text
stringlengths 316
100k
|
|---|
As I stated in the blog agenda here on Vlad, the logical and bitter consequence of governments failing to consider the histories culture rights and values of their own people, would be that those very people will form their own groups and violently defend them themselves. This is a bitter and terrible solution to something which could have been fixed so easily by simple acts of legislation.
In my little fantasy land where Neville Chamberlain was the exception and not the rule here is how it should have gone down.
1. Stop Islamic immigration and end all programs to bring in cousins wives and second third and forth wives.
2. End multi culturalism and deport all who actively preach subversion of the values of the host culture. Preaching genocide and conspiracy of course should be an easy prosecution. This means ending special rights for religion to bypass normal liberal secular democracy. a good thing all around.
3. Protect political freedom of speech and entrench the value of freedom from religion.
It would appear that for Denmark it’s too late. Danes are joining Hells Angels motorcycle and crime gangs in record numbers. These are regular danes who have no interest in either motorcycles or crime but want an organisation which will defend them from attacks by Islamic immigrants on the war path against Danish culture and indigenous people.
The civil wars in Europe indeed have begun. Please do not think I relish this fact. While I would rather see a war in the streets than the destruction of European and western secular democracy, my whole purpose in starting this blog was to help wake people and thereby governments to the urgent need to protect values that Europeans have spent rivers of blood to build and protect both from Islam and even its own irrational religious authority and thereby stave it off with intelligent policies as listed, albeit roughly above.
Here is the article I linked to above but do click through to the original as it has sidebars and extra stories relevant to the issue.
Eeyore for Vladtepesblog
Clashes in Denmark between bikers, hangarounds and patriots, versus immigrant gangs and left wing extremists.
More shooting in Copenhagen Update September 15 2008 This afternoon 3 shots were fired against a Hells Angels related Tattoo shop ‘House of Pain‘ in Bragesgade in the infamous Noerrebro district of Copenhagen. Two perpetrators of foreign ethnicity drove by on a red moped and fired 3 shots to the windows. Three men were in the tattoo shop; one of them was hit in the neck by a projectile, and was taken to a hospital. His life is no longer in danger. A baby was sleeping in a carriage directly outside the shop. A bullet went through the window missing the infant by only one meter. House of pain is situated directly next to the Hells Angels support fashion shop Route 81. The victim’s wife and baby were in the shop while the shooting took place.
So far no arrests were made. Source: TV2 Yesterday September 14, 2008 Two immigrants were hit by bullets in Rantzausgade, Noerrebro Copenhagen. One was shot in the back and one in the leg. At least 11 shots were fired, a white Ford Mondeo and a Toyota Picnic are thought to be involved. The victims were immigrants standing in the doorway of the Internet café Surf & Play, a well known meeting place for criminal immigrants. The nature of the weapons involved is not yet clear, but they were probably automatic weapons. Riots broke out, when at least 5o immigrants quickly gathered at the scene, yelling and pushing up against the police officers who were at the spot. The officers had to release their dogs to disperse the crowd, until 10 patrol cars arrived and blocked off the scene. According to TV2 News, this is the 15th episode involving fire arms this month. Police sergeant Poul B. Hansen said there was no direct proof of involvement by AK81. Jyllands-Posten Several residents said they were considering about moving out of the danger zone for good. The district of Noerrebro has been a regular battle zone for immigrant gangs and communist rioters for years.
The biker group Hells Angels seem to be coming back at the at the moment still dominating immigrant gangs, with their new support group AK81, which is increasingly gaining support from Danes who are not first and foremost interested in bikes or crime, but who have grown increasingly hostile to especially muslim immigrants, after ever increasing street violence, knife attacks, robberies and rape from the side of muslim immigrants.
The rates for violent crime and especially rape related cases have gone up dramatically with the increasing number of muslim immigrants. Large numbers of Danes, not otherwise interested in motorcycles or gang related criminal activity, are reported to sign up under the new banner of the HA support group AK81 ‘81? being synonymous with the letters HA), and AK probably referring to the famous AK 47 ‘Kalashnikov’ submachine gun, as well as meaning Always Ready [Altid Klar] in Danish.
For many years motorcycle gangs such as the illustrious Hells Angels and muslim dominated street gangs managed to exist side by side in relative peace, in the struggle for control of the market for illegal drugs, especially cannabis, but also other forms of crime.
The later years the ethnic Danish gangs such as Hells Angels were increasingly coming under pressure from the muslim gangs, who showed to be far more relentless in their methods, and much less afraid of the possible judicial consequences of their actions, besides being much more numerous, and able to draw upon support from much of the immigrant community not otherwise involved in similar crime.
Police and helped immigrant gangs by keeping down Danish bikers
One of the reasons that the immigrant gangs have been able to gain in strength, is because they are much less visible for the police than the motorcycle gang members, who are easily identified, because of their style of dress with visible logos, their more limited numbers and often also because of their physical stature.
The Hells Angels are tightly organized, and almost all members are known by the police, who have kept these groups under constant observation, making it increasingly difficult for them to defend themselves and their territories from the muslim gangs, who are much more loosely knit, are not easily identifiable and have their respective languages to complicate things for the Danish police.
In the recent past Hells Angels’ members have been attacked openly by members of the ethnic crime syndicates, and one of their properties has been attacked and demolished by immigrant gangs. Some chapters closed after that. But not only the police has more or less taken the part of the immigrants, practically spoken; the press as well has been an active player in minimizing the problem with the many criminal immigrants, and deamonizing any similar Danish groups.
AK81, the new Hells Angels’ support team
Now a newly established support group of ‘hangarounds’ has been established, and the Angels are openly recruiting for their team, saying that it is not neccesary to own a motorcycle to be a member. This has had a dramatic effect, and large numbers of young Danes are volunteering for the new movement, hoping that they will be able to contribute to the fight against the muslim invaders, who so far have been successful in obtaining almost total street domination.
The police, who have used all their resources at keeping the bikers in check, have used a far more soft touch towards the muslim gangs. Very often the police withdraw from confrontations, and leave demolishing hordes of immigrants untouched, contrary to a simple house search or an arrrest relating to the Bikers’ gangs, when they arrive in overwhelming numbers, ready with bullet proof vests and submachine guns.
Jaegersborg Street in Copenhagen
Only little more than a week ago, a gang of about 50 immigrants rampaged a whole street in Copenhagen Jægersborgsgade, a local neighborhood where some HA members have their homess, indiscriminately smashing up a number of cars. The police watched helplessly, and no arrests were made. The action was a display off of power, after bikers and their new supporter from AK81, had held a silent and non violent march through to demonstrate their willingness to fight for their turf.
Police powerless against immigrant gangs
Partly this is part of a government and EU strategy, which puts great restrictions on the police when dealing with immigrants and immigrant gangs. There always are the accusations of ‘racism’, and the muslim gangs are also much feared than the bikers when it comes to their threats to harm individual police officers or their families. Many policemen whose identities are known by the immigrant gangs, would rather not have their house torched or their loved ones attacked by the invaders who have taken their extremely violent mentality with them straight from the Middleast.
Cell phone Jihad
One of the most powerful weapons of the immigrant gangs is that they are able to gather large numbers of supporters in the run of a few minutes. They do this using cell phones. They have been using this method, not only for criminal gang related activity, but it is often used when immigrants get involved in traffic accidents.
They are on the spot in large numbers ten times faster than the police, when one of their fellow ethnics ‘needs support’. Recently a family father was knifed in the back during a standoff about a completely minor traffic accident. Anybody who gets into a confrontation with one of these often knife wielding immigrant thugs, risks getting into a war with a whole brotherhood, which doesn’t shy away from threatening witnesses, even in court, or on the steps of the court house.
The mainly muslim immigrants supported perhaps by a few Danish renegades, have often completely blocked off accident sites, to the extent that ambulances either could not reach the spot, or in other cases were attacked with stones and other forms of violence. The same scene often plays out when the fire brigade is sent to an ethnic neighborhood to put out a burning car or a waste container, and firefighters in some cities now refuse to work except under police protection, which often means a long delay when alarmed about a fire.
The cell phone organized criminal jihad of course benefits greatly from the immigrants use of Arabic, Urdu and other languages, making it much harder for the authorities to monitor their communications, while the content communication between the native groups is much easier to access.
Left wing extremists and immigrant thugs
But the biker groups, their AK81 supporters and the immigrants are not the only players in this game.
The extreme left in Denmark, known under various names such as AFA, Antifa, ARN, autonome [autonomous], SUF and countless other aliases also is involved. The last mentioned SUF group, actually is an official part of the organized left wing extremist party Enhedslisten, which is represented in parliament. But reality shows, that although there are many such groups, the people involved are largely the same across these red fascist groups.
The extreme left even has its own intelligence service, the secretive REDOX, and the closely related DEMOS outlet.
Both groups which have managed to appear in the mainstream media, as so called ‘neutral observers and documenters ‘ of ‘the racist activities of ‘right wing extremist groups’, as they like to present themselves.
This notwithstanding the fact that e.g. the DEMOS personel through the years has maintained close connections with convicted members of Denmarks first and most dangerous left wing terrorist groups the internationally connected Blekingegade Gang, revering the same ideologists and sharing the same sympathies for organizations such as the PFLP and the South American terrorist group FARC.
Elderly woman, one of the victims who were beat up with iron pipes by left wing extremists at a SIOE demonstration against Saudi delegation’s participation in human rights conference. The police were present in great numbers, but still left wing anarchists managed to find SIOE demonstrators in a parking garage, and attacked them with iron pipes and knifes. The incident was first denied in the press, went unreported by most major TV stations and newspapers, and the police never seriously investigated. The attackers went free. Only a few weeks ago an 82 year old female demonstrator in Hobro was attacked and brutally thrown off her feet by a muslim youth.
During the last at least ten years, these red fascist groups have been able to turn any and all expressions from anti-immigration or anti-islamic organizations and individuals into a battle zone.
No matter who demonstrated for any purpose the anarchists deemed unworthy, even congregations mainly consisting of pensioners, were met in the streets by yells of ‘Nazis go home’, stones, paint bombs, firecrackers, fists and iron pipes.
Old ladies past their 7oth birthday have been knocked to the ground or hit with iron pipes, as happened recently in Copenhagen before a SIAD (a non violent anti-racist organization against islamization) demonstration, where two cars filled with people were attacked in an underground parking garage.
The left wing extremist groups have on several occasions been supported by some immigrants, who are always looking for an opportunity to riot, and the left wing extremists have also supported angry muslim mobs during demonstrations.
Vejle: violent clashes between ‘neo-Nazis’ and left wing extremists.
Just a few days ago, on Thursdag september 11, a short but intense fight devellopped in the city of Vejle in Jutland, as members of the left wing extremist group SUF, were confronted by a group which in the media was described as ‘neo-Nazies’, but as it turns out more likely was made up of some members from the AK81 support group.
This time the red fascists suffered severe defeat, and several were injured.
According to the left wing extremists themselves, they were attacked by ‘neo-Nazis’, which was repeated in the press, even though the statements given by the police were not supporting that theory:
The local newspaper Vejle Amts Folkeblad amongst others wrote the following:
.. The police would not corroborate the newspaper’s information, that any of the groups involved were actually ‘neo-Nazis’. The police got a phone call telling that some red fascists had been attacked by a group of ‘neo-Nazis. We could not confirm that they were really neo-Nazi, but we do not believe that there is any neo-Nazi presence in the city of Vejle. There are autonomous [= leftwing extremists] groups in all major cities, says Jens Soegaard, leader of the special patrol of the local South Jutland police. Nevertheless, the Vejle newspaper unashamedly used this title for its article: ‘Neo-Nazis and left wing extremists clashed in street confrontation‘
In the wake of this latest and other similar incidents, the chief of the Police Intelligence Service PET; Jacob Scharf appeared on TV saying that all sides in the conflict were acquiring fire arms.
In its latest annual report, the same intelligence service admitted for the first time, what most honest observers knew already more than ten years ago, that most of the political violence in Denmark is perpetrated by the left, and that conflicts mainly occur when ‘right wing’ manifestations are attacked by left wing radicals.
Well perhaps all this balance is about to change now. With the appearance of the AK81 group on the scene, this situation may suddenly become reversed.
Bikers critized for being unpatriotic
Interestingly, groups such as the Hells Angels have so far never had any sympathy at all from the political right, patriotic circles, anti-immigrationalists or however you’d like to define it.
They were actually criticized apart from being criminal providers of drugs, for cooperating all too closely with the criminal immigrant gangs, and I believe there were several non natives in, or very close to the organization.
In the past the Hells Angels and similar groups have never in any way let patriotic, ethnic or other such moral concerns come between them and their business interests. The Bandido’s group for example was or is ethnically diverse, but I am not an expert on these groups, so don’t take my word for that. I don’t know if this group plays any role today, but I’ll probably be updated on that in the days to come.
Well, it is impossible to describe all the details of the biker, muslim and patriotic conflict here.
But it seems like it’s a hard rain gonna fall..
This article may still be edited in the days to come.
Related and sources recent:
The Opinionator has a complete translation of a Danish newspaper (Politiken) article about the situation: |
It was one of those bitterly cold weekends, the kind when you hunker down inside and wonder how you’ll keep the kids occupied — or at least not fighting.
Because it was not a payday weekend, our outings were limited to the library on Saturday and church on Sunday. I’m the rare parent who does not have her children engaged in sports or other extracurricular activities.
So, we made our own fun in our little condo apartment. We invited friends over, built a fire, watched movies, played video games, engaged in epic Nerf battles and — highlight — hung a basketball hoop in the dining room.
It was adorable to watch my 12-year-old son teach my 6-year-old daughter how to play: Every time she scored, per her brother’s instructions, she had to shout, “Kobe!” in honor of the basketball champ Kobe Bryant of the L.A. Lakers.
“Mommy,” she’d say, her eyes shining with happiness, “I got another goal!”
Eventually, though, I stopped smiling. Even though we live on the ground floor of a fourplex, I began to worry that the sound of my happy children — with all that thumping, jumping, shooting and yelling — was still too much. I shut down the game at 8 p.m.
Apparently, though, that wasn’t soon enough.
On Sunday evening, I found a note taped to our door.
It said something about how we had been “exceptionally noisy” over the weekend.
It was unsigned.
Once again, I was reminded that kids and condos do not mix.
In the almost three years since I bought this three-bed, two-bath condo, some of our neighbors have scolded us for everything from sidewalk chalk to unattended playing to playing in general.
I wonder if this would happen if we had Norwegian neighbors.
I don’t think so.
At least, not if the Norwegian philosophy of childhood is still as it is described in Eric Dregni’s memoir, “In Cod We Trust: Living the Norwegian Dream.” This book, published in 2008 by the University of Minnesota Press, explores Norwegian culture through the eyes of a Minnesota family who temporarily relocates there.
Dregni describes what happens when a school group of 9-year-old boys descended upon the pool locker room: The boys were singing Christmas carols (in July), playing catch with their underwear, running forward and backward in swim fins. You know, acting like … kids. And no one stopped them.
“I was witnessing what my Norwegian teacher, Sissel, told me was en fri oppdragelse, a free upbringing in which children are allowed to roam and to express themselves,” Dregni wrote.
Dregni goes on to describe the boys’ behavior at the pool:
“In the large whirlpool, some of the boys played catch with a big foam cube that was obviously hard to control. When it bonked an older man on the head, he uttered, ‘Uff da!’ (Ouch) but didn’t say anything to the lifeguards.”
Yeah, my note-writing neighbors would have definitely said something to the lifeguards.
It’s not just my neighbors, though.
At my gym, I dislike how they won’t let children use the sauna, even if parents are attending them. “Did you know that in Finland, where saunas were invented, a sauna is a family event?” I once asked the unyielding rule enforcer.
At the library, I dislike how the librarians shush the children and tell them to stop running in the children’s section.
At the hotel, I get upset at the lady in the children’s pool who tells my daughter she’s going to get her kicked out for splashing.
Before you berate me, know this:
We won’t use the sauna if you tell us we can’t.
We don’t run at the library, unless we forget because we’re really excited about a book.
We try to remember not to splash too much at the pool.
Also?
We want to move to Norway.
Molly Guthrey can be reached at [email protected] or 651-228-5505. |
A IPython Notebook to analyze the Gaza-Israel 2012 crisis¶
The Guardian is tracking and mapping live (link) the recent incidents in Gaza and Israel. As part of their data-journalism spirit, they are sharing the data as a Google Fusion Table available for access.
This notebook is an attempt to show, on the one hand, how the toolkit from the Python stack can be used for a real world data hack and, on the other, to offer deeper analysis beyond mapping of the events, both exploiting the spatial as well as the temporal dimension of the data.
The source document ( .ipynb file) is stored on Github as a gist here, which means you can fork it and use it as a start for you own data-hack.
file) is stored on Github as a gist here, which means you can fork it and use it as a start for you own data-hack. A viewable version is available here, via the IPython Notebook Viewer.
Collaborate on the notebook!!!¶
In its initial version (Nov. 20th), the notebook only contains code to stream the data from the Google Fusion Table into a pandas DataFrame (which means you get the data ready to hack!). Step in and collaborate in making it a good example of how Python can help analyze real world data. Add a new view, quick visualization, summary statistic of fancy model that helps understand the data better!
To contribute, just fork the gist as you would with any git repository.
Happy hacking! |
In this Friday, June 27, 2014, file photo, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah speaks before a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry at Abdullah's private residence in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has established a research and essay competition in honor of King Abdullah, to be hosted by the National Defense University.
King Abdullah oversaw the modernization of his country’s military during the time he spent as commander of the National Guard, a position he held from 1963 until he became king in 2005.
Announcing the creation of the competition on Monday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said it is a fitting tribute to the life and leadership of King Abdullah.
King Abdullah was a lifetime supporter of his country’s alliance with the United States.
“This is an important opportunity to honor the memory of the king, while also fostering scholarly research on the Arab-Muslim world, and I can think of no better home for such an initiative than NDU,” Dempsey said in a statement announcing the competition.
The competition will focus on issues related to the Arab-Muslim world and is designed to encourage strategic thinking and meaningful research on a crucial part of the world. The program will be in place at NDU for the next academic year, officials said.
Dempsey first met King Abdullah in 2001, when he was a brigadier general serving as the US adviser to the National Guard. “In my job to train and advise his military forces, and in our relationship since, I found the king to be a man of remarkable character and courage,” Dempsey said.
Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Frederick M. Padilla, the president of the National Defense University, welcomed the opportunity to challenge future students while honoring the late king.
“This scholarly research competition presents NDU students with a unique opportunity to focus their research and writing efforts on relevant issues at the intersection of US security interests and the Arab-Muslim world,” he said.
———
©2015 the Arab News (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
Visit the Arab News (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) at www.arabnews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC |
The Berserkers kept coming, slashing at anything they could reach and leaving guards, archers, horses, even the Battlemages bleeding severely in their wake. Bright light shone through the Rune Golems’ stone bodies marking their wounds. The commander knew it was time to turn the tide of battle, to save his troops, Hernfar Isle, and Terrinoth. He whispered a few words under his breath and immediately heard the clanging of metal. Slowly, steadily, immense and shining automatons marched out of the trees and into the fray. The Uthuk stabbed and slashed at them, and then began to panic as they realized their weapons could not harm these armored, inhuman soldiers.
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce two upcoming Army Pack expansions for BattleLore Second Edition. Stand your ground against chaos and destruction with the Daqan army in Hernfar Guardians, or lacerate your opponents and lay waste to the land with the demonic Uthuk Y’llan units of the Warband of Scorn.
In each Army Pack you will find four new unit types for BattleLore Second Edition and two army cards that allow you to quickly deploy complete Daqan or Uthuk Y’llan armies composed entirely of the new units. Additional infantry units – the Daqan Citadel Guards or the Uthuk Blood Harvesters – are also included, along with a complete alternate deck of lore cards, new terrain tiles, and scenario cards. Choose one of the suggested armies or combine the new units with ones from the core set – either way, you’ll command a force of unprecedented might and tactical capabilities.
Fearless Defenders
With Hernfar Guardians, mages, knights, and automatons come under your command to fight in the Daqan army. The Citadel Lancers, horsemen armed with double-headed poleaxes, trample supported enemy units that otherwise would stand firm. Siege Golems, larger and stronger than Rune Golems, are ranged units with a combat value of four and a range of up to six– greater than any other ranged unit on the field. Their immense size also allows them to ignore other units when determining line of sight. Send them forward early in the game to thin out the enemy line, or deploy them behind infantry to support an attack.
For the first time in BattleLore Second Edition, Caster units enter the conflict. These ranged infantry units fight using spells instead of physical force, their power granting them a range up to three and a combat value of three. Fighting for the Daqan Lords are Greyhaven Battlemages, scholars of the most powerful and arcane magics. Their lore results allow you to both gain a point of lore and draw a lore card.
The Battlemages bring with them the Ironbound: indomitable and enchanted automatons with a combat value of four and the ability to ignore one point of damage each combat round. As automatons, they do not need to be commanded the way living troops do. Instead, you can spend a lore to order them, enabling them to fight in every round as long as you have the lore to spend.
Bloodthirsty Demons
As the warriors of Terrinoth unite to defend their homeland, the Uthuk Y’llan gain darker infernal powers and more vicious demonic allies in Warband of Scorn. Once men, the Grotesque and Berserkers have little humanity left in them and seek only to stain the ground crimson with Daqan blood.The monstrous Grotesque can use their Lacerate ability to Bleed target units, so that the unit rolls one fewer die in combat as long as they keep bleeding. The Berserkers’ Deranged ability allows you to reroll one die in every combat roll, making them an unpredictable and vicious threat for the Daqan.
The Uthuk Y’llan gain Caster units as well: the fiendish Blood Sisters, who can Syphon target units to regain health, and cast Blood Magic to bleed their own units in order to harm their enemies. Following them are creeping, insectlike Doombringers. The terrifying presence of these creatures Immobilizes nearby units so that you cannot move them, while the Doombringers themselves can Burrow, ignoring movement restrictions imposed by terrain or other units. Send a Doombringer into the middle of Daqan cavalry to freeze them in place before they can charge forward, then annihilate them before they can fight back.
Changing Terrain
Hernfar Guardians and Warband of Scorn feature additional terrain tiles that allow you to adjust the battlefield landscape according to your will. You deploy these terrain tiles as if they were army units, and must factor them into your deployment cost. Both the Daqan Lords and Uthuk Y’llan gain Barricades that block movement or damage units that move across them. The Daqan also have Crystal Spires: any Daqan unit atop a Crystal Spire during combat can roll one additional die. Similarly, the Uthuk Y’llan can now create Blood Fields, where their units can recover one point of health at the start of your turn.
Each Army Pack includes five scenario cards that incorporate the new terrain tiles, offering your army unique advantages and challenges. In Behind the Lines, your Daqan troops are encouraged to fight their way deep into enemy territory. If you’re commanding the Uthuk Y’llan, the Blood-Stained Forest scenario gives you incentives for sending your Blood Sisters to occupy forest hexes in the middle of the battlefield.
Command and Fight
Hernfar Guardians and Warband of Scorn both contain the units necessary to deploy a complete army, with two suggested deployment options and everything you need to use these units and terrain tiles in battle. For example, with the units included in Hernfar Guardians you can deploy either the Hernfar Guardians army, which is centered around the Citadel Lancers and a Siege Golem, or the more infantry-heavy Tranlon’s Raiders army. Future previews will provide more detail about the strengths and tactical capabilities of the suggested armies.
You can also combine units from the Army Packs with those from the core set to muster an army designed for the battle at hand and customized to fit your strengths as a commander. Similarly, you can substitute the lore decks included in the Army Packs for the lore deck from the core set, or mix cards from both decks to create the lore deck that gives your army the greatest tactical advantages. Whether you command the bloodthirsty and savage Uthuk Y’llan or the noble and fearless Daqan Lords, these Army Packs offer you myriad tactical options. Choose your battlefield and your army, and prepare to fight with these formidable military units. You are in command.
Look for Hernfar Guardians and Warband of Scorn in the first quarter of 2015. In the meantime, watch the Battlelore Second Edition minisite for in-depth previews and further information. |
Amos Mac
Jacob's self-affirmation:
“When I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed, like when I have an audition or an interview or a red carpet or something, I make it a habit to look myself in the mirror and say 'You are beautiful, you are brilliant, and you are worthy of love.' It really helps me feel at home in my body again, at peace with myself.”
Jacob's message of love and support for queer and trans friends:
“I think an important component of kindness within the queer/trans community is just acknowledging that the pain folks feel is real. So much of what I do for my friends is affirm that they are justified in how they feel, that they aren't being too sensitive or too dramatic, that how they feel is legitimate. Too often, queer and trans people are told to simply suck up the shit that the world dishes us. Acknowledging that we shouldn't have to — supporting one another in the hope that we one day won't have to — is a radical act of kindness. When queer and trans folks have internalized so many of the negative things that the world tells us, simply telling someone you love 'you don't deserve this' can be revolutionary.” |
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2013 and has been completely updated and for accuracy and with more uses.
NFC (Near Field Communication) has been getting more attention by the media after becoming a technology for mobile payments and creative marketing. Most of the recent mobile devices support NFC, but most people don’t really know about or use it. NFC has a very uncertain future.
Whether or not NFC becomes a widely adopted technology, it also needs to lose its image. Most people still think that NFC is only used for mobile payments and data transfer. That is not true!
There is more fun and practical stuff you can do with NFC: using NFC tags!
NFC tags can be small stickers, which contain a small unpowered NFC chip. Depending on how the tag is programmed, it can change various settings, launch apps and perform certain actions just by holding your phone close to it. To do this, the tag takes a small amount of power from the smartphone and sends its stored information onto it.
For the ones who haven’t programmed NFC tags before, we created a short video tutorial:
And if you are planning to get some for yourself, check out this decent starter kit.
Creative and practical ways to use NFC tags
At home
Stick an NFC tag near your entrance door and let it do things, such as enabling your
Wi-Fi, turning off bluetooth and turning up the ringer volume. With the right app (Trigger, for example) you can program the tag to switch back the settings once you tap your phone on the tag a second time – disabling Wi-Fi, turning on bluetooth …
In the car
If you have a bluetooth compatible car radio or headset in your car, then an NFC tag will certainly make your life easier. Let it turn on your bluetooth so your smartphone automatically connects to your radio or headset and let it play your favorite playlist. Do you use your phone’s GPS to navigate? Use a tag to turn on Google Maps and disable turning of the screen while charging.
Working out in peace
To be completely focused and undisturbed while you are working out, just place a tag on your sports bag which turns on flight mode and launches your workout playlist. Using the “toggle” option, you can reverse the process by simply tapping the tag again when you’re done.
On the bedside table – to fall asleep and to finally wake up in time
To sleep
Obviously, you don’t want to be waken up in the middle of the night. That is why you mute your phone or put it in flight mode every time you go to bed. Let a tag do that for you with just a tap. Do you own a dock for your phone? Let the tag launch a nightstand app to have a dimmed clock and other content displayed.
To wake up
Get out of bed in time by forcing yourself to go to the bathroom and scan a tag in order to stop your alarm. Isn’t that a great idea?! Try the app Puzzle Alarm Clock which features include NFC.
Turn on your computer remotely
This one is a little bit more advanced but great. Imagine coming home, tapping an NFC tag at your entrance which automatically turns on your PC or laptop. You need a few apps to be able to do that:
Reddit user Captainmathmo created a quick step-by-step guide on how to remote start your computer.
On your set of keys
By having an NFC tag on your keychain, you can save battery while you’re on the go without the need of Wi-F, for examplei. Let the tag switch off your Wi-Fi and raise the ringer volume, for example. If you set the tag to “toggle”, it turns on your Wi-Fi and mutes your phone once you tap it again.
Create a hotspot for your laptop or tablet
Place a tag on your notebook, tablet or on their cases and let it turn on your phone’s portable Wi-Fi hotspot. This can be very useful if you are on the go or working in the train and you need an internet connection to look something up quickly. Make sure to let the tag toggle your Wi-Fi hotspot, so you can turn it off again with a quick tap.
Save battery while being in the subway
Travelling in the subway mostly means that your phone is having a hard time looking for a cell signal which drains battery power. To prevent that, stick a tag somewhere at the stations you mostly use to get to work or on your bag (less weird) and let it turn on/off flight mode.
Turn on/off your lights at home
This one is for the more tech-savvy people. Daniel Friedman from Ninja Blocks posted a great way to control your lighting using On{X}, NFC tags, Philips Hue bulbs, and Ninja Blocks. Here’s his how-to guide.
At the office
Put a tag on your desk to let it turn on your Wi-Fi, turn off sound and make it vibrate only. You can also take it to the next level and make it launch your to-do app and check into your workplace onFoursquare. Once you leave work, you can use a second tag sending your partner a quick message or mail that you’re leaving work and soon be home.
Set timers
Ever cooked an egg and forgot to look at the time? Use a tag next to your stove to activate your timer to always get the perfect cooked egg. Same idea can be used when you use the washing machine or similar things.
In your wallet – as a business card
On business meetings, conferences and other events, networking is important. A lot of business cards switch hands but there’s always the risk of running out of cards. An NFC tag in your wallet or event badge can erase that risk by containing your “emergency business card” ready to be scanned by others.
It’s also a great idea to have physical business cards with a NFC chip inside. This chip could send a person to your company website or store the location of your store, for example.
Start Tasker tasks
If you’re using Tasker to automate actions on your phone you can use NFC tags to trigger some of your tasks. Of course, Tasker can trigger its own tasks using certain data but what it can’t do, for example, is to differentiate between your bedroom and your kitchen. Using your location or the Wifi-SSID is not enough in that case. So, sometimes it might make sense to use NFC tags trigger tasks.
Give others access to your Wi-Fi
Place an NFC tag in your living room or near the entrance, which gives your friends instant access to your Wi-Fi without revealing your password. The close proximity an NFC device needs to have with the tag makes it impossible for strangers to connect to it from outside the house.
Lock and unlock your door
Smart home technology has become a huge trend (think Nest) but, until now, many solutions are still quite pricey and need a rather complex installation. The smart door lock ‘Lockitron’ is one of the more affordable home automation systems. Besides being able to lock and unlock your door with an NFC tag or device you can also control the lock with your smartphone (iOS & Android) from anywhere in the world. How’s that possible? Lockitron is connected to your home Wi-Fi. It also offers more features such as giving guest access to friends or getting notifications if a family member enters the house. You can pre-order the Lockitron for $179 on their website. Shipment is supposed to start in the coming weeks.
Control NFC devices with a ring
Getting tired of using your NFC enabled phone to control NFC compatible devices? Simply show them your finger! The Kickstarter project ‘NFC Ring’, designed by John McLear, comes with two NFC inlays to store data or control other devices like the smart door lock Lockitron (see #15). One of the inlays is supposed to be for more sensible data or commands, like unlocking your door or phone, and the other one for more public data (Wi-Fi password, contact details …). The NFC Ring comes at a very reasonable base price of £22 ($36 / 26€) and shipping to all Kickstarter backers has just started.
NFC tags in education
Schools and universities can use NFC tags to supply students with special “hidden” information. One great example for an educational use of NFC is the Central College Nottingham in the UK. On its campus, many NFC touch points are placed close to different objects to make it easier for foreign language students to learn English. Once they tap their phone on one of the touch points, they receive a name and a description. The college used QR codes before, but say that, due to the requirement of a QR scanning app, students hardly scanned them. Although it makes a lot of sense to use NFC tags in education, I admit that using them to learn a new language in your spare time does not really make sense. The traditional approach with Post-Its is much more convenient, to be honest.
Own a business? Use NFC tags!
Bars, restaurants, hairdressers and similar businesses can use NFC tags to promote their business and increase customer satisfaction.
Lure potential customers to you by placing promotional posters in your neighborhood with NFC tags containing your location (don’t forget to make them “real-only” first). Once someone scans one, the Google Maps app will launch showing the location of your business. That’s just one out of many examples how you can use NFC in marketing.
Here’s a video explaining how to link a specific Google Maps to an NFC tag:
But don’t just stop there. Find relevant ways to satisfy your customers. For example, place tags on your products containing additional information (landing page, customer reviews, product video …) or use tags that check-in your customers on Foursquare.
Restaurants and bars could use NFC tag stickers on tables which send some sort of signal, saying that a customer needs a waiter or wants to have the bill. An easy and improvised way to make it happen is letting the tag send an email triggering a notification in the owner’s email app.
There are countless possibilities to use NFC tags. Just play around with the tags and find the settings that suit you best.
So what are you waiting for?
How are you using NFC tags? Share your favorite tag settings with us in the comments!
___
Image courtesies of Jeremy Levine, Rajiv Vishwa, 24oranges.nl, MIKI Yoshihito, Sam Stockman,Matt Westgate, Will Merydith, Vox Efx, Rodrigo Soldon, Loozrboy, Rob Stinnett and andrewarchy |
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin says ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has sent a letter to Putin asking him to use military force in Ukraine to restore law and order.
"Under the influence of Western countries, there are open acts of terror and violence," Churkin quoted the letter from Yanukovich to Putin in the third emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
"People are being persecuted for language and political reasons," Churkin read. ”So in this regard I would call on the President of Russia, Mr. Putin, asking him to use the armed forces of the Russian Federation to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order, stability and defending the people of Ukraine."
Russia’s UN envoy shows #Yanukovich’s letter in which he asks Putin for use of Russian military force in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/DPgDZqtlU4 — RT (@RT_com) March 3, 2014
After reading the letter, Churkin held up a copy of the original letter from Yanukovich to Putin for council members to look at.
Churkin also told the UN Security Council that it is about protecting the rights of the Russian-speaking population there.
Russia considers it necessary to ensure that the agreement between Viktor Yanukovich and the opposition on the crisis in Ukraine is fulfilled, Churkin told the UNSC.
Watch Vitaly Churkin speaking at the UNSC meeting:
Churkin said it is essential that the obligations set forth in the agreement on February 21 be fulfilled, such as beginning the process of constitutional reform with full participation and contributions from all regions of Ukraine for subsequent approval in a national referendum, and the formation of a legitimate government of national unity in the interests of all political forces and regions.
Churkin clarified at the UNSC meeting that Russia’s goal is not to return ousted leader Viktor Yanukovich to power, but acknowledged that he is still the legitimate president of Ukraine and that his fate should be decided by the people of Ukraine.
He stressed the need to "rein in the radicals" operating in Ukraine and asked Ukrainian opposition leaders to dissociate themselves from them.
Churkin added that new information is emerging about more provocations in the works against the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine.
People’s self-defense units were formed in a situation where threats and forceful actions of ultra-nationalists puts at risk the lives of Russian citizens and the Russian-speaking population. The units already managed to prevent the capture of administrative buildings and the smuggling of large amounts of firearms and explosives by radicals, Churkin explained.
US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power followed Churkin’s comments in front of the UN Security Council, saying that Russia's actions regarding Ukraine are a “violation of international law.”
.@AmbassadorPower: "Russian military action is not a human rights protection mission. It is a violation of international law." — US Mission to the UN (@USUN) March 3, 2014
"It is a fact that today Russian jets entered Ukrainian airspace," Power said. "Russia military action is a violation of international law. Russian military bases in Ukraine are secure. Russian mobilization is a response to an imaginary threat. Military action can not be justified on the basis of threats that haven't been made or aren't being carried out. Russia needs to engage directly with the government of Ukraine."
Powers appealed for human rights monitors to be sent to Ukraine, while calling on Russia to “immediately pull back” deployed forces.
"Russia has every right to wish events had turned out differently. It doesn't have the right to express that using military force," Power said.
Ukraine Ambassador to the United Nations Yuriy Sergeyev said his country has “not received a compelling answer” on Russia’s stated reasons for moves into Crimea.
“You call it a coup d'etat. We call it a revolution of dignity,” Sergeyev said, speaking in the direction of Russia’s Churkin.
"We [Ukraine] have a different understanding of human rights than you [Russia],” Sergeyev added.
Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, said China condemns the recent extremist violence in Ukraine.
“We urge all sides to resolve differences through legal framework” and to protect rights of all people, Jieyi said.
The Ukrainian parliament in Kiev in its first days disturbed eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, where many Russian speakers live, by voting to repeal a law which gave regional status to the Russian language. Seeing this as part of an anti-Russian discriminatory stance of the government, some of the regions denounced Kiev and said they would not be taking orders from the new regime.
Authorities in Crimea requested Moscow’s assistance after parliament voted to repeal the law.
More than half of the Crimean population are Russian and use only the Russian language for their communication. The residents have announced they will hold a referendum on March 30 to determine the fate of the Ukrainian autonomous region.
Facts you need to know about Crimea and why it is in turmoil
Crimean authorities denounced the self-proclaimed government in Kiev and declared that all Ukrainian law enforcement and military deployed in the peninsula must take orders from them. The majority of troops in Crimea switched sides in favor of local authorities.
In the wake of the escalation, the self-imposed president of Ukraine, Aleksandr Turchinov, spoke out against the language vote, stating on Monday evening that he will not sign the decision to repeal the language law. Instead, he will wait until a working group drafts a new law that will allow the use of all languages in Ukraine.
In the 1990s, the status of Sevastopol became the subject of endless debates between Russia and Ukraine. Following negotiations, the city and surrounding territories were granted a special “state significance” status within the Ukrainian state, and some of the naval facilities were leased to Russia for its Black Sea Fleet until at least 2047. According to the agreement, Russia can have up to 25,000 personnel in Crimea, according to Churkin.
Feeling a threat from the self-appointed government, a number of regions have stood up against it. Thousands of people across eastern and southern Ukraine are flooding the streets of major cities, urging local authorities to disobey Kiev’s orders. The local population has deemed the government in Kiev illegitimate, demanding that their local governments refuse to take orders from it. |
Cannabis investors had to be marathon runners to keep up with an onslaught of news in the sector this year. Developments in the last six weeks alone has been enough to leave Bay Street breathless.
On the medical side, two big suppliers announced deals with Shoppers Drug Mart. Another large-cap launched a hostile half-a-billion-dollar bid for the oldest supplier in the country.
On the recreational side, the Liberal government announced that 75 percent of marijuana taxes would be given to provinces after an uproar over the initial plan for a 50-50 split. Quebec joined other provinces in announcing how it plans to structure recreational sales. New Brunswick signed a deal that it says will supply the province’s entire recreational market. And a merger between “lifestyle” brands in anticipation of recreational cannabis sent shares of one of the companies up 26 per cent.
All of those events moved cannabis stocks, not just the companies involved. Since Nov. 10, a TSX-listed cannabis ETF has soared 25 per cent.
The biggest gains in the marijuana sector are found among smaller players listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange.
As of this writing in late December, MYM Nutraceuticals had soared 7,860 percent year-over-year. The company reported revenue of $280,488 in its latest quarterly report and a loss of more than $600,000. MYM is planning to buy 51 per cent of a company it says is at an advanced stage of the license application process.
Matica Enterprises, formerly a graphite explorer that says it is looking to unload mineral properties it still owns, is up 2,500 per cent year-over-year. It’s a similar story: no profit, an offer for a late-stage license applicant, and big dreams.
Those are extreme examples, but are illustrative of the fever investors seem to have for Canadian-listed pot stocks, which has prompted warnings from some investment professionals.
“This is like a frenzy – the likes we haven’t seen since the dot-com bubble,” said Baskin Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Barry Schwartz in an interview with BNN in November.
“You’re going to lose all of your money if you invest in these companies,” he said – albeit not in reference to any individual stock.
Unlike over on the TSX and the TSX Venture Exchange, which require issuers to have federal production and sales licenses, cannabis companies can list on the CSE with little more than ambition.
Furthermore, the larger exchanges, both owned by the TMX Group, have been gun shy about accepting new marijuana listings if companies have U.S. assets. At the federal level, the substance is still banned in the U.S.
Marijuana companies that trade on the TSX tend to have more mature businesses but the gains -- and expectations -- are no less staggering.
Read More: For complete BNN coverage of cannabis legalization and investing in the marijuana space, visit BNN.ca/marijuana.
Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis has spiked 222 per cent over the last year. The company’s forward PE multiple -- an estimate of the current stock price over its predicted future earnings -- is 876. Over at Aphria, the future PE is 222. For perspective, Amazon’s forward PE is 188. Alphabet, the parent of Google, is at 26.9.
But uncertainty abounds in the sector.
Investors are getting no clarity from the policy side. Justin Trudeau told a French-language TV station on Dec. 19 that recreational marijuana would be legalized “next summer”, not necessarily on July 1 as widely expected.
Additionally, the federal law will not be one-size-fits-all for the provinces, leaving each to develop their own approach. For example, B.C. is exploring a public-private model. Ontario is going public only. Alberta is aiming for public online sales but private retail sales. Saskatchewan hasn’t even released a plan yet.
Al Rosen, a forensic accountant at Accountability Research Corporation, has warned that some companies exaggerate gross margin figures because of the vagaries of the IFRS accounting standard used in Canada. He suggests investors focus on the cost per gram metrics, as they are “somewhat useful” in determining costs and valuation.
That kind of per gram analysis will be familiar to gold mining investors. Mining companies have largely adopted all-in sustaining cost per ounce metrics to provide more clarity to investors.
But for now, it seems to be a bit of a free-for-all as companies navigate regulatory rules, listing requirements and policy.
There will be winners, sure. But to use Detroit automakers as an analogy, for every Ford Motor, there will be many more Abbott Motor Car Companys. |
In a large bowl mix the ingredients for the crust, I microwave the butter for 20 seconds, then add it to the dry ingredients. Mix this quickly not to over mix the dough. I then use two pans that are fudge size tins to make two of these pans. Spread the dough around 1/2 thick on the bottom of greased pans and refrigerate for 30 minutes. You will use the remainder of this dough to crumble on top. Refrigerate that separately.
Mix the Ricotta and sugar with a fork.
Add the chocolate chips and mix again and then evenly spread it on top of the crust. Spread with teaspoons of Nutella over this mixture. Add 1/2 a shot of Frangelico over each of the tops of the two tin mixtures. |
Study Oversight
The trial was conducted and monitored in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice guidelines, and is reported with fidelity to the protocol and statistical analysis plan included in the protocol14 available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org. The Health Research Council of New Zealand funded the trial, including the reimbursement of Quitline, which was engaged to recruit participants. Cytisine was supplied at no cost by the manufacturer, Sopharma. The research council, Sopharma, and the Extab Corporation had no role in the design of the trial, the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, or the writing of the report for publication. The protocol was approved by the New Zealand Multi-Region Ethics Committee and the Standing Committee on Therapeutic Trials. All participants provided oral informed consent. All authors were involved in the design and conduct of the trial and the writing of the manuscript. The first and second authors oversaw the conduct of the study, the seventh author performed all statistical analyses, and the first author supervised the writing of the manuscript.
Participants
This parallel-group, randomized, controlled, noninferiority trial was conducted in New Zealand.14 The first randomization was conducted on March 29, 2011, and the last follow-up took place on February 4, 2013. Smokers were recruited through the New Zealand national quitline. To be included in the study, participants had to be at least 18 years of age, daily smokers, and motivated to quit. Potential participants were excluded if they were pregnant or breast-feeding, were taking smoking-cessation medication, were enrolled in another cessation program or study, had self-reported pheochromocytoma, had a systolic blood pressure above 150 mm Hg, a diastolic blood pressure above 100 mm Hg, or both, had schizophrenia, or had had a self-reported cardiovascular event in the 2 weeks before study enrollment.
Randomization
Eligible participants who had called the quitline were randomly allocated, by computer, to nicotine-replacement therapy or cytisine in a 1:1 ratio. Randomization was stratified with the use of minimization according to sex, ethnicity (Maori, Pacific Islander, or non-Maori and non–Pacific Islander), and cigarette dependence, which was determined by means of the Fagerström Test of Cigarette Dependence, in which smokers were assigned to one of two groups: those with scores of 5 or lower, indicating lower dependence, and those with scores greater than 5, indicating greater dependence.15,16 Participants and researchers collecting outcome data were aware of treatment allocation.
Procedures
All participants were offered low-intensity telephone behavioral support (an average of three calls of 10 to 15 minutes each from Quitline advisors over a period of 8 weeks). Participants assigned to nicotine-replacement therapy received vouchers from Quitline that were redeemable from community pharmacies for nicotine patches (in doses of 7 mg, 14 mg, or 21 mg) and for gum (2 mg or 4 mg) or lozenges (1 mg or 2 mg) or both gum and lozenges at a cost of NZ$3 for an 8-week supply of each item (the equivalent of €2, or approximately $2.50 in U.S. dollars). The type and strength of nicotine-replacement therapy were determined by Quitline advisors in accordance with national smoking-cessation guidelines17 and participant preference. The cytisine group received a 25-day course of tablets by courier and were asked to reduce their smoking at their own pace during the first 4 days of treatment such that they were not smoking at all by the 5th day (i.e., their “quit date”). Participants followed the manufacturer’s recommended dosing regimen: days 1 through 3, one tablet every 2 hours through the waking day (up to six tablets per day); days 4 through 12, one tablet every 2.5 hours (up to five tablets per day); days 13 through 16, one tablet every 3 hours (up to four tablets per day); days 17 through 20, one tablet every 4 to 5 hours (three tablets per day); and days 21 through 25, one tablet every 6 hours (two tablets per day). Participants in the cytisine group also received the vouchers for nicotine-replacement therapy sent to participants in the nicotine-replacement therapy group. They were asked to take the cytisine tablets for 25 days. If they had not stopped smoking by that time, or if they required ongoing support to refrain from smoking after that time, they were to redeem the vouchers for nicotine-replacement therapy.
At baseline, data were collected on demographics, smoking history, concomitant medication, motivation to quit smoking (with a score of 1 indicating very low motivation and a score of 5 indicating very high motivation), symptoms of withdrawal and the urge to smoke (both assessed with the Mood and Physical Symptoms Scale, with symptoms rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 indicating none and 5 the most severe, and the urge to smoke scored on a scale of 0 to 10, with higher scores indicating greater strength of the urge to smoke and a greater duration of these urges),18 alcohol use (assessed with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test [AUDIT-C], rated on a scale of 0 to 12, with higher scores indicating a greater risk of alcohol dependence),19 and satisfaction with smoking (assessed with the modified Cigarette Evaluation Questionnaire, which included 12 subscales; in each subscale, a score of 1 indicated not at all satisfied and a score of 7 indicated extremely satisfied).20
The primary outcome was continuous abstinence from smoking (self-reported abstinence since quit day, with an allowance for smoking a total of five cigarettes or less,21 including during the previous 7 days) 1 month after quit day. Secondary outcomes assessed at 1 week and at 1, 2 and 6 months after quit day were self-reported treatment compliance (total number of cytisine tablets taken or the type, strength, and amount of nicotine-replacement therapy used); alcohol use19; motivation to quit; symptoms of tobacco withdrawal; and the strength of urges to smoke and the duration of these urges18; 7-day point prevalence for abstinence (no cigarettes, not a single puff, in the previous 7 days)21; continuous abstinence; smoking satisfaction20; concomitant medication; and, if still smoking, date returned to daily smoking and the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Self-reported adverse events were recorded at each follow-up call, coded in accordance with the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision, Australian Modification, and classified by a medical practitioner as nonserious or serious (defined as death, life-threatening, hospitalization, or otherwise medically important) and according to severity (mild — awareness of event but easily tolerated; moderate — discomfort extensive enough to cause some interference with usual activity; or severe — inability to carry out usual activity). All adverse events were reviewed by an independent data safety and monitoring committee. At 1 week and 1 month we also asked participants in the cytisine group whether they would recommend cytisine as a cessation aid.
Statistical Analysis
For our sample of 1310 people (655 per group), we assumed a loss of 20% to follow-up and a power of 90% at the one-sided significance level of 0.025 (the equivalent of a two-sided significance level of 0.05) to detect a 5% difference in 1-month quit rates between groups. The 1-month quit rate in the cytisine group was assumed to be 55%, midway between the estimate of 60% for varenicline8 and 50% for nicotine-replacement therapy.22 A noninferiority margin of difference between the group proportions was set at 5%.
Analyses were performed with SAS Software, version 9.3 (SAS Institute), and were guided by a prespecified plan. Noninferiority for the primary outcome was evaluated by observing whether the lower bound of the two-sided 95% confidence intervals for the risk difference in quit rates between the groups was above the noninferiority limit of −5. The primary analyses were carried out on an intention-to-treat basis (participants for whom outcomes were missing were assumed to be smoking). In the case that noninferiority was evident, assessment as to whether cytisine had effectiveness superior to that of nicotine-replacement therapy was carried out according to the same approach but was compared with a zero difference. Per-protocol analyses excluded participants who had missing data at 1 month or who had major protocol violations (e.g., death, pregnancy, withdrawal from the study, loss to follow-up, or noncompliance). Compliance in the cytisine group was defined as having taken 80% or more of the required number of tablets within 1 month after the quit date (i.e., 80 tablets or more). Compliance in the nicotine-replacement therapy group was defined as having used nicotine-replacement therapy at both 1 week and 1 month after the quit date. Participants with missing data were assumed to be noncompliant with the study regimen. Complete case analysis was also undertaken, and quit rates, relative risk, risk difference, and the number needed to treat were calculated. Treatment groups were compared with the use of chi-square tests and unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression modeling (adjusting for minimization factors and education).
In prespecified subgroup analyses, the consistency of effects was assessed with tests for heterogeneity for the primary outcome according to ethnicity (Maori vs. non-Maori), age (<40 years of age vs. ≥40 years of age), sex, and level of education (<12 years of schooling or no qualification vs. ≥12 years of schooling), type of cigarettes smoked (factory-made only, roll-your-own only, or factory-made and roll-your-own), and baseline AUDIT-C score (high vs. low). Post hoc subgroup analyses for the primary outcome were undertaken according to baseline level of cigarette dependence and use of nicotine-replacement therapy in the preceding 12 months. The change from baseline in symptoms of tobacco withdrawal (for abstainers), AUDIT-C score, and number of cigarettes smoked per day over time was assessed by means of repeated-measures mixed models adjusted for baseline value. Kaplan–Meier curves, the log rank test, and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis were used to measure time to first lapse from quit date (return to daily smoking). |
Ken Howard, a D.C. student working a summer job at the post office before entering Howard University in the fall, took a bus downtown to join a massive gathering on the National Mall. “The crowd was just enormous,” he recalls. “Kind of like the feeling you get when a thunderstorm is coming and you know it is going to really happen. There was an expectation and excitement that this march finally would make a difference.”
Only a few months before, in that electric atmosphere of anticipation, 32-year-old singer-songwriter Sam Cooke composed “A Change Is Gonna Come,” the song that would become the anthem of the civil rights movement.
The potent symbolism of a demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial—timed to coincide with the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation and following President John F. Kennedy’s announcement in June that he would submit a civil rights bill to Congress—transfixed the nation. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom also catapulted 34-year-old Martin Luther King Jr., who set aside prepared notes to declare “I Have a Dream,” into the realm of transcendent American orators.
Behind the scenes, the lead organizer, Bayard Rustin, presided over a logistical campaign unprecedented in American activism. Volunteers prepared 80,000 50-cent boxed lunches (consisting of a cheese sandwich, a slice of poundcake and an apple). Rustin marshaled more than 2,200 chartered buses, 40 special trains, 22 first-aid stations, eight 2,500-gallon water-storage tank trucks and 21 portable water fountains.
Participants traveled from across the country—young and old, black and white, celebrities and ordinary citizens. Everyone who converged on the capital that day, whether or not they recognized their accomplishment at the time, stood at a crossroads from which there would be no turning back. Fifty years later, some of those participants—including John Lewis, Julian Bond, Harry Belafonte, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Andrew Young—relived the march in interviews recorded during the past several months in Washington, D.C., New York and Atlanta. Taken together, their voices, from a coalition including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, assume the force of collective memory.
A 42-year-old photographer, Stanley Tretick, who covered the Kennedy White House for Look magazine, was on the Mall as well. He documented the transformative moment in images unpublished until now, restored to history in Kitty Kelley’s Let Freedom Ring, a posthumous collection of Tretick’s work from that day. View more of Tretick's stunning photographs here.
The demonstrators who sweltered in the 83-degree heat as they petitioned their government for change—the crowd of at least 250,000 constituted the largest gathering of its kind in Washington—remind us of who we were then as a nation, and where we would move in the struggle to overcome our history. “It’s difficult for someone these days,” says Howard, “to understand what it was like, to suddenly have a ray of light in the dark. That’s really what it was like.”
Ken Howard:
You have to back up and think about what was happening at the time. Nationally, in 1962, you have James Meredith, the first black to attend the University of Mississippi, that was national news. In May 1963, Bull Connor with the dogs and the fire hoses, turning them on people, front-page news. And then in June, that summer, you have Medgar Evers shot down in the South, and his body actually on view on 14th Street at a church in D.C. So you had a group of individuals who had been not just oppressed, but discriminated against and killed because of their color. The March on Washington symbolized a rising up, if you will, of people who were saying enough is enough.
Rachelle Horowitz, Aide to Bayard Rustin (later a labor union official):
A. Philip Randolph [president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters] had tried to put on a march in 1941 to protest discrimination in the armed forces and for a fair employment policy commission. He called off that march when FDR issued an executive order [prohibiting discrimination in the national defense industry]. But Randolph always believed that you had to move the civil rights struggle to Washington, to the center of power. In January 1963, Bayard Rustin sent a memo to A. Philip Randolph in essence saying the time is now to really conceive of a big march. Originally it was conceived of as a march for jobs, but as ’63 progressed, with the Birmingham demonstrations, the assassination of Medgar Evers and the introduction of the Civil Rights Act by President Kennedy, it became clear that it had to be a march for jobs and freedom.
Eleanor Holmes Norton (SNCC Activist, later a 12-term D.C. delegate to Congress):
I was in law school, I was in Mississippi in the delta working on the predecessor for the workshops that were to take place a year later in the Freedom Summer. I got a call from one of my friends in New York who said, “You need to be here, Eleanor, because we are developing the March on Washington.” So I spent part of the summer in New York, working on this truly fledgling March on Washington. Bayard Rustin organized it out of a brownstone in Harlem; that was our office. When I look back now, I am all the more impressed with the genius of Bayard Rustin. I do not believe that there was another person involved with the movement who could have organized that march—the quintessential organizer and strategist. Bayard Rustin was maybe the only openly gay man I knew. That was simply “not respectable,” so he was attacked by Strom Thurmond and the Southern Democrats, who sought to get at the march by attacking Rustin. To the credit of the civil rights leadership, they closed in around Rustin.
“We’re going to walk together. We’re going to stand together. We’re going to sing together. We’re going to stay together.” —The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth (Radio transcript excerpts (in block quotes) courtesy of WGBH Media Library and Archives)
John Lewis, Chairman of SNCC (later a 13-term congressman from Georgia)
A. Philip Randolph had this idea in the back of his mind for many years. When he had his chance to make another demand for a March on Washington, he told President Kennedy in a meeting at the White House in June 1963 that we were going to march on Washington. It was the so-called “Big Six,” Randolph, James Farmer, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King Jr. and myself. Out of the blue Mr. Randolph spoke up. He was the dean of black leadership, the spokesperson. He said “Mr. President, the black masses are restless and we are going to march on Washington.” President Kennedy didn’t like the idea, hearing people talk about a march on Washington. He said, “If you bring all these people to Washington, won’t there be violence and chaos and disorder and we will never get a civil rights bill through the Congress?” Mr. Randolph responded, “Mr. President, this will be an orderly, peaceful, nonviolent protest.”
“The March on Washington is not the climax of our struggle, but a new beginning not only for the Negro but for all Americans who thirst for freedom and a better life. When we leave, it will be to carry on the civil rights revolution home with us into every nook and cranny of the land, and we shall return again and again to Washington in ever growing numbers, until total freedom is ours.” —A. Philip Randolph
Harry Belafonte, Activist and entertainer
We had to seize this opportunity and make our voices heard. Make those who are comfortable with our oppression—make them uncomfortable—Dr. King said that was the purpose of this mission.
Andrew Young, Aide to King at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (later a diplomat and human rights activist)
Dr. Randolph’s march basically was an attempt to transform a black Southern civil rights movement into a national movement for human rights, for jobs and freedom. And anti-segregation. So it had a much broader base— the plan was to include not only SCLC but all of the civil rights organizations, the trade union movement, the universities, the churches—we had a big contingent from Hollywood.
Julian Bond, communications director, SNCC (later a University of Virginia historian)
I thought it was a great idea, but within the organization, SNCC, it was thought to be a distraction from our main work, organizing people in the rural South. But John [Lewis] had committed us to it, and we would go with our leadership and we did.
Joyce Ladner, SNCC activist (later a sociologist)
At that point, the police all over Mississippi had cracked down so hard on us that it was more and more difficult to raise bond money, to organize without harassment from the local cops and the racists. I thought a large march would demonstrate that we had support outside our small group.
Rachelle Horowitz
As we started planning the march, we started getting letters from our dear friends in the Senate of the United States, people who were advocates of civil rights. Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, Phil Hart of Michigan, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. The letters began either “Dear Mr. Randolph” or “Dear Bayard: We think that it’s very important to pass the civil rights bill and we believe very strongly in what you are doing, but have you considered the difficulty of bringing in 100,000 people in Washington? Where will they use the bathrooms? Where will they get water?” Every letter was identical. Bayard began to refer to them as “latrine letters,” and we put latrine letters on the side. They were inspirational in one way, in that Bayard arranged to rent scores of portable johns. We found out later that Senator Paul Douglas’ son, John Douglas, was working in the Justice Department. He and a guy named John Reilly were writing these letters and giving them to the senators to send to us. Before robo-type, there were these letters.
Harry Belafonte
To mobilize the cultural force behind the cause—Dr. King saw that as hugely strategic. We use celebrity to the advantage of everything. Why not to the advantage of those who need to be liberated? My job was to convince the icons in the arts that they needed to have a presence in Washington on that day. Those that wanted to sit on the platform could do that, but we should be in among the citizens—the ordinary citizens—of the day. Somebody should just turn around and there was Paul Newman. Or turn around and there was Burt Lancaster. I went first to one of my closest friends, Marlon Brando, and asked if he would be willing to chair the leading delegation from California. And he said yes. Not only enthusiastically but committed himself to really working and calling friends.
“I’m speaking at the moment with Mr. Percy Lee Atkins of Clarksdale, Mississippi: ‘I came because we want our freedom. What’s it going to take to have our freedom?’” —Radio reporter Al Hulsen
Juanita Abernathy, Widow of Southern Christian Leadership Conference co-founder the Rev. Ralph Abernathy (later a corporate executive)
We were there [in Washington] two days prior. We flew up [from Atlanta]. They expected us to be violent and for Washington to be torn up. But everybody had been told to remain nonviolent, just as we had been throughout the movement.
John Lewis
I started working on my speech several days before the March on Washington. We tried to come up with a speech that would represent the young people: the foot soldiers, people on the front lines. Some people call us the “shock troops” into the delta of Mississippi, into Alabama, southwest Georgia, eastern Arkansas, the people who had been arrested, jailed and beaten. Not only our own staffers but also the people that we were working with. They needed someone to speak for them.
The night before the march, Bayard Rustin put a note under my door and said, “John, you should come downstairs. There’s some discussion about your speech, some people have a problem with your speech.”
The archbishop [of Washington, D.C.] had threatened not to give the invocation if I kept some words and phrases in the speech.
In the original speech I said something like “In good conscience, we cannot support the administration’s proposed civil rights bill. It was too little, too late. It did not protect old women and young children in nonviolent protests run down by policemen on horseback and police dogs.”
Much farther down I said something like “If we do not see meaningful progress here today, the day will come when we will not confine our marching on Washington, but we may be forced to march through the South the way General Sherman did, nonviolently.” They said, “Oh no, you can’t say that; it’s too inflammatory.” I think that was the concern of the people in the Kennedy administration. We didn’t delete that portion of the speech. We did not until we arrived at the Lincoln Memorial.
Joyce Ladner
The day before the March, my sister and Bobby Dylan, who was her good friend, went to a fund-raiser that night. She met Sidney Poitier; he was very, very involved with SNCC, as was Harry Belafonte. The next morning, we picketed the Justice Department because three of our SNCC workers were in jail in Americus, Georgia, for sedition, “overthrowing the government.” If you can imagine, people who were 18, 19, 20 years old, close friends, who were arrested for overthrowing the government, the state? They had not been able to get bond. We were terrified that they would in fact be charged and sent up for a long time. So we picketed in an effort to draw attention to their plight.
Rachelle Horowitz
It was about 5:30 in the morning, it’s gray, it’s muggy, people are setting up. There’s nobody there for the march except some reporters and they start annoying Bayard and pestering him: “Where are the people, where are the people?” Bayard very elegantly took a piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at it. Took out a pocket watch that he used, looked at both and said, “It’s all coming according to schedule,” and he put it away. The reporters went away and I asked, “What were you looking at?” He said, “A blank piece of paper.” Sure enough, eventually, about 8:30 or 9, the trains were pulling in and people were coming up singing and the buses came. There’s always that moment of “We know the buses are chartered, but will they really come?”
“At 7 o’clock, the first ten people were here. They brought their own folding chairs and are to my left down near the Reflecting Pool. The Reflecting Pool early this morning is very calm and so gives a nice reflection of the Washington Monument. There are apparently fish or some sort of fly in the Reflecting Pool because every few minutes you see little wavelets in the middle.” —Radio reporter David Eckelston
Courtland Cox, SNCC activist (later civil servant and businessman)
Bayard and I left together. It was real early, maybe 6 or 7 in the morning. We went out to the Mall and there was literally no one there. Nobody there. Bayard looks at me and says, “You think anybody is coming to this?” and just as he says that, a group of young people from an NAACP chapter came over the horizon. From that time, the flow was steady. We found out that we couldn’t see anyone there because so many people were in buses, in trains and, particularly, on the roads, that the roads were clogged. Once the flow started, it was just volumes of people coming.
"All sorts of dress is evident, from the Ivy League suit to overalls and straw hats and even some Texas ten-gallon hats. Quite a few people are carrying knapsacks, blankets and so on, apparently anticipating a not too comfortable trip home tonight." —Radio reporter Al Hulsen
Barry Rosenberg, Civil rights activist (later a psychotherapist)
I could hardly sleep the night before the march. I got there early. Maybe 10:30 in the morning, people were milling around. There were maybe 20,000 folks out there. It was August; I forgot to wear a hat. I was a little concerned about getting burned up. I went and got a Coke. When I got back, people just poured in from all directions. If you were facing the podium, I was on the right-hand side. People were greeting each other; I got chills, I got choked up. People were hugging and shaking hands and asking “Where are you from?”
"One woman from San Diego, California, showed us her plane ticket. She said her grandfather sold slaves and she was here ‘to help wipe out evil.' " —Radio reporter Arnold Shaw
Protestors came by the thousands via buses and trains, it fell to the organizers to figure out how to prepare for the masses
John Lewis
Early that morning the ten of us [the Big Six, plus four other march leaders] boarded cars that brought us to Capitol Hill. We visited the leadership of the House and the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans. In addition, we met on the House side with the chairman of the judiciary committee, the ranking member, because that’s where the civil rights legislation will come. We did the same thing on the Senate side. We left Capitol Hill, walked down Constitution Avenue. Looking toward Union Station, we saw a sea of humanity; hundreds, thousands of people. We thought we might get 75,000 people showing up on August 28. When we saw this unbelievable crowd coming out of Union Station, we knew it was going to be more than 75,000. People were already marching. It was like “There go my people. Let me catch up with them.” We said, “What are we going to do? The people are already marching! There go my people. Let me catch up with them.” What we did, the ten of us, was grab each other’s arms, made a line across the sea of marchers. People literally pushed us, carried us all the way, until we reached the Washington Monument and then we walked on to the Lincoln Memorial.
Joyce Ladner
I had a stage pass, so I could get on the podium. Just standing up there looking out at not very many people, then just all of the sudden, hordes of people started coming. I saw a group of people with large banners. Philadelphia NAACP could have been one section, for example, and they did come in large groups. As the day passed a lot of individual people were there. Odetta and Joan Baez and Bobby Dylan. They began warming up the crowd very early, began singing. It was not tense at all, wasn’t a picnic either. Somewhere in between; people were happy to see each other, renewing acquaintances, everyone was very pleasant.
“Many people [are] sitting, picnicking along the Reflecting Pool steps below the Monument. People with headbands, arm bands, buttons all around, but in a happy holiday atmosphere.” —Radio reporter Arnold Shaw
Ken Howard
At the post office that summer. I’d been working all day. I got on the bus [to downtown]. I was hot, sweaty, but I was determined that I was going to the march. The crowd was enormous. There were rumors, apparently substantiated, that agents of the government, intelligence agents, were actually taking pictures. Some of those individuals took pictures of me. More power to them. I had nothing to fear. I was at least in partial uniform with my postal hat [pith helmet] and shirt on.
“The crowd does seem to be picking up now. It’s getting thicker and you can hear them singing now in the background, ‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah.’ ” -- Radio reporter Jeff Guylick
Eleanor Holmes Norton
The crowd stretched so far along the Tidal Basin that you knew you could not look at the end of it. I was sitting where the march began, at the Lincoln Memorial. I saw that crowd from Lincoln’s statue itself and you could not see the last man or woman on the Mall. That was a sight far beyond a dream in civil rights.
“It’s a pleasure being here and nice being out of jail. And to be honest with you, the last time I’ve seen this many of us, Bull Connor was doing all the talking.” —Activist and comedian Dick Gregory
Juanita Abernathy
I don’t know where that march started out. It looked like we marched forever before we got to the Mall. You were used to marching; you wear comfortable shoes so your feet won’t hurt and you don’t get blisters. We got to the stage and Coretta [Scott King] and I sat on the second row. Mahalia [Jackson] sat on the first row, because she was singing. We were on the left side of the stage. I wanted to scream, we were so happy, we were ecstatic. We had no idea it would be that many people—as far as you could see there were heads. What I called a sea of people; because all you could see was people, everywhere, just a sea of heads and what jubilation. Which said to us in the civil rights movement: “Your work has not been in vain. We are with you. We are part of you.”
“The entire grass area from the Lincoln Memorial of the one mile to the Washington Monument is now filled with people. Some of the marchers are now in the trees in front of the Lincoln Memorial.” -- Radio reporter Al Hulsen
John Lewis
It was at the back side of Mr. Lincoln that Mr. Randolph and Dr. King said to me, “John, they still have a problem with your speech. Can we change this, can we change that?” I loved Martin Luther King, I loved and admired A. Philip Randolph, and I couldn’t say no to those two men. I dropped all reference to marching through the South the way Sherman did. I said something like “If we do not see meaningful progress here today, we will march through cities, towns and hamlets and villages all across America.” I was thinking about how I was going to deliver the speech. I was 23 years old and it was a sea of humanity out there that I had to face.
“The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is now on top of one of the television platforms above the crowd. He’s waving. The crowd is waving back to him.” —Radio reporter Al Hulsen
Rachelle Horowitz
A. Philip Randolph gave a speech that is just ignored too much. He gave the speech for jobs and economic rights, and he did it with incredible power. Then my heart was in my mouth for John Lewis, the then 23-year-old SNCC leader from Troy, Alabama. If you look at that speech today, it was still the most radical. And then of course Dr. King was the culmination. Mahalia Jackson sang, not to be believed. If you look at clips of the march, you see Bayard running around and talking, he never stopped. He’s organizing everything except when Mahalia sings.
Courtland Cox
What’s interesting was not only the crowd all the way to the Reflecting Pool, but that people were up in trees, they were everywhere. When King started speaking, and as he was speaking, Mahalia Jackson began like a chant and response. She was like his amen corner. She kept saying “Tell ’em Rev” the whole time he was speaking. She was just talking to him.
"So far police estimate 110,000 people, but judging by the crowd that surrounds the Reflecting Pool, now it looks like it’s well over that, and might be the largest demonstration ever held in the nation’s capital.” —Radio reporter George Geesey
Julian Bond
When Dr. King spoke, he commanded the attention of everybody there. His speech, with his slow, slow cadence at first and then picking up speed and going faster and faster. You saw what a magnificent speechmaker he was, and you knew something important was happening.
“When Martin Luther King addressed the people here, people rose and came right over to the loudspeakers, and applauded from this end, every sentence that he said.” —Radio reporter Malcolm Davis
Barry Rosenberg
First thing, the setting: There’s Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, that’s the whole thing—100 years since 1863. That setting was brilliant. This was part of Martin Luther King’s redefining the word “freedom.” It made me think in terms of Stalin, the Holocaust, the Jews under Pharaoh, the Egyptians: The oppressor is not free either. That, to me, was the most astounding part. It was not a speech for African-Americans alone; it was a speech for America, for all of us. If you were an oppressor, you’re not free.
If you see video of the march, you’ll see people walking around during Dr. King’s speech. It was almost like a family reunion on a huge scale. People were not standing stiff, they were listening intently, but they were moving around, talking to each other.
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Martin Luther King gave the triumphant speech that propelled the movement forward. It would be a mistake, though, to see the march as “one such speech,” “one such song after another” that wowed the crowd. They were there to witness the march, not just the King speech, which was the glorious crescendo, as it were, to the day.
Joyce Ladner
Medgar Evers’ death was a subtext of the march. Everyone was aware that one of the truly great heroes in the Deep South had just been murdered. And therefore, Mr. President, your request that we go slow doesn’t make sense.
"More and more people are beginning to feel the results of the heat here and of the close quarters, particularly those up front right near the Lincoln Memorial. Every few moments, it seems that someone is being lifted over the fence to the Red Cross people, put on a stretcher and taken to one of the first aid tents. Another woman has just been brought over the fence.” —Radio reporter Al Hulsen
John Lewis
After the March, President Kennedy invited us back down to the White House, he stood in the doorway of the Oval Office and he greeted each one of us, shook each of our hands like a beaming, proud father. You could see it all over him; he was so happy and so pleased that everything had gone so well.
Rachelle Horowitz
The podium sort of cleared. Those of us who had worked on the march, the staff people and the SNCC staff, stood at the bottom of the memorial. We linked arms and we sang “We Shall Overcome” and we probably cried. There were some SNCC people who were cynical about Dr. King and we forced them to admit it was really a great speech.
Organizers and speechmakers relive the pivotal moment of the Civil Rights Movement
“On the podium now, directions are being given the demonstrators, as they’ve been called officially, as they return to their [shuttle] buses, and from buses to trains and to homes all over the country. A cloud has just darkened this area in front of the Lincoln Memorial but the Reflecting Pool is in sunlight. Congress is brilliantly silhouetted against the sky and flags are waving.” —Radio reporter Al Hulsen
Joyce Ladner
After the march, all the people had left and a group of SNCC people were standing there with remnants of things to clean up. This small group of people had to go back south. We were dedicated to going south, to take this giant problem on, fighting the problem we had left behind.
My sister Dorie and I walked back to the hotel. In the lobby, Malcolm X was holding forth. He was talking about the “Farce on Washington.” Reporters and others were crowded around him. His ideal would have been, you take your freedom, grab it, not ask the government to free you. I do recall very clearly wondering who was right, King and us or Malcolm?
Ken Howard
When I got home, my mother was watching parts of Martin Luther King’s speech on TV (black-and-white of course). You could feel the gravity there. It’s difficult for someone these days to understand what it was like, to suddenly have a ray of light in the dark. That’s really what it was like.
“People are streaming out very rapidly.”--Radio reporter Ken Hulsen
“Directly in front of me are some of the same people that have been here since about 11:30 this morning. They look as though they can barely move. And I’m sure that a great deal of them haven’t had sleep for one or two days and can’t expect any tonight.” -- —Radio reporter Malcolm Davis
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Marches strive for effects, but they don’t usually, immediately, see those effects. While the march was not the cause of the legislation, it is hard to believe that the 1964 Civil Rights Act would have occurred without it. It helped move the Kennedy administration from doubt and resistance to the march. Remember President Kennedy was dependent upon not only Southern votes, but Southerners chaired virtually all the committees in the House and the Senate. One has to understand just how antediluvian the Congress was and the nation was. This was a nation where there were no federal laws that said that anybody who could do a job was entitled to do the job.
Courtland Cox
It was the moment that America got the question answered that it had been asking since 1955 or even 1954 in Brown v. Board: What do these Negroes want? I think that King’s speech answered that question by saying “I have a dream that is deeply rooted in the American dream.” King said what we want to do is fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Ken Howard
One thing about the march: It was a step. You have to realize the tumultuousness of the times. Just a few weeks later, four little black girls got blown up at a church in the South. After the march, you had the feeling that things will change—and then these little girls were killed. As they said about the walk on the moon, it was a “small step,” but it was a step nonetheless that people heard. The loss of those girls was sad, but it was another step, because individuals began to see there was an injustice being done.
Only in retrospect do you see just how each little piece enabled a building to be built. Who would have thought a minister from a small black church in Atlanta would have a monument on the Mall? You wouldn’t think a minister from a small black church would be a “drum major” in a movement helping a people gain their rights as citizens. It’s only from the mountaintop of time that you see that it all made a difference. Each individual thing played a role.
“A lot of paper is littered on the grounds and men with the usual sharp sticks and little bags are going around trying to get most of it up so that the site is back to normal by tomorrow morning.” -- Radio reporter George Geesey
Barry Rosenberg
I was a young man—out of the Army, married, two weeks later my son Scott was born. One thing I kept in my heart was that when this child was born, he would know about these things. When he was old enough, I would take him to demonstrations.
Andrew Young
We suddenly realized that this turned us from a Southern black movement into a national multiracial human rights, an international multiracial human rights movement. Ironically, when we had the news reports from Birmingham, they put the dogs on us but nobody said why. They didn’t say they put the dogs on us because they were trying to register to vote. That never came through. Or they were in places trying to apply for jobs and they ran them out with dogs and fire hoses. Everybody had a 90-second view of the movement from the 6 o’clock news. And this gave them an opportunity, especially in Martin’s speech, to put it in the context. He was talking about the Declaration of Independence being a gigantic promissory note and that it promised freedom and dignity. But it was issued as a promissory note for the future. When the Negro presented his note at the bank of justice and freedom, his was the only one that came back marked “insufficient funds.” We had defined the movement as to redeem the soul of America from the triple evils of racism, war and poverty. And this was an attempt to raise the question of jobs and freedom and the ballot. It was a statement of faith not only as a movement but in the United States of America.
“We feel that the real hero of this occasion is those thousands of people who came from all over.” —Activist and actor Ossie Davis
Rachelle Horowitz
After the March, Bayard told me that he had some time alone on the podium with Mr. Randolph. And he said, “Chief, this is your vision, your dream. It’s come true at last.” He said that he saw tears in Mr. Randolph’s eyes. |
In this episode, Ants In Your Pants of 2015, we bring you our year-in-review, but with a twist. Rather than focus exclusively on new releases, we each chose ten of our favorite film finds. These are older films that we watched for the first time this year which made the biggest impression on each of us. Some were films we had been waiting years to see, while others came as true surprises. We found that three films appeared on both of our lists, while the other selections have some particular meaning for each of us. We hope you’ll seek out these discoveries and enjoy!
Our shared favorites:
• Working Girls (Arzner, 1931)
• Max and the Junkmen (Sautet, 1971)
• The Apu Trilogy (Ray, 1955, 1956, 1959)
Cole’s favorites:
• Cousin Jules (Benicheti, 1972)
• Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974)
• Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (Pryor, 1986)
• Alucarda (Moctezuma, 1977)
• The Devils (Russell, 1971)
• The Mother and the Whore (Eustache, 1973)
• Belladonna of Sadness (Yamamoto, 1973)
Ericca’s favorites:
• Waterloo Bridge (Whale, 1931)
• The Kid with a Bike (Dardenne, Dardenne, 2011)
• Wise Blood (Huston, 1979)
• House (Obayashi, 1977)
• Creature with the Atom Brain (Cahn, 1955)
• The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes, 1976)
• A Day in the Country (Renoir, 1936)
What you’ll find in this episode: our favorite discoveries of 2015, what we’re most excited to see in 2016, why French film is the best, pre-code delights, gems from the 1950s through the 2010s and Ericca does show tunes.
– Cole and Ericca
Links:
Cinema Guild
Alamo Drafthouse
Fantastic Fest
Austin Film Society
The Criterion Collection |
Architect and YouTuber Frank Zhang of Architectural Aesthetics walks us through the SketchBook tools he uses to create Early Process Architectural Renders. Frank’s video tutorials and speed drawing sessions are a great way to get your head around Architectural concepts and design practices. In fact the full Meditation Camp Proposal this project is a part of is also featured in a video on Frank’s channel.
Architects have traditionally hand drawn their architectural renders but these days we see less and less hand drawn images in the architectural design process. However, I do not think this means that hand drawing skills are obsolete, in fact quite to the contrary, elegant hand renderings are even more sought after amidst swarms of digitally processed images. Now, designers have found the right tools with which they can show off their hand drawing chops, tools such as SketchBook.
The purpose of this tutorial is to demonstrate why I have come to see SketchBook as the perfect solution for early stage architectural visual communications. We will be looking at a step by step tutorial showing you how I created this presentation board all within SketchBook Pro, taking advantage of its rich brush presets, organized Copic color library, and handy tools that facilitate design drawings.
Axonometric Drawing
Let’s first look at the axonometric drawing. Without getting too technical, axonometric drawing is a form of architectural communication where you present your building as an orthographic projection. I have broken down the creation process of this drawing down to three components: pencil framework, inking, and coloring.
Step 1: Pencil Framework
During this stage in the process the goal is to hammer out the bulk of your design as quickly as possible. All while still clearly communicating the formal relationships among the structural masses of your building. During this process, my preferred brush is the hard pencil tool. It does a great job at mimicking marks made by traditional technical pencils.
An important tool that will significantly reduce the time you spend during this stage is the predictive stroke tool. What this functionality does is that it analyzes the lines you have laid down, then based on the tool’s ‘reading’ of your hand’s intention, the movement behind the lines (whether they were supposed to be straight or circular) and it automatically helps you ‘correct’ the lines. Though I do not recommend to have this functionality on the whole time, it is beneficial to have it help you draw parallel lines effortlessly after you’ve determined the general outlook of your axonometric drawing.
Step 2: Inking
The objective of the inking step is to emphasize the forms of your design. By accentuating the lines, communicating the scale of your project by adding simple human figures and conveying the materiality through lines indicating textures. During this step, my preferred drawing tool is the felt pen from the artist brush preset. I use it as I would traditional technical pens, as it produces uniform lines regardless of how much pressure you exert on the drawing surface. Therefore, by establishing a strict hierarchy of line weights, (thickest lines for exterior forms, thinner lines for exterior texture, and thinnest ones for interior forms) we will enhance the readability of our drawings.
There are many ways of tracing straight lines, for the sake of speed during the inking process I prefer to use the Line Tool, find it under the Draw Styles panel.
As for the simple human figures, I use the fill tool with a basic white color-fill to make them appear on top of the base coloring while in the same layer. The Fill Tool does a great job at detecting closed shapes and works well for this.
Step 3: Coloring
During the coloring process, instead of using the RGB color wheel, it is faster to take advantage of the built-in Copic Marker color library. Under the design group, an abundant palette of color presets are labeled meticulously so that you can refer back to a particular color at any time.
It is worth noting that because of they match the nature of real Copic Markers, they are semi-transparent and highly saturated. To achieve a more somber and professional lookI suggest you should duplicate your coloring layer and manually tune down the saturation during the post-production process.
For this stage of the drawing the tool I prefer is the vintage marker in the artist brush preset . I believe this Brush Set is available on iOS and Desktop. However, you can easily achieve the same effect with the Copic marker tools, which comes with a built-in alcohol based blender tool.
Section Drawing
For Section Drawing, the workflow is similar to Axonometric Drawing with a few more unique tools I’d like to introduce you to.
Step 1
In step one, the first tool I want to point out is the Symmetry Tool. If the form of the project you’re working on is perfectly symmetrical, you can reduce your working time in half by using this tool. Even if the details are not symmetrical but the structure is you can turn the tool off whenever you need to make a non-symmetric addition and still save time.
The next tool is the Ruler Tool. Comparing to the line tool, using the ruler tool gives you more control over the precision of your straight lines.
Step 2
When it comes to coloring an orthographic architectural drawing, often we need to represent the shadows to convey the interior spatial quality of our design. For this purpose, I recommend using the Glaze Brush preset in the Artist brush set. With this tool, you can cover large areas with transparent colors.
Final Presentation Board
And there you have your finished Presentation Board. In conclusion, as a one stop solution for sketching and early architectural renders, SketchBook is great. It lets you create compelling images with its rich color library and drawing tools, it saves you time with its robust undo and layer functionalities and saves you money on traditional art supplies. |
The discovery of an ancient piece of aluminium is being hailed as evidence that aliens visited Earth 250,000 years ago.
The mysterious hunk of metal was found in Romania during the 1970s, when the country was under communist rule.
Now tests at a lab in Lausanne, Switzerland, have revealed that the strange fragment of metal is made up of 90 percent aluminium and is 250,000 years old.
Aluminium was not produced by mankind until about 200 years ago, so the discovery of the large chunk that could be up to 250,000 years old is being held up as a sensational find.
Gheorghe Cohal, the Deputy Director of the Romanian Ufologists Association, told local media: "Lab tests concluded it is an old UFO fragment given that the substances it comprises cannot be combined with technology available on Earth."
Builders working on the shores of the Mures River not far from the central Romanian town of Aiud found the objects about 33 feet under the ground, where it was buried alongside two bones.
It was quickly determined that the two large bones belonged to a large extinct mammal that died between 10,000 and 80,000 years ago, but experts were stunned to find out that the third object was a piece of very lightweight metal and appeared to have been manufactured.
However, local historian Mihai Wittenberger said the object is actually a metal piece from a World War II German aircraft, although this does not explain the age of the artifact.
The metal object has now gone on display in the History Museum of Cluj-Napoca with its full history causing heated speculation after it was noted that museum officials had added a sign saying: "origin still unknown."
This story first appeared in the Sun. |
A student and a council worker attacked a Good Samaritan when he went to check if they were injured after the car they were passengers in crashed into his neighbour's wall.
A student and a council worker attacked a Good Samaritan when he went to check if they were injured after the car they were passengers in crashed into his neighbour's wall.
Crash passengers assaulted Good Samaritan who went to help them after car smashed into wall
Bobby Kuti (23) punched John Swift in the head and kicked him when he fell to the ground while Isaac Asuzu (25) gave him "a belt to the head".
Mr Swift said a neighbour, John Kelly, handed him a golf club and he hit one of the men in self-defence after they "ran at him".
He claimed the pair became aggressive when Mr Kelly's daughter started taking photos of the crash, telling her "don't take f***ing pictures" and he remonstrated with them, saying: "Don't talk to the lady like that."
Finding them guilty of assault, Judge David McHugh said he was satisfied Kuti was the greater protagonist.
The judge sentenced him to four months in prison while Asuzu received a three-month sentence.
Kuti, of French Park Boulevard, Tyrrelstown, and Asuzu, of Avondale Park, Mulhuddart, had denied assaulting Mr Swift during an incident in Blanchardstown on July 5, 2014.
Mr Swift told Blanchardstown District Court he was in bed when he heard a loud bang at around 6.30am.
Damage
He went outside and saw a car embedded in Mr Kelly's wall and four young men trying to move it.
He said he went to see if anyone was injured.
Mr Swift said Mr Kelly's daughter started taking pictures of the car and the damage.
One of the defendants swore at her, and Mr Swift complained about his language.
He said he then received a punch to the head and fell to the ground. When he was getting back up he was kicked on the side of the head.
His assailant was identified as Kuti.
The court heard that a second man, identified as Asuzu, then gave him a "belt to the head" and he fell to the ground again.
Mr Swift said his jaw was very sore for a few weeks after the assault and he had grazes to his hands and knees.
Mr Kelly and his wife Diana both said they saw the men punching and kicking Mr Swift.
In their evidence, the defendants admitted they punched Mr Swift but claimed it was in self-defence after he attacked them with a golf club.
Sentencing the pair, Judge McHugh described the assault as "appalling thuggery".
Defence lawyer Ciaran Mac- Loughlin said Kuti is an IT student while Asuzu is a road maintenance worker for a county council.
Herald |
2014 just couldn't let go of Disney's "Frozen".
Today the film was selected by the Associate Press as the Entertainer of the Year, surpassing other high profile stars for the spot including Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Jimmy Fallon and Pharrell Williams according to ABC News.
Despite being released over a year ago, the film's popularity is still resonating strongly with audiences. "Frozen" has earned over $1.2 billion in sales as of Nov. 7 and is the highest grossing animated film ever, according to Forbes. And the film's records don't stop there.
Bloomberg recently reported that "Frozen on Ice," the touring ice-skating show featuring your favorite "Frozen" characters, sold more than 250,000 tickets during the first day of sales and estimates that more than 1 million people will see the show by the end of the year.
Elsa and Anna dolls have also aided in Disney's rising profits this year, having sold better than any other licensed toys in the first three months of the year.
But besides the financial aspects, what else is there to know about this ice-y sing-along flick? In light of the film's Entertainer of the Year award, we've compiled the 10 most interesting things you may not have known about "Frozen".
Elsa was supposed to be the villain
In an interview with "Frozen" co-directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Den of Geek found out that Elsa was not always such a positive role model.
"Elsa was a much more dominant character when we began, like a straightforward villain, and with 'Let It Go,' we were inspired by them writing that song," Lee told Den of Geek. "We were so blown away by it, we really wanted it to be powerful and to resonate, so I went and rewrote the whole first act, just for that song."
A team of artists traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to fully experience deep snow
"Frozen" effects supervisor Marlon West told Cinema website Emanuellevy.com about the artists' first-hand experience with deep Wyoming snow.
"We have characters walking around in ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep snow," West said. "So we are willing to do anything — even wear skirts in the snow — to better understand how that should look and feel."
Despite less screen time, Elsa outshines Anna
Joseph Peacock of Deseret News National recently wrote on the powerhouse that is "Frozen," noting that even though Anna is the main character, her sister Elsa continues to captivate audiences.
"Elsa outsells Anna because firstborns rule everything — they get all the accolades, they're the president of the United States, the astronauts, the CEOs — anywhere that perfection pays off, you'll find the firstborns," said Kevin Leman, psychologist and author of "The Birth Order Book."
Walt Disney wanted to do a project based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" back in the 1940s
SSInsider wrote on the film's story origins, dating back to the 1940s when Walt Disney hoped to adapt Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" to film. The project was shelved and re-approached many times between then and now, before Disney finally announced "The Snow Queen" would be released in 2013, later renamed "Frozen." If only Walt Disney could see it now.
Elsa started a baby name boom
Deseret News National's Lois Collins wrote about the spike in baby names related to "Frozen." You guessed it: Elsa made her debut on the top 100 baby name chart from BabyCentre.
"Whilst the film's popular heroine is called Anna, Elsa offers a more unique name and is also a strong female role model," Collins wrote of Sarah Barrett, managing editor of BabyCentre.
Some Elsa and Anna dolls have sold for remarkable amounts of money
Due to a "Frozen" doll shortage earlier this year, limited editions of Elsa and Anna dolls began selling for three times their retail value, according to the Daily Mail UK.
The Daily Mail found that the resulting online bidding wars for such "rare" dolls led to some sets of dolls being sold for as much as $10,000.
"Let It Go" was written in a day
The New York Times wrote on the humble beginnings of this award-winning song. The Times noted that one of the lyricists of "Frozen," Kristen Lopez, climbed onto a picnic table in Prospect Park, New York, imagined she was on Elsa's mountaintop, and "Let It Go" was thus created.
Since the film's release, travel to Norway has dramatically increased
The Hollywood Reporter recently found that since the film's 2013 release, hotel bookings in Norway have gone up 37 percent and tour operators have seen a 40 percent increase in sales this year.
The Reporter also noted that Disney Cruise Line hopes to add a Norway itinerary to their 2015 schedule.
You'll never hear the word "God" in "Frozen"
Herb Scribner of Deseret News National found that surprisingly, Disney uses the word "God" very sparingly in its films.
Scribner wrote that "Frozen" songwriters Robert and Kristen Lopez made a conscious decision to keep religion out of the lyrics.
"It's funny. One of the only places you have to draw the line at Disney is with religious things, the word 'God,'" Scribner wrote of Lopez. "You can't put it in the movies."
A real reindeer visited the animation studios to inspire the character Sven
Animators Laura Meredith and Bruce Wright both posted photos of their new reindeer friend Sage online, and story supervisor Paul Briggs drew sketches of her. The hope was to bring greater authenticity to Sven's movements and mannerisms. |
About
Here's the problem
You buy comics, read them once and then go in bags that sit in boxes where they never see the light of day again. Out of sight, out of mind. You never dig them back out. You never re-read them. Sharing them is a pain because people have to figure out how to get the comics in and out of the plastic bags and avoid the tape used to keep them closed. As a result, many people just buy trade paper backs. They're convenient because they're an entire story and portable.
Some people resort to library binding. A process where the comics are shipped off, the spine is cut off and glued to a cover. This can be time consuming, pricey and more effort than most are willing to do.
There are sleeves you can buy for 3 ring binders, but they don't allow you to read the comics without pulling the issues out.
Goal
I want to make it easier to share comics with people. I want to make it easier to show off comics collections. With the binder you can keep your comics on a bookshelf and easily read them and your friends can peruse what you have.
Details
The binder is modular so you can customize it to fit different length story arcs. The binder hardware is standard scrapbook posts (included).
Unlike library binding, this is non-permanent, non-destructive and reversible. Take comics in and out at will. Comics are held in place by a wire that snaps at the top and is attached at the bottom of the post (no small pieces to lose). The cover is a translucent flexible cover so that you can see the contents. In addition, the spine includes a spot for a label so that you and others can see the contents at a glance. each element is 3/8" to accommodate the larges issues (annuals and specials).
Think of as a DIY paperback.
Process
I worked with an existing design firm (Fuse -Toren Orzeck, Andrew Lindley , and Ross Savage) that has successfully developed many products for a variety commercial customers of to get to a working prototype. They have also had they're own successful kickstarter project (orp).
criteria:
1. modular to accommodate story arcs of varying lengths
2. attached retention piece so that they can't get lost
3. labeling on spine to allow content perusal on bookcase
We went through many iteration in the design process to meet all the the criteria set forth in the project spec.
concept 1
concept 2
concept 3
Early CNC prototypes
early cover and element prototypes
snap detail. different designs were tested for performance
snap detail 2. (many product names were considered)
snap detail 3. we found that the smallest wire caused the least book interaction
In the end we decided on the simplest cover solution using screw post and a flexible cover to reduce cost. + the translucent cover allows you to see the cover of the first issue.
I went with a 5 issue binder because it seems that most of the comics i read (Hellboy universe) run in 5 issue series. Buying 2 or more binders and recombining them will accommodate other lengths.
Also i conducted surveys at local comic book stores to see if other comic book buyers approved of the concept or had any reservations.
Where we are now
I've gotten this all the way to the prototype, now i just need your support to cover the production costs (the overhead for tooling is expensive) and know that others want this too. Project money will go towards finalizing the "deluxe" cover (2 weeks), packaging design by Bologna Sandwich (2 weeks), manufacturing (~1 month, depending on manufacture's schedule), overseas shipping(~1 month) and final distribution. I already have bids from overseas manufactures through intsupplychain.
Prototype Reviews
"I'm a big fan of single issues but sometimes it can be tricky carrying them around without them getting damaged, but also easily accessible to read. The comic binder is a portable and customizable way to transport a stack of comics you want to read on the go. I also like that the binder lies flat when the books are open, unlike perfect bound graphic novels, cause I often like to read while eating lunch."
-Jason Leivian, owner of Floating World Comics
"The Compiler project looks really exciting! I'd like to have certain cherished comic book series on my shelf that I know will never be collected, and I don't want to mutilate by binding them. This looks like the perfect option."
-Zack Soto, publisher, Study Group Comics
"This is AWESOME!!"
-Richard Boom, News Editor brokenfrontier.com
product page:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/revenantproducts |
For frustrated Habs fans, it's probably no surprise that the team is firmly lodged in one of the most aggravating positions a team can find themselves in.
A playoff spot is growing more distant with each game, but they're not strategic enough losers to work their way into the coveted draft lottery.
You could call it peak sadness. And it's statistically supported.
Mathematician Micah McCurdy has developed a sadness chart that shows 14 teams hovering in that area and the probability that they will end the season in the sad zone.
The Montreal Canadiens' probability of sadness has climbed to 75 per cent, according to hockeyviz.com. (Hockeyviz.com)
As of yesterday, Montreal topped the sadness chart with a 75 per cent likelihood of both hanging up the skates early while not finishing among the league's bottom five — which would put them in the running for one of the top three picks.
"Everybody wants their team to make the playoffs, until it doesn't look like they're gonna make the playoffs, and then all of a sudden, everybody wants their team to get a really good draft pick," he said.
"The first pick is always amazing, the next several are generally also franchise-changing players and so I just picked top five as, 'We're clearly going to get a great player.' If you're in between that [and a playoff spot], that's when the sadness starts to creep in — you don't get to make the playoffs and the pick you get only has like a 60 per cent chance of being an NHLer."
Habs' playoff chances slim
McCurdy is the brain behind hockeyviz.com, a site dedicated to the visualization of hockey stats. He's been producing the graphic representations of the numbers for a while now on his Twitter account @IneffectiveMath, but this is the first season he's compiling everything in one place.
According to McCurdy's models, which use predictive simulations, the Habs have about a seven per cent shot of making the playoffs this year. His own favourite team, the Ottawa Senators, have about a two per cent shot.
Halifax-based Micah McCurdy launched his hockey stat visualization site at the start of the 2015-2016 season. (Submitted by Micah McCurdy)
It may seem like this may be a good time for the Habs to just throw in the towel and make a determined slide down to a better draft position. But McCurdy says, given the position they're currently in, 23rd in the league, it's not that simple.
Teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs have been strategic and aggressive in their losing, putting themselves in a good position for a top draft pick.
The Habs, essentially, are not good enough to win, but not bad enough to be a winning loser.
"If you look at the teams they would have to sink underneath to make it out of sadness into a really good draft pick, there's a lot of teams to 'overtake' and a lot of those teams have had plans for pretty much the entire year where they are already playing a roster that's designed for getting a really good draft pick," he said.
"It's commonplace to think that losing hockey games is straightforward, but it's not, especially because the incentive structure has been in place for a number of years."
Montreal's fans may be most likely to feel the frustrating despair of the sad zone at the end of the season, but it likely won't be much of a party anywhere else in Canada.
According to McCurdy's calculations, there's a 70 per cent probability at this point in the season that no Canadian teams will make it past the regular season. |
Popular former Assembly Member Eluned Parrott has been chosen as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Cardiff Central in June’s General Election.
Eluned was the area's Assembly Member between 2011 and 2016, during that time serving as the Welsh Lib Dem Shadow Minister for the Economy and Europe. Click here to read more about Eluned and her story.
In the 2016 Assembly election, Eluned came within 1,000 votes of beating Labour in Cardiff Central. Since then, Lib Dem membership in Cardiff has doubled and the party won a convincing victory in September’s Plasnewydd by-election.
The Lib Dems are odds-on favourite to win Cardiff Central (at 4/6 with Betfair on Monday morning), and have been endorsed by pro-EU newspaper The New European as the clear choice in the fight against a hard Brexit.
Eluned Parrott said:
“I hadn’t intended to come back into politics, but Brexit changed everything. I can't simply stand by and let our country be ripped apart by hatred and division.
“I want to represent Cardiff Central in Parliament to fight Theresa May’s divisive Hard Brexit, both for the majority here who voted Remain and the many who voted Leave but want to stay in the Single Market.
“Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party isn’t providing Britain with a real opposition to this Conservative Brexit Government. That’s why people are turning to the Liberal Democrats in droves – as you can see by the dozens of by-election wins we have had across Britain, including one right here in Cardiff.
“The choice in Cardiff Central is clear: Corbyn’s Labour party who rolled over to back the Tories’ Hard Brexit, or the Liberal Democrats who will fight for an open, tolerant and united country.”
Do you want to help Eluned win? Click here to volunteer, or click here to donate. |
OROVILLE, Calif. - On Saturday, the flows coming out of the main spillway were reduced to 55,000 cfs and continued to outpace the inflow that was brought by the rain. The reduction in discharge allowed an assessment team to view debris buildup and for crews to dredge debris piles below the flood control spillway. Lake elevations continued to decline and had fallen below 854 feet, laying 47-feet below the emergency spillway. As runoff flows into the reservoir the water levels will fluctuate, but officials are confident that they will stay within acceptable depths during the times of storm activity. Despite the current inclement weather, work continues on the area below the spillway, the monoliths, access roads, and various eroded areas created by emergency spillway runoff. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) continues to aggressively monitor the status of the dam, spillways, the Hyatt Power Plant, related structures, and progress of repair activities.
An evacuation center will remain open at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds. All other evacuation centers supported by Butte County will be closed. Residents from other centers who are still seeking shelter, due to the Evacuation Warning, can go to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds.
A total of 328 personnel worked on the dam today, a fluctuating number that changes based on the needs of DWR. |
In the fight against SOPA (or any ridiculous action taken by those in power), knowledge is key. There have been various attempts to build lists or databases to categorize both individuals and companies into SOPA supporters or SOPA opponents, and you can add this site to the list of effective tools when it comes to knowing what we’re up against.
SOPAOpera, a site created by photographer and reporter Dan Nguyen, attempts to keep track of not only who supports and opposes SOPA, but also why.
On the site, you can get information on each member of the House and the Senate that have a known position on SOPA. Nguyen explains the methodology for determining support and opposition:
Right now, the site only has 101 members of the legislative branch in the database. Everyone else has not done enough to merit either a support or oppose label.
You can also sort the lists by State, Age, Years Served, and financial contributions from certain industries like TV/Movies (think MPAA). What strikes you the most while looking through the charts is how you can’t break down SOPA support into neat little categories.
In U.S. politics, some thing are easy calls. For instance, anti-abortion legislation is most likely going to be introduced by a Republican, because abortion is currently an issue that pretty closely follows party lines. Stances on taxes, immigration, and entitlement programs have also followed party lines for some time.
Contributions are also an accurate indicator of legislative support in many occasions. If someone gets money from a particular interest, its not surprising when they vote in a way that serves the interest of their interests.
The thing that this list illuminates about SOPA is that support and opposition is all over the map. It’s not a party issue – both Republicans and Democrats support SOPA. It’s also not an “entrenched interest” thing. Congresspeople with decades of experience support SOPA and also oppose SOPA. Young, junior Senators both support and oppose SOPA as well.
Most importantly, it also doesn’t look to be a simply money in, vote out sort of deal either. Legislators that received paltry contributions from entertainment interests are supporting the bill while some that received sizable contributions are opposing it.
Could it be the only pattern that we can discern from SOPA support or opposition is ignorance and non-ignorance?
Right now, the only pattern that truly resonates is that out of the database’s 101 Senators and House members with “known” positions, 81 support SOPA. |
There has been recent controversy regarding the new peso bills the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines or BSP) will be releasing. Various factual errors have been brought up such as the rare blue-naped parrot on the new P500 bill having a yellow beak and green tail feathers, instead of red and yellow, respectively. On a map found on the P1000 bill, the Tubbataha reef was misplaced.1
Regarding these errors, Fe dela Cruz, a spokesperson for the BSP has said that, “In choosing the design… we are always guided by our commitment to enrich the appreciation and knowledge of the Filipinos we honor on our banknotes…”1
On Radyo Inquirer, dela Cruz also said that the BSP will be evaluating the criticisms regarding the errors on the new bills saying, “pwede namang palitan (it can be changed).”2
While it is laudable that these mistakes are going to be attended to, there is one gross oversight that has yet to be addressed. New bills will be containing this direct quotation from the Christian Bible: “Pinagpala ang bayan na ang Diyos ay ang Panginoon (Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord),”3,4 which comes from Psalm 33:12. This statement can be found above the seal of the Republic of the Philippines.
This is a flagrant transgression of the non-establishment clause of the Philippine Constitution, which states that, “No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Clearly, this is a situation where the government is endorsing a particular religious tradition. While there is an undeniable Catholic majority in the Philippines, our nation also has citizens who are Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Pagan, and non-religious. The emblazoning of this Biblical verse on Philippine currency is an affront to the religious diversity of our country and the separation of Church and State guaranteed by our Constitution.
In its decision against the COMELEC’s order to bar Ang Ladlad from running as a party-list during this past year’s national elections, the Supreme Court said that, “it was grave violation of the non-establishment clause for the COMELEC to utilize the Bible and the Koran to justify the exclusion of Ang Ladlad.“5 We see in this overtly Christian statement on the new Philippine peso bills another example in a long-running trend of religious bias on the part of certain sectors in our government.
The quotation from the Christian Old Testament and its placing on legal tender is a manifest violation of the Constitution and the right to religious freedom of the country’s citizens as it forces even non-Christians to participate in the distribution of explicitly Judeo-Christian material. As a body that represents all of its citizens, Christian or not, the Philippine government must be a secular one; it cannot champion the religious beliefs of any particular faith.
We hereby call upon the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to remove the quotation from the Bible from all legal Philippine tender. |
Liz Thompson, a former migration agent turned whistleblower, described the administration of the Manus Island detention centre as 'ridiculous' and claims she was instructed to tell detainees their only option was resettlement in Papua New Guinea.
“They (detainees) watch the news, they read the newspapers, they watch what’s going around in the camp, they know there’s no decision from the Papua New Guinean Government on resettlement," she told Dateline's Mark Davis.
"So what that means is… you’re never getting out of this camp, it’s indefinite detention."
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, denied that Manus Island detainees had been told they would not be resettled in PNG.
“With regard to reports that the transferees were advised that they will not be settled in PNG, the Minister has been advised that those reports are false," she said in a statement.
The allegations come as the Immigration Department faced questions on the recent riots on Manus Island from a Senate Committee.
The department head described detainees pushing down fences and throwing rocks before police discharged a gas canister and fired warning shots.
Immigration and border protection secretary Martin Bowles said work was needed to uncover what happened.
"There are a range of other reports, there are interviews that need to happen with the independent reviewer to start to work through the myriad of information that's out there," he said. |
Unknown assailants yesterday hacked to death a Christian grocer in Baraigram upazila of Natore, the latest in a series of attacks on religious minorities.
Sixty-year-old Sunil Gomez was alone in his shop at Bonpara Christian Palli in the upazila around noon after offering Sunday prayers, said family members and locals.
The assailants hacked him there, leaving him dead, said Shymol Kumar Mukharjee, superintendent of police in Natore.
There were hacking marks in his neck, said police.
Law enforcers picked up Sabuz Hossain, 35, a tenant of Sunil, on suspicion over the killing.
The area where Sunil, father of two, lived for years is predominantly Christian. His grocery shop was adjacent to his house, said locals.
Hours after the incident, global terror outfit Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the killing, according to SITE Intelligence Group that monitors terrorist activities.
Apart from this one, as many as 13 more attacks since the beginning of this year had suspected militant links.
Inam Ahmed, inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department in Rajshahi, who visited the crime scene, said the attack had similarities with previous militant attacks on free thinkers and people belonging to differing faiths.
Sunil's wife Jasinta Gomez had gone to her father's house in Pabna to see an ailing relative.
His daughter Swapna Gomez, 32, lives in an adjacent village while his son Swapan Gomez died several years ago in an accident.
Swapna said her father had 10 decimals of land on which he had built the house. A portion of the house was rented out to tenants.
“My father had no enmity with anyone,” said a crying Swapna.
She told BBC Bangla Service that her father went to a local market to buy goods for his shop around 11:00am and came back around 45 minutes later.
Abdul Hai Talukdar, officer-in-charge of Detective Branch of Police in Natore, said the motive behind the killing was unclear.
Family members said they found some money in his hand after the attack.
Shukhi Begum, a tenant of Sunil, said she was asleep in her room when the incident took place and that she did not hear any screams or noises.
Swapna last night filed a case with Baraigram Police Station, accusing unidentified criminals, said Shafiqul Islam, assistant superintend of police, Baraigram circle.
IS CLAIM
Referring to Amaq News Agency, the media wing of IS, SITE Intelligence on its website posted: “IS fighters in Bangladesh killed a Christian in Bonpara village....”
In the same post, IS also claimed responsibility for the killing of a Buddhist monk in Bandarban.
Shwe U Chak was found dead, with his throat slit, inside his Kyang (temple) in Naikkhangchhari upazila on May 14.
The Daily Star could not independently verify the claims.
Asked about the IS claim over Sunil murder, Natore SP Shyamol said there was no presence of the terror outfit in Bangladesh.
He, however, said they would verify the claim during investigation.
PROTESTS
Protesting the killing, local Christian community held a rally around 04:30pm at Bonpara Bazar and blocked the Bonpara-Pabna highway for about half an hour.
They demanded immediate arrest of the killers and threatened to wage tougher programmes otherwise.
Speaking at the rally, Benedict Gomez, secretary of Bonpara Parish Council, said criminals hacked another Christian Gabriel Costa in the past.
But police were yet to find the attackers, he alleged. If the criminals were caught, Sunil Gomez might not have been killed, he added.
KM Zakir Hossain, mayor of Bonpara municipality, said Sunil was a gentleman who never quarrelled with anyone.
Sushanta Ghosh, secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddha Christian Oikya Parishad, Natore unit, condemned the killing.
[Our Natore correspondent contributed to this report.] |
CPAC, which stands for the “Conservative Political Action Conference,” used to be a venerable conclave which met annually to keep the torch of conservatism lit and burning brightly.
Now it has morphed into an event in which its keynote speaker supports and defends pedophilia (sex with prepubescent boys), pederasty (sex with post-pubescent boys), and statutory rape (adults, such as teachers, having sex with underage individuals).
Over the weekend, this year’s organizers sprung Milo Yiannopoulos, the flamboyantly gay senior editor of Breitbart, on the world as this year’s featured guest. This apparently came as a surprise to the American Conservative Union, the umbrella organization for CPAC.
Yiannopoulos will get more speaking time than either the vice-president of the United States, Mike Pence, or former presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz.
In a tape that surfaced on Sunday, Yiannopoulos can be heard celebrating the wonders of man-boy love.
“We get hung up on this sort of child abuse stuff to the point where we are heavily policing consensual adults.
“In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men — the sort of ‘coming of age’ relationship — those relationships in which those older men help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable, sort of rock, where they can’t speak to their parents.” (Emphasis mine.)
In a 2015 interview with comedian Joe Rogan, Yiannopoulos discussed his sexual relationship with a Catholic priest, one “Father Michael,” which began at age 14. Yiannopoulos claims to be grateful to this priest for his sexual awakening, even though it is nothing less than pederasty and statutory rape.
Father Michael apparently introduced the young Milo to homosexualty at that tender young age, a reminder that many adult homosexuals were the victims of sexual predators as young boys. Initial male-on-male sexual experiences have an overwhelmingly powerful imprinting effect on the psyche and self-concept of young boys, and many think of themselves as homosexuals from that day forward even though they are not. They are not homosexuals, they are victims.
Homosexuals, as even Milo himself admits, are not born – they are made. He refers to the “born-that-way” narrative as a “myth” invented by homosexual activists in the 1980s to excuse homosexual behavior, and claims that homosexuality is a result of “nurture” rather than “nature.”
Later in the interview with Rogan, Yiannopoulos speaks approvingly of a Hollywood party he attended some time ago in which there were “very young boys” in attendance for sexual purposes.
He also has criticized the fact that we punish teachers who seduce their students, which is the crime of statutory rape. He believes that pederasty – a man having sex with a teenage boy – should not be a crime but something an enlightened society should celebrate.
Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a “conservative” value. And a proponent of “the crime against nature” has no place at a conservative conference, let alone as the main attraction.
CPAC continues its headlong slide into the abyss of sexually abnormal behavior. After finally allowing the Log Cabin Republicans (a pro-homosexual GOP group) booth space several years ago, CPAC then caved to the gay lobby by allowing the LCR to be a full-fledged sponsor in 2016. And now as the capstone to its dalliance with sexual deviancy, CPAC is giving us Milo.
Even liberals are aghast at what CPAC has done. Jake Tapper of CNN is “horrified,” and wants to know, “how on earth can CPAC defend this?” He adds, ”Preying on children is the definition of evil. Justifying it in any way is sick and disturbing. Has everyone lost their minds?”
The board of the ACU, which apparently was not consulted on the Milo decision, has some serious and immediate thinking and deciding to do, since the conference starts on Wednesday. Breitbart also has some serious thinking to do, since they have made this morally debauched man an international star and the face of their organization. For the sake of sanity, decency, and the conservative movement, here’s hoping and praying that CPAC and Breitbart choose wisely. And here’s hoping and praying that Milo himself can find the path to sexual normalcy before it’s too late. |
With sunny weather that can literally burn your skin, backyard barbecues forcing you to eat unmentionable animal parts, and children running rampant with no school to show them reasonable bounds, you need something to get you excited for summer. So I figured I would do my civic duty and give you two handfuls of reasons to get excited about summer by doling out the only thing I know about: television!
Below you'll find 11 new shows that should keep summer from being a total bore, so cancel that trip to DisneyWorld and get on the couch like the rest of us.
11. Bullseye (Fox)
WHEN IT'S ON: Wednesdays starting May 27. But maybe not for long, because this could get canceled fast or sued off of television even faster.
WHO'S IN IT: Kellen Lutz (host) and a bunch of people stupid enough to risk their lives for television.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A stunt-based game show where the contestants become "human darts" and hurtle their bodies at bullseyes, presumably for fame and fortune.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: No list of summer television is complete without some dumb reality program, and Fox's lawsuit-waiting-to-happen caught us right in the eye. Ouch. Someone will die in this show.
10. Fear the Walking Dead (AMC)
WHEN IT'S ON: This summer sometime. AMC is being a jerk and not telling us when it will premiere. Come on, AMC, be cool.
WHO'S IN IT: Cliff Curtis (Trauma), Kim Dickens (Treme), Frank Dillane (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), Elizabeth Rodriguez (Orange Is the New Black), and Alycia Debnam-Carey (The 100).
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: It's a companion series to The Walking Dead, and takes place during the onset of the zombie outbreak that Rick Grimes slept through like a lazy bug. However, this L.A.-set show will concentrate on how one family deals with regular family problems while also on the run from man-eating monsters.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: We really want to see how this show will be different from its cousin, and the prospect of learning more about this universe from another angle is exciting. But mostly, we're dying to know what these people will call zombies. Crawlers? Munchers? LiLos?
9. Blunt Talk (Starz)
WHEN IT'S ON: Saturdays starting August 22 on Starz
WHO'S IN IT: Patrick Stewart! Also Jacki Weaver, Adrian Scarborough, and Dolly Wells. From Bored to Death's Jonathan Ames and Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Walter Blunt (Stewart) is a British newscaster who moves to America to host his own show where he harps on whatever it is he wants. He's also a trainwreck of a human being with failed marriages, cocaine addiction, and other problems weighing him down.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Patrick Stewart snorts cocaine in this. What more do you want?
8. The Brink (HBO)
WHEN IT'S ON: Sundays starting June 21 in a new comedy block with The Rock's Ballers.
WHO'S IN IT: Jack Black (Tenacious D), Tim Robbins (The Player), Pablo Schreiber (The Wire), Carla Gugino (Political Animals), and Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show). And that, my friends, is a great cast.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: This farce focuses on a global geopolitical problem in Pakistan that threatens to put the world at war. So what does the government do? It sends in Jack Black. Each season will concentrate on a new crisis that has to be stopped.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: We'll admit that the trailer wasn't quite as good as what we had envisioned when the show was originally announced, but HBO is on a hot streak with comedy right now and this looks much better than Ballers.
7. Dark Matter (Syfy)
WHEN IT'S ON: Friday at 10pm, starting June 12. Season 1 will be 13 episodes long.
WHO'S IN IT: A gaggle of Canadians! Marc Bendavid, Melissa O'Neil (Canadian Idol), Anthony Lemke, Roger Cross, Zoie Palmer, Alex Mallari Jr., and Jodelle Ferland. From Stargate writers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: It's an outerrrrr spaaaaace mysteryyyyyy! Several strangers wake up from cryo-sleep on a derelict space cruiser with no recollection of who they are or how they got there. And from there, we assume it goes totally bonkers.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Hey, we're suckers for space mysteries, and of Syfy's good-looking summer schedule, this looks like it will be the most intriguing. What's going on with this ship? Who are these people? Are they space prisoners cast off into the depths of the galaxy? Are they super-secret proto soldiers who turned against their creators? Are they just really annoying people that the rest of the country voted to shoot into space? WE WANT TO KNOW NOW!!!
6. Zoo (CBS)
WHEN IT'S ON: Tuesdays starting June 30 at 9pm on CBS
WHO'S IN IT: James Wolk (Mad Men), James' Wolk's new facial hair, Nora Arnezeder (Mozart in the Jungle), Nonso Anosie (Game of Thrones), Kristen Connolly (House of Cards), and Billy Burke (Revolution).
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Based on the James Patterson novel, Zoo shows off what happens when animals stop being cute... and start getting real. Wolk plays a biologist who tries to figure out why all these critters are suddenly changing their behavior.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: This is When Animals Attack: The Series, and given CBS's track record with summer shows, it could be the latest series that's both fun to watch and fun to make fun of. Or, god forbid, it could actually be good? And yep, we'll be rooting for the animals.
5. Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (Netflix)
WHEN IT'S ON: Netflix will release all of the first season on July 31.
WHO'S IN IT: Ready? Here we go. Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, David Hyde Pierce, Molly Shannon, Ken Marino.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A prequel to the 2001 cult comedy, First Day of Camp pokes fun of summer-camp movies from the 1980s as kids and counselors learn life lessons while wearing some pretty cool clothes.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Cast, continued: Janeane Garafolo, Christopher Meloni, Marguerite Moreau, Zak Orth, Bradley Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, Judah Friedlander, Chris Pine, Jon Hamm, Jason Schwartzman, Kristen Wiig, Michaela Watkins, John Slattery, Josh Charles, Randall Park, Jayma Mays, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, Richard Shiff, and Lake Bell. And probably even more people.
4. Humans (AMC)
WHEN IT'S ON: Sundays starting June 28 at 9pm on AMC. It'll only be eight episodes, so it will be done by late August.
WHO'S IN IT: William Hurt, Katherine Parkinson (The IT Crowd), Colin Morgan, and Gemma Chan.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Synthetic humans are finally on the market to do all the chores around the house that no one else wants to do, like do the dishes, sweep the floors, and pay attention to the kids. But something tells us that things will go wrong.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Robots are pretty cool, and we're still waiting for a good show that examines artificial intelligence in androids since Almost Human didn't cut it. It's also a co-production with the U.K.'s Channel 4, and we all know that the Brits know how to make good TV.
3. Mr. Robot (USA)
WHEN IT'S ON: Wednesdays at 10pm beginning June 24
WHO'S IN IT: Rami Malek (Night at the Museum), Christian Slater, Portia Doubleday, and Carly Chaikin (Suburgatory).
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A young hacker is pulled into a hacker collective to take down the powerful CEOs that run the world in this techno-thriller.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: With apologies to Monk and Psych, this could be USA Network's first series to join the big boys of the drama heavy hitters. And how about that gorgeous look courtesy of director Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)? Plus, we'll watch anything that shows a bunch of rich dicks get what's coming to them.
2. Deutschland 83 (SundanceTV)
WHEN IT'S ON: Wednesdays starting June 17 at 11pm on SundanceTV
WHO'S IN IT: Jonas Nay, Maria Schrader, Alexander Beyer, Sonja Gerhardt, and more Germans you probably don't recognize.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: It's 1983 and an East German spy is sent to West Germany to get military secrets. And also maybe party.
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Damn, that trailer is HOT. This drama is the first German-language series to be broadcast in the United States, so since you weren't there when the Berlin Wall came down, be a part of history as television's equivalent to that is broken. But seriously, this looks great and it's already getting a lot of acclaim internationally.
1. Sense8 (Netflix)
WHEN IT'S ON: Netflix will dump all 12 episodes of the first season out on Friday, June 5. Make sure your favorite pizza-delivery place is on speed dial.
WHO'S IN IT: It's a cast that would make the United Nations proud! Canadian actor Brian J. Smith (Stargate Universe), British actress Tuppence Middleton (Black Mirror), Korean actress Bae Doona (Jupiter Ascending), Spanish actor Miguel Ángel Silvestre, British actor Aml Ameen, Indian actress Tina Desai (Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), German actor Max Riemelt, and American transgender actress Jamie Clayton. The Wachowskis (The Matrix) created and wrote the series.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Eight strangers from around the globe find themselves inexplicably linked as they begin to share selves. Let me explain; they can feel what the others feel, and share skill sets. Why? We don't know, man, we don't know!
WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: One of the most impressive trailers of any of the summer shows has us refreshing our Netflix pages like our lives depend on it. The Wachowskis are notoriously hit and miss (mostly misses recently), but they do have a great eye for science-fiction and gorgeous action. If the story is merely decent, this should be a series we're finished with in a few days.
THE RUNNERS-UP
– UnReal (Lifetime, June 1): This parody of a reality dating show (think Bachelorette) goes behind the scenes to show just how crazy things are off camera.
– Killjoys (Syfy, June 19): Bounty hunters in space fly around the galaxy hunting bounties!
– Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (BBC America, June 13): In the 19th century in parallel universe London, magic is kinda real but antiquated, and a pair of guys practice it and usher in a new age of hocus-pocus.
– Another Period (Comedy Central, June 23): Riki Lindhome and Natasha Leggero play socialites in the year 1902 in this faux reality show.
– Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll (FX, July 16): Denis Leary stars in this comedy about a rock and roll band and (probably) banging groupies.
Which new summer shows are you most excited about? |
OPINION: Sounds of the Kiwi summer: Barbecues igniting, L&P cans opening, lawnmowers rumbling to life, seagulls squawking overhead and, perhaps more recently – jumbo-jets landing, freedom campervans spluttering and our tourist infrastructure creaking under the weight of our own popularity.
Airline executives, hotel owners and tour guides might be licking their lips in anticipation as the tourist season bursts into life, but a growing number of New Zealanders are questioning whether one of our biggest industries is proving too popular for its own good. Through lack of infrastructure investment, has it been set up to fail – or at least underwhelm?
Our 100% Pure tourist marketing campaign has long-attracted calls of hypocrisy (and again recently, here and here), but now that we admit we aren't 100% Pure for travellers can we also say we also not 100 per cent ready for the oncoming onslaught of tourist arrivals?
It is naive to think any industry that grows to become your country's largest export (worth $ 14.5bn each year) would be without what economist wonks call "negative externalities" and what normal people call "consequences".
PHIL WALTER/GETTY IMAGES Ah summer! The beach, the barbecues, and the sound of our tourist infrastructure crumbling.
READ MORE:
* Is this New Zealand tourism's lowest point
* The dark side of New Zealand's tourism boom
* It's not easy being beautiful: NZ tourism boom comes at a cost
Dairy has run-off and farting cows, mining has tailings, fishing has bycatch: There is at least one for every industry. It's just that the powers that be were slow to realise or didn't want to turn off the tourist dollar tap (apparently, it's part of tourism minister's job to be relentlessly happy about all tourists, whether or not they know how to drive or how to use a rubbish bin).
There are countless players in the industry who squark about the more than 1.6 million inbound tourist visitors in the year to October. This is a good news story, right? Aren't we doing well? Never mind factory closures and blue-collar jobs going overseas, the tourism sector is here to save the day (never mind the low-paid and highly seasonal work).
MYTCHALL BRANSGROVE/STUFF It's naive to think tourism, our country's largest export, would be without consequences.
Tourists flocked in but, the eventual hangover of our popularity took a while to kick in and now that it has (and 35 per cent of Kiwis polled said current tourist numbers put too much pressure on the country), few are willing to put their hands up and take responsibility.
In February, Parliament was presented with a petition calling for a basic driving test to be introduced for tourist drivers, but politicians did nothing with it. Given it is the goose laying the golden egg, how has tourism infrastructure investment been ignored for so long?
You'd be forgiven for thinking the most recent long-serving minister of tourism had fallen out with the prime minister or at least didn't have his ear. But not only did he have the prime minister's ear, but both of them, along with his face and body too. Yes, former prime minister and tourism minister John Key certainly was an effective salesman, waving the flag on the world stage to get people down to our little corner of the world, but was this matched with enough cash and infrastructure to deal with the influx of travellers once they landed? It seems not.
Key was there, smiling with an airline boss for the latest iteration of promoting the "Great Walks of New Zealand" at the start of the decade, the New York Times and other international media came and cooed about their brilliance. The number of tramping tourists only went up.
Maarten Holl Tourism, thankfully, is for the most part a feel good industry.
Funding for DoC, which runs the sites, was frozen.The DoC manager at Mt Cook had a point when he said that Tourism New Zealand does a great job getting people to New Zealand, but isn't up to par when it comes to looking after them once they get through the arrivals gate. We still all acted surprised to hear the pristine landscapes around the Tongariro Crossing were being rubbished and pooed on because of the lack of facilities.
Only in August this year did Key's successor Paula Bennett stump up $100m in a fund for local councils to apply for. Cash is on its way, but hasn't come soon enough for the worshippers at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Tekapo, who have to adopt temporary measures to deal with the disruption, destruction and defecation that came with the spike in tourists.
Nobody, it seems, thought there'd be a downside of being on New Zealand's most Instagrammed rankings. Taxpayers' ire can be spread widely though – if only local councils had the same enthusiasm for car-parks, public loos and other tourism infrastructure as their marketing departments have for attracting the holiday-makers in the first place.
DANIEL MURRAY The gorgeous Lake Tekapō routinely shows up on lists of the most Instagrammed locations.
Some aspects of our "tourism product offering" (to use awful industry speak) can't be changed, such as our tourist hotspots spread over a vast area, but others can be, such as the over-promotion and reliance on fly-and-drive tours as the predominant way to see our country. God forbid we suggest they use public transport for part of their trip or even make sure they're road-worthy.
Tourism, thankfully, is for the most part a feel good industry. It makes us prouder of our country to know that we put on a good show, can share with visitors our wonderful scenery and leave them more refreshed than when they arrived. Industry players must come together – and stump up cash – to ensure a quality tourism experience for visitor and host alike.
For too long though, the brutal demands of hosting an influx of visitors have been ignored like a mum smiling and shrugging when the umpteenth guest arrives at the bach even though there's just one loo and the fridge and cupboards are looking rather bare.
FRASER GUNN The Southern Cross above the Church of the Good Shepherd on the shore of Lake Tekapo.
Some food for thought as the summer tourist wave comes ashore.
Josh Martin is a London-based Kiwi journalist, who writes about travel, tourism, business, and consumer issues in between trips to places you'd rather be. Email [email protected] if you have a travel issue you'd like him to write about. |
Why You Can’t Trust the Weight Loss Advice of a Dietitian
Here’s a photo from a symposium for dietitians. It is not a joke.
This is why you can’t trust weight loss advice from a dietitian. He or she may have been trained by The Coca Cola Company. The largest professional association of dietitians in America have sold out to the junk food industry, as previously reported.
If you ask a dietitian for weight loss advice you’ll probably just be told to eat less calories. You can keep eating junk food once in a while and even drink soda, as long as you count the calories. This is exactly what the Coca Cola Company wants you to believe.
The truth is that this advice only suits masochists who enjoy being hungry forever. If you want to lose weight without hunger there is a better way to do it.
More
Is Your Dietitian Educated by The Coca Cola Company?
How American Dietitians Sold Out to Coca Cola and Pepsi
PS: There are of course plenty of smart dietitians too. The photo above is from the Facebook page of Dietitians for Professional Integrity. If you’re a dietitian and want to feel proud of your profession I recommend you support them. |
One of the core reasons I make books now is because Ray Bradbury scared me so happy, that what I am perpetually compelled to do is, at best, ignite the same flame in a young reader today. Most of my comics, certainly the ones I write myself, are scary ones or revolve around scary themes. In the last ten years I began to notice that they also featured, as protagonists, children. Even when the overall story wasn’t necessarily about them, there they were: peeking from behind some safe remove, watching.
I came to understand the pattern was leading me to a more clearly defined ethos when I both had kids of my own and I came to find that the comics industry had for the most part decided not to make books for kids anymore. Instead they wanted to tailor even their brightly colored, undies-on-the-outside superhero books to old men nostalgic for their long-passed childhoods than for the children they were intended to inspire. Insane, right? This generation had not only stolen the medium away from its following generations, it had helped foster one of the greatest publishing face-plants in American history: it killed its own future by ignoring the basic need to grow a new crop of readers, and so made certain it had no future at all.
And one thing no one was going near was horror stories for kids. So it was time to do what the big publishers wouldn’t: scare the hell out of kids and teach them to love it. Here’s why this is not as crazy as it sounds:
Reason #1: CHILDHOOD IS SCARY
Maurice Sendak, whom I love as a contributor to the lore of children’s literature as well as a dangerous and wily critic of the medium (especially his grouchy latter years), once countered a happy interviewer by demanding she understand that childhood was not a skip-hop through a candy-cane field of butterflies and sharing and sunshine, that is was in fact a terrifying ordeal he felt compelled to help kids survive. Kids live in a world of insane giants already. Nothing is the right size. The doorknobs are too high, the chairs too big… They have little agency of their own, and are barely given the power to even choose their own clothes. (Though no real “power ” can ever be given, anyway… maybe “privilege” is the right term.) Aside from the legitimate fears of every generation, kids today are enjoying seeing these madhouse giants lose their jobs, blow themselves up using the same planes they ride to visit grandma, and catastrophically ruin their own ecosystem, ushering in a new era of unknown tectonic change and loss their grandkids will get to enjoy in full. The insane giants did to the world what they did to comics: they didn’t grow a future, but instead ate it for dinner.
It’s a spooky time to be a kid, even without Sandy Hook making even the once-fortified classroom a potential doomsday ride. Look, the kids are already scared, so let’s give them some tools to cope with it beyond telling them not to worry about it all… when they really have every right to be scared poopless. Scary stories tell kids there’s always something worse, and in effect come across as more honest because they exist in a realm already familiar to them. Scary tales don’t warp kids; they give them a place to blow off steam while they are being warped by everything else.
Reason #2: POWER TO THE POWERLESS
The basic thing horror does for all of us is also its most ancient talent, the favorite system of crowd control invented by the ancient Greeks: catharsis. Who doesn’t walk out of a movie that just scared the pants off of them mercifully comforted by the mundane walk to through the parking lot and the world outside? For kids this is even more acute. If we take it further and make children both the object of terror in these stories as well as agents for surviving the monsters…well, now you’re onto something magical. Plainly put, horror provides a playground in which kids can dance with their fears in a safe way that can teach them how to survive monsters and be powerful, too. Horror for kids lets them not only read or see these terrible beasts, but also see themselves in the stories’ protagonists. The hero’s victory is their victory. The beast is whomever they find beastly in their own lives. A kid finishing a scary book, or movie can walk away having met the monster and survived, ready and better armed against the next villain that will be coming…
Reason #3: HORROR IS ANCIENT AND REAL AND CAN TEACH US MUCH
In the old days, fairy tales and stories for kids were designed to teach them to avoid places of danger, strangers, and weird old ladies living in candy-covered houses. They were cautionary tales for generations of kids who faced death, real and tangible, almost each and every day. There was a real and preventive purpose to these stories: stay alive and watch out for the myriad of real world threats that haunt your every step. These stories, of course, were terrifying, but these were also children that grew up in a time where, of every six kids born, two or three would survive to adulthood. Go and read some of the original Oz books by Baum and tell me they are not freakishly weird and threatening. The Brothers Grimm sought to warn kids in the most horrifying way they could. So much so that these types of tales have all but vanished from children’s lit, because these days they are deemed too frightening and dark for them. But they also are now more anecdotal than they were then; they mean less because the world around them grew and changed and they remained as they had always been. They became less relevant, however fantastic and crazy-pants they are.
Horror also touches something deep within us, right down into our fight-or-flight responses. We have developed, as a species, from an evolutionary necessity to be afraid of threats so we might flee them and survive to make more babies that can grow up to be suitably afraid of threats, that can also grow up and repeat the cycle. We exist today because of these smart apes and they deserve our thanks for learning that lesson. As a result, like almost all pop culture, horror lit can reflect in a unique way the extremely scary difficulties of being a child in a certain time. It touches on something we all feel and are familiar with, and as such can reveal a deeper understanding of ourselves as we go through the arc of being scared, then relieved, and then scared again. The thrill is an ancient one, and when we feel it, we’re connecting with something old and powerful within us. Whether it’s a roller-coaster, a steep water slide, or watching Harry Potter choke down a golden snitch as he falls thirty stories from his witch’s broom. There is a universality in vicarious thrill-seeking and danger-hunting. It is us touching they who began the cycle forty thousand years past.
Reason #4: HORROR CONFIRMS SECRET TRUTHS
“You know when grown-ups tell you everything’s going to be fine and there’s nothing to be worried about, but you know they’re lying?” says the Doctor of a young, mortified Amy Pond. “Uh-huh ,” she replies, rolling her ten-year-old eyes dramatically. The Doctor leans in, a wink in his eye and intimates… “Everything’s going to be fine.” And then they turn to face the monster living in her wall with a screwdriver in one hand and a half eaten apple in the other.
In doing this, Moffat touches brilliantly upon another essential truth of horror—that it shows us guardians and guides that will be more honest with us than even our own parents. Within the darkness and shadows is our guide, who can lead us out and back into the light, but you can only find him there in the darkness, when you need him most. Kids are aware of so much more that’s happening in their house than we as parents even want to imagine. But because we don’t share all the details of our anxious whispers, stressful phone calls, or hushed arguments, (and rightfully so), they are left to fill in the facts themselves, and what one imagines tends to be far more terrible than what is real. They know you’re fighting about something, but not what. They can tell what hastened whispers in the hall mean outside their door… or they think they do. And what they don’t know for a fact, they fill in with fictions. Storytellers dabbling in horror provide them with an honest broker who doesn’t shy away from the fact of werewolves or face-eating aliens that want to put their insect babies in our stomachs. They look you straight into their eyes and whisper delightfully “Everything’s going to be fine.” The mere fact of telling these tales proves a willingness to join in with kids in their nightmares, bring them to life, and then subvert and vanquish them. Children love you for this, because you are sharing a secret with them they don’t yet realize everyone else also knows: this is fun.
The end result, for me, at least was a great sense of trust in scary movies I never got from my parents, who tried to comfort me by telling me ghosts weren’t real. Horror told me they were, but it also taught me how to face them. We deny to our kids the full measure of what we experience and suffer as adults, but they aren’t idiots and know something’s going on, and what we’re really doing by accident is robbing them of the trust that they can survive, and that we understand this and can help them to do so. Where we as adults cannot tell them a half-truth, horror can tell them the whole, and there is a great mercy in that.
Reason #5: SHARING SCARY STORIES BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER
How many times have I seen a group of kids discover to their excessive delight that they have all read and loved the same Goosebumps book? A LOT. The first thing they do is compare and rank the scariest parts and laugh at how they jumped out of their bed when the cat came for a pat on the head, or stayed up all night staring at the half open closet. Like vets having shared a battle, they are brought together in something far more essential and primordial than a mere soccer game or a surprise math test. And looking back myself, I cannot recall having more fun in a movie theater or at home with illicit late night cable tv, than when I was watching a scary movie with my friends. The shared experience, the screams and adrenaline-induced laughter that always follow are some of the best and least fraught times in childhood. And going through it together means we aren’t alone anymore. Not really.
Reason #6: HIDDEN INSIDE HORROR ARE THE FACTS OF LIFE
Growing up is scary and painful, and violent, and your body is doing weird things and you might, to your great horror, become something beastly and terrible on the other side. (The Wolfman taught us this). Being weird can be lonely and your parents never understand you and the world is sometimes incomprehensible. (Just as Frankenstein’s monster showed us). Sex and desire is creepy and intimate in dangerous and potentially threatening ways (so sayeth Dracula).
Whether it’s The Hunger Games as a clear cut metaphor for the Darwinian hellscape of highschool, or learning to turn and face a scary part of ourselves, or the dangers of the past via any of the zillions of ghost stories around, horror can serve as a thinly-veiled reflection of ourselves in a way almost impossible to imagine in other forms. Horror can do this because, like sci-fi and fantasy, it has inherent within it a cloak of genre tropes that beg to be stripped off. Its treasures are never buried so deep that you can’t find them with some mild digging. It’s a gift to us made better by having to root around for it, and like all deep knowledge, we must earn its boons rather than receive them, guppy-mouthed, like babies on a bottle.
Fear is not the best thing in the world, of course, but it’s not going anywhere and we are likely forced to meet it in some capacity, great or small, each and every day. There’s no way around it. Denying this fact only provides more fertile ground for fear to take root. Worse yet, denying it robs us of our agency to meet and overcome it. The more we ignore scary things, the bigger and scarier those things become. One of the great truths from Herbert’s perpetually important Dune series is the Bene Gesserit’s Litany Against Fear:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it is gone past I will turn to see its path.
Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
In so many geeky ways this sums up the most important and primary element of fear—not to pretend that it doesn’t exist, or whether it should or not, but to meet it, to hug it, and to let it go so we may be better prepared for whatever else comes next. Crafting horror narratives for kids does require changing the way scary things are approached, but I would argue that what tools we are required to take off the table for a younger audience aren’t really important tools in telling those stories in the first place. Rape, gore, and splatter themes are terrible, deeply lazy and often poorly executed shortcuts for delivering weight and fear in a story. Losing them and being forced to employ more elegant and successful tools, like mood, pacing, and off-camera violence—the sorts of things one must do to make scary stories for kids—make these tales more interesting and qualitative, anyway. We are forced to think more creatively when we are denied the alluring tropes of the genre to lean on. We are more apt to reinvent the genre when we aren’t burdened by the rules all genres lure us into adopting. With kids, one must land on safer ground sooner than would be the case with adults, but otherwise what I do as a writer when I tell a scary story to kids is essentially the same thing I would do to craft one for adults. There are certain themes that require life experience to understand as a reader, as well, and a successful storyteller should know their audience.
Don’t be afraid to scare your kids, or your kids’ friends, with scary books you love. Obviously you have to tailor things to your kids’ individual levels. For example, films and books I let my 11-year-old digest, I won’t let my younger boy get into until he’s 14. They’re just different people and can handle different levels of material. They both love spooky stuff, but within their individual limits. Showing The Shining to an 8-year-old is generally a poor idea, so my advice is when there’s doubt, leave it out. You can’t make anyone un-see what you show them, and you should be responsible as to what they are exposed to. I’m a bit nostalgic about sneaking into to see The Exorcist at the dollar cinema way too young, but I also remember what it felt like to wake up with twisty-headed nightmares for a month afterward, too. Being scared and being terrorized are not the same thing. Know the difference and don’t cross the streams or it will totally backfire on you. But if you navigate it right, it can be a completely positive and powerful experience.
So get out there and scare some kids today! Do it right and they’ll thank you when they’re older. There will be a lot of adults who find this whole post offensive and terrible, even as their kids cry for the material… I remind them that children are often smarter than the adults they wind up becoming. The parents that find this so inappropriate are under the illusion that if they don’t ever let their kids know any of this stuff, they won’t have bad dreams or be afraid—not knowing that, tragically, they are just making them more vulnerable to fear. Let the kids follow their interests, but be a good guardian rather than an oppressive guard. Only adults are under the delusion that childhood is a fairy rainbow fantasy land: just let your kids lead on what they love, and you’ll be fine.
All images by Greg Ruth.
This article originally published in May 2014 on Muddy Colors.
Greg Ruth has been working in comics since 1993 and has published work for The New York Times, DC Comics, Paradox Press, Fantagraphics Books, Caliber Comics, Dark Horse Comics and The Matrix. He has shown his paintings in New York, Houston, and Baltimore, and he also exhibited a series of murals at New York’s Grand Central Terminal in 2002. |
ATHENS — Devonte Wyatt did not join the Georgia football team for practice this week, and he won’t be with the Bulldogs at all this season. The freshman defensive lineman instead has enrolled at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College.
But Wyatt, who could not academically qualify this time around, still hopes to eventually end up with the Bulldogs.
“He plans to go to UGA when he is eligibile to do so,” said Rion Rhoades, the head coach at Hutchinson Community College, in an e-mail on Wednesday afternoon.
A timetable is unknown at this point, Rhoades added. Wyatt could take one or two years to qualify.
Offensive lineman D’Antne Demery, the other signee from this year’s class who didn’t make it to Georgia, also has enrolled at Hutchinson. He was released from his National Letter of Intent after being arrested on domestic violence charges.
Demery is not expected to enroll at Georgia or at any SEC school. The conference has a rule about transfers who have issues related to domestic violence in their background. Wyatt, however, could end up at Georgia if he’s able to qualify academically.
The Wyatt news, which was first reported by Dawg247.com, means Georgia will have only one defensive lineman, Malik Herring, in its 2017 signing class; Wyatt was the second signee in the class. The team still has nine defensive linemen on its roster, and redshirt freshman Chauncey Manac has been working with the line this week in practice.
The news also means Georgia apparently will not have a scholarship crunch. The Bulldogs were right at 85 scholarships, the NCAA limit, after Robert Beal was officially cleared. That total assumes receiver Shakenneth Williams receives a medical disqualification. |
What is there to say about Ron Reckless?
His last name really wasn’t “Reckless” or “Rexless” or “Rxless” as it has been written time after time in print, on records, or represented by the young and old punks who admired him. It was Grotjan. Ronald Grotjan.
Ron died on June 6, 2016 of cancer.
He was a husband to Robin, a loving father to Athena, an animal lover, a friend to many, a band mate to some, a singer, a guitar player, a bit of a malcontent (perhaps this is an understatement, but there was so much joy in there too), a funny motherfucker, a son, and bigger than life.
He gave birth to Godzilla.
Ron was a leader in the Phoenix punk rock scene. So much so, in fact, that he became a legend, even if he never came off like he was anything but one of us. He loved music and was willing to promote other people’s music on his radio show or just by saying a kind word about the creative efforts of others. He loved to talk about music, as well. Good lord, Ron could talk.
Ron’s work in Mighty Sphincter was over the top, outrageous, and also, in many ways, genre-shaping. The classic lineup of Ron, the late, great Joe Albanese on bass, Doug Clark on guitar, and Mr. Wonderful (Greg Hynes) on drums was nothing short of amazing…a true spectacle of sight, sound, smells (sometimes), and complete chaos mixed with utter carnality. To see Ron looming on stage was something to behold, something to marvel at, and something to remember.
As a member of Sphincter or Maybe Mental or The Very Idea of Fucking Hitler, Ron pushed boundaries and ideas at the same time. Ron stood up for what he believed in and would not hesitate to reach out to help someone in need, even if he never asked for any credit in doing so.
We remember Ron with admiration and respect. He was a true original and he was fearless when it came to his art. That’s a pretty awesome thing if you ask us. We celebrate his life and are cranking up his work to 11.
Rest in power, Ron, and rest in peace. Our thoughts are with Ron’s family in this time of transition.
T. Reardon |
Philadelphia's transit system says it won't appeal a federal judge's order that it must accept provocative ads that include a 1941 photograph of Adolf Hitler with a former Palestinian leader.
Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority said Thursday a pro-Israel group requested advertising space before an agency policy change allowing it to reject offensive ads.
The so-called American Freedom Defense Initiative's proposed ads carry the tagline: "Jew Hatred: It's in the Quran."
Anti-Islam ad in New York (Photo: EPA)
The ads will appear on the side of 84 buses. One features a 1941 photograph of Adolf Hitler and supporter Hajj Amin al-Husseini, a Palestinian Arab nationalist.
SEPTA says it changed its policy last October so it can reject ads without violating free speech rights. It says attempts to vandalize the ads or deface vehicles won't be tolerated. |
NEVS has signed a strategic framework agreement with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) to secure the battery supply for NEVS 9-3 EVin the Chinese market.
CATL is a Chinese leading energy storage solution provider headquartered in Ningde, Fujian, with focus on the research and development of li-ion battery (LIB) intended for electric vehicles.
The company was one of the first nine battery suppliers that fulfills the domestic industrial standards and the government’s requirement for EV subsidies.
150,000 NEVS 9-3 EV are scheduled to roll out from NEVS JV plant in Tianjin in 2018
“CATL’s supply capacity and proven technology will allow us to shorten the lead time to the market, fulfilling both our demand in quantity and quality. Their local experience and network will eventually benefit NEVS’ own customers in the Chinese market. ” says Kai Johan Jiang, Chairman of NEVS.
NEVS received a total order of 250,000 EVs from Panda New Energy, an EV leasing company based in Beijing. Through NEVS 50% owned factory in Fujian, the first patch of 100,000 electric commercial vehicles have started to be delivered. The rest of 150,000 9-3 EV are scheduled to roll out from NEVS JV plant in Tianjin in 2018.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co
Established in 2011, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) is dedicated to providing effective energy storage solutions through advanced battery technology.
The company possesses R&D and manufacturing capabilities for power and energy storage battery as well as core technologies for the whole industrial chain of materials, battery cells, battery system and battery recycling. CATL was awarded the “Annual China Energy Storage Industry’s most influential Enterprises in 2015”.
CATL aims to provide best cost to performance services to its customers through technology innovation and product differentiation. It is one of the leading EV battery providers globally and the clear market leader in China with a large portfolio of world class customers. At the end of 2016, CATL employed over 10,000 employees worldwide. |
We caught up with music production duo KOAN Sound to learn a bit more about how they use Reason in their music. Little that we know that they'd reveal some truly amazing tips for designing synths and bass lines. Read on to find out how they create those gut-wrenching bass sounds and mind-bending effects!
Could you tell us a little bit about how you guys approach sound design in Reason?
We use Reason mainly for creating synths and basslines. The Malström synth is used for pretty much every bass sound, and we normally use the different saw and square wave variations. By themselves they're very chunky waveforms so they provide a great basis for an endless number of sounds. Most of our bass sounds are made by first making a long bass note and giving it some movement so we can later resample it in interesting ways. To get the movement we tend to go crazy with automation and effects until we get a dynamic but clean sound. For example we'll add an EQ before a Scream 4 in the chain of effects because when you automate the EQ frequency and gain, it combines with the distortion to create really cool movement. Then we'll usually export and resample the sound.
We resample a lot in Reason with the NN-19. It's an easy way to get a bass sounding really techy. For example when we have a sound we like in the NN-19, we'll duplicate it then apply different effects to each one, dedicating one to the low end and the other for highs and mids. For example we might add a bandpass filter to one of them and slightly detune it in the sampler so when the bandpass is automated it sweeps through the frequencies and phases them which sounds pretty nice. We could then export this again and repeat if needs be. Also, the notch filter on the NN-19 is awesome and we use it often to give bass more movement.
The Scream 4 distortion is probably our favourite thing about Reason. It's such a versatile tool and can completely mangle sounds whilst keeping them relatively clean. We've used it to process snares too. The loud, metallic snares in 'Meanwhile, In The Future' were made by putting live snare samples through the Scream 4. It created these huge exaggerated tails which didn't sound overly distorted.
Any specific sound design tips you got that really helped you out?
Best thing we learnt was to think about sounds in three parts: lows, middles and highs. This helps with the overall mix of the track because you can then add and remove frequencies so it comes together like a jigsaw. But it's also incredibly helpful when thinking about bass sounds. Splitting bass into multiple parts and treating each part differently with filters and effects can create very sonically pleasing sounds.
Do you have any favorite sound or patch or do you create everything from scratch?
For our more melodic tracks we often use the Hall Strings from the NN-XT. When low pass filtered and with some reverb they can provide a very deep and warm layer to the track. Even when we've used live recordings of violins, like in our Sanctuary EP, we layered them with these Reason strings to thicken out the mix. |
A Quincy couple who police believe killed a cat last spring by putting it in a clothes dryer are due to return to court next month. Christopher Lang, 33, and Lori Tasney, 36, both of Hunt Street in Quincy, face criminal charges of cruelty to an animal and conspiring to commit cruelty to an animal.
A Quincy couple who police believe killed a cat last spring by putting it in a clothes dryer are due to return to court next month.
Christopher Lang, 33, and Lori Tasney, 36, both of Hunt Street in Quincy, face criminal charges of cruelty to an animal and conspiring to commit cruelty to an animal.
Lang and Tasney both pleaded innocent to charges in Quincy District Court at their arraignment Oct. 10.
Their lawyer, Karen Wayne, did not return calls from The Patriot Ledger seeking comment. The couple are due back in court Nov. 7.
The cat, which belonged to Dana Hamilton, 29, and her father, Richard Babineau, 70, who live on Sea Street, suffered broken bones and burns, according to documents in Quincy District Court.
“This cat died after repeated blunt force trauma and hyperthermia with bruising to the head and face, broken teeth, bleeding into the eyes and pulmonary contusions,” wrote Martha Smith-Blackmore, a veterinarian at the Animal Rescue League of Boston, who performed a post-mortem exam of the cat after Quincy police requested help with the investigation.
The injuries were “consistent with having been tumbled to death in a dryer,” Blackmore’s summary report of the necropsy concluded.
Police reports in Quincy District Court said Lang and Tasney were guests in Hamilton’s house on April 30 and May 1, baby-sitting Hamilton’s 2-year-old daughter and spending the night while Hamilton worked.
On the afternoon of May 1, police reports said that after Lang and Tasney left the house on Sea Street, Hamilton noticed that her 5-year-old cat, named Kitty, was missing.
At about 6 p.m. May 1, Hamilton found her cat dead outside by the bulkhead door to the basement, police reports said. Hamilton told police that Kitty was an indoor cat and that she noticed that the bulkhead door was unlocked, an entryway she said is always locked.
Hamilton called Quincy police two days later after she went to use the dryer in her basement and found the lint trap was full of cat fur, the police report stated.
Police took the lint trap with the fur as evidence and exhumed the body of the cat, which Hamilton’s father had buried in the yard.
Hamilton told police that when she first questioned Tasney about her cat being found dead, Tasney “told her that within the past few years, 7-9 cats that have been close to Christopher (Lang) have all died unnatural deaths,” the police report stated. “Lori (Tasney) told her that Christopher has a history of mental illness and specifically animal cruelty.”
Police have also charged Tasney and Lang with stealing $399 in cash from Hamilton’s house. Both pleaded innocent to those charges also.
After their arraignment earlier this month in Quincy District Court, Lang was freed on $10,000 cash bail, and Tasney was released on $5,000 cash bail.
Quincy police Detective Thomas Pepdjonovic, who investigated the case against Lang and Tasney, is also the lead investigator into the Puppy Doe case. Puppy Doe is the name given to the pit bull that was found in Quincy on Aug. 31 with multiple injuries, including dislocated limbs, bone fractures, a split tongue and a stab wound. The dog was so seriously hurt she had to be destroyed.
Police have made no arrests in the case.
At a vigil in September for Puppy Doe, state Rep. Bruce Ayers, D-Quincy, called for harsher penalties for animal abusers.
“The fact of the matter is that the current laws in Massachusetts are not tough enough to protect our animals,” said Ayers, who filed animal-abuse legislation in January.
The Animal Rescue League of Boston said that last year its investigators worked with police and animal control officers in the region to investigate more than 1,500 cases of animal cruelty.
Hamilton said last night that Kitty was pure-bred Ragdoll breed who had won blue ribbons at pet shows.
“When they were reading the autopsy, I was crying,” Hamilton said Monday night. “Her eyes were burnt. It was just awful.”
Christopher Burrell may be reached at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @Burrell_Ledger.
READ MORE about this issue. |
Peggy Butts
Mary Alice "Peggy" Butts (August 15, 1924 – March 6, 2004) served as a Canadian senator from September 23, 1997 to August 15, 1999.
Biography [ edit ]
Born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, on the Feast of the Assumption, Peggy was a Roman Catholic religious sister in the Sisters of Notre Dame congregation. She obtained several degrees, as a B.A. degree in philosophy, a B.A. degree in education, a M.A. degree in political philosophy from the University of Ottawa, and a Ph.D. degree in political philosophy from the University of Toronto. Through her life she served as a schoolteacher and high school principal. Later she was a professor at St. Francis Xavier University and the University College of Cape Breton (now Cape Breton University).
At the age of 73, Peggy was appointed to the Senate of Canada.[1] However, qualification laws for senators caused problems with her appointment. All Canadian senators are required to possess land worth at least $4,000 in the province for which he or she is appointed, as well as own real and personal property worth at least $4,000, above his or her debts and liabilities. Having taken a vow of poverty upon becoming a nun,[2] Butts was able to officially be sworn in only after her order formally transferred a small parcel of land to her name.[2] Butts resigned at the age of 75 as required by law,[1] and for her two years of service donated her entire salary to charity.[1]
Peggy Butts died at age 79 in 2004.[1]
Personal life [ edit ]
She had a strong influence on her nephew Gerald Butts, principal secretary to both Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.[3]
Awards [ edit ]
Peggy Butts received the Weiler Award in 1995 in recognition of her contributions to community and social development in Canada, and was awarded an honorary degree from St. Francis Xavier University in 1996. |
In the bombshell interview with Fox’s Megyn Kelly, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar defended their son Josh Duggar, who they say “improperly touched” for “just a few seconds” five young girls including four of his sisters as a teenager, calling the backlash “public shame” instigated by someone with a “personal agenda.”
“There’s an agenda,” Michelle said on The Kelly File. “There’s people that are purposely trying to bring things out and twisting them to hurt and slander.”
Jim Bob said that the “attack” on the 19 Kids And Counting family was led by Springdale Police Chief Kathy O’Kelley, who wanted to purposely “hurt” his family for a “bribe.”
PHOTOS: In Denial? Jim Bob Duggar Smiles For The Camera Amid Josh’s Sex Abuse Scandal — PLUS How The Rest Of The Family Is Reacting
“She was getting ready to retire and she said, ‘There’s a few things I want to do before I retire,'” he said. “I think I was on her list.”
The Duggar revealed to Kelly that they are pursuing legal action and that “justice will be served” because their daughters “were victimized in these last couple of weeks more than they were 12 years ago.”
As RadarOnline has previously reported, Josh Duggar molested five girls, four of which were his sisters as young as 5-years-old, some while they were sleeping, in 2002 when he was 14-years-old.
PHOTOS: Josh Was Just The Beginning! 19 More Dark Secrets The Duggars Don’t Want You To Know About: Sex, Abuse Claims, Pills & More
Jim Bob told Kelly that Josh “was just curious about girls” and the girls “did not know” what he did, though some were awake during the time of the incidents.
The Duggar patriarch also maintains that he and Michelle “did the best we could under the circumstances” by sending Josh to a “Christian-based” treatment center, though the incidents happened a second time with another victim, who was 5-years-old and sitting on his lap.
“I’m asking more as the father of your girls than as the father of Josh,” Kelly said. “It must have been very hard to look at your little one and know that the behavior had been ongoing.”
PHOTOS: Parents, Police, Church Fail Victims: How Josh Duggar Got Away With His Sick Crimes In 10 Clicks
“Right,” Jim Bob responded, adding that Josh was a “changed person” when he returned from counseling.
“There’s things we’ve learned since then,” Michelle added. “We don’t let boys babysit…Little one’s don’t sit on big boy’s laps.” |
Walter Jeremiah Sanders III (born September 12, 1936) is an American businessman and is a co-founder and was a long-time CEO of the American semiconductor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Early life and education [ edit ]
Jerry Sanders III grew up in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, raised by his paternal grandparents.[1] He was once attacked and beaten by a street gang[2] leaving him so covered in blood[1] that a priest was called to administer the last rites.[3] He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign on an academic scholarship from the Pullman railroad car company.[1] He graduated with his bachelor's degree in engineering in 1958.
After graduation he went to work for the Douglas Aircraft Company. He eventually moved to Motorola, then to Fairchild Semiconductor.
Business career [ edit ]
In 1968 Sherman Fairchild brought a new management team into Fairchild Semiconductor, led by C. Lester Hogan, then vice president of Motorola Semiconductor. The staff from Motorola, also known as "Hogan's Heroes", were conservative and hence immediately clashed with Sanders' boisterous style.
In 1969 a group of Fairchild engineers decided to start a new company, which became Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). They asked Jerry Sanders to join them, and he said he would, provided he became the president of the company. Although it caused some dissension within the group, they agreed, and the company was founded with Sanders as President.
Sanders realized that the key to earning wealth was for everyone else at AMD to make a lot of money too. Every employee at the company got stock options, an innovation at the time.
Sanders gave the company a strong sales and marketing orientation, so that it was successful even though it was often behind its competitors in technology and manufacturing. He shared the success of the company with the employees, usually coincident with sales-oriented growth targets. One time, as a successful sales goal was met, the company held a drawing among all the employees, and an immigrant production worker in Sunnyvale, California, won $1000 a month for 20 years (USD $240,000).
He drove the company through hard times as well. In 1974, a particularly bad recession almost broke the company. Through many difficult recessions he refused to lay off employees, a reaction to the rampant layoffs that had occurred at Fairchild earlier. Instead of cutting employees, he asked them to work Saturdays to get more done and get new products out sooner. There were also good times for the company. Sanders gave each one of his employees $100 as they walked out of the door during AMD's first $1M quarter. AMD was also the first US company to implement a cash profit-sharing employee compensation program, where employees would regularly get profit checks of $1000 or more.
In 1982, he was responsible for a licensing deal with Intel that made AMD a second source to IBM for the Intel Microprocessor series, a deal that eventually made the company the only real competitor to Intel.[2]
In 2000, Sanders recruited Héctor Ruiz, at the time the president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, to serve as AMD's president and chief operating officer, and to become heir apparent to lead the company upon Sanders' retirement. Ruiz succeeded Sanders in the CEO's seat in 2002.
His maxim was "People first, products and profit will follow!" This was given as a printout for each AMD worker who started a job at AMD in Dresden until Sanders's retirement.
Personal life [ edit ]
Sanders has three children from his first marriage and one from his second. |
By Ben Leibowitz, Special to NBA.com
The NBA announced is 2016 All-Star reserves on Thursday, unveiling who the league’s coaches deemed most deserving of the midseason honor.
Typically speaking, those voted to be All-Stars are the most well-rounded players in the league — but even the best of the best are not immune to shooting slumps. This week, one player bound for the 2016 All-Star Game was mired in a big enough cold spell to be pegged among the worst shooters.
With the aid of interactive visualizations from PointAfter, we’ll take a look at three players (guard, wing and forward/center) who need to put their poor performances behind them.
Note: Statistics in this article cover games between Jan. 22-28.
Guard: John Wall, Washington Wizards
John Wall was named an Eastern Conference reserve and has been the Washington Wizards’ alpha dog all season long. The Wizards have struggled to win games with consistency, but Wall has a team-high 19.9 PER, is tied for fifth in the league in steals (2.07 per game) and is tied for second in assists (9.8 per game).
It was a good week for Wall in that he earned a third consecutive All-Star nod, but his shooting stroke completely deserted him, too.
Wall went 3-for-11 (0-for-3 on 3-pointers) on Monday, then combined to make just 11 of 34 shots on Tuesday and Thursday (32.4 percent).
Add it all up, and he finished the week shooting 31.1 percent and 23.1 percent on 3-pointers. The Wizards were 0-3 during that span with losses against the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors and Denver Nuggets.
Wing: Kent Bazemore, Atlanta Hawks
After a magical 2014-15 season spent flirting with the first ever 50-50-90 campaign, Kyle Korver has careened to earth in 2015-16. His struggles have necessitated teammates stepping up their game — chiefly, Kent Bazemore.
Bazemore has been stellar while playing a bigger role, shooting 46.2 percent overall and 41.3 percent on 3-pointers, the latter of the two figures ranking him tied for 18th in the league in 3-point accuracy. But Bazemore (and, consequently, the Hawks) experienced a rough week.
Atlanta went 1-3, with one loss coming at the hands of the lowly Phoenix Suns. Bazemore shot 7-for-16 against the Suns (43.8 percent), which was his best showing of the week.
From there, the 26-year-old swingman shot 34.3 percent overall (and 25 percent from 3-point range). Consider this a blip on the radar, because Bazemore has otherwise had a solid January.
Power Forward/Center: Nikola Vucevic, Orlando Magic
A career 51 percent shooter, Nikola Vucevic has been floundering in January. After shooting 55.4 percent in December, he’s shooting 44.2 percent in 2016. He’s getting shots, but they simply are not falling.
Vucevic went 6-for-17 last Friday, 8-for-17 on Monday and 7-for-19 on Tuesday. That’s 39.6 percent for the week — truly unheard of for a guy Vucevic’s size.
After a career-best season in 2014-15, Orlando’s center is merely trying to find his rhythm again. Perhaps the upcoming All-Star break will give him a chance to clear his head and remember exactly how good he can be.
Ben Leibowitz is a writer for PointAfter, a sports data aggregation and visualization website that’s part of the Graphiq network. Visit PointAfter to get all the information about NBA Players, NBA Historical Teams and dozens of other topics.
Category: Analytics Art / Tags: , Analytics Art, Atlanta Hawks, John Wall, Kent Bazemore, Nikola Vucevic, Orlando Magic, Washington Wizards / 2 Comments on Analytics Art: Wall, Bazemore, Vucevic among worst shooters of week / |
Bradley Cooper in American Sniper. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.
The Movie Club is a weeklong conversation about the year in film. Read all the entries here.
Dana! My bad! We’ve made it nearly to the final round of this year’s Movie Club and I haven’t defended my adoration for The Grand Budapest Hotel. Please don’t throw my cat out the window, or make me write 100 explanatory haikus as punishment, none of which will measure up to Stephanie’s John Wick ballad, which I loved much more than the film.
I’ll defend it. But first, you’ve asked a question that I’m dying to discuss: the importance of truth in movies based on a true story.
Stephanie knows that I’m a huge research nerd. (The honest term is procrastinator.) I read a lot about the Mark Schultz story, and Foxcatcher changed heaps. For one, Mark and his brother Dave were never at John du Pont’s gym at the same time. For another, Du Pont was winding down a divorce. I understand why the filmmakers reunited the brothers—it ties together the story and highlights the contrast between Mark’s thickness and Dave’s charm. But rejiggering Du Pont’s sexuality, even if only by implication, is morally ickier, in part because his relationship with Mark is strong and interesting enough without implying he was gay.
I’m not knee-jerk against lying in biopics. One of my favorite moments of the year is young James Brown drawing strength in a fight by hallucinating music he won’t write for two decades. That embellishment has purpose: it underscores that James Brown is his own best champion.
But when critics catch a film in a lie, we have to ask it, “Why?” That’s what matters. Take American Sniper, one of the most mendacious movies of 2014. Clint Eastwood was caught in a trap: His subject, murdered Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, lied a lot. In his autobiography, he said he killed two carjackers in Texas, sniped looters during Hurricane Katrina, and punched Jesse Ventura in the face. None of that was true. So Eastwood was stuck. Should he repeat Kyle’s lies as truth? Expose him as a liar? Instead, he pretended Kyle never claimed any of it, but when a film erases the fact that its subject was a fabricator, then that itself is a lie.
The falsehoods in American Sniper are dangerous because a lot of audiences leave the theater thinking that Chris Kyle was a role model. I’ve actually gotten emails from military vets who were also troubled by the film. A lot of them are even harsher on Kyle than I’m comfortable being, in part because I’ve never served and in part because I was once attacked by Glenn Beck’s online army after poking holes in Lone Survivor. But American Sniper convinces viewers that Chris Kyle is what heroism looks like: a great guy who shoots a lot of people and doesn’t think twice about it. Watching American Sniper, I kept wondering who Kyle himself had been imitating. Sylvester Stallone? John Wayne? Or the ultimate irony, Clint Eastwood himself as Dirty Harry?
Okay, time to eat 12 pink boxes of marzipan and readjust my mood.
I, too, was once as Dana wrote, “a Wes Anderson agnostic.” Maybe even worse. I despised The Darjeeling Limited—it was all fancy wallpaper and no social conscience. I sat down for The Grand Budapest Hotel expecting to be annoyed. But for the first time, Wes Anderson’s fancies have a purpose. He’s created this beautiful world and appointed Ralph Fiennes as its protector, but by setting it just before World War II, we know both hotel and man face their doom. In siding against the war, we, too, are forced to side with beauty—to defend extravagance against Nazism and, later, Communism (and its icky green redecorators) with the same fervor that Anderson himself has against the slapdash look of mumblecore and digital. Finally, he’s made a film about something larger than daddy issues, and in so doing, even made me slightly more empathetic toward his entire career.
And boy, that performance from Fiennes. It’s posh yet profane, cartoonish yet human. I want to see him on the Oscar list, but what a year of riches: Fiennes, Boseman, Eddie Redmayne, and my dark horse favorite, Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler. I suspect—though I hope I’m wrong—that Nightcrawler is too wicked and nasty for the academy. Their loss. Dan Gilroy’s savage skewering of the news media was such a delight, and I’d love to see Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed join Gyllenhaal on awards night. And I don’t even mind that Nightcrawler made my beloved neighborhood—a stretch of LA just south of Hollywood that I’ve dubbed North Koreatown—look like a violent ghetto. If you ever pilgrimage to that Chinese restaurant from the climax, look down. A boy once wrote my name there in concrete.
I wish Movie Club was as permanent. I’ve had so much fun with you guys this week, and can’t wait to run into David at Sundance. (Dana and Steph, I’ll make a special New York visit just for you.)
If the readers will indulge me one last plug as I’m getting dragged out the door: Watch a film called Nothing Bad Can Happen. It’s streaming online and it’s one of the best and most overlooked films of the year. The director, a young German named Katrin Gebbe, is the next Michael Haneke. I almost don’t want to tell you anything more about it, except that despite the film claiming it’s based on a true story, I couldn’t turn up any evidence to prove it—and I couldn’t care less.
Farewell, Dana, David, Stephanie (if those are your real names),
A |
Update: Here’s the video of their conversation:
Amid all the noise about President Donald Trump and the Russia investigations, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have something else important they want you to pay attention to: Senate Republicans’ quiet push to to pass a health care bill.
The progressive power duo of New England senators is hosting a Facebook Live question and answer session at 3:30 p.m. Monday on Sanders’s well-followed account.
Republicans won’t say what’s in their health care plan, so at 3:30 ET @SenWarren and I will take your questions at https://t.co/TIdQMUk3ML pic.twitter.com/6A5Bcpk75k — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 19, 2017
Health care for 23 million Americans is on the line in the next 2 weeks. Join @SenSanders & me for this powerfully important discussion. https://t.co/pJfynEXmOg — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 19, 2017
Republicans leaders in the Senate have taken criticism from both parties for the secrecy in which they’ve drafted their bill to supplant the Affordable Care Act. Asked why they hadn’t yet released the privately-drafted bill, a Republican aide told Axios, “We aren’t stupid.” Many House Republicans were the target of mass protests during their chamber’s respective efforts to pass a health care bill.
Advertisement
Republican Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell reportedly wants to push a vote on the bill before the July 4 recess, which means the legislation will likely have to be finalized this week. |
Early life Edit
Career Edit
In mid-1958, Kilby, a newly employed engineer at Texas Instruments (TI), did not yet have the right to a summer vacation. He spent the summer working on the problem in circuit design that was commonly called the "tyranny of numbers", and he finally came to the conclusion that the manufacturing of circuit components en masse in a single piece of semiconductor material could provide a solution. On September 12, he presented his findings to company's management, which included Mark Shepherd. He showed them a piece of germanium with an oscilloscope attached, pressed a switch, and the oscilloscope showed a continuous sine wave, proving that his integrated circuit worked, and hence he had solved the problem. U.S. Patent 3,138,743 for "Miniaturized Electronic Circuits", the first integrated circuit, was filed on February 6, 1959.[5] Along with Robert Noyce (who independently made a similar circuit a few months later), Kilby is generally credited as co-inventor of the integrated circuit. Jack Kilby went on to pioneer military, industrial, and commercial applications of microchip technology. He headed teams that built both the first military system and the first computer incorporating integrated circuits. He later co-invented both the handheld calculator and the thermal printer that was used in portable data terminals. In 1970, he took a leave of absence from TI to work as an independent inventor. He explored, among other subjects, the use of silicon technology for generating electrical power from sunlight. From 1978 to 1984 he held the position of Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University. In 1983, Kilby retired from Texas Instruments. Jack Kilby's original integrated circuit
Later life Edit
He died of cancer June 20, 2005 at the age of 81, in Dallas, Texas. On December 14, 2005, Texas Instruments created the Historic TI Archives. The Jack Kilby family donated his personal manuscripts and his personal photograph collection to Southern Methodist University (SMU). The collection will be cataloged and stored at DeGolyer Library, SMU. In 2008, the SMU School of Engineering, with the DeGolyer Library and the Library of Congress, hosted a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the birth of the digital age with Kilby’s Nobel Prize-winning invention of the integrated circuit. Symposia and exhibits examined the many ways in which technology and engineers shaped the modern world. Kilby held an honorary doctorate of science from SMU and was a longtime associate of SMU through the Kilby Foundation.
Awards and honors Edit
Kilby patents Edit
See also Edit
Geoffrey Dummer, the British engineer who first conceived the idea of the integrated circuit.
Notes Edit
References Edit |
People often complain about the high costs of energy and the fact that they “never have time to workout.” This invention certainly solves both conundrums.
And, most importantly, this free power invention has the potential to lift the 1.3 billion people who presently live without electricity out of poverty.
As Manoj Bhargava, the founder of the Free Electric hybrid bike, shares in the video below, it is possible to generate electricity at home while simply doing a daily workout routine.
When an individual pedals the bike, the action drives a flywheel, which turns a generator and charges a battery. This means from just one hour of pedaling, a rural household can be supplied with energy for 24 hours.
The billionaire and his team developed the bicycle to take advantage of mechanical energy created by humans to solve one of the world’s most pervasive problems.
“Everything requires energy. Energy is the great equaliser,” says Bhargava, adding that over half of the world’s population have no access to electricity or access to electricity for two or three hours per day.
Having access to clean, free energy will enable poverty-stricken communities to not only light their homes but to connect to the internet and get educated. Bhargava says the reason the majority of those who are poor stay poor is because they have no power. He aims to fix this with the free energy bicycle.
One bicycle could potentially provide a small village with electricity if each household spends on hour per day pedaling the bike.
In developed nations, the bike could also be utilized to cut energy costs and remedy the obesity crisis.
The bicycle is also a clean way to generate power. As Bhargava says himself, if half of the world uses a Free Electric bike, half of the world would be using eco-friendly energy.
Manoj’s plan is to distribute 10,000 of the bicycles in India next year. In addition, he has pledged 90% of his wealth to charity and research.
What are your thoughts on this amazing invention? Comment below and share this good news!
This article (60 Minutes On This Bicycle Can Power Your Home For 24 Hours!) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com |
Two social psychologists have penned a lengthy article explaining how campus diversity programs do not bring about the togetherness and Kumbaya they purport to create — and moreover are likely dividing students and creating larger racial schisms among peer groups.
The Wall Street Journal article, published Saturday, was written by Jonathan Haidt, a professor of business ethics at New York University, and Lee Jussim, a professor of social psychology at Rutgers University.
In it, they detail a wide variety of negative effects various diversity programs have had on campuses, and criticized university presidents who have pledged tens of millions of dollars for additional diversity efforts in the wake of student protests without exploring whether such programs have been empirically shown to work.
Among their main points:
Diversity efforts create an “us” vs. “them” mentality among students of different races, shifting students into competition with each other, prompting “zero-sum thinking and hostility.”
Agreeing to demands to admit more black students would mean administrators would have to “reach deeper into its pool of black applicants, admitting those with weaker qualifications, particularly if most other schools are doing the same thing. This is likely to make racial gaps larger, which would strengthen the negative stereotypes that students of color find when they arrive on campus.”
Creating ethnic enclaves on campuses backfire, as a study has shown “membership in ethnically oriented student organizations actually increased the perception that ethnic groups are locked into zero-sum competition with one another and the feeling of victimization by virtue of one’s ethnicity.”
Microaggression training is “likely to backfire and increase racial tensions,” because when coupled with “bias reporting systems” it means “faculty and students of all races grow more anxious and guarded whenever students from other backgrounds” are present.
“The policies and programs that universities have pursued over the past half-century don’t seem to be working, at least as judged by the recent campus unrest, so reflexively expanding them probably isn’t the answer,” the professors write.
Read the entire article.
RELATED: Freethinking profs – fed up with peers’ blind devotion to leftist tenets – launch their own website
Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter |
By the time Trevor Hirschi decided to make a fidget spinner, the market was already saturated with $2 plastic devices that covered the shelves of toy stores and bodegas. So Hirschi, a machine tool technology instructor at Bridgerland Technical College and men's jewelry designer, got to work on something a little more exciting.
After shuffling through a couple different concepts, he settled on an airplane propellor. He'd kept a World War II airplane model in his room as a child that would later inspire his first fidget spinner, the TiSpin Prop. To make it, he assembled a 3-D model and used a computer numeric control machine to carve grade 5 titanium into the shape of a propellor. That machine runs at up to 30,000 rotations per minute, which Hirschi says is necessary to create precise blades for his propellers.
You could call the TiSpin Prop a fidget spinner, but it’s not the kind you’re used to seeing in mall kiosks and convenience stores. The meticulously crafted device, made from premium materials, takes hours to design and manufacture. Oh, and it costs $425.
"This is a form of art that few others ever attempt to work with in the manufacturing industry because of its highly time-consuming nature," he says. That’s because Hirschi and others who are creating ultra-expensive “luxury” fidget spinners don't see their spinners as toys. They see them as pocket-sized works of art.
Anatomy of a Fidget Spinner
Most fidget spinners, which were initially marketed as a remedy for conditions like anxiety and ADHD, share the same basic anatomy: They have a three-knob design with a center piece that houses the spinner's bearings. You can find fidget spinners in different materials and colors; some even pack some flashing LED lights, or come with Bluetooth connectivity, but you'll mostly get the same experience—a cheap, accessible way to keep your hands busy.
Titan Ring Designs
Hirschi's TiSpin Prop is a little different. The titanium spinner has two blades, rather than the traditional three, and packs high-quality bearings that avoid the whirling sounds of its more affordable counterparts. This one is dead silent as it spins away.
It’s also not the only “luxury” fidget spinner on the market. Take the 9 Gear Fidget Spinner from Real Gear Spinners, which retails for $600. It's a wild contraption that packs nine stainless steel gears and 52 total parts into a brass casing that creates something of a blend between a children's toy and steampunk contraption for your pocket.
Not all luxury fidget spinners are as bold as the 9 Gear Fidget Spinner. Others are meant to be as nice to look at as they are to hold, like the $335 Sterling Silver Black Lotus from House of Yurich. Ben Richardson, an engineer and jewelry designer, modeled it after an arrowhead pendant. Each of its three small blades have cutouts that reveal an almost circuit-like design. You can get it in sterling silver, stainless steel, brass, or bronze; it looks like a totem that a character from Inception would carry on a dream-chasing adventure.
Then there's the Damasteel Stubby Spinner from Rotablade. As its name implies, it's made of Damascus steel, a material originally produced in Syria and used for sword blades. The material is notable for the patterns on its surface, which often resemble crop circles or wood grain, and add a seasoned flavor to the aesthetics of the spinner. In a unique blend of form and function, the $430 Stubby Spinner also doubles as a cigar stand.
Spin Doctors
In a market saturated with fidget spinners that can be bought with pocket change, these luxury versions are a tough sell. But for the creators like Hirschi, that price is easily justifiable. "I’ve been criticized for my price point," he says, "but if I didn’t place value in what I do, why would anyone else?"
For starters, they're made with much nicer materials than you'll find on any store shelf. Some use titanium, others stainless steel or brass. Some luxury spinners, like the $199 Maelstrom Custom from Flyaway Toys, even use aerospace grade materials. Each unit is anodized with a unique array of colors and designs—no two units look the same.
Then, there's the way these funky contraptions are made. Flyaway Toys uses heavy-duty saws to slice metal bars into little wafers, then once those wafers are converted to their final form, they're sprayed with liquid nitrogen to shrink them down for fitting. Once the parts are assembled and warmed back up to room temperature, the pieces fit snugly together without requiring glue, screws, or any other undesirable parts that may drag down the quality of the product.
Richardson's process might not involve liquid nitrogen, but it's still a complicated endeavor. Each spinner starts as a 3-D model that's then either immediately 3-D printed to produce the final product, or for the steel and brass models, printed in wax and then later cast in the desired metal. Then, each unit is machine-equipped with bearings and screws to turn it from a motionless trinket into a spinner. After this is done, some models are polished before shipment, while others are sent as is.
While this may explain the high cost of luxury fidget spinners, even some creators don't find it ideal. "If I were able to produce these just by 3-D printing alone that would make their price tag less premium," Richardson says, "but it's still a few years away from having that kind of consistent accuracy at an affordable price."
These luxury fidget spinners are made for people who like art they can carry with them, show off to their friends, and ogle in their down time. Their role as fidget spinners is secondary to serving as a work of art.
Hirshi’s goal has always been to create art for himself, and anybody who enjoys it is just a nice little bonus. "My intended target market was simply spinner collectors, but I soon found more than that," he says, "I found retired Air Force Captains, pilots, drone enthusiasts, knife collectors, and EDC (everyday carry) gurus as well." The goal, he says, isn’t to make money from an expensive toy. It's about making art that people can interact with.
Alison Miles of Flyaway Toys explains that the company’s intention is to make a product for high-end collectors who appreciate unique designs. "I’ve been told several times [collectors] like the idea of having something that will still be around in 100 years," she says.
The fidget spinning trend may be old news soon. But a $600 titanium fidget spinner could last forever. |
KT Rolster announced Thursday that they have signed Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu for their upcoming 2017 roster. The former EDward Gaming and Samsung Galaxy Blue AD carry tweeted "KT Deft" shortly after the announcement, and promptly changed his Twitter handle.
Deft began his career with MVP Blue in February 2013, which later became Samsung Galaxy Blue when Samsung became the team's title sponsor. He left Korea for China's EDward Gaming in November 2014, where he has spent the past two years. With EDG, Deft won two LoL Pro League titles and attended the League of Legends World Championship in 2015 and 2016, making it to the quarterfinals both times.
Earlier this week, KT released their entire roster except for jungler Go "Score" Dong-bin. Soon afterward, they signed former ROX Tigers top laner Song "Smeb" Kyung-ho and Deft's EDG teammate Heo "PawN" Won-seok. They have yet to announce who will fill the support position on the new roster.
In an interview yesterday with OSEN's Ko Yong-jun, which was translated by Slingshot Esport's Andrew Kim, KT head coach Lee Ji-hoon said the organization was "looking to make a team that can win the 2017 World Championship."
"We’ve currently recruited players like PawN and Smeb who have a strong will to make that happen," he said. "Score was in the center of the rebuilding. His decision to stay with the team has also impacted the signing of both PawN and Smeb."
Emily Rand is a staff writer for theScore esports. You can follow her on Twitter. |
This article is from the archive of our partner .
New census data released Thursday casts a shadow over the long-term impact of the recession on America's youth. During the last decade, the unemployment rate for young people spiked to the highest levels since World War II--only 55 percent of Americans aged 16 to 29 have jobs, a 12 percent drop from the employment rate in 2000. Faced with a grim outlook, many young people aren't leaving home until their 30s--the number of Americans aged 25 to 34 living with their parents jumped 25 percent during the recession. Last month, The New York Times called the collective youth "Generation Limbo," but after seeing the new census data, Harvard economist Richard Freeman takes it a stage further. "These people will be scarred, and they will be called the 'lost generation'--in that their careers would not be the same way if we had avoided this economic disaster," Freeman told The Associated Press.
The world has seen a number of lost generations in the past century. Gertrude Stein first coined the term in 1920s in reference to the Europeans who grew up during World War I, but it's most recently referred to Japanese youth who grew up during that country's recession in the 1990s. In Japan, the lost youth are referred to as the hikikomori, and the decade of widespread unemployment meant that many of them never had the chance to start careers. In the 10 years of recession in Japan the number of young people working temporary or contract jobs doubled, and the collective hopelessness lead to a sky-rocketing suicide rate. Michael Zielenziger described the generation in his 2006 book Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation:
Across Japan, more than one million men and boys like Jun and Hiro and Kenji have chosen to withdraw completely from society. These recluses hide in their homes for months or years at a time, refusing to leave the protective walls of their bedrooms. They are as frightened as small children abandoned in a dark forest. Some spend their days playing video games. A few--an estimated 10 percent--surf the Internet. Many just pace, read books, or drink beer and shochu, a Japanese form of vodka. Others do nothing for weeks at a time.
Obviously, the Japanese and American cultures are incredibly different, and it's impossible to do an apples-to-apples comparison of the two young generations. However, the new census data reads like a warning sign that American youth are increasingly challenged by listlessness, and it will likely lead to future consequences. "Many young adults are essentially postponing adulthood and all of the family responsibilities and extra costs that go along with it," assistant vice president of the Population Research Bureau told the AP. "Some of these changes started before the recession but now they are accelerating, with effects on families that could be long term." |
Joint exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland displaying hundreds of works found in homes of Cornelius Gurlitt will open next week
Hundreds of works of art that were hoarded by the son of a Nazi art dealer will go on public display for the first time in decades in joint exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland opening next week.
Kunstmuseum Bern and the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn will present the works found in the homes of Cornelius Gurlitt in two parallel shows called Gurlitt Status Report that are expected to draw art lovers from around the world.
Around 1,500 works, including pieces by Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Dix and Gustave Courbet, worth hundreds of millions of euros were discovered in Gurlitt’s Munich and Salzburg residences by tax inspectors and revealed in 2013, in what was described as the biggest artistic find of the postwar era.
Gurlitt, an art-loving recluse who inherited his father’s collection, died of heart failure aged 81 the following year, having bequeathed the works to the Bern museum. A Munich court paved the way for the groundbreaking exhibitions to go ahead after ruling against a claim made by a family member that Gurlitt had not been of sound mind when he made the bequest.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the works to go on display: Edvard Munch’s Ashes II 1899 Lithograph on vellum paper. Photograph: Mick Vincenz/Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
“For the first time the public will be given an insight into these works of art that have been talked about in the news so much as a sensational find and a treasure trove,” said Nina Zimmer, who has curated the Bern exhibition.
It is also an opportunity to look at why the art world has so far undergone little critical self-appraisal about its role during the Nazi era. Switzerland’s controversial role as a hub in the profitable field of Nazi-confiscated art is also under scrutiny.
The mysterious Munich recluse who hoarded €1bn of Nazis' stolen art Read more
Bern’s exhibition will tell the story of modern art, which was outlawed by the Nazis under the “degenerate art action” of 1937 and 1938, which led to the confiscation of more than 23,000 paintings, sculptures and prints from public galleries across Germany. Many of the works were sold on abroad to make money for the Nazi regime.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of a pair of sketches by the artist Aristide Maillol. Photograph: Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
The Bundeskunsthalle will simultaneously present the story of looted art – works which were stolen, by theft or sales under pressure, from Jewish individuals or families and others persecuted by the Nazis.
It will particularly touch upon the darkest chapter of the biography of Cornelius Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand, who acted as one of the most important art dealers in the Third Reich, working directly on behalf of the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler.
Zimmer said the exhibitions were about “paying homage to the people who became victims of the National Socialist art theft, as well as to the artists who were defamed and persecuted by the regime as degenerate”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the works is a crouching woman cast in marble by Rodin, circa 1882. Photograph: Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
Bonn will focus in particular on the fate of Jewish artists, collectors and art dealers, including many who faced kangaroo courts and persecution.
After the sensational Gurlitt discovery, Germany set up an international task force on looted art which has so far tracked down the real owners of just five of the works. The government has promised to keep up funding the investigation.
Cornelius Gurlitt never worked, and sold off parts of the collection to pay for his upkeep. In 2010 he was apprehended on a train by a German customs officer who found a large stash of cash on his person as he returned from a trip to Switzerland to sell some of the works. A subsequent investigation into Gurlitt by tax authorities led to the discovery of the hoard.
But Zimmer said Gurlitt had been unfairly cast as the villain in the story. “I think the person we should judge is his father, who was morally ambiguous to say the least.”
Before colluding with the Nazis, Hildebrand Gurlitt had started his career as a “brilliant, young and progressive” museum director in Zwickau, said Zimmer, where he tried to convince people of the merits of modern art in the 1920s. But he faced a rightwing backlash and was pushed from his position.
In 1933 he moved to Hamburg, where he continued in a similarly progressive vein as the Nazis rose to power. When he refused to raise the swastika flag at his gallery, he was fired for a second time.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Camille Jacob Pissarro’s Street in the Evening. Photograph: Mick Vincenz/Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
Hildebrand Gurlitt moved into dealing in modern art and opened a commercial gallery, which he was forced to register in his wife’s name because of his Jewish heritage.
It was then that he started to actively align himself with the Nazi system, writing to the propaganda ministry to volunteer his skills as a leading expert in modern – ergo “degenerate” art – and was chosen as one of four dealers to act for the Nazis, stationed in Paris, with the particular task of acquiring works for the unrealised Führermuseum project in Linz.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Art historian Hildebrand Gurlitt, 1925 Photograph: AP
“From that moment he had joined the dark side, being in the service of Hitler himself,” according to Zimmer.
When the so-called Monuments’ Men – a volunteer group of men and women from around the world who operated within the allied forces to protect Europe’s cultural property – questioned him on his connection to the regime after the war, he tried to downplay it. There is no hint that he regretted his role in his letters and memoirs, which will also be on display.
After the war he was able to slot back into his career as the director of a gallery in Düsseldorf with no questions asked. He died in 1961.
The five works that have so far been returned to the heirs of their former owners include Henri Matisse’s Seated Woman, Max Liebermann’s Riders on the Beach, Interior of a Gothic Church by Adolf von Menzel and Camille Pissarro’s The Seine and the Louvre.
The provenance of others still under investigation include works by Edvard Munch, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin and Paul Signac.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, 1903. Photograph: David Ertl/Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
Arguably the best piece in the collection, Cézanne’s La Montagne Sainte Victoire, which was found in Gurlitt’s Salzburg home behind a cupboard, continues to be the subject of a legal dispute in which the Cézanne family is arguing for its return.
Zimmer said it was doubtful whether such a spectacular find of art gathered in the Nazi era would ever be found again “simply because Hildebrand Gurlitt was the fourth Nazi dealer – and there is no fifth one,” she said. |
Since baseball season is in full swing (…no pun intended…), we thought we’d catch you up with our extensive baseball data! From learning the score of last week’s game to comparing the stats of your favorite players in history, Wolfram|Alpha’s got you covered.
Starting way back in baseball history, the popular teams were quite different from the ones on the field today. Who was the leading team in 1884?
You can also query for the stats of a particular game. For example, by the most number of hits or runs.
Wolfram|Alpha also understands a variety of baseball terminology, from technical terms to abbreviations to slang. Give it a try!
And if you’re curious about analyzing the more recent past…
Even data from games that happened just a few days ago are at your computational disposal.
Use the continually updated data to get a visualization of your favorite players’ progress through the season. Graph the data by their age or year in the league to see how they’ve stood up over time.
And just to keep the competition alive, we’ll leave you with this:
Note: Box scores and other game-level data are only available from 1985–present; other stats may not be available for all seasons. |
There is a smart truism: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
The Catholic Church has been rocked as more and more allegations of sexual abuse of minors come out. The response of the Catholic Church hierarchy has been nothing short of horrifying: protecting the abusers, paying off the victims for their silence, and moving the abusers to different diocese and a whole new set of victims.
So it would behoove all Catholic spokespeople and Catholic publications to have a heightened sensitivity about the issues surrounding the sexual abuse of minors.
Enter Father Benedict Groeschel, director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. In an interview (since taken down) with the National Catholic Register, Father Groeschel expressed sympathy for convicted sexual predator Jerry Sandusky and said that often, it's the youngster that is the 'seducer'. No, really:
Renew America's Matt C. Abbott grabbed the interview before it was taken down: [Interviewer]: Part of your work here at Trinity has been working with priests involved in abuse, no? [Father Groeschel]: A little bit, yes; but you know, in those cases, they have to leave. And some of them profoundly — profoundly — penitential, horrified. People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that's not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.
[Interviewer]: Why would that be? [Father Greoschel] [sic]: Well, it's not so hard to see — a kid looking for a father and didn't have his own — and they won't be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that. It's an understandable thing, and you know where you find it, among other clergy or important people; you look at teachers, attorneys, judges, social workers.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Father Groeschel really ought not be in a position of 'spiritual development' nor giving interviews, because that's one humongous hole he just dug for himself. |
Orthodox Christmas Eve marked in Istanbul
ISTANBUL
AA photo
The Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul has celebrated the birth and baptism of Jesus Christ with a special mass held on Jan. 6.The celebrations began with a mass held in the Hagia Yorgi Church, adjacent to the patriarchate’s garden, led by Patriarch Bartholomew.Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Ioannis Amanatidi, Greek Ambassador to Turkey Kiriakos Lukakis and Greek consul-general in Istanbul Evangelos Sekeris were also present at the four-hour ceremony.The mass was then followed by a traditional cross-throwing ceremony at the Fener dock on the Golden Horn, during which the patriarch threw a large cross into the sea to be retrieved by a group of swimmers.This year’s ceremony witnessed tight security measures both inside and outside the patriarchate.Police units conducted searches on mass-comers and their belongings.Maritime police also took precautions on the Golden Horn during the cross-throwing ceremony as attendants on the dock were only allowed to get to through police checkpoints.Another ceremony was held in Istanbul’s Çengelköy on the Anatolian side of the city.Due to a difference in calendars, Jan. 6 marks Christmas Eve for many Orthodox churches and Christmas is celebrated on Jan. 7 rather than Dec. 25.The majority of Orthodox churches worldwide use the Julian calendar, created under the reign of Julius Caesar in 45 BC, and have not adopted the Gregorian calendar, proposed by Latin Pope Gregory of Rome in 1582. The former calendar runs 13 days behind the latter. |
A Delhi court Friday directed Election Commission (EC) and Delhi University (DU) to place records of the educational qualification of Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani before it.
Advertising
The order was passed in connection with the complaint filed against Irani for allegedly giving false information in affidavits to EC.
[related-post]
The directions came after Metropolitan Magistrate Akash Jain allowed the complainant’s plea, seeking a direction to officials of EC and DU to bring records of Irani’s educational qualification, after he said he was unable to place them before the court.
“Keeping in view the grounds mentioned in the application, the plea to direct officials of the EC and DU to bring records is allowed,” Jain directed.
Advertising
The court, however, rejected the plea of complainant Ahmer Khan, a freelance writer, seeking direction to CBSE to bring Irani’s records of classes 10 and 12. “The plea… to direct CBSE to bring records of classes 10 and 12 is declined as it is not under challenge,” the court said. |
A British artist has created the crossmedia tie-in you never knew you wanted -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-imagined as a LucasArts point-and-click game.
When a series of retro-style images casting Buffy and her Scooby Gang as the stars of a Monkey Island-style adventure surfaced, they went appropriately viral. Each screen is based on a key episode from each of Buffy's seven seasons, recreating them in stunningly detailed pixel art and filled with subtle injokes and references to the series' lore. They are perhaps the greatest encapsulation of 90s nostalgia the internet has yet seen.
The gallery is the work of Andrew Scaife, a 34-year-old writer, illustrator, and comic artist based in Bristol. Speaking of his inspirations for the piece, he tells Wired.co.uk: "I remember a university friend showing me VHS copies of Buffy season one taped off BBC2, which was around the same time that I was playing Monkey Island for the first time."
Advertisement
Andrew Scaife
"Buffy pretty much informed how I thought about writing and storytelling, and at the same time taught me how to be a better reader of TV shows and films," he adds. "The LucasArts games have a similar strength in storytelling and characters. I'm a big fan of any art that may outwardly appear frivolous but, underlying it, clearly has something to say. Irrespective of why they remain popular, it goes to show that there is still an audience for them and it's an audience that perhaps isn't being catered to by current media."
The style of the Buffy pieces is a departure from Scaife's other work, notably his sci-fi satire New York Park, which follows deliberate teen stereotypes exploring the remains of New York after humanity has abandoned Earth. "I've only been doing this for a few years, so I'm still trying to explore what art styles work best for me," Scaife says. "Because I only started to draw and write relatively recently, I always feel somewhat behind others who have focussed on their craft for much longer and have had time to develop their style. So I have my first comic which is much more cartoony, and then as you'll see on my blog, I'm trying out a bit of speed painting and graphic design and now pixel art."
However, the positive response to the Buffy work has surprised Scaife, who says: "The pixel art style appeals to me because it's wish fulfilment. I don't think I was prepared for how much people would like it, although I'm aware that people's enjoyment of it largely stems from that same wish fulfilment that I have in creating it. Given the response, and how much I enjoy creating it, I think it's clear I'm going to need to do some more. It would be nice to collect them in a book."
Advertisement
An unexpected response to his pixellated slayers and vampires has been the number of people espousing support for the idea of a
Buffy adventure game, something the artist is in full support of. "I want this game to exist more than anyone," he says. "There are lots of great artists producing pixel art and it seems to mesh really well with pop culture. People want to play these games."
Andrew Scaife's work can be followed primarily on his tumblr. |
Manchester United forward Anthony Martial believes there is more to come from him this season.
Martial, 21, has scored six times in 15 appearances, having managed just nine last season, and has earned a first France call-up in over a year.
And speaking ahead of United's trip to Premier League champions Chelsea on Sunday, he told MUTV: "At the moment I'm happy, even if I could have done more, scored more goals and made more decisive passes.
"I think the difference is that last year I didn't have a good season but, for now, things are going pretty well.
"I'm achieving my objectives and I hope to score a lot more by the end of the season.
"I must continue to keep up good performances for my club and if I've got the chance to start over there [for France], I will do the best I can."
All four of Martial's Premier League goals this season have been scored in games he started on the bench.
Manager Jose Mourinho has tended to rotate between Martial and England forward Marcus Rashford as his left-sided attacker, with the duo's only two starts together coming in Carabao Cup wins over Burton and Swansea.
Martial has three starts and six substitute appearances to his name in the league this season, while he has been in the starting XI for three of United's four Champions League games.
His most recent appearance off the bench came at Old Trafford last Saturday as he netted the only goal of the game in United's league win against Tottenham.
He could well be a substitute again when United travel to Stamford Bridge for a game that may start with them eight points behind leaders Manchester City, who host Arsenal earlier on Sunday.
But Martial said he was content to make his mark after coming off the bench if required.
"I think when I come on to the pitch as a sub, I'm hungry, desperate to play,'' he added.
"I want to get some action, to score, to make some key passes, I want to give everything I can to help the team." |
EspañolMonsanto Company executives probably wanted to keep a low profile on Saturday, as vehement and organized opposition came out in force with 453 demonstrations in 38 countries. Florida alone had 23 gatherings for the March Against Monsanto, including a focal point in Miami of approximately 400 activists and headliner Jill Stein, the 2012 presidential candidate running again for the Green Party.
The peaceful and noticeably family affair in South Florida, with many mothers and young children present, attracted an alliance of people concerned about genetic engineering and environmental damage from pesticide use. Participants called for an end to gene patents and any form of subsidy or tax break for Monsanto, and the most common chant was “hell no GMO, we deserve the right to know,” in reference to mandatory labeling.
Subscribe to our daily newsletter Youtube
The environmentalist themes aligned closely with the Green Party, and organizer Elizabeth Taveras sported a badge that affirmed the connection. The state co-chairman, Cathy Gilbert, was also on hand recruiting. “We are the people’s party,” she said. “We don’t take corporate money. We’re able to be independent from the corporate influences that the Democratic and the Republican parties are both, unfortunately, hooked to.”
However, the anti-establishment coalition included a former Libertarian Party candidate for state office, Omar Recuero. In addition, Barry Sacharow, a precinct captain of the Democratic Party in Broward County, claimed at least 25 Democratic activists in attendance, “most of whom lean left.”
The Miami crowd marched for approximately an hour — just north of downtown — with various stops for brief speeches and to interact with passersby. Participants then gathered by a local metro station for booths and about a dozen featured speakers, before an after party in the Wynwood district.
“What we see here today … is about the right to know what we are eating, so we are eating food that is healthy, that is just, that is sustainable,” Jill Stein said to eager applause.
She and other speakers echoed what they saw as the futility of the Republican and Democratic parties, and a vacuum open for alternative parties. They also encouraged direct action such as responsible consumption and home gardening.
Barry Sacharow cautioned, though, that “nobody is going to win on a third party in the next election. I want to support the aims of the third party; I want to support the third party; but … I don’t want to give up my vote to go to Jeb Bush for the sake of that.”
https://panampost.com/wp-content/uploads/Barry-Sacharow.mp3 Barry Sacharow of the Broward County Democratic Party on the prospects of third parties (1:30). Barry Sacharow of the Broward County Democratic Party on the prospects of third parties (1:30).
Two protesters, Isabel Malagon and her sister Viridiana, had multiple concerns, but they specifically identified Monsanto pesticide Roundup as problematic (with glyphosate as the key ingredient), along with declining bee populations. They remain pessimistic about Monsanto responding and becoming more environmentally friendly: “You have to be realistic … Do you actually think they’re going to back track [on] millions and millions of dollars?”
While Monsanto has not released a press statement in response to the hundreds of demonstrations, last week their chief technology officer did write an op-ed with USA Today. Robert Fraley raised “gaps between what scientists and the [US] public think” — a problem that “poses risks to society at large.” In particular, Fraley highlighted a disconnect regarding the safety of genetically engineered foods, with the wider public much more skeptical than those working in the field.
“Access to nutritious, affordable food is a challenge that will affect us all,” he wrote, “as the world’s population grows and the effects of climate change impact farmers’ ability to grow food.” He then touted genetic engineering as tool to address the problem, but the “perception gap hinders our collective ability to do so.” |
“I hope the wings will help us,” said Martin Whitmarsh, their beleaguered team principal. “One will be a light aircraft out of Southend at 3am, because it has an open 24-hour airfield. Another will be on a non-stop 12-hour drive.”
How did it ever come to this? Barely three months ago Whitmarsh had spoken passionately of the prospects for this year’s car, the MP4-28, and yet for the fifth race in succession McLaren's Jenson Button and Sergio Perez looked to be dismally off the pace as they trailed in 12th and 13th in yesterday’s standings. It might be an affront to their entire ethos but McLaren, with 15 constructors’ titles to their name, have suddenly been rendered a midfield team.
For three weeks since Button and Perez staged their memorable mid-race tussle in Bahrain, McLaren mechanics at the team’s Woking headquarters have been working feverishly on revisions and upgrades to nurse the underperforming car into a more respectable position. But early results at the Circuit de Catalunya, where the McLaren drivers found themselves almost two seconds adrift of Red Bull’s Sebastian’s Vettel, were far from auspicious. As such, they are forced to derive inspiration from the most almost comical notion of a midnight mercy dash by a helpful van driver.
The replacement front wing is intended to give the car greater stability through the low-speed corners, but Whitmarsh acknowledged last night that he did not anticipate any quick fix. Neither did Button, who admitted: “We’re still a hell of a long way off the pace – I think you will see four teams who are very competitive at the front, and I don’t feel we’ll be one of them.”
Button, normally one of the most ebullient characters in the F1 field, was visibly forlorn as he digested the possibility that McLaren could fail to be competitive for the European campaign that opens here tomorrow. Barcelona traditionally serves as a barometer for the rate of engineering development, but by that litmus test Britain’s most garlanded team, celebrating half a century in the sport, are falling distressingly short.
“It is painful,” conceded Whitmarsh, who explained that he had imparted some strong words to his colleagues in last night’s debrief.
Button, similarly, did not underestimate the scale of McLaren’s challenge. “We won’t be fighting towards the front, and it’s going to be quite a big gap,” the 2009 world champion said.
“We do have a lot of visible new parts of the car, and we are working flat-out to improve. But the thing with this sport is that everyone else is moving forward, too. It is hard. I am already 63 points behind Sebastian.”
Perez, still seeking to deflect criticisms of a torrid start to his rookie year at McLaren, also dismissed any idea that the team could be contenders for this year’s world championship. “It’s not realistic to think that we are going to be fighting for the title,” the 23-year-old Mexican said. “It’s the fifth race and we’re still two seconds a lap slower.”
Lewis Hamilton, by contrast, exudes a confidence that he can sustain his unexpectedly strong start for new employers Mercedes, even if he is being forced to deny an extraordinary rumour in Germany that chairman Niki Lauda is aiming to sign triple world champion Vettel for 2014, potentially to replace Nico Rosberg.
“It’s not something I need to think about, because it’s not going to happen,” he said, tersely, despite Red Bull motorsport director Helmut Marko recently being quoted as saying that “Niki should absolutely be trying to get Vettel”.
Hamilton, lying third in the early reckoning for the drivers’ championship behind Vettel and Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen, argued: “Nico qualified on pole in the last race, so he clearly has the speed and deserves to be here. I have just come to the team and
“I’m not doing too badly, so I doubt they will be replacing me. It doesn’t affect me in the slightest. Why should it? I’m comfortable where I am. I have a solid contract and a great lawyer, as have Mercedes.” |
If you have kids or have been around children for the last seven months or so, you've probably heard the song 'Let It Go' from the film 'Frozen' a million times. But chances are you haven't heard it quite like this. On Friday night in Milan, Italy, legendary grunge rockers Pearl Jam busted out the Disney tune in front of thousands of adoring concertgoers.
During a portion of their hit 'Daughter,' frontman Eddie Vedder broke into the chorus of 'Let It Go,' giving the tune a rock edge as the band shredded alongside him. As the father of 10-year-old and 5-year-old daughters, there's no doubt Vedder has been exposed to the Disney song a countless number of times himself. How cool is it for his kids to see their dad rocking the tune at a massive gig?
Enjoy Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam rocking the 'Frozen' song 'Let It Go' in the video above. Maybe the next time you hear the tune, you'll have a new appreciation for it. |
At San Diego Comic-Con, TrekMovie spoke to Star Trek: Discovery executive producer and co-creator Alex Kurtzman and executive producer Akiva Goldsman.
Trying to delight Trekkies and welcome new fans
We asked what kind of audience they were targeting for Star Trek: Discovery, more long-time fans, new fans or non-fans. Kurtzman weighted in saying:
Yes [targeting] everything. As fans of Trek we are most certainly looking to bring in fans. And the hope is to build a larger world that non-fans can get really excited about.
Goldsman also weighed in on the target audience, saying:
We are very, very attentive of the divergence between audience bases. We know that there are folks like us – who know way too much – and folks who know little or none at all. So the barrier to entry has been reduced. We are trying to be welcoming to people who have never seen an episode of Trek, but also really delightful to those us who can’t stop seeing them. So that is our outcome goal. Star Trek is always about a world that is for everyone. Our show tries to be for everyone.
CBS All Access Platform offers opportunity for serialized character stories
Kurtzman also talked about the opportunity offered by having Star Trek: Discovery on the CBS All Access streaming service:
The fact that we are on a streaming channel allows us to tell the stories in a different way. These are serialized stories. They are not stand-alone stories. So there there is an emotional continuity and characters are learning as they go. They don’t forget what happened last week. And that is really exciting. So in the way you would watch any series for the characters and for that approach we get to do that here and that is really exciting.
More TrekMovie SDCC17 interviews
Sonequa Martin-Green on First Officer Michael Burnham
Anthony Rapp on Lt. Stamets in ‘Star Trek: Discovery
Shazid Latif on Lt. Tyler in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’
‘Discovery’ showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg and executive producer Heather Kadin
Mary Wiseman on Ensign Tilly in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’
(and more to come)
More TrekMovie SDCC17 coverage
‘The Orville’ panel report and new trailer
‘Discovery’ press conference report
‘Discovery’ panel report
New trailer and images from ‘Star Trek: Discovery’
IDW Panel reveals details for ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ and Boldly Go comics
See ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Federation and Starfleet Props and Costumes
See ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Klingon Costumes And Props
Klingon Torchbearer Revealed + Gentle Giant Announces Discovery Collectibles
‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Concept Art Details Klingon And Federation Ships
Stay tuned for even more coverage of San Diego Comic-Con.
Star Trek: Discovery premieres on September 24th on CBS with all subsequent episodes on CBS All Access in the US. Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie. |
CLOSE Donald Trump may have been able to pay no federal income tax for more than a decade, according to a leaked partial tax return obtained by the New York Times. Time
Donald Trump at the New York Stock Exchange in 1995, when he claimed $916 million in net operating losses. (Photo11: KATHY WILLENS, AP)
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump may have President Reagan and Congress to thank for shielding real estate from the crackdown on tax shelters 30 years ago.
Trump's $916 million net operating loss that the New York Times identified on his 1995 taxes — a loss that could have enabled him to avoid paying federal income taxes for 18 years — might have stemmed from poor business practices. For that, he would have only himself to blame.
But in claiming and then recouping that loss through the tax code, experts said, Trump took advantage of the way real estate can be depreciated and interest deducted, even as the value of holdings increases. In that way, future net income can be reduced — in Trump's case, for many years.
“We allow very generous write-offs for real estate investors, and in particular, real estate developers," said Steven Rosenthal, a tax lawyer and senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. As a result, Trump “gets much more generous write-offs than other investors.”
The Internal Revenue Code allows net operating losses to be carried back three years and forward 15 years. That's allowed because it can be impossible to get the full tax break for a loss in one year, or even several.
“There’s a totally legitimate reason why the tax law allows individuals to write off their losses over a number of years," said Leonard Burman, the Tax Policy Center's director.
For a successful business, one year's losses would be erased by gains in other years without the array of deductions and depreciation allowances permitted by the Internal Revenue Service, even after the 1986 overhaul of the tax code.
Bob McIntyre, director of the liberal group Citizens for Tax Justice, said the depreciation allowance allowed Trump to "take losses that really weren't losses," which could enable him to pay no income taxes. "Maybe this will make Congress rethink it," he said.
While Trump allies such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed Sunday that Trump had a fiduciary duty to shareholders to pay as little taxes as possible, several tax experts noted the losses were claimed on his personal, not business, taxes.
"If I’m allowed a deduction and I take the deduction, it’s difficult to see that as an ethical problem,” said Daniel Shaviro, a tax professor at New York University School off Law. Even so, he said, "it's a tax-optics problem."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2dzy956 |
The leader of the DUP has not ruled out the possible introduction of an Irish Language Act.
Arlene Foster had previously insisted the DUP would never agree to such an Act.
However, speaking at the party's General Election campaign launch at Castlereagh Hills Golf Club in Belfast, Mrs Foster indicated it could be a possibility - as long as there is also respect for the Ulster Scots, the Orange and the British cultures.
When asked if she had changed her mind about an Irish Language Act, she said: "I said there wouldn't be, in terms of nothing else happening, in terms of culture and language. We have been in negotiations for some time and we have been putting forward that we need to respect all cultures, including the Ulster Scots, the Orange, the British culture.
"If there are to be moves forward in terms of cultural tolerance and respect then it has to be in the context of doing that and we are very clear in relation to that."
At the launch of the party's Assembly election campaign in February, Mrs Foster said the DUP would never agree to Sinn Féin demands for an Irish Language Act, adding: "If you feed a crocodile it will keep coming back for more."
An Irish Language Act is currently one of the stumbling blocks in the Stormont talks aimed at restoring a powersharing government.
Deputy leader Nigel Dodds said more important issues, such as health, education and public service, need to be addressed first.
"We are ready to go into government today," he said. "It is Sinn Féin putting up red lines for issues that for most people of Northern Ireland are not the most important issues.
"Sinn Féin is holding (powersharing) up for narrow partisan reasons. That's a tragedy for Northern Ireland and a disgrace for Sinn Féin."
Mrs Foster also said she is not afraid of an Irish border poll.
She said her party would "win a poll resoundingly", but added that she would not support one as it would lead to instability.
"We've already seen what's happening in Scotland in relation to Nicola Sturgeon's continued demands for independence," she said.
"If we had a border poll it would lead to instability.
"I'm not afraid of a border poll but I do think that sometimes you have to put the greater good of the people of Northern Ireland at the fore. I only wish other parties would do that as well."
Mrs Foster also told her party colleagues that Gerry Adams is "back in control of Sinn Fein" and has used the result of the recent Stormont election "to push through his radical agenda".
In the March Assembly election, Sinn Féin fell just one seat and around 1,200 votes short of being the region's largest party.
"The stakes could not be higher for unionism in Northern Ireland," Mrs Foster said.
"The Assembly election results served as a wake-up call for the unionist community. This Westminster election gives unionism the chance to get back on the right track.
"The Prime Minister's decision to hold a snap poll provides a basis to make the positive case for the union."
She added that a General Election is not a border poll but it is inevitably a referendum on Northern Ireland's place in the UK.
"How people vote at this election and how many seats we have will determine not just individual members of Parliament but the shape and direction of our country thereafter," she said. |
Paulo Rodriguez of AK American Detail works on a vehicle at Brown’s Fairfax Nissan. The company was launched by a husband and wife trying to escape the wage fraud and other abuses of car-wash companies that Virginia regulators are trying to curb. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
In the back area of a Fairfax County auto dealership, a crew of mostly undocumented workers provides a snapshot of the challenges that Virginia faces with its steadily transforming economy.
There, immigrants from Latin America rush to clean a steady line of used cars that their employer — an independent car-detailing company — was hired by the dealer to prepare for resale.
Each of them has bounced between several jobs in a loosely regulated industry that, according to lawsuits, is contributing to a growing form of payroll fraud that state officials estimate costs Virginia $28 million a year in lost taxes, after full-time workers are illegally categorized as independent contractors.
“It can be a difficult life,” said Paulo Rodriguez, who is attempting in Northern Virginia’s U.S. District Court to recover $23,000 from a company that, he says, forced him to work 72 hours per week without paid overtime when it classified him as an independent contractor. “Some people don’t last very long in this type of work.”
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is trying to crack down on such labor violations as more businesses, which critics say are often trying to cut corners, rely on contractors and subcontractors.
Allan Coello Aguilar, right, owner of AK American Detail,works on detailing vehicles at Brown's Fairfax Nissan in Virginia. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
State officials estimate that Virginia businesses are improperly classifying as many as 214,000 workers as independent contractors, mostly in industries that are employing immigrants and that are rife with other labor abuses.
“It impacts state revenue, and it’s no small amount of money,” said Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Maurice Jones, who leads a state task force to reduce a problem that he says also is unfair to businesses that are playing by the rules.
“This is about fairness to the competitive marketplace and fairness to our workers,” Jones said.
State’s ‘maddening’ response
It’s unclear how much McAuliffe can accomplish with a state legislature controlled by staunchly pro-business Republicans.
[Republicans escalate fight with McAuliffe over Supreme Court judge]
Organized labor has long viewed Virginia as weak on worker protections. Business advocates, meanwhile, credit the state’s regulatory environment for helping grow the economy.
The investigations unit of the state Department of Labor and Industry was briefly defunded by former Republican governor Robert F. McDonnell in 2013. McAuliffe reinstated the funds last year.
Saul Romero, center, of AK American Detail heads to the next car he’ll clean at Brown’s Fairfax Nissan. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Labor advocates and some Democrats were eager to see more-aggressive enforcement under McAuliffe. But they have been frustrated that there are still just four state investigators, plus their supervisor, available to field the 19,360 complaints so far this year about possible wage and hour violations.
“It’s maddening,” said state Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria,) who was chief deputy commissioner for the Department of Labor and Industry when U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) was governor.
“The governor has pointed us in the right direction,” Ebbin said of McAuliffe. “I’d like a lot more to be done. I think it’s my job and the General Assembly’s to work toward additional funding so we can deal with this.”
McAuliffe has had a complicated relationship with organized labor, courting both unions and pro-business groups during his 2013 campaign and declining to endorse an increase in the minimum wage. He has heavily courted Latinos, though, including at a recent Latino summit where activists praised him for supporting federal immigration reforms.
[At Latino summit, McAuliffe’s message is direct: Don’t forget to vote]
That courtship could continue into next year, when the governor’s close friend and fellow Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton may be on the presidential ballot.
But some of those same activists also complained that work-site abuses experienced by Virginia’s 316,000 Latino immigrants are getting only modest attention.
“We’re looking for solutions to keep people stable, and there’s not a lot of that going on in Virginia right now,” said Molly Maddra-Santiago, director of the Centreville Labor Resource Center, an organization that helps day laborers. “Virginia has some laws on the books, but the enforcement structure needs some teeth.”
Difficulty tracking the trend
The Washington region’s steadily morphing car-wash industry illustrates abuses that are often unchecked in Virginia, attorneys and community activists say.
Many car-wash companies operate at multiple locations and are moving away from traditional drive-through or self-serve models. Instead, they are at auto dealerships that once used their own staff members to prepare cars for resale.
Although many employers legitimately rely on independent contractors for their work, others use the designation as a way to avoid paying income taxes and adhering to federal labor laws protecting full-time employees, federal officials say.
“We see that in the restaurant industry, we see that in agriculture, and it looks like now we’re seeing that in the automobile industry,” said Mark Lara, a U.S. Labor Department director who oversees enforcement in Northern Virginia, the District and Maryland. But the trend is difficult to track, which makes enforcement and restitution in private lawsuits challenging.
“If the company is careful not to exercise any supervisorial authority over the employees, there is no one you can sue,” said Thomas Hennessy, an attorney in Fairfax who represents car-wash workers in several lawsuits. “You’ve got this disreputable little company that is, in essence, judgment-proof.”
In Northern Virginia, two carwash companies — Presidential Detailing and New Look Auto Appearance — are defendants in a federal lawsuit that alleges that workers were improperly classified as independent contractors and that the employees were not allowed lunch breaks or paid for overtime. That case recently reached a settlement of $141,000, said Hennessy, who is representing the seven plaintiffs.
Ashley Charles Dean, an attorney for the companies, declined to comment.
Another company, VRY Auto Detail, is being sued in federal court by eight former employees who claim they are owed a total of $136,000 in unpaid wages.
That company’s attorney, Michael E. Veve, also declined to comment.
In interviews, workers in both cases described verbal abuse from bosses, demands to work until 1 a.m. and, in the cases of women, sexual harassment.
“It was torture,” Quiriat Ordoñez said in her native Spanish, about what she alleged were unwanted sexual advances from one of her Presidential Detailing supervisors.
Workers at VRY Auto Detail said their bosses often bounced paychecks or underpaid them.
“He gave me three checks without funds,” Wilmar Valencia said about his former boss. “I asked him why he did that, and then he gave me another check without money.”
A weaker union presence
Authorities in other metropolitan areas have recently imposed stiffer regulations on car washes — part of a broader national push to improve conditions across the board for low-wage employees.
New York City requires car washes to become licensed and to buy $150,000 surety bonds in case they’re fined or sued for wage theft. Unionized car washes have to purchase $30,000 bonds.
California has a similar law, allowing the United Steelworkers union to win contracts in 30 Los Angeles-area car washes that guarantee salaries of at least 20 percent above the state minimum wage of $9 per hour.
But in Virginia, where unions are struggling to hold on to small memberships, the problems in car washes and other blue-collar jobs have festered — amounting to $2.1 million in total outstanding claims so far this year, according to state figures. The agency has collected nearly $397,000 in unpaid wages so far this year.
“I think most unions that are attempting to organize are trying to achieve greater density, rather than break into elements like carwashes,” says John Boardman, head of Unite-Here Local 25, which represents hotel workers and recently joined an effort to elect state legislators more favorable to low-wage workers.
C. Ray Davenport, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, said his agency is short on resources to pursue violations more aggressively.
The agency recently stiffened penalties for employers who improperly classify their workers as independent contractors, he said. But because of federal sequestration cuts and state budget problems, the agency has 40 of its 191 positions unfilled in its $14 million annual budget, Davenport said.
“If you have it fully staffed, there’s a whole lot more we can do,” he said.
For car-wash workers, the goals are more immediate.
Many work two or three jobs to earn enough for rent, food and aid to send to relatives in their homelands.
Their days are mundane, working as long as four hours on one car and sometimes three cars per day in a cycle of degreasing motors, vacuuming floorboards, drenching cars in soap and water and, ultimately, buffing them to a reflective shine.
Few wear protective gear to guard against a stew of skin-burning chemicals used in the process.
Recently, Ordoñez and her husband, Allan Cuello Aguilar, launched their own car-detailing company, AK American Detail, hiring some former co-workers in hopes of competing against their former bosses.
The couple pledged to treat their new employees fairly.
“I know the ugliness of mistreatment,” Cuello Aguilar said, but he conceded that he now knows the pressures of keeping a business afloat in what can be a cut-throat automobile sales industry, where there is high demand for fast work and quick sales. Each car that is prepared and washed means $80.
“The privilege belongs to the dealer,” Cuello Aguilar said, while watching one worker wax a previously filthy SUV that took all morning to finish. “If he has eight or nine cars for the day, I can’t leave. If I leave, we leave behind four or five cars. That’s money.” |
Ketelaars hasn't had a major problem with garbage in his six years living in Aurora, aside from the odd note telling him there's too much stuff in the bag.
"I can't complain," he says. "I couldn't complain before."
He said he would have understood if GFL had told him things were complicated by the snow.
"All I wanted was some acknowledgement that they missed it, some assurance that next week I wouldn't have twice as much garbage and they weren't going to take it … Instead I was told my garbage wasn't by the curb."
In the spirit of playfulness and to make a point about customer service, he spent $63 mailing four boxes of his trash.
"The guy who accepted the mail, he was confused too, because he said, 'What's in this?' and I said, 'It's garbage,' and he didn't really want to ask, and there were people in the lineup I was telling my story to, and my daughter was just trying to find something to hide under, she was so embarrassed," he says.
Simanovskis says Aurora shares a database with GFL, and also investigates complaints. About 20 per cent of complaints are "not-picked-up calls," and "upon investigation it was either because they were late set-outs, or because the material was unacceptable for pickup," he explains.
He says GPS indicates the trucks came by the Ketelaars residence before 7:30 a.m. on the day in question. Simanovskis says Ketelaars missed that early-morning pickup, and the trucks that appear in the evening on the video footage are likely just driving through the area, and would be discouraged from making late-day pickups if they'd already been by.
"It's not an indication that they're taunting him," he says. "You can have a truck going by your house more than once. He can complete his route and then go back through your neighbourhood to go to the next route."
When asked for comment, GFL said it had nothing to add to the town's explanation. Ketelaars disputes the town's version of events.
Ketelaars says he reviewed his security footage from 5:55 a.m. onward:
"No GFL trucks drove by at all. One private snowplow drove by a couple times, a white van drove by and a pickup truck drove by. Other than that, it was just me taking my trash out and heading off to work," he wrote in an email.
He also doesn't understand why garbage trucks would be driving through his area on their way to somewhere else, as he lives on a cul-de-sac.
Ketelaars said there appeared to be about "half a dozen" homes in his neighbourhood where refuse wasn't collected, as evidenced by photographs in his video, which were taken the next day. He didn't know the circumstances for the other left-behind items, just that they were there.
The town is trying to use the incident as an educational opportunity:
"Our message to our residents is always: 'Have your waste out by 7 a.m.' it's not predictable as to when the truck is going to come by,'" says Simanovskis.
News services |
The high-tech patent wars have spread to a new front, engaging two of the world’s largest industrial companies in a multibillion-dollar court battle over lithium-ion batteries. At issue is a battery chemistry that, while little known to the public, many experts believe currently holds the best chance of electric cars penetrating the mass market.
The case pits Germany’s BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, against Belgium’s Umicore, one of the biggest makers of battery materials. Filed by BASF on Feb. 20 in US federal court in Delaware, the lawsuit—which has been reported only by patent blogs—accuses Umicore of selling a key battery component to which BASF holds an exclusive license. It also alleges that Umicore threatened to sue firms if they gave their business to the German company. The suit seeks billions of dollars in alleged damages.
3M 3M’s NMC powder.
In addition to the pair of European giants, the case tees up a potential collision between two lithium-ion titans with rival patents for the technology at the heart of the dispute—3M Corp., an industrial giant itself, and Argonne National Laboratory, a US government lab that is a co-complainant with BASF.
The case, if it is not settled informally before trial, will require jurors to make sense of nuanced interpretations of the arcane atomic structure of battery electrodes. Specifically, they will hear dueling versions of what goes on at nano-scale when you charge and discharge a battery containing “NMC,” a positive electrode—or cathode, which is the nervous system of a battery—containing nickel, manganese, and cobalt.
To make their case, lawyers for BASF and Argonne are likely to describe a battle under way among major carmakers to launch next-generation electric cars in the 2017-2020 time frame—Tesla, GM, BMW, and possibly Apple and Virgin among them. They will allege that Umicore has effectively locked BASF out of the contest.
“BASF has lost out on billions of dollars of potential revenue from selling [NMC] materials because of Umicore’s misrepresentations to major purchasers in the [NMC] materials market,” BASF and Argonne claim in the lawsuit. “In addition, BASF has lost the ability to compete as a supplier for electric vehicle platforms expected to launch in 2016 and 2017.”
In recent years, gigantic patent battles have roiled the market for tablets and smartphones, pitting Apple against Samsung, Nokia, Microsoft, and almost anyone else of consequence. Combat also has been rife in the market for gaming devices. The total number of such suits plunged last year, possibly as a result of a US Supreme Court ruling that made it harder to win. But large cases continue to be filed.
With their lawsuit, BASF and Argonne underline the rising economic stakes in batteries. While technological advances in batteries have been slow to come—thus stunting the expected appeal of electric cars—lithium-ion has nonetheless grown into a respectable $18-billion-a-year industry, according to Navigant, a clean energy research firm. This is because of the stunning popularity of smart phones and tablets, plus sales of the electric Tesla S, the GM Volt, and the Nissan Leaf, all of them requiring lithium-ion batteries. Continued double-digit annual growth should push the lithium-ion battery market to about $38 billion by 2020, Navigant says.
The lawsuit names Umicore and one of its customers—Japan’s Makita Corp., a toolmaker. It cites laboratory tests allegedly showing that Makita tools contain NMC invented by Argonne, and says that the Japanese company obtained the cathode material from Umicore. It says that neither Umicore nor Makita have licenses for Argonne’s NMC.
In a statement emailed to Quartz, Umicore disputed BASF’s assertions and said it intends to fight the lawsuit. Makita did not respond to a phone message left at its La Mirada, California, office. 3M declined to comment. BASF lawyer Brian Farnan did not respond to emails. Argonne said it could not comment beyond what it said in the lawsuit.
Argonne was first, but 3M cornered the non US-market
The competing NMC patents go back a decade and a half. The first was filed in June 2000 by Michael Thackeray, a South African-born researcher working at Argonne. Ten months later, 3M filed a competing patent application on behalf of Jeff Dahn, a researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Thackeray’s patent is good only for the US—at the time it was filed, neither he nor Argonne’s lawyers expected the NMC to take on the industry importance that it has, and so they sought to economize by filing for no international patents. But 3M, calculating differently, obtained patents in the US, plus the world’s most important manufacturing markets—China, Japan, and South Korea.
3M
Over the years, 3M has aggressively defended the overseas patents, threatening and filing lawsuits for alleged infringement against Sony, Matsushita, and Sanyo, and winning settlements in each case. The details of the settlements are sealed, but the outcomes appeared to validate 3M’s claims.
3M has apparently not filed similar lawsuits in the US. Now, Argonne, teamed up with BASF, has taken the offensive.
A ruling against BASF and Argonne could have important implications outside the Umicore-Makita issue. For instance, one of the largest customers for NMC is General Motors, which uses it in the Chevy Volt. Argonne has stated publicly that the Volt’s battery contains its version of NMC. But Dahn has said that the Volt battery contains his work, and not Argonne’s. If BASF and Argonne lose their case against Umicore, the legal question could then arise of whose cathode, chemically speaking, is actually in the Volt.
General Motors referred questions to LG Chem, which makes the Volt cathode. LG’s NMC is produced under a license with Argonne.
We will hear rare electrochemical nitty-gritty
The dual challenges of lithium-ion batteries are to obtain more energy at a lower cost. The current standard—a 35-year-old battery formulation in which the cathode is made of lithium cobalt oxide—packs a lot of dense energy, but is expensive and also more volatile than almost any commercial rival.
Though it has its own challenges, the NMC may have the best chance to beat lithium cobalt oxide, while performing well on the other metrics of energy and cost, many experts say. Among the reasons are that the cathode contains less cobalt, which is expensive, and also is less volatile, and thus safer for use in electric cars.
Over the years, Thackeray and Dahn have bickered over the precise atomic structure of the NMC—is it a saucy amalgam of metals, or a “solid solution”(Dahn’s position), or is it a more structured composite with a discernible chemical architecture (Thackeray’s)?
Until now, their dispute had seemed largely academic, obscure, and possibly immaterial. But now, who a jury determines is right may end up as the pivotal factor in the BASF/Umicore case. (Quartz reached out to Dahn and Thackeray; both declined to comment on the suit.)
Thackeray and Dahn bickered over the precise atomic structure of NMC
In his ground-breaking patent, Thackeray had the central thesis that if you built up the amount of lithium in the NMC—if you added about 10% more to the cathode—you achieved a big increase in capacity. To understand what he meant, and what’s at the heart of the legal dispute, it’s useful to look both at how lithium-ion batteries work, and specifically at how Thackeray’s cathode manages this jump.
All lithium-ion batteries have three basic parts—two electrodes and, between them, a facilitator called electrolyte. When you plug in your smartphone, lithium stored in the cathode begins to shuttle to the other electrode, called the anode. Then, when you unplug your fully charged phone and start to use it, the lithium begins to shuttle back from the anode to the cathode.
Thackeray claimed he could put more lithium into motion.
One of battery science’s objectives is to get as much of the lithium as possible to shuttle, because that creates more energy. But no matter what, you cannot put all of it in motion, because, emptied out of so much material, the cathode will collapse in on itself. A rule of thumb with the standard lithium cobalt oxide cathode is that you can put about half of the lithium into the shuttling motion.
Thackeray’s formulation claimed to beat that rule of thumb. It starts with two compounds—the NMC itself, plus a chemistry called Li2MnO3. Visually, both the NMC and Li2MnO3 resemble stripped-down houses. The floors and ceilings are made of oxygen atoms, and the walls are nickel, cobalt, and manganese. Scientists call this framework a lattice. Because the lattices of the NMC and the Li2MnO3 are similar, you can easily integrate the two at the nanoscale.
From Thackeray’s 2000 patent.
And that’s what Thackeray did–he shifted the Li2MnO3 into the NMC—at which point two things happened: The manganese and lithium propped up the NMC like pillars, adding to its sturdiness, and the extra lithium increased its capacity.
The former phenomenon (the sturdiness) was responsible for the latter—the capacity. This was because, with the double lattice at work, you could now shuttle 60% or 70% of the lithium without the cathode collapsing.
And here also is where the distinction comes between the rival cathodes. Thackeray called his invention a “layered-layered” or “composite” cathode. The atoms of the various metals were clearly concentrated in clumps throughout the electrode, he said.
But Dahn called his version a “solid solution.” The same metals were present of course, but they were more or less evenly arrayed, he said.
What’s the real difference? We’ll hear in court. |
Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
A few months ago, a friend in the entertainment industry told me of a new business model in Hollywood: hoarding videotapes. Apparently, the earthquake in Japan knocked offline a Sony factory that makes certain types of tape. That factory was also in the tsunami zone, so now there’s a serious tape shortage threatening the television industry. The NBA scrambled to get enough tape to broadcast the NBA finals; one executive told the Hollywood Reporter, “It’s like a bank run.” Ad Policy
In the last few years, economists have spent a lot of time and energy thinking about bank runs. A bank run happens when depositors think a bank is weak and scramble to get their money out before it collapses. “Tight coupling” of financial institutions, like when banks are overly dependent on each other, can create a cascading series of problems for the system itself. We saw this with Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt. Its AAA-rated debt instruments lost value unexpectedly; that caused money market funds that held those presumably safe bonds to suddenly lose value. A shadow bank run was the result, as investors rushed to withdraw from the money market funds.
Worryingly, there’s been very little consideration of how systemic collapses can happen in another, perhaps more dangerous realm—the industrial supply system that keeps us in everything from medicine to food to cars to, yes, videotape. In 2004, for instance, England closed one single factory, which caused the United States to lose half of its flu vaccine supply.
Barry Lynn of the New America Foundation has been studying industrial supply shocks since 1999, when he noticed that global computer chip production was concentrated in Taiwan. After a severe earthquake in that country, the global computer industry nearly shut down, crashing the stocks of large computer makers. This level of concentration of the production of key components in a globalized economy is a new phenomenon. Lynn’s work points to the highly dangerous side of globalization, the flip side of a hyper-efficient global supply chain. When one link in that chain is broken, there is no fallback.
Lynn has continued to study industrial supply shocks and says, “What I have found most interesting recently is the apparent role supply chain shocks played in triggering a synchronized slowdown of industrial economies in April—production down (in USA, China, Europe, Southeast Asia), jobs down, demand down, GDP numbers down—due almost entirely to the loss of a single factory that makes microcontroller chips for cars.”
Today, the problem manifests as shortages of videotape or auto parts, but the global supply chain is so tangled and fragile that next time it could be electronics, weaponry, or even food or medicine. As Lynn noted in an interview with Dylan Ratigan, China controls 100 percent of the national supply of ascorbic acid, which is a basic food preservative. Leading oncologists are already warning that we are experiencing severe shortages of generic yet pivotal cancer drugs, because there’s no incentive for corporations to make them.
According to Lynn’s groundbreaking book End of the Line, the essential problem is a basic shift in the way that American multinationals operate. In the 1980s, the competitive manufacturing threat from Japan led most large companies to eliminate waste in their production facilities. As a result, they stopped keeping spare parts on hand. Eventually, companies began outsourcing production itself, as profits came increasingly from extractive monopolistic power over an economic system. Walmart is an important example; its profits come from the power it can exert on its suppliers, telling them what to make and how to make it, while the company itself functions as a giant autocratic marketplace and trading operation. Increasingly, this is the model of success in our global economy. Boeing, Cisco, Apple—all of them rely on their power over an ecosystem of production facilities halfway around the world. They have become rent extractive profit-machines, which is a relatively new phenomenon.
It was in the 1990s that American multinationals, spurred by government policy, began outsourcing operations to China. At the same time, the Clinton administration steadily relaxed antitrust enforcement, leading to massive corporate consolidation and the creation of the virtual firm. By the early parts of the last decade, the ideal American multinational made its profits by using its market power to gut labor and supply prices and by using its political power to eliminate taxation. All of this turned giant American institutions against making things. This is why we rely on a British factory to make our flu vaccine, why global videotape production was knocked offline by a tsunami and why that same event slowed the gigantic auto industry. US corporate leaders now see the idea of making things as a cost of doing business, one best left to others. What has happened as a result is that much of the production for critical products and services that make our economy run is constructed by a patchwork global network of suppliers all over the world in unstable regions, over which we have very little control. An accident or political problem in any number of countries may deny us not just iPhones but food, medicine or critical machinery.
Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel, has made the case that America needs to be building things here, investing here and manufacturing here. We need the know-how and the ecosystem of innovation. The more corporate America seeks to push production risk off the balance sheet onto an increasingly fragile global supply chain, the more it seeks to wound the state so there is no body that can constrain its worst impulses, the more likely we will see a truly devastating Lehman-style industrial supply shock.
There’s a good amount of grumbling about the state of American infrastructure—collapsing bridges, high-speed rail, etc. But American infrastructure is not just about public goods, it’s about how the corporations that enforce, inform and organize economic activity are themselves organized. Are they doing productive research? Are they spreading knowledge and know-how to people who will use it responsibly? Are they creating prosperity or extracting wealth using raw power? And most importantly, are they contributing to the robustness of our society, such that we can survive and thrive in the normal course of emergencies?
The answer to all of these questions right now is “no.” And while this may not be hitting the elite segments of the economy right now, there will be no escape from a flu pandemic or significant food shortage. The re-engineering of our global supply chain needs to happen—and it will happen, either through good leadership or through collapse. This means that our government and our society needs to reorient our economy toward manufacturing and rededicate our corporations to productive uses. This will require a new conception of antitrust laws to ensure that monopolistic or oligopolistic practices in pivotal industries aren’t placing our culture at risk. It means understanding the networks of suppliers and sub-suppliers. And it means ending the race to the bottom that pushes deflationary pressures on labor and the social safety net. All of this can insure a more robust culture and economy, one which can withstand national security or environmental challenges. The sooner our leaders, both in public and private institutions, recognize how highly vulnerable we are to a societal collapse, the better chance we have of avoiding collapse. |
US President Barack Obama has said that the US-led coalition battling fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was "intensifying" its campaign against the armed group's base in Syria.
Speaking at the Pentagon on Monday, Obama said that recent territory losses by the ISIL group show that the armed group will be defeated, but added that the fight will be long.
The US-led coalition has stepped up its efforts in Iraq and Syria, with some of the heaviest bombing since it began its strikes in September last year. At least 19 US-led coalition air strikes have been carried out in the last 24 hours.
Air raids have been carried out in 11 locations in Iraq: they are the oil town of Beiji, the cities of Fallujah, Haditha, Kirkuk, Makh-mur, Ramadi and Sinjar. Coalition strikes have also targeted eight ISIL positions in Syria: near Hasakah, Raqqa, Kobane and Aleppo.
ISIL 'recaptures' town from YPG forces in Syria's Raqqa
The US president says he is determined to destroy the group, and says regional players in the Middle East are united in their fight against ISIL.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces, who are helping on the ground, say they have killed 40 ISIL fighters not far from the northern city of Kirkuk.
The Kurdish soldiers claim to have prevented ISIL from attacking several of their positions and entering Kirkuk. Peshmerga forces are stationed north, east and west of Iraq's second largest city Mosul, which is now under ISIL control.
The US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter has praised the efforts of the Peshmerga in the fight against ISIL.
"Well, we are doing more in Syria from the air. I think you saw some of that in recent days. And the opportunity to do that effectively is provided in the case of the last few days by the effective action on the ground of Kurdish forces, which gives us the opportunity to support them tactically," he said.
Not at war with Islam
The US president said there were no current plans to send additional US troops overseas and repeated that the fight against the ISIL group would not be quick.
Obama said that the US would continue to crack down on the group's illicit finance operations around the world.
INSIDE STORY: ISIL's tactics in Iraq
He reiterated that with a strong partner on the ground in Iraq, the US and its partners would be successful in defeating the armed group.
The US president said that the training of such forces had been ramped up after a period that was too slow and that the fall of Ramadi, the capital of the predominately Sunni western Anbar province, had galvanised the Iraqi government.
"More Sunni volunteers are coming forward," he said. "Some are already being trained and they can be a new force against ISIL. We continue to accelerate the delivery of critical equipment, including anti-tank weapons, to Iraqi security forces."
Obama noted that the difficulty of preventing small-scale attacks by "lone wolves" within the US homeland despite success at preventing large attacks since the September 11, 2001 assaults on New York and Washington.
"We're going to have to pick up our game to prevent these attacks," he said.
But Obama stressed that the US is not at war with Islam. Instead, he said, "We're fighting terrorists who distort Islam and whose victims are mostly Muslims." |
Sam Riley is in talks to co-star with Scarlett Johansson in DreamWorks’ “Ghost in the Shell,” sources tell Variety.
Rupert Sanders (“Snow White and the Huntsman”) is directing the adaptation of the popular anime film, with Paramount on board to co-finance.
Avi Arad and Steven Paul are producing, while Michael Costigan, Jeffrey Silver, Tetsu Fujimura and Mitsuhisa Ishikawa are exec producing.
The story follows the exploits of a female member of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission’s covert ops unit, which specializes in fighting technology-related crime.
Riley is in talks to play Laughing man, who proves to be the ultimate hacker, capable of such feats as hijacking multiple video streams simultaneously, taking over someone’s cybernetic brain entirely and editing his own images out of someone’s cybernetic eyes, and all in real time.
“Borgen” alum Pilou Asbæk recently joined the cast as well. The film hits theaters on March 31, 2017.
Riley can be seen next as Mr. Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” and just finished “Free Fire.”
He is stepped by WME and Tavistock Wood Management. |
THE ISLAND OF Ireland can expect to hit a population of 10 million before 2050 – and people should “embrace” that growth, the head of the country’s biggest business lobby group says.
But Ibec chief executive Danny McCoy today told the organisation’s CEO Conference at Dublin Castle the government has to act now to boost infrastructure spending to cope with future demand.
He said on current trends the population across the island would pass 10 million before the second half of the century and that carried with it “a range of new and exciting opportunities, but also challenges”.
“We have to start planning now, and set out clear, ambitious, but realistic objectives,” he said.
McCoy said big infrastructure gaps in health, transport, education and energy needed to be fixed as a priority, as did the shortage of available housing.
As it stands, we’re not investing nearly enough,” he said.
The total population across the island of Ireland currently stands at about 6.6 million, including an estimated 4.8 million people in the Republic.
However the most-recent projections from the CSO forecast the population in the south alone could swell to 6.7 million by 2046.
That figure is based on Ireland’s fertility rate – currently the highest in the EU – remaining steady and net immigration of 30,000 people a year.
Ibec chief executive Danny McCoy Source: Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland
‘No appetite’ for national pay agreements
McCoy, whose group represents many of the country’s biggest firms, said wage pressures had started to re-emerge as the economy improved but many companies were still in survival mode and they “simply cannot afford pay rises”.
“Given this backdrop, business has no appetite for a return to one size fits all national pay agreements,” he said.
This year we have the chance to further cut unemployment and attract back migrants that left during the crisis, but we must not repeat past mistakes. If costs spiral and we lose our competitive edge, we will pay for it in jobs.”
The government recently launched the Low Pay Commission to look at raising the minimum wage, which has not been raised above €8.65 per hour since 2007.
McCoy also called on the government to cut income taxes with the highest marginal rate of 51% described as a “barrier to investment and job creation” and a “serious disincentive to work” when compared to other developed countries. |
Patrick Semansky/Associated Press
The Philadelphia Eagles sent shock waves through the NFL Tuesday when they reportedly agreed to trade running back LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for linebacker Kiko Alonso, via Adam Schefter of ESPN.
Apparently it shook up McCoy as well.
ESPN’s Josina Anderson reported that the explosive playmaker wasn’t particularly pleased with the news:
A source close to LeSean McCoy to me on how the #Eagles RB feels about news of an agreement to trade McCoy to Buffalo: He’s a Pennsylvania kid. He’s never played football outside of Pennsylvania—high school, college, pro. So of course he's not happy. Sounds like it’s pretty final to me unless LeSean is refusing to go to Buffalo.
The source also went on to tell Anderson that McCoy was “frustrated” and that he is “not going to make it easy, that's for sure" when discussing whether he will simply accept the trade to Buffalo or not.
McCoy’s numbers dipped in 2014 from his head-turning 2013 campaign, but he still ran for 1,319 yards and found the end zone five times. What’s more, he is only 26 years old and theoretically has a few productive years remaining on his odometer before reaching the magic age of 30 for running backs.
It seems like McCoy would have preferred to spend those years in Philadelphia. |
The first image shows an unidentified aircraft with two other faint vapour trails (Picture: Steve Douglass)
Aviation experts and UFO conspirators have been perplexed by photographs of a mysterious flying object in US air space.
Grainy images showed a triangular blob with a long vapour trail flying through the clear blue skies above Amarillo, Texas next to another contrail left before it.
Defence technology blog Ares claimed this could be one of the rare times that a classified military plane has been photographed.
‘As far as I know, this sort of thing has happened only once since 1956,’ explained blogger Bill Sweetman.
The triangular shape has had people speculating that it could be a classified military aircraft (Picture: Dean Muskett)
Mr Sweetman went on to say that the photographer, Steve Douglass, spends a lot of time looking for unusual flying objects and listening out for them on radio.
Douglass claims to have picked up related radio communication between the aircraft – suggesting it must have been manned as opposed to remotely-controlled.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Blog comments are speculating about the type of aircraft and suggestions are ranging from a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber to a Boeing Phantom.
As the US Air Force are unlikely to be forthcoming with information, the flying objects will almost certainly remain ‘unidentified’ (probably not aliens, though, sorry). |
Nationals senators cross the floor out of frustration with Coalition counterparts
Posted
Three Nationals senators crossed the floor this week partly out of frustration with their Coalition counterparts.
On Wednesday afternoon, backbenchers Barry O'Sullivan, Matthew Canavan and John Williams supported a housing affordability motion from Family First senator Bob Day.
It was defeated 48 votes to 10 with most Government senators, Labor and the Greens voting against it.
WA Liberal Chris Back also crossed the floor.
The ABC has been told the Nationals senators made the decision at the last minute and did it partly because they like Senator Day.
But Government sources said the move was also designed to send a message to the Liberal Party.
"Stop walking over me to get to f****** Lambie is the obvious message", one said.
"Don't forget the Nats are their own party. Even the Queensland ones."
"They want to be consulted. Not ignored in favour of the crossbench," another said.
Backbenchers are allowed to cross the floor without fear of repercussion.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce crossed the floor 28 times during his tenure as a Queensland senator.
But some Liberal senators were unhappy with the decision of the three Nationals.
The housing affordability motion was largely symbolic.
It urged the Senate to condemn "the deliberate restriction of land for new housing and subsequent price gouging by state and territory land management agencies", and highlight, "the constraints on land supply which are the principal causes of worsening housing affordability".
Topics: political-parties, government-and-politics, federal-government, parliament, nationals, liberals, australia |
BlackBerry PlayBook: Car Battery Not Included [UPDATED]
If Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook is to succeed at market the way the company hopes, there are a few engineering hurdles to overcome. The most significant, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, is the pre-release device’s relatively poor battery life.
Sources tell him the tablet currently lasts just a few hours per charge, compared with rivals like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which lasts about six, and the iPad, which lasts upward of 10. If true, that’s an untenable situation for RIM, which really needs to hit the mark with the PlayBook, and it may cause a delay of the launch–if only for a bit (to be fair, Wu is talking about an unreleased device that’s still in development and months away from market).
“From our understanding, this [is] likely why RIMM pushed out its launch to the May 2011 quarter,” Wu writes. “Keep in mind that QNX (the OS on which PlayBook runs) wasn’t originally designed for mobile environments but rather for devices like network equipment and automobiles where battery life isn’t as much a constraint.”
In other words, as promising as plugging QNX into a tablet form factor with a dual-core processor and a gig of RAM sounds, it’s proving to be a bit of a challenge. So what’s the solution? Most likely a bigger battery. But obviously that will add to the heft of the device and perhaps require a design concession or two.
Given that, Wu takes a conservative view of PlayBook’s prospects; he figures RIM will sell 700,000 units in 2011, far less than the one million to eight million that other analysts have been calling for. “As we have said before, we are not convinced that tablets outside of the iPad will see high volume success,” he concludes.
UPDATE: RIM finally got back to me with a comment: “Any testing or observation of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented. RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life.” |
Zombies, Garbage And Vampires? It's Not A Nightmare, It's Your College Course Catalog
Enlarge this image Jackie Ferrentino for NPR Jackie Ferrentino for NPR
At Amherst College in western Massachusetts, "You can do whatever you want," says dean of the faculty, Catherine Epstein. "If you never want to take a math class, you don't have to take a math class. If you never want to take a science class, you don't have to take a science class." Why's that? You might ask.
In the late 1960s, Amherst and other liberal arts colleges responded to faculty demands for flexibility and switched from a core curriculum, where students pretty much all took the same courses, like English, math and the history of western civilization, to an open curriculum.
An open curriculum gave students many more options in course selection and limited course requirements outside of majors. Fast-forward nearly sixty years and some schools have taken the idea of the "open curriculum" to a new level.
Students heading back to college these days may find course offerings like the joy of garbage, zombies in popular media or the sociology of Miley Cyrus available to them.
At Amherst, sitting around a big, oak table in the college's archives, Catherine Epstein dusts off the 1966 leather-bound course catalog (with just 223 pages) and compares it to the 2016 paperback (with more than double the number of pages).
Then she flips through some of the history department's offerings, like birth of the avant-garde: modern poetry and culture in France and Russia, 1870 to 1930.
"It's all good stuff," Epstein explains, "as long as it's taught in a rigorous way where students are challenged, where students can express their thoughts."
Not everyone agrees.
"What we've seen is the multiplication of course options, often without rhyme or reason or any real respect for the kind of intellectual nutrition that students need," says Michael Poliakoff. He's the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which finds most of the country's leading colleges don't have rigorous general-education requirements.
Poliakoff keeps tabs on those courses that he considers senseless, like video games and the boundaries of narrative, or knowing television — both recent offerings from Amherst College.
With a $2 billion endowment and a $60,000 sticker price, the college can afford to pay faculty to teach their more than 850 courses for a student body of 1,900.
But Poliakoff says he thinks too many elite colleges treat their students like customers, advertising to them instead of educating them. He points to recent studies that found many college students earn their degrees without learning much more than they knew coming in.
Some professors at Amherst College reject that criticism. While plenty of courses may sound soft, they say students are, in fact, learning hard skills like, "How to analyze a text, how to understand an argument," says Nicola Courtright, who teaches art history at Amherst. She says the college's open curriculum creates an ideal learning environment.
"Students know that they're not just taking classes because they should or they might get a job afterwards. They really have to take it out of fundamental interest."
Amherst faculty would like to offer even more courses, and administrators seem open to the idea. Next fall they're imagining a history course based on the Broadway hit "Hamilton." Amherst isn't alone. Brown, New York University and Cornell all plan to do the same. |
FSX HDE Sky Textures V2.0
Converted for FSX. These files act as HDE sky texture replacements for importing into FSX. Original by Pablo Diaz. Retooled for FSX by Danny Glover. Plane silhouetted against a cold sky. The original release of HDE & HDE v2.0 created a high-quality freeware environment improvement for FS9. Many of the high-definition textures offered for FS9 were also easily portable over to FSX, except for the sky textures. From multiple experiences, the sky textures when placed into FSX would not allow the sim to start and would end up crashing session altogether. The problem was that FSX's default sky textures came with a color bit depth of 32, and FSX would read ONLY that bit depth. HDE and HDE v2.0 came in 24 color bit depth, so FSX could not read the textures and therefore could not create a suitable simming environment using them. This package contains all 140 sky textures in 32-bit color depth form, for usage in FSX.
Images/Screenshots
The archive hdeskytexturesfsx.zip has 152 files and directories contained within it. View them File Contents This list displays the first 500 files in the package. If the package has more, you will need to download it to view them. Filename/Directory File Date File Size HDE Sky Textures 06.24.10 0 B 14.BMP.jpg 06.23.10 117.10 kB 2010-6-23_14-17-40-345.BMP.jpg 06.23.10 117.50 kB 2010-6-24_11-40-35-702.BMP.jpg 06.24.10 165.59 kB 2010-6-24_13-20-19-487.BMP.jpg 06.24.10 295.03 kB 2010-6-24_13-24-7-184.BMP.jpg 06.24.10 317.30 kB Converted Sky Colors 06.24.10 0 B sky_afternoon_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_afternoon_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_dawn_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_midnight_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_morning_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_noon_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn1_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postdawn2_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset1_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_postsunset2_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn1_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_predawn2_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset1_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_presunset2_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_0.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_1.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_2.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_3.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_4.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_5.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_6.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_7.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_8.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB sky_sunset_9.bmp 06.23.10 5.40 kB FILE_ID.diz 06.24.10 169 B HDE INSTALL(english).txt 04.09.10 3.38 kB README.txt 06.24.10 2.13 kB flyawaysimulation.txt 10.29.13 959 B Go to Fly Away Simulation.url 01.22.16 52 B
⇲ Download 1.32 MB
Editorial
This release helps to boost up the quality of the textures in the sky. When flying around in FSX, a common complaints is that sky textures were not improved enough and did not look particularly great, especially in comparison to mods out there.
This mod provides you with an update of an old FS2004 classic, giving you access to a brilliant selection of sky textures that look far more convincing than the originals that were provided. If you are sick of the sky looking as if it’s fake and not got much going on in there, this can be the perfect addition.
This creation by Danny Glover takes the excellent textures first used by Pablo Diaz, and re-tools them entirely for perfect use with FSX. These load in particularly well and manage to capture the feel and the style perfectly.
This original release was created to offer a far more effective and realistic to the old skies, and manages to give you something that is far more effective looking and convincing than the originals. These can be loaded in with just a matter of clicks and can act as the perfect solution to your sky issues.
The problem, though, is that FSX reads textures and images differently from FS2004 and this required a total re-jigging of the image properties to ensure they would work. Danny has done this for you, ensuring that you can get easy and simple access to brand new textures that look fantastic.
In this package, you’ll get access to 140 awesome sky textures, all ranging in 2-bit color depth form. This makes them fully compatible with FSX so if you long for the days of bright and realistic looking skies within your simulator this is the perfect place for you to get started changing from.
It will help you totally revamp the look and feel of the original sky, making it look far more convincing than it used to and ensuring that you can get the quality and class of design that you were hoping for in the first place. If you need help in putting this all together and fully understanding what has to be done, then you will receive easy and simple download instructions inside.
With this addition you can finally have a range of textures that look outstanding and are fully compatible with the more demanding style and needs of FSX over FS2004.
About Adam McEnroe Adam McEnroe is a flight sim enthusiast who has been simming since the days of FS95. Adam writes all of the download section editorials after testing each of the files. Adam has extensive knowledge using various flight simulator packages and thoroughly tests the files before writing about them. Adam also like to fly real-world aircraft in his spare time and is training for his PPL. Should you wish, you can contact Adam via email at [email protected].
Installation of Add-on Aircraft/Scenery
Most of the freeware add-on aircraft and scenery packages in our file library come with easy installation instructions which you can read above in the file description. For further installation help, please see our Knowledge Center for our full range of tutorials or view the README file contained within the download. |
Here are three recent stories involving the ongoing American Jewish divorce from rightwing Israel.
First, progressive Daniel Biss is a mathematician and Illinois state senator who is Jewish, running for governor. Biss got his political start opposing the Iraq War, and on September 1, he announced his choice for lieutenant governor, a Chicago alderman who’d worked for Bernie Sanders, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.
Carlos is one of the fiercest progressive fighters I know, serving as alderman of Chicago’s 35th Ward. Like me, Carlos is the grandson of immigrants and the son of educators.
One pol’s reaction was swift. Two days later, Brad Schneider, an Illinois Congressman, withdrew his endorsement of Biss because Ramirez-Rosa supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Schneider writes:
On August 31, I was surprised to learn through press reports that Senator Daniel Biss had selected Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa as his running mate. I was immediately concerned about some of Alderman Ramirez-Rosa’s past comments about the United States support of our ally Israel, and his affiliation with a group that is an outspoken supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. Following conversations with Senator Biss and Alderman Ramirez-Rosa, I have informed the campaign of the withdrawal of my support. This decision is not taken lightly. I remain hopeful that, as Alderman Ramirez-Rosa learns more about the importance of the US-Israel partnership to both our nations, the unique challenges Israel faces as the only democracy in a very dangerous neighborhood, and the commitment of the vast majority of the Israeli people to peace and a two state solution, he will reconsider his positions.
Biss’s campaign has not released a statement on the de-endorsement yet, but maybe they’ll stick to their guns. Schneider is something of a pro-Israel hack. Though he endorsed Biss last June, praising his “ lead on issues like income inequality, women’s health care, and protecting our environment,” he got his start working for AIPAC. Chicago Tribune, 2012:
Though he’s never held office, Schneider was familiar with politics from working with pro-Israel groups active in Washington. His license plate, TIKUN1, refers to a Hebrew phrase that calls for repairing the world. Schneider worked to sway legislators as a volunteer with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major lobbying group.
And he told Chicago Magazine he’d been to Israel more times than he can count.
Though a politician would be foolish to take my advice, it’s my belief that Biss/Ramirez-Rosa can withstand this blow and keep going. As Ben Lorber of Jewish Voice for Peace writes in response to Brad Schneider, American Jews are not all with Israel:
Sadly, the article below [showing Israeli Jewish support for ethnic cleansing] shows that it’s not true that ‘the vast majority of Israelis are committed to peace’, as you describe. As an American Jew I support BDS, I support Alderman Rosa and I no longer support you. It’s time for progressive politicians like yourself to put Palestinian rights on the agenda, stop being bullied by AIPAC, and get with the program, or else you’re going to lose the support of the constituents you need to get elected- if not today, then tomorrow.
From the Daily Herald, on Ramirez-Rosa’s background:
Ramirez-Rosa was elected to the City Council in 2015 at age 26, one of the youngest ever elected in the city, and was a delegate for Bernie Sanders in last year’s Democratic National Convention. In an interview with The Real News Network last year, Ramirez-Rosa said U.S. divestment from Israel is “a conversation that needs to be had.” He’s also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which recently passed a resolution supporting the BDS movement.
By the way, another candidate in this race is J.B. Pritzker, from the hugely wealthy Pritzker family, which has tended to be very supportive of Israel.
Next item, Samuel G. Freedman has an opinion article up at the Forward-– “Netanyahu is abandoning American Jews, because he can”– in which he argues that Netanyahu is abandoning liberal American Jews because he is forming a base in the U.S. of rightwing Christian Zionists. I don’t think this is Netanyahu’s game, but Freedman is clinical about the divide. A liberal Jewish community is in “abject despair” about the Israel they loved being swallowed by the occupation.
We have never been further from Israel than we are at this point. And we find ourselves at that distance because, after all the invocations of Jewish peoplehood, after all the salutes to us as a “strategic asset,” we American Jews have never been made to feel less necessary to Israel’s success or survival than we are today.
Freedman, author of Jew Vs. Jew, isn’t even talking about pro-BDS Jews. We’re outside his community (another divide). He celebrates the anti-occupation work of Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon, and takes a shot at two Netanyahu officials: rightwing settler/consul general Dani Dayan and UN ambassador Danny Danon. They do not relate to the “rest of us,” Freedman says. “[T]hese diplomats are emissaries without empathy.”
Dayan was angered by this characterization. He was welcomed by Forward editor Jane Eisner not long ago and is trying to keep up his relations with liberal Zionists. He issued a thinskinned tweet:
A @SamuelGFreedman published something factually incorrect about me. I asked him to apologize. He didn’t. I found he’s a prof. of journalism
Touchy.
As Freedman notes, limited access to the western wall for non-orthodox Jews is driving some of the estrangement. Daniel Gordis has called on American Jews to bring Israel to its knees by boycotting it over the western wall (but no boycott for Palestinian human rights!).
In the latest abuse, the official Cincinnati Jewish community is angered that four female students at the Hebrew Union College studying in Israel were forced to undergo body searches on August 23 before approaching the western wall in occupied East Jerusalem. Two were American. One, Tzvia Rubens, describes her treatment here.
Netanyahu has reportedly called for an investigation. He doesn’t want to lose his strategic asset, American Jewry, anytime soon. |
World Sailing Championships
Venue: Perth, Australia Date: December 3-18 Coverage: Latest updates on www.perth2011.com; video highlights, interviews and reports on the BBC Sport website
Ainslie had held the overall lead by eight points going into the final race
Triple Olympic champion Ben Ainslie has been disqualified from two Finn races at the World Championships in Australia and can no longer win a medal.
The 34-year-old had been involved in an altercation with officials on a media boat after he felt he was impeded by the wash the boat had created.
He attended a protest hearing and was disqualified from races nine and 10 for "gross misconduct".
"I felt my performance was hindered," Ainslie said in a statement.
"I'm very thankful that everyone involved has taken it how it was - as something which was blown out of proportion in terms of what actually happened."
The disqualifications meant it was the first time in the regatta the veteran had not finished in the top three. He will now finish in 11th and will not feature in the final race on Sunday.
Olympic history 2008 - gold (Finn)
2004 - gold (Finn)
2000 - gold (Laser)
1996 - silver (Laser)
Ainslie added: "We've all apologised to each other and are looking forward to moving on.
"I'm very sorry that the jury decided to react the way they did over something which really wasn't as big as it was blown up to be. It's very disappointing that the Championship has been decided this way."
However, Royal Yachting Association Olympic Manager Stephen Park criticised the treatment of Ainslie after his disqualifications were announced.
"Clearly this is a disappointing position for Ben and of course for the team. It's particularly disappointing bearing in mind that all parties that spoke at the hearing all effectively said exactly the same thing.
"Everyone accepted that there was fault on both the side of the television production crew and indeed on Ben's side."
He added: "At the moment the sport seems to be fumbling its way into trying to make the sport more appealing for television but surely there is a better way than trialling new race formats, rule regulations and specifically in this case media initiatives than trialling them at the World Championship which is arguably the most important event in the Olympic cycle outside of the Games themselves."
In September, Ainslie was named in the Great Britain squad for the 2012 Olympics, where he will be aiming to win a fourth gold medal.
Fellow Britons Giles Scott, Ed Wright and Andrew Mills will be among the 10 boats to go in Sunday's concluding medal race.
Scott heads into the final day in pole position and defending world title-holder Ed Wright in third.
Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell are well poised to become Great Britain's first medallists in Fremantle as they head into the 470 men's medal race second overall behind Australian defending champions Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page.
Bryony Shaw is out of contention for a podium sport in the RS:X event, while Alison Young will be Team GBR's representative in the Laser Radial final.
Women's match racing trio Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor won four of their five repechage matches as they bid to reach the quarter-finals of the event. |
DEFEDE: In the past you have talked about wanting to amend laws and rework things to make it easier to sue. Do you think there is too much protection allowed in the First Amendment? TRUMP: Well in England, they have a system where you can actually sue if someone says something wrong. Our press is allowed to say whatever they want and they get away with it. And I think we should go to a system where if they do something wrong – I’m a big believer, tremendous believer in the freedom of the press, nobody believes it stronger than me – but if they make terrible, terrible mistakes, and those mistakes are made on purpose to injure people – and I’m not just talking about me, I’m talking anybody else – then yes, I think you should have the ability to sue them.
As the transcript excerpt shows, Trump went on to further tout the benefits of a British system, in which the First Amendment does not exist.It’s worth noting, of course, that the U.S. system already has libel laws and Americans can already sue for “ actual malice .” Trump should probably be aware of this – because his friends at the National Enquirer and other tabloids have faced lawsuits along these lines before.Nevertheless, the Republican presidential hopeful apparently sees these laws as inadequate and wants to “go to a system” that makes it easier to target news organizations.And that’s just part of a broader series of changes Trump has in mind when it comes to American journalism.The GOP nominee also spoke over the weekend about breaking up Comcast/NBC Universal – MSNBC’s parent company – which he accused of “trying to poison the mind of the American voter.”Trump has also threatened to sue the New York Times, suggested he’d target Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, and pulled the credentials of outlets whose campaign coverage he disapproved of.Again, the fact that a would-be president often butts heads with major news organizations is about as common as the sunrise, but Donald Trump isn’t just unhappy with coverage he considers unfair. The Republican nominee has now expressed support for changing the nature of press freedoms in the United States.There’s been a lot of talk of late about Trump’s hostility towards democratic norms and American political institutions, and with good cause. The GOP candidate talks regularly and openly about imprisoning his opponents , his affinity for authoritarian regimes abroad, and his willingness to question the legitimacy of the U.S. elections process.But let’s not forget that Trump’s attitudes towards a free press clearly belong on the same list. |
Get the biggest Everton FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
There are, broadly speaking, two types of football fan.
There's the glass half full supporter, and the glass half empty doubter.
Those pertaining to be 'realists', incidentally, belong to the latter camp. Sorry.
Anyway, like all clubs Everton have a strong mix of both among their fanbase. There are those that see only the royal blue sky, and those that spot daily rainclouds over Goodison.
Thursday night saw the two worlds collide. It won't be the last time, this or any other season.
The optimists saw Everton's Europa League win over Ruzomberok as a lesson in patience, in getting the job done in a results industry. Progression was the aim of the game, and it was achieved.
The pessimists? They saw the one-paced movement and the laboured approach play - across both legs - and began to wonder. Wonder and worry.
Suddenly, the furrowed brows are out. The holes in the squad look bigger than ever, the start to the season more difficult than a month ago. Transfers are needed, and sharpish.
Ronald Koeman agrees on that last point, stating as much after the win in Slovakia.
(Image: Branislav Racko/TASR via AP)
The Blues boss wants at least three new faces before August is out; Gylfi Sigurdsson will be followed by a centre forward and a versatile, left-sided defender. Do that, the Dutchman says, and Everton can feel very good about their squad heading into the new campaign.
Koeman is not above questioning, of course, and nor should he be. But while Royal Blue is wary of telling supporters how to follow their club, the idea of going into the seasons with anything less than a wave of optimism worries us. Don't let the clouds appear, whatever you do.
Sure, there are issues to be ironed out moving forward – the ECHO highlighted a lack of pace after the first leg against Ruzomberok, for example, and the problem was evident again this week – and there is no time to waste in a place as competitive as the Premier League. Dropped points in August or September could be the difference between success and failure come May.
(Image: Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)
But Everton have made positive steps this summer, on and off the field. Their recruitment has been decisive and, Sigurdsson aside, swift. Three of their new signings – Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane and Davy Klaassen – impressed in Slovakia and bring new, exciting attributes to the table. Sandro Ramirez should too, although the Spaniard may require more of an adaptation period.
The Wayne Rooney deal can – and will – be debated at length we're sure, but what it has done is raise the bar in terms of profile and expectation at the club. No more 'little Everton', content with seventh and the odd rousing Goodison night; this is a club that wants to take big strides, that seeks to challenge the established order, whether now or in the not-too-distant.
Koeman's first season shows he can get things right, and his recruitment this summer suggests he knows exactly how he wants his team to play. Improving their away form has to be a priority, and explains some of the manager's thinking with regards signings – in particular his desire for a target-man style centre forward.
The Ruzomberok tie was underwhelming, but football in July and early August tends to be so - especially when your summer has involved such a significant reshuffle. Everton have added players and lost players; it will take time to strike the perfect blend.
Don't bet against Koeman finding it, though. And he'll have an even better chance of doing so with a full, rocking, positive Goodison behind him.
Keep those glasses half full. |
Photo by Allyson Peck
Rodney Beagle’s beer is coming to Colony Espresso and Beer — it’s just going to take a little while.
The North Kansas City coffee shop and bar is in the beginning stages of filing the necessary paperwork, but Beagle — a homebrewer who spent time learning to brew at Big Rip Brewing Co. — says he expects to have a Brewer’s Notice by the end of the year. The plan is to buy Rock & Run Brewery’s one-and-a-half-barrel system when the Liberty brewery upgrades to a three-barrel system in four months.
“The timelines match up perfectly,” Beagle says. “I don’t want to call it coincidence. It’s more like fate.”
Beagle anticipates beginning to brew in February or March. After that, he’ll follow what he calls the “Crane model” and take his brews to every festival to spread the Colony name.
Colony owner Drew Cobb confirms that the brewery will be built where one of two bathrooms now exists. There will be a window, so you can watch Beagle work. He plans to do two batches a day, with three Colony-brewed beers on tap at all times (and maybe a Crowler for 32-ounce to-go cans).
“I’ve kinda just been taking my favorite ideas from different places and incorporating them into our spot,” Beagle says. “Our goal is to serve the town of North Kansas City first and foremost, and cater to the clientele from the river to the hill.”
Beagle says he likes to brew fruit beers and revive historic styles rather than sticking to the usual suspects. “I promise you we will never have a pale ale, a brown ale, a stout and a wheat beer on tap,” he explains. “We’re never going to do that. We’re going to do fun, inventive beers that you want to go try that sparks interest. Instead of doing a pale ale, we’ll do a pale ale with lime zest and raspberry, kind of like the Cloud Nine from 4 Hands. Something weird that works.”
This year’s KC Nanobrew Festival was Beagle’s last under the Beagle Brewing moniker.
“I represent Colony Handcrafted Ales from here on out,” he says. “We’re not in it to get rich. We’re in it to drink beer. I can say that I’ll be doing this until the day that I die. I want to make beer because it makes people happy.”
Big Rip’s Ripper Halloween Party returns
The annual Ripper Halloween costume party at Big Rip Brewing Co. (216 East Ninth Avenue, North Kansas City) is set for Saturday, October 29, from 7 p.m. to midnight. It’s open bar (beer, wine and liquor), and you get dinner from Helen’s on Wheels, music, games and more for your $60 ticket.
Arts & Crafts dates set
The guys at Screenland have announced the dates for their not-to-be-missed beer fest: Friday, December 2, through Sunday, December 4. Look for more beers, movies, music and art in year No. 4. Tickets are on sale now.
Flying Saucer releases KC Craft Beer Week schedule
Kansas City Craft Beer Week is shaping up to be amazing. It starts Sunday with a 4 Hands Stout Week beer dinner. It continues through Friday. Look at this lineup:
Monday: Nebraska Brewing Betty Night, featuring Lil’Betty, Black Betty & Sexy Betty.
Tuesday: Avery Night, featuring 2013 Czar, 2015 Uncle Jacob’s Stout and 2016 Tweak.
Wednesday: 2014, ‘15 and ‘16 Deschutes Abyss vertical and KC Pet Project fundraiser.
Thursday: Mother’s night, featuring 2014 and 2015 MILF and 2016 Brandy-Barrel MILF.
Friday: Firestone Walker night, featuring 2014, ‘15 and ‘16 Parabola.
Torn Label releases Rod & Todd
Torn Label’s next draft and bottle release is here: Rod & Todd (the sons of Maude, you know, Flanders on The Simpsons), a Flanders-style red ale aged in Amigoni wine barrels. It is delicious.
Other Torn Label news: Halloween events go down October 27-30, including a movie marathon and a Halloween cask. Robert Altbier, an tribute to Robert Altman brewed in collaboration with Bier Station, is hitting on draft and in 22-ounce bottles in mid-October. Late October sees the release of Quadjillo, a Belgian quad with Quajillo chiles, on draft and in 22-ounce bottles. In November or December, Old Believer Russian imperial stout comes back on draft and in 22-ounce bottles. It’ll also come with variant releases weekly in the taproom.
Carve a pumpkin at Green Room
Green Room Burgers and Beer’s annual pumpkin-carving party is set for Wednesday, October 26, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the brewery (4010 Pennsylvania). Pumpkins provided.
Crane Brewing announces new taproom hours
Looking to visit Crane Brewing? Here’s when you can get in the taproom (6515 Railroad Street, Raytown): 4-10 p.m. Tuesday, 4-9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 2-10 p.m. Friday, and noon-10 p.m. Saturday. Tours now run Tuesdays and Wednesday at 4, 6 and 8 p.m., and Saturdays at noon, 2 and 4 p.m.
New Tallgrass brews
New beers from Manhattan’s Tallgrass Brewing Co. are coming to stores soon. Backpacker Brown, a hoppy brown ale, joins the year-round lineup. But the more intriguing release is Idaho 7 IPA, the first in the brewery’s Single Hop IPA Series. Idaho 7 features hops from the Jackson Hop Farm in Wilder, Idaho. Get it from September through December.
Thursday, September 29
Krokstrum Klubb & Market (3601 Broadway) hosts a five-course Crane Brewing beer dinner at 5 p.m. It’s all about beets, marking the launch of Beet Weiss. Seats cost $75; RSVP at 816-599-7531.
Sample Martin City Brewing Co. beers at Buckley’s Wine Market (8661 West 135th Street, Overland Park) from 5 to 7 p.m.
Friday, September 30
Grünauer (101 West 22nd Street) throws its Oktoberfest at 3 p.m.
Gomer’s (9902 Holmes) hosts a Martin City can sampling from 4 to 6 p.m. Or head to MDL (13510 South Alden, Olathe) from 4 to 6 p.m.
Saturday, October 1
Cider-Tobierfest, with cider pressing, German beers and food, goes from noon to 5 p.m. at Grain to Glass (1611 Swift, North Kansas City). The festival resumes Sunday, October 2.
The annual Westport Oktoberfest pub crawl is today.
Beer Tasting Kansas City bottle share, cookout and camp out starts at noon at Smithville Lake, shelter No. 9. You don’t have to camp out to share beers.
Louisburg Ciderfest takes place today at the Louisburg Cider Mill (14730 KS-68, Louisburg) from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Free State Brewing hosts an open house at its eastside brewery (1923 Moodie Road, Lawrence) from noon to 4 p.m. Old Fangled will be there playing music and there will be food, drink and dogs. Yes, dogs. There will be pups there from the Lawrence Humane Society that are in need of forever homes. Sample a beer, take a dog home.
Sample beers from aspiring KC brewery Strange Days at Borgman’s Dairy Farm (777 Northwest 131 Highway, Holden) from 6 to 9 p.m. Expect beer and goat cheese; look for Australian Sparkling Ale, Galaxy Pale Ale, Daydream saison, IBS (Imperial Belgian Stout). Tickets range from $20 to $35.
Sunday, October 2
One word: Cantillon. Two words: Bier Station. Get to 120 East Gregory Boulevard from noon to 4 p.m to drink Cantillon Gueuze, along with Rose de Gambrinus, Kriek, Vigneronne, Lou Pepe Gueuze. Also, kegs from Jolly Pumpkin, Crooked Stave, Prairie, Mikkeller.
Monday, October 3
The self-serve beer wall officially goes live at 99 Hops in the Argosy Casino (777 Northwest Argosy Casino Parkway, Riverside), and it starts with a 13-tap Jolly Pumpkin takeover. The first 30 people get a Jolly Pumpkin glass.
Tuesday, October 4
Torn Label Brewing Co. is taking over the taps at Colony Espresso and Beer (312 Armour Road, North Kansas City) with limited-release beers and a special coffee-beer variant.
Wednesday, October 5
Get a John Lennon glass at the Flying Saucer (101 East 13th Street) tonight at 6.
Friday, October 7
Rimman Liquors (15117 West 87th Street Parkway, Lenexa) samples Deschutes beers from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 8
Botanical Brewfest at at the Overland Park Arboretum (8909 West 179th Street, Overland Park) from 4 to 8 p.m.
Leinenkugel’s is bringing Oktoberfest to the Power & Light District from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. It’s $10 to get in, and there will be wiener dog races.
Wednesday, October 12
Stone Brewing’s 20th Anniversary tapping takes place at the Foundry (424 Westport Road) starting at 4 p.m.
BD’s Mongolian Grill (19750 East Valley View Parkway, Independence) is hosting a Samuel Adams stein-hoisting contest from 6 to 8 p.m. This is an official qualifier with the winner getting a chance to go to Las Vegas and maybe on to Munich. On tap: 2015 KMF.
It’s a Ballast Point hump-day fundraiser for Spay and Neuter KC at Bier Station from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. On tap: Longfin Lager and more. |
As early as 2018, we can expect to see truly autonomous weaponised artificial intelligence that delivers its blows slowly, stealthily and virtually without trace. And 2018 will be the year of the machine-on-machine attack.
There is much debate about the possible future of autonomous AI on the battlefield. Once released, these systems are not controlled. They do not wait for orders from base. They learn and make their own decisions often while deep inside enemy territory. And they learn quickly from their environments.
Advertisement
However, autonomous AIs are already starting to be deployed on another type of battlefield: digital networks. Today cyber-attackers are using AI technologies that help them not only infiltrate an IT infrastructure, but to stay on that network for months, perhaps years, without getting noticed.
In 2018, we can expect these algorithmic presences to use their intelligence to learn about their environments and blend in with the daily commotion of network activity. The drivers of these automated attacks may have a defined target – the blueprint designs of a new type of jet engine, say – or persist opportunistically, where the chance for money- or mischief-making avails itself. As they sustain their presence, they grow stronger in their inside knowledge of the network and its users and they build up control over data and entire systems.
Read next Nvidia's got a cunning plan to keep powering the AI revolution Nvidia's got a cunning plan to keep powering the AI revolution
We can’t let the dark web give online anonymity a bad name WIRED Security We can’t let the dark web give online anonymity a bad name
Like the HIV virus, which is so pernicious because it uses the body's own defences to replicate itself, these new machine intelligences will target the very defences deployed against it. They will learn how the firewall works, the analytics models used to detect attacks and times of day that the security team is in the office. They will then adapt to avoid and weaken them. All the while, it will use its strength to spread, creating inroads for compromise and contaminating devices with brutal efficiency.
AI will also attack us by impersonating people. We already have AI assistants that do our scheduling, email on our behalf and ask us what we'd like to order for lunch. But what happens if your AI assistant gets taken over by a malicious attacker? Or, indeed, what happens when weaponised AI is refined enough to convincingly impersonate a real person who you trust?
Advertisement
A stealthy, long-term AI presence on your network will have ample time to learn what your writing style is and how this differs depending on who you email, your contact base and the distinctions in professional and personal relationships based on the language you use and key themes in your conversations.
For example, you email your partner five times a day, particularly in the morning and afternoon. They sign their emails "X". Your football team emails weekly with details for Saturday's five-a-side games. They sign emails "Be there!". This is fodder for AI.
As to what we should do about these malicious AIs: they will be too clever and stealthy to combat other than with other AIs. This is one arena we'll have to give up control, not take it back. |
The New Bellwethers is a series examining counties, in key states, that politically mirror the country overall.
GASTON COUNTY, North Carolina — “Forgive our mess,” Mary Anne Huggins said as she led me through the Gaston County Republican Party headquarters on a recent Wednesday morning. “We never throw anything away — we’re conservative.”
A gallery of candidate yard signs was tacked neatly on a fresh raspberry-red paint job — Trump, McCrory, McHenry, Bumgardner. Official photos of George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle hung side by side on one wall; a portrait of Liddy Dole graced another. “At some point after moving in, we lost a Ronald Reagan picture,” Huggins said. Gaston County, as the decor showed, has long been what she called “a down-home, conservative-value county.”
“You’ve got Union County, Mecklenburg and Gaston,” Huggins said, ticking off the names of counties encompassing or abutting Charlotte, the state’s largest city. Mecklenburg, home to Charlotte, had started to go in “another direction,” she said, making Gaston’s role as conservative firewall even more important. “We are holding our conservative values — you notice that right next door is a church. We are very God conscious, family values.”
Gaston County is made up of cities and towns filled with modest homes and businesses. Most of its roughly 200,000 residents are white, and more than half of people aged 25 and over have attended at least some college. In 2012, Mitt Romney won the suburban county easily, 62 percent to President Obama’s 37 percent, the same margin that John McCain beat Obama by in 2008. But this year, according to data gathered from August to early October by the polling firm Morning Consult, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been running neck and neck in Gaston County, with each supported by about 40 percent of voters.
Huggins was reluctant to talk about the Republican nominee or the dissent rippling through the party — she wouldn’t say for whom she’d voted in the primary, either. “That’s over,” Huggins said. People who came through the office doors for yard signs and to volunteer didn’t seem to care too much about national party infighting.
“We’re here to win a campaign in a positive way — Gaston County is positive,” Huggins said.
I left the office a while later with a barbecue recommendation, my handshake rejected for a hug. Three days later, a county-level Republican office in North Carolina just like the one where Huggins works was firebombed.
Republican Gov. Pat McCrory called the crime “an attack on democracy,” and Clinton tweeted that it was “horrific and unacceptable.” But that such a visceral and politically motivated act was perpetrated in North Carolina seemed sadly less than surprising. For some months, the state has shown itself to be perhaps the most active and controversial practitioner of democracy in 2016’s America.
The state’s streak of in-the-news-ness started in March, when McCrory signed into law a bill that would overturn a Charlotte city ordinance allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice in public buildings. In May, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state while a stream of prominent corporations and organizations pulled their North Carolina business. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would hear a case arguing that the state’s redrawing of congressional districts relied too heavily on racial considerations. In July, a federal appeals court ruled that its voter ID bill was unconstitutional and sought to suppress the black vote “with almost surgical precision.” In September, a black man named Keith Lamont Scott was fatally shot by police in Charlotte, sparking a days-long protest against the city government in which one protester, Justin Carr, was killed.
2016 is a year that has challenged political norms and traditional coalitions, something that is evident in Gaston County. The faultlines in America, this election has shown, are between white and nonwhite and increasingly between those with a college education and those without it. Although in the past Republicans performed well with college-educated whites, the kind of Gaston voter Huggins might be used to targeting, Trump consistently loses the group. As the leanings of some demographic groups change, so do areas, and the transition is slowly revealing itself in Gaston County as traditional conservatives, socially liberal Republicans and the underdog Democrats grapple with the implications of 2016.
With all that’s roiling in North Carolina, it remains to be seen whether Republicans can hold onto their preeminence at the state level in the year of Trump and a fractious national party. The GOP came to power in historic fashion starting with the 2010 election — it took over the legislature for the first time in over a century, and McCrory became the first Republican governor in 20 years. McCrory, who is seeking re-election, is currently down in a tight race, and the state’s U.S. Senate race is close as well. All the while, North Carolina seems to be tilting more and more into Clinton’s column.
The GOP’s troubles this year have been exacerbated by its loss of strength among white, college-educated voters like 31-year-old Audrey Whitlock of Gastonia, the county seat, a Republican who won’t be casting ballots for Republicans this year.
“At first, Trump seemed like fun,” she said. “He was hitting some hard points that both sides needed [to].” But she had gradually grown to distrust him, especially because of his debate performances. “He doesn’t really say anything,” Whitlock said.
Whitlock and her husband are voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson — they couldn’t stand the idea of going all the way over to Clinton. But Whitlock’s views on cultural issues weren’t the traditional down-home conservative kind. When conversation turned to talk of the bathroom bill, she characterized it largely as a distraction. “We’re heading to a place where the U.S. needs to be socially liberal and fiscally responsible,” she said.
The Clinton campaign sees opportunities among Whitlock’s demographic cohort in North Carolina. Democrats have been tapping into this group’s dissatisfaction with the state’s socially conservative politics since the summer, according to reports. And the election could prove an opportunity for the state party to reclaim some of its lost political capital. Still, the slog is difficult in places like Gaston County, with the sort of Republican-level organizing that enables raspberry-red paint jobs, bustling offices and Liddy Dole portraiture. Partisan lines may be changing, but it’s not happening overnight.
Up close, turning a red state blue involves unbridled optimism in the face of sure failure. On a warm October evening, Andy Millard, the Democrats’ candidate in North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District, was a happy embodiment of such optimism as he prepared to canvass a Gastonia neighborhood; the race for the seven-county district, rated solidly Republican by the Cook Political Report, will in all likelihood remain in the hands of Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has held the seat since 2005. Still, Millard, a 59-year-old former principal and financial adviser who has never held elected office, was brimming with all-in cheer.
“Cortés landed in Mexico with his army, the first order he gave was: ‘Burn the ships. We’re not going back,’” Millard said. “That’s exactly what we’re doing here. We’re not going back — I sold my business earlier this year, and I have a non-compete.”
The task at hand was contact with undecided voters, and a motley crew — Millard’s field director LJ Brooks, 29, an alumnus of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign; a bespectacled, white-haired man; three nerdily raucous college boys; and Millard’s adult son — joined the candidate. As the crew huddled to hear Brooks’s pep talk, Millard, dressed that night in a campaign windbreaker and collared shirt, stepped back and snapped iPhone photos of the group.
About an hour before sunset, they started walking, the neighborhood a suburban suppertime symphony of barking dogs. Millard was out to court the kinds of voters who might be offended by Trump’s uncouthness, like the stroller-pushing mother with whom he stopped to chat.
The small victories of voter contact energized Millard. “I no longer recognize the Congress that I fell in love with in ninth-grade civics,” he said more than a couple of times to explain why he was running. He went on: “I’m not egotistical enough to think that I can change the world by myself. I’m only one guy, but I would say, ‘I’m your guy, I can help.’” Coming from a seasoned pol, the lines might have sounded hackneyed, but in the fading October sunlight of 2016, Millard seemed like a character straight out of a Capra movie, plopped down in a cul-de-sac.
As the light faded, Millard sprinted up the steps of another house to squeeze in a “hello” to a woman who the crew had reported was getting dinner on and was less than enthusiastic about talking. Every house counted in Millard’s red-to-blue crusade, but he came back quickly from this one.
“I’m sorry but no” had been her answer, he said. It was on to the next house, the pace picking up as the night crickets began their warm up.
A 20-minute drive from Gaston County and Millard’s civics class reverence for the possibilities of American democracy, Braxton Winston, 33, sat in the backyard of The Thomas Street Tavern in Charlotte nursing a beer and talking about the weeks since the shooting of Keith Scott Lamont. Winston attracted attention during the demonstrations that followed for his livestreams of the street scene between police and protesters.
“What happened in Charlotte wasn’t violence — it was the Constitution coming alive,” Winston said. A world apart from the placid pace of suburban Gaston, the protests against police violence in Charlotte — and many other cities across the U.S. — have helped shape the narrative outlines of the election: the need for law and order vs. the need for a searching look at the inherent biases built into American life.
Winston said that he and the other protesters had been frightened by the police presence during the protests, unsure of what might happen. But, he said, “it was like that fear collectively turned to power because we knew we were right.” It was his job now, he said, to be a leader of the movement, a leader outside the traditional political schema. Millard’s response to the country’s problems was to run for office; Winston’s was to organize.
As the election has wound down to its final weeks, discussion about fundamental principles of American democracy has grown more pitched, with pillars we once took for granted, like the peaceful acceptance of the results of a presidential election, shaken by a major party’s nominee. Many of our lives are filled with more convenience and comfort than ever before — America is more likely to be heard singing in 12-car-deep Chick-fil-A drive-thru lines these days than at the cobbler’s table or behind the plow — yet there is great angst about our 240-year-old republic. It might be that Americans fear the institutions we built, governmental and societal, have grown too large, too out of their lane of ordained responsibility. We wonder: “Are analysts reading our text messages through the cloud? Are newsmen swilling martinis poolside with politicians, colluding over what they think the best course for the plebs might be?” Only 32 percent of Americans say they trust the media; 19 percent say they trust the federal government to do what is right. 2016’s “rigged” paranoia might be some side effect of this niggling sense that we are not quite in control, our institutions grown too sprawling to be accountable to us. All of a sudden, the comfort has a terrifying tinge to it.
Winston has largely stopped going to his job as a camera operator in recent weeks. He said his primary task was to focus on organizing the movement in Charlotte. He wanted to keep people alive to the city’s problems long after the news stories of protests had ended.
“Every republic has failed before America because of the lack of the civic virtue,” Winston said. “Civic virtue gets zapped by the institutions that are created to keep the citizens in line.” The result, Winston said, was a system that advances just a few. “It makes certain people comfortable; it makes certain people feel safe and secure,” he said.
His was the same quest as Andy Millard’s and Mary Anne Huggins’s — to mobilize a citizenry — it was just less sedate, a bit more urgent in its telling. “This country is not based on parties and political ideals,” Winston said. “We live under a moral code that is supposed to join all of us — it doesn’t mean we all think the same, but we have the same interests, we have different ways to get there.”
There was one sure thing about the business of perfecting our democracy, Winston said. None of us will live to see the ninth-grade civics class dream of America; we’re only a couple of hundred years into this project for the ages. |
In a new study of adults' core skills in 23 mostly developed countries, the U.S. had a particularly unimpressive showing, scoring well below average in literacy, math, and tech skills. As bad as the overall scores were, young adults in America did even worse.
When you restrict scores to 16 to 24 year olds, the U.S. ranks 18th out of 23 countries for literacy and is dead last for math skills and the ability to use technology to solve problems.
Young people in the U.S., on average, score 29 points below young people across all countries in math and 40 points below top-scoring countries like Japan and Finland. America's young people are 10 points behind Italy, the second-lowest scoring country:
OECD
Generally, math scores tend to be at their highest between ages 25 and 34. The U.S. has the second-lowest score in that age group, behind only Spain. Scores hold up a bit better later, but the tiny difference between the youngest and oldest age groups suggest that education in the U.S. hasn't been getting any better. It might be getting worse:
OECD
This is especially worrisome because the U.S. cites math skills as more important on the job than any other country except for Canada. And despite the degree to which young people seem attached to the Internet and smartphones, America has the highest proportion of young adults with bottom-tier scores for tech skills.
This is the first time this assessment's been done, but the trend looks to be getting worse for the U.S., not better.
Read the full report here. |
Bryant McIntosh administers the offense. The freshman point guard could only muster up 5 points against Penn State but will likely need to produce a lot more offense if Northwestern hopes to keep up with high-octane Indiana.
Bryant McIntosh administers the offense. The freshman point guard could only muster up 5 points against Penn State but will likely need to produce a lot more offense if Northwestern hopes to keep up with high-octane Indiana.
Bryant McIntosh administers the offense. The freshman point guard could only muster up 5 points against Penn State but will likely need to produce a lot more offense if Northwestern hopes to keep up with high-octane Indiana.
Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like. Close
Email This Story Send email to this address Enter Your Name Add a comment here Verification Send Email Cancel
Northwestern is trying to not let winning go to its head.
The Wildcats (13-14, 4-10 Big Ten) are riding a three-game winning streak after impressive victories over Iowa, Minnesota and Penn State in the past two weeks. NU will try to keep its winning ways going on Wednesday at Welsh-Ryan Arena against Indiana (19-9, 9-6), another potentially tournament-bound opponent.
But the Cats are determined to treat the matchup like any other contest.
“It’s another Big Ten game. It’s another great opportunity,” freshman point guard Bryant McIntosh said. “It’s a great school with a lot of history, so it would be a big win for us as a team. But I’m not treating it any differently.”
That calm attitude flies in the face of playing yet another squad that’s fighting for its NCAA Tournament life, teams that coach Chris Collins said can be very tough to go against late in the season.
And that extra motivation is being added on to a team that already poses matchup problems for NU. Led by star point guard Yogi Ferrell, who is averaging 16.2 points and five assists per game, the Hoosiers are the highest-scoring offensive team in the conference. McIntosh had an off night against the Nittany Lions, scoring just 5 points on 2-of-7 shooting, but he’ll need to be at his best Wednesday.
“(Indiana) is a dynamic team, a lot of firepower,” Collins said. “They have multiple ball handlers too. Ferrell is a tremendous guard, but (Robert) Johnson, (James) Blackmon and (Troy) Williams are all guys who create equally as well for them.”
The key to Indiana’s high-octane success is its sizzling 3-point shooting. The Hoosiers are the best in the Big Ten with 41.2 percent shooting from beyond the arc, 2 percent better than runner-up Michigan State, and have five players — Ferrell, Blackmon, Johnson, guard Nick Zeisloft and forward Colin Hartman — on the roster shooting 40 percent or better from 3-point range.
That perimeter precision poses a threat to the Cats’ newly established allegiance to the 2-3 zone, a defensive set that is designed to limit dribble penetration at the expense of giving up outside shots. The switch to the zone was the catalyst for NU’s win streak, and Collins said he plans to stick with it for the rest of this season, regardless of the matchup.
“(The zone) has helped us. It’s kept us out of foul trouble,” Collins said. “It’s helped our personnel, our team. Our guys believe in it, so I think more than anything that’s what’s been good. … For this year it’s something we’re committed to doing.”
Despite all the lip service paid to consistency and not treating one game differently than the next, the Cats haven’t been able to hide the uptick in confidence that has infected the team since it started winning. It’s evident in Collins sticking with the 2-3 zone against an elite shooting team, and “confident” was the coach’s buzzword of choice when he talked about the progress freshman forward Vic Law, who led NU with 17 points and 11 rebounds against Penn State, has made this season.
Collins is hopeful the recent change in attitude can be an enduring one.
“Now that we’ve won, we can’t lose sight of the formula,” he said. “We’ve won because we’ve prepared well. We’re hungry. … I feel like we’re one of those teams that is still excited to play.”
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @BobbyPillote
Comments |
by DAVE MARTINEZ
HANOVER, N.J. – While the New York Red Bulls are focused on the second leg of their Eastern Conference Semifinal, they are also keeping an eye on 2016.
Case in point: Tyler Adams.
The 16-year-old New York Red Bulls academy player and USL standout has signed a senior team contract, making him an official part of the Red Bull first team.
“It’s good to have Tyler with us full time,” head coach Jesse Marsch said after practice on Tuesday afternoon. “I congratulated him this morning. He is a full time Red Bull player on November 1st. It’s good to have him with us now permanently.”
Adams played 808 minutes over 11 matches for New York Red Bulls II of the USL this season. He will be training with the club through November, but will not be eligible for selection this postseason.
He turns 17 this February.
As Marsch notes, New York continues to look towards their youth ranks to build the senior side. Stefano Bonomo and Devon Williams are also being given a deeper look by the club for a potential first team spot.
“Even though it’s obviously an important time of the year and we are chasing big dreams, the whole thing is about everyday moving this thing forward,” Marsch said. “Everybody growing and getting better.” |
As I walked away from the St. Regis in downtown San Francisco tonight, I found myself wandering through the streets towards my hotel with something unique in tow. It was a smile. I was smiling, thinking about what AMD had just demonstrated and showed at its latest Zen processor reveal. The importance of this product launch can literally not be overstated for a company struggling to find a foothold to hang on to in a market that it once had a definitive lead. It’s been many years since I left a conference call, or a meeting, or a press conference feeling genuinely hopefully and enthusiastic about what AMD has shown me. Tonight I had that.
AMD’s CEO Lisa Su, and CTO Mark Papermaster, took stage down the street from the Intel Developer Forum to roll out a handful of new architectural details about the Zen architecture while also showing the first performance results comparing it to competing parts from Intel. The crowd in attendance, a mix of media and analysts, were impressed. The feeling was palpable in the room.
It’s late as I write this, and while there are some interesting architecture details to discuss, I think it is in everyone’s best interest that we touch on them lightly for now, and instead refocus on the deep-dive once the Hot Chips information comes out early next week. What you really want to know is clear: can Zen make Intel work again? Can Zen make that $1700 price tag on the Broadwell-E 6950X seem even more ludicrous? Yes.
The Zen Architecture
Much of what was discussed from the Zen architecture is a re-release of what has been out in recent months. This is a completely new, from the ground up, microarchitecture and not a revamp of the aging Bulldozer design. It integrated SMT (simultaneous multi-threading), a first for an AMD CPU, to better take efficient advantage of a longer pipeline. Intel has had HyperThreading for a long time now and AMD is finally joining the fold. A high bandwidth and low latency caching system is used to “feed the beast” as Papermaster put it and utilizing 14nm process technology (starting at Global Foundries) gives efficiency, and scaling a significant bump while enabling AMD to scale from notebooks to desktops to servers with the same architecture.
By far the most impressive claim from AMD thus far was that of a 40% increase in IPC over previous AMD designs. That’s a HUGE claim and is key to the success or failure of Zen. AMD proved to me today that the claims are real and that we will see the immediate impact of that architecture bump from day one.
Press was told of a handful of high level changes to the new architecture as well. Branch prediction gets a complete overhaul. This marks the first AMD processor to have a micro-op cache. Wider execution width with broader instruction schedulers are integrated, all of which adds up to much higher instruction level parallelism to improve single threaded performance.
Performance improvements aside, throughput and efficiency go up with Zen as well. AMD has integrated an 8MB L3 cache and improved prefetching for up 5x the cache bandwidth available per core on the CPU. SMT makes sure the pipeline stays full to prevent “bubbles” that introduce latency and lower efficiency while region-specific power gating means that we’ll see Zen in notebooks as well as enterprise servers in 2017. It truly is an impressive design from AMD.
Summit Ridge, the enthusiast platform that will be the first product available with Zen, is based on the AM4 platform and processors will go up to 8-cores and 16-threads. DDR4 memory support is included, PCI Express 3.0 and what AMD calls “next-gen” IO – I would expect a quick leap forward for AMD to catch up on things like NVMe and Thunderbolt.
The Real Deal – Zen Performance
As part of today’s reveal, AMD is showing the first true comparison between Zen and Intel processors. Sure, AMD showed a Zen-powered system running the upcoming Deus Ex running at 4K with a system powered by the Fury X, but the really impressive results where shown when comparing Zen to a Broadwell-E platform.
Using Blender to measure the performance of a rendering workload (a Zen CPU mockup of course), AMD ran an 8-core / 16-thread Zen processor at 3.0 GHz against an 8-core / 16-thread Broadwell-E processor at 3.0 GHz (likely a fixed clocked Core i7-6900K). The point of the demonstration was to showcase the IPC improvements of Zen and it worked: the render completed on the Zen platform a second or two faster than it did on the Intel Broadwell-E system.
Not much to look at, but Zen on the left, Broadwell-E on the right...
Of course there are lots of caveats: we didn’t setup the systems, I don’t know for sure that GPUs weren’t involved, we don’t know the final clocks of the Zen processors releasing in early 2017, etc. But I took two things away from the demonstration that are very important.
The IPC of Zen is on-par or better than Broadwell. Zen will scale higher than 3.0 GHz in 8-core configurations.
AMD obviously didn’t state what specific SKUs were going to launch with the Zen architecture, what clock speeds they would run at, or even what TDPs they were targeting. Instead we were left with a vague but understandable remark of “comparable TDPs to Broadwell-E”.
Pricing? Overclocking? We’ll just have to wait a bit longer for that kind of information.
Closing Thoughts
There is clearly a lot more for AMD to share about Zen but the announcement and showcase made this week with the early prototype products have solidified for me the capability and promise of this new microarchitecture. We have asked for, and needed, as an industry, a competitor to Intel in the enthusiast CPU space – something we haven’t legitimately had since the Athlon X2 days. Zen is what we have been pining over, what gamers and consumers have needed.
AMD’s processor stars might finally be aligning for a product that combines performance, efficiency and scalability at the right time. I’m ready for it –are you? |
Copyright by WCMH - All rights reserved Jeremy Carpenter and Joshua Howard shown in jail booking photos after being arrested by the sheriff's office.
Copyright by WCMH - All rights reserved Jeremy Carpenter and Joshua Howard shown in jail booking photos after being arrested by the sheriff's office.
KOIN Staff - PORTLAND, OR (KOIN) - A man looking to buy meth ended up being held captive for an entire day after stealing $25,000, according to court documents.
Jeremy Carpenter and Joshua Howard both appeared in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Monday. Carpenter is charged with one count of first-degree kidnapping, being a felon in possession of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. Howard is charged with just one count of first-degree kidnapping.
According to court documents, the victim was kidnapped on September 15 after he went to a golf course in the Hazelwood neighborhood to score 2 ounces of meth from Howard.
When the victim showed up, he got into Howard's vehicle. That's when Carpenter sat up in the back of the vehicle and held a knife to the victim's throat, records state. Carpenter is accused of hitting the victim with the butt of the gun and holding the barrel to the their head.
The victim told authorities that about three weeks before being kidnapped, he had stolen $25,000 from a meth supplier who Carpenter sells for.
Howard is accused of driving the victim from the golf course parking lot to Carpenter's house. The victim was kept in the garage and was told that if he didn't disclose the location of the money, his car would be burned.
"[Carpenter] also told [the victim] his life was on the line," according to court documents.
The victim eventually told Carpenter and Howard that the money he had stolen was in a safe deposit box at his work so the two suspects drove him there, according to court documents.
"Once there, [the victim] ran out the back door, through a wooded area, and then got on a bus," according to court documents. At that point, he called 911.
When questioned by detectives, Howard told police that he never saw the gun or knife that the victim claimed Carpenter had, according to court documents. Howard said he knew that he would serve as the driver for the drug deal with the victim, and knew about the theft of the $25,000.
Deputies with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant at Carpenter's residence, and inside the garage they found the victim's vehicle, a backpack containing 1,400 grams of meth, drug records, a scale, two firearms, a wallet containing Carpenter's ID, 3 sets of brass knuckles, a phone and $1,000.
A third firearm was found in the garage.
Records show Carpenter lives in Gladstone, and that he has been convicted of 9 felonies and 4 misdemeanors.
Records show that Howard has been convicted of 12 felonies, 5 misdemeanors and 17 parole or probation violations. |
Sayonara Umihara Kawase + Is Coming To The US For PS Vita On April 21st
By Chris Priestman . April 15, 2015 . 8:27am
Agatsuma Entertainment Co. has revealed that the PlayStation Vita version of physics-based puzzle platformer Sayonara Umihara Kawase is heading to the US on April 21st. Yes, that’s two days before Japan gets it on April 23rd. Europe will also get a digital version soon after.
The cult classic will be titled Sayonara Umihara Kawase + in the US and it also comes with the original 1994 entry to the series Umihara Kawase packaged as a bonus for fans.
You can watch an English trailer for the game above, which shows off Umihara and his rubber fishing line bouncing across the game’s 60 colorful stages at 60fps. It also reveals that you’ll be able to watch the best runs of other players from around the world as well as compete against them.
Sayonara Umihara Kawase + will cost $19.99 to buy through the PlayStation Store. |
WASHINGTON — Potty humor just got prehistoric. A new study suggests that dinosaurs may have helped keep an already overheated world warmer with their flatulence and burps 200 million years ago. The research published Monday in Current Biology suggests that large dinosaurs made a significant contribution to the greenhouse effect back then. Study author David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University in England estimated that about 570 million tons of methane came from dinosaurs. That's similar to total atmospheric levels of methane today produced by livestock, farming and industry. Cows alone now produce nearly 100 tons a year of methane.
The study looks at the biggest — and presumably gassiest — dinosaurs, called sauropods. These were the long-necked plant eaters that munched on the top of trees. They were large animals that had food fermenting in their guts for long periods of time because of their giant size, said University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz, who wasn't part of the study.
Wilkinson said dinosaur gas was just one factor at a time when the world was quite tropical, about 18 degrees warmer than now (10 degrees Celsius). But he said some in the media and blogosphere have misinterpreted his study to say it was the main cause of ancient warming. In a phone interview, Wilkinson said it was only one of the causes, but dinosaur gas "is big enough to be a measurable effect."
What caused the ancient pre-human world to be so hot — just the way the dinosaurs needed it — was a variety of factors. Volcanoes spewed much more greenhouse gases than now, Holtz said. Swamps, water currents, shallow seas and plentiful plankton combined to raise greenhouse gas levels far higher than today, he said.
Outside climate experts say the study makes some sense, but that the warming from dinosaur gas back then is dwarfed by man-made carbon dioxide today from industry.
NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt quickly ran some calculations based on Wilkinson's figures. Dinosaur methane would have hiked temperatures about half a degree (0.3 degrees Celsius), which is a fraction of what's been caused by the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil in the 20th Century, he said.
It's also wrong to suggest the study blames dinosaur flatulence for their extinction, Holtz said. He noted that the sauropods started showing up — and getting gassy — around 200 million years ago and didn't die off until 65 million years ago.
University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said: "Frankly, methane emissions from dinosaur burps is probably not the No. 1 thing we should be concerned about in modern society."
By Seth Borenstein, AP science writer |
Surveying the present state of affairs, the observer is struck by the elements of contradiction in objective conditions and in the American policies intended to address them. Indeed, contradiction is the outstanding feature of the United States’ engagements in the Middle East. The swift Russian intervention into Syria exacerbates every one of the contradictory elements in Washington’s various, unintegrated Middle East policies. That is one reason for the unexpected moves by Putin are deeply unsettling. They not only add a major variable, but that factor also involves a self-willed player ready and able to take initiatives which are not predictable or easy to counter. An already fluid field of action, thereby, is rendered even more turbulent by orders of magnitude.
The Middle East almost always has been near the top of the American foreign policy agenda. Balancing commitment to Israel’s welfare with the high value placed on support for oil-rich Arab states has been one challenge. Reconciling rhetorical dedication to democracy promotion and human rights with a pragmatic recognition of friendly despotisms has been another. Hostile relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran added one more stressful element. Then the rise of radical jihadist movements and the phenomenon of transnational terrorism came to the fore. That turbulent mix has been stirred into a maelstrom by dramatic events – some initiated by the United States itself. Occupation of Afghanistan in response to 9/11, invasion and occupation of Iraq, the region-wide Global War on Terror, the Arab Spring, and capped by the unprecedented menace of ISIL.
Another, related reason is that since the United States has no comprehensive strategy, the repercussions of the Russian actions, military and political, are generating a piecemeal reaction that finds it difficult to gain any intellectual or diplomatic traction in each policy sphere. Theoretically, these developments should highlight the need for such an overarching strategy by underscoring the costs of not having one. There is no evidence, though, of that happening within the Obama administration – or within the American foreign policy community generally. Why? In addition to the manifest lack of aptitude for such an undertaking, the kinds of conceptual adjustments indicated by the Russian intervention touch on highly sensitive questions of America’s status and mission in the world which its political elite is unprepared to engage.
The swift Russian intervention into Syria exacerbates every one of the contradictory elements in Washington’s various, unintegrated Middle East policies. That is one reason for the unexpected moves by Putin are deeply unsettling. They not only add a major variable, but that factor also involves a self-willed player ready and able to take initiatives which are not predictable or easy to counter. An already fluid field of action, thereby, is rendered even more turbulent by orders of magnitude. Another, related reason is that since the United States has no comprehensive strategy, the repercussions of the Russian actions, military and political, are generating a piecemeal reaction that finds it difficult to gain any intellectual or diplomatic traction in each policy sphere. Theoretically, these developments should highlight the need for such an overarching strategy by underscoring the costs of not having one. There is no evidence, though, of that happening within the Obama administration – or within the American foreign policy community generally. Why? In addition to the manifest lack of aptitude for such an undertaking, the kinds of conceptual adjustments indicated by the Russian intervention touch on highly sensitive questions of America’s status and mission in the world which its political elite is unprepared to engage.
Let us look first at the specific, practical effects on those problems with which Washington already is struggling. In Syria itself, the ambiguous Obama approach of “patience and persistence” is now fully exposed as the empty slogan that it always has been. Its basic flaws lie in the elementary failure to identify your enemy (ies), your allies, the nature of the threat and your objectives. No one has been able to say – from the President on down. Very early in the multi-party civil war, there was a recognition of their being two enemies: 1) the Assad government which President Obama vocally proclaimed “must go;” and 2) the diverse jihadist movements, declared foes of the West and their friends in the Islamic world, who rapidly became the dominant opposition force. The latter have subordinated “moderate” groups – both secular and Islamic – to a secondary status, with their very existence now being at the sufferance of al-Nusra (primarily) and ISIL. The former, in turn, is at war with ISIL for leadership of the Islamist cause – a conflict that creates incentives for it to tolerate tacit forms of cooperation with the “moderates’ so as to facilitate the continued flow of assistance from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf statelets, Turkey and the United States itself (via the “moderate’ intermediaries” who “reverse launder” them).
American policy-makers have sought to avoid the painful choice of selecting a “preferred enemy” by concentrating their rhetorical fire on ISIl while, at the same time, trying to square the circle by building a “third force” of politically congenial elements who would fight, and defeat, both ISIL and the Damascus regime. That latter initiative has failed ignominiously and was officially suspended on October 9 by the Pentagon.1 Unofficially, it never was viewed as the panacea. I was told by a State Department official who works on Syria, a year ago, that it was generally understand that the training project was just political window dressing. No one in the administration (except for a few incurable innocents) believed in it or thought that it could have any practical results. Oddly, Obama himself stated as much in an interview with Thomas Friedman last summer.2 That's $50 million worth of window dressing. It seems that the other $450 million was spent mainly by the CIA to continue supplying their tacit allies up North, i.e. remnants of the Free Syrian Army and their associates which include parts of the al-Nusra apparatus. It has become public knowledge that that program dates from 2011, allowing for a slowdown, if not complete break, in 2012 when Obama rejected a formal proposal from CIA Director David Petraeus to expand it. In practice, much of the sophisticated equipment simply passed through the administrative hands of validated “good guys” directly into the hands of the “bad guys.”
The logical contradiction between the White House’s lack of conviction in successive programs in support of “moderate” elements of the Syrian opposition, on the one hand, and the persistence in pursuing one ill-fated venture after another became publicly manifest when Obama’s Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the President had backed the now discarded training program only because he had been pressed to do so by critics in Congress and the media. Hence, he did not judge its termination as a failure of his administration’s judgment. This is a first.
Never before has a sitting President admitted that he had taken a risky foreign policy course without conviction in its value but strictly as an expedient gesture to domestic forces whom he was not prepared to confront. To disown so cavalierly what was rolled out with fanfare, and cited routinely as the foundation stone of American strategy in Syria, is high-level fecklessness without precedent.
That politically circuitous route has been supplemented by direct supply routes from the Gulf and Turkey into the inventories of al-Nusra and its affiliates. By implication, but not in declaration, Washington therefore has been drawing a clear line of differentiation, for some time, between ISIl and al-Nusra – despite the latter’s being an acknowledged affiliate of al-Qaeda. A great anomaly of the situation, of course, is that al-Qaeda has been figures as the “Great Satan” against which America has been fighting a global war since 2001. Yet, there is no political reaction to this extraordinary policy turn – whether by politicians, the media or the unofficial foreign policy community.
There is more than a touch of absurdity in this. Just this week, the White House justified its policy reversal in regard to the maintenance of a substantial troop presence in Afghanistan to counter a persistent al-Qaeda and ISIL threat. (Where the Taliban fit into the picture is conveniently left obscure). Yet far more formidable units of the latter, which are operating close to American strategic interests in the region of Syria and Iraq, are being treated as tacit allies of the United States. In addition to indirect arms supplies via other members of the Army of Victory, they are immune to American airstrikes. Even ISIL gets less attention from the United States Air Force than do the Taliban around Kunduz. Over the past month, it has flown fewer missions in Iraq and Syria combined than the Russians have flown in one day.
As far as the Obama people are concerned, this oddity owes in part to the premiums placed on maintaining close relations with traditional allies in the Gulf and with Turkey who view all Islamist forces in Syria as the key to toppling Assad. He bulks largest in their strategic thinking due to his Iranian ties at a time when, for them, the Sunni-Shia civil war within Islam eclipses all else. It also owes in part to the administration’s independent judgment that Iran is the region’s greatest menace insofar as American interests are concerned. In part, it further reflects Israeli strategic thinking that parallels that of Riyadh and the GCC minnows, with political resonance domestically. In part, there is the simple inability of the White House and associates to devise a strategy of a subtlety that matches the complexity of the situation – or to make the tough decision to scale back objectives in recognition of the severe limits on American influence.
This last has been underscored by the Russian intervention. Official Washington was caught by surprise – once again. Intelligence failed in terms of foreseeing the scale of the operation, of properly estimating Putin’s will and nerve, of appraising Russian military capabilities for swift action, and of readying a set of possible responses. Consequently, a pre-existing state of intellectual and diplomatic disarray has now degenerated into general disorientation and confusion.
The ad hoc response is characterized by these elements. One is a definition of the crisis mainly in terms of a Russo-American contest. Hence, the talk is of a second “Cold War”, of a “test for NATO” that includes beefing up Nordic defense3; rejecting if not ignoring out-of-hand Putin’s proposals for cooperation in finding a formula for stabilizing Syria; edging even closer to Turkey and the Saudis; and envisaging an entirely fresh approach to creating another version of a “third force” that would join the Syrian Kurds of the YPG with disparate splinter groups, who have given themselves the acquired surreal name of The Euphrates Volcano. They, in fact, are the flotsam and jetsam of the four year civil war: displaced locals, brigands, Turcomen recruited by Ankara from Syria, Iraq, the Caucasus or Central Asia. This last is strictly a public relations gesture whose accompanying rhetoric betrays the undercurrent of desperation in Washington. The Kurds of the Kobane region (Rojani) will not fight for anything more than their homes and fields – most certainly not for some abstract Sunni cause or to satisfy the ambitions of outside powers to unseat Assad with whom they long had reached a modus vivendi. As for the Euphrates Volcano, their loyalty as well as capacity for sustained military action is viewed as a very dubious commodity everywhere but in Langley, Virginia. They are no more the solution than have been the petty warlords and bandit militias in Afghanistan – another CIA and Special Forces creation.
Another sign pointing in the same direction is provided by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, among others, referring hopefully to the Russians experiencing another Afghanistan-like quagmire in Syria, of heavy casualties eroding Putin’s popularity and maybe even leading to his unseating (a la Kiev). Frustration over being outmaneuvered, of its less than serious campaign against being exposed for the pretentious failure it has been, of muscular Russian military performance – all are irritating that nerve of insecurity that runs through America’s body politic these days.
The most radical move, one with far-reaching complications, is to solidify what has been the tacit and partial understanding between the United States (pressed by Turkey and the KSA) and the al-Nusra dominated alliance renamed the Army of Victory (al-Burkan Furat) which also includes the radical Islamist group Ahrar – al-Shams. The implicit sanitizing of al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise entails the following steps: insistence on using the innocuous term “rebels” to refer in aggregate to all non-ISIL opponents of the Assad government – terminology that has been universally adopted by the media under administration pressure; denunciation of the Russians for striking al-Nusra and associates as well as ISIL; continued abstention from any American air strikes against even unmistakable al-Nusra sites; a pledge to bolster material support to groups operating under the Army of Victory umbrella without noting its essentially jihadist identity; and keeping up the drumfire of virulent criticism of the Iranian campaign to destabilize the Middle East – Syria nominated as the central front.
More serious is the ramping up of the CIA’s program to provide sophisticated armaments likely to strengthen the al-Nusra inventory. They include TOWs to counter the government’s armor and rockets that could threaten Russian bases. Director John Brennan visited the region early in October to forge a pact with the Saudi government to expedite the TOW shipments. The possibility exists that this step represents a desire on the part of the Obama administration, or at least certain elements of it, to exploit its links with the recently constituted, al-Nusra led Army of Victory that could transpose the second “Cold War’ onto the Middle East in response to the dramatic Putin initiative.
In short, insofar as Syria is concerned, we are observing Washington’s progressive adoption of the Israeli cum Saudi perspective. There is no indication that the Obama White House recognizes that the Russia factor has made that perspective academic and the chances of realizing its objectives nil. The potential implications are profound.
Cossetting the royal family and passive tolerance for all their weeks; ignoring the KAS as the source and abettor of radical Wahhabi movements; all-out backing for the assault on the Houthis in Yemen; refusing to cooperate on a tactical basis with Tehran despite manifest convergent interests - an attitude expressed with vehemence even after the nuclear accord; failure to confront Erdogan for his support to ISIL and al-Nusra; and fostering the Israeli-Saudi de facto diplomatic alliance. At no time have we heard an explanation of why we have taken these missteps or a recognition of their net effect. The Russian intervention in Syria (and Iraq) has highlighted the full geo-strategic implications of that strategic blindness. Our alignment with a self-conscious Sunni bloc (anti not just Shia but any non-Sunni Muslims, e.g. Alawite, Zaidi) is an enormous burden in an already flawed campaign against ISIL and AQAP. That is becoming evident in Baghdad as well as elsewhere.
*****
The errors of American policy in the Middle East over the past fourteen years are legion - as anyone paying attention knows. Those errors are conceptual, analytical and operational - at both the diplomatic and military plane. To this sorry record now has been added the macro error of choosing sides in Islam's sectarian civil war. It should have been obvious to even the novice that any contribution to its exacerbation was detrimental to the United States' interests and to those of the region as a whole. Instead, we have jumped in like fools where angels dare not tread. It is apparent that the implications of incremental decisions made disjointedly over time never were thought through - if thought about at all.
An ancillary error, as highlighted in this discussion, is the elementary mistake of having "chosen" the "wrong" side. By this I mean that it is a basic principle of realpolitik that an outside power that seeks (for sound reason or other) to intervene in such a situation to its advantage should associate itself with the weaker side, as a matter of principle. The reasons are too obvious to cite. It is hardly surprising that the maladroit Obama crowd should add this misjudgment its long list of tragic mistakes.
Elsewhere in the region, the reverberations from the Russian intervention are also being felt. The most immediate effects are to diminish Israeli and Turkey hopes for using the civil war to advance their own ends. The Saudi royal family, enmeshed in a succession crisis and stressed by its imperial war in Yemen, is unprepared to change course and instead will persevere in its self-defined mortal combat with Iran and its Syrian ally. As to Iraq, the equivocations and incompetence of the United States over the past year have made the al-Abadi government sympathetic to the arrival of Russia on the scene. It strengthens their hand in playing off Washington, Teheran and now Moscow while adding a powerful military ally in the fight against ISIL. That is why they have gone so far as to join the Russian sponsored alliance and welcomed establishment of an intelligence and planning cell in Baghdad. This ‘4 + 1’ unit registered its first success on October 11 when it prompted an Iraqi airstrike that killed a number of Daesh leaders on a road near Ramadi and injured al-Baghdadi himself.
A paradoxical twist is the opening of a divide in the Sunni bloc. Egypt and Jordan within days expressed their backing for the Russian military campaign. Al-Sisi in Cairo made it clear that the Islamists of all stripes (including the offshoots and residue of the Mother Brotherhood who play a minor role in the ranks of the opposition) are politically haram. He sees them as a menace to his rule which, as such, must be crushed. That takes precedence over removing Assad or curtailing the Shi’ite bloc. So strong is this conviction that al-Sisi saw fit to break with the Saudis on this issue despite Egypt’s critical dependence on the KAS’ financial largesse. As far as the American view is concerned, he continues to discount it in the aftermath of what he views as Washington’s betrayal in its acceptance of the Mursi government.
A similar line of thinking prevails in Amman where King Abdullah is well aware that both al-Nusra and ISIL have his monarchy in their sights. Moreover, he is more vulnerable in terms of geography and the fragility of Jordanian national identity. Defection of Egypt and Jordan jeopardizes the informal coalition of status quo powers that the United States has sought to reconstitute in the wake of the Iraq and Arab Spring upheavals. That odd-fellow grouping brought together the KSA, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and, implicitly, the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority. Their common enemies were radical Islam, Iran and its allies, and popular democracy.
It remains to be seen whether the fissures created by the Russian intervention will endure. One consequence is that it provides a further incentive for the U.S. to tighten its embrace of the Saudis and the Gulfies as staunch allies. That conclusion does mean overlooking their financial and material backing for Islamist extremists and their reckless assault in Yemen. Obama’s overriding concern to placate them in the aftermath of the Iranian nuclear deal, which they ardently opposed, is cited as the principal motivation behind this policy of concession and deference.
Another factor is the high value that Washington places on the military bases they make available. The Pentagon has pressured the White House hard to avoid doing anything that might call into question current arrangements. So long as some possible hot war with Iran is contemplated, they retain significant value for both the defense establishment and the President. Indeed, so long as the American military strategy aims at maintenance of “full spectrum dominance” in that part of the world, basing rights will trump other considerations no matter what path relations with the IRI take.
Taken together, these developments associated with the sudden entry of Russia into Syria, reestablishing itself as a Middle East power, have the net effect of weakening the American position. Since its loosely drawn goals remain maximalist and constant, the discrepancy will bedevil Washington policy-makers who already manifestly lack the adequate talents to manage the maelstrom of forces at work in the region.
In the broader perspective, Russia’s move into Syria has overturned some central pillars of the American worldview. As Alistair Crooke has written, since the Cold war’s end “NATO effectively has made all the decisions about war and peace. It faced no opposition and no rival. Matters of war were effectively a solely internal debate within NATO -- about whether to proceed or not, and in what way. That was it. It didn't matter much about what others thought or did. Those on the receiving end simply had to endure it.”3 That manifestly is no longer the case – whether in Europe or in the Middle East.
What irritates Washington more than anything else is the display of Russian military prowess thought relegated to history. Moreover, it has been done with impressive speed and efficiency. The unipolar moment that lasted for a quarter of a century is gone. America resists accepting that new reality. Hence, the denigration of Russia simultaneously with steps to impede its efforts in Syria rather than to form a tacit partnership.
These compounded frustrations lie behind the incandescent outrage at Russia’s temerity by American officials and the entire commentariat. The latter category includes highly regarded veteran “Sovietologists” like Strobe Talbott (former high official and now head of the Brookings Institution) and David Remnick (author of excellent books on the break-up of the Soviet Union and now editor of The New Yorker) whose supposed intimate knowledge of Russia is belied by the tenor of their emotional anti-Putin diatribes at once simplistic and at variance with the facts. Americans are reacting erratically to omens of the country’s mortality as global hegemon.
One never should underestimate the extent to which belief in American exceptionalism/superiority sustains collective and individual self-esteem.
` NOTES
“NATO, Tested By Russia In Syria, Raises Its Guard and Its Tone” Helene Kantor The New York Times Oct 9 2015
2 “Pentagon Plans Major Shift In Effort to Counter Islamic State In Syria” WP Oct 10 Karen DeYoung Washington Post October 10 2015
3. Patrick Cockburn Counterpunch October 9, 2015 |
I, for one, am pleasantly surprised that Comcast may not be able to share its unique blend of extortion and bad customer service throughout the entire country. Via the L.A. Times:
Comcast Corp.'s bold move to buy rival Time Warner Cable in a $45-billion deal once seemed inevitable.
Wall Street figured combining the nation's two largest cable operators wouldn't have much problem clearing regulatory hurdles. Both companies operate in different parts of the country, and wouldn't be seen as anti-competitive. Subscribers, including 1.8 million in the Los Angeles region, would have the same number of choices for pay-TV as they currently do.
But that was 11 months ago — and a lot has changed.
Now, it is unclear whether the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission will give Comcast their blessing.
"They've had a lot of trouble, more than they thought they would — and rightly so," said Gene Kimmelman, a former top lawyer in the Justice Department's antitrust division who now leads advocacy group Public Knowledge, which opposes the Comcast-TWC merger.
Here's the rub for Kimmelman and others: The new Comcast would be the nation's dominant supplier of high-speed Internet service. The company would boast 30 million customers in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle.
Streaming service Netflix, satellite giant Dish Network, lawmakers and others have voiced concerns that Comcast could use this grip to stifle development of the Internet video business. In a sense, Comcast would have an incentive to beat back online challengers to its core business of bundling cable TV channels.
Meanwhile, a parade of major TV network executives have privately met with federal investigators, outlining their worries about a bulked-up Comcast, according to people involved in the meetings who were unauthorized to speak publicly. They fear Comcast would use its size and influence to undercut how much programmers such as CBS, Viacom and Discovery are paid for their channels.
Comcast, for its part, maintains the regulatory review of its acquisition is proceeding on schedule. |
Facebook's online privacy woes are well-known. But here's an offline one: its large database of profile photos can be victimised to determine you as you're travel walking the street.A Carnegie Mellon University researcher today described how he built a database of nearly 25,000 photographs expropriated from students' Facebook profiles. Then he set up a desk in one of the campus buildings and asked few volunteers to peep into Webcams.The results: face recognition software put a name to the face of 31 percent of the students after, on come, lower than trey seconds of rapid-fire comparisons.In a few years, "facial visual searches may be as popular as today's text-based searches," says Alessandro Acquisti, who presented his development in cooperation with Ralph Receipts and Fred Stutzman at the Black Hat computer conference.As a check of idea, the Carnegie Mellon researchers also formed an iPhone app that can position a exposure of someone, piping it through facial recognition software, and then exhibit on-screen that person's canvas and essential statistics.Few of the professor from Carnegie Mellon University belive that this could be an ominous risks for privacy of any individual.In another test researchers compared 277,978 Facebook profiles against nearly 6,000 profiles extracted from an unnamed dating Web site. Here also the success rate of software was 40 percent match. Funniest part in this tests are, almost 1 in 10 of the dating site's members--nearly all of whom used pseudonyms--turned out to be identifiable name. Now, this can be a risk for guys dating multiple girls.Facial recognition technology, which has been developing in labs for decades, is finally going mainstream. Face.com opened its doors to developers last year; the technology is built into Apple's Aperture software and Flickr. Google bought a face-recognition technology in the last few weeks, and Facebook's automated photo-tagging has drawn privacy scrutiny.Acquisti is the first to admit that the technology isn't perfect. It works best with frontal face photos, not ones taken at an angle. The larger the database becomes, the more time comparisons take, and the more false-positive errors arise.On the other hand, face recognition technology is advancing quickly, especially for nonfrontal photos. "What we did on the street with mobile devices today will be accomplished in less intrusive ways tomorrow," he says. "A stranger could know your last tweet just by looking at you." |
Vermont State Legislature
January 19, 2011
Act 128 calls upon our team to develop three options. The Legislature requires that we evaluate a state government-administered and publicly-financed single-payer health benefits system. This system, which we refer to as Option 1, would provide all Vermonters with a uniform benefits package. Within those parameters, we looked at costs of both a “comprehensive” benefits package and a leaner, “essential” benefits package, which I will define and discuss later. The second option is a state government-administered, public option that would allow Vermonters to choose between public and private insurance coverage. Option 2 is designed to allow for and promote competition between the public and private plans, while keeping in place the current multiple payer system. Act 128 allows our team to develop a third option that we design after analyzing all aspects of Vermont’s health care and assessing the positions of key stakeholders across the State of Vermont. We call Option 3 a public/private single-payer system. It provides an “essential” benefits package, is administered by an independent board with diverse representation, and it employs a competitively-selected third party to manage provider relations and claims adjudication and processing.
In analyzing the three options, we determined that all will yield significant savings. However, our research and analysis indicate that the single-payer options will have a more dramatic impact on reducing cost than the public option because they incorporate a uniform benefits package and reduce much of the administrative structure needed to compensate multiple payers. Therefore, we estimate that Option 1 will produce savings of 24.3% of total health expenditure between 2015 and 2024. Option 2 will produce savings of 16.1% of total health expenditure between 2015 and 2024. Finally, Option 3 will produce savings of 25.3% of total health expenditure between 2015 and 2024. Option 3 produces additional savings as compared to Option 1 because it incorporates a public/private partnership in governance and administration.
In 2015, the first full year of implementation, PPACA would reduce the number of uninsured by 18,000 people; however 32,000 Vermont residents will remain uninsured. Ultimately in 2019, PPACA will reduce the number of uninsured by 22,000 in 2019. PPACA will likely add an additional $240 million of federal funds in 2015 to the State of Vermont, which will eventually rise to $420 million in 2019. All of these dollar values are expressed in 2010 dollars.
In comparison with option 1 and 3, Option 2 would still leave approximately 30,000 Vermonters uninsured. Option 2 would not expand the current benefits to cover some dental and vision care nor bring up the benefits for those who are currently under-insured.
The comprehensive benefit package under option 1 covers all health services with minimum cost sharing. As a result, it costs more and requires more funds to finance it. Under a payroll contribution scheme of financing, employers and workers will have to pay more than what they would pay if no reform takes place. This comprehensive benefit option would also increase the total health spending in Vermont which would make this option less feasible.
The essential benefit package under option 1 and 3 have leaner benefits and they can be financed through payroll contributions without increasing the amount that most employers and workers would have to pay as compared to if no reform takes place. It would reduce the total health spending in Vermont slightly in 2015 when the proposed reforms are implemented.
Statement (10 pages):
http://WWW.leg.state.VT.us/jfo/healthcare/FINAL%20VT%20Hsiao%20Written%20Statment%20for%20Jan1911_1.pdf
Full report – William Hsiao, Steven Kappel and Jonathan Gruber (138 pages):
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo/healthcare/FINAL%20VT%20Draft%20Hsiao%20Report.pdf
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Although advocates of the pure single payer model will find some problems with this report on a reform proposal for Vermont, there is very good news in this analysis. The report emphatically confirms the superiority of the single payer model in ensuring that everyone is included while containing health care costs.
In an analysis of the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the authors demonstrated that far too many would still be left without insurance, and it would have a negligible impact in controlling health care costs. As we have said all along, the financing system in PPACA is grossly inadequate and needs to be replaced.
The authors’ Option 2 is essentially PPACA with a “public option” added – a public insurance plan that competes with the private plans. Their analysis shows that it would have only a very modest impact on reducing costs, and an almost negligible impact on reducing the numbers of uninsured. Thus the bluster in support of the public option was misdirected. That energy should have been redirected to supporting single payer instead.
Options 1B and 3 are almost identical. They are both single payer models that totally replace the private insurance plans. They have an “Essential Benefits Package” with an actuarial value of about 87 percent which is close to the typical employer-sponsored plans before they began introducing high deductibles. Their analyses shows that these plans would cover everyone without any increase in spending since the single payer efficiencies would be enough to pay for those currently uninsured or under-insured. So this is the really good news – single payer works (though read on).
The primary difference in 1B and 3 is that 1B is publicly administered whereas 3 is administered by an independent board that contracts with a competitively-selected third party to manage provider relations and claims adjudication and processing. The authors state a preference for Option 3 claiming that it saves a little bit more money by requiring potential managers to compete for the contract. That is highly dubious and more likely was inserted to appease the market ideology of a sector of the twenty some odd contributors to this study. Considering this, I think that we can extrapolate the fact that the authors would also endorse Option 1B, since it is otherwise identical.
Option 1A is like 1B except that it provides a “Comprehensive Benefits Package” – virtually all health care services and products – achieving approximately an actuarial ratio of 97% for medical and mental health services, 90% for drugs and vision care, and 85% for dental, nursing homes and home care. It would cost more than Option 1B, but not that much more. It was not selected by the authors since one of the goals of study was to cover everyone without increasing spending over current levels. In a single payer system the benefits should be comprehensive.
One very serious deficiency is that they decided to leave in place Medicare and Medicaid, primarily because of existing barriers to move them into a single payer system. Thus their proposal is not a single payer system. Leaving these programs in place sacrifices some of the important single payer efficiencies.
They also tout accountable care organizations (ACO), suggesting that capitation should apply to primary care and salaries should apply to specialists. Yet by questions that they pose, they recognize that ACOs are not well defined. For instance, how can they effectively manage the care of a patient that PPACA grants the right to move in and out of the ACO at any and all times?
Within the next couple of days, we’ll have a clearer concept
of where the single payer community should be on this report. Tentatively, it seems that it deserves our support, but support that is qualified by strong advocacy to make it right by such measures as including comprehensive benefits, and rolling in and eliminating Medicare and Medicaid. |
This article is about the geologist. For the British zoologist, see Adam Sedgwick (zoologist)
Adam Sedgwick (; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata, he proposed the Cambrian period in 1835, in a joint publication in which Roderick Murchison also proposed the Silurian period. Later in 1840, to resolve what later became known as the Great Devonian Controversy about rocks near the boundary between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods, he and Murchison proposed the Devonian period.
Though he had guided the young Charles Darwin in his early study of geology and continued to be on friendly terms, Sedgwick was an opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection.[2][3]
Life and career [ edit ]
Sedgwick was born in Dent, Yorkshire, the third child of an Anglican vicar. He was educated at Sedbergh School and Trinity College, Cambridge.[4]
He studied mathematics and theology, and obtained his BA (5th Wrangler) from the University of Cambridge in 1808 and his MA in 1811. On July 20, 1817 he was ordained a deacon, then a year later he was ordained as a priest.[4] His academic mentors at Cambridge were Thomas Jones and John Dawson. He became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge from 1818, holding the chair until his death in 1873. His biography in the Cambridge Alumni database says that upon his acceptance of the position, reverend Sedgwick had no working knowledge of geology.[4] An 1851 portrait of Sedgwick by William Boxall hangs in Trinity's collection.[6]
Sedgwick studied the geology of the British Isles and Europe. He founded the system for the classification of Cambrian rocks and with Roderick Murchison worked out the order of the Carboniferous and underlying Devonian strata. These studies were mostly carried out in the 1830s.[7] The investigations into the Devonian meant that Sedgwick was involved with Murchison in a vigorous debate with Henry De la Beche, in what became known as the great Devonian controversy.[8]
Sedgwick investigated the phenomena of metamorphism and concretion, and was the first to distinguish clearly between stratification, jointing, and slaty cleavage. He was elected to Fellow of the Royal Society on 1 February 1821. In 1844, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9]
As a co-trustee of the will of Ann Sill, an owner of slaves in plantations in Jamaica, in 1835 Sedgwick was awarded half of £3783 in compensation for 174 slaves, following the abolition of slavery by the British government.[10] A liberal Whig in politics, Sedgwick had long been a passionate supporter of abolition.
Geological views and evolution [ edit ]
The Church of England, by no means a fundamentalist or evangelical church, encloses a wide range of beliefs. During Sedgwick's life there developed something of a chasm between the conservative high church believers and the liberal wing.[citation needed] After simmering for some years, the publication of Essays and Reviews by liberal churchmen in 1860 pinpointed the differences. In all this, Sedgwick, whose science and faith were intertwined in a natural theology, was definitely on the conservative side, and extremely outspoken about it. He told the February 1830 meeting of the Geological Society of London:
"No opinion can be heretical, but that which is not true.... Conflicting falsehoods we can comprehend; but truths can never war against each other. I affirm, therefore, that we have nothing to fear from the results of our enquiries, provided they be followed in the laborious but secure road of honest induction. In this way we may rest assured that we shall never arrive at conclusions opposed to any truth, either physical or moral, from whatever source that truth may be derived".[11]
As a geologist in the mid-1820s he supported William Buckland's interpretation of certain superficial deposits, particularly loose rocks and gravel, as "diluvium" relating to worldwide floods, and in 1825 he published two papers identifying these as due to a "great irregular inundation" from the "waters of a general deluge", Noah's flood. Sedgwick's subsequent investigations and discussions with continental geologists persuaded him that this was problematic. In early 1827, after spending several weeks in Paris, he visited geological features in the Scottish Highlands with Roderick Murchison. He later wrote "If I have been converted in part from the diluvian theory...it was...by my own gradual improved experience, and by communicating with those about me. Perhaps I may date my change of mind (at least in part) from our journey in the Highlands, where there are so many indications of local diluvial operations.... Humboldt ridiculed [the doctrine] beyond measure when I met him in Paris. Prévost lectured against it." In response to Charles Lyell's 1830 publication, Principles of Geology, which is known for promoting uniformitarian geology Sedgwick talked of floods at various dates, then on 18 February 1831 when retiring from the Presidency of the Geological Society he recanted his former belief in Buckland's theory.[12]
He strongly believed that species of organisms originated in a succession of Divine creative acts throughout the long expanse of history. Any form of development that denied a direct creative action smacked as materialistic and amoral. For Sedgwick, moral truths (the obtainment of which separates man from beast) were to be distinguished from physical truths, and to combine these or blur them together could only lead to disastrous consequences. In fact, one's own hope for immortality may ultimately rest on it.
He stated in 1830 that Scriptural geologists proposed "a deformed progeny of heretical and fantastical conclusions, by which sober philosophy has been put to open shame, and sometimes even the charities of life have been exposed to violation."[13] In 1834 he continued, "They have committed the folly and SIN of dogmatizing," having "sinned against plain sense," and "of writing mischievous nonsense," "Their eyes cannot bear to look upon" truth and suppose an "ignorant and dishonest" theory. They show "bigotry and ignorance," of nature's laws and natural phenomena.[14] Henry Cole then responded in 1834 in a 136-page "letter," Popular Geology Subversive of Divine Revelation.[15] He referred to Sedgwick's ideas as "unscriptural and anti-Christian," "scripture-defying", "revelation-subverting," and "baseless speculations and self-contradictions," which were "impious and infidel".[16]
While he became increasingly Evangelical with age, he strongly supported advances in geology against conservative churchmen. At the September 1844 British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at York he achieved national celebrity for his reply defending modern geology against an attack by the Dean of York, the Reverend William Cockburn, who described it as unscriptural. The entire chapter house of the cathedral refused to sit down with Sedgwick, and he was opposed by conservative papers including The Times, but his courage was hailed by the full spectrum of the liberal press, and the confrontation was a key moment in the battle over relations between Scripture and science.[17]
Sedgwick in 1867
When Robert Chambers anonymously published his own theory of universal evolutionism as his "development hypothesis" in the book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation published in October 1844 to immediate popular success, Sedgwick's many friends urged him to respond. Like other eminent scientists he initially ignored the book, but the subject kept recurring and he then read it carefully and made a withering attack on the book in the July 1845 edition of the Edinburgh Review. Vestiges "comes before [its readers] with a bright, polished, and many-coloured surface, and the serpent coils a false philosophy, and asks them to stretch out their hands and pluck the forbidden fruit", he wrote in his review.[18] Accepting the arguments in Vestiges was akin to falling from grace and away from God's favour.
He lashed out at the book in a letter to Charles Lyell, bemoaning the consequences of it conclusions. "...If the book be true, the labours of sober induction are in vain; religion is a lie; human law is a mass of folly, and a base injustice; morality is moonshine; our labours for the black people of Africa were works of madmen; and man and woman are only better beasts!"[19] Later, Sedgwick added a long preface to the 5th edition of his Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge (1850), including a lengthy attack on Vestiges and theories of development in general.
Charles Darwin was one of his geology students in 1831, and accompanied him on a field trip to Wales that summer. The two kept up a correspondence while Darwin was on the Beagle expedition, and afterwards. However, Sedgwick never accepted the case for evolution made in On the Origin of Species in 1859 any more than he did that in Vestiges in 1844. In response to receiving and reading Darwin's book, he wrote to Darwin saying:
"If I did not think you a good tempered & truth loving man I should not tell you that... I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly; parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow; because I think them utterly false & grievously mischievous — You have deserted—after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth—the true method of induction—& started up a machinery as wild I think as Bishop Wilkins ' s locomotive that was to sail with us to the Moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved. Why then express them in the language & arrangements of philosophical induction?"[20]
Sedgwick regarded natural selection as
"but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts. Development is a better word because more close to the cause of the fact. For you do not deny causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the will of God: & I can prove that He acts for the good of His creatures. He also acts by laws which we can study & comprehend—Acting by law, & under what is called final cause, comprehends, I think, your whole principle".
He emphasised his distinction between the moral and physical aspects of life, "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly". If humanity broke this distinction it "would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history".[20]
In a letter to another correspondent, Sedgwick was even harsher on Darwin's book, calling it "utterly false" and writing that "It repudiates all reasoning from final causes; and seems to shut the door on any view (however feeble) of the God of Nature as manifested in His works. From first to last it is a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked and served up".[21]
Despite this difference of opinion, the two men remained friendly until Sedgwick's death. In contrast to Sedgwick, liberal church members (who included biologists such as George Rolleston, William Henry Flower and William Kitchen Parker) were usually comfortable with evolution.
Legacy [ edit ]
The Sedgwick Club, the oldest student-run geological society in the world, was set up in honour of him in 1880.[22]
On the death of Sedgwick it was decided that his memorial should take the form of a new and larger museum. Hitherto the geological collections had been placed in the Woodwardian Museum in Cockerell's Building. Through the energy of Professor T. McK. Hughes (successor to Sedgwick) the new building, termed the Sedgwick Museum, was completed and opened in 1903.
In 1865, the University of Cambridge received from A. A. Van Sittart the sum of 500 pounds sterling "for the purpose of encouraging the study of geology among the resident members of the university, and in honour of the Rev. Adam Sedgwick". Thus was founded the Sedgwick Prize to be given every third year for the best essay on some geological subject. The first Sedgwick Prize was awarded in 1873.[citation needed]
To celebrate the bicentenary of Sedgwick's birth a geological trail was created near Dent, the village where he was born.[citation needed] The Sedgwick Trail follows the River Clough, highlighting rock features and exploring the Dent Fault.[citation needed]
Notes [ edit ] |
Abb Dickson has passed away after a long illness. Dickson was well known as a magician, a comic, an illusionist, an actor, a producer and most of all, a force of nature. He is known known for his work on the films Malibu Express (1985), Picasso Trigger (1988) and The Brass Ring (1975). For decades he was a familiar face at The Abbot’s Get Together in Colon, MI the Texas Association of Magicians (TAOM) and many other conventions. Soon he would build a friendship with some of the funniest magicians on the planet including Duke Stern and Karrell Fox. He would often perform with them in sketches that lampooned magicians at magic conventions across the United States.
Born in Atlanta to Pope Dickson and Edith Donahon Dickson. His father owned a funeral home and his mother was the personal secretary to President Roosevelt and Truman. Abb became interested in the art of magic at the age of ten after seeing a school show magician. He started doing comedy magic in his senior year in high school and went full time professional in 1970 performing as a magician at Six Flags Over Georgia.
In time he would tour the United States, Canada, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico with his own “Presto!” illusion show that included a crew of thirty. The show toured from 1975 to 1986 and featured 39 large stage illusions, including one that was traditionally known as “The Disembodied Princess”. Dickson had first heard of that particular trick after seeing a photo of it being performed by Orson Welles (with his second wife, Rita Hayworth, assisting) during a USO show in Hollywood in the ’40s. In time, it became one of Dickson’s favorite illusions. This show would lead to a lifetime friendship with Orson Welles and he would appear in 8 Welles films and as an actor or magician in 5 other films. To read more about the friendship between Orson Welles and Abb Dickson, PLEASE CLICK HERE.
Abb Dickson would be featured on the cover of GENII Magazine in 1989 and the Genii in the corner was given Abb’s face. In 1997 Abb was featured on the cover of THE LINKING RING when he became the International President of The International Brotherhood of Magicians.
Dickson would later specialize in trade shows but he also created special effects for several Star Wars films and the original Superman franchise. He also created some of the exhibits in the World of Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta. His broad life experience, understanding of human nature and psychology coupled with his love of comedy and magical creativity led to his demand as a consultant to many major corporations for their advertising campaigns and product launches.
Even then, Abb always found time to perform magic, often for children that needed magic in their lives. Abb was a man with one of the biggest hearts in the world of entertainment and unfortunately, he passed away without the funds to pay for his funeral. If you would like to know more or contribute to the crowd-funding efforts to pay for his funeral, PLEASE CLICK HERE. |
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Stan Van Gundy has a request for the NBA: no more games on Christmas.
"I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game," the Orlando Magic coach said.
The Magic were playing Boston on Friday, one of five NBA games on Christmas.
Van Gundy said he understands the high-priced TV contracts generate money for the league and it would be difficult to stop such games. He said he wishes the league at the very least had fewer games on the holidays.
The Magic play games on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day this season.
"I think we get a little carried away with ourselves with sports thinking we're more important than everything else," Van Gundy said before the game. "But that's the way it is. There's nothing more important than the NBA on Christmas Day."
Van Gundy believes the day is best spent with family. He woke up early but managed to spend only about 15 minutes with his wife and four children. They went to church services the day before.
Van Gundy said he hadn't even had a chance to open his family's gifts before the 2:30 p.m. ET tipoff.
The only time he could recall watching a Christmas Day game was when his brother, Jeff, was coaching one of them. Van Gundy also said he doesn't watch NFL games on Thanksgiving.
"Christmas to me, obviously basketball is very important to me, but there are some days of the year where it's got to take a back seat to something," he said.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers wasn't quite as adamant, but he didn't disagree.
Rivers said it's tough for players to be away from family, but he realizes the league is not going to stop playing on the holidays. Rivers lives in the Orlando area and was able to wake up Christmas morning in his own bed.
He said he always watched Christmas Day games growing up because the league features the marquee teams.
"As a kid, you wanted to be on [Christmas]," Rivers said. "Then when you get to the league, you don't want to be on any more. You're like, 'No, I changed my mind.' But it's going to happen, so why try to fight it? I tend to look at it as a reward."
Van Gundy is doing what he can to give his team a break.
He gave the players consecutive days off for the first time this season for the upcoming weekend. The Magic's schedule -- with travel days and all -- hasn't allowed for a break, he said.
"The league has been good to all of us in terms of what we get out of all these TV contracts and everything, so it would be a little disingenuous to complain too much," Van Gundy said. "But if I had my way, we'd take a five-day break at Christmas. I mean it." |
Britain and Japan have agreed to head an international fund, expected to total up to $500 million over the next five years, as part of a broad plan to help lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency with the promise of jobs, protection against retaliation, and the removal of their names from lists of U.S. and NATO targets.
Establishment of the fund will be announced Thursday at a high-level international conference on Afghanistan in London, according to U.S. and British officials. Representatives from nearly 70 nations, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, will attend.
The fund will help support a proposal by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to be announced at the conference, to begin the reintegration of low-level fighters. Karzai will also outline his strategy for reconciliation with amenable insurgent leaders.
Reintegration is a key component of the Afghanistan strategy President Obama outlined last fall. U.S. officials have said that they believe that up to 80 percent of Taliban foot soldiers are fighting for money and because of local grievances rather than in support of an ideology. Earlier reintegration efforts have failed, officials have said, because of poor planning, inadequate security and insufficient financial support.
Japan is expected to provide the largest contribution to the new fund, out of a $5 billion aid commitment made in November. Britain and the United States also plan to make sizable contributions, officials said.
The administration is looking to the one-day conference for policy commitments in support of Obama's new strategy -- including his deployment of more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops -- from governments whose backing has often been tentative in the face of widespread opposition from their publics. Although several other nations, including Britain, have promised to send more forces, early commitments of up to 7,000 troops include some who had been previously scheduled to be rotated into Afghanistan. Both Germany and France have resisted calls to send more troops, and Canada and the Netherlands have set dates for the withdrawal of their combat forces.
Karzai is also expected to present the conference with new economic development proposals and plans to stem the corruption that plagues his government.
U.N. diplomats said Monday that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon plans to announce at the conference the appointment of a new U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan to play a leading role in overseeing often-overlapping and uncoordinated development efforts by the United States and NATO. The current envoy, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, is scheduled to depart Afghanistan in March. The leading candidate to replace him, U.S. and allied officials said, is Sweden's Stephan de Mistura, a career U.N. diplomat who previously served as head of the U.N. mission in Iraq.
Most attention in the lead-up to the conference, however, has focused on the reintegration and reconciliation plans. Until recently, Obama's administration, like George W. Bush's, had expressed interest in the reintegration of low-level Taliban fighters while resisting suggestions that senior insurgent leaders could be wooed toward reconciliation with the Afghan government.
More recently, however, U.S. officials have said that anyone, with few exceptions, who agrees to lay down arms and respect the Afghan constitution can potentially be reconciled. When Eide suggested last month that the United Nations reconsider some of the names on its "blacklist" of terrorists, Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he was not opposed.
In an interview Monday with MSNBC, Holbrooke said he saw no reason to take senior Taliban leaders such as Mohammad Omar off the list. "But we can revisit that list," he said. "Some of the people on it are dead. Some probably are innocent. We ought to reexamine it."
But with insurgent forces inflicting heavy losses on U.S., NATO and Afghan troops, and leaders of the Taliban and several related groups showing little inclination to negotiate, U.S. and international efforts have focused on the reintegration of lower-level insurgents. |
Hello everybody!
I’ve been working a lot on Ada and Leon’s models and textures these last few weeks and I can’t wait to share a post that includes a detailed list of all the improvements I’ve made so far! (Some of them are unexpected improvements that I thought were impossible to accomplish!)
But before that I want to polish a few things and I want to make sure all the edits are stable, both in-game and during the cutscenes. Everything seems to work fine so far, so I’m quite optimistic about that.
In the meantime, I’ll share with you some comparison images of Leon’s new look. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m really proud of the results! I really hope you also like them 🙂 Maybe I should erase some of those small mustache hairs, haha.
[CLICK ON THE IMAGES FOR FULLSIZE VIEW] |
Photo
LARGO, Fla. – Senator Marco Rubio, in his strongest and most emotional condemnation yet of Donald J. Trump’s incendiary brand of politics, likened Mr. Trump to a third-world dictator who was leading the country dangerously close to a boiling point. And for the first time Mr. Rubio questioned whether he could support Mr. Trump as the Republican nominee.
“Most countries around the world that are failures are because they deposit their hopes in a person, a strong leader who comes forward and says ‘Put me in power. And I will make the country better,’” Mr. Rubio said in an interview Saturday with The New York Times.
“That’s exactly what he’s doing,” Mr. Rubio continued. “The rhetoric reminds me of third-world strongmen.”
As he campaigned in Central Florida three days before the primary that will most likely decide his fate as a presidential candidate, Mr. Rubio sounded at times as if he was in a state of disbelief about the turn the presidential race has taken.
“There’s going to be a reckoning no matter how this election turns out,” he said. “And I just don’t know if that’ll happen in time. I hope it does.”
“But you mark my words,” he added, his voice growing sharper. “There will be prominent people in American politics who will spend years explaining to people how they fell into this.”
Mr. Rubio began the day with a news conference condemning Mr. Trump for inciting supporters who have punched and beaten demonstrators.
“This is a frightening, grotesque and disturbing development in American politics,” Mr. Rubio said of the violence at Mr. Trump’s events, which reached such a pitch on Friday night in Chicago that the real estate developer was forced to cancel an event that had drawn thousands of people.
Mr. Rubio had previously said that if he were not the Republican nominee, he would support whoever was, even if it were Mr. Trump.
“I still at this moment continue to intend to support the Republican nominee,” he said at the news conference, pausing to contemplate his words. “But,” he added, “it’s getting harder every day.”
Mr. Rubio spread the blame for the anger coursing through American politics – to the protesters, the media and the left, which he said too often tries to stifle dissent. But he reserved his harshest words for Mr. Trump.
“We are being ripped apart as a country,” he said.
Though Mr. Rubio has taken on Mr. Trump more directly and forcefully as his own campaign for president lost altitude over the last two weeks, he was never as forthright or as angry as he appeared on Saturday.
The toll of a long and difficult campaign was showing on Mr. Rubio, who has been facing growing questions and even doubts from some of his own supporters about whether he can continue in the race much longer.
At times he sounded almost despondent, questioning not just the ugly turn the presidential campaign has taken but the future of the American political system.
Mr. Rubio continued to vent when he took the stage at a campaign rally here outside Tampa on Saturday morning.
“I’m not sure what happens next,” he dolefully told the crowd of about 200, a smaller gathering than he had been drawing just a week ago. “No matter what our political differences may be, who wants to live in a country where everybody hates each other?” |
Mervin Cabe, a 25-year-old Miami man, tried to have some fun at the expense of former NFL receiver Chad Johnson on Friday, according to Jason Auslander of The Aspen Times, citing court documents.
Cabe told employees of a Louis Vutton store in Aspen that he was Johnson, and used an Apple Pay account to purchase over $18,000 worth of goods after his credit card was denied.
According to the affidavit, Cabe also told police officers that he was Johnson, though he could not produce a correct date of birth and refused to show them his declined credit card or Apple Pay account. Officers said he "kept making excuses and repeating the same nonsensical story," before eventually admitting his guilt.
Cabe was charged with felony counts of identity theft and unauthorized use of a financial transaction device.
- With h/t to Adam Schefter |
Why can’t Marvel keep politics out of superhero comic books? Ever since Joe Simon and Jack Kirby first had Captain A On His Forehead smack some anonymous moustachioed fellow on the cover of his first comic that had nothing to do with any political upheaval at the time, superheroes have stayed completely out of politics, and that’s the way things should be. Comic books are about escaping from the news, the world around us, into a world where people hurt each other a lot and stand around making big speeches.
But these days, things are changing. Major comic book publishers have been putting out comic books heavily steeped in political rhetoric, encouraging direct violent action when all you wanted to read was a fist fight. And identity politics has seen old familiar comic books upturned with female characters and ethnic minorities taking over the leads. I mean take a look at this recent cover. They’ve taken a traditionally White superhero team created as a White team and turned it into something unrecognisably politically correct.
I mean, they are still mostly White characters and they killed off one of the non-White characters straight away, but it’s a betrayal of the original creators’ intent for this Tumblr-influenced reboot of something that didn’t need fixing. It’s political correctness gone mad and another sign that the Marvel Comics of today is toadying to the worst elements of social justice warrior. I think we can also agree that it is guaranteed to be a sales failure.
I mean one of them is Canadian for goodness sake, like the guy who writes Squirrel Girl. What, is he going to have some kind of super-healthcare power?
And now the comic has been ruined forever. It’s not like they could ever bring the original team back through a different title or time travel or something. Because this is comics and that could never happen.
But I think the most egregious example of Marvel losing their way is in the recent Secret Empire storyline with Captain America, it is blatant propaganda of the very worst kind.
The Secret Empire storyline portrayed a twisted, version of the highest office in the USA and as part of a left-wing agenda, corrupted it, portraying it as an ultimate evil at the highest parts of US political, interpreted as some kind of bogus parallel with current political moves in the country, and in the process utterly insulting a Republican President elected to high office by the people of this fine country.
Not only that, but after the predictable conclusion, Marvel Comics published an issue without any action, just Captain America talking, and desecrating the character even further in the process.
And now Marvel Comics is sending Steve Rogers on a journey to reconnect with its spirit. But the comic is written by someone known for their politically extreme views, and is likely not to satisfy anyone.
And yes, to add insult to injury, this is how they are still portraying Squirrel Girl.
As before I am continuing to boycott all the Marvel superhero comics I like (there are fewer and fewer) to send a message to Marvel, while buying all the comics I don’t like (there are more and more) so I can better inform you what’s going on. I urge you to buy all the comic books I hate too, so you can experience first-hand what is wrong with America – both the country and the comic book – and what we can all do about it.
UPDATE: It’s happened again, sorry, I have just been informed that Captain America started off punching Hitler, an interventionist viewpoint that was not universally shared then, the X-Men I refer to are actually from the 1970s which kicked off on of the most critically and commercial successes in superhero comic books, as is the Secret Empire Captain America plotline. And I made the same Squirrel Girl mistake last week, I just forgot.
You know, I’ve started reading those Barbie comics again.
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
(Last Updated )
Related Posts
None found |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.