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“You disappoint me, Ramsay,” remarked journalist and Top Gear host James May as the chef vomited into an orange bucket. As very few will recall, Gordon Ramsay challenged May in the third season of The F Word to a contest that would determine which of the two had the largest man-parts. Following a rather uneventful partaking of snake whiskey and bull penis, the waiter brought forth the main course—shark meat. Ramsay could not stomach the Icelandic delicacy, and was reduced to cowering under May’s judgment.
I look on the award-winning so-called master chef with the same smugness. While I did not have the capital necessary to travel to Iceland and procure aged Hákarl, I was able to sample shark-fin soup—a popular dish in much of Europe and, oddly, Michigan—prepared in a rather suspicious third-floor Moscow apartment I visited over spring break.
The initial preparation process did give me pause—the ammonia-rich stench pouring out of the kitchen made even walking into Leo’s seem like strolling through a field of wildflowers in early spring. Fortunately, the smell of chicken bouillon soon joined the unappealing odor of raw man-killer slowly simmering on the Soviet-era gas stove. To the soundtrack of faint cursing and the abrasive click of the striker attempting to reignite the occasionally fading flames, my body slowly adjusted to this novel shark smell.
As I sat on the traditional Russian taburetka and stared at the bits of carrot and cucumber floating in the shark flesh-infested bowl, the odor must have begun to affect my sanity. I sprinkled some salt, pepper, and chopped parsley into the broth and took the first sip.
Those who claim that a new food tastes like chicken deserve the same fate as Jaws of The Spy Who Loved Me. Aside from being slightly fishy (no pun intended), shark is unlike anything I have ever had the misfortune of consuming. Numerous Icelandic culinary experts recommend that first-time diners plug their noses to avoid an inescapable gag reflex resulting from the smell, but since my guide was elsewhere, he did not make me aware of this suggestion. The shark assaulted my senses, rendering me incapable of sight and speech as tears briefly filled my eyes.
The shark’s taste had consumed every other ingredient in the soup. The chicken broth never had a chance, and the salt did little to alleviate the shock of what initially seemed like rotting, zombie salmon flesh. But then it was over. This first bite proved the most difficult—I finished the remainder of the dish with little effort.
Shark is certainly an acquired taste, and I have no desire to further develop it. Still, I emerged victorious from the experience. As Americans consume shark meat in the harshest and most unforgiving of environments—Russia and Detroit—Ramsay’s comparatively weak body rejects the same meal of champions in his own restaurant. Gordon, grow a pair. | 1,268,600 |
alone are responsible for what seems like a wider, more spontaneous, and less orchestrated group. This example from conservative journalist Sharyl Attkisson suggests that what seems like a random collection of left-leaning organizations is really just a front for a lone person, Democratic operative David Brock.
From my book: The Smear. David Brock's collection of nonprofits, smear groups, super PACs, LLCs and websites. pic.twitter.com/V0FQYrTAhs — Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) November 19, 2017
The specific plot
After Gohmert’s chart was roundly criticized, conservative commentator Sean Hannity put forward his own simplified version, which pared down Gohmert’s 45 nodes into 10. Of course, this particular illustration loses some predictive power because of its simplicity. This style of conspiracy theory illustrations addresses a singular conspiracy theory — in this case, Uranium One — and tries to unmask the actors and their connections behind one specific plot.
The connections between everyone you don’t like
Some conspiracy theory illustrations are designed more to put everyone the accuser doesn’t like together into a cabal. Glenn Beck’s chalkboard was famous for doing this when he had his 5 pm program on the Fox News Channel. Over the course of his program, Beck tied together disparate groups, all groups he did not care for, radical Muslims, Democrats, the Occupy movement, communists, etc. … These sorts of illustrations are good at virtue signaling: They tell the viewer whom you oppose and why. As far as there being any actual connection between the groups mentioned, that is usually harder to establish.
The schizotypal illustration
The final type of conspiracy theory illustration ties together everyone and everything into some sort of far-reaching plot. The goal of the supposed plot, or its plausibility, is never really addressed by the accuser. The illustration is therefore a window into a schizotypal personality, where delusions, fantasy, and reality become less and less distinguishable from one another. A popular meme floating around Twitter for the past few years exemplifies this: Charlie, a character from the FX TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, stands in front of a board covered with pictures and yarn.
So where does Gohmert’s chart fit?
Where does Gohmert’s illustration fit in to these categories? His chart ties together several seemingly unrelated events and a wide range of unrelated actors into a single working organism. It’s far-fetched. It goes far beyond simply tarring your opponents, shining light on a singular conspiracy accusation, or bringing together groups one doesn’t care for. Gohmert’s 45 nodes of groups, people, and events suggest a schizotypal interpretation of the world, one filled with delusions. This leaves Gohmert’s chart somewhere between Glenn Beck’s chalkboard and Charlie’s. | 1,268,601 |
two men gave conflicting travel plans, and led his K-9 unit around the vehicle for an open-air sniff. The K-9 gave a positive alert indicating the presence of drugs, according to the agent’s report.
However, a search of the vehicle turned up no illegal drugs. Instead, the agent found Walmart sacks with numerous expensive flea and tick medications for dogs, along with multiple Walmart receipts for items less than a dollar and bar codes that had been cut off packages.The two were arrested for allegedly running a “tag switching” scam, in which tags are taken off cheap items and put on expensive items before paying for them. Why the dog may have given a positive alert for the presence of drugs is not explained in the report.
In another OBN highway drug interdiction arrest case in February 2016, a man from out of state was pulled over in Canadian County for a minor traffic violation. The man’s license was suspended and he had an active arrest warrant. The man was arrested and the vehicle impounded, according to the OBN agent’s report. A K-9 unit was led around the vehicle and made a positive alert for the presence of drugs, the report states. However, a subsequent search of the vehicle only turned up $11,000 in cash, which was returned to the owner, according to the report.
In a separate case from 2016, a drug dog gave a positive alert on an out-of-state vehicle that had been pulled over by an OBN agent, giving the agent probable cause to search the vehicle. The search turned up five pills in a Tylenol bottle — a mixture of Xanax, Oxycontin and Adderall pills. No other illicit drugs were found in the vehicle, the report states, and records show the dog was only certified in detecting the presence of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana.
In several other cases among the OBN arrest files, no drugs were found in vehicles after a positive K-9 alert, but large amounts of cash, believed by officers to be smuggled drug proceeds, were discovered. In those cases the funds were seized in order to be forfeited to the law enforcement agency. Often, tests would later reveal drug residue present on the seized cash, the reports state.
However, without a full set of records that includes stops where no drugs were found and no arrest made — such as cases where agents seized large amounts of cash believed to be drug smuggled drug money but did not arrest the people transporting it — it is impossible to get an accurate picture of the situation, Parr said.
“In my experience, they stop and search a large number of vehicles where they find no indication of drugs at all,” Parr said. “But we can’t know how often that happens unless they provide us records that they keep.”
To view the entire dataset for K-9 field deployment, including agencies that only provided K-9 data in arrest cases, click here. | 1,268,602 |
From North Hill village, drab hedge banks are dominated by faded ferns, rotting blackberries, dull leaves and sycamore keys. Yet a spell of afternoon sunshine picks out the scarlet berries of honeysuckle and enhances the verdancy of pastures beside the glittering Lynher, swollen after days of rain.
Across the river, steep woods edge the eastern side of Bodmin Moor; in the prevailing shade, spirals of gnats dance above upright fronds of buckler and male ferns, lit by sunbeams. Emerald moss-shrouded gateposts, stoned-up walls, tall tree trunks and fallen wood host pennywort seedlings and polypody ferns that thrive in the damp atmosphere. Shoals of leaves, beechmast and sparkling growan (decomposed granite) have been washed down the stony track and, from below, we hear the sound of the Withey Brook, rushing over the waterfall and towards the local hydroelectric power plant.
Out of the woods, some 300 feet above river level, sun lightens Allabury, a prehistoric “round” – an enclosed farming settlement – where a ring of oak grows on the old rampart and a dozen red admirals flutter about sun-warmed ivy flowers. Above this spur of land, the rocky summit of Hawk’s Tor (329 metres) is fringed by rough grazing with bare rowans and a few thickets of invasive Rhododendron ponticum.
A suckler herd of hardy cattle tramples paths through the precarious stones, masked in swaths of brown bracken and clumps of gold-flowering gorse, to reach favoured patches of smooth green turf interspersed with huge, part-submerged boulders growing lichens, stunted ling and whortleberry. Ahead, rising above the burnished wetness of Tresellern Marsh and opposite overgrown remains of medieval settlements, Trewortha Tor and King Arthur’s Bed are silhouetted against the south-western sky, and in the distance the crest of Brown Willy breaks the skyline.
Around Hawk’s Tor, on the southern flank facing Twelve Men’s Moor and Kilmar, masses of crimson haws catch the light, growing thickly on thorns festooned in bearded lichen. Far off to the east, Dartmoor appears palest blue and pink in the declining afternoon sun; as we descend into the darkening valley it disappears from view, to be replaced lower down by a view of Kit Hill, the intervening outcrop of granite near home in the Tamar Valley.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The rocky summit of Hawk’s Tor is fringed by rough grazing with bare rowans and a few thickets of invasive Rhododendron ponticum.’ Photograph: Jack Spiers
• The picture captions were amended on 24 October 2019 because an earlier version had them the wrong way round. | 1,268,603 |
Full disclosure: I'm one of the lead developers of Snap.
First of all, let's talk about what Snap is. Right now the Snap team maintains five different projects on hackage: snap-core, snap-server, heist, snap, and xmlhtml. snap-server is a web server that exposes the API defined by snap-core. heist is a templating system. xmlhtml is an XML/HTML parsing and rendering library used by heist. snap is an umbrella project that glues them all together and provides the powerful snaplets API that makes web apps composable and modular.
Yesod has a host of projects on hackage. Most (all?) of them are listed in the Yesod category. Some of the notable ones are yesod-core, warp, persistent, and hamlet.
The reality of Haskell web development is that it's much less of an exclusive-or choice than seems to be perceived. In general the projects are very loosely coupled and fairly interchangeable. You could build a website using warp (the Yesod team's web server), heist (the Snap team's template system), and acid-state (the Happstack project's persistence system). You could also use snap-server with hamlet or persistent.
That said, the two projects definitely have some differences. The biggest difference I can point out objectively is that Yesod projects typically make heavy use of Template Haskell and quasiquoting to create concise DSLs, while Snap projects stick to building combinator libraries that favor composability. Just about any other differences I can think of will be subjectively biased towards Snap. The umbrella packages named after both projects are obviously going to make specific choices for the above mentioned components, and these choices will be reflected in the project dependencies. But that still doesn't mean that you can't pull in something different and use it as well.
Snap does have sessions and authentication, interfaces to several databases, and nice form handling (here and here) using digestive-functors that includes prepackaged support for arbitrarily nested dynamically sizable lists. These are just some of the growing ecosystem of pluggable snaplets. The sessions and authentication snaplets are written in a way that is back-end agnostic. So with a small amount of glue code you should be able to use it with just about any persistence system you can think of. In the future, Snap will stick with this policy as often as possible.
For the most part I think the choice of Snap vs Yesod vs Happstack is less an issue of features and more one of personal taste. Whenever someone says that one of the frameworks doesn't have something that another one has, most of the time it will be pretty easy to pull in the missing functionality from the other framework by importing the necessary package.
EDIT: For a more detailed comparison of the big three Haskell web frameworks check out my recent blog post. For a rougher (but possibly more useful) comparison using some broader generalizations, see my Haskell Web Framework Comparison Matrix | 1,268,604 |
Okay, I lied, my DR200 is not superfast at all but I am riding around South America on a slow one!Now that's said, a little background info. I have started my trip in Sucre, Bolivia because I've been living with a very kind Bolivian family since April. Any updates to my location can be found here, as you can see I'm beginning this RR a few weeks late, I first wanted to make sure I had some content worth sharing.When living in Sucre I was riding an NX400 Falcon and did several trips around Bolivia and a little in Chile but after being stuck in the sand at over 5000m altitude and also running out of fuel a couple of times I decided to get something lighter and with higher fuel efficiency. A common bike in Bolivia is the DR200SE (Japanese spec) and after doing much research from the 200+ pages of the DR200 thread here on ADVRider I decided it was the bike for me. If I had the money it would be the DRZ400 but that costs $9.8k in Bolivia, the 200 costs just $4.6k and is pretty much travel ready, just requiring the side racks for my saddlebags. That extra money I plan to spend on beer... or other festivities throughout the summer monthsHere is my DR200SE, prior to travel:I prefer mostly dirt roads and try to avoid tarmac but of course that's not always possible, in which case I plan to stick to the side of the road and travel at about truck speed.First thing was to have some side racks made, I found a very talented local welder, gave him a description of what I wanted and ended up with these:The metal cost just 20 bob, about $3USD and I paid him $42 for the labour, needless to say I was very happy with this! I am using Andy Strapz saddlebags which I have owned for several years, these are great quality saddlebags and I highly recommend them, the lack of zips make them excellent when encountering lots of mud, dirt and dust. Also installed was an FMF pipe just for that little extra horsepower and some alterations to the sprocket setup, this farming spec'ed DR200SE runs very low gearing with a standard 12/47, now I am running 13/39, which I believe to be equivalent to the enduro spec 15/45.Some other additions are Stearns tank bags and seat cover, these come from Walmart believe it or not but seem to work just fine! They were mailed to me by ADVrider member Klay, Rasthomas also offered to do so as well, I have been very impressed with the kindess of the ADVRider community so far.Once everything was ready I packed my things and left early in the morning.Tania kindly came to see me off:Kira seemed awfully sad and was crying although I'm not convinced, was she sad to see me go as a person or is it that she will miss me letting her sleep indoors on my bedroom floor? | 1,268,605 |
by Ray Setterfield
May 30, 1778 — As he lay dying on this day, the great French writer Voltaire noticed that the lamp next to his bed was violently flickering and flaring up. "What? The flames already?" he quipped. They were the last words he spoke. Earlier, when a priest asked him to renounce Satan he refused, allegedly declaring: "This is no time to make any more enemies!"
Both anecdotes are of questionable authenticity but they so fit the personality of this remarkable man that they have been attributed to him in many quarters without hesitation.
Born in Paris as François-Marie Arouet in 1694, he was to become a novelist, poet, dramatist, philosopher, satirist and historian. Writing under the pen-name Voltaire he was one of the greatest writers that France has produced, but his caustic wit and unconventional ideas on religion, ethics and the State often got him into trouble.
In 1716 he was exiled from Paris for a short term after writing poems that mocked the French Regent's family. His banishment proved to be ineffective, however, because a year later he produced more verse suggesting that the Regent and his daughter enjoyed an incestuous relationship. As a result he was imprisoned in the Bastille for 11 months.
After a couple more run-ins with the authorities Voltaire went to live in England for three years. But the French Government continued to pursue their troublesome citizen, censoring or suppressing much of his work and ordering some of his books to be burned. In 1734 Voltaire made a decisive break from France by moving to Switzerland where he was to spend much of his later life.
He was able to afford such extravagance and live comfortably thanks to the French lottery. Voltaire had teamed with mathematician Charles Marie de La Condamine and other gamblers to exploit a loophole in the way the lottery was run so that their syndicate repeatedly won huge prizes and they all became very rich.
In 1778 he returned to Paris for the first time in nearly 30 years to oversee the production of one of his plays, but within a few months he was dead at the age of 83.
Catholic priests repeatedly visited this lifelong critic of organised religion in the hope of persuading him to retract his opinions and make a deathbed confession. As far as is known, they failed.
An outspoken advocate of civil liberties, Voltaire wrote more than 2,000 books and pamphlets and thousands of letters. He was one of those writers who was adept at producing memorable one-liners.
Examples:
"I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
"This body which was called, and still is called, the Holy Roman Empire, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
Published: April 30, 2018 | 1,268,606 |
.S. relationship," and expressed hope that "common sense" would come from U.S. President Donald Trump.
A month later the trade turmoil continues with Trump and his officials taking aim at Trudeau personally, as well as other Canadian industries over what the U.S. president calls unfair trade practices.
Speaking to the current state of the Canada-U.S. relationship and the potential for American escalation in response to the Canadian counter-tariffs coming into effect, Freeland said she is hoping for the best, but like with NAFTA, is ready for “pretty much anything.”
“We expected that there would be moments of drama in this process, and I think that prediction has been born out and I think all of us at this point fully anticipate there will be some moments of drama in the future,” Freeland said.
Freeland said in the last week she has spoken with her U.S. counterpart, Robert Lighthizer, six times, and restated her willingness to meet him wherever, and whenever.
When asked if the federal government had assessed how many jobs could be at risk because of the tariffs, Minister of Employment, Workforce and Labour Patty Hajdu wasn’t able to provide any specific information, but said the federal government will assess if Ottawa needs to take further steps in the future.
This afternoon a steel manufacturer in Sault St. Marie announced temporary layoffs of 40 workers, CTV Northern Ontario reported.
Both the opposition Conservative and New Democrat caucuses backed the Liberal government when the planned retaliation was first announced late last month.
In a statement, NDP trade critic Tracey Ramsey welcomed the measures but said more needs to be done to protect jobs.
"This is a temporary fix to a long-term problem. Steel and aluminum workers are still deeply worried about their jobs, and auto workers are rightly nervous about the threats of 25 per cent tariffs," she said.
"Working people will ultimately pay the price for the US-Canada trade war, and more must be done to defend their jobs rather than respond after their jobs have already been lost."
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa about the federal tariff plans, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre voiced support for strong measures to protect businesses, but didn’t state whether he considered what the Liberals were doing as such.
He said Trudeau is in a "position of weakness" in this trade dispute, citing the current federal deficit and policies which he says are helping Trump take Canadian dollars and Canadian jobs.
Earlier this week, the Tories launched their own "defend local jobs tour," to hear from workers and businesses impacted by the tariffs and threats of further trade action.
According to the Canadian Press, Trudeau will be skipping the Parliament Hill Canada Day festivities and will instead be hitting the road, making stops in two cities where the tariffs are set to impact major industries: a steel refinery in Regina, and a food processing plant in Leamington, Ont. once used by Heinz. | 1,268,607 |
The Department of Health has reported 17 more deaths from Covid-19 in Ireland, bringing the overall death toll to 137.
It said 331 more cases of the coronavirus had also been diagnosed, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 4,604.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre said that of the 17 deaths recorded, 15 were located in the east, 1 in the south and 1 in the west of the country.
The patients included 4 women and 13 men. 13 of the patients were reported as having underlying health conditions.
The median age of today's reported deaths is 77.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: "This week, the National Public Health Emergency Team made a range of recommendations to support the response in nursing homes and long-term residential facilities to Covid-19. This remains a priority for our focused attention and we will continue to monitor the rate of infection within these environments and support the sector through this outbreak.
"The nationwide, collective effort to limit the spread of Covid-19 has been inspiring. We must keep up this effort, continue to protect the vulnerable in our society and ultimately flatten the curve."
Last week Ireland adopted tough additional measures designed to limit the spread of #COVID19.
It has been a truly nationwide effort to stop the spread of this virus & to protect the vulnerable. We need to keep it going. We need to #FlattenTheCurve even more than we have. — Dr Tony Holohan (@CMOIreland) April 4, 2020
Earlier today, Minister for Health Simon Harris announced a range of new measures to support nursing home residents.
Nursing home staff are to have their temperatures checked twice a day, as part of the new measures to tackle the coronavirus in these settings.
Forty clusters of infection have been identified in nursing homes so far - the majority in the east of the country.
According to the HPSC, a cluster is three or more cases in an institution within a 72-hour period.
National and regional Covid-19 infection prevention and control teams are being set up, and advisers will liaise with each nursing home and homecare providers on this.
Read more:
Latest coronavirus stories
Interactive map: Covid-19 cases in your area
Updates as they happen
Five positive things happening now
Around 80% of cases of Covid-19 will be a mild to moderate illness, close to 14% have severe disease and around 6% are critical.
Generally, you need to be 15 minutes or more in the vicinity of an infected person, within 1-2 metres, to be considered at-risk or a close contact.
In Northern Ireland, the number of people who have died after contracting the virus has risen by eight to 56, health officials said today.
Testing has resulted in 94 new positive cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the North to 998. | 1,268,608 |
The Steele dossier has been all but debunked by special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation findings, but that hasn’t deterred CNN analyst Ralph Peters.
“I can’t let it go. I can’t let it go. The Steele dossier rings true to me,” Peters, a retired lieutenant colonel, said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday.
Peters speculated that President Donald Trump has acted as an agent of Russia, which is one of the core claims of the Democrat-funded dossier. Peters repeated the familiar argument that Trump will not publicly criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin to make his case.
“He won’t criticize Putin, and why doesn’t he want sanctions? Why has he been slow rolling sanctions? Why does he just dove tail with Putin’s view of the world?” said Peters.
“Anderson, I may be utterly wrong,” he continued. “I may be influenced by my background as an intelligence officer but again, I go back to what has been not addressed: The Steele dossier. Given Trump’s behavioral profile, he was a perfect target and if you want various explanations, the Steele dossier is a viable one.”
WATCH:
Peters’ view of the dossier would seem to be out of whack with Mueller’s conclusions from the Russia probe. That’s because Mueller said in a report provided to the Justice Department on Friday that prosecutors found no evidence of conspiracy or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. (RELATED: 7 Collusion Theories That Died With The Mueller Report)
“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Mueller said.
The dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC, is a roadmap of sorts for the collusion conspiracy theory. It is considered the source document for the collusion theories that have pervaded the media over the past two years.
Christopher Steele claims in the controversial document that the Kremlin has blackmail material on Donald Trump. Steele also claimed that former Trump associates like Carter Page, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort conspired with Russia on behalf of the campaign.
Though Peters touted the now-debunked dossier, CNN’s Cooper did not step in to correct his guest’s contention that the document is accurate. That’s somewhat ironic given that Cooper ran a “Keeping Them Honest” segment just before Peters’ appearance criticizing a statement that Trump made about Mueller’s findings. (RELATED: MSNBC Panel Admits Mueller Report Admits Mueller Report ‘Undercuts Almost Everything’ In Steele Dossier)
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | 1,268,609 |
The Trump administration signaled weeks ago that it would nominate Liu for the position of associate attorney general, in which she would oversee the department’s extensive civil litigation work. That nomination will not happen, because of her past role with the lawyers group, officials said Thursday.
The key Justice Department position has been difficult for the Trump administration to fill. The previous Senate-confirmed associate attorney general, Rachel Brand, left the post more than a year ago after just months on the job to take an executive position with Walmart.
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A spokesman for Liu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Attorney General William P. Barr, in a statement Thursday, called Liu “one of the finest, most impressive people serving in the Department of Justice. She has been an outstanding United States Attorney and would have made an outstanding Associate Attorney General. I have zero doubt she would have faithfully executed my priorities and advanced my rule-of-law agenda.”
Barr said he was appointing her instead to lead the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.
The reasons for the reversal stretch back more than a decade, when Liu was a member, and served as vice president, of the National Association of Women Lawyers.
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“Unfortunately, a women’s lawyers professional organization that Jessie was affiliated with over a dozen years ago took certain controversial positions at the time which have now generated opposition to her nomination at the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.
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The issue of her past involvement with the group did not surface during her confirmation to become U.S. attorney, and Liu is staying in that job, officials said.
Liu, 46, was confirmed in August 2017 to head the country’s largest U.S. attorney’s office, one that often oversees politically sensitive investigations of the executive and legislative branches.
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Liu has been seen as a steadying presence at a U.S. attorney’s office where 300 attorneys have unique federal jurisdiction in the nation’s capital to prosecute local and federal crimes.
She reorganized an office where her recent predecessors were criticized for their handling of a drawn-out public corruption investigation of then-D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), who was never charged but was voted out of office after prosecutors disclosed, in a pre-election news conference, that he was their target.
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Liu’s highest-profile move as U.S. attorney came last month, when her office began to prosecute more defendants in the District for gun and drug crimes in federal rather than local court, as the city struggles with a 40 percent spike in homicides.
Liu, a graduate of Yale Law School, was an assistant U.S. attorney in the District from 2002 to 2006 before joining the Justice Department’s national security division and serving as a deputy assistant attorney general with the civil rights division until 2009. | 1,268,610 |
telecast of that era. The graphics that flashed the down and distance sometimes appeared late, or not at all. The microphones sometimes picked up radio frequencies, or sounds that an associate producer later likened to a sizzling frying pan. The pre-packaged player and coach interviews sometimes ran long, or aired without context. Isaacs asked Arnie Reif, NBC’s director of sports technical operations, why the microphones didn’t capture the audio of a screaming coach, even when there was a visual. “We probably should have alerted our sideline audio man to that, but frequently there was too much else going on or the field mikes weren’t close enough to the coach,” was Reif’s answer. “At times we tried to do too much,” Ohlmeyer told Isaacs.
The game can be seen in its entirety on YouTube (at least until it inevitably gets taken down):
As I watched it, if my attention wandered for a bit, there were times when it was difficult to know exactly what was going on. Without announcers to fill in the gaps, it was a reminder that football is one giant stoppage punctuated with occasional action, rather than the other way around. Though, as Isaacs noted, there was some compelling pure visual drama, such as Duriel Harris’s second-quarter touchdown catch for Miami in the back of the end zone. For a few seconds, it wasn’t apparent Harris had scored until he got up and raised his arms:
The announcerless game earned a 13.5 rating, which was close to NBC’s regular-season average that year of 14.9. (The Jets won, 24-17.) Per ESPN, NBC’s switchboard fielded fewer than 1,400 calls about the game, with more than 60 percent voicing their support for the concept. “I can’t believe it’s anything more than a footnote,” Gumbel told ESPN in 2010.
At the time, the final verdict from critics was that the announcerless game put too much of a burden on the viewer. This was from David Israel’s day-after assessment in the Chicago Tribune:
As Marshall McLuhan long ago observed, television conditions us to respond passively, it does not challenge us to think, and here, out of the blue, it was asking us to participate actively, to provide input so that what was on the screen became something more than moving wallpaper. The masses of viewers who were unable to do that were left watching padded humanoids clanking heads.
In their interview two years ago, Ohlmeyer told Eisen he thought an announcerless game could be worth trying again, now that the graphics and the technical production is so much more advanced. His experiment flopped, and it hasn’t been attempted since. But what if the announcerless game was an idea that maybe just came along too soon? Something to remember Don Ohlmeyer for. | 1,268,611 |
to Joe Rogan screaming over the grating sounds of some shitty nu-metal band. The UFC, for whatever reason, markets itself to a very specific demographic. They seem to think that the vast majority of their fanbase are still stuck in the TapouT early days, when in fact a lot of us are college students, parents, husbands, etc. I'm certainly not drawn in by any of the UFC's marketing, and my friends who watch MMA generally get more of a laugh out of the promos than anything else.
Trent Reinsmith: Excellent point on the one of a kind athletes. The UFC has a built in barrier to getting those type of athletes. They don't pay to get them.
If the UFC pay scale made the sport more appealing to elite athletes more would come to the sport and once you start getting those elite athletes in big numbers you have someone to market, someone that is truly something special. These days, it seems more about luck in getting these athletes, at least at the higher weight classes.
You'll always have wrestlers heading into MMA because their options are limited after college. But the elite who would be fighting in the higher weight divisions, they're going to the NFL where they can make up to $102,000 a season on the practice squad or a minimum of $405,000 for making the team.
No, not all of these top level athletes will want to get punched in the face for a living, but some of them may, but not for the money the UFC is offering.
Tim Burke: Brent, I just don't see it that way at all because of what we're talking about - a very physical sport. Their production is obviously outdated and hasn't evolved with the times, but people that are curious about cage fighting aren't going to be put off by Face The Pain or generic Mark Coleman punch-kick promos. They're going to be put off by the brutality in the cage if anything. It's a combat sport, not a tame commercial product.
It's like saying that people won't listen to a CD because the artwork on the cover is cheesy. It's not going to stop many people from trying it out - it's the music itself that will either earn a fan or cause the person to move on quickly. The platform can be modified and made as appealing as possible, but the core content is always what will matter.
Tim Burke: Golovkin isn't a big star though. He's not even close. He's not going to make major crazy bank on PPV. He's an awesome fighter and HBO has done well to get people to tune in to see him, but he's nothing like a GSP/Lesnar/Chuck and he never will be. They took a talented guy and put him on TV and got something out of it. Cool. But they can't make him a face of boxing because of all the things you mentioned - he can't speak English and he has no personality. A promoter can only do so much. | 1,268,612 |
Conroe ISD mulls calendar options for 2017-18
The Conroe ISD Board of Directors is encouraging public input regarding three calendar options for the 2017-18 school year.
Deputy Superintendent Dr. Chris Null said the proposals, discussed and narrowed down by the District-Level Planning and Decision-Making Committee, maintain some of the traditional features of the district's prior calendar.
Calendar Similarities
178 days for students
187 days for teachers
Days Off:
Labor Day (Sept. 4)
Thanksgiving Break (Nov. 20-24)
Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan. 15)
Presidents Day (Feb. 19)
Spring Break (March 12-16)
Holiday: March 30
However, the options do have their differences:
Draft A Highlights
First day of school: Aug. 28
Winter Break: Dec. 22 to Jan. 8
Last day of school: June 8
Draft B Highlights
First day of school: Aug. 16
Holiday: Oct. 9
Winter Break: Dec. 21 to Jan. 3
Last day of school: May 25
Draft C Highlights
First day of school: Aug. 16
Holiday: Oct. 9
Winter Break: Dec. 21 to Jan. 8
Last day of school: May 31
Community members can view the options and give input through Jan. 9 on the district's website at www.conroeisd.net. Scroll down once on the home page.
"We also considered feedback that we've received in previous years while keeping the instructional impact of the calendar a priority," Null said.
Board member Melanie Bush said the district previously has received feedback on calendars specifically to start and end the school year earlier. However, there were limitations because of having only four Mondays to start school on the August 2017 calendar.
"Right now we are in the feedback stage," Bush said. "We welcome everyone to view Drafts A, B and C. I appreciate the work the (committee) put in on the draft calendars and all the feedback we have gotten from the community."
Null said the committee will review the feedback and recommend one of the options to the board for consideration for approval after Winter Break.
The move is part of the district's plan to become a District of Innovation set forth through House Bill 1842 during the 84th Texas Legislature. Currently, there are 44 Districts of Innovation in Texas, including Humble ISD.
The board decided to include only the flexibility of adjusting the calendar instead of several other local control actions, such as hiring instructors who are not certified teachers, by being a District of Innovation.
"There are benefits to each of the calendars and we look forward to receiving feedback online through our website," Null said. "We are confident that with each of the three calendars the 17-18 school year will be successful." | 1,268,613 |
the production of mitochondrial acetyl-CoA for entry into the TCA cycle (). Thus, any shift toward glycolysis would be expected to lead to both a decrease in SIRT1 deacetylase activity (through reduced NAD), and an increased supply of acetyl-CoA for histone/protein acetylation, and together likely explain the observed increase in global H4K16ac in active SCs. There is previous evidence that the behavior of adult SCs is influenced by regulatory pathways controlled by oxygen tension and metabolic states (). A link between metabolism and SC function has been proposed, with recent studies indicating a link between OXPHOS and SC clonogenic capacity. Elevated mitochondrial abundance and OXPHOS activity, induced by calorie restriction (CR), was found to be associated with an increase in the number of cells capable of initiating myogenic colony formation (). Regulation of MyoD and Myogenin by increased SIRT1 activity elicited by CR would keep SCs in a stem-like state and favor their clonogenicity. Consistent with this, both the SIRT1 level and the metabolic milieu conducive to its activation were augmented in SCs derived from CR animals (). A similar increase in clonogenic capacity was observed in HSC with increased FA oxidation () while, more recently, glucose and glutamine metabolism has been reported to regulate human HSC lineage specification ().
mKO mice. Intriguingly, a subset of the upregulated transcripts was also increased in Sirt1mKO SCs induced to differentiate (mKO muscles derive from the myofiber compartment. The presence of such transcripts in both differentiating Sirt1mKO SCs and Sirt1mKO adult muscles suggests that their deregulation likely originates in SCs and is further maintained in the adult muscle. Finally, our gene expression profiling of whole muscles revealed deregulated transcription in Sirt1mice. Intriguingly, a subset of the upregulated transcripts was also increased in Sirt1SCs induced to differentiate ( Figure 7 G). Because in adult mice SCs have completed their differentiation process to give rise to mature myofibers, we interpret these findings to indicate that the upregulated transcripts identified in Sirt1muscles derive from the myofiber compartment. The presence of such transcripts in both differentiating Sirt1SCs and Sirt1adult muscles suggests that their deregulation likely originates in SCs and is further maintained in the adult muscle.
In summary, our results provide insights into the developing paradigm linking the process of metabolic reprogramming, transcriptional regulation, and acquisition of defined cell states. In the absence of SIRT1, quiescent SCs lose their respective blueprint of carefully regulated H4K16ac and undergo a progressive deregulation of gene expression during activation and differentiation. We conclude that metabolic modifications affect the activity of SIRT1, which acts as a relay able to interpret the rapid change in metabolism (via NAD+) and induce subsequent changes in H4K16 acetylation status and gene expression. | 1,268,614 |
By Heather Callaghan, Editor
The concepts of Little Free Pantries and Blessing Boxes are finally starting to blossom across the country. That’s good news for those who like to lend a helping hand – and great news for those who need it.
Similar to “Free Libraries,” the concept is simple. A cabinet with a window is placed on a visible roadside or at the edge of someone’s yard. Usually there are words to invite those in need. Something like “Take what you need, leave what you can.”
“Whether you’re taking or giving, you can just go to the blessing box,” Roman Espinoza told CNN. “There’s not a lock on it — it’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The 46-year-old army vet was inspired to make his own while taking a human services class at a community college and marveled that the campus needed its food pantry for struggling students. Like others, he places toiletries and other necessary items in the box for the homeless.
“I thought, ‘Man, these adults that are spending time taking classes can’t eat every day, ‘” he said. Little free pantries allows you to serve others without being present and helps those in need maintain their dignity. Espinoza surmises that the Watertown, NY community is using his own box at night to avoid humiliation. Now he is helping others make boxes.
“I’ve gotten a couple of requests from people around town for boxes for their property,” he added. “With any luck, we’ll have a few around town where people can be made aware of them and make use of them.”
The only obstacles so far are those placed by city code enforcers who may try to A) destroy them, B) claim there was a “complaint” and C) quote some obscure, vaguely written city code about “aesthetics.” When this happens, don’t back down – you have a right to feed your community!
Free pantries and blessing boxes are “open-source” on two levels. They offer their goods freely and they are easy to replicate – you don’t really need a plan. A cabinet or container on a post or podium is the main idea.
But just in case, here are some resources to help and inspire:
Want to help yourself and others? Step 1) Clean out your cabinets of foods that you no longer wish to eat but haven’t gotten around to getting rid of. Step 2) Make a neighborhood pantry or find one. Step 3) Fill pantry and commence the blessings.
Is a neighborhood food pantry something you can see yourself doing? Let us know in the comments below! We appreciate all those who share this good news! | 1,268,615 |
but I don’t stop whatever I’m doing to really eat a meal. Stepping away from whatever I’m doing breaks up the building intensity. I also find cooking for myself to be helpful. I’m not a great cook, so I really have to find recipes and carefully follow instructions to make something edible. Popping a pre-made dinner into the microwave doesn’t do anything to help slow down; taking the time to create something of my own does.
Hanging out with friends is always a good thing. I know from experience that I can be very annoying and overbearing when I’m on an upswing, but friendships are very important to me and I work very hard to not become a complete jerk. If I catch myself becoming loud and opinionated, talking over everybody and being a nuisance in general I try to force myself to be quiet and keep my mouth shut. It’s not always easy, but I really want to protect my friendships so I do all I can once I realize what I’m doing.
As with every aspect of this disease, working with my Doctor and Therapist is critical. Mood stabilizers help a great deal to keep from getting too high, but sometimes they’re not enough and I need help from my Doctor to make the necessary adjustments. My therapist is usually the first one to notice the change in my mood, and I’ve learned to listen to her as best I can when she starts to see a problem.
Sometimes I just can’t control the mania and find myself in a full blown episode. Part of the nature of this illness is to convince yourself that there really isn’t a problem, or that you have it under control by yourself. But I’ve been down that path too many times before, and I don’t want to go back. I’ve realized that even good behavior can be unhealthy and can lead to a much more destructive place. Accepting my illness for what it is has gone a long way to helping me keep it in check. That may be the most important lesson of all. Now that I know that my feelings and actions are a result of an illness, I have more motivation to stay aware and take the necessary steps before I completely lose control.
Whether depressed or manic, or even periods of stability, I need to remember that my behaviors are driven by a physical disease. Acceptance of my illness brings understanding, and understanding leads to management. Needless to say, I’m not always going to win the battle for control, but with awareness and by being proactive I can at least limit the losses. And each time I do, there are lessons to be learned, and if I look for them, then the next time I can be more prepared. This is a life long struggle, and I’m fighting for my life. I may not always succeed, but there’s one thing I can always do.
Fight the good fight. | 1,268,616 |
issued, so that borrowers with negative equity have a strong incentive to default.
This firmer incentive structure suggests that the impact on the Spanish financial system will be less dramatic. However, the size of the housing overhang means it will still be a massive hit. Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez, the governor of the Bank of Spain (the Spanish central bank), which has key responsibilities for banking supervision, said in a speech on April 16th that banks have built provisions and buffers "that would enable shocks of an order of magnitude comparable to those experienced at the height of the crisis in the 1990s to be absorbed". Although data suggest that the economy is in a better position to cope with a crisis than was the case in the early 1990s, when growth slowed to 0.9% in 1992 and contracted by 1% in 1993—at that time the public finances were in deficit, unemployment had risen to over 20% and inflation was higher than it is currently—the continued uncertainty in the international financial markets means that the downturn could be just as bad and take much longer to absorb.
Limited manoeuvre
Apart from the scale of the recent housing boom, policy constraints are an important factor that could have a detrimental effect. Although there are downside risks to growth prospects for many euro area countries, the Spanish economy is likely to perform much worse than the euro area as a whole. Monetary policy for the euro area is generally conducted with a view to the euro area in aggregate, and with Spain's economy accounting for just under 12% of euro area GDP, the European Central Bank will not take much action aimed specifically at stimulating the Spanish economy. With Spain being a member of the euro area (and a departure from the club out of the question), a devaluation of the currency to improve competitiveness and boost export demand is also not an option (although the high, and rising, current-account deficit would suggest a serious overvaluation).
The fiscal situation may be brighter, but support would still be limited. The general government budget balance showed a solid surplus of 2.2% of GDP in 2007. However, the surplus has been boosted in recent years by strong economic activity, and a period of slower growth would lead to a much weaker outcome (the downturn in 1992 led to a deterioration in the fiscal balance of 3.3 percentage points in just one year). The government is in the process of approving a fiscal stimulus package worth €10bn (US$16bn), which includes a €400 annual rebate to every taxpayer, and can be expected to boost public infrastructure investment in an effort to sustain activity and employment in the construction sector. With social spending set to rise as the slowdown deepens, the government's budget surplus is likely to evaporate quickly. Although Spain's low level of government debt—an estimated 35.2% of GDP in 2007—suggests ample room for stimulus measures, the restrictions of the EU's Stability and Growth Pact, which requires the budget deficit to be kept below 3% of GDP, will put a rein on fiscal expansion. | 1,268,617 |
.
AIB agreed to provide €5m along with €5m from Bank of Ireland to keep Anglo going until the weekend.
He said he told the CEO two days later that the bank's reputation had been damaged by the suggestion that it had asked for a blanket guarantee.
'Slip of paper' brought to Government Buildings
On AIB's model, he blamed earnings pressure and competition from Anglo.
He said Anglo was held up as an exemplar and everyone said it was the best bank and asked why AIB could not be more like Anglo.
He said AIB tried not to be but was inevitably drawn in.
Mr Gleeson said he did not recall comments from AIB's chief executive contained in a Department of Finance note from the night of the guarantee that AIB was facing "disaster" and mentioning bankruptcy.
He said he did not dispute it but he did not recall it.
He said he did not believe they had a solvency problem on the night and it was not asked or raised.
Asked by Chairman Ciaran Lynch whether the remuneration level was justified and appropriate, Mr Gleeson said clearly it was not appropriate and was too high but it was the market rate set by consultants.
Under questioning from Mr Lynch and Pearse Doherty, Mr Gleeson admitted AIB had brought what he described as a "slip of paper" to Government Buildings with a sketch of the scope of a possible guarantee.
The piece of paper is not contained in AIB's records and he believes it was left at the meeting.
Mr Doherty, Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson, also raised Bank of Ireland's document outlining its version of a guarantee and he asked why Mr Gleeson had described in his notes that AIB's version was better.
He said he could not explain why AIB’s formula was better and could not remember if he had seen BoI's draft but said he may have.
Mr Doherty asked why €270m in dividends were paid out on 26 September 2008. Mr Gleeson said that was a mistake.
Asked if he personally benefitted, he said he did and he did not, and added that he was sure he got the dividends.
He conceded that AIB thought Irish Nationwide was irretrievably "broke" in early September.
This stemmed from a meeting with the Financial Regulator on 6/7 September where it was suggested AIB would put €2bn into Anglo.
AIB executive Colm Doherty said that would involve a 50% writedown.
He said AIB was never asked to take over Anglo and never contemplated it.
He also said AIB had suggested a quote by the Financial Regulator in the Guarantee document attesting to the solvency of the whole system and all the banks be removed.
He said that was because they thought Anglo would be gone by the weekend. | 1,268,618 |
XINHUA
Mexico’s economy will continue to perform poorly in 2020, awaiting investment in infrastructure and the results of a renovated North American free trade agreement that has yet to be ratified, according to a leading Spanish financial group.
Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP) will close the year bordering on a decline, partly due to cuts in public spending on productive projects and a drop in investment by a private sector wary of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) policies and austerity measures.
Gabriela Siller, director of economic and financial analysis at the Spanish-based Banco BASE financial group, said that she is especially concerned about the issue of investment because that is what would encourage greater potential growth in the long term.
Investors’ fears increased after Lopez Obrador’s government took concrete steps to rein in spending, including cancelling the construction of a $13 billion airport in the nation’s capital, said Siller.
The government also suspended energy sector auctions that would allow private industry to participate in the sector, unsettling investors even more.
“To accelerate Mexico’s economic growth in the long term, what the government has to do is to generate greater spending on infrastructure, which could help relieve the investment freeze,” Siller said.
Another concern, she said, are real interest rates, “which are very high and discourage consumption and investment.”
Banco BASE is not alone in its dismal forecast for the Mexican economy in 2020.
International credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) warned in a report that if AMLO’s administration does not effectively address these economic challenges and fulfill its promises, it risks continued poor economic growth.
In October, the agency forecast a 0.4-percent economic growth in 2019 and a 1.3-percent growth in 2020, down from the 2.1-percent growth in 2018.
“The Mexican economy is slowing down and investor confidence remains low, so we will continue to observe how successful the Mexican government is in reestablishing that confidence for the purpose of boosting economic activity,” said S&P analyst Alfredo Calvo.
According to the general director of the Mexican Institute for Industrial Development and Economic Growth (IDIC), José Luis de la Cruz, Mexico’s GDP could hover at around 1 percent in the medium term.
The pending ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is one of many concerns, he said, though major headway was made on Tuesday, Dec. Dec. 10, when the three member countries signed off on modifications to the document that will hopefully spur lawmakers to approve the deal, particularly in the U.S. Congress.
“The challenge we face is reactivating the economy … resuming growth and resuming it as something strategic for the country,” De la Cruz said. | 1,268,619 |
Canadian municipalities will need to invest $5.3 billion annually to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, says a new report, as governments, residents and insurers brace for more frequent severe weather events.
The new study from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Insurance Bureau of Canada cautions that the “poor state of Canada’s aging infrastructure” leaves all levels of government vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events made more frequent by climate change.
READ MORE: Goodale: Flooding in Eastern Canada could be “worsening”
Bracing for the impact of floods will by far require the most significant municipal investment, the report says, while weather-proofing buildings is expected to be the largest infrastructure spending pool for local governments.
These climate change mitigation costs would be shared amongst all three orders of government, with the federal investment stream “well represented by current and future increased support to the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund,” according to the document.
“Municipalities, as the owners and operators of 60 per cent of the public infrastructure in Canada, are on the frontlines of both the impacts of climate change and the solutions to protect Canadians,” it reads.
“However, addressing climate risks by retrofitting existing infrastructure and implementing new adaptation measures poses an additional burden on the limited financial capacity of municipalities. Municipalities cannot shoulder the cost of adapting to climate change alone.”
A 2019 Government of Canada report found that the annual average temperature in Canada increased by 1.7 degrees Celsius since 1948, when nation-wide records became available. It also suggested that trends of more frequent and intense weather extremes will continue in the future, increasing flood and wildfire risks, among other impacts.
Canada has been hit hard by a flurry of extreme weather events in recent years, ranging from historic wildfires in Western Canada to frequent and damaging flooding events in the Prairies and Eastern Canada.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) reported earlier this year that severe weather caused $1.3 billion in insured damage in Canada in 2019, making it the seventh costliest year on record. The IBC noted that no single event caused the high amount paid out for losses in 2019, and instead the losses were attributable to “a host of smaller severe weather events from coast to coast.”
In fact, eight of the 10 costliest years on record for the IBC came in the last decade, with 2016, the year of the Fort McMurray wildfires, the most expensive year ever for insurers.
FCM president Bill Karsten said in a statement that all orders of government “can work together to protect the public infrastructure that Canadians rely on in their neighbourhoods.”
“This crucial new data that underscores the importance of greater investment in municipal adaptation and prevention amidst the effects of a changing environment,” he added.
READ MORE: 61% of Canadians want government to take action on climate change even if economy suffers: poll | 1,268,620 |
The original Beach Buggy Blitz was one of the first graphically-intensive games on Android, a frequent install for people who wanted to show off the power of their new phone or tablet. That being said, it was a bit simplistic: you "raced" along an endless beach, more or less playing catch up until you ran out of time. The sequel, Beach Buggy Racing, is much more of a conventional kart racer. It's got full races, power-ups, multiple characters and carts, and even single-device split screen multiplayer.
The graphics are a little better in the sequel, though the handling is what has really improved. Carts now have more variety thanks to a unique ability for each one, on top of the power-up weapons and defenses that appear randomly throughout the tracks. Despite the straight-up racing gameplay, BBR is set up like your typical Angry Birds-style casual game: each cup is split into multiple races, and a first place finish will get you three stars. Playing gets you coins, winning gets you more coins, which you can spend on new carts and upgrades. Controls include touch, tilt, and hardware controller options, which works really well when combined with the multiplayer split-screen and the Console Mode on the SHIELD or SHIELD Tablet.
But hold on to your horsepower. The free-to-play Beach Buggy Racing is absolutely filled with in-app purchases of the worst order - I might go so far as to say that's infested. It uses a dual-currency system where you more or less have to pay for the gems for the best upgrades (not to mention every paint job). On top of that, there's a ticket system (read: energy) that gives you a limited amount of races you can play in the single-player mode. The only way to get a new ticket in-game is to win the race. That means that eventually even the best racer will run out, at which point you'll have to wait 20 minutes for a new ticket, swap some of the expensive premium gems for one, watch a commercial for a single ticket... or pay five bucks for infinite tickets and never worry about it again.
But perhaps the most egregious in-app purchase is the $2 fee you'll have to pay to unlock the multiplayer split screen mode. As cool as that is for someone with multiple controllers and an HDMI or streaming setup, hiding a core feature of the game behind a paywall is a seriously anti-consumer move for a game that it's advertised as "FREE." Though the Play Store description highlights split screen mode, the fee somehow goes without mention.
The host of in-app purchases in Beach Buggy Racing is among the worst in high-profile games on the Play Store, and particularly disappointing when previous racing games from this developer were more subtle with their freemium tactics. The game is technically impressive and fun to play, but for a more consistent and less manipulative experience, stick with the original or one of the Vector Unit's Riptide games. | 1,268,621 |
last night’s show, Kuhlman looked forward to going out with a bang and spending one last night with friends, saying that he’s never happier than he is after a show at the Dungeon.
“I used to sit around after shows and Gabe would be leaning against the wall, or hanging onto the ceiling rafters, or maybe seated on the washing machine,” said Norman. “He would say ‘wow, this is so cool. I didn’t ever think it would be like this. This is so awesome’ with a big smile on his face.”
Last night, Kuhlman turned off the PA for the last time.
Like so many night before it, the space’s final show saw a caravan of Springfield punks pour into the basement. Friends from all over made their way back to the space one last time. Among them was Strom, who came all the way from Denver to spend one last night at the Dungeon.
By the end of 86 Gemini’s set, Kuhlman and Strom were both sitting side by side in the bathroom, Rosa and Everett tending to their fresh wounds. Strom pogoed too high and hit his head on the ceiling, while Kuhlman was unsure of who dealt him the blow to his now-bleeding nose.
“It’s not my first rodeo,” howled Kuhlman as he stepped out of the bathroom, dried blood sticking to his face.
Strom and Kuhlman didn’t let their injuries stop them from making the most of their last night. Following Wolf Luv’s wild set, Kuhlman took hold of the microphone to announce “the reunion nobody asked for:” the return of The Dingbats.
“You thought we were bad before?” Kuhlman laughed into the PA (which was as unreliable as ever). “This is after we haven’t practiced in a year, and half of the band have concussions.”
Before ripping into one last messy, high-energy set, Kuhlman gave one last thank you to the crowd.
“This could have been any basement, but it was special because every single person here came out to shows,” he said. “I first came down here for school, but this is way more important than anything I did there.”
And with that, the Dingbats played their last set.
As their last song came to a close, Kuhlman stood still in front of the crowd. Prolonged applause rang out – not just for the Dingbats, but for so much more: for Kuhlman, the “last Dingbat standing,” who among so many others made magic happen in that basement every month, and for the Dingbat Dungeon – the space so many call home.
Bye, Bye, Batty! | 1,268,622 |
Barack Obama will have to draw on all his considerable oratorical skills tonight to connect himself to those parts of the electorate that remain unconvinced by his message and unclear about what he represents.
"He will be addressing the single largest audience he will have at any time between now and the election, so it's important to use the event to make clear where he stands on matters that are worrying voters," said Ted Sorensen, John F Kennedy's chief speechwriter.
"Obama is the first presidential candidate who reminds me of Kennedy's eloquence and capacity to inspire. They both, despite their own special backgrounds, convey to people that they understand and listen to every American citizen."
To a large degree, the success of Obama's presidential run so far has been built on his skills as a speechmaker. It was his speech to the Democratic convention four years ago, before he had even entered the Senate, that propelled him into the national spotlight.
"He is blessed with a richly resonant voice that we love to hear; he could read the telephone directory and it would sound good," said Ted Widmer, editor of an acclaimed edition of American political speeches and a former Bill Clinton speechwriter. "He is very good at pauses and inflection, and he cuts an impressive figure on stage - all of which adds up to making an Obama speech a special event."
The Kennedy link is evident within Obama's own team of speechwriters. Adam Frankel, a graduate of the London School of Economics, spent six years working with Sorensen on his memoirs - immersing himself in the process in Kennedy's oratory. Frankel is 26, as is Obama's chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, or Favs as he is known, who used to work for John Kerry.
A third important scribe recently joined the Obama campaign. Sarah Hurwitz was Hillary Clinton's main speechwriter during the primary season, a role she previously performed for General Wesley Clark in his 2004 bid.
Obama is clearly surrounded by youthful talent, though what is less clear is how much he depends on it. He has told reporters that he personally began writing tonight's address while on holiday this month in Hawaii.
But demonstrating his now well-proven ability to inspire a crowd will be only part of the challenge for Obama tonight. Crucially, he must also tiptoe his way through the sensitive issue of race. The question of how much reference he makes to his potential to make history as America's first black president is all the more loaded because today is the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
"It's a complicated calculation," said Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard law school. "On the one hand, he can't go wrong in invoking such an iconic speech that has become part of Americana. On the other hand, the more Obama talks about race the blacker he becomes - and America still has a massive race problem." | 1,268,623 |
Quinton Coples runs drills with LB Sean Progar-Jackson during training camp at SUNY Cortland in 2013. (Photo by Chris Lopresti/WFAN) Quinton Coples runs drills with LB Sean Progar-Jackson during training camp at SUNY Cortland in 2013. (Photo by Chris Lopresti/WFAN)
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Camp Cortland is closed.
The New York Jets announced on Tuesday that this summer’s training camp will be held at their team’s practice facility in Florham Park, N.J. The Jets had held camp at SUNY Cortland five out of the past six years.
“SUNY Cortland felt like home because of the tremendous local support we received during our time there,” Jets owner Woody Johnson said in a statement. “President Erik Bitterbaum and the university staff, as well as the families and businesses of Central New York, all went above and beyond to embrace our organization and create a comfortable environment for our team and fans. They always will be a part of our Jets family.”
Thank you for everything, Cortland. pic.twitter.com/Oy2t4R0yCK — New York Jets (@nyjets) March 31, 2015
The relative quiet and isolation of Cortland was favored by Rex Ryan, who moved workouts to the campus after he was hired as head coach in 2009. But he was fired after last season’s 4-12 finish and the team — with a new leadership structure in general manager Mike Maccagnan and head coach Todd Bowles — decided it was time for another change.
“Preparing for the season at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center offers the added benefit of locating camp closer to the team’s core fan base in the New York/North Jersey metropolitan area,” the team said in a statement.
The Jets held training camp in Florham Park in 2011 due to the NFL lockout.
According to study by @suny_cortland, the #Jets generated about $4.6 million in economic activity last summer, so community will feel effect — Dennis Waszak Jr. (@DWAZ73) March 31, 2015
The team had previously ruled out Farmingdale State College for this summer, which would have brought training camp back to Long Island for the first time since 2008, the last year at Hofstra University.
“We are very grateful for the outstanding support of our fans in Cortland and to fans who made and enjoyed trips to the area,” Jets president Neil Glat said. “Our hope is that our training in Florham Park will allow additional fans to experience the fun and excitement of a Jets Training Camp this year.”
The New York Giants left SUNY Albany to train at their East Rutherford facilities in 2013. According to the Jets, 21 of 32 teams hold camps at their home bases. | 1,268,624 |
just have to wait for her grades to come back and we’ll know more. What do we do in the meantime?”
“Take it easy, baby,” Amaranth said. “You’ve probably got the pain equivalent of a fractured kneecap. I honestly don’t see how you’re going to make it to classes tomorrow.”
“What? I haven’t missed any classes this semester yet,” I said. “It’ll hurt less in the morning.”
“Less, maybe, but if I’ve seen injuries like the one you’ve avoided and I’d bet you anything it will still hurt, and if you walk on it, it’ll hurt more,” she said. “You need to stay off of it until the pain disappears completely. I prescribe bed rest.”
“You’re not a healer,” I said.
“In point of fact, I am,” she said, tilting her head to look at me over the tops of her glasses. “And if I can’t heal your non-existent injury, missy, I have still been picking you up after falls long enough to know how this works. You could be limping around for days if you don’t give it a chance to fade fully.”
“But even if I am, there’s still not going to be any permanent damage,” I said.
“But you can’t limp forever, and sooner or later you’re going to have to go easy long enough to recover,” she said. “Better to do it now than later in the semester, or when there’s some emergency. I know how important your grades are, but I also know you can afford to miss a day. Your grades and your teachers will both forgive you. Now, the next words out of your mouth should be ‘yes’ and ‘ma’am’, in that order… followed by ‘thank you, ma’am’. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, lowering my head. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Good girl,” she purred. “I’ll help you to bed.”
She did, and as I was getting settled, she said, “I know that your own well-being isn’t always the strongest motivator for you, but I just thought of another reason for you to rest up now and recover sooner rather than later.”
“What’s that?”
“Glory’s going to want you again before too terribly long.” | 1,268,625 |
The Sony Alpha a6300 is creating quite a stir – Johnnie already posted his mini documentary film shot with the entry-level mirrorless camera from Sony, and we are working on a series of further lab tests with the camera to see its strengths and weaknesses.
From the specs, the camera sounds almost too good to be true: 4K internal in XAVC S on an APS-C sized sensor for below $1,000. That’s about one third of the price of the popular low-light beast, the Sony a7S II.
The low-light test shoot setup
Many people who saw our first review asked how it performs in low light, particularly compared to the Sony a7S II. On a rainy miserable dark rainy winter night here in Vienna, I decided to put together a versatile yet unusual handheld setup that would make the camera as light sensitive as possible.
With a Metabones Speed Booster E-EF and a Canon EF L 70-200mm IS II f/2.8 zoom lens, I was out shooting a few test shots in the city center at an effective f/2.0 (gaining one additional stop of light with the Speed Booster). The base ISO of this camera is 800, but I used ISOs between mostly 3200 and 25,600 and to my surprise, the low light capability of the camera is exceptional. I didn’t do a comparison to the a7S II but it’s very very clean up all the way to 25,600 ISO.
Having the ability to use a Speed Booster on the Sony a6300 is a great gain because of its APS-C sized sensor, making the footage effectively look like it’s been shot on a full frame 35mm camera sensor, and adding over a stop of sensitivity.
I decided to go handheld purely for practical reasons and this was not shot to win any beauty contests – I was trying to see harsh contrasts and deep shadows combined with bright lights at night, to stretch the sensor’s abilities. Please scroll down to watch an ungraded version of the UHD clip – you can also download it on Vimeo and have a play with yourself. (It’s encoded with 40MBit in H.264.)
Noise reduction works differently
Details of this will be highlighted in our upcoming lab tests, but we observed that the internal noise reduction of the camera seems to be working a little differently, calculating the difference between frames – which results in some ghosting with fast movement. This might be down to inferior processing power in the camera compared to the Sony a7S II.
Ungraded version of the footage:
Music from Music Bed: Paperchaser – The World We Made.
If you find our reviews useful, please support us by buying through our links to B&H or CVP below this post. This gives us a tiny commission and keeps us going. Keeping this site running is never-ending hard work! | 1,268,626 |
-profit prison operators in the United States. Almost all of their profits are generated by government contracts and therefore come directly from taxpayers. Yet their facilities are failing to deliver, with increased costs, higher levels of recidivism and egregious levels of violence and even death.
The Center for Media and Democracy has created extensive corporate rap sheets on Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group on its wiki resource Sourcewatch.org. The profiles document:
Allegations of prisoner abuse, civil rights violations, violence, riots, and escapes;
Accusations of sexual abuse and juvenile mistreatment;
How cost-cutting strategies have resulted in lower wages and benefits for workers, high employee turnover, insufficient training, and under-staffing, resulting in poor oversight and poor security conditions;
The high incidence of sexual harassment, employment discrimination, or other labor violations by for-profit prison companies;
How the companies have evaded taxes and fleeced taxpayers;
How immigrant detention is a new profit center for these for-profit prison providers.
In addition, the profiles connect the dots between CCA, GEO Group, and organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which pushed legislation to privatize prisons, and at the same time spearheaded the effort to advance harsh sentencing bills to put more people in prison for more time. ALEC was a key proponent of "three-strikes-you're-out" and "truth-in-sentencing" bills, which became law in a majority of states during the 1990s and early 2000s and helped balloon prison populations. GEO Group was an ALEC member for many years and CCA led the Criminal Justice Task Force in the late 1990s.
"Crime control" became a campaign strategy for winning elections in the 1990s -- particularly after the racially-charged "Willie Horton" ad in the 1988 presidential campaign -- and private prisons were presented as a possible solution. At a 1994 ALEC conference, for example, CCA's Robert Britton and Crime Strike's Steve Twist were part of a presentation titled "Campaign School on Crime" designed "to provide legislators with an agenda and plan to advance meaningful crime control this fall and during the coming legislative session." Also part of the "Campaign School" training were Republican pollster Frank Luntz and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (who in more recent years has become a supporter of criminal justice reform).
"This fall, candidates who campaign on crime, frame the issue effectively, present a credible, tough-on-crime agenda, and debunk the myths and misinformation of their opponents will find an electorate ready to take back the streets from criminals and their apologists," the agenda item read.
Using "crime control" as a political strategy helped lead to America's mass incarceration boom, and high profit margins for CCA and GEO Group -- which these companies are now trying to maintain with lockup quotas.
Read more at the Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group profiles on our sister site Sourcewatch.org. | 1,268,627 |
Alpha Release
We have been pushing to get the alpha release out as fast as possible, whilst maintaining a high quality level of coding. I am happy to announce that Vault 3.0 is now available for alpha testing! This new codebase Vault 3.0 software is a major step in our roadmap, but it does not yet have the BPN (masternode) capability. We are still working hard on our unique mutex approach for CBX masternodes and will have a better idea regarding timing of this development next week.
This public alpha release gives users an opportunity to experiment with the new software and receive feedback from the Bullion community. So if you do find any issues, bugs or have other concerns please do get in contact with us. We highly value and appreciate every single piece of constructive feedback from the community and strive to take every opinion into consideration. You may occasionally find references to non-implemented features in the software, we will correct this as we go.
Backup wallet.dat
It is extremely important to be aware that the Bullion devs have been internally testing this new software for the past two weeks and have not encountered any major issues that could lead to loss of any CBX coins. One dev tested with 500 CBX and had no issues, but we still caution against doing so with your entire stash of CBX just yet! However, before you update to the new installation please make sure to backup your wallet.dat! If you are unsure how to backup your wallet.dat file correctly, please join our Telegram group (link at bottom of post) and ask an admin for further information.
Download Info & Notes
Alpha Release:
http://node.alex4j.cryptobullion.io/v30/bullion-qt.exe
One major thing we have to warn people about this new codebase is that the new Vault is now able to sync organically, which no Vault has been able to do for some time now; syncing organically takes some time however, so this new Vault has an auto-bootstrap feature to speed up this process. The auto-bootstrap feature still has issues with Windows: we are aware of this problem and will be fixed shortly. Since we still have to apply a bootstrap manually if you don't want to sync organically, here is the link to current updated bootstrap:
Bootstrap download:
http://node.alex4j.cryptobullion.io/v30/bootstrap.zip.
Also, this being an entirely new codebase, the RAM leak issue Vault 2.4.3 had should be fixed and new codebase should be able to maintain its usage of memory around a stable 1.2 to 1.3 gigs while staking; we would love to hear your experience with this too.
Join Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/FJcMnEimXQsIJdRXxOjvrA | 1,268,628 |
New York’s state animal protection laws don’t do enough to punish those who commit serious crimes against animals. A dog named Bella went without justice because of it. A proposed law nicknamed in her memory could help change that.
On the afternoon of December 23, 2016, Bella was beaten by the person who was supposed to protect her. Bella’s caregiver, 56-year-old Michael Gallagher, tied a zip tie around the 11-year-old dog’s neck. Then he stuffed her in a garbage bag and hit her, over and over, with a shovel.
Bella’s cries were so loud and anguished that Gallagher’s neighbors in Levittown, Long Island, came out to beg him to stop hurting his dog, and called the police. Gallagher fled. By the time Gallagher’s wife got home, and was able to bring Bella to a veterinarian, she was too badly injured to be saved. She was euthanized.
Gallagher was picked up by police later that day, and charged with one felony count of animal cruelty, and three misdemeanors. Bella’s abuser received only four months in county jail.
New Yorkers were stunned and horrified that Gallagher received such a short sentence for such a violent and serious crime. In response, and to prevent such injustice from occurring again, New York State Senator Andrew Lanza introduced Senate Bill 8724, nicknamed “Bella’s Bill.” New York Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal introduced the companion bill, A 11070, in the Assembly shortly thereafter. Though the bills did not pass during the 2018 session, support is ramping up for reintroduction in 2019.
Bella’s Bill would do two important things: First, it would increase penalties for those convicted of intentional abuse. Second, it would bring New York in line with the vast majority of other states, by transferring animal cruelty laws into the Penal Code, out of the Agriculture & Markets Law. This may sound like a small and technical difference on first blush, but it’s a significant change that helps ensure crimes against animals are treated as “real” crimes by law enforcement, offering a much stronger deterrent for animal abuse.
Every year, the Animal Legal Defense Fund puts out a list comparing the strength and comprehensiveness of each state’s animal protection laws, and ranking states from best to worst. New York has consistently been toward the bottom of this list. Last year, New York ranked 42nd out of 50.
Because of the slap on the wrist Bella’s abuser received, animal-loving New Yorkers became acutely aware of how out of date and inadequate the state’s animal protection laws are. There is the opportunity to change that now.
Bella’s Bill comes too late to assure justice for its namesake, or her killer. But for the millions of other cats, dogs, and other companion animals in New York, change can’t come soon enough. | 1,268,629 |
the email, walk by, without a glance. Finally, a young man in a striped white shirt and jeans pauses in front of the restaurant in Basavangudi in south Bangalore, and smiles diffidently.I had mailed Kumaraswamy (not his real name) three days ago from an ID from ineedakidneynow.org, the website that claims to be run by “The Good samaritan” connecting those in need of a kidney with willing donors, and stating “We will not post any request that asks for financial payment.” But that’s a blatant lie. There are myriad posts, offering to buy and sell for lakhs of rupees. Kumaraswamy himself had posted: "My self Kumar staying in Bengaluru india. My contact no. Is xxxxxxxxx580. I want to donate my kindey. i need 1000000 money urgently. I am not having passport my blood group is o+”Over coffee, Kumar, who is just 23, says he wants to sell his kidney because his family has “money problems”. A few days ago, he had typed the words “I want to sell my kidney for money” in Google search, which had led him to the forum. Wasn’t he afraid of the risks involved? That he might be cheated? “Yes, but I need the money,” he says. The previous day, the results for the CPT exams had come and the BCom dropout had failed, for the fourth time. His father had died a year ago and the family had borrowed Rs 3 lakh from a moneylender two years ago for their father’s cancer treatment, which had now ballooned to Rs 5 lakh. But didn’t he say he needed Rs 10 lakh? “Yes, that I just asked,” he says, with a shy smile. Kumar says he had not been able to complete his graduation, though he had 70% in his pre-university, because of the problems at home. The family has two acres of coconut trees in the village but, without water, the crops failed.Two others had also contacted him. One man, claiming to be from Mumbai, had told him he would be paid Rs 10 lakh, with 15% before the surgery and the rest after. But first Kumar had to deposit Rs 10,000 as hospital registration fee. The other had asked him to pay Rs 5,000 as registration fees.He says he had not told his friends or his family about his plan to sell his kidney, and did not know anyone who had done so either. The moneylender had given them a month for repayment but Kumar is unclear what would happen if the family defaulted, because his brother, who works as a coolie in their village near Tumkur in Karnataka, had negotiated the terms. They might have to give up the two acres of land, he says.(Names of some of the potential donors have been changed to protect their identities) | 1,268,630 |
An optical image of the globular cluster 47 Tuc taken by Hubble. There are numerous known low-mass X-ray binary stars (LMXBs) in this and other globular clusters. Astronomers report finding what might be the the first LMXB whose compact object is a black hole rather than a neutron star. Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope
A globular cluster is a roughly spherical ensemble of stars (as many as several million) that are gravitationally bound together, and typically located in the outer regions of galaxies. Low mass X-ray binary stars (LMXBs) are systems in which one star is compact (a neutron star or black hole) and is accreting matter from a companion star.
Astronomers have long noticed that there are fractionally many more LMXBs in globular clusters than elsewhere in the galaxy, an overabundance that is usually attributed to the high stellar density in globular clusters. But this calls attention to another unusual feature of the LMXBs in globulars.
In the galactic field, most LXMBs are formed from binary stars as they age and evolve, but in globular clusters it has been shown that most LMXBs form when compact objects encounter and then capture another star.
There are many neutron stars in clusters, but black holes that form in these dense stellar environments are expected either to sink down to the center of the cluster or else to be gravitationally ejected from the cluster after they are formed. Indeed, all of the LMXBs seen in globular clusters are of the type with a neutron star.
CfA astronomer Javier Garcia was a member of a team studying LMXBs in the 47 Tuc globular cluster. They discovered one, called X9, that appears to contain a black hole, and if the interpretation is correct X9 would be the first such case in our Galaxy.
The team used simultaneous observations of the source with Chandra, NuSTAR, and the Australia Compact Array, plus archival datasets, to find a twenty-eight minute modulation of the signal from X9, such as would be produced by a black hole of about one solar mass orbited by a white dwarf star of about 0.02 solar-masses. The source has some other unusual characteristics, including a precession period of 6.8 days, and a relatively high rate of mass transfer for LMXBs, about seven-millionths of an Earth-mass per year.
Explore further Image: Hubble checks out a home for old stars
More information: Arash Bahramian et al. The ultracompact nature of the black hole candidate X-ray binary 47 Tuc X9, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2017). Journal information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Arash Bahramian et al. The ultracompact nature of the black hole candidate X-ray binary 47 Tuc X9,(2017). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx166 | 1,268,631 |
actions to protect religious conscience rights, noting, to applause, “the Alliance Defending Freedom has been there every step of the way.”
* * *
Democratic lawmakers have taken notice of the proliferation of Trump judicial nominees and political appointees with ADF ties, and have sought answers about the influence of ADF’s ideology on critical policymaking positions. Early last year, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform received documents from a whistleblower indicating that ADF had originally drafted a January 2018 letter sent by HHS to state Medicaid directors allowing them to terminate Planned Parenthood’s status as a health care provider for Medicaid beneficiaries seeking family planning services. The documents, then Ranking Member Elijah Cummings said in a statement, “raise serious concerns about whether the Trump Administration is now taking orders from an extreme right-wing interest group that is trying to deny American citizens the ability to exercise their right to obtain family planning services that are guaranteed by federal statute.” (ADF issued a statement to Politico calling Cummings’ charges “misleading and inaccurate” and arguing, “It is common practice for constitutional attorneys to be consulted regarding constitutional matters.”)
This June, Democratic lawmakers on Oversight’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, wrote to Kathleen Kraninger, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about Paul Watkins, a former ADF attorney who is now a CFPB assistant director, because his responsibilities at the agency give him “wide discretion to exempt companies — or even entire industries — from anti-discrimination laws.” In August, the Subcommittee wrote to Kraninger again, this time asking about Watkins’ role in overseeing proposed new rules that would undermine protections against discrimination. “We have grave concerns about Mr. Watkins holding the authority to waive anti-discrimination laws given his prior employment at Alliance Defending Freedom,” the lawmakers wrote. (The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment.)
For now, ADF’s legal theories are on the verge of gaining more traction at the Supreme Court, and the House remains the only check on the spread of ADF’s agenda in federal agencies. And the more ADF acolytes obtain positions of judicial and legislative power, the more opportunities they will have to cement ADF’s ideology in the law — a goal that has long been in the organization’s sights.
In a 2013 email thanking Blackstone faculty for “your commitment to the Lord’s Kingdom work,” ADF attorney Jeffrey Ventrella wrote, “Together, with the grace of God, we can make a difference in America’s future. In particular, we can protect what we have; regain what we have lost; and shape who we become.”
Sarah Posner is a reporting fellow with Type Investigations.
Image at top: TPM Illustration / Sarah Posner / Type Investigations / Getty Images
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The mere mention of sharks may evoke a shudder in many, but I’m sure even serious galeophobes won’t get sweaty palms looking at this endearing little fish. This is a pocket shark, and alongside being utterly adorable, it’s also extremely rare: only two have ever been found. Although our knowledge of this elusive animal is extremely limited, scientists have just published a detailed description of the second specimen discovered, which reveals some interesting facts about this unusual vertebrate.
As described in Zootaxa, the shark was not actually found swimming in the sea, but rather in a collection of specimens held at one of the NOAA’s laboratories. The animal was collected back in 2010 around 190 miles offshore of Louisiana during an NOAA expedition to study sperm whale feeding behaviors. Although the shark was photographed at the time, it spent the next three years in a freezer, waiting for NOAA fisheries biologist Mark Grace to painstakingly make his way through bags and bags of frozen specimens before finally coming across it.
While Grace wasn’t sure what it was, it immediately captured his attention as never before had he seen anything like it: The teeny, 5.5-inch (14 cm) baby male had a pair of bizarre orifices over its pectoral fins. After a thorough examination of the shark’s features, the researchers took a tissue sample for genetic analysis, which revealed their suspicions were correct: it belonged to the genus Mollisquama, making it the second pocket shark discovered so far. These are a type of sleeper shark within the family Dalatiidae, which also includes the kitefin and cookie cutter species. Like these relatives, the researchers believe that pocket sharks may feed by taking an oval-shaped chunk out of the flesh of prey species, such as large fishes or squid.
Although the purpose of the shark’s unique pocket remains uncertain, scientists have suggested that it may function to produce and release pheromones to attract mates. Another interesting feature that was not noted in descriptions of the first specimen was a collection of light-emitting organs called photophores on its abdomen, but photographs alone are insufficient to deduce whether the scientists missed these on the first animal or if they were indeed absent.
Something else that has puzzled scientists is the fact that the habitats in which the two specimens were recovered are considerably different. The first pocket shark, a female measuring almost half a meter (17 inches) in length, was found in cold waters off the coast of Peru, but this one was found in much warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Discovering him has us thinking about where mom and dad may be, and how they got to the Gulf,” Grace said in a statement. “This record of such an unusual and extremely rare fish is exciting, but it’s also an important reminder that we still have much to learn about the species that inhabit our oceans.”
[Via NOAA, Zootaxa and NBC News] | 1,268,633 |
Polls have closed across the United Kingdom after Britons voted on whether to quit the 28-nation European Union in a bitterly contested referendum that polarised the nation.
An early survey is suggesting voters have chosen to remain in the bloc.
The survey by pollster YouGov showed Remain ahead by a margin of 52 to 48 percent. Unlike a classic exit poll, it was based on online responses by a pre-selected sample of people rather than a survey of voters as they left polling stations.
Results are due to be announced by most of the 382 individual local counting areas between around 0000 GMT and 0300 on Friday.
The divisive referendum sparked the greatest emergency in the EU's 60-year history.
The vote pitted the Remain campaign, backed by British Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, against the Leave camp, led by the former London mayor, Conservative MP Boris Johnson.
Brexit Q&A: All you need to know
The "Remain" camp predicts economic doom if Britain leaves the EU while the "Leave" campaign warns of the perils of uncontrolled immigration unless Britain strikes out on its own.
'Out is out'
EU leaders warned there would be no turning back from a vote to quit the 28-member bloc.
"Out is out," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels, dismissing any chances of a post-vote re-negotiation of Britain’s EU membership terms.
The referendum has raised concerns across Europe that a British withdrawal could trigger a domino effect of exit votes and threaten the integrity of the bloc, already under severe strain from Eurozone and migration crises.
Even if it stays, the status quo will not be an option.
"Whatever the result is going to be, we must take a long hard look at the future of the union. We would be foolish if we ignored such a warning signal as the UK referendum," EU President Donald Tusk warned this week.
Tusk has previously said that a British leave vote could lead to the "destruction of not only the EU but also of Western political civilisation".
The EU was created after the Second World War as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. The movement for unity was led by France and Germany.
Q&A: All you need to know about the EU Referendum
EU referendum: Has UK politics ever been so ugly?
Here's why Brexit matters to GCC countries
Is the European Union still attractive?
Brexit and the spectre of Europe's ugly nationalism
The UK, EU and Brexit: Who wins and who loses?
Brexit: UKIP's 'unethical' anti-immigration poster
Brexit and Boris Johnson: A perfect political pairing?
Beyond the Brexit debate
Jo Cox killing: Has politics in the UK become too divisive and toxic?
Brexit: Making Britain great again?
Is Brexit driven by the fear of migrants? | 1,268,634 |
Twenty-seven Marin County residents passed the latest state bar examination, the last major hurdle to becoming a licensed lawyer in California, the organization announced.
The State Bar of California administers the test twice a year and announces the results several months later. The latest round of results are for the exam in July.
The state bar said 3,284 applicants passed the July test, or 40.7 percent. Fifty-five percent of the passers were taking the test for the first time.
Eight of the Marin passers reported Mill Valley addresses. They are Jack Lofaro Budish, Fiona Katherine Duffy, Andrew Cromwell Johnson, Carl Joseph Kaplan, Gabrielle Violet Lion, Hugh McSwain, Robin Christine Smith and Michael Conrad Zimmermann.
Seven passers have San Rafael addresses: April Angelina Alongi, Sheridan Lee Caldwell, Sarah Sue Duryee Moran, Nicole Lee Tiger, Lucia Christina Martel-Dow, Matthew Scott Olhausen and Ashley Naomi Rippolone.
Martel-Dow is already a prominent legal figure in Marin, where she has won accolades as an advocate for migrant rights. She is the director of immigration and social services for the Canal Alliance in San Rafael.
Martel-Dow, 41, has a law degree from her native Venezuela and is licensed to practice there, and she has a master’s degree in law from the University of California, Hastings, in San Francisco. She said taking the bar exam and getting her California law license will enhance her work here.
“I think it allows me to continue being an advocate for the clients I work with and puts me in a better position to change policy,” she said.
Five Marin residents who passed the bar exam reported Novato addresses: Eric De Luna, Alyssa Marie Fielding, Maysa Saeed, Matthew James Dean and Katerina Linnea Siefkas.
Two passers, Lisa Rose Bugni and Marine Camille Papillaud, have addresses in the 94920 zip code for Belvedere and Tiburon. The other passers were Imran Moses Dar, of Bolinas; Nicholas Wilkerson Dugdale, of Corte Madera; Emily Frances Lynch, of Larkspur; Drew Alexander Lawson, of San Anselmo; and Bryn Murtagh Paslawski, of Sausalito.
The state bar, an arm of the California Supreme Court, is responsible for licensing lawyers, regulating the profession and enforcing ethics standards. The testers who pass the state bar examination are eligible to practice law after taking the attorney oath.
Leah Wilson, executive director of the bar, said the organization is “troubled” by the relatively low pass rate. It is down nearly 9 percent over the July 2017 rate, exceeding the declines in New York and Texas.
Wilson said the bar has been reviewing the content and relevance of the tests to see if changes are in order.
The state has nearly 200,000 active licensed lawyers. | 1,268,635 |
The Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat has expressed concerns over the youth in the valley picking up the gun, and said that Kashmiris have to understand that the SFs (security forces) haven’t been so brutal.
Earlier this week, a 22-year-old tourist whose vehicle was targeted by stone-pelters, died. Whereas, the civilian death toll in Sunday's clashes between protestors and security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir has climbed to six after a youth succumbed to injuries.
"I want to tell Kashmiri youth that Azadi isn’t possible. It won’t happen. Don’t get carried away unnecessarily," Rawat said in an interview to Indian Express.
Stating that the Army don't enjoy the killings, Bipin Rawat also said that if you want to fight us, then we will fight you with all our force. Kashmiris have to understand that the SFs (security forces) haven’t been so brutal."
"Look at Syria and Pakistan. They use tanks and air power in similar situations. Our troops have been trying their level best to avoid any civilian casualty despite huge provocation," he told the daily.
Rawat also said that they can’t allow people to disrupt our operations and help terrorists to flee. "People are 'inciting security forces by pelting stones at them to disrupt the operations…they are inciting security forces to become more aggressive.’’
The Army chief also sad that he is still trying to understand where did all that anger come from, and believes the youth have gotten themselves in Pakistan’s trap.
Rawat also said that he was ready to suspend the military operation, but questioned who will guarantee that there won’t be fire at the men, at their vehicles, men returning home on leave aren’t attacked.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has said that the Centre should consider a unilateral ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir starting from Ramzan in mid May till the completion of the Amarnath yatra in August.
She made the remarks after chairing a four-hour all-party meeting, which was convened to discuss the present situation in the Kashmir Valley especially after a tourist from Chennai died due to stone pelting on May 7.
Earlier, terming the death of a 22-year-old tourist whose vehicle was targeted by stone-pelters the "murder of humanity", Mufti had said the incident had rattled the mother in her.
Those who pick up stones to kill someone have no religion, an upset Mehbooba said after meeting the father of Chennai resident S Thirumani, who was holidaying in the Valley with his family and died yesterday evening at a hospital here.
The issue would be discussed and debated on television for days and "we will be silently watching the murder of humanity, which has been unheard of in the state of Jammu and Kashmir", she said. | 1,268,636 |
(CNSNews.com) - How did eight precincts fail to turn in their vote totals in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses? "Well, those are questions for the volunteer chairs in those particular precincts," Matt Strawn, the head of the Iowa Republican Party, told Fox News on Thursday.
Because eight of Iowa's 1,774 precincts failed to report any vote totals at all, there is no way to tell who actually received the most votes in the closely watched Iowa contest. Strawn said on Thursday that Rick Santorum won the most certified votes -- 34 more than Mitt Romney did, as it turns out.
On caucus night, however, the Iowa Republican Party said that Mitt Romney was leading Santorum by 8 votes, giving Romney bragging rights going into New Hampshire.
On Thursday, Strawn told Fox News that eight volunteer-led precincts just "weren't able to get their forms in."
"I can't speak to why they weren't responding to the calls of our staff," he said -- a full two weeks after those phone calls went unanswered.
Strawn says his job is to "certify as many precincts as possible and provide accurate information." He said he'll let the pundits and campaign officials "spin the results however they want."
Strawn says each of Iowa's 1,774 precincts receives a "Form E," which is the official record of the vote total in that precinct. The Form E is signed by the caucus chairman and secretary, then delivered to the county chairman, who is supposed to gather "Form E's" from all the precincts in his or her county -- and send them on Republican headquarters so the vote totals can be certified.
"Sometimes the county chair never heard from the precinct chair," Strawn explained. "In one county, we have a precinct chair that submitted a blank form that had nothing on it. There was no record to certify.
"You know, he continued, "it's a great process, it's a grassroots process that's run by volunteers, and unfortunately we did everything we could in our power to try and get those precinct leaders to submit their forms on time. But, you know, they just weren't able to," Strawn said.
The certified numbers are as follows: Rick Santorum ended up with 29,839 votes -- 168 fewer than the 30,007 he had on caucus night. Romney ended up with 29,805 votes -- 210 fewer than the 30,015 initially posted after the balloting.
A statement on Rick Santorum’s Web site says the certified results from Iowa have destroyed the “narrative” of Romney’s “inevitability.”
“Conservatives can now see and believe they don't have to settle for Romney, the Establishment's moderate candidate,” the statement says.
“This latest defeat of Governor Romney in Iowa is just the beginning, and Rick Santorum is committed to continuing the fight as the clear, consistent conservative voice in this race.” | 1,268,637 |
The Earth’s waters are rising. Since 1880, global warming has increased the world’s sea level by eight inches, and climate scientists report that the rate of this rise will only accelerate (to the tune of two to seven more feet overall in the next century). This is, of course, most concerning for people who live in coastal cities; roughly five million Americans live a mere four feet above high tide.
Cities are scrambling to respond, but they may not be able to move fast enough. In the meantime, coastal residents might want to invest in some new transportation.
Oru Kayak, a company known for its innovative folding boats, has just announced the “Inlet kayak.” This kayak folds up and out like a piece of origami, should you need to get around in a flood (or simply want an easy-to-transport boat for recreational use).
It’s not the company’s first origami boat. In 2016, Oru released the Onak canoe, which could be disassembled into the size of a suitcase in mere minutes. The Inlet kayak, however, comes in a compact box no larger than a guitar case before assembly and unfolds into a 10-foot-by-31-inch form of recyclable transportation thereafter. At 20 pounds, the new kayak is 36% lighter than Oru’s current lightest boat, The Bay ST, and it’s 34% smaller than The Bay ST—both when boxed and fully unfurled. Oru calls it “the most portable origami kayak ever.”
But the Inlet’s compact size doesn’t preclude it from handling the same amount of cargo as The Bay ST does. Both of these Oru boats are intended for single paddlers and have a load capacity of 300 pounds. The company claims the Inlet kayak only takes three minutes to assemble.
The Inlet kayak is different from its predecessors, not just in size and weight but in design, too. For this product’s debut, Oru engineered a new folding pattern—the first significant redesign in the company’s seven-year history. “The new pattern was designed from the bottom to be easy to assemble and more compact than our other models,” says Anton Willis, chief design officer at Oru Kayak. “This meant optimizing every crease line to minimize wasted space. If you were to slice open the folded up box, you’d see that all of the fold angles are such that everything nests very tightly.”
The updated structure ensures that the kayak’s final form glides more cleanly through the water. “This has been quite an interesting design challenge,” says Willis. “The nature of origami is that any fold line change has rippling effects across the whole form, so there has been a lot of iteration to make sure everything works together.” | 1,268,638 |
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said President Donald Trump had agreed to meet with Kim Jong-un as a distraction from the Stormy Daniels scandal — and his co-host said the porn star payout showed why he could not reach a deal with the North Korean leader.
The “Morning Joe” co-hosts warned that nothing would come from the verbal invitation Trump accepted without consulting the State Department or diplomacy experts, because the move was one of his impulsive reactions to the news cycle.
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“He just makes a decision on tariffs because of Hope Hicks, and he makes a decision on North Korea because of Stormy Daniels,” Scarborough said. “People can deny that all they want, but if you’re doing that, you’re in the tank for Donald Trump, because it is painfully obvious that that is what’s going on.”
He said the meeting was a short-term decision that carries potentially devastating long-term consequences.
“He did not want the Washington Post to have the words ‘Stormy Daniels’ on the front page today,” Scarborough added. “Guess what? He succeeded, and he succeeded by lying about a letter that didn’t even exist, and now he’s telling the truth, and fools rush in.”
Scarborough believes the meeting will actually take place, but he has no confidence in the president’s ability to reach any sort of agreement with North Korea on its nuclear program or any other issue of substance.
“We’ve been seeing this guy on the national stage now long enough to know that so often it’s just all talk, it’s all bluster,” he said. “He talks about the art of the deal, the deal never comes through. All bluster about the wall — there’s not going to ever be a deal for the wall.”
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Scarborough said the president would likely walk into the meeting unprepared and treat it as another television spectacle or business opportunity.
“He’ll do what is easy, he won’t read a one-sheet on North Korea, he won’t figure out how the United States has been fooled the past four presidents have been fooled, since 1994, or the past three presidents,” Scarborough said. “He does the easy things, and if he can get him at Mar-A-Lago, even better.”
He is horrible at making deals,” Scarborough added. “That’s why the man ended up $9 billion in debt.”
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Brzezinski stepped in to twist the knife.
“He can’t even make a deal with a porn star,” she said. “He doesn’t even sign the papers of the deal that he struck. Think about that.” | 1,268,639 |
Although bilateral ties between Beijing and Tokyo are on the mend, a new survey has found that a record high 85 percent of Japanese have unfavorable views of China — a stunning contrast with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s talk of creating a “new era” of friendship with Japan’s top Asian rival.
According to the Pew Research Center’s latest Global Attitudes survey, released late Monday, Japan was the most negative toward China among the 32 countries polled.
But it wasn’t alone among its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region.
“More than half in South Korea (63 percent), Australia (57 percent) and the Philippines (54 percent) share this sentiment,” the survey said. “Opinion of China has also fallen across the region over the course of Pew Research Center’s polling and is now hovering at or near historic lows in each of the countries surveyed.”
Abe has worked to repair ties with Beijing since relations soured in the early 2010s over sovereignty and history issues. In late June, he met Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka to lay the groundwork for Xi’s first state visit to Japan, touting relations between the “eternal neighboring countries” as much improved.
But while political ties are “back on a normal track,” per Abe and Xi’s joint statement in Osaka, the Pew survey shows that the Japanese public remains wary of Chinese intentions.
One of the top concerns for Tokyo in its relationship with Beijing is the row over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, which are also claimed by China, where they are known as the Diaoyu. China routinely sends government-backed ships into the waters surrounding the tiny islets — prompting Japan to send its own vessels — as part of what observers say is a strategy intended to wear down Japan.
Recent years have also seen China’s increasingly capable military punch further into the western Pacific, including through key strategic passageways near Okinawa Prefecture and elsewhere.
The Pew survey’s release comes just ahead of the 70th anniversary of communist China’s foundation on Tuesday, when Beijing was to hold a massive military parade to showcase its weapons and capabilities.
Amid the pomp surrounding the anniversary, the poll found that a median of 41 percent across the 32 countries surveyed have a favorable opinion of China, compared with a median of 37 percent who have an unfavorable opinion.
And while majorities in most countries agree China’s influence on the world stage has grown markedly, this has not necessarily translated into favorable views of the country, according to the survey of 34,904 people conducted May 13 to Aug. 29.
Indeed, negative views of China predominate in both the United States and Canada, where 60 percent and 67 percent, respectively, see the country unfavorably — the highest unfavorable opinion of China recorded for those countries in the Center’s polling history. | 1,268,640 |
On Thursday (8 November 2018), Ran Neu-Ner, the host of CNBC's Crypto Trader show, released the video of an interview with Gabor Gurbacs, the Director of Digital Assets Strategy at ETF and mututal fund manager VanEck. This article focuses on the main highlights from this interview.
Q: The whole crypto community has got their eyes set on you guys getting the first Bitcoin ETF. So, how close are you?
A: Well, America wants a Bitcoin ETF… So, we are close… The final deadline that they can approve this ETF or deny it is 2/27 2019 [27 February 2019]. The next decision upcoming is December 29th this year.
Q: So, what’s happening on December 29th and what is the February date?
A: [On] December 29th [2018], the SEC may say that we need more time to make a decision on this ETF, and legally, they can push it to the next deadline. The next deadline is the February one that I mentioned, at which point they need to make a final decision of yes or no.
Q: What makes you think you’re going to be successful?
A: There are a few reasons, Ran. One of them is VanEck’s history of building the right market structures for asset classes. So, in 1955, John VanEck, the firm’s founder, built the first international stock mutual fund here in the U.S. In 1968, he built the first gold equity fund, and basically in the past 60 years, we’ve built market structure and funds for harder to access investment instruments. So, we’re doing the same with Bitcoin…
Our ETF, what sets it apart, is
It’s a physical Bitcoin ETF; so, it stays true to the underlying Bitcoin.
It’s fully insured. So, if there are any thefts, hacks, or losses, the insurance covers it.
The pricing we use for Bitcoin comes from our indexing subsidiary [MVIS], which is a regulated entity and provided the first financial standard in regulated indices.
The ETF is institutionally oriented. So, 25 bitcoins per basket.
Q: Do you speak to the SEC regularly?
A: VanEck has a 60+ years relationship with the regulators, and we speak regularly with the regulators… I do think that the SEC is open to discussing improvements and proposals with market participants… Right now, the Coinbases and the larger exchanges of the world operate in this semi gray area, and the regulators don’t do much about it because they don’t want to squash innovation, but at the same time, they want to make sure that the capital markets stay intact. And I think the ETF solved this question of not squashing any innovation and at the same time bring some level of regulation to the digital asset space.
Featured Image Courtesy of VanEck | 1,268,641 |
4- 4 4 4.AS Grand-Goâve (Grand-Goâve) 3 0 0 3 3- 7 0 Groupe D 1.Roulado FC (La Gonâve) 3 3 0 0 6- 1 9 Qualified - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2.Inter (Grand-Goâve) 3 1 1 1 1- 1 4 3.AS Petit-Goave (Petit-Goave) 3 1 0 2 4- 6 3 4.USCAR (Carrefour) 3 0 1 2 1- 4 1 Semifinals [Jan 26, 2020] Juventus 1-1 Roulado [3-2 pen] USR 0-0 Pont Sondé [3-2 pen] Final [Jan 30, 2020; Parc Levelt, Saint-Marc] Juventus 1-1 USR [5-4 pen] NB: both finalists promoted
NB: season finished in 2020 due to civil unrest. 1/8 Finals [Feb 6] FC Toro 1-0 AS Truitier Depoze FC 1-1 Milan FC [4-3 pen] Classique FC 0-1 AS Limonade Roche-à-Bateau 0-2 Solution FC Leg AZ 0-0 Expert [5-4 pen] [Feb 7] JSM Mirebalais 0-0 EPJA [4-3 pen] Stars 509 5-0 UST de Cayes Jacmel Expérimenté FC 1-1 AS St-Michel [4-3 pen] Quarterfinals [Feb 9] Solution FC 2-2 Depoze FC [4-3 pen] [Feb 10] AS Limonade 2-0 Expérimenté FC Leg AZ 2-1 JSM Mirebalais Stars 509 1-1 FC Toro [3-1 pen] Semifinals [Feb 13] AS Limonade 2-0 Leg AZ Stars 509 1-0 Depoze FC Final [Feb 15, stade Sylvio Cator, Port-au-Prince] Stars 509 4-0 AS Limonade Promoted: Stars 509 (Croix-des-Bouquets), AS Limonade, Depoze FC (Leogane), Leg AZ (Croix-des-Bouquets)
2018
2020
list of champions
list of cup winners
list of foundation dates
About this document
Prepared and maintained by Karel Stokkermans for the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
Author: Karel Stokkermans
Last updated: 5 Mar 2020
(C) Copyright Karel Stokkermans and RSSSF 2019/20
You are free to copy this document in whole or part provided that proper acknowledgement is given to the author. All rights reserved. | 1,268,642 |
Image via Getty.
Becoming a doctor is a grueling process. Though women dominate in some categories, like pediatrics, committing to a specialty in the higher paid realm of something like surgery is incredibly difficult if you want to have a child. Women are simply discouraged from trying for these positions at all.
Bloomberg’s Rebecca Greenfield and John Tozzi report on a study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston that demonstrates what common sense and anecdotal evidence surely could as well. Though men and women go to medical school in equal numbers, getting through a residency can take over a decade if you’re attempting to become a surgeon. That doesn’t include competitive fellowships that can ad on more years. If you want to wait to start a family until it’s done, you could be in your thirties, which becomes more challenging for women in training.
Of the 347 active surgeons who had been pregnant in the last decade surveyed at the hospital, about a third would counsel a female medical student against a career in surgery. 87 percent said they didn’t receive a modified work schedule during their pregnancy, 83 percent said they had less than six weeks of maternity leave, 97 percent said there was inadequate institutional support in the form of childcare (or none), and 41 percent said they considered leaving their residency program entirely after becoming pregnant.
The overall effect of these conditions is evident in the numbers for women surgeons:
Forty-four percent of the country’s medical residents last year were women. But whereas females made up two-thirds of pediatric residents, they consisted of only 36 percent of surgical residents—and just 14 percent in the particularly lucrative subspecialty of orthopedic surgery. “There is still this gender gap in our field, and we have a low proportion of female surgical faculty in the U.S.,” said Erika Rangel, a trauma surgeon at Brigham and Women’s and an author of the study. (A 2014 report found (PDF) that women make up only 22 percent of full-time faculty and only 1 percent of department chairs.) “There is a perception that the field isn’t compatible with the desire to have a family.”
One of the biggest issues for taking time off to start a family is that residency timelines are deeply entrenched, and there’s no wiggle room. Taking maternity leave can mean a delay in becoming board-certified, and most residencies are designed to follow the calendar year of medical students, which won’t always align with the biological realities of pregnancy. These timelines were developed before women were really given access to the field at all.
Jo Buyske, the executive director of the American Board of Surgery, was trained in the late 80s/early 90s, according to Bloomberg. She says that at the time, you simply waited because “there weren’t that many women residents, and the vast majority did not have children during residency.”: | 1,268,643 |
A scary incident in Shea Heights has a happy ending thanks to one quick-thinking man.
More than a week ago, a young boy was struck by a four-wheel drive vehicle on one of the town's streets and ended up stuck underneath it.
That's when local resident Nick Williams came running to help, and actually lifted the vehicle's tire off the child, who he said had been playing on the sidewalk.
He took a big deep breath and curled up into his dad like a little spider. - Nick Williams
"[The driver] struck the little fellow, and I bawled out for her to stop, but it was too late," he told CBC News.
"I knew he had to come out of there, and that was it — he just had to come out of there."
The section of pacement where the boy was struck was marked by police investigators. (CBC)
Williams was a little emotional when recalling the events of that scary Saturday, but told CBC News that when he got close enough he noticed the boy was hurt and pinned under the tire.
He managed to find the strength to lift the tire off the child while the boy's father, Mark Sheehan, ran over to help. While the boy was out from under the tire, Williams still had to use a car jack to get him completely clear of the vehicle.
"I couldn't budge it at first, but then I saw the little fellow... and the bugger came up then," he said.
"His dad pulled him out and he wasn't moving and I said 'that's not good.' His dad [said], 'It's okay, it's your daddy.' He took a big deep breath and curled up into his dad like a little spider."
The boy was taken to hospital and has since been released.
After being released from hospital, the boy made a thank-you card for Williams. (CBC)
After making it through the ordeal, the boy took the time to make a card for Williams, thanking the man that is now being hailed as a hero.
Williams said he just did what anyone would have, but hopes the incident will bring attention to the problem of dangerous driving in Shea Heights.
He said while he has no reason to believe the woman who ran over the boy was driving recklessly, he said dangerous driving is an issue in the area.
Williams and other Shea Heights residents have put up their own signs to try and alert drivers that children play in the area. (CBC)
Williams and others in the neighbourhood have even put up their own signs to try and get people to slow down, but he said so far it isn't working.
He said dangerous drivers have been a major problem there for a while and something needs to be done.
"There's youngsters everywhere here, sometimes there are up to 30 children here playing [in the area]," he said. "There's no speed bumps or signs or anything." | 1,268,644 |
EDMONTON — The commanding officer of the RCMP in Alberta has apologized to the family of an Indigenous woman who disappeared nine years ago and whose killer has never been found. “Our Leduc detachment’s initial missing persons investigation was not our best work,” Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki said Thursday. “The early days of our investigation... required a better sense of urgency and care,” he said. “On behalf of the RCMP, I am truly sorry.”
As of right now, the apology doesn’t mean anything to me. Tootsie Tuccaro
The family of Amber Tuccaro rejected the apology. “As of right now, the apology doesn’t mean anything to me,” said her mother, Tootsie Tuccaro. “They did it because they were told to.” She reacted angrily when Zablocki left the news conference early, pleading a pressing meeting. “An apology needs to be heartfelt,” she said. “They’re the ones apologizing, yet they can just get up and walk away.” Amber Tuccaro was 20 years old in August 2010 when she flew to Edmonton from her home in Fort McMurray, Alta., and booked into a hotel near the airport with her 14-month-old son and a female friend. The next day, police said, she caught a ride into Edmonton with an unknown man. Investigation was deficient The woman from the Mikisew Cree Nation was never seen alive again. Her skull was found in the bush two years later. In 2012, police released a cellphone recording between Tuccaro and the man who gave her a ride. “You’d better not be taking me anywhere I don’t want to go,” Tuccaro can be heard telling the man. An independent federal review released in 2018 found that the Leduc detachment’s investigation of her disappearance was deficient.
Canadian Press Paul Tuccaro gives testimony during the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Edmonton Alta, on Nov. 7, 2017.
Her brother, Paul Tuccaro, testified for two hours to its lackadaisical nature at the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls during its Edmonton hearings. RCMP downplayed the family’s concerns and wouldn’t list her immediately as a missing person. Then her name was wrongly removed from the list for a month. He said Mounties later told his family that investigators had the cellphone tape for a year before releasing it. The family was passed from officer to officer and RCMP didn’t keep in touch after his sister’s remains were found. Her belongings sat in a hotel room for months before police took them and eventually threw them away.
The Canadian Press Paul Tuccaro gives testimony during the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Edmonton Alta, on Nov. 7, 2017. | 1,268,645 |
is working with baby orangutans that are orphaned by fire or land clearing.
Staff at the Orangutan Foundation International training young orangutans ( ABC News: Adam Harvey )
The young orangutans are raised by humans and taught survival skills in a jungle camp.
Getting an orangutan ready for release is a long process.
Professor Galdikas said Jono's rehabilitation would take several years at least.
"We can't just open the cage door and let him out into the forest," she said.
"We have to make sure he knows how to make a nest. We also make sure that he's capable of foraging, of finding wild foods in the forest."
Initially he'll go into a quarantine cage, then into a small reserve.
But the first step is getting him to Kalimantan.
Last stop before freedom
Jono in his new cage at the Orangutan Foundation International ( ABC News: Phil Hemingway )
The most moving parts of the program come when Jono's finally released into his new, temporary cage.
It's four times bigger than his Jakarta cage, and it's fitted with ropes and tyres for him to climb. It's open to the light, and for the first time in at least six years, Jono's able to swing and hang from the ceiling.
It's a vast improvement.
Femke den Haas is in tears as Jono enters his new cage and immediately grabs hold of the ropes, swinging about the cage.
"For all these years he's not been able to swing around," she says.
"In the cage in the transit centre in Jakarta, there was nothing for him to swing with. He was always lying on a bare concrete floor.
"That was his life. Dark, no sunlight. Now he can finally swing again."
Jono's new temporary cage until he is released in to the wild. ( ABC News: Phil Hemingway )
It is the last stop for Jono. After a short time in his new quarantine cage he will be released into the jungle.
Nasum Ucup, the keeper bitten by Jono, also made the trip to Kalimantan with Jono.
"I took care of Jono since he arrived in 2012 until today," he says.
"I am very sad but he must return to his habitat.
"I am happy too, not just sad.
"I'm also proud. Maybe he bit me in that last moment so that he could remember me."
Before leaving, Nasum gives Jono a final wave.
"Bye, Jono. Please remember me," he says.
Sorry, this video has expired A young orangutan climbs into Adam Harvey's arms
Watch the story of Jono's rescue and journey with Adam Harvey tonight on 7.30. | 1,268,646 |
There have been multiple reports of a gang of children aged between 10 and 19 terrorising Fallowfield over the last week.
Shona Lightheart, second year student at The University of Manchester, posted to FSG last Friday: "Be careful around Cawdor Road area, group of lads aged 10-19ish have broken our door open twice and harassing multiple people. Wouldn’t recommend walking home alone."
Speaking to The Manchester Tab, Shona said: "Basically they were harassing a couple on Friday night so we let them into ours for safety. This resulted in the kids ramming at out our door, trying to pick a fight and throwing a wine bottle at my friend, who luckily closed the door in time so it just smashed there.
"They came back on Monday night and kicked our door open but ran off, returning a few hours later with greater numbers of them and rocks. They threw the rocks at the door and kicked it multiple times – they tried really hard to get in."
Greater Manchester Police confirmed there had been a burglary reported, saying the incident "was reported as a burglary on 18 Feb. The offenders did not gain entry and nothing was stolen."
Multiple reports on FSG last week mirrored Shona's experience of students being assaulted by young children in central Fallowfield. One student said on Saturday: "Wouldn't recommend going to Platt Fields tonight, group of four kids tried to steal our bike, threatened us with a mallet knife, and threw tangerines at us."
On the following Monday, another student came forward on FSG saying a group of ten kids assaulted her and her friend, saying: "Don't go walk down Sainsbury's alleyway, me and a couple of pals just got set on by like 10 kids who hit my pal in the face then hit me".
The same Friday that Shona's door was nearly broken down, another student reported: "Just got mobbed by like 10 14-year-old wannabe roadmen in Platt Fields, they're just tryna cause trouble. Leave them be, or shout at them for running off with my courgette".
When asked about GMPs response, Shona said: "We were on the phone to them as the kids were literally trying to break the door open and they didn’t send anyone, we were told it would be reviewed by 9pm (was 8:30-ish at this point) and by 10:30pm still hadn’t heard anything, so we rang 101.
"A policewoman came at 11:30 and to be fair she did apologise. She was shocked they hadn’t sent anyone, and she took details.
"From then after they weren’t bad, as they assured us police were circulating the area and the next day it was followed up that they’d spotted the kids on cctv"
Updates to follow.
Featured image credit: Twitter | 1,268,647 |
トイレに行きたくなっても、すぐに行けないときがあります。メールを読んでいる最中、電話で話している間、車を運転しているときなどです。私たちは誰でも、さまざまな理由でトイレを我慢してしまうことがあります。それは、短い期間であれば体に害はないのですが、何度も繰り返し、習慣になってしまうと、少なからず影響が出てきてしまいます。
動画では、SciShowが、繰り返し尿を我慢することで起きる膀胱の感染症や、体への悪影響について解説しています。
頻繁に尿を我慢すると、尿閉になったり、感染症のリスクが高まったり、あまり喜ばしくない長期にわたる影響が出ることがわかりました。尿閉とは、膀胱から尿がまったく排泄されなくなってしまう状態のことです。常に尿を我慢することで膀胱の筋肉が弱まり、年を重ねるとともに尿閉を引き起こしてしまうことがあるのです。
トイレに行くのに、毎回きちんとした理由があるわけではないと思いますが、それでもトイレにはちゃんと行っておきましょう。
What Happens When You Hold your Pee｜SciShow (YouTube)
Kristin Wong（原文／訳：コニャック） | 1,268,648 |
A newly discovered canvas by the 17th-century Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi will go up for auction in Paris next week amid a surge of interest in her dramatic work.
The auction house Artcurial will on Wednesday offer the painting Lucretia with a base estimate of €600,000-€800,000 (£518,000-£690,000).
Lucretia was discovered only recently in a private collection in the French city of Lyon, where it had been stored unrecognised for some 40 years, Artcurial said.
The painting depicts Lucretia, an ancient Roman noblewoman who killed herself after being raped, showing her bare-breasted and about to plunge a dagger into her chest.
The work is “worthy of the great museums of the world” and “comes to us in an exceptional state of conservation”, said Eric Turquin, an art expert.
It is extremely rare for Gentileschi’s works to come on the market and the painting is expected to go to a private buyer.
The record for her work is the €2.8m paid for a painting of Saint Catherine sold in Paris in 2017.
Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria sold for €2.8 million, a record for her work. Photograph: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
After several years of obscurity, Gentileschi (1593-1654) is now recognised as one of the greatest painters of the post-Caravaggio era and one of the few to match the great baroque master’s sense of drama and light.
Her status as one of the few female painters of the period has also fuelled a surge of interest in her work and life. She was raped by fellow painter Agostino Tassi and had to undergo excruciating cross-examination during a highly publicised trial that led to his conviction.
The painting of Lucretia shows a “desire to shock, force through a point and find the viewer which is Caravaggio-esque”, Turquin said.
Matthieu Fournier, director of the department of old masters at Artcurial, described the depiction of Lucretia in the painting as “autobiographical”.
“The story of Artemisia is just like that story [of Lucretia] except that Artemisia decided on another outcome for her life.
“She was raped by Tassi who worked with her father, Orazio Gentileschi. She decided to start a trial so he was convicted. She won. Thus she gave a destiny of salvation to her life as a woman and career as an artist.”
In a sign of Artemisia’s growing prominence, the National Gallery in London will next year stage the first major exhibition of her work in Britain, bringing together 35 works from around the world. | 1,268,649 |
NEW YORK (MainStreet) —When David Stewart received word that Stewart Environmental was named in a lawsuit filed by Medical Marijuana (MJNA) over statements made about its hemp-based products, he was surprised.
"There was a preliminary report that had not gone through the quality control process and the individual requesting the testing, knew that," said Stewart who is CEO of Stewart Environmental. "We went through the report and corrected the numbers but he failed to revise it before posting."
A publicly traded company, MJNA is seeking some $100 million in damages from multiple parties for comments about significant levels of toxic solvents that reportedly harmed its reputation and stock price.
"A significant portion of hemp oil available in the market is obtained from industrial manufacturing and there is a concern in the industry that the industrial processes may introduce an unacceptable level of heavy metals into hemp oil," said Douglas Sorocco, an attorney with the intellectual property boutique law firm Dunlap Codding in Oklahoma City.
The individual who reportedly posted the incorrect test results was Jason Cranford, who is also named in the lawsuit. Cranford did not respond to communication from MainStreet seeking comment.
"We just did the testing," Stewart told MainStreet. "They took us out of the lawsuit after we settled."
As part of the settlement with MJNA, Stewart created a video statement.
"Stewart Environmental was asked to provide the preliminary report and followed up with a finalized report and was likely not in legal jeopardy as I did not see any allegation that it was Stewart Environmental that publicly released the preliminary report," Sorocco told MainStreet. "Settlement for them was probably the fastest and easiest path to getting out of litigation."
Attornies for Project CBD have since filed a motion to dismiss MJNA's suit.
"The only way that the industry will continue to move forward and become more firmly established is if the sellers and producers are open and honest concerning the treatment of their products and fully disclose the same to the consumer," said Robert Hoban, a CBD attorney in Colorado.
Counselor Tyler R. Andrews of Greenberg Traurig stated on Project CBD's website that MJNA is trying to bury any public criticism of its business practices and quash any debate over the health and safety of its products. "The claims against Project CBD represent an abuse of the legal process and must be stricken," Andrews wrote in Project CBD's dismissal motion.
Entrepreneurs in the industry are hoping the lawsuit will usher in testing of marijuana and hemp products.
"There is no standardization of testing on marijuana products," said Katarina Maloney, co-founder of Hemp Hookahzz in Carlsbad, Calif. "It should be somehow regulated so this doesn't repeat itself. We should take this as a lesson and a reminder. To succeed and show to the rest world that cannabis medicinal benefits can heal many, we must work in positive united movement and empower each other."
—Written for MainStreet by Juliette Fairley | 1,268,650 |
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff Francois Lenoir/Reuters Dilma Rousseff has won another term as Brazil's president.
President Rousseff garnered 51.45% of votes cast.
Despite allegations of corruption at the highest levels of her administration — especially regarding the massive state oil firm Petrobras — the incumbent will have another four years to right Brazil's ship after a close campaign against center-right candidate Aecio Neves.
It will not be easy. Wall Street knows that. As a result, the markets may punish Brazil's markets Monday morning.
Over the last four years the country has taken a turn for the worse. Low commodity prices have hurt Brazilian exports, and so has a Chinese slowdown. Inflation is high and corporate profits are thin.
This is a task that Wall Street analysts thought Neves was better suited for. He ran a campaign on tightening monetary policy and bringing investment back to Brazil.
In fact, a Neves win would have bolstered a Brazilian investment theme popularized by hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz: Brazil, "so bad it's good."
Novogratz told investors earlier this year that a Neves win could be the change the country needed. As a result, the Brazilian stock market has been a whipsaw for over a month, rising and falling as Rousseff and Neves duked it out in the polls.
Either way, however, says Societe Generale analyst Dev Ashish, monetary policy and foreign investments have their limits. They're far less powerful tools without increased domestic output and demand.
He wrote: "...the success of monetary policy depends on finding some alternative domestic source sof growth in the absence of greater demand (and prices) for commodities and other Brazilian exports. A lot will depend on how quickly the new government can work to restore investors’ confidence after the 26 October election, which would help not only growth but also to resolve the currency and inflation issues."
That is why some on the Street have been skeptical that a Neves victory would make a huge difference either way.
Last Monday, short-seller Jim Chanos of Kynikos Investments gave a presentation on Petrobras, Brazil's quasi-state oil firm, at the Robin Hood Investor conference. His dark thesis on the health of the massive company, sent the stock, Brazil's ETF, and the country's market falling.
He said he gave the presentation to warn investors not to buy into what Cantor Fitzgerald once called the Brazil "farce."
"... I thought it was timely this week that if that’s what happens and if investors knee jerk run into the Bovespa and buy Petrobras because Neves wins, I think it’s a great entry point on the short side in this story because it doesn’t change the economies of the situation," Chanos told Bloomberg TV.
Rousseff's win changes the economics even less.
NOW WATCH: 13 Surprising Facts About Brazil | 1,268,651 |
. These were very proud days for Sunny Nunny and I was given the key to the town. 2005 – 2015, Manager, Rushden and Diamonds Football Club
Managed Rusden and Diamonds. Took the small Northamptonshire club from relative obscurity in League Two to Premiership and European Champions in just ten years. My signings included Zinidine Zidane, Raul, Francesco Totti, Roberto Carlos and Phillipe Mexes. I was actually dismissed from my post in 2015 when Rusden finished 4th in the Premiership and only reached the quarter finals of the Champion’s League. How’s that for gratitude? 2005 to 2011, Manager, Doncaster Rovers Football Club
Took Doncaster from League Two to the Premiership and the semi-finals of the Champion’s League. I also signed a whole host of foreign stars and blooded a number of youth players that became England internationals. This was one of my happiest periods in football management, but did lead to my girlfriend threatening to leave me due to the hours I was putting in at the PC. Practical Managerial Experience 1999, Manager, St Paul’s Under-11’s
It was with great pride that I took the reigns of the St Paul’s Under-11’s tournament and guided the team to the Summer Playscheme Cup in 1999. The team gave their all knowing that all they would get for winning would be a £10 voucher for Whiteman’s Sporting Goods, Nuneaton (players were more grounded in those days). You can see a photo of the team and I below, taken shortly before we crushed the hosts in the final, in their own back yard: [Photo] Other Qualifications 9 GCSEs, including Maths (useful for working out points and goal difference and stuff) and French (useful for those foreign players, like Frank Queudrue). 3 ‘A’ Levels, including Geography, so I can drive the team bus if needs be. BA Hons Degree in Archaeology and Geography. Can’t think of anything relevant from my degree, so I’ll play the old ‘transferable skills’ card… References Available on request
Steve Gibson’s personal response:
Middlesbrough Football Club
Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough, TS3 6RS SG/TF
16th June 2006 Mr J Boileau
[Redacted] Dear John Many thanks for your recent application for the Managerial position at Middlesbrough Football Club. You were of course the outstanding candidate but after careful consideration we decided against your appointment. Quite frankly we were of the opinion that your tenure with us would have been short lived, as your undoubted talent would result in one of the big European Clubs seeking your services. We consider it a sign of our progress that someone of your status could consider us. Yours (Signed) S GIBSON
CHAIRMAN | 1,268,652 |
HONOLULU (AP) — The Latest on a judge’s ruling expanding the list of relatives exempt from President Donald Trump’s travel ban (all times local):
6:15 p.m.
A federal judge says the government may not exclude refugees who have formal assurance from a resettlement agency in the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump’s travel ban can’t be enforced against refugees who have assurance that an agency will receive the refugee and provide placement services.
His ruling also expands the list of relatives allowed in under the travel ban.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month exempted visa applicants from the ban if they can prove a “bona fide” relationship with a U.S. citizen or entity.
President Donald Trump’s administration said a bona fide relationship would be a parent, spouse, fiance, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling already in the U.S.
Hawaii successfully sought to include other relatives including grandparents.
___
5:45 p.m.
A federal judge in Hawaii has expanded the Trump administration’s list of family relationships needed by people seeking new visas from six mostly Muslim countries to avoid a travel ban.
U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled Thursday that the travel ban exemptions should include grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts and other relatives.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month exempted visa applicants from the ban if they can prove a “bona fide” relationship with a U.S. citizen or entity.
President Donald Trump’s administration said a bona fide relationship would be a parent, spouse, fiance, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling already in the U.S.
Hawaii filed a renewed request to expand the list.
Watson says grandparents are the “epitome” of close family members.
___
11:45 a.m.
A federal judge could decide soon on Hawaii’s renewed attempt to expand the list or relatives exempt from President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
Hawaii wants the judge to rule on the scope of the ban on travelers from six mostly Muslim countries. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson gave Hawaii until Thursday to file a response to the government’s opposition
Hawaii filed documents Wednesday saying it’s cruel to enforce the ban against grandmothers and other relatives of U.S. citizens who were excluded from the government’s definition.
The government says Hawaii is repackaging a clarification motion that Watson previously denied.
Hawaii says it is following instructions from an appeals court panel. The court says Watson can’t clarify the Supreme Court’s travel ban order, but he can interpret and enforce it. | 1,268,653 |
RIYL: Kate Bush, Destroyer, Soup Dragons
Label: Empty Cellar
The attached track below is from band Emotional and their new release: Ahh… The Name’s Emotional, Baby!
It opens with some real thumpin’ drums and it paints a vivid soundscape that feels like the best of Kate Bush and the Soup Dragons, and then the vocals start and then I spent the next 3 minutes wondering if this singer was somehow related to Dan Bejar of Destroyer fame with his delivery and groovy voice that tucked me in last night.
This release is limited to just 1,000 records total with only 300 of the variant and another 700 available on black.
If you are interested in this then you better act fast as they keep selling records literally as I type this.
The Details
Emotional is the spiritual manifestation of songwriter, singer, director, and Death Records founder Brian Wakefield. Wakefield, a San Jose native, has been a humble mainstay of the San Francisco music community since the early ‘00s, working with various bands, most notably the “dream pop quartet” Melted Toys. Wakefield has also served as a sideman to Alex Bleeker & The Freaks, Cotillion, and Healing Potpourri. Emotional was initially embarked upon as an experimental side pop project to Melted Toys—it now serves as the signature vessel for Wakefield’s personal songwriting.
Ahh…The Name's Emotional, Baby! arrives as a multi-label effort that will awaken a passionate surrender of humility and guilty pleasure. Following his heroes Kate Bush, Gram Parsons, and The Smashing Pumpkins, Wakefield casts a spell of irresistible tangy guitar reverb, bending synths, and candid melodies. It is a pop record, it is a true story, and it is a testament to the modern state of feelings. Written and recorded over the course of two-years with producer Ole Haarstad (Melted Toys), multi-instrumentalist Emmet Moskowitz, a.k.a., “Muzzy” (Froogy’s Groovies), and mastered by Patrick Haight (Spot-On Sound), the LP features guest appearances by vocalist Ryan Grubbs (Tiaras, Ganglians) and guitarist Adam Finken (Male Gaze, Tiaras, Blasted Canyons). It is the stoney memory of that impossible psychic love that shared an appreciation of Taco Bell. It is the tale of an artist who boldly says, “It’s okay to be emotional.”
Out 2/19 via Burger Records, Danger Collective, Death Records, Empty Cellar, Gnar Tapes, Grabbing Clouds, Little L, & Plastic Response. Pressing is limited to 300 records on clear purple with cream splatter, and 700 on black with artwork by Muzzy Moskowitz.
Price $15 | 1,268,654 |
US-made CM-11 tanks (in background) are fired in front of two 8-inch self-propelled artillery guns during the 35th "Han Kuang" (Han Glory) military drill in southern Taiwan's Pingtung county, May 30, 2019. Getty
Washington -- The State Department is proposing the sale of $2.2 billion in arms to Taiwan, drawing a sharp protest from China. The potential sale of 108 Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, among other hardware, would be seen in Beijing as a direct challenge to China's regional power as it claims the self-governing island as its territory.
The tanks would represent a significant upgrade to Taiwan's aging armored battle fleet. Congress has been notified of the proposed sale and lawmakers can still vote to stop it.
The Chinese foreign ministry has said repeatedly that it strongly opposes U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Tuesday that Washington should withdraw the current offer.
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The State Department said the arms would help Taiwan "meet current and future regional threats" and enhance its ability to operate with the U.S. and other partners.
Taiwan, China and the U.S.
Taiwan split from China in 1949, and has no formal diplomatic ties with the U.S., but America is Taiwan's main supplier of defensive weapons.
U.S. law requires Washington to take threats to the island seriously and to "make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability."
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has made beefing up the island's armed forces a central task of her administration, amid increasing Chinese military threats and a campaign to increase Taiwan's diplomatic isolation and weaken its economy.
China considers self-governing Taiwan part of its territory, to be brought under its control by force, if necessary. It says U.S. arms sales to the island constitute both interference in its internal affairs and a betrayal of earlier commitments made by Washington to Beijing.
"We urge the U.S. to fully understand the high sensitivity and serious harm of the issue of arms sales to Taiwan and abide by the one-China principle," Geng said at a previous news conference in Beijing.
U.S. Marines launch a Stinger missile at the Capu Midia Surface to Air Firing Range, on the Black Sea coast in Romania, March 20, 2017. AP
The M1 Abrams would mark a significant upgrade from the aging tanks Taiwan's army now uses, while the TOW and Javelin systems would upgrade Taiwan's ability to repulse an attempt by China to land tanks and troops from across the 100 mile-wide Taiwan Strait.
The Stingers meanwhile could help boost Taiwan's defenses against China's more than 1,000 advanced fighter aircraft and 1,500 missiles pointing at the island. | 1,268,655 |
Here is a look at Calgary’s organizational needs and possible draft targets:
Draft Picks:
#16
#109
#140
#171
#202
A team with just one pick in the top 100 will likely focus on bolstering a team need with the 16th pick as it will be difficult to do so with mid-rounders since the odds of them ever becoming significant contributors is low. Like other teams, however, the Flames won’t reach for a player if there is someone much higher on their board at another position.
All things being equal, Calgary is going to look at adding a defenceman, and if Recrutes’ draft list is anything like Calgary’s, there will be defencemen high on their list when their pick comes up at 16. I don’t expect more than four defencemen to be off the board after 15 selections, so at least two of Urho Vaakanainen, Timothy Liljegren, Conor Timmins, Juuso Valimaki and Erik Brannstrom will likely be available.
A club that had an attraction to Oliver Kylington may also think Liljegren is the cat’s meow as he’s essentially a more skilled version of his fellow Swede. If the pair ever reached their full potential they would add lots of mobility to Calgary’s back end as well as some offensive potential. Vaakanainen is the safer pick and a good bet to develop into a top three or four on Calgary’s blueline…the same goes for Timmins, and Valimaki may also be a good fit as the Flames could use a future powerplay general.
If they’re in a gambling mood and not worried about size…Brannstrom may be a target. The other possibility would be Cal Foote, and if Brian Burke has any say (and that’s usually the case), he’ll likely be banging the table for the big blueliner even if his offensive upside at the NHL level may be limited.
The other possibilty is that a forward Calgary has in its top ten drops to 16 and GM Brad Treliving can’t resist pulling the trigger. Elias Pettersson, Owen Tippett, Nick Suzuki, Martin Necas, Robert Thomas and Casey Mittelstadt are the forwards who are most likely to fall into that category…certainly if Mittelstadt falls to 16, Calgary will think long and hard about passing on more pressing team needs and select the center.
At 109 it is anybody’s guess who Calgary considers…the best best is that it’s a defenceman who dropped on their list…perhaps one of the blueliners in the USNTDP program. I would expect the Flames to take at least two defencemen in this draft, but with just one high pick it will be tough to add more than one who will have a significant impact. | 1,268,656 |
Dear Straight Dope: What did the Catholic Church use for alter wine during Prohibition? Since all alcohol was banned and wine is a central part of the Catholic liturgy did priests have to violate the prohibition of alcohol? Or did the church get a waiver? Brian Saunders
SDStaff Songbird replies:
Just because it’s transubstantiated doesn’t make it “alter” wine, Brian.
During Prohibition, the wine on Catholic as well as other church altars was real wine. The Eighteenth Amendment, forbidding the manufacture, sale, import or export of intoxicating liquors, was ratified by three quarters of the states January 16, 1919. The Volstead Act also passed in 1919 (over the veto of President Wilson), giving federal agents the power to investigate and prosecute violations of the amendment. But alcoholic beverages for medicinal and sacramental use were exempt under the Volstead Act, which allowed many people to avoid the spirit of the law.
There were, of course, legitimate, medicinal purposes for whiskey. But doctors reportedly earned an estimated $40 million in 1928 by writing prescriptions for whiskey during Prohibition.
The salvation of the California grape industry was section 29 of the Volstead Act, which authorized the home production of fermented fruit juices. This would supposedly save the vinegar industry and the hard cider of America’s farmers. However, home winemakers appreciated this exception. The grape growers even produced a type of grape jelly suggestively called “Vine-go” which, with the addition of water, could make a strong wine within two months.
Many wineries survived Prohibition by selling sacramental wine to churches. But again, the exemption invited abuse.
In 1925, the Department of Research and Education of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ reported that “the withdrawal of wine on permit from bonded warehouses for sacramental purposes amounted in round figures to 2,139,000 gallons in the fiscal year 1922; 2,503,500 gallons in 1923; and 2,944,700 gallons in 1924. There is no way of knowing what the legitimate consumption of fermented sacramental wine is, but it is clear that the legitimate demand does not increase 800,000 gallons in two years.”
It’s amazing what can make a person get religion, isn’t it? Perhaps all we can honestly say is that such Prohibition waivers caused many to waver.
SDStaff Songbird, Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
Send questions to Cecil via [email protected].
STAFF REPORTS ARE WRITTEN BY THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD, CECIL'S ONLINE AUXILIARY. THOUGH THE SDSAB DOES ITS BEST, THESE COLUMNS ARE EDITED BY ED ZOTTI, NOT CECIL, SO ACCURACYWISE YOU'D BETTER KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED. | 1,268,657 |
done.
At one point in his exchange with representatives of the vessel’s operator, Lahay had noted that it would be appropriate for the company to acknowledge the solidarity between the crew and local dockers, who understand how difficult life is for seafarers and are alert to their hardships.
The company chose to respond appropriately. It agreed, in writing, that maritime workers should, and do, stick up for one another.
“We … acknowledge the solidarity between the dockers’ workforce and our crew. We appreciate your dockers’ full understanding of the seafarers life,” the owners’ rep wrote to Lahay. “We expect the Master on board to implement to the fullest our Company’s Health, Safety and Quality policy and to alert the Company of any requirements to ensure high standard of safety is at hand at all times.”
The lesson for local workers: that solidarity is as simple as seeing a fellow worker without warm gear and speaking up about it. And that having an informed action plan and a sense of how to proceed can really help.
“Peter’s seminar was a great introduction to the plight of the seafarer, and the roles and processes of an ITF inspector as part of the FOC campaign,” says Dan Kask, chair of the ITF’s young-dockers movement. “But more than that, it was a lesson on the power and the reach and the effect that unified ITF maritime workers, young and old, can have on the lives of seafarers.
“And what happened for the workers on the Orient Trader put that lesson into action.”
“The solidarity between dockers and seafarers goes back many, many years,” Neely adds. “It will continue long after we are all gone. We want seafarers to know that when they are in this port, we always have their backs.”
In the spirit of the season, let us repeat. This is what solidarity looks like: Delivery of 18 quilted winter coveralls, 24 quilted parkas, 10 winter hats, 36 pairs of winter boots — and 14 cases of fresh drinking water. $33,166 US in unpaid wages. Delivered via the power of a single worker who acted when he saw a seafarer in need — and the power of an international team of workers who acted with him. Who acted on their conviction that through solidarity, they will win dignity, safe workplaces and fair wages.
And this is how solidarity happens: ILWU members acted with the collective power and strength of their own union. Ukrainian crew observed the collective action and power. And ILWU members left them with advice as valuable as the new boots and coats: Join your national trade union. Participate in its activities. It is how we are best able to represent ourselves, and how we teach the next generation of seafarers they have the rights enshrined in the Maritime Labour Convention. | 1,268,658 |
As we mentioned in our previous blogs, Uhive is challenging the status quo, transforming social networking and taking it into a new era, that combines the technological capabilities; artificial intelligence and block chain.
Built on the latest Artificial Technologies and advances, Uhive brings you:
Face Detection Technology
As soon as you upload a photo to the platform, the technology will begin to scan and detect all the faces within a photo, creating a custom thumbnail for all the detected faces. Any new photo that matches that person, will be automatically linked to their face, whenever you tap on the image, you will see this person’s photos.
Object Detection Technology
A feature that uses artificial intelligence to help you discover photos by the objects that appear within them. Search phrases like ‘cup’, ‘phone’, ‘friend’ or ‘wedding’, and our technology will give you the relevant results instantly. It’s accurate and fast. This feature will analyze objects in images within public groups to make them accessible to users.
Video Streaming and Technology
With our video detection technology, all your videos will be analyzed to give you: Object, scene, activity detection, facial recognition,facial analysis: female, male, happy, sad, smiling, etc.
Sentiment Analysis
The A.I. engine will always be working on identifying and categorizing opinions expressed in posts, in order to determine whether the writer’s attitude towards a particular topic, product, etc. is positive, negative, or neutral. It will display info graphics or diagrams showing the general public’s reaction to a certain matter or topic.
People can summarize a complex scene in a few words without thinking twice. It’s much more difficult for computers! We’ve developed a machine-learning system that can automatically produce captions to accurately describe images the first time it sees them.
This kind of system could eventually help visually impaired people understand pictures, and make it easier for everyone to search for images.
Behavior analysis and detection
Uhive will use artificial technology to detect interactions between spaces, to analyze and understand everything uploaded to the network, including all faces, images, objects and videos. Like a super genius mind in real life!
This spectacular technology will not only give Uhive a huge advantage, but will also massively enhance the user’s overall experience.
For further information, please reach out to us on these platforms:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/uhivesocial
Twitter: www.twitter.com/uhivesocial
Instagram: www.instagram.com/uhivesocial
Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYeBI0Gq3xh8xVEgtqUEahA
Telegram: www.t.me/uhivesocial
To inquire about purchasing UHIVE Tokens, please email [email protected] | 1,268,659 |
Police marksman describes Hampshire bank robbery shooting Published duration 3 November 2011
image caption Nunes was shot as he pointed a gun at the guard, the inquest heard
A firearms officer who shot and killed an armed suspect during a bank robbery in Hampshire has described the moment he pulled the trigger.
Mark Nunes and Andrew Markland were shot by police during a security van raid in Chandlers Ford in 2007.
The Metropolitan Police rifleman told an inquest in Winchester he shot Nunes when he saw him aim a pistol at a security guard's head.
A second rifleman shot Markland when he ran towards Nunes' body.
The first rifleman, whose name has not been disclosed, said he was watching from near the HSBC Bank where police had been expecting the raid.
'Squeezed the trigger'
Describing the moment the cash van pulled up, he said: "My heart was racing. I felt like I'd just run a hundred metres. My heart was pounding.
"There was one bank robber at the bus stop, there was one in the car. I was scared.
image caption Nunes died after being shot in the chest, while Markland was shot twice in the chest
"Members of the public were walking past. I knew that when the cash van door opened there would be some overt aggressive act towards the guard.
"Mark Nunes moved quickly with his pistol raised and put the gun to the guard's head. I believed the guard was to be shot - that there was a threat to life.
"Mark Nunes was in front of the guard. I could not shoot because the round might have hit the guard.
"I waited a few moments. Mark Nunes moved to the left. He was still a threat. He still had the gun to the guard's head. So I squeezed the trigger and fired one shot."
He said Nunes fell down and he then saw Markland run over to Nunes and crouch down. He then heard a shot fired by a second rifleman and Markland fell.
Lack of evidence
He told the inquest he then heard one more round fire by the second rifleman.
The second rifleman is due to give evidence later today.
Previously the court heard that Nunes, 35, and Markland, 36, both from London, were shot as they held up a G4S van at a branch of HSBC in September 2007.
Officers were lying in wait for the pair but had not arrested them earlier because of a lack of evidence.
The jury was shown police footage of Nunes being shot as he pointed a gun at the head of a security guard.
Central Hampshire coroner Grahame Short told jurors Markland then appeared to pick up the gun before being shot by another marksman.
Post-mortem examinations found Nunes died from a high-velocity gunshot wound to the chest which exited through the neck and Markland died from two separate high-velocity gunshot wounds to the chest. | 1,268,660 |
Gaming and the Monarchy – the UK’s esports market
Despite not being one of the biggest countries in the top ten of biggest esports markets, the UK has the 6th biggest esports market in the entire world – with over $4.5Billion in game revenue in 2018, this spot is well-earned and more than deserved by the more than 37 million players in the country.
Generally speaking, mobile games are the most popular, with very nearly half the population playing them – 49% of men and 48% of women regularly play video games on their mobile devices. The next-most popular medium is PC, with 38% of men and 26% of women playing games on PC, and ‘only’ 33% of men and 22% of women playing them.
Of all of these avid gamers, two thirds spent money on in-game items or virtual goods in the last six months – that’s a relatively high number compared to other countries, and it is a big part of why the UK has such a huge esports market to begin with. Although initially there was little government support, the British have since changed their mind and funds are made available to the overall money-pool.
Similarly, the popularity of things like Twitch and similar streamer services also contributes to the money circulated in the industry – roughly a third of gamers regularly watches streamed video game content. The most regularly watched game in the UK is a little unusual – while titles like Dota 2 or LoL might be what you expect, the honour actually goes to Rocket League!
Despite this, games like League of Legends still have a strong presence in the United Kingdom (they even have their UK League Championship), and the game dev and research market is alive and well too – there is an astounding number of indie developers and small gaming studios in the country. On the other end of the scale, ESL UK just dedicated a staggering $4 million to a VR Research & Development project.
Generally speaking, another popular thing in the UK is football – soccer, if you are American. The sport is incredibly popular, and by association, so are games like FIFA and associated esports leagues like the newly amended FIFA 19 League. The League itself isn’t new, but it’s association with the Football Association is – the FA just signed the very first ever official esports team. They called it a ‘historic’ partnership between themselves and the ESL, and it really is – the connection between esports and traditional sports is nothing new, but every time it happens, it further cements the fact that esports are here to stay.
This is also true for UK esports teams – several huge names such as Fnatic, Prophecy and Team Dignitas are based here or at least launched here, and pro players across various different games, franchises and, ultimately, continents! With a positive trend in the UK, the esports market is expected to continue to grow, if not quite as quickly or explosively as it did and continues to do in countries like China, India and Korea. | 1,268,661 |
| By
Off the keyboard of Ugo Bardi
Video & Audio by RE
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Published on Cassandra's Legacy on June 9, 2019
Coming this Sunday, June 16th, 2019 to a Laptop Near You
A Collapse Conversation with Professor Ugo Bardi
Discuss this article at the Collapse Narratives Table inside the Diner
About Amelia the Amoeba, she is a pedigreed Naegleria Fowleri, a species known for her habit of eating human brains – an interesting case of a Seneca Collapse for the owner of the brain. But Amelia is a good girl and she won't do that to you if you are nice to her.
My second book on the concept of "Seneca Collapse" (or Cliff, or Ruin, or the like) is nearly completed and it should be available from Springer before the end of the year. It is a sequel to my first book, "The Seneca Effect", but this second one is thought as more easily readable "trade" book. It will be sold at a reasonable price, unlike the first one that was supposed to be a specialized, scientific book.
You see above a first attempt at a title and a cover for this book. Of course, the publisher will devise a better cover illustration, but the real issue is the title, still provisional. I used "The Seneca Strategy" as a title because the book focuses on how to deal with collapses rather than on the physics of collapses. It proposes a strategy that's based on the Stoic view of the world revisited under the lens of system dynamics. It is the idea that you don't try to force systems to do what you want them to do, a concept that Jay Forrester termed "pushing the levers in the wrong direction."
But, as it stands, the title is no good. My editor told me that, "“collapse” is not a friendly, or familiar, word to most readers. It seems to apply only to extreme events that don’t affect most people. " That is, people won't understand what the book is about. I think he is correct and that I need a better title — a title that explains what's inside the book.
So, dear readers, could you focus your creative skills on this task and suggest a few titles for me? I think the title should contain the words "collapse" and "Seneca," but then there are many possibilities, for instance, I am toying with "Paths to Ruin" but creativity often consists in trying many different ideas and I am sure many of you could suggest something good. Hoping that not all of my readers are bots, I'll sure appreciate your efforts! (Amelia will also be grateful)
Here is the index of the book, to give you some idea of what it is about.
Table of Contents | 1,268,662 |
The NFL Draft is over and the Arizona Cardinals have made their picks. Now it is time to grade their draft. I already gave some grades to the first three picks. Even though we are "grading" picks, it is more about the balance between perceived talent, team need, fit and value, rather than actual performance.
So what are my Cardinals draft grades?
D.J. Humphries: B
It was a solid, yet boring pick. He has a high upside and is expected to start over Bobby Massie, so he should have an immediate impact. There were other players on the board who perhaps could have a biggest Year 1 impact.
Markus Golden: C
While Bruce Arians and Steve Keim raved about him, he is less athletic than you want in a pass rusher. He could be great and his motor is high, but there were players on the board, especially at the position Golden plays, who seemed to be a better fit.
David Johnson: A
I love the pick. He has the size and speed the Cardinals want. He also can catch the ball extremely well and is still shifty enough that the offense doesn't have to drastically change should anything happen to Andre Ellington.
Rodney Gunter:?
This is a pick I can't really grade. There isn't much to know about him, other than he is athletic. He is another guy Arians and Keim raved about. They gave up two picks to move up and pick him. Obviously, they see something in him.
Shaq Riddick: A
I really like this pick in terms of talent and value. He is fast and extremely quick. He gives the Cardinals a true speed rusher. I was concerned initially about his size, but having gotten up to 260 already shows he fits what the Cards like to do with their OLBs. To get someone like that in the fifth round is fantastically in terms of value, especially considering his intelligence.
J.J. Nelson: B
He s the fastest guy in the draft and he could be a dynamic returner, but the weight and frame concerns me. I can't make it an A pick because I wonder if he will be good enough to ever see the field on offense. His speed is all straight line. He doesn't change direction quickly and he has zero strength.
Gerald Christian: B
It isn't a "wow" pick. He is an athletic guy. He fills the H-back tight end role Bruce Arians wanted. As the last pick in the draft, he viably could see a little playing time and he is expected to be solid on special teams.
Overall: B
This was not really an exciting draft at all. I loved the Johnson and Riddick picks. I don't hate any of the selections. None of them really move the dial in terms of excitement. But they all have high upside. What grade would you give the Cardinals draft? | 1,268,663 |
long history made it hard for it to spread overseas, but Build Fighters can be enjoyed without the viewer knowing about the history of Gundam, and by having Gunpla, and not Gundams as the focus, Gunpla sold better overseas as well. He mentions how many people brought their own model kits when they held a Build Fighters event in America, and that he was happy with how Build Fighters became a gateway to Gundam and Gunpla for people overseas. Usui adds that many fans overseas say that Build Fighters is their favourite series, and says that he thinks that without the Build series not many people would have made customisations like combining GMs with Zakus, and that it making this more common is amazing. Ogawa says that this is because doing that in other series would require them adding reasoning behind it, which would have been criticized by fans, and that having it as a hobby like in the Build series allows them to bypass this, which is a huge merit.
How kits selling unexpectedly, like the Gyan with Build Fighters, is brought up by Usui, and Ogawa says that because this was a first time for them as well, none of profits from the Gyan sales made it back to the studio. This was changed so that some money from kit sales came back to the studio in Build Fighters Try. With most of the staff being Gunpla fans, though, the biggest reward for them was having Gunpla they made up being turned into actual kits and bought by children.
Ogawa brings up how making the Build series shows is actually harder than other Gundam series, due to how there are more cuts with robots, and due to them having to prepare designs earlier due to product tie-ins. Build Fighters was initially requested to be 50 episodes long, but in the current animation industry, few companies can handle robot anime on that scale, and they also did not know how the audience would react to the show, so it was cut to 25. Build Fighters Try is the remaining 25 episodes, launched because of the reaction to Build Fighters.
The interview moves on to the Gundam Breaker series, which Usui says was also released at an abnormal pace. Gundam Breaker was not yet released when Build Fighters aired in autumn 2013, but had been planned at the same time as the anime and hobby elements, which meant Ogawa and Usui met frequently. They did discuss how it would have been better for the Build and Breaker series to share the same setting, but this would have resulted in additional work for the anime staff who were already busy with the show, and for the game staff as well, and with how anime and game production methods and schedules are completely different to begin with, they decided that they would simply share the same concept. This allowed them to improve on their strong points independently. The game side also managed to get designs made by the players used in the anime, and Usui says that this was something unprecedented, and that anime with user-generated contents are extremely rare.
Part 2 of the interview is available here | 1,268,664 |
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Hong Kong (AFP)
Thousands took to the streets of central Hong Kong Saturday night holding candles as they marched in memory of pro-democracy Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Veteran activists led the solemn gathering which wove its way from the commercial heart of Hong Kong Island to China's liaison office, with some marchers in tears.
Liu's ashes were buried at sea Saturday, depriving supporters of a place to pay tribute following his death Thursday from cancer while in custody on the mainland.
Hong Kongers have already held memorial events but Saturday's was by far the largest.
It came the day after four pro-democracy legislators were disqualified from Hong Kong's parliament, worsening fears that freedoms in the semi-autonomous city are under serious threat from an ever more assertive Beijing.
"Loving a country is wanting it to make progress," said marcher Emily Chau, 24.
"But this is how he was treated for being so loyal to the country."
Chau said she feared Hong Kong's freedoms were also now in jeopardy.
"With the disqualification of the lawmakers yesterday, it's like this place is decaying," she told AFP.
"While we still have the chance, I want to play some kind of role."
The city is ruled under a "one country, two systems" deal granting it freedoms unseen on the mainland, guaranteed in the handover agreement when colonial power Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997.
But Beijing stands accused of increased interference in a range of areas, from politics to media and education.
Marchers of all ages carried floral wreaths and white chrysanthemums, bowing three times in front of a makeshift memorial to Liu outside the liaison office, a traditional sign of respect at funerals.
Some brought their children and grandchildren with them.
Steven Wong, 45, had travelled from Singapore to attend the march, saying he had respected Liu for many years.
Wong was born and grew up in Beijing and was a high school student there in 1989, the year of the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in the city's Tiananmen Square.
He said he remembered burned-out tanks and blood smeared on lamp posts the day after. Shortly afterwards his family moved to Singapore.
"He was a great scholar who woke up young people, especially of my generation," Wong said of Liu.
"He made me think deeply about what we can do as a Chinese (person) and what we can teach our students," said Wong, who is now an arts researcher.
Former Hong Kong lawmaker and long-time democracy advocate Alan Leong called for Liu's wife, Liu Xia, to be freed.
He also said Hong Kong was facing a "dire situation" as Beijing was "committing treachery" against it.
"We just stay calm and carry on," Leong told AFP.
© 2017 AFP | 1,268,665 |
IS hostage murderer Abu al-Umarayn killed in US air strike Published duration 3 December 2018 Related Topics Syrian civil war
image copyright AFP image caption Abdul-Rahman Kassig founded an aid group that delivered supplies to Syrian refugees
Islamic State (IS) militant Abu al-Umarayn, who murdered several Western aid workers, has been killed in an air strike in Syria, the US says.
Coalition forces had conducted "precision strikes" on Sunday against IS leaders in south-east Syria, including Umarayn, the military said.
The militant was believed to be responsible for beheading US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig in November 2014.
An ex-US Army ranger, Kassig was known as Peter before converting to Islam.
US Central Command (Centcom) confirmed on Monday that "several" members of IS were killed in Syria's Badiyah Desert.
Centcom singled out Umarayn for "posing an imminent threat to coalition forces" and said he was "involved in the killing of American citizen and former US Army Ranger, Peter Kassig" as well as several other Western hostages.
The 26-year-old founded a humanitarian organisation in 2012 to help refugees who had fled from Syria.
In a letter from that year, he wrote: "The truth is sometimes I really think I would like to do something else, but at the end of the day this work is really the only thing that I have found that gives my life both meaning and direction."
image copyright Kassig Family image caption Abdul-Rahman Kassig, known as Peter Kassig before his conversion, was beheaded in 2014
He was captured by IS in 2013 en route to Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria.
The following year, he was shown being beheaded in a video released by the group - the fifth Western hostage to be murdered by IS members.
Then-President Barack Obama described the murder as "an act of pure evil".
His parents, Ed and Paula, from Indiana, said at the time they were heartbroken by his death. and vowed to "work every day to keep his legacy alive as best we can".
Abdul-Rahman (aka Peter) Kassig
Former US Army Ranger
Served in Iraq in 2007
Travelled to Lebanon in May 2012, volunteering in hospitals and treating Syrian refugees
Founded aid organisation Special Emergency Response and Assistance (Sera) in 2012 to provide aid to Syrian refugees
Captured by Islamic State in October 2013 while travelling to Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria
Converted to Islam in 2013, changing name from Peter Kassig
Islamic State has lost nearly all the territory it once controlled, spanning Syria and Iraq.
At the peak of the group's power, about 10 million people lived in IS-controlled areas, but the US military said earlier this year that the jihadists had been ousted from 98% of their former territory. | 1,268,666 |
early 1970s, and a high level of use since then.
Use of the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” in English language texts over time. Photograph: Google
A new kind of warfare
Let’s zoom in then on that period – the early 1970s – when violent acts carried out in the service of political causes grabbed attention across the world. They did so largely because small, relatively powerless groups had begun to attack civilian targets such as airliners. It got them huge publicity. According to one commentator at the time, David Fromkin, this effectively turned their attacks into messages, broadcast globally.
A member of the Palestinian militant group Black September during their attack on the Olympic village in Munich, 1972. 11 Israeli athletes were killed. Photograph: Kurt Strumpf/AP
Writing in July 1975, Fromkin provided a neat definition of what was then still a relatively new phenomenon. He traced the evolution of modern terrorism from anti-imperalist struggles – in which the success of otherwise weak organisations such as Algeria’s FLN or Irgun depended entirely on the colonial power’s reaction – in these cases France and Britain’s respectively. “[Their] ingenuity lay in using an opponent’s own strength against him. It was a sort of jujitsu.”
The latest batch of fighters, however, “have transformed terrorism into a form of mass communication”. They rely on reaction to get their messages across. The more disruption they cause, the more glorious their success.
Terrorism, as has been seen, is the weapon of those who are prepared to use violence but who believe that they would lose any contest of sheer strength. All too little understood, the uniqueness of the strategy lies in this: that it achieves its goal not through its acts but through the response to its acts.
Forty years later, Simon Jenkins was to echo this point in his reaction to the Charlie Hebdo massacre – “Terrorism is no ordinary crime. It depends on consequence.” Foreign correspondent Patrick Cockburn agreed: “To have an effective terrorist attack, you require the complicity of governments”.
Which means we end up with a dilemma. Fromkin describes a phenomenon that is different to ordinary criminal activity or warfare. Modern “terrorism” has the peculiar property that it relies on its enemies to grant it victory – and why not have a special word for that? Why not use it to describe the Charlie Hebdo attacks, which, in my view, fall into that category?
But the word itself casts a shadow of fear. Politicians deploy it to justify illiberal measures. The panic it evokes ramps up prejudice against minorities. It is even used to win support for wars. Wielded carefully, “terrorist” could still make sense, à la Fromkin. Used to frighten, cajole or slander, it’s one of the most toxic words of our times.
| 1,268,667 |
German Chancellor Angela Merkel refused the offer of British Prime Minister Theresa may to hold new negotiations on the agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU (“Brexit”). “We said that further revision of the Treaty will not be”, — quotes the words of the Chancellor of the Agency DPA, citing not named the participants of the meeting of the parliamentary faction of the CDU, which took place on Tuesday, December 11, after a meeting between Merkel and May in Berlin.
At the same time, the head of the German government expressed confidence in the possibility of reaching an agreement and avoiding unregulated “Brexit”. According to her, the British deputies, who opposed the signing of the agreement with the European Union in its current version, also do not want their country to leave the EU without a corresponding agreement, because they consider this option the most unfavorable.
The EU is ready to discuss additional safeguards
According to Reuters, at a meeting of its faction Merkel stressed that the EU is ready to discuss with London the additional “guarantees”. We are talking about the fact that the UK after 2021 because of the unresolved issue of the border with Ireland was not automatically part of the customs Union with the EU, the Agency writes, referring to several participants in the meeting.
The main controversial point, according to Merkel, remain guarantees for the so — called “backstop” regime-special conditions on the border between the EU country Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.
Some members of the May’s Conservative part fear that the time-limited rules on the “back stop” regime will become permanent and will prevent, in particular, the conclusion of new free trade agreements by London. They insist on limiting these rules in time. The EU rejects these claims, stating that the guarantees cannot be temporary.
May postponed the vote in Parliament
On the eve May announced the postponement of indefinitely scheduled for December 11 vote in the British house of Commons on the agreement on “Brexit”. She acknowledged that she would have lost the vote “with a significant lag” and expressed her intention to invite Brussels to hold additional negotiations on the adjustment of the agreement. According to Theresa May, she will present to colleagues from the EU “clear concerns” the deputies of the Lower house of the British Parliament and will require “further guarantees”. For “Brexit” to be successful, a compromise of all parties is necessary, the British Prime Minister stressed.
In turn, the European Commission ruled out the possibility of further negotiations. “Our position has not changed,” – said the official representative of the Department. According to the Chairman of the Brussels Department Jean-Claude Juncker, the agreement reached is “the best possible”. After May’s decision, Brussels announced the convening of an emergency EU summit on December 13.
The UK plans to withdraw from the EU on March 29,2019. | 1,268,668 |
Women are waking up to the sound of vuvuzelas trumpeting throughout Soweto, and instead of feeling annoyed, they are flooded with a sense of security.
Soweto, South Africa – A group of men have taken it upon themselves to walk women from their homes to the nearby transportation hubs and some wake up at 2 am to get the first wave of women. They also have a uniquely South African call, to let the women know they are ready.
They trumpet on the vuvuzelas to announce their arrival. The women then walk out and are escorted safely to their taxis and buses.
Each of the men is unemployed and have taken up this task to make Soweto a better place for all. The Angel Network decided to raise some money to gift the guys a little something as thanks for going above and beyond.
‘This campaign will show the support to men who are doing this that we see them and commend them for what they doing no matter what their personal circumstances are. Most have no formal employment to support their families and they do all their patrol duties for free. This campaign will assist them with their unemployment situation and be able to provide the little we can to say thank you.’
The funds will be given to the men in December as a Christmas gift which they can use for food or whatever they may need.
Some of the women that are escorted by the guys say it has changed their commute. The best part is once the morning shift has ended, the men wait and start it all over when the women start arriving home from work. According to Teri Weinstein, thousands of men are involved; they gather in groups of three up to fifteen to patrol the streets of Soweto, which is the largest township in South Africa.
The Angel Network will manage the funds on behalf of the men. They hope to raise R5,000.00. If you would like to get involved, you can do so here.
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Or watch an episode of Good Things TV below, a show created to offer South Africans balance in a world with what feels like constant bad news. We’re here to remind you that there are still so many good things happening in South Africa & we’ll hopefully leave you feeling a little more proudly South African.
Related Story South Africa backs young woman facing agressive Leukemia during lockdown
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All 17 Democrats on the House Education Committee signed a letter Friday calling on committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx Virginia Ann FoxxHouse passes bill to allow private lawsuits against public schools for discriminatory practices Pelosi huddles with chairmen on surprise billing but deal elusive House fails to override Trump veto of bill blocking DeVos student loan rule MORE (R-N.C.) to schedule hearings to discuss school shootings.
Citing this week's deadly high school shooting, which left 17 dead and 14 others injured, Democrats called on Foxx to hold hearings to address the issue of school shootings.
“Wednesday’s preventable tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, resulted in the deaths of at least 17 students and faculty,” the letter reads. “Sadly, since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School five years ago, more than 430 people have been shot in over 230 school shootings.”
Lawmakers who signed the letter include Rep. Frederica Wilson Frederica Patricia WilsonHarris calls it 'outrageous' Trump downplayed coronavirus House passes bill establishing commission to study racial disparities affecting Black men, boys Florida county official apologizes for social media post invoking Hitler MORE (D-Fla.), Rep Mark DeSaulnier Mark James DeSaulnierDozens of Democrats plan to vote remotely in a first for the House Rep. DeSaulnier leaves ICU after 3 weeks to continue treatment for pneumonia Rep. DeSaulnier in critical condition due to pneumonia MORE (D-Calif.), Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Jarid Polis (D-Colo.), among others.
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In their letter, the Democrats said they agreed with and echoed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Elizabeth (Betsy) Dee DeVosNEA president says Azar and DeVos should resign over school reopening guidance The Hill's 12:30 Report - Presented by Facebook - You might want to download TikTok now Former DeVos chief of staff joins anti-Trump group MORE's call this week for Congress to take action and hold hearings on school shootings.
"Congress needs to be holding hearings on these issues. And we’ve seen lots of discussion about this every time we’ve had another incident,” DeVos said during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
“We've seen, you know, lots of finger pointing back and forth. But we need to have a conversation at the level where lawmakers can actually impact the future, because going back to and putting myself in the seat of one of those families impacted, you know, one of these shootings is one too many."
DeVos said there needs to be an "honest conversation," adding that Congress must "lead on this."
"It’s their job," she said.
The lawmakers' letter adds to calls from lawmakers, activists and the families and friends of gun violence survivors to act on gun violence. | 1,268,670 |
Austin Police Warn of "Serial Bomber" With Considerable Skill; Warn Residents of Nearby Area to Stay Indoors Whenever Possible
Serial killer.
Two people were wounded in an explosion Sunday night in Austin that showed similarities to other recent blasts but also "a higher level of skill." The victims -- two white men ages 23 and 22 �--were wounded about 8:30 p.m. as they walked along the 4800 block of Dawn Song Drive, southwest of downtown Austin. Their injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said. Interim police Chief Brian Manley said authorities believe the pair were walking on either the sidewalk or the median when the device was triggered by a trip wire. "That changes things," he said at an overnight news conference. "Our safety message to this point has been involving the handling of packages, and telling this community, 'Do not handle packages, do not pick up packages, do not disturb packages.' "We now need to have an extra level of vigilance and pay attention to any suspicious device, whether it be a package, a bag, a backpack -- anything that looks out of place - -and please do not approach it."
I don't know that a trip wire indicates a "higher level of skill" -- isn't there a small tripwire in a package bomb that detonates the bomb when a flap of the box is opened? -- but obviously this guy makes bombs and isn't going to stop until he's caught or is hoist upon one of his own homebrew petards.
This is a description of the tripwire, btw:
Frederick Milanowski, special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that the bomb was anchored to a metal sign near a hiking trail and triggered by a wire as thin as fishing line that would've been incredibly difficult to see.
Again, that doesn't sound that sophisticated to me, but what do I know.
It strikes me as possibly interesting that the bomber has apparently stopped leaving bombs in neighborhoods and is instead now leaving bombs on hiking trails -- where he would be less likely to be seen. I suppose that means he's aware people are looking for him, though I'm not sure that helps catch him any.
After another explosion, Austin's police chief urges nearby residents to stay inside their homes "until we've had a chance to deem this neighborhood safe." pic.twitter.com/gFkiz0g3Vz — Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) March 19, 2018
This article has a map of the bombing sites. It notes the latest bomb is the first to be left to the west of highway 35, though (not being from Austin) I don't know the significance of that.
If any amateur profilers and/or Austin residents want to inform us what the bomb locations may suggest, please do.
PS, there's a $115,000 in total rewards for helping catch this guy, so. Thinking caps on!
| 1,268,671 |
Election season is just barely underway, but Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) is taking no chances. He's already using your body as election collateral to position himself as a "conservative Democrat," introducing at least two bills seeking to limit your rights.
Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA)
Election season is just barely underway, but Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA) is taking no chances. He’s already using your body as election collateral to position himself as… a “conservative pro-life Democrat.”
This week, when the world was aflurry with talk of debt ceilings, financial collapse and 9.2 percent unemployment, Senator Casey found time to introduce at least two bills seeking to further restrict women’s access to safe, legal abortion. Just for good measure.
One of these, S.1488, seeks to codify the Hyde Amendment, which currently exists as an amendment to annual appropriations bills and forbids federal funding of abortion care for women in need, except in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, and where the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. S.1488 was introduced on Tuesday, August 2nd, and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
The second bill, S.1489, also introduced on August 2nd, is yet another conscience clause bill, purporting to “prohibit the discrimination and retaliation against individuals and health care entities that refuse to recommend, refer for, provide coverage for, pay for, provide, perform, assist, or participate in abortions.” Conscience clauses abound in both federal and state law and are constantly being expanded to include the refusal even to refer women at risk of death from a pregnancy to a provider who can help her. Apparently, Senator Casey feels we need at least one more. It has also been referred to the Senate HELP committee.
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Senator Casey is of course the son of another famous Senator, his father Robert P. Casey, Sr., whose name is widely known in part because of his role in Casey v. Planned Parenthood. And the current Senator Casey, a Catholic, is very heavily influenced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the anti-choice group supreme.
As of this writing, neither of these bills has any co-sponsors and neither of them is yet available in text on line. But apparently Senator Casey was very eager to ensure that he got ahead of the pack to “lead” on restricting women’s rights to self-determination, to decide whether, when, and with whom to have children, and to be able to enjoy their own “right to life” should their lives be threatened by a pregnany gone awry.
We will update further here when the text of the bills is available. | 1,268,672 |
By Ryan Maquiñana
Adrien Broner weighed in a second time on Saturday morning and came in at 143 pounds, prompting challenger Vicente Escobedo to pull out of their scheduled WBO junior lightweight title fight later tonight in Cincinnati, according to a source within Team Escobedo.
“After he weighed in again, Broner came out and was saying that something better be done to fix this, as if he were trying to make it sound like it was our fault,” the source said. “His team said yesterday after he came in overweight the first time that the fight should still go down if they came in at 143 the following morning.
“But look, 143 is not 10 pounds over the actual contracted weight of 130. It’s 13 pounds. We said if he doesn’t come in at 140, which is 10 pounds over the contracted weight, then the fight’s off, and now it is.”
At Friday’s original weigh-in, Broner tipped the scales at 133.5 pounds, 3.5 over the junior lightweight limit of 130, which Escobedo made. As a result, the title would only be on the line for the challenger.
Rolando Arellano, Escobedo’s manager, was livid with Team Broner and stated that if the reigning champion did not meet a 140-pound fight day limit at 9:30 a.m. ET, that they would not go through with the bout.
Broner had voiced his opinion that Saturday would be his final title defense at junior lightweight, even posting pictures of Twinkies on his Twitter account as a display of his growing frame. Now he has been effectively stripped of the belt.
“We tried to make it work,” the source continued. “But look, at this point, if Broner’s allowed to continue to hydrate, he’s a big guy. He's going to come into the ring at around 150, 152 pounds, and no way Vicente will add that much to the 140 pounds he weighed this morning. That would be a difference of two weight classes.”
There is still no word regarding how the WBO will handle the newly vacated title, but Escobedo, currently ranked No. 1, is content to let things play out.
“We’re not going to be bullied into that situation,” the source said. “They think they can throw money at everything and fix things. ‘The Problem’ has become a problem."
Ryan Maquiñana writes a weekly boxing column for CSNBayArea.com. He is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the Ratings Panel for Ring Magazine. E-mail him at [email protected], check out his blog at Norcalboxing.net, or follow him on Twitter: @RMaq28. | 1,268,673 |
Python package installer pip. This will add an executable floss.exe (on Windows) or floss (on Linux) to your $PATH. As a third option, you can install FLOSS from source. Please see the GitHub page for the most up to date installation instructions.
Usage
To extract static ASCII and UTF-16LE strings, obfuscated strings, and stackstrings from an executable file, run:
$ floss.exe /path/to/binary
If you want to exclude static strings from FLOSS’s output provide the –-no-static-strings switch:
$ floss.exe –-no-static-strings /path/to/binary
You can suppress FLOSS’s headers and formatting output with the -q switch. This mode is appropriate for piping to grep or other tools:
$ floss.exe –q /path/to/binary
To display only strings with a minimum length use the -n switch. The default minimum string length is four:
$ floss.exe –n 8 /path/to/binary
If you know a decoding function offset (or have a list of comma-separated function offsets), you can instruct FLOSS to only analyze the provided functions using the -f switch:
$ floss.exe /path/to/binary -f 0xF005BA11
$ floss.exe /path/to/binary -f 0xF005BA11,0xF00B005E
Use the -i switch to create an IDAPython script that annotates an IDA Pro IDB database with the decoded strings:
$ floss.exe -i SCRIPTOUTPUTPATH /path/to/binary
FLOSS can also create radare2 scripts via the –r switch:
$ floss.exe -r SCRIPTOUTPUTPATH /path/to/binary
The -h switch displays the entire help for all of FLOSS’s functionality:
$ floss.exe -h
Summary
In this blog post we have introduced the FLARE team’s newest contribution to the malware analysis community. FLOSS is an open-source tool to automatically detect, extract, and decode obfuscated strings in Windows Portable Executable files. The community needs this type of tool to fight back against malware authors who commonly obfuscate strings in their programs to deter static and dynamic analysis. In addition to extracting strings that are deobfuscated by decoding routines, FLOSS can recover stackstrings and obtain all static strings.
Try out FLOSS in your next malware analysis. The tool is extremely easy to use and can provide valuable information for forensic analysts, incident responders, and reverse engineers. If you enjoy the tool, run into issues using it, or have any other comments, please contact us via the projects GitHub page at https://github.com/fireeye/flare-floss/. | 1,268,674 |
like falafel. The rye grain has been germinated; I guess I’d say it tastes a little bit nuttier, a little bit fresher, a little bit greener, a little bit more alive. They were delicious.
Pakora curry at Chai Shai (vegetable fritters in yellow curry made from black mustard seeds and fresh curry leaves). Other tasty vegetarian dishes there include the yellow lentil curry and a vegan curry that’s made with potatoes and carrots.
I like the veggie burger at The Westside Local. It’s made with sweet potatoes and quinoa. It comes with cheese, but they can substitute hummus for you. And it’s vegan; they use a vegan bun. I think it’s really nice and tasty.
Drink:
One of my favorite things at Mud Pie Vegan Bakery & Coffeehouse are their non-dairy milks. I love the cashew milk; I order a cashew milk chai, which, as if it weren’t already rich and creamy enough as it is. The cashew milk makes it amazing.
Charles Ferruzza, The Pitch:
Eden Alley. This venue calls itself “eco-conscious” and serves some wonderfully creative, inspired dishes, including delicious soups, sandwiches and wraps, a superb Mediterranean platter, a wonderful roasted potato burrito and a tasty vegan/nut-free loaf that evokes the spirit of the old Unity Inn, the first vegetarian restaurant in Kansas City back in 1906! I’ve always loved the veggie burger at Eden Alley; it’s a real hearty burger that’s very, very tasty. They don’t mind if you tart it up with stuff; it’s the condiments that make it so good. Also, shout-out to the roasted potato burrito.
Chinese restaurants are always a good option when dining with a mixed crowd (meat eaters and non-meat eaters). I like Kin Lin for its tofu with chili and cumin (exquisitely seasoned) and eggplant with tofu in garlic sauce (once you eat that, you don’t miss meat).
The ABC Café has an impressive all-day dim sum menu — very inexpensive — offering vegetarian-friendly small plates like red bean puffs, stuffed bean curd and turnip cakes.
Thai restaurants typically have a few very good meatless options. I love the fried tofu (served with a couple of dipping sauces) at iPho Tower, as well as their vegetarian pho; they also serve a tofu banh mi sandwich that’s quite delicious.
The desserts at Mud Pie Vegan Bakery & Coffeehouse are possibly the best-tasting “healthy” sweets in town.
Listener recommendations:
Jen Chen is associate producer for KCUR's Central Standard. Reach out to her at [email protected]. | 1,268,675 |
New Delhi: With an aim to become a leading online insurance provider, the Indian venture of Warren Buffett -led Berkshire group is betting big on the popularity of mobile phones and social media to boost its business.
Berkshire India sells motor, travel and health insurance products online at berkshireinsurance.com and it will soon start selling life insurance products as a corporate agent of Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance.
Having started operations here in 2011 with just eight employees, Berkshire India—a majority owned non-direct subsidiary of US-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc.—currently has more than 100 employees and headquartered at Gurgaon.
The company uses a unique mode for insurance sales through Internet and expects the growing popularity of Internet- enabled mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to further aid to this cost-effective business model.
“Over half of India’s total Internet user base will access Internet solely through mobile or tablet devices by 2015. Since our direct model of business employs telephone and Internet, we are positioned to enjoy a great advantage," Berkshireinsurance.com CEO Arun Balakrishnan told PTI.
“We are confident of our business model and are continually developing it to make it even more efficient and cost effective," he said.
India is estimated to have the world’s third-largest Internet user base of 120 million people. Berkshire India also expects social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to play an increasingly crucial role.
“As we progress towards becoming the one-stop shop for insurance, our aim is not just to sell insurance but to help the customer understand the nuances of insurance. It is here that social media plays a major role. We realise that the major attraction of the online mode for a customer is a relatively cheaper pricing," Balakrishnan said.
Ajit Jain, Berkshire Hathaway’s global head of reinsurance business and often seen as a possible successor to Warren Buffett, also plays an active role in its Indian operations.
“Ajit Jain is a part of the board of Berkshire India Ltd. and a regular participant in our discussions and formulations. Being actively involved and well versed with our operations, Jain is both aware and happy of our progress as a company," Balakrishnan said.
Asked about life insurance business plans, he said life insurance is a different ball game all together but with adequate research, it expects to introduce life products well- suited for the online medium.
“Products that are both a good value proposition for the customer and viable to sell online," he said.
“As use of mobile Internet increases, our penetration to the rural and semi-urban areas will grow rapidly given that a large part of our web traffic today stems from mobile devices. Our rural penetration is expected to closely toe that of the telecom sector," Balakrishnan said.
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, I became a top sniper and was granted access to the entire arsenal of the USMC. I learned how to kill someone in over 700 different ways and was assigned to be the leader of a squad that will kill 300 terrorists using gorilla warfare tactics. Also did 6000 push-ups, 8000 sit-ups and bench-pressed 30 plates in 16 minutes. After basic training, I met a network of secret spies who will help me trace your IP address, while eating gold plated sushi and 15,000 $ champagne. My unit got the rest of the day off and I became captain of our base’s football team and starter of the basketball team. I got straight A’s on the military entrance exams and received more awards. Meanwhile, you were jacking off to pictures on Facebook and naked drawn Japanese people. Went back in the Lambo to my barracks and now I am getting ready to go to sleep. I am going to graduate at the top of my class in the Navy Seals tomorrow and I want to look pretty much perfect for it. Don’t be a stranger and remember, I did more in one day than you will your entire life.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about my gear, you little n00b? I’ll have you know I am a lvl 90 Undead Arcane Mage, and I’ve won so many PVP matches, and I have done raids on every 10 man heroic dungeon. I also have a fuckton of macros and I have a GS of 10K. You are nothing to me but just a lvl 12 gnome hunter. I will pwn the fuck out of you with Arcane Missiles the likes of which has never been seen before on Azeroth AND Outland, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over raid? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my guild of mages and shamans across The Eastern Kingdoms and your character is being targeted right now so you better prepare for the ownage, n00b. The Arcane Barrage that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your character. You’re fucking pwn'd, n00b. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my secondary talent tree. Not only am I extensively trained in Arcane magic, but I have access to the entire arsenal of Fire magic and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable neckbeard off the face of Azeroth, you little faggot. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re getting debuffed, you goddamnn00b. I will shit Dragon's Breath all over you and you will burn in it. You’re fucking pwn'd, faggot. | 1,268,678 |
18 arrested on charges of belonging to Black Bloc (Egypt)
From mainstream press:
Eighteen suspects accused of belonging a group of protesters known as the Black Bloc were arrested on Thursday, and at least one is accused of ties with Israel, said the prosecutor general’s office.
The Black Bloc is a previously unknown group that began appearing at demonstrations marking the anniversary of the 25 January revolution last week.
One suspect was arrested in a building on Tahrir Square, and allegedly was in possession of maps and documents pertaining to vital institutions in Cairo, including banks and oil companies, claimed a statement issued by the prosecutor’s office, as reported in state-run news agency MENA.
The prosecution claimed that the map in question was Israeli-made, although he did not elaborate on how the authorities knew that it was Israeli in origin.
AFP quoted Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor saying he had no idea whether or not the Black Bloc member intended to carry out a plan of sabotage, but the claim of Israeli involvement was “utter nonsense.”
Another individual was arrested in Mahalla while allegedly negotiating a deal with a garment factory owner to manufacture the black masks and outfits worn by Black Bloc protesters, alleged the prosecution.
The Mahalla suspect may have been attempting to recruit university students and youth to join the group, Yassin claimed, alleging that a number of students had testified that the suspect invited them to join the Black Bloc.
Orders have been given to the police and army officers to immediately arrest anyone in a Black Bloc mask.
Dozens protest in solidarity with Black Bloc; four alleged members arrested
Dozens protested at the High Court in downtown Cairo Wednesday [30.1.13] to reject the prosecutor general’s decision to arrest members of the Black Bloc group on charges of terrorism.
Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah ordered Tuesday the arrest of all members of the group, as well as whoever joins or puts on their uniform, claiming the group performs “terrorist” actions.
Security forces arrested four masked people whom they said were Black Bloc members, while they were on their way with other demonstrators to the prosecutor general’s office to protest. Three of the suspects are being held inside the court, while the fourth was taken into a police vehicle that left to an unknown location.
Authorities meanwhile imposed high security measures around the High Court. Cairo security deployed 15 armored vehicles, as well as hundreds of Central Security Forces troops to arrest the group’s members. It also evacuated all citizens and employees from the building, fearing riots.
http://www.egyptindependent.com/taxonomy/term/80204
Tags: Black Bloc, Black Blocairo, Cairo, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Repression, Tahir Square
This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2013 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Social Control. | 1,268,679 |
I am vaguely perceiving that there is a battle brewing someplace about labeling food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). It happened in California before. The initiative lost by referendum.
Of course, I am almost always in favor of more information for the public (even when it’s likely to be used for mischief). However, I can’t avoid wondering why sellers of food products don’t just do it on their own to gain a marketing advantage over their competitors. Not getting an answer to this question, I am wondering whether this is not just another case of a minority using the power of the state to impose its views (by force) on the indifferent majority. Keep in mind that this is what the word “law” means: If you break it, you expose yourself to official violence.
I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with GMOs. I only know that they (one?) allowed for a reduced use of pesticides. This has to be a good thing because exposure to large amounts of pesticides is bad for the health of producers and handlers. (I doubt today’s pesticides cause much harm to consumers but I always wash fruits and salad components.) I invited a local libertarian who addressed the topic on Facebook to write an essay for this blog explaining the answer. That was only a couple of days ago. He has not responded. I repeat the invite, to anyone.
What am I supposed to do, I, simple citizen and consumer not especially well equipped to ascertain if GMOs are a threat or not to my beloved? As I keep telling you, fortunately, I don’t necessarily have to go to graduate school yet three or four more years to get an idea. Instead, I look at the proponents I know.
In my area, the people who fight GMOs are mostly (but not only) foofoo heads who overlap a great deal, I think, with those who cancel erotically promising dates on the basis of astrology. They are largely the same people who advocate policy which, taken together, would take us back to what Karl Marx called, “the idiocy of village life,” with a life expectancy hovering around thirty five and a 30% infant mortality They, themselves, wouldn’t survive there more five weeks or less, by the way, because they are too coddled, too self-indulgent, and not alert enough. The wolves about which they keep crying now and here really lived then on the outskirts of such villages. They would gobble up anti-GMOist for a snack.
All the same, I keep an open mind. Anyone who wants to post a comment on GMOs can be sure it will not be censored or modified in any way. I will also consider with great interest any essay on this topic for this blog. Anyone can also send me reading assignments. I will post them but I will not read them unless the sender explains clearly why I should, beginning with the source. (See the standards I apply here) | 1,268,680 |
British Prime Minister Theresa May will not visit Northern Ireland before the triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday.
Mrs May had been expected to visit all of the devolved assemblies before formally notifying the European Union later this week of the UK's plan to leave the bloc.
Today she was in Scotland where she said that when the great union of nations that is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland worked together it is an unstoppable force.
But Downing Street confirmed that Mrs May does not plan to visit Northern Ireland tomorrow - her last chance to do so before the triggering of Article 50.
Earlier this month, Mrs May visited Wales as part of what was billed an "ongoing engagement" with the devolved assemblies prior to beginning the Brexit process.
At the time Downing Street said Mrs May would be "engaging and listening to people from right across the nation as she prepared to leave the EU as one United Kingdom".
Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May met just two days before triggering Article 50
Mrs May’s trip to Scotland also comes a day before the Scottish Parliament is expected to pass a vote in favour of seeking a new Scottish independence referendum.
Mrs May, who recently said "now is not the time" for a fresh independence vote, will vow in a speech never to allow the UK to become "looser and weaker".
Scottish ministers say there have been no discussions with the UK government over how Scotland's interests will be represented as the Brexit process gets under way and they have called for answers from Mrs May today.
The Scottish government has criticised what it sees as a "lack of engagement" by UK ministers over Scotland's place in Europe.
Ms Sturgeon previously set out "compromise" proposals that would have kept Scotland in the single market and handed more powers to Holyrood.
A spokeswoman for Michael Russell, Scotland's Brexit minister, said: "We understand the UK government wishes to discuss Article 50.
"Given we are just days from the formal process of Brexit being triggered there have, as yet, been no discussion with the Scottish government over what will be in the letter triggering departure from the EU.
"There has been no discussion over how Scotland's interests will be represented, what role the Scottish government will play in negotiations, nor which powers the Tories intend to take for Westminster and which powers will rightly be determined by Holyrood.
"Most worryingly, there has been no discussion over how the UK government intends to manage the financial impacts of Brexit and the consequences for jobs and the economy in Scotland.
"There are clearly a lot of areas where we hope the Prime Minister intends to provide answers."
He added: "Given the lack of engagement and the failure of the UK government to seek an agreed approach or to support staying in the single market, which are at the heart of our compromise proposals, it is appearing that this is another area where a Tory prime minister intends to simply dictate the rules and expect people in Scotland to go along with it." | 1,268,681 |
beyond humanity.” As the best American postwar writers were nurtured in some way by the existence of an alternate universe, not the idea of the Soviet Union itself, or living there, but the idea that life could be different from the life they had, so Houellebecq was rescued from despair, in the fallow, end-of-history world of the nineties, by the thought of Lovecraft’s horrifying Cthulhu.
Lovecraft’s disastrous experience of New York turned him from a country-club racist to a foaming-at-the-mouth bigot. “Being poor,” Houellebecq writes, “he was forced to live in the same neighborhoods as the ‘obscene, repulsive, nightmarish’ immigrants” and “hideous negroes.” It also spurred him to write what Houellebecq calls his “great texts.” Houellebecq, for his part, has recently undergone the transformative experience of confronting radical Islam, and it’s what makes his performance in Platform so worrisome for those who admired his earlier work. Because Islam, too, is an alternate universe, and Houellebecq’s strident rejection of it in Platform—which culminates in an Islamic terrorist assault on an idyllic Thai sex-tourist resort—throws him straight into the arms of his former antagonists. “I Choose the West” was the title of Dwight Macdonald’s loyalty oath; add to that some Asian sex tourism, and Houellebecq is onboard.
Another novel is due out in France this summer. We’ll see what happens. It’s still possible Houellebecq was only just momentarily shaken from his position on Western modernity, on sex and money, those things that he and Lovecraft had hated so much and so well. Or maybe he was just flattering us. As one character says in The Elementary Particles, “I had to stick to my ‘liberal humanist’ position; I knew in my heart it was my only chance of getting laid.”
BACKSTORY
Among the Western values Michel Houellebecq has wound up defending is freedom of the press. In 2002, Muslim groups in France sued him for “inciting racial and religious hatred” for comments in a magazine interview: “The dumbest religion, after all, is Islam…. The Bible at least is beautifully written because the Jews have a heck of a literary talent.” Houellebecq declared in court, “I have never displayed the least contempt for Muslims, but I have as much contempt as ever for Islam.” He offered an additional disclaimer: “To get a general opinion out of me is almost absurd.” He was acquitted.
H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
By Michel Houellebecq.
McSweeney’s. 150 pages. $18. | 1,268,682 |
NASA’s purpose and vision might be a mystery to some, but the agency’s top official says there’s a quick primer on the space agency’s mission and accomplishments. And it’s done Gangnam style.
“I find, as I travel around, not very many people know what we do today,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said Wednesday to a National Research Council committee that is reviewing the agency’s human spaceflight program.
Luckily, he added, there’s a solution.
Created by interns at Johnson Space Center, “NASA Johnson Style” spoofs South Korean pop star Psy’s viral hit, “Gangnam Style,” while waxing lyrical about the Houston center that’s home to NASA’s astronaut program. The music video has picked up 2.4 million YouTube views since being published one week ago, and features clever references describing the work at the International Space Station. Observe:
Orbiting Earth, International Space Station
Where we work and live in space with a crew from several nations
Got Japanese, and Russians, that European charm
Throw them up, like the Canada Arm!
“It tells a tremendous story about NASA and the vision for exploration, and it’s also entertaining,” Bolden said. “It’s one of the best that I’ve seen in a long, long [time]. So if you have a moment … it’s worth it.”
“Just Google ‘NASA gangman,’” Bolden said, inadvertently misspelling the name. (It’s G-A-N-G-N-A-M, for the record.)
This isn’t the first time NASA has embraced a pop culture sensation. In fact, the agency’s PR strategy has been pretty savvy about tapping into the Web, social media and mobile technology, as we described in a recent story.
The video follows another viral hit, “We’re NASA and We Know It,” which spoofed LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” while rapping about the Mars Curiosity rover. The two brothers who masterminded that satire were later invited to Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where NASA’s Mars program is based.
“NASA Johnson Style” hasn’t been embraced by all NASA generations, Bolden jokingly pointed out.
“I get a lot of notes from my friends from the Apollo era who say we’re lost, we don’t know what we’re doing. They’re wondering what’s going on,” Bolden said. “And after one of them saw this YouTube video, they were completely convinced we are really messed up.”
Follow me on Twitter @aminawrite. | 1,268,683 |
BP's focuses $100 million on reducing emissions
3/26/2019
HOUSTON -- BP has announced that it has established a $100 million fund for projects that will deliver new greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in its upstream oil and gas operations. The new Upstream Carbon Fund will provide significant further support to BP’s work generating sustainable greenhouse gas emissions reductions in its operations.
In April 2018, BP set clear, near-term and specific targets aimed at reducing its emissions and advancing the energy transition, including achieving 3.5 million tons of sustainable GHG emissions reductions across the BP Group from 2016 to 2025 and targeting a methane intensity of 0.2%.
In the year since, BP’s total directa GHG emissions fell by 1.7 MMt CO 2 equivalent, despite a 3% growth in upstream oil and gas production on the same basis. By the end of 2018, BP had generated 2.5 MMt of sustainable GHG emissions reductions throughout its businesses since 2016. BP’s methane intensity for 2018 was 0.2% – in line with the target.
Upstream chief executive Bernard Looney said, “A year ago we challenged everyone at BP to reduce emissions in our operations and they have responded overwhelmingly. This $100 million investment is designed to build on that momentum. It will fund ideas both big and small because everything counts in our transition to a lower carbon future and everyone at BP has a role to play.”
Under the new initiative, funding totaling up to $100 million will be made available over the next three years to support new projects in the upstream that will generate additional GHG emission reductions. Businesses and employees throughout BP’s Upstream operating businesses are being invited to come up with ideas and propose projects for this funding.
The Upstream Carbon Fund will be in addition to the $500 million that BP invests in low carbon activities each year, including investment in venturing activities and into its significant alternative energy business. BP is also a founding member of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which brings together 13 of the world’s largest energy companies and has set up a $1 billion investment fund to address methane emissions and other issues.
BP’s targets for reductions in operational emissions are part of its ‘reduce-improve-create,’ or RIC, approach to the energy transition, which also aims to improve its products to allow customers to reduce their emissions and to create and grow new low carbon businesses. The projects that are awarded funding will help to deliver the further emissions reductions necessary to achieve the RIC targets.
The announcement of the new fund is a further step in BP’s work to meet its targets and advance the energy transition. In January, BP announced that progress towards the sustainable emissions reductions target has now been incorporated as a factor in the remuneration of 36,000 employees across the Group.
Related News ///
FROM THE ARCHIVE /// | 1,268,684 |
A HOMELESS family say they have been sleeping in their car for over three months after their home was repossessed.
Newport mum Deborah Talbot, 41, said she thought that there would be help available to people who found themselves homeless, but has not been able to find accommodation.
So she, her partner Glyn Jones, 60, and their daughter, Rachel, 23 have been sleeping in the family car since losing their Newport home on July 7 after she lost her supermarket job and the family could no longer afford their mortgage repayments. The family say none of their friends are able to house them because they don't have the room.
The family use leisure centres to shower and store their bedding in lockers, and launderettes to wash their clothes. They eat pre-prepared food bought from shops.
Most of their possessions remain in their repossessed home in Coverack Road.
Miss Talbot said: “My partner is a taxi driver and uses the car for work, so during the day I just walk around with nowhere to go and spend a lot of time at the leisure centre.
“At night we park up somewhere quiet to sleep. It is starting to get cold but the sleeping bags have kept us warm, but it’s worrying as it is going to get colder.”
Also sharing space in the car are the family pets, Staffordshire bull terrier, Jake, two cats called Cassy and Macey and a cockatiel named Samuel.
Miss Talbot said that she has approached private landlords and has been bidding on properties on Newport City Homes, but believes that the pets have led to difficulties in finding a property.
However, she doesn’t want to let them go calling them “part of the family”. Some friends have helped by housing the animals during the day - but cannot keep them overnight.
Newport Council confirmed that Mrs Talbot applied under the homeless provisions in July after her home was repossessed, and after assessment, a decision letter was issued on July 17 that accepted she was homeless but not in priority need.
The spokeswoman added: “We will continue to offer her advice and support as she seeks rehousing.
“We do sympathise with anyone who is made homeless but there is a high demand for housing in the city.”
Miss Talbot explained that she had been paying the mortgage on the family home for 12 years, but after being made redundant from her full-time shelf stacking job, she was only able to find a part-time cleaning position.
She said: “With lack of money coming in, we began to struggle to keep everything paid.
“I can’t believe this has happened to us. No family deserves this. We are expected to sleep on the street.”
During the night the two cats sleep in a box and a bird in another, while the dog sleeps on a seat. | 1,268,685 |
�Why bother?” you ask.
Because radio needs innovation, needs something fresh and new, and needs new sources of income. Why not?
Of course, the answer will be, “It’s unproven, and too much of an investment.” Which of course is why the radio industry is facing some difficult times today. We’re trying to cut our way to success and don’t want to invest in anything new until it’s proven, and by then it’s too late.
Folks, we can’t cut our way to prosperity, but we can jump on new things, embrace them, and learn from the experience. We’ve developed a bad habit of firing the expensive people with talent and experience and replacing them with people who are being asked to produce the same results without the chops to pull it off. And we wonder why things are not going better.
As an industry, radio needs reinvention. I know there is lots of evidence that listening is still with us, even growing, but there is ample evidence to the contrary as well. And as predicted, advertising is the big problem as agencies continue to get seduced by other options (including podcasting).
We should take a lesson from the film industry. It’s not cutting itself to success. It’s investing in new films, new ideas, and expensive talent. And instead of sitting on old theaters, theater chains are investing in remodeling, comfortable lounge chairs, putting in restaurants and bars. If they were owned by radio companies, they would be using 50-year-old popcorn machines, refusing to upgrade to digital movies, and using the old seats until they fell apart. And we would have one employee selling tickets, working the snack bar, and running upstairs to run the projectors.
Though I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I know radio has special circumstances like horrific debt, it’s an important point that we as an industry need to understand. Radio needs to decide what we will be: old and tired, or fresh and invigorated?
Podcasting is a great starting point. With the power of radio, you can dominate listening across America fast. But there is more innovation needed. If we continue on this path of cutting and refusing to innovate, we are committing suicide just like the newspapers did. We need to think differently, act differently, and make sure we surround our leaders with bright, innovative people who can help us improve our relevance and make us better.
Radio isn’t dead. Far from it. But nothing lasts forever without a shot in the arm and some new ideas. I for one love radio, love its relationship with listeners, and love what it has been and can be.
Where is the leadership in radio that will take it to the next level and buy it a future?
Eric Rhoads is Chairman of Radio Ink Magazine and can be reached at [email protected] | 1,268,686 |
"Are people really using this LastPass thing? I took a quick look and can see a bunch of obvious critical problems. I'll send a report asap," Ormandy revealed on Twitter.
Similar Old Bug in LastPass Password Manager:
"By browsing this URL: https://avlidienbrunn.se/@twitter.com/@hehe.php the browser would treat the current domain as avlidienbrunn.se while the extension would treat it as twitter.com," Karlsson explained.
"The recent report only affects Firefox users. If you are a Firefox user running LastPass 4.0 or later, an update will be pushed via your browser with the fix in version 4.1.21a." LastPass said in a blog post.
A critical zero-day flaw has been discovered in the popular cloud password manager LastPass that could allow any remote attacker to compromise your account completely.LastPass is one of the best password manager that also available as a browser extension that automatically fills credentials for you.All you need is to remember one master password to unlock all other passwords of your different online accounts, making it much easier for you to use unique passwords for different sites.However, the password manager isn't as secure as it promises.Google Project Zero Hackerdiscovered several security issues in the software that allowed him to steal passwords stored with LastPass.Once compromise a victim's LastPass account, hackers would be able to access a treasure trove of passwords for victim's other online services.Since LastPass is working on a fix to the zero-day vulnerability, technical details about the issues have not been disclosed by the researcher.Coincidentally, another security researcher Mathias Karlsson also announced that he had uncovered some issues in LastPass, that has already been patched by the company.A specially crafted URL is enough to take complete control of its user's accounts.As Karlsson explained in a blog post published today, an attacker could send a specially-crafted URL to the victim in order to steal passwords from his/her vault.This specific vulnerability resided in the autofill functionality of the LastPass browser extension, where a faulty regular expression for parsing the URL was allowing an attacker to spoof the targeted domain.Therefore, by abusing form auto-fill functionality, a hacker could steal victim's, let's say, Facebook password, by sending the POC URL containing facebook.com to the victim.This particular flaw has already been patched by the company within a day, and Karlsson has even been awarded with a bug bounty of $1,000.Well, the issues in password managers are really worrying, but this doesn't mean that you should stop using password managers. Password managers still encourage you to use unique and complex passwords for every single site.In wake of the latest issue, users can avoid browser-based password managers and instead switch to offline versions, like KeePass.LastPass has quickly patched the vulnerability reported by Tavis Ormandy and pushed an update with fix for all Firefox users using LastPass 4. | 1,268,687 |
at USC and then tested with actual flue gas at the NCCC. DOE Funding: $3,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $759,206; Total Value: $3,759,206 Rational Development of Novel Metal-Organic Polyhedra-Based Membranes for CO 2 Capture – Research Foundation for SUNY on behalf of the University at Buffalo (Amherst, NY) plans to develop transformative mixed matrix membranes in collaboration with the California Institute of Technology, Membrane Technology and Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Trimeric, and the NCCC. The membranes will contain advanced materials, such as metal organic polyhedras and rubbery polymers, to achieve high CO 2 permeance, high CO 2 /N 2, and high CO 2 /O 2 selectivity at temperatures up to 60 degrees Celsius. Testing will be conducted at the NCCC. DOE Funding: $2,857,577; Non-DOE Funding: $975,405; Total Value: $3,832,982 Novel Next Generation Sorbent System for Post-Combustion CO 2 Capture – TDA Research, Inc. (Wheat Ridge, CO) intends to develop a transformational sorbent system for a post-combustion CO 2 capture process in collaboration with the University of California at Irvine, the University of Alberta, and the Wyoming Integrated Test Center. The technology features a high-capacity sorbent with a vacuum concentration swing adsorption process that enables use of a single-stage vacuum pump with a low auxiliary load. Testing will be conducted on actual flue gas at the Wyoming Integrated Test Center. DOE Funding: $3,000,000; Non-DOE Funding: $750,000; Total Value: $3,750,000 Fog + Froth-Based Post-Combustion CO 2 Capture in Fossil-Fuel Power Plants – University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Lexington, KY) plans to fabricate, integrate and research a compact absorber with integrated fog and froth formation zones. Testing will be conducted at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research bench post-combustion CO 2 capture facilities using both simulated and real coal-derived flue gas. DOE Funding: $2,992,831; Non-DOE Funding: $748,350; Total Value: $3,741,181
The scope of these projects aligns with the scientific challenges and knowledge gaps identified in the DOE ministerial-level Mission Innovation report, Accelerating Breakthrough Innovation in Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage, which can be found here. These selected projects will join 11 other projects previously chosen by FE to receive approximately $28.9 million during the first closing of this FOA in fiscal year 2018.
More information about DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy can be found HERE. More information about the National Energy Technology Laboratory is available HERE.
###
News Media Contact: (202) 586-4940 | 1,268,688 |
Kyle Palmieri played for the New Jersey Devils' youth team and attended Devils practices and games when he was a boy.
Now, the 24-year old will get to play for the Devils; he was traded from the Anaheim Ducks for two draft picks on June 26.
Palmieri was born Smithtown, N.Y., but grew up in Montvale, N.J., rooting for the New York Rangers.
"I probably went to more Devils games than I did Rangers games just because it was easier to get tickets and for me it was way easier to get to (the Meadowlands) than it was for me to get into the city," Palmieri told Northjersey.com on Thursday. "I definitely grew up going to more Devils games than I did Rangers games."
He'll get to play the Rangers four times this season.
"I'm excited for it," Palmieri said. "I grew up watching the Devils-Rangers games, those are the ones I looked forward to the most, and now I have the opportunity to play in some of them.
"Once I turned pro and realized that I was at the same level as the Rangers and the Devils that I grew up watching and idolizing, I kind of turned my allegiances to the team I was playing for. So, I'm excited to put on the Devils' uniform and do my best to beat the Rangers."
At Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., there are pictures of Palmieri skating with the New Jersey Youth Devils and the Ducks.
"I think I played in some summer tournament at Prudential Center," Palmieri said. "It was probably my sophomore or junior year of high school."
Selected by the Ducks in the first round (No. 26) of the 2009 NHL Draft, Palmieri had 14 goals and 29 points in 57 games last season. He has 43 goals and 89 points in 198 NHL games.
Palmieri has one year remaining on his contract, which carries an NHL salary-cap charge of $1.47 million, according to war-on-ice.com. He can become a restricted free agent following this season.
"He's at the right age for us," Devils general manager Ray Shero said after the trade. "The style of play, he plays with speed and can really shoot a puck. Plus his contractual situation in terms of having a year left and two years restricted is good for us."
Devils coach John Hynes coached Palmieri with the USA Hockey's National Team Development Program from 2007-09.
"It was a little while ago, but certainly he knows Kyle well and having coached him is an added benefit," Shero said. "Kyle was younger then, but he's still only 24 years old now. John, I asked him his opinion on him as a player and as a person, what he's like on and off the ice, and we made the deal so it couldn't be too bad." | 1,268,689 |
Bitcoin Investment Swiss Bitcoin ETP Sees Record Volume as Institutional Investors Buy the Dip
The steep decline in Bitcoin price has coincided with record volume of the recently launched Bitcoin ETP on the SIX Swiss Stock Exchange, suggesting that institutional investors are may be buying the dip.
Bitcoin ETP $HODL Sees Record Volume
Earlier in November, Bitcoinist reported that a Bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) with the HODL ticker offered by Amun Crypto was about to begin trading on Switzerland’s SIX Exchange.
The ETP represents a fully collateralized and non-interest-paying bearer debt security, which is issued as a security and traded and redeemed in the same structure. Bitcoin comprises the largest share of the HODL ETP at 48%, followed by XRP (30%), Ethereum (17.6%), and smaller shares of Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.
There is a notable difference between an ETP and an ETF, however. The former is not subjected to the Collective Investment Schemes Act (Cisa) and is therefore not supervised by Finma.
The HODL ETP is underlined by an index comprised of four major cryptocurrencies, namely BTC, ETH, XRP, and LTC.
Interestingly enough, last Thursday and Friday, the ETP saw record trading volumes with 53,233 shares and 62,986 shares traded, respectively. This is a serious increase from the one-month average volume that saw around 20,000 shares traded per day and coincides with a steep decline in Bitcoin price at the end of last week.
According to Su Zhu, CEO at FX Hedge Fund, the “correlation between volume and price continues to be very strong at -68%.
Last Thurs and Fri we broke volume records again on the Swiss HODL ETF with 53,233 shares and 62,986 shares traded respectively. That coincided with the dip in BTC to 3.2k and ETH to near 80. The correlation between volume and price continues to be very strong at (-68%). https://t.co/Meuaa9MXCV — Su Zhu (@zhusu) December 11, 2018
Institutions Buying the Dip
Zhu notes that there is a negative correlation between price and volumes observed with the HODL ETP. In other words, the ETP’s trading volume increases as BTC price dips and decreases as price rises, as observed in the chart below.
According to the expert, a very high percentage of the volume is also net inflow which suggests that users buying the ETP are holding rather than trading.
Bitcoinist recently reported that users in Argentina and Venezuela might also be buying the dip, based on new data from P2P Bitcoin trading platform LocalBitcoins.
What do you think of the increased volume in the HODL ETP? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter @zhusu | 1,268,690 |
and software based around Digitalk’s Smalltalk/V. We soon signed up with OTI as UK distributors for ENVY/Developer.
I ran a small team which worked on a Smalltalk client project. We were used to the challenges of image-based development, since that’s the way that APL worked in those days. We decided to eat our own dog food. We used ENVY from the start, and never regretted the decision.
I sold ENVY to several of our customers, and for the first few months I also provided front-line support for the product. Most support calls were requests for advice. ENVY was extremely robust and reliable.
At that time IBM had just started work on the CROESO project in the UK for South West Electricity Board (SWEB). CROESO was a complete customer-facing solution, with Smalltalk/V for OS/2 on 386 PCs at the frond end the and an MVS + DB2 back end.
SWEB were later joined by South Wales Electricity (SWALEC) and Southern Electricity, and the developer team grew considerably. It peaked at over 100 Smalltalk developers - probably over 50% of the 1990s UK population of Smalltalkers at the time.
I did training and consulting for the team. This was one of the largest ENVY projects world-wide. Cloning the repository took a whole weekend.
ENVY was extremely popular with CROESO developers and management. Its complete record of method-level commits was at times a life-saver, and the ability to configure Applications and Sub-applications made it possible for the team to deliver three different but overlapping versions of the software to the three client companies.
At one point I was contracted by IBM to integrate WindowBuilder (a popular Smalltalk GUI builder) with ENVY. This involved weeks of exploration of ENVY internals. OTI’s code was extremely well-written and a joy to read. I think I learned more about good OO design and implementation from that work than I did from any other source.
Sadly the IBMers who wrote the documentation for VisualAge’s version management were not as familiar with the way that the original ENVY product was used and as a result most VisualAge teams used the product less effectively that they might have. In later years, IBM paid me to adapt OTI’s ENVY course to cover VisualAge for Java.
One intriguing feature of the VisualAge environment was that it ran on something called the UVM (Universal Virtual Machine) which could run Smalltalk, Java and, I think, BASIC bytecode. If you knew what you were doing you could invoke Smalltalk code from inside a Java application.
ENVY was the most productive source management tool I have ever used. If anyone decides to build an Open Source successor I’d be interested in getting involved. | 1,268,691 |
Last August, Ali condemned Apple CEO Time Cook for donating major funds to the SPLC and described the leftist nonprofit the following way:
“[The SPLC is] an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism,” Ali declared, according to the DCNF.
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson was emblazoned on the SPLC’s “extremist watch list” in 2015 because his political worldview aligns with conservatives.
“When embracing traditional Christian values is equated to hatred, we are approaching the stage where wrong is called right and right is called wrong,” the neurosurgeon Carson proclaimed on Facebook after discovering his name on SPLC’s list. “It is important for us to, once again, advocate true tolerance. That means being respectful of those with whom we disagree and allowing people to live according to their values without harassment. It is nothing but projectionism when some groups label those who disagree with them as haters.”
It took four months of backlash from conservatives for the SPLC to apologize and remove the “extremist” label from the 2016 Republican presidential candidate, who is now serving under the Trump administration.
And there have been severe consequences to the SPLC’s intentional mislabeling, as witnessed six years ago.
“Floyd Lee Corkins – who attempted a mass shooting at the conservative Family Research Center in 2012 – said he chose the organization for his act of violence because the SPLC listed them as a ‘hate group,’” Hassan noted.
Anyone or any group not aligned with the SPLC’s ultra-leftist ideas is a prime candidate for the nonprofit’s smear campaign, and its credibility has been challenged on a regular basis.
“The SPLC receives criticism from across the political spectrum for its smearing of conservative and centrist individuals and organizations,” Breitbart News reported.
As a result of the smears, some nonprofit organizations are hit financially by receiving less contributions.
“Conservative groups, like the Alliance Defending Freedom, also face regular smears by the SPLC,” Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari stressed. “As a result, they are barred from Amazon’s charity program.”
Even former President Barack Obama at one time chastised the SPLC for its extremist agenda.
“The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center was [even] too extreme for the Obama administration – but it's just fine for Silicon Valley,” Fox News commented. “The Obama-era Justice Department once scolded the SPLC for overstepping ‘the bounds of zealous advocacy,’ after the organization labeled the non-profit Federation for American Immigration Reform a ‘hate group.’” | 1,268,692 |
of the vehicle.
Usually, a second trooper monitors suspects in custody so they don't escape, but Logan said the ferocity of the two brothers made the task more difficult.
"They fought the entire time, even when they were in handcuffs," Logan said. "It was a constant go until they got patrol cars (to back them up)."
Barber began to run but was tackled by one of the responding officers who came to back up Guild, and was placed in leg restraints.
The brothers were finally placed in custody with the assistance of the citizens, Buchanan PD, Berrien County Sheriff Department, and Pokagon Tribal Police.
Logan said it was not immediately apparent that the two men were on any drugs or alcohol. They received treatment, as is protocol when a use of force situation occurs, but sustained no injuries.
Guild was treated at a hospital for a compressed throat and injuries to his face and released. He embraced his wife at the hospital and was thankful to make it home that evening.
"You just never know," he said.
Two 'good citizens'
Guild returned to work Tuesday, determined to follow up on the case.
"Frankly, they pissed me off," the trooper said of the brothers. "My adrenaline was so hyped after this, I wanted to make sure I came in got and reports to the prosecutors office to get them arraigned and behind bars."
Barber and Wise were charged Tuesday with assault strangulation, a 10-year felony if convicted, resisting and obstructing a police officer causing injury, a four-year felony, and attempted disarming a police officer, a two-year felony.
Barber is also charged with third-degree fleeing and eluding police, a five-year felony, and receiving and concealing a stolen motor vehicle, a five-year felony.
A preliminary examination on evidence against them is scheduled for March 7 in the Berrien County Trial Court in Niles.
Meanwhile, police are conducting a further investigation into the suspect's connection to the motorcycle, which was reported stolen out of Van Buren County, along with several breaking and entering complaints. Five breaking and entering incidents were reported in Van Buren County, and two more incidents were already being investigated by Michigan State Police.
Guild said that had he known about those incidents and the speeding motorcyclist's possible involvement, he would have approached the situation differently.
"I've been in car chases, I've been in altercations," he said. "As far as I knew I was chasing a lone motorcyclist. My mindset was to survive, remember my training, to stay in the fight and get home."
In the end, Guild said the two citizens made all the difference.
"I later spoke to them and they couldn't understand how someone could drive by and not do anything," Guild said. "They felt it was the part of a good citizen to help police when being attacked." | 1,268,693 |
Milo Yiannopoulos publicly posted the photos and identifying information of ASUC Senator Juniperangelica Cordova-Goff and campus doctoral student Adam Jadhav on Wednesday, spurring harassment from his supporters.
Yiannopoulos posted a screenshot of one of Cordova-Goff’s Facebook posts on his Instagram account after she condemned chalk graffiti that targeted undocumented and LGBTQ+ individuals. Yiannopoulos also published a photo of Jadhav after Jadhav notified his political ecology students that Tuesday’s class would be cancelled for “Free Speech Week.”
Cordova-Goff initially deactivated her official Senate Facebook page, but it has since been reactivated, and she published a statement titled “On Being Targeted and Doxxed” in response to the incident Thursday.
“My existence, as a brown, transgender woman, was put on display and ridiculed by thousands who commented with queer and transgender slurs, vulgar remarks and death threats,” Cordova-Goff said in the statement.
The ASUC Senate called for a special meeting Saturday to consider a resolution called “Enumerating Prohibitions Against Doxxing and Outing.” The resolution, if passed, would make doxxing — the publishing of information about an individual on the Internet without their consent — and outing violations of the ASUC Constitution.
“Organizations (including ASUC officials) are be responsible for violations of this bylaw by speakers and similar invited guests at their meetings and events,” the resolution states.
ASUC Senator Hani Hussein also reported Islamophobic and xenophobic comments being posted on her official Facebook page Wednesday. To Hussein, the connection between the comments and Free Speech Week is clear.
“Obviously there’s been a lot of conversation around (Free Speech Week) in the Senate and on our Facebook pages. We’ve been very critical of the events that are going to take place,” Hussein said. “We use our Facebook profiles to promote any and all work that we do … and as a result, we are being targeted.”
Hussein deactivated her Facebook page. She called on campus administration to take responsibility for the incidents. Cordova-Goff also said in her statement that the harassment “could have been, and should have been, prevented by the university itself.”
Chancellor Carol Christ released a campuswide email condemning “hateful incidents” occurring around campus. UCPD is investigating whether the incidents constitute hate crimes, the email said.
“The campus completely condemns … assaulting words or deeds that target any member of our community. This is simply intolerable,” campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said. “We urge anyone who either has been targeted or has witnessed what they believe to be unlawful activity to immediately contact the police department.”
Contact Olivia Nouriani at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter at @olivianouriani. | 1,268,694 |
The federal election campaign is no longer blocking a face-to-face battle between Premier Kathleen Wynne and rival PC Leader Patrick Brown when the legislature returns from its summer break.
Wynne has abruptly reversed her repeated refusals to hold an Orillia-area byelection until after the Oct. 19 federal vote and is pledging to send provincial voters in Simcoe North to the polls Sept. 3.
The move came after Brown and retiring Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop, whose resignation took effect Saturday, accused her of playing “political games” by delaying the byelection call.
“I always said I was open to going quickly,” Wynne told the Star on Sunday, noting she was concerned voters would be confused by overlapping federal and provincial campaigns with a flurry of lawn signs and flyers.
But that changed when Brown and the Progressive Conservatives kept insisting a federal election didn’t matter.
“He’ll have to explain to the people of Simcoe North why he thought it was fine to do it during a federal writ period,” said Wynne.
She pledged to call the vote Wednesday so the byelection can be held in time for Brown — assuming he wins in what is considered to be a PC-friendly riding — to be in question period when MPPs come back Sept. 14.
Brown was pleased that Wynne kept her promise, made in May, to call a byelection as soon as possible once he found a riding in which to run.
“I appreciate Premier Wynne willing to do the right thing. The people of Simcoe North deserve immediate representation,” Brown, who won’t get a paycheque from taxpayers until he wins a seat, said in a statement.
Brown has signalled he wants to hold Wynne’s feet to the fire over troublesome teacher union negotiations (which could lead to school strikes this fall) the deteriorating economy and rising electricity prices.
But his efforts could be overshadowed by the federal campaign, which will be entering its final five and most crucial weeks as the legislature resumes.
Having Brown in the legislature sooner rather than later also avoids giving him more of a spotlight had the byelection been held in late November.
Wynne said those scenarios were not a factor in her decision because she’s “eager” to debate Brown, a former MP for Barrie in the Harper government.
“He opposes the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan with Stephen Harper, he opposes our climate change initiatives,” Wynne said.
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“The fact that he doesn’t want to update a sex ed curriculum that hasn’t been updated since 1998 suggests to me that he’s rooted in another century and we’re moving ahead.”
The Liberals should have a candidate to run against Brown “pretty quickly,” said Wynne.
Read more about: | 1,268,695 |
Friday, July 25
By Joann Condit of Phoenix, Arizona, USA
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.
—Colossians 3:12–15 NRSV
Since birth, I never remember a time when anything more than a few feet away appeared clear and sharp in my sight. Doctors tested my eyes when I was 11. I have worn glasses or contacts for nearly seven decades.
I had cataract surgery this year, and now I see! What a transformation! I can see far and near, in vivid color, in crisp detail. It is, to me, a tangible miracle. I expressed that thought to my eye doctor and asked him if people thank him for miracles. He laughed and said he hears that sentiment almost daily, adding, “I am on the happy side of medicine.”
He said that when he was a medical student, he and his girlfriend caught the distinctive cry of an owl and stopped to search the trees. He spotted the outline of an owl in a tree some distance away and pointed it out. She saw it immediately and said, “Oh, look at its cute little ears!”
He could not see the features in detail as she could. He mused, “I have often thought what it would be like to look through her eyes and be able to see what she sees.”
What change would occur in our lives if we could see through the eyes of another—physical eyes, mental eyes, or spiritual eyes? What if we could see clearly what the other sees? What would it be like to see from another’s perspective—walk in another’s shoes, have compassion for another’s life journey?
Prayer for Peace God grant us new eyes to see, new hearts to understand, and new compassion. Guide us to your peace.
Spiritual Practice: Tears of Compassion Offer a silent prayer for the gift of God’s compassion. Cup your hands and ask God to make you aware of the suffering that causes the Earth and its inhabitants to groan and weep. Be open to faces or places, sounds or voices, feelings of connection with those who suffer. Imagine catching the tears of those you see and holding them in your hands. Listen for prayer images or words God may give you. Discern any active responses of ministry or healing God invites you to complete for those who weep.
Peace Covenant Today, God, I will try to walk in the shoes of another to gain a new perspective for peace. | 1,268,696 |
The sale of a 300-acre property in a historic “ghost town” outside of Los Angeles closed on Friday the 13th after a bidding war, with its new owners vowing to make it a lively hospitality destination.
Cerro Gordo, an abandoned mining town 200 miles from L.A. that looks as eerie as HBO’s “Westworld,” sold to a group of eight Los Angeles-based investors for between $1 million and $1.5 million, about a 40 percent bump from its $925,000 asking price, The Real Deal has learned.
The buyers are Brent Underwood, a hospitality entrepreneur and best-selling author, and Jon Bier, who runs a boutique public relations firm. Underwood declined to comment on the exact price.
Built in the 1860s, Cerro Gordo is rich with history, and has been left relatively untouched as it passed through a few generations of family ownership.
It features 22 structures totaling 24,000 square feet, and includes a historic hotel, bunkhouse, saloon, chapel and museum. The town, once known to produce most of L.A.’s silver and lead, epitomized the Wild Wild West. At one time, there was a murder a week there, Business Insider reported.
Underwood and Bier teamed up with minority investors for the project. They include talent manager Aaron Saltzman, former American Apparel executive Ryan Holiday, Four Sigmatic founder Tero Isokauppila, Epic Signal founder Brendan Gahan, restaurateur George Rutolo and Hulu executive Kelley Mooney.
Together, they plan on renovating the site while maintaining much of the existing structures. They expect it will be used for weekend getaways, festivals, photoshoots and writing retreats, Underwood said.
Underwood, who first heard about the property after his friend sent him an an article about it, said he’d been looking for a hospitality location that was “interesting and unique, with some history to it.”
“I saw it and thought, ‘This has gotta be the one,” Underwood said. “We moved on it pretty quickly.”
The sellers — brothers who inherited the property in a family trust — received about a dozen offers, including some from investors wanting to build a marijuana farm and pine nut farm. The brothers ultimately chose Underwood’s team because of their desire to maintain the original property, Underwood said.
Jake Rasmuson of Bishop Real Estate brokered the deal.
Remote places like Cerro Gordo are continuing to gain popularity among L.A-based investors, especially millennials, who are eager to get into the hospitality business. Joshua Tree, for example, has seen an influx of investors in recent years who are looking to make a profit from the hot short-term rental market. The same is true for Coachella Valley, where several festivals keep fueling the Airbnb and rental markets. | 1,268,697 |
— Nine years ago, North Carolina State University alumnae Morgan Lashley and Caroline Dunham took a leap of faith into the world of fashion.
"We decided that we had more dreams and visions than corporate America could offer us, so we decided to start our own business,” Lashley said.
Both women persuaded their parents to invest $10,000 to help them begin their clothing and accessories business online and out of a spare bedroom.
Now, their business Vestique has nine retail stores and an e-commerce warehouse in Charlotte.
Lashley said they began on a small scale.
“This was when there was not a lot of competition actually for e-commerce boutiques,” Lashley said. “We saw a hole in the market, and we decided to start our own clothing boutique online.”
E-commerce is still a major part of their Vestique, but the women’s multi-million-dollar enterprise includes a store at Raleigh's Crabtree Valley Mall.
Vestique partners with locations that are mostly “lifestyle centers” instead of malls. However, Lashley and Dunham say that Crabtree Valley Mall bucks the trend of failing malls in the area and in many areas of the state.
“We’re up 40% in this particular location,” Lashley said.
The business's growth wasn’t easy.
“You’ve got to work your little tails off,” Dunham said.
“It was feet to the fire for us,” Lashley added.
The two were committed to staying debt free. That required caution as they added more stores and more employees.
“Honestly, I think growing too fast is probably one of the most common mistakes,” Lashley said. “Caroline and I just really chugged along."
They hand-pick every item they sell with an eye on every new trend.
“We put about 40 to 50 new arrivals out ever single week," Dunham said.
They call their Vestique's style affordable and ready to wear.
“Animal print is a huge trend right now,” Lashley said. “We are loving all things animal print.”
Mini-skirts with ruffles are also “huge” this season, Dunham said.
Customer satisfaction is their measure of success.
“Me and my friends had always come here,” said one shopper, Julia. “It's like the first store we want to go to because everything's so cute.”
That’s the kind of encouragement that helps Lashley and Dunham persevere.
“We've wanted to give up, but you can't give up,” Dunham said. “You've got to keep fighting for what you really want.” | 1,268,698 |
Our hearts pretty much broke this week when Colton Underwood sent Demi Burnett home on The Bachelor. But for some Bachelor Nation fans, it was actually a dream come true, because that meant the 23-year-old is single — and free to hook up with The Bachelorette‘s Jordan Kimball. There’s just one problem with that potential Bachelor in Paradise couple, though: Jordan’s not feeling it. In a conversation with Life & Style at Baskin-Robbins’ Valentine’s Day event, he revealed he’s not shipping it, even a little bit.
“I must’ve read over 50 comments today of people tagging me on either my page or her page,” he said. “They’re terming it Jemi. And Jemi to me sounds like a really bad denim skirt project. … Nah, I don’t think so. I’m not that interested in that. It’s like, I don’t know. It’s just weird.” He did think that the reality star seems fun — but there was one other deal breaker for him. “Her laugh? If we’re watching a movie and it’s a comedy and you laugh like that the entire movie, sorry, but, like, the earplugs are going in.”
It sounds like he’s not totally opposed to meeting her, though. “I don’t think she’s probably as crazy, but like, she’s definitely fun I’m sure outside of the show. The crazy people, the villains, are always fun people. I don’t think she’s probably like malicious or anything, but she probably gets crazy on the weekends for sure. You probably see her popped out the top of someone’s sunroof on the freeway.”
So maybe they could have a little fun in Paradise — just not romantically. And anyway, after finding love and losing it last year, the star doesn’t want to return as just another contestant. “If you guys think that I’m not gonna be on Paradise, you’re probably out of your mind,” he said. “I kind of have to go back and get that closure. … [But] I will say this, if I have any say in it, I would like to be the bartender. … So I would say really funny things about whoever. And I would be a counselor. So my goal would be to have all the girls lined up at the bar drinking with me and have all the guys playing hackey-sack. My goal would be to take the girls away from the guys and there’s no drama with that.”
Love The Bachelor? Be sure to join our Bachelor Facebook group to chat about all the latest updates, exclusive interviews, and juicy gossip! | 1,268,699 |
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