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In 2012, shortly after returning to D.C. from medical anthropology fieldwork in Peru for her graduate program, Clare Kelley was diagnosed with kidney stones. She had what was supposed to be routine surgery, but instead of bouncing back as expected, she needed an additional four operations that year.
Things kept getting worse from there. That October, Hurricane Sandy hit. D.C. was mostly spared, but the walls of Kelley’s apartment on Crescent Place NW in Adams Morgan were damaged, so she told her property manager, who, she says, “kind of brushed it off.”
“I started getting sicker and sicker,” she says, “and I didn’t know why.”
Kelley, 32, is an active person: She teaches yoga and pilates. But in the months that followed, she began to feel extreme fatigue.
“Then it started getting weirder and weirder,” she recalls. “My hair started falling out. I’d run my hand through my hair and huge clumps would come out from the roots. I started getting dizzy, fainting.”
She saw a doctor, who ran some tests. Kelley failed a visual acuity test meant to determine whether she’d been exposed to neurotoxins. She knew she’d come into contact with something dangerous; she just didn’t know what, or where.
“That was terrifying, because suddenly it’s like the whole world is threatening,” she says.
Spring rolled around without any answers. Kelley slept in a lofted bed in her apartment, and as the weather warmed, she decided to open the air-conditioning vent on the ceiling, just above her bed. It was covered in mold.
She emailed her property manager, Chatel Real Estate, and ordered a home test kit for mold on Amazon. When it arrived, she tried it on the vent. It tested positive for two kinds of mold. (Chatel, which Kelley describes as “difficult” and uncooperative during her efforts to test for and remediate the mold, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Two of Kelley’s old neighbors in the building confirmed they also saw mold in the basement, and complained that Chatel simply painted over the mold; one sent photos.)
Kelley was aware of the dangers of mold; she’s working toward dual master’s degrees in public health and international development, with a focus on health issues. But she didn’t move immediately, she says, because she was “so sick and so tired that the idea of moving was overwhelming.” Instead, she called the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs to arrange for an inspector to visit.
The inspector, Kelley says, was “great,” but her hands were tied. She saw the mold, but told Kelley, “All I can do is cite for the water damage and the windows not working.”
Mold, it turns out, sits at the center of perhaps the biggest loophole in D.C.’s housing code. DCRA inspectors can cite property owners for insufficient natural light in bedrooms, dilapidated sheds, or improperly mounted radio antennas. But if they see mold, the best they can do is cite for related issues like water damage or an unclean surface—issues that landlords can often remedy in advance of a DCRA visit by simply painting over the mold. The city has treated mold like an environmental problem, not a housing or safety issue of the sort that DCRA can cite for.
“DCRA can only cite for underlying causes, including moisture and pipe breaks,” says Joel Cohn, legislative director of the Office of the Tenant Advocate, a D.C. government office. “If all the inspector sees is some black stuff on the wall, then it’s difficult to establish a responsibility on the part of the landlord.”
* * *
Over the course of a conversation, Kelley sometimes gets stuck on words. It’s not quite a stutter; she’ll arrive at a word and struggle to get it out of her mouth. For whatever reason, during our recent meeting over coffee, it’s mostly years. Narrating a part of her story that took place in 2012, she finds herself unable to say “2012,” instead resorting in frustration to drawing the digits with her finger on the table.
This never happened before the mold incident, she says. She has a lot of problems she hadn’t previously experienced. She has trouble with analytical skills. She feels tired and dizzy. The left side of her body doesn’t work as well as her right. She sometimes loses vision temporarily in her left eye. She feels “crazy anxiety.”
Kelley struggled to find a doctor who specializes in this kind of reaction to mold. It wasn’t until this past October that she came across Dr. Janette Hope in Santa Barbara, Calif., and dipped into her retirement savings to pay a visit. Hope ran a series of tests. One found that Kelley had toxic encephalopathy, a form of degenerative brain damage. Another found elevated levels of mycotoxins—toxins produced by mold—in her urine.
Mold can affect people as an allergen, an irritant, an infectious agent, or a toxin, depending on genetics and a person’s environment. There’s some disagreement among doctors about how strong the link is between mold and toxic reactions. Jerome Paulson, medical director for national and global affairs of the Children’s Health Advocacy Institute at the Children’s National Medical Center, has testified before the D.C. Council about the perils of mold but isn’t convinced that science has established a definitive connection to outcomes like brain damage. “I know a lot of people believe they are affected that way by mold, but I don’t think there’s really scientific evidence to support that,” he says.
But Hope, whose practice deals primarily with mold and mycotoxins and who serves as president of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, argues that there’s “an abundance of international literature” on the neurocognitive effects of mold and that “for the people truly researching it, there really is no debate.” Kelley’s neurocognitive and general symptoms, she says, are consistent with exposure to mold; her kidney stones may have also been caused by mold, but that connection is harder to prove.
Regardless, there’s no question that mold is a substantial public health issue in the District, and one that gives victims little opportunity for recourse.
“Here’s how big a problem it is: When you go to court to file that there’s a problem in housing conditions, you actually check boxes for what’s wrong,” says Judith Sandalow, executive director of the Children’s Law Center. “And in the past few years, literally 50 percent of people who file a complaint in court check the box that mold is a problem.” Sandalow is referring to a 2013 survey by the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, which found that half of all complainants in housing conditions court cited mold or mildew as a problem.
According to Cohn, the leading cause of complaints to the Office of the Tenant Advocate has to do with security deposits. No. 2 is housing code violations, and “mold is a problem in a great many cases”—even though it’s not officially a housing code violation.
Sandalow points to studies that have shown D.C. to have twice the prevalence of asthma as the national average. In her experience, there’s a strong correlation between children who live in mold-infested apartments and children who suffer from asthma—as evidenced by what happens to their health when the mold issue is resolved.
“This is such a solvable problem,” Sandalow says. “When you move a kid from a mold-infested apartment to a new one or remediate the problem, they bounce back almost immediately.”
Unfortunately, mold can be difficult to address, says Sandalow’s colleague Cathy Zeisel, an attorney who handles a lot of mold cases for low-income tenants. “Right now, if there’s no visible dampness and you call in a city inspector, as long as the landlord paints over the mold it will pass inspection,” she says. “We see a lot of landlords who paint over the mold and call it a day.” Legal action is also difficult: In housing court, says Zeisel, the judge will often say that mold isn’t covered by the D.C. housing code; in civil court, cases can take months or even years, so the damage is done by the time the case concludes.
That could change. Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh introduced an amendment to the Rental Housing Act of 1985 this month that would make it easier for the city and for tenants to address mold issues. Under the legislation, passed unanimously by the Council on first reading and awaiting a final vote, the District Department of the Environment would be required to set mold standards consistent with federal mold guidelines. It would also compel landlords to disclose recent mold issues to new tenants, and to hire licensed practitioners to inspect and remediate mold.
If it becomes law, the amendment wouldn’t actually compel DCRA to cite for mold, as it does for things like improper rat-proofing. Instead, according to DCRA spokesman Matt Orlins, it would allow DCRA to use evidence from a mold test as the basis to cite for a “defective surface condition” if the test shows the mold level to exceed the threshold established by DDOE. It doesn’t exactly put mold in violation of the housing code, but it does make it easier for tenants to take mold cases to housing court and get them remedied quickly.
“It doesn’t go as far as we would like,” says Beth Harrison, an attorney with Legal Aid. “We would have loved for it to have specifically said that it is a violation of the housing code.” But she adds that the legislation would put D.C. on the leading edge with regard to mold laws, since most states don’t have legislation to address mold.
“We’re pretty excited about this law,” says Sandalow. “This law will allow us to help a lot more children. It will make a tremendous difference in the health of low-income residents.”
But for people like Kelley, it comes too late. Last week, she went back out to California for neurocognitive rehabilitation therapy. She might never fully recover from the damage she’s suffered—Hope says many patients recover from mold-exposure symptoms, while others do not, and Kelley is one of the sicker patients she’s encountered. But Kelley’s beginning to feel optimistic. While she’s borrowed substantially from her savings and maxed out a credit card to pay for her treatment, friends have now rallied to raise money for her. Perhaps most important for her peace of mind, she’s living in a new apartment—although she had to throw out most of her old possessions due to mold contamination.
Still, Kelley is bothered by the fact that under current D.C. law, other people are likely experiencing what she’s endured. She recently went past her old building on Crescent Place and saw that someone new is living in her apartment. She saw condensation on the window and worried that the moisture and mold problems hadn’t been fixed at all, just painted over. And she’s troubled by the fact that, at least until Cheh’s amendment has a chance to become law, the landlord had no obligation to disclose Kelley’s issues to the new tenants.
For all she knows, they could be going through the exact same thing.
Photo by Darrow Montgomery |
In conjunction with Instagram’s Worldwide InstaMeet, we hosted nine amazing photographers for Universal Orlando Resort’s first ever InstaMeet last October. For those that do not know, an InstaMeet is a group of Instagrammers meeting up to take photos and videos together.
The group started shooting at 6 am, two hours before the park opened. We started off in Islands of Adventure and then moved over to Universal Studios Florida where we finished the day with lunch. Many of the pictures taken during the InstaMeet have been used on all of our social channels.
Here’s some of the incredible photos that were taken:
We plan on holding more InstaMeets in 2016 around our annual events and attractions. So, keep a lookout all year for some great photos by following us on Instagram and searching for #UniversalMoments and #UOinstameet. |
On November 23, BIEN co-founder and honorary co-president Professor Guy Standing (SOAS, University of London) will deliver the 14th annual Kilbrandon Lecture in Strathclyde, Scotland.
In his lecture, titled “Addressing the needs of children and young people in Scotland: The potential of a Basic Income”, Guy will discuss the impact of economic insecurity and inequality on child poverty in Scotland and argue that a universal basic income is an necessary element in an economic system that avoids these ills.
The lecture will be chaired by Jennifer Davidson, Director of the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland. It will be followed by a drinks reception.
Initiated in 1999, the annual Kilbrandon Lecture honors the legacy of the judge Lord Kilbrandon, who chaired the committee whose report led to the formation of Scotland’s children’s hearings system in 1968. The lecture series receives support from the Scottish Government and University of Strathclyde.
Attendees must register online by November 11: ewds.strath.ac.uk/expo/KilbrandonLecture2016.aspx
On November 24, Guy will deliver a lecture on his new book, The Corruption of Capitalism, at the University of Strathclyde.
Photo CC BY 2.0 Catrin Austin |
CLOSE USA Today Network meteorologist correspondent Don Wheeler said weather models forecasting Tropical Storm Harvey's path are uncertain. "They're all over the place," Wheeler said. "Some take it toward east Texas and some toward west Texas." For Louisiana? "Keep your guard up," Wheeler said. Wochit
Hurricane Harvey's track as of 10 a.m. Friday. (Photo: National Hurricane Center)
5:30 p.m. update
The evacuation for areas of Cameron Parish has been downgraded to voluntary instead of mandatory.
The Cameron Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness announced the change Saturday, saying it was effective as of 4 p.m.
There are no inundated roads at this time, but officials caution motorists about the potential for high water, road hazards, strong winds, and tornadoes.
Cameron OHSEP will notify residents when the evacuation will be fully lifted.
4 p.m. update
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says the National Weather Service has confirmed a tornado touched down in the Cameron Parish town of Hackberry.
The Associated Press reports that the tornado hit about 12:25 p.m. Saturday. Edwards says there were no reports of injuries or fatalities but there was “significant property damage.”
Meteorologist Jared Rackley says they have yet to survey the area but photos show an overturned camper and other damage.
Rackley says a tornado watch is up for most of southwest Louisiana and south-central Louisiana until 2 a.m. Sunday.
He urges residents to remain on guard as a heavy amount of rain was expected to fall on the state over the next several days.
In addition, he said the Coast Guard is searching for at least one person who reportedly fell off a boat in Cameron Parish.
Noon Saturday update
Vermilion Parish schools will be closed Monday and Tuesday because of flooding threats posed by Hurricane Harvey.
Catholic schools generally follow the parish school closings decisions.
Diocesan spokeswoman Blue Rolfes said pastors at individual churches make decisions on canceling Mass.
Check your parish websites.
10:30 a.m. Saturday update
The Acadiana coastline from Cameron to St. Mary Parish is under a coastal flood advisory.
A tornado watch was in effect at 10:30 a.m. from Port Arthur, Texas, to the Cameron Parish shoreline.
Harvey moved inland, its winds weakened, but "catastrophic" and "life threatening" flooding was expected on the middle and upper Texas coast. Rainfall will likely be 1-30 inches, the National Weather Service says.
The storm may will spawn "considerable rains" once it moves toward southwestern Louisiana early next week, forecasters said.
10 p.m. UPDATE
Hurricane Harvey, upgraded to a Category 4 storm, has made landfall in Texas.
The eye of the storm moved ashore between Port Aransas, Texas, and Port O'Connor, Texas around 10 p.m. Saturday. Catastrophic flooding is expected due to heavy rainfall and storm surge, according to the National Hurricane Center 10 p.m. advisory.
Maximum sustained winds remained at 130 mph.
Lafayette might expect to see 6-10 inches of rain over the next week.
According to KADN, there is also an increasing chance that the storm could shift back into the Gulf and impact Acadiana. There is also the chance that the storm could re-enter the Gulf of Mexico, turn, and hit Houston again.
Voluntary evacuation orders have been issued in Vermilion Parish — specifically, for low-lying areas south of LA Highway 14. Vermilion Parish schools are closed Monday and Tuesday.
A voluntary evacuation in Iberia Parish has been issued for areas south and southwest of U.S. Highway 90.
2 p.m.
Harvey has been upgraded to a Category 3 storm with 120 mph winds, according to the National Hurricane Center.
#Harvey is now a category 3 #hurricane with 120-mph winds & a pressure of 943 mb (27.85") See the latest advisory at https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFbpic.twitter.com/s0FrcURAsA — NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) August 25, 2017
1:55 p.m.
Hurricane Harvey continued to press westward toward Corpus Christi, Texas on Friday, threatening heavy rain and possible coastal flooding for Louisiana.
Seth Warthen, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, said the storm packed winds of 110 mph, “intensifying quite nicely” as it moved toward shore.
He said an outer band of rain was headed toward Cameron Parish and that “fringe rain” could hit Lafayette by late afternoon or early evening.
Warthen said Lafayette might expect 6-10 inches of rain over the next week, as Harvey moves inland, turns toward the northeast and heads for Louisiana. The NWS on Friday predicted 14.41 inches over the next week in Lake Charles, 16.39 inches in Cameron.
Rainfall predictions east of that were 12.86 inches in Jennings; Crowley, 9.70; Abbeville, 9.20; Lafayette, 7.22; New Iberia, 7.83.
A coastal flood advisory was issued for Lafayette, parts of Vermilion Parish, Iberia and St. Mary.
Offshore oil and gas operators continued to evacuate platforms and rigs in Harvey’s path. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said Friday afternoon that personnel had been evacuated from 86 of the 737 manned production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and four rigs.
For safety reasons, oil and gas producers have shut in about 22 percent of the oil production and 23 percent of the natural gas production in the Gulf, BSEE said in an issued statement.
Some Texas coastal refineries were closed Thursday; other refiners like Valero, Marathon, Phillips 66 and Shell were monitoring the storm, S&P Global Platts reported.
— Ken Stickney
1 p.m.
Attorney General Jeff Landry has warned consumers to be wary of price gouging in the state.
Price gouging laws went into effect when Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency, according to a press release from Landry's office.
“It is an unfortunate reality that some people and businesses attempt to take advantage of consumers during and after natural disasters,” Landry said. “I strongly encourage consumers who suspect price gouging to contact their local law enforcement agencies."
Once a state of emergency is declared by the governor or parish president, a price gouging ban is placed on the area declared to be under the state of emergency. The ban may remain in effect for up to 30 days after the state of emergency ends.
11:50 a.m.
Forecasters say effects from Hurricane Harvey could be felt at far east as the Alabama coast and the western Florida Panhandle, according to the Associated Press.
Harvey is forecast to make landfall in Texas late Friday or early Saturday as a Category 3 storm. It’s predicted to slam into the Texas coast and dump torrential rains before moving eastward.
The National Weather Service says rip currents associated with Harvey could be a problem some 650 miles (1,046 kilometers) away in the Florida Panhandle.
Officials say that means there’s an elevated risk for hazardous surf conditions over the weekend in places including the Alabama coast and around Pensacola, Florida.
11:40 a.m.
Forecasters now say there’s a good chance Hurricane Harvey may hit Texas twice, worsening projected flooding, according to the Associated Press.
The National Hurricane Center’s official five-day forecast Friday has Harvey slamming the central Texas coast, stalling and letting loose with lots of rain. Then forecasters project the weakened but still tropical storm is likely to go back into the Gulf of Mexico, gain some strength and hit Houston next week.
Jeff Masters, Weather Underground’s meteorology director, said this could cause a collision of high water with nowhere to go. Harvey is projected to drop up to 3 feet (0.91 meter) of rain in some places over the next several days.
But a second landfall near Houston means more storm surge coming from the Gulf. Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water above the normal tide, generated by a storm.
11:20 a.m.
According to USA Today Network Louisiana corresponding meteorologist Don Wheeler, the Acadiana area may see 5-8 inches of rain through next week.
Watch his forecast here.
10 a.m.
HOUSTON — Hurricane Harvey intensified as it steered toward the Texas coast on Friday, with forecasters saying it had strengthened to a Category 2 storm with the potential to swamp communities more than 100 miles inland.
According to KADN, there is also an increasing chance that the storm could shift back into the Gulf and impact Acadiana.
The slow-moving hurricane could be the fiercest such storm to hit the United States in almost a dozen years. Forecasters labeled Harvey a “life-threatening storm” that posed a “grave risk” as millions of people braced for a prolonged battering.
The storm has the potential to produce winds hitting 125 mph and storm surges of 12 feet.
Landfall was predicted for late Friday or early Saturday along the central Texas coast, between Port O’Connor and Matagorda Bay. The stretch of coastline spans about 30 miles (48-kilometer) roughly 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of Corpus Christi.
“We’re forecasting continuing intensification right up until landfall,” National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.
RELATED: Here's where you can get sandbags
Harvey grew quickly Thursday from a tropical depression into a Category 1 hurricane. Early Friday, the National Hurricane Center reported it had become a Category 2 hurricane.
Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, the storm was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane before it makes landfall. The last storm of that category to hit the U.S. was Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 in Florida.
Harvey’s effect would be broad. The hurricane center said storm surges as much as 3 feet could be expected as far north as Morgan City, some 400 miles away from the anticipated landfall.
The Cameron Parish Office of homeland security and emergency preparedness has issued a mandatory evacuation for all areas south of the Intracoastal Water Way as of 6 a.m. Friday due to Hurricane Harvey.
The evacuation order includes the communities of Hackberry, Johnson Bayou, Holly Beach, Cameron, Creole, Grand Chenier and Big Lake, according to OSHEP Director Danny Lavigine.
And once it comes ashore, the storm is expected to stall, dumping copious amounts of rain for days in areas like flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth most-populous city, and San Antonio.
All seven Texas counties on the coast from Corpus Christi to the western end of Galveston Island have ordered mandatory evacuations of tens of thousands of residents from all low-lying areas. In four of those counties, officials ordered their entire county evacuated and warned those who stayed behind that no one could be guaranteed rescue.
Voluntary evacuations have been urged for Corpus Christi itself and for the Bolivar Peninsula, a sand spit near Galveston where many homes were washed away by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Texas officials expressed concern that not as many people are evacuating compared with previous storms.
“A lot of people are taking this storm for granted thinking it may not pose much of a danger to them,” Gov. Greg Abbott told Houston television station KPRC. “Please heed warnings and evacuate as soon as possible.”
Abbott has activated about 700 members of the state National Guard ahead of Hurricane Harvey making landfall.
As of 4 a.m. CDT Friday, Harvey was centered about 180 miles southeast of Corpus Christi and was moving northwest near 9 mph with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph.
The last major hurricane to hit Texas was Ike, in September 2008. It brought winds of 110 mph in the Galveston and Houston areas and left damages of $22 billion.
Read or Share this story: https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/2017/08/22/tropical-storm-harvey-may-reform-impact-louisiana-texas/589035001/ |
Earlier this month, DOJ got some good press by releasing the first known Rule 41 nationwide hacking warrant. It targeted Pyotr Levashov, who ran a big botnet infecting tons of Americans’ computers. He was arrested on April 9 in Barcelona and DOJ shut down the botnet.
The good press continued when EFF lauded the way the Rule 41 hacking warrant was handled. I’m not aware that anyone has reviewed the Pen Register application that went along with the warrant, about which I have more concerns, but having EFF’s blessing goes some way to rolling out a new authority without controversy.
Last week, DOJ announced the indictment, last Thursday, of Levashov. Whereas the Rule 41 warrant was submitted in Alaska, the indictment (and much of the investigation) was done in New Haven. Levashov was charged with eight different counts. Of note, the indictment includes two conspiracy-related charges against Levashov without naming any co-conspirators.
What I find interesting about all this is that there’s a still sealed complaint, dated March 24, against Levashov in the New Haven docket, with its own affidavit.
So I’m wondering why the Rule 41 action was taken in Alaska whereas the prosecution (assuming Levashov is extradited) appears slotted for New Haven.
The Alaska affidavit makes abundant reference to the investigative activities in New Haven. It describes that New Haven FBI Agents tested the Kelihos malware, identified how Kelihos harvested credentials, and tracked how Kelihos installed WinPCAP to intercept traffic.
It also includes a footnote describing other cases against Levashov.
I am also aware that an indictment was filed in 2007 in the Eastern District of Michigan for conspiracy to commit electronic mail fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. $$ 371, 1037(a)(2)-(a)(B), 1037(b)(2)(C), 1341, and 1343 and several substantive counts of violating 18 U.S.C. $$ 1037(a)(2), 1037(b)(2)(C), and Section 2. That indictment remains pending. I am also aware that a criminal complaint fi1ed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which in 2009 charged LEVASHOV in his true name with two substantive counts of violating 18 U.S.C. $$ 1030(a)(5)(A)(i), 1030(a)(5)(B)(i), 1030(a)(5)(A)(i) and 1030(a)(5XBXV), as well as one count of conspiracy to commit these offenses in violation of 18 U.S.C. $ 371. These charges resulted from LEVASHOV’s operating the Storm Botnet from January 2007 until September 22,2008. That botnet, like that which is the subject of this prosecution, sent spam to facilitate pump and dump schemes and the purchase of grey market pharmaceuticals. Because the government was unable to apprehend and detain LEVASHOV, it dismissed the complaint in 2014.
But it doesn’t mention the complaint, which had already been filed, in CT — unless that’s what the almost paragraph long redaction in the affidavit was.
One possible explanation for the jurisdictional oddity is just that DOJ could. To test their new authorities, perhaps, they chose to obtain a warrant in a totally different jurisdiction from the one they were prosecuting in, just to lay out the precedent of doing so. And as noted, it’s possible the big redacted passage in the AK affidavit explains all this.
I’d feel better about that if the FBI affidavit submitted in AK hadn’t (possibly) hidden the already existing complaint in CT, though.
I’ve got a question into DOJ and will update if they provide an explanation. But for now, know that Alaska won’t get to host a high profile hacking trial after all.
Upated, fixed DOJ announce date h/t EG. |
Sporting Kansas City announced Friday that the club has signed assistant coaches Kerry Zavagnin and Zoran Savic to new contracts. In addition, Alec Dufty has joined the technical staff as Sporting KC’s new goalkeeper coach.
Zavagnin and Savic have served as Sporting Kansas City assistant coaches since 2009 alongside Manager and Technical Director Peter Vermes, who signed a contract extension with the club through 2019 in November. The longest tenured coaching trio in MLS has guided Sporting Kansas City to a club-record six straight playoff appearances since 2011 and won three major championships — the 2013 MLS Cup and the 2012 and 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cups.
“Much of the success of Sporting Kansas City has been because of the incredible staff that we have,” Vermes said. “The fact that we have been able to re-sign Kerry and Zoran is a great benefit to the club. I am a strong believer that having a consistent staff is important to any club, and the fact that we are able to keep the majority of our people together is important to the future success of Sporting KC.”
Dufty was the goalkeeper coach for Swope Park Rangers during the club’s inaugural 2016 season in the United Soccer League. His goalkeeping corps helped the Rangers win the Western Conference championship and reach the USL Cup Final on Oct. 23. Dufty also served as a goalkeeper coach for the Sporting Kansas City Academy U-18 and U-16 teams.
“We were excited last year to bring Alec on as our Swope Park Rangers goalkeeper coach, and I thought he did a fantastic job with the team,” Vermes said. “Promoting from within is important for us, as we want people who are familiar with our club and have a good understanding of our culture.”
Zavagnin, who was inducted into the Sporting Legends hall of honor in August, has spent the last 17 MLS seasons in Kansas City. During a nine-year playing career between 2000-2008, the midfielder became Sporting Kansas City’s all-time leader in games played (291), games started (281) and minutes played (25,278) across all competitions. He won the MLS Cup and Supporters’ Shield double in 2000 and hoisted the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 2004, the same year he landed MLS All-Star and MLS Best XI accolades.
“It’s an honor and privilege to be part of such a great organization for as many years as I have,” Zavagnin said. “I’m excited to continue on and help this club achieve more championships.”
On top of his success in Kansas City, Zavagnin also made 21 appearances for the United States Men’s National Team — including six World Cup qualifiers ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Zavagnin, 42, transitioned to an assistant coaching role prior to the 2009 MLS season. His current 17-year run as a player and coach with Sporting Kansas City is the second longest with a single team in MLS history behind Ben Olsen, who has been with D.C. in a playing or coaching capacity since 1998.
Savic, 57, was named an assistant coach for Sporting Kansas City in August 2009 when Vermes took over as the club’s Manager. He previously began his indoor coaching career in Kansas City, leading the Kansas City Attack from 1992-1996 and later guiding the Kansas City Comets from 2000-2005.
“It’s been amazing to have been part of the project of growing this club over the last eight years, and I look forward to its continued growth,” Savic said. “I’m going to continue to do my part to help Sporting KC remain one of the most successful clubs in Major League Soccer.”
In 2007 Savic switched to the outdoor game, joining Chivas USA as an assistant to then-head coach Preki. He moved into the television commentary booth for Kansas City matches in 2008 and 2009 before Vermes tabbed Savic to be part of his coaching staff.
A native of Gornji Milanovac, Serbia, Savic began his journey through American indoor soccer with the Buffalo Stallions in 1980. He would go on to star for several teams in the Major Indoor Soccer League, including a three-year spell with the Kansas City Comets from 1982-1984 in which he scored 70 goals over 100 appearances. He retired as a player in 1991 to start his coaching career.
Dufty, 29, joined the Rangers last January from Toronto FC II, where he gained USL experience as the club’s goalkeeper coach in 2015. He was previously an assistant coach at the University of Illinois at Chicago (2012) and Florida Gulf Coast University (2013-2014).
“I would first like to thank Peter Vermes and the Sporting KC organization for this opportunity,” Dufty said. “I’m very humbled and honored to be able to work with this staff. Sporting Kansas City has been at the forefront of growth and success in MLS, and I look forward to helping continue this tradition. I believe my time with the Swope Park Rangers and the Academy has prepared me well for this next chapter in my career.”
As a player, Dufty began his professional career in 2009 with the New York Red Bulls, earning a shutout in his lone league appearance against the Houston Dynamo. He joined USSF D2 Pro League side AC St. Louis in 2010 before returning to MLS with the Chicago Fire later that year. He announced his retirement at the end of the 2011 campaign.
Collegiately, Dufty played one season at Appalachian State University before spending the next three years at the University of Evansville, where he was a two-time All-Missouri Valley Conference selection. He also competed in a U.S. Under-20 National Team camp in 2007. |
What follows are a series of brief reflections (part of a much broader work in progress) on debt, credit, and virtual money: topics that are, obviously, of rather pressing concern for many at the current time.
There seems little doubt that history, widely rumored to have come to an end a few years ago, has gone into overdrive of late, and is in the process of spitting us into a new political and economic landscape whose contours no one understands. Everyone agrees something has just ended but no one is quite sure what. Neoliberalism? Postmodernism? American hegemony? The rule of finance capital? Capitalism itself (unlikely for the time being)? It’s even more difficult to predict what’s about to be thrown at us, let alone what shape the forces of resistance to it are likely to take. Some new form of green capitalism? Knowledge Keynesianism? Chinese-style industrial authoritarianism? ‘Progressive’ imperialism?
At moments of transformation, one of the few things one can say for certain is that we don’t really know how much our own actions can affect the outcome, but we would be very foolish to assume that they cannot.
Historical action tends to be narrative in form. In order to be able to make an intervention in history (arguably, in order to act decisively in any circumstances), one has to be able to cast oneself in some sort of story — though, speaking as someone who has actually had the opportunity to be in the middle of one or two world historical events, I can also attest that one in that situation is almost never quite certain what sort of drama it really is, since there are usually several alternatives battling it out, and that the question is not entirely resolved until everything is over (and never completely resolved even then). But I think there’s something that comes before even that. When one is first trying to assess a historical situation, having no real idea where one stands, trying to place oneself in a much larger stream of history so as to be able to start to think about what the problem even is, then usually it’s less a matter of placing oneself in a story than of figuring out the larger rhythmic structure, the ebb and flow of historical movements. Is what is happening around me the result of a generational political realignment, a movement of capitalism’s boom or bust cycle, the beginning or result of a new wave of struggles, the inevitable unfolding of a Kondratieff B curve? Or is it all these things? How do all these rhythms weave in and out of each other? Is there one core rhythm pushing the others along? How do they sit inside one another, syncopate, concatenate, harmonise, clash?
Let me briefly lay out what might be at stake here. I’ll focus here on cycles of capitalism, secondarily on war. This is because I don’t like capitalism and think that it’s rapidly destroying the planet, and that if we are going to survive as a species, we’re really going to have to come up with something else. I also don’t like war, both for all the obvious reasons, but also, because it strikes me as one of the main ways capitalism has managed to perpetuate itself. So in picking through possible theories of historical cycles, this is what I have had primarily in mind. Even here there are any number of possibilities. Here are a few:
Are we seeing an alternation between periods of peace and massive global warfare? In the late 19th century, for example, war between major industrial powers seemed to be a thing of the past, and this was accompanied by vast growth of both trade, and revolutionary internationalism (of broadly anarchist inspiration). 1914 marked a kind of reaction, a shift to 70 years mainly concerned with fighting, or planning for, world wars. The moment the Cold War ended, the pattern of the 1890s seemed to be repeating itself, and the reaction was predictable.
Or could one look at brief cycles — sub-cycles perhaps? This is particularly clear in the US, where one can see a continual alternation, since WWII, between periods of relative peace and democratic mobilisation immediately followed by a ratcheting up of international conflict: the civil rights movement followed by Vietnam, for example; the anti-nuclear movement of the ’70s followed by Reagan’s proxy wars and abandonment of détente; the global justice movement followed by the War on Terror.
Or should we be looking at financialisation? Are we dealing with Fernand Braudel or Giovanni Arrighi’s alternation between hegemonic powers (Genoa/ Venice, Holland, England, USA), which start as centers for commercial and industrial capital, later turn into centers of finance capital, and then collapse?
If so, then the question is of shifting hegemonies to East Asia, and whether (as Wallerstein for instance has recently been predicting) the US will gradually shift into the role of military enforcer for East Asian capital, provoking a realignment between Russia and the EU. Or, in fact, if all bets are off because the whole system is about to shift since, as Wallerstein also suggests, we are entering into an even more profound, 500-year cycle shift in the nature of the world-system itself?
Are we dealing with a global movement, as some autonomists (for example, the Midnight Notes collective) propose, of waves of popular struggle, as capitalism reaches a point of saturation and collapse — a crisis of inclusion as it were?
According to this version, the period from 1945 to perhaps 1975 was marked by a tacit deal with elements of the North Atlantic male working class, who were offered guaranteed good jobs and social security in exchange for political loyalty. The problem for capital was that more and more people demanded in on the deal: people in the Third World, excluded minorities in the North, and, finally, women. At this point the system broke, the oil shock and recession of the ’70s became a way of declaring that all deals were off: such groups could have political rights but these would no longer have any economic consequences.
Then, the argument goes, a new cycle began in which workers tried — or were encouraged — to buy into capitalism itself, whether in the form of micro-credit, stock options, mortgage refinancing, or 401ks. It’s this movement that seems to have hit its limit now, since, contrary to much heady rhetoric, capitalism is not and can never be a democratic system that provides equal opportunities to everyone, and the moment there’s a serious attempt to include the bulk of the population even in one country (the US) into the deal, the whole thing collapses into energy crisis and global recession all over again.
None of these are necessarily mutually exclusive but they have very different strategic implications. Much rests on which factor one happens to decide is the driving force: the internal dynamics of capitalism, the rise and fall of empires, the challenge of popular resistance? But when it comes to reading the rhythms in this way, the current moment still throws up unusual difficulties. There is a widespread sense that we are heading towards some kind of fundamental rupture, that old rhythms can no longer be counted on to repeat themselves, that we might be entering a new sort of time. Wallerstein says so much explicitly: if everything were going the way it generally has tended to go, for the last 500 years, East Asia would emerge as the new center of capitalist dominance. Problem is we may be coming to the end of a 500 year cycle and moving into a world that works on entirely different principles (subtext: capitalism itself may be coming to an end). In which case, who knows? Similarly, cycles of militarism cannot continue in the same form in a world where major military powers are capable of extinguishing all life on earth, with all-out war between them therefore impossible. Then there’s the factor of imminent ecological catastrophe.
One could make the argument, of course, that history is such that we always feel we’re at the edge of something. It’s always a crisis, there’s no particular reason to assume that this time it’s true. Historically, it has been a peculiar feature of capitalism that it seems to feel the need to constantly throw up spectres of its own demise. For most of the 19th century, and well into the 20th, most capitalists operated under the very strong suspicion that they might shortly end up hanging from trees — or, if they weren’t going to be strung up in an apocalyptic Socialist Revolution, witness some similar apocalyptic collapse into degenerate barbarism. One of the most disturbing features of capitalism, in fact, is not just that it constantly generates apocalyptic fantasies, but that it actually produces the physical means to make apocalyptic fantasies come true. For example, in the ’50s, once the destruction of capitalism from within could no longer be plausibly imagined, along came the spectre of nuclear war. In this case, the bombs were quite real. And once the prospect of anyone using those bombs (at least in such numbers as to destroy the planet) became increasingly implausible, with the end of the Cold War, we were suddenly greeted by the prospect of global warming.
It would be interesting to reflect at length on capitalism and its time horizons: what is it about this economic system that it seems to want to wipe out the prospect of its own eternity? On the one hand, capitalism being based on a logic of perpetual growth, one might argue that it is, by definition, not eternal, and can only recognise itself as such. But at other times those who embrace capitalism seem to want to think of it as having been around forever, or at least 5 thousand years, and stubbornly insist it will continue to exist 5 thousand years into the future. At yet other times it seems like a historical blip, an insanely powerful engine of accumulation that exploded around 1500, or maybe 1750, which couldn’t possibly be maintained without some sort of apocalyptic collapse. Perhaps the apparent tangle of contradictions is the result of a need to balance the short term perspectives needed by short term profit-seekers, managers, and CEOs, with the broader strategic perspectives of those actually running the system, which are of necessity more political. The result is a clash of narratives. Or maybe it’s the fact that whenever capitalism does see itself as eternal, it tends to lead to a spiraling of debt. Actually, the relations between debt bubbles and apocalypse are complicated and would be difficult (though fascinating) to disentangle, but I would suggest this much. The financialisation of capital has lead to a situation where something like 97 to 98 percent of the money in the total ‘economy’ of wealthy countries like the US or UK is debt. That is to say, it is money whose value rests not on something that actually exists in the present (bauxite, sculptures, peaches, software), but something that might exist at some point in the future. ‘Abstract’ money is not an idea, it’s a promise — a promise of something concrete that will exist at some time in the future, future profits extracted from future resources, future labour of miners, artists, fruit-pickers, web designers, not yet born. At the point where the imaginary future economy is 50 to 100 times larger than the current ‘real’ one, something has got to give. But the bursting of bubbles often leaves no future to imagine at all, except of catastrophe, because the creation of bubbles is made possible by the destruction of any ability to imagine alternative futures. It’s only once one cannot imagine that we are moving towards any sort of new future society, that the world will never be fundamentally different, that there’s nothing left to imagine but more and more future money.
It might be interesting, as I say, to try to disentangle the shifting historical relations between war, the development of ‘security’ apparatuses designed above all to strangle dreams of alternative futures, speculative bubbles, class struggle, and history of the capitalist Future, which seems to veer back and forth between utopia and cataclysm. These are not, however, precisely the questions that I’m asking here. I want, rather, to look at questions of debt from a different, and much longer term, historical perspective. Doing so provides a picture much less bleak and depressing than one might think, since the history of debt is not only a history of slavery, oppression, and bitter social struggles — which, of course, it certainly is, since debt is surely the most effective means ever created for taking relations that are founded on violence and oppression and making them seem right and moral to all concerned — but also of credit, honour, trust, and mutual commitment. Debt has been for the last 5 thousand years the fulcrum not only of forms of oppression but of popular struggle. Debt crises are periodic and become the stuff of uprisings, mobilisations and revolutions, but also, as a result, reflections on what human beings actually do owe each other, on the moral basis of human society, and on the nature of time, labour, value, creativity and violence.
Debt and Violence
In this essay I don’t want so much to delve into the philosophical questions as to lay out the historical groundwork, the rhythmic structure of history if imagined as a history of debt. Here my training as an anthropologist becomes particularly useful. One of the traditional roles of the economic anthropologist is to point out that the standard narrative set out in economic textbooks — the one we all take for granted, really, that once upon a time there was barter; that when this became too inconvenient, people invented money; that eventually, this lead to abstract systems of credit and debt, banking, and the New York Stock Exchange — is simply wrong. There is in fact no known example of a human society whose economy is based on barter of the ‘I’ll give you ten chickens for that cow’ variety. Most economies that don’t employ money — or anything that we’d identify as money, anyway — operate quite differently. They are, as French anthropologist Marcel Mauss famously put it, ‘gift economies’ where transactions are either based on principles of open-handed generosity, or, when calculation does take place, most often descend into competitions over who can give the most away. What I want to emphasise here, though, is what happens when money does first appear in something like it’s current form (basically, with the appearance of the state). Because here, it becomes apparent that not only do the economists get it wrong, they get it precisely backwards. In fact, virtual money comes first. Banking, tabs, and expense accounts existed for at least 2 thousand years before there was anything like coinage, or any other physical object that was regularly used to buy and sell things, anything that could be labeled ‘currency’.
‘Money’ in that modern sense, a uniform commodity not only chosen to measure the value of other commodities, but actually stamped in uniform denominations and paid out every time anyone bought or sold something, was an Iron Age innovation — most likely, invented to pay mercenaries. Barter in the sense imagined by Adam Smith, the direct exchange of arrowheads for shoes or the like, can sometimes develop at the margins between societies, or as part of international trade, but it mainly tends to occur in places where people have become accustomed to the use of money and then that supply of money disappears. Examples of the latter include some parts of 18th and 19th century West Africa, or more recently, if more briefly, in Russia or Argentina.
What follows is a fragment of a much larger project of research on debt and debt money in human history. The first and overwhelming conclusion of this project is that in studying economic history, we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call ‘the economy’. What’s more, origins matter. The violence may be invisible, but it remains inscribed in the very logic of our economic common sense, in the apparently self-evident nature of institutions that simply would never and could never exist outside of the monopoly of violence — but also, the systematic threat of violence — maintained by the contemporary state.
Let me start with the institution of slavery, whose role, I think, is key. In most times and places, slavery is seen as a consequence of war. Sometimes most slaves actually are war captives, sometimes they are not, but almost invariably, war is seen as the foundation and justification of the institution. If you surrender in war, what you surrender is your life; your conqueror has the right to kill you, and often will. If he chooses not to, you literally owe your life to him, a debt conceived as absolute, infinite, irredeemable. He can in principle extract anything he wants, and all debts — obligations — you may owe to others (your friends, family, former political allegiances), or that others therefore owe you, are seen as being absolutely negated. Your debt to your owner is all that now exists.
This sort of logic has at least two very interesting consequences, though they might be said to pull in rather contrary directions. First of all, as we all know, it is another typical — perhaps defining — feature of slavery that slaves can be bought or sold. In this case, absolute debt becomes (in another context, that of the market) no longer absolute — in fact, it can be precisely quantified. There is good reason to believe that it was precisely this operation that made it possible to create something like our contemporary form of money to begin with, since what anthropologists used to refer to as ‘primitive money’, the kind that one finds in stateless societies (Solomon Island feather money, Iroquois wampum), was mostly used to arrange marriages, resolve blood-feuds, and fiddle with other sorts of relations between people rather than to buy and sell commodities. For instance, if slavery is debt, then debt can lead to slavery. A Babylonian peasant might have paid a handy sum in silver to his wife’s parents to officialise the marriage, but he in no sense owned her. He certainly couldn’t buy or sell the mother of his children. But all that would change if he took out a loan. Were he to default, his creditors could first remove his sheep and furniture, then his house, fields and orchards, and, finally, take his wife, children, and even himself as debt peons until the matter was settled (which, as his resources vanished, of course became increasingly difficult to do.) Debt was the hinge that made it possible to imagine money in anything like the modern sense, and therefore, too, to produce what we like to call the market: an arena where anything can be bought and sold, because all objects are (like slaves) disembedded from their former social relations and exist only in relation to money.
But at the same time the logic of debt as conquest can, as I mentioned, pull another way. Kings, throughout history, tend to be profoundly ambivalent towards allowing the logic of debt to get completely out of hand. This is not because they are hostile to markets. On the contrary, they normally encourage them, for the simple reason that governments find it inconvenient to levy everything they need (silks, chariot wheels, flamingo tongues, lapis lazuli) directly from their subject population; it’s much easier to encourage markets and then buy them. Early markets often followed armies or royal entourages, or formed near palaces or on the fringes of military posts. This actually helps explain more, rather puzzling behavior on the part of royal courts: after all, since kings usually controlled the gold and silver mines, what exactly was the point of stamping bits of the stuff with your face on it, dumping it on the civilian population, and then demanding they give it back to you again as taxes? It only makes sense if levying taxes was really a way to force everyone to acquire coins, so as to facilitate the rise of markets, since markets were convenient to have around. However, for our present purposes, the critical question is: how were these taxes justified? Why did subjects owe them, what debt were they discharging when they were paid? Here we return again to right of conquest. (Actually, in the ancient world, free citizens — whether in Mesopotamia, Greece, or Rome — often did not have to pay direct taxes for this very reason, but for obvious reasons I’m simplifying here.) If kings claimed to hold the power of life and death over their subjects by right of conquest, then their subjects’ debts were, also, ultimately infinite; and also, at least in that context, their relations to one another, what they owed to one another, was unimportant; all that really existed was their relation to the king. This in turn explains why kings and emperors invariably tried to regulate the powers that masters had over slaves, and creditors over debtors. At the very least they would always insist, if they had the power, that the lives of war prisoners having once been spared, their masters could no longer kill them; that, in fact, only rulers could have arbitrary power over life and death. One’s ultimate debt was to the state; it was the only one that was truly unlimited, that could make absolute, cosmic, claims.
The reason I stress this is because this logic is still with us. When we speak of a ‘society’ (French society, Jamaican society) we are really speaking of people organised by a single nation state. That is the tacit model, anyway. ‘Societies’ are really states, the logic of states is that of conquest, the logic of conquest is ultimately identical to that of slavery. True, in the hands of state apologists, this becomes transformed into a notion of a more benevolent ‘social debt’. Here there is a little story told, a kind of myth. We are all born with an infinite debt to the society that raised, nurtured, fed and clothed us, to those long dead who invented our language and traditions, to all those who made it possible for us to exist. In ancient times we thought we owed this to the gods (it was repaid in sacrifice — or, sacrifice was really just the payment of interest — ultimately, it was repaid by death). Later the debt was adopted by the state — itself a divine institution — with taxes substituted for sacrifice, and military service for one’s debt of life. Money is simply the concrete form of this social debt, the way that it is managed. Keynesians like this sort of logic. So do various strains of socialist, social democrats, even crypto-fascists like Auguste Comte (the first, as far as I am aware, to actually coin the phrase ‘social debt’). But the logic also runs through much of our common sense: consider for instance, the phrase, ‘to pay one’s debt to society’, or, ‘I felt I owed something to my country’, or, ‘I wanted to give something back.’ Always, in such cases, mutual rights and obligations, mutual commitments — the kind of relations that genuinely free people could make with one another — tend to be subsumed into a conception of ‘society’ where we are all equal only as absolute debtors before the (now invisible) figure of the King, who stands in for your mother, and by extension, humanity.
What I am suggesting then is that while the claims of the impersonal market, and the claims of ‘society’, are often juxtaposed — and certainly have had a tendency to jockey back and forth in all sorts of practical ways — they are both ultimately founded on a very similar logic of violence. Neither is this a mere matter of historical origins that can be brushed away as inconsequential: neither states nor markets can exist without the constant threat of force.
One might ask, then, what is the alternative?
Towards a History of Virtual Money
Here I can return to my original point: that money did not originally appear in this cold, metal, impersonal form. It originally appears in the form of a measure, an abstraction, but also as a relation (of debt and obligation) between human beings. It is important to note that historically it is commodity money that has always been most directly linked to violence. As one historian put it, ‘bullion is the accessory of war, and not of peaceful trade.’
The reason is simple. Commodity money, particularly in the form of gold and silver, is distinguished from credit money most of all by one spectacular feature: it can be stolen. Since an ingot of gold or silver is an object without a pedigree, throughout much of history bullion has served the same role as the contemporary drug dealer’s suitcase full of dollar bills, as an object without a history that will be accepted in exchange for other valuables just about anywhere, with no questions asked. As a result, one can see the last 5 thousand years of human history as the history of a kind of alternation. Credit systems seem to arise, and to become dominant, in periods of relative social peace, across networks of trust, whether created by states or, in most periods, transnational institutions, whilst precious metals replace them in periods characterised by widespread plunder. Predatory lending systems certainly exist at every period, but they seem to have had the most damaging effects in periods when money was most easily convertible into cash.
So as a starting point to any attempt to discern the great rhythms that define the current historical moment, let me propose the following breakdown of Eurasian history according to the alternation between periods of virtual and metal money:
I. Age of the First Agrarian Empires (3500–800 BCE)
Dominant money form: virtual credit money
Our best information on the origins of money goes back to ancient Mesopotamia, but there seems no particular reason to believe matters were radically different in Pharaonic Egypt, Bronze Age China, or the Indus Valley. The Mesopotamian economy was dominated by large public institutions (Temples and Palaces) whose bureaucratic administrators effectively created money of account by establishing a fixed equivalent between silver and the staple crop, barley. Debts were calculated in silver, but silver was rarely used in transactions. Instead, payments were made in barley or in anything else that happened to be handy and acceptable. Major debts were recorded on cuneiform tablets kept as sureties by both parties to the transaction.
Markets, certainly, did exist. Prices of certain commodities that were not produced within Temple or Palace holdings, and thus not subject to administered price schedules, would tend to fluctuate according to the vagaries of supply and demand. But most actual acts of everyday buying and selling, particularly those that were not carried out between absolute strangers, appear to have been made on credit. ‘Ale women’, or local innkeepers, served beer, for example, and often rented rooms; customers ran up a tab; normally, the full sum was dispatched at harvest time. Market vendors presumably acted as they do in small scale markets in Africa, or Central Asia, today, building up lists of trustworthy clients to whom they could extend credit.
The habit of money at interest also originates in Sumer — it remained unknown, for example, in Egypt. Interest rates, fixed at 20 percent, remained stable for 2 thousand years. (This was not a sign of government control of the market: at this stage, institutions like this were what made markets possible.) This however, led to some serious social problems. In years with bad harvests especially, peasants would start becoming hopelessly indebted to the rich, and would have to surrender their farms and, ultimately, family members, in debt bondage. Gradually, this condition seems to have come to a social crisis — not so much leading to popular uprisings, but to common people abandoning the cities and settling territory entirely and becoming semi-nomadic ‘bandits’ and raiders. It soon became traditional for each new ruler to wipe the slate clean, cancel all debts, and declare a general amnesty or ‘freedom’, so that all bonded labourers could return to their families. (It is significant here that the first word for ‘freedom’ known in any human language, the Sumerian amarga, literally means ‘return to mother.’) Biblical prophets instituted a similar custom, the Jubilee, whereby after seven years all debts were similarly cancelled. This is the direct ancestor of the New Testament notion of ‘redemption’. As economist Michael Hudson has pointed out, it seems one of the misfortunes of world history that the institution of lending money at interest disseminated out of Mesopotamia without, for the most part, being accompanied by its original checks and balances.
II. Axial Age (800 BCE — 600 CE)
Dominant money form: coinage and metal bullion
This was the age that saw the emergence of coinage, as well as the birth, in China, India, and the Middle East, of all major world religions. From the Warring States period in China, to fragmentation in India, and to the carnage and mass enslavement that accompanied the expansion (and later, dissolution) of the Roman Empire, it was a period of spectacular creativity throughout most of the world, but of almost equally spectacular violence.
Coinage, which allowed for the actual use of gold and silver as a medium of exchange, also made possible the creation of markets in the now more familiar, impersonal sense of the term. Precious metals were also far more appropriate for an age of generalised warfare, for the obvious reason that they could be stolen. Coinage, certainly, was not invented to facilitate trade (the Phoenicians, consummate traders of the ancient world, were among the last to adopt it). It appears to have been first invented to pay soldiers, probably first of all by rulers of Lydia in Asia Minor to pay their Greek mercenaries. Carthage, another great trading nation, only started minting coins very late, and then explicitly to pay its foreign soldiers.
Throughout antiquity one can continue to speak of what Geoffrey Ingham has dubbed the ‘military-coinage complex’. He may have been better to call it a ‘military-coinage-slavery complex’, since the diffusion of new military technologies (Greek hoplites, Roman legions) was always closely tied to the capture and marketing of slaves, and the other major source of slaves was debt: now that states no longer periodically wiped the slates clean, those not lucky enough to be citizens of the major military city-states — who were generally protected from predatory lenders — were fair game. The credit systems of the Near East did not crumble under commercial competition; they were destroyed by Alexander’s armies — armies that required half a ton of silver bullion per day in wages. The mines where the bullion was produced were generally worked by slaves. Military campaigns in turn ensured an endless flow of new slaves. Imperial tax systems, as noted, were largely designed to force their subjects to create markets, so that soldiers (and also of course government officials) would be able to use that bullion to buy anything they wanted. The kind of impersonal markets that once tended to spring up between societies, or at the fringes of military operations, now began to permeate society as a whole.
However tawdry their origins, the creation of new media of exchange — coinage appeared almost simultaneously in Greece, India, and China — appears to have had profound intellectual effects. Some have even gone so far as to argue that Greek philosophy was itself made possible by conceptual innovations introduced by coinage. The most remarkable pattern, though, is the emergence, in almost the exact times and places where one also sees the early spread of coinage, of what were to become modern world religions: prophetic Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism, and eventually, Islam. While the precise links are yet to be fully explored, in certain ways, these religions appear to have arisen in direct reaction to the logic of the market. To put the matter somewhat crudely: if one relegates a certain social space simply to the selfish acquisition of material things, it is almost inevitable that soon someone else will come to set aside another domain in which to preach that, from the perspective of ultimate values, material things are unimportant, and selfishness — or even the self — illusory.
III. The Middle Ages (600 CE — 1500 CE)
The return to virtual credit-money
If the Axial Age saw the emergence of complementary ideals of commodity markets and universal world religions, the Middle Ages were the period in which those two institutions began to merge. Religions began to take over the market systems. Everything from international trade to the organisation of local fairs increasingly came to be carried out through social networks defined and regulated by religious authorities. This enabled, in turn, the return throughout Eurasia of various forms of virtual credit-money.
In Europe, where all this took place under the aegis of Christendom, coinage was only sporadically, and unevenly, available. Prices after 800 AD were calculated largely in terms of an old Carolingian currency that no longer existed (it was actually referred to at the time as ‘imaginary money’), but ordinary day-to-day buying and selling was carried out mainly through other means. One common expedient, for example, was the use of tally-sticks, notched pieces of wood that were broken in two as records of debt, with half being kept by the creditor, half by the debtor. Such tally-sticks were still in common use in much of England well into the 16th century. Larger transactions were handled through bills of exchange, with the great commercial fairs serving as their clearing-houses. The Church, meanwhile, provided a legal framework, enforcing strict controls on the lending of money at interest and prohibitions on debt bondage.
The real nerve center of the Medieval world economy though was the Indian Ocean, which along with the Central Asia caravan routes, connected the great civilisations of India, China, and the Middle East. Here, trade was conducted through the framework of Islam, which not only provided a legal structure highly conducive to mercantile activities (while absolutely forbidding the lending of money at interest), but allowed for peaceful relations between merchants over a remarkably large part of the globe, allowing the creation of a variety of sophisticated credit instruments. Actually, Western Europe was, as in so many things, a relative late-comer in this regard: most of the financial innovations that reached Italy and France in the 11th and 12th centuries had been in common use in Egypt or Iraq since the 8th or 9th centuries. The word ‘cheque’, for example, derives from the Arab sakk, and arrived in English only around 1220 AD.
The case of China is even more complicated: the Middle Ages there began with the rapid spread of Buddhism, which, while it was in no position to enact laws or regulate commerce, did quickly move against local usurers by its invention of the pawn shop — the first pawn shops being based in Buddhist temples as a way of offering poor farmers an alternative to the local usurer. Before long, though, the state reasserted itself, as the state always tends to do in China. But as it did so, it not only regulated interest rates and attempted to abolish debt peonage, it moved away from bullion entirely by inventing paper money. All this was accompanied by the development, again, of a variety of complex financial instruments.
All this is not to say that this period did not see its share of carnage and plunder (particularly during the great nomadic invasions) or that coinage was not, in many times and places, an important medium of exchange. Still, what really characterises the period appears to be a movement in the other direction. Money, during most of the Medieval period, was largely delinked from coercive institutions. Money changers, one might say, were invited back into the temples, where they could be monitored. The result was a flowering of institutions premised on a much higher degree of social trust.
IV. Age of European Empires (1500–1971)
The return of precious metals
With the advent of the great European empires — Iberian, then North Atlantic — the world saw both a reversion to mass enslavement, plunder, and wars of destruction, and the consequent rapid return of gold and silver bullion as the main form of currency. Historical investigation will probably end up demonstrating that the origins of these transformations were more complicated than we ordinarily assume. Some of this was beginning to happen even before the conquest of the New World. One of the main factors of the movement back to bullion, for example, was the emergence of popular movements during the early Ming dynasty, in the 15th and 16th centuries, that ultimately forced the government to abandon not only paper money but any attempt to impose its own currency. This led to the reversion of the vast Chinese market to an uncoined silver standard. Since taxes were also gradually commuted into silver, it soon became the more or less official Chinese policy to try to bring as much silver into the country as possible, so as to keep taxes low and prevent new outbreaks of social unrest. The sudden enormous demand for silver had effects across the globe. Most of the precious metals looted by the conquistadors and later extracted by the Spanish from the mines of Mexico and Potosi (at almost unimaginable cost in human lives) ended up in China. These global-scale connections that eventually developed across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans have of course been documented in great detail. The crucial point is that the delinking of money from religious institutions, and its relinking with coercive ones (especially the state), was here accompanied by an ideological reversion to ‘metallism’.
Credit, in this context, was on the whole an affair of states that were themselves run largely by deficit financing, a form of credit which was, in turn, invented to finance increasingly expensive wars. Internationally the British Empire was steadfast in maintaining the gold standard through the 19th and early 20th centuries, and great political battles were fought in the United States over whether the gold or silver standard should prevail.
This was also, obviously, the period of the rise of capitalism, the industrial revolution, representative democracy, and so on. What I am trying to do here is not to deny their importance, but to provide a framework for seeing such familiar events in a less familiar context. It makes it easier, for instance, to detect the ties between war, capitalism, and slavery. The institution of wage labour, for instance, has historically emerged from within that of slavery (the earliest wage contracts we know of, from Greece to the Malay city states, were actually slave rentals), and it has also tended, historically, to be intimately tied to various forms of debt peonage — as indeed, it remains today. The fact that we have cast such institutions in a language of freedom does not mean that what we now think of as economic freedom does not ultimately rest on a logic that has for most of human history been considered the very essence of slavery.
V. Current Era (1971 onwards)
The empire of debt
The current era might be said to have been initiated on 15 August 1971, when US President Richard Nixon officially suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold and effectively created the current floating currency regimes. We have returned, at any rate, to an age of virtual money, in which consumer purchases in wealthy countries rarely involve even paper money, and national economies are driven largely by consumer debt. It’s in this context that we can talk about the ‘financialisation’ of capital, whereby speculation in currencies and financial instruments becomes a domain unto itself, detached from any immediate relation with production or even commerce. This is of course the sector that has entered into crisis today.
What can we say for certain about this new era? So far, very, very little. Thirty or forty years is nothing in terms of the scale we have been dealing with. Clearly, this period has only just begun. Still, the foregoing analysis, however crude, does allow us to begin to make some informed suggestions.
Historically, as we have seen, ages of virtual, credit money have also involved creating some sort of overarching institutions — Mesopotamian sacred kingship, Mosaic jubilees, Sharia or Canon Law — that place some sort of controls on the potentially catastrophic social consequences of debt. Almost invariably, they involve institutions (usually not strictly coincident to the state, usually larger) to protect debtors. So far the movement this time has been the other way around: starting with the ’80s we have begun to see the creation of the first effective planetary administrative system, operating through the IMF, World Bank, corporations and other financial institutions, largely in order to protect the interests of creditors. However, this apparatus was very quickly thrown into crisis, first by the very rapid development of global social movements (the alter-globalisation movement), which effectively destroyed the moral authority of institutions like the IMF, and left many of them very close to bankrupt, and now by the current banking crisis and global economic collapse. While the new age of virtual money has only just begun and the long term consequences are as yet entirely unclear, we can already say one or two things. The first is that a movement towards virtual money is not in itself, necessarily, an insidious effect of capitalism. In fact, it might well mean exactly the opposite. For much of human history, systems of virtual money were designed and regulated to ensure that nothing like capitalism could ever emerge to begin with — at least not as it appears in its present form, with most of the world’s population placed in a condition that would in many other periods of history be considered tantamount to slavery. The second point is to underline the absolutely crucial role of violence in defining the very terms by which we imagine both ‘society’ and ‘markets’ — in fact, many of our most elementary ideas of freedom. A world less entirely pervaded by violence would rapidly begin to develop other institutions. Finally, thinking about debt outside the twin intellectual straightjackets of state and market opens up exciting possibilities. For instance, we can ask: exactly what do free men and women owe each other, what sort of promises and commitments should they make to each other, in a society in which that foundation of violence had finally been yanked away?
Let us hope that everyone will someday be in a position to start asking such questions. At times like this, you never know.
Geoffrey W. Gardiner, ‘The Primacy of Trade Debts in the Development of Money’, in Credit and State Theories of Money: The Contributions of A. Mitchell Innes, ed. by Randall Wray, Cheltengham: Elgar, 2004, p.134.
The phrase the ‘Axial Age’ was originally coined by Karl Jaspers to describe the relatively brief period between 800 BCE — 200 BCE in which, he believed, just about all the main philosophical traditions we are familiar with today arose simultaneously in China, India, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Here, I am using it in Lewis Mumford’s more expansive use of the term as the period that saw the birth of all existing world religions, stretching roughly from the time of Zoroaster to that of Mohammed.
I am here relegating most what is generally referred to as the ‘Dark Ages’ in Europe into the earlier period, characterized by predatory militarism and the consequent importance of bullion: the Viking raids, and the famous extraction of danegeld from England, in the 800s, might be seen as one the last manifestations of an age where predatory militarism went hand and hand with hoards of gold and silver bullion.
The myth of barter and commodity theories of money was of course developed in this period. |
A Luas driver was forced to remove a man off the Luas after he verbally abused a black woman.
A Luas driver was forced to remove a man off the Luas after he verbally abused a black woman.
'People died to keep your kind out of this country' - Man kicked off the Luas for 'racist abuse'
Ciara Kelly, who witnessed the attack said the "horrible" man took an issue with the woman and began to shout at her.
"The man told the woman that people died to keep 'your kind' out of the country," Ciara told Today FM's Anton Savage show.
"The woman replied, 'I live here, I work here, I deserve to be here. Ireland is my home. You’re a horrible man'."
Ciara said the man who was "well-dressed" in a blazer and jeans raised his voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
"The woman remained cool and calm. They way she reacted showed that she was used to it and knew how to handle it."
She said she had to hold onto the woman because the man refused to make space for her.
"It was very much colour based. He made space for the white Polish girl who was speaking another language. He thought she was the right colour."
She continued to say she was surprised that most people remained quiet during the abuse.
"Everyone was wondering what was going on but few people said anything. Another woman called him nasty for making room for the Polish girl and not the black woman. It was ridiculous.
"By the time we got to the Smithfield stop the Luas driver had to stand up and told him, 'it’s your stop, you need to get out'.
"He said, 'No it’s not' and he said 'Sorry get out'.
"Everyone was shocked by the ordeal."
Ciara said the woman thanked everyone who helped her and said it wasn't the first time she was racially abused in Ireland.
"It was so raw and vicious. I wasn’t expecting something like this to happen in 2016 in Ireland."
Independent.ie have contacted the Luas for a comment.
Online Editors |
ISTANBUL, Turkey — It's tense times ahead in the Eastern Mediterranean, thanks to the continuing fallout from Israel's deadly raid last year on a Turkish aid ship.
The raid, which occurred in May 2010, claimed the lives of nine passengers aboard a ship heading toward Gaza in defiance of Israel's naval blockade.
Israel-Turkey relations deteriorated significantly in the wake of the incident, with Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently intensifying the dispute with the announcement that Turkey will begin patrolling the maritime space between the two countries to ensure safe passage for aid ships.
"From now on, we will not let these ships be attacked by Israel, as happened with the Freedom Flotilla," Erdogan said on Thursday.
PHOTOS FROM TURKEY: Protests spread after deadly Israeli attack
His words echoed those of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who earlier last week announced a series of measures — including freedom of navigation in the Eastern Mediterranean — to be taken against Israel on the heels of the release of the much-anticipated Palmer Report.
The report, issued by a United Nations panel created to investigate the raid, concluded that the Gaza blockade is a legitimate security measure for Israel and, while condemning the attack as "excessive," said that the Turkish organizers were partially responsible for the bloodshed that took place on board the Mavi Marmara.
Turkey was confident that the U.N. panel, which it had pushed hard to have convened, would take its side — partially since the U.N. Human Rights Council had condemned the attacks shortly after they occurred in 2010.
But the report, which came out last week and took a more divided view, has sent Ankara scrambling for new diplomatic tools.
FROM TURKEY: Has Turkey taken an authoritarian turn?
"Plan B," as Ankara's measures against Israel have now been dubbed, includes a melange of tactics aside from assuring freedom of navigational movement in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey has further downgraded relations with Israel, suspended all military agreements, pledged to take the Gaza blockade to the International Court of Justice and support cases filed on behalf of Mavi Marmara victims in courts around the world.
Turkish officials have also said that Ankara will throw its weight behind recognition of Palestinian statehood at the U.N. General Assembly scheduled to meet on Sept. 20.
But the implications of Turkey patrolling the Eastern Mediterranean, where Israel has been searching for natural resources, are dangerous. Onlookers fear what has until now been a cold confrontation, could turn into outright conflict.
"Diplomacy has its limits and we are now in the dangerous red area of diplomacy," said Gokhan Bacik, an international relations professor at Zirve University. Moreover, at the end of diplomatic solutions lay "conflict, high level tension, crisis and finally war," he said.
Although Plan B was just announced last week, analysts say it has been in the making since the Mavi Marmara incident. "Plan B is just putting a name on some of what was already in place," said Bulent Kenes, the editor-in-chief of Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman.
After the raid took place in 2010, Ankara withdrew its ambassador to Israel, suspended joint military exercises and barred Israeli military aircraft from Turkish airspace.
Turkey has been asking Israel to apologize for the raid, pay reparations to those killed and lift the embargo on Gaza. Israel has said that it acted in self-defense.
But unless Israel fulfills Turkey's conditions, "it is not possible to expect the Turkish-Israeli relations to be restored or normalized," said Erdogan, who is set to embark on a tour on Monday to Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
Although much of Turkey's new clout in the region derives from the fact that it was seen as an actor that could speak to all sides, its recent trouble with Israel has been diminishing that position.
However, amid the Arab Spring and heightened anti-Israel sentiment in Egypt, the power dynamics of the region are shifting in Turkey's favor.
"The only option for Israel if it loses Egypt is to apologize. Otherwise they will be all alone in the region," said Bacik.
FROM TURKEY: Turkey and Europe battle it out
The deterioration of relations between Turkey and Israel is a new low point for allies who once carried out joint military training exercises and were top military trading partners.
But even before the Mavi Marmara raid, relations were souring. In 2008, Israel's Gaza offensive took Ankara by surprise, when it was in the middle of brokering peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. In 2009 Erdogan told Israeli President Shimon Peres, "you know how to kill" at the Davos World Economic Forum.
The fallout from the Mavi Marmara has erased any evidence of the once-strong alliance and made a quick rapprochement seem unlikely, according to analysts, especially given the two countries' respective leaderships.
"I do not believe that the Justice and Development Party in Turkey and the Netanyahu-led coalition government in Israel can find a way to restore the relationship between the two countries," said Kenes.
Mending ties might prove even more difficult if Ankara is serious about throwing its full support behind legal cases charging high-ranking Israeli officials of crimes against humanity and war crimes in relation to the Mavi Marmara raid.
Since the Mavi Marmara raid, such criminal complaints have been filed in England, Spain, Belgium and Indonesia, whose citizens were among those on board. But according to Buhari Cetinkaya, a Turkish lawyer for some of the victims of the raid, Ankara had been reluctant to back any cases until it saw the outcome of the Palmer Report.
"It's good to hear that the administration will be backing these court cases now. It should have been done from the start," Cetinkaya said.
The complaint, which has been filed to the Istanbul Prosecutor’s office, names high-ranking Israeli officials like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
It is unlikely that legal action against the leaders will amount to much, but it will likely make for a difficult normalization process. |
For the song, see Sugar Magnolia
Sunshine Daydream Sunshine Daydream film poster Directed by John Norris Produced by Sam Field Starring Grateful Dead Production
company Canis Major Distributed by Rhino Entertainment Release date August 1, 2013 Running time 102 minutes Country United States Language English
Sunshine Daydream is a music documentary film starring the rock band the Grateful Dead. It was shot at their August 27, 1972 concert at the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon.[1][2] Unreleased for many years, the movie was sometimes shown at small film festivals, and bootleg recordings of it circulated on VHS and DVD, and as digital downloads. A digitally remastered and reedited official version of the film was released on August 1, 2013, showing only one time in selected theaters as that year's edition of the Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies.[3][4][5][6] It was screened with Grateful Days, a new documentary short that includes interviews with some of the concert attendees. Sunshine Daydream was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 17, 2013.
Sunshine Daydream is also a live album containing the complete August 27, 1972 Grateful Dead concert. Produced as a 3-disc CD and as a 4-disc LP, it was released by Rhino Records on September 17, 2013.[7]
The name Sunshine Daydream is taken from the coda section of the Dead song "Sugar Magnolia".
Concert [ edit ]
The lineup of the Grateful Dead for this concert—and for all their concerts from July 1972 to October 1974—was Jerry Garcia on guitar and vocals, Bob Weir on guitar and vocals, Phil Lesh on bass and vocals, Keith Godchaux on keyboards, Donna Jean Godchaux on vocals, and Bill Kreutzmann on drums.[8]
The show was a benefit for the Springfield Creamery in nearby Springfield, Oregon.[9] Merry Pranksters Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs emceed the concert. The Dead played all afternoon and into the dark after an opening set by the New Riders of the Purple Sage. In 2004, the New Riders' performance was released as an album called Veneta, Oregon, 8/27/72.
Film [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
The concert was filmed using four 16 mm cameras, in the woods of the Oregon Coast Range foothills, on the grounds of the Oregon Country Fair.[10] Originally even more cameras had been planned, under an ambitious scheme: "The plot was to develop a signature visual style of representing the band: a camera for each of the 16 channels (at least!) emphasizing the visual kinetics of the music making itself as well as the enormous open communication within the band."[11]
Songs in the film [ edit ]
Album [ edit ]
Sunshine Daydream is a live album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert recorded on August 27, 1972 at the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon. Produced as a 3–disc CD and as a 4-disc LP, it was released by Rhino Records on September 17, 2013.[7][12][13]
The album debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200 on October 5, 2013.[14] It was the Grateful Dead's second top 20 album, after In the Dark, which reached #6 in 1987.
Critical reception [ edit ]
Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating AllMusic [15]
On AllMusic, Fred Thomas said, "The three sets here have everything that made this one of the most colorful and captivating eras of the Dead's live playing. Somewhere between the caveman psychedelia of their beginnings and the bluegrass-steeped folk-rock of their most popular studio albums American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, Garcia and company refined their live jamming skills into something that seemed almost like a mental synchronization at its best.... A long-traded fan favorite, Sunshine Daydream finally sees a properly mixed presentation of the 16-track master tapes of nearly three hours of one of the Grateful Dead's finest concert moments. It's essential listening for Deadheads and possibly the best place for the curious to jump in."[15]
Track listing [ edit ]
Disc 1
First set:
Disc 2
Second set:
Disc 3
Third set:
Notes
Personnel [ edit ]
Grateful Dead
Production
Produced by Grateful Dead
Produced for release by David Lemieux
Executive producer: Mark Pinkus
Associate producers: Doran Tyson, Ryan Wilson
Mixing, mastering: Jeffrey Norman
Second engineer: Rick Vargas
Recording: Bob Matthews, Betty Cantor-Jackson, Wiz, Janet Furman, Ron Wickersham
Tape transfer, time-base correction, restoration: John K. Chester, Jamie Howarth
Archival research: Nicholas Meriwether
Tape research: Michael Wesley Johnson
Art direction, illustration: Steve Vance
Additional design: Lisa Glines
Tie-dye art: Courtenay Pollock
Special edition liner notes: David Lemieux, Sam Field, Johnny Dwork, Ken Babbs, Nicholas Meriwether
Charts [ edit ]
Chart (2013) Peak
position US Billboard 200[17] 19 Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ)[18] 3
References [ edit ]
Sunshine Daydream on IMDb |
Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 13, 2017, 1:16 PM GMT / Updated April 13, 2017, 3:13 PM GMT / Source: Reuters By Alastair Jamieson
In his first interview since the deadly gas poisoning in Idlib, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said accusations of a chemical weapons attack were “100 percent fabrication" used to justify American air strikes.
The U.S. and others blame him for what they believe was a deliberate attack earlier this month that killed more than 100 civilians.
Syria's military had given up all chemical weapons in 2013 and would not have used them anyway, Assad told agency AFP in his first interview since the deaths. The interview was recorded in Damascus by Syrian government cameras and released to other media outlets.
The April 4 gas poisoning in the town of Khan Sheikhoun prompted the U.S. to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in response — its first direct assault on the Assad government in the six-year-old conflict.
"Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand in glove with the terrorists,” he said, referring to the rebel groups that are fighting his Assad regime. “They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack.”
Assad said Syria would only allow an "impartial" investigation into the poison gas incident. On Wednesday, its ally Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn the attack.
Russia said the gas was part of rebel stockpiles, which the rebels have denied.
It was the deadliest such incident since a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus in 2013, prompting threats of U.S. military action.
Samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun last week tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation t the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW said on Thursday.
Assad said the U.S. and Syria could still be allies "if they are serious in fighting terrorists." |
NSA report on privacy violations in the first quarter of 2012
This is the full executive summary, with names redacted by The Post, of a classified internal report on breaches of NSA privacy rules and legal restrictions.
The report covers the period from January through March 2012 and includes comparative data for the full preceding year. Its author is director of oversight and compliance for the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, but the scope of the report is narrower. Incidents are counted only if they took place within “NSA-Washington,” a term encompassing the Ft. Meade headquarters and nearby facilities. The NSA declined to provide comparable figures for its operations as a whole. A senior intelligence official said only that if all offices and directorates were included, the number of violations would “not double.” |
BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is recommending a new way for drivers, and others, to open car doors to protect bicyclists.
The department announced Tuesday it has added the door-opening technique known as the “Dutch Reach” to its driver’s manual.
The technique requires motorists to use their right hand to open a car door. The idea is to force drivers to turn their bodies, a motion that will help them see oncoming bicycles.
Getting “doored” — crashing into a door that is thrown open just as a bicyclist is nearing the car — can result in injury or death for bicyclists, especially in urban areas.
Advertisement
Massachusetts transportation officials have posted a one-minute video online explaining the maneuver, the preferred method for opening car doors in the Netherlands, hence the name. |
One of the two aboriginal MPs in the Conservative cabinet has called on Chief Theresa Spence to abandon her fast aimed at securing a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who is Inuk, joined other federal officials in asking Spence to accept a meeting with Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan and end the campaign that has seen the chief go more than two weeks without solid food.
"I would encourage her to stop and meet with Minister Duncan and that's the best way to address her issues," Aglukkaq said Friday.
Duncan is the one responsible for the portfolio and that's why he's the right person to meet, Aglukkaq said
Spence rejected Aglukkaq's recommendation because she believes Duncan isn't the one who should be speaking on a nation-to-nation basis.
"When our ancestors made treaties with the British Crown to allow the Queen's subjects to live in our territories, it was for as long as the sun shines, the waters flow and the grass grows," Spence said in a statement.
"The Crown's only legal access to our lands is contingent upon the fulfilment of the promises made in the negotiations of treaty."
Spence, who is the chief of a remote reserve in Northern Ontario, stopped eating solid food on Dec. 11 in an effort to secure a meeting between First Nations leaders, the prime minister and Governor General over the treaty relationship.
Government serious about improvements
Duncan has offered several times to speak with her and to form a working group, but the minister has been rebuffed at every turn.
The government points to a meeting it held last January with First Nations leaders as proof it is serious about improving the relationship and notes it has spent millions on aboriginal health, housing and education.
But aboriginal leaders say they are being left out of the discussion the Harper government is having about how best to develop Canada's lucrative natural resources.
A series of protests over the last two weeks under the banner of Idle No More were in part spurred by the recent budget bill which removed federal oversight over waterways without consulting aboriginal groups who depend on them for water and food.
Meanwhile, bands are concerned that a lack of training and education will see them shut out of resource development projects that could provide economic stimulus to many struggling communities.
In the statement released Friday, Spence said she remains hopeful that Harper or Gov. Gen. David Johnston will accept her request.
"Canada is considered a First World country and our peoples are living in extreme poverty and substandard living conditions," she said.
"As nations, we held up our end of the treaty, yet Canada continues to only pay lip service to our relationship." |
Contents
Wonders of electricity -- The century's naval progress -- Astronomy during the century -- Story of plant and flower -- Progress of women within the century -- The century's textile progress -- The century's religious progress -- Great growth of libraries -- Progress of the century in architecture -- The century's progress in chemistry -- The century's music and drama -- The century's literature -- The records of the past -- Progress in dairy farming -- The century's moral progress -- Progress of sanitary science -- The century's armies and arms -- The century's progress in agriculture -- Progress in civil engineering -- The century's progress in the animal world -- Leading wars of the century -- The century's fairs and expositions -- The century's progress in coinage, currency, and banking -- The century's progress in fruit culture -- The century's commercial progress -- Education during the century -- "The art preservative" -- Progress in mines and mining -- Art progress of the century -- The century's advance in surgery -- Progress of medicine -- Evolution of the railway -- Advance in law and justice -- Evolution of building and loan associations -- Epoch-makers of the century. |
Anthony Scaramucci was almost finished with one of his three Sunday television talk show appearances when he started speaking directly to one particular viewer at home.
“If I said some things about him when I was working for another candidate, Mr. Trump, Mr. President, I apologize for that. Can we move on off of that?” Mr. Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I know you and I have moved on off of that,” he added, before commenting that the host, Jake Tapper, “hasn’t moved on off of that, obviously.”
Mr. Tapper laughed. Mr. Scaramucci continued. “I’m going to be working for you,” he told the president via television. “And I’m going to serve the American people. And we’re going to get your agenda out into the heartland, where it belongs.”
Mr. Tapper replied, “I love how you’re talking to one specific viewer right now.”
Mr. Scaramucci, the hedge fund investor-turned-message strategist, went on his first official television outing on Sunday. It was an unusually high-stakes rollout for a communications director because Mr. Scaramucci knew his boss would be taking notes. And it came the weekend before Mr. Trump’s son and son-in-law are scheduled to appear before congressional committees investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. |
Query Sniper
Controlling runaway queries.
Square Engineering Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 27, 2016
Written by Manik Surtani.
Picture this: your service receives a request and kicks off a database query; the request times out and leaves the query running — leading to an unnecessary database load and possibly starving the database of resources. When services automatically retry requests, the problem is only exacerbated and can bring the most powerful database servers to their knees.
So, how does one guard against this?
While this is a fairly common problem with many platforms, we’re solely covering Java and JDBCrunning on a MySQL back-end. However, ideas discussed throughout should be applicable to other platforms and databases.
Database timeouts
Very recent versions of MySQL allow the setting of global timeouts, such that no query can take more than a predefined amount of time to run. This is a fairly coarse-grained approach, since limits have to be set for the longest-running query possible. So, this approach was ruled out. (Plus, we don’t run bleeding-edge versions of MySQL in production.)
Application-level timeouts
You can set a timeout on MySQL’s JDBC driver. We use HikariCP for connection pooling; it also allows you to configure the pool accordingly, delegating to the driver to set timeouts. This sounded promising.
MySQL’s JDBC Driver
For anyone who’s read the source code of Connector/J, MySQL’s JDBC driver, you’re probably shuddering at this point. The driver was written when Java 1.3 was all the rage, and received only a few minor updates. The code is spaghetti; full of coarse synchronization and generally inflexible and not very extensible.
Oh well.
Poking into the driver, I saw that a JDK Timer is started for each connection instance and a cleanup task is scheduled to run after the predefined time has passed. In com.mysql.jdbc.StatementImpl we see:
public class StatementImpl implements Statement {
...
class CancelTask extends TimerTask {
...
@Override
public void run() {
Thread cancelThread = new Thread() {
@Override
public void run() {
...
}
Cleanup task
The cleanup task scheduled by the driver is simple (also in com.mysql.jdbc.StatementImpl):
...
cancelConn = StatementImpl.this.connection.duplicate();
cancelStmt = cancelConn.createStatement();
cancelStmt.execute("KILL QUERY " + CancelTask.this.connectionId);
...
Aside from cleaning up the state held on the Statement instance (inside some truly awful synchronization blocks), the task performs two critical actions:
Clones the JDBC connection to establish a new connection to the database. Issues a KILL QUERY <connection_id> query on the new connection, passing in the original connection’s ID.
Shortcomings
This works well except for two issues:
Timers
JDK Timers are old, clunky and moreover, expensive. Each one creates a new thread. (Even Javadocs on Timers recommend using ScheduledExecutorServices instead.)
Cloning connections
Cloning the JDBC connection each time can lead to problems with the number of available connections a database server may have available — particularly if it is processing runaway queries that are hogging resources. Such a timeout task may not be able to connect to the database to kill runaway queries.
The Query Sniper
Because of these shortcomings, we decided to write our own query sniper rather than simply set JDBC timeouts. The query sniper effectively does exactly the same thing as setting a timeout on the JDBC connection, except it’s implemented as a JOOQ ExecuteListener and submits a task to a single ScheduledExecutorService. This is configured with just one maintenance thread for the entire system every time a query is executed. Here is a simplified version of the idea:
package querysniper;
import java.util.concurrent.ScheduledExecutorService;
import org.jooq.ExecuteContext;
import org.jooq.ExecuteListenerProvider;
import org.jooq.Query;
import org.jooq.impl.DefaultExecuteListener;
import static java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS;
public class QuerySniper extends DefaultExecuteListener {
private static final int MAX_QUERY_TIME = 10_000L; // 10 seconds
private final ScheduledExecutorService scheduledExecutorService;
private volatile boolean queryRunning = false;
public QuerySniper(ScheduledExecutorService scheduledExecutorService) {
this.scheduledExecutorService = scheduledExecutorService;
}
@Override
public void executeStart(ExecuteContext ctx) {
// Start a timer
queryRunning = true;
// You'd typically have this hook into your system to understand how much
// time to let your query run for
long timeBudget = MAX_QUERY_TIME;
scheduledExecutorService.schedule(() -> {
if (queryRunning) {
log(ctx, timeBudget);
if (ctx.query() != null) {
ctx.query().cancel();
}
queryRunning = false;
}
}, timeBudget, MILLISECONDS);
}
@Override
public void executeEnd(ExecuteContext ctx) {
// Stop timer
queryRunning = false;
}
@Override
public void exception(ExecuteContext ctx) {
// Stop timer on exception as well
queryRunning = false;
}
private void log(ExecuteContext ctx, long timeBudget) {
System.out.println("Query exceeded %s ms. Killing it!", timeBudget);
System.out.println("Query: %s", ctx.sql());
}
}
Query Snipers are added to all JOOQ DSL sessions using JOOQ’s Configuration.set() API:
DefaultConfiguration cfg = getDefaultConfiguration();
ScheduledExecutorService executor = getScheduledExecutorService();
cfg.set(() -> new QuerySniper(executor));
Fine-grained timeouts
For added benefit, the query sniper inspects the request context and determines how much time it has remaining to run the query before the request times out; thereby, setting fine-grained timeouts on a per-query basis.
Cloning connections again
We wanted to maintain a separate, pre-established connection pool consisting of a single connection, solely for the query sniper to kill long running queries. That way, we’d overcome the issue of not being able to establish a new database connection. But, we hit a snag. To maintain our own connection pool for this purpose, we’d have to hand-craft our own KILL QUERY <connection_id> statement. MySQL’s JDBC driver doesn’t expose the transaction ID to allow us to do this.
Sadly, the query sniper just ends up calling Statement.cancel() on a running statement it wants to kill. This still causes the connection to be cloned, etc. just as before.
Conclusion
With our query sniper in place and running in production on a number of systems, we saved ourselves a fair few outages — outages we’d seen prior when testing a new system we built which had a few rogue queries. These outages would continue to happen (judging by the query sniper logging its activities) had it not shot down these abandoned queries.
What’s next?
As much as we’d like to open source this piece of code, it is far too closely tied to Square’s infrastructure to be extracted into a separate library. (If you want to see more, you could always join our team.) However, I hope the pattern described above and the code snippet included will be useful to others.
I’d really like to be able to maintain a persistent connection to the database. To this end, I hope to patch MySQL’s driver to expose its transaction ID, to allow for hand-crafted KILL QUERY …statements.
Or maybe what I really need to do, is rewrite the MySQL JDBC driver using modern ideas of concurrency and thread safety, resource management, configurability and extensibility? ;) |
In the Obama White House, the mantra of “leading from behind” was so deeply embedded that America’s allies were often left confused and disoriented when it came to U.S. foreign policy.
President Barack Obama’s 2015 national security strategy was a curious mishmash of lofty idealism and outreach to dictatorial regimes such as Iran and Cuba, combined with a refusal to even acknowledge that an ideological war existed against Islamists.
Obama’s national security strategy listed climate change as a “top strategic risk to our interests” alongside use of weapons of mass destruction, while the threat posed by ISIS and al-Qaeda was simply dubbed “violent extremism.” Just as Obama himself began his two-term presidency with an apology tour across the world, his strategy warned that America’s own values had been under threat in the post-9/11 era in the war on terror.
The new national security strategy released early Monday by President Donald Trump’s White House sets a very different, distinctly unapologetic tone. It takes a clear-cut view of the immense challenges faced by the United States from an array of actors, from Russia, China, and North Korea to transnational, largely Islamist terror networks. In addition, the strategy emphatically rules out the idea of extending the hand of friendship to rogue regimes such as Iran.
The projection of American leadership is front and center in the new strategy. The document contains a strong rejection of the idea that the United States should share global leadership with Moscow and Beijng in a supposedly multipolar world:
The United States will respond to the growing political, economic, and military competitions we face around the world. China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence. These competitions require the United States to rethink the policies of the past two decades—policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners. For the most part, this premise turned outlateral to be false.
Trump’s national security strategy, which runs to 70 pages (in contrast to 2015’s 29 pages), outlines four pillars for advancing and defending America’s interests on the world stage: protecting the American people, the homeland, and the American way of life; promoting American prosperity; preserving peace through strength; and advancing American influence.
At the core of the new strategy is an emphasis on controlling America’s borders, rebuilding America’s military, and competing and leading in international organizations, including NATO and the United Nations, while pressing to make them more accountable and effective.
As the new strategy makes clear, America’s enemies should be under no illusions regarding U.S. resolve:
We must convince adversaries that we can and will defeat them—not just punish them if they attack the United States. We must ensure the ability to deter potential enemies by denial—convincing them that they cannot accomplish objectives through the use of force or other forms of aggression. We need our allies to do the same.
The document is a bold reassertion of American leadership and a refusal to bow to the siren calls of isolationism. It is a robust defense of the principles of national sovereignty and self-determination, as well as a recognition that the United States can best lead on the world stage by upholding its own sovereignty and that of its allies.
The document also includes powerful support for religious freedom, an important message to send both at home and abroad, as well as a welcome call to rethink foreign aid, by basing foreign assistance on free-market principles and private investment.
The 2017 national security strategy should reassure America’s friends and allies that the United States is firmly committed to leading the free world. At the same time, it should serve as a stark warning to America’s adversaries and strategic competitors that the U.S. will renew its military might, reject failed strategies of engagement, and use its resources to challenge and, where necessary, defeat those who threaten the security of the American people. |
Jeff Greenfield is a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author.
In the pre-dawn hours of June 7, 1968, in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I was standing vigil at the coffin of Robert F. Kennedy, who had died the day before at the hands of an assassin. In shifts of six or eight—a half-century has dimmed the exact memory—campaign aides, friends, colleagues, supporters took their turns.
One of those was a 28-year-old man whose presence might have seemed puzzling at the least. In the course of six years, Tom Hayden had migrated from an intellectual advocate of participatory democracy to an increasingly disaffected political outsider. One of the leading voices of the increasingly restive, even violent American left, Hayden wrote sympathetically of the rioters in Newark, New Jersey; he’d traveled twice to North Vietnam to meet with the leaders engaged in a war against the United States; he spoke, with growing sympathy, of “revolution,” one in which violence at some level night be inevitable. Yet here he was, weeping in a corner of the cathedral, mourning a man many of his associates saw as a wholly corrupt, irredeemable creature of the political system.
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Hayden’s presence there helps explain why, for so many of us who came to political engagement in the 1960s, Tom Hayden was so central a figure; and why his death hit with special force so many decades later when we learned that he died Sunday in Santa Monica. As much as any figure of that era, he lived in a way crystallized by a quotation from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: that “a man should share the passion and action of his time, on peril of being judged not to have lived.” And while Hayden is remembered by later generations, if at all, as a figure embedded in protest and upheaval, glimpsed as part of a black-and-white montage with Buffalo Springfield in the soundtrack and his ex-wife Jane Fonda occupying a somewhat larger share of the picture, he should more accurately be seen as a figure who embodied the complicated mix of aspirations, and some of the illusions, that affected so many in those times.
He was only 21 when he joined with a few dozen contemporaries at a labor camp in rural Michigan to form a new political organization, linked neither to the network of liberal groups of the day nor to remnants of the Old Left. The group called itself Students for a Democratic Society, and Hayden was principal author of its manifesto, a 25,000 word declaration called the “Port Huron Statement.”
Looking at the document now is a striking reminder of just how different the early 1960s were from the later years in that decade. Vietnam was an all but invisible brushfire; the burgeoning civil rights movement embodied nonviolence, in sit-ins and Freedom Marches. (There hadn’t been a significant “race riot” in any American city since World War II.) Students were not rampaging across campuses, but were petitioning for an end to parietal hours for women and a greater voice in campus life. The whole tone of the statement reflects not some grandiose vision of an international socialist movement, but a concern for the individual caught up in the gears of large, impersonal institutions. It takes its frame from social critics of the era like Paul Goodman (who wrote “Growing Up Absurd”) and C. Wright Mills.
“The goal of man and society,” Hayden wrote, “should be human independence: a concern not with . . . popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic. . . .This kind of independence does not mean egotistic individualism—the object is not to have one’s way so much as it is to have a way that is one’s own.” (You can gauge the power of this idea by seeing its echo years later in Hillary Rodham’s famous commencement speech at Wellesley in 1969, when she said: “our prevailing, acquisitive, and competitive corporate life, including tragically the universities, is not the way of life for us. We're searching for more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating modes of living.”).
Though SDS in later years would be seen as a snake pit of mindless pseudo-revolutionary hysteria, the organization that emerged from Port Huron was far removed from any notion of “revolution.” It wanted an end to nuclear testing, expanded rights for conscientious objectors, strong civil rights laws. Hard as it is to remember, SDS endorsed Lyndon Johnson’s reelection in 1964 with the slogan: “Part of the way with LBJ.”
What changed, of course, was the rapid darkening of national life with the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the explosion of racial and generational upheaval in cities and on campuses. Hayden was in Newark, working on an anti-poverty project, when the riots broke out in which 26 people were killed. In a lengthy account of the riots, Hayden was unblinking about the inevitable, if not justified, resort to violence from the black community.
“When the riot broke out,” he wrote. “the generations came together. The parents understood and approved the defiance of their sons that night. ... The Negro middle class and ‘respectable’ working people participated heavily. ... Well-dressed couples with kids in their cars were a common sight.” And, Hayden concluded, “the middle class’s willingness to consider rioting legitimate made it more likely that a riot would happen.”
In the years that followed, Hayden found himself increasingly in the orbit of radical dissenters. He helped organize the protests at the 1968 Chicago convention that led to the lengthy trial of him and six other members of the “Chicago Seven” for conspiracy and inciting riots (their convictions were overturned because of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct). He became a leading figure in the anti-war movement, where he and Fonda, who he married in 1973, helped organize protests and campaigned for amnesty for war resisters.
Hayden’s ambiguity about “reform vs. revolution” showed most clearly in his move into politics. In 1976, he mounted a spirited primary campaign for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen. John Tunney (I was working with Tunney’s campaign at the time). Six years later, he was elected to the California Assembly and later the state Senate and ran a series of unsuccessful campaigns for governor of California and mayor of Los Angeles.
In later years, Hayden acknowledged that he’d been “overly romantic about the Vietnamese revolution”—meaning that he had failed to anticipate the victors’ taste for re-education camps and a totalitarian political system. But what struck me in a conversation with him was a sense of regret that the events of the 1960s had pulled him onto a path different from the one he’d imagined.
In preparing a book of “alternate history,” I asked Hayden what would have been different had JFK lived and not escalated the war in Vietnam.
“Everything,” was his answer. There would not have been the conviction among dissidents that the United States was beyond redemption; SDS might not have destroyed itself in a mindless war between Maoists and Weathermen. A growing movement among progressives might have managed to avoid the split between civil rights and peace movement Democrats and the white working class, a split which still troubles the party today.
As for himself?
“I think I would have gone to work on the War on Poverty,” he said with a small smile.
In the Port Huron Statement, Hayden wrote: “We would replace power rooted in possession, privilege or circumstance by power and uniqueness rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason and creativity.” No doubt that sounds hopelessly naive or sentimental. But it is a measure of the journey his—and my—generation has taken that there was a time when that seemed a reasonable aspiration. And for all of the twists and turns of his eventful life, it was an aspiration that remained at the heart of Tom Hayden’s work and life. |
In April of 2013, Google announced that its Chrome browser would move away from the then-current WebKit rendering engine to a new, Google-backed (but still open-source) engine called Blink. Reasons given for the switch included a desire to improve performance and reduce complexity, and a recent Google Groups post by Google software engineer Eric Seidel shows just what the Blink team will be working toward in 2014.
Unsurprisingly, many of the team's goals focus on mobile device performance, "in part because Web engines (e.g. Blink) are not nearly as good on performance-constrained devices as they need to be." Google considers smooth scrolling and animation, input responsiveness, and load time to be key factors on mobile devices, and the company wants to improve on these while reducing memory usage and power consumption.
Other goals are focused on "improv[ing] the mobile Web platform itself," blurring the line between locally installed applications and apps run in the browser window. Google wants to enable "better-than-AppCache" offline modes for apps, Web apps that support push notifications, and apps that support hardware-specific features like screen orientation.
Google also moved away from WebKit so that it could deprecate code it wasn't using, and that kind of cleanup will continue in 2014. Google wants to remove unspecified "large platform features," but with "minimal breakage." For the rest of the codebase, the team wants to "modularize and homogenize" it, making it easier to make changes to specific features without breaking other things. Finally, developers are getting some love: they'll be getting tools that help them analyze "mobile design [and] performance" and some new mobile app guidelines from Google. The team wants to reduce the amount of time it takes for developers to begin using a feature once that feature ships.
Most of these goals are unsurprising—there's a lot here that falls under the "slow and steady improvement" umbrella, and Chrome has been about slow and steady improvement since the first beta was released in September of 2008. More notable is how the team's plans for Blink align with Google's goals for its other platforms. Reduced memory footprint and improved performance were features of Android 4.4, which Google engineered to run on devices with 512MB of RAM. Doing the same to the Blink engine furthers Google's goal to get older versions of Android off low-end phones and cheap handsets sold in emerging markets, many of which continue to run Android 2.3.
Just as the performance improvements line up with Google's Android strategy, any changes to Blink that makes Web apps richer will pay off for Chrome OS. Google is working to improve Chrome OS' utility by way of its installable Packaged Apps, but Web apps aren't so Google-specific and are much more widespread as of this writing. Investing in more robust Web apps and better offline capabilities are essential features if Google wants to make Chrome OS fit better in slots currently occupied by other devices.
The mobile-heavy focus of this Blink roadmap may be a side-effect of Sundar Pichai's management—he took over for then-Android boss Andy Rubin back in March of 2013, and since then both the Android and Chrome teams have operated under his aegis. Google has never been as compartmentalized as a company like Microsoft, but having both projects managed by the same person makes it easier to align strategies. This document about adding new Blink features, linked as a footnote in Seidel's roadmap, mentions the balance between features and performance as being particularly important for mobile devices, something that could fall through the cracks if the Chrome team was primarily focused on Chrome OS or the desktop browser.
"Considering that feature deprecation remains elusive, the cost of new features and APIs is untenably high," it reads. "The situation is even more grim for mobile devices, where every byte and milliamp/hour counts. Given that the mobile Web is already working off the negative balance, we simply can't afford adding new girth and jank there."
The full list of goals, as well as a growing discussion thread about them, can be found here. |
Despite the fact that the most important purpose of bitcoin’s blockchain is to keep track of cryptocurrency transfers, bitcoin transactions can bear a few bytes of data. Smart contracts, which are built on top of bitcoin’s blockchain, make use of this feature to store a historical record of transactions in a way that cannot be tampered with. The sequence of transactions, related to smart contracts, leads to the formation of a sort of subchain of bitcoin’s blockchain, which in most cases, won’t interfere with the recorded transactions recorded therein. A subchain is said to be consistent, when it reflects a legit process for smart contract execution. A pivotal issue is how to render it hard for an adversary to subvert the process of smart contract execution via rendering its subchain inconsistent. The presently available approaches either assume that subchains are almost always consistent, or present rather weak guarantees regarding their security ( for example, they are vulnerable to Sybil attacks).
A group of developers from the University of Cagliari, Italy, have recently published a paper that presented a consensus protocol, which is based on the Proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm, that rewards nodes for consistently extending the subchain. They hypothetically evaluated the security of the proposed protocol, and they showed how their proposed protocol can be the basis for using smart contracts on bitcoin’s blockchain.
An overview of the protocol:
Consider a network composed of a group of mutually trustless nodes (N, N’,…….,). The authors referred to them as “meta-nodes” to differentiate them from conventional nodes across bitcoin’s network. Meta-nodes will receive messages from users who wish to extend the subchain. The ultimate goal is to enable honest users, who strictly follow the protocol, to consistently update the subchain, while also penalizing adversaries who try to turn the subchain into an inconsistent one.
To acheive this, the authors proposed a protocol that is based on the proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm. Mainly, they relied on the hypothesis that entails that the stake earned by honest users is bigger than the stake earned by dishonest users. Meta-nodes need the stake to be able to vote on approval of request updates. To reward nodes for voting on update requests, users will pay meta-nodes a small fee, which can be redeemed when the network accepts the update request.
The protocol is organized in stages with duration ∆. The following summarizes the protocol:
When an update request UR[A : a] is received, a meta-node will check whether or not, it is a consistent update request. If so, it will vote in favor of the request and then records it on the reuest pool. When ∆ expires, the arbiter will sign all the update requests, which are well formed, in the request pool.
All update requests that have been successfully signed by the arbiter will be sent to the miners, to be broadcast on the blockchain. As dictated by the UR, the i-th message on the subchain will be the first to be mined.
Conclusion:
A new PoS protocol was proposed to create consensus on subchains in a secure manner. The proposed protocol can be implemented on bitcoin’s blockchain and represent an excellent framework for executing smart contracts securely on bitcoin’s blockchain.
Image source: Wikipedia |
Trigger warning
A single, circular, black and white-colored analog clock adorned the off-white wall. Groggy, my eyes strained then refocused. It was 4 a.m. I had been in limbo overnight waiting for an in-demand, overbooked, cheap wood-framed, rather uncomfortable single bed. It was an early, solemn San Francisco morning: May 1st, 2004. I was 23 years young. My father and I had been in the filthy sock-smelling emergency room overnight.
It wasn't our first time in this predicament. He waited anxiously near the door of my linoleum-floored, white-walled room. It was the third floor of the locked down unit within the St. Francis Hospital Psychiatric Ward. We had been here before, three times in fact. So often that when a moment of levity passed, I referred to it as my exotic hotel stay. Time and again, I had to live in place like these -- to equalize, to heal, and to regain a semblance of sanity. You did not misread the title. I was in my third psychiatric hospital stay. I would see the inside of a place like this four more times over the course of the next 7 years. Why? Well the answer is not as simple as "I lost my mind." or "I just went nuts." No, those self-berating descriptions are vague and quite frankly offensive to someone who has suffered mentally like I have, and like I do. The answer is much more complex and quite detailed.
"Number 26, I was number 26 of the 34 people who attempted to take their lives by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. "
Most have never regained full mobility. I have been blessed to regain all mobility and maintain my physical fitness. Others have stayed in silence, keeping their stories to themselves. Many have simply gone on with their lives, and eventually pass on of natural causes. Some have opened up, begun speaking about their experiences, sharing with the public what they can about the perils of suicidal ideation, great suffering and pain. These stories of triumph over adversity are not just important for readers, and followers of the mental health movement (An absolute civil rights movement of this or any time) but imperative for so many people's continued survival. In the drab, smelly hospital, focusing -- not only on the health of my brain, body, my metaphorical heart, and searching of the soul -- became key.
The idea of achieving total physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health is what got me through from one day to the next. Morphing from the self-loathing, inner critical thinking creature I had become would not be easy. Soon, I came to the realization that it was entirely possible, maybe even plausible. It would be the most likely outcome. However, this alternate positive and potential reality would only be reachable with a tremendous amount of therapeutic dedication and most of all an unhindered intense drive. The kind of drive that needed to be enacted upon minute by taxing minute in order for me to survive and thrive.
I learned to utilize the kind goal setting devices needed to build the solid support of a group of personal protectors meant to guide me in times of episodic crisis. This was a group of loved ones, family, and friends who I would request to opt in to my 'Let's Keep Kevin Alive' plan. It is a quick guide to hope and healing, architecturally designed to fit my needs. It was something concrete that could keep me going in rough times, and keep me alive when all I can do is ponder, and plan my death by suicide.
"With the help of a Time magazine article on fighting bipolar disorder, depression, and all the other symptoms of my disease, I formed a mental health plan. Both for staying on an even keel and for staying here during the worst of times. "
1. Therapy. I will use anything that works, from cognitive behavioral, breathing, art, music, to blue wave light box therapies. All of which help me either stay stable or find a balance.
2. Sleep. Redeveloping a good to great circadian rhythm, a sleeping pattern that allows me at least five nights of 7-8 hours of sleep out of a seven day week. This gives me the rejuvenation my brain needs to function on its highest, and safest level. Lack of adequate rest, and sleep, can lead to insomnia (where I was), and insomnia leads to psychosis. Adding that to bipolar disorder type one with psychotic features is just dangerous.
3. Education. This would be the education of my diagnosable mental illness, and the study of the various and most up to date, reputable, proven treatments available. Constantly reading about my struggle, and subsequent learning how to address the disease, fight it and continually beat the symptoms as they come, would allow me to be my better self; a well-rounded, and happier self.
4. Exercise. My motto: if you are physically capable of exercise, it is simple, move that body. Do the deed not for vanity, but to increase levels of sanity. It has been proven that rigorous activity, and exercise for 23 minutes a day, leads to 12 hours of better, or improved mood. I often do 23 minutes of rigorous non stop workouts twice a day, leading to 24 hours of better mood. This one really helps not just you, but everyone near you. It is important to acknowledge how each and every action affects everyone else around us. We are not alone and when we hurt, the people who love us are in pain as well.
5. Meditation. Practicing regular daily meditation and focused breathing methods can help the body recuperate from mild, modern and immense stress. This gives us the ability to keep on keepin' on. Meditation has been proven to help people calm, and quiet their minds, bodies and look inside for peace and tranquility. It helps me in a panicked state, create serenity internally, and externally. These two qualities can be achieved with different forms of proven meditation are key factors to staying calm, cool, and collected. As the ubiquitous they always says a cool head always prevails.
6. Medication. This one is mainly for those with diagnosed mental health, and behavioral health conditions. Personally, I take medications every day, around the same time a day. I take them with 100 percent accuracy each day, because I understand they help me stabilize and keep off the crooked path. Truth be told, they don't help everyone. Over the years, I have managed my BPD best with them. My suggestion, having lived now almost 18 years with a severe diagnosable mental illness, is if you have been prescribed meds, be compliant enough to take them properly. Do not skip doses, at the same or nearly the same time daily, and never while on illegal, or drug substances including alcohol. Try never to take them with a foreign substance in your system, as they will most likely counter-act with one another. This can prove very dangerous, and debilitating to you and your well-being.
7. Absolutely refrain from drugs and alcohol. I used to binge drink until blackout while on psychotropic medications. This is something that could have ended in an early death or even damage to parts of my brain. I never have used any other drug other than alcohol. My biological parents had the co-occurring diseases of manic depression (today bipolar disorder) and the serious disease of addiction. They both died horrible, and tragic deaths because of these factors. For that reason, recreational illicit drugs have always been off the table in my book. If you battle the disease of addiction, I hope this helps you consider seeking professional help to change your lifestyle, and find tools to help retrain your brain to live without such self-destructiveness.
8. Healthy eating, and a clean living lifestyle. Eating foods that directly feed the brain with good nutrition, will help you stabilize your overall health. Learning what foods help you personally is paramount. Eating healthily and routinely can help to keep your body and mind at an equilibrium. Not only does this benefit you, but by sheer example it gives you the ability to inspire others around you to make these kinds of good health choices. It helps you use this guide to have great health, not just good health. Life with less toxins and processed foods can help any body and mind heal and recover faster, as well as live longer. If it comes in a box, wrapping, or plastic packaging, it's probably not the best choice. I will freely admit that I love, love, love Taco Bell. Even so, I no longer eat it. It only made me feel sick, and fast food tends to have that effect because it is not "real" food.
9. Coping mechanisms. Hobbies, tools, and helpful activities that help you stay grounded when fighting a brain disease. I walk in nature, sketch on sketch pads, read comic books, watch newly-released movies, go on date nights with my wife, exercise for fun, and read a lot. All of these activities are my way of coping with my mental battles. When I hallucinate (which I do often enough), I ground myself with one of my coping mechanisms. I grasp my hands left to right, back and forth when I am self aware enough to know that what I am seeing or hearing may not exist in anyone else's reality. Simultaneously, I ask the person nearest to me if they hear or see the perceived hallucination. Those closest to me do not invalidate my reality, they acknowledge that it is real to me, but that they are not experiencing the same things. Over time, with the coping and grounding exercises, I get past the distorted reality and eventually come back to our true reality.
10. The Plan. I created my very own mental and brain health emergency plan. The emergency plan has all of my doctors' and clinicians' names, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses. It also includes descriptions of my symptoms, signs, episode triggers, and more. It contains copies of release forms signed by my personal protectors. These are people who I have I opted in to my plan so that if any one of them wanted to call any one of my doctors at any time to discuss my treatment plan and/or symptoms, they have authority to speak with my doctor(s). They would be able to get a play by play, usurping HIPA laws, and giving those closest to me the ability to be a part of my change, and safety efforts at any given day. Why? The answer is simple, no one with a mental illness, a brain disease, or behavioral health battle can do this alone, and everyone needs help sometime.
So there it is. This is how I fight to stay all kinds of well. This is how I strive to live with my best brain ever.
www.SuicideTheRippleEffect.com
[email protected]
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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — After getting Carson Wentz help in the offseason, the Philadelphia Eagles are still relying too much on their quarterback. Wentz handed the ball off only 13 times out of 69 plays in a 27-20 loss at Kansas City on Sunday. He threw 46 passes, got sacked six times and had four scrambles.
"You don't ever want to throw the ball that many times. You want to have more of a balance," coach Doug Pederson said Monday. "The run game is a part of that. But at the same time you end up doing sort of what the game dictates late in the game. And do I want him to drop back that many times? No."
LeGarrette Blount, who led the NFL with 18 rushing touchdowns last season, didn't get a carry against the Chiefs. Instead, 34-year-old Darren Sproles was the primary back, running 10 times for 48 yards. Second-year-pro Wendell Smallwood carried three times for 4 yards. Wentz led the team with 55 yards rushing .
"It's just how the game went," said Blount, who led the way with 46 yards on 14 carries in Week 1. "That wasn't the game plan going in, but the game wasn't going the way we wanted it to, so we had to make some changes. We've just got to ride the wave. When your number's called, your number's called."
The Eagles (1-1) gave Wentz more weapons when they signed receivers Alshon Jeffery and Torrey Smith in free agency and drafted Mack Hollins in the fourth round. The trio caught 14 passes on 24 targets. Smith dropped two deep jump balls, but Wentz is throwing downfield more and has enough confidence in Jeffery and Smith to go to them in coverage.
However, Wentz tries to force plays at times and it's been costly. The turning point against Kansas City came in the fourth quarter when Wentz threw an interception on third-and-12 from the Eagles 31 with the score tied at 13. His pass bounced off Justin Houston's helmet, fluttered in the air and was picked. Wentz should've thrown the ball away and settled for a punt and better field position.
"We thought we could make plays in the passing game," Wentz said. "I am not overly concerned about the run game. I know that will be a big part of the offense going forward. When you have three guys, it is hard to get them all involved."
NOTES: Pederson said safeties Rodney McLeod and Jaylen Watkins are day to day with hamstring injuries. Both players exited early against the Chiefs. ... The Eagles host the New York Giants in their home opener on Sunday.
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For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL
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Follow Rob Maaddi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_RobMaaddi |
Reader Bobby, a cultural liberal, responded to a conservative’s criticism on another thread, and tries to point out that economics, not sex, drove social fragmentation in his hometown:
I may work in finance now, but I grew up in a manufacturing town in the Midwest. I watched the moral decline occur. I saw thousands of people lose high-wage manufacturing jobs and face the prospect that the best available jobs paid less than half the salary they’d been earning for the past 20 years. And, in many cases, they had to drive an hour to a larger city just to get those jobs. When that happens, it tears apart the entire social fabric of a community. During my senior year, five guys on my soccer team were living with neighbors or grandparents because their parents had left the state to look for work. My father’s practice survived, but my parents lost nearly all of their closest friends. Several of my closest friends moved away the morning after our high school graduation. One moved to Colorado, another to Texas, and another to Georgia. The four of us grew up on the same cul-de-sac and our families had been inseparable since as long as we could remember. Churches all over town went bankrupt. Civic leagues collapsed, as their most active members moved away. Within a 5-year-period, attendance at high school sporting events fell by 90%. This didn’t happen because people woke up one morning and decided en masse to follow the siren call of the sexual revolution. No, it happened because one manufacturer eliminated 18,000 jobs overnight in a town with barely more than 85,000 people. And the same thing happened in communities all over middle America. My parents are still scarred by it. They decided to stay, and try to help the city recover. They’re now angry and depressed, and proudly supporting Trump.
I think it’s inaccurate to say it’s either/or, but I take Bobby’s point, and it’s one that most conservatives don’t really want to hear, for the same reason that most liberals don’t want to think about the role of sexual liberation in social fragmentation. But this is something conservative really must think about.
Along those lines, here’s a link to a Washington Post interview with Michael Brendan Dougherty. Excerpt:
Why are conservative leading having such a tough time finding policy approaches that ring true to working-class voters? Are the Mikes of the world too easily persuaded by what I might call magical thinking solutions – for example, the idea, which you hear fairly often from Trump supporters, that Trump as president would essentially “renegotiate” the terms of trade and business in order to boost the working class? Because the burden of taxation overall falls on the highest-income earners and those in the investor-class, the advocates of a small-government philosophy naturally find themselves allied with those voters when talking about reforming government or removing the economic burdens of government. Libertarian-leaning economists love to advertise that free trade deals mean cheaper everyday consumables that are available to lower income Americans, they don’t talk as often discuss how free trade makes it easier for America’s wealthy to invest their capital in cheaper foreign workforces. I think we all know who got the better overall end of the deal and who paid the cost for it. When conservatives think of American trade negotiators and diplomats working to lower the barriers to American capitalists investing in overseas workforces, they see it as a core function of government, not as a kind of favor to wealthy clients of the American state. But if the same negotiators had in mind the interests of American workers instead, they see it as corrupt protectionism, that coddles the undeserving. There is a huge failure of imagination on the right. And a failure of self-awareness. It may also be that I don’t see conservatism’s primary duty as guarding the purity of certain 19th century liberal principles on economics. I see its task as reconciling and harmonizing the diverse energies and interests of a society for the common good.
That last line of MBD’s shines light on the difference between traditionalist conservatives and mainstream conservatives. But then, if we can’t even agree on what the common good is — and we can’t — then we are stuck.
I have not heard Trump say anything about how he would make things more fair, and protect the interests of American workers (over those of American manufacturers). All he does is talk about how unfair it is, and to make promises to bring home jobs from overseas — promises that he has not explained how he would fulfill. |
This video published today shows Israeli activists from the dissident group Boycott from Within disrupting the filming of the new NBC drama show Dig on location in the ethnically cleansed Palestinian coastal city of Jaffa, in present-day Israel.
The activists are greeted with racist slogans by people on the set.
Dig, to be shown on NBC’s cable network USA, has generated strong protests from Palestinians who see it is as part of Israel’s effort to consolidate its control and advance the Judaization of occupied Jerusalem.
Responding to protests from Palestinians, NBC vice president Cory Shields promised last December that the show would not be filmed in Silwan in eastern Jerusalem, a Palestinian neighborhood which Israel’s occupation municipality is in the process of ethnically cleansing.
But NBC has violated this promise and the filming has proceeded in Silwan and other locations targeted for Israeli settlement.
The Israeli government and Jerusalem’s occupation municipality are providing the series a $6.3 million grant. The cast and crew recently met with Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett, leader of the extreme right-wing nationalist and pro-settler party Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home).
Invading the set
Shortly after someone from the film crew calls out “action,” the video shows activists marching on to the set shouting “One, two, three, four occupation no more, five, six, seven eight, we don’t dig apartheid state” and “Shame on you Hollywood! Shame on you NBC!”
The activists, who can be seen carrying large protest banners, are met with a racist response.
They are told to “go to Sudan” and “go to Hizbullah” and in one disturbing moment an extra begins to sing a song in praise of Baruch Goldstein, the American settler who massacred 29 Palestinians at the Ibrahimi mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in 1994.
Goldstein was killed by survivors defending themselves.
The extra says to camera “I ask for blessings on Baruch Goldstein’s grave… because what he did was self sacrifice. Not because you’ve got to kill Arabs, but because in his action he saved many Jews.”
One of the protestors says: “Our message is that you [NBC] are complicit in Israeli crimes, in whitewashing Israeli crimes with the support and investment of the Jerusalem Municipality and Naftali Bennett.”
This is not the first time opponents of NBC’s complicity in Israeli colonization have made their way on to a Dig set.
Earlier this month Jason Isaacs, the Dig actor who previously starred in several Harry Potter films, was confronted on set as the show filmed on location in eastern occupied Jerusalem.
It remains to be seen whether Isaacs will condemn the kind of racism expressed on the set of his new show. |
The World Bank Group will cease to finance upstream oil and gas after 2019, it was announced Tuesday.
The global financial institution said at the One Planet Summit in Paris that its decision would "align its support to countries to meet their Paris goals."
In exceptional circumstances, consideration would be given to financing upstream gas in the world's poorest countries if there was a "clear benefit in terms of energy access for the poor and the project fits within the countries' Paris Agreement commitments," it said.
Under the Paris Agreement, reached at the end of 2015, world leaders committed to making sure global warming stays "well below" two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The deal suffered a setback at the beginning of June, however, when President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the agreement and commence talks to re-enter or negotiate a new accord.
As well as its decision on upstream oil and gas, the World Bank Group said on Tuesday that it would, among other things, report the greenhouse gas emissions arising from investment projects it finances in "key emissions-producing sectors" from 2018. |
Malcolm Kelly breaks down the balance of power in the Canadian Football League.
Overall Record: 12-1-1
Streak: Unbeaten in 13
Next: At Toronto
You knew the Stamps would be on an emotional high after defensive back Mylan Hicks was killed last week. The question was whether they could sustain strong play for an entire game. It was answered emphatically. Carrying heavy hearts, the White Stallions started strong, stayed strong, and finished strong. This club hasn't lost a game since Week 1. It's now Week 15. We try not to over stat these things, but sometimes it's revealing. QB Bo Mitchell (with six by backup Drew Tate) produced 402 net yards, averaged 8.3 yards on first down, 9.9 on second down, used RB Jerome Messam for 59 on the ground and 43 in the air, hit DeVaris Daniels for 123 yards, including two scores. No sacks. Only concern was the two interceptions thrown. Defence dominated, contributing nine knockdowns — unheard of.
Overall record: 9-4-0
Streak: Won 1
Next: At Winnipeg
Film Day 1: When the Leo defence sat down for video review of its victory over Ottawa this week, it couldn't have been pretty. After giving up 539 net yards and 33 points, about the only positive takeaway was the Pick 6 off a desperation throw by the Redblacks with a few seconds left on the clock. Special teams allowed 165 yards in returns, and that wasn't helpful. QB Jonathon Jennings (20-for-25, 348 yards, 3 TDS, 0 interceptions) bailed out the defenders all night with long drives that ended in lots of points. At one time, five out of six possessions resulted in a change on the scoreboard. RB Anthony Allen pounded 12 times for 82 yards, keeping things honest. Nice win, but without a better defence the playoffs will be short. Under 20K in the stands again.
Overall record: 7-7
Streak: Won 2
Next: At Montreal
QB Mike Reilly has the confidence to throw into a dangerous spot and the skill to get away with it. That sideline laser to Derel Walker with 2:12 left could have been jumped if it wasn't on target and on time, resulting in a loss. It was, however, caught and run in for a wrap-up TD. That play was a metaphor for how the Eskimos came into Winnipeg, ready to perform as a Grey Cup champion should. Now a word for John White, who struggles with health because of the hard-nosed way he plays, and is great because of the hard-nosed way he plays. The RB had 104 yards (19 carries) and another 64 by air (seven catches). Team is peaking at the right time and is currently not looking at a crossover playoff berth. They're looking at second in the West.
Overall record: 8-6
Streak: Lost 2
Next: B.C.
If you're going to be a "ball hawk" defence, always cutting underneath the receiver in hopes of picking off the throw or causing a fumble, you'd better get it right. Terrence Frederick was caught this time, going for the ball instead of tackling the receiver when Derel Walker went for the long TD that sealed this key game. The whole defence has lived on this type of play this year, but in late-season games, and playoffs, you have to be more careful. Mistakes wrecked this one – Weston Dressler fumbling on the Edmonton two, early in the second quarter, Kevin Fogg having a punt return TD called back by a dumb block in the back. The Peg fell behind early and tried to close late once again, and you must not continue this way.
Overall record: 6-6-1
Streak: Lost 1
Next: Saskatchewan
Film Day 2: When the RBs sat down for video review of their loss to B.C., this week, it couldn't have been pretty. Despite one of the best attacks seen from any team this year (539 net yards, 485 in the air), Ottawa found a way to lose this game. QB Trevor Harris couldn't have done more, and his receivers were superb. Chris Williams caught five for 155 yards, with 101 after the catch. Ernest Jackson was six for 122 and 77 YAC, as two examples. Defending was much better in the second half, but giving up 27 in the opening 30 made it moot. Based on the week before, this group can play great, it's simply not consistent. Just to spread the grumpiness around, that chop block by Nolan MacMillan changed a late 3rd-and-4 field goal chance late, into a 3rd-and-19 punt.
Overall record: 6-8
Streak: Lost 2
Next: Bye
Being pounded by the Calgary Stampeders is hardly unusual for CFL teams this season, so you have to give a little nod to the opposition. On the other hand, the incredible collapsing offensive line kept Zach Collaros running around the first half until he ran into Charleston Hughes, smacked his head or throwing shoulder on the ground and left for the rest of the contest. (look up O Line stats). Jeremiah Masoli took over and wasn't able to do much until it was too late. Stat: Cats gave the ball to the running back just three times. There were 50 pass attempts – the defence knows that's coming so it just drops back and waits, resulting in nine knockdowns. That's more than most teams get in three games. Must diversify this offence.
Overall record: 4-9
Streak: Won 1
Next: Edmonton
The Jacques Chapdelaine era in Montreal (as long as it lasts) started nicely when the new coach sent QB Rakeem Cato out with a game plan he could handle, leading the youngster to his best-ever pro outing. Cato threw four touchdown passes on a day he only tried 23 passes, completing 18 of them. Larks also ran 20 times (led by Tyrell Sutton's 83 yards), for a total of 139 in a crushing victory over a collapsing Toronto opponent. Especially impressive was a three-drive section in the third quarter that produced a field goal and two majors on 19 total plays. Amazing what you can do with just 270 net yards, if every one of them counts towards points. Defence allowed 399 net, but did not give up a touchdown. Als took just six penalties, and had zero giveaways.
Overall record: 3-10
Streak: Won 2
Next: At Ottawa
Best news of the week happened at the corner of Elphinstone Street and the railway tracks, where New Mosaic Stadium opened its doors for a test event featuring U. of Saskatchewan and U. of Regina. Passed with flying colours. This ties in with the current Riders because they are coming out of the bye playing much better football – keep that up and everything from 2016 will be forgotten. Five games left, go 3-2 (or even 2-3) and momentum will carry the day. Meanwhile, Chris Jones (uber boss) continued to tinker, releasing returner Kendial Lawrence and signing receiver Jeff Fuller, the latter with three Calgary years on his belt before a try at the NFL didn't work out. Waiting an announcement if QB Darian Durant (concussion) can start this week.
Overall record: 5-9
Streak: Lost 3
Next: Calgary
Coach Scott Milanovich said on Sunday that some players were not stepping up and changes needed to be made. On Monday he cut four international receivers, including Vidal Hazelton (361 yards) and Tori Gurley (509 yards). A frustrating thing for any coaching staff is when you're doing all the things you believe to be right and worked before, and it's not working now. QB Drew Willy's offence rolled up 399 net yards, including 165 on the ground, and still couldn't find a touchdown. A defence deservedly under critical fire allowed just 270 net yards to Montreal, but almost all of them turned up gold for the Larks. What's killing this team especially is lack of discipline – finally getting some yards on returns, for example, they took five penalties to wipe it all out. |
Android 7.1 is upon us – at least it is if you count the oddball mix-and-match of having an "official" version of 7.1 on Pixel phones and a "developer preview" for a few other Nexus devices. Now that the Pixels are out, source code has also been released for Android 7.1.0 on AOSP. It comes as little surprise that we don't have an official release of the 7.1.1 source code that went out to Nexus devices since they are still considered developer previews, but they're probably not terribly different. So now it's time to dig through for some interesting and unusual hints about what unusual changes have been made in this version that we didn't already know about.
Based on a post by Bill Yi in the Android Building Group, it sounds like this source drop is being treated like a typical release, not like a normal developer preview which generally limits itself to GPL-licensed projects. Judging by the presence of code related to new features like App Shortcuts (formerly Launcher Shortcuts), this appears to be true. That's definitely a good thing, as it means we don't have to wait several months for the most interesting bits and pieces to be revealed.
Reading the changelogs? There are a lot of questions and confusion surrounding changelogs, so here are a few reminders and tips that might clear some things up. To begin with, all changelogs are named with their starting and ending tags. That's because changelogs pick up where previous changelogs left off, but the names and numbers aren't necessarily sequential. For example, 6.0.1_r56 is based on r48, not on r55. Changelogs always build off of another changelog, sometimes even in the same month. Also remember that while most patches are only written once, they may be copied across multiple development branches running in parallel, so a single patch may appear in more than one changelog. Also remember that these changelogs only list changes uploaded to the Android Open Source Project. They do not include changes made to the closed source proprietary binaries used to build the final firmware for a device. Sometimes a new tag and build number are created for updates where only those binaries have been replaced, which usually results in a virtually empty changelog. Finally, changelogs for developer previews contain only a short list of changes. This is because Google does not post the full code for a new version of Android until the OS is final. Most of the code disclosed prior to a final OS release is usually for compliance with the GPL or similarly licensed projects, or belonging to projects Google itself chooses to make available in advance.
Two quick notes about the content of these changelogs. A few people have reported issues where tags aren't updating properly from the git repositories of some projects. The side effect is that those projects may not appear in the changelogs. I'm working to identify and resolve the issue, though it appears not to have had a significant impact. Updated versions will be posted when they are ready. Also, as is fairly typical of a first release of any new version, the first build is based on the preview release from the previous version (i.e. n-preview-1). This means there will be quite a few lines that also appeared in Android 7.0. (Sorry, not much I can do about that yet.)
If you've got some time to look around through the developer comments, the four builds below should have some fairly interesting things to dig up. Again, there are plenty of things to read into about app shortcuts, memory optimizations, and even emoji. Enjoy!
Android 7.1 Developer Preview:
Oct 24, 2016 |
Fox Sports 1’s great Canadian sports broadcasting experiment is over. The network has cancelled Fox Sports Live and won’t be renewing the contracts of Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole when they’re up in March.
Jay Onrait (left) and Dan O'Toole on set in Los Angeles.
There is already speculation that the pair might return to TSN, where they were beloved by Canadian viewers as they honed their irreverent take on sports as the late-night hosts of SportsCentre from 2003 to 2013. Calls to Onrait and TSN for comment Thursday weren’t returned. The pair once ruled the roost in Canada with their offbeat style and chemistry, often compared to the ESPN tandem of Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick. A 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal asked: “Why can’t we have Canada’s Sportscentre?” From there, Onrait and O’Toole worked on TSN’s London Olympics coverage and were up to their usual antics when they were approached by Fox executives, who were planning to take on market leader ESPN with a dedicated sports channel. FS1 hired away the pair — plus producer Tim Moriarty — in 2013, with Onrait and O’Toole moving to California for the launch of Fox Sports Live, that network’s flagship show.
Article Continued Below
In 2013, during an interview with theStar for his first book Anchorboy, Onrait knew the challenge ahead: “It’s the reverse of what I’ve been doing up here. TSN had a 15-year head start and Sportsnet still hasn’t caught them. Down there, ESPN had a 30-year head start, so we’ve got way more of our work cut out for us. Way more. It’s going to take a long time to really make a dent. I’m being a very realistic about it. My only hope is that our show is unique enough that slowly people trickle over to us as appointment viewing, kind of the same way as SportsCentre here.” Out of the gate, Onrait and O’Toole received rave reviews in the U.S. but it didn’t lead to big ratings. They tried several changes. The most recent incarnation had them effectively doing a late-night talk show. Fox Sports Live’s last show aired Wednesday night, and the cast and crew were reportedly informed of the decision Thursday morning. “We’ve been committed to creating programming that resonates with sports fans. As part of that commitment, we are constantly assessing all of FS1’s studio offerings, and despite changes to the format of Fox Sports Live and the popularity of Jay and Dan as individuals, we’ve made the difficult decision to move forward with other projects.” Charlie Dixon, executive vice-president of content for FS1 and FS2, said in a statement to SportsBusinessDaily. Online, many Canadian fans expressed hope that the pair would return to Canada, and author James Miller — who wrote the oral history Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the World of ESPN — tweeted: “Silver lining for @JayOnrait after cancellation of @foxsportslive — Hearing he will be returning to @TSN_Sports in Canada.”
FS1 has moved toward more opinionated hosts debating topics, and Onrait and O’Toole’s humorous take didn’t fit in with that plan. The speculation is that they will be replaced by Katie Nolan, another FS1 personality who has had a weekly show called Garbage Time with Katie Nolan, which aired Wednesday at midnight and features pointed commentary on sexist attitudes. Nolan raised O’Toole’s ire on Twitter last May when she said that she’d like to host a show that aired at 11 or 11:30 p.m. — Fox Sports Live’s time slot. O’Toole took umbrage, tweeting; “Hey @katienolan, great to see you are a team player. Can u feed my kids once you take our time slot? Thanks!” He was criticized, but noted that his show’s “ratings were better” than Nolan’s. TheSportingNews broke the story that Nolan would be expanding her role. |
On October 16, 2011, the early evening weather on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, California, was almost unspeakably gorgeous — mild as a warm bath, a cloudless sky above, a full moon beaming benevolently on the 300 people gathered to mourn Steve Jobs. The world had lost one of its greatest creative forces, but for those in attendance, especially his family, the loss was painfully personal.
Yet the ceremony was, as intended, a celebration of a distinct, brilliant and sometimes impetuous man of flesh, blood and foibles. After the formalities in Stanford Memorial Church ended with Bono singing “Every Grain of Sand”(reading the lyrics from an iPad), the entire party retreated to a nearby garden area that was beautifully arranged for a post-dusk gathering. For several magical hours over drinks and hors d’oeuvres, mourners reminisced about a most unforgettable human being.
The Steve Jobs portrayed in the encomiums that evening was not just a genius who oversaw the development of products that would change our lives. He was cast as a person with a keen wit and a capacity for deep connections with his friends and enduring love for his family. But behind the scenes of a seemingly perfect memorial a shadow drama was unfolding, with Jobs’s public perception at stake.
As the crowds mingled before the service, Walter Isaacson, who had been entrusted to write the official biography of Jobs, was telling people he had just dropped off an early copy of the book to Steve’s widow, Laurene. The work had been rushed into print to capitalize on the huge interest after Jobs’s death. And just after the service, a journalist who had known Jobs well, Brent Schlender, left before the mourners gathered in the garden, racked with regret at not seizing the opportunity to say goodbye to his frequent subject earlier that year.
Isaacson’s eponymous biography of Jobs became a publishing phenomenon, selling over a million copies and making Isaacson himself somewhat of a celebrity. But privately, those closest to Jobs complained that Isaacson’s portrait focused too heavily on the Apple CEO’s worst behavior, and failed to present a 360-degree view of the person they knew. Though the book Steve Jobs gave copious evidence of its subject’s talent and achievements, millions of readers finished the book believing that he could be described with a word that rhymes with “gas hole.” A public debate erupted around the question of whether having a toxic personality (as was the general interpretation of Isaacson’s depiction) was an asset or a handicap if one chose to thoroughly disrupt existing businesses with vision and imagination. A Wired cover story (not mine!) asked, “Do you really want to be Steve Jobs?”
Only now, over three years later, has their dissatisfaction become public. In a February New Yorker profile, Apple’s design wizard Jony Ive conspicuously insisted that, while sometimes withering, Jobs’s harsh criticisms of his employees’ work were not personal attacks, but simply the result of impatient candor. As for Isaacson’s book, Ive was quoted as saying, “My regard couldn’t be any lower.”
But their unhappiness comes in full view in a new book co-written by the journalist who left early from the memorial service, Brent Schlender, called Becoming Steve Jobs. The reason Schlender had been angry enough at Jobs to turn down a precious final meeting was that his former source had stopped giving him access for his Fortune Magazine stories. But for this book, Apple was rolling out the red carpet for Schlender. In their new tome, Schlender and co-author Rick Tetzeli capture the thoughts of the people closest to Jobs in rare interviews seemingly granted to get the record straight. The subjects include Ive, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple’s former head of communications Katie Cotton, Pixar CEO Ed Catmull, and Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs. Others who were otherwise uninclined to cooperate did so at the urging of some of the aforementioned insiders. The implicit message seems to be that although almost all of those people participated in the official biography, they very much feel that the Steve Jobs they knew has still not been captured. Catmull’s authorized quote about the new book is telling: “I hope it will be recognized as the definitive history.”
Becoming Steve Jobs is the anti-Walter.
I guess I should come clean about my own bias here. Schlender is one of the very few journalists whom Steve Jobs favored with his trust over decades of coverage. The core of this tiny group probably includes only Schlender (who reported for the Wall Street Journal and Fortune), the New York Times’ John Markoff — and me. (Walt Mossberg, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, also had a close relationship with Jobs, but it was through his job as a product reviewer, and later conference organizer, rather than his reportage.) All three of us had some similar experiences with Jobs. And all of us had the opportunity to see Jobs evolve from a cosmically brash rebel in his twenties to a leader of one of the world’s most significant companies in his fifties.
But as explained in Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader, Schlender’s contact with Jobs was more personal. (Despite the book’s being a collaboration of two authors, the prose is in the first person, from Schlender’s point of view.) Though he is careful not to cast his relationship with Jobs as very much more than a warm interaction between professionals, Schlender seems to have been in very frequent contact with Jobs, visiting his house frequently and on several occasions bringing his children.
It was presumably this closeness that led Schlender to get cooperation from Jobs’s inner circle. Judging from the quotes from the interviews its members gave the authors, they very much had the Isaacson book in mind when offering up anecdotes about Jobs.
The best example of this is current Apple CEO Tim Cook’s account of his effort to donate part of his own liver to Jobs at a time when no compatible organs were available on the transplant list. Jobs vigorously refused the offer even before Cook could finish explaining it. It’s an emotional story that stands on its own. But Cook seems to have a specific point in recounting this. “Somebody that’s selfish, doesn’t reply like that,” he tells his interviewers. And in case they miss the reference, he continues.
“The picture of him isn’t understood. I thought the [Walter] Isaacson book did him a tremendous disservice. It was just a rehash of a bunch of stuff that had already been written, and focused on small parts of his personality. You get the feeling that [Steve’s] a greedy, selfish egomaniac. It didn’t capture the person. The person I read about there is somebody I never would have wanted to work with over all this time. Life is too short. . . He wasn’t a saint. I’m not saying that. None of us are. But it’s emphatically untrue that he wasn’t a great human being, and that is totally not understood.”
At that point the authors mention that Cook’s remarks “echoed the feeling of many of Steve’s close friends — in interview after interview…”
In my view, Cook’s dismissal of Isaacson’s book as just a sloppy rehash is somewhat over the top. I came to Isaacson’s book with a lot of knowledge about Steve Jobs, yet I learned many new details from over 40 interviews Jobs gave to Isaacson, as well from some interviews Isaacson won because Jobs prevailed on people to cooperate with the book. No matter what one thinks of Isaacson’s book, it is absolutely permeated, as is appropriate, with the voice of its subject. In addition, no one is claiming that Isaacson fabricated material.
(Isaacson himself, in an interview in the New York Times, said, “My book is very favorable and honest, with no anonymous slings.”)
Instead, the complaint is that Isaacson over-emphasized Jobs’s unattractive qualities and failed to present a rounded picture that corresponded with the reality of those closest to him. Schlender and Tetzeli attempt to remedy that in two ways. First, they give plenty of room for people on the wrong side of Jobs’s bad behavior to contextualize it. Second, they present a contrast between the young Jobs, whose misdeeds often arose from a self-indulgence or a flailing indecisiveness, and the mature Jobs, who not only channeled his energies more successfully, but was able to develop rewarding adult relationships.
This is a tricky balancing act for the authors, as even to the last, Jobs could be a tough person to deal with. Towards the end of the book they spend a full chapter, titled “Blind Spots, Grudges and Sharp Elbows,” trying to deal with some of Jobs’ unsavory actions even after his touted maturation. There’s no getting around the fact that Jobs held grudges, was gleeful in apparently violating the labor laws banning corporate collusion in not hiring each other’s employees, and sometimes would throw formerly valued employees under the bus.
At that point, one wonders whether the difference between the two perspectives is a matter of spin. Yet from my own perspective of knowing Jobs for almost 30 years, I have to say that there is indeed something that Schlender and Tetzeli bring to their portrait that was missing in Isaacson’s. For sure, the direct quotes in the authorized biography rang true as being pure Steve. But only in Becoming Steve Jobs do I recognize the complexity and warmth that I saw first-hand in Jobs, particularly in the last few years of his life.
Although Jobs professed to hate nostalgia, I did sense that as he grew older (and faced his mortality) some sentimentality had crept into his palette of emotions. He would sometimes bring up with a cackle something from the past — an arcane product from the early PC era, some gossip about the Mac team, even a shared incident from one of the stories I worked on about him or Apple. Though he was far from a jokester, he was quite capable of unleashing a barb. Often these were pointed at others in the industry, but sometimes he would make fun of himself. My own favorite quip of his came when I once asked the Beatle-loving Jobs if his dream was to have Paul McCartney perform one of those two-song sets that often closed his product launch events. “No,” he told me. “My dream is to have John Lennon perform.”
Though I have even less reason than Schlender to claim that ours was anything but a professional relationship, I believe I did get to see Steve as the man in full described in Becoming Steve Jobs. Though as with Schlender, Jobs and I had differences due to the diverging agendas of reporter and subject, we saw eye to eye on many things, including the amazing transformation that technology had on society, the importance of clear, simple design, and the greatness of Bob Dylan. And I am very thankful that, unlike Schlender (whose baffling refusal to see Jobs one last time seems to be tied to unique circumstances regarding not just journalism, but the writer’s health issues), I was able to properly say goodbye to Jobs in the last year of his life. Taking all this into account, I believe that Schlender and Tetzeli have indeed captured elements of Steve Jobs not found in the official biography.
In the long run, though, I believe that the disagreements about Jobs’s personality will have diminishing importance as future students of technology and culture seek to understand what Steve Jobs actually did, and how he did it. To that end, the lasting value of Becoming Steve Jobs might have nothing to do with its effort to be a corrective to the previous biography. Instead, historians will appreciate the careful documentation of Jobs’s professional evolution. The official thesis of the book is that during Jobs’ so-called “wilderness” years, between his being fired from Apple in 1985 and his return in 1997, the prodigal co-founder gained management wisdom, patience and even a measure of tact, all of which helped him take the company to unprecedented heights. Far from a novel observation, this has long been the conventional wisdom. But never has this narrative been so carefully developed as in Becoming Steve Jobs.
The authors zero in on specific negative consequences of Jobs’s behavior in his first stint at Apple and the early years of Next, and then demonstrate that, while Jobs was still capable of rudeness and self-entitlement, he had learned how to become an unparalleled strategist and manager. He also was successful in forging rewarding professional relationships with those he respected.
In addition, the authors manage to come up with many fascinating details neglected in all previous accounts of the very well-documented Jobs. Who knew that the Apple CEO was just as proud of the micro-transaction strategy embedded in the iTunes store as he was in winning the 99 cents-a-song concession from the labels? (Not me, and I wrote a book about the iPod.)
Because Becoming Steve Jobs has such a wealth of detail about its subject, summing it up in a sentence would do it injustice. The authors themselves explain that Jobs’s life can’t be neatly packaged like a Pixar movie script, instead saying it was “inspiring, confounding and unabashedly human.” But if I were forced to offer a précis in the space of a tweet, I would quote a line from Schlender and Tetzeli, about Jobs:
“He could be a jerk, but never an asshole.”
photo by George Lang, courtesy of Brent Schlender
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U.N. Chief to U.S.-Backed Saudi Air Coalition: You May Be Committing War Crimes in Yemen
This story has been updated.
Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, warned Friday that a Saudi-led air coalition that is supported by the United States may have committed war crimes by using cluster munitions in heavily populated neighborhoods in Yemen.
The U.N. chief has “received troubling reports of the use of cluster munitions” in several Jan. 6 attacks in Sanaa, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters at the world body’s headquarters in New York. “The use of cluster munitions in populated areas may amount to a war crime due to their indiscriminate nature.”
The warning came one day after the exiled Yemeni human rights minister announced plans to expel the U.N.’s top human rights official in the country, George Abu al-Zulof, on charges that the mission had shown bias toward Houthi rebel forces. The move to expel Zulof — who was already outside Yemen when the announcement was made — came just days after the U.N. issued a tough statement criticizing the coalition’s recent use of cluster bombs.
But Yemen’s U.N. ambassador, Khaled Alyemany, reversed the minister’s decision, assuring the U.N. chief in a letter Friday that “there is no such decision from the government” to declare Zulof persona non grata, Alyemeny told Foreign Policy Friday evening.
In his letter to Ban, Alyemany said his government had only expressed “dissatisfaction” with Zulof’s performance in a January 6 letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, and asked that he be replaced, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by FP. But Alyemany insisted that his government had never demanded that Zulof be declared persona non grata.
“Because of the fuss created around the matter and caused by media reports…claiming that the Yemeni government government ordered the expulsion…,” he wrote. “The Yemeni government has decided to give more time to review the relationship with” the high commissioner’s office.
On Friday, Zeid had protested the Yemeni governments call for the removal of its U.N.’s senior rights advocate as “unwarranted” and called on Yemen to reverse the decision.
Zeid, a Jordanian prince, said the expulsion would stain the reputation of the exiled Yemeni government, as well as its coalition partners, and place it in violation of obligations to uphold human rights. “Our role is to focus on human rights and the protection of civilians, not on the politics,” said Zeid, noting that 2,800 civilians have been killed in more than nine months of conflict. “Our job is not to highlight violations committed by one side and ignore those committed by the other.”
The latest crisis has proved particularly awkward for Washington, which has provided intelligence, targeting information, and logistical support to the air coalition. Dujarric said he could not confirm whether the munitions were American-made. But he said, “As a matter of principle, those who sell arms also bear some responsibility in how they are used.”
The United States supplied the Saudi military with cluster bombs between 1970 and 1995.
Dujarric said the U.N. “will not stop reporting” on Yemen’s human rights situation. To drive home the point, he read a statement from Ban describing deepening concern about the plight of Yemeni civilians.
The secretary-general, Dujarric said, “is deeply concerned about the intensification of coalition airstrikes and ground fighting and shelling in Yemen, despite repeated calls for a renewed cessation of hostilities.”
He said Ban is particularly worried about intense airstrikes, including those that reportedly hit the capital’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a wedding hall, and a center for the blind among residential and civilian targets in Sanaa.
The Obama administration has encouraged its coalition partners “to avoid civilians’ casualties” and stressed the importance of “precise targeting,” a State Department official told FP.
In a Jan. 7 report, Human Rights Watch again accused Saudi Arabia of dropping cluster bombs on Sanaa, including photographs of the munitions’ remnants. The State Department official said Foggy Bottom is reviewing the findings — though previous reports detailing Riyadh’s use of cluster munitions have failed to change U.S. policy.
The U.S. official declined to directly comment when asked whether the United States is at all culpable for Saudi Arabia’s use of cluster munitions, given the American arms shipments and political support for the bombing campaign. However, the official said, Washington has “encouraged coalition forces to investigate all credible accounts of civilian casualties as a result of coalition strikes” — and to publicly release those findings.
Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies intervened in Yemen last March to restore power to the country’s deposed leader, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who was driven from power by Shiite Houthi separatists in January 2015 and placed under house arrest. On March 25, Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia, one day after asking Gulf countries and the Arab League for military intervention in Yemen. The next day, a coalition of Gulf states — led by Saudi Arabia and with help from the United States — opened an air war against the Houthis.
U.N. officials have described intense suffering by Yemeni civilians who have either been killed or injured during airstrikes. The coalition also imposed a naval blockade on ports in Aden and Hudaydah, cutting off vital imports of food, fuel, medicine, and other essential supplies into the country.
“Conditions of life have become untenable for the vast majority of people in Yemen,” Zeid told the Security Council last month, detailing the needs of an estimated 21 million people — 80% of the population — that rely on humanitarian assistance. About half of Yemenis suffer from malnutrition, Zeid said, adding: “The combined impact of violence and artificial impediments to the delivery of humanitarian assistance has proved disastrous.”
The U.N.’s public shaming of the coalition appears to have prompted this week’s backlash.
Yemen’s human rights minister, Ezzedine al-Asbahi, on Thursday accused the U.N. human rights office in Sanaa of downplaying recent atrocities committed in the town of Taiz, where Houthi rebels have blocked supplies from entering. Asbahi called it unacceptable that U.N. human rights officials “overlook these crimes.”
Zeid fired back, saying he was “perplexed by the accusation that we have ignored the deplorable situation in Taiz.” He said his office has repeatedly drawn attention to the plight of civilians in Taiz, including in a statement issued this week in Geneva and that the exiled government appears to have misunderstood “what the role of the U.N. is in a conflict situation.”
“Part of our job is to try to prevent further violations, and [in order] to do so, when security permits, U.N. human rights officials consistently and impartially engage with all sides to a conflict,” Zeid said. “It is a mistake to view this as some sort of endorsement of an opposition movement’s position at the expense of the government.”
But Yemen’s U.N representative stepped into the fray on Friday to settle the dispute. In a telephone interview Friday evening, Alyemany, told FP that his government, he said, “was upset that [Zulof] was meeting with Houthis. I explained to the government this can happen because because he is the representative of the United Nations, not the representative of the government, and he will meet with all parties. Finally, we managed to calm it down.”
hoto credit: Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images |
Halloween Pack
Each Halloween Pack opened will unlock a skin, avatar, or card back you have not already unlocked. Halloween Skins are not disenchantable, and will only be available for the duration of the promotion.
of the following with each opened:
The Halloween Pack will be purchasable for 300 Runes and unlock
The Halloween Pack will introduce our first set of Limited Edition Skins for Hand of the Gods! These skins feature a new unit model, Special FX, Sound FX, and Card Art.
Default Avatar
This has been changed to match the Hand of the Gods Logo.
Players can no longer be matched against the same player twice in a row.
New players will now be given a Bonus Pack for completing their first Casual, Arena, and Ranked match. These rewards will also be given retroactively to all active players.
From this patch on, all players will receive a free Arena Ticket at level 1 which grants one free entry to the Arena.
Ranks will reset with OB 0.31 and are planned to reset every 2 months going forward. This marks the start of our “Open Beta Season” and players can expect ranked rewards to be sent out with each future reset. |
Even the revolt against political correctness wouldn’t be enough to put Trump in position to break apart the Republican Party, however. Republicans have railed against political correctness for years — Trump isn’t anything new in that, although he’s certainly more vulgar and blunt than others. No, what truly separates Trump from the rest of the Republican crowd is that he’s a European-style nationalist.
Republicans are American exceptionalists. We believe that America is a unique place in human history, founded upon a unique philosophy of government and liberty. That’s why we’re special and why we have succeeded. In his own way, Trump believes in American exceptionalism much like Barack Obama does — as a term to describe parochial patriotism. Obama infamously remarked in 2009, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Obama meant that dismissively — American exceptionalism is just something we do because we’re American, not because we’re actually special. But Trump means it proudly. His nationalism is a reaction to Obama’s anti-nationalism. It says: “Barack Obama may think America isn’t worthy of special protection because we’re not special. Well, we’re America, damn it, even if we don’t know what makes us special.” According to Trump, we ought to operate off of the assumption that Americans deserve better lives not because they live out better principles or represent a better system, but because they’re here.
This sort of nationalism resembles far more the right-wing parties of Europe than the historical Republican Party. The Republican Party has stood for embrace of anyone who will embrace American values; extreme European right-wing parties tend to embrace people out of ethnic allegiance rather than ideological allegiance. Trump uncomfortably straddles that divide. His talk about limiting immigration has little to do with embrace of American values and much more to do with “protecting” Americans from foreigners — even highly educated foreigners willing to work in the United States without taking benefits from the tax system. It’s one thing to object to an influx of people who disagree with basic constitutional values. But Trump doesn’t care about basic constitutional values. He simply opposes people coming in who aren’t us. There’s a reason so many of his supporters occupy the #altright portion of the Internet, which traffics in anti-Semitism and racism.
The Littlest Chickenhawk declares himself in the Jewish Journal. It's a pretty good article, but perhaps revealed more than he intended.It's not an accident that Ben Shapiro sounded like an SJW when he said that racists should be hunted down and their careers destroyed. Shapiro is no friend to the right. He's as cuckservative and anti-right as anyone at National Review. He's not stupid, and he's not on our side. At the end of the day, he'll line up with the globalists in the bifactional ruling party and against the American nationalists.I never thought much about his columns at WorldNetDaily back when we were both writing for them; my readership there was literally ten times his own. But they were harmless, little more than parroting whatever the received wisdom of the conservative movement happened to be at the time. If they weren't the best columns there, they weren't the worst either. I was mildly amused when they were picked up by Creators Syndicate for syndication.Since then, Shapiro has observably raised his game. He's not bad, either in print or on television. But he isn't genuinely of the right at all. He's actually part of the Fake Right, the Neoconservatives, the self-appointed heirs to William F. Buckley, who have appointed themselves Republican "opinion leaders" in order to keep the respectable right from departing too far from what they deem to be acceptable. If he is correct, and the Republican Party is dying, he's not going to join the American nationalist successor party.An ally does not attack you. An ally praises your good points and remains silent in public about what he perceives as your defects. An ally always looks to benefit you rather than harm you. An ally comes to your defense even when he believes you are wrong. An ally takes shots for you that he knows he can withstand more readily than you.And that is how we know that Ben Shapiro, for all his legitimate merits, is neither a friend nor an ally of the Alt Right.
Labels: politics |
By
21st Century Wire says…
The scale and scope of data collection and profiling being carried out by US, British and other intelligence agencies is on a level that the great visionary George Orwell could not have possibly imagined. In this way, Orwell comes off a looking like some sort of optimist.
Although we have been highly critical of TED as a globalist, collectivist, transhumanist and neoliberal softball talking shop, occasionally TED does host a speaker or two that is right on the money.
The video below is one instance of a TED presentation given by Finnish computer security expert, Mikko Hypponen (image, left), that absolutely challenges the corporate and government establishment line – putting to bed any questions about just how criminal and destructive the NSA and GCHQ digital dragnet really is.
The first step is really understanding what it is we are up against, and then know what we can do about it…
They know they are surveilling innocent people
Brasscheck TV
A talk by Mikko Hypponen at TED in Belgium.
Take away quotes:
“Intelligence agencies are completely out of control and need to be brought back under control.”
“Privacy is the foundation of democracy and freedom.”
Communications made via Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Apple etc. – have all been compromised. Yet, these companies deny that it’s happened.
There are two options: Either they’ve been hacked, or they’re lying…
READ MORE NSA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire NSA Files
— |
DreamLinux is a distribution that is based on Debian “Wheezy” and using the latest desktop version of XFCE 4.8 on a Linux 3.1 Kernel.
DreamLinux has just released this latest version after a long absence and we will see if it can make up for lost time.
When you’ve created a bootable LiveDVD of DreamLinux, you are greated by a Mac OS X style desktop with which most of the software packages you have installed are there for you on the kicker bar by default, or you can, still use the menu on the top left side of the screen and access the program you want from there.
Installation of DreamLinux was not painful at all, but would have preferred if there was a bit more customizing done of the final install then later changing some of the options. Something like configuring your timezone, or Internet connection would’ve been better during installation than post-installation, I will discuss some of these issues a bit later. If you would like to see the install screens, please click here.
The desktop is nice and clean and the icons in your kicker bar give you a somewhat good idea of what the program is about. Unlike OS X, DreamLinux does not provide you the name of the program when you hover over the icon making it somewhat of a guessing game in trying to figure out which program you are trying to access if you’ve never done so before.
It does have some of the same functionality that you can find in OS X’s finder, when clicking on an icon to launch Chromium, when minimized, you get a white dot indicating that the program is open and is minimized. To reopen, it was just as simple as clicking on it and it would restore the window. It does have it’s little quirks though as some programs don’t behave properly like TextMaker would have another icon instead of using the same one. Removing applications is quite simple to do by simply right clicking on it and unchecking keep in dock.
DreamLinux does not use the typical software which we find in a majority of distributions. We do not have Mozilla programs installed for Email and Web Browsing, nor do we have Libre/Open Office as our office suite. Chromium is our default browser and for email, well, DreamLinux lets you down in this department as there is no default email application but clicking on the stamp icon brings you to Gmail, which is disappointing.
Softmaker office suite comes with a word processing program in TextMaker, a spreadsheet software in PlanMaker and presentation software (Powerpoint) in Presentations. The version that is included is SoftMaker 2008 which is free for to use but it is outdated. An alternative in LibreOffice would’ve been more appreciated than outdated software.
There is quite a variety of software installed as part of DreamLinux such as The GIMP, Inkscape, Fox-It reader for PDFs and so on.
Conclusion
DreamLinux somewhat missed the ball on this release, and I will probably get some flack from users reading this review but I would’ve expected a lot more from a distribution that was on an eighteen month “hiatus” and came back with a bang, but really came back with a whimper.
As mentioned above, one issue I found odd is the difficulty with just changing date and time and it would cause the kicker to crash. Why is that? I have no idea, and it is reproduceable every time. When you get the right time and go through the long list of timezones to find the one you’re in, it would crash, causing more grief than anything else.
Another issue is the fact that it is 32 bit only whereas Debian, Ubuntu and other mainstream distributions there are both 32 and 64 bit versions available to install.
Some of the software choices are questionable to say the least. SoftMaker 2008 is an outdated program and it should not have been included and been replaced with LibreOffice. I won’t complain about Chromium being there but not having an email application is a bit strange and don’t know why there wasn’t one included.
Homepage: http://dreamlinux.info |
The Naval Service patrol ship LE Niamh has rescued 551 people from a wooden barge off the Libyan coast and is en route to the Siclian port of Trapani.
The patrol ship was tasked by the Italian Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre to investigate the sighting of a possible migrant vessel on Wednesday, some 55 km north of the Libyan port of Zuwarah.
It deployed two rigid inflatable boats to investigate a vessel, described as a fishing boat, with about 700 people on board.
The Italian MRCC tasked another four vessels to help the Naval patrol ship in the complex rescue.
The LE Niamh took 394 men, 96 women and 71 children on the ship and gave food, water and medical assistance where required.
It brings to almost 2,500 the number of people rescued by the Irish ship over the past few months.
Also on Wednesday the Swedish ship Poseidon, which is working with the EU border control agency Frontex, found the bodies of about 50 migrants in the hold of a vessel off the coast of Libya.
During the operation around 430 migrants were saved. |
With so many strong adult-appeal movies in the market, it's tough for any specialty film to compete with less than stellar reviews.
This weekend, strong holdover “T2 Trainspotting” outperformed Fox Searchlight disappointment “Wilson” at the specialty box office. Jazz documentary “I Called Him Morgan” is the bright spot among new specialty entries — at just one theater. This year, there are so many well-reviewed wide releases enjoying huge success with smart adults that the indies need a strong critical response to compete for moviegoers.
Opening
Wilson (Fox Searchlight) Metacritic: 50; Festivals include: Sundance 2017
$330,000 in 310 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $1,065
“Wilson” did not make a splash at Sundance, and even a top-flight specialized distributor like Fox Searchlight can’t transform a film with mediocre reviews into a success. It’s got a great pedigree — directed by Craig Johnson (“The Skeleton Twins”), Daniel Clowes adapted it from his own graphic novel and its includes Woody Harrelson and Laura Dern. Searchlight went with a non-platform wider initial release of 330 theaters. For all that, however, the results are so puny that this story of a middle-aged malcontent won’t get much past $1 million.
That’s a disaster, even beyond other recent disappoints dogging the once-dominant distributor. Since their terrific 2014 (led by Oscar-winners “Birdman” and “Grand Budapest Hotel”), its best-grossing recent film was “Brooklyn” just over a year ago. In 2017, both “Birth of a Nation” and Oscar-contender “Jackie” failed to perform to expectations. This flop will do less than a third of their recent “Table for 19” or “A United Kingdom,” neither of which did well.
What comes next: Expect a second weekend hold but little more for this in theaters.
I Called Him Morgan (Submarine Deluxe) Metacritic: 89; Festivals include: Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York 2016
$14,154 in 1 theater; PTA (per theater average): $14,154
Terrific reviews in New York, and a continued interest in minor legends in the performing arts world, propelled this documentary about jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan and his murder.
What comes next: Los Angeles is among the new dates this Friday.
Slamma Jamma (River Rain)
$1,687,000 in 502 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $3,361
Totally off the mainstream media’s radar, this faith-based, African-American prison-life sports story managed to get a respectable national break. It was good enough to land the #11 spot overall among all releases this weekend.
What comes next: This could have room for some growth, but the numbers seem good enough at least to get a second week’s play to add to its numbers.
In Search of Israeli Cuisine (Independent)
$(est.) 10,000 in 2 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $(est.) 5,000
As niche as a specialized documentary gets, this food movie scored two of the top specialized theaters in the country (New York’s Lincoln Plaza and Angelika). Consider that a coup for its filmmakers, releasing this independently, but also a sign of the dearth of available product to show in this weak specialized season.
What comes next: This is booked at top art houses in upcoming weeks, starting with the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas as well as Philadelphia this Friday.
International releases
Katamarayuda (CGX)/India) – $(est.) 1,125,000 in 208 theaters
Phillauri (20th Century Fox/India) – $265,000 in 74 theaters
Week Two
T2 Trainspotting (Sony)
$380,000 in 59 theaters (+54); PTA: $6,440; Cumulative: $613,000
The second weekend expansion for Danny Boyle and company’s revisit of their 1996 smash had a decent aggressive expansion, although without the intense excitement of the initial film. It’s the strongest recent specialized release in crossover and wider appeal.
Song to Song (Broad Green)
$142,005 in 80 theaters (+76); PTA: $1,775; Cumulative: $213,580
The second weekend of Terrence Malick’s Austin music scene film got a similar response to last year’s “Knight of Cups,” with a higher total gross in more than twice as many theaters.
Frantz (Music Box)
$50,000 in 10 theaters (+8); PTA: $50,000; Cumulative: $82,241
Los Angeles was among the second weekend additions as French director Francois Ozon’s latest acclaimed film expanded. The reviews continue to be strong, but the response is modest. This week, it will add 25 theaters.
After the Storm (Film Movement)
$(est.) 23,000 in 10 theaters (+4); PTA: $(est.) 2,300; Cumulative: $(est.) 51,000
Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s latest Japanese family drama had a modest second week expansion which, despite good reviews, finds itself struggling with the disinterest in subtitled films.
Ongoing/expanding (grosses over $50,000 in under 1,000 theaters)
The Last Word (Bleecker Street) Week 4
$520,802 in 380 theaters (+286); Cumulative: $971,866
Shirley Maclaine oversees her own obituary in this expanding film, which is attracting older viewers. Bleecker Street had a decent success with Blythe Danner in similarly senior-targeted “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” Its fourth weekend had a slightly higher ($553,000) gross, but in fewer than half (165) as many theaters. That suggests this won’t achieve the earlier film’s success.
Lion (Weinstein) Week 18
$383,000 in 320 theaters (-301); Cumulative: $50,725,000
Winding down after its lengthy and successful run (including an additional $76 million overseas), this has been a solid rebound for Weinstein.
The Sense of an Ending (CBS) Week 3
$270,000 in 235 theaters (-47); Cumulative: $1,024,000
Another recent older-audience film that has failed to create a stir, even with Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling in tow. Its PTA only fell slightly, but it wasn’t strong to begin with.
Personal Shopper (IFC) Week 3
$225,235 in 107 theaters (+72); Cumulative: $553,980
Olivier Assayas’ second collaboration with Kristen Stewart expanded more quickly than their “Clouds of Sils Maria,” which had 69 theaters on its third weekend with a gross of $219,000 with an equivalent PTA. This will be in the top 50 markets next week.
La La Land (Lionsgate) Week 16
$205,000 in 212 theaters (-373); Cumulative: $150,234,000
As Damien Chazelle’s smash hit ends its final theatrical stages, add an additional $277 million in foreign grosses for a total so far of $427 million.
Kedi (Oscilloscope) Week 7
$205,000 in 107 theaters (-23); Cumulative: $1,760,000
Cats in Istanbul continue to appeal. This unlikely success should top $2 million before it’s through.
A United Kingdom (Fox Searchlight) Week 7
$185,000 in 159 theaters (-98); Cumulative: $3,519,000
The director’s 2014 “Belle” grossed nearly three times as much in 2014. This respected film’s lesser gross is a clear sign of the steep dip in the specialized world.
I Am Not Your Negro (Magnolia) Week 8
$(est.) 105,000 in 61 theaters (-49); Cumulative: $(est.) 6,528,000
Who could have guessed that a documentary about James Baldwin could gross nearly 80 percent as much as last year’s Oscar-winner “Amy”?
Raw (Focus) Week 3
$74,000 in 27 theaters (+18); Cumulative: $186,709
Julia Ducornau’s horror film continued to gain acclaim and some niche interest. This French film expanded wider with modest but steady interest.
Moonlight (A24) Week 22; also available on Video on Demand
$82,200 in 83 theaters (-198); Cumulative: $27,695,000
A month after getting home-viewing availability, “Moonlight”‘s Oscar wins have kept a few screens to boost the film’s final theatrical total.
Also noted:
Paterson (Bleecker Street) – $48,647 in 36 theaters; Cumulative: $2,056,000
The Salesman (Cohen) – $46,485 in 35 theaters; Cumulative: $2,296,000
The Women’s Balcony (Menemsha) – $35,252 in 14 theates; Cumulative: $201,533
Land of Mine (Sony Pictures Classics) – $34,283 in 26 theaters; Cumulative: $298,567
The Red Turtle (Sony Pictures Classics) – (#1,032 in 127 theaters; Cumulative: $826,807
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Hispanic Scholarships
Colleges are always looking to diversify their campuses and to make their schools more accessible to students of all ethnicities, economic backgrounds and religious beliefs. For this reason, many scholarships are restricted to minority students, including Hispanic students. A great number of companies, organizations and schools offer scholarships, particularly for minority and female students. Some popular organizations such as the ¡Adelante! Fund and Ronald McDonald House Charity offer prestigious, large dollar awards to deserving students. If you qualify, find how you can be rewarded for being of Hispanic descent when it comes to supporting your higher education dreams.
Within the last few years, The Pew Research Center recorded that educational attainment among U.S. Hispanic and Latino students increased significantly and furthermore, account for the largest minority group on U.S. college campuses. Hispanics and Latinos are also significantly less likely than other groups to have student debt - thanks to scholarships, federal aid, and attendance at schools with lower tuition.
Some Hispanic scholarships may require an essay or video, but the common thread is that they are available to those with Hispanic or Latino bloodlines. We acknowledge and help find awards to honor the accomplishments of Hispanic and Latino students in the United States. September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month, so take a moment to celebrate your heritage and cultural uniqueness by applying for college scholarships.
Below are examples of Hispanic scholarships that vary in criteria and submission requirements. For additional information about scholarships based on ethnicity or other criteria, you may conduct a free college scholarship search at Scholarships.com.
¡Adelante! Fund Ford Motor Company/Future Leaders Scholarship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $1,500
$1,500 The ¡Adelante! U.S. Education Leadership Fund is a leadership development, non-profit organization dedicated to Hispanic college students. Our Mission is to inspire the best and brightest Latino students to graduate and lead through scholarships, internships, and leadership training. Applicants must have completed at least 30 credit hours of college coursework prior to the upcoming fall semester [...] More
¡Adelante! Fund Gilbert G. Pompa Memorial Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/3/2019
7/3/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 The ¡Adelante! U.S. Education Leadership Fund is a leadership development, non-profit organization dedicated to Hispanic college students. Our Mission is to inspire the best and brightest Latino students to graduate and lead through scholarships, internships, and leadership training. All majors are welcome to apply for this scholarship, but students must be pursuing a pre-law program and/or [...] More
¡Adelante! Fund MillerCoors Colorado Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/3/2019
7/3/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 The ¡Adelante! U.S. Education Leadership Fund is a leadership development, non-profit organization dedicated to Hispanic college students. Our mission is to inspire the best and brightest Latino students to graduate and lead through scholarships, internships, and leadership training. Must be a junior or senior university classification by the fall semester. Open only to Chicagoland partnering [...] More
¡Adelante! Fund MillerCoors Engineering and Science Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/3/2019
7/3/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 The ¡Adelante! U.S. Education Leadership Fund is a leadership development, non-profit organization dedicated to Hispanic college students. Our mission is to inspire the best and brightest Latino students to graduate and lead through scholarships, internships, and leadership training. Must be a college junior or senior by the fall semester of the award and must be a U.S. Citizen or permanent [...] More
¡Adelante! HOPE Patricia Ana Garcia Escobedo Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/18/2019
3/18/2019 Amount: $1,300
$1,300 The Hispanic Organization for Public Employees is pleased to offer the following scholarship to one CPS Energy Employee Dependent. Applicant must be currently attending an accredited university, public or private college in the state of Texas and must be involved in community service. Applicant must be of Hispanic descent and must be able to attend Adelante's Annual Leadership Institute in San [...] More
¡Adelante! Mark L. Madrid Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/3/2019
7/3/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 Awarded to University of Texas at Austin and University of Notre Dame juniors or seniors of Hispanic descent majoring in accounting, computer information systems, computer science, international business, marketing or management. Applicant should be of Hispanic/Latino descent and must have a 3.3 or higher GPA and must have a full-time enrollment status (12 hours). Applicant must be able to attend [...] More
AAAS Minority Science Writers Internship Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: Varies
Varies This program places minority students interested in journalism as a career and who want to learn about science writing at Science Magazine for 10 weeks over the summer. Interns experience what it's like to cover the scientific and technological issues that shape our global community. The internship is open to any minority undergraduate with a serious interest in science writing. Preference will [...] More
ABA Diversity Scholarship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Diversity Scholarship focuses on broadening the number of traditionally underrepresented groups in the management and operation ranks of the transportation, travel, and tourism industry.
Eligible candidates must have completed, at a minimum, their first year of college at an accredited university; must have a declared major or course of study relevant to the transportation, travel, and [...] More
ACHE Albert W. Dent Graduate Student Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/31/2019
3/31/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Foundation of the American College of Healthcare Executives established this scholarship in honor of Albert W. Dent, the first African-American Fellow of ACHE. This scholarship is offered to provide financial aid to minority students in healthcare management graduate programs to help offset tuition costs, student loans and expenses. Offered annually, the Albert W. Dent Graduate Student [...] More
ACS Scholars Program Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 ACS awards renewable scholarships to underrepresented minority students who want to enter the fields of chemistry or chemistry-related fields. Awards are given to qualified students. African American, Hispanic, or American Indian high school seniors or college freshman, sophomores, or juniors pursuing a college degree in the chemical sciences or chemical technology are eligible to apply. [...] More
Actuarial Diversity Scholarship Application Deadline: 5/2/2019
5/2/2019 Amount: $4,000
$4,000 The Actuarial Diversity Scholarship promotes diversity within the profession through an annual scholarship program for Black/African American, Hispanic, Native North American and Pacific Islander students.
Each applicant must fulfill all the requirements listed below:
-Intent on pursuing a career in the actuarial profession
-Must have at least one birth parent who is a member of one of the [...] More
ALA - LITA/LSSI Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: $2,500
$2,500 The LITA/LSSI Minority Scholarship, established in 1994, is awarded annually by the Library and Information Technology Association, a division of the American Library Association, and Library Systems and Services, Inc.
The scholarship is designed to encourage the entry of qualified persons into the library and automation field who plan to follow a career in that field; who demonstrate [...] More
American Library Association Spectrum Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 Spectrum recruits and provides scholarships to students to assist individuals interested in obtaining a graduate degree and leadership positions within the profession and our organization. The aim is to increase the number of racially and ethnically diverse professionals working as leaders in the field of library and information science to best position libraries and institutions at the core of [...] More
AMS Minority Scholarships Application Deadline: 2/8/2020
2/8/2020 Amount: $6,000
$6,000 The AMS Minority Scholarships will award funding to minority students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the sciences, especially Hispanic, Native American, and Black/African American students. Funding for the scholarships is provided by donations made by members to the AMS Giving Program. The two-year scholarship is distributed once per year during freshman and sophomore years [...] More
Ann Seki Memorial Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies This scholarship, sponsored by Chevron, is awarded in memory of Ann Seki, an original member of the Chevron Hispanic Recruiting Team. For 30 years, she had a determined viewpoint in ensuring Chevron met diversity hiring goals and was instrumental in developing a process to identify and select Chevron employees for higher recognition outside Chevron. This scholarship has been awarded since [...] More
APA Judith McManus Price Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: $4,000
$4,000 Women and minority (African American, Hispanic American, or Native American) students enrolled in an approved Planning Accreditation Board (PAB) planning program who are citizens of the United States, intend to pursue careers as practicing planners in the public sector, and are able to demonstrate a genuine financial need are eligible to apply for a scholarship..
Eligibility
-Women and [...] More
APSA Minority Fellowship Program Application Deadline: 10/30/2019
10/30/2019 Amount: $4,000
$4,000 Minority Fellows Program is a fellowship competition for individuals from under-represented backgrounds applying to doctoral programs in political science. The MFP was established in 1969 (originally as the Black Graduate Fellowship) to increase the number of minority scholars in the discipline.
Eligibility:
-Be a member of one of the following racial/ethnic minority groups: African [...] More
ASA Minority Fellowship Program Application Deadline: 1/31/2020
1/31/2020 Amount: $18,000
$18,000 Minority Fellowship Program applicants can be new or continuing graduate students. However, the MFP is primarily designed for minority students entering a doctoral program in sociology for the first time or for those who are in the early stages of their graduate programs. MFP applicants must be applying to or enrolled in sociology departments which have strong mental health research programs [...] More
Augustana University Diversity Scholarships Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: Varies
Varies Diversity Scholarships are for full-time students who are members of a minority ethnic group and bring diversity to campus. Ethnicity and financial need are two of the factors considered. Verify your eligibility with the Office of Admission or Financial Aid.
For more information or to apply, please visit the scholarship provider's [...] More
AWWA Holly Cornell Scholarship Application Deadline: 1/10/2020
1/10/2020 Amount: $7,500
$7,500 AWWA and its members recognize the importance of investing in students as the future of the water industry. The Holly A. Cornell Scholarship was created by CH2M Hill, Inc. to honor the name of Holly A. Cornell, co-founder of CH2M Hill and to encourage and support outstanding female and/or minority students pursuing advanced training in the field of water supply and [...] More
Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Gilman Scholarship Program is open to U.S. citizen undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Pell Grant funding at a two-year or four-year college or university to participate in study and intern abroad programs worldwide. For more information or to apply, please visit the scholarship provider's website. [...] More
BLM Squared Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/3/2019
7/3/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 The BLM Squared Scholarship Foundation program is designed to address the financial needs of minority college students and award outstanding high school graduates who plan to earn a baccalaureate degree from an accredited, four-year college or university with financial assistance:
Applicants must be permanent Illinois residents. Scholarships are to be utilized at an institution of higher [...] More
BLM² Scholarship Foundation College Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/3/2019
7/3/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 The BLM² Scholarship Foundation program is designed to address the financial needs of minority college students and award outstanding high school graduates who plan to earn a baccalaureate degree from an accredited, four-year college or university with financial assistance. Applicant must be permanent Illinois resident, have a minimum 3.0 GPA, be a graduating high school senior and be a minority [...] More
Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition Application Deadline: 7/1/2019
7/1/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies The CINTAS Foundation Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition competition is offered annually. Candidates must submit a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 recordings, two should be recent works. Recordings must accompany scores. Scores must be digitally scanned in PDF form. A list of all works (including the date of each) must be provided, showing which works have been performed or read. All [...] More
Brown and Caldwell Minority Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 4/15/2019
4/15/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 At Brown and Caldwell, we value diversity in the workplace, supporting organizations like the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers. We also offer a $5,000 Minority Scholarship to support students who identify as minorities and are interested in pursuing a career in the environmental profession.
Applicant must b e a United States citizen or [...] More
CANFIT Nutrition, Physical Education and Culinary Arts Scholarships Application Deadline: 3/31/2019
3/31/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies Undergraduate and graduate scholarships are available for California African-American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American, Pacific Islander or Latino/Hispanic students expressing financial need to study nutrition, physical education or culinary arts in the state of California. By providing undergraduate and graduate scholarships, CANFIT hopes to encourage more students to consider [...] More
Catharine Lealtad Scholarships Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $72,000
$72,000 Catharine Lealtad Scholarships are named for Macalester's first African American graduate, Catharine Lealtad, who graduated in 1915. These scholarships are awarded to selected African American, Latino, and Native American students with strong high school records. The Admissions committee selects recipients. There is no special application to complete. Lealtad Scholarships will be renewed at the [...] More
CHCC CAPS Young Professionals Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 6/15/2019
6/15/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 This scholarship provides an all-expenses paid intensive half-week of training to college and university students of Hispanic descent. The program is designed to build real-world skills for young professionals, such as interview skills, etiquette for professional gatherings, and learning about optimizing personal strengths.
The C.A.P.S. program celebrated its 10th anniversary, and from its [...] More
Chips Quinn Scholars Program Application Deadline: 10/1/2019
10/1/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 The Chips Quinn Scholars Program for Diversity in Journalism offers students hands-on training and mentoring by caring news veterans. More than 1,300 men and women have been named Chips Quinn Scholars since 1991, making it the largest and most enduring diversity initiative of the Newseum Institute. The program's aim is to provide training and support that will open doors to news and information [...] More
Colorado Christian University First Generation Minority Scholarship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: Varies
Varies The First Generation Minority Student Scholarship is available for students enrolled in the College of Undergraduate Studies. This scholarship provides an opportunity for minority students whose parents did not attend college to complete a Christian college degree. CCU will support the students through a series of academic, personal, mentoring, and leadership development activities. The selection [...] More
CSF Fiesta Queen Scholarship and Pageant Application Deadline: 5/3/2019
5/3/2019 Amount: $2,500
$2,500 If you are a female Colorado resident between the ages of 18-22, of Hispanic descent, maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0, and are interested in scholarship money for the Colorado institution of higher learning of your choice; the CSF Fiesta Committee invites you to compete in the Colorado State Fair (CSF) Fiesta Pageant.
The CSF Fiesta Committee will award a grand prize scholarship in the [...] More
CSUB C. Richard and Audrey Barnes Nursing Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/8/2019
4/8/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies This scholarship was established by C. Richard and Audrey Barnes to assist need-based students in pursuit of an undergraduate nursing degree. Award Criteria: merit and financial need, enrolled in the undergraduate nursing program, a member of an underrepresented minority group.
For more information or to apply, please visit the scholarship provider's website. [...] More
CUNY Becas Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 2/28/2019
2/28/2019 Amount: $6,330
$6,330 The CUNY Becas program of the Jaime Lucero Mexican Studies Institute offers scholarships to CUNY undergraduate and graduate students who meet three criteria: academic achievement, financial need, and commitment to service in the Mexican community. Currently, the scholarship can only be used for tuition and it covers up to $6,330 for one year of undergraduate studies (the equivalent of full [...] More
Davila/Trevino Memorial Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 These scholarships, sponsored by the Davila and Trevino families in memory of David Davila and Joe Trevino, are awarded to undergraduate students attending a 4-year college/ university in Texas. This scholarship has been awarded since 2013.
Scholarship Requirements:
-Be a junior or senior attending a 4-year university in the U.S.
-Major in engineering
-Have a minimum 3.0 GPA
-Be a U.S. [...] More
Edward S. Roth Scholarship Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: Varies
Varies In order to apply for the Edward S. Roth Scholarship, applicants must be graduating high school seniors, current full-time undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in manufacturing engineering. Must have and maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA. Preferences will be given to students demonstrating financial need, minority students and students participating in a Co-Op program. Must be seeking a [...] More
EMPOWER Scholarships Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: $1,500
$1,500 The EMPOWER Scholarship, administered by Courage Kenny Foundation, encourages and supports ethnically diverse students who are pursuing a career in a medical or rehabilitation field. The scholarship is made possible by a generous gift from the David M. Hersey Endowment Fund of the Courage Kenny Foundation.
Applicants must identify how they will use their education and training and demonstrate [...] More
EPP Undergraduate Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 1/31/2020
1/31/2020 Amount: $45,000
$45,000 The goal of the EPP Undergraduate Scholars Program is to increase the number of students who undertake course work and graduate with degrees in targeted academic fields integral to NOAA's mission. This program targets students who have completed their sophomore year, attending minority serving institutions (MSIs), and have recently declared, or about to declare a major in atmospheric, oceanic, or [...] More
ESA Foundation Scholarship Program for Minority Students Application Deadline: 5/4/2019
5/4/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 The ESA Foundation scholarships are offered for full-time undergraduate study at accredited four-year colleges and universities in the USA. Up to 30 scholarships of $3,000 each will be awarded annually, 15 to graduating high school seniors and 15 to current college students. Women and minority students are eligible to apply, so long as they are U.S. citizens and have a minimum 2.75 GPA. Students [...] More
Excelen-SIA Academic Scholarship Application Deadline: 6/22/2019
6/22/2019 Amount: $1,500
$1,500 The Solidaridad, Inspiración, Amistad Community Foundation, Inc. and Hermandad de Sigma Iota Alpha, Inc. Excelen-SIA Academic Scholarship. Each year we award a scholarship to an individual embarking upon their first or second academic year at a four-year institution of higher learning.
Eligibility:
-Be a recently graduated high school senior beginning freshman year in an accredited four-year [...] More
Express Scripts Scholarship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $10,000
$10,000 As an organization, the Express Scripts Foundation recognizes that students interested in dual degrees may have increased financial need, and supports the efforts of academic pharmacy to educate students with diverse interests. The Express Scripts Scholars Program (the Program) provides four (4) $10,000 scholarships to enrolled dual degree students. The awarded students are given $2,500 per [...] More
ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Math and Science Scholarships Application Deadline: 4/8/2019
4/8/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Math and Science Scholarships were established to encourage minority students to pursue college degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. The scholarship program was created in 2010 by Dr. Bernard Harris, a former astronaut, physician, and businessman, and ExxonMobil to increase the number of underrepresented students pursuing careers in [...] More
ExxonMobil/LNESC Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/15/2019
4/15/2019 Amount: $20,000
$20,000 The ExxonMobil/LNESC Scholarship Program recognizes outstanding Hispanic high school seniors who plan to pursue a degree in engineering at U.S. post-secondary institutions.
Eligibility:
-Applicants must reside within the following cities and surrounding areas and meet the following criteria to be considered for a scholarship: Colorado Springs & Pueblo, CO; Miami, FL; Kansas City, MO; [...] More
F.A. and Charlotte Blount Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/1/2019
4/1/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 The F.A. and Charlotte Blount Scholarship was established in 1997 to provide college scholarships to graduating
Forsyth County high school seniors who will pursue a four-year baccalaureate degree at an accredited college or university. To receive consideration, applicants must be African-American or Hispanic, have a minimum 3.0 GPA and demonstrate financial need. For more information or to [...] More
First in the Family Humanist Scholarship Application Deadline: 6/10/2019
6/10/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 Four (4) $1,000 scholarships will be awarded to graduating LAUSD seniors who will be the first in their immediate families to go to college. Preference will be given to students who are (or have been) in foster care, homeless, undocumented students and/or LGBTQ. A two to three paragraph essay must accompany the application (between 400-700 words) on the following topic: Humanism is based on the [...] More
Fontana Transport Inc. Scholars Program Application Deadline: 3/14/2019
3/14/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Fontana Transport Inc. Scholars Program is open to underrepresented, low-income and first-generation college-bound students. Students must be pursuing an undergraduate degree full-time in transportation, math, science, engineering, architecture, environmental design, PreMed, psychology, Spanish language/literature. The applicant does not have to be a U.S. citizen but must have a minimum 3.5 [...] More
Frank Kazmierczak Memorial Migrant Scholarship Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 The purpose of this scholarship is to serve as a living tribute to Frank Kazmierczak, a long-time migrant educator, by offering an annual award for post-secondary scholarship assistance to a migrant student who wishes to pursue a career in teaching.
Eligibility:
-Child of a migrant worker or a migrant worker (priority will be given to those with mobility in the last 3 years)
-Teaching as a [...] More
FTE Fellowships for Latino/a, Asian and First Nations Doctoral Students Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: Varies
Varies FTE offers financial support for doctoral students who have completed the coursework stage of their Ph.D. or Th.D. program in religion, theological studies or biblical studies.
Eligibility:
-Be of Latino/a, Asian, or first nations descent enrolled or admitted full time in a Th.D. or Ph.D. program in religion, theological studies or biblical studies
-Be finished with coursework by the [...] More
GE/LNESC Scholarship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The partnership between the General Electric Foundation and the LNESC Scholarship Program is intended to assist and encourage outstanding minority students in completing their college education. The program is directed specifically to disadvantaged minority students with career interests in business or engineering.
Eligibility:
-Must be a minority student pursuing full-time studies leading to [...] More
GE-NMF Primary Care Leadership Program (PCLP) Application Deadline: 1/31/2020
1/31/2020 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The GE-NMF Primary Care Leadership Program (PCLP) is a six-week summer program that includes clinical experience, leadership training, and a service-learning project that focuses on barriers in healthcare. PCLP provides students with an opportunity to examine the challenges and rewards of primary care practice at community health centers (CHCs) across the United States. Medical students and [...] More
George A. Strait Minority Scholarships Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: Varies
Varies George A. Strait Minority Scholarships are awarded annually to college graduates with meaningful law library experience who are members of a minority group as defined by current U.S. government guidelines, are degree candidates in an accredited library or law school, and who intend to have a career in law librarianship. Applicants must show evidence of financial need. To apply for the George A. [...] More
GMiS Scholars Program Application Deadline: 4/1/2019
4/1/2019 Amount: $10,000
$10,000 The GMiS Scholarahip is intended to support Hispanic graduating high school seniors, undergraduate, and graduate students pursuing a science, technology, engineering, math or health-related degree at an accredited college/university in the U.S. or Puerto Rico. These merit-based scholarships range from $500 to $10,000. For more information or to apply, please visit the scholarship provider's [...] More
Golden Osas y Osos Scholarship Application Deadline: 6/1/2019
6/1/2019 Amount: $250
$250 The UC Berkeley Chicana/Latino Alumni Association of San Diego is an organization comprised of, and run by, Chicana/Latino Cal alum. The organization is dedicated to fostering community among Cal alum in the San Diego and Imperial counties and the advancement and success of Chicano(a)/Latino(a) students in the San Diego and Imperial counties and on the Cal campus.
The Golden Osas y Osos [...] More
GRCF Achille & Irene Despres, William and Andre Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies Grand Rapids Community Foundation awards hundreds of scholarships annually primarily to Kent County students bound for or in college, or those pursuing a technical career.
To be eligible for the Achille & Irene Despres, William and Andre Scholarship, students must be of Mexican heritage, reside in Kent or Ottawa counties, be attending an accredited college/university for undergraduate [...] More
GRCF Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids Minority Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies The Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids Minority Scholarship is open to students of color (African-American, Asian, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander) attending a non-profit public or private college/university majoring in fine arts, including all visual and performing arts. Applicants must have financial need, be a Kent County resident, and have a minimum 2.5 GPA.
For more [...] More
GRCF Hackett Family Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies Grand Rapids Community Foundation awards hundreds of scholarships annually, primarily to Kent County students bound for or in college, or those pursuing a technical career. To be eligible for the Hackett Family Scholarship, students must be seniors at, or have graduated from any Grand Rapids public high school in Grand Rapids Michigan and will be an undergraduate student attending an accredited [...] More
GRCF Miller Johnson West Michigan Diversity Law School Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Grand Rapids Community Foundation administers and awards the following Law Scholarships to students of color (African American, Asian, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander or Alaskan Native).
The Miller Johnson West Michigan Diversity Law School Scholarship is awarded to students of color currently residing in Michigan (with preference given to West Michigan residents) [...] More
GRCF Warner Norcross & Judd Law School Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Warner Norcross & Judd Law School Scholarship is awarded to students of color pursuing a law degree at any accredited law school in the United States. The applicant must be a current or former resident of Michigan if they are not currently attending a school in Michigan. For more information or to apply, please visit the scholarship provider's [...] More
GRCF Warner Norcross & Judd Paralegal and Legal Secretarial Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/1/2019
4/1/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 The Grand Rapids Community Foundation administers and awards the following Law Scholarships to students of color (African
American, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander).
The Warner Norcross & Judd LLP Paralegal or Secretarial Scholarship is awarded to students of color residing in Michigan
pursuing paralegal or legal secretarial studies at an accredited program located in [...] More
HEEF Architecture and Engineering Scholarships Application Deadline: 1/19/2020
1/19/2020 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 HEEF scholarships are based on a combination of low-income family background, academic achievement, and involvement in extracurricular activities, community volunteer work, church service or work-employment. Graduating high school seniors with a minimum 3.0 GPA, who have been accepted into an accredited four- or five-year program in architecture or engineering may apply. Second-year community [...] More
Historically Underrepresented Groups Scholarship (HUGS) Application Deadline: 1/29/2020
1/29/2020 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The SAA is committed to assisting individuals in realizing their goals of entering careers in archaeology by offering two categories of scholarships: the HUGS and the HUGS-IFR.
HUGS: This scholarship can be used for a field school, to volunteer on a project directed by a professional archaeologist, or to receive other forms of archaeological training. This particular scholarship, however, [...] More
Hyatt Hotels Fund for Minority Lodging Management Students Application Deadline: 4/15/2019
4/15/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 In 1988, Hyatt established this fund to provide financial aid to minority students pursuing a degree in hotel management. Eligible students must be enrolled in at least 12 credit hours for the upcoming fall and spring semesters, or just the fall semester if graduating in December. Applicants must be pursuing a baccalaureate hospitality management major in a U.S. college or university and be at [...] More
IIE UPS Scholarship for Minority Students Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $4,000
$4,000 IIE's scholarship and fellowship program is in place to recognize graduate and undergraduate industrial engineering students for academic excellence and campus leadership. The UPS Scholarship for Minority Students is available to undergraduate students enrolled in any school in the United States and its territories, Canada, and Mexico, where the school's industrial engineering program or [...] More
Indiana Minority Teacher/Special Education Services Scholarship Application Deadline: 9/4/2019
9/4/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 The Minority Teacher Scholarship was created by the 1988 Indiana General Assembly to address the critical shortage of black and hispanic teachers in Indiana. In 1990, the Indiana General Assembly amended the Minority program to include the field of Special Education, and in 1991 the fields of occupational and physical therapy were added.
The student must agree in writing to apply for a [...] More
Interpublic Group Scholarship and Internship Application Deadline: 1/27/2020
1/27/2020 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The New York Women in Communications Foundation, in conjunction with New York Women in Communications, awards the Interpublic Group (IPG) Scholarship and Internship annually based on academic excellence, need and involvement in the field of communications.
Each is awarded to an ethnically diverse student who is currently a college junior and has a demonstrated interest in a career in [...] More
Jose R. Silva Memorial Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 These scholarships are sponsored by The Raytheon Company, in memory of Mr. Jose R. Silva, who was tragically killed in a hit-and-run accident after having dedicated a 25-year career to Raytheon.
Scholarship Requirements:
-Be a freshmen attending a 4-year university in Dallas, TX
-Major in engineering
-Have a minimum 3.0 GPA
-Be a U.S. citizen
For more information or to apply, please [...] More
Juanita Crippen Memorial Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: $500
$500 To recognize a senior high school student from a migrant farm-worker family in Franklin, St. Lawrence, or Clinton Counties in New York State needing post-secondary scholarship assistance who has demonstrated a caring and giving attitude toward another individual or community with a scholarship.
A completed application form accompanied by:
-Two reference letters from a school representative [...] More
La Unidad Latina Foundation Scholarship Application Deadline: 10/15/2019
10/15/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 Educational scholarships are awarded to Latino/Hispanic students on a competitive basis and range from $250 to $1,000.
Undergraduate applicants must have a minimum cumulative GP of 2.8. Students must be currently enrolled in an eligible bachelor's or master's degree program at an accredited four-year college or university (eligible degrees include all bachelor's degrees, master of arts, master [...] More
Lebanon Valley College Multicultural Fellowship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $5,000
$5,000 Lebanon Valley College offers full-time students Fellowship scholarships which recognize and reward commitment to work, service, and scholarly achievement. For students receiving a merit scholarship this Fellowship will be in addition to that scholarship. The Multicultural Fellowship (MCF) is limited to those high school seniors and transfer students identifying as African-American, [...] More
Leon Bradley Scholarship Application Deadline: 5/29/2019
5/29/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 The Leon Bradley Scholarship Program is established to encourage more minorities or persons of color to enter the field to teaching and school leadership. AASPA believes that it is of benefit for all students to experience diversity among the educators who serve as role models for our students. Thus, the American Association of School Personnel Administrators (AASPA) will annually award up to two [...] More
Leonard M. Perryman Communications Scholarship for Racial Ethnic Minority Students Application Deadline: 3/15/2019
3/15/2019 Amount: $2,500
$2,500 The Leonard M. Perryman Communications Scholarship for Racial Ethnic Minority Students awards a scholarship for undergraduate studies of religion, journalism, or communications. The scholarship assists a United Methodist undergraduate who intends to pursue a career in religious journalism through study at an accredited U.S. college or university. Applicants must be a United Methodist ethnic [...] More
LNESC Ford Driving Dreams Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/14/2019
3/14/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 LNESC and LULAC established the LULAC National Scholarship Fund (LNSF) to help youth in under-served communities make the dream of college enrollment a reality. The Ford Driving Dreams Scholarship Program is intended to assist and encourage high school seniors from the San Antonio and Houston areas to pursue a degree at U.S. post-secondary institutions. The Ford Driving Dreams Scholarship Program [...] More
MALDEF Law School Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 1/17/2020
1/17/2020 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 MALDEF's Law School Scholarship Program is open to all law students currently enrolled full-time at an accredited United States law school. Applicants are evaluated for their academic and extracurricular achievements, for their background and financial need, and, most important, for their demonstrated commitment to advancing Latino civil rights in their careers. A personal statement of up to 750 [...] More
Mark Collier Caudill Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/1/2019
4/1/2019 Amount: $500
$500 The Mark Collier Caudill Scholarship was established by Virginia Whichard Caudill in 2010 to honor her husband on his birthday and to provide scholarships to graduating high school seniors from R.J. Reynolds High School. The scholarship may provide a non-renewable award for a minority male student-athlete who will attend an accredited four-year college or university in pursuit of a degree. [...] More
META Foundation Scholarships Application Deadline: 3/31/2019
3/31/2019 Amount: $30,000
$30,000 META's Platinum Scholarship provides students up to $7,500, payable over four years, to entering college freshman attending four-year colleges and universities or students attending community college with plans to transfer. Recipients of the Platinum Scholarship will also be provided mentorship and access to workshops.
Applicants must be applying, accepted or enrolled at an accredited [...] More
Microsoft Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 1/26/2020
1/26/2020 Amount: Varies
Varies We strongly encourage underrepresented groups to pursue STEM fields of study. Because we greatly value a broad range of perspectives and contributions, a large majority of our scholarships will be awarded to female students, underrepresented minority students (African-American, Hispanic or Native American etc.) or students with disabilities. We will review all applications and select final [...] More
Minority Scholarship in Classics and Classical Archaeology Application Deadline: 12/14/2019
12/14/2019 Amount: $4,500
$4,500 The Committee on Minority Scholarships of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) invites applications from minority undergraduate students for a scholarship to be awarded for the summer. The purpose of the scholarship is to further students' preparation in classics or classical archaeology with opportunities not available during the school year. Eligible proposals might include (but are not [...] More
Minority Teacher Education Scholarship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $4,000
$4,000 Minority teacher education scholars program is a collaborative performance-based scholarship program for African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, and Native American students. The participants in the program include Florida’s Florida College System institutions and its public and private universities that have teacher education programs.
Applicants must be a resident of the State [...] More
Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 If you plan to teach at a non-profit Illinois public, private, or parochial preschool, elementary school, or secondary school, for which the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has determined that no less than 30% of the enrolled students are African American/Black, Hispanic American, Asian American, or Native American; and you are of African American/Black, Hispanic American, Asian American [...] More
Morgan Stanley Richard B. Fisher Scholarship Program Application Deadline: 12/6/2019
12/6/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies The Richard B. Fisher Scholarship program is a competitive undergraduate scholarship program established to provide outstanding Black, Hispanic, Native American and LGBT students with a financial award for exceptional academic achievement and a summer internship the summer prior to their junior or senior year in college. In order to apply, you must be currently enrolled as a sophomore or junior [...] More
MPower Artist Grants Application Deadline: 3/18/2019
3/18/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies The MPower Artist Grants were launched to empower alumni of the Sphinx Competition, Sphinx Symphony, Sphinx Virtuosi, Sphinx Performance Academy, and Sphinx Medals of Excellence (years 2012 and 2013 only) to achieve their career objectives in classical music through granting competitive scholarships. Grants will range based upon the scope, need and nature of each competitive application. The [...] More
Mutual of Omaha Actuarial Scholarship Application Deadline: 10/20/2019
10/20/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Mutual of Omaha Actuarial Scholarship for Minority Students is awarded to undergraduates preparing for actuarial careers. The $5,000 award, which is paid in equal installments during the school year ($2,500 per semester), is contingent upon the recipient's continued satisfactory preparation for an actuarial career.
Eligibility:
-A member of a minority racial group
-Must be one of the [...] More
NACME Scholars (Block Grant) Program Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $62,500
$62,500 AT&T is helping NACME bring the Academy of Engineering, a high school career academy program, to high schools in Anchorage, AK; Oklahoma City, OK; Atlanta, GA; Dallas, TX; Kansas City, MO; Milwaukee, WI; and Charlotte, NC. This program is focused on improving skills in math and science for at-risk, underrepresented students. AT&T funding also provides scholarships to students who are pursuing [...] More
National Association of the Church of God Scholarship Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: Varies
Varies This is a full-tuition award renewable for four years. Applications for the National Association of the Church of God Leadership Scholarship will be accepted on a rolling basis with top priority given to early applicants. Students not selected for the award will be considered for the Dr. James Earl Massey Leadership Scholarship.
Eligibility:
-Be admitted as a first-time student (not a [...] More
National Press Club Scholarship for Journalism Diversity Application Deadline: 3/1/2019
3/1/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 The National Press Club, the leading professional organization for journalists, wants to recruit promising future journalists who will bring diversity to American journalism. The scholarship consists of a one-year scholarship, with an additional $500 book stipend that is renewable up to 3 years.
The competition is open to high school seniors who are preparing to enter college and intend to [...] More
NBCUniversal/LNESC Scholarship Application Deadline: 11/6/2019
11/6/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The NBCUniversal/LNESC Scholarship Program is intended to assist and encourage outstanding Latino high school seniors and undergraduate students who plan to pursue a bachelor's degree at a U.S. post-secondary institution. Applicants must be a high school senior or undergraduate Latino student accepted into or pursuing full-time studies leading to a bachelor's degree at an accredited college or [...] More
NSHSS STEM Scholarships Application Deadline: 4/1/2019
4/1/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 The NSHSS Foundation provides STEM to high school seniors with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and a demonstrated desire to major in any area of science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) are eligible. Requirements include a personal statement, a list of STEM activities, photo, transcript, and educator recommendation. For more information or to apply, please visit the scholarship provider's [...] More
Ohio Newspaper Association Minority Scholarship Application Deadline: 3/31/2019
3/31/2019 Amount: $1,500
$1,500 The Ohio Newspapers Foundation will award a scholarship to a minority high school senior in Ohio who plans to major in a field relevant to the newspaper industry, particularly journalism, advertising, marketing, or communications degree program at an Ohio college or university.
Eligibility:
-Applicant must be a graduating senior at an Ohio high school. Awardee must be enrolled as college [...] More
Pacific Gas & Electric Company Latino ERG Scholarship Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 The Latino Employee Resource Group is an organization of dedicated employees committed to personal development, company success, and community well-being. The group operates with a mission to inspire Latinos to achieve their full potential at all levels within the Company and community, thereby enhancing the ability for shared success. The organization's emphasis is on leadership development, [...] More
Page Education Foundation Grants Application Deadline: 5/1/2019
5/1/2019 Amount: $2,500
$2,500 Page Grants are awarded to Minnesota students of color who attend Minnesota post-secondary schools and agree to complete annual service projects with young children. Students at all levels of academic achievement can qualify for a grant. The selection process highlights an applicant’s attitude toward education, willingness to provide service to children, and financial need.
To be eligible for [...] More
PepsiCo Cesar Chavez Latino Scholarship Application Deadline: 5/31/2019
5/31/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The PepsiCo Cesar Chavez Latino Scholarship Fund is awarding scholarships to students of Latino descent who are
beginning or continuing their studies at a higher education institution. The fund provides financial assistance to
qualified Latino/a students in an effort to promote academic success. PepsiCo Cesar Chavez Latino Scholarship
Fund Recipients will be honored at the annual Si Se Puede [...] More
Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Scholarships Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 The Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (PMAHCC) realizes the substantial rewards of giving a way into educational opportunities to eager Hispanic students. PMAHCC supports scholarship funds of the Hispanic community in Pittsburgh and continues to give time and effort in the accumulation and security of their resources to benefit the continuous rise of the number of [...] More
Presbyterian Student Opportunity Scholarship Application Deadline: 5/15/2019
5/15/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 The Student Opportunity Scholarship program serves Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) college students by providing need-based aid for sophomores, juniors, and seniors who are full-time, first-degree students attending accredited institutions in the United States. Student Opportunity Scholarship applicants will explore who God created them to be in a series of essay questions intended for students to [...] More
RMHC/HACER National Scholarship Application Deadline: 2/4/2020
2/4/2020 Amount: $100,000
$100,000 RMHC/HACER National Scholarships are $100,000 ($25,000 per year paid over four years) for five students who verify enrollment at any accredited institution that provides post-secondary education each year, among other requirements.
Applicants must be a high school senior under 21 years of age with a minimum 2.7 (4.0 scale) GPA. Must be a legal U.S. resident and must be eligible to attend a [...] More
Roll On You Osas y Osos Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/1/2019
7/1/2019 Amount: $250
$250 The Roll On You Osas y Osos Scholarship is for incoming Cal transfers who attended a community college in San Diego or Imperial County.
Applicants must be Chicano/a or Latino/a who has graduated from a San Diego or Imperial county community college and must have SIRed to Berkeley for the upcoming fall and spring semesters. Two applicants will receive one $250 scholarship each. For more [...] More
RTDNF Carole Simpson Scholarship Application Deadline: 1/15/2020
1/15/2020 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 Carole Simpson is a former RTDNF trustee and the 1996 recipient of the Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award in recognition of her work to protect First Amendment Freedoms. She established the Carole Simpson Scholarship to encourage and help minority students to overcome hurdles along their career path in electronic journalism. Students must be sophomores, juniors, or seniors at the time the [...] More
SHPE Dissertation Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/15/2019
4/15/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 SHPE will provide $5,000 to applicants who will be enrolled full-time (9 hours) in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) degree program and maintain a 3.5 GPA throughout the academic year. Applicant must be a SHPE member in good standing both at the time of application and throughout the academic year. The scholarship will be awarded on the basis of academic standing and financial [...] More
SHPE Graduate Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/15/2019
4/15/2019 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 SHPE will provide $3,000 to applicants who will be enrolled full-time (9 hours) in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) degree program and maintain a 3.0 GPA throughout the academic year. Applicant must be a SHPE member in good standing both at the time of application and throughout the academic year. The scholarship will be awarded on the basis of academic standing and financial [...] More
SHPE Professional Scholarship Application Deadline: 6/30/2019
6/30/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 SHPE will provide $2,000 to applicants who are employed full-time in the U.S. or Puerto Rico in a technical career field and enrolled at least half-time (6 hours) in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) degree program and maintain a 3.0 GPA throughout the academic year. Applicant must be pursuing a first master's or doctoral degree. Applicant must be a paid SHPE member in good [...] More
SHPE Undergraduate Scholarship Application Deadline: 6/30/2019
6/30/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 SHPE will provide $2,000 to applicants who are enrolled full-time (12 hours) in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) degree program and maintain a 2.75 GPA throughout the academic year. Applicant must be a SHPE member in good standing both at the time of application and throughout the academic year. The scholarship will be awarded on the basis of academic standing and financial [...] More
Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science SOARS Program Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: Varies
Varies SOARS encourages applications from individuals who are members of a group that is historically under-represented in the atmospheric and related sciences, including students who are Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Hispanic or Latino, female, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities. SOARS welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender [...] More
Smithsonian Institution James E. Webb Internship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $6,000
$6,000 This program was established in honor of the late James. E. Webb, Regent Emeritus and former Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to promote excellence in the management of not-for-profit organizations.
These opportunities are intended to increase participation of minority groups who are under-represented in the management of scientific and cultural [...] More
Study Abroad Scholarship in BiH for American Minority Students Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $2,000
$2,000 The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) has designated Bosnia and Herzegovina as a study abroad destination under its TCA Study Abroad Scholarship Program for American Minority Students. Under the program, TCA provides scholarships per year to eligible American undergraduate and graduate students of African American, Hispanic American, and Native American descent who are accepted to study for a [...] More
Surety & Fidelity Industry Intern-Scholarship Program for Minority Students Application Deadline: 11/22/2019
11/22/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Surety Industry Scholarship Program provides awards of up to $5,000 to outstanding minority students to support their studies in the areas of insurance/risk management, accounting, or business/finance and to encourage their consideration of the surety industry and surety underwriting as a career choice. Applicants must have a declared insurance/risk management, accounting or business/finance [...] More
Tampa Bay Times Peterman Scholarship/News Internship Application Deadline: 11/1/2019
11/1/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 Only students who are hired as part of the Summer Internship Program at the Times are eligible to apply for the Tampa Bay Times Peterman Scholarship/News Internship. Scholarships are worth up to $3,500 for returning full-time undergraduate students and up to $1,500 for returning full-time graduate students.The Peggy Peterman Scholarship targets minority students in journalism. It is worth $5,000 [...] More
TELACU College Success Program Scholarship Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $5,000
$5,000 Administered by the TELACU Education Foundation, the College Success Program was created in 1983 to develop and empower new generations of leaders in the communities it serves. The Program is funded by TELACU and the generous contributions of our partners - corporations, colleges, and universities, non-profit organizations and individuals - who have joined us over the past 30 years in advancing [...] More
Tennessee Minority Teaching Fellows Program Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $5,000
$5,000 The Minority Teaching Fellows Program is intended to encourage talented minority Tennesseans to enter the teaching field in Tennessee. The award is for students who are pursing a teacher certification at an eligible Tennessee college or university.
To be eligible, the applicant must:
-Be a minority Tennessee resident and a U.S. citizen
-Be a high school senior or a continuing college [...] More
The Carlos M. Castañeda Journalism Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/15/2019
4/15/2019 Amount: $7,000
$7,000 The Carlos M. Castañeda Journalism Scholarship was established in 2005 to honor Cuban-born journalist Carlos M. Castañeda, who dedicated his life to promote excellence in journalism. For more than fifty years, he worked as a reporter, editor, publisher, newspaper designer and consultant, before dying in 2002 at the age of 70. He practiced his profession with integrity, passion, and enthusiasm. In [...] More
The George Geng-On Lee Minorities in Leadership Scholarship Application Deadline: 7/31/2019
7/31/2019 Amount: $1,000
$1,000 Capture the Dream, Inc. offers the George Geng On Lee Minorities in Leadership Scholarship to graduating high school seniors and college undergraduate students who will be enrolled full-time at accredited, not-for-profit four-year institutions in the fall term. Each scholarship winner will receive a $1,000 scholarship to be mailed to their college or university.
Applicants must be a Bay Area [...] More
The Goizueta Foundation Scholarship Application Deadline: 2/13/2020
2/13/2020 Amount: Varies
Varies The Goizueta Foundation Latino Leadership Pipeline Scholarships are designed to increase the number of students of Hispanic/Latino origin who enroll and complete their undergraduate degrees at Georgia State, in addition to providing mentors, internships, and community service experiences to these students so that they can become the leaders of the future. The student must be a rising senior from [...] More
The Hispanic Scholarship Fund College Scholarships Application Deadline: 4/2/2019
4/2/2019 Amount: $5,000
$5,000 HSF/ General College Scholarships are designed to assist students of Hispanic heritage in obtaining a college degree. Scholarships are available on a competitive basis to graduating high school seniors, community college transfer students, undergraduate students and graduate students. Applicants must be of Hispanic heritage and have a minimum of 3.0 GPA for high school students. A minimum of 2.5 [...] More
The Jackie Robinson Foundation Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: $28,000
$28,000 The Jackie Robinson Foundation provides scholarships of up to $28,000/four years to minority high school students showing leadership potential and demonstrating financial need to attend an accredited four-year college or university of their choice. Applicants show leadership potential and demonstrate a dedication to community service. Students must also demonstrate financial need. Applicants must [...] More
The Kurt Brown Fellowship for Diverse Voices Application Deadline: Varies
Varies Amount: $1,500
$1,500 In honor of the distinguished essayist & poet Kurt Brown, Laure-Anne Bosselaar Brown - Kurt Brown's wife and a faculty member of the Solstice MFA Program - and Lee Hope, Editor-in-chief of Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices, underwrite an annual fellowship of $1,000 to a writer in any genre.
All applicants are welcome to apply. The Kurt Brown Fellowship especially seeks to support [...] More
The LAGRANT Foundation Undergraduate Scholarships Application Deadline: 2/28/2019
2/28/2019 Amount: $2,000
$2,000 LAGRANT Foundation Undergraduate Scholarship recipients will receive a trip to New York or San Francisco where they will participate in career building activities including a welcome dinner with a keynote speaker, two daylong career & professional development workshops and a scholarship and donor recognition reception. Applicants must be from a minority ethnic group, studying a field of study [...] More
The NAVSEA Scholars Program Application Deadline: 4/30/2019
4/30/2019 Amount: $10,000
$10,000 The NAVSEA Scholarship is awarded to outstanding incoming college freshmen (i.e. graduating high school seniors) intending to pursue a degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). Scholars must be accepted for enrollment as a full-time student at a Hispanic-Serving Institution, exhibit exemplary scholastic attitude, maintain a 3.0 GPA or higher, demonstrate financial need, [...] More
The President William G. Sinkford Scholarship Application Deadline: 4/13/2019
4/13/2019 Amount: Varies
Varies The Unitarian Universalist Association established the President William G. Sinkford Fund in 2008, during the last year of Rev. Sinkford's UUA Presidency. To honor his legacy in the years to come, the Sinkford Fund will further Rev. Sinkford's visions by providing scholarships for promising and passionate students preparing for Unitarian Universalist ministry. Applicants must be ministerial [...] More
Thursday Network "I EMPOWER Scholarship" Application Deadline: 2/1/2020
2/1/2020 Amount: $3,000
$3,000 As part of its commitment to the Greater Washington community, Thursday Network developed a scholarship program to help high school students pursue a college education. Since 1992, the Thursday Network I EMPOWER Scholarship Fund has awarded $153,000 in college assistance to high school seniors in Washington, DC, Montgomery County, MD, and Prince George's County, MD. Students use the award to fund [...] More
UNCF/Carnival Corporate Scholars Program Application Deadline: 1/22/2020
1/22/2020 Amount: $10,000
$10,000 The UNCF/Carnival Corporate Scholars Program, sponsored in partnership with Carnival Corporation, is seeking college sophomores with an interest in pursuing a career in the hospitality industry and whose experience in their first two years of college demonstrates leadership and strategic and analytical ability. Candidates will be selected to participate in a two-year scholarship and internship at [...] More
Vinson & Elkins Scholarship Foundation Application Deadline: 4/1/2019
4/1/2019 Amount: $10,000
$10,000 In addition to receiving a $10,000 Vinson & Elkins Scholarship, each V&E Scholar is offered summer internships. To be eligible to become a Vinson & Elkins Scholar, students must attend and be in good standing at a high school accredited by the Texas Education Agency. The high school must also be located in the greater Austin, Dallas or Houston area. Only high school seniors may apply. You must be [...] More |
Transform A Samoan Village With Biogas!
Project 2013-09-25 03:48:00 +1200
Collab Project with The Ākina Foundation The Ākina Foundation supports social entrepreneurs and ambitious communities to deliver game changing work in the areas of energy, housing, transport, land-use, and consumption and waste.
Here's your chance to use your donation to make a real, positive impact in the world with some exciting technology, and really see the truly transformative results!
Help make a real difference for the people of Piu Village, Samoa and free them from daily open-fire cooking and expensive electricity by unlocking the free, green energy all around them. Stay involved and see the final outcome through a continuing series of video diaries!
I'm intrigued. Tell me more!
To begin, please watch the video above (or even better, on the vimeo site so you can see it in HD!) as it should give you a good general idea of what we want to do and why it's so important. Watched it? Great! So, you'll know that we need $36,000 for the Piu Village home biodigester programme. With this money we will supply six households with full biodigester systems along with clean, new biogas cooktops and biogas lights. This will make a tremendous difference in the lives of these people.
That sounds great! But why Samoa?
First of all, the warm climate of Samoa makes it ideal for a biodigester programme (the digesters love the heat!). But more importantly, Samoa has both an endless resource of green waste to fuel the digesters, as well as a terribly high price of electricity in a nation with a large amount of poverty. In every way, Samoa is an ideal place for projects like this. And the warm, generous people of Piu Village couldn't be more deserving. With this project you will truly see the impact of your donation.
How much of a difference will this programme really make?
A huge difference. For Piu Village the days of cooking daily meals over dirty open fires will be over – no more collecting firewood, no more smoke in the eyes and lungs. For the mothers of Piu Village this will give them more time with their children, with quick, clean cooking facilities right in their homes. Adjustable gas stoves will allow for more options for meals. No longer will households have to go without evening lighting due to the fear of an unaffordable power bill – the biogas lights will provide free illumination. And they can get rid of some of that invasive Merremia vine that has covered croplands and trees!
While Piu is just a small village, by showcasing these energy solutions there, this opens the door to larger programmes getting going in Samoa and other Pacific Islands with the support of international development assistance donors and philanthropic foundations.
I'm wondering how my donation would actually be spent - what creates the costs?
The majority of the cost goes towards the materials - we will need to import equipment including the biodigester bags, biogas appliances and other custom, speciality items for the project. Another key point is that at this stage there is no local industry for this sort of project in Samoa, so costs also go towards bringing in a small expert team from New Zealand to build the digesters and teach the villagers how to use them. But it's important to note that we see this being the first step in a bigger goal - we want to get things to a point where future systems could be handled by a local company. That would make future biogas projects a lot cheaper. This is just the beginning!
Fantastic! So how long will it take to implement the system in Piu Village?
When we reach our funding goal we'll get to work immediately and hope to have the system up and running in about three months. We’d love to have it ready for Christmas!
If I contribute how can I be involved with the project as it moves along? How will I see the results?
We want you to fell involved! All contributors will have the chance to sign up for a mailing lost or just choose to follow our blog. This will include regular updates on the project as well as photos and videos from the construction through to the moment the gas cooktops are being used! We want you to feel like you're there with us, because it's your donations that will make this happen.
Along with the chance to be involved in something really special and change lives in Samoa, we're also offering some great rewards including LIMITED EDITION FINE ART PRINTS of original watercolour images of Piu Village children painted by Kristy Barlow. Two of the series of three paintings are below:
We're also offering genuine lava-lavas from Samoa and for our top donors the chance to be included on an engraved plaque on the site. Plus all donors of $30 or more will receive a dvd of all the videos we make at the end of the project!
Thank you so much to all who have shown an interest in our project and donated. Your contribution means the world to us and we can't wait to get to work in Piu Village, turning your contributions into real change. Please forward this page on to anybody you know who might be interested!
With your help we can permanently transform life in Piu Village for the better! Thanks!
About us
Murray Ward Principal, Global Climate Change Consultancy (GtripleC)
Murray’s career as an environmental professional spans over 35 years. In the last 15 years he has specialised at the forefront of international climate change policy and finance. His role with BioEnceptionz now adds very tangible ‘on the ground’ results to complement two decades of mostly written reports and presentations. “It’s great to get back to some engineering design and technology – where my career started.”
For more details on Murray’s work see www.gtriplec.co.nz
Bill Rucks Principal, Water Alchemy Ltd
Bill is a bio technology expert – and the ‘hands on’ specialist in the BioEnceptionz team. In particular, he has broad experience with biodigester and algae photobioreactor technologies – the core of BioEnceptionz renewable energy work.
For more details on Bill’s work see www.water-alchemy.com
Sean Weaver Principal, Carbon Partnership Ltd
Sean has over 25 years experience in practical solutions to resource management problems in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, principally in the forest conservation sector but extending to climate change policy, carbon markets, bioenergy and education & training.
For more details on Sean’s work see www.carbonpartnership.co.nz
www.bioenceptionz.com
Video shot and edited by Matt Ward [email protected]
Comments |
Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice President Dick Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton.
It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals, some of them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them open and release natural gas.
Hydraulic fracturing has been implicated in a growing number of water pollution cases across the country. It has become especially controversial in New York, where regulators are eager to clear the way for drilling in the New York City watershed, potentially imperiling the city’s water supply. Thankfully, the main company involved has now decided not to go ahead.
The safety of the nation’s water supply should not have to rely on luck or the public relations talents of the oil and gas industry. Thanks in part to two New Yorkers — Representative Maurice Hinchey and Senator Charles Schumer — Congress last week approved a bill that asks the E.P.A. to conduct a new study on the risks of hydraulic fracturing. An agency study in 2004 whitewashed the industry and was dismissed by experts as superficial and politically motivated. This time Congress is demanding “a transparent, peer-reviewed process.”
An even more important bill is waiting in the wings. Cumbersomely named the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, it would close the loophole and restore the E.P.A.’s rightful authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. It would also require the oil and gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.
The industry argues that the chemicals are proprietary secrets and that disclosing them would hurt their competitiveness. It also argues that the process is basically safe and that regulating it would deter domestic production. But if hydraulic fracturing is as safe as the industry says it is, why should it fear regulation? |
Months of pointed questions on the Senate scandal is paying off for NDP Leader Tom Mulcair by bolstering party support and striking a blow to the Conservative brand, according to the latest Nanos Party Power Index.
For the first time, the NDP has scored higher than the Conservatives on the weekly index.
"We can start to see a significant trend emerge that is favouring the New Democrats," Nik Nanos, president and CEO of Nanos Research, told Power & Politics host Evan Solomon.
The index is a combination of measurements of federal party brands based on questions about the parties and the leaders. The score is on a scale of zero to 100 for each party.
The number: 51 The percentage of support for the NDP, the first time the party has pulled ahead of the Conservatives. Source: Nanos Party Power Weekly Index Tracking, four week rolling averages of 1,000 Canadians completed Nov. 30, 2013. Random land- and cell-line sample using live agents. A sample of 1,000 Canadians is accurate 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus 19 times out of 20.
The Liberals remain in the lead with a score of 54, which is a drop of five points from last month. The NDP has gained four points for a score of 51, while the Conservatives have dropped 3 points for a final score of 50.
The results are based on random telephone (cell and land-line) interviews with 1,000 Canadians using a four-week rolling average ending Nov. 11, and is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
"For the opposition party, (the Senate scandal) is the gift that keeps on giving, because there are new twists and turns that keep this particular story alive," Nanos said.
Mulcair performance, policy could attract voters
Mulcair is the only federal party leader that has gained favour among Canadians in the past month, on the basis of strong leadership qualities, according to the Nanos Party Power Index.
Mulcair is up 7 points for a score of 51, while Trudeau has dropped 5 points to 52 and Harper has the greatest loss of 7 points for a score of 50.
"Mulcair has clearly benefited from the profile he has in the Senate controversy, his hammering of the Prime Minister day after day," Nanos said.
The NDP leader recently introduced new energy policy, which Nanos believes is a smart way to bring new supporters on board.
"It's not enough for (Mulcair) to just tear down Stephen Harper, he needs to set himself up as a potential counterpoint to both Stephen Harper and an alternative to Justin Trudeau," Nanos said.
Nanos points out that the leader's energy plan is likely phase two of the New Democrats' strategy to form the government after the next election.
"He's putting policy in the New Democratic window to attract voters."
Nik Nanos digs beneath the numbers with CBC News Network's Power & Politics to get to the political, economic and social forces that shape our lives. Recognized as one of Canada's top research experts, Nanos provides numbers-driven counsel to senior executives and major organizations. He leads the analyst team at Nanos, is a Fellow of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association and a Research Associate Professor with SUNY (Buffalo). |
It has been almost four years since the Fitbit Zip was first released, and yet the affordable tracker still remains one of our favorites. That's because for $60, £50 or AU$80 depending on your locale (even less if you shop around), you get a tracker that does all the basics. It can track steps, distance and calories burned. All of this information, including the time of day, can be viewed on the device's small LCD display, or on the Android or iOS app.
Unlike many of Fitbit's other trackers, the Zip isn't worn on the wrist. The tracker comes with a silicone sleeve that can be clipped to your belt, pocket or bra, which makes it one of the most discreet trackers on the market today. It's not pretty, but it works...and it's the best affordable way to get into the Fitbit scene.
Why we like it?
While the Zip lacks some of the bells and whistles found in other devices, such as tracking sleep and stairs climbed or displaying notifications, it remains one of the cheapest entry points to the Fitbit ecosystem. The Fitbit app app is easy to use and provides tools to help you stay active. In addition to viewing all of your activity data, you can track what you eat and even compete with friends and family members in daily or weekly competitions.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Another highlight of the Zip is that it never has be charged. It uses a traditional coin battery that will last between four and six months. You will eventually need to manually replace the battery, but they're incredibly cheap -- you can get a 10-pack at Amazon for around $6.
I'd still recommend the Zip over the Fitbit One because it costs less, and if all you're looking for is a basic clip-on tracker, this does the job fine. While the One adds sleep tracking, you are required to place the tracker in a bulky wrist strap each night.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Should you buy one?
You don't need to buy a Zip to enjoy the Fitbit experience. You can use an iPhone and many Android devices with the Fitbit app to track steps, distance and calories burned. You get all the benefits of owning a Zip, but without having to shell out extra dough for the actual device. If you don't always have your phone with you, though, and don't want to pay up for (or want) a wristband like the Fitbit Charge HR, the Zip could be right for you.
Looking for another Fitbit device? Check out this guide to find the one that's right for you. |
If you haven’t yet, you will sometime soon likely get a text from your teenager asking, "Mom, is it OK if my friends and I Uber to the football game tonight?" And while you may have used a ridesharing service plenty of times to get to your meeting from the airport, you haven’t really considered whether your kids should be using the service alone.
For those who have only heard of ridesharing but don’t understand how it works, here’s the primer. For a ride from one place to another, a user can open the app that pins a current location. The rider puts in the destination, and the app will estimate how much it will cost and how close a driver is to the pick-up location. When the driver picks up the passenger, the app starts charging. Since the app has the rider’s credit card information, there’s no need for cash and the transaction all takes place through the app.
The two most popular ridesharing apps, Uber and Lyft, are fairly equal when it comes to pricing, and are both somewhat less expensive than a traditional taxi service. To calculate the cost of each ride, the companies take into account the time of day, the distance and which level of car is requested.
It costs around $1 to start a ride, and then the companies charge about $1.50 per mile and $0.25 per minute. Both companies also charge a lot more during busy times, which riders will see noted on the apps’ maps.
Both companies say safety is a huge priority for them. Uber and Lyft have third parties that perform background checks on their drivers, but without fingerprinting.
Right now both apps require account holders to be 18 years old. There isn’t a huge emphasis on this, though, as they only require users to check a box stating they are 18, with no proof needed.
In March, Uber began something called "teen accounts" in a few U.S. cities. Parents can set up accounts for kids ages 13-17 that come with a few cool features. Uber’s app will notify parents when their child requests a ride, and it will cost an extra $2. The app also notifies parents with trip details and progress, and parents will be able to contact the driver if needed during the ride. Uber says it will only use experienced and highly rated drivers for these teen trips, and those drivers are not notified that they will be transporting a minor.
But if you are not in one of those cities with the teen account pilot program (Seattle, Phoenix or Columbus), then your other option is to allow your child to use your account. Many parents do this, but there are some precautions to take and talk about with your children.
Your child should ask permission first for a couple of reasons. The cost is certainly one. Many parents have had a bit of a shock to find their kids have been using their Uber or Lyft account only after checking a credit card statement.
Also, when a child requests a ride, they can then send you the trip details right through the app so you can follow along with the real-time GPS. They can also screenshot the driver details so that you have record of the license plate, car information and name of the driver giving your child a ride.
Have your children wait inside for their ride to show up. The app notifies the user when the driver has arrived, so there is no need to wait outside where it might be more dangerous.
Talk with your children about keeping personal information to themselves. The driver will have no way of knowing if the address is a home address or a friend’s. Just like on social media, kids should know never to share details about their lives that should remain private.
It’s a personal call, but I would not feel comfortable allowing my children to ride alone. With that said, don’t be alarmed by the sensationalized horror stories you may have heard about crimes committed by drivers. The website Who’s Driving You has tons of scary tales, but please realize that website is maintained by the Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association, which has a vested interest in seeing ridesharing services fail. We have no solid evidence that any more crime is committed by Uber and Lyft drivers than has been committed by taxi drivers in the past.
Parents should discuss whether or not ridesharing is a good option for their children before the question arises. Debate the pros and cons now and set up some rules with your kids before you get that midnight phone call asking if they can Uber home. |
ENGLISH Premier League super power Liverpool FC could be headed to Sydney next year for an exhibition match expected to inject $25 million into the NSW economy.
In a major coup for the NSW Government and Football Federation Australia, NSW is positioned to trump Queensland in a multi-million dollar bidding war to showcase The Reds $840 million roster in the harbour city.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal negotiations are in the closing stages, with the only sticking point being Liverpool’s price tag.
Provided all parties can strike a deal, one of the world’s most popular football clubs will arrive in Sydney next July with possible opponents including an A-League All Stars line-up, Western Sydney Wanderers or Sydney FC.
media_camera Liverpool’s Aussie keeper Brad Jones at the MCG.
The match would be staged at Sydney Olympic Park’s ANZ Stadium in front of an expected sell-out crowd of 83,000 fans, with ticket sales alone worth upwards of $6.5 million.
The prospect of the Western Sydney Wanderers or Sydney FC’s huge supporter bases filling ANZ Stadium in conjunction with an army of Liverpool fans would create a truly magical sporting spectacle.
Riding the wave of success of footballing super powers like Manchester United and Juventus visiting Australia over the course of the last two years, the FFA has been in the market for the last six months looking to lure another big overseas club.
“FFA is in discussions with several big European clubs to find the right opponent to play the Foxtel A-League All Stars next July,” an FFA spokesperson said.
“Nothing is finalised at this stage, but there’s certainly an appetite among state government agencies, stadiums and broadcasters to be part of the show.
“The great thing for Australian football is that we have huge credibility after the success of the All Stars matches against Manchester United and Juventus.”
media_camera Melbourne Victory v Liverpool FC at the MCG, Melbourne 24th July 2013.
Liverpool’s roster includes footballing superstars Steven Gerrard, Mario Balotelli, Alberto Moreno and Rickie Lambert, with captain Gerrard earning a weekly wage of $250,000.
The rendition of Liverpool’s world-famous “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in July last year was one of the highlights of the Australian sporting calendar, with captain Gerrard saluting by booting a goal in the 2-0 win over Melbourne Victory.
The 95,000 fans at the MCG marked the biggest crowd Liverpool has ever played in front of, alerting The Reds power brokers to the rivers of gold on offer in terms the Australian marketplace.
The reason the FFA favours Liverpool playing the All-Stars rather than Western Sydney or FC is because the national appeal would deliver them a stronger television broadcast rights deal.
Queensland also made an audacious bid to try and secure the English Premier League giants, with Queensland Events planning to stage a match against A-League outfit the Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium.
media_camera Liverpool fans at the MCG.
But the NSW Government is believed to hold the strongest chance of landing the major event, with the tourism value to Sydney believed to be in the vicinity of $10 million.
The Reds visit could also coincide with a number of other footballing super powers coming to Australia to feature in the International Champions Cup in Melbourne in the middle of next year.
The International Champions Cup is a round robin tournament featuring some of the biggest European football clubs, with the Nine Entertainment Co possibly bringing Manchester City and Real Madrid to Melbourne. |
The response in the US to the shooting on 17 June of nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, when compared to the mass hysteria that greeted the Boston marathon bombings in 2013, reveals a lot about the entrenched racism of the US establishment.
If you’re a white mass murderer, you’re a disturbed individual who has been let down by the mental health system; if you’re a Muslim, you’re part of a network of terror dedicated to tearing apart Western civilisation.
The Charleston suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, if found guilty, is by any definition of the term a terrorist – that is, someone with a political project of killing innocent non-combatants with the sole purpose of spreading fear.
This young man, raised in the former slave state of South Carolina, where the Confederate flag still flies proudly within the capitol grounds, allegedly entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church with the express purpose of killing as many Blacks as he could.
A relative of one of those who escaped informed the press that Roof had told one of the congregation as he reloaded his pistol: “I have to do it … You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go”.
And then there was the Facebook photo showing Roof wearing patches emblazoned with the flags of the racist former regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
With racism obviously established as a motive, some said that his was, as Charleston mayor Joe Riley put it, the act of “just one hateful person”.
The problem is that South Carolina seems to have an awful lot of “hateful persons”, many of them holding high political office. Like the flag-flying governor for example. Like the thousands of members of the nearly two dozen white supremacist or neo-Nazi groups that exist in the state.
Like the law enforcement agencies, including the police, who have fired their weapons at 209 suspects in the last five years, with African Americans disproportionately the target. The victims include 50-year-old Walter Scott, who in April was shot in the back five times and killed by officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, just 16 km from the scene of last night’s mass murder.
To the shameful treatment of African Americans we might also add the Latino population of South Carolina, which also feels the stinging lash of the modern day plantation owners.
The truth is the entire political structure of South Carolina is riddled with racism. Roof is not the exception but the rule. The Republican Party and the police forces have close connections and overlapping memberships with the white supremacist groups in the state.
Charleston police chief Greg Mullen may have said, “It is unfathomable that somebody in today’s society would walk into a church while they are having a prayer meeting and take their lives”. But there is no mystery to this massacre. As Anthea Butler, an African American academic at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Washington Post, the mass shooting in Charleston was “a manifestation of the racial hatred and white supremacy that continues to pervade our society”.
The truth is that while the establishment since 9/11 has been focused on identifying and incarcerating suspected Muslim “terrorists”, white supremacists and cops have been carrying out deadly attacks on an almost daily basis.
Earlier this week, the New York Times stated: “Right wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities … Right wing anti-government extremism is the leading source of ideological violence in America”.
These are not random acts but a pattern of racial intimidation encouraged by sections of the US political and media establishment.
It is in this context that many politicians do their best to downplay the political motives of figures like Roof. From their perspective, he just went “too far” and threatened to turn public attention to the systemic white supremacy in the US.
It is this that explains why Roof was walked to a police car wearing a bullet-proof vest, while unarmed Black teenagers at a pool party are viciously assaulted for no reason. And it is this that explains why the people of Charleston were just encouraged to “stay calm” when the hunt for the killer was in operation.
In Boston, by contrast, following the killing of three people at the city marathon in 2013, the entire city was subject to a military lockdown for 48 hours. And of course the media demanded that the entire Muslim population distance itself from and condemn the act. This is never asked of the “white community”.
The man who pulled the trigger at the Methodist church in Charleston is the spawn of a society that perpetrates institutionalised violence against the country’s African American population, to keep it enslaved, low waged and intimidated. It is terrorism on a grand scale. |
Ohio State football prospect Eli Apple received one of the strangest criticisms of his draft stock when an anonymous scout said he has "no life skills" and "can't cook."
This anonymous scout quote abt OSU's Eli Apple was, um, interesting:"The kid has no life skills. At all. Can't cook" https://t.co/03a8Tn3F6V — Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) April 27, 2016
Reactions to the quote have been pouring in all morning, almost all of them either disproving or ridiculing it. Here are the four most common ones.
Reaction No. 1: Actually, Apple can cook
If you can cook fried chicken, you can cook anything. That's just a fact.
Eli has made me some fire fried chicken and mac and cheese. The source seems to be pretty unreliable — EzekielElliott#⃣1⃣5⃣ (@EzekielElliott) April 27, 2016
And anyway, Apple's dad is a chef. A good one!
Btw, Eli's dad is a retired five star chef. We eat well. So stop playing with our name. Next time you say our name, put some respeck on it — Annie Apple (@SurvivinAmerica) April 27, 2016
There's even a photo of him cooking!
Reaction No. 2: Who cares, a lot of athletes can't cook
Like Super Bowl champion and Denver Broncos cornerback Bradley Roby.
I can't cook either ! Maybe hot pockets at best lol .. And I'm a SUPERBOWL CHAMPION . — Bradley Roby (@BradRoby_1) April 27, 2016
Or PEYTON MANNING.
"He didn't know what a can opener looked like," the anecdote said about Manning.
Reaction No. 3: Cooked apples are great
Oh, sorry, this was my own reaction. I kept writing "cooking" and "apples" and it was just a natural connection. Seriously though, apple pie is a top-three dessert.
Reaction No. 4: Cooking is so important to football
We might as well start testing the cooking skills of prospects at the combine. That's what Ohio State linebacker Darron Lee suggests.
We should have a cooking contest at the combine now — Darron Lee (@DLeeMG8) April 27, 2016
Exactly.
@BruceFeldmanCFB if you can't cook, how can you find the ball in coverage, Bruce? — Steve Palazzolo (@PFF_Steve) April 27, 2016
Reaction No. 5: Who cares what an anonymous scout says?
Dear Anonymous Scouts,
Do less.
Sincerely,
People with Earned Identities — Kyle Long (@Ky1eLong) April 27, 2016
That sums it up nicely.
Now, for those of you who can cook: get your name in the 2016 NFL Draft immediately. If you can make pork chops you're a guaranteed top-40 pick. |
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Anyone lucky enough to have been a movie fan at some point during the three decades between 1969 and 1998 probably saw Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert review movies on television (even though they did not make their TV debut until 1975). They did so with such passion and precision, in small sound bites but with humor, intelligence, and insight, that they taught all of us how to look at movies.
It was fun to see them tear a bad movie to bits, but it was also fun to see them fight over a movie, disagreeing with one another with a vengeance. They had a particular charisma together that could not be replicated by others, and could not be replicated by Ebert once Siskel died in 1998.
A particularly special time was when they both loved a movie so dearly and deeply that you could feel it flowing from the TV screen. Some of these reviews are available to see again on YouTube, but for the record, here are the 23 films that the team loved the best.
23. Shoah (1985)
Ebert: In a class by itself.
Siskel: #1 movie of 1985, and #2 movie of the decade.
Claude Lanzmann’s 9-1/2 hour documentary on the Holocaust was made when many participants and survivors in that horrific chapter of history were still alive, but in a time before the internet or phone cameras. So Lanzmann put in an enormous amount of painful, exacting work, tracking down, interviewing, and filming anyone and everyone he could on this subject. The results are, if nothing else, powerful, and essential.
Siskel called it “the greatest use of film I’ve ever seen.” Ebert agreed, and his written review is just as awed. “For more than nine hours I sat and watched a film named Shoah, and when it was over, I sat for a while longer and simply stared into space, trying to understand my emotions.”
At the end of the year, Siskel named it the year’s best, but Ebert did not include it on his list. “Obviously it belongs at the top of the list,” he said, but did not feel right with the year’s ordinary films, so he left it off and placed it in “a special category.” His decision was controversial among list-mongers, and it’s the reason Shoah places so low on this list.
22. House of Games (1987)
Ebert: #1 movie of 1987 and #10 movie of the decade.
Siskel: #3 movie of 1987
Playwright and screenwriter David Mamet made his directorial debut with one of the original “twisty” thrillers, a tale of con men in which the cons unfold inside of other cons. Lindsay Crouse plays a psychiatrist who learns that one of her patients may be in danger over a gambling debt.
In a move probably not endorsed by psychiatry school, she goes to the gambler (Joe Mantegna) and asks him to erase the debt. He agrees, but only if she’ll help him pull off an elaborate con. Along the way, the audience learns all about conning and lying and “tells,” told to the rhythm of Mamet’s singular, dialogue with its punchy, repeating chunks.
Ebert wrote that “this movie is alive,” but years later admitted that he loved it because it seemed so fresh upon its initial release. Today’s movie fans may be able to spot the twists early on, but in its day House of Games was a brainy treat.
21. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Ebert: #3 movie of 1986
Siskel: #1 movie of 1986
Woody Allen was on a roll when he made this great New York comedy-drama about a handful of characters connected to three sisters, cooking up with so many great characters, performances, situations, and dialogue.
Allen plays an ex-husband who searches for meaning in life through religion; in one scene he brings home a cross and a loaf of Wonder Bread. Michael Caine, as the married intellectual who is married to one sister but falls for another, and Dianne Wiest as the kooky, single third sister, both won Oscars.
Allen’s brilliant, novelistic screenplay, which takes place over a year’s time, starting and ending at Thanksgiving, won a third Oscar. Siskel said that “it’s the most life-affirming film that Woody Allen has done since Annie Hall. This is the work of a happy filmmaker, and one of the greatest that this country has produced.” Ebert agreed, adding that it was the best movie Allen ever made.
20. The Color Purple (1985)
Ebert: #1 movie of 1985
Siskel: #3 movie of 1985
It’s hard to imagine a time when Steven Spielberg was struggling to be taken seriously. But if you’d made some of the top box office attractions, rollercoaster-like rides and movies for younger viewers, then you’d find it hard to be considered a “grownup” filmmaker as well. In recent years, Spielberg has managed that nicely, but The Color Purple was his first attempt.
Adapted from an acclaimed Alice Walker novel, the film takes some tough material and makes it both sweet and heartbreaking. The movie was famous for being one of the most-nominated films at the Oscars without winning a single thing. It’s also famous for Spielberg’s Best Director snub, although he was dropped to allow in Akira Kurosawa for Ran, so it was a fair trade.
In his Sun-Times review, Ebert wrote, “The Color Purple is not the story of her suffering but of her victory, and by the end of her story this film had moved me and lifted me up as few films have. It is a great, warm, hard, unforgiving, triumphant movie, and there is not a scene that does not shine with the love of the people who made it.”
19. The Emigrants (1971) & The New Land (1972)
Ebert: #3 movie of 1973
Siskel: #1 movie of 1973, and one of the ten best movies of the 1970s
This two-parter was a giant-sized Swedish epic, running over six hours, released in U.S. theaters in 1973, although it has been largely absent from home video for a generation. It was based on a set of four novels by Vilhelm Moberg, and as the titles suggest, depicts the trials and tribulations of a Swedish family as they journey from Sweden to the United States.
It was directed by Jan Troell, a filmmaker that had been endorsed by none other than Ingmar Bergman. Despite its length and subject matter — and subtitles — it was a success and received universal acclaim and many Oscar nominations. Siskel and Ebert hadn’t begun their TV show yet, and writing for competing papers, they each selected the films together as a major benchmark of the year. In 1979, on a special episode of the show, Siskel mentioned the films as among the best of the decade.
18. Claire’s Knee (1971)
Ebert: #3 movie of 1971
Siskel: #1 movie of 1971
The French director Eric Rohmer was a film critic for Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s, and a colleague of Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and the others. While they began making films in the early 1960s and creating the “French New Wave,” Rohmer was something of a late bloomer, not finding his stride until the late 1960s and early 1970s.
With films like Claire’s Knee, he specialized in relaxed, summery films about romance among intelligent people, and their intellectual attempts to try and understand romance and all its strange nuances. In the movie, an older man on the verge of marrying becomes entranced by a young woman and entertains a notion to caress her knee. His writer friend encourages his behavior, looking for fodder for her writing; and, in fact, the film plays out in novelistic “chapters.”
“Claire’s Knee is a movie for people who still read good novels, care about good films, and think occasionally,” wrote Ebert.
17. Terms of Endearment (1983)
Ebert: #2 movie of 1983
Siskel: #2 movie of 1983
James L. Brooks exploded right out of a television career to make this feature directorial debut, based on Larry McMurtry’s novel. Like Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, it’s a deft mix of comedy and drama, with strong characters and dialogue that slip effortlessly back and forth between funny and painful. The performances are all terrific; Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson won Oscars and Debra Winger and John Lithgow received nominations. Siskel wrote,
“The goal is — I suspect — to reflect life with all of its energy, missed opportunities, warmth, cruelty, joy and bad luck.” It’s a very good movie, if a tad overpraised. Yet, perhaps in part because of Siskel and Ebert, or perhaps because of a subplot involving cancer that switched it from a mere character study to an Important Film, Terms of Endearment went on to win the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. |
The University of Toronto is hosting a data archiving event on 17th December, to try to “save” climate data they believe will be deleted by the new Donald Trump administration.
Guerrilla Archiving Event: Saving Environmental Data from Trump There is a Call to Action underway coming out of the Technoscience Research Unit at the University of Toronto, and happening at the Faculty of Information. Two professors are calling on citizens to figure out if they “Care about Trump, data, or the environment?” Volunteersare invited to join in a full day of hackathon activities in preparation for the Trump presidency. This event collaborates with the Internet Archive’s End of Term 2016 project, which seeks to archive the federal online pages and data that are in danger of disappearing during the Trump administration. This event is focused on preserving information and data from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has programs and data at high risk of being removed from online public access or even deleted. This includes climate change, water, air, toxics programs. This project is urgent because the Trump transition team has identified the EPA and other environmental programs as priorities for the chopping block. … SVP and up-to-date information: https://www.facebook.com/events/1828129627464671/ (link is external) Bring: laptops, power bars, and snacks. Coffee and Pizza provided. https://technoscienceunit.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/guerrilla-archiving-e… (link is external) Submitted by Kathleen O’Brien on Mon, 2016-12-12 17:35 Date: Saturday, December 17, 2016 – 10:00 to 16:00 Location: Bissell Building, 4th Floor, 140 St. George St. University of Toronto
Read more: https://ischool.utoronto.ca/content/guerrilla-archiving-event-saving-environmental-data-trump
Can anyone recall any climate skeptic, anywhere, ever demanding the deletion of climate data?
Much of the battle between skeptics and climate organisations has been about compelling reluctant climate researchers to release data which they wanted to hide. Skeptics have consistently demanded more access to data, not less.
For example, consider Climategate email 1106338806.txt from Professor Phil Jones, former head of the prestigious UK based Climatic Research Unit.
From: Phil Jones To: Tom Wigley Subject: Re: FOIA Date: Fri Jan 21 15:20:06 2005 Cc: Ben Santer Tom, I’ll look at what you’ve said over the weekend re CCSP. I don’t know the other panel members. I’ve not heard any more about it since agreeing a week ago. As for FOIA Sarah isn’t technically employed by UEA and she will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University. I wouldn’t worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to deal with them. Cheers Phil
Plenty more where that email came from – lots of discussions in the Climategate archive of legal tricks to avoid Freedom of Information requests, use of UN mandates to avoid national law based FOIA requests, requests to delete emails and files, and what appear to be deliberate attempts to conceal and perhaps even to delete important material.
In January 2010, the UK information office found that the CRU had breached freedom of information laws, but that the statute of limitations on the offence had run out – it was too late to prosecute those responsible.
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The Halifax Metro Centre will not be serving alcohol at its Halifax Rainmen game on Sunday because its liquor licence has been suspended for a day for serving alcohol to minors.
In an agreed statement of facts released by the Alcohol and Gaming Division of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, liquor inspectors visited the Metro Centre for routine checks on two separate occasions at the end of May.
Two young women, who were standing by one of the bar areas with drinks in their hands, were asked for identification just before 9 p.m. on May 29.
One woman didn't have identification and the other presented identification belonging to her older sister. The second woman was only 17 years old.
Two days later, another inspector saw a group of young men.
The compliance officer "observed one of the males, who appeared to be unsteady on his feet, attempting to lift a cup of beer towards his mouth but dropped the beer before being able to take a drink."
The man also turned out to be 17 years old.
As the teenager was being questioned by the officer, he stumbled, fell over and could not stand up after falling, according to the agreed statement of facts.
The incidents are violations of the provincial Liquor Control Act for serving underage customers and selling liquor to those who have already had too much to drink.
As a penalty, the Halifax Metro Centre's liquor licence has been suspended for one day — Nov. 11. As well, all responsible staff including ushers, wait staff and security have to attend an ID and compliance training session. |
Anf. 109 Andreas Norlén (M)
Herr talman! Det internationella samarbetet i världen har sannolikt aldrig varit mer omfattande än nu. Världens länder samverkar såväl bilateralt som inom en rad internationella organisationer. Det är bra. Dialog och samverkan mellan världens länder om handel, brottsbekämpning, miljöskydd och en rad andra frågor gynnar oss alla. En sak som blir tydlig när man har kontakt med andra länder är att alla inte är som Sverige. Olika länder har olika utgångspunkter och ser på saker på olika sätt. Det är uppenbart på många områden. Ett av dem gäller hur man ser på offentlighet för handlingar som finns hos myndigheter. Vi har en stark offentlighetstradition i Sverige. Sedan lång tid ser vi det som en självklarhet att handlingar hos myndigheter på alla nivåer ska vara offentliga och därmed tillgängliga för medborgare och journalister som vill granska hur den offentliga makten utövas. Den traditionen bärs av en övertygelse om att största möjliga öppenhet är ett viktigt verktyg för att så många som möjligt ska känna sig delaktiga i samhällslivet, liksom för att motverka korruption och annat maktmissbruk. En sådan här offentlighetskultur saknas i många länder, där huvudregeln i stället är att handlingar hos offentliga myndigheter är hemliga om inte öppenhet är särskilt påbjuden. Det räcker att titta i kretsen av EU-medlemmar för att hitta många länder som inte har den starka offentlighetskultur som vi har. Det här har inneburit att Sveriges regering i många sammanhang när man har förhandlat om EU-lagstiftning liksom i förhandlingar om internationella avtal har behövt kämpa hårt för att få till stånd en så stor handlingsoffentlighet som möjligt på det aktuella området. Det handlar till exempel om situationen att myndigheter i de olika EU-länderna eller myndigheter i de länder som ingår ett visst avtal ska utbyta information med varandra. I dessa olika förhandlingar möter regeringen hårt motstånd från en del andra länder. Regeringen har också drivit på för att EU:s generella lagstiftning om handlingsoffentlighet ska bli så generös som möjligt. Även i det sammanhanget finns länder som drar åt ett helt annat håll. Vi har en stark offentlighetstradition i Sverige - den ska vi värna, och den ska vi vara stolta över. Regeringen driver hårt i internationella förhandlingar att uppgifter som utbyts mellan myndigheter i olika länder ska vara offentliga, men Sverige får inte alltid stöd av andra länder för dessa ståndpunkter. Därför kan resultatet av förhandlingarna bli att Sverige inte får gehör för sina krav på största möjliga öppenhet. När det gäller EU-lagstiftning kan vi bli nedröstade i ministerrådet. När det gäller internationella avtal kan det bli så att vi ställs inför valet att underteckna avtalet trots allt, eller att ställa oss vid sidan av för att vi inte är nöjda med offentlighetsreglerna i avtalet. Ofta är fördelarna med avtalet så stora att det är bättre att vara med, även om man inte fått precis som man vill. Det här medför att Sverige, genom EU-lagstiftning och internationella avtal som riksdagen eller EU har godkänt, har åtagit sig att hemlighålla viss information som Sverige kan komma att få från utländska myndigheter inom ramen för avtalet eller EU-lagen. För att Sverige ska leva upp till sina åtaganden enligt avtalet eller EU-lagen måste det därför finnas bestämmelser i den svenska offentlighets- och sekretesslagen som gör det möjligt att skydda information som vi fått från utländska myndigheter. Det är oklart, och förmodligen osannolikt, att dagens bestämmelse om utrikessekretess ger ett tillräckligt skydd för dessa uppgifter. Lagstiftningen är inte tillräckligt tydlig, särskilt inte efter att Högsta förvaltningsdomstolen har tolkat bestämmelsen om utrikessekretess på ett sätt som gör att det i första hand är en handlings innehåll, inte varifrån den kommer, som ska avgöra om det föreligger sekretess eller inte. Därför har regeringen föreslagit att en ny bestämmelse ska införas i offentlighets- och sekretesslagen, och det är den vi debatterar här i dag. Den innebär att sekretess ska gälla för en uppgift som en myndighet har fått från ett annat land med stöd av en EU-lag eller ett internationellt avtal som EU eller riksdagen har godkänt, om det kan antas att Sveriges möjligheter att delta i samarbetet försämras om uppgiften lämnas ut. Det är inte fråga om automatisk sekretess. Varje gång någon begär att få del av en uppgift som en utländsk myndighet har lämnat till Sverige ska den svenska myndigheten själv bedöma om det skulle bli svårare för Sverige att delta i samarbetet om uppgiften lämnades ut. Dessutom ska, enligt regeringens förslag, meddelarfriheten gälla även beträffande sådana här uppgifter. Det innebär att myndighetsföreträdare utan att riskera påföljder kan berätta för journalister om innehållet i handlingarna. Regeringen har alltså gjort sekretessbestämmelsen så mjuk som möjligt. Den är konstruerad med ett rakt skaderekvisit, vilket innebär att öppenhet är huvudregel och sekretess gäller bara om skadan är sannolik, samtidigt som meddelarfriheten bevaras. Bestämmelsen är också så tydligt avgränsad som möjligt. Den gäller enbart uppgifter som Sverige har fått från utländska myndigheter inom ramen för EU-lagstiftning eller internationella avtal. Det är uppgifter som Sverige inte hade haft tillgång till om det inte hade funnits något internationellt samarbete. Vi kan förstås välja att inte delta i internationella samarbeten. Då har vi inget problem. Då är vi inte bundna av sekretessregler i några avtal. Men då får vi inte heller del av några uppgifter från utländska myndigheter, och i det läget finns inte heller några uppgifter att lämna ut till allmänheten. Den kritik som har förts fram av Peter Eriksson här i talarstolen är grovt överdriven och populistisk. Det är inte alls fråga om en så långtgående inskränkning av offentlighetsprincipen som han vill ge sken av. Detta är en nyanserad lagstiftning. Regeringen har gjort en nyanserad bedömning. Det behövs en sekretessbestämmelse, eftersom vi inte alltid får som vi vill och eftersom det trots allt är bättre att samarbeta än att inte samarbeta - även om man inte alltid får som man vill. Peter Erikssons sätt att resonera är ungefär som om Zlatan skulle säga till Ronaldo: Vi spelar gärna fotboll med er. Men vi tycker inte att Fifas regler för fotboll är något vidare, så vi har hittat på egna regler i stället. Vi kommer bara ut på planen om ni accepterar det vi har kokat ihop. Med det resonemanget skulle Sverige inte få spela så många internationella matcher. På samma sätt är det med annat internationellt samarbete. Man är med och påverkar och ska vara tuff när man förhandlar, men man kan inte alltid få precis som man vill. Vi tycker att man ska kunna samarbeta ändå. Det finns ett brett stöd i Sveriges riksdag för den hållningen. Regeringen har gjort en nyanserad bedömning. Bestämmelsen är väl avgränsad och så mjuk som möjligt, helt i linje med den svenska öppenhetstraditionen. Jag yrkar därför bifall till förslaget i utskottets betänkande. |
American citizens who felt abandoned by both the Democrats and Republicans were drawn to President Trump, "a candidate who entertained them and offered oversimplified answers" to complex issues, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., says in a new book.
Flake took his own party to task as well as Democrats, blaming both in a new book for the political gridlock that led to Trump's presidency and its current chaos.
The book, "Conscience of a Conservative," published by Random House goes on sale Tuesday.
The senator said that since the election conservatives have been in denial as the government at its highest levels has become dysfunctional.
Flake was highly critical of Trump during the presidential campaign, but has sought to reach common ground and backed some of the administration's initiatives, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's backup proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it later.
The Associated Press contributed to this story. |
PHOENIX — Downtown Phoenix is one step closer to hosting a hockey team once again.
City council-members approved $75,000 for Barrett Sports Group to evaluate Talking Stick Resort Arena in downtown Phoenix and determine what it would look like to host a hockey team there.
Councilman Michael Nowakowski brought up the idea of moving the Coyotes to downtown Phoenix at the Feb. 15 city council meeting.
He said he wants the consulting group to see what it would cost to move a hockey team downtown, including remodeling and updating the arena.
But not everyone, such as Councilman Jim Waring, was on board with the idea.
“I don’t think we should be looking at this at all,” Waring said, according to KJZZ. “The hockey team has an arena on the west side. I think it’s throwing our sister city a little bit under the bus for us to be doing this and I just don’t think we should be spending $75,000 on this.”
A home for the Arizona Coyotes has been up in the air after Arizona State University pulled out of a deal in February that would have brought the team to Tempe.
But an Arizona Senate committee passed a bill on Feb. 14 that would help fund a $395 million arena for the team.
Talking Stick Resort Arena, which now houses the Phoenix Suns, housed the Arizona Coyotes in 1996, when it was known as the America West Arena.
The Coyotes moved to Glendale in 2003, where they currently play out of Gila River Arena. But the team’s future in the arena came to a screeching halt when the city cancelled its lease agreement with the team in 2015.
Arizona Sports reported that the news of the lease agreement cancellation “should come as no surprise for fans who have endured conflicts between the city and ownership ever since former owner Jerry Moyes drove the team into bankruptcy in 2009.”
At the time, the Coyotes were one of the worst teams in the NHL and had an average of just 13,345 fans per home game.
Follow @KTAR923 |
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel noted on Friday that Barack Obama and the IRS have a new plan to target Tea Party groups in advance of the 2014 elections.
During Thanksgiving week, the Treasury Department announced a proposal to limit the political activity of 501(c)(4) groups. The Obama Administration claimed that the plan was necessary to clarify confusing tax laws.
The House Ways and Means Committee investigators believe that the proposal was designed by examining Tea Party group applications, figuring out exactly how they proceeded, then limiting those very actions in the new proposal, thus shutting them out of the political process.
House Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp said, “The committee has reviewed thousands of tax exempt applications. The new regulation so closely mirrors the abused tea-party group applications, it leads me to question if this new proposed regulation is simply another form of targeting.”
Tea Party groups, just as other tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations, have to prove that the majority of their work is for “primary” social-welfare purpose if they want to keep their tax-exempt status. The primary purpose of most Tea party groups is illuminating for Americans the size of government and the erosion of the Constitution. They do so through nonpartisan voter guides, speakers forums, pamphlets, or voter-registration drives.
Now, however, the IRS is planning to recognize those very activities as “political activity,” not “social welfare,” thus rendering Tea Party groups unfit for 501(c)(4) status.
Thus, the new proposal is not about clarifying tax laws but rather, as Dave Camp stated, “to put Tea Party groups out of business.”
The new rule only applies to 501(c)(4) groups. The League of Women Voters Education Fund, a Democratic stronghold, is registered as a 501(c)(3), considered a “charity” that is strictly limited regarding its political activity. That same organization claims on its website that it holds “candidate debates and forums,” and its “educational activities” include “understanding candidate views and ballot initiatives.”
The League can still issue its voter guides, registrations, and candidate forums. Any conservative social-welfare organization acting similarly will probably lose its tax-exempt status. And guess which groups are unaffected by the new rule, because they are 501(c)(5)s?
As Strassel writes:
The same president who in May was “outraged” by the IRS’s actions now says it was all just some confusion over tax law (which his new rule fixes). He told Chris Matthews last week that the media had hyped what was a few poor IRS souls in Cincinnati who were “trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret… And they’ve got a list, and suddenly everybody’s outraged.” |
In December, the WG1 TSU of the IPCC sent me a formal notice asking me to remove Climate Audit discussion of the IPCC Zero Draft. In this notice, they stated:
It has come to our attention that several Chapters of the Zero Order Draft (ZOD) of WGI AR5 are being cited, quoted and discussed on the blog that you host, Climate Audit, despite the fact that each of these chapters is clearly marked “Do not cite, quote or distribute”. We would respectfully request that you remove the relevant parts with discussions of the ZOD from your blog and, furthermore, that this does not happen with the FOD.
I’ve been mulling over how to respond. I was not a reviewer of the Zero Draft and had not made any personal agreements with IPCC as a condition of receipt. I had registered as a First Draft reviewer but have not downloaded any documents in this capacity as yet.
In preparing a response, I’d been wondering what authority, if any, was possessed by WG1 or its TSU that entitled it to require or request removal of this discussion from Climate Audit. I’d looked at IPCC Policies and Procedures in connection with previous CRU requests. The procedures used in AR4 (see here) had said that the “review process should be objective, open and transparent” and did not contain any language that specifically granted authority to the TSU of a Working Group to prohibit discussion in public of its draft reports. If anything, the overriding objectives of openness and transparency would seem to support such discussion – a process that seems entirely healthy to me and one that would actually enhance the IPCC.
It turns out that Phil Jones and Thomas Stocker, Co-Chair of AR5 WG1, both agreed with my interpretation of IPCC rules on this point i.e. that the Working Groups lacked specific IPCC authority to insist on confidentiality of their drafts, and that they had, behind the scenes, taken steps to change IPCC rules to authorize Working Groups to do so. Jones’ initial contacts with Stocker on this matter are documented in Climategate 2 and arose from Jones’ reading of Climate Audit posts advocating openness and transparency by IPCC – efforts that both Jones and Stocker opposed.
I only became aware of their actions recently as a result of an IPCC cease-and-desist letter to Galloping Camel, which had posted an excellent collection of WG1 and WG2 sources. To my considerable surprise, the IPCC letter to Galloping Camel contained a quotation from IPCC Policies and Procedures here (bolded below) that contained an endorsement of confidentiality that was absent in the AR4 polices. They wrote:
The IPCC Procedures in Article 4.2 of the Principles Governing IPCC Work state that “The IPCC considers its draft reports, prior to acceptance, to be pre-decisional, provided in confidence to reviewers, and not for public distribution, quotation or citation.” (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-a-final.pdf). We therefore request the immediate removal of the ZOD chapters from your website.
This language was definitely not in the AR4 version. Indeed the document linked in the Galloping Camel letter was time stamped January 10, 2012(!). When had the new language been introduced? And by what authority? Tracing the language led to a remarkable story.
The language was almost singlehandedly introduced by Stocker (after being involved by Phil Jones.) Complicating Stocker’s efforts to obtain official sanction for enhanced confidentiality was the lack of interest in this topic by the Interacademy Panel, which had been commissioned by IPCC to review its policies and procedures. Not only did its report not contain the recommendations sought by Stocker and Phil Jones, it re-iterated the importance of openness and transparency. Nor had the language sought by Stocker been recommended in any of the numerous documents on IPCC procedures up to the second week of April 2011, less than four weeks before Stocker’s language was adopted at the Abu Dhabi IPCC meeting in May 2011.
Despite these obstacles, Stocker emerged from the IPCC plenary with his objective. It’s a long story.
Prequel
On May 11, 2009, I reported my request for CRUTEM station data from the Met Office. In a comment, David Holland noted that the AR5 Working Group 1 TSU was in Switzerland and that Switzerland was in the process of adopting the Aarhus Convention on freedom of information.
Jones read this comment and became worried about the prospect of IPCC being subject to the Aarhus Convention. Jones immediately emailed Stocker (May 12 – 4778)
subject: Data access and IPCC
Dear Thomas,
I hope you are enjoying your new job! Apologies in advance for upsetting your morning! Below there is a link to Climate Audit and their new thread with another attempt to gain access to the CRU station temperature data. I wouldn’t normally bother about this – but will deal with the FOI requests when they come. Despite WMO Resolution 40, I’ve signed agreements not to pass on some parts of the CRU land station data to third parties. If you click on the link below and then on comments, look at # 17. [here] This refers to a number of appeals a Brit has made to the Information Commissioner in the UK. You can see various UK Universities and MOHC listed. For UEA these relate to who changed what and why in Ch 6 of AR4. We are dealing with these, but I wanted to alert you to few sentences about Switzerland, your University and AR5. Having been through numerous of these as a result of AR4, I suspect thatsomeone will have a go at you at some point. What I think they might try later is the same issue:
Who changed what and why in various chapters of AR5?
and
When drafts of chapters come for AR5, we can’t review the chapter as we can’t get access to the data, or, the authors can’t refer to these papers as the data haven’t been made available for audit. Neither of these is what I would call Environmental Information,as defined by the Aarhus Convention. You might want to check with the IPCC Bureau. I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember to do it. I also suspect that as national measures to reduce emissions begin to affect people’s lives, we are all going to get more of this. We can cope with op-ed pieces, but these FOI requests take time, as the whole process of how we all work has to be explained to FOI-responsible people at each institution.
Keep up the good work with AR5!
Cheers
Phil
Jones also notified Peter Thorne of the Met Office that he had alerted Stocker to Holland’s comment.
The next day, Stocker (May 13 – 4378) replied, telling Jones (cc Pauline Midgeley) that allowing access to climate data under laws prescribing “open access to environmental data” would be a “perversion” (Stocker would have been an interesting witness in the EPA case, where an opposite position was taken by IPCC supporters):
subject: Re: Data access and IPCC
Dear Phil (cc to Pauline Midgley, Head TSU WGI)
Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. I knew about this when the first requests were placed on John Mitchell and Keith Briffa and they informed us. What I did not know is that they have already placed their focus on Bern (# 17)! At that time I argued that in principle there are two interests to balance: (i) FOI, and (ii) your own privacy when it comes to opening emails or other mail. Obviously, I am not in the position to judge which one obtains and in fact I think a court would be needed to establish
exactly that balance. However, the Arhus Resolution, it seems to me, had another motivation: open access to environmental data associated with damage, spills, pollution; the latter word is mentioned twice – “climate” never. So to take this convention and turn it around appears to me like a perversion. One important point to consider is whether Arhus really applies to the IPCC activities. In no way are we involved in decision making. We assess and provide scientific information. The decision makers are elsewhere. More than ever need we be aware of this separation! We will discuss this in the TSU but then, this should be brought to the level of the Secretariat, at least, since it affects the very basis of our assessment work.
Thanks again and best regards,
Thomas
A couple of weeks later, Jones wrote Santer and Wigley (May 22 – 2135)
They have found out that Switzerland has agreed to but not yet ratified some Environmental Information Regulations (Aarhus Convention), so are probably looking to have a go at the University of Bern and Thomas Stocker at somepoint. Never thought I would know so much about the Law!
Climate Audit Submission to EPA
On June 23, 2009, I posted up my submission to EPA. (Re-reading this submission, I thought that it has held up well.) The submission observed that neither EPA peer review procedures in the Endangerment Study nor IPCC peer review procedures complied with US federal standards for “highly influential scientific assessments or with EPA’s own procedures and policies. (Last year, the EPA Inspector General reported on part of this topic – EPA made the embarrassing argument that the Endangerment Study was not a “highly influential scientific assessment” and therefore did not have to comply with these federal standards. In their defence, EPA argued that it was IPCC that was the “highly influential scientific assessment” – an argument which made it all the more important for IPCC to exceed US standards if IPCC reports were to be used as authority for important policies.)
In my EPA submission, I documented various forms of non-compliance by IPCC, commenting at CA as follows”
Indeed, the various discussions that we’ve had over the past months over IPCC’s amorphous legal status – i.e. IPCC participants having dual status as government employees, with their IPCC affiliation being applied to yield a cone of darkness over activities which would be subject to FOI if they were “merely” government employees. Evasion of transparency has been a long-running concern of this site and I’ve used this comment opportunity to place this and related concerns on the record.
The following day (June 24 – 2440), Jones sent a copy of my submission to Stocker and Midgeley. Jones did not suggest to Stocker that this was a carefully reasoned submission and that they should look closely at criticisms of IPCC transparency and reflect on whether they might be able to improve its processes so that they exceeded US standards:
subject: Re: Data access and IPCC
to: Thomas Stocker , wg1
Dear Thomas,
Attached is a document that you should only bother to look at it you have time to spare – stuck on a train or long flight. It is a submission by a skeptic to EPA in the USA. [https://climateaudit.org/2009/06/23/climate-audit-submission-to-epa/] I’m sending it only for background. I wouldn’t want this issue to be raised at the Venice meeting, but I think you’ll likely to become more aware these people as AR5 advances. I was in Boulder last week and I spoke to Susan. We agreed that the only way IPCC can work is the collegiate way it did with AR4.
These people know they are losing (or have lost) on the science. They are now going for the process. All you need to do is to make sure all in AR5 are aware of the process and that they adhere to it. We all did with AR4, but these people read much more into the IPCC procedures.
See you in Venice
Phil
Stocker’s acknowledgement (June 24 – 4899) said that he was working on the problem:
subject: Re: Data access and IPCC
to: Phil Jones Thanks Phil. We have not be inactive here at the TSU. I have approached a number of colleagues with the problem and expect more indications in the next few weeks to come. I hope that I will be able to have a clear view on the way forward by the time we think of nominations and when we like to inform our potential LAs and CLAs. Thanks and best regards and ’till Venice,
Thomas
On July 15 (1526), Tim Osborn of CRU wrote to Stocker seeking support from IPCC against David Holland’s assertions that IPCC policies required them to be “open” and “transparent”.
On July 29 (Climategate 1- 991. 1248902393.txt), Jones wrote Peterson of NOAA saying that he had persuaded Stocker and the IPCC Secretariat to raise FOI issues with the IPCC Plenary in the next IPCC meeting (Bali):
I have got the IPCC Secretariat and Thomas to raise the FOI issues with the full IPCC Plenary, which meets in Bali in September or October. Thomas [Stocker] is fully aware of all the issues we’ve had here wrt Ch 6 last time, and others in the US have
Despite Jones’ optimism about Bali, the Bali IPCC Plenary session doesn’t appear to have done anything to implement Jones and Stocker’s secrecy ambitions.
The Interacademy Report
In March 2010, in response to Climategate, the IPCC commissioned a report from the Interacademy Council, the terms of reference of which specifically included a “review IPCC procedures for preparing reports”.
This was the forum that Stocker should have submitted his concerns about enhancing confidentiality in the Working Groups. Did he do so? At present, I don’t know. If he didn’t, he should have. If he did, the IAC disregarded his recommendations as, in the final IAC report, which appeared in late August 2010, there is nothing that comes close to a recommendation along the lines that Stocker sought.
On the contrary, the IAC Report re-iterated the position that processes and procedures be “as transparent as possible”:
it is essential that the processes and procedures used to produce assessment reports be as transparent as possible. Transparency is an important principle for promoting trust by the public, the scientific community, and governments. Interviews and responses to the Committee’s questionnaire revealed a lack of transparency in several stages of the IPCC assessment process, including scoping and the selection of authors and reviewers, as well as in the selection of scientific and technical information considered in the chapters.
Nowhere did the IAC report recommend the sort of additional confidentiality sought by Stocker and Phil Jones.
Busan IPCC Meeting, October 2010
At the first IPCC meeting after the IAC report (Busan, October 2010) (see here), the IPCC stated that it “agreed to implement many of the recommendations immediately. On others, the Panel decided to form four Task Groups to undertake further work intersessionally, with a view to completing work on the IAC recommendations at the Panel’s next session.”
One of the four Task Groups was the Task Group on Procedures, the terms of reference of which were to examine the IAC recommendations and, for each of the issues, propose implementation, including amendments to the IPCC Policies and Procedures (Appendix A):
The Task Group should address the issues listed below as mentioned in the IAC recommendations (Chapters 2 and 3), IPCC responses at its 32nd Session and IPCCXXXII/Doc. 22. For each of the issues the Task Group should establish a timetable for action, consider resource implications and identify responsibilities for implementation. It should propose amendments to the Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work and relevant guidance documents if needed taking into account decisions made at IPCC-XXXII.
Geneva, February 2011
The IPCC Task Groups met in Geneva in February 2011 to review progress. The provisional report of the Task Group on Procedures is available here, included in an April 2011 document.
Sections 2-10 of this report discussed issues within their terms of reference i.e. arising from recommendations of the IAC panel. In addition, they included an “Addendum” discussing issues that did not arise from the IAC panel – an initiative that appears to have been opposed by some members, introduced as follows:
To some extent the Task Group also discussed some suggestions that were related to the IAC report recommendations but may be viewed as being not strictly within the mandate given by the 32nd session of the IPCC. The Task Group considered these suggestions useful for further discussion and includes them in this document under the Addendum “Issues for further discussion on Procedures” (section 11 of this document).. Please note that this addendum does not reflect any consensus by the Task Group.
The introduction to the Addendum (see page 10) re-iterated that the issues in the Addendum fell outside the mandate of the Task Group and did not reflect a consensus:
11. Addendum: Issues for further discussion on Procedures page 10
11.1 Introduction
The Task Group noted that a number of issues were raised by Task Group members that maybe viewed as being not strictly within the mandate given by the 32nd session of the IPCC. However, the Task Group considered these issues useful for further discussion as part of an effort to further improving clarity of the Procedures, and the transparency and quality of the assessment process. Please note that this Addendum does not reflect any consensus from the Task Group discussions at their meeting in Geneva 1-4 February 2011. The reviewers of this document may wish to give their viewpoints on the issues and thoughts below.
Section 11.3 of the Addendum contained a comment on confidentiality that was the first small wedge for the Jones-Stocker secrecy language. It stated that saying that guidance “may be needed” on citation of draft reports and “other documentation” “without contradicting the needed transparency and openness”. (Watch as this language morphs.)
11.3 Review process (sections 4.1 and 4.2 of the Procedures)
…
Confidentiality
Clear guidance may be needed on what the rules are for citation/publication of draft reports and other documentation during drafting and review and how the draft report need to be kept confidential without contradicting the needed transparency and openness, while different versions of the draft should be accessible after the completion of the report.
….
On February 9, 2011, this draft (with this very vague and buried reference to confidentiality) was circulated to governments with a four week period for review (see here). Invitations to the forthcoming meeting in Abu Dhabi were sent on Feb 23 by IPCC to governments and NGOs, together with a provisional agenda, item 5 of which was “Review of IPCC Processes and Procedures”.
Review comments on the “Geneva Draft” report are here, presumably dating from early March as scheduled. They include comments from both governments and Thomas Stocker (whose input is described as authorized under “P-32”).
No government commented that the TSUs needed greater powers to restrict discussion of draft reports. However, Stocker complained (see page 145; repeated on page 163 for good measure) that the Task Group took a “rather strict” view of its mandate and “missed the opportunity” to tighten up secrecy provisions. Stocker’s comments in this document are the first appearance of the language later used in the letter to Galloping Camel.
(2) The TG Procedures took a rather strict view of its mandate and did not make recommendations on topics that were not raised by the IAC Review. This means that some necessary adjustments to the Principles and Procedures to address other important issues such as confidentiality were not properly developed. This is potentially a missed opportunity. (3) The draft makes an exception for Topic 10 Guidance Notes, a topic not raised by the IAC Review. WGI proposes that another exception should be made for confidentiality, which is a topic of great importance that was also discussed by the TG during its meeting in Geneva in February 2011. It is mentioned in the Addendum under the review process but clear guidance on confidentiality is needed in a broader context. It is part of the basic way in which IPCC goes about its work and is a necessary requirement for authors to be able to have a free and frank exchange of views. Interim discussions and communications during the preparation and finalisation of the assessment are *pre-decisional* information. As such, these remain confidential and related documents are not public, nor should they be cited, quoted or distributed, as is standard IPCC practice to indicate this on all documents under review. The ability of the WGs to produce an independent and unbiased assessment would be threatened if
material that is in the nature of a draft and/or incomplete information to be further developed were to be released prematurely. It is increasingly clear that this needs to be specified in the Procedures, also showing that it does not contradict the current Principles of IPCC, which state that the assessment is carried out on a “comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis”. Therefore WGI proposes moving this topic into the first part of the TG report, between Topics 3 and 4. The preceding text in this comment can serve as the basis for the TG consideration and the recommendation would be as follows:
“Section 4 of the Procedures should be amended to discuss the notion of the confidentiality of drafts and other interim documentation. Suggested text could be the following: “Drafts of the reports, interim discussions and communications, and other documentation created during the drafting and review process are considered pre-decisional materials and as such are confidential. Drafts and other documentation may not be cited, quoted or distributed. “” (4) The Addendum is not very helpful as presented because it is not clear to a reader who was not part of the discussions in February 2011 in Geneva whether all these suggestions have a similar status in terms of degree of support, depth of discussion, etc. They are in fact highly variable and most of these suggestions will need to be discussed properly by the TG first. [Thomas Stocker, Cochair,WG I]
Stocker’s Earmark
As of early April 2011, a month before the IPCC was due to meet, the language long sought by Stocker and Phil Jones had not been recommended in any of the documents. It appears for the first time in a Report of the Task Group on Procedures included as Document 12 in the agenda for the Abu Dhabi meeting scheduled to begin on May 10.
Uniquely among the documents for the Abu Dhabi meeting, the online version of this document bears a time-stamp of May 12 (after the meeting); other documents linked from the agenda are dated April or earlier. It asked for government comments by May 5. This document was accompanied by a IPCC-XXXIII/INF. 1 , Review of the IPCC Processes and Procedures – Comments from Governments and IPCC Office Holders on the initial draft recommendations prepared by the Task Groups”.
Despite earlier concerns on the part of some members of the Task Group that they comply with their mandate to respond to IAC recommendations (which is what it was represented as having done to the IPCC plenary), in their revised report, the Task Group distinguished two classes of decision:
The Task Group on Procedures has dealt with two categories of proposed decisions:
I. Direct responses to IAC recommendations,
II. Indirect responses as a result of the IAC recommendations following the above mentioned
‘addendum’.
The language sought by Stocker was in section 6 bis4, the Task Group stated:
6bis 4 Confidentiality of draft reports
This issue was raised by the WG I co-chairs. Given the upcoming finalization of two Special Reports The Task Group deemed this issue important for consideration. 6bis 4.1 Task Group consideration
The Task Group noted that clear guidance is needed on what the rules are for the confidentiality of draft reports and other documentation during drafting and review. On one hand, there is a need for transparency and openness of the assessment process. On the other hand, publicizing drafts have serious drawbacks. There is a risk that drafts contain errors or statements that are still unbalanced and that have to be corrected at a later stage. These could prematurely circulate in the public domain, creating confusion, and that would be a bad service of IPCC to society. Therefore, the Task Group believes that drafts should be kept confidential until acceptance of the full report. All drafts of IPCC assessment reports (including the final draft) will be considered to be confidential material, not for public distribution quotation, or citation until acceptance by the Panel of the final IPCC report. The first order draft, second order draft and the final draft, the expert and government review comments, and the author responses to those comments on both drafts will be made available on the IPCC open website on a clearly visible place, within xx weeks after the acceptance of the report by the Panel.
As always, one has to watch the pea. Stocker’s language was not an “indirect response” to IAC recommendations. Nor did it have anything to do with IAC. Stocker and Jones had sought to beef up rights of the Working Groups to demand confidentiality prior to the IAC report. Representing enhanced confidentiality as addressing an IAC recommendation was, so to speak, a “trick” (TM- climate science.)
Although the revised report of the Task Force (dated circa April 11) was distributed for comment, the distribution was very late in the process, less than a month before the IPCC meeting, and only one government (Netherlands) commented (in passing) on the language introduced by Stocker. See XXXIII/INF. 4 – Comments received from Governments and IPCC Office Holders by 6/05/2011 on the proposals by the Tasks Groups.
The only entity to comment at length on the language was Stocker himself. Stocker observed (accurately) that, despite its stated mandate of openness and transparency, “confidentiality is part of the basic way in which IPCC goes about its work”:
We are pleased that many of our comments on the draft in March were implemented in this proposal and in particular that the important point about confidentiality is now treated explicitly in section 6. Whilst this is clearly related to the review process, guidance on confidentiality is needed in a broader context, given that requests occur for access to working papers, emails, etc. Confidentiality is part of the basic way in which IPCC goes about its work and is a necessary requirement for authors to be able to have a free and frank exchange of views. Interim discussions and communications during the preparation and finalisation of the assessment are “pre-decisional” information. As such, these remain confidential and related documents are not public, nor should they be cited, quoted or distributed. It is standard IPCC practice to indicate this on all documents under review. The ability of the WGs to produce an independent and unbiased assessment would be jeopardised if material that is in the nature of a draft or incomplete information to be further developed were to be released prematurely. It is increasingly clear that this concept needs to be specified in the IPCC Procedures, also showing that this is not a contradiction of the current Principles of IPCC, which state that the assessment is carried out on a “comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis”.
Buoyed by his April success, Stocker proposed that the policy be expanded to include other documentation (a recommendation not adopted in the final resolution):
As well as discussing confidentiality of the report drafts, WGI proposes adding wording that discusses the confidentiality of other interim documentation, e.g., “Drafts of the reports, interim discussions and communications, and other documentation created during the drafting and review process are considered pre-decisional materials and as such are confidential. Drafts and other documentation may not be cited, quoted or distributed.”
… Please find below our other comments for consideration in finalising the proposal:
1. Introduction
The distinction between category I and category II proposals may require more explanation by the TG Co-Chairs. Priority should be given to the key decisions that were well supported by a
consensus in the TG, and those that immediately affect the next stages of the AR5 process.
… 6bis4. Confidentiality of draft reports: for the reasons described in our introductory comments, we very much welcome this new section and proposed decision in 6bis4.2. We again stress that the first sentence of the proposed decision text needs some editing in order to include the key term “pre-decisional” and to capture the other kinds of material in addition to the draft reports.
…
Stocker’s comments are worth reading in full as they touch on other interesting topics as well.
The IPCC meeting was held from May 10-13 following the revised agenda here . During that meeting, Stocker’s language was approved at a Plenary session. See minutes here.
Although Stocker’s recommended language in no way “addressed” recommendations of the IAC Panel (and arguably was even antithetical to their reiterated support for openness and transparency) and although the Task Group had been well aware that these issues were outside the mandate set by the 32nd IPCC plenary, the resolution represented this (and other) recommendations as addressing recommendations of the IAC Panel:
The document presented here contains the decisions by the Panel based on consideration of the report of the IPCC Task Group on Procedures to the IPCC 33rd Session and building on the decisions of IPCC 32nd Session. The Task Group addressed the InterAcademy Council (IAC) recommendations as presented in the IAC report, chapter 2, “Evaluation of IPCC assessment process”… 8. Confidentiality of draft reports
The Panel noted that issues related to confidentiality of draft reports is important and that clear guidance is needed on what the rules for the confidentiality of draft reports during drafting and review. At its 33rd Session, the Panel decided that the drafts of IPCC Reports and Technical Papers which have been submitted for formal expert and/or government review, the expert and government review comments, and the author responses to those comments will be made available on the IPCC website as soon as possible after the acceptance by the Panel and the finalization of the report. IPCC considers its draft reports, prior to acceptance, to be pre-decisional, provided in confidence to reviewers, and not for public distribution, quotation or citation.
A long story indeed. But Stocker (and Phil Jones) had gone to a lot of trouble to obtain the language used in the Galloping Camel letter. |
It’s been nearly two weeks since E3 2014 ended, and the industry has reflected on the upcoming games fans can look forward to, including a great 2014 for Xbox One fans. With nine exclusive blockbuster games coming to Xbox One by this holiday season and others featuring content coming first to Xbox One, there’s no better time to be an Xbox One owner. The gaming press agreed, rewarding Xbox One’s 2014 exclusive games lineup with more than 60 nominations and 25 award wins to date, including seven nominations for the prestigious Game Critics Best of E3 2014 Awards, leading the industry for 2014 games.
“Congratulations to the creators who are receiving broad acclaim for the games shown at E3,” said Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox. “We saw an incredible display of games at E3 from across the industry and we’re thrilled gamers will have such a wide selection available this year on Xbox One, including “Halo: The Master Chief Collection,” “Sunset Overdrive,” “Forza Horizon 2,” “Ori and the Blind Forest.” Xbox One is the only place you can play these games along with creative independent titles and blockbusters such as “Assassin’s Creed Unity,” “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare,” “Destiny,” “Evolve,” “Grand Theft Auto V,” and dozens more – making gaming on Xbox One unmatched this holiday.”
The number one pre-ordered title on many retailers lists following E3 is the experience that GameSpot says is “shaping up to be a real treat for Halo fans.” For the first time, Xbox fans will be able to experience Halo on Xbox One this fall. Offering the complete story of the Master Chief (“Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary,” “Halo 2 Anniversary,” “Halo 3” and “Halo 4”) on one console for the first time ever, “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” is also packed with more than 100 multiplayer maps and will feature single-player playlists curated by developer 343 Industries.
The most awarded Xbox One exclusive of 2014 was undoubtedly Insomniac Games’ “Sunset Overdrive,” which wowed press and gamers alike with its unique blend of highly-stylized visuals, frenetic gameplay, and over-the-top arsenal. Destructoid gave “Sunset Overdrive” its E3 award for “Best Xbox Exclusive” and called it “absolutely stunning,” while The Nerdist said that it “may pan out to be Insomniac’s best work yet.” Releasing on October 28, “Sunset Overdrive” is the most-awarded Xbox One exclusive to date with more than 20 nominations and a dozen wins.
Racing fans couldn’t get enough of “Forza Horizon 2,” which offers players the chance to race around the tight city streets and sun-drenched vineyards of Southern Europe. The recipient of Game Informer’s “Best Racing Game” award, “Forza Horizon 2” “looks to give racing fans the complete package right out of the gate” with over 200 stunning vehicles. The rest of the press agrees, as “Forza Horizon 2” has currently received more than a dozen nominations and at least six wins. With a dynamic weather system and full day-to-night cycles, you’ll never want to stop exploring its massive open world.
One of the biggest surprises of the show was our announcement of Moon Studios’ “Ori and the Blind Forest,” a gorgeous new title that Game Informer says, “features tight and challenging platforming, a vibrant art style, and remarkably fluid animation.” “Ori and the Blind Forest” was a critical darling at E3, bringing home more than 15 nominations and six wins from the gaming press. Echoing a sentiment heard throughout the show, GamesRadar wrote that “Ori and the Blind Forest” “immediately charms the pants off of anyone that plays it,” while IGN gave the game its “Best Platformer” award.
In addition to the nine exclusive blockbuster games coming to Xbox One, a number of highly-praised games from our publishing partners will be bringing pre- and post-release content to Xbox One before other platforms. 2K’s “Evolve” was one of the most acclaimed games of E3, with six E3 Game Critics Best of E3 2014 nominations and recognition by GameSpot, Polygon and IGN among others, as one of the top games from the show. You’ll be able to play “Evolve” first, exclusively on Xbox One with the open beta this fall as well as have access to the premier downloadable content also available first, exclusively on Xbox One. Role-playing game fans, on the other hand, will be happy to hear that Electronic Arts’ “Dragon Age: Inquisition” will be bringing its premier add-on content first, exclusively to Xbox One.
2014 will be a great year for Xbox One fans, and more choices for purchase are being met with open arms at retail stores stores. “Customer demand for the Xbox One video game console continues to remain high and we are thrilled with the accelerated pace of consumer adoption we are experiencing,” said Tony Bartel, president of GameStop. “With the new $399.99 version now available, we are seeing more traffic in our stores from customers who are ready to experience the next generation of Xbox gaming.”
In the first full year of this generation, there are nine exclusive blockbuster games coming to Xbox One, as well as dozens of other great titles, including “Assassin’s Creed Unity,” “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare,” “Destiny,” “Grand Theft Auto V” and “Far Cry 4.” 2014 is shaping up to be the most memorable year in Xbox history and we hope you’re as excited as we are. |
Popular tower defense game is back! Light Forces repulsed the attack of Dark Forces and passed to the offensive. Now you fight on the dark side. Restore the balance between Light and Darkness! Build towers and traps using technologies of Orcs, Goblins and Necromancers. Show your tactical skills combining various towers' effects and using terrain features. Protect the stronghold of the Dark Forces from the onslaught of hostile armies of Light! NOTICE: If you have problems running the game please contact us (and please specify your device model): [email protected] FAQ: http://www.smartpixgames.com/faq.php#p10 Promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRz9-Zf0flk In the full version of Myth Defense: Dark Forces: - 4 maps + random map in battle mode - campaign: 10 + 50 missions and 2 modes to pass it: Normal and Heroic - achievements, increasing amount of Glory Points for mission - different skills improvement - 22 types of towers and 3 types of traps in 3 technological branches (Orcs, Necromancers, Goblins) - special features of monsters and towers - runes to make towers stronger, and Alchemy to create runes - terrain features: difficult terrain, moving platforms, etc. - 40 levels of hardness. The higher the level, the greater the reward - multilingual interface - original panoramic sound and music - additional DLC maps and campaigns with new enemies and towers - online worldwide leaderboards We hope that Light Forces commanders, who loved the first part of Myth Defense, will be pleasantly surprised by the innovations in this part: • Enemies are now divided into classes: Live, Machine and Magic. Some towers affects only units of one class. • Moving platforms on the battlefield where you can build towers. Platform with a tower will move as close as possible to enemy units and attack them. • Some units (Dwarf and Paladin) wear armor. Armor absorbs 80% of low physical damage. Armor threshold is shown in the unit description which you can see by tapping on an enemy unit on the field. If tower causes more physical damage than the armor threshold, the armor breaks down and the unit gets full damage value. Armor doesn't protect units from other types of damage (fire , magic, etc) • Several fundamentally new towers: - Fear Tower: scares enemy units, forcing them to run away from the tower for a while. One enemy can be scared only once (though some units are fearless). - Cursed Tower: normally it shoots causing a base damage but can be charged with coins to temporarily multiply its power. If the health of the enemy unit does not exceed the base damage, the tower will kill it without spending extra-points. If the unit is strong tower will try to kill it, spending no more than enough extra-points. - Jet Mace: shoots with a large spiked ball horizontally or vertically. It strikes several enemy units losing some destructive power each time. The ball continues to fly until it loses all the energy. - Radioactive towers (Uranium and Plutonium): do not shoot, but continuously irradiates all units within damage radius. Golems and infected (by Plague or Poison Spider Tower) units are vulnerable to radiation. |
AP Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in a 2010 photo from The Sun of Lowell provided by AP, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, in an FBI photo.
One became an American citizen last year on Sept. 11. The other was a boxer who once said: “I like the USA.”
The two suspects in the attack on the Boston Marathon — one killed, one captured alive after a daylong manhunt — are brothers of Chechen origin had come to the United States a decade ago, law enforcement officials told NBC News.
A complicated portrait of the two Tsarnaev brothers is coming into view. Again and again, people who knew them use words like "normal" and even "outgoing" -- and say they never hinted at extremism. NBC's Ann Curry reports on two young men who seemed to disappear in the crowd--until this week.
The suspect at large for most of Friday was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, who was born in Kyrgyzstan and became a naturalized American citizen on Sept. 11, 2012, according to documents obtained by NBC News.
Authorities hunted him door-to-door in the Boston suburbs, ordered a lockdown that paralyzed a region of more than 1 million people for most of the day, and took him after darkness fell and he holed up inside a boat outside a home.
His older brother, Tamerlan, 26, was killed overnight after an extraordinary crime spree: The brothers shot and killed a college security officer, carjacked an SUV and hurled explosives at police in Watertown, Mass., authorities said.
As the anxious manhunt dragged on, profiles of the brothers began to emerge. People who know the younger Tsarnaev described him as bright, studious and quiet, with ambitions in medicine. The older was a boxer who said he dreamed of joining the U.S. Olympic team but had no American friends, and who was married with a young daughter.
An official also suggested that a foreign government had expressed terrorism concerns about the elder Tsarnaev to the FBI two years ago, and a cousin told The Boston Globe that the older brother was a bad influence on the younger.
Both men were active on social media. Dzhokhar cracked jokes and made pop-culture references. Tamerlan had a YouTube page that featured videos about Islamic radicalism.
Authorities were not sure of a motive in the marathon attack, which killed three people and injured 176 on Monday. NBC News learned that counterterrorism officials were examining possible links between the brothers and the Islamic Jihad Union of central Asia, a terrorist group.
Chechnya, a separatist region that has warred with Russia for independence and launched devastating terror strikes, is predominantly Muslim.
“Somebody radicalized them, but it wasn’t my brother,” the men’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, told reporters Friday from Montgomery Village, Md. He said the two brothers had brought shame on Chechens. He said that he had encouraged his own family to stay away from that part of the family.
“What I think was behind it: Being losers,” he said. “Of course we’re ashamed.”
In Russia, the brothers’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev, told the newspaper Izvestia that his children had been set up.
Ruslan Tsarni speaks out about his relationship with his nephews, who he says he hasn't seen in years, saying "somebody radicalized them" and "I just wanted my family to be away from them."
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had a Massachusetts driver’s license, was enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and was living in the Boston suburb of Cambridge. He was the suspect in the white hat in surveillance photos from the marathon released Thursday by the FBI, authorities said.
Speaking from Russia, the father said that Dzhokhar was a diligent student who dreamed of becoming a great doctor.
Sierra Schwartz, who identified herself as a high school friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told NBC News that he had lots of friends and did not seem to brood. A lifeguard described him as hilarious.
“He was a nice guy. He was shy,” Schwartz said. “It was almost physically painful to even call him nice now after this absolute tragedy that happened, but at the time, as we knew him, he was funny.”
Robin Young, who said her nephew was on the wrestling team with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told NBC News that he was “just a light, airy, curly-haired kid.”
Slideshow: Search for suspects in Boston Marathon bombings / A tense night of police activity that left a university officer dead on campus just days after the Boston Marathon bombings and amid a hunt for two suspects caused officers to converge on a neighborhood outside Boston, where residents heard gunfire and explosions. Launch slideshow
“I can’t tell you enough what a beautiful young man this was,” she said.
He was also active on Twitter. In a post two days after the bombing, he wrote, “Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people,” a reference to a Jay-Z lyric. One day later, he wrote, “I’m a stress free kind of guy.”
His account has been dormant since Wednesday, when he retweeted a post from a Muslim scholar: “Attitude can take away your beauty no matter how good looking you are or it could enhance your beauty, making you adorable.”
The city of Cambridge awarded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a $2,500 scholarship toward college in 2011. The scholarships were for students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, part of the public school system in Cambridge, a melting-pot city of about 100,000, fairly well-off and home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On a Russian social media site, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev identified his religion as Islam and his priorities as career and money. He posted links to stories about the brutality of the ruling regime in Syria and to a YouTube video of himself doing impressions, to the amusement of his brother, of dialects from regions around Chechnya.
Slideshow: Search for suspects in Boston Marathon bombings Dominic Chavez / EPA A tense night of police activity that left a university officer dead on campus just days after the Boston Marathon bombings and amid a hunt for two suspects caused officers to converge on a neighborhood outside Boston, where residents heard gunfire and explosions. Launch slideshow
The other brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in the firefight with law enforcement, was born in Russia. He became a legal permanent resident in 2007, the officials said. He was the suspect in the black hat in the FBI photos.
In 2011, a foreign government expressed concern to the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev could have ties to terrorism, but the FBI, after taking investigative steps, found no such links and reported the findings back to the foreign government, according to an official familiar with the matter.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev studied at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and wanted to become an engineer, according to a profile that appeared in a Boston University magazine in 2010. He said that he hoped to become an American citizen and one day join the U.S. Olympic boxing team.
He told the magazine that his family fled Chechnya in the 1990s because of the conflict there, and that he had lived in Kazakhstan. While he had been in the United States for several years by that point, he said in the profile: “I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.”
He also said that he was a Muslim who did not smoke or drink.
Travel records obtained by NBC New York showed that Tamerlan Tsarnaev left the country for six months, from Jan. 12 to July 17, 2012, for Russia. The records show that it was not until 6 a.m. Friday that he was labeled by American officials to be “a person or instrument that may pose a threat to the security of the United States.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev boxed in a 2004 tournament as part of a program called Golden Gloves, according to The Lowell Sun newspaper. He said then that his first love was music, and that he played the piano and violin. That was also when he told the newspaper: “I like the USA.”
“America has a lot of jobs,” he said. “That’s something Russia doesn’t have. You have a chance to make money here if you are willing to work.”
His former boxing coach, John Curran, described him to NBC News as quiet and courteous and said that he was “flabbergasted” by the news.
His family appeared to be as well: In a statement handed to reporters through the door of a home in Rhode Island, the family of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, Katherine Russell, said it was clear that they never really knew him.
“Our hearts are sickened by the knowledge of the horror he has inflicted,” the statement said.
Neighbors said that Russell graduated high school in 2007, went to college in Boston and has been living in North Kingston, R.I., with her daughter, who is about 3. Paula Gillette, a neighbor, told NBC News that Russell began wearing Islamic dress a few years ago and rarely left the house, and that her husband often came home for weekends in a car with Massachusetts plates.
Both men were believed to have entered the country with their family in 2002 or 2003, when the Tsarnaev family sought asylum. Law enforcement officials initially told NBC News that they may have had military experience, but the nature was not clear. Later in the morning, U.S. Army officials told NBC News that no one matching either name had served in the active-duty Army, or the reserves.
The men have a sister who lives in West New York, N.J. Police swarmed her home Friday morning and were seeing removing a computer, NBC New York reported. Earlier in the day, she told reporters: “I’m not OK, just like everybody else is not OK. No one is OK. It’s very shocking.”
Reuters reported that the Tsarnaev brothers were schooled in Dagestan, a region drawn into Chechen violence during the 1990s. Their mother has traveled back and forth to the United States over the past decade. The father told Izvestia that he has a tumor and returned to Russia to die.
Chechnya declared independence in 1991, after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Chechnya fought wars with Russia for much of the 1990s, and Chechens have been involved in terrorist attacks in Russia in the years since.
In 2002, Chechen militants seized a Moscow theater and held 800 people hostage for two days. Special forces raided the building and killed 41 hostage-takers; 129 hostages were killed, mostly from gas used by Russian forces.
In 2004, Chechen insurgents took hundreds of hostages in the Russian town of Beslan. The siege came to a bloody end two days later, and 330 people, about half children, were killed.
Pete Williams, Michael Isikoff, Richard Engel, Bill Dedman, Tracy Connor, Konrad Jankowski and Eun Kyung Kim of NBC News contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed.
Related:
Who are the brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombing?
Chechen insurgents deny any link to marathon bombing
What we know: Timeline of terror hunt
‘Dedicated officer’ gunned down at MIT
Boston bombing spurs Senate debate on tighter immigration screening
This story was originally published on |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In the first economic reading from the period since the Wall Street crisis erupted, a government report Thursday showed initial unemployment claims rose last week much more than expected.
According to a study by the Department of Labor, initial filings for state jobless benefits increased by a seasonally adjusted 32,000 to 493,000 in the third week of September. It was the highest number of weekly claims since Sept. 29, 2001, when unemployment soared in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com was 450,000.
"The labor market is very weak," said Mark Vitner, an economist for Wachovia. "Layoffs have ticked up for the last two months, and there has been a slowdown in hiring, so we haven't been able to absorb new entrants into the workforce."
The Labor Department said about 50,000 of the new claims were due to the effects of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. There were 18,400 more claims from the week before in Louisiana alone, and Texas added 1,200.
That helped boost the four-week moving average of new jobless claims by 16,000 from last week to 462,500. A level at or above 400,000 for the four-week average has also been present throughout the last two recessions.
In all, there were 12 states that reported at least a 1,000-claim increase from the prior week. New York, which is expected to continue to be hard-hit by the financial crisis on Wall Street, was among the dozen.
"This isn't just related to the crisis on Wall Street," Vitner said. "If we fixed the credit markets, we'd still be left with a very weak U.S. economy."
Falling home prices, sluggish income growth, weak consumer spending and rising inflation all have created a weak job environment. That led the government to extend unemployment benefits to claim seekers in June.
Continued unemployment insurance claims from those already receiving benefits rose in the week ended Sept. 13 - the most recent week available - to 3.54 million, up 63,000 from the previous week. The four-week moving average for continued claims rose by 28,250 to 3.49 million.
Earlier this month, the government reported that there were 84,000 jobs lost in August, bringing to 605,000 the number of jobs cut from payrolls by U.S. employers in the first eight months of the year.
The unemployment rate surged to 6.1% last month, a nearly five-year high and up from 5.7% in July. In the last recession, unemployment reached a high of 6.3%.
"Without a doubt, we'll blow right past that," Vitner said.
With last week's demise of Lehman Brothers, Bank of America's (BAC, Fortune 500) takeover of Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) and government bailout of American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500), even more job losses are expected, especially from the financial sector. |
Have you ever worked on a really successful project, one of the rare on time and on budget ones? Did you get a reward and a lot of praise in the end? Yeah I didn’t think so. Now think back to a project where everything went wrong but through super-human efforts you were still able to get the beast into production. Any accolades for this one? My guess is you probably got a few and if not you personally, than someone on or around your team did. This seems to be a really common scenario with software projects; people who are associated with highly successful projects are forgotten while people on “death marches” (that are too expensive to cancel) are praised and hailed as heroes.
The Well-Run Project
Really successful projects are few and far between but when they do happen they are a joy to work on. Not only that, but the software delivered is higher quality and meets expectations. Budgets and deadlines are adhered to and everyone associated with the project is happy (more or less :)). Most of us dream of working on such a project. So when a project like that finishes, how does the business show it’s appreciation and express it’s desire to see more projects of the same caliber (i.e. what kind of positive reinforcement is used)? Well, everyone gets a pat on the back and then moves on to the next thing. A little anti-climactic wouldn’t you agree? You see, everyone expected the project to go well and when it did, noone was surprised, everything went according to plan, why would anyone reward or even acknowledge it when things go according to plan. That my friends is what I call negative reinforcement.
The Crappy Project
Crappy, death-march projects are routine in software development. Projects begin with unrealistic expectations, concrete commitments are made based on estimates and information that is far from concrete. And when things inevitably go pear-shaped developers cop the brunt of the fallout. We are forced to shortcut our process and compromise on quality and when that is not enough, well we just work longer and longer to make up the shortfall. At the end everybody is stressed and tired, but sometimes the gargantuan efforts are enough to get the project (or what’s left of it) into production. When that happens, we crack open the champagne and hail the project as a miracle of modern software development. Everyone shakes their heads and marvels at how the team was able to do the impossible. Awards and praises are handed out and everyone is too happy to notice that the project was actually a year late and millions of dollars over budget. I lie, everybody is well aware of the fact that the project was a complete debacle, but with so many people patting each other on the back, it just doesn’t seem politic to say anything. You would agree that this is the ultimate in positive reinforcement.
It Is A Bizarro Universe
The above scenarios strike me as being completely cuckoo. We acknowledge and praise people who try (and sometimes succeed) to pull projects out of the jaws of failure but don’t do the same for people who push project into the ‘jaws of success’.
Have you ever tried to train a dog? Next time you do, try the following. Every time a dog does something you like (such as fetching a stick or rolling over), a positive behavior – just ignore it. But every time the dog does something ‘bad’ (like peeing on the carpet), a negative behavior – give it a treat. My guess is you will quickly end up with one confused and badly behaved dog, and yet we do this on an industry-wide level. It is truly bizarre.
This Culture Needs To Change
In an industry where project going pear-shaped is the norm, it really behooves us to look more closely at the ones that don’t. I for one would love to see a little bit more appreciation from everyone for projects where things go according to plan and especially for the people on those projects. It might sound crazy but I do believe that delivering a year-long project on time while having all developers work at a sustainable pace (oh I dunno, let’s say 40 hours a week :)) deserves at least an honorable mention for the people involved.
The other side of the coin is rather than celebrating the belated delivery of the latest death-march, how about digging into it and trying to figure out why it was 6 months late and why people had to work 80 hour weeks to keep it from complete disaster. And when we do figure out what the problems were it may be worth it actually learning something and trying not to repeat the same mistakes rather than just writing it all up in a report and putting it on the wiki or in the document repository. Because wikis and repositories are just some of the places where lessons go to die.
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Voices from Tiananmen
June 4 marked the 25th anniversary of a brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by students and residents in Beijing. Hundreds of people were killed and many more were wounded when People's Liberation Army units rolled into Tiananmen Square, ending more than a month of peaceful protests seeking political reforms. In the following pages, former government officials, student leaders and other eyewitnesses revisit the momentous events of spring, 1989. These personal accounts, gathered from recent video interviews, as well as memoirs, shed new light on the hope and despair left by those days, which continue to haunt China a quarter century later.
The eve of change Cultural upheaval and political demands At 21, Zhou Fengsuo thought he was marching towards a bright future. “Everybody was seeking new ideas, new knowledge,” he said, 25 years later on the phone from Austin, Texas. “It was exciting to learn and discuss how life was changing for the better.” A physics student at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University in the late 1980s, Zhou regularly attended literary salons and discussions where academics debated China’s political future. He remembers listening to Fang Lizhi, then one of China’s most influential democracy advocates, at Peking University. Both would later be exiled to the US. The era of debate ended when the People’s Liberation Army entered Beijing and retook Tiananmen Square by force in the early hours of June 4, 1989. Throughout the 1980s, academics questioned Chinese culture in ways unimaginable today, with literary salons popping up everywhere, he said. “I went because I felt these were the people who would shape China’s future,” said Zhou. “There were more and more of them.” “I went because I felt these were the people who would shape China’s future.” Zhou Fengsuo, student Like most students, Zhou was told to watch the television series “River Elegy” produced in 1988 that encapsulated the debate at the time. Broadcast by China Central Television, the programme argued that Chinese culture was backward and oppressive, and that it needed to learn from the West to achieve modernisation. “It might have been the most important television programme that has ever been made,” said Rana Mitter, professor of Chinese history and politics at the University of Oxford. “Very few television series have sparked a political movement. These people were really serious about ‘saving’ China.” Play video | 0:42 Short clip from CCTV's River Elegy television series, produced in 1988 City residents were frustrated. Food prices had been rising and society had become inured to corruption. Those well-connected to the party and government had been profiting from the “Reform and Opening Up” policy that created an economic boom with little legal oversight. Ma Shaofang, a 25-year-old Jiangsu-native, took evening writing classes at the Beijing Film Academy. “Even the most basic fairness didn’t exist in that society at the time,” he said in a recent interview in Beijing. “We discovered that going to university wasn’t the best choice; buying and selling television sets was the best choice,” he said. The economic reforms had started to touch the foundations of Communist Party rule, said veteran journalist and Party historian Yang Jisheng. “After the Cultural Revolution, liberal thought began to sprout,” he said. “Liberalism was an attack on one-party rule - it was the wish for democracy, the wish for rule of law, the wish for respect for the constitution.” Yang Jisheng Xinhua reporter in 1989, Yang turned into a prominent Communist Party historian. Video: JMSC HKU Xinhua reporter in 1989, Yang turned into a prominent Communist Party historian. Yang was a reporter for the Xinhua news agency in 1989. In January that year, the state-owned news service transferred him from Tianjin to the capital. The move allowed him to witness first-hand the seismic events of the coming months. “I never had the habit of keeping a diary,” he said, but in March 1989 he started one. He had a feeling that “something big was going to happen”.
Hu Yaobang dies Former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang's death triggers a student movement A cataclysmic chain of events began with a national news broadcast announcing the death of Hu Yaobang. The former general secretary of the Communist Party and key advocate for political reforms had suffered a heart attack during a Politburo meeting. The Party had kept his heart disease a secret, so the 73-year old's death of heart failure on April 15 came as a shock to many. Clockwise from top left: Wreaths laid on Tiananmen Square on April 19, 1989, days after Hu Yaobang's death; students' first marches to the square days after his death; crowds gathering ahead of Hu's memorial on April 21, 1989 Wreaths laid on Tiananmen Square on April 19, 1989, days after Hu Yaobang's death; students' first marches to the square days after his death; crowds gathering ahead of Hu's memorial on April 21, 1989 Wu Jiaxiang, a senior aide to the Communist Party’s Central Committee, was immediately informed of Hu’s death. Wu was working in the office that managed the daily affairs of the party leadership when Hu died at the Beijing Hospital. “We thought heaven was collapsing,” he recalled. “It was hard to accept Yaobang’s death, I thought he had been wronged,” he said. Hu had been forced to resign as the party leader for supporting student protests two years earlier. “We were worried students could react badly so they immediately sent me to Peking University to investigate, but the matter had already got out of hand.” Wu Jiaxiang Liberal intellectual. Wu worked as an aide to the Communist Party’s Central Committee in 1989. Video: JMSC HKU Liberal intellectual. Wu worked as an aide to the Communist Party’s Central Committee in 1989. Student Zhou was playing wuziqi, a board game, at the Tsinghua University campus when he heard the news. He also rushed to the nearby Peking University campus to see how students there were reacting to Hu’s passing. “By the time I got there, it was chaotic. People were singing the Internationale [the Communist Party anthem]. Some began hanging big-character posters,” he said, referring to handwritten political declarations. He soon wrote one himself, comparing China’s constitution with the American Declaration of Independence. The students “were expressing their desire for advancing reforms," Hu's successor Zhao Ziyang wrote in his memoirs. "Hu had always been a proponent of reform.” In the coming days, Zhou and his five roommates were among the hundreds of students who carried wreaths of flowers to Tiananmen Square. “Hu Yaobang had always been a proponent of reform.” Zhao Ziyang, Communist Party General Secretary Zhou, like many others, gave his first speech on the square. “As we marched to the square, we would try to rally support by yelling slogans like ‘We want freedom of the press!’,” recalled Zhou. “But then someone said you must yell ‘Fight corruption!’ to get better resonance with the crowd and so we did. It worked.” The students drafted a petition to the government. Among their seven demands were the abolition of censorship and the declaration of assets by Party leaders and their families. On the evening of April 18, about 2,000 demonstrators gathered outside the nearby the main gate of Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party leadership compound, to convey these demands, all of which went ignored. Students also took to the streets in Nanjing, Wuhan and Shanghai, Xinhua reported internally, according to the memoirs of Zhang Wanshu, who was then a senior editor with the news agency’s domestic news department. By April 20, independent student unions started to spring up on university campuses. Feng Congde, one of the seven students who set up the first such group at Peking University, said their demands did not challenge the Communist Party’s rule. "At that moment, we only called for freedom of association and freedom of speech within university campuses," said Feng, now in exile. Official ceremony for former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 21, 1989 Demonstrators mourning Hu on Tiananmen Square outside the Great Hall of the People as three students attempted to submit a petition calling for his re-appraisal and more political freedoms Hu’s memorial service took place as scheduled a week after his passing, on April 22. Inside the sombre Great Hall of the People, some 4,000 Party leaders commemorated the former Party leader. Hu “was brave enough [...] to insist upon what he thought was right”, Zhao said in his eulogy. Outside the hall, a crowd of tens of thousands of people defied a police order to disperse. “The students chanted pro-democracy slogans over the heads of soldiers and police at government leaders as they entered the hall,” reported the South China Morning Post at the time, adding that the gathering was the biggest of its kind since the founding of the People’s Republic 40 years earlier. For Zhou, the rally was life-changing. “At that time, I realised there was a desire among students to unite for a reason,” he said. Three students knelt down in front of the Great Hall of the People to convey their petition demanding a re-appraisal of Hu’s life. Again, their petition went ignored.
The People's Daily editorial The Communist Party denounces the student movement as “turmoil” On April 23, 1989, Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang left for a long-scheduled state visit to North Korea. In a last private meeting with paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, Zhao had called for a conciliatory approach to the protests and thought he was in agreement with Deng, he recalled in his memoirs. In the days of his absence, the position of the Communist Party’s top leaders towards the student movement remained unclear. There are conflicting accounts on what meetings took place among the senior leaders left in Beijing. On April 26, the party’s top newspaper, the People’s Daily, ended that uncertainty by denouncing the student movement in a front-page editorial, indicating that the leadership had decided not to tolerate the student movement any longer. “We must unequivocally oppose turmoil,” it said. “An extremely small number of people with ulterior motives continued to take advantage of the young students’ feelings of grief for Comrade Hu Yaobang to create all kinds of rumours.” “We must unequivocally oppose turmoil” For Bao Tong, Zhao’s secretary, the reformist’s departure had been fatal. “Deng Xiaoping was fully playing both sides,” he said. Bao, who also served as the director of the Party’s Office of Political Reform, would later become the most senior government official to be jailed after the June 4 crackdown. Many students saw the editorial as a sign that the leadership would not accept their demands, said historian Yang Jisheng. The editorial’s tone also reminded their parents of the terror of the Cultural Revolution they had lived through in their youth, he said. By Zhao’s return on April 30, about 70 per cent of Beijing’s 130,000 students stopped attending classes. More than 100,000 people took to Beijing’s streets the following day. Worried about a crackdown, many wrote their final wills, but police caved in and let the students return peacefully to Tiananmen Square. By Zhao’s return on April 30, about 70 per cent of Beijing’s 130,000 students stopped attending classes. Students had already set up an autonomous student union to coordinate their movement across campuses. But Zhao had already lost the fight within the Party leadership to conservatives, said Bao. “When he returned, he kept asking to meet Deng Xiaoping,” he said. “[Deng’s] secretary said he couldn’t, that [Deng’s] health wouldn’t allow it.” They only met again in the presence of President Yang Shangkun on May 13. “What was Deng doing in these 13 days?” wondered Bao, looking back 25 years later. “I think he was preparing the troops.”
A sensitive anniversary The party and the students commemorate the patriotic student movement in 1919 As Zhao returned from Pyongyang, a sensitive day was approaching. May 4 marked the 70th anniversary of the student protests in Beijing of 1919, a founding moment for the Communist Party. Zhao and many reformists thought history was repeating itself, said Rana Mitter, author of Bitter Revolution: China’s struggle with the modern world. “For people around Zhao, reforming faster was the appropriate response,” he said. “Hardliners drew a different parallel: to the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. They did not see the movement as the same celebration of individual free-thinking.” Disagreements within the party had become visible. In Zhao’s absence, the hardliners had called the movement “turmoil”. Government spokesman Yuan Mu, however, told foreign journalists that “black hands” or agitators were behind the movement. Zhao praised the spirit of the 1919 student movement in a speech a day ahead of the anniversary. The following day, he publicly vowed that the government would engage in dialogue, a key demand of the protesters. After neat rows of cadres celebrated the anniversary in Tiananmen Square, students again marched in from the universities to the square. The next day, some 80 per cent of students returned to their classes, the Xinhua news agency reported. But student leaders did not give up on their demands. Representatives of 24 independent student unions submitted a petition asking for real dialogue regarding their earlier requests. On May 9, 1,013 journalists signed an open letter making similar demands.
Hunger strike Students' actions puts pressure on the party and triggers wider protests In the days of Zhao’s absence, students established citywide organisations as student leaders started to emerge, recalled Ma Shaofang, who became one of them. Others included Wang Dan, a 20-year-old history major at Peking University who had already distinguished himself in student circles as a political activist. Wang would become China’s most wanted man after the crackdown. Wuer Kaixi, later the second most wanted, had gained prominence as one of the first students beaten by police. He was among the first to rally the students after the People’s Daily’s April 26 editorial, recalled Ma. At the first protest gathering, Ma, a Beijing Normal University student, “took a bicycle and a loudspeaker to organise the chaotic crowd and they started moving” towards Tiananmen Square. Clockwise from top left: A group of China Daily staffers joined the students on May 17, 1989; video footage of hunger striking students on Tiananmen Square; paramedics assisting an ailing hunger striker at the square on May 17, 1989 A group of China Daily staffers joined the students on May 17, 1989; paramedics assisting an ailing hunger striker at the square on May 17, 1989; video footage of hunger striking students on Tiananmen Square By the time the anniversary of May 4 had passed, most students had returned to class. Student leaders were running out of options, said Ma. “The students started out with five cards they could have played: demonstrate, go on strike, stage a sit-in, go on a hunger strike, or attend nationwide rallies,” he said. “We only had one card left in our hand, and that was a hunger strike. Playing that card would decide who won the game.” Then-President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev was expected in Beijing in less than two weeks. The architect of perestroika and glasnost, political and economic reforms, Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader to visit China since 1959. A hunger strike at Tiananmen Square would embarrass China’s leaders into a dialogue, the students thought. A small group that included Ma, Wang, and Wuer Kaixi became proponents of the hunger strike. Chai Ling, a 23-year-old psychology student from Beijing Normal University, rose to prominence by convincing several students to join the group. The group disregarded dissent among representatives of other universities in the newly formed independent student union and began their non-violent resistance and set up a “hunger strike command centre” on May 15. Estimates of how many students fasted initially varied between one and two hundred. By the time Gorbachev arrived, about 2,300 students were on a hunger strike in the square, surrounded by the 100,000-strong crowd. The next day, hundreds more students joined the hunger strike. By that night, some 100,000 people returned to the square in solidarity. Students from Tianjin universities had also joined the crowd. By the time Gorbachev arrived, about 2,300 students were on a hunger strike in the square, surrounded by the 100,000-strong crowd. A last-minute dialogue between the government and student leaders ahead of Gorbachev's arrival collapsed over a disagreement on whether it should be broadcast live on television. Embarrassed leaders hastily arranged a welcome ceremony at Beijing's airport. There was no red carpet. The day after Gorbachev arrived, Ma collapsed. He had been on hunger strike for three days. Rock star Cui Jian, centre, at Tiananmen Square Listen to the recording Cui Jian: Listen to me, please. The “you” in this song doesn’t stand for a person; it stands for the government. “That day, you used a piece of red cloth to cover my eyes so that I couldn’t see the sky. You asked me what I could see. I said I saw happiness. This feeling really made me comfortable, made me forget that I had no place to stay.” If you have a piece of cloth with you, try cover your eyes and see if you like it. That day you used a piece of red cloth
to cover my eyes so that I couldn’t see the sky.
You asked me what I had seen
I said I saw happiness
This feeling really made me comfortable
made me forget that I have no place to stay.
You asked where I wanted to go
I said I want to walk your road When Ma returned from the hospital, a million people were on the square, according to an estimate in the Beijing Youth Daily that had the headline “The People Build Democracy” on its front page. Censors stopped working as journalists and government employees joined the sit-in. Cui Jian, China’s most famous rock singer, performed on the square. Hospitals provided medical treatment for hunger strikers. Between May 16 and 19, about 60,000 students from all over China arrived in the capital on 165 trains, Zhang Wanshu, then head of Xinhua’s national news desk, recalled in his records, citing a railway official at the time. Factory owners paid for train tickets so their employees could join the protests in Beijing. Students demonstrated throughout the country. The people build democracy One million people march The majority considers the student movement patriotic “Our sympathy is with you” The front-page of the Beijing Youth Daily on May 19, 1989 after its journalists and censors joined the protests
Final appeals Premier Li Peng meets student leaders, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang makes his final appearance On May 17, Deng Xiaoping met with top party leaders at his home, where according to various accounts they discussed how to bring an end to the student movement. Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang argued for a lenient approach, he wrote in his memoirs. According to Deng’s biographer Ezra Vogel, the paramount leader concluded that the police in Beijing were insufficient to restore order and decided to call in the troops. Premier Li Peng and Vice Premier Yao Yilin voiced immediate support for Deng’s views, Vogel wrote. On the following day, a defeated Zhao visited the hospitalised hunger strikers. Premier Li Peng met with student leaders including Wang Dan and Wuer Kaixi at the Great Hall of the People. It was the highest level meeting the students had achieved so far. The premier did not mention the decision to impose martial law. “I guess that the oldest of you is about 22 or 23. My youngest child is even older than you.” he told them, calling on them to end the hunger strike. “We look at you as if you were our own children, our own flesh and blood.” Li was interrupted several times by the students. “The current movement is no longer simply a student movement, it has become a democratic movement,” Wang Zhixin, a student at the University of Political Science and Law, told him. “Beijing has been in a state of anarchy. I hope you students will think for a moment what consequences might have been brought about by this situation,” the premier said in response. Play video | 1:11 Student leader Wuer Kaixi and other representatives met with Premier Li Peng at the Great Hall of the People on May 18, 1989 Play video | 0:36 Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang addressed the students on Tiananmen Square in the early hours of May 19. It was his last public appearance In the early hours of May 19, Zhao visited Tiananmen Square. Zhao looked tired, strikingly different to when he was last publicly seen at his meeting with Gorbachev three days earlier. “We have come too late,” he said, speaking to the students among chants. He then called on them to stop the hunger strike. However in retrospect, he later said he knew that even an end to the hunger strike would not have averted the crackdown, he wrote in his memoirs. “It would not matter if the hunger strike continued or if some people died; [the elder Party leaders] would not be moved.” It was his last public appearance before he would disappear under house arrest. At 10pm, Premier Li declared martial law in the city during a televised speech. "The People’s Republic of China is facing a grave threat to its future and destiny,” he declared. The plan had already been leaked by sympathetic government officials in the afternoon and students had ended their hunger strike. Armed troops entered the city the following day to enforce martial law, but they were stopped by an overwhelming crowd of demonstrators. "People lay on the streets to stop the troops,” said student leader Zhou. “Many brought their families, their kids to show that the protest was peaceful.” “You had virtually the whole of Beijing and people inside the government, even writers at the People’s Daily, sympathising with the demonstrators.” Perry Link, China scholar and eyewitness Zhao Ziyang in his memoirs recalled that Deng Xiaoping decided in a meeting on May 20, the day martial law was imposed, to remove Zhao as party general secretary. The reformist leader said he felt suddenly isolated. “Nobody actually told me that I had been removed from my position,” he wrote in his memoirs. “Of course, nobody contacted me on any work-related issues either.” His secretary Bao Tong was among the first to disappear before the military crackdown. For Perry Link, an American professor of Chinese language and literature who was in Beijing during the protests, it was the massive scale of the demonstrations that led Deng to his decision. “You had virtually the whole of Beijing and people inside the government, even writers at the People’s Daily, sympathising with the demonstrators, not just in Beijing, but virtually in every provincial capital,” he said.
Last days of defiance Students camp out on Tiananmen Square after the declaration of martial law Many students returned to their classes in late May. But the confrontation between those who remained on the square and the government became more intense. Further requests for dialogue by the students went ignored. Troops were sent in from outside Beijing. Play video | 0:18 Premier Li Peng declared martial law in a televised speech in Beijing on May 19, 1989 Play video | 0:44 Residents prevent troops from entering the city as martial law is tentatively enforced on May 20, 1989 One junior cadet at the time said his year of field training was interrupted by orders to travel to Beijing. “We only had two hours of electricity [each day] at our training camp,” he said. “We had no idea what was happening in Beijing.” When he arrived at Beijing railway station, civilians surrounded him. “‘Don’t suppress the movement,’ they said, but I had no idea what they were talking about,” he recalled. The next day he visited the square and was taken aback. “They were demanding change, and even though we didn’t know what that meant, we thought change was beautiful,” he said. By May 24, student leaders on hunger strike set up the “Defend Tiananmen Square” headquarters with student leader Chai Ling in command. Workers, among them Han Dongfang, set up an independent labour union on the square. The demonstrators vowed to stay put until June 20, when the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress was scheduled to hold a meeting. Some even demanded the ouster of Premier Li Peng. The students eventually ended the hunger strike but radical slogans like “oppose military dictatorship!”, “Down with Deng Xiaoping, down with Li Peng” became more widespread. Yuan Tianshu Recent university graduate in 1989, now a liberal intellectual in Beijing. Zhou Duo, one of the leading intellectuals supportive of the student movement, recalled he worried that bloodshed was imminent. He was among those within the party who had been first informed that its conservative wing had prevailed to impose martial law. The Goddess of Democracy on Tiananmen Square, May 30, 1989; students gather in Tiananmen Square, May 28, 1989 On May 28, the prominent writer and Zhou’s friend Liu Xiaobo suggested another hunger strike to turn the situation around. They had met two years earlier when Liu gave a lecture at the electronics company Zhou worked at, and had quickly become good friends. “It’s like when your best friends try to drag you along to something that could lead to jail and beheading,” He hesitated to go along with Liu’s suggestion, he said, but was ultimately convinced. Given their prominence, the party leadership would not dare to send in troops, the pair reasoned. Two more well-known participants raised their profile even further. On May 30, Zhou and Liu were joined by Hou Dejian, a Taiwanese singer and songwriter who had moved to mainland China in the early 1980s and become wildly popular among young students. Together with Gao Xin, a journalist and Communist Party member, they on June 2 declared a new hunger strike. Some 530 tents and about 1,500 students were left still demonstrating on the square. We “take action to protest against martial law, to appeal for the birth of a new political culture,” they wrote in a hastily penned declaration, printing 200 copies. They settled in a tent and waited. Art students had rolled the Goddess of Democracy, a replica of New York’s Statue of Liberty about 10 metres tall, onto the square. Some 530 tents and about 1,500 students were left still demonstrating on the square. By the evening of June 2, Zhou Duo remembered stepping out of the tent. “When I left the tent, the scene was like that of Mao inspecting the Red Guards.” Music legend Hou Dejian sang on the square, Zhou remembered. A day earlier, troops had already been seen setting up camp nearby. The government instituted a ban on unauthorised foreign media coverage. Members of the military and government were informed to stay away from Tiananmen Square. Incomplete map of protests in mainland China between April and June 1989, based on Xinhua reports at the time
'Black Hands' Chen Ziming recalls how intellectuals became involved On May 14, 1989, the liberal academic Chen Ziming was in a meeting at the Economics Weekly magazine when a car from the Communist Party Central Committee arrived. An employee of the Central Committee’s United Front Department asked him and his colleagues to get in. Chen was by then a well-known advocate of political reform. The co-founder of the Beijing Social and Economic Research Institute, China’s first independent political think tank, said he had chosen to stay away from the movement to avoid making the protests look orchestrated. Now, however, the Director of the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, Yan Mingfu, conveyed a request to him to stop the students’ hunger strike. “We’ve heard that you have a way to talk to the student leaders, can you go see them?” he recalled the party cadre’s asking him. “We want to talk to the students, but we don’t know who to talk to.” The eleven members of Chen’s institute voted on whether they should intervene and seven voted for it. Chen himself voted against getting involved, but accepted the majority decision. Chen said he saw his role then to be a rational voice mediating between the Party and protestors towards not only a peaceful resolution of the standoff but also progress in China’s political reform. However, he was arrested in October 1989, four months after the military crackdown, and later sentenced to 13 years in prison for “counterrevolutionary incitement and conspiracy to subvert the government”. His think tank was closed. State media accused Chen of being a “black hand”, a key orchestrator who merely exploited the students’ good intentions. Chen’s case became a key element in the Party’s narrative after the crackdown: that the movement was not spontaneous, but orchestrated by vicious political forces seeking to overthrow the Communist Party.
Breaking the ranks Within the armed forces, defiance against enforcing martial law On the afternoon of May 27, 1989, Major General Xu Qinxian made the most important decision of his life. The commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s 38th Army Group defied the order to impose martial law in Beijing. His court martial, the only documented case of a senior commander questioning the morality of the Tiananmen crackdown, led to a five-year prison sentence and house arrest. “I told them this is not a war, this is a political incident and political incidents cannot be handled this way,” he said in an interview transcript smuggled out of his home in central China, where he is currently living under surveillance. He remembered saying: “It will be impossible to avoid clashes. It is impossible to tell good and bad apart in clashes with civilians - who will be responsible for this?” Students sitting outside the Great Hall of the People on April 21, 1989; Police cadets joined the protest march on Changan Avenue on May 18, 1989; Beijing residents tried to stop a military convoy from entering the city on June 3, 1989; General Xu Qinxian (left) and author Yang Jisheng (right) seen in a recent photo; Clockwise from top left: Students sitting outside the Great Hall of the People on April 21, 1989; Police cadets joined the protest march on Changan Avenue on May 18, 1989; General Xu Qinxian (left) and author Yang Jisheng (right) seen in a recent photo; Beijing residents tried to stop a military convoy from entering the city on June 3, 1989; Xu’s troops had already maintained security while unarmed during the Hu Yaobang memorial in April and later protests. Martial law imposed on May 20 was not enforced due to massive peaceful resistance in the capital. But by May 27, the political commissar of the Beijing Military Region Liu Zhifa gave Xu the order to enforce martial law by any means necessary. Xu first insisted on a written order. Once that written order was forwarded, he remembered saying: “I disagree. I will not participate in whatever happens next.” He returned to the military hospital where he received treatment for a bladder stone. He was then relieved of his command on May 27 and detained in a warehouse in Mentougou in the western outskirts of Beijing until the end of the year. He was formally arrested, court-martialled and sentenced to five years in prison. Xu said he wasn’t the only commander to disagree with the order. Major General He Yanran, commander of the 28th Group Army, and Major General Zhang Mingchun, political commissar of the same group, both obeyed the order but delayed its enforcement, he said. “They looked for many excuses to not advance to Tiananmen, but they never admitted their refusal to comply.” Both He and Zhang continued their careers in the People’s Liberation Army. Zhang died in 1994, while He lives in a military retirement home in Shanghai. “It will be impossible to avoid clashes. It is impossible to tell good and bad apart in clashes with civilians - who will be responsible for this?” General Xu Qinxian Xu now lives with his wife in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province. The 79-year-old remains barred from visiting Beijing. He said he did not regret his decision. “Despite ten years of Cultural Revolution, the people still had hope in the Communist Party.” he said. “Should we have destroyed that little bit of hope that was left?” “They thought I had conspired with General Secretary Zhao Ziyang,” he said. “In fact, things were much more simple. There was no underground activity, no plot, no outside activity - it was fully my own action.” Xu had spent his whole adult life in the People’s Liberation Army. As a young volunteer, he fought US troops in North Korea in the 1950s. “I love the Communist Party, I want to protect it,” he said when he disagreed with the martial law order. He wasn’t the only one. On May 23, six retired generals and an admiral signed a joint open letter opposing martial law. “The PLA belongs to the people,” the letter read. “It should not confront the people, much less suppress them. Most importantly, it will not fire on the people.”
The crackdown Troops move in to clear Tiananmen Square in the night of June 3 Between 10,000 and 15,000 helmeted, armed troops moved towards Beijing in the late afternoon of June 3, the US embassy reported in a late night cable revealed by Wikileaks decades later. “Elite airborne troops are moving from the south and tank units have been alerted to move,” it read. “Their large numbers, the fact that they are helmeted, and the automatic weapons they are carrying suggest that the force option is real,” it concluded. Zhou Duo Marxist scholar, sociologist. Along with Liu Xiaobo, he was one of the ‘Four Gentlemen’ who went on hunger strike on Tiananmen Square shortly before the crackdown. Video: JMSC HKU Marxist scholar, sociologist. Along with Liu Xiaobo, he was one of the ‘Four Gentlemen’ who went on hunger strike on Tiananmen Square shortly before the crackdown. Hunger striker Zhou Duo first heard of troops moving in from sympathetic soldiers. “The two of them, brothers from within the military, put on civilian clothes, sneaked onto the square and went to the hunger strikers’ tent,” he recalled. “They told me ‘this evening, something big is going to happen.’” Zhou said he pondered leaving the square, but decided against it. “If I left, it would have been like treason - I couldn’t have possibly done such a thing,” he said. “There was nothing we could do except embrace our fate.” Reported clashes during the night of June 3 to 4, 1989. Source: Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China In the afternoon, troops used tear gas in Liubukou, just a kilometre west of the square. “They began to advance, and around 10 or 11pm shots were heard on all sides, mostly from Muxidi [some five kilometres west of Tiananmen square]. Gunfire became more and more intense, like New Year firecrackers, and we were all frozen in shock,” recalled Zhou. At the time the students at the square still thought the military was using rubber bullets, he said. “We didn’t think they would use real bullets.” The last demonstrators gathered around the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the obelisk at the centre of Tiananmen Square, as troops surrounded them. “A student asked us for our last words and beautifully wrote them down,” said Zhou Fengsuo, one of the students on the square. Zhou Duo and Hou Dejian approached the soldiers that surrounded them and negotiated an exit route for the several hundred students to leave the square. They left peacefully. Zhou, who said he was hit by soldiers as he left, grabbed his bicycle and cycled back to his dormitory. On the way, he stopped by Fuxing Hospital, where he saw more than thirty dead bodies lying outside. Soldiers entering Beijing on June 3, 1989 Tanks arrive at Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4, 1989 A bloodied injured man at a Beijing hospital Vehicles burning on Changan Avenue Another student who was among the last to leave the square was Fang Zheng, a 22-year-old from Hainan at the Beijing Sport University. He was walking on Changan Avenue on his way from Tiananmen Square to his campus when a row of tanks charged at the students, he recalled. “They had already taken the square. To this day I don’t know why they targeted us.” A young woman walking nearby fainted. He managed to push her up and over a metal fence to get her out of the tanks’ path. A tank wheel clipped him. He woke up the next day at a hospital. Both legs were gone. “We later learnt that nine people had been crushed to death by the tanks and five more had been wounded in the incident,” he said. He continued his career in sport as a wheelchair athlete after the crackdown and emigrated in 2009 to the US. He now lives in San Francisco. Li Rui Former secretary of Mao Zedong, senior Communist Party adviser in the 1980s. Video: JMSC HKU Former secretary of Mao Zedong, senior Communist Party adviser in the 1980s. Senior party official Li Rui was at home with his wife when he started hearing gunfire on June 3. “The two of us stood at the balcony watching [the soldiers] pass by,” he recalled. “I remember saying: ‘these rifles can’t shoot us, we’re too far away,’.” Li still lives near the same crossroads at Changan Avenue, some seven kilometres west of Tiananmen Square. “We were shouting slogans,” Zhang Yuzhen, Li’s wife, recalled. “‘You group of bastards are beating up good people,’ we shouted. Everyone was furious.” Later that same evening, Guan Shanfu, a senior prosecutor who lived in another building, visited Li to tell him that his son-in-law had been shot dead, Li recalled. “Guan’s son-in-law was boiling water in the kitchen when he was shot,” he said. “[Guan] showed me the bullet, it was an expanding bullet. An imported dumdum bullet shot this man dead.” Yang Jisheng Xinhua reporter in 1989, Yang turned into a prominent Communist Party historian. Video: JMSC HKU Xinhua reporter in 1989, Yang turned into a prominent Communist Party historian. Yuan Tianshu Recent university graduate in 1989, now a liberal intellectual in Beijing. Video: JMSC HKU Recent university graduate in 1989, now a liberal intellectual in Beijing. Li, now 97, was an early member of the Communist Party. He served as one of Mao’s secretaries in the early years of the People’s Republic before he was ousted and jailed for his criticism of Mao’s frenzied push for industrialisation that led to mass starvation in the late 1950s. After Mao’s death, he was rehabilitated under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and became an adviser to the Party leadership. “What happened on June 4 was one of the Communist Party’s biggest mistakes,” he said. Radio Beijing recording after the crackdown, June 4, 1989 Listen to the recording On the morning of June 4, Li and his wife discovered that a neighbour’s maid had also been killed overnight. On Changan Avenue, they found abandoned tanks and climbed on top of one to see a line of wrecked tanks. “They had not driven to Tiananmen, and dozens of armoured vehicles had been discarded,” he said. For Li, it was a sign that some soldiers had refused to force their way further towards the square. “Many of them threw their rifles into the canal,” he said. “This meant these troops were remarkable - they did not take part in this.” Thousands of others did. Gunfire could be heard for several days in the capital. On June 4, the PLA Daily, the mouthpiece of the armed forces, said a “severe counterrevolutionary riot” had occurred in the capital the previous day. “Since the founding of the republic there have never been such horrendous riots in the capital,” it read. Five days later, Deng Xiaoping made his first public appearance after the crackdown, meeting senior PLA officers along with senior party elders. In his televised speech, he called the democracy movement a “political storm” that had to happen sooner or later and had to be stopped for the benefit of long-term stability. Play video | 0:40 Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's appearance on television on June 9, 1989 was his first after the crackdown five days earlier Disagreeing on the death toll... Organisation Killed Wounded Associated Press At least 500 - Beijing Independent Student Union 4,000 - State Council spokesman Yuan Mu at press conference Less than 300 in total including 23 university students in Beijing 5,000 troops, 2,000 civilians Chinese Red Cross staffer estimate 727 of which 14 military and 713 civilian - South China Morning Post 1,400 feared dead 10,000
Operation Yellow Bird Hong Kong activists and triads smuggle students to safety in the British colony In Shenzhen, a dried seafood merchant received an odd request: Could he hide some people in his warehouse? Thus began the Hong Kong man’s involvement in a many-year effort to get some of the most wanted Tiananmen protesters out of mainland China. Play video | 1:34 “Tiger” talks about Operation Yellow Bird “At first, I just wanted to help out a little bit,” said the man, who asked that he be identified only by the nickname Tiger. “Then I was told to stay because there was no one else to help out.” He soon paid triad gangs to smuggle the students to Hong Kong and housed them in a hideout near Ma On Shan. Known by the operation’s code name “Operation Yellow Bird”, Hong Kong sympathisers like Tiger and triad smugglers were instrumental in securing freedom for 10 of the 21 most wanted student leaders and hundreds of others, including Yan Jiaqi, a senior adviser to purged Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang. Much of the operation is still shrouded in mystery. It was organised and financed by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, the movement that later organised the annual vigils and set up the SAR’s only Tiananmen Museum in April this year. Map of Operation Yellowbird smuggling routes from Guangdong to Hong Kong A Newsweek article in 1996 recounted the audacity of the operation. “On at least five occasions, ‘extraction’ teams were sent into China to find and rescue top dissidents. They were equipped with scrambler devices, night-vision goggles, infrared signalers, even makeup artists to help disguise the fugitives.” Tiger used donations channeled through the Alliance to pay off the smugglers, who – from fear they might raise their charges – were not informed of who their passengers were. He organised safe passage for 20 of the 200 people who managed to escape to Hong Kong in Operation Yellow Bird. Freedom from prosecution in the mainland cost on average between HK$40,000 and HK$50,000 in donations. At least two people were jailed in China for the assistance they provided to the fleeing movement leaders. Play video | 1:26 Life at the Nai Chung Camp for Operation Yellow Bird refugees in previously unseen footage (audio not available) Longtime rights activists like Szeto Wah and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming were among those in the Alliance to raise funds and organise shelter - first in hotels, then in secluded hide-outs and private homes. Chu banned the students from smoking, drinking and affairs, recalled Tiger. “It was tough to ban writers and artists from smoking and drinking,” he said. “I secretly gave them what they needed.” British intelligence and French consular officials assisted the Alliance in moving the refugees as quietly as possible past immigration at Kai Tak airport and the press to France, from where many would travel on to the United States. By 1997, the year Hong Kong was returned to China, the last refugees and key operatives hurried to leave the territory. Tiger and Chu temporarily moved to the US, but soon returned and have lived here since. Chu is now a leading organiser for the Occupy Central movement, which demands universal suffrage in the chief executive election in 2017. “Don’t keep telling me that democracy has to be implemented in a ‘gradual and steady’ approach,” the now 70-year-old told the South China Morning Post last year. “I am now calling for universal suffrage by 2017.”
The Tiananmen legacy As student leaders flee and are convicted, new activists emerge Ma Shaofang said he left the square with the last students. He had stayed until the sun rose on June 4, and gunfire continued. On his way back to the Beijing Film Academy, he passed by Deshengmen, one of the city’s old gates. The dead body of a nine-year-old child was lying on a handcart. “Everyone was in a rage, and the soldiers didn’t dare to raise their heads,” he said. Two days later, he was still in Beijing. “Another film academy student asked me why I was still there,” he recalled. “He said: ‘You better run’. I said nothing will happen.” Twenty-one of the student leaders were soon declared the nation’s most wanted, with Ma ranked number 10. Within a week, at least 400 people had been detained, state media said. China Central Television aired footage showing soldiers escorting detained men at gunpoint and Premier Li praising the troops. Ma was detained in Guangzhou a week after the crackdown. He was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of “counter-revolutionary incitement”. He was released in 1992, and now lives in Shenzhen. Clockwise from top left: A handcuffed man led by soldiers two weeks after the crackdown as police and soldiers search for student leaders; crowds of curious residents gather to look at the military hardware in Tiananmen Square, June 7, 1989; soldiers dispersing a crowd on June 4, 1989; the iconic image of an unknown man stopping tanks as they rolled east from Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989 A handcuffed man led by soldiers two weeks after the crackdown as police and soldiers search for student leaders; the iconic image of an unknown man stopping tanks as they rolled east from Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989 Crowds of curious residents gather to look at the military hardware in Tiananmen Square, June 7, 1989; soldiers dispersing a crowd on June 4, 1989 Among the 21 most wanted, six, including Wuer Kaixi and Chai Ling, managed to flee China via Hong Kong. Hong Kong and mainland sympathisers bribed and smuggled their way out of China in Operation Yellow Bird. Wuer Kaixi now lives in Taiwan, and has been repeatedly refused entry into Hong Kong and Macau. Chai lives in the US. The 14 others, including Wang Dan and Zhou Fengsuo, were detained along with hundreds of others. Zhou and Wang both spent time in jail until they were allowed to leave into exile in the US in 1995 and 1998 respectively. Zhou now lives in Austin, Texas, while Wang is a university lecturer in Taiwan. Zhang Boli, the number 12 most wanted, was detained in Russia and repatriated. He spent two years in hiding and finally escaped to Hong Kong in June 1991. He is now a pastor in Virginia. The 21 most wanted student leaders: Where are they now? Last reported places of residence according to exile sources: Taiwan Mainland China United States 1 Wang Dan Jilin native; student at the Department of History, Peking University 2 Wuer Kaixi Xinjiang native; student at the Education Department, Beijing Normal University 3 Liu Gang Jilin native; graduate of the Department of Physics, Peking University 4 Chai Ling Shandong native; student at the Department of Psychology, Beijing Normal University 5 Zhou Fengsuo Shaanxi native; student at the Department of Physics, Tsinghua University 6 Zhai Weimin Henan native; student at the Beijing Economics College 7 Liang Qingtun Sichuan native; student at the Department of Psychology, Peking University 8 Wang Zhengyun Yunnan native; student at the Central Institute for Nationalities 9 Zheng Xuguang Shanxi native; student at Beihang University 10 Ma Shaofang Jiangsu native; student of evening writing classes at the Beijing Film Academy 11 Yang Tao Fujian native; student at the History Department, Peking University 12 Wang Zhixin Shanxi native; student at the China University of Political Science and Law 13 Feng Congde Sichuan native; student at the Institute of Remote Sensing, Peking University 14 Wang Chaohua Beijing native; researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 15 Wang Youcai Zhejiang native; student at the Faculty of Physics, Peking University 16 Zhang Zhiqing Shanxi native; student at the China Political Science and Law University 17 Zhang Boli Heilongjiang native; student of the writing programme at Peking University 18 Li Lu Hebei native; student at the Faculty of Economics, Nanjing University 19 Zhang Ming Jilin native; student at the Automotive Engineering Department, Tsinghua University 20 Xiong Wei Hubei native; student at the Radio Engineering Department, Tsinghua University 21 Xiong Yan Hunan native; student at the Faculty of Law, Peking University Among the thousands who were detained after the PLA retook Tiananmen Square, at least 20 people were executed, according to the US-based Dui Hua Foundation. The legal rights watchdog estimates that 1,600 went to prison. Jiang Yaqun, the last person known to be incarcerated for “counter-revolutionary crimes,” was released sometime in 2012. Others could still be in prison. Mass rallies calling for freedom of speech did not return to China. In 1998, at least four of the nine most wanted students still left in China became members of the Democratic Party of China, for which they were soon detained. Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize diploma placed on an empty chair during the award ceremony in Oslo in 2010; tens of thousands of people take part in annual candlelight vigils at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. Clockwise from top left: Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize diploma placed on an empty chair during the award ceremony in Oslo in 2010; deposed Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang seen reading a newspaper in his garden in Beijing in 1994; tens of thousands of people take part in annual candlelight vigils at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown Deposed Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang seen reading a newspaper in his garden in Beijing in 1994 Zhao Ziyang spent the rest of his life under house arrest. He was eventually allowed to travel to the provinces, but up until his death in 2005 never allowed to appear in public. His secretary Bao Tong became the highest-ranking official to be sentenced to prison, and served seven years for “revealing state secrets” and “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement”. He has since lived under surveillance in Beijing. Leading dissident Fang Lizhi and his wife spent a year in the US embassy before they were allowed to leave for the US. Hunger striker Liu Xiaobo was among the first to be detained after the crackdown. After 19 months of detention, he was found guilty of “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement” but his sentence wasn’t enforced due to his contribution to ending the stand-off on Tiananmen Square peacefully. He is now in his fourth year of an 11-year jail sentence on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” for initiating the Charter 08 manifesto, which reiterated the students’ calls for democracy and free speech from 1989. Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2010. Teng Biao, now a visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was 15 during the Tiananmen crackdown. He only learnt what happened once he went to university. “Political silence has become almost universal,” he said. “It was such a great shock at the time, but the fear from then has transformed into disdain.” “Political silence has become almost universal.” Teng Biao, legal scholar The majority of China’s population has lost all hope in political reform from within the system, said Teng, a participant in the New Citizen Movement, which has called for government transparency and the respect of human rights over the last years. “The elite has no incentive to change the system,” he said. The New Citizen Movement called on the government to respect constitutionally guaranteed rights, enforce transparency of officials’ assets and equal access to education. Its founder Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to four years in prison in January on charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order”. Teng said that grassroots advocates for political reform have changed their strategies. “Citizens have used concrete cases to raise their political demands and win the public’s trust,” he said. “They have moved from abstract demands like democracy, they have moved to issues that are closer to the hearts of the wider public, like the environment, birth control and education.” Even though the number of people who stood up to make such demands was small, “[activist] groups like the Southern Street movement expand the space for the rest of society,” he said. “At the time, the students kneeled down outside the Great Hall of the People asking for rights,” he said. “We don’t ask anymore - we demand these rights as citizens.” Pu Zhiqiang back in 1989; Historian Xu Youyu in an archive photo; Pu Zhiqiang back in 1989; Historian Xu Youyu in an archive photo (bottom left); Xu and Pu among the participants of a June 4 memorial meeting in Beijing on May 3, 2014 Xu and Pu among the participants of a June 4 memorial meeting in Beijing on May 3, 2014 The terror of those June days continue to haunt Chinese society, even as some citizens try to commemorate those whose lives ended near the square. Beijing police in April detained veteran journalist Gao Yu for "leaking state secrets" just one day before she was expected to attend a meeting of prominent intellectuals discussing the Tiananmen anniversary. Gao had been arrested on June 3, 1989 and jailed for a year after writing about the Tiananmen protests. In early May, well-known human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who had taken part in the student movement 25 years ago, was detained by Beijing police on suspicion of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Pu was one of 15 people who met at a private home in Beijing to discuss the Tiananmen legacy. Xu Youyu, a political scientist and historian was also detained after participating in the same seminar. In a 2012 lecture in Australia, reflecting on the Tiananmen movement, he said that China's intellectuals had missed an opportunity in 1989 to bring about political reforms. "Chinese intellectuals were not prepared for any social movement or social transformation in the 1980s," he said. "They failed to give any practical advice or suggestions to students apart from expressions of moral support when the latter took to the streets and appealed to the authorities for democracy." "Whereas the basic dividing line in the 1980s was 'reform or no reform', in the 1990s it changed to 'Which reform do you prefer?'", he said.
The legacy in their own words Communist Party officials and student leaders look back at the Tiananmen crackdown Zhao Ziyang Communist Party General Secretary, spent his life from his purge in 1989 to his death in 2005 under surveillance. Audio: JMSC HKU Communist Party General Secretary, spent his life from his purge in 1989 to his death in 2005 under surveillance. Li Rui Former secretary of Mao Zedong, senior Communist Party adviser in the 1980s. Video: JMSC HKU Former secretary of Mao Zedong, senior Communist Party adviser in the 1980s. Bao Tong Personal aide to Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, highest-ranking party official to be imprisoned after the crackdown. Video: JMSC HKU Personal aide to Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, highest-ranking party official to be imprisoned after the crackdown. Chen Ziming Liberal intellectual. Chen was accused to be an orchestrator of the student movement. Video: JMSC HKU Liberal intellectual. Chen was accused to be an orchestrator of the student movement. Zhou Duo Marxist scholar, sociologist. Along with Liu Xiaobo, he was one of the ‘Four Gentlemen’ who went on hunger strike on Tiananmen Square shortly before the crackdown. Video: JMSC HKU Marxist scholar, sociologist. Along with Liu Xiaobo, he was one of the ‘Four Gentlemen’ who went on hunger strike on Tiananmen Square shortly before the crackdown. Wu Jiaxiang Liberal intellectual. Wu worked as an aide to the Communist Party’s Central Committee in 1989. Video: JMSC HKU Liberal intellectual. Wu worked as an aide to the Communist Party’s Central Committee in 1989. Dai Qing Journalist, environmentalist. In a passionate speech in May, she warned the students of the coming bloodshed. Video: JMSC HKU Journalist, environmentalist. In a passionate speech in May, she warned the students of the coming bloodshed. Ma Shaofang A student at the Beijing Film Academy, he became most wanted student leader No. 10 after the crackdown. Video: JMSC HKU A student at the Beijing Film Academy, he became most wanted student leader No. 10 after the crackdown. Cao Siyuan Liberal intellectual, early advocate for political reform. Video: JMSC HKU Liberal intellectual, early advocate for political reform. Sun Dawu Prominent entrepreneur. Video: JMSC HKU Prominent entrepreneur. Yang Jisheng Xinhua reporter in 1989, Yang turned into a prominent Communist Party historian. Video: JMSC HKU Xinhua reporter in 1989, Yang turned into a prominent Communist Party historian.
Tiananmen today |
On the day of the funeral of Diana, princess of Wales—a sunny Saturday in September 1997—there was one small item that broke a million hearts in a city, and a nation, already awash in grief. A bouquet of white freesias sat atop her coffin as it rode on a gun carriage to Westminster Abbey. Nestled in the flowers was an envelope with a single word—“MUMMY”—printed in a child’s hand. Walking behind were its authors, princes William, 15, and Harry, 12, accompanied by their father, Prince Charles, their grandfather, Prince Philip, and their embittered uncle, Charles Spencer, Diana’s brother. At the time, those of us covering the funeral, and millions more watching on London’s streets and on televisions around the world, wondered what these wounded young lads could possibly have said to make sense of the tragedy that befell their mother, and the circus of grief it spawned.
That note also touched a deep chord with Penny Junor, a veteran royal watcher and the author of the newly published Prince William: Born to be King, which manages to be both a sympathetic portrait of the future king and a controversial examination of an upbringing that was scarred by tumult, loss and Diana’s mental fragility. “I thought it was incredibly touching,” she said of the note. It was only through the wise intervention of Sandy Henney, Prince Charles’s press secretary at the time, that the boys’ farewell words to their mother were sealed in an envelope, protected from the reach of the hundreds of telephoto lenses lining the funeral route. “Their lives had been so intruded upon by the media,” Junor said in an interview with Maclean’s. “That would have been the end of their world if their little note to their mother had been picked up by those lenses.”
In fact, the privacy of William and Harry’s lives had been trammelled from birth. Long before their mother’s death, they endured the loss of loved ones who fell out of favour with their parents, and the rage, tears and public humiliation of the marriage breakup that left them caught between the warring camps of mother and father. “He would be superhuman if he didn’t have demons,” Junor writes of William. “But he keeps them to himself; he is one of the most intensely private people you could meet.”
The release of her book in Britain last week triggered a storm of controversy due to Junor’s assessment of Diana as a loving mother, but one whose mental illness caused enormous pain to her children. Her claim has generated a storm of criticism from a pro-Diana camp that remains steadfastly loyal almost 15 years after her death. This week, Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani heart surgeon who had a two-year relationship with the princess that ended shortly before her death, spoke out in her defence. “There is no way at all that Diana was mentally unstable,” he told the Mail on Sunday. “There is nothing wrong with expecting your husband to be faithful, and being angry when he isn’t.”
Yet by Diana’s own admission, she suffered from bulimia, cut herself on her arms and legs, and made half-hearted attempts at suicide. “I can’t understand how people got so hysterical about it,” Junor said. “Anybody who understands eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, they are serious mental illnesses. I’m a trustee of our national charity for eating disorders, so I do know how dangerous these things are. People die of them.” Junor said she could have gone further. A psychologist she consulted said Diana exhibited narcissistic tendencies. “That’s exactly what she was, but I thought the word [narcissist] would be so inflammatory. God, what would the Daily Mail have done with that?”
Junor made similar claims about Diana’s mental health in a book, Charles: Victim or Villain, published a year after Diana’s death. “I had death threats. I was nearly run out of the country. People spat at me in the streets.” Briefly, she hired a bodyguard. Even today, “there are people who can’t accept who she was,” Junor said. “She was wonderful in many ways. I’m absolutely not wanting to desecrate her memory, but the facts are William had a very difficult time growing up.” Her latest book casts Charles in a more sympathetic light, as a sensitive, caring parent and as a worthy future monarch. But both parents, in her view, have much to answer for in the rearing of their sons.
William as a young child rightly earned Diana’s affectionate nickname as “Your Royal Naughtiness.” Junor described William, age 4, wandering into a meeting his father was having with Bob Geldof, the perpetually scruffy singer and humanitarian. “Why do you have to talk to that man?” William asked. “Because we have work to do,” Charles replied. “He’s all dirty,” said William. “Shut up, you horrible boy,” said Geldof. “He’s got scruffy hair and wet shoes,” William said, undaunted. “Don’t be rude,” was about all his mortified father could muster. Both parents were soft touches when it came to discipline. It was the Queen, a doting grandmother and latter-day role model, who signalled that young William’s behaviour was unacceptable.
The marriage was already in trouble by the time of Harry’s arrival in 1984, some 27 months after William’s birth. Charles grew frustrated and depressed as he failed to win the respect and support of his young wife. Diana had wild mood swings: carefree and compassionate one moment, brooding, insecure and sarcastic the next. Much of it, Junor believes, was rooted in Diana’s difficult childhood. Her home life was marked with unhappiness and there were frequent violent arguments between her parents. Her mother fled the marriage for another man and lost custody of the children when Diana was six. “In [Diana’s] mind, the matter was simple,” Junor writes. “Her mother didn’t want her, therefore she must be worthless.”
For all the love Diana showered on her boys, her insecurities were never far from the surface. Barbara Barnes was the children’s beloved nanny. Each morning William would climb into bed with her before they got up for breakfast. Diana began to feel threatened by William’s bond with Barnes, and the nanny was dismissed on the flimsiest of excuses. William, just 4, was hurt and bewildered at the loss of his “Baba,” as he called her. “He became less outgoing, less trusting, less inclined to make himself vulnerable,” wrote Junor. Over the phone from London, there is an edge of anger in Junor’s voice. “The only explanation is she was so tied up with her own feelings that she couldn’t look beyond them to see what this would do to her sons,” she said. “It’s so weird, given that she herself was abandoned and knew how painful that was.” Notably, nanny Barnes was one of the names William added to his personal wedding guest list 24 years after she vanished from his life.
Charles for a time was something of a stoic punching bag as the marriage disintegrated. Diana would rearrange the boys’ schedules to take away his custody time, while tipping photographers to the boys’ visits to, say, a water park—trading their privacy for chances to cast herself in a good light. She went to war against Tiggy Legge-Bourke, a fun-loving young aristocrat the boys adored and who often minded them under Charles’s watch. Diana started false rumours she was sleeping with Charles. In this case, she failed to get Legge-Bourke fired.
Diana didn’t hide her distress from the boys. She told a TV interviewer the tale of William at 10 playing a parenting role as she wailed inconsolably behind a locked bathroom after a fight with Charles. William crouched outside, saying, “I hate to see you sad,” and stuffed paper tissues under the door. “She gave away her children’s privacy,” said Junor. “It was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. If she was sane, if her mind had been totally fine, I don’t believe she would have behaved in the way she did. I think it was all a symptom of her condition.”
Things got worse with the boys away in boarding schools. Both parents turned to sympathetic media figures to tell their stories, and neither came off well with their cringeworthy tales of angst and infidelity. Charles did his best to guard the boys’ privacy and to speak respectfully of their mother. However, in a 1994 documentary by Jonathan Dimbleby seen by 14 million people, and in a subsequent book, he admitted to his infidelity with Camilla Parker Bowles after the marriage “was irretrievably broken.” William was 12. Life the next day in boarding school must have been hell.
A year later, Diana responded with a devastating interview on the TV program Panorama. It was here she talked about her bulimia and self-harm, suggested Charles was a dubious prospect as king, admitted to an infidelity or two, and fired that memorable broadside across Camilla’s bow: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” Diana had to be prodded to travel to Eton, where 13-year-old William had recently enrolled, to tell him in advance that the program was running. “She told William that [it] would contain nothing controversial and that he would be proud of her,” Junor writes. William watched the program in the study of his Eton housemaster, angry, aghast and no doubt humiliated at the family secrets she laid bare before some 20 million viewers. Shortly afterwards the Queen told the warring couple to get on with a divorce. Sensing a deep need, the Queen encouraged William to make regular visits to Windsor Castle, just across the bridge from Eton, for tea and sympathy. The bond they already shared has only grown stronger in the years since.
It is little wonder that William grew increasingly insular, never quite certain who to trust, who might abandon him, who might betray what little privacy he had. Harry was the one constant: the brother who experienced the same losses, sorrows, humiliations, and the undeniable love both parents lavished on them. “Only they had experienced the full nightmare of life within the Wales household,” Junor writes. “Only they had known what it was like to be at an all-boys school when the newspapers were full of their parents’ infidelities; only they had known what it was like to grieve for their mother while millions of strangers took ownership of her death.” As young adults, when his and Harry’s cellphone messages were hacked in the News of the World scandal and used as fodder for stories, the brothers reacted with predictable rage, but also a measure of relief. They knew with final certainty that the media leaks were not coming from their tight circle of friends.
Perhaps understandably, the William who arrived at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland was cautious, insecure and a bit bereft. He hid under the bill of a baseball cap, was unduly quiet in lectures, often wrote his essays at the local police station, away from prying eyes, and steered clear of the American girls who threw themselves at his feet. He gravitated to familiar faces in his residence, among them Kate Middleton, one of the “least pushy girls he met in that first year,” Junor writes, quoting a friend of the couple. She, too, was away from her family and comfort zone. Like him, she had volunteered in Chile during her gap year with the same charitable group, though at different times.
By second year he felt comfortable enough with Kate and two other friends to share an apartment together, and his confidence grew after seriously questioning in first year if he would drop out. It was sometime during that year that their romance blossomed, a secret they kept for a remarkably long time, until a photographer captured a stolen kiss between them during a ski holiday. While Kate was obviously the prime attraction, the fun-loving Middleton family in semi-rural Berkshire offered a welcoming middle-class normal that was new to William. There were no butlers, no lurking photographers, Junor writes. They could grab a pint at the pub, “and they clattered about the kitchen and sat down to chatty, friendly, family meals together.”
As much as William found a home with the Middletons, it would take eight years, and one brief breakup with Kate in 2007, before he asked her to marry him. William did not agree to be interviewed for Junor’s book (although he gave permission for friends, staff and many of the charities he is patron of to share their views), so she can only speculate about his commitment issues. Part of it, she believes, was a question he had to resolve for himself: could he remain faithful to one woman after the betrayals that scarred his upbringing? She also admitted to “playing amateur psychologist.” He lost his nanny, he lost the trustworthy Sandy Henney when she was forced to resign as press secretary for a mistake not of her making. His mother’s death was the “ultimate abandonment,” said Junor. “I think he was possibly testing Kate to see if she would also abandon him. I think that’s why he waited eight years before finally asking her to marry him.” She did not. During their breakup, she maintained her dignity and discretion, while looking stunning as she stepped out on the town with friends. William soon realized what he had lost.
Junor was among the journalists who followed William and Catherine on their first official visit to Canada last year. Three decades earlier she’d watched Charles and Diana’s first visit to Wales as a married couple. Both women had a rare gift of putting an adoring public at ease. But that’s where the similarity ends. In William and Catherine she saw a connection, and a trust that Charles and Diana never shared. There were whispered asides and secret smiles, he guided her through events with a protective hand on her back. “There was such obvious love between the two of them,” she said.
With one woman, and perhaps the Queen, he can let down his guard. His model is his grandmother, who shares her private self with only her spouse. She knew what William learned from the painful experience of his parents: if you allow it, a fame-obsessed world will feed on you until you’re picked clean. As he approaches his 30th birthday on June 21, he sees himself not as a celebrity, but as a future monarch, in for the long haul. He has a duty to give his time, talent and energy, said Junor, “but he won’t give his soul.”
In many respects that MUMMY note, written at a time of aching loss for the young princes, is a metaphor for the man William has become. He can walk before millions behind his mother’s coffin, or into the enthusiastic embrace of a Canadian crowd, but we’ll never really know what he keeps sealed inside. And why should we? |
Hello everyone. Though it's not quite done yet, I wanted to share my most recent project: A 900mhz FPV groundstation.
I wanted to build a long-range antenna for my 900mhz FPV system. I was very inspired by David Windestål's "overkill" FPV groundstation, but didn't have any G10 fiberglass or a CNC machine. What I did have was oak, so I decided to go with a slightly different aesthetic--an aesthetic that says "I'm Captain Nemo in a cowboy hat".
Almost all the wood used for this build is 1/4" oak, milled from a tree that fell on a friend's property. The handles are made from some oak chair legs I found at Home Depot. It's held together pretty much entirely with 2-part epoxy. I designed the grip to emulate that of a chainsaw, which is also a heavy tool of a similar shape that must also be wielded with extreme precision.
I built the antenna using I.B. Crazy's guide. The helix is 3/16" copper tubing and the reflector plate is made of aluminum with copper foil laminated to both sides. I could've used a solid copper plate, but this would've been heavier and much more expensive. I had originally intended to use bare aluminum, but found that impossible to solder, so I decided to laminate it with copper for practical and aesthetic purposes.
The copper pipe endoskeleton not only provides handles with which a spotter can aim the antenna, it also protrudes from the bottom to form a support. This serves two purposes: It keeps the weight of the unit from resting on the delicate reflector plate, and it cants the antenna up at an angle so it can be used just sitting on the ground.
Yes, it's a jumble in there. I'll try to hit all the major points of what's going on; I've got two 900mhz receivers, one hooked up the the helical antenna and the other to a SMA female port on the top of the box (currently outfitted with an omnidirectional CP antenna). The red circuit board is a Range Video diversity controller. At the back, you can see a gold panel mount plug; this is a stereo plug I've wired up to send power and signal to my screen or goggles via just one 3.5mm stereo cable. It's also got 10 amber LEDs which were originally supposed to function as a power meter but ended up simply as an indicator lamp when it became clear that my knowledge of circuitry wasn't up to the task.
The side panel is held on with magnets that secure to the 4 steel tabs at each corner of the enclosure.
Here's a shot of the rising sun ornament with the LEDs lit. Also seen is the newly-installed knife switch, which isn't in the other images.
This is a close-up of the antenna connection and impedance matching solution. I did an impressively awful job soldering it, but for all that, it works phenomenally. The range and penetration is vastly greater than what I was getting with the omnidirectional antenna.
Finally, I wanted the unit to be fully tripod-mountable, so underneath the plate for the receivers there's a T-nut threaded to accept standard tripod mounts. The thing weighs 7 lbs. (3 kilos) and it's a little ungainly, but it works.
And when I'm not using it for flying, it's a great costume piece! |
A former Clinton Foundation official who is now an independent director at a company which operates private schools in China has found himself embroiled in a bizarre child abuse scandal involving needles, pills, “brown syrup,” nudity, and sexual molestation, according to parents.
The head of a Beijing kindergarten has been fired after China launched a nationwide investigation into a chain of private schools operated by RYB Education Inc. ($RYB) following claims of abuse at multiple locations. Parents report at least 8 toddlers with mysterious needle marks, while others said their children were forced to take white pills that were supposed to be “a little secret” between the children and teachers, along with some sort of “brown syrup” given to the students. Children were also allegedly stripped naked and forced to stand, or locked in a dark room, one parent said.
An unidentified mother who made a viral video about the abuse told reporters Thursday that her son was was injected with a brown liquid by a teacher and made to strip along with other students before being “examined” by a naked adult male stranger, describing it as an “action like sexual intercourse.” When the mother pressed the principal to allow her to review closed circuit footage from the school, she was denied.
Medeical examination of eight children confirmed that the injuries were in fact caused by needles, Guanzhuang police report.
Furious parents gathered in front of RYB Education New World Kindergarten on Friday demanding answers, while China’s Xinhua news agency reports that children were also sexually molested, with no further details.
The Beijing kindergarten at the heart of the controversy is located next to a large military base, sparking rumors that military officials had been sexually abusing the children. Notably, the husband of the kindergarten’s director was previously an official at the base, however Fun Junfeng, the base’s political commissioner told PLA daily that there was “no evidence” that military personnel are involved in the abuse.
Mail Online reports:
Li Jing, mother of a three-year-old girl, told AFP her daughter had not been abused but said other children had explained how they were coerced into taking pills.
“Other kids were saying it’s not to be called taking a pill, but a reward. And the pill is not to be called a pill, but a jelly bean, and is a little secret between the child and the teacher,” Li said.
“I asked my child after I heard what other parents said and my child said that they had taken two white pills after lunch, and slept after eating the pills,” one father told CCTV outside the school on Thursday.
These latest allegations are not the first involving RYB schools. In April, the head of a different RYB kindergarten in Beijing was suspended after admitting that teachers had made “severe mistakes” when videos emerged of children being thrown and kicked in the back. In October, 2016 two teachers from an RYB kindergarten in the northeast Julin province were sentenced to 34 months in prison after jabbing children in the buttocks, head, and insides of their mouths with sewing needles.
Link to the Clinton Foundation
RYB Education operates 80 kindergartens and has another 175 franchised locations across 130 cities in China, according to filings. All of it’s directors are all Chinese, with the odd exception of former Clinton Foundation executive and associate dean at Yale, Joel Getz, 52, who is listed as an Independent Director.
Mr. Joel A. Getz is Independent Director of the Company. Prior to that, Mr. Getz served as Director of Development for the William J. Clinton Foundation in New York and was President of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.
The RYB Investor Relations page lists Getz as a member of the Audit Committee and the Compensation Committee.
Bill Bishop of the Sinocism China Newsletter and Axios contributor points out that it’s a bit odd that an Associate Dean at Yale would be on the board of directors of a Chinese kindergarten chain, suggesting that perhaps Getz thought it would be “easy money.”
Why is Joel Getz, an associate dean at Yale, on the board of RYB Education? Must have thought would be easy money, form now at the center of child abuse scandal https://t.co/tmAtuIFzr1 pic.twitter.com/xpVDXRsr5f — Bill Bishop (@niubi) November 24, 2017
Shares of RYB plummeted on Friday after the investigation was announced, falling over 42% in early trade only to recover slightly, ending the day down 38.41%.
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The Saskatchewan government announced fee increases to government programs Thursday that it hopes will generate $10.7 million, including $8.7 million in general revenue in the 2017-18 fiscal year.
In addition to the general revenue, the government says the new fees will add $886,500 to the Fish and Wildlife Development Fund in the coming fiscal year.
Included in the general revenue, the government expects to bring in $4.5 million from a 10 per cent penalty on audit assessments for companies in the oil and gas sectors that are found by an audit to owe money.
There were 30 such companies in 2016, the government says.
Other expected revenue generators for the province include changes to hunting and trapping licence fees and skilled immigrant nominee program application fees, which are expected to bring in another $3.2 million — $2.1 million from licensing fees and $1.1 million from applications.
As part of the hunting and trapping fees:
Saskatchewan residents will pay $10 more for licensing fees.
Wildlife Habitat Certificate prices will increase by $5.
A new fee of $50 for a wolf-hunting licence that will be available to Saskatchewan residents.
Fees in general will be rounded to the nearest $5, including GST.
Canadian and non-resident hunting fees are increasing.
There are approximately 200,000 licensed hunters and trappers in Saskatchewan.
Resident angling licence fees are also increasing. One-day licences will cost $3 more, three-day licences $4 more, and annual licences $8 more. Fees will be rounded to the nearest full dollar amount, including GST.
The government hopes to bring in $850,000 through the new angling fees.
New immigration program fees
Immigrants applying to the international skilled workers occupations-in-demand program and the express entry program will be required to pay a non-refundable fee of $300.
According to the government release, the changes will affect approximately 2,400 applications under the express entry program and another 1,300 under the occupations-in-demand category.
Saskatchewan immigration services does not currently collect any fees for these programs.
The fee changes will take effect April 1.
A full list of changes can be found on the government's website. |
There was a time in American history when the fear of communism reached such a fevered pitch of paranoia that it came to be known as the Red Scare . Either by invasion or infiltration, communists planned to take over the United States. There were “Reds under the beds,” argued those who urged Congress to outlaw the American Communist Party, which it attempted to do in 1954 when it passed the Communist Control Act . Rather than hide under beds, today’s communists occupy a spacious loft in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan — headquarters of the Communist Party USA. Portraits of notable American communists line one wall of the loft. A bust of Vladimir Lenin glares from a windowsill. A framed photo near the entranceway shows former party Chairman Henry Winston standing next to Fidel Castro. Recommended Slideshows 4 Pictures PHOTOS: Singapore's treasures star in NY Botanical Garden's 2019 Orchid Show 4 Pictures 36 Pictures Oscars 2019: Red carpet looks and full list of winners 36 Pictures 36 Pictures All of these celebrities have had their nudes leaked 36 Pictures More picture galleries 16 Pictures These photos of Trump and Ivanka will make you deeply uncomfortable 16 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside Brooklyn's Teknopolis is tech that makes us more human 4 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside The Strand's Fight Against Being Named a New York City Landmark 4 Pictures “Yes, we’re still here,” said Jarvis Tyner, former chairman of New York’s Communist Party. For America's communists today, it seems the Red Scare has been replaced by the Orange Scare — President Donald Trump. “I think Trump may not even consciously know it, but the objective effect of his policies move us in a fascist direction,” he said. “I think the fascist danger is very great. He is not an ordinary right-winger.” Trump is threatening to make broad political changes that aim to elevate the power of corporate America while weakening the power of the people, Tyner said. Related Articles Senator McCain says U.S. 'must stand up to Vladimir Putin' Cuba's Communist Party paper publishes U.S. election info notice Lindsay Lohan wants to meet Vladimir Putin “He put racists in charge of the Justice Department,” he said. “He put polluters in charge of the EPA. He put the head of Exxon in charge of foreign policy and a woman who believes in private schools in charge of the nation’s education policy when 90 percent of the students attend public schools.” Tyner’s overall assessment of the current occupant of the White House: “The guy is a crude ignoramus.” He’s quick to point out that since Trump’s election, the Communist Party USA has seen a slight uptick in membership — about 600 new members since Election Day. During the past five years, about 5,000 Americans have joined the Communist Party USA via the internet , party officials said. Most of these members haven’t join the party’s clubs, or grassroots organizations. There are 3,000 clubs nationwide. Although some members are well versed in Marxist theory, a thorough understanding of communist doctrine isn’t a prerequisite to joining the party. What the party seeks are members who desire to engage in political and social activism, Tyner said. Local party members recently have been active in protests against the police shootings of unarmed black men and the failings of cities to preserve and create affordable housing. Tyner concedes that there is a stigma attached to being a communist. Many feel it’s un-American. Those who suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin helped Trump win the presidency certainly have portrayed it as a sinister force. “People have been subjected to erroneous ideas [about the party] for a long time,” Tyner said. “Probably in New York, there are a good number of people who call themselves liberal and have a very positive attitude toward socialism. That doesn’t mean they’re all going to run and join the party. But it’s an atmosphere that the party can survive in.”Jarvis Tyner became a communist soon after finishing high school in West Philadelphia. Roughly two decades later, he was campaigning for the office of Vice President of the United States as the candidate of the Community Party USA. He wasn’t welcome at every stop along the campaign trail, but he managed to win over some crowds in rather unlikely places. “I campaigned all through the South,” he said. “I talked to them about straight-up class stuff, how some people are rich and you have nothing. They were open to hear what we had to say.” Tyner ran twice as the party’s vice president nominee, in 1972 and 1976. Both times he shared the ticket with party leader Gus Hall. “I believe we never did get on the ballot in more than 24 states,” he said. Hall, who led the CPUSA for more than 40 years, campaigned for the presidency two more times, in 1980 and 1984. His running mate both times was Angela Davis, a counterculture activist during the 1960s who was linked to the Black Panther Party during the civil rights movement. The CPUSA hasn’t nominated a presidential candidate since Hall’s last campaign in 1984. “The danger of the right [conservative wing] had become so great and the money needed to continue to run candidates became so great that the collective decided against it,” Tyner said. Tyner held various leadership positions with the party and until recently was its executive vice chairman. At age 75, he’s semi-retired. “I’ve see the party evolve over a long period of time,” he said. “No party has been more persecuted than ours. Our leadership was imprisoned. People were mistreated and lives were destroyed. But they kept on fighting and that tenacity influenced me a lot about the correctness of what they were doing and their deep dedication.” |
Sloppy and missing paperwork could wipe out $5 billion or more in private student loans held by consumers struggling to make their payments.
Lawsuits are being dismissed or withdrawn when they are challenged by consumers because the group of creditors that has aggressively pursued them is unable to prove that it owns the delinquent loans.
"Some have some paperwork. Others have no paperwork. Some attach a copy of the loan application," said Emily White, a Columbus attorney who has represented consumers in lawsuits filed against them by National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts.
Regardless, the cases are always missing the one important thing, she said.
"Even if they have paperwork that looks impressive, it doesn't have the critical information to show ownership," White said.
The same sort of problem occurred during the housing crisis several years ago, when many banks had trouble foreclosing on homes because they couldn't document that they owned the loan on the home or relied on missing or fake documentation.
Erica Corbett, formerly of Ashtabula County in northeast Ohio, and her grandfather, who co-signed her student loans, were sued this year after she purposely decided to stop paying her privately funded student debt. The case filed against her for nonpayment was withdrawn after she hired an attorney who demanded loan documents that couldn't be produced.
Corbett borrowed money from a bank beginning in 2002 to finance her teaching degree from Edinboro College in northwest Pennsylvania. She borrowed about $100,000 and said she struggled to make payments of several hundred dollars a month for several years, sums that weren't even enough to cover the interest on the loan.
When she sought help, the company servicing the debt for the trust, which bought her bank loans, couldn't provide her with basic information on her debt: how much she owed, how long it would take to pay it off and whether the debt could be reworked to lower the payments.
"I could not get a straight answer. The debt was sold, and the balance would change. 'Where are you guys coming up with this?'," she said she would ask. " 'Where is the documentation for the promissory notes?' "
Matthew Davey, 35, of North Olmstead, near Cleveland, was sued by the trust after he got behind on his student loans after he had repaid all but $3,000 to $4,000 of it.
"I didn't want to hide from it. I wanted to figure out a way to make things right. I borrowed this money. ... They were trying to collect all this interest, more than what I originally had borrowed. I would never get out from under this," he said.
As was the case with Corbett, the trust withdrew its case against Davey after it couldn't produce documents showing ownership of the loan, he said.
"It was a weight off me," he said.
The attorney for both, Blake Brewer of Cleveland, says these cases can be won by consumers, but they need help.
"That's the message," he said. "These lawsuits can be defended with overwhelming success, really, if the consumer is willing to search out an attorney who understands collections, who understand the issues."
Brewer estimated that more than half the time, borrowers don't even bother try to defend themselves.
The result can be devastating with judgments filed against consumers and wage garnishment.
"Borrowers are so ashamed. They're frustrated. They're at their wits' end. 'I owe them money'," he said they'll say.
Private debt burden
Private student debt totals about $165 billion, according to website LendEDU. That's a small portion of the total student debt, which stands at $1.4 trillion.
Banks make loans to students for college or other kinds of schooling and then sell those loans. The loans are ultimately packaged and sold to investors.
National Collegiate is actually made up of 15 trusts that hold 800,000 student loans totaling $12 billion, according to The New York Times, which first reported on the troubled loans in July.
The trusts have been aggressively suing consumers who are behind on their loan payments, averaging four new collection cases a day and more than 10,000 cases over the past five years, the Times reported.
Private student debt is treated much differently than the debt financed by the federal government.
Government loans come with flexible payment plans and loan forgiveness in return for public service.
Private debt, on the other hand, usually comes with higher interest rates and fewer consumer protections. It is often targeted at students who attend for-profit schools.
Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy.
Regulators watching
The trust's problems figure to get worse.
"As news of the servicing issues on the trusts' inability to produce the documents needed to foreclose on loans spread, the likelihood of more defaults arises," the trust said in a legal filing.
The trust and one of its loan servicers also have caught the attention of federal regulators.
In September, the trust agreed to pay $21.6 million in damages and take other measures after Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accused the trust of filing illegal lawsuits against consumers.
"The National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts and their debt collector sued consumers for students they couldn't prove were owed and filed false and misleading affidavits in courts across the country," said Richard Cordray, the bureau's director, in a statement.
"We're ordering them to pay at least $21.6 million, stopping them from filing illegal lawsuits, and requiring the trusts to thoroughly audit their loan portfolios to identify any other consumers who were harmed."
That debt collector, Transworld Systems, said it was disappointed in the bureau's decision to take action against the company and said it disagrees with the bureau's characterization of its work.
The company said the unit involved in the work adheres "to all federal and state consumer protection laws, and (embodies) best practices in the industry, including having ... proper documentation for any legal claims, and diligent local law firms that review these cases in their entirety prior to taking any action in court."
How much the bureau's action will help consumers is hard to say, says White, the Columbus attorney who has help consumers in these cases.
"Borrowers and courts can't rely on the (bureau) to ensure that judgments are fairly and properly obtained in future private student loan collections actions," she said. "In these cases, borrowers and courts should still insist on complete and admissible evidence that a loan was issued, that it was effectively transferred to the plaintiff, that the statute of limitations had not expired, and that the amount owed is correct."
One story
Erica Corbett, the former northeast Ohio woman, decided in 2014 to stop making payments on her student loan debt. It was a tough decision that she knew would cause trouble for her and her family, especially her grandfather, who had co-signed the loans.
Collection agencies began to hound her and her grandfather.
"He was getting phone calls. I was getting phone calls. He was getting letters. I was getting letters. He was basically getting harassed by these collection agencies," she said.
She knew she and her grandfather would end up being sued. The trust sued both of them in Ashtabula County in northeast Ohio in January, a case that the trust later withdrew.
While she is relieved the case has been dismissed, she also knows it hasn't put an end to the problems.
The trust could sue again if it can more prove ownership of the loans. And her credit score — and that of her grandfather — has been damaged.
She and her husband bought a home in Arizona where they recently moved.
"I'm not on the loan because I couldn't be (because of her problematic credit score). My husband owns the house, and my husband owns the car," she said.
Still, she has no regrets about what she's done.
"How many thousands of dollars I wasted," she said of the loan payments. "What I could have done with it. It hurt my credit scores and hurt my grandfather's credit score. There were a lot of times where it caused a lot of tension and grief. I was bound and determined not to spend the rest of my life in this cycle."
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@BizMarkWilliams |
Designed to make research freely available online for anyone to read, open-access publishing is now being enshrined in formal government policy. But there is still much confusion over how it should best be implemented, as Michael Banks explains
“World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep.” So Tweeted the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee at 4.57 p.m. on 12 January. Just a day earlier, Aaron Swartz – a 26-year-old Internet activist – had been found dead in his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, suspected of taking his own life.
Rather like Berners-Lee himself, Swartz was revered for being a prodigious computer programmer. When he was aged just 14, Swartz had co-authored an early version of the popular Internet tool RSS and later became the brains behind Reddit – a social and entertainment website that has become a locus of Internet activism.
Yet Swartz had another passion. In July 2008 he published his “guerilla open-access manifesto”, warning that science is “being locked up” by big business. “We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive,” declared Swartz. “We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file-sharing networks.”
It was this call to arms – and Swartz’s leadership in it – that landed him in trouble. On 6 January 2011 Swartz was indicted with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the US computer fraud and abuse act. He allegedly broke into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s servers and downloaded some 4.8 million documents from JSTOR – a not-for-profit organization that licenses the right to digitize academic journals and books from publishers and then sells them to libraries to recoup its costs. The charges against Swartz carried a maximum penalty of up to 35 years in prison with a fine of more than $1m.
The response to Swartz’s suicide – suspected to have been brought on by this looming sentence – prompted renewed calls for more scientific research to be made “open access”, or free to read online. It fuelled a Twitter campaign, #pdftribute, calling on researchers to post PDFs of their work online for anyone to be able to read. The effect Swartz had on the open-access movement was underlined two months after his death when he was posthumously awarded the American Library Association’s James Madison Award for being an “outspoken advocate for public participation in government and [for] unrestricted access to peer-reviewed scholarly articles”.
It would be tempting, from Swartz’s death, to see open access as a polarized battle pitting the science-publishing industry against the individual, but open-access publishing is a much more subtle issue – and one that was in the limelight long before Swartz made the news. Back in December 2001, a group of 13 researchers put together the Budapest Open Access Initiative – a public statement of principles relating to open access that by July 2012 had been signed by some 5645 individuals and 630 organizations. Open access has grown slowly over the last decade and according to the Directory of Open Access Journals, there are now some 9000 open-access journals across all disciplines of science (although many publish few papers) of which around 90 are in physics.
The move to open access has so far not been a particularly smooth ride, but publishing research papers in this way appears to be here to stay. Within the last few years, the European Commission (EC), UK and US have all issued policies to further increase the number of papers that are open access, with funding councils also putting their support behind the movement. Yet while most would agree that open access helps to disseminate research, there has been much confusion around how best to implement open-access policies and many differences have emerged between funding agencies and nations.
Accessing research
Scientific publishing dates back to 1665 when the French Journal des sçavans and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society first began to publish scientific research. Peer review forms the crux of how almost all journals operate. It involves a scientist submitting a paper to the journal, which has it refereed by one or more people not involved in the work, who judge whether the paper is scientifically credible and appropriate for the journal to which is has been submitted (see “The value publishers bring”). Traditionally, submitting papers is free of charge, with the publisher that owns the journal paying for its running costs by charging subscriptions, which are typically paid for by university libraries.
While most would agree that open access helps to disseminate research, there has been much confusion around how best to do it.
While this publishing model has served both scientists and publishers perfectly well for centuries, the growth of the Internet spurred a digital revolution that has shaken up the science-publishing industry. No longer bound by print, journal content started to appear online, and researchers began to come across journals to which their institution had no subscription. So while the abstract could be freely accessed, the main paper was, for them, stuck behind a paywall.
Along with that inconvenience, there was also a growing anger that large commercial publishers were making handsome returns. An analysis carried out in 2008 by Cambridge Economic Policy Associates estimated that profit margins in science publishing were around 20% for “society publishers” – those owned by professional bodies – but around 35% for commercial firms. With publishers raising journal subscriptions – in some cases well above the rate of inflation – the traditional model of publishing came under the spotlight. Researchers could not see why taxpayers should fund scientists to do research and then – through university library budgets – be charged to access that research they had already paid for. Given that researchers are not paid to carry out peer review either, many began to see publishers as a greedy and manipulative enemy.
Yet one reason for the rise in prices has been the 4% per year growth in the number of published papers since the 1960s. There are now hundreds of journals in physics alone and in 2010 a staggering 116,000 papers were published in physics, according to the Science Citation Index, part of Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science database. Moreover, researchers have come to rely on the publishing industry, needing to publish papers in properly peer-reviewed journals to further their careers and to ensure that their research is clearly communicated, can be easily discovered and is safely archived.
But many of the benefits of the publishing industry hold no truck with some researchers. In January 2012, for example, the University of Cambridge mathematician and Fields Medal winner Timothy Gowers created “The cost of knowledge” petition calling on researchers to boycott the Netherlands-based publisher Elsevier over its “exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individual journals”. The petition has since been signed by some 13,000 people. A month later 34 academics – including Gowers – penned a statement on the reasons behind the boycott, pointing to the decreasing costs of distribution and claiming that scientists now do most of the typesetting for their papers anyway (a fact disputed by publishers). “Elsevier and Springer as well as a number of other commercial publishers all exploit our volunteer labour to extract very large profits from the academic community,” the authors complained. “They supply some value in the process, but nothing like enough to justify their prices.”
Another vocal critic of the science-publishing industry has been astronomer Peter Coles from the University of Sussex. “Publishers want a much higher fee than [the real cost of publishing a paper on the Internet] because they want to maintain their eye-watering profit margins, despite the fact that the ‘service’ they provide has been rendered entirely obsolete by digital technologies,” Coles claimed on his blog In the Dark earlier this year. Yet publishers have been fighting back, pointing out that scientists often do not understand how the publishing industry operates and highlighting the many valuable – and expensive – functions they provide to the scientific community. In addition to the often complex process of managing peer review, these include everything from developing and maintaining IT systems to checking papers through plagiarism detection software – none of which comes cheap (see “The value publishers bring”).
Going for gold
Physics is often thought of as a pioneer in open-access publishing. After all, since 1991 physicists have been able to post their papers before they are sent to a journal for peer review on the free-to-access arXiv preprint server. The website’s $820,000 per year costs are mostly funded by Cornell University as well as the Simons Foundation – a private body based in New York that supports research in the basic sciences. Over the last 20 years arXiv has been a huge success, with the site now containing more than 770,000 papers, with some 7000 additional papers being added each month, compared with just 500 per month a decade ago.
While arXiv is widely used in certain fields of physics, it mostly contains preprints and accepted manuscripts but few final, published versions of papers. To increase the number of such final articles that can be publicly accessed at no charge, in September 2011 the UK government commissioned a report into the matter. Led by the sociologist Janet Finch, the report aimed to reach a consensus on an open-access policy among universities, libraries, researchers, learned societies and publishers – all of which were represented on the Finch panel.
After the report was published in June 2012, the UK government “widely accepted” its recommendations, which included favouring what is known as “gold” open access over “green”. Rather than it being free to publish a paper, gold involves an author paying an upfront article processing charge (APC) to the publisher to make the final version of the paper immediately available on an open-access basis and with the author having extensive rights of reuse. Green, meanwhile, refers to a published paper being initially placed behind a publisher’s paywall but where – after a certain embargo period of typically 12 months or more – the researcher is then allowed to place the accepted manuscript in a centralized free-to-access repository (see figure 1). According to analysis by Stevan Harnad of the University of Southampton, currently about 33% of all papers in physics are in some way free to read online, with the vast majority (32% of the total) being green (1% being gold). Based on the number of articles indexed by Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science database, this would amount to around 40,500 articles in physics being open access.
The Finch report also recommended that if a particular journal did not support gold publication, researchers would be required to place their accepted manuscripts in a free repository within six months of publication. If funding is not provided for gold publication, publishers could extend the embargo period before papers can be made freely available from six months to 12.
The UK government estimates that the costs of such a gold open-access policy – through paying for APCs – would amount to around 1% of the UK’s research budget, or £60m a year. These costs would be met by providing block grants to universities. After the Finch report was published, Research Councils UK (RCUK) – the umbrella organization for the UK’s seven research councils – quickly announced its policy, saying that any scientific paper that results from research wholly or partially funded by RCUK must be published either in an open-access journal or in a journal that allows accepted manuscripts to be deposited in a free repository. In the latter case, the paper must be put in the repository within six months and must include all changes resulting from peer review.
In March this year, however, confusion over the RCUK’s policy – which differed in some significant aspects from Finch’s recommendations – and how it would be implemented forced RCUK to amend its guidelines. The new policy, which came into effect in April, is more in line with the Finch recommendation and states that if gold open access is available from the publisher and the funds are available from the funder for the APC then the paper should be immediately made available via gold open access. However, if the gold open-access method is available from the publisher but the money is not available for the APC then the paper should be green with an embargo period of 12 months. If there is no gold open-access option via the publisher then the paper should be green open access with an embargo of only six months.
Such revisions – coupled with a hasty implementation of the policy – have led to much confusion in the UK community about open access in general and what it will mean for research budgets. Many are still unclear how exactly gold will be paid for, what will happen if the block grant to a university runs out, and – if they are part of a collaboration – who will foot the bill for the APC. “There is a danger that this level of confusion could turn people away from open access completely,” warns Alma Swan, director of European advocacy at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition – an organization that aims to expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries.
Peter Suber, director of Harvard University’s Office for Scholarly Communication who is also director of the Harvard Open Access Project – an initiative to foster open access – goes further, calling the UK policy a “mistake”. He claims that Finch recommended gold open access to secure the so-far successful business model for publishers that would be guaranteed a payment through the APC.
Suber suggests that while block grants may be intended to introduce price competition and keep APCs at a reasonable level, a problem may originate where there is not enough money to fully cover UK research following the gold route. “This will cause resentment and anger for people who can’t publish,” says Suber, although it will still be possible to publish free in conventional subscription-only journals. But Suber has two related concerns. “One is that policy-makers already think, ‘open access is good, therefore the RCUK policy is good’. The other is that researchers will soon think, ‘the RCUK policy is bad, therefore open access is bad’.” Such a view is shared by Concordia University physicist John Harnad, who is also director of the mathematical physics lab based at Centre de Recherches Mathématiques in Montreal. “This is not in the interests of science or scientists who now face a reduction in funding to pay publishers instead.” Harnad adds that the UK policy is a “really poor development” that is “off the tracks”.
However, Steven Hall, managing director of IOP Publishing, which publishes Physics World, disagrees that the Finch report was driven by publishers. Hall, who sat on the Finch panel, notes that funders were well represented on it and included the Wellcome Trust – a strong advocate of gold open access – and RCUK, which has long provided funding for gold open-access publication through its research grants. “Finch came down in favour of gold open access over green because gold provides immediate access to the version of record of a paper and usually with broad rights of reuse,” says Hall. “But green, which depends on the continuing sustainability of subscription publishing, gives delayed access to an intermediate version of the paper and without the same rights of reuse.”
Hall adds that the problem has been in the implementation, with RCUK “cherry-picking” the Finch recommendations and failing to consult adequately with universities and publishers. He also says there has been a lack of support from the UK government for “transitional costs” to cover the move to open access, leading to resistance from the universities that fear a large part of those costs will fall on them. “There is no reason why in the long run gold should be more costly than the current subscription model; in fact it may be less costly,” says Hall. “But during the transition, and as long as the UK is ahead of the rest of the world, there will be additional costs for the UK.”
Taking a greener view
While the UK is firmly favouring gold open access, the same cannot be said of other countries. In July 2012 the EC announced that from 2014 – the start of its seven-year “Horizon 2020” funding round – all research that is funded from the programme will either have to be accessible immediately via gold open access (with costs being eligible for reimbursement by the EC) or by researchers making their articles available via green no later than six months after publication. The EC also recommended that individual member states take a similar approach, with the goal that 60% of European publicly funded research articles be available under open access by 2016.
Hot on the heels of the EC’s announcement, in February the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) advised all US funding agencies to make papers on research that they support freely available online with a 12-month embargo period as a guideline. This would be similar to a law passed in the US in 2008 that required all researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – mostly in the biomedical field – to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts to the digital archive PubMed Central no later than 12 months after they had been accepted for publication. The new OSTP policy will apply to all federal agencies that spend more than $100m on external research and development. (A bill currently going through Congress could, if passed, extend the NIH green open-access policy to other funding bodies but cut the embargo period from 12 to six months.)
Physicist Paul Ginsparg from Cornell, who developed the arXiv preprint server, says it was “inevitable” that there would eventually be pressure to expand the NIH bill to other federal agencies. “If that effort does succeed in this round, then the remaining inconsistency of [the long embargo] applying only to agencies with budgets above $100m will also have to be dropped before too long,” he adds.
Suber supports the US and EU approach for green open access and even calls for them to go further in terms of a shorter embargo time – possibly with none at all. “There is still no evidence that green open access harms publishers,” he says. “Publishers themselves have been unable to point to any harm from green and that includes lost jobs.” Suber’s point is backed up by Harnad who points to the success of Ginsparg’s arXiv as an assurance that publishers will not be hurt by green open access, even with embargoes of six months or less. “arXiv coexists perfectly well with the publishing industry, and it hasn’t diminished publishers’ revenue,” says Harnad. “So I don’t think publishers are in danger from green.”
But one big question for green is how such repositories would work. Harnad, for example, believes that a repository like arXiv for peer-reviewed published research over a broad range of fields would better serve the community than individual institutional repositories. This would, for example, make it easier to search for papers than if they were held in one of many institutional-only repositories. But who would run and pay for them?
Swartz’s legacy
The open-access movement has also led to numerous new publishers setting up open-access journals and introducing new ways of publishing. This has spawned a wide variety of different models – and fees – for publishing research. PLOS ONE, for example, charges an APC of $1350 per article while newcomer PeerJ allows authors to publish an unlimited number of papers for a one-off fee of just $299. APC values vary according to the differing levels of copy-editing, peer review and rejection rates on offer. One journal, for example, may do light-touch peer review, have little copy-editing and reject very few papers, which means it can charge a lower APC. Another journal, meanwhile, may charge a higher APC because it has a distinctive brand and target audience, undertakes full copy-editing, practises full peer review and ensures only the best quality papers make it in.
Some researchers, however, seem not to be convinced that publishers are adding enough value to justify their subscription – and APC – costs. This has led some scientists to even consider setting up their own journals. In January, for example, a group of mathematicians, led by Tim Gowers, proposed “Episciences”, where researchers would organize the peer-review process themselves and then host the peer-reviewed research on arXiv. But whether this can be made to work remains to be seen.
If open access is ever to become truly widespread, then researchers themselves will need to embrace it
If open access is ever to become truly widespread – making it a default method of publishing – then researchers themselves will need to embrace it. After all, papers are the lifeblood of a scientist’s career – it is the currency they use to get promoted and further their career, enshrined in the epithet of “publish or perish”. Speaking at a meeting on open access at the Royal Society in February, chemist Tom Welton from Imperial College London spoke about a pilot scheme at the university whereby people in his department could access a pot of money to make their papers open access. When hardly anyone took up the funds, this led him to conclude that many are not interested in open access. “Open access will only happen if academics want it,” he said. “And researchers will only do it if it gives us prestige.”
Another word of caution at the Royal Society meeting came from optical physicist Miles Padgett from the University of Glasgow, who is also its dean of research. Although he says academics broadly support sustainable open access, in his view “very few” insist on publishing their papers in open-access journals. “Ideally we don’t want to start taking money away from core science to fund open access,” Padgett warns. “And we certainly don’t want to go down the route where a lack of funds means that we have to make a decision who can publish or not.”
Those views are echoed by Hall. “What we need is a shift away from arguments that open-access publishing is good and subscription publishing is bad, or vice versa, and more towards a discussion of what researchers want,” says Hall. “Do they want rigorous pre-publication peer review, copy-editing and publication in a journal aimed specifically at their research community, or light-touch peer review, no copy-editing and publication in a ‘database journal’ alongside papers in completely different disciplines?” Hall adds that it is likely that both types of publishing will have a role to play given the increasing numbers of papers that are published each year. “But it must be recognized that they have different costs, regardless of whether the underlying business model is subscription or open access.”
While researchers are still coming to terms with what open access will mean regarding how they publish, the elephant in the room could be “open data” – an issue that Swartz campaigned for. This would go much further than researchers just posting their finalized paper in a freely available online repository but also, via some mechanism, publishing their data, allowing other scientists to use it and publish their own work based on it.
Alma Swan goes further, predicting that the currency of the scientists’ output in the future will shift from papers to raw data. “Data needs to be put out there so scientists can use it,” she says. “It won’t be the paper but the data that gets you credit.” Yet requiring access to the underlying data will be much more contentious, as a result of various privacy and commercial issues. Ginsparg, for one, thinks that open data will remain a largely voluntary activity for now.
Few would doubt that open-access publishing is here to stay, with researchers and funders only beginning to understand the various open-access policies and what it will mean for their work and budgets. But with all the differences and confusion casting open access in a slightly bad light, it is now at least prominent in the minds of researchers. We are firmly on the path to open access, but it will continue to be a long and bumpy road.
The value publishers bring
One common complaint by researchers about publishers is that the scientists do the work but then have to pay to read or access the research they have published. Researchers question why these companies deserve to make money out of the work the sciences have carried out. In effect, scientific publishing is an industry where the scientists are both the suppliers and the consumers.
However, publishers point out that they provide a wide range of services between the point at which a paper is submitted for review and its use by another scientist. In particular, they facilitate peer review through their editorial systems and referee databases, and produce high-quality final published versions of articles as well as a range of post-publication services to help the paper be cited and discovered.
In the case of IOP Publishing, which is wholly owned by the Institute of Physics and publishes Physics World, the journals publication process is run by four distinct roles – the publishing administrator, the publishing editor, the production editor and the publisher. The administrator handles all correspondence with authors and referees. The publishing editor helps select the referees and, in consultation with the editorial board, makes decisions based on those reports, typically handling around 1000 submissions per year. (IOP Publishing is something of an exception in this regard as peer review at many other publishers is handled by external editors rather than the journal’s own staff). The production editor manages the copy-editing and laying out the content in the journal’s style, while the publisher works closely with the editorial board as well as on the strategy and development of the journal.
Ensuring that the peer-review process is fair, rigorous and fast is a time-consuming job. Editors closely monitor all aspects, including chasing referees for their reviews, managing the referee pool to ensure that reviewers are not over-used, and providing ongoing help and advice to new reviewers, with workshops held to educate new reviewers about the process. “Peer review is a service to authors designed ultimately to improve a paper regardless of whether it is accepted or rejected,” says Tim Smith, a senior publisher at IOP Publishing.
Publishers can add value elsewhere too. Editors and editorial boards can help to shape a particular field by publishing special issues or give focus to new burgeoning areas. Publishers maintain complex IT systems to ensure papers are properly archived and can be rapidly accessed and that they follow accepted standards for referencing material and searches for content. Publishers also do additional checks, including putting papers through plagiarism detection software such as CrossCheck. IOP Publishing was an early funder of CrossRef – a service that enables proper linking between papers and journals – and more recently has contributed funding for ORCID, which aims to provide every author with a unique ID so that there is no confusion between papers published by people with similar or identical names.
In the case of IOP Publishing, new services are being added such as “video abstracts” for papers, which let researchers submit a short video explaining in simple terms the significance of their new research. Editors will also identify specific papers for press release and other promotional activity, helping to improve the visibility and impact of an author’s work to a wider audience. Meanwhile, all profits from IOP Publishing go back to the Institute of Physics, where the money is used for a wide variety of activities to support the international physics community, such as educational projects, advising government and research funding bodies, as well as promoting physics careers, improving teacher training and supporting the international development of physics through schemes such as IOP for Africa. |
Like film stills from a 600-million year-old blockbuster, Blakey's maps take us back to the Precambrian—but there are much older eras still, stretching unmapped into far earlier continents and seas, and there are many more billions of years of continental evolution to come. Blakey talked us through some of the most complex changes in recent geological history, including the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean, and he allowed himself to speculate, albeit briefly, about where Earth's continental crust might yet be headed (including a possible supercontinent in the Antarctic).
Many of Blakey's maps are collected in the book Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau, written with Wayne Ranney, where Blakey also describes some of the research and methods that went into producing them. Blakey also contributed to the recent, new edition of a textbook by Wolfgang Frisch and Martin Meschede, Plate Tectonics: Continental Drift and Mountain Building, a thorough exploration of landscapes disassembling and colliding over vast spans of time.
Geoff Manaugh: When I first discovered your maps showing the gradual tectonic re-location of the continents over hundreds of millions of years, I thought this was exactly what geologists should be doing: offering clear, step-by-step visual narratives of the evolution of the earth’s surface so that people can better understand the planet we live on. What inspired you to make the maps, and how did you first got started with them?
Ronald Blakey: Well, the very first maps I made were in conjunction with my doctoral thesis, back in the early 1970s. Those were made with pen and ink. I made sketches to show what the paleogeography would have looked like for the specific formation I was studying with my doctorate. Three or four of those maps went into the thesis, which was then published by the Utah Geologic Survey. I’ve also done a number of papers over the years where I’ve made sketches.
But I was late getting into the computer. Basically, during my graduate work I never used a computer for anything. I kind of resisted it, because, for the kind of work I was doing, I just didn’t see a need for it — I didn’t do quantifiable kinds of things. Then, of course, along comes email and the Internet. I actually forget when I first started with Photoshop — probably in the mid-1990s. When I found that, I just thought, wow: the power of this is incredible. I quickly learned how to use the cloning tool, so that I could clone modern topography onto ancient maps, and that made things even simpler yet.
Another thing I started doing was putting these maps into presentations. There were something like five different programs back there, in the late 90s, but the only one that survived was PowerPoint—which is too bad, because it was far from the best of the programs. I was using a program called Astound, which was far superior, particularly in the transitions between screens. I could do simple animations. I could make the tectonic plates move, create mountain belts, and so forth.
I retired in May of 2009, but all of my early maps are now online. With each generation of maps that I’ve done, there has been a noted improvement over earlier maps. I find new techniques and, when you work with Photoshop as much as I do, you learn new ideas and you find ways to make things that were a little clumsy look more smooth.
Manaugh: Where does the data come from?
Blakey: It comes from various publications. You can get a publication and have that PDF open, showing what something looked like in the past, and work from that. Usually, what I’m working from are fairly simple sketches published in the literature. They’ll show a subduction zone and a series of violent arcs, or a collision zone. What I do is take this information and make it more pictorial.
If you create a series of maps in sequence, you can create them in such a way that certain geologic events, from one time slice to the next, to the next, to the next, will blend. It depends a lot on the scale of what you’re trying to show—the whole world versus just four or five states in the West.
Now, throughout the years from, let’s say, 2004 until I retired in 2009, I kept improving the website. I envisioned most of this as educational material, and I didn’t pay much attention to who used it, how they used it, and so forth. But, then, shortly before I retired, various book companies and museums—and, most recently, oil companies—have approached me. So I started selling these and I tried very diligently not to allow this to overlap with what I was doing for my teaching and my research at the University.
In the following long sequence of images, we see the evolution of the west coast of North America, its state boundaries ghosted in for reference. Sea levels rise and fall; island chains emerge and collide; mountains forms; inland seas proliferate and drain; and, eventually, modern day California, Vancouver Island, and the Baja peninsula take shape, among other recognizable features. The time frame represented by these images is approximately 500 million years. All maps by Ron Blakey.
Nicola Twilley: What do the oil companies want them for?
Blakey: They’re my biggest customers now. Usually, the geologists at oil companies are working with people who know either much less geology than they do or, in some cases, almost no geology at all, yet they’re trying to convince these people that this is where they need to explore, or this is what they need to do next.
They find these maps very useful to show what the Devonian of North Dakota looked like, for example, which is a hot spot right now with all the shales that they’re developing in the Williston Basin. What they like is that I show what the area might have really looked like. This helps, particularly with people who have only a modest understanding of geology, particularly the geologic past.
Manaugh: What have been some of the most difficult regions or geological eras to map?
Blakey: The most difficult thing to depict is back in the Paleozoic and the Mesozoic. Large areas of the continent were flooded, deep into the interior.
During certain periods, like the Ordovician, the Devonian, and parts of the Jurassic—especially the Cretaceous—as much as two-thirds of the continents were underwater. But they’re still continents; they’re still continental crusts. They’re not oceans. The sea level was just high enough, with respect to where the landscape was at the time, that the area was flooded. Of course, this is a concept that non-geologists really have problems with, because they don’t understand the processes of how continents get uplifted and subside and erode and so forth, but this is one of the concepts that my maps show quite nicely: the seas coming in and retreating.
But it’s very difficult—I mean, there is no modern analog for a seaway that stretched from the Mackenzie River Delta in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and that was 400 miles wide. There’s nothing like that on Earth today. But the styles of mountains have not dramatically changed over the last probably two billion years—maybe even longer than that. I don’t go back that far—I tend to stick with the last 600 million years or so—but the styles of mountains haven’t changed. The nature of island arcs hasn’t changed, as far as we know.
What has changed is the amount of vegetation on the landscape. My maps that are in the early part of the Paleozoic—the Cambrian and the Ordovician early part of the Silurian—tend to be drab-colored. Then, in the late Silurian and in the Devonian, when the land plants developed, I start bringing vegetation colors in. I try to show the broad patterns of climate. Not in detail, of course—there’s a lot of controversy about certain paleoclimates. But, basically, paleoclimates follow the same kinds of regimens that the modern climates are following: where the oceans are, where the equator is, where the mountain ranges are, and so forth.
That means you can make broad predictions about what a paleoclimate would have been based on its relationship to the equator or based on the presence or absence of nearby mountains. I use these kinds of principles to show more arid areas versus more humid areas.
The next three sequences show the evolution of the Earth's surface in reverse, from the present day to, at the very bottom, 600 million years ago, when nearly all of the planet's landmasses were joined together in the Antarctic. The first sequence shows roughly 90 million years of backward evolution, the continents pulling apart from one another and beginning a slow drift south. They were mapped using the Mollweide projection, and, in all cases, are by Ron Blakey.
Twilley: And you paint the arid area based on a contemporary analog?
Blakey: Right. I know the modern world reasonably well and I’ll choose something today that might have matched the texture and aridity of that older landscape.
I use a program called GeoMapApp that gives me digital elevation maps for anywhere in the world. Most recently, they have coupled it with what they call the “Blue Marble.” NASA has stitched together a bunch of satellite photos of the world in such a way that you can’t tell where one series of photos come in or another. It’s a fairly true-color representation of what Earth would look like from space. So this Blue Marble is coupled with the GeoMapApp’s digital elevation topography; you put the Blue Marble over it, and you use a little slider to let the topography show through, and it gives you a fairly realistic looking picture of what you’re looking for.
For example, if I’m working with a mountain range in the southern Appalachians for a Devonian map—well, the southern Appalachians, during the Devonian, were probably far enough away from the equator that it was in the arid belt. There are some indications of that, as well—salt deposits in the Michigan Basin and in parts of New York and so forth. Plus, there are red-colored sediments, which don’t prove but tend to indicate arid environments. This combination tells me that this part of the world was fairly arid. So I’m going to places like modern Afghanistan, extreme western China, northern Turkey, or other places where there are somewhat arid climates with mountain belts today. Then I clone the mountains from there and put them in the map.
But you have to know the geologic background. You have to know how the mountains were formed, what the grain of the mountains was. That’s not always easy, although there are ways of doing it. To know the grain of the mountains, you need to know where the hinterland and the center of the mountains were. You need to know where the foreland area is, so that you can show the different styles of mountains. You have to move from foreland areas—which tends to be a series of parallel ridges, usually much lower than the hinterlands—to the center and beyond.
I use this kind of information to pick the right kind of modern mountain to put back in the Devonian, based on what that Devonian landscape probably had a good chance of looking like. Do we know for certain? Of course not. We weren’t around in the Devonian. But we have a good rock record and we have a lot of information; so we use that information and, then, voilà.
To give another example, let’s look at the Devonian period of the east coast. The big European continent that we call Baltica collided with Greenland and a series of micro-continents collided further south, all the way down at least as far as New Jersey, if not down as far the Carolinas. We know that there are places on Earth today where these same kinds of collisions are taking place—in the Alps and Mediterranean region, and the Caucasus region, and so forth.
We can use the concept that, if two plates are colliding today to produce the Caucasus mountains, and if we look at the style of mountains that the Caucasus are, then it’s reasonable to think that, where Greenland and Baltica collided in the Silurian and the Devonian, the mountains would have had a similar style. So we can map that.
This second sequence shows the continents drifting apart, in reverse, from 105 million years ago to 240 million years ago. They were mapped using the Mollweide projection, and, in all cases, are by Ron Blakey.
Manaugh: That collision alone—Baltica and Greenland—sounds like something that would be extremely difficult to map.
Blakey: Absolutely. And it’s not a one-to-one relationship. You have to look at the whole pattern of how the plates collided, how big the plates were, and so forth.
Then there’s the question of the different histories of particular plates. So, for example, most of Scotland started out as North America. Then, when all the continents collided to form Pangaea, the first collisions took place in the Silurian-Devonian and the final collisions took place in the Pennsylvanian-Permian. By, say, 250 million years ago, most of the continents were together. Then, when they started to split apart in the Triassic and Jurassic—especially in the Triassic and Cretaceous—the split occurred in such a way that what had been part of North America was actually captured, if you will, by Europe and taken over to become the British Isles.
Scotland and at least the northern half of Ireland were captured and began to drift with Europe. On the other hand, North America picked up Florida—which used to be part of Gondwana—and so forth.
One of the things that is interesting is the way that, when mountains come together and then finally break up, they usually don’t break up the same way that they came together. Sometimes they do, but it has to do with weaknesses, stress patterns, and things like this. Obviously, all time is extremely relative, but mountains don’t last that long. A given mountain range that’s been formed by a simple collision—not that there’s any such thing as a simple collision—once that collision is over with, 40 or 50 million years after that event, there is only low-lying landscape. It may have even have split apart already into a new ocean basin.
But here’s the important part: the structure that was created by that collision is still there, even though the mountains have been worn down. It’s like when you cut a piece of wood: the grain is still inherited from when that tree grew. The pattern of the grain still shows where the branches were, and the direction of the tree’s growth in response to wind and sun and its neighbors. You can’t reconstruct the tree exactly from its grain, but, if you’re an expert with wood, you should be able to look and say: here are the tree rings, and here’s a year where the tree grew fast, here’s a year where the tree grew slow, here’s where the tree grew branches, etc.
In a sense, as geologists, we’re doing the same things with rock structure. We can tell by the pattern of how the rocks are deformed which direction the forces came from. With mountains, you can tell the angle at which the plates collided. It’s usually very oblique. What that tends to do is complicate the geologic structure, because you not only get things moving one way, but you get things dragging the other way, as well. But we can usually tell the angle at which the plates hit.
Then, in many cases, based upon the nature of how the crust has been deformed and stacked up, we can tell the severity of the mountain range. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we can say: oh, this structure would have been a twenty-thousand-foot high mountain range. It’s not that simple at all, not least of which because rocks can deform pretty severely without making towering mountains.
This final of the three global sequences shows the continents drifting apart, in reverse, from 260 million years ago to 600 million years ago. There was still nearly 4 billion years of tectonic evolution prior to where these maps begin. They were mapped using the Mollweide projection, and, in all cases, are by Ron Blakey.
Manaugh: Are you able to project these same tectonic movements and geological processes into the future and show what the earth might look like in, say, 250 million years?
Blakey: I’ve had a number of people ask me about that, so I did make some global maps. I think I made six of them at about 50-million-year intervals. For the fifteen to 100-million-year range, I think you can say they are fairly realistic. But, once you get much past 75 to 100 million years, it starts to get really, really speculative. The plates do strange things. I’ll give you just a couple of quick examples.
The Atlantic Ocean opened in the beginning of the Jurassic. The actual opening probably started off the coasts of roughly what is now Connecticut down to the Carolinas. That’s where the first opening started. So the central part of the Atlantic was the first part to open up. It opened up reasonably simply—but, again, I’m using the word simple with caution here.
The north Atlantic, meanwhile, didn’t open up until about 60 to 50 million years ago. When it opened up, it did a bunch of strange things. The first opening took place between Britain and an offshore bank that’s mostly submerged, called Rockall. Rockall is out in the Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Ireland — near Iceland — but it’s continental crust. That splitting process went on for, let’s say, ten million years or so — I’m just going to talk in broad terms—as the ocean started opening up.
Then the whole thing jumped. A second opening began over between Greenland and North America, as Greenland and North America began to separate off. That lasted for a good 40 or 50 million years. That’s where you now get the Labrador Sea; that is actual ocean crust. So that was the Atlantic Ocean for thirty or forty million years — but then it jumped again, this time over between Greenland and what is now the west coast of Europe. It started opening up over there, before it jumped yet again. There’s an island in the middle of the North Atlantic, way the heck up there, called Jan Mayen. At one time, it was actually part of Greenland. The Atlantic opened between it and Greenland and then shifted to the other side and made its final opening.
The following two sequences show the evolution of Europe from an Antarctic archipelago to a tropical island chain to the present day Europe we know and recognize. The first sequence starts roughly 450 million years ago and continues to the Jurassic, 200 million years ago. All maps by Ron Blakey.
So it’s very complicated. And that’s just the Atlantic Ocean.
The Northern Atlantic took at least five different paths before the final path was established, and it’s all still changing. In fact, the south Atlantic is actually even worse; it’s an even bigger mess. You’ve got multiple openings between southwest Africa and Argentina, plus Antarctica was up in there before it pulled away to the south.
These complications are what makes this stuff so interesting. If we look at events that we can understand pretty well over the last, let’s say, 150 or 200 million years of time—where we have a good indication of where the oceans were because we still have ocean crusts of that age—then we can extrapolate from that back to past times when oceans were created and destroyed. We can follow the rules that are going on today to see all of the oddities and the exceptions and so forth.
These are the kinds of things I try to keep track of when I’m making these maps. I’m always asking: what do we know? Was it a simple pull-apart process? There are examples where continents started to split across from one another, then came back together, then re-split in a different spot later on. That’s not just speculation—there is geologic evidence for this in the rock record.
So, when it comes to extrapolating future geologies, things become very complicated very quickly. If you start thinking about the behavior of the north Atlantic, creating a projection based on what’s going on today seems, at first, like a fairly simple chore. North America is going on a northwesterly path at only one or two centimeters a year. Europe is moving away, at almost a right angle, at about another centimeter a year. So the Atlantic is only opening at three centimeters a year; it’s one of the slowest-opening oceans right now.
OK, fine—but what else is happening? The Caribbean is pushing up into the Atlantic and, off South America, there is the Scotia Arc. Both of those are growing. They’ve also identified what looks like a new island arc off the western Mediterranean region; that eventually would start to close the Atlantic in that area. Now you start to speculate: well, these arcs will start to grow, and they’ll start to eat into the oceans, and subduct the crusts, and so forth.
Again, for the first 50, 75, or even 100 million years, you can say that these particular movements are fairly likely. But, once you get past that, you can still use geologic principles, but you’re just speculating as to which way the continents are going to go.
For instance, the one continent that does not seem to be moving at all right now, relative to anything else, is Antarctica. It seems to be really fixed on the South Pole. That’s why some people think that everything will actually coagulate back towards the South Pole. However, there are also a bunch of subduction zones today along southern Asia, and those are pretty strong subduction zones. Those are the ones that created the big tsunami, and all the earthquakes off of Indonesia and so forth. Eventually, those could pull either parts of Antarctica or all of Antarctica up toward them.
But I’m more interested in reconstructing the past than I am the future, so I’ve only played around with those five or six maps.
This second sequence, showing the next phase in the evolution of Europe, begins approximately 150 million years ago and extends to the present day. All maps by Ron Blakey.
Manaugh: To ground things a bit, we’re having this conversation in Flagstaff, on the Colorado Plateau, which seems like a great place to teach geology. I wonder whether there might be another Colorado Plateau, so to speak, elsewhere in the world—something geologically similar to the extraordinary landscapes we see here that just hasn’t had the chance to emerge. Maybe the tectonics aren’t right, and it’s still just a crack, rather than a canyon, or maybe it’s covered in vegetation or ice so we can’t see it yet. Conversely, I’m curious if you might have found evidence of other great geological districts in the earth’s past—lost Grand Canyons, other Arches National Parks—that have been lost to time. How could we detect those, and where are they?
Blakey: This is indeed a great place to teach geology. It’s a great place to live.
As for Colorado Plateau analogs—it’s an interesting question. There’s an area in South America that I’d say is fairly similar. It’s got a couple of famous national parks that I can't remember the name of. It’s a smaller version, but it’s very similar to the Colorado Plateau. It’s between the Andes and the Amazon basin, part of the general pampas region there of South America. It even has similarly aged rocks. Parts of northern Africa would also be similar.
But you have to look at all the characteristics of the Plateau. Number one: the rocks are flat. Number two: the rocks have been uplifted. Number three: the rocks are dissected by a major river system. Number four: it’s a semi-arid climate. There are probably five or six defining characteristics in total, and I’ve heard many people say that there is no other place else on Earth that has all those characteristics in exactly the same way. But I went to an area in eastern Mauritania many years ago, where, for all the world, it looked like the Grand Canyon. It wasn’t as colorful, but it was a big, deep canyon.
In fact, the Appalachian Plateau would be somewhat similar, except it’s in a humid climate, which means the land has been shaped and formed differently. But the Appalachian plateau has flat-lying rocks; it’s dissected by some major rivers; it’s experienced uplift; and so forth.
The next two sequences of images, followed from left to right, top to bottom, illustrate the gradual evolution of the Colorado Plateau, where, in its modern day incarnation, this interview with Ron Blakey took place (specifically, in Flagstaff, Arizona). The earliest map included here depicts the Proterozoic; the first sequence ends in the Triassic. All maps by Ron Blakey.
Twilley: I’m interested in the representational challenges you face when you decide to make a map, and, specifically, when you’re in Photoshop, what your most-used tools might be. I thought it was fascinating when you said that the cloning tool really changed how you make geological maps. What other techniques are important to you, in order to represent geological histories?
Blakey: Oh, the cloning tool is the most important, by far—at least when I’m actually painting. Of course, I use the outline tool to select areas, but, when I’m actually painting, it would be impossible to paint these different maps pixel by pixel. I couldn’t do it. Occasionally, I will actually hand-draw some things in the flatlands, where I want to put a river system, for example, but, at least for mountains and rugged terrain, I clone everything.
Some times, I’ll cut and paste. I’ll select an area in the GeoMapApp, I save it as a JPEG, and then I can select it and copy it and paste it in, and I can rotate and deform it a little bit. Are you familiar with the warp tool in Photoshop? I use that a lot, because you can change the shape of mountains a little. If you do it too dramatically, it really looks flaky. But, if you do it right, it still looks pretty realistic.
This second sequence, also showing the evolution of the Colorado Plateau, begins with the Triassic and ends roughly 5 million years ago—basically the present day, in geological terms. All maps by Ron Blakey.
Twilley: And do you have certain filters you rely on for particular geological effects?
Blakey: A little bit. I like to use the craquelure filter. It actually gives you little bumps and valleys and so forth. I use that especially for continental margins. Continental margins are anything but regular slopes, going down to the abyssal depths. They’re very irregular. There are landslides and all kinds of things going on there at the margins, so I add a little texture with craquelure.
It can be difficult to use, though, and it doesn’t work at really high resolutions—so, what I actually have to do some times, is that I will actually copy a part of my map, take it out, make it smaller, do the craquelure on it, and then blow it back up and paste it in again.
Dee Blakey, Ron's Wife: I think the other reason that he can do what he does is that he paints. That’s one of his paintings, that one over there [gestures above fireplace].
Blakey: Well, I guess I should have said that right away, when you asked me why I got interested in this, because I am interested in the artistic aspect of geology. The artistic aspect of science, in general, but especially geology. Astronomy, for example, would be another field where artistic visualizations are useful—any time you’re trying to show things that can’t easily be visualized with something comparable here on present-day planet Earth, you have to use an artistic interpretation.
Anyway, I can’t explain it, but I understand color pretty well. I use the hue saturation tool a lot. I’ll select an area and then I’ll feather it, let’s say, because you don’t want the edges to be sharp. I’ll feather it by thirty, forty, fifty pixels. Then I'll take the slider for hue saturation, where, if you go to the left, you make things redder and, if you go to the right, you make things greener. If I’ve got a landscape that looks a little too humid, I’ll just slide it slightly to the left to make it a bit redder. You can also change the lightness and darkness when you do that. There’s also regular saturation. By killing the saturation, you can really kill the nature of a landscape quite a bit.
And I use hue saturation a lot. That took me a long time to master, because it’s really easy to screw things up with that tool. You start sliding things a little too far and, whoa—wait a minute! All of a sudden, you’ve got purple mountains. |
To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.
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Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted (©) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. |
By David George-Cosh
Associated Press
Can baseball make a comeback in Montreal? Mais oui.
That’s the conclusion of a study that explored the financial viability of seeing Major League Baseball return to a city that hasn’t seen a professional baseball game since the Montreal Expos flocked to Washington D.C. at the end of the 2004 season.
“Based on several realistic assumptions, including broadcasting revenues and ticket sales similar to MLB averages, baseball’s return to Montreal is definitely feasible,” Warren Cromartie, president and founder of the Montreal Baseball Project and former Expos player, said in a statement. His group, along with the Board of Trade of Greater Montreal and other partners, commissioned the study.
Before baseball could return to the city, though, Montreal needs a new baseball stadium, and one-third of the cost of the estimate total 1.025 billion Canadian dollar ($963 million) cost should come from public funds, the group said. |
I just wanted to put my two pence in here, being a massive fan of the SoulsBorne games and a woman.
I feel like you've missed one of the main points that makes the Souls games so good, both in terms of story narrative and gender roles. Gender doesn't matter. It really doesn't. That's why the games don't focus on it, that's why the community doesn't discuss it. There's no need, because there's no emphasis on gender differences. Your character can be a man or a woman, and dialogue doesn't change. To me as a woman, that is perfect representation. No one cares if I'm a man or a woman, and isn't that kind of the idea of equality? When people no longer bother about your gender, it no longer dictates stereotypes placed upon you, or the perceived strengths and limitations of you gender.
Now, I understand that a fair amount of bad things happen to women in the games, but you can't ignore all of the awful stuff that happens to men either. And to be fair, there are some terrible things that happen to swaths of people regardless of their gender (Oolacile, New Londo, the whole undead curse even). You seemed to zone it way too much on a couple of instances where one woman has had some terrible things happen to her, and ignored all of the powerful women.
I'm in the boat that women hold some of the most powerful and influential roles in the games. All Firekeepers are women. Firekeepers are hives for Humanity, the powerful forces driving all of mankind. Firekeepers alone keep the fires burning by burning this almost limitless pool of Humanity within themselves. Then we have the Queens of Dark Souls 2. All of the Kings and kingdoms rise and fall because of the manipulations of the Queens. Nashandra is the final boss before gaining access to the Throne of Want. Hell, even Sieglinde is way, way more independent than her father; do you not remember how Siegmeyer only progresses because of your constant help? He's quite useless on his own, whereas we help Sieglinde once, and she makes her way to her father unaided after that.
I could go on and on. Basically, I feel like you are mixing up what makes a 'strong female' character. They do not have to be physically powerful, and they do not have to be completely and utterly independent of men. What they need to have is an interesting and engaging personality, with hopes, dreams, accomplishments, failures and regrets. They need to be human; flawed, but strong in their own way. Some can be weak, useless priestesses; others can be tyrannical fiends driving all those who love them into despair in their lust for power. And that's exactly what Dark Souls does, it gives us a real variety of women, from all sorts of backgrounds and positions of power. That's being too narrow even; all of the characters are interesting and unique, regardless of gender.
I would be interested in reading the whole thesis, to see where you're trying to come from with this. Perhaps it's due to the nature of the piece, but your conclusion isn't very, well, conclusive. This isn't my area of expertise though; I'm more used to scientific papers, so maybe that's why it seems very indecisive and opinionated instead of simply presenting the facts.
Why did you decide not to post the entire thesis? No offence, but it won't contain anything groundbreaking that could be patented, so why not give us the full picture? What was you degree in by the way?
Also, please don't take what I've stated above as an insult, it's genuinely interesting and important to have such discussions :) |
Acer Inc. is planning to launch an Android tablet priced around US$99 early next year, says a person with direct knowledge of the project. The world’s fourth-largest PC maker by shipments hopes to be the first big-brand company to launch a tablet priced to jostle with Chinese white-box tablet makers for consumers in developing countries.
At seven inches with a 1024 x 600 resolution screen and 1.2GHz dual-core processor, the so-called Iconia B1 tablet will have somewhat similar specs to Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Inc.’s Nook Color. But Acer plans to undercut those best-selling tablets’ US$139 price tag by offering the Iconia B1 for around 99 bucks, the person says. The final shelf price will be determined country-by-country.
There is an asterisk, of course: It’s aimed at emerging markets. While the device has been submitted to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for clearance, it’s uncertain whether it will actually be sold stateside. |
There are a number of posts here speaking to what you should do about a fake boyfriend or do with your current friends--that is fine advice, as you see fit. What I want to comment on is how you go about the future:
You stated finding the right person and having a family is important to you (and part of what will make you happy). That means you will have to work, and likely work hard, at being the type of person that those people will want to date; let me explain. No athlete who throws a 100 mph fastball or swishes 3 point shots like Curry gets to pinnacle of their career with halfhearted effort; you need to make finding a husband a priority in both effort and time and have your MVP year(s) at dating.
To be good at dating, you need to become the best YOU as well. This applies to personal issues as well as social ones: Get a haircut, shower regularly, keep your place neat and clean, trim your nails, dress appropriately and in ways that make you confident and comfortable. Also, return your friend's & family's phone calls in a timely way, look people in the eyes during conversations at work or in public, dedicate honest time and effort at hobbies and sports that interest you, make sure to have read a book recently, be at least topically familiar with current events.
The goal is to make yourself into the best version of yourself that you know you can be. Clean, respectable, put-together, and interesting . I highlight the last part because it is arguably the most important--you are interesting by definition, you are the smallest minority on the planet, the minority of one. What is your story? What are your thoughts? What are the things you are interested in? why? If you can't answer those questions, why would a complete stranger take time, money, and effort to find them out about you? Have a story to tell!
The next step is the hardest one: set time aside every week for "project find hard . This feels overwhelming . This is the part that is easiest to give up on and not follow through with. You will be initially uncomfortable, it is a certainty, and you will not feel like you are being successful. The next step is the hardest one: set time aside every week for "project find u/ohsotender a husband." You have to actually do this part, too, you can't just say you do. It doesn't matter if you are working the dating websites, going to the bars, a tinder user, a patron of the local museum, whatever; you have to force yourself into the public sphere (separate and apart from "hanging out with friends") and interact with people you don't know... and become good at it. You won't find the right mate without making a new friend first, and your goal is to make a bunch of new friends, as an adult, and one best-friend with which things will work out forever. This is. This feels. This is the part that is easiest to give up on and not follow through with. You will be initially uncomfortable, it is a certainty, and you will not feel like you are being successful.
You cannot waiver. Stick with it. Keep yourself dedicated to that time you set aside every week for its purpose.
Eventually, you will get more comfortable with social interactions and new places with new people. You might even grow to enjoy it--"hey, there might be some really cool people at this party!" This is when you will find success--when after all the steps to make yourself the best person possible pay off. You are now that person, not the person from previous. Now, you are set up to make new friends, especially guy friends you are interested in, who will like you, your ideas, your hobbies/interests, your social confidence, and will grow to love you for them.
From there? Get married and have that family. |
2018 Monte-Carlo route revealed
The Automobile Club de Monaco has confirmed details of next year's 86th Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo, the opening round of the 2018 FIA World Rally Championship.
The event will run from 25-28 January from a service base in the town of Gap, which has hosted the rally for the past four years. The planned route is 50% different to this year's and, as usual, follows an itinerary that is unique in the WRC.
After two-and-a-half days of recce from Monday 22 January, competitors will tackle shakedown at 1600hrs on Wednesday on the same 3.35km stage near Gap that has been used for the last couple of years.
Crews will then transfer south to Monaco ready for Thursday's official start in Casino Square from 1800hrs and two night-time stages in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region: Thoard – Sisteron (SS1 - 37.13km) will be run in the reverse direction for the first time while Bayons – Bréziers (SS2 - 25.49km) will be in the same format as 2017.
On Friday, crews will tackle 150km of stages in the Hautes-Alpes, Drôme and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence regions south of Gap. The longest day of the rally comprises two loops of the same three stages: Vitrolles – Oze (SS3/6 - 26.76km), Roussieux – Eygalayes (SS4/7 - 33.63km) and Vaumeilh – Claret (SS5/8 - 15.24km).
The action shifts north of Gap on Saturday, with stages based in the Isère and Hautes-Alpes regions. The leg begins with a double loop consisting of Agnières-en-Dévoluy – Corps (SS9/11 - 29.33km) followed by Saint-Léger-les-Mélèzes – La Bâtie-Neuve (SS10/12 - 16.71km). Crews will then head south again and repeat Thursday's Bayons – Bréziers (SS13 – 25.49km) stage - this time in daylight - before a final visit to the service park and an evening drive back to Monaco.
Sunday's final leg features four stages in the Alpes-Maritimes that total 63.72km and are run without a service. The drivers will go twice through La Bollène-Vésubie – Peïra-Cava (SS14/16 - 18.30km) and La Cabanette – Col de Braus (SS15/17 - 13.56km) which on the second pass will count as the rally-closing live TV Power Stage.
The event wraps up in traditional fashion when winning crews will be welcomed and honoured at the prize giving ceremony in front of Monaco Prince’s Palace from 1500hrs.
Video
More News |
JANE FERGUSON:
Right.
Not everyone supports the Houthis. Those who hope the exiled President Hadi will return are either too frightened to speak or have left the city. The Houthis are accused of arresting and jailing people opposed to them.
Hostility between the Houthis and the Saudis is not new. The Houthis are Zaidi, followers of a Shia sect of Islam. Saudi Arabia, a majority Sunni country, has accused the Houthis for years of being puppets of Shiite Iran on their doorstep.
But senior Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi denies any relationship with Iran.
"We don't have any links whatsoever with Iran and Iran doesn't have any influence on us," he says. "We are completely independent and separate."
While the rest of the world may view the conflict here in Yemen from the perspective of Shia vs. Sunni power, Saudi Arabia vs. Iran, most Yemenis don't really relate to those sectarian terms.
There isn't really a history of sectarianism in Yemen. And most people here say they are more loyal to their tribe than specific religious sects. The worry, however, is that sectarianism could be brought into Yemen as a result of the region-wide struggle.
You want to sit next to me here?
In Sanaa's Old City, we met Ahmed al-Dhaia, religious teacher at the Grand Mosque.
"Country leaders create these problems to stay in power," he says. "Those people who make these problems, they're not supporting Sunni or Shia. They just want power. They have a lot of money and they want to control all the country."
While the Houthis are strongly anti-American, they're even more anti-al-Qaida. Yemen is home to al-Qaida's most dangerous offshoot, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
And the U.S. has been conducting a drone strike campaign against them for years.
Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee says many here are confused by the U.S.' foreign policy. |
Above: An exclusive video from Unification Media Group shows markets in North Korea’s North Hamgyong Province. Video also available on Youtube (please seek permission from Unification Media group before use or reproduction of the video).
Solar panels have become an iconic symbol of self-sufficiency in North Korea, as residents step up to solve the government’s failings on their own. These trends underscore a dwindling lack of faith in the regime. “The leader [Kim Jong Un] can’t solve the energy problem, so we rely on the markets instead.” said one source in North Hamgyong Province.
An exclusive video of Chongjin City obtained by Daily NK in the beginning of March shows solar panel units attached to family homes.
According to Daily NK’s sources in North Hamgyong Province, a 10 watt array costs approximately 80 yuan (~$11.50), a 30 watt unit costs 240 yuan (~$35), a 50 watt unit sells for 400 yuan (~$58), and a 100 watt array sells for 800 yuan (~$116). Because the units are brought in from China through the Sino-Korean border, they tend to be cheaper near the border area.
The 30 watt units are popular amongst ordinary North Korean families. This is about the same price as 50-60 kilograms of rice in North Korea, making it a hefty sum for the ordinary people. Despite the prohibitive costs, many residents are eager to buy them.
Donju (North Korea’s nouveau riche) and Workers’ Party cadres tend to seek out the more powerful 50 watt units. Occasionally, solar panels manufactured in Japan, South Korea, and Egypt can be found in the markets.
“Until just a few years ago, you really only saw solar panels installed in the private homes of high ranking officials and on the buildings of major factories and trading companies,” said a separate source in North Hamgyong in a telephone call with Daily NK. “But these days, solar panels are widely purchased. In some areas, as many as 30-40% of homes have them installed. Purchasing a solar system remains out of reach for those families who still struggle to make ends, but for those who can afford them, having panels allows people to have lights on in the home at night.”
“In the past, people used to give food or money to neighbors with a solar panel in return for charging their devices. But these days, people prefer to purchase their own. By doing well in the marketplace, it’s possible to save enough over the course of a year to buy a panel fit for average family usage,” he continued.
Due to the costs involved, solar panels are often regarded as the family’s number one asset, and are also targeted by thieves. For this reason, many residents install the units high above a rooftop. In the video attained by Daily NK, numerous solar panels affixed to poles towering above the houses can be seen.
The popularity of solar panels and their reliable provision of electricity has in turn driven demand for consumer appliances. According to the source, residents use the panels to charge a range of different batteries. The batteries are then connected to a 12 volt converter so they can be connected to home appliances. In general, the 50 watt units connect to 55A batteries, and the 30 watt units connect to 28A batteries. Solar panels have driven rising sales of TVs, notetels (personal DVD players), electric rice cookers, transformers, chargers, batteries, cables, and more.
North Korea’s state companies historically manufactured 220 volt appliances as standard. But this has long been considered obsolete technology, and 12 volt Chinese appliances are now commonplace. This has in turn prompted a change in strategy by the state-run enterprises, and now these companies are also manufacturing 12 volt products.
According to Daily NK’s sources inside the country, when Chinese merchants exporting electrical goods to the North realized that the 12 volt products were selling better, they switched over to only sending 12 volt appliances. And now, domestic North Korean goods have switched from 220 to 12, so things have become more convenient for the residents.
The North Korean authorities are still struggling to deliver an effective solution to the country’s chronic power shortages. Since the 1990s, the regime has constructed hydroelectric power plants in a bid to alleviate the issue, but all power produced is first routed to Pyongyang, Kim family idolization buildings, government offices, munitions factories, and military installations.
The chronic power shortages are now being resolved by the marketplace, which has led to declining public sentiment towards the regime.
“The residents are openly complaining that state power generation is worthless,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK. “Food and energy problems are being solved by the markets, and people don’t expect much from the authorities anymore.” |
UFC Fighter Mac Danzig on His Plant Based Diet
By Mac Danzig
Although there are other people at the controls, manning and updating my websites, I do read all of the mail, and the questions I get asked most often (hundreds upon hundreds of times now) are about my diet. All of the emails and letters are so hard to keep up with, so I finally sat down and decided to write a comprehensive look at my diet. I'm writing this on the fly, so even though it's long, I will most certainly leave some important things out.. 'Sorry' about that in advance.
This is not going to be political or preachy. I am not here to push my beliefs on anybody. This is a chance for all of you who have asked for diet advice from me, to get some ideas and hopefully gain a better understanding of how easy it is for me to maintain athletic performance with the foods I consume. In the mean time, I will simply lead by example.
I noticed that a lot of fighters write down what they may generically eat on a given day and simply post that as their "diet". I'm sure this leads to confusion with most readers and still leaves many questions unanswered. My diet, in particular is extremely varied and also very specialized. As you will see, I eat completely differently when I am cutting to 155, than when I am simply in training without having a weight-cut... And even more differently than when I am lazing around, eating whatever I want and getting fat...
By no means whatsoever, is this 'the gospel' of vegan eating... I am just sharing what I do... It may work for you, it may not... Take what works and discard the rest. I can tell you right now, I don't spend nearly as much time doting over my diet as most people think.. I know what to eat and what not to, and following those guidelines, I'm looking to get it done with and get on with my day...
I usually don't have the time to cook, so unless my girlfriend is cooking for me (she's great), or I am eating at a restaurant, I am usually looking for something quick and easy...
A few articles on me have gone into detail on what my daily diet is like... This one in particular stands out: MMA digest article
Also, Mike Mahler happens to be the one person who's diet I followed in the beginning of my change to a vegan diet. He inspired me and I hope I can do the same for some of you... I urge you to check out his diet if you're interested in mine. Mike Mahler
Before I get into specifics, I'd like to address something that ties into the same discussion...
For the record, I cut dairy completely out of my diet in 1999 (over 5 years before I ever committed to a full-Vegan diet)... This was due to an allergy that I developed in my adolescent years to dairy that effected my sinuses and everything connecting to them. For a good part of my teenage years, I suffered from severe ear infections and chronic Vertigo (which is completely miserable). It took me a few years of to finally realize that the antibiotics were only temporarily subduing a much bigger problem. I did my research and finally found the source. A lot of people don't realize how hard milk, whey, and other dairy products are on the sinuses and respiratory system, and the dairy industry would like you to believe that you need milk to get calcium. That notion is as oxymoronic as you can get. Although not everybody has as severe an allergy to dairy products as I did, I just wanted to point out that after years of battling with ear and sinus infections, eliminating dairy completely cured my problems. Anyone with similar problems may want to try it for a while.
Also, let me just say that although protein intake is important, especially for athletes, I find the usual listed "requirements" for protein are blown completely out of proportion, and the thought of consuming "1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight" during down time seems ridiculous to me... I truly feel that all the articles telling people to eat that way are written by people who copied the diets of fanatical body-builders and tried to present them to the general public. If you ingest that much protein a day, you're taxing your liver and kidneys big-time... For example, I walk at 168lbs and I usually eat between 100 and 140 grams of protein per day when I'm in grueling, peak training... When I'm taking time off, I don't pay attention to it and I'd say it's usually around 70 grams a day, give or take...
One thing I consciously try and do is eat a higher amount of Alkaline-forming foods than acid-forming foods throughout each day... I don't have time to get into the whole "alkaline foods" discussion, but I'll just leave it out there, that there is plenty of info about it on 'teh interweb'...
Ok, first here, I'm going to list some regular foods that I eat a lot of, along with an explanation on each one. Essentially these are of some basics that really make up a large portion of my weekly caloric intake...
Afterwards, I'll list some broader ideas of diet, some supplements, then list some junk foods I eat and finally some daily examples...
Brown Rice: One of my main sources of complex carbs along with Oatmeal... I buy the 'microwave in the bag' frozen brown rice from Trader Joe's... It's pretty easy to make and can be added to almost any meal. Wild Rice (actually a grass seed) is even better if you can get a hold of it.
Portobello mushrooms: These are great. Good protein source, low calories, low sodium... Can be sauteed or stir-fried with vegetables. I eat many of these when cutting weight.
Tempeh: This is a Tofu-based food and a good source of protein and fiber... Although a little bitter when eaten plain, I find that some flavorings can really make this good...
Quinoa: This grain is sometimes a chore to cook, and if you live in the middle of nowhere, it might be hard to find, but it's a great source of not only carbs and protein, but fiber as well. This is one of the most nutritionally complete foods out there with a full, balanced set of amino acids...
Black Beans, lentils, etc: Really, many Mexican foods I find to be pretty substantial as long as there's some beans and rice in it... Lentils are great in soup and have some decent protein and fiber... My girlfriend makes some really good lentil soup as well as squash soup.
Now, here are some things I will simply list and then explain how they work with my system.
Drinks: I drink water 99.9% of the time... Rarely do I ever feel the need for soft drinks or juices, although I might add some orange juice to a protein shake to make it taste better...I drink in excess of 1.5 gallons of H2O per day when I'm training hard and about 1 gallon per day on the regular.
Wheat: My diet is not "wheat-free" but I do my best to avoid it... It's an allergen (mild for most people) and not as easily digested you might think... Every now and then I have something that has wheat gluten in it as well... I'm not really into sandwiches, so bread is easy to avoid. I do eat pasta every once in a while and I might have some wheat tortillas, but if I had my choice of carbs, it'd be brown rice or quinoa. On a side note, they have come out with some good rice-based pastas that are identical to normal wheat pastas in every way.
Fake meat products: These are usually geared towards people making the change to vegetarianism and are made to mimic various meat products... I usually don't mess with these all that much, with the exception of "riblets" made by Gardenburger brand... Most of the stuff out there doesn't taste anything like meat to me (unless it's seitan) and I don't need my food to. Unfortunately, if you live in the midwest, or any place who's stores haven't adapted to vegetarian diets, you may find that these are the only things sold in the frozen section without meat or dairy... On the other side of this, many vegan restaurants have great fake meat products that are much more palatable than the stuff sold in the stores.
Vegetables: These are very necessary. I don't eat them as much as I should, but when I do, it's broccoli, peas, corn, green beans and spinach most of the time. Whenever I have a salad, I do my best to use organic kale or baby spinach as the main source rather than romain or iceberg lettuce. The leafy greens like collards, spinach and kale are extremely good for you.. Don't sleep on them.
Nuts & seeds: I find almonds are the best for me. Some articles have stated that they boost testosterone... I can't say that's true or false, but I do find almonds to be superior to most of the other nuts and seeds out there...Trader Joes sells raw, sliced almond flakes that can be turned into powder (if you have a chopper) and put into a protein shake. I do eat peanuts sometimes, and natural peanut butter, but too many peanuts can be bad for you because of the naturally-occurring toxins in them. I eat cashews in moderation, and I usually stay away from Macadamias when I'm cutting weight because of their high fat content. I don't eat as much seeds as I probably should, but Pumpkin seeds are definitely recommended... They are high in iron, which is important, because as an athlete, iron can be lost rapidly through sweat. Sunflower seeds are also pretty good and are a decent source of protein and vitamin E...
Seitan: although this stuff is delicious and has the most meat-like texture, it is essentially just wheat gluten and is pretty hard to digest... I stay away from it when I'm in hard training, but during the off-season, it's fair play. Many restaurants have good meals with seitan.
Soy milk, almond milk, etc: I don't eat cereal all that much, but when I do, I prefer almond milk and rice milk over soy milk... Just a personal preference. These can be added to protein shakes too. Rice milk is a little thinner that almond and soy usually...
Sodium: Many of the foods I really enjoy have a lot of sodium in them. I have no problem eating moderately sodium-rich foods until I get close to cutting to lightweight... Sodium causes you to retain water, so it's pointless to consume if you want to drop water weight. 3 weeks before a fight, I start watching my sodium intake, and by the week of the fight, I'm down to less than 100 grams per day.
Supplements:
Vega : This is awesome. It has everything I need and it's quick and easy. Although not ideal, I could really live off of this with no problems. Full nutrition. Vega makes powdered whole food meal replacements and energy bars that I eat pretty much every day. Their meal replacement uses hemp protein and pea protein as a base. When I'm taking this and/or The Ultimate Meal (see below) I find there's no reason for a multi-vitamin.
The Ultimate Meal : I swear by this stuff, it's a whole meal and has made up a huge part of my diet for 3 years now. It's a bit of an acquired taste, but I truly notice myself feeling better when I use it daily. Remember to follow the directions and add the apple and banana. (This is not your normal "add powder to water" supplement)
Organic food bar : These are great for cutting weight... there is some fat but it's good fat, and there's hardly any sodium. Made of mostly almond butter and date paste.
Cliff Builders Bar : As far as protein bars go, these are the best tasting and pretty addictive... There's a decent amount of sodium and calories, so they're not ideal when you're cutting weight.
Protein powders: I stay away from soy as a powdered protein supplement, and not because of the idiotic claim that it is "bad for men because it boosts estrogen" (which is complete nonsense), but because it doesn't have a full amino acid spectrum and has less protein content percentage... Instead of soy powder, I use brown rice protein from Nutri-Biotic brand when I'm looking for plain protein supplement. Nutri-Biotic Rice protein has an 80% protein content and all the amino acids. I also find that Rice protein is digested a lot easier than soy.
Junk Food:
I eat a ton of soy ice cream and vegan cookies when I'm not dieting... This is my weakness, but my metabolism burns most of it off...
Also, I eat a lot of Thai food from vegan restaurants that, although normally not considered 'junk-food', certainly has a lot of fat and sodium. Example: Yellow Curry (made with coconut milk) with tofu and deep fried soy "chicken"... Oh yeah, I'm a potato chip fiend too...
Even with all the sugary stuff I indulge in, I do my best to completely avoid high fuctose corn syrup.
Examples:
Ok, here is an example of just one day of my diet leading up to a lightweight fight that I posted on a blog a while back...
You must remember that this week and next are atypical of what I'd normally eat calorie-wise daily compared to, say, a month or more out... There is no way I could sustain this low-calorie diet for long periods of time... I love vegan cookies and Thai Food too much.
Morning: woke up at 166lbs and after a short 35 minute run and some calisthenics, I had The Ultimate Meal, which is a pulverized meal replacement. I swear by this stuff. There isn't a single other product out there that comes close to this as far as recovery goes in training. Put it in a blender, add some water, an extra scoop of rice protein powder, an apple and a banana and I'm good to go. 400 cal
Noon time: Organic food bar 300 cal
Afternoon: Low-carb tortilla chips with Salsa. Soy yogurt with Fresh Pinapple. 350 cal
Mid Day: After working a private lesson at 3pm, and then at 4:00 sparring, consisting of five 5-minute rounds with 30 seconds rest and finishing with jump-rope interval training, I had a Clif Bar immediately to replace glycogen and help speed up recovery so I can function in my third workout. 250 cal
Evening: Rice Noodle mushroom soup with sautéed high-protein tofu added. Fresh pineapple. 300 cal
Night: After my Night workout in west LA, which consisted of 45 mins grappling, followed by ab work, I had a Clif Builders Bar and a rice protein shake. 350 cal
Last meal: Salad w/ baby greens, artichoke, olives, mushrooms, high-protein grilled tofu and light goddess dressing. Fresh strawberries and grapes for dessert. 300 cal
So that's 2250 calories total, which is fine since I'm training 3x a day. The next week I'll start to taper off my training and cut out all the sodium, so that I'm not retaining water.
Here's an example of a typical (non-weight cutting) training day:
Breakfast: Oatmeal and soy yogurt with fruit.
Snack: almonds and dried cranberries
Lunch:
Barley salad
Sauteed zucchini and mushroom and 'garden' flavor tempeh with curry dipping sauce.
Midday:
Vega shake, Clif Builder Bar.
Snack: Tortilla chips and Guacamole
Dinner:
Brown rice pasta with fresh portabello's and eggplant and marinara sauce.
Late night:
Coconut sorbet with pineapples.
Ok... well, I hope this answers at least a few of the diet questions some of you may have, and if not, I don't know what to say... It took me almost 7 months to get around to writing this, so who knows when my lazy ass might get around to writing more...
Thanks for all the feedback and positive emails, you guys... Even though I can't always write back, I hope all of you understand that I'm grateful to have such loyal and intelligent fans!
Take care
Mac
For more information on Mac Danzig, go to: http://www.macdanzig.net
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Felines to have their own village in Turkey’s northwest
ÇANAKKALE
The northwestern province of Çanakkale is set to become home to a special cat village where hundreds of felines will live, be taken care of, and available for adoption.
Çanakkale, which served as a battlefield during World War I, will host the feline village on an area spanning 600 square meters in the neighborhood of Esenler, the governor’s office said in a statement on Dec. 21.
The village features feeding and watering units for the cats, along with bungalow-style cat houses.
Some 200 cats will live in the village when the project is complete, the statement said.
The settlement will serve as a shelter for stray cats, especially ones that are sick, after they receive treatment from veterinarians at the village and get neutered.
The cats in the village will be put up for adoption by locals, the statement added.
The village will open once the full-service feline facility is ready for its new cat residents to move in. |
Less than 1,000 of the around 280,000 migrants who arrived in Germany in 2016 entered from “unsafe” countries, the country’s federal police agency said Sunday.
The European Union’s Dublin Regulation determines which country is responsible to examine refugees’ asylum applications based on where they first entered the EU. Germany has taken more migrants than any other member state in recent years but figures show that a small fraction of them fall under Germany’s responsibility.
“In 2016, a total of 903 asylum seekers who were not sent to Germany via a safe third country or a safe country of origin were identified by the federal police at German airports,” the agency told Welt am Sonntag.
Germany has struggled to deport migrants who had their asylum applications rejected. Horst Seehofer, the minister president of the state of Bavaria, called it a “great illusion” to think the country actually has the ability to deport all failed migrants.
“The question of deportation is a great illusion in Germany,” Seehofer said Friday, according to newspaper Focus. “It is almost impossible to send back the migrants once they are in the country.”
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Most people don’t call me Chris. They call me 7-Eleven.
And no, it’s not because I only drink Slurpees or eat three-day-old taquitos.
The year the Miami Dolphins were featured on Hard Knocks, I was in their training camp. I was hopeful that the camp would be my big break into the NFL, and in a lot of ways, it was. Even though I didn’t end up making the final roster, I came out of it with something even more important: I got that nickname. I know it sounds crazy, but this is a league with many more dreamers than there are roster spots, so sometimes being known is what it takes to make it.
In a lot of ways, patience and luck are as crucial to breaking into the NFL as hard work. You never know how or when your break is going to come, so you have to keep grinding until it does. That’s especially true for a player like me — an undrafted free agent who only played one year of college football.
Coming out of high school, I was getting offers from colleges to play either lacrosse or football. I was pretty torn until Penn State recruited me for lacrosse and brought me out to visit for a day.
I immediately fell in love with the school, and the decision was basically made for me.
I had a great career there playing lacrosse, but football was always in the back of my mind. It’s funny — when Penn State brought me out to visit, they actually took me to a football game. That was one of the main selling points for me. But the more football games I went to, the harder they got to watch. Deep down inside, I knew I could be on that field.
I redshirted my sophomore year, so I had an extra year of eligibility. I remember right when I was about done with my fourth year at Penn State, I was driving home to New Jersey with my girlfriend (who’s now my fiancée, she’s going to love this shout-out), and I was sort of voicing aloud the idea of going somewhere to play football. She told me, “Why not, Chris? You should go for it.”
I contacted my old high school football coach, and we put together a highlight tape. We sent the tapes out as feelers, and a couple of schools actually expressed interest. I ended up wading through the NCAA bureaucracy and was brought on to play for Monmouth, provided I enrolled in their political science master’s program.
When I was playing lacrosse, I was never really thinking about making a future in it because it’s not a huge professional sport. The majority of my focus was on trying to set myself up for my professional life after college. It was the same with football. The idea of a professional career never really crossed my mind when I was starting out at Monmouth. I just wanted to have some fun. Towards the end of the season, though, there were a couple of guys who were planning on training for the combine. I wasn’t overly excited about entering the real world right away, so figured I might as well give it a shot. I honestly didn’t know if I had what it took to play in the NFL. Still, it was one of those things where I didn’t want to look back in five years and be like, “Man, I wish I would’ve tried.”
While I didn’t get invited to participate at the NFL combine in Indianapolis, I did secure an invite to a Pro Day being held at Fordham. I put up some pretty good numbers and started talking to a bunch of scouts.
Then, a few days later, the lockout started. I couldn’t believe it. That was in March. We didn’t even know if there was going to be an NFL season. At that point, though, I was pretty set. I was going to do whatever it took to play.
That was a long, long offseason. When you’re in the position I was in, all you can do is wait and train, train and wait. I had to stay in top shape because I never knew when the lockout would end and if I would get a call from a team. I was coaching lacrosse at a local high school, Bergen Catholic, during the afternoons and training in the mornings. I knew if I wanted to actually make this dream a reality, I had to go all-in.
Then, in July, the lockout ended. The season was back on. Everything just went into warp speed. The day after the lockout ended, I was hanging out in my buddy’s basement — this guy I had played football with in high school. My phone rang. It was the 49ers. They told me to pack my bags because they were going to sign me as an undrafted free agent.
Just like that, I was on a plane to San Francisco.
It was a lot to take in. I didn’t even really have time to be excited.
I did pretty well early on in camp, but unfortunately, I suffered an injury that put me on the sidelines. Shortly after that, I ended up getting released. It was a really different feeling for me. I had never been cut from anything in my life. Still, that little taste on NFL action was all I needed. I knew I could hang in this league.
I kept grinding that whole season, working out and waiting for a call. Finally, in Week 17, the Miami Dolphins brought me on to their practice squad and signed me to a futures contract, so I would be guaranteed to keep my spot over the offseason. It was an unbelievable feeling knowing that I would be at training camp when the summer rolled around.
I also found out during that offseason that the Dolphins were going to be featured on Hard Knocks. For those of you who don’t know what Hard Knocks is, HBO sends a camera crew to one NFL team’s training camp and films everything — and I mean everything. Obviously there were cameras out on the field, but they were also in the cafeteria, in the hotel, following you around on your off-days. It all gets captured. Then, at the end of every week of training camp, HBO airs a new episode.
You’re never safe, especially when it comes to microphones. Unlike cameras, mics are really easy to hide. It’s pretty hilarious in hindsight — sometimes they were hidden in salt shakers in the cafeteria, or in the napkin holders. You also didn’t necessarily know if they’d mic’d up your pads or your helmet. Usually, if you were lucky, the equipment manager would let you know if you were the one mic’d up for the day. Everyone on the team would call you the police or the “Fed” if you were mic’d up, and it was on you to tell everyone else. If you didn’t, people would get mad, because they didn’t want to say something they would regret.
It wasn’t a distraction for me, though. This was my chance, and I was ready to compete. I was doing really well, and that’s how my nickname came about.
It was pretty early in camp, and I was catching every pass thrown to me — so many that Reggie Bush yells from the sideline, “Hey man, you’re open all the time. You’re 7-Eleven!!”
With someone like Reggie, there’s always going to be a camera on him, so the Hard Knocks guys picked it up. They aired it that week, and the whole thing just took off. I actually became a major focus on the show, and they would check in with me every week. It was pretty cool. People gradually stopped calling me Chris and started calling me 7-Eleven. I felt like I deserved that nickname, too, with how well I performed.
But even though I had one of the better camps of all the receivers, I ended up getting cut. That was probably the most disappointing moment of my career. I had put everything into that camp. To be featured on Hard Knocks and everything, too — I really thought that I had made it. The NFL is a cutthroat business, though, and I learned it the hard way. But at the end of the day, you have two options: You can either quit and say Forget about it, I tried, or you can keep grinding.
I packed up my bags and headed back to New Jersey. One of my buddies was up there for business, and after I told him I got cut, he came down to Miami to drive home with me. We left at nine or 10 at night and drove straight through all the way back to Jersey.
From there, I just kept training. That’s all you can do. Like I said, you never know when your break is going to come. For me, being on Hard Knocks was huge. People knew who I was and they knew I could play. Plus, I had not only made a name for myself, Reggie had made a name for me, too. A couple weeks after I got back to Jersey, the Bills had me work out for them. They didn’t sign me right away, but in November, they signed me to their practice squad. By the end of the season, I was on the 53-man roster.
After that, it was just a series of firsts. My first time suiting up came in the last couple games of that season. My first time playing was the home opener the following season. It was against the New England Patriots, and being able to run out of that tunnel at the beginning of the game was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
My first touchdown came the season after that, when I began to establish myself as a major passing threat. It was also against the Patriots. We were in the red zone, and Kyle Orton called the play. It was one of those things I’d dreamed about happening my entire life. The ball just came to me in slow motion. Then it all sped up, and I was throwing the ball up in celebration, just screaming at the top of my lungs. Fred Jackson was the first guy to come up to me, and we were just yelling and yelling. He actually went and got the ball for me and busted my chops. He was like, “Why would you throw that ball away? That ball is your first TD in the NFL.”
I was happy to catch that first one, but I knew it would be the first of many. Now that I’d finally made it, I planned to stick.
You know, like a good nickname. |
( ) Unified Police Department announced Sunday afternoon that an officer shot Sunday morning during a police chase was killed in the line of duty.
UPDATE |
According to officials, police responded to the scene of a car crash just before 10 a.m. Sunday morning. When police arrived, one male and one female suspect ran from police officers, who then pursued them on foot.
Police say the male suspect, identified as Corey Lee Henderson, shot officer Doug Barney in the head during the chase. Barney was taken to the hospital in critical condition, where he was later pronounced dead. Sheriff Jim Winder announced the officer's death at a news conference Sunday afternoon.
Barney, father of three, was an 18 year veteran of the UPD force.
RELATED:
Police returned fire on Henderson during the chase, killing him outside of a Holladay home.
Winder said the suspect shot Officer Jon Richey three times. Richey was taken the hospital in stable condition and is expected to recover.
According to Winder, there were several outstanding local and federal warrants out for Henderson's arrest at the time of the shooting. Henderson was being sought by the Metro Gang Task Force as recently as Saturday night.
Police began a search for the woman who was with Henderson at the start of the chase, who they are regarding as a "person of interest" in the case. Officials told 2News around 6:00 p.m. Sunday that they had apprehended her.
There appears to be no more immediate danger to Holladay residents, police confirm.
This is a developing story, updates will be provided as they become available.
Officer Barney's Brigade A brigade of policemen escorted fallen officer Doug Barney from the hospital Sunday afternoon. Barney was a father of three and an 18-year veteran of Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake. Read the full story: http://bit.ly/1Sqx4Ou Posted by KUTV 2News on Sunday, January 17, 2016
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You didn't think that we forgot, did you? Toontown Member Mailers are back again to bring you a taste of real-world Toontown Merchandise for the low price of FREE! With just paying for the price of postage, we'll send you a set of three Toontown Trading Cards and a mini Toontown poster from ToonFest at ReplayFX 2017.
Here on the Toontown Team, we love doing whatever it takes to spoil our players. We pour thousands of dollars of our own money to put on the annual ToonFest convention, but we know it's not possible for every player to attend even if they're the most dedicated Toontown fans. (We're talking about YOU!)
To make it up to our dedicated fans who aren't able to come, we order an excess amount of merchandise for the convention which we use to send out FREE Toontown collectables to any player from almost anywhere in the entire world -- all we ask is that you pay for postage.
To learn more about Member Mailers, click on the image above for complete information and step-by-step instructions about how to grab yours today.
All letters must be postmarked by December 31st in order to guarantee that we can meet the demand. If we still have supplies left after that date, we'll make another blog post with an extended deadline.
You can also use your Member Mailer request envelope as an opportunity to send a letter or fanart to the Toontown Rewritten Team! Send us something cool, and you might just see it posted on our website or social media! (Don't forget to attach your Toon name so that we can give credit where its due.)
We have ALL of the letters and fanart that we've ever received safely stored to put on the Toon HQ page of our website when it launches, so if you've sent us something in the past -- trust us, we've got it.
Click on the image above to learn more about the Toontown Member Mailer program, and don't forget to ask a parent before participating. Enjoy! |
There’s Something Different About Opening Day
A look at what makes opening day so different in 2017.
Craig House Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 2, 2017
Shutter Runner/ via Flickr.com
“You always get a special kick on Opening Day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.” -Joe DiMaggio
For baseball fans Opening Day is more than just the beginning of another season. It represents rebirth, renewal and rejuvenation. It is an opportunity to have new hope for something special to begin.
For fans they get something we rarely get in real life; a fresh start. Every team is starting off with a 0–0 record and fans everywhere can begin the long 162 game journey with their favorite team.
Fans of 29 teams are looking to forget about last season and see if they can watch their team climb to the top and become the next World Series Champion. This year brings something for Cubs fans that is very unfamiliar. For the first time in 108 years Cubs fans have a mixture of excitement for what the 2017 season will bring and still clinging to a World Series title.
As Cubs fans we have grown used to the long cold winter following another disappointing season, but now we face a shortened off-season with little time to enjoy being on top. There will be no more “Wait until next year” for us. The label of “Lovable Losers” is long gone.
So many times in the past Cubs fans have entered a new season with uncertainty of how good our team will be. However, this season brings on a new outlook. We already know how good this team can be and now we hope they can conjure up that same magic formula in 2017.
The 2017 season puts our team in a unique position for true Cubs fans. We now have a target on our backs. We now have become the gold standard for what other teams want to become. We are kings of the mountain and we are hungry for more.
What Tom Ricketts, Jed Hoyer and Theo Epstein have done is put Cubs fans in a place where short off-seasons should become a thing of the norm. And so we enter a new era of Cubs baseball. An era where expectations are high and off-seasons short. An era where we are the team to beat for years to come.
Arturro Padavilla III/ via Flickr.com
Now Opening Day is upon us and who better to kick things off against than our bitter rival, the St. Louis Cardinals. So many times we have been chasing them and trying to become them, but now the tables have turned and this team better be ready. We can expect every opponent to bring their best night in and night out. After all that is what happens when you finally reach the summit.
Let’s not get cocky though just yet. We got the big one out of the way in 2016, but it wont be any easier in 2017. We still have a ways to go to become a dynasty and the pressure might be even more intense this year. After all as Cubs fans we didn’t even know how we were supposed to act last year. Now we do and we have to hang on to that hunger that we have always had.
So here we are and all spring training cuts have been made, the roster is official. The 2017 Opening Day roster has a majority of familiarity and a few new faces for us to watch. Let’s take a look at our team.
Starting Pitchers
Jon Lester
Jake Arrieta
John Lackey
Brett Anderson
Kyle Hendricks
Relief Pitchers
Wade Davis
Hector Rondon
Pedro Strop
Koji Uehara
Mike Montgomery
Justin Grimm
Carl Edwards Jr.
Catchers
Willson Contreras
Miguel Montero
Infielders
Anthony Rizzo
Ben Zobrist
Javy Baez
Tommy La Stella
Addison Russell
Kris Bryant
Outfielders
Kyle Schwarber
Matt Szczur
Jon Jay
Albert Almora Jr.
Jason Heyward
Go Cubs Go!!!
Craig House is a diehard Cubs fan that never forgave his parents for making his middle name Ryan instead of Ryne. You can follow Craig on Twitter @Craig_House3 |
Guest post from Critical Theory (also on Facebook and Twitter)
With the “revelation” that the US National Security Agency is spying on millions of Americans for shits and giggles, liberals and conservatives alike are infuriated over the overstepping of executive power. I put “revelation” in quotes, because everything the NSA has been doing was functionally spelled out in the Patriot Act, which we’ve somehow managed to reauthorize three times.
With the nation freaking out about the NSA surveillance, mainstream commentators are turning to Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and its discussion of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon to frame the discussion. Last month, liberal blog Think Progress pointed out:
In his famous Discipline and Punish, Foucault argues that we live in a world where the state exercises power in the same fashion as the Panopticon’s guards. Foucault called it “disciplinary power;” the basic idea is that the omnipresent fear of being watched by the state or judged according to prevailing social norms caused people to adjust the way they acted and even thought without ever actually punished. People had become “self-regulating” agents, people who “voluntarily” changed who they were to fit social and political expectations without any need for actual coercion.
Then it gets really scary. Foucault describes the observation of our private lives, as aided by new technology. Felluga notes the French philosopher’s emphasis on surveillance within an emerging information society and a developing bureaucracy that “turns individuals into statistics and paperwork,” followed by an emphasis on the organization of data and specialization of skill.
Sound familiar? What emerges now is the new watchman.
…that while colonization, with its techniques and its political and juridical weapons, obviously transported European models to other continents, it also had a considerable boomerang effect on the mechanisms of power in the West, and on the apparatuses, institutions, and techniques of power. A whole series of colonial models was brought back to the West, and the result was that the West could practice something resembling colonization, or an internal colonialism, on itself
Even the American Conservative published an article decrying the vast overreach of presidential power that enabled the NSA spying, noting:While it’s certainly refreshing to see Foucault find a new popularity for a mainstream audience, all of the mainstream discussions of Foucault feature a dangerous omission that obscures the real disciplinary mechanisms of power. The Panopticon does serve as an example, and a metaphor, for the way power operates. But in the easy comparison to the NSA spying, commentators have elided the fact that the NSA spying is just another symptom of a power apparatus that we otherwise actively support. Foucault discusses in Discipline and Punish that power shifted from traditional surveillance to normalization. While surveillance does still aid this process, we are also normalized through media, education, psychiatry and culture. So while the American Conservative acknowledges that power is also “in our heads,” the segue into a lamentation of presidential overreach drastically misses the point. This power isn’t produced by executive overreach or over-ambitious bureaucrats, it’s produced by us.Power doesn’t need the state to normalize and control. It needs docile bodies to normalize in the service of imperialism, racism and capitalism. We’ve been developing a culture of surveillance for decades in the United States. People of color have long been the subject of massive police surveillance without a massive outrage from the mainstream media. But even then, the racism that justifies this surveillance is mute in the face of of army of culturally produced vigilantes like George Zimmerman. Discipline, normalization and surveillance are far more effective in society’s hands than they are in the state’s.But the source of our surveillance culture isn’t entirely domestic. As we fight quixotic wars to “civilize” the Middle East, we employ new methods of control and surveillance in the form of drones and intelligence gathering. When those technologies come back to haunt their benefactors, their passive consent turns into surprised outrage. And as Foucault notes, the tools of colonialism always come back home American liberals would be wise to realize that the new “panopticism” they’ve discovered is the long overdue consequence of policies they’ve long supported. Obama’s executive overreach isn’t some simple instance of panopticism that must be combated, but the continuation of decades of domestic policy. People of color have long been subject to state surveillance with silent approval of liberals and conservatives alike.When the creators of the Patriot Act expressed outrage over the NSA surveillance program, they must have been disappointed that is was being levied against white folks. Instead of stopping at Discipline and Punish, readers would be wise to examine Foucault’s other works to find the ways that they are implicated in the power they decry.
Abnormal: Lectures at the Collége de France, 1974–1975, a collection of Foucault's lectures concerning the relationship between definining "abnormality" and power, is now available from Verso, as is Michel Foucault: Genealogy as Critique, a survey of the French philosopher's corpus. Also available from the Radical Thinkers series is Jeremy Bentham's The Panopticon Writings. |
Children today who track Santa's travels from the North Pole around the world on Christmas Eve through NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) have a 1955 Sears Roebuck misprint to thank.
The tradition started almost 60 years ago when a Sears ad encouraging kids to call Santa accidentally published a secret military hotline number. Those first calls from anxious children went to NORAD's then-Director of Operations Col. Harry Shoup, who would give a "ho-ho-ho" and Santa's location.
Since that year, NORAD staff and friends have volunteered to answer emails and calls from curious kids.
The Internet tracker for the Big Man -- dubbed "SantaCam" -- began in 1998.
You can listen to the full story of how the tradition began from Col. Shoup's own children at npr.org.
And kids, this is just for you: Santa's email address is [email protected]. His phone number is 1-877-HI-NORAD. |
Mai Fujimoto, known as Miss Bitcoin in Japan, has become a type of "crypto evangelist," blogging and tweeting about all things bitcoin.
She said that although regulations built trust in the currency, bitcoin won't be replacing cash anytime soon, as it's still considered an investment rather than an everyday currency in Japan.
"Many people have bought bitcoin now and maybe we need time to use bitcoin and learn about it," she told CNBC.
But bitcoin's popular rise in Japan hasn't been without its problems.
Three years ago, the Japanese-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox collapsed and declared bankruptcy after hackers raided its accounts.
So now regulators are responding with stricter rules, requiring cryptocurrency exchange to maintain minimum capital reserves, separate customer accounts, and establish anti-money laundering practices.
For bar owner Mike Verweyst, who processes bitcoin payments every day in Japan, the new regulations don't seem to be pushing people away from using the digital currency.
"It's kind of surprising. Japan doesn't really seem to be the first to adapt to new concepts like this. In fact they kind of shy away from change mostly," he said.
"But maybe they're going to grab it and run with it, I hope." |
Recommendation engines have flooded the Web. It’s hard to buy an ebook, mp3 track or video without being bombarded with suggestions for other purchases. Indeed, the phrase “people who bought X also liked Y” has become a modern-day aphorism
But ticket sales for events have somehow missed this revolution. Nobody knows whether your attendance at the American Physical Society’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas, last year, means you will enjoy the Comic-con Meeting in London next month.
As a result, this aspect of modern life remains free of (good) recommendations. That’s largely because of the absence of data that allows scientists to find correlations that predict event attendance. While Amazon and Netflix are brimming with data about who bought what when, similarly useful data sets just haven’t been available for events
Until now. Today, Petko Georgiev and pals at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. use data from the location-based social media network Foursquare to tease apart exactly what makes us more likely to attend one event rather than another
It turns out that there are numerous important factors. But these guys say that when the most important are all taken into account, they can predict the events that people will actually go to with remarkable accuracy
To get their insight, Georgiev and co gathered Foursquare data on the movements of some 190,000 people in London, New York, and Chicago during an eight-month period in 2010 and 2011. Crucially, the social network also revealed networks of friends, a home location and of course the date and times of the movements
Georgiev then mined the data first to find events, which they defined as large gatherings of people and to look up the locations and categorize the events accordingly, whether music festivals, sporting events, or conferences, for example. They also calculated the social attraction of events by counting the number of friends who turn up at the same places.
The question, of course, is how these factors correlate with whether an individual actually turns up for an event. To find out, Georgiev and co used 90 percent of the data as a training set to learn from and then used the remaining 10 percent as a test data set to see whether the correlations they discovered could actually predict attendance
The results provide an interesting insight into human behavior. It turns out that the major influence on attendance is whether friends are also there. That makes sense—most large gatherings are social events of one kind or another
But there are other less obvious but important indicators. For example, distance from home is an important factor—people usually travel only a limited distance to get to an event. The time people are active is also influential. If you tend to be most active in the early evening, then you are more likely to attend early evening events
And your previous pattern of behavior is significant too. For example, if you have been to many football matches in the past, then you are likely to attend football matches in the future. This kind of niche behavior is particularly strong in London, perhaps because of the tribal nature of soccer support
But while all of these factors are influential, the key is in combining them effectively in an algorithm that captures overall behavior. Georgiev and co say they’re done just that
In testing their algorithm’s predictive power on the 10 percent of the data reserved for this purpose, the results were impressive. “Overall, the prediction framework successfully identifies the exact attended event for one in three users in London and one in five users in New York and Chicago,” say Georgiev and co
That’s not bad and raises the prospect of recommendation engines emerging that can accurately predict events that you’d like to attend
There is a caveat, of course, and an important one. This work is based on data published by people who want their location to be known. That’s a self-selecting group whose behavior may be significantly different from those who choose to keep their location private. The event recommendation algorithm may work for them but how well it works for everyone else is an open question
Nevertheless, event recommendation engines look set to become a more prominent part of our online experience, not least because the people who stand to gain most are the event promoters and ticket sellers themselves
The main reason recommendation engines are so common is that they increase sales, sometimes by many percentage points, a feat that is beyond conventional marketing and advertising techniques. If event recommendation engines can be anywhere near as successful, they will flourish too
Ref: http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.7657: The Call of the Crowd: Event Participation in Location-based Social Services |
Published: Monday, September 01, 2014 @ 9:59 AM
Updated: Monday, September 01, 2014 @ 9:59 AM
— An employee at the Dragon City and Chinese Restaurant in Dayton is accused of threatening a dissatisfied customer with a gun.
Dayton police arrested Allan Lin, 40, at the restaurant at 1601 N. Keowee St., early Sunday evening, according to the police report.
Police said a 19-year-old man ordered food and asked for more soy sauce, which sparked an argument with Lin, the employee working the cash register.
The teen told police Lin pulled out a handgun from a holster on his belt and shoved the barrel of the gun into his chest, according to the report.
Lin told the officers that the customer threatened to have him "jumped," to which he replied, "go ahead and do it," police said.
Officers confiscated from Lin a loaded .40-caliber handgun and two extra magazines. The gun and ammo, a total of 36 rounds, were all attached to Lin's belt, police said.
Lin was arrested on suspicion of aggravated menacing. |
oss-sec mailing list archives
By Date By Thread Follow-up on Exploiting "BadIRET" vulnerability (CVE-2014-9322) From: Adam Zabrocki <pi3 () pi3 com pl>
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2015 09:23:48 +0200
Hi, The journey into CVE-2014-9322 is not straightforward but it is worth to spend some time on it and analyze all available information. I will try my best... 1) Introduction - non-technical (almost) Everything starts from the CVE-2014-9090. This vulnerability was discovered by Andy Lutomirski which allows you (quoting MITRE): "The do_double_fault function in arch/x86/kernel/traps.c in the Linux kernel through 3.17.4 does not properly handle faults associated with the Stack Segment (SS) segment register, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (panic) (...)" which essentially may results in local DoS attack. It doesn't sounds so critical from the defender's point of view (but still it takes attention especially from the nature of vulnerability point of view) neither from the attackers perspective. Mainly because of the potential limited benefits after successful exploitation. The "fun" starts after Borislav Petkov asked some questions about CVE-2014-9090. Andy Lutomirski discovered another vulnerability in the same functionality which was masked by first one. (Un)fortunately this time it was very serious (I would say critical) flaw. Linux kernel does not properly handle faults associated with the Stack Segment (SS) register in the x86 architecture. Quoiting MITRE again: "(...) allows local users to gain privileges by triggering an IRET instruction that leads to access to a GS Base address from the wrong space." Does the nature of vulnerability sound familiar? What about Rafal 'n3rgal' Wojtczuk research which ends up receiving CVE-2012-0217? (which was directly connected with CVE-2006-0744). Yes... in principals both vulnerabilities gave us same thing - we can force kernel to be executed under user-controlled GS base address (via %gs register). For some reasons CVE-2014-9322 didn't take much attention (again similarities to CVE-2006-0744) until Rafal 'n3rgal' Wojtczuk didn't point it out on 2nd of February 2015 via publish amazing research on Bromium Labs blog: http://labs.bromium.com/2015/02/02/exploiting-badiret-vulnerability-cve-2014-9322-linux-kernel-privilege-escalation/ about how the nature of vulnerability works, how it can be used to achieve code-exec (which is not trivial - great research!) and using single NULL-byte write primitive turn into fully weaponized exploit which bypasses SMEP mitigation (not SMAP). Highly recommended to review it in details. After this publication vulnerability started to get more and more attention (especially from the grsecurity twitter account :)). Until now (almost half a year) there is not known public real exploit which will fully implement Rafal's idea to achieve code-execution. There is only Proof-Of-Concept available which results in DoS attack (so the same as results of CVE-2014-9090 - not very useful): https://rdot.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3341 which ends up being here: https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/36266/ 2) More technical part (based on Fedora 20 -> kernel: 3.11.10-301.fc20.x86_64) I decided to take a challenge and fully implement Rafal's idea and end-up being successed solving some interesting problems during the work. I will start where Rafal finished his write-up, which means we end up successfully stack pivoting and executing ROP gadgets (in his case disabling SMEP in CR4 register and executing 'real' shellcode/kernelcode in userland page). *) Stack pivoting and ROP are being executed in the context of follow_link() function which is inlined in path_openat(). The context flow can be summarized as follow: SyS_open -> SYSC_open -> do_sys_open -> do_filp_open -> path_openat -> follow_link() Inlined function do relative call which in the end redirect transfer to our code: ... 0xffffffff811b84ab <+955>: jmpq 0xffffffff811b81b3 <path_openat+195> 0xffffffff811b84b0 <+960>: movl $0x4,0x40(%r12) 0xffffffff811b84b9 <+969>: mov 0x30(%r15),%rax 0xffffffff811b84bd <+973>: mov %r15,%rdi 0xffffffff811b84c0 <+976>: mov %r12,%rsi 0xffffffff811b84c3 <+979>: mov 0x20(%rax),%rax 0xffffffff811b84c7 <+983>: callq *0x8(%rax) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 0xffffffff811b84ca <+986>: cmp $0xfffffffffffff000,%rax 0xffffffff811b84d0 <+992>: mov %rax,%r15 0xffffffff811b84d3 <+995>: jbe 0xffffffff811b8532 <path_openat+1090> 0xffffffff811b84d5 <+997>: mov %r12,%rdi 0xffffffff811b84d8 <+1000>: mov %eax,%ebx 0xffffffff811b84da <+1002>: callq 0xffffffff811b2930 <path_put> ... After our code has being executed first problems start (cleaning part). Every call to function path_put(), do_last(), dput(), mntput() or put_link(), may ends up playing with kernel locks. Because the stack is pivoted this will not going to be happy ending. Additionally, path_openat() has inline many functionalities, some registers have special meaning (pointers to the structures/objects) which kernel will try to access at some point at may results in kernel crash and/or panic. At the beginning I was trying to track down all problematic execution and manually fixing it but there is just too many correlation between registers/objects/spinlocks... (btw. Linux kernel 3.xx changed internal representation of raw_spin_lock comparing to previous kernels which is (un)fortunately much more problematic when you want manually synchronize it). There needed to be better solution, and if you think about pivoting itself you may find one. If you instead of manual fixing all necessary problems force kernel to do it you may win that game. If you find a way to "restore" original stack frame for the function before stack pivoting was taken kernel should naturally remove all locks and correctly unwind the stack and system will be stable. This can be achieved via let's call it reverse stack pivoting :) Directly after stack pivot, in temporary register you should have valid address of the stack which you want to know. In our case situation is a bit more complicate because we are losing 32 most significant bits of the address. ROP gadget looks like: 0xffffffff8119f1ed <__mem_cgroup_try_charge+1949>: xchg %eax,%esp 0xffffffff8119f1ee <__mem_cgroup_try_charge+1950>: retq why this gadget was taken and we lose 32bits (we want to)? Please read Rafal's write-up. So if we find some ROP gadget which directly after stack pivoting will save 32 least significant bits of original stack pointer in safe place, we could try to restore it and reconstruct original address before we gave control to the kernel. I've chosen following ROP-gadget: 0xffffffff8152d8fe <kernel_listen+14>: push %rax 0xffffffff8152d8ff <kernel_listen+15>: pop %rax 0xffffffff8152d900 <kernel_listen+16>: pop %rbp 0xffffffff8152d901 <kernel_listen+17>: retq which essentially push %rax value (in fact high bits are zeroed) and move stack pointer after stored value. At this point we may precisely calculate where it will be stored. Problem solved (reverse-stack pivot won :P) *) If your shellcode is going to be executed for too long there is high chance scheduler will preempt you which sometimes may be critical - depends on the current stage of execution and what is going to be preempting you. Quite often you may receive APIC timer interrupt connected with updating process times (known as tick'ing) which may screw you up on some corner cases - it should be taken into account! btw. if you have bad luck you may be preempted as soon as you did stack pivoting ;p *) Our code is executed while proc_root structure is corrupted... :) This is NOT what we would like to have. It dramatically increases chance of kernel crash if other process will do any operation on /proc pseudo-filesystem. proc_root.subdir value must be restored as soon as it can be to decrease the chance of random crash. There is few possible ways of doing it: a) instead of overwriting 6 bytes of subdir do only 5 of them which will leave 3 bytes untouched. This means we can easily reconstruct original value by adding 0xffff8800 value at the most significant bits (for that kernel) and trying to find only 1 byte which is 256 possibilities. Chance of crash is very low (touching not mapped page). Additionally this requires allocation in user space around 16 MB to have guarantee that after referencing overwritten proc_root.subdir always ends up in our controlled memory. b) we can brute force full address by 'preventing' from Page Fault (#PF). For the short period of time we can overwrite #PF handler with simple code: - Get the exception from the stack - Change the address which caused crash to smth which we know is mapped - Restart faulting instruction original brute force loop will continue running c) Ignore all of the problems and just reconstruct address as much as it can be and do brute force rest of the bytes. Apparently it's quite reliable and effective. We know that high significant bytes are 0xffff8800 and we have 2 least significant bytes. We need to find 2 bytes which are unknown for us. On Linux (as opposed to Windows) kernel memory are not being paged out (swapped out). Chance of hitting unmapped page is quite low when we brute force just 2 bytes in the middle of reconstructed address - believe me or not, it works well :) Problem is also how we judge if the address is correct or not. It's quite simple, struct proc_dir_etry has 'parent' field. We must find address which will have on the specific offset, address of proc_root (which is known). In the end we check 65536 addresses and chance of FP is low as well. I've never hit that situation. Summarizing our shellcode must: - save original stack pointer value - disable interrupts (to prevent from being preempted) and start to reconstruct corrupted proc_root.subdir value - do REAL (s)hellcode - restore original stack pointer - restore frame pointer - restore registers pointing to the internal objects - enable interrupts and return to the normal kernel execution 3) Grsecurity => UDEREF As I mentioned Rafal's research has been "sighted" by spender via: http://twitter.com/grsecurity/status/562363332079144960 http://twitter.com/grsecurity/status/562363788125831172 Additionally some people suggests UDEREF is as effective as SMAP with blocking exploitation of this vulnerability: http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2014/q4/1052 "This is likely to be easy to exploit for privilege escalation, except on systems with SMAP or UDEREF. On those systems, assuming that the mitigation works correctly, the impact of this bug may be limited to massive memory corruption and an eventual crash or reboot." This is not completely true. UDEREF may be as effective (in fact even more) as SMAP or only as effective as SMEP (on AMD64) which will not prevent exploitation at all (using described technique). So what's going on? :) Currently UDEREF for AMD64 has 3 different implementations: - slow / weak legacy implementation - strong implementation on Sandy Bridge and later - fast / weak implementation on Sandy Bridge and later First implementation of UDEREF on AMD64 was "weak" implementation and information about it was described by PaX team here: http://grsecurity.net/pipermail/grsecurity/2010-April/001024.html I will quote the essential part of it: "(...) so what does UDEREF do on amd64? on userland->kernel transitions it basically unmaps the original userland address range and remaps it at a different address using non-exec/supervisor rights (so direct code execution as used by most exploits is not possible at least). (...)" and next: "(...) UDEREF/amd64 doesn't ensure that the (legitimate) userland accessor functions cannot actually access kernel memory when only userland is allowed (some in-kernel users of certain syscalls can temporarily access kernel memory as userland, and that is enforced on UDEREF/i386 but not on amd64). so if there's a bug where userland can trick the kernel into accessing a userland pointer that actually points to kernel space, it'll succeed, unlike on i386. the other bad thing is the presence of the userland shadow area. this has two consequences: 1. the userland address space size is smaller under UDEREF (42 vs. 47 bits, with corresponding reduction of ASLR of course), 2. this shadow area is always mapped so kernel code accidentally accessing its range may not oops on it and can be exploited (such accesses can usually happen only if an exploit can make the kernel dereference arbitrary addresses in which case the presence of this area is the least of your concerns though).(...)" == weak UDEREF == This means it works essentially similar to SMEP. So how to exploit CVE-2014-9322 under this specific implementation of UDEREF? You just need to change the ROP. Instead of disabling SMEP bit in CR4 register and execute code from the user land, implement full shellcode as ROP. It is possible and it won't be stop by weak implementation of UDEREF. == "new" UDEREF == Why strong implementation of UDEREF is different and why does it require Sandy Bridge architecture? Yes, that's the fun part. I haven't seen any official write-up regarding "new" UDEREF. I wasn't even aware about those changed since I was playing with that exploit :) Strong implementation of UDEREF using Sandy Bridge++ feature called as PCID to make 'tags' in TLB. By doing it UDEREF may completely separate user land from kernel (via creating new PGD tables): static inline void enter_lazy_tlb(struct mm_struct *mm, struct task_struct *tsk) { ++#if defined(CONFIG_X86_64) && defined(CONFIG_PAX_MEMORY_UDEREF) + if (!(static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_PCID))) { + unsigned int i;+ pgd_t *pgd; ++ pax_open_kernel(); + pgd = get_cpu_pgd(smp_processor_id(), kernel); + for (i = USER_PGD_PTRS; i < 2 * USER_PGD_PTRS; ++i) + set_pgd_batched(pgd+i, native_make_pgd(0)); + pax_close_kernel(); + } +#endif +#if defined(CONFIG_X86_64) && defined(CONFIG_PAX_MEMORY_UDEREF) + if (static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_PCID)) { + if (static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_INVPCID)) { + u64 descriptor[2]; + descriptor[0] = PCID_USER; + asm volatile(__ASM_INVPCID : : "d"(&descriptor), "a"(INVPCID_SINGLE_CONTEXT) : "memory"); + if (!static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_STRONGUDEREF)) { + descriptor[0] = PCID_KERNEL; + asm volatile(__ASM_INVPCID : : "d"(&descriptor), "a"(INVPCID_SINGLE_CONTEXT) : "memory"); + } + } else { + write_cr3(__pa(get_cpu_pgd(cpu, user)) | PCID_USER); + if (static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_STRONGUDEREF)) + write_cr3(__pa(get_cpu_pgd(cpu, kernel)) | PCID_KERNEL | PCID_NOFLUSH); + else + write_cr3(__pa(get_cpu_pgd(cpu, kernel)) | PCID_KERNEL); +} + } else +#endif In the end context run in kernel mode will NOT see any usermode pages. This implementation I personally believe is much stronger than SMAP. Why? 1. You can't just disable one bit in CR4 register to fully turn off this mitigation 2. In case of SMAP, you can see userland pages (there is existing Page Tables translating userland addresses. 'P' bit is set) but you just can't touch it. In "new" UDEREF you don't see userland at all (PGD is completely different for kernel context and there is no Page Tables describing userland addresses. 'P' bit is unset). This version of UDEREF was firstly introduced on grsecurity version 3.0 in February 2014. Good work! Will be nice if PaX/grsecurity may publish some details of their research and great implementation :) Btw. In both cases result of touching userland addresses is the same - #PF will be generated :) Btw2. The same "strong" UDEREF functionality may be achieved without hardware PCID feature. The main difference is performance. Without hardware support for PCID it should be a mess from the performance point of view. == Summarizing == This vulnerability can be exploited under UDEREF and can NOT be exploited under "new" UDEREF which is enabled on Sandy Bridge++ architecture. In fact you can still use this vulnerability to fully DoS machine under "new" UDEREF? How? It's quite funny and tricky, you can force infinitive loop of #PF :) As soon as kernel enters to the do_general_protection() function it will try to read GDT bia GS base by executing following instruction: 0xffffffff8172910e <do_general_protection+30>: mov %gs:0xa880,%rbx at this situation GS base is pointing to the userland memory. Because there is no PTE entry for that address (kernel context doesn't see userland at all), #PF will be generated. page_fault() function will be executed and following: page_fault -> do_page_fault -> __do_page_fault -> restore_args it will try to read GDT again and next #PF will be generated and so on... so on... so on... :) So yes, you can still crash the kernel but there is no way to do anything else because there is no even room for exploitation. Vulnerability has being stopped at principals. 4) Funny facts :) a) Some versions of libthread requires to create memory with RWX permission when you call pthread_create() function. This is not allowed under PaX/grsec hardening of mmap() and as soon as internal implementation pthread_create() will call mmap(), process will be killed :) I met this situation on default installation of Ubuntu LTS where I was testing kernel with grsecurity hardening. b) on kernel 3.11.10-301.fc20.x86_64 implementation of __switch_to() function using OSXSAVE extension (bit 18 in CR4 register) without checking if CPU has this extension or not: 0xffffffff81011714 <__switch_to+644> xsaveopt64 (%rdi) __switch_to() is executed under disabled interrupts but if OSXSAVE extension is not enabled CPU will generate #UD and it will be deadlock. Before entering to __switch_to() instruction regardless disabling interrupts also there is locked runqueue which will never be unlocked in case of #UD. I wonder if someone hit this problem in real life :) c) Fedora 20 exploitation is pretty stable (source code available on my website): [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ cat z_shell.c #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { char *p_arg[] = { "/bin/sh", NULL }; setuid(0); seteuid(0); setgid(0); setegid(0); execv("/bin/sh",p_arg,NULL); } [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ gcc z_shell.c -o z_shell [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ cp z_shell /tmp/pi3 [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ls -al /tmp/pi3 -rwxrwxr-x 1 pi3 pi3 8764 May 6 23:09 /tmp/pi3 [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ id uid=1000(pi3) gid=1000(pi3) groups=1000(pi3) [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ /tmp/pi3 sh-4.2$ id uid=1000(pi3) gid=1000(pi3) groups=1000(pi3) sh-4.2$ exit exit [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ gcc -o procrop procrop.c setss.S [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ gcc -o p_write8 swapgs.c setss.S -lpthread swapgs.c: In function ‘main’: swapgs.c:175:29: warning: cast from pointer to integer of different size [-Wpointer-to-int-cast] : "r"(4), "r"((int)p_to_d), "r"(1) ^ [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ./procrop ...::: -=[ Exploit for CVE-2014-9322 ]=- :::... by Rafal 'n3rgal' Wojtczuk && Adam 'pi3' Zabrocki Usage: ./procrop <number> Number: 1 - kernel [3.11.10-301.fc20.x86_64] [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ./procrop 1 & [1] 5827 [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ...::: -=[ Exploit for CVE-2014-9322 ]=- :::... by Rafal 'n3rgal' Wojtczuk && Adam 'pi3' Zabrocki [+] Using kernel target: 3.11.10-301.fc20.x86_64 [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ps aux |grep procr pi3 5827 83.0 0.0 4304 320 pts/1 RL 23:12 0:05 ./procrop 1 pi3 5829 0.0 0.1 112660 916 pts/1 S+ 23:12 0:00 grep --color=auto procr [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ./p_write8 ...::: -=[ Exploit for CVE-2014-9322 ]=- :::... by Rafal 'n3rgal' Wojtczuk && Adam 'pi3' Zabrocki Usage: ./p_write8 <number> Number: 1 - kernel [3.11.10-301.fc20.x86_64] [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ./p_write8 1 ...::: -=[ Exploit for CVE-2014-9322 ]=- :::... by Rafal 'n3rgal' Wojtczuk && Adam 'pi3' Zabrocki [+] Using kernel target: 3.11.10-301.fc20.x86_64 [+] mmap() memory in first 2GB of address space... DONE! [+] Preparing kernel structures... DONE! (ovbuf at 0x602140) [+] Creating LDT for this process... DONE! [+] Press enter to start fun-game... [exploit] pthread runningAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA[1]+ Done ./procrop 1 Segmentation fault (core dumped) [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ ls -al /tmp/pi3 -rwsrwsrwx 1 root root 8764 May 6 23:09 /tmp/pi3 [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ id uid=1000(pi3) gid=1000(pi3) groups=1000(pi3) [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ /tmp/pi3 sh-4.2# id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root),1000(pi3) sh-4.2# exit exit [pi3@localhost clean_9322]$ References: 1) http://labs.bromium.com/2015/02/02/exploiting-badiret-vulnerability-cve-2014-9322-linux-kernel-privilege-escalation/ 2) https://rdot.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3341 3) https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/36266/ 4) http://blog.pi3.com.pl/?p=509 5) http://twitter.com/grsecurity/status/562363332079144960 6) http://twitter.com/grsecurity/status/562363788125831172 7) http://site.pi3.com.pl/exp/p_cve-2014-9322.tar.gz 8) http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2014/q4/1052 9) http://grsecurity.net/pipermail/grsecurity/2010-April/001024.html Best regards, Adam 'pi3' Zabrocki -- pi3 (pi3ki31ny) - pi3 (at) itsec pl http://pi3.com.pl By Date By Thread Current thread: Follow-up on Exploiting "BadIRET" vulnerability (CVE-2014-9322) Adam Zabrocki (Jul 04) Re: Follow-up on Exploiting "BadIRET" vulnerability (CVE-2014-9322) Andy Lutomirski (Jul 08)
Adam Zabrocki (Jul 04) |
A Chinese cargo ship believed to be carrying 77 tonnes of small arms, including more than 3m rounds of ammunition, AK47 assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, has docked in the South African port of Durban for transportation of the weapons to Zimbabwe, the South African government confirmed yesterday. It claimed it was powerless to intervene as long as the ship's papers were in order.
Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, show that the weapons were sent from Beijing to the ministry of defence in Harare. Headed "Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate", the document was issued on April 1, three days after Zimbabwe's election. It lists the consignment as including 3.5m rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500 40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93 cases of mortar tubes.
The carrier is listed as the Cosco shipping company in China.
South Africa's national conventional arms control committee issued a permit on Monday for the trans-shipment of the cargo from Durban to Harare. The head of government information in South Africa, Themba Maseko, said yesterday: "We are not in a position to act unilaterally and interfere in a trade deal between two countries." South Africa had to "tread very carefully", given the complexity of the situation in Zimbabwe, Maseko said.
South Africa was not encouraging the purchase of weapons by Zimbabwe, he said, pointing out that there was no UN trade embargo against that country.
But Tony Leon, the South African opposition foreign affairs spokesman, said the shipment was tantamount to "putting a fuse in a powder keg".
Dockers in Durban were refusing last night to unload the ship. The SA Transport and Allied Workers Union's general secretary, Randall Howard, said: "Satawu does not agree with the position of the government not to intervene with this shipment of weapons. Our members will not unload this cargo, neither will any of our members in the truck-driving sector move this cargo by road."
Despite international criticism, the Chinese government has been a longstanding backer of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe's authoritarian regime, supplying it with jet fighters, military vehicles and guns. China, or Chinese businesses, are reported to have sold radio-jamming devices to prevent independent stations from contradicting the state-controlled media, and have signed vital agriculture deals. Even the blue tiles on Mugabe's latest 25-bedroom mansion, reminiscent of Beijing's Forbidden City, were a gift from China.
China has in the past used its veto at the UN security council to prevent the Zimbabwe issue from being raised, on the grounds that the country's problems were an internal matter.
In Britain, William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said last night: "The international community must speak with one voice on Zimbabwe. We call on China, as part of that community, to suspend arms sales to Zimbabwe.
"The Mugabe regime continues to deny the right of the people of Zimbabwe to choose their leaders. To supply arms to it at time when opposition activists are being intimidated and attacked, not only sends the wrong signal, but will harm the reputation of China.
"In addition, it is time that neighbouring states like South Africa made clear that such shipments are not welcome."
The Foreign Office was more cautious. A spokeswoman said that Britain backed an EU ban on arms sales to Zimbabwe and was encouraging other governments to do the same. The FO said it was monitoring the situation and seeking to verify reports about the ship's cargo.
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry said it was aware of the reports about the shipment, but needed more time to look into the matter.
The disclosure about the ship's cargo follows claims by an official from the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change that Chinese soldiers had been seen in the country.
There were some signs yesterday that South Africa may at last be bending under international pressure, when the cabinet joined calls for the release of Zimbabwe's election results.
Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, called on South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, to stand down as the chief mediator in the country's election crisis, as the US criticised African governments for lack of action on the issue. "It is time for Africa to step up," the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said.
Tsvangirai told a news conference in Johannesburg: "President Mbeki needs to be relieved from his duty."
Mbeki, is also under pressure from Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ruling African National Congress. Zuma has adopted a more hostile attitude towards Mugabe, saying that "the region cannot afford a deepening crisis in Zimbabwe". |
The BBC has made a multimillion-pound bid to keep James May and Richard Hammond on Top Gear following the axing of Jeremy Clarkson.
BBC2 chiefs are understood to want May and Hammond to remain on the show alongside a different guest presenter each week.
Such a move would scupper the three presenters reuniting on a rival motoring show on another channel, but could pave the way for Clarkson to return as a presenter on a future series.
Both BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw and the BBC’s creative director, Alan Yentob, have repeatedly stressed that the door was always open for Clarkson to return to the corporation at some point in the future.
“Jeremy will be back on the BBC,” Shillinglaw said in April. “It is serious and unfortunate what happened but there is no ban on Jeremy being on the BBC. Jeremy … needs some time out.”
She also refused to rule out a return for Hammond and May.
Top Gear return for May and Hammond not ruled out by BBC2 chief Read more
“Conversations are ongoing with James and Richard about a whole variety of projects at the BBC. While those conversations are ongoing, they have to remain private,” she said.
The BBC is thought to have offered May and Hammond about £1m each to return to the show, double what they previously earned.
It would catapult the pair into the corporation’s biggest earners, who also include Graham Norton, Gary Lineker and Radio 2 breakfast presenter, Chris Evans, at a time when the BBC is under pressure to further cut talent costs.
Retaining May and Hammond on the show alongside a guest presenter would enable the programme to return with its format intact.
Clarkson could then return to the show on a future series, taking his old job back from the guest presenters.
Clarkson’s contract was not renewed after his “fracas” with a member of the production team, but he was not fired by the BBC, as the presenter pointed out when he appeared on Chris Evans’s Radio 2 show last month.
When Evans said Hammond and May had an “open door” to work at the BBC, Clarkson replied: “Well so can I. I’m not sacked, remember.”
It remains to be seen if a series-long absence from the show would be regarded as sufficient punishment by corporation chiefs or viewers, many of whom would welcome Clarkson back with open arms.
Top Gear is one of the BBC’s most popular and valuable shows. As well as attracting 6 million viewers on BBC2 each week, it generates around £50m a year for the corporation’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.
The trio reunited for the Top Gear live show, rebranded as Clarkson, Hammond and May Live.
The guest presenter role would echo the set-up on BBC1’s panel show Have I Got News For You, which has had a different presenter each week after the departure of Angus Deayton in 2002.
However, the role on Top Gear would appear to be rather more complicated, with the team shooting films over a period of several months rather than a one-off recording like Have I Got News For You.
Speculation has surrounded where the three would end up next after May appeared to rule out returning to the BBC2 show without Clarkson, saying it would be “lame” to do it with a “surrogate Jeremy”.
Top Gear: James May rules out returning without Jeremy Clarkson Read more
However, neither May nor Hammond have said they are quitting the BBC. Although their contracts ran out in March, at the same time as Clarkson, both men have various projects in the pipeline on BBC1 or BBC2.
The three men have been linked with a move to ITV, having met with the broadcaster’s director of television Peter Fincham last month, along with the programme’s former executive producer Andy Wilman, as well as a possible switch to US on-demand service Netflix.
But any new show away from the BBC would not be able to use the Top Gear brand, which remains the property of the corporation.
There has also been speculation that Clarkson has a non-compete clause in his contract that would could put the brakes on a rival show.
Asked if Clarkson could return to the BBC, the BBC’s creative director Alan Yentob said in March: “Of course I wouldn’t rule that out, but that’s not for now.” And on the possibility that Hammond and May would stay, he said: “I hope so.”
A spokeswoman for Top Gear said the corporation did not comment on speculation. |
Sir Mike Rake said the telecoms giant binned almost a quarter of all applications made for a new apprenticeship scheme because candidates appeared “completely illiterate”.
Many young people now fail to have the basic skills needed to get by in the workplace, he said.
The comments represent the latest in a series of attacks on the education system by Britain’s leading businessmen.
Sir Terry Leahy, outgoing chief executive of Tesco, has criticised the “woefully low” standards achieved by many schoolchildren and Sir Stuart Rose, head of Marks & Spencer, said many young people were “not fit for work”.
Sir Mike said 26,000 applications were made for 170 places on BT’s apprenticeship programme starting this autumn, but 6,000 were not worthy of consideration.
“They were unable to complete the form because they could not spell, put it together or read properly – completely illiterate,” he said.
“It’s a disgrace. The politicians have a huge amount to answer for over the past 50 or 60 years.”
Sir Mike, whose company employs more than 90,000 people, also attacked the “obsession” with pushing growing numbers of school leavers towards university, leaving many with “a big debt and no job”.
“Too many people are going into the wrong courses,” he told The Sunday Times. “Many universities are just desperate to fill places and get their grants.”
He added: “Many of our higher-level apprentices have chosen apprenticeships instead of going to university. A lot of them make that choice even if they would have been first in their family to go to university.
“A lot of their friends are finding themselves coming out of university or college with a degree that may not be very useful from a practical point of view, with a big debt and no job.
“The realisation that an apprenticeship could be a better option than university for many people reminded us starkly of this huge literacy problem.
“We have people who want [apprenticeships] but don’t have the basic skills to do them. It’s really disturbing.” |
ROME (Reuters) - The European Central Bank plans to ask euro area banks to set aside more cash to cover bad loans, making it prohibitively expensive for lenders to keep sitting on them, a draft proposal seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday.
A commuter train passes over a bridge next to the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany, October 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
Soured loans are clogging up bank balance sheets and holding back lending - a headache for the ECB as weak credit growth offsets the stimulus it is trying to provide through low interest rates.
Starting January 1, it will give lenders two years to set aside funds to cover 100 percent of the value of their newly classified non-performing unsecured debt and seven years to cover all secured bad debt, the draft showed.
The measures however will not affect the nearly 1 trillion euros’ worth of bad debt already on the books. The new measures are intended to prevent another bad debt pile from forming.
The problem for banks is that there is no effective market for non-performing loans, so selling the debt would result in big losses and force them to raise capital, a costly exercise given low bank valuations.
“The application of the backstops should not result in cliff-edge effects but should rather be implemented in a suitable gradual way by banks from the moment of NPE (“non-performing exposure”) classification until the moment when 100 percent prudential provisioning is expected,” the draft showed.
“For the secured backstop, banks should therefore assume at least a linear path for the backstop building up to 100 percent over the seven years.”
The ECB declined to comment on the draft, which is dated Sept. 1. It plans to release the guidelines on Wednesday, part of a broader push to prompt action.
Across the euro zone, banks had on average set aside enough money to cover 45 percent of all non-performing exposures in the first quarter.
“A bank needs to be able to realize its security in a ‘timely manner’, the draft said. “If collateral has not been realized after a period of several years from the date when the underlying exposure was classified as non-performing, the collateral is deemed to be ineffective and as such, the exposure is treated as unsecured from a prudential perspective.”
Lenders in Italy, Greece and Cyprus have high volumes of non-performing loans.
Italian banks held 263 billion euros’ worth at the end of the first quarter, with coverage at 48.5 percent. In Greece, 101.8 billion euros’ worth, or half of all loans, were classified as non-performing in the middle of the year, Bank of Greece data showed.
In the draft, the ECB said that while the guidelines were non-binding, banks were expected to explain any deviations.
“Banks should report on the compliance with the prudential provisioning backstop outlined in this addendum at least annually and explain deviations to the supervisor,” the draft said. |
(h/t Heather)
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Two days ago LAX terminal 3's security was breached by a 23-year old guy with an assault rifle who shot his way past security checkpoints and got all the way to the boarding areas before he was stopped by airport police. As one might have suspected, that 23-year old kid appears to have been heavily influenced by the likes of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones.
SPLC reports that Paul Anthony Ciancia's manifesto "seemed to put him squarely in the conspiracy-minded world of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement." In that same report, they discuss the explosion of these groups in the past few years, and go on to discuss the Patriot movements dim view of the DHS.
So-called Patriots also increasingly see the DHS, which produces intelligence assessments of extremists that are distributed to other law enforcement agencies, as an enemy and even a collaborator in the New World Order conspiracy. Many believe DHS has targeted their movement and is somehow connected to the alleged construction of concentration camps by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The purported camps are thought to be meant for those Americans who resist a coming national seizure of all weapons from U.S. citizens.
Friday's shooting is important on a number of different levels, beginning with the AR-15 Ciancia was able to obtain apparently while living in California, which has some pretty strict state-based laws, including a statewide assault weapons ban. It raises questions about responsibility of high-profile "media" figures like Beck and Jones and begs for a renewed spotlight on our current NRA-controlled national debate over something as simple as universal background checks.
You might think it's a great topic for the Sunday shows. I certainly expected it to be. I went looking to see what the topics of the day are, and to my surprise, there was skeletal coverage (see video above) of the shooting, and no mention whatsoever of the influences on the shooter.
Are Alex Jones and Glenn Beck off limits for criticism now? After all, they're the primary peddlers of the anti-government, paranoid thinking so prevalent among anti-government nuts. There is a reality to what they do, after all. Call the government evil and invasive often enough, concoct enough scenarios of how "government" is the amorphous scary bogeyman aiming at innocents everywhere, toss in some NSA paranoia and libertarian claptrap and you get a guy with an assault weapon not just shooting people outside the security checkpoint, but targeting unarmed government agents because he can.
Why isn't this something to discuss? Why shouldn't the libertarian "I hate government set" represented by Beck and Jones be accountable for reaching into someone's darkest fears and stoking them?
Arming the TSA or attributing this to a 'lone wolf' isn't the answer. From what I've read, Ciancia wasn't mentally ill. He may have suffered from depression or anxiety, but not to a point where he left reality. No, that happened when these maniacs on TV and radio started talking about One World Order, Agenda 21 and the gold standard.
Evidently that's too weighty for the delicate ears and eyes of the Sunday show viewer. After all, why talk about paranoid maniacs and dead public servants when you've got Obamacare to kick around? |
The next Cold War is upon us. And, in what looks like an act of profound laziness, Russia is once again the focus of the establishment’s ire and dark fantasies.
In some sense this was inevitable. A significant portion of the US economy and political system is built on the existence of a restless national security state in constant search of threats. The Cold War provided all the pretext necessary to make the machine hum—expensive weapons systems, endless intelligence needs, and an animating existential danger to rally the people around entrenched elites. When it ended, lots of people in the old guard became unemployed, unimportant, and rudderless.
With 9/11 came some sense of normalcy for the national security state, but jihadists just don’t justify the F-35. In truth, they barely even justify the money needed to pay TSA agents to grab people’s junk at the airport. The US needed a new enemy, and one with deep pockets.
Enter Russia. Though the country mostly sticks to its traditional sphere of influence, it does, like the US, have a cyberwar program that includes foreign spying operations. It also, conveniently, is not a major trading partner like China, which has been repeatedly caught conducting cyberwarfare against US commercial and national security interests. China even allegedly hacked the US Office of Personnel Management, exposing 18 million American’s private information.
But it is Russia that still captures the imaginations of the US media and political elite. Russian paranoia can spur neo-McCarthyism at The New York Times and wholly unsubstantiated accusations at The Washington Post.
The Post recently ran a story headlined, “U.S. investigating potential covert Russian plan to disrupt November elections.” Citing anonymous government officials and spooky language about an expansive Russian plot to steal the US election for Donald Trump, the story quickly hits a brick wall by the fifth paragraph with the admission:
The official cautioned that the intelligence community is not saying it has “definitive proof” of such tampering, or any Russian plans to do so. “But even the hint of something impacting the security of our election system would be of significant concern,” the official said. “It’s the key to our democracy, that people have confidence in the election system.”
In other words, they’ve got jack shit to support this conspiracy theory, but are counting on no one reading past the headline and/or the first few paragraphs of the article. DC cynicism at its finest.
While there is no doubt that much of this Russian fear-mongering is coming from the Clinton campaign and fellow travelers in the media (despite Hillary’s own ties to the Kremlin) in hopes of damaging Donald Trump’s candidacy for president, there is a parallel if not deeper motive.
Cyberwarfare has become big business. From well established companies like Boeing, to new Mandarins like Palantir, cyberwarfare is now a multi-billion dollar industry with its corresponding armies of lobbyists and business development executives.
Of course, when much of your funding comes from the government, your lobbyists are your business development executives, aren’t they?
And before this gets memory-holed, the US started the cyberwar arms race. The introduction of Stuxnet, an American-Israeli cyberweapon that damaged Iranian nuclear facilities, has set off a global cyberweapons arms race that will, like all arms races, principally benefit the arms dealers. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that US cyberwar attacks like Stuxnet have set a dangerous precedent, which is to say everyone now wants in on the game.
Not that the US has stopped with Stuxnet. Recently, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter admitted to Congress the US has been using offensive cyberweapons against ISIS. Typically, the US has framed their cyberwar programs as entirely defensive in nature.
So here we go again, another Cold War with roughly the same villain and the US mainstream media once again acting like the defense companies’ sales force by pushing national security state propaganda instead of offering critical insight. |
A simple and inexpensive device to wash leafy produce, created by students at the University of Houston Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM), may provide a convenient way for small farmers to clean produce before market.
“Leafy greens have the highest incidence of food-borne illness outbreaks from a variety of pathogens nationwide,” said graduate student Cecilia Zerio Egli. “There is not a lot of research available for smaller farms to access methods for efficiently and economically washing produce before it goes to markets.”
Zerio Egli is studying in the HRM Food Safety Laboratory, directed by Professor Jay Neal. The laboratory performs microbiological and sensory research, while collaborating and publishing with other universities and government agencies. In addition, the lab has a full production kitchen, as well as a sensory evaluation laboratory. In August 2012, the lab will achieve a Bio-Safety Level 2 upgrade, which will enable researchers to work with pathogenic or disease causing microorganisms.
Supported by a grant from the Texas Department of Agriculture, Zerio Egli and Neal surveyed more than 80 local and regional farmers about their harvesting and washing practices, asking if they would use a washing device if it were available. “Small famers” were defined as earning less than $500,000 annually. These farms are exempt from the Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act, which focuses on preventing food contamination rather than responding to outbreaks.
Unlike large commercial farms that can ship produce to packing facilities that wash the vegetables, smaller farmers must do everything themselves, from harvesting and packaging to transporting to market. Not all produce is washed before heading to market.
“Packing sheds have flumes which are water-wash systems with a chlorinated treatment,” Neal said. “When you buy packaged lettuce that says ‘washed three times’ that’s how it was done. Small famers don’t have that.”
Zerio Egli’s device is made from PVC pipe, a stainless steel strainer and a five-gallon drum. Leafy vegetables placed inside the stainless steel container are spun as they’re showered briefly with water to remove dirt. With the flick of a lever, the container lowers into the plastic drum where it is spun in a vinegar and water solution, proven to best clean produce of any harmful bacteria. Finally, the container is lifted to its original position where the produce is rinsed with water again.
“I’ll be making an information sheet which will have the plans for how small farmers can easily build the device themselves and where they can purchase the inexpensive materials,” she said. “And farmers can manipulate the size to fit their individual needs.” The information sheet also will have resources for farmers about best practices when growing, harvesting and washing produce.
Zerio Egli and Neal plan to make the plans available in the fall to farmers and farmers’ markets. |
Kipnis has been working his way back from right shoulder inflammation that began during Spring Training. Cleveland manager Terry Francona said before Monday's game in Minnesota that Kipnis could return from his rehab assignment with Triple-A Columbus for the opener of a road series against the White Sox.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis could make his season debut as early as Friday.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis could make his season debut as early as Friday.
Kipnis has been working his way back from right shoulder inflammation that began during Spring Training. Cleveland manager Terry Francona said before Monday's game in Minnesota that Kipnis could return from his rehab assignment with Triple-A Columbus for the opener of a road series against the White Sox.
"He plays Tuesday and Wednesday and is going to be off Thursday," Francona said. "Best-case scenario, he flies to Chicago and joins us Friday. Now, that's the best-case scenario."
Kipnis, 30, had a second opinion on his shoulder in mid-March from Dr. Keith Meister in Arizona. At that time, Kipnis was given a timetable of four to five weeks before returning to the Indians' lineup.
The injury limited Kipnis to just five Cactus League at-bats this spring. During a healthy regular season in 2016, Kipnis played in a career-high 156 games and batted .275 with 23 home runs and 82 RBIs.
In five games on his rehab assignment -- two at Triple-A and three with Double-A Akron -- Kipnis was 3-for-13 (.231) with a double and five strikeouts. |
Brewmeister Brewery was a brewery based in Keith, Moray, Scotland. It was founded in 2012,[1] and has subsequently grown to export worldwide.[2]
Company history [ edit ]
The brewery began life on a farm in Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire with a student loan.[1][3] The first beer produced was Armageddon, which the company claimed in press releases was the world's strongest beer at 65% alcohol by volume (ABV).[4][5][6][7] Some batches of the beer were incorrectly manufactured to a strength of 15.2% ABV.[8]
In 2013, Brewmeister replaced Armageddon with a stronger beer called Snake Venom claiming 67.5% ABV, and put a warning label on the bottle[9] advising consumers to only drink one per sitting.[10] It retailed at £50 for a 275ml bottle. Brewmeister claimed that the beer "tastes like a liquor and has a whole host of different flavours, ranging from bubblegum to caramel."[11] However, Guinness Book of Records still consider the strongest beer ever sold the Brewdog's "The End of History" with 55% ABV.[12]
In March 2014, the company announced they would move to new facilities at the Isla Bank Mills in Keith and quadruple beer production[3] while in May of the same year, the company won the BQ Scottish Business Award for Export.[13] Richard Lochhead, member of Scottish Parliament for Keith, said that the move would be "a successful addition to Moray's strong food and drinks sector."[1] The brewery currently employs 13 people.[14]
Production [ edit ]
The strength of the beer comes from fractional freezing, which involves cooling the beer to a low temperature to the point where water freezes but alcohol does not. The ice is then removed, leaving a higher percentage of alcohol behind.[7] The company claims to use natural spring water for brewing and claims to use unusual ingredients in their beers.[15] In 2014, they announced that 90% of their product was being exported.[16]
Controversy [ edit ]
In 2014 the Advertising Standards Agency censured Brewmeister for misleading advertising, stating that it was possibly ethyl alcohol that had been added to Snake Venom to reach the desired ABV of 67.5%.[17]
Investment [ edit ]
In 2014, Brewmeister re-launched following the formation of a Board of Directors which came about after Brewmeister was partially bought by a syndicate of Scottish business figures. This included Scott Carnegie, a former Chairman of Dundee United Football Club. Brewmeister also received investment from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Investment Bank.[18] Scottish Enterprise are also holders of shares in the company.[19] |
Life in North Korea Edit
Born in 1968 at Hyesan, Park grew up in a privileged family in North Korea. Park Sang-hak attended Kim Chaek University studying IT. After graduating, he worked at Kim Il Sung Youth Alliance.[2] He met with other members of the community every Monday for political classes and Saturday self-criticism sessions.[3] Park’s grandmother, returning from a rare visit to Japan, told of how much happier people were in other countries. He began to hear from fellow students, who had been chosen to study in other communist countries, share stories of the outside world. He discovered people in Europe didn’t have to do self-criticisms each week, which had been a great source of stress. Yet, he still had no desire to leave. He continued to work in Kim Il Sung Youth Alliance, got a girlfriend, and got engaged. He was preparing for his planned wedding.[3] Then one day in the summer of 1997, Park received a message from a Chinese man. He had come on behalf of Park’s father, who was in Japan working for the government. His father realized the family was in danger, and he wanted them to leave. His father discovered the scale of the famine in North Korea. Fearing fresh purges of officials in the Workers’ Party, he sent for his family to leave. Suspecting a trap, Park demanded proof from the Chinese man, such as pictures of his father. It took two months for this to be arranged.[2]
Defection to South Korea Edit
Once they had proof, Park took his mother, brother, and sister and headed for China.[2] After bribing North Korean guards to look the other way, Park and his brother swam across a river into China, while their mother and sister floated across the river using an inner tube. They were picked up on the other side of the border by a car, as arranged by his father, and the whole family flew on false passports to South Korea.[4] When he came to South Korea, he enrolled at Seoul National University. He was able to study different political theories. He was able to compare the North Korean system to the democratic system of the South. He restudied Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and also studied South Korean presidents Yi Seung Man and Pak Chung Hee. He could have lived comfortably as a researcher at the Mobile Institute, but he felt some responsibility. He felt as an intellectual he had responsibility to be a part of this movement. The reason why he engaged in these activities was because he was angry at the North Korean system.[2] In April 2003, Park and his family learned of what happened to his relatives back home. He learned that his fiancée had been beaten so badly, she was left unrecognizable and poor. His two uncles were also beaten to death, and his cousins were stripped of their wealth, reducing them to street beggars. The relatives were guilty by association as judged by the North Korean regime, and therefore punished. Learning that so many deaths were caused by his father's defection left him angry, so he quit his job.[2]
Activism Edit
In 2006, Park became the chairman of the Democracy Network against North Korea Gulag. As of 2013, he is the chairman of Fighters for a Free North Korea.[1][5] In April 2015 Park Sang-hak was detained as protestors clashed with South Korean police over their attempts to airlift thousands of copies of The Interview into North Korea.[6][7] Fighters for a Free North Korea Edit Main article: Fighters for a Free North Korea Fighters for a Free North Korea is known for periodically launching balloons carrying human rights and pro-democracy literature, DVDs, transistor radios and USB flash drives from South Korea into North Korea. Over two million such balloons have been launched. The balloons, which generally reach the Pyongyang area after three to four hours in the air, are timed to release their materials in the Pyongyang area.[8] According to the Wall Street Journal, supporters of the balloon campaign say that it "is one of the most effective tools for change inside North Korea, where information about the outside world is highly restricted". Critics of the campaign, reported the Journal, "oppose the move for causing inter-Korean frictions".[9] Park and his colleagues released balloons containing leaflets from Ganghwa, an island off the west coast of South Korea, in October 2012, shortly after being prevented by authorities from releasing them from Paju, their usual launch site, which North Korea had threatened to fire upon if the balloon release went forward.[9][10] Assassination attempt Edit In September 2011, a North Korean defector was arrested in Seoul by members of the National Intelligence Service on his way to meet with Park, referred to as "Enemy Zero" by the Pyongyang regime.[4] South Korean authorities said that he had planned to kill Park either by poisoning his drink or by jabbing him with a poisoned needle. Park said that the assassin, Ahn, had phoned him earlier and asked to meet him. "Ahn told me by phone", Park said, "that he was to be accompanied by a visitor from Japan who wants to help our efforts. But then I was told by the NIS not to go to the meeting due to the risk of assassination".[8] The Independent of London noted that Ahn "could face the death penalty" under South Korea's National Security Law, but he ended up being sentenced to four years in prison. He was also ordered to pay 11.75 million Won in fines (about $10,000 USD ),[11] which was the same amount he had been promised for assassinating Park. The Independent also pointed out that the assassination plot was “reminiscent of the Cold War killing of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who was stabbed with a ricin-tipped umbrella in London in 1978.”[8]
Awards and honors Edit |
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