gerald McCormick accused the media of spending too much time talking about their guns-in-lots legislation.
The bill proposes to clear up confusion about whether guns are allowed in certain parks by removing local governments' power to ban guns in their parks. Here's transcript of the press conference with reporters and House Speaker Beth Harwell, Caucus Leader Glen Casada and Finance Committee Chairman Charles Sargent and McCormick.
Reporter: The guns-in-parks bill being amended, you're calling for a non-concurrence. Why is that?
Speaker Harwell: It was poorly drafted and it jeopardizes the entire bill.
Reporter: How so?
Harwell: It will put a fiscal note on it. We'll go back into Finance (Ways and Means Committee). I just feel it jeopardizes the entire bill.
Reporter: Do you think it makes it more likely the governor will veto it, the entire bill?
Harwell: I can't speak for the governor, you'd have to ask him that. But I would suspect that it would.
Reporter: What do you personally think of the idea though, of being able to carry guns in the Legislative Plaza and the Capitol?
Harwell: I think that should be a separate issue that we address in another bill.
Reporter: Why would it have had a fiscal note?
Harwell: All of the security that we have everywhere, it's not just the Capitol. If you read the bill, it's all the surrounding, all the buildings surrounding the Capitol are included. Obviously, it was not offered in a constructive fashion.
Reporter: So, the Supreme Court? Library and Archives?
Harwell: If you read the amendment, all of that is included.
Reporter: So the buildings across the street?
Harwell: Yes.
Reporter: Doesn't the security machines, wouldn't they detect that anyway?
Harwell: We'd have to have extra people down there probably to check and see if someone has a card on them, we'd have to verify the card is on the person. There's a lot of issues we would need to look at if we chose to go that route. Anything else?
Reporter: I just wanted to ask Chairman Casada, I think you said though, you think there is support within the caucus for this idea.
GOP Caucus Chairman Glen Casada: For the idea, that's exactly right. But when you have something that would, in essence, I think, set a real good chance of killing the bill, then all of the sudden, the mood is not to support it and to make sure we don't kill legislation that we have now.
Reporter: To continue on, you all have been in power for a number of years. Why hadn't you all done this previously?
Casada: We've been busy cutting taxes and growing the economy. This will come up, I guess, some day soon it will come up. But it just hasn't been a top priority for us. At least I speak for leadership.
House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick: I think it's of more interest to you guys, obviously than it is to us. (House leadership laughs.)
Reporter: Part of the point of the amendment, it appeared, was well, if we're going to do this across the state, shouldn't we do that here at home where we work?
McCormick: I think the point of the amendment was to kill the bill, is what the point of the amendment was. It wasn't to be constructive and to hold us accountable like the rest of the state. It was to kill the bill.
Casada: It was poorly written, I would submit to buttress Gerald's point. And I think it was intentionally poorly written to be vague and not precise and allow loopholes. And so, that's just not how we do business here.
Reporter: Of course, the critics of the bill itself say it's vague and it allows loopholes and has sort of arguments of you have a fake gun but not a real gun or a real gun but not a fake gun. Is their criticism warranted of the original measure to begin with?
Casada: Everything we do should and deserves, everything we do should deserve debate and criticism. I think they're wrong, but that's a democratic society.
Reporter: What's your understanding of how close you can carry a firearm to a school if it's next to a park, like as in Nashville?
Casada: 37-17-1309 is very clear. If a school owns, operates or maintains a park, it is very clear, you cannot bring your gun there. Even if you're a permit holder.
Reporter: But if it's adjacent to the park?
Casada: Again, it's pretty clear. Owned, operated or maintained. The feds do have 1,000 feet which would supersede our laws, so in addition to the feds you've got our Tennessee law, which is again is 37-17-1309, it's real clear.
Reporter: But there seems to be some thought, that the 1,000 buffer wouldn't apply to permit holders.
Casada: That is, I have heard that, and that may be true. But I can only speak intelligently, and that's questionable, on Tennessee code. And I go back to what's important to our county, which is if a park is maintained, owned or operated by a school, no permit holders can bring their guns.
Reporter: Mr. Chairman, you talk about the need for debate and there was fairly lots of discussion or talk from Democrats on the floor about this measure, but there was no debate or no questions at least from Republicans on the bill Monday. Do you know what that was or why?
McCormick: On the Senate floor?
Reporter: House, I'm talking about the House, the guns in parks passed in the House earlier in the week. There were plenty of, I think 11 Democratic amendments, and certainly they got up and talked about it and there can be issues with the way they talked about it, but there was no real discussion on the amendments or discussion on the bill at all once it actually came.
McCormick: We had almost an hour of discussion on those amendments and we had some discussion on the bill, but quite frankly the rules say that you can cut off debate after a reasonable amount of time. I thought we were very patient with them, listened to a lot silliness, quite frankly, and we were very patient through the whole process. They had a lot of time. We spent more time on that bill than any other bill that night, so the idea that we didn't have a debate on that bill is ridiculous.
Reporter: You had debate on the amendments, or were discussing them and tabled them immediately.
McCormick: And they were all over the place on the amendments. They didn't stick to their amendments when they were talking about it, they talked about the whole broad range of the bill.
Reporter: I think they might argue that a debate would involve two sides. I think --
McCormick: They talked more than we did. Maybe we should have talked more instead of just letting them do it. And remember, we have a supermajority. We could have walked in there and not had any debate on it.
Reporter: So was it by design then to just say, instead of even proceeding or discussing it, just to table things and then call for the question and not actually having the sponsor discuss what the bill did and why?
Casada: I would submit that in the House, this is why we're such sticklers on bringing amendment to the floor because all the heavy lifting, all the debate is done in subcommittee, committee, subcommittee, committee in that bill. So there was a lot of debate and a lot of give and take, but we do it in subcommittee where you have the flexibly to really dig deep on an issue. So when you get to the floor, gosh, what would you say, leader? About an hour or so we still, in addition to all the committee debate.
Reporter: What do you think it says that even though the House has passed it, there's still questions about, in terms of this 1,000-foot, exactly where guns are and exactly where that line is, that it's passed the House but we still don't have answers to that yet?
Casada: Oh, I think the answers are clear. I think if a park is owned, maintained or operated by a school no permit holder can bring a gun. And let's be clear, I'm of the belief -- and I'll just express my opinion -- is that right now there are guns in parks. There was a shooting two days ago in a park. Guns in parks today exist by law-breakers. What we're saying is we want those law-abiding citizens that have demonstrated the ability to operate a weapon to be there and to avert a crime, which has happened many times across this country and this state. So, I think we're being naive-like if we say there is no guns in park, and this is a guns in parks. This is not. This is letting permit holders there to defend unarmed citizens.
Reporter: At the amendment, again, though. It does mention this idea of exempting, or not allowing explosives or other items including imitation weapons within this 150 feet. So, I'm still confused as to why it's important to not allow squirt guns or fake guns within 150 feet of a school versus school property versus a permitted gun.
Casada: All you have to do is look at Cleveland, Ohio, about two weeks ago. A child, 16 years old -- maybe I shouldn't use the word child -- was waving a plastic gun. Police officers didn't know what that was and they acted accordingly in defending the people at that park that they thought the young man had a gun. We want to avoid the vagueness and having innocent people shot for police doing their duty.
Reporter: In Tennessee then, police have to go and check whether that person has a permit before they took action?
Casada: I think what the message says is if you're waving a gun around --
Reporter: Which as a permit holder you can do apparently, according to the Radnor Lake Rambo.
Casada: You couldn't. If you wave that gun around, you're acting irresponsibly. And if a permit holder waves that gun around, they're going to be in trouble quickly.
Reporter: There's been discussion in Nashville, though, with this person, this Radnor Lake Rambo who has a gun and under this law, even with this amendment, would still be allowed to walk around with a weapon if he's permitted, with a real, again an AR-15, some sort of rifle. But if he has a squirt gun, then he can be arrested.
Casada: I think the key is if he keeps that squirt gun hidden, right, he doesn't wave it around, right, no one's going to think he's waving a weapon around.
Reporter: But he's literally waving around a rifle right now. Like, a real gun, and he's allowed to do that.
Casada: Does he have a permit?
Reporter: Yes, he has a permit for this gun.
Casada: And I thought it was a concealed weapon, currently.
Reporter: No. You know Tennessee law does not require to be concealed.
Casada: OK.
Reporter: Hopefully you know that.
Casada: I did. And look, I think that the law's clear. I mean, we're debating something theoretical. We're talking practicalities here. I'd like for us to focus on the practicalities. We need to focus on the things we're doing right in Tennessee.
Reporter: Well the shooting you referred to, two days ago, was a person playing with his cat when he accidentally discharged the weapon. Are you prepared --
Casada: No, that's not what I'm talking about.
Reporter: Well, OK. There was a shooting two days ago when a person at Hadley Park was playing with this cat, accidentally discharged the weapon. Are you prepared that if there are more guns in the park there is a higher likelihood for accidents that there may be some person hurt by having the accidental discharge of a gun in a park?
McCormick: I would say that if we spent more time worrying about criminals carrying guns in parks instead of law abiding citizens, that that would be a better use of our time.
Reporter: There are some parks, and Chairman (Charles) Sargent, you know this, Grassland Park virtually surrounds Grassland Middle and Grassland Elementary Schools. That park is maintained by the county parks department and not the school. You could walk on greenway with a gun under this bill. Could you not?
House Finance, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Sargent: If they have a school function, no.
Reporter: What if they're not having a school function? What if they're not out on the playground, what if they're in the building?
Casada: The law is really clear. And this is an excellent example. Grassland has school functions there, cross country.
Reporter: Not all the time.
Casada: But the law is real clear, it doesn't say when, it says if. And current law is very clear. And so, in this case, because Grassland has school functions there, there cannot be a permit holder taking a gun on Grassland Park. Period, at any time.
Reporter: So, you're saying that, for example, so if a Nashville school had an event one time a year at a park, that there would never be allowed to have any permitted guns at that park?
Casada: I'm not a judge, nor do I pretend to be a lawyer. But if you look at the law, it says 'if.' If it said any other word, your point is valid, but it says 'if a school,' blah, blah, blah, blah. No.
Reporter: If the whole motivation of the law was to avoid confusion for permit holders who said they don't know which parks they're allowed to go in or not, how would that make it more clear for permit holders if they don't know that once a year there's the sack race by the elementary school?
Casada: I would only submit that those who want it to be confusion say it's confusing. I think the average public, good gracious, if Glen Casada can understand this, surely the good public can.
Reporter: But you as a permit holder would know, just as a matter of course, which parks allow guns and which don't, even under the new law?
Casada: I think, number one, if schools want to they can post. This is a school operated park. $5 maybe. That would be the logical conclusion.
Reporter: But Grassland Park is not owned or operated by the school.
Casada: But there's a third word, used. Owned, operated or used. Those are the three words in 37-17-1309.
Reporter: Why not just leave this to locals as it is now? Where they can address each individual situation?
McCormick: Are we answering questions or having a debate? I feel like the Democrats are here --
Reporter: I said, why not?
McCormick: And you haven't been elected.
Reporter: I said, why not? That's a question.
Casada: My response is, when it comes to constitutional questions, the state created federal government, the state created local government. So when it comes to constitutional questions, it's the state's obligation to guarantee the constitutional rights. Generally speaking, we do defer things to local. But generally speaking, this legislature believes in devolving power to the individual. Big, intrusive local governments. No redemption, we want to restore power to the individual.
Reporter: I'm not trying to debate, but these are the questions that we're being asked about this. And one of the things that keep getting pointed out to me, is you guys keep talking about criminals, but there are accidents. Permit holders have accidents.
McCormick: Certainly.
Reporter: So, if there's an accident and a permit holder is in a park, there's a high chance it's going to hit a child.
Casada: There's accidents with bicycles in parks. Should we outlaw bicycles?
Reporter: Yeah, but bikes very rarely kill people.
Casada: That's not true, I disagree with that statement.
Reporter: Guns are weapons. Are you saying a gun is as safe as bicycle?
Casada: If used properly I am. If used properly.
Reporter: In the event of an accident, which is more likely to kill someone?
Casada: Now we're back in theoretical. I think in Tennessee we're dealing with a lot more questions than guns in parks. I think this is a minor thing in the scope of what we're doing good in Tennessee.
Reporter: If someone is hit accidently with a bullet, you guys are fine defending this bill?
Casada: If someone gets run over by an automobile accidently, there's nothing I can do about that. These are things beyond, they're called acts of God, they're beyond our control.
Sargent: No one wants to see anybody get hit by a car or get hit by a bullet. So, I really take very great offense to that one. No one sitting at this table or standing around this table would ever want to see anybody hit by a bullet or a car.
Reporter: No one's suggesting that you want this to happen.
McCormick: Yes, I think that was suggested. It was suggested as you're advocating that side of the argument, which is what you're doing.
Reporter: I'm just trying to present.
McCormick: I don't think you're presenting, I think you're advocating. Is this the only thing that's important to you guys? I mean, seriously.
Reporter: You guys like to accuse the media of paying too much attention to this issue.
McCormick: You are. Right now you are.
Reporter: Well, it's an issue that has a lot of interest in the state and did not get a full debate on the floor.
McCormick: I would very much disagree. I don't think there's been a bill on the floor that had more debate than this one the whole year.
Reporter: The only discussion of the bill was the short statement by the co-sponsor reading a news story about something that happened in a different state. That was the only thing --
McCormick: That includes the amendments.
After the press conference ...
McCormick: You guys are brutal. Let me limp out of here.
|
The Monsanto product – the world’s most widely used herbicide – contains glyphosate, which may also be carcinogenic for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Roundup, the world’s most widely used weedkiller, “probably” causes cancer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – WHO’s cancer agency – said that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide made by agriculture company Monsanto, was “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans”.
It also said there was “limited evidence” that glyphosate was carcinogenic in humans for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, said scientific data did not support the conclusions and called on WHO to hold an urgent meeting to explain the findings. “We don’t know how IARC could reach a conclusion that is such a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe,” said Philip Miller, Monsanto’s vice-president of global regulatory affairs.
Concerns about glyphosate on food have been widely debated in the US recently, and contributed to the passage in Vermont last year of the country’s first mandatory labelling law for genetically modified food.
The US government considers the herbicide to be safe. In 2013, Monsanto requested and received approval from the US Environmental Protection Agency for increased tolerance levels for glyphosate.
It is mainly used on crops such as corn and soybeans, which are genetically modified to survive it.
The weedkiller has been detected in food, water and in the air after it has been sprayed, according to the report from WHO. However, glyphosate use is generally low in and near homes where the general public would face the greatest risk of exposure, the report said.
The evidence for WHO’s conclusion was from studies of exposure, mostly agricultural, in the US, Canada, and Sweden that were published since 2001.
|
By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News
National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre argued on NBC’s Meet the Press that “there weren’t enough good guys with guns" to confront the shooter responsible for last week's Washington Navy Yard rampage and he insisted that "when the good guys with guns got there, it stopped.”
In his first television interview since the mass shooting last Monday in which gunman Aaron Alexis killed 12 people, LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, described the Navy Yard as a military facility that was “largely left unprotected.”
LaPierre said more personnel who work at military facilities, including retired military personnel, should be armed so they are able to stop attacks such as the one at the Navy Yard.
The NRA's Wayne LaPierre visits Meet the Press to reflect on the tragedy at the Navy Yard.
“We need to look at letting the men and women that know firearms and are trained in them, do what they do best, which is protect and survive,” he said.
LaPierre also vehemently criticized the flaws in the nation’s treatment of the mentally ill, especially of those mentally ill people who try to buy guns. “They need to be committed is what they need to be, and if they’re committed, they’re not at the Navy Yard,” he said.
“I’ve been into this whole (background) check business for 20-some years; I’ve said the system is broken for 20 years and nobody listens,” he said. “It’s broken in terms of our military bases…. On the gun check, the NRA supported the gun check because we thought the mental records would be in the (national instant check) system, we thought criminals would be in the system. And we thought they would be prosecuted.”
He said that the records of those adjudicated to be dangerous are not entered into the national instant check system for gun buyers. “So the Aurora shooter in Colorado gets checked and is cleared, the Tucson shooter gets checked and gets cleared, Aaron Alexis go through the federal and state check and gets cleared,” LaPierre said because the nation’s mental health system doesn’t detect a dangerous person such as Alexis.
LaPierre’s interview on Meet the Press mirrored his appearance on the program following the killings of 26 children and adults by Adam Lanza at a school in Newtown, Conn. last December, when LaPierre said, “If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy.”
On Saturday night in a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's awards dinner, President Barack Obama urged gun control proponents to redouble their efforts.
He referred to the unsuccessful struggle of gun control advocates last April to persuade the Senate to pass broader background checks on gun buyers and new restrictions on sales of certain types of weapons.
“We fought a good fight earlier this year, but we came up short and that means we've got to get back up and go back at it because as long as there are those who fight to make it as easy as possible for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun, then we've got to work as hard as possible for the sake of our children,” Obama said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nevada, said last week “we don’t have the votes” to pass expanded background check legislation.
While the policy debate after the Newtown shootings focused on proposals such as requiring background checks for private firearms transfers at gun shows and reinstating a ban on certain types of semiautomatic weapons, the focus after the Alexis shootings has primarily been on the procedures the Defense Department uses to do background checks on contractors such as Alexis with access to military bases and facilities.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last week that “something broke down” in the vetting procedures that allowed Alexis to enter the Navy Yard and kill 12 people, before being killed by police.
Hagel ordered Deputy Secretary Ashton Carter to lead an internal inquiry of the department’s procedures for granting security clearances.
Hagel also will create an independent panel to assess security clearance procedures and security at Defense Department facilities.
“Where there are gaps, we will close them. Where there are inadequacies, we will address them. And where there are failures, we will correct them,” Hagel told reporters last week.
The vetting process has been under scrutiny since the November 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, in which Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan killed 13 people.
Virginia authorities said last week that Alexis had passed the required state and local background checks before buying the shotgun he used to begin his killing spree. He also used a handgun he took from a guard after killing him.
Alexis’s erratic behavior had been noticed by several people but apparently he hadn’t been treated for mental illness.
In his appearance on Meet the Press last December LaPierre warned that, “We have a mental health system in this country that has completely and totally collapsed. We have no national database of these lunatics.”
And he said many states don’t put their records of those adjudicated to be mentally ill into the national instant check system that is designed to screen out criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns.
In April the Senate rejected an amendment by Sen. Joe Manchin, D- W.V. and Sen. Pat Toomey, R- Pa., which would have required background checks for some intrastate firearms transfers between persons who aren’t licensed gun dealers. The Manchin-Toomey measure fell six votes short of the 60 votes it needed.
An alternate measure offered by Sen. Charles Grassley, R- Iowa, fell eight votes short. Grassley’s measure would have sought to improve background checks and would have enacted a uniform legal definition to prevent those adjudicated mentally incompetent by a court or committed to a psychiatric hospital from buying a gun.
|
An Armenian man holds a placard at a rally in Yerevan | Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty Images Foreign Affairs Why we need to contain the Caucasus crisis Armenia and Azerbaijan are two or three steps away from a Bosnia-style conflict that could be deleterious for the wider region.
Four days of violence in April unfroze the generation-old Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. A new truce was signed to halt the recent outbreak of violence in the Caucasus between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. But it is fragile and has already been broken. As Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan acknowledged, there could be more fighting “at any moment.”
It is no exaggeration to say that Armenia and Azerbaijan are two or three steps away from a Bosnia-style conflict that could be deleterious for the wider region. What can be done to stop that happening?
* * *
The Karabakh conflict is as old as it is intractable. From 1991-94 Armenians and Azerbaijanis fought a hot war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. The territory was part of Soviet Azerbaijan but its population was three-quarters Armenian. The Armenian side prevailed, leaving 20,000 dead and displacing more than 1 million.
A ceasefire was signed in 1994. Armenians were given de facto possession not just of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, but (in whole, or in part) of seven Azerbaijani regions unrelated to the original dispute. The Armenians called the territory a protective buffer zone.
The 1994 ceasefire was supposed to be a prelude to the peace agreement that never came. The international community’s eyes and ears in the region consist of just six monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The ceasefire has been under heavy strain for a couple of years now. Azerbaijan has been building up its store of heavy weapons and both sides have engaged in rhetoric more extreme than at the height of the conflict in the 1990s.
The ceasefire finally cracked on April 2. The most likely cause was an Azerbaijani attempt to test the Armenians’ defenses and force them to negotiate from a weaker position. The Azerbaijani military regained some slivers of lost territory — and an awful lot of lost pride. But the human price was high. Officially, several dozen people were killed. Experts put the death toll nearer to 200, including many civilians.
The four-day war stirred up long-seated anger and sharpened mutual insecurities. Azerbaijanis still feel humiliated by defeats suffered more than 20 years ago. There was a patriotic upsurge of euphoria throughout the country, a useful distraction from the socioeconomic crisis that has seen its currency, the manat, devalued twice in the last year. The temptation — and, worryingly, the public pressure — to try this kind offensive again is enormous.
Armenia saw a similar surge of nationalist emotion. Caught flat-footed by fighting, the country witnessed a sobering few days. Young Armenians volunteered to join the front line.
Given the massive arsenals of weaponry both sides now possess, new fighting could easily escalate into an all-out conflict far more destructive than the 1991-94 war. Baku and Yerevan could invoke their military assistance treaties with Turkey and Russia respectively. Neither wants to get involved, but would be under big pressure to honor their commitments in the region.
Other regional neighbors are also alarmed. Georgia, in particular, could become caught in the crosshairs. Armenians and Azerbaijanis constitute Georgia’s two biggest minorities. The BP-run Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that runs through the country could also become a target.
A security vacuum has opened up around Karabakh. It will only be filled by serious peace talks — or by more fighting.
The formal peace process has been close to moribund for five years. Neither President Ilham Aliyev nor President Sargsyan has said anything constructive or conciliatory. The conflict’s three mediators and co-chairs of the OSCE’s “Minsk Group” — France, Russia and the United States — have had to limit themselves to shuttle diplomacy. Their modest ideas are routinely rejected.
The three co-chairs have said they want to launch “comprehensive negotiations.” These could take the form of a peace conference chaired by the three foreign ministers.
It’s an important step, but the two presidents want very different things. The Azerbaijani side wants new negotiations and to use its military force as leverage. The Armenian side is digging in harder — they are reluctant to agree to anything that might look like submission to Azerbaijani military pressure and have demanded “security guarantees.”
* * *
Can this crisis be contained before it escalates? We first need to challenge one common preconception: the idea that Russia can fill that security vacuum and manage the conflict.
Russia’s top officials did swing into action and negotiate a verbal ceasefire on April 5. But Russia has done little since then. Its problem is that it has simultaneously mediated and destabilized the conflict.
The Russians have been selling arms to both sides. An estimated 85 percent of Azerbaijan’s weaponry comes from Russia, while Russia has a military alliance with Armenia, sealed by a new treaty signed in 2010.
This balancing game means that Russia is unable to set the agenda in Karabakh. Both Baku and Yerevan are skeptical of Russia’s intentions. In Armenia especially, the new backlash against Russia is significant. Because Russia has no military presence on the ground and no monopoly on the peace process, both countries can block plans for a Russian peacekeeping force that would reassert its influence in the region.
So the common belief that, if things get worse “Russia can handle it,” is misplaced. This poses a challenge to the United States and France. Neither has done enough to offer a balanced international plan.
Unless progress is made now, more fighting is likely to break out after the international spectacle of Azerbaijan’s much-coveted Formula 1 race in Baku ends in late June. We can only hope that the prospect of more intense fighting in the Caucasus, and its dangerous implications for the region, will concentrate minds on solving a conflict that has been ignored for too long.
Thomas de Waal is a senior associate at Carnegie Europe in Brussels.
|
4 of 5 victims killed in fiery crash near Kalamazoo ID'd Copyright by WOODTV - All rights reserved Police arrive on scene of a fiery crash in Comstock Township that killed 5 people (Kalamazoo Township Police via Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office/September 2, 2017) [ + - ] Video
Lynsey Mukomel, Sarah Hurwitz and 24 Hour News 8 web staff -
COMSTOCK TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) -- Four of the five people who were killed in a fiery crash early Saturday morning just east of Kalamazoo have been identified.
The driver, 15-year-old Cortavian Murphy -- who due to his age did not yet have a driver's license -- and a passenger, Jaquerious Hegler, were identified by Cortavian's mother.
Late Sunday afternoon, Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul Matyas confirmed two other passengers as Deztanee Cobb, 17, and Marshawn Williams, 15. The fifth victim has not yet been identified.
The crash happened around 12:43 a.m. Saturday on E. Main Street, east of Sprinkle Road in Comstock Township.
Kalamazoo Township police say an officer parked on Fenimore Avenue near the E. Main Street intersection watched as a car going an estimated 100 mph passed him heading east on Main Street. The officer turned on his lights and sirens and attempted to catch up to the car, but lost sight of it shortly after.
According to dashcam video released shortly after the crash, the car passed the officer parked on Fenimore Avenue at 12:42 a.m. The video's timestamp reads an hour earlier, at 11:42 p.m.; however, investigators say it was an hour behind for some reason.
By the time the officer pulled on to E. Main Street and turned on his lights and siren, the car was already out of sight. Seven seconds after initiating his siren, the officer is heard on the video saying, "I'm trying to catch up to it."
About 15 seconds after the radio communication, he turned off the lights and siren and continued eastbound. Undersheriff Matyas told 24 Hour News 8 the officer continued given the dangerous speed the car was traveling.
The officer arrived at the intersection of Sprinkle Rd. and E. Main St. at 12:43 a.m., where dashcam video shows the car had already crashed and was on fire.
The distance between where the car past the officer and where it crashed is approximately 1.5 miles. Matyas told 24 Hour News 8 that all five victims were killed on impact.
Sunday night, 24 Hour News 8 spoke with Cortavian Murphy's girlfriend, Kamarey Williams, who said they'd been dating more than a year. She said Cortavian was taking driver's education and wasn't sure what caused the crash or why he was driving so fast.
Copyright by WOODTV - All rights reserved Kamarey Williams with her late boyfriend, Cortavaian Murphy. (undated photo)
Copyright by WOODTV - All rights reserved Kamarey Williams with her late boyfriend, Cortavaian Murphy. (undated photo)
She believes it may have been peer pressure.
"Think about him every day," she said. "It's not something that's going to ever go away. He's going to forever be in my heart. Every day and I'm going to keep pushing to make him proud because I know he would want me to do be happy and proud and doing what I'm supposed to do."
24 Hour News 8 also spoke with the mother of Deztanee Cobb on Sunday.
Tracey Taylor said her daughter was entering her senior year and was dual-enrolled at Kalamazoo Central High School and Kalamazoo Community College taking AP classes. Cobb also had two varsity letters in swimming and played softball, but couldn't play sports her senior year due to an injury.
Taylor said Cobb just lost two friends who committed suicide last year and her sister, who died from childhood diabetes, adding that her daughter went to counseling to get through that tough year and that she wanted to be a child psychologist.
Copyright by WOODTV - All rights reserved Deztanee Cobb (undated photo)
Copyright by WOODTV - All rights reserved Deztanee Cobb (undated photo)
Taylor also said Cobb, who she described as "loyal, loving and empathetic," mentioned she was going to a party Friday night but it wasn't alarmed when her daughter didn't come home because she thought she was just staying a friend's house overnight.
Funeral arrangements for the victims have not yet been announced.
A Kalamazoo Public Schools spokesperson told 24 Hour News 8 grief counselors will be made available as needed.
The crash remains under investigation by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office.
***Editor's note: An earlier version of this story listed Cortavian as Corravion, based on confirmation by relatives. However, the sheriff's office identified the teenager as Cortavian Murphy. The sheriff's office also updated the spelling of Deztanee Cobb's name. Our story has been updated to reflect those changes.
|
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay on Monday vowed to amend the constitution to widen foreign ownership of businesses, create more jobs, and spur growth in the Southeast Asian economy if he wins next year’s presidential elections.
Philippine Vice-President Jejomar Binay gestures during a Reuters interview in his office at Coconut Palace in Manila September 21, 2015. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco
A former human rights lawyer, Binay, 72, is the oldest and most experienced politician among the presidential hopefuls. Along with his wife and son, Binay’s family has ruled Manila’s financial district for nearly three consecutive decades.
Besides Binay, who is leading a coalition of small opposition groups, those eyeing the presidency include former Interior Minister Manuel “Mar” Roxas, who was endorsed by President Benigno Aquino III, and first-term senator Grace Poe.
“We have to revisit our constitution, among other things,” Binay said, regarding the 40-percent limit on foreign control of most businesses. “We have to get out of that 60-40 arrangement.”
Binay said he was still studying the right limit for foreign control, even as he promised to honor state contracts with the private sector, such as in infrastructure.
He also supports cutting income and corporate taxes that rank among the region’s highest and altering the land reform law to give farmers more subsidies.
He also wants to step up irrigation to boost rice output so that the country, once the world’s largest rice buyer, can export the grain within three years.
Binay consistently topped surveys for the 2016 presidential race until June, when Poe overtook him.
A year-long Senate investigation into allegations that Binay and his family illegally amassed wealth hurt his poll ratings, analysts say. He has denied wrongdoing, saying the allegations were meant to discredit him.
Binay declared a desire to run for president, which he said was born out of a childhood dream to be famous, early in his six-year vice presidency, giving him a campaign advantage.
“They cannot do in eight months what I have already done. I have traveled to three-fourths of the Philippines,” Binay told Reuters at his office at Manila’s Coconut Palace, a mansion built by former first lady Imelda Marcos for a visit in 1981 by the late Pope John Paul II - who deemed it too opulent to use.
Marcos’ son, Ferdinand Jr. or “Bongbong”, is among Binay’s top three choices as his vice president for next year’s polls. Binay hopes to finally pick his running mate this week.
As a young lawyer, Binay was jailed for opposing martial law imposed by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. But a possible team up with Marcos’ son in next year’s polls showed it was time for the country to “move on” from past hurts, he said.
He also supports the grant of bail to former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, detained in a state hospital on plunder charges, saying she was not a flight risk.
Binay wants the country to be a member of the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) because it will spur more investment and employment. But he said he would defend the Philippines’ rights over portions of the South China Sea.
Slideshow (2 Images)
“Sovereignty is non-negotiable. We will protect our interest in the West Philippine Sea,” he said.
The Philippines has a dispute with neighbor China over territorial claims in parts of the South China Sea, including some areas of the Spratly Islands.
It has taken its case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, but China has declined to take part.
|
Story highlights Experts question serial-killing claims
Without details, "We don't even know where to start," searcher says
Miranda Barbour told reporter that she had killed more than 22 people across four states
Barbour and her husband are charged in a November 2013 killing
Reporter Francis Scarcella walked into the Northumberland County Prison in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, with plenty of questions for the woman accused along with her husband of luring a man with a Craigslist ad, then killing him.
He walked out with a bombshell of a story that's sent police and the press alike scrambling for answers.
Miranda Barbour told Scarcella, a reporter for the Daily Item newspaper in Sunbury, that she'd killed before. And not just once or twice.
"She said, she has, you know, done this before," Scarcella told CNN affiliate WNEP of his Friday interview with the 19-year-old murder suspect. "And I said, 'What's the actual number?'"
"And she said, 'Under a hundred,'" Scarcella told the station. Barbour said she had stopped counting at 22 killings, according to Scarcella's story in the Daily Item.
JUST WATCHED Alleged killer's tale 'hard to believe' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Alleged killer's tale 'hard to believe' 02:57
JUST WATCHED Suspect: I've killed at least 22 men Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Suspect: I've killed at least 22 men 01:51
JUST WATCHED Prof.: I don't buy 'serial killer' story Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Prof.: I don't buy 'serial killer' story 03:27
Barbour told the Daily Item that the killings occurred over the past six years in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California. That's sent investigators in those states back to their cold-case files, but it's also raising questions among people who study serial killers.
"Anything is possible, and of course it's conceivable that she's a serial killer," Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levin told CNN. But he said few women are serial killers, and those few are typically older and don't use knives, as Barbour is accused of doing in the Pennsylvania case.
Authorities haven't yet corroborated any of Barbour's claims, including statements that she was involved in Satanism. Her alleged confession has raised questions among attorneys, missing persons experts and even a representative of the Church of Satan, the nation's largest satanic body.
"Thorough investigation will likely demonstrate that this cult story is fiction," said Peter Gilmore, the New York-based head of the Church of Satan.
In Alaska, state police are looking into the claims and will pursue "any leads that may present themselves," Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Megan Peters told CNN. And Monica Caison, the founder of a missing persons center in North Carolina, said her phone started ringing Sunday night with questions from families whose loved ones haven't turned up in years.
"It sends everybody into a panic mode -- a hopeful panic mode," Caison said. "They want to be one of those, but they don't want to be one of those. They want their nightmare to end."
2013 killing
In the one case in which authorities say they have pinned down Barbour's involvement, she and her husband, Elytte Barbour, 22, are accused of killing 42-year-old Troy LaFerrara, who police say responded to a "companionship" ad placed by Miranda Barbour on Craigslist.
The couple just wanted to kill someone together, police said. They had been married for only three weeks at the time of the slaying, and had moved from North Carolina to Pennsylvania after tying the knot.
Police say Elytte Barbour strangled LaFerrara in the front seat of her red Honda CR-V while Miranda Barbour stabbed him at least 20 times in November 2013. LaFerrara's body was found the next day in the backyard of a home in Sunbury, a small city about 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The last number dialed on his cell phone led police to the Barbours, according to authorities.
Barbour claimed she began killing when she was 13 and involved in a satanic cult, Scarcella reported.
"I can pinpoint on a map where you can find them," he quoted her as saying of the bodies. But she said LaFerrara's killing was the Barbours' first as a couple.
Elytte Barbour told police at the time of his arrest that he and his wife had tried to kill others, but the plans didn't work out.
Both Barbours face several charges in LaFerrara's death, including murder. Despite Miranda Barbour's statements to Scarcella, both have pleaded not guilty.
Barbour's attorney, public defender Edward Greco, told CNN he didn't know she was planning to give the interview. He declined to comment on her claims.
But Levin said the way LaFerra's body was left in someone's yard isn't typical of serial killers.
"If you're a prolific serial killer, you're going to go out of your way to dump the body in a desolate area off a highway so that people don't find the evidence," he said.
Claims raise doubts
Sunbury Police Chief Steve Mazzeo told CNN that investigators have been in contact with the FBI and law enforcement in some of the states where Barbour has lived. The father of Barbour's 1-year-old child is dead, and Sunbury police have said that is part of their investigation.
"We investigate all leads just because that's the proper protocol to follow through," Mazzeo said.
Authorities also are looking closely at Barbour's claims that she was involved in Satanism, according to another law enforcement source close to the investigation. But Gilmore, of the Church of Satan, said his church has a "law and order philosophy" that does not condone killing. He said the church has had no contact with Miranda Barbour or her husband.
Caison, the founder of the Wilmington-based Community United Effort Center for Missing Persons , has worked with murderers before in hopes of bringing closure to people whose loved ones haven't been seen in years. In 2009, her organization helped find the body of Alice Donovan, who was abducted and murdered seven years earlier, after Donovan's convicted killer wrote to tell Caison where the remains could be found.
"Anytime anything like this happens, we start getting e-mails and phone calls. I started getting texts last night," Caison said. But she said Barbour will have to be questioned extensively by investigators before those claims can be put to the test.
"You can't just say you've killed 22 people between this region and that region," Caison said. "You've got to give a town or something that only police or an organization like us would know." Without details like the gender, age or race of a victim, "We don't even know where to start," she said.
And like Levin, she cast doubt on Barbour's claims.
"That's a lot of people to kill in such a short time, and being so young and never making a mistake, I'm hard pressed to believe that amount," she said. And for the families she works with, "You don't want to build any false hope."
Getting the interview
Scarcella told WNEP he got the interview after Barbour sent him a letter saying she wanted to talk.
Scarcella told CNN on Sunday that he was not allowed to bring a notepad or any other recording device into the interview. He said police allowed him to listen to the interview after it was conducted.
In his interview with WNEP, Scarcella described Barbour as "very meek, very mild" with a "very low voice."
"She never hesitated once," he told the station. "She never gave the impression of it was a rehearsal."
Scarcella said he eventually asked if she had any remorse.
"And she said, 'None,'" Scarcella told WNEP.
But that's not what Scarcella said he found most surprising.
That would be, he said, "the fact that she said that if she got out she would do it again."
|
A rare genetic deformity that affects an estimated 1 in 10,000 births is known as lobster claw syndrome. But chances are you've never seen anyone who has the condition.
From shows in Austin to Coney Island, he is the ultimate entertainer. "My act comes from my experiences," says Jason Black, known by his stage name as the Black Scorpion.
They're experiences he didn't choose but embraces.
On stage, the black scorpion seems invincible. Off stage, 36-year old Jason Black is struggling with Ectrodactyly Ectodermal Dysplacia -- a rare genetic disorder that causes clefting on the face, hands and feet.
"When you first meet a patient with EEC, the first thing that jumps out are the hands and feet just because they are noticeably different, interestingly that's often not the part that bothers the patient the most," says Dr. Jeffrey Cone, a craneofacial surgeon with St. David's Children's Hospital.
Jason agrees, "I've never been ashamed of my hands, I've always been proud of my hands but my teeth, they always hurt."
The genetic mutation affects the body's ability to create a tooth, so it's primarily missing the enamel. Dr. Cone compares EEC's effect of a person's teeth to Star Wars. He says, "The enamel is basically the shield around the Death Star and so without the enamel the shields are down and the teeth are much more vulnerable to infections and to cavities."
Jason has state health insurance and receives disability benefits but it's not enough. Restoring Jason's teeth will cost nearly $20,000. "I'm disabled but I work every day that I'm allowed to and I earn as much as much money as I'm allowed to," says Jason.
Jason has several jobs, including part-time work at KEYE TV, but the dental work he needs is way beyond his financial reach. "I suggested that he ask for help and that we could do it through gofundme," says his friend Samantha X, who is also a performer.
She says, "Jason is really really special and to have him on stage and to have be able to get his message out to the world, I think is really essential and to not have teeth and not be able to chew it makes it really hard to be able to perform."
So far Jason has raised less than half of what he needs. "I haven't reached that goal and I'm scared I won't because I want to be able to eat again," says Jason.
But he finds comfort knowing people are reaching out to him. "Even though you feel terrible about yourself because you're asking for help and can't chew, just to know that people still love you anyway means something," says Jason.
Through it all, he's hoping sharing his experience will inspire others. "You be you, if you have the heart to be it, you be it. God gave you what he gave you and he gave it to you for a reason and you can prove to people that you're worthy," says Jason.
If you want to find out more about Jason and how you can help, go to https://www.gofundme.com/ectrodactyly.
Follow us on Twitter @keyetv and LIKE us on Facebook for updates.
|
Good luck getting money from
the people who wouldn't even buy the Bible
Yesterday, we learned that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation—the country's biggest breast cancer charity—is pulling its funding from Planned Parenthood, the country's biggest health care provider for women.
That makes sense, right? If women's health is your reason for existence, why would you possibly want to join forces with another organization whose reason for existence is women's health?
The excuse, according to the foundation, is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation. Of course, we know that's one hell of a flimsy excuse, since the "investigation" is nothing more than an attempt by House Republicans to put Planned Parenthood out of business.
Among the 10 billion reasons this is a stupid decision—starting with the fact that 17 percent of Planned Parenthood's services are cancer screening and prevention—is the fact that Komen is alienating the millions of women who support and depend on Planned Parenthood as their primary source of health care, and instead casting its lot with the crazy, fundamentalist anti-choice crowd who, as we all know, are never, ever satisfied.
Exhibit A, via Right Wing Watch:
Lou Engle’s Bound4Life, which pushed LifeWay bookstores to stop selling Komen’s “Pink Bible,” commended Komen but like [Family Research Council president Tony] Perkins, asked the group to go even farther to please the far-right by abandoning their support of stem cell research.
Translation: It's great that the Komen Foundation now supports women dying of cancer, but we'd really like the Komen Foundation to renounce science altogether.
But apparently, the foundation—particularly Karen Handel, its new "staunchly and unequivocally pro-life" senior vice president of public policy—thinks it's better off siding with the nation's extremists, who would rather see women die than receive health care that the little voices in their heads tell them is evil. Good luck with that.
Send an email to the Susan G. Komen Foundation and tell them what you think of this decision.
|
Wild Blaze Mega Charizard M Charizard-EX
MリザードンEX MLizardonEX [[Image:{{{image}}}|180px]] Hit Points: 230 Wild Blaze
ワイルドブレイズ 300 Discard the top 5 cards of your deck. This Pokémon is both type If this Baby Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and your opponent tries to attack, your opponent flips a coin (before doing anything else required in order to use that attack). If tails, your opponent's turn ends without an attack. If this Baby Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and your opponent tries to attack, your opponent flips a coin (before doing anything else required in order to use that attack). If tails, your opponent's turn ends without an attack. You may have up to 4 Basic Pokémon cards in your deck with Unown in their names. You may have as many of this card in your deck as you like. When Pokémon-ex has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards. Put this card onto your Active Missingno.. Missingno. LV. X can use any attack, Poké-Power, or Poké-Body from its previous Level. Put this card from your hand onto your Bench only with the other half of Missingno. . Put this card from your hand onto your Bench only with the other half of Missingno. & Missingno. . When this Pokémon has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards. Attach this card to 1 of your Pokémon in play. That Pokémon may use this card's attack instead of its own. At the end of your turn, discard this card. You may attach this as an Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokémon. While attached, this card is a Special Energy card and provides Energy. You may attach this as an Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokémon that already has an Energy card attached to it. When you attach this card, return an Energy card attached to that Pokémon to your hand. While attached, this card is a Special Energy card and provides every type of Energy but 2 Energy at a time. (Has no effect other than providing Energy.) You can't have more than 1 Pokémon in your deck. You can't have more than 1 Shining Missingno. in your deck. This card can't evolve into Pikachu.
If this Baby Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and your opponent tries to attack, your opponent flips a coin (before doing anything else required in order to use that attack). If tails, your opponent's turn ends without an attack. When a Pokémon-EX has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards. weakness
×2 resistance
None retreat cost
Battle Deck Mega Charizard M Charizard-EX
MリザードンEX MLizardonEX [[Image:{{{image}}}|180px]] Hit Points: 220 Crimson Dive
グレンダイブ 300 This Pokémon does 50 damage to itself. This Pokémon is both type If this Baby Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and your opponent tries to attack, your opponent flips a coin (before doing anything else required in order to use that attack). If tails, your opponent's turn ends without an attack. If this Baby Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and your opponent tries to attack, your opponent flips a coin (before doing anything else required in order to use that attack). If tails, your opponent's turn ends without an attack. You may have up to 4 Basic Pokémon cards in your deck with Unown in their names. You may have as many of this card in your deck as you like. When Pokémon-ex has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards. Put this card onto your Active Missingno.. Missingno. LV. X can use any attack, Poké-Power, or Poké-Body from its previous Level. Put this card from your hand onto your Bench only with the other half of Missingno. . Put this card from your hand onto your Bench only with the other half of Missingno. & Missingno. . When this Pokémon has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards. Attach this card to 1 of your Pokémon in play. That Pokémon may use this card's attack instead of its own. At the end of your turn, discard this card. You may attach this as an Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokémon. While attached, this card is a Special Energy card and provides Energy. You may attach this as an Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokémon that already has an Energy card attached to it. When you attach this card, return an Energy card attached to that Pokémon to your hand. While attached, this card is a Special Energy card and provides every type of Energy but 2 Energy at a time. (Has no effect other than providing Energy.) You can't have more than 1 Pokémon in your deck. You can't have more than 1 Shining Missingno. in your deck. This card can't evolve into Pikachu.
If this Baby Pokémon is your Active Pokémon and your opponent tries to attack, your opponent flips a coin (before doing anything else required in order to use that attack). If tails, your opponent's turn ends without an attack. When a Pokémon-EX has been Knocked Out, your opponent takes 2 Prize cards. weakness
×2 resistance
None retreat cost
|
Earth is Experiencing a Global Warming Spurt
Cyclical changes in the Pacific Ocean have thrown earth’s surface into what may be an unprecedented warming spurt, following a global warming slowdown that lasted about 15 years.
While El Niño is being blamed for an outbreak of floods, storms and unseasonable temperatures across the planet, a much slower-moving cycle of the Pacific Ocean has also been playing a role in record-breaking warmth. The recent effects of both ocean cycles are being amplified by climate change.
High temperatures are bleaching corals, such as this bent sea rod off Florida.
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey/Flickr
A 2014 flip was detected in the sluggish and elusive ocean cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, which also goes by other names, including the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation. Despite uncertainty about the fundamental nature of the PDO, leading scientists link its 2014 phase change to a rapid rise in global surface temperatures.
The effects of the PDO on global warming can be likened to a staircase, with warming leveling off for periods, typically of more than a decade, and then bursting upward.
“It seems to me quite likely that we have taken the next step up to a new level,” said Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
The 2014 flip from the cool PDO phase to the warm phase, which vaguely resembles a long and drawn out El Niño event, contributed to record-breaking surface temperatures across the planet in 2014.
The record warmth set in 2014 was surpassed again in 2015, when global temperatures surged to 1°C (1.8°F) above pre-industrial averages, worsening flooding, heatwaves and storms.
Trenberth is among an informal squadron of scientists that in recent years has toiled to understand the slowdown in surface warming rates that began in the late 1990s, which some nicknamed a global warming “pause” or “hiatus.”
A flurry of recent research papers has indicated that the slowdown was less pronounced than previously thought, leading some scientists to renew claims that those nicknames are inaccurate and should be abandoned.
“The slowdown was not statistically significant, I suppose, if you properly take into account natural variability, which includes the PDO,” Trenberth said. “That’s sort of the argument that people have been making; that even if it was a little bit of a slowdown, or pause, or call it what you will, it’s not out of bounds, and as a result we shouldn’t really put a label on it.”
The approximately 15-year warming slowdown was linked to the negative phase of the PDO, which is also called its cool phase. That phase whips up strong trade winds that bury more heat beneath sea surfaces, contributing to extraordinary levels of warming recorded in the oceans. A similar phase led to a slight cooling of the planet from the 1940s to the 1970s.
Cold PDO phases have a blue background; warm phases are red.
Credit: Essay by Kevin Trenburth, ”Has there been a hiatus?,” which was published in Science in August.
“Last time we went from a negative to a positive was in the mid-‘70s,” said Gerald Meehl, a National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist. “Then we had larger rates of global warming from the ‘70s to the late ‘90s, compared to the previous 30 years.”
“It’s not just an upward sloping line,” Meehl said. “Sometimes it’s steeper, sometimes it’s slower.”
The effects of the warm phase of the PDO and the current El Niño may be cumulative in terms of warming the planet. It also seems likely that changes in the ocean cycles are linked, with changes between El Niño and La Niña driving changes in the PDO cycle.
Or, perhaps the PDO doesn’t exist at all, other than as a tidy pile of data points, and it’s simply a manifestation of changes in the shorter-running cycle between El Niño and La Niña.
“There’s some debate about whether there is a low frequency oscillation — is there a distinct interdecadal oscillation?” said Penn State meteorology professor Michael Mann. “Or is what we call a low frequency oscillation just a change over time in the frequency and magnitude of individual El Niño and La Niña events?”
Regardless, “it seems pretty clear that we’ve transitioned from a time period where there was a prevalence for La Niña conditions,” Mann said. “Over the past several years we’ve been in the multi-year El Niño state, and it has culminated with an extremely large El Niño event.”
The future of PDO phases will not slow down or speed up the overall long-term rate of global warming. That will continue to rise with pollution levels. But scientists are expecting more intense heat during the months ahead, which should bring with it more wild weather.
“There are a lot of things in place that have locked us on course to have a really warm start to 2016,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Nate Mantua. “I have a hard time seeing how we’re not going to be looking at either record level or near-record level global mean surface temperatures for at least the first half of 2016.”
You May Also Like:
With CO2 Boost, Marshes Can Rise to Meet Flood Risks
What Happened to the Polar Vortex?
Two Charts Show December’s Crazy Warmth
2016: What to Look for in Energy and Climate
|
A resolution introduced in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday aims to roll back privacy rules for broadband service providers that were approved by the Federal Communications Commission in October.
The rules include the requirement that internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon should obtain “opt-in” consent from consumers to use and share sensitive personal information such as geolocation and web browsing history, and also give customers the option to opt out from the sharing of non-sensitive information such as email addresses or service tier information.
The rules have been opposed by internet service providers who argue that they are being treated differently from other Internet entities like search engines and social networking companies.
The providers secured a win last week when the now Republican-dominated FCC decided that the operation of the data security provisions would be temporarily halted in view of a stay petition by providers. The data protection rules were to come into force last Thursday.
The new resolution introduced by Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, is backed by over 20 Republican co-sponsors.
It aims to provide for congressional disapproval of the FCC rule relating to ‘‘Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services’’ under the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law that empowers Congress to repeal federal regulations, according to a statement issued by Flake, who is also chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. The resolution under the CRA would also prevent the FCC from issuing “similarly harmful regulations” in the future, it added.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who on Tuesday was nominated for a second term five-year term at the agency by President Donald Trump, favors uniform rules on privacy for Internet companies, with the Federal Trade Commission rather than the FCC setting those rules. His renomination requires Senate confirmation.
“The federal government shouldn’t favor one set of companies over another—and certainly not when it comes to a marketplace as dynamic as the internet,” Pai said in a joint statement last week with FTC Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen.
In an op-ed this month, Flake wrote that by reclassifying in 2015 internet service providers as common carriers, subject to Title II of the Communications Act, the FCC had stripped the FTC of its jurisdiction over the privacy practices of ISPs. The reclassification of broadband as a public regulated utility was part of a move by the previous administration of President Barack Obama to preserve net neutrality in the country.
The FTC has no real regulatory power to protect the privacy of Americans once they turn 13 and are no longer covered by a 1998 children’s privacy law, said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington, in an emailed statement.
The Flake resolution has been opposed by civil rights groups as well as Democrats in Congress. Electronic Frontier Foundation has called on people to call up their senators and their representatives to tell them to oppose the use of the CRA to roll back the FCC’s new rules about ISP privacy practices.
The use of the CRA would allow Congress to overturn the privacy rules with just a majority vote in both chambers, without the opportunity for members to filibuster, said the American Civil Liberties Union. It would also ban the FCC from issuing rules that are “substantially the same,” raising “serious questions about the FCC’s ability to protect consumer’s online privacy in the future,” wrote Nathaniel Turner, lobbyist assistant at ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office.
“The Republican leadership—working on behalf of the nation’s largest cable and phone companies—wants to strip Americans of important protections on how their most sensitive information can be used,” Chester said. He warned that the leading broadband ISPs have developed “Big Data collection practices” that gather and analyze personal information when people are on PC’s, mobile devices and increasingly even while viewing TV.
|
To study the neural underpinning of sleep deprivation in the human brain, we investigated the selective responses of individual neurons and how such responses change upon cognitive lapses. Twelve individuals with pharmacologically intractable epilepsy, who were undergoing depth electrode monitoring to identify seizure foci for potential neurosurgical treatment, performed a face/nonface categorization variant of the PVT in 31 experimental sessions (Fig. 1a and Supplementary Table 1). Each session included two 12-min blocks in which six images of famous people, familiar landmarks, and animals were presented (24 trials for each image) for 200 ms with long, unpredictable interstimulus intervals (2–8 s) as participants performed the face/nonface categorization task. In four individuals, pairs of PVT sessions were conducted before and after full-night sleep deprivation that was carried out for clinical purposes (time spent awake after sleep deprivation = 24.1 ± 1.6 h; mean ± s.e.m.), thereby providing a unique opportunity to examine the effects of sleep deprivation on behavior and the underlying activity of individual neurons. We were also able to acquire data for two individuals from four PVT sessions conducted before and after normal sleep to address possible circadian and learning effects. Subjects performed the task successfully and accurately (percentage correct = 94.1 ± 1.9%, no response = 2.9 ± 1.1%; mean ± s.e.m. across 31 sessions). We focused only on correct responses in subsequent analyses to maximize the chances that changes in behavior or neuronal activity in some trials were driven by the internal state of the subjects rather than by an impoverished visual stimulus.
Figure 1: Sleep deprivation leads to cognitive lapses in a face/nonface categorization PVT. (a) Schematic illustration of the modified PVT in which images of people, landmarks, and animals were presented infrequently as participants performed a face/nonface categorization task. (b) Distribution of RTs before and after full-night sleep deprivation (SD) in two representative individuals. For each session, an ex-Gaussian fit (Online Methods) defines the right exponential tail of cognitive lapses (orange; highest RTs), and an equal number of trials with the fastest RTs (green) was used for subsequent comparison of neuronal data. (c) Left, mean 1/RT in four session pairs conducted before and after full-night sleep deprivation (black) and two session pairs conducted before and after normal sleep (red). Right, the τ parameter (exponential tail in the ex-Gaussian distribution defining cognitive lapses) before and after sleep deprivation (black; n = 4 paired sessions) and before and after normal sleep (red; n = 2 paired sessions). (d) Scatterplot showing significant correlation (Pearson's r = 0.39, P < 0.03) between τ (ordinate) and TSA (abscissa) across all sessions (n = 31, not only including those conducted before and after sleep deprivation). Full size image
The distribution of behavioral reaction times (RTs) during the PVT experiments was best fit by an ex-Gaussian function, representing a mixture of a normal distribution (standard RTs) and an exponential distribution for slow RTs ('right tail') with large variability between sessions and between participants in the predominance of the exponential component (Fig. 1b and Supplementary Fig. 1), as has been previously observed in healthy individuals21. In each experimental session, 'fast trials' (fastest RTs) and 'slow trials' (slowest RTs) were defined according to the fitted ex-Gaussian distribution (Online Methods), with slow trials comprising 16.9 ± 1.0% of correct responses (mean ± s.e.m., n = 31 sessions). We use the term 'cognitive lapses' throughout to refer to these slow trials characterized by delayed behavioral responses (rather than a complete absence of response), as is customary in the sleep deprivation PVT literature20,21,22,23,24. Other strategies for defining cognitive lapses, such as selecting the slowest 5–10% of trials, yielded similar results (data not shown). Figure 1b illustrates how sleep deprivation altered the distribution of RTs. The reciprocal of behavioral RTs (1/RT) is a sensitive marker of slower performance after sleep loss20 and was decreased after sleep deprivation (–21.3%; Fig. 1c). The parameter τ, denoting the exponential decay component of the ex-Gaussian function, increased from 122.9 ± 41.7 ms (mean ± s.d.) to 306 ± 237 ms (+128 ± 79%; Fig. 1c), whereas the parameter μ, denoting the mean of the normal distribution, was only modestly increased (+14.4 ± 8.1%, mean ± s.e.m.), indicating that sleep deprivation exerted its greatest effect on cognitive lapses, as previously reported23. We also observed a 'time-on-task' effect23, whereby the frequency of cognitive lapses increased with the time spent performing the task (Supplementary Fig. 2).
Given that sleep deprivation had a marked effect on cognitive lapses, we next examined whether the time spent awake (TSA) before each session could predict the measures of slow trial prevalence across the entire data set, such as elevated τ and elevated mean RT in cognitive lapses. ANOVA analysis using TSA and the number of times a participant had performed the task (training effect) as between-session factors revealed that only TSA significantly predicted slow trials (F = 4.3, P = 0.047; mean RTs for cognitive lapses across sessions, training effect and interaction, P > 0.05) and average RTs (F = 4.4, P = 0.046; other, P > 0.05). None of the variables analyzed could significantly predict mean RTs for fast trials across sessions. Time of day (circadian effect) did not correlate with RTs (fast or slow: all, P > 0.5); however, the lack of significant circadian effects here could stem from variability in the precise hours when sessions were conducted (Supplementary Table 1). In contrast, accuracy of performance in the face/nonface categorization task was not affected by TSA (F = 0.03, P = 0.86). Likewise, a relationship between TSA and slow trials was evident when conducting ANOVA on μ, σ, and τ (the parameters of the fitted ex-Gaussian distribution corresponding to the mean, left tail, and right tail, respectively): a significant effect was found for TSA on τ (F = 4.7, P = 0.04; Fig. 1d), but no effect of TSA was found on μ (F = 0.54, P = 0.47) or σ (F = 0.69, P = 0.41), verifying the specific relationship between TSA and cognitive lapses during slow trials. We did not find an effect of repeated sessions (training effect) on performance, in accordance with the literature23. In addition, subjective sleepiness (Online Methods) was significantly correlated with TSA (Spearman's r = 0.42, P < 0.05), but ANOVA did not reveal a significant relationship between subjective sleepiness and slow trials (F = 1.5 and 2.2 for mean RTs and τ of the slow trials, respectively), replicating results from previous studies on the limitation of subjective sleepiness estimates25. Altogether, behavioral data showed that TSA was the dominant factor influencing performance on the task and primarily increased the occurrence of cognitive lapses.
Next, we examined the neuronal activity evoked by the stimuli used in the face/nonface categorization PVT task. An image of the intracranial electrodes used and a schematic of the 104 brain regions monitored in the study are provided in Figure 2a,b. The visual stimuli used in the face/nonface categorization PVT paradigm elicited robust responses in individual neurons (Fig. 2c; 1,481 units recorded in total), especially in the MTL, but occasionally also in cingulate cortex, with variability in the precise intensity, selectivity, and latency of responses across individual neurons. Whenever possible, images were selected that elicited responses in prior screening sessions in order to maximize the likelihood of effectively driving activity in the recorded neurons. Of the 611 recorded neurons in the MTL, 106 (17%) responded significantly to at least one stimulus (Online Methods). When pooling the activity of all responsive neurons (n = 162) irrespective of brain region, an average response profile emerged consisting of increased firing rates at 200–500 ms after stimulus onset (Fig. 2d), with an orderly progression of temporal latencies from the high-order visual cortex to the hippocampus and frontal lobe (Fig. 2e). Robust differences in response latencies across MTL regions were also evident when quantifying the precise timing of the responses detected in each trial separately (Online Methods and Supplementary Figs. 3 and 4), in line with previous findings26,27. Single-unit spiking responses were highly selective and could not be observed when averaging the activity of neighboring neurons not categorized as responsive (Supplementary Fig. 5). Crucially, the robust and highly selective profiles of single-neuron responses allowed for study of the effects of cognitive lapses at the single-neuron level.
Figure 2: Human single-neuron responses during the face/nonface categorization PVT experiment. (a) Macro–micro depth electrodes with eight 40-μm (diameter) platinum/iridium microwires protruding 4–5 mm from the most distal macroelectrode contact. 6–12 of these electrodes were implanted into each subject to simultaneously monitor activity in multiple brain regions. (b) Overview of the 104 brain locations monitored by depth electrodes in 12 individuals, as seen from a medial view. OF, orbitofrontal cortex; AC, anterior cingulate cortex; SM, supplementary motor area; PH, parahippocampal gyrus; HC, hippocampus; E, entorhinal cortex; Am, amygdala; LH, left hemisphere; RH, right hemisphere. Red circles mark more lateral regions, such as superior temporal gyrus. (c) Four representative examples (raster plots and PSTHs) of single-unit spiking responses to different pictures (stimulus 1, 2, and 3) recorded from the anterior fusiform gyrus (top left), anterior hippocampus (bottom left), anterior cingulate cortex (top right), and parahippocampal gyrus (bottom right). Green boxes mark stimuli eliciting significant responses (red bars) above baseline firing (horizontal red lines), and insets show action potential waveforms. (d) Average response (raster plot and PSTH) across all neurons tagged as responsive (n = 162) to pictures that were effective in driving a response. (e) Average response to the same stimuli as in d for each brain region monitored showing an orderly progression of temporal latencies (black arrow; hot to cold colors) from high-order visual cortex to hippocampus and frontal lobe. FG, anterior fusiform gyrus; TPO, temporal–parietal–occipital junction. Full size image
We examined the relationship between cognitive lapses and underlying neuronal activity by testing how the responses of the same neurons to the same physical stimulus might change as a function of behavioral performance (comparing neuronal activity in fast trials versus slow trials in the same session). Importantly, such 'within-session' comparisons minimize confounding by increased epileptogenic activity after sleep deprivation. Given the relationship between cognitive lapses and TSA (Fig. 1d), we compared neuronal responses across all sessions (n = 31): 15.3% of these responses were obtained before and after sleep deprivation, and 71.4% were obtained when subjects were awake for >12 h. In individual neurons, cognitive lapses in slow trials were associated with weaker and delayed neuronal spiking discharges relative to responses in fast trials, with differences particularly evident around 200–300 ms following image onset (Fig. 3a). We proceeded to examine the average normalized response in fast versus slow trials across the entire data set. Slow trials were associated with attenuated, delayed, and prolonged responses to identical stimuli (Fig. 3b–d; Supplementary Fig. 6, data for individual subjects; Supplementary Fig. 7a, non-normalized peristimulus time histograms (PSTHs)). A quantitative paired comparison between the responses of each individual neuron in fast and slow trials (Fig. 3e and Online Methods) revealed that the response magnitude was attenuated by 17% in slow trials (z(376) = −3.05, P = 0.0023, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Additionally, in slow trials, response latency (detected in individual trials; Online Methods) was delayed by 27 ± 6.9 ms (mean ± s.e.m.; z(376) = 3.5, P = 4.8 × 10−4, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Analysis that quantified response latency as firing above baseline in PSTHs yielded similar results (data not shown). Response duration in slow trials was increased by 52 ± 19 ms (mean ± s.e.m.; z(376) = 3.2, P = 0.0012, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Notably, analysis of spiking activity in neighboring nonresponsive neurons during the same trials did not reveal significantly different firing rates between fast and slow trials (P = 0.36, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Thus, altered neuronal spiking activity during cognitive lapses was specific to responsive neurons and does not reflect a global reduction in activity at those times. Neuronal spiking responses were primarily associated with stimulus onset rather than motor responses (Supplementary Fig. 7). Correlation between the latency of MTL neuronal responses and RTs was also observed across all trials without focusing a priori on comparing fast versus slow trials (Supplementary Fig. 8).
Figure 3: Reduced, delayed, and lengthened single-unit responses during cognitive lapses. (a) Spiking responses (raster plots and PSTHs) in fast trials (lowest RTs; green) versus slow trials (highest RTs; orange) for two representative neurons in the anterior hippocampus and the parahippocampal gyrus (same neurons as those in the bottom row in Fig. 2c). Trials in the raster plots were sorted on the basis of the RT in each trial (slowest on top). Black ticks, action potentials; open red circles, response latency detected automatically; green, gray, and orange circles, behavioral response in fast, other, and slow trials, respectively. Vertical gray bars mark the absence of response in slow trials around 200–300 ms after stimulus onset. (b) Normalized PSTH of all responses (each row represents a response to 1 of 469 stimuli; 162 responsive neurons) during fast trials (left) and slow trials (right). Responses are aligned to the onset of response for each neuron across all trials (x axis), and amplitude (color scale) is normalized to the peak response of each neuron to take into account variability across neurons in response timing and amplitude. Vertical and sloped blue lines mark the average time of response onset and response termination, respectively, for each neuron (sorted by response duration). Green and orange vertical lines mark mean behavioral RTs in fast and slow trials, respectively. (c) Color superposition of PSTH responses (each row represents a response to 1 of 469 stimuli; 162 responsive neurons) in fast and slow trials. Responses are aligned (x axis) and normalized (y axis) as in b. Color intensity (inset legend) corresponds to firing rate magnitude, and hue (green versus orange) indicates stronger responses during fast versus slow trials at that time, respectively (Online Methods). Vertical and sloped white lines mark the average time of response onset and response termination, respectively, for each neuron (sorted by response duration). (d) Grand mean PSTH of all responses (n = 469 responses in 162 neurons) in fast trials (green) and slow trials (orange). Responses are aligned (x axis) and normalized (y axis) as in b. Green and orange arrows mark the mean behavioral RTs in fast and slow trials, respectively. (e) Quantification of response magnitude (left), response latency (middle), and response duration (right) in individual responsive neurons during fast trials versus slow trials (n = 376 pictures in 142 units). Slow trials are associated with statistically significant firing rate reduction (**P < 0.005, Wilcoxon signed-rank test), increased temporal latency (***P < 0.0005, Wilcoxon signed-rank test), and longer response duration (**P < 0.005, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Gray dots and lines depict 16 individual sessions with at least 5 unit responses each. Error bars denote s.e.m. across responses. Full size image
We also examined responses to images using locally referenced LFPs recorded from the same MTL microwires with which single-unit neuronal activity was observed (Fig. 4). The robust increase in broadband LFP gamma power that occurs following sensory stimulation in multiple modalities is an extensively studied phenomenon. This LFP signal is linked to the neuronal spiking activity of local neuronal populations28 and typically co-occurs with a decrease in low-frequency power, also termed 'desynchronization' (refs. 28, 29, 30, 31). In line with these findings, the 'induced power' LFP response to images (Fig. 4a) consisted of an increase in broadband gamma power (>45 Hz, 50–600 ms after stimulus) and a decrease in slow/theta power (2–10 Hz, 300–700 ms) (Supplementary Fig. 9, examples of the LFP dynamics in single trials). LFP responses were selective: some MTL microwires (n = 270 channels in 31 sessions) showed a robust response (Fig. 4a, MTL responsive channels) whereas other neighboring channels (n = 198 channels in 31 sessions) did not show significant modulations (Fig. 4c, MTL nonresponsive channels), despite the presence of high-quality signals that allowed isolation of neuronal units (Online Methods).
Figure 4: Cognitive lapses are associated with weaker gamma power increase and weaker slow/theta power decrease in MTL LFPs. (a) Time–frequency decomposition of induced power changes in LFPs of MTL responsive channels (n = 270 channels in 31 sessions). Columns show the average power changes for all trials (left), fast trials (lowest RTs; middle), and slow trials (highest RTs; right). Hot and cold colors mark increases and decreases in power, respectively. Black rectangles highlight stimulus-induced increased power in the gamma frequency range (>45 Hz); pink rectangles highlight stimulus-induced decreased power in the slow/theta frequency range (2–10 Hz). (b) Time course of gamma power increase (top) and slow/theta power decrease (bottom) for fast trials versus slow trials. (c) Decomposition as in a for neighboring MTL nonresponsive channels (n = 198 channels in 31 sessions). (d) Time course as in b for neighboring MTL nonresponsive channels. (e) Quantification (median) of gamma power increases (45–100 Hz, 50–600 ms) for responsive (left) and nonresponsive (right) MTL channels. Asterisks indicate significant differences (Wilcoxon signed-rank tests comparing fast trials with slow trials: **P < 0.007). (f) Quantification (median) of slow/theta power decrease (2–10 Hz, 300–700 ms) for responsive (left) and nonresponsive (right) MTL channels. Asterisks indicate significant differences (Wilcoxon signed-rank tests comparing fast trials with slow trials: ***P < 1 × 10−7). In e and f, error bars denote s.e.m. computed across LFP channels (n = 270 and 198 for responsive and nonresponsive channels, respectively), and gray dots and lines denote 22 (responsive channels) and 17 (nonresponsive channels) individual sessions that had at least 5 LFP channels each. Green, fast trials; orange, slow trials. (g) Scatterplot of single-neuron response latency versus strength of gamma power increase showing that during slow trials increased latency in spiking responses is significantly correlated with weaker increase in LFP gamma power (Spearman coefficient r = −0.17, P = 0.007, n = 255 pictures that elicited significant responses across 87 units and 21 sessions; Online Methods). (h) Scatterplot of single-neuron response latency versus strength of slow/theta power decrease showing that during slow trials increased latency in spiking responses is significantly correlated with increased slow/theta LFP power (Spearman coefficient: r = 0.22, P = 4.5 × 10−4, n = 255 pictures that elicited significant responses across 87 units and 21 sessions). Full size image
In responsive LFP channels, cognitive lapses during slow trials were associated with a weaker increase in gamma power in comparison to fast trials (Fig. 4b,e; −19.1%, z(270) = 2.72, P = 0.006, Wilcoxon signed-rank test) and a weaker decrease in slow/theta power in comparison to fast trials (Fig. 4b,f; −76.2%, z(270) = −5.2, P = 2 × 10−7, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). In contrast, no significant effects of cognitive lapses were observed in neighboring nonresponsive MTL channels (Fig. 4d–f; gamma: z(198) = −0.57, P = 0.57; theta: z(198) = −0.98, P = 0.33; Wilcoxon signed-rank tests). In contrast to induced power changes, the power of the evoked (average) LFP at 2–10 Hz was lower during cognitive lapses (Supplementary Fig. 10), suggesting that induced power effects reflect changes in ongoing activity rather than changes in the stimulus-evoked event-related potential. Furthermore, during cognitive lapses, the latency of spiking responses negatively correlated with LFP gamma power (Fig. 4g; r = −0.17, P = 0.006) and positively correlated with LFP slow/theta power (Fig. 4h; r = 0.22, P = 4.5 × 10−4). The significant coupling between the degree of degradation in LFP and neuronal spiking responses suggests that these effects are tightly linked manifestations of neuronal lapses in selective circuits engaged in the task. Whether the cognitive lapses (and underlying neuronal activity) observed after sleep deprivation are qualitatively similar or different from sporadic slow responses occurring throughout wakefulness remains an open question for future studies3,6.
Considering the growing amount of literature on increased theta power (6–10 Hz) as a correlate of sleep pressure16,19,32, we examined theta power during baseline intervals preceding stimulus onset (Online Methods and Supplementary Fig. 11). First, we established that theta power in MTL LFPs was indeed associated with sleep pressure and cognitive lapses. We found that baseline theta power was (i) significantly correlated with TSA (Supplementary Fig. 11a; r = 0.26, P < 4.07 × 10−6), (ii) elevated after full-night sleep deprivation (Supplementary Fig. 11b; P < 2.74 × 10−5, Wilcoxon signed-rank test), and (iii) higher before cognitive lapse trials (Supplementary Fig. 11c; P < 0.0001, Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Baseline theta power also exhibited a modest albeit highly significant correlation with the level of slow/theta power (2–10 Hz) during the response interval (Supplementary Fig. 11d,e; r = 0.05, P < 4 × 10−37), suggesting that baseline theta activity might influence the degraded LFP response during cognitive lapse trials (Fig. 4). Overall, ongoing theta activity is increased with sleep pressure, and its decreased attenuation during cognitive lapses may lead to impoverished neuronal and cognitive responses.
Finally, we ruled out a potential contribution from pathological epileptiform activity. First, we confirmed that all the main findings (degraded neuronal and LFP responses) held when all data collected in regions eventually declared as being within the seizure-onset zone (SOZ; data not shown) were discarded. Second, we detected interictal spikes (IISs) across the entire LFP data set (n = 1,648 LFP channels) to test whether such events might occur more frequently around cognitive lapses (Online Methods and Supplementary Fig. 12a,b). IISs were detected in few trials (5.0 ± 0.23%) and were significantly more frequently detected within the SOZ than in other regions (Supplementary Fig. 12c; 2.7-fold increase, P < 10−48, Mann–Whitney U-test), attesting to successful IIS detection. However, cognitive lapses were not associated with increased frequency of IISs when considering all data (Supplementary Fig. 12d; P = 0.46, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, n = 1,533 channels) or when considering only MTL regions in which selective neuronal effects were observed (Supplementary Fig. 12f; P = 0.48, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, n = 619 channels). In fact, when considering only sessions after complete sleep deprivation, we found a small but significant reduction in the frequency of IISs around cognitive lapses (Supplementary Fig. 12e; P = 0.025, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, n = 186 channels). Thus, we could not find a consistent or robust relationship between IISs and cognitive lapses.
Altogether, these findings show that in sleep-deprived humans engaged in a visual categorization task selective neuronal spiking responses to images are attenuated, delayed, and lengthened before cognitive lapses, and such MTL modulations of spiking activity are associated with a selectively weakened decrease in slow/theta power in responsive LFP channels. Thus, degraded neuronal activity is already evident at the perceptual stage, in which responses of individual neurons in selected trials can predict subsequent cognitive lapses. The extent to which these effects are regionally specific remains unclear, but the current results establish that, within MTL regions, cognitive lapses specifically affect responsive circuits engaged in the task. Progressive delays in neuronal activity may further accumulate in downstream decision-making and/or motor regions during cognitive lapses, ultimately leading to slower behavior. In line with the biased competition model of selective attention33, degraded sensory cortical activity during cognitive lapses may fail to elicit high-quality perceptual representations, and visual information therefore cannot be effectively fed forward to the frontal lobe regions that ultimately determine behavior. It still remains unclear whether degraded MTL activity strictly reflects impaired bottom–up signaling or whether additional top–down attention mechanisms are at play.
Brief periods of silence (OFF periods) accompanied by slow waves in field potentials are hallmarks of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep in both animals34 and humans35, and they are associated with behavioral immobility and unresponsiveness. Following sleep deprivation, awake rats exhibit local sleep-like slow/theta waves and shorter OFF periods that are associated with degraded behavioral performance19. Given that we could only record a few neurons simultaneously in each brain region and that OFF periods in wakefulness are short (∼80 ms), it was not possible to determine reliably whether such brief OFF periods occur in the human brain during sleep deprivation. However, we find that slow/theta activity, previously linked to sleepiness16,17,19,32, is increased before and during cognitive lapses, and these changes were associated with degraded spike responses. Impaired spike responses are observed in individual neurons engaged in a cognitive task without concurrent changes in the firing of neighboring neurons, and these changes predict specific cognitive impairments in sleep-deprived humans. The tight relationship between MTL activity and perception36 suggests that visual recognition itself may slow down as a result of sleep deprivation. PVT lapses are stochastic; i.e., they are unpredictable moment to moment owing to the influence of a random variable. The present findings suggest that degraded neuronal and LFP responses in the MTL do predict such lapses to some extent, which pushes the formal cause of cognitive lapses back another step in the neurobiological chain of events. The mechanisms underlying local neuronal lapses remain to be determined, although it is likely that transient instability in the activity of neuromodulatory systems, including cholinergic and noradrenergic neurons, may play a role37. Indeed, instability in pupil size (tightly linked with central noradrenergic activity38) is correlated with alertness39, and the synaptic release of acetylcholine is transiently diminished during poor behavioral performance40.
|
Just like you, Justin Verlander has heard the trade rumors. This isn’t the first time, either. Detroit Tigers General Manager Al Avila personally prepared him to brace for that this offseason, when it became clear the team would entertain discussions about the ace.
And now, with a month to go before the MLB trade deadline, that chatter will intensify.
The 34-year-old pitcher has not given up on the possibility the Tigers could make a run and claw back into the wild card picture, but he’s also well aware that he may be facing one of the biggest decisions of his life in a mere matter of weeks. The recent trade speculation brought that reality to the surface.
“I can’t say it wasn’t expected,” Verlander told The Athletic on Friday. “We’re all aware that if we weren’t at a certain point right now — the team is going to be looking at, probably, to trade some guys, so to see my name out there, I’d say really no reaction. It’s not like the...
|
TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) — Judges may have another way to help repeat DUI offenders sober up for good.
Instead of blowing into a machine which keep their cars from starting, they may have to get their breath tested twice a day.
The proposal, approved by a House committee last week, would allow judges to place repeat DUI offenders into a new program, known elsewhere as “24/7 Sobriety,” instead of having ignition interlock devices installed on their vehicles. State law currently requires interlock devices for drivers with more than one DUI. Judges would have the discretion to order the devices as well as the 24/7 program.
In general, the program outlined in HB 7005, approved unanimously by the House Economic Affairs Committee, would require that drivers submit to twice-daily breath tests, random urinalysis or continuous monitoring devices, such as drug patches or ankle bracelets.
Supporters say the 24/7 abstinence-based programs have shown significant reductions in drunken driving and other alcohol- or drug-related offenses such as domestic violence, and have better compliance rates than the interlock devices.
The proposal is the latest salvo in a vendor-driven fight about possibly expanding the use of ignition interlock devices, used by more than 10,000 Floridians, to first-time DUI offenders. Vendors have pushed that idea over the objections of state highway safety officials.
But instead of adding to the vendors’ market share, an amendment slipped onto HB 7005 last week would lead to the new 24/7 program — possibly shrinking the use of interlock devices. The bill also includes a priority of House Speaker Will Weatherford dealing with driver’s licenses.
Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Julie Jones, who recently lost a court fight to interlock-device vendors, is one of a growing number of driving safety experts who believe the abstinence-based programs are a better way to ensure that repeat offenders clean up their act. Jones has proposed shifting half of interlock-device users into a 24/7 program and measuring the effectiveness of both programs for five years.
“The current IID (ignition interlock device) program has been very helpful for the treatment of impaired driving offenders. But why limit ourselves to one method that is exclusive to drinking while driving while drugged-driving violations continue to increase?” Jones said recently.
Jones said she was not responsible for the amendment that would give judges the option to impose the 24/7 program instead of the interlock devices, but she did change it so that her department would have to authorize the program. And she has repeatedly objected to efforts by the vendors to expand the interlock-device program — a $10 million a year industry in Florida — to first-time offenders, something backed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and favored by federal transportation officials. But Jones said research shows that the majority of first-time offenders don’t need more intervention to stay out of trouble.
The amendment was proposed by a vendor for Intoximeter, a hand-held breath testing device used by 24/7 programs elsewhere and already in use in other programs in Florida.
Letting drivers with multiple DUI offenses get behind the wheel without interlock devices would be a major shift in policy, Douglas Mannheimer, a lobbyist for Alcohol Countermeasure Systems, told the House panel last week. ACS is one of three interlock vendors now doing business with the state.
“The difference in policy now is that person that’s in the program may … go to the convenience store, buy something, get in that car. Right now … the car would not start,” Mannheimer said.
But under the proposed changes, “we could have second, third or even fourth offenders driving when I think the word is they proverbially fell off the wagon that afternoon,” he said.
Meanwhile, a pilot 24/7 program in Jacksonville, the first in Florida, is slated to begin during the first week in May. The program was developed by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the Northeast Florida Safety Council, the organization that provides court-ordered services, including DUI programs, in a nine-county region including Jacksonville.
Bill Mickelson helped create the country’s first “24/7 Sobriety” program in 2005 when, as a deputy state attorney general in South Dakota, he was intent on reducing the number of prisoners locked up for alcohol- or drug-related offenses, about two-thirds of those behind bars in the state at the time.
Mickelson, now a consultant, came to Florida to try to convince sheriffs and others to embrace the 24/7 abstinence approach for habitual offenders. In the eight years since South Dakota implemented 24/7, 37,000 individuals have participated in the program and provided a total of 7 million breath tests. A RAND Corp. study found a 12 percent reduction in repeat DUI arrests over a five-year period.
“It’s the first time in their alcoholic careers that somebody’s held them accountable for their sobriety,” Mickelson, who also consults for Intoximeters, Inc., said. “There is a sure and measured and a swift consequence for a bad act, unlike other testing methodologies where there’s a time delay.”
South Dakota’s 24/7 program has become a model for the country, and federal highway safety officials are encouraging states to adopt it. So far, only two other states — North Dakota and Montana — have implemented similar programs statewide.
The programs are premised on frequent testing paired with immediate consequences, usually jail time, for individuals who fail breath tests. In Jacksonville, those who fail breath tests for the first time will go to jail for 12 hours and face 24 hours for a second slip. The same consequences apply for individuals wearing patches or bracelets measuring alcohol or drugs. A third failure would result in an appearance before a judge and incarceration.
The interlock devices have been in use in Florida for a decade. Since then, nearly 6,000 of the 68,048 drivers ordered into the program received subsequent DUIs, and about 1,000 received DUIs while they were in the interlock program, according to data provided by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
The Jacksonville pilot project will give judges the option of ordering the 24/7 program as a requirement for pretrial release, probation or bond, and is not limited to driving offenses. Drivers ordered into the program may also have to participate in other programs, including rehab or counseling, required separately for some DUI offenders.
Northeast Florida Safety Council Executive Director Sue Holley, who helped develop the Duval County pilot project, said interlock devices work well for some drivers. But the devices don’t stop people from drinking and driving or from drinking altogether.
“The substance abuse issue is so complicated and complex and it’s very difficult to find the one thing that works for everybody,” Holley, who has worked with DUI programs for three decades.
Like DHSMV Director Jones, Holley views 24/7 sobriety as a more modern, holistic approach toward treating repeat offenders before allowing them to have their licenses fully reinstated.
“We’re looking at this program, the 24/7 program, as probably being the next revelation for the DUI programs to be able to better serve the DUI offender, to provide better outcomes as far as their success with not re-offending, which is our goal,” she said. “I want to be able to go home and sleep at night. I don’t want to have to rely on one single tool to be the magic torch.”
“The News Service of Florida’s Dara Kam contributed to this report.”
|
PORTLAND, OR — Last year, a parent’s outrage over a government school locking her child in a padded cell without her knowledge or permission caused so much outrage that a new state law was passed, prohibiting schools from purchasing or using free-standing “seclusion cells” or “isolation booths,” as they are called. With the new law taking effect, some schools are scrambling for a way around the provisions, so they can continue to place students in solitary confinement at their discretion.
In November 2012, KATU News broke a story about the use of an isolation booth at Mint Valley Elementary School in Longview, WA. Concerned parent, Ana Bate, said her son saw students being locked in the booth at school and was traumatized.
“[He was] thinking it was scary, it was abusive, are they gonna do this to me?” Bate said.
School administrators defended locking children in padded cells, saying that it had “therapeutic purposes” for some children.
“How come they’re not providing documentation about how this ‘therapeutic booth’ is beneficial?” said Bate. “Show me some real numbers. Show me something from the medical community that says more times than not and all the documentation that backs it up. Don’t tell me ‘well, their parents said we could do it.'”
“I have a 20-year-old daughter who’s actually been institutionalized, medicated heavily, ADD, ADHD, RAD, OCD, among other things,” Bate said. “I never had to have anybody put her in a box. I didn’t have any problems dealing with the situation, so I do know both sides.”
The outrage over the story grew, with the help of the alternative media. And more stories came forth.
Jared Harrison, a 7th grader at the McCornack school in the Eugene district, testified in front of legislators that he was placed in an isolation room hundreds of times — “at least every day” — as a punishment for the smallest things. His punishments began in the 1st grade, and continued for years. Anything from not following directions, to throwing paper balls, could earn Jared time in the cell.
Jared’s confinement sessions were so frequent, and begun at such a young age, that he thought that spending time in the cell was part of a normal day at school. So normal, that he never even thought to tell his mother about it. To a child it had been normal, but to those hearing the testimony, the stories were shocking.
“You have two adults dragging you into a room and locking the door behind you and you’re just a little kid and you don’t know what’s going on,” Harrison told lawmakers. “You’re not going to be calm. And I know no one else in the room was calm. They were all freaking out because their friend’s being locked in a room. It didn’t help the situation at all. It made it worse – much worse than it would’ve been if I had just sat in a timeout chair for five minutes.”
Jennifer Harrison, Jared’s mother, told lawmakers that these kind of isolation punishments were more commonly found in prisons and mental health facilities.
“I don’t think that schools are jails. I hope they’re not,” said Jennifer Harrison.
By February 2013, a bill in Oregon was introduced to prevent these controversial measures from being used on students in their state. Oregon’s House Bill 2756 prohibits government schools from purchasing, building or installing seclusion cells, and prohibits their use. By April, it had been passed and signed by the governor.
The new law defined the cells as free-standing units — like the one used in Longview, WA — to avoid the unintended prohibition of using rooms in the school for normal purposes.
Therefore, in order to get around the new law, schools simply need to lock students in isolation rooms, instead of isolation booths.
And voilà! A well-intentioned, albeit reactionary, law is being easily circumvented. The same policy of locking children in solitary confinement will continue, as long as the cells are built-in to the building, rather than in free-standing booths.
An audit of records from Oregon earlier this year showed that eight school districts had used their isolation booths 791 times, reported OregonLive.com. One Portland school had alone used theirs 100 times since the beginning of the school year.
Some of the newly outfitted isolation rooms were explored by KATU News. Compliant with the new law, the solitary confinement will no longer be performed in a free-standing booth. One school, Cherry Park, converted part of a locker room into isolation rooms for students. Now there is an observation window, a light, and ventilation.
To see what the new cells will look like, view KATU’s coverage below.
Jared Harrison’s mother is right; isolation rooms belong in prisons, not schools. But the parallels of between schools and prison go well beyond throwing children into solitary confinement for misbehavior. The whole education system is modeled to achieve conformity and obedience. Institutions are lined with live-feed cameras. Students are subjected to warrantless searches and often forced to give urine. Police presence in schools is becoming more pervasive and lockers and backpacks can be sniffed with dogs. Attendance is compulsory. Students are having to carry RFID badges or give biometric identification. Even the parking lots are subject to warrantless searches. And that’s without even touching on the curriculum, which is very pro-statism.
As we see with the new law in Oregon, it is difficult to legislate even one aspect of the problem away, let alone all these prison-like characteristics. Only your vigilance and public pressure can reverse these problems, but ultimately the system always retains the systemic problems created by its Prussian roots. Many parents would just as soon not let the government raise their children for 12 years of their young lives, resorting to home schooling or carefully-chosen private schools.
{ Support Police State USA }
PLEASE NOTE: Isolation rooms/booths are NOT isolated to Oregon & Washington.
|
Ahead of legal, adult-use sales kicking off next year, San Francisco has created a new office to serve as a hub for all things cannabis.
Approved at a meeting this week by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Office of Cannabis will handle license applications and fees for the city and county, field questions and complaints, interact with state-level regulators, and act as an information repository for the public. It’s set to open by the end of the year.
According San Francisco Chronicle reporter Rachel Swan, the ordinance creating the office passed on the same day as the municipal budget, which earmarks funds to get the office off the ground:
The city budget included $700,000 to fund three Office of Cannabis positions — a manager, a principal analyst and a management assistant — along with overhead, website development and public outreach. Mayor Ed Lee also set aside $665,227 this year for five new Department of Public Health employees who would help oversee permitting for medical cannabis dispensaries. The city currently has 39 permitted dispensaries and 28 pending applications.
During discussion of the ordinance, several of the supervisors raised concerns about race and gender equity in the cannabis industry, noting that the Bay Area has struggled to diversify its tech industry. In response, according to the meeting minutes, Supervisor Ahsha Safai moved to add language meant to promote inclusivity.
“The Office shall ensure that the perspectives of communities that historically have been disproportionately impacted by federal drug enforcement policies are included and considered in all policy decisions,” Safai’s amendment says. It’s not yet clear what that will look like from a practical standpoint.
Following debate and amendments, supervisors passed the ordinance unanimously.
|
Canada Post is suspending the conversion of door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes.
In a news release issued late Monday, Canada Post spokeswoman Anick Losier said the corporation will work "collaboratively" with the government of Canada to determine the best path forward given the challenges in the postal system.
"Efforts are now underway to place the comprehensive program on hold in an orderly fashion," Losier said in the release. "This involves roughly 460,000 addresses across the country which are currently in the process to be converted to community mailboxes."
Outgoing Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, whose portfolio includes Canada Post, said the corporation makes decisions independent of government.
'Arm's-length Crown corporation'
"They are an arm's-length Crown corporation and take their own operational decisions," Raitt told CBC News. "But they also have a statutory obligation to operate self-sufficiently, and if they are not then I expect they will be held accountable."
Canadian Union of Postal Workers national president Mike Palecek said members are "ecstatic" about the news.
"We've been fighting this campaign for a year and a half, and we're glad they finally put a halt to this disastrous program," he told CBC News. "It's time to talk about the future of Canada Post, about restoring service to those who have lost it, and about having a public mandate review of Canada Post so we can look at alternatives to these cuts."
Palecek said Canada Post should be looking at expanding services, such as having banking and financial services in post offices. He said it appears that the incoming Liberal government is following up on an election campaign promise to put an immediate moratorium on the cuts and to carry out a study.
The Liberal platform promised to ensure "high-quality service at a reasonable price to Canadians, no matter where they live."
"We succeeded in making this a major election issue and making sure that people understood exactly who it was and is to blame, and that's Stephen Harper and the Conservative government," Palecek said. "I think the Canadian public spoke loudly and clearly last week by changing the government."
Palecek said the CUPW will keep up pressure to restore delivery to the roughly one million addresses that have been converted to community mailbox service since the program began 10 months ago.
The Liberal Party declined to comment on the Canada Post announcement.
Montreal mayor ready to 'reconsider' lawsuit
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, who once took a jackhammer to the concrete base of a community mailbox to make a point about his opposition to Canada Post's plans, spoke to reporters gathered at city hall on Monday.
Coderre said he was prepared to consider withdrawing from the lawsuit he joined to block the implementation of community mailboxes in Canada.
The City of Montreal was one of several municipalities to join the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' lawsuit earlier this year.
"We'll see what happens, but if everything is suspended I'm even ready to reconsider. But clearly we have to have a truce — because you have to be vigilant with Canada Post, we never know. They say one thing and then the next day, who knows what happens," Coderre said on Monday.
"But since we have a new government who was very clear on what would be the outcome of Canada Post, let's sit together. We want to be a part of a solution."
|
BIG Changes Underway At Cleveland Golf
Written By: Tony Covey
The Future of Cleveland Golf
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but big changes are underway at Cleveland Golf. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Cleveland and its parent company SRI Sports (Srixon) have been dropping breadcrumbs for the better of the season. We touched upon the trail briefly in our lead-in to the Tour Rack Wedge giveaway, but for the sake of clarity, let me briefly walk you down the path of recent history.
Cleveland kicks off the MY CUSTOM WEDGE Program
Cleveland release super game-improvement Smart Sole wedges
Cleveland develops a video series with short game tips from Dave Pelz
Cleveland hosts short game clinics all over the country
Cleveland launches Limited Edition Tour Rack Wedge program
Srixon makes its most aggressive US launch ever with Z F 545 and 745 Irons and metalwoods
What does this all mean?
Do you notice a trend?
Let me spell it out for you. There’s a new plan underway at SRI Sports. While Cleveland isn’t completely going away, the brand’s role in the larger company will be significantly diminished. The Srixon brand will seek to make inroads into the US Market with its own metalwood and iron offerings, while the Cleveland brand will be used for short game clubs, as well as ultralight and game-improvement models (the Altitude series) most specifically designed for seniors. As it was explained to us, Cleveland’s new target market for all things not wedge is The Villages.
Outside of Florida’s friendliest hometown, Cleveland, it appears, is all but exiting the larger iron and metalwoods markets.
Allow me to reiterate. If what closely connected sources are telling us is accurate (and we think it it is) Cleveland Golf will no longer produce drivers, fairway woods, hybrids, or irons for the full market. Instead, it will focus its efforts on wedges, and a niche segments of the metalwoods and irons market.
No doubt some of you are saddened by that news.
Rumors Swirling for Years
Over the last several years, there isn’t another golf company on the planet that’s been the subject of more rumors than Cleveland Golf. Here’s just a quick sample of what’s come up this year alone:
Under Armour wants into the club market. It’s buying Cleveland.
Go Daddy founder, Bob Parsons, he’s buying Cleveland too.
Nobody is buying Cleveland because the company is going out of business.
Callaway Golf is buying Cleveland just so Roger Cleveland can put his name on a wedge again.
I totally made-up that last one, but those first ones, and a few others continue to circulate.
The reality as we understand it today is that Cleveland Golf isn’t going away. It’s not even being sold. Sources I’ve spoken with tell me that Cleveland’s parent company – Japan’s Sumitomo Rubber Industries (the SRI in SRI Sports and SRIxon) actually likes being in the golf business. SRI wants to stay in the golf business.
Srixon Matters
On this side of the world Srixon is certainly better known for its golf balls than its clubs, but elsewhere in the world, Japan to be totally specific, Srixon is the #1 selling hard goods company in the market. Basically Srixon kills it over there, which is pretty damn impressive considering that Japan has the second largest golf market on the planet. The US and Japanese markets combined (according to Golf Datatech) make up 70% of the total worldwide market for golf.
Basically, Japan matters…a lot. Srixon is big in Japan. Therefore Srixon matters.
I just got 5 points on a 4th grade logic test.
Why Is This Happening?
Like just about everything else in the golf business, change is necessitated by the bottom line. Whatever you may think about Cleveland, the brand and its products, the fact is that the company’s market share in the iron and metalwoods categories has steadily declined over the last several seasons. We know there are plenty of you out there who love your Cleveland clubs (the Launcher driver comes up quite a bit), but one could make a reasonably compelling argument that Cleveland has failed to generate any real excitement since the Hi-Bore came out.
In that lies the problem.
According to the most recent Golf Datatech reports, Cleveland’s share of the metalwoods market has dropped to 1%. That means that 99 of every 100 dollars spent on woods goes to someone else. The iron business isn’t doing much better. That same report shows Cleveland with a 1.67% share of the market.
Obviously, that’s not where Cleveland once was, and it’s certainly not where it wants to be.
Wedges? Well, as you might imagine given the company’s position as one of the iconic wedge makers in the game, Cleveland does significantly better there. The recent report has them at 21% of the market (trailing only Vokey at ~40%).
The bottom line is that wedges are the last true bright spot in the Cleveland club lineup (and even there, Cleveland is down 7% from last season), so it makes sense for SRI to do whatever it can to focus the Cleveland brand on what’s still working.
The upside for Cleveland fans is that the company apparently has plans to substantially expand its wedge lineup. In addition to the multiple loft and bounce options currently available, Cleveland will finally offer multiple different grinds as well.
Can Srixon Make It In the USA?
Once upon a time Srixon golf balls were little more than a curiosity with a funny name. Over time the brand has grown to a point of respectability within the US Market, although (in the interest of painting a complete picture), the brand currently ranks only #6 on Datatech’s golf ball market share report. The point is that while many US-based golfers might be familiar with the name, it would be a stretch to say that we’ve completely embraced it.
That said, Srixon’s percentage of the ball market is higher than Cleveland’s in both the the iron and metalwoods market (combined), and the brand does have a strong overseas presence, which, if leveraged correctly could have some impact on our market.
The bigger issue is distribution. As it stands now, other than the ball shelf, it’s difficult to find Srixon products anywhere. As big box shops like Dick’s downsize the golf business while other seek to eliminate outstanding inventory, getting shop managers to buy into a largely unknown brand that doesn’t currently even register in Datatech’s numbers won’t be easy. Srixon is currently included in other.
Srixon makes clubs? That will be asked, and asked often.
It’s more difficult for a new brand to make inroads into golf, and while Srixon isn’t exactly new, its less of a known commodity than Bridgestone, who will also be making a big push in 2015. Quite frankly, I don’t
But Wait, There’s More
As you might imagine, the realignment will have some implications on tour as well. While we fully expect current Cleveland staffers to keep their Cleveland gear in their bag as long as they so desire, as soon as each is ready, the Tour guys will bag Srixon woods and irons. Srixon name will eventually be the primary branding for all things tour related (other than wedges). We also expect SRI Sports will launch a marketing campaign designed to raise awareness of the brand’s usage on tour.
You’re likely going to hear a lot more about Srixon.
As an interesting aside to all of this, SRI Sports will look to expand the footprint of the lesser known XXIO brand (SRI’s premium offering). Although US distribution is currently limited to less than 2 dozen accounts nationwide, the brand has generated roughly one million in sales this year. This, despite wholesale pricing for irons and woods that’s roughly double the street price for the average club.
And So It Continues
We’ve talked several times about the ongoing consolidation of the golf industry, and so here’s your latest example. Once one of the most iconic brands in the golf business, Cleveland’s days as a full line manufacturer appear to be over. Srixon will step in to fill the void while attempting a serious run at the US Market.
Given the changes, it’s not unrealistic to think that we’re on the verge of losing another of golf’s formerly great brands. The pink elephant in the room, however, is the slow demise of Adam’s Golf. The shifting of operations to TaylorMade’s Carlsbad headquarters has many predicting that it won’t be long before Adams simply ceases to exist. If those doom and gloom predictions become reality it could conceivably open the door for Cleveland to gain a foothold in those areas where the Adams brand performs well (seniors and game-improvement).
You could make a serious argument that the demise of Adams represents Cleveland’s best chance for survival.
The impending changes are perhaps sad. They’re perhaps frustrating, and some will argue that the modern business of golf made it impossible for Cleveland to compete. Ultimately, like everything else, it is what it is.
Stay Tuned
Unfortunately, we don’t believe the industry is done realigning and downsizing. There’s almost certainly more yet to come.
|
By Leo Babauta
Every problem you or I have (and they are many, small and large), is rooted in fear.
For some, that might seem obvious: the question is how to beat the fears. For others, it’s not so self-evident: why are my financial or relationship or procrastination problems caused by fear?
Let’s tackle both questions — the Why and the How.
First the Why: think about each problem you have, and then think about why you have the problem. Or why you aren’t able to solve it.
A few examples:
Procrastination : you probably fear failure, or the discomfort of doing something hard, or your fear missing out on something important (why you check email & social media instead of doing the hard task).
: you probably fear failure, or the discomfort of doing something hard, or your fear missing out on something important (why you check email & social media instead of doing the hard task). Debt : There are many possible causes, but often you’re spending more than you make because of a shopping habit, or a fear of letting go of some of the comforts you’re used to. The shopping habit might be caused by anxiety (fear that something you want isn’t going to happen) or loneliness (fear that you’re not good enough) or wanting your life to be better than it is (fear that you’re not OK as you are). Letting go of comforts (like your morning Starbucks, or your nice house or car) can be difficult if you fear discomfort, fear that you won’t be OK if your life is less comfortable, fear that others will judge you if your house/car/clothes aren’t as nice.
: There are many possible causes, but often you’re spending more than you make because of a shopping habit, or a fear of letting go of some of the comforts you’re used to. The shopping habit might be caused by anxiety (fear that something you want isn’t going to happen) or loneliness (fear that you’re not good enough) or wanting your life to be better than it is (fear that you’re not OK as you are). Letting go of comforts (like your morning Starbucks, or your nice house or car) can be difficult if you fear discomfort, fear that you won’t be OK if your life is less comfortable, fear that others will judge you if your house/car/clothes aren’t as nice. Relationship problems : There are obviously lots of possible causes (including that the other person has major problems, though you should always look at yourself as well) … but some fears that cause relationship problems include fear of letting go of control (causing you to want to control the other person), fear that you’re not good enough, fear of abandonment and other trust issues, fear of not being accepted, fear of accepting the other person (actually this is a fear of control problem).
: There are obviously lots of possible causes (including that the other person has major problems, though you should always look at yourself as well) … but some fears that cause relationship problems include fear of letting go of control (causing you to want to control the other person), fear that you’re not good enough, fear of abandonment and other trust issues, fear of not being accepted, fear of accepting the other person (actually this is a fear of control problem). Can’t exercise : Again, lots of causes, but some of them include: not enough time (fear of letting go of something else that you’re used to doing), exercise is too hard (fear of discomfort), distractions like TV and the Internet (fear of missing out, fear of discomfort).
: Again, lots of causes, but some of them include: not enough time (fear of letting go of something else that you’re used to doing), exercise is too hard (fear of discomfort), distractions like TV and the Internet (fear of missing out, fear of discomfort). Can’t change diet : Same as exercise really. Although there are also often emotional issues, in which case the fears can be very similar to the ones that lead to the shopping habit and financial problems.
: Same as exercise really. Although there are also often emotional issues, in which case the fears can be very similar to the ones that lead to the shopping habit and financial problems. Aren’t doing work you love : You maybe don’t know what you want to do, which means you haven’t committed to really exploring (fear of failing), or you know but haven’t taken the plunge (fear of failure), or fear that you’re not good enough.
: You maybe don’t know what you want to do, which means you haven’t committed to really exploring (fear of failing), or you know but haven’t taken the plunge (fear of failure), or fear that you’re not good enough. Stressed about work/school: You have lots to do, but the amount isn’t the problem. The problem is you’re worried about getting it all done, which means you have an ideal (I’m going to get it all done on time, and it’ll be done perfectly) and you fear that this ideal won’t come true. So the fear is based on an ideal, but the ideal isn’t realistic. You won’t get it all done perfectly and on time. No one does. Accept the reality, that you’ll get some done, to the best of your ability, and if you fail you’ll learn from that, and that’s how the world works. No one is perfect. The ideal doesn’t exist.
And so on. All other problems are some manifestation of what’s going on in the above examples.
Fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of letting go of control, fear of being alone, fear of abandonment, fear of discomfort, fear of missing out, fear that you’re not OK as you are or your life isn’t OK as it is, fear that some ideal won’t come true.
And these all boil down to the same fear: fear that you won’t be OK, that you’re not good enough. A lack of trust in yourself, and in the present moment.
So what do we do about it?
How to Deal with the Fear
I originally titled this section, “How to Conquer the Fear”, but this is the problem. We see fear as an enemy, to be defeated or it will defeat us.
It’s not. Fear is us. We are human beings in a world of constant change, and this is scary. We are afraid that we won’t be OK in the chaos of change, that we will fail, that we will be judged, that life won’t turn out OK.
The fear is a part of us, and therefore we shouldn’t try to “destroy” it. It can’t be destroyed, because while we can dissipate one particular fear in one particular moment, we’ll still have fears after that. All our lives. It’s not something that can be eradicated — it’s a basic part of life.
So what can we do?
We can be aware of the fear. When we are struggling, suffering in some way, be aware that fear is stopping us. Look into what the fear might be. Then we can accept the fear. Don’t feel bad about it, don’t try to crush it, don’t wish it weren’t there. It’s a part of you. It’s a part of life. Accept it. Then we can see how the fear is hurting us. And see how that hurt is self-caused. How we can let go of the suffering by letting go of the fear. We can think rationally about the fear. Actually give it a little space, and consider it. What’s the worst-case scenario? Would you basically be OK? (The answer is almost invariably yes — maybe life wouldn’t meet your “ideal”, but you’d find a way and be OK.) We can be grateful for who we are, and what life actually is (as opposed to what it’s not, or what we’re not). Appreciate ourselves, and others, and life at this moment. We can be grateful for the opportunities that this moment has brought, rather than fearing the change it represents. For example, a loss is an opportunity for reinvention, doing something hard is an opportunity to create or do good in the world, and change is always an opportunity for learning and growth. We can return to this moment, and see that it is perfectly fine as is. There is no ideal when we’re seeing this actual moment and accepting it for what it is. If there’s no ideal, there’s no fear. If we don’t have an ideal of some kind of success, we don’t fear failure. If we don’t have an ideal of what we should be, we don’t fear that we’re not good enough. If we don’t have an ideal of what someone else should be, we don’t get angry at them.
This is a process of awareness, acceptance, seeing the pain, finding gratitude, and being in the moment without an ideal.
It can be done. And then soon after, another fear will appear. And we practice again.
With this practice, we can work with the fear that’s causing our problems. We can accept it without letting it stop us. And this practice, because we are alleviating our own suffering, is an act of self-compassion.
|
Indeed, in recent years cartels have used an extensive portfolio of rackets and scams to diversify their income. For example, they used to kidnap rivals, informants and incompetent subordinates to punish, exact revenge or send a message. Now that they have seen that people are willing to pay heavy ransoms, kidnapping has become their second-most-lucrative venture, with the targets ranging from businessmen to migrants.
Another new source of cartel revenue is oil theft, long a problem for the Mexican government. The national oil company, Pemex, loses hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of petroleum every year to bandits and criminal gangs who tap into pipelines and siphon it off. Now the cartels are getting involved in this business, working with associates north of the border to sell the oil to American companies at huge markups.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
In 2009 a federal court convicted an American businessman of helping to funnel $2 million in petroleum products stolen from Pemex by a Mexican cartel, eventually selling it to a Texas chemical plant owned by the German chemical company BASF. The chemical company claims never to have known where the products came from.
Cartels are also moving into the market in pirated goods in Latin America. The market used to be dominated by terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, who operated in the triborder area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Now the field is being overtaken by Mexican cartels, which already have so much control over the sale of pirated CDs, DVDs and software that many legitimate companies no longer even bother to distribute their full-price products in parts of Mexico.
Taking another page from traditional organized crime, cartels are also moving into extortion. A cartel representative will approach the owner of a business — whether a pharmacy or a taco stand — demanding a monthly stipend for “protection.” If those payments aren’t made on time, the business is often burned to the ground, or the owner is threatened, kidnapped or killed.
A popular cartel racket involves branded products. For example, a cartel member — most often from Los Zetas and La Familia Michoacana, two of the largest and most diversified cartels — will tell a music-store owner that he has to sell CDs with the Zetas logo stamped on them, with the cartel taking a 25 percent cut of the profits. Noncompliance isn’t an option.
With so many lines of business, it’s unlikely that Mexican cartels would close up shop in the event of legalization, even if it meant a serious drop in profits from their most successful product. Cartels are economic entities, and like any legitimate company the best are able to adapt in the face of a changing market.
This is not to say that drug legalization shouldn’t be considered for other reasons. We need to stop viewing casual users as criminals, and we need to treat addicts as people with health and emotional problems. Doing so would free up a significant amount of jail space, court time and law enforcement resources. What it won’t do, though, is stop the violence in Mexico.
|
Preventive health care is a powerful tool for keeping medical costs down. Contraception is cheaper than pregnancy and childbirth; a cholesterol test is cheaper than a triple bypass. It is therefore in society’s interest to encourage the use of preventive health care services like cancer screening, especially for elderly people in aging populations. Increased use of preventive health care also leads to healthier, longer-lived people.
Unfortunately, people aren’t particularly good about preventive health care; not even half of all people over the age of 65 in the US are up to date with recommended preventive services. How can we do better?
A recent PNAS study identified one factor that could help: the more that people feel like they have a purpose in life, the more likely they are to use preventive health care. Purpose was also found to be associated with a lower likelihood of needing overnight hospital visits—possibly as a result of improved health care.
Why am I here?
Purpose—feeling a sense of meaning in life and having goals to strive for—is one facet of psychological well-being. Purpose and other measures of well-being are associated with improved physical and mental health, including a better waist/hip ratio, higher levels of ‘good’ cholesterol, and even enhanced expression of antiviral response genes. It isn’t clear what drives this improved health, but we do know that people with more purpose engage in healthier behaviors like resting and exercising.
Some previous research has shown that people with purpose use preventive health care more, but sample sizes were small and possibly biased. To explore the question with a more robust sample, the recent study tracked more than 7,000 US adults over the age of 50 for six years, keeping records of their health care usage.
The participants also took part in a survey that measured purpose on a six-point scale, along with other psychological factors like depression and anxiety. Confounds that could influence the results were also taken into account, including: religiosity, geographic factors like rural or urban living, chronic illnesses, current health behaviors like smoking, and sociodemographic factors like wealth and ethnicity.
After adjusting for these potential confounds, the results showed that higher purpose resulted in a significantly higher likelihood of getting a cholesterol test or a colonoscopy. For females, it was also related to a higher chance of having a mammogram or pap smear; for males, it was associated with a higher chance of a prostate exam. (However, flu shots were not among the benefits of having purpose.)
People with higher purpose also spent less time in the hospital: after adjusting for sociodemographic factors, each point increase in purpose was associated with 17 percent fewer overnight hospital stays.
Why does it work?
It’s not clear why purpose is associated with preventive health care. The researchers suggest that people with a stronger sense of purpose may have more motivation to stay healthy and therefore feel “more incentive to take preventive measures that seem time consuming, costly, fear inducing, or painful.” Although this is a convincing explanation, more research is needed to confirm it. After all, it is possible that another mechanism could be at work or even that causality could be working in the other direction, with improved use of health care services somehow resulting in a stronger purpose in life.
Although this study is a significant improvement over previous work, it does have limitations. Most notably, the data on health care use was self-reported, which isn’t always reliable. Although self-reported health care has been shown to agree with medical records, future research will likely use a different source of data to corroborate the results.
Can we actually use these results to improve healthcare? There is reason to think that the right kinds of therapy can improve people’s sense of purpose. Some small, randomized control trials on cancer patients and survivors indicate that meaning-based therapy could (as its name suggests) improve feelings of meaning and purpose. Interventions such as volunteer programs for older people could have a similar effect. Future studies may test whether these ultimately result in improved preventive health care use.
In a society that expects to see double the current number of adults over 65 by 2050, resulting in Medicare costs doubling from 3.7 percent of GDP to 7.3 percent, tactics to increase preventive health care use and lower medical costs are an important avenue to pursue. Reducing strain on the nation’s medical budget while helping people become happier with their lives would be a resounding victory for quality of life.
PNAS, 2014. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1414826111. (About DOIs).
|
Wednesday night finalized
House and Senate negotiators ona controversial bill to encourage companies to share cyber-threat data with the government, adding it to a must-pass government spending bill and setting up final votes in both chambers as early as Friday.
The Cybersecurity Act of 2015, which lawmakers included in the omnibus spending bill released early Wednesday morning, closely resembles the Senate’s cyber bill, known as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). It establishes processes for companies to transmit cyber-threat indicators—pieces of malicious code, for example, or leftover digital signatures from an attack—to a portal run by the Department of Homeland Security. It also grants companies immunity from prosecution resulting from their sharing of said data, which could include scraps of their customers’ personal information.
Supporters believe that the increased sharing of cyber-threat data will make it easier to detect and mitigate future attacks, while critics contend that information sharing would not have stopped major cyberattacks like the December 2014 Sony hack or the Office of Personnel Management data breach. Civil-liberties groups and security experts are also concerned that the process for scrubbing customer records from threat data is insufficiently robust.
“Ramming through such legislation is not only bad politics, it’s bad for a representative democracy.”
Leading technologists and privacy activists attacked the decision to stash the controversial cyber bill in the omnibus budget legislation. Harley Geiger, senior counsel at the civil-liberties group the Center for Democracy and Technology, described the move as “forcing bad policy through must-pass legislation.” Kevin Bankston, director of New America’s Open Technology Institute, called it “shameful.”
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), one of four lawmakers who sent a letter to his colleagues urging them to oppose adding cyber legislation to the omnibus, called the legislation “unconstitutional surveillance” and “wasteful spending.” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the upper chamber’s leading privacy advocate, attacked the final bill as weaker than its predecessors.
Internet-freedom activists and like-minded lawmakers already hated CISA and its House counterparts, but changes in the final version deepened their frustration. The Open Technology Institute posted a graphic comparing versions of the legislation that graded the changes from preliminary to final text.
The group’s analysis, with which Wyden agrees, is that the final version of nearly every provision is the worst permutation. In the omnibus version, companies now get liability protection even if they are grossly negligent in their sharing of threat data. And unlike in previous versions, the president can create a data-sharing portal outside of the DHS if he deems the DHS portal to be dysfunctional.
Although the NSA, the FBI, and other intelligence agencies can access the DHS portal, shared data gets “scrubbed” to remove Americans’ personal information before the DHS lets outside agencies access it. If the president created an FBI portal, the bureau could access shared data directly. If not thoroughly scrubbed, that data might include evidence of Americans’ behavior that the FBI wouldn’t otherwise have.
“We’ve got to count on it to not use [threat data] or to use [it] only in limited circumstances laid out in the bill for non-cyber reasons,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
“Ramming through such legislation is not only bad politics,” wrote Mark Jaycox, legislative analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “it’s bad for a representative democracy.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, attempted to dispel these concerns, sending a letter to colleagues disputing the premise of many opposing arguments. But the letter took on only the most extreme versions of those arguments, and the fact remains that the bill did make significant changes.
.@RepAdamSchiff just sent out a Dear Colleague letter attempting to dispel “inaccurate claims” about #CISA language pic.twitter.com/CnoS4o7Ggc — Dustin Volz (@dnvolz) December 16, 2015
Lawmakers also eliminated a provision that would have required the DHS to assess the cybersecurity risks to critical-infrastructure sectors like manufacturing, finance, and communications. Business groups hated the provision, telling Congress that it “[ran] counter to the voluntary nature” of the legislation by requiring new incident reports.
A minor turf battle erupted in the House as last-minute negotiations hinged on which of the lower chamber’s two bills to incorporate into the final product. Civil-liberties groups preferred the privacy provisions in the Homeland Security Committee’s bill, the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act. But despite pushback from Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), lawmakers ultimately incorporated the Intelligence Committee’s version, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act.
President Obama endorsed CISA when it passed in October. Congress will begin holding votes on the spending bill, with the latest iteration of CISA included, at the end of the week.
Photo via Ben Becker/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed
|
#166 hala-madrid-guti
31.Jul.2010 | 21:11 este tio es un suplente de puyol y pique, y a exo bien por irse
#168 rycopan25
31.Jul.2010 | 22:05 llego al barça sin hacer ruido y ha jugado 5 años a todo tren, grandisimo defensa con muy pocos errores y un poderio defensivo de mucho nivel! ojala te vaya bien haya donde vayas, gracias por todo marquez!!! GRANDE CULE !!
#169 art5116
31.Jul.2010 | 23:00 El moderador parece que le escuece que diga que a Gago en el partido del Bernabeu contra el Barça debió haber sido expulsado varias veces y se fue de rositas. Y le escuece que le recuerde que quizás el árbitro no lo hizo por culpa de la campaña mediática, y nunca mejor dicho, porque mediatizó a los árbitros contra el Barça de manera escandalosa toda la segunda mitad del campeonato, y aun así se ganó la liga con 3 puntos de ventaja. ¿Quizás el moderador se siente parte de esa campaña de desestabilización contra el Barça y que presionó y condicionó tanto a los trencillas como para no expulsar a un jugador como Gago que hizo más méritos que los leñeros holandeses de la final del mundial?
#171 jugarfe
01.Ago.2010 | 08:59 desde el # 1 al 169 como se ve el plumero ahora resulta que marquez es beckenbauer
#172 nomquesaptothom
01.Ago.2010 | 11:06 #171 desde el # 1 al 169 como se ve el plumero ahora resulta que marquez es beckenbauer Marquez ha tenido un rendimiento y comportamiento exquisito en estos 7 años que ha pasado en el Barça, se ha ganado el apoyo y respeto de toda la afición culé. La celebracion de la liga ya olía a despedida. Suerte en el futuro y Barcelona siempre sera tu casa!!
#176 m.kaulitz
01.Ago.2010 | 17:21 Grande Marquez, creo que ha llegado a un acuerdo con el NY Red Bull donde esta Henry. Suerte Forza Xerez
#177 flecher
01.Ago.2010 | 20:15 deseo q marquez le vaya de maravilla,se ha comportado comoun autentico profesional y ha sido correcto siempreen todo ,hasta en su despedida ,un caballero ,gracias por defender la camiseta del mejor equipo de la historia
#178 alsansa
01.Ago.2010 | 21:52 Si, ha sido buen jugador, no era Beckenbauer, pero dió algo de nivel a la defensa y al centro del campo azulgrana. La cuestión ahora es... ¿cuánto le cuesta este "despido" al Barcelona? Recordemos que él estaba dispuesto a seguir, pero Guardiola ha dicho que no sigue, supongo que por dos años se llevará una buena pasta. #169 El moderador parece que le escuece que diga que a Gago en el partido del Bernabeu contra el Barça debió haber sido expulsado varias veces y se fue de rositas. Y le escuece que le recuerde que quizás el árbitro no lo hizo por culpa de la campaña mediática, y nunca mejor dicho, porque mediatizó a los árbitros contra el Barça de manera escandalosa toda la segunda mitad del campeonato, y aun así se ganó la liga con 3 puntos de ventaja. ¿Quizás el moderador se siente parte de esa campaña de desestabilización contra el Barça y que presionó y condicionó tanto a los trencillas como para no expulsar a un jugador como Gago que hizo más méritos que los leñeros holandeses de la final del mundial? ¿Qué narices pinta aquí Gago, me lo explicas?
#179 onekenobi
02.Ago.2010 | 09:32 #178 Si, ha sido buen jugador, no era Beckenbauer, pero dió algo de nivel a la defensa y al centro del campo azulgrana. La cuestión ahora es... ¿cuánto le cuesta este "despido" al Barcelona? Recordemos que él estaba dispuesto a seguir, pero Guardiola ha dicho que no sigue, supongo que por dos años se llevará una buena pasta. # 169 ¿Qué narices pinta aquí Gago, me lo explicas? No cobran traspaso y rescinden el contrato de mutuo acuerdo. O sea que al Barça no le cuesta nada, pero tampoco saca beneficio.
|
The Turnbull government’s decision to put the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in charge of a voluntary postal plebiscite on same-sex marriage has left many scratching their heads. It was expected the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) would run the vote, not the body responsible for the five-yearly census.
By giving the job to the ABS, the government has sidestepped questions about its constitutional authority to pay for an AEC-run plebiscite. But it has opened up new avenues of legal challenge and established a process that lacks legitimacy.
Further reading: Explainer: with no free vote for now, where next for marriage equality?
Legal questions
On Wednesday, Treasurer Scott Morrison directed the Australian Statistician to ask the ABS to collect statistical information about the proportion of electors who are for or against the law being changed to allow same-sex couples to marry. This information is to be requested on a voluntary basis.
The same day, independent MP Andrew Wilkie and two others announced they would launch a High Court challenge against the ABS poll. It is likely that at least two grounds of challenge will be put.
The first concerns the power of the ABS to run the plebiscite. Under the Census and Statistics Act, the Australian Statistician can, if directed by the minister, collect “statistical information” on a range of prescribed matters, including “births, deaths, marriages and divorces”, “law”, and “population and the social, economic and demographic characteristics of the population”.
Separately, the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act provides that one of the functions of the ABS is “to collect, compile, analyse and disseminate statistics and related information”.
The key question is whether information about Australians’ opinions on same-sex marriage is “statistical information”.
Surveying people on their views about marriage is very different from collecting factual data about, say, the numbers of marriages taking place in Australia.
And given the postal ballot will be voluntary, the views of some social groups (like those more likely to use postal services) will feature more heavily than others. Arguably, such an “unweighted” data set falls short of the rigorous standards of “statistical information”.
More broadly, if opinions about marriage law are considered “statistical information”, it is hard to think of what sorts of information do not fall into that category. Is it the case that any collection of data is a statistical exercise? If so, the ABS’s powers are very broad.
The second legal question concerns the government’s authority to spend money on an ABS-run postal vote. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann acted quickly to source the A$122 million required from a little-used “advance” appropriated by parliament in this year’s budget.
However, the minister’s advance fund is reserved for “urgent” and “unforeseen” expenditure. It is doubtful that spending on a postal plebiscite falls into either of these categories.
By way of comparison, in 2016 the government gave the AEC $101 million in “advance” funds to help it implement major changes to Senate voting in time for the July federal election.
There is no similar urgency in a vote on same-sex marriage. And, if anything, the need to spend money on same-sex marriage poll was entirely predictable. The government’s budget papers anticipated spending $170 million for this purpose.
The ABS is poorly equipped
Legal questions aside, the ABS is poorly equipped to run a plebiscite on same-sex marriage.
It has significant expertise in collecting factual information on the economy, housing, crime and many other matters that is of immense value to governments and researchers. But it has never run a poll of this kind.
The closest precedent occurred more than 40 years ago. In 1974, the ABS conducted a telephone survey of 60,000 Australians, asking for their preferences on the national anthem. But that is altogether different from the massive logistical exercise of administering a postal ballot for 15 million voters on a contentious social issue.
The stakes are higher and the risk of mistakes is greater. And there will be little tolerance for error.
For the ABS, even the basic task of sending out ballot papers will not be straightforward. Unlike the AEC, it does not have direct access to the electoral roll.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act sets down rules about who can access the electoral roll and for what purpose. Under regulations, the AEC “may” provide the ABS with information on the roll for the purpose of “collecting, compiling, analysing and disseminating statistics and related information”. It would therefore be open to the AEC to refuse the ABS access to the roll, including on the basis that a poll on marriage is not about “collecting statistics”.
Assuming that the ABS gains access to the roll, it is unclear whether it will be able to send ballot papers to all registered voters. The position of silent electors is particularly uncertain.
The addresses of silent electors are not displayed on the roll: to do so would put their safety, or the safety of their family, at risk. Also, the AEC is not permitted to provide information about silent electors to agencies such as the ABS. As a result, silent electors may wonder if they will be able to participate in the poll.
The addresses of eligible overseas voters also do not appear on the roll. However, Cormann has said they will receive ballot papers provided they have “registered as an overseas voter and provided their overseas address”.
More generally, the ABS lacks the AEC’s institutional capacity when it comes to conducting nationwide votes. These are highly complex exercises, which involve distributing, collecting and transporting ballot papers, and then counting them quickly and securely.
Cormann has said AEC officers will be seconded to the ABS to “assist” the process.
Other problems
ABS involvement in the plebiscite raises particular problems, but the shortcomings of a voluntary postal vote go well beyond who is administering it.
Even if turnout is high, we cannot be confident that the result is representative of community opinion. For example:
Young people move address more frequently than the rest of the population and are less likely to receive the ballot papers.
Homeless electors and grey nomads may also find it hard to participate.
Communities with limited access to reliable postal services (including Indigenous people living in more remote parts of Australia) may be disadvantaged.
Also worrying is that the postal vote will take place without the usual protections of election law. Campaigners will be able to circulate unauthorised material – including posters and pamphlets with harmful messages about same-sex couples and their families – without fear of legal consequences.
And, if the result is close, there will be no clear process for resolving claims about the formality of votes and other contentious administration issues.
It should be abandoned
The voluntary postal vote on same-sex marriage should be abandoned. Not only does it rest on shaky legal foundations, it risks damaging the standing of two of our most trusted national institutions.
The absence of standard legal protections is worrying, and the polling method is so flawed that neither side can have confidence in the outcome.
And, at the end of it all, the result is non-binding. The federal parliament is the only institution that can resolve the issue of same-sex marriage definitively. It should do so now, without resorting to such a flawed and expensive venture.
|
Last Thursday, a reporter with La Presse caught Thierry Bordelais outside of his Chateauguay home and asked him what he made of his neighbours’ concerns about his family taking up residence in the Montreal suburb.
“If they are worried, all they have to do is move,” Bordelais said, visibly irritated according to La Presse. “We’re free, we’re in a free country.”
“Has anything happened over the past 10 years?” he continued. “So why are they worried? I don’t see why they are worried.”
One would expect the same sort of exasperated defence by a husband of his wife if, say, she downed a bottle of schnapps at the last neighbourhood barbecue and started uncouthly hitting on someone’s teenage son. But Bordelais’ wife, Karla Homolka (or Leanne Teale as she is now known) did a little bit more than embarrass herself in front of the neighbours when she helped her former husband, Paul Bernardo, drug and rape her own teenage sister and participate in the rape and murder of at least two other girls. Indeed, I think Bordelais’ neighbours can be forgiven if they’re not entirely over that yet.
What was striking in the exchange between Bordelais and La Presse was not merely its tone-deafness, however, but just how utterly normal it all seemed: Here was a guy, returning home to his wife and three kids, pissed off to find reporters waiting for him in his driveway. Eventually he would go inside, maybe get something to eat, talk to his kids about their days and go to sleep beside one of the most reviled serial killers in Canadian history. Just like he had done every day for the past seven years.
It’s not unusual to hear of violent criminals attracting the attention of “serial killer groupies,” as they are colloquially called, or what is classified by psychology texts as those with “hybristophilia,” a sexual attraction to people who have committed violent crimes. Hybristophilia tends to affect more women than men and, according to at least one school of thought, can be explained as a consequence of a woman’s evolutionary drive to seek out a partner who can physically protect her offspring. Female admirers have reached out to notorious serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez and, so too, have some male admirers, including one who recently propositioned Rohinie Bisesar, the 40-year-old woman accused in the stabbing death in Toronto’s underground PATH system last year.
Despite this particular psychological explanation, some “serial killer groupies” claim that their attraction to certain criminals is bred not because of his or her violent past, but despite it. In a documentary TV series produced and directed by Errol Morris, true crime writer Sondra London adopts that position in attempting to explain her attraction to the “Gainesville Ripper” Danny Rolling, with whom she had a relationship while he was behind bars. When pressed by the interviewer about why she’s attracted to serial killers, London shoots back, saying, flatly: “That’s a lame question.” But when asked “Why the attraction to Danny Rolling?” she responds: “That’s different” and goes on to describe Rolling’s many endearing qualities, as if she was talking about any normal guy who didn’t happen to tape his victims’ mouths shut, stab them until they bled to death and mutilate their corpses.
[np_storybar title=”Read & Debate” link=””] Find Full Comment on Facebook
[/np_storybar]
There is no answer as to whether the greater aberrant mind is one that’s attracted to a violent murderer or one that can separate a person from his or her murderous acts. And, indeed, in the case of Thierry Bordelais and Karla Homolka, it’s impossible to say whether their relationship was borne from a hybristophilia-type of attraction or a phenomenal ability on the part of Bordelais to see the new “Leanne Teale” as a woman distinct from “Karla Homolka” — mostly because all the public really knows of the courtship is that the pair was connected through his sister Sylvie Bordelais, who was Homolka’s lawyer.
Plenty of observers have remarked that one of the great tragedies of the Homolka story will come when her children realize that their mother committed some of the most horrific acts humans can do to one another. But it’s worse than that; since once that initial shock has worn off (if such a thing is possible) those kids will inevitably start thinking of their father, and wonder just what’s wrong with him that he could fall in love, and marry, a monster. There’s no comfort in mom or dad.
National Post
• Email: rurback@nationalpost.com | Twitter: robynurback
|
Quảng Đức is descriptive of meritorious attributes: see Thích is a Buddhist honorary title andis descriptive of meritorious attributes: see dharma name
Thích Quảng Đức ( Vietnamese: [tʰǐk̟ kʷâːŋ ɗɨ̌k] (); 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963.[2] Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngo Dinh Diem. Photographs of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said in reference to a photograph of Đức on fire, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one."[3] Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.[4][5]
Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. With protests continuing, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched nationwide raids on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed Army coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.
Biography [ edit ]
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan."[6] After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.[7][8]
After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples.[9] In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
After his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon.[9] The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV).[9] When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Đức resigned.[7]
Religious background [ edit ]
A memorial to Quảng Đức located on the site of his death
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,[10][11][12][13] President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions.[14] Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted."[15] Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it.[15] Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.[16]
Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies,[17] and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye.[18] Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime.[19] The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm.[20] Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.[21]
The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform.[22] The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam,[23] and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.[21]
Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality.[24] As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.
Day of the act [ edit ]
On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon.[26] Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press.[26] Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality.[26] Another monk offered himself, but Đức's seniority prevailed.[4]
The act occurred at the intersection[b] of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) at , a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Đức's head. Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words Nam mô A Di Đà Phật ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.[26][27]
Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:
Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngo Dinh Diem to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.[7]
David Halberstam wrote:
I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think ... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.[28]
The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.[4]
In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone, "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately ten minutes, Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."[26]
By 1:30 pm, around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but a hundred monks slowly left the compound. Nearly one thousand monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00 pm, thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.[29]
Funeral and aftermath [ edit ]
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur.[30] The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.[31]
15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery 16 kilometers (9.9 mi) south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.[31]
Intact heart and symbolism [ edit ]
The heart relic of Quảng Đức
The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn.[4] It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda.[5] The intact heart relic[4] is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức.[7][32] On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door.[33] Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.[34]
The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".[35]
Diệm reaction [ edit ]
Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."[29]
The Army of the Republic of Vietnam responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm.[36] Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.[36]
Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show".[37] Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide.[38] The regime also accused Browne of bribing Đức to burn himself.[39]
Political and media impact [ edit ]
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.[40]
Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public.[41] Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners."[42] John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam."[40] William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."[40]
U.S. President John F. Kennedy said that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one."
President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one."[41] U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-ID), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."[42]
In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism.[39] One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.[39] For Browne and the Associated Press (AP), the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.[43]
Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed.[44] One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.[44]
Browne's award-winning photograph of Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.
A still photograph of Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name".
Precedents and influence [ edit ]
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Đức.[45]
After Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated.[46] On 1 November, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day.[47] Monks have followed Đức's example since for other reasons.[48]
Đức's actions were copied by United States citizens in protests against the Vietnam War:
In an apparently non-political case of imitation of Quảng Đức, the young son of an American officer based at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like."[50]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
• a)^ Hòa thượng means "The Most Venerable" in Vietnamese. • b)^ In the satellite image ( ) of the Saigon intersection where Quảng Đức performed his self-immolation, Phan Đình Phùng (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu) Street runs NE-SW and Lê Văn Duyệt (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám) Street runs NW–SE. On the western corner of the intersection stands a memorial to Quảng Đức. For many years a Petrolimex fuel station stood on the northern corner, but this was replaced with a memorial park for Quảng Đức.
References [ edit ]
|
“E-cigarettes can cause cancer”; “Vaping ‘no better’ than smoking”: headlines last week challenged the idea that electronic cigarettes are safer than conventional cigarettes, after findings emerged that their vapour damaged and killed human cells.
Jessica Wang-Rodriguez, a head and neck cancer specialist at the University of California at San Diego, and her team found that cells lining human organs sustained up to twice the DNA damage seen in unexposed cells. They were also five to 10 times more likely to wither and die than unexposed cells even if the vapour contained no nicotine, the addictive ingredient in conventional and most electronic cigarettes.
“Without the nicotine, the damage is slightly less, but still statistically significant compared with control cells,” says Wang-Rodriguez, who led the research.
Advertisement
Although the study garnered headlines around the world, researchers contacted by New Scientist have criticised it for its inability to properly compare the damage caused by smoke from conventional and electronic cigarettes.
Relative harm
“The relative harm compared to real smoking is the critical point here, since the majority of vapers use e-cigarettes to cut down or quit smoking,” says Marcus Munafò of the University of Bristol, UK. “That direct comparison is largely missing.”
To assess what vaping does to human tissue, the researchers exposed cells to vapour from two brands of e-cigarettes every three days for between one to 8 weeks. However, with cigarette smoke they were only able to expose the cells for 24 hours before all the cells died.
Because the cells were able to survive for far longer when exposed to vapour rather than smoke, the main outcome of the study is the opposite of what the media has reported: that cigarette smoke is far more toxic than e-cigarette aerosol, says Konstantinos Farsalinos of the University of Patras in Greece.
“The comparisons were based on unequal treatments, without equivalent exposures for equivalent periods of time,” says John Britton, a toxicologist at the University of Nottingham, UK. Even if the time periods had been equal, the results would not necessarily have reflected real-life hazards, he says. The dose of vapour the cells received was equivalent to that from vaping for hours on end, a much higher dose than someone would typically get.
More realistic would have been to compare samples of cells taken from the airways of people who use either e-cigarettes or real cigarettes, says Britton.
Toxins from flavourings?
One puzzle the results raise is why cells appeared to be damaged even by nicotine-free vapour. One possibility is that other toxins are created when flavourings are exposed to heat.
“E-cigarette vapour is known to contain a range of toxins which include impurities in the e-cigarette liquids and toxins generated when solutions are heated to generate vapour,” says Britton. “Some are carcinogenic, so it’s likely some long-term users of e-cigarettes will experience adverse effects on their health, and the authors are correct to point out that these products should not be considered risk-free,” he says. But if smokers can’t give up completely, e-cigarettes are safer than smoking, he says.
“Those of us reviewing the evidence are saying that when compared with tobacco smoking, e-cigarettes are a safer option, and I don’t think this new research detracts from that advice,” says Linda Bauld of the University of Stirling, UK.
Wang-Rodriguez, however, urges vapers to be cautious. “They shouldn’t assume it’s a safe alternative to smoking,” she says. “We don’t really know all the harmful effects of vaping at this point, so I’d encourage users of both e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes to understand the consequences and stop using.”
Journal reference: Oral Oncology, DOI: 10.1016/j.oraloncology.2015.10.018
(Image credit: Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency/Getty)
|
Gunman wounds GOP congressman, then killed by police Copyright by WIVB - All rights reserved (Rep. Steve Scalise) [ + - ] Video
The Associated Press - ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A rifle-wielding attacker opened fire on Republican lawmakers at a congressional baseball practice Wednesday, wounding House GOP Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and several others as congressmen and aides dove for cover. The assailant, prepared with "a lot of ammo," fought a gun battle with police before he, too, was shot and later died.
Scalise dragged himself off the infield leaving a trail of blood as colleagues rushed to his assistance.
Capitol Police officers who were in Scalise's security detail wounded the shooter, who was taken into custody. In all, five people were taken to area hospitals, including the suspect, Alexandria police said. The shooter later died of his injuries, President Donald Trump told the nation from the White House.
"Everyone on that field is a public servant," Trump said. "Their sacrifice makes democracy possible."
Scalise, 51, the No. 3 House Republican leader first elected to the House in 2008, was in stable condition and undergoing surgery.
Copyright by WIVB - All rights reserved (Rep. Steve Scalise)
A government official identified the shooter as an Illinois man named James. T. Hodgkinson. The official was not authorized to discuss an investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Copyright by WIVB - All rights reserved
Texas Rep. Roger Williams, who coaches the GOP team, said that one of his aides, Zack Barth, was shot, but "is doing well and is expected to make a full recovery."
Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina said he had just left the practice and encountered the apparent gunman in the parking lot before the shooting. The man calmly asked which party's lawmakers were practicing and Duncan told him they were the Republicans. The man thanked him.
The gunman had a rifle and "a lot of ammo," said Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who was at the practice.
The shocking event left the Capitol horrified and stunned. The House canceled proceedings for the day.
The shooting occurred at a popular park and baseball complex in Alexandria, Virginia, where Republican lawmakers and others were gathered for a morning practice about 7 a.m. They were in good spirits despite the heat and humidity as they prepared for the congressional baseball match that pits Republicans against Democrats. The popular annual face-off, which raises money for charity, was scheduled for Thursday evening at Nationals Park across the Potomac River in Washington.
The team was taking batting practice when gunshots rang out and chaos erupted.
Scalise was fielding balls on second base when he was shot, according to lawmakers present, then dragged himself into the outfield to get away from the gunman.
Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican, said his colleague "crawled into the outfield, leaving a trail of blood."
"We started giving him the liquids, I put pressure on his wound in his hip," Brooks said.
Texas Rep. Joe Barton, still in his baseball uniform, told reporters a shooter came out to the practice and opened fire, shooting at Rep. Trent Kelly, R-Miss., who plays third base.
"He shot at Steve Scalise, our second baseman. He hit Steve Scalise," Barton said, "Scalise's security detail and the Capitol Hill police immediately returned fire, and Alexandria Police also immediately came and began to return fire. They shot the shooter. The security detail saved a lot of lives because they attacked the shooter."
Barton said the shooting lasted 5-10 minutes, and there were dozens if not hundreds of shots fired.
"It was scary," Barton said.
Lawmakers took cover in the dugout. Barton said his son, Jack, got under an SUV.
FBI special agent in charge Tim Slater said it was "too early to say" whether it was an act of terrorism, or whether Scalise was targeted.
After the gunfire stopped, Sen. Flake, of Arizona, said he ran onto the field and also tried to come to Scalise's aide. After medical personnel arrived, he said he retrieved Scalise's phone and made the first call to Scalise's wife to notify her of the shooting. He said he did so to ensure that Mrs. Scalise would not find out about the shooting through the media.
Flake estimated that more than 50 shots were fired.
Scalise, a popular and gregarious lawmaker, is known for his love of baseball and handed out commemorative baseball bats to fellow lawmakers when he secured the No. 3 job of House whip several years ago.
Falisa Peoples was just leaving the YMCA next to the ball field when she saw the shooter open fire.
"He was just very calm. He was just walking and shooting," she said of the man, whom she described as white and wearing a T-shirt and shorts. She said he was using a long gun and exchanging fire with law enforcement officers, one of whom yelled for her to get down.
In a brief interview in a Senate hallway, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, "I think everybody handled it well and things seem to be under control."
Other lawmakers were stunned in the aftermath of the event, which raised questions about the security of members of Congress. While the top lawmakers, including Scalise, have security details, others do not and regularly appear in public without protection. The last time a lawmaker was shot was when Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona was hit in the head and grievously injured while meeting with constituents at a supermarket parking lot in 2011.
Following the Giffords shooting, lawmakers have held fewer open town halls and have been advised to increase security at such events.
Thinking of my colleague Steve Scalise & the others injured in this horrific shooting. Grateful for the work of Capitol Police. — Louise Slaughter (@louiseslaughter) June 14, 2017
Thank you to the @CapitolPolice and the work they do everyday to keep us safe — Rep. Chris Collins (@RepChrisCollins) June 14, 2017
Saddened by news of the shooting in VA this am. Thoughts & prayers for Rep @SteveScalise & others injured & hope for a speedy recovery. — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 14, 2017
|
Fifteenth Street NW, heading south toward R Street. It’s nearly midnight. “Five-oh, left,” the Bike Artist says coolly as we whoosh past the alley. We brake as the cycletrack hits the intersection, and peer back to confirm we’re past the police cruiser’s line of sight. Clear. M. hops off his bicycle, descends into a crablike stance, and sweeps a patch of asphalt with a large cleaning brush. Straddling her bike, K. drops a slab of carved-up, durable plastic on the ground. The Bike Artist leans over, pulls a can of spraypaint out of a bag, and quickly releases a stream as her hand scans the surface. Lay it and spray it. K. lifts the plastic stencil, and we inspect the night’s first bombing. “Bicycle Year-Round!” Pink. Nailed it. Spraycans go back in the bag. Stencils return to the bike rack. As we wait in the empty, pedestrian-free silence for the light to turn, M. inches his bike into the crosswalk. “Scofflaw!” the Bike Artist says, smirking. A bicyclist has to behave, after all. ***
The anonymous stencils first appeared in August. You’d notice them at reds as you braked at the mouth of an intersection. You’d look down, perhaps as you began to creep into the crosswalk, and spy the Day-Glo words on the asphalt: “Make Us Bicyclists Look Good.” And then, maybe, you’d stay put, waiting for that green. By the middle of August, the messages had emerged up and down 15th Street’s protected cycletrack, around the National Mall, and in bike lanes on R and T streets NW and Rhode Island Avenue. They contained affirmations like “Thank You for Biking,” “Your Bike Is Sexy,” and “Smile! You’re on a Bicycle”; cutesy reminders like “Please Bike Safely Honey. Love, Your Parents”; and cheeky exclamations like “Don’t Door Me Bro.” These weren’t missives for pedestrians, or motorists, or anyone who wasn’t on a bike. If you don’t spend any time in bike lanes, you probably didn’t see them. But among bike commuters, they quickly punctured daily water-cooler talk. Did you see the bike-lane graffiti? In the middle of August, Streetsblog, a transportation website, posted a video with a fist-pump-inducing soundtrack and described the stencil art as “extraordinarily motivating” and “sweet.” DCist called it “rather delightful”; Instagram and Twitter users memorialized their stencil-brightened commutes (“OMG I LOVE THESE!!!” read one Instagram comment); and for about a month, pictures of the stencils seemed to take over the popular #bikedc hashtag. (One of the stencils, sensing the opportunity, read “#bikedc.”) Even the District Department of Transportation conceded it had been charmed. While a spokeswoman told DCist that the agency planned to “check into” the stencil art, the @DDOT Twitter feed called the bike-lane messages “kinda cool!” On Reddit, users debated how the bicycle-lane messages might impact cycling etiquette. “This is fantastic, spray them right next to every rack and street lamp in florescent paint,” wrote one user. Others were skeptical, for different reasons. “I always stop at red lights regardless of these stencils and unfortunately they don’t seem to stop the 10+ riders behind me that blow through red lights on 15th and K St. for example,” wrote a Redditor. Another: “As one ‘asshole cyclist’ among many, I don’t know what they expect this to accomplish. We know exactly what we are doing and we do it anyway. It’s not some sort of ‘I didn’t know I couldn’t do that’ situation, nor do we go through red lights and stop signs by accident.” The messages proliferated throughout the fall, with dozens appearing in Shaw, Bloomingdale, and Logan Circle. Adams Morgan. Woodley Park. Downtown. Just recently in Arlington, at the entrance to the Key Bridge. After the 15th Street cycletrack was repaved—and the stencil art along it was destroyed—the tagger struck again, restamping the entire strip. One slogan emerged on M Street NW between 15th and 16th streets—a block where the city recently canceled part of a planned cycletrack at the urging of a church that wanted to preserve curbside space for congregants’ cars. The decision angered District bike advocates and inspired the mystery stenciler to tattoo the block’s pavement with the message “Jesus Loves Bicyclists.” That one threw some political shade, but for the most part the messages aren’t meant for bicyclists’ detractors. They say encouraging things such as “Drive Your Bike” and “Bike [Heart]” and “I Want to Ride My Bike With You,” like telegrams from the conscience of D.C.’s collective bicycling consciousness. From time to time on my ride home on 15th Street, I see fellow commuters stopping at red lights, spotting the stencils, and smiling. The messages are illicit by their nature but adorable in their content—quietly empowering random acts of cuteness. That, or they’re the least dangerous, least unsettling use of graffiti D.C. has ever seen. I started asking around. It turns out the person behind the stencils—I interviewed her on the condition of anonymity, and agreed to refer to her as the Bike Artist, or BA—isn’t a seasoned graffiti writer, a transit insurrectionist, or even an activist by inclination. Mostly, she wants bicyclists to be a little more polite, be a little friendlier with other road users, and feel a little more appreciated. Her project is both an undertaking of passion and a bit of a lark. And although it wants to inspire and improve the culture of bicycling in D.C., it might reveal even more about it. ***
Coasting toward P Street, BA calls the play: We’re hitting all four sides of the intersection. So far, it’s been low-stress. No bystanders. Careful, quick tagging. Lay ’em and spray ’em. There’s a protocol to this—you can’t do this kind of thing without rules—but so far, so easy. Time to get bold. I follow BA to the southwestern corner. She drops a stencil on the pavement. “What are you spraying?” calls a voice. It’s a pedestrian, coming our way from the Logan Circle bars. “Just a little friendly bike message,” BA says. Do you bike? Well, she’s not a local. But she tried Capital Bikeshare. That’s worth a high five. BA bends over to spray the ground, and the woman continues walking on P Street, turning around at the decisive moment to snap a photo with her phone. Instagram gold. ***
Before BA tagged her first bike lane, she took a cut-up map of the District and marked the streets and avenues she wanted to spray. Then she stashed it behind a large artwork hanging in her living room. “I wanted this to be a fun, secret mission thing,” she says. BA is a white, young professional who lives in Northwest and has been bike commuting in the District for the nearly four years she’s lived here. She is probably the most responsible bicyclist I’ve ever met: Even on tagging runs, she wears a yellow reflective vest and yellow reflective anklets, presumable hindrances in a flight for freedom. Nine times out of 10, she says, she waits until a red light turns green before biking through an intersection. The first time I met her, she very politely told me I was wearing my helmet unsafely. She picks up litter off the road, even though she also marks it permanently with spray paint. BA had never made illegal art before August, but says she had been thinking about the roads—about how they are underused as something that carries information—for some time. D.C.’s bike infrastructure may have boomed since the Adrian Fenty administration, but the city could be doing much more to foster better behavior by road users, BA says. After watching a couple of graffiti documentaries, she had an epiphany: She’d reach out to her own tribe and help soften bikers’ reputation as transportation insurgents by talking to them in their native habitat. D.C.’s roads, BA says, “are not utilized in any way other than street signs to promote and inform. So I saw the streets as being a blank canvas. They’re completely disregarded as something we see every day. The sewage markings, the remnants of construction projects—the streets are just ugly, wasted uses of public space when it comes to our visual relationship with them. I wanted something that was eye-catching and thought-provoking and beautiful that made people smile.” The bright, encouraging—twee, if you’d like—tone of BA’s stencil art has a purpose. “We want more people to bike,” she says. “We want bicyclists to smile and know they’re appreciated. We want bicyclists to smile at other bicyclists and road users. Most importantly, we want D.C. to be a safe place to ride a bike.” BA started by buying a pack of thick plastic cutting boards, into which she carved the messages with an X-Acto knife. After a trial run in her neighborhood, she went out with a friend, starting in August with the 15th Street NW cycletrack, which she knew was scheduled for repaving. She wanted to gauge the reaction to her project but didn’t want to permanently mar public space if it wasn’t worthwhile. “If it looked like shit, I did not want to put more crap on the streets. I wanted this to be art,” she says. She quickly decided it was and tagged two more streets that night. Then she left D.C. to visit her hometown. “I kind of fled town, like, ‘I’m gonna do a bunch, and then I’m gonna leave.’” She wasn’t caught. Almost immediately, bicyclists were tweeting about the stencils. And while some D.C. pals had been skittish before, now they wanted in. She wanted to find more collaborators, too. “I sent out a call to all my friends, like, ‘Do you want to get in on this project? This is the shit you’re going to tell your grandchildren.’” Throughout the fall, BA occasionally gathered friends at her home to share a meal and game out the evening’s stenciling—what she calls “LayNSpray.” On the night in November that I followed her while she resprayed 15th Street, her accomplices were K., a barista, and M., who works at the State Department. We met at the Adams Morgan bar Angles, chatting at a window table while BA and M. scraped goops of paint off the more heavily used stencils. They also did some surgery: Too much use had turned “I Want to Ride My Bike With You” into “I Want to Ride My Bike Vith You.” On this evening, BA began with a ceremonial reading of the relevant legal statute—and then the request that, should the fuzz intrude, everyone bike away so that BA alone will take the heat. And there are rules: Since many street cameras erase their footage about every 10 days, BA asks her accomplices not to mention the tagging in email, on Facebook, or on Twitter for a week and a half. “And that just gets more into the fun secrecy of it all,” she says. One of the most exciting LayNSprays took place on the National Mall, she says. “We put hearts on all of the bike signals. It was really sweet. And that was to say these are symbolic of human beings. It’s a person. We are living, breathing beings. Give us respect.” ***
Fifteenth and Massachusetts. “More Bike Lanes.” Barely legible. “Newsflash,” says M. “Orange is crap.” BA, annoyed by the spray job, bikes on. Then she smiles. “Orange you glad we have more colors?” ***
BA may be new to street art, but she understands where bombing—the writing of one’s name on a public surface—comes from: An art form of the voiceless, it’s about proclaiming your existence to a world that has failed to notice you. In her case, “failed to notice” might mean something closer to “didn’t see you before my SUV right-hooked you on your bike.” But while BA has cannily adopted an art form that’s historically belonged to marginalized people and placed it in the streets’ margins, for the most part she’s not proclaiming her existence to the right-hookers. She’s talking to the right-hookees. If BA is caught, the punishments are real. According to the D.C. Code, BA could face as many as 10 years in prison and fines up to $5,000 if she’s found guilty of damages totalling more than $1,000. But anyone who can tag frequently well-lit streets for months without consequence must enjoy some kind of privilege. BA knows it. “People look over with curiosity,” she says of the times she is spotted. “Either people are so complacent they’re not even observant of what’s going on, or they could care less because I’m a young white girl.” Sometimes other bikers double-take when they see BA tagging, but the reaction is receptive. Once, a rider biked by her while she was spraying at 14th and V. “He, like, circled back, looked at the ground, got closer, looked up and said, ‘Whoa, you’re the one. You’re the one!’ He started screaming it in the intersection, and I was like, ‘Dude, keep it quiet.’ And he was like, ‘You’re the one.’ It made me feel like Batman or something.” Several D.C. government officials interviewed for this story say the Metropolitan Police Department rarely pursues street artists who aren’t generating numerous complaints—like Borf, the teenage tagger whose works briefly captivated Washingtonians until his arrest in 2005—or spraying gang-related messages or names. Likewise, the Department of Public Works, which “doesn’t necessarily tolerate” street art on public property like the bases of lamp posts, prioritizes cleaning up material that’s gang-related, offensive, or has inspired a complaint, according to spokeswoman Linda Grant. To Grant’s knowledge, no one has complained to DPW about the bike-lane stencils. “I’d say that the messages are positive and pretty unobtrusive. They don’t distract from people using the street safely,” emails Sam Zimbabwe, DDOT’s director of policy, planning, and sustainability administration, when asked about the bike-lane stencils. “We generally don’t want people to do things like this, because if we did have to remove the stencils it’s a cost to the agency and taxpayers, which means other needed work may not get done. But this isn’t really the same as defacing a sign or creating a large mural in the street because of the size and the fact that the messages are positive.” BA says she’s worried about being caught—mostly because of what it could cost her financially—but believes she could gather support among bike enthusiasts and galvanize momentum for better biking infrastructure and bicyclist behavior. Maybe she shouldn’t worry. On the night I watched BA and her friends tag 15th Street, M. wondered out loud if I was going to portray the crew as reckless, entitled white kids. They certainly have tagging down to something like a science, but over time, they got remarkably looser. At several points, they left three or four stencils next to one another, spending several traffic-light cycles at a single intersection. They greeted passersby, spraycans in hand. And why not be reckless, when the odds of being caught appear to be so low? The most remarkable thing about writing on a well-lit street while being white, 20-something, and bike-bound is how little suspicion you arouse—from cops cruising by, from security guards, from anyone. I had to wonder if the kids who once made the above-ground stretch of the Red Line heading toward Silver Spring a graffiti destination ever had it so easy. BA and her compatriots may borrow graffiti’s customs, but they don’t live in its world. Even Borf’s sentence was light compared to the maximum punishment—while he was ordered to pay $12,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to tagging a Howard University building, he served only a month in jail. BA is hardly Borf on a bike, at least in terms of any damage she’s doing; if city officials say they’re barely bothered by her stencils, would a judge really treat her as a menace? That she’s tagging public property with well-meaning messages, not painting private buildings with pseudo-anarchic axioms, seems to have helped her cause, at least among local officials. From a street artist’s perspective, there’s another advantage to BA’s method. Because streets are public property, tags there tend to last much longer than tags on walls, which are often removed quickly, says Cory Stowers, an amateur graffiti historian who runs Art Under Pressure, a skate and paint shop in Petworth. And while street-bound street art isn’t a common approach, it does have a long tradition: Kids have been painting their names on the pavement as long as they’ve been painting them on the side of subway cars. BA’s stencils aren’t alone on D.C.’s streets. There are the Toynbee Tiles, with their esoteric messages, that can be found on city streets across the Western Hemisphere, plus the Stikman robots that inhabit crosswalks across the United States. Fine artists like Steed Taylor have created sanctioned, gallery-supported “road tattoos.” There’s an artist in Bowie who creates Pac-Man figures, some which are placed so that they appear to be eating lines on the road. That guy uses a heavy-duty adhesive that reacts to heat in order to become permanent, Stowers says. Corporate viral marketers will sometimes stamp hashtags on D.C. roads and sidewalks using materials that fade to nothing in four or five months. Creating street art that’s actually on the street is a bit more technically difficult than using a wall, Stowers says—you have to hold the can a different way, for starters—but it has the appeal of being less competitive. “Not too many people do it, and it’s a great way to attract attention,” he says. “Going onto the ground is an excellent canvas for folks putting their message out.” ***
Fifteenth and K streets. BA says it’s my turn to tag. I stammer and agree, but decide to wait for I Street, a block from my office. I botch a gold-colored “Jesus Loves Bicycles”—wrong hand position—and mess up another stencil inside a white bike arrow. Shrugs. They paint the whole arrow pink. ***
The Bike Artist isn’t nearly done. She wants to tag more lanes in high-traffic bicycling areas and move away from her more humorous messages to focus on promoting responsibility and etiquette. And she’s even seen at least one imitator: A friend has begun spraying stencils in Columbia Heights, using his own designs. Similar-looking stencils aimed at pedestrians can be found on 11th Street NW in the same neighborhood, though BA didn’t notice them until after her project began. In many ways, the tone of her street art—chipper, encouraging, mischievous but hardly subversive—reflects a change in D.C.’s bike culture. Between 2000 and 2011, only New York City saw a sharper drop in car commuting than D.C., according to a recent Public Interest Research Group study. Bikeshare reports about 250,000 rides a month. According to the League of American Bicyclists, bike commuting in D.C. grew 445 percent between 1990 and 2012, and as many as 4.1 percent of D.C. workers commute on bike. The typical D.C. biker is a lot like the Bike Artist—pretty normal. “Bicyclists now aren’t your middle-aged men in Lycra, they aren’t the young white hipster bike-messenger lookalikes,” BA says. “Everyone bikes.” Bike culture in D.C. is “night and day” from about a decade ago, says BicycleSpace co-owner Erik Kugler, whose 7th Street NW bike shop sits in front of a rare sidewalk stencil made by BA. “It used to be exemplified by the courier culture...that was a turnoff to many people. Now it’s just everyday people who are out. What separates the culture now is it feels like you’re in on a secret that brings happiness to your life.” That’s exactly the distinction BA is trying to draw—between bicyclists’ reputation, semirooted in an outdated notion of who bikes, and the way she feels every bicyclist ought to behave. Where most of us fall is probably somewhere in between. “Bicyclists have a reputation of being serious assholes, and this is confronting that perception,” BA says of her project. As an example, she points to a recent article on Greater Greater Washington, a first-person account by a bike-accident victim who was ticketed by police after a driver turned into his path, causing a collision, and was later allegedly told by a police officer that of course he was at fault—he’s a biker. In that case, the bicyclist did everything right. But in the heated discourse of urban transit policy, BA is frustrated that bicyclists are often stereotyped as aggressive lawbreakers. That perception, she says, is unfair, but is nevertheless framed “by the portion of people that run through red lights, don’t yield at stop signs, bike on sidewalks, bike the wrong way up streets—those people frame other road users’ perceptions that all bicyclists are wrong and disrespectful. I’m so polite. I’m overly polite to get over that perception. I, like, stop and wave and smile at people.” Bikers, of course, have plenty of reasons to remain aggressive—they still get killed on the road, after all, and must navigate laws that often force them to think like motorists and pedestrians at the same time. And so the notion that more bicyclists ought to set a better example, Kugler says, is “a little tough to swallow with all these cars doing illegal U-turns” and violating traffic laws in ways that can hurt bikers. “We’re supposed to be the ones who set a good example?” As American cities have knocked down the barriers to everyday biking by building more bike lanes, adding Bikeshare systems, and improving signage—as they’ve given more of the road to bicyclists—those policies have become politicized. (See the conservative think tank founder who recently berated a bicyclist for reporting a truck blocking the L Street cycletrack, or Christopher Caldwell’s recent Weekly Standard screed against the bicycling lobby.) But in D.C., the temperature of the bicycle debate is beginning to drop. Public discourse still centers on the toll of gentrification—on the widening gulf between the city’s wealthier, whiter population and its poorer, blacker one—but three years removed from the Fenty administration, bicycling is less of a signifier of a societal rift. (Biking advocates, of course, might point out that the pace of bicycle-infrastructure expansion has slowed, too, although DDOT wants to build 140 more miles of cycletracks and bike lanes.) And as the population of daily, nonideological bicyclists has grown, BA’s instinct—that they need an angel on their shoulder—more or less feels right. That, anyway, is why Kugler says he gives the bike stencils a “99 out of 100.” “It’s a message for the modern biking culture,” Kugler says. “It’s not a renegade culture anymore.” ***
|
BOGOTA — The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the guerilla group known as the FARC, chose a military hardliner as its new commander this week, in what could be a blow to a peaceful resolution to Colombia’s conflict.
It could also spell the beginning of the end for the FARC.
Rodrigo Loño Echeverry, 52, known as Timochenko, was chosen after the death this weekend of the group’s commander, Alfonso Cano, who was killed in a government bombardment.
Read more: Cocaine crackdown
The government, who has been fighting the FARC for decades, called Cano’s death a serious blow to the group. Cano was a charismatic leader who skillfully united factions of the FARC who disagreed on whether to pursue a military or political strategy in dealing with the government.
At issue is the tentative discussions about negotiations that Cano allegedly had begun with the government before his death, and what some analysts believed was a rare chance for peace. Colombian officials have since said they would be willing to continue negotiations with the FARC if the group acted in good faith. Most analysts say that the government would also need to show that it is willing to implement some economic reforms the group had demanded in the past.
It’s still unclear whether Timochenko, who analysts believe may be hiding in neighboring Venezuela, has interest in pursuing that path, or remaining at war. But his background suggests that he’s likely to continue a militaristic approach.
Read more: 'Blood roses' in Colombia
Timochenko is one of the FARC’s longest running commanders. A medical student when he joined the rebels in 1982, he has studied politics and warfare in the Soviet Union and Cuba. Since then, he has risen to lead the head of the group’s intelligence operations.
Colombia's attorney general has issued 117 arrest warrants for Timochenko on charges of kidnapping, murder, rebellion and terrorism. The United States has offered $5 million for information leading to his capture.
The FARC has been battling the government since the 1960s, when it was founded to fight for the rights of Colombia’s poor. Since then, however, it has strayed from its original ideology, working with drug-traffickers to fund its operations, kidnapping civilians and launching violent attacks against the government. The shift has also sapped public support for the FARC.
Since 2008, the Colombian military has intensified its military campaign against the group. So far, it has killed four out of seven top leaders. Yet the government hasn’t been able to eradicate the rebels.
Miguel Ortiga, a researcher at the Foundation for Ideas Towards Peace, said that that Timochenko was less likely to negotiate than his predecessor. He also would have less of an ability to unite the group.
That could lead the FARC to splinter into smaller groups who might align with criminal gangs, raising the potential for clashes between these rivals and creating a greater threat to civilians.
"This is very dangerous for Colombia in the long term," Ortiga said. "The criminal groups have better weapons and training. This, mixed with a desire to fight the government and lack of leadership, could be a bomb."
It would also almost certainly render negotiations moot. Either way, buoyed by Cano’s death, the government seems little interested in discussions now.
“Think about it,” said President Juan Manuel Santos, in a public address to Timochenko. “You have been defeated politically, more than 95 percent of the population rejects the FARC. Your military is increasingly weak.
“The use of weapons and the path of violence will not lead to any win for you. Timochenko needs to reflect, or he will suffer the same fate as Alfonso Cano.”
Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras has already announced that Timochenko has become the state government's top target.
“We know what is the next government's objective: to capture Timochenko. If he is the new FARC leader, they have showed us our next goal,” he said.
|
The Bridge by Leroy
camera{location look_at }plane{y,-1 pigment{rgb z}normal{granite translate clock}finish{reflection{0,1}}}box{<99,-1,8>pigment{leopard color_map{[.2 rgb 0][.2 rgbt 1]}translate-y*2.6}}sphere{0,30 pigment{radial rotate-y*95}finish{ambient }}
Still Images
About
This video was produced by rendering the following 330 bytes of code with POV-Ray:
This Video is part of the POV-Ray Short Code Contest #5 which was originally published by Paul Bourke in 2008. This page shows a new re-rendering of the original POV-Ray source code at a higher resolution, although here and there some miniscule syntactic changes had to be made to the code in order to get POV-Ray 3.7 to parse it.
Author's Comment
The author did not supply a comment.
Metadata
SCC Award honourable mention Author: Leroy Author's Website: unknown Submission ID: ombpes Source Filesize: 330 Bytes Source Page: SCC5 Source Code: long | short
Render Process
Frames: 120 Pixels: 230 400 000 Rays: 1 581 091 440 CPU-Seconds: 3 200
Links
|
A year ago, before the man they call Bike Batman began his work—before he headed out on missions around the Emerald City with a pocketful of cash and the cops on speed dial and a paladin’s sense of wrongs to be righted, before he’d rescued two dozen stolen bikes from the grubby fingers of the city’s thieves, before even anyone referred to him as Bike Batman—he was just an average-seeming guy in Seattle who liked to ride his bicycles.
He rode his bike to work. After work, he rode his bike home again. In the evenings, in his basement, he wrenched on bikes that he fixed up and flipped. Monkeying with bikes helped him burn off stress. The guy had a wife who also liked to ride, a wife who at times would wonder aloud if all that half-finished transportation would be departing the basement soon, honey, so they could finally tackle that remodel.
In short, the guy showed no crime-fighting predilection—certainly no inkling to become a vigilante who would face off against criminals while armed with little more than a smartphone, some spare time, and a pair of brass balls. He didn’t choose to become Bike Batman.
Sometimes in life, though, the cape finds you.
All the action heroes have their origin story. Here is Bike Batman’s: It was May 2015. A Monday or a Tuesday. Our guy, an engineer, was at work. (Never mind where, and don’t worry about his name. He doesn’t want the glory or need the guff.) He was surfing online for a steel bike for his wife to ride on an upcoming trip. And—well, here, let him tell you what happened next:
“So I was looking for a Surly Cross-Check,” he says one recent day at lunch over a pulled-pork sandwich. “And I’d been searching for one on Craigslist forever. And one finally popped up. And it was really, really cheap. And I thought immediately, this is either stolen—it’s super beat-up and all the parts are junk—or the person doesn’t know what they have. It was like 300 bucks. And it would sell for $700—like half-price.
“So I started asking the guy questions about fit, about parts, about whatever. And the guy couldn’t answer anything. So I think, OK, this is probably stolen. And I did a quick Google: ‘Surly.’ ‘Cross-Check.’ ‘Seattle.’ ‘Stolen.’ And a Bike Index ad popped up. And the Bike Index ad had pictures of this bike, and it had a contact number for the owner of this thing.”
Bike Index, if you haven’t heard of it, is the nation’s largest bike registry and a clearinghouse for info on stolen rides. It lists more than 75,000 bikes. When someone loses his bike and turns to the web, if there’s a hit, Bike Index is often one of the first links that pops up.
So our guy—he’s not Batman at this point, remember, still just some joe who likes bikes and who’s in possession of a certain curiosity of mind, the kind of guy who likes to pull on a string to see what’s at the other end—reaches out to the original owner of the Cross-Check.
“I shoot her a text. I say, ‘I may have found your bike for sale. Could you provide some details?’ And she responded with pictures of her police report, pictures of her receipts, all this stuff. Serial number.
“I think she thought I was some weirdo.”
It could’ve ended there. Except it didn’t. That afternoon, our hero pulls on the string a little harder. He decides to pose as a buyer so he can meet the guy who’s selling the stolen bike. He has no idea what to say. No escape route. No nothing. The seller suggests meeting in downtown Seattle. Right by the city jail, as it turns out.
How Not to Lock Your Bike Locking up your bike and having it be there when you return is a minor miracle. We compiled a list of the 10 most obvious no-nos when securing your two-wheeled steed.
When the seller shows up, it’s not one guy. It’s three guys. “They looked like drug addicts. And, you know, whatever. I talk to people like this all the time. I take after my mom—talk to everybody. My wife hates it. And I start talking to them, looking at the bike. And immediately I’m like, this bike is set up exactly like the lady’s that I’ve been texting. I flip the bike over, check the serial number. The serial number’s the same. OK. At this point, the bike is stolen. I don’t know what to do.
“I said, ‘Just give me a second, guys.’ I dialed 911 on my phone. Conveniently, my phone didn’t dial. So I pretended to talk to the police as I derived a plan.
“And I said, ‘Well, guys, I’m sorry to tell you this, but this is my girlfriend’s bike. And it’s stolen. And I just talked to the police. And the way I see it, you’ve got two options. You can wait here for the police to come and tell them your story and how you came upon the bike, or you can get out of here and just let me throw the bike in my truck.’ One guy immediately ran away. As soon as I said ‘police,’ he was out of there.”
Here it should be said that even though you have met Batman only a few times, at places and times of his choosing, what strikes you most about him is his utter unremarkableness. To the near-stranger, he is beige, nearly without affect, almost boring. Don’t misunderstand: Once you get to know him, you see that he’s smart and funny. But his hands do not wave when he talks. Inflection is not one of his gifts. In this way, he rather reminds you of those other Batmans—Christian Bale, Michael Keaton—who managed to be both charismatic and two-dimensional at the same time.
Bike Batman, of course, is keenly aware of the face he presents to the world and to thieves. “It’s just important to be this energy sink, basically,” he’ll tell you later. “The only reason this has worked for me so far is that I just go in there and just keep an even keel the whole time…As soon as you start getting worked up, that person is going to start getting worked up with you and feed off the energy and vibe that you’re putting out.”
(It probably also doesn’t hurt that our hero is in his thirties, big-shouldered, thick russet beard, Viking-looking. He isn’t the first guy you would choose to fuck with over a hot Litespeed.)
But back to the action, where one thief has fled but a standoff has arisen with the remaining dirtbags across the empty saddle of the stolen bike:
“The other two guys were getting a little amped up. My heart is just in my throat. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just standing there. And I said, ‘Well, guys, I’m not waiting around any longer. Alright, I’m out of here.’ I throw it in my truck, try to race downtown at 5:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, make it about 50 feet—and then stop at a traffic light.”
Not exactly a clean getaway.
Still, he makes it. “I called the lady: ‘Yep, it’s your bike.’ I drove about six blocks and met her downtown, gave it back to her. And she was just so happy.” It didn’t matter, he says, that the bike was all janky and barely worth the trouble.
Right there, our guy could’ve walked away. But his work didn’t feel finished. The seller—probably the coward who ran—had dozens of bikes for sale on Craigslist. So our guy forked over all the woman’s info to the Seattle Police Department. Then he waited for the boom to fall. And he waited. “Seattle PD was going really slow. And I was getting really frustrated watching these bikes go up for sale and coming down.”
He got a little obsessed. Doing his own “hack job investigations,” he found more Bike Index postings about stolen bikes, and then located them for sale on websites. About a week after his first sting, he saw a red Surly Karate Monkey for sale, cheap, on a site called OfferUp. He easily found the owner on Bike Index, a young country boy from Idaho whose ride vanished in the 20 minutes he ran upstairs to see his girlfriend at the University of Washington.
He and the kid set up the buy, then rendezvoused that night with the thieves and followed them to a bleak area south of downtown Seattle where trailers squatted in a circle and shadows moved in the dark bushes. It was the land of stolen bikes. Just tons of them. Again, our guy had no plan. No way to communicate with his new sidekick. “We were idiots,” he recalls. Once they confirmed it was the kid’s bike, “I was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you call the girlfriends and tell them we’re doing alright?’ And I’m wearing a wedding ring. I’m trying to pull it off and put it in my pocket.
‘Okay, the girlfriends.’ And he runs off to call 911.”
The kid must’ve screamed bloody murder, because seven cops descended. Cuffs slapped on perps. Bikes recovered. The police admired their initiative—and told them that their initiative would probably get them shot.
But goddamn it was a rush. “This kid was hosed if he didn’t have someone else. He was like, ‘Fuck this city,’” our guy recalls. “It was so much fun and felt so good to stand up and, you know, not let all these, particularly out-of-town people, get this bad rap for Seattle.” Later, some cops called him Robin Hood. A grateful citizen in the Seattle Times named him the “bike repo man.”
If the alter ego born that dark night must have a name, however, the guy preferred Bike Batman.
Stealing bikes is a crackin’ business. Across the nation, property crime has been falling for years, even precipitously. But bike thefts? Not so much. About 185,000 bikes were stolen in 2014, according to FBI statistics. That number is probably wildly low, because it doesn’t count burglaries in which a bike is taken. And only about one in three property crimes is even reported to police, the feds say.
In Seattle, 1,563 bikes were reported stolen last year, about double the number that were stolen in 2010. In Portland, aka Bike City USA, 2,100 bikes were stolen in 2014, according to a database compiled by the Oregonian. That number has doubled since 2007.
Bryan Hance is the Portland-based co-founder of Bike Index. He started his site out of frustration that thieves can steal a bike in Portland, say, and take it to Seattle, and the theft doesn’t get shared among law enforcement. “They’re totally balkanized. City A’s database does not talk to City B’s,” Hance says. Even college campuses usually don’t talk to the city around them. But if everyone registered their bike on a website and reported it there when stolen, bikes would be unsellable. In theory, anyway.
“Everybody asks, why bikes? And there are a couple factors,” says Hance. “One is that they’re worth a helluva lot more than they used to be. Ten years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find a $2,000 bike unless your were a racer,” he says. “Now, a median price for a commuter is $1,300. The price is better, the components are better.
“Factor number two: Back when gas was $5 a gallon, a lot of people started riding. And they’ve stuck with it. And that puts a lot more bikes on the road.
“Then, a) crystal meth, b) crystal meth, and c) crystal meth.” Oh, and heroin, Hance adds. “And that leads to a lot of shitty, low-level property crime.”
There are more reasons. Take the rise of online commerce sites used to sell the stolen goods. You know Craigslist and eBay. But do you know 5miles? Or Letgo? Or OfferUp or Neerbuy or Saily or VarageSale? These sites are a visual marketplace, showing pictures of an item but often including few words to describe it. They offer the seller anonymity while making it hard for police or others to search the web for keywords. Lost a bike? You could spend hours scrolling through pictures across more than a half-dozen sites trying to track it down. Then do it again the next day. These sites may sell legit merchandise. But they’re also the 21st-century way to fence stolen goods. Think tag sales for tweakers.
In Seattle, the detectives who deal with burglaries are the same ones who get handed bike thefts, says Detective Scotty Bach of the Seattle Police Department’s Major Crimes Task Force. In the inevitable triage that is police work, home burglaries—with its bigger price tags and terrified families—naturally go to the front of the line. Unless there’s a major lead or a big sting, bikes tend to fall by the wayside, says Bach. Every theft matters. But some matter more than others.
And then there’s the marketplace. Bikes wouldn’t get stolen if people didn’t buy stolen bikes. But people do buy stolen bikes. Either buyers are oblivious, or they put blinders on. Buying a cheap bike from someone you meet on an app “sort of gives it the sheen of legitimacy,” says Hance. (It’s not a sketchy deal in a dark alley! It’s e-commerce!) But people don’t ask the right questions. Or don’t want to. Or don’t care.
Finally, let’s give a grudging shout-out to the thieves. Though drug-addled and twitchy-fingered, they’re now damn good at what they do. U-locks scarcely slow them down anymore (angle grinders, modified car jacks, huge bolt cutters, pry bars). Cables? Might as well tie your bike with dental floss, laughs Hance. Some thieves don’t even bother with the locks initially: In Portland, thieves have used angle grinders to saw through bike racks and dealt with the lock later. There have been break-ins at apartment buildings that contain “those cheap, shitty aluminum” vertical bike racks, and the thieves “saw the entire freaking rack off the wall,” making off with 25 bikes at once, Hance says.
(Your smartest move is to take your bike inside. Boss won’t let you? Make your bike harder to steal than the bike parked next to it, says Hance. That means throwing on two locks, minimum. Bike theft is about time and convenience for the thief and making it just enough of a pain that he moves on. As the old joke goes, you don’t have to outrun the lion, you only have to outrun your buddy.)
So, yeah, it’s a jungle out there. Enough to make a city cry out for a hero.
In the 12 months since he began, in May 2014, Batman returned 24 bicycles to their owners—all in his spare time, for free. At first he did it solo. Over time, he met some cops, and he met victims who had friends who were cops, and he sometimes called them to help on his stings. Still more officers reached out to him after the story in the paper.
Getting bikes back to people became a bit of an addiction. “It felt so good, just so good to get people reconnected with this thing that they’ve got all this emotional attachment to,” he says. “And most of these guys don’t have renter’s insurance, or they don’t have an insurance policy on their bike for whatever reason. They’re out $2,000, $3,000 when this thing gets stolen.”
Consider the tale of Maggie Stapleton, one of Batman’s favorite recent stories.
On an unseasonably warm April Friday this year, Stapleton, who’s 29, was grilling outside with friends in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. As the day cooled, everyone went inside. When Stapleton did, she plumb forgot to lock up her bike.
Bicycles have stories. Her Salsa Vaya—steel, traffic-cone orange—was the bike she bought after she first met her boyfriend, a longtime cyclist. Atop her Salsa, Stapleton became a cyclist, and a bike commuter, riding to and from her job in downtown Seattle. She has put thousands of miles on it. This summer, she was training to ride the Ramrod, a glorious, one-day, 150-odd-mile, 10,000-foot crusher that loops Mount Rainier.
But when Stapleton came outside at midnight to ride home, the Vaya—well, you know.
Stapleton went home and posted the loss online wherever she could think of. She tweeted. She contacted bike shops. Nothing. She was bummed. “This bike does have a lot of sentimental value to me, because it’s the first bike that made me fall in love with cycling.”
And this is what’s so interesting about bikes, isn’t it? A bike is just a thing—an ingenious concatenation of gears and wire and leather and steel. Really, we should care for it no more than we care for a toaster, or a BluRay player. Yet we do. Hance thinks he knows why. Bikes carry the freight of memories of experiences we’ve pedaled through while in the saddle. “It’s not that it’s ‘a thousand-dollar bike that I’ve had for five years,’” he says. “It’s ‘the thousand-dollar bike that I rode cross-country with my dad who had cancer,’ or ‘that I bought when I had raging PTSD after Afghanistan.’” Sure, for 60 percent of people, when it’s gone, it’s gone. But the other 40 percent, it’s like they’ve lost a limb, says Hance. “They don’t want it back, they need it back,” he says. “They’re ready to go Rambo to get that bike back.
“That’s where things get real interesting.”
Call Stapleton one of the 60 percent. She was sick about her lost bike, sure. But what could she do? She’d forgotten to lock it up; now it was gone. Lesson learned, she said to herself. Then, on Monday night, she received a phone message. “I think I may have found your bike,” said the voice. She called back. It was Batman. He already was winging to North Seattle to meet the seller. He had been checking the listings one last time before bed when he saw a fishy post; cross-referenced it; and found Stapleton’s post on Bike Index, complete with tell-tale details—a scratch here, mismatched tires.
Stapleton met up with him in a Sam’s Club parking lot. Batman had already called the cops. A plan was hatched: The police would hide nearby as Batman met the thief in the parking lot of a Kidd Valley burger joint. He scrawled the Vaya’s serial number on his hand. If it matched the one on the bike, he’d turn the crank to call in the cavalry.
“What should I do?” Stapleton asked the officer.
“Why don’t you go get some french fries?” the cop replied.
So Stapleton watched through the plate-glass windows of the burger joint, about to lose her mind as the dirtbag produced her beloved bike, and Batman turned the crank, and the flashing lights woop-wooped into view. She went home that night with her Salsa Vaya.
“It does kind of restore my faith in humanity,” she says. “A lot of people do bad things, but someone out of the goodness of their heart reunites people with their stolen bikes?”
Only later did she realize she’d had a brush with Batman, whom she’d read about in the paper just days before.
Others are out there fighting bike crime, too. There’s a woman in San Francisco who’s good at it, Hance says. And bike messengers down there “who are not to be trifled with. God help the person who takes a bike messenger’s bike.” I ask for another. Hance points me to one of the best of the spotters, folks who see the stolen bikes online and contact the owners. A “ninja,” he calls him. The guy has tracked maybe 20 bikes.
The Portlander doesn’t want to give his name or where he works. He doesn’t want to get too involved. He’s got kids, he says. But he explains his methods.
He looks for suspicious bikes during free moments at work, he says, then puts the owners in touch with ads by the shady sellers. He calls himself a middleman. It’s a different kind of crime-fighting, he says, done in front of a computer, at a standing desk. But he also patrols his not-quite-gentrified neighborhood. He keeps an eye out. He started a monthly cleanup. He’s the kind of neighbor you want to have. “Once or twice a day, I’ll see someone what they call ‘ghost riding’ a bike”—riding one, while guiding a second, thousand-dollar bike. And they “don’t look like any kind of rider,” he says, when I ask him why he does this. “I’ve had two bikes stolen from my house,” he says.
Our thirst for justice runs strong. And just as we are creative in our desire to slake that thirst, we are ingenious in the search for vengeance. A corner of YouTube is devoted to the delight of those who have exacted retribution upon jerks who would steal our bikes. To watch these clips is to feel a bit like indulging in pornography. This is wish fulfillment, after all, the next best thing to the satisfaction of being there and punching the guy yourself. There’s the Portland guy on YouTube who sees his stolen bike in a Seattle Craigslist ad, drives three hours north to pose as a would-be buyer, and then hounds the thief on foot through Seattle traffic until police cuff the baddie. There are the videos of “bait bikes” outfitted with seats wired to remote-control stun guns. Grown men, their taints zapped, lift off from two wheels into the branches of tall trees. It’s sadistic stuff.
An aggressive anti-theft group in New Orleans called Stolen Bikes NOLA has begun posting mug shots of frequent offenders. Last year, in a surveillance spearheaded by a 240-pound former bounty hunter from Alabama, the group’s members performed an elaborate tail of a suspected thief known as Track Suit as the man moved through the French Quarter, even as Track Suit donned a wig and hat to avoid detection. (Police finally arrested Track Suit.)
Like the Portlander I spoke with, Batman’s crime-fighting also starts during downtime at work. Take this morning, he tells me while we’re at lunch. There was a ten-minute conference call. But he didn’t really have to participate much, he says. “So the first thing I did was pop up Craigslist and OfferUp on both screens of my computer and just scroll through them passively until I see something that, you know, raises a red flag for me. And then I cross-check Bike Index, or I’ll open up Bike Index and scroll through the recent stolen bikes. So, five minutes, or 30 seconds here and there.” Anyone can do it.
He pulls out his phone. Here’s one now that he’s flagged. It’s a Trek, lime green. With that, my sidekick powers of observation end.
Batman, though, is just getting started.
It’s a modern touring bike, he says. “I would say you could end up buying this for around a thousand bucks from REI. The components look fairly new. They’re asking $250 for it.
“If this is a normal sale, I would expect to see ‘TREK. MODEL. SIZE.’ And just some details,” he says. But look at this listing, he continues—all it says is “Green Trek Bike.” No size. No nothing.
Price, and an inarticulate seller, are only his first clues. He’s just getting warmed up. He’s a detective now, picking up bits of lint, gathering circumstantial evidence, building a case. “The photo is taken in front of a flipped-over shopping cart and a makeshift barbecue, some burnt chairs or something. OK, no big deal, whatever. But then I go to”—here he clicks on the guy’s profile—“this guy’s name, and this guy’s profile is made in May of 2016, and you look at his other sales, and they’re all equally sketchy.”
Next, Batman takes the info and surfs over to Bike Index. He punches in what he knows: “Trek.” “Green.” “Within 100 miles of Seattle.” Several contenders pop up. He starts to weed them out. It helps to know bikes by a glance, their geometry and components. Batman knows bikes.
“Nope. Nope.” None seem to match. It’s a dead end. Just another shifty-looking sale. For now, anyway.
One of the biggest problems in busting up bike sales is that a lot of people simply don’t report their bikes when they get lifted, he says. If a bike is stolen in Seattle that’s worth more than $500, you’ve got to visit a police precinct to file a theft report or wait for an officer to arrive to document the theft. “And if you work like I work, 12 hours a day, all the time—Saturday I’m gone constantly. If somebody was to steal something of mine, and a police officer wasn’t able to say, ‘I will be there in five minutes,’ I just can’t wait around the three hours for ‘I will be there between eight and noon.’ That ain’t gonna work. We live in a busy city.”
I ask Detective Bach what he thought of Batman’s vigilantism. He was blunt. “I thinks there’s some huge risks for what he’s doing,” Bach says. “I would never advise a citizen to meet a suspect on his own. You’re buying these bikes from people who possibly are high on narcotics. You just don’t know.”
A few years ago, Seattle Bike Blog’s Tom Fucoloro was nearly aerated with a screwdriver while helping to retrieve a friend’s stolen bike. Bach also points to an incident north of Seattle in February, in which several people claimed they’d found their stolen construction tools on OfferUp. After being unable to secure a police officer’s help in time, the people met the seller and tried to make a citizens’ arrest of the alleged thief. Instead, the man pulled a pistol. He later was arrested. (To be fair, Batman these days usually calls the cops as he goes to meet the perp, and they formulate a quick plan, so the the police are waiting nearby to descend.)
Still, Bach recommends gathering as much info as you can about the stolen bike and who has it to make the police’s job as easy as possible, and then calling the police so they can intervene or make the buy instead. “If you can get us involved early, that’s great,” Bach says. And then be persistent, he says, until someone with a badge pays attention.
Our Batman is quite familiar with some of the occupational hazards that come with being a bike vigilante. There’s the danger, for one.
Last summer, when Batman was still new at this, he spied a Cervélo P2 for sale, confronted the thief, and took it. (“I’ve got a picture of the victim, he’s standing on my porch with just this gigantic smile on his face, like, ‘Oh my God!’”) Two weeks later, another stolen bike pops up on OfferUp.
Batman got a little careless. Though he had changed his profile and his picture, his texting pattern was similar. He recommended meeting at the same parking garage. He arrived early and saw the same thief, who he later found was wanted for violent crimes. Now the guy was with four friends, who were waiting in the corners of the parking garage. Batman let that bike go and lived to fight another day.
Perhaps it is no surprise that Mrs. Batman does not love these stories. Still, he adds, “She’s supportive. She knows it’s something that’s really important for me, and she has chosen to support me in it. But there are times where, for instance, with Maggie Stapleton’s bicycle, I found that at like 8:30 p.m. or something, I was literally brushing my teeth, looking through the bikes on OfferUp” and went out to bust the guy, he says. “And the whole thing was very rushed. She doesn’t like that. She wants me to contact the police, get a plan together.”
Then there are the hazards of trying to be a zealous do-gooder.
Last summer, Batman was flying high on his success, recovering bikes left and right, feeling cocksure. A Rodriguez coupled tandem came up for sale, dirt cheap. (A note here: Rodriguez Cycles are sweet custom steel rides hand-built in Seattle. A new, fully kitted tandem can go for up to $9,000 today.) The seller is sketchy, jittery, knows nothing about the bike. Batman sets up the buy and calls the police.
They meet. Batman tells the woman the jig is up.
Fuck off, she says. The bike’s mine.
The police arrive. They ream out Batman for profiling someone as a criminal with no proof. The irony wasn’t lost on him. “I had a friend, a bleeding heart liberal teacher, was just talking about what a piece of shit I was,” he says now. “I don’t even think I was aware of what I was doing.” (The unlikely owner apparently got the Rodriguez through an auction of a forgotten storage unit, à la Storage Wars.)
After that, he says, “I seriously considered stopping this foolishness altogether. But I got an email or a text from someone saying, ‘Thank you so much. I just put 60 miles on my bike or whatever, it feels amazing.’ And I thought, I can’t. It just feels too good.”
So he didn’t stop. But now he plays by new rules. If he can’t contact the owner and confirm that a bike is stolen, he won’t contact the cops and get them involved. Sometimes he’ll snap up a really suspicious bike himself and try to find the owner later. It’s all about acting fast, he says. “This is like ambulance chasing. If you’re not the first one there, someone else is gonna swoop in, and then you’re not gonna find the owner.”
And when it all goes right, it is sweet.
Last fall, Batman sees a carbon Cervélo P5—a crazy-expensive tri bike, maybe $9,000 retail—for about $3,000. It’s obviously hot. But Bike Index shows bupkes, and local police have no reports. Batman talks the kid selling it down to $1,700. Tells him he’ll have the cash when he gets back from a business trip in a week.
During the delay, Batman gets on the horn. He calls the Cervélo rep to find out where the bike was sold: Oregon. He calls the Oregon shop. The shop calls the bike’s owner. The owner calls Batman.
“I left for Hawaii three weeks ago,” the owner says. “That bike should be in my house.”
“Well, it’s not,” says Batman.
The next day, when he meets the thief, the fuzz swarms. Turns out two guys with family in the neighborhood knew the cyclist’s schedule and had emptied his house when he headed to the islands. Nobody even knows there’s been a crime until Bike Batman solves it.
Why does Bike Batman do this for us? He has a life, after all. He’s got a wife who wants to sit on the couch with him and watch Game of Thrones. He’s got friends. A busy career. He’s got bikes to ride—four at last count, not to mention the hobby bikes cluttering the basement. Why do this?
Our comic book heroes have always been different from us—in their monomania, in the black-and-white way they see the world. The rest of us accept early to shrug and live with the unfairness of it all. But the heroes we invent and raise up, they don’t shrug. They don’t accept things the way they are. That’s what makes them so appealing and yet also keeps us distant from them. We admire their monomania, and we distrust it. We want to know what’s really in their hearts that makes them not like us.
“Really, it might be 3 percent, let’s say, adrenaline. Some subconscious adrenaline seeking,” Batman says of his motives. (“It’s not like the adrenaline I get from riding a mountain bike or something, or riding really fast,” he wants you to know. “But it’s kind of the nervous energy I get when I’ve got way too much on my plate.”) “And there might be 2 percent of something else. But I would say 95 percent of it is just getting that bike returned.”
Here’s a for-instance, he says: After the recovery of Maggie Stapleton’s bike—the Salsa Vaya, the french fries—he friended her on Instagram. “I was having a really, really busy week the following week, after getting that thing back for her, and I was really not super-enthused with work. And every once in a while I would just open up Instagram and look at a picture of her riding the bike and just think, fuck. Yeah.”
“I know that sounds creepy,” Batman adds. And he laughs at himself. And you laugh with him, because the mask has slipped down, and you see that the guy across from you isn’t Batman anymore, isn’t some abstract concept about the war in man’s breast between Good and Evil. It’s just a big, Viking-looking guy who gets frustrated at work, just like you do, and who right now is wearing a giant grin on his face because he’s found something he really, really likes to do, and that something happens to be helping other people who are in a jam.
No, Bike Batman, that’s not creepy at all. In fact, that’s about the most normal thing in the world.
|
The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon.
1. Not unconstitutional as an invasion of the reserved powers of the States. Citing Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506 , and Narcotic Act cases. P. 177.
The National Firearms Act, as applied to one indicted for transporting in interstate commerce a 12-gauge shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches long without having registered it and without having in his possession a stamp-affixed written order for it, as required by the Act, held:
Opinion
MCREYNOLDS, J., Opinion of the Court
MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.
An indictment in the District Court, Western District Arkansas, charged that Jack Miller and Frank Layton
did unlawfully, knowingly, willfully, and feloniously transport in interstate commerce from the town of Claremore in the State of Oklahoma to the town of Siloam Springs in the State of Arkansas a certain firearm, to-wit, a double barrel 12-gauge Stevens shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches in length, bearing identification number 76230, said defendants, at the time of so transporting said firearm in interstate commerce as aforesaid, not having registered said firearm as required by Section 1132d of Title 26, United States Code (Act of June 26, 1934, c. 737, Sec. 4 [§ 5], 48 Stat. 1237), and not having in their possession a stamp-affixed written order for said firearm as provided by Section 1132c, Title 2, United States Code (June 26, 1934, c. 737, Sec. 4, 48 Stat. 1237) and the regulations issued under authority of the said Act of Congress known as the "National Firearms Act," approved June 26, 1934, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United States. [n1] [p176]
A duly interposed demurrer alleged: the National Firearms Act is not a revenue measure, but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional. Also, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." [p177]
The District Court held that section eleven of the Act violates the Second Amendment. It accordingly sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment.
The cause is here by direct appeal.
Considering Sonzinsky v. United States (1937), 300 U.S. 506, 513, and what was ruled in sundry causes arising [p178] under the Harrison Narcotic Act [n2] -- United States v. Jin Fuey Moy (1916), 241 U.S. 394, United States v. Doremus (1919), 249 U.S. 86, 94; Linder v. United States (1925), 268 U.S. 5; Alston v. United States (1927), 274 U.S. 289; Nigro v. United States (1928), 276 U.S. 332 -- the objection that the Act usurps police power reserved to the States is plainly untenable.
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.
The Constitution, as originally adopted, granted to the Congress power --
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.
With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.
The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they [p179] were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia -- civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.
The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily, when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.
Blackstone's Commentaries, Vol. 2, Ch. 13, p. 409 points out "that king Alfred first settled a national militia in this kingdom," and traces the subsequent development and use of such forces.
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book V, Ch. 1, contains an extended account of the Militia. It is there said: "Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army as dangerous to liberty."
In a militia, the character of the labourer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character, and in this distinction seems to consist the essential difference between those two different species of military force.
"The American Colonies In The 17th Century," Osgood, Vol. 1, ch. XIII, affirms in reference to the early system of defense in New England --
In all the colonies, as in England, the militia system was based on the principle of the assize of arms. This implied the general obligation of all adult male inhabitants to possess arms, and, with certain exceptions, to [p180] cooperate in the work of defence.
The possession of arms also implied the possession of ammunition, and the authorities paid quite as much attention to the latter as to the former.
A year later [1632] it was ordered that any single man who had not furnished himself with arms might be put out to service, and this became a permanent part of the legislation of the colony [Massachusetts].
Also,
Clauses intended to insure the possession of arms and ammunition by all who were subject to military service appear in all the important enactments concerning military affairs. Fines were the penalty for delinquency, whether of towns or individuals. According to the usage of the times, the infantry of Massachusetts consisted of pikemen and musketeers. The law, as enacted in 1649 and thereafter, provided that each of the former should be armed with a pike, corselet, head-piece, sword, and knapsack. The musketeer should carry a "good fixed musket," not under bastard musket bore, not less than three feet, nine inches, nor more than four feet three inches in length, a priming wire, scourer, and mould, a sword, rest, bandoleers, one pound of powder, twenty bullets, and two fathoms of match. The law also required that two-thirds of each company should be musketeers.
The General Court of Massachusetts, January Session 1784, provided for the organization and government of the Militia. It directed that the Train Band should "contain all able bodied men, from sixteen to forty years of age, and the Alarm List, all other men under sixty years of age, . . ." Also,
That every noncommissioned officer and private soldier of the said militia not under the controul of parents, masters or guardians, and being of sufficient ability therefor in the judgment of the Selectmen of the town in which he shall dwell, shall equip himself, and be constantly provided with a good fire arm,
etc.
By an Act passed April 4, 1786, the New York Legislature directed:
That every able-bodied Male Person, being [p181] a Citizen of this State, or of any of the United States, and residing in this State, (except such Persons as are hereinafter excepted) and who are of the Age of Sixteen, and under the Age of Forty-five Years, shall, by the Captain or commanding Officer of the Beat in which such Citizens shall reside, within four Months after the passing of this Act, be enrolled in the Company of such Beat. . . . That every Citizen so enrolled and notified shall, within three Months thereafter, provide himself, at his own Expense, with a good Musket or Firelock, a sufficient Bayonet and Belt, a Pouch with a Box therein to contain not less than Twenty-four Cartridges suited to the Bore of his Musket or Firelock, each Cartridge containing a proper Quantity of Powder and Ball, two spare Flints, a Blanket and Knapsack; . . .
The General Assembly of Virginia, October, 1785, (12 Hening's Statutes) declared,
The defense and safety of the commonwealth depend upon having its citizens properly armed and taught the knowledge of military duty.
It further provided for organization and control of the Militia, and directed that "All free male persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty years," with certain exceptions, "shall be inrolled or formed into companies." "There shall be a private muster of every company once in two months."
Also that
Every officer and soldier shall appear at his respective muster-field on the day appointed, by eleven o'clock in the forenoon, armed, equipped, and accoutred, as follows: . . . every non-commissioned officer and private with a good, clean musket carrying an ounce ball, and three feet eight inches long in the barrel, with a good bayonet and iron ramrod well fitted thereto, a cartridge box properly made, to contain and secure twenty cartridges fitted to his musket, a good knapsack and canteen, and moreover, each non-commissioned officer and private shall have at every muster one pound of good [p182] powder, and four pounds of lead, including twenty blind cartridges, and each serjeant shall have a pair of moulds fit to cast balls for their respective companies, to be purchased by the commanding officer out of the monies arising on delinquencies. Provided, That the militia of the counties westward of the Blue Ridge, and the counties below adjoining thereto, shall not be obliged to be armed with muskets, but may have good rifles with proper accoutrements, in lieu thereof. And every of the said officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, shall constantly keep the aforesaid arms, accoutrements, and ammunition ready to be produced whenever called for by his commanding officer. If any private shall make it appear to the satisfaction of the court hereafter to be appointed for trying delinquencies under this act that he is so poor that he cannot purchase the arms herein required, such court shall cause them to be purchased out of the money arising from delinquents.
Most if not all of the States have adopted provisions touching the right to keep and bear arms. Differences in the language employed in these have naturally led to somewhat variant conclusions concerning the scope of the right guaranteed. But none of them seems to afford any material support for the challenged ruling of the court below.
In the margin, some of the more important opinions and comments by writers are cited. [n3]
We are unable to accept the conclusion of the court below, and the challenged judgment must be reversed. The cause will be remanded for further proceedings.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS took no part in the consideration or decision of this cause.
That for the purposes of this Act --
(a) The term "firearm" means a shotgun or rifle having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length, or any other weapon, except a pistol or revolver, from which a shot is discharged by an explosive if such weapon is capable of being concealed on the person, or a machine gun, and includes a muffler or silencer for any firearm whether or not such firearm is included within the foregoing definition [The Act of April 10, 1936, c. 169, 49 Stat. 1192 added the words], but does not include any rifle which is within the foregoing provisions solely by reason of the length of its barrel if the caliber of such rifle is .22 or smaller and if its barrel is sixteen inches or more in length.
Sec. 3. (a) There shall be levied, collected, and paid upon firearms transferred in the continental United States a tax at the rate of $200 for each firearm, such tax to be paid by the transferor, and to be represented by appropriate stamps to be provided by the Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary, and the stamps herein provided shall be affixed to the order for such firearm, hereinafter provided for. The tax imposed by this section shall be in addition to any import duty imposed on such firearm.
Sec. 4. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to transfer a firearm except in pursuance of a written order from the person seeking to obtain such article, on an application form issued in blank in duplicate for that purpose by the Commissioner. Such order shall identify the applicant by such means of identification as may be prescribed by regulations under this Act: Provided, That, if the applicant is an individual, such identification shall include fingerprints and a photograph thereof.
(c) Every person so transferring a firearm shall set forth in each copy of such order the manufacturer's number or other mark identifying such firearm, and shall forward a copy of such order to the Commissioner. The original thereof, with stamps affixed, shall be returned to the applicant.
(d) No person shall transfer a firearm which has previously been transferred on or after the effective date of this Act, unless such person, in addition to complying with subsection (c), transfers therewith the stamp-affixed order provided for in this section for each such prior transfer, in compliance with such regulations as may be prescribed under this Act for proof of payment of all taxes on such firearms.
Sec. 5. (a) Within sixty days after the effective date of this Act every person possessing a firearm shall register, with the collector of the district in which he resides, the number or other mark identifying such firearm, together with his name, address, place where such firearm is usually kept, and place of business or employment, and, if such person is other than a natural person, the name and home address of an executive officer thereof: Provided, That no person shall be required to register under this section with respect to any firearm acquired after the effective date of, and in conformity with the provisions of, this Act.
Sec. 6. It shall be unlawful for any person to receive or possess any firearm which has at any time been transferred in violation of section 3 or 4 of this Act.
Sec. 11. It shall be unlawful for any person who is required to register as provided in section 5 hereof and who shall not have so registered, or any other person who has not in his possession a stamp-affixed order as provided in section 4 hereof, to ship, carry, or deliver any firearm in interstate commerce.
Sec. 12. The Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary, shall prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary for carrying the provisions of this Act into effect.
Sec. 14. Any person who violates or fails to comply with any of the requirements of this Act shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $2,000 or be imprisoned for not more than five years, or both, in the discretion of the court.
Sec. 16. If any provision of this Act, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.
Sec. 18. This Act may be cited as the "National Firearms Act."
|
When Massachusetts voters legalized recreational marijuana in November, it sparked a war in the legislature, where some lawmakers are bent on limiting the sale, use and cultivation of the intoxicating plant. Pro-pot advocates have accused lawmakers of trampling on the will of the voters as bill after bill — 37 to be exact — has been filed to scale back the legalization rollout. One bill, filed by Sen. William Brownsberger, D-Belmont, on behalf of a constituent, seeks wholesale repeal of the referendum that legalized pot. Recommended Slideshows 4 Pictures PHOTOS: Singapore's treasures star in NY Botanical Garden's 2019 Orchid Show 4 Pictures 36 Pictures Oscars 2019: Red carpet looks and full list of winners 36 Pictures 36 Pictures All of these celebrities have had their nudes leaked 36 Pictures More picture galleries 16 Pictures These photos of Trump and Ivanka will make you deeply uncomfortable 16 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside Brooklyn's Teknopolis is tech that makes us more human 4 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside The Strand's Fight Against Being Named a New York City Landmark 4 Pictures “What we are worried about is bills that would really eviscerate what was passed in November,” said Jim Borghesani, spokesman for the Yes on 4 campaign that lobbied for legalization. “It goes completely against the will of the people. You can’t say you pledged to uphold the will of the people while at the same time filing bills that gut the very measure the people approved.” The referendum to legalize retail pot sales and possession and growing the plant for adults over 21 passed by more than 53 percent of those who voted. Among other things, the bills would: Slash the amount of pot people over 21 can possess in their homes from 10 ounces to 2 ounces; Cut the number of plants people could grow from 12 down to six per household; Impose a two-year moratorium on the sale of marijuana-infused products at retail dispensaries; Give regulators the power to outright ban any product other than the leafy plant matter itself. In Colorado, where recreational pot was legalized in 2012, infusedproducts account for more than 50 percent of the market, state data shows . Related Articles Melting pot simmers Oakland legalizes pot growth Fruity One-Pot Lamb Fourteen of these bills were filed by Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Winchester, a leader in the failed crusade to stop legalization, who has said the specifics should be left to the legislature to “responsibly, thoughtfully and safely implement a legal marijuana market in Massachusetts.” The legislature has already successfully pushed back the opening of retail dispensaries and the establishment of a Cannabis Control Commission by six months, something Borghesani also opposes. “Lewis is a prohibitionist and his bills are reflecting his position,” Borghesani said. “During the campaign, he opposed legalization just like he opposed med marijuana and just like he opposed the decriminalization of marijuana. Now he is doing his best to undo what voters approved overwhelmingly in November.”
|
Activist Fred Boenig challenges Republican Arkansas senator, himself a veteran and new father: ‘Now that you have a child, you will understand’
Air strikes against Isis continue day after US general defends bombing campaign Read more
The Republican senator Tom Cotton was confronted on Friday by a the father of an airman who died in Afghanistan, who told him: “Now that you have a child, you will understand” opposition to further American engagement in the Middle East.
Cotton, a first-term senator from Arkansas, military veteran and new father, is a prominent foreign policy hawk. In March, he was one of the driving forces behind a controversial open letter to Iran’s senior leadership that was signed by 47 Republican senators. The letter was seen by many as an attempt to derail the Obama administration’s pursuit of a peaceful resolution to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions.
On Friday, Cotton sat next to activist Fred Boenig, whose son died in Afghanistan in 2010, at a foreign policy discussion held at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Their robust exchange of views covered Barack Obama’s foreign policy – which Cotton called “dangerous” – and the question of when US wars in the Middle East could be considered over, given that troops remain in Afghanistan and US-led airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria continue daily, with US advisers helping Iraqi forces against Isis.
Boenig told Cotton: “It’s very clear what your views are, sir. My views are keeping our kids safe, which include my children. Now that you have a child, you will understand.
“When you speak of sending our kids again, let’s make it worth it, not just to send them to politically help some Haliburton or somebody else.”
Cotton, 38, was formerly an infantry officer. According to his Senate website, he “served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne and in Afghanistan with a Provincial Reconstruction Team”.
The biography continues: “Between his two combat tours, Tom served with The Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery. Tom’s military decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantry Badge, and Ranger Tab.”
At Johns Hopkins, Cotton said the “threat environment that we face here at home and throughout the west is more grave today than at anytime during our lifetimes”, and added: “I wish that weren’t that case.
“But for the time being it is. We have to remain vigilant and we have to continue to take the fight to the terrorist.”
I-ran and I-raq: what's in a letter? Read more
Boenig, who is a radio host in Pennsylvania, was wearing four lapel pins during his conversation with Cotton, to signify, he said, the service of four of his children in the US armed forces.
Boenig and Cotton parted on polite terms, but in an interview Boenig said: “He handled it the way I expected him to handle it. He’s a hawk.
“I’m a tree-hugging, peace-loving, gay wedding, you know, whatever. I was a conservative my whole life, but it all changed.”
|
Subsets and Splits
Random Short Text Sample
The query retrieves a random text with approximately 1000 to 1100 words, which provides basic filtering but limited analytical insight.
Short Text Samples Up to 100 Words
This query retrieves up to 100 text entries with at most 100 words, providing limited insight into the dataset's content.