text
stringlengths 316
100k
|
|---|
Doll Man vs the Fuehrer of America†, THE DOLL MAN QUARTERLY No. 2 (Spring ’42); story: unknown; art: Reed Crandall; 10 pages; on sale February 20th ’42.
†Originally untitled story.
THE DOLL MAN QUARTERLY No. 2 (Spring ’42); cover by Gill Fox ⇒
also in this issue:
Doll Man Battles the Crime Combine†; story: unknown; art: Reed Crandall; 13 pages.
The Dragon; story and art: Fred Gardineer; 5 pages.
Doll Man vs the Vampire Bats†; story: unknown; art: Reed Crandall; 13 pages.
America–It’s Worth Defending; story and art: Feg Murray; 2 pages.
Lala Palooza; story and art: Bernard Dibble; 1 page.
Doll Man in The Toy Store Terror†; story: unknown; art: Reed Crandall; 7 pages.
Doll Man text story: The Giant Killer; story: unknown; 2 pages.
[includes Statement of the Ownership]
Mayor Midge; story and art: Tony DiPreta; 1 page.
Doll Man Faces the Fury of the Fog Gas†; story: unknown; art: Reed Crandall; 10 pages.
Background
In the funny books published by Quality Comics, the Doll Man stories are usually credited as “by William Erwin Maxwell.” Such a man never existed. The first story was created by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger–in the Eisner-Iger shop. Thereafter, many diverse hands contribute to the Doll Man yarns. However, THE DOLL MAN QUARTERLY No. 2 is unique in featuring all stories with art from Reed Crandall (although, these credits are not certain).
Beginning in FEATURE COMICS No. 27 ( December ’39), Darrel Dane becomes the Doll Man thanks to some wonder drug that seems to compact his form down to the size of a doll. Just how small Darrel can go varies. In his compact form, Doll Man has superhuman strength and amazing agility. In the first few adventures, he needs to take the drug each time he reduces his size, but after that Darrel apparently can transform at will.
From his very first appearance onward, Darrel’s secret is known to both his mentor, Dr. Roberts and to Roberts’ daughter–Darrel’s fiancée–Martha. Yet by issue No. 50 (November ’41) and without explanation, the father and daughter have forgotten this fact and now Darrel’s identity is a secret he must hide from Martha. As it says in this issue [Doll Man in The Toy Store Terror]:
Although Dr. Roberts and his daughter, Martha, have often encountered that Cyclonic Atom, the Doll Man, she does not dream that he is really Darrel Dane, Martha’s fiancé, who can at will become the Tiny Fury.
It hardly makes much sense, given Doll Man wears no disguise–he’s simply a much smaller version of Martha’s fiancé. And Darrel is as much the hero in his street clothes as when he changes into his blue and red Doll clothes, with no attempt to effect a difference between the two.
The tales worked much better when Dr. Roberts and Martha did know the secret–as they could assist Darrel/Doll Man in fighting criminals and saboteurs. I can only guess that the writers thought they ought to copy the stereotypical funny book super-hero, where the girlfriend never knows what her man gets up to when he takes off his street clothes. Maybe Quality believed that’s what a reader expected.
Dane rarely is shown living in his own place (probably some low rent studio apartment, with the bare necessities and little furniture) and is almost always over at the Roberts house [as seen in Doll Man Battles the Crime Combine and other adventures in this issue.]
Martha and Darrel seem to be playing house right under her father’s roof, without the elder scientist caring one bit what they might be doing in private–and virtually encouraging their romance out of wedlock.
They’re supposedly engaged to be married, but they never really do marry.
Once Martha no longer knows Darrel’s double identity, she sometimes shows an erotic interest in the Doll Man. Which is weird. There’s no evidence to the rest of the world that the Doll Man ever increases in height above a foot–so what kind of relationship Martha imagines with her Tiny Titan is open to wild speculation.
This is the state of affairs as of THE DOLL MAN QUARTERLY No. 2 (Spring ’42). [See Martha trying to grab the “cute little fellow” to take him home with her, in Doll Man Faces the Fury of the Fog Gas.]
Together with Uncle Sam, Doll Man appears to be one of Quality’s first big stars. Both characters won their own quarterly titles in the late summer of 1941, spun off from their appearances in the anthologies, NATIONAL COMICS and FEATURE COMICS respectively. This would indicate that Quality had enough faith in their popularity to feature Uncle Sam and Doll Man in their own books.
THE DOLL MAN QUARTERLY continued for seven issues until late 1943, before going on hiatus for the remainder of the war, finally returning with issue No. 8, cover dated Spring ’46. The hiatus was probably brought on by paper shortages due to the war.
The other Doll Man adventures of this issue
Doll Man Battles the Crime Combine†: When the District Attorney investigates the Crime Combine to prosecute them before the grand jury, the mobsters threaten the D.A.’s life. Darrel Dane and Doll Man are on the case.
Doll Man vs the Vampire Bats†: A U.S. destroyer transports Darrel Dane, Dr. Roberts and Martha to Trinidad where they investigate a plague of vampire bats menacing the American base there. In this tale Darrel uses the pet-name Marty for Martha.
Doll Man in The Toy Store Terror†: A toystore becomes a shooting gallery when the Doll Man takes on gunsels employed by a corrupt city official.
Doll Man text story: The Giant Killer: Giant Nazi soldiers march on Britain’s shores, after Dr. Roberts’ gland growth serum is stolen. Go to the spoiler page for the full text story.
Doll Man Faces the Fury of the Fog Gas†: After Dr. Robert’s invents a gas fog for cloaking aircraft, Nazi fifth columnists attempt to steal it for the Third Reich.
More features of this issue
Elsewhere in this issue, Fred Gardineer tells the adventures of the Dragon, an American leading a band of Chinese guerillas against the Japanese invading their land.
There are two funny pages: one page of Bernard Dibbles’ Lala Palooza humour strip and another with Mayor Midge by Tony DiPreta.
And Feg Murray provides the patriotic two page centre-spread–America–It’s Worth Defending
Also included on the Doll Man text page feature is the
Statement of the Ownership . . .
Doll Man vs the Fuehrer of America
Elsa, a former maid and family friend of the Roberts household, has been hired by von Brundt–the self-styled Fuehrer of America–as part of his plot to lure Dr. Roberts into his clutches. The scientist has developed an anti-poison gas formula which the fifth columnists hope to steal. Elsa is injured and rendered unconscious while trying to escape and warn of von Brundt’s plans. Our three heroes come to the aid of the former housemaid and, as Dr. Roberts and Martha set out for the hospital with Elsa in their car, they are waylaid by the Fuehrer’s military guards. Darrel–now as the diminutive Doll Man–is trapped in the tobacco pouch of one guard.
What happens next???
Go to the spoiler page for more on this story’s big finish.
All characters, logos, and images are owned and © 2015 by current copyright holders. They are used here for educational and review purposes.
Advertisements |
New research presented at this year's annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Stockholm shows that a 10-times increased exposure to organic pollutants in early pregnancy is associated with a 4.4 times increased risk of a pregnant woman developing gestational diabetes. The research is by Assistant Professor Leda Chatzi, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece.
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are a group of diverse substances, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides that are resistant to biodegradation and present almost everywhere in the environment. Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals such as POPs has been linked to type 2 diabetes and metabolic disturbances in epidemiological and animal studies, but little is known about POPs exposure during pregnancy and the development of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethene (DDE-a breakdown product of DDT) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) are synthetic chemicals that were used widely as pesticides, while PCBs were used in many industrial processes. These chemicals have been banned for decades but remain in the environment where they bioaccumulate in the bodies of animals and humans.
The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which exposure to current low levels of different POPs in the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with GDM risk in 639 women from the Rhea pregnancy cohort in Crete, Greece. The study is the Mother-Child Cohort in Crete, "Rhea" cohort which prospectively examines a population-based sample of pregnant women and their children at the prefecture of Heraklion, Crete, Greece. Female residents who became pregnant during a period of one year starting in February 2007 were contacted and asked to participate in the study. The first contact was made at the time of the first comprehensive ultrasound and several contacts followed (6th month of pregnancy, at birth, 9 months, 1st year, 4 and 7 years after birth). The Principal Investigator of the study is Assistant Professor Leda Chatzi.
The authors determined the concentrations of several PCBs, DDE, and HCB in first trimester maternal serum by mass spectrometry. Pregnant women were screened for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation.
A total of 68 (7%) women had GDM, and the authors found that a 10-fold increase in total PCBs was associated with a 4.4 times increased risk of GDM after adjusting for pre-pregnancy BMI and several other confounders. The association was similar for non dioxin-like PCBs (4.4 times increased risk). However prenatal DDE and HCB exposure were not significantly associated with GDM risk.
The authors conclude: "These findings suggest that women with high PCBs levels in early pregnancy had higher risk for gestational diabetes. Further studies are needed to replicate these results and to evaluate potential biological mechanisms underlying the observed associations."
They add: "As countries around the world, including Greece, deal with an increasing prevalence of gestational diabetes, the findings are important from a public health perspective as knowledge of environmental risk factors could help to reverse this trend. Our future research in this cohort will examine whether prenatal exposure to POPs is associated with alterations in glucose metabolism and diabetes development of the offspring in early childhood." |
Donald Trump backtracks on Putin comments, says he agrees Russia meddled in election
Updated
US President Donald Trump says he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin believes it when he says Moscow did not interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, but Mr Trump says he also believes US intelligence agencies which concluded Russia did.
Key points: Mr Trump had earlier said he believed Mr Putin was being genuine
He also described former US intelligence officials as "political hacks"
Mr Trump today said he believes the assessment made by US intelligence on Russia
"I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election," Mr Trump said of Mr Putin at a news conference with Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang in Hanoi.
"As to whether I believe it, I'm with our agencies."
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One earlier, Mr Trump had said Mr Putin had again vehemently denied the allegations, this time during an economic summit in Vietnam.
Mr Trump said he believed "that when he tells me that, he means it."
Mr Trump had also dismissed former US intelligence officials as "political hacks" and accused Democrats of using the issue to try to sabotage relations between the two countries, putting lives at risk.
However speaking at the news conference in Hanoi, Mr Trump backed away from those comments.
"As currently led by fine people, I believe very much in our intelligence agencies," he added.
Mr Trump also reiterated his view that it's crucial for the US to get along with Russia, and seemed to suggest it was time to remove the sanctions Congress has slapped on Russia in retaliation for its election meddling efforts.
"It's now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken," Mr Trump said.
"Those are very important things."
But there appeared to be little progress in US-Russia relations, with the Kremlin blaming the US for the lack of a bilateral meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin in Vietnam.
The two met briefly on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit but did not hold substantive bilateral talks.
"Unfortunately the American side did not offer any alternatives despite all efforts of our Russian colleagues," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.
"There was only one time offered that was convenient for the American side, and only one place offered, which had already been rented by the Americans.
"The Americans showed no flexibility, and unfortunately did not offer any other alternative proposals."
Trump appears to contradict Putin comments
As he travelled to Hanoi, the second-to-last stop of his Asia trip, Mr Trump told reporters Mr Putin "said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did."
"Every time he sees me, he said: 'I didn't do that.' And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it," Mr Trump said, calling the accusation an "artificial barrier" erected by Democrats.
The president lashed out at the former heads of the nation's intelligence community, and said there were plenty of reasons to be suspicious of their findings.
"I mean, give me a break. They're political hacks," Mr Trump said, citing by name James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, John Brennan, the former CIA director and his ousted ex-FBI director James Comey, whom Mr Trump said was "proven now to be a liar and he's proven to be a leaker."
In a tweet sent from Hanoi, Mr Trump bashed the "haters and fools" he said are questioning his efforts to improve relations with Russia and accused critics of "playing politics" and hurting the country.
His comments about Mr Putin and "political hacks" brought criticism from politicians with ties to the intelligence community.
Senator John McCain, the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2008, said in a statement that Mr Trump's faith in Mr Putin's denial was "naive".
Mr Trump was in Hanoi for a brief state visit, including Sunday's meeting with Mr Tran at the presidential palace.
In brief remarks after his arrival, Mr Trump offered help negotiating with China on disputes over the South China Sea.
Beijing's island-building there has drawn criticism from Washington, which argues the US has a national interest in freedom of navigation in sea lanes critical for world trade.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier this month said China's "provocative actions" challenged international law and norms.
"If I can help mediate or arbitrate, please let me know," Mr Trump offered.
"I'm a very good mediator and a very good arbitrator. I've done plenty of it from both sides."
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, us-elections, donald-trump, vietnam, united-states, russian-federation
First posted |
This the second interview of our „Barcelona Interview Series“. On November 18, 2017, we spoke with anarchist comrade Xavi (name changed) of the Negres Tempestes collective in Barcelona, about the so-called Catalan process.
Published by Enough is Enough.
Note: Enough is Enough is not organizing any of these events, we are publishing this text for people across the US and Europe to be able to see what is going on and for documentation only.
Read all our interviews from Barcelona; here.
Download, read and print the PDF file: The #Barcelona Interview Series: – Negres Tempestes About the Regime of 78: „It Was Not a Transition, It Was a Transaction“
The Barcelona Interview Series: – Negres Tempestes About the Regime of 78: „It Was Not a Transition, It Was a Transaction“
This the second interview of our „Barcelona Interview Series“. On November 18, 2017, we spoke with anarchist comrade Xavi (name changed) of the Negres Tempestes collective in Barcelona, about the so-called Catalan process.
How did you react when the independence movement came up and was getting stronger, because I guess it wasn’t easy to find a position on what to do in this situation?
Xavi: Well it was really difficult because we came from an anarchist culture in our past. So when people from Catalonia were talking about the situation, they normally didn’t talk about Catalonia. They used the definition “La Tierra”, the land, the territory and then at some point they started to talk about the Catalan republic. It seemed to be something very important, but then the language started to change. Basically our self-organisation started to change its names. They took the names, the powers took the names. They took them and then they were able to rewrite the significance of this. For example; They were talking about solidarity with Mas (Artur Mas, former Catalan president, EIE). That’s crazy. He is rich, he doesn’t need solidarity. People on the street that were attacked by the police during the referendum and people that have trouble with the courts need solidarity. That’s the point, not the rich people. Not the former Catalan president.
It was also difficult because there was a mix of ideas. Some of the center, some of the soft-left, some of the soft-right had their ideas, and there is also CUP, the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, a left party. We work with them at some issues we were comfortable with. They are there and they are not making a stupid policy. They are in parliament but at the same time they are also on the streets. For example; when there were problems at Can Vies (In 2014 cops tried to evict the social center Can Vies in the Sants district in Barcelona. After days of riots the eviction was cancelled, EIE) their politicians were standing in front of the police and because they are politicians the police can’t hit them.
So it was very difficult, because we also don’t want a state. But I have my language. I have my culture and the Spanish government tries to smash it. For example; They are now trying to destroy the model of Catalan education. It’s a crap model of education, a capitalist model but at least it’s a model that let the language survive. For us the language is important, our language was forbidden from 1714 until the 1970’s. In this period it was only legal to speak Catalan in the first republic. We don’t take a position in which we will support an independent state, but we will support people fighting oppression, against police attacks. We also support the freedom of speech. Sometimes we are together with the “Independentists”, because there are basic rights that are in danger.
Inside the independence movement there are different ideas. Convergència, now PDeCAT, and CUP are not having the same idea. CUP wants to organize the territory in a similar way like in Rojava. If we look to this kind of ideas, it could be nice. But we are not a closed group, there are many small groups in Barcelona and everyone of them have their own ideas, their own position. It’s quite difficult to have a common position about this. In fact there was a meeting with many collectives two weeks ago, organized by a squat of students. They did a really good job. It was the first time we talked. There were many people and it was a good meeting.
What was the beginning of the independence movement?
Xavi: That’s quite difficult… In the 17th century Catalonia was a territory that had a pact with France. At some point they decided to cancel the pact and started to organize themselves. Catalonia was a kingdom, but for that time in history it was not a usual kingdom. The king didn’t had full control. The powers were separated in 3 parts; the army, the church and trade officials. This establishment was organized in a kind of parliament and controlled the laws that were made by the king but they also made laws by themselves. The king had the right to appoint the Catalan government. But it was not an absolute monarchy like in most other European countries at that time. There was a union with Aragon, but every territory had its own government. But the dynasty had no successor and the Catalans supported the claim of Charles the third, a member of the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty. Other parts of the Iberian peninsula supported Philip the sixth (Bourbonne, EIE). Philip the sixth was from France and an absolutist king. Charles the third said that he would respect the self-government of Catalonia. But Philip won the war in 1714. After that self-government was destroyed, the language was forbidden and many Catalan cultural things were also banned. So the occupation started at 1714. But people always maintained the language and the culture. To be clear; I am not talking about the privileged, the rich people. The independent movement was started by people with money who demanded self-organization to boost trade, for their business. But then something strange happened.
At the end of the feudal system the last thing that reminded of Catalan self-government was the so-called civil code. The civil code was destroyed. Than Fanelli, an Italian anarchist, arrived (In October 1868 Bakunin sponsored Fanelli to travel to Barcelona to share his libertarian visions, EIE) in Catalonia and from there, there was a big mix of ideas. Discussions about who is the enemy? The state? People agreed that the enemy is the state because it was destroying our language, our culture and our self-organization. Why do we need a state? So anarchist ideas mixed with cultural ideas and because of this the second republic, the anarchist one, was very powerful at the streets. Surprisingly an independentist party was in the government at that time. The most surprising thing was that the government recognized anarchist organization, communes and self-organization of the industries. They legalized it. The anarchists became part of the government, but only at the defence department. To be able to defend the territory and the revolution. We are now talking about the Spanish civil war, we are talking about the revolution of 1936. Franco won the war and unfortunately he did a very good job. He smashed ideas, extended christianity, he destroyed syndicates and many organizations. Many organizations went underground, clandestine. These organizations did incredible work. That’s something that we should recognize, that we should be proud of. When the Franco regime ended these organizations became legal again. These were very different organizations; socialists, independentists, but also anarchists. Groups like the one of Salvador Puig Antich, who was killed by the Franco regime in 1974. But the group where he was active in was still there. Some of these anarchist groups fought on the streets to start a revolution but they were not strong enough. After the transition the socialist movement became a strong independentist force. At that time they were the only ones who spoke about independence. They wanted to create a new republic. A socialist republic for the people blah blah blah..
A new wave of independentist came from many different factors. The first factor was the Partido Popular (PP, the governing party in Spain, a re-foundation – in 1989 – of the Alianza Popular, AP, a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Interior and Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship, EIE). The Partido Popular is a factory that produces independentists. I think when Catalonia will become a republic we should create a statue for Mariano Rajoy. Sincerely, many thanks. The most stupid idea the PP had was to put the most stupid man they could find at the Spanish department of education. When he said Catalan students must learn more Spanish that was a big mistake. Talking to Catalans about the schools, saying them to keep the Catalan language out of the schools was a bad idea. There are still many old people that learned Catalan in flats, illegally, the language was forbidden. When these people started to hear these things from PP politicians they said okay, let’s leave this place (the Spanish state, EIE). Most old people don’t like big changes but if you remember them what happened to them and that it could happen again they start to resist. Then they (this old people, EIE) say, okay forget about the dictatorship, forget about Spain, let’s start our own republic. We don’t want this crap and with our own country we will try to prevent that this will happen again. So I think this was a very important moment.
Another important moment was the statute of Catalan autonomy. It was crap. It was designed by the Spanish government, so from people that not many people in Catalonia voted for (To give an idea, the Spanish governing party PP only got 8.5% of the votes in the 2015 Catalan elections, EIE). The Catalan government wanted to change the autonomy statute but the PP went to the constitutional court and destroyed it. Many people had the feeling they tried but this just doesn’t work. I think this was a moment that people discovered there will be no advance inside Spain. The first thing that was removed from the statute was that Catalonia is a nation. Another point that was removed was the part that would legalize euthanasia. For the christian Spanish government that was too much. So people said; we tried but they (the Spanish government, EIE) are constantly saying they want to destroy the Catalan schools, they are also saying that this is the best kind of self-government that they will offer, so it’s time to go our own way. Every time the Spanish government speaks they are functioning as a factory that produces independentists. They are promoting it.
You already answered the following question but maybe you can be more specific; There are many different groups, initiatives and parties who are part of the independence movement or at least somehow involved. What kind of spectrum are we talking about? There are the former Christian-Democrats, you already told us there is also CUP, than there are a lot of groups and initiatives in the neighbourhoods. How is this balanced?
Xavi: In the end you could say that if you say “I am an independentist” it’s only a name that you are using. Than you develope your own ideas about it. So there are christians (Christian-Democrats, EIE), the Esquerra Republicana, they are social-democrats, and there is CUP, they are more revolutionary. And you have the CDR’s, the Committees to Defend the Republic. Personally I feel more comfortable with the CDR’s, because they are organized in assemblies. They are organized in neighbourhoods and small towns. The ideas that are growing there are very interesting. The CDR’s are independent from the ANC and Omnium (The two big independence organisations, EIE). So they are not under control of the big organizations and political parties. A lot of the people in the CDR’s are collaborating or comfortable with CUP. But the party (CUP) is not controlling the CDR’s at all. There are also anarchists at CDR’s. Because we feel comfortable there.
I should say that the Christians and the right wing in Catalonia are not very liberal, they are racist. They really are a right movement. Every thing they did reminds of Franco and Franco is the one that tried to kill our population, to kill our language , to kill our culture.
There are also anarchists who are not involved in the independence movement at all. Can you tell us something about their positions and how do you think about that?
Xavi: Personally I think there are not a lot but first of all let’s define the involvement. Many of us collaborate with CDR’s that are organized in assemblies. Many collectives are also integrated in neighbourhood assemblies. So in the end we are collaborating but not inside (the independence movement, EIE).
When there is oppression, when basic rights are in danger, when people are attacked… There is a moment where you should take a position. There is this one front and there is another. There you have the Spanish government and they are fascists and there is the Catalan government and they are corrupt. And there are the people that have the chance to start a new republic. Like I said before there are people who are talking about organizing things like in Rojava. People also need to be defended from the fascist attacks.
So you could be with the fascists and the police. You could be in the middle or you could be with the people in the CDR’s, it’s not the best option, but an option that I feel more comfortable with. So in many ways we support the Independentists, not the idea to create a new state, but to support basic rights. I don’t think any anarchist collective will not take part. Obviously we don’t take part in politics, not on a political party level. We take part on the streets. When you are on the streets it’s easy. There are the fascists and here are we. So there are many ideas and many collectives but there is only one enemy.
What are the main reasons for you why you think it’s important for Catalonia to leave Spain?
Xavi: If you talk with many people about that, most people will reproduce crap from the Catalan government and from the big organizations. Crap like Spain ist stealing from us. That’s something they always use. I really hate it. It’s the Spanish government that’s stealing from us, not Spain. If you say Spain you refer to the people in Spain and they are poor, like we are. In my point of view it’s not about money, it’s about our language, it’s about culture. It’s about the place where I live. I don’t want a place where fascists can do anything without any kind of consequences. The legal establishment of Spain protects the fascists. The Spanish government says there was a transition from dictatorship to democracy. But in fact it was not a transition, it was a transaction. They changed the name, a few laws and legalized some parties. But everything remained the same as it was. There is no freedom of speech. And there are many many other issues. So one of the reasons for me is that I want to live in a place where fascists can’t act like this is their place.
But also for my language and my culture. It’s a chance to start a new way of organizing (society, EIE). Many of us are talking and introducing ideas and discuss what people are building up in Rojava. There are other ways to organize society. This is something we are talking about in CDR’s, it’s one of the reasons why we are in the CDR’s. My personal reason is the opportunity for a new kind of organization and to protect my language and my culture.
You more or less already answered this question, but maybe you have something to add. What should change if Catalonia becomes independent in comparison to the situation now?
Xavi: Well, as I said before… The right wing in Catalonia could not express that they are powerful. They didn’t talk about racism. They didn’t talk about sexism. So they are… let’s say limited. There are also some left wing parties and we have CUP. Probably the left parties will get stronger. So there is a chance when we write a constitution. Especially because people started to take the streets, started demonstrations. They started to fight, very peacefully, but it’s a start. We started to discuss everything. What type of school do we want? What kind of health system? Not just a health system that tries to fix, but a health system that tries to find out what’s going on with this person and to help that person. But people also debate what kind of state do we want? Do we really need a state? Is it really necessary? There is a chance to change everything. It’s in our hands. As anarchists we try to express our opinions. What we could do. We say things like: “Okay you think this is impossible, but look we are here. We are here because we did it. We really have the power to do a lot of things. So don’t limit yourself. Try to do more. Try to think what to fight for and try to think about things politicians will not do for you. You need to do it yourself.”
You already said a few things about the so-called regime of 78. As you said before it wasn’t a transition but a transaction… But many people outside Catalonia and outside Spain don’t know what’s meant with the regime of ‘78. Can you explain that to our readers?
Xavi: When we talk about the regime of 78… I should say that this is new. We always say that this was a transaction. Many people now discovered that what is presented as a democracy is not a democracy. Obviously anarchists and social movements discovered that a long long time ago. But other people are discovering this right now. So they are starting to speak about that. To speak about the regime of 78 because nothing has changed. They realize that this regime is the continuation of Franco’s fascism. They are talking about this because there is no freedom of speech. There is no freedom to assemble (Since the introduction of the Gag law people can be fined and prosecuted for about anything, Tweets, participation in a demonstration etc EIE). The Catalan government is under control of Madrid. Many people working for the administration were fired. The Madrid government demand that everything that is related with the Catalan administration has to be in Spanish, because the new people who were send from Madrid don’t speak Catalan. They (the Spanish government, EIE) can do whatever they want. It’s like it always was, nothing changed. So we are in the regime of 78 and it’s the same as Franco’s regime.
The Spanish government suspended catalan autonomy with article 155. What do you think could be an effective way to resist this kind of repression?
Xavi: First of all, it’s quite difficult. We are talking about a state that doesn’t seem to have a limit. We should understand that the state needs an enemy. Always! Right now they found a good one again. For a long time it was Euskadi (Basque Country, EIE). Everything was terrorism and terrorism was a big problem Blah blah blah… and they (the Spanish state, EIE) were using this. Right now they are using Catalonia. When everything goes wrong they need an enemy to restrict the rights of people. The Spanish government is using this to incite hate against Catalans.
The Spanish state is very powerful and many people from other regions in the territory support the government. The state uses the police and police violence without any consequences. Many people in Catalonia experienced this for the first time, of course we already had this experience but many people didn’t expect that something like this would be possible in Europe. So it’s difficult, we could try to continue with pacifist resistance but this means we should accept that we will suffer the violence. We should be present at the places where it happens and suffer the violence to show the world the violence of the Spanish government. But many people are not ready for that. I think the first point is that we have to try to organize the streets, to rise against the Spanish government. So it’s time to organize ourselves even more.
We also should organize self-government. For example to establish our own education, apart from the government education. Right now it’s under control of the Spanish government. There already is a new school, with a different concept, where the kids learn what they want to learn. We don’t want to create kids that follow the rules. We want kids to get the knowledge that they want and they enjoy it. They are not drilled in a classroom in a military way, saying yes, yes, yes, learn, learn, learn. We could create many things apart from the government to organize ourselves beyond the government.
We also have to prepare solidarity because it will be necessary. The government imprisoned the leaders of the big independence organizations (ANC and Omnium, EIE). They have enough money and will get everything they need. But we need to be prepared, because for us the repression will not be the same. We should be prepared to be able to respond at the streets. We should be prepared to confront the fascists ourselves. No police or government will do that for us. It’s time to get control over our lives, there is no (Catalan, EIE) government now, only the Spanish government. The Catalan government is out, so we don’t have to respond to any government, we only have to repond to each other.
How can people outside of Catalonia support the struggle here? Do you have any ideas about that?
Xavi: Propaganda is the most important. So at this point thanks for coming and this interview! Let people know what’s happening here. How it’s happening. Show people that the European Union is a lie, because they (the Spanish government, EIE) are using a military article of the constitution. They occupied our self-government. They kicked the elected government. So right there we see that democracy is a lie. And this was all supported by the European Union. So let people know that the European Union, the European institutions are a lie. But also to show what we do have. Maybe we have something that could really change things. Maybe we can show that they can’t control the whole of Europe and that we are starting to get out of control. When everybody knows what is happening here, the Spanish government kicked the Catalan government but people are organizing themselves on the streets. Maybe they get the message that it’s time to get rid of the European institutions and build something new. Something new for us, for the people who live in Europe.
What do you think about the pacifist strategy where the Catalan politicians and the big organizations like the ANC and Omnium are always talking about? For me as an observer from outside, I see clear limits for this strategy. What do you think about that?
Xavi: Let’s put things in place. The Catalan government means nothing to Europe. They (The Catalan government, EIE) tried to get attention from the European institutions. They think that the only way to get this attention is with a pacifist strategy. Because if you don’t do that, the Spanish government would argue like; hey they are using violence. That’s the position of the Catalan government. The big organizations, the ANC and Omnium, they adopted these ideas. In my point of view pacifism is okay, just destroying things leads to nowhere, but there are fascists attacking people on the streets and the police is doing nothing. Maybe that’s not the time to be pacifist. Violence just to be violent leads us to nowhere but unfortunately sometimes violence is necessary. I mean if there are fascists on the streets. I don’t think violence is the right way, but if it’s necessary… It’s not like everything will be just fine just because you are a pacifist and you are not doing anything. You need to be prepared for what will happen.
Last month we were on a demonstration of the independence movement where people were celebrating the catalan police. What’s your position on things like that? I mean, I remember very well that it was the Catalan police who violently evicted the 15M movement from Catalunya square in 2011… These are the same cops.
Xavi: Yes these are the same cops, but we are not talking about the same people. Many people think that the police is there to protect us. During the Catalan referendum (On October 1, EIE) the Catalan cops tried to avoid the violence from the Spanish Guardia Civile and Policia Nacional. So for many people this confirmed that Catalan cops are there to protect them. We have to stop that, because it’s horrible.
We should say it clear; Catalan police is police but they are living here. If you are a police officer and you live in a small town you will know people there. So the Spanish police was attacking people that you know. This actually happened in small towns. The Catalan police actually were protecting people in several small towns (during the referendum on October 1, EIE). It was not the norm, but they did. So people started to say things like: “They are good. They are protecting us.” The Catalan government started a campaign that spread messages like it’s a modern police, it’s a good police, they are there to help us, to protect us blah blah blah… But this changed a bit at the large demonstrations where the police showed there are limits. For example when people went to the Catalan department of economy as the Guardia Civile came to the department to seize documents and arrested some people, a lot of people were there when the Mossos (Catalan police) also arrived and started to assist the Spanish police. At the end the Catalan police attacked the people at the demonstration. People at the demonstration argued with the Catalan police and said things like: “You are here to protect us!” But they soon realized this was not going to happen. So people started to discover that. So it’s starting to change, people are starting to realize that the police is not there to protect us. But in the small towns it’s difficult. It’s a fact that in some small towns the Catalan police really protected people from the violence of the Spanish police. Some of these Catalan police officers are independentists themselves. Some of them supported the referendum. I mean being an independentist doesn’t necessarily mean you are an anarchist, or a communist or socialist. There are also independentists who are liberals, or even neo-liberals like the PDeCAT.
Can you tell us something about the rise of fascism in Spain and Catalonia?
Xavi: Well the first thing; It was always there. The point is that they (the fascists, EIE) were not very active. They were encouraged and when you listen when Mariano Rajoy (Spanish Prime Minister, EIE) speaks it’s like you hear the military sometimes. They (the fascists, EIE) have the right, not officially, to do what they want and nothing happens. So they feel free to do whatever they want. I don’t think it’s something new. They were always there. I think they were waiting and now they come out and act. They are reorganizing. Fortunately they are not very well organized. Their leaders are pretty stupid and many of them are hooligans. To give an example; during the last demonstration of Spanish nationalists and fascists they were fighting each other because they were hooligans from different football (soccer, EIE) teams. So we are lucky and they will destroy themselves.
This morning we were on an antifascist demonstration where fascists were again and again provocating the antifascist demonstration. Is there an increase in fascist violence in the last couple of months? As you already said they are more visible and active again. What do you think is the best way to handle this kind of fascist aggression?
Xavi: Right now they (the fascists, EIE) are more violent. The way to protect us is to organize ourselves in our neighbourhoods. In fact many neighbourhoods are starting to do this. There are protocols, like if someone sees a fascist attack he or she will start to make noise on the balcony, others will join on their balconies. So other people will hear that and will come to help. I think this is a good way (In Catalonia and the rest of the Spanish territory there is a long tradition of making noise on balconies to protest, EIE). If the fascists want to take the streets, we should also go on the streets. If they want to do a demonstration we should be in front of them. We need to show them that they are not free to do whatever they want. That we are there and that we will not leave. We will not let them oppress us on our streets, we will fight for our streets and defend them. They came here on the 12th of October and they had some problems here in the neighbourhood (Sants, Barcelona, EIE) and had to leave the neighbourhood quite fast. So we should always remind them, that this is not a good place for them. Obviously this had consequences. Many people are standing trial at the moment. The state prosecution says they (the anti-fascists, EIE) attacked a minority (the fascists EIE). Saying that fascists belong to a minority is really crazy, but we are talking about Spanish law, so we are talking about a joke.
We visited an Asamblea and it reminded me of Asambleas of 15M. Do you think some parts of the independence movement came out of the 15M movement?
Xavi: Yes some of them. But many of these people are in political parties like for instance Podemos or Comú now, others in the ANC or Omnium. But they are also in social movements. I think 15M was good to show people that there is another way to organize. Right now we are using this kind of self-organization again, so I think there is a connection. Some people that came from the 15M assemblies, the ones who are not in Podemos or Comú… these crappy things, well they came to the CDR’s and said here is another place where we can organize. So let’s organize ourselves.
What do you think about the importance of the internet for mobilization and organization for the independence movement?
Xavi: It’s the key. An example. At the referendum the Spanish government said the ballot boxes would never arrive. The ballot papers would also never arrive. Never, never, never! All communication was done with Signal. So they (the Spanish state, EIE) couldn’t find anything. But maybe that’s also because they didn’t act very smart. So it was the key for the organization of the referendum. But I like to point out that this referendum was organized by the people, not the Catalan government. The government gave the legal structure, but the people organized it. This is important because maybe people outside of Catalonia think the first and second referendum were organized by the Catalan government but that was not the case. Not at all. People organized and defended the referendum.
Can you tell me something about your ideas how to deal with people that are working for the state now, like Mossos for example in anarchist society?
Xavi: We will not need them. About how to deal with this people… well it depends on what they did. A prison is not an option. A prison is something that won’t fix anything. Prisons are there to destroy people, not to help people. So in my point of view they should return to society and give something back to society, like for instance social services. Maybe they will see some things different when they work in social services and that’s important.
The more liberal ANC is dominating solidarity actions in foreign countries. Do you know about international groups that are organized in grassroot movements?
Image: Banner at the Rote Flora squat in Hamburg.
Xavi: Well we are very thankful with Rote Flora. Some squats and anarchist movements supported. In Greece anarchists occupied the Spanish embassy. We are very grateful for this kind of actions. We learned how important solidarity is with the international brigades during the Spanish revolution in 1936. So there are not enough words to say thank you.
Do you want to install a republic of councils like some other groups that support the independence movement? If yes, how do you want to create it?
Xavi: What I want is difficult to express. But a republic of councils could be a good start. A kind of administration would be there and to be realistic.. We will need it. The point is how do you use this adminstration. In my opinion this administration should be occupied by technicians only. But without any decision-making powers. They should all be controlled by the assemblies. This could be a start. This is my ideal but we don’t know what will happen. There are many CDR’s where people are starting to talk about things kind of ideas. That’s important because this is also a meeting point of some anarchist groups and movements. But also some of the socialist groups and movements. Maybe Rojava is spreading more influence than we all think. Here we are experimenting with this kind of ideas.
Do you think that the support for this idea is big enough?
Xavi: No. No it’s not enough but it’s growing. It’s really growing. People are starting to take control over their own lives. They learned that they can do many things. People organized and defended two referendums in the Catalan territory. We are not talking about something easy. I mean it’s impressive. When the Spanish police arrived (during the referendum, EIE) to keep out the ballot boxes, people had put the boxes at the top of trees. Or people organized secure places to hide the ballot boxes and gave the Spanish police fake ballot boxes with fake votes. They were sitting in the polling station and said oh yes you can have them and gave them the fake ballot boxes. I mean people are at a point where they can imagine that they can create and organize things themselves. I think that’s a real win. For me this part is important because it was not in control of the government. Sometimes the government gets nervous because they know that they could not control it. Right now the presidents of the ANC and Omnium are in prison. And the ANC and Omnium are aligned with the Catalan government. What the courts say is absolutely false. The ANC and Omnium leaders tried to explain people that they should leave the place (the polling station, EIE) when the Police came but the people didn’t recognized them as their leaders. So people stayed there. So people were like… Well the government is nice but if I want to do something I will do it. So they stayed and defended the polling stations. At this point social movements have a responsibility. Not to show a path but to inject ideas. To stimulate the own imagination of people, they could really surprize us. People that were never organized before did incredible things during the referendum. So let’s present our ideas to them and let’s see what happens. Don’t forget that we have our routines and these routines are our limitations. These people don’t have these routines and limitations and many times they surprize us.
Let’s talk about economy and consume. Can you tell us some economic models that you would propose for a Catalan republic?
Xavi: One proposal at the CDR’s was that when the companies leave we could take over the companies. Why not? So people are starting to talk about this kind of things. It’s not very big, but it’s a good starting point. There is also a cooperative model in Catalonia. The Catalan government was actually forced to make laws so people could organize these cooperatives. There is a movement. There are cooperatives in the healthcare system, there are cooperatives who opened bars, others are growing or selling vegetables. Many things are produced and sold by cooperatives.
We are doing this interview in Can Battló. This place is not under the control of the city council of Barcelona or the government. There is a bar, a theater, they print books here, newspapers, they are brewing their own beer here. And all these projects at Can Battló are cooperatives and not under the control of any institution. It’s difficult. Can Batlló is owned by the city council but they don’t control it. Can Batlló is controlled by the assembly. Sometimes there are conflicts with the city council, but the assembly of Can Batlló always look what they want to do themselves, so they don’t care what the city council wants. So there is a starting point with cooperatives. There were also collectivations. I think this is the way to organize the economy.
What do you think about the feminist fight in Catalonia?
Xavi: I think that it’s quite strong. It’s well organized. But there are problems. The first problem is the law. Another problem is the social problem. Even in social movements. There is a lot of work that has to be done there. I am not talking about the feminist organizations. I mean a social problem. There are many things that we have to improve in the social movements. The feminist movement is strong, very well organized and they are not only defending, they are also acting. But in the social movements we often have certain routines that should be broken. Like I said there is a lot of work there, but I am not talking about the feminist organizations. What I mean is our own work, things we have to change ourselves. In our own life. All of us. The feminist groups and movements can support this by providing ideas and information but we have to work on ourselves. We can’t expect that others will do that for us. If we are saying we are anarchists, we should do this ourselves.
Help maintain our site and continue our work: Donate
Our equipment suffered a lot from traveling around Europe for our independent on the ground reports. We need new microphones for better audio on our video reports, a new laptop (the last one crashed in Catalonia) and have a lot of expenses for our on the ground reporting.
We want to stay independent and want to expand our work with on the ground reporting across Europe and even beyond. Therefore we need your support. Help maintain our site and continue our work. Your donations make our work possible.
We did and do a lot of on the ground reporting in Europe. On December 17 we will travel to Lesvos (Greece) and in January we will travel from Lesvos to Athens to report on the ground.
Each donation helps, also the small ones. Thank you for supporting our project.
Crowdfunding campaign: https://www.youcaring.com/enough14novdec
You can also donate on our Paypal account: [email protected]
Share this: Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Tumblr
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Print
Email
Pocket
Telegram
WhatsApp
Skype
Like this: Like Loading... |
Former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Morgan Williams says climate change is the single biggest risk to water systems.
New Zealand needs a minister for water Nelson-based scientist Dr Morgan Williams says, Cherie Sivignon reports.
A former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment wonders why there is no ministerial portfolio for water.
"Think about all the ministers [who] focus on areas important to society and the economy," Dr Morgan Williams says. "You've got ministers of health and education and transport and even horse racing ... but we've never had a ministerial portfolio for water."
MARTIN DE RUYTER/STUFF Ron Wastney kicks at dry ground that was the lake bed of Eastons' dam, near Nelson, in 2001.
The immediate response is likely to be that freshwater is a local government responsibility, he suggests.
"In a simple sense, that's correct but in a strategic sense, there's nothing more important to people than water."
That's not to say central government has kept away from water, Williams says, highlighting large hydro, irrigation and flood schemes along with some involvement in urban water for health and safety reasons.
BRADEN FASTIER/STUFF Surface flooding at Appleby, near Nelson, in mid-2017.
"But it's all been part of some other portfolio. So one wonders, and that's all I'm doing, has that contributed to our splintered approach to the way we think about water and the way we manage water and the way we value water."
Providing water for urban and industrial users is a big, expensive and often complicated task.
Williams says he believes the delivery of water is a local government function. "Recognising one size doesn't fit all."
However, he argues that in a strategic sense, it should be a central government function with central government investment to match.
"Getting it in the right place, securing it against things such as climate change, which is the single biggest risk to water systems in the coming decades ... that has to be [central government]," he says. "It's no different to having a national strategic approach and leadership in health."
Williams is a scientist with degrees in ecology from the universities of Canterbury and Bath, and an honorary doctorate in natural resources from Lincoln University. He has held research, policy and leadership roles for high-profile organisations throughout the South Pacific including the position as New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for 10 years until March 2007.
Now living near Nelson, Williams holds several trustee and advisory positions. He is chairman of the World Wide Fund for Nature in New Zealand, the Cawthron Foundation and the Community Water Solutions Advisory Group, which was established to provide advice around the proposed Waimea dam.
Williams has a long interest in climate change.
In 1990, he was part of a group within the former Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries that completed one of the first major studies on the potential effects of climate change on New Zealand agriculture.
"We've seen all of them now and faster than we ever dreamed of in 1990," Williams says. "Everything is shifting out. You get bigger wets and bigger drys and at the same time, the mean temperature is lifting the heat element."
Some areas were becoming wetter, such as South Westland while the east coast, particularly the east coast of the North Island and Canterbury, were becoming dryer.
The Nelson-Tasman region was experiencing both ends of the spectrum with "big wets and big drys" but extremes of weather were evident across the world.
"We're getting big drys, lots of heat with it: big fires. Big wets, lots of floods: enormous damage and it's just being repeated all over the planet."
Williams says he attended a forum in Germany about six years ago that brought together the heads of German industry with some ministers in the German parliament at that time. The speaker was the head of leading reinsurer Swiss Re.
"The thing that actually silenced the whole audience ... he was talking about his large research budget and his team, and what they were looking at in terms of their forward risks and the evidence for those risks and he said: 'Virtually all our budget's going into climate'."
When asked if he thinks climate change can be reversed, Williams says he believes "all we can do now is temper it".
He calls the British Climate Change Act 2008 a smart piece of legislation being talked about for New Zealand.
"It's smart because it puts in place a means of focusing on reducing emissions ... and adapting because it's very clear we're going to have to adapt and adapt fast."
Williams says the nub of that act is a requirement for five-year tranches of action within the British economy and society to reduce emissions, set at least 10 years in advance to put them outside the cycle of governments.
It was legislation that had majority support across the House. Other countries in Europe have similar laws either in place or on the way.
But New Zealand has been a "bit slow" on climate, Williams says.
"We've got a lot of very good people here, we know a lot about it. Yes, there's still unpredictables and yes, we naturally have a lot of variability but we do know now that our variabilities are going to increase and they're all increasing faster than we expected." |
Executives of the Big Three have been on Capitol Hill today asking for $34 billion in government aid, lamenting their financial straits and vowing their commitment to fuel-efficient cars - GM CEO Rick Wagoner even pulled up to the capitol in a light-blue Chevy Volt electric prototype.
But during the hearings, Wagoner and his colleagues have yet to mention the millions of dollars they've spent this year lobbying Congress.
In less than two years, the auto industry has spent $120 million lobbying Congress - much of which was used to fight legislative proposals to boost fuel economy requirements.
In the first nine months of this year, they've spent almost $50 million, with more than $20 million of that from the Big Three:
GM: $9.8 million Ford: $5.7 million Chrysler: $4.6 million
And in 2007, the industry spent $70 million on lobbyists. The Big Three spent more than $28 million:
GM: $14.2 million Ford: $7.1 million Chrysler: $7.1 million
GM was the fifth largest corporate spender behind General Electric Co., ExxonMobil, AT&T and Amgen in 2007, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Among the contentious issues battled by automobile lobbyists were proposals to boost fuel economy requirements though they weren't entirely successful - last December, Congress passed a bill that increases fuel efficiency standards 40 percent to 35 mpg by 2020.
Starting in the 1980s, the industry successfully lobbied to classify SUVs as "light trucks," making them subject to less stringent fuel economy standards.
"Our lobbying activity is proportional to the potential competitive and economic impact that proposed legislation could have on our business," GM spokesman Greg Martin told the Detroit News.
The industry has also contributed heavily to prominent members of Congress in 2008, including $1.1 million to president-elect Barack Obama, $432,000 to John McCain, $302,000 to Senator Hillary Clinton, $189,500 to Michigan Rep. Joe Knollenberg and $168,000 to Michigan Senator Carl Levin.
By contrast, some of the biggest Congressional foes of a bailout for the industry have received far less money - Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the most vocal opponent on the Senate Banking Committee chairing today's hearing, has only received $141,000 over the course of his 22-year tenure in the Senate.
As noted by a reader, it's important to explain that there is no love lost between Shelby and the Big Three largely because he has given more than $400 million in subsidies and tax abatements to foreign automakers such as Honda and Hyundai. In addition, Toyota and other foreign automakers have also lobbied against an increase in federal fuel economy standards.
Yet the industry seems to have lost much of its clout in the last year. As The New York Times recently reported: |
Our decisions to trust people with our money are based more on how they look then how they behave, according to new research from the University of Warwick.
In a paper recently published in the PLoS One journal, researchers from Warwick Business School, the University College London and Dartmouth College, USA, carried out a series of experiments to see if people made decisions to trust others based on their faces.
They found people are more likely to invest money in someone whose face is generally perceived as trustworthy, even when they are given negative information about this person’s reputation.
The team used a computer algorithm to create a set of 20 pairs of faces at opposing ends of the trustworthiness scale. This computer software modifies the apparent trustworthiness of faces by altering their features. The researchers were able to experimentally manipulate the unfakeable features (those related to shape of the face) that make a face look trustworthy or untrustworthy. These 40 faces were then used in a series of trust games with human participants.
Each volunteer was given a sum of money and told they could invest any part of the amount in a trustee whose face appeared on the screen. Any amount they invested would be tripled and volunteers were told it was then up to the trustee to decide how much to send back to them. Thus participants had an incentive to invest only in trustees who could be expected to return more than the invested amount.
The researchers found that 13 out of 15 participants invested more, on average, in the trustworthy identities. In a second experiment, the researchers gave the volunteers information about whether the trustees had good or bad histories. Even with this inside information, the average amount invested in those who looked ‘trustworthy’ was 6% higher.
Dr Chris Olivola from the University of Warwick’s Warwick Business School said: “Trustees with good and bad histories benefitted equally from trustworthy-looking facial features. The temptation to judge strangers by their faces is hard to resist. Trustworthiness is one of the most important traits for social and economic interactions and our study examines whether people take potentially costly actions in line with their face-based trustworthiness judgments.
“It seems we are still willing to go with our own instincts about whether we think someone looks like we can trust them.”
Notes to editors
‘Unfakeable Facial Configurations Affect Strategic Choices in Trust Games with or without Information about Past Behaviour’, Constantin Rezlescu, Brad Duchaine, Christopher Y Olivola, Nick Chater. PLoS ONE, 7 (3):e34293. For more information call Dr Olivola on 07872559740 or contact Kelly Parkes-Harrison, Press and Communications Manager, University of Warwick, [email protected], 02476 150868, 07824 540863 |
“A few moments ago I telephoned the leader of the Labor party and I congratulated the Australian Labor Party on a very complete victory. I want to wish Mr. Rudd very well,” Mr. Howard, 68, told a roomful of emotional supporters in his concession speech.
“I leave the office of Prime Minister with our country prouder, stronger and more prosperous than ever,” he said.
Early estimates had the Labor party gaining some 20 seats, to gain a14-seat majority in the 150-seat lower house. Television prediction seven had John Howard suffering the indignity of losing his own seat in the Sydney suburb of Bennelong in parliament to a former television anchor and rookie politician, Maxine McKew. He would be the first sitting Prime Minister to lose his seat since 1929.
Photo
“It is very likely the case that I will no longer be the member for Bennelong,” he said. Mr. Howard had represented Bennelong since he first entered parliament 33 years ago.
Ms. McKew told a jubilant crowd of followers Saturday night that the result would change the country.
“This has been an amazing night, a wonderful night for Labor, a transforming moment for the country,” she said.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Mr. Howard has a strong personal relationship with President George W. Bush, one based on a similar socially conservative philosophy and outlook on the war on terror, and cemented by Mr. Howard’s presence in Washington when the 9/11 attacks happened. But opinion polls have consistently shown that although Australians remain strong supporters of the Anzus alliance, the security pact which brings together Australia New Zealand and the United States, they do not approve of Mr. Bush.
The change is unlikely to bring a radical new foreign policy, although there is likely to be a change in emphasis in the relationship with the United States. “Australia will remain a close ally of the United States and Rudd remains committed to the alliance,” said Michael Fullilove, of the Lowy Institute for International Relations in Sydney.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
It was a bruising campaign, and the Liberal party has already said it will challenge a number of results on the grounds that the Labor candidates had broken electoral law by failing to resign from government jobs before running for office.
In some aspects, the Labor party framed their campaign in similar terms to other s of the war on terror, as a battle between the politics of fear and the politics of hope.
Mr. Rudd, 18 years younger than Mr. Howard, has a reputation as a cerebral student of policy, as opposed to the Liberal leader’s image of a hardened and aggressive political animal.
Mr. Rudd’s rather dry image was if anything enhanced by the revelation which emerged shortly before the beginning of the campaign that he had got drunk and visited a strip club when he was on a visit to Scores New York in 2003.
“He seems more personable, approachable,” Marcelle Freiman, a university lecturer with two children, who voted for Mr. Rudd in eastern Sydney said. “He doesn’t seem arrogant yet and I have respect for him.” |
This sign is relevant to my interests pic.twitter.com/v0jtcGddRF
Hundreds of thousands of protestors have taken to the streets throughout U.S. cities today, with nearly 500,000 estimated to be in attendance at the Women’s March in Washington D.C. alone. And 100 more solidarity protest s are taking place around the world. Here are some of the best signs from the protests thus far.
Read more
Hundreds of thousands of protestors have taken to the streets throughout U.S. cities today, with nearly 500,000 estimated to be in attendance at the Women’s March in Washington D.C. alone. And 100 more solidarity protests are taking place around the world. Here are some of the best signs from the protests thus far.
Read More:
Tens of thousands mobilize around the world for the Women’s March Here’s how countries around the world joined in the Women’s March
This sign is relevant to my interests pic.twitter.com/v0jtcGddRF
Strong early contender for banner of the day at #womensmarchlondon… pic.twitter.com/wHZcAPd2gU
sign of the day so far pic.twitter.com/7yW1kYKsy8
vagina virgin of guadalupe #womensmarch pic.twitter.com/1ZZGF0Rh8C |
Have you ever really considered what exactly style is? What does it feel like? Where does it come from? How do you find your own style? What role does style play in becoming a recognized artist?
Style, put shortly, is your way of doing something.
Style is a distinct appearance, representative of how something is designed or interpreted. In the cardistry community, style typically presents itself in the forms of presentational style and performance style.
One of the best examples of varying performance styles in the cardistry community is Daren Yeow’s move Mockingbird. The classic flourish has been played with by countless hands, and is a true landmark flourish. The move’s popularity has to led to different opinions on how the move should be performed.
Here are two distinctly different approaches to the same flourish:
Aviv Moraly’s performance of Mockingbird is dynamic and highly energetic with its large range of motion and its notably fast pace. While some cardists might believe this is the most visually and mechanically impressive way to perform the flourish, others might believe the performance is overly-stylized with unnecessary accents and motions.
Eric William’s Mockingbird contrasts Aviv’s performance rather nicely with its condensed, controlled and rhythmic flow. Rather than focusing on speed and range of motion, Eric chooses to highlight the rhythm of the flourish instead. While some cardists might believe that Eric’s interpretation is tasteful and best accents the move’s more subtle qualities, others might believe the energy of the move is lost within the tighter range of motion.
So here we have two cardists who perform the exact same flourish, but create two distinctly different visual experiences. The contrasting performances of the same mechanics epitomize the idea of performance style that I mentioned earlier. Both performances are equally valid in their justifications and both offer something unique to their performances. This not only highlights the flourish’s best qualities, but says something about themselves as performers. They communicate both mechanical mastery and artistic independence. Their performances both scream “This is the best way I can do this move.” and they’re both equally correct in that belief.
Remember that with style, the main contributing factor is not what you’re performing, rather it’s about how and why you’re performing a certain way.
Presentational style also plays a huge role in your audience’s perception of your value as a cardist. In the past 5 years, the “cardistry video” has come in many different formats.
The Fontaine Fam is such an important video because it’s trying to introduce a new video format to the cardistry community.
When you watch The Fontaine Fam, what message rings constantly throughout the entire video?
“We do this because it’s fun. We use cards to bring people together.”
The video never takes itself too seriously, but never once loses its energy and stylistic direction. The semi-casual walkaround filming style of the video contributes to this casual air of “We do this because it’s fun.” The music in the video is occasionally lighthearted, upbeat and most importantly highly energetic. The flourishes that are featured are all highly intuitive, easy to understand without any context and fun to watch. Zach picked three of the most stylistically distinct flourishers in the community to represent his vision of cardistry, and their styles all seamlessly contribute to the Fontaine brand. The inclusion of a meet-up within the video is meant to further emphasize the idea that “We use cards to bring people together.”
All of these factors ultimately come together to create a video that is recognizably a FONTAINE VIDEO. The features mentioned above are all things that typically don’t exist in cardistry videos outside of Fontaine’s videos. This makes Fontaine have a distinct feel in their videos. That feeling is style.
Style is so important because it makes artists recognizable.
STYLE MAKES YOU STAND OUT AND STAY FRESH IN PEOPLE’S MINDS.
Portfolio is the channel trailer that is currently used on the Dealer’s Grip YouTube channel. Note again how this video carries its own “air”, how it tends to follow a distinctly “Dealer’s Grip” rhythm. The video is professional, cleanly edited and straight to the point. The purpose of the video is exactly as the name suggests, a simple demonstration of some of the brand’s material. This clean, sharp atmosphere actually accentuates the smoothness and the practicality of their material. The presentation is as seamless and effortless as their performance style.
This combination of intriguing material and congruent presentation style motivates the viewer to expect higher-quality material from Dealer’s Grip.
This is referred to as branding, a concept that goes hand-in-hand with style.
If style is the way you do things, branding is the “name” you give to your approach.
The Fontaine Fam has a very distinctly Fontaine approach, and Portfolio takes a very distinctly Dealer’s Grip approach. These distinctions can only be made because the groups are so stylistically different. They brand themselves so that the community can efficiently refer back to their styles by using simple words like Fontaine and Dealer’s Grip, making it easier for their styles to spread throughout the community.
Zach Mueller doesn’t need to be the most mechanically fluent performer to be one of the most recognizable flourishers on the planet. He doesn’t need that raw physical ability as much purely because Zach Mueller is the most stylish performer in the cardistry community. His style is so prevalent in the current scene that its almost impossible to find something in the community that Zach Mueller hasn’t influenced in one way or another. The amount of support his brand has received gradually solidified the Fontaine style as a current staple in the community. Zach Mueller’s infectious style and his brand are the best examples of style in the cardistry community.
So how can you find your own style?
We’ve talked about what style is, why style is important and have highlighted certain key examples of stylistic diversity in the community, but how can you go about discovering/refining your own style for yourself?
Finding your personal style is something that takes time and critical thought. You have to ask yourself several important questions that will then remain in the back of your mind for the rest of your time as an artist.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Who am I?
Think about who you are right now as you read this article. Think about your positioning in the community, the material you’ve published, and the material you’re working on. Consider every aspect of your being as a cardist and visualize it all in your brain.
2. Who do I want to be?
Once you’ve visualized all of the qualities and characteristics that your artistic being is composed of, start to visualize the ideal artist that you want to become. Think about the other flourishers in the community and think about who you like the best. Let’s say your favorite flourishers are Daren Yeow, Aviv Moraly and Noel Heath. Take these three styles and combine them. You will later become a stylistic combination of those three individuals.
3. Why should people care about me?
Think about what specific qualities you carry that people would be attracted to. If you can’t think of a good reason why people should care about you, then how can you expect others to find a reason? What qualities do you have that are valuable in the community?
4. What is distinctly different about me?
Visualize yourself in a line-up with ten other flourishers. What makes you stand out from the rest of those performers? What makes you seem valuable?
To summarize, if you want to become a recognizable artist and generate a loyal following, YOU NEED YOUR OWN STYLE. You have to give people more than enough reason to care about you. As an artist, take pride in your own approach. Don’t worry about not having a style as a beginner — nobody expects you to have one. In the beginning, all you have to do is borrow a combination of styles from the artists that you think are the best in the community. Your style will subsequently manifest as a result of all the styles you chose to emulate.
Show the world YOUR cardistry.
PS. Check out the contest I’m currently holding on my Instagram profile for a chance to show off your own style and win some sweet decks! Contest ends August 31st, and is an AWESOME opportunity to discover some fresh new styles! |
Researchers at MIT have developed a system with the capability to create a large-scale building using 3D-printing technology.
The system, known as a Digital Construction Platform (DCP), consists of a tracked vehicle that carries a giant, robotic arm with a smaller precision-motion robotic arm at its end. The smaller arm is highly controllable and constructs the prototype structure. It directs a construction nozzle, similar to one used to pour concrete or spray insulation material. It also utilizes digital fabrication end effectors, such as a milling head, according to MIT.
The DCP is inspired by MIT’s Mediated Matter group’s desire to be able to design buildings without parts. MIT wrote that the plans include “combining ‘structure and skin,’ and beams and windows, in a single production process, and adapting multiple design and construction processes on the fly.”
Researchers were able to build an initial dome-shaped structure comprised of walls reaching 50 feet in diameter and 12 feet in height. The team said it took less than 14 hours to "print" the entire structure. The system also showcased its ability to create complex shapes and overhangs and created a built-in bench for the dome prototype.
MIT did not respond to further request for comment from Fox News.
MIT added the construction method fills polyurethane foam molds with concrete and it is similar to traditional commercial techniques. Researchers found the system was able to adapt to existing building sites and equipment, and it fits existing building codes without requiring additional evaluations. Other materials such as wiring or plumbing are inserted into the mold before concrete is poured, creating a completed wall structure, according to MIT.
The group hopes to create an end product that is self-sufficient and able to use local materials, such as dirt for the construction. The team envisions a future system that uses solar power and can be used in developing worlds or in disaster areas after storms or earthquakes.
MIT added that Steven Keating, Ph.D., a mechanical engineering graduate and former research affiliate in the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab, said the team hopes “in the future, to have something totally autonomous, that you could send to the moon or Mars or Antarctica, and it would just go out and make these buildings for years.”
Keating led the development of the system as his doctoral thesis work. He added that it creates a more environmentally friendly and ecologically conscious process, as fewer materials are used in the process because it can optimize components for their shape and thickness. Traditional construction requires the need to match premade lumber and materials.
Neri Oxman, group director and associate professor of media arts and sciences, added that the faster, better and cheaper aspects are positive. However, it is not just a printing system “but an entirely new way of thinking about making, that facilitates a paradigm shift in the area of digital fabrication, but also for architectural design,” said Oxman. “Our system points to a future vision of digital construction that enables new possibilities on our planet and beyond.”
The robotic system was described in the journal "Science Robotics." |
WASHINGTON -- In a Fox News interview Tuesday, Mitt Romney did not back down from the material in leaked fundraiser videos that have threatened the viability of his campaign and suggested that many in the 47 percent of Americans who, he had noted, do not pay federal income tax would like to do so.
"We were, of course, talking about a campaign and about how he's [President Barack Obama's] going to get half the vote," Romney told Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "And frankly we have two very different views of America," the Republican presidential nominee continued. "There was a tape today where he said he likes redistribution," Romney said, referencing a video pushed on the Drudge Report showing Obama in 1998.
Romney has faced a torrent of bad news following the release of videos secretly made of a private fundraiser this past March. In one clip, he says that 47 percent of voters are "dependent on government" and view themselves as "victims." In other clips, he says he believes that the Palestinians do not want peace and that the two-state solution is impossible. Mother Jones posted the full video of his remarks at the Florida fundraiser on Tuesday.
In response to Cavuto, Romney agreed that members of the military and seniors are among the Americans who do not pay federal income taxes, but then said, "I do believe we should have enough jobs and enough take-home pay to allow people to pay taxes ... I think people would like to be paying taxes."
Romney's own 2010 federal filing revealed that because of his investment income, he had paid a much lower tax rate than middle-class earners -- 13.9 percent. (He has said he will release his 2011 return this year, but has refused to release any other years' filings.)
It is true that the number of people not paying federal income taxes has risen as a result of the economic recession from about 40 percent to 47 percent.
Although many seniors lack significant income, aren't subject to federal income tax, and therefore fall into Romney's "victims" class, he told Cavuto, "I'm getting a lot of support from seniors" and "a lot of seniors pay income tax and don't like that Medicare got cut by $716 billion." (In fact, the Obama health care law cut the rate of growth in future Medicare spending, but for providers, not beneficiaries.)
Cavuto asked Romney about Donald Trump, the real estate mogul who endorsed him and has been a loud voice doubting Obama's birth certificate. Trump has urged Romney to get tough and not apologize for the video. "I always appreciate his counsel," Romney remarked.
Cavuto did not ask about the Palestinian remarks, which were also notable, although similar to what Romney has said publicly. |
Picture yourself headed to one of the most important shows in your life. You turn up to the club with your laptop in your top-flight DJ backpack , Decksaver -covered controller at hand. You check in at the elevated DJ booth that overlooks the most massive crowd you’ve yet played for, every single one of them waiting with baited breath for the first hint of music that you’ll be pumping from the speakers. You are, after all, that hot new deep house DJ that everyone’s been buzzing about, and now it’s time to show them what you’ve got. The club has a colossal sound system at your disposal, perfect for the type of music you play, capable of moving both feet and soul, and you simply cannot wait to bend it to your whim.
Here are the essentials of your emergency kit.
Container
1pc Dollar store Tackle box (any small one with separate compartments will do)
Adapters
2pcs 1/8” female to 1/4” male jack
2pcs RCA female to 1/4” male mono jack
1pc 1/4” female jack to 1/8” male jack (you never know)
2pcs RCA female to female (for extending cables)
1pc RCA female pair to 1/4” male stereo jack
Cables
1pc 1/8” male to 1/8” female cable (you’ll use these when you least expect it)
1pc 1/8” female to RCA pair male (for plugging in consumer sources like an iPhone to your mixer)
Video DJ specific
1pc DVI to HDMI adapter (super important if you’re a VJ. Don’t leave home without one!)
1pc VGA to DVI adapter (again, you really don’t know)
Miscellaneous
1 pair of earplugs
1pc USB key with mixes and personal top40 / most played tunes, just in case it takes you longer to set up, as well as:
-Copy of Traktor/Serato/Mixvibes/Virtual DJ/Rekordbox. Put in a text file with your serial number on it for good measure/last minute activating
-Copy of CD timecode files. Bring a pair of blank CDs with you always in case you need to burn right before the show…
-Copy of your Traktor mapping and other controller related files like drivers and updates.
Having these pieces in your DJ Emergency Pack rolls the odds in your favour in the event that you perform at a club with mismatched leads. At the same time, it also includes tactics to delay the crowd while you troubleshoot and makes troubleshooting itself easier by having all your “First-Aid” supplies in one convenient place. You can add on to this list as your needs may vary, but I find that these pieces cover a lot of technical ground when it comes to DJing, and you shouldn’t have a reason not to have one in your bag: Such a kit is quick to assemble, relatively inexpensive, and could really save your bacon when the time comes!
For those that are more visually oriented, check out the video down below.
For the full article by our friends over at Beatport make sure you visit the full page Here |
Under Minnesota law, “every employee who is eligible to vote in an election has the right to be absent from work for the time necessary to appear at the employee’s polling place, cast a ballot, and return to work on the day of that election…” See Minn. Stat. § 204C.04. The statute provides that an employer may not impose a “penalty or deduction from salary or wages because of the absence.” An employer or other person “may not directly or indirectly refuse, abridge, or interfere with this right or any other election right of an employee.”
Elections covered by Minnesota’s voting leave law include any “regularly scheduled state primary or general election, an election to fill a vacancy in the office of United States senator or United States representative, or an election to fill a vacancy in the office of state senator or state representative.”
Takeaway: Because employees are entitled to voting leave in Minnesota, employers should plan ahead for elections, to the extent possible, to minimize the impact of potential business or productivity disruptions. |
Events: Focus
Wednesday,
10 December 2014
14:00 Ekeberg Restaurant
The latest developments in cryptocurrencies
Background:
Chris Skinner, Author: Digital Bank, UK
Jon Matonis, Executive Director, Bitcoin Foundation, US
Jonas Borchgrevink, Founder & CEO, Coinaaa AS, Norway
Sverre Rørvik Nilsen, Entrepreneur, consultant and financial commentator.
Background
Although cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are on the very periphery of the global banking industry, they are both intriguing and a concern. This expert panel provides an inside view on the threats and opportunities from virtual currencies. Associated with money laundering and volatility, the currency seems too risky for most institutions – and yet regulation could create trust in Bitcoin and could bring it within the realm of the big banks. In fact there are many opportunities for commercial banks in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, particularly in the developing world, which is its biggest growth market. But apps need to be developed for mass-adoption – and this is happening. To find out all you need to know about cryptocurrencies, register to attend this very special meeting of our Nordic Club.
About the speakers
Chris Skinner, Chair of The Financial Services Club
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, the Finanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. The Financial Services Club is a network for financial professionals, and meets regularly in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Oslo, Stockholm, Vienna and Warsaw. Chris has written ten books covering everything from European regulations in banking through the credit crisis to the future of banking. His latest book, Digital Bank, provides a comprehensive review of the battle for digital banking and strategies for companies to compete. He is a regular commentator on BBC News, Sky News and Bloomberg about banking issues.
Jon Matonis, Executive Director, Bitcoin Foundation, USA
Jon Matonis is an Executive Director with the Bitcoin Foundation. The Bitcoin Foundation is a non-profit organisation that promotes the use of Bitcoin, in terms of its ability to add greatly to the political and economic discourse for cryptographic money and monetary freedom. The foundation offers a helping hand to those involved in the space, while educating those who are not. It also offers assistance in Bitcoin-related legal cases, including pro bono legal defence, where appropriate. Jon is also Editor of The Monetary Future economics blog and board advisor to startups in Bitcoin, gaming, mobile, and prepaid. His career has included senior influential posts at Sumitomo Bank, VISA, VeriSign, and Hushmail.
Sverre Rørvik Nilsen
Entrepreneur, consultant and financial commentator. Completed a study of algorithm trading on Oslo Børs which led to a major rule change on the stock exchange. Nominated for SKUP and top three in Schibsted journalism awards. Writes for CFA Institute, Quartz, Business Insider
Jonas Borchgrevink, grunnlegger og CEO, Cryptocurrency News, Norge
Jonas Borchgrevink has started multiple ventures including MyGoodAct, a crowdfunding platform that has raised more than 1.5 million USD, Coinaaa, a cryptocurrency backed up by real assets, and CryptoCoinsNews, currently world's second largest news platform for Bitcoin and Altcoins. |
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........
Copyright © 2017 Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico’s medical cannabis industry has grown into a powerful magnet for money and customers.
ADVERTISEMENTSkip
Customers, sales revenue and dispensaries have exploded the past year with a total of more than 40,000 people now signed up to purchase medical marijuana.
Since Jan. 1, some 8,000 New Mexicans obtained a state-issued license that allows them to legally buy pot, pushing patient enrollment to 40,432 in April. With the recent growth spurt, enrollment has increased by 84 percent since March 2016.
The number of dispensaries increased from 36 in January 2016 to 56 in April, with new dispensaries popping up in smaller cities, such as Roswell, Hobbs, Clovis, Carlsbad, Artesia and Taos.
And that has helped fuel an impressive sales growth over the past year.
First quarter sales this year topped $19 million, up 91 percent over the same period in 2016, according to New Mexico Department of Health data.
“We are probably the single fastest growing industry in New Mexico,” said Duke Rodriguez, president and CEO of Ultra Health LLC, the state’s largest cannabis distributor. “This is the one industry that has been a juggernaut of growth.”
Rodriguez and others say a key reason for the rapid growth is greater acceptance of cannabis, in New Mexico and nationally, among the public, and by physicians who certify patients.
“Cannabis is being mainstreamed,” Rodriguez said. “Patients are coming out into the bright daylight and saying they advocate and support cannabis. No longer is it a hush-hush topic.”
But the growth of medical cannabis doesn’t sit well with everyone.
State Rep. Bill Rehm, an Albuquerque Republican and a retired sheriff’s deputy, worries that legalizing cannabis would worsen the state’s problem with driving under the influence. He also rejects that legalization would eliminate the criminal market for pot.
Lawmakers this year killed a bill sponsored by Rehm that would have expanded the state’s drunken-driving law to include blood concentration levels for marijuana and other drugs.
Demand outruns supply
The industry has used new forms of marketing, including Facebook and other kinds of social media to promote events such as “hemp expos” or fairs where people can learn how to qualify for a patient’s license. For example, the Weekly Alibi and a variety of growers and businesses will sponsor New Mexico Hempfest 2017 on Aug. 17 at Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta Park.
ADVERTISEMENTSkip
“We have a huge social media presence,” said Willie Ford, managing director of R. Greenleaf & Associates, a management company that oversees four state-licensed marijuana producers. “The people that we’re trying to reach tend to be in the alternative medias.”
Ford advertises in publications that specialize in alternative therapies and holistic medicine. He also speaks on radio shows and at other events to promoting the concept that cannabis offers a natural alternative to pharmaceutical drugs.
“Any chance I get to go out there and preach the word, I do,” he said.
Rehm said the program’s growth suggests that many people are getting medical cannabis cards for purposes other than medical relief.
“I think that it’s being abused,” he said Friday. “I think there are a bunch of people who are obtaining marijuana cards, not for a true medical reason, but for justification for them to smoke marijuana legally.”
ADVERTISEMENTSkip
Ford responded that the vast majority of patients want cannabis for legitimate medical reasons, but acknowledged that some “have gamed the system to get a card.”
“I have put my full faith in the Department of Health,” Ford said. “They have a good system for determining and confirming a person’s eligibility.”
The health department’s application process requires patients to provide documentation from a physician supporting a medical diagnosis for a qualifying condition.
The heavy demand led to processing delays last year at the state Department of Health, which manages the program. By June 2016, average processing time increased to 60 days, exceeding the 30-day limit set by state law.
Kenny Vigil, who manages the DOH program, said the agency now has eight employees who handle patient applications, and processing time has been cut to less than 30 days.
Big business
Medical cannabis is turning into big business.
ADVERTISEMENTSkip
In 2015, none of New Mexico cannabis producers had total receipts that exceeded $1 million. This year, five growers topped $1 million in sales from January through March, alone.
Topping the list is Ultra Health, which reported $1.96 million in sales in the first quarter, followed by R. Greenleaf Organics with $1.76 million for the period.
Others in the $1 million first-quarter sales club include: Verdes Foundation, $1.4 million; New MexiCann, $1.09 million; and Minerva Canna Group, $1.08 million. Those five account for 38 percent of total receipts among the 35 nonprofit producers licensed by the state health department to grow and sell medical marijuana.
In all, producers had 11,565 plants in production in the fourth quarter of 2016, up from 5,379 plants in the fourth quarter of 2015, state records show.
The health department in 2015 increased the maximum number of plants producers can grow to 450, up from the previous cap of 150.
ADVERTISEMENTSkip
The agency has also expanded to 21 the number of medical conditions that allow patients to qualify for medical cannabis, up from seven listed in the 2007 law. Post-traumatic stress disorder, added in 2010, has allowed some 17,000 patients to qualify for a card.
Producers have also tapped new markets by starting dispensaries in communities where cannabis was previously unavailable, building a local customer base.
R. Greenleaf Organics, which operates five dispensaries in the Albuquerque metro area and one in Grants, plans to open two more later this year in Alamogordo and Las Vegas.
Ultra Health owns seven dispensaries in five counties and has plans to expand to Silver City, Alamogordo, Deming and other communities, pending approval from the state Department of Health.
The number of cardholders in Hobbs increased four-fold to 800 in the year since Ultra Health opened a dispensary there, Rodriguez said.
“Build it and they shall come is a truth when it comes to cannabis,” he said. “Everywhere you increase access, guess what happens? Patients sign up.”
New Mexico’s million-dollar club ADVERTISEMENTSkip Five cannabis producers exceeded $1 million in sales from January through March 2017. Together, they accounted for 38 percent of the state’s $19 million in cannabis sales for the quarter. They are: Ultra Health LLC: $1.96 million R. Greenleaf Organics: $1.76 million Verdes Foundation: $1.4 million New MexiCann: $1.09 million ADVERTISEMENTSkip Minerva Canna Group: $1.08 million |
Six hours and thirty-seven minutes is a long time to play baseball.
For the Toronto Blue Jays, it was the longest game in the team's history — one that saw them grasp a needed 6-5 victory over the Detroit Tigers.
The first pitch was thrown out at 1:07 p.m. ET. The last one came at 7:44 p.m.
On Twitter, fans appeared proud of the team and proud of themselves, in some cases, for having stuck through the long-running match.
"I ate lunch and dinner while watching this game. Absolutely ridiculous," Jeff Filman tweeted.
A Twitter user named Kyle Archer admitted that he "probably would have shed a tear if the Jays played that long and lost."
There were also some jokes.
Justin Saulnier suggested the game went on so long that star outfielder Jose Bautista’s beard had "thickened up again."
Jeremy Schultz said the game had gone so long that it had actually begun in the SkyDome — the prior name for the Rogers Centre, which has not been in use for nearly a decade.
Sunday's game was also the first time that the Blue Jays took part in a 19-inning match. That meant that it ran more than twice as long as a standard nine-inning game.
The Blue Jays' official post-game notes indicate that the longest game the Jays had played before Sunday was a five-hour-and-fifty-seven-minute game against the Yankees back in April 2001.
With Sunday's win, the Blue Jays now hold a 63-56 record on the season and are 1.5 games back of the Kansas City Royals for the final wild-card spot. Toronto still has about a quarter of its games to play before the regular season ends. |
In 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization created the fifth and newest world ocean - the Southern Ocean - from the southern portions of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. The new Southern Ocean completely surrounds Antarctica.
The Southern Ocean extends from the coast of Antarctica north to 60 degrees south latitude. The Southern Ocean is now the fourth largest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean, but larger than the Arctic Ocean).
Are There Really Five Oceans?
For some time, those in geographic circles have debated whether there are four or five oceans on Earth.
Some consider the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific to be the world's four oceans. Now, those that side with the number five can add the fifth new ocean and call it the Southern Ocean or the Antarctic Ocean, thanks to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).
The IHO Makes a Decision
The IHO, the International Hydrographic Organization, has attempted to settle that debate through a 2000 publication that` declared, named, and demarcated the Southern Ocean.
The IHO published the third edition of Limits of Oceans and Seas (S-23), the global authority on the names and locations of seas and oceans, in 2000. The third edition in 2000 established the existence of the Southern Ocean as the fifth world ocean.
There are 68 member countries of the IHO and membership is limited to non-landlocked countries. Twenty-eight countries responded to the IHO's request for recommendations on what to do about the Southern Ocean. All responding members except Argentina agreed that the ocean surrounding Antarctica should be created and given a single name.
Eighteen of the 28 responding countries preferred calling the ocean the Southern Ocean over the alternative name Antarctic Ocean, so the former is the one that was selected.
Where Is the Fifth Ocean?
The Southern Ocean consists of the ocean surrounding Antarctica across all degrees of longitude and up to a northern boundary at 60° South latitude (which is also the limit of the United Nations' Antarctic Treaty).
Half of the responding countries supported 60° South while only seven preferred 50° South as the ocean's northern limit. The IHO decided that, even with a mere 50% support for 60°, since 60°S does not run through land (50°S does pass through South America) that 60°S should be the northern limit of the newly demarcated ocean.
Why the Need for a New Southern Ocean?
According to Commodore John Leech of the IHO,
A great deal of oceanographic research in recent years has been concerned with ocean circulations, first because of How Big Is the Southern Ocean?
At approximately 20.3 million square kilometers (7.8 million square miles) and about twice the size of the U.S.A., the new ocean is the world's fourth largest (following the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian, but larger than the Arctic Ocean). The Southern Ocean's lowest point is 7,235 meters (23,737 feet) below sea level in the South Sandwich Trench.
The sea temperature of the Southern Ocean varies from -2°C to 10°C (28°F to 50°F). It's home to the world's largest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that moves east and transports 100 times the flow of all the world's rivers. |
A federal judge on Monday said he's holding off on deciding whether to temporarily ban a transgender student from using the girls' locker room and restroom at a suburban high school.
A group of students and parents, who sued the federal government and Palatine-based Township High School District 211, had hoped the judge would halt the student's access to the locker room and restroom until a final decision on the lawsuit has been reached. The new school year opened Monday in District 211.
Students and Parents for Privacy, which brought the suit in May, argued that the school district trampled students' privacy rights when it allowed a transgender student to use the girls' locker room.
Some female students "live in constant anxiety, fear and apprehension that a biological boy will walk in at any time while they use the locker rooms and showers and see them in a state of undress or naked," according to the lawsuit.
During oral arguments Monday, attorneys for the group, as well as lawyers for the Department of Education and the school district, wrangled over the meaning and interpretation of Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination.
Lawyers for Alliance Defending Freedom and the Thomas More Society, religious legal advocacy groups which are arguing the case on behalf of the 51 families, said the Department of Education is illegally broadening the meaning of sex-based discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity. They argued "sex" should be defined by someone's biological sex.
"It would be discrimination to say, 'You don't look male enough, you don't talk male enough to use the male restrooms, so we're going to exclude you,' " Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jeremy Tedesco said in court. "But recognizing someone as scientifically male or female is not sex discrimination."
Sheila Lieber, who is representing the Department of Education and the Department of Justice, countered that the authorities are not making new rules but rather clarifying its interpretation of federal law as it relates to gender identity.
"Title IX does not define 'sex,' and the Department of Education is not required to adhere to plaintiffs' one-dimensional definition of 'sex,' " Lieber said. "There are many forms of sexual discrimination that Congress did not have in mind when Title VII (which bans workplace discrimination) and Title IX were enacted 40 years ago."
Lieber also attacked the timing of the lawsuit, saying the district's practice of allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms matching their gender identity was in place for years, and the transgender student has been granted access to the locker room for months. She said that delay undercuts the argument that the parents and their children need an emergency injunction to immediately stop the district from allowing a transgender girl from using girls' facilities.
"They've not come up with one example of concrete harm, let alone as to why they need relief now," Lieber said.
Tedesco said the district was violating the privacy rights of girls who are not transgender by allowing a biological male to use the girls locker room. He said the district was substituting "an objective definition of sex for a subjective one."
Sally Scott, an attorney representing the school district, said the arguments of violations of privacy were overblown. Scott said the locker room at issue has several private areas where girls can change their clothes, which students overwhelmingly are choosing not to use.
The agreement to allow the transgender student access to the locker room came after a protracted and contentious battle with federal authorities. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years and is referred to in court records as Student A, filed a complaint with Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 alleging that the district discriminated against her when it denied her access to the girls' locker room. The student at the center of the case legally changed her name and gender on her passport and received hormone treatments, her family has said.
District 211 transgender students have been allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. School staff also change the names, genders and pronouns of transgender students on school records.
Despite such measures, federal authorities in an unprecedented decision found District 211 in violation of Title IX. Facing the loss of millions of federal dollars and possible legal action, the district settled the complaint in December by allowing the student access to the locker room and installing privacy stalls in the locker room.
Tedesco argued that in making that accommodation to Student A, the district instead is discriminating against girls who are not transgender and has created an environment where some female students are afraid to object to this policy.
Scott rejected that rationale, arguing that discrimination must involve some overt, hostile act directed at someone because of their sex.
"Student A is not in the girls locker room because of any animus against their sex," Scott said. "She's in there because she identifies as female."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert said at Monday's hearing in Chicago that he plans to issue a report with his recommendations to U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso. Alonso then will issue a formal opinion on whether to grant the preliminary injunction.
Judge Gilbert did not indicate when he would complete his report but attorneys said both judges generally have moved quickly to review this issue.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which represents the transgender student, in June was granted a request to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of three transgender students, including student A, and a nonprofit that works with schools on LGBTQ issues, the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance. ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka said the group was eager to address the "damaging rhetoric" put forth in the lawsuit by parents and students.
"The plaintiffs and their counsel have insisted on cruelly mis-gendering our client and suggesting that being transgender is a 'delusion,' " Yohnka said. "These acts are outside the mainstream of medical and scientific understanding and have a very detrimental effect on our client and other transgender students."
ACLU attorney John Knight added in a statement that excluding transgender students from the restrooms and locker rooms of their gender identities "challenges their basic identity and humanity, suggests that they should be ashamed of who they are."
[email protected] |
There are many different Ableton Live controller apps for iOS - from powerful Touchable app that mimics Ableton devices interface and allows you controlling literally every function of Live to flexible modern-looking Conductr.
Though if you are familiar with Ableton midi controllers you probably know very well Novation Launchpad - it is pretty cheap (comparing to Ableton push) midi controller designed to launch clips in session view but with new scripts it also acts as matrix-style midi notes keyboard (like Push or Maschine Jam).
Based on advanced Launchpad script - developer Alexander Nowak has made iOS app that repeats functions of Novation Launchpad on a touch screen of an iPad or iPhone.
And with the recent update the app brings Apple Watch support that shows part of the layout but still allows to play some notes/launch clips.
Launch Buttons - control Ableton Live with Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad
Features
8x8 clip launch grid
8 scene launch buttons
16 freely-assignable knobs
Low-latency MIDI communication over Wifi
Color coding like on the Novation Launchpad Pro
Freely-assignable transport controls
Works with Launchpad95 (free) and Launchpad Pro95 (Plus)
[appstore id=947300074]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06Z6WuF-5EU
See also - Ableton Live Controllers for iOS:
[appstore id=385949475]
[appstore id=481290621]
[appstore id=686559982]
[appstore id=944972221] |
CCSD officials call for more state funding, say more cuts coming to combat budget deficit
Clark County School District officials say local tax dollars are unfairly distributed to fund schools across Nevada, one of many reasons it has found itself facing an estimated $60 million budget shortfall.
Without the state, which redistributes local tax dollars for education, providing a big enough “slice of the pie,” the School District cannot reasonably sustain its $2.4 billion budget without making “progressive cuts,” Chief Financial Officer Jason Goudie said.
Clark County receives about $5,700 per student in funding while, for example, smaller Esmeralda County gets more than $25,000 per pupil.
“It’s time to figure out a better way to do things,” Goudie said.
Goudie and Nicole Rourke, the district’s chief government lobbyist, said unfunded state and federal mandates — including more $255 million for special education services and $8 million for free breakfast vouchers and testing — will also set the district back financially this year.
Goudie, whose office oversees the budget, said the $60 million deficit is likely to climb even higher when a final tally of last year’s finances is released in the next week. The savings from cuts is also difficult to calculate, he said.
Outside of the funding issue, the School District’s financial dilemma has been exacerbated by a ballooning payroll for teachers and administrators, Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky noted earlier this month as he announced his June retirement. Pay for the district’s 40,000 employees accounts for about 88 percent of the annual budget.
The district earmarked $135.5 million to raise the minimum teacher base salary from $34,637 to $40,900 starting in the 2015-2016 school year and the maximum salary from $72,331 to $90,877. Pay for 1,300 administrators was also bumped up after an arbitrator on May 31 ordered the district to pay $19.5 million in salary increases and benefits for deans, principals and assistant principals.
To try to get its arms around the problem, the School Board voted Aug. 24 to cut more than $43 million from the budget and warned of more reductions this year by leaving vacant hundreds of teaching and support staff positions. Last week, the district announced an additional $14 million in cuts. |
Lotte Giants catcher Kang Min-ho kisses a trophy besides a Kia Motor K5 sedan after he won the MVP prize during the Korea Baseball Organization's (KBO) All-Star game at the Suwon KT Wiz Park in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Saturday. / Yonhap
By Baek Byung-yeul
With 18,000 baseball fans packing the Suwon KT Wiz Park, the Lotte Giants catcher Kang Min-ho became the most valuable player (MVP) of the Korea Baseball Organization's (KBO) All-Star game, Saturday.
Kang started the game as a catcher of Dream All-Star, comprised of the Samsung Lions, SK Wyverns, Doosan Bears, KT Wiz and the Giants, and went 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs (run batted in) and 1 run. He hit home runs in the top of the 2nd inning against the NC Dinos pitcher Eric Hacker against the Nanum All-Star team consisting of the Nexen Heroes, LG Twins, Kia Tigers, Hanwha Eagles and the Dinos.
Kang was supposed to get only one at-bat as he was suffering from thigh injury but batted two more times until being replaced with the Bears catcher Yang Eui-ji in the bottom of the sixth inning.
With Kang helping his team to a 6-3 victory, Kang topped at the MVP voting, receiving 26 from 43 baseball reporters. The Bears pitcher Yoo Hee-kwan was followed with 11 votes. This was Kang's first All-Star MVP title. With Kang being awarded, the Giants earned high marks for producing 15 MVPs in the KBO's 34-year-old history. As prize money, Kang received a Kia Motor's K5 midsize sedan.
"I just put my significance participation of the All-Star game, but decided to be at the batter's box two more times as the manager Ryu Jung-il encouraged me to grab a MVP title after hitting a home run," Kang told reporters after the game. "I will present the sedan to my mother as she lately sold her car."
A day earlier, Hwang Jae-gyun of the Giants won the home run derby beating Eric Thames of the Dinos by a large margin in the final match up.
The third baseman, who advanced to the final with 10 homers, hit 11 while Thames remained only 2 home runs. This was the 27-year-old slugger's first win in the derby. Hwang, who already garnered 22 homeruns in the first half, received 5 million won and four musical tickets.
Prior to the All-Star game on Saturday, the United States Ambassador to Korea Mark Lippert was named as an honorary ambassador for the KBO. At a ceremony, the U.S. envoy, known as an avid baseball fan, presented a baseball autographed by members of the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals, the two contestants of last year's World Series, to the KBO Commissioner Koo Bon-neung.
Second-half predictions get tougher
With the All-Star break having just passed, 10 clubs in the KBO will play from as few as 57 games to as many as 63 in the second-half of the season from Tuesday.
While the reigning champion Lions finished atop the first half with 49 wins and 34 losses for the four consecutive seasons, no one is sure who will smile in the end as the Daegu-based team lead the race by a game over the second-place Bears and by 1.5 games over the third ranked Dinos.
Fierce competitions to hold fourth and fifth spot will be expected as well.
The fifth-place Eagles is 1.5 games behind the fourth-place Heroes and the Wyverns is right behind the Eagles by a margin of one game.
Previously, the top four of the nine clubs made it into the postseason to battle for the Korean Series title, but with the Wiz as the league's 10th club, top five teams will make it into the playoffs from this season.
Though the sixth ranked Tigers, the seventh ranked Giants and the eighth ranked Twins have a faint chance to raise their rank, the same happening for the Wiz is unlikely as they are 10 games behind the ninth ranked Twins.
The Lions' manager Ryu Jung-il said his team will run ahead from the beginning of the second-half. "Every game for the rest of the season will be decisive for us. We will put our utmost effort from Tuesday," Ryu told reporters after defeating the Heroes in their home stadium in Pohang Baseball Stadium, Thursday.
He attributed their strong performance in the first half to imported pitcher Alfredo Figaro and rookie first baseman Koo Ja-wook.
"Figaro did play a large part in the team, throwing more than six innings in every game he started in the first half. Koo also proved that his performance has been getting better."
When predicting rest of the season, Ryu said the KT Wiz will likely be the greatest variable in the race.
"Every club should be aware of the KT Wiz. They were weak in the early part of the season, but they get better as the season moves on. They are threat to every other club," he said. |
Audrey Jean Knauer had a death wish for Charles Bronson.
The Kentucky woman left an estate worth about $300,000 to the macho movie star, whom she never even met.
Now her family is waging a legal battle to get backthe money – which the super-rich Bronson doesn’t intend to keep.
“He’s giving it to charity,” Bronson’s spokeswoman, Lori Jonas, told The Post yesterday.
The strange situation stems from the last will and testament that Knauer scribbled on a list of emergency phone numbers before she died in December 1997.
“Under no circumstances is my mother, Helen, to inherit anything from me – blood, body parts, financial assets, etc.,” the 56-year-old woman wrote.
“I bequeath to Charles Bronson (the talented character actor) and what he doesn’t want can pass thru to the Louisville Free Public Library.”
The estate is in probate. Bronson reportedly has received half of Knauer’s money – but whether he can keep it is still up in the air.
Knauer’s sister, Nancy Koeper, filed suit in Louisville two months ago to challenge the will, arguing that she should be the beneficiary.
The court papers claim Knauer was mentally incapable of making the will and “evidenced an inappropriate and unnatural obsession with Bronson … amounting to monomania.”
Koeper, a California exercise instructor, said her sister became fixated on Bronson – collecting newspaper clips and photos and renting his hit “Death Wish” flicks.
“I don’t feel he deserves the money, and I doubt he needs it,” Koeper told a newspaper after the suit was filed.
Bronson, 77, who married 36-year-old Kim Weeks in December, is now on vacation and couldn’t be reached for comment.
His spokeswoman said she couldn’t discuss the case.
The Louisville library has contacted Bronson and is anxious to hear from him – because the will says if he doesn’t want the money, it should get it.
“It would be the third-largest bequest in the last decade and in the top 12 in our history,” library director Craig Buthod said.
“It’s enough for us to buy 15,000 or 20,000 new books, which is enough to stock a small branch library. Or it’s enough to keep our summer reading program going through the years.”
Buthod said Knauer, a retired chemist, was a regular library user, but her contact with the staff was apparently limited to the checkout desk.
Still, he can understand why she was such a big fan of Bronson.
“I’m a fan from way back,” he said. “My favorite movie of my youth was ‘The Great Escape,’ and I really like his portrayal of the miner.” |
Epoxide Profile Blog Joined March 2011 Magic Woods 9039 Posts Last Edited: 2013-08-06 17:06:28 #1
The full list for players have been released now:
P: Pusan, Shuttle, Lazy, Rock, Sky, Movie, Hi, Hint, Tyson, Zeus, BeSt, Brave
T: Sea, Mong, HiyA, sSak, Shinee, Notice, Sexy, Ample
Z: Larva, Killer, StarCue, beast, Fengzi, Cola, ZergMaN, Saber, Snail, hero
Most notable returns are Shinee, Notice, Killer, and Saber
First time in SOSPA competition is Rock, Zeus, BeSt, Brave, and Fengzi
Fengzi is the first non-korean to partake in SOSPA events.
Today Sonic announced the 16th SOSPA Ranking Tournament on his message board. The next season will most likely be before the 9th Season of the SSL. SRT will yet again host a 32-man tournament based on invites. Only one of those invites have been decided thus far, and it's . He won't be joining the army until the 26th of September, so the next season will most likely be played before then.
The 16th season is sponsored by Sinbal Farm, with no prize pool announced yet. Sonic is also looking for recommendations on who the other 31 players should be, and invites everyone to leave a comment on his message board.
Original Korean text:
+ Show Spoiler + 15차와 다른점은 현재 16차 랭킹전에 SKT 전프로 도재욱 선수가 추가 되었습니다.
여러분들이 생각하는 종족별 베스트 32명의 엔트리를 댓글로 써주시면
참고해서 섭외 해보겠습니다.
16차 랭킹전의 스폰서는 신발팜입니다.
감사합니다^^
Source UPDATE: Rock, Zeus, Brave, and Fengzi are announced for SRT16!The full list for players have been released now:P:T:Z:Most notable returns are Shinee, Notice, Killer, and SaberFirst time in SOSPA competition is Rock, Zeus, BeSt, Brave, and FengziFengzi is the first non-korean to partake in SOSPA events.Today Sonic announced the 16th SOSPA Ranking Tournament on his message board. The next season will most likely be before the 9th Season of the SSL. SRT will yet again host a 32-man tournament based on invites. Only one of those invites have been decided thus far, and it's BeSt . He won't be joining the army until the 26th of September, so the next season will most likely be played before then.The 16th season is sponsored by Sinbal Farm, with no prize pool announced yet. Sonic is also looking for recommendations on who the other 31 players should be, and invites everyone to leave a comment on his message board.Original Korean text: Liquipedia Souma: EU MM is just Russian Roulette. Literally.
itsjustatank Profile Blog Joined November 2010 Korea (South) 9021 Posts #2 this is awesome news Photographer "im a fucking big fat dirty whale" -EternaLEnVy
Zenbrez Profile Joined June 2012 Canada 5957 Posts #3 Interesting Refer to my post.
bioboyAT Profile Joined July 2004 Austria 1731 Posts #4 I am not sure if my body is ready for this. Awesome! Milchmann | DeadVessel: Milchmann pwns. I fail.
KristofferAG Profile Blog Joined April 2011 Norway 19209 Posts Last Edited: 2013-08-05 20:06:51 #5
32 people means sponsorship continues I assume? A bit fast having three SRTs right after eachother like this though. Kinda miss the various event matches Oh man that could potentially be awesome news. Depends on how much practice BeSt can get in before it kicks off.32 people means sponsorship continues I assume? A bit fast having three SRTs right after eachother like this though. Kinda miss the various event matches @KristofferAG | http://vestkyststoy.bandcamp.com | last.fm/user/KristofferAG
Heartland Profile Blog Joined May 2012 Sweden 23882 Posts #6 Joy ^^ My mom doesn't sound weird!!
Epoxide Profile Blog Joined March 2011 Magic Woods 9039 Posts #7 On August 06 2013 05:05 KristofferAG wrote:
Oh man that could potentially be awesome news. Depends on how much practice BeSt can get in before it kicks off.
32 people means sponsorship continues I assume? A bit fast having three SRTs right after eachother like this though. Kinda miss the various event matches Oh man that could potentially be awesome news. Depends on how much practice BeSt can get in before it kicks off.32 people means sponsorship continues I assume? A bit fast having three SRTs right after eachother like this though. Kinda miss the various event matches
Sinbal Farm, aka Sonic himself, will sponsor the next season, not iStarPCMall Sinbal Farm, aka Sonic himself, will sponsor the next season, not iStarPCMall Liquipedia Souma: EU MM is just Russian Roulette. Literally.
L_Master Profile Blog Joined April 2009 United States 7609 Posts #8 OH MY GOD! Excellent news.
Now all we need is Bisu :p EffOrt and Soulkey Hwaiting!
TaShadan Profile Joined February 2010 Germany 1938 Posts #9 Best plays the best game again. Total Annihilation Zero http://www.moddb.com/mods/total-annihilation-zero
wingpawn Profile Blog Joined June 2013 Poland 1342 Posts #10 Regardless of the result, it will be a privelege to watch Best at work. IMO he is totally able to give Sea run for his money.
cekkmt Profile Joined November 2010 United States 352 Posts #11 Maybe since it is Proleague off-season some former BW pros will make an appearance.
Djabanete Profile Blog Joined May 2008 United States 2406 Posts #12 Go Best
thezanursic Profile Blog Joined July 2011 5446 Posts #13 Nice! I'm so happy that we are getting another good toss! http://i45.tinypic.com/9j2cdc.jpg Let it be so!
amazingxkcd Profile Blog Joined September 2010 GRAND OLD AMERICA 15736 Posts #14
/s Best to win with his amazing PvZ/s The world is burning and you rather be on this terrible website discussing video games and your shallow feelings
Lorch Profile Joined June 2011 Germany 3420 Posts #15 On August 06 2013 05:15 cekkmt wrote:
Maybe since it is Proleague off-season some former BW pros will make an appearance.
I may be completly wrong in here, but I highly doubt kespa will let any one of their players play a bw tournament, even if it's off season. And afaik no "active pro" has played in any sospa event, right? I may be completly wrong in here, but I highly doubt kespa will let any one of their players play a bw tournament, even if it's off season. And afaik no "active pro" has played in any sospa event, right?
GTPGlitch Profile Blog Joined March 2011 4555 Posts #16 Iris pleeeeees
Also yay for best ^_^ Jo Byung Se #1 fan | CJ_Rush(reborn) fan | Liquid'Jinro(ret) fan | Liquid'Taeja fan | oGsTheSuperNada fan | Iris[gm](ret) fan |
SCnai Profile Joined February 2010 259 Posts #17 Fantastic! The legend of the fall, which everyone thought was only a dream, is being revived! Carriers, the symbol of Protoss, the hope of a million Protoss fans, are reviving the legend!
BigFan Profile Blog Joined December 2010 TLADT 23524 Posts #18 On August 06 2013 05:15 cekkmt wrote:
Maybe since it is Proleague off-season some former BW pros will make an appearance.
hmm would be nice but I doubt it. Best did leave SKT T1 though which is why he's playing here. Definitely catching the games now! :D hmm would be nice but I doubt it. Best did leave SKT T1 though which is why he's playing here. Definitely catching the games now! :D BW Editor-In-Chief "Watch Bakemonogatari or I will kill you." -Toad, April 18th, 2017
Shana Profile Blog Joined July 2009 Indonesia 1720 Posts #19 Can you play during your mandatory military service? Not like ACE, but can you like doing it on spare time (if there's any, dunno?)
Would be amazing if Best coming back to BW not just for this. Believing in what lies ahead. | That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.
Lunareste Profile Joined July 2011 United States 3589 Posts Last Edited: 2013-08-05 20:42:42 #20 probably decided to quit T1 since he couldn't make the A-team with so many Protoss to compete against. KT FlaSh FOREVER
1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Next All |
CBS Storybreak was an animated anthology series that premiered in 1985 on CBS. It was hosted by Captain Kangaroo himself, the great Bob Keeshan and featured half hour adaptations of popular/classic children’s stories. The show won an Emmy for its initial season and ran until 1988. It returned to the air in 1993 with new host, The Cosby Show’s Malcolm Jamal-Warner.
Here is a list of all of the episodes from CBS Storybreak’s Initial run:
The Great Ringtail Garbage Caper Yeh-Sheh: A Cinderella Story from China Robbut: A Tale of Tails How to Eat Fried Worms Zucchini Hank the Cowdog The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek Chocolate Fever Dragon’s Blood Arnold of the Duck C.L.U.T.Z. Witch-Cat The Pig Plantagent Harry the Fat Bear Spy Hugh Pine The Roquefort Gang
The one I remember the most is “How to Eat Fried Worms”. Probably because I remembered the story from when I was a kid. Sadly they have not done a DVD release of CBS Storybreak in a boxed set, but in 1992 they did release them on VHS, some of which you can still find on Amazon Marketplace and eBay. Just look for the box:
There used to be episodes of the show available on YouTube, but they have all been pulled for TOS violations. But you can still get a little CBS Storybreak magic from the intro and these bumpers.
CBS Storybreak Intro
CBS Storybreak Bumper 1
CBS Storybreak Bumper 2
CBS Storybreak Bumper 3 |
Right now, the moody party-rapper Travis Scott has the #1 album in America with his new LP Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight. It’s a pretty good album! But we should also credit Scott with having the #1 most ridiculous merch item for sale in America.
Last week, Scott unveiled a new line of merch that includes T-shirts, hoodies, and hats, alongside things like coffee cups, Zippo lighters, boxer shorts, flashlights, and a $5 condom that says “let’s get it” on the wrapper. Many of these are just regular items with Cafepress-style printed images. But one of the things Scott is selling is a stuffed bird that happens to be the exact same one that’s available from a website called StuffedSafari.com. Travis Scott is charging $50 for the bird. StuffedSafari.com lists it at $12.99. It did not take fans long to figure it out.
This isn’t even a situation like the $195 Justin Bieber shirt that was really a $17 Marilyn Manson shirt. That, at least, had something new printed on the back. It was re-manufactured. It wasn’t the exact same thing. This is more like sitting down to order a $20 burger and then learning that the restaurant’s chef has just run down the street and bought it at McDonald’s. You are literally paying an extra $37 for the privilege of buying the bird from Travis Scott. His site didn’t even take a new picture of the bird!
I like how Travis Scott’s bird will take 8 to 10 weeks. I guess it takes time to order it from another website and then to ship it out again. |
The European Commission has decided to broaden sanctions against Moscow on Friday. As RT notes, more Russian individuals and firms accused of delivering Siemens gas turbines to the Crimea have been blacklisted.
The updated blacklist includes Russian Deputy Energy Minister Andrey Cherezov, the head of the department of operational control and management in Russia's electric power industry Evgeniy Grabchak and state firm Technopromexport CEO Sergey Topor-Gilka.
* * *
As we detailed earlier, this was expected.
The European Union is expected Friday to expand sanctions against Russian individuals and companies that were allegedly involved in the transportation of at least four Siemens turbines to Russian-controlled Crimea in violation of an international ban, according to Reuters.
“EU states have until later on Friday to submit any complaints to the proposal to extend the Russia blacklist. Two diplomatic sources said it looked like there will be no obstacles and the decision will be taken. Germany proposed last month to put four more Russian nationals - including from the energy ministry - on the blacklist, as well as three Russian firms, including the one that delivered the turbines to the peninsula. EU states need unanimity to introduce sanctions and one source said, however, one of the names has been removed from the original proposal after Italian objections.”
The expansion puts the EU – and Germany in particular – in an awkward position: Representatives of the trade bloc have recently expressed outrage at the US over a sanctions bill signed by President Donald Trump that they say could unfairly infringe on the EU-Russia bilateral trade relationship.
European Commission Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker earlier this week criticized the US for not consulting the EU before moving ahead with the sanctions bill, threatening reprisals should they damage bilateral trading relations. Trump reluctantly signed the sanctions into law earlier this week after expressing his displeasure with the bill in a signing statement that criticized Congress for further escalating tensions between the two countries.
According to Reuters, the US sanctions will make it more difficult for Russia to build two gas export pipelines to Europe. However, Reuters reports that the two projects are still expected to move forward. Last month, Russian oil giant Gazprom warned investors last month that the sanctions "may result in delays, or otherwise impair or prevent the completion of the projects by the group."
“The Kremlin, dependent on oil and gas revenues, sees the pipelines to Germany and Turkey - Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream - as crucial to increasing its market share in Europe. It also fears that Western partners - needed to develop the deepwater, shale and Arctic gas deposits that will fill the pipelines - will be scared off by sanctions. Gazprom warned investors last month that the sanctions ‘may result in delays, or otherwise impair or prevent the completion of the projects by the group.’”
With this in mind, the Russian gas giant is taking steps to reduce the impact of sanctions, even as the heightened risks are expected to drive up costs and make it more difficult for Gazprom, the Russian oil giant that’s building the German Nordstream 2 pipeline.
"The price of any project automatically increases," said Tatiana Mitrova, director of the Skolkovo Energy Center. "Gazprom's relationships with partners, subcontractors, and equipment and service providers are severely complicated," she said. "They will all ask for a risk premium."
Siemens, which insists that it was unaware that the turbines had been moved, has said in statements to the media that it was used as an “unwitting pawn” to help fulfill a promise made by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the people of Crimea. The company is calling for criminal charges to be filed against any Russians who helped orchestrate the move. Siemens originally sold the turbines to a Russian firm called Technopromexport. |
Project Management:
Our team working on project management oversees the big picture and aids in the planning, initiation of work and the coordination between teams.
Final testing of 0.9.11 has been completed, approved and released for both Android and iOS. Further work has been completed on the active Epics; wallet, networking switching and discover. A number of organisational calls and discussions surrounding future design direction and Devcon3 release planning.
Clojure-Team:
Our Clojure team is the core of our development team, they handle the functionalities of our application and house our largest team of developers.
Working on next binary release 0.9.11
Reviews on various issues
Added some commits from release/0.9.11 to develop
#1976 — Issued some small pull requests related to network switching
Devcon3 release planning meeting
#372 — Investigated mixing of result of call method
#1754 & 1966 — Reviewed both issues
#1840 — Investigated migrating all lists to components.list
#1972 — Looking into Discover DApp screen, updated discovery issues with screenshots from Zeplin to help with mapping them
#1874 — Further work on Discover screens
Work on product design document
Devcon3 call
Preparing a development plan to split up work and make it easier going forward
Worked on adding some Wiki documentation
Devcon3 call
Wallet call
Created issues for wallet design review
#1941 — Fixed Android issue where emoji icon is shown instead of ‘X’ at the end of the input field for commands
#1944 — Investigating ‘Error Loading Data’ is shown for newly created accounts
#1971 — Started work on Wallet- show transaction fee on send transaction screen and check balance before sending
#1959 — Working on pull request fixing some styling issues with wallet
#1710 — Worked on changing the /send command flow to fit with new functionality. Testing was successful and merge should happen soon
#1130 — Begun work on issue where password request is not shown in console for slow connection. Issued a couple bug fixes and found a race condition which leads to issue
Getting up to speed with latest wallet alterations
Go-Team:
Our Go-language team handles the forked Go-Ethereum implementation in Status — This is the “backend” of Status that allows you to connect directly to the Ethereum Blockchain.
#371 — Proposed a plan to divide tests between unit and integration
#372 — Worked on issue to figure out why concurrent calls to jail result in race conditions
#375 — Begun extracting integration tests into a separate package, approaching completion
Reviewed some exisiting code
Reading about PSS
Helped making jail thread-safe
#325 — Continued work on making it possible to analyse which messages were lost or resent in the test environment
#368 — Reviewed pull requests
#317 — Working on Geth 1.7.0 rebase
#359, #360 and #365 — Refactoring pull requests
#362 —Bug fix on fixing null result field build for JSON-RPC raw response
#368 — Refactoring Jail code
#376 — Working on Jail refactor
Merged and reviewed pull requests
Adding some documentation for status-go page
Reviewing and studying of source code of status-go in order to better familiarise self
Setting up development environment
Devcon3 call
Reviewing documents and existing issues in order to better familiarise self
Built project in order to run tests
Boris
Familiarising self with newcomer documentation and intstructions
Built and ran status-go test
Design-Team:
Our Design team makes Status beautiful, they provide mockups for discussion and approval on every aspect of the application.
Worked on sidebar redesign / restyle
Design structure discussion
Read through team documentation regarding product design
Discussion and feedback surrounded external agency outcome
Desktop-Team:
Our desktop team works towards building the Status client on desktop
Rebasing and merged based Slider component support changes
Begun looking into building of Status-react app on OS X,
Sucessfully built and ran status-react app on iOS simulator
QA-Team:
Our QA team handles the testing of the application, works with users reporting bugs, and they are crucial to getting feedback and report bugs to our development team with details.
Nastya:
Testing 0.9.11 to ensure release stability
Planning call
Testing wallet epic
Logging some additional issues found whilst testing
Testing 0.9.11 to ensure release stability
Planning and design called
#1709 — Testing refactoring of chat module
Added ‘send transaction initiated from the DApp’ scenario and ‘send transaction with invalid password’ tests
Join Our Community
Status is an open source project, and if you’d like to get involved with development — the single best way would be to build Status for yourself or explore our open issues. We prefer to hire core contributors based on Pull Requests.
If you feel you can help us grow our community in other ways, we’d love to hear your ideas. You can also Tweet at us, like our Facebook or subscribe to the Status Subreddit. |
Review by Anthony Cleveland
Movie fans are going to walk out of the theater floating after watching Andrés Muschietti’s IT. This movie is striking with the iron smoking, red hot. Stephen King is back in the public's thoughts after several adaptation announcements, and the Dark Tower release. To add to that, Stranger Things is becoming a cultural phenomenon and tapped into our nostalgic memories of old Spielberg and King movies. Mark my words, this film will become a massive success with mainstream audiences.
That said, this adaptation might not ring true with fans of the Stephen King novel or the miniseries.
I had the privilege of attending an early screening in Chicago courtesy of Warner Brothers and Bloody-Disgusting, and this screening was a blast, the fans being the catalyst to the fun. While standing in line, there was never conversation revolving around, "We'll see if it's good" or "They better do this," coming from the fans. Through what they had seen in the advertising, they had trusted their faith in the filmmakers with getting this movie right. The excitement and positive attitudes made this a great atmosphere to watch IT -- and boy, oh boy, did we have fun! |
Are you one of the lovely people who purchased a Fanboy edition on Desura to give us extra support when we needed it most?
The future of Desura is currently in question and we have no way of keeping a record of individuals who paid for the £29.99 Fanboy edition. It sadly isn’t something we have access to.
As some might remember from their purchase, the rubric stated: ‘Comes with ZERO exciting special features, just smug self-satisfaction of being a hardened PZ supporter. Extra benefits *might* be shown in future’.
Right now those ‘extra benefits’ aren’t imminent (or even confirmed!) but we really, really don’t want to lose track of those who stepped forward as Fanboys.
As such, if our searchlight has found you, please dredge your email account for your Desura Purchase Confirmation and forward it to [email protected]. A search for ‘Project Zomboid Fanboy’ in your email account should help you on your way.
If, however, that Purchase Confirmation email is long deleted or on a defunct account please mail us in any case and we’re sure we can establish other ways of checking your Fanboyish identity.
Thanks everyone!
The Indie Stone x
PS> The Purchase Confirmation email looks a little bit like this: |
The president said House Republicans can prevent the fate of a tax hike. Obama warns of GOP 'lump of coal'
HATFIELD, Pa. — President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) finished another week without a fiscal cliff deal, not even agreeing on how the negotiations are going.
Obama expressed optimism as he took his case on the road here Friday, saying Democrats and Republicans “can and will work together.”
Story Continued Below
Boehner, however, countered: “Right now, we’re almost nowhere.”
( Also on POLITICO: John Boehner declares stalemate)
Obama struck a playful tone throughout his speech at a toy factory to warn Americans that they could be in for a “lump of coal” for Christmas if Congress fails to extend current middle-class tax rates.
“Everybody here, you’ll see your taxes go up on Jan. 1,” Obama said at a Rodon Group plant, where more than 95 percent of the parts for K’NEX construction toys are made. “I’m assuming that doesn’t sound too good to you. That’s sort of like the lump of coal you get for Christmas. That’s a Scrooge Christmas.”
But, the president said, House Republicans can prevent that fate “by doing what we all agree on” and extending current tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income. “Let’s go ahead and take the fear out for the vast majority of American families,” he said.
( Also on POLITICO: White House: No surprises in Geithner proposal)
As he has before, Obama vowed to quickly sign legislation extending the tax cuts. “There are no shortage of pens in the White House, and I carry one around for an emergency, just in case,” he said.
“I’ve been keeping my own naughty and nice list for Washington,” Obama said. “So you should keep your eye on who gets some K’NEX this year. There are going to be some members of Congress who get them and some who don’t.”
Boehner was not in the mood for jokes, though.
“There’s a stalemate. Let’s not kid ourselves,” the speaker said. |
Veteran actor Om Puri has passed away after a massive heart attack early on Friday morning. The actor was 66. Om Puri’s friends and colleagues from Bollywood reached his Andheri residence to pay their last respects to the actor. Various Bollywood actors, who shared screen space with Puri, were present at the funeral to pay their tributes. Amitabh Bachchan was seen arriving with son Abhishek Bachchan.
Advertising
Confirming the news to indianexpress.com, filmmaker Ashoke Pandit — a close friend of Puri — said,”Omji suffered from a massive heart attack in the morning today. We have just reached his residence.”
Shabana Azmi completely broke down at the funeral.
Vidya Balan was also spotted at the ceremony.
Advertising
Farhan Akhtar was also spotted at the event.
Anupam Kher was present to pay his last respect to him former colleague
Also read | RIP Om Puri: His journey from rag picking to cinematic success, see pics
Actor Shabana Azmi shared more details via tweet. She posted, “OM Puri undergoing postmortem at Cooper Hospital.Will be taken to Trishul around 3pm Funeral at Oshiwara electric crematorium around 6pm.”
WATCH VIDEO | Veteran Actor Om Puri Passes Away At 66, His Cinematic Journey
Here is the latest update on Om Puri’s death news:
OM Puri undergoing postmortem at Cooper Hospital.Will be taken to Trishul around 3pm Funeral at Oshiwara electric crematorium around 6pm — Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) January 6, 2017
Also read | Om Puri dead: Shabana Azmi mourns loss, says will miss ‘the fun, the laughter’. See their pics together
He also took to Twitter to share the news, “Sad & shocked to know that versatile actor Om Puri jee has expired due to heart attack early morning today. #RIP.”
Watch video: Om Puri passes away at the age of 66
The actor has appeared in mainstream Bollywood cinema as well as Pakistani, British and Hollywood films. The actor has received an OBE as well as Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condoled his death. “The Prime Minister condoles the passing away of actor Om Puri & recalls his long career in theatre & films,” PMO India tweeted.
Puri’s friends in Bollywood were left shell-shocked by his death. Mahesh Bhatt tweeted: Goodbye Om! A part of me goes with you today. How can I ever forget those passionate nights we spent together talking about cinema & life ?
WATCH VIDEO | Bollywood Mourns Death Of Veteran Actor Om Puri
Also read | RIP Om Puri: Shocked Bollywood reacts to veteran actor’s death
Boman Irani also tweeted: “RIP Om Puri. We have lost one of our finest. A talent, A Voice, A Spirit.
Will miss you Puri Saab.”
Check what Bollywood celebs tweeted after Om Puri death:
Goodbye Om! A part of me goes with you today. How can I ever forget those passionate nights we spent together talking about cinema & life ? — Mahesh Bhatt (@MaheshNBhatt) January 6, 2017
It’s a sad day for cinema … we just lost one of our greats… gone but will never be forgotten … #RIPOmPuri Saab … — Neha Dhupia (@NehaDhupia) January 6, 2017
RIP Om Puri.
We have lost one of our finest.
A talent, A Voice, A Spirit.
Will miss you Puri Saab. — Boman Irani (@bomanirani) January 6, 2017
See pics | Om Puri Passes Away At 66: A Tribute To The Veteran actor
Advertising
An alumnus of Film and Television Institute of India as well as National School of Drama, Puri was on the forefront of what was called art films movement in the 70s. He has worked in acclaimed films such as Bhavni Bhavai (1980), Sadgati (1981), Ardh Satya (1982), Mirch Masala (1986) and Dharavi (1992). |
Snow and hurricane-force winds are slated to hit the Northeast this weekend. Residents in the tri-state area are scrambling to get ready after last year's unusually dry and mild winter. NBC's Ron Mott reports.
Updated at 3:07 a.m. ET: A crippling and potentially historic winter storm barreled toward the Northeast on Thursday, threatening tens of millions of people with 2 feet of snow. Boston canceled school and braced for one of its worst blizzards of all time.
Airlines encouraged fliers to change their plans and get out of the way. There were already delays of more than two hours at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, where tangles can snarl air traffic across the country. More than 2500 flights had been cancelled by early Friday, according to flightstats.com.
The culprits were a so-called clipper system moving through the Upper Midwest and a low-pressure system headed for the waters off New England. When they converge, probably late Friday, they are expected to sock the region with its heaviest snow in at least two years, and perhaps much longer.
“When this hits, it’s going to come down very hard,” said Tom Niziol, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. “This is something we haven’t seen in a while, particularly in New England.”
The National Weather Service put the New York City area and Long Island under a blizzard warning and said those areas could get more than a foot of snow. Earlier in the day, the weather service warned that travel in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island could become nearly impossible.
Full coverage from The Weather Channel
Forecasts called for as much as 9 inches of snow across central Michigan, a foot and a half in the Hudson Valley region of New York, and 2 feet or more across coastal New England. Possible hurricane-force winds off Massachusetts and Rhode Island also made flooding a threat.
In Boston, the storm had the potential to take out century-old records. The city’s biggest snowstorms since 1892 were a 27.5-inch blast in February 2003 and a 27.1-inch dumping exactly 35 years ago, in 1978. Mayor Thomas Menino closed city schools for Friday and pleaded for common sense.
The snow is expected to pick up early Friday afternoon and by Saturday at 8 a.m. blizzard conditions will be in full force along several major cities in the Northeast, from New York City to Portland. The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore reports.
“Stay off the streets of our city,” he said. “Basically, stay home.”
Light to moderate snow is expected to spread through the Great Lakes on Thursday and could reach as far east as parts of New England and New York City by Thursday night, according to forecasters for The Weather Channel.
Snow should begin Friday in Boston and Hartford, Conn., and grow heavy at times during the day in New York, New England and parts of Pennsylvania, the forecasters said.
The most intense part of the storm was expected to hit Friday night and Saturday, with as much as 3 inches of snow falling per hour in coastal New England, including Boston, Hartford and Portland, Maine.
By Saturday evening, snow should taper off in Boston and the storm is forecast to pull off the coast of Maine by Sunday morning, The Weather Channel said.
RELATED: Detailed storm timeline from The Weather Channel
In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city was readying plows and said crews would work extended shifts.
“It’s been a quiet winter, but we knew that February could be a tough one,” said the city’s sanitation commissioner, John Doherty.
For at least some people there, the storm was a chance to profit.
“Shoveling, cleaning cars, anything you need me to do,” Isaac Morales told NBC affiliate WHDH in Boston. “I already have rock salt. I already have shovels. I’ve got extra bodies. I’ve got everything so I’m all set.”
But for survivors of Hurricane Sandy, including thousands of people still displaced and many more with disrupted lives, it was more serious. A much smaller snowstorm followed Sandy in late October.
“People were just miserable, unhappy, and it started to get cold,” Annie Petraro of Long Island told NBC New York. “Things just weren’t good. And now it’s freezing, it’s gonna snow.”
The Long Island Power Authority, which was strongly criticized for a slow response to the hurricane, said that it was planning for this one and making sure it had enough people working and enough supplies.
More than 130 flights into and out of O’Hare were canceled Thursday, and more than 70 were already canceled for Friday, according to FlightAware.com. More than 400 flights into and out of Newark Liberty International Airport were canceled for Friday, as were 100 for Boston Logan.
American, Delta, United and other major airlines said they would waive their fees to change flights, which can run to $150, for people going through major airports in the Northeast, including Logan in Boston and LaGuardia and Kennedy in New York.
Amtrak canceled some runs of its Downeaster train line, which runs from Brunswick, Maine, south to Boston.
RELATED: Travelers brace for ‘monster storm’
Ski resorts were excited by the prospect of a major snowstorm.
“It is perfect timing because it will just remind everybody that it is winter, it’s real, and get out and enjoy it,” Tom Meyers, marketing director for Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Massachusetts, told The Associated Press. |
The Harry Potter author, in the voice of Ginny Weasley, Harry's wife, has been reporting on the 2014 Quidditch World Cup in the Patagonian desert
Seven years after JK Rowling's fans tore themselves reluctantly away from the end of the last novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the author has provided a fresh insight into life as an adult for Harry's wife, Ginny Weasley.
After having enjoyed a career as a Quidditch player – the sport invented by Rowling for the novels, in which competitors ride broomsticks – Weasley is now married to the series' hero, Harry Potter, and working as a sports journalist for the Daily Prophet. Rowling has written a series of "live" reports by Ginny, from the 2014 Quidditch World Cup in the Patagonian desert, in which she explains why more than 300 crowd members have been injured.
"Not a single Quaffle thrown, not a single Snitch caught, but the 427th Quidditch World Cup is already mired in controversy. Magizoologists have congregated in the desert to contain the mayhem and Healers have attended more than 300 crowd members suffering from shock, broken bones and bites. The Argentinian Council of Magic is reeling from accusations that their decision to stage a mascot-themed opening ceremony was foolish and reckless," Rowling has posted in the first of two new reports on her website Pottermore.com today.
Ginny goes on to explain how the Norwegian and Fijian mascots clashed, with the Fijian team's Dukuwaqa – a shark/man shape-shifter – taking on Norway's gigantic lake serpent. She quotes a statement from the president of the Argentinian Council of Magic, Valentina Vázquez: "While prepared for the arrival of the Fijian Dukuwaqa, we were surprised when the Norwegian delegation announced that they would also require lake-space for a gigantic lake serpent, the Selma. We had assumed that the Norwegians would be accompanied by their usual troop of performing trolls. We are not aware that any study has ever been undertaken into the compatibility of Dukuwaqas and Selmas, so the Council of Magic cannot accept liability for the unfortunate consequences of placing the two in close proximity."
She then wrangles an exclusive comment from "Chief Consulting Magizoologist" Rolf Scamander, who tells her: "The Dukuwaqa lives in a warm ocean, the Selma in an icy freshwater lake. The former is a shape-shifter that can transform from fish to man, the latter is a serpent that devours human flesh and fish. You would need the brains of a Billywig not to foresee an immediate bloodbath if both were crammed tightly together in tepid, brackish water."
Pottermore said that "knowledgeable Harry Potter fans will spot the link to the screenplay for Fantastic Beasts that JK Rowling is currently writing, the protagonist of which is Newt Scamander, Rolf's grandfather".
The two reports – and the result of the first Quidditch World Cup match, Norway versus the Ivory Coast – can be found in a new location on Pottermore.com: the offices of the Daily Prophet.
Younger readers might of course be disappointed when they learn these reports are fictional. There is some reassurance available, however, in the form of the more or less earthbound version of the game already popular among American students. In this country, too, some Oxford University students are playing. But in the US, still the main focus for the sport, the University of Texas earlier this month retained their World Cup in a (presumably) fiercely contested final against Texas State University to win the seventh World Championship 130-70. |
Best Android Phones
Today we are going to discuss about Smartphone (no more cell phone!) powered by Google’s Android operating system. Android is in market now for couple of years and to tell you the truth, for most of the users, it is better than iPhone 3GS. We will see features from latest phones and why you may consider one of those if you are in the market for buying a Smartphone.
The Good:
Loaded with everything you can imagine! This device is powered by the Android 2.1 operating system with integration of Google application or services and access to many hundreds of apps to customize your phone via the Android Marketplace. This has 4G connectivity with simultaneous voice and data communication capability. The device support incredible peak download speeds of more than 10 Mb/s; It also supports peak upload speeds of 1 Mb/s with an average download speeds of 3-6 Mb/s. It supports 802.11b/g Wi-Fi networking for accessing home and corporate networks as well. This device captures 720p HD video and gives you HDMI port! Next versions of iPhone probably have that! You can use Microsoft Direct Push technology to sync your corporate email into this device.
From hardware perspective it has same power as HTC HD2 – 1 GHz processor. This is a Snapdragon processor, one of the real reasons why it speeds up everything–from playing games to watching YouTube or to opening working files. Also includes a handy kickstand which helps in hands free viewing. It has 4.3-inch capacitive display which supports pinch-to-zoom and tactile feedback technology. Compared to an iPhone (3 MP) or HTC HD2 (5 MP), it has an 8 mega pixel camera with autofocus lens and dual LED flash. Also great thing about the phone is it has memory expansion slot which supports optional microSD memory cards up to 32 GB size.
The Bad:
The voice quality with respect to just talking on the phone is mediocre and once you add talking over Bluetooth it’s downright poor quality. HTC decided to devote their time and energy to developing voice recognition software for text messages, posting to facebook, etc. yet surprisingly removed a standard phone feature of voice dialing via Bluetooth Headset. The voice dialing feature that comes with the EVO does not work very well and is certainly not hands free while driving. The next bad thing is it is not a quad band phone and only supports CDMA!
Bottom Line:
At this point this is the best Android phone in the market. However it is only available in CDMA. This makes your choice of carrier limited. Unless you are sure of the ability of the carrier and coverage of that company in your area, do not go for it.
The Good:
As the name suggests, this phone is incredible. Apps, internet, everything is fast, really fast. HTC Sense increases the features of Android 2.1. This Smartphone features an 8 MP camera and 8GB of internal memory. It has built in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and 3G. It allows you to customize your phone’s look, feel and functionality to your preferences. And because Android lets you run multiple applications simultaneously, you’ll be able to do thing like seamlessly switch between texting on IM and browsing over the web.
The phone has very polished design. The Droid Incredible is very advanced and does amazing things. For instance, it can scan barcodes and turn a taken photo of a business card into a contact. Also, it has Google maps which everyone loves. Live backgrounds are amazing as well.
If you use some of the Google services or applications, like Gmail, Google Calendar, Picasa and Google Voice, you will love the tight integration. Google Voice setup is easy, and seamlessly leads you through changing your carrier voicemail over to it.
The Bad:
Battery Life: Even with all the auto-kill task managers and turning Wi-Fi and GPS off until you need it, the battery life sucks. There is a glitch with charging the phone to full capacity. But there is a work around.
Front Facing Camera: The phone doesn’t have a front-facing camera, so you might be missing out on technological goodies to come later on down the path (Skype to Skype video calls?)
Bottom Line:
You need to take a leap of faith when you are moving from iPhone with the HTC Droid. My call would be, if you can make it there is a very good chance that you will fall in love with this new and great device. The reasons are that the entire specifications beat the iPhone. This phone has a larger screen, more pixels, a lot better camera with built in flash, much more faster processor, voice recognition, ability of multitasking, and much more. You can have as many fun and useful apps on the HTC that you have on the iPhone. If you like to customize your phone you’ll find this device very refreshing to use. You can replace pretty much any part of the phone from your web browser to your texting application to your email program. You are not locked in to the software that was shipped with the phone.
My Touch 3G Slide:
The Good:
This phone has a great 4.3 inch screen with a full QWERTY keyboard. It has a 5 mega pixel camera with built in flash and autofocus lens. The biggest good thing about the basic thing most of the phones forget -The phone’s call quality is excellent and its 3G speeds are impressive.
The phone is powered with Android 2.1 OS which is latest in the market. Like HTC Droid, it also provides multitasking at its core because it is on Android platform.
The Bad:
Although it has a 5MP camera, the image quality is substandard compared to that. It is a midrange set wherein you do not have a very good hardware. The mediocre hardware paralyses the performance of this device.
Bottom Line:
It is a nice device with midrange user in mind. If you are looking for a decent Smartphone and not used in the past, this can be a very good starting point. |
Thankfully the return date of Community has been announced and on February 7, 2013 we’ll get our fix. If you don’t watch, start. If you do watch, inform others of the amazingness they’re missing out on. When it comes to minutiae, Community is in a league of its own. It’s quite possibly the most re-watchable show on television because of the quick paced, detail oriented jokes and references that even the smartest might not catch the first time around. Of the many, here are 12 magnificent little nuggets of gold from Community that are worthy of recognition and praise.
1. Mr. Huxtable’s Sweater
One of the many things Bill Cosby is known for is rocking tragic, extremely loud and incredibly gross sweaters that resemble the color patterns of a fruity cereal eater’s vomit. When Malcolm-Jamal Warner (who played Cosby’s son on The Cosby Show) guest starred, he wore a similar looking pullover that he states he got from his father.
2. The Three Year Punch Line
We know how it works, say “Beetlejuice” three times and he’ll appear. Well Community said the name one time in each of the first three seasons. On the third occasion take a gander in the background.
3. In/On Vending Machines And Refrigerators
During the first season of Community, Troy is stuck in a vending machine at one point. In an episode two seasons later, a fridge covered in various stickers includes one of Troy’s face that’s placed exactly where Troy was in his vending machine mishap.
4. Episode Swap
The episode this scene occurs in was initially meant to be aired third in season three. It ended up airing fourth, which is what the door numbers are referring to.
5. Monkey Business
Annie’s Boobs, the kleptomaniac monkey, can be seen taking Annie’s pen (at :02), which was found later on in his stash of stolen belongings.
6. Danny Pudi On Cougar Town
Community’s Abed (played by Pudi) once stated that he was an extra on an episode of Cougar Town. That crossover came to fruition on an episode of the ABC series as he played the role of a noticeable member of the background cast.
7. Abed’s Background Storyline
In the history of television has a series ever given a main character an entire storyline spent amongst the background extras? Abed has a full episode’s worth of action in the shadows, starring in his own subplot.
8. Latvian Independence Parade
This episode aired on November 18, 2010 – which just so happened to be the actual date of Latvian Independence Parade in real life.
9. Foreshadowing Robocop
As Abed scans the building in robot mode there are descriptions of events that occur in past and future episodes being displayed on the sides.
10. Tiny Chang
If you look very closely, you’ll spot the little model of Chang on the diorama, lurking outside of the window as he often does throughout the series.
11. Jeff & The Dean’s Matching Undies
Jeff exposes a pair of underwear in season one and later on in season three the Dean reveals a pair with the same design.
12. Twitter Beef
The aforementioned “Gwynnifer,” is the actual Twitter name of a person who had a feud with Community’s creator, Dan Harmon. |
Ho Van Lang, 42, and his 82-year-old father had reportedly shunned contact with the outside world after his wife and mother of his two children was killed by a landmine
A local newspaper reported that they wore loincloths made of bark and used a homemade axe to chop down trees for firewood. They survived on corn that they had grown, plus fruits and cassava roots from the jungle.
Inside their treehouse home, five metres in the air, the pair kept a stash of arrows for hunting and knives for killing animals.
But there were poignant mementos of their previous life.
Ho Van Lang after he was found in the forest. (EPA)
The father kept his soldier’s trousers neatly folded in a corner. Beside them was the little red coat his son was thought to have been wearing when they fled.
Vietnamese media tracked down another son of Mr Ho senior – a man named Ho Van Tri, who said that he discovered his father and brother 20 years ago, but had not been able to persuade them to return to modern society.
He said he brought more people to see them in the jungle to help bring them home – but they would hide quickly whenever they saw anyone approaching.
The pair were said to be barely able to communicate with outsiders, with Mr Ho junior only knowing a few words of the local dialect of the Cor ethnic minority group, while his father had fallen out of the habit of speech.
They were discovered by a party of local people who were travelling through deep forest in Tay Tra district of Quang Ngai province, in central Vietnam.
Photos published on a Vietnamese website showed the elderly Mr Ho being carried out of the forest on a stretcher, surrounded by curious villagers.
The Vietnamese district authorities have confirmed that Ho Van Thanh once lived a normal life with his family in the commune’s Tra Kem hamlet. They suggested that he was probably driven by shock when he took his young son and ran into the jungle after the mine explosion wiped out the rest of their family. |
From Team Fortress Wiki
The draft!
Category "Multi-Class" is the term that means "Can be used/worn by multiple classes". The difference with "All classes" is in the amount of classes (All = 9; Multiple = 2-8; One = 1, certain class). Usually the multi-class items are marked in the update table at the bottom of the page (eg., watch here, the icons near the Mutton Mann). The combinatorics (especially, the combination) gives next numbers for how much Multi-Class variations there are:
a) 2-class: C(n,m)=C(2,9)=9!/(7!*2!)=36 b) 3-class: C(3,9)=84 c) 4-class: C(4,9)=126 d) 5-class: C(5,9)=126 e) 6-class: C(6,9)=84 f) 7-class: C(7,9)=36 g) 8-class: C(8,9)=9 Totally: 501 mutli-class variations (note: there are 9 one-class variations and 1 all-class variation). (Already used variations: 5 for weapons, 4 for hats, 12 for misc.items; but 20 for all items, excluding all repeats.)
List of the Multi-class weapons:
List of the Multi-class cosmetics (for the list of the All Class cosmetics look here):
a) Hats
b) Miscellaneous items |
Untitled MrMuffinMusic Jul 19th, 2016 ( edited ) 297 Never 297Never
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up , it unlocks many cool features!
rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 2.33 KB I can't tell you how many times I've listened to the mix already, so here's all the songs that I could find in it, feel free to correct me and/or add more songs that I missed/couldn't figure out (very likely that'll happen considering it's 1 am and I've been tired all day from a long bike ride and Pokemon GO, but that's off topic :P) Anyway, here you go! :) Keyboard(s) at start Puppet - I'm Here Feint - We Won't Be Alone vocal nanobii - Rainbow Road melody Electric Guitar HP & Richard Caddock - Distance PBN - Disconnected Drums PBN - BADBOI vocal Noisestorm - Heist nanobii - Rainbow Road vocal Drop Slips & Slurs - Divided PIXL & Pairanoid - Bring It Vocal Nitro Fun - Cheat Codes Stonebank - The Pressure PBN - Bring The Madness Razihel - Skybreaker Aero Chord & Razihel - Titans "Check This Out" vocal Grant Bowtie Future Bass something I think? Haywyre - I Am You Dramatic Pause for sunglasses We Won't Be Alone Vocal Haywyre - Endlessly Aero Chord & Klaypex - Be Free Vocal Chops Violin/Cello Rootkit - Do It vocal Stonebank - Stronger Rich Edwards - That's Where I'll Be Waiting vocal Unlike Pluto - Waiting For You Vocal right after Hellberg - The Girl Mini Drums PBN - Disconnected Very faint S&S - Malicious I think I hear Noisestorm - Antihero vocal Electric Guitar Noisestorm - Antihero Aero & Razihel - Titans "Check This Out" vocal Subtact - Restart Astronaut & Far Too Loud - War vocal Noisestorm - Break It Down faint PBN - Heartbit vocal Marshmello - Alone S&S & Mihka! - Wifi Tears Subtact - Restart chords in very back PBN - Here It Comes vocal Trombone Noisestorm - Heist Savoy - I'll Never Let You Let Me S&S - Wifi Tears "Hello?" AC & Klaypex - Be Free Vocals PBN & Krewella - Superstar vocal San Holo - Victory Grabbitz - Ballin Banjo Not sure what song the banjo is playing PBN - BADBOI again Noisestorm - Heist vocal again PBN - Pink Cloud Aero Chord - Boundless predrop snare build-down "Here We Go" Drop again (same songs different order) Feint - We Won't Be Alone Braken - To The Stars PBN - Fire In The Hole Razihel & Xilent - Edge Of The World Grabbitz - Better With Time Piano/Violin Braken - To The Stars Hopefully I got everything, but I know someone will find some more stuff, so reply to the thread if you do find anything I didn't!
RAW Paste Data
I can't tell you how many times I've listened to the mix already, so here's all the songs that I could find in it, feel free to correct me and/or add more songs that I missed/couldn't figure out (very likely that'll happen considering it's 1 am and I've been tired all day from a long bike ride and Pokemon GO, but that's off topic :P) Anyway, here you go! :) Keyboard(s) at start Puppet - I'm Here Feint - We Won't Be Alone vocal nanobii - Rainbow Road melody Electric Guitar HP & Richard Caddock - Distance PBN - Disconnected Drums PBN - BADBOI vocal Noisestorm - Heist nanobii - Rainbow Road vocal Drop Slips & Slurs - Divided PIXL & Pairanoid - Bring It Vocal Nitro Fun - Cheat Codes Stonebank - The Pressure PBN - Bring The Madness Razihel - Skybreaker Aero Chord & Razihel - Titans "Check This Out" vocal Grant Bowtie Future Bass something I think? Haywyre - I Am You Dramatic Pause for sunglasses We Won't Be Alone Vocal Haywyre - Endlessly Aero Chord & Klaypex - Be Free Vocal Chops Violin/Cello Rootkit - Do It vocal Stonebank - Stronger Rich Edwards - That's Where I'll Be Waiting vocal Unlike Pluto - Waiting For You Vocal right after Hellberg - The Girl Mini Drums PBN - Disconnected Very faint S&S - Malicious I think I hear Noisestorm - Antihero vocal Electric Guitar Noisestorm - Antihero Aero & Razihel - Titans "Check This Out" vocal Subtact - Restart Astronaut & Far Too Loud - War vocal Noisestorm - Break It Down faint PBN - Heartbit vocal Marshmello - Alone S&S & Mihka! - Wifi Tears Subtact - Restart chords in very back PBN - Here It Comes vocal Trombone Noisestorm - Heist Savoy - I'll Never Let You Let Me S&S - Wifi Tears "Hello?" AC & Klaypex - Be Free Vocals PBN & Krewella - Superstar vocal San Holo - Victory Grabbitz - Ballin Banjo Not sure what song the banjo is playing PBN - BADBOI again Noisestorm - Heist vocal again PBN - Pink Cloud Aero Chord - Boundless predrop snare build-down "Here We Go" Drop again (same songs different order) Feint - We Won't Be Alone Braken - To The Stars PBN - Fire In The Hole Razihel & Xilent - Edge Of The World Grabbitz - Better With Time Piano/Violin Braken - To The Stars Hopefully I got everything, but I know someone will find some more stuff, so reply to the thread if you do find anything I didn't! |
Canada is an "environmental laggard," according to a new report from The Conference Board of Canada.
The study ranks Canada 15 out of 17 developed nations on environmental performance, ahead of only The United States and last place Australia.
The bottom three are also the largest nations surveyed in terms of land mass and all depend on natural resources for a large part of their economic output.
While Australia may be better known for its beaches and exotic wildlife, its proximity to lucrative Asian markets and its abundant natural resources have led to a recent commodity boom which has had a major impact on the environment.
Canada's situation, replacing Asia with The United States, is similar.
"Our large land mass, cold climate and resource-intensive economy make us less likely to rank highly on some indicators of environmental sustainability, but many of our poor results are based on our inefficient use of our resources," said Len Coad, a director at the influential think tank.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW SLIDESHOW
Photo gallery Best & Worst Rich Nations On The Environment See Gallery Canada's Environmental Health Lags Developed World: Conference Board Report 1 / 17
Best & Worst Rich Nations On The Environment 1 / 17
While Canada scored a C in the study, compared to Ds for the U.S. and Australia, we were near the bottom of the pile on a number of important metrics.
Canada produces more garbage per person than any other nation in the study and the vast majority of it ends up in landfills or incinerators. Canada produces more than twice as much garbage per capita as Japan, the best country in the category.
Water is also a major failing point for Canada, according to the study. Canadians use roughly twice as much as the other nations on the list and nine time more than category-leading Denmark. The only country to use more water is the United States.
On energy, an issue on which Canada is widely perceived to be failing, the report gives Canada a mixed review.
On per capita greenhouse gas emissions, Canada ranks 15th. The study notes that despite pledges to reduce emissions, Canada has not seen much improvement. The report lays the blame at the door of Canada's exports of oil and natural gas.
On energy intensity, a measure of the ratio between the amount of energy used and gross domestic produce, Canada ranks dead last. That said, Canada's large size and cold climate make it difficult to keep the intensity of energy use down. Even so, Canada has reduced energy intensity 39 per cent since 1971. Over the same period, the U.S. managed a reduction of 54 per cent.
Canada has, however, done a good job at increasing the share of energy produced via renewable sources. Nearly 78 per cent of Canada's electricity comes from low-emitting sources, such as hydroelectric and nuclear power. Canada ranks 5th in this area and receives an A grade in the study.
Canada also receives As on water quality, use of forest resources and protecting threatened species.
While usual Scandinavian suspects Norway and Sweden scored very well in the survey, the top nation on the list may come as a surprise.
France leads the pack, helped largely by the fact that nearly 80 per cent of the nation's electricity now comes from nuclear power.
Canada's environmental policies have come under increased scrutiny of late. The election of a majority Conservative government and increased reliance on resource exports for economic growth have put the issue front and centre in the minds of many Canadians.
Last year, Environment Minister Peter Kent announced that the Tory government would be pulling Canada out of the Kyoto accord on climate change, a move which drew criticism from allies around the world.
More recent changes to environmental legislation in omnibus budget bills have led First Nations groups to launch a protest movement, Idle No More, which now threatens to destabilize Canada's economy.
"Canada must promote economic growth without further degrading the environment. Encouraging more sustainable consumption is crucial to achieve that objective," said Coad.
Do you think Kent and the Conservatives will listen? Share your comments below. |
We are always disheartened by cases of animal cruelty, and we are entirely shocked and disturbed by this horrific report involving two toy poodles who were dropped from a fifth story parking structure in Oak Lawn, Illinois.
WGN TV reports two toy poodles, father and son named Garo and Angel, were taken by Edward Hanania to the fifth floor of a hospital parking garage and thrown to the ground. Miraculously, little Angel survived, but not without severe injuries requiring intensive care, pins in his leg, and further surgery. Sadly, the father Garo did not survive this horrific incident.
Advertisement
Hanania was not the guardian of these beautiful dogs. He falsely claimed they were his when the dogs were posted on a lost and found page after they got loose from their home. Thanks to social media, the rightful owner, described as an elderly man, stepped forward with documentation proving the dogs were his, and reports say he was devastated in tears praying over the dead body of Garo.
Hanania has been charged with two felony counts of animal cruelty and is scheduled to appear in bond court; however, we must make sure that he is charged and his punishment matches the crimes. Animal abusers have long been linked to other violent crimes (Hanania has a criminal record and was spotted with another dog who disappeared), and their violence often escalates toward children and other vulnerable victims. Based on his criminal history and the premeditation and senseless violence of this crime, Hanania should get an appropriate punishment.
If you are disturbed by this news and would like to see justice served for these innocent animals and their heartbroken guardian, please sign this petition addressed to the Cook County Prosecutors’ Office demanding Hanania receives the maximum sentence for his crimes. Animal cruelty has long been overlooked and under-punished, and it is high time it is considered a serious violent crime deserving of harsher sentences.
Please share this with friends and family and encourage them to sign the petition and join you in the fight against animal cruelty!
Advertisement
Advertisement
Image Source: WGN News Chicago / wgntv.com |
Morning sickness is one of the most common complaints during pregnancy, affecting more than half of expectant mothers. Pregnant women whose morning sickness does not improve with non-medicinal therapies may be prescribed the drug pyridoxine-doxylamine to help ease nausea. However, a previously unpublished study has raised questions about the efficacy of this medication.
A previously unpublished study has raised questions about the efficacy of a common morning sickness drug. A previously unpublished study has raised questions about the efficacy of a common morning sickness drug.
The research was conducted by scientists from the Merrell-National Laboratories - which is now defunct - in the 1970s, and it sought to test the effects of pyridoxine-doxylamine in more than 2,300 pregnant women experiencing morning sickness.
Although the results of the study were not published at the time, it has emerged that both Health Canada and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used the data to help inform their decision to approve pyridoxine-doxylamine.
However, Dr. Nav Persaud, a family physician and researcher at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada, has identified a number of flaws in how the study was conducted and how the results were analyzed. He says that these factors raise questions about the benefits of the drug.
Dr. Persaud recently published the 40-year-old study in the journal PLOS One.
The history of pyridoxine-doxylamine
Pyridoxine-doxylamine is a combination of pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6) and doxylamine succinate.
While the precise mechanisms behind the medication are unclear, pyridoxine hydrochloride is believed to help combat morning sickness by raising pyridoxine levels, as low levels can trigger nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. Doxylamine succinate is an antihistamine, and it can block specific natural substances that contribute to nausea and vomiting.
Pyridoxine-doxylamine was first approved by the FDA in 1956 under the brand name Bendectin, which was manufactured by Merrell Dow. The drug became a leading treatment for morning sickness and was used by more than 33 million women across the globe.
Bendectin was voluntarily withdrawn in 1983, after allegations that it was a cause of birth defects. However, a review by the FDA concluded that there is "no adequate evidence linking Bendectin with an increased risk of birth defects."
In April 2013, the FDA approved pyridoxine-doxylamine once again under the brand name Diclegis, manufactured by Canadian pharmaceutical company Duchesnay Inc.
The FDA reached their decision after reviewing the results of a randomized controlled trial that analyzed the safety and efficacy of the drug in 261 women who experienced morning sickness for 7-14 weeks.
The study revealed that Diclegis was much more effective than a placebo for morning sickness, with drowsiness being the most commonly reported side effect.
FDA and Health Canada documents reveal information on study
According to Dr. Persaud, original approval for pyridoxine-doxylamine was based largely upon the decades-old study he recently published in PLOS One. The research was published as part of the restoring invisible and abandoned trials (RIAT) initiative.
The RIAT initiative aims to encourage "institutions that funded and investigators who conducted abandoned trials to publish (in the case of unpublished trials) or formally correct or republish (in the case of misreported trials) their studies [...]."
Dr. Persaud came across his information by analyzing more than 36,000 FDA documents retrieved through a Freedom of Information request. These documents included the original study report, the protocol, and the summary of the findings.
He also retrieved documents from Health Canada, which approved pyridoxine-doxylamine under the brand name Diclectin in 1957.
The 40-year-old trial - which was conducted at 14 clinics across the U.S. - included 2,308 women who were experiencing morning sickness during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
The women were randomly allocated to eight groups. One group received a placebo, one group received pyridoxine-doxylamine, while the remaining groups received other drug combinations.
Study flaws question efficacy of morning sickness drug
Summary data from 1,599 of the women revealed that, compared with a placebo, all seven treatment groups showed a reduction in morning sickness, with pyridoxine-doxylamine associated with the greatest reduction, at 14 percent.
However, Dr. Persaud identified some discrepancies, which he believes challenge the study findings.
Firstly, he notes that the final results of the study are unavailable; only the summary results can be identified. Furthermore, outcome data was only available for 37 percent of women in the placebo group.
Additionally, even though the trial only lasted 1 week, there were a high number of participants who failed to complete it. The technique the researchers used to score symptoms of morning sickness was also ambiguous, according to Dr. Persaud.
Furthermore, Dr. Persaud found a 1975 letter from the Commissioner of Food and Drugs ordering the exclusion of 30 study participants; the letter referred to "data recording in absence of patient visits."
Dr. Persaud notes that he was unable to contact any of the original study researchers, and many of the investigators have passed away since the study was conducted.
Still, he believes that his findings raise questions about the efficacy of pyridoxine-doxylamine for the treatment of morning sickness.
Read about a study that links morning sickness to lower risk of pregnancy loss. |
Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor are finally done after months of fighting, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.
“Brittany was fed up,” an insider revealed to Radar. “Jax wasn’t boyfriend material.”
“He didn’t treat her right,” the insider explained, noting that her parents agreed.
PHOTOS: Just The Guys! Jax Taylor Caught Without Girlfriend Amid Cheating Rumors
“Jax and Brittany had issues for months with her parents,” the insider said. “Her parents didn’t like Jax and the way he treated her or anyone for that matter.”
“Her family is her life, so she went back home to get clarity and spend time with her mom,” the insider added. “Brittany is happy to be back in Kentucky.”
Tonight is my last night in Kentucky 😢 I want to stay! — Brittany Cartwright (@BNCartwright) August 18, 2017
Radar exclusively reported that Taylor, 37, and Cartwright, 28, first chartered into “rocky territory” after filming their spinoff show, Vanderpump Rules: Jax and Brittany Take Kentucky. The country girl’s family was pressuring the SUR-ver to propose even though he wasn’t ready to take the next step in their relationship.
Producers tried to force the couple to work on their issues ahead of the show’s premiere, but they couldn’t make their relationship work any longer and Cartwright has since unfollowed Taylor on social media.
“Her family stress was too much and with the spinoff there was so much pressure,” the insider explained.
PHOTOS: Love Or Loathe Him? ‘Vanderpump Rules’ James Most Explosive Moments — From Sex, To Lies & (Of Course) Booze
Cartwright and Taylor began dating after they met in Las Vegas in between seasons four and five of Vanderpump Rules, and started living separate lives earlier this summer despite their show together premiering on Aug. 23.
Meanwhile, Taylor’s ex Stassi Schroeder was dumped by Patrick Meagher on their four year anniversary earlier this week.
Stay with Radar for more.
We pay for juicy info! Do you have a story for RadarOnline.com? Email us at [email protected], or call us at 800-344-9598 any time, day or night. |
Aldona Wos, the secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, is resigning after a tenure that moved the agency to financial stability but which was marked by persistent questions from lawmakers about its operations.
Rick Brajer of Raleigh, a former business executive with no government experience, will take the job running the 17,000-employee agency.
Gov. Pat McCrory choked up as he made the announcement at a Wednesday news conference at the Executive Mansion. Wos at one point handed him a tissue. Soon, both were in tears as the governor presented her with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
McCrory said Wos had told him about a month ago of her plans. She will remain in the position until Aug. 14.
Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The News & Observer
Brajer will start Aug. 17 and will be paid $140,000 a year.
McCrory said Wos exceeded his expectations in overseeing the largest state agency and said she brought “incredible passion” to the job.
Wos, a physician, former U.S. ambassador and wealthy political fundraiser from Greensboro, has had a rocky tenure at the sprawling agency that spends billions on health care and other health services for North Carolinians.
The department that Wos used to call “broken” now claims to have controlled the state’s Medicaid budget. The announcement of Wos’ resignation comes a day after DHHS announced the Medicaid budget ended the year with nearly $131 million in cash on hand. In some years, the agency’s cash shortages added pressure to lawmakers’ decisions on the state budget.
Brajer said he looked forward to becoming part of McCrory’s Cabinet and executive staff “to create a results-oriented and citizen-centered government.”
“By faith I believe it will be demonstrating God’s love in action as we continue to improve the health of our most vulnerable citizens,” he said.
Wos described nearly three years of working away from her family and said that now “it’s simply time to go home.”
Exacting boss
Wos earned a reputation as a hardworking, exacting boss in a department that has seen significant turnover of high-ranking staff. For example, the office is on its third Medicaid director in three years. A former chief of staff who worked for Wos for one month in 2013 took a $37,000 severance payment upon leaving.
Wos was the target of early criticism for hiring decisions that included paying $85,000 and $87,000 to then 24-year-olds who took positions on her leadership team after working for McCrory.
She also paid an executive on leave from her husband’s company $310,000 for 11 months of work as her senior adviser.
Wos defended that decision in an email to legislators, and she said in a television interview that the 24-year-olds were worth more than they were earning.
DHHS also signed a no-bid contract with a company that essentially took over managing Medicaid finances. Alvarez & Marsal’s contract grew from an initial $3.2 million to more than $9 million, and the company’s duties expanded.
Legislative Democrats called for her resignation several times since she was appointed, including when the department sent 50,000 children’s insurance cards to incorrect addresses.
Problems with new public benefits software, called NC FAST, neared a crisis in 2014 because thousands of households that qualified for food stamps were not receiving them. The software problems put pressure on food banks and brought threatened sanctions from the federal government.
Wos decided to push ahead with turning on a separate Medicaid claims payment system, known as NCTracks, which in the first year drew complaints from hospitals, doctors, and medical equipment companies that had problems getting paid. The system earned federal certification earlier this year.
Early in her tenure, Wos took on the task of making major changes in how doctors and hospitals care for people using Medicaid and how the state pays for those medical services. Her position shifted over time from promoting Medicaid managed care, which could include contracts with commercial insurance companies, to a system that would have hospitals and doctors responsible for controlling costs while improving patient health.
While the state House has largely agreed with that approach, Senate Republicans want to open the state Medicaid program to privatization.
‘Truly painful’
At Wednesday’s news conference, Wos talked of arriving at her office on the Dorothea Dix campus before others as the sun was rising and working with her staff late into the night. She praised their work. Speaking to DHHS staffers, she urged them to “not give up” and continue the agency’s work to improve lives.
“The improvement process at times has been truly painful and has been much slower than I would have desired,” Wos said. But the department has made significant progress in improving operations with McCrory's support, she said.
As he has since he appointed her, McCrory defended Wos and praised her intellect and dedication.
“When I called her at 10 in the evening, she was at work,” McCrory said. He praised her for strengthening the Medicaid program and for being “the leading voice for Medicaid reform that puts patients first.”
Wos shouldered blame for problems that weren’t hers, McCrory said, referring to NCTracks and NC FAST.
Wos told reporters after the official speeches that she would not have done anything differently.
Wos had a difficult relationship with leading Senate Republicans who frequently challenged her in public meetings. Sen. Tommy Tucker, a Waxhaw Republican who frequently questioned Wos’ decisions and requests – including her employee salary and contract decsions – was in the audience with other legislators at the Executive Mansion.
At one point, Wos stepped away from the lectern to hug Tucker.
Difficult job
Her departure comes at a time when the Medicaid program, the government health insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled, may be facing major changes.
Senate leaders want a restructuring that would take Medicaid away from DHHS and give oversight to an appointed board.
Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican from Spruce Pines and critic of the Medicaid office, said, “Secretary Wos has the most difficult job in all of state government.”
“The Department of Health and Human Services has been a huge mess for a long time,” he said. “There’s some positives that have been made over the last two and a half years, but I guarantee you there’s as long way we’ve got left to go.”
Brajer was until January CEO of ProNerve in Denver. A Tennessee company announced in February it had acquired ProNerve, a few days after the Denver company started bankruptcy proceedings.
Brajer was president and CEO of the diagnostic company LipoScience in the Triangle, having previously worked for the medical device and technology company Becton Dickinson. He is a graduate of the Stanford University School of Business.
Staff writer Craig Jarvis contributed. |
Hide Transcript Show Transcript
WEBVTT HE DROPPED YOU OFF AT SCHOTHAT DAY, IS THAT RIGHT?>> YES.JAYNE: ANDERSON IS THETEN-YEAR-OLD SON OF JESUSPARAZA.TWO WEEKS AGO, AFTER DROPPINGAGO, AFTER DROPPING ANDERSON OFFAT SCHOOLPERAZA WAS ARRESTED BYIMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMSENFORCEMENT AGENTS.WHEN DID YOU FIND OUT HE HADBEEN DETAINED?>> WHEN MY UNCLE WENT TO PICK MEUP, HE TOLD MEPERAZA WAS TARGETED UNDER THENEW CRACKDOWN ON IMMIGRANTS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION.HE HAS BEEN IN THE U.S. WITHOUTLEGAL DOCUMENTATION FOR TEN%YEARS, HAS A JOB, IS MARRIED,AND HAS A FAMILY.IF THERE'S ANY OTHER REASON AN>> ICE AGENT THINK THEY MIGHT BEA THREAT, THEY CAN BE ARRESTED.WHILE UNDER OBAMA THEY WEREINSTRUCTED TO TARGET PEOPLE WHOHAD BEEN CONVICTED OF CRIMESJAYNE: PERAZA HAS NO CRIMINALCONVICTION.HIS LAWYER BELIEVE AN OLDDEPORTATION ORDER HAS NOW BEENACTIVATED.HE'S BEING HELD IN JAIL.>> WE FILED A STAY WITH ICEASKING THEM TO RELEASE HIM ANDTO STOP TRYING TO DEPORT HIMGIVEN THE FACT HE HAS A FAMILYHERE, UNITED STATES BORN CHILDAND THAT HE IS A GOOD MAN ANDTHE IMMEDIATELY REJECTED IT.JAYNE: AND THEY IMMEDIATLEYREJECTED IT.PERAZA IS SEEKING ASALYUM.HE'S FROM HONDURAS.AND WITNESSED A MURDER IN ONE OFTHE WORLD'S MOST VIOLENT CITIES.SO FAR THE REQUEST HAS BEENREJECTED.HE'S SEEKING REVIEW BY A JUDGE.WE SP0KE WITH HIS WIFE.SHE IS ALSO UNDOCUMENTED.IS HE WORRIED?>> YES, BECAUSE HE WAS THE ONEPROVIDING FOR THE FAMILY AND NOWHE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT TO DOWHILE HE IS IN JAIL.JAYNE: PERAZA HAS LETTERS OFSUPPORT FROM THE PRINCIPAL OFHIS SON'S SCHOOL.YOU MISS YOUR DAD?>> YES.A LOT.JAYN IT SERVES AS THE BASISFOR THE ARREST THAT WAS MADE ONMARCH 9 JUST TWO WEEKS AGO.IT WAS NOT ACTED UPON UNTIL NOW.
Advertisement Undocumented Baltimore man faces deportation to Honduras Man has no criminal record, lawyer says Share Shares Copy Link Copy
Ten-year-old Anderson was on the phone with his father, who was speaking to his son from jail.Download the WBAL appJesus Peraza was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents two weeks ago after taking Anderson to school."He dropped you off at school that day, is that right?" I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller asked of Anderson."Yes," Anderson said."And then he drove off?" Miller asked."Yes," Anderson said."When did you find out he had been detained?" Miller asked."When my uncle went to pick me up, he told me," Anderson said.Peraza's arrest was a case that helped provoke a City Council resolution Monday asking ICE to target criminals. Peraza has no criminal convictions, but he does not have legal immigration status.Under the Trump administration's more aggressive crackdown on unauthorized immigrants, that is grounds for being targeted."If there's any other reason an ICE agent thinks they might be a threat, they can be arrested. While under Obama, they were instructed to target people who had been convicted of crimes," said Jared Jaskot said.Peraza was deported about 10 years ago as a teenager, his lawyer said. He then slipped back into the county, settled in Baltimore, got a job, got married and now has kids. He has not been targeted before.Peraza did not have any idea he was being sought. Peraza's wife, who WBAL-TV 11 News is not identifying, is also undocumented. If deported, the family would have to return to Honduras, to a city known as the most violent in the world.Peraza is seeking asylum. So far, it's been rejected."They made a determination his fear was not credible. They didn't believe it. They gave us no reason why," Jaskot said.A federal immigration judge will be asked to review Peraza's case. A request to be released from custody has been denied.According to Peraza's lawyer, Peraza witnessed a murder in Honduras and is fearful of returning. His son attends Hampstead Hill Academy. The school's principal and others have written letters of support.Also on WBALTV.com: |
DONETSK, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian judge on Monday said Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko was complicit in the killing of two Russian journalists, an assertion certain to inflame already dire relations between Moscow and Kiev.
Savchenko, 34, was captured by pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine in June 2014 during the separatist conflict there and handed over to Russia where she was charged with directing mortar fire which killed two Russian journalists.
She has denied wrongdoing.
Regarded as a national hero by many in her homeland, Savchenko has been depicted by Russian state TV as a dangerous Ukrainian nationalist with the blood of civilians on her hands.
The United States and the European Union have called on Russia to free Savchenko, who has undertaken various hunger strikes to try to speed up her trial, on humanitarian grounds.
The judge, Leonid Stepanenko, told a courtroom in southern Russia that Savchenko had “deliberately inflicted death on two persons, acting according to a conspiracy and motivated by hatred and enmity.”
The judge later adjourned proceedings until Tuesday.
REFILE - CORRECTING TYPO Former Ukrainian army pilot Nadezhda Savchenko listens to her lawyer Nikolai Polozov from a glass-walled cage during a verdict hearing at a court in the southern border town of Donetsk in Rostov region, Russia, in this still image taken from video March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Reuters TV
Savchenko is not being tried by jury and Russian news agencies said the judge’s words amounted to a formal guilty verdict.
Her lawyers, Mark Feygin and Nikolai Polezov, told Reuters this was only part of the summing up however and not yet a formal guilty verdict.
They have long asserted that Savchenko is the victim of a politicized show trial and would be found guilty. Prosecutors have asked the court for a 23-year jail sentence.
“We hope all this will end tomorrow,” Feygin told reporters after the end of Monday’s proceedings.
“Today, as before, we are convinced of Nadezhda Savchenko’s innocence, we have proved her innocent,” he said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s spokesman called the proceedings “a farce,” saying Kiev would step up pressure on Moscow to release Savchenko who was elected a member of parliament while being held in Russia. Poroshenko’s wife called on Michelle Obama to join the campaign to free Savchenko.
Angry Ukrainians have pelted the Russian embassy in Kiev with eggs over her plight, while Russians have picketed the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow demanding justice for the dead journalists.
Slideshow (6 Images)
“It is like the inquisition. It is a kangaroo court,” Oleh Sobchenko, one Ukrainian man, told Reuters in Kiev.
Other Ukrainians interviewed said they felt the trial was about turning Savchenko into a bargaining chip for a future prisoner swap between Moscow and Kiev.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to raise the case with the Kremlin later this week in Moscow. |
It was three weeks after I left the last residential treatment center for which I would ever work. A Saturday morning to be precise, and the phone rang- jarring me from the rare pleasure of a sleep in. It was Camille, so I knew it wasn’t good.
She wouldn’t call me if it were good
“You remember that boy Johnny you worked with, the one from Louisiana?” she asked. “Yeah, why?” “Dead,” she said. It was uttered in the tone of someone doing a poor job acting like they didn’t like delivering bad news. “Drugs?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “Suicide. Killed that little girl he was married to, as well. And shot some guy she was sleepin’ with, but he made it.” I just lay there silent. “Anyway, I knew you would want to know.”
I hung up without saying anything else. Knew I would want to know? My ass. Couldn’t wait to tell me was more like it. The bitch was a feminist crusader. She made a career of telling the men we counseled what louts they were for being men, and I made a career of pulling them aside and telling them how full of shit she was. We were the only two counselors in that program and the mix was volatile. I spent many days in the administrative offices fending off complaints about my “unusual style” in dealing with male clients. That is what they called not hating them.
Johnny wasn’t the first in twenty years of doing that kind of work. Quite honestly, I had lost count. But counting is just for statistics anyway. In the work I did the numbers had faces. They had families and stories that I learned from listening to them. And they had pain that mostly went unnoticed by the very people that were supposed to be there to help them.
I remembered Johnny’s story, and his pain. He was a twenty two year old stock boy at an auto parts store in the hot and humid swamp lands of southern Louisiana. When he spoke, it was with rural earnestness, and a Cajun accent thicker than gators in bayou country.
“Man, Paul, I doan know what to do ‘bout that girl o’ mine. I know she cheatin’. I know I doan make a dime what she don’t spend right away. Sometime she spend it on some other guy. But I can’t help it. Every time she call my name I got to come runnin’. Lord never made a bigger fool than me.”
And Johnny was right. He was a fool, and couldn’t be talked out of his foolishness. Just like all real men. And his story isn’t reserved just for those who drink and drug themselves into oblivion because they have a woman they can’t live with, or without.
In this awful age of misandry, we live so many lies about men that we have lost all touch with the reality of what they are really like. And the cost of it is written in caskets and countless souls lost in a world with no memory of why they died.
You see, men love. They love with the most profound intensity and selflessness of which any creature on this earth is capable. And the steely bond between them and women is, unlike their hearts, unbreakable. When men die on the battlefield, they often fade away telling fellow soldiers “Tell my wife I love her.” Others cry out for their mothers as blood soaks the soil.
They are flattened by divorce, and many will eat a gun rather than face the loss, even if it is the loss of someone that has already destroyed their lives.
They will lay down in traffic for the women they love and stand in the way of bullets to protect them. And they will strike down any many who dares offend them. They have been doing this for all of human history.
79% of all suicides are men.
Yet all this has been rewritten with misandric ink. It has been revised by scholars who tell us men are bad, by psychologists whose main field of work seems to be recommending divorce, complete with male scapegoat, as a cure all for women for whatever petty dissatisfactions they feel about their mates. And it has been inculcated into the consciousness of our family law system, driving men to despair and despondency on levels never before seen in history.
If you want the statistics, go look them up. I am tired of turning dead men into numbers and “proving” there is a problem to the Camille’s of this world.
I hope, more than anything else, that at some point in our future that people start to think. When you see the story on the evening news about a man who set himself ablaze outside a family court, ask yourself what kind of pain could drive someone to cure it with fire? When you read in the newspaper about the man who holed up in his house with a gun and his children, threatening to take them all out, ask yourself if this is just a crazy man, or a man driven to the brink by a pain so monstrous and devastating that even the unthinkable could become an option?
During divorce, men kill themselves at 10 times the rate of women.
Indeed, there is a great deal we have to ask. The only problem is that all the wrong people are asking all the wrong questions. We have a president who marks Father’s Day by shaming men for not being better Dads. We have psychotherapists telling us that it is women who love too much. And we have a system of higher education that cares more about the life expectancy of a fruit fly than a young man who blows his brains out.
And this in a culture that still raises men to put women in lifeboats and then try their hand at breathing saltwater, as though death were their only true calling.
Is it any wonder why, when we create men to so devalue their own existence; to be disposable, that we can so often see them doing just what we have insisted that they do? And shouldn’t we, perhaps, question at times whether it is suicide that takes these men… or murder? Who, after all, is putting the gun in their hands and promising them the pain will stop if they only pull the trigger?
Perhaps Obama, in his own erroneous way, is right. We do need better Dads. We need Dads to teach their sons, not “how to treat a woman,” but how hold their own with them. We don’t need to teach them to “take care of their woman,” but to only accept one who demonstrates the character and integrity to be trusted, from the start.
And we need to teach them how rare that is in modern life. More than anything else, we need to teach them how to let women go, and watch them as they grow up to make sure they can do it. And we need Dads to role model that, in their own families with their own wives. In other words, we need to do a lot of things that we are not doing.
I know it is obligatory. I can’t write a piece like this and not include some resources for men to call in in times of crisis, such as those paltry resources are. So I will include something at the end. But I would still like to think, that somewhere, at some point in time, we can quit offering Band-aids for men to put on tumors and start helping them with their real problems.
It seems, hell or high water, that we are going to continue to destroy men in courtrooms and therapy offices and offer them up as convenient political fodder. It isn’t anything new. But we better start calling on the fathers of this world to stop raising their sons to do nothing more than stand against a wall for whatever woman is in their lives, just waiting for their turn in a box. |
An idea that marries body and spirits... But would you spend $180 on whisky that has been poured over a glamour model's chest?
A German liquor company has released a line of spirits that have been poured down the bare chests of glamour models before being bottled.
The limited-edition vodka, rum and whisky is being sold by G-Spirits, which will be charging $150-$180 per bottle for what they consider a rare privilege.
Among the women charged with pouring the beverages down their chests is Alexa Varga, Hungary’s current Playmate of the Year. She is joined by the equally buxom Amina Malakona and Evelin Aubert in the unusual brief.
Scroll down for video
Extra special? Alexa Varga, Hungary's current Playmate of the Year, pours G-Spirit's whisky over her chest before it is bottled and sold
All three appear bare-chested on the company's website with an upturned bottle of spirit, demonstrating the making-of process.
Between them they will produce 2,500 litres of each spirit in small batches, and their images will appear on the bottles that go on sale.
For those that might question the appeal of such a product, the company explains on its website how its founders came up with the idea.
'We noticed quickly that it's not just the taste which makes you enjoy a drink fully...' it reads. 'For us there is nothing more than the erotism [sic] of a beautiful woman.
Glamour girls bottled? Model Amina Malakona (left) is the face of the company's rum, while Evelin Aubert (right), quite literally fronts the vodka
'To create the perfect taste we let every single drop of our spirits run over the breasts of a special type of woman, a type we recognize in this liquor.'
Though the concept may sound somewhat unhygienic, G-Spirits insists that the product is in keeping with the public health department requirements.
'We pay high attention to a hygienic filling process, furthermore medical personnel is present to check it,' it says. |
The most sought-after bourbon in the world, Pappy Van Winkle 23-year-old, begins life as 53 gallons of new-make whiskey at 114 proof.
What's left in the barrel after 23 years is a mere 14 gallons of bourbon at around 135-140 proof. What makes it into the bottle is even less.
So I decided to run the numbers on how much Pappy Van Winkle is left in the barrel every year after evaporation (aka the "angel's share").
According to Harlen Wheately, Master Distiller at Buffalo Trace, the angel's share is 10 percent for the first year (because whiskey is absorbing into the wood of barrel as well as evaporating), then 4 percent for the next 8 years after that, then around 3 percent per year after that.
(They store the future Pappy in barrels in the parts of the warehouse with the least evaporation as they know they want it to age for a very long time.)
Pappy Van Winkle 23 Countdown Year Angel's Share (Percent) Math Total 1 0.1 53 -(.10)*53 47.7 2 0.04 =D3-(D3*B4) 45.792 3 0.04 =D4-(D4*B5) 43.96032 4 0.04 =D5-(D5*B6) 42.2019072 5 0.04 =D6-(D6*B7) 40.513830912 6 0.04 =D7-(D7*B8) 38.89327767552 7 0.04 =D8-(D8*B9) 37.3375465684992 8 0.04 =D9-(D9*B10) 35.8440447057592 9 0.04 =D10-(D10*B11) 34.4102829175289 10 0.03 =D11-(D11*B12) 33.377974430003 11 0.03 =D12-(D12*B13) 32.3766351971029 12 0.03 =D13-(D13*B14) 31.4053361411898 13 0.03 =D14-(D14*B15) 30.4631760569541 14 0.03 =D15-(D15*B16) 29.5492807752455 15 0.03 =D16-(D16*B17) 28.6628023519881 16 0.03 =D17-(D17*B18) 27.8029182814285 17 0.03 =D18-(D18*B19) 26.9688307329856 18 0.03 =D19-(D19*B20) 26.1597658109961 19 0.03 =D20-(D20*B21) 25.3749728366662 20 0.03 =D21-(D21*B22) 24.6137236515662 21 0.03 =D22-(D22*B23) 23.8753119420192 22 0.03 =D23-(D23*B24) 23.1590525837586 23 0.03 =D24-(D24*B25) 22.4642810062459
According to those calculations, there are 22.4 gallons left in the barrel, but this assumes that the alcohol percentage stays the same as it started.
The actual final proof is around 140 (70% ABV), so the 14 gallons that Wheately reports are equivalent to about 17.2 gallons at the original proof of 114 (57% ABV). That's a lot closer to the calculated number.
Wheately filled me in on some other practical factors for the math discrepancy.
“We have done a lot of proprietary work to determine the real proof drop while the barrels are aging so I wouldn’t want to reveal all our info.... (but) While processing such small batches you get quite a bit of loss during the bottling process during the filtration process. Also, during the course of 23 years there tends to be other factors such as leaks that increase the loss and are difficult to put numbers to.
A typical/perfect 23 year old barrel of wheated bourbon should yield about 14 wine gallons with about a 1-2 gallon loss during bottling which gets it down to 12-13 wine gallons recovered.”
So when you're paying for a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 even at non-surge pricing, you're not just paying for the raw materials used to make and the time spent to age what's in that bottle, you're also paying for the raw materials and aging of 39 gallons of bourbon that evaporated before it got to the bottling facility, and a total of nearly 80% of the original juice that didn't make it into the bottle. |
Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts concerning AI and philosophy.[12][13][14][15]
Biography [ edit ]
Marvin Lee Minsky was born in New York City, to an eye surgeon father, Henry, and to a mother, Fannie, who was an activist of Zionist affairs.[15][16] His family was Jewish. He attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and the Bronx High School of Science. He later attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He then served in the US Navy from 1944 to 1945. He received a B.A. in mathematics from Harvard University (1950) and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University (1954).[17][18]
He was on the MIT faculty from 1958 to his death. He joined the staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1958, and a year later he and John McCarthy initiated what is known now as the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.[19][20] He was the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Contributions in computer science [ edit ]
Minsky's inventions include the first head-mounted graphical display (1963)[21] and the confocal microscope[2][22] (1957, a predecessor to today's widely used confocal laser scanning microscope). He developed, with Seymour Papert, the first Logo "turtle". Minsky also built, in 1951, the first randomly wired neural network learning machine, SNARC.
In 1962, Minsky came up with a 7,4 Turing machine that he was able to prove to be universal. At that point in time, it was known to be the simplest universal Turing machine–a record that stood for approximately 40 years until Stephen Wolfram published a 2,5 universal Turing machine in his 2002 book, A New Kind of Science.[23]
Minsky wrote the book Perceptrons (with Seymour Papert), which became the foundational work in the analysis of artificial neural networks. This book is the center of a controversy in the history of AI, as some claim it to have had great importance in discouraging research of neural networks in the 1970s, and contributing to the so-called "AI winter".[24] He also founded several other famous AI models. His book A framework for representing knowledge created a new paradigm in programming. While his Perceptrons is now more a historical than practical book, the theory of frames is in wide use.[25] Minsky has also written on the possibility that extraterrestrial life may think like humans, permitting communication.[26]
In the early 1970s, at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, Minsky and Papert started developing what came to be known as the Society of Mind theory. The theory attempts to explain how what we call intelligence could be a product of the interaction of non-intelligent parts. Minsky says that the biggest source of ideas about the theory came from his work in trying to create a machine that uses a robotic arm, a video camera, and a computer to build with children's blocks. In 1986, Minsky published The Society of Mind, a comprehensive book on the theory which, unlike most of his previously published work, was written for the general public.
In November 2006, Minsky published The Emotion Machine, a book that critiques many popular theories of how human minds work and suggests alternative theories, often replacing simple ideas with more complex ones. Recent drafts of the book are freely available from his webpage.[27]
Role in popular culture [ edit ]
Minsky was an adviser[28] on Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey; one of the movie's characters, Victor Kaminski, was named in Minsky's honor.[29] Minsky himself is explicitly mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke's derivative novel of the same name, where he is portrayed as achieving a crucial break-through in artificial intelligence in the then-future 1980s, paving the way for HAL 9000 in the early 21st century:
In the 1980s, Minsky and Good had shown how artificial neural networks could be generated automatically—self replicated—in accordance with any arbitrary learning program. Artificial brains could be grown by a process strikingly analogous to the development of a human brain. In any given case, the precise details would never be known, and even if they were, they would be millions of times too complex for human understanding.[30]
Personal life [ edit ]
In 1952, Minsky married pediatrician Gloria Rudisch; together they had three children.[31] Minsky was a talented improvisational pianist[32] who published musings on the relations between music and psychology.
Opinions [ edit ]
Minsky was an atheist,[33] a signatory to the Scientists' Open Letter on Cryonics.[34]
He was a critic of the Loebner Prize for conversational robots,[35] and argued that a fundamental difference between humans and machines was that while humans are machines, they are machines in which intelligence emerges from the interplay of the many unintelligent but semi-autonomous agents that comprise the brain.[36] He argued that "somewhere down the line, some computers will become more intelligent than most people," but that it was very hard to predict how fast progress would be.[37] He cautioned that an artificial superintelligence designed to solve an innocuous mathematical problem might decide to assume control of Earth's resources to build supercomputers to help achieve its goal,[38] but believed that such negative scenarios are "hard to take seriously" because he felt confident that AI would go through a lot of testing before being deployed.[39]
Death [ edit ]
Minsky died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 88.[40] Minsky was a member of Alcor's Scientific Advisory Board,[41] and is believed to have been cryonically preserved by Alcor,[42] presumably as 'Patient 144', whose cooling procedures began on January 27, 2016.[43]
Bibliography (selected) [ edit ]
Awards and affiliations [ edit ]
Minsky won the Turing Award (the greatest distinction in computer science)[36] in 1969, the Japan Prize in 1990, the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence for 1991, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute for 2001.[44] In 2006, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for co-founding the field of artificial intelligence, creating early neural networks and robots, and developing theories of human and machine cognition."[45] In 2011, Minsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".[46][47] In 2014, Minsky won the Dan David Prize for "Artificial Intelligence, the Digital Mind".[48] He was also awarded with the 2013 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Information and Communication Technologies category.[49]
Minsky was affiliated with the following organizations:
See also [ edit ] |
Former The Witcher 2 senior producer Tomasz Gop has unveiled his latest project - a new multiplatform RPG due for release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2013.
As revealed by DigitalSpy, the game, currently codenamed Project RPG, is set 1000 years after the death of a God, whose enormous corpse forms a mountain that has divided the world in two. Each half has its own distinct philosophy and you'll have to pick a side early on in the game.
The combat system is apparently influenced by the likes of Dark Souls, Kingdoms of Amalur and Batman: Arkham City, with enemies designed so that players recognise them by their behaviour rather than their appearance.
It's being developed at German studio Deck13, with Sniper: Ghost Warrior publisher City Interactive pulling the strings.
That's all we know for now, but the rather handsome piece of concept art below should whet your appetite for more. |
The French ban on the burkini is threatening to turn into a farce as police officers armed with pepper spray and batons marched onto a beach today and ordered a woman to strip off.
Four burly cops stood over the middle-aged woman, who had been quietly sunbathing on the Promenade des Anglais beach in Nice - yards from the scene of the Bastille Day lorry attack - and watched her take off a Muslim-style garment which protected her modesty.
It is thought the woman was given a warning about the dress code on the beach and was handed an on-the-spot fine.
Four French police officers close in on the woman, who appears to be sleeping, on the Promenade des Anglais beach in Nice, southern France
The woman, who was wearing a traditional headscarf and matching top, was spoken to by the officers, who have been tasked with implementing the ban. France prides itself on its secular society and the burka is banned. That has now spread to the burkini
A police officer appears to write out an on-the-spot ticket and fine for the woman. Nice and Cannes are among several French towns to have introduced a 38 euro (£32) fine
The woman is then ordered to remove the blue garment. Most of the other people on the beach on a sweltering summer's day were wearing trunks or bikinis
Another young Muslim mother was ordered off the beach at Cannes and fined for simply wearing a headscarf.
Three armed officers pointed a pepper spray canister in the 34-year-old's face and told her she was in breach of a new rule outlawing swimming costumes that cover the entire body.
She said the 'racist' officers simply wanted to humiliate her in front of her children and other family members, even though she was not even wearing a burkini.
It was the latest in a series of incidents in the south of France and comes after video emerged of armed police waiting for Muslim women to come out of the sea at nearby Nice, and then warning them about their choice of headscarves.
And just days ago, four women were fined 38 euros for wearing their burkinis on the beach in Cannes.
Scroll down for video
Video has emerged of armed police waiting for Muslim women to come out of the sea at nearby Nice, and then warning them about their choice of headscarves
Four women were fined 38 euros for wearing their burkinis on the beach in Cannes
The women were told to pay a fine for wearing the swimwear on a beach in Cannes
Pictures show the women standing in the water before they were fined
Identified only as Siam, the mother is a former air-hostess from Toulouse whose family members have been French citizens for at least three generations. 'I wasn't even planning to swim, just to dip my feet,' said Siam, who was wearing leggings, a top, and a headscarf.
All of the items of clothing made Siam feel comfortable, and meant she was not exposed to the afternoon sun last Tuesday.
What she was not fully aware of, however, was that Cannes was one of a small number of towns that have banned the burkini for its alleged links to terrorism.
The beachwear does not cover the face either, and is worn by non-Muslims who want protection from the sun, but critics claim it is provocative.
On Monday, in a separate incident, a woman was also fined for wearing a headscarf on a Nice beach
A Twitter user filmed the moment police asked the woman in a purple top and grey headscarf to get out of the water and fined her on the spot
When asked why she was dressed 'inappropriately', Sian replied: 'I didn't know exactly what was going on, I hadn't really followed the controversy'.
Sian at first refused to undress or to leave the beach, saying: 'My children were crying as they witnessed by humiliation'.
Mathilde Cusin, a journalist with the France 4 TV channel who witnessed the entire incident, said: 'I saw three police officers watching the beach. One of them had his finger on the trigger of his tear gas device, no doubt containing pepper.'
A young mother was ordered off Cannes beach and fined on Tuesday for wearing a headscarf (file photo). She was not wearing a burkini, which has recently been banned in Cannes
Then Ms Cusin said the officers went for Siam, was wearing 'a simple hijab [a headscarf that does not cover the face] around her hair'.
People then started shouting insults at Siam, telling her she was not welcome in France, and that she should 'go home'.
Ms Cusin said: 'It was pretty violent. I had the impression of a pack going after a woman sitting on the ground, crying with her daughter.'
Siam accepted an on-the-spot fine of around nine pounds, and her details were recorded on what will amount to a criminal record. She said: 'Today we are not allowed on the beach. Tomorrow, the street? Tomorrow, we'll be forbidden from practicing our religion at all?
A burkini full-body swimsuit (left) designed for Muslim women is seen at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur
A Muslim businessman has pledged to pay fines imposed on women for wearing burkinis
'I'm in the country of human rights. I see no trace of the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. I am outraged that this could happen in France.'
David Lisnard, the right wing Republican Party mayor of Cannes who introduced the burkini ban in the first place, defended the police officers' behaviour.
Mr Lisnard said all 'beach dress that ostentatiously shows a religious affiliation' was unwelcome at a time when France was a target for Islamic State. He said any dress that might be linked with the terrorist group was offensive and risked provoking people, so risking public order.
On the same day, video also emerged of armed police waiting for Muslim women to come out of the sea at nearby Nice, and then warning them about their choice of headscarves.
A photo taken in June 2015 shows two Muslim women wearing Chador as they enjoy their time with other people on a beach of Narbonne, southern France
Feiza Ben Mohamed, secretary general of the Federation of Muslims of the South of France, said ‘two young women were made to leave the water by the police’ even though they were ‘not wearing the burkini’.
The video, which was posted on Twitter, shows children crying and shouting as the women are spoken to by the officers. Ms Ben Mohamed has accused the French authorities of ‘shamefully mixing up terrorists with the wider Muslim community.’ She said ‘this type of row is totally counterproductive and plays into Isis's hands.
‘It's exactly what Isis want - the mayor is doing their work for them. Isis seeks to make our young people believe that they are excluded, stigmatised, and they will use such examples in their recruitment drive.'
The incidents come after a Muslim businessman pledged to pay fines imposed on women for wearing burkinis.
A French court has upheld the 'burkini ban' – ruling that the female swimwear was liable to cause offence and to provoke people to violence.
But wealthy Rachid Nekkaz, born in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges from Algerian immigrants, has said that he will pay any penalties that Muslim women incur for wearing the outfits.
Rachid Nekkaz (pictured), born in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges from Algerian immigrants, said that the burkini ban is 'unfair'. He's pictured here in Algeria demonstrating against the exploration of shale gas
He believes that the ban is 'unfair'.
He told CNN: 'I decided to pay for all the fines of women who wear the burkini in order to guarantee their freedom of wearing these clothes, and most of all, to neutralize the application on the ground of this oppressive and unfair law.'
The banning of the burkini in France, by the Administrative Tribunal in Nice, has been challenged by two human rights groups.
They argued that the ban on a garment that does not cover the face was petty, and designed to spread hatred against a small group of mainly Muslim mothers and grandmothers.
But judges said the ban in the resort of Villeneuve-Loubet was 'necessary, appropriate and proportionate'.
They said the burkini was 'liable to offend the religious convictions or non-convictions of other users of the beach.'
People sunbath and swim at a beach in Leucate, where the burkini is prohibited by an order of the mayor
BURKINI BANS ARE GOOD FOR SALES, SAYS THE DESIGNER BEHIND THEM Burkini bans in France have boosted sales and interest in the full-bodied Islamic swimsuit, particularly from non-Muslim women, the Australian credited with creating the design said Tuesday. The burkini has sparked huge controversy in France, with bans in 15 towns in the country's southeast amid high tensions following a string of deadly jihadist attacks. But Australian-Lebanese Aheda Zanetti, who claims the trademark on the name burkini and burqini and created her first swimwear for Muslim women more than a decade ago, said the furore in France has attracted more publicity for her products. 'It's just been so hectic,' she told AFP. 'I can tell you that online on Sunday, we received 60 orders - all of them non-Muslim,' the 48-year-old Sydneysider said, adding that she usually received 10 to 12 orders on Sundays. Zanetti did not have sales figures for the rest of the past week but said she had also received numerous messages of support - and only one disparaging email - since the French bans. They include messages from cancer survivors and other swimmers who use her light-weight, quick-drying two-piece garments as protection from the sun. There are other Islamic swimsuits but Zanetti has said her designs are the first to be streamlined into two-piece swimwear with a head covering. 'A lot of the correspondence... was that they are survivors of skin cancer and they've always been looking for something like this, saying, 'Thank god we've found someone like this producing such a swimsuit',' she said. 'The support I'm getting is somehow about empowering women... I feel like I've been a counsellor. It's a cry of need that they want to have this enjoyment. 'Women are standing together on this. It doesn't matter what race or religion.' She said the one critical email questioned why Zanetti wanted to cover up women in France, noting 'we prefer our women to be naked'. Australia is grappling with a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment after a series of attacks by radicalised youth but the burkini has not attracted strong criticism in a country where people regularly cover up at beaches to protect their skin under the harsh sun. While there are divisions over the burkini in France, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday dismissed the idea of a ban in his country, saying Canadians should rise above the controversy as he called for the respect of individual rights and choices.
Judges also ruled the clothing could be viewed as a 'provocation exacerbating tensions' within France, which is currently under a State of Emergency following a series of attacks by Islamic State.
A lorry was used by a man claimed by Isis to kill 86 people in Nice on July 14th, in an attack which took place next to the city's main beach.
It is among around 15 where the burkini is now banned, and mayors across France are widening the measure every day.
But critics point out that 30 Muslims died in the Nice attack, including women wearing traditional clothes, including headscarves.
They point out how the French authorities are meant to support free expression, including the right to offend and provoke, and say that the burkini ban is utterly hypocritical.
Lawyers for the Human Rights League (LDH), and the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) - who challenged the ban in Nice - said they would now appeal to the Council of State, France's highest administrative court.
Around ten women have so far been criminalised for wearing burkinis on French beaches this summer.
All were reprimanded by police officers in the Riviera resort of Cannes, and forced to leave the sand. |
Business Use of Information Technology and Innovation in Australian Business
About this Release
BUSINESS USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION IN AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS
ABOUT BUSINESS USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STATISTICS
Key indicators of business use of IT include: internet access; the use of broadband; web presence; social media presence; and internet commerce (i.e. the placing and receiving of orders via the internet).
Detailed information on these indicators can be found via the Downloads tab.
BUSINESS USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - SUMMARY
Business Use of Information Technology, selected indicators (a) - 2014-15 to 2016-17 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 Estimated number of businesses(b) '000 776 799 831 Businesses with(c): internet access % 94.8 95.3 95.4 web presence % 48.6 50.1 51.1 social media presence % 34.0 38.2 40.4 Businesses with internet access(c): broadband as the main type of connection % 99.2 99.3 99.4 Businesses that: placed orders via the internet % 55.7 57.0 59.3 received orders via the internet % 33.8 36.8 37.1 Internet income(d) $b 285.5 321.4 394.3 (a) Proportions are of all businesses in each output category. (b) Business counts are provided for contextual information only. Refer to Explanatory Notes 21 and 22. (c) As at the end of the reference period, 30 June. (d) Refer to Explanatory Notes 16 to 18. For the first time, over half of businesses in the Retail trade industry (59%) had a web presence, while 56% had a social media presence.
More than a third of businesses reported having received orders via the internet (37%), with income obtained from these orders totalling an estimated $394 billion. The scope of internet income estimates includes both business to business and business to customer orders and as such is not adjusted to include only the value-added component of a sale. Further data relating to the proportion of income from internet orders received will be released in Selected Characteristics of Australian Business (cat. no. 8167.0) scheduled for release on 16 August 2018.
ABOUT INNOVATION IN AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS STATISTICS
Innovation is generally considered to be the development or introduction of new or significantly improved goods, services, processes or methods. As innovation is often seen as a continuous process and aspects can be intangible, it can be difficult to measure. An international framework, theGlossary.
More detailed data about innovation in Australian business during 2016-17 will be released in Innovation in Australian Business (cat. no. 8158.0) on 19 July 2018 and Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, 2016-17 (cat. no. 8167.0) on 16 August 2018.
INNOVATION IN AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS - SUMMARY
Summary of innovative activity in Australian business, selected indicators (a) - 2014-15 to 2016-17 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 Estimated number of businesses(b) '000 776 799 831 Businesses that introduced any new or significantly improved(c): goods or services % 19.3 22.4 17.4 operational processes % 15.6 19.1 16.7 organisational/managerial processes % 17.4 22.6 17.3 marketing methods % 16.5 19.7 16.4 Businesses that introduced innovation (innovating businesses) % 38.2 43.1 38.3 Businesses with innovative activity that was(c): still in development(d) % 21.2 24.1 20.9 abandoned % 7.7 6.7 7.1 Businesses with any Innovative activity (innovation-active businesses) % 45.0 48.7 44.5 (a) Proportions are of all businesses in each output category. (b) Business counts are provided for contextual information only. Refer to Explanatory Notes 21 and 22. (c) Businesses may be counted in more than one category. (d) As at the end of the reference period, 30 June. The proportion of businesses that were innovation-active (i.e. those that undertook any innovative activity) in 2016-17 was 44%.
By employment size, 70% of businesses with 200 or more persons employed were innovation-active, compared to 36% of businesses with 0 to 4 persons employed.
By industry, Information media and telecommunications had the highest proportion of businesses that had introduced at least one type of innovation (54%) with goods or services (29%) the most common type of innovation introduced.
(29%) the most common type of innovation introduced.
Just over one in five businesses had innovation still in development (21%) as at 30 June 2017, with marketing methods (10%) the most common type of innovation still in development.
INQUIRIES
Further information about these and related statistics is available from the ABS website
Innovation is generally considered to be the development or introduction of new or significantly improved goods, services, processes or methods. As innovation is often seen as a continuous process and aspects can be intangible, it can be difficult to measure. An international framework, the 'Oslo Manual, Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data' , has been developed jointly by Eurostat and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to aid in measuring the process of innovation. This manual, updated in 2005, forms the basis of concepts and definitions used to measure the incidence of innovation by the Business Characteristics Survey (BCS). The BCS collects information about the broad types and status of innovation in Australian business for a 12 month reference period. For more detail about these concepts and definitions, please refer to theMore detailed data about innovation in Australian business during 2016-17 will be released in Innovation in Australian Business (cat. no. 8158.0) on 19 July 2018 and Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, 2016-17 (cat. no. 8167.0) on 16 August 2018.Further information about these and related statistics is available from the ABS website www.abs.gov.au, or contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. |
Carp Fishing in South Africa
Carp fishing in South Africa has come a long way since the days of carp bait such as brown bread and curry powder or vanilla powder and the old carp rigs suc as the “Vaaldam Stroppe”. These days the carp fishing tackle, rods and reels are of a better quality and the ranges of carp baits have greatly improved. The fishing hasn’t gotten easier but is still just as enjoyable as ever.
European carp fishing is run like a coordinated business. They have different carp venues each specializing in a unique style of fishing. All their lakes have strict guidelines with managers, guides and groundskeepers that work at and run these lakes on a permanent basis making sure anglers use the correct carp fishing bait and carp fishing rigs.
South Africa doesn't have these kinds of structures at our dams, but we have something far greater. We have what is known as wild waters. At these dams carp get to grow well past 10kg. Some of the more famous wild water dams include Doorndraai Dam, Fanie Botha Dam (Tzaneen Dam) and Buffelspoort Dam just to name a few. These dams house gorgeous carp and have standard camping grounds that anglers can go to. Our dams have started to grow in such a big way, that they have begun to get a name worldwide as a prime fishing spots.
Our dams might not be as structured as the European dams and we might not have all the rules in place as yet but the upside is that as specimen carp fishing grows in South Africa and people start to see things differently regarding fishing and the preservation of carp, thanks to the etiquette involved with specimen carp fishing, our dams are on their way to be protected and will survive for many more years.
Lately more and more conventional anglers have started to go over to specimen carp fishing. Provincial angling clubs have set rules that prevent damage to carp. This has started to change the way older anglers think and the way they go about fishing. This in tern changes the way the younger anglers fish because they look up to the older guys. As the saying goes ”knowledge is power” and if we can teach the young anglers to take care then they will be the better anglers of tomorrow.
About our dams.
South Africa has some great carp fishing dams where wild carp of sizes over 10kg can be caught. Some of these well-known dams include Doorndraai Dam in Limpopo, Fanie Botha Dam (Tzaneen Dam) in Tzaneen, Donaldson Dam in Randfontein, Klaserie Dam in Mpumalanga, Koppies Dam in the Free State and many more. All these dams have beautiful carp and some also have great camping facilities at your disposal. These are all great dams for specimen, competitive and recreational carp anglers.
South Africa also have some dedicated specimen carp fishing venues such as Rushmere, Donaldson top lake and Bass O Mania where they cater strictly for specimen carp anglers. These dams have fixed rules and regulations regarding the tackle that may be used, the safety of the carp and some even on what types of carp baits may be used.
In South Africa we have a lot of wild waters that are truly vast in size such as Buffelspoort dam, Fanie Botha dam, Doorndraai dam and many more delivering stunning carp. But these waters need to be protected from the catch and kill types of fisherman, which we were unfortunately taught growing up.
Finding a good dam.
There are a couple of different ways that you can find a new dam with potential. Here is some advice on how to find that next perfect dam.
By Accident:
It can happen by accident that you drive past a new dam with medium sized fish that you never even new existed. some great dams are hidden among residential areas that you might not even know about.
Newspapers and Magazines.
Keep an eye on your local literature. Every now and then an article appears with fotos about a dam that you didn't know about. Naturally how older the dam is the better. Find out if the dam has ever run dry and if it has how dry did it get.
Syndicate Dams.
Syndicate dams are not yet very popular in South Africa but there are a couple of dams that do work in this fashion. With a syndicate there is total control over who is aloud to fish the dam and the catch and release of fish can be regulated very stiptly.
Friends and fellow fisherman.
If your friends know that you are a fisherman and love going out on weekends then they can always have a look out for you when they are traveling. Some times they can come across a dam that only a hand full of people know about. Fellow fisherman can also tell you about a dam but this is a very rare situation as fisherman don't really like sharing this type of information.
Private Dams.
Getting to know farmers or people that do own farms or game reserves is another way of finding new dams. A lot of the times these dams never have any one fishing them and they are totally wild waters where any thing is possible. A truly great find if you are lucky enough to fins a gem like this.
Dam Locations.
Albert Falls Dam
KwaZulu-Natal
29°26′10″S 30°23′18″E
Bloemhof Dam (Oppermansdrif)
North West Free State
27°40′15″S 25°37′40″E
Buffelspoort Dam
North West
25°46′50″S 27°29′1″E
Doorndraai Dam
Limpopo
24°16′45″S 28°46′1″E
Klaserie Dam
Mpumalanga
Latitude: -24.530269 Longitude: 31.061681
Rietvlei Dam
Gauteng
25°52′36″S 28°15′57″E
Tzaneen Dam
Limpopo
23°47′37″S 30°9′48″E
Vaal Dam
Free State Gauteng
26°53′1″S 28°7′20″E
Roodeplaat Dam
Gauteng
25°37′15″S 28°22′1″E
Advice on choosing a dam.
Articles in magazines.
Read through all the magazines that you can get hold of. A lot of the times they will have good articles giving away some secrets on the different dams. Read up about on the different dams as much as posible to find out where good fishing spots are and what baits other fisherman are using.
Fellow Anglers.
If you get a chance to talk to fellow anglers intruduce yourself and ask some questions. They might give you some good advice on where to fish, at what times of the day are fish being caught and what baits to give a try.
Visit the dam.
If it is possible take a trip to the dam to go have a look at it yourself. With your first visit to the dam have a walk around the dam, if small enough, or at the side where you are able or allowed to fish. Look for structures in the water where carp might be found. Make a sketch of the dam and make as many notes as possible. Big carp like to show themselves espesially in early mornings and late afternoon. Make a note of where you saw them. Talk to other anglers that are there and ask them about the dam and where they like to fish and where they have observed carp. They might not always tell you exactly where to fish and where the best spots are but after talking to a couple of fisherman you can start to form a general idiee where the carp might be.
The very best Carp Angling in South Africa
Beautiful shots of the quality Carp Fishing that's available in our waters.
Carp Fishing with Tiger Nuts
View the action as the guys from SACS catch a beautiful 12.8kg Common Carp on Tiger Nuts.
A sample of the excellent carp fishing available in South Africa. |
eShipper is an integrated shipping solution that allows you to compare competitive rates from multiple carriers online. Our platform is built with small to medium size businesses in mind. We’ve negotiated rates with the world’s most trusted carriers for our growing community of over 18,000 customers. Because of our strong carrier relations and the size of our customer base, we’re able to save an average of 40-60% on shipping services and pass those savings along to our customers without sacrificing quality of service.
Our platform not only allows you to compare carrier rates, but also services. The choice is completely yours. You might want to go with a carrier that will deliver your package overnight, or choose an option to have it delivered within 5-7 days instead to receive the best rate possible. Either way, you’re getting a discount with every carrier you choose.
Have an eCommerce store? eShipper offers a Shopify shipping solution and integrates with even more major shopping carts so that you can pass along savings to your customers. Our goal is to help you grow, and we know that delighting your customers with amazing Shopify shipping rates or even free shipping often results in return customers and advocates for your online store.
Our team is equipped with logistics and eCommerce gurus who truly care about your success. When you sign up for eShipper, you receive a dedicated customer service representative to help you with anything from making a shipment to providing a full scale logistics solution to grow your business overseas. Wherever you are in your journey, we’re with you every step of the way.
The best part about having a dedicated rep? You’ll never be tossed around from department to department, waiting to speak to the right person. Your rep will be your main point of contact for any shipping questions or claims you have and he or she will do everything it takes to make sure your shipment arrives to its destination as seamlessly as possible. |
Point 1: Cruz clearly made a joke, and it was “explicitly tongue in cheek.”
Point 2: The joke, however, was about an over-the-top thing Cruz wanted to do with the IRS.
Point 2(a): The number of IRS agents was not implicated in the joke-making, and thus seemed like a plausible number of agents that could exist.
Point 3: Even if he defined “agents” as “all employees of the IRS,” the number is still off: The IRS had roughly 90,000 employees as of 2013, and is actually facing a staffing shortage.
Point 4: Cruz could have made the joke without sacrificing accuracy — 25,000 agents is still a lot of agents, enough to make a joke argument that one should abolish the IRS. But 110,000 agents is on a completely different magnitude than 25,000; and while it’s not OMG FALSEHOOD level of bad, it’s a worrisome tendency towards embellishment.
Alternative Point 4: Cruz needs new joke writers?
Alternative Point 4(a): This is getting pedantic. |
Fonta Flora Brewery of Morganton has just secured a unique expansion property in partnership with the Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina and Lake James State Park. With the purchase of a historic 49-acre dairy farm, Fonta Flora will become the first true farmhouse brewery in Western North Carolina.
Situated on the old Whippoorwill Dairy Farm just outside Nebo, the future brewery sits 3 miles from a late-19th-century agricultural settlement, also known as Fonta Flora that provided the brewery with its name. The Fonta Flora community was comprised of roughly 100 predominantly African-American sharecroppers who were displaced in 1916 when the village was flooded during the creation of Lake James.
The descendants of the original Fonta Flora inhabitants have taken notice of the brewery’s attention to their history. “They come in here and see everything with Fonta Flora written on it, and it just brings tears to their eyes,” says head brewer and co-owner Todd Boera. It was important to Boera and fellow co-owners Mark and David Bennett to memorialize the historic lost community.
“We all fell in love with the romanticism, the history, the folklore and the community, [and] Fonta Flora will never be forgotten now,” explains Mark Bennett. His brother David adds, “Now we have the opportunity to showcase it even further by building our second brewery in the exact same valley where the original settlement existed over 100 years ago.”
The brewery’s partnership with the Foothills Conservancy, essential to purchasing the substantial acreage and ensures that the property will be maintained under a permanent conservation easement with commensurate guidelines for future development. Under this arrangement, Fonta Flora secured 8 acres of the land, consisting of historic structures in addition to farmable open space. The Foothills Conservancy purchased 40 acres, which will be donated to Lake James State Park later this year, resulting in a brewery and farm site that will be nestled against protected state parklands.
Farming the new property will allow Fonta Flora to grow much of its own produce, with plans including fruit orchards, herb gardens, vegetable patches and supplemental hops and grains. While the brewery’s agricultural presence will provide greater access to adjuncts that have proven difficult to source, such as pawpaws and persimmons, the brewery will continue to rely heavily on area farmers and will still source its malt from Asheville’s Riverbend Malt House.
Whippoorwill’s historic structures will be preserved and renovated whenever possible rather than giving way to new construction, and all restoration is to be completed with historically accurate materials. The farm’s existing structures were built with a unique type of stone mined on-site, designated Paddy’s Creek Stone in reference to a nearby tributary of the Linville and Catawba rivers. A 4,500-square-foot barn is expected to house the future production floor, with a stacked-stone milking parlor that will be repurposed for barrel cellaring and packaging.
Boera has plans to install a 15-barrel production brewhouse. The space will allow him to provide the same attention to detail he has always dedicated to his small-batch saisons and fruited sours while increasing output of flagship clean beers such as Hop Beard IPA and Irish Table Stout, the latter having won a gold medal at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival.
Expected to be operational by year’s end, the production facility will significantly increase Fonta Flora’s capacity to supply its beers to the Asheville market, with plans for a tasting room on the horizon. On the motivation behind developing a farmhouse expansion, Boera says, “Brewing is [fundamentally] agricultural, and so having the chance to take it back to its agricultural roots is pretty awesome.”
Look for expanded coverage of Fonta Flora’s farmhouse brewery project in the March 30 print issue of Mountain Xpress. |
Why Obama Likely is Secretly Glad Hillary Lost
Am I the only person who thinks that in Barack Obama’s heart of hearts lies a glimmer of glee now that the Clintons won’t be moving into the White House when he moves out? Roll your eyes in skepticism, if you will. But hear me out before launching a barrage of Bronx cheers. Yes, yes, I know. Obama took time out from his busy presidential schedule to campaign for Hillary. On the other hand, he’s taken time out to play golf, fly off to vacations, fund-raise, and do other things unrelated to the business at hand. Face it: the garrulous guy has always loved being on the stump. In fact, he delivers speeches better than he delivers the promises in them. And even if he isn’t allowed by law to run for a third term, he has sufficient conceit to believe that he could handily have whipped both Hillary and The Donald.
Obama would be the first to remind us that the longer the contentious 2016 presidential campaign dragged on, the higher his approval ratings rose, if only because he was not actually a candidate. Still, our sitting president is vain enough to take this as a sign of his enduring popularity, of which he intends to take full advantage when he leaves office. In a way, it will help him that Secretary Clinton was defeated, since there now appears to be no other Democrat who is capable of reminding the world how he won two elections and did much good. Such a rationale could ensure that Obama remains a significant -- and even idolized – figure among disillusioned Democrats. Republicans may not approve of how “un-presidential” he has behaved since the November election. But in the eyes of his supporters, he is still the only undisputed hero they have. Then, of course, there is the weighty matter of whether the election results will jeopardize Obama’s highly-coveted “legacy.” At the close of every recent presidential term, there seems to be a general obsession with how historians will judge it -- even if the verdict is to be rendered long after we are no longer around to care. Those with uninformed opinions resort to the cliché that “history will decide” whether a leader has been good or bad. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for example, ignored the treachery of Cuba’s recently deceased Fidel Castro, instead handing permission over to “history” to decide the fate of his legacy, as if his heinous crimes against humanity could, in fact, be judged less harshly as they retreated into time. As for U.S. presidents, there are plenty whose legacies have been forgotten or no longer heralded. I think it is safe to say that the average citizen’s knowledge of history precludes the prudent evaluation, one way or the other, of past leaders’ lasting effects. To complicate matters, what would appear to be a flawless justification for historical recognition could become overshadowed by some other less salient event. Richard Nixon scored a historic coup when he opened up relations between the United States and China, a rising giant “lost” to the world for many years before then. But many more people today would associate Nixon with sins in The Watergate than with successes in the Far East. Future generations may or may not see it this way. As for Obama, his legacy was assured at the moment of his election. No matter what else he did or did not accomplish, he will go down in history for his unprecedented feat of becoming the first black President of the United States. He doesn’t need health care reform to insure this abiding distinction. And besides, if Hillary Clinton had been elected, she would certainly not have retained his legislation in its present form. Jealous of having had her own health care plan shunned by Congress sixteen years earlier, Ms. Clinton would gladly have made changes to her predecessor’s legislation, including its name. Well, then, what about the issue of any personal guilt Obama might assume for Hillary’s defeat? Not to worry. He may feel the Democrats’ pain, but he’s made clear that he doesn’t feel in any way responsible for it. When he jaws about blame for the election loss, it’s all about the evil influence of Fox News or the party’s diminished ground game or the lackluster voter turnout among Democrats. Any understandable hint of disappointment on his part is eased by the satisfaction of knowing that he did a whole lot better at the polls than she did. Do you suppose he’s deflated when analysts point to his 2008 and 2012 superior performances in states and districts clear across the board? The long-time Democratic rivals may have publicly hugged and praised each other, but considering the deep, if barely disguised, dislike between the Obamas and the Clintons, Hillary’s drubbing must give the outgoing president some secret scintilla of satisfaction. Had she replaced him in the Oval Office, Hillary would also have usurped him as the presiding figurehead of the Democratic Party. Instead, Obama survives as its most popular figure. And even more importantly, he will have an opportunity to sound forth to the world. For eight long years, Obama has been the Moralizer in Chief. All those pew-bound Sundays of bombast obviously hit their mark, since Jeremiah Wright’s most famous congregant likes nothing better than to lecture Americans on who we are and who we must not be. Now that Obama has a new and hostile administration to target, the future ex-president will eagerly speak his mind on a global scale, where his fees for moralizing -- or demoralizing, perhaps -- will ensure a handsome lifestyle. You may rightly ask if the president isn’t deeply disappointed that America failed to put a woman in the White House. Possibly. But maybe he is thinking that he was able to crash through a significant barrier while she wasn’t. And then there are the political prospects for Michelle Obama, who, by all accounts, was better received than candidate Clinton when they traveled together on the campaign trail. Maybe Obama figures that if Hill and Bill didn’t make the first husband/wife to each preside in the Oval Office, there’s hope for Barack and Michelle! It’s a long shot, but so were a lot of other things in his life. Few would be surprised, certainly, if the First Lady ran for a US Senate seat from Illinois If it takes some pressure to usurp a Democrat incumbent, so be it. The bottom line of Barak Obama’s future probably won’t change all that much as a result of the election outcome. Regardless of his successor, he will remain an ambitious guy resistant to becoming the ghost of politics past. And with the happy prospect of being internationally sought after as speaker and statesman, along with a bit of pie-in-the-sky as to being the future First Gentlemen of the United States, how sad can Obama really feel about Hillary’s defeat? |
Zinn's influential history textbook has problems, says Stanford education expert
Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" offers bad lessons in historical thinking, says School of Education Professor Sam Wineburg.
Stanford University Stanford University School of Education Professor Sam Wineburg has written a new critique of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States – a radical alternative to established textbooks when it was first published in 1980 – has today become a standard source in how Americans learn about their nation's history. Now an analysis by Stanford University School of Education Professor Sam Wineburg shows how it perpetrates the same errors of historical practice as the tomes it aimed to correct.
It would be difficult to overstate the degree to which A People's History has resonated with the American public. Although its perspective is unabashedly from the far left, its reach and influence extend far beyond that quarter with more than 2 million copies in print and prominent displays in suburban superstores.
Zinn was a featured speaker in 2008 at the National Council for the Social Studies – the nation's largest gathering of social studies teachers. When he died two years later, his book rose to seventh on Amazon's best-sellers list.
"In the 32 years since its original publication, A People's History has gone from a book that buzzed about the ear of the dominant narrative to its current status where, in many circles, it has become the dominant narrative," Wineburg writes in an article in the latest edition of American Educator, which is now in the mail to its readers. "For many students, A People's History will be the first full-length history book they read, and for some, it will be the only one."
Wineburg, one of the world's top researchers in the field of history education, raises larger issues about how history should be taught. He says that Zinn's desire to cast a light on what he saw as historic injustice was a crusade built on secondary sources of questionable provenance, omission of exculpatory evidence, leading questions and shaky connections between evidence and conclusions.
Wineburg's critique focuses on the part of Zinn's narrative that covers the mid-thirties to the Cold War. Among the subjects it delves into is Zinn's assertion that African Americans were largely indifferent to the outcome of World War II. That claim, Wineburg explains, is based on three anecdotal bits – a quote from a black journalist, a quote from a black student and a poem published in the black press – and excludes any evidence to the contrary.
Indeed, says Wineburg, while Zinn pulled his anecdotes from a secondary source, Lawrence Wittner's 1969 book Rebels Against War, Zinn ignored evidence in that same book that undermines his claim. Among the examples Zinn overlooks is Wittner's point that 24 percent of the registrants eligible for the war were African American, while the percentage of draft-evasion cases involving blacks was only 4.4 percent of the total pursued by the Justice Department. And a similar trend held with conscientious objectors. "Surprisingly few black men became C.O.s," Wittner adds.
Similarly, Zinn roots his argument that the Japanese were prepared to surrender before the United States dropped the atomic bomb on a diplomatic cable from the Japanese to the Russians, supposedly signaling a willingness to capitulate. Wineburg writes that Zinn not only excludes the responses to the cable, but also that he fails in the later editions of the book to incorporate the vast new scholarship that emerged after the death of the Emperor Hirohito with the publication of memoirs and new availability of public records, all of which support the position of Japan's resolve to fight to the last.
Wineburg acknowledges that Zinn's book was an important contribution when first published. While the standard textbooks of that time presented a certainty about one view of the nation's history, from Manifest Destiny to the United States' moral superiority in the Cold War, Zinn put forward largely overlooked alternative perspectives, such as how slaves viewed the Constitution and how the Cherokees felt about President Andrew Jackson. Zinn weaved a seamless unified theory of oppression in which the rich and powerful afflict the poor and disenfranchised.
Over time, however, a problem emerged as Zinn's book became the single authoritative source of history for so many Americans, Wineburg said. In substituting one buttoned-up interpretation of the past for another, Wineburg finds, A People's History and traditional textbooks are mirror images that relegate students to similar roles as absorbers – not analysts – of information. Wineburg writes that a heavily filtered and weighted interpretation becomes dangerous when "we are talking about how we educate the young, those who do not yet get the interpretive game."
History, Wineburg notes, is messy. And the most responsible thing for educators to do is to leave elbowroom for the mess. "History as truth, issued from the left or the right, abhors shades of gray," Wineburg writes, adding, "Such a history atrophies our tolerance for complexity. It makes us allergic to exceptions to the rule. Worst of all it depletes the moral courage we need to revise our beliefs in the face of new evidence.
"It insures ultimately that tomorrow we will think exactly as we thought yesterday – and the day before and the day before that."
David Plotnikoff writes frequently for the Stanford University School of Education.
Media Contact |
Asperger syndrome (AS) is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is a relatively new diagnosis in the field of autism. [1] [2] It was named in honor of Hans Asperger (1906–80), who was an Austrian psychiatrist and pediatrician. An English psychiatrist, Lorna Wing, popularized the term "Asperger's syndrome" in a 1981 publication; the first book in English on Asperger syndrome was written by Uta Frith in 1991 and the condition was subsequently recognized in formal diagnostic manuals later in the 1990s.[1]
Discovery of autistic psychopathy [ edit ]
Hans Asperger [ edit ]
Hans Asperger was the director of the University of Vienna Children's Clinic. As a result, he spent most of his professional life in Vienna. Throughout Asperger's career, he was also a pediatrician, medical theorist, and medical professor.[3] His works were published largely in German.[1] He is most well known for his work with mental disorders, especially those in children.[3] As a child, Asperger appeared to have exhibited some features of the very condition named after him, such as social remoteness and talent in language.[4]
Asperger's research [ edit ]
Asperger's 1944 work, Autistic psychopathy in childhood,[5] found that four of the 200 children studied[6] had difficulty with integrating themselves socially. Although their intelligence levels appeared normal, the children lacked nonverbal communication skills, failed to demonstrate empathy with their peers, and were physically clumsy. Their verbal communication was either disjointed or overly formal, and their all-absorbing interest in a single topic dominated their conversations. Asperger named the condition "autistic psychopathy", and described it as primarily marked by social isolation.[7] Asperger described those patients as like "little professors",[8] and believed the individuals he described would be capable of exceptional achievement and original thought later in life.[6] Asperger's paper defended the value of high-functioning autistic individuals, writing "We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fulfill their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers." However, he also wrote concerning his other cases, "Unfortunately, in the majority of cases the positive aspects of autism do not outweigh the negative ones."[5]
A Soviet child psychiatrist, Grunya Sukhareva, described a similar syndrome that was published in Russian in 1925, and in German in 1926.[9]
Relationship to Kanner's work [ edit ]
Two subtypes of autism were described between 1943 and 1944 by two Austrian researchers working independently—Austrian-born Asperger and child psychiatrist Leo Kanner (1894–1981). Kanner emigrated to the United States in 1924;[1] he described a similar syndrome in 1943, known as "classic autism" or "Kannerian autism", characterized by significant cognitive and communicative deficiencies, including delayed or absent language development.[10] Kanner's descriptions were influenced by the developmental approach of Arnold Gesell, while Asperger was influenced by accounts of schizophrenia and personality disorders.[11] Asperger's frame of reference was Eugen Bleuler's typology, which Christopher Gillberg has described as "out of keeping with current diagnostic manuals", adding that Asperger's descriptions are "penetrating but not sufficiently systematic".[12] Asperger was unaware of Kanner's description published a year before his;[11] the two researchers were separated by an ocean and a raging war, and Asperger's descriptions were unnoticed in the United States.[6] During his lifetime, Asperger's work, in German, remained largely unknown outside the German-speaking world.[1]
Coinage [ edit ]
According to Ishikawa and Ichihashi in the Japanese Journal of Clinical Medicine, the first author to use the term Asperger's syndrome in the English-language literature was the German physician, Gerhard Bosch.[13] Between 1951 and 1962, Bosch worked as a psychiatrist at Frankfurt University. In 1962, he published a monograph detailing five case histories of individuals with PDD[14] that was translated into English eight years later,[15] becoming one of the first to establish German research on autism, and attracting attention outside the German-speaking world.[16]
Lorna Wing is credited with widely popularizing the term "Asperger's syndrome" in the English-speaking medical community in her 1981 publication[17] of a series of case studies of children showing similar symptoms.[1] Wing also placed AS on the autism spectrum, although Asperger was uncomfortable characterizing his patient on the continuum of autistic spectrum disorders.[6] She chose "Asperger's syndrome" as a neutral term to avoid the misunderstanding equated by the term autistic psychopathy with sociopathic behavior.[18] Wing's publication effectively introduced the diagnostic concept into American psychiatry and renamed the condition as Asperger's;[19] however, her accounts blurred some of the distinctions between Asperger's and Kanner's descriptions because she included some mildly retarded children and some children who presented with language delays early in life.[11]
Early studies [ edit ]
The first systematic studies appeared in the late 1980s in publications by Tantam (1988) in the UK, Gillberg and Gilbert in Sweden (1989), and Szatmari, Bartolucci and Bremmer (1989) in North America.[1] The diagnostic criteria for AS were outlined by Gillberg and Gillberg in 1989; Szatmari also proposed criteria in 1989.[18] Asperger's work became more widely available in English when Uta Frith, an early researcher of Kannerian autism, translated his original paper in 1991.[1] AS became a distinct diagnosis in 1992, when it was included in the 10th published edition of the World Health Organization’s diagnostic manual, International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10); in 1994, it was added to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as Asperger's Disorder.[7] When Hans Asperger observed the autistic like symptoms and behaviors in boys through their social and communication skills, many professionals felt like Asperger's syndrome was just a less severe form of autism. Uta Frith was one of these professionals who had this opinion. She was a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience of University College London, and was also an editor of Autism and Asperger Syndrome. She said that individuals with Asperger's had a "dash of autism". She was one of the first scientists who recognized autism and related disorders as the result of a condition of the brain instead of the outcome of detached parenting.
Contemporary [ edit ]
Less than two decades after the widespread introduction of AS to English-speaking audiences, there are hundreds of books, articles and websites describing it; prevalence estimates have increased dramatically for ASD, with AS recognized as an important subgroup.[1] However, questions remain concerning many aspects of AS; whether it should be a separate condition from high-functioning autism is a fundamental issue requiring further study.[6] The diagnostic validity of Asperger syndrome is tentative, there is little consensus among clinical researchers about the usage of the term "Asperger's syndrome", and there are questions about the empirical validation of the DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria.[11] It is likely that the definition of the condition will change as new studies emerge[11] and it will eventually be understood as a multifactorial heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder involving a catalyst that results in prenatal or perinatal changes in brain structures.[6]
There is uncertainty regarding the gender gap between males and females with AS. A person with Asperger's is often remarked as possessing masculine traits like emotional distance from the inability to empathize, and far more boys than girls are diagnosed with Asperger's.[20][unreliable medical source?] Most studies on the syndrome were derived from research on males, neglecting specific attention to females with AS who often go misdiagnosed. For the most part, studies on girls with Asperger's are anecdotal.[20]
Changes in DSM-5 [ edit ]
In 1994, Asperger's Syndrome was added to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). In the DSM-IV, it was considered to be a separate disorder from autism. Just like in the 1940s, there are still many professionals that believe that Asperger's is just a less severe form of autism. The DSM-V made a new, broad diagnosis in 2013. It was the autism spectrum disorder. In this category is what was once Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Syndrome, and other developmental disorders that are related. There are different levels of severity now, rather than the different diagnoses. ASD is now rated on a scale ranging from severe, through moderate, to mild, based on clinical presentation.[21] The levels are determined by the amount of support the individual requires. Due to the change, individuals who were previously diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome most likely were re-diagnosed within the umbrella of the autism spectrum disorder because of the DSM changes and revisions. |
From Kancolle Wiki
Introduction
The following interview comes from within the Kancolle Guide Book "Kancolle Style Vol.3" which was released on December 14th, 2016. Within the book, Chief in Editor has an interview with Kancolle's main producer, Kensuke Tanaka. Within the article, Takana discusses about details regarding his involvement in the Kantai Collection Movie, discusses plans on how the Fall 2016 Event was planned out, the new Kanmusus, and the furture plans to Kantai Collection as enter into the year of 2017.
An Interview with the KanColle HQ Naval District (Fall/Winter)
Pages from the Interview with HQ Naval District from Kancolle Style Vol.3
Our editor-in-chief asked KanColle HQ Naval District's Producer Tanaka about the latest news and developments. We also discuss retrospectives on management and development!
Editor-in-chief (E): Congratulations! KanColle: The Movie is finally out in theaters!
Producer Tanaka (T): Thank you. With the movie, we were able to conclude one of KanColle's stories for our admirals. To all the admirals who watched our movie in theaters, thank you very much!
E: How was the response?
T: I was involved in not just the overall plot and concept art but also the screenplay, setting design, and recording as well. It was thanks especially to [Shouta] Amano-san (a producer at Diomedea) and his colleagues that we were able to get KanColle across on the silver screen.
E: Hiryuu and others had a big role, even if they didn't appear on screen!
T: Yeah (sob). We put a lot of work into the Eighth Fleet's night battle at the beginning of the movie [Aoba, Choukai, etc.], but in the end we unfortunately had to cut out a lot due to production constraints... All the fleets, CarDiv 2 included of course, were fighting. You can still catch a glimpse of it in the movie, I think.
E: This year's Fall event has ended. I wouldn't have believed we would go from a search operation in "Shangri-La" to that atoll if you had told me beforehand - it was quite the shock.
T: It left a big impression on me seeing that cola bottle as a student[1]... We had decided far ahead of time to make Saratoga the final map of this event, so the rest of the event was actually designed working backwards from there.
E: Yamakaze is another new ship that leaves quite the impression!
T: The actual Yamakaze was kept back near the mainland, which makes her rather unusual. She had the shortest career of any of the Shiratsuyu-class. She sank alone into the dark sea, so close to the mainland and at the beginning of the war, so that tragic demise is a part of her...
E: The first French ship, seaplane tender Commandant Teste, and Asakaze were also implemented this event.
T: Yes, and we are already working on implementing one of Asakaze's partners next year.[2]
E: With Saratoga, we finally get to see American carrier aircraft!
T: Indeed. With improvement, the F4F series will be upgradable into its powerful successor, the F6F-series. We're also planning another remodel for Saratoga herself.
E: Woah! When you're preparing new ships, do you discuss it with Shizuma Yoshinori-san a lot?
T: Yeah. I especially talk with Shizuma-san, Shibafu-san, Konishi-san, and also Jiji-san frequently during development.
E: Jiji-san!
T: Jiji-san, yeah... even just on the phone, once you start talking to him, you end up losing track of time. I might've interrupted quite a lot of his work now...
E: That's no good!
T: Yeah (laugh). It's fun, though.
E: Ah, what're these?
T: These are designs for Saratoga's equipment. I asked Shizuma-san for the drawings.
E: Ooh! Ooh! So that's what these are! Cool! What are you preparing for now that the event is over?
T: It's already December, so the Christmas things. Ah, and also that. There's also that.
E: That?
T: Jet plane equipment.
E: Jets!?
T: Sorry for the wait, but we've finally implemented a system so admirals can use the Ne-type engine. By improving the Prototype Keiun, one can use the Ne-type engine to obtain the Jet Keiun Kai.
E: To be honest... I don't... have a Ne-type engine...
T: It's okay! With some effort, you can obtain the Ne-type engine, Prototype Keiun, and such by completing some quests and submarine expeditions.
E: Oh!
T: The jet bomber Kikka Kai will also be obtainable in the same way, with some more effort. So you can obtain them slowly but surely at your own pace. We're starting with fighter-bombers.
E: Which means...
T: Right, well, I want to implement pure jet fighters as well, paper designs though they may be. Also, and I'm getting ahead of myself again, I also hope to implement the pioneer of anti-submarine patrol bombers, the Toukai. You'll be able to suppress those enemy So-class subs! Maybe!
E: Please, hurry!
T: Roger that!
E: With regard to seasonal and the new shipgirls, what are you working on at the moment?
T: As far as new shipgirls go, we're currently planning on Japanese submarines, Type B and D destroyers[3], escort carriers, and the like. And for KanColle's fifth year, we have something interesting planned as far as foreign shipgirls go.
E: I see. The fourth anniversary, so the fifth year. Time sure flies...
T: Next month happens to be 3 years and 8 months since KanColle launched. It feels like just yesterday that I told Okamiya-san (DMM) prior to launch that I thought we could last at least half a year.
E: 3 years and 8 months... it really feels it all happened in the blink of an eye.
T: It's thanks to the admirals who received a niche game like KanColle so readily that we've been able to get this far. I am truly grateful. Please continue enjoying KanColle with your shipgirls this December and New Year.
November 2016
Special Thanks to -a-nonymous for translations and the Anons of /a/ for providing information to the mentioned post.
Bonus Material: Saratoga's Design Details
Illustration of Saratoga's Flight Deck Tommy Gun and it's functionality
Illustration of Saratoga's Rigging Designs showing her Port, Scarf, Anchor.
As shown within the KanColle Style Vol. 3 Book, there were several illustrations presented by Shizuma Yoshinori which show Saratoga's designs for her Rigging and her flight deck as it's some of the basic points as well as functionality of her flight deck gun.
Left Page Drawing
Design based on Thompson M1928 (USN variant)
Elevators
Trigger
- First Trigger: Deploy aircraft from magazine to flight deck
- Second Trigger: Launch aircraft
Red Block: Ammo (Carrier Aircraft)
Arrow: Deployment Path
Selector
- High Wind Needed: Use Stern Elevator
- Low Wind Needed: Use Bow Elevator
Right Page Drawings (from top going left to right to bottom)
Port
Scarf
Anchor
Above
References
↑ Referencing the wreckage of Saratoga? ↑ Possibly Matsukaze (who Asakaze mentions in name) or Hatakaze (fellow members of DesDiv 5) or Yuunagi (shared a final escort mission) ↑ The Akizuki-class and Matsu-class destroyers |
A MUSLIM woman is suing Disneyland, accusing the company’s California theme park of discrimination for telling her she could not serve customers if she chose to wear a headscarf.
Imane Boudlal, 26, asked her employers at Disneyland’s Grand Californian Hotel several months ago whether they would permit her to wear a headcovering while working as a hostess, a spokeswoman for a worker’s union said.
But when no reply was forthcoming, she decided to don the headscarf anyway, timing her decision with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Leigh Shelton, a spokesman for the UNITE HERE Local 11 union said.
Disney told Boudlal that if she wanted to work as a hostess she had to remove her hijab because it did not comply with the ‘Disney Look’. Disney further advised Boudlal that if she refused to remove her hijab, she could either work a back-of-the-house position where any customers would not see her, or else go home.
Boudlal refused the compromise and is now bringing Disney before the US Equal Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that handles claims of workplace discrimination.
Said Boudlal, who claimed in a video on this site that Disney had suggested another form of headcovering:
The local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it had sent a letter to Disney demanding that the firm accommodate Boudlal.
Ameena Mirza Qazi, deputy executive director and staff attorney at the group, said: |
Between October 29 and November 7, Prince Edward Islanders were invited through a plebiscite to express their views on electoral reform. The plebiscite was conducted with historic innovations in the methods and time-frame to cast a ballot. Islanders could vote online, by telephone or in-person over a 10-day period. The plebiscite format and voting options were based on the recommendations of an all-party special committee of the Legislative Assembly and made possible through unprecedented efforts by Elections PEI, with the objective of achieving a high level of voter participation, notably in light of the fact that only 33 per cent of Islanders cast a vote in the 2005 plebiscite. The Special Committee on Democratic Renewal in its April 15 report expressed the hope that “A clear expression of the will of the population of Prince Edward Island will be the result.”
Notwithstanding unprecedented measures taken to encourage voter turnout and to facilitate voting, just under 36.5 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot during the ten-day plebiscite voting period. On the other hand, 63.5 per cent of registered voters did not participate.
The Special Committee on Democratic Renewal, while declining to recommend a specific threshold for voter participation, expressed its belief that “the outcome of a plebiscite must be considered in concert with voter turnout.” An Oct. 21 CBC report states the Leader of the Third Party and member of the special committee “(Peter) Bevan-Baker is suggesting majority support for any one of the options to change the electoral system, together with voter turnout of at least 50 per cent, should be enough to compel government to act.” In the 1998 Secession Reference, the Supreme Court of Canada spoke of the desirability of having “broad support of an ‘enhanced majority’ to achieve constitutional change.” [p.259] The Court translated that principle into a requirement that there be a clear majority on a clear question.
The White Paper on Democratic Renewal of July 2015 that launched this process observed that Prince Edward Island has taken an evolutionary approach to electoral reform since achieving responsible government in 1851. And it acknowledged Prince Edward Island’s exemplary track record of voter turnout. Island voters participate at rates that lead regional, national and international standards. Prince Edward Islanders understand the value of a vote. In nine of our past ten PEI elections, voter participation rates have surpassed 80 per cent. In the 1988 plebiscite on the Fixed Link Crossing, 65 [64.95] per cent of eligible voters cast ballots.
In combination with the low voter turnout of 36.5 per cent, it is debatable whether the plebiscite conducted between October 29 and November 7 produced a clear majority. Among the five options on which Prince Edward Island voters were asked to express their preference, Mixed Member Proportional Representation received 52.42 per cent support during the fourth round of counting. During the first three rounds of counting, First-Past-the-Post (the current system) received the highest number of votes. By the fourth and final round of counting, the support for MMP represented 19 per cent of eligible voters, or fewer than one in five. It is doubtful whether these results can be said to constitute a clear expression of the will of Prince Edward Islanders, to adopt the language of the Special Committee on Democratic Renewal.
The results of the plebiscite confirm the continuing need for our Legislative Assembly and our province as a whole to work to enhance our democracy. We recognize, as did the 2015 White Paper, the appetite and room for change and enhancement, and will fully deliberate this as Members of the Legislative Assembly. The plebiscite was an exercise on representative democracy and bringing this discussion to the floor of the Assembly underscores this endeavour. Beyond the question of how we select MLAs, the Special Committee on Democratic Renewal noted that other issues had arisen in the course of its public consultations and Committee deliberations, including electoral financing, strategies for involving more women in public life and improvements to the Parliamentary calendar. As required by the Electoral Boundaries Act after every three elections, the Electoral Boundaries Commission will be constituted and commence its work of redrawing district boundaries.
When the Legislative Assembly meets in its fall session starting next Tuesday, the question of democratic renewal and the results of the plebiscite will be on the minds of all legislators. We look forward to learning in greater detail the results, including levels of support in various parts of the province, ideally by electoral district, as soon as Elections PEI can provide the information.
I want to acknowledge those Islanders who did participate in the plebiscite, as well as the work of Elections PEI, and look forward to further discussion during the Legislative Sitting.
Media Contact:
Mary Moszynski
Acting Director of Communications
902-368-4400 |
Krita Foundation in Trouble
Published 8/1/2017
Please check the August 2nd update, too!
Even while we’re working on a new beta for Krita 3.2 and a new development build for 4.0 (with Python, on Windows!), we have to release some bad news as well.
The Krita Foundation is having trouble with the Dutch tax authorities. This is the situation:
In February, we received an audit from the tax inspector. We were quite confident we wouldn’t have any problems because when we setup the Krita Foundation in 2013, we took the advice of a local tax consultant on how to setup the Foundation and its administration. We registered for VAT with the tax authorities and kept our books as instructed by the consultant.
However, the tax inspector found two problems springing from the fact the Foundation sells training videos and books, so it is not 100% funded by donations. This means that the tax authorities see the Foundation is as partly a company, partly as not a company.
We claimed back VAT for things bought by the Foundation. But we should only have claimed the VAT back to the percentage of income generated from sales, which is about 15%. (The rest of our income is donations.)
The Foundation was created to be able to have Dmitry work full-time on Krita. Because we sell stuff, the tax inspector has determined that we’re a company, and should have paid VAT in the Netherlands over the work Dmitry has been doing in Russia. Even though there is no VAT in Russia on the kind of work Dmitry is doing. But because we’re not a company, we cannot reclaim the VAT.
In other words, because we’re mostly not a company, we should not have claimed back the VAT we paid; but we’re also considered fully a company, so we should have paid VAT in the Netherlands over Dmitry’s work, which we could not have claimed back because the Foundation is mostly not a company. (It didn’t matter that Dmitry owns the copyright on his work, and that the Foundation doesn’t own anything related to Krita except for the trademark…)
The result is a tax bill of 24,000 euros. We have consulted with an accountant, and together we got the bill reduced to 15,006 euros, including fines and interest, but the accountant’s bill came to 4,000 euros.
The discussions with the tax inspector and accountant have taken months to resolve. The stress that caused has not just eaten into our coding productivity, it also meant we had no certainty at all, so we missed our usual May fundraiser. At one point, we were almost certain the Krita Foundation would go broke.
We ended 2016 with about 30,000 euros in the bank, enough to keep us going until June: it has dwindled to € 5.461,63 by now. Fortunately, we did have the help of three extra-ordinary sponsors who helped us survive through this period. We also have found a sponsor for some extra work on Krita, mainly focused on improving performance on systems with many cores and restoring some touch functionality and touch ui to Krita.
Still, we have not been able to be as productive as we wanted, and some of the cool things we were working on aren’t done yet, and maybe won’t get done in time for Krita 4.0.
Then there is another complication: until the middle of 2016, I had a day job next to my work on Krita, giving me in effect two full-time jobs. I suffered a break-down in the middle of 2016, and had to stop my day job. I lived on my savings until they ran out by the end of 2016, when I started working full-time for the Foundation as well, so our expenses have gone up too.
For the future, we’ve separated the sales of training videos, artbooks and sales on the Windows Store and Steam out to a separate company, so the Krita Foundation is 100% a non-profit. That means that there is no VAT payable in the Netherlands over the work Dmitry does in Russia. We checked the new setup with the accountants, and they have given green light for it.
Now we’ve got the bills, we can start making plans again:
As I said in the beginning. we’re currently working on Krita 3.2 and the next pre-alpha development release of 4.0. Our community is healthy, with more and more people chipping in and having fun hacking on Krita, working on the documentation and creating illustrations, comics and animations with Krita.
In September, we will run a fundraiser for development in 2018. After we’ve finished the backlog of kickstarter-promised features for 4.0 or 4.1, our focus will be on stability and polish for a year. “Zero bugs!” — that’s going to be the rallying cry for the fundraiser and for 2018!
Though there is no reason to wait until September to make a donation or join the development fund!
Note: in the interests of full transparency, you can find our end-of-year reports for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 here.
Boudewijn Rempt, Krita Maintainer
One-time Donation
€1 minimum €1 minimum Monthly Subscription
€1 minimum Stichting Krita Foundation
Korte Assenstraat 11 7411JP Deventer, the Netherlands.
IBAN: NL72INGB0007216397
BIC: INGBNL2A |
(Fortune Magazine) -- The clock is chasing down 1 A.M. It's late for dinner - or for interviews - in Almaty, Kazakhstan's former capital. But self-made Kazakh uranium czar Moukhtar Dzhakishev is just hitting his stride. Between spoonfuls of Beluga caviar and bites of ruby-colored tuna flown in from Dubai, he is explaining that his small state-owned company, Kazatomprom, will soon rule the global nuclear energy industry. "I don't think there will be any competitors," he says softly. "I will eat them."
In Kazakhstan, where the family of President Nursultan Nazarbayev controls much of the country's abundant resources, Dzhakishev, 44 years old, is a rare breed: a Moscow-educated entrepreneur who took over a floundering mining industry - and the world's largest uranium deposit outside Australia - when the Soviets broke camp here. Now, after three years of skyrocketing uranium prices, he has found himself at the forefront of a global uranium boom that is fast making him one of the most powerful men in the country - and increasingly influential beyond it. Kazakhstan's ascendancy is far from assured, but Dzhakishev, described by colleagues as Kasparov-sharp and poker-faced, makes it sound as if he already has it all wrapped up. His confidence might be laughable if his arguments weren't so damn convincing.
As Dzhakishev sees it, a widespread nuclear renaissance is not only inevitable but well underway. And he's probably right. Global warming is weighing heavily on the international conscience, and with it comes a newfound sense of urgency to dispense with coal and other carbon fuels. No alternative is more developed, economically viable, and emission-free than nuclear energy. Since world electricity use is expected to double in the next few decades, nearly every industrialized country is considering a fresh buildout of nuclear power. Worldwide, 34 new reactors are under construction, and 280 are being planned or proposed. China alone has broken ground on five reactors to feed that nation's insatiable need for power.
That has raised questions about whether uranium producers can find enough of the element to fuel this long-term growth. In 2006 producers met only 62% of demand. (The rest was recycled from a diminishing supply of decommissioned warheads or taken from dwindling Cold War stockpiles.) The World Nuclear Association says uranium mining could need to increase by almost 300% in the next two decades.
Talk of such a crunch has brought the market to fever pitch. Spot prices for uranium jumped from about $7 a pound in late 2000 to a record high of $136 in June. Prices today hover at $74. More than 400 uranium companies are listed publicly, hedge funds buy warehouses of the stuff, and old U.S. mines are grinding back to life. Applications for new mines in Colorado and Utah have risen more than 200% since 2003.
Internationally, the world's largest uranium suppliers - Canada's Cameco, France's Areva, and Australia's BHP Billiton (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RTP) - are scouring for pay dirt at a pace rivaled only by Big Oil. And though existing mines are being expanded in Canada, Australia, and Africa, what producers really want is access to the deposits in Kazakhstan. "Kazakhstan needs to deliver," says Nick Carter, an analyst at Ux Consulting, a U.S. research firm.
The boom has put Dzhakishev in an enviable position. First, he made an audacious promise to more than quintuple production by 2015, to 27,000 metric tons a year, which could quench the market's thirst. Now he wants the world to rely on Kazakhstan for all things nuclear - not just the metal for fuel. Uranium, which today accounts for a fraction of the nation's GDP, would become as important for its economy as the $35 billion Kazakh oil industry is currently.
In the past few months Dzhakishev has gone on a high-profile international deal-signing tear, landing agreements aimed at transforming Kazatomprom from an obscure Third World mining group to a full-fledged, integrated nuclear energy powerhouse. Last summer he locked up contracts to ship half of China's uranium imports, agreed to buy 10% of U.S. reactor maker Westinghouse (owned by Japan's Toshiba), and scored a deal with Cameco (CCJ) to build a conversion facility, a technologically advanced link in the nuclear fuel cycle. "It's been honeymoon, honeymoon, honeymoon," he gloats.
But the game is far from over. Dzhakishev's production forecasts are wildly optimistic, requiring the skilled labor, improved infrastructure, and materials to run 16 new mines. That would be tough to execute in any business environment; Kazakhstan is an especially rough-and-tumble place. It is an emerging market with an autocratic government and a rap sheet for bribery that ranked it near the bottom of Transparency International's global corruption index last year. And Dzhakishev's plan could be laid waste by the kind of volatility to which metals commodities are prone. When fresh supply flooded the market, the price of uranium plunged last July, sending futures contracts down with it. "I don't know if they have the resources to do it," says Benoit de Galbert, project manager for Katco, Dzhakishev's joint venture with Areva, who believes a top-to-bottom modernization is needed. "Dzhakishev is pushing, but sometimes you have the impression he is alone."
An atypical mine
To get to Kazakhstan's uranium fields, you hop a short flight west from Almaty along the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains and land on a grass field in Shymkent that's strewn with Soviet-era planes. Three hours north by car, where caravans of camels roam an arid steppe, you come upon a series of ten-story windowless boxes. It doesn't look like a typical mine. The boxes are processing facilities that treat a slurry of uranium, sulfuric acid, and water. The acid loosens the uranium from its bond with the rock below - a process called in situ leach - and the liquid is sucked out through a giant straw, no digging required. Production costs as little as $10 a pound, a fifth the cost of open-pit mining.
That low cost is part of what has made Kazakhstan's uranium so attractive. Raw uranium is found on almost every continent. Its biggest producers come from the most bountiful regions, like Canada, where literally any backyard might contain a pound of it. Cameco produces a fifth of the world's uranium and runs three large mines there. But in the past year its Cigar Lake mine, which it operates with Areva, has been hobbled by flooding and natural disasters, setting production back perhaps to 2011. Australia has the most reserves, about a third of the world's uranium, but the ore is of poor quality. The U.S. has mines and fresh exploration but ranks low among world suppliers. Much of the growth in the industry is coming from Africa, where environmentally destructive open-pit mines continue to be developed, and in Kazakhstan. Last year Kazatomprom leaped over Rio Tinto and Areva to become the world's second-largest production company behind Cameco, providing about 5,000 pounds, or 12% of global supply. |
"Snake oil salesman" is a phrase that conjures up images of stuffy old men with bowler hats, bushy mustaches, and tailored pinstripe suits peddling bottles filled with "cure-all" liquids. Although prevalent a few centuries ago, the snake oil profession is now lost to the annals of history. These days the snake oil description has expanded beyond human health care. In the tech world, for example, a snake oil solution can be used to describe anti-virus software or a favorite software development process.
Among the most "oversold as a cure" methodologies introduced to business development teams today is Scrum, which is one of several agile approaches to software development and introduced as a way to streamline the process. Scrum has become something of an intractable method, complete with its own holy text, the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, and daily devotions (a.k.a., Scrum meetings).
Although Scrum may have made more sense when it was being developed in the early '90s, much has changed over the years. Startups and businesses have work forces spread over many countries and time zones, making sharing offices more difficult for employees. As our workforce world evolves, our software development methods should evolve, too.
Open technologies today
Startups and businesses are being founded on the ideals of open technologies, and even more established corporate entities, including Microsoft, are embracing all things open. Matt Asay does a good job of describing the current state of affairs:
Ten years ago, a new open source company or project was news. Not anymore. Open source dominates mobile, with Android displacing the seemingly unbeatable iOS in both smartphones and tablets. Open source also dominates cloud, with every significant cloud platform except Azure built using open source. And even Azure treats open source technologies as first-class citizens on its platform. And open source dominates Big Data, with Hadoop and NoSQL technologies the major forces used for managing the world's data explosion.
Open source in 2015 is ubiquitous. Potentially every person benefiting from modern technology is also benefiting from open source solutions in some fashion. When you consider the international pool of developers contributing to the world's most popular open source projects, you have to wonder how they've been able to succeed without the benefit of managers, meetings, and code sprints. When I began researching how open source projects have succeeded, I realized they share a set of principles that could be considered the tenets of the open development method.
The tenets of the open development method
Code quality
As part of an open development method, code quality is king. You should be asking key questions every time you write code:
Is this code legible? Is this code testable? Is this code modular? Is this code economical?
Every question asked benefits not only you, but your team. When you write code in a such a way that another developer half a world away can sit down and start working on it immediately, without needing to ask any questions, you're helping improve your team's efficiency. Likewise, when you ensure your code is testable, you drastically cut down on the number of roadblocks your team may encounter. With modularity, you present code to your team that is both easily maintained and potentially recyclable for another project. And finally, economical code can save everyone—from your team and future contributors, to clients and end-users—both time and money.
Documentation
Developers do not necessarily enjoy documenting their code—that is no secret. Moreover, when they are subjected to the emergency room processes of a system such as Scrum, even if they wanted to document their code, chances are they will not have the time because priorities determined by the business often take precedence. The most significant piece of documentation you will write is your high-quality code, but that is not enough. Consider those who do not know the code, and those who have neither the time nor the desire to read it all. When your team focuses on documenting your projects appropriately, you are doing for your code the same thing that the popular TV show How It's Made does for its viewers by explaining away the complexities of your project and bringing it to a wider audience in an easier-to-digest fashion.
Testing
On a geographically diverse team in which you may not be able to receive help in real time, taking a test-first approach with code allows you to work with greater independence and fewer roadblocks. With testable code there are many benefits to consider. Let's take a look at Tim King's list of 12 tips from the Perl Shop:
Unit tests prove that your code actually works. You get a low-level regression-test suite. You can improve the design without breaking it. It's more fun to code with them than without. They demonstrate concrete progress. Unit tests are a form of sample code. It forces you to plan before you code. It reduces the cost of bugs. It's even better than code inspections. It virtually eliminates coder's block. Unit tests make better designs. It's faster than writing code without tests.
Discussions
Everyone should have a say when it comes to discussing your project and direction. Never discount the marketing coordinator, the account manager, and non-coding designers. Everything is open to discussion, and when everyone is on has access to one another without needing to go through a chain of command, some of the most ingenious ideas and solutions can be discovered.
Although a veteran developer may dominate discussions due to their expertise, never disregard the new developer who has different, fresh ideas. The TODO Group Open Source Code of Conduct outlines general expectations of the community of a project that we can also consider when participating in team discussions:
Be friendly and patient. Be welcoming. Be considerate. Be respectful. Be careful in the words that we choose. Try to understand why we disagree.
Transparency
Engendering user trust, promoting engagement with the community, and improving the security and stability of your project are traditionally considered separate goals on a roadmap for a project's success. But when your team embraces the open development method of transparency, all three goals can be achieved simultaneously.
From releasing a project's source code to making public the issue tracker and providing insights into internal processes and communications, the passion behind a project is apparent to anyone who comes in contact with it. When users and developers have access to these resources, your team will not only find many willing contributors, but greater respect and acceptance from the community. Transparency is a powerful marketing and working tool.
Asynchronicity
With startups, businesses, and open source projects distributing the workload to developers around the world, maintaining a certain level of synchronicity that a software development process like Scrum expects becomes difficult. For some groups, maintaining a daily Scrum meeting is unrealistic, and when you have five developers in five different countries, you can discount the possibility of paired programming. The software world today thrives on asynchronicity, and teams following the open development method can, too.
If someone has a question, he or she may send an email or post on a developer board with the expectation that their message will not get responded to for a while. Does that questioning developer stop their work? Not necessarily. With the need to be self-reliant and adaptable, developers can modify their expectations, focus on code quality, enhance their documentation, and improve their skills.
Democracy
In addition to open discussions and sharing ideas within a project community, community members should be involved with the decision-making process. When decisions get made by closed-door board meetings, executives, or managers (what I would call single points of failure), it is usually with a narrow and limited point of view. When everyone is involved in the decision process, including the end-user or client, potential issues that would otherwise fail to get identified have a greater chance of being resolved before they become problems.
Building the open development method together
Rather than allow only myself or a small number of people to develop this methodology, I believe the process should be as open and inclusive as any other open source project.
There may be several priorities that I have missed or points that need to be smoothed out, so please join me on GitHub, where I am continuing the discussion and working on creating a beautiful set of guidelines that will enable all development teams of all sizes to succeed. |
Share
Linkedin email Print
When Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI met with artists in the Sistine chapel in 2009, he noted that “an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy ‘shock,’ it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum.”[1] Artists are often among the first social commentators, who like the saints, see the depths of reality with piercing acuity. In the shadow of the Industrial Revolution, surrealist artists perceived the “unintended consequence” of mass production: alienation and fragmentation. Artists, like Rene Magritte, intuited the coming dissolution of human intimacy. “The Lovers” (1934) depicts a man and woman turned toward one another in an intimate embrace, and against the grey background their faces are shrouded in cloth. They kiss but their lips never touch and their eyes never meet. The viewer is “shocked” so to speak. Their kiss is a non-kiss, their embrace a non-embrace. Their intimacy is a simulacrum of intimacy, set against the dark sky—or is it smoke? The same year, Hans Bellmer’s, “The Doll,” shows a dissembled mannequin. Body parts are lumped together in a disarrayed heap.
In 1932, a few years before Magritte and Bellmer, Aldous Huxley published the dystopian masterpiece Brave New World. It is a foreboding literary critique of industrialization and the destruction of human community. The crisis goes all the way down to forgetting the language of marriage, motherhood, and fatherhood, and extends to the highest reaches of a culture which has turned against culture because technology no longer bends with the grain of the universe. Human beings are no longer created. They are decanted.
Artists can act as prophets who point to the consequences of technological advancement, which is nearly always tied to wealth, power, and prestige. I couldn’t help but think of this as I read the study published last week in the journal Nature Communications. Scientists from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) reported promising findings of research on the use of extracorporeal fetal support—artificial wombs. In Huxley’s Brave New World, Mr. Foster, a scientist and assistant director at the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, happily describes the process of mass-producing human beings:
“For of course,” said Mr. Foster, “in the vast majority of cases, fertility is merely a nuisance. One fertile ovary in twelve hundred—that would really be quite sufficient for our purposes. But we want to have a good choice. And of course one must always have an enormous margin of safety. So we allow as many as thirty percent of the female embryos to develop normally. The others get a dose of male sex-hormone every twenty-four meters for the rest of the course. Result: they’re decanted as freemartins—structurally quite normal (except,” he had to admit, “that they do have the slightest tendency to grow beards), but sterile. Guaranteed sterile. Which brings us at last,” continued Mr. Foster, “out of the realm of mere slavish imitation of nature into the much more interesting world of human invention.” He rubbed his hands. For of course, they didn’t content themselves with merely hatching out embryos: any cow could do that. “We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future. . . . ” He was going to say “future World controllers,” but correcting himself, said “future Directors of Hatcheries,” instead.[2]
This is not to say that artificial wombs are ipso facto unethical. Indeed, they are truly remarkable. Fetal surgeon and lead author Alan Flake and a team of scientists suspended eight fetal lambs, ranging in gestational age from 104 to 135 days, in extra-uterine devices called “Biobags.” Blood, oxygen, and fluids circulate into and out of sterile, airtight sacs, allowing the lambs to continue to gestate as they would in a ewe’s womb. The Biobag looks somewhat like a vacuum-sealed storage bag, except, instead of a bag of crushed clothing stuffed in the back of the closet and forgotten until next spring, fetal lambs receive the nutritional support required for lung and brain maturation. Over the course of four weeks one can observe the exterior markers of ongoing development—movement, an increase in size, the growth of wool coats, the opening and closing of eyes.
This technology has the potential to revolutionize the care of prematurely born infants. After abortion, extreme premature birth is the leading cause of infant death in the United States, and, according to the researchers, nearly half of cerebral palsy cases can be attributed to premature birth. Infants who survive extreme preterm birth often suffer the effects of organ immaturity and lung disease. Rather than spend weeks or even months in an incubator, premature infants could continue normal fetal development in an extra-uterine simulated womb. Under some limited conditions this technology has the potential to save human life at its most fragile and vulnerable.
Researchers were quick to point out that the “goal is not to extend the current limits of viability,” but to improve outcomes for infants who are cared for in neonatal intensive care units.”[3] Flake further emphasized, “I want to make this very clear: We have no intention and we’ve never had any intention with this technology of extending the limits of viability further back.”[4] Intention or not, news of this technological leap has raised multiple concerns. What might it mean to mechanize and thus eliminate women from pregnancy and childbirth, to unmake motherhood (and fatherhood)? How might it impact the already gaping disparities in healthcare between the wealthy and the poor?
Bioethicists are already expressing reservations about the dangers of humanizing prenatal human beings. Lehigh University bioethicist Dena Davis expressed her concern that this could blur the line between a fetus and a baby in an interview with NPR. “Up to now,” she said, “we’ve been either born or not born. This would be halfway born, or something like that. Think about that in terms of our abortion politics.”[5] The manifest logic of this statement fundamentally prioritizes the false logic of politics, which functions through the power of assertion, against seeing reality as it truly is. The introduction of the state of “halfway born” dislodges what has to date been one of the strongest political assertions of the pro-choice movement: the preborn fetus is not a baby. The fetus is not a human person and not a member of the human community. In other words, the fetus is disposable. The baby, on the other hand, is human, and makes a claim upon society. Though one might wonder if bioethicists who are sympathetic to this view have forgotten the practice of partial birth abortion, which permitted the preborn child to be “halfway born” and then terminated. Artificial wombs do reintroduce the possibility of a mediating, middle state, that of the half-born, and they will likely require pro-choice advocates to double down on the right of a woman to terminate nascent life, regardless of viability.
The insistence that artificial womb technology will never push the limits of viability to the point where woman’s bodies are functionally replaced by technology and human gestation becomes mechanized, merely because “when you do that you open a whole new can of worms,” rings hollow in an age governed by an ethos of “what we can do we may do.” Thus, when legitimate ethical concerns are met with dismissals like, “that’s a pipe dream at this point,” one ought to pay attention, not to the predicative “pipe dream,” but rather its qualifier, “at this point.”[6] Science has shown little interest in internally regulating itself. In fact, researchers are already looking to extending the technology beyond its clinical application, including isolation of the fetus for stem cell and gene therapy and the “intriguing experimental model for addressing fundamental questions regarding the role of the mother and placenta in fetal development.”[7]
Science, technology, and engineering progress often seem cloaked in an air of neutral inevitability. Yet, they too have built-in assumptions and predilections, such as the premise that what one can do one ought to do, or, the presumption that all knowledge can be secured empirically. Let me be clear: I am not arguing that science, technology, engineering, and math are ipso facto evils. Indeed, Pope Francis reminds us in his encyclical on the care for our common home that “technology has remedied countless evils which used to harm and limit human beings” (Laudato Si’, §102). But science and technology are also not purely objective, especially given the tendency “to make the method and aims of science and technology an epistemological paradigm” (LS §107). He further observes that when technological and scientific advances are linked with business interests they become weapons in the will-to-power:
Technology tends to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with technology “know full well that it moves forward in the final analysis neither for profit nor for the well-being of the human race,” that “in the most radical sense of the term power is its motive—a lordship over all.” As a result, “man seizes hold of the naked elements of both nature and human nature.” Our capacity to make decisions, a more genuine freedom and the space for each one’s alternative creativity are diminished. The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings (LS §§108-109).
Several years ago, I read a collection of Rowan Williams’ homilies. In one homily the former Archbishop of Canterbury recounted a moment during a recent pilgrimage to Bethlehem when he had cradled a newborn baby in his arms at Holy Family Hospital. The infant child was one among many who, abandoned by their mothers, received some of the best care in the entire region, costing hundreds of dollars a day. These children, the poorest of the poor, received the best medical care in the West Bank bese, as medical director, Dr. Robert Tabash, said (as he peered into an incubator in the hospital’s NICU), “the poor deserve the best.” Meditating on Dr. Tabash’s simple, piercing utterance, Williams declares:
I wonder if you can take in just how revolutionary it is. They do not deserve what’s left over when the more prosperous have had their fill, or what can be patched together on a minimal budget as some sort of damage limitation. And they don’t “deserve” the best because they’ve worked for it and everyone agrees they’ve earned it. They deserve it simply because their need is what it is and because where human dignity is least obvious it’s most important to make a fuss about it.[8]
Holy Family Hospital uses technology. Incubators were once, like artificial wombs, a new life-saving technology. Yet, it is clear that the hospital’s use of technological innovation is based on its obligation to serve the poorest of the poor, those who are weakest and most vulnerable. This is a vision that includes but also goes beyond do’s and don’t’s of contemporary bioethics. This is a vision in which we “make a fuss” about those who seem least important; it is a vision that doesn’t eschew science and technology wholesale, but places them in a broader vision of “progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral” (LS, §112). Absent such a way of seeing—absent a compelling and coherent account of the human person and the formation of practices grounded in the preferential option for the poor—technology’s dazzling power will continue to leave us unable to render coherent judgments about its role in culture and society.
Featured Image: Leonard da Vinci, Studies of Embryos, 1513. Source: Wikimedia Commons, PD-Old-100.
[1] Benedict XVI, “Meeting with Artists,” https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2009/november/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20091121_artisti.html
[2] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 13.
[3] Alan Flake, et. al., “An Extra-Uterine System to Physiologically Support the Extreme Premature Lamb,” in Nature Communications 8, April 25, 2017, Accessed Online: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Rob Stein, “Scientists Create Artificial Womb That Could Help Prematurely Born Babies,” in All Things Considered (NPR), April 25, 2017, Accessed Online: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/04/25/525044286/scientists-create-artificial-womb-that-could-help-prematurely-born-babies.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Flake, et. al., op. cit.
[8] Rowan Williams, “The Poorest Deserve the Best,” in Choose Life (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 41. |
The latest Reason-Rupe poll finds that when it comes to kids and their trophies, 57 percent of Americans think only the winning players should receive them. Another 40 percent say all kids on a sport team should receive a trophy for their participation.
The desire for “every kid to get a trophy” strongly correlates with political beliefs. Fully 66 percent of Republicans want only the kids who win to receive trophies, while 31 percent say all kids on the team should receive them. In contrast, Democrats are evenly divided with 48 percent who say all kids, and another 48 percent who say only the winners should receive a trophy.
The competitive desire for winners to be rewarded correlates with fiscal conservatism. Among those who only think winners should get a trophy, 64 percent have a favorable view of capitalism, 64 percent thinks markets better solve problems than government, and 63 percent favor smaller government providing fewer services. In contrast, among those who think all kids should get a trophy, a plurality (49%) have an unfavorable view of capitalism, 50 percent thinks a strong government better solves problems than the free market, and 54 percent favor larger government providing more services.
Support for participation trophies declines with income, education and age. For instance, a majority (55%) of those making less than $30,000 a year want all kids to get trophies and 42 percent want only the winning players to receive them. In contrast, among those making $90,000 a year or more, 72 percent want only the winner to receive trophies, while 26 percent favor participation trophies.
Those with high school degrees or less are divided 49 to 48 in favor of participation trophies. But 67 percent of college graduates support only winners getting trophies, while 29 percent want all kids to get one.
Among 18-24 year olds, 51 percent say all kids should get a trophy, but this declines to 43 percent among 25-34 year olds, 39 percent among 35-54 year olds, and 29 percent among seniors.
Gender and race/ethnic differences also emerge when it comes to trophy allocation. Women are slightly more likely then men (44 to 35 percent) to say all kids should get a trophy. However, more significant differences emerge among race/ethnic groups. Fully 63 percent of Caucasians say only the winning players should get trophies, while 34 percent say all kids. Conversely, 56 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics say all kids should get a trophy, while 42 percent say only the winners.
UPDATE: New chart added on trophy preferences and views on size of government, markets, and capitalism. |
SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology.
It’s been a busy summer for computer security mavens. The U.S. and China locked horns on cyber espionage, Edward Snowden allegedly leaked classified intelligence about National Security Agency (NSA) monitoring programs that target communication networks, and the Cobalt malware took 13 U.S. oil refineries offline. If you missed that last one, that’s because it was fictional—a scenario created for a student cyber attack challenge held on June 15 at American University in Washington, D.C.
The event was a sort of a hybrid Model U.N. hackathon cyber war games exercise, involving 65 college and graduate students (including myself) who are training for careers as future cyber warriors and policy makers. In many ways the Cyber 9/12 Student Challenge mirrors the U.S. government’s own Cyber Storm exercises, with the important exception that the student exercise isn’t mandated by Congress to strengthen cyber preparedness in the public and private sectors.
The Cobalt malware—an invention of the Atlantic Council, which hosted the event—was fake, but its target was a real-life vulnerability: the U.S. energy infrastructure, specifically the oil refineries and pipelines that produce and transport gasoline and other refined fuel products all across the country. Almost any discussion or description of a doomsday cyber scenario involves an attack on U.S. critical infrastructure. You can see this play out in the Cyber Storm exercises hosted every few years by the Department of Homeland Security for government and industry organizations to practice cyber threat responses. In three simulations that took place in 2006, 2008 and 2010, catastrophic cyber attacks caused clear and serious physical damage. A computer virus that turns off the lights, shuts down the telephone system and halts military operations could cost lives.
To date, intentional computer-based attacks that have direct physical impacts have been few and far between, so far as we know. That doesn’t mean these scenarios couldn’t happen in real life, or that there aren’t real and serious vulnerabilities in the country’s critical infrastructure networks. There is a perception that we haven’t yet experienced such a catastrophe because of a combination of luck and the reluctance on the part of nations, militias and other entities capable of launching a cyber attack to set a dangerous precedent. In 2011, for instance, news outlets reported that the Obama administration decided against infiltrating the computer systems of the Libyan government to interfere with their military communications and air-defense system due to concerns about whether other nations might follow suit as well as uncertainty surrounding whether such measures required Congressional approval. The Stuxnet worm that in 2010 struck Iranian nuclear facilities, causing centrifuges to speed up, thereby interrupting the uranium enrichment process essential for the development of nuclear technology, is the exception, judging by unclassified knowledge.
At the Atlantic Council’s event, there was a strong sense that a successful cyber attack on U.S. critical infrastructure is inevitable. There’s also a pervasive fear that when (or if) such an attack occurs, the U.S. is primed to overreact. Department of Defense announcements that they intend to view cyber attacks as “acts of war” suggest a military force nearly itching to flex its muscle in response to a serious computer network–based disruption, if only as a means of deterrence. Cybersecurity professionals—not to mention students hoping to work in the field someday—can also have an incentive to trumpet the threat of cyber attack that at times may heighten the risk of overreaction. At least five times over the course of the daylong cyber challenge, we were reminded by presiding officials how crucially important the work we’re doing is, and how desperately the country needs people like us.
Concerns about overreaction and the use of military force in response to digital intrusions often lead to discussions about the difficulty surrounding definitive attribution of these types of attack. If you want to retaliate, how do you know whom to hit? In our exercise intelligence pointed to Russia, but the evidence wasn’t clear-cut.
Most teams urged against retaliating in kind with a comparable cyber attack or to exercising traditional military power. Cobalt was not devastating, and Russia was not clearly the culprit. Several groups advocated diplomatic engagement, echoing the approach taken by the actual U.S. government just one week earlier during the informal summit between President Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Rancho Mirage, Calif., where cyber espionage was among the topics discussed.
But, again, espionage is not the nightmare scenario—nor is the shutdown of 13 oil refineries. Still, halfway through the student competition in Washington, D.C., when the scenario was updated with new (fake) intelligence indicating a severe escalation of the Cobalt situation, policy recommendations began to veer more toward displays of cyber and physical force by the U.S. military.
The update was alarming: three oil pipelines in the Gulf coast region had been shut down, following malfunctions, and several other pipelines in the region were taken off-line to search for Cobalt infections. Meanwhile, supervisory control and data acquisition system vendors in the U.S. and Germany were experiencing a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, and several terminals and servers in Russia had been identified as responsible for both the DDoS attacks and activation of the Cobalt malware. The stock market was dropping like a rock, and several private sector firms appeared poised to carry out their own form of vigilante retaliation against Russia by trying to identify and penetrate or cut off the responsible parties’ servers and networks.
The teams had to come up with a response to this escalation within hours. The time pressure was intense, and as the situation grew more serious, the consensus for diplomatic engagement dissolved. The 19 groups suddenly diverged considerably about what the proper response should be. The 65 students, all in their mid- to late 20s, wearing business suits and military uniforms, filled every open classroom in the American University’s School of International Service, whispering feverishly about whether the U.S. should launch a DDoS attack of its own, bomb the Kremlin, invoke Article 5 of NATO to set in motion a collective defense by U.S. allies, or to authorize the members of the private sector to exact their own revenge by working among themselves to shut off connectivity to pieces of the network carrying malicious traffic or to infiltrate or flood the responsible servers.
What does this say about how the U.S. government would respond to such a situation? The recent cases of high-volume espionage of China, which are considerably less intrusive than the fictional Cobalt attacks, don’t give us much to go on. Would the U.S. stick to diplomacy or turn bellicose?
The more important question is how well prepared will the U.S. be if and when an attack comes? Considering how a cyber attack would play out in the heat of the moment may be more exciting than the reality, because by the time an attack occurs many of the options may be practically preordained by the security controls we have in place. Preparation determines the quality, agility and sophistication of answers to mundane but important questions: What kinds of security standards are in place for critical infrastructure networks? Who sets them? Who enforces them? What threat information do companies and government agencies share with one another? How do they share this data—and how quickly? The ability to answer these questions will ultimately determine the impact of a large-scale, sophisticated computer network breach. And because the Pentagon has asserted that its response will be commensurate to the impact of an attack, rather than the means, how effectively we prepare will play a major role in influencing what our response ultimately looks like.
We may soon know what the U.S. government would do. Many people in the field are expecting to see a major breach soon. As former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden predicted in his keynote remarks to the students at the cyber challenge, “By the time you do this next year, you won’t have to be so imaginative in creating the scenario.” |
From Reader Mikeemisme, Kindly requested before my hiatus:
Most people don’t succeed because they don’t even try. Now there’s something to be said about refining yourself, but after a certain point you just need to *do*
Imagine the young aspiring athlete who spends hours reading about workouts and proper free-throw shooting technique, but never steps into the gym. Or the man who wants to start his business, but never moves past multiple readings of how to start a business. Or, worse yet, the man that studies the act of approaching people in public, but (you guessed it) never approaches anyone in public.
To all these, I ask: what are these people waiting for?
To you, I ask: what are YOU waiting for?
I can just hear the excuses now:
I’m just not ready yet: Truth is, you will never be 100% ready. But I’ll tell you what: making a move when you’re 10% ready beats the daylights out of never starting. If you never start, consider yourself a Zero Percenter.
I’m waiting for the right time: All things considered, there is no right time. So why not wait after making a move? Instead of waiting to start your business, start your business and wait. Instead of looking for that perfect window to speak to someone, just speak to them and see where things go.
If you’re dealing with a time-sensitive discipline, such as investing, then there may be a favorable time after all. But in the meantime, ask yourself what practical steps you can take right now. The answer might just surprise you.
I have no idea what I’m doing: That’s good, because doing is practice. When you figure out where you went wrong, you can go back to the drawing board, in the aim to adjust later. This is a successful method of mixing in theory & practice.
I’m just lazy: Make a to-do list. Keep it short, 3 to 5 items. Do them, check off, repeat. This will form a habit and push you into unthinking, machine-like productivity.
Is there an excuse I missed? Post it below. To the rest of you: go forth and do good. |
Together, we can do more to help horses
Horse Hero Gone
update January 17, 2017
Justin Nelzen became the nation’s horse hero when he saved over 25 horses from Houston’s raging floods last spring. Now, he is gone.
Nelzen, 40, died Wednesday, January 11, in Montgomery, TX. Authorities haven’t released a cause of death.
“They wouldn’t let me see him or touch him. I begged and begged,” his mother Tami Nelzen says in an exclusive interview with Rate My Horse PRO.
It may be weeks before we know how Nelzen died.
“I don’t understand why they won’t tell me what the hell happened,” Tami Nelzen adds.
She suspects there could be foul play.
Nelzen was a single father of two children, a girl, 14, and boy, 13. The children were with their mother at the time of his death.
Nelzen celebrated at a party with friends a day before he died and posed for a silly photo with his horses.
A veteran of the Navy, Nelzen lived life to the fullest with a smile, despite serving in Afghanistan. His mom says, “he probably suffered from some post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), like every one of them does, but he never showed it”.
Nelzen trained endurance horses, which took him to Dubai and Mongolia, where he won the 650-mile Mongol Derby.
Nelzen also worked as a farrier.
CNN included a photo of Nelzen saving one of the drowning horses in its ‘year in pictures, the moments that shaped 2016’.
“We were so proud,” his mom adds. “His biggest accomplishment was him being himself. He was proof of a life lived.”
Nelzen’s mom says he paid off his truck last month, had his goal list next to his bed and was looking at buying some property. His life was on track.
“This shouldn’t have happened to him,” Nelzen cries. “He was a loving, caring, Christian man.”
Family and friends will celebrate Nelzen’s life Friday, January 20 at 1 PM at Magnolia Cowboy Church at 2347 Glenmont Estates in Magnolia. |
The largest fast food restaurant chain in the Philippines, with stores in the United States but none yet in Illinois, is set to come to Skokie.
The Skokie Plan Commission Feb. 5 recommended five measures associated with new additions to the Touhy Marketplace shopping center, one of them a Jollibee restaurant.
Beginning as an ice cream parlor, Jollibee has rapidly grown both in scope of its product and geography. In addition to 750 Filipino restaurants and stores, Jollibee has either expanded or has plans to do so in the United States, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei.
"At the heart of its success," the company states, "is a family-oriented approach to personnel management, making Jollibee one of the most admired employers in the region."
The restaurant, alongside a new Just Tires automotive store, would fill out Touhy Marketplace, which is anchored by a prototype Walmart store that opened last year. The Skokie Village Board will vote on the measures at an upcoming meeting.
Located on the village's east side on the 3500 block of Touhy, the shopping center is part of a rejuvenated area in the village that has been converted from industrial to commercial in recent years.
Heading east from the shopping center is an X-Sport Fitness and then a new shopping center to be anchored by a Mariano's grocery store currently being built.
Preliminary plans called for a medical facility to be part of the site, but that did not pan out, said Touhy Marketplace representatives.
"We collectively had a vision for this parcel," said Peter Eisenberg of Clark Street Real Estate, which owns the 1.7-acre shopping center property. "As time went on, we found that the medical office wasn't necessarily viable. The user was no longer interested."
Instead, Jollibee and Just Tires would occupy the final out-lot on the site. Jollibee is the second restaurant for Touhy Marketplace, joining M Burger, Lettuce Entertain You's first drive-through restaurant.
For the project to move forward, the Village Board has to sign off on special use permits for the Jollibee and Just Tires, a special use permit to allow for outdoor dining at Jollibee, a change in the overall site plan for Touhy Marketplace property and subdividing the final parcel.
The only point of contention between the applicant and the village is a recommendation by the Appearance Commission over the Jollibee corporate logo, an anthropomorphic bee.
Under Jollibee's plans, the logo is located on a separate wall. To relocate the logo where the Appearance Commission suggests would mean moving it above the drive-through.
"We don't want the Jollibee logo confused with drive-through," said lawyer Steven Elrod. "That's very important to the North America corporate headquarters."
The Plan Commission made no recommendation on this detail, which ultimately will be settled at the Village Board level.
The Jollibee restaurant would occupy 42,000 square feet and remain open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Just Tires, which sells tires and performs routine maintenance and automotive repairs, would have seven bays.
Plan Commissioner Scott Berman raised concern about the location of the restaurant in relation to Just Tires.
"Pleased as I am with the entire development — Walmart included but also Jollibee — I thought that the look from the Jollibee entrance to the garage bays was not the most sightly thing," he said.
But project representatives downplayed the issue, maintaining there would be plenty of space between the two buildings. No matter what, customers would be looking at some building there, Elrod said, and the Just Tires cannot be moved.
The restaurant entrance, they corrected, would not be facing the Just Tires although they acknowledged there would be some view of the building from inside the restaurant.
"We are not concerned about it and Jollibee is not concerned about it," Elrod said. "We think we have a good, solid plan." |
Years ago, I worked for a company headquarted in Louisville, Kentucky, a state whose God-fearing people are proud of the vices that make up their heritage. There's gambling on some of the best horse racing in the world, fine bourbon (except in dry counties), and tobacco.
So I should not have been surprised at the reaction of a coffee-shop hostess in Louisville one morning when I asked for a seat in the no-smoking section.
She cocked her head, looked at me quizzically, and said, "Honey, if you don't wanna smoke, just don't smoke."
I think about that exchange every time I hear someone complaining about how awful Windows 8 is, how it's a catastrophe and a disaster. Maybe even a disastrophe.
And I just want to say: "Honey, if you don’t want to upgrade, just don’t upgrade."
There’s a reason Microsoft supports its operating system releases for 10 full years. They know that you might have any number of reasons to skip a Windows release. Maybe it’s incompatible with a business-critical app, maybe you want to align software upgrades with your hardware purchase cycle, maybe you’re just cheap. Doesn’t matter.
The copy of Windows 7 you're running today did not stop working when Windows 8 was released to the public in October 2012. It will continue to be supported for an additional seven years, with mainstream support until January 2015 and extended support until 2020.
During that time, Microsoft will probably release Windows 9 and Windows 10 and be well on the way to Windows 11. Yes, thanks to Microsoft's extended support lifecycle you will probably be able to upgrade from Windows 7 directly to Windows 11.
At the moment, Microsoft is supporting four releases of desktop Windows. For reference, here are the end-of-support dates for all currently supported Windows versions:
Windows XP SP3: April 8, 2014
Windows Vista SP2: April 11, 2017
Windows 7 SP1: January 14, 2020
Windows 8: January 10, 2023
(In case you're wondering, yes, Microsoft has a formal definition of "supported.")
Furthermore, you’ll still be able to buy Windows 7 PCs for at least two more years. Microsoft’s sales lifecycle for Windows (which is different from its support lifecycle) specifies that retailers will be able to sell the boxed version of Windows 7 until at least October 25, 2013, and OEMs can sell PCs with Windows 7 pre-loaded until October 25, 2014.
If Windows 8 gets any pushback from consumers and small businesses, we could see big OEMs continuing to offer Windows 7 as an option on its non-touch-enabled PCs for two more years, with Windows 8 as the default option for tablets and touch-enabled PCs.
And on top of all that, you and your business have downgrade rights. When purchased with a new PC, Windows 8 Pro incorporates license terms similar to those of its predecessors, including the right to downgrade to Windows 7 Professional. When you buy a new PC with Windows 8 Pro installed, you can legally replace it with a copy of Windows 7 Professional.
For a detailed analysis of Windows 8 licensing, including downgrade rights for OEM copies of Windows 8 Pro, see this post: How the new Windows 8 license terms affect you.
So relax. You have at least eight years left before you need to leave the comfort of the Windows 7 desktop and say goodbye to the Start menu.
Want help with Windows 8 upgrades and installation? See also: |
This hands down is the must attend conference of the year if you are serious about the industry. Trust me, I’ve attended them all at some point – but this one is the one I won’t miss. - Attendee from Colorado
The conference is so valuable because it gets everyone in the industry to meet new people in the industry or just shore up relationships that are already going. It also lets you see everything that is in the industry from grow rooms, lights, extractors, and so on. - Attendee from Florida
They put much more time into planning the workshops and presentations than other conferences I have attended. - Attendee from Alaska
This is my 5th MJBizCon that I have attended. This industry is moving very fast and each year the game has been stepped up. Every year I have been able to add at least one new technological advancement to our company that we were introduced to at this meeting. - Attendee from Arizona |
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was a guest speaker at the Ohio State coaching clinic and he discussed the character traits he looks for in his players. With the NFL draft fast approaching, it’s important to understand what the Patriots are looking for in a prospect.
“For me, tough, smart, dependable,” Belichick said, via ESPN’s Mike Reiss. “That’s where I would start. Tough -- mentally and physically. Smart -- good decisions, good football understanding, high football IQ. Dependable -- [in] critical situations, you can count on those players to perform under pressure. You can count on those players to execute what you want to execute as a team. The tougher the game, the more critical the game, the more important the situation, the more I want the tough, smart, dependable player in the game, in the eye of the storm, making a decision that needs to be made for us to win.”
Belichick has often said that availability is more important than ability, and “availability” seems to represent a perfect marriage of a player being tough and dependable, as well as smart with preparing and taking care of his body.
The players that often find themselves in the dog house are those that either suffer a major breakdown at a critical point, or they are repeat violators of mistake. Belichick expects his players to take his criticism and advice and to incorporate it into their game. Those that don’t will not see the field, even if they are more talented than the player Belichick uses instead.
We saw players like Jabaal Sheard and Cyrus Jones and Jamie Collins benched over the course of the 2016 season and there’s no question that they’re more talented than some of their back-ups. Sheard is better than Rob Ninkovich, Cyrus Jones is better on defense than Jonathan Jones, and Collins is better than whatever person the Patriots pulled out of the stands to play on Sunday.
But Ninkovich is always available (apart from his four-game suspension in 2016) and despite his physical limitations, he rarely makes mental mistakes, Jonathan Jones was a special teams stud and was better at his job than Cyrus Jones was at his, and Jamie Collins was not following the coaching commands as well as Belichick would have liked.
There’s a reason the Patriots often draft college captains and it’s because they usually come ready-made with those three important traits as leaders of their respective teams. Patriots captains like Tom Brady and Dont’a Hightower and Devin McCourty are regarded as geniuses at their respective crafts and often help out other players at learning their jobs.
For the Patriots, the mind is more important than the physical athleticism. |
Obama’s Unconstitutional War
In taking the country into a war with Libya, Barack Obama’s administration is breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency — an executive who increasingly acts independently of Congress at home and abroad. Obtaining a U.N. Security Council resolution has legitimated U.S. bombing raids under international law. But the U.N. Charter is not a substitute for the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress, not the president, the power "to declare war."
After the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which granted the president the power to act unilaterally for 60 days in response to a "national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." The law gave the chief executive an additional 30 days to disengage if he failed to gain congressional assent during the interim.
But, again, these provisions have little to do with the constitutionality of the Libyan intervention, since Libya did not attack our "armed forces." The president failed to mention this fundamental point in giving Congress notice of his decision on Monday, in compliance with another provision of the resolution. Without an armed "attack," there is no compelling reason for the president to cut Congress out of a crucial decision on war and peace.
This is particularly striking since, in the Libyan case, the president had plenty of time to get congressional support. A broad coalition — from Senator John McCain to Senator John Kerry — could have been mobilized on behalf of a bipartisan resolution as the administration engaged in the necessary international diplomacy. But apparently Obama thought it more important to lobby the Arab League than the U.S. Congress.
In cutting out Congress, Obama has overstepped even the dubious precedent set when President Bill Clinton bombed Kosovo in 1999. Then, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel asserted that Congress had given its consent by appropriating funds for the Kosovo campaign. It was a big stretch, given the actual facts — but Obama can’t even take advantage of this same desperate expedient, since Congress has appropriated no funds for the Libyan war. The president is simply using money appropriated to the Pentagon for general purposes to conduct the current air campaign.
The War Powers Resolution doesn’t authorize a single day of Libyan bombing. But it does provide an escape hatch, stating that it is not "intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President." So it’s open for Obama to assert that his power as commander in chief allows him to wage war without Congress, despite the Constitution’s insistence to the contrary.
Many modern presidents have made such claims, and Harry Truman acted upon this assertion in Korea. But it’s surprising to find Obama on the verge of ratifying such precedents. He was elected in reaction to the unilateralist assertions of John Yoo and other apologists for George W. Bush-era illegalities. Yet he is now moving onto ground that even Bush did not occupy. After a lot of talk about his inherent powers, Bush did get Congress to authorize his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, Obama is putting Bush-era talk into action in Libya — without congressional authorization.
The president’s insistence that his Libyan campaign is limited in its purposes and duration is no excuse. These are precisely the issues that he should have defined in collaboration with Congress. Now that he claims inherent power, why can’t he redefine U.S. objectives on his own? No less important, what is to stop some future president from using Obama’s precedent to justify even more aggressively unilateral actions?
The buck stops on Capitol Hill. As always, presidential unilateralism puts Congress in a tough position. It cannot afford to cut off funds immediately and put the lives of Americans, and U.S. allies, in danger. But it can pass a bill denying future funding after three months. This would prevent the president from expanding the mission unless he can gain express congressional consent.
The U.S. Congress should also take more fundamental steps to bring the imperial presidency under control. In the aftermath of Watergate, Congress went beyond the War Powers Resolution to enact a series of framework statutes that tried to impose the rule of law on a runaway presidency. Many of these statutes have failed to work as planned, but they were the product of a serious investigation led by Senator Frank Church and Representative Otis Pike during the 1970s. A similar inquest is imperative today. In many respects, Bush’s war on terrorism was a more sweeping breach of constitutional norms than anything Richard Nixon attempted in Watergate. Yet Congress has been silent, trusting Obama to clean house on his own.
The president has shown, by his actions, that this trust is not justified. If Congress fails to respond, we have moved one large step further down the path to a truly imperial presidency. |
Hey everyone, Alexicon1 here with a brand new gameplay guide! Today I’ll be taking you through how to play the first turn of a game, including strategies at the replace screen and how to get the most out of your mulligans. NOTE: This guide is aimed at beginners, so more experienced players may not get as much value as newer players. I’ll be breaking this down into sections for going first (Player 1) as well as going second (Player 2), so I’ll have all the bases covered.
Quite often the mulligan screen can decide or at least contribute to how matches will play out, especially if your deck is not optimised to have something for the early game (See the guide here for tips on how to do this and other deckbuilding stuffs). Drawing too many high-cost cards can instantly put you on the back foot, especially if you are going first. The replace feature is a unique aspet of Duelyst, and can be very, very helpful to get you back on your feet if the RNG Gods aren’t in your favour when you draw those first 5 cards.
For both going P1 and P2, you want to try and get a 2-drop first and foremost, but P2 doesn’t need to rely on it as much if they can get their hands on a 3-drop. Be aware of your curve and prioritise your positioning based on what you have in your hand, so don’t try and contest mana tiles if it will put you in harm’s way and then not use the mana. But I’m not here for a positioning guide, so let’s continue.
We’re going to be using PandaJJ’s Healing Tempo Argeon deck that currently rests atop the Tier List on bagoum.com as a basis for this guide, and you can find the deck here. This is an extremely powerful deck that utilises many aspects of the Lyonar Kingdoms in order to quickly beat you down. But I’m not here for a deck tech either, let’s get into the guide!
Player One
So we have 3 different opening hands below, some good, some bad. One of these is the one I’ll be starting from for this section of the guide, so take a guess and I’ll tell you below, so stop scrolling if you want to have a go!
I chose the third one, and before you disagree with me, yes, the first one is also good depending on what you want to do. The Azurite Lion is a beautiful T1 play if unanswered, and can quite often bait dispel/removal and allows you to ramp to 4 mana and still get a move in, like a Holy Immolation to the face. A Holy Immo’ed Azurite Lion in the early game can completely remove your opponent’s board and put them on the back foot which is what Tempo Lyonar is all about. The 2 Slos are also nice for ramping, but 2 aren’t really needed, so we’ll send one of those to the Spiral. Bloodtear is good for early game pinging, especially against Abyssian with their Abyssal Crawlers, Gloomchasers and Wraithling Swarms so we can keep that. Repulsor is nice, but unneeded so early as Abyssian can’t put out big minions on the first turn or two without utilising Darkfire Sacrifice. We could keep it as removal, but I’d rather mulligan for a Holy Immolation for the early swarm plays of Lilithe.
However, you should keep in mind that the cards that you would replace for one matchup can change depending on the matchup. Like I said above, Abyssian doesn’t put out massive threats early, but factions such as Lyonar and Magmar with their Silverguard Knights and Sunsteel Defenders respectively make Repulsor Beast good to have in hand, so always keep your eye on the matchup when deciding what to mulligan. Player 1 has more reliance on 2-drops as they obviously start with 2 mana, and with Repulsor Beast in hand, it would lower the chance of getting a 2-drop if we didn’t already have one.
We’re tossing away the Repulsor and one Slo, preferably to pick up a Holy Immolation and either a source of card draw (which in this deck is a Trinity Oath) or some healing, such as Azure Herald or Healing Mystic. Perhaps another 2-drop wouldn’t go amiss, such as a Windblade Adept, or something like a Silverguard Knight in order to lock down your opponent. It is quite likely we won’t get what we wanted, but always remember that Replace can be used every turn, even turn 1, so you can always switch out the card you least want out of the two you get from the mulligan. Also, remember that you don’t always need to get rid of two, or you could even get a god hand and not need to replace at all. The chances of these increase as the optimisation of your deck increases, so try and fine-tune your deck to up the chances of the amazing starts happening as much as possible.
With the low curve of Tempo Argeon, it’s quite common that first hands have multiple possibilities, and with Slo we could play up to 3 cards this turn. However, as we have no card-draw in hand, it is definitely ill-advised to do that. We’ve drawn Arclyte Regalia and Windblade Adept, which is nothing to complain about, especially if Azurite Lion escapes removal as we can ramp to 4 mana, play Arclyte and clear the majority of 2 and 3 drops that are played on the manatile. Windblade Adept could also be played in order to potentially bait out a Daemonic Lure, which is quite a common play.
Additionally, if we had drawn a Silverguard Knight after our mulligan, I would have been tempted to use the Scientist Opener as it is such a strong beginning. The Bloodtear is just plain good for utility, and the Slo can be used in place of the Azurite Lion moving onto the manatile, which allows the Lion to sink at least 4 points of damage into the opponent. Feel free to think about what you think your best play would be, but for me, I went with the Azurite Lion bottom-right to contest the tile, as you can see below.
In my opinion, this is the optimal play as it opens up so many possibilities on what we could do next turn, it allows us to ramp, or clear an early Wraithling Swarm and much more. If the opponent doesn’t want their board cleared straight after they play it, which is likely as the Lion has Celerity, they could use some precious removal on a two drop, and you can ramp to 4 mana anyway using Slo. It really is a win-win situation. If you have other ideas on why other cards would be better plays, feel free to let me know in the comments. Now, we’ll move on to the other half of the coin, and see what you can do as Player 2!
I’ll see you next time for Part 2 of the article, where we’ll go through what to do as Player 2 in those opening moves.
Until next time,
Alexicon1 |
Scientists investigated an unusual ring of stones that was discovered in the Chilcotin Range of British Columbia and concluded that the stone circle was likely deposited by glacial activity and is not of human origin. The results of their research were published in the December 2011 issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.
The ring of stones is composed of white colored felsite rocks that are high in silica. The stones are arranged in circle nearly 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter above the tree line along the Chilcotin Range in British Columbia, Canada. The white rocks stand out in stark contrast to the other darker rocks in the region, which are composed of granitoid gneiss and grandodiorite. The circle can be seen easily from the air and by viewing the terrain on Google Earth.
Many stone circles were created by humans during prehistoric times (approximately 3700 BC to 1500 BC). Archeologists believe that these circles were created either for use in religious ceremonies or as an aid in making astronomical observations. Europe contains a high number of stone circles of human origin, but examples of these structures can be found in other regions of the world as well.
Michael Czajkowski of The Open University in the U.K. and Andrew Okulitch of the Geological Survey of Canada examined over 400 square kilometers of the area surrounding the stone circle in British Columbia at the request of Chris Czajkowski, who first noticed the unusual structure. They found a few vaguely circular features but none with the distinctive color contrast of the stone circle that they were investigating. Because of the lack of similar stone circles in the region and the low likelihood that people occupied or traveled through the region when the stone circle was formed, the scientists believe that stone circle was not created by humans.
Additionally, the scientists did not find any evidence that smaller stones were stacked upon larger stones in the circle, which is thought to be a common feature of stone circles created by humans according to the scientists. Instead, they observed larger rocks overlaying smaller stones.
Czajkowski and Okulitch hypothesize that the stone circle was likely created during a period of deglaciation, when great sheets of ice were retreating from this area. As ice sheets retreat, rocks and debris are occasionally deposited in shapes known as circular moraine features. These features form when debris slides down cones of unmelted ice to form a circle on the ground. Minturn circles are another type of glacial deposit that can form when ice sheets retreat. These circular features are created by meltwater streams. While the stone circle discovered in British Columbia isn’t completely similar to circular moraine features – the circle is about 3 to 5 times larger than most moraine deposits – and the scientists found no conclusive evidence that meltwater streams created minturn circles in the region, the scientists point to the occurrence of these naturally created circular glacial deposits as evidence that a glacial origin for the stone circle is a strong possibility.
Bottom line: Michael Czajkowski of The Open University in the U.K. and Andrew Okulitch of the Geological Survey of Canada investigated a large circle of white stones in the Chilcotin Range of British Columbia. The scientists determined the stone circle was likely deposited by glacial activity and is not of human origin. The results of their research were published in the December 2011 issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.
Update: This article was updated on February 14, 2012 to reflect Chris Czajkowski’s contributions to the findings.
Jay Zwally: World’s fastest glacier doubled speed in past decade |
In 1902 a U.S. Army captain wrote a letter to The New York Times about allegations that American soldiers had used an interrogation technique known as "the water cure" on Philippine insurgents. He claimed "unauthorized methods" had been used only against members of armed groups that were essentially criminal gangs. "From the results obtained it became simply a case where the end justifies the means," he wrote. "A legitimate combatant was never ill-treated."
That letter, quoted by law of war scholar Evan Wallach in a recent Columbia Journal of Transnational Law article, anticipated the arguments the Bush administration would employ a century later to defend its use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding. One crucial difference is that the Bush administration pretends waterboarding is perfectly legal.
That stance put attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey in a bit of a spot. During his confirmation hearings he acknowledged that torture is not only illegal but unconstitutional. He also said the president is not at liberty simply to ignore statutory and constitutional restrictions on the treatment of detainees, even if he thinks doing so is necessary to protect national security.
Since the CIA has used waterboarding on suspected terrorists, calling it a form of torture would implicate not only interrogators but superiors who authorized the technique, possibly including President Bush, in federal crimes. Investigating your boss is not the most auspicious way to start a new job.
Not surprisingly, Mukasey decided to reserve judgment on the question of whether the CIA's waterboarding qualifies as torture. He pleaded ignorance of the details and emphasized the need to avoid an "uninformed legal opinion based on hypothetical facts and circumstances."
That stance sounded reasonable but seemed less so upon reflection. As Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who turned against Mukasey's confirmation over this issue, put it, "No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture."
Federal law defines torture as an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." It defines "severe mental pain or suffering" as "the prolonged mental harm" caused by, among other things, "the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering" or "the threat of imminent death."
Is there any way that tying someone down, tipping him backward, covering his face with cloth or plastic, and pouring water over him to produce the sensations of drowning would not qualify as torture? What classified detail could redeem a method Mukasey himself called "repugnant" and "over the line"?
As Wallach shows in his journal article, "U.S. courts have consistently held artificial drowning interrogation is torture." Military tribunals have punished Japanese soldiers for doing it to Americans, and U.S. courts have called it torture in criminal prosecutions of police officers and in a lawsuit against former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.
The technique, variations of which date back at least to the Spanish Inquisition, is also known as "water torture," a term that clarifies the current debate. In essence, the Bush administration's defenders are declaring, "Water torture is not torture."
What they really mean, I think, is that sometimes torture is justified. If a detainee may have information that could be used to prevent a terrorist attack, for instance, isn't waterboarding the lesser of two evils? As that Army captain put it in 1902, doesn't the end justify the means?
I'm inclined to think it doesn't, not least because a government that asserts the authority to eavesdrop on people at will and imprison them at will is apt to make some terrible mistakes if it also has the authority to torture them at will. But this is an argument about what the law should be, not an argument about what it is.
The Bush administration has a tendency to confuse those two issues. Mukasey's unanticipated trouble on the way to confirmation reflects the expectation that the nation's chief law enforcement official will resist that tendency.
© Copyright 2007 by Creators Syndicate Inc. |
BLACKBURN Rovers have re-signed Marvin Emnes on loan.
The Dutch striker makes a second move from Swansea City on a deal until the end of the season.
MORE TOP STORIES: Pensioner kicked and punched by gang in park bowling club attack
Dad-of-four caught with stun gun and £25k of cocaine
Blackburn station lines reopen after signalling problems
Does a sex offender live near me? How to find out if your neighbour is a paedophile
Emnes initially joined on deadline day at the end of August, making an immediate impression, with three goals in his first five Rovers outings, including a stunning strike against tomorrow's opponents Leeds United in the reverse league fixture at Elland Road.
Able to play anywhere across the front line, the tricky 28-year-old went on to make 20 appearances for Rovers in the first half of the season, before returning to his parent club at the turn of the year.
Swansea City have given permission for the fans favourite to play for Rovers in the FA Cup. |
Abstract
Prior studies indicate psychiatric symptoms such as depression, apathy and anxiety are risk factors for or prodromal symptoms of incipient Alzheimer’s disease. The study of persons at 50% risk for inheriting autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease mutations allows characterization of these symptoms before progressive decline in a population destined to develop illness. We sought to characterize early behavioural features in carriers of autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease mutations. Two hundred and sixty-one persons unaware of their mutation status enrolled in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network, a study of persons with or at-risk for autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease, were evaluated with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire, the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale and the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR). Ninety-seven asymptomatic (CDR = 0), 25 mildly symptomatic (CDR = 0.5), and 33 overtly affected (CDR > 0.5) autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease mutation carriers were compared to 106 non-carriers with regard to frequency of behavioural symptoms on the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire and severity of depressive symptoms on the Geriatric Depression Scale using generalized linear regression models with appropriate distributions and link functions. Results from the adjusted analyses indicated that depressive symptoms on the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire were less common in cognitively asymptomatic mutation carriers than in non-carriers (5% versus 17%, P = 0.014) and the odds of experiencing at least one behavioural sign in cognitively asymptomatic mutation carriers was lower than in non-carriers (odds ratio = 0.50, 95% confidence interval: 0.26–0.98, P = 0.042). Depression (56% versus 17%, P = 0.0003), apathy (40% versus 4%, P < 0.0001), disinhibition (16% versus 2%, P = 0.009), irritability (48% versus 9%, P = 0.0001), sleep changes (28% versus 7%, P = 0.003), and agitation (24% versus 6%, P = 0.008) were more common and the degree of self-rated depression more severe (mean Geriatric Depression Scale score of 2.8 versus 1.4, P = 0.006) in mildly symptomatic mutation carriers relative to non-carriers. Anxiety, appetite changes, delusions, and repetitive motor activity were additionally more common in overtly impaired mutation carriers. Similar to studies of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, we demonstrated increased rates of depression, apathy, and other behavioural symptoms in the mildly symptomatic, prodromal phase of autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease that increased with disease severity. We did not identify any increased psychopathology in mutation carriers over non-carriers during the presymptomatic stage, suggesting these symptoms result when a threshold of neurodegeneration is reached rather than as life-long qualities. Unexpectedly, we found lower rates of depressive symptoms in cognitively asymptomatic mutation carriers.
Introduction
The neuropathology of both Alzheimer’s disease of late-onset (Sperling et al., 2011) and familial Alzheimer’s disease due to autosomal dominant mutations with full penetrance (ADAD due to mutations in the PSEN1, APP or PSEN2 genes) begins to develop 15–20 years before overt symptoms of cognitive decline (Klunk et al., 2007; Ringman et al., 2008, 2012; Bateman et al., 2012). Similarly, symptoms of depression, anxiety, apathy and irritability have been reported to occur early in the course of clinical Alzheimer’s disease (Lyketsos et al., 2011), when individuals meet criteria for mild cognitive impairment (Lyketsos et al., 2002; Apostolova and Cummings, 2008; Geda et al., 2008) but are not yet demented. Longitudinal studies suggest that the presence of depression and apathy predict cognitive decline in elderly subjects (Kohler et al., 2010; Verdelho et al., 2013) and progression to Alzheimer’s disease in subjects with mild cognitive impairment (Teng et al., 2007; Edwards et al., 2009; Lu et al., 2009; Taragano et al., 2009).
The clinicopathological correlates of mood and behavioural disturbances in Alzheimer’s disease remain uncertain, as some (Forstl et al., 1992; Marshall et al., 2006; Grinberg et al., 2009) but not all (Hoogendijk et al., 1999; Royall and Palmer, 2013) pathological studies have suggested that the early involvement of certain neuroanatomical structures underlies these symptoms. Other studies implicate white matter ischaemic changes in the aetiology of depression in elderly persons with or without dementia (Lavretsky et al., 2008). Though the emergence of neuropsychiatric symptoms during the mild cognitive impairment phase of incipient Alzheimer’s disease suggests that they may represent an early manifestation of progressive neurodegeneration, its presence may also reflect a life-long predisposition to psychiatric disease, possibly of genetic origin. The study of persons carrying ADAD mutations, in whom the future development of Alzheimer’s can be predicted with essentially 100% certainty from a young age, allows us to disentangle the degree to which depression and other psychopathology represent a life-long trait associated with risk for Alzheimer’s disease or a state reflecting accumulating neuropathology. Furthermore, the study of this young and generally healthy population allows us to isolate the effects of increasing Alzheimer pathology from confounding factors such as cerebrovascular disease and other age-associated co-morbidities.
Prior work has suggested a premorbid predisposition to anxiety and depression in persons inheriting ADAD mutations. We have previously observed a history of significant anxiety in persons who later developed ADAD (Ringman et al., 2011; Ting et al., 2014) and in a prior study of females at-risk for ADAD, found that PSEN1 mutation carriers (mean age 30 years) unaware of their genetic status scored higher, on average, on the Beck Depression Inventory than did their non-mutation carrying kin (Ringman et al., 2004). In the current study we sought to extend these observations regarding neuropsychiatric symptoms and self-rated depression in ADAD mutation carriers to the larger group of persons at-risk for ADAD enrolled in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) (Morris et al., 2012).
Materials and methods
Data from persons at-risk for ADAD mutations who were unaware of their mutation status were obtained from Data Freeze 7 (January, 2014), of the DIAN. The DIAN is an international multi-site study to characterize early clinical and biomarker changes occurring in persons inheriting ADAD mutations (Morris et al., 2012). All subjects in the DIAN are either affected by or known to be at 50% risk for inheriting pathogenic PSEN1, APP or PSEN2 mutations. DIAN subjects undergo comprehensive standardized evaluations that include the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire (NPI-Q; Kaufer et al., 2000), the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; Yesavage et al., 1982), and the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR; Morris, 1997). The NPI-Q is an informant-based structured interview surveying the presence and severity of symptoms in 12 behavioural domains (Kaufer et al., 2000) (agitation, anxiety, apathy, appetitive changes, irritability, repetitive motor behaviours, sleep changes, delusions, depression, disinhibition, abnormal elevated mood, hallucinations). Respondents are instructed, via screening questions, to indicate whether the subject has had any of these behavioural symptoms within the past month and they represent a change from the subject’s baseline status. If neuropsychiatric symptoms in a given domain are present, respondents are asked to rate their severity as mild, moderate, or severe (scored 1–3, respectively). A total NPI-Q score, representing overall degree of behavioural disturbance, can be calculated by totalling the severity scores in the affected domains. On the GDS, subjects answer a series of 15 questions regarding their recent mood, particularly in the past week (Yesavage et al., 1982). Higher scores represent the presence of more depressive symptoms. The CDR scale is a structured interview of the subject and informant in which subjects are rated as having scores of 0 (asymptomatic), 0.5 (equivocal or mild impairment), 1 (mild), 2 (moderate), or 3 (severe dementia). All clinical ratings were performed by clinician investigators blind to subjects’ genetic status though the blind could not realistically be maintained with regard to overtly demented subjects.
Age of disease onset in ADAD tends to be consistent within families (Ryman et al., 2014) but varies more between them (Fox et al., 1997). Therefore, a subject-specific ‘estimated age of onset’ based on the age of symptom onset in subjects’ affected parent was calculated to normalize subjects with regard to their proximity to the time of clinical disease.
As knowledge of one’s mutation status could have a substantial effect on mood and behaviour, we limited our analyses to subjects who had not undergone clinical genetic testing and therefore were not explicitly aware of their genetic status. However, such subjects might infer their genetic status and this inference, right or wrong, might affect their mood and psychiatric status. At the UCLA site, therefore, subjects were additionally asked, via a simple questionnaire completed privately, if they believe they had inherited the mutation that runs in their family. They select their answer by checking boxes marked ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘prefer not to answer’.
All study procedures were approved by the local institutional review boards of each participating site. Written informed consent (or assent with proxy consent if capacity to consent was impaired) was obtained from all participants before their participation.
Genetic analyses
DNA sequencing of APP, PSEN1 and PSEN2 was performed by the DIAN Genetics Core personnel, using Sanger sequencing methods on an ABI 3130xl, to determine the presence/absence of the disease-causing mutation known to be present in their family. APOE genotyping was performed using an ABI predesigned real time TaqMan® assay ‘rs7412 & rs429358’ according to the manufacturer’s protocol.
Statistical analyses
Descriptive statistics and frequency distributions of demographic, clinical, and genetic characteristics were summarized for the following four groups: non-carriers, asymptomatic mutation carriers (CDR = 0), mildly symptomatic mutation carriers (CDR = 0.5), and overtly affected mutation carriers (CDR > 0.5). Group comparisons of these characteristics were performed using Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel tests (or χ2-tests as applicable) and family-level random-effects models for the categorical and continuous characteristics, respectively. Both of these methods allowed us to take into account the correlations between assessments of multiple family members within families.
The outcomes of interest in this study were the presence of psychiatric symptoms on the NPI-Q (binary), total NPI-Q severity score, and depression severity on the GDS. For each of these outcomes, two types of comparisons were of interest: (i) non-carriers versus all ADAD mutation carriers; and (ii) non-carriers versus each of the three mutation carrier groups. The difference in each of the binary outcomes was examined using logistic regression models with family-level random effects. Robust Poisson regression models with family-level random effects were used to examine the differences in GDS and NPI-Q severity scores between groups. Similar to the earlier analytical strategy, these regression models included family-level random effects to account for correlation between repeated observations within families. Comparisons between non-carriers and each of the mutation carrier groups were performed through model contrasts. We referred to these analyses as ‘unadjusted’ analyses.
To assess the potential influence of one’s impression of their mutation status on NPI-Q psychiatric symptoms in the subset that were asked whether or not they thought they were mutation carriers (n = 27), we described the frequency of each symptom among those who answered ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘prefer not to answer.’ As the sample size for each of these subgroup analyses was small, no formal statistical tests were performed.
Next, we conducted adjusted regression analyses on those outcomes with significant mutation-carrier effects identified by the unadjusted analyses to investigate whether the differences in these outcomes between non-carriers and each of the mutation carrier groups were impacted. These regression models included carrier group and all characteristics of interest (i.e. age, gender, estimated age of onset, education, mutation type and APOE group) as fixed-effects and a family-level random effect. However, the computational algorithms for some of binary outcomes did not converge because of the low counts per group. Thus, logistic regression models without a family-level random effect were used for the unadjusted and for the final adjusted analyses of binary outcomes. Results from the adjusted analyses are presented in the summary table. In addition, we used logistic regression models, adjusting for mutation status, CDR score, age and gender, to compare the binary NPI-Q psychiatric symptoms among APOE genotype groups (2/X, 3/3, 4/X, and 2/4).
Lastly, to characterize behavioural symptoms among genetic groups, we compared all the outcomes across ADAD mutation types (PSEN1, PSEN2 and APP) of the mutation carriers (n = 155) using logistic regressions with adjustment for CDR score (subgroup analysis). All models were fit using SAS v.9.3 (SAS Institute).
Results
Subjects
Three hundred and thirty-one subjects were included in the relevant data freeze, of whom 228 were not demented (CDR scores < 1, Table 1) and did not know their mutation status or were demented (n = 33, total n = 261). We included the 33 subjects with CDR scores greater than 0.5 regardless of whether they were explicitly aware of their genetic status as awareness in such persons is primarily related to endogenous rather than exogenous factors. One hundred and two families were included in the analyses and half of these families (50%) had more than one family member included in this analysis. One hundred and ninety-two (73.6%) were at-risk for PSEN1 mutations, 46 (17.6%) for APP mutations, and 23 (8.8%) for PSEN2 mutations. One hundred and fifty-five were mutation carriers and 106 were non-carriers. One hundred and fifty-six subjects were APOE 3/3 (59.8%), 71 were 4/X (27.2%), 27 were 2/X (10.3%) and seven were 2/4 (2.7%). Among mutation carriers, 97 had CDR scores of 0, 25 had CDR scores of 0.5, and 33 had CDR scores > 0.5. Forty-four percent of the study participants were male and the average age of the study participants was 39. There were no significant difference in education between mutation carriers and non-carriers. Genetic and demographic data are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 ADAD mutation carriers Non-carriers Asymptomatic CDR = 0 Mildly symptomatic CDR = 0.5 Overtly affected CDR > 0.5 Number of participants Total = 261 106 97 25 33 Mean (SD)a Age at enrolment*** 38.8 (10.7) 38.7 (10.2) 34.7 (9.5) 42.6 (10.7) 48.6 (8.2) Parent age of onset* 47.3 (7.2) 47.4 (6.8) 47.5 (6.7) 47.5 (6.5) 46.5 (10.0) Age to estimated age of onset*** −8.5 (10.4) −8.7 (11.1) −12.8 (8.2) −4.9 (7.9) 2.2 (6.4) Educationb (years) 14.3 (2.8) 14.7 (2.7) 14.6 (2.9) 13.8 (2.5) 12.9 (2.7) n (%)c Males 114 (43.7) 47 (44.3) 46 (47.4) 5 (20.0) 16 (48.5) Mutation type PSEN1 192 (73.6) 73 (68.9) 71 (73.2) 19 (76.0) 29 (87.9) PSEN2 23 (8.8) 11 (10.4) 11 (11.3) 1 (4.0) 0 APP 46 (17.6) 22 (20.8) 15 (15.5) 5 (20.0) 4 (12.1) APOE Type 2,X 27 (10.3) 13 (12.3) 6 (6.2) 2 (8.0) 6 (18.2) Type 3,3 156 (59.8) 59 (55.7) 63 (65.0) 18 (72.0) 16 (48.5) Type 4,X 71 (27.2) 32 (30.2) 23 (23.7) 5 (20.0) 11 (33.3) Type 2,4 7 (2.7) 2 (1.9) 5 (5.2) 0 0 ADAD mutation carriers Non-carriers Asymptomatic CDR = 0 Mildly symptomatic CDR = 0.5 Overtly affected CDR > 0.5 Number of participants Total = 261 106 97 25 33 Mean (SD)a Age at enrolment*** 38.8 (10.7) 38.7 (10.2) 34.7 (9.5) 42.6 (10.7) 48.6 (8.2) Parent age of onset* 47.3 (7.2) 47.4 (6.8) 47.5 (6.7) 47.5 (6.5) 46.5 (10.0) Age to estimated age of onset*** −8.5 (10.4) −8.7 (11.1) −12.8 (8.2) −4.9 (7.9) 2.2 (6.4) Educationb (years) 14.3 (2.8) 14.7 (2.7) 14.6 (2.9) 13.8 (2.5) 12.9 (2.7) n (%)c Males 114 (43.7) 47 (44.3) 46 (47.4) 5 (20.0) 16 (48.5) Mutation type PSEN1 192 (73.6) 73 (68.9) 71 (73.2) 19 (76.0) 29 (87.9) PSEN2 23 (8.8) 11 (10.4) 11 (11.3) 1 (4.0) 0 APP 46 (17.6) 22 (20.8) 15 (15.5) 5 (20.0) 4 (12.1) APOE Type 2,X 27 (10.3) 13 (12.3) 6 (6.2) 2 (8.0) 6 (18.2) Type 3,3 156 (59.8) 59 (55.7) 63 (65.0) 18 (72.0) 16 (48.5) Type 4,X 71 (27.2) 32 (30.2) 23 (23.7) 5 (20.0) 11 (33.3) Type 2,4 7 (2.7) 2 (1.9) 5 (5.2) 0 0 View Large
Table 1 ADAD mutation carriers Non-carriers Asymptomatic CDR = 0 Mildly symptomatic CDR = 0.5 Overtly affected CDR > 0.5 Number of participants Total = 261 106 97 25 33 Mean (SD)a Age at enrolment*** 38.8 (10.7) 38.7 (10.2) 34.7 (9.5) 42.6 (10.7) 48.6 (8.2) Parent age of onset* 47.3 (7.2) 47.4 (6.8) 47.5 (6.7) 47.5 (6.5) 46.5 (10.0) Age to estimated age of onset*** −8.5 (10.4) −8.7 (11.1) −12.8 (8.2) −4.9 (7.9) 2.2 (6.4) Educationb (years) 14.3 (2.8) 14.7 (2.7) 14.6 (2.9) 13.8 (2.5) 12.9 (2.7) n (%)c Males 114 (43.7) 47 (44.3) 46 (47.4) 5 (20.0) 16 (48.5) Mutation type PSEN1 192 (73.6) 73 (68.9) 71 (73.2) 19 (76.0) 29 (87.9) PSEN2 23 (8.8) 11 (10.4) 11 (11.3) 1 (4.0) 0 APP 46 (17.6) 22 (20.8) 15 (15.5) 5 (20.0) 4 (12.1) APOE Type 2,X 27 (10.3) 13 (12.3) 6 (6.2) 2 (8.0) 6 (18.2) Type 3,3 156 (59.8) 59 (55.7) 63 (65.0) 18 (72.0) 16 (48.5) Type 4,X 71 (27.2) 32 (30.2) 23 (23.7) 5 (20.0) 11 (33.3) Type 2,4 7 (2.7) 2 (1.9) 5 (5.2) 0 0 ADAD mutation carriers Non-carriers Asymptomatic CDR = 0 Mildly symptomatic CDR = 0.5 Overtly affected CDR > 0.5 Number of participants Total = 261 106 97 25 33 Mean (SD)a Age at enrolment*** 38.8 (10.7) 38.7 (10.2) 34.7 (9.5) 42.6 (10.7) 48.6 (8.2) Parent age of onset* 47.3 (7.2) 47.4 (6.8) 47.5 (6.7) 47.5 (6.5) 46.5 (10.0) Age to estimated age of onset*** −8.5 (10.4) −8.7 (11.1) −12.8 (8.2) −4.9 (7.9) 2.2 (6.4) Educationb (years) 14.3 (2.8) 14.7 (2.7) 14.6 (2.9) 13.8 (2.5) 12.9 (2.7) n (%)c Males 114 (43.7) 47 (44.3) 46 (47.4) 5 (20.0) 16 (48.5) Mutation type PSEN1 192 (73.6) 73 (68.9) 71 (73.2) 19 (76.0) 29 (87.9) PSEN2 23 (8.8) 11 (10.4) 11 (11.3) 1 (4.0) 0 APP 46 (17.6) 22 (20.8) 15 (15.5) 5 (20.0) 4 (12.1) APOE Type 2,X 27 (10.3) 13 (12.3) 6 (6.2) 2 (8.0) 6 (18.2) Type 3,3 156 (59.8) 59 (55.7) 63 (65.0) 18 (72.0) 16 (48.5) Type 4,X 71 (27.2) 32 (30.2) 23 (23.7) 5 (20.0) 11 (33.3) Type 2,4 7 (2.7) 2 (1.9) 5 (5.2) 0 0 View Large
Unadjusted analyses of NPI-Q, GDS and severity score
Results from the unadjusted analyses showed that there were significant associations between mutation status and prevalence of most neuropsychiatric symptoms; the following symptoms had differences of 10% or more between mutation carriers and non-carriers: agitation (17% versus 6%, P = 0.012), apathy (23% versus 4%, P = 0.0002), disinhibition (12% versus 2%, P = 0.012), irritability (25% versus 9%, P = 0.003) and sleep changes (17% versus 7%, P = 0.018), with symptoms being more common in mutation carriers. Also, more mutation carriers experienced one or more NPI-Q symptoms (47% versus 33%, P = 0.025). Significant differences in GDS [mean ± standard deviation (SD): 2.19 ± 2.31 versus 1.41 ± 1.74, P = 0.0007] and total NPI score (2.48 ± 3.71 versus 0.80 ± 1.51, P < 0.0001) were found between all mutation carriers and non-carriers.
Overtly affected mutation carriers experienced the highest prevalence of most neuropsychiatric symptoms (9 of 12 items > 30%, Fig. 1): apathy (69.7%), depression (60.6%), agitation (54.6%), anxiety (54.6%), irritability (51.5%), appetite changes (45.5%), disinhibition (42.4%), repetitive motor activity (30.3%), and sleep changes (30.3%). Results from the unadjusted analyses indicated that there were no differences in the prevalence of neuropsychiatric features assessed with the NPI-Q between non-carriers and cognitively asymptomatic (CDR = 0) mutation carriers except for depression, which was more prevalent in non-carriers (17% versus 5%, P = 0.014). Among mutation carriers with CDR scores of 0.5, there was a significantly higher frequency of agitation (24% versus 6%, P = 0.008), apathy (40% versus 4%, P < 0.0001), depression (56% versus 17%, P = 0.0002), disinhibition (16% versus 2%, P = 0.009), irritability (48% versus 9%, P < 0.0001), and sleep changes (28% versus 7%, P = 0.004) than in non-carriers. Significant differences in most of the NPI-Q domains were found between non-carriers and overtly affected mutation carriers except for hallucinations. Eighty per cent of the mildly symptomatic mutation carriers and all of the overtly affected mutation carriers versus 33% of non-carriers experienced one or more NPI-Q symptoms (P < 0.001). Figure 2 shows the mean plots ( ± SD) for total number of NPI-Q symptoms (mean ± SD: 0.69 ± 1.31, 0.45 ± 1.08, 2.64 ± 2.36, and 4.61 ± 1.97, for non-carriers, carriers with CDR scores of 0, 0.5, and > 0.5, respectively) (Fig. 2A); NPI-Q total severity score (mean ± SD: 0.80 ± 1.51, 0.64 ± 1.70, 3.72 ± 3.92, and 6.97 ± 3.71) (Fig. 2B); and GDS score (mean ± SD: 1.41 ± 1.74, 1.62 ± 1.92, 2.76 ± 2.39, and 3.57 ± 2.76) (Fig. 2C). Significant differences in total number of NPI-Q symptoms (P < 0.0001), GDS (P < 0.01) and NPI-Q severity scores (P < 0.0001) between non-carriers and mildly symptomatic or overtly affected mutation carriers were found from the robust Poisson regression models.
Figure 1 View largeDownload slide Prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in persons at-risk for autosomal dominant AD mutations. Per cent of non-carriers (white), asymptomatic (CDR = 0) ADAD mutation carriers (light grey), mildly symptomatic (CDR = 0.5) mutation carriers (dark grey), and demented (CDR > 0.05) mutation carriers (hatched columns) with any neuropsychiatric symptoms on the NPI-Q.
Figure 1 View largeDownload slide Prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in persons at-risk for autosomal dominant AD mutations. Per cent of non-carriers (white), asymptomatic (CDR = 0) ADAD mutation carriers (light grey), mildly symptomatic (CDR = 0.5) mutation carriers (dark grey), and demented (CDR > 0.05) mutation carriers (hatched columns) with any neuropsychiatric symptoms on the NPI-Q.
Figure 2 View largeDownload slide Severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms in persons at-risk for autosomal dominant AD mutations. Mean (with SD) plots for (A) Total number of NPI-Q Psychiatric Symptoms, (B) NPI-Q Total Severity Score, and (C) GDS score for non-carriers (white), asymptomatic (CDR = 0) ADAD mutation carriers (light grey), mildly symptomatic (CDR = 0.5) mutation carriers (dark grey), and demented (CDR > 0.05) mutation carriers (hatched columns).
Figure 2 View largeDownload slide Severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms in persons at-risk for autosomal dominant AD mutations. Mean (with SD) plots for (A) Total number of NPI-Q Psychiatric Symptoms, (B) NPI-Q Total Severity Score, and (C) GDS score for non-carriers (white), asymptomatic (CDR = 0) ADAD mutation carriers (light grey), mildly symptomatic (CDR = 0.5) mutation carriers (dark grey), and demented (CDR > 0.05) mutation carriers (hatched columns).
Adjusted analyses of NPI-Q, GDS and severity score
Table 2 presents the results from the regression models for both binary and continuous outcomes adjusted for the sample characteristics listed in Table 1. Similar results were found from the logistic regression models with and without these adjustments. The adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for mildly symptomatic mutation carriers versus non-carriers are as follows: agitation (OR = 5.22, 95% CI: 1.48–18.4, P = 0.010), apathy (OR = 17.5, 95% CI: 4.82–63.9, P < 0.0001), depression (OR = 6.44, 95% CI: 2.33–17.8, P = 0.0003), disinhibition (OR = 8.50, 95% CI: 1.73–41.9, P = 0.009), irritability (OR = 8.05, 95% CI: 2.81–23.1, P = 0.0001), and sleep changes (OR = 6.22, 95% CI: 1.87–20.7, P = 0.003). The adjusted odds ratios increased when comparing the frequencies of these NPI-Q domains between overtly affected mutation carriers and non-carriers except for the sleep changes domain. The adjusted analysis indicated significantly greater odds of experiencing at least one NPI-Q neuropsychiatric symptoms for mildly symptomatic mutation carriers than non-carriers (OR = 7.03, 95% CI: 2.41–20.5, P = 0.0004), and significantly lower odds for asymptomatic mutation carriers than non-carriers (OR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.26–0.98, P = 0.042). Similar to the unadjusted analyses, robust Poisson regression models showed a significantly higher total number of NPI-Q symptoms (P < 0.0001), NPI-Q total severity score (P < 0.0001), and GDS score (P = 0.006) for the mildly symptomatic mutation carriers than non-carriers. The overtly affected mutation carriers had a significantly higher total number of symptoms on the NPI-Q (P < 0.0001), NPI-Q severity score (P < 0.0001), and GDS score (P < 0.0001) than non-carriers.
Table 2 NPI-Q Symptoms (Binary) Asymptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0) Mildly symptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0.5) Overtly affected mutation carrier (CDR > 0.5) (Ref = non-carriers) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) Agitation*** 0.48 (0.12, 1.90) 5.22 (1.48, 18.4) 10.5 (3.23, 34.1) Anxiety** 0.52 (0.21, 1.33) 2.09 (0.70, 6.22) 6.21 (2.26, 17.1) Apathy*** 0.88 (0.22, 3.60) 17.5 (4.82, 63.9) 43.5 (11.3, 168) Appetite Changes** 0.70 (0.22, 2.20) 3.20 (0.85, 12.0) 10.4 (3.11, 35.1) Delusions 0.89 (0.16, 5.07) 0.94 (0.05, 16.5) 5.90 (0.65, 53.3) Depression*** 0.25 (0.09, 0.73) 6.44 (2.33, 17.8) 10.2 (3.49, 29.7) Disinhibition*** 0.23 (0.02, 2.70) 8.50 (1.73, 41.9) 29.8 (6.12, 145) Mania 0.60 (0.07, 5.56) 3.23 (0.36, 29.2) 3.95 (0.55, 28.5) Hallucinations 0.37 (0.04, 3.11) 1.08 (0.07, 17.8) 5.24 (0.50, 54.7) Irritability*** 0.84 (0.33, 2.14) 8.05 (2.81, 23.1) 9.78 (3.29, 29.0) Repetitive Motor Activity* 0.82 (0.16, 4.30) 3.73 (0.66, 20.9) 11.3 (2.52, 50.7) Sleep Changes* 1.64 (0.61, 4.41) 6.22 (1.87, 20.7) 5.04 (1.52, 16.7) ≥1 NPI Psychiatric Symptom*** 0.50 (0.26, 0.98) 7.03 (2.41, 20.5) 109 (6.84, >999) Continuous measures (Ref = non-carriers) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Total number of NPI Psychiatric Symptoms*** 0.63 (0.39, 1.02) 3.95 (2.45, 6.36) 6.23 (4.04, 9.62) NPI Severity Score*** 0.75 (0.46, 1.22) 4.71 (2.71, 8.17) 7.48 (4.71, 11.9) GDS Score* 1.06 (0.77, 1.45) 1.86 (1.20, 2.88) 2.84 (2.00, 4.04) NPI-Q Symptoms (Binary) Asymptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0) Mildly symptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0.5) Overtly affected mutation carrier (CDR > 0.5) (Ref = non-carriers) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) Agitation*** 0.48 (0.12, 1.90) 5.22 (1.48, 18.4) 10.5 (3.23, 34.1) Anxiety** 0.52 (0.21, 1.33) 2.09 (0.70, 6.22) 6.21 (2.26, 17.1) Apathy*** 0.88 (0.22, 3.60) 17.5 (4.82, 63.9) 43.5 (11.3, 168) Appetite Changes** 0.70 (0.22, 2.20) 3.20 (0.85, 12.0) 10.4 (3.11, 35.1) Delusions 0.89 (0.16, 5.07) 0.94 (0.05, 16.5) 5.90 (0.65, 53.3) Depression*** 0.25 (0.09, 0.73) 6.44 (2.33, 17.8) 10.2 (3.49, 29.7) Disinhibition*** 0.23 (0.02, 2.70) 8.50 (1.73, 41.9) 29.8 (6.12, 145) Mania 0.60 (0.07, 5.56) 3.23 (0.36, 29.2) 3.95 (0.55, 28.5) Hallucinations 0.37 (0.04, 3.11) 1.08 (0.07, 17.8) 5.24 (0.50, 54.7) Irritability*** 0.84 (0.33, 2.14) 8.05 (2.81, 23.1) 9.78 (3.29, 29.0) Repetitive Motor Activity* 0.82 (0.16, 4.30) 3.73 (0.66, 20.9) 11.3 (2.52, 50.7) Sleep Changes* 1.64 (0.61, 4.41) 6.22 (1.87, 20.7) 5.04 (1.52, 16.7) ≥1 NPI Psychiatric Symptom*** 0.50 (0.26, 0.98) 7.03 (2.41, 20.5) 109 (6.84, >999) Continuous measures (Ref = non-carriers) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Total number of NPI Psychiatric Symptoms*** 0.63 (0.39, 1.02) 3.95 (2.45, 6.36) 6.23 (4.04, 9.62) NPI Severity Score*** 0.75 (0.46, 1.22) 4.71 (2.71, 8.17) 7.48 (4.71, 11.9) GDS Score* 1.06 (0.77, 1.45) 1.86 (1.20, 2.88) 2.84 (2.00, 4.04) View Large
Table 2 NPI-Q Symptoms (Binary) Asymptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0) Mildly symptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0.5) Overtly affected mutation carrier (CDR > 0.5) (Ref = non-carriers) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) Agitation*** 0.48 (0.12, 1.90) 5.22 (1.48, 18.4) 10.5 (3.23, 34.1) Anxiety** 0.52 (0.21, 1.33) 2.09 (0.70, 6.22) 6.21 (2.26, 17.1) Apathy*** 0.88 (0.22, 3.60) 17.5 (4.82, 63.9) 43.5 (11.3, 168) Appetite Changes** 0.70 (0.22, 2.20) 3.20 (0.85, 12.0) 10.4 (3.11, 35.1) Delusions 0.89 (0.16, 5.07) 0.94 (0.05, 16.5) 5.90 (0.65, 53.3) Depression*** 0.25 (0.09, 0.73) 6.44 (2.33, 17.8) 10.2 (3.49, 29.7) Disinhibition*** 0.23 (0.02, 2.70) 8.50 (1.73, 41.9) 29.8 (6.12, 145) Mania 0.60 (0.07, 5.56) 3.23 (0.36, 29.2) 3.95 (0.55, 28.5) Hallucinations 0.37 (0.04, 3.11) 1.08 (0.07, 17.8) 5.24 (0.50, 54.7) Irritability*** 0.84 (0.33, 2.14) 8.05 (2.81, 23.1) 9.78 (3.29, 29.0) Repetitive Motor Activity* 0.82 (0.16, 4.30) 3.73 (0.66, 20.9) 11.3 (2.52, 50.7) Sleep Changes* 1.64 (0.61, 4.41) 6.22 (1.87, 20.7) 5.04 (1.52, 16.7) ≥1 NPI Psychiatric Symptom*** 0.50 (0.26, 0.98) 7.03 (2.41, 20.5) 109 (6.84, >999) Continuous measures (Ref = non-carriers) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Total number of NPI Psychiatric Symptoms*** 0.63 (0.39, 1.02) 3.95 (2.45, 6.36) 6.23 (4.04, 9.62) NPI Severity Score*** 0.75 (0.46, 1.22) 4.71 (2.71, 8.17) 7.48 (4.71, 11.9) GDS Score* 1.06 (0.77, 1.45) 1.86 (1.20, 2.88) 2.84 (2.00, 4.04) NPI-Q Symptoms (Binary) Asymptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0) Mildly symptomatic mutation carrier (CDR = 0.5) Overtly affected mutation carrier (CDR > 0.5) (Ref = non-carriers) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) Agitation*** 0.48 (0.12, 1.90) 5.22 (1.48, 18.4) 10.5 (3.23, 34.1) Anxiety** 0.52 (0.21, 1.33) 2.09 (0.70, 6.22) 6.21 (2.26, 17.1) Apathy*** 0.88 (0.22, 3.60) 17.5 (4.82, 63.9) 43.5 (11.3, 168) Appetite Changes** 0.70 (0.22, 2.20) 3.20 (0.85, 12.0) 10.4 (3.11, 35.1) Delusions 0.89 (0.16, 5.07) 0.94 (0.05, 16.5) 5.90 (0.65, 53.3) Depression*** 0.25 (0.09, 0.73) 6.44 (2.33, 17.8) 10.2 (3.49, 29.7) Disinhibition*** 0.23 (0.02, 2.70) 8.50 (1.73, 41.9) 29.8 (6.12, 145) Mania 0.60 (0.07, 5.56) 3.23 (0.36, 29.2) 3.95 (0.55, 28.5) Hallucinations 0.37 (0.04, 3.11) 1.08 (0.07, 17.8) 5.24 (0.50, 54.7) Irritability*** 0.84 (0.33, 2.14) 8.05 (2.81, 23.1) 9.78 (3.29, 29.0) Repetitive Motor Activity* 0.82 (0.16, 4.30) 3.73 (0.66, 20.9) 11.3 (2.52, 50.7) Sleep Changes* 1.64 (0.61, 4.41) 6.22 (1.87, 20.7) 5.04 (1.52, 16.7) ≥1 NPI Psychiatric Symptom*** 0.50 (0.26, 0.98) 7.03 (2.41, 20.5) 109 (6.84, >999) Continuous measures (Ref = non-carriers) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Ratio (95% CI) Total number of NPI Psychiatric Symptoms*** 0.63 (0.39, 1.02) 3.95 (2.45, 6.36) 6.23 (4.04, 9.62) NPI Severity Score*** 0.75 (0.46, 1.22) 4.71 (2.71, 8.17) 7.48 (4.71, 11.9) GDS Score* 1.06 (0.77, 1.45) 1.86 (1.20, 2.88) 2.84 (2.00, 4.04) View Large
After adjusting for mutation status, CDR score, age and gender, there were no overall differences across APOE genotype groups in the prevalence of any neuropsychiatric symptoms except for appetite changes (P = 0.041). There were also no differences in the prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms between persons with specific ADAD mutations with adjustment of their global CDR scores.
Perceived inheritance questionnaire subgroup analyses
Twenty-seven of the study subjects were seen at UCLA, were not demented, were not explicitly aware of their genetic status, and completed the questionnaire regarding whether they believed they carried their familial mutation. Of these, 10 indicated they thought they were mutation carriers, seven indicated they thought they were not, and 10 preferred not to answer. There were trends for slightly higher rates of depression, irritability, and sleep changes in subjects who thought they were mutation carriers or responded that they preferred not to answer the question.
Discussion
In the largest study of this type in persons at-risk for ADAD mutations, we did not find an increased prevalence of behavioural changes as captured by the NPI-Q and the GDS in mutation carriers prior to overt cognitive decline. Rather, we observed a decreased prevalence of informant-based depressive symptoms and likelihood of having any of the symptoms captured by the NPI-Q in cognitively asymptomatic mutation carriers relative to non-carriers. Mildly symptomatic mutation carriers, as indexed by CDR scores of 0.5, had higher prevalences and severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms overall including agitation, apathy, depression, disinhibition, irritability, and sleep changes on the NPI-Q than did non-carriers. Levels of self-rated depression on the GDS were also higher in mildly symptomatic mutation carriers. Among more overtly cognitively affected mutation carriers (CDR scores > 0.5), the prevalence of apathy, depression, agitation, anxiety, appetitive changes, disinhibition, repetitive motor activity and delusions was even greater though sleep pattern changes and irritability were no more common in the more affected subjects. No robust qualitative differences were seen between persons with the PSEN1, PSEN2 and APP mutations though the small numbers of mutation carriers at comparable disease stages with the various mutations limited the statistical power of these comparisons. Additionally, no robust differences in neuropsychiatric symptoms were seen across APOE genotypes or in relation to self-perceived mutation status, owing at least in part to the small numbers of individuals in some of these subgroups.
Studying preclinical persons inheriting mutations determinant for the future development of ADAD provides some advantages over studying persons at-risk for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease for identifying changes occurring in the prodromal stage of the disease. Considering the determinant nature of ADAD mutations and the relative lack of confounding co-morbid illnesses associated with aging, smaller cohorts are needed to identify such changes. Furthermore, comparing mutation carriers to non-mutation carrying family members allows one to control for the influence of being at-risk for this devastating illness and for other family-specific factors. Using this approach, we replicated the findings of apathy, depression, irritability and agitation in the early stage of symptomatic ADAD as has been documented in most (Amieva et al., 2008; Apostolova and Cummings, 2008; Gallagher et al., 2011; Donovan et al., 2014) but not all (Wilson et al., 2008) studies of late onset Alzheimer’s disease. Contrary to our previous observations in an independent sample of female PSEN1 mutation carriers (Ringman et al., 2004), we did not find increased levels of depression, self-rated or otherwise, in otherwise asymptomatic persons. Specifically, GDS scores were not elevated in asymptomatic female mutation carriers relative to non-carriers, the result most comparable to that in our prior study (1.5 versus 1.6, not significant). The results of the current study should be more generalizable as the sample in our previous study was smaller (17 mutation carriers and 16 non-carriers) and more homogenous (all female and being from 10 Mexican families harbouring one of two PSEN1 mutations).
The advantages of the current study design include the standardized assessment of a large cohort of persons at-risk for these rare ADAD mutations. There are, however, important limitations to the instruments that restrict our ability to fully characterize behaviours in this study. First, the NPI-Q is a screening instrument designed to elicit changes in behaviour as it asks for symptoms that have been present in the preceding month which represent departures from the subjects’ baseline status (Cummings et al., 1994). This makes it insensitive for the detection of traits that might have been present throughout subjects’ lifespan. Anecdotally, we have observed multiple subjects inheriting PSEN1 mutations who reportedly had chronic problems with anxiety before developing progressive decline (Ringman et al., 2011; Ting et al., 2014). These might not have been detected with the NPI-Q. On the other hand, such observations can be biased and the use of non-mutation carrying family members in the current study addresses this. The NPI-Q has a narrower score range than the NPI and this may have compromised our ability to detect mild changes in the study populations. No non-familial members were included in this study and some symptoms such as depression and anxiety could arise from being a member of a mutation-carrying family regardless of the individual’s mutation status. In-depth standardized mental health assessments by trained professionals blind to subjects’ genetic status would enable us to more comprehensively address both life-long and current psychiatric status.
Another limitation to this study related to the use of the NPI-Q is the issue of multiple comparisons, potentially leading to false positive findings. For example, the isolated finding of a higher prevalence of appetite changes in carriers of the APOE 2 allele likely represents this kind of type 1 error. Importantly, the key findings from the primary analyses (comparing the prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms between non-mutation carriers and mutation carriers at various stages of pre- and clinical disease) survived adjustment for multiple comparisons. We did not correct for multiple comparisons in our exploratory secondary analyses.
The use of the GDS, a self-rated screening measure, should have allowed the detection of current depressive symptoms, regardless of whether they were new or life-long. However, the GDS, which contains items regarding feelings of worthlessness and lack of energy, was created specifically to elicit symptoms of depression in the elderly (Yesavage et al., 1982) and therefore is not optimal for use in the younger DIAN cohort. Nonetheless, the 15-item GDS has previously been used in younger populations and has been demonstrated to have validity relative to the Beck Depression Inventory (Ferraro and Chelminski, 1996), the measure used in our previous report in ADAD (Ringman et al., 2004).
An additional limitation of the current study is that we compared behavioural symptoms between groups characterized by total CDR score, a relatively crude assessment of disease stage. Relating behavioural symptoms to more sensitive cognitive or biomarker measures of disease would allow for better delineation of the association between such symptoms and disease pathophysiology. Such analyses would most likely require greater statistical power so should be the topic of future studies.
In our study we had the unexpected finding of a decreased prevalence of depressive symptoms on the NPI-Q in cognitively asymptomatic mutation carriers relative to non-carriers (5% versus 17%, OR = 0.25, 95% CI = 0.09–0.73 in the adjusted model) and numerically lower prevalence of apathy, agitation, anxiety, and appetite changes in asymptomatic carriers (Fig. 1) such that asymptomatic mutation carriers had lower odds of experiencing at last one NPI-Q symptom than did non-carriers. Though the explanation for this cannot be known with certainty, it is possible that early loss of insight into the incipient development of Alzheimer’s disease might have ameliorated behaviours arising out of concern about one's at-risk status. Alternatively, although subjects’ ages were included in the statistical model, such adjustments imperfectly control for age differences between these two groups.
The fact that subjects participating in the DIAN are all facing at least a 50% risk for the development of an aggressive young-onset form of Alzheimer’s disease could clearly influence their affective state. The involvement of non-mutation carrying kin as controls, who face the same risk, should have largely eliminated this confounding factor. However, though the non-demented carriers in this analysis were not explicitly aware of their mutation status, the possibility remains that they might have inferred it due to perceived cognitive or other changes. Indeed there was a trend towards increasing frequency of NPI-Q-rated depressive symptoms among those answering ‘yes’ or ‘prefer not to answer’ to the question of whether or not they thought they had inherited the ADAD mutation that runs in their family. However, as GDS scores did not seem to be elevated in this group, the influence of such self-awareness is not clear. Better defining the interaction of one’s perception of disease status and psychiatric symptoms would require detailed information regarding such perceptions in more subjects.
As with late onset Alzheimer’s disease (Lyketsos et al., 2000), we found that many behavioural symptoms were more frequent and severe in persons in later stages of the illness. Agitation, anxiety, apathy, delusions, irritability, and repetitive motor activity, and both informant- and self-rated depressive symptoms were more common in those subjects with CDR scores > 0.5.
In conclusion, we found that similar to late onset Alzheimer’s disease, behavioural changes, including apathy, disinhibition, irritability, sleep changes, depression and agitation, are more common in mildly affected ADAD mutation carriers than in non-carriers. Such behavioural changes are more common in more advanced disease. We did not identify significant behavioural abnormalities in the cognitively presymptomatic phase of the illness, but our findings do not completely exclude the existence of differences in personality characteristics between mutation carriers and non-carriers that might be stable over time. Personality inventories or retrospective psychiatric interviews might help elucidate whether such differences exist. Nonetheless, our current findings provide support for apathy, depression and other behavioural changes being early disease symptoms rather than being independent traits or risk factors associated with the future development of Alzheimer’s disease.
Funding
Study supported by: Data collection and sharing for this project was supported by The Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN, U19AG032438) funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Further support for this work comes from the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Grant P50 AG-16570, the UCLA Clinical Translational Research Institute 1UL1-RR033176, the Easton Consortium for Alzheimer's Disease Drug Discovery and Biomarker Development, and the NIHR Queen Square Dementia BRU.
Conflicts of interest
Dr. Ringman has received personal compensation for serving on scientific advisory boards for Takeda Pharmaceuticals and StemCells, Inc. and has received research support from Janssen, Pfizer, Accera, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Ghetti has received support from Bayer Pharma AG and the NIA.
Dr. Rossor receives non personal compensation for serving on safety monitoring boards for Servier.
Dr. Salloway has received compensation from serving on scientific advisory boards for Elan, Sanofi-Aventis, Pfizer, Eisai, and Bristol-Myers Squibb and honoraria from Eisai Inc., Pfizer Inc, Novartis, Forest, Elan, and Athena Diagnostics and for serving as Associate Editor, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, and research support from Elan, Wyeth, Janssen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai, Pfizer, Medivation, Myriad, GlaxoSmithKline, Neurochem, Cephalon, Forest, Voyager, and the NIA.
Dr. Schofield has no conflicts to declare.
Dr. Bateman is a co-founder of C2N Diagnostics that has licensed a pending Washington University patent. Dr. Bateman has consulted for Link Medicine, JAI, BMS, Pfizer, Merck, SPRI, Elan, Eisai, and Medtronic and has received research support from AstraZeneca and Merck.
Dr. Morris reports the following disclosures: Neither Dr. Morris nor his family owns stock or has equity interest (outside of mutual funds or other externally directed accounts) in any pharmaceutical or biotechnology company. Dr. Morris has participated or is currently participating in clinical trials of antidementia drugs sponsored by the following companies: Janssen Immunotherapy, and Pfizer. Dr. Morris has served as a consultant for Lilly USA. He receives research support from Eli Lilly/Avid Radiopharmaceuticals and is funded by NIH grants # P50AG005681; P01AG003991; P01AG026276 and U19AG032438.
Dr. Cummings has provided consultation to Acadia, ADAMAS, Anavex, Avanir, Boehinger-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai, EnVivo, Genentech, Lilly, Lundbeck, Merck, Novartis, Otsuka, Prana, QR Pharma, Resverlogix, Roche, Sonexa, Suven, Takeda, and Toyoma pharmaceutical companies. He has received research support from Avid and Teva Pharmaceutical. Dr. Cummings is the owner of the copyright of the NPI and NPI-Q.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations ADAD autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease
CDR Clinical Dementia Rating
DIAN Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network
GDS Geriatric Depression Scale
NPI-Q Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire
References
Amieva H Le Goff M Millet X Orgogozo JM Peres K Barberger-Gateau P , et al. Prodromal Alzheimer's disease: successive emergence of the clinical symptoms , Ann Neurol , 2008 , vol. 64 (pg. 492 - 8 ) , vol.(pg. Apostolova LG Cummings JL Neuropsychiatric manifestations in mild cognitive impairment: a systematic review of the literature , Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord , 2008 , vol. 25 (pg. 115 - 26 ) , vol.(pg. Bateman RJ Xiong C Benzinger TL Fagan AM Goate A Fox NC , et al. Clinical and biomarker changes in dominantly inherited Alzheimer's disease , N Engl J Med , 2012 , vol. 367 (pg. 795 - 804 ) , vol.(pg. Cummings JL Mega M Gray K Rosenberg-Thompson S Carusi DA Gornbein J The Neuropsychiatric Inventory: comprehensive assessment of psychopathology in dementia , Neurology , 1994 , vol. 44 (pg. 2308 - 14 ) , vol.(pg. Donovan NJ Amariglio RE Zoller AS Rudel RK Gomez-Isla T Blacker D , et al. Subjective cognitive concerns and neuropsychiatric predictors of progression to the early clinical stages of Alzheimer disease , Am J Geriatr Psychiatry , 2014 , vol. 22 (pg. 1642 - 51 ) , vol.(pg. Edwards ER Spira AP Barnes DE Yaffe K Neuropsychiatric symptoms in mild cognitive impairment: differences by subtype and progression to dementia , Int J Geriatr Psychiatry , 2009 , vol. 24 (pg. 716 - 22 ) , vol.(pg. Ferraro FR Chelminski I Preliminary normative data on the Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form (GDS-SF) in a young adult sample , J Clin Psychol , 1996 , vol. 52 (pg. 443 - 7 ) , vol.(pg. Forstl H Burns A Luthert P Cairns N Lantos P Levy R Clinical and neuropathological correlates of depression in Alzheimer's disease , Psychol Med , 1992 , vol. 22 (pg. 877 - 84 ) , vol.(pg. Fox NC Kennedy AM Harvey RJ Lantos PL Roques PK Collinge J , et al. Clinicopathological features of familial Alzheimer's disease associated with the M139V mutation in the presenilin 1 gene. Pedigree but not mutation specific age at onset provides evidence for a further genetic factor , Brain , 1997 , vol. 120 Pt 3 (pg. 491 - 501 ) , vol.(pg. Gallagher D Coen R Kilroy D Belinski K Bruce I Coakley D , et al. Anxiety and behavioural disturbance as markers of prodromal Alzheimer's disease in patients with mild cognitive impairment , Int J Geriatr Psychiatry , 2011 , vol. 26 (pg. 166 - 72 ) , vol.(pg. Geda YE Roberts RO Knopman DS Petersen RC Christianson TJ Pankratz VS , et al. Prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in mild cognitive impairment and normal cognitive aging: population-based study , Arch Gen Psychiatry , 2008 , vol. 65 (pg. 1193 - 8 ) , vol.(pg. Grinberg LT Rub U Ferretti RE Nitrini R Farfel JM Polichiso L , et al. The dorsal raphe nucleus shows phospho-tau neurofibrillary changes before the transentorhinal region in Alzheimer's disease. A precocious onset? , Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol , 2009 , vol. 35 (pg. 406 - 16 ) , vol.(pg. Hoogendijk WJ Sommer IE Pool CW Kamphorst W Hofman MA Eikelenboom P , et al. Lack of association between depression and loss of neurons in the locus coeruleus in Alzheimer disease , Arch Gen Psychiatry , 1999 , vol. 56 (pg. 45 - 51 ) , vol.(pg. Kaufer DI Cummings JL Ketchel P Smith V MacMillan A Shelley T , et al. Validation of the NPI-Q, a brief clinical form of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory , J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci , 2000 Klunk WE Price JC Mathis CA Tsopelas ND Lopresti BJ Ziolko SK , et al. Amyloid deposition begins in the striatum of presenilin-1 mutation carriers from two unrelated pedigrees , J Neurosci , 2007 , vol. 27 (pg. 6174 - 84 ) , vol.(pg. Kohler S van Boxtel MP van Os J Thomas AJ O'Brien JT Jolles J , et al. Depressive symptoms and cognitive decline in community-dwelling older adults , J Am Geriatr Soc , 2010 , vol. 58 (pg. 873 - 9 ) , vol.(pg. Lavretsky H Zheng L Weiner MW Mungas D Reed B Kramer JH , et al. The MRI brain correlates of depressed mood, anhedonia, apathy, and anergia in older adults with and without cognitive impairment or dementia , Int J Geriatr Psychiatry , 2008 , vol. 23 (pg. 1040 - 50 ) , vol.(pg. Lu PH Edland SD Teng E Tingus K Petersen RC Cummings JL Donepezil delays progression to AD in MCI subjects with depressive symptoms , Neurology , 2009 , vol. 72 (pg. 2115 - 21 ) , vol.(pg. Lyketsos CG Carrillo MC Ryan JM Khachaturian AS Trzepacz P Amatniek J , et al. Neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's disease , Alzheimers Dement , 2011 , vol. 7 (pg. 532 - 9 ) , vol.(pg. Lyketsos CG Lopez O Jones B Fitzpatrick AL Breitner J DeKosky S Prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia and mild cognitive impairment: results from the cardiovascular health study , JAMA , 2002 , vol. 288 (pg. 1475 - 83 ) , vol.(pg. Lyketsos CG Steinberg M Tschanz JT Norton MC Steffens DC Breitner JC Mental and behavioral disturbances in dementia: findings from the Cache County Study on Memory in Aging , Am J Psychiatry , 2000 , vol. 157 (pg. 708 - 14 ) , vol.(pg. Marshall GA Fairbanks LA Tekin S Vinters HV Cummings JL Neuropathologic correlates of apathy in Alzheimer's disease , Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord , 2006 , vol. 21 (pg. 144 - 7 ) , vol.(pg. Morris JC Clinical dementia rating: a reliable and valid diagnostic and staging measure for dementia of the Alzheimer type , Int Psychogeriatr , 1997 , vol. 9 Suppl 1 (pg. 173 - 6 ) , vol.(pg. Morris JC Aisen PS Bateman RJ Benzinger TL Cairns NJ Fagan AM , et al. Developing an international network for Alzheimer research: The Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network , Clin Investig (Lond) , 2012 , vol. 2 (pg. 975 - 84 ) , vol.(pg. Ringman JM Coppola G Elashoff D Rodriguez-Agudelo Y Medina LD Gylys K , et al. Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers and proximity to diagnosis in preclinical familial Alzheimer's disease , Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord , 2012 , vol. 33 (pg. 1 - 5 ) , vol.(pg. Ringman JM Diaz-Olavarrieta C Rodriguez Y Chavez M Paz F Murrell J , et al. Female preclinical presenilin-1 mutation carriers unaware of their genetic status have higher levels of depression than their non-mutation carrying kin , J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry , 2004 , vol. 75 (pg. 500 - 2 ) , vol.(pg. Ringman JM Gylys KH Medina LD Fox M Kepe V Flores DL , et al. Biochemical, neuropathological, and neuroimaging characteristics of early-onset Alzheimer's disease due to a novel PSEN1 mutation , Neurosci Lett , 2011 , vol. 487 (pg. 287 - 92 ) , vol.(pg. Ringman JM Younkin SG Pratico D Seltzer W Cole GM Geschwind DH , et al. Biochemical markers in persons with preclinical familial Alzheimer disease , Neurology , 2008 , vol. 71 (pg. 85 - 92 ) , vol.(pg. Royall DR Palmer RF Alzheimer's disease pathology does not mediate the association between depressive symptoms and subsequent cognitive decline , Alzheimers Dement , 2013 , vol. 9 (pg. 318 - 25 ) , vol.(pg. Ryman DC Acosta-Baena N Aisen PS Bird T Danek A Fox NC , et al. Symptom onset in autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease: asystematic review and meta-analysis , Neurology , 2014 , vol. 83 (pg. 253 - 60 ) , vol.(pg. Sperling RA Aisen PS Beckett LA Bennett DA Craft S Fagan AM , et al. Toward defining the preclinical stages of Alzheimer's disease: recommendations from the National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease , Alzheimers Dement , 2011 , vol. 7 (pg. 280 - 92 ) , vol.(pg. Taragano FE Allegri RF Krupitzki H Sarasola DR Serrano CM Lon L , et al. Mild behavioral impairment and risk of dementia: a prospective cohort study of 358 patients , J Clin Psychiatry , 2009 , vol. 70 (pg. 584 - 92 ) , vol.(pg. Teng E Lu PH Cummings JL Neuropsychiatric symptoms are associated with progression from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease , Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord , 2007 , vol. 24 (pg. 253 - 9 ) , vol.(pg. Ting SK Benzinger T Kepe V Fagan A Coppola G Porter V , et al. A Novel PSEN1 Mutation (I238M) associated with Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease in an African-American Woman , J Alzheimers Dis , 2014 , vol. 40 (pg. 271 - 5 ) , vol.(pg. Verdelho A Madureira S Moleiro C Ferro JM O'Brien JT Poggesi A , et al. Depressive symptoms predict cognitive decline and dementia in older people independently of cerebral white matter changes: the LADIS study , J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry , 2013 , vol. 84 (pg. 1250 - 4 ) , vol.(pg. Wilson RS Arnold SE Beck TL Bienias JL Bennett DA Change in depressive symptoms during the prodromal phase of Alzheimer disease , Arch Gen Psychiatry , 2008 , vol. 65 (pg. 439 - 45 ) , vol.(pg. Yesavage JA Brink TL Rose TL Lum O Huang V Adey M , et al. Development and validation of a geriatric depression screening scale: a preliminary report , J Psychiatr Res , 1982 , vol. 17 (pg. 37 - 49 ) , vol.(pg.
© The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] |
Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky) (March 5 [O.S. February 20] 1901 – March 17, 1974) was an American architect,[2] based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kahn created a style that was monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings for the most part do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled. Famous for his meticulously-built works, his provocative proposals that remained unbuilt, and his teaching, Kahn was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal and the RIBA Gold Medal. At the time of his death he was considered by some as "America's foremost living architect."[3]
Biography [ edit ]
Early life [ edit ]
Jesse Oser House, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (1940)
Louis Kahn, whose original name was Itze-Leib (Leiser-Itze) Schmuilowsky (Schmalowski), was born into a poor Jewish family in Pärnu,[4] formerly in Russian Empire, but now in Estonia. He spent his early childhood in Kuressaare on the island of Saaremaa, then part of the Russian Empire's Livonian Governorate.[1] At the age of three, he saw coals in the stove and was captivated by the light of the coal. He put the coal in his apron, which caught on fire and burned his face.[5] He carried these scars for the rest of his life.[6]
In 1906, his family emigrated to the United States, as they feared that his father would be recalled into the military during the Russo-Japanese War. His birth year may have been inaccurately recorded in the process of immigration. According to his son's 2003 documentary film, the family could not afford pencils. They made their own charcoal sticks from burnt twigs so that Louis could earn a little money from drawings.[7] Later he earned money by playing piano to accompany silent movies in theaters. He became a naturalized citizen on May 15, 1914. His father changed their name to Kahn in 1915.[7]
Career [ edit ]
Kahn was trained at the University of Pennsylvania in a rigorous Beaux-Arts tradition, with its emphasis on drawing. After completing his Bachelor of Architecture in 1924, Kahn worked as senior draftsman in the office of the city architect, John Molitor. He worked on the designs for the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition.[8]
In 1928, Kahn made a European tour. He was interested particularly in the medieval walled city of Carcassonne, France, and the castles of Scotland, rather than any of the strongholds of classicism or modernism.[9] After returning to the United States in 1929, Kahn worked in the offices of Paul Philippe Cret, his former studio critic at the University of Pennsylvania, and then with Zantzinger, Borie and Medary in Philadelphia.[8]
In 1932, Kahn and Dominique Berninger founded the Architectural Research Group, whose members were interested in the populist social agenda and new aesthetics of the European avant-gardes. Among the projects Kahn worked on during this collaboration are schemes for public housing that he had presented to the Public Works Administration, which supported some similar projects during the Great Depression.[8] They remained unbuilt.
Salk Institute Louis Kahn's
Among the more important of Kahn's early collaborations was one with George Howe.[10] Kahn worked with Howe in the late 1930s on projects for the Philadelphia Housing Authority and again in 1940, along with German-born architect Oscar Stonorov, for the design of housing developments in other parts of Pennsylvania.[11] A formal architectural office partnership between Kahn and Oscar Stonorov began in February 1942 and ended in March 1947, which produced fifty-four documented projects and buildings.[12][13]
Kahn did not arrive at his distinctive architectural style until he was in his fifties. Initially working in a fairly orthodox version of the International Style, he was influenced vitally by a stay as Architect in Residence at the American Academy in Rome during 1950, which marked a turning point in his career. After visiting the ruins of ancient buildings in Italy, Greece, and Egypt, he adopted a back-to-the-basics approach. He developed his own style as influenced by earlier modern movements, but not limited by their sometimes-dogmatic ideologies.
In 1961 he received a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to study traffic movement in Philadelphia and to create a proposal for a viaduct system.[14][15]
He described this proposal at a lecture given in 1962 at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado:
In the center of town the streets should become buildings. This should be interplayed with a sense of movement which does not tax local streets for non-local traffic. There should be a system of viaducts which encase an area which can reclaim the local streets for their own use, and it should be made so this viaduct has a ground floor of shops and usable area. A model which I did for the Graham Foundation recently, and which I presented to Mr. Entenza, showed the scheme.[16]
Kahn's teaching career began at Yale University in 1947. He eventually was named as the Albert F. Bemis Professor of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956. Kahn then returned to Philadelphia to teach at the University of Pennsylvania from 1957 until his death, becoming the Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture. He also was a visiting lecturer at Princeton University School of Architecture from 1961 to 1967.
Awards and honors [ edit ]
Kahn was elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1953. He was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1964. He was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1964. In 1965 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968 and awarded the AIA Gold Medal, the highest award given by the AIA, in 1971,[17] and the Royal Gold Medal by the RIBA, in 1972.
Death [ edit ]
In 1974, Kahn died of a heart attack in a restroom at Penn Station in Manhattan.[3] He had just returned from a work trip to India. Owing to police miscommunications in both New York City and Philadelphia, his wife and his office were not notified until two days after his death. After his long career, he was in debt when he died.
Personal life [ edit ]
Kahn had three children with three women. With his wife, Esther (1905-1996), whom he married in 1930, he had a daughter, Sue Ann. With Anne Tyng, who began her working collaboration and personal relationship with Kahn in 1945, he also had a daughter, Alexandra. When Tyng became pregnant in 1953, to mitigate the scandal, she went to Rome, Italy, for the birth of their daughter.[18] With Harriet Pattison, he had a son, Nathaniel Kahn. Most biographical works on Kahn fail to describe the profound impact his female partners had on his designs{{Citation needed}}. Anne Tyng was an extremely talented architect and teacher, while Harriet Pattison was a pioneering landscape architect.[19]
Legacy [ edit ]
Kahn's obituary in the New York Times written by Paul Goldberger mentions only Esther and his daughter by her as survivors. All of his children and their mothers attended the funeral. In 2003 Nathaniel Kahn released a documentary about his father, entitled, My Architect: A Son's Journey. The Oscar-nominated film provides views and insights into the architecture of Kahn while exploring him personally through people who knew him: family, friends, and colleagues. It includes interviews with such renowned architectural contemporaries as Muzharul Islam, B. V. Doshi, Frank Gehry, Ed Bacon, Philip Johnson, I. M. Pei, Vincent J. Scully, and Robert A. M. Stern. It also provides insights into Kahn's unusual and complicated family arrangements.
Designs [ edit ]
Timeline of works [ edit ]
All dates refer to the year project commenced
Legacy [ edit ]
Pennsylvania Louis Kahn Memorial Park, Eleventh & Pine Streets, Philadelphia
Louis Kahn's work infused the International style with a fastidious, highly personal taste, a poetry of light. His few projects reflect his deep personal involvement with each. Isamu Noguchi called him "a philosopher among architects." He was known for his ability to create monumental architecture that responded to the human scale. He also was concerned with creating strong formal distinctions between served spaces and servant spaces. What he meant by servant spaces was not spaces for servants, but rather spaces that serve other spaces, such as stairwells, corridors, restrooms, or any other back-of-house function such as storage space or mechanical rooms. His palette of materials tended toward heavily textured brick and bare concrete, the textures often reinforced by juxtaposition to highly refined surfaces such as travertine marble. He is often well remembered for his deliberation about the use of brick, on how it can be more than the basic building material:
If you think of Brick, you say to Brick, 'What do you want, Brick?' And Brick says to you, 'I like an Arch.' And if you say to Brick, 'Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you. What do you think of that, Brick?' Brick says, 'I like an Arch.' And it's important, you see, that you honor the material that you use. ... You can only do it if you honor the brick and glorify the brick instead of shortchanging it.[16]
While widely known for the poetic sensibilities of his spaces, Kahn also worked closely with engineers and contractors on his buildings. The results often were technically innovative and highly refined. In addition to the influence Kahn's more well-known work has on contemporary architects (such as Muzharul Islam, Tadao Ando), some of his work (especially the unbuilt City Tower Project) became very influential among the high-tech architects of the late twentieth century (such as Renzo Piano, who worked in Kahn's office, Richard Rogers, and Norman Foster). His prominent apprentices include Muzharul Islam, Moshe Safdie, Robert Venturi, Jack Diamond, and Charles Dagit.
Many years after his death, Kahn continues to provoke controversy. Before his Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island was built,[29] a New York Times editorial opined:
There's a magic to the project. That the task is daunting makes it worthy of the man it honors, who guided the nation through the Depression, the New Deal and a world war. As for Mr. Kahn, he died in 1974, as he passed alone through New York City's Penn Station. In his briefcase were renderings of the memorial, his last completed plan.[30]
The editorial describes Kahn's plan as:
... simple and elegant. Drawing inspiration from Roosevelt's defense of the Four Freedoms—of speech and religion, and from want and fear—he designed an open 'room and a garden' at the bottom of the island. Trees on either side form a 'V' defining a green space, and leading to a two-walled stone room at the water's edge that frames the United Nations and the rest of the skyline.
A group spearheaded by William J. vanden Heuvel raised over $50 million in public and private funds between 2005 and 2012 to establish the memorial. Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park officially opened to the public on October 24, 2012.
In popular culture [ edit ]
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlan, with collaborators Jenny Kallick and John Downey (Amherst College class of 2003), composed the chamber opera Architect as a character study of Kahn. The premiere recording was due to be released in 2012 by Navona Records.
Kahn was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary film My Architect: A Son's Journey, presented by Nathaniel Kahn, his son.[31]:127 Kahn's complicated family life inspired the "Undaunted Mettle" episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
In the film Indecent Proposal, character David Murphy (played by Woody Harrelson), referenced Kahn during a lecture to architecture students, attributing the quote "Even a brick wants to be something" to Kahn.
Architecturally-inspired ice cream sandwich maker Coolhaus, based in Los Angeles, California, named a cookie and ice cream combination after Kahn. Dubbed "Louis Ba-kahn", the sandwich consists of chocolate chip cookies and Brown Butter Candied Bacon ice cream.[31]:126[32]
Gallery [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
Curtis, William (1987). Modern Architecture Since 1900 (2nd ed.). Prentice-Hall. pp. 309–316. ISBN 0-13-586694-4.
Ronner, Heinz; Jhaveri, Sharad; Vasella, Alessandro (1977). Louis I.Kahn: Complete Works 1935–1974 (first ed.). Boulder: Westview Press. ISBN 0-89158-648-2.
Leslie, Thomas. (2005). Louis I.Kahn: Building Art, Building Science . New York: George Braziller. ISBN 0-8076-1540-4.
McCarter, Robert (2004). Louis I. Kahn . Phaidon Press Ltd. p. 512. ISBN 0-7148-4045-9.
Wiseman, Carter (2007). Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Style: A Life in Architecture (1st ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-73165-0.
Larson, Kent (2000). Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks . New York: Monacelli Press. p. 232. ISBN 1-58093-014-X.
Rosa, Joseph (2006). Peter Gossel, ed. Louis I.Kahn: Enlightened space . Germany: Taschen GmbH. p. 96. ISBN 3-8228-3641-9.
Merrill, Michael (2010). Louis Kahn: Drawing to Find Out . Baden: Lars Mueller Publishers. p. 240. ISBN 978-3-03778-221-7.
Merrill, Michael (2010). Louis Kahn: On the Thoughtful Making of Spaces . Baden: Lars Mueller Publishers. p. 240. ISBN 978-3-03778-220-0.
Vassella, Alessandro (2013). Louis Kahn: Silence and Light . Zurich: Park Books. pp. 168, 1 Audio-CD. ISBN 978-3-906027-18-0.
Solomon, Susan (August 31, 2009). Louis I. Kahn's Jewish Architectur, Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life. Brandeis. ISBN 978-1584657880.
Further reading [ edit ] |
I like my Swiss knife, but I like the Guppie better. Any multi-tool that makes me look like a Real Man, ready to go back to the Jurassic and kill a dinosaur, is a winner.
Made by Columbia River Knife & Tools, the Guppie includes an adjustable wrench, screw driver with multiple magnetic heads, menacing knife, LED flashlight, and a beer bottle opener—it can open other bottles and jars, but I am a Real Man. According to designers Launce Barber and Tom Stokes, the design is made so everything is ready to use in the shorter time possible, right out of the pocket.
Advertisement
For absolute Real Man effect, hang it from your belt using the built-in carabiner, and allow your butt crack to show a bit over your pants.[CRKT via Core77] |
Long before you youngsters had “Netflix and Chill” we had “Cable and Complain” in the 90’s. That’s where you’d watch a movie on TV with a date and then complain that nothing was on or how boring the movie was.
I was on such a date and the movie was Burnt Offerings. However even though many complaints were hurled at the film by my date I was pretty enthralled by the picture. The film has always stuck in the back of my head for some reason. I tried finding a copy of the movie for my personal collection but to no avail as it was out of print, hard to find and quite pricey, plus the transfer on DVD was absolutely horrible. Fast forward to today when lots of hard to find films are being released on Blu-ray and lo and behold Burnt Offerings is available once again. Does it belong in your library?
The Movie Itself (3.5/5)
Burnt Offerings simply put is a haunted house movie. Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis are notable stars in this 1976 Gothic horror movie by Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows) based on a book from writer Robert Marasco. The film starts off with a family renting a summer vacation house and slowly the tension between the family members ratchets up the longer they stay at the house. What is behind this hypnotic evil and will they find a way to keep their family together?
The film itself is pretty straight forward but it is interesting how it plays with the cliched forms of a haunted house story and where it fits in the timeline of horror movies in the pre-slasher days. The movie is deliberately paced which could make it more difficult for modern audiences to pay attention to, especially when most of the film is based on character interactions and hints of things going on rather than deliberate scares. I don’t think this film is a masterpiece but I do think it has a great atmosphere and the visuals and story telling devices could be considered haunting. Some may find the acting to be a bit campy but everyone plays it pretty straight and I found them to be engaging. I enjoyed seeing a bit of depth and realism to the characters but not having it shoved into my face by exposition. The movie has it’s share of twists and turns in the story and I liked seeing how differently it played with those ideas. There are quite a bit of similarities between this film and others in the haunted house genre but I do think this is one of the more interesting ones.
Picture Quality: (3/5)
The transfer on the original 2003 DVD was absolutely horrible and so I was excited to see what this movie looked like in high definition. Thankfully Kino did a nice job on their transfer. This is a solid release that is pretty consistent through the whole film . It looks like Burnt Offerings has the right amount of grain and very rarely did a scratch or imperfection show up. With all that being said you may wonder why did I give this a good but not great rating? Many shots employ a softening effect and the use of lens filters to give it a washed out, smokey look. I know that it is an artistic choice but the overuse of it is very noticeable and could be a detriment to your viewing enjoyment. Intrinsically it doesn’t completely ruin the film in my opinion but it is notable and therefore doesn’t score as highly as other films from that same time period that look sharper. Skin tones seem a little off and the color palette itself is generally muted though occasionally the lighting is very well done. The depth of detail in some shots is lacking and that may have to do more with the experience of those behind the camera coming from a television background rather than a cinematic one.
Audio Quality: (3/5)
The audio quality is pretty average, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It does all that is expected from a dialogue heavy film with little special effects from the 1970’s. It will never impress your friends or push the sonic limits of sound but this is as good as it has probably ever been. The score is very minimal but effective and I had no issues with understanding dialogue or audio anomalies.
Packaging: (3/5)
The Blu-ray case for this film seems to be a standard case, the center hub is well made and holds the disc firmly in place. This is not an Eco case and has a solid plastic backing for the disc. There are no inserts or advertisements.
Special Features: (4.5/5)
Usually we aren’t treated to special features of this magnitude on a single disc release outside of someone like Criterion but I’m happy to report that this is basically everything that could be asked for.
The original DVD commentary from MGM is included here and while at times it is dry and simple (often they will just comment on how nice a shot it is or how the clothes looked) it is nice to be able to hear from both Dan Curtis and Karen Black who have sadly passed away. Even during the days of the DVD release most of the principal cast had died so there wasn’t much more that could be done in remembrance of the film by those that worked the most on it. Thankfully Kino has also included a new commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith (official blogger for TCM) and it is packed full of interesting information. He goes into detail about the historical meaning of the term “burnt offering”, where Gothic horror comes from, personal anecdotes on how the movie affected him and much more. It is a very dense and detailed (and spoiler filled) commentary and it is one of my favorite recent commentaries. I highly recommend getting a chance to hear his commentary. Speaking of which, the new interview with Anthony James should not be missed as it is a fantastic journey through the actor’s film and art career. It too is one of my recent favorite special features. Everything included in the Blu-ray disc is as follows:
Interview with actor Anthony James (17:33)
Interview with screenwriter William F. Nolan (13:20)
Interview with actor Lee Montgomery (16:30)
Audio commentary with director/co-writer/producer Dan Curtis, actress Karen Black, and co-screenwriter William F. Nolan
Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith
“Trailers From Hell” with Steve Senski
Animated Montage of Images
Original Theatrical Trailer (2:29)
Technical Specs:
Release Date: October 6th 2015
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Rated: PG
Run time: 116 Minutes
Year Filmed: 1976
Screen: 1.85:1; Color
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Languages: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Region A
Overall Rating: (3.5/5)
Depending on your taste this could be just the movie you are looking for or another boring old film that you can’t understand why anyone wanted it on Blu-ray. I fall into the former and I am so happy that this release finally got the love it deserved. It has a very deliberate pace and is more Gothic in it’s horror rather than being a slasher/jump scare/gore film so modern audiences might not take to it. I think if you have never seen it you should rent it first to see if it is the kind of movie you would like to own. However if you have owned this before on DVD or always wanted to own a copy of it for your library I feel Burnt Offerings on Blu-ray is a recommended purchase. |
The Battle of Qarqar (or Ḳarḳar) was fought in 853 BC, when the army of Assyria led by king Shalmaneser III encountered an allied army of eleven kings at Qarqar, led by Hadadezer (also called Adad-idr and possibly to be identified with Benhadad II) of Damascus and King Ahab of Israel. This battle, fought during the 854 BC–846 BC Assyrian Conquest of Syria, is notable for having a larger number of combatants than any previous battle, and for being the first instance in which some peoples enter recorded history (such as the Arabs). The battle is recorded on the Kurkh Monolith. The ancient town of Qarqar at which the battle took place has generally been identified with the modern-day archaeological site of Tell Qarqur near the village of Qarqur in north-western Syria.
According to an inscription later erected by Shalmaneser, he had started his annual campaign, leaving Nineveh on the 14th day of Iyar. He crossed both the Tigris and Euphrates without incident, receiving the submission and tribute of several cities along the way, including Aleppo. Once past Aleppo he encountered his first resistance from troops of Irhuleni, king of Hamath, whom he defeated; in retribution, he plundered both the palaces and the cities of Irhuleni's kingdom. Continuing his march after having sacked Qarqar, he encountered the allied forces near the Orontes River.[3]
Twelve Kings [ edit ]
Twelve Kings is an Akkadian term meant to symbolize any kind of alliance. The most famous example is in the Kurkh Monolith, where an alliance of 11 kings are listed as 12 in the Assyrian document as fighting against Assyrian King Shalmaneser III in the battle of Qarqar. Shalmaneser's inscription describes the forces of his opponent Hadadezer in considerable detail as follows:[4]
Battle [ edit ]
Shalmaneser boasts that his troops inflicted 14,000 casualties upon the allied army, capturing countless chariots and horses, and describes the damage he inflicted on his opponents in savage detail. However, the royal inscriptions from this period are notoriously unreliable. They never directly acknowledge defeats and sometimes claim victories that were actually won by ancestors or predecessors. If Shalmaneser had won a clear victory at Qarqar, it did not immediately lead to further Assyrian conquests in Syria. Assyrian records make it clear that he campaigned in the region several more times in the following decade, engaging Hadadezer six times, who was supported by Irhuleni of Hamath at least twice. Shalmaneser's opponents held on to their thrones after this battle: though Ahab of Israel died shortly afterwards in an unrelated battle, Hadadezer was king of Damascus until at least 841 BC.
References [ edit ]
Coordinates: |
1 of 15 View Caption
Rick Egan | Tribune file photo Jon M. and Karen Huntsman, 1987. (Tribune file photo) Jon and Karen Huntsman at a 2007 event at the cancer center. (Tribune file photo) Governor George Romney and his wife Lenore Romney in 1967. Chris Carlson | Associated Press file photo Republican presidential candidates stand together before a Republican presidential Richard Shiro | The Associated Press FILE - Eight Republican presidential candidates prepare to debate at the CBS News/National Elise Amendola | The Associated Press FILE - Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, former Massachusetts Gov. M Steve Griffin | Tribune file photo Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., center, listens to questions from the media during a stop at the Steve Griffin | Tribune file photo Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., shares a laugh with Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., and former Massac FILE - Republican presidential candidates former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, left, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., former Hou FILE - US President Barack Obama (L) chats with Utah Governor Jon Huntsman in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House May Rick Egan | Tribune file photo President Gordon B. Hinckley invites Elder David B. Haight up to the podium to wave to the cro |
I recently attended Le Web in Paris, where the theme of the conference was innovation in the next decade. It got me to thinking about where we go with publishing. Even on Google, you won’t be able to find an article on publishing trends from the 1440s, the decade after Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable type printing to Europe. But if you did, it would probably focus more on the gloomy outlook for the illuminated manuscript industry than on the then-unfolding print revolution, which launched cascading innovations that would change everything and usher in the Age of Enlightenment.
Something similar is at work today: Digital publishing is now a mature, thriving industry, and yet many still insist that publishing is in its death throes. Book publishers know better: While hardcover sales declined slightly between 2008 and 2012 (from $5.2 billion to $5 billion), eBook sales grew at an astonishing clip during that period, rising from $64 million to $3 billion. And while digital publications are typically sold at a lower per-unit cost, profit margins are much higher – from 41 percent to 75 percent as publishers make the transition from print to digital.
Advertisement
Content is thriving more now than ever before. The book transition that in large part has been ushered in by Amazon is succeeding because, rather than relying on an old infrastructure to sell and distribute books, authors and creators are now able to use technology to connect directly with their audience. The days of huge organizations needed to market a particular title or even entourages travelling from one bookstore to the next are over. Authors and creators can do what they’re best at, and platforms can enable them to directly connect with their readers.
Despite the growing pains that accompany any major transition, publishers will be in a strong position in 2014 and beyond. But what trends will drive the evolution of digital publishing? How will the integration of mobile devices and cloud-based platforms affect the way people experience published content? Here are three broad trends that will play a key role:
Twitter as the tip of the iceberg: The rise of short-form communication platforms like Twitter has some in the long-form content industry convinced that consumers will eventually balk at reading anything that contains more than 140 characters. But a closer examination of what people are sharing via Twitter reveals that the platform often serves as a flag alerting followers to longer form content. Rather than replacing articles and other long-form features, Twitter is often used to promote them – providing a 140-character tip of the iceberg that points to the rich content experience lurking below the surface. Twitter and beacon distribution alerts signal that those ideas for which we have passion are accessible, more so now than ever before. New long-form content discovery venues: One thing digital publishing offers that print publications can’t match is a new way to form and participate in special-interest communities where readers can share and discover even more relevant content. Whether the topic is model trains, gluten-free living, longboarding, cross-country skiing, Paris fashion, gardening or virtually any other interest, it’s now possible for readers to come together digitally to discuss the issues they feel passionate about and create and share content for their unique communities. It’s like having a virtual global newsstand and salon devoted to everyone’s favorite topic. Growth in ad spending: The outlook for digital ad spending remains strong for 2014 and beyond, with digital ad spending accounting for nearly 22 percent of all U.S. ad spending (almost $110 billion total) in 2013, an increase over 2012, when digital ad spending accounted for 19 percent of the U.S. total. And there is ample reason for continued optimism, not only because of the data, but because of digital’s unique value proposition: Online and mobile platforms allow advertisers to identify reader activities, locations and interests in real time and serve targeted, highly-relevant ads enhanced with clickable actions, a capability print can’t touch.
Publishing is alive and well as we move into 2014 and beyond. In fact, as digital platforms evolve, it’s stronger than ever. Twitter has become a leading global source for breaking news, information and entertainment, and millions of users are tweeting links to long-form content in 140-characters or less. Online communities are forming around digital publishing platforms, giving people around the world who share common interests a place to come together to read and create content on the issues they’re passionate about. Advertisers are recognizing the value digital publishing delivers: Access to readers with measurable presence and interests. There’s never been a more exciting time for the industry – at least, not since Gutenberg’s day.
Joe Hyrkin is Chief Executive Officer at Issuu, a digital publishing platform. |
Disillusioned by our fast-paced, cynical news cycle? Follow Barack Obama’s example: slow down, and crack open a novel. In the second of a two-part conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Marilynne Robinson, the US president tipped his hat to fiction, and its vital influence on his ability to connect with others:
When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of grays, but there’s still truth there to be found, and that you have to strive for that and work for that. And the notion that it’s possible to connect with some[one] else even though they’re very different from you.
The first half of the interview was published in The New York Review of Books on Oct. 12, and the second was published online yesterday (Oct. 26). Among other topics, the pair also discussed the importance of instilling Americans with a sense of history and the danger of overvaluing economic utility. |
Think back to the first time you saw your car. This may not be a car you own now, or even owned in the past. You may never own it. Rather, this is a car that you saw for the first time, and said to yourself, “I will have one of those some day.” Whether it was the mesmerizing slope of body lines, the mechanical harmony that resonated from an engine bay, or simply a well thought out interior; this was a car that captivated you. This sensation is rather similar to what happened in Lisa’s mind when she saw her first BMW 2002.
Lisa’s love affair with the 02 dates back 20+ years. “I got my first 02 with my own hard earned, part time money, working as a receptionist at a real estate office,” she explained. “At 17, I bought my first 2002 from an original owner.” Describing her experience as “love at first sight,” she makes it very clear that there was never a doubt in her mind that the BMW 2002 was her car. So much so, that early on she was dubbed the “02 Princess” by Michel Potheau, cofounder of the BMWCCA. Since her first car, she has owned BMWs that fall across the map, from an E30 M3, a Bavaria, an E36 M3, and even two other 2002s. |
YES! Magazine Standing Rock reporter Jenni Monet has won the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award for her work documenting the Standing Rock Sioux’s stand against the Dakota Access pipeline and the global Indigenous movement it amplified.
Monet was nominated for the award by YES! Magazine. The Tobenkin recognizes outstanding achievements in covering racial and religious hatred and intolerance.
“At their heart, her stories were about the religious freedom, sovereignty, and human rights sought by Indigenous people everywhere,” said editorial director Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn in her nomination letter. Monet is a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico.
The judges said, “Combining a deeply informed historical, cultural, and political frame of reference with compelling narratives, Monet showed how a deep racial divide, poverty, and marginalization of the Lakota Sioux made their act of resistance and the response by police an episode that was decades in the making.”
To get these stories, Monet took on great personal risk, often dealing with an environment closer to a war zone than civil disobedience on the North Dakota plains. She herself was arrested and charged with trespassing and rioting after getting caught in a police sweep while reporting, despite carrying multiple press credentials. She is still awaiting trial, and YES! launched a campaign to get the county prosecutor to drop charges.
“I’d first like to thank my colleague and friend Mark Trahant and Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz, editorial and creative director at YES! Magazine. They were early chroniclers of the movement at Standing Rock and invited me to join them on this journey, and I am so grateful that they did,” Monet said.
“There were times when I stayed up all night writing because I honestly felt that no one else would, especially following horrific events like the night of Nov. 20, when dozens of demonstrators were hosed down with water in subfreezing temperatures. That story largely happened in a vacuum, just as news has been routinely overlooked for decades from the marginalized reservation communities of the Dakotas. But there was an awakening at Standing Rock, and it has been a treasure to chronicle it. To know that concepts like sovereignty, treaty rights, decolonization, and the overall narrative of the Indigenous struggle has now entered into mainstream conversation, to a degree, makes what I do so much more rewarding.”
Here are a few of Monet’s articles from Standing Rock:
Climate Justice Meets Racism: This Moment at Standing Rock Was Decades in the Making
Standing Rock Joins the World’s Indigenous Fighting for Land and Life
This Land Is Our Land: All Sides Move Quickly as Pipeline Nears the River
Sheriffs Refuse to Send Troops to Standing Rock as Public Outrage and Costs Mount |
Whenever the Left pushes for sharp increases in the minimum wage (which has intrinsic populist appeal and tends to poll well), conservatives argue that such plans would kill jobs, stifle entry-level opportunities, and end up hurting many of the very people it was ostensibly meant to help. Liberals' rhetoric about the minimum wage does not align with the data, critics contend, citing evidence about the types of workers who actually seek and fill those positions. Many supporters respond, in turn, with slogans and smears: It's time to "give America a raise," to end "starvation wages" and promote "fairness," they claim, attacking "mean-spirited" and "greedy" opponents for protecting "the rich" at the expense of the poor. Which brings us to Seattle's hard-left city counsel -- home to such lovely characters as this woman -- deciding in 2014 to ignore pleas from the business community and hike the minimum wage within their jurisdiction to $15 per hour. The Left celebrated, the Right braced for impact. The new law took effect two years ago, and basic economics has now rendered a verdict:
Seattle's $15-an-hour minimum wage law has cost the city jobs, according to a study released Monday that contradicted another new study published last week. A University of Washington team studying the law's effects found that the law has boosted pay in low-wage jobs since it took effect in 2015, but that it also caused a 9 percent reduction in hours worked, The Seattle Times reported. For an average low-wage Seattle worker, that's a loss of about $125 per month, the study said. "If you're a low-skilled worker with one of those jobs, $125 a month is a sizable amount of money," said Mark Long, one of the authors. "It can be the difference between being able to pay your rent and not being able to pay your rent." There would be about 5,000 more low-wage jobs in the city without the law, the study estimated...in the years covered by the study, 2015 and 2016, the minimum wage was at most $13, depending on business size, worker benefits and tips.
In other words, even before the full $15-per-hour mandate was phased in, thousands of jobs were killed, and low-wage workers' hours were significantly reduced -- taking money out of their pockets. Behold, the (ahem) wages of "fairness." A rival study conducted by a progressive, pro-union organization was commissioned by the Seattle Mayor's office (after preliminary data from UW's respected, nonpartisan team of economists appeared politically unhelpful to the city's policy), predictably declaring the move a big success. Unsurprisingly, it is being criticized as bought-and-paid-for propaganda. Its liberal authors are counter-attacking by alleging that the more credible study by mainstream economists is methodologically flawed, drawing this strong rebuke: "When we perform the exact same analysis as the Berkeley team, we match their results, which is inconsistent with the notion that our methods create bias," one UW professor noted. It turns out that when you raise the cost of creating new jobs and sustaining existing ones, fewer jobs are created, and employers find ways to stay in business. Hardest hit are low-skilled, would-be workers looking to get a foot in the door -- as well as low-income workers whose hours were slashed after the government artificially mandated a spike in their hourly pay. Based on the data, the harm outweighed the benefits:
NBER: $13 minimum wage in Seattle LOWERED average low-wage employee pay 6.6 percent. https://t.co/LLv9xmQuM2 pic.twitter.com/uMOtnF9ui4 — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) June 26, 2017
Seattle's minimum-wage hike seems to have reduced low-wage workers' earnings by $1500 a year: https://t.co/zB3elfXWdJ — Annie Lowrey (@AnnieLowrey) June 26, 2017
But hey, at least a bunch of liberal politicians were able to congratulate themselves on being "compassionate." National Review's Charles Cooke joked that the study's conclusions simply indicate that the minimum wage must be goosed even higher:
Better make it $20. https://t.co/Gaon8cnTFi — Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) June 26, 2017
Even though he obviously meant this in jest, there are undoubtedly left-wing activists re-writing their talking points demanding precisely this "solution" at this very moment. Hell, why not make it $150 per hour? By the way, the Democratic Party enshrined a national $15 minimum wage in its 2016 platform. To borrow the Left's lazy, bullying preferred framing on so many policy debates, why do Democrats hate poor people? Especially those who actually work for their party? Parting thought: Between California's dashed single-payer fantasy and Obamacare's continued implosion, it's been a rough stretch for liberal policy schemes. Not that it will deter the true believers for one nanosecond. Onward, for "fairness!" |
By Steve Kim
Former IBF welterweight titlist Shawn Porter faces Adrien Broner on June 20th in a battle of Ohio that will curiously take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. But while both combatants have competed as welterweights, this contest will be taking place at a catch-weight.
"The weight limit is 144-pounds plus a pound, give or take," said Kenny Porter, Shawn's father and trainer who is well aware of the tactics taking place.
"They're trying to bring us down to try to hurt us and they asked for a second-day weigh-in," continued the elder Porter. "The day of the fight we have to weigh-in, again."
Reportedly, neither fighter can weigh-in heavier than 155 pounds on the morning of this bout.
Broner, after being defeated by Marcos Maidana in Dec. '13, moved down from welterweight. Porter, who competed as high as super middleweight as an amateur, has had to gradually work his way down to the 147-pound weight class. You wonder if this puts him at a competitive disadvantage.
But as the elder Porter points out, "Shawn is not like most fighters. Shawn stays within 15 pounds of his fight weight. He never allows himself to go up after the fight. The most important time is not just the camp and not the fight - but what you do after the fights. So he was on-point afterwards."
Porter stopped late replacement Erick Bone in five rounds on March 13th.
"(Shawn's) at 157 (now); within 30 days of the fight - which is ten days days from now - I expect him to be at 154," the father said on Tuesday. "That's 10 lbs. off the fight weight and we're going to (lose) 2.5 pounds per week the rest of the way."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com. |
Final public hearings will be held this week regardomg two new toll lanes in each direction on Interstate 66 between the Beltway and Gainesville. These meetings are the last opportunity to weigh in on the proposed changes.
WASHINGTON — Final public hearings will be held this week regarding two new toll lanes in each direction on Interstate 66 between the Beltway and Gainesville.
The meetings are Monday night in Oakton, Tuesday in Centreville and Thursday in Bristow. These meetings are the last opportunity to weigh in on the detailed designs of interchanges, ramps, toll gantries, bike and pedestrian paths and more. The changes are expected to cost $3.7 billion.
Groundbreaking is scheduled for next week on Nov. 20.
Construction on the 22.5 mile stretch is expected to ramp up in the spring, with work planned to move forward in three separate segments; the two HOV or toll lanes in each direction next to three regular lanes should open in 2022. The lanes will be free with three or more people in a car and an E-ZPass Flex switched to HOV mode. Other drivers who use the lanes at any time will pay a toll that rises and falls based on the amount of traffic in the lanes.
A separate rush-hour only conversion of I-66 inside the Beltway to HOV or toll lanes that charge solo drivers a toll in the peak direction begins Dec. 4.
All drivers using toll lanes in the region are required to have an E-ZPass, whether riding for free or not.
A group of private companies has completed the designs for the outside the Beltway lanes. Express Mobility Partners will also be responsible for building, operating and maintaining the new lanes. The group finalized financial funding agreements late last week, with the help of a $1.2 billion low-interest federal loan.
“It feels terrific, and we’re looking forward to a groundbreaking ceremony coming up … it’s a tremendous project and another step toward unlocking Northern Virginia,” Virginia Department of Transportation Commissioner Charles Kilpatrick said.
“[The hearings] show people the design … of the roadway and the design features, so we’ve had conceptual work going on, but this really will give folks an opportunity to see ‘OK, how does this ramp work for me?’ or ‘Where is my house in relation to the project?’ So they’re really important meetings to give folks an opportunity to see what it’s going to look like and what we’re going to build,” he said.
While the overall project is moving forward, Kilpatrick said the final hearings could still lead to small tweaks based on public feedback.
“We learn a lot from these public hearings, sometimes they’re fairly small in terms of changes to the footprint, but they might be huge changes for an individual citizen, especially if they own property near the roadway,” Kilpatrick said.
The schedule for hearings on the designs is:
Monday, Nov. 13, 2017
6 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Oakton High School cafeteria
2900 Sutton Road
Vienna, VA
Oakton High School cafeteria 2900 Sutton Road Vienna, VA Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017
6 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Stone Middle School cafeteria
5500 Sully Park Drive
Centreville, VA
Stone Middle School cafeteria 5500 Sully Park Drive Centreville, VA Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017
6 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Piney Branch Elementary School Cafeteria/Gym
8301 Linton Hall Road
Bristow, VA
In addition to the public hearings, written comments can be submitted through Nov. 29 to [email protected]. VDOT asks that emails include “Transform 66 Outside the Beltway” in the subject line.
Comments can also be submitted via traditional mail addressed to Susan Shaw, P.E., Megaprojects Director at VDOT’s Northern Virginia District Office at 4975 Alliance Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030.
Like WTOP on Facebook and follow @WTOP on Twitter to engage in conversation about this article and others.
© 2017 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. |
In recent years, especially since the beginning of this decade, the term “Thucydides trap” (between China as a rising power and U.S. as an established one) has gained increasing currency among policymakers, advisers, and China experts in Western research institutes and think tanks. The fear is that as its power increases, China will eventually choose to challenge or even overturn the existing international order that has contributed so much to its rapid rise, making a war between China and the U.S. likely.
These worries and concerns are not without basis, and nor do they represent a bias against China, despite what some may claim. After all, the long history of modern international relations since the Treaty of Westphalia is, in a way, the history of the rise and fall of great powers, nearly always accompanied by bloody wars. Peaceful transitions of power or hegemony have been far and few between; even the example of Britain and U.S. was not as peaceful as is often claimed. In the case of China, the prospect of peaceful transition looks particularly dim. It is a country that is as politically, culturally and institutionally different from the U.S. as the U.S. and Britain were similar. In so many respects, China seems to be America’s opposite. If there is anything they do share, it is the aspiration to be the world’s preeminent power. Nor does China’s behavior in recent years help much. It is viewed as increasingly assertive or even aggressive in the way it defines its core interests and in its approaches to the East and South China Seas disputes. As its power grows, China is becoming more outspoken about its interests and more prepared to defend them forcefully.
Still, for all the rationales for the Thucydides trap argument, I would offer at least three reasons for optimism.
First, the world today is not what it was three centuries ago, or even sixty years ago. Before the United Nations was founded in the wake of World War II, and the principle of sovereignty was firmly established in the UN Charter, the world was a colonial system that operated based on the law of the jungle: The strong get what they want and the weak do as they are told. In that world, the strong became stronger and richer by conquering, invading and annexing the weak, and were only stopped or defeated by an even stronger power or by a power coalition, as in the case of France under Napoleon, Germany under William II and then Hitler, and Imperial Japan. It was also a world where sovereignty meant the capacity to defend from conquest and to conquer others.
Following the Second World War, that world gradually gave way to a post-colonial system, where the legal status of sovereignty applies to all, large or small, strong or weak. This is a world in which states cannot hope to become strong or rich by means of conquest or force. The only path to prosperity and greatness is through internal development and external trade. The peaceful postwar integration and reemergence of Germany and Japan, and the rise of China and India are powerful examples.
Second, China is the greatest beneficiary of the existing international system, which the U.S. architected and helped to create. Under the colonial system, China suffered a century of humiliation, in which it was mocked, humiliated, and ruthlessly conquered. Only in the post-colonial system has China for the first time in a century really stood up and then become strong by reforming itself and opening to the outside world. Yes, the current international system leaves much to be desired, but it is a system within which China has benefited greatly. Beijing has every reason to join with the international community in supporting and reform it.
Third, China has clearly signaled that it intends to develop peacefully and that it does not seek to subvert or overthrow the existing international order. From at least 1978 when it opened up, China has chosen to join the world and integrate itself into the international system. Since the beginning of this century, China has published two “peaceful development” white papers that make its intentions known to the international community. More recently, Beijing has proposed a new type of great power relations with the U.S., to reassure Washington of China’s commitment to peaceful development and constructive ties.
Needless to say, strategic distrust between U.S. and China remains, and is indeed growing. Washington worries about China’s rising power, against which it has hedged by pivoting to Asia. For its part, Beijing is unsure of Washington’s long-term intentions and its policy towards China’s rise. Yet given the huge differences between China and U.S., and the turbulent power flux in Asia today, none of this is very surprising. And for all the fuss made over the Thucydides trap, never in history has a rising power and an established one had such intensive economic interaction and interdependence, so many official bilateral institutions, and so much people-to-people engagement.
And if all of these reasons for optimism are not convincing enough, the Ukraine crisis can serve as a wakeup call: It is Russia, not China, that has pushed aside international law on sovereignty and territorial integrity. And China has distanced itself from Russia, a close partner with whom it has voted together in past several international issues, on the very grounds of independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. China will not risk overturning its long-held principle of non-interference and sovereignty for the sake of supporting its strategic partner, let alone challenging or overturning the international order itself.
There is no Thucydides trap between China and the U.S., even though differences or strategic trust deficits may persist.
Wei Zongyou, is Professor and Vice Dean of the Institute of International and Diplomatic Affairs, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China. His main research interests cover Sino-U.S. relations, American foreign policy, humanitarian intervention and R2P. The views expressed here are his own. |
For someone who hasn’t really released new music in more than 20 years, Billy Joel is having an epic third act. He has spent much of his life in battle: against his ex-wives, against booze, bad managers and bankruptcy, and against critics who’ve considered him too uncool for rock ’n’ roll. Legendary Village Voice critic Robert Christgau derided him as “a force of nature and bad taste.”
Today, at 65, Billy Joel is in the midst of an unprecedented residency at Madison Square Garden. His monthly shows gross him more than $2 million each. He has sold more than 150 million albums and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2013, he was among the recipients at the Kennedy Center Honors. A Hicksville native, he has been considered the poet laureate of Long Island for decades.
Yet he’s always felt a failure where it most counts: love.
“None of those people in the arena screaming your name really know you,” Joel tells author Fred Schruers in the new book “Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography.” (Joel, who sat for 100 hours of interviews, eventually withdrew from the project over fears it would be too revelatory.)
“You just need one — one person out of millions — to know and accept and love you for being, well, just the way you are . . . I see old folks walking down the street who look like they’ve been together 50 years, and there’s something very touching about it — that they’ve lasted so long. I used to wonder: How come I don’t have that? I can dream about it, think about it, write music and lyrics and sing about it. I can even try to achieve it again, and often have.”
His three tortured marriages — and the music they’ve inspired — are testament to that.
The Shark
Joel met his first wife in 1970, through his friend and bandmate Jon Small. Elizabeth Weber was married to Small, and they had a baby son, Sean — but Joel was knocked out. “She wasn’t like a lot of the other girls I knew at that time who had taken home ec and cooking classes,” he told Schruers. “She was . . . intelligent and not afraid to speak her mind, but could also be seductive. Almost like a European-type — not a typical American girl.”
When Small discovered the affair, Weber left them both, disappearing for weeks. Joel became suicidal. He was 21, broke, friendless, loveless and “crashing at my mom’s place again, which is abject failure.”
Not long after Weber took off, Joel overdosed on Nembutal, then called Small to apologize. Alarmed, Small raced to Joel’s mom’s house in Hicksville and found Joel on the floor. “The next thing I remember, I woke up in the hospital and learned that they had pumped my stomach,” Joel told Schruers. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, great, I couldn’t even do this right.’ It was another failure.”
A few weeks later, Joel tried again, this time drinking furniture polish. Another family member found him, and this time, Joel checked himself into a mental hospital, where he stayed for three weeks. He had an epiphany: “The people I was locked up with were never going to be able to overcome their problems, whereas mine were all self-made,” he told Schruers. “I can fix this, I thought.”
He began writing again. Never much into drugs, he self-medicated with booze and cigarettes. After much agonizing back-and-forth, he got together with Weber, who had shrewd business sense and agreed to manage him. They married in September 1973. “She’s Got a Way” and “She’s Always a Woman” were inspired by her, but many around Joel were concerned: They found Weber controlling, manipulative, rude and far more enthralled with the rock n’ roll lifestyle than Joel.
He wrote “Just the Way You Are” as her birthday gift, and after he played it for her, she said, “Do I get the publishing, too?”
One year, he wrote “Just the Way You Are” as her birthday gift, and after he played it for her, she said, “Do I get the publishing, too?” She wasn’t kidding.
As his wife, Weber was entitled to 50 percent of Joel’s worth and was also taking a cut of his earnings as manager. She brought her brother, Frank, into the fold, and Joel felt deep unease. His next record — and its eponymous hit single, “The Stranger” — were also inspired by her.
In 1982, they filed for divorce, but Joel hoped to reconcile. He agreed to buy her everything she wanted — a $4 million town house on the Upper East Side, an Alfa Romeo — but then he had a motorcycle accident, smashing both his hands. While in the hospital, doped up on pain pills and contemplating what future he might have as a musician, Weber came to visit, contract in hand. Joel recalls her asking him to sign everything he had over to her.
“I may have acted like an idiot a time or two, but I’m not a complete idiot,” Joel told Schruers. “That really killed it right there and then.”
Frank Weber sided with Joel in the divorce. Years later, Joel would find Frank had siphoned nearly $30 million of his earnings, and in 1989, Joel sued him for that plus $60 million in punitive damages.
Frank outwitted Joel by filing for bankruptcy, and in 1990, Joel settled out of court.
“I hooked up with the Borgias!” Joel told Schruers. “What a family to pick.”
The Supermodel
Following the 1982 split with Elizabeth, Joel went to St. Bart’s for the holidays. He found a piano bar and began playing; a few moments later, to his wonderment, Elle Macpherson, then just 19, and Christie Brinkley, 28, were standing at either side of the 33-year-old — along with an undiscovered Whitney Houston.
They were all vying for Joel’s attention, Brinkley tells Schruers. “Whitney says, ‘I can sing!’ Meanwhile, Elle’s draped herself on the piano like Michelle Pfeiffer [in ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys’].”
Back in New York, Brinkley and Macpherson competed for Joel, who was living in a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park. His doorman, a struggling actor named Nick Turturro, would rank all the women Billy brought home. “Usually, he’d hold up eight, nine, 10 fingers,” Joel told Schruers. Brinkley was the only one to get 10 fingers twice.
The first night Joel got Brinkley to come home with him, “I was trying to act cool, but somewhere inside me the kid from Hicksville was going, ‘Yesssssss!’ ” When the elevator door opened to his apartment, there stood Macpherson. “Even as part of me thought, ‘Oh, God, no,’ another part of me was going, ‘Holy crap, if my friends could see me now.’ ”
Christie likes to joke that the end of the marriage . . . spelled the end of my songwriting career… At least, I think it’s a joke. - Billy Joel
Brinkley was unruffled. She left, Macpherson stayed, but Joel was in love with Brinkley. They married in 1985, and the album “An Innocent Man” was a love letter to her. They conceived their daughter, Alexa Ray, on their wedding night.
Yet Joel’s financial crises meant he had to tour nonstop to recoup his money, and the marriage suffered tremendously. The breaking point came in 1993. After a show at Nassau Coliseum, Joel opted to stay at a nearby hotel rather than make the 90-minute drive home, and Brinkley was told by one of Joel’s band members that he was having an affair. (Joel denies it.) By the end of that year, they knew the marriage was over — and it marked the last year Joel would issue a new album.
“Christie likes to joke that the end of the marriage . . . spelled the end of my songwriting career,” Joel told Schruers. “At least, I think it’s a joke.”
The Social Climber
By 2002, Joel was again deeply depressed and drinking heavily. He was touring with Elton John, and one night had an onstage meltdown at the Garden, randomly shouting out famous battle sites: “Bunker Hill! Antietam!” (In 2011, John publicly castigated Joel on his drinking. Their relationship has never really recovered.)
Between 2002 and 2004, Joel had three car accidents on Long Island, once smashing into a house. He later blamed bad street lighting, local wildlife, his poorly constructed Citroën and 9/11. He checked into rehab but never bought into it. “The fact is, I like to drink,” Joel told Schruers. “Sometimes too much.”
The one bright spot was Katie Lee, a college girl from Ohio whom he had picked up in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel. After graduating, she moved into Joel’s house in the Hamptons, and in 2004, they married. Joel was 55, Lee 23 — just four years older than his daughter, Alexa.
They moved into a $4 million loft in Tribeca. Just months into the marriage, Joel was in rehab again.
After a stint at Betty Ford, Lee — herself an aspiring culinary star — encouraged him to get back out on the road, and he began playing live again. In 2008, while touring with Elton John, Joel kept seeing photos of Lee at premieres and gallery openings — and one in particular, of her dancing closely with another man at Art Basel in Miami.
“Those photos looked bad,” Lee told Schruers. She denied an affair.
As the marriage unraveled, Joel held out hope. He told Lee he wanted to go to a therapist. She began talking about furniture. “I realized, ‘It’s not going to happen. We’re over . . . Just don’t send me messages, don’t leave me cute little phone calls, don’t tease me, don’t f- -k with me, just end it. ’Cause I’m an old man now, a vulnerable man. Don’t do that to an old guy.’ ”
They divorced in 2009. Today, Joel lives in Oyster Bay with his girlfriend of five years, a 33-year-old former hedge funder. He is in no rush to marry again, but, ever the romantic, remains on good terms with all his exes, even Weber. His philosophy, say all of them, is to look for the good in people, believe in it, and try again.
“You can have all the money in the world, you can have mansions, you can have properties, you can have yachts, you can have limousines, you can have motorcycles,” he told Schruers. But without love, “it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”
In the biography, Joel also reveals the inspiration for some of his most famous songs:
“Piano Man” (1973)
In 1972, Joel took off to L.A. — he was trying to extricate himself from a shady management deal, and was advised to go off the grid. He wound up playing piano at The Executive Room on Wilshire Boulevard, and to blunt his misery imagined he was like Steve Martin or Bill Murray on “SNL,” playing the part of a lounge lizard. He performed under the name Bill Martin; the “Bill” in the song is him, and there really was a John the bartender, and tipping patrons would often ask, “What are you doing here?” — knowing this guy was far too talented for that room.
“New York State of Mind” (1976)
Joel had been living in L.A. for three years and was done with it. He recalled a day trip upstate, and being knocked out by the Hudson Valley’s “full-foliage glory.” Joel and his first wife rented a house near West Point, and as soon as he finished touring, he boarded a Greyhound bus and stared out the window. “On that ride, I started writing the song,” he said. “I was so glad to be back home, feeling, ‘This is where I belong.’”
“Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” (1977)
“At the time, I just pictured some lady yelling out of the house, ‘Anthony! Anthony!’ and I was thinking about a kid who’s been living at home and getting a lot of pressure from his family to do what they want him to do, and this is a guy who wants to go his own way,” Joel told Schruers. “He isn’t buying into the upward mobility thing.”
“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” (1977)
Musically inspired by the 16-minute B-side pastiche on the Beatles’ “Abbey Road,” this is Joel’s most narratively dense and detailed song — the prom king and queen’s courtship, marriage, and divorce told in seven minutes and 37 seconds. “I wanted to explore the eternal question about the anointed kids we all knew: Whatever happened to them? If you peak too early, if you’re the hot lick in high school, it’s a good bet you’re gonna bomb out pretty early,” Joel told Schruers. “I had an idea . . . about a couple that meets after a long time — okay, a bottle of red, a bottle of white. That’s it — they’re in their old Italian restaurant. Gradually it all came together.”
“Big Shot” (1979)
Joel told Schruers that the song was about his unease with fame and New York nightlife at the time. “I hated that whole coked-out, disco-drenched New York club scene in the late ’70s . . . it just seemed trashy, the whole Studio 54 schtick of going into the back room and doing coke, or hanging out with Liza Minelli and Halston — that scene had nothing to do with rock and roll.” Joel also told Howard Stern that it was about Bianca Jagger, who he found a total pain in the ass — and imagined that Mick did, too.
“Allentown” (1983)
Joel always writes the melody first, then the lyrics. For this one, he thought of writing about Levittown, where he grew up, but quickly hit a wall. “What was there to write about Levittown?” he asked Schruers. “That the candy store was understocked?” But then he thought of Allentown, and the working-class central Pennsylvanians ravaged by Vietnam and Reaganomics. “I empathize with people who have difficulty finding work or staying in a job,” Joel told Schruers. “I put in time inking typewriter ribbons in a factory, and my God, it’s mind-numbing, a Dickensian existence . . . I remember what it feels like to do a meaningless hard day’s work for a low wage.”
“And So It Goes” (1989)
Inspired by a whirlwind affair with Elle Macpherson in the early ’80s. Joel was a bona fide star in his early 30s; she was a 19-year-old about to become a superstar herself, and Joel knew she’d soon be gone. “Almost every chord has a dissonant note in it,” Joel tells Schruers, “which to me was conveying what’s just beneath the words: a kind of pessimism and resignation, because I knew it wasn’t really going to work out.” |
The Selective Subculture Of 'Fantasy' Gamers
toggle caption Square Enix
Call it "disintermediation" or "cultural fragmentation," but American culture is sliced up in so many ways that what's popular with one group can go virtually unnoticed by another. NPR's Fractured Culture series explores how we came to live in "a culture of many cultures."
Most American households play video games, but gamers split up into a lot of different fractures, from Spider Solitaire addicts to Resident Evil fans. One of the biggest gaming subcultures is built around Final Fantasy. The franchise has been around for 23 years and has sold 97 million copies.
It's so compelling to gamer Alex DiStasi that, even though he's graduated from NYU, he still hangs out with the NYU game club to play. He comes in part because he likes the people who like Final Fantasy.
Your 'Madden' gamers or 'Call of Duty' gamers, they're a bit more mainstream. They're your frat boys in college.
"Your Madden [Football] gamers or Call of Duty gamers, they're a bit more mainstream. They're your frat boys in college," he says.
Final Fantasy is a role-playing game (RPG), with origins in pen and paper games like Dungeons and Dragons. RPGs are all about heroic quests through richly drawn fantasy lands. There are battles to be waged, spells to be cast, complicated back stories to be negotiated.
"One thing that is consistent across the series is an epic scale and an operatic style to it," says Zeke Abuhoff, another NYU gamer.
Aesthetically, Final Fantasy XIII is a long way off from Dungeons and Dragons. Gamer Richard Rodriguez describes it as lots of metal and robots in a Victorian city. The Final Fantasy games are from Japan, so they look like Japanese animation.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Square Enix Square Enix
Final Fantasy XIII is set on the floating planet of Cocoon. The main character is Lightning, a pink-haired, sword-wielding young woman out to save her sister who is in danger of losing her soul forever. Beyond that, the plot is too intricate to even begin to explain.
"There's an element of world-building here," says Frank Lantz, director of the NYU game center. "It's the same way you can disappear into Star Wars or Tolkien's universe. It really rewards that kind of archaeological excavation, where I'm just going to go deeper and deeper into this culture."
The complexity of the game acts as a gatekeeper keeping out all but the most persistent. No one is born knowing the rules to Final Fantasy XIII. To be let into the world of Cocoon, to play as Lightning, you have to put in some work.
"It's so cool and seductive, the idea that there is this cryptic, mysterious, confusing thing," says Lantz. "You know that there's something going on there, and you don't know what it is, but if you make the effort you can unlock the secret."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Square Enix Square Enix
But Rodriguez is worried that the secret is being given away. New technologies like the Nintendo Wii motion control make it easier for anyone to play; you don't have to master a complicated set of buttons and joysticks. Rodriguez isn't thrilled about just opening the gates to the uninitiated.
"I personally liked that my mom didn't understand what buttons to press, and how she couldn't play the games," he explains. "It was something that I enjoyed that other people couldn't."
Then again, 67 percent of American households already play some kind of video game or another, so the days of games as a closed club may very well be over. |
On Friday, World Vasectomy Day was a huge success, with 25 countries participating. During the day-long Snip-a-thon, over 1,000 vasectomies were performed, all in the name of family planning and reducing the world’s population.
How long does a vasectomy take to perform?
It doesn’t take much time out of your busy schedule to get a vasectomy done. If you have a half-hour lunch break, you can have one done and still have 24 minutes left to eat your sandwich.
Throughout the day, there were live screenings done of the operations in Adelaide, Australia. The Vasectomy Celebration served as a way to educate people around the globe about vasectomies and the benefits of getting one, such as population control.
There’s now an estimated population of more than seven billion humans on the planet. Of these, 153 million of them are orphans in need of families to adopt them. By 2023, the population could hit eight billion.
Getting a vasectomy is not necessarily for everyone, but WVD is a time that should cause all males to at least think about the role that males should play and the responsibility we have to make sure that the world’s population doesn’t get even larger than it already is.
Also, getting a vasectomy doesn’t mean that you can’t have a family. When there are as many orphans in the world as there are today, who want to be adopted by loving parents, it’s still possible to have a family and not add to the world’s population.
Hate the thought of scissors or scalpels around your junk?
Nowadays, you don’t have to worry about having pointy objects near your genitals. There is a “no scalpel, no needle” way to get a vasectomy that’s practiced by doctors such as Dr. Neil Pollock of Vancouver, Canada. He’s one of the doctors who took part in the vasectomy-a-thon on Friday.
Also, recovering from a vasectomy is generally fairly quick, and there are few potential complications that can result from this simple procedure.
According to Dr. Pollock, the pain men feel after having a vasectomy is just “a little bit of an ache” that’s over in “a few days.”
You can be back to work soon after the procedure, and even start having sex again within a week or so — and without the worry of it resulting in an unwanted pregnancy.
If you change your mind and decide you want to start up a family, the procedure can be reversed, as well, though getting a vasectomy shouldn’t be considered to be a method of contraception.
World Vasectomy Day was celebrated all around the globe on Friday. There were 173 doctors participating in the day-long vasectomy-a-thon. It was a way to promote responsibility, family planning, and the need to stop the rampant population explosion occurring on our planet. If you took part in the event, or have an opinion about it, please leave your comments below.
Written by: Douglas Cobb
Source 1
Source 2
Source 3 |
Story highlights Newly discovered document adds historical detail to what is known about Lincoln's death
Report believed to have been written the day after assassination
Report has more exact times and pulse rate measurements, says expert
A newly discovered account of the shooting of Abraham Lincoln, and his death the next morning, gives a vivid and moving picture of the calamity.
Dr. Charles Leale was in the audience at Ford's Theater when Lincoln was shot, and was the first to attempt to treat the stricken president.
In a report believed written the next day, April 15, 1865, Leale writes, "the report of a pistol was distinctly heard and about a minute after a man of low stature with black hair and eyes was seen leaping to the stage beneath, holding in his hand a drawn dagger." Stumbling as he leaped from the president's box, the man "ran to the opposite side of the stage, flourishing in his hand a drawn dagger and disappearing behind the scene."
Leale ran to the president's box, about 40 feet from where he'd been sitting, where he encountered Mary Lincoln. She said, " 'O Doctor, do what you can for him! Do what you can!' I told her we would do all that we possibly could," Leale writes.
Then he saw the president. "He was in a state of general paralysis, his eyes were closed and he was in a profoundly comatose condition."
Leale was just 23, and had only barely begun practicing medicine after his service in the Civil War. He describes how he tried to treat the injury, beginning with asking another man to cut off Lincoln's coat and shirt to find any stab wounds.
Leale first believed Lincoln had been stabbed, because of that sighting of John Wilkes Booth wielding a knife. But soon Leale realized the president's injury was a gunshot in the back of his head.
Leale writes that he "passed the little finger of my left hand through the perfectly smooth opening made by the ball, and found that it had entered the encephalon. As soon as I removed my finger a slight oozing of blood followed and his breathing became more regular." Lincoln is then given some brandy, and two more doctors arrive.
The report was found by Helena Iles Papaioannou, a researcher for the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, at the National Archives in Washington. She discovered it among the papers of the U.S. surgeon general. Her group's mission is to collect all documents "to and from Abraham Lincoln," she said, and she came upon a copy of Leale's report by accident on May 21. The report is not in Leale's own hand, but is a "true copy" written by a clerk.
"Its immediacy makes it so very moving," said Papaioannou. "But it's also so very clinical, and you realize how awful it was -- the injury that Lincoln sustained was just horrific."
Standing outside Ford's Theater in downtown Washington, Papaioannou explained it was too far to take Lincoln to the White House, so the doctors took him to a house across the street. "You can see how narrow the street is," she said, pointing from Ford's Theater across to the historic Peterson House, where tourists were taking guided tours of the site. "Even that little journey was traumatic."
There is no indication that Leale and the other doctors had any way to save Lincoln.
"You get a sense of helplessness," said Papaioannou. "I think it was fairly immediate that he realized that the president wasn't going to recover." Papaioannou said that, to her, the most moving part of Leale's report is his account of covering Lincoln shortly after the president was carried to a back bedroom of the Peterson House.
"He talks about how the president's legs -- his lower extremities, from the knees down -- were cold, and they brought him hot water bottles and hot blankets. I find that a very touching part of the report."
The document also describes in clinical terms the president's deterioration that night. Near the end of the report it states: "At 7:20 a.m. he breathed his last and 'the spirit fled to God who gave it.' "
The very last line of the report seems to relay how absorbed Leale became in the gravity of the moment. "Immediately after death had taken place, we all bowed and the Rev. Dr. Gurley supplicated to God in behalf of the bereaved family and our afflicted country."
Papaioannou talks about the moment she discovered this document. "I took it out of the box, and started reading through it -- reading parts out to my colleagues who sat at the same table as me. ... We realized we had something special on our hands."
John Elliff, with the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, said the newly discovered report largely corroborates the account that Leale eventually published over 40 years later, in 1909.
While it adds only a few details to known accounts of Lincoln's final hours, Elliff said, "this report has more exact times and pulse rate measurements through the night -- an intriguing new detail for historians."
Agreeing with the researchers who found it, Elliff said that the document has a compelling immediacy, and is unclouded by the passage of time.
"The original report does get you right close to the event -- knowing that the doctor leaves the bedside and writes it within the day," he said. |
October 16, 2013 at 9:58 AM
The Associated Press
WATERVILLE, Douglas County — The cause of death for a Waterville man who died in a struggle in July with Douglas County deputies has been determined as excited delirium.
County prosecutor and coroner Steve Clem says the determination was made last week by a contract forensic pathologist, Dr. Gina Fino.
Jason Nalls fought with deputies who had responded to a reported shooting. He jumped in patrol car and dragged a deputy about two blocks before he was handcuffed. Then deputies noticed he had stopped breathing.
The Wenatchee World reports (http://bit.ly/GRdNTT) Dr. Fino had also determined that excited delirium was the cause of death for a man who struggled with corrections officers in June in the Chelan County Regional Justice Center.
Excited delirium involves high heart and breathing rates during a period of stress. |
The highest office in the land has afforded Mr. Trump his most prominent celebrity perch. His account has risen from a few million followers to nearly 20 million in the past year. There was a time when some assumed that Mr. Trump’s public persona would evolve as he rose in the political ranks. But there’s just one Trump, and that’s been key to his success. As Kim Kardashian once said, the secret to social media dominance is authenticity and consistency. Mr. Trump’s projection of realness relies on him being reliably self-aggrandizing and wildly inappropriate. That may seem like a liability for the leader of the free world, but it’s an asset in the low-culture celebrity roles that have led him to this moment: reality TV boss, Howard Stern guest, pro-wrestling heel.
Eight years ago, Barack Obama was the social media wonder headed to the White House, and his tech savvy was heralded as a bright light for democracy. The tweets he posts to @POTUS never seem impulsive; they seem made for posterity. Even his jokes are calculated to be minimally offensive and maximally educational. When the NASA rover Curiosity carried Mr. Obama’s signature to the surface of Mars, Mr. Obama responded in the form of a dad joke: “That is out of this world.”
If Mr. Obama came to power in a time of great optimism for Twitter, Mr. Trump lords over a waning platform. What was once a hopeful place for global connection and resistance has become a site for coordinating harassment campaigns, connecting with white supremacists and accelerating unverified and sometimes dangerous rumors. Its growth has slumped and its stock price has stagnated.
But the place suits Mr. Trump’s purposes fine. For the guy who’s all about appearances, Twitter provides the veneer of populist connection without the hassle of accountability. Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s incoming press secretary, has suggested that Twitter town halls and Reddit forums may replace some typical presidential press interactions, where he can easily make himself available to anonymous fans instead of the scrutiny of the press. The social media platforms that were once heralded as democratic tools could also be used to undermine democratic norms.
All of this works because one group is as intoxicated by Twitter as Mr. Trump is: journalists. It’s hard to explain to a normal person — one of the 79 percent of American adults who don’t use Twitter — why the platform mesmerizes the news media. Its all-powerful search function means you can conjure material on any kind of news topic — or just spend your time searching for your own name. Reporters still crave the ego rush of a published byline, but that pales in comparison to the animated feedback loop that Twitter offers. The more time you spend, and the more tweets you send, the bigger your following becomes. But Twitter provides little actual reach — compared with Facebook or Google, it hardly drives any traffic to articles. It’s like a video game for professional validation.
Mr. Trump expertly exploits journalists’ unwavering attention to their Twitter feeds, their competitive spirit and their ingrained journalistic conventions — chiefly, that what the president says is inherently newsworthy. As a developer and reality show star, he lobbied the news media for coverage. Now journalists feel obligated to pay attention to him. Mr. Trump overwhelms the media with boatloads of what was once a rare commodity: access. He creates impressions faster than journalists can check them. By the time they turn up the facts, the news cycle has moved on to his next missive, leaving less time (and reader attention) for the stories Mr. Trump does not highlight on his feed.
Mr. Trump may not follow a deliberate distraction strategy, but he doesn’t need one. He distracts instinctively. All he needs is a phone, the press and whatever thought just entered his mind. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.