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LONDON (Reuters) - Supporters of Scottish independence have taken their first opinion poll lead since the referendum campaign began, according to a YouGov survey for the Sunday Times newspaper.
A workman walks past a Scottish saltire in Kilmarnock, Scotland September 3, 2014. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
With less than two weeks to go before the Sept. 18 vote, the poll puts the “Yes” to independence campaign on 51 percent, with the unionists on 49 percent, overturning a 22-point lead for the unionist campaign in just a month, the Sunday Times said.
The paper announced the headline results in a news release ahead of publication. No further details of the poll were immediately available.
“The YouGov survey ... shows that the nationalists have taken a two-point lead and are poised to triumph in the referendum,” the paper said.
After months of surveys showing nationalists heading for defeat, recent polls have been showing the gap narrowing to the extent that they raise the real prospect that secessionists led by Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party (SNP) could achieve their goal of breaking the 307-year-old union with England.
A previous YouGov poll on Sept. 1 put the lead for the “no” to secession campaign at just six points, down from 14 points in the middle of August and 22 points at the start of that month.
But the latest average of the polls, issued on Sept. 1 by Strathclyde University Professor of Politics John Curtice, still shows the unionist lead at 10 points.
The late showing by the independence camp has hit sterling on the foreign exchanges and electrified Britain’s political class after its summer break.
A vote to break away would be followed by negotiations with London on what to do about the currency, the national debt, North Sea oil and the future of Britain’s nuclear submarine base in Scotland ahead of independence pencilled in for March 24, 2016.
If Scots voted to leave the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron would face calls to resign ahead of a national election in May 2015 while the opposition Labour party’s chances of gaining a majority could be scuppered if it lost its Scottish lawmakers.
Cameron, who is due to visit Queen Elizabeth in Scotland on Sunday, has insisted he will not resign.
Nationalists accuse London of squandering Scotland’s wealth and say Scotland would be one of the world’s richest countries if it took control of its own destiny.
Unionists, including Britain’s three main political parties, say the United Kingdom is stronger if it stays together and that Scottish independence would bring significant financial, economic and political uncertainty.
Politicians from the “Better Together” unionist campaign have been trying to tempt Scots with offers of greater devolution.
This week, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scot, promised Edinburgh more powers over its tax, social and economic affairs if Scots voted against independence.
The Observer newspaper, in an advance extract of its Sunday edition, said British ministers planned to make further concrete offers in coming days to allow Scots to devise a federal future for their country. | {
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Leave it to Thomas Pynchon to send fans down a futile rabbit hole of perceived significance, only for it to be one big joke played on the audience. Paul Thomas Anderson and especially Josh Brolin had strongly hinted ahead of the release of Anderson’s adaptation of Pynchon’s Inherent Vice that the reclusive author had a secret cameo in the movie. Sharp-eyed obsessives have been trawling the film ever since trying to figure out which extra might actually be Pynchon—who hasn’t definitively been photographed since 1955—jumping on anyone whose face was barely visible in a few frames of Inherent Vice, even those looking five decades too young to be the 78-year-old author.
For a while, the Internet’s favorite candidate was a doctor who pops up for a few seconds while Joaquin Phoenix’s Doc Sportello is walking through a clinic, because sure, the guy looks like he could maybe be the septuagenarian version of the young Pynchon. However, he looks even more like a character actor named Charley Morgan, son of Harry Morgan of M*A*S*H fame and bit player in Anderson’s The Master. Following up on a previous week’s discussion of the elusive Pynchon cameo, Morgan himself called up The Best Show this week to talk to host Tom Scharpling about the mystery. Morgan not only confirmed that he is indeed the doctor, but added that, according to Anderson, who Morgan described as a friend, Pynchon actually didn’t appear at any point in Inherent Vice.
“There’s no Thomas Pynchon cameo,” Morgan said. “Not at all…I talked to Paul Anderson about it.”
Unless, of course, Charley Morgan has really been Thomas Pynchon all along! His IMDb page is suspiciously short for a second-generation actor his age, starting in 2007 with a guest spot on The Sopranos. His voice may not match Pynchon’s Simpsons cameos, and “Charley Morgan” has a decidedly un-Pynchonian ring to it—we’d expect something like, say, Duane Simulex or Zep Mundegreen—but maybe that’s all part of Pynchon’s plan. Get to it, internet detectives! | {
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Preschool-age child killed by gunshot in Monett was accident, police say
Police say the death of a preschool-age child from a gunshot wound early Tuesday in Monett was an accident.
Monett Police Chief George Daoud said officers were dispatched to a home in the 500 block of Pleasant Street at 6:06 a.m. for "an unattended death" of a child who lived at the residence.
According to a news release from the Monett Police Department, 3-year-old Anthony Latorre Jr. suffered a single gunshot wound to the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
MORE: Preschool-age child found dead with gunshot wound in Monett, police say
The incident was investigated by Monett police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Daoud said the investigation showed the victim woke up, went to the garage and was playing in the family car.
The child found a semi-automatic pistol that was in the car and accidentally discharged the weapon, the release said.
Barry County Coroner Jim Fohn arrived and transported the child to Springfield for an autopsy. The investigation is ongoing, pending results of the autopsy.
MORE: Monett superintendent returning to school district in Kansas hometown | {
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Hong Kong’s rail operator has come under increasing pressure to release CCTV footage of Prince Edward MTR station from the night of August 31, when riot police stormed the platform and trains using pepper spray and batons.
On Friday, a growing crowd of people joined a sit-in outside the station’s control room, saying they would not leave until the footage was released. Some wore placards that read: “We have the right to know the truth.”
A young woman kneels in front of the Prince Edward MTR station on Friday morning. Photo: online.
Pro-democracy camp convenor Claudia Mo previously wrote to the chairperson of the MTR Corporation, asking that the surveillance footage of Prince Edward, Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei stations from August 31 be made public.
Photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP.
“On the night of August 31, Hong Kong police attacked passengers indiscriminately on the platform of Prince Edward station. Multiple people were bleeding or lost consciousness after being beaten. MTRC announced that it would close Prince Edward and Mong Kok stations, and both were only reopened on September 2,” she wrote.
“MTRC’s actions have caused great panic, leading the public to question whether it helped the police to cover up injuries or casualties… the CCTV footage is the only way to reconstruct the truth.”
The footage also became the topic of heated discussion on social media, with some users on the Reddit-like LIHKG forum claiming that the records will be erased after a week.
Responding to media inquiries, the MTRC said on Friday that the relevant footage from Prince Edward station will be kept for three years.
A company representative told lawmaker Mo via WhatsApp: “Generally speaking, CCTV footage would be kept for 28 days according to our established rules and procedures. Only authorised persons may view them. In any event, many CCTVs have been damaged earlier on that night.”
Photo: inmediahk.net.
Mo added that she was told the MTRC would turn over its surveillance footage if there was a court order to do so. In the meantime, lawmakers were not allowed to watch it because they do not fall under the category of “authorised persons.”
Photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP.
As of Friday 1:30pm, more than two dozen people – including some not dressed in protest gear – have started a spontaneous sit-in in front of the Prince Edward MTR station control room. Some chanted popular protest slogans.
“Why should we kneel for MTR? We didn’t do anything wrong. MTR should be the ones kneeling before us,” one shouted.
Photo: May James/HKFP.
MTR station staff tried to reassure the protesters that their demands were heard, but left after the crowd booed them.
Lawmaker Fernando Cheung said he had received assurances that the CCTV footage would typically be kept for 28 days. Cheung said he was trying to get legal advice to see if there were public interest grounds for lawmakers to see the footage.
Rail stations besieged
Hong Kong’s rail operator has become a focus of public outcry after August 31, when elite officers stormed the platform and train carriages at Prince Edward station and beat people with batons.
Riot police disperse protesters outside Mong Kok MTR station. Photo: Apple Daily.
Netizens have circulated an unverified rumour that there were deaths during the police operation, though the allegation has been denied by both the Hong Kong government and the force.
On Thursday night, the Mong Kok police station – which is next to the Prince Edward MTR station – was targeted again by protesters for the fifth consecutive day. Riot police dispersed the crowd outside the station before 1am.
Prince Edward Station. Photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP.
Crowds also gathered at Hang Hau MTR station and were also dispersed by riot police on Thursday night.
Police disperse protesters outside Hang Hau station. Photo: Apple Daily.
Separately, some secondary school students held a “human chain” event outside the Tai Po Hui MTR station at around 7pm on Thursday. The event ended peacefully without police intervention.
Hong Kong Free Press relies on direct reader support. Help safeguard independent journalism and press freedom as we invest more in freelancers, overtime, safety gear & insurance during this summer’s protests. 10 ways to support us. | {
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A quick look at June unemployment (previous month in brackets):
Unemployment rate: 7.2 per cent (7.3)
Number unemployed: 1,354,500 (1,378,600)
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Number working: 17,509,700 (17,502,400)
Youth (15-24 years) unemployment: 14.8 per cent (14.3)
Men (25 plus) unemployment: 6.1 per cent (6.4)
Women (25 plus) unemployment: 5.5 per cent (5.9)
By province
Here's what happened provincially (previous month in brackets):
Newfoundland 13.0 (12.0)
Prince Edward Island 11.3 (11.3)
Nova Scotia 9.6 (9.2)
New Brunswick 9.5 (9.4)
Quebec 7.7 (7.8)
Ontario 7.7 (7.8)
Manitoba 5.2 (5.1)
Saskatchewan 4.9 (4.5)
Alberta 4.6 (4.5)
British Columbia 6.6 (7.4)
By city
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Statistics Canada also released seasonally adjusted, three-month moving average unemployment rates for major cities but cautions the figures may fluctuate widely because they are based on small statistical samples. (Previous month in brackets.) | {
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20/he/him/they/them
i am obsessed with gravity falls and rick and morty, also
I POST NSFW ART AND SHIP INCEST if you are squicky with either of those please go this is not a good place for you.
I TAKE REQUESTS TELL ME WHAT TO DRAW AND IT WILL GET DONE (PROBABLY)
art tag | {
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Poland could consider prohibiting the use of Huawei products after one of its employees was arrested on suspicion of espionage, according to reports.
Two men working in the Polish telecommunications industry were detained on Friday; a Chinese man employed by telecommunications giant Huawei, and a Polish national who is reportedly a former counter-intelligence officer.
The Chinese foreign ministry said it was "highly concerned" about the arrest of its national Wang Weijing - formerly an attache at the Chinese consulate in Gdansk - and said that countries should end their "fabrications" about security risks posed by Huawei.
The Chinese firm quickly terminated Mr Weijing's employment contract following his arrest, saying he had brought the firm into disrepute.
Over the last decade, the company has quickly risen to become the dominant global telecommunications equipment supplier, buoyed by cheap manufacturing in China and Beijing's support.
Image: Huawei has risen to become the dominant global telecommunications equipment supplier
Huawei is currently battling concerns about its equipment potentially exposing Western telecommunications infrastructure to hostile actions from Beijing.
Despite this, Reuters reported that a spokesman for the Polish security services said the allegations related to individual actions and were not linked directly to Huawei.
Karol Okonski, the Polish minister in charge of cyber security, told the news agency that an "abrupt" policy change towards the Chinese telecommunications company was not warranted after the arrests.
However Mr Okonski added that Poland could review whether sensitive government enterprises could use Huawei equipment, stating: "We will analyse whether... our decision can include an end to the use... of Huawei products."
Poland's internal affairs minister has also called for a joint EU-NATO position on excluding the company, although he did not suggest what that position should be.
Asked for a response to the call, a NATO official told Sky News: "NATO takes cyber security very seriously. We continue to boost our cyber defences and support allies as they strengthen their national cyber defences. Allies also consult regularly on cyber challenges and threats."
Image: Meng Wanzhou is a long-serving executive at Huawei. Pic: Huawei
Last month, US prosecutors charged Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, with fraud.
It is alleged she used Hong Kong company Skycom to access the Iranian market in deals that violated US sanctions.
Separately, authorities in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have spoken about Huawei's telecommunications equipment posing a potential espionage risk to their national networks.
Security threats from Chinese companies contributing to 5G networks could end up "putting all of us at risk" if they are not tackled quickly, a former UK security minister warned last year.
Speaking to Sky News, Admiral Lord West, a former First Sea Lord who served under Gordon Brown as a security minister, urged the government to set up a unit reporting directly to the prime minister to monitor the risk posed by Chinese equipment in 5G.
5G has been hailed as the next great leap for mobile communications, enabling everything from smart cities to hologram calls.
However, the best 5G technology comes from Chinese companies, raising fears that China's government could have ground-level access to and potentially control over the UK's critical infrastructure. | {
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Donald Trump said CNN’s Don Lemon is “dumb as a rock” in a post on Twitter on Wednesday.
“Don Lemon is a lightweight — dumb as a rock,” Trump posted, praising Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and a GOP congressional candidate in Florida. Bongino defended Trump’s recent statement on the Second Amendment that the media and Hillary Clinton campaign suggested incited violence.
.@dbongino You were fantastic in defending both the Second Amendment and me last night on @CNN. Don Lemon is a lightweight – dumb as a rock — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2016
“It’s clear he’s trying to motivate people to go out and vote based on the potential for an open Supreme Court seat,” Bongino stated during an appearance on CNN Tuesday night. | {
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Webpage https://seal.network
White Paper Link https://seal.network/seal-whitepaper.pdf
Bitcoin Talk link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2929809.0
Telegram link https://t.me/sealnetwork
What is Seal?
Its is a Brand and consumer focused anti counterfeiting systems that everyday people will want to use.
Seal will use secure NFC embedded chips synchronized with blockchain technology to allow product authenticity, adding additional value and information about the product, such as product history.
Verification of authenticity is instantaneous with a simple tap or scan with any smart device such as a phone.
Seal is a Dutch company and the NFC chips are manufactured by NXP semiconductors which is also based in the Netherlands.
Video explaining Seal.
How does it work
At the simplest level. You scan a product and it can be verified by secure blockchain.
Brands can charge a variable fee depending on the product and added services and functions the chip provides. This helps fight counterfeiting and the consumer gets to support the designers and brands they love.
On the secondary market, it will be easier to sell your product at a higher price because other people can validate the authenticity. You can also claim an individual product as yours. There will be a small fee for change of ownership and claiming.
So brands can still make a very small cut on the secondary sale of an item and the seller can likely get a better price. Seal also cuts a very small cut of this fee which benefits token holders as a small percent of tokens are burnt with every transaction.
App front end and back end
Brands can create their own front end app or use seals native user interface. The app has unlimited applications but the blockchain can only store limited data. Seal already have a working application that can be used for basic functions.
App demo.
Real world applications
Luxury Brands
Seal plans to target luxury brands as a starting point. I think it is a decent starting point as people that buy luxury brands want a guarantee it is 100% the the real deal. I can see real value here for both consumers and luxury brands
Anti theft
Because the chips can be embedded into the product and would require damage to the item to remove, stolen goods would be easy to identify. If you wanted to buy a second hand TV you could easily tap your phone and see if it is listed as stolen or not by the owner.
Lost items
This is just me thinking of other uses here as I am always losing stuff. Say you lose something. Anyone could scan it and find out who the owner might be and there may even be a reward for returning it! As the claimer of the item you could choose to have things like contact email address visible or not.
Third party apps
Again just me thinking of possible uses. Because the blockchain information is public anyone could potentially create and app and use this information to create a new business. They could track all sorts of info that others do not want to. For example an app could be created purely for art or antiques which tracks all the auctions and price history etc etc. Seal does also plan to offer this but there is a chance for other parties to also start their own thing outside Seals scope.
Other uses
Imagine every TV or laptop having one of these chips installed. You can be sure you never buy stolen goods. If the market for stolen goods is reduced this may even reduce burglaries (I am dreaming I know!).
Collectors items and cards
Take baseball cards for example. There is so much history behind these and verifying a fake would be very difficult. If the thin sticker version of the seal chip was embedded between the cards layers the history of that card can be verified instantly without any kind research or specialist info required.
Food and drink
Chips and be embedded into the product in such a way it would be clear it has been tampered with or in such a way the chip will destroy itself when a consumable is opened. For example that expensive bottle of wine.
Medicines
Self explanatory really. This is a major problem in developing countries
The possibilities go on and on really.
The Team
The team has some very encouraging advisers and team members.
You can read more about the team on there website here. Seal Network team link
The two main team memebers are brothers Bart and Joris.
They have two advisers who work at or were involved with NXP semi conductors which shows how close their relationship is with the company they source their chips from.
I have asked many questions on their telegram and they have a stand out team member Michael De Blok who really goes out of his way to answer questions. If he doesn’t know the answer he gets back to you.
I have vetted the team to a high standard and I can find no issues or question marks. They have turned up at several blockchain conferences and many people I know have met them in person and talked to them and had good things to say.
The advisers are well known people and from decent brands. DYOR to ensure you cant find something I did not.
What problem are they solving?
We all know the problem of counterfeiting, it is pretty obvious. One out of five products made in China is a fake.
This is a big problem world wide more so in less developed countries. The most concerning being consumables, fake food, medicine and even alcohol.
Expensive spirits which are very popular as a gift in China can command price tags of around $160 USD. I use this as an example as I recently traveled to China was was given such a gift from a friend of mine who is a distributor.
Around 10% of these products are fake. Companies already employ several tricks to beat the fakes. Such as total redesign of the packaging often which is very expensive. QR codes and even other similar inferior RFID technologies that are already hacked and by-passable.
The cost for this company which sells one of the top three white spirits in China says around 10% of their sales or $2.8 billion USD of all sales is lost easy year. That is a huge potential market.
Fake medicines even if they are not harmful can cause deaths because they are not treating the illness. This is a massive problem in developing countries where medicines are hard to come by.
What makes Seals solution better than the rest
Encrypted dynamic chip counter that writes to the chip every time it is scanned which is synced to the blockchain. (this is unique to Seals solution and NFC chips).
Consumable products with chips that are destroyed on use or deactivated once consumed.
NFC chips can be embedded either in glass/other materials or installed in such a way it is destroyed once opened. Other techs can do similar applications but the size, durability and options are much better with NFC.
Dutch company and the NFC chips are manufactured by NXP semiconductors which is also based in the Netherlands.
Already existing working product. Existing brand customers.
Already existing working product (non blockchain version). Existing luxury brand customers. You can find more info on their website
Seal have allocated a large amount of funds and tokens to future developement of a more secure NFC chip.
Seal is an anti counterfeit system that uses NFC (Near Field Communication). They do not require an antenna which are easily damaged and also do not require any power source on the chip.
As long as the chip is not damaged or exposed to the environment the read cycles are unlimited.
The lifetime of the write cycles is around 27 years if you were to write to the chip once per day.
Business Model
Seal is unique in that is trying to add value for the consumer and Brand. The consumer will foot the bill and the brand will set the price of the added value.
For example a designer bag might cost $1000. The cost to claim it on the Seal network is set by the Brand. The brand might set the price for claiming the product anywhere from $2 to $30 for example. The more expensive the luxury brand is and what you can do with a third party app or features will probably set the price for claiming.
In this example the price might be around $15.
The question is would you pay $15 to know the $1000 bag you are buying is 100% genuine? Most people probably would. There could be value added features as well. If you were then buying this bag second hand you could again pay this same fee if you were the buyer to claim the bag as yours. Scanning the bag is free (or there maybe a very small mining fee) and you can verify its authenticity without claiming it if you choose not to.
The first initial purchase the token is not activated until it is claimed. This makes selling items on the secondhand market verifiable.
Every time the item is claimed by a new person they have to pay the fee to do it. Those fees can change, I would like to see an automatic decay feature so it gets cheaper as more people claim it.
Out of that $15, the Brand would take 75% ($11.25) and Seal gets 25% ($3.75). Out of that $3.75 seal burns 5% which would be $0.1875 or around 19 cents worth of seal tokens. Increasing the overall value of seal tokens fractionally. There is also a mining fee in there somewhere but the details on who pays that is yet to be confirmed. Likely the consumer. All of these fees will likely be built into the purchase price.
They also incentivize the use of seal tokens by encouraging people to buy goods using Seal. If you buy with SEAL tokens you can bypassing some traditional fees. Using the above example the fee which includes the cost of claiming the item is ~1.5%. Credit card charges are usually around 3%. This is more a saving for the retailer though than the customer unless they pass those savings on.
Getting seal tokens might involve small fees also depending on how seal plans to implement this. The details have not been worked out yet but there could be savings to both Brands and consumers.
There will be other advantages to buying using seal tokens such as for the seller they will know the money is from a trusted source unless somehow someone stole those tokens from someone.
Seal have also said there will likely be loyalty bonuses if Seal tokens are used to make the transaction.
The cost to the customer to claim a product is likely to be around the 1.5% mark on average.
ICO Token Sale and Fund Distribution
Total ICO CAP of approx $33 million
The ICO presale has been confirmed for the 15th of April. The standard prices per token is 8 cents with various conservative bonus prices for early buyers.
Seal already has a working product, two signed customers ready to go and more in the pipeline. The token metrics leave most of the tokens with seal with 22% for future operations and 17% for future R&D. This is usually a really a bit of a red flag but they are vested and will be unlocked for use in on boarding new brands and customers as well as developing an even more secure chip. New brands will grow the value of the tokens so they should cancel each other out and not have a negative effect on the tokens value once released.
Everything else seems pretty stock standard. In total it is around 41% for the ICO with some tokens for bounties and other influencers. You do need to note that there appears to be heavy private and whale interest from what I can see so there is a chance it may not even make it to the ICO stage.
Bounty Program
Seal have a bounty program that was just released so I am unsure of the details. Head over to the telegram channel to find out more details. They have also hinted at other incentive programs.
Link to bounty program details.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3217735.msg33455942#msg33455942
They also have a referral program. Details on their website. Both you and the person you refer can earn bonus tokens.
Road map
As far as road maps go they do have a lot of stuff coming up soon.
It is split into two which is nice, there is not much going on in Q2 other than brand acquisitions which is the most important part really
The most important parts are:
Q2 Setup partnerships with chip suppliers. They say they are under NDA with NXP. They do have two NXP team members as advisers.
Q2 Hire new team members. They should be doing this as soon as the ICO or pre ICO is over as they will have available funds.
Q3 2018 they claim is when the first comericial products will be deployed to the seal network. That could 4–7 months away.
Token Usage
• Verify Authenticity • Register ownership • Transfer ownership • Theft-Prevention • Track Parallel Trade • Product Recalls • Product Analytics • Custom Integration • Used as a currency to purchase goods
Benefits as a token holder and how Seal makes money
So the question is, why would you want to hold seal tokens?
TLDR
If seal can sign up even small to medium business to generate around 3 billion worth of sales with their chip installed, there is huge value to the token holder. If they can sign up even one big brand the benefit of holding will be multiplied exponentially. This doesn’t take into account speculatory rise in price or other reasons other just the pure base math.
Example
Lets use Nike as an example. Can insert any brand or product in here. I used smaller numbers for simplicity. In reality the initial target item will probably be much more high end than $300 but eventually it should make it into the mid range and even lower range products, the fee on the higher range products might be higher but comparable in scale. From the fee paid by the customer 5% of 25% (or 1.25% of the total fee) will be bought by seal and burnt or deleted. This is one of the ways the token can go up in value.
Lets put the 1.25% to the test. Say Nike sells 10 million dollars worth of shoes and each shoe is is worth around $300. They charge a fee for seal of around $10 per shoe. That would be approx 33,333 shoes, or $333,333 total fees from customers. $250,000 (75%) is Retained by Nike (2.5% profit increase for them).
$83,333 goes to seal. That would mean $4167 of seal burnt (or 5% of 25%) So $4167 burnt per 10 million dollars of product sold by Brands.
10 million dollars of sales would only burn 0.01251% of the total amount of seal. To get around the same return as having your money in the bank (4167 is 0.01251% of 33,312,000 MC of seal) They need to be doing a volume of more than 280 x that to be comparable with a money in the bank investment of about 3.5% return. (this varies per country)
This doesn’t take into account any of the other things that might increase or decrease the token value. Such as hype and speculation.
So they need to have enough customers to sell around $2,800,000,000 worth of products. It is unlikely they will get this within a year. Perhaps after 1.5 years or 2 years.
In this example the fee cost is around 3% of the original item price. On average I think most will be around 1.5% of the original item price in that case the fee would be around $5. So that would mean 5.6 billion worth of goods need to be sold to reach a reasonable return. You need to adjust it depending on what the fee actually gets set to. Because we are guessing here its hard to say.
Double whatever value you want and token holders are in business.
Nike is a 34 billion dollar industry (n 2016). Here is the 2015 Nike stats. Which shoes shoes were around 65% of their total business.
https://csimarket.com/stocks/segments_anual.php?code=NKE
So fast forward 2–3 years if seal is very successful and it is looking like a very nice token to be holding.
There will be future uses for the token as well. They are also looking at implementing master nodes in the future as the amount of transactions increases. This will require them to move from the ETH blockchain to their own blockchain, which will allow for even more advanced features.
The model looks highly viable as a token holder.
The NFC Technology
This is a bit geeky so you can skip this part if you are not really interested.
Here is a rough breakdown of some of the types of tags and costs. The main chip seal will use will cost around 10–20 cents at medium quantities. These prices are for existing RFID tags but the costs are around the same give or take 10%.
Active RFID tags contain a power source, so they can broadcast a signal, up to 100 meters away. This capability makes RFID a strong choice for asset tracking, but the tags are large and expensive.
Passive RFID tags have no power. They’re activated by an electromagnetic signal sent from the RFID reader. The signal doesn’t travel as far as active RFID, so they’re used for short read ranges. They may require antennas.
For the consumer passive RFID vs NFC doesn’t seem to make much difference to how the user reads the tag. The difference is NFC maybe smaller and more robust as well as more secure. Both have read write capabilities but only NFC allows for two way communication using one of two modes: card emulation and peer-to-peer (P2P).
Below is a run down of the technology NFC chips have but may not be in use by Seal yet. Currently the chips will be in Passive mode with dynamic encrypted counter which increased by 1 every time it is scanned.
Other modes and information
Card emulation mode is like when you use contact less payment.
Peer to peer mode is sending information back and forth, you can even transfer files like photos, in peer to peer mode usually both devices will require a power source such as in your phones. The speed is around 2–4 times dial up speed.
For example a NFC chip my have a pass code on it and another device is waiting to receive a pass code. This other device wont try to read the pass code as anyone can read it but it will send it if the correct conditions are met, this is what can make NFC more secure than comparable RFID tech.
The best example would be a card that has money loaded on it, like a bus pass. It requires two way communication to work so the balance of the card can go up and down.
This is only my interpretation of the technology and does not relate to Seal as initially both of these modes will not be active.
What can make NFC more secure is that the NFC chip will hold the information and it can also send this information if the right requirements are met. You cant just read it, it must be sent which is how the information is secured. If we were using RFID anyone could read the information. If condition has to be met before the info is sent by the NFC chip then it makes it much more secure.
The Competition
DYOR as there is just too much for me to cover here.
Vechain Vechain has a very similar basic concept but a completely different business model. I think both companies can exist in the same space and the brands will decide who they want to use and what model fits their product better. The other main difference is they will be using RFID (currently) and are more focused on a supply chain model and is much more complicated.
They are more about tracking and authenticity where as Seal is more about focusing providing the more secure authenticity, but at the same time adding future value to both the brands and consumers.
There is a lot of Vechain fanboys (including myself) and they attack Seal heavily citing “Vechain has NFC too”. They barely included NFC in any technicals and never really elaborated on NFC. It was just sort of mentioned in passing.
Fast forward to today, the NFC chip manufacturer vechain partnered with has never made NFC chips before. They do not even register in the top 10 chip manufacturers (NXP owns 80% of the market) and their expertise is flexible batteries.
Walton Coin I cant say much about Walton as they never seemed to really know what they were doing with their tech. It seemed initially they were sort of like going to be competition to iota? I am not really sure what they are doing now so DYOR. Again I think Seals business model is vastly different.
Wabi Wabi is quite similar to seal in some aspects. It is reasonably simple and uses RFID with antennas. It is focused on milk powder and other food and wine products to start with. Their model is not as appealing to consumers and brands as seal as it more just provides consumers with authenticity and focuses on its token’s being a currency.
Origin Trail I don’t see these guys as a competitor. I researched them and found it really unclear what their vision is. From what I could work out origin trail is kinda of like the back end platform and could actually support all of the above. From a security and simplicity level I think its easier to just bypass OT and build your own.
They claim to be focused on tracking from origin (including specifics about the farm it came from etc) to consumer but its really tricky to find out the actually find out how and what from all their documentation at the time I researched it.
Modum This is more a platform that can interact with IOT devices such as NFC and RFID chips. They are more focused on supply chain and tracking goods from their origin to point of sale and ensure the integrity of the goods. Namely they will use temperature senors to ensure they goods never got above or below certain temperatures. Again I think they are in a different space to seal and could actually work together.
Ambrosus They are more focused on food and medicine and supply chain. While Seal plans to target fine wines etc they are not really focused here. I see these guys more as a competitor to Modum.
I advise you to look for other competitors as there are some out there. I think there is room for all of them in the in the current environment as the space is so huge and they all focus on different areas.
Seal a Strategic partner with TBWA\Mobile Strategy. Our partner is a unit of Omnicom Group, the world’s largest advertising agency holding company. You may be familiar with their work for Apple.
Seals partnership with NXP is currently under NDA so at the time of writing this I don’t have any information about that but you can check on the telegram to see where they are with that. From what they are saying it seems almost like a done deal.
There is a comparison table out there but it doesn’t seem finished so I won’t post it. The jist of it is that most others are focus solely on supply chain rather than the Brands and consumers and this is seals point of difference. That focus leads to many other options.
Concerns
Seal have had quite a few delays namely because the ICO was just not as ready as they thought it was. I don’t see these delays as a big issue as many positive changes have come from the delays and behind the scenes networking has been going.
The small details are missing in many places but these are things that can be changed and ironed out as they go along. Already with the delays I have seen Seal listening to the community and making changes that will be hugely beneficial.
The main concern is, can Seal sign on brands, specifically big name brands. I have no doubt consumers will be all over this. I will be. They are in talks with many companies they can’t name but ensure the community they are very exciting and promising. They have named two companies that they have possible confirmed signed deals with. They are small luxury brands to start with and you can find out more info on their telegram as they have posted links to their websites etc. I had not heard of them before but I don’t buy those kinds of items but they would be known in many circles of people that are into that kind of thing.
I was unable to find anything linking them to any negative feedback or scam warnings. I did find one FUD article but it seems whoever posted it takes the same generic text and just cut and pastes random ICO names into the same text as it didn’t seem to relate back to Seal at all.
Conclusion
I think Seal is a real winner. The business model and technology is much more exciting to the public and brands than the competition. But there is room for all the companies and I think many of them compliment and can work along side each other. The market here is so huge and the potential is a bit overwhelming really.
I really grilled the team in telegram about this one. To the point I annoyed many of the team. I really like the product and wanted answers to some of the things they were doing that didn’t make sense to me. In the end they made changes based on the community comments and I got the answers I was looking for.
They are highly active on the telegram which has around 13,000 users and other social media.
So, does the business model make sense? I think so, it could use a bit of refining and fine tuning. I think that will come with time and is not overly important to the big picture.
They are the only company to be using NFC tech and they have the added advantage of being the only company not using Chinese based tech or being a Chinese based company. This may mean it will be harder to penetrate those markets but they are focused on Luxury brands so this would work in their favor to start with.
Can they sign up big ticket clients like shoe and bag makers? Honestly it is the perfect match. Seal provides the best solution for these kind of companies.
Is the business model good and will Brands and customers embrace it? I think its looks promising and offers at least some flexibility and changes can be made once they get feed back from the brands. I think the current model is very reasonable.
If they can do as well as the competition Seal appears to be a good investment and a cool product I would want to use.
Remember do your own research and use my review as a starting point. I cant guarantee every detail is accurate and things are changing and updating all the time. This is also just my interpretation of how it works and I may have some small details wrong but you get the idea.
Referral link. Both you and I get 2.5% extra tokens. | {
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Ajaccio, Corsica, France
July, 1944
They walked through Ajaccio in the early evening. The cobblestone streets were still filled with the townsfolk, chattering amongst themselves as they went about their business: picking up bread to have with dinner, on their way to visit friends, or going on a stroll to enjoy the warmth of the short summer evenings. Red liked these walks with William, even though the need for privacy kept them standing apart from one another, kept their conversations a bit more short and clipped. It was better than nothing.
Red had been looking forward to showing William the school, so he could see all Red had accomplished in his short time as the groundskeeper. He thought William would be impressed by the freshly swept paths, the neatly trimmed trees, and the roses that were beginning to take on new life after being treated with mulch and fertiliser.
There was garbage along one side of the street, piles of rags and paper and the smell of something rotting. There was a man there, too, outfitted in ratty clothes, his wrinkled, leathery skin stretched tight over bony hands that clutched the remnants of a cigarette. The other people in the street didn’t notice him, or at least pretended not to, as they walked past.
“It took three weeks to find the right type of fertiliser for the roses, you wouldn’t believe—sorry, just a moment.” Red stopped to pull some coins out of his pocket. “Bonsoir, Jérôme,” he said softly, crouching slightly to place the money in the beggar’s empty hand.
“Merci, monsieur.” Jérôme’s voice was rough and crackly. He gave Red a smile, full of black gaps in between his yellow teeth.
When he looked up, Red realised that William hadn’t so much as broken his stride. Red had to hurry to catch up to him.
“What were you doing?” William asked.
“Helping someone out.” Red shrugged. “What? Have… your people moved beyond charity?”
“Your people have, too,” he said, pointedly. “Nobody else bothered to look at him.”
“Oh.” Red glanced back at Jérôme, thinking. “You know, back in Rome, before I got the job at the hotel, things were… not great. I didn’t eat unless someone helped.” He hesitated, remembering that he didn’t have his own money now so much as an allowance from William. “I know my money comes from you now, but…” He let the question hang.
“Use it as you wish.” William smiled, and touched Red gently between the shoulderblades, lingering long enough for Red to feel the warmth of his hand. William pulled his hand away quickly, so quickly that most people wouldn’t have noticed that he had touched Red to begin with.
His gaze, however, stayed locked on Red.
William reached out to to take his coat off its hook.
“So… you’re going out… for food?” Red asked, after finally drawing the courage to inquire about William’s unexplained outings.
William pulled his hand back, instead taking a pair of gloves out of the small cabinet in the entryway. A question like that was best answered with one’s gloves on. “Yes. I will be about an hour.”
“So…” He didn’t feel right saying it, bringing this up. Mostly because he was afraid of the answer. “Do you… kill people?”
“No.” William wished Red had chosen a better time to voice his curiosity: his lungs had begun to strain, anticipating his impending meal.
“So they’re all… like me? You only need a little blood?”
William pulled his left glove on, slowly and deliberately. “Yes, I require only a small amount if I have it often.”
“And if you have a lot?”
William frowned, quickly pulling the right glove on. “I don’t. It’s far easier to maintain janissaries than it is to kill a human whenever one feels the urge.”
“Janissaries?” Red asked, wondering, not for the first time, how much more there was to vampires that he didn’t know.
“It’s the word for humans with whom we have a feeding relationship.”
“Ah. And they, what, do it because they like it?”
“Yes. And because of the increased alertness. It is not hard to find people; back at home, there are families I have been feeding from for generations.”
Red nodded; that made sense, that a father who found success by the grace of a vampire’s support might draw his son into the fold. “So why are the stories all about vampires killing people?”
William shrugged. “Why are your human books and films all about humans killing one another?”
Red smiled. “Point taken.”
“Not that there aren’t those of us who find killing more expedient, but janissaries are so convenient, presenting themselves at one’s home on their feeding schedule.”
“Wait, will they start coming here?” Red frowned; even though William had assured him it wasn’t anything like what they had, the thought of him eating from other people made him uncomfortable. He certainly wouldn’t want to see them.
William smiled and quickly pulled off his left glove to cup Red’s jaw in his hand. “Not if you don’t wish them to.”
Red pulled William closer to kiss him.
July, 1944
Red was bored: he’d thought that going to see the school play with William would be fun, that he’d be able to follow the story well enough with tones of voice and body language. Besides, it was being performed by 11 year olds: how complicated could the plot possibly be?
Turned out: extremely.
He knew that someone was dead, someone was angry about it. Or they were angry that the wrong person was killed. Or angry that they themselves didn’t do the killing? Even the odd French word he knew didn’t help much. The actors seemed to speak in sentences that were made from joining the words together, the end of one flowing seamlessly into the start of the next, all spoken in one breath. It was very different to the slow, clear speech that people used when they spoke to him.
And since he was in public with William, there was the subterfuge. He hated the subterfuge. That they had to keep themselves apart and play at being employer and employee rather than lovers when all he wanted to do was touch and flirt and laugh and be close.
The theatre was dark.
William put his hand in Red’s lap and held it open for him.
Red took it, gave it a squeeze, and smiled.
“Demain, je… vais en la ville pour… acheter du pain et… envoyer tes lettres.” Red spoke slowly, hesitating between each part of the sentence as he tried to string the words he knew together. Even though he’d asked William to practise French with him an hour each night, he still felt embarrassed, vulnerable, and extremely stupid as the words often failed to come to him.
“You should use ‘à’ for cities, towns; ‘en’ is only for countries, states, and other things of that nature.”
Red suppressed a groan. “It’s bad enough I have to learn so many different words, without them all meaning practically the same thing!”
William placed his hand on Red’s thigh, smiling. “People will understand you regardless, and with experience, you will master it. Et qu’est-ce que tu as fait aujourd’hui? ”
Red smiled, and bit his bottom lip in concentration. What was the word for ‘sweep’, again?
August, 1944
They sat on a hill, Red’s head in William’s lap as William stroked his hair. It was getting too long again; long enough to get in Red’s eyes when he bent over. It was probably time to go through the ordeal of asking for a haircut in French.
They were staring at the stars, discussing constellations and astronomy. It had been a long time since William had seen the stars like this, had actually looked at them, had reason to remember the astrologers he knew a dozen lifetimes ago, back when portents of a bad harvest had meaning to him.
“When I was a kid, I used to think about how neat it was that we could see the whole universe,” Red mused, staring at the thousands of points of light. “I remember learning about telescopes at school, and all I wanted was to see Saturn. Never did. Saw the pictures, though.”
“We can find you a telescope, if you’d like.” William smiled, enjoying the smell of the dewey air of the early morning and the dirt and Red’s sweat from the walk.
“May as well. Considering we’ll be out at night a lot.” Red sat up just enough to grab William’s head and pull him down to kiss him.
When William left his study, he followed the rich, sharp smell of coffee to where Red was sitting in the dining room, a steaming mug in his hands. He was wearing navy blue slacks that he had definitely worn yesterday and a white undershirt; it made William uncomfortable, and that discomfort unsettled him in a way he couldn’t quite place.
William had come to learn that although sometimes Red would put together an outfit with meaning, most of the time he didn’t think twice about his clothing. And sometimes did not even bother to get fully dressed. It had started as an occasional thing, but as the weather grew hotter it now seemed he didn’t wear a proper shirt unless they planned to leave the house. Clothing was important to William, of course, but only on other vampires. It felt strange and foreign that he’d care so much about a human’s attire, even a human who had a strange, subconscious talent in that area. Now was the time to say something.
“Is your letter finished?” Red asked, gesturing at the chair beside him to invite William to sit.
“Yes, I have put it on the table by the door for you to put in the post tomorrow.” William nodded, but stood across from Red, on the other side of the dining table. He looked at the thin, white fabric of Red’s undershirt and considered what to say.
“You okay?” Red gave him that look again, the look of thinly veiled confusion that he liked to employ whenever he wanted to indicate that he thought William was about to be over-dramatic.
“Why aren’t you dressed properly, these days?”
Red looked at William’s outfit: trousers and a long-sleeved shirt that were perfectly pressed. Shiny black shoes, and a belt that matched.
“Just because I’m not in my Sunday best every day like you are doesn’t mean I’m not properly dressed.” Red always felt underdressed around William, no matter what he wore, and it made him self-conscious to find out that William cared about it enough to even bring it up.
William frowned, sitting opposite Red. “I’m not talking about that. I don’t think I’ve seen you wear a proper shirt all week.”
Red pulled at the thin white fabric of his undershirt between two fingers. “This is a proper shirt.”
“You know it isn’t.”
Red frowned and sipped his coffee. “Fine, it’s not, but this is my—our—home, and it’s comfortable, and nobody’s going to see it.”
“I’m going to see it.”
Red grinned. “Oh? I could not wear a shirt if you preferred." Red found himself hoping that this was just one of William’s clumsier attempts at flirting.
“You know that’s not what I was trying to say.” William placed his hands on the table, intertwining his fingers. “It’s disrespectful.”
“What? How?”
“I suppose it’s a vampire thing,” he admitted.
“How?” Red considered this.
“We place a lot of emphasis on the way one attires oneself.”
“So. You want me to wear two layers of shirts in this heat in the middle of nowhere where nobody can see me, except you, a person who regularly sees me naked, because vampires think it’s disrespectful?”
“Yes.”
Red pushed his mug to the side, exasperated. “William, I live here. This is my home. I can wear what I want.”
“Does what I want not matter to you?”
Red squeezed his fingers together and pressed them onto the centre of his forehead. “Of course it does, but I’m not going to dress up and be uncomfortable where I live. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s ridiculous to ask for some basic respect?”
Red frowned, placing his hand back on the table. “Why is this about respect? It’s a shirt. You know that I respect you.”
“I put effort into my clothing every day, for you. And you don’t afford me the same respect.”
“I never asked you to! I know you like choosing your outfit and making sure your cufflinks match it and all, but I really don’t care. You’re doing it for yourself, not for me. You could wear slacks with holes in them and an undershirt with no sleeves and I’d be just as happy.”
“You really don’t care?” He knew humans didn’t place much importance on clothing, but this seemed a bit much.
“No!” Red sighed, rubbing his face with the heels of his hands. “Is it really that important to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why? If you know how I feel, then why does it matter?”
William sighed, and picked up Red’s mug of coffee. He inhaled deeply, feeling the earthy aromas of the drink in his body, filling his lungs with the warmth of the steam. It was soothing: the heat and the condensation eased his slight hunger in a small way. “It’s hard to explain.” He placed the mug back down.
“But it’s a vampire thing, like how you were always adjusting my clothes in Rome.”
“Yes.”
“You know I’m not a vampire, right?” Red picked up his mug of coffee again, and took a sip of warm, bitter liquid.
“Of course.”
“So you should know that I’m not going to do vampire things like obsess over special outfits or give you vague, confusing gifts or write you long fancy letters.”
“I’m simply asking you not to walk around the house in your underwear.”
“No, you’re asking me not to walk around my house dressed the way I want. My clothes are clean, William. I’m comfortable. It’s hot out and did I mention there are no windows?”
“Not since yesterday.” William smiled and placed his hand on one of Red’s.
“Look,” Red forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke. “I’m not exactly thrilled with all the vampire things. It was bad enough when I was coming to terms with the fact I had romantic intentions towards a man without you being being my boss and then a vampire on top of all of it. But I—I do really care about you. I do. And I want to do right by you, but you can’t keep telling me what to do all the time. Like last week, when you said my shoes were too old. They’re comfortable, and I didn’t throw them out like you suggested.”
“I know.”
“And I’m going to keep wearing them. And the undershirts. Because they’re comfortable.” Red put his other hand on top of William’s and squeezed it. “But, I won’t go out like this. And I’ll wear a proper shirt once it’s colder. And if we ever have visitors, I’ll wear whatever uncomfortable shoes you pick out.”
William considered this. “Very well. I suppose you’re right.”
Red couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “You’re used to getting your way, aren’t you?”
William’s fingers put pressure on the point where his fangs had left the soft skin of Red’s thigh.
Red breathed in sharply, unsure of how long he had been holding his breath for. “You’re finished?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Red’s hand let go of the blanket that he’d been squeezing, and moved to take over from William. Not that the wound needed help clotting. “Could you…” His thoughts wouldn’t gather. He took the moment to breathe, to relax. There was something about the feeding process, doing it in bed, knowing what was going to happen, that made it more intense in many ways. “Could you do it for longer?”
“If you want to do it every month, I can only take a minute or two. To go for five minutes…” William considered it. “We would have to do it every three months.”
Red tried to not let his disappointment show. He knew William wouldn’t withhold from him if he didn’t need to. “That’s all?”
William cupped Red’s jaw with his hand, smiling gently. “You need it more than I do, my dear.”
The next time William went out to feed, he brought a package of new undershirts back with him.
Red grinned. “You shouldn’t have!”
“Yes, I should have.” William smiled. “You needed new ones. Please remember to replace them when they begin to wear out.”
“If it makes you happy, I’d be glad to.” Red knew his standards about the acceptable age for undershirts were a lot more lax than William’s were. But he realised he’d come to love his strange quirks. He wouldn’t be the same without his strange, strict standards in so many banal things.
September, 1944
Red ate spaghetti on the settee, watching William as he rifled through the pile of letters he’d received that day. One of them had an ordinary-looking outer envelope, but when Red opened it to put the inner envelope on the table William liked his letters to be on, he was surprised to find a delicate powder-blue inner envelope. William’s name was written in harsh, dark letters on the front and the back was decorated with elaborate cursive and pictures of vines.
When William saw it as he went through the small stack of letters, his hands slowed and he scrutinised the front. Red felt proud to have noticed it—whatever it was.
“Someone important?” he asked, curious now.
William nodded. “Yes, very.”
“You must be excited to hear from them. If they’re special.”
“No, she’s not fond of me at all.”
Red raised an eyebrow. “Why? What did you do?”
William waved his arm outwards. “That isn’t important. It was a long time ago.”
“Ah. Secret vampire thing, then?”
William smiled. “I’m afraid so.”
“So, what, if she doesn’t like you, what does that mean?” Red paused, trying to think of what he knew about vampires so far. “Will her next letter only have one envelope? It would make your fingers dirty!”
William laughed. “No, I think all her designs on me have more stabbing involved.”
“Stabbing?”
“It’s not the same as it is for a human to get stabbed.”
Red stared at him. “But it’s not great.”
William smiled. “Don’t worry about me, my dear. She’s hated me for a very, very long time. I’m sure it’s out of habit as much as anything else, now.”
Red had never been a very sentimental person, but for what he wanted to do, what he wanted to say, he wanted everything to be just right. He might never find the courage otherwise. The fact that vampires followed a staunchly regulated set of social rules did not help his nerves.
So he’d told William that he wanted to prepare some firewood for the school, before winter came, and it was much nicer to chop wood in the evening than under the heat of the sun. But really, he thought it would impress William to see him doing something kind and to see his strength. And if he got hot and had to take his shirt off, well, that wouldn’t hurt either.
So William sat on a bench by the school’s woodshed, reading a thick book in the feeble moonlight. Red collected a few dozen unsplit logs into a pile, decided he’d worked up enough of a sweat, and peeled his shirt off, folding it neatly on the floor (this was not something he’d have done before, but several months of living with William had made him develop several new habits). Red pulled his undershirt over his head, used it to wipe at the sweat on his chest and sides, and folded it beside his shirt.
He finally picked up the axe, ready to begin chopping. He glanced at William, who for the first time since he’d started, was watching with interest. Red tried not to grin. He swung the axe high into the air, and let it come crashing down onto the wood. The log didn’t split, but that was normal: it would take a few more strikes.
William put his book down. Red tried to think what he’d say, how the conversation would go. William stood up and walked over to him.
“Are you alright, my dear?”
“Of course,” Red replied, trying not to sound nervous.
“May I have your hands?”
Red couldn’t suppress his grin this time, glad his plan was working so perfectly. He put the axe down to reach for William’s hands. William smiled and shook his head.
“No…” William picked up the axe, and put it back in Red’s hands. He adjusted Red’s grip. “You should hold it like so; it will give you more control.”
Red nodded, embarrassed.
“And when you chop, it is best if you do not make such a large swing. You won’t be as likely to injure your back.”
Red smiled tightly. “Thank you.”
October, 1944
William had received many packages since July—small ones, mostly. They contained little statues, paintings, even a few small tapestries (ones that didn’t feature dogs). He was always so happy to get them, opening them up and scrutinising each gift, sometimes muttering to himself. They always ended up in the storeroom next to the bedroom. Red didn’t like going in there, where the contents of William’s trunks and all his new gifts had been laid out neatly in long rows and tall stacks. It was so carefully organised and all seemed so fragile that he was terrified of knocking something over.
This package was a heavy wooden box, about three feet square. It was packed with less care than the vampire packages normally were: was this some slight? Was William in trouble? Red was still worried about the rival he’d mentioned a few weeks earlier.
But when William saw it, he grinned. “Ah, it finally arrived.”
“What do you think it is, this time?”
William smiled. “It’s for you. Open it.”
Red unhinged the cold metal clasp, pulling the box open. It was divided into twelve long square compartments, each containing a wine bottle. He grinned, pulling one of them out to examine it.
“This looks like good wine,” he said, though he didn’t really know anything about wine. But the bottle looked old, and he knew old was good, and he knew there was no way William would get him a gift that wasn’t of good quality.
“I thought you would enjoy it.”
Red grinned. “Oh, I will.”
He poured himself a glass while William made dinner.
He had another glass with his meal. He and William went through the newspaper together, discussing its contents as Red picked up new vocabulary. He had trouble pronouncing some of the words, and giggled as William tried to explain the finer points between different ‘u’ sounds.
Red poured himself a third glass as William cleaned the dining table and dealt cards for the night’s poker game. The alcohol was having its effect on him: his whole body felt warm and pleasant and his face was turning pink. It had been a long time since he’d had wine, and this one was strong as wines went.
“Would you like to set the rest aside, for you to finish tomorrow?” William asked.
Red waved his hand. “Nah, I’m alright. It’s good wine!”
Even though he was sure Red wasn’t appreciating the quality of the wine at this point, William decided to leave Red to drink the rest of the bottle. It was a harmless enough indulgence, after all.
Well, maybe not entirely harmless: Red’s poker game suffered immensely, particularly because he couldn’t be bothered to ensure William couldn’t see his cards. And it was punctuated by his over-the-top attempts at flirting, as Red stared blatantly at William instead of looking at his cards, or touched him while making a mumbled comment about flies.
As Red finished his fourth and final glass, he put his cards down. “I’m bored. Let’s do something else.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Red stood up. “First, I’m gonna grab another bottle—”
William stood up, too, and went into the front entryway where the box of wine was. Red ran after him, but he knew there was no hope of him outpacing William when he didn’t want to be caught. But he felt it would be fun to chase him, and it was. When Red reached the front of the house he saw William sliding the heavy crate on top of one of the bookshelves in the sitting room, touching it only with his fingertips.
“Wow, you’re strong.” He’d noticed it before, but the wine had made it funnier and more impressive—made him more willing to comment on it.
“Thank you.”
“No, you’ve got… super strength!” Red grinned. “Hey, can you lift that couch?” He pointed at the settee, which was made of dark, heavy wood and was long enough that Red could lie down on it without his feet sticking over the edge.
“Yes, I could.”
“Come on! Do it. Please?”
William sighed. “Very well.” He crouched beside the settee, lifting it with his knees. He held it up at waist height for a few seconds and put it back down.
“Oh! You can do better than that. Put it over your head! Throw it fifty feet!”
“No. Let’s get you some sleep.” He approached Red and grabbed his hand.
“I’m not tired!” Red pulled his hand away. “Can you lift me over your head? Oh! Can you throw me onto the roof? Do you want to race? I’ll see if I can borrow an automobile, maybe I’ll even beat you!”
William sat on the settee. “Come here,” he said kindly, petting the cushion beside him. Red obliged, sliding into the couch and scooting against William’s side. William placed a hand firmly on Red’s thigh and kissed his forehead. “Now, my dear, let me tell you the story of how I once saved a fox kit from a badger.”
“I haven’t heard that one yet.” Red smiled, and closed his eyes.
William was staring at his wardrobe, trying to pick out a shirt. It was taking him longer than usual. Nothing seemed right, today.
“I finished the ironing, by the way.” Red remarked from the spot he was lounging on the bed.
That explained why nothing seemed right: the shirt he wanted wasn’t there. “Perfect. Can you get me that brown striped shirt I wore two days ago?”
“What are you doing, wearing something twice in the same week?” Red asked with mock horror.
“I must be going mad.” William grinned.
Red went to the laundry room, and came back with the brown striped shirt. William turned around to take it from him, but started at what he saw.
Red was holding the shirt in his left hand, thumb held over the collar. The shirt had been unevenly folded in quarters, skewed to the right. The angle of the stripes relative to William was slightly off centre.
It was beautiful. It was sincere. It was a declaration at once of love and devotion and of a regret that life was not more simple.
William didn’t know what to say.
“Is this the right one?” Red asked, wondering what had made William go all stiff.
“It’s perfect,” William replied. He started for the shirt but grabbed Red in a tight hug instead.
William had planned the visit for weeks: he would travel to a nearby town for two days, to meet with Elodia, the vampire whose cottage that they had been living in.
Red was worried about being away from William for the first time since they’d arrived in Corsica, but he had plenty of books, and his French had almost grown good enough that he could stop picking the shelves of the bookshop for the few in English that remained (or enduring the children’s picture books) and instead start to peruse the French books.
A few days before William was meant to go, Red had felt a scratch in the back of his throat, a weakness in his legs. It had gotten worse as the week wore on and his muscles grew sore and tired, and the night before William was due to leave, it was clear to anyone that Red was in bad shape.
“Do you think you’ll be alright while I’m gone?” William asked, as Red let loose a flurry of heavy, dry coughs.
“Yeah, just a little cold. I’ll be a lot better tomorrow, I think,” he said, his voice hoarse and scratchy as his throat burned to produce each syllable.
“Are you sure?” William frowned. He wondered if he should be feeding from Red more often; he knew his most favoured janissaries seemed to rarely fall ill. But he didn’t want to risk going too far. Red was too important to him, and he didn’t trust his self control.
“Promise.” Red smiled, taking a sip of water that did nothing to calm the redness in his throat.
When William awoke the next evening, Red’s warm body was in bed with him, his eyes half-closed and distant and his pyjamas damp from the sweat. William would have to get them washed.
“How are you, my dear?”
Red’s response was mumbled, as though he was trying to swallow the words immediately after speaking them. “Fine. Jus’ a little nap. Have fun on your trip.”
Despite Red’s obvious discomfort, William couldn’t help but smile. “No, you’re not fine.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m going to remain here tonight. I can postpone the meeting.”
“No! You said it’s important. You have to go!”
William smiled and stroked Red’s hair. “Someone has to make sure you have something to eat, my dear.”
Red spent the rest of the night in bed, feeling himself freezing under the pile of warm blankets in the moments of consciousness between his long bouts of sleep. During some of that wakefulness, William fed him hearty soups and warm water, when Red would accept them despite the fever that made him feel he was on fire at the same time that he froze. His head was pounding, and he felt as though he’d soiled every handkerchief in the house.
William sat there for hours in between preparing the soup and fetching spare blankets, holding Red’s hand.
After a very long time, William lay down beside Red, stroking the smooth skin on his forehead. “I must rest now, my dear. I hope you will be all right.”
Red smiled. “I’ll manage.” He took a deep breath through his mouth, the cool morning air irritating his throat and lungs. “I know your… trip was important. Thank you for staying and looking after me.”
“Of course.” William kissed Red. “I love you,” he found himself saying. That was a shock. Why would he say such a thing, to a human, and admittedly one he had found himself uncharacteristically fond of, but surely not that fond, not so fond that he’d say something like that, when he was normally so careful with his words, and besides, his own thoughts in that direction had just been dalliances, anthropomorphising the human into something he wasn’t, putting—
The sun rose.
William fell limp.
“Love you too,” Red replied, and then started coughing.
November, 1944
William woke with Red lying next to him. Red lay on his own arm, eyes closed, gently stroking William’s hair. Red smelled of coffee and congealed blood and strong soap.
“Good evening,” William said softly as he woke, rolling onto his side to face Red. He placed a hand on his hip, feeling the soft movements of his breathing.
“Evening,” Red mumbled back.
“How has your day been?”
Red smiled, putting his arm around William’s ribcage. He rested his nose against William’s cheek, feeling William’s cool breath on his skin. “I missed you. I chopped wood for the school. I bought extra hazelnuts. I went to the library.”
“Did you read anything interesting?”
“I’ve finished all their books in English, not that they had that many. I’m reading an encyclopedia, and I use a French dictionary for the harder words. It’s fine.” He cracked open his eyes to put his chin on William’s shoulder. “You know there’s a math thing for how people sit around a table? If you want to make sure it’s all women flanking the men?”
“Where would be the fun in that?” he said, smiling.
“The French are into it.” Red grinned back. “The only thing I’m getting out of the encyclopedia is that people overcomplicate things, and a headache.”
“It is an ambitious thing for you to read.” He pulled Red closer, so their chests were touching; his body had started to warm up, and was now merely cool rather than disturbingly cold as it always was when he first woke up.
“I should be practicing my French anyway.” Red wrapped his arms around him. “I still sound like a six year old.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, my dear. I think your French is very good.” He kissed Red’s neck, just below his ear.
“That’s because you don’t see me in town. I’m embarrassing you constantly.”
William laughed. “Now, now. Your gaffes cannot be worse than the confusion it caused when an Italian nobleman’s valet spoke hardly any Italian.”
“I thought we were just pretending I took a bad blow to the head in my teens,” he muttered, shifting in between William’s legs and gently kneading his thighs.
“That would also explain your French.” William grinned. He gently rolled onto his back and pulled Red on top of him. Red laughed. They did not get out of bed for a while longer.
It was lonely when the sun was up. The days were mercifully growing shorter, and Red’s regular trips into town and his work at the school helped to make him feel less isolated. It was especially difficult on days like today, when William had fed from him recently and he felt no desire to sleep, leaving him with a full day of sunlight to fill.
He’d made a habit of reading the paper and drinking coffee at the local coffeehouse each morning. Even when he felt he needed to sleep a full eight hours, he would find himself awake before lunchtime, regardless of how late into the morning had stayed awake. He wondered if he would grow out of it. Perhaps, after enough time, he would be a creature of the night, though in a less literal sense than William was.
That line of thinking drew his mind to the future. If he had a future with William... would his life be like it had been the past six months? A couple of glasses of coffee, pleasantries with some villager with whom he couldn’t begin to dream of sharing the details of his life, a day’s work at the school, and then returning home to read until sunset…
He was grateful that he was safe. He had never felt so secure, even back at home. His boss at the steel mill was certainly not as worried about Red’s health as William was. And all the dates he’d been on with Janet, all the time they’d spent together, they had been nice, but there was something about the easy relationship he’d had with William: watching him cook, going on long walks, the French lessons, the card games and William’s futile attempts to teach Red to play chess. Red was too sore a loser, and William’s attempts to play poorly too transparent, for that to have worked out. But it had been fun to find that out about each other.
Red was grateful for his relationship with William. But he felt there was something missing in his life. He didn’t know what it was, and he felt ungrateful for noticing it at all.
He was walking by the sea on this cool autumn morning. It was beautiful, the sort of place he daydreamed about visiting before the war began. It was hard to believe that the war was still happening, now that there was little reason for Red to think of it anymore. Palm trees grew opposite from tall, golden buildings and the sea was a pure blue and seemed to go on forever on this mercifully clear day.
Columbus seemed so distant, now. Yet he had been there only a year ago, with Janet and his mother and his sister waving goodbye to him at the train station. He imagined how they must feel now. Had he been reported as a deserter, or was his name camouflaged among the dead? They’d remember him as a hero. A sacrifice worth making to take Rome from Hitler. His name would be carved onto a memorial somewhere, like his great-grandfather’s. It would be better to be a martyr than a coward.
He shook his head; it wasn’t helpful to think about those things. It just made him feel worse. He diverted his attention back to the road, to the buildings he was walking past. After several minutes he noticed something moving in the alleyway, out of the corner of his eye.
His head snapped over to look. But it wasn’t a threat. No pickpocket sizing him up, not even a peddler trying to sell him something of questionable provenance.
Just a dog.
She was fairly plain, with the muscular lean look—it was probably a Cursinu, a type of dog that was popular with the local farmers. She was dark brown brindled with tan, but some of that may have been dirt. Her ears were long and floppy and caked with mud. But he mostly noticed her eyes, wet and glittering and watching him as he stopped to look at her. Those eyes reminded him of Jack, the dog his family had when he was a boy. He felt a pang of something deep in his chest.
“Hey there,” he said quietly. She flinched when he spoke, but didn’t look away.
She stepped back when he crouched, even though he was still several yards from her. She gave him one cautious wag of her tail.
He took a step towards her.
And she bolted.
The next day, she was in the same alleyway. This time she didn’t run, but Red didn’t approach. Instead, he left his sandwich near the opening of the alley and left.
When he looked back, he saw a snout cautiously come around the corner, enough to grab the sandwich and dart back into the darkness.
He smiled.
On the fourth day, he sat down with a book and set two sandwiches down beside him, and read while the cautious brown eyes watched him from the shadows.
Passing strangers gave him scornful looks, when they didn’t just look straight through him. Maybe they thought he was a vagrant. He didn’t mind.
He didn’t look up when she came up to him. She cautiously sniffed at the hem of his pants, took a sandwich, and ran.
On the seventh day, she allowed him to pet her. Red could feel the bunched muscles in her neck. She leaned into him when he scratched her behind the ear. She ran when he attempted to examine the strange hairless patch over her leg.
On the ninth day, she let him scratch her while she ate. A strange smell was coming from her leg: it was sickly sweet, like sugar syrup. He looked at the wound: it didn’t look like it should have smelled sweet. It was a pale-yellow green, swollen, and had raised red edges. Bolts of black ran through it.
It was definitely infected.
Red sighed. She looked at him, still cautious.
“Sorry, sweetheart. You’re not going to like this,” he whispered, and grabbed her around the middle.
She yelped in terror and squirmed in his arms, snapping at him in panic. She squealed again as he wrapped her in his jacket, covering her head and binding her limbs to her body, and carried her through the streets to his home.
William woke up, alone in the bedroom. This was slightly unusual; Red was often there to greet him at sunset. More unusual still was the smell of dog that seemed to fill the house.
And not a particularly clean dog, either.
He sat up, and could hear the rustle of the page of a book turning coming from the bathroom at the other end of the house. Ah, of course—Red had human needs, after all. William climbed out of bed, got dressed, and walked through the sitting room and past the kitchen.
He could hear Red reading, and his calm, regular breaths. He could also hear another creature, not human, not calm. He could smell it, too. A wet dog. What had possessed him to...
William sighed, and gently opened the bathroom door. Red was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, a detective novel in his lap. He grinned at William and inclined his head to the cardboard box that was on its side in the centre of the room, which was now quivering from the force of the animal that was trembling inside.
William hunched to peer inside the box and examine the dog. Her ears were damp, she was quivering, and her big wet eyes were so vivid that they seemed to be the only thing in the box. Red’s jacket was lying underneath the wretched creature.
“What are you doing?” William asked.
“I’ve been sitting with the dog,” Red replied softly, hesitant. “Her leg looked really bad, so I brought her here and cleaned her up, and I don’t want to leave her alone while she’s so scared.”
“Why?” William lowered his voice.
“I think she’s a stray. Her leg was definitely going to get worse out there, especially since she’d not been eating,” he paused, giving the box a plaintive look before speaking again. “Do you... do you like dogs?”
William thought back to the forests of Gaul, to horseback rides, to battles fought beside loyal soldiers and war hounds. He thought back to the mutts that begged for scraps in the kitchens of Spain. He sat on the floor beside Red. “I have not had one in quite some time.”
Red nodded, relaxing a little. “We could keep her, maybe. I don’t think... I mean, she won’t get in the way.”
“What use do you have for it?” William asked; he tried to dredge up memories of his past. What did he think of the war dogs, all those years ago? Did he like dogs? He must have.
“Use?” Red repeated, confused. He looked back to the dog. “Uh. She’s... well, maybe, if we kept her, she would probably be a good guard dog. If someone tried to break in, she could wake us, well, me, up. I’m sure she could learn. She looks... she seems like a smart dog.”
“We will have to get a kennel for it to sleep in.”
Red’s eyes lit up. “You’re okay with us keeping her? She can stay?”
“If you wish it. I suppose it can keep you company whilst I sleep, as well.”
Red considered this. He felt that hole inside him, that thing that was missing... maybe...
“Do, I mean…” Red hesitated, then moved to give William a hug. “I would love to keep her. Thank you.” He broke the hug to shuffle in front of the box. He offered the dog his hand, since it now smelled of William as well. “Do you want to name her?”
William shook his head, watching as the dog gave Red’s hand a tentative sniff. “You should name it.”
“I’m going to call her Chestnut,” he said immediately. He had decided on a name days ago. | {
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SALISBURY, ENGLAND — After Sergei V. Skripal, her Russian neighbor, was poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent, Lisa Carey pricked her ears for any information about this bizarre series of events.
Three and a half months later, Ms. Carey, 45, a resident of Salisbury, England, where the attack on the former Russian spy occurred, has come to a firm conclusion: Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, whom Britain holds responsible for the poisoning, would never have ordered an assassination on the eve of a national election or the World Cup.
Mr. Putin is “not a silly man,” she says. If he wants someone dead, she added, they end up dead. “Someone stitched him up,” she wrote recently. “Whoever did this made it look like Putin did it.”
Though Ms. Carey’s opinion is not a common one in Salisbury, she’s not alone, either.
“We are force-fed the answer that it was the Russians, no two ways about it,” read a letter to the editor in a recent edition of The Salisbury Journal. Many more express a shrugging sense of resignation, that the facts of the case may never be clear. | {
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A 33-year-old man in the south-western Sydney suburb of Greenacre has been charged with weapons offences in the wake of raids by Australia’s Joint Counter Terrorism team on Friday morning.
A number of search warrants were executed at properties in Greenacre, Leppington, Condell Park and Punchbowl as part of a long-running investigation, but the Australian Federal Police say today’s raids were not as a result of any specific terrorism threat.
The man was refused bail to appear in Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday, January 10, charged with obtaining ammunition subject to prohibition order and possession with a licence.
Police at the scene of the raid earlier today. Image: Supplied.
Police will also allege prohibited drugs were seized from another man when a second warrant was executed at premises in Punchbowl. Inquiries are continuing.
Operation Duntulm is an ongoing Joint Counter Terrorism Team investigation into alleged financial assistance and support being provided for foreign fighters overseas.
AFP and @nswpolice JCTT conducted Op Duntulm search warrants in sw Sydney this morning – further details to follow #AusFedPol — AFP National Media (@AFPmedia) January 9, 2015
Police involved in the operation today included the Joint Counter Terrorism Team Sydney, NSW Police Tactical Operations Unit, Public Order and Riot Squad, Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad and Bankstown Local Area Command.
Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch, Commander of the Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Command said Operation Duntulm has been running for more than a year and is focused on a range of support mechanisms being provided for those who have left Australia and are now fighting overseas.
“The operation today is about the gathering of evidence and intelligence to enable us to take action against those who think they can engage in these activities,” he said.
“Investigators this morning seized a range of items from the premises searched including documents and computers, and these will be forensically examined.”
Operation Duntulm is ongoing. Earlier this year it resulted in a woman being charged for allegedly supporting incursions in Syria. The woman was preparing to board an international flight at Sydney airport with her four children when police arrested her in May.
Police have conducted a number of raids in recent months. In September the country’s largest anti-terrorism raid saw 800 police search a number of properties across Sydney and detain multiple people including 19-year-old Omarjan Azari who was charged with conspiring to commit a terrorist act.
Australia’s terror alert level was raised from medium to high on September 12 last year. Anyone with concerns is urged to contact the National Security Hotline on 1800 123 400.
Business Insider Emails & Alerts Site highlights each day to your inbox. Email Address Join
Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. | {
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(…)
In this clip, Glenn noted Hunter’s intentionally misleading semantics, pointing out that Hunter’s company, which he co-owned with Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz, former Secretary of State John Kerry’s stepson, would actually have received the funds.
Jason questioned how ABC News or Robach could conduct a credible interview without so much as mentioning financial records from Morgan Stanley that show numerous transfers of funds from anonymous LLCs in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere going directly into Hunter Biden’s account.
“Journalists looked through Morgan Stanley records and they found that anonymous LLCs were coming from China and Ukraine, going directly into Hunter Biden’s account. His account, directly into it!” Jason said.
“We have the Morgan Stanley file,” Glenn added. “We know offshore China was paying and putting it directly into his Morgan Stanley account.” – READ MORE | {
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European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images Maroš Šefčovič withdraws from Socialist race for Commission top job Commission vice president says he will support his rival, Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans.
European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič pulled out from the race to become the Social Democrats' lead candidate for the EU election in May next year.
Šefčovič will back the only other contender in the race to be the political grouping's Spitzenkandidat, Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans.
In a letter to Sergei Stanishev, the President of the European Socialist party family (PES) seen by POLITICO, Šefčovič pledged to "endorse Frans as the PES Common Candidate to be presented for a vote in order to lead our party family into the 2019 European Parliament elections."
"I stand ready to to support Frans and work closely with him," he added.
The EU's Spitzenkandidat candidate system was adopted in 2014 as a way of creating at least a veneer of democracy, and to push back against critics accusing Brussels of being controlled by unelected bureaucrats. The process allows EU-wide party groupings to nominate lead candidates for the Commission top job.
The eventual nominee must be approved by a majority in the European Parliament, but the European Council is still free to nominate an individual who did not run as a lead candidate for the post.
Šefčovič's move came after two internal party debates, the last of which happened at a meeting of Socialist leaders before the October EU summit. Šefčovič, from Slovakia, had collected the support of nine PES parties, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe. Timmermans was able to produce 12 letters of support, including larger delegations at a PES congress next month such as Germany's SPD.
Šefčovič wrote in his letter that despite his own ambition and despite the fact the he "felt a personal obligation to visibly contribute" to his party's success, he would rather close the ranks behind one candidate at a time when social democratic parties are in retreat across the Continent.
"I also understand the power of team spirit and shared goals" he said, adding he wants to "create a united front and concentrate our energy on preparing a powerful political agenda."
PES President Stanishev said in a statement: “I warmly welcome the decision of Maroš Šefčovič to endorse Frans Timmermans as the PES lead candidate. Maroš is a true team player.”
A projection by the European Parliament for POLITICO's Election Hub suggests that the EU's Socialist parties will come second in next year's election. | {
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Getty Images
Former NFL player and current ESPN analyst Keyshawn Johnson has been arrested in connection with a domestic violence incident.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies went to Johnson’s home at 12:48 a.m. today after getting a call about a possible spousal assault.
“When deputies arrived, it was determined that the resident and his ex-girlfriend were involved in a domestic dispute,” the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department told CBS Los Angeles.
Johnson was booked and released on $20,000 bail. CBS Los Angeles reports that Johnson is charged with misdemeanor spousal battery, while TMZ reports that Johnson is charged with misdemeanor domestic battery. TMZ’s report says Johnson smashed his ex-girlfriend’s phone, causing a gash to her hand.
Asked for comment, an ESPN spokesman told PFT, “We are aware and are looking into it.” | {
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वन कानूनों की मार के चलते आज भी आदिम काल का जीवन जी रहे रिखणीखाल ब्लाक के ग्राम तैड़ियावासियों को पहली बार विकास की हल्की रोशनी नजर आई है।
कोटद्वार, जेएनएन। वन कानूनों की मार के चलते आज भी आदिम काल का जीवन जी रहे रिखणीखाल ब्लाक के ग्राम तैड़ियावासियों को पहली बार विकास की हल्की रोशनी नजर आई है। वन कानूनों के चलते चिमनी के भरोसे रात काटने वाले इस गांव के वाशिंदे अब अपने घरों में बल्ब भी जला सकेंगे। दरअसल, प्रधानमंत्री सौभाग्य योजना के तहत गांव सौर ऊर्जा की रोशनी से आच्छादित कर दिया गया है।
कई सरकारें आई और चली गई। मुख्यमंत्री आए और चले गए, लेकिन कोई ऐसा नहीं जो उनकी किस्मत बदलता। सरकारी गलियारों के चक्कर काटते-काटते एड़ियां घिस गई, लेकिन फरियाद सुनने वाला कोई नहीं। शुभ कार्यों पर ढोल-दमाऊ बजता तो है, लेकिन यही डर लगा रहता है कि कब सरकारी अधिकारी आकर ढोल-दमाऊं समेटकर कारागार में बंद कर दें। यही नहीं इस गांव में दीपावली पर पटाखे फोड़ना तो दूर, घर से बाहर 'दिया' तक जलाना प्रतिबंधित है।
जिला पौड़ी गढ़वाल के रिखणीखाल प्रखंड के ग्राम तैड़िया के वाशिंदों के लिए ऐसा जीवन जीना नियति बन गया है। पूर्वजों ने गांव तो सही जगह पर बसाया था, लेकिन उन्हें क्या पता था कि उनके गांव की खुशियों को जंगली जानवर निगल लेंगे।
अंतर्राष्ट्रीय ख्यातिप्राप्त कार्बेट नेशनल पार्क (टाइगर प्रोजेक्ट) के कोर जोन में बसे इस गांवों के वाशिंदों की मजबूरी ही कहें कि शुभ मौकों पर ग्रामीण अपने घरों में रोशनी तक नहीं कर सकते। गांव के हालातों पर नजर डालें तो आज भी इस गांव में न तो विद्युतीकरण है और न ही सड़क बनी है।
दुगड्डा-रथुवाढाब-हल्दूखाल-नैनीडांडा मोटर मार्ग से करीब पांच किमी. भीतर घने जंगल में बसे इस गांव के वाशिंदों का जीवन जैसे तैसे कट ही रहा है। जंगली जानवरों का इस कदर आतंक है कि ग्रामीणों ने खेतों का रूख करना ही छोड़ दिया है।
वन कानूनों की बंदिशों में जकड़े इस गांव के वाशिंदे गुलामी के इस जीवन से त्रस्त होकर वर्ष 1998 से विस्थापन की मांग कर रहे हैं। इन ग्रामीणों की आज तक सुध नहीं ली गई है, लेकिन अब हालात बदलते नजर आ रहे हैं।
पिछले कई वर्षों से आदिमकाल जीवन जी रहे इस ग्रामीणों की आवाज सरकार के कानों तक पहुंच गई है। गांव का विस्थापन तो नहीं हो रहा, लेकिन गांव को रोशन करने की कवायद अवश्य शुरू हो गई है। प्रधानमंत्री सौभाग्य योजना के तहत गांव को विद्युत रोशनी से जगमग करने की दिशा में ग्रामीणों को सौर ऊर्जा प्लेट दी गई हैं।
तैड़िया विस्थापन एवं पुनर्वास संघर्ष समिति के अध्यक्ष डॉ.एपी ध्यानी ने बताया कि गांव में सौर ऊर्जा लाइटें लगनी शुरू हो गई हैं। कहा कि गांव में पर्यटन की अपार संभावनाएं हैं, लेकिन वन कानूनों की मार तमाम संभावनाओं पर पानी फेर रही है। उन्होंने पर्यटन के दृष्टिगत गांव को सड़क से जोड़ने की मांग की है।
यह भी पढ़ें: आजादी के 70 साल बाद इस गांव में पहुंची बिजली
यह भी पढ़ें: इस योजना के खत्म होने में सिर्फ एक हफ्ता, पहुंचानी है 9000 घरों में बिजली
यह भी पढ़ें: चकराता में सौभाग्य योजना से जगमग हुए इतने हजार घर
डाउनलोड करें जागरण एप और न्यूज़ जगत की सभी खबरों के साथ पायें जॉब अलर्ट, जोक्स, शायरी, रेडियो और अन्य सर्विस | {
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The former Polish president Lech Wałęsa has joined protests that have broken out across the country over plans by the populist ruling party to put the supreme court and the rest of the judicial system under its political control.
The EU and many international legal experts say the changes would mark a dramatic reversal for a country hailed as a model of democratic transition over the past quarter century, and would move Poland closer toward authoritarianism.
The president of the European council, Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, had on Thursday accused the ruling Law and Justice party of dragging the country back in time.
The party has defended the changes as reforms to a justice system that its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, said was never properly purged of former communists after that political system collapsed in 1989.
Wałęsa addressed protesters in Gdańsk, his home city and where he led strikes in the 1980s against the communist regime that eventually toppled the government and ushered in democracy.
The 73-year-old recalled those democratic changes, saying that the separation of powers into the legislative, executive and judicial branches was the most important achievement of his Solidarity movement.
Protest against supreme court legislation in Gdańsk. Photograph: Jan Rusek/Agencja Gazeta/Reuters
“You must use all means to take back what we achieved for you,” he told a crowd that included many young Poles. The 1983 Nobel peace prize winner also said he would always support their struggle, appearing to rule out any leadership role for himself in the protest movement.
He was welcomed with chants of “Lech Wałęsa” and “we thank you”.
His appearance came after Poland’s upper house of parliament approved a supreme court overhaul, defying the EU and critics at home who say the legislation will undermine democratic checks and balances.
Tens of thousands of protesters had gathered earlier in Warsaw and cities across Poland for candlelit vigils to protest against the draft bill, as the senate debated it late into the night. Some protesters carried Polish and EU flags, chanting: “Free courts.”
To become law, the proposal still has to be signed by the president, Andrzej Duda, an ally of the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Duda’s spokesman, Andrzej Łapiński, said on Saturday he saw flaws in the legislation and an inconsistency between two articles regarding the appointment of the head of Poland’s top court.
Łapiński stopped short of saying whether the president would reject the bill or seek the opinion of the constitutional court. Duda has 21 days to sign it into law.
The Eurosceptic PiS argues new rules are needed to make the judiciary accountable and efficient.
But the opposition and judges’ groups in Poland as well as critics in Brussels say the legislation is a new step by the Polish government towards authoritarianism.
The US, Poland’s most important ally in Nato, issued a statement urging Poland to ensure any changes respect the constitution. “We urge all sides to ensure that any judicial reform does not violate Poland’s constitution or international legal obligations and respects the principles of judicial independence and separation of powers,” it said.
An opinion poll for the private television network TVN showed on Friday that 55% of respondents said Duda should veto the overhaul of the judiciary, while 29% wanted him to sign it.
Since coming to power in 2015, the PiS has sought to tighten government influence over courts and brought prosecutors and state media under direct government control. It has also introduced restrictions on public gatherings and made it harder for some non-governmental organisations to function.
“We believe that Poland is slowly but systematically turning into a penal institution,” the opposition senator Jan Rulewski, a veteran activist of the anti-communism movement, said during the debate, dressed in a prison uniform.
The PiS remains broadly popular among the electorate, despite an upswelling of protest in recent days as it rushed the judiciary overhaul through parliament. With the economy growing robustly and unemployment at record lows, the party’s nationalist rhetoric infused with Catholic piety resonates strongly among Poland’s conservative voters.
The government of the biggest eastern EU state has so far dismissed criticism, saying the changes would ensure state institutions serve all Poles, not just the “elites”.
On Wednesday, the EU gave Poland a week to shelve the judicial reforms that Brussels said will put courts under direct government control.
If the PiS government does not back down, Poland could face fines and even a suspension of its voting rights, although other Eurosceptic EU governments, notably Hungary, are likely to veto strict punishments.
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said on Saturday that Budapest would fight to defend Poland. “The inquisition offensive against Poland can never succeed because Hungary will use all legal options in the European Union to show solidarity with the Poles,” he said.
Like Kaczyński, who is a former Polish prime minister, Orbán has clashed with Brussels for years over a perceived disrespect for democratic freedoms and has increasingly posed as a freedom fighter against EU overreach.
Senior Czech judges denounced the judicial overhaul in Poland as an attack on the rule of law.
The PiS has offered some concessions on demand from the president, but has presented criticism from abroad as unacceptable meddling in the domestic affairs of the country, which joined the EU in 2004.
“We will not give into pressure. We will not be intimidated by Polish and foreign defenders of the interests of the elite,” the Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, said on state television. | {
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The final international break of the 2018/19 season came to a close on Tuesday evening with seven Leicester City players in action for their respective countries.
More on this story...
- Harvey Barnes, Hamza Choudhury, Demarai Gray and James Maddison all play for England Under-21s
- Foxes midfielder Wilfred Ndidi helps Nigeria to another win
- Kasper Schmeichel’s Denmark come from behind against Switzerland
Wilfred Ndidi, who helped Nigeria overcome Seychelles on Friday, earned his 24th cap as the Super Eagles beat Egypt.
The 22-year-old midfielder played the full game as Paul Onuachu’s first-minute goal gave the Nigerians victory.
On the same evening, Denmark produced a stunning comeback against Switzerland, scoring three goals in the final six minutes to earn a draw.
City No.1 and Danish Player of the Year Kasper Schmeichel played 90 minutes as Henrik Dalsgaard’s late goal earned Denmark a point in the 2020 UEFA European Championships qualifier.
Expand photo Harvey Barnes Harvey Barnes was one of four Leicester City youngsters in action at Vitality Stadium for England Under-21s.
At Under-21 level, four Foxes represented England in a 2-1 loss to Germany at AFC Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium.
Demarai Gray and Academy product Harvey Barnes were handed starts by Aidy Boothroyd for the friendly on the south coast.
Hamza Choudhury and James Maddison also featured as over 11,000 fans turned out to support the Young Lions.
Elsewhere, Bartosz Kapustka - currently on loan at OH Leuven - saw his Poland Under-21s side lose 2-0 at home to Serbia.
Leicester City’s international stars will now return to Belvoir Drive over the coming days to join preparations for Saturday’s game against AFC Bournemouth at King Power Stadium. | {
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While the Third Reich had many of the trappings of a religious sect – it was led by a cult figure with Messianic visions, had its own dogma and rituals, and earned, by merit or by force, the faith of a congregation – Hitler did not wish to turn Nazism from a political movement to a religious one.
The Nazis had a messy relationship with religion and the party’s own members had a grab bag of religious views: practicing Protestants and Catholics; atheists; some who believed Jesus was Aryan instead of Jewish; others who sought to bring down the Catholic Church from within by sending SS spies into seminaries.
Hitler was raised Catholic but came to prefer the ideas of German Protestantism as an adult. He once complained of the Nazis who wished to mythologize the party, “To think that I may some day be turned into an SS saint! Can you imagine it? I would turn over in my grave…”
What Hitler wanted, instead, was a secular Pan-Germanism based on the “blood and soil,” the race and the nation that rose above and united the Christian sects. Religious holidays would provide both difficulty and opportunity on the road to this goal.
While some Christian teachings were at odds with Nazi ideology, especially the idea that a Jewish man was the Son of God, holy days could also, as Party propagandist Hannes Kremer put it, be used to “mobilize the spiritual or emotional strengths of the community for National Socialism.” Using them as such would involve two tasks: “On the one hand, we must create new ideas and new customs, and on the other hand it is necessary to adjust those customs that have grown out of the people to the ‘new community of the Germans,’ which means giving these inherited customs a new content consistent with the people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft)… These new customs develop directly from the ideas, experiences, and traditions of the party itself.”
Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels and his daughter in 1935. Getty Images.
Christmas, one of the most important dates on the calendar for German Christians, offered the perfect target for this sort of co-opting. And so, no matter what any one Party member thought of Christmas or Christianity, the holiday was recast in the Nazis’ own image shortly after their rise to power: A holiday of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryans celebrating ‘Nordic’ traditions that pre-dated Christianity and were anchored in their native land. (The Nordic race was a racial subcategory created by anthropologists in the early 20th century. It was a branch of the Aryan race, which belonged, in turn, to the larger Caucasian race. Nordic Germanic peoples were, in the eyes of the Nazis, the master race.)
The Reason for the Season
Some of the Nazis’ work was already done for them. Völkisch movements (“populist, nationalistic-patriotic” groups and individuals who typically wanted to cultivate a uniquely German identity and eliminate material and spiritual influences from other peoples and cultures) had made efforts to redefine the German identity with help from invented traditions and suspect historical research, most going back to a supposed prehistoric Aryan master race that was wiped out by an invading Christianity. Christmas’ proximity to the winter solstice, a celebration of the beginning of the end of winter, made it easy for the Nazis to point to the holiday as a pre-Christian Nordic solstice celebration, a particularly German holiday on which National Socialist families could connect to the past of the Fatherland and their Aryan roots with decorated evergreens and Yule logs.
Germans had traditionally referred to Christmas as Weihnachten (Holy Night), but the Nazis preferred and promoted two other names, Julfest (Yuletide) and Rauhnacht (Rough Night), which severed the holiday’s ties to Christianity, emphasized its pagan, Germanic roots, and reminded people of the harsh, dark and cold nights of winter and eventual return of the sun. The subtext is clear enough: Germany’s post-World War I dark years were over, and salvation came not in the form of Christ and the Kingdom of God, but the Nazi Party and a renewed German Empire.
I’m Dreaming of a White, Aryan, National Socialist Christmas
Wherever possible, in both public and private spheres, Christmas’ religious aspects were de-emphasized and replaced with nationalistic and pagan symbolism. “People’s Christmas trees” were erected in many towns and cities with the traditional star topper replaced by swastikas, Germanic “sun wheels,” or the Nordic “sig runes” used by the SS as their insignia.
These trees became the subject of numerous Christmas carols rewritten with no reference to Christ or religion, as well as the focal point of Christmas celebrations, events and activities organized by groups like the Hitler Youth, the League of German Women and the German Workers Front and the state. The Nazi Party organized massive celebrations across the country where the Hitler Youth reenacted solstice rituals and soldiers swore “oaths of fire” before huge bonfires. Joseph Goebbels often appeared at celebrations like this at the tree in Berlin, handing out presents to children like a jackbooted Santa Claus.
Santa, of course, still existed in Nazified form, as someone had to bring gifts to good National Socialist children. Instead of St. Nick in the red robe of a bishop, though, he came in the form of the Norse god Odin, riding around the planet on a white horse to announce the coming of the winter solstice. Presents were still exchanged among families, friends and co-workers, sometimes with a depraved twist: the special Yule lanterns that SS leader Heinrich Himmler handed out as gifts to his officers were made by the inmates at the Dachau concentration camp.
While forced labor didn’t make the Nazis bat an eye, the commercialization of their Aryan Christmas seems to have bothered them as much as it bugs some people today. Savvy entrepreneurs blended Christmas kitsch with Nazi symbolism and began churning out swastika-shaped Christmas tree lights and cookie cutters, chocolate SS men, and sig rune-patterned wrapping paper. This ruffled the Party’s feathers and led to a law banning the “misuse” of Nazi and national symbols. The state encouraged families to instead buy hand-crafted decorations and other items that had a more völkisch nature and invoked the nation’s Nordic past.
During World War II, Julfest spread to the frontlines, and the Party’s central propaganda department, or Reichspropagandaleitung, produced an annual Christmas book for soldiers and civilians featuring more than 100 pages of stories, letters, songs, and illustrations, many focusing on the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers and their families. By 1944 and 1945, with defeat close at hand, the Nazis tried to reinvent Christmas once more as a day of remembrance for fallen soldiers. By then, though, there wasn’t much Christmas spirit left in Germany.
* * *
For more on Christmas in Nazi Germany, see the Reichspropagandaleitung’s 1944 Christmas book, a 1943 Nazi Advent pamphlet, Hannes Kremer’s essay “New Meanings for “Inherited” Customs?” and Von wegen Heilige Nacht: Das Weihnachtsfest in der politischen Propaganda.
This article originally appeared in 2010. | {
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A former presidential aide has called on fellow Muslims in France to wear a green star to identify themselves.
The controversial move was deliberately reminiscent of the yellow stars forced on Jews by Nazis.
Its aim, said its organiser, was to protest against the stigmatisation of France’s Islamic population. | {
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Cameron Browne/Getty Images
On Friday, Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported that the Los Angeles Lakers' offers to the New Orleans Pelicans for six-time All-Star big man Anthony Davis had not even merited a response:
However, Tania Ganguli and Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday that the Pels "are considering making a counteroffer that would ask for two first-round picks and add a Pelicans player to the deal, according to people with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter."
Turner also reported that the Lakers emailed five trade offers to the Pels on Wednesday. Per Turner, one of them involved point guard Lonzo Ball, forwards Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma, center Ivica Zubac and a first-round pick for Davis.
The Lakers' picks don't look particularly appealing. Los Angeles has all of its future first-round selections, but a James-Davis tandem would almost certainly make the Lakers a playoff team, thereby preventing any potential lottery picks for New Orleans.
As of now, the Lakers are just two games behind the Los Angeles Clippers for the final playoff spot. If Davis hypothetically jumped on board before the Thursday trade deadline, he could help make up that ground fairly easily.
Of course, it's not impossible for a team to strike gold outside the lottery. The Lakers themselves did so with the promising Kuzma, who was the 27th overall pick in the 2017 draft. He's averaging 18.9 points per game this year.
The bigger key is whether Pels general manager Dell Demps can unload some salary, which he seemingly wants to do here.
But the most important note of all is the Lakers are seemingly willing to part with the four 25-and-under players on their team with the most potential. That gives Demps some intriguing options, as he already has some solid talent on his roster with Jrue Holiday, ex-Laker Julius Randle, forward Nikola Mirotic and rejuvenated center Jahlil Okafor.
In other words, if the Pels find a way to get that core Lakers four plus the two L.A. draft picks, New Orleans may be in good shape. | {
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A proposed law would allow Israeli authorities to expel Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem on grounds of “disloyalty.” Mahfouz Abu Turk APA images
A new bill to be introduced in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, next week would permit the cancellation of a person’s permanent residency on grounds of “disloyalty” to Israel.
Last October, the prime minister’s office announced that the government had decided to revoke the residency of “terrorists,” a policy that would almost exclusively affect Palestinians living under military occupation in East Jerusalem.
When Israel occupied East Jerusalem in June 1967, formally annexing it in 1980, it decreed that Palestinians living there were “permanent residents,” as if they had moved to Israel as immigrants, rather than Israel violently imposing itself on them.
This residency status is vulnerable to revocation and requires Palestinian Jerusalemites to fulfill certain conditions to maintain it that are never applied to Jews.
Under international law, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem is null and void.
“Disloyalty”
While more than 14,000 Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem have had their residency revoked since 1967 – usually because they might have temporarily moved elsewhere to study, work, be closer to family or get married – none has yet lost their residency for alleged acts of “terror” or disloyalty.
In 2011, Israel did expel several members of the Palestinian Legislative Council from Jerusalem on the grounds that they belong to Hamas. It also regularly bans Palestinians from the city on grounds of “security.”
A handful of Palestinians have been threatened with revocation for breach of loyalty, but their cases are still subject to court proceedings.
In advance of a legislative meeting on 17 January, when the new bill is to be discussed, the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked has written to Yehuda Weinstein, Israel’s attorney general, to emphasize the illegality of the law.
HaMoked warned that the bill, proposed by lawmaker Oren Hazan, will not only seek to legalize the revocation of the permanent residency of those convicted of “disloyalty,” but also of their relatives and spouses.
Hazan, who admitted last year to fabricating information in an attempt to discredit a group that documents Israeli abuses against Palestinians, is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Disloyalty is not defined in Hazan’s bill, nor is it clear why Palestinians living under military occupation owe any duty of loyalty to their occupiers.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring civilians from their homes.
In 2011, Israel approved the Citizenship Law, that allows courts to revoke the citizenship of those convicted of treason, terrorism or espionage.
However, citizenship can only be revoked in cases where the person has dual citizenship.
Palestinians in East Jerusalem with permanent residency are not citizens of Israel and often carry no other citizenship or passport.
Under threat
In the meantime, Israel’s high court has refused to intervene on behalf of four Palestinians from East Jerusalem whose residency Israel is threatening to revoke.
In November, Silvan Shalom, then interior minister, notified four Palestinian young men, who are currently in Israeli custody for allegedly committing attacks, that he intends revoke their residency under the 1952 Law of Entry, which he claimed allows him to revoke the residency of individuals who “breach allegiance to the State of Israel.”
HaMoked filed a petition with the high court on behalf of the four men to challenge the revocation. Israel responded that the petition was premature since the interior ministry had not yet made a final decision regarding their cases.
Punishment without trial
The four Palestinians whose residency is in jeopardy are currently in prison awaiting trial. Two of them carry Jordanian citizenship, according to HaMoked’s court filings, while two are stateless.
But the threatened loss of residency does not depend upon their conviction, HaMoked attorney Dalia Kerstein previously told The Electronic Intifada.
Three of the Palestinians are accused of manslaughter by throwing stones at cars, allegedly causing one driver to have a heart attack and fatally crash his vehicle.
The fourth is accused of an armed attack on a bus in West Jerusalem which left three dead.
Blatant discrimination
The policy of revoking the Jerusalem residency of Palestinians is as blatantly discriminatory as Israel’s practice of punitively destroying the homes of relatives of Palestinians accused of attacks. Neither revocation of residency, nor punitive demolitions are ever applied to Jewish suspects or their relatives, no matter what crimes they commit.
On 7 January, the high court ruled in favor of the state, that the men’s court challenge could not take place before the interior ministry had issued a final decision on their expulsions.
At the same time, the court acknowledged the serious implications of such a move.
“There is no doubt that the revocation of permanent residency visas of East Jerusalem residents raises constitutional and administrative issues of great weight,” the court wrote.
It remains to be seen whether these legal concerns will stand in the way of Israel’s ever harsher measures against Palestinian Jerusalemites.
As it has with the punitive demolitions, Israel’s highest court has often acted as an enabler and champion of Israel’s abuses of Palestinians rather than a check on them. | {
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Under the beacon-like yellow and red umbrella of Mr. V’s mobile vending cart stands owner and operator Jon Verno. This summer, Verno celebrated his twentieth anniversary in street vending.
Many landmark moments in his life happened while he held a spatula in one hand and tongs in the other. Verno remembers when he first learned he was going to have a son: his girlfriend at the time ran up to the cart, overwhelmed with the news. He was on the streets for the New Year’s celebration during Y2K, telling his employees he loved them as the uncertain seconds ticked down. (When the world didn’t end, he turned around to a line of 15 hungry customers.) After learning that his father passed after a fourth battle with cancer, Verno took the cart out to work and escape. On those nights, Verno was at the corner of Goodman and Monroe. But he also has lunchtime wheels on the ground on Crittenden Boulevard and East Avenue. | {
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Members of the U.S. House of Representatives questioned Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) director Kenneth Blanco about Facebook’s planned cryptocurrency Thursday.
Representatives Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO), Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN), Bill Foster (D-IL) and French Hill (R-AR) held a briefing with members of the House Financial Services Committee, discussing the Libra project with Blanco, who heads up FinCEN, the U.S. Treasury Department’s anti-money-laundering wing.
The briefing was held as part of a broader look at how machine learning and artificial intelligence can limit illicit money laundering and related activities.
Cleaver’s concern seems to stem from Facebook’s alleged role in improperly storing user data and spreading misinformation over the past few years, according to a press release.
“We’ve seen the significant damage that foreign adversaries and bad actors have wrought on our democracy through Facebook’s platform, and that was simply through messaging and advertising,” he said in a statement, adding:
“Before we allow such a giant corporation to begin processing millions to billions of financial transactions, we have to study these issues and ensure we have the tools and guardrails in place to deter terrorists, extremists, and/or enemies from utilizing such a platform to do harm to our nation.”
‘Nefarious actors’
While the release did not reveal what Blanco’s views on Libra are, or whether or how FinCEN intends to oversee the project, it did say that Cleaver’s questions focused on Libra and Calibra, a new Facebook subsidiary that will develop digital wallets and other services for the cryptocurrency.
Calibra registered as a money services business with FinCEN earlier this year.
Broadly, “nefarious actors” are finding new ways to conduct illicit financial activities, Cleaver said in the statement, citing cryptocurrencies and other new marketplaces as tools these actors can adapt.
“Now that we’re seeing a giant corporation like Facebook—which has already shown an inability to identify and impede these kinds of actors at an acceptable level—creating its own virtual currency called Libra, it cannot be understated the importance of Congress and financial transmitters to be proactive in utilizing the newest and most powerful technologies to ensure the financial system is not being used improperly,” he added.
He went on to say that the briefing participants “had a fruitful discussion” on how the U.S. can take steps to prevent misuse.
Bipartisan backlash
Thursday’s briefing comes amid wide bipartisan backlash to Facebook’s cryptocurrency plan, which was formally unveiled last week.
The full House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Libra next month, a day after the Senate Banking Committee holds its own.
Other regulators worldwide are examining the cryptocurrency, with the G7 convening a task force to investigate its implications.
Cleaver has long been concerned with potentially illegal activities conducted with cryptocurrencies. According to the release, he has called on the Bitcoin Foundation and the Chamber of Digital Commerce to find ways of preventing extremist groups from using cryptocurrencies.
He has also called on FinCEN to investigate the space, after U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller found that Russian intelligence officials used bitcoin to fund activities interfering with the 2016 presidential election.
Image via Shutterstock | {
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Meet Toby - CRITICAL!
Toby ââ¼ CRITICAL
Available Thursday, August 1st @ 8:00 AM!
Shepherd mix?, ~ 3 months old, male
â NCAF Photographer Report 7/29: Toby is such a cutie pie! He walked pretty good on the leash (for a puppy) and is very friendly and playful. He loves attention and posing for the camera! Toby will make a great addition to any family!
⺠NOTES:Stray from Lonesome Pine Road
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Last Updated on August 11, 2019
What do you do with your user’s password? Do you store it into the database?
Passwords are like real world keys
You don’t!
You should never store the raw password into your application.
Some badly coded websites store the raw password into their database.
They store the actual password and even send you via email:
They send the password
This means your password is at risk.
(by the way, I didn’t code that website, I used a plugin called DAP in WordPress)
As an app developer, you should not store the actual password into your database.
And, as a user you should stay away from such sites and inform the webmaster.
Hash the password and store it into your database
So instead of storing the actual password, you cryptographically hash the password and then store the hash instead of the password.
Hash saved in database
If I don’t store the password, then how people are supposed to log back in?
When someone tries to log in, they will enter their password. You will have to run the hashing function again with that given password. Then you match this new hash with the stored hash.
When you hash the same password with the same secret key, you will get the same hash string.
So it will be a match and you know the password was correct and you go ahead and login the user.
This is why when you forget the password, you don’t get to see the password, instead they send you a link to reset the password. Behind the scenes you are just creating a new hash in the system.
Hash the password with a salt
Now normally I would hash the password with a secret key. The problem is, two users may have the same password. Let’s say two users have used 1234 as their password. When your system hashes the password, both user will have the same hash. If your database gets stolen and the hacker sees, those 2 users have the same hash, that means their passwords are the same. This makes things easier for the hacker.
To fix this, you have to generate a new string which will act as a salt. This salt will also be saved into the database for each user. Each of these salts will be unique per user.
So next, instead of hashing the password with a secret key, you use the salt to hash the password. That way now you will get a unique hash per user.
Code examples:
Here’s how I created a salt using the crypto module in Node.js:
var crypto = require('crypto'); var createTheSalt = function() { return crypto.randomBytes(20).toString('hex'); };
And here I’m using the salt and the given password to hash the password:
var crypto = require('crypto'); var hashThePassword = function(password, salt) { password = password.length && typeof password === 'string' ? password : undefined; if (password && salt) { // Create the salt let hash = crypto .createHmac('sha512', salt) .update(password) .digest('hex'); // Return a salt and hash object return { salt, hash }; } else { return null; }
So the next time you come across a website which sends your actual password when you forgot the password, know that your data is in wrong hands. | {
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CEOs to Trump: No, you’re fired
Editors | USA TODAY
Show Caption Hide Caption President Trump disbands economic councils after several CEOs quit President Donald Trump disbands economic councils. Elizabeth Keatinge (@elizkeatinge) has more.
Trump is losing important friends in the corner offices of Corporate America
President Trump's agenda — already reeling from political infighting in Washington, D.C., scandal and turmoil in his administration and missteps by the tweet-driven president himself — has a new roadblock to confront: CEOs distancing themselves from the president. The fallout from Trump's response to deadly violence in Charlottesville during a white supremacist rally escalated Wednesday as more prominent CEOs quit advising the White House on economic matters and Trump disbanded his manufacturing and business policy councils. The public rebuke of Trump from even a small handful of top U.S. executives could have negative repercussions for the economy and financial markets if it causes business and investor confidence to take a hit. Also on Wednesday:
Trump: There were many 'bad people' in Charlottesville At Trump Tower in New York City, President Trump explains to the media that he thinks removing statues like the one of Gen. Robert E. Lee rewrites history. He also says there were many types of 'bad people' to blame for the violence in Virginia.
'No sign of justice'
The despair and frustration is familiar to dozens of vacationers who have blacked out, not knowing what happened after being served tainted alcohol at upscale, all-inclusive Mexican resorts. After a USA TODAY Network investigation uncovered widespread cases of tourists being served illicit alcohol, many now say they have little hope for justice. Following blackouts, robberies, assaults, even the death of a loved one, they have experienced indifferent — if not hostile — treatment from resort staffers, local police and doctors. While the U.S. Department of State has issued an official warning about the problem, its offices in Mexico have little jurisdiction to help.
Do you like your burgers medium rare? Probably not, if they're full of bugs
Ah, Switzerland. Home of Swiss chocolate, Swiss cheese and ... burgers made entirely of insects. Burgers and meatballs made from insects will hit grocery shelves Monday at the Coop supermarket chain. It marks the first wide distribution of bug bites in Europe. The sale of insect-based food was made possible by a law passed in May, which allows consumption of crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms — as long as they are bred under strict sanitary conditions. We're not sure if this counts as Meatless Monday.
Insect burgers and bug balls? Switzerland sells insect food Switzerland is well known for its delicious chocolate, their watches and civilized democracy but now they are looking to be known as the ones selling you bugs on the food aisle?
Think Netflix, but for the movie theater
Listen up, movie buffs: A new subscription service might have you drop the remote and pick up movie tickets and popcorn. MoviePass announced a new price for its monthly subscription service that allows users to watch one movie in a theater each day, every day. And it costs $9.95, roughly the price of your average movie ticket. Here's how: you sign up, get a MoviePass card, pick your movie and showtime, then head to the theater. And since the service pays for itself after one theater visit, you have more cash for Raisinets and tubs of Cherry Coke.
Huskies might look like direwolves, but that doesn't mean you should get one
Peter Dinklage, aka Tyrion Lannister, is pleading with Game of Thrones fans not to be hasty picking pets. The actor, working with PETA, hopes to discourage fans from getting Huskies solely for their similarity to direwolves, giant fake animals that play a part of the hit HBO fantasy series. It turns out that once owners understand the commitment huskies require, they are often abandoned, according to PETA. Dinklage, a vegetarian, stressed the seriousness of pet selection. Shameless plug: We have a Game of Thrones newsletter. You should sign up for it.
What else is happening this week? Bookmark our calendar.
This is a compilation of stories from across USA TODAY. Want to get our newsletter? Sign up! | {
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A formation of F-35 Lightning IIs from the 388th Fighter Wing and 419th FW stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, perform aerial maneuvers during part of a combat power exercise over Utah Test and Training Range. The exercise aims to confirm their ability to quickly employ a large force of jets against air and ground targets, and demonstrate the readiness and lethality of the F-35A. As the first combat-ready F-35 unit in the Air Force, the 388th and 419th FWs are ready to deploy anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. | {
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Today we’re bringing you an update to our Opera beta stream.
This build includes a bunch of translation fixes including the very important
DNA-29178 - Fix stupid nynorsk autotranslate mistakes (and => og) .
Also included in this build is not just one but two chromium updates!
We fixed an annoying issues where some embedded videos would appear very choppy, these videos should play smoothly again.
As always, please let us know if you find any serious issues. If you are eager to try out or talk about sync, please use the latest developer post.
Downloads:
The full list of fixes is available in changelog. | {
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If you really want the Ford government to allow corner stores and big box outlets to sell alcohol, you can give that feedback to the province many, many times over.
Ontario's new online survey about changing the alcohol retailing rules in Ontario does not limit the number of times a person can respond.
I did the survey 10 times in the space of an hour on Tuesday from the same computer, sometimes filing exactly the same answers as a previous survey, sometimes different ones.
That could allow interest groups — whether favouring greater privatization in alcohol sales or opposing it — to skew the results, experts say. If a politician can hire a troll farm to influence an election, or if scalper bots can buy up tickets to resell at a profit, a company or union could pay a firm to generate thousands of responses designed to look like public input.
"Have your say on modernizing the rules for the sale and consumption of alcohol in Ontario," says the government's online survey. It asks Ontarians what changes they would like to see in alcohol retailing, with such options as more locations, more private retailers, and more stand-alone stores that only sell alcohol products. The survey is open for responses until Feb. 1.
Experts in research methodology question why the government set up the survey in a way that could cast doubt on the accuracy of the data.
The survey is open to abuse, said Margaret Brigley, CEO of Corporate Research Associates, a national market research firm headquartered in Halifax.
One question in the Ontario government's online survey about expanding alcohol sales.
"There's the opportunity for people to influence the results, if they're a lobby group that is so inclined," Brigley said in a phone interview Tuesday.
The government will for the most part be able to identify repeated and duplicate entries through what it calls an "in-depth analysis of submissions," says a spokesperson for Finance Minister Vic Fedeli.
"Online consultations can help people to provide feedback on government decisions and policies, quickly and easily," said Fedeli's press secretary, Robert Gibson.
"We are inviting the public to share their views on how we can increase choice and convenience in a safe and responsible way," said Gibson in an email Tuesday to CBC News. "We look forward to hearing what all participants have to say."
The fundamental problem with such an online survey is that it does not give the government a statistically accurate sample of public opinion in Ontario, says Matthias Schonlau, a professor of statistics at the University of Waterloo.
The province's online survey on alcohol sales asks: 'Do you have any other comments or suggestions about how we can modernize Ontario’s alcohol sector?' (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
"It's fine to collect that data but it's not a scientific survey," Schonlau said Tuesday in a phone interview.
"People could give multiple answers, you could have specific agendas by individuals or companies that sponsor internet trolls to generate a lot of data," he said.
Both Schonlau and Brigley said to truly get an accurate representation of public opinion on the issue, the government should conduct randomized polling.
The online survey is only one way the government will get public input, said Gibson. He said the province will also hold roundtable discussions with key groups such as "alcohol producers, public health and safety organizations, retailers, municipalities, consumer groups, and restaurants and bars."
Premier Doug Ford himself cast doubt on the accuracy of another online survey conducted by his government. Last month, Ford claimed "certain groups" flooded the government's consultation website on education reforms on its first day. The initial response, obtained under the freedom of information act, showed widepsread support for the Wynne government's sex-ed curriculum, something Ford has promised to scrap.
The Ontario government is conducting this online survey about changing the rules on alcohol sales and consumption.
NDP deputy leader Sara Singh says the government's online surveys amount to "phony consultations" because the PCs are only interested in answers that justify the moves they want to make.
"This [alcohol convenience survey] is again another one of those fishing expeditions to get the type of responses they were looking for," said Singh in an interview Tuesday.
Singh said she is concerned the government will use that data to make its case for more private sector involvement in alcohol sales and potentially privatizing the LCBO.
"You can answer this survey an unlimited number of times; you absolutely can skew the data," she said.
The Ford government has already promised to allow the sale of beer from corner stores. However, it must first renegotiate an agreement with Brewers' Retail, owners of The Beer Store, prohibiting further expansion of retail outlets for beer beyond a limited number of supermarkets until the deal expires in 2025. | {
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Last updated on .From the section Leicester
Criticism of Leicester manager Claude Puel after City's shock 2-1 FA Cup defeat at Newport County "would be unfair", says defender Wes Morgan.
Under-pressure Puel made seven changes for the game at the League Two side, who are 74 places below the Foxes.
"If you look at the chances and opportunities we had, we could have won that game quite easily," Morgan said.
"We've got a good squad and the gaffer's got the problem of finding the right balance."
Jamie Vardy, Harry Maguire, Kasper Schmeichel, Ben Chilwell, Ricardo Pereira, Wilfred Ndidi and Nampalys Mendy were all left out by Puel for the trip to Rodney Parade.
Leicester's Rachid Ghezzai equalised after Jamille Matt's opener before Newport scored a winner through a Padraig Amond penalty after Marc Albrighton's handball.
"He's got to give players rest and other players opportunities," added Morgan.
"It's the same for every manager and every team - and I thought we were definitely strong enough."
Puel's squad rotation ups and downs
Puel also left out Vardy and made changes to his starting line-up when Leicester were knocked out of the Carabao Cup in the quarter-finals, beaten in a penalty shoot-out by Manchester City.
However, in the league, his side have registered wins against Chelsea, Manchester City and Everton during the festive period.
"It was a difficult day and the magic of the FA Cup happened, definitely," Morgan said.
"I felt we played well, especially in the second half.
"We had loads of half-chances, some very good positions where we should score, and on another day they all go in.
"But it didn't happen for us and we're very disappointed to go out of the competition.
"I wouldn't say they deserved it, but I don't want to take the shine away from Newport.
"It's a big day for Newport and good luck to them." | {
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ITEM: THE federal government recognizes “sexual abuse of a minor” in statutory rape cases only if the victim is younger than 16.
Item: Otherwise reasonable use of force does not become unreasonable because the police “provoked” the confrontation by making other errors, such as wrongfully entering premises without a warrant.
Item: State courts cannot entertain lawsuits against corporations not “at home” in their state and for activity that occurred somewhere else.
Item: When a company sells a patented product, patent law does not enable that company to restrict how people use it.
These rulings, which the Supreme Court handed down on Tuesday, may not be the most exciting or remarkable — save for one thing very much worth remarking upon: They were all unanimous, or nearly so.
In the country’s tense political atmosphere, the political branches of government too often operate on the principle that “because the other side is for it, we must be against it.” Thankfully, the judicial branch has not reached that low, instead evincing more dedication to professional restraint than it often gets credit for.
Five-to-four decisions, and judges and justices ruling along ideological lines corresponding to the party of the president who appointed them — these certainly occur, and they get attention, fueling suspicions that the court is incapable of separating its work from raw politics. Significant fractures among the justices exist, and they may yet become more visible on the next decision day: The court still has the Trinity Lutheran case to decide, on whether church properties can be excluded from a Missouri state initiative to help nonprofits renovate playgrounds. The Supreme Court enjoys a higher public approval rating than the other branches, but it is lower than it used to be — and may decline further, now that the Senate has eliminated filibusters on judicial nominees, clearing the way for more ideological appointments.
Yet none of this is cause for indulging in a self-defeating cynicism that proclaims it impossible for judges to rise above the bitter partisanship that has infected the other two branches. In fact, as Tuesday’s rulings showed, much of the court’s work is cooperative, not confrontational. That is true even though the justices consider hard cases: Each of the rulings handed down Tuesday reversed findings from a lower appeals court. It would have been all too easy for less thoughtful justices to split on, say, whether there should be more opportunity to hold police liable for using force. Instead, they unanimously overturned a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
It is jurists’ task to continue to cultivate a culture of professional responsibility, and it is society’s to expect them to do so. This must be done in the full knowledge that no judge is perfect; they may at times allow personal preferences to color their reading of the law. Though they will never reach it, they deserve respect as long as they are pursuing the judicial ideal. | {
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[Update] Die Gewinner stehen fest und wurden benachrichtigt. Wir bedanken uns bei allen die mitgemacht haben und freuen uns auf das nächste mal.
Zusammen mit dem offiziell autorisierten PC-Spiele-Shop www.2game.com haben wir für euch ein Gewinnspiel auf die Beine gestellt. Damit möchten wir uns für eure Treue bedanken und unsere neue Partnerschaft mit 2game.com feiern, während ihr klasse Preise gewinnen könnt.
Nachfolgend erfahrt ihr, wie ihr teilnehmt und was es zu beachten gibt.
2Game and HarwareInside Giveaway
Wir hoffen, euch damit eine Freude machen zu können und wünschen euch viel Spaß!
Teilnahmebedingungen:
Berechtigt zur Teilnahme sind ausschließlich Nutzer ab 16 Jahren mit einer gültigen Postanschrift sowie einem dauerhaften Wohnsitz in Deutschland.
HardwareInside.de und 2game.com zeichnen sich als Veranstalter verantwortlich für dieses Gewinnspiel und wird im Folgenden als „der Betreiber“ bezeichnet.
Die Teilnahme an der Aktion ist weder an Kosten noch an den Erwerb von Waren und/oder Dienstleistungen gebunden.
Diese Aktion steht in keinerlei Verbindung zu Facebook und wird in keiner Weise von Facebook gesponsert, unterstützt oder organisiert. Der Empfänger von den bereitgestellten Daten ist nicht Facebook, sondern der Betreiber. Die bereitgestellten Daten werden lediglich für die Kontaktierung des Gewinners und die Verwaltung des Gewinns verwendet. Fragen, Anregungen und Beschwerden sind daher ausschließlich an den Betreiber zu richten. Darüberhinaus darf der Betreiber den Teilnehmer per E-Mail oder persönlicher Nachricht via Facebook kontaktieren.
Sofern die Teilnahme an einem Gewinnspiel das Verfassen von Kommentaren oder Bildbeiträge erfordert, dürfen sie keine Beleidigungen, falsche Tatsachen, Wettbewerbs-, Marken- oder Urheberrechtsverstöße enthalten. Für etwaige Rechtsverstöße haftet der Nutzer.
Mit seiner Teilnahme erklärt sich der Nutzer damit einverstanden, dass der Name in anonymisierter Form auf Facebook veröffentlicht wird. Im Fall eines Verstoßes gegen die Teilnahmebedingungen oder beim Versuch technischer Manipulation kann der Betreiber bestimmte Teilnehmer von der Aktion ausschließen. In einem solchen Fall können Gewinne auch nachträglich entzogen und zurückgefordert werden.
Für die Korrektheit der angegebenen Kontaktdaten ist der Teilnehmer selbst verantwortlich. Im Fall einer unkorrekten Zuordnung der Sachpreise aufgrund fehlerhafter Datenangaben entfällt der Gewinnanspruch.
Der Betreiber ermittelt und benachrichtigt den Gewinner innerhalb von 2 Werktagen nach Ende der Aktion. Der Gewinner hat den Gewinn anschließend zu bestätigen. Bleibt eine Bestätigung innerhalb von 3 Tagen aus, so behält sich der Betreiber das Recht vor, den Gewinn anderen Teilnehmern zu verleihen.
Der Gewinn ist weder austausch- noch übertragbar. Die Barauszahlung ist ebenso ausgeschlossen wie der Rechtsweg. Die Verantwortung für eine eventuelle Versteuerung des Gewinns liegt beim Gewinner selbst.
Sollte der Betreiber aus nicht vertretbaren Gründen den Gewinn nicht zur Verfügung stellen können, so behält sich der Betreiber vor, einen gleichwertigen Ersatz zu liefern.
Die Gewinne sind von der Gewährleistung und Garantie ausgeschlossen. Sollte es zu einem Garantiefall kommen, muss sich der Gewinner an den Hersteller wenden. HardwareInside.de kann nicht für eine Garantie oder Gewährleistung garantieren und/oder dafür haftbar gemacht werden.
Der Gewinn wird nur innerhalb von Deutschland versendet. Sobald der Gewinn an den Transportdienstleister übergegangen ist, liegt die Gefahr der zufälligen Verschlechterung und des zufälligen Untergangs beim Gewinner.
Gesetzliche Vertreter, Mitarbeiter, Händler und Partner des Betreibers, sowie alle an der Entstehung und Durchführung der Aktion beteiligten Personen sind von der Teilnahme an der Aktion ausgeschlossen. Technische oder sonstige Probleme, die außerhalb des Einflussbereichs stehen, unterliegen nicht der Haftung durch den Betreiber.
Durch die Teilnahme an der Aktion akzeptiert der Teilnehmer diese Teilnahmebedingungen.
Schlussbestimmungen
Ausschließlich anwendbares Recht ist das Recht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Diese Teilnahmebedingungen, einschließlich der Gewinnmechaniken stellen die abschließenden Regelungen für die Aktion dar. Sollten einzelne Bestimmungen dieser Teilnahmebedingungen ungültig sein oder werden, bleibt die Gültigkeit der übrigen Teilnahmebedingungen unberührt. Es gelten die allgemeinen Datenschutzbestimmungen von HardwareInside.de | {
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QUICK! Grab your "surprise" face and put it on........ready? Ok...proceed.A New Hampshire lawyer associated with an anti-gay Christian defense group was arrested on federal child pornography charges after allegedly taking a teenager to Canada where she reportedly convinced the girl to engage in sexual activity and let it be filmed.Lisa Biron, a Manchester, N.H., lawyer associated with the Christian litigation group, Alliance Defending Freedom, was arrested by FBI agents on Friday morning on charges of transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, possession of child pornography and five counts of sexual exploitation of children, according to the Concord Monitor.Federal prosecutors said Biron transported a teen girl from Manchester to Ontario, Canada, on May 25 and coerced her into engaging in sexual acts with another person that were then recorded, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader.According to the Concord Monitor, prosecutor Helen Fitzgibbon made the case for Biron to be held without bond because other juveniles have been subjected to Biron’s sexual activity and drug use; witnesses have testified to seeing Biron in possession of ecstasy, marijuana and cocaine; and Biron texted a friend saying she may flee to Cuba.Police had been investigating Biron since Sept. 29 after receiving a tip she had child pornography on her computer, according to the Union Leader.She was first arrested in Manchester last month on charges of possessing child pornography, according to Boston.com. Police said the videos and photos on Biron's computer depicted a teen girl. Federal authorities were alerted when police determined the porn was manufactured out of state.The Alliance Defending Freedom, the anti-gay group Biron is associated with, is "a group of reactionary Christian attorneys lawyers pressing litigation to curb reproductive rights and block the freedom to marry," according to Queerty.ADF was founded in 1994 by more than 30 prominent Christian leaders, including Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and American Family Association’s Donald Wildmon, among others, Queerty reports. The group has been fighting against gay rights for over 18 years.ADR recently made news for sending a memo to state officials in Maine, Maryland, and Washington, urging them to discriminate against gay couples by refusing to grant marriage licenses, Think Progress previously reported. | {
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Ragnarok Odyssey is set in an original world based on Norse mythology where a battle is being waged between humans and giants after the fall of the gods had previously separated the races. Players create their characters from over 20,000 possible combinations based on customizable physical features, then select one of six specialized job classes. The game's real-time battles are fast and furious as players can fling enemies skyward, follow them into the air for gravity-defying strikes, then finish off the combo by smacking them clear across the stage. Gameplay is driven forward by story-advancing and optional quests, and up to four players can fight together in online co-op mode.
This is a player-created fan-wiki, it is in no way made by the offical creators of the game or their staff. | {
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Washington (CNN) Donald Trump's assertion that the United States has "no choice" but to send 20,000 to 30,000 combat troops to fight ISIS in the Middle East raises a slew of complicated questions, military analysts said Friday.
It also represents an about-face.
In October, Trump spoke of potential perils.
"Everybody that's touched the Middle East, they've gotten bogged down," Trump said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I don't want to see the United States get bogged down. We've spent now $2 trillion in Iraq, probably a trillion in Afghanistan. We're destroying our country."
At the CNN-hosted debate Thursday night, the Republican presidential front-runner sounded a different note.
"We really have no choice. We have to knock out ISIS," he said. "I would listen to the generals, but I'm hearing numbers of 20,000 to 30,000."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich took the same position on the fight against ISIS, saying, "You have to be on the ground."
And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz urged that "we need to put whatever ground power is needed."
But military analysts say sending U.S. troops to fight ISIS raises complex issues, some of them strategic, many political and others simply logistical.
More U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq would require Baghdad's openness to having them and a war-weary American public's willingness to send them. It would create the potential for confrontation with Iran-backed militias in Iraq or perhaps Russian troops in Syria.
It also would require complex decision-making about what exactly those 20,000 to 30,000 personnel would do and what kind of support they would need.
In the world of military planning, there's a 3-1 "tooth to tail" ratio -- for every soldier on the front lines, there are three people backing that fighter up with logistical and other support.
And then there's the question of whether sending U.S. troops would actually work.
"Unless the Iraqi government has the capacity to take the territory that's been liberated and govern the territory in a way that's acceptable to people living there, it won't last," said Michael Eisenstadt, director of the military and security studies program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
He pointed to the experience after the U.S. surged troops in Iraq in 2007 only to have the Shiite-dominated government's sectarian policies leave Sunni populations alienated and ripe for supporting militant groups.
"You can't send 20, 30 thousand people in, wrap it up in just a few months and live happily ever after, because the fundamental problems remain," Eisenstadt said.
Trump and other Republican candidates were responding to a question about comments that Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, made on Tuesday when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that more troops were needed to end the ISIS threat.
While that was interpreted to mean troops on the ground, CNN military analyst Mark Hertling said Austin's comments were consistent with the position U.S. military officials have long held -- that they would send added support for Iraqi troops entering the difficult battle to retake Mosul -- not combat troops.
"You're talking about battlefield enablers," Hertling said. "The intent is still for the Iraqi forces to lead the way on that."
Greater U.S. support for the Iraqis could come in the form of additional advisers, logistical help to move people and supplies, engineers to sustain roads ravaged by explosive devices and communications and aviation support.
"There will also be the need for increased intelligence operations to assist the Iraqi forces, to contribute to the targeting ability, overhead platforms like drones, which Iraqis don't have," Hertling said.
Austin told the senators that U.S. military personnel could help develop better intelligence on the ground, provide more advise-and-assist teams and help with logistics.
A crucial issue would be how much of that support the Iraqi government would be willing to accept. Iraq has opposed large numbers of U.S. combat troops on the ground and declined the support of Apache helicopters for a recent operation in Ramadi, according to Hertling, a retired Army general.
Another question is exactly how many troops would be enough.
JUST WATCHED GOP debate in 90 Seconds Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH GOP debate in 90 Seconds 01:31
U.S. intelligence has at times estimated the range of ISIS forces as up to 30,000 fighters. With that number, the United States would want to send 90,000 combat forces to defeat them -- and those troops would need the corresponding "tooth-to-tail" ratio of people supporting them.
If a President Trump, Cruz or Kasich were to send tens of thousands of U.S. troops back into battle in Iraq, a domino chain of those logistical and support quandaries would have to be thought through.
To take an airfield or city and hold it, a military has to develop supply lines they can hold. As troops move forward, they need fuel, ammunition, water, protection from munitions that run the gamut from crude improvised explosive devices to chemical or biological weapons.
Then there are geopolitical questions to grapple with, Eisenstadt said, first among them the close relationship between Iran and Iraq.
"As far as we can tell, Iran has indicated that the return of American troops would violate their red line," said Eisenstadt, adding that popular mobilization units affiliated with Iran could once again start to attack U.S. soldiers.
"It sets us up for a potential confrontation with Iran or its proxy," he said.
And any foray into Syria to tackle ISIS there risks the possibility of an accidental clash with Russia.
"There is always the potential for miscalculation," Eisenstadt said. | {
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Bank of Hawaii was named by Forbes magazine as one of the “World’s Best Banks.”
The list, published online today, ranks the world’s best banks by country, according to customer surveys. Bank of Hawaii was ranked 26th out of 60 banks in the U.S. Other Hawaii banks making the list were Central Pacific Financial at 39th and American Savings Bank at 49th. First Hawaiian Bank is not on the list because Paris-based BNP Paribas owned a controlling stake of the bank last year.
San Antonio-based USAA was ranked first in the U.S.
Forbes partnered with Statista, a statistics database and consumer research firm, to identify which financial institutions are rated highest according to their own customers. The best banks in every country were chosen based on an independent survey from a sample of more than 40,000 consumers from 23 different countries. The sample size in each country varied. Customers rated each bank at which they have/had a checking or savings account on overall recommendation and satisfaction. They also rated the banks in five different criteria: trust, terms and conditions, customer services, digital services and financial advice.
“Being named one of the world’s best banks is a great honor, especially when it comes from our own customers,” said Peter Ho, Bank of Hawaii chairman, president and CEO. “Our employees work hard to fulfill our customers’ needs, and bringing the best experiences to them is a top priority. It’s also gratifying to see two other Hawaii financial institutions make the list. Having great local hometown banks is important to our economy and community. | {
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Use of a catastrophic drug program, a last line of defence to protect people from drug expenses that can easily reach more than $10,000 a year, has soared in Ontario, a new study suggests.
The study's findings, published in Monday's CMAJ Open, reflect the pressure people face from rising drug costs and changing insurance coverage for workers, researchers say.
"We found that government spending for the catastrophic drug program in Ontario rose 840 per cent from 2000 to 2016," said Mina Tadrous, a research associate with the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network. "More importantly, there was a three-fold increase in the number of people who are relying on this program."
About three-quarters of Ontario residents are not covered by a public drug program and are eligible for the catastrophic drug program if they spend about three to four per cent of their after-tax household income on prescription medications.
As a pharmacist, Tadrous became interested in the topic as he observed more people coming in for prescription drugs with a price tag of more than $1,000 a month. Other researchers have said that in 2015 alone, more than 124 new drugs came on the market in that price range.
These drugs include biologics, lifelong treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (such as infliximab sold under the brand name Remicade) and Crohn's disease, HIV treatments and curative drugs for hepatitis C.
Tadrous speculated another factor that could be contributing to the increase in spending is a shift toward more younger, healthier adults turning to the program because they don't have the workplace coverage they need.
To conduct the study, the researchers looked at changes in patterns of use and government spending between 2000 and 2016 by analyzing Ontario databases stored at the Toronto-based Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, where Tadrous is also a fellow at the institute.
They found the number of claimants increased from 37,436 to 128,166 over the study period.
The study's authors weren't able to determine the private insurance status and they just estimated household income of beneficiaries.
"I hope that this study draws more attention to the people who are sort of caught between the cracks falling between programs or not being able to get access as quickly as they should," Tadrous said. "And the second part [is] in any of the conversations ongoing that the impact of high-cost drugs is taken into account."
Under universal pharmacare, everyone would have drug coverage, not all drugs would be covered and programs like Ontario's catastrophic program would still exist.
Public drug plans end up shouldering the burden of expensive drugs that private plans aren't able to manage, said Marc-André Gagnon, an associate professor in the school of public policy and administration at Carleton University in Ottawa. He was not involved in the study.
"The role of a public plan is not to make private plans more sustainable. It's not to serve the commercial interests needs of private plans," Gagnon said. "It's about providing the best health outcomes for your population."
Gagnon said it would be better for public plans to negotiate the price of drugs from the start, have a national formulary and regulate who should have access to which drugs and under what conditions. | {
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The Metropolis
Mike Pollitt | Thursday 1 March, 2012 11:43
● ● ●
The NYT Magazine came to London for a special issue, which I think means that as a city we are officially at the tipping point between “hot right now” and “so over”.
The highlight is China Miéville’s fine state of the city essay, which covers a lot of ground including cuts, the Olympics, riots, strikes, parakeets, housing and racism. His best lines:
On Mayor Johnson: “a ninja of bumptiousness, a man with a genius for working rooms full of the easily pleased.”
On Canary Wharf: “every day a thuggish and hideous middle-finger-flipped glass-and-steel at the poor of the East End, every night a Moloch’s urinal dripping sallow light on the Isle of Dogs.”
On the economy: “People are fighting to stand still, whatever line of work they’re in.”
On parakeets’ shit: “Guano devastation. Limey spatters ruin the winter vegetation like the aftermath of some epochal paintball war.”
And his worst:
On the ArcelorMittal Orbit: “…A vast sculpture of knotting girders like a snarled Gaian hernia”.
A Gaian hernia. Come off it!
On loud music on public transport: “Tinny music raises disproportionate ire…Who cares? You’re getting off in five minutes, he’s 14 and trying it on a bit and boisterous to fill the city with music.”
Defending the indefensible
Elsewhere in the magazine there is a slideshow of pictures of children and drunks, an extraordinary slideshow of 1950s newlyweds kissing, some art I don’t really like made out of tourist postcards, and a piece arguing that London’s financial sector is better than New York’s because it’s so wonderfully unregulated.
The overall impression of London that educated America is going to get this Sunday when they flip open the magazine:
No sunlight. Good theatre. People a bit moany.
Filed in: | {
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I’ve just read the op ed Why Is Silicon Valley So Obsessed With the Virtue of Suffering? by Nellie Bowles in The New York Times.
This won’t be a long response. The essence of her argument appears to be that Stoicism advocates self-inflicted suffering and that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are obsessed with it for that reason. Of course, the premise is false. Stoicism does not advocate self-imposed suffering. Her examples are things like the following:
They [Silicon Valley types] sit in painful, silent meditations for weeks on end. They starve for days — on purpose. Cold morning showers are a bragging right. Notoriety is a badge of honor.
Stoics didn’t sit in painful, silent meditation for weeks on end. They didn’t normally seek notoriety either. Some modern followers of Stoicism, myself included, fast. That’s not the same as starving yourself. Lots of people fast for health reasons and thereby develop self-discipline and acquire other benefits. The Stoics would be against unhealthy forms of fasting, which is what I take “starving” yourself to mean. The ancient Stoics didn’t take cold showers but they did sometimes bathe in cold water. Some modern Stoics, myself included, regularly take cold showers. That’s hardly unusual either – so do lots of other people. It’s healthy, it wakes you up better than a cup of coffee, and it arguably leads to a greater ability to endure cold and other forms of physical discomfort. (I’m pretty happy walking around Toronto without a jacket in the snow because it doesn’t feel very cold to me, although everyone else seems to be wrapped up in thick jackets.) So people don’t do it just to “suffer” but because it’s good for them both in terms of physical health in terms of developing strength of character and self-discipline, etc.
Not all modern Stoics take cold showers or fast, though – I’m guessing less than 5% of them do. The ones who do are no more “obsessed with suffering” than are people who do Pilates, lift weights, walk long distances, go camping in the wilderness, or follow diets. Lots of people do things that require self-discipline and endurance because they consider them healthy or beneficial in certain respects. The Stoics don’t follow regimes in terms of eating, sleeping, or exercising primarily to improve their physical health. They’re supposed to be doing it mainly to improve their character by developing self-control and endurance, etc. However, they choose disciplines that are healthy rather than ones that are unhealthy because physical health is a “preferred indifferent” in Stoicism, i.e., something that’s preferable to its opposite despite not being among the most important things in life. If you’re going to develop self-discipline, in other words, you might as well train yourself to do something healthy rather than unhealthy, even if health isn’t your main reason for doing it.
Anyway, we’re clearly told that this is an article about Stoicism…
So the most helpful clues to understanding Silicon Valley today may come from its favorite ancient philosophy: Stoicism.
A word of advice to readers… Articles like these which claim to be discussing Stoicism (or any similar topic) but make no reference whatsoever to the relevant primary sources should set alarm bells ringing. It’s not clear that the author actually researched the subject by reading the Stoics as there’s literally no mention of anything they wrote. Seriously, there’s not a single quote from a Stoic in the entire piece. Yet their philosophy is being criticized. It is, in fact, being totally misrepresented.
As for the other mistakes in the article, I’ll just cover those by providing a list with brief comments:
“Virtue of suffering” – Suffering is not a virtue in Stoic ethics; it would either be classed as something bad or indifferent depending on whether we’re talking about emotional suffering (pathos) or unpleasant physical sensations such as pain, cold, or discomfort.
Cicero – Cicero was not a Stoic but rather a follower of the rival Academic school, albeit one who admired some aspects of Stoicism. The article almost acknowledges this but not clearly enough as it seems to focus on him as its main example of a historical proponent of Stoicism.
“tenets of stoicism” – The word “stoicism” (lower-case) denotes the modern concept of a psychological personality trait or coping style in which upsetting emotions are concealed or suppressed, like having a stiff upper-lip. The word “Stoicism” (capitalized) denotes an ancient Greek school of philosophy. They’re two very different things.
“Stoicism has been the preferred viral philosophy ‘for a moment’ for years now — or two decades, by one count.” – I don’t know how you’d quantify this but Stoicism has gone through various periods of popularity. I’d say the seeds of it’s modern resurgence were planted in the late 1950s with, among other things, the cognitive revolution in psychotherapy, during which authors such as Albert Ellis drew inspiration from Stoicism in developing modern cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). That reinvigorated interest in Stoicism as a form of psychological self-help from the 1980s onward around the time CBT went mainstream. (Indeed, publication data from Google Ngram shows that the popularity of Stoicism began rising in the late 1970s, four decades ago.)
“Stoicism’s popularity among the powerful elites of ancient Rome” – There’s no question that Stoicism was popular with wealthy and powerful Roman elites. However, it’s not a “Roman” thing. Right from the very outset, early Greek Stoicism was popular with the ruling elite. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, taught King Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia and other early Greek Stoics had wealthy and powerful students. Moreover, Stoicism was not confined to the elite. Zeno, by some accounts, lost his fortune at sea and lived like a beggar. Cleanthes, his successor as head of the school, was an ex-boxer who watered gardens at night to earn a living. Epictetus, the most famous Stoic teacher of the Roman imperial period, was a crippled former slave who lived in relative poverty.
“Joe Lonsdale […] sexual abuse” – This comes across as an ad hominem argument against the philosophy, i.e., one of the figures the author associates with Stoicism in the article has been criticized on the grounds listed. How does that actually reflect on Stoicism, though? Is Joe Lonsdale even a Stoic? (Not as far as I’m aware after searching on Google.) Is this meant to discredit Stoicism through some kind of guilt by association?
“Cicero Institute” – The whole article seems to be premised on the notion that the Cicero Institute has got something to do with Stoicism. Does it, though? I can’t actually see any mention of Stoicism anywhere on their website despite using a Google site search for the keyword .
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شركة نقل عفش بالدمام تقدم لكم الاتي من شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام ؛ شراء بيت جديد يجعل الفرد يشعر بالسعادة ولكن عندما تأتي مرحلة الانتقال من المكان القديم إلى الجديد فأن ذلك يضع اي فرد تحت نوع من الضغط النفسي نتيجة إلى عدم قدرة الفرد الواحد على نقل الاثاث والمفروشات بمفرده ولو كان لدية دوام وظيفي كامل سوف يتعرض إلى الغياب مما سيؤثر عليه لدي رب عمله ولكن عندما تستخدم خدمات شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام سوف تودع كل تلك الضغوط النفسية نتيجة إلى القيام بعملية الانتقال من بدايتها إلى نهايتها بأقل التكاليف وبأعلى مستويات الجودة العالمية ودون أي تعب على الأفراد حيث أننا سوف نقوم بفك العفش وإعادة تركيبة في المكان الجديد وسوف تسكن على الفور دون أي مشاكل .
شركة نقل عفش بالدمام
عزيزي العميل مع شركة نقل عفش بالدمام سوف تربح الكثير منها التكاليف التي ستوفرها عند القيام بعملية النقل وتوفير عمالة خارجية إلى جانب سيارات مخصصة لنقل الأثاث وأيضا تحميل الأثاث من الأدوار العليا إلى الأرضيات والسيارات كل ذلك يحتاج إلى تكاليف معينه وعندما تتجزأ سوف تكون كبيرة على صاحب المكان ولكن عندما تكون داخل عرض من عروض شركة نقل عفش بالدمام لن تدفع الكثير وسوف تستمتع بكل الايجابيات ومنها :-
الشعور بالراحة عند نقل العفش والأثاث من مكان إلى أخر .
توفير وقت النقل من يومين أو ثلاث إلى عدة ساعات .
تنظيف المكان بعد عملية الانتقال .
توفير كل أدوات التغليف والخامات اللازمة للتغليف من كراتين وماكينات للصق الكراتين وإغلاقها .
توفير مجهود أصحاب الشقق والمنازل عند الانتقال من مكان إلى أخر
شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام
شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام هي الافضل حيث ان النقل يحتاج إلى عمالة على مستوى عالي من التدريب وخاصة لو تم نقل العفش من أماكن أرضية إلى السيارات فأنه يحتاج إلى أفراد يقوموا بنقله أو النقل عبر ادوار عالية ولا يتوفر مصاعد أو مكان لوضع الاوناش به فأنه يتطلب تواجد طاقة بشرية تقوم بعملية الانتقال وعليه عملنا داخل شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام على توفير العمالة المدرية على عملية الانتقال السليم بناءا على الأساليب العالمية التي تتبع في كبري الشركات ومنها :-
العمل على توزيع الأعمال المسندة إلى الفنيين كل حسب التخصص
تدريب العمال على الأقل مرتين في العام داخل الشركة وخارجها حتى يكون هناك اطلاع بشكل عملي .
توفير الآلات التي تساعد العمالة على انجاز عملية الانتقال بجودة كبيرة .
الاطلاع على الجديد دائما من قبل الشركة ونقلها مباشرة إلى العمالة .
تقوم الشركة بانتقاء أفضل العمال والفنيين حتى تكون منقولات الأفراد في أمان .
ارخص شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام
مع زيادة الأسعار في الفترة الأخيرة لكل من الخدمات والمنتجات الاخري لمختلف أنواعها تم العمل على الحد من ارتفاع تلك الأسعار عن طريق ارخص شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام حيث انها عملت على التقليل من الأسعار لكل الخدمات التي تقدمها في حين التزامها بالجودة المثالية حيث أننا عملنا على إيجاد طرق للحد من المصاريف مثل تشغيل عمالة جديدة بأسعار مناسبة مع العمل على تدريبها وبالتالي يحصل العميل على التالي :-
جميع خدمات شركة نقل عفش بالدمام من نقل وفك أثاث وغيرها يتم توفيرها بأقل الأسعار.
توفير أدوات وخامات بأسعار قليله حيث أنها يتم طلبها بكميات كبيرة من الشركة من منتجيها .
توفير السيارات التي تقوم بالانتقال من الدمام إلى إلى مكان بأسعار تناسب كل العملاء حيث انها ملك للشركة وليست مستأجرة فلا يتم رفع تكاليف على العملاء.
خصومات على مدار العام لكل العملاء الجدد والحاليين والمميزين في شركة نقل عفش بالدمام.
اسعار شركات نقل العفش بالدمام
اسعار شركات نقل العفش بالدمام تعرف ان جميع العملاء اليوم يبحثون عن الشركات التي تقوم بتقديم الخدمات الأقل في السعر والعالي في الجودة وبالطبع فأن الأفضل هي شركة نقل عفش بالدمام حيث أنها توفر اقل الأسعار دائما لجميع عملائها ويمكن طلب اي خدمة اليوم على مدار اليوم دون استعجالها ومضاعفة الأسعار فمع اسعار شركات نقل العفش بالدمام سوف توفر الكثير ونعمل على :-
نقل الأثاث الخاص بالشقق الكبيرة بكل أنواعه وإحجامه .
نقل المفروشات سواء مراتب أو ملابس وغيرها .
نقل أدوات المطبخ والأجهزة الكهربائية بكل أنواعها سواء للفلل والقصور والمنازل والبيوت .
عندما تكون من أصحاب المستشفيات الخاصة وترغب في نقل عدد طبية وغيرها من آسرة للمرضي توفر فريق متخصص حتى يقوم بعملية الانتقال على اعلي مستوى .
افضل شركة نقل عفش بالدمام
نقل الأثاث من أماكنه الأساسية إلى اي مكان اخر فانه يعرضه إلى التلف ويجب ان لا يتم نقله إلا على يد المختصين حتى يتم التعامل معه بأسلوب احترافي ويتم ذلك على يد الفنيين في افضل شركة نقل عفش بالدمام فبذلك يتم نقل كل قطعة دون الخوف عليها من التلف أو الكسر أو حتى إن تخدش حيث أنهم يتبعون أسلوب حديث في عملية النقل حتى لو اضطر الأمر إلى النقل اليدوي وتتم عملية النقل كما يلي :-
بعد إن تتواصل على شركة نقل عفش بالدمام يتم حضور احد العاملين في الشركة
تقييم نوعية المفروشات والعفش التي تتواجد في المكان
بعد ذلك يتم تقييم المكان من الخارج حتى يتم تحديد أماكن وقوف السيارات وأيضا الونش الكهربائي لو كان هناك حاجة إليه وكانت الشقة تقع في مكان عالي .
يتم بعدها فرش أرضيات المداخل وأرضيات الشقة بفل ابيض حتى لا يتعرض الأثاث إلى الاحتكاك .
يتم فك الأثاث على يد محترفين لأعمال النجارة .
استخدام آلات حديثة تستخدم في عملية فك قطع الأثاث .
بعدها تتم عملية التغليف لو رغب العميل في ذلك ويليها الانتقال إلى الأسفل .
نقل اثاث بالدمام رخيص
نقل الأثاث الكلاسيك يحتاج إلى الحذر حيث إن أخشابه تكون باهظة الثمن إلى جانب جودة تصنيعه اليدوية والتي تتكلف الكثير وأي مشكلة لقطعة الأثاث تكلف العميل الكثير من الأموال إلى جانب إن شركة نقل عفش بالدمام ستفقد سمعتها بين جمهور الشركات الاخري ولكن اليوم نوفر عملية نقل احترافية لكل قطع الأثاث الكلاسيك والانتيكا وسوف تجد إن نقل اثاث بالدمام رخيص السعر عن اي شركة اخري بالخارج ونعمل على توفير :-
عمالة مدربة حتى تقوم بعملية فك الغرف وإعادة تركيبها
نوفر عمالة فنية مدربة على إعادة تركيب غرف النوم ذات الأشكال المختلفة دون إن يكون هناك خطأ في التركيب .
نعمل على توفير عمالة لفك وإعادة تركيب أثاث الفلل والقصور .
عندما تحتاج إلى مختصين في فك المكتبة الخاصة بك مع إعادة تركيبها دون أخطاء اتصل على شركة نقل عفش بالدمام .
سيارات نقل عفش بالدمام
استخدام السيارات المغلقة من مزايا شركة نقل عفش بالدمام فاليوم عندما تفكر في الانتقال لمسافات بعدية جدا وتخاف على العفش من العوامل الجوية والرطوبة أو الرياح والأتربة أثناء عملية الانتقال يجب إن تكون على تواصل مع الشركة فنحن نوفر سيارات نقل عفش بالدمام وأي منطقة أخري بالخارج وسوف تجد بعض المميزات بها منها :-
السيارات محمية من الخارج بمواد تعمل على عدم دخول الأتربة أو الأمطار إلى الداخل .
مساحات كبيرة وصغيرة ومتوسطة يمكن طلبها حسب العفش الذي يتم نقله .
أمان كامل في حالة الانتقال إلى مكان خارج الدمام من حيث توفير أجهزة التتبع بالسيارات وأجهزة تحديد الموقع .
سوف تلاحظ سرعة في تسلم المنقولات نتيجة إلى عمل طاقم مدرب من السائقين حاصلين على رخصة قيادة من الدرجة الأولي مع معرفتهم بكل الأماكن من خلال جهاز تحديد المواقع .
نقل عفش بالدمام حراج
عزيزي العميل عندما تخل إلى سوق حراج اليوم وترغب في شراء بعض المنقولات القديمة منه ولا تجد السيارة المناسبة حتى يتم نقلها إلى مكان السكن اتصل على شركة نقل عفش بالدمام وسوف نقوم بنقل اي منقولات من داخل السوق إلى مكان السكن أو اي مكان اخر مع توفير سرعة في التوصيل وضمان تؤمن للحفاظ عليها من الطريق ومع خدمة نقل عفش بالدمام حراج سوف توفر التكاليف إلى جانب :-
إمكانية الحصول على خدمة مميزة تشمل النقل والحماية من الآفات التي يمكن إن تسكن تلك المنقولات فيقوم فريق لدينا بفحص القطعة ووضع مبيد عليها حتى يكون حماية وأمان للسيارة التي يتم النقل بها .
لدينا خبراء في فك الأثاث الكبير الذي يكون داخل محلات بيع الأثاث داخل سوق حراج دون الحاجة للبحث عن نجارين .
يمكن إن تقوم بتغليف الأثاث من خلال طلب تلك الخدمة من الشركة لتحافظ على الأثاث الذي تقوم بشرائه .
لو كنت ترغب في تخزين تلك القطع حتى يتم وضعها في مكان جديد يمكن الاحتفاظ بها داخل مخازن الشركة .
دينا نقل عفش بالدمام
عزيزي العميل توجد العديد من الشركات المتخصصة في عملية نقل الأثاث والعفش ولكن عن التعامل مع دينا نقل عفش بالدمام سوف تقوم بعملية نقل أثاث ومفروشات مثالية لا يتواجد بها شائبة واحدة نتيجة إلى تواجد مختصين في نقل العفش من مكانك إلى اي مكان أخر داخل المملكة تواصل حالا مع شركة نقل عفش بالدمام وسوف تحصل على أفضل الخدمات منها خدمة تخزين الأثاث والذي يكون داخل مستودعات معينه يتم بنائها تبعا لمعايير هندسية وفنية معينه حتى تتناسب مع الأثاث وكل المفروشات وداخل مخازن شركة نقل الاثاث بالدمام سوف تجد التالي :-
طاقم مميز من العاملين في دينا نقل عفش بالدمام يقوم باستلام العفش .
يتم فرز قطع العفش وتوزيعها على الأماكن المخصصة لها داخل الشركة .
يتم وضع الكراتين الخاصة بالادات المنزلية في مكان معين .
وضع الملابس في أماكن درجات حرارتها معينه حتى يتم الحفاظ عليها من الآفات .
يتم وضع الأجهزة الكهربائية في أماكن ذات تهوية خاصة ويتم تشغيل بعضها حتى لا تتعرض إلى التلف .
في حالة المفروشات يتم وضع النفتالين بها ووضعها في مكان يتم ضبط درجة حرارته .
في النهاية عندما تتعامل مع شركة نقل عفش بالدمام لن تضطر إلى البحث أيام عن العمالة التي تقوم بعملية النقل فاليوم على بعد اتصال تلفوني واحد ارخص شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام تواصل معنا في أي وقت من اليوم فنحن نعمل على مدار 24 ساعة متواصلة وفي حالة تأهب تام .
الكلمات البحثيه :
شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام ، شركة نقل عفش بالدمام ، ارخص شركة نقل اثاث بالدمام ، افضل شركة نقل عفش بالدمام ، شركات نقل الاثاث بالدمام ، شركات نقل العفش بالدمام ، نقل اثاث ، نقل عفش ، تغليف اثاث بالدمام ، فك وتركيب اثاث بالدمام ، نجار بالدمام ، نقل الدمام ، نقل عفش خارج الدمام .
خدمات اخري قد تهمك : شركة تخزين اثاث بالدمام | {
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See you in court! ~
Jim Owczarski, 18 February 2017
My love of the Napoleonic era is high, wide, and deep, but I’ve always taken the age of empire to be my second true love, if such a thing can be countenanced. Much of my early study of the era came from Jan Morris’ Pax Britannica trilogy, particularly the first volume, Heaven’s Command. Far from an academic exercise, it’s an evocative series of sketches of the men and women who peopled the British empire, giving more weight, it has always seemed to me, to the interesting as opposed to the more objectively significant, although one can certainly be both.
It was in this book that I first met Louis Riel. A colossal historical figure for Canadians, or so I am told, he’s not well known in America. More’s the pity as his story well illustrates the differences in the Westward expansions of the United States and Canada. Where the former is told within the framework of the conflict with the native Indian tribes, the latter is more often about the efforts of the Anglophone, protestant, East seeking to assert its control over the Francophone, Catholic, West and their native allies. Riel was twice brought to rebellion as part of this struggle and the second time resulted in his arrest, trial, and death by hanging in the Summer of 1885.
It is this trial, believe it or not, that is the basis for Victory Point Games’ offering High Treason!: The Trial of Louis Riel, July 1885. Having the passion for this era that I do, this was an easy purchase for me, so, when it arrived a little while ago, my son and I had straight at it.
This is a card game, designed for two players, that imagines one player as Riel’s prosecutor and the other as his defense attorney. The game plays out over three phases; jury selection, trial, and summation; followed by a scoring phase to determine the victor. In the hazard is a pool of nameless jurors — aren’t they always — who have to be persuaded to either convict or acquit mad Louis. Each juror is randomly assigned a set of traits (called “aspects”) reflecting one of the socioeconomic factors that played into the trial. They can be, for example, catholic or protestant; English- or French-speaking; or employed in business, government, or agriculture.
In the jury selection phase, cards are played to “peek” at individuals juror’s traits or reveal them to both players. After several rounds of card play, players take turns striking individual jurors until, from an original pool of 12, only six remain. The goal, of course, is to keep those most likely to favor your side while depriving your opponent of those that favor his.
The trial phase takes place over two rounds. Here cards are played, as is often the case in these sorts of games, for a wide range of purposes. They can be played for action points which allow players to increase or decrease the significance of particular aspects. One mechanism I particularly like is that every time an action point is spent for this purpose, a “sway” token is placed next to that aspect. When three sway tokens are placed, the jury has had enough of that particular argument and no further action points can be used for that purpose.
Action points can also be used to “sway” individual jurors and eventually “lock” them to your side. Some cards allow the prosecution to provide evidence against Riel that increases the likelihood of later conviction. Other cards allow the defense to argue for insanity. And then there are attorney cards — seemingly the most powerful in the game — that allow players to “reset” locked jurors and even aspects that have been “talked to death”. They also allow players to “super sway” jurors (placing more than one sway token) and object to another player’s card, nullifying it.
After two rounds of trial, a summation phase is played. This is played out with cards “buried” by the players during the course of the game. Players, therefore, must always be thinking about this final phase and what cards they want to have in their hands for the last round. Charmingly, this phase is played out with six cards spread out three for the prosecution, six for the defense, and then three for the prosecution. The old policy debater in me smiled mightily at this.
After the summation is played out, there is a single round in which locked jurors try to persuade the unlocked. The game is then scored. Each juror receives a score based on the value of the aspects with which he is associated. Jurors locked for the prosecution then have their score doubled. Jurors locked for the defense have their score halved. To win, the prosecution must score 100 or more points. In my experience this has proved a tough mountain to climb — as it should be in a capital murder trial. Once rules are learned, this game will easily play within the 40 minutes estimated on the box.
The components in High Treason! are an oddly mixed bag, but only because some of them are so good. On one hand are the counters. They are again the heavy, laser-cut creatures for which Victory Point Games is justly well known. Even the little markers are lovely. To all in the wargaming hobby: this really does need to become the standard.
The cards are also very good. I particularly like that they’re oversized. The stock is good enough and the layout, although not brilliant, is serviceable. Huge points for the flavor text that, although it doesn’t directly affect gameplay, introduces the player to the events and personalities of the rebellion and the trial and makes the game a strong teaching tool for those so employed. My son and I quickly took to announcing the appearance of certain witnesses in the courtroom in fine Perry Mason style.
All this is what makes the rule book and the game board stand out so. The former is essentially a four-color pamphlet with too-small printing. It’s reasonably well set up — never once was I unable to find an answer to a rule question — but I could have done without the sidebars, and, again, the typeface is on the small side. The game board is done on a flimsy stock that had me worried for bending it; a real pity.
I really, really like this game. The jury selection process is, to my knowledge, unique, and the card-driven play really does begin to feel as it you’re trying to persuade those six stone-faced bastards sitting in the jury box. The prosecution has all the evidence on his side, but his mark is set so high that there are regular openings for the defense. Each of the games my son and I played were tense and immense fun as we adopted appropriate accents and imagined the blandishments we were throwing at the jurors to persuade them our way.
If you’ve any interest in a game of this type or the story of Louis Riel, this is a very easy game to recommend. Even more exciting, the publisher’s notes at the end say that this is the first of what will hopefully be a “World on Trial” series which could take up cases as disparate as Socrates, Jesus, and Nuremberg.
Before I go, I’d offer a pair of responses to those who think this a bit off the track for a wargamer. Point the first is that those who think court rooms and war rooms have nothing to do with each other have little familiarity with either. Point the second is that this trial resulted from an actual shooty-type war that deserves to be better known. I hope you take the chance.
Chat about it below, or in our forums, or hit our FaceBook page >> | {
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I am announcing that I no longer will be seeing patients in a professional medical manner. After half a century of my life being dedicated to the medical care of people as their general physician, I am retiring.
I have moved on to working with more legislation, healthcare systems, and education projects.
My past and present work will be available (mostly without charge) through my website, www.drmcdougall.com.
As many of you know, Heather McDougall became CEO of the McDougall Program over 5 years ago. She leads a loyal and talented staff of professionals: Anthony Lim, MD, JD, Jeff Novick, MS, RD, LDN, Doug Lisle, PhD and Tiffany Hobson, Operations Manager.
The same principles of diet and food preparation are being used as in the past. The medical staff remains dedicated to helping you eliminate all unnecessary medications and avoid harmful procedures.
Mary and I will continue to oversee the entire business with Heather. Her dedication to the McDougall Program, as ours, will never waver. I will still make appearances in Santa Rosa at 3-day and 10-day Programs. As always, I will be checking daily on the work of my lifetime: The McDougall Program — Where people continue to regain their lost health and personal appearances.
Thank you for your continued support over the years.
Best of Health,
John McDougall, MD
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Zoroastrianism
Apart from marrying within the community and refraining from smoking, as fire is considered sacred and the principal form of worship, Delzad Yezdi Bamji, Dilnaz Nalladaru and Hanoz Mahiar Vajidar— children of Zoroastrian priests— are expected to pray and lead good lives like anyone else. "Society expects you to be religious, if your dad is a Dastur (Parsi priest)," shares 18-year-old Delzad. "If two generations failed to attain priesthood, the family loses the right, so I felt the pressure to become a priest," says Hanoz. But according to Delzad, this is changing now, due to dwindling priestly families.
Yezdi and Delzad Bamji in the priest attire
Dilnaz remembers certain rules being strictly followed in her family, for example, taking a shower after a haircut or getting one's eyebrows done. "My parents are religious and God-fearing. My dad and grandfather would spend an hour or more praying each day," she recalls. “My parents are religious and God-fearing. My dad and grandfather would spend an hour or more praying each day,” she recalls.Prayer is important in Delzad's home as well. "Dad usually takes our family to the Agiary every Sunday. He encourages us to pray twice or even thrice, as well as when we begin a new project," says Delzad, a priest himself.
Coming from a priestly family, siblings Dilnaz and Hanoz did not turn out as religious. "I believe in good thoughts, words and deeds, and the power of karma. But, I do think that my religious upbringing helped me be more disciplined and a good human, overall," finishes Dilnaz.
Judaism
Daniel David
Now a tour guide, 28-year-old Daniel David may not always be seen at the synagogue, where his father leads the shabbat prayers on Saturday, but Daniel remembers bunking (with special permission letter) his college lectures in order to keep the Shabbat day holy. He studied in a Jewish school, where modern education was combined with Jewish customs—offs on Jewish holidays, learning Hebrew and keeping a kosher kitchen. Since finding kosher meals in India is not easy, other Indian Jews may not restrict themselves to eating only kosher food. However, non-kosher is strictly forbidden for Daniel, as is clubbing, partying, smoking, and drinking. "These rules were made 5,000 years ago when we needed certain rules about hygenie. When I smell lovely food, I'm tempted to taste it. But once I start eating non-kosher food, there's no turning back and then, it wouldn't be right to call myself the son of a hazzan (cantor) (I think it is precentor as opposed to the Christian cantor)," shares Daniel.
The Mazagaon resident still tries to observe Shabbat as much as possible. "Initially, my dad was not happy about me working on Shabbat, but he slowly came around to it." As the son of a hazzan, society expected Daniel to follow and help his father, but "my parents let me take up a career of my choice. I don't think I would be cut out to be a hazzan; from representing and praying for the whole community, knowing and observing 613 laws, observing the Shabbat... it's a big responsibility. But all said and done, I like what my father does, especially today, when our Jewish community in India is so small."
Hinduism
Ekata Shukla with her father Prafulchandra Shukla
26-year-old Ekata Shukla developed her values by observing her father, but on her own terms. "I was raised like any other kid. Apart from eating vegetarian food and not drinking alcohol, there were no fixed rules to be followed just because I was from a priestly Hindu family. Dad was disciplined, yet fun around me," she shares.
Ekata grew up with a firm belief in God and often found peace at the nearby Ganpati temple. She loved having the best of both worlds—learning more about her religion from her dad and having her share of freedom as well. But what she loved most, was how he explained little details to her. "Whenever I made a mistake during a puja, he explained how and why it's to be done the way it should. During Ganpati, we would perform the puja together; I would do the rituals and he would say the shlokas. Now that I'm married and living in Pune, I cherish these memories."
Christianity (Indian Orthodox Church)
Josh Joseph with his father Achen Joseph Samuel Karukayil
"On Sundays, when most dads (and us kids) had a holiday, my dad had to work," says law-student Rebekah Mathew. "Since birth, I've been labelled as 'Achen's' (priest) daughter and often, friends would think I'm supposed to be extra holy. But on the plus side, I've studied in every possible board, since my dad gets transferred every three years; I've made a lot of friends; and I'm always treated as a VIP at church functions," she shares. Good conduct, time restrictions, family prayer time, friends watching what they say around them, questions on the Bible... this was a part of the daily life for Mumbai siblings Rebekah and Reuben and Trivandrum-based Josh Joseph.
Sundays were reserved for church for all three. "I often missed my basketball competitions on Sundays, even though I was the team captain," shares Josh, adding that he never went for a movie until he was 18, even then rarely and mostly with cousins. But his father was well-known and the mere mention of Joseph Samuel Karukayil or Karukayil Achen would solve any crisis. Being the son of an Achen, Josh learnt everything about religion early in life and became an altar boy at age 8 (versus the usual 10/12). "I also had the opportunity to meet bishops, when I was only 4". As for Reuben, he could not imagine attending mass said by another priest. "I feel proud when dad says mass. He's different, one step closer to Christ," shares the Malad resident.
Since many associate priesthood (in Christianity) with Catholics, Rebekah has to often explain that there are different communities and before a man becomes a priest in the Indian Orthodox Church, he can get married. All three have seen the deep commitment it takes. "It's not only saying mass, but looking after the church administration, conducting marriages and baptisms, sacrificing many pleasures in life... I've seen dad in the church the whole day; it's a hectic, not to mention a holy and noble vocation," said Reuben.
Rites of passage?
RealisationDaniel David recalls a childhood incident during the Jew holy festival of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)—when Jews are expected to wear white, remain on a fast and pray intensively. It so happened that it coincided with Ganesh Chaturthi and, "I happily started shouting Ganpati Bappa, Morya. I was with my aunt at that time. All the women around us objected and started talking down to my aunt, assuming that she was my mother. They kept saying, 'He's the son of a hazzan, how can he do this.' I will never forget that incident," recalls Daniel.
Father's NameIt was a college festival, and Josh Joseph had been the ring leader of a group of boys mocking a compere (a fellow student). At the end of the event, the compere's mother came up to Josh and tried to mock him to make him understand that making fun of people could hurt their feelings. Being thick-skinned, Josh howled in front of her to teach her the right way to howl when making fun of someone. When her efforts failed to have any impact on him, she simply said: "You're Karukayil Achen's son, right?" "I stopped smiling at once and then she said 'I know your mother too'; that really hit me. I apologised at once, but she simply said it was okay and let me go." It didn't take Josh long to realise that he ought to have been careful because people are watching him and that he was not only disgracing his name, but his father's too.
Kissing the crossReuben Mathew was in the second standard when he decided he wanted to go out and play with his friends instead of sitting through the entire Good Friday service. "In the Indian Orthodox Church, the children sit in the front and the adults sit behind, with men and women sitting separately. There were many doors, so I slipped out with my friends. During the Good Friday service, there comes a time, when everyone kisses the cross, after which the cross is taken behind the altar, which is not open to the public during the Holy Week. Since I stayed out until mass was over, I missed this important part. So, when mum asked me if I kissed the cross, I said no. I then got the yelling of my life and a few whacks too. Ever since, I realised the importance and holiness of the day and I'm always in church till the end (from 8am to 3pm)," says Reuben. | {
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Check out our new site Makeup Addiction
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sexually harass a fox news co-worker and still work for fox news can't explain that | {
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Egypt's health ministry announced on Monday 125 new coronavirus cases and five new deaths, which is the lowest daily death toll the country has recorded in nine days.
This brings the total number of confirmed cases in Egypt to 2,190 and the deaths to 164.
The health ministry added that 41 Egyptians have fully recovered and left isolation hospitals and quarantine facilities on Monday, which brings the total number of recoveries from the virus thus far to 488.
The number of cases whose test results have turned from positive to negative, including the recoveries, has now reached 622, ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said.
All the new cases are Egyptians. They were detected through the ministry’s investigation and contact tracing protocols, Megahed added.
Cases that have responded to treatment protocols and suffer no clinical symptoms -- but still test positive to the virus -- are being transferred from isolation hospitals to quarantine in hotels, youth hostels and other facilities where they are monitored until they test negative and fully recover, Egypt’s Health Minister Hala Zayed.
The minister explained that 185 such cases have been placed in quarantine facilities, of whom 21 have fully recovered and left quarantine on Monday.
Zayed held a meeting on Monday - via video conference - with the administrative and medical staff of four isolation hospitals to ensure that all their needs are met and that treatment and infection control standards are followed.
She stated that a number of cases in two of those hospitals -- El-Sadaqa in Aswan and Esna in Luxor -- would be transferred to youth hostels on Monday after they had responded to the treatment.
Egypt has allocated 94 hospitals across the country to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. They include 12 isolation hospitals and 82 fever and pulmonology hospitals, which will carry out triage and referral of coronavirus patients.
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Stripping down! Girls stars Lena Dunham and Jemima Kirke banded together in next to nothing for a series of non-Photoshopped lingerie portraits released on Wednesday, August 24.
The sultry photos are part of a body-positive initiative called The Lonely Girls Project, by New Zealand-based intimates and swimwear company Lonely. For their photo session, Dunham, 30, and Kirke, 31, wore lacy, see-through bralettes and panties in muted pastel colors, while lounging in bed and hanging out in a bathroom.
Dunham, who has never been shy about showing her body, has been a fan of the underwear for over a year, and posted this steamy selfie on May 25, 2015. “Love my @lonelylingerie and I think I will wear it to dinner with some boots & a smile because we are all very lucky to be free,” she wrote at the time.
Love my @lonelylingerie and I think I will wear it to dinner with some boots & a smile because we are all very lucky to be free A post shared by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on May 25, 2015 at 5:21pm PDT
Since its start in 2009, Lonely’s mission has been to create intimates for women “who wear lingerie as a love letter to themselves.”
As part of that approach, the brand vows never to alter models in their images and portray them in a non-sexual light. “Lonely aspires to showcase women wearing underwear in a way that we usually don’t see in mainstream advertising and the media,” a statement from the company reads. “Instead of being objectified, the women who participate in these campaigns — in this case, Lena and Jemima — are empowered and exhibit real beauty that will hopefully help women everywhere feel a little more liberated.” | {
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Wednesday’s classified Hill briefing on the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani seems to have gone poorly for the White House. According to Republican Senator Mike Lee, Trump administration officials not only failed to fully justify Trump’s strike but also suggested they would have had no trouble assassinating the supreme leader of Iran without prior authorization, as well. Earlier, Lee had described the meeting as “the worst briefing I’ve seen, at least on a military issue.”
“They had to leave after 75 minutes,” he told the press afterward, “while they were in the process of telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public.” Senator Rand Paul agreed. “I see no way in the world you could logically argue that an authorization to have war with Saddam Hussein has anything to do with having war with people currently in Iraq,” he said.
Lee and Paul’s outspokenness has been unsurprising. Both have condemned military intervention in the Middle East and voiced support for restoring congressional war-making authority for some time now. Lee, in particular, has been a leader of efforts to withdraw American support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen; Paul has joined him in this endeavor. But while the pair have garnered media attention for standing apart from their Republican colleagues, reducing their opposition to Trump’s strike to a simple anti-war stance obscures the nature of the right’s rift on foreign policy.
It’s true that their criticisms of Trump stood out all the more within a discourse on Soleimani’s assassination that has been colored by rhetoric from conservatives even more grotesque than the bluster Trump offered in his own defense. In an appearance on Lou Dobbs Tonight this week, Republican Congressman Doug Collins, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, intimated that Democrats critical of Trump were, in essence, terrorist sympathizers. “They’re in love with terrorists,” he said breezily. “They mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families who are the ones who suffered under Soleimani.”
On Thursday, the National Republican Congressional Committee effectively endorsed this rhetorical approach by confronting members of the Democratic caucus with the question of whether Soleimani was a terrorist. Those who ignored the question were recorded in videos the NRCC’s Twitter account captioned gleefully. “Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans,” one read, “but @GilCisnerosCA can’t bring himself to acknowledge he was a terrorist or that America is safer with him gone.” | {
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With the fall and presumed death of Oliver Queen, John Diggle will step up in a major way when Arrow returns, according to David Ramsey.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly the actor revealed that his character will assume the role of Arrow in Oliver’s absence.
“Blarrow returns!” he joked. “Don’t call it a comeback.”
Diggle won’t be the only vigilante suiting up. Laurel Lance and Ray Palmer will respectively don their Black Canary and Atom alter egos as they hit the streets to keep Starling City safe.
Arrow returns Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW. | {
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Today i am continuing my summer sabermetrics series by posting the top 20 players in 2014/15 by team adjusted Corsi. Corsi is a measure of puck possession. It is the difference between attempted shots (shots on goal, missed shots and blocked shots) by a team and their opponents when a given player is on the ice. This is clearly a team dependant number. A first attempt to isolate individual play is to adjust for the team that a player plays upon. This is done by taking the team Corsi of the player's team divided by five (since there are five players on the ice for each team) as a baseline for a team adjusted Corsi.
This group of players is a group of players who excelled in puck possession on their teams.
Here are the top 20 players in 2014/15 by team adjusted Corsi:
1. Joe Thornton +313.6 San Jose
2. Patrice Bergeron +268.8 Boston
3. Mike Ribeiro +261.2 Nashville
4. Drew Doughty +258.0 Los Angeles
5. Eric Staal +257.0 Carolina
6. Joe Pavelski +256.6 San Jose
7. Jake Muzzin +249.0 Los Angeles
8. Tomas Tatar +240.6 Detroit
9. Duncan Keith +229.4 Chicago
10. Justin Faulk +227.0 Carolina
11. Pavel Datsyuk +221.6 Detroit
12. Anze Kopitar +211.0 Los Angeles
13. Brad Marchand +206.8 Boston
14. Filip Forsberg +206.2 Nashville
15. Anton Stralman +196.6 Tampa Bay
16. Nick Leddy +195.2 NY Islanders
17. Brian Campbell +194.0 Florida
18. Michael Raffl +192.4 Philadelphia
19. Brandon Gallagher +191.8 Montreal
20. Sidney Crosby +186.6 Pittsburgh
This is a good group of players. Some make this list because of strong two-way play. Others are more protected and are used more exclusively in offensive situations and can be found by looking at zone starts - which I will do in the future.
Joe Thornton leads this group. He is a top player who is often seen as being in the downside of his career, but his decline has been overstated by many. His tenure in San Jose has become a bit rocky. He has been stripped of the captaincy. His Corsi shows that he is still the key player on his team.
All three Selke Trophy nominees on this list have made this list. Patrice Bergeron, the winner, is second. Pavel Datsyuk and Anze Kopitar are in the middle of this list.
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Vice President Biden let slip that debt ceiling negotiators looking for budget cuts may "get well above a trillion dollars pretty quick."
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The search for budget savings is on.
For the past couple weeks, Vice President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have held a series of meetings. Their mission: Find money in the federal budget that can be cut and thus pave the way for Congress to raise the debt ceiling.
The plan might produce caps on spending, cut farm subsidies and reduce benefits for federal workers.
While lawmakers have been uncharacteristically silent on how negotiations are going, Biden let it slip that the group is looking to find cuts in the $1 trillion range.
"We're in a position where we will be able to get well above a trillion dollars pretty quick," he told reporters.
Most budget experts think the government needs to find savings of around $4 trillion over the next decade to get back on a sustainable path, but $1 trillion in cuts over the same time period would be a nice down payment.
"I take them at their word they are looking at $1 trillion," said Marc Goldwein, policy director for Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "That would be an excellent start."
And what exactly is on the chopping block? Details are thin, but clues can be found by comparing President Obama's budget plan with that of House Republicans, and other fiscal plans that have gained traction in Washington.
The cuts are likely to come from areas where the plans overlap.
One popular idea: Limiting discretionary spending through the establishment of a "cap" that would, at some point, force lawmakers to make hard choices on spending.
Both Obama and Paul Ryan, the House budget chairman, favor a mechanism along those lines. Of course, Republicans and Democrats likely differ on the details, like which programs to cut and what level spending should be capped at.
Depending on the final outline, CRFB estimates the 10-year savings from a cap could be as high as $1.6 trillion, or as low as $580 billion.
That's by far the biggest source of savings. But there are about a dozen other proposals that would yield substantial savings.
One option likely to make the final plan is asking federal workers to contribute more to their pension plans. That would save between $65 billion to $120 billion over ten years, according to CRFB.
The federal government might also sell excess federal property, eliminate tax loopholes for oil companies, implement tort reform and auction spectrum licenses.
In total, CRFB says the overlap among fiscal plans totals at least $1.1 trillion, which is pretty convenient for Biden and his group of negotiators.
Still, major hurdles remain.
Congress is playing politics with the debt ceiling deadline. The House on Tuesday is holding a vote to raise the ceiling without making any cuts -- a measure lawmakers know will fail.
On one of the most contentious issues, Biden insists that additional tax revenues must be part of any deal. Republicans remain steadfastly opposed to tax increases of any kind.
And there isn't much time for futzing around. The debt ceiling deadline is quickly approaching.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said he'll only be able to buy lawmakers time until Aug. 2, at which point the country will not have enough money coming in to pay all its legal obligations in full.
That limits the scope of reforms Biden's group will be able to negotiate. For example, experts say a wholesale change in the corporate tax code can't be worked out in such a short time period.
And finding budget cuts everyone can agree on is tough. One needs to look no further than the negotiations over the fiscal year 2011 budget that almost shut down the government earlier this year.
Despite the differences, both sides have called negotiations productive ... so far.
"This can play a really important part in being the first step toward getting to the finish line," Goldwein said. | {
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In other words, despite the progressive portrayal of Lois Lane as a single woman with an outside-the-home career, Superman's adventures often derailed her work pursuits. Often, the Man of Steel even disapproved of how aggressive Lois could be. As females rapidly entered into the work force during World War II, Lois remained "never quite as self-sufficient as she believed," Williams writes, reinforcing the notion that "women who were surviving during the 1940s without the help of men would have to fall back onto traditional relationships when the war ended."
Mort Weisinger then took over as the editor of Superman in the early 1950s, and Lana Lang made her debut shortly after. Lana had appeared as a supporting character--Clark's childhood next-door neighbor—in Superboy, a series about Clark Kent as a young boy discovering his powers (and starting in 2001, she was teenage Clark's love interest on the WB's Smallville, played by Kristin Kreuk). The adult Lana arrived in Metropolis in 1952 and asked Clark to help her find a job; with help from Lois Lane, she became a TV reporter. The two women then spent much of the rest of the 1950s and 1960s competing over who would become Superman's wife. Williams points out that Superman, meanwhile, regarded both women as "annoyances, whose feuding kept him from work."
By contrast, Lois's desire to succeed in journalism took a backseat to her desire to marry Superman (and stop Lana from doing so first). Williams points out that in 1959's "The Girl Atlas," the story begins with Lois chasing the "story of the century," in which a scientist has invented a formula that will give humans superpowers—but then Lana appears on the third page of the comic and mentions to Lois that if she (Lana) bathes in the formula, "Superman would know my life could never be in danger from his enemies—and we could get married!" And from that point on, the "story of the century" plotline falls away and the story becomes about Lois and Lana's competition over Superman.
These portrayals of Lois and Lana, Williams points out, are identifiable products of their era:
This characterization of Lois as flighty, impulsive and frivolous was in tune with the attitudes of post-war America, the era of what Betty Friedan has called 'the feminine mystique.' Women, according to the feminine mystique, attained personal fulfillment only through marriage, motherhood, and homemaking. ... On the surface, Lois Lane because just such a woman. In her feud with Lana over who Superman loved (and in her obsession with Superman's secret identity), Lois seemed intent on proving that she could be just as silly and frivolous as the feminine mystique required.
Lana, Williams notes, was depicted as far more "feminine" than Lois. Comic-book creators drew her into the foreground of the comic strip far more often than they did Lois. They also depicted her as using gender-coded nicknames (calling Lois "darling," and, um, "scheming hussy") and more extravagantly "girly" gestures, like tending to her hair. As Williams explains, the two were foils in their representations of femaleness:
Together, Lois and Lana presented two extremes of female behavior: Lois represented women as impulsive, curious, emotional; Lana represented women as calculating, manipulative and cunning.
Although Clark did, as Williams writes, sometimes turn to Lana when "Lois became too demanding," he didn't settle on either woman until the late 1970s, after Lana and Lois's relationship had undergone some transformations. (Spoiler alert: He picked Lois.) Lana was written out of the series for several years; convinced that Lois had won Superman's heart, Lana left Metropolis to become a foreign correspondent. When she returned, "she [was] much the same as before: more traditionally feminine than Lois, with the same heightened concern for her appearance and the same obsession with marrying Superman." But according to Williams, Lana's ways weren't as charming in the age of women's lib:
While in the 1950s such behavior is depicted as one possible means of obtaining Superman's affection, the 1970s comic books portray Lana as being inferior to Lois. With the less cartoonish art of Curt Swan replacing Schaffenberger's rendition of Lois and Lana, Lana's exaggeratedly feminine appearance and gestures seem especially anachronistic. In addition, Lana's style of speaking has remained essentially the same as in the 1950s. In 1978, such speech is presented as an affectation which the other characters are sometimes tempted to ridicule.
But even once Lois had gotten the guy, she abruptly discovered she couldn't exactly have it all. In the 1970s, Williams writes, she faced having to juggle both a career and a private life with Superman—so Lois was again representative of a national conversation about the role of women (one that continues today). According to Williams,
Feminist theory during this time increasingly stressed the need to examine how a patriarchal order affects women's daily lives. The slogan "the personal is the political" summarized the viewpoint seeing a connection between political structures and personal relationships in describing an inequality "so deep as to be invisible." ... In Superman, certainly the changes on the surface simply masked the continuing imbalance in Clark and Lois's relationship, with Lois having to make the majority of concessions.
And thus, Williams writes, for decades afterward, Lois continued to be part of a tradition in which "heterosexual romance has been represented as the great female adventure, duty, and fulfillment." | {
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The Edmonton Eskimos know they will have to channel their inner road warrior if they hope to go anywhere in the playoffs.
A 27-19 win by the Saskatchewan Roughriders over the B.C. Lions during the Eskimos’ bye last week plotted Edmonton’s path to the Grey Cup through the East Division, beginning with a stop in Montreal to face the Alouettes in the semifinal round Nov. 10.
And while their playoff position is sealed, the Eskimos still have a matter to tend to back home, where they will be facing Saskatchewan on Saturday (5 p.m., TSN, 630 CHED) in their final game at Commonwealth Stadium, where they have gone 5-3 on the season so far.
“That we can come back and get a good groove going offensively and get some reps together and timing and those sorts of things, and get some playing time here at Commonwealth, we’re really excited about that,” said quarterback Trevor Harris, who was activated off an arm injury this week and is expected to see action. “So hopefully we finish the season strong here at home.”
Email: [email protected]
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge | {
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Check out our new site Makeup Addiction
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I'm not saying I killed osama bin laden but i killed osama bin laden | {
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Superstar batsman AB de Villiers has declared he "would love to" make an international comeback with South Africa at this October's ICC T20 World Cup in Australia.
QUICK SINGLE Heat celebrate AB's BBL debut with dominant win
De Villiers, who hung up his Proteas shirt in May 2018, made a composed 40 from 32 balls on KFC BBL debut in Brisbane Heat's seven-wicket win over Adelaide Strikers at the Gabba on Tuesday afternoon, and said afterward that the new-look power structure in Cricket South Africa (CSA) made the prospect of a return appealing, with the T20 World Cup appearing the ideal lure.
All the highlights of AB de Villiers' first BBL innings
"There's a lot that needs to happen before that becomes reality," the 35-year-old said.
"I would love to. I've been talking to 'Bouch' (new South Africa coach Mark Boucher), (new director of cricket) Graeme Smith and (captain) Faf (du Plessis) back home, we're all keen to make it happen.
"It's a long way away still, and plenty can happen – there's the IPL coming up, I've still got to be in form at that time.
"So I'm thinking of throwing my name in the hat and hoping that everything will work out.
"It's not a guarantee, once again. I don't want to disappoint myself or other people, so for now I'm just going to try and keep a low profile, try and play the best possible cricket that I can and then see what happens towards the end of the year."
De Villiers names the five best bowlers he's faced
De Villiers has flirted with an international return previously. Last year, ahead of the ICC ODI World Cup in the UK, the South African reportedly made himself available for the tournament, only for CSA to reject the offer.
But with a significant changing of the guard within the governing body in recent months, the possibility of a de Villiers return this time around suddenly seems more feasible.
"There are a lot of players (involved with CSA) who I used to play with," he continued. "Guys who understand the game, leaders of the team for many years.
"So it's much easier to communicate than what it used to be in the past. They understand what players go through – especially players that have played for 15 years internationally.
"It doesn't mean that everything is going to be sunshine and roses, but it's definitely a lot easier and it feels comfortable, the language that's being used and just the feel that everyone has at the moment in South Africa about the cricket."
De Villiers names the three best batters he's seen
De Villiers said he was an invested onlooker as the recent upheaval in CSA transpired, with the recruitments of Boucher and Smith, as well as new batting consultant Jacques Kallis, bringing a smile to his face.
"Absolutely, they're my friends and I played 10-plus years with them internationally," said the 114-Test veteran.
"We've been through a lot and it's great to have them involved again, and as I said, hopefully I'll be involved again as well pretty soon."
The revelation from de Villiers will be music to the ears of South Africa fans though unsurprising to the likes of du Plessis and Boucher, who revealed last month that talks to entice the legendary batsman back into the fold were already underway.
"People want AB to play and I am no different," du Plessis said last month. "Those conversations have been happening for two or three months already. What does it look like? How does it look over the next year? That's where it starts.
"T20 cricket is a different beast, it's not a lot of time away from home. The T20 World Cup is not too far away and there isn't a lot – I reckon 20 T20s over the season – which won't be that hard on one to do that. Those conversations have already taken place."
Added Boucher: "When you go to a World Cup, you want your best players playing for you. If I feel he is one of your best players, why wouldn't I want to have a conversation with him?" | {
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Gary Neville says the next six months are 'critical' for Manchester United to restructure club
2:24 Gary Neville insists that Manchester United have to bring back the feel-good factor to the club and hopes they appoint an interim manager who has a bond and understands the club's philosophies Gary Neville insists that Manchester United have to bring back the feel-good factor to the club and hopes they appoint an interim manager who has a bond and understands the club's philosophies
The next six months will be "critical" for Manchester United to "restructure" the club after sacking Jose Mourinho, says Gary Neville.
United parted company with Mourinho on Tuesday morning having endured their worst start to a Premier League season under his stewardship, only months after he spent much of pre-season suggesting he had not been supported in the transfer market over his desire to bring in a new defender.
Sky Sports understands the Portuguese manager was also unwilling for the club to change its model and bring in a sporting director, as Arsenal did during the summer, but Neville told a The Debate special now was the time for United to step up to the plate and restructure their off-field operation.
1:32 Jamie Redknapp told Sky Sports News Woodward was not to blame for United's failures Jamie Redknapp told Sky Sports News Woodward was not to blame for United's failures
He said: "This next six months is a critical period of planning and restructuring. I can't for one minute believe that the board and owners are going to continue to operate the club off the pitch in the same way they have in the last few years.
"They need the best in class football leaders in that club, that's people who have done it with the best clubs in the world, the best clubs in Europe who have operated recruitment departments, who have looked at the technical side of the game, academies to first team - Sir Alex Ferguson did that himself. He linked the whole club as one, and that's not possible any more. The club's too big, it's huge.
"They have got a fantastic commercial and operations side, a model that has been copied all around the world, and they deserve huge credit for that. It's innovative, it's a machine. But on the football side, since Sir Alex and David Gill left, there's been a huge void.
"I think it's time to put a more modern system in - sporting director, technical director - but the very best in class."
0:59 Mourinho said his relationship with Woodward was strong in August, despite a poor start to the season Mourinho said his relationship with Woodward was strong in August, despite a poor start to the season
Neville added Mourinho's reluctance to work alongside a sporting or technical director told a story of its own - that the manager wielded too much power at Old Trafford.
"I've got a problem that the coach of a club tells the owners what structure they should be deploying above him," he said. "There's a lack of control. If they've had to get rid of Jose to appoint one, but the idea that they were being stopped in the first place is a nonsense.
The Debate special: Listen to the podcast
"You call that person what you like, but you need a best-in-class operator on the football side. This is the biggest club in the world, in my opinion, along with Real Madrid and Barcelona. Most revenue, biggest pockets, and I'm sure the owners want their investment spent wisely.
"So you have to go and get the best people to get players for you and be ahead of the game. At the moment the recruitment has been led for the last six-seven years by managers' philosophies, not by the club's. That's a big problem." | {
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Laptop Rental Provider Sued For Spying On Renters Via Surreptitious Webcam Software
from the this-again? dept
Two attorneys who are experts on the relevant computer privacy laws, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, said it's difficult to tell if either was broken, though both agree the company went too far.
Peter Swire, an Ohio State professor, said using a software "kill switch" is legal because companies can protect themselves from fraud and other crimes.
"But this action sounds like it's stretching the self-defense exception pretty far," Swire said, because the software "was gathering lots of data that isn't needed for self-protection."
Further, Swire said the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act "prohibits unauthorized access to my computer over the Internet. The renter here didn't authorize this kind of access."
Fred Cate, an information law professor at Indiana University agrees that consent is required but said the real question might be: "Whose consent?"
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
You would think after last year's attention-grabbing lawsuit about the Lower Merion School district using some surreptitious monitoring software to activate webcams and snap photos of kids at home that others would be a lot more careful about their use of such software. After all, the school district ended up having to pay out $610,000 to settle the lawsuit filed against it.However, in a similar story, a Wisconsin couple has apparently sued Aaron's Inc. for spying on them . Aaron's is a giant "rent-to-own" retailer, offering furniture, electronics and computers on a rent-to-own basis. In this case, the couple had rented a Dell laptop from the company, and later discovered that it had sneaky monitoring software on it which they were unaware of... but which was used to turn on the laptop's webcam and take pictures of the family without them knowing about it.The only way they found out was that a store manager came to take back the computer, incorrectly believing the couple had not paid their bill (they had). When he showed up, he showed them a photo he had, which was taken from the webcam, which (understandably) freaked out the couple. They asked him how he got the photo, and his response was that he. Well, that's comforting. Apparently, the product that was used to do this monitoring was hardware based as well, meaning that it couldn't be detected or turned off via software.The couple and their lawyers are seeking to turn this into a class action for all renters of computers from Aaron's that have this tracking technology. Also, the couple contacted the police, who apparently still have the computer, so I guess there's at least some review of whether or not this is a criminal matter. The AP article (linked in the paragraph above) has a short discussion on whether or not this effort violated either ECPA or the CFAA:It's no secret that both ECPA and CFAA have their problems, but it seems like this might be the type of case that those laws were more designed to cover -- though, that definitely depends on some of the details which haven't come out yet.
Filed Under: cfaa, computer, ecpa, rental, spying, webcam
Companies: aaron's | {
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Since 1980, Michigan’s biggest growth industry has been its prison system.
It is a dubious distinction, as the state devotes a bigger share of its general fund budget to prisons than any other state. With annual spending of about $2 billion, Michigan pumps more money into corrections than higher education. And the state keeps its prisoners behind bars longer than the national average.
Conservatives and liberals alike are now saying it is a price Michigan can no longer afford. While opposition to change remains, critics are renewing a push for reforms that include reducing sentencing guidelines for many non-violent crimes, changes in parole procedures and release of some sick and elderly prisoners that cost upwards of $200,000 a year just for mental health and medical care.
“We better start looking for solutions now,” said state Rep. Joe Haveman, R-Holland, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “This budget is going to grow not only at the expense of higher education but multiple other programs.”
Haveman, representing one of the state’s most conservative regions, has advocated for prison reform for years, and is among a growing chorus on the right championing an issue that was long the province of progressives. But while Democrats emphasize concerns such as the disproportionate incarceration of poor people of color, the right, including figures like former GOP U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, lean on the financial cost of sprawling prisons in an era of tight state budgets.
To Haveman, the issue of crime and punishment boils down to a basic question: What are we getting for our money? The answer: much less than in years past.
In 1980, corrections spending consumed just 3 percent of the state budget. That soared to more than 21 percent by 2013. Prison population stood near 15,000 in 1980. It was more than triple that 25 years later. On average, prisoners today cost the state $35,000 a year. And they are growing more expensive as they age.
“We've locked up people for a long time,” Haveman said. “I don't believe we've created safer communities. I tell people that if I believed locking people up for long periods of time will make us safer, I will write the blank check.”
To his point, a 2013 study by the Pew Center for the States, a Washington D.C.-based independent research organization, found Michigan's rate of incarceration dropped 12 percent between 2007 and 2012. During the same period, crime fell 17 percent.
Old prisoners, big bills
As a start, Haveman is preparing legislation to grant release of some geriatric or sick prisoners, taking cues from a program launched in Connecticut in 2013 to move terminally ill or incapacitated prisoners to a 90-bed, state-run nursing home. The program allows the state to shift costs from its corrections budget to Medicaid.
“That could save us a lot of money,” Haveman said.
According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, the 10 most costly prisoners in the state averaged more than $220,000 in health care or mental health care expenses in 2013, or a total of $2.2 million. A 65-year-old male, serving a term at Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson for two counts of second-degree criminal sexual assault, topped the list at $316,420.
Haveman also is awaiting word from the Michigan Law Review Commission – which has been analyzing sentencing and parole data for nine months - for recommendations on safely lowering prison spending. Its report is expected later this year.
The commission's data is being compiled by the the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a national nonprofit research organization. Carl Reynolds, senior policy adviser for the center, said preliminary data includes findings of “wildly different” sentences for the same crime and inconsistent probation practices.
Reynolds said it also has found “very little difference” in re-arrest rates for inmates released at or near their minimum sentence and those held longer.
Not so fast
But not all Republicans are ready to jump aboard the reform movement.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has been a vocal opponent of early release, particularly the potential parole of more than 350 Michigan teenagers serving mandatory life sentences. The prospect of their release arose in 2012 when the U.S. Supreme Court barred such sentences for juveniles. Schuette argues that the ruling should apply only to new juvenile murder convictions, not those committed prior to the ruling. The issue is to be decided by the Michigan Supreme Court.
To revisit prior cases, Schuette wrote in an op-ed he co-authored in the Detroit Free Press, "would be penalizing and punishing the family (of crime victims). And they have suffered enough."
Instead of early release, Schuette argues the state should looks to cut costs by reducing wages of corrections employees and the cost of services. According to a 2011 study by the Lansing-based Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonprofit research organization, Michigan's corrections wages ranked sixth highest in the nation, at $58,089 a year. He backs the decision in 2013 to privatize food service for prisons and would expand that to areas like laundry and transportation.
State Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said he is “willing to look at” recommendations for reform, adding that the idea of releasing some sick and elderly prisoners makes sense to him.
But Jones, a former jail administrator and sheriff of Eaton County, is cautious about letting prisoners out at their earliest release date.
“I think some legislators think that inmates go to prison and they suddenly become Christians and they are saved. I can tell you from experience that very few continue down that path when they get out.”
To be sure, Michigan's prison population has come down from its peak of more than 51,000 in 2006, declining to 42,904 in 2011 before rising slightly to more than 43,000 in 2013. MDOC officials attribute the decline from its peak to a drop in the number of incoming prisoners, an increase in parole and fewer prisoners returned to prison for minor parole violations. They also cite 1998 state legislation allowing parole of prisoners given mandatory life sentences for possessing or delivering 650 grams of cocaine or heroin.
Health care woes
But costs remain stubbornly high, hovering near $2 billion the past several years, as the prison population grows grayer and more costly to incarcerate:
According to the state House Fiscal Agency, the percentage of prisoners in their 50s and 60s more than tripled between 1994 and 2012, and now accounts for 18 percent of all prisoners.
Between 1998 and 2012, state spending for prisoner health care and mental health services climbed by 80 percent, from $162 million to $291 million, according to the Michigan League for Public Policy, a Lansing-based nonprofit advocacy organization.
Today, Michigan prisons hold 44 prisoners over age 80, some housed at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater. Though the outside perimeter is lined with razor wire, its geriatric unit seems more nursing home than prison. Inmates, many serving life sentences, shuffle around with walkers or in wheelchairs. Some need assistance to bathe or dress. Bingo is a weekly highlight.
In 2013, MDOC Director Daniel Heyns weighed in on the cost of older prisoners in an article in Capital News Service, a branch of the Michigan State University School of Journalism.
“It’s a decision we need to talk about,” Heyns said. “You can keep them locked up, but get ready to write the check.”
Drugs, serial killer help spark prison boom
Michigan's prison population hovered around 15,000 from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. Then it exploded, more than tripling in less than 20 years from 14,658 in 1984 to more than 50,000 in 2002.
Multiple factors contributed:
Felony convictions, corresponding with a rise in reported crime and the national war on drugs, began to rise in the 1980s, according to Citizens Research Council analysis.
While the rate of violent crime in Michigan fell by 30 percent between 1986 and 2006, the state’s prison population grew by nearly 250 percent over this period.
Between 1987 and 2003, Michigan closed three-fourths of its 16 state psychiatric hospitals, on the assumption that these patients would be taken care of by community mental agencies. Many wound up in prison. A 2010 University of Michigan study found that more than 20 percent of state prisoners had severe mental illness.
In 1992, 38-year-old paroled rapist Leslie Allen Williams confessed to the abduction and slaying of four teenage girls in Oakland and Genesee counties. He had been paroled two years earlier. Responding to public outrage, Gov. John Engler ordered sweeping reorganization of the parole board, replacing professional civil servants with political appointees. Parole rates plummeted.
In 1998, Michigan adopted tough “truth-in-sentencing” guidelines that mandate prisoners serve at least their minimum sentence in a secure facility. The guidelines ended provisions for reduced prison terms in exchange for good behavior.
The case of Leslie Allen Williams, who killed four teenage girls after being paroled for rape, resulted in changes that made it dramatically harder for Michigan parolees to win release.
Analysis by the Citizens Research Council concluded that the combination of truth-in-sentencing and parole board changes led to a 20 percent decrease in parole approval, a doubling of technical rule violators returned to prison and 11 percent rise in recidivism from 1990 to 2002.
The trend of prisoners being held for longer periods in Michigan was corroborated by another study, by the Pew Center on the States, which compared inmates released from prison in 36 states between 1990 and 2009. It found the typical Michigan inmate was locked up 17 months longer than the national average. Those locked up for assault crimes in Michigan served 30 more months than average.
According to Barbara Levine, a researcher for the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending (CAPPS), a Lansing-based nonprofit advocacy organization, there are more than 8,000 Michigan prisoners locked up past their eligible release date. There are more than 850 prisoners with life sentences eligible for parole, Levine reported, with a median age of 59 and an average term served of 29 years.
Levine acknowledged that rapist Williams' crimes were an unspeakable tragedy. But she asserts that the parole board and sentencing changes enacted in their wake have proven more costly than effective.
“They were among the most horrible crimes,” Levine said. “But to abhor what he did doesn't logically lead to the policies that followed.”
Other reform proposals
CAPPS supports Haveman's proposal to release certain geriatric and sick prisoners. It also backs reforms that have uncertain support in the Republican-dominated legislature, including:
Establish “presumptive parole,” which would stipulate that prisoners be released at completion of their minimum sentence unless there is reason to believe their release poses a risk to the public.
Scrap truth-in-sentencing guidelines and replace them with a system that gives judges more discretion in sentencing and allows for “good time” prison term reductions.
Revamp the parole board review process for prisoners serving life terms who are eligible for parole, by requiring appeals for parole to be heard every two years, instead of five. It would also require personal interviews with inmates and seek input from MDOC staff on prisoner rehabilitation.
Muskegon resident Tameka Briggs has another perspective.
In 2009, her father, Willie C. Rice, was killed while frying fish in the kitchen when his Muskegon home was robbed. Derrick Lynell Hewlett, then 20, was one of two men convicted in the murder. Hewlett had been paroled a year before the killing after serving 20 months of a 20-month-to-20-year sentence for cocaine delivery.
Both men were given life sentences.
If Hewlett had not been paroled early, Briggs said, “There's a chance my dad would be with me today.”
“If you let them out early, then you are putting them out where they could hurt somebody else.”
Haveman said it will take political courage to proceed with reform, when highly publicized events like the Rice murder occur.
“You can't ever say that nothing bad is going to happen,” Haveman said. “When we've determined that someone has paid their debt to society, we have to be willing to take a risk and let them out.”
©
Bridge Magazine
, reprinted with permission. Bridge Magazine, a publication of
The Center for Michigan
, produces independent, nonprofit public affairs journalism
and is a partner with MLive
. | {
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There has been nothing but positive feedback for Sonic Mania and the developers who brought the 16-bit stylings of the blue hedgehog back to life for home consoles and PC… well, sort of. You see, the PC version of the game would have been lumped in with the console version when it comes to nothing but good vibes and positive feedback. However, Sega decided to dine at the devil’s table with none other than Denuvo, and that deal cost them a lot of good will. This rings especially true considering that the deed delivered included making Sonic Mania on PC hobbled with always-on DRM.
TechRaptor shuffled out the basics, including that the developers at PagodaWest Games were none too happy about Sega using their time in the kitchen to cook up the Sonic Mania masterpiece included sliding a knife from out of the cutlery and placing it firmly in the backs of PagodaWest, just like Burke attempting to screw over Ripley in Aliens.
And just like in Aliens how Burke found himself getting screwed over by the xenomorph, Sega now finds themselves getting screwed over by their own customers. Sega is being hammered with the ill-will of the community who absolutely abhors always-on DRM. Yes, the same always-on DRM that crippled the sales of the Xbox One back in 2013 in one of the biggest corporate blunders for a new product in recent history.
Anyway, Sega’s PR front man for the spike-heady blue hedgehog, Aaron Webber, took to Twitter to direct the traffic of digital rage away from the developers and Sonic Mania and toward the rightful targets of the untamed internet hate machine toward Sega’s customer support page.
In particular, please do share your feedback on DRM or any issues you’re having at the link above. Make your voices heard. — Aaron Webber (@RubyEclipse) August 29, 2017
Over on the Steam forum a rep for Sega notes that they are “investigating the possibility to play Sonic Mania on Steam offline, writing in a post…
“Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline and we’re investigating reports on that. We’re also investigating other issues like controller support, these are all PC specific things that Christian and the team have been working on these last few weeks”
Gamers, however, don’t schedule their entertainment free time around the whims and wiles of investors and shareholders who don’t even know the difference between DRM and B.M. So, wisely, some gamers have offered up some useful ways to circumvent Denuvo’s DRM until Sega removes it officially.
As noted on Techraptor, there are two guides available on how to bypass the DRM, one from shicky256, which is below…
“1. Make a copy of SonicMania.exe
2. Open SonicMania.exe in a hex editor
3. Go to 1CAABE
4. Overwrite the byte with: EB Before change: 75 30
After change: EB 30”
And the other is from SenMithrarin85…
“1) download hxd and install it
2) make a copy of the game’s exe
3) open hxd and then click file>open
4) open the sonicmania.exe
5) press ctrl+g in the box that appears, type 1CAABE and then press enter
6) the program will navigate to 2 values before a 30
7) Do not move the cursor. Type EB
8) it should read EB 30
9) press ctrl+s and close the program
10) replace the game’s exe witht he edited one
11) play offline!”
Sonic Mania is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch. If you don’t feel like opening up a bunch of programs and diddling your fingers around in hex code like a child twirls the little ‘O’s in Spaghetti-Os, then I would soundly suggest getting the Nintendo Switch version since it’s about as an authentic experience as you can get next to playing on a 16-bit home console. | {
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Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have presided over an era of unparalleled Patriots success
In his piece with The Players' Tribune, Kevin Faulk reveals Tom Brady's love of a prank and how the big guys in the O-line got their own back; he starts with a mad dash through the New England snow......
Listen: If there's one thing I know after having played for the Patriots for 13 years, it's that you don't wanna be late to a Bill Belichick meeting.
Like, ever.
So when I woke up one morning in December 2000 and realised that there was a team meeting starting in 20 minutes, I immediately thought, Oh, s***…
Then I threw the sheets off, looked out the window and saw the first snowfall of the season.
OH, S***!
I'm a Louisiana boy, born and bred. This was only my second season in New England, so this was only my second year of experiencing snow. And it wasn't the kind that we used to occasionally get down South where it would hit the ground and immediately melt.
This was Northeastern snow - the kind that sticks.
I lived approximately 15 minutes from the Patriots facility - I knew because I had timed the drive just in case I ever found myself in a situation like this. But the snow was a wild card. In those conditions, I didn't know how long it was going to take me to get to the facility.
I just knew that I was probably gonna be late.
I had seen guys get fined for being late to meetings before, but this wasn't just any meeting. This was a Saturday morning meeting, the day before a game. Being late would be inexcusable. So there was no hesitation. No brushing my teeth or taking a shower. I mean, it was like 20 degrees outside and I didn't even put on winter clothes. I just grabbed the first jacket I saw, threw on some slippers and jumped into my car in the sweats I had slept in, and took off.
The drive was hilarious. I was like a police officer, driving with my hazard lights flashing and weaving in and out of traffic in the ice and snow.
Now, if you've ever driven in or around Boston, you know that Bostonians - like most people - don't take too kindly to being cut off. So I had people honking their horns at me and shaking their you-know-which fingers at me, and I was like, "I'm sorry! I'm late for a Bill Belichick meeting!"
If they had only known my situation….
So I finally arrived at the facility, pulled into the parking lot and threw the car into park. I don't even think I locked the doors. I just got out and hit the ground running, full sprint, through the snow, in slippers.
As I approached the building, I saw Coach Belichick walking into the meeting room, so I went around to check the back door. Thankfully, it was open, and I slid in the back way and into an open seat. By the time coach turned to address the team, I was sitting down, sweating, and pretending like nothing had happened.
And then he looked directly at me. He didn't say a word. He just gave me this you're-lucky-you-made-it kind of look.
He knew.
Coach always knows.
Faulk says the players know when enough is enough under the watchful eye of the coach
I've heard people talk about the Patriot Way. I don't know where that phrase originated, but I think somebody in the media said it first, and it just kind of stuck. We actually used to laugh about it sometimes in the locker room. Like, The Patriot Way … what does that even mean?
And it's like people are always trying to define it in different ways.
Some people say it's the way Coach Belichick runs the team, preaching accountability and placing a strong emphasis on doing your job. Some say it's our style of play, with Tom Brady as our quarterback. But truthfully, it's neither.
The Patriot Way ain't about nothing but winning, man.
That's it.
See, Coach Belichick is the kind of guy who doesn't care what you do on your own time. He wants you to know football and he wants you to come to work every day and do your job to the best of your ability. Anything else, he doesn't really care.
For instance….
One day in 2006, we all walked into the locker room after practice, and there were three tyres - like, car tyres - stacked up in front of Matt Cassel's locker. We were all looking at each other like, What the hell is this?
The backstory is that there was a pretty crazy prank war going on that year. Guys were going back and forth and doing God knows what to one-up each other, and Tom Brady and Matt Cassel were at the centre of it.
So come to find out, that day Tom Brady had hired somebody to take the tyres off of Cassel's car, put three of them in front of his locker and then hide the fourth somewhere around the facility.
I mean, picture this: Cassel comes in from practice, and he's sitting in front of his locker on top of his own car tyres, unwrapping the tape from his ankles. Meanwhile, his car is out in the parking lot on cinderblocks. And guys are just walking by, laughing.
I don't know how or where he found the fourth tyre, but I'm pretty sure he found it. And later on that day, we were watching film, and Cassel was like, "Man, that was messed up. But I can't really do anything about it."
Now, you always have to know your place in the locker room, and Cassel knew that he couldn't go too hard to get Tom back. I mean, Cassel was the back-up, and Tom was … well, Tom.
So the offensive linemen stepped in to pick up the slack.
We had a bunch of jokers on our O-line, and Matt Light was the biggest one. So a couple of days later, Matt and some other linemen went out to the parking lot and opened the sunroof of Tom's car. I think it was a Lexus 460 or something like that. I don't even know how they got into Tom's car, but they did - and they dumped huge bags of packing peanuts - you know, those little Styrofoam bits used for shipping - through the sunroof until it was overflowing. Every nook and cranny of Tom's car was filled with Styrofoam peanuts.
Up until then, Coach Belichick hadn't really taken notice of the prank war, because we were all still coming to work every day and taking care of our business.
But after the tyres and the Styrofoam pranks, coach came into a team meeting and said, "Let's not let this get out of hand."
And guys knew what that meant.
"Stop."
That's how our teams always were, though. We laughed with each other … a lot. But it never got in the way of the ultimate goal: winning. That was partly because we would never let it, but it was also because Coach Belichick would never allow it.
That's one thing about Tom that I don't think many people understand: On Sundays, they see Tom the competitor - and don't get me wrong, that's a huge part of who he is.
In fact, here's another quick story…
Back in 2001, when Drew Bledsoe got hurt and Tom took over at quarterback, we knew there was something special about him right away. You could just feel it.
We used to run offensive drills where we would run plays against the air. No defence, just skill guys executing plays. And I can't even tell you how many times we'd run a play and after it was over, Tom would be like, "Kevin! Stop! Let's run that again."
It didn't matter who he was throwing to. If a pass fell incomplete or if something wasn't right, he would stop the show and run the play over and over until we got it right. And if we didn't have enough time, he'd ask us to stay after practice to run it again. Or if there was even a slight miscommunication he'd take us all into the meeting room after practice and draw the play up on the board to see what we got wrong.
Watching him operate this way, we all thought, Damn … this is a guy who was drafted in the sixth round, and he has that kind of confidence and work ethic? That's pretty special.
He wasn't the biggest, strongest or fastest guy. But he always wanted to compete against the biggest, strongest and fastest because he loved the challenge and he wanted to make himself better.
So yes, that competitiveness is a huge part of who Tom Brady is.
But the thing a lot of people don't realise about him is that he's also one of the guys.
This is a guy who, when the schedule came during the off-season, would identify the defensive coordinator for each of our opponents and start looking back at film from everywhere that coordinator had coached in the previous five years - just to study tendencies and get a step ahead before the season started. That's how dedicated he is to his craft.
But he'll also yank the tyres off your car, just for fun.
I thank God every day that I played my entire career for the New England Patriots. It gave me so many opportunities that I otherwise would not have had. I got to play in and win a Super Bowl in my home state of Louisiana, on the same field where I had won a state championship in high school. That was something special. I played in five Super Bowls and won three rings.
But most of all, I got to play my game, be myself and grow as a football player and human being.
The Patriots allowed me to be me.
And at the end of the day, I guess that's also the Patriot Way.
If you play in New England, it means that Coach Belichick thinks you can fit as a piece of his puzzle. He has a specific job that he needs done, and he thinks you can do it. So my advice to any Patriot would be to know what that job is - and if you don't know, all you have to do is ask him … he won't sugarcoat - and then go do whatever it takes to be really good at that job.
That's what I did. And I - just like the rest of the guys I played with - didn't care about how many touches I had or how many touchdowns I scored or how much shine I got.
Super Bowl XXXIX was the third of Faulk's three rings
The only thing I cared about was winning.
And we did a lot of it.
That's the Patriot Way.
I got a chance in August to thank Patriots fans and the entire organisation when I was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. That was a special honour for me. Everybody - from Coach Belichick and my team-mates to the fans in the stands - believed in my abilities and allowed me to be who I am. I mean, that's all anybody can ask for in life, right? To be accepted for who you are and to be appreciated for what you bring to the table?
You all allowed me to have that. And for that, I am forever grateful.
But I gotta be honest, Pats fans … y'all are spoiled.
Yeah, I said it.
Spoiled.
Winning will do that.
But that's O.K., because we loved spoiling you, and I know the guys on this year's team still love it. We love winning and we take great pride in being a team you can be proud to call your own. That's why we do what we do.
Tom Brady and Coach Belichick won't be around forever. They'll leave the game one day, just like I did and just like everybody eventually does. But if I know anything, it's that … well … it's that you don't wanna be late to a Bill Belichick meeting - like, ever. But also that Tom, coach and the rest of the guys are gonna work their butts off to keep on spoiling the best fans in sports with more wins, more milestones and hopefully more Super Bowl rings.
Because that's how we roll.
That's just the Patriot Way.
Read 'The Patriot Way', Kevin Faulk's discussion on what makes the New England Patriots a winning machine on The Players' Tribune here. | {
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With recent efforts at drafting a constitution for New Zealand stalled, a new and engaging approach is called for. Geoffrey Palmer introduces a fresh project and its core principles.
“A constitution is a human habitation. Like a city, it may preserve its life and its beauty through centuries of change. It may, on the other hand, become either a glorious ruin from which life has departed, or a dilapidated slum that no longer knows the great tradition of its builders.”
These words, by the late Professor Robert Quentin-Baxter, appear at the start of the first chapter of A Constitution for Aotearoa New Zealand, which I have co-written with Andrew Butler, and which was launched last week at the New Zealand Parliament by Grant Robertson MP.
The draft Constitution itself contains 118 articles and the text covers 43 pages. A website has been set up containing the text of the Constitution and chapter one of the book. We have invited submissions and comments on the proposals from the general public.
After a year of further consideration we plan to publish an amended document based on the submissions received, along with our thoughts as to what should happen next.
The project, supported by the New Zealand Law Foundation, also attempts to engage the public through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. The effort to create a conversation on these issues flows from the fact that two official reviews of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements in recent years have produced no change. My co-author and I believe that the absence of a model with which to engage is partly responsible for this situation.
The proposed Constitution – called Constitution Aotearoa New Zealand – is based on 10 principles:
Accessibility and certainty Education Rule of law Democratic accountability Transparency Protection of the rights of people A sense of national identity A New Zealander as Head of State Protections against the abuse of public power Recognition that the Constitution belongs to the people.
Some of the most important changes under Constitution Aotearoa are:
New Zealand should become a republic.
The Head of State should reflect New Zealand’s national identity, culture and heritage, and should be appointed for a term of five years on a free vote in Parliament, safeguarding the independence and neutrality of the position. This is quite different from the way the Governor-General is appointed at present.
The duties and functions of the Head of State, largely mirroring those carried out by the Governor General now, should be set out clearly in the Constitution.
There should be a fixed four-year parliamentary term.
Select committees should be able to make new legislative proposals to the House of Representatives.
A 75% majority in Parliament should be required for urgency to be taken in passing law.
More checks and balances, including a stronger Bill of Rights and making more information available before legislating.
An independent Speaker will be elected by the House on a personal conscience vote. The person should not be the Government’s nominee, as is the case at present.
Constitution Aotearoa more clearly sets out the structures and powers of Government and the limits on that, including the roles and function of the Prime Minister.
The Cabinet is limited to 20 members, with up to five other ministers outside Cabinet. The position of Under-Secretary will be abolished.
The House of Representatives will elect the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister’s ancient powers of advising on proroguing or dissolving the House will be abolished.
The current structure of the senior courts of New Zealand continues.
Judges’ protections against removal from office and reductions to their salary continue.
The compulsory retirement age for judges is raised from 70 to 72.
A Judicial Appointments Commission to oversee the appointment and promotion of judges is established.
The courts are empowered to declare Acts of Parliament invalid to the extent that they are inconsistent with the Constitution. But, importantly, the Courts won’t have the final word. First, amendments to the Constitution are allowed either by 75% of MPs or by public referendum. This follows the established tradition in New Zealand dating back to 1956 entrenching certain provisions of the Electoral Act against change by a simple majority in the House of Representatives. Second, we propose that 75% of MPs can override a particular court decision on the application of the Constitution.
The Treaty of Waitangi is incorporated within Constitution Aotearoa to make its status clear and certain.
The human rights protected by the Bill of Rights is broadened to more closely reflect the range of rights actually recognised across our legal system and in international human rights treaties. The ability for the institutions of the State to place reasonable limits on those rights where they can be demonstrably justified, as the current Bill of Rights Act allows, is retained.
New rights are created including: Against slavery and servitude Security of the person and right to privacy Right not to be arbitrarily deprived of property Right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of gender Right to a free primary and secondary education Right to an environment not harmful to health and to protect the interests of future generations .
Anyone who claims that their rights have been unjustifiably infringed upon can approach the courts for a determination.
Among efforts to strengthen checks and balances are:
Setting up a new independent Information Authority to restructure the administration of official information and improve transparency.
Including certain principles in the Constitution to reinvigorate the public service and protect its values.
Reinforcing the constitutional significance of the offices of the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General.
A revised approach to, and more transparent oversight of, the intelligence agencies.
Constitutional protection for local government.
No international agreement shall be binding on the State unless a Cabinet decision on it has been approved by a majority of the House of Representatives.
Any declaration of war must be approved by a majority of the House of Representatives.
There will be no significant contribution of forces to, or for any purpose of, the United Nations or other international arrangements without the prior approval of the House of Representatives.
The legal grounds for participation in all such activities shall be presented to the Parliament in an opinion of the Attorney-General.
To ensure the Constitution remains current and effective, a Constitutional Commission should sit every 10 years to review the Constitution. Otherwise it will easily fall out of line with the existing realities and aspirations of the people.
Read more about the Constitution for Aotearoa New Zealand here. | {
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commission Homestuck and all characters belong to Andrew Hussie. No more posts art blog
My blog All of Tumblr
Follow on Tumblr | {
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As nations repeatedly fail to make major cuts in their greenhouse gas production, scientists and others have begun to wonder if climate change might be halted not by emissions cuts but by technology that removes those gases from the atmosphere. The approach is called geoengineering. Unfortunately, a recent simulation of its effects on the oceans found that even extreme methods would not be able to completely rehabilitate the ocean environment. The work was published in Nature Climate Change on August 3. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
The experiments focused on carbon dioxide removal (CDR), the process of extracting excess CO2 directly from the atmosphere. In theory this could help oceans because they become dangerously acidic when they absorb too much atmospheric CO2. One CDR idea is to plant trees that consume large amounts of CO2 and then burn the trees in facilities where the emissions can be captured and stored underground. But no one has ever tested this or similar carbon removal schemes on a large scale.
The next-best thing to large-scale testing is a large-scale simulation. In the new study researchers led by Sabine Mathesius, an environmental scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, used a computer model to investigate CDR’s effectiveness in rehabilitating seawater damaged by CO2 emissions.
A tale of two experiments
Mathesius’s team used their computer simulation in two experiments. In the first they wanted to see if carbon removal could reduce the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration to the level that was typical before the industrial revolution, thus restoring the marine environment its preindustrial state.
The researchers based their simulation on real-world carbon dioxide emissions from 1800 to 2005, and then projected those emissions into the year 2250. Then they simulated what would happen if technology could remove 18 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year—about half of present-day emission rates—from 2250 until 2700. The researchers found this did decrease atmospheric CO2 levels but could not restore the ocean’s preindustrial dissolved oxygen content or temperature. Even after 450 years of geoengineering, the model ocean was still almost as acidic as it would have been without any intervention at all.
But what might happen if someone invented a better, marvelous new carbon removal technique? The scientists wanted to know, so they raised the maximum removal rate to 90 billion tons of CO2 per year. That high performance is “frankly ridiculous,” says geophysicist Donald Penman from Yale University, who was not involved in the research. Yet even at this level, in the year 2700 the ocean was still warmer, more acidic and held less oxygen than the preindustrial marine environment.
In their second simulation the team modeled a world where, against all odds, present-day humans substantially reduced their greenhouse gas production. They wanted to learn whether emission cuts or after-the-fact carbon removal was better. And they did: When it came to preserving the ocean environment, removal was no match for decreased emissions. Even in the simulation where CDR pulled 90 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year, the deep ocean was far more acidic than it was in the reduced emissions model. Penman says, “It is clear that rather than trying to clean up a mess, it would be wiser to simply not create the mess in the first place.”
According to Mathesius, CDR is ineffective for combating ocean acidification because of the way seawater circulates. There are regions of the ocean where surface water submerges into the deep ocean and stays there for centuries or even millennia, cut off from the atmosphere. So even if CDR does manage to significantly decrease the atmospheric CO2 concentration, the deep ocean remains highly acidic.
This is not the only work indicating that carbon removal will come up short. A study published on August 3 in Nature Communications shows that capping global warming at 2 degrees Celsius requires removing 1.8 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere yearly from now until 2100—a tall order that exceeds the capabilities of current technology.
The studies do not mean that carbon removal is completely useless, Mathesius notes. “We’re only saying that CDR would not be strong enough to counter a business-as-usual scenario,” she says. “But there’s still the possibility that you take CDR as a supplemental measure.” Removal, although it cannot undo all the damage of excess emissions, might still prove valuable if combined with actual carbon cuts. | {
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India aims to acquire seismic data of 48,243 line kilometres in five years as the world's third biggest oil consumer seeks to boost its output by offering more areas for exploration, the government said on Tuesday.
State-run explorers Oil India Ltd and Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd will carry out the 2D seismic survey in areas spread across 24 states.
The two companies will invest 29.33 billion rupees ($457.99 million) for this which will be reimbursed by the government.
"As a basis for launching future exploration and production activities, appraisal of all unappraised areas is an important task," the government said in a statement.
Oil India will cover the north-eastern states, while the remaining areas will be surveyed by ONGC.
($1 = 64.0410 Indian rupees)
(Reuters) | {
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LaStScan Profile Joined May 2011 Korea (South) 1194 Posts #81 Arriving on 24th. Participating next day right away for me. T
t Trying my best for ASL, ASTL
BisuDagger Profile Blog Joined October 2009 Bisutopia 17617 Posts #82 On June 22 2016 09:00 LaStScan wrote:
Arriving on 24th. Participating next day right away for me. T
t
Awesome. Glad it got worked out. Johnny is the man. Awesome. Glad it got worked out. Johnny is the man. Moderator Ofiicial Afreeca Starleague Caster: http://afreeca.tv/ASL2ENG2
LaStScan Profile Joined May 2011 Korea (South) 1194 Posts #83 On June 22 2016 09:15 BisuDagger wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 22 2016 09:00 LaStScan wrote:
Arriving on 24th. Participating next day right away for me. T
t
Awesome. Glad it got worked out. Johnny is the man. Awesome. Glad it got worked out. Johnny is the man.
I appreciate your help I also talked to kongdoo company on fb directly as well. I appreciate your helpI also talked to kongdoo company on fb directly as well. Trying my best for ASL, ASTL
BLinD-RawR Profile Blog Joined April 2010 ALLEYCAT BLUES 45562 Posts #84 Scan Fighting! Moderator Woo Jung Ho, never forget.| Twitter: @BLinDRawR
prech Profile Joined March 2014 United States 2947 Posts #85
The qualifiers are going to be brutal -- ~600 down to 16? wow The qualifiers are going to be brutal -- ~600 down to 16? wow Liquipedia
ne4aJIb Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Russian Federation 3102 Posts #86 prelims bo1? Bisu,Best,Stork,Jangbi and Flash, Fantasy, Leta, Light and Jaedong, Hydra, Zero, Soulkey assemble in ACE now!
Wrath Profile Blog Joined July 2014 3165 Posts Last Edited: 2016-06-22 09:22:18 #87 On June 22 2016 16:43 prech wrote:
The qualifiers are going to be brutal -- ~600 down to 16? wow The qualifiers are going to be brutal -- ~600 down to 16? wow
And people say BW does not have new blood. They are just drowned with all those ex-pros.
Can you please keep an eye on Jaedong? I'm sure he will participate. And people say BW does not have new blood. They are just drowned with all those ex-pros.Can you please keep an eye on Jaedong? I'm sure he will participate.
GTR Profile Blog Joined September 2004 48888 Posts #88 wtf the seoul qualifiers are literally in the middle of nowhere Commentator Twitter: @GTR1H
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/GTR1H
Wrath Profile Blog Joined July 2014 3165 Posts #89 On June 22 2016 17:26 GTR wrote:
wtf the seoul qualifiers are literally in the middle of nowhere
Are you there yet? Were you able to see any games? Are you there yet? Were you able to see any games?
BLinD-RawR Profile Blog Joined April 2010 ALLEYCAT BLUES 45562 Posts #90 the qualifers are on saturday and sunday. Moderator Woo Jung Ho, never forget.| Twitter: @BLinDRawR
_Animus_ Profile Joined February 2011 Bulgaria 1064 Posts Last Edited: 2016-06-22 10:25:51 #91 having new blood is meaningless when its a fight for 16 spots, there should be at least ro32 for them to have chance. Also non ex-pro tours are needed to support that. Luv ya BroodWar!
c3rberUs Profile Blog Joined December 2010 Japan 11276 Posts #92 Wow tough schedule for Scan. Hoping for the best for you.
Glad to see many participating even though I doubt any non-pros will make it to the sweet 16. Happy to be proven wrong though ^_^ Writer Movie, 진영화 : "StarCraft will never die".
todespolka Profile Joined November 2012 221 Posts #93 Are you sure they are young people? As I know in korea every young guy plays lol. Dont forget korea sold 4mio bw copies, Its clear that bw has still a big community of old fans.
c3rberUs Profile Blog Joined December 2010 Japan 11276 Posts #94 Has there been news on the maps that will be used in the qualifiers? Writer Movie, 진영화 : "StarCraft will never die".
remag Profile Joined August 2009 Germany 354 Posts #95 On June 22 2016 21:42 c3rberUs wrote:
Has there been news on the maps that will be used in the qualifiers?
Yes its one the first page, Preliminary maps: Fighting Spirit, Circuit Breaker, Blue Storm. Yes its one the first page, Preliminary maps: Fighting Spirit, Circuit Breaker, Blue Storm.
LaStScan Profile Joined May 2011 Korea (South) 1194 Posts #96 On June 22 2016 17:26 GTR wrote:
wtf the seoul qualifiers are literally in the middle of nowhere
gonna take me 2 hours to get there.... gonna take me 2 hours to get there.... Trying my best for ASL, ASTL
LaStScan Profile Joined May 2011 Korea (South) 1194 Posts #97 On June 22 2016 16:43 prech wrote:
The qualifiers are going to be brutal -- ~600 down to 16? wow The qualifiers are going to be brutal -- ~600 down to 16? wow
Uh. Dont forget -4 for seeded players. So only 12 ppl are going to survive. There are more than 12 expros and its gonna be crazy. Uh. Dont forget -4 for seeded players. So only 12 ppl are going to survive. There are more than 12 expros and its gonna be crazy. Trying my best for ASL, ASTL
[sc1f]eonzerg Profile Blog Joined February 2010 Belgium 5927 Posts Last Edited: 2016-06-22 14:36:00 #98 holyshieet only 12 places then ? lol,,i dont see Sea qualifying :D
Essbee Profile Blog Joined August 2008 Canada 2251 Posts #99 On June 19 2016 17:43 GTR wrote:
Might throw Shark an email to see if I can get official permission to go to the Seoul qualifiers and Periscope the event.
Do they usually allow spectators for the qualifiers? I would like to go if it's possible, or else I will just wait for the ro16 ;p Do they usually allow spectators for the qualifiers? I would like to go if it's possible, or else I will just wait for the ro16 ;p midas
LaStScan Profile Joined May 2011 Korea (South) 1194 Posts #100 I feel like they gonna split to 32 ppl each session and pick 1st 2nd. For example, if there is 320 ppl coming for seoul qualifer, then split to 10 sessions. So there will be 20 qualified players and plus same thing for pusan qualifier. Whatever the number of players qualified play against each other for until 12 players remaining.
Idk my basic idea could be wrong. Idk how they are gonna pull out 12 players out of 600 players. Trying my best for ASL, ASTL
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I slutet av juni fattade regeringen ett beslut som tydliggör att insamling av returpapper och förpackningsavfall av de vanligaste materialen ska kunna ske i närheten av där folk bor för att det ska bli enklare att återvinna. "Detta är en stor förändring från dagens system med återvinningsstationer som huvudregel", skriver regeringen på sin hemsida.
Här öppnar station Stockholm City igen
Miljöpartiet i landstinget vill även att möjlighet till källsortering ska finnas i kollektivtrafiken. I dag finns det i liten skala vid Fridhemsplan. 2015 lämnade partiet tillsammans med Vänsterpartiet in en motion om saken. "Tre år har gått och alliansen har inte gjort några framsteg för att resenärer ska kunna göra rätt för sig och minska sitt klimatavtryck", skriver Miljöpartiet i ett pressmeddelande.
– Det är ingen stor sak för den enskilde, men gör stor skillnad eftersom 800 000 människor varje dag åker i SL-trafiken. Jag tror att många tycker att det är självklart att det borde gå att källsortera, säger Tomas Eriksson (MP) gruppledare i Stockholms läns landsting i pressmeddelandet. | {
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バーやカクテルの人気拡大によって、ウイスキーやジン以外のスピリッツも盛り上がりを見せています。そのなかで今回紹介したいのはラムの世界。ラムは羊のほうも活況ですが、お酒のほうも非常にアツいのです。先日、青山で開催された「JAPAN RUM CONNECTION TOKYO 2019」の様子から、その熱をお伝えしましょう！
「アプルトン」と「バカルディ」だけでも覚えておきたい
イベントは前売り5000円／当日6000円で、13時～18時の間に好きなラムとカシャッサ（ラムと同様、サトウキビを原料とするブラジルの蒸溜酒）を飲み比べできるというもの。ほかに、ラムブランドセミナーやフードもあって、充実の内容でした。
会場に広がっていたのは、多彩なラム＆カシャッサのブースと、参加者たちの笑顔。提供された銘柄は170種以上あったということで、さすがにすべての試飲はできていないのですが、定番から個人的オススメまで、5ブランドをピックアップして紹介したいと思います。
その1：ジャマイカNo.1ラム「アプルトン」
1749年創業。ジャマイカ最古のラムメーカーといわれるアプルトン社は、販売数量でも同国No.1ブランドに君臨しています。サトウキビ栽培から瓶詰めまで自社で行う数少ないラムメーカーのひとつで、香りや豊かでまろやかな味わいが特徴。
その2：今冬はホットもオススメな「バカルディ」
世界No.1ラムとして知られ、モヒートブームの火付け役でもある「バカルディ」。香り高いうえにスムースで、汎用性が高くカクテルのベースとしても愛用されている大定番ですが、イベントではホットカクテルの提案も。 | {
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September 24, 2020
By Brian W. Carter
Contributing Writer
You know you can’t keep a good festival down, right?
Bakewell Media and The Los Angeles Sentinel announced... Read more... | {
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WASHINGTON—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a rare public rebuke of President Barack Obama at the White House, declaring that Israel would never accept the terms of his proposal to resume peace talks with the Palestinians.
Mr. Netanyahu appeared to lecture Mr. Obama following their nearly two-hour meeting Friday—exposing tensions between leaders over Mideast policy that are usually kept out of the public eye.
That... | {
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Following a decisive and humiliating defeat, what next for Ireland’s right-wing populists?
The following piece is an extract from the book “Ireland’s Election 2020: A highly biased, ideologically partisan approach”. Available in paperback at www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B085KJSC6B or in e-book format at www.smashwords.com/books/view/1008701.
Sinn Féin’s surge was undoubtedly the story of the recent election and the support garnered by the left as a whole was a welcome new development in Irish politics. But these were not the only changes the country’s political system underwent. The election was the first in which the Irish far-right had a very visible presence. Relatively new political parties such as the National Party and the Irish Freedom Party brought to the Irish political scene the type of far-right movements that have characterised European politics for decades. Seeking to place the blame for Ireland’s socio-economic woes on immigrants, particularly those from Islamic countries, these parties are arguably the Irish equivalent of more electorally successful European parties such as France’s Rassemblement National (formerly Front National) and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland. Such parties share with the Irish far-right a Eurosceptic stance, a virulently anti-immigration and anti-Islam message, as well as a deep conservatism on social issues, although the Irish far-right is much more conspiratorial in its ideology than its more mainstream counterparts on the continent.
The Irish electorate has, for now, decisively rejected such politics. Despite running in constituencies across the country, the highest share of the vote that any far-right candidate managed to attain was just 2%. Ireland remains part of a very small group of European nations with no far-right representation in parliament.
Nonetheless, there is cause for concern. Ireland has amongst the highest levels in Europe of hate crimes committed against those of an African background and there has long existed a tradition of discrimination against the Traveller community. Ireland does not have any publicly available figures on hate crime, but both the Gardaí and various rights groups have stated that there has been a rise in recent years. There have also been a number of apparent vigilante attacks that could indicate a far-right presence that is becoming emboldened. Early last year, a hotel in Rooskey that was due to host asylum seekers suffered two separate arson attacks, whilst in June a mosque in Galway was vandalized in an apparent hate crime. In October, a Sinn Féin TD who expressed support for asylum seekers received death threats and subsequently had his car set alight outside the family home. All of this has been accompanied by a much-increased visibility of far-right groups; on the streets, online, and at the ballot box.
The comprehensive rejection of these groups by the electorate does not preclude the possibility of a far-right breakthrough in the future. Ireland has already been identified as meeting some of the conditions that could prove conducive for the growth of such movements. Academics have argued that Ireland meets conditions such as “rapidly rising immigration, allegations of job displacement, increased inequality. . .[and] an electoral system that enables small newcomers”, that could make a far-right breakthrough more likely. Whatever the eventual composition of the incoming government, if socio-economic problems pertaining to housing and healthcare are not tackled, the scope for the scapegoating of immigrants will increase. Many people already link these crises to immigration. Indeed, a group calling themselves “House the Irish First” recently protested against a social housing development.
If we do not have another election for a couple of years or more, there will be ample time for the far-right parties to organise, refine their message, and build support from disaffected segments of society, many of whom may not have voted this time around. There are indications that these parties will not have much difficulty in securing funding with which to run a future campaign. In a few years’ time, it is conceivable that we see a very different force to the one that has just been decisively defeated. The Beacon, a website devoted to monitoring the far-right, got its hands on a planning document which discussed the lessons the far-right must take from the election defeat. The document makes it clear that the forces of the far-right intend to modify their approach to increase their support.
Still, on the balance of probability, it remains difficult to envision the Irish electorate turning to the far-right in any substantial numbers. The overall reaction of many to their candidates was one of ridicule and it is doubtful that in the medium term the far-right can overcome this lack of credibility. What is more plausible, however, is that the more established politicians and parties adopt some of the talking points of the far-right. This has already occurred in a number of European countries where centre-right parties have increasingly adopted the rhetoric and, occasionally, the policies of the far-right.
What differentiates these countries from Ireland is that they all host far-right movements that have become sufficiently strong as to pose a threat to the established order. It might therefore be argued that such a shift in one of our establishment parties is unlikely. However, there are some indications that adopting some of the rhetoric traditionally associated with the far-right could prove to be electorally fruitful and several recently successful centre-right candidates have echoed sentiments more often associated with the far-right. Describing African immigrants as “spongers” did not harm the electoral chances of Independent TD Noel Grealish, nor did Verona Murphy’s comments linking asylum seekers to the Islamic State prevent her from securing a seat in the incoming Dáil. Even Leo Varadkar appeared to be testing the waters regarding rhetoric on immigration when he complained of “a lot of people from Georgia and Albania coming in with fake documents”. That such approaches may prove successful was perhaps best evidenced by the share of the vote that Peter Casey received in the 2018 presidential election, subsequent to his targeting of a minority group.
The state of flux within Irish politics at the present moment means that a mainstreaming of far-right rhetoric should not be ruled out. As long as there exists a considerable amount of racist sentiment in the country, any political party languishing low in the polls may be tempted to appeal to the prejudices of some citizens. Such a temptation would be all the greater were there to be a deterioration of economic conditions in Ireland. As we have seen in the UK, xenophobic discourse can serve as a useful distraction from economic issues.
Were this to occur, it would have the effect of normalising a dangerous discourse surrounding immigration and its relation to socio-economic problems. Under such circumstances, the parties of the far-right might receive a far better reception in future elections.
This piece is an extract from the book “Ireland’s Election 2020: A highly biased, ideologically partisan approach”. Available in paperback at www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B085KJSC6B or in e-book format at www.smashwords.com/books/view/1008701 | {
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KANSAS CITY, Mo./BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (Reuters) - Donald Trump has called them thugs, professional organizers and supporters of Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders.
A designated area for protesters is seen outside an event for U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Savannah Center in Cincinnati, Ohio March 13, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
But the protesters who have stepped up their actions against the Republican presidential front-runner are a disparate group from different walks of life, with no national organization to speak of. They assemble through a patchwork of Facebook pages and myriad advocacy groups.
After demonstrators swarmed a large Trump rally in Chicago on Friday and forced its cancellation over security concerns, protesters are looking for ways to keep up the momentum as the billionaire businessman seeks in primaries this week to clear a path toward the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election.
Trump has drawn fervent support as well as harsh criticism, including from within his own party, for his calls to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.
Kevin Bailey, 25, who helped lead an anti-Trump protest on behalf of the Progressive Youth Organization at the candidate’s Kansas City, Missouri, rally on Saturday, said protesters had two goals - to disrupt proceedings as much as possible and signal their outrage over Trump’s divisive rhetoric. Trump spent a good part of his time on stage shouting down the protesters.
Bailey said his group watched a similar protest staged by a sister organization in St. Louis on Friday as well as other protests to see if there were lessons to be learned.
“We want to learn what works as far as, especially, going inside and disrupting rallies,” he said.
Using smaller groups of protesters to enter rallies and station themselves around the venue, as well as staggering the disruptions to maximize their duration, are some of the strategies that seem to work best, Bailey said.
Before Friday’s rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago, organizers used Facebook and worked with student groups on campuses in the Chicago area to encourage them to attend. Inside the stadium, there might have been as many protesters as supporters and a long line of people were waiting to get in when the Trump campaign scrapped the event.
Slideshow ( 4 images )
Skirmishes broke out between the two camps, making for some tense minutes that received national television coverage and raised security concerns around the Trump campaign.
One organizer, Nathaniel Lewis, a 25-year-old graduate student, said the cancellation was “the last thing we expected to happen. It shows the power of unity.”
PROTESTS BEFORE KEY PRIMARIES
It happened just days before five nominating primaries on Tuesday in which Trump, 69, is trying to cement his lead over his remaining Republican rivals - U.S. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Trump’s Republican and Democratic rivals accused him of sowing tension with divisive rhetoric. But on Sunday, he said: “I don’t accept responsibility. I do not condone violence in any shape.”
He called the protesters professional “disrupters” sent to his events by Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont.
“Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours!” Trump said on Twitter on Sunday.
Trump’s campaign rallies have been boisterous, with the real estate mogul often pausing to scold protesters and ask security officers to take them away. At some events, protesters and journalists have been punched, tackled or hustled out. A 78-year-old man was charged with assault and communicating a threat after he was seen on video punching a young black protester at a North Carolina rally last week.
The threat of violence affected Trump personally on Saturday. Secret Service officers rushed on stage to protect Trump when a man broke through a security barrier at a rally in Ohio. Trump said the man “was looking to do harm.”
Some in the Trump camp believe the protesters’ actions in Chicago will benefit their candidate by galvanizing his supporters.
“Some people were energized,” said Michael McKinney, 47, as he attended a Trump rally in Ohio with his family on Sunday.
“I watched a lot of videos - all the protesters were throwing the first punch,” he added.
Over the weekend, President Barack Obama made a call for civility in the political process and “resolving our differences without encouraging or resorting to violence.”
While young people are a visible contingent among the protesters and some are supporters of Sanders, the demonstrators are a mixed group operating in small clusters.
For a Trump rally in Bloomington, Illinois, on Sunday, Sonny Garcia, a 44-year-old facilities manager, said a loosely organized group called “Dump Trump Illinois” rallied protesters through a “Dump Trump” Facebook page. Some 2,000 people gathered.
Forty members of the local chapter of a national anti-hate advocacy group called “Not in Our Town” showed up to protest, wearing white armbands. High school student Aishwarya Shekara, 16, joined them.
“I’m here because Trump stands for everything I don’t,” she said. “He’s the definition of a demagogue.” | {
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Italy's latest campaign to reverse its falling birth rate has sparked an angry response.
The health ministry has produced 12 posters in the run-up to the country's first fertility day on 22 September.
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin announced state-sponsored events informing people about family planning. She has warned of a birthrate "apocalypse" if more Italians do not try for children.
One of the campaign posters shows a young woman holding a sand timer with a phrase saying: "Beauty has no age. But fertility does."
Another shows two pairs of feet poking out the bottom of a bed alongside the message: "Young parents. The best way to be creative."
The campaign though has backfired, with critics branding it an insult to those who are unable to conceive.
Best-selling author Roberto Saviano wrote on his Facebook page: "It means, simply, hurry up and have children: you don't have a stable job? What does it matter.
"You are not certain that your partner is the right one?
"Come on, procreate, do it lightly, for where they eat two eat three."
Since the 1960s, Italy's birth rate has halved to 488,000 babies born in 2015. Last year experienced the lowest birth rate since Italy united as one country in 1861.
Also hindering the Italian birth rate is a youth unemployment of 35 per cent.
Many young people are choosing not to have children until they have secured a stable job, economist Elisabetta Addis from the University of Sassari told the Local.
Speaking of what could help turn it around, Professor Addis said: "A ‘baby bonus’ might help families in financial distress but there is no correlation between giving out money and the birth rate, but there is a correlation between the range of services provided and people having more children.
"Having children is a long-term project. Schools could be kept open until 6pm, freeing up a woman’s time so that she can work, and there should be continual help and assistance while the children are young." | {
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The Latest: Japan bullish about foreign nuclear power market Japan's economy and trade minister says his country still sees a lucrative foreign market for nuclear technology and plants despite the recent decision by Hitachi to freeze a project in Britain.
DAVOS, Switzerland -- The Latest on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (all times local):
4:35 p.m.
Japan's economy and trade minister says his country still sees a lucrative foreign market for nuclear technology and plants despite the recent decision by industrial heavyweight Hitachi to freeze a project in Britain.
Hiroshige Seko touted Japanese expertise in a complex sector where a shrinking number of companies have the ability to both design and build nuclear facilities.
Speaking to reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Seko said his government would encourage and support Japanese companies that are invited to build nuclear facilities abroad.
Last week, work on the Horizon Project nuclear power station in Britain was suspended after Hitachi said it couldn't reach a financing deal with the government there.
Hitachi executive Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi noted recent "failures" in construction of power plants that have doused investor interest.
Nakanishi said Britain's government was seeking "clear solutions" on nuclear power, and "we are negotiating on how to make it."
———
3:50 p.m.
China's vice president took not-so-veiled shots at President Donald Trump's aggressive trade policies in a speech to global elites at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps.
Vice President Wang Qishan said at the World Economic Forum that "Shifting blame for one's own problems onto others will not resolve the problems."
The United States and China, the world's two biggest economies, have imposed heavy taxes on each other's imports in a dispute over Beijing's aggressive push to challenge American technological dominance.
Wang noted that expanded trade and technological innovations leave many behind. In response, he said in a clear reference to Trump's America, "many countries are increasing looking inward ... barriers to international trade and investment are increasing; and unilateralism, protection and populism are spreading.
He added: "What we need to do is make the pie bigger while looking for ways to share it in a more equitable way. The last thing we should do is to stop making the pie and just engage in a futile debate on how to divide it."
———
3:00 p.m.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made a forceful plea for international cooperation and compromise in an age of populism during her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Merkel said Wednesday that leaders need to work against "a fragmentation of the international architecture."
These days some think it's best "if everyone thinks only about himself," she said. "I have doubts about that."
She said efforts to combat global problems "will only function if we are able to compromise," citing as examples of cooperation the free trade deal between the EU and Japan taking effect Feb. 1.
Merkel said Germany was committed to multilateralism starting with strengthening the EU but going beyond that. She acknowledged the "shock" of Britain's planned departure but stressed the need for close and cooperative relations even after Brexit.
———
2:50 p.m.
Ethiopia's reformist prime minister acknowledges that challenges remain "formidable" as the East African power seeks to overhaul its fast-growing economy and open it up to foreign investment.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the World Economic Forum that sustaining growth is crucial in a country with 60 million people under age 24. He says it "requires the unleashing of the private sector" and reforming state-owned enterprises including telecoms, railways and more.
He says Ethiopia urgently wants to join the World Trade Organization. He also vowed that the country long controlled by a ruling coalition and allied parties will hold free and fair elections in 2020.
Abiy urged investors to "seize the day but also trust the future" in a country that, before he took office in April, was rocked by months of anti-government protests.
Ethiopia, he said, had faced the possibility of "state collapse."
———
2:00 p.m.
Be nice. And don't wear a hoody and skulk.
That's the way to play poker, says Maria Konnikova, a psychologist, author and now champion in the game.
Speaking about her success in the game and its applications to business, Konnikova told delegates at the World Economic Forum that her secret weapon is to take "time to be nice" to those seated around the poker table.
Poker, she said, is a "game of small edges" and "if someone decides a few percent less often to take a less aggressive line against me or to target my opponent instead, then I win."
Konnikova said she learned more about strategic decision-making from her transition to the world of games than any amount of research in labs.
———
1:30 p.m.
Afghanistan's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, urged the world not to give up on his impoverished country, which has struggled with corruption, political instability and a long Taliban insurgency.
He told The Associated Press in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: "Don't lose patience. We all made mistakes in the past 18 years" — since U.S. forces overthrew a Taliban regime in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks only to see the fundamentalist Islamic militia regroup in the years afterward.
He said Afghanistan has made progress delivering education and health care to its people and could develop into an economic "land bridge" between South and Central Asia.
Abdullah also urged Pakistan and other countries that have influence on the Taliban to pressure the insurgent group to negotiate peace with the Afghan government — something it has refused to do.
Abdullah announced this month that he would run for president this year in a rematch with incumbent Ashraf Ghani. After the bitter 2014 election, the U.S. brokered a power-sharing deal that left Ghani president and Abdullah CEO.
———
12:30 p.m.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has touted the benefits of two recent "mega deals" in trade. He said Japan, the European Union and the United States must work together to reform the World Trade Organization, notably on rules about government subsidies.
Abe's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, marked his return to the elite gathering after five years.
He referred to the Trans-Pacific Partnership wrapped up next year and the looming entry into force on Feb. 1 of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership agreement.
Abe urged a Davos conference hall to "rebuild trust toward the system for international trade."
The allusion to government subsidies and call for a trading system that protects intellectual property rights amounted to a reference to China, which the Trump administration has castigated for failing to be transparent on its government subsidies and for swiping intellectual property.
———
11:20 a.m.
Bono, who has been a prominent campaigner on development issues for decades, says capitalism is not immoral: "It's amoral."
Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the U2 frontman said capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than "any other ism" but that "it is a wild beast and if not tamed it can chew up a lot of people on the way."
Those who have not benefited from capitalism are, he said, driving "the politics in our home towards populism."
Bono also said that he's had a change of heart with regard to the International Monetary Fund, an institution he once considered to be the "Great Satan" for its "bullying of junior economies."
Heaping praise on IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, Bona said the IMF has changed.
The development community, he said, values Lagarde's "tough mindedness" but he added he would still be on her "case."
———
10:40 a.m.
Guido Sandleris, president of the Central Bank of Argentina, says the country is "much better prepared" for the challenge of a slowdown in global trade and the rise in interest rates in major economies, following its recession.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Sandleris said Argentina had previously not been strong enough to cope with those twin challenges amid high inflation at home and big fiscal and trade deficits. As a result, President Mauricio Macri negotiated a $56 billion stand-by financing facility with the International Monetary Fund.
Though the deficits are heading in the right direction, Sandleris said inflation remains too high.
Sandleris defended the government's belt-tightening measures and said protests in the country are more to do with the recession — the economy is expected to shrink further this year — than any anger against the IMF.
———
10:10 a.m.
Hong Kong's Beijing-backed chief executive says she's "quite worried" that the rules-based system that has governed global trade for decades is under threat.
Speaking Wednesday at the World Economic Forum at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, Carrie Lam said any diminution in the traditional rules could lead to rising political tensions around the world.
She said Hong Kong has prospered "on the basis of free and open trade."
Worries over the future of the rules governing global trade have been stoked over the past couple of years, certainly since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump. His administration has taken particular umbrage against China and the two have imposed tariffs on each other that has raised concerns of a full-scale trade war. | {
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A 7-bead chain of magnets. Each microbead is less than five microns across.
Healing with magnets might one day be considered legitimate medicine — at least if those magnets are also microscopic surgical robots.
By manipulating the same magnetic fields that were shown to control the swimming motion of microscopic robots, a team of engineers at Drexel University has demonstrated the ability to assemble and disassemble chains of tiny magnetic beads.
"If you have these simple geometries as building blocks, you can put them together to make more complicated shapes that can do more things," study co-author Henry Fu, now an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah, told Live Science. [The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created]
The hope is to eventually use these remotely controlled chains — dubbed modular microrobots — in the human body for medical purposes, such as delivering targeted medicines or performing surgeries on a very small, noninvasive scale, the researchers said.
Different combinations and shapes of the spherical beads could mean greater versatility. For example, the beads could be transported to a site in the body more easily in one configuration, Fu said, but could then be manipulated into different shapes to move through various tissues or perform specific tasks.
Charles Tremblay, a researcher in the Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montreal, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that the project is a "good idea," but said some of the challenges include the "need for visual feedback and transparent medium" to maneuver the robots.
Researchers observe the chains under a microscope, and remotely manipulate the "microswimmers" by adjusting an array of three solenoids, electromagnets that produce a controlled magnetic field. When rotated, the chains swim through fluid.
A chain of three beads, just 10 microns long (for perspective, the width of an average human hair is about 100 microns), is the simplest of the microswimmers the team worked with. That makes them "a little bigger" than bacteria that Fu studied previously. "I've looked at the fluid mechanics of how [bacteria] swim," he said, "The principles are the same whether you're a robot or a living thing."
The researchers had to work out ways to build chains without the magnets repelling each other. Disassembling the chains, on the other hand, is relatively simple. "You spin them around fast enough, and they will fall apart," Fu said.
The researchers found that longer chains swam faster when rotated at the same frequency as shorter ones, demonstrating at a basic level that different formations could have different uses. There may be many possible formations of the beads, but "we're not at the stage where we know exactly what shape we want to get to at the end," Fu said.
"We've just scratched the surface here with a proof of principle," Fu said, "That's what makes it exciting. There are a lot of possibilities."
The research was published online July 28 in the journal Scientific Reports.
Original article on Live Science. | {
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Hold on to your hats ladies and gentleman, search is about to get smaller again if Barry Diller gets his way. Hot off their earnings call for the quarter, Diller’s IAC has mentioned that they would be open to a sale of their Ask.com search engine.
This right after the gigantic Yah00-Microsoft deal that will bring the vast majority of search under two roofs. Ask has long been the fourth wheel in search, never making much consumer headway. Its market share has hovered in lower single digits for most of recent memory.
But now Diller might be looking to slough it off, if he can find a buyer. Ask is currently monetized through a deal with Google, so it seems hardly likely that Microsoft will want to pay to play. Google has no need to purchase something that it already has the purse strings to, and Yahoo is leaving search.
Name another internet giant that is actively pushing on search and has the cash to buy Ask. Don’t have anyone in mind? You are not alone. A few years back there was a general back-of-the-envelope calculation that pegged 1% of the search market at a value of one billion dollars. By that math, Ask is worth around four billion dollars.
Hardly pocket change for a company that has never captivated the consumer.
If Diller does manage to convince a giant to purchase Ask, and it is rolled into a current offering, we will go from four to two search engines in just a year. You can almost touch the anti-trust legislation coming down the pipeline.
Of course, until a suitor comes along, Ask is just another person at the dance waiting for a date. But if you know Mr. Diller, you know that he has a propensity for getting his way, and making deals happen. He just might pull it off.
Given that Ask might be leaving us, we wanted to use their old logo that we love.
Read next: Home-made Virtual Reality Goggles: Brilliant or stupid? | {
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The Home of Programmer's File Editor
[Last updated February 1 1999]
This is a web server running at Lancaster University in the North of England, and it's the place where you can get the latest information on PFE and the definitive latest release files.
If you're not in Europe, you may find access is better if you use one of the PFE Mirror Sites
Version 1.01 is now available
All About The Current Release So what exactly is it?
Have a look here to see if what it's all about, and whether PFE is the sort of program you want to take home and introduce your hard disk to.
Who knows - you might actually like it! You might even find it's worth the price, which is zero.
And if you're wondering what I've been doing all this while since the last version (do tell me if you find out - I've been pondering on that too) take a look at the list of changes
Better than nothing, I suppose. OK, where is it?
Well, since it's you that's asking...
The absolute latest version - with all the newest, most annoying and irritating bugs we can muster - will always be found here on this home page (mostly because I'm too lazy to upload it anywhere else)
You expect me to believe that this stuff is free?
I could get people to pay for this? Yes, it's completely free - you'll find the minimalist terms and conditions in the various readme files (you do look at readme files, don't you?) in the release ZIP archives and in the help file; but basically you can use PFE at home, at work, in the car and any improbable location of your choice without paying me a penny (or cent, if you're across the planet from where I am).
But in the unlikely circumstance that you actually think you'd like to distribute PFE with your commercial product - (no, don't laugh - it has been known to happen) - I would want to sell you a licence. Well, I do have a mortgage to pay and a computer to support.
Well OK, but it'll fall to bits in the year 2000, won't it?
I don't think so - take a look at what I believe the PFE Year 2000 position is.
Remember
PFE is FreeWare
No licence
No registration
No fee
and
No support either
Did you just say "no support"?
Well, it is free, you know!
But you're not completely alone with it. If ever you find yourself Frequently Asking a Question (like "why can't I get this thing to open any files?" or "Did I really waste my time picking up this heap of binary?") then you might like to look here here for the Frequently Given Answer. There's actually a file in the release ZIP archives containing a lot of the material (called faq.txt, in faqt) but the version here has pretty colours, faulty HTML formatting and might even get updated one rainy weekend.
And as we all get to know and love the many quirks, oddities, pathological unco-operativenesses and absolutely unusable features in a release, you'll find that the collection of Application Notes, which will at least tell you what the problems are even if they aren't actually any assistance, will grow inexorably. Who knows, maybe a helpful and cogent one will manage to slip through one day.
Contacting Me
I'm always interested in hearing from PFE users - comments, suggestions, bug-reports and even unrestrainable praise will do nicely.
Mail me at [email protected] if you feel so inclined; I do read everything that comes in, but as I actually do need to earn a living from time to time I can't promise I'll have time to reply to it all. | {
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TAMPA, Fla. -- The New York Yankees are seriously contemplating dropping the $153 Million Man, Jacoby Ellsbury, to the bottom of the batting order this season. Since Ellsbury has been a Yankee, he has nearly always hit in the first three spots of the lineup, despite being barely an average player. It seems as if his seven-year deal could go down as the worst free-agent signing in franchise history.
Ellsbury’s potential fall in stature continues a downward slope to his Yankees career, which leaves it hard to imagine a happy ending with four more seasons remaining and Ellsbury's 34th birthday arriving in September.
This season, the Yankees are paying Alex Rodriguez $21 million not to play, per the terms of his final 10-year, $275 million contract. Owner Hal Steinbrenner has shown the team will eat money if there is no better option.
Ellsbury's time with the Yankees has been downright boring, with few memorable highlights and benchings in pivotal games. He has built no equity with the team.
The Yankees have played in just one playoff game in Ellsbury’s three years in the Bronx, and Ellsbury, with a lefty on the mound, didn't start it. Last September, when the Yankees were still contending for a playoff spot, Ellsbury sat in some big games against lefties as manager Joe Girardi favored another left-handed hitter, Brett Gardner. Now, Gardner -- with similar skills, but a contract for three fewer seasons and nearly $100 million less -- might be the guy at the top of the order, with Ellsbury near the bottom, likely in the seventh spot.
Is time running out for Jacoby Ellsbury in the Bronx? AP Images
Last year, Gardner had a .351 on-base percentage compared to Ellsbury’s .330 as they batted in the first two spots in the Yankees' order. Gardner also saw more pitches per at-bat (4.1 to 3.7). Girardi has floated the idea of splitting the two apart in the lineup, which usually in his tempered media parlance means he is going to do it. It's hard to come up with a compelling reason why Ellsbury would beat out Gardner for a spot at the top of the lineup card.
"We are going to evaluate as we move forward," said Girardi, leaving open the possibility of keeping Ellsbury and Gardner atop the order.
This spring, the Yankees have a plethora of outfield prospects and no historical loyalty to Ellsbury. If Ellsbury doesn't pick up his game -- and with Aaron Judge and Clint Frazier knocking on the Yankee Stadium door -- Ellsbury’s next demotion could be to the bench. Age, clearly, is not on his side.
“I don’t even let that enter my mind,” Ellsbury said. “I still have speed. I still have explosiveness. That’s how I view it. I try not to look at age, just how the body is feeling and the body feels good.”
The Yankees and Ellsbury had better hope there is some spark in that body, because he has yet to provide even one season commensurate with his nearly $22 million yearly wage.
“I still think that there is more in the tank with Jacoby Ellsbury for us,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said.
Ellsbury’s seven-year, $153 million contract is vying for the worst in Yankees history. Its shear enormousness, an overreaction to the impending loss of Robinson Cano in the winter of 2013, will likely give it the edge over Ed Whitson's, Carl Pavano's and Kei Igawa's in Yankees free-agent infamy. (Not that anyone should feel bad for Ellsbury; who wouldn’t want to be overpaid?)
Two days after Christmas in 1984, Whitson signed a five-year, $4.5 million deal. He went 15-10 with a whopping 5.38 ERA in a season-plus -- and went to war with both his skipper, Billy Martin, and angry Yankees fans -- before getting shipped back to San Diego in July 1986 for veteran reliever Tim Stoddard. In 2004, Pavano signed for four years and nearly $40 million, then was branded “American Idle” by the New York Post after making just 26 starts in three seasons (and not many good starts, either, as he posted a 5.00 ERA in pinstripes). Igawa was signed for five years and $20 million -- not including an additional $26 million posting fee they paid to the Japanese pitcher's former team, the Hanshin Tigers -- in what turned out to be a foolish response to the Red Sox winning the Daisuke Matsuzaka bid in 2006. Igawa threw a total of 71⅔ major league innings, with a 2-4 record along with a very unpleasant-looking 6.66 ERA.
New York, New Yuck A glance at a few of the worst free-agent deals in Yankees history. Player Signed Deal Tenure with Yankees Kevin Youkilis 2012 1-$12M Played 28 games in final MLB season A.J. Burnett 2008 5-$82.5M 4.79 ERA in 98 starts before trade to PIT Kei Igawa 2006 5-$20M* 6.66 ERA in 2 seasons Carl Pavano 2004 4-$39.95M 5.00 ERA in 26 starts over 4 seasons Jaret Wright 2004 3-$21M 4.99 ERA in 40 starts before trade to BAL Kenny Rogers 1995 4-$20M 5.11 ERA in 2 seasons before trade to OAK Hideki Irabu 1996 4-$12.8M 4.80 RTA in 3 seasons before trade to Expos Ed Whitson 1984 5-$4.4M 5.38 ERA in 2 seasons before trade to SD Steve Kemp 1982 5-$5.45M .264 BA, 19 HR in 2 seasons before trade to PIT * not including $26M posting fee paid to Hanshin Tigers
The three are among the worthy contenders, but Ellsbury’s utterly average production and flareless play give him the inside track because of the value and length of his contract.
In his three seasons in the Bronx, he has hit .264 with a .326 on-base percentage -- far below his career totals of .297 and .439 coming into the contract. He has stolen just 80 bases -- 10 more than he stole in a single season, 2009, with the Boston Red Sox. He has hit 32 homers in three seasons as a Yankee, which is the same amount he swatted in 2011 in Boston, the one year that seemed to justify his big-bucks signing. Ellsbury chases balls down in center field, but he throws worse than a New York Jets quarterback.
On top of this, Ellsbury brings no buzz to the team. He is as invisible in the clubhouse as he is on the field. He is not a leader, typically the role of higher-paid players. When things went wrong, Derek Jeter was almost always there to answer the tough questions. It is part of the job for the top crop of Yankees to communicate to the fans. Ellsbury is rarely in the clubhouse, especially when the big-time players are being held accountable.
Even Hal Steinbrenner has put Ellsbury slightly on blast, though in a much tamer way than his old man would have with such a contract.
“Jacoby is a great player,” Steinbrenner said. “He comes to play every day. He’s been great with the young kids. The stats are what the stats are. But I’ve enjoyed having him on the club.”
Will Steinbrenner enjoy having Ellsbury on the club for another four years? If he is demoted in the batting order, the next logical step is out of the starting lineup entirely, then the bench and then ... | {
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Formerly owned by Jeff Stork
Puff is arguably the finest surving and most celebrated Chevette Sandpiper in existance. He is an ultra rare Sandpiper edition, one of only about 2,000 produced. The Sandpiper featured a unique Cream Gold exterior color (the exact same color as 1977 Cadillac Naples Yellow) with a totally unique yellow interior featuring tri-toned reef cloth seats of yellow, cream and gold. The entire interior is color matched in yellow, including headliner, carpets, door trim, and even seatbelts. It's a wild explosion of 70's color.
Puff has led a charmed life. He was purchased new at Lange and Runkel Chevrolet of Redlands, CA on 10/15/76 by Mrs. Lillian Paul of Yucaipa. She loved Puff and kept him garaged with his seats wrapped in plastic. When she stopped driving, her daughter Arlene Hudson of Yosemite took the car because she liked it so much. He remained garaged and low mileage.
Jeff acquired the car from Mrs. Hudson in the summer of 2000 with just over 48,000 miles. He gave him a thorough detailing and new whitewall radials and did brakes and exhaust work. He is head and shoulders above any other Chevette Jeff had ever seen. Ed aquired the car from Jeff in 2004.
Puff is a lordly little car. He is in superior original condition and draws tons of attention. He never fails to win an award whenever he is shown. In addition, he and Jeff have been on CNN together discussing the phenomenon of the Nerd Car. The proudest moment was Good Friday, 2002, when they were featured on the Lifestyle section of USA Today. The Nerd Car is hot, and Puff is the Class President.
He's also extrememly loaded, even for a Chevette. Sandpiper Decor, Custom Exterior, Bumper Rub Strips, Body Side Moldings, Swing Out Windows, 1.6 Liter, Air Conditioning, Automatic, AM/FM Radio, Rear Seat Speaker, Deluxe Belts, and Whitewall Radials with Trim Rings. And he's 100% stock and untouched. Original manuals and warranty.
"Puff" was Jeff's second Sandpiper having owned one for his first car(photo below). | {
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by KEVIN GROSS
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other city officials discussed the rollout of new license plate readers and other police technology at a press conference March 6 at the 17th (Albany Park) District police station, 4650 N. Pulaski Road.
"Before there was a shot, and then we would try to prevent the second shot," Emanuel said. "Today, through technology, data, we’re actually going to a place to prevent the first shot from ever happening rather than reacting and preventing the second shot. That’s a full transformation of mindset, culture, infused with new technology."
Emanuel discussed the license readers at the conference with police superintendent Eddie Johnson, aldermen Ariel Reboyras (30th) and Patrick O’Connor (40th), and 17th District commander Ronald Pontecore Jr.
The license plate readers are mounted on top of squad cars, facing the front and the rear, which automatically scan any license plates in the vicinity before feeding plate numbers to squad vehicles’ computers, automatically cross- referencing the numbers with records such as stolen vehicle lists.
"Any time that there’s a vehicle involved in any sort of crime, be it an armed robbery, burglary, anything, if we can get a description of the plate or anything of the vehicle we can enter that into our system," Pontecore said after the conference. "And what happens is that these (police) cars, as they’re driving throughout the district, if they get anything close, even if it’s a partial plate, if they run into that it’ll pop on that (computer) screen and give them (officers) an alert that this car was involved in an incident, with details."
Plate readers have also been installed in many of the city’s red light and speed cameras and on mounted surveillance cameras.
Superintendent Johnson described the new plate readers as a major improvement over the old system of tracking suspects’ vehicles, which would often require officers to track plate numbers on the street and call a dispatcher to reference records.
"And remember, with the radio traffic that we have in any particular police district, that takes time, because there’s a lot of radio traffic so we had to wait until that bandwidth opens up so the dispatcher could take (the call). It could take some time," Johnson said. "This (technology) gives it to them in seconds, so we don’t have to wait. That makes us a lot more proactive with what were doing."
Emanuel announced the planned rollout of the first 200 patrol vehicles with plate readers on Jan. 8. Emanuel said that the rollout would bring the city to a total of 244 vehicles equipped with the technology, in addition to 126 pole mounted and mobile booster vehicles that are used by other city agencies.
The mayor said that technology being rolled out in the past 2 years such as plate readers or Strategic Decision Centers, which use predictive analytics to deploy patrols and allow officers to link with surveillance camera systems, could help with apprehending criminals and in preventative policing.
"The old ‘shoe-leather’ kind of policing will be influenced by technology from more license plate readers, more body cameras, more tasers, and each of these investments have enhanced both our predictive, proactive and professional policing throughout our city," Emanuel said. "We’re increasing the overall police officers and patrolmen, which are the backbone of the police department, by 1,000 officers. We also now have 19 (police) districts that have strategic centers that have predictive policing, Shot Spotters (that detect gunshot sounds), additional cameras, that go right to the iPhones of officers out on the street."
The 17th Police District rolled out its full Strategic Decision Center on Feb. 9, Pontecore said, although the district has not yet received Shot Spotter devices.
The new technology has not been without its critics concerning issues of privacy. A 2013 American Civil Liberties Union analysis of more than 26,000 pages of plate reader documents from law enforcement agencies in 38 states reported that in 2012, the State of Maryland’s plate reader technology registered only 0.2 percent of its more than 29 million plate reads as "hits," with 97 percent of hits being for a suspended or revoked registration or a vehicle emissions inspection violation, and 47 of every million read plates being potentially associated with a "serious crime" such as a stolen vehicle or a wanted person.
Additionally, an April 2016 article by The Doings newspaper reported that Darien and La Grange police found their plate readers to be faulty at times, sometimes scanning numbers on objects such as mailboxes or street signs as license plate numbers.
"Whether you live in an area that has a low or high crime rate, the fact of the matter is that we’re only as good of a community as the police force in our community, and these types of investments in the police department are the things that allow us to combat crime and to lower crime," O’Connor said. "And not only things that help you catch somebody who has committed a crime, but quite honestly they’re a deterrent."
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Both Delaware and Pennsylvania have won approval from the federal government to pursue back-up plans to save their ObamaCare subsidies if the healthcare law loses in court this month.
The two states have been "conditionally approved" to set up their own healthcare marketplaces, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced late Monday.
It is the administration's biggest step to date related to contingency planning for the high-stakes court case, and sends an important signal to the dozens of other states that may consider setting up an exchange in order to save their subsidies.
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Delaware and Pennsylvania are among the estimated 34 states that stand to lose healthcare subsidies if the Supreme Court rules against ObamaCare this month in King v. Burwell. They are the only two states to have submitted contingency plans for the ruling.
If the Obama administration loses in the case, any state that does not run its own marketplace – also known as an exchange – would no longer be able to hand out subsidies to people buying healthcare.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell sent letters to both states' health officials, in which she congratulated them for "reaching this significant milestone." Neither letter mentions the court case.
"These Marketplaces will be the gateway for each state’s residents and small businesses to shop for a broad choice of affordable, quality health insurance coverage," the agency wrote in a statement, which also announced new approval for a small business marketplace in Arkansas.
"We will continue to work collaboratively with States to provide the guidance and assistance they need to help consumers and small businesses compare and sign up for affordable private health insurance plans,” the agency wrote. | {
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The speaker of the Catalan parliament has insisted that the deposed regional president, Carles Puigdemont, remains the only candidate to form a new government, as he renewed his call for a negotiated political solution to the independence crisis.
Roger Torrent, who became speaker following December’s snap elections, told the Guardian that while he hoped for dialogue with the Spanish state, Catalonia urgently needed a new government to bring an end to direct rule from Madrid.
The region has been under the control of the Spanish government since the end of October, when Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, responded to Puigdemont’s unilateral push for independence by using article 155 of the constitution to sack his secessionist administration and call fresh elections.
“We need an investiture as soon as possible so we can have a government that’s effective and that can go about eliminating article 155 from the political landscape of Catalonia,” said Torrent.
“Carles Puigdemont is the only candidate. He’s been proposed by a parliamentary majority, and in a parliamentary democracy, the candidate who’s put up for an investiture debate is the one who commands the support of the majority of the MPs in the chamber.”
However, Puigdemont’s candidacy is deeply problematic. He has been in self-imposed exile in Brussels for more than three months and faces arrest on possible charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds the moment he returns to Spain.
Carles Puigdemont, right, talks to the press in Leuven, Belgium, on 6 February – 100 days into his self-imposed exile. Photograph: Thierry Roge/AFP/Getty Images
The Spanish government had flatly refused to countenance his return to office, suggesting instead that the Catalan parliament put forward a “clean candidate”. At the end of January, Torrent postponed a planned session to invest Puigdemont, saying he did not have the necessary legal guarantees to proceed.
Asked whether it would be quicker and easier to end direct rule by choosing a different candidate, Torrent said it was not his job as speaker to decide who should run for the presidency. Anyway, he added, Catalan voters had made their preference clear in the December poll, in which the pro-independence parties retained their parliamentary majority.
“The message from the ballot boxes on 21 December was: ‘We want to get our institutions back and we want to ditch 155’,” he said. “I think that’s obviously what a parliamentary majority is proposing. It’s not the Catalan parliament that has the problem here, it’s the Spanish government. What’s it going to do? Ignore the results of 21 December?”
Torrent would not be drawn on reports that Puigdemont – who has vowed to press on with the independence process – was planning to assume a symbolic role from Brussels or that his party, Together for Catalonia, was now considering whether to propose a different candidate.
But he did say that his party, the Catalan Republican Left, had sought negotiations with the Spanish government.
“We’ve always proposed dialogue,” he said. “The first thing I did when I took office was send a letter to Prime Minister Rajoy, asking for him to sit down and talk so we could look for a political solution to the problem.” The offer, he said, remained open.
Torrent, who was speaking after visiting the four Catalan leaders currently in Spanish prisons, accused the Madrid government of trying to turn a political issue into a judicial matter.
“They’re political prisoners; they’re there because of an idea,” he said. “If anyone says they’re not political prisoners, I suggest they read the judge’s rulings. They will see that, basically, the court is getting people to renounce their political ideas. That makes them political prisoners.”
While he understood the EU’s reluctance to be drawn into the Catalan question, Torrent said he expected it to “help us to defend democratic principles and … not allow there to be political prisoners in 21st century Europe. I think that’s the least we can ask of them”. | {
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In this course, you'll learn about some of the most widely used and successful machine learning techniques. You'll have the opportunity to implement these algorithms yourself, and gain practice with them. You will also learn some of practical hands-on tricks and techniques (rarely discussed in textbooks) that help get learning algorithms to work well. This is an "applied" machine learning class, and we emphasize the intuitions and know-how needed to get learning algorithms to work in practice, rather than the mathematical derivations.
Familiarity with programming, basic linear algebra (matrices, vectors, matrix-vector multiplication), and basic probability (random variables, basic properties of probability) is assumed. Basic calculus (derivatives and partial derivatives) would be helpful and would give you additional intuitions about the algorithms, but isn't required to fully complete this course. | {
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WASHINGTON—Lawrence Summers's prospects of becoming chairman of the Federal Reserve next year dimmed Friday, as an important Senate Democrat signaled that he would vote against the Harvard economist, should President Barack Obama nominate him to lead the central bank.
Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, considered a political centrist, joins at least three other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee who are expected to vote against Mr. Summers if he is nominated.
... | {
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1 in 4 of us will experience a health and wellbeing issue this year. Choosing to talk health and well being can break down barriers and can change lives and improve our communities at the same time.
1. You don’t have to be an expert – Just being there means a lot. You don’t have to have all the answers.
2. Ask questions and listen – Asking questions shows that you care and want to know how someone’s really doing.
3. Keep it simple – Small actions can make a big difference. Chat over a cup of tea & biscuit, take a walk or send a text.
4. Don’t try and fix it – Resist the urge to offer fixes and solutions. Often, listening will suffice.
Starting a conversation doesn’t have to be awkward and it could make a huge difference. | {
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Hello! This tool allows you to combine texture packs however you see fit. If I'm missing any texture packs, send me a message here . If you don't know what this is, check out the wiki . If you're STILL confused, why don't you just go play TagPro ? Before you ask, YES I will eventually add other parts of themes (splats, etc) | {
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This story originally appeared in the Nov. 2, 1992, issue of Sports Illustrated. Subscribe to the magazine here.
They don't jump out of their seats at Tampa Bay Lightning games to watch two players battling for the puck at center ice the way they did in Atlanta the last time the NHL launched a franchise in the South. They do, however, cheer just about everything else. A shot that comes within five feet of the net sends the crowd into a frenzy, and a routine save elicits an impassioned ohhhhh! When Sweet Home Alabama comes over the public-address system, the foot-stomping and caterwauling trigger seismic vibrations that rumble through Expo Hall. And when the Lightning strikes for a goal, better hang on to your hat.
No joke. After Chris Kontos scored for the third time in Tampa Bay’s home opener, on Oct. 7, a lone fan paid tribute to one of hockey’s most-honored traditions by flipping his cap over the boards and onto the ice. “You know what happened next?” says Lightning coach Terry Crisp. “The security guards tried to throw the guy out of the building.”
Powered by Kontos’s hat trick, Tampa Bay shocked the defending Campbell Conference champion Chicago Blackhawks 7–3. After a 3–2 victory over the Quebec Nordiques last Saturday night, the Lightning was 4-4-1, a surprising start for a first-year team. The Philadelphia Flyers, who went 31-32-11 in 1967-68, hold the record for the best finish by an expansion team. “It's been wild,” says Lightning general manager Phil Esposito, the Hall of Famer who has been the franchise’s driving force. “I’d be lying if I told you I thought we’d be this good.”
My Town, My Team: Tampa Bay Lightning fan is nuts about Bolts
Perhaps it’s the setting. Expo Hall’s dressing rooms open onto a view of palm trees gently swaying in the humid breeze. The Zamboni is parked outside, a few feet from a pond teeming with ducks. A mound of ice shavings melts rapidly beside Esposito’s convertible in the parking lot. Taking advantage of last week's balmy weather, the visiting Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs moved the trainer’s table outdoors. The casual air seems to work in favor of the Lightning.
“It’s a holiday atmosphere,” says Toronto coach Pat Burns, whose Leafs kept their focus and grounded the Lightning 5–2 last Thursday. “A lot of people are going to come here, get caught up in it and lose games.”
• 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs schedule, bracket, results, analysis
NHL teams should consider themselves forewarned: Don’t pack the golf clubs when you leave for Tampa, and after you get there, stay out of bars and restaurants that employ waitresses in T-shirts several sizes too small. “Oh no!” says Crisp. “We want them to have fun when they come to Tampa. We want them to lie out by the pool and eat at Hooters. But we also want them to know that they’re not going to enjoy themselves in our building.”
“It‘s loud in here,” says forward Craig Simpson of the Oilers, 6–1 losers to the Lightning at Expo Hall two days before the Leafs came to town. “The fans are fantastic, unbelievably supportive. It’s a tough place to play.”
Lightning fans proved to be loud and enthusiastic. John Biever/Sports Illustrated
Why Tampa? “Why not?” says the 50-year-old Esposito, who was fired as general manager of the New York Rangers in 1989. “The phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook. So I thought, I want to stay in this game, but why the hell do I have to be cold?”
Espo headed for virgin hockey territory, checking out Miami and Orlando before settling on Tampa, which is loaded with northern transplants, many of whom were presumably hockey fans in a previous life. To bait the hook, the Lightning flooded the area with a pamphlet called Everything You Need to Know about Hockey Without Getting on the Ice. Hat trick is in there, tucked between game misconduct and high sticking. “If we can get people who haven’t ever seen hockey to come out to one game,” says Crisp, “we’ll make them into hockey fans.”
It’s going to be an uphill battle. The Tampa area may be football-mad and baseball-starved, but it doesn’t seem all that hungry for hockey. The Lightning sold a disappointing 4,700 season tickets, and although the house was full on opening night, none of Tampa Bay’s three home games since then has been a sellout.
Expo Hall came to be know as "Espo Hall" after Phil Esposito, the architect of the Lightning. Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
The Atlanta Flames set an ominous example for hockey in the South, moving to Calgary in 1980 after eight seasons in Georgia. One of the biggest obstacles to Tampa’s long-term success may turn out to be the lack of a suitable arena. The group that promises to build a $100 million, privately financed 18,500-seat coliseum has yet to come up with the cash. When plans fell through to play in St. Petersburg’s giant Suncoast Dome, the Lightning settled for Expo Hall — the smallest arena in the league — seven miles east of downtown Tampa. Designed for the Florida State Fair, as well as horse shows, dog shows and the circus, Expo Hall looks like a can of Spam covered with aluminum siding. The team spent about $2 million to renovate the place, installing an ice surface, dressing rooms, scoreboards, a sound system and a broadcast booth. The front row, at ice level, is exactly 19 inches from the boards.
“I don’t care that it’s 85 degrees outside,” Esposito says. “The ice is here. The boards are here. The players are skating here. This isn’t Florida. It’s hockey.”
The Lightning is counting heavily on the annual migration of snowbirds to their winter homes. “What are the five toughest places to play in the NHL?” asks Crisp. “I say New York, the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit. We’ve got hard-core fans from all those places who come down here in the winter. It’s going to be five times as crazy in here when those people start showing up.”
Manon Rheume made history with the Lightning. Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
If they don’t, Esposito will at least be able to say that he tried everything. The Lightning has a catchy slogan (“Kick Ice”), snazzy uniforms and souvenirs that are selling almost as fast as those of the San Jose Sharks, a second-year franchise that sold more merchandise last season than any hockey team. Training camp was packed with sideshows, including a failed comeback by flamboyant Ron Duguay and the appearance in goal of Manon Rheaume, the first woman to play in an NHL exhibition game. We haven’t heard the last of Rheaume; she’ll spend the season with the Atlanta Knights, Tampa Bay’s farm team in the International Hockey League. Forward Brent Gretzky was in camp, too, but the Great One’s 20-year-old brother was also sent to Atlanta. He‘ll be back. But a funny thing happened on the way to the circus. “I looked around in camp,” says center Rob DiMaio, “and I saw the guys we had, and I said, ‘Geez, this looks like a good hockey team.’”
In the expansion draft last summer, Esposito concentrated on obtaining veterans like goalie Wendell Young and defensemen Joe Reekie, Doug Crossman, Peter Taglianetti and Rob Ramage. “That’s where you start, with defense and goaltending,” says Crisp, who played for two expansion teams, the 1967-68 St. Louis Blues and the ’72-73 New York Islanders. “Then you start worrying about finding your Mario Lemieux and your Brett Hull.”
No one on the Lightning roster will be mistaken for those guys. Instead, Tampa Bay must rely on players like Kontos, a 28-year-old free-agent forward who had been discarded by the Rangers, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Los Angeles Kings. As of Sunday, though, Kontos led the Lightning in goals, with eight.Roman Hamrlik, 18, the Czechoslovakian defenseman who was thefirst overall pick in the June amateur draft, showed in the Edmonton game that he can both rush the puck and shoot, scoring from the point with an explosive blast. “With the exception of Roman,” says Ramage, “we’re a cast of castoffs.”
Forward Chris Kontos scored the Lightning’s first goal and hat trick in the team's first game. Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
The fiery Crisp was a notorious screamer in his one previous NHL head-coaching job, with Calgary from 1987 to ’90, but he won the Stanley Cup in ’89. All Terrible Terry demands now is effort. “A lot of nights we’ll be successful,” he says. “A lot of nights we won’t. But anyone who pulls on that jersey knows he’s got to work. We won’t tolerate slack nights.”
Crisp keeps a hard hat emblazoned with the Lightning logo in a corner of the tiny office he shares with assistant coach Wayne Cashman. Crisp appreciates the difficulty of this construction job. “What appealed to me,” he says, “was when Phil said, ‘Let’s do something everyone says we can’t do.’”
Esposito has surrounded himself with so many of his friends and family that people are starting to call the Lightning's home arena Espo Hall. His brother, Tony, a Hall of Fame goalie, is director of player personnel. Phil’s daughter Carrie is a member of the hockey-operations staff. Cashman was his linemate and bodyguard with the Boston Bruins. Cashman’s daughter, Becky, is a marketing assistant. Esposito made a trade with the Bruins to get center Ken Hodge, son of the third member of that old Boston line.
Too bad the extended family doesn't have any lawyers. Esposito, never combative as a player, decided the time had come to kick ice when he spotted Toronto Star columnist Bob McKenzie after an Oct. 15 loss at Maple Leaf Gardens. He ordered McKenzie, against whom he has a long-standing grudge, out of the Lightning dressing room. When McKenzie rightfully refused to leave, a scuffle ensued. McKenzie filed a complaint with Toronto police, claiming that Esposito had hit him. Espo contends he merely delivered a gentle push.
Dealing with Toronto authorities should be a cakewalk compared with the task Espo Co. face at home. “We’re making progress,”says Crisp. “People are starting to talk about us in Tampa. My daughter tells me that some of her high school friends have even asked her for tickets — on the 50-yard line.”
Esposito was half right. This may be hockey, but it’s still Florida.
GALLERY: NHL expansion teams and their fates | {
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UPDATE (JUNE 22, 1:32 P.M.): Naomie reacted to Craig saying that he "cried" when he heard about her recent nose job when she appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Thursday, June 21. "He for sure did not cry," Naomie said (clip above). "I think that's just a dig at me."
Naomie also shared that Craig knew about her desire to get plastic surgery on her nose when they were dating. Head over to The Lookbook for even more on Naomie's recent procedure.
UPDATE (MAY 23, 4:47 P.M.): Apparently, Craig had a very emotional reaction when he first heard about Naomie's nose job. When asked on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Monday, May 21 if he liked the results of his ex-girlfriend's recent cosmetic procedure, Craig said, “Honestly? I cried."
Andy Cohen then asked if that was because Craig "liked her old nose better." “Yeah, it was tough,” he explained. “I’m happy for her because she’s happy, but it was just kind of like — it was a lot.”
The original story continues below.
One of the biggest changes Naomie Olindo has made in her life since breaking up with Craig Conover has been to her appearance. The Southern Charm friend confirmed that she got a nose job earlier this year.
When the subject of Naomie's procedure was brought up to Craig during a recent interview with Decider, he remarked how the move seemed like the official end to their chapter together as a couple. "I think that her getting the nose job kind of closed it for both of us. It just seemed after a while that the person I used to be in love with wasn’t really there anymore," Craig said. "I put all my focus into basically selling and fixing up my house and I’m launching a pillow line and a lifestyle brand, Flawed Creation, and it’s about actually embracing your differences and uniqueness and that’s what gives you your proprietary value and what makes you great. It seems that Naomie’s happy and always wanted to do that so I wish her the best."
Naomie defended her decision to have surgery on her nose to The Lookbook after sharing her after photo on Instagram in mid-February, which you can see, below. "Getting my nose done was something I've wanted since I was eight years old. It's still early in my recovery but I've never been happier. My surgeon, [NYC-based] Dr. [A Joshua] Zimm, did the most amazing job and my only regret is not having done it sooner! Plastic surgery shouldn't be taboo," she explained. "If there's something about yourself that you don't like and you have the opportunity to change it, why wouldn’t you? I did it for me and no one else and want to be as open as possible about it. I'm so happy with my decision and would do it 100 times over."
Craig previously opened up about why he and Naomie ultimately decided to call it quits when The Daily Dish caught up with him in March. "Naomie and I, we had the best of intentions. We were trying to work it out, but after a while we had to accept reality, and I wished things were different. I think we both did. But instead of banging your head against the wall every day, you really have to look in the mirror and be like, 'How long are we gonna keep lying to ourselves?'" he explained. "So fortunately, no one did anything bad. No one stepped out or cheated or anything, so there wasn't really any anger. It was just kind of disappointing and sad."
The Southern Charm lawyer also shared that he and Naomie don't really speak much these days, but he's hopeful they can have a friendship in the future. "There's no reason we shouldn't be friends," he told The Daily Dish. "I still love the girl to death. She's great."
Find out more about Craig and Naomie's breakup, below. | {
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The on-again, off-again Landmark Tower project is on again.
Tom Overby, the head of the Kansas Tornado Landmark Tower Project, told City Couincil members Monday that he and other backers of the project are going ahead despite the state's decision to withdraw the possibility of STAR-bond financing.
Overby, and his wife, Diane, presented the Council with a letter of commitment from a local property owner and a list of the project's core development group.
The project as now envisioned by Overby will sit on a 25-acre plot in north Edwardsville, one-fourth of a mile east of 110th Street on the north side of Riverview Avenue.
Though the footprint will be reduced considerably from the original 125-acre proposal, the project will contain all the same components, including a demonstration farm. Instead of 20 acres or more, for example, the farm will be reduced to a couple of acres, he said.
Overby told the Council that it is important to note that those involved in the project are more than just one or two people.
"The information we give the City Council are facts, which allows you to make good business decisions," he said.
The core development group identified by Overby includes:
¢ Avenue Area Inc., Overby's group.
¢ Norman Gaar, attorney and bond counsel.
¢ John Martin, developer.
¢ AG Edwards, bond placement.
¢ Crawford Architects & Engineering.
¢ Thornton Tomasetti - Engineering.
¢ Walton Construction, general contractor.
¢ Vegelahn Construction, construction manager.
The project includes 29 additional specialized companies, Overby said.
"This is a huge team," Overby said. "We plan on breaking ground this year. We've invested over $300,000 in cash and are ready to move this project forward."
Overby stressed to Council members that he needed some things from the city.
"I need to know, as soon as possible, from the mayor and the city council, and from your staff, where you plan on sewers."
Overby said the developers were anxious to get started.
"We look forward to working with you," he said.
Several Council members voiced their support of the project toward the end of the meeting.
Council member Craig Crider told the Overbys: "I am thrilled to receive this letter of commitment : I can't wait to get this thing going." | {
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There is some truth to the latter part of Mr. Sholle’s assessment. More than two hours north of Indianapolis and some distance from the nearest Interstate, Huntington, like other rural corners of the country, rarely gets much attention from outsiders.
At the same time, true to the spirit of its understated residents, Huntington’s political and union leaders shied away from the spotlight that their counterparts in Indianapolis sought out. Some feared that criticizing United Technologies publicly would undercut negotiations to save jobs.
About 100 jobs in sales, marketing and engineering will remain in Huntington after manufacturing ceases, and the company has been adding to its white-collar staff here. Unfortunately, most of the workers on the assembly lines would never be considered for these jobs because they lack college degrees and other credentials, like engineering experience.
While it is too late for the likes of Jim Sholle and Pat Saylors, even United Technologies’ chief executive, Greg Hayes, suggested recently that the years of cost-cutting at Carrier, the furnace and air-conditioner maker, had gone too far, putting short-term profits ahead of long-term growth.
The need to stay competitive was the reason the company gave for moving the jobs from Indiana to Mexico, but Carrier’s market share actually eroded slightly last year. So Carrier is making a course correction.
“We need to make investments, as I said before, in the sales force,” Mr. Hayes told analysts on Wall Street in December. “We need to get more feet on the street.”
“Bob is focused on it,” Mr. Hayes added, referring to Mr. McDonough’s new marching orders to invest, in what sounded like a mix of goal and threat. “Bob’s senior leadership team is focused on it, and we’ve got to get everybody in the organization focused on it equally, so more work to do there.” | {
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Nobelföreläsning
Bob Dylan under sitt första Stockholmsbesök 1966. Foto: Ronny Karlsson/DN/TT
© THE NOBEL FOUNDATION 2017. The Nobel Foundation has not obtained the right to assign any usage right to the Nobel Lecture to any third party, and any such rights may thus not be granted. All rights to the Nobel Lecture by Bob Dylan are reserved and the Nobel Lecture may not be published or otherwise used by third parties with one exception: the audio file containing the Nobel Lecture, as published at Nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Prize, may be embedded on other websites.
Här finns den engelska originaltexten.
NOBELFÖRELÄSNING AV BOB DYLAN
När jag tilldelades Nobelpriset i litteratur fick det mig att börja undra över hur mina sånger egentligen förhåller sig till litteraturen. Jag ville fundera över den saken och se vad det fanns för samband. Jag ska utveckla det för er. Och troligen blir det genom att ta en omväg, men jag hoppas att det jag säger ska vara givande och meningsfullt.
Om jag ska förklara hur det hela började, måste jag nog starta med Buddy Holly. Buddy dog när jag var i artonårsåldern och han var tjugotvå. Från det ögonblick jag hörde honom, kände jag släktskapet. Jag kände att det fanns ett band mellan oss, som om han var min storebror. Jag tyckte rentav att jag var lik honom. Buddy spelade den musik jag älskade – den musik jag växte upp med: country & western, rock'n'roll och rhythm & blues. Tre musikaliska traditionslinjer som han flätade samman och förenade till en genre. En etikett. Och Buddy skrev sånger – sånger med vackra melodier och fantasifulla texter. Och han sjöng fantastiskt – han sjöng med många olika röster. Han var arketypen: allt jag inte var och ville bli. Jag såg honom bara en gång, och det var några dagar innan han gick bort. Jag var tvungen att resa femton mil för att se honom spela, och jag blev inte besviken.
Han var kraftfull och eggande och behärskade allt med sin närvaro. Jag stod bara två meter bort. Han var rent fascinerande. Jag tittade på hans ansikte, hans händer, hans sätt att stampa med foten, hans stora svarta glasögon, ögonen bakom glasen, hans sätt att hålla gitarren, hans sätt att stå, hans prydliga kostym. Hela killen. Han såg äldre ut än tjugotvå. Det fanns någonting slutgiltigt hos honom, och han ingöt övertygelse i mig. Sedan, fullkomligt oväntat, inträffade någonting egendomligt. Han tittade mig stint i ögonen, och någonting gick från honom till mig. Jag visste inte vad det var. Det gjorde mig dödsförskräckt.
Jag tror att det var ett par dagar senare som hans plan störtade. Och någon – en människa jag aldrig hade sett förut – gav mig en skiva där Leadbelly sjöng "Cottonfields". Den skivan ändrade mitt liv i samma stund. Den tog mig med till en värld som jag inte visste fanns. Det var som en detonation. Som om jag hade vandrat i mörkret, och plötsligt skingrades mörkret av ljus. Det var som om någon hade välsignat mig. Jag måste ha spelat den skivan hundra gånger.
Den var utgiven på ett skivmärke som jag aldrig hade hört talas om, och det fanns ett häfte med reklam för andra artister på samma etikett: Sonny Terry och Brownie McGhee, The New Lost City Ramblers, Jean Ritchie, stråkensembler. Jag hade aldrig hört talas om någon av dem. Men jag förmodade att om de fanns på samma skivmärke som Leadbelly, så måste de vara bra, och då måste jag lyssna på dem. Jag ville veta allt om vad det där var för något, och jag ville spela den sortens musik. Jag gillade fortfarande den musik som jag växte upp med, men just då var den glömd. Jag tänkte över huvud taget inte på den. För ögonblicket var den bara borta.
Jag var fortfarande kvar hemma, men ville komma iväg så fort som möjligt. Jag ville lära mig den där musiken och träffa dem som spelade den. Till sist gav jag mig av, och jag lärde mig verkligen att spela de där sångerna. De var annorlunda än de sånger jag förut hade brukat höra på radion. De var livfullare och mera verklighetstrogna. När det gällde sånger i radio kunde en artist göra succé med lite tur och med hjälp av slumpen, men det hade ingen betydelse bland dem som höll på med folkmusik. Allt kunde slå. Det enda som krävdes var att man kunde spela och höll sig till melodin. Några av dessa sånger var enkla, andra inte. Jag hade en naturlig känsla för gamla ballader och för countryblues, men allting annat var jag tvungen att lära mig från grunden. Jag spelade för små folksamlingar, ibland inte fler än fyra eller fem personer i ett rum eller i ett gathörn. Man måste ha en bred repertoar, och man måste veta vad man skulle spela vid vilket tillfälle. En del sånger var finstämda, andra måste skrikas ut för bli uppfattade.
Genom att lyssna på alla de tidiga folkmusikartisterna och genom att själv sjunga deras sånger, lär man sig idiomet. Man internaliserar det. Man sjunger det i form av ragtime blues, arbetssånger, sjömansvisor från Georgia, ballader från Appalacherna och cowboysånger. Man uppfattar alla finesserna, och man lär sig detaljerna.
Man förstår vad det handlar om. Att ta fram pistolen och att stoppa tillbaka den i fickan. Att jaga fram genom trafiken, att tala i mörkret. Man vet att Staggy Lee var en dålig människa och att Frankie var en bra tjej. Man vet att Washington är en stad för borgarbrackor, och man har hört den djupa rösten i bluessättningen av Johannes Uppenbarelser, och man har sett Titanic sjunka i en sumpig å. Och man är kompis med balladernas stökiga irländska luffare och rebeller. Man har hört de sordinerade trummorna och och de nedtonade militärflöjterna. Man har sett den resolute Lord Donald sticka kniven i sin hustru, och åtskilliga av ens kamrater har svepts i vitt linne.
Jag lärde mig att behärska idiomet. Jag kunde retoriken. Jag missade ingenting – greppen, teknikerna, hemligheterna, mysterierna – och jag kände också till alla öde vägar där färden gick. Jag fick alltsammans att fungera tillsammans och att röra sig med nuets ström. När jag började skriva egna sånger var folkmusikens idiom den enda vokabulär jag kunde, och det var den jag använde.
Men jag hade också någonting annat. Jag hade principer och en känslokultur och en genomtänkt verklighetsuppfattning. Det hade funnits i mig ett bra tag. Jag lärde mig alltsammans i mellanstadiet. Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Gullivers resor, En berättelse om två städer och mycket annat – typisk mellanstadieläsning, som gav ett sätt att se på livet, ett begrepp om den mänskliga naturen och en måttstock för verkligheten. Jag tog med mig allt det där när jag började skriva sångtexter. Och teman från dessa böcker banade sig väg till mina sånger, antingen medvetet eller oavsiktligt. Jag ville skriva sånger som inte liknade någonting man någonsin hade hört, och dessa teman var grundläggande.
Vissa böcker har dröjt kvar i mig sedan jag läste dem i skolan. Jag vill berätta om tre av dem, Moby Dick, På västfronten intet nytt och Odysséen.
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Moby Dick är en fascinerande bok, en bok fylld av scener med starkt dramatisk nerv och dramatisk dialog. Boken ställer krav på läsaren. Handlingen är enkel nog. Den mystiske kapten Ahab – skeppare på ett fartyg med namnet Pequod – en sjukligt självcentrerad person med träben jagar sin nemesis, den stora vita valen Moby Dick, som tog hans ben. Och han jagar honom hela vägen över Atlanten runt Afrikas sydspets och till Indiska oceanen. Han jagar valen runt jordens båda halvklot. Det är ett abstrakt mål, ingenting påtagligt eller bestämt. Han kallar Moby Dick för kejsaren och ser i honom det onda förkroppsligat. Ahab har fru och barn hemma i Nantucket, som han vagt erinrar sig då och då. Man kan gissa hur det kommer att gå.
Fartygets besättning består av män av olika raser, och den som siktar valen ska få ett guldmynt i belöning. Mängder av symboliska stjärntecken, religiösa allegorier och stående motiv. Ahab möter andra valfångare och pressar kaptenerna på uppgifter om Moby Dick. Har de sett honom? Det finns en galen profet, Gabriel, på ett av fartygen, och han spår Ahabs fördömelse. Han säger att Moby Dick är en inkarnation av Shakerguden och att varje beröring med honom kommer att leda till katastrof. Han säger det till kapten Ahab. En annan skeppare – kapten Boomer – har mist en arm i Moby Dicks gap. Men han finner sig i det och är glad att han har överlevt. Han kan inte godta Ahabs hämndbegär.
Denna bok lär oss hur olika människor förhåller sig till en och samma erfarenhet. Det är mycket av Gamla testamentet, av biblisk allegori: Gabriel, Rakel, Jerobeam, Bilha, Elias. Även hedniska namn: Tashtego, Flask, Daggoo, Fleece, Starbuck, Stubb, Martha's Vineyard. Hedningarna är avgudadyrkare. Vissa tillber små beläten av vax, andra sådana av trä. Vissa dyrkar elden. Pequod är namnet på en indianstam.
Moby Dick är en sjöfararberättelse. En av männen, berättaren, säger "Kalla mig Ismael." Någon frågar var han kommer ifrån, och han säger: "Det finns inte på kartan. Riktiga platser gör aldrig det." Stubb fäster inget avseende vid någonting utan säger att allting är förutbestämt. Ismael tillbringar hela sitt liv på seglande skepp. Han kallar dem sitt Harvard och sitt Yale. Han håller sig för sig själv.
Pequod drabbas av en orkan. Kapten Ahab menar att det är ett gott omen. Starbuck menar att det är ett dåligt omen och funderar på att döda Ahab. Så snart stormen är över, faller en av besättningsmännen från masten och drunknar, ett förebud om vad som ska komma. En pacifistisk kväkare, som egentligen är en blodtörstig affärsman, anförtror Flask att "vissa män som såras finner vägen till Gud, andra hamnar i bitterhet".
Ingredienserna är många. Alla myterna: den judisk-kristna bibeln, hinduiska myter, brittiska legender, Sankt Göran, Perseus, Herakles – alla är de valfångare. Grekisk mytologi, den bloddrypande uppgiften att stycka en val. Det finns många sakupplysningar i boken, geografiska kunskaper, valolja – bra att ha när en kung ska krönas – adelsfamiljer i valfångstnäringen. Valolja används till att smörja kungar. Valens historia, frenologi, klassisk filosofi, kvasivetenskapliga teorier, argument för diskriminering – allt tas med och nästan ingenting är riktigt förnuftsenligt. Högkultur, lågkultur, jakten på illusioner, jakten på döden, den stora vita valen, vit som en isbjörn, vit som en vit man, kejsaren, nemesis, ondskan förkroppsligad. Den vansinnige kaptenen som miste sitt ben för bra många år sedan och försöker angripa Moby Dick med kniv.
Vi ser endast tingens yta. Vi kan tolka det som finns därunder på det sätt vi finner lämpligt. Besättningsmän går omkring på däck och lyssnar efter sjöjungfrur, och hajar och gamar följer fartyget. Man avläser kranier och ansikten som man läser en bok. Här är ett ansikte. Jag ställer det framför dig. Läs det om du kan!
Tashtego säger att han dog och återföddes. Hans dagar är därefter en gåva. Men det var inte Kristus som räddade honom, han säger sig ha räddats av en annan människa och till råga på allt en icke-kristen. Han parodierar uppståndelsen.
När Starbuck säger åt Ahab att han borde dra ett streck över det förflutna, fräser kaptenen tillbaka: "Tala inte med mig om hädelse, du där, jag skulle drämma till solen om den förolämpade mig." Ahab är även han en poet med talets gåva. Han säger: "Vägen till mitt orubbliga mål är lagd med järnskenor, och min själ har skåror för att glida på dem." Eller den här raden: "De synliga föremålen är bara masker av papp." Citerbara poetiska meningar som är omöjliga att överträffa.
Till slut får Ahab syn på Moby Dick och harpunerna plockas fram. Båtar sätts i sjön, Ahabs harpun har döpts i blod. Moby Dick angriper Ahabs båt och förstör den. Följande dag siktar han Moby Dick på nytt. Återigen sätts båtar i sjön, Moby Dick angriper återigen Ahabs båt. Tredje dagen sätts ytterligare en båt i sjön. Mer religiös allegori. Han har uppstått. Moby Dick går till anfall ytterligare en gång, rammar Pequod och sänker fartyget. Ahab trasslar in sig i harpunlinorna och kastas ur båten i en vattenfylld grav.
Ismael överlever. Han ligger i sjön, flytande på en kista. Det är ungefär alltsammans. Det är hela historien. Detta tema och allt som det förde med sig skulle finna vägen till en hel del av mina sånger.
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På västfronten intet nytt är en annan bok som hade samma verkan. På västfronten intet nytt är en skräckskildring. Det är en bok om att förlora sin oskuld, sin tro på en meningsfull värld och sitt mänskliga deltagande. Du är fast i en mardröm. Fångad i en egendomlig malström av död och smärta. Du kämpar mot utplåningen. Du stryks bort från kartan. En gång var du en oskyldig ung man med den stora drömmen att bli konsertpianist. En gång älskade du livet och världen, och nu skjuter du den i stycken.
Dag efter dag sticks du av bålgetingar, och maskar sörplar i sig ditt blod. Du är ett djur inträngt i ett hörn. Du hör inte hemma någonstans. Regnet faller entonigt. Det är ändlösa anfall, giftgas, nervgas, morfin, strömmar av brinnande bensin, rotande i avfall efter något att äta, influensa, tyfus, dysenteri. Livet faller sönder runt omkring dig, och granaterna visslar. Detta är helvetets nedre avdelning. Lera, taggtråd, skyttegravar vimlande av råttor, råttor som äter döda mäns inälvor, skyttegravar fyllda med smuts och avföring. Någon ropar: "Du där! Upp och slåss!"
Vem vet hur länge det här eländet kommer att fortsätta? Krig har inga gränser. Du är på väg att utplånas, och ditt ben blöder alldeles för häftigt. Du dödade en människa igår och talade till hans lik. Du sa till honom att när allt det här är över, ska du ägna resten av ditt liv åt att ta hand om hans familj. Vem gagnar detta? Statsmännen och generalerna vinner ära, och många andra tjänar pengar. Men du gör skitjobbet. En av dina kamrater säger: "Hallå där, vart är du på väg?" Och du säger: "Låt mig vara i fred, jag är snart tillbaka." Sedan ger du dig ut i dödens skogar på jakt efter en bit korv. Du fattar inte hur någon i det civila livet kan ha något mål i tillvaron. Alla deras bekymmer, alla deras önskningar – är obegripliga.
Mer kulspruteeld, mer kroppsdelar hängande i taggtråden, fler bitar av armar och ben och skallar där fjärilar sätter sig på tänderna, fler ohyggliga sår, var som strömmar ur porerna, lungskador, skador som är för stora för kroppen, kadaver osande av gas och döda kroppar från vilka det kommer kräkljud. Överallt död. Ingenting annat är möjligt. Någon kommer att döda dig och använda ditt lik som måltavla. Dina stövlar går också åt. Nu är de din dyrbara ägodel. Men snart kommer de att sitta på någon annans fötter.
Det kommer fransoser mellan träden. Skoningslösa skitstövlar. Dina patroner är nästan slut. "Det är inte sportsligt att göra ett nytt anfall så snart", säger du. En av dina vapenbröder ligger på marken och du vill ta honom till fältsjukhuset. Någon annan säger: "Du kan bespara dig den åkturen." "Vad menar du?" "Vänd på honom, så får du se."
Du väntar på nyheter. Du förstår inte varför kriget inte är slut. Armén lider sådan brist på ersättningstrupper att man kallar in unga pojkar som inte är till någon större nytta på slagfältet, men man kallar in dem ändå för de vuxna männen håller på att ta slut. Sjukdom och förnedring har knäckt dig. Du blev förrådd av dina föräldrar, av dina lärare, av prästerna och till och med av regeringen.
Generalen med den sakta brinnande cigarren förrådde dig också – gjorde ett råskinn och en mördare av dig. Om du kunde, skulle du sätta en kula i pannan på honom. På din kompanichef också. Du fantiserar om att ifall du hade pengarna, skulle du utfästa en belöning åt den som tog livet av honom, likgiltigt på vilket sätt. Och om gärningsmannen själv strök med i processen, skulle pengarna gå till hans arvingar. Översten också, med sin kaviar och sitt kaffe – honom får vi inte glömma. Tillbringar all sin tid på officersbordellen. Du skulle också vilja se honom stenad till döds. Sedan alla dessa Tommies och Johnnies med sina fyllevisor och whiskytunnor. Dödar du tjugo kommer det tjugo till. Du känner stanken i din näsa.
Du har lärt dig att förakta den äldre generationen, som satte dig i den här galenskapen, i den här tortyrkammaren. Dina kamrater dör runt omkring dig. De dör av bukskador, dubbla amputationer, krossade höftben, och du tänker: "Jag är bara tjugo år, men jag kan döda vem som helst. Till och med min far om han kom emot mig."
Igår försökte du rädda en sårad kurirhund, och någon skrek: "Var inte en idiot!" En fransos ligger och gurglar vid dina fötter. Du stack en kniv i hans mage, men han lever fortfarande. Du vet att du borde göra slut på honom, men du kan inte. Du hänger på det verkliga järnkorset, och en romersk soldat lyfter en svamp med ättikvin till dina läppar.
Månaderna går. Du reser hem på permission, Du kan inte tala med din far. Han sade: "Du är en ynkrygg om du inte tar värvning!" Och så din mamma, som när du är på väg ut säger: "Akta dig för de franska flickorna!" Mer vansinne. Du slåss en vecka eller en månad och erövrar tio meter. Nästa månad tas de där metrarna tillbaka av fienden.
All denna kultur från tusen år tillbaka, visdomen – Platon, Aristoteles, Sokrates – vad hände med den? Den borde ha förhindrat det här. Dina tankar går till hemmet. Du är skolpojke igen och går bland höga popplar. Det är ett behagligt minne. Fler bomber faller på dig från luftskeppen. Du måste få stil på det här. Du kan inte ens titta på någon av rädsla för att fel sak skulle hända. Massgraven. Det finns inga andra möjligheter.
Då märker du att körsbärsträden blommar, och du ser att naturen är opåverkad av det som pågår. Popplarna, de röda fjärilarna, blommornas bräckliga skönhet, solen – du ser att naturen är ointresserad. Av våldet och av hela mänsklighetens lidande. Naturen märker ingenting.
Du är alldeles ensam. Sedan träffas du i tinningen av ett granatsplitter och dör. Du är avfärdad, struken. Du är förintad. Jag lade ner boken och stängde den. Jag ville aldrig läsa någon krigsroman igen, och det gjorde jag aldrig heller.
Charlie Poole från North Carolina sjöng en sång som hade med allt det där att göra. Den heter "Inte menar du mig", och texten går så här:
Jag såg en skylt i ett fönster ute på stan i går.
Välj armén och se dig om i världen några år!
Då kommer du till platser alla drömmer om,
Du träffar roligt folk där och lär dig döda dom.
Å, inte menar du mig, inte menar du mig!
Kanhända jag är lite knäpp, men min skalle är okej.
Inte menar du mig, inte menar du mig!
Döda med gevär, vilket besvär!
Inte menar du mig!
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Odysséen är en storslagen bok, och man finner teman från den i många låtskrivares ballader: "Homeward Bound", "Green, Green Grass of Home", "Home on the Range" och även i mina egna sånger.
Odysséen är en underlig berättelse, rik på äventyr, om en vuxen man som försöker återvända hem efter ett krig. Han befinner sig på sin långa hemresa, och den är full av fällor och fallgropar. Han är dömd att irra omkring. Han drivs alltid ut till havs, och då har det alltid varit nära ögat. Stora stenblock plumsar kring hans båt. Han retar upp fel personer. Det finns bråkmakare i hans besättning. Förräderi. Hans män förvandlas till svin och blir sedan återförvandlade till yngre och vackrare män. Han är alltid i färd med att rädda någon. Han är på resande fot men gör en hel del uppehåll.
Han driver iland på en öde ö. Han finner övergivna grottor och gömmer sig i dem. Han möter jättar som säger "Jag ska äta upp dig sist!" Och han räddar sig undan jättarna. Han försöker komma hem, men han kastas hit och dit av vindarna, rastlösa vindar, kalla vindar, ogina vindar. Han färdas långt, och sedan blåser de honom tillbaka igen.
Han får alltid förvarningar om vad som ska inträffa. Han rör vid saker som man sagt åt honom att låta bli. Det finns två vägar att välja mellan, och båda leder fel. Båda är riskabla. Längs den ena kan man drunkna, längs den andra kan man svälta. Han ger sig in i smala sund med skummande virvelströmmar, som slukar honom. Han möter sexhövdade monster med vassa huggtänder. Blixtar ljungar kring honom. Han måste svinga sig upp i hängande grenar för att rädda sig ur en strid flod. Några gudinnor och gudar beskyddar honom, andra vill döda honom. Han byter identitet. Han är utmattad. Han faller i sömn och vaknar till ljudet av skratt. Han berättar sin historia för främlingar. Han har varit borta i tjugo år. Han bars iväg någonstans och lämnades där. Han har fått gift i sitt vin. Det har varit en hård resa.
På många sätt har samma saker hänt även dig. Även du har fått gift i ditt vin. Även du har delat bädd med fel kvinna. Även du har trollbundits av magiska röster, ljuva röster med underliga melodier. Även du har kommit ett gott stycke på väg och sedan blåsts tillbaka av vinden. Och det har varit nära ögat för dig också. Du har retat upp fel personer. Och även du har irrat omkring i landet. Även du har känt den elaka vinden, den som inte för något gott med sig. Och det är ändå inte allt.
När han kommer hem, blir det inte precis lättare. Skurkar har flyttat in och utnyttjar hans hustrus gästfrihet. Och de är alldeles för många. Och fast han är större än dem alla och bäst på allt – den bäste snickaren, den bäste jägaren, den som vet mest om djur, den bäste sjömannen – är det inte hans mod som kommer att rädda honom utan hans list.
Alla dessa slöfockar kommer att få betala ett pris för att de har skändat hans palats. Han kommer att förklä sig till en usel tiggare, och en av det lägre tjänstefolket kommer att sparka ner honom för trappan, övermodigt och enfaldigt. Tjänarens övermod gör honom upprörd, men han behärskar sin vrede. Han är en mot hundra, men de ska alla stupa, även de starkaste. Han var ingen. Och när allt är över till sist, när han äntligen är hemma, sitter han med sin fru och berättar historierna för henne.
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Så vad betyder alltsammans? Jag själv och många låtskrivare har påverkats av dessa teman. Och de kan ha många olika betydelser. Om en sång gör intryck på dig så är det allt som räknas. Jag behöver inte veta vad en sång betyder. Jag har lagt in många olika saker i mina sånger. Jag tänker inte bekymra mig om vad alltsammans betyder. När Melville stuvade in Gamla testamentet, referenser till bibeln, vetenskapliga teorier, protestantiska trossatser och all den där kunskapen om havet och segelfartyg och valar i en och samma berättelse, tror jag inte att han bekymrade sig om det heller – om vad alltsammans betyder.
Likaså John Donne, diktarprästen som levde på Shakespeares tid, när han skrev följande ord: "Se Sestos och Abydos, hennes bröst. Inte hos två älskare utan hos två kärlekar, som reden." Jag vet inte vad det heller betyder. Men det låter bra. Och man vill ju att ens sånger ska låta bra.
När Odysseus i Odysséen besöker den ryktbare krigaren Akilles i underjorden – han som bytte ett långt liv i fred och belåtenhet mot ett kort liv fullt av ära och berömmelse – säger Akilles till Odysseus att alltsammans var ett stort misstag. "Jag dog, det var bara det." Det fanns ingen ära. Ingen odödlighet. Om han kunde, skulle han återvända till jorden som en usel slav hos en fattig bonde hellre än att vara det han är – kung i de dödas rike. Och vilka svårigheter han än skulle möta i livet, skulle de vara att föredra framför att befinna sig på denna döda plats.
Det är också vad sångerna är. Våra sånger lever i de levandes land. Men sånger är inte som litteratur. De är menade att sjungas, inte läsas. Orden i Shakespeares pjäser var menade att framföras på scen, precis som sångtexter är menade att sjungas, inte läsas på en sida. Och jag hoppas att några av er får möjligheten att lyssna till dessa texter på det sätt som de var avsedda att höras: i en konsert eller på en skiva eller hur nu folk lyssnar på sånger i våra dagar. Jag återvänder till Homeros, som säger: "Sjung, o gudinna, i mig och låt så historien berättas."
Översättning: Horace Engdahl | {
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Bills Mafia was the story of last season off the field.
The passionate Buffalo fanbase, who you frankly can’t blame for getting piss drunk before games, brings it every week with their mix of extreme table smashing and other intoxicated shenanigans.
This season’s off to a good start, with a Bills fans likely breaking his coccyx with a leap from the top of his car.
Someone carry him inside, I think he broke his ass. #BillsMafia A video posted by NFL Trash Talkers (@nfltrashtalkers) on Sep 15, 2016 at 4:39pm PDT
We’re guessing these fans never made it in. Good thing he’ll be too drunk to remember watching his team lose.
@barstoolsports bills mafia off to a blazing start…3 hours to kickoff…? credit: the miz pic.twitter.com/efDgHmd8JW — Jon Kenney (@jonkenney3) September 15, 2016
Bills fans know how to tailgate…until they don’t. ??? pic.twitter.com/RZXRt0gAvF — Jeff Zell (@Jeff_Zell) September 16, 2016
Bills fans are amazing RT @kelseyjarosz: In honor of the home opener being tonight, GO BILLS ?❤️? !!! pic.twitter.com/4vZjUIjvX6 — con (@CDthaSad) September 16, 2016
#billsmafia putting Smokeshows through tables over on ?barstoolparties snap chat A video posted by Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) on Sep 15, 2016 at 7:02pm PDT
Oh, and then there’s this
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Some staff info from today's Space Dandy Animestyle event.
- Masaaki Yuasa is not only directing, but also doing animation direction for ep 16.
- Ep 18 is solo key animated by Kiyotaka Oshiyama.
- Ep 23 is written by Keiko Nobumoto, featuring designs by Katsuhiro Otomo with animation direction by Yoshimichi Kameda (source is not 100% sure about this).
- Ep 25 is solo key animated by Michio Mihara and it's a low budget episode with only 2800 drawings, because they used too much money on the previous episodes and the finale.
- Final episode is described as "full force of great animators going on rampage" and it's in production now.
Reply · Report Post | {
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Crédits photo : Philippe Huguen / AFP
Ce que l’on reproche à Rokhaya Diallo, journaliste, chroniqueuse et essayiste aux opinions tranchées, proche, selon ses détracteurs, des positions du Parti des Indigènes de la Républiques ? Précisément, ses opinions. Mais ce qui aurait fait scandale pour la plupart de la caste journalistique, qui n’aurait toléré un seul instant qu’un de leur confrère-bien-établi-mâle-et-blanc soit un jour sanctionné pour des prises de positions qui seraient considérées comme trop peu consensuelles, marche en revanche pour Rokhaya Diallo. Sa seule présence au CNNum ferait obstacle à la « sérénité pour travailler », selon Mounir Mahjoubi, secrétaire d’Etat au Numérique, qui a cassé mercredi la nomination par décret qui avait été publiée deux jours avant.
Ayant à plusieurs reprises réaffirmé son opposition aux lois sur les signes religieux ostentatoires dans les établissements scolaires et sur le port du voile intégral dans l’espace public, avoir parlé de « racisme d’Etat » à propos du système politico-institutionnel hexagonal, ne s’être pas solidarisée, en 2011, de Charlie Hebdo, pour la première publication des caricatures de Mahomet, ou encore avoir défendu le festival afro-féministe d’août 2016 à Reims, Rokhaya Diallo serait devenue le symbole de tout ce qui peut nuire à la République. C’est à ce titre que la députée LR Valérie Boyer a ouvert les hostilités contre Diallo, dès mercredi, y incluant le rappeur Axiom. C’est ainsi que le gouvernement a fini par céder : persona non grata.
Que Rokhaya Diallo soit chroniqueuse à l’émission de Cyril Hanouna n’est pas un signe d’anti-féminisme. Avoir une lecture à rebours d’un « féminisme » qui ferait du voile le symbole par excellence de l’oppression des femmes, oui. A l’opposé, tout à sa volonté de faire de Rokhaya Diallo une dangereuse « personnalité politique clivante qui méprise une partie de la population », Boyer en vient à oublier que Diallo a été la seule française invitée au lancement de la Fondation Obama, la « main gauche » de l’impérialisme étasunien. Ni Frantz Fanon, ni CLR James, qui aujourd’hui seraient traités d’islamo-gauchistes, ne se seraient prêtés à ces petits accommodements : Obama d’un côté, l’ONU de l’autre, l’émission people et le CNNum pour finir. Mais c’est tout le reste qui fait scandale pour Boyer, Mahjoubi et les autres.
Être femme, Noire, et défendre ses idées, c’est trop pour la République des Droits de l’Homme. C’est trop pour Valls qui ne perd pas une occasion pour attaquer Danielle Obono, députée France Insoumise de Paris. C’est trop pour la droite qui débouche les égouts du racisme qui ne dit pas son nom (quoi que Wauquiez fasse des efforts remarquables de clarification). La chasse aux sorcières contre Rokhaya Diallo n’est jamais que l’expression, au plus haut niveau, de mécanismes structurels sur lesquels le système dans son ensemble construit ses instruments de contrôle, d’oppressions multiples et, le cas échéant, de répression. Nommée un lundi, éjectée un mercredi, le temps d’un tweet d’une députée LR anciennement porte-flingue de François Fillon et de quelques déclarations de l’ex-Premier ministre le plus impopulaire de l’histoire de la V° République, l’homme qui s’est converti à la barbe : Manuel Valls. Voilà qui est révélateur. | {
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For years there were whispers of steroids, but no proof. His tests either came back clean, or he was fighting for a promotion in a country that doesn’t require testing. He went from a lean lightweight to a mammoth-sized heavyweight, not even overshadowed by Brock Lesnar. Overeem has claimed that eating horse meat is responsible for his size. If true, sign me up.
However, Alistair Overeem finds himself on the receiving end of a nine-month suspension handed down by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone (fourteen times higher than the normal amount in a human male). The question to be answered – where will Alistair’s fate lie within the ZUFFA organization once his suspension is up?
Dana White has never been silent when it comes to his fighters and the use of illegal substances. One infraction and you can find yourself in the unemployment line, and there are many fighters who have been subjected to this (i.e. Nate Marquardt, Kimo Leopoldo, Sean Sherk, Hermes Franca, etc…). Dana White has already clearly stated his position on the Overeem dilemma;
“He went before the athletic commission and he got his punishment and he’s gonna serve his sentence now,”
– Dana White.
White also claimed in a recent press conference that he would no longer be handling any affairs with Overeem, and that Lorenzo Fertitta would be dealing directly with the heavyweight and his management. So, as all MMA fans know, if you put-off Dana White your career can come to a screeching halt. MMA fans also know, however, that Dana is also notorious for softening his stance.
“When he comes back, he has to apply for a license again and then we’ll go from there. Yeah, I mean I think he should (remain a top contender), yeah.”
Already we can see the ice melting. Could Overeem be sent down to the “minors” (aka Strikeforce) as punishment upon his return? Not likely. ZUFFA is going to fold the heavyweight division in Strikeforce over the next year or two, mark my words. There would be no point sending Overeem down to the minors for a year or so and waste what few years or solid fighting he has left.
With all this in mind, will Overeem be back in the UFC? My guess is a definitive “yes”. Never has White claimed he will be banned from the UFC. Overeem is still a legitimate top-five competitor, and White would hate to lose any depth in one of the hottest divisions in the UFC right now. Conveniently, Overeem’s suspension is up on December 27th, just in time for the end of the stacked New Years card. It should also coincide nicely with the amount of time needed for the winner of Dos Santos v. Velaszquez to recover and prepare. In the meantime, I will sit and patiently wait to see Overeem’s return to the UFC… as it is all but assured.
… and that is the last word.
Feel free to add your comments below. | {
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Last week we were intrigued when the Ukraine Central Bank announced its FX market intervention plans not via 'trader sources" or Bloomberg but through its Facebook account (which later failed as the Hryvnia pushed on to record lows). Today, we hear perhaps even more important news - that Ukraine President Poroshenko has dissolved parliament. This was not entirely surprising news given recent political breakdowns but his chosen medium to disseminate this crucial (and potentiall detsabilizing) news... his Twitter account.
The crucial Twitter account to follow for all Ukrainians...
Bloomberg notes: | {
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Ministro diz que pode desbloquear verba de federais se reforma da Previdência for aprovada
O ministro da Educação, Abraham Weintraub, está nesta terça-feira (7) em uma audiência na Comissão de Educação no Senado para apresentar as diretrizes e programas prioritários da pasta.
De acordo com o ministro, o foco da sua gestão será a educação básica, uma gestão técnica baseada em entrega de resultados e reconhecimento por mérito, entre outros pontos. Weintraub falou por uma hora e depois foi sabatinado pelos senadores.
Weintraub assumiu o Ministério da Educação (MEC) há um mês, após Vélez Rodríguez ser demitido por Bolsonaro. A gestão de Rodríguez durou três meses e foi marcada por controvérsias e recuos como a intensa troca de cargos e frases polêmicas.
1 de 1 Ministro da Educação vai ao Senado para apresentar diretrizes e programas prioritários da pasta — Foto: Reprodução/TV Senado/YouTube Ministro da Educação vai ao Senado para apresentar diretrizes e programas prioritários da pasta — Foto: Reprodução/TV Senado/YouTube
Entre as metas apresentadas pelo ministro, estão:
Foco na educação básica, aprimorando o fundo de manutenção de desenvolvimento da educação básica e da valorização dos professores da educação (Fundeb)
MEC como indutor de política da educação nacional
Gestão técnica orientada à entrega de resultados
Construção de um sistema educacional nacional orientado pelo mérito e para o mérito
Fixação de incentivos para a adoção das melhores práticas nacionais e internacionais em gestão da educação
Disciplina, ordem, respeito a todos no espaço da educação público e privados
Respeito à liberdade e diversidade de pensamento
Investimento em capital humano para aumentar a competitividade da economia brasileira
O ministro abriu a audiência falando sobre as metas do Plano Nacional de Educação (PNE), dando um panorama sobre o ensino no Brasil.
Depois, citou os pontos do Plano Nacional de Alfabetização. O ministro disse que não vai priorizar um ou outro método de ensino. "Não se trata de falar de um método ou outro. É qualquer método empregado que esteja avaliado em evidências científicas. Tem que ter número comprovando isso", disse.
“A gente não quer impor nada a ninguém, a gente quer abrir o debate, quer conversar. Dizer assim: alguma coisa está errada. Por isso a nossa educação é muito pior do que a dos nossos vizinhos na América Latina."
Bloqueio no orçamento
Apesar de a agenda no Senado ser sobre as prioridades da Educação para a gestão atual, a expectativa é que Weintraub se pronuncie sobre o anúncio do bloqueio de 30% o orçamento das universidades e institutos federais.
Em um comunicado divulgado na terça-feira (30), o MEC havia dito que "UFBA, UFF e UnB tiveram 30% das suas dotações orçamentárias anuais bloqueadas", e que desde a semana passada havia inserido as informações sobre o bloqueio no Siaf, o sistema usado pelo governo federal no processo de execução do orçamento.
Na ocasião, o MEC não apresentou motivos para bloquear as verbas especificamente dessas universidades. Disse apenas que "a medida está em vigor desde a última semana" e que "não envia comunicados a respeito do orçamento a nenhuma instituição, todos os dados são visualizados pelo Siaf. Nesse sentido, cada uma pode informar os impactos do bloqueio em sua gestão".
Em entrevista ao jornal "Estado de S.Paulo", o ministro comentou o bloqueio de verbas na UFF, Ufba e UnB: "Universidades que, em vez de procurar melhorar o desempenho acadêmico, estiverem fazendo balbúrdia, terão verbas reduzidas. A lição de casa precisa estar feita: publicação científica, avaliações em dia, estar bem no ranking ”, disse, sem esclarecer quais rankings.
A rede federal inclui mais de 60 universidades e quase 40 institutos de ensino em todos os estados do Brasil.
Após críticas, o MEC alterou a medida e disse que o bloqueio de 30% na verba das instituições de ensino federais vai valer para todas as universidades e todos os institutos.
A informação foi dada à TV Globo por Arnaldo Barbosa de Lima Junior, secretário de Educação Superior do MEC. Segundo ele, trata-se de um "bloqueio" que foi feito "de forma preventiva" e "só sobre o segundo semestre".
Apesar de ter dito que o bloqueio foi feito "de forma isonômica" para todas as universidades e institutos, Lima afirmou que está "estudando alguns parâmetros" para definir quais delas seriam "premiadas" com uma "redução menor do que as outras" ao longo do ano, "mas com ênfase no segundo semestre". | {
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I know there are some threads on Jade Helm 15 already, including one of my own, but this one is specifically about the patch. I am wondering if anyone can shed some light on this for me.This comes directly from the JH15 released slide deck from the US military.Now, I am not familiar with the "clog" style shoe in the middle of it, and I am also a bit perturbed by the "Master the Human Domain" wording on there.Can anyone in military shed any light on this for me? | {
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Well she is not a main healer ofc, nor is she an assault sniper like Widowmaker, but as a secondary healer she is absolutely superb. The way you can control people with sleep darts is insane and can make a huge difference in the right hands. Thanks ^^ | {
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DEARBORN - Family members say they are shocked after two children were shot by another child at a Dearborn home Wednesday, Sept. 27.
Police were called about 10:20 a.m. Wednesday to the 3600 block of Harding Street for a report that two children were shot, according to the Dearborn Police Department.
Investigators believe a toddler accessed a handgun in the home and the weapon discharged, police said.
The injured children, both 3 years old, remain hospitalized in critical, but stable condition.
"This is a tragedy that affects the entire community and we wish the best for the victims involved," Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said in a news release.
The news stunned Ashley Escobedo, 30, who identified herself as the sister of the woman who lived at the home where the shooting occurred.
Her sister was not licensed to operate a daycare, but babysat the children of family and friends at the home, Escobedo said. She also has six children of her own, between the ages of 2 and 15.
It was not immediately clear if the injured children were being babysat.
"She's going to be devastated," Escobedo said of her sister. "She's very good with kids and she loves all these children as well as her own."
Escobedo said her sister "does not like guns" and even instructed her husband, who hunts on weekends, not to bring guns into the household.
"I don't know how they even got into this house at this point," she said.
Jarrett Schmidt, 24-year-old cousin of the woman's husband, said family members know few details about the incident thus far, but said it was alarming, in part because they've spent time in the home where the shooting took place.
"(So) I'm kind of blown away right now, because my kid was in that house at one point in time and so was I," he said. "We've gone there for birthday parties, barbecues - so, you know I'm pretty shocked."
Several children and at least one adult were believed to have been in the home at the time of the shooting, Haddad told WDIV.
Photojournalist Tanya Moutzalias contributed to this report. | {
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Posted on October 2, 2013
I really can’t figure out what is so hard about this.
For Republicans to shut down the government — to cause real pain to hundreds of thousands of families whose members work for various government agencies, and who will now be furloughed, as if they don’t matter, because, ya know, they aren’t hedge fund managers or other truly vital employees — is the most venal thing I’ve seen elected officials do in my entire life.
And all because why? Because they don’t support a bill that was passed via the normal democratic processes that we use in this country, whether one likes them or not, and all of which could have been explained to these fools by Schoolhouse Rock, if not whatever Poli Sci class they skipped in college before deciding to be a politician. Apparently someone forgot to tell them that when a bill becomes a law, and then the courts uphold that law, and then voters go and re-elect the guy who pushed for the law, then you are done, son. That’s it. You don’t get to hold the country hostage so as to indulge your pre-teen temper tantrum. You have to actually run candidates and win (and not just for some backwoods, or exurban, white flight, Jeezoid congressional district where everyone thinks the same way and believes, against all evidence that Olive Garden is Italian food), but in an entire state, or — get this — a nation! And if you can’t do that, you don’t get to fuck with the rest of us so as to satisfy your church family. That’s not how this thing works.
And what’s pathetic is, most of the people who are railing against Obamacare can’t even tell you what it is, or how it will impact them, and hardly any of them are going to be in any way harmed by it. Quite the contrary. Most will be benefitted substantially. Especially those with pre-existing medical conditions, whom insurance companies, concerned not with health but money only, were free previously to exclude from insurance altogether. Anyone who thinks people with pre-existing conditions should not be able to get insurance (and note, this includes virtually all conservatives in America) are evil. The walking, talking definition of that word. And especially since insuring them (preferably with a real single-payer system, but for now, with the ACA) will only cost a few of us more money as a result.
Oh and yes, note, I said “us.”
Because, interestingly, I am one of the statistically few who probably will see my health insurance premiums rise thanks to Obamacare. Because my family and I are on a private-pay insurance plan (which is true for only about 5 percent of the American public, most of whom get insurance either through employers or through Medicare/Medicaid). And because our income is well above the cutoff for receiving any kind of subsidy from the government for our plan, the odds are, our premiums will rise.
And ya know what?
Good.
Because the fact is, as much as I think health care should be a right, guaranteed and paid for from general revenues — and so, yes, I believe in the utter destruction of the private health insurance industry — the fact is, so long as we maintain a private system in this country, to discriminate against persons with pre-existing conditions, and thereby artificially deflate the cost of my insurance just because you can screw other people and not have to assume the risk of insuring them, is fucking evil. Period. And I am not OK with having my health care costs made cheaper only because someone else isn’t being allowed to have care at all and therefore gets to die, or suffer horrible illness all in the name of the precious market. So if I have to pay more so that others can receive the care they need, so be it. I’d rather do it through tax revenues, yes; because that way, the profit motive would be removed entirely and worthless actuaries would have to get real jobs, involving actual skills. But for now. I’ll take it. And I’ll pay it.
And anyone who isn’t willing to do so, is very simply a horrible human being. No exceptions. Not one. | {
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