text
stringlengths 316
100k
|
|---|
The Electoral College Is Not “Anti-Democratic”
Michael Tracey Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 22, 2016
Maybe you don’t like the Electoral College, which is the system that the United States has used since 1788 to select its chief executive. That’s fine. But to say “I dislike this system” shouldn’t be the same as saying “This system is anti-democratic.” A system is not anti-democratic because it happened to produce an outcome that you dislike this time around.
Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 with just 43% of the popular vote. Was he therefore ushered into office on a wave of “un-democratic” treachery? No, he was the victor in a democratic electoral process, where the national popular vote is not the determinant of the outcome.
Apparently lots of people skipped social studies class, so let’s review. The United States does not run a national popular vote contest. If it did, its presidential campaigns would be conducted exceedingly differently. Instead, because the United States is a federal republic, it holds 51 separate elections on the same day, per a compact between the states and Washington, DC. The day is prescribed by the Constitution: the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Other than that requirement, basically everything is left up to the states. Some states allow robust early voting (North Carolina, Florida); some states do not (Pennsylvania, New Hampshire). Some states vote entirely by mail (Oregon). Some states take absolutely forever to count votes because their county election systems make no sense (California).
When you’re tallying up official election results, you’re not going to a federal government database. You’re going to a state government database: these results are tabulated by town clerks and county clerks (the titles vary across the country) who then report them to the state Secretary of State. That’s why you go to a state website to view the results.
Electors are chosen by popular vote in every state/district but two, Nebraska and Maine. In Nebraska and Maine, electors are allocated by popular vote in each congressional district, in addition to the overall statewide popular vote. That’s relevant this year because Trump won Maine’s second congressional district, which entitles him to one additional electoral vote. (Likewise, Obama won the second congressional district of Nebraska in 2008, allotting him one additional electoral vote.) That Maine and Nebraska award their electoral votes this way is because of action taken by the Maine and Nebraska state legislatures, which govern their presidential election electoral-vote allocation procedures. (This year is the first time in history that Maine has split its electoral votes.) Maine and Nebraska didn’t have to seek approval from the federal government to construct their rules as such.
This is the system that the country has used for hundreds of years. You may not like it. But don’t say it’s “anti-democratic.” An “anti-democratic” system is a system where the popular will has no bearing whatever on how citizens are ruled. Countries where this could be said to be the case include North Korea and Saudi Arabia. In those countries, “anti-democratic” means the people are not consulted at all in determining how they are governed. In the United States, we have 51 popular vote contests to determine which candidate is awarded electors, and then the person with the majority of electors becomes president. Is that “anti-democratic”? No. Maybe it’s a bit arcane. But it’s not “anti-democratic” because you don’t like it.
Is the United Kingdom also a fundamentally “anti-democratic” nation? In 2015, the Conservative Party won a decisive victory and a commanding majority in Parliament despite garnering only 36.9% of the popular vote. That’s because the UK doesn’t hold a single nationwide popular vote contest to determine who becomes its prime minister. It holds 650 elections in each of its parliamentary constituencies, the outcomes of which determine the composition of Parliament, and then the governing party internally selects its prime minister. Arcane system? Maybe. (There have been moves to reform it.) But “anti-democratic”? No.
I continue to think that the Democrats would have been better off if Hillary just lost the popular vote, because they’ll continue to cling to that hollow victory as somehow evidence that they don’t need to reform. They may have lost almost half of union voters, they may have completely ceded the rural vote to Trump, and they may be mired in their self-congratulatory, self-destructive pathologies, but because they won the national popular vote, they’ll take this as proof that they really “won” overall. They didn’t. They lost. Badly. Get over it. |
‘browse-url’ (originally written by DenisHowe) allows you to click on a URL in the buffer and have Emacs start a browser (usually Netscape) to browse that URL (see also BrowseAproposURL). ‘browse-url’ normally tries to use an existing browser process instead of creating a new one. Whether this will work or not depends on the browser used.
In order to select the browser used by ‘browse-url’ , customize the option ( ‘M-x customize-option’ ) ‘browse-url-browser-function’ and follow the prompts. Emacs 20.7 value menu lists 10 supported browsers.
If your browser is not among the browsers supported, choose the entry “Specified by ‘Browse Url Generic Program’ ” and customize the option ‘browse-url-generic-program’ . Using a generic browser offers no remote control – for every URL you click a new process will be started.
without customize
Here is a suggestion without customize. (On my system ‘gnus-button-url’ is undefined, so I guess it is not necessary. – AlexSchroeder)
From: GrahamGough Subject: Re: browse-url and replacing netscape nav with opera? Newsgroups: comp.emacs Date: 23 May 2001 14:02:57 +0100
I have the following; not sure if they’re all necessary, but they work
(setq gnus-button-url 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "opera" browse-url-browser-function gnus-button-url)
For help on getting a persistent browser (that doesn’t die when emacs is exited), see PersistentProcesses.
Browsing the URL of the current buffer
The command ‘browse-url-of-buffer’ gets a browser to render the URL associated with the file in the current buffer. This is great when editing web-related pages. For example, when you are editing an HTML file, you can have it rendered in your favourite browser by typing ‘C-c C-v’ . This is especially nice if you are using a browser within Emacs like w3 or w3m; then you can have your source in the top window of an Emacs frame, and the output in the bottom frame, and simply regenerate whenever you like without ever having to leave the source!
However, if you’re doing any non-trivial web stuff (such as CGI scripts for example), you’ll need to tell Emacs how to map the file name to a URL. Otherwise, Emacs will map /var/www/cgi/files/filename.pl to file://var/www/cgi/files/filename.pl, while you might want http://my.website.com/cgi?filename.pl. You can achieve this mapping by adding an entry to the variable ‘browse-url-filename-alist’ . So you could add an entry like this this:
(add-to-list 'browse-url-filename-alist '( "/var/www/cgi/files/" . "http://my.website.com/cgi?" ))
Now ‘C-c C-v’ will do the right thing.
This example assumes that ‘browse-url-filename-alist’ has already been defined as a list. For the more typical case in which you’re defining the variable for the first time in your .emacs, you can do something like this instead (from the variable description):
(setq browse-url-filename-alist '(( "/webmaster@webserver:/home/www/html/" . "http://www.acme.co.uk/" ) ( "^/ \( ftp@ \| anonymous@ \) ? \( [ ^ :]+ \) :/*" . "ftp:// \2 /" ) ( "^/ \( [ ^ :@]+@ \) ? \( [ ^ :]+ \) :/*" . "ftp:// \1 \2 /" ) ( "^/+" . "file:/" )))
Set browser according to the GConf configuration system
From time to time I test new browsers and don’t want to adjust browse-url-generic-program everytime I switch. Under Gnome or Unity I normally do this with the tool gnome-default-applications-properties. This tool sets the browser via the GConf configuration system with the key /desktop/gnome/applications/browser/exec. To get this value and to set it automatically I use the following code:
(setq browse-url-generic-program (substring (shell-command-to-string "gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/applications/browser/exec" ) 0 -1) browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic)
– FlorianAdamsky
Different Browsers Depending On Environment
Here is another solution. I normally use a shell script to start the web browser of my choice. Without X, it just starts w3m; with X, it starts xterm and runs w3m.
Works using X and starting the shell script
Works using X and calling ‘browse-url’ in Emacs
in Emacs Works on the console and starting the shell script
Fails on the console when calling ‘browse-url’ in Emacs
In order to fix it, you must run w3m as a shell command in order to capture the output. Here is how:
In your ~/.emacs:
( if window-system (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "web-browser" ) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'my-browse))
( defun my-browse (url &rest ignore) "Browse URL using w3m." (interactive "sURL: " ) (shell-command (concat "w3m " url)) (pop-to-buffer "*Shell Command Output*" ) (setq truncate-lines t))
In your ~/bin/web-browser (a shell script):
#! /bin/bash
if [ -z "$1" ] URL= "-B" else URL=$1 fi
if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] w3m $URL else xterm -name web-browser -bg "#304020" -fg "navajo white" -e w3m $URL fi
Note that now you can define `web-browser %s &’ as an external browser in w3m, such that – in X – you can spawn more windows.
Note also that if you want to run w3m interactively when it runs within Emacs (in the example given that happens only when calling ‘browse-url’ within Emacs on the console), then you need emacs-w3m.
Support for various browsers
Mozilla, new tab
You can put the call to ‘mozilla-remote’ into the shell script above, of course, but you could also define a new function in Emacs. Here is from a posting, slightly edited:
From: JesperHarder Subject: Re: browse-url-mozilla in new tab Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.gnus Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 22:12:43 +0200
So here’s a function which does it. Set ‘browse-url-browser-function’ to ‘my-browse-url-mozilla-new-tab’ .
( defun my-browse-url-mozilla-new-tab (url &optional new-window) "Open URL in a new tab in Mozilla." (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) ( unless (string= "" (shell-command-to-string (concat "mozilla -remote 'openURL(" url ",new-tab)'" ))) (message "Starting Mozilla..." ) (start-process (concat "mozilla " url) nil "mozilla" url) (message "Starting Mozilla...done" )))
This code works fine with Phoenix too.
Firefox
That’s how I use Firefox 2.0 with GNU Emacs 22. It uses only one window and opens new links in new tabs.
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-firefox browse-url-new-window-flag t browse-url-firefox-new-window-is-tab t)
I think it is a bug in Firefox 0.9: The above code won’t work. Here’s a workaround:
( defun my-browse-url-firefox-new-tab (url &optional new-window) "Open URL in a new tab in Firefox." (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) ( let ((cmd (shell-command-to-string (concat "~/src/firefox/mozilla-xremote-client -a any 'openURL(" url ",new-tab)'" )))) ( unless (string= "" cmd) (message "Starting Firefox..." ) (start-process (concat "firefox " url) nil "~/src/firefox/firefox" url) (message "Starting Firefox...done" ))))
The old command with the-remote flag resulted in Error: No running window found when I ran it on command line. Using ‘mozilla-xremote-client’ instead did the trick.
They have changed the command-line options in firefox 0.9. instead of the old
firefox -remote 'openURL(http://emacswiki.org/, new-tab)'
you need to do
firefox -a firefox -remote 'openURL(http://emacswiki.org/, new-tab)'
Presumably you need the ‘-a firefox’ bit for all -remote stuff.
JuhapekkaTolvanen : This works for me:
( defun my-browse-url-firefox-new-tab (url &optional new-window) "Open URL in a new tab in Mozilla." (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) ( unless (string= "" (shell-command-to-string (concat "mozilla-firefox -a firefox -remote 'openURL(" url ",new-tab)'" ))) (message "Starting Mozilla Firefox..." ))) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'my-browse-url-firefox-new-tab)
I think, it does not start Firefox, if it is not already on.
In Firefox 1.5, the easiest way is probably to open “Preferences → Tabs” in Firefox and select the “A tab in the most recent window” option for the “Open links from other applications” preference, and then do the following in .emacs
(setq browse-url-generic-program (executable-find "firefox" ) browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic)
Firefox 36+
Changed again! In firefox/iceweasel 36 -remote is gone entirely.
( defun browse-url-firefox (url &optional new-window) "Ask the Firefox WWW browser to load URL. Default to the URL around or before point. The strings in variable ` browse-url-firefox-arguments ' are also passed to Firefox. When called interactively, if variable ` browse-url-new-window-flag ' is non-nil, load the document in a new Firefox window, otherwise use a random existing one. A non-nil interactive prefix argument reverses the effect of ` browse-url-new-window-flag '. If ` browse-url-firefox-new-window-is-tab ' is non-nil, then whenever a document would otherwise be loaded in a new window, it is loaded in a new tab in an existing window instead. When called non-interactively, optional second argument NEW-WINDOW is used instead of ` browse-url-new-window-flag '." (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) (setq url (browse-url-encode-url url)) ( let * ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment)) (window-args ( if (browse-url-maybe-new-window new-window) ( if browse-url-firefox-new-window-is-tab '( "-new-tab" ) '( "-new-window" )))) (ff-args (append browse-url-firefox-arguments window-args (list url))) (process-name (concat "firefox " url)) (process (apply 'start-process process-name nil browse-url-firefox-program ff-args) )) ))
Galeon
There’s ‘browse-url-galeon’ . Note that the “new galeon window” functionality is broken in emacs 21.2. Is fixed in the current emacs CVS 21.3.50 though.
JuhapekkaTolvanen : This worked fine, when I still used Galeon:
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "galeon" browse-url-generic-args '( "-n" ))
Epiphany
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-epiphany) (setq browse-url-epiphany-new-window-is-tab t)
This doesn’t seem to be available yet on Debian etch. However, the instructions above for galeon work with epiphany if you just change the name of the program
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "epiphany" browse-url-generic-args '( "--new-tab" ))
Chromium
On arch linux, the following command will allow emacs to use the chromium-browser PKGBUILD:
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "chromium-browser" )
Konqueror
This works fine with KDE 3.4 and emacs 21.4:
( defun my-browse-url-in-konqueror-new-tab (url &rest ARGS) "Open URL in a new Konqueror tab" (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) (call-process "sh" nil t nil "-c" (concat "konqnewtab.sh " url)))
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'my-browse-url-in-konqueror-new-tab)
“konqnewtab.sh” being the following shell script:
#!/bin/sh # Usage: konqnewtab http://someurl.org
pid=`dcop | grep konqueror | sed 's/konqueror-//' | tail -n 1` # find the most recently used konqueror window # use head -n 1 to find the konqueror window opened first
if [ "$pid" != "" ] then dcop konqueror- "$pid" konqueror-mainwindow#1 newTab "$1" else konqueror "$1" >/dev/null 2>&1 & fi
Seamonkey
The code above for Mozilla works with Seamonkey too…
( defun my-browse-url-seamonkey-new-tab (url &optional new-window) "Open URL in a new tab in Seamonkey." (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) ( unless (string= "" (shell-command-to-string (concat "seamonkey -remote 'openURL(" url ",new-tab)'" ))) (message "Starting Seamonkey..." ) (start-process (concat "seamonkey " url) nil "seamonkey" url) (message "Starting Seamonkey...done" )))
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'my-browse-url-seamonkey-new-tab)
Opera
From opera -h:
Usage: opera [options] url -newwindow open url in new window -newpage open url in new page (tab) -backgroundpage open url in background page (tab)
The netscapesque -remote openURL options are also supported.
Midori
Setting browse-url-generic-program to Midori just works fine :
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "midori" )
Links gui mode
Also Known As links -g set links in browse-url-generic-program set -g in browse-url-generic-args
Xwidget Webkit
If you try the Emacs Xwidget branch you can do:
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'xwidget-webkit-browse-url)
Then a webkit browser will show up inside an Emacs buffer.
Conkeror
Add the following to .emacs:
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "/path/to/conkeror" )
Add the following to .conkerorrc:
url_remoting_fn = load_url_in_new_buffer
IceCat
Add the following to .emacs:
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "icecat" )
Microsoft Edge (Windows 10)
Add the following to .emacs
( defun browse-url-edge (url &optional new-window) (shell-command (concat "start microsoft-edge:" url)))
and set the browser function
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-edge)
Feeling Lucky?
Let Google figure out the most appropriate web site for the stuff in your region:
( defun browse-lucky (start end) (interactive "r" ) ( let ((q (buffer-substring-no-properties start end))) (browse-url (concat "http://www.google.com/search?btnI &q= " (url-hexify-string q)))))
Discussion
"Bug" in browse-url-default-windows-browser
The function browse-url-default-windows-browser strips anchors from URLs to local files. For instance, if typing M-x browse-url-default-windows-browser file:///C:/index.html#test where C:/index.html is an existing file, #test will be removed from the final URL. Update: Further investigation reveals that the problem is related to w32-shell-execute . Executing (w32-shell-execute "open" "file:///C:/index.html#test" ) opens file:///C:/index.html , without the anchor. w32-shell-execute is defined in C source code … does this mean the problem is intractable?
Your should report your problem to the Emacs user list help-gnu-emacs. My guess is that the URL needs to quoted before opened, but I haven’t checked it anywhere. --- browse-url.el 02 Mar 2009 17:54:39 -0500 1.77 +++ browse-url.el 02 Mar 2009 17:54:46 -0500 @@ -831,7 +831,7 @@ ( if dos-windows-version (shell-command (concat "start " (shell-quote-argument url))) ( error "Browsing URLs is not supported on this system" )) - (w32-shell-execute "open" url))) + (w32-shell-execute "open" (shell-quote-argument url)))) ( defun browse-url-default-macosx-browser (url &optional new-window) (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) Note that you should use the command ‘M-x browse-url’ , but customize ‘browse-url-browser-function’ as ‘browse-url-default-windows-browser’ . See the Browse-URL section of the Emacs manual. – AaronHawley
The problem is not one of quoting, since (shell-quote-argument "file:///C:/index.html#test") returns "\"file:///C:/index.html#test\"" . Rather, it seems to be the case that file:///C:/index.html#test is a nonstandard URI; RFC 1630 and RFC 1738 don’t specify a #target (i.e., an anchor) for file URIs. (External URIs work!) Most browsers will happily parse such URIs anyway, but with Window’s ShellExecute the nonstandard URI is converted to a standard one before reaching the browser, and so the #target is stripped off. In other words, however useful #targets in file URIs are, Windows is “right” in removing them. 😟 The solution: call the browser directly instead, e.g., use browse-url-firefox instead of browse-url-default-windows-browser . Add (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-firefox browse-url-new-window-flag t browse-url-firefox-new-window-is-tab t) to .emacs and use the function browse-url (thanks, AaronHawley).
Defining a new URL type?
I’d like to define a handler for a new URL type, but the info pages for URL mode is, um, completely missing. Does anybody have any pointers?
Thanks, JamesFelixBlack
More control over opening in emacs vs. opening in external
I want C-u to always open in emacs (e.g. emacs-w3m) and C-u C-u to always open in external (e.g. Safari).
Is there a way?
→ Have a look here: http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/JorgenSchaefersEmacsConfig I have this in my .emacs: ( require ' w 3m-load) ( require ' w 3m) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-generic browse-url-generic-program "/usr/bin/conkeror" ) ( defun choose-browser (url &rest args) (interactive "sURL: " ) ( if (y-or-n-p "Use external browser? " ) (browse-url-generic url) (w3m-browse-url url))) (setq browse-url-browser-function 'choose-browser) (global-set-key " \C -xm" 'browse-url-at-point) hth Memnon
More integrated way of invoking the default browser under Mac OSX in Emacs 23
The simplest, most integrated way is to use the system utility ‘open’ , which uses the system’s default browser:
(setq browse-url-browser-function (quote browse-url-generic)) (setq browse-url-generic-program "open" )
The default ‘open’ loads the URL according to default browser behavior. In instances where you want to force a new browser window, you can execute applescript from elisp (only in Emacs >23):
( defun browse-url-default-macosx-browser (url &optional new-window) (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) ( if (and new-window (>= emacs-major-version 23)) (ns-do-applescript (format (concat "tell application \" Safari \" to make document with properties {URL: \" %s \" }
" "tell application \" Safari \" to activate" ) url)) (start-process (concat "open " url) nil "open" url)))
On the other hand, if you want the browser to reuse an existing tab if it has one already showing the URL, the applescript is somewhat more complicated. Instructions are here.
Is there a package which makes URLs clickable?
I’m looking for a minor mode or similar which I can turn on in any buffer and it makes all URLs in the buffer clickable and of course keeps the URLs updated when the buffer text is edited. Is there such a package?
Sounds like you want goto-address-mode (see GotoAddress). Other alternatives: Hyperbole does this automatically and much more, nXhtml has mlinks.el (HTML-style links only), and org-mode has support for URL links but that’s a major mode. There’s also BrowseUrl. The commentary suggests adding the following to your .emacs. (global-set-key [S-mouse-2] 'browse-url-at-mouse)
Choose browser when using Org-mode's org-open-at-point (C-c C-o)
If you want to be able to easily choose between different browsers (with w3m as the default) you can advise ‘org-open-at-point’ with the following code (note, it uses choose-browser from above):
( defadvice org-open-at-point (around org-open-at-point-choose-browser activate) ( let ((browse-url-browser-function ( cond ((equal (ad-get-arg 0) '(4)) 'browse-url-generic) ((equal (ad-get-arg 0) '(16)) 'choose-browser) (t ( lambda (url &optional new) (w3m-browse-url url t))) ))) ad-do-it))
Defaults to w3m: C-c C-o Defaults to external browser: C-u C-c C-o Choose w3m or external browser: C-u C-u C-c C-o – AaronCulich
Private Browsing
Ask whether URL should open in a new window in private browsing mode (with Firefox). Unconditionally open some URLs in private browsing mode:
( defun my-browse-url-maybe-privately (url &optional new-window) "Ask whether URL should be browsed in a private browsing window." (interactive "sURL: " ) ( if (y-or-n-p "Private Browsing? " ) (my-browse-url-firefox-privately url) (browse-url-default-browser url new-window))) ( defun my-browse-url-firefox-privately (url &optional new-window) "Make firefox open URL in private-browsing window." (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: " )) ( let ((process-environment (browse-url-process-environment))) (apply 'start-process (concat "firefox " url) nil browse-url-firefox-program (list "-private-window" url)))) (setq browse-url-browser-function '(( "^https?://t \\ .co" . my-browse-url-firefox-privately) ( "^https?://instagram \\ .com" . my-browse-url-firefox-privately) ( "." . my-browse-url-maybe-privately)))
CategoryDotEmacs CategoryHypermedia |
We figured that the case against Sam Hurd, who was arrested yesterday after allegedly attempting to purchase a large amount of cocaine from a federal agent, could get a whole lot messier as the details unfolded, but we didn't expect this: Chicago's 670 The Score reports that the police actually have a list "in the double-digits" of NFL players who were supplied drugs by the Bears wide receiver.
Advertisement
The source also told the radio station that Hurd was considered "a top drug dealer in Chicago":
According to the criminal complaint, Hurd told an undercover Homeland Security agent Wednesday night that he and another co-conspirator were already distributing four kilograms of cocaine a week in the Chicago area, but he needed more. He was seeking five to ten kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana a week to distribute and was willing to pay $25,000 per kilo of cocaine and $450 per pound of marijuana. That adds up to as much as $700,000 of drugs each week.
Source: Hurd Provided Drugs To Other NFL Players [670 The Score] |
34 Philippines, Episode 4 (Air Date: October 10 2012)
by Martin Holmes and Ian Walker “Create A Little Chaos”
The story of the Matsing tribe is one of the most tragic tales in Survivor history. Seemingly dysfunctional from the start, the words “Matsing Wins Immunity!” were never spoken in the tribe’s existence, each subsequent loss compounding the misery, and right in the middle of the misery was Russell Swan.
Russell had come back to the game for his second chance, determined to write a better ending to his story after his first chapter ended in the most life-threatening medical emergency the show had ever seen. After being denied greatness his first game, Russell was sure he was destined for greatness here in Round 2 but ended up only finding, even more, sadness.
There is some great editing in this episode that perfectly captures the despair of the Matsing tribe. The opening two and half minutes of “Create A Little Chaos” are entirely dialogue free – which is a long time in TV terms – as the camera pans through shots of a waterlogged camp, wrinkled hands and feet, and ominous dark clouds. We finally pause on the Matsing three desperately trying to start a fire. At this moment we are truly with the Matsing tribe and their struggle, and much like Russell, we also pray for the biggest comeback in Survivor history.
Side-Note: Another masterful moment of editing in this episode is during Russell’s search for the hidden immunity idol. Russell provides meta play-by-play commentary of his hunt, describing what we are likely to be seeing on screen. “I’ve probably walked by it a hundred times already, and they’ll be flashing it up on screen” – followed, of course, by the idol flashing on top of the rice container while Russell wanders by aimlessly. Superb.
Matsing’s dire circumstances are further highlighted in comparison to the much more lively Kalabaw and Tandang tribes. Over on Tandang, we get a taste of Abi-Maria Gomes’ Brazilian spice for the first time, as her battle with RC Saint-Amor kicks up a gear after mischief-maker Pete Yurkowski plants the idol clue in RC’s bag. “Maybe the rats carried it over,” says Abi with her now well established passive-aggressive sarcasm. Kalabaw meanwhile is breaking down into men vs. women, with Jonathan Penner and Jeff Kent reaffirming their alliance – even if it goes against Jeff’s original intentions.
But Matsing doesn’t have time for creating chaos or building alliances. Comprised of only three people heading into the immunity challenge (Russell, Malcolm Freberg and Denise Stapley), Matsing is just hoping to overcome how bleak and dire things have become for them by finally getting their first win on the board.
In one of the most epic challenges ever, Matsing almost gets that win, getting out to an early lead against the other two tribes while traversing through a mud-soaked obstacle course to get to the final stage- a setup with wrecking balls swinging all over the place attempting to hit pots off of pedestals. Matsing looks like they could finally have a win on their hands, but then, in a gorgeously edited slow-mo shot, the wrecking ball of an opposing tribe smashes into their own pots, ensuring victory for them and sending Matsing back to tribal council.
Russell immediately screams his frustrations to the heavens in a moment of raw humility. He becomes so caught up in his pleadings to the Man Above that he accidentally calls Jeff Probst “Lord” by mistake. Jeff himself is great at this moment, questioning Russell’s need to expect greatness from himself all of the time, delivering great insight into the mind of a man who wanted so much out of this game and instead got so little.
With tribal council looming, Russell tries his best to stay in by attempting to play Malcolm and Denise against each other; unfortunately, he doesn’t realize how close Malcolm and Denise have been since the beginning of the game. In fact, the two of them do a better job of playing Russell than Russell does the two of them. Denise, showing her keen skill set for the game, goes into therapy mode and gets Russell to open up about his past troubles, making him vulnerable enough to convince him that the two of them are voting against Malcolm.
Unfortunately for Russell, he gets duped one final time on his way out the door. Malcolm and Denise, fulfilling their destiny as the real survivors of the Matsing tribe, vote him out and in the process write the end to Russell Swan’s swan song on Survivor.
PreviousNext |
The detection of extra dimensions beyond the familiar four—the three dimensions of space and one of time—would be among the most earth-shattering discoveries in the history of physics. Now scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., are designing a new experiment that would investigate tantalizing hints that extra dimensions may indeed exist.
Last year researchers involved in Fermilab’s MiniBooNE study, which detects elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos, announced that they had found a surprising anomaly. Neutrinos, which have no charge and very little mass, form out of nuclear reactions and particle decays. They come in three types, called flavors—electron, muon and tau—and oscillate wildly from one flavor to another as they travel along. While observing a beam of muon neutrinos generated by one of Fermilab’s particle accelerators, the MiniBooNE researchers found that an unexpectedly high number of the particles in the low-energy range (below 475 million electron volts) had transformed into electron neutrinos. After a year of analysis, the investigators have failed to come up with a conventional explanation for this so-called low-energy excess. The mystery has focused attention on an intriguing and very unconventional hypothesis: a fourth kind of neutrino may be bouncing in and out of extra dimensions.
String theorists, who seek to unify the laws of gravity with those of quantum mechanics, have long predicted the existence of extra dimensions. Some physicists have proposed that nearly all the particles in our universe may be confined to a four-dimensional “brane” embedded within a 10-dimensional “bulk.” But a putative particle called the sterile neutrino, which interacts with other particles only through gravity, would be able to travel in and out of the brane, taking shortcuts through the extra dimensions. In 2005 Heinrich Päs, now at the University of Dortmund in Germany, Sandip Pakvasa of the University of Hawaii and Thomas J. Weiler of Vanderbilt University predicted that the extradimensional peregrinations of sterile neutrinos would increase the probability of flavor oscillations at low energies—exactly the result found at MiniBooNE two years later.
Energized by the prospect of discovering new laws of physics, the MiniBooNE team soon proposed a follow-up experiment called MicroBooNE that could test the sterile neutrino hypothesis. The new detector, a cryogenic tank filled with 170 tons of liquid argon, would be able to detect low-energy particles with much greater precision than its predecessor could. A particle emerging from a neutrino interaction would ionize the argon atoms in its path, inducing currents in arrays of wires at the perimeter of the tank. Scientists could then pinpoint the trajectory of the particle, allowing them to better distinguish between electron neutrino interactions and other events and thus determine whether there really is an excess of oscillations at low energies.
Estimated to cost about $15 million, the MicroBooNE tank would be located near the MiniBooNE detector at Fermilab so that it could observe the same beam of neutrinos. This past June the lab’s physics advisory committee approved the design phase for the project; if all goes well, the detector could begin operating as soon as 2011.
Researchers hope that MicroBooNE will lead to the development of much larger detectors, containing hundreds of thousands of tons of liquid argon in tanks as big as sports arenas. Such facilities could search for other hypothesized phenomena such as the extremely rare decay of protons. “It’s a fantastic new technology,” says Bonnie Fleming, a physicist at Yale University and spokesperson for MicroBooNE. “And it’s crucial for taking the next step in physics.”
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "A New Neutrino Hunt". |
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Mayor-elect Tim Keller has chosen former Rio Rancho police chief Michael James Geier as the interim leader of the Albuquerque Police Department.
Geier, who served with APD for 20 years, was Rio Rancho’s police chief for three years. He stepped down from that position in February, saying at the time that he wanted to spend more time with family. Keller also announced the appointments of three interim deputy chiefs, and said a fourth deputy chief position remains open.
ADVERTISEMENTSkip
“I want to be really clear, this is in no way an interim keep the lights on team,” Keller told reporters during a news conference this morning. “This is a turnaround team, and that’s what they’re going to do for Albuquerque.”
Geier served as commander of APD’s criminal investigations division for about five years prior to retiring from the department in 2014. In that position, he oversaw the violent and juvenile crimes sections.
“He is a former chief of the third largest city in New Mexico, which I think is very important,” Keller said. “He knows APD well, so it’s not going to take him a long time to get up to speed. He has a rare combination of respect from frontline officers and also enough outside experience to understand the changes that need to be made at APD. Mike also had extensive experience with respect to working with victims’ rights victims advocates, so he’s very familiar with especially the sexual assault victims’ rights community and folks even involved in APD reform.”
He said Geier was one of about a dozen candidates he talked to for the interim chief position. Keller said he expects the national search for the city’s next permanent police chief to take months and to wrap up by the end of next year. Geier is welcome to apply for the position, he said.
The three interim deputy chiefs Keller has appointed to help lead APD are:
• Harold Medina, who has served as chief of police for the Pueblo of Laguna for the past three years, following 20 years with APD.
• Rogelio “Roger” Banez, who has more than 24 years of experience in law enforcement, and retired from APD about nine months ago. He rose through the APD ranks to the position of area commander for Albuquerque’s southwest quadrant.
• And current Deputy Chief Eric Garcia, who will work on Department of Justice reforms. Keller noted that Garcia is the only APD executive that has been asked to stay on “at least through transition and perhaps longer.”
The appointments become effective on Friday, when Keller officially becomes mayor. A public swearing in ceremony for them will be held next week, Keller said.
“There’s still one vacancy that we’re going to look to fill over December and January,” he said.
Keller said he has tasked his APD leadership team with three immediate goals.
“They’re going to evaluate the department and every officer in that department,” he said. “Two, they are going to restructure that department, and three, we’re going to turn it around. Then we’re going to go out for a national search for chief of police. We’ll also see how the rest of these folks have worked out.”
Keller said their longer term goals are to reduce crime in Albuquerque; restore trust with the community; implement community policing, and to bring in new officers.
Bob Martinez, with the Albuquerque Fraternal Order of Police, praised Keller’s decision to appoint Geier as interim chief.
“It’s outstanding,” he said, adding that Geier is knowledgeable about the department and is firm and compassionate.
“He’ll be good for the department,” Martinez said. |
CLOSE In San Francisco on Tuesday, Google unveiled its new phones, Google 5X and 6P. Here are the top five things you need to know about these new devices. Theresa Chong
The Google Nexus 6P was made by Huawei. (Photo: Google)
NEW YORK — Google's state of the art Nexus 6P smartphone is a robust new version of its praiseworthy predecessor and a showcase for the tasty new version of Android known as Marshmallow. The new phone is faster, has a superior camera, and is one of the few handsets at the moment to support Project Fi, Google's own wireless service.
Put the 6P at or near the top of the Android heap. Last year's Motorola-made Nexus 6 has been on my short list of favorite Android devices.
This time around Google is teaming up with the Chinese hardware maker Huawei, and the two companies have delivered an even stronger device in the 6P, which I've had the chance to test out over a few days.
Here's a closer look:
*Look and feel. The thing you notice right off the bat is the 6P’s all-metal aeronautical grade aluminum body, which gives the handset more of a premium feel compared to the Nexus 6. At 6.3 ounces, it’s a tad on the heavy side though still a bit lighter than the previous flagship.
The 5.7-inch display is a beauty, though a little smaller than the 5.96-inch screen on the Nexus 6. Then again, with Apple's rival iPhones and Samsung Galaxy’s, I’ve come to expect brilliant screens, especially for phones in this high rent district.
*Pricing and availability. You can get the 6P at a starting price of $499 for a model with 32 gigabytes of storage, or, $549 and $649, respectively, for models with 64GB and 128GB. Google is reporting that phones are already on back-order or out of stock.
For a smaller, less pricey option, Google is also selling the new Nexus 5X (made by LG), which starts at $379. These are unlocked devices, meaning you can choose any major U.S. wireless carrier, or go with Project Fi, as I did, assuming you’ve got an invitation from Google.
An attendee takes a picture of the new Nexus 5X phone during a Google media event. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)
*Fingerprint sensor. Marshmallow brings Android Imprint, which lets you use your fingerprint to unlock the device and authenticate purchases through Android Pay.
True, there’s nothing novel these days about fingerprint sensors — iPhones and Galaxy’s have them. But Google and Huawei designers chose a different path by placing the fingerprint sensor on the rear of the Nexus 6P. Yes, it took getting used to, but the design ultimately makes sense because of the way most of us hold the phone. The finger you’re most likely to call upon is already resting on the rear of the device. In any case, the phone routinely recognized my fingerprint without a lag.
*Cameras. The cameras on the new phone, not always Nexus’ strongest suit, have also gotten a lot better. You can easily launch the camera by double-pressing the power button.
The rear shooter on the Nexus 6P camera has 12.3-megapixels, the front camera, 8MP. But rather than merely play up the total number of pixels, an oft-misunderstood and overrated measure of quality, Google boasts large pixels that capture more light than most rivals.
On that score I was very impressed with the colors and sharpness on many of the images I shot, including pictures I snapped in dimmer conditions. Such images land inside the Google Photos app that is Google’s answer to Apple’s Photos app.
The 6P can also shoot 4K video. And you can “cast” photos and videos to a big screen TV via the Google Photos app, if you have a Google Chromecast device.
*Connectivity and power. The phones include the versatile USB-Type C charger that is an emerging standard. As with Apple’s Lightning cables, USB-C connectors are reversible — that is you can insert the plug either way, a nicety you come to appreciate. You also appreciate that some new computers also support USB-C. The downside is that all those older micro-USB phone cables you may have lying around the house aren’t compatible.
I got a full day of juice, and then some, in normal use with the 6P, but when you are running low on power, you can quickly charge things up, getting up to seven hours of battery life, Google claims, while plugging in for just 10 minutes.
Marshmallow through a new Doze feature generally promises longer battery life, by shutting down or placing certain functions and apps on standby, when the phone is idle.
Google unveiled its 2015 smartphone lineup, the Nexus 5x and Nexus 6P, the new Chromecast and new Android 6.0 Marshmallow software features at an event in San Francisco. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)
*Now on Tap. One of the most interesting features that comes with Marshmallow is called Now on Tap, an extension of the Google Now feature that anticipates your search needs before you actively seek certain information. To summon the new feature, which isn't yet perfect but I imagine will only get smarter and more useful over time, you tap and hold the home button on the phone. Now on Tap then promises to surface relevant information associated with whatever it is you have on the screen — in other words, it's about context.
For example, when reading a review of the movie The Walk, Now on Tap supplied shortcuts to Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on, related to actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, tightrope artist Philippe Petit (who the film is based on), and filmmaker Robert Zemeckis. You can also find out when its playing at a nearby theater.
Meantime, if you happen to watch movies or listen to music on the phone without headphones, it's worth noting that the 6P has very decent front facing speakers.
*Project Fi. I haven’t used Project Fi for long but my early experience is mixed. I like that prices start at only $30 a month and you only pay for the data you use. But while Project Fi is supposed to automatically choose the best connection among Wi-Fi and 4G LTE networks from Sprint and T-Mobile, I didn’t always get a strong phone signal or a signal at all as I used the 6P in and around Northern New Jersey.
Still, Google has a winner with the Nexus 6P. At least until the next great phone pushes it aside.
Email: [email protected]; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech columnist @edbaig on Twitter
The bottom line
Google Nexus 6P
$499 on up; play.google.com
Pro. Brilliant screen, strong camera, USB-C, Marshmallow, Project Fi-ready. Unlocked phone.
Con. Had mixed experience with coverage via Project Fi.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1LIkWnT |
Physical therapist Lauren Fery spots student Kamille Davis as she climbs up the playground ladder at St. Coletta. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)
With a mailbag slung across his small frame and a wide-brim hat perched atop his head, Mason Wade stepped up to the catwalk. Clasping his aide’s hand for support, he sashayed across the gym, a sprawling red carpet under his feet.
For the 6-year-old dressed as a mail carrier, his favorite community helper, the end-of-year fashion show at St. Coletta Special Education Public Charter School in Southeast Washington was a chance to strut his stuff. For the school-based therapists looking on, it was a moment years in the making.
Mason, who has a developmental delay, used a wheelchair when he started at St. Coletta in 2015. Hundreds of physical therapy sessions and oodles of enthusiasm later, Mason is walking, able to traverse the school’s black-and-white-tiled hallway with the support of an adult.
Mason Wade used to rely on a wheelchair, but he can now walk with minimal support. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)
Physical therapist Keith Albarillo works with Mason, 6, at St. Coletta school. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)
At St. Coletta, where all students have special needs, tiny pieces of progress can add up to life-changing trajectories. The school relies on funding from Medicaid to employ a cadre of therapists. But with each twist in the health-care debate on Capitol Hill, staff members wonder whether their Medicaid dollars could be at risk.
Pride for student achievement is shadowed by anxiety over the unknown.
“We would not rest easy if we knew we couldn’t provide the appropriate services for our kids,” said Loni Licuanan, who directs the school’s therapeutic services.
The federal government allows public schools to receive Medicaid reimbursement for school-based health services required through students’ special education plans. Although federal law mandates that schools provide these services, Congress has never authorized the amount of funding it pledged when the law was passed decades ago. To make up that budget gap, schools have turned to Medicaid.
The District, which expanded Medicaid coverage in 2010 under the Affordable Care Act, received more than $40 million in Medicaid reimbursements for special-education services during the last fiscal year, according to the Office of the State Superintendent.
[Trump to propose cuts, slashing Medicaid and opening door to other limits]
Cuts to Medicaid would affect schools across the District, but St. Coletta would be especially hard-hit. Each of the school’s 250 students is intellectually disabled, and most require multiple types of therapy.
During fiscal 2016, St. Coletta provided more than $1 million in special-education services to Medicaid-eligible students. The school was reimbursed for 70 percent of the cost through Medicaid, which helps pay the salaries and benefits of 35 service providers, including physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists.
Overall, Medicaid reimbursements account for only 5 percent of St. Coletta’s annual budget, but the school says those funds — more than $750,000 annually — make it possible to provide services not available at other D.C. public schools.
In addition to weekly one-on-one sessions, St. Coletta students have therapy as part of their daily routines. Bathroom breaks are used as skill-building opportunities, from support walking across the hall to guidance in using a toilet independently. At lunchtime, where feeding and swallowing can be arduous for some students, therapists assist.
Antoinette Davis of Southwest Washington said school-based therapy has given her daughter, Kamille, the confidence to make new friends and to climb the spiral stairs in the family’s duplex.
Speech therapist Sherelle Smith works with Kamille Davis at St. Coletta. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)
Kamille, 6, has Smith-Magenis syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that can cause delayed speech. As a toddler, she was nonverbal. Unable to express herself, she resorted to self-harm, scratching her arms and banging her head, Davis said.
“She would get mad and frustrated because we didn’t know what she wanted,” she said.
Since enrolling at St. Coletta two years ago, Kamille has learned to use a specialized tablet to communicate her needs and to show what she’s learned.
“She knows her colors, the alphabet, how to spell her name,” Davis said. “I can see the difference in her.”
Located across from the D.C. Armory, St. Coletta educates students until they turn 22. Because of the severity of students’ disabilities, there are no grade levels. Students are separated by age.
Brandon Walker has learned to use an eye-gate system to communicate. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)
Brandon Walker, 20, is a member of the school’s oldest group. A student at the school for more than a decade, he is unable to walk or speak. It took a team of therapists years to find a communication system that worked for him, said Katherine Short, the school’s therapy coordinator.
Walker uses eye-tracking technology to communicate. A camera inside a tablet-like device mounted to his wheelchair monitors his eye movements back and forth, as one might a cursor moving across a computer screen. When his eyes dwell on an image for one-sixth of a second, the machine says the chosen word for him.
Using the device, Walker can tell his teacher when he’s hungry, tired or in the mood to listen to his favorite jazz music. And, for the first time, he can engage socially.
The technology, purchased by his family through Medicaid, “gives him access to his world, access he never had before,” said Short, a speech language pathologist.
According to a report from the Office of the D.C. Auditor, the District would lose $563 million in federal funds for Medicaid in the first year and up to $1 billion annually by 2028 if Congress were to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
If the federal government reduces its share of Medicaid spending, schools might have to compete with other medical providers, including hospitals and nursing homes, for limited resources, said John Hill, executive director for the National Alliance for Medicaid in Education.
“There’s going be losers, and it will be up to the states to decide who those losers are going to be,” he said.
Sharon Raimo is the chief executive of St. Coletta. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)
For Sharon Raimo, St. Coletta’s chief executive, that prospect can be maddening.
Raimo, who helped found the school in 2006, said any threat to her students’ safety net is worrisome. Medicaid cuts, in particular, would be shortsighted, she said.
“When these kids attain these goals, it makes them easier to take care of at home, rather than being placed outside of the home, which is much more expensive,” she said.
St. Coletta already fundraises for many of its needs and would seek additional support from donors if necessary.
“These are the people who make my heart beat faster,” she said. “Everybody here who does this work, we do it because we care about them and we really think they have potential.” |
The face of the old FBI: white FBI SAC "Hank" Sloan (left) poses with Lloyd Nolan, the equally white actor who played Sloan in a movie about a Nazi spy ring composed—of course—of German immigrants. If they made the movie today, the actor would be black, and the immigrants would be changed to white supremacists.
The post below by Eugene Gant features a picture from the FBI's diversity hire page which pictures six agents, four of them female, two of them black.
I thought "That can't be their actual demographics, they'd never get anything done!"
The FBI publishes a facts and figures page—below is a screenshot of the PDF.
The lady at the right is wearing a badge, and holstered gun (on women's slacks without belt loops) so she's a black female agent. Is that likely?
Of 13,907 special agents, 661 are black. (4.75 percent.) There is less than a one in twenty chance that an FBI agent who interviews you is black.
The FBI is 16.9 percent minority, but to get to that figure, they have to count Asians, Hawaiians, and agents with Spanish last names. The FBI has very high educational standards for a law enforcement agency.
Of the same group, 2,707 are female. (Less than one in five.) That means that only one in a hundred FBI agents is a black female.
So in fact, the FBI today really is mostly the same white guys who caught Nazi and Soviet spies and Italian gangsters.
It's just that their management likes to pretend differently. |
In a surprise U-turn, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly indicated she supports Luxembourg's former prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, as lead candidate for the European People's Party (EPP), EURACTIV Germany reports.
“All the signs are green for him to be the candidate for the EPP”, an official close to Juncker told the Financial Times (FT) regarding the former Luxembourg prime minister’s position on the top of the party’s candidate list in the upcoming EU elections.
As one of the highest-ranking conservative politicians in the EU, Merkel’s support is crucial for the appointment of any EPP frontrunner.
Already in early January, Luxembourg’s former prime minister and long-time head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, expressed his willingness to accept the position of top candidate.
The EPP is set to officially select their lead candidate at a party convention in Dublin on 6 March, which is also likely to entail a nomination for the Commission presidency following the elections.
“Now we have to wait for the selection process to be completed, but I can assure you that Juncker is ready for the job and is ready to lead the campaign for the Commission presidency,” an official told the FT.
Phone diplomacy
Until now, media reports indicated that it was doubtful that Juncker would gain the crucial support needed from Merkel, who leads Germany’s ruling conservatives, the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), a member of the EPP European Parliament group.
>> Read: Why Merkel doesn’t support Juncker for Commission president
The news may prove a gamechanger for Juncker. According to the FT, “Merkel phoned him directly to assure him of her support”.
The account was confirmed by reports in the German press on Sunday (2 February): “The decision for Juncker has been made. Chancellor Merkel also wants Juncker to be top candidate in the European elections and supports his candidacy”, the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag said, citing consistent accounts from “informed circles in Brussels and Berlin that are familiar with the deliberations”.
As a result, Juncker is well on his way to becoming the EPP’s lead candidate but, even so, there is still a chance that the Party of European Socialists (PES) could emerge as the strongest party in this year’s European Parliament elections. In that case, Juncker could miss his chance of a top job in Brussels.
If the Socialists win in May, London intends to present Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny as an alternative to Juncker, Welt am Sonntag reported, citing high level EU sources.
Furthermore, there is a good chance that Juncker could become the successor of European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, the German newspaper reported. “This would open up room for manoeuvre for Mr. Juncker in the coming years and is less stressful than the office of Commission president.”
With a conservative as head of the European Council, the paper says, the head of the European Commission would likely have to be a Socialist.
Candidacy not likely for Lagarde
Meanwhile it seems that the chances for International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde becoming the EPP’s potential frontrunner have fallen considerably.
Speaking over the weekend, German EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger voiced his opposition to Lagarde’s candidacy in an interview for Germany’s “Focus” magazine.
“Mrs. Lagarde has an outstanding position [at the IMF]. We can be happy that a European sits at the head of the IMF. I think, she is helping us the most from there,” said Oettinger, leaving his own post-election future to be determined. |
Back in Week 5, Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson sustained a knee injury that kept him out of a game against Green Bay. A few days later, we received a tip:
I have a close friend who went to the Detroit Lions' doctor to get reconstructive knee surgery, and the doctor told my friend Megatron's injury is a partially torn PCL. Now, you can disregard this e-mail because I'm just a guy on the internet, but I can guarantee you it's true. Just letting you guys know.
The posterior cruciate ligament acts a sort of stabilizer, affecting how far you can bend your knee, and with how much force. A PCL injury is usually less painful than one to the ACL; often, it doesn't even require surgery. Every case is different: Back in 2007, Reggie Bush reportedly played for a month with a PCL tear, but Felix Jones missed three games with a PCL sprain in 2009. Depending on the grade and the severity, pain and swelling can go away within a few weeks, but the long-term instability is the bigger factor, and to clear that up, you need rest or surgery, neither of which you're getting if you're trying to play a full NFL season.
We bring this up now because there's talk of the Lions shutting Megatron down. Last night's loss to the Giants officially eliminated them from the playoffs. It seems useless to send your best player into a meaningless Week 17 game, particularly when he's been playing on a wobbly leg. Coach Jim Schwartz was non-committal in a press conference:
Advertisement
Photo: AP |
After forty years of work within Labour, by 1991 the Marxists of the Militant Tendency were virtually emptied out of the party for fighting Thatcher’s unpopular poll tax.
The Labour leadership had opposed the mass campaign of civil disobedience and told people to obey the law, pay the Tory poll tax, sit tight and wait for a Labour government. The Militant socialists, however, provided the organisational background to the movement that defeated the tax and finally led to the unseating of the most unpopular prime minister in modern times.
But Militant members were to become victims of their own success. By fighting back, political and media opprobrium rained down on their heads and – as with the time of the Liverpool City Council – the Labour leadership were urged to expel socialists if Kinnock was to prove his party had turned from leftwing policies to make his party ‘electable’.
It was for this that the witch hunt, instigated back in the mid-1980s, now went into full gear to offer ‘final proof’ that they were no longer ‘old’ Labour, the party would be in ‘safe hands’ and present no threat to capitalism. By being at the forefront of the anti-poll tax campaign, hundreds of Militant members exposed themselves to expulsion from Labour. They were identified (actually photographed in a lot of cases) selling the ‘Militant’ paper, calling for non-payment and for socialist policies.
Open, grassroots campaign
Unable to combat Militant members with reasoned, open political debate, Labour’s officialdom used bureaucratic methods to boot out socialists, many of whom held party membership for twenty or more years.
In Liverpool, one sitting councillor, Lesley Mahmood, was blocked from standing as prospective parliamentary candidate in favour of witch hunter Peter Kilfoyle. She and her supporters then campaigned in the Walton by-election in 1991 when leftwinger MP Eric Heffer died.
Mahmood led an open, grassroots campaign, holding several public meetings. It was a by-election that attracted an unusual level of media attention, most of it anti-Militant. She eventually polled only 2,608 votes compared to the 20,000-plus for Kilfoyle. Most voters still had faith in Labour as the only viable alternative to the Tories and supported the official candidate. That faith was to hold fast into the next Labour government before it was to be squandered.
‘Workers’ MPs on Workers’ Wages’
Then there were two Labour MPs who were also socialists – ‘Workers’ MPs on Workers’ Wages’ – Dave Nellist and Terry Fields (a third, Pat Wall, had died in 1987). Both fought against the poll tax. Terry Fields went to prison for 60 days in solidarity with the people who had voted for him. Both were expelled in time for the 1992 general election. It was Kinnock’s latest bid for power and another opportunity to demonstrate Labour was a ‘Militant-free zone’.
Both Nellist and Fields ran as ‘Real Labour’ candidates and won credible votes, but the local electorate felt they had to vote for Labour to defeat the Tories – as they so often told canvassers on the doorstep.
It was not to be. Kinnock, despite his re-labelling of the Labour Party – the prettified red rose emblem, the ‘New Realism’ manifesto that jettisoned principles for the sake of a media-friendly manifesto – lost a second election and resigned as Labour leader.
The after-effects of such a tumultuous period did not leave Militant unaffected. By now, most of its members expelled from Labour, any socialists remaining in the party had to choose whether they remained politically active or keep their heads down to avoid being expelled. Could they work effectively anymore within Labour?
Furthermore, respectable votes attained by Nellist and Fields, and the successes of Militant members in Glasgow City Council elections (Tommy Sheridan among them) presented the Tendency a new direction for more ‘open work’ as an independent political formation. Militant was now a household name and were known for their campaigning and their socialism. Following a conference in Bridlington in 1993, it was decided to form a new party – the Militant Labour Party. This was later changed to the Socialist Party in 1995. At the top of their agenda was to help build a new, mass workers’ party from the bottom up.
New Labour, a fully-fledged capitalist party
They entered the arena at the most difficult of times. Fresh in everybody’s memory was the recent fall of Stalinism (1989-1991) and the break up of the USSR due to decades of brutal bureaucratic strangulation. The demise of Stalinism provided the international capitalist class a huge propaganda prize – ‘capitalism has won!’ came the cry, amid wall-to-wall documentaries and books to help spell out that ‘capitalism is good, socialism is bad’. It was, allegedly, the ‘end of history’ according to one capitalist triumphalist.
After eighteen years of Thatcherism, which extended beyond her time in office in the (incapable) hands of John Major’s government, more people were prepared to vote for Labour’s new leadership under Tony Blair. This they did to landslide proportions and, to many people, this really did seem the ‘dawning of a new day’. However, as those former Militant members now in the Socialist Party, predicted: ‘New Labour has moved decisively to the right and has become a fully-fledged capitalist party.’
The Militant Labour Party (soon to become the Socialist Party) didn’t waste much time in re-grouping. By 1993, after a series of discussions and conferences with other groups and trade union members the ‘Socialist Alliance’ (SA) was formed as a loose federation of those on the left who would campaign together and stand candidates in forthcoming elections. The SA was strong in the North-West, the Midlands, London and particularly in Scotland.
Despite the unfavourable conditions due to the massive initial popularity of Blair’s ‘New Labour’, by the end of the 1990s, they achieved minor gains, upto eleven council seats around the country. But by 1999, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) began to dominate the SA and the Socialist Party could no longer take part as democracy was being closed down when SWP dictatorial methods began to tear the Alliance apart.
‘Committee for a Workers’ International’
In Scotland, it was a different story. For long, Labour had been Scotland’s ‘establishment party’ and so it was easier to form a stronger oppositional party of the left to counterpose the nationalism of the SNP. The Scottish Socialist Party grew out of the Scottish Socialist Alliance and gained six Members of the Scottish Parliament following the election of 2003. But, by this time, those around Tommy Sheridan had split away from the ‘Committee for a Workers’ International’ (CWI) to which the Socialist Party was affiliated, and consequently, its socialist outlook diluted and took on a kind of ‘left reformist’ outlook.
Since then, the media trials and tribulations of Tommy Sheridan have resulted in a downturn of support in the Scottish Socialist Party following his imprisonment for perjury. Party members testified against their former comrade in his fight against the Murdoch press and the alleged ‘smear campaign’ against him that still rumbles on to this day. Subsequently, Sheridan parted from the SSP and is now a member of a new formation – ‘Solidarity’.
Following the exit from the Socialist Alliance, by 2007, the Socialist Party launched the ‘Campaign for a New Workers’ Party’ (CNWP), highlighting the need for a political voice for ordinary working class people. It was not only the record of the Blair’s government since 1997 that had (i) stuck rigidly to Tory spending restrictions (ii) attacked workers on strike (such as the firefighters’ union and the petrol blockades) and (iii), most notoriously, the launching of the war in Iraq.
Each provided more proof (and further disgust) that Labour no longer listened to working class people and, in particular, the organised working class in the trade union movement that helped to fund the party.
Political consciousness
These disparities made it clear – certainly by the advent of Blair’s replacement, Gordon Brown – that access to Labour as a vehicle for social change in favour of working people was no longer available. The Labour Party’s continued adherence to the capitalist system’s demands meant the working class were without a relevant voice.
But, as Marx said, ‘economic conditions dictate political consciousness’.
How those ‘economic conditions’ have changed the ballgame! Within a year of the Socialist Party launching the CNWP, the worst international economic disaster since 1929 swept around the globe.
The late historian Eric Hobsbawm commented that 2008’s banking crisis was capitalism’s ‘Berlin Wall’. But, unlike the Berlin Wall, capitalism will always recover to a certain extent, if it is allowed to, and keep its grip on the world economy if no alternative is put forward to counteract it.
Witness the movements of people that have sprung up in opposition to the capitalist orthodoxy in the last period – the ‘Occupy’ movement; the ‘Arab Spring’; the European workers’ strike waves, particularly in Greece and Spain; the magnificent fighting campaigns of the South African miners; and the growing anti-cuts fight here in Britain’s communities, spearheaded by a number of trade unions.
Socialist Party members have been at the forefront of these battles here and have helped to build the increasingly influential National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) that has acted as a lever to national demonstrations and strikes last year and 2011. On the election front, they have also helped to build the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (2010) to offer a socialist alternative. Granted, their received votes have been small, but in local elections their total percentage in votes has inched forward.
The diametrically opposed rightwing UKIP has taken twenty years to reach the point where it stands now, serving mainly as a receptacle for disgruntled, rightwing, Eurosceptic Tories. In two years, the Socialist Party has gained fertile ground for the future to offer a real alternative to the ‘three wings of the same capitalist party’ – which is what, in effect, the main political parties are.
What is needed is for our trade unions to stop funding Labour, disaffiliate, and form our own working class, socialist party. A party that will then implement socialist policies that will benefit the millions, not the millionaires – truly, a party of our own.
Share this: Facebook
Twitter
Reddit
Tumblr
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Email |
In a rare interview, Red Bull boss and Austria’s richest man Dietrich Mateschitz has slammed mass migration and political correctness, warning they threaten to destroy Europe’s true cultural diversity.
Speaking to Kleine Zeitung, the Formula 1 investor called the decision of key politicians to open the borders — which resulted in Europe’s migration crisis — “unpardonable”, noting that “if a company were to make mistakes on the same scale, it would have gone broke”.
Highlighting the “hypocrisies” of what he called the “refugees welcome brigade” with regards to migration, Mateschitz said: “I am talking about the fact that none of the people shouting ‘refugees welcome’ or [Chancellor Angela Merkel’s famous phrase] ‘we can do it’ were preparing their own guest rooms or tents in their gardens to accommodate half a dozen migrants.
“Even then it was clear to everyone that most of the people [arriving in the continent] did not correspond to the definition of the refugee. In any case, not the Geneva Convention”.
In the interview, Mateschitz took a stand against the “destabilisation of Europe”, which he said threatens the “uniqueness of [the continent’s] diversity and individuality with its different cultures and languages”.
“I hope I’m not the only one who’s worried that one of the highest officials in Brussels said that countries which aren’t multicultural should be wiped off the map”, Mateschitz told the newspaper, possibly alluding to comments made by European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans in 2015.
“Any society, anywhere in the world, will be diverse in the future — that’s the future of the world,” Timmermans said, demanding that Eastern and Central EU nations undergo similar demographic transitions to Western Europe.
Of political correctness, Mateschitz said: “It seems that no one dares to tell the truth, even if everyone knows what the truth is.”
“The elites want citizens to be frightened, and easily manipulated,” he added.
The Red Bull founder said he sees numerous problems plaguing the European Union (EU), the architects of whom he fingered as belonging to a “so-called intellectual elite” with nothing to contribute to the continent.
“Policies which are steeped in political correctness have been imposed in the name of a self-proclaimed, so-called intellectual elite who have nothing to contribute to our country neither economically nor culturally despite their best intentions,” he said.
Mateschitz also poured scorn on how Russia has been framed as the EU’s nemesis by large parts of the media and Western liberal establishment, telling Kleine Zeitung: “I do not need anyone to tell me who my enemies are.”
Criticising attempts to destroy the former Soviet superpower through economic sanctions, the Formula 1 investor pointed out that “for Europe as a whole [this policy] results in losing billions of Euros”.
Challenged by the Austrian newspaper with the assertion that he too is an ‘elite’, Mateschitz hit back, describing himself as a “humanist” but “someone who basically opposes any dogma”.
Speaking about banning the Islamic veil, a talking point in Austria currently, the Red Bull boss said: “I can’t bring myself to think that this is really a matter of any importance … It’s silly to make a political issue out of something like this when there are far more pressing matters.” |
What’s going on in the RuneScape community? We have events to take part in, organised by both players and fan sites; brilliant videos for you to watch; and a competition to win a RuneScape goodie-bag and an awesome headset, in association with our friends at Sennheiser Gaming!
Fan Sites
The good folk at RuneTime have a rather exciting weekend event planned. Mod Lee will be the subject of a live interview on their Radio station! So, if you’d like to find out about his past on RuneScape, life with Jagex, his future plans, and of course about his Video and Music, then tune in this Sunday 29th June, at 8pm BST.
Videos
HelmsDeep Productions have produced the finale to their ‘RuneWars’ series of videos; find out whether good or evil will prevail in Gielinor in this exciting finale:
Sir Mikkel has been at it again! Not content with providing us with a RuneScape trailer in the last Chronicle, he’s created a parody quest trailer for Cook's Assistant. And it’s brilliant:
The Legacy Mode Beta has hit RuneScape (and the vote is now live for you to choose whether Legacy goes into RuneScape proper) – if you’ve not tried it out in the Beta, Slayerholik has created a video for new users to jump straight into the Beta and have fun!
Events
Biweekly summer fun events
It’s summer time! And ‘Scapers Oreo and Zoinkwiz are hosting some fantastic biweekly summer events, designed to give you some fun in the sun (whilst not actually being outside in the sunshine).
Their first event is a Hide-N-Seek in the Elven lands – there will be rewards up for grabs and they'll be testing your Elven knowledge too! Join them this Friday at 5pm BST, w100 at Ardougne North Bank.
For more details about this event, and all the others they have planned this summer, visit Oreo's forum thread.
Social Media - Mass In-Game Gathering
Are you a part of any of the RuneScape Social Media communities? Well, Falador Swag is organising a mass get-together for all of you to meet each other and celebrate being part of the RS social media community!
It’s on Friday 4th July, 8pm BST, at w3 Mudskipper Point, so head on down! Find full details on the forums.
Sennheiser competition
We've teamed up with Sennheiser Gaming to offer five lucky ‘Scapers a Sennheiser gaming headset and a RuneScape goodie bag!
For a chance to win, simply enter before June 30th. Good luck!
Artwork
Sacornus has sent us an idea for a weasel thief pet, and we love it. We hope you do too.
We’re always looking for great stuff to feature, so please send in your videos, events, artwork, and other community-related awesomeness to [email protected], and who knows? We may feature you in a future edition.
Thank you very much for reading, and happy ‘Scaping!
The RuneScape Community Team |
We're doing an E3 show. Maybe you've heard about it? Called the PC Gaming Show, it's our attempt to give the PC some long overdue love at E3. Today, we're revealing the next round of developers who'll be making an appearance.
The newly announced participants include ArenaNet, CCP Games, Creative Assembly, Fullbright, Frictional Games, Frontier Developments, Nexon, Pixel Titans, SCS Software and Splash Damage.
They'll be joining the previously confirmed participants, including Blizzard, Bohemia, Cloud Imperium, Devolver, Paradox, Heart Machine, Square Enix, Tripwire, Humble Bundle, Dean Hall, Cliff Bleszinski and AMD.
If you're keeping track, that means we'll have the developers of everything from Guild Wars 2 and Eve: Online, to Strafe and Euro Truck Simulator 2. How's that for a PC conference?
Hosted by Sean 'Day[9]' Plott, the PC Gaming Show will take place at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles on Tuesday, June 16, 2015. The whole event is being livestreamed on Twitch, and will feature new game reveals, updates on in-development games and insightful perspectives from the industry's leading figures. For more details, head over to the show's official website. |
One of the biggest on-going arguments on the Internet revolves around “share” sites such as Reddit, Funny Junk, and 9GAG. They make their money by users uploading funny stuff found on the Internet… regardless of copyright and often without credit to the original, depending on the situation. Occasionally one of these sites gets into it with a content creator, with predictably hilarious results.
9GAG is one of the more popular. It’s raised $2.8 million in funding, has an iPhone app on the way and — according to a Redditor’s carefully researched and backed up post — is built almost entirely on raiding sites like Reddit and Quickmeme, and then faking the post data to make it look like a 9GAG original instead of something they copied.
This isn’t just sour grapes, either. The aforementioned post in the 4Chan subreddit is actually a fairly damning work that reverse engineers the entire process. The key aspect of the report, written by 9F**_EXPERT, is that 9GAG is essentially a plagiarism machine run by actual human.
The basic process is this: Find a funny image on Reddit, carefully crop out any watermarks, and post it to 9GAG with a fake time. The really sad part is that this is some poor bastard’s job; the report demonstrates repeatedly that none of this stuff can be done by robots:
9GAG does not have automated scripts which steal your submissions. Everything is done by humans. I don’t know who came up with that idea that they made scripts, because it’s just wrong. They have hired people to browse the biggest subreddits (such as /r/pics, /r/funny, /r/gaming, /r/wtf, /r/aww, /r/f7u12, /r/adviceanimals, /r/videos) and steal content. Day for day.
Well… we guess it’s good 9GAG is creating jobs. The real question is what they’ll do now that it’s been made clear that they can’t cover their tracks anymore.
Of course, Reddit users steal stuff from all over the web all the time, so the irony of Redditors crying about stolen content is pretty thick here. |
Child sex crimes can be a difficult topic to discuss, but it’s important that we shed light on issues like pedophilia so we can prevent them from happening in the first place. In the past, numerous members of the elite, political figures, religious leaders, and other authority figures have abused their power and used it to rape and sexually abuse adults and kids, yet the public often turns a blind eye to it.
If we’re not willing to reveal the truth, or at least search for it, how can we expect to create positive change in the world?
With that, the Guardian released an article on Tuesday about the Mayor of Seattle’s recent resignation. Ed Murray stepped down as Mayor after being publicly accused of sexual abuse for a fifth time, this time by his cousin.
What’s worse is that he is one of several other mayors who have been accused of child sex crimes in the past year alone. Are these really the people we want governing society, leading us toward a “brighter tomorrow”?
Which Mayors Have Been Accused of Child Sex Crimes?
Let’s start with the allegations made against Ed Murray, who resigned as Mayor of Seattle earlier this week (effective 5pm Wednesday).
Murray has been denying these claims, stating, “While the allegations against me are not true, it is important that my personal issues do not affect the ability of our city government to conduct the public’s business.”
Murray’s first cousin once removed, Joseph Dyer, was the fifth person to accuse him of sexual abuse, claiming that he had a history of this. Dyer explained that Murray came to live with his family when he was 13, and he used to repeatedly sexually abuse him, to the point where he had to fake sleeping in hopes that he wouldn’t touch him.
Prior to Dyer’s accusation, four other men came forward claiming that Murray sexually abused or raped them when they were younger. One of the cases was actually verified by old files that cited a child welfare investigator’s conclusion that Murray had sexually abused a man named Jeff Simpson in the 1980s when Murray was his foster parent.
The Mayor of Stillwater, New York, Rick Nelson, also resigned this September following his arrest on child pornography charges. Though there are few details surrounding the charges, large publications like the Washington Post at least verified his arrest regarding child pornography, though according to the Times Union, Nelson has faced numerous accusations of child sex crimes and inappropriate behaviour before.
The mayor of a city in Nebraska, Dwayne Schutt, was just charged with “intentional child abuse and four counts of child sexual abuse.” Despite these allegations made by the victim, who is now 18 but was 14-years-old at the time of the abuse, Schutt still remains Mayor. Last year, former Ohio Mayor Richard Keenan allegedly admitted to repeatedly having sex with a child over the course of two years starting when she was only 4 years old. Keenan apparently confessed his sexual assaults to numerous people, including his wife and a pastor. Keenan was charged with eight counts of gross sexual imposition, eight counts of rape, and four counts of attempted rape.
Anthony Silva, former California Mayor, was charged last year with providing alcohol to minors, playing strip poker with them, and then filming it. Investigators found more than 20 photos and four videos that showed him playing strip poker with camp counsellors and minors, including a 16-year-old boy. However, Silva is now facing a slew of different charges involving his alleged act of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars that were meant to help underprivileged children.
In March of this year, Oregon Mayor Kenneth Lewis Barrett was arrested for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl, who was actually working in an undercover sex sting operation. Barrett was also charged with online sexual corruption of a child and unlawful possession of a firearm.
A Georgia Mayor, Christopher Wright, was tied up in a child molestation case last year and was accused of raping a 12-year-old child. During the trial of a man facing child molestation charges, one of the victims actually named the Mayor as one of the perpetrators. Wright pleaded no contest and did not have to serve any prison time, though he is on probation.
Darral Walker, the former Mayor of Rockdale, Texas, was indicted last summer for indecency with a child, but did not have to register as a child sex offender. Walker engaged in sexual contact with a child younger than 17 years old by touching his genitals, which Walker actually admitted to but claimed that it was for “educational purposes.” Since when is it okay to sexually assault a minor just because the “intention” behind it had nothing to do with sexual gratification?
Former Millbrook, New York, Mayor Donald Briggs was charged with two counts of a criminal sexual act late last year. Briggs allegedly had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor under the age of 17.
Former Mayor of Clayton, California, Dale Kenyon was indicted last week due to allegations of sexual acts against a minor. Kenyon allegedly engaged in sexual acts with a child who was 14 years old at the time, and the abuse allegedly took place from 2009 to 2012.
This is a long list of current and former Mayors of different U.S. cities involved in sexual misconduct and abuse of minors. This begs an interesting question: Are we allowing the wrong people to come into positions of political power, or are rape, pedophilia, and sexual misconduct far more prevalent within society than we think? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
A Long History of Pedophilia and Sexual Misconduct in “Authority”
This isn’t the first time people were concerned over sexual abuse and pedophilia by government officials and the elite. Ted Gunderson, former FBI special agent and head of their L.A. office, worked to uncover years’ worth of information on high-level pedophilia, sexual abuse, and satanic rituals performed by the elite. You can read more about that in our CE article here.
Former U.S. representative Cynthia McKinney also knew about the government’s relationship to human trafficking, and she actually addressed it in 2005. She grilled Donald Rumsfeld on DynCorp’s child trafficking business of selling women and children (source).
The fact of the matter is that high-level political and elite involvement with pedophilia and sex slaves is nothing new. If you know anything about the government programs MK Ultra or Monarch Mind Control, it’s easy to imagine how not only unwilling adults, but children can be manipulated and brainwashed into thinking that pedophilia and sex trafficking are okay. Either that or they’re too terrified to come forward.
There has also been a lot of speculation lately on child sex rings being used by the U.S. government. You may be familiar with the PizzaGate scandal, which allegedly unearthed a very high-level elitist global pedophile ring the U.S. government was involved in. If this is true, then the U.S. government isn’t just part of the problem, they’re at the very heart of it.
Former writer for the Huffington Post and Business Insider David Seaman has posted numerous YouTube videos thoroughly outlining the emails and the link to these pizza parlours and the pedophilia symbolism found within all of it, which you can check out here.
For more information about these subjects, I’d strongly suggest reading the following CE articles:
The Hard Truth: Is There Any Real Evidence Of Elite Pedophile Sex Rings Involving Government & Pop Culture?
Victims Sue Federal Government Over “Sweet Deal” Given To Elite Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein
Ashton Kutcher Delivers Powerful Speech On Human Trafficking & Sex Slavery To U.S. Congress (VIDEO)
Legalized Pedophilia In The US: More Than 200,000 Children Married In The Last 15 Years
Former US State Dept. Official Explains How Clinton’s Are Involved In Elite Pedophilia Ring
What The History Channel Left Out About The Declassified CIA Program: “History Of MK-Ultra”
Final Thoughts
It’s incredibly important that we shed light on these topics and work to uncover the truth, despite how “dark” these subjects may seem or how much we don’t want to believe that such things happen in our midst. It’s always difficult for society to accept when authoritative figures like government officials, priests, etc. are involved in corruption and crimes, especially when it comes to children.
However, just because something is uncomfortable to talk about, doesn’t mean we don’t need to talk about it. Sometimes it’s the more uncomfortable subjects that are exactly the topics we should talk about — after all, how else can we expand our comfort zones if we don’t challenge them? I encourage you to share information with others, even if it’s something they may not want to hear.
If we simply dismiss information because it’s uncomfortable to address, then witnesses won’t feel confident in coming forward. We want to create an environment in which victims feel that they can share their experiences with others rather than one that encourages them to hide their truths. |
Finally, Election Day is here and "The Colbert Report's" Stephen Colbert reigns triumphant. Not because he's been elected to anything -- but because he and his Super PAC, “Making a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow,” got a (likely unintentional) hat tip in the final hours of campaigning.
Mitt Romney recently told voters, “We can begin a better tomorrow, tomorrow.”
“He used our slogan!” Colbert said. “I think that proves that Mitt is a candidate just as serious and sincere as I am.”
But while the onslaught of political ads are over, the pundits and their punditry will be with us always. And the pundits were right in the crosshairs on both "Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show," though how any of the hosts managed to decide which clips to use among the sheer volume of noise on television is a mystery.
“Obviously on Wednesday or, God forbid, Thursday or December or whenever this thing is figured out, we’ll know which pundits were wrong, which were wronger, and which were ‘Oh my God, that guy was really wrong!'” Jon Stewart said on "The Daily Show."
Regardless, there are unlikely to be any meaningful consequences for the losers. “Punditry is like musical chairs. The only difference is that when the music stops, nobody moves the chairs. They just keep adding more chairs,” Stewart said.
"Colbert Report" guest Nate Silver also weighed in. “I’m not very pro-pundit, I have to say. If pundits were on the ballot against Ebola, I might vote Ebola -- or third party.”
Perhaps that’s partially because of his tiff with Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC morning host who read Silver’s computer model predicting an overwhelming chance of an Obama victory and sniped, “Anybody who thinks this race is anything but a toss-up right now is such an ideologue that they should be kept away from typewriters because they’re jokes.”
“Yeah, Silver and his math are jokes because math has a liberal bias. After all, math is the reason Mitt Romney’s tax plan doesn’t add up,” Colbert said.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel continued to quiz random people on the streets of Los Angeles -- to continued sad, hilarious effect.
His most recent sidewalk escapade involved sending a reporter for "Lie Witness News" to ask people whether they'd voted yet, even though no polls were open in California when they initiated the quiz. Pretty much everyone was planning to vote later that evening ... but a few happily admitted to the fact that yes, they had voted, and lines were long.
Even a man in an Elmo costume couldn't be trusted to tell the whole truth, so he got a special prize: A sticker on his furry chest reading, "I lied."
Still, there was one voter who couldn't lie about choosing the next U.S. president, mainly because a dog can't vote. "Late Night's" Jimmy Fallon brought his dog Gary to the studio and offered her (yes, her) up two bowls of kibble -- in hopes he could lend some insight into who will win on Tuesday. So who did Gary pick? Check out the video to find out. The future of the nation could be at stake.
Related content: |
The Swedish Tourist Association recently announced a new service called The Swedish Number. People who dial +46 771 793 336 will be connected with a random participating Swede.
We talked to about a dozen of those Swedes with one question in mind: What happened on September 3rd, 1967?
Those who were alive and in-country during that time took little time to respond. That day was a national holiday of sorts: Dagen H (or “H-Day”), short for Högertrafikomläggningen (“the right-hand traffic diversion”). On that day, millions of Swedes switched from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right.
It was the most massive overhaul in driving infrastructure that the world had ever seen.
Historically, the side of the road on which people walk, drive, or ride has varied from place to place. When horse-back was the primary mode of transit, people generally rode on the left side of roads so that their right hand remained free to greet oncoming riders—or to attack them with a sword.
But with the rise of horse-drawn carriage, conventions began to change. Drivers would often sit on on the left rear horse, so their dominant right hands could more easily control the rest of the team which stood to the front and right of the driver. It then made sense for them to drive on the right side of roads so the driver could be positioned in the middle of the lane and be able to more easily keep track of carriages behind them.
But this could vary by custom and country, and different locales had different norms. Cars began to replace horses, and they tended to go wherever local laws indicated that horse-drawn traffic should be.
Until 1967, Sweden drove on the left—opposite from neighboring countries Denmark, Finland, and Norway. Swedish drivers who traveled abroad got into car accidents because of their unfamiliarity with the traffic patterns, as did tourists who came to Sweden.
Additionally, Swedish automotive companies made cars that were meant to be driven on the right so they could be more easily exported to the rest of the right-driving world, but many of these cars found their way onto Swedish roads. Swedish drivers were thus seated closest to the outside edge of the road, making visibility bad.
To combat these issues, the Swedish government made the case for switching to the right, and put the decision up for a public vote.
The response was overwhelmingly negative. People wanted to stick with what they were used to—but the government just decided to move forward with their plan anyway.
The Swedish government created entire departments to help with the transition. They designed signs and stickers featuring a new “H” logo (short for höger, or “right”). They distributed pamphlets and PSAs and created special products which included colored gloves and new headlamps all designed around the switch.
Sweden’s television station even held a contest to write the best song to help people remember the imminent switch. The winner, Håll dig till höger, Svensson (“Stick to the Right, Svensson”) by the Telstars, involved a bit of a double entendre—in Swedish, “keeping to the right” is shorthand for being faithful to your spouse, while “going left” means having an affair.
On September 3, 1967—H-Day—the country was ready.
In the hours leading up to the change-over, most cars were kept off the road for as construction crews switched the road signs and performed their final infrastructural tweaks. At 4:50am, a horn blared and a loudspeaker announced, Now is the time to changeover! The new road signs were revealed, and the cars re-routed to the opposite side.
Remarkably, H-Day went very smoothly, thanks in part to drivers displaying excessive caution in the face of what was presumably a terrifying shift.
A year after Sweden switched sides of the road, Iceland also switched to driving on the right, and in the 1970s, former British colonies including Ghana and Nigeria switched from left to right to be more like their neighbors in West Africa.
Today, the vast majority of the world drives on the right, and in places that do drive on the left—such as the UK—movements occasionally spring up trying to get the country to switch to the right. Still, there is one notable exception to this trend.
In 2009, the island republic of Samoa did the reverse of what Sweden and so many others had done. They went from driving on the right, like most of the world, and switched to the left.
Moving to the left aligned Samoa with the three closest major economies: Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, all of whom drive on the left. By making the switch, they could then import used cars from Japan, which are has one of the cheapest used car markets in the world.
The Samoan declared the date of the change, September 8, 2009, a holiday in order to get people comfortable with the switch. (Like Sweden, Samoa also wrote its own song about the switch.)
The right-to-left transition went smoothly, largely because Samoa only has a few major roads. The country also experienced a dip in accidents afterward, probably because it got people to drive a little more carefully as everyone got used to keeping to the left. |
David Scott Mustaine (born September 13, 1961) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor and author. He is best known as the co-founder, lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the American heavy metal band Megadeth,[3] as well as the original lead guitarist of the American band Metallica.
Early life [ edit ]
David Mustaine was born September 13, 1961, in Virginia City, Nevada,[4] to Emily (née David) and John Mustaine. His father was of French, German, Canadian, Irish and Finnish descent,[5][6] whereas his mother was a German Jew emigrant.[7][8] He was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness.[9]
Early career [ edit ]
Panic [ edit ]
Panic was Mustaine's first band. The lineup was Mike Leftwych on drums, Bob Evans on bass, Tom Quecke on rhythm guitar, Pat Voeks as the vocalist, with Mustaine as the lead guitarist. Both Mike Leftwych and the sound man were killed in a car crash after Panic's second show. Dave says after the band started to fall apart in 1981, Quecke also died.[12][13]
Metallica [ edit ]
In 1981, Mustaine left Panic to join Metallica as the lead guitarist. Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich had posted an ad in a local newspaper, The Recycler, looking for a lead guitarist. In his own words, Mustaine remembers his first meeting with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich: "I was in the room warming up and I walked out and asked, 'Well, am I gonna audition or what?', and they said, 'No, you've got the job.' I couldn't believe how easy it had been and suggested that we get some beer to celebrate."[14]
Mustaine's membership in Metallica ended before recording Kill 'Em All in 1983. Brian Slagel, owner of Metal Blade Records, recalls in an interview: "Dave was an incredibly talented guy but he also had an incredibly large problem with alcohol and drugs. He'd get wasted and become a real crazy person, a raging megalomaniac, and the other guys just couldn't deal with that after a while. I mean, they all drank of course, but Dave drank more… much more. I could see they were beginning to get fed up of seeing Dave drunk out of his mind all the time."[15]
On one occasion, Mustaine brought his dog to rehearsal; the dog jumped onto the car of Metallica bassist Ron McGovney and scratched the paint. Hetfield allegedly yelled at Mustaine's dog and kicked it in anger, to which Mustaine responded by physically attacking Hetfield and McGovney and verbally abusing Ulrich. Mustaine was fired following the altercation, but the next day, Mustaine asked to be allowed back in the band and was granted his request. Another incident occurred when Mustaine, who had been drinking, poured a full can of beer down the neck and into the pick-ups of McGovney's bass. McGovney then told Mustaine and Hetfield to leave his house and left the band shortly after.
On April 11, 1983, after Metallica had driven to New York to record their debut album, Mustaine was officially fired from the band because of his alcoholism, drug abuse, overly aggressive behavior, and personality clashes with founding members Hetfield and Ulrich, an incident Mustaine refers to as "no warning, no second chance". The band packed up Mustaine's gear, drove him to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and put him on a Greyhound bus bound for Los Angeles.[14] It was on this bus ride that Mustaine scribbled some lyrical ideas on the back of a hand bill, which later became the song "Set the World Afire" from the 1988 Megadeth album So Far, So Good... So What!
During his time in Metallica, Mustaine toured with the band, co-wrote four songs that appeared on Kill 'Em All, and co-wrote two songs that eventually appeared on the 1984 album Ride the Lightning. Mustaine has also made unverified claims to have written parts of "Leper Messiah" from Master of Puppets.[14]
Fallen Angels [ edit ]
Fallen Angels was the name of the short-lived band that Mustaine founded after his departure from Metallica. In April 1983, after returning to California to live with his mother, he landed what he calls his first real job with the aid of Robbie McKinney. McKinney and a friend, Matt Kisselstein, worked with Mustaine as telemarketers. Mustaine quit his job after earning enough money to move to an apartment in Hollywood, and recruited McKinney, who played guitar, and Kisselstein, who played bass, for his band Fallen Angels.[16] In his biography, Mustaine describes that "We lacked the chemistry, the energy, the spark—or whatever you want to call it—that gives a band life in its infancy."[16] The partnership did not last.[16]
This paved the way for his partnership with Dave Ellefson and Greg Handevidt. Ellefson was playing the opening bass line of Van Halen's "Runnin' with the Devil" in the apartment below Mustaine's.[17] After stomping on the floor and shouting for them to stop, Mustaine, being hung over at the time, took a potted plant and threw it out of his window and hit the air conditioner of the apartment below.[17] This resulted in the two coming up to Mustaine's apartment to ask for cigarettes. Mustaine replied "There's a store on the corner" and slammed the door in their faces.[17] A few minutes later, they knocked on the door, this time asking if he could buy them beer.[18] Mustaine's reply: 'Ok, now you are talking'. They spent the night talking about music, and soon after, Mustaine, Ellefson and Handevidt were bandmates.
With little confidence in his own vocal capabilities, Mustaine added 'Lor' Kane (real name Lawrence Renna) to the Fallen Angels roster. Kane did not stay long, although he is credited for the suggestion that they should change the name to Megadeth, knowing that Mustaine had written a song of the same name.[19] After Kane left, the first of many drummers, Dijon Carruthers, joined the band. The lineup of Mustaine, Ellefson, Handevidt, and Carruthers was the first incarnation of Megadeth.[4]
Megadeth [ edit ]
1980s [ edit ]
After a series of unsuccessful vocalist auditions, Mustaine elected to take on vocal duties himself in addition to playing lead and rhythm guitar. In 1984, Megadeth cut a three-song demo with drummer Lee Rausch, who replaced Carruthers after Mustaine and Ellefson decided they couldn't trust him. Carruthers had chosen to hide his black heritage from them by claiming he was Spanish, and they couldn't understand why he would deceive them since they weren't racist.[20] Kerry King joined the band for a few shows; however, he opted to leave Megadeth after less than a week so he could continue working on his own band, Slayer. Jazz-influenced drummer Gar Samuelson replaced Rausch, who left after Mustaine convinced him to play with a broken foot.[4] Megadeth recorded a demo as a three-piece band, which captured the attention of guitarist Chris Poland, also a jazz player and a friend of Samuelson, who subsequently joined the band.[21] In November, the band signed a deal with Combat Records and began touring.
In June 1985, Megadeth released their first album, Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!, on Combat Records. That summer, the band toured the U.S. and Canada with Exciter. Guitarist Mike Albert replaced Chris Poland when he was incarcerated for possession of heroin. After Poland was released, he rejoined the band in October and the band then began recording their second studio album for Combat. On New Year's Eve of that year, Megadeth played in San Francisco with Exodus and Metal Church. Metallica was the headliner. This was the only time Megadeth and Metallica were on the same card, until 1991.
In 1986, after recording Killing Is My Business..., Mustaine approached Jackson Guitars for a custom-built guitar. Jackson modified their existing Jackson King V model for Mustaine by adding 2 more frets to the standard 22 fret King V. In the 1990s the company began mass-producing a Dave Mustaine signature series Jackson King V, which continued into the early 2000s. This model uses Seymour Duncan SH-4 pickups, also known as TB-4 pickups.
The following year, major label Capitol Records signed Megadeth and obtained the rights to their second album, Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, from Combat. Megadeth opened a U.S. tour with King Diamond and Motörhead. This album, released in November, is regarded as a landmark metal album. It produced the notable title track (the opening bass lick of which was used by "MTV News" segments) as well as the thrash anthem "Wake Up Dead". The videos for both songs became staples on MTV's Headbanger's Ball.
In February 1987, Megadeth opened for Alice Cooper on his Constrictor tour. The band also toured with King Diamond whose previous band, Mercyful Fate, were a huge influence on Megadeth. In March, Megadeth's first world tour began in the U.K. Mustaine and Ellefson guested on the band Malice's License To Kill album. Megadeth re-recorded "These Boots" for the soundtrack to the film "Dudes", and that summer went on tour with Overkill and Necros. Amid drug problems and suspicions of stealing the band's equipment and pawning it for drug money, Mustaine fired Poland and Samuelson after their last show in Hawaii.
Chuck Behler, who had been Samuelson's drum tech, became Megadeth's new drummer with guitarist Jeff Young replacing Poland. Megadeth released their third album, So Far, So Good... So What!, in January 1988. The album contains the song "In My Darkest Hour", which, according to the liner notes of So Far, So Good... So What!, was composed after the death of Metallica's bass player Cliff Burton, despite the lyrics having nothing to do with Burton. "Hook in Mouth" attacked the Parents Music Resource Center with gusto, although their cover of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK", despite a guest appearance from ex-Pistol Steve Jones, was ill-advised in the eyes of Allmusic's critic.
Later that year, Megadeth opened for Dio and then Iron Maiden on tour before playing the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in the U.K. with Kiss, Iron Maiden, Guns N' Roses, David Lee Roth, and Helloween. Shortly after, Mustaine fired Behler and Young, accusing Young of having thoughts of a relationship with Mustaine's then-girlfriend. Around this period, Mustaine produced the debut album from Seattle thrash band Sanctuary, called Refuge Denied.
Nick Menza, who was Chuck Behler's drum tech, joined Megadeth in 1989, and the band recorded their only track ever as a three-piece: a cover of Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" for the Wes Craven-directed horror flick, Shocker. Video director Penelope Spheeris would later recount in the Megadeth episode of Behind The Music that Mustaine showed up to the video shoot so fried on heroin and other drugs that he could not sing and play guitar at the same time; therefore, the singing and playing had to be recorded separately. Mustaine was arrested for "impaired driving" that March with seven or more drugs in his system and was forced by authorities to enter a rehabilitation program (the first of his 15 visits to rehabilitation centers).[22]
1990s [ edit ]
In February 1990, guitarist Marty Friedman (formerly of Cacophony) was auditioned to fill in the vacant lead-guitar position. In September of that year, the band joined the "Clash of the Titans" tour overseas with Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies and Testament. The tour began one month before Megadeth released Rust in Peace (1990), which continued their commercial success. They then went back on the road to promote the new album, this time as support for Judas Priest.
Megadeth started off 1991 by performing for 145,000 people at Rock In Rio before starting their own world tour with Alice in Chains as their special guest. Mustaine got married in April, the same month the Rusted Pieces home video was released. That summer, the Clash of the Titans tour hit the U.S., featuring Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax, with Alice in Chains taking the opening slot. Later that year, the Megadeth song "Go to Hell" was featured on the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.
Also in 1991, Mustaine collaborated with Sean Harris from Diamond Head on the track "Crown of Worms". Mustaine would later appear on Diamond Head's reformation album Death and Progress. Mustaine's wife, Pamela, gave birth to their son Justis on February 11, 1992. The band was featured on another soundtrack, this time for Super Mario Bros. with the song "Breakpoint". July saw the release of Megadeth's most commercially successful record: Countdown to Extinction. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and boasted some of the band's most commercially successful songs, including "Symphony of Destruction", "Sweating Bullets" and "Skin o' My Teeth". The original version of the "Symphony of Destruction" video was edited due to its depiction of a political leader being assassinated; "Skin o' My Teeth" was aired on MTV with a disclaimer from Mustaine insisting that the song did not endorse suicide. Ellefson contributed lyrics to the family-farm ballad "Foreclosure of a Dream", and Menza wrote the lyrics about canned hunting for the title track. This album began a new, more "collaborative" Megadeth.
Pantera and Suicidal Tendencies opened for Megadeth on the Countdown to Extinction tour. MTV News invited Mustaine to cover the Democratic National Convention for them that summer. In November, the "Exposure of a Dream" home video was released. In 1993, Mustaine guested on a new album by one of the bands who had influenced his own sound: Diamond Head. Megadeth began a U.S. tour with Stone Temple Pilots as their opening act. This tour, including a planned appearance at Budokan, was ultimately canceled due to Mustaine's continuing struggles with addiction. In June, Megadeth played Milton Keynes Bowl with Diamond Head and Metallica and later opened for Metallica on a handful of European Stadium dates. Megadeth was kicked off Aerosmith's U.S. tour after just seven dates because a comment made by Mustaine ("We don't have much time to play because Aerosmith don't have much time left to live") was deemed offensive to Aerosmith. "Angry Again" was featured on the soundtrack to the 1993 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Last Action Hero, while "99 Ways To Die" was featured on The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience compilation album.
Megadeth spent the bulk of 1994 making Youthanasia, a much more commercial album undoubtedly inspired in part by the success of Countdown to Extinction. The band covered Black Sabbath's song "Paranoid" for Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath and performed on MTV's "Night of the Living Megadeth" in celebration of the Halloween release of their new album. They began a tour the next month in South America. Youthanasia became the quickest album to go gold (500,000 units) in Canadian history and sold well throughout the world. It was an album that showed a more melodic side to the band with tracks such as "À Tout le Monde". The album also included "Train of Consequences", the music video for which became one of the band's most well-known.
Another soundtrack appearance, "Diadems" on Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, kicked off 1995. Megadeth spent the first two months of the year on the "Youthanasia" tour with Corrosion of Conformity in tow. In March, the Hidden Treasures compilation hit European stores. The "Evolver: The Making of Youthanasia" home video followed in May, and Hidden Treasures made it to the U.S. and Japan in July, just in time for the start of the "Reckoning Day" tour with special guests Flotsam and Jetsam, Korn and Fear Factory. In September the band performed at the "Monsters of Rock" festival in South America, Peru.
A Grammy nomination for "Paranoid" began 1996 for Megadeth. Enlisting Fear singer Lee Ving, Mustaine released an album under the moniker "MD.45" with Suicidal Tendencies drummer Jimmy DeGrasso. In September, Megadeth returned to the studio, this time in Nashville, TN, to record Cryptic Writings.
Cryptic Writings (1997) included thrashing songs like "Vortex" and "FFF"—reminiscent of Megadeth's older material—alongside radio-friendly fare like "Trust", the song that put Megadeth on the No. 1 spot in the U.S. Billboard, earning them many spins at rock radio. Megadeth.com launched that year, and in June, the reformed Misfits opened for the band on tour. Chaos Comics released "The Cryptic Writings of Megadeth" comic books, and a remix of "Almost Honest" showed up on the "Mortal Kombat Annihilation" soundtrack. The first ever all-acoustic Megadeth performance in Buenos Aires, Argentina closed out the year in December.
Mustaine's daughter, Electra Mustaine, was born on January 28, 1998, the same month that "Trust" was nominated for a Grammy. Megadeth played on the Howard Stern Show and that summer took part in Ozzfest. As Nick Menza sat in the hospital side-lined by a knee injury, he received a call from Mustaine informing him that his services would no longer be needed. Jimmy DeGrasso, who Mustaine had enjoyed playing with in MD.45, joined Megadeth in his place. On New Year's Eve, Megadeth opened for Black Sabbath alongside Soulfly, Slayer, and Pantera.[citation needed]
While touring after Cryptic Writings, Mustaine told interviewers that songs like "She-Wolf" and "Vortex" had reinvigorated his love for classic music by bands like Iron Maiden and Motörhead, and that he intended to write an album that was "1/2 Peace Sells, 1/2 Cryptic Writings"; however, after hearing about a comment that Lars Ulrich had made in the press in which he said he wished Mustaine would take more "risks", intentions changed. Managers and producers had more input. The song "Crush 'Em" was written with the express purpose of being played in wrestling arenas. In later years, Mustaine would blame much of this period on Friedman's desire to go in a more "pop" direction. Recorded with producer Dann Huff, again in Nashville, Risk was released on August 31, 1999. "Crush 'Em" made it onto the Universal Soldier: The Return soundtrack and into WCW wrestling events (notably played live on Monday Nitro). In July, the band covered "Never Say Die" for a second Black Sabbath tribute. They closed the Woodstock '99 music festival and again opened for Iron Maiden in Europe.1999 ended with Marty Friedman announcing his departure from the band.
2000s [ edit ]
As the tour behind Risk soldiered on, Al Pitrelli replaced Friedman on the road. In April, the new lineup entered the studio to begin work on a new album a couple of months before they officially parted ways with Capitol Records. The summer was spent on the road with Anthrax and Mötley Crüe. Capitol released a "best of" collection in the fall, Capitol Punishment: The Megadeth Years, featuring two brand new (and more metal-leaning) songs, "Dread and the Fugitive Mind" was one of the brand new songs and appeared on the next studio album the following year. With a new deal in place with Sanctuary Records, Megadeth returned to the studio toward the end of the year to finish their album and on New Year's Eve, played a show in Anchorage, Alaska.
An acoustic tour sponsored by radio stations, a press tour, and a video shoot for the song "Moto Psycho" all preceded the May 2001 release of The World Needs A Hero. The summer was filled with festival appearances supporting AC/DC. In September, Megadeth set out across North America with Endo and Iced Earth. VH1's "Behind The Music" special on Megadeth aired that year and was later released on DVD. At the end of the year, the band filmed two shows in Arizona, which were released as the 2CD and DVD Rude Awakening. The early part of 2002 saw the release of a remixed and re-mastered Killing Is My Business... with bonus tracks and expanded packaging, followed by Rude Awakening.
In January 2002, Mustaine was admitted to the hospital to get a kidney stone removed. While undergoing treatment, he was administered pain medication that triggered a relapse. Following his hospital stay, he immediately checked himself into a treatment center in Texas.[23] While at rehab, Mustaine suffered an injury causing severe nerve damage to his left arm. The injury, induced by falling asleep with his left arm over the back of a chair caused compression of the radial nerve.[24] He was diagnosed with radial neuropathy,[25] also known as Saturday Night Palsy, which left him unable to grasp or even make a fist with his left hand.[26]
On April 3, 2002, Mustaine announced in a press release that he was disbanding Megadeth, officially due to his arm injury.[25][26] For the next four months, Mustaine underwent intense physical therapy five days a week.[23] Slowly, Mustaine began to play again, but was forced to "re-teach" his left hand.
Mustaine himself gave what he called "the Reader's Digest version" of the whole matter during an interview for SuicideGirls: "I went into retirement because my arm got hurt really bad. I broke up the band which at the time was Al Pitrelli, Dave Ellefson, Jimmy DeGrasso, and myself. I was having problems with Al because he liked to drink, and we didn't want to show up at places with him drunk. Al also got married to a nice woman, but he wanted to spend time with her. After a few years, most married men are willing to die, so I figured if we got a couple years into the marriage that might have changed. But the fact was, Al wasn't fitting. DeGrasso was really hard to be around because he was so negative all the time with his complaining about money and wanting things. Ellefson was all about 'play my songs, play my songs.' I hated being around these guys so when the arm injury happened, it was a welcome relief and an indication that I had to stop."[27]
Mustaine went through physical therapy for his arm injury. During his recovery, he explored other areas of the music industry, including production. Contrary to what doctors had predicted, within a short time he fully recovered. However, all was mostly quiet on the Megadeth front for the better part of 2003. Mustaine left Jackson guitars, did a solo acoustic performance at a benefit show, unveiled his new ESP model at the NAMM convention, and oversaw the release of Peace Sells... but Who's Buying? as an audio DVD presented in Dolby 5.1 surround.
At the same time, Mustaine's personal life once again underwent change. It was during this period that Mustaine became a Christian. He expressed his intent to withdraw from a show in Greece that had Rotting Christ and Dissection opening for Megadeth.[28][29] Mustaine told The Daily Times during a recent interview, his own world was already shattered, and becoming a Christian was the one way he's found to put the pieces back together. "I went back to being a Jehovah's Witness, but I wasn't happy with that." He later said in an interview, "Looking up at the cross, I said six simple words, 'What have I got to lose?' Afterwards my whole life has changed. It's been hard, but I wouldn't change it for anything. Rather go my whole life believing that there is a God and find out there isn't than live my whole life thinking there isn't a God and then find out, when I die, that there is."[30] Mustaine also considers his talent a gift from God. "To be the No. 1 rated guitar player in the world is a gift from God and I'm stoked about it, but I think Christ is better than I am, anyway," he said. "Either way, I don't put too much earthly merit on it."[30]
In 2004 Mustaine oversaw the remixing and re-mastering of Megadeth's entire Capitol Records catalog. All albums were re-released with bonus tracks and full liner notes. With one album remaining in his contract to Sanctuary Records, Mustaine began recording what he intended to be the first Dave Mustaine solo album with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Jimmy Sloas. Complete with guest solos from old friend Chris Poland, this project became a new Megadeth album, The System Has Failed, released on September 14, 2004. One month before, Mustaine announced a new touring lineup for Megadeth: Glen Drover (King Diamond/Eidolon) and James MacDonough (Iced Earth). Nick Menza had briefly been a part of the new band before differences once again caused his departure. One week before a new US tour with Exodus supporting, new drummer (and Glen's brother) Shawn Drover (Eidolon) joined Megadeth.
The "Blackmail The Universe" tour started in February 2005 with Diamond Head and Dungeon supporting. Capitol released a new greatest hits, Back to the Start, in June, a month before Mustaine created "Gigantour" with Dream Theater, Anthrax, Fear Factory, Symphony X, Dillinger Escape Plan, Life of Agony, and more. During 2005 Gigantour Mustaine brought a "spiritual counselor" to help him avoid the problems that almost cost him his life due to his prior drug addictions. The Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato stated: "He had a pastor walking around with him on tour and riding on his bus, I think to help keep him on the straight and narrow path."[31]
Arsenal of Megadeth, a two-disc anthology DVD, was released on March 21, 2006. Bass player James LoMenzo (Black Label Society, White Lion) replaced James MacDonough in February shortly before the band headed to the Dubai Desert Rock Festival in the United Arab Emirates. On April 19, the band began recording a new album, United Abominations, at SARM studios in the UK (David Gilmour's house), they announced a worldwide deal with Roadrunner Records in May 2006. United Abominations was released worldwide on May 15, 2007. However, the album had already been leaked before its release. On January 13, 2008, Dave Mustaine confirmed that guitarist Glen Drover had quit Megadeth to focus on his family and that he had been replaced by Chris Broderick of Jag Panzer. The new lineup made its live debut in Finland on February 4 and returned to the US for Gigantour 2008 in the spring.[32] The band's twelfth studio album, Endgame, was released on September 15, 2009.
Mustaine planned to open Megadeth's California recording studio to under-privileged children to teach them about rock 'n' roll. The band owns a building in San Diego, California, which has housed their recording equipment over the years. In an interview with Kerrang, Mustaine wanted to make better use of the studio by turning the space into a learning center for children who come from under-privileged backgrounds. He also said he vowed to teach them how to play instruments.[33]
2010s [ edit ]
In 2010, longtime bassist David Ellefson rejoined Megadeth eight years after its disbanding in 2002. Ellefson and Mustaine have agreed to keep any unresolved issues in the past and are working on building and maintaining their friendship again. Ellefson has since gone on to say that he feels that "having that time away created a realization for both of us that while we are both productive individually, Megadeth is definitely stronger with both of us in it together."[34] Megadeth embarked on a Rust In Peace 20th-anniversary tour, playing the album in its entirety, along with fan favorites such as "Wake Up Dead", "In My Darkest Hour" and "Skin O' My Teeth".
On June 16, "The Big Four" thrash metal bands (Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer) shared the stage in Warsaw, Poland. The event happened in various other countries like Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Greece, Germany, Sweden and ended at the Yankee Stadium of New York City on September 14, 2011. "The Big Four" show in Sofia, Bulgaria was recorded and released on Blu-ray and DVD.
On August 3, 2010, Mustaine released his autobiography in the US, titled Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir. The book covers Mustaine's life from childhood until the release of the 2009 Megadeth album Endgame. The book was released in the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand under the title Mustaine: A Life in Metal. In December 2011, Mustaine appeared at Metallica's 30th-anniversary celebration at the Fillmore Theater and performed five songs from Metallica's debut album. On October 4, 2014, Mustaine's Alzheimer's-afflicted mother-in-law went missing from a campground. Her remains were discovered on November 26.[35]
In November 2017, Mustaine joined the DJ roster for Gimme Radio, promoting his involvement with Megadeth as well as his favorite music and playlists on The Dave Mustaine Show. [36]
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock [ edit ]
Mustaine composed the song "Sudden Death" for the video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, released in September 2010, under the name of his band. The game also features two additional Megadeth titles, "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" and "This Day We Fight!". Megadeth downloadable content was available for the game but as of March 31, 2015[37] the tracks were removed as all DLC for the game was removed; the tracks that were available for purchase were "Symphony of Destruction", "Hangar 18", and "Peace Sells".
Gigantour [ edit ]
In the summer of 2005, Mustaine launched a travelling North American metal festival. He named it Gigantour after a favorite childhood cartoon of his, Gigantor. It spanned six weeks and was co-headlined by Megadeth and Dream Theater, with a variety of other supporting metal acts such as Fear Factory and The Dillinger Escape Plan. Mustaine has been quoted as saying that his main intention when conceiving the tour was to bring the American metal audiences an eclectic and affordable alternative to Ozzfest.
The second annual Gigantour began in September 2006 and was composed of Megadeth, Lamb of God, Opeth, and Arch Enemy. The second stage bands were Overkill, Into Eternity, Sanctity, and The SmashUp.
The 2007 Gigantour featured Bring Me the Horizon, Static-X, DevilDriver, and Lacuna Coil along with Megadeth. Megadeth appeared on their first tour to Bangalore, India in March 2008.
The 2008 installment of the tour featured Megadeth, Children of Bodom, In Flames, High on Fire, and Job for a Cowboy (and Evile for the UK and Scandinavia tour).[38]
Megadeth Blood in the Water: Live in San Diego (from the Gigantour 2008) premiered on HDNet Sunday November 2 at 8PM in high definition and 5.1 audio (Repeats check www.hd.net)
In November 2011, it was announced the Gigantour would start up again. The lineup consists of Megadeth, Motörhead, Volbeat, and Lacuna Coil. The tour kicked off at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, NJ on January 26, 2012.
Equipment [ edit ]
A KV1, same model played by Mustaine before the Y2KV was created.
Mustaine used B.C. Rich guitars early in his career (and for his entire duration with Metallica), most notably a B.C. Rich Bich 10 string with just the regular six strings. First the guitar started in a natural finish, but Mustaine painted it black around the time 'Peace Sells' was released. In 1987, he switched to Jackson Guitars.
In March 2009, while he was guest hosting Bruce Dickinson's Friday night radio show, Mustaine attributed his choice of the Flying V guitar to being a fan of UFO's Michael Schenker when he was growing up.
After switching to Jackson Guitars he helped to re-design the guitar maker's version of the King V model (at the time, it was a "double Rhoads size" meaning it had two of the longer fins from the RR). The reshaped Mustaine KV1 model had slightly shorter fins, Kahler bridge and Seymour Duncan TB-5 bridge and SH-4 neck pickups. He also specified 24 frets rather than the original King V's 22, a tradition that Jackson still keeps on its King V models today, and the KV1, as have all of Mustaine's signature models, also featured a smaller, medium fretwire compared to the extra jumbos featured on most Jacksons.
Mustaine later switched to ESP Guitars. The company released the DV8 signature model in the 2004 NAMM convention also at which time Mustaine announced his ESP endorsement deal. In 2005, Mustaine and ESP teamed up to release the ESP Axxion, (pronounced Action), in order to celebrate Megadeth's 20th anniversary.(the XX in Axxion and the fretboard inlays being the number 20 in Roman numerals) The ESP Axxion and ESP DV8 were both successful and cheaper models such as the LTD-DV8 R, LTD DV200 and the LTD Axxion were released to target a bigger market.
Gears of War guitar, during the United Abominations tour Dave Mustaine with his Dean VMNT USAguitar, during thetour
However, on December 6, 2006, Mustaine announced that he was leaving ESP and shifting his endorsement to Dean Guitars. His new signature guitar was revealed during NAMM Show on January 19, 2007. The signature guitar is called the Dean VMNT. The V-shaped guitar is very similar to his earlier Jackson and ESP Signature models. The release campaign of the VMNT had a limited copy of only 150 in the world and are signed by Mustaine. This was posted on the website.
"After two successful years, I have decided to leave ESP guitars. This was a business decision and had nothing to do with the guitars or the manufacturing of the guitars, and I wish the staff of ESP, both in the USA and in Japan and Korea the very best of health and prosperity. Meanwhile, I am taking my Classic Metal V known formerly as a Jackson King V1 or an ESP DV8, and my new guitar design presently known as an Axxion, which was the recipient of the Gold Award from Guitar World Magazine for 2005 for new guitar designs with me. I will also be re-introducing through my new endorsement many special models, including re-issues of my old models from over the span of my career, as well as some retro V shapes, similar to the formerly known Jackson Y2KV or a Gibson Flying V. I will make my announcement and be attending the 2007 NAMM show to meet Megadeth fans and all metal fans, musicians of all styles-especially guitarists."
Dave Mustaine performing with Megadeth in Hartford, CT , with his Dean Zero.
Today he uses his signature models by Dean Guitars, the Dean VMNT and Zero. The USA models were available briefly in limited run after release, although the Korean and Chinese models are in continuous production. Mustaine uses the USA and Korean models on stage.
Mustaine has also recently collaborated with Marshall Amplification in order to produce the 1960DM Dave Mustaine Signature Cabinets. He is now using his signature Marshall cabinets on tour.
Mustaine endorses Seymour Duncan and has his own Signature Live Wire pickups and uses Cleartone strings (.011 - .054 for D tuning, .010 - .052 for E tuning[39]). The Seymour Duncan Dave Mustaine Signature Live Wire pickups were announced at NAMM 2015 and the official product video was performed by Danny Young on the Seymour Duncan YouTube channel.[40][41][42][43]
The Dean Zero debuted in 2010 with Dean guitars was a unique new shape for Mustaine, resembling the Gibson Explorer with sharper points. Mustaine has made a few appearances so far with this guitar, performing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and on shows during the Australian tour with Slayer. He has also used the guitar in the later dates of the 2009 Endgame tour and continues to use it to this day. He says he primarily still uses his VMNT's so he can grab on to the lower horn with his legs for certain songs.[44]
He has also used Ovation acoustic guitars for most of his career. However, he stopped endorsing the company after receiving a signature acoustic from Dean, dubbed the Mako.[44][45]
Mustaine also has his own signature Zoom pedal, called the Zoom G2.1DM.
Guitar playing [ edit ]
In 2004, Guitar World magazine ranked Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman together at No. 19 on the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time.[46]
In 2009, Mustaine was named the No. 1 player in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists.[1] As he told Classic Rock magazine in September 2009: "It was especially sweet when I found out that Joel has written books on Metallica. Every page I turned, I became more excited. I get to Number 5 and it's Kirk Hammett, and I thought, 'Thank you, God'. At that point it didn't matter [which position I was]. To be better than both of them [James Hetfield and Hammett] meant so much – it's been one of the pet peeves of my career and I've never known how to deal with it. All I thought was – I win!"[47]
In 2012, Mustaine was ranked the 12th greatest guitarist of all time by a Guitar World magazine reader's poll.[48]
Personal life [ edit ]
Mustaine married Pamela Anne Casselberry in 1991.[49] They have two children together, Justis David Mustaine (born February 11, 1992) who also plays guitar and has appeared in several local theatrical productions,[50] and Electra Nicole Mustaine (born January 28, 1998), who is attempting a career in country music.[51] As of 2009 , they live in Leonardtown, Maryland.[52]
In 2011, Mustaine said that his neck and spine condition, known as stenosis, was caused by many years of headbanging.[53]
Christianity [ edit ]
Mustaine was raised as a Jehovah's Witness[54] and is now a born again Christian.[55] In 1988, in response to the British government's criticism of homosexuality,[clarification needed] Mustaine said: "More power to them. It says in the Bible that men should not lay with men like they lay with women. I mean I don't wanna fuck up and not go to heaven."[56] In an answer to a question about Judas Priest having an overt homosexual image, "I don't wanna talk about this. The last thing I need is a bunch of homos picketing us."[56] In 2012, on KIRO-FM he was asked if he supports gay marriage and replied: "Well, since I'm not gay, the answer to that would be no."[57][58] He was then asked if he would support legislation to make gay marriage legal and said, "I'm Christian. The answer to that would be no."[57]
Mustaine began to focus on his Christian faith more directly while attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and became a committed Christian.[55] It has become his policy not to appear with any band that is seen as black metal or satanic, such as declining to appear in a music festival in Greece with the band Rotting Christ as well as in Israel with the band Dissection.[28]
Mustaine had practiced black magic in his teenage years, which became inspiration for a couple of songs on the second album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?. Mustaine stated that he no longer wishes to play those tracks because of his changed spiritual beliefs. He said of one such song, "The Conjuring":
Performance wise, 'The Conjuring' is one of the heaviest songs on the record, but unfortunately it's got black magic in it and I promised that I wouldn't play it any more, because there's a lot of instructions for hexes in that song. When I got into black magic I put a couple of spells on people when I was a teenager and it haunted me forever, and I've had so much torment. So I look back now and I think, 'Hmm, I don't wanna play "The Conjuring".'[59]
However in 2016, Mustaine noted that Lamb of God drummer Chris Adler's comments made him consider playing "The Conjuring" again, "as long as it doesn't hurt anybody".[60]
Politics [ edit ]
Over his career, Mustaine has made numerous comments about both American and international politics, criticizing both politicians and political issues. In addition, Mustaine covered the 1992 Democratic National Convention for MTV.[61]
In a confrontational 1988 interview with Sounds journalist Roy Wilkinson, Mustaine spoke against illegal immigration, and stated that he would "build a great wall along the Mexican border and not let anybody in ..." if he were President of the United States.[56]
In 1988, Mustaine caused a riot when Megadeth played a concert in Northern Ireland after he dedicated a song to "the cause," later claiming surprise that this was a euphemism for supporting the Irish Republican Army (IRA) regarding the problems between Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities.[62][63] This incident occurred amid a period of turmoil in the province known as the Troubles.
Mustaine said that he wrote the album Endgame based on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' film Endgame in order to "educate his fans and the general public about the march towards a New World Order and Global government".[64] In a 2016 Fox Business interview, Mustaine stated that he does not align himself with any established political party, describing himself as an Independent.[65]
Criticism of Barack Obama and 2012 U.S. Presidential election [ edit ]
In the 2010s, Mustaine grew increasingly vocal in his support of many Republican figures and positions, which is a change from his politics during the George H. W. Bush administration, when Mustaine acted as a reporter for MTV News during the Democratic National Convention in 1992, and was seen as leaning to the political left, in light of the lyrics of "Foreclosure of a Dream".[66]
Mustaine has criticized several Democratic Party politicians. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Mustaine commented that he believed that John Kerry would "ruin our country".[67] In addition, Mustaine has made several comments critical of president Barack Obama, calling him "the most divisive president we've ever had" in 2011,[68] and commenting that he believed that Obama was born outside of the United States during a March 2012 interview on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.[69]
In an August 2012 Singapore performance on the tour to support the band's then-new album Thirteen, Mustaine expressed his views of President Obama and recent gun violence in the United States, making an accusation that Obama had staged the mass shooting in Aurora, CO and the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting in order to push a gun control agenda, while engaging the audience during onstage banter in between songs. Mustaine also criticized the 'Fast and Furious' arms scandal and said that the country looked like it was turning into "Nazi America."[70][71][72]
The comments drew much criticism. Entertainment news outlet TMZ showed footage of Mustaine's statements to a wounded Aurora massacre survivor, Carli Richards. Richards said he was being "absurd" and that his conspiracy theory shifted blame away from the shooter, noting that "[the president] didn't shoot me."[73][74] In response to the controversy over his comments Mustaine told radio host Alex Jones that his comments were done "In the heat of the moment." He also denied any intention to hurt anyone with his comments, but believed that the possibility of a conspiracy should still be looked into.[75]
In February 2012, Mustaine gave a statement supportive of the presidential campaign of conservative Republican former United States Senator Rick Santorum. Mustaine commented on Santorum's "presidential qualities." Mustaine pointed to Santorum's temporary suspension of his campaign to be with his sick daughter as the act that gained his attention and respect. He expressed his hope that Santorum would win the nomination but stated that regardless of the results he would be voting against a second term for President Barack Obama. Mustaine also criticized other Republican presidential candidates. Mustaine was critical of a $100 million trust fund that Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney set up for his sons. He criticized Texas Congressman Ron Paul for his unorthodox political views saying Paul "make[s] total sense for a while, and then he'll say something so way out that it negates everything else". Mustaine also admitted that he once supported former Georgia Congressman and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, but that he no longer thought he could vote for him.[77]
Mustaine denied that his statement was intended as an endorsement of Santorum.[78]
Martial arts [ edit ]
Mustaine holds black belts in taekwondo and Ukidokan karate. In 2007, he was made a Goodwill Ambassador of the World by the World Taekwondo Federation.[79]
Television appearances [ edit ]
Dave Mustaine has appeared on various television shows:
Discography [ edit ]
Metallica
Megadeth
All Megadeth releases. For complete list see Megadeth discography.
MD.45
The Craving (1996) (Guitar only on original. Guitar and vocals on 2004 reissue)
Red Lamb
Red Lamb (2012) (Songwriting, production and uncredited additional vocals)
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Layden, Joe (2011). Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9780061714405. |
Time is running out for 8,500 Superstore workers in Alberta to reach an agreement with their parent company, Loblaw.
The unionized employees are planning to strike starting at 12:01 am M.T. on Sunday if Saturday's last-ditch bargaining efforts fail.
According to a union spokesperson, the two sides are still far apart on some key issues.
Superstore employees have been bargaining since January.
The union says Loblaw's owner Galen Weston is out of touch with Alberta's booming needs, which leaves workers scrambling to maintain quality and safety despite slashed hours and high employee turnover.
"This message is resonating with the consumers because they are saying, 'Yeah, I'm sick and tired of walking into my local Superstore at 3:00 on a Tuesday afternoon – when it shouldn't be lined up and it is – because they have one or two cashiers," said Christine McMeckan, spokesperson for United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Local 401, which represents the Superstore workers.
The workers' collective agreement expired in August 2012, and employees across the province have voted 93 per cent in favour of strike action.
There are 28 stores across Alberta |
Almost everyone needs a good cup of joe in the morning to get them going, and, according to legend, it’s all because of a 9th-century Ethiopian goat-herder named Kaldi.
Allegedly, Kaldi observed his goats behaving erratically after eating the red berries from a nearby Coffea arabica tree. He tried some of them himself and was soon acting as hyper as his herd. He then brought a batch to a monastery where they were derided for their stimulating effects during long hours of prayer. The religious leaders there threw the tree’s beans onto a fire to destroy them, but the pleasing aroma of the roasted beans convinced them to give the coffee a second chance. Much like with tea, they put the roasted beans into warm water and the beverage was born.
Despite the legend, it’s thought that the practice of chewing coffee beans as a stimulant was around for centuries before Kaldi's alleged discovery. People would grind the beans to mix with butter and animal fat to preserve and eat on long journeys. Similarly, Sudanese slaves are thought to have chewed on coffee beans to help them survive their difficult voyages on trade routes.
The cultivation and trade of the beans for the drink began in Arabic countries in the 14th century and spread throughout Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. It's said not a single coffee plant existed outside of Arabia or Africa until the 1600s, when a pilgrim named Baba Budan brought them back to India. In 1616, Pieter van der Broeck smuggled some coffee out of Mocha, Yemen and brought it back to Amsterdam. Soon, the Dutch and their colonies—most notably Sri Lanka and Java—took over the European trade, followed by the French in the Caribbean, the Spanish in Central America, and the Portuguese in Brazil. The drink eventually made its way to America via British colonizers who docked in New York City.
Today, coffee is a 100 billion dollar a year industry, supporting 25 million people worldwide. How did we ever survive mornings without it? |
OTTAWA – Police have charged an 18 year old Ottawa man in connection to Friday morning’s shooting in Nepean.
Austin Riley Emmerson is facing multiple charges including attempt to commit break and enter, discharging a firearm with intent, and unauthorized possession of a firearm.
Police say the victim of the gunshot wound, a man in his 20’s, is also the person believed to be in possession of the firearm at the time of the offence.
The shooting happened around 7:00a.m., on Monterey Road, just off Baseline and Greenbank.
Police say their investigation is ongoing.
.@OttawaPolice have taped off a single home on Monterey Drive after reports of a shots fired call just after 7 this morning. Multiple officers on scene @1310NEWS #ottnews pic.twitter.com/DUU47Pj0bc — Adam Haga (@AdamHaga) November 17, 2017 |
Know Your Beat: Community Policing in Chicago on 9 January 2015
Having recently moved to Chicago, I constantly have new questions about the city. One of my first wonderings was “Why do police cars here have tags on them and what do those numbers mean?” I’m not just talking about a number on the side but an actually tag that sits in a slot on the roof of many CPD cars and SUVs. Like this:
After speaking with a police officer, I found out they are called ‘beat tags’ and they are an easy way for officers/supervisors around the city to quickly identify what beat a particular vehicle/officer belongs to. The tags can be quickly swapped on and off of vehicles and are more convenient than having to cross reference a car’s number with a registry of who’s driving car #502 that day. In a city with over 12,000 police officers, you can see how an officer might want a quick way to identify what part of a town a car belongs to.
So questioned answered, right? Almost. I then began to want to understand the numbering system that underlies the tags. The answer is actually quite simple: Chicago is broken down in to districts, each district is broken in to sectors, and each sector is broken in to beats. Each beat tag contains all of this information together so by looking at a beat tag you can have a block by block idea of where that car belongs.
There are also variants on these beat tags. A beat might have both an 'A’ and 'B’ car. In addition, there are special units that have unique functions within the beat. The two that were mentioned to me were school units and homelessness:
These beats are all part of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy otherwise known as CAPS. If you didn’t know, at the heart of CAPS is the idea that every beat in the city will have a 'beat meeting’ each month where citizens can come and speak with the very people that police their neighborhoods. That’s huge–especially in light of recent issues regarding policing.
So, broad community policing infrastructure: Good. Presentation of information about the city’s beats: In need of some love. I was surprised that the city hasn’t really chosen to present this information in a way that matches the speed of the world today. If you want to look at a map of all the city’s beats the best you’re going to find is this black and white PDF from CPD’s website. Admittedly, the city does have a way to type in your address and find out your beat but you then still have to find your way to the events calendar and find the beat meeting for your particular beat. And kudos to the city for having the shapefiles for the city’s beats available on the Open Data Portal–that said, the data in the most current beat file duplicates every sector as a beat. It should be a 3 for this beat.
As you might have noticed in the photo above, the city’s shapefiles are really just for giving you the facts–forget the fancy stuff…like color. So with all of this in mind, I decided the city could use an interactive map that allows you to explore the city’s beats with visuals that do them justice and with the ability to find out when you next beat meeting is happening. Click the image below to check it out.
Poke around the city long enough and you’ll find that one of the airports has individual beats for each terminal and that sometimes the dead just don’t need to be policed.
Note to self: Avoid Mount Greenwood Cemetery.
After starting this project I also discovered that folks over at Open Gov Hack Night already made a tool that allows you to quickly find your beat and get info on your next beat meeting, very cool stuff. For the time being the links in this map of the city will take you to the CAPSure tool to find out when your specific beat meeting is.
There’s still more to learn about beat tags. Just when I thought I knew everything, I saw this guy below. It was on a cruiser branded with CTA Police so presumably there are unique beats for the CTA.
CAPS is one of the coolest things policing in Chicago has going for it and in light of the past year’s events in NYC and Ferguson why not leverage the hell out of it now? Give some serious thought to going out to your local beat meeting and finding out what’s going on in your community–having now attended one, I promise you that it will be just as funny and dramatic as any show on Netflix and more importantly you can be another voice advocating for change.
Expect more on CAPS in a future post. For now, you can grab the code for this map over on GitHub if you want. |
The Future of EVE
CCP Versus The Community
World of Darkness Going Dark?
Recently Gamasutra spoke to CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson about the company's 20 percent reduction in headcount -- the result of a major restructuring for the Iceland-headquartered developer ofPetursson told Gamasutra that after a lot of soul searching -- which prompted him to write a heartfelt letter to thecommunity -- he felt the need to make the change to reposition the company to best serve the passionate player base ofrather than pursue a "very large strategic product development" for the company.The move sees the company de-emphasizing development of itsMMO, announced in 2006 after its merger with Atlanta, Georgia-based pen-and-paper game maker White Wolf. Here, Gamasutra brings into view more of its Petursson interview, conducted the day after the layoffs were announced.Though clearly affected by the step he felt necessary, Petursson said that it's the right one for. When it comes to growth of the game's player base -- which has been consistent in the eight years since the first launched, he said "really the only cap is our ability to do the right thing for.""I think the value proposition of-- the way it's structured, the player involvement, the sandbox, and all the amazing things thatis -- has [led us to] come to recognize we don't really have a cap."Describing the character creator the team launched this year as an "incredible achievement," Petursson admitted that the company was "unable to deliver" on its other promises to its community.CCP then "forced [changes] upon our users in a not-so-great way, removing features like ship spinning, which the community cared a lot about," Petursson said.He also openly described theexpansion's problematic virtual item launch as "poorly executed." As a result, virtual goods "will become less of a priority for us." The team will continue "to make small iterations as it makes sense," said Petursson, "based on player responses."Failure to hit an acceptable quality bar with these features is "just evidence of trying to achieve too many things," he said. "Now we really have to focus as a company on just really showing our commitment to, and giving the game the love from CCP which people claim we have lost.""We are planning for an expansion this winter, which will bring a lot of fresh things toin the classical sense, and then we will continue to just be super focused on that. Because that is the feedback from our community -- that people want us to apply our energy there. And that is now what is about to happen."Petursson frankly admits that the developer lost sight of what its community really wanted as it pursued its own goals. The company has an elected player group, the Council of Stellar Management, which it collaborates with closely -- even calling an emergency meeting after the problematic launch of virtual goods."One of our strengths has been to collaborate with the community on the development of... but I have to admit... that we have lost that connection in our ambitions to push on these three agendas [] at the same time. The experience we've now gone through is getting back to the CCP which was much more focused on that, and that is what we hope to demonstrate now going forward," Petursson told Gamasutra."I'd say it's in our DNA" to work closely with the community, he said. "I would call this more about going back to our roots," he said -- "behaving like the company that people have come to love and respect, frankly."He admitted the studio made changes to the game came despite "people inside CCP and inside the community that were calling this to be a great mistake," he said. "It's very small things, which we disregarded as just some noise in the channel, when in fact it was something that was really emotionally important, and something that people are really connected with in."Petursson told Gamasutra that itsMMO is scaling down to a "more focused scope," though development is continuing.Was merging with White Wolf in 2006 a mistake? "No, I think that was a very good move," said Petursson. The game is "playable inside our company," he said, and "it's an amazing thing."However, he said, "we will see a more focused scope. Frankly thevision originally was a massive game and, and I think everyone -- in even the team itself -- agrees that it would be much better to do it in more of a phased and staged approach, as we did with," Petursson said."If you look attoday,is an actively massive experience that has grown over a decade, but it began as a smaller thing, which has now grown in collaboration with the community. We will seetake that path more than being a large, triple-A, complete experience launch day one." |
The New York Times, November 2, 1935
New Mark Twain Letters Reveal He Poked Fun at Huck Finn Ban
Humorist Vigorously Defended His Boy Heroes When Huckleberry and Tom Sawyer Were Criticized at Brooklyn Library as No More 'Course' Than Unexpurgated Bible.
Two hitherto unpublished letters by Mark Twain which echo a national controversy waged thirty years ago over Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were made public yesterday for the first time by Asa Don Dickinson, head librarian at Brooklyn College. Twain's letters were sent to Professor Dickinson in response to the librarian's appeal for the author to defend his two beloved characters from the onslaughts of an official of Brooklyn Public Library, who charged that the two characters were "bad examples for ingenuous youth."
The controversy began in 1905 when a young woman, superintendent of children's department, insisted that Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer be removed from the children's room because of their "coarseness, deceitfulness and mischievous practices."
Professor Dickinson strongly disagreed and sent a letter to Twain acquainting him of the librarian's action.
Mark Twain's Defense.
The creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn immediately sent back this reply:
21 5th Avenue
Nov. 21, '05. Dear Sir: I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave. Ask that young lady - she will tell you so. Most honestly do I wish I could say a softening word or two in defence of Huck's character, since you wish it, but really in my opinion it is no better than God's (in the Ahab & 97 others), & the rest of the sacred brotherhood. If there is an Unexpurgated [Bible] in the Children's Department, won't you please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that questionable companionship? Sincerely yours,
S. L. Clemens I shall not show your letter to any one - it is safe with me.
Reporters on the Trail.
When read to the young librarian the letter caused a bitter discussion, but the librarians decided to drop the affair. The books, however, were removed from the children's shelves but placed on shelves accessible to both children and adults.
But after several months one of those present at the meeting inadvertently mentioned the letter in the company of a reporter, and the news was flashed throughout the newspaper offices that the Brooklyn Library had banned the two child heroes from the shelves. Rumors also spread of a choice Twain letter. Newspaper men eagerly sought out both Dr. Dickinson and Twain, but their efforts were unrewarded, for the two men maintained a complete silence. The newspaper men persisted, and Twain sent another letter to the librarian. The letter follows:
21 Fifth Avenue
March 26, '06. Dear Mr. Dickinson: Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove! The newspaper boys want that letter - don't let them get hold of it. They say you refuse to allow them to see it without my consent. Keep on refusing, and I'll take care of this end of the line. Was the January meeting held? You did not tell me. Sincerely yours,
S. L. Clemens
Newspapers Assail Prudery.
Newspapers throughout the nation rallied to the support of the two Twain children and the "literary prudery" of Brooklyn was assailed in editorials and newspaper articles.
The entire incident was dropped after several months and not mentioned again until 1924, when Albert Bigelow Paine published excerpts from the letters in his history of Twain. In this work, Paine also quoted Twain's remarks on similar incidents in Concord, Mass., after Huckleberry Finn had first made his appearance. Twain said that "When Huck appeared, the public library of Concord flung him out indignantly, partly because he was a liar, and partly because after deep meditation and careful deliberation he decided that if he'd got to betray Jim or go to hell, he would rather go to hell - which was profanity, and those Concord purists couldn't stand it."
Professor Dickinson is publishing these letters in The Wilson Journal.
Return to The New York Times index
Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search |
EXCLUSIVE // Listen to Stage Kids’ new album ‘Intra Mental’ in full
Five years after their full-length release, Killer Tofu, the San Diego-based instrumental band Stage Kids have reemerged with their latest masterpiece, Intra Mental. Two new members (keyboard and electronics) have joined the quintet since 2011, resulting in more complex and dynamic soundscapes. But the majority of us are summing this one up in one word: definitive.
Stage Kids waste no time introducing their new sound with the opening track “Delaylay”. The atmospheric synth and guitar give way to a barrage of start/stop rhythms that jump from idea to idea, frequently straying from the tonic of the song, but never too far from comfort. In “Face First” the rapid staccato of the guitar and stabbing piano keys create an almost glitchy feel that evolves into frenetically tapped phrases typical of bands like Rooftops, Invalids, and Floral. In “Pulsewave”, “The Noise After”, and “Connections”, Stage Kids re-direct their song writing towards electronic sensibilities.
Overall, as is generally true for the math rock genre, Intra Mental is an album of excess, an album where lavish melodies are on parade. To quote the band directly “…what we’re trying to do as musicians is really just make the craziest, sickest shit we can possibly fuckin’ make…” (A Stage Kids Documentary, 2016). Intra Mental is a quintessential math rock album but beyond its sensory exploits, it’s also a visceral, emotional ride.
Intra Mental comes out this weekend. You can get all the info on their Bandcamp page. You can also keep in touch with Stage Kids on their Facebook page. |
The outdoor terrace is a dining option for customers at Las Casuelas Terraza in downtown Palm Springs. (Photo: submitted photo )
Thrillist has picked its top 21 Mexican restaurants in the country and Palm Springs’ Las Casuelas Terraza is one of three SoCal eateries on the list.
Thrillist writer Adam Lapetina praises Las Casuelas for its sweet corn tamales and shredded chicken quesadilla but adds, “there isn’t anything you shouldn’t be (getting) — they use family recipes brought from Mazatlan, and — for 15 years now — have been hand-making batches of incredible sweet corn tamales every day. That’s a lot of damn tamales.” Lapetina also notes that the family-owned and ran business located at 222 South Palm Canyon Drive was the first Mexican restaurant in the desert and its “drug kingpin Jalisco mansion”-like atmosphere is very Palm Springs.
Founded in 2004, Thrillist has been recommending food, drink, travel and other destinations to its growing community of readers. It currently runs 21 city-centric editions.
Read or Share this story: http://desert.sn/1p9Awih |
Interview: The departing Anglican bishop of Newcastle paid dearly for his royal commission testimony, but says he is pleased he helped shine a light on a ‘culture of protection and power’
In February 2014, Greg Thompson returned to Newcastle in New South Wales to serve as bishop of the Anglican diocese, the same place he was abused almost four decades earlier as a teenager.
He had spent the previous seven years serving as bishop in the Northern Territory but thought it would be somewhat fitting to finish his working life in Newcastle, near where he grew up in the Upper Hunter and where he first became interested in the ministry.
He believed his experiences working with Indigenous people in Arnhem Land and victims of family violence and drug abuse would be useful to the Newcastle diocese, which he wanted to direct towards a stronger focus on social justice and community engagement.
That this was the place that he was sexually abused by friends of his family as a child, and by senior figures of the Newcastle Anglican church as a young adult, was something Thompson had disassociated himself from, as many abuse survivors do. He had never spoken of it except to his wife and children.
But, in May 2014, shortly into his tenure as bishop, Thompson received a summons to appear before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. On the list of persons of interest was the name Ian Shevill. When Shevill was the bishop of Newcastle in 1975, he and another senior church figure sexually abused Thompson, who was then just 19.
Royal commission reveals scale of child sexual abuse in Anglican church Read more
“The royal commission didn’t know that, they didn’t know my background,” Thompson, now 60, told Guardian Australia. “They were simply seeking all materials from the 1950s. But on reading that summons I realised that my personal story was going to be captured in the royal commission’s request for information.
“Soon after that a police task force was announced to focus on the diocese of Newcastle. I realised then that my life was not going to be a typical one for a new bishop.”
From that point on, Thompson said he faced an unrelenting journey with the royal commission, including helping the commission gather information, telling his own story and dealing with the subsequent harassment from members of his own church. Screws were found in his staff members’ tyres and Thompson was warned by parishioners that he was not safe.
His own experience of having being abused was forced to the surface and he refused to shy away from the task of asking tough questions of his church. It resulted in hundreds of abusive messages, including threats, directed towards him.
Last week, Thompson announced that it had become too much to bear. He will stand down as bishop in May.
The church is supposed to be a place of healing and compassion and community. They were betraying that Greg Thompson on his critics
“I feel physically and emotionally unwell,” Thompson said. “I think that time and space will be a big factor in feeling stronger and better and more able to manage multiple stressors. I’m not down a cliff. But I’ve certainly realised I can’t keep pushing myself at the edge of it.”
The royal commission asked independent data analysts to design and analyse a survey of the 23 Anglican church dioceses in Australia and gather information about complaints of child sexual abuse received between 1 January 1980 and 31 December 2015.
They found 1,082 alleged incidents of child sexual abuse among the 1,115 recorded complaints made to 22 Anglican church dioceses. The results underestimate the extent of the abuse, with many victims now dead or facing barriers to coming forward. The results also don’t include complaints of child sexual abuse in all the institutions associated with the church.
Though the statistics show the abuse was shocking and endemic, Thompson didn’t realise until he began assisting the commission in its work that he was not the only victim abused within Anglicanism. He believes he was the first within the church to speak publicly without anonymity about it, sharing his story with the royal commission in a public hearing in November.
Thompson has paid dearly for it.
Despite the royal commission substantiating that Shevill was an abuser and, despite the galling statistics, Thompson has been publicly and personally attacked by members of the church throughout the country. Thompson must have consented to what happened to him, some said.
'Anglican house is burning,' bishop tells abuse inquiry Read more
Some of the most difficult attacks came from those who knew him. The same people who have received bread and holy communion from him publicly tried to discredit or question his story privately, writing letters to the royal commission and suggesting that the past should be left alone.
“And I thought, ‘What an extraordinary betrayal’,” Thompson said. “They’re not simply trying to undermine me but they are undermining the very things they are supposed to believe in. The church is supposed to be a place of healing and compassion and community. They were betraying that.”
Meanwhile, police were made aware of the threats and personal attacks but, as far as Thompson is aware, no action was taken.
What the experience has made clear to Thompson is that changing legislation to prevent abuse and to compensate victims is not enough. Education about how abuse occurs and why victims can take decades to come forward is also not enough, he believes.
For change to occur and victim-blaming to end, hearts and minds must be changed, he said. It was too confronting for some people to grasp that the same senior church figures who might have offered them comfort and communion may have also been sexually abusing children, he said. So they refused to entertain the thought at all, blaming the victims instead.
“Information is only one part of the change process,” he said. “But transformation, the changing of peoples mindsets and attitudes, is a much longer journey. I know I grew up with the idea that you didn’t talk about sexual offending, it wasn’t talked about as sexual abuse.
“In our families these things went on and are still going on, and there was never talk about it. So the taboo of that has also been a part of church life. I think one of those attitudes and mindsets at the time was that children would get over this, and that these things belong in the past and should stay in the past.
“It is the old taboos which prevented and limited people coming forward.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Greg Thompson leaves the royal commission in Sydney after detailing his own abuse by members of the clergy. Photograph: AAP
Thompson has had to grapple with the thought that his own parents were likely affected by this cover-up and stay-quiet mentality. They died before Thompson could tell them about what he had suffered.
“I try not to think about it too hard,” he said. “It does upset you, because the whole abuse experience is also about who was looking after you. It raises lots of questions.”
When Thompson was a child his parents were part of the working poor. He and his eight siblings lived in a modest, four-bedroom fibro home in the upper Hunter Valley, where his dad would fly into temper tantrums and his mother would take her problems out on the children. Money was tight. As a young teenager, he was sexually abused by family friends, boarders taken in by his family for extra money.
“As a child I always remember climbing a hill near my home and looking out at the hills in my town and thinking, ‘There’s got to be something better’,” he said.
“And that thought has propelled me to travel a lot. I’ve travelled much of Australia and been involved in different things. It’s got me into a different thinking space and a wider set of relationships. Hope and faith have been a part of my being driven not to be captive to the harm that had been done to me.”
That harm came to Thompson again at the end of his career from both senior and lay members of the church, angered that Thompson dared to hold the Anglican church to account. Thompson says that speaks somewhat to the factions and allegiances that cut across the church.
I’ll get over this period of stress and strain to feel able to work again … I’m not ready to put my feet up Greg Thompson on his future
In his evidence to the commission, Thompson said that, within the diocese and across the country, these factions were preventing a common and cohesive response to child sexual abuse from being formed by the church.
“Conflicts of interest arise around friendships, where alleged clergy who have offended have been afforded a lot of protection at various levels, either at a committee level or in the local parish,” he told the commission. “People refuse to accept that their loved priest has been an offender.”
There are also conflicts around the inclusion of LGBTI people in the church and allowing women to become bishops. As well as being criticised for questioning the church about its response to abuse, Thompson has openly called for a more inclusive church model that respects LGBTI people and that allows women to become bishops. His socially progressive values have seen him draw the ire of more conservative arms of the church, including the Anglican diocese in Sydney, over the past three years.
Accumulated, the stressors of uncovering abuse within Anglicanism, facing his own abuse, giving lengthy testimony to the commission, supporting and standing up for victims and survivors, being slandered by his peers and in blog posts, and pushing social reform in the face of conservatism all took its toll.
His faith in God has not been shaken. But Thompson says he remains unsure if he believes in the institution of the Anglican church and the ability of some of its most senior leaders to change.
While Thompson is not sure what to do next, he says that once his health has recovered and he has spent some time with his wife and newborn grandson, he will find a way to serve the community.
“I have a lot to still give,” he said. “I’ll get over this period of stress and strain to feel able to work again in a whatever challenging work comes my way. I’m not ready to put my feet up.”
'I went to bed screaming': child abuse survivor speaks as church faces moment of reckoning Read more
Whatever he does, it is unlikely to be in Newcastle.
“Family is elsewhere,” he said. “And it’s not best for me to be around. There’s going to be a new bishop. They need to find their own way of doing things. I think me being around may be difficult for anyone coming into the role.
“I’m quite happy to support that person at a distance but I’m certainly not going to get in the way of their leadership, be it a woman or man who replaces me.”
Asked if sharing his story with the commission and the public had proven more harmful than healing, Thompson pauses.
“Not quite healing. But there’s some validation in it. I think the commission has validated my personal abuses and the commission regards my story as important because it explains how abuse has been a part of the history of the diocese.
“I realise that personal experience of abuse has helped me to become highly sympathetic to survivors and their story but also to understand the culture of protection and power.” |
PC: Patrick T. Fallon
The first Democratic Debate of 2016, and the last one before voting starts in Iowa on February 1st, happened on Sunday night in Charleston, South Carolina. The debate was focused around Bernie Sanders. He still leads in New Hampshire, he is now at least tied with Hillary in Iowa, and nationally he is closing in on her too. America is feeling the Bern, and Sanders hopes that the South will too soon. After the vibrant debate on guns, Wall Street and ISIS, the campaigns now are courting black voters as everyone is trying to win Iowa. Hillary is traditionally polling better with the black voters, and Sanders is from an almost all-white state, but there are signs that this is changing. And Sanders doesn't have to win a majority of this voting block, but for the March primaries it will be enough if he can just chip away a sizeable part from Clinton's support.
Everyone was waiting for the fireworks. And they got it. Bernie Sanders has been creeping up on Hillary in the polls lately, and people were wondering how he will handle it. Well, he was excellent. He successfully defended Hillary's old rhetoric against him, and won his arguments.
Chelsea Clinton came up too. Hillary's daughter has been accusing Bernie for trying to end Medicare and raise taxes. It simply is just not true. Bernie Sanders helped to write that health law, why would he tear it up? Please. We are sure the Clinton can come up with better attacks. And no, that ad was not negative. They just seem to be so desperate to stop Sanders's movement that they will literally say anything. It just looks kind of pathetic from an outsides point of view. End of rant.
And what Hillary couldn't respond to are her strong ties to Wall Street. She didn't give a clear answer to how she can separate herself from the big banks. And how could she have when she has received millions of dollars for speaking fees in the past few years. And people expect her to regulate Wall Street. Good luck with that.
ISIS or Donald Trump weren't mentioned that much during this debate, but the two candidate's viewpoints are pretty similar on these issues. Bernie also reinforced his main points of campaign finance reforms and equality. Hillary also talked about women's rights and how Bill Clinton's role would change from 2017 if she were to win.
Anything else that wasn't mentioned? Martin O'Malley. He will never win, but it's a shame. He does have some good ideas, but he is just so overshadowed. It is kind of sad to watch it sometimes.
President Obama was mentioned a hell of a lot more than him.
Democrats like Obama, though they admit some of his shortfalls. But a Clinton Presidency would look like a third term from Obama's policies, and increasingly believe that a change of directions, or at least a route correction is needed. It's ironic, but it is also true. And they feel like Bernie Sanders is the man for that. And surprisingly the black population is open for this change too.
Most African-Americans have been voting for Democrats since the 60's, and especially for Obama. But many are frustrated that nothing has changed, and Trump and Bernie are the ones that give them hope because they are different. And by a lot. They just feel like they would better represent them, and this could be the start of major shift in American politics and society. Especially if they find their way to Trump.
Trump has other good news too as Sarah Palin just endorsed him, giving him his first real endorsement from a major politician. While many mistakingly dismiss the former Alaska Governor as a laughing-stock, she still is very influential and has a sizeable group of followers. It could certainly be enough to tip the scale in Iowa towards Trump, over Cruz. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UKIP says Mujeeb Bhutto is no longer a member of the party, as BBC Newsnight reports
A man who served as UKIP's Commonwealth spokesman for a year is the former leader of a kidnapping gang in Pakistan, BBC Newsnight has revealed.
Mujeeb ur Rehman Bhutto's gang were behind a high-profile kidnapping in Karachi in 2004 and he then took a £56,000 ransom payment in Manchester.
In 2005, Bhutto, of Leeds, admitted being the gang's "boss" and was jailed for seven years by a UK court.
UKIP said Bhutto, 35, had "recently" resigned his party membership.
A party spokesman said: "When we recently became aware of possible issues relating to his past and raised the matter with him, he resigned his membership."
Bhutto joined UKIP in 2011 and regularly appeared as UKIP's Commonwealth spokesman, and as a party representative in local and national media. He said he had left the party in December 2013.
He organised a trip to a Leeds mosque for party leader Nigel Farage and, during the 2012 Rotherham by-election, canvassed with UKIP candidate Jane Collins.
'Beheading threat'
Bhutto, who is also a former member of the Conservative Party, told Newsnight he had admitted the charges against him in 2005 rather than risk being sent back to Pakistan and hanged.
"The evidence which was brought against me was from Pakistan. The allegation was simply because of political rivalry," he said.
There were two things that were different about this case. One was that there was an involvement with a city which was 5,000 miles away in the UK. The second was that the guys who did it actually got caught Journalist Shahed Sadullah
He said he planned to appeal against his conviction for conspiracy to blackmail.
Bhutto said he had been granted political asylum in the UK in 2008 and that the case against him in Pakistan had been thrown out by the country's Supreme Court.
But senior Pakistani police sources insisted that Bhutto was still wanted in Pakistan.
In June 2004, a gang led by Bhutto kidnapped Ahmed Naeem, the son of a wealthy businessman, at gunpoint from a car on a Karachi residential street.
Five days later Bhutto flew to England.
He then negotiated a ransom payment with Mr Naeem's father, Mohammed Naeem.
"I have the power to give you such torture that you won't forget it for the rest of your life," Bhutto said in calls to Mohammed Naeem that were recorded by Pakistani police and reported during his 2005 court case.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Grant Shapps: "He is not now a member of the Conservative Party"
Bhutto at one point threatened to have Ahmed Naeem's head cut off and sent to his father, according to court evidence.
Police in Karachi assisted the victim's family, and a police source delivered a £56,000 ransom to a car park at Manchester's Arndale shopping centre. Ahmed Naeem was then released by the gang in Pakistan.
Bhutto was swiftly arrested by Greater Manchester Police in co-operation with Pakistan police.
Ransom in bed
The £56,000 ransom was found hidden in Bhutto's bed in a house in Leeds, and he was forced to repay it when he appeared in court.
He was sentenced under the name Majeebur Bhutto.
"You came to the UK to avoid the risk of detection in Pakistan, where kidnapping is a capital offence," said the judge, Martin Steiger.
The other gang members were initially sentenced to death in Pakistan for the offence of kidnapping for ransom, but their sentences were commuted to life in prison in 2007 and one was released.
"Kidnappings have really gone through the roof in Pakistan. It's the main form of getting money for many terrorist organisations," said Shahed Sadullah, former editor of The News, part of the bilingual paper The Daily Jang.
UKIP are certainly trying to professionalise, to move away from its more amateurish origins Matthew Goodwin, Chatham House
"There were two things that were different about this case. One was that there was an involvement with a city which was 5,000 miles away in the UK. The second was that the guys who did it actually got caught."
In a regional UKIP newsletter from May 2013, Bhutto stated that he had been a member of the party since 2011.
"Our policy in UKIP is not to attack foreign nations, but to work with like-minded parties and support them so there is no export of terrorism to our shores," he said.
During an appearance on BBC debating show The Big Questions in March 2013, when he was frequently referred to as "UKIP's Commonwealth spokesman", Bhutto said: "We want controlled immigration where we know who's coming in, who's going out."
Hailed on Twitter
UKIP candidates, associations and official social media channels have previously posted messages indicating that Bhutto had a role as a UKIP representative, beyond being just a party member.
"UKIP have plenty of quality spokesman… Mujeeb Bhutto," UKIP Bradford and district chairman Jason Smith wrote on Twitter in May 2013.
"Watch UKIP's Mujeeb Bhutto speak out against mass uncontrolled immigration on the BBC's Big Question," read a tweet from UKIP's official Twitter feed in March 2013.
Jane Collins said on Twitter in March 2013 that Mr Bhutto was "fantastic on BBC Big Question this am. What an asset for UKIP".
In the course of the last month, Twitter, LinkedIn and multiple Facebook profiles of Mujeeb Bhutto have been deleted from the internet.
"If you don't have any discipline and tight screening of candidates, you are perpetually going to be in trouble," said Matthew Goodwin, of policy institute Chatham House and co-author of Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain.
"UKIP are certainly trying to professionalise, to move away from its more amateurish origins."
Grant Shapps, Conservative Party chairman, said Bhutto had been a member of the party for a year in 2008-9.
Mr Shapps said: "He attempted to re-join the party last week after having been the UKIP spokesman. Because he's the spokesman for another party, we simply rejected that application.
"He is not now a member of the Conservative Party."
You can also see the report in full via the Newsnight website or the BBC iPlayer. |
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Authorities say a protester has been charged with assault after a fracas outside the rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for President Donald Trump.
Police say 22-year-old Anne Seifert was arrested after Wednesday evening’s incident near the U.S. Cellular Center, where Trump later addressed supporters. A public phone listing for her couldn’t be found Friday. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for her.
Police say an officer saw Seifert throw an egg at a man and then punch and kick him. He had been filming the protesters and got into an argument with Seifert. Police say Seifert reported that she became upset because she thought the man had come across the street to provoke her and other protesters. |
You might have heard of this already – Ely Lilly has been actively marketing drugs supposed to counteract the Alzheimer disease for older people, which did not work. And this is more than a $6.8 billion suit already – the prosecutors have lots of documents to prove it, according to the media.
Insurers and other so-called third-party payers evaluated that Lilly could pay as much as $6.8 billion in damages for downplaying Zyprexa’s health risks, including excessive weight gain and the risk of contracting diabetes, and marketing the drug for unapproved uses to pump up profits, says Bloomberg.
Bloomberg News obtained copies of the documents after U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn, New York, ordered their release on May 1. In September, Weinstein allowed insurers and other payers to sue Lilly as a group after finding “sufficient evidence of fraud” to let the case go to trial. Lilly appealed that ruling.
Up so far, Lilly has already paid $1.2 billion for an estimated of 320,000 complaints, a huge number of patients who have been asking and getting damages. But the worst case comes from the later suits in the pipeline – and all of this due to an aggressive marketing of the drug.
Why did Ely Lilly pursue such a path? Profits are the obvious answer – the investments to develop such a drug are so huge, that they must be re-couped one way or another. And with weak ethics, you can imagine the outcome. In my opinion, this ethics-free marketing is very simillar to the case of Ford Taurus (where they even had a profit and loss account for the potential payments for dead drivers in the eventual lawsuits!). Except that in this case the death percentage is much smaller (3.5% from the tested patients with non-placebo). Cynical, hugh?
The share price for Eli Lilly (LLY.N) seemed very stable despite the announcement – it has even increased today with 1.39%, indicating that either the news have not reached the market, either that the portfolio holders are not willing to give up the shares based only on this piece of news. |
日本国内DL販売サイト 本体価格：1,295円（税別）
製品特徴
Avaris 2: The Return of the Empress
最大36,000人のドット絵兵士が同時に戦う、リアルタイムウォーゲーム！
女帝部隊を操り、魔法で敵陣を崩せ！
Steamユーザーを対象としたスコアランキングも実装！
あなたは無実の罪でアヴァリス帝国を追われた女帝。
国を奪還するために、自身の部隊を操作して戦場で戦う事となります。
様々なステージで待ち受ける「敵将」を倒す事で、アヴァリス帝国の領土は少しずつあなたの手に戻っていきます。
アヴァリス全土奪還を目指して戦ってください！
ステージをクリアし強化していく事で、あなたの部隊は数百人規模の大部隊に成長するでしょう。
さらに女帝であるあなた自身も成長し、装備を強化する事で、前線で敵を倒したり、強力な魔法で薙ぎ払ったり、様々な戦い方が出来るようになります。
36,000人が蠢く戦場を、あなたの思うままに駆け抜けてください！
ストーリー
ここは、遥か未来の世界・・・
あなたは「砂神の帝国アヴァリス」の女帝に転生したが、無実の罪で国外追放となってしまった
しかし、様々な困難を乗り越え、ついに、隣国オーサス王国の庇護のもと、アヴァリス奪還部隊を編制
そして、砂神の力を宿した指輪と共に、戦地となるアヴァリス帝国領へと向かった・・・
戦闘システム
女帝を操作して敵を倒していきます。
女帝部隊は女帝に付き従うあなたの専用部隊です。
女帝の動きに合わせて周囲を囲うように追尾しますが、任意の場所に向かわせることもできます。
★ 自軍（女帝部隊）
女帝部隊は「ウォーリア」「忍者」「メイジ」「マミー」で構成されます。
ウォーリア：基本兵種。他3種のクラスに変更する事も出来る。
忍者：移動速度が速い。手裏剣を投げて攻撃する事も出来る。
メイジ：魔法を使って遠距離から攻撃出来る。
マミー：攻撃力が高く、防御力も高いが移動速度が遅い。
様々なステージをクリアして女帝とその部隊を強化しましょう。
★ 友軍
戦場には協力者である友軍（隣国オーサス軍）も登場します。
友軍は操作できませんが、自分達の判断で敵と戦ってくれます。
友軍に敵と戦わせてあなた自身は高みの見物を決め込む事もできますが、自分自身で敵を倒した方がスコアは高くなります。
友軍をうまく使って戦場を勝ち抜きましょう。
★ 戦場
戦場では、動きやすい場所、動き難い場所など地形による効果もあります。
さらには視界の効かない夜戦となる事もあります。
夜戦では敵の居場所もわかりません。慎重に探索して敵を撃破してください。
育成と編成
戦闘に勝利する事で女帝部隊の人員は増えていきます。
稼いだGOLDを使用してウォーリアを別のクラスの兵士と入れ替える事で、その戦場やあなたの戦いに合った部隊の編制を行う事ができます。
また、女帝も戦闘を重ねる事でレベルアップし、強くなります。
合わせて装備を強化や変更する事で、前線で敵を切り倒す女帝、強力魔法を放つ女帝など、あなた好みにカスタマイズする事もできます。
スコアランキング
戦闘に勝利する事で、スコアを獲得できます。
スコアは戦い方やその結果によって変化します。
さらに、Steam独自要素としてSteamランキング機能に対応！
全世界のユーザーを相手に、あなたの腕前が試せます。
めざせハイスコア！
※本製品はStudioGIW（スタジオギウ）から発売されている「AVARIS2 -The Return of the Empress-（アヴァリスⅡ～女帝の帰還～）」とランキング機能以外は同一の製品となります。
製品情報
商品名：アヴァリスⅡ～女帝の帰還～
原題：AVARIS2 -The Return of the Empress-
対応言語：英語 / 日本語
販売形態：Steam
発売元：株式会社ズー
開発元：StudioGIW(スタジオギウ)
日本国内DL販売 本体価格：1,295円 （税別）
稼働環境 (Windows)
OS：Windows Vista/7/8/8.1/10
CPU：1Ghz 以上
メモリ：1GB 以上
グラフィック：DirectX 9.0c 以上に対応したグラフィックス環境 必須
DirectX：DirectX 9.0c
ハードディスク：30MB以上の空き容量
日本語版マニュアル
StudioGIW AVARIS2 – GAME MANUAL -（日本語）：
http://www.studiogiw.com/game/a2/game.html
＜合戦画面での特殊操作＞
・ゲーム処理の高速化 … Shift を押している間 or パッドのR1ボタン
・時間停止 … Ctrl を押している間 or パッドのL1ボタン
・自身のHP&MANAを回復 … 動かない
・瀕死の仲間を回復 … タッチ（接触して入れ替わる）※自身のHP&MANAも少し回復する
・戦場を作り直す … 女帝が敵を倒していない状態で F2 or パッドのL2ボタン
＜Shop画面での特殊操作＞
・ゲームデータの保存 … Ctrl + S
・ゲームデータの読み込み … Ctrl + L
・ショップデータを入れ替える … 領地（Territory）が30％以上の時に F2
（Levelが10以上なら、強い装備が出た時に表示が止まります）
・領地を1％下げる … F9 （オートセーブは行わない）
・領地を1％上げる … F10 （４週目以降。10000GOLDを消費）
Website
公式サイト（英語）：
http://www1.dungeonmanager.net/
Facebook（英語）：
https://www.facebook.com/dungeonmanager
お問い合わせ
著作表記
Avaris 2: The Return of the Empress Developed by StudioGIW, Published globally by Zoo Corporation. Copyright 2016 all rights reserved.
開発会社概要
StudioGIW(スタジオギウ)
SLGや戦術ゲームを多く作成している、日本のゲームメーカー。
これまでに主にダウンロード販売で20作品以上を発表。
「ヴァスタークロウズ」「VAZIAL SAGA（ヴァジアルサーガ）」など、多くのタイトルが「ベクタープロレジ大賞 ゲーム部門賞」を受賞している。
StudioGIW(スタジオギウ)公式サイト：
http://www.studiogiw.com/
AVARIS2 -The Return of the Empress-（アヴァリスⅡ～女帝の帰還～） 公式サイト：
http://www.studiogiw.com/game/a2/index.html |
The long nights and days are behind you and your Android and iPhone app development team after building an application that you want to be a smash hit on the Google Play and Apple App Store. Your application is ready to be launched, and you want to establish a very high demand and drive a lot of people to download it. But it is a little bit challenging to make your application outstanding out of over 1.6 million other applications built by other app developers for users to choose and download from.
You can make use of paid ads to increase your app demand, but it needs a huge amount of cash to run such campaigns. If you are thinking of alternative cost-effective means of successfully marketing your mobile application, you can try social media marketing. There are so many ways top app development companies can market their applications, but the best and most effective way of marketing and increasing your application's demand is marketing via social media. To successfully use social media to drive more demand and market your app successfully, you have to put the following points into consideration:
Create user generated and value based content
First, you have to create informative, high-quality, and unique content when planning and making your campaign on social media to make your application more known to users. To keep your targeted audience engaged, you need to create engrossing content. For instance, if it's a cooking application you are marketing, then your posts should be on tips from some the best chefs and recipes in the world. Besides this, making awesome videos that best describes your mobile application can enhance its promotion in a great way. Make funny and quirky videos of your app and promote it through the most popular and widely used social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and also YouTube.
Plan ahead
The most important aspect of marketing app developers need to imbibe when marketing their application via social media is effective Planning. Ask yourself some vital questions when strategizing your plan, some of the questions you should ask yourself include:
What content or posts do I want my targeted audience view and read?
Which of the social media channels will be suitable for my content?
Provide answers to those questions with the profile and preferences of your audience in mind.
Reward your users for downloading your application
If you want your mobile application to remain at the top of the trend table, then you have to consider rewarding your users. You can use various means to motivate users to your application to their colleagues, relatives, or friends. This isn't just an awesome way of increasing downloads of your app, but also, the referral scheme of your application will enable you to keep track of the experience of your users and monitor the number of downloads it generates.
Your social media content should be humanised
Social network users will pay more attention to feeds that are Human in tone rather than a tailored marketing approach. Have it in mind that the most important factor that translates to all the users is the app developers' passion for the application. Also, ask users for feedback on your app, this will enable you close loopholes on your app and as well improve your existing successes. Also, have conversations with your app users, accept mistakes, and surprise them with new and interesting features.
Google plus
There are a lot of benefits in taking advantage of Google+ for marketing your mobile application. One of the benefits is the inbuilt power that will rank up your application in search results. Making use of hashtags on Google plus is similar to Twitter and Instagram. The ability to automatically create hashtags on Google+ is one of the unique functionalities that separates Google plus hashtags from others. Also, you can use hashtags to optimise the power of your SEO, but do not over do it because Google doesn't accept overstuffed keywords in content and hashtags.
Facebook
With over hundreds of millions of users on this platform, Facebook is known to be the best social media platform presently you can use to market your mobile app. You should create a Facebook page for your mobile application as this will give your app more visibility on this social media platform, which is a better way of getting feedback from users, create a buzz and gain credibility.
Make sure the page you have created have a lot details about your app, the page should also have screenshots and if possible, videos of your app. You can create a Facebook group and invite families and friends to join the group, you can also join other groups on Facebook and promote your application there as well.
Twitter
Millions of people all over the world access Twitter every single day, and over 80 per cent of these users make use of Twitter from their mobile devices. Also, mobile application marketing allows you to target users on Twitter and drive your app demand. It also allows you to get to potential users by remarking them in a tweet. You can also use Twitter Cards and "content marketing" to make your app more vigorous to people, and this will increase the downloads of your app.
Instagram
If you'd love more and more people to be aware of your app and download it, then the magic spell you need is Instagram. Instagram has over 90 million active subscribers. So giving your app a presence on Instagram is something you must consider to drive more people to your app.
Use images
An image/picture tells a story. Making use of images to make posts of your application is a great way of making your app stand out from other apps. Make general "Download the App" posts with messages and screenshots of the app being used by early users. Besides images, another great way app developers can market their app is to do a countdown to the release of their app in Google Play Store or Apple App Store. They can post messages regarding the features of the application and also add a relevant picture of the app to go with the post.
Encourage users to share the content of your app
If you want users to share your posts or content on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, they need to be encouraged by providing them good and informative content. Let them know the key features of your application and how it will help them in your content. Also, communicate with some people and discuss with them the reasons why you built the app and how they can benefit from it.
Harnil Oza, CEO, Hyperlink Infosystem
Image Credit: Pixel Fantasy / Flickr |
This isn't the first time we've heard of services producing automated content for publications. The AP has relied on the tech for piecing together sports stories in the past, while Yahoo uses Automated Insights to put together some of its fantasy sports material. The Guardian has also "hired" an automated Editor-in-Chief to curate the best articles for its monthly print edition in the US -- and that's not even the first time the publication has adopted such services to automate content. So today's announcement isn't necessarily groundbreaking tech in the strictest sense, but it's an indication that more publications will begin relying on automated material more often. This is great news for newspapers and online media trying to cut costs and produce more content, though admittedly many human journalists may worry about being replaced; however, AP Managing Editor Lou Ferrara insists that robots are merely complementing them, giving Homo Sapiens the opportunity to shift their focus to more meaningful writing. |
WHY IT MATTERS
Though many brewers that already operate multiple locations in Maine have—for decades!—trucked beer from one to another, brewers say state regulators have offered inconsistent and conflicting guidance regarding the legality of the practice. This, they say, has left them fearful of unintentionally breaking the law. But it’s not just those that already have multiple spaces to run that want clarification. Brewers looking to embark on first-time expansions also want assurance that they won’t be punished for transferring beer between forthcoming facilities.
Opponents, meanwhile, have taken to two lines of argument:
First, the classic: Explicitly allowing brewers to transfer beer between locations—which, again, they’ve been doing for years—would give them a distinct advantage over their competitors, “namely the privately owned restaurants,” as one such bar and grill testified earlier this week.
And second: the bill, as written, invokes federal law. In this line of thought, the concern isn’t over the destruction of the three-tier system (which is actually kind of refreshing). Rather, as Gregory Mineo, director of the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations writes in his testimony, “This bill proposes to remove the state’s autonomy and oversight of licensed manufacturers, and elevates the responsibility for oversight to the Federal Government.” Here, the dispute is over language, and not necessarily the act of transporting beer itself. The Maine Beer & Wine Distributors Association also cited similar concerns.
Peter Bissell, co-founder of Bissell Brothers, a young but quickly growing brewery in Portland, tells GBH some unspecified “language adjustments to the bill” should alleviate those concerns. (His company dreams of building a second brewery in Milo, about two and a half hours north of Portland, where he and his co-founder brother Noah Bissell grew up.)
“There were several doom-and-gloom scenarios the opposition laid out,” he tells GBH via email. “The REAL reason for the bill is to outline in law what is already common practice throughout Maine—breweries of a sole and common ownership transferring finished, packaged goods between two locations.”
Indeed, written testimony from a number of brewers from all over Maine didn’t advocate for the destruction of the three-tier system, or to yield state autonomy to the feds, but rather hammered home the need for clarification with regards to a practice long employed by the state’s beer companies.
Writes Kai Adams, vice president of the Maine Brewers Guild and co-founder of Sebago Brewing, which operates multiple locations:
“As we added locations the clarity of the rules started to change depending on who was writing the license… The real stress came as different inspectors started interpreting the law and making different requests. This usually came at a very stressful time where you have spent all your money on renovations, inventory, staffing and equipment and now you were trying to get licensed and getting mixed signals about a law that you have been operating under. We know…if it was easy then everyone would do it. Well, it shouldn’t be that hard for anyone.”
The bill, which was introduced last month, currently rests with the Committee on Veterans and Legal Affairs.
—Dave Eisenberg
READ MORE
Maine brewers still have plenty of room to grow – if they’re allowed [Portland Press Herald] |
Halloween is over, so that must mean it’s Christmas, right? That thought process certainly applies to Starbucks, as the incredibly popular coffeehouse chain has rolled out their beloved line of red cups and holiday drinks.
Even though you’re still coming down from your Halloween candy-high, you can head to your nearest Starbucks location and pick up a Chestnut Praline Latte, Caramel Brulée Latte or a classic Peppermint Mocha, among other holiday favorites.
As you can imagine, the internet has responded to the launch in all sorts of ways. And thanks to a new, Twitter-exclusive #RedCup emoji, everyone can celebrate.
#RedCups Look at it. LOOK AT IT. — Taylor Camacho (@taylorcamacho_) November 1, 2015
Starbucks coming back out with #RedCups today like https://t.co/qaDbZKcO3K — Mikey What's Good? (@Mikey_Sul) November 1, 2015
And with the arrival of Starbucks #RedCups Santa's elves wake up from our 10-month hibernation to realize that crap, we're still drunk. — Angry Santa Elf (@angrysantaelf) November 2, 2015
#RedCups at @StarbucksCanada means that I can go home and watch Love Actually tonight, right? pic.twitter.com/zpu54Dg8oE — Kaiti Vincent (@ktvncnt) November 2, 2015
#RedCups at Starbucks means the holidays have officially started❤️ — Scarlet Torres (@glamscar) November 2, 2015
Waitwaitwait, I'm so pumped about #RedCups — Rachel Moore (@dapperlyrachel) November 2, 2015
#RedCups Back God Is Good — KiaraB (@mdgkay) November 2, 2015 |
If you want to open a blog you can be up and running in about 15 minutes with this step by step tutorial on how to start a blog using BlueHost and WordPress.
Start a blog in less than 15 minutes
I’ve been blogging for over three years now, mostly as a passion and I have only became more professional in the recent months but never thought I’d end up making up a start a blog tutorial. I don’t pretend to be an expert but I often times find myself giving blogging advice to both bloggy and non bloggy friends that turn to be just the answers they’ve been looking for. That makes me really happy, I know I had a hard time getting a blog up!
So if you’ve been following blogs like this one for a while and flirted with the idea of expressing your thoughts, feelings and life experience, then you are ready to open a blog. And you’ve come to the right place. You absolutely need a blog whether you want to work from home, author a book, get more exposure for your existing business or just write your thoughts.
Fortunately you can be up and running in about 15 minutes with this start a blog, step by step tutorial I’m going to introduce to you. It took me 10 minutes when I had my other WordPress blog up and running and this tutorial is based on that experience. Why would I write about a WP blog instead of any other platform? Simply because it’s way more awesome than any blogging platform and if I had known that 2 years ago, this blog wouldn’t have had its start on Blogger but on the WP platform. Problem solved now as we fully transferred here to the beautiful WordPress.
SEE MY MOST RECENT VIDEOS HERE SEE MY MOST RECENT VIDEOS HERE
**********************************************************
Let’s get started with the basics on what’s needed to start a blog. If you are brand new to blogging and wouldn’t want to invest a little money in your blog then Blogger is the right place for you. But I would strongly recommend you think twice before taking that decision as if you are like me, you’ll find you are in fact way too passionate about blogging to keep yourself and your blog at a non professional level. The option I’d recommend is right below.
If you follow my start a blog tutorial do yourself a favor and open your blog on a WP platform. Get it to a professional level right from the beginning, you won’t regret your decision a bit. You totally get what you pay for and then some more. The following steps are exactly how I’ve built my other site Little Miss Fashion and I’m completely smitten with that place (and now with this place too) and the features I’m provided with.
This start a blog tutorial is not short but trust me, it’s really, really simple. To sum up what this tutorial is all about, by the end of this post, you’ll have a self-hosted WordPress site, the most popular type of site around. Note: All links will be opening in a different window for ease of reference to these instructions as you work.
How to start a blog – step by step tutorial
Step 1 – Start a blog: Find a host
A host provides server space for your site so others can find you on the internet. As I’ve mentioned, you could start a blog using a free service like Blogger, but if you can spare a little cash, I highly, highly recommend you opt for self-hosting. Trust me, you’ll be so glad you started out on the right foot. I am the living proof of that. I was lucky enough to get to experience both platforms and the self hosted is by far the best option.
I am using Blue Host on both my sites as I’ve heard great reviews about them and yes, they are all true! For starters, they make signing up and setting a WP blog with them a breeze, all you need to do is follow instructions on both their site and the e-mails they keep you updated with on each step completed.
Start by clicking here to go to Bluehost. Click the green Get Started Now button.
Step 2 – Start a blog: Choose a domain
Enter a domain name (your desired web address, like thelittlemissfashion.com as I did when setting up my other blog) on the left side under New Domain (see tips for choosing a domain below). Make sure .com, or the extension of your choice, is selected from the drop down menu beside it. If you’ve already registered a domain name somewhere else, enter it on the right hand side.
Then click the blue Next button.
Tips for choosing a domain name
Choose a .com if possible, it’s easier for readers to look for your site as everyone has a .com in mind when they’re searching for websites. Make it easy to say and spell. I got mine thelittlemissfashion.com to perfectly match my blog’s title: Little Miss Fashion. Don’t include hyphens, numbers, initials, obscure terms or confusing strings of words, that’ll only make it hard for people to find your website. If you’re not sure what to use, your name is ok to use as a last resort.
Step 3 – Start a blog: Enter your account information
On the next page, enter your account info. Make sure you use an email address you use the most because this is where your login information will be sent. Step 4 – Start a blog: Choose a hosting package Under Package Information choose your Account Plan from the drop down menu based on how far in advance you want to pay. Please note you will be billed a year a time, but as you can see, it works out to a very reasonable monthly amount. I think that’s basically nothing, you get so much for your self hosted blog for that little amount of money.
I’d recommend you to skip the other add-ons except Domain Whois Privacy which will keep your personal information private (the Domain Whois Privacy option only shows up if you registered a new domain, it will not show up if you transfer a domain.) Step 5 – Start a blog: Enter your billing information Fill in your billing information, confirm that you’ve read the fine print and then click Next.
Step 6 – Start a blog: Skip the upgrades
On the next page you’re asked if you want to add any upgrades. I just skipped them all. Continue on to complete your purchase then check your email. You’ll find a welcome email from BlueHost with your control panel (named cpanel) login info. Keep this information for future reference.
Step 7 – Start a blog: Login to your cpanel
Go back to Bluehost and click the Login button in the top right corner of your screen. Alternatively, you can use the link to your cpanel received through the welcome email.
Enter your cpanel login info.
Step 8 – Start a blog: Install WordPress
Once logged in, click the WordPress icon under Website Builders.
Step 9 – Start a blog: Start the WordPress install
Next you’ll get to a window that looks like this. Click the Start button to begin the WordPress installation process.
Step 10 – Start a blog: Choose where to install WordPress
Leave this section as is with your domain showing in the drop down menu. Simply click Check Domain.
Step 11 – Start a blog: Enter your WordPress user info
Check the box next to Show advanced options. Enter your Site Name or Title (ex. Little Miss Fashion). Choose an Admin Username (do not use “admin” as your username) and password. These will be what you use to login to WordPress once it’s installed. Enter your email address (again, all site information will be sent here). Read and agree to the terms. Click the Install Now button.
Step 12 – Start a blog: Choose your Style This is where you will pick a theme with the desired design. There’s a variety of free WordPress themes that you can choose from. If you are trying to save money then I suggest just choosing a free theme but if you’re willing to take your blog to a more professional look and feel, I’d recommend you opt for a paid theme. I chose a free theme not for the financial reason but for the lack of time. I just couldn’t decide which theme I like more and opted to postpone this for later. But if you’re not short on time I would strongly recommend go browsing through those amazing Mojo paid themes. There are so many gorgeous options starting at only $49. Take your time, your blog theme will say a lot about yourself and the message you’re trying to convey through your writing. Step 13 – Start a blog: You’ve Made it! Done! Take note of the information to access your new WordPress site. This information will also be sent to you via email. Clicking on the Site URL link will take you to your brand new, live website. Clicking on the Login URL link will take you to the WordPress login page where you can enter your username and password and get into the admin panel of your WordPress site.
Congratulations! You’ve just managed to start your blog. Type your domain into a browser and your WordPress site will appear.
Bonus – Start a blog: If you’ve used an existing domain on step #2
(If you registered a new domain in Step 2, skip this step.) Your existing domain will not display your new site until you change your nameservers wherever your domain is currently registered. The change will be pointing your domain to this new site.
IMPORTANT! As soon as you change your nameservers, your domain will bring visitors to this new site. Therefore, if you are currently using your domain on another site, do not change your nameservers until your new site is up and running. You can still access your new WordPress blog via a temporary URL. You may have received one in your welcome email from Bluehost. If you didn’t, simply call them and let them know you need a temporary URL for your new site. BlueHost has a As soon as you change your nameservers, your domain will bring visitors to this new site. Therefore, if you are currently using your domain on another site, do not change your nameservers until your new site is up and running. You can still access your new WordPress blog via a temporary URL. You may have received one in your welcome email from Bluehost. If you didn’t, simply call them and let them know you need a temporary URL for your new site. BlueHost has a 24/7 call service (help desk) you could use and a live chat service.
To change the name servers where your domain is currently registered, first note your new Blue Host name server information which can be ns1.BlueHost.com or ns2.BlueHost.com Next, go to the registrar where your existing domain is currently registered (Namecheap, GoDaddy etc.). You will need to enter the above information in the appropriate place. This varies among registrars so I recommend you call them if it’s not clear. This is what I did with this blog when transferring from Blogger to WordPress.
I hope my start a blog tutorial has been of help and I look forward to hear your input and also read your new, beautiful blogs. If the information above doesn’t fulfill your needs, you can always learn more about BlueHost here
This post contains affiliate links which means I will get commission if you click on them and make a purchase. |
Pope Francis appointed 19 new cardinals this weekend, most from the developing world, marking a shift in the hierarchy of the Catholic church. For much of the last century, the College of Cardinals, which elects new popes when the seat becomes vacant and acts as an advisory body to the church, has been overwhelmingly European and Italian, even as the church's membership in the developing world has grown .
Francis, the first pope in modern times from outside Europe, has already made history just by his election. With his recent appointment of 16 voting-age cardinals, 10 of whom are from outside Europe, along with his challenge to Catholic leadership to focus less on social issues like gay marriage and abortion and to make the church "a home for all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people," his time at the helm may mean big changes are coming for the church. |
On the centenary of his death, Michael A. Flannery looks back at how Alfred Russel Wallace’s take on evolution, which radically reintroduced notions of purpose and design, still speaks to us in a post-Darwin world where problems of sentience and of the origin of life remain, some would argue, as intractable as ever.
If anything at all is ever mentioned about Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) it is that he co-discovered the theory of natural selection. The letter he sent to Darwin from the island of Ternate in the spring of 1858, “On the Tendency of Varieties to depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,” shocked its recipient into publishing On the Origin of Species that following year. Darwin became both noteworthy and notorious, for while his theory was hailed by many as heralding in a new scientific era, it also suggested that all the wondrous diversity of life could be explained without recourse to a divine Creator, raising the cry of “heresy!” from many more. The English clergy particularly decried that William Paley’s watchmaker had been replaced with chance and necessity. “The old argument from design in Nature, as given by Paley,” Darwin declared, “which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. . . . There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.” Thus Darwin became the era’s leading heretic.
But notice is seldom given to Darwin’s colleague, Alfred Russel Wallace. He is credited for co-discovering natural selection but then quickly recedes into the mists of history rarely to appear again. What is seldom mentioned is that Wallace became the heretic’s heretic when he boldly reintroduced purpose and design back into nature.
When Wallace’s Ternate paper was read jointly with portions of Darwin’s work at the July meeting of the Linnaean Society in 1858, no one noticed any real difference. There were, however, important distinctions between the two concepts of natural selection from the start. For one thing, Wallace never thought much of Darwin analogy of domestic breeding as good examples of evolution in action since the very act of choice and selection demonstrated nothing more than unnatural selection. Most fancy breeds of pigeons, dogs, and livestock would, he argued, either revert to their original type or perish. More importantly, Wallace emphasized Darwin’s own principle of utility, namely, that organs or attributes arise and are maintained only if they afford the species a survival advantage in nature. When strictly applied, Wallace came to understand natural selection as having limited explanatory power on this basis. Maintaining rigorous adherence to Darwin’s own principle of utility but inclined to pursue scientific inquiry outside the bounds of methodological naturalism, Wallace’s break with Darwin was inevitable.
It came in the 1869 April issue of the Quarterly Review. Writing an essay review of the tenth edition of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, Wallace declared that “an Overruling Intelligence has watched over the action of those [natural] laws, so directing variations and so determining their accumulation, as finally to produce an organization sufficiently perfect to admit of, and even to aid in, the indefinite advancement of our mental and moral nature.” Darwin was appalled. Scratching an emphatic “NO!!!” in the margin of his copy of the Quarterly, he couldn’t believe that Wallace was the author. Some months later, when the full impact of Wallace’s blasphemy had settled in, he wailed, “But I groan over Man — you write like a metamorphosed (in retrograde direction) naturalist, and you the author of the best paper that ever appeared in the Anthropological Review! Eheu! Eheu! Eheu! — Your miserable friend, C. Darwin.”
Wallace was unmoved. Insisting that natural selection operated strictly by the principle of utility, he held that intellectual capacities of Homo sapiens were far too developed to be explained as adaptations to mere survival. He elaborated and expanded on this theme in Darwinism (1889). The origin of life and sentience in animals were, for Wallace, also wholly inexplicable by natural selection or by any other naturalistic means. “These three distinct stages of progress from the inorganic world of matter and motion up to man,” he insisted, “point clearly to an unseen universe — to a world of spirit, to which the world of matter is altogether subordinate.”
It has been suggested by some that Wallace’s conversion to spiritualism was behind his defection from Darwin. On July 22, 1865, Wallace attended his first séance with his sister Fanny. Like many other intellects of the Victorian era — in Britain there was physicist William Crookes, Nobel Laureate Lord Rayleigh, and Oliver Lodge , to name a few; in America there was noted psychologist/philosopher William James and Columbia University logician James Hervey Hyslop — Wallace became an ardent spiritualist. But Wallace’s spiritualism cannot simply be dismissed as the product of a “heretic personality.” While the frequent attribution of spiritualism’s popularity among leading Victorian intellects (especially scientists) to a “crisis of faith” no doubt has some truth, spiritualism was never completely refuted on its own terms. Stage conjurors (magicians) and leading opponents from the scientific community all failed to catch the age’s leading spiritualist, Daniel Douglas Home, in any overt chicanery and the “impostures” of renowned medium Leonora Piper were more suggested than proven. In the end, scientists who rejected spiritualism simply explained it away as wholly subjective. This is not to vindicate spiritualism it is merely to suggest that the movement posed a significant problem for scientists attempting to establish a meaningful discourse of objectivity and a normative basis for scientific inquiry based upon quantifiable empirical data on the one hand and those reliant upon personal testimony based upon experience and observation on the other. Seen in this light the contention over spiritualism is better viewed as an effort to negotiate precisely what counted as legitimate evidence rather than as a collection of séance addicted eccentrics who merely provide historians comic relief in the otherwise serious and steady march of scientific progress.
Moreover, ascribing Wallace’s break with Darwin to spiritualism fails on two specific counts. First, the teleological leanings (finding purpose in nature) well predated his first séance. Wallace biographer H. Lewis McKinney sees this shift occurring as early as 1862/63 and Martin Fichman perhaps even earlier in 1856. Second, Wallace never argued for design and purpose on the basis of spirit phenomena, but upon an abductive inference that called upon intelligent agency to explain complexity.
Despite his adamant insistence on retaining the Darwinian label, others knew better. Darwinian critic and author of the utopian satire Erewhon (1872) Samuel Butler and Dutch zoologist A. A. W. Hubrecht both talked of Wallaceism. Refusing the designation, Wallace even demanded an apology from Hubrecht. Wallace shrugged off Darwin’s distant civility after 1869 as “really quite pathetic,” never abandoning the Darwinian label. Nevertheless, the differences remained and his continued defense of “Darwinism” only lent to confusion and conflation that still exists today. Even his close friend Herbert Spencer tried to tell him. When Spencer received his copy of Darwinism, he warned, “I regret that you have used the title ‘Darwinism,’ for notwithstanding your qualification of its meaning you will, by using it, tend greatly to confirm the erroneous conception almost universally current.”
Spencer was right. Unlike Darwin’s wholly naturalistic evolution, Wallace’s intelligent evolution was a theory of common descent based upon a strictly limited natural selection whose border extended to and no further than the principle of utility, all of which existed within a larger teleological and theistic framework. In this sense the two theories ceased to be compatible no matter how much Wallace insisted he was an “advocate of pure Darwinism.”
Undaunted by controversy, Wallace established his teleological worldview in two books. His cosmology, discussed at length in Man’s Place in the Universe (1903), argued explicitly against the Copernican Principle. Far from a mere speck in the universe the earth was unique. The exacting tolerances of the solar system, of mass along with gravity, atmosphere, temperature, light, and many other requisites for complex life suggested that the universe was fine-tuned for uniquely human existence. Wallace acknowledged teleology in the universe and believed that eternal multi-verse speculations were overreaching and unwarranted. Wallace extended these ideas to the biological world in his grand evolutionary synthesis, The World of Life (1910). Despite his 87 years, Wallace marshaled his lifetime of experience and knowledge to lay out an explicitly theistic evolution. In so doing he launched an unrestrained attack upon the materialism of Thomas Henry Huxley and Ernst Haeckel. Selecting examples of explicit design in nature — e.g., the structure of the bird’s wing and the complexity of the cell — he aimed to demonstrate the purposefulness of a guided, progressive evolution. His chapter, “Is Nature Cruel? The Purpose and Limitations of Pain,” was a theodicy suggesting species experienced a graded hierarchy of pain based upon utilitarian demands and that human pain and even misery served a greater purpose for man’s spiritual development. Wallace’s World of Life clearly rejected first causes in nature, but that did not mean there was no First Cause:
I can imagine the supreme, the Infinite being, foreseeing and determining the broad outlines of a universe which would, in due course and with efficient guidance, produce the required result. He might, for instance, impress a sufficient number of his highest angels to create by their will-power the primal universe of ether, with all those inherent properties and forces, necessary for what was to follow. Using this as a vehicle the next subordinate association of angels would so act upon the ether as to develop from it, in suitable masses and at suitable distances, the various elements of matter, which, under the influence of such laws and forces as gravitation, heat, and electricity, would thenceforth begin to form those vast systems of nebulae and suns which constitute our stellar universe.
Though separated from that First Cause, mankind was still connected to that “eternal Mind” through a “divine influx” of efficient causes. Wallace never accepted Christianity (he rejected the concepts damnation, hell, and the atonement), but the theistic vision in The World of Life is unmistakable and certainly compatible enough to have clergymen like John Magens Mello and James Orr sing its praises. Often dismissed or ignored by analysts past and present, Martin Fichman correctly insists these were “not the eccentric musings of a declining mind but powerful syntheses of late-nineteenth/early twentieth-century intellectual currents.”
Wallace now comes to us as a heretic’s heretic. Discussions about evolution become battlegrounds where the faithful contend with the “new atheists” over the nature of Nature. But as Wallace’s life reveals, it is not about evolution or common descent or even natural selection, but about the explanatory power of blind natural laws. The problems of the human mind, of sentience, of the origin of life remain as intractable as ever. Darwin now wears the crown of convention and orthodoxy burdened by these persistent anomalies, so we would do well to remember on this centennial of Wallace’s passing (November 7th 1913) that the co-discoverer of natural selection remains Darwin’s heretical heir apparent.
Michael A. Flannery is Professor and Associate Director for Historical Collections at the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham. He holds an MLS from the University of Kentucky and an MA in history from California State University, Dominguez Hills. He served as consultant for the website alfredwallace.org. His research on Wallace continues.
Links to Works
“On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type,” Proceedings of the Linnean Society. Zoology. Vol. III (1859) by Alfred Russel Wallace. Wikisource
Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of Its Applications (1889) by Alfred Russel Wallace. Internet Archive Wikisource
Man’s Place in the Universe: A Study of the Results of Scientific Research in Relation to the Unity and Plurality of Worlds (1903) by Alfred Russel Wallace. Internet Archive
The World of Life: A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose (1910) by Alfred Russel Wallace. Internet Archive
Miracles and modern spiritualism (1896) by Alfred Russel Wallace. Internet Archive
A Defence of Modern Spiritualism (1874) by Alfred Russel Wallace. Internet Archive
My Life: a record of events and opinions (1905) by Alfred Russel Wallace. Internet Archive
Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences (1916) by Alfred Russel Wallace and James Marchant. Internet Archive
Recommended Readings |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The 'supermoon' has been visible in North America, South America, West Africa and Western Europe
People around the world have observed a rare celestial event, as a lunar eclipse coincided with a so-called "supermoon".
A supermoon occurs when the Moon is in the closest part of its orbit to Earth, meaning it appears larger in the sky.
The eclipse - which made the Moon appear red - has been visible in North America, South America, West Africa and Western Europe.
This phenomenon was last observed in 1982 and will not be back before 2033.
But the definition of a supermoon is debated among astronomers.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The supermoon from Belgium
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The view at Glastonbury in western England
Image copyright AP Image caption A plane flies in front of the supermoon over Geneva, Switzerland
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The partially eclipsed supermoon over the US city of Las Vegas
Skywatchers in the western half of North America, the rest of Europe and Africa, the Middle East and South Asia saw a partial eclipse.
From the UK, observers watched the Moon pass through the Earth's shadow in the early hours of Monday morning. In North and South America the eclipse was seen on Sunday evening.
Image copyright NASA
Eclipse facts
The supermoon, where Earth's satellite is near its minimum distance from our planet, means that the Moon appears 7-8% larger in the sky
The moon looks rust-coloured during a total lunar eclipse - giving rise to its nickname Blood Moon. This is because the Earth's atmosphere scatters blue light more strongly than red light, and it is this red light that reaches the lunar surface
During the eclipse, the Moon lies in front of the stars of the constellation Pisces
Eclipse contact points (see map) Time (UTC) P1 00:11:47 U1 01:07:11 U2 02:11:10 Greatest 02:47:07 U3 03:23:05 U4 04:27:03 P4 05:22:27
In a total lunar eclipse, the Earth, Sun and Moon are almost exactly in line and the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun.
As the full Moon moves into our planet's shadow, it dims dramatically but usually remains visible, lit by sunlight that passes through the Earth's atmosphere.
As this light travels through our planet's gaseous envelope, the green to violet portions get filtered out more than the red portion, with the result that light reaching the lunar surface is predominantly red in colour.
Observers on Earth may see a Moon that is brick-coloured, rusty, blood red or sometimes dark grey, depending on terrestrial conditions.
Dr Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the UK's Royal Astronomical Society, told BBC News that the eclipse is an "incredibly beautiful event".
A supermoon occurs when a full or new moon coincides with a Moon that is nearing its minimum distance (perigee) to Earth.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Astronomer Martin Griffiths explains why the moon has turned red
The Moon takes an elliptical orbit around Earth, which means that its average distance changes from as far as 405,000km (its apogee) to as close as 363,000km at the perigee.
The coincidence between a supermoon and an eclipse means that Earth's lone companion is expected to look 7-8% bigger. But Dr Massey added: "The definition of 'supermoon' is slightly problematic.
"Is a supermoon taking place at the perigee, the day before, the day after? Does a supermoon have to be a particularly close perigee, or can it be a bit further out? It's not very well defined."
He said a supermoon was to some extent a moveable feast compared with an eclipse, where the timing can be measured precisely.
As a result, Dr Massey explained, claims of the extreme rarity of a supermoon coinciding with an eclipse were overstated.
The supermoon should also not be confused with the Moon Illusion, which causes the Moon to appear larger near the horizon than it does higher up in the sky.
The eclipse began at 00:11 GMT, when the Moon entered the lightest part of the Earth's shadow, known as the penumbra, and adopted a yellowish colour. At 02:11 GMT the Moon completely entered the umbra - the inner dark corpus of our planet's shadow.
The point of greatest eclipse occurred at 02:47 GMT, when the Moon was closest to the centre of the umbra, with the eclipse ending at 05:22 GMT.
The Royal Astronomical Society says that unlike the solar equivalent, a total lunar eclipse event is safe to watch and needs no special equipment. |
Gran Turismo has rightfully earned a reputation across the years in pushing the limits of console technology, and after some unconvincing early betas, GT Sport looks like delivering another phenomenal technological masterclass. Earlier this week, Sony unleashed a massive demo version, allowing players to sample a wide variety of events and features. It's opportunity for an early glimpse at near-final code and it's especially impressive for users with high dynamic range displays. Many games benefit from HDR, but with GT Sport, the upgrade is so pronounced and so beautiful, you're clearly not getting the full experience without it.
The majority of our gameplay took place on PlayStation 4 Pro using its high resolution mode - which remains a checkerboarded 1800p presentation with a native 4K user interface. The results aren't as crisp as other PS4 Pro titles or indeed Forza Motorsport 7 on Xbox One X, but it's still a gorgeous looking game in motion and the Pro showcases GT Sport and HDR at its best.
GT Sport offers a remarkable level of detail in every facet of the presentation. The move to PlayStation 4 means that materials, textures and lighting are all amped up beyond what was previously possible. In making the leap to physically-based rendering, the game features more realistic surfaces and objects throughout its environments and across the lineup of cars. Textures are much sharper and more realistic as a result even up-close. The game retains a sense of scale that no other sim racer can quite match - the way its environments stretch out into the distance create the illusion of a large world.
But more than anything else, it's the support for high dynamic range that has left us most impressed. Some games utilise HDR well but clearly, not all implementations are created equal, and many fall short. Gran Turismo has always been a series created to push the boundaries of technology so it's no surprise that HDR plays a huge role in its presentation. And in a world where so many HDR screens offers such a wide-ranging experience, Polyphony Digital is to be commended for its set-up process.
How do you watch Digital Foundry HDR video? We were so impressed with Gran Turismo Sport running in HDR that we decided to put together our entire analysis video in the format. Now, the chances are you'll be watching this via YouTube on a standard range screen - in which case, YouTube converts the HDR image to SDR using a technique called tone-mapping. To watch this video in actual HDR, you'll need specific hardware. Obviously, an HDR screen is a given, and mid-range/high-end Samsung screens from 2016 and the newer 2017 models will get the job done via its internal YouTube app. Alternatively you can stream the video from your phone to a Chromecast Ultra to get the desired effect. YouTube has also rolled up an update for HDR-enabled smartphones like the Galaxy S8, S8+, Note 8, LG V30 and Sony Xperia XZ Platinum. Watch our video on one of these devices and you're good to go. Last but certainly not least, for access to the original source file, visit our video download site for Patreon supporters, digitalfoundry.net. All of our video content is there to download, and it's a vastly improved, pristine experience. Just copy the file to a USB stick, plug it into your display and you're good to go. Nvidia Shield ATV and Xbox One S should also do a sterling job of displaying the video's full HDR fidelity.
We've put together a full-on HDR showcase video for our Gran Turismo Sport demo analysis. Try to watch it in HDR if you can, it's almost stunning to behold.
GT Sport is in a league of its own offering users full control over the HDR experience. When enabling this feature, a configuration page allows you to match the HDR10 output to your television to get the best picture. If you're using an LG display with reduced brightness when using the HDR game mode, GT Sport allows you to overcome this entirely, but really, every screen will benefit here in that you tailor the HDR level to best suit your tastes and the capabilities of your display. More games could learn from this implementation.
There are several elements which come together here to define this HDR presentation. It begins with the rendering of the sky. The increased colour depth and brightness of HDR allows the sunlight and clouds to exhibit a level of brightness closer to reality. Then there are the head and tail lights featured on the cars. The contrast of high intensity lights with the environment works brilliantly here, again contributing to the sense of realism. Taken as a whole, the end results are vibrant and sharp. There are plenty of nitpicks one could fire at the game if you look closely, including 'billboard' trees and a lack of detail in certain parts of the background, but during the action, it's a beautiful game.
There's more good news - specifically a clear improvement in performance in the high resolution mode compared to earlier betas. Based on our experience, the overall level of consistency here is very impressive, with Polyphony delivering its closest lock to 60 frames per second since the PS2 era. We had a difficult time encountering any slowdown during gameplay, meaning that if it does occur, it should be rare. The races all play back very smoothly at 60 frames per second - a level of performance often missed in the PS3 installments. PS4 Pro owners also get the chance to run replays at 1080p60 - while base PS4 and the high-res Pro mode operate these at 30fps instead. It's not a perfect lock but the results look brilliant - just the tonic after 10 years of top-tier racing games only offering 30fps replays.
However, this brings up an interesting limitation in the game. With PS4 Pro outputting 1080p you can choose to prioritise frame-rate or resolution, which is great, as it's basically allowing super-sampling within the game. When you output at 4K though, prioritising frame-rate is not possible and you're stuck at the higher resolution. In our last GT Sport beta report we were pretty scathing about how modes were being partitioned between users according to the display that they own, with 1080p Pro users getting a raw deal, so the fact that these features have been added is a really good thing. However, since the gameplay is pretty much locked, one extra option that we would love to see is the choice to prioritise frame-rate specifically for replays, allowing the main game to run at 1800p checkerboard while replays are limited to 1080p at 60fps.
Overall then, Gran Turismo Sport is exceeding expectations. The earlier showings of the game didn't quite hit the mark but Polyphony has made great strides this time around, solving many of the issues not just from earlier beta code, but also from prior GT titles on previous PlayStation platforms. The visuals are much better of course, but it's the overall experience that impresses the most. From the slick menu system, the seamless online system and the smart design choices, it just feels welcoming and engaging to jump into. If you're a lapsed fan of the series or new to racing games in general, this could be a great entry point.
And then there's the HDR implementation. We've seen some strong showings from developers before, but GT Sport is the first title we've seen that looks so phenomenal in HDR that it has the potential to prompt a lot of display upgrades. Just remember that a screen advertising HDR may not be fully up to spec - our 4K HDR buyer's guide should hopefully put you on the right track. At its fullest potential, HDR is a game-changer and GT Sport may well be its first killer app. |
A fleet of seven ships and six helicopters evacuated all 2,376 tourists, including several foreign nationals, stranded in two islands of the Andamans due to cyclonic weather since December 5, officials said on Friday.
As the weather cleared in the morning, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and Union Territory (UT) administration started a joint evacuation drive and brought back all stranded tourists to Port Blair from Havelock and Neil islands of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
“Altogether 2,376 tourists were evacuated from the two islands and brought to Port Blair. All are safe and are taken care of,” an official of the UT disaster department said.
An IMD satellite picture shows Cyclone Vardah over the Andamans ( IMD )
He said three Mi 17V-5 military transport helicopters from the Air Force and three Pawan Hans helicopters of the Union Territory administration, besides seven ships from the Navy and administration have been regularly plying between the islands for the evacuation process.
Located about 40km from here, Havelock and Neil are the most popular tourist attractions in the Andamans where tourists were stranded since Monday due to torrential rains, choppy seas and heavy winds as neither aircrafts nor ships could operate due to the inclement weather.
The cyclonic storm ‘Vardah’, which was lying 250 km west- northwest of Port Blair, was very likely to intensify into a severe cyclone, according to the MeT department.
Lt Governor of the Islands Jagdish Mukhi said there was no untoward incident and no loss of life or property due to the weather conditions.
“We are sending all tourists back home from Port Blair according to their flight timings. We have also made arrangements for their stay here,” an official said.
Among those rescued included 12 foreigners. They included two Germans, four Spanish and one Israeli.
The IAF in a statement said three MI-17V5 were pressed into service for the rescue operation.
Total 14 sorties carried out, 11 sorties from Havelock carrying 230 passengers and 3 sorties from Neil island carrying 65 passengers, it said.
First Published: Dec 09, 2016 10:33 IST |
Hydropothecary Increasing Production Capacity to 108,000 Kilograms, Construction to Be Completed by Year End of 2018 -- CFN Media
Seattle, Washington--(Newsfile Corp. - December 19, 2017) - CFN Media Group ("CannabisFN"), the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis, announces publication of an article covering The Hydropothecary Corporation's (TSXV: THCX) recently announced expansion plans, unique advantages in the industry, and its progress in developing and launching award-winning products into the market.
There are more than 70 licensed producers approved by Health Canada, with roughly 30 approved to sell and produce marijuana, but not all licensed producers are the same. While some are focused on scaling up operations to meet recreational demand, others are focused on developing medical therapeutics or innovative products that could boost margins over the long-run. The Hydropothecary Corporation represents a mix of the two.
Newly Acquired Land
The Hydropothecary Corporation recently announced the acquisition of 78 acres of land adjacent to its existing 65 acre facility in Gatineau, QC. The company plans to build a new 1 million sq. ft. greenhouse on the land, which management expects to be completed by December 2018. This new expansion will increase its production capacity to 108,000 kilograms of dried cannabis per year.
"Hydropothecary is boldly stepping forward to take the lead in the Canadian cannabis industry," said Co-Founder and CEO Sebastien St-Louis. "With our expansion, we are moving into industrial agri-nomics, robotic technology, fully automated systems, and the cannabis plant as a THC bioreactor. Once legalization of the adult-use recreational market becomes a reality, Hydropothecary will be ready."
The cost of the expansion project is estimated to be $80 million, which will be fully-funded through the company's treasury. Once completed, the company will become one of the largest licensed producers of medical cannabis in Canada. This, in addition to being the only licensed producer in Quebec to be headquartered in Quebec (there are only two licensed producers in the province. With a population of 8.4 million, Quebec is the second most populous Canadian province after Ontario. Among the many unique attributes of the province's inhabitants is a well known preference for local products and businesses.
Current Expansion is On-Schedule
Hydropothecary's current project - a 250,000 sq. ft. greenhouse complex - is on budget and on time. After breaking ground on October 12, the company expects to complete the facility by July 2018. This expansion that will increase its overall facility size to 300,000 sq. ft. and boost its annual production capacity to 25,000 kg per year. The facility is fully-funded by its cash on hand.
Focus on innovation
During fiscal 2017, the company shipped 404,158 grams of medical cannabis and generated $4.1 million in revenue. The company also completed a new 35,000 sq. ft. greenhouse that increased its production capacity from 600 kg per year to 3,600 kg per year and launched three new product offerings. These products included Decarb - a novel, pre-activated cannabis capsule - and Elixir No. 1 - Canada's only sublingual cannabis oil spray.
In addition to being one of the Canada's top producers of cannabis, Hydropothecary is also focused on product development and innovation. In response to the demands of its clients and the experiences of US states where cannabis is legal, the company has targeted the development of delivery systems that do not require smoking of cannabis flower.
In December 2017, Hydropothecary's focus was acknowledged by its industry peers at the inaugural Canadian Cannabis Awards, where the company's Decarb and Elixir products were awarded the Best New Cannabis Product. Decarb took first place for its innovative ready-to-consume nature, while Elixir was awarded third place as the only peppermint based medical cannabis oil sublingual mist on the market. Hydropothecary was among more than 800 guests, including licensed producers, industry representatives, and members of the investment community.
Looking Ahead
The combination of low cost, innovative products, an excellent location, and high scalability make The Hydropothecary Corporation (TSX-V: THCX) an attractive opportunity in Canada's burgeoning market, particularly as the company looks to dramatically expand its production footprint.
Please follow the link to read the full article: http://www.cannabisfn.com/hydropothecary-increasing-production-capacity-108000-kilograms-construction-completed-year-end-2018/
For more information, visit the company's investor website at www.thcx.com .
About CFN Media
CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed.
Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/become-featured-company/
Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from the palm of your hand: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8
Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com
Disclaimer:
Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CFN Media and CannabisFN.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/
Contact
CFN Media
Frank Lane
206-369-7050
[email protected]
copyright (c) newsfile corp. 2017 |
Where is the dividing line between North and South Jersey?
Ben Franklin called New Jersey, “A Barrel tapped at both ends” in reference to the state’s geography between New York City and Philadelphia. This reference still holds true today.
There is no doubt that the two cities have a tremendous effect on New Jersey. And these influences do indeed meet in certain areas (usually referred to as “Central Jersey”). But by measuring what names locals call a sandwich (hoagie or sub?) to what sports’ teams New Jerseyans cheer; this small state has many conflicting characteristics.
Does the state possess a unique culture of its own? Is New Jersey simply a backwater for New York City and Philadelphia? It is questions like these that have caused New Jersey to have its own “identity crisis.” So while historically this great state has had to weather being the butt end of jokes from outsiders, it also struggles with itself.
So, can the state find any common ground that may help to unite them and ensure more cultural pride?
Follow Steve Chernoski, as he visits New Jersey’s wonderful towns, interviews colorful residents (including many mayors) and gets in the middle of town festivals and high traffic areas polling people on the often asked question: Where is the cultural dividing line between North and South Jersey? From Rodeos to Minor League Ballparks, From Boardwalks to Speedways, From Cape May to High Point, see the real New Jersey in “New Jersey: A Barrel Tapped at Both Ends.” |
9 January 2017
This is from the diary of a branch manager of an Indian bank. He lives in the Mumbai suburbs, takes a local train to work and usually heads back home by 7 p.m.
Life took a different turn after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the historic announcement of a currency swap on 8 November 2016. Roughly 86 per cent of the ₹ 15.50 trillion worth of currency in circulation was to be replaced in the world’s secondmost populated country where a bank branch caters to an average of 10,000 people.
For the next fifty days till the exercise ended on 30 December, the branch manager had to occasionally sleep at the branch when he missed the last train home. He had to make sure that every customer was taken care of and that the bank could use the opportunity for generating low-cost current and savings accounts. On top of that, he needed to be on his toes so that none of his colleagues were used for money laundering.
He is one of the 1,30,000-odd branch managers of banks in India—and this is a story of every branch manager in the country. This thirty-three-year-old banker works for a private bank in Mumbai, and heads a relatively new and small branch. For privacy, I am neither naming the banker, nor his bank. Every character and incident mentioned in this diary is true.
Back from a four-day holiday in the first week of January at Matheran, a hill resort in Maharashtra, with his three-year old daughter and wife, this man looks back at those fifty days as something surreal.
Edited Extracts from His Diary
The 7.04 a.m. Virar local at Nalasopara was late. My heart sank when I heard the late arrival announcement. Would I be able to reach office on time? How long would it take to get a taxi from Dadar station? Thank God, the train was late by just five minutes. By the time I reached the branch, there were about fifty people waiting outside, patiently. That was 10 November, two days after the demonetization announcement. The branch was closed the previous day.
The first thing that nine of us in the branch did was huddle in a corner—the way a cricket team does before taking the field. I told them that we need to serve the customers to the best of our ability and we will never compromise our integrity. This is a lifetime opportunity to prove to the world what we can do. That became a daily ritual till 30 December. We did not ask for any reinforcement of staff from the headquarters. Nine of us formed three teams—two of my colleagues were managing the queue of the customers with the help of a lone, unarmed security guard; three were handling data entry and another three were at the two cash counters. I was overseeing the work of all three groups.
Three Transactions
Many customers were making three transactions—one each for deposit of cash, withdrawal of cash and exchange of old notes. Reconciling the data was very critical as any shortfall of money was to be made good by us unless the amount was too big. In such cases, an internal inquiry could be instituted. We needed to make sure that the money deposited must tally with the amount we had in the vault. One day in the train I heard a gentleman sitting next to me, a branch manager of a large public-sector bank, telling someone higher up in his bank on phone about a ₹ 18-million shortfall in his branch and begging for more staff. Thankfully, in our case we needed to make good only ₹ 300 one day.
Such things can happen even if you’re alert. One day, to my horror I found how ingenious people can be! A person was busy filling in the form for depositing money, but actually he was carrying no money. He probably assumed that under work pressure, my colleague at the teller would check the form and accept it, but wouldn’t ask for the money! Similarly, another person wrote ₹ 4500 in the form, but actually offered to deposit ₹ 2000. He too thought the man at the teller was too busy to bother about this.
We needed to keep a hawk-eye on every transaction to catch such people. After every hour, we were taking a five-minute break to tally the transactions. At the first stage, we were getting all the details of the customer in terms of Aadhaar card, PAN card, address, the amount of money to be deposited, etc., and taking notes of all. Only after that, a transaction could take place. In the five-minute break after every one hour, we were checking how much money was deposited and whether the amounted tallied with the data sheet that we were creating.
On the pavement directly opposite the branch one day I saw one gentleman distributing old ₹ 1000 and ₹ 500 notes to at least a dozen people. After taking the money from him, those people were rushing to join the queue outside the bank branch. I called my colleague Varun out and decided to confront that man.
He claimed to be a contractor who was giving salary to his workers and immediately left the spot. We found that each of them was given ₹ 4500 worth of old notes to exchange for new notes. On that day, the limit for currency exchange had been raised from ₹ 4000 to ₹ 4500, and the limit for drawing money from ATM had also been lifted from ₹ 2000 to ₹ 2500. Apparently, the man was doing this every day outside different bank branches across Mumbai. We politely told those people to leave the place.
We also put in place a system whereby I could keep a tab in real time on how much money is being withdrawn from the ATM at my branch. Before I settled down and had my first glass of water one day, I found a series of withdrawals in quick succession, with a gap of less than thirty seconds, of ₹ 2400 each. There must be something wrong! I stepped out of my cabin and went into the ATM kiosk.
There were about twenty people standing in a queue outside the kiosk. I found a man inside with at least twenty-five debit cards and a piece of paper with passwords of those cards written on it. He claimed that all these cards belonged to his colleagues and he was withdrawing money on their behalf. The amount for each transaction was ₹ 2400 so that he could get at least four ₹ 100 notes. I had to throw him out of the kiosk.
A Car Full of Money
Another day, a man walked in with a suitcase carrying ₹ 8.5 million. He was a customer of our bank, but not our branch. I decided to connect him with the Vadodara branch manager where he claimed to have his account. I don’t know what they discussed over the phone, but I found him leaving my branch with his suitcase after talking to my counterpart.
Another man one day came in his Toyota Innova, full of money. He came to the bank carrying ₹ 50 million worth of old notes in one bag. There were thirteen such bags inside the car, he told us. His offer was quite straightforward—50 per cent of new notes in exchange of old notes. We could not believe what he was saying, and we looked at each other for a few seconds, and then asked him to leave the branch or else we would call the police.
I also remember an occasion when a travel agent dropped by with eighty passports and other documents to complete the KYC formalities and open new accounts. We said no to him.
Since we don’t have a currency chest of our own, our internal guidelines allowed us to keep ₹ 1.4 million in the bank vault overnight. Every day, we needed to transfer the extra cash that was being generated through deposits of old notes to another bank which has a currency chest. It’s merely 200 metres away. But under our bank’s rule, we could not walk up to that bank’s branch carrying money. Each day, we had to take a taxi and make several trips, as without an armed security guard we are not allowed to carry more than ₹ 900,000 in one trip. Two of my colleagues needed to carry the cash each time.
On the first day, 10 November, we closed the branch at 11.45 p.m. By the time I reached Dadar station, the 12.41 a.m. Virar local had left. I came back to the branch, slept for a couple of hours sitting on my chair before taking the 4.36 a.m. train. At home, I took a bath, had breakfast and left for work at 6.30 a.m. This was not a oneoff. There were many days in the past two months when I missed the last train and returned to office at midnight to catch some sleep. Many of us spent our Sundays too in the branch as on weekdays we could do nothing but handle the cash; there was no time to do other routine work such as maintenance of records and, of course, sanction and disbursement of loans.
Many a time the customers got agitated, but we could not afford to lose our cool. Most of them supported demonetization, but for some reasons they did not have much sympathy for us. They thought the move is good for the country to flush out black money, and banks had the money, but were not giving them. It was very tough to convince them that our hands were tied—there weren’t enough new notes to please all. The continuous changes in the regulator’s directives also complicated our job. Literally, each time I was going to the toilet, I used to ask my colleagues to keep a tab on whether there’s any change in the RBI rules. And once it actually happened.
The toughest part of the entire exercise was to keep the morale of my colleagues high. Two of my women colleagues also used to stay late every day. There were occasions when they could not take it any more. One of my male colleagues cried; another wanted to quit the job. I always told them to look at this as an opportunity to learn, to excel at our job. We needed to support the country in its fight against black money.
There were days when we couldn’t have a proper meal. I lost 10 kg in these two months; got a few strands of grey hair. I also quit smoking, something I had been trying to do ever since my daughter was born. In those fifty days, there was no time to step out of the bank branch for a smoke. My wife is happy. At Matheran, my daughter did not leave me alone for a moment.
Excerpted from From Lehman to Demonetization (Rs599, pp 376) by Tamal Bandyopadhyay, with permission from Penguin Random House India.
Tamal Bandyopadhyay, consulting editor at Mint, is adviser to Bandhan Bank. He is also the author of A Bank for the Buck, Sahara: The Untold Story and Bandhan: The Making of a Bank.
Comments are welcome at [email protected] |
LAS VEGAS, Nev. – A former church treasurer was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison for stealing nearly $1.5 million from the church in a wire fraud scheme, and committing more than $500,000 in tax fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Daniel G. Bogden for the District of Nevada and Special Agent in Charge Tara Sullivan of the IRS Las Vegas Field Office.
Gregory J. Olson, 52, formerly of Las Vegas, now living in Ryder, North Dakota, pleaded guilty on May 9, 2016, to one count of wire fraud and four counts of tax fraud. United States District Judge Andrew Gordon presided over the hearing. Olson was charged by an indictment on Sept. 5, 2012.
“The defendant stole from the church and its members to satisfy his greed and he now faces a sentence of imprisonment for his calculated and callous actions,” said U.S. Attorney Bogden. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office and IRS will work together and aggressively pursue financial fraud and tax fraud schemes that ultimately cause harm to innocent victims and the U.S. Treasury.”
“To steal from a church which entrusted its finances to you is not only sad, it’s deplorable,” said Special Agent in Charge Sullivan. “IRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to pursue those who cause financial harm through embezzlement and fraud.”
According to court documents, Olson stole more than $1,466,292 from the Calvary Lutheran Church also called the Amazing Grace Lutheran Church of Las Vegas between 2006 and 2009. Olson admitted that he defrauded the church through a long-lasting and wide-ranging scheme. Olson made unauthorized cash and check withdrawals from the church’s bank accounts, false claims for reimbursement for church expenses, unauthorized receipt of mortgage loan proceeds, and solicited loans from individual church congregation members. Olson’s fraud scheme bankrupted the church.
Olson also knowingly failed to report as income the money he had stolen from the church in his 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 tax returns. The total tax loss was $541,770.
The case was investigated by the IRS-Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gregg Damm and Dan Cowhig.
### |
HANOVER, N.J. – Getting his first US national team call-up since 2014 is one thing – but Sacha Kljestan's club coach thinks the league's 2016 assists leader needs to be more than a roster-filler.
“You would hope that he gets an opportunity," New York Red Bulls manager Jesse Marsch told MLSsoccer.com on Monday, after U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann announced the midfielder's call-up to replace defender John Brooks, who was scratched with back problems. "I think he earned a call-up and I think he earned an opportunity to get a chance to contribute.
‘If Jurgen really wants to evaluate him, I think it’d have to be in a game.”
Kljestan, who has 15 assists in league play this season, will be part of the roster for the United States' two World Cup qualifiers at St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Friday, followed by Trinidad & Tobago on Sept. 6.
Since last summer, Marsch has been publicly lobbying for Kljestan to be a part of the national team picture again. Marsch was an assistant under former national team head coach Bob Bradley when Kljestan received the bulk of his 46 international appearances.
Now in his second year back in MLS and with the Red Bulls, Kljestan – an MLS All-Star in 2016 – has turned into one of the best playmakers in the league and a player Marsch has lauded as the “perfect No. 10” for his high-press system.
Marsch also praised Kljestan's perseverance, even when the calls from Klinsmann weren't coming.
“More than anything, I have to give Sasha a lot of credit," Marsch said. "He didn’t moan in the press, he didn’t moan in his personal life. He kept his [head] down and kept getting better and better, kept making his case by how he played. In the end, it made Jurgen’s case quite easy.
“It’s a good lesson for young players.” |
Pin 180 Shares
I was blessed to go to all the public events of Pope Francis in DC and the concluding Mass in Philadelphia. While there I went around with a microphone asking people what they thought about Pope Francis or what made them get up to see him. Why did I do this? I have 3 reasons: most of all, I wanted to get the message of the positive Pope Francis was doing out there; second, I got a press pass which let me make asking for an interview seem more natural, and finally, I was invited to be part of the #GoodIsWinning Digital Street Team started by @popeishope to send out such messages. The point of the #GoodIsWinning DST was to have a bunch of young people out there getting the positive stories related to Francis’s visit. Here are some of the best responses in no particular order.
#1. This Amazing Nun
This nun was so humble that she initially said “no” when I asked to interview her. Her reason was she needed the superior’s permission. She had the best spiritual reason for being excited about Francis: he brings the joy of Christ!
Francis is a special presence of Christ who brings joy & peace, days a nun. #PopeInPhilly #GoodIsWinning @AleteiaEN pic.twitter.com/RgqeTcn16X — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 27, 2015
#2. This non-Catholic who sees Francis as the message of Christ. She was really happy to go on microphone because she was so excited. This was still an hour or so before Francis came by for only a minute.
#3. This youth minister from Cleveland who thought Francis greets each like a long-lost friend.
Walking back from the Sunday Mass, I see this young lady in a group and she starts talking about why she was so excited about Francis. I was thinking “Wow, this is an amazing response.” Yet, when I ask her to go on video, she almost refuses out of shyness.
#4. This young man who wants to be Pope. As I was talking to this young man, he says he wants to be a priest and then Pope. He was brought up in a mixed marriage and chose the faith in elementary school so he could become Pope.
#5. This young lady was excited about Pope Francis having dinner with the homeless.
#6. A fellow Tweep (twitter user) who recognized me. She felt connected to the universal Church seeing Francis.
Seeing Pope Francis made this young lady feel connected to the universal Church. #PopeInDC #GoodIsWinning @popeishope pic.twitter.com/Rg9H3XhdII — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 24, 2015
#7. My former professor
In the tweet I just list him as a priest from our Seminary (@lccheshire) but he was there back when I was there in 2001-2004. He’s great with music and languages. I did the technical part on recording a CD to model proper Gregorian Chant for the Legion worldwide. He thinks Francis is opening hearts.
#8-10. 3 giggly girls I stopped these young ladies after the Pope Francis parade in DC hoping to interview 1 of them. They instead each wanted to give a short reason.
3 girls who were giggly about just seeing @Pontifex for the 1st time @ the #PopeInDC parade yesterday. #GoodIsWinning pic.twitter.com/hLfKGdCdWa — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 25, 2015
#11. A priest from Juniper Serra’s hometown
As we were getting vested for the Mass of SAINT Juniper Serra’s canonization, I see this priest confused about seating with obviously broken English so I try to translate. It turns out he grew up on the same street as Juniper Serra.
This priest was born on the same street as Juniper Serra. #PopeInDC #PopeInUSA (non-native English speaker) pic.twitter.com/V6iIUM6x3M — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 23, 2015
#12. “Servant Leadership” You can tell this young man is smart as just spontaneously, he starts talking about how Francis teaches “servant leadership” without thinking about it.
#13. A Re-vert
This woman is returning to the Church because of how personal Francis is.
This woman left the Catholic Church & now returns because Francis seems to bring a personal element. #GoodIsWinning pic.twitter.com/7I57KLO4i0 — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 24, 2015
#14. I even got 3 bishops And Bishop Coyne gave the best response. I actually got all 3 in the media filing room where I was waiting for Francis to arrive to the US.
Now we can hear what @Pontifex really says not just what the media says. A message from @bishopcoyne on #PopeInDC pic.twitter.com/TpG8njVOd0 — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 22, 2015
#15. The cutest kid
I took a few videos of kids. None were as cute in their responses as this girl. If you like cute, watch the video.
#16. A mom who sees continuity and newness This woman was attending Mass in Philly with her family and explained how he both was new and kept continuity.
#17-20. These 4 nuns were all happy and spontaneously elected a spokesnun.
#21. We never see this in Philly This man was impressed by how much Francis had improved attitudes in his hometown, Philly.
#22. Common Catholic Girl
This university student has an amazing spirit on Twitter – keeping it Catholic and funny. Since her account is Anon, I did the interview Anon.
#23. This simple priest While waiting for the Juniper Serra Canonization, I was walking around asking priests and this priest gave the most concise and faith-filled answer why he was excited about Pope Francis’s visit. (I’m thinking we should almost make this a pro-Catholic meme.)
#24. The optimist
I got to the Juniper Serra canonization early and the lines were LONG. That didn’t get this girl’s excitement down.
We have a long wait to get into the #PopeInDC Mass & this girl is keeping a positive attitude. #GoodIsWinning pic.twitter.com/i4JicA1HXo — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 23, 2015
#25. “I want to hear the truth from Pope Francis” This sister is with a community from Spain and of the 3 sisters there, they elected her simply because the rest of them didn’t speak good English. Yet she gives a great reflection on how the Pope shows us the truth.
#26. The Pope AND the Popemobile
100% boy! He wants to see the Popemobile almost as much as the Pope.
This is 100ŕ BOY! This guy is almost as excited to see @the_popemobile as @Pontifex. #PopeInDC pic.twitter.com/rmmRLUJ7LX — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 24, 2015
#27. A Southern Baptist Papist Yes that seems like an oxymoron but this young Baptist woman was excited by Francis.
#28. Evangelization Needed
This woman thinks Francis is re-igniting evangelization.
#29. The Kind Young Man This Boy loves Francis’s charity and got up early to see him.
.@Pontifex‘s charity attracts this young follower on the #PopeInDC parade route. pic.twitter.com/mEDy8dtVm9 — Fr Matthew Schneider (@FrMatthewLC) September 23, 2015
#30. The attentive woman
After the Pope’s Mass, I ran into this lady and asked her what she thought of the Pope’s Mass. She felt like in heaven from the Pope and the music.
#31. A Korean Religious Brother I ran into this young religious brother from my community (Legionaries of Christ) as we recognized each other. He is preparing to go back to Korea for a year of mandatory military service & came to be the World Meeting of Families with a group to strengthen himself for that.
There were many more. On Twitter I think I posted 100 videos. These just stood out. I think now we have the opportunity to thank Francis for his visit. |
Commonly used antidepressant drugs change levels of a key signaling protein in the brain region that processes both pain and mood, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published August 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The newly understood mechanism could yield insights into more precise future treatments for nerve pain and depression.
The study was conducted in mice suffering from chronic neuropathic pain, a condition which is caused in mice and humans by nerve damage. Chronic neuropathic pain is often related to diabetes, infection or trauma -- and it persists even after the original source of the pain is gone. Past studies have shown that such pain often leads to depression, but brain mechanisms underlying this connection were previously unknown, as were the mechanisms by which common antidepressant drug classes -tricyclic (TCA) antidepressants or Selective Serotonin-Norepinephrine inhibitors (SNRIs) -- counter both pain and depression-related symptoms.
The current study found that the molecular adaptations required for "recovery" from pain and depression are controlled by a gene (RGS9), and the protein it codes for, named RGS9-2. Mice that lacked the gene responsible for encoding RGS9-2 responded much earlier to very low doses of antidepressants, showed significant improvement of sensory deficits and had no signs of depression-related behaviors.
The study suggests that antidepressants that target monoamines, signaling chemicals in the brain that regulate chronic pain and depression, act in the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain's reward system, and likely through pathways that pass on messages to nerve cells through RGS9-2.
"Our data reveals that antidepressants that target specific neurotransmitters in the brain, particularly TCAs and SNRIs, regulate chronic pain and depression-related symptoms through actions in the nucleus accumbens," said Venetia Zachariou, PhD, Associate Professor in the Fishberg Department of Neuroscience and the Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "We don't yet know if the typical pain-processing pathways in the spinal cord and the pathways we've identified in the brain reward center are directly linked, but we now know more about the cellular pathways that need to be activated in order to achieve pain relief and that effective therapeutics must target both pathways."
In the treatment of pain, a common course is to treat patients with opioid medications, but these medications show limited effectiveness for neuropathic pain and come with safety and addiction issues. Because antidepressant medications are not addictive, they have become increasingly prescribed to treat neuropathic pain and related depression. Earlier research identified that antidepressants act in the spinal cord to control pain transmission, but little is known about their pain-controlling actions in the brain.
"We found that the molecular pathways required for recovery from neuropathic pain are controlled by RGS9-2," says Vasiliki Mitsi, a PhD student in the Zachariou lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "In addition, we discovered that by inhibiting RGS9-2, the function of hundreds of other molecules that are important for pain-relief and mood-elevation was boosted,"
The study suggests that therapeutic treatments should target both the brain reward center as well as the previously identified pain-transmitting pathways in the spine. Insight from this study will be used to develop new targets for the treatment of this debilitating disorder.
This research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (PPG-POIDAO8227) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS086444). |
But others are doubtful that the improvements, sporadic and inconsistent, were worth the time and cost.
The protein crystals on the 1989 Discovery flight turned out to be almost a total flop. In a scientific paper published two years later, Dr. DeLucas and his colleagues reported: “Unfortunately, showers of small crystals were produced in every chamber flown for all 15 of these proteins. It is not clear what caused this.”
Dr. DeLucas was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1990, and two years later he conducted protein crystal growth experiments during a two-week shuttle flight, the longest up to that point. The idea was to conduct each experiment more than once, adjusting the parameters based on what he observed.
But even then, only five or six proteins formed crystals large enough to be useful. “The rest, the crystals were so small, you couldn’t really figure out what to do,” Dr. DeLucas said. “I realized more than ever then how long it takes for these crystals to grow to their full size and why a space station would really come in handy.”
Today, he is a principal investigator on a $6 million project that is to fly aboard the International Space Station. The experiment will include 100 proteins with poor results on earth so far. The same crystal-growing experiment will be conducted on the ground at the same time under the same conditions (plus gravity).
After four and a half months, the space crystals will return to earth. The analysis will then be conducted double-blind, meaning that the scientists analyzing the crystals will not know which ones were grown on earth and which in orbit.
The 100 proteins are set to travel to the space station in March aboard a rocket run by SpaceX, a private company, and return to earth in August. The analysis will then take a year.
At the end, Dr. DeLucas said scientists will have a good idea of how useful zero-G is for this type of research. “What I hope is,” he said, “once and for all, we can say, ‘Look, if you fly a protein, here’s the percent chance that it’s going to get improvement.’ ” |
This is a post where I’m raising a question that I flat-out don’t know the answer to. I watched a conversation yesterday between Derek Rishmawy who represents what I call the “Calvinist you can talk to” perspective and Stephanie Drury who is a “post-evangelical feminist.” Derek had written a post about the importance of not dissing King Solomon and the sacredness of scripture just because Mark Driscoll has misused Solomon’s words in Proverbs and the Song of Songs. Stephanie’s response was that for people who have been spiritually abused, some words in the Bible are permanently toxic as a result.
Derek and Stephanie represent two worlds that intersect inside of me as an evangelical wannabe man-feminist. My commitment to the canonicity (divine inspiration and set-apart-ness) of scripture is integral to my identity. However, I am also aware that I’m in a position of complete privilege because none of these words I call sacred could ever be used to justify abusive behavior towards me. It’s a “theoretical” question for me whereas for other people it’s a question that involves physical and spiritual bruises. So how do I honor both realities at the same time?
Sometimes in the discourse of identity politics, privilege is deployed as an atomic bomb that completely discredits everything that a person has to say on account of their whiteness, wealth, maleness, or straightness. I’m 4 for 4 on that rubric. I actually went through a phase in my twenties where I pretended to be / thought I was bisexual in order to have one -ism “right,” to fit in with the radical community better than I did as the rich white straight guy who was the cause of all the world’s problems.
It wasn’t entirely that cynical; there were real reasons I wrestled with that aspect of my identity. In high school, I was the “sensitive guy” who wasn’t like the jocks who bullied me and got all the women that I was best friends with. So I’ve always had a need to say, “I’m not one of them (even though I am).” In any case, I have experienced first-hand the way that the privilege bomb can be a conversation-stopper analogous to “The Bible says it; that settles it.” You’re a rich white straight guy; you’re wrong; that settles it.
So what do I do with privilege? When I read Paul write, “Wives submit to your husbands as the Lord,” I’m not kicked in the teeth by that sentence, directly. It makes me angry not entirely on account of a sense of solidarity with women, but also because it conjures up (irrational) images of my high school jock bullies who have smoking hot wives and pastor megachurches now. When I attack the complementarian perspective, it feels like I’m spraying my jock bullies with a rhetorical Uzi.
So I’ve got my own axe to grind, and yet it’s not about me. When I write that Paul was applying Christian discipleship into a Roman context in which the man was legally the head of the household and the purpose of submitting to him was not because God has hard-coded gender hierarchy into nature but in order to win the husband to Christ, all of that is theoretical discourse. It’s a way to earn man-feminist points and justify myself over against those misogynists. But it’s also about my love for my wife and my belief in her call to ordained ministry and my horror at the thought of ever resolving any impasse in our decision-making by saying, “Well, honey, you know the Bible says that I’m the leader here…”
I cannot know what it’s like to read a text that has been thrown in my face by an abusive spouse. I cannot know what it’s like to have a husband who says he’s going to fix something and doesn’t do it for weeks and whenever you remind him, he says, “A nagging wife is like a dripping faucet.” I cannot know what it’s like to hear something that sounds like: “Yeah I’m sorry those words were used the wrong way with you, but you know, they are part of the Bible so uh… [respectfully long pause] get over it. ;-).”
How long do you have to pause between the “I’m sorry,” the “I believe you,” the “What they did was wrong” and the part where you say “I believe this”? Is the “I believe this” always going to send like a dismissive “but” to the person on the other end of the conversation? Do they have to be two separate conversations? Can I be in solidarity with someone who has been abused and still believe that the collection of words that were used to abuse them are sacred? Or is my belief in what hurt them inherently antithetical to solidarity with them?
I’m actually in the process of reading Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible, which takes evangelical Biblical interpretation to task. I saw a lot of echoes of Smith’s argument in the conversation on Derek’s blog. I agree with Smith that we have to read the Bible through a Christological lens rather than see it as a “flat text” in which every word is of equal value because we so mistrust the Holy Spirit’s active guidance in our interpretation that we idolize a book.
This means that we can say unequivocally and authoritatively that Jephthah should rot in hell for sacrificing his daughter to God in Judges 11 because Christ is utterly absent from that picture. And we can also say that the massacre of the Canaanites in Joshua looks nothing like Jesus, and so it is utterly abominable for the American colonists to use that story to justify the genocide of Native Americans or for Israeli settlers to use it to justify the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank today.
Is it okay for some of these Old Testament passages to be the story of a people getting to know God progressively over time, i.e. having and even writing down in canonized words their partly mistaken assumptions about what God was telling them to do at certain points because all of that was necessary to laying the groundwork for an Israel that could give birth to Jesus Christ? If there were no Leviticus law, then Micah wouldn’t have had a foil to respond to in his sixth chapter, saying God doesn’t want your animal sacrifices, he wants mercy, justice, and humility. If the temple were not sacred, then Jeremiah couldn’t chide his people for thinking that God would defend it forever from the Babylonians.
Does the canonicity of scripture mean that all of it must be prescriptive? Can “useful for teaching and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16) include negative examples? Yeah, that Old Testament polygamy… not such a good idea for family systems. And when Solomon engages in a blood-bath at the beginning of his reign, maybe we’re supposed to be bothered by that (even if the scribe who recorded it thought it was perfectly normal and proper for an incoming king to do). If our approach to Biblical interpretation is to look for and submit to the authorial intent of the human scribes, then we can’t make those kinds of assessments.
Now I love my brother Derek but I’m going to have to take issue with the common retort that I heard him use to the Christian Smith’s argument for a Christological interpretive lens: “Which Jesus?” The insinuation seems to be (?) that the words of scripture mediate our access to Jesus, so it’s nonsensical to say that we can mediate our interpretation of scripture through Jesus. But I would rejoin that if we see Jesus as trapped underneath the words of the Bible, then we don’t really believe what the Bible says about Him. Every time we read the Bible, we’re having a God-breathed conversation with Jesus, who is not just in the book but in the room with us.
Yesterday at my Monday mass, the gospel reading included Jesus’ promise from John 14:26: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” Jesus doesn’t say that a book will teach you everything; He says that a person will. The only reason that the Bible does anything for me is because God breathes on me when I read it. That breath is an infinite person. The Greek for God-breathed is theo-pneustos which we could see as a verb form of the slightly different word hagio pneumati, the Holy Spirit. Without the spirit, the letter is dead. When we read the Bible as a flat text upon whose univocal meaning we can come to a clear agreement, the way we are reading it precludes the possibility of God breathing it.
I hadn’t been to mass since before Easter, so yesterday was incredible, particularly after I received the Eucharist. My heart and mouth were filled with the strange language that somehow erupts inside of me when the Spirit has saturated a room. It was the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament that shaped my encounter with the Biblical passages that I read after mass. I cannot explain why it is different to read the Bible in that room, but I have never heard it talk that way when I read it in other places. The book by itself is nothing; the living, in-the-physical-room-and-not-just-metaphorical breath of God makes it everything it is.
This has gone afield from my original question, so I’m going to try to get back if I can. The tragic fate of the Bible in our era is that many Christians who wanted to use sacred words for their power and control have stomped the God-breath out of the Bible like a legion of pigs sloshing around in a garden of delicate plants. When people who have been hurt try to open that book, all they hear are sneers and all they see are disingenuous, patronizing smiles. Maybe the plants can come back, and the sacred words can be reinhabited by the breath that gives all things life. I’ve seen cilantro that shriveled up in a brutal winter and proliferated in leafy goodness come May.
I believe that the Holy Spirit is our ultimate teacher. I also believe that we need an anchor in the concrete transmitted testimony of Jesus Christ and the people of Israel. Part of trusting in the Holy Spirit means not having the goal of certitude and conformity in Biblical interpretation. Certitude precludes infinite divine personal presence. Every person encounters each sacred word on a very specific journey with God in which God is breathing through the testimony in a very specific applicable way. I think what 2 Timothy 3:16 promises me is that even horrible stories like Jephthah killing his daughter to “honor” God can provide some kind of useful teaching to somebody somehow even if I will never be blessed by them myself.
Privileged guys like me need to interrogate our motives in the battles we fight over the sacred words that we love. Is the Bible a citadel where we have gathered our coalition of forces to shoot arrows from the walls at the insurgents below? Or is it a garden into which we invite plants that have been crushed and ravaged by a legion of pigs, doing all that we can to walk lightly so that God’s breath can restore them to their infinite beauty? |
Ouch, right? Not the nicest headline I’ve ever had to write. On the plus side, it isn’t actually Second Life that is at fault.
A few years ago, CNN (then part of the same media group that I was working for) opened up a presence in Second Life, and set up a special section of its iReport Web-site devoted to Second Life.
After a time, CNN closed down the special Second Life sub-site on its iReport site, folding Second Life reports in with the rest of the submitted stories as a category.
While the flow of user-contributed pieces continues steadily, it seems that the relatively small number of Second Life iReport contributors no longer justifies the cost of maintaining the iReport island for in-world meetings.
At present, it isn’t exactly clear when CNN’s small island in Second Life will lapse.
* Disclosure: At the time of the establishment of CNN’s presence in Second Life, and up until mid last year, I was employed by the same company group that CNN belonged to.
UPDATE: After the meeting where it was announced that in-world meetings and the island would terminate, it was subsequently announced that in-world meetings would continue. There is no word that the island itself will be retained or not. CNN producer Nicole iReport said that the initial news at the meeting had been partially in error. [Thanks Janey Bracken, for the extra info]
Share this: Twitter
Google
Facebook
Reddit
Tumblr
More
LinkedIn
Pocket
Pinterest
Print
Tags: CNN, iReports, Janey Bracken, Nicole iReport, Nicole Saidi, Second Life, Virtual Environments and Virtual Worlds |
by
Tuesday night CNN projected a 52-48 Clinton win based on exit polling data at 9pm when polls closed in New York. Very similar numbers from ABC at the same time said voters by a 52-47 margin thought Clinton was more inspiring, a number you’d think would closely reflect how people voted. Clinton won the final reported tally by 16%, and by late night and early this morning, exit polling data available at CNN and elsewhere much more closely matched a mid-double digit margin for Clinton. Some of the turn arounds in terms of specific demographics were rather remarkable, especially since just 24 respondents were added to the relevant sample size.
Earlier, Clinton lead Sanders by 14% (57-43%) with Latina and Latino voters as I reported in my exit poll live blog. This was consistent with my 56-44% projection based primarily on the average of a half a dozen polls from the week and a half before New York voted. The final exit poll, however, shows Clinton doubling her lead to a 28% win with hispanic voters. Early reports suggested Sanders was winning 69-31% with voters under 45. Final exit polling shows him winning by just 10%, 55-45%, and included him losing the 30-39 year old demographic by 4%. Sanders has not lost 30-39-year-olds anywhere outside the South, including Ohio where he won with them by 18% but lost the overall vote by 14%.
From a statistical standpoint, this intrigued me.
Swings that radical, if the initial sampling is accurate in terms of size and randomness, are unusual but not out of the realm of possibility. My expectation was that those numbers would become more favorable to Sanders, not less. Sanders won rural upstate 58-42. Polls in rural upstate opened at noon, six hours later than polls in Buffalo and downstate, and just a handful of hours before initial exit polling was released. In Wisconsin, where I watched exit polling shifts carefully, younger voters voted later and stretched results more in Sanders favor.
I wanted to see what the initial sample size was. What I found was rather shocking.
As late as between 9-10pm eastern, the exit polls were still reporting similar numbers. John Aravosis wanted to prove that White Bernie-Bros are a real and measurable phenomenon. He took screenshots of CNN exit polling and posted them to his blog at 9:40pm last night. As of then, Clinton was leading Bernie Sanders with Latinos 59-41% with a 1367 sample size, just a 4% swing from earlier reporting. This made sense statistically, even if it wasn’t more favorable to Sanders as I expected.
But what happened next gets really weird. At that point, according not only to Aravosis’ blog, but also according to numbers I reported on my liveblog, CBS numbers still available as of this writing, and various Twitter users, Sanders was winning the 41% of the population 18-44 by a margin of 61-39% and was losing over 45-year-olds by the same 61-39% margin. These numbers are consistent with a 4 to 5 point Clinton win.
Here’s the deal, though. The sample size grew in the last two renditions of the exit pollingby just 24 respondents, first from 1367 to 1383 when I took several screen shots for my liveblog just after 11pm eastern and then to 1391 as of Wednesday morning. Over the same period, Clinton’s lead grew by 10% from 18% with Latinos to 28%. Her lead also grew by 10% among those 45 and over and shrunk by 12% with those under 45. In exit poll version (2), Sanders lead with white people (59% of the vote) by 9%, in exit poll (3) by just 2%, and now with exit poll (4) it is tied.
This would be possible and reasonable with a very large growth in sample size, but, as you might imagine, is mathematically impossible without serious data fiddling in this instance. Sanders lead with the same sampling grown by just 1.8% dropped by 12% overall, by nine percentage points with men, by 12% with young voters, and by 9% with white voters. Meanwhile, Clinton’s lead with Latinx voters grew from 18% to 28% and with black voters by 2%.
Apparently, the last 24 respondents to exit polls yesterday were all Latina or black female Clinton voters over 44, and they were all allowed also to count more than double while replacing more than one male Sanders voters under 45.
To put this plainly: the numbers add up to 341 18-44-year-old voters for Sanders out of 1367 total respondents as of 9pm exit polls, version (2), that said it was a close race. By the next morning, the maximum number of Sanders voters 18-44 in the same data had dropped to just 313. Edison Research removed twenty-eight young white male Sanders respondents and has given no public explanation for the same. The initial overall exit poll, +4 or +5 Clinton, was outside the margin of error for the final result, Clinton +16 with 99.6% reporting.
I have attempted to contact Edison Research for a response. Yesterday afternoon, I was patched through to the voice mail of Joe Lenski, co-founder and Executive Vice-President of Edison. He has not responded and other calls and emails have also gone unanswered. I will update this piece if anyone from Edison responds. |
By Malcolm Borthwick
Editor, Middle East Business Report, BBC World, Dubai
Towering ambition: the Burj dwarfs its neighbours - and all other world towers In recent years Dubai has grabbed the headlines with audacious offshore islands, rotating buildings and a seven star hotel. On Monday it opened the world's tallest building, Burj Dubai. At more than 800m, Burj Dubai smashed the previous world record, which was held by Taiwan's 508m Taipei 101. It's about twice the height of the Empire State Building, you can see its spire from 95km away and the exterior is covered in about 26,000 glass panels, which glisten in the midday desert sun. The design of the building posed unprecedented technical and logistical challenges, not just because of its height, but also because Dubai is susceptible to high winds and is close to a geological fault line. "You have the solutions for it but you always wonder how it will really work," Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the developer behind Burj Dubai told the BBC. "We have been hit with lightning twice, there was a big earthquake last year that came across from Iran, and we have had all types of wind which has hit us when we were building. The results have been good and I salute the designers and professionals who helped build it." West to East shift One of the companies behind the Burj was the Canadian-based wind engineering firm RWDI. Extreme wind speeds on the ground in Dubai can reach 50km an hour. At the top of the building it can be three times as fast. Wayne Boulton, general manager of RWDI's wind engineering team in the Middle East, explains how they tested the building for wind resistance. "We constructed a scale model and put it in a wind tunnel," he says. "In the wind tunnel we are able to test a number of different wind speeds and directions. We can test the pressure you would get on the surface of the building under normal conditions and also under more extreme events." The last couple of decades have seen a shift in the building of skyscrapers from the West to the East. Four out of five of the world's tallest buildings are in Asia and the Middle East. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. "It comes down to confidence," says Andrew Charlesworth from property consultants Jones Lang LaSalle. "A lot of these emerging economies see themselves as important players in the world and want to show they can deliver these sort of projects. "The wealth of the world is shifting from the West to the East and emerging economies want to highlight their future expectations in terms of where they are gong to be positioning themselves globally." White elephant? Dubai is a city of superlatives, where everything has to be the biggest and the boldest. But like many of the world's past tallest buildings, Burj Dubai was planned and built during the boom years, and finished during a property crash. The Empire State Building was completed during the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Petronas Towers in Malaysia during the 1990s Asian financial crisis. This has led many to question whether this latest record breaker is a white elephant. Though Mohamed Ali Alabbar argues it is anything but. "As of today we have sold 90% of the building and we expect it to be 90%-occupied," he says. "We were lucky to make more than a 10% return. Originally we thought we'd be lucky to break even, because we can make so much money from the land around Burj Dubai which is a 500-acre site." BURJ DUBAI IN NUMBERS 95: distance in km at which its spire can be seen 504: rise in metres of its main service lift 57: number of lifts 49: number of office floors 1,044: number of residential apartments 900: length in feet of the fountain at the foot of the tower, the world's tallest performing fountain 28,261: number of glass panels on the exterior of the tower
Dubai opens world's tallest tower In pictures: Building the Burj Dubai The fact that the developer has made a profit on its $1.5bn (£928m) investment has been helped by the fact that it bought the land with equity and not cash, and that it pre-sold most of the apartments and offices before the property crash. Investors have already handed over 80% of the value of the apartments and offices, and will pay the remaining 20% on moving in. And in contrast to many unfinished developments in Dubai, the default rate among investors has been low. But for investors, it has been a mixed picture. Fortunes have been won and lost on the Dubai property market, which has collapsed in spectacular fashion. Like many properties here, Burj Dubai was sold "off-plan" or before the building was completed. Offices and apartments went on sale in 2004 and most were snapped up by both local and international investors in just two days. Mohamed Abdul Hadi is one local investor who made millions out of Burj Dubai long before the building was completed. "In 2007 we bought three floors on Burj Dubai," he told the BBC. "The first investor paid 2,500 UAE dirhams ($680; £420) per square foot. We bought at AED 3,500 and one year later we sold at around AED 5,000. Look at the profit, where else can you have this but Dubai? And with no taxes." Oversupply But those who invested late will be nursing large losses, according to Saud Masud, a real estate analyst at Swiss investment bank UBS. "Late stage investors may find this a lot more challenging because property prices in Dubai have come down by 50% and we think prices are likely to go down another 30%," he says.
"We have an oversupply in the property market today. We think it will reach 25% to 30% vacancy rates for residential property in a year's time, and for commercial property it's already 40%. Burj Dubai is not immune to that." The landscape of Dubai has changed dramatically over the last two decades. Sheikh Zayed Road is the 12-lane super-highway which runs through the city and is named after the UAE's founding father. Twenty years ago there were just a few tall buildings here, now there are hundreds, all jostling for space. But in the three years that I've been here, the frenzied pace of construction has slowed down and many cranes now stand idle. Developers are holding back on new multi-billion dollar flagship projects and focusing on finishing existing projects instead. About $190bn worth of Dubai real estate projects are currently on hold, according to Middle East Economic Digest. As in many parts of the world, banks are reluctant to lend and investors are reluctant to spend. Burj Dubai could mark the end of an era for skyscrapers in the Gulf - at least in the short term.
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version |
(Image: GGMplus/Curtin University)
Want to lose weight fast? No need to adjust your diet – just move to higher ground. This weight change is the result of fluctuations in Earth’s gravity, which a new high-resolution map shows are greater than thought.
Gravity is often assumed to be the same everywhere on Earth, but it varies because the planet is not perfectly spherical or uniformly dense. In addition, gravity is weaker at the equator due to centrifugal forces produced by the planet’s rotation. It’s also weaker at higher altitudes, further from Earth’s centre, such as at the summit of Mount Everest.
NASA and the European Space Agency both have satellites with highly sensitive accelerometers that map the planet’s gravitational field, but these are only accurate to within a few kilometres. Adding in topographical data, which adjusts for height variations in local terrain, can improve the maps’ resolution. Accurately constructing tunnels, dams and even tall buildings requires knowledge of the local gravity to guide GPS measurements of height, so higher resolution maps are important for civil engineering.
Advertisement
Christian Hirt of Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, and colleagues combined gravity data from satellites and topographic data to map gravity changes between latitudes 60° north and 60° south, covering 80 per cent of Earth’s land masses.
The map consists of more than 3 billion points, with a resolution of about 250 metres. Computing gravity at five points would take 1 second on an ordinary PC, but the team used a supercomputer to do the whole lot in three weeks.
Free fall favourite
The model pinpoints more extreme differences in gravitational acceleration than previously seen. Standard models predict a minimum gravitational acceleration of 9.7803 metres per second squared at the equator and 9.8322 m/s2 at the poles. Hirt’s model pinpoints unexpected locations with more extreme differences. Mount Nevado Huascarán in Peru has the lowest gravitational acceleration, at 9.7639 m/s2, while the highest is at the surface of the Arctic Ocean, at 9.8337 m/s2.
“Nevado was a bit surprising because it is about 1000 kilometres south of the equator,” says Hirt. “The increase in gravity away from the equator is more than compensated by the effect of the mountain’s height and local anomalies.”
These differences mean that in the unlikely event that you found yourself falling from a height of 100 metres at each point, you would hit the surface in Peru about 16 milliseconds later than in the Arctic. You would also lose 1 per cent of your body weight in moving from the Arctic to the Peruvian mountaintop, although your mass would not change.
Journal reference: Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/grl.50838 |
I. In which there is some perspective and introduction
I was trapped in a glass case of emotions after this one.
Early in the fourth quarter, when Terron Ward scooted into the end zone to put Oregon State up 31-27, I had already started preparing this space with angry words. Words that railed on Coach Dykes' and Coach Franklin's increasingly aggravating game mismanagement. Words that charted out the numerous ways we blew a win we simply couldn't afford not to have. Words that would have punted a dog off a bridge, had they taken human form.
...and, proving that I am not a very smart man, the team would make all of that pre-written prose go to waste, because Ward's touchdown seemed to jolt us back to life. We'd chip away at the dam 10 times over the next three and a half minutes, producing 75 yards and seven points that restored a slim lead. Two plays later, Caleb Coleman picked off Mannion, leading to three more.
And when Chris Brown was tackled short of the ensuing drive to give us the ball back again, game hero Daniel Lasco would make victory a mere formality, setting off LOUD NOISES throughout the Cal Twitter community with his third touchdown run of the night.
(I LOVE LASCO)
(NAM, ARE YOU JUST LOOKING AT PLAYERS ON THE ROSTER AND SAYING THAT YOU LOVE THEM?)
(I LOVE LASCO. I LOVE LASCO!)
Still, somewhere in the middle of this 12 minute sequence, I had to delete everything I had already written in the intro. I'm not a fast writer, so it wasn't much, but it still had to go anyway, in favor of something a bit more nuanced. Yes, anger lingers -- an anger you'll see reflected in many of the notes -- at how we nearly blew the whole damn thing, but...
I'm dying laughing that people are not entertained. We would have killed for this last season. — Ric Ellis (@RicEllis85) November 2, 2014
At the end of it all, I find myself siding with exactly what @ricellis85 pointed out -- we won on the road against a legitimate FBS team, and we played badly enough in that victory to still feel frustrated. That precise combination of solid victory and dissatisfying performance hasn't happened in quite some time. Certainly not last season, when we had to dream for a lead we could lose.
That's part of how I know we're on the way back as a program. In spite of our best efforts to remain level-headed, the expectations each week are rising. The whispers, the quiet hopes of bowldom have become full-throated demands.
We have three more chances to meet them, using the same gameplan and guts that carried us to victory on Saturday. Keep calm and #drop50[*].
Hey, 55.55% of the time, it works every time.
[*] - #drop50 is merely a goal and a mindset for the offense. Literally achieving #drop50 is not guaranteed each week; some game restrictions do apply. #drop50 does not take precedence over actual winning. If your annoyance at this hashtag lasts beyond 4 seconds, please consult a local health care professional. It could be a result of a very rare but serious condition called not being able to have fun.
Outstanding, Exceeds Expectations, Acceptable, Poor, Dreadful, Troll
II. In which we discuss offense
Unit grade: Acceptable | Rushing offense: Outstanding | Passing offense: Poor
I gave a passing grade...but it wasn't pretty. At times, this unit performance seemed like a pretty close paraphrase of one O'Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson: we fucked around and got 45 points.
...which is exactly why I won't stop deploying the #drop50 tag. It's firmly in reach in any given week. Even the ones we don't play well.
Gonna minimize the amount of time I spend writing about the c lear standouts on offense: Daniel Lasco, who I write about every single week, and Stephen Anderson , who had a career night with 9 for 117...and somehow ends up in this column every week too.
(ok fine one more on Daniel Lasco: he's just about on pace to sneak over the thousand yard mark after OSU)
Hadn't really realized it until this week -- or maybe I rationalized it away in my head as freak occurrence after freak occurrence -- but Jared Goff really does have a problem with holding the ball at least once a game, and in this one, it didn't even happen when he was hit. He's gone away from the glove this season, which I'm not sure is a great idea.
once a game, and in this one, it didn't even happen when he was hit. He's gone away from the glove this season, which I'm not sure is a great idea. In the interest of fairness, the same happened to Sean Mannion.
Strong performance from Vic Enwere , too, in his limited time taking over Khalfani Muhammad's position as the no. 2 back, at least temporarily. There's a thought that we'll give Muhammad more carries once the cast comes off. Would you really, at this point? What's he giving you that the other guys won't?
We've had games where we've run. We've had games where we've outphysicalled FCS fronts. And then there was today, against an honest to god FBS, a Pac-12 opponent, where we imposed our will on the opponent, steamrolling the crap out of them, so despite the obvious, obvious flaws in pass protection (Dylan Wynn only had one sack but hit Goff way, way more times than that, giving us trouble all night) on Saturday night, I'd give it an overall Exceeds Expectations- performance for the War Pigs. They've come a long way. They have even further to go. Oregon State had no answer for Lasco getting out to the edge for consistent gain after gain, which speaks to some pretty bad play from their linebackers and safeties. Same reason why Stephen Anderson dominated the early going.
more times than that, giving us trouble all night) on Saturday night, I'd give it an overall Exceeds Expectations- performance for the War Pigs. They've come a long way. They have even further to go. Oregon State had no answer for Lasco getting out to the edge for consistent gain after gain, which speaks to some pretty bad play from their linebackers and safeties. Same reason why Stephen Anderson dominated the early going. Let's use Jared Goff less on intentional keepers, shall we, Coach Franklin? He's a massively improved runner this year, but he's still quite a ways from even being *shudders* Kevin Hogan in that aspect.
I'm not above being wrong, nor am I above admitting it, so here I am doing both those things, Avi: we missed Trevor Davis and Kenny Lawler even more than I expected, and though there is plenty of depth without them, they add a vertical dimension that supercharges the offense beyond anything I predicted. I'd love both to get well soon. Or one. One would be good. Expecting to have Davis back after the bye.
Many, many jokes about Oregon State corner Larry Scott should go here.
III. In which we both marvel and moan about Jared Goff's Saturday
Jared you can take the costume off now you're supposed to return to being a good football player the day after festivities — Nam Le (@AGuyNamedNam) November 2, 2014
You caught me. I just wanted to break up some of the bullet point monotony. But, let's put the Bear Raid Commander's evening into some perspective, shall we?
By any and every statistical measure, Goff's worst games in 2014 have been against Washington, and on Saturday night against Oregon State.
Against these opponents, he has thrown a total of one touchdown to zero interceptions, for a ratio of 0.5:0. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are also his only games this season without multiple touchdown passes.
He is completing 60.2% of his passes and averaging 290 yards in this "bad" sample size, numbers that far exceed the play of any quarterback that has appeared in the years before him.
Even after accounting for our toss happy offense -- which is more of a mis-perception than anything -- do you realize the kind of standard he's performed at for us to be able to say he underperformed on Saturday?
I have to step back for a second to type this again, because it sometimes takes a game full of struggle for us to realize that Jared Goff is real freakin good, and that's without even having a single contributing senior skill position player.
You guys, the sky isn't the limit, here. The goddamn universe might be.
That being said, he looked jittery, confused, visibly bothered by OSU's pressure, and worse than any of the above, he didn't make the kind of solid decisions and routine throws we've become so accustomed to him making, although he got better as the night continued.. That was already obvious when he overthrew Chris Harper in one on one coverage early in the game.
One of those uncharacteristic errors: on 1st and 10 at 10:46 2Q, when he tried to force a ball that was nearly picked off, even though he could have run, or even drop it right into Daniel Lasco's hands right in front of him. He's shown a tendency to run more this season, rarely hesitating to pull the trigger when he had to. Just really weird moment from our guy.
Jared Goff Started game 5-14, 58 yards, around 4 ypa Finished game 19-33, 219 yards, 6.5 ypa, TD Hardly great, but quite competent — Avinash Kunnath (@avinashkunnath) November 3, 2014
Plus, you have to give some credit to Oregon State's Mark Banker and one of the better secondaries (40th in the nation in Passing S&P) we've faced. On my second run through with the tape, they definitely threw some looks at Goff that slowed him. A lot of disguised coverages, a lot of apparent rushers that end up dropping into coverage or spying, putting bodies in lanes that he doesn't expect to them, stuff like that. Very noticeable late movements, designed to mess with his reads, moreso than I remember from any team before us. The last play of the third quarter, when Goff threw into a dropping linebacker, stands out in my mind as a great example of this.
Considering there was some subpar play from the wideouts and not exactly a ton of vertical threat, Goff handled all of it just fine.
All in all, a pretty okay day, only judged as poor because of the tremendous standards the Bear Raid Commander has created for himself.
III. In which we examine game management
Now that I've started tracking these, I want to explain my philosophy behind this section. I'm not on some mission to prove that Coach Dykes is a horrible game manager or incapable or something like that -- you guys know damn well I'm rooting so hard for this staff to succeed, partly because they were the ones I backed in the coaching search in the first place.
Really, I'm just noting two things: preventable errors, and decisions that I disagreed with (not because of result, but because of process). I'm hoping to see as few of them as possible each week and write all of this understanding full well that there will never be a perfect game called. I'll only point out great game management in exceptional situations, since we should expect optimal or near-optimal decisionmaking as the norm.
This week, the following things stood out:
Special teams penalty involving two players wearing the same number.
UNINTENTIONAL delay of game on a punt. How does that even happen? We KNOW we're punting! It's 4th and long!
Punt on 4th and 1 in the first quarter from the Cal 46. Even with the defense playing well -- they had driven OSU to two consecutive three and outs at this point -- a yard was well within reach. Lasco had had three carries at this point: 10 (wiped out via penalty), 9, and then no gain the play before, so you can't have known he would completely dominate the rest of the way, but it was definitely gettable.
Strangely called drive after the Mannion interception, resulting in a three and out.
Plus points for the ballsy decision to throw on 3rd and 2 in the 4th quarter that would basically seal the game. I definitely wouldn't have had the guts to call that, and I'm not sure how I feel about it besides joy that it ended up working. No weird use of timeouts this week, either.
Rub routes are one of the newer additions to the playbook this season. Don't remember seeing any last year, although it may just be me getting smart enough to recognize them now. In any case, the extra traffic from Bryce -- basically tiptoeing on the defender in a reeeeeealllly close rub route -- springs Anderson, so...
IV. In which the defense does just enough
Acceptable-
If this -- tackle well enough, make the key stops, hold the line for the offense, come up with one or two big, game-changing plays -- is the kind of stuff we continue to get from the defense next year, it'll be good enough to win a lot of games with. Like I said last week, being on some Steel Curtain type mimicry isn't important anymore. Just force a fistful of punts, and we can work with that. The game has evolved enough to make low scoring grind-fests an oddity, not the norm.
-- tackle well enough, make the key stops, hold the line for the offense, come up with one or two big, game-changing plays -- is the kind of stuff we continue to get from the defense next year, it'll be good enough to win a of games with. Like I said last week, being on some Steel Curtain type mimicry isn't important anymore. Just force a fistful of punts, and we can work with that. The game has evolved enough to make low scoring grind-fests an oddity, not the norm. Be happy with Coach Kaufman, man. He doesn't even have a full two-deep of scholarship players, but even without getting into too many X's and O's, you can tell the difference between this year and last quite easily. OSU's trademark screen game, their jet sweep stuff? All snuffed out. No guys running wild and free through the turf of Reser Stadium, even though they tried a ton of misdirection and presnap motion. We looked prepared for all of their signature looks, and I have to wonder what the defense will look like in year two with some better guns in the arsenal.
Proof of that better preparation: Michael Barton singlehandedly ruining two OSU third downs, and in fact, snuffing out one of those aforementioned screens to Terron Ward by getting in front of the back and forcing Mannion to look elsewhere.
For now, we look like a lot of bend but don't break bunch, and on this night, it did really well, because the more plays college offenses have to run in order to score, the higher chances they have of messing it up for themselves. We definitely saw that from OSU. Not a ton of point in blitzing a ton, when we don't have the personnel to get there anyway.
Shoot, if you look at some of the player comments from last year's OSU game, things look way better just reading those alone. Hardy Nickerson was just standout levels of awful last season against OSU and was plenty serviceable this go around. That's progress...right?
year's OSU game, things look way better just reading those alone. Hardy Nickerson was just standout levels of awful last season against OSU and was plenty serviceable this go around. That's progress...right? Caleb Coleman has started to come onto the field more as the season's continued -- from what I could tell, he took the most snaps at the nickel this week -- and he hasn't always played well from when I've noticed him, so it makes me happy to write that he had the game's two biggest plays, honestly.
Not really great work up front this week, where the cutback lanes were plentiful and their running backs got right into the secondary far too often.
Apologies to Sean Mannion, who became the second QB to break a record against us and lose. We are two, in ZERO AND TWO. *Paul Heyman voice*
Well timed article, Grant. Just as we begin to notice Jonathan Johnson more and more, he comes through with two of the biggest contributions on Saturday, alongside Coleman. He won't be enough to fix a thoroughly terrible pass-rush, but for at least one game, he gave us enough. Barely enough.
Still think Takkarist McKinley might have been more inclined to choose us if school hadn't already started..
Saw more of Jalen Jefferson this week than the last few, with Jake Kearney a late scratch. He didn't stand out much, and while his injury (if it is one) hasn't been publically disclosed, it's clear he's kind of working his way back into form.
The Beavers took their first touchdown when Darius White slipped and knocked an oncoming Michael Lowe out of the play too, allowing Storm Woods to thunder down the field for 49 yards. They'd score on the next play on a slant route against man coverage. The first of those plays, though, honestly looked like the kind of thing we would have seen in 2013. Like, four or five times a game.
Cameron Walker with noticeably better work this week. although he's still having some trouble with tackling...at times, our corners make me miss Marc Anthony, who I recall fondly -- hopefully accurately -- as a run stopping force.
Oregon State's wideouts aren't nearly the physical threats their in-state rivals would present. Jordan Villamin had 9 catches for 140 yards, but never seemed to present us with the same kind of constant danger as Brandin Cooks did on every snap. If it's possible to have a quiet 9-140, I feel like he kind of did.
Oh...and...the pass rush isn't getting better, y'all. Guys are just going to have to win their individual matchups. That's all it is. I wouldn't be expecting Brennan Scarlett back the rest of the year, and even if he does hit the field, I'm not sure how much impact he'd actually have.
=( MT @JeffFaraudo: Sonny Dykes says DE Brennan Scarlett's knee injury "more severe than we thought," but no clear picture on his return. — GoldenBlogs (@GoldenBlogs) November 3, 2014
V. In which we note a just a few scheme things
For space reasons, I've chosen to link to some plays, and embedded some here in the body of this post. Just click as you will.
1Q, 2nd and 5 from the Cal 35 - Khalfani Muhammad rush right, 23 yards, 1st down
For a very long time, I've said that the best way to use Khalfani is to get him to the edge or a clear lane but not have him have to make very many moves, since he's not good at that, and here's a play demonstrating. It comes from 12 personnel, with Stephen Anderson covered by my DVR bar, and two receivers I can't identify at the top of the screen. Khalfani's the one in yellow, and Daniel Lasco's in red.
Shitty diagrammed on my phone but, 2 RBs on field here w Anderson bottom of screen pic.twitter.com/EypxX9EPJQ — Nam Le (@AGuyNamedNam) November 2, 2014
Lasco's going to go and cut a guy, Borrayo tries to pull and cut but misses, but that's alright, because they do just enough. Due to depth issues with Kenny and Trevor Davis out, they used Anderson at outside wide receiver a little bit this week too, including on this play, where he puts a great block on the corner to help spring Khalfani. Our little back has nothing to worry about except to run. Turns the corner, and that's it.
Khalfani's other carry came out of this same 2 back formation at 2Q, 2nd and 10 from the OSU 14, but they went inside with Lasco lead blocking, instead of to the edge. (They have used Lasco in a similar capacity with Luke Rubenzer.)
Other stuff:
VI. In which we poke around at the numbers
Raw data here. All calculations unofficial. I don't math well.
Cal Oregon State Basics Possessions 13 14 Yards/Play 5.8 [1] 6.9 [1] 3rd Downs Conversions 11 of 19 (57.8%) [2] 3 of 11 (27.2%) [2] Avg. Yards to go 6.84 yards [2] 5.63 yards [2] Avg. 1st down gain 6.07 [1] 7.11 [1] Power success rate (% of runs with 2 or fewer yards to go that were successful) 6:23 Q1: Lasco - no 2:33 Q2: Lasco - yes 1 of 2 None Field Position Avg. Starting F.P. AVG: OWN 30.07 MED: OWN 25 [3] AVG: OWN 28 MED: OWN 27 [3] Points Per Trip Inside 40 15:00 1Q: 0 10:25 1Q: 0 3:46 1Q: 3 14:18 2Q: 7 6:38 2Q: 7 2:33 2Q: 3 12:23 3Q: 7 12:02 4Q: 7 7:48 4Q: 3 3:53 4Q: 8 4.5 [4] 15:00 2Q: 7 9:57 2Q: 3 8:42 3Q: 7 2:49 3Q: 7 15:00 4Q: 7 1:39 4Q: 0 5.16 [4] Defense Havoc (percentage of disruptive plays - TFL, picks, PDs, FFs, sacks - divided by total plays. 15.9% was average in 2013, with Navy last in the country at 9.3%.) 9 (4 TFL, 1 INT, 4 PD) 68 plays faced 13.2% [5] 11 (5 TFL, 6 PD) 94 plays faced 11.7% [5]
Further notes:
[1] - If we look at these two statistics, plus [4], we probably shouldn't have won this game. To get so consistently and thoroughly outgained on a per play basis, and then having Oregon State take better advantage of scoring opportunities than us...yeah, most weeks, that's going to lead to a loss. Don't get me wrong, I'm taking the W all the same, but it doesn't mean we outplayed them much.
[2] - Like, just look at this figure right here. They consistently faced shorter third downs than us, they outgained us, and while you'd like to say that that's because we stiffed up when it counts, that's not entirely a true narrative. At least three OSU conversions were nullified due to drops, including four points on a Jordan Villamin drop, plus two more conversions were thrown short of the sticks, and the game ending 4th down. But, all in all, that's where the game was lost for the Beavs -- just a few of these go the other way, and it's probably a different one altogether. .
[2] What I did love here was that three different third and longs were converted by run for Cal, though, including a touchdown. Huge stuff.
[3] - Special teams didn't do much for us in this one. We were set up with average field position throughout -- average is about 30 yards -- and even then, that much was due boosted by a drive that began inside the Oregon State 26, post interception.
[4] - There were at least seven points left on the board, thanks to a couple of uncharacteristic Jared Goff overthrows. Most nights, he's going to hit those, and we crack the half century easy. You could argue Oregon State should have gotten a touchdown on every trip too, taking out that last second drive.
seven points left on the board, thanks to a couple of uncharacteristic Jared Goff overthrows. Most nights, he's going to hit those, and we crack the half century easy. You could argue Oregon State should have gotten a touchdown on every trip too, taking out that last second drive. [5] - You would think that I'd be excited for our defensive Havoc numbers to return to just mediocrity, but you have to kind of take this with a grain of salt. Oregon State came into the game ranked 73rd in the country in offensive S&P+, making them essentially a below average offense. They're also a pretty mediocre defensive team, too, so all things considered, getting pleased with their defensive Havoc rate might be a mistake too, even though it's our best showing in this area in weeks (Oregon, Washington, and UCLA all averaged over 16% Havoc, and close to 20). Let's just call it a wash.
VII. In which we talk special teams
Poor+ | Acceptable-
I don't know who blame for the special teams penalties should fall on, but they are a factor in this unit's grade, which is carried largely by the kicking efforts of James Langford , whose miss from 50 yards can indeed be written off.
The drop off between Trevor Davis and Khalfani Muhammad/ Tre Watson is steeper than expected. Trev, by the way, leads the country in kickoff return average, although he's only had 10 attempts and a majority of the yards came against the special teams disaster that is Washington State, meaning he's probably closer to an above average returner than he is the best guy in the country. Still, take those two TDs out and he's at 21.37 yards per attempt, which edges out Khalfani (20.64) and Tre (20.17).
As mentioned in the statistics section, once again, no punt returns of note, although the flip side of that is found in Oregon State not benefitting from field position either. Can't mark them down as a unit, since they didn't hurt, but they certainly didn't help.
VIII. In which there are notes
@AGuyNamedNam @vanessa_kelly Bye week coming @ a good time after the hit I took on the sideline! #1oclocktreatment tomorrow! #GOBEARS — Zach Yenser (@CalCoachYenser) November 2, 2014
Context for the above tweet: Coach Yenser was run over by Tre Watson on the sideline during the game, which was absolutely hilarious. Good thing he too, has the bye week to recover, because he's earned it. At least it ended better for him than it did Sean Payton.
We'll be double digit dogs to SC. Probably won't win, either. Don't care. I said earlier this year we're beating them, and I'm sticking to it, goddammit.
Stanford lost to Oregon 45-16. We lost 59-41. Transitive property says...
I'll be giving away two -- possibly more! -- Big Game tickets next week via contest in our bye week column (aka, this space, next Monday). That's your incentive to read again, even though we don't have a game. Since I've started holding down this space, I've never taken a season week off, and I don't plan to start now.
Even though it was nice not to have to travel all weekend for once, I will say that I miss the #GQQNS very much. See you guys at Stanford.
Russell Ude scouting report runs later on Thursday.
Think about where we are for a second. We're fighting for a bowl bid in a season where the average preseason win prediction could still be measured on a GPA scale. I thought we might have a chance at a December trip somewhere if everything broke right, but we have five victories and that's after a 2-2 record in last second games, plus a patchwork, oh-my-god-we-have-converted-wide-receiver-playing-safety type of secondary.
have a chance at a December trip somewhere if everything broke right, but we have five victories and that's after a 2-2 record in last second games, plus a patchwork, oh-my-god-we-have-converted-wide-receiver-playing-safety type of secondary. Last bullet point spells this undeniable interpretation: the team's ahead of schedule. In every way.
Still really, really want to see this team beat someone that's not in the bottom of the Pac, though. We've come close at that twice in Arizona and against UCLA, so it's not super, super far off, I'd hope. Winning one of those games would make me feel a ton better about our luck this year, ridding me of the occasional thought that we're more fluky than good. Doing it in a decisive fashion would be preferred, but it'd be a next nice notch in our belt regardless, kind of like the way that Stanford knocked off USC to announce their arrival to relevance years ago (a run that, thankfully, looks like it might be waning a bit).
Also, a big, big congratulations to congratulations to the aforementioned Mr. Ellis, his new wife Sydney, and his future child, due next July. You may go to school in Cowboy country, Ric, but you're still a Cal Bear at heart. Trust me. I know all about that.
IX. In which there is a promo
Over a decade, you have hunted us. Over a decade, you have bested us.
Legendary Bears teams. Terrible Bears teams. All the same. Victims, before your blades and crafted gameplans.
Ten days from now, we enter the Coliseum again in a 3-on-1 handicap match, searching for the same victory that eluded each of those squads before us.
Oh yes.
Even though the schedule reads Cal vs USC on ESPN, we know full well our opponents are more than just you who stand across the field from us. Our opponents are equally the legions in the stands walled around us, and the stench of losses to you that we have yet to shake. We ride in to your stadium that evening, knowing we will have to battle the weight of history.
And we will emerge conquering all of it -- for the prizes that await us, the prizes we fight for are two fold: an end to a streak we have waited too long to snap, and a promise for bowldom, the next stepping stone in our path back to glory. The oddsmakers, the wisemen, the pundits...they will say we have no chance. That much is not new.
You say Fight On, but those are merely words you chant at each other emptily, having had the privilege of facing little doubt, and even less adversity.
And Thursday, November 13th, you'll face a team who actually lives that motto, a team dying to make the Coliseum run red not with Trojan jerseys, but with Trojan blood.
We're coming. Expect us. |
The Fukushima tsunami that proved deadly last Spring to TEPCO's nuclear power plants, was no problem at all for the Nissan Leafs accidentally caught up in the maelstrom. Two dozen Leafs were destroyed in the flooding, but with no adverse anything from the battery pack. This would be an unremarkable footnote if we weren't in the context of the hyped-up concern about the Chevy Volt battery packs, and instead this gives us reason to ponder the art of constructing safe battery packs for electric cars.
Two dozen Nissan Leaf electric cars were caught up in the tsunami flooding that ravaged Japans coast-line. The cars were heavily damaged, but none of their battery packs caught fire. Bob Yakushi, the director of product safety for Nissan North America is quoted in an NY Times report saying “Considering how they were tossed around and crushed, we think that is a very good indication of the safety performance of that vehicle.”
Nissan would have us believe this is due to how well protected is the Leaf battery pack:-
The pack is located beneath the passenger cabin
The pack is encased in an airtight steel "exoskeleton"
The pack is surrounded by two other layers of protection
The goal of any automotive engineer is constructing the car so that even in traumatic collisions the people inside survive reasonably well. In this case it means protecting sensitive components well enough so they don't cause further post-collision risk. Automotive engineers have faced similar considerations for decades, and have developed engineering practices that let us drive around with tanks full of explosive liquid and have "only" 250,000 gasoline car fires per year.
Nissan's engineers clearly felt there was a need to encase their battery pack in a steel box and the other layers of protection, else they wouldn't have designed the Leaf this way.
So, too, did Fords engineers. The Ford Focus Electric battery pack is also enclosed in a steel case. This decision to encase the Focus Electric battery pack in steel was made long before this problem with the Chevy Volt battery pack surfaced.
The Chevy Volt battery pack is built on a steel tray, with a plastic cover. Looking closely at pictures published by GM's Media team, the plastic cover is not the flimsy sort of plastic like what's used in food containers we'd use to hold left-overs, but instead is some kind of high impact high strength industrial grade plastic.
GM has said they believe the issue has to do with liquid coolant that spilled after the NHTSA flipped the crashed Volt over (to simulate a rollover accident), and that three weeks after testing the coolant had crystalized enough to create a short circuit leading to the fire. Following this line of reasoning it appears GM would have us believe that encasing the battery in a steel case, or not, was not the culprit in this fire issue. And they might even point out that steel is conductive, which might prove to be a risk in a collision.
It's too early to draw many conclusions because the NHTSA inquiry into the Chevy Volt battery pack is not yet concluded. Nissan's report of crushed Leafs not catching fire is nice and comforting to hear, but is little more than an anecdote. Building safe battery packs is an engineering challenge, just as it's an engineering challenge to build safe gasoline tanks.
See: Tsunami Reveals Durability of Nissan’s Leaf |
On 5 February 2015, Enterprise Lithuania hosted its annual startup event Startup Lithuania Overview 2014. During the event, the highlights of Lithuania Startup Ecocystem of 2014 were announced and awards were given to the teams that achieved the most in 2014, reports LETA/ELTA, referring to Enterprise Lithuania.
A survey conducted by Enterprise Lithuania which included 52 startups indicated that 2014 was a record year for entrepreneurs developing innovative products in Lithuania.
These startups attracted EUR 46 million in investments last year; with a total of 405 employees, they created more than 130 new jobs over the course of the year. The startups paid over EUR 2 million in taxes to the state budget in 2014. In 2013, EUR 34 million was invested in startups, they had over 200 employees and paid nearly EUR 0.5 million in taxes.
Enterprise Lithuania awarded glass statues to the teams that rocked the startup community last year.
Plague was recognized for the best Start of the Year. Established at the end of last year, this social network attracted 50,000 users in three weeks and has appeared in various media sources around the world more than 200 times in the last few months.
Toyze is a customized 3D game figure printing platform which was launched six months ago. Toyze users have already created more than a million 3D models, making this startup the obvious choice for the Breakthrough of the Year award.
Kaunas University of Technology was recognized as the year's Academic startup community. In 2014, this educational institution demonstrated exceptional enthusiasm in rallying students, researchers and entrepreneurs towards a common goal – development of the Lithuanian startup ecosystem.
The Hardware Solution of the Year award went to Integrated Optics. After launching activities a couple of years ago, this startup has earned global recognition for its lasers, which, though extremely powerful, are very small and are therefore suitable for a broad range of applications. Integrated Optics also attracted EUR 1.2 million in investments last year.
The Investment of the Year award went to the Vinted team, which secured a EUR 20 million investment from Insight Venture Partners. In total, this startup has attracted EUR 25 million in investments so far.
The Practica Capital venture capital fund was named Investor of the Year. Last year, this fund made 15 investments in Lithuanian startups for a total of over EUR 6.5 million.
The statue for Partnership of the Year was awarded to three institutions: the IMI.VC, Startup Highway and Invest Lithuania. This collaboration between the private and public sectors was recognized for development of the game industry and attracting foreign game developers to Lithuania. |
Monday
Hamsi: Six Favorite Spots to Eat the Little Fish
The arrival of fall in Istanbul for us usually means just one thing: hamsi season is about to begin. Hamsi, of course, are the minuscule fish (Black Sea anchovies) that Istanbulites are mad for, and the coming of fall and the further cooling of the Black Sea’s waters mark the beginning of the best time of the year to eat the little suckers. In honor of hamsi season, we offer up a list of five six of our favorite places to try the little fish:
Hayri Balık
We always feel a bit like a cheating spouse when we walk past our longtime favorite – albeit dry – fish spot, Arnavutköy’s Adem Baba, toward Hayri Balık, a lovely little fish shack up the street. But sometimes, well after the brunching hour, we like to have something a little stronger than a Fanta with our fish. Any sense of guilt is quickly numbed, though, as we drain a cold beer in the afternoon sun sitting outside of Hayri’s humble dining room…..
Çukur Meyhane
Çukur serves up meyhane classics, such as grilled lamb chops and köfte, but – somewhat unusually – they have also figured out how to grill Black Sea sardines, or hamsi! Long considered a lost cause by grill men for its tendency to slip through the grill and into the coals, hamsi is usually fried or baked. At Çukur they’ve thrown caution to the wind and worked about 10 of these little squirmy fish onto a skewer and bookended them with tomato and pepper. Hamsi is agreeable in just about any form, but fresh off the grill the fish’s characteristic smack of the Black Sea is even more pronounced….
Fürreyya
From the outside, Fürreyya Galata Balıkçısı, a tiny restaurant in Beyoğlu’s quaint Galata area, doesn’t look like much. Two tables, two stools at a short counter, a smoky grill and not much else. But inside this modest fish shack beats the heart of a more ambitious place. The friendly husband-and-wife team who own the place and share kitchen duties used to run a restaurant in Istanbul’s upscale Bebek neighborhood, and it’s clear that Fürreyya is in experienced hands….
Kemal’in Yeri
The neon sign in front of Kemal’in Yeri shines like a “Last Chance for Gas” sign seen on the highway before entering the desert. In your rearview mirror are the crowded tourist traps of the Galata Bridge. Ahead lie the shipyards and decrepit chandleries of the Golden Horn. But Kemal’s Place is not only the last place to eat on this stretch of the Golden Horn, it’s one of the last places in all of Beyoğlu where you can eat reasonably well on reasonable budget sitting outside beside the water without another hungry soul in sight…..
Mohti Laz Meyhane
“My heart starts pounding when a pregnant lady enters the room,” said Hüseyin, the artist turned owner/operator of Mohti, a new “Laz Meyhane” in the back of the backstreets of the Asmalımescit area. While this might sound to some like the unsavory confession of a man with an exotic fetish, to us it was a breath of fresh air, redolent with the old-style charm of a classic meyhane patron, something that’s increasingly harder to come across these days….
Hayvore
The Black Sea area is Turkey’s culinary misfit – not really about kebabs or meze. If anything, the food there seems to have been mysteriously transplanted from the American Deep South. We’re talking corn bread, collard greens and smoky bean stews. It’s simple, filling, down-home food and Hayvore is a great – and affordable – spot to get acquainted with it…. |
Please enable Javascript to watch this video
SACRAMENTO -- Dancing Dan is back! Dan Sloan, the homeless man who has danced and sign twirled his way into the hearts of the Arden-Arcade community is back doing what he loves best after being brutally attacked while he was sleeping.
He has a new Spiderman suit and a new corner. But otherwise he is the same ol’ Dancing Dan rocking out at Arden-Arcade intersections the community has fallen in love with over two decades.
People are already stopping by the intersection of Fulton and Marconi to welcome Dan back.
"For somebody to hurt him, it just broke our hearts," said community member Patrick Fintel.
Fintel and Theresa Eason, who spent time chatting with Dan, speak for many in the Arden Arcade community who were shocked and outraged after leaning Dan was attacked while he was sleeping in June.
The attackers beat him up and stole his belongings. Dan blames himself, indicating years on the street have taught him to be more cautious. However, for many, it was the first time they realized the man who brought so much happiness to others didn’t have a safe place to lay his head at night.
Raising over $10,500 on one crowd funding site, and more than $1,500 on another, one of the fundraiser organizers is overseeing Dan’s care.
After leaving the hospital, Dan stayed at the Carmichael Senior Center, a small nursing facility for rehab. The cost was a $4,050 for a month stay. The facility wasn't a good long-term fit for Dan.
According to Dan and the facility administrator, he preferred more freedom to come and go as he pleased. After about two weeks, Dan moved to a private boarding house.
The owner of that boarding home, Blessings Care LLC, says for $700 a month they provide Dan with a place to sleep, three meals a day, and transportation to doctor appointments.
The money raised on the two crowdfunding sites is being managed by one of the fundraising organizers due to some complications with giving it directly to Dan.
The organizers say about $7,500 is still remaining and the plan is to use it to continuing paying Dan's boarding and cell phone fees.
If you would like to donate to Dan, visit his You Caring Website. |
This post originally appeared at The Real Dan Lyons' website, and it is republished here with his permission.
Suck on it AppleSoft - Google pulls a rope-a-dope
Everyone was baffled when Google made those crazy bids for the Nortel patents last month. Remember? They bid things like the distance from the earth to the sun, the number pi, and some other wacky numbers from mathematics. Which led ultra Apple fanboy MG Siegler to crow that Google had got "pi in the face" and was "living in a dream world" and "look like huge asses in retrospect." Then MG went on to drool about how Android was doomed, penning a ridiculous piece that compared Apple to James Bond and Google to La Chiffre, the evil villain in "Casino Royale."
And today it all makes sense. Google just sandbagged its rivals. The whole thing was a rope-a-dope maneuver. Google never cared about the Nortel patents. It just wanted to drive up the price so that Appl eSoft (those happy new bedmates) would overpay. Today, with the Motorola deal, Google picks up nearly three times as many patents as Appl eSoft got from Novell and Nortel. More important, Google just raised the stakes in a huge way for anyone who wants to stay in the smartphone market.
Better yet, Google got its rivals to spend a few weeks defending the practice of using patents to attack other companies. Apple fanboys bent over backward to say that Apple was doing the honorable thing here by suing everyone in sight. All this slimy patent warfare that is so despicable when others do it becomes magically noble when Apple does it. Teaming up with other companies, including the evil Borg, to gang up on Google is all perfectly legitimate, par for the course, smart business practice, blah blah.
So now Google fires back, makes a huge acquisition, gets into the hardware business, buys up the best IP portfolio in the mobile space — and can position itself as a victim that's just trying to defend itself against this gang of bullies. The Nortel auction just helps Google get approval for the Motorola purchase. Does anyone really believe this $12.5 billion acquisition just got thrown together in the last few weeks as a response to the Appl eSoft patent grabs? Doesn't it seem likely that Google and Motorola started talking long before the Nortel auction?
As for those crazy bids in the Nortel auction — that was just a way to leave a little "f*ck you" in the paperwork for Google's pals in Redmond and Cupertino to look back upon. That move is pure Larry Page. This is a smart, hyper-competitive guy with a mean streak and a nasty sense of humor. Kara Swisher recently compared him to Bill Gates, and now I see why. Page is turning out to be a better CEO, and more fun to cover, than anyone could have imagined. |
Distraught Democrats, resistant Republicans and just about everyone else still not ready to accept Donald Trump as their president have tried to pacify themselves with two thoughts – that he isn’t capable of making any real impact, and that the moderates in the White House will sway him.
Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is the latest, and biggest, smack of reality: they are wrong.
Story Continued Below
It’s not Republican. It’s not conservative. It’s not right-wing. But it is consistent—again diving deep into the nationalism that he campaigned on last year and has been driving for the last 133 days.
“Isolating America behind a wall, if you will—not just in terms of our southern borders, but globally,” is how Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman, summed it up.
As for the “maybe Trump will change” dream or “we’re playing the long game” protestations of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, those are exceptions, or maybe just strategic feints, Steele said.
Trump lives behind his wall of nationalism, Steele said, despite the occasional moments that seem like breaks.
“Like any medieval castle, there are slits for the bowman to stand there and shoot out their arrows,” Steele said. “You have these occasional slits.”
Morning Energy newsletter The source for energy and environment news — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Trump may not be passing much legislation, but he is governing, and governing straight out of his base. Like his now-routine early morning tweets undercutting what aides insisted on the night before, the unpredictability is predictable—his repeated claim in the Rose Garden speech that the Paris agreement was born of a global conspiracy to undermine the American economy, or that the money for the Green Climate Fund would be “raided” from America’s funds that would otherwise go to fight terrorism.
“The Paris Accord would undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty, impose unacceptable legal risks, and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world,” Trump said, in a speech bookended by Vice President Mike Pence and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt taking the microphone to talk about the president’s courage.
Trump “has a good feel for where the base of the party is and appears to be unafraid of what the blowback will be from the media or critics in Europe,” said David Kochel, who was a senior strategist for Jeb Bush, who said that everything Trump is doing can be traced back to what skeptics spent last year insisting he’d never do—and imagining he didn’t really want to do.
Though many Republicans voiced problems with the Paris agreement, Trump’s approach is “like a funhouse mirror conservative—distorted in significant ways from what we’re used to seeing,” Kochel said.
The list is long: two Muslim bans, a reinstated “gag rule” that cuts funding for international organizations that offer abortion choice, a rollback in carbon emissions regulations, loosened requirements that companies comply with laws they disagree with where the rules conflict with “religious liberty,” a budget built on massive cuts despite lacking the math to pay for it, an Obamacare repeal too conservative for many Republican senators to support.
The counterargument: he was cowed into staying in NAFTA (for now), didn’t scrap Obama’s LGBT protection executive order (for now), kept the U.S. embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv (for now).
Pulling back on Paris, like many of the more significant moves Trump has made in office, isn’t like nominating Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, which almost any Republican running for president last year would have been likely to do. It puts him at odds with many in the corporate and establishment wing of the party who thought they were in charge before he took over.
“Affirmation of the #ParisAgreement is not only about the climate: It is also about America remaining the global leader,” tweeted Mitt Romney, who in four years went from GOP presidential nominee seeking Trump’s endorsement to supplicant hoping to get picked as Trump’s secretary of state to host of his annual conference next week in Utah that will amount to a support group for Republican holdouts.
Romney’s tweet has more in common with the statement from the man who beat him in 2012. In former President Barack Obama’s most aggressive statement about Trump since Nov. 8 Obama cited (though still without using Trump’s name “the absence of American leadership” in the wake of the Paris decision.
But the White House was ready with an avalanche of prepared quotes from Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and many more.
White House aides even included the lukewarm approval of the move from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in the promotional email to reporters, saying, “I support President Trump’s desire to re-enter the Paris Accord after the agreement becomes a better deal for America and business.”
That’s more optimistic than Trump’s “we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.
And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s separate statement praising the decision had less to do with Trump’s politics or Paris, and more to do with reviving a favorite fight they can always agree on: “I applaud President Trump and his administration for dealing yet another significant blow to the Obama Administration’s assault on domestic energy production and jobs.”
Among Democrats, there was hope that the decision would snap people out of simply snickering over Trump’s typos on Twitter, or salivating over the latest Russia revelations changes what the West Wing has been up to in between.
“This will wake people up,” predicted Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday afternoon. “It’s a decision with not insignificant consequences. There is drama of what he’s tweeted, [Sean] Spicer at the press conferences. But you make a decision like this, and all the other stuff is a distraction. It takes away from what he’s doing that will impact America not over the next two months but over the next 20 years.” |
About
LIGHTEST is a levitating light which floats by using magnets in the base. The lamp levitates over the base and can be stationary or if you give it a little spin will keep spinning for hours, due to the lack of friction.
LIGHTEST is the future that sci-fi authors have been speaking about for decades, maglevs with cable-less power!
The lamp is powered through induction, whereby a small electric current is generated in the light by passing a current through the base.
The lampshade is detachable so you can 3d print your own lampshades, or make your own from any material you like. You can even create vases and holders with an illuminated base.
Float your plants!
Create your own lampshade
LIGHTEST is controlled via a radio remote which allows you to turn it on or off, change the intensity of the light and change the colour of the light to set the ambient mood.
The base even comes with an embedded battery (included in all pledges) so you can disconnect the power cable and take Lightest wherever you like for any event. The battery lasts for up to 6 hours at full brightness.
Take LIGHTEST anywhere you want
LIGHTEST is handmade with love and attention. The base is made from recycled wood and we use premium parts in the circuitry to ensure maximum efficiency and durability.
If you enjoy the idea of floating your own sculptures, trophies or displays, you can even buy the entry level Maker Kit which comes with only a magnet to hover above the base, on which you can place anything weighing up to 450grams.
Float anything you like
Float anything you like
Float anything you like
LIGHTEST is elegantly simple and affordable. Hurry and get yours now for half the retail price once this kickstarter campaign ends.
Max Brightness: 120 Lumens
Lifetime: 50 000 Hours
Power Adapter: 12 Volts US / EU / UK Plug / Global Voltage Compatible 100 - 240V
Dimensions: 150mm x 150mm x 45mm / (5.9 x 5.9 x 1.8 inches)
Weight: 600 grams / 1.30 Pounds
Includes Low voltage power adapter and battery
Thanks and happy levitating. |
A bylaw adopted by Hamburg's center-left parliament to allow temporary seizures of vacant buildings to overcome refugee accommodation shortages was slammed on Friday by the city's opposition free-market liberal FDP leader Katja Suding.
She told the German public radio channel Deutschlandradio Kultur that the bylaw amounted to a breach of property rights. She accused Hamburg's SPD-Greens coalition government of ignoring housing offers from citizens and rejected the argument that such accommodations would be insufficient for the number of asylum-seekers in the city, which is also one of Germany's 16 states.
Mayor Scholz ruled out private home seizures
Rent or purchase preferred
Interior Senator Michael Neumann said Friday that the city preferred to rent or purchase extra buildings as refugee shelters, but the bylaw gave it the additional power to make seizures if necessary.
"I hope that the law will never be applied," he said, referring to a past case when a clinic had refused to make space available on the grounds that its image would be adversely affected.
The legislation passed on Thursday evening with the votes of the city's Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Left party will allow the temporary seizure of vacant commercial buildings until March 2017.
The city is required to compensate owners adequately and appropriations can only occur when space at main refugee reception centers is close to running out.
'Not private homes'
Hamburg Justice Senator Till Steffen of the Greens said last week that the measure applied to "vacant commercial buildings, not private homes." Mayor Olaf Scholz, a member of the Social Democrats, had previously ruled out seizures of private accommodation.
Suding led nine members of the opposition pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) party in regaining a foothold in Hamburg's senate in February.
Property right breach, says Suding
The FDP had been in decline since 2013 when it crashed out of federal parliament after governing with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives.
400 reaching Hamburg daily
Some 400 to 500 refugees are reaching Germany's northern port metropolis daily. Hardly any containers or tents remain available, senate officials said, referring to a trend across Germany as the winter approaches in the country.
Germany, as Europe's top destination for people fleeing war and poverty, took in more than 210,000 migrants last month, more than in all of 2014.
For the whole of 2015, Germany is expecting more than 800,000, many of whom fled conflict and persecution in Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iraq.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere submitted a legislative package to the federal parliament intended to improve integration of recognized refugees while accelerating deportations of migrants from the Balkans.
Watch video 05:16 Share Accommodating asylum seekers Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/1GPmn Accommodating asylum seekers
Tempers flare
Tempers have flared at several improvised shelters across Germany, including one in Hamburg on Thursday and on Sunday in the central city of Kassel.
Survey findings published Thursday from the pollster Infratest Dimap showed mounting insecurity among German voters.
Fifty-one percent of people polled at the end of September confirmed that they were "anxious that so many people were coming to us." In August that number was 38 percent.
In contrast, 47 percent said the refugee trend did not make them anxious, compared to 59 percent in August.
The survey also showed broad endorsement of de Maiziere's proposed asylum law changes that would list Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro as "safe countries of origin."
Quicker refugee access to Germany's labor market, another of the proposals, was endorsed by 79 percent of those surveyed.
Industry leaders have often highlighted shortages of recruits, due in part to the demographic ageing of Germany's population.
ipj/sms (KNA, EPD, dpa, AFP) |
From Nature magazine
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is perilously overbudget and under threat of cancellation, but Naturehas learned that it may be offered a financial lifeline. The flagship observatory is currently funded entirely through NASA's science division; now NASA is requesting that more than US$1 billion in extra costs be shared 50:50 with the rest of the agency. The request reflects administrator Charles Bolden's view, expressed earlier this month, that the telescope is a priority not only for the science programme, but for the entire agency.
NASA expects that the total cost of getting the 6.5-metre telescope to the launch pad by 2018 will be about $8 billion, around $1.5 billion more and three years later than an independent panel predicted in November 2010. Because in the next few years agency budgets are likely to be flat at best, scientists had feared that the JWST would end up swallowing the $1-billion astrophysics budget whole, or at least heavily eroding the $5-billion science-division budget. The new proposal would scrape money from other corners of the agency's $18-billion budget, which also supports programmes such as aeronautics, technology development and human spaceflight. Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, says he is glad that the agency is making the JWST a priority. "There's an acknowledgement that the science budget can't solve this on its own," says Mountain, whose institute operates the Hubble Space Telescope and is preparing to do the same for the JWST.
The proposal to share the JWST's costs across the agency is part of a 'replan' developed by NASA after the independent panel criticized the project's management and found it to be colossally overbudget (see Nature 468, 353–354; 2010). The plan has been under consideration for weeks by the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has an oversight role in setting budgets. NASA declined to comment on the cost-sharing aspects of the plan, but spokesman Trent Perrotto notes that five years of operational costs will bring the telescope's overall price tag up to $8.7 billion. If the OMB rejects the plan, it would cast further doubt on whether the JWST will ever fly, because a House of Representatives committee has already voted, on 13 July, to cancel the telescope.
The drama surrounding the JWST is clearly on the mind of Bolden, NASA's highest official. On 2 August, before a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council began, Bolden told an assembly of dozens of advisers that the JWST is now one of the agency's top three priorities.
The first is to continue to support the development of commercial rockets able to carry people to and from the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit, a goal of companies such as Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California. Second is the development of a heavy-lift rocket that can take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to reach objects such as nearby asteroids. Both of these activities would fall under the aegis of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, which was formed on 12 August in a merger of the programme that operated the now-retired space-shuttle fleet and the programme that began the development of the Constellation rockets, part of the now-cancelled project to return to the Moon. That Bolden's third priority is the JWST "makes it clear that he's going to be fighting for it", says Alan Boss, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington DC and chair of a NASA astrophysics advisory subcommittee.
Even allowing for cost-sharing within the agency, lawmakers on Capitol Hill would have to cough up more money for NASA than recommended by the House committee if it is to turn all of Bolden's priorities into realities. In September, when Congress returns from recess, it is expected to resume the appropriations process for the 2012 fiscal year. All eyes will be on the Senate and Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland) to see how strongly she fights for the JWST project, which is being managed in her state.
If the OMB approves NASA's plan — and if lawmakers oblige by appropriating enough money — astronomers should consider themselves lucky. Some observers suggest that if the science division has to cover only half of the JWST's overruns, it could do so without delaying or cancelling any other missions.
But Brett Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, says that shifting the cuts onto other parts of the agency will definitely hurt. He points out that scientists complained loudly in 2006 when money was redirected from science to support the Constellation rocket-building effort. "Now the science community may be looking for human spaceflight money to cover the science overruns," he says.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on August 22, 2011. |
Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies
unravels
Problems in Time
Time travel has been a staple in Science Fiction since H.G. Wells. Unfortunately, much of what passes for intelligence in this area is poorly considered.
Anomalies
For example, it is not possible to return to the past without changing the past in some way; nor is it possible to change the future based on information from the future. Doctor Who realized early on that changes to history were hazardous, and avoided them assiduously. Movies built on a time travel theme frequently become dissatisfying when the thread of time is closely examined. In Millennium, once the era in which the time machine exists is destroyed, aren't all of those rescued survivors returned to their own times? In The Twelve Monkeys, doesn't it appear that the disaster which the main character was to prevent
Sci-Fi Weekly
Site of the Week would not have happened had he not interfered? In Timecop, would any of that have happened had it not happened? Even the venerable Back to top of page. would not have happened had he not interfered? In Timecop, would any of that have happened had it not happened? Even the venerable StarTrek has created numerous anomalies which it has failed to resolve. Pasts which are dependent upon futures dependent upon those pasts should make us cringe. However, from time to time something works. This web page has long attempted to examine some of the best, worst, and other examples of these.
Movies
This section once listed and briefly described all the movies analyzed in the order in which they were analyzed. Maintaining that has become prohibitive. The full list, with links, is to the right. It should be clarified concerning the movie analyses that they are not really in a random order, but the order is not always entirely consistent, either. The first analysis published was Terminator, the then-two-part Schwarzenegger thriller in a single page. On its heels we posted Back to the Future in three parts, and continued in very much the order you see on the list to the right. However, we received a letter from a reader and so included the addendum to Terminator, listing it with the original film, and when, sometime later, we added an analysis of Terminator 3: Judgment Day, we listed it with its predecessors. Thus the system has continued much on that order, that each new analysis was added at the bottom of the list unless it was a sequel to a previously analyzed film. We did not always do it that way, but more recently decided that those sequels which were listed further down ought to be moved up with their prequels. There is some logic to this methodology, and it works in both directions. On the one hand, many points that were fundamental to understanding what was eventually named Replacement Theory were first presented in the earlier movies, and even later as new significant points were recognized they would first appear in newly posted film analyses. That meant analyses of later films were assuming that you had read the analyses of earlier films, and you would need to know which ones were the earlier films. We made an effort to link from the later films to the earlier films, citing the previous explanations, but it still helps to have read the early material first. On the other hand, the more of these we did the more details we noticed. Early analyses did not often address whether a film worked under a theory other than replacement theory (fixed time or multiple dimension), as the point was to present how replacement theory resolved those films. The genetic problem was not discussed for quite a few years. Similarly, problems with recall devices, solutions to predestination paradoxes--a lot of the theory stuff--appears later. We were learning while we were writing. Of the early materials, all were written exclusively by me (although sometimes I bounced ideas off of others, most commonly Kyler C. B. Young, who is perhaps the best analyst I know in this subject, sometimes others) except for Final Countdown, which was done by John "A1Nut" Cross, who had been one of the most dedicated readers of the site and asked many questions. I did take something of an editorial/oversight position on that, raising issues I was not sure he had addressed adequately and helping get it in shape for publication, but the work, and its solutions, is his. It should also be noted that beginning with Primer, that is, immediately after Deja Vu, there was a format change. Up to that time, all analyses were done as single articles, some very long; Primer was the first analysis written to be published at The Examiner. Because of that site's emphasis on many shorter articles, our analyses were serialized, and from that point up through Project Almanac the "sections" of the present web pages were, with some edits, the original articles as they appeared there. That makes them somewhat more independent, although some of the "last time we wrote" material has been excised in many cases. Terminator Genisys was being analyzed at the time of the transition back to this site, so it retains some of the formatting of that approach. There is also a page of other films, movies of which I am aware are time travel films but were not treated here for a long time, some of which are now analyzed, others which might be, and others which probably will not be. Preliminary comments on each are given. I attempt to update it, adding films as I become aware of them and removing them as pages are created for them, but some films will probably stay on that list for quite some time. Back to top of page.
Time Travel Theory
A picture is worth a thousand words...
Temporal Anomalies
Image drawn from Appendix 11: Temporal Anomalies,
in Multiverser: Referee's Rules from Valdron Inc,
Used by permission.
For information about Multiverser write to [email protected]
or visit the web sites. The section Discussing Time Travel Theory has been greatly expanded thanks to our work at The Examiner. The old articles are still here (and are still worth reading and often cited in our analyses), but during our tenure at the other site we were called upon to do a "Theory 101" series. This was followed by answers to questions and a "Theory 102" series addressing some of the same and some new issues. You will find everything here from what happens if you kill your grandfather to the Novikov Self-consistency Principle, Schrödinger's Cat, and the Butterfly Effect. Nearly all of these are items that have arisen frequently in letters. All the web pages are linked in the column to the right at the top of this page, the section on theory appearing below the list of movies analyzed. Again, all the articles in the theory section are written by me except one, A Critique of the Spreadsheet Theory by Sergiy Koshkin, which I agreed to post to my site at the time. Sergiy wrote another response, which was published at Gaming Outpost, a site which quite sadly is no longer available. I still answer letters, at [email protected], although I should caveat that I have become notoriously bad at checking my e-mail. I do answer everything when I get to it, but I often get to it only once or twice a month. It is fastest to reach me through my Facebook account, and I have other social network site presences linked from the M. J. Young Net home page. For what it's worth, material on this site has been recommended reading in college courses on metaphysics, and I have been consulted on a number of scripts for various time travel productions. I'll let you know when any of them are produced. I should also say what I find myself explaining to people: I am a proponent of Replacement Theory, and my work here is primary aimed at showing how it works and why it is the best theory of time for resolving time travel issues yet devised. I understand Fixed Time Theory and various forms of Multiple Dimension Theory, all of which are presented and discussed in the theory section and sometimes referenced in the movies and other pages. Don't confuse me for an impartial source, though: I have examined the theories and come to a conclusion, and my analyses of movies are primarily asking how the events would work under Replacement Theory, not what theory the authors are trying to use (although I do consider that in most cases, particularly in later analyses). Back to top of page.
Other Pages
Several other pages of interest appear on the site, worth your attention. There is a section of correspondence, renamed communication and including in addition to a few of the many letters written about pages on this site some materials that appeared on other web sites, all with answers from me. You will find those indexed in that right hand menu column above. A collection of miscellaneous pages arose while I was writing for The Examiner. These included time travel movie news items, anticipated release dates of films, and other rather "dated" materials, but also included a few "best of" articles in which I attempted to identify time travel movies I thought were worth watching for various reasons. That, too, is indexed in that column. The Perpetual Barbecue is a short story by the author of this site, originally published in the defunct RPG Review, in which time travel causes a day to repeat itself, for better and for worse. There was a guestbook which you are invited to read; regretably, Yahoo! discontinued support for signing these when they bought GeoCities (one of many reasons we are no longer at GeoCities)--but you get a faster response from me if you use e-mail anyway. And if you're wondering who wrote this stuff, there is a page about the author with a bit of information and some links. Back to top of page.
Off Site |
Prince’s music is freely available to stream once more. In 2015, all of Prince’s music was pulled from every streaming service except for Tidal. Following his death, the late icon’s estate sued Jay Z’s Roc Nation and claimed that Tidal didn’t have exclusive streaming rights to Prince’s discography. Now, Tidal is no longer its exclusive streaming home—you can find his albums now on services including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon Music Unlimited, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and more. His full catalog will be up by the time the Grammys begin. Below, check out Pitchfork's playlist of Prince dance favorites from 1979-1984.
The music’s release for streaming comes with news of reissues and new releases from the Paisley Park vaults. Read more here.
Cameron Strang, chairman & CEO of Warner Bros. Records, said in a press release:
Prince recorded his most influential and popular music during his time with Warner Bros. and we are deeply aware of our responsibility to safeguard and nurture his incredible legacy. Warner Bros. is thrilled to be able to bring Prince’s music to his millions of fans around the world via streaming services, fittingly on music's biggest night. We'd like to thank Prince's estate, Universal Music Publishing, the Grammy Awards and all of the streaming services for their great collaboration in making this landmark event possible.
Read “Here's Every Battle Prince Waged Against the Internet and the Music Industry” on the Pitch.
Listen to Pitchfork’s mix of Prince’s best club hits from his early years: |
Who are these faces I see
They rigidly follow the streets
A song, a prayer for a smile
their look stays stern all the while
Leave or Stay, a common phrase
And ev'ry day, a haze
Shall I follow the beast in me that cries?
Shall I desire only her eyes?
Now, I know what you're probably thinking. You're thinking, "Wait a second, Ben. The song is alright and all that, but, wasn't Sighișoara called Schässburg back then?". Well, first of all, er, let me congratulate you on your excellent Romanian knowledge! I didn't know you knew so much about Transylvanian history. Well done! And secondly, well, yes, creative licence I guess.
Despite predicting the end of the world in the year in 1694 (epic fail, there), Johannes' work and philosophy are extremely interesting for their time. This young man preached a faith not based on rituals, speeches in big churches with lots of echo and little biscuits you get at the end, but would rather lead his followers to focus on a constant, love-filled devotion. He actually wrote a very short book called "A Short Easy and Comprehensive Method of Prayer" which is in full, here. I actually read it! I - actually - read it! Only because it is very short. Let me share a bit of it with you here:
"When the worldly Love [materialisism] bears Rule in a Heart, we must conclude, that the divine Love is not there; but when the divine and true Love of God [...] is well known in the Heart, and practiced, so must we conclude, that it is and bears Rule therein [that it's there, basically]; although the Heart with [materialistic] Temptations is uneasy, and seems to shew the contrary, which is grievous enough [which is a pain in the arse really]."
And that is precisely what the song is about. A battle between materialistic "worldy" cravings and devotion. I must add, creative licence jumps in here again, because there is no way of being sure Johann actually had that dilemma. He probably did though. Albeit, clearly, not when he wrote the book, as you will see if you do glide over a couple of pages in his Book. |
ONE Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson announced this morning that her party will back the Federal Government’s $18.6 billion school funding package.
She also said autistic children should be removed from mainstream classrooms, but says it is so they can get “special attention” and for the benefit of other students.
She said parents and teachers had raised the issue with her of children with disabilities or autism in mainstream classrooms.
“These kids have a right to an education by all means, but if there’s a number of them these children should actually go into a special classroom, looked after and given that special attention,” she said in the Senate this morning.
“Most of the time the teacher spends so much time on them they forget about the child who wants to go ahead in leaps and bounds in their education, but are held back by those.
“It’s no good saying we have to allow these kids to feel good about themselves and we don’t want to upset them and make them feel hurt.
“We have to be realistic at times and consider the impact that is having on other children in the classroom.
“We need to get rid of those people because you want everyone to feel good about themselves.”
Her office later clarified that “those people” referred to “do-gooders” demanding autistic children remain in mainstream classrooms.
She said it was difficult for One Nation to come to the position of supporting the $18.6 billion in extra funding for schools.
“I hope this will improve our educational standards if it is addressed in the classroom,” Senator Hanson said.
She criticised Labor for not supporting the bill, as the Opposition wants a further $22 billion to match the original Gonski funding proposed by the Gillard Government.
“I think it’s a good start, $18.6 billion. That’s a start, why can’t you work with the government with regards to this and then build on that,” she said.
“Stop opposing things just because you’re on the opposition. It’s about working together for the future of this nation. I just get so frustrated with the whole lot of you.” |
The US Justice Department said the frauds had cost victims $1bn The FBI says it has arrested 406 property market players as part of a crackdown on alleged mortgage frauds worth an estimated $1bn (£500m). The arrests include housing developers, estate agents and mortgage brokers. Reported mortgage fraud has soared in the past year, with the most common type being mis-statement of assets. In a separate development, two former Bear Stearns managers have been charged following the collapse of two hedge funds linked to sub-prime mortgages. They are the first executives to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the value sub-prime loans which triggered the credit crunch. Billion dollar losses Mortgage fraud and related securities fraud pose a significant threat to our economy
Mark Filip, deputy US attorney general The property market investigation, known as Operation Malicious Mortgage, relates to a number of types of alleged mortgage fraud. "Operation Malicious Mortgage and the Bear Stearns case demonstrate that the Department of Justice is determined to detect and to punish mortgage fraud and to help restore stability and confidence in our housing and credit markets," said deputy US attorney general Mark Filip. The Justice Department said it was pursuing 144 cases against the 406 defendants. Sixty of them were arrested on Wednesday alone. The Justice department estimated that the losses to homeowners and other borrowers from the mortgage frauds amounted to about $1bn (£500m). "Mortgage fraud and related securities fraud pose a significant threat to our economy, to the stability of our nation's housing market and to the peace of mind to millions of Americans," said Mark Filip. Some of cases involve the alleged use of false employment records or the inflation of property values. Others are looking into alleged foreclosure rescue scams which target struggling homeowners offering to help prevent them losing their home for a fee. Reports of mortgage fraud have increased significantly over the past year. According to the US Treasury Department, banks reported almost 53,000 cases of suspected mortgage fraud in 2007, up 37,000 a year earlier.
E-mail this to a friend Printable version Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? |
Thousands of Web sites have pledged to go dark today in opposition to pending anti-piracy bills currently making their way through Congress. Reddit, Wikipedia, Mozilla, and WordPress are just a few of the sites that will be inaccessible on Wednesday in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).
The bills would allow the Justice Department to obtain a court order and go after overseas, "rogue" Web sites that traffic in fake goods, from purses to prescription drugs. The DOJ could have these sites removed from search engines, while copyright holders could have the agency target sites they believe to contain infringing content. Detractors believe SOPA and PIPA are too broad and could have unintedned consequences for legitimate sites.
Most are in agreement that something needs to be done about Web sites offering pirated goods, but how exactly to accomplish that goal remains a sticking point. SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith argued yesterday that the U.S. needs legislation "that protects consumers, businesses and jobs from foreign thieves who steal America's intellectual property." But consumer groups, Web sites, tech giants, members of Congress, entrepreneurs, and more are not convinced, voicing concern with a variety of provisions in the bill. Here's a look at five that have been on their minds in recent days.
Anti-Circumvention: In a Monday blog post, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) took issue with several provisions in both bills, including one that would "target sites that simply provide information that could help users get around the bills' censorship mechanisms." That, EFF argued, amounts to "unconstitutional prior restraint against protected speech." Marvin Ammori, a First Amendment lawyer, suggested that "social media sites like Facebook or YouTubebasically any site with user generated contentwould have to police their own sites, forcing huge liability costs onto countless Internet companies."
Immunity: During a Tuesday conference call with reporters, Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director for Public Knowledge, took issue with the fact that SOPA/PIPA provide blanket immunity to those who take voluntary action against suspected copyright infringers. "Both of these bills provide immunity to intermediaries who act against suspected infringers. They could cut someone off and not be liable for any infringement," Siy said. "All they have to do is say they acted in good faith and say they have reasonable evidence of infringement." EFF dubbed it the "vigilante provision" and suggested corporations might use it to stamp out rivals.
Broad Definitions: Similarly, opponents claim the definitions in the bill are far too broad and could be used against legitimate sites and businesses. "The definition of 'foreign infringement site' includes not just sites that are dedicated to or even primarily focused on infringement, but rather any site that 'facilitates' it," the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) argued last year.
Job Killer: During a Tuesday appearance at an event (video) sponsored by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian argued that bills like SOPA and PIPA could seriously hurt tech innovation and our economy. "There is no other industry in the world where you can take an investment that is less than the cost of a Ford Focus, put it toward a few college students with a good idea, and have a billion dollar company a few years later," Ohanian said. "As an entrepreneur, the success that Steve [Huffman, Reddit-co-founder] and I had simply could not have happenedReddit.com, Twitter, Facebook, all these sites that are indispensable, even for politicians, sort of ironicallycould not have happened if these laws were in place."
Domain Name System (DNS) Blocking: Initially, SOPA included a provision that allowed for the DOJ to obtain a court order and demand that an ISP block an infringing site. Amidst backlash, however, Rep. Smith removed DNS blocking from his bill, so it's no longer an issue in SOPA. It remains in PIPA at the moment, though Leahy has said he'd like to study the ramifications before implementation. The White House, however, is against it. "Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security," the administration said on Saturday. Leonard Napolitano, Jr. with Sandia National Labs, meanwhile, argued that DNS blocking wouldn't even be effective. "Even non-technical users could learn to bypass filtering by learning through forums, social networking [or] downloadable plugins," he wrote in November letter.
Is there anything that you're concerned about in SOPA or PIPA? Is there anything that the two sides can agree upon? Let us know in the comments. Also check out the slideshow below, which features screen shots from Web sites that are participating in today's blackout.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag. |
Ms. Pac-Man is the second game in the Pac-Man series, released in arcades in February 1982.[1] Ms. Pac-Man introduced a female protagonist, four different mazes, more colorful graphics, and several gameplay changes.
The game was developed by Illinois-based Midway Manufacturing, the North American distributor of the original Pac-Man, without the involvement or permission of Pac-Man creator Namco. Ms. Pac-Man was the most successful American-produced arcade game of 1982, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets,[2] and became one of the most popular arcade games of all time. It was eventually adopted as an official title by Namco.
Gameplay [ edit ]
Start of the game.
The gameplay of Ms. Pac-Man is very similar to that of the original Pac-Man. The player earns points by eating pellets and avoiding ghosts (contact with one causes Ms. Pac-Man to lose a life). Eating an energizer (or "power pellet") causes the ghosts to turn blue, allowing them to be eaten for extra points. Bonus fruits can be eaten for increasing point values, twice per round. As the rounds increase, the speed increases, and energizers generally lessen the duration of the ghosts' vulnerability, eventually stopping altogether.
There are also some differences from the original Pac-Man:
The game has four different mazes that appear in different color schemes, and alternate after each of the game's intermissions are seen. The pink maze appears in levels 1 & 2, the light blue maze appears in levels 3, 4, & 5, the brown maze appears in levels 6 through 9, and the dark blue maze appears in levels 10 through 14. After level 14, the maze configurations alternate every 4th level.
Three of the four mazes (the first, second, and fourth ones) have two sets of warp tunnels, as opposed to only one in the original maze.
The walls have a solid color rather than an outline, which makes it easier for a novice player to see where the paths around the mazes are.
The ghosts' behavioral patterns are different, and include semi-random movement, which prevents the use of patterns to clear each round. Blinky (red) and Pinky (pink) move randomly in the first several seconds of each level, until the first reversal. Inky (cyan) and Sue (orange) still use the same movement patterns from the previous game to their respective corners, again until the first reversal.
Instead of appearing in the center of the maze, the fruits bounce randomly around the maze, entering and (if not eaten) leaving through the warp tunnels. Once all fruits have been encountered, they appear in random sequence for the rest of the game, starting on the eighth round; a 5000-point banana can be followed by a 100-point pair of cherries.
The orange ghost is called Sue, rather than Clyde; her color was later changed to purple in Pac-Land to differentiate her.
to differentiate her. When Ms. Pac-Man makes contact with a ghost and dies, she spins around, or as the back of the flier says, "she dramatically swoons and falls" [3] rather than folding in on herself like the original Pac-Man did.
rather than folding in on herself like the original Pac-Man did. The three intermissions follow the developing relationship between the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man (from when they first meet to having a stork drop off their baby). The latter later served as the attract opening sequence for Jr. Pac-Man .
. The sound effects and music are very different from those of the original game, including a new opening theme and death sound effect.
Fruit point values [ edit ]
Level Item Points 1 Cherry 100 2 Strawberry 200 3 Orange 500 4 Pretzel 700 5 Apple 1000 6 Pear 2000 7 Banana 5000
After level 7, any fruit will appear, although its point value will be the same (unlike in Pac-Man, in which the Key will always be the fruit after level 13).
History [ edit ]
Ms. Pac-Man was originally conceived as an enhancement kit for Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, created by programmers employed at the General Computer Corporation (GCC).[4] While Crazy Otto was under development, GCC settled a lawsuit with Atari over their Missile Command conversion kit Super Missile Attack. Part of the settlement terms barred GCC from selling future conversion kits without consent from the original game manufacturer.[5]
Rather than scrapping Crazy Otto entirely, the programmers chose to present the completed game to Midway, Namco's American distributor of Pac-Man. Midway had become impatient in waiting for Namco to release its next Pac-Man game (which would be Super Pac-Man), and were enthusiastic that such a game had come to their attention. They bought the rights to Crazy Otto and worked with GCC and Namco to prepare the game for release. In final development the game's name and characters experienced multiple changes. Sprites, text, and minor game elements were altered to better reflect the Pac-Man series. The game was initially titled "Super Pac-Man," containing Pac-Man as the lead character. Inspired by the cutscenes of Crazy Otto featuring Crazy Otto's female counterpart, the lead character was made female and the game was renamed Pac-Woman. That name was dropped in favor of Miss Pac-Man, but the developers then realized that, given the third intermission showing a stork delivering a baby to Pac-Man and the player's character, confusion could arise about their relationship. In light of this, the name was changed to Mrs. Pac-Man, and then finally to Ms. Pac-Man, which rolled off the tongue easier. Programmer Steve Golson said "in the span of just two weeks, it went from Crazy Otto to Super Pac-Man to Miss Pac-Man.[6] These later changes (Miss, Mrs., and Ms.) all occurred within 72 hours of actual production.[7]
According to one 1982 estimate, a majority of Pac-Man players were women.[8] Shortly before release, Stan Jarocki of Midway stated that Ms. Pac-Man was conceived in response to the original Pac-Man being "the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players" and that it is "our way of thanking all those lady arcaders who have played and enjoyed Pac-Man."[9] The game was later awarded the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year at the 1982 Arcade Awards held in January 1983.[10]
After the game became wildly popular, Midway and GCC undertook a brief legal battle concerning royalties. The Killer List of Videogames notes that the game was accomplished without Namco's consent, causing both companies to eventually turn over the rights to Namco. Ms. Pac-Man was reportedly the first in a series of unauthorized sequels that eventually led to the termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway.[11] GCC co-founder Doug Macrae has disputed stories that the game was manufactured without Namco's blessing, claiming that then-Namco president Masaya Nakamura had even provided feedback over character artwork during the game's development.[12]
Ports [ edit ]
Atari, Inc. released versions for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, and Atari 8-bit family. There were also versions for the VIC-20, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, IBM PC, Apple II, and Texas Instruments TI-99/4A released under the Atarisoft label. Unlike Pac-Man, most home versions of Ms. Pac-Man include all four intermission screens from the arcade game. The Atari 2600 rendition of Pac-Man was infamous for its flashing ghosts, while the 2600 port of Ms. Pac-Man had minimal flicker.
A tabletop version of Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1983 by Coleco. The unit was shaped like a miniature arcade cabinet, was controlled with a small built-in joystick, and used a multicolor vacuum fluorescent display.[13] It was a runner-up for Stand-Alone Game of the Year at the 1983 Arcade Awards held in January 1984.[10]
In 1991, Atari Corporation released a version for the Lynx,[14] introducing new mazes, a fourth intermissions, and a power-up that gives the player a temporary speed boost.
Namco ported Ms. Pac-Man to the Famicom in 1985. A few years later, Tengen released the Famicom version of Pac-Man for the NES in North America, but rejected Ms. Pac-Man and instead developed a completely new port from scratch. In 1993, Namco released their original port of Ms. Pac-Man in North America themselves, eight years after its original release in Japan.[15]
The Genesis, Master System, and NES versions, by Tengen, and the Super NES version, by Williams Electronics, took a few liberties. They featured four different sets of mazes: the original arcade mazes, bigger mazes, smaller mazes, and "strange" mazes. There was also a Pac-Booster option that let players make Ms. Pac-Man move much faster which was only available in the original arcade game from a maintenance menu. These versions also allowed two people to play simultaneously, with player 2 as Pac-Man. The game ends at level 32, with an intermission where Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man say good-bye.
It was released for the Game Boy Color with two new mazes and a bonus game (Super Pac-Man).
Reception [ edit ]
In January 1984, the Atari 2600 port of Ms. Pac-Man won the Videogame of the Year award at the 1983 Arcade Awards, tied with Lady Bug.[10]
InfoWorld stated that Atarisoft's Ms. Pac-Man for the Commodore 64 was as good as the best-selling Atari 8-bit version.[16]
The Genesis version of the game sold more than one million copies in the United States.[17]
Reviewing the Super NES version, three of Electronic Gaming Monthly's four reviewers said the gameplay is timeless and universally appealing, and the enhancements appealing. The fourth, Sushi-X, felt the original game was a cheap cash-in on the popularity of Pac-Man, and had not aged well.[18] Doctor Devon of GamePro liked the original game but questioned the value of the Super NES port since it has somewhat frustrating controls, and since Ms. Pac-Man had already appeared on the Super NES in the form of an unlockable in Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures.[19]
In STart, Clayton Walnum praised the Lynx version's new mazes and the added twist of the lightning power-ups, and found the game transferred well to the small screen.[20] Julian Rignall reviewed the Atari Lynx port for CVG Magazine writing that "it offers a fun and non-violet challenge which will appeal to anyone" giving a final score of 79 out of 100.[21] Les Ellis reviewed the game for Raze Magazine in February 1991, he liked the "neat little between-level scenes" and the "jolly title tune" giving a final score of 79%.[22] Robert A. Jung also reviewed the Lynx version which was published to IGN. He wrote in his final verdict, "A decent adaptation overall, and a good game in its own right." Giving a final score of 8 out of 10.[23]
Reviewing the Game Gear version, GamePro commented "If you loved the Pac-Man games, then you loved Ms. Pac-Man, and if you loved Ms. Pac-Man at the arcades, you'll love her here, too."[24]
Legacy [ edit ]
In 1996 Electronic Gaming Monthly reported that the Genesis version of Ms. Pac-Man, which was released in 1991, was still among the top 20 best-selling Genesis games.[25] The same year, Next Generation ranked the arcade version as number 12 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", saying that it has aged far better than the original Pac-Man due to its smarter ghost AI, varied mazes, moving fruits, and intermissions. They added, "It has the broadest appeal of any game Next Generation has seen, with the possible exception of Tetris. Women love it. Men Love it. Children love it."[26]
In 2009, Game Informer put Ms. Pac-Man 10th on their list of "The Top 200 Games of All Time", saying that it "trumped [the original Pac-Man] in nearly every way".[27] This is down one rank from Game Informer's previous best games of all-time list.[28] Entertainment Weekly called Ms. Pac-Man one of the top ten games for the Atari 2600 in 2013.[29] In 2016, Ms. Pac-Man placed 5th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list.[30]
In popular culture [ edit ]
In Season 5, Episode 6 (“A Modest Proposal”) of the television show Weeds, gameplay captured from Ms. Pac-Man forms a segue between scenes.
In Season 8, Episode 12 ("The One Where Joey Dates Rachel"), of Friends, Phoebe gives Monica and Chandler a Ms. Pac-Man arcade game as a wedding present. |
As the reigning queen of Yellowstone National Park, O-Six roamed the picturesque Lamar Valley for years, escaping predators and scientists alike.
O-Six was a regular celebrity, so to speak, drawing crowds of wolf-watchers from all over the world. Her presence on Facebook and in the news helped give an identity to the wolves living in the national park since 1995 when a formal reintroduction effort started.
Indeed, O-Six was the “most famous wolf in the world,” as stated in a New York Times article.
In 2012, the beloved animal was killed by an unapologetic hunter, who kept the alpha female’s pelt hanging on a wall in his home, a wolf tag receipt pinned above it so there were no questions about the legality of the kill.
The new book American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West explores the clash over Canis lupus, the gray wolf, with a story told through the life of O-Six and the humans who loved her.
Author Nate Blakeslee, a writer for the magazine Texas Monthly, tells a masterful and elegant tale.
Nature enthusiasts or lovers of narrative-nonfiction will enjoy the book.
For hundreds of years, wolves have been the source of political strife in the West.
Environmentalists push for the animal’s protection while cattle ranchers and hunters argue otherwise. Throughout our country’s history, the wolf has been culled, hunted, poisoned and trapped.
“When the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, there were perhaps as many as two million wolves on the continent,” Blakeslee writes. “Most of the early colonial governments, eager to make their settlements safe for livestock, paid bounties for wolf hides; they forced some Native tribes to pay regular tribute in dead wolves.”
Today they are on and off the federal endangered species list. O-Six was shot during a period when wolves were not protected. Despite her death, the wolf’s legacy lives on bringing awareness to the plight of the species. |
A group of the world’s leading AI researchers and humanitarian organizations are warning about lethal autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots, that select and kill targets without human control.
The group alleges killer robots now exist and the bulk of these technological developments are military funded in UK, China, Israel, Russia, and the United States. Although, fully autonomous weapons systems have not yet been deployed on the battlefield, the action by the group to ban lethal autonomous weapons is a preemptive ban before the technology falls into the wrong hands. The group calls on the citizens of the world to contact their representatives and for countries to work together to form international treaties, before it’s too late.
Member List of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots:
Human Rights Watch
Article 36
International Committee for Robot Arms Control
PAX
Association for Aid and Relief Japan:
Mines Action Canada
Nobel Women’s Initiative
Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs
Seguridad Humana en América Latina y el Caribe (SEHLAC)
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Future of Life Institute released a video yesterday titled: Slaughterbots.
The video portrays not to far in the distant future of a military firm unveiling a drone with shaped explosives that can target and kill humans on its own. Further in, the video abruptly changes pace, when bad guys get ahold of the technology and unleash swarms of killer robots onto the streets of Washington, D.C. and various academic institutions.
The video is aggressive and graphic but outlines if the technology was misused it could have severe consequences - such as civilian mass causality events.
Stuart Russell, a world leading AI researcher at the University of California in Berkeley, showed the video above to the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons on Monday. He said, “the technology illustrated in the film is simply an integration of existing capabilities. It is not science fiction. In fact, it is easier to achieve than self-driving cars, which require far higher standards of performance.”
Russell wants a preemptive ban on the technology before it’s too late. He claims the window to halt such technologies is closing and warns that autonomous weapons, such as drones, tanks and automated machine guns are imminent.
The Guardian adds,
The military has been one of the largest funders and adopters of artificial intelligence technology. The computing techniques help robots fly, navigate terrain, and patrol territories under the seas. Hooked up to a camera feed, image recognition algorithms can scan video footage for targets better than a human can. An automated sentry that guards South Korea’s border with the North draws on the technology to spot and track targets up to 4km away.
The International Committee for Robot Arms Control is calling upon the international community for a treaty against autonomous weapon systems.
Given the rapid pace of development of military robotics and the pressing dangers that these pose to peace and international security and to civilians in conflict, we call upon the international community for a legally binding treaty to prohibit the development, testing, production and use of autonomous weapon systems in all circumstances.
Human Rights Watch is another organization calling for the preventive measures to stop the machines…
The development of fully autonomous weapons—“killer robots”—that could select and engage targets without human intervention need to be stopped to prevent a future of warfare and policing outside of human control and responsibility. Human Rights Watch investigates these and other problematic weapons systems and works to develop and monitor international standards to protect civilians from armed violence. |
November 19, 2017
Mueller is a former top FBI dude, who helped to clear Bill Clinton after that impeachment mess, and like Mr. Comey, he did his very best. Clapper was the single most powerful man in the "intelligence" "community," a centralized directorate (as the Soviets used to call it), which was George W. Bush's principal response to 9/11/01.
Mueller is a former top FBI dude, who helped to clear Bill Clinton after that impeachment mess, and like Mr. Comey, he did his very best. Clapper was the single most powerful man in the "intelligence" "community," a centralized directorate (as the Soviets used to call it), which was George W. Bush's principal response to 9/11/01.
Mueller is a former top FBI dude, who helped to clear Bill Clinton after that impeachment mess, and like Mr. Comey, he did his very best. Clapper was the single most powerful man in the "intelligence" "community," a centralized directorate (as the Soviets used to call it), which was George W. Bush's principal response to 9/11/01.
Friendship is a beautiful thing, and it's really good to know that Robert Mueller, Comey, Brennan, and Clapper have known each other for many years. They're loyal friends.
Friendship is a beautiful thing, and it's really good to know that Robert Mueller, Comey, Brennan, and Clapper have known each other for many years. They're loyal friends.
Friendship is a beautiful thing, and it's really good to know that Robert Mueller, Comey, Brennan, and Clapper have known each other for many years. They're loyal friends.
Now don't get me wrong: I'm sure all these brave men (or persons, I should say) made great contributions to the safety and welfare of all of us. But here they are at the peak of their careers, each one of them, and Democrat candidate Hillary is suddenly exposed to the world with her email fiasco as SecState. Violating the very first rule of intelligence and statecraft, to protect your country's secrets. And she obviously sold secret and sensitive information to Clinton Foundation "donors" around the world, including old friend Vladimir Putin (who now owns 20 percent of U.S. uranium, or possibly more), the Muslim Brotherhood (friends of Huma), the Iranians (who sponsor half the terror attacks in the world), the Chinese (who want more of our secret high tech), and probably the French (who understand bribery and just wanted to get access to Hillary as POTUS).
We've seen how Bill sold U.S. rocket-launching secrets to the Chinese for campaign money...or personal money. It's so hard to tell the difference.
Well, skip that.
So the wife of the perp becomes a senator from the State of New York, which is well known for the purity of its politics. Why did she become senator? Was she a resident of N.Y. State? Was she the best qualified person to represent the Great State (etc.)? Or did the N.Y. machine just pick her and scare everybody else away?
So Hillary has violated any number of laws all of her adult life, ever since she was hired by the Senate Watergate Committee to lynch Richard Nixon – which worked just as it was meant to. Nixon resigned, but for the Democrats, he should have been hanged, drawn, quartered, waterboarded, and made to read the NYT op-ed page for extra punishment. I know Democrats who still hate Richard Nixon with a hellish fury. Nixon is the gift that keeps on giving. Hillary's major role in the persecution of President Nixon – a duly elected POTUS – was to urge that all his constitutional rights be taken away. That was the young Hillary right after law school.
The major difference from Watergate today is that no sane and sentient human being believes the NYT or the WaPo anymore. They have permanently blown their cover.
And yet the Axis of NYT-WaPo tells us that Donald Trump is just suspected of nefarious dealings with the Russians, which presumably caused the Russians to break into Hillary's ridiculous emails and the DNC file system, sending truthful (but wicked) information to WikiLeaks, to be dumped at strategic moments of the election campaign.
Notice well that nobody claims that the Hillary dumps were false. They were true enough. That's why they hate Trump and his imaginary Russian sources. It's the truth that hurt Hillary.
So that's their problem. It's not that Hillary isn't a crook, as proven by an endless number of leaked sources, including her ridiculous email setup. This was arguably treason by the U.S. secretary of state in a time of war – a war that the Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas refused to name, because that might kick in the constitutional provisions for declaring war and living with the reality of treason.
So Trump catches wind of that swamp stink and fires Comey, Clapper, and Brennan. Comey then plants a bomb in the media alleging that Trump had Moscow ladies of the night peeing on Obama's bed.
Seriously.
That's what set off this whole witch hunt, and Oliver Cromwell would have been ashamed of these goofballs. When the English witch-hunters went after suspects, waterboarding was the least of their methods of interrogation.
Along the way, the Brits got involved in this story of high crimes and misdemeanors, because if you believe that that old MI6 guy Chris Steele didn't tell his fellow spooks over there about dumping Moscow prostitute stories into the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA, not to mention the top of the DNC, you'd better think again. The U.K.-E.U. role in all this is never talked about – a mighty suspicious gap in the story. Chris and his old MI6 buds probably passed the story around just for laughs.
So Trump and Russia allegedly colluded, according to the Steele "dossier," which was freely passed around D.C. for months while no "respectable" news outlet would publish it.
Now, that phoney-baloney "dossier" looked mighty suspicious to the Monsters of the Deep, like Comey, who instantly demanded a special counsel to pursue Trump and anybody associated with him. The "special counsel," an invention of the Watergate plot against Nixon that violates every principle of the U.S. Constitution, turned out to be...guess who!
Yes! It's former FBI boss Robert Mueller, who got Bill Clinton out of all that trouble with the Chinese missile secrets.
Mueller's integrity is unquestionable. See? Proof of that is his close friendships with Comey, Clapper, Brennan, and the rest. Friends of Bill and Hillary. This man's integrity is above suspicion.
Now, let's suppose that all these characters are monuments of human integrity, fierce defenders of the United States and its Constitution. Like Hillary, Bill, the Obamas, and all.
I know it's hard to believe all that, but try your best.
Now Robert Mueller has recruited for his honest and even-handed process a posse of Democrat lawyers who have proven their prosecutorial zeal for scapegoats like Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart.
The obvious kicker in all this is that Robert Mueller is part and parcel of the Hillary Cover-Up. We know more about Hillary's misdeeds, thanks to all those WikiLeaks plus FOIA exposures of misfeasance and malfeasance galore, going back to the Bill Clinton and Paula Jones days, when Hillary ran the Bimbo Eruptions intimidation campaign. We have huge amounts of believable evidence about these crooks and corruptocrats, going back to Arkansas and the rest.
The single most important fact is that nobody has ever been prosecuted for these crimes. That fact by itself throws serious doubts on the entire justice system of the United States.
The farcical Mueller witch hunt against POTUS Trump is going to slather the whole U.S. Justice Department with that same stinky swamp water. It's inevitable.
You can't put a close friend of the perps in charge of the "special counsel" – a made-up name that appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution or the Federalist Papers. It's just an eructation of swamp gas from the Watergate years, meaning nothing.
And when Robert Mueller comes out with his solemn report on the Moscow prostitutes and Trump's golden showers, you can expect every single liberal paper to cheer itself hoarse. |
Popular idol group AKB48's latest album "1830m" (released on August 15th) has topped the Oricon weekly album chart for the week of September 3rd, making it the first time that the group has topped the weekly chart two weeks in a row.
It was also the first time in 9 years since an album by a female group topped the weekly chart for two consecutive weeks since 12 Girls Band's instrumental album "Joshi Juni Gakubou~Beautiful Energy~."
Adding this week's sales, "1830m" has now sold total of 935,000 copies. A significant feat as it's been 9 years and 8 months since a female artist's original album has sold over 900,000 copies within two weeks since the release day, with Hamasaki Ayumi being the last to achieve the feat with her album "RAINBOW."
This was the last album for�Maeda Atsuko, who just graduated from the group as a member.
Source & Image: Oricon
Tags |
Half a dozen British parliamentarians have launched a parliamentary Early Day Motion (EDM) condemning the military detention of Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli authorities.
The primary sponsor of the EDM, officially tabled on Monday, is Labour MP Richard Burden, joined by five co-sponsors: Labour’s Lisa Nandy, Andy Slaughter, and Grahame Morris, along with the Liberal Democrats’ Alistair Carmichael, and SNP MP Tommy Sheppard.
The EDM begins by noting “with concern that hundreds of Palestinian children continue to be arrested, detained and tried in Israeli military courts, despite the practice involving widespread and systematic violations of international law and being widely condemned.”
The motion also notes “allegations of ill-treatment at the hands of Israeli authorities include blindfolding, physical violence and arrest at night”, and “the disparity between the treatment of Israeli and Palestinian children by Israeli authorities”.
Read: 300 Palestinian children held in Israel jails
The MPs urge Israeli authorities “to treat Palestinian children in a way that is not inferior to the way they would any Israeli child”, noting that “as the occupying power in the West Bank, Israel has a responsibility under international human rights conventions for the safety, welfare and human rights protection of Palestinian children living under occupation”.
The parliamentarians’ EDM also “notes with concern that the recommendations of UNICEF’s 2013 Children in Israeli Military Detention Report remain largely unmet”, and “urges the Government to urgently engage with the Government of Israel to end the widespread and systemic human rights violations suffered by Palestinian children in Israeli military custody.” |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump and his top advisors have often scoffed at government support of green energy. His chief strategist called it “madness.”
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Robert G. Sutton (L) and Corporal Moses E. Perez, field wireman with Combat Logistics Regiment 15 install new solar panels on Combat Outpost Shukvani, Helmand province, Afghanistan, November 19, 2012. U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Alexander Quiles/Handout/File Photo via REUTERS
But the largest U.S. government agency - the Department of Defense - plans to forge ahead under the new administration with a decade-long effort to convert its fuel-hungry operations to renewable power, senior military officials told Reuters.
The reasons have nothing to do with the white-hot debate over climate change. In combat zones, green energy saves lives by, for instance, reducing the need for easily attacked convoys to deliver diesel fuel to generators at U.S. bases. Mobile solar-power units allow soldiers to prowl silently through enemy territory.
At sea, gas-electric hybrid battleships save fuel and allow for fewer stops – making them less vulnerable to attacks like the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, when al-Qaeda militants killed 17 U.S. soldiers during a refueling stop in Yemen.
MORE FROM REUTERS
COMMENTARY: Is Bejing outflanking the United States in the South China Sea?
In speech, Trump tries to turn from divisive to deal-maker
Ex-CIA spy freed in Portugal, avoids extradition over kidnapping
The military’s zeal for renewable power has already had broad impacts on energy contractors, generating hundreds of millions in contracts for solar companies and helping to reduce fuel consumption by the world’s largest single petroleum buyer.
The armed forces nearly doubled renewable power generation between 2011 and 2015, to 10,534 billion British thermal units, or enough to power about 286,000 average U.S. homes, according to a Department of Defense report.
The number of military renewable energy projects nearly tripled to 1,390 between 2011 and 2015, department data showed, with a number of utilities and solar companies benefiting. Many of those projects are at U.S. bases, where renewable energy allows the military to maintain its own independent source of power in case of a natural disaster or an attack - or cyber attack - that disables the public grid.
The White House did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the military’s use of green energy. Although Trump has blasted solar subsidies, vowed to boost fossil fuel development and questioned the science behind climate change, military leaders remain confident that the president won’t halt their march toward renewable power.
“We expect that it’s going to continue during the Trump administration,” said Lt. Col. Wayne Kinsel, head of the infrastructure unit of the Air Force Asset Management Division for Logistics, Engineering and Force Protection. “It’s really not political.”
Other senior officials in the Navy, Air Force and Army also told Reuters that they expected their renewable energy programs to continue.
Lt. Col. J.B. Brindle, a Defense Department spokesman, said the agency “spends very little appropriated funding” on renewable energy projects, but declined to give any figures or to answer additional questions about such efforts.
Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, has long supported efforts to reduce troop dependence on petroleum. He saw first-hand the vulnerability of diesel convoys to attacks by militants while serving as Commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s. As far back as 2003, he urged Navy researchers to find innovative ways to unleash the military from the “tether of fuel.”
LAUNCHED BY A REPUBLICAN
The military’s push into alternative energy started under Republican President George W. Bush in 2007, when he signed a law requiring the Pentagon to get 25 percent of the electricity for its buildings from renewable energy by 2025.
The effort accelerated under President Barack Obama, who required the Army, Air Force and Navy to each deploy 1 gigawatt of renewable power and directed the Army to open a lab developing energy technologies for combat vehicles.
In an apparent nod to Obama’s efforts to curb global warming, the Pentagon also reported to Congress in 2015 that the droughts and floods caused by climate change pose a security threat – contributing to foreign political and economic instability that could require substantial troop deployments.
Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in his parting memo in January that the Navy has already met its goal, producing 1 gigawatt of electricity - while the other forces are on track to meet their targets.
The programs have their opponents. The conservative Heritage Foundation, for example, has railed against the military’s support of renewable power and biofuels.
“The administration right now needs to focus specifically on combat power,” said Rachel Zissimos, a Heritage researcher. “Investing money on optional initiatives right now I think is problematic.”
HIGH STAKES FOR MILITARY SUPPLIERS
Solar companies such as SunPower Corp and utilities including Sempra Energy and Southern have won utility-scale renewable energy contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, according to the companies and Department of Defense documents reviewed by Reuters.
Southern, for example, has 11 solar projects totaling 310 megawatts on bases in states including Georgia and Alabama. In December, Sempra completed the 150-megawatt Mesquite Solar 3 in Arizona to provide about a third of the power needed at 14 Navy and Marine bases in California for 25 years.
SunPower has already landed a major deal under the Trump administration - a $96 million contract finalized on Feb. 3 to provide power to Vandenberg Air Force base in California until 2043, according to a Pentagon database.
Sempra and Southern said they were committed to serving their customers but declined to comment on whether they were discussing new contracts with the military. SunPower did not comment.
Last year, the Navy began outfitting Arleigh Burke destroyers with gas-electric hybrid engines developed by L3, which won a $119 million contract in 2013.
Tesla, which produces electric cars and batteries, is another company that analysts say could benefit from military contracts. A Tesla spokesman said the company is “supportive” of the military’s interest in clean energy but declined comment on whether it was pursuing Defense Department contracts.
The U.S. military's use of oil, meanwhile, fell by more than 20 percent between 2007 and 2015. The bulk of the decline likely stems from declining combat operations rather than rising efficiency and use of renewable energy. But traditional military fuel suppliers - such as Exxon Mobil, BP, and Shell - nonetheless have a lot at stake if the military accelerates its move away from fossil fuels. (For a graphic on Pentagon's oil purchases click tmsnrt.rs/2laqCBJ)
The military’s average annual oil bill was about $14.28 billion between 2007 and 2015.
BP is constantly reviewing its marketing strategies to ensure growth, a spokesman said.
“As fuel slates change, we will adapt, and continue to provide our customers with the products they demand,” he said in response to questions about the potential impact of the military’s increased use of renewable fuels.
SOLAR-POWERED SOLDIERS
Hauling fuel to the battlefield has been a hazard for militaries since at least World War I and continues to take a grim toll. One in nearly 40 fuel convoys in Iraq in 2007 resulted in a death or serious injury, according to a study commissioned by the Defense Department. In Afghanistan the same year, one in 24 fuel convoys suffered casualties.
Marines in Afghanistan began carrying solar panels in 2009 to forward bases in battles with Taliban fighters. They used them to power batteries for communications, GPS and night-vision goggles. The panels not only reduced the need for convoys, they allowed marines to shut off generators, hushing operations and making them harder for enemies to detect.
Arotech subsidiary UEC has sold $25 million worth of the solar arrays and expects a bigger business in systems working with batteries and solar to slash dependence on generators, said business manager Nancy Straight.
Col. Brian Magnuson, the head of the Marines’ expeditionary energy office, established in 2009, said his office aims to replace diesel-powered generators on the battlefield with solar power, and to reduce energy use with efficiency measures such as insulated tents and the deployment of advanced batteries.
"These technologies are a way to become more effective in combat," Magnuson said. "This is about war-fighting capability.” (For a graphic on a boom in military green energy projects, click tmsnrt.rs/2mbWXrM) |
Also, if the GOP wrongly associated President Obama with being a Muslim (which he's not) and criticized his former attendance in a African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in Chicago (again, this was wrong to do also as anyone should be able to attend ANY CHURCH they want), I for least, is not comfortable with going here on Romney's Mormon faith....as they're PLENTY of other things to criticize him on.
This is why Church and State Issues should ALWAYS remain SEPARATE, IMHO.
Not a Mormon. Know people who are Mormon. Personally, I would never practice this religion for the "Blacks are Mud People" comment (I'm African-American) yet, I respect their right to believe what they desire.Also, if the GOP wrongly associated President Obama with being a Muslim (which he's not) and criticized his former attendance in a African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in Chicago (again, this was wrong to do also as anyone should be able to attend ANY CHURCH they want), I for least, is not comfortable with going here on Romney's Mormon faith....as they'reof other things to criticize him on.This is why Church and State Issues should ALWAYS remain SEPARATE, IMHO. |
LAS VEGAS – Team USA has already dealt with its share of challenges in the opening week of training camp, and plenty of questions still remain on the Americans' road to London.
Contract situations, fatigue and injuries limited the progress of Team USA. Three players – Eric Gordon, Rudy Gay and Anthony Davis – were cut and named alternates. After Blake Griffin suffered a major knee injury that will keep him off the Olympic roster, Davis, the 20-year-old top pick in last month's NBA draft, was added.
Scroll to continue with content Ad
"There have been a lot of distractions – not Vegas distractions, but contract, injury, different situations during these first eight days," Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
Team USA hopes to limit those distractions before its Olympic competition starts on July 29. Here are five questions facing the Americans before they arrive in London:
1. Who will start for Team USA?
Chris Paul started at point guard, with Kobe Bryant at shooting guard, LeBron James at small forward, Carmelo Anthony at power forward and Tyson Chandler at center in Team USA's exhibition victory over the Dominican Republic. Unless Paul’s thumb injury worsens, expect him to remain as the starting point guard. The only position in question is power forward, where Anthony started in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
It’s possible that Kevin Durant, who scored 24 points off the bench against the Dominican Republic, ends up starting over Anthony. Durant, however, also has a comfort level playing with Oklahoma City Thunder teammates Russell Westbrook and James Harden, both of who will come off the bench.
Story continues
"Coach just said before we went out on the floor that 'Melo was starting and I was like, ‘That’s cool with me. Whatever the team needs,' " Durant said. "That’s something we may do down the line, but I really don’t know. It was a little different coming off the bench, you know. I was there for three or four minutes, but then he left me out there for the rest of the first [quarter]. So, either way I felt good."
2. Who will be Team USA’s biggest competition in London?
Spain is led by the Gasol brothers, Marc and Pau. The Spanish roster also includes NBA players Serge Ibaka, Rudy Fernandez, Jose Calderon and rookie Victor Claver – Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio is out with a knee injury. Ibaka has already claimed Spain has as much talent as the Americans. USA defeated Spain in the gold-medal game during the Beijing Olympics.
Argentina, the 2004 Olympic gold medalists, is always a threat while led by Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola. France has Tony Parker, Nicolas Batum and Boris Diaw, but is missing Joakim Noah. Lithuania and Brazil are also countries to watch.
[ Photos: Members of Team USA hoops]
"When you put on this jersey, there’s a sense of pride for us, a sense of patriotism," Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love said. "So, we just want to get out there and play as hard as we possibly can, no matter who we’re playing, no matter what night it is. At the end of the day we’re going for the gold on August 12."
3. Could this be the most athletic and fastest team in Olympic history?
Speed and athleticism are major weapons for Team USA – and that’s without Griffin. Westbrook, Chris Paul and Deron Williams are all speedsters, and Durant, Anthony, James and Bryant can also fill the lane on the break.
Team USA scored 63 points in the second half against the Dominican Republic. Any country that is forced into a track meet with Team USA will lose. Expect Westbrook, Paul and Williams to pressure opposing teams' ball-handlers. Andre Iguodala will be a defensive specialist on the wing while Chandler, James and Davis challenge shots.
"It is like a dream," Anthony said. "I get a rebound, I push the ball up the floor and I have Kobe one way, LeBron one way, I have K.D. trailing and I got Chris Paul out there, too. It is kind of surreal."
4. Will size matter for Team USA?
The Americans have only three players taller than 6-foot-9: Chandler (7-1), Love (6-10) and Davis (6-10). The one benefit of adding Davis to the roster is he can provide some needed length.
Anthony, Durant and James can take turns playing power forward and possibly even some center with smaller lineups. What Team USA lacks in size, it makes up in versatility with a roster of players who can play multiple positions. The U.S. had Paul, James, Anthony, Bryant and Durant on the floor at the same time during one stretch of the first half against the Dominican Republic.
Size, however, will be the biggest concern against Spain because of the Gasol brothers: Marc stands 7-1 and Pau is 7-0. But if James, Durant or Anthony play power forward or center, the Spaniards could have trouble using big men to defend them. Expect Krzyzewski to use Team USA's speed and athleticism to compensate for the lack of size.
When asked what is Team USA’s biggest concern, Anthony said with a laugh, "We’re small – too small."
5. How is Team USA's chemistry?
Team USA's chemistry is the best since it began using NBA players in 1992. James and Anthony will be playing on their third Olympic team. James, Anthony, Bryant, Paul and Deron Williams won Olympic gold medals together four years ago in Beijing. Durant, Chandler, Westbrook, Love and Iguodala won gold medals together two years ago at the world championships.
The only U.S. players without international experience at the senior level are Harden and Davis. No U.S. team has had a roster with that much familiarity or international experience.
"Overall, one of the things we wanted to accomplish here was to develop good camaraderie," Krzyzewski said. "Guys seemed to get along really well. They pull for each other, and they play hard. Now, we have to translate that into an effective system, both offensively and defensively, and they have to get to know one another, and we have to get to know them in this context."
Check out Elite Athlete Workouts from Yahoo! Sports:
Other popular content on the Yahoo! network:
• Memorable Moments: Raised fists by Tommie Smith and John Carlos
• Ralph Lauren promises 2014 Olympic outfits will be American-made
• Aborigine claims racism, threatens Olympic boycott |
UPDATED Bowie's takedown of Hadfield's ISS "Space Oddity" highlights copyright's absurdity
Update: The Ottawa Citizen has retracted its article about the takedown of Hadfield's video. The article incorrectly said that Bowie had not renewed the license for this work. The truth is that Bowie had sold the right to this song, and the owner of that right was the intransigent party. The more important point of the article, though, is that none of this would matter if Hadfield had recorded the song and put it out on CD instead of on Youtube, because we have a relatively sane system of compulsory licenses for sound-only recordings; the law has not made the obvious step of expanding to cover Youtube covers, and that means that wonderful work like Hadfield's is at the mercy of capricious rightsholders in a way that it would not be if it were made in older media.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's cover of Bowie's Space Oddity was a worldwide hit, and now it has been disappeared from the Internet, thanks to a copyright claim from David Bowie. Ironically, if Hadfield had recorded the song and sold it on CD or as an MP3, there would have been no need for him to get a license from Bowie, and no way for Bowie to remove it, because there's a compulsory license for cover songs that sets out how much the performer has to pay the songwriter for each copy sold, but does not give the songwriter the power to veto individual covers (that's why Sid Vicious was able to record "My Way").
As Blayne Haggart's Ottawa Citizen editorial points out, it's hard to make a utilitarian argument for copyright that lets musicians determine who can make Youtube videos from their songs, given that covers are such an accepted part of musical practice. As Haggart writes, "Is the world a better place now that this piece of art has officially been scrubbed from existence?"
Sometimes, the law is an ass. And copyright law, as it’s metastasized over 300 years, definitely possesses ass-like qualities. The Hadfield Space Oddity takedown is the perfect example of how copyright, which is supposed to promote creativity and increase our access to knowledge and culture, all too often ends up doing the exact opposite. Instead, it becomes a way for copyright owners – usually large multinationals, not actual creators – to control what gets created and seen. Most people lucky enough not to spend every waking moment thinking about copyright may think that’s just fair – it is their stuff, after all. But what this completely understandable, instinctive response misses is that this will to control often ends up being a veto over the future creation of knowledge and culture.
Op-Ed: Bad copyright rules killed Hadfield's Space Oddity [Blayne Haggart/Ottawa Citizen] |
A Street Game of
Recreational Espionage
Cold war era spy crap is cool! Dead drops and car tosses, false flags and double agents, cut-outs and provocateurs. This game is one, big excuse to make spy shit happen.
In Tradecraft, a group of spymasters (Handlers) compete to see who can pull off the best covert pass of information between two spies (Assets) under enemy surveillance and in full view of the public. Here's how you do it...
Recruit Your Spies
Up to 1 week before the Op, each Handler recruits a network of spies and sets up the dead drops they'll use for covert communication. This can be done in person, over the phone, even via email or smoke signals. No holds are barred. At this point, all anyone knows about the Op is date, time, and approximate location. Saturday afternoons are usually good.
Handlers will need at least 2 Assets (Couriers) to pass secret messages to each other as part of their Op. They should also recruit at least one Asset (Hunter) to conduct surveillance on each enemy Handler's Op. You can assign an Asset to act as Courier at one Op and Hunter on another, but it can be risky. Being in a hurry makes your Assets conspicuous, as does showing up at more than one Op.
All Assets must be recruited and all dead drops organized prior to the week of the Op. (Exceptions can be made, if all the Handlers agree, but it should count against you in the event of a tie.)
Dead Drop Your Instructions
One week before the Op, all Handlers must select the exact times and locations for the Ops. (Try to keep them within walking distance of each other, in case Assets have to work multiple Ops.) During these five days, each Handler plans their Op and delivers instructions to each of their Assets via dead drop. Assets and Handlers may still communicate about the game via other methods, but an Asset's specific instructions can ONLY be delivered via dead drop.
With their instructions, each Courier must receive one half of a secret message; they will exchange these during the Op. If a Handler needs to deliver any props or concealment devices to an Asset, this must also be done via dead drop.
If an Asset cannot find their dead drop, or if some other problem arises, they may contact their Handler via other methods (phone, email, etc). Handlers may retry their dead drops as many times as necessary, right up to the minute before the Op.
Carry Out Your Op
On the day of the Op, each Handler should share with each other the exact messages that their Couriers will exchange. It is also good practice, though not required, for Handlers to observe the Ops in each other's company.
At the appointed times and places, Couriers will attempt to exchange their messages via some kind of Pass (see below) and Hunters will try to catch them on film. Getting a picture of the Pass is ideal, but Hunters may also submit photos of Assets going to or from the Op. Couriers may photograph Hunters (counter-surveillance), but doing so may blow their cover. It's better to complete an Op unnoticed than to catch a Hunter hunting.
Assuming the Pass is successful, each Courier must photograph themselves with the message they just received and send this to their Handler as soon as possible. (Any photos submitted after midnight on the day of the Op cannot be counted.)
If a Hunter thinks they've identified an enemy Asset, they must submit the evidence to their Handler as soon as possible. (Any photos submitted after midnight on the day of the Op cannot be counted.) Hunters should only turn in a few photos; if you can't identify a likely suspect, you're just fishing.
Endgame
As soon thereafter as possible, Handlers should exchange whatever photos they receive and identify any Assets who get caught. The winner is determined by the following scale:
Successful Op, no Assets identified. Successful Op, but any Hunter identified. Successful Op, but any Courier identified. Successful Op, but the Pass was caught on film. Unsuccessful Op. You lose. Caught cheating. You lose and you suck.
Ties go to the Handler who needed no special exceptions (see above) or, failing that, had the fewest Assets identified. If there's still a tie, everybody wins!
Results can be communicated to Assets via any method, but a Spy's Summit is recommended. Plan for everyone to meet somewhere for debriefing soon after the Op; immediately thereafter, if possible. Think of it as an after party.
See Also: Dead Drops, Concealment Devices, Human Intelligence
Advanced Gameplay
Cut-Outs:
Assets don't have to be lone wolves, they can recruit others to assist them in a variety of ways. These accomplices are not Assets and need not receive their instructions via dead drop. In fact, the Handler doesn't even have to know they exist. Potential tasks for a cut-out include...
Collecting messages from a dead drop.
Performing the Op for an Asset who's face is too well-known.
Distracting enemy Hunters by acting as a provocateur.
Provocateurs:
Handlers may arrange false Ops in an attempt to distract enemy Hunters. The false Op would take place at the same time and place as the real Op, but any messages exchanged must be different from the Op message. (i.e. Handlers may not field two Ops and take credit for whichever one turns out the best.)
Any player who engages in a false Op, whether an Asset or a Cut-Out, is called a "provocateur" They may not participate in the real Op, nor may they act as Hunters during an enemy Op. However, provocateurs get a free pass when it comes to being spotted; any Assets photographed during a false Op are not counted against their Handler. That's kinda the point.
This is an excellent role for players who are well-known to the opposition, as it turns a weakness into a strength. It's also good for busy or unreliable players, since a failure to show up will not endanger the Op.
Double Agents:
Assets may be recruited by more than one Handler, or they may choose to approach an enemy Handler on their own. They are now a Double Agent. There are many reasons that this may happen during a Tradecraft game...
One or both Handlers are attempting to spy on the other.
One or both Handlers are attempting to spread disinformation.
The Asset wants to put one over on one or both Handlers.
In any case, it's dangerous territory. As a Handler, here are a few ways you could handle it...
Intentionally recruit an Asset who's likely to betray you, then feed them disinformation.
Use the Double Agent as a provocateur, but let them think they're a Courier. Whether or not they're successful at misleading the opposition, there's little chance they'll compromise your real Op.
However, you should discourage Double Agents from intentionally blowing an Op. This leads to cool things NOT happening, and we're all better off when cool things DO happen.
Finally, Handlers are free to accept information from non-Assets who happen to be close to a rival Handler. Friends, relatives, and significant others may all be willing to rat out their loved ones for little or no reason... though they might be slightly more likely to pass you bad intelligence!
Glossary:
Asset - Any player who is recruited by a Handler and receives instructions via a Dead Drop (a spy).
Brush Pass - When two Couriers exchange messages while walking past, or bumping into, each other.
Car Toss - When a Courier drops a message into a stopped vehicle as part of a Pass.
Courier - An Asset who carries out a Pass as part of an Op.
Cut-Out - A player who assists an Asset in any way, but is not themselves an Asset. Cut-Outs are useful for well-known Assets and make excellent provocateurs.
Dead Drop - A concealed location in a public space where a Handler can leave instructions for an Asset.
Double Agent - An Asset who has been recruited by multiple Handlers, usually to spy on one for the other, or to feed one misinformation from the other.
False Flag - A fake Op designed to distract enemy Hunters, carried out by Provocateurs.
Handler - A player who recruits Assets, organizes Dead Drops, and conducts an Op (a.k.a. a spymaster).
Hunter - An Asset who conducts surveillance on an Op.
Op (Operation) - An event where Couriers attempt to pass secret information under surveillance and in view of the public.
Pass - Any time two Couriers exchange messages covertly.
Provocateur - An Asset or Cut-Out who engages in a false Op as a distraction. There is no penalty for having a provocateur identified by the opposition. |
'Good captaincy is like the bass player in a band, most of the time when he's doing his job one doesn't notice, but when it's not there it's obvious something is missing' © PA Photos
How much does captaincy really matter?
By: Biggus
Good captaincy is like the bass player in a band, most of the time when he's doing his job one doesn't notice, but when it's not there it's obvious something is missing. Whatever the author claims, it does matter, and is akin to what would be called a 'force multiplier' in military matters.
Former England fast bowler Tyson dies aged 85
By: mamboman
Had the pleasure of meeting Mr Tyson on a number of occasions and I always found him to be that rarest of things, a genuine gentleman. He had his opinions, but he also had convictions behind them and the wherewithal to argue them charmingly and persuasively. So very different from today's entitled twitterati cricketers.
By: landl47
He had a short but very productive career. Almost 1/3rd of his tests were in that one series. That was a little early for me (I was 7 at the time), but I do remember him from a little later on. He bowled off a relatively short run and got his pace from a big pivot and a very fast arm. The photo attached to this article shows how he bent his back to get in position to deliver his thunderbolts. No wonder he didn't stay long at the top - the strain must have been enormous. From all I have heard, he was a cultivated and pleasant man. He lived a long life and will always be remembered for his feats on that 1954/55 tour. If he was cricket's equivalent of a one-hit wonder, at least it was a #1 hit!
'Worrell carried a huge burden as captain'
By: WindiesWatcher84
Fantastic video of Mike Brearley talking about Frank Worrell. I have a miniature Gray Nicolls bat with Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott on it with career statistics and signatures. My favourite piece of West Indies cricket history that I own.
By: harshthakor
To me, the best ever captain after Don Bradman. Worrel blended the tactical genius and motivating ability of a military commander with the feline grace of a musical conductor like no other cricketer. Also the ultimate gentleman of the game who graced the cricket field as gently as a violinist strutting his strings. Few cricketers ever upheld the spirit of the game as much as Worrell. His leadership gave a new dimension to West Indian cricket. Worrel above all led by example being one of the best batsman of all time with his batting posessing grace of the divine. Worrel is an example to the world of cricket today where qualities of sportsmanship have been lost and the game has ceased to be a gentleman's one. The 1963 team he led in England may have been the best ever West Indian team of all with the likes of Kanhai,Butcher,Hall,Nurse,Hunte etc. Played an invaluable role in creating Test cricket's ultimate contest in 1960-61 down under, arguably the best victory for the game's spirit ever.
The other side of speedy Frank
By: Bob Blasdall
Mr Tyson or so I called him when as a 9 year old I asked for his autograph outside Lennon's Hotel in Brisbane in 1954. I vividly remember his smile as he patted me on the head and signed my autograph book which sadly has been lost in my many moves.. I went to the Test at the Gabba but don't have many memories of that event. Mr Tyson was a wonderful fast bowler, cricket commentator, cricket author: I have several of his books including his anthology on the West Indies Australian tour in 1976/77 entitled "The Hapless Hookers." Little did Frank know then that quartets of West Indian fast bowlers were to emulate his feats and blast out batsmen with sheer pace and intimidation. RIP Mr. Tyson. You strode the earth for a short time as an express pace bowling colossus, a true legend of the great game. But more importantly for a much longer time you were the epitome of grace, good manners and humble humanity. Bless you and thank you for the memories....
By: Ashok Bambi
Although I never saw Frank Tyson in real bowling action but when I grew up his bouncers and quick deliveries were point of discussion amongst the local cricketers.He was short statured but very quick and used to terrorise the best of batsmen of the world during his peak time.I had the privilege of meeting him during the level two coaches course at Bangalore.We were there for 15 days and during that time he became very friendly with all the trainees.He was a very simple and joyful person with no air. He was equally good while teaching us the finer points of the game.He tried to learn few words of Hindi during the classes and used to speak in a funny manner.His most common word was "chalo chai piye" (let's drink tea) during the break. Frank we will never forget you.RIP
Calling Delhi, anybody home?
By: Mani Subbu
Being actively involved in Delhi cricket at the grass root level i.e. running an affiliated club of the DDCA, I agree there are problems in the DDCA, but if an effort was made by the Chairman of the Selection Committee, Shri Vinay Lamba a very respected cricketer of the past whose concern it is that Delhi does well despite all the problems,I guess he should have been informed by the bowler of his plan. On the one side we are crying that the standard of domestic cricket is not good because of the lack of participation of the international players and on the other we are supporting a player who is not inclined to play for his State which has initially projected him. I would like to know whether international players would like to take rest if the payments for Ranji Trophy are as high as for IPL or for even one day internationals and test matches, where the players never complain of burnout.
The fastest bowler I've faced
By: Tribin Roy
I am one of those million kids from India who played the game with a lot of passion growing up knowing the fact I never had the talent to really make it anywhere. From my 8th grade till 12th grade, we used to play regularly in the defence 'maidans' every evening.. Most of the days, we had a batch of senior boys already playing at the centre pitch and we had to wait around for them to finish their match to start ours.. Waiting around was fun because we got to watch this pacer from their group named Siyad, who used to start his run up from almost the boundary line of a fairly large ground with a shuffle and hop and then charge in bare footed to deliver thunderbolts aimed at the batsman's head, cup or toes.. He was three to four years elder to me and we used to admire him with the complete knowledge that he wouldn't be playing with us any time soon.. And then came the day when we got to the ground to see the senior team also waiting around because their opponents didn't turn up.
They called us for a match that had our red tennis ball and 50Rs at stake. They won the toss and chose to bat in a 15 over game. We were quite decent on the field mainly because of the size of the ground and our opponents complacency.. We were set a target of 110 in 15 and we even thought we had a chance at it. We knew Siyad was there but heck, 3 overs from him for nothing would still have given us a shot at the score. I was always someone who could hold one end without scoring anything and took up on myself to open against him. With great fear I took stance.
The most horrible thing was the wait for him to reach the point of delivery. Fear and anxiety just kept growing & by the time he reached the crease, I pulled out! He aborted with a chuckle and went back to take a run up that was a yard more than the previous one. This time I managed to stay & vaguely remember a red dot coming right at my eyes before feeling the thump on my temple. All my resolve came crashing down..
- Compiled by Delisa D'Souza and Srikanth Ravishanker
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd. |
Can Authorities Cut Off Utilities And Pose As Repairmen To Search A Home?
Some legal cases do more than raise eyebrows — they push the legal envelope to change the law. Such is a federal case in Las Vegas now working its way through the courts. The question is whether federal agents can disrupt service to a house and then, masquerading as helpful technicians, gain entry to covertly search the premises in hopes of finding evidence that might later justify a search warrant.
The defendants in this case are not your everyday Americans. They are, in fact, Chinese gamblers who were staying in Las Vegas at Caesar's Palace earlier this year.
Caesar's, and other gambling casinos, thrive on these high-rollers and provide them with free villas, butlers and other services. But in this case, at least one of the high-rollers had been tossed out of Macau for running an illegal sportsbooking operation. That fact made the Nevada Gaming Commission and the FBI suspicious that the high-rollers were doing the same thing here.
Suspicions, however, aren't enough for a search warrant. So, according to court papers filed by defense lawyers late Tuesday, the FBI came up with a plan: Working with a computer contractor for Caesar's Palace, the agents first tried to get into the villas by delivering laptops and asking to come in to make sure the connections worked.
The butler, however, wouldn't let them in. Tape from the secret cameras worn by the agents clearly shows the butler blocking their way.
"I just want to make sure they can connect before I leave. Can we just make sure they can connect, OK?" the agent asks.
"The thing is, you can't go in there right now," replies the butler.
When that ploy failed, the agents came up with "another trick," according to defense lawyer Tom Goldstein: "We'll dress up as technicians, we'll come inside, we'll claim to be fixing the Internet connection — even though we can't, 'cause we broke it from outside — and then we'll just look around and see what we see."
Law Should Police Be Able To Keep Their Devices Secret? Should Police Be Able To Keep Their Devices Secret? Listen · 3:28 3:28
Once inside, the agents wandered around the premises as they covertly photographed the rooms, entering the previously off-limits media room. Inside, they saw a group of men watching the World Cup soccer game and looking at betting odds on their laptops — perfectly legal in Las Vegas.
What else the agents saw is not entirely clear at this point, but when they left, they seemed satisfied they had enough to get a search warrant.
"Yeah, we saw what we needed to see," an agent is heard on the tapes saying. His partner responds, "Very cool."
Defense lawyer Goldstein contends that not only was the search illegal, but the government knew it was and tried to cover it up. He contends that the materials submitted to a federal magistrate judge in seeking a warrant later carefully eliminated all indications that the federal agents had themselves cut the Internet line so that the villa occupants would ask for repairmen to come to the villa to fix the problem.
"They just managed not to tell the magistrate what it is they had actually done," says Goldstein.
Indeed, Goldstein notes that he and his clients never would have known that it was the FBI agents who cut the line were it not for one slip of the tongue that the agents made — recorded on tape — when talking among themselves. He adds that when the defense asked for further recordings, the FBI provided two blank CDs, claiming the recording devices malfunctioned.
"There's no real way of looking at this other than to say that it is a cover-up," contends Goldstein.
Cover-up or not, the legal theory used here by the Justice Department and the FBI would change the legal rules of the road dramatically if adopted by the courts.
"The theory behind this search is scary," says George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg, author of a leading criminal law text. "It means the government can cut off your service, intentionally, and then pretend to be a repair person, and then while they're there, they spend extra time searching your house. It is scary beyond belief."
And it's not just Internet service that could be cut off. Cable TV lines, plumbing or water lines — the list in the modern world is a long one.
Saltzburg, who has himself worked for the Justice Department, is frankly puzzled by the brazenness of the search here.
"It's very difficult to understand, unless they want to try to push the law of consent beyond where it's ever gone before," he says.
The Justice Department declined to comment for this story, saying it would make its arguments in court when the time comes. |
So now it’s Tax Free Savings Accounts: yet another Conservative tax promise under fire on the grounds that it “mostly benefits the rich.” Before that it was income-splitting.
Before these recent controversies it was RRSPs, and before that the dividend tax credit, and so on and so forth. Wherever and whenever there is a proposal to lower taxes — or pretty much any policy change really — you may be sure somebody will jump up to object that it “mostly benefits the rich.”
Sometimes this comes with the refrain: “and at such expense!” For example, the Parliamentary Budget Office calculates that doubling the TFSA, as the Tories propose, would increase the annual costs of the program in the long run, already set to grow exponentially, by about a third. All this — all together now — for a program that “mostly benefits the rich.”
This has become one of those monomaniacal obsessions that paralyze the collective cerebral cortex. To be sure, distributional equity is a valid objective of policy. It’s certainly worth pointing out if a program’s benefits skew disproportionately in favour of the wealthy, or its costs fall disproportionately on the poor. For example, you could make that point about the NDP’s preferred approach to child rearing: handing out heavily subsidized day care to everyone, rich or poor, in fact “mostly benefits the rich,” since they’re the ones who tend to line up for it.
Or you could point out that its proposed small business tax cut would also “mostly benefit the rich,” in as much as small business owners are typically better off — in many cases much better off — than average. And you could certainly point to a whole host of policies, from supply management in agriculture to tariffs on imported clothing to state-protected airline cartels, that act to raise the prices of goods and services in a way that, relative to income, costs the poor much more than the rich.
But the thing to notice about all these policies is that they are already terrible ideas in themselves, even without the perverse distributional impact. Subsidizing spaces is a singularly inefficient and choice-limiting way to help people of modest means purchase day care — as opposed to just giving them cash. Taxing small businesses at a special, lower rate is a great way to discourage them from getting bigger. Supply management is an abomination in any number of ways.
Whereas programs like the TFSA, though they may disproportionately benefit the rich — or may not: see below — are otherwise sensible economic policies that happen also to be distributionally regressive. To focus obsessively on the latter, to the total exclusion of the former, is not only to omit half the story. It’s also to suggest a false opposition, as if the distributional impact could not be offset in other ways — a point I’ll also get to below.
When people talk about how much TFSAs “cost” the government or how they “benefit” the wealthy, it presumes that taxing the thing that TFSAs don’t — savings — is the default position, from which TFSAs are an ill-begotten deviation. But they can’t be a “costly” or “unfair” tax break if they aren’t a tax break in the first place.
And they aren’t. It’s a basic axiom of tax policy that you don’t tax savings — or rather, that you should only tax them once, the same as any other income. Taxing savings as it is earned, rather than consumed, only ensures that it gets taxed twice: once on the income saved, a second time on the return on those savings. In effect, it taxes future consumption more heavily than present consumption — penalizing people, in other words, for saving and investing, which is the only way in the long run to raise living standards.
The point is not, as it is sometimes put, to “encourage” saving, any more than TFSAs are a “tax break.” Its merely to avoid discouraging it: to keep the tax system out of people’s choices, or as the wonks call it, “tax neutrality.” That’s the case for explicit consumption taxes, like the GST. And it’s also the case for exempting savings from tax, through vehicles like the RRSP and the TFSA, in effect turning the income tax into a consumption tax.
The TFSA is basically the inverse of the RRSP: where the money you put into your RRSP is tax-free up front, but taxed on withdrawal, the money you put into a TFSA comes out of your after-tax income, but is tax-free after that. That solves a dilemma some savers can encounter, namely that they are likely to pay a higher tax on their income in retirement than they do at the time they saved it: for them, RRSPs don’t make much sense. That’s particularly a problem for lower earners, which is why it’s a myth to say that TFSAs mostly benefit the rich. (In fact, two-thirds of all those who invest in TFSAs earn less than $60,000 a year.)
But what if they did? Smart tax policy starts by getting the design right, particularly with regard to tax neutrality, then deals with any distributional questions that arise in the usual way — by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Or in wonkspeak, by raising the rates on upper income households and/or increasing transfers to those on lower income. Progressivity is a criterion that is properly applied to the tax and transfer system as a whole — not to every single line of the tax form.
To make the point another way: Distributional equity is an important concern of tax policy. It may even be the most important concern. It’s just not the only concern.
National Post |
He was a good employee, Mr. Sterk said, and “I’ve never known him as a hater of anyone or anything.”
In April 2014, the Urbandale police charged Mr. Greene with interference with official acts, after he resisted officers’ efforts to pat him down for weapons. He was “known to go armed,” the police report stated, and was “noncompliant, hostile, combative and made furtive movements towards his pockets.” He fought with officers, who used a Taser to subdue and arrest him.
Just two days later, he was arrested again and charged with harassment, accused of approaching a man in an Urbandale parking lot, shining a flashlight at him, threatening to kill him and using a racial slur. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in both cases and was fined and given probation.
Mr. Greene was arrested on an assault charge in 2001, but the charges were dropped.
People who know Mr. Greene said that the events of recent years, including the end of his marriage and the death of his father, had taken a toll on him. Some said he had served in the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the Pentagon said it had no record of Mr. Greene having been in the military.
“His wife left him” and “his kids got separated from him,” said Tim Tinkle, a neighbor.
Another neighbor, Patti Draughn, said her husband, Larry, fished with Mr. Greene occasionally, and she described him as a “loner” and “a sad man.”
The Greenes live in a one-story beige house with a Trump-Pence sign in the front yard, in a neighborhood where many people say they do not bother to lock their doors. But residents woke up Wednesday to the sight of a SWAT team surrounding the home.
Later that morning, on a gravel road along Interstate 80 in Dallas County, west of Des Moines, Mr. Greene flagged down a passing employee of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, showed his identification and told the employee to call 911, Sergeant Parizek said. Sheriff’s deputies and state troopers responded, found him unarmed and took him into custody, the sergeant said, but Mr. Greene complained of a medical problem and was taken to a hospital. |
SAN ANTONIO – The NBA Development League today announced that San Antonio Spurs guard Cory Joseph has been selected to play in the seventh annual NBA D-League All-Star Game on Saturday, Feb. 16, at Sprint Arena at NBA All-Star Jam Session at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center. The game will air live on NBA TV at 2 p.m. CT.
Joseph has split the 2012-13 season between San Antonio and Austin having been assigned to the Toros on five different occasions. He is the 15th Toros player to be selected to the D-League All-Star Game.
In 18 games with the Toros this season, Joseph is averaging a team-high 19.9 points, 5.1 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.39 steals, while shooting .455 (122-268) from the field, .456 (26-57) from three-point range and .789 (86-109) from the free throw line for the reigning NBA D-League champions. The former University of Texas product ranks second in the D-League in scoring and 11th in assists.
Joseph has posted two double-doubles and has scored in double figures in 17 games, including 20-or-more in 10 games and a season-high 30 points twice.
The Canadian has appeared in 10 games with the Spurs this season averaging 1.9 points in 6.8 minutes. |
Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 23, 2015, 6:04 PM GMT / Updated April 23, 2015, 7:54 PM GMT / Source: NBC News By Halimah Abdullah
Loretta Lynch was confirmed Thursday as attorney general, the first black woman in American history to hold the country’s top law enforcement post.
The Senate approved Lynch, a federal prosecutor from New York, on a 56-43 vote after an unusually lengthy confirmation delay. President Barack Obama nominated Lynch as the successor to Eric Holder in November.
Lynch's path to becoming the first African American woman to serve as attorney general was fraught with partisan bickering — fighting that continued on Thursday.
Obama said the Justice Department would benefit from Lynch’s experience as a “a tough, independent, and well-respected prosecutor.”
"Loretta has spent her life fighting for the fair and equal justice that is the foundation of our democracy,” the president said in a statement on Thursday. “As head of the Justice Department, she will oversee a vast portfolio of cases, including counterterrorism and voting rights; public corruption and white-collar crime; judicial recommendations and policy reviews - all of which matter to the lives of every American, and shape the story of our country."
Holder said he was pleased the Senate recognized "her clear qualifications."
"I have known and worked closely with Loretta for many years, and I know that she will continue the vital work that this Administration has set in motion and leave her own innovative mark on the Department in which we have both been privileged to serve,” Holder said in a statement. "I am confident that Loretta will be an outstanding Attorney General, a dedicated guardian of the Constitution, and a devoted champion of all those whom the law protects and empowers."
But Lynch faced staunch Republican objection to her support of the president’s use of executive action on immigration policies — including the deferred deportation of up to 5 million undocumented immigrants.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Lynch will disregard the Constitution if confirmed.
"We have a nominee who has told the United States Senate she is unwilling to impose any limits whatsoever on the authority of the president of the United States for the next 20 months, Cruz said adding that those months will be marked by more “lawlessness” and overreach by the executive branch.
Cruz was the only senator to miss the confirmation vote because he needed to catch a flight for a previously scheduled commitment in Texas, his campaign told NBC News.
"He had to catch a flight for a commitment in Texas," Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told Kelly O'Donnell. According to a fundraising invitation obtained by Real Clear Politics, Cruz has a fundraiser in Dallas.
In many ways, the opposition to Lynch reflects the contentious and partisan showdowns over the president's nominees during his terms in office. It also speaks to the bitter relationship between Holder and congressional Republicans who say he acted as Obama's "wing man" in matters of policy.
Other Republicans expressed confidence in Lynch’s ability to distinguish herself from her predecessor.
"While I continue to have concerns with President Obama's unilateral immigration actions, I have received written assurance from Ms. Lynch that she will respect both the current court injunction barring implementation of the president's November 2014 executive action as well as whatever final decision results from the federal judicial system's review process, " Senator Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said in a statement on Thursday.
It's been a long road.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had previously said he would not move forward with Lynch's confirmation vote until disagreements over abortion funding in a human trafficking bill were resolved. Negotiators in both parties reached an agreement and the Senate passed the measure on Wednesday.
She will inherit an agency that has waded recently into high profile civil rights investigations of police brutality in African American communities across the country.
Lynch, 55, is no stranger to civil rights issues.
She grew up accompanying her father, a fourth-generation Baptist minister to meetings to plan boycotts of segregated businesses in North Carolina. When she was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office, she helped get a conviction of the New York police officer who sexually assaulted Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, with a broom handle. It was one of the most high profile police brutality cases of the 1990s and, for Lynch, a career achievement.
She will also head an agency charged with helping thwart terrorist threats.
She has plenty of experience on these fronts.
Lynch was first appointed to the U.S. Attorney post by former President Bill Clinton in 1999. She left for private practice in 2001 and then was appointed a second time by Obama in 2010. During her tenure, her office and helped convict the masterminds of the thwarted al Qaeda plot to attack the New York subway system, and tackled cybercrime and high-stakes financial fraud.
Her office's work has also included dramatic Mafia busts such as prosecuting Vincent Asaro and his crew last year for a $6 million cash and jewel heist from a Lufthansa vault at John. F. Kennedy International Airport in 1978. The movie "Goodfellas" was based, in part, on that heist.
Civil Rights groups applauded Lynch's confirmation and see in her a continuation of Holder's approach to justice issues.
"Lynch’s confirmation has also secured the continued legacy of fair and responsible leadership at the Justice Department by Eric Holder," Wade Henderson, president and of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a broad coalition of civil rights groups, said in a statement on Thursday. "Her indisputable qualifications, character, integrity, and tenacity in the face of obstruction assure us she will serve the nation with distinction."
— with Frank Thorp V |
You will find two options on the services tab on NanoWallet: See Polls and Create Poll . Let’s walk through their features.
On the Create poll Option you will find a form with all the information needed for a poll to be created. There is a small description for each field.
The fields that define a Poll are:
Title : Short Title people will see on the poll Index and when opening the poll.
: Short Title people will see on the poll Index and when opening the poll. Description : The description’s purpose is to explain what the poll is about and to include relevant information. The description field is not required but it is strongly encouraged to include one, so people know exactly what they are voting on.
: The description’s purpose is to explain what the poll is about and to include relevant information. The description field is not required but it is to include one, so people know exactly what they are voting on. Poll Index : The address of the Index Account to send the poll. By default a public one is set.
: The address of the to send the poll. By default a public one is set. Date of ending : The date and time the poll will end and no more votes will be counted.
: The date and time the poll will end and no more votes will be counted. Multiple : you can choose if the vote will be multiple option . In this case vote weights will be split between the different options a voter chooses.
: you can choose if the vote will be . In this case vote between the different options a voter chooses. Type : The type of vote counting (details below).
: The type of vote counting (details below). Options : The options voters will be able to choose from.
: The options voters will be able to choose from. Whitelist: Only used for white list polls, where only votes from the given addresses will be accepted.
When creating a poll the user can specify the way votes will be weighted. On the current version two options are offered:
POI : Proof of Importance is a great tool for weighing the votes on polls, specially those that affect the NEM community . In the voting platform we make it possible to use the importance score, intrinsic to NEM , to weigh votes in a simple way.
: Proof of Importance is a great tool for weighing the votes on polls, specially those that affect the . In the voting platform we make it possible to use the importance score, intrinsic to , to weigh votes in a simple way. White List: On simple polls every vote counts the same. A whitelist is required for this polls since anybody can create as many NEM accounts as they want.
Voting and Viewing results
Polls list
On the See Polls option you can observe a list of all the polls submitted to the current poll Index, Which at the start will be the default Index. If you click on any of the polls the details of the poll will be loaded from the blockchain and displayed. On the bottom there is a button for refreshing the polls on the index.
voting on a poll
If everything is correct (you have voting permissions and you have not previously voted) you can send your vote.
If you are cosignatory of a multisig account, you will see a multisig tab, where you can choose from all your multisig accounts and cast a vote for them, which will appear as a multisig transaction to all the cosignatories.
On the options tab you can find a bar where you can input a NEM address pertaining to a poll or a poll Index to display them. You can also create a new poll Index and see a list of your created poll indexes if you have any.
Results of a poll in the testnet
You can display the results of the poll by going into the results tab. If the poll is ongoing the results are not definitive since they are checked on the current block, and importance scores are likely to change.
If the poll has ended the results are definitive and are counted from historical data. The counting automatically pulls data from a node that has Historical data activated. |
AGRA: The suit that had ‘Narendra Damodardas Modi’ monogrammed as pinstripes on it created quite a bad press for PM Modi, but Laljibhai Badshah, the Surat diamond baron who offered to buy the suit for Rs 4 crore but lost the bid, isn't bothered about all that. In Vrindavan, Laljibhai said he will donate Rs 200 crore to 10,000 girls (Rs 2 lakh each) across the country.A major real estate player and also co-founder of Diamond Aeronautics in Surat, Badshah made this announcement at Vatsalya Gram, Vrindavan, during his visit on Monday. He said he would launch this programme in Surat on March 13 and parents of 10,000 girls, selected from Gujarat, would be paid Rs 2 lakh each so that they do not have to bother about their education and marriages.Badshah, who attended the closing ceremony of a function at Vatsalya Gram, a charitable trust which encourages sponsorships to help the needy and poor children, said he was very impressed and inspired by Sadhvi Ritambhara’s work. He said his announcement is a "small contribution" to the ongoing ‘beti bachao, beti padhao’ campaign of the Union government.Badshah is known for his philanthropy. Only last year he had gifted bonds of Rs 2 lakh each to 5,000 newborn girls of the Patidar community in Gujarat . The girls would get over Rs 2 lakh when they attain the age of 21 years and the premium for the bonds, which amount to Rs 2 crore (at the rate of Rs 4,000 per girl for 14 years) would be paid by him.Lavji, Badshah's younger brother, had lost the bid for the monogrammed suit which was ultimately purchased by another Gujarati diamond baron and private airline owner, Laljibhai Patel, for Rs 4.31 crore in February 2015. There were a total of 47 bids for the bandgala suit. |
DEA agent Javier Pena talks about his role on Netflix's TV show 'Narcos'
Timeline: Important events of Pablo Escobar's life and the Medellín Cartel
Javier Pena, now retired, was a DEA agent who was involved in the hunt of former Medellin Cartel leader Pablo Escobar. Once one of the world's most notorious drug traffickers, Escobar's life has been explored in subsequent investigations, books, movies and television series. We've compiled a list of the most important moments reported during Escobar's time as the head of the Medellin drug cartel.
less Timeline: Important events of Pablo Escobar's life and the Medellín Cartel
Javier Pena, now retired, was a DEA agent who was involved in the hunt of former Medellin Cartel leader Pablo Escobar. Once one of the ... more Photo: Michael Paulsen, Houston Chronicle Photo: Michael Paulsen, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 25 Caption Close DEA agent Javier Pena talks about his role on Netflix's TV show 'Narcos' 1 / 25 Back to Gallery
Javier Peña knows what will go down in Netflix's upcoming series "Narcos," and he should. He lived it.
RELATED: Texas governor says most Texas thing in response to drug lord's escape
Now retired from the Drug Enforcement Agency, Peña and his former partner Steve Murphy were consulted on the Netflix show about their six-year hunt for Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The drug lord was the "king of cocaine" and leader of the ultra-violent Medellín Cartel in Colombia. One of his famous sayings to police was "plato o plomo," directly translated to "silver or lead."
"They hired me about a year ago, me and my partner," Peña said. "We just told them what it was like, our participation and the chronology of how it happened."
RELATED: Learn how the Sinaloa Cartel's leader pulled an "Escobar"
Pedro Pascal, famous for his role as Oberyn Martell in HBO's Game of Thrones series, portrays Peña on the show. Peña said Pascal was a good guy, and he took him to the DEA academy to see how agents train for their work. Some of the officers there were Game of Thrones fans and took photos with him.
Peña said that while he and Murphy consulted on the show, he never saw any of the shooting. The show is being touted as Netflix's answer to AMC's "Breaking Bad," and I asked him if he was worried Escobar would come off as a somewhat anti-hero character like Walter White.
"I hope not," Peña said. "The guy was probably one of the worst. He invented narco-terrorism. I hope he's not portrayed as a good guy."
The Netflix original series is scheduled to be released on Aug. 28.
If you want to spoil some parts of the show, look to the gallery above for important moments during Escobar's time at the head of the Medellín Cartel. |
Pakistan Army on Friday night targeted militant hideouts close to the Pak-Afghan border, DawnNews reported, quoting sources.
The Army reportedly targeted a training camp of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar — the banned terror outfit which claimed responsibility for the Feb 13 suicide bombing in Lahore and the Feb 15 suicide attack on the headquarters of the Mohmand Agency's political administration.
The camp was located near the Pak-Afghan border in areas adjacent to Mohmand and Khyber Agency, and was reportedly overseen by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar's deputy commander, Adil Bacha.
Sources said the Army destroyed the compound and four other terrorist hideouts. Militant casualties were reported, but there was no confirmation of the actual number.
The report could not be independently verified.
A few hours before the attack was reported, Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had called Gen John Nicholson, commander of the US's Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, to protest continued acts of terrorism in Pakistan perpetrated from Afghanistan, saying they were "testing" Pakistan's policy of cross-border restraint.
Gen Bajwa had told Gen Nicholson that recent incidents of terrorism in Pakistan had been claimed by terrorist organisations whose leadership is hiding in Afghanistan, and asked him to play his role in “disconnecting this planning, direction, coordination and financial support”.
During the conversation with Nicholson, Bajwa also informed him of the list of 76 "most wanted" terrorists handed over to Afghan authorities earlier today.
The development came hours after the Inter-Services Public Relations announced that security forces had been given special orders to maintain strict vigilance along the Pak-Afghan border.
“The border has been closed since last night due to security reasons. No cross-border or unauthorised entry will be allowed into Pakistan from Afghanistan,” read an ISPR statement issued Friday.
The military's media wing also claimed to have killed more than 100 suspected militants in intelligence-based operations carried out by security forces across the country, including Punjab, in the 24 hours since the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar bombing. |
In July of last year, senators gathered in a wood-paneled hearing room and saw something they had likely never seen before: a black man at the witness table who, 20 years previously, had been a woman. He testified about how, before his sex-change surgery, he had been escorted by police out of women’s bathrooms and stripped to “prove” he could be there. He talked of how he was fired from one of his first jobs (in finance) six months after he announced that he was transitioning from woman to man.
But the most important part of Kaylar Broadus’s appearance before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on that summer morning wasn’t anything he said. His mere presence at the witness table, at the invitation of committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was the signal to the gay, lesbian, and transgender community that they could go all out in promoting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill that bars workplace discrimination against them. Various versions of the legislation have been around since 1974.
The Senate passed it 64-32 Thursday.
Congressional aides point to that Senate hearing as a key moment in turning the tide in favor of legislation that had seen zero action since the House passed a similar bill in 2007. The Senate hearing signaled to gay-rights activists that this time around, they didn’t have to worry about revolt within their ranks over transgender coverage, always a sticky point for squeamish lawmakers.
“Transgender freaks people out,” admitted one gay-rights advocate. By contrast, nine out of 10 people personally know someone who is gay.
The House bill was embroiled in controversy from the get-go because it deliberately excluded transgender people in order to win “yes” votes from moderate Democrats in districts that had backed President Bush in the 2006 election. The exclusion angered gay-rights activists to the point of revolt. Their complaints led then-Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, to hold an infamous press conference in which he spent 45 minutes lecturing advocates about the benefits of having House members vote on tough legislation that actually passes. “These guys need to get used to voting on this,” he said.
Gay-rights advocates never forgot that moment. After the 2007 bill died in the Senate, they decided they wanted all or nothing on ENDA. Nothing was all what they got for five years, and the wounds were still smarting when Harkin convened the 2012 hearing.
Broadus’s testimony effectively healed them — and activists got to work, spending much of the next year and a half in the field. They targeted grassroots messages to senators in red and purple states that their internal polling showed as the most gay-friendly: New Hampshire, West Virginia, Ohio, Arizona, Arkansas, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
The Human Rights Campaign spent $2 million in these states, generating more than 162,000 emails, 80,000 postcards, 15,000 calls, and 1,000 letters.
The advocates made sure that the senators on their “gettable” list knew that they would not be penalized from the right for their support. The Human Rights Campaign circulated an extensive report showing that not one Republican state legislator had ever lost reelection because he or she voted for a state nondiscrimination law.
The tactic worked. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, cited the gay outreach as main reason she decided to support the bill when Harkin’s committee passed it in July. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, also voted for it.
Congressional aides say Hatch was one of the most influential members in the GOP caucus on the bill. He waited until the day before the committee’s vote to let Harkin know of his support. He wanted to be sure it struck the appropriate balance between nondiscrimination for the LGBT community and protection for religious groups, according to his aides. To get there, Hatch’s staffers did lengthy legal review of every employment nondiscrimination bill that had ever been introduced. The exercise was particularly important because Hatch, one of the Senate’s longest-serving members, had voted against ENDA in 1996. He wanted to be sure he could explain why he switched.
As it turned out, Hatch’s explanation gave several religious senators, including Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., a reason to vote for the bill. Hatch said that the Senate’s version of ENDA went further in terms of religious exemptions than a Salt Lake City LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance that had been endorsed by the Mormon Church. Both Hatch and Heller are Mormon. Hatch also made it clear to a host of other religious groups that the bill would do nothing to impede their activities. Because Hatch was the sponsor of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, his word carried some weight.
But it wasn’t Hatch — or even Heller, who this week gave supporters a solid 60 votes — that aides identified as the moment when they knew the bill would pass in the Senate. It was the deafening silence from Senate opponents in the committee markup, which was highly unusual for a meaty, controversial bill. Several Republicans had prepared amendments to it when the panel convened, but without explanation they declined to offer them. The bill passed quickly with nary a peep.
“You always worry about amendments, as you know. But it was pleasantly surprising to me that we brought it up and it passed in five minutes. No amendments. Nothing,” Harkin told National Journal Daily.
The radio silence from opponents continued on the floor; debate seemed pointless when the House won’t take up the bill.
Advocates have a different take on the noticeable lack of public protest. They say it’s easier to vote against nondiscrimination when you don’t have to explain it, especially if that explanation will be forever preserved in the Congressional Record. |
An interesting thing is happening over at Stack Overflow. They’ve been doing an analysis of their “niceness” to people. Like all growing online communities there comes a point where you’ve gotten so big that it feels like you’re stuck in Eternal September.
When you start to get real popular on the internet there’s usually a a shift or transition when the early adopters either move on, or attempt to resolve the situation, or any one of the number of things that can happen to a site. Since Stack Overflow, SO, is many times larger than Ask Ubuntu but the same kind of site, I think we can look at how they’re solving their “big city” problems and apply it to make AU better.
I’m not surprised that SO used a very scientific method of figuring out how nice they were to people. They gathered up all the comments, shoved them into Mechanical Turk, and then published the results. Stack Overflow is nice, nyah-nyah, science. And the debate continues. 🙂
I’d like to think we do a decent job of keeping the snark down on Ask Ubuntu. If someone asks “How do I adjust my clock?” and someone else responds with “Have you googled?” you can be pretty sure that kind of response gets removed in a timely manner. Every day we have users submitting fixes to answers and questions, and about 140,000 visits every day, so we know the content is getting better and more importantly, staying up to date.
The site does have a pretty strict element to it. If your question is a bug report, it gets closed and you’re sent to Launchpad. If you want to run a poll or have a chit chat about Ubuntu it’s closed and you’re sent to the forums, and so on. It’s my strong opinion that this level of focus is a good thing, do one thing and do it well. But on the other hand I can see why some people might think we’re sending them up the creek with no paddle, and after reading some of the bad comments posted on Stack Overflow it reminds me that we should be vigilant to ensure that we’re learning how to continue to grow without letting the quality slip.
So what’s your opinion on Ask Ubuntu? Do you feel like the site is friendly and welcoming to new users and contributors? Have you had a bad or good experience with the site? |
Tim Stevens
Classroom bullies don't stop us from wearing normal glasses. A couple of French bullies in McDonald's should not make us doubt the future of projects like Google Glass.
We have to be careful when looking at Steve Mann's story and pondering questions like "is the world ready for X?" We can't let the actions of a few close-minded bullies force us to hit the brakes on a progression of technology that many of you are obviously excited about. Classroom bullies don't stop us from wearing normal glasses. A couple of French bullies in McDonald's should not make us doubt the future of projects like Google Glass.
That said, we cannot let their Luddite antics color what is a genuine privacy concern amongst much of the populace. Recording (and publishing) private conversations is a dubious thing legally, and while we've seen Google having some success at changing legislation to suit its future-minded goals, this is a rather different proposition.
Until the world has developed some sort of Laughing Man-like technology for dynamically obscuring faces and blocking conversation recording, it's clear that the world is not quite ready to release projects such as Google Glass upon the streets. But, the world very definitely needs to start having conversations about how it's going to handle technology like this because it's coming -- and soon. For once, it'd be nice if society were actually ready for it.
Zach Honig
It was just shy of four months ago that Google first grabbed our attention with Project Glass, launching a mock-up demo video on YouTube to show us what the company had in store. Calendar appointments, text messages, walking directions and even subway alerts popped up as a man went about his day -- the implications were certainly promising, from a convenience perspective. But then, at the end of the demonstration, the wearer hopped in a video call, sharing a live feed of a sunset through the same eyewear that was mounted to his head for the entire day. Project Glass wasn't just about accessing Google services hands-free -- it was about sharing your life with others as it happened, with the people you encountered indoors and out being broadcast around the world in realtime. Privacy? Forget about it. Even in your own home.
Google Glass may now have a name, but we've known to expect something like it. One day. Which also happens to be the title of Mountain View's harmless YouTube intro -- Google Glass: One day... But just a few weeks after our first glimpse at Glass, we learned that day could come in 2013. Google I/O attendees had an opportunity to pre-order a Glass Explorer Edition for $1,500. Beginning next year, several thousand people could be streaming video and photos to their Google+ profiles while walking down city streets, through airport checkpoints, from tables at a restaurant, lecture halls on campus, even business meetings. That's not to suggest that these individuals will be reckless with their newfound live streaming abilities, but the potential exists. And so will the fear.
No shirt. No shoes. Project Glass. No service. Constant monitoring puts anyone on edge, and even if some subjects and strangers are disciplined enough to avoid lashing out, not all will be. Glass attacks will stream live to the web alongside birthday parties, shopping sprees, graduation ceremonies, copyrighted Hollywood flicks at the theater. If your eyes can see it now, Project Glass will see it, too. One day...
Darren
I touched on it when I was spouting off about Google's revelations at I/O, but I'm 100 percent convinced that the world just isn't ready for Project Glass. Or, anything similar to it. I've seen privacy advocates explode for things much, much less invasive, and while we're gradually becoming okay with security cameras in places like fuel stations and street corners, there are still those that cry "Big Brother!" whenever possible. And therein lies the crux of the argument. Who here is to say that Project Glass is okay, but CCTV is not? Who is the final judge on drawing that line in the sand? Do we have the proper legal infrastructure to make these decisions, or is it ever possible to truly rule correctly on what is and isn't okay to film? My guess is that it'll be ambiguous for as long as humans roam this planet, and it'll never make us entirely comfortable.
One of the bigger issues Google (and whoever else tries this) will have is education. There's a zero percent chance Google itself can truly educate the world on Glass, and that it's not always recording. There's no conceivable way the TSA lets a baggage handler at DTW wear these to work. It's just a matter of time before that "No Smoking" sign at your favorite eatery is amended to say "No Wearable Cameras." Something tells me Glass will only ever be welcomed in places where wearable cameras already are; we've no qualms seeing a head-mounted GoPro on the slopes or the racetrack, but take one into a public washroom and you'll probably get some disconcerting looks.
Google seems to think it'll change the way the world works by letting us wear a camera that can record whatever we want. Something tells me reality will force those dreams back a few notches, making it more of a GoPro competitor than a portal to the future. I won't say that I'm happy or sad about it, but I'm pretty sure humanity isn't ready for anything more significant.
Jamie
I can't deny that the prospect of playing with a pair of big G's specs excites me. I imagine strolling around a museum or gallery, artifacts in one eye, Wikipedia in the other. OK, maybe that example's a bit poetic, but it's tame given the possibilities. We're in the smartphone age now, and wearable computers are the natural, complementary progression of the always-on lifestyle. But, just because I get it doesn't mean I want it. It's not because of the worldwide CCTV argument -- it's what effect such integrated hardware will have on us, the consumer. I just can't see life-streaming to an absent audience taking off, leaving us nothing more than a conveniently located camera. Especially one that will likely be of lower quality than your average point-and-shoot, just as obvious and with on-board storage for those paranoid about pumping to the cloud. There are endless ways to determine where I am right now. From the IP of this very computer and the cameras in this building, to the GPS on my phone and the Oyster turnstile at the tube station across the way. Head-mounted computers won't revolutionize global surveillance -- it's just a visual cue to the ugly reality.
It's not the camera that worries me, it's the uncooked data.
Besides, it's not the camera that worries me, it's the uncooked data. I'm sure my Google profile is terrifying enough, and forever hungry. It's a bit unsettling, and more accurate than I'd want to admit, to think that my experiences in life are increasingly a service tailored by some giant, faceless corporation. The scenarios are endless. Could Glass enhance my time in a new city? Or will I be getting the 'Google knows best' version. Am I stopping at this restaurant because I want to, or because Yelp is pushing me through the doors based on my habits, location and user reviews? I can't escape connectivity running my life. I rarely get event invites outside Facebook, big G itself runs my calendar and falling out of sync is a growing concern. But I still like my games with a controller, my streaming through Ethernet cabling and prefer Lo-Fi photography to Instragram filters. I want to play, but I'm just not ready to experience RL through information feeds and AR-tinted lenses.
Philip
I couldn't have been more conspicuous. I was an official photographer for a huge state fair, walking the grounds and capturing images of general merriment. I was armed with my largest and most professional gear, a clipboard full of photo release forms and a badge that essentially said "I'm not a creepy dude, I swear." Signs were posted at all entrances notifying everyone that photo and video crews may be capturing visuals for marketing purposes. Yet, one day, when I snapped a fairly routine shot of two kids enjoying a science display, their father jumped in between, Batman-style, and politely (but firmly) asked what I was doing. He accepted my explanation, but declined to allow his children to be photographed for marketing purposes and requested the photos I had taken be deleted.
It was a rather peaceful conclusion that could have easily turned as violent as the one in Paris. And that was with me being Mr. Obvious Photographer Guy. This is the world EyeTap and Project Glass are trying to enter. I'm not quite sure we're ready for the aftermath. If I had to guess, I'd give the general public about two weeks after Project Glass' launch to start raising privacy concerns. That could lead to news reports and enough of those could lead to congressional hearings. In the end, I fully expect a government mandate requiring devices like these to have "recording" lights, or some other way of easily determining when it's capturing or not.
Heck, I could see a market for devices for those looking to avoid the Glass' gaze – devices (perhaps GPS-based) that prevent nearby wearable cameras from capturing images at a certain location. And I expect court cases. Lots and lots of court cases. This is the world Project Glass and similar products are trying to enter. I'm sure Google had nothing but the best of intentions when it set out to create a camera to record everything. I'm just afraid the company may not like what it eventually sees.
Jon Fingas
The defining moment for Project Glass, in my mind, wasn't the jump from a blimp -- it was when Google showed a mother playing with her child and recording the moment for posterity. The effects of that scene on the child weren't exactly traumatic, but the footage represents the fundamental disconnect between Google's thinking and ... well, the rest of us. Google thinks you'll want to record much of your life's private moments and keep that constant connection to the internet; as of today, I and most of the people I know would balk at the idea.
While I certainly wouldn't advocate mangling someone over wearing video-capable glasses, that collective aversion mentioned earlier no doubt manifested itself in the EyeTap incident. Some of us just don't like the idea of being recorded in public, even if it's a casual phone photo or snapshot. Imagine how it would feel to know that there's a real chance people are recording you at any moment you leave home, and that it would be hard to tell if they were. You'd be slightly paranoid, wouldn't you? Yes, the novelty still has people on edge to start with, but that reasonable expectation of privacy could persist well into the future, even in CCTV-dominated countries like the UK.
You'd be slightly paranoid, wouldn't you?
It's one thing to conduct personal experiments. As potentially intrusive as they can be, they're singular events. Project Glass is intended as an (eventually) mainstream product, however, and I just can't see that widespread adoption happening without something short of a sea change in society's values regarding openness. Google likes the idea of an always-worn internet connection for the sake of its business; that doesn't mean it's right for the common good.
Myriam
There's no doubt that what happened to Steve Mann at that McDonald's on the Champs-Élysées is wrong -- assault is wrong -- but it reinforces my belief that most people aren't ready for something like Project Glass. Major cultural differences are at play here, in terms of understanding privacy and technology.
I grew up in France (I'm a French citizen), spent half my adult life in English Canada (I'm also a Canadian citizen) and the other half in the US. Culturally, the French are extremely sensitive about privacy and tend to distrust anyone (person, company, government) that's perceived as threatening privacy -- sometimes with violent results as witnessed here. This is reflected in France's strict privacy laws. In my experience, folks in North America are more easily willing to give up some privacy for the sake of convenience. As a result it's going to more difficult for tech like Project Glass to be accepted in some cultures than in others.
To the average, non tech-savvy person, something like Project Glass is indistinguishable from magic.
But there's also another divide at play here beyond privacy -- one I've touched upon in the mobile podcast recently -- and that's people's understanding of technology. Most folks have no clue what happens under the hood of their car yet alone how their smartphone works. I'd argue that to the average, non tech-savvy person, something like Project Glass is indistinguishable from magic. This fosters one of two reactions: curiosity or fear -- and in the wise words of Yoda "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering." I think we're likely to see more violent behavior around tech like Project Glass before we see acceptance.
Personally, I'm willing to give Project Glass a try -- I've always wanted to be a cyborg after all, so bring it on. My only concern is the Google-only tie-in. I'd be more comfortable with a device that's more open. |
I am a Pure Land Buddhist and a practitioner of the Nembutsu. For a while I have been intrigued by the similarities between the nembutsu (the main Pure Land Buddhist practice, Mindfulness of Amida Buddha) and certain practices in various religions worldwide. I was originally going to write one long post covering all of the religions and practices I want to compare. But then I realized I need to separate this subject into multiple posts if I do not want it to be bizarrely long. So I have decided that I am going to write several articles on this subject.
I would like to compare Buddha Mindfulness, specifically the nembutsu, with the Hare Krishna mantra of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Dhikr of Islamic Sufism, Christian practices such as the rosary and the Jesus Prayer, and Naam Japo and Waheguru of Sikhism. Since I am not an expert on these practices (and since I only practice Buddha Mindfulness), I will try to use as many sources and quotes as possible. The first practice I will compare to the nembutsu will be the Hare Krishna Mantra.
Nembutsu:
Hare Krishna Mantra:
Buddha Minfulness and the Nembutsu
So what is the nembutsu? The Nembutsu is a form of Buddha Mindfulness. Buddha Mindfulness is one of the oldest practices in Buddhism, recorded in both the Buddhist Agamas and the Nikayas. Every single Buddhist group in the world practices Buddha Mindfulness in one form when they take refuge in the Buddha. If you do not take refuge in the Buddha, then you are not practicing Buddhism. Besides basic refuge, Buddha Mindfulness can take many forms. It can also take the appearance of bowing and prostrating (especially while chanting), contemplation of the body of the Buddha, contemplation of the qualities of the Buddha and his awakening, and saying the name of the Buddha. The Mahanama Sutra [1] describes Buddha Mindfulness as:
(1) "There is the case where you recollect the Tathagata: 'Indeed, the Blessed One is worthy and rightly self-awakened, consummate in knowledge & conduct, well-gone, an expert with regard to the world, unexcelled as a trainer for those people fit to be tamed, the Teacher of divine & human beings, awakened, blessed.' At any time when a disciple of the noble ones is recollecting the Tathagata, his mind is not overcome with passion, not overcome with aversion, not overcome with delusion. His mind heads straight, based on the Tathagata. And when the mind is headed straight, the disciple of the noble ones gains a sense of the goal, gains a sense of the Dhamma, gains joy connected with the Dhamma. In one who is joyful, rapture arises. In one who is rapturous, the body grows calm. One whose body is calmed experiences ease. In one at ease, the mind becomes concentrated.
"Of one who does this, Mahanama, it is said: 'Among those who are out of tune, the disciple of the noble ones dwells in tune; among those who are malicious, he dwells without malice; having attained the stream of Dhamma, he develops the recollection of the Buddha."
This version of Buddha Mindfulness is a contemplation of the virtuous qualities of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, and his awakening, through reciting a set formula. The benefits of this practice include purifying the mind of passions, purifying the mind of aversions, and purifying the mind of delusion. In one who does this, joy is said to arise, along with a sense of understanding the Dharma and the goal of practice: Nirvana. Basically, by practicing Mindfulness of the Buddha, one comes into direct contact with ultimate reality, and over time one strengthens that connection, which brings the practitioner closer and closer to Nirvana.
The nembutsu of the Pure Land school is a direct development of this practice. Instead of focusing on the historical Buddha, the Pure Land school practices mindfulness of Amitabha Buddha through chanting his name.
The Sanksrit formula given in the Pure Land school is Namo Amitabhaya Buddhaya. One translation of this could be, "I take refuge in Amitabha Buddha." Amitabha Buddha is also called Amitayus Buddha. His names mean Buddha of Infinite Light and Buddha of Infinite Life. Light and life are symbols for wisdom and compassion respectively. So when you say "Namo Amitabha Buddha," you are saying "I take refuge in the Buddha of Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Compassion." Here, wisdom and compassion describe the awakening of Amitabha Buddha. Amitabha's Buddha nature is the same as our own in that they are both empty and share the same attributes, so it could further be interpreted as saying "I take refuge in the Infinite Wisdom and Compassion of awakening, both within and without."
Krishna Consciousness and the Hare Krishna Mantra:
If Buddha Mindfulness is mindfulness of the Buddha, his awakening, and his qualities, then Krishna Consciousness is mindfulness of Krishna, his supreme godhood, and his qualities. One does this by chanting Krishna's mantra:
hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa
kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma
rāma rāma hare hare
This is a form of Bhakti Yoga [2].
Bhakti Yoga is a spiritual practice focused on loving devotion to a personal god. Bhakti Yoga can be contrasted with Karma Yoga, the fulfillment of duty in society in order to gain liberation, and Jnana Yoga, the pursuit of knowledge and meditation in order to gain liberation.
According to Wikipedia [3] the mantra can be interpreted as follows:
"Sanskrit is a polysemic language and as such, this mantra has multiple interpretations all of which may be considered as correct. 'Hare' can be interpreted as either the vocative form of Hari, another name of Vishnu meaning 'he who removes illusion.' Another interpretation is as the vocative of Harā a name of Rādhā Krishna's eternal consort or His energy (Krishna's Shakti). According to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Harā refers to "the energy/shakti of Supreme Personality of Godhead" while Krishna and Rama refer to Supreme Godhead Himself, meaning 'He who is All-Attractive' and 'He who is the Source of All Pleasure'. In the hymn Vishnu Sahasranama spoken by Bhishma in praise of Krishna after the Kurukshetra War, Krishna is also called Rama.
"It is sometimes believed that 'Rama' in 'Hare Rama' means 'Radharamana' or the beloved of Radha (another name for Kṛṣṇa). The more common interpretation is that Rāma refers to Rama of the Ramayana, an earlier avatar of Krishna. 'Rama can also be a shortened form of Balarama, Krishna's first expansion.' The mantra is repeated, either sung out loud (bhajan), congregationally (kirtan) or to oneself aloud or mentally (japa). A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami describes the process of chanting the Maha Mantra as follows:
"Krishna consciousness is not an artificial imposition on the mind; this consciousness is the original energy of the living entity. When we hear the transcendental vibration, this consciousness is revived ...[]... This chanting of 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare' is directly enacted from the spiritual platform, and thus this sound vibration surpasses all lower strata of consciousness - namely sensual, mental, and intellectual ...[]... As such anyone can take part in the chanting without any previous qualification."
If Hari is meant to be a name of Vishnu, then this mantra has the effect of removing illusion, similar to the nembutsu. Notice that this describes quote Krishna as all attractive. I will bring this up later.
So in both of these practices one chants the name/names of what one considers to be ultimate reality. By chanting the name, one gains a connection with that ultimate reality, which in turn naturally brings about the awakening of the practitioner. Therefore, in order to understand the difference between these practices, one needs to understand the difference between ultimate reality in Buddhism and ultimate reality in Hinduism.
Ultimate Reality in Buddhism vs. Hinduism
The best contrast between ultimate reality in Buddhism and Hinduism that I have ever read was something posted by a Redditor named Krodha [4]. I am not sure if Krodha is the original writer of this quote, or if he is quoting someone else, but he says:
"An ontological non-duality [advaita] is monistic, we find this type of non-dualism in teachings like Advaita Vedanta. Buddhism has a different type of non-duality [advāya], which is epistemic instead of ontological.
"An ontological non-duality is where everything is reduced to a single substance that exists alone by itself, which is the definition of monism. For example if subject and object were merged and we then held a view that the union of the two as a single X is truly substantial and valid.
"On the other hand, an epistemological non-duality is simply a recognition that the nature of phenomena is free from the dual extremes of existence and non-existence, hence "non-dual". This is a non-reductive non-duality because it does not leave anything in its wake, there is no X left over once the nature of phenomena is recognized.
"In epistemic non-duality the nature of a conditioned phenomenon [dharma] and its non-arisen nature [dharmatā] are ultimately neither the same nor different, hence they are 'non-dual,' because the misconception of a conditioned entity is a byproduct of ignorance, and therefore said entity has never truly come into existence in the first place. This means that the allegedly conditioned entity has truly been unconditioned from the very beginning. And to realize this fact only requires a cessation of cause for the arising of the misconception of a conditioned entity, i.e., a cessation of ignorance. If dharmins and dharmatā were not non-dual then it would be impossible to recognize the unborn nature of phenomena because that nature would be rendered another conditioned entity.
"TL;DR:
"Non-duality in Hinduism and sanatanadharma in general is a view that promulgates an ontological, transpersonal, homogenous, unconditioned existent. Which means that non-duality in the sanatanadharma is a substantial and reductive non-duality.
"Whereas one's (ultimate) nature in the buddhadharma is epistemic, personal, heterogeneous and free from the extremes of existence and non-existence. This means that one's so-called "non-dual" nature in Buddhism is an insubstantial and non-reductive non-duality."
So Advaita Vedanta takes everything to be part of the same super-soul, which is god or the transcendent self. Everything is part of the same being and the same substance. This transcendent self is contrasted with the ego-self, which is the belief that one's own current body and mind are the self.
Now, Advaita Vedanta is a specific Hindu sect, distinct from Gaudiya Vaishnava (a major school of Krishna devotees), but the Gaudiya Vaishnavan view of ultimate reality is mostly the same.
In Gaudiya Vaishnavaism Krishna is taken to be this transcendent self, the god that everyone is ultimately part of. This is why Krishna Consciousness is described as "the original energy of the living entity." Now, what is unique in Gaudiya Vaishnavaism is that everyone has their own soul. Each of these souls is essentially a shard of the universal soul that falsely believes itself to be separate from the super-soul. Thus the ego-self in Gaudiya Vaishnavaism is not just the belief in an individual self. It is the belief that this material body is the self, separate from the universal soul. Each material body simply contains within it a piece of the universal soul. This is referred to as illusion (maya). Thus everyone is part of God, but no single person can be said to absolutely be God. Under the influence of maya, one's original consciousness is clouded over by wrong views and delusions. Because the ego-self is an illusion of separateness, it is not really separate, and is not individually existent. Because Krishna Consciousness is the original consciousness, it is the true self and the only truly existing thing.
The Bhagavad Gita describes the Universal Self as:
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3 [5]
"42. The senses are said to be superior (to the body); the mind is superior to the senses; the intellect is superior to the mind; and that which is superior to the intellect is He (the Atman).
43. Thus, knowing Him who is superior to the intellect, and restraining The self by the Self, destroy, O mighty-armed, that enemy, the unseizable foe, desire."
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11:
"5. Behold, O son of Prithâ, by hundreds and thousands, My different forms celestial, of various colours and shapes.
6. Behold the Adityas, the Vasus, the Rudras, the twin Ashvins, and the Maruts; behold, O descendant of Bharata, many wonders never seen before.
7. See now, O Gudâkesha, in this My body, the whole universe centred in one,—including the moving and the unmoving,—and all else that thou desirest to see."
Chapter 11 then goes on to briefly describe the practice of uniting with this ultimate reality:
"52. Very hard indeed it is to see this Form of Mine which thou hast seen. Even the Devas ever long to behold this Form.
53. Neither by the Vedas, nor by austerity, nor by gifts, nor by sacrifice can I be seen as thou hast seen Me.
54. But by the single-minded devotion I may in this Form, be known, O Arjuna, and seen in reality, and also entered into, O scorcher of foes.
55. He who does work for Me alone and has Me for his goal, is devoted to Me, is freed from attachment, and bears enmity towards no creature—he entereth into Me, O Pândava."
Note that the practitioner is described as entering into Krishna. This means that when they die, they will become one with the universal consciousness and will no longer be reborn. This is different than the nembutsu, because the goal of the nembutsu is rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida Buddha. Some Pure Land Buddhists interpret rebirth in the Pure Land as a place you are born into where you can pursue enlightenment in the perfect conditions. Jodo Shinshu Buddhists interpret rebirth into the Pure Land as attaining Buddhahood, where you return to emptiness.
Chapter 12 of the Bhagavad Gita elaborates on how to unite with the universal-soul:
"2. Those who, fixing their mind on Me, worship Me, ever-steadfast, and endowed with supreme Shraddhâ, they in My opinion are the best versed in Yoga."
...
"6-7. But those who worship Me, resigning all actions in Me, regarding Me as the Supreme Goal, meditating on Me with single-minded Yoga,—to these whose mind is set on Me, verily, I become ere long, O son of Prithâ, the Saviour out of the ocean of the mortal Samsâra.
8. Fix thy mind on Me only, place thy intellect in Me: (then) thou shalt no doubt live in Me hereafter.
9. If thou art unable to fix thy mind steadily on Me, then by Abhyâsa-Yoga do thou seek to reach Me, O Dhananjaya.
10. If also thou art unable to practise Abhyâsa, be thou intent on doing actions -for My sake. Even by doing actions for My sake, thou shalt attain perfection.
11. If thou art unable to do even this, then taking refuge in Me, abandon the fruit of all action, self-controlled."
So Hinduism and Buddhism both say that the ego-self arises through ignorance (maya). The difference is that Buddhism says that there is no self at all--not an ego-self, and not an ultimate self. In Buddhism, everything is not of the same substance. There is no universal soul or consciousness. You and I are different.
So if we are not part of the same super-soul, what makes the separation of subject and object an illusion? Because Buddhism says that the nature of ultimate reality is empty of both existence and non-existence, there is no self that ultimately arises, and no self that ignorance arises from. I am neither different, nor not different than you, because ultimately we lack both existence and non-existence. The ultimate nature of reality is empty, and because it is empty it can manifest anything. But these manifestations neither exist, nor don't exist either. They are simply stirred up by ignorance. Ignorance is neither the same as nor different from emptiness. To visualize this, think of how air is stirred up by the wind. Emptiness is the air, wind is the ignorance.
Everyone's emptiness, or dharmadhatu, is separate but has the same attributes the way two rocks are separate but share the same attributes that make them rocks. If you dip a bucket in a river and lift it out, empty it, and then repeat the process, you are not picking up the same exact water each time. But the water you pick up each time does have the same attributes.
Now that I have compared the views of ultimate reality in these systems, let's compare how both of these practices are supposed to provide liberation. How does it work?
How it Works
Nembutsu:
As I said earlier, in both of these practices one chants the name/names of what one considers to be ultimate reality. So first you have to decide what you believe ultimate reality is, and then you use a symbol, such as a name, to connect with it. In Gaudiya Vaishnavism this symbol is literally Krishna, as the vibration of the mantra is a manifestation of universal soul. In Buddhism the symbol is literally Amida, in that the name is empty just like anything else, and thus it contains the aspects of Amida. Furthermore, It is Amida because people have injected the symbol with the meaning of Amida for thousands of years.
On one level, Amida Buddha is a Buddha outside of us who we receive help from to achieve rebirth in his Pure Land. This is the compassion and wisdom outside of us that we rely on constantly whether we know it or not. In one way, Amida exists as the name. There could also be an actual individual being who has absolutely perfected these traits and became a Buddha. That "being" could be considered Amida Buddha. But the Amida outside of us could also be the individual moments when we experience compassion and wisdom outside of us--no matter who or what manifests it. We also contain the same the characteristics that constitute Amida Buddha's Buddha nature, so on another level Amida Buddha's Buddha nature is the same as our own Buddha nature, so we are Amida Buddha. Although this has to be carefully contrasted with the karmic-self. The karmic self is not Amida Buddha.
Amida Buddha is the Buddha of Infinte Wisdom and Compassion. Wisdom and Compassion are the attributes of Amida Buddha's Buddha nature. These are the aspects of Amida that everyone and everything has. So Amida Buddha is simultaneously all of the Wisdom and Compassion outside of us in life, as well as within us. He is the food that we eat as well as all of the circumstances and sentient beings that brought that food to us. Amida Buddha is also the love of our parents and even the love of our dog. Amida Buddha is also the love that you feel for others.
In Vajrayana Buddhism, Amida Buddha is one of the 5 Dhyani Buddha. Each Dhyani Buddha represents an aspect of both the enlightened mind and the ignorance that covers it.
A Lion's Roar article [6] describes Amida as follows:
"In the west of the mandala is Amitabha, buddha of the Padma (lotus) family, who is red and represents discriminating-awareness wisdom and its opposite, passion or grasping. The intense desire of passion is transmuted into an attention to the fine qualities of each and every detail. Padma is associated with the element fire, with spring, with façade and color."
Amida Buddha's wisdom is specifically the wisdom to discern the reality of desire and passion. When one's Amida nature is covered in ignorance, it wants everything and it wants to belong. Thus it has a magnetizing quality. The enlightened version of this is a sense of belonging to everything, which results in attention to and appreciation of tiny details, as well as empathy and charm. The article continues:
"The padma family glows with the vitality of red energy. Padma sanity is a finely-tuned intuition that discriminates subtle experiences without bias. When people manifest the wisdom aspect of padma, they are engaging, magnetizing and charming. This energy listens deeply and speaks from the heart. Padma also can have an obsessive desire to magnetize and grasp the most pleasurable and ideal situations. When people manifest its confused quality, they can cling to what gives pleasure, are overly emotional, and perpetually seek confirmation."
The article begins with a description of a dinner party and the participants. Each of the participants manifests an enlightened or confused aspect of enlightenment. Andrea represents the Padma family:
"Andrea is all fun and engagement. People contact is very important to her. She has lots of friends and makes connections with people easily. She is dominantly padma but also loves the richness, expansiveness and caring for others that is her ratna side."
So Amida Buddha specifically represents the "energy" of padma, which is magnetizing. It makes us want to join other people and participate with them. It makes us desire pleasant experiences. When this aspect of enlightenment is covered by ignorance it manifests as longing and desire. When it is clear it manifests in empathy and charm.
It is important that Amida Buddha's aspects of compassion and wisdom are described as magnetizing. Krishna was described as all attractive. Both Krishna and Amida are associated with desire, which draws people to things, people and ideas. They draw us to them through our desire to chant their names. That is why Shinjin is described as a spontaneous moment of joy, and the Hare Krishna Mantra is supposed to bring joy that results in spontaneous dance. The nembutsu has also been associated with dancing. When associated with dancing, it is known as the Nembutsu Odori [7]:
"Contemplation of Amida with the repetition of the words Nama- Amida-Buddha’ was believed to be one of the ways of attaining salvation in Amida’s Pure Land. However it was Kuya Shonin (903-972) who first introduced Nembutsu Odori as a ritual dance and recitation of Nembutsu to obtain salvation, and who, for this purpose, travelled all over the country instructing the people.
The Nembutsu of Kuya may still be seen in some parts of Japan, notably in Aizu district."
Since we are believed to live in the Age of Desire, or Mappō in Buddhism and the Age of Kali in Hinduism, these practices are believed by their followers to be specially suited for people of the present day, who are said to be trapped in their own desires and passions.
Before Amida Buddha became a Buddha, he made his Bodhisattva Vows. These vows are what makes the nembutsu suited for people of today. Of his 48 vows, Amida vowed that [8]:
"12. If, when I attain Buddhahood, my light should be limited, unable to illuminate at least a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of Buddha-lands, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment."
So Amida Buddha vowed that his Light would shine everywhere. Light, again, is a symbol of wisdom, so this means that his wisdom can manifest itself anywhere. We are also protected and held by this light, which means rebirth in the Pure Land is assured.
"13. If, when I attain Buddhahood, my life-span should be limited, even to the extent of a hundred thousand kotis of nayutas of kalpas, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment."
He also vowed that his life-span would be unlimited. Life is a symbol of compassion. It is unlimited, so it can also manifest anywhere at any time.
"18. If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten quarters who sincerely and joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and call my Name, even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment."
He then vowed that if anyone chants his name, they will be saved. "Even ten times" means that the number doesn't matter. It is connecting to Amida Buddha that counts. In order to make this connection, one has to:
1. Joyfully entrust oneself to Amida
2. Desire to be reborn in his Pure Land
3. And say the name
These constitute the three minds, which are the aspects of the One Mind, which is Shinjin. The three aspects of the One Mind, can further be described as Sincere Mind, Deep Mind, and the Mind of Aspiration for Birth In the Pure Land. The Sincere Mind is basically what it sounds like--a sincere mind free of double-mindedness and doubt. Deep Mind refers to recognizing oneself as a karmic-being incapable of self-power practice, while simultaneously recognizing the need for other-power, which is Amida. The Mind of Aspiration is the mind that desires to be reborn in the Pure Land in order to pursue enlightenment. When these three aspects of mind are together they constitute the One Mind. When one chants with the One Mind, one receives Shinjin, or other power faith. The moment of Shinjin can also be described as hearing the name--not just in the sense of arbitrarily hearing the sound, however. It is the moment when the nembutsu resonates deeply and causes a change of heart.
It is the result of letting go of one's ego-self and relying on what is not ego--one's own Buddha nature as well as the compassion, wisdom and Buddha nature of others. This Shinjin is roughly equivalent to Kensho in Zen practice. One then must continue a chanting practice for the rest of one's life. This is roughly equivalent to post-Kensho practice in Zen. This post-Shinjin nembutsu is a nembutsu of gratitude to Amida Buddha.
So first one makes the initial connection to Amida Buddha and their own Buddha nature, and then one spends the rest of their life strengthening that connection. The Jodo Shinshu Shoshinge [9] describes Shinjin as follows:
"The Name embodying the Primal Vow is the act of true settlement,
The Vow of entrusting with sincere mind is the cause of birth;
We realize the equal of enlightenment and supreme nirvāņa
Through the fulfillment of the Vow of attaining nirvāņa without fail."
"True settlement" is the stage of non-retrogression, when you are assured of eventually attaining Buddhahood without losing progress. In the Pure Land school it is associated with receiving Shinjin. It is caused by the Primal vow (Amida Buddha's 18th vow), which is embodied by "the Name" which is the nembutsu. The Shoshinge continues:
"We, an ocean of beings in an evil age of five defilements,
Should entrust ourselves to the Tathagata’s words of truth.
When the one thought-moment of joy arises,
Nirvāņa is attained without severing blind passions;
When ignorant and wise, even grave offenders and slanders of the dharma,
all alike turn and enter shinjin,
They are like waters that, on entering the ocean, become one in taste with it."
The "evil age of the five defilements" is the current age, Mappō or the degenerate dharma age, when self-power practice is difficult to impossible to complete for most people. Thus it says we should "entrust ourselves to the Tathagata's (a title of the Buddha) words." Entrusting represents Sincere and Deep Mind, which sincerely recognizes oneself as a karmic-being in need of the help of other-power, the aspect of wise and compassionate awakening within and without. "Karmic-being" is a description of the ego-self. Because other-power is in contrast to our normal experience, the karmic-being, it is described as other-power. Because Shinjin is joyful entrusting to these aspects, it is called other-power faith. It arises naturally when one goes beyond the ego-self. When one entrusts in this way, "one-thought moment of joy arises." This one thought moment of joy is Shinjin. It is a spontaneous moment of joy resulting from transcending one's karmic-self and submitting to other-power. It doesn't matter if you are a smart or foolish person. It doesn't matter what you have done in your life, because Shinjin is a change of heart. It is described as "entering the ocean, become one in taste with it," not in the sense of joining a super-soul like in Hinduism, but in that when you turn to emptiness/the dharmadhatu/Buddha nature, your own begins to manifest.
The Shoshinge then describes post-Shinjin experience:
"The light of compassion that grasps us illumines and protects us always;
The darkness of our ignorance is already broken through;
Still the clouds and mists of greed and desire, anger and hatred,
Cover as always the sky of true and real shinjin.
But though light of the sun is veiled by clouds and mists,
Beneath the clouds and mists there is brightness, not dark."
As soon as one receives Shinjin they are described as always being illuminated and protected by Amida's light. This means that one's birth is already assured as long as one continues a chanting practice throughout their life. This is like relying on a bus to take you to work. First you have to go to the bus stop (the initial contact, Shinjin), and then you have to actually get on the bus (post-Shinjin practice). While a person of Shinjin has come into contact with Buddha nature and Amida, it is a weak connection that is constantly clouded over by one's karmic-nature. This is because Shinjin is described as "one thought moment of joy." It happens, it makes the initial connection, and then one has to keep making that connection over and over, this time with gratitude for already being saved.
This is how Shinran, the founder of the Jodo Shinshu sect of the Pure Land school, explains this "clouding over by karmic-nature" which prevents joy from arising [10]:
"'Even when I call the nenbutsu, I rarely feel like dancing for joy, nor do I have any fervent longing to be reborn in the Pure Land. Why is this so?' I asked"
"'There was once a time when I, Shinran, also had doubts on this question. Now, Yuienbō, I find you sharing the same doubts. But when I reflect
on this more deeply, I realize that our rebirth in the Pure Land is all the more assured because we cannot feel like dancing for joy as we would wish. That is how you should think of this problem. It is defilement by evil passions that oppresses our hearts and prevents us from rejoicing. But since Amida Buddha, knowing this already, has called us 'common beings defiled by ignorance,' I realize that the compassionate vow of the other-power was made for the benefit of just such defiled beings as ourselves, and so I feel it all the more worthy of trust.'
"'Moreover, when we have no longing to be reborn instantly in the Pure
Land, if we fall even slightly ill, we feel helpless with the fear of death. This is likewise because of our evil passions. How strong indeed must they be when we find it so hard to leave our native land of suffering, where we have been wandering through birth and death for numberless kalpas, and when we can feel no longing for Amida's Pure Land, where we have yet to be reborn! We are reborn into that land when we have exhausted, even though reluctantly, our karmic relations to this world of suffering and end our lives helplessly. So Amida pities above all those who feel no urgent longing to go to the Pure Land. Reflecting on this, we realize all the more how trustworthy is Amida's great compassionate vow and how firmly our rebirth is assured. If, on the contrary, our hearts were to rejoice with an eager aspiration for rebirth in the Pure Land, we might believe that we had no evil passions at all.'"
Therefore, post-Shinjin chanting is a grateful response to these spontaneous moments of joy, which reaffirm the connection with other-power again and again. Thus the Shoshinge describes post-Shinjin practice:
"He teaches that the moment one thinks on Amida’s Primal Vow,
One is naturally brought to enter the sage of the definitely settled;
Solely saying the Tathāgata’s Name constantly,
One should respond with gratitude to the universal Vow of great compassion."
All of this happens because one has right understanding (understanding oneself to be a karmic-being in need of Amida's help, Deep Mind), right intent (the Sincere mind and Mind of Aspiration which seek single-mindedly to be reborn in the Pure Land), and right mindfulness (chanting of the nembutsu, constant mindfulness of the Buddha). This is different than the Hare Krishna method because the act of simply being sincerely and intently mindful of Amida Buddha brings about the awakening.
The Hare Krishna Mantra:
The Hare Krishna Mantra is used to develop Krishna Consciousness, similar to how the nembutsu is used to develop Buddha Mindfulness. Both practices seek to transcend the ego. Krishna Consciousness seeks to transcend the ego by identifying Krishna as an universally-existing super-soul. When one understands this, one chants the Hare Krishna Mantra to connect with Krishna. By chanting the Hare Krishna Mantra, one develops a connection to this ultimate-reality, and the continued chanting throughout one's life strengthens this connection. This connection is made through the vibration of the mantra. When one dies, one merges back with the mind of Krishna. It is like an instrument being tuned with a tuning fork.
So we already see a difference here. In Buddhism the mindfulness and intent itself brings about the awakening. But in Gaudiya Vaishnava the mantra's vibration is what brings about the awakening. The vibration of the chant itself is Krishna, ultimate reality, and the super-soul. So through mantra chanting, one is saved by the vibration of sound. That is why it is said "When we hear the transcendental vibration, this consciousness is revived."
The Bhagavad Gita describes Bhakti yoga focused on Krishna as "meditating on Me with single-minded Yoga." Single-minded Yoga roughly corresponds to the Single Mind or One Mind of Shinjin in the Pure Land school. Krishna practice is described as: "fixing their mind on Me, worship Me, ever-steadfast, and endowed with supreme Shraddhâ."
Shraddhâ is one of the original words later translated into Japanese as "shinjin." It basically means faith, but, as with Sanskrit in general, can be interpreted many ways. In the context of the Hare Krishna Mantra, it means to have faith in Krishna, the super-soul. It basically means to have faith that the vibration of the chant will merge you with a universally existing soul.
In the Pure Land Buddhist school Shraddhâ refers to an awakening experienced when one submits their karmic-self to the enlightened aspects of compassion and wisdom outside and within onself.
However, on some level, both practices require a similar sacrifice of the karmic-self to ultimate reality, and both require admitting to being a foolish, karmic being the same way an addict must first admit to being an addict. Notice that practictioners of the Hare Krishna Mantra are described as being "endowed" with Shraddhâ. So this faith is not faith on part of the practitioner. This faith is "given" to the practitioner. The same can be said of Shinjin in Pure Land Buddhism. That is why Shinjin is described as being "received."
This video describes the Gaudiya Vaishnava process of uniting with the Universal Self very well:
At 2:10 the mantra is described as being packed with all of the potencies of the Lord. Thus it naturally causes an awakening the same way putting your hand in fire burns you.
At 4:05 it is described as the cry of the soul, similar to a child crying for its mother, with Krishna being compared to a mother. The mother always responds to the call of the child.
Amida is also frequently described as a loving parent. When one is mindful of Amida, Amida is described as mindful of the person as well. Because both are aware of each other, they find each other, similar to how a parent and a child will find each other if they are both looking. However, if one isn't looking for the other, then they could pass each other without one of them noticing at all. The mother could call the child's name, and the child would just ignore the voice and walk on by. But if both want to connect with each other, they will respond to each other's cries.
At 5:10 the mantra is described as having a mystical and magical effect on you. At 7:30 the awakening associated with the mantra is described as an on-going process. At 12:30, the words Hare, Krishna and Rama are interpreted as eternal energy, all-attractiveness, and eternal pleasure. Thus, when you chant your are drawn to Krishna and want to chant more and more.
The sacrifice of the karmic-self in Krishnaism is described at the 15 minute mark. The Hare Krishna chant and its vibration is said to be too tasty much for a thousand material tongues to taste, or too beautiful for a thousand material ears to hear. Because of this, one is supposed to listen with their "spiritual ears" and chant with their "spiritual tongue." This spiritual ear is the Jiva (individual soul) of the person, which is supposed to be a piece of Krishna, the super-soul. But one's spiritual ears are said to be "covered" by their material ears. Material ear corresponds to the karmic being, and is literally the physical body which is mistaken to be the self. Since the spiritual ear corresponds to the piece of Krishna within the person, this is described as Krishna incarnating as the spiritual ears and spiritual tongue of the person.
In other words, the karmic-self is held to be incapable of true faith or true practice and must ultimately be sacrificed to and replaced by the true faith and true practice of Krishna Consciousness within the being. It is like a child relying on the help of a mother. This is described in the Bhagavad Gita [5] as:
9. If thou art unable to fix thy mindsteadily on Me, then by Abhyâsa-Yoga do thou seek to reach Me, O Dhananjaya.
10. If also thou art unable to practise Abhyâsa, be thou intent on doing actions -for My sake. Even by doing actions for My sake, thou shalt attain perfection.
11. If thou art unable to do even this, then taking refuge in Me, abandon the fruit of all action, self-controlled.
Here it describes the capacities of different people. Those of extremely low capacity are instructed to give up all self-power and control to other-power (in this case the universal soul). This is held to be particularly true in the Age of Kali, which is considered to be the present age. The Age of Kali, is an age when most living beings are incapable of self-power practice. It is difficult to impossible to become liberated by any other means because of the capacities of karmic beings of this age.
Since the theory of the Age of Kali is a nearly identical concept to the idea of Mappō (or the degenerate dharma age) in Pure Land Buddhism, which says that the karmic beings of today are largely incapable of self-power practices such as meditation and precepts. This means nembutsu practice corresponds to Bhakti Yoga in Hinduism. Meditation and precepts correspond to Jnana Yoga and Karma Yoga respectively--the self-power practices.
So both of these practices specifically require the practitioner to give up self-power for faith in other-power.
One of the main effects of both of these practices is supposed to be boundless joy. Texts and teachers specifically mention dancing with joy. But at the same time, this boundless joy is held back from arising by the karmic-self. So instead of constantly feeling joy when you chant, you spontaneously experience moments of joy.
This spontaneous moment of Joy is Shinjin in Buddhism. Post-Shinjin practice is experienced as spontaneous gratitude for Amida Buddha saving you, thus post-Shinjin practice seeks to connect again and again with this joy, making the connection stronger.
The description of material ears and spiritual ears in Gaudiya Vaishnavism is basically the same. One's karmic or material self gets in the way of the joy that spontaneously arises through Krishna Consciousness. When the vibration breaks through the material self, one experiences this joy.
Conclusion:
The Krishna Consciousness method of chanting the Hare Krishna Mantra and the Buddha Mindfulness method of chanting the nembutsu are extremely similar in practice and theory. Both require chanting. Both require discarding the karmic-self and self-effort. Both require faith in an other-power, which is considered magnetizing or attractive. Because of the qualities of magnetism and reliance on other power, both practices are considered especially appropriate for the age that they both say we live in (the age of desire), when self-powered practice is difficult to accomplish. Both are said to bring about great joy that makes you want to dance. And both admit that that joy is held back by the karmic-self that is rooted in illusion.
Two key differences separate these methods:
1. The nature of ultimate reality is different. One holds that ultimate reality is a universally present super-soul or self that can absolutely be said to exist. The other holds that reality is empty and free of both extremes of existing and non-existing. One requires faith in and reunion with a single existing soul that everyone shares. The other requires faith in certain enlightened traits that everyone has the potential to exhibit.
2. How the practice brings about liberation is different. One holds that the vibration of chanting the mantra is itself Krishna, and thus the vibration slowly purifies the karmic-being and brings them into harmony with the super-soul. The other holds that you gain liberation through your intent and mindfulness.
Both require connecting with what one believes to be ultimate reality and strengthening that connection throughout life. But what that ultimate reality is, and thus the goal of practice, is extremely different. The interpretation of and reason for the practice is thus what ultimately separates them.
Sources:
[1]: Bhikku, Thanissaro, Mahanama Sutta. Access To Insight, 1997.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an11/an11.012.than.html
[2]: Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhakti_yoga
[3]: Bhakti Yoga. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_(mantra)
[4]: Krodha. Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/6fvk4q/difference_between_buddhism_and_hinduism/dilotd2/
[5]: Swarupananda, Swami, Bhagavad Gita.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbg/sbg08.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbg/sbg16.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbg/sbg17.htm
[6]: Rockwell, Irini, The Five Buddha Families. Lion's Roar, Aug. 4, 2016.
https://www.lionsroar.com/the-five-buddha-families/
[7]: Moriarty, Elisabeth, Nembutsu Odori.
https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/1035
[8]: On Mark Productions, Fourty-Eight Vows of Hōzō Bodhisattva.
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/48-bosatsu-vows.shtml
[9]: Nishi Hongwanji L.A., Shoshinge.
https://www.nishihongwanji-la.org/teachings/sutras/shoshinge/
[10]: Shōjun Bandō, TANNISHŌ: PASSAGES DEPLORING DEVIATIONS OF FAITH. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series, 1996.
http://www.bdk.or.jp/document/dgtl-dl/dBET_Tannisho-Ofumi_1996.pdf |
Former Tour de France winner Stephen Roche has said that he believes Team Sky is justified in leaving Bradley Wiggins off its Tour team, saying that team harmony and the synergistic effect of a well-chosen line-up are more important than the physical attributes of any one rider.
Roche famously battled his co-leader Robert Visentini for the 1987 Giro d’Italia title, being chased by his own team-mates at one point, and as a result knows what it is like to be part of a divided squad. He said that with Team Sky’s priority being a third Tour de France victory, anything that could make that task more complicated must be considered a risk.
“The team has to avoid internal conflict. There is enough conflict from the outside, from other opponents,” Roche told CyclingTips when asked to give his viewpoint on the matter. “The one thing you don’t want is problems internally.”
Wiggins created headlines on Friday when he told BBC television and radio that he was very unlikely to be part of Sky’s Tour de France team. He won the race in 2012 but there was visible tension between himself and Froome in the race, with the younger rider being asked to support Wiggins in the mountains and to hold back on more than one occasion.
Froome eventually finished second overall in Paris. The duo did not speak for an extended period of time afterwards and Wiggins withheld bonus payments which had been handed out to the others on the Tour squad.
The difficult relationship between the two was highlighted recently by Froome in his autobiography, in which he said that Wiggins was a complicated individual and that the team and other riders had to be careful about how they acted.
“We rode around him and his moods like he was a traffic island,” he wrote.
Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Wiggins said that he had several conversations with general manager Dave Brailsford and had been told he wouldn’t be riding. “As it stands today I won’t be on the start line at the Tour. The team is going to be based around Chris Froome, the defending champion,” he told 5 live. “Obviously he is bidding to win his second Tour.
“The selectors have decided that the team they have got is strong enough to do that. Personally I’m really disappointed. Having missed it last year due to injury, I’d worked hard all winter to get back to where I was in 2012. I’ve come off quite a successful year. But at the same time I understand why they have done that and that it is not about one man, it is about the team, coming back with a second Tour.”
Brailsford has since indicated that the final team lineup hasn’t been decided, but Wiggins feels he will not be part of it.
Roche said the difficult relationship between the two riders is the issue. “We have seen in the past that the fuse is quite easily lit with Bradley and Froome. We saw that a couple of years ago that when they were having their head to head during the Tour. Even the wives got involved. It was a bit ridiculous at the time, but that is the way it is. That is modern sport for you.
“I think the team and especially the sponsor want to very much avoid those sort of problems. So for me the decision is totally understandable.”
He suggested that the team’s overall strength means it is in a position to do so. “It is great to have the option to leave someone like Bradley Wiggins at home [to have the rider level to be in the position of choice – ed]. It is very comfortable for the team. I am sure they would have liked to have had Bradley Wiggins’ experience and skills beside Froome, but independent of that they had to look at it in light of it being a three week long event. That’s the issue.
“In any three week event, there will always be friction and tensions in the last week as everyone is so tired, whether it be personnel, riders, management. In every team, no matter what they say, there is always friction there in that third week. Everyone is under pressure.
“In the first week, things can happen and nobody raises an eyebrow, but in the last week everyone gets very narky over the smallest little thing.
“Tours are generally won and lost in the last week, so they cannot take any risk that there could possibly be any rupture.”
“Bradley isn’t that bad, but he has his own attitude.”
Almost every rider who wins the Tour has the goal of trying to defend the title the following season. However Wiggins is one of a very small number of riders who decided not to do this, declaring at the presentation of the 2013 Tour de France in October 2012 that he would willingly give up that chance to instead try to win the Giro d’Italia.
“I am probably going to concentrate on the Giro next year, because for me it is the only other race on the cycling calendar – along with Paris-Roubaix – that is up there with the Tour de France in terms of historicalness,” he told Eurosport then. “It is just beautiful. I’d love to win that pink jersey.
“My priority will be the Tour of Italy. It has become apparent that it is very difficult to compete in two Grand Tours at that level, so it is more than likely that I will be there [at the Tour] in a helping capacity.”
He said then that he would ride for Froome in the race, but ultimately didn’t perform in the Giro d’Italia and pulled out injured. He didn’t start the Tour, which Froome went on to win.
Roche feels that success effectively handed team leadership to Froome, and that Wiggins can’t now automatically expect Tour selection.
“That has been a bit of Bradley’s attitude over the past couple of years. He hasn’t really been too coherent in what he is saying. People basically take it as it comes as he is quite capable of changing [his mind] – Paris-Roubaix was a non runner for him before, but now he loves Paris-Roubaix.
“I think that it maybe didn’t do him any good [to make that decision about not defending the Tour] as it can definitely be thrown back at him today. And rightly so – he said what he said at the time, he can’t go back on it now. So I think that is it. The cake is cooked.”
Wiggins has said that he only way he believes he could do the Tour de France again would be to move to another team. He has been linked to a possible contract with Orica GreenEdge, although both he and the team have said that no serious negotiations have started at this point in time.
Asked if he believed this could be a good fit, Roche said that it was up to Wiggins himself. “If he puts his mind to it, Bradley can get on in most teams. But it depends on who he is with. He is the kind of guy who needs a lot of space around him when he wants space. He is very individual in that way. When he wants space, he has to have space. When he wants attention, he needs attention. It has to be there.
“I think Bradley is a strange person, a likeable/hateable guy, but he has got a good track record in racing and getting results. It is the same with football – you tolerate certain things because they are super athletes, but in the normal world you wouldn’t tolerate a tenth of the things people do.
“Bradley isn’t that bad, but he has his own attitude.”
He said that he believes this was all taken into consideration by Team Sky when it was deciding whether or not he should get a start in the race. “They know their man very well. They are the ones who brought Bradley to winning the Tour de France. They know his attitude, his good points and his bad points,” he said. “I think Brailsford has managed the team in a way over the last couple of years to win. He hasn’t put together a team just with the best riders available, he has combined cyclists in terms of mental and physical attributes to get the best general combination there is available to him.
“I think that physically, yes, Bradley would be a good choice, and also in terms of decisions and tactics made on the road, but Brailsford has to add in the possibility of them having a fight or an argument. If there was a chance of that, it could be tactically, physically, mentally, morally and commercially bad.
“Look, with the cost of teams these days, I am sure Brailsford is saying, ‘shit, I am paying this guy big money and leaving him at home.’ I am sure that Sky are looking at this the same way. But they are going into the Tour to win the Tour, and they want everything possible on their side so they can achieve that.” |
Introduction
In every Studio Insider, we take you behind the scenes to give you an exclusive close look at the development of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. This week, Senior Concept Artist Ryan Dening and Senior Environment Artist Christopher Reeves give us a detailed look at the design process for the Agent Starship, the X-70B Phantom.
We also gathered questions that the community posted in the most recent Community Q&A thread and sent some of them to Senior Producer Blaine Christine. We hope you’ll enjoy this month’s answers. Have a burning question about The Old Republic? Don’t miss out on this month’s brand new Community Q&A thread!
Agent Starship: Concept Design
I’m Ryan Dening, and I’m here to give you some insight into how we created the player ships in The Old Republic™. The first stage for all the player ships was a document from the design team that contained the gameplay goals for the ships and listed all the rooms and access points that each needed. For reference once we began creating concepts, we took a look at a version of the Ebon Hawk from the original Star Wars™: Knights of the Old Republic™ game that we scaled to be consistent with room sizes that we use in The Old Republic. Because our camera can be higher than in the original, ceiling heights and room sizes needed to be larger, but we wanted to maintain the perception that our ships are the size you'd expect. For the first ship, the Sith ship, I did a rough layout based on the new scale and design's requirements.
From here on, the process for the ships was very similar. We’ll focus on the Agent class starship.
Concept stage 1: Exterior Design
We knew that we wanted the Agent's ship to look advanced, like something you wouldn't know was in the Imperial fleet until decades later, but something that still fit within their current ranks. It couldn't be overtly Imperial, since we didn't want to blow the Agent's cover. The SR-71 Blackbird was a natural reference, especially since it related to Queen Amidala's ship in the Phantom Menace. We also wanted to evoke the feel of something that a certain British spy might drive. The first thing I created was a bunch of thumbnail sketches which the team reviewed, and from there we narrowed it down to a few ideas. Once it was narrowed down, I created a rough sketch of what the final ship might look like.
When we agreed on the sketch, I did a final rendering from one view of the ship. The trick was keeping the design sleek but adding enough details to add scale and keep it within the classic Star Wars™ universe. This was especially hard for the Agent because it pushed that envelope the most out of all our player ships. With this view approved I did orthographic views (top, bottom, side, front, back) to help Chris in building the 3-D version and did drawings from other views to cover all the angles. I also highlighted details like flaps, moving turrets, the ramp and landing gear.
Concept stage 2: Interior Design
The first step for the interior was to take the top view and design a floor plan. This was dream fulfillment for me because usually the interior and exterior designs of ships for games don't have to line up, or there is no interior at all. It was really fun to figure out where to put everything. For the first time, we were making these ships exist in real space and giving the players the experience of owning their own Starship. From the top down view, I sketched the room volumes over the exterior concept.
Now that I had my layout, I needed a style. I wanted to capture the exterior feel - sleek and advanced - but the writing for the agent required a living space where he/she could entertain important guests and charm possible lovers. Once again, rough sketches were done and reviewed.
Once we settled on a design, I did color and material studies, settling on something that wasn't too evil-looking but was more like a fancy space yacht.
I carried this design through the rest of the ship. The rear and cockpit of the ship use a version of the style that is more metallic and tech in feel while the lounge and captain's quarters carry the yacht feel from the concept. This part of the process was the most time-intensive as a lot of layout issues were worked out and a lot of detail was needed.
Once this was done and approved, a few more concepts remained before the ship went out to be built in the game. A lighting and propping pass was done on the interior concept, then ceiling structures and details were added. I also did a cockpit sketch. From here, Chris takes over and the magic happens for real.
Agent Starship: Production
I’m Christopher Reeves, and I’ll be explaining how we take the ships from the concept stage to real, in-game ships for the players to enjoy. Honestly, the hardest thing about working on player ships was living up to the quality of their concepts.
Production Stage 1: Exterior
The transition from concept to 3-D for the player ships is very similar to most other art assets in our game. Once we have the concept in hand, we begin with the creation of a working stub model. Though fairly simple, this stage is one of the most important. The stub model is not only a basic starting point for us to build from, but also a way for us to quickly test how the asset will interact with both the environment and a player's character in-game before we invest too much time in its creation. Ultimately this saves us from "Uh-oh..." moments down the line.
For the ship exteriors, the stub modeling process is fairly straightforward; create a quick rough model that matches the proportions of the concept and fits comfortably into our existing hangars without scraping the paint. We also model the entrance to the ship interior and test that the player can easily access the door. Once we’re happy with how the stub looks and feels, it's off to full production!
With the stub as a template, we create a high-poly model that will be used to project the normal and ambient occlusion (self-shadowing) texture maps. This is by far my favorite step. You get to see the ship model at its full potential without being hindered by those pesky game engine restrictions.
Next, we create a lower-poly model with UV mapping. Ultimately, this will be the model you see in the game. The main goal here is to keep polygon count relatively low without sacrificing too much of that sexy form.
Now that we have a high- and low-poly model, it's baking time! We take all that high-poly goodness and project it down to the game model via the normal map and ambient occlusion map we created earlier. The outcome allows us to see if we were efficient in our texture layout before moving onto our final paint job.
Last but not least, it's time for the final touches of color. We finish up our ship by painting the diffuse, specular, and emissive texture maps (for lighting effects). Now we can move on to the interior!
Production Stage 2: Interior
The ship interiors put a lot more emphasis on the stub model. With a much smaller interior space than seen in the rest of the game, it was important that the doors were wide enough for players to enter and that the ceilings were just high enough to avoid problems with the camera.
After the stub model was approved, we attacked each room individually, starting with the lounge. Each room went through the full process of modeling and texturing before moving on to the next room. This allowed us to have a texture pool which we pulled from for each room to keep the interior appearance consistent.
Once the last room was textured, production transitioned into the game engine where we light and prop each room. Top everything off with some polish and we're all done! The agent ship is all set to be handed off to design team for spawning and the cinematic team for stages.
Community Q&A
We took some of your questions from the last Community Q&A thread to Senior Producer Blaine Christine to get answers, and here they are!
Q: How diverse can I expect the enemies to be? (asked by mattjorgdbb)
A: Our Design team and Artists have been putting a lot of time and effort into ensuring that each world has a very distinct look and feel; even specific areas within each world receive this attention. A big part of this is the diversity of the enemies you will encounter as players. We’re confident that as you move through the game, you will be pleased with the progression of enemies – not only from a visual standpoint, but also in the variety of attacks and challenges that they offer.
Q: Will players of one allegiance be able to visit the opposite allegiance’s planets? (asked by DarkLots)
A: There are certain planets within the galaxy that are only available to one allegiance or the other, but the majority of planets are open to the Republic and the Empire, allowing opportunities to - ahem - ‘encounter’ the other side should you so desire.
Q: Will there be specific quests and/or chains within the class quests for Advanced Classes? (asked by ROFLBATLECOPTER)
Advanced Classes do not have a direct impact on quests or storyline. They obviously have a huge impact on your character’s progression and abilities in addition to the weapons and armor you are allowed to use. Rest assured that, this being a BioWare game, there will be plenty of opportunities to make significant and impactful decisions throughout the course of each Class story. So much so that I suspect many of you will want to play individual classes more than once.
Q: What will BW/EA do in combating cheating in-game with the use of Bots/hacking? (asked by Draigon)
A: Everything within our power.
Q: Is the Trooper armor progression gonna be awesome? (asked by valkyor)
A: Oh, YES! As someone who has had the privilege of seeing the armor progression for each class in the game, I can say without hesitation that you will be blown away by the high level goodies for all of the classes. LucasArts has been great at allowing us to really push the envelope here to make sure that the players that put in significant effort will be amply rewarded. I can’t wait to see the diversity of characters in the game after we have a full server that is live for a while. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words…
Q: Can you miss acquiring a companion without realizing it during the game? (asked by DarthPrecious)
A: Generally speaking, these opportunities are all pretty obvious to the player, as they occur along the main path of your Class Quests. We do, however, reserve the right to put some goodies out there for the particularly ambitious player to find.
Q: Will characters from Knights of the Old Republic be mentioned and will events from Knights of the Old Republic II have an impact on the game? (asked by Forcemachine)
A: All I can say for the KOTOR and KOTOR II fans out there is you will not be disappointed. The Old Republic has been written from Day One of development with the idea that it was a true sequel to the original Knights of the Old Republic games. For folks that have not played those games, you will certainly feel right at home as well, but to get the full backstory we do encourage players to play KOTOR I and II. Or maybe at least read the Wookieepedia entries!
Q: Will we be able to queue an entire group for Warzones? (asked by kbrury)
A: Yes! You can queue solo or in an existing group and our dynamic matchmaking system will do its best to find suitable opponents accordingly.
Q: Will you be able to receive special quests via conversations with your companions? (asked by twistern)
A: Yes; as in previous BioWare games, Companion Characters do indeed have quests of their own. Completing these quests can result in changes to the affection level of that Companion and can uncover rewards for both you and your party that may not be found anywhere else in the game. Each companion also has a distinct personality as they interact with you and other characters you encounter throughout your personal Star Wars saga. We have some great personalities that have been designed and written for The Old Republic!
Closing
We know that you have lots of questions about The Old Republic, and we’ve opened up a new Community Q&A. In every Studio Insider, you’ll find answers to community questions that we take directly from the Q&A. Please keep your questions courteous. We ask that you only post one question, and that you try to avoid duplicating questions that have already been asked. Keep in mind that we can’t talk about everything just yet, so please don’t feel offended if your question isn’t selected.
Discuss this article |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.