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A man has been handed a life sentence in the killing of Luka Gordic outside a 7-Eleven in Whistler, B.C., almost four years ago.
Family of the slain teen broke into loud applause and cheers when the sentence was announced in the Vancouver courtroom.
Crown counsel Henry Reiner says Gordic case among the most disturbing in his career as his voice cracked talking to media outside court. <a href="https://t.co/twchrKtt5A">pic.twitter.com/twchrKtt5A</a> —@BellePuri
The killer cannot be named until after the appeal period, because he was 17 years old at the time of the crime. He was found guilty of second-degree murder in October 2017.
Two other men who were found guilty of manslaughter in Gordic's death have been sentenced to 18 months custody and 18 months supervision.
The three were part of a bigger group that swarmed and killed the Burnaby, B.C., teen in May 2015.
Mitch Gordic arrives for sentencing of three males guilty in the Whistler killing of his son Luka in May 2015. Says, “This won’t be over for me until I die.” <a href="https://t.co/LsmiRufcK4">pic.twitter.com/LsmiRufcK4</a> —@BellePuri
The Crown had said it would be seeking adult sentences in their cases.
A fourth person, Arvin Golic, was also convicted in relation to Gordic's death.
Golic, who was 18 at the time, was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced in December 2017 to seven years in prison for his part in the killing.
Subtracting time served, he was ordered to spend five years behind bars.
'Sweet guy'
Gordic had been in Whistler with some friends for a May long weekend trip when he was killed.
He was separated from his group when he went into the convenience store to buy a bag of chips on May 17. The teen was attacked when he came outside and died from multiple stab wounds.
Milos Gordic remembers his younger brother, Luka 0:58
Gordic has been described as a confident, "simple, sweet guy" who loved his friends and family — especially his big brothers.
Police have never specified a motive, but the family believed there was enough evidence to warrant a second-degree murder charge — something they pushed for during and after Golic's murder trial. | {
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Wilf Scolding in Game of Thrones
The Welsh actor has raised more than £1,000 already for the charity that provides meals for chronically poor children across 18 developing countries around the globe, including Malawi, Zambia, South Sudan, Haiti, India and Zimbabwe.
The 29-year-old was inspired to take on the 26-mile race, despite having never previously ran more than a few miles, after he was gifted The Shed That Fed a Million Children, a book written by Mary’s Meals founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow for his birthday.
The Game of Thrones actor explained: “It opened my eyes to how lucky I was and how unlucky some people can be.
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Wilf Scolding. Pic: Ash Knotek/REX/Shutterstock
“They feed just over 1.4 million children in places of education across the world. All too often in developing countries children cannot go to school because they are working alongside their parents to put food on the table.
“They are trapped in this cycle of poverty because they do not have access to an education.
“Mary’s Meals, by providing food in a place of education, breaks this cycle of poverty. They are great”.
The book tells the series of stories that led to the conception of the charity in seventeen years ago when founder MacFarlane-Barrow met a mother dying from AIDS on a trip to Malawi during a famine. When Magnus asked her eldest son, Edward, what his dreams were in life, he replied: “I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.”
Mary’s Meals feeds almost 1.5 million children every school day across four different continents by providing a daily meal in a place of learning. Schools are chosen as the location to hand out the free meals in order to attract chronically poor children into the classroom, where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
Wilf has utilised his thousands of Twitter followers to raise funds for the charity by continuing to share his training progress as well as his dedication to ending world hunger across his social media platforms.
Commenting on Wilf’s efforts, Frank Nelson, Head of Fundraising at Mary’s Meals, said: “We are extremely grateful to Wilf for supporting Mary’s Meals and helping to raise awareness of our charity. We wish him the very best of luck with Sunday’s marathon.
“Our work would not be possible without the generosity of supporters like Wilf who are inspired to make a difference.”
Research conducted for the charity shows that schools whose children receive food supplied by Mary’s Meals received higher enrolment numbers, better attendance and fewer drop-out rates. Children have also reported to be happier, healthier and perform better in a classroom setting. | {
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Activists and analysts warn against interpreting recent prisoner exchange as a Russian bid for peace.
A carefully negotiated prisoner exchange on Saturday, which saw Russia and Ukraine each hand over 35 people, was hailed as a landmark in reducing tensions between Moscow and Kiev.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was of “great importance for the normalisation and improvement of bilateral relations”, calling it a “first step” in ending the war in Donbas that has killed more than 13,000 people in the past five years.
Western praise poured in.
US President Donald Trump congratulated Ukraine and Russia in a tweet, saying the move was “perhaps a first giant step to peace.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the swap was a sign of “hope”.
But activists and political analysts urged caution against framing the event as a Russian bid for peace.
Halya Coynash, a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) and Iryna Matviyishyn, an analyst at the news organisation UkraineWorld, say the prisoner swap seems to have come at a high cost for Ukraine.
Kiev handed over a range of convicted Russian criminals, some of whom were involved in attacks against Ukraine, accused of treason or had served as fighters in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, said Matviyishyn.
The war is ongoing, there is little Ukraine can bargain for with Russia. Iryna Matviyishyn, analyst at UkraineWorld
Among those handed to Moscow was Volodymyr Tsemakh, suspected of involvement in downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, bound for Kuala Lumpur, over rebel-held east Ukraine in 2014. The crash killed all 298 on board, 193 of whom were Dutch citizens.
“This was particularly problematic for Ukraine,” said Coynash.
The Dutch government issued a statement, saying it “seriously regrets that under pressure from the Russian Federation” Tsemakh, who was released on bail on Thursday, was included in the prisoner swap.
Before his release, Dutch investigators from the Joint Investigative Team had called on Zelensky to prevent the handing of Tsemakh to Moscow.
Russia handed over prisoners who were widely considered to have been illegally detained on politically motivated grounds.
The Ukrainians freed included 24 sailors, captured by Russia in the Kerch Strait in 2018, and 11 other “political prisoners”, including film director Oleg Sentsov; Pavlo Hryb, who was abducted in Belarus; and one Crimean Tatar, Edem Bekirov.
Hryb and Bekirov were reportedly seriously ill when released and in urgent need of medical care.
“Many Ukrainians still remain in prison on trumped-up charges, including dozens of Crimean Tatars,” said Yulia Gorbunova, a Ukraine and Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Activists worry that Saturday’s release of high-profile figures – Sentsov and Hryb, who is just 20 years old – may turn international attention away from the remaining prisoners.
Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, one of the most high-profile prisoners, hugs his daughter upon his arrival at Boryspil airport, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, September 7, 2019 [Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press]
If Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to improve ties with Ukraine and the West, said Coynash, he must end the annexation of Crimea, which took place in March 2014, and release the remaining prisoners.
“The number of political prisoners is growing,” said Coynash.
More than 50 Crimean Tatars have been imprisoned, facing charges of “terrorism” linked to their alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir.
According to KHPG, there is no evidence to suggest that Hizb ut-Tahrir is connected to “terrorism” and the group is legal in Ukraine.
Some of those detained face sentences as long as life in prison. Many were tortured in custody to extract confessions, HRW reported.
Since the annexation of Crimea, authorities have been “relentlessly persecuting” Crimean Tatars for “nothing more than their principled stance against Russia’s actions, portraying them as terrorists and extremists,” said Gorbunova.
Mumine Salieva, the wife of Seyran Saliev, a Crimean Tatar who was arrested and charged with “terrorism” in 2017, is one of dozens of family members in Crimea still waiting for the return of their relatives.
Saliev currently faces up to 20 years in prison.
His wife and activists from the civic group Crimean Solidarity said Russia’s Federal Security Service regularly carries out illegal searches in Tatar homes and have taken over $2,770 in cash, as well as their phones and laptops.
“The main goal is to intimidate and also give a signal that we should leave our civic engagement,” Salieva said.
“The increasing tendency to persecute whole families, as well as the persecution of women, has become apparent. International laws have been ignored for five years, despite all resolutions and sanctions.”
In what Coynash called the latest “wave of terror in Crimea” 23 Crimean Tatars were arrested and three were prosecuted after peacefully standing in solidarity with the arrested men on March 27.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky, right, welcomes former prisoners as they disembark from a plane on September 7, 2019 [Sergei Supinsky/AFP]
Ukraine President Zelensky said he believes releasing Crimean Tatars will be the second stage of reaching peace with Russia.
“We want to do this very quickly. We are dreaming about it and we are working [on it],” he said.
But it is unclear on what conditions he will do that, said Matviyishyn.
“The limit of the exchange is defined by what Zelensky puts at stake in his negotiations with Putin, but also by the reaction and actions of the international community.”
Russia has used prisoners and hostages for a “long time for blackmail” prior to its intervention in Ukraine, said Matviyishyn.
“That is why many Ukrainians are waiting with hope and fear about what might be the cost for Putin’s ‘mercy'”
The EU and the US should insist that the release of 35 Ukrainians is not enough, said Matviyishyn.
“The war is ongoing, there is little Ukraine can bargain for with Russia.” | {
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Last season, Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Fletcher Cox finished fifth among defensive interior players in Pro Football Focus' grading, with an 89.9 overall grade bested only by Aaron Donald, J.J. Watt, Ndamukong Suh, and Geno Atkins—pretty elite company.
For his production, Cox was handed a seven-year, $110.79 million contract, including $63 million guaranteed. After a huge pay day, there was no doubt the Eagles’ budding star would receive criticism going forward.
Earlier this season, Cox recorded four sacks in the Eagles' first four games—the conclusion drawn by most during that span, naturally, was that he was playing well. The only thing that has changed since that span is that the sacks haven't necessarily shown up on the stat sheet. In reality, Cox's 537 snaps this season shouldn't be judged by a single stat, especially one that doesn't quite capture a pass-rusher's full impact.
With new head coach Doug Pederson came defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz and his scheme. It seemed as though Cox would have more of an opportunity to thrive getting pressure on the quarterback under Schwartz, as he wasn’t asked to two-gap anymore, and only had one gap to control.
In his new role, Cox still has run responsibility, but at its worst, it’s making sure the run goes inside of him if he gets too far upfield—giving the linebacker behind him a huge gap to fill. Lining up primarily at 3-technique—over 50 percent of the time—Cox has done a great job of getting up field, but not hanging the guys behind him out to dry. The jump in QB pressures isn’t necessarily there, but he was already at an impressive level to begin with.
Not all quarterback pressures (hurries, hits, and sacks combined) are created equal, but they are a far better measure of effecting the quarterback than a simple sack total. When looking at all defensive interior players, Cox ranks third in pass-rushing productivity (pressures on a per-snap basis) at 9.9 percent, and has 41 total pressures (third-most among NFL DTs this season).
In Week 5 Fletcher Cox destroyed Lions G Larry Warford so quickly that all Matthew Stafford could do is duck, but Vinny Curry racked up the sack and credit.
This play will mainly be remembered for Curry’s sack. However, when evaluating a defensive player, it’s important to understand that plays like these are still very significant in determining production, as Cox did most of the work.
It was clear that Cox could rush the passer last year, but he also excels in run defense. A lot of his work and value derives from this facet of the game.
This season, Cox has recorded 13 run stops, which even on a per-snap basis, is just 19th (7.1 percent) among NFL defensive tackles alone. Therefore, on the surface, his low tackle number (24 combined, by PFF’s count) makes it seem like he hasn’t been productive.
Here’s an example—from Week 12's encounter with the Packers—of Cox moving Corey Linsley, a perennial top-10-graded center, 5 yards into the backfield, forcing RB James Starks to move around, and giving Cox's teammates an opportunity to make a play.
Simply being disruptive against the run is incredibly valuable to a defense—though it may never show up on the stat sheet. Cox has won his matchups in run defense repeatedly in essentially every game this season, while going up against some top-tier guards in Dallas' Zack Martin, Chicago's Kyle Long, and Washington's Brandon Scherff.
One commonly-accepted argument is that star defensive linemen are “constantly” double-teamed, so that’s why it’s harder to gauge their production. Cox, though, just like any other defensive interior player, has not been double-teamed over the course of the season nearly as often as some might think.
Simply put—and contrary to popular sentiment around his performance this season—Fletcher Cox has been a very-good-turned-dominant player for a number of seasons now, without any sort of significant drop in play this season. In fact, Cox is among the three-highest-graded interior defenders in the league entering Week 13, just behind Aaron Donald and Calais Campbell, respectively. | {
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UPDATE (March 6, 6 p.m.): Two more cases of the new coronavirus have been reported in Fort Bend County, health officials said.
The patients, two women in their 60s, were exposed to the virus as part of a trip to Egypt, the same trip that all of the other area people diagnosed with the pneumonia-like disease made in February. The women are self-quarantined at home, one with mild symptoms and the other no longer symptomatic.
Earlier, the Houston health department reported another case of the new coronavirus. The patient, also a woman between 60 and 70, was exposed to the virus in Egypt. She is hospitalized in stable condition.
The number of Houston-area residents infected now stands at 8.
UPDATE (March 6, 12:33 p.m.): Officials are reporting a second case of the new coronavirus in the city of Houston, the sixth in the Houston area.
Local health officials Thursday confirmed four more cases of the new coronavirus, all in Harris County, as the feared disease began taking hold in the Houston area.
The new cases involved four people in their 60s who were exposed to the virus during a trip to Egypt last month also taken by a Fort Bend man in his 70s whose case was confirmed Wednesday by a Houston laboratory. The five people contracted the virus independently of each other and developed respiratory symptoms after returning to Texas.
“We expect to see more cases in coming days as we receive test results back,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. “We’re very much in the containment phase.”
At a news conference Thursday, Mayor Sylvester Turner urged people to minimize foreign travel, “the common denominator” in the cases. He said that “this would be an excellent time for people to engage in staycations, especially with spring break coming up.”
WHAT WE KNOW: Coronavirus hits Harris County, Fort Bend and the Houston area. Here's everything we know so far.
Hidalgo stressed that there is no evidence here yet of any community spread of the pneumonia-like disease, known as COVID-19. The virus that causes it, which originated in China, now has infected nearly 100,000 people and killed more than 3,300 people in at least 81 countries, including the U.S., where the number of cases has spiked significantly this week.
Four of the Houston-area patients remain hospitalized in stable condition and the fifth is self-quarantined at home with mild symptoms, according to health officials. The officials would not disclose when they developed symptoms — the period during which the disease becomes contagious — but said it was after they returned to Houston from Egypt in late February.
The new cases include a Rice employee, a woman, whose subsequent contact with 14 university faculty, staff and doctoral students currently has them in self-quarantine away from campus. The other three new cases are men whose local, post-symptom contacts are in the process of being traced by local health officials.
More Information Editor’s note: This guide is intended to ensure our readers are provided the most useful information concerning COVID-19 What are the symptoms of coronavirus? Symptoms can appear 2-14 days after exposure, health officials said. They include: Fever Cough Difficulty breathing How do I avoid contracting the virus? The CDC says that the risk of getting coronavirus is low in the U.S. People should: Avoid touching their faces Avoid close contact with sick people Stay home when sick Frequently wash hands Clean and disinfect objects and surfaces with household cleaning supplies Wear a face mask only if they show symptoms of coronavirus If I think I actually have contracted coronavirus where do I go? Harris County Public Health Director Dr. Umair Shah said the first thing to do is to self-quarantine. He said not to show up in an emergency department, a hospital or a clinic. Contact the facility ahead of time so they know you may be sick. Inform them of your symptoms and any recent travel to affected countries or exposure to people who have traveled to places on the CDC’s restricted travel list. Medical experts recommend calling your doctor only if you have traveled to an area with coronavirus outbreak or been in contact with someone who recently had traveled there within the last two weeks. How to reach the Fort Bend County where the first nonimported case in Texas was reported on Wednesday? To reach the Fort Bend County phone bank with questions, members of the public can call 281-633-7795 and physicians can call 281-344-6118. It will operate from 8 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday.
Read More
CORONAVIRUS IN HOUSTON: Expert says you should prepare like it's a hurricane
The four individuals include three living in unincorporated areas of Harris County and one in the city of Houston.
“We are doing everything we can to find who else was exposed to these individuals,” said Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health. “We are aware and have been investigating individuals who went on the trip to Egypt.
The five people who contracted the coronavirus all took the trip as personal travel. Egypt currently is not on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s restricted travel list.
Though he advised against foreign travel, Turner encouraged residents to go about their daily business, “not become paralyzed by fear.” Earlier in the day, in a show of support for Asiatown businesses that have reported declining sales and fewer patrons because of coronavirus concerns, Turner gathered a team of city leaders for a lunch meeting at Ocean Palace.
At the restaurant, Turner took out his personal bottle of sanitizer and shared it with colleagues before they dug into dim sum.
In the U.S., there have been more than 200 COVID-19 cases, up from 15 last week, in 19 states. Fourteen deaths have been linked to the virus, all but one in the Seattle area, an ominous trend according to one Houston expert.
'REALLY UNFORTUNATE': Austin mayor cancels SXSW festival over coronavirus concerns
“Houston has a lot in common with Seattle,” Peter Hotez, founding dean of the Baylor College of Medicine National School of Tropical Medicine, said in a telephone inteview from Washington, where he testified on the threat Thursday before a House committee. “We’re an international hub, with a diverse population, and our economies depend on that. We should expect more cases here.”
Dr. David Persse, the health authority for the city of Houston, asked health professionals to refrain from requesting testing without a legitimate reason to believe the patient has contracted the disease. He noted that local authorities have a limited ability to process tests.
Houston’s public health lab gained a single test kit to analyze samples on Wednesday, allowing the city to conduct its own tests instead of sending samples to the CDC in Atlanta. The kit has the capacity to test 700 specimens suspected of carrying the disease, enough for about 250 to 400 patients.
The lab “presumptively confirmed” the presence of the coronavirus in the Fort Bend man and two of the three men in Harris County. The CDC must still make final confirmation of those cases. The CDC confirmed the case involving the Rice employee and one of the other men in Harris County.
Local health departments expect to receive more resources to test the coronavirus and counter its spread thanks to an $8.3 billion emergency aid measure approved by the Senate Thursday and expected to be signed by President Donald Trump. Most of the bipartisan package will go to such agencies.
'ONLY A MATTER OF TIME': Coronavirus case marks milestone for region
Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that six labs in the state — Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Lubbock and Fort Worth are the others — are now able to test for the virus. The state’s lab response network will be fully online by the end of the month.
Persse expressed optimism for Houston’s ability to respond to any coronavirus outbreak here, noting its “advantage of having gone through similar drills with hurricanes and flooding that have stressed our health care system.”
Though the disease can be fatal, health officials emphasize that more than 80 percent of people who have contracted the COVID-19 virus worldwide have experienced only mild to moderate symptoms and fully recover. The officials urged residents to take sensible measures to protect against the spread of COVID-19: washing hands, avoiding touching your face, avoiding close contact with people who are sick, covering your mouth when you sneeze or ocugh, and disinfecting surfaces often.
Dylan McGuinness, Taylor Goldstein, Gwendolyn Wu and Lisa Gray contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump rolled out an eye-catching statistic in his State of the Union address Tuesday: the wealth held by the poorest half of American households increased three times as fast as the wealth held by the “1%” since he became president.
That’s true, according to Federal Reserve data.
On average, Americans have seen a 17% jump in household wealth since Trump’s election, while wealth at the bottom half has increased 54%.
“This is a blue collar boom,” Trump also said Tuesday. That’s less apparent. The biggest winners on a dollar basis were a familiar group - whites, college graduates, and people born during the “baby boom” between 1946 and 1964.
Since December 2016, President Barack Obama’s last full month in office, aggregate household wealth has increased by $15.8 trillion, but the vast majority went to groups that have tended to accumulate wealth in the past.
Even with a 54% increase in their household wealth under Trump, the poorest half of American households, around 64 million families, still have just 1.6% of household “net worth.”
HALF OF AMERICA
Net worth combines the value of assets like real estate and stocks and subtracts liabilities like mortgage loans and credit card balances.
Because America’s bottom 50% are starting from such a small base, given the enormous disparities in wealth in the United States, even large moves in their fortunes do little to dent the overall distribution. In dollar terms as of the end of September 2019, that latest data available from the Fed, the combined net worth of the poorest half of families was $1.67 trillion out of total U.S. household wealth of $107 trillion.
Here is what the Fed’s Distributional Financial Accounts have to say:
Historically, 17% growth in household wealth over 11 three-month “quarters,” or nearly three years, is pretty standard. There have been 110 such periods since the Fed’s data series begins in mid-1989, and the most recent ranks 55th, squarely in the middle.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a statement about his acquittal in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 6, 2020. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
On a quarterly basis, compound growth in household wealth since 1989 has averaged 1.39%. Under Trump it is slightly less, at 1.34%.
The bottom half of households saw their net worth rise by 54% under Trump, from $1.08 trillion to $1.67 trillion. That’s compared to an 18% rise for the top 1%, who control roughly a third of the total household wealth in America, or around $34.5 trillion.
Even after those gains, that works out to average net worth of around $26,000 for the bottom half of households versus around $27 million for the ones at the top.
Much of that increase among the bottom half was due to increases in real estate, not stocks, after a resurgence in home ownership rates that began in 2016.
Wages for lower-skilled jobs have of late been rising faster than those for higher-skilled occupations. January non-farm payrolls data show a bigger-than-expected jump in overall employment, bolstered by an increase in construction jobs.
But it takes time for income to be saved and translate into wealth. Since Trump took office, households headed by a college graduate captured 75% of the net worth gains, or around $11.88 trillion.
They represent about a third of all households, according to the Fed survey on which the data series is based.
Overall, households headed by a high school graduate, a group on the front lines of Trump’s pledge to restore blue collar fortunes, lost $0.4 trillion in net worth during his time in office. Those households represent about a fourth of the total.
A BABY BOOMER BOOM
Generationally, households with a head born from 1946 to 1964 did not get fooled again, as the 1971 rock anthem pledged. The title of Trump’s speech was “The Great American Comeback.” It could just as easily have been “OK Boomer, What About the Rest of Us?”
Baby boomers under Trump, himself a member of that generation, captured around $10 trillion of recent wealth gains, or about two-thirds of the total.
The Fed survey’s demographic estimates are as of 2016, and the population would have changed slightly since then. In 2016 about 36% of household heads (in the case of mixed-sex couples the Fed considers the man to be the head, in same-sex couples it is the oldest of the two) were headed by a member of the baby boom.
Wealth accumulates with time, and older people would tend to have a larger base to start with. But for millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, the last three years of booming markets have meant an extra half trillion dollars only, spread across about 20.6% of households. GenX’ers, born between 1965 and 1980, got about 21% of the gains, and made up roughly 26% of households. The pre-baby boom “Silent Generation” got 16% of the gains, roughly in line with that group’s share of households.
Analyzed by race, the data told a familiar story of inequality. About 84% of recent wealth gains accrued to the 64% of households that self-identified to the Fed as white.
About 4.6% of wealth gains went to the 14.5% of households that identified as black, and 3.8% to the 10.1% of households that identified as Hispanic.
(Graphic: Household wealth under trump, )
(Graphic: A boom or the norm? ) | {
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STRANGER POINTS OUT THE TAG STILL ON YOUR NEW SHIRT "OH, SORRY."
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - The first national analysis of the impact of the Affordable Care Act on people with HIV showed significant increases in health insurance coverage among people infected with the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report released on Tuesday.
FILE PHOTO - The federal government forms for applying for health coverage are seen at a rally held by supporters of the Affordable Care Act, widely referred to as "Obamacare", outside the Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. on October 4, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman/File Photo
The report comes as Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump discuss ways to repeal the health insurance law, also known as Obamacare, which expanded insurance coverage to 20 million people.
The study was based on data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Medical Monitoring Project, which gathers nationally representative information about people who have or are being treated for HIV infections - but not all people with HIV. It excluded the undiagnosed or those diagnosed but not being treated.
According to the report, much of the increase in coverage came from the 31 states and the District of Columbia that expanded access to the federal Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.
Nationwide, Medicaid coverage of people being treated for HIV rose to 42 percent in 2014, up from 36 percent in 2012, the year before the law went into effect, according to the report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In the Medicaid expansion states sampled, Medicaid coverage rose to 51 percent in 2014, up from 39 percent in 2012, and the share of uninsured fell to 7 percent from 13 percent.
“It basically demonstrates that the Medicaid expansion made a significant difference in the lives of people with HIV in providing new and expanded coverage,” Kaiser health policy analyst Jennifer Kates, one of the report’s authors, said in a telephone interview.
The findings underscore some of the difficulties lawmakers face as they go about repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), states received funding to expand Medicaid eligibility to nearly all individuals with incomes at or below 138 percent of the official poverty level. The law also did away with other eligibility requirements, such as disability or being pregnant, that prevented many poor adults with HIV from gaining Medicaid coverage.
The ACA also banned the insurance industry practice of denying private insurance coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. And it included provisions that prevented insurance companies from setting significantly higher rates for people with HIV, or imposing annual or lifetime coverage limits.
These changes may have helped some people with HIV gain access to private insurance, but the biggest impact came from Medicaid expansion.
“The main takeaway is that for a population that faced a pretty significant barrier to Medicaid before the ACA, expansion of Medicaid made a big difference,” she said.
If efforts to repeal the ACA result in the elimination of Medicaid expansion, the study said, “most people with HIV who gained coverage would likely lose it unless states adopt alternative approaches to retaining the newly covered population in the program.”
Disruptions in care pose significant challenges to people with HIV because they can increase the chance that the virus will become drug resistant.
Studies have shown that taking drugs to suppress the virus dramatically reduces the risk of spreading HIV to others.
New figures released by the CDC earlier on Tuesday show the number of annual HIV infections in the United States fell 18 percent between 2008 and 2014, from an estimated 45,700 to 37,600.
CDC researchers said they believe the declines in annual HIV infections are due, in large part, to efforts to increase the number of people living with HIV who know their HIV status and are virally suppressed — meaning their HIV infection is under control through effective treatment.
“This is a top public health priority,” CDC said in a statement. | {
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With the slugging Phillies heading into The Bronx to face the streaking Yankees, guesses on the number of home runs hit over the holiday weekend are high and higher.
According to Peter Gammons of ESPN, that’s because the new Yankee Stadium “has become one of the biggest jokes in baseball.”
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BACK PAGE: Maybe Yanks Want It This Way
Speaking during his weekly segment on the “Mike & Mike in the Morning” radio program, Gammons predicted the teams would hit 16 home runs in their three-game series.
There have been 75 home runs hit in the first 20 regular-season games at the $1.5 billion ballpark. That’s a 300-plus pace.
The final season of the old Yankee Stadium saw 160 hit there.
“Buster Olney has been pointing out that they’re going to pass last year’s home run total in the old [Yankee] Stadium by about July 15,” Gammons said. “I’m tired of people saying it’s too early, we don’t have enough games.
“We have enough games. We know that this was not a very well-planned ballpark. Any player that’s played there will tell you that it’s become one of the biggest jokes in baseball.”
Forty-four of the 75 homers have been hit to right field, which should suit the lefty-dominated Phillies lineup.
Citizens Bank Park, the bandbox where the Phillies play their home games, yielded a high of 241 homers (in 2007) since opening in 2004.
There were 303 home runs hit in the first season at Coors Field (1995).
By comparison, there have been 31 home runs hit in 20 games at Citi Field.
The Yankees say they did studies on how the field would play prior to construction and will continue to do more.
“There were wind studies performed before. There will be wind studies performed as we go forward, and we’re just looking like you are to see whether or not it’s the weather, the wind, what happens when the old building goes down,” chief operating officer Lonn Trost said May 12.
The dimensions of the new Stadium are identical to the old one: 314 feet down the right-field line; 385 to right-center; 408 to center field; 399 to left-center; and 314 down the left-field line.
Trost said the Yankees might consider changes in 2010 to the first row behind the outfield fences. Possible fan interference already has led to a pair of umpire video reviews.
“We’re going to have to look at that, you know, this year to see whether or not that row, which is both in left field and right field, impedes play in any way,” he said. “But we can’t do anything this year.”
With AP | {
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Widespread Panic has been added to the lineup for Thursday, May 2 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The announcement comes after Fleetwood Mac and The Rolling Stones each canceled their Jazz Fest performances that were slated set for May 2.
Fleetwood Mac was added to the lineup last week in the wake of The Rolling Stones’ cancelation. Earlier today, Fleetwood Mac announced they would be unable to perform due to vocalist Stevie Nicks’ battle with the flu. On March 30, The Rolling Stones pulled out as Mick Jagger needed to undergo a medical procedure.
“Ticketholders for May 2 will receive a notice from Ticketmaster to exercise their option to use their tickets on any day of the second weekend of Jazz Fest or to receive a full refund. Admission for May 2 at Jazz Fest will no longer be day-specific,” reads a statement from the festival’s organizers. “Second weekend general admission tickets will now be valid for any one day of the weekend, including May 2.” Tickets are on sale now via Ticketmaster. | {
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John Boehner Sobers Up Long Enough To Notice Conservatives Are Crazy People And Also Liars | {
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Secrets of the Cantina By The Senate on 2015-07-06 19:40:00 There's a secret waiting for you in the Cantina, for the next four hours only.
Look around a bit, and claim your free Showdown Base Pack now--if you can find it! The pack will be available until 7:45 PM ET, so don't miss your chance. Discover a Secret, if you can | {
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You better Recognize a sound investment when you see one
167 shares | {
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has never been a favorite of conservatives. Those who see him as a “squishy” compromiser more interested in placating President Barack Obama and K Street lobbyists than the Republican base had more fuel tossed on that fire when he blocked amendments to the Highway Bill Tea Party members wholeheartedly support.
One amendment would defund Planned Parenthood, the nationwide abortion provider which receives more than a half billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies annually. McConnell has previously said he supports defunding Planned Parenthood, which was recently the subject of undercover sting videos in which executives with the organization can be heard discussing the sale of organs from aborted babies. But the leader blocked an amendment to the Highway Bill that would have defunded the organization.
McConnell used a tactic called “filling the tree,” made popular by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid when he was majority leader to block Republicans from being able to offer amendments to Democratic bills. “Filling the Tree” is when the allotted time for amendments is loaded by the leader, generally with small, insignificant measures favored by the majority leader, who controls the process, crowding out everyone else.
“Filling the tree” was roundly decried by Republicans when Democrats controlled the Senate because it blocked their ability to offer any amendments, popular on a bipartisan basis or not, to any legislation the Senate was considering. McConnell ran and was reelected to his Senate seat on returning the Senate to “regular order” after years of tight control and power consolidation under the Democrats. Now he is using the same tactic against his own party.
On the floor of the Senate Friday, Texas Sen. and GOP candidate for president Ted Cruz blasted McConnell’s move. “There are a host of amendments that the American people are focused on, things like defunding Planned Parenthood after the gruesome video,” Cruz said. “The majority leader doesn’t want to vote on that. That’s actually something the American people are focused on.”
Top priority right now of Senate GOP establishment is reauthorizing an obscure corporate welfare program. Can you get any more out of touch? — Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 26, 2015
In response to critics, McConnell agreed to “fast-track” a stand-alone bill that would defund Planned Parenthood. But a stand-alone bill would be subject to filibuster, requiring 60 votes to proceed, rather than as an amendment that would only need 50 to be included in the Highway Bill.
Mitch McConnell's once again engaging in his favorite Senate pastime: kabuki theater. PP defunding would've passed via amdt to highway bill. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 26, 2015
So what does his silly standalone PP defunding bill accomplish? Nothing. It won't pass. It needs 60. As an amdt it only needed a majority. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 26, 2015
@derekahunter McConnell himself set process on Ex-Im. On PP, could've done amdt post-cloture, overruled chair on germaneness. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 26, 2015
@derekahunter But can't do that since McConnell filled the tree and blocked out amendments. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 26, 2015
According to The Hill, McConnell ruled the Planned Parenthood amendment not germane to the Highway Bill and that’s why it was blocked.
McConnell apparently made the same determination for “Kate’s Law.” Named after Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old woman who was allegedly shot and killed by an illegal alien who had seven felony convictions and had been deported five times in San Francisco, it would impose a mandatory five-year prison term on any illegal alien convicted of a violent felony if they’d been previously deported.
McConnell blocked that too.
McConnell Blocks Amdts for Kate’s Law, Defund PP; McCain blocks amdt arming Marines in recruiting posts. Why’s Trump resonating w/voters? — Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) July 26, 2015
An amendment the majority leader did not block, that he did not rule as “not germane,” was the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.
The Export-Import Bank, which McConnell publicly claims to oppose, is viewed by conservatives as corporate welfare and crony capitalism at its worst. Supposedly to help small businesses compete in a global market, the bank favors large and even foreign companies with taxpayer dollars.
Cloture was invoked by the Senate on the amendment to reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank by a vote of 67-26 Sunday.
I love how rinos find religion and r concerned about turning the chamber over to Dems when it comes to opposing conservatives. — Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) July 26, 2015
Authorization for the bank expired in June, and an enormous, expensive lobbying effort has been underway to reauthorize it.
In an attempt to placate conservatives, McConnell instead is allowing a vote on an amendment to defund Obamacare. But that amendment would need 60 votes, which is unlikely, and would most certainly get the bill a presidential veto. | {
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Olympian and World War II hero Louis Zamperini, who is the subject of director Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, has passed away at the age of 97.
The Zamperini family said: “Having overcome insurmountable odds at every turn in his life, Olympic runner and World War II hero Louis Zamperini has never broken down from a challenge. He recently faced the greatest challenge of his life with a life-threatening case of pneumonia. After a 40-day long battle for his life, he peacefully passed away in the presence of his entire family, leaving behind a legacy that has touched so many lives. His indomitable courage and fighting spirit were never more apparent than in these last days.”
Jolie, who is pictured with Zamperini, added that “it is a loss impossible to describe. We are all so grateful for how enriched our lives are for having known him. We will miss him terribly.”
The film’s distributor, Universal Pictures, released the following statement: “We are so profoundly sad at this moment and all of our thoughts and prayers are with the Zamperini family. Louis was truly one of a kind. He lived the most remarkable life, not because of the many unbelievable incidents that marked his near century’s worth of years, but because of the spirit with which he faced every one of them. Confronting challenges that would cause most of us to surrender, Louie always persevered and always prevailed, and he spent the better part of his lifetime sharing the message that you could do the same. His example of grace, dignity and resilience inspired all of us lucky enough to know him and the millions who got to know him from the pages of Laura’s book. We move forward to the release of ‘Unbroken’ with a renewed sense of responsibility in bringing Louie’s abundant life and indomitable spirit to the screen. Now more than ever, we join Angelina in honoring the lessons and legacy of this extraordinary man who has meant so much to so many.”
Unbroken is an epic drama that follows the incredible life of Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) who, along with two other crewmen, survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII?only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s (“Seabiscuit: An American Legend”) enormously popular book, Unbroken brings to the big screen Zamperini’s unbelievable and inspiring true story about the resilient power of the human spirit.
The film, which was planning on releasing a new trailer very shortly, is scheduled to open in theaters on December 25. | {
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First wake up 4:00 AM.
Why? Because that’s what Jocko Willink does.
Can I really write at 4:00 AM? I don’t know. But I have to take a picture of my watch saying 4:00 AM so everyone on Instagram knows I’m working hard.
I don’t even get out of bed to write. I just sleep on a pile of old laptops so every time I roll around I crank out another 1000 words.
What you don’t write in your sleep?
Gotta write in your sleep. Optimize bro. Way of the future. #lifehacks.
I have to bold some random words in every sentence.
Why?
Who knows but all the cool kids are doing it.
Just by waking up I’ve gotten a hundred thousand words already. It’s like nothing. A cakewalk. I don’t get why everyone else can’t do it.
Next I drink some coffee.
A lot of coffee. Drip coffee? Nah. Starbucks? Nope.
Chemex. Can’t be productive without a Chemex. Productivity didn’t exist before Chemexes. You can look it up. Plus, I can write another 50,000 words while I wait the few seconds for the coffee to pour through.
Then. I write for 12 straight hours.
How do I do that?
It’s easy.
Really all I do is rewrite the same ten productivity articles over and over again. Plus a daily dose of things everyone read on Lifehacker ten years ago.
But ya gotta make it look interesting.
How do you do that?
Say it with me.
One.
Word.
Paragraphs.
Works right?
Makes everything you write look important.
Plus you have to throw in a bunch of these.
Can’t forget those.
How about another one?
And most importantly.
Don’t forget to quote Gary Vee. Have to quote Gary Vee. And you have to do it this way. Every time. Why? Who knows.
Yep. Now you’re rolling.
Also I read two books a day while I write.
Oh you can’t read while you write?
Gary Vee taught me how.
When I do I eat?
I don’t. I only eat every three days. Intermittent fasting.
12 hours later I’ll have written 850,000 words.
Boom a million words a day.
Then I wake up and start over tomorrow.
Also I only sleep 37 minutes a day. | {
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I realize that there is a lot of competition for the crown, but Nancy Pelosi late this week uttered what has to be the stupidest critique of President Trump’s triumphant overseas trip. Keep in mind that in her entire political career, the most famous thing Nancy Pelosi is known for saying is “You have to pass it to see what is in it,” about Obamacare. Those words are not likely to appear on her tombstone, but even the New York Times will have to include it in her obituary.
Still, that observation was at least accurate. And it expressed the contempt for the public inherent in the imposition of a mystery plan for one sixth of the economy. What Pelosi said on Thursday, criticizing President Trump for not visiting countries in alphabetical order, is absolutely mind-boggling. | {
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Fernando Alonso says “the aim is to do something unprecedented in motorsport” after adding victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona to his list of achievements on Sunday.
The No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac claimed overall victory, with Alonso behind the wheel for the final stint after taking over from Jordan Taylor. Kamui Kobayashi and Renger van der Zande were also part of the race-winning entry, but Alonso commanded significant international interest in his first major race since his final grand prix start in Abu Dhabi.
“It’s not part of the Triple Crown, but if I win Indianapolis this will be the Quadruple Crown!” Alonso joked of the Rolex 24 win. “Right now my full focus is on the Indy 500, but I’m thinking. I’m trying to do something more in different disciplines that are not only circuits…
“But I need to think, I need to plan, I need to make sure that I’m competitive. To have the right people, the right teams and the right preparation. Whichever adventure is next, I will not do it if I’m not competitive or I don’t have a shot at winning.
“So I need to be very calm and clever with the decisions with the future. The aim is to do something unprecedented in motorsport.”
Alonso says what counts as ‘unprecedented’ now may differ from the past, given the way motorsport has evolved since Graham Hill became the only driver to win the Triple Crown of Le Mans, the Monaco Grand Prix and Indy 500.
“I think to win in different series and win in different disciplines in motorsport which are quite specific, you need to probably be born with that talent and grow up with that knowledge of that series – like oval racing in IndyCar and things like that,” he said.
“To come there and try to be competitive or win it is something, I think in the modern era of motorsport, is quite difficult. I think in the past it was a little bit more open – motorsport in general – but now every series became very professional, and you need to take full dedication to each series and each driving style, things like that.
“Hopefully soon I can tell you some more of the plans. I already have an idea…”
Alonso still has the World Endurance Championship super season to complete with Toyota – which won this year’s Dakar Rally – and has shown an interest in a number of different disciplines, including swapping rides with NASCAR’s Jimmie Johnson in Bahrain at the end of last year. | {
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New Delhi has been abuzz with talk of a big fiscal spending package of maybe Rs 40,000 crore to ‘kick-start’ the economy, which has slowed for five quarters in a row. Adding to the excitement has been the virulent castigation of economic policies (especially demonetisation and the red tape accompanying GST) by former BJP finance minister Yashwant Sinha. He warns that the economy is spiralling downwards to a hard landing.
While the economy faces serious problems, these cannot be remedied by a fiscal spending spree. Finance minister Arun Jaitley must ignore panicky notions that a crash spending package can remedy structural problems that need deep reforms. Export stagnation for three years, a banking system burdened with huge bad debts, and high real interest rates have dragged down the economy. None of these can be rectified by a spending spree.
Nobody should mistake Yashwant Sinha’s criticisms as a call for a fiscal boost. He was always a fiscal hawk, convinced (quite rightly) that the long-term gains of prudence vastly outweighed the short-term gains of a spending spree. He worries about the inspector raj that is returning with GST paperwork and a huge expansion of income tax investigations. His warnings have a core of truth: GST paperwork is monstrously tough for small companies, and the notion that our notoriously corrupt income tax can become the standard-bearers of tax honesty is bound to evoke laughter. Yet both GST and improved tax compliance are essential long-term goals, despite short-term costs.
India already has a consolidated Centre-State fiscal deficit of 6-7% of GDP, the highest by far of any major economy. Many countries have gone bust with a lower fiscal deficit, and India survives only because it has a high savings rate. Deficits need to be reduced, not expanded.
Indeed, steady reduction of the fiscal deficit in recent years has improved India’s credibility greatly, reduced the rate at which it can borrow abroad, and attracted foreign investment. Why throw away these gains for the tiny benefits, if any, of a spending spree?
The Central fiscal deficit was supposed to be reduced to 3% of GDP by 2008, but that goal has been postponed by a full decade. Jaitley had earlier promised to cut the fiscal deficit to 3% this year but ultimately opted for 3.2%, presenting the additional 0.2% as a fiscal boost to accelerate the economy. That failed, and this should surprise nobody. Even for an efficient economy, an additional 0.2% of investment will increase GDP by just 0.05%, too small to even measure accurately. Meanwhile it has negative consequences like reduced foreign confidence in India, higher dollar outflows, and higher dollar borrowing rates. The same problems will afflict another fiscal boost of Rs 40,000 crore.
Too many people see a spending spree as a quick Keynesian way of producing rapid growth. Keynes advocated a fiscal boost when a recession struck, causing a sudden shrinkage of demand. Conversely, he advocated a budget surplus during a boom. This leaning against the current stage of the business cycle is called contra-cyclical fiscal policy.
But Rathin Roy of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy says research has failed to uncover any business cycle in India. So, contra-cyclical policy in India is conceptually dubious or groundless. It is far better to stick to prudent long-term fiscal goals than attempt to fine-tune fiscal deficits on the erroneous notion that economic ups and downs can so easily be manipulated.
In theory, spending a quick Rs 40,000 crore extra on infrastructure sounds attractive. In practice infrastructure projects have faced multiple delays and problems leading to bankrupt builders and bad debts of lakhs of crores. Experience shows that the government takes a long time to spend additional public funds productively. Infrastructure spending needs to rise steadily, not as a short-term stimulus.
The economy has been hit by short-term shocks imposed by demonetisation and the launch of GST. But the shocks will gradually fade away, resulting in a bounce-back of growth in 2018. There is no evidence of a coming hard landing, as predicted by Yashwant Sinha.
Nor will 8% growth return sustainably without major reforms. The right way to accelerate growth is to relentlessly increase productivity. This implies reforms that ease business hassles, greatly improve all government services, and instill confidence. Export stagnation must be checked by an aggressive exchange rate policy, lower interest rates, and trade facilitation. Massive bad debts of banks must be tackled. This means a long hard slog, not a quickie fiscal boost. | {
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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Rocket City Pride, an advocacy event for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is set for Sunday at Huntsville' Roundhouse Depot.
Last year's Rocket City Pride drew about 1,000 people to Huntsville's Big Spring Park. (Photo contributed by GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services)
This is the second year for the event. It was held the same weekend last year at Big Spring Park and drew 800 to 1,000 people, said entertainment coordinator Terry Dixon.
"We're looking for a least one and half to two times that this year," he said.
Activities begin at 1 p.m. with speakers and DJs, and a parade scheduled to roll out of the Roundhouse at 5 p.m.
The parade will cover three blocks, heading south from Historic Huntsville Depot Roundhouse on Jefferson Street, then turning left on Clinton Avenue, left again on Washington Street and left on Monroe Street back to the Roundhouse.
Some of the speakers represent religious organizations, including Spirit of the Cross Church in Huntsville.
The free event is hosted by GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services Inc. The Huntsville-based organization was founded in 2009 and to engage in effective advocacy for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.
"We are committed to ensuring the physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of youth and young adults struggling due to sexual orientation or gender identity issues," GLBT's press release states.
Rocket City Pride on Sunday will feature speakers, DJs and live performers. (Photo contributed by GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services)
Events schedule:
1 p.m. - Various local speakers, choirs, DJ Sweet T and live musicians
5 p.m. - Pride parade starts from the Roundhouse
7 p.m. - Main event performances at Roundhouse
8:20 p.m. - DJ Sir Paul
8:50 p.m. - Final performances | {
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Briefs Strongman Fraudster Gets 120 Days Former Santa Barbara Police Officer Found Competing in Lifting Events While on Disability
In the People v. Jacob Finerty saga, in which a workers’ compensation-claiming police officer was found to be competing in weight-lifting competitions while on disability for a back injury, the defendant threw in the towel on Friday, making an open plea. His felony sentence on four counts of workers’ compensation fraud consists of 120 days in jail, five years of probation, and restitution to the City of Santa Barbara of $115,669.85.
Finerty had filed for workers comp in 2013 after stating he injured his back in an on-duty traffic accident while on the Santa Barbara police force. He was paid about $133,000 a year while on leave, and simultaneously, from 2014-2016, videos, photographs, and social media featured him in lifting and strongman competitions, as well as MAS wrestling. He took home the bronze in the latter in 2014. All formed the basis of the District Attorney’s complaint, which was filed this May. Finerty was placed on unpaid leave at that time. The open plea means there was no deal between him and the DA’s Office, and he simply pled guilty to all charges.
Add to Favorites | {
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That means they can test everything about an app, including downloading and installing it, without having to wait for a car actually running Android Automotive. With its close ties to Android Auto, Google adds that it's "simple" to port over any existing experiences to Android Automotive, with the company showing off examples from Amazon and Audioburst (seen below). All of this is good news if you plan to hop on Android Automotive early, since Google is taking the right steps to ensure the system has a compelling third-party ecosystem at launch. The lower barrier of entry may mean you'll also see apps from more than just the big names like Spotify. | {
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A homemade explosive device detonated outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin on Sunday night.
Police are still looking for whoever left the device, which exploded around 7:30 p.m. and caused little damage to the building. Nobody was injured.
The attack is one of a string across the U.S. in recent months.
Amid a heated debate over funding for Planned Parenthood last month, the Fort Worth offices of Texas State Senator Wendy Davis (D) — a strong supporter of the female health program — were attacked with two firebombs. Another clinic in the Dallas area was attacked in a similar manner by a separate person last July.
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This video is from NBC 26 in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, broadcast Sunday, April 1, 2012.
Photo: Shutterstock.com, all rights reserved. | {
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VANCOUVER, B.C. -- The injury dangers don't stop for soccer players once the referee blows the final whistle.
Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker has emerged as an injury doubt ahead of his club's match this weekend against the Houston Dynamo at BC Place (Saturday, 7 pm ET, MLS Live in US, TSN2 in Canada).
This, after the former Aston Villa and West Ham United star suffered a nasty gash to his face while walking the streets of Vancouver on Sunday.
The club has stated the Englishman was looking elsewhere while walking when he tripped over a bike rack, cutting his face and hitting his head in the process.
“That's unsure at the moment,” assistant coach Martyn Pert told reporters when asked if the injury would keep him out of this weekend's game. “He's had a scrape on his face and the medics will assess whether he has a concussion.
“The initial thing was rest today, and that he does the best things for him.”
The injury was enough to keep Reo-Coker out of Tuesday's training session, and the club's medical staff is attempting to determine whether the player suffered a concussion when he hit his head.
“There's a chance,” Pert responded to a follow up question on the potential concussion. “At the moment there's no definite answer on that.”
Reo-Coker's injury is the latest in a string of off-field accidents which have caused significant distress at times for Vancouver since the club joined Major League Soccer in 2011.
Check out more Vancouver news at WhitecapsFC.com
The first such incident involved Russell Teibert, who damaged his toe while riding a bicycle in flip flops – that mishap meant the player missed the bulk of the end of season run-in that year.
Perhaps more memorably, forward Darren Mattocks missed about a third of his rookie season in 2012 after suffering severe burns to his shoulder during a cooking accident in which he was putting together a traditional Jamaican dish.
If there's any solace in this for Vancouver, it's that there's a ready made replacement waiting in the wings – Gershon Koffie replaced Reo-Coker after 70 minutes in this weekend's scoreless draw with the New England Revolution and showed well.
Martin MacMahon covers the Vancouver Whitecaps for MLSsoccer.com. | {
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The calm voice at the helm says, “Make it so…” and with it, the mantra of modernity is invoked. The philosophy that governs our culture is rooted in violence, the ability to make things happen and to control the outcome. It is a deeply factual belief. We can indeed make things happen, and, in a limited way, control their outcome. But we soon discover (and have proven it time and again) that our ability to control is quite limited. Many, many unforeseeable consequences flow from every action. If I am working in a very, self-contained environment, then the illusion of total control can be maintained for a very long time. If, say, I am building a watch, my actions and their results can remain on a desktop. However, when the scale of action begins to increase, the lack of true control begins to manifest itself. Actions on the level of an entire society or culture are beyond our ability to manage. A culture is not a very large watch.
But we think it is. That delusion lies at the very heart of the philosophy of modernity.
The arguments supporting the success of modernity are always misleading. The single desired effect (e.g. the end of slavery) is cited. But every unplanned consequence is ignored (the massive displacement of black families, etc.). Certain actions are extremely desirable (such as ending slavery), but every action carries its unforeseen cost. What tends to be the case is that the desired outcome is credited to our actions, while the unforeseen consequences are credited to “nature” (or some such thing). Modernity always wins, because it cooks the books.
The work of “making it so,” is always an act of violence. We take what is not so and force it to be otherwise. Whether it is the violence of a plow making a field suitable for planting, or the violence of creating a parking lot, human beings have formed and shaped their world by “making it so,” for all our existence. The field and the parking lot, as innocuous and innocent as they may be, also create consequences that were not part of the plan. The only means of dealing with these consequences are to employ more violence to alter things yet again (requiring yet more violence, ad infinitum), or to treat the consequences as an acceptable change.
In this sense, to be an active part of the world is to employ violence. We do not sit lightly on the surface of our planet. Most human societies across history, have made a moderate peace with the world in which they live, using forms of violence whose consequences have been well-enough tolerated and accounted for so as to be bearable. The rate of change in such societies was modest, and within the limits that a culture could easily accommodate.
Large and rapid change is another thing entirely. “Changing the world,” under a variety of slogans, is the essence of the modern project. Modernity is not about how to live rightly in the world, but about how to make the world itself live rightly. The difference could hardly be greater. The inception of modernity, across the 18th and 19th centuries, was marked by revolution. The Industrial Revolution, the rise of various forms of capitalism, the birth of the modern state with its political revolutions, all initiated a period of ceaseless change marked by winners and losers. Of course, success is measured by statistics that blur the edges of reality. X-number of people find their incomes increased, while only Y-number of people suffer displacement and ruination. So long as X is greater than Y, the change is a success. The trick is to be an X.
The ceaseless re-invention of the better world rarely takes stock of its own actions. That large amounts of any present ruination are the result of the last push for progress is ignored. It is treated as nothing more than another set of problems to be fixed. As the fixes add up, a toxic culture begins to emerge: food that cannot be eaten; air that cannot be breathed; relationships that cannot be endured; safety that cannot be maintained, etc. As the toxicity rises, so the demand for ever more action and change grows, and, with it, the increase in violence (of all types). The amount of our human existence that now requires rather constant technological intervention is staggering. The entire modern pattern of dating, marriage, family and procreation are impossible without chemical and biological intervention. There has been no “sexual revolution,” only the application of technology into one of the most all-pervasive and normal parts of human existence, creating an artificial aspect to our lives that rests on violence. The abortion of nearly one-third of all children conceived is but a single example. The foundations of our present society are built on doing profound violence to human nature. And this is but a single example.
It should be noted that I have not suggested some mode of existence that is free of violence. Human beings make things happen, as does most of creation. Modernity, however, is another matter. Its better world has no limits, its project is never-ending. What are the proper limits of violence? Are there boundaries that must not be crossed?
Modernity has as its goal the creation of a better world with no particular reference to God – it is a secular concept. As such, that which constitutes “better” is, or can be, a shifting definition. In Soviet Russia it was one thing, in Nazi Germany another, in Consumer-Capitalist societies yet another still. Indeed, that which is “better” is often the subject of the political sphere. But there is no inherent content to the “better,” nor any inherent limits on the measures taken to achieve it. The pursuit of the better (“progress”) becomes its own morality.
The approach of classical Christianity does not oppose change (there is always change), nor does it deny that one thing might be better than another. But the “good” which gives every action its meaning is God Himself, as made known in Christ. In classical terms, this is expressed as “keeping the commandments.” Those commandments are summarized in the love of God and the love of neighbor. There are other elements within the commandments of Christ that minimize and restrict the use of violence.
There is, for example, no commandment to make the world a better place, nor even to make progress towards a better world. The “better world” concept is, historically, a heretical borrowing from Christianity, a secularization of the notion of the Kingdom of God, translated into terms of progressive technology and laws (violence). Instead, the management of history’s outcomes is considered idolatrous. Only God controls the outcome of history.
My experience is that questioning our responsibility for history’s outcome will always be met with anxious objections that we would be agreeing “to do nothing” and the result would be terrible. Keeping the commandments of Christ is not doing nothing. It is, however, the refusal to use violence to force the world into ever-changing imaginary versions of the good.
I will cite a somewhat controversial example (all examples would be controversial, for modernists love nothing better than to argue about how to next use violence to improve the world). Consider the task of education. Teaching children to read, write and do numbers is not a terribly modern thing. It has been done for centuries, and, occasionally, done rather successfully. But the education industry (a subset of government) exists as an ever-changing set of standards, techniques, and procedures, whose constantly changing results occasion ever-increasing testing, change, control, management and violence to yield frequently lesser results. It has largely produced a cult of management and administration (the bane of every teacher’s existence). This example could be, mutatis mutandis, multiplied over the whole of our increasingly dysfunctional culture.
Sadly, as the results of modernity’s violent progress become more dysfunctional, the greater the temptation becomes to do more of the same. Every problem is greeted only with the question of how it might be fixed, with no one ever suggesting that the fixing of the world might be our largest problem.
Again, this is not an all-or-nothing thing. The classical world was not passive nor was there an absence of change. Modernity has chosen economics as the measure of the good, treating increasing productivity as the engine of progress and prosperity and the primary measure of a better world. Debates over the best means of driving such productivity, whether through command-and-control or passive market forces, have been the primary arguments within modernity.
There are many, many other goods that could be, and have been the measure of a culture. The only reason for using economic productivity is the false belief that material prosperity is the fount of all blessings. If we are rich enough, we will be happy.
At the very dark end of the spectrum, America’s philosophical assumptions have made it the servant of modernity-as-export where literal violence is the day-to-day result. Remaking the Middle East has not only failed (completely) but cost hundreds of thousands of lives, a large proportion of which were complete innocents. The resulting chaos has been, at best, a distraction from our unrelenting pleasure in the entertainment industry, though our wars have generated a very popular genre of video game. Violence itself has become a consumer product.
This picture of the modern world can, in the modern Christian mind, provoke an immediate response of wondering what can be done to change it. The difficult answer is to quit living as though modernity were true. Quit validating modernity’s questions. Do not ask, “How can we fix the world?” Instead, ask, “How should Christians live?” and give the outcome of history back to God.
How should we live?
First, live as though in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated into the world and the outcome of history has already been determined. (Quit worrying)
Second, love people as the very image of God and resist the temptation to improve them.
Third, refuse to make economics the basis of your life. Your job is not even of secondary importance.
Fourth, quit arguing about politics as though the political realm were the answer to the world’s problems. It gives it power that is not legitimate and enables a project that is anti-God.
Fifth, learn to love your enemies. God did not place them in the world for us to fix or eliminate. If possible, refrain from violence.
Sixth, raise the taking of human life to a matter of prime importance and refuse to accept violence as a means to peace. Every single life is a vast and irreplaceable treasure.
Seventh, cultivate contentment rather than pleasure. It will help you consume less and free you from slavery to your economic masters.
Eighth, as much as possible, think small. You are not in charge of the world. Love what is local, at hand, personal, intimate, unique, and natural. It’s a preference that matters.
Ninth, learn another language. Very few things are better at teaching you about who you are not.
Tenth, be thankful for everything, remembering that the world we live in and everything in it belongs to God.
That’s but a minor list, a few things that occur to me offhand. They are things that encourage us to live in a “non-modern” manner. It is worth noting that when Roman soldiers approached John the Baptist and asked him how they should live, he told them to be content with their wages and to do violence to no one. They were in charge of the world in their day – or so they could mistakenly think. My few bits of advice are of a piece with that beloved saint’s words. | {
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Nabestaanden van slachtoffers van de ramp met de MH17 uit Australië, Maleisië en Nieuw-Zeeland eisen miljoenen schadevergoeding van de staat Rusland en president Poetin. Een Australisch advocatenkantoor heeft de claim ingediend bij het Europees Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens in Straatsburg.
De 33 nabestaanden die door het kantoor worden vertegenwoordigd, eisen per persoon 10 miljoen dollar schadeloosstelling van Rusland. Vlucht MH17 van Malaysia Airlines werd in juli 2014 neergehaald door een in Rusland geproduceerde Buk-raket.
Westerse deskundigen gaan ervan uit dat de door Rusland gesteunde opstandelingen in Oost-Oekraïne het vliegtuig uit de lucht hebben geschoten. Alle 298 inzittenden kwamen daarbij om; onder hen waren 196 Nederlanders en 27 Australiërs.
Geheim
De advocaten uit Sydney schrijven in de aanklacht dat Rusland zich tot het uiterste heeft ingespannen om zijn rol in de crash geheim te houden. De regering heeft geen eigen intern onderzoek gelast en geweigerd mee te werken aan de reconstructie van de cockpit van het ramptoestel, staat in de papieren die naar Straatsburg zijn gestuurd.
Ook zouden Russische internetspionnen hebben geprobeerd het rapport over de MH17 van de Nederlandse Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid te hacken.
Nederlandse nabestaanden hebben nog geen proces voor schadevergoeding aangespannen. Letselschadeadvocaten willen eerst meer officiële onderzoeksresultaten afwachten voor ze juridische stappen ondernemen. | {
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Swype has announced another update to its beta app, bringing some pretty neat features and adding some additional languages support. This update brings Dragon Dictation to the keyboard, adds more than 50 languages for input, and they are continuing to expand the list through 2012. The update is rolling out, and it could take up to 72 hours to appear on your device, but you can manually check for the update as well. Swype advises they may bounce some downloads so if you are seeing errors, please just try again at a later time.
Source: Swype | {
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At dConstruct in Brighton last month Steven Johnson talked at length about his startup, outside.in, that collects together place-blogs to display aggregates commentary and information on a block, neighbourhood and city level. The site is US-only at the moment, which made it a curious presentation for a largely non-US audience. Their toolset for extracting geographical information from blog entries is impressive, but a number of us were talking afterwards about what the real value of such aggregation is for those who might already live in an information-rich or tightly knit neighbourhood.
I find outside.in handy for keeping up with news from Grand Rapids now that I no longer live there, but even if it were available in the UK I suspect its main use would be for identifying other local people rather than learning what’s going on. And even then, there are existing community discussion groups and other fora that work well.
What would seem really compelling is a way to connect with the places that only get our partial attention. A couple of times a week I take a bus past a local leisure centre. It’s not somewhere that I’m likely to use at the moment, but with big life changes coming up it may be somewhere I’m more interested in before long. It wasn’t until after the fact that I saw that it was the centre of some controversial planning decisions, far too late to engage in the debate.
We all travel along a variety of paths all the time. Often only a few of the places on our routes get much of our attention, but most of them are of some importance to us. I’d really like to have a site that was aware of my most common (or preferred) routes and helped me engage with them more deeply. Presumably it wouldn’t be much more work than that outside.in does to assemble place-blogs. That geo-data just needs to be mapped to a trajectory rather than a simple locale.
Related | {
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Not sure if best sex i've ever had Or painful and terrifying
264 shares | {
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Blur's Damon Albarn had to be carried off stage by a security guard after he refused to end a set, which lasted for five hours.
The Britpop legend was performing with his collective Africa Express at the Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark over the weekend and clearly didn't want it to come to an end.
After a lengthy set, which lasted until 4am, Albarn was forcibly removed from the stage after he refused to wrap things up, much to the amusement of the crowd.
Fans in the audience caught the hilarious moment on camera as the 47-year-old kept on playing after being made aware of the curfew by organisers.
Clearly getting into the moment, Albarn and his collective - which features musicians Nick Zinner and Seye Adeklan - started a rendition of the Clash's Should I Stay Or Should I Go when asked to leave the stage.
While the crowd obviously wanted the band to stay, it was clearly time to go as a burly security guard jumped on stage and carried the Blur frontman away.
The epic set included special appearances by the likes of Graham Coxon and Laura Mvula, and featured Gorillaz songs and Randy Newman covers.
Albarn has had a busy few months after releasing his comeback album with Blur and is gearing up for a number of dates with the 90s Britpop band and Africa Collective. | {
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To access this post, you must purchase a Factory Sports Membership
Carolina Panthers The Panthers had a solid defense last year. They were Top 10 in yards allowed but #11 in points allowed. This defense needs to inject some youth and talent, coupled with their new DC to avoid taking a step backward. Defensive Ends will be the DE1. will return […] | {
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Nintendo's mascot Mario has appeared in literally hundreds of video games, from featured appearances to small cameos. But simply considering every game with "Mario" in the title equally and flatly as a "Mario game" isn't a very useful categorization. Surely there's some way to draw a line between the games like Super Mario Bros. and games like Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix.
But where is that line? How do we define what is a "core" Mario game and what isn't?
You probably think the answer is obvious and are developing your own list of "core" Mario games in your head right now. But I can assure you, your "obvious" answer is probably different from the "obvious" answer given by any other gamer you'd care to ask in some significant ways.
After days spent debating this definition with other gamers online and analyzing the results of a poll on the subject, I found Mario games can be divided into distinct tiers radiating outward from a central "core." I also found the debate over this simple definition has some interesting implications for how we view ever-evolving franchises and how we think about what games are important inclusions in the medium's still-developing canon.
The never-ending debate
My recent interest in the "core" Mario game question started innocently when the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Max Parker asked me on Twitter what I thought of his contention that Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World are not part of the "core Mario series." The resulting epic Twitter argument drew in several other participants from the game journalism world and split off into numerous heated subthreads, eventually touching on the nature of scientific versus religious classification itself.
Much of the debate centered on whether there was a precise definition of a "core" Mario game or whether it's just something you feel in your gut on a case-by-case basis. And if there is a definition, what criteria go into it?
Some argued that just focusing on controlling Mario running and jumping was enough (but what about edge cases like Yoshi's Island or Super Mario Run?). Others felt some level of significant gameplay innovation was necessary or that the game's lasting impact on the genre should be considered. Can a game on a portable system be considered a "core" Mario game? Does the way Nintendo marketed the game matter (and how does Nintendo's own list of core Mario games factor in)? Does it matter if the game is, um, good?
Let’s settle this
Arguing over definitional issues like this with friends is one thing, but I wanted to get a broader idea of how gamers in general think about this question. So the next day, inspired by efforts like Fivethirtyeight's poll-based attempt to define the US Midwest, I set up a Google poll asking people to pick which titles fell into their definition of "core Mario game."
I asked respondents to "use whatever definition of 'core Mario game' you personally use" and offered up a multiple choice list of 61 potential choices (Mario has been in a lot of games). I did condense some series together for simplicity (if one Mario Kart game is core, probably all of them are), and I left out some straight remakes and obviously secondary titles (Mario Paint et al). Still, I tried to sample a wide range of games featuring Mario to get a precise idea of where people draw the line, personally.
In comments on the poll and on Twitter, some people came up with elegant definitions to slice the Mario pie. One suggested that only games with "Super Mario" (rather than just "Mario") in their title are part of the "core" (with the possible exception of the original Super Mario Kart). Another said that "core" Mario games are ones in which Mario runs toward a set end point and can collect and keep items permanently until getting hit (a strict definition that excludes games like Super Mario 64 and Galaxy).
Still others went more detailed: "If there's jumping, platforming, coin collection, stomping on enemies, bashing and breaking blocks (not just with hammers!), entering pipes, secret areas, mushrooms, stars and flowers as bonus items or abilities, bonus stages and/or minigames, multiple goals that aren't just to reach the end of the level, and performed by Mario or any of the main characters in the Mario universe—then it's a 'core' Mario game."
The most honest responses, though, realized there might be no strict way to settle the debate, even personally. "I can’t even do this. I can't decide in Mario what's core or not. I feel like all, but also some shouldn't be. I dunno," one respondent mused thoughtfully. "I can't rationalize my choices," another wrote in the poll.
Others found that just answering the question revealed deep personal truths about themselves. "Also realizing that I may actually count Super Mario Run as a 'core' Mario game makes me uncomfortable," Dan Carmichael wrote on Twitter. | {
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Posted November 29, 2017 at 7:10 pm
EDIT - Totally forgot to give Susan squirrel ears and a tail! That's embarassing. I will fix that at some point, but possibly not for a few days given other priorities and how tired I am, so... Yeah. Sorry about that.
Because she wants to see what all the patterns on her back are. That's the only reason she's asking. Anything else you might be assuming is wrong and you should be ashamed. ASHAMED!
Not wishing to speak for the comic while also knowing people will ask me about the technical details anyway, the "attract" effect on the actual players is relative to how they'd normally feel.
This is why Rhoda and Catalina have jaws in danger of hitting the floor and very strong blushes, and Susan just has a mild blush and is distracted enough to twirl her hair like that (which she will no doubt stop doing the instant she realizes she's doing it). | {
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2014-07-17 17:50 , edited 2014-07-25 19:29 by t1gge
Hi everyone!UPDATE: If you have issuses on PC:1. Do not use Origin Beta (use regular origin)2. Do not use beta drivers (use latest normal ones)3. try disabling the origin overlay as it causes issues (Origin in-game overlay he meant. Go to Origin(on top left)------>Application Settings------->Origin in game then un-click on "Enable Origin in game".)4. look for bad packetloss icon / run the systems performance test if you experience bad networking, if you have constant packetloss, please post your ISP and contact them about it too (I'll pull strings here too)UPDATE 2: We've looked at the routes to our servers (console servers) - and it seems there was some congestion (even though this is prohibited - make sure you vote for net neutrality americans...). It has now been fixed. Please let me know if PS4/Xbone is playing better!Our team is working on reproducing situations that may cause low PC performance and stuttering while playing Dragon’s Teeth. If you have a solid case on your machine, please reach out to us on the Battlelog forums over at http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/forums. [battlelog.battlefield.com]We know this is happening more for players with Mantle enabled, and with more than one graphics card (including Nvidia SLI). For some players lowering the texture quality to low (or lower than they currently are using) also temporarily fixes this.Some users experience less of the stuttering to be coming from the use of the Battlescreen, especially in Chrome. Try using another web browser and closing the battlescreen to see if this is indeed the case.We are hard at work looking for the root-causes for these performance issues and this thread will be updated once we know more.Short after release we heard that some of you had problems downloading and installing Dragon’s Teeth on PlayStation 3. We moved swiftly on this one and have now resolved the issue. Thanks for letting us know about this one.A few players brought to our attention that Dragon’s Teeth was incorrectly priced on Xbox One. This issue has been resolved, and no one has to worry that they’ve been charged an incorrect sum.We’re looking at these two issues, and as soon as we have more information we’ll start working on a solution and provide you updates in this matter as well.Feel free to ask follow-up questions in this thread and I'll try and answer them as soon as possible!Thank you, | {
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Good Girl Gina
step kids have an abusive mother who makes them fight for her affections that she never gives.
treats and loves step children like they are her own and introduces them as her child and son.
these captions aren't guaranteed to be correct | {
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There have been few sectors dripping with apathy of late quite like the oil services sector.
On Tuesday, The Philadelphia Oil Service Sector Index fell 2% again, adding to a 15% drubbing it has taken this year so far, according to Bloomberg. Over the same period of time, the S&P 500 index has risen 25%.
Piper Jaffray sent analysts to New York recently to gauge investor interest in the industry, which remains tepid. The company's analysts wrote in a note: “Not surprisingly, interest in oil service stocks is at a career low, if one’s marketing schedule is an indication of interest."
They stated that marketing trips in the oil services sector consist of “a sparse two-day schedule featuring plenty of coffee time between meetings.” Years prior, such trips would often include back-to-back meetings along with group lunches and dinners, the analysts said.
Oilfield stocks remain a concern due to their leverage, profitability concerns and poor well returns.
Bank of America even commented in a recent note that Apple, on its own, is worth more than the S&P 500 Energy Index, which includes names like Conoco, Exxon and Chevron.
Many oil stocks now have dividend yields between 3% and 5%, but that hasn't been enough to convince investors to buy into the weakness. “Collectively, the consensus view is that the oil service sector remains un-investable,” Piper's analysts concluded.
But not everybody agrees. Recall, just last week we noted that Sam Zell and other billionaires were starting to circle the oil industry like vultures, scooping up assets from distressed companies on the cheap. | {
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— The Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority board voted Friday to lease part of the airport's property to Wake Stone Corp. so the company can expand its nearby quarry.
The 25-year mineral rights lease is expected to generate about $24 million, which RDU officials said would be used for infrastructure projects, such as replacing the airport's primary runway, adding gates and upgrading amenities in the terminals.
Wake Stone will be allowed to expand its quarry off Interstate 40 by 105 acres under the deal, which also requires the company to provide $3.6 million for a governmental entity or nonprofit to lease and manage 151 acres of airport land near Umstead State Park for mountain biking trails.
The area has long been used by mountain bikers and hikers, even though they're technically trespassing on airport property.
Wake Stone also agreed to spend about $3 million at the end of its lease to add recreational features to the area it's mining so it can be reclaimed for public use.
"We're making a compromise here. These are concessions that we didn't plan to give in order to get this deal done," Wake Stone President Sam Bratton said.
The Umstead Coalition fought against the expanded quarry, saying the RDU land would be better used as an expansion of the state park or for recreation.
Dozens of quarry opponents packed the RDU board meeting to express their displeasure with the lease deal.
"In order to stay one of the best places to live in the world, we need more park space. We don't need a giant hole in the ground," Anthony Corriveau said.
"Who wants a big hole? Certainly not people who love nature, who love to get outside. Certainly not the residents who live there. [It's] very disappointing, very disappointing," Camye Womble said.
Conservation groups are considering legal action against the decision, said Natalie Lew of Triangle Off-Road Cyclists.
"We want a win-win situation, but the rock quarry is not part of any balance," Lew said. "Continuing the current quarry and expanding it takes more of the border of Umstead State Park away."
Umstead Coalition argued that the RDU board's vote violated state and federal regulations because neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the local governments that own the airport signed off on the lease.
"The Airport Authority navigates and complies with an intricate web of statutory and regulatory requirements every day, RDU officials said in a news release. "The Airport Authority has done due diligence related to its approval of the agreement with Wake Stone and is confident that the permitting and approval process to determine the feasibility of the expansion of the existing quarry can begin. The Airport Authority remains committed to complying with all applicable laws and requirements."
RDU began seeking revenue-generating proposals for its property two years ago.
Wake Stone still must obtain all required federal, state and environmental permits for the quarry, which is estimated to take up to two years. | {
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AskThem Is Being Redesigned
The open-source, open-data, non-profit AskThem Q&A platform is undergoing a volunteer redesign (!) for public accountability ahead of the 2020 elections. The website is offline as we seek to develop it fully again.
Same with PPF’s deprecated website OpenGovernment.org, whose open-source GovKit tech is being retired.
We’re excited to show what we’re building for continual public conversation with candidates in every state and Congressional district and more.
Questions or comments, email David Moore, AskThem’s Director: david at ppolitics.org, or I’m easily reachable on Twitter, @ppolitics.
Rails programmers, web designers, are you available to help with the volunteer AskThem redesign? We’re a collaborative team of two.
Get in touch, simply email: david at ppolitics.org, or DM us on Twttr: @AskThemPPF, or jump in to our new GitHub repo. Exciting stuff, there.
More to come on dev priorities and front-end opportunities. Background on AskThem’s unique strategy for re-engagement (Jan. 2017).
Questions welcome, thank you for using OpenGovernment and AskThem for public accountability. | {
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Recipe
100g white chocolate
½ tsp PureChimp matcha green tea
50g freeze-dried raspberries (whole or crumbled)
Directions
1. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Place 2/3 of the white chocolate in a double boiler or a bowl placed over a pot of steaming water (medium high heat), stirring constantly until melted (5-10 minutes).
3. Add matcha powder to the bowl and stir until the streaks disappear and the chocolate is uniform in colour.
4. Pour the melted chocolate onto the parchment-lined baking tray. Sprinkle your frozen raspberries on top. Gently press the toppings into the chocolate to make sure they stick.
5. Refrigerate for 30 to 40 minutes, until chocolate is set and can be broken into chunks. Enjoy :) | {
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Any moment now, authorities in Saudi Arabia are set to carry out the execution of a social activist who was only 17 years old at the time of his alleged offenses.
The chosen method of execution is shocking in its brutality: by beheading and crucifixion. Equally troubling are the crimes Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, now 21, is accused of committing: “taking part in demonstrations against the government,” “explaining how to give first aid to protesters,” and “using his Blackberry to invite others to join him,” to name a few, according to the human rights group Reprieve, which has campaigned for his release.
All appeals against his execution have been exhausted; it’s just a matter of King Salman ratifying the death sentence.
This is appalling to us—to the western world—but for those in the region and those in al-Nimr’s family, it is familiar. His uncle Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, a Shia cleric in eastern Saudia Arabia, is also facing an imminent death sentence on charges of “waging a war on God” during those same protests. The Guardian described his uncle as the figure that had “taken the lead” during the Shia uprising that took place in Saudi in 2011 and 2012, during the time of the Arab Spring.
In a final effort to save young al-Nimr’s life, this week the United Nations Office of the Commission of Human Rights issued a last-minute plea to spare his life.
“Any judgment imposing the death penalty upon persons who were children at the time of the offence , and their execution, are incompatible with Saudi Arabia’s international obligations,” read the statement, adding that it considered al Nimr’s trial to be unfair. “Mr. al-Nimr did not receive a fair trial and his lawyer was not allowed to properly assist him and was prevented from accessing the case file.”
The al-Nimr family comes from eastern Saudi, where most of the nation’s Shias live in an otherwise Sunni majority nation. Shias account for about 10 to 15% of the population, and have long alleged discrimination in education and seeking government work. The Saudi monarchy is staunchly Sunni, using a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahabbism. The minority Shias, concentrated in the east, are often portrayed as heretics by the state, or even worse: agents of Iran, the region’s major Shia power with which Saudi is forever waging a war of influence against.
“Ali’s family allege that his connection to Sheikh al-Nimr is the real reason for the case, as well as the ongoing crackdown against Shia activists in the east of the country, which has gone largely unreported due to heavy restrictions on both the local and international media in Saudi Arabia,” reported the International Business Times. Anti-Shia sentiment in the region came to a head in May, when a Shia mosque was hit by a suicide bomb in the al-Nimr family’s hometown, killing 21. ISIS claimed responsibility.
Complicating the matter is the fact that just last week, Saudi was chosen to head a panel of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The move immediately sparked an international indignation, considering their treatment of dissidents.
When pressed by a reporter about the United States’ reaction to the appointment in light of al-Nimr’s impending execution, a senior U.S. State Department official said of the move: “We would welcome it. We’re close allies.”
So far this year, Saudi has already executed 134 people, mostly by beheading. That’s 44 more than the entire total for last year, the United Nations statement noted. | {
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What are you doing to combat the adverse effects of climate change? Here are some famous quotes on climate change that help motivate people to act on this issue.
54 Inspirational and Shocking Quotes on Climate Change
Climate change is a topic that has gathered so much heat in recent years and an issue that must be taken with complete seriousness. In this article, we will explore some of the intriguing and inspirational quotes on climate change.
Leaders all over the globe, scientists, as well as a good number of the worlds’ population have realized the need to talk and act upon this issue.
Brilliant minds have come up with incredible quotes on climate change that may help people to understand the need for change.
It is crucial that we understand the adverse effects that climate change has on our planet and rectify our mode of living.
Taking care of our environment is the responsibility of every individual in the globe to provide a habitable place for future generations.
Green living is one of the best ways to save the planet and to conserve our natural resources.
List of Best Quotes about Climate Change and the Environment
If we don’t take charge of our actions and continue destroying our environment, nature will surely hit back. That’s not a secret anymore.
Want to go solar for free? Try Arcadia Power and get $20 off your electric bill when you sign up and link your utility account.
We need to find sustainable ways to save nature. Here some quotes about climate change written by various individuals from all corners of this beautiful planet.
Inspirational Quotes about Climate Change
This section will include some of the most inspirational quotes on how to save the environment and combat climate change.
1. “Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.” — Sylvia Earle
2. “If you really think that the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money.” — Guy McPherson
3. “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” — Albert Einstein
4. “One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliché before it has even been understood” – Tim Flannery
5. “Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.” — Desmond Tutu
6. “Climate change is the environmental challenge of this generation, and it is imperative that we act before it’s too late.”- John Delaney
See Related: Green Coast Renewable Energy and Green Living Dictionary
Quotes on Saving Our Planet
These quotes are directly related to how to save our planet.
7. “Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security, and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.” – Ban Ki-moon
8. “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” – Native American Proverb
9. “We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it.” – Jay Inslee
10. “All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.” – Chief Seattle
11. “We must face up to an inescapable reality: the challenges of sustainability simply overwhelm the adequacy of our responses. With some honorable exceptions, our responses are too few, too little, and too late.” — Kofi A. Annan
12. “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.” – Bill Nye
13. “Climate change is sometimes misunderstood as being about changes in the weather. In reality, it is about changes in our very way of life.” – Paul Polman
14. “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
15. “Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are – rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call ‘global challenges,’ which require global solidarity.” – Ban Ki-moon
16. “Wind and other clean, renewable energy will help end our reliance on fossil fuels and combat the severe threat that climate change poses to humans and wildlife alike.” – Frances Beinecke
17. “If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.” – David Suzuki
18. “We can be thankful President Barack Obama is taking aim at one of the prime causes of climate change and extreme weather: air pollution. The EPA’s carbon pollution standards are the most significant step forward our country has ever taken to protect our health by addressing climate change.” – Donna Brazile
See Related: Best Solar Panels to Buy for Your Home
Real but Shocking Quotes on Climate Change
Although many people don’t take climate change seriously, there is a significant portion of the population who know and realize its devastating effects.
Here are some famous quotes on climate change said by great minds and which may help us realize what our actions affect our existence.
19. “The cost of our success is the exhaustion of natural resources, leading to energy crises, climate change, pollution, and the destruction of our habitat. If you exhaust natural resources, there will be nothing left for your children. If we continue in the same direction, humankind is headed for some frightful ordeals, if not extinction.” – Christian de Duve
20. “Climate change, in some regions, has aggravated conflict over scarce land, and could well trigger large-scale migration in the decades ahead. And rising sea levels put at risk the very survival of all small island states. These and other implications for peace and security have implications for the United Nations itself.” – Ban Ki-moon
21. “When all the world appears to be in a tumult, and nature itself is feeling the assault of climate change, the seasons retain their essential rhythm. Yes, fall gives us a premonition of winter, but then, winter will be forced to relent, once again, to the new beginnings of soft greens, longer light, and the sweet air of spring.” – Madeleine M. Kunin
22. “If you don’t act against climate change, then no matter how much money you leave for your children, it’ll not even cover their healthcare bills, due to living in an unhealthy planet.” – Abhijit Naskar
23. “I have long understood that climate change is not only an environmental issue – it is a humanitarian, economic, health, and justice issue as well.” – Frances Beinecke
24. “As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you, and climate change is one of those exceptions.” – Al Gore
25. “Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels to reduced water availability, to more heat waves and fires.” – Malcolm Turnbull
26. “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.” – David Attenborough
27. “The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.”- Barack Obama
28. “The world that you and I live in is increasingly challenged. Population growth, pollution, over-consumption, unsustainable patterns, social conflict, climate change, loss of nature… these are not good stories.” – Jack Dangermond
29. “Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course”. – Ban Ki-moon
See Related: Best Greywater Systems for Your Home
Horrifying but True Climate Change Quotes
These are some climate change quotes that are truly eye-opening.
30. “Anybody who doesn’t see the impact of climate change is really, and I would say, myopic. They don’t see the reality. It’s so evident that we are destroying Mother Earth. This is not the problem of one country or a few countries: it is the problem of mankind. We need to work together to stop this. Otherwise, our future generations will simply disappear.” Juan Manuel Santos
31. “The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.” -Al Gore
32. “We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don’t have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it’s climate change or whether it’s technological disruption.” Yuval Noah Harari
33. “The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels and we need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution.” – Ban Ki-moon
34. “Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe.” – John F. Kerry
35. “Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century.” – Sir Nicholas Stern
36. “By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited… The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.” – Bill Gates
37. “I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe mankind has looked at climate change in the same way, as if it were fiction.” Leonardo DiCaprio
38. “We can’t take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don’t address climate change, we won’t be around as humans.” Conrad Anker
39. “We cannot compromise with the earth; we cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change, so we must compromise with one another.” Gordon Brown
40. “To put it in more shocking terms, it doesn’t matter if the skeptics are right or not, because the assumptions on which the debate is based are already enough to doom us to a dystopian future.” – Charles Eisenstein,
41. “The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.” – Noam Chomsky
See Related: Direct Energy Review
Short Thought-Provoking Quotes on Climate Change
Lastly, here are some intriguing short quotes on climate change.
42. “The Earth is a fine place and worth fighting for.” – Ernest Hemingway
43. “We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.” -Terri Swearingen
44. “I’d be stunned, shocked, and amazed if there were a human being on the planet in 2030.” – Guy R. McPherson
45. “The Earth should not be a worse place after my life than it was when I was born here.” – Rob Stewart
46. “God gave us the earth, to till and to keep in a balanced and respectful way.”- Pope Francis
47. “Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism.” -David King
48. “A planet being pushed to the edge will eventually turn on us.” – Marco Lambertini
49. “The planet will continue to cook.” – Paul Krugman
50. “Climatism is the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate.” Steve Goreham
51. “The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound that man has created through global warming.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
52. “We are running out of time, and we must have a planetary solution to a planetary crisis.” – Al Gore
53. “The future will be green or not at all.” – Jonathon Porritt
54. “There is no such thing as ‘away’. So, when we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.” – Annie Leonard
See Related: Best Books on Renewable Energy
Conclusion on Quotes on Climate Change
To sum up the list of quotes on climate change we can only say that, there is much that has been said about climate change, but less has been done.
Therefore, I believe there is still much to do, and these quotes on climate change will help us all take nature with the seriousness it deserves. Move to wind and solar energy for free?
Try Arcadia Power and get $20 off your electric bill when you sign up and link your utility account.
Like these quotes? Check out our favorite quotes about sustainability.
What are you doing to help save our planet? Please let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.
Related Resources | {
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Not sure if anyone else caught this, but Fuji's X-T1 Classic Chrome camera process has been available since Lightroom's version 5.7 update. I'm only posting it here because I'm not sure that I saw it posted anywhere else, and I happened to stumble upon it a couple weeks back as a happy accident. The firmware update doesn't actually drop until Thursday 12/18, but it makes sense that its available now as the Graphite Silver Edition is already shipping (which has the new firmware loaded by default), plus it would be doubtful that Adobe would release a full 'dot' update on 12/18 for this feature alone. Either way, it has been fun playing around with it before it officially arrives in a couple days. If you have an X-T1, be sure to shoot RAW and try it out. | {
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Laptop Service Center In Porur Chennai
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Laptop Service in Porur is best place for any model laptop repair services and spare parts upgrade centre near Arcot Road. Call us 9094899966 and speak directly to our laptop repair service support experts. | {
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My name is Yuriy Chayka and I’m an established entrepreneur in the tech and payments space in the Ukraine. I have been involved in this industry for the last 10 years, both on a senior management level in the Ukraine, and as a founder and partner. In 2013 I cofounded FINOVATE Studio; a fintech solutions studio that gives large market players access to the best startups, best inventions and best teams in Russia, Ukraine and Europe as a major source of corporate innovations. In 2015 I founded Mobipay, the first mobile wallet in Ukraine. I am experienced in this industry, and I know a project with massive potential when I see it.
This brings me to why I joined Viuly. As soon as I understood the concept I thought it was a great idea that has a lot of potential. I know video sharing is already becoming the future of how people communicate. My own observation is that there will be an even bigger shift to online video over the coming years, especially by the larger players in the marketplace. I also understand how big players in the Industry like YouTube work, and I know how things could be improved.
As an avid fan of blockchain technology I can see the benefits that cryptocurrency will bring to general society and global business as a whole. When I was approached to assist in Viuly by my long term friend and colleague Ruslan, it was an exciting project that encompassed the problems that I felt needed resolving. The fact that Viuly would fully decentralize and reward all participants fairly, through the use of blockchain technology to power its online video platform was a glimpse of the future to me.
Currently, major centralized online video platforms do not pass the rewards back down to the actual people who deserve them: including the publishers, viewers, and advertisers. Viuly’s platform does exactly that.
On centralized online video platforms, the faceless company makes all the decisions regarding what content can be shown, and it is simply too much control for only a few people to have.
Given the decentralized nature of blockchain, issues such as these (control and reward sharing) will hopefully be a thing of the past, thanks to Viuly.
Blockchain is the future of finance, and Viuly is the future of online video. It is an honor to be here, and to advise the team as they build the blockchain based online video platform of the future.
-Yuri Chayka, Viuly Advisor, https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriychayka/
LEARN MORE ABOUT VIULY AND CONNECT WITH US
Join us for the (r)evolution of the decentralization of online video:
Visit our website: https://viuly.com
Read the Viuly Whitepaper: https://viuly.com/Viuly_Whitepaper.pdf
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ViulyOfficial
Join us on Telegram: https://t.me/viulyofficial
Get inolved on Slack: https://bit.ly/viuly-official
Like us on Facebook: http://fb.me/viuly
Viuly on bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2191252.0 | {
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Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced today that he will not accept interviews from a journalists who don’t hold any cryptocurrencies. This is primarily due to the fact that non-holders do not understand or appreciate this amazing technology and they tend to ask questions that are silly and against the crypto community. Let’s look into this development in detail and how mainstream media and journalists handle Crypto news in an unprofessional and biased manner.
Binance Exchange
Binance is one of the biggest exchanges in the world, handling huge volumes. Recently, it was reported that the exchange made a profit to the tune of $200 million; that’s more than the profit made by the Deutsche Bank. The bank only made a profit of $146 million dollars in the Q1, 2018. Binance also announced that it is moving to Malta, a Mediterranean island in Europe. The exchange is growing at a rapid pace and seems as if it will continue to dominate the crypto market.
Mainstream Media Against Crypto
The mainstream media and the non-crypto journalists often against this amazing technology. They try to create FUD to make the people panic sell due to their inaccurate reporting of Cryptocurrencies. The Mainstream media really doesn’t know how this works nor have many of them done any transactions using Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Their general perspective is that Bitcoin is used for drug business and also in money laundering, so they support strict regulations against cryptos. They really don’t know beyond this and have not done enough research to know about its benefits and use cases. It might also be a possibility that the Government and Banks might be sponsoring the media to write against crypto since they are afraid of the disruption this technology brings to their business.
Binance CEO’s stance Against Journalist
Binance CEO has taken a tougher stance against the mainstream media and the irresponsible journalists due to their continuous attack on cryptocurrencies and their bad attitude toward them. Recently, Changpeng Zhao has hit back against Nikkei and called it “Irresponsible Journalism”. Nikkei reported a few weeks back that Japan’s Financial Services Agency was about to issue an exit order to this exchange. This is how Changpeng responded to the false news
“Nikkei showed irresponsible journalism. We are in constructive dialogs with Japan FSA, and have not received any mandates. It does not make sense for JFSA to tell a newspaper before telling us, while we have an active dialog going on with them,”
This is not the only case when Zhao faced such false allegations, there are countless other times when they created panic by publishing false information and also the journalist would ask silly questions that are irrelevant to the crypto space. So he has taken a stance to accept media interview requests only from journalists who HODL some crypto. This way, he is ensuring that he is speaking to the right journalist who understands how cryptocurrency works and appreciates its use case. Some ignorant media persons keep bombarding Zhao with questions like “are bitcoins only used by drug lords?”.
Below is the tweet from him related to his announcement.
“I learned most journalists are forbidden by their employers to hodl any crypto. Should they be forbidden to own fiat if they write about trade-wars? So now, we have journalists who have never done a single blockchain transaction writing/”teaching the public” about blockchain.” “Going forward, I am inclined to only accept media interview requests from journalists who HODL some crypto. So that I don’t have to repeatedly answer “are bitcoins only used by drug lords?”
This is a right move by the exchange’s CEO to avoid some noise from media and also to safeguard him from some irrelevant questions that are really just a waste of time. | {
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LIVERMORE, CA — A popular ice cream shop has suddenly shuttered in Livermore. The Livermore Ice Cream Shop, which was originally named CREAM (Cookies Rule Everything Around Me), abruptly closed after three years in downtown Livermore, according to a letter from the store.
On May 8, the shop owner posted the letter addressed to its customers on the front door of the shop explaining the closure and thanking the patrons. The shop owner has not been reached for additional comment.
The gourmet ice cream sandwich shop, which was owned by franchisee Peter Michno, sold ice cream, cookies, floats, malts and shakes. The Livermore Ice Cream Store was located at 2375 Railroad Ave. in the Livermore Valley Plaza. | {
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Περίπου 10 με 15 άτομα με καλυμμένα τα χαρακτηριστικά του προσώπου τους εισέβαλαν στα γραφεία της Athens Voice στη Χαριλάου Τρικούπη στα Εξάρχεια λίγο μετά τις 5 το απόγευμα προκαλώντας εκτεταμένες ζημιές με λοστούς και κοντάρια.
Την ίδια ώρα πέταξαν μαύρη μπογιά σχεδόν σε όλους τους χώρους των γραφείων ενώ αποχωρώντας εξαπέλυσαν απειλές στους εργαζόμενους της εφημερίδας. Η αστυνομία προχώρησε σε 4 προσαγωγές.
Την ευθύνη για την επίθεση ανέλαβε ο Ρουβίκωνας με κείμενο που αναρτήθηκε σε γνωστή ιστοσελίδα του αντιεξουσιαστικού χώρου.
Η εφημερίδα έγινε τις τελευταίες ημέρες στόχος εξαιτίας ενός άστοχου σχολίου και μιας ακόμη πιο άστοχης εξήγησης για τη νεκρή μετανάστρια στο νοσοκομείο Νίκαιας. Στο παρελθόν η Athens Voice είχε γίνει στόχος εμπρησμού. | {
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by Claire Bernish
August 16, 2016
from TheFreeThoughtProject Website
Leaked files from billionaire globalist George Soros ' Open Society Foundation (OSF) two days ago have exposed several startling machinations about the organization - including flagrant schemes to manipulate the media, influence international immigration policy, and cash designated for social justice initiatives. Soros has been ousted previously for pulling political strings in Ukraine , but as one memo revealed in the massive DCLeaks cache shows, the globalist also sought direct manipulation of Western media to align with that political agenda. Titled the " Ukraine Media Project ," the memo's authors admit that, "this isn't proper independent journalism and we may damage our credibility with journalists," but that "journalists may produce stories that have no relevance for the narrative we seek to inform or stories that are counterproductive (enforcing narratives of fascism, etc.)" In other words, Soros and his OSF ( Open Society Foundation ) acknowledged their designs in Ukraine could be conflated with fascism and thus, as they wrote, sought to alleviate potential backlash or opposition by offering, "[s]elect journalists from 5 target countries (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece) and offer them long stay reporting trips in Ukraine." Once finagled into the trip, the memo's authors decided, rather than dictating content directly, they would, "retain a veto on stories we think are counterproductive." Tellingly listed under the memo's "Pros" section is the fact the scheme is a, "Similar approach to what we have done for other press trips" and that the Ukraine trip would provide an "Opportunity to build relationships with journalists and news outlets." Judging by the degree of influence Soros sought, those relationships wouldn't amount to just a drink after a hard day's work. In fact, under the "Cons" portion, the authors lament specifically the potential for the trip to "enforce the narrative of GS/OSF manipulation" - because that's exactly what it would be? Another portion of the Soros leaks concerns Europe's immigration crisis - which OSF argues should just be accepted as the "new normal." On May 12, OSF program officer Anna Crowley and program specialist Katin Rosin co-wrote a memo titled " Migration Governance and Enforcement Portfolio Review ," focusing on the OSF's International Migration Initiative created to influence world immigration policy, as the Daily Caller first reported. The outlet reports: "The nine-page review makes three key points: OSF - which doles out millions to left-wing causes - has been successful at influencing global immigration policy
Europe's refugee crisis presents 'new opportunities' for the organization to influence global immigration policy
the refugee crisis is the 'new normal'." Crowley and Rosin write that the review seeks to "consider the effectiveness of the approaches we have used to achieve change at the international level."
Anyone unaware how far Soros' fingers stretch into global policy-making should consider the section of the review highlighted by the Daily Caller, titled "Our Work" - which describes how OSF has worked with "leaders in the field" to, "shape migration policymaking and influence regional and global processes affecting the way global migration is governed and enforced." The authors continue: "Our premise for engaging in work related to governance was that, in addition to mitigating the negative effects of enforcement, we should also be supporting actors in the field proactively seeking to change the policies, rules, and regulations that govern migration. "We also believe that advances at the regional or national levels could create impetus for policy change or implementation of existing norms at the national level. We deliberately avoided the term 'global governance' because there is no single system at the global level for managing migration." Further, IMI, "has had to be selective and opportunistic, particularly at the global level, in supporting leaders in the field to push thinking on migration and better coordinate advocacy and reform efforts. We have supported initiatives, organizations, and networks whose work ties directly to our aims in the corridors." Zero Hedge reported on a third aspect of the leak in a memo concerning the United States, indicating potential funding of the Black Lives Matter movement by Soros - though the connection appears hazy at best. Providing $196,000 in funding for the Baltimore Education Research Consortium - a joint project of the city's public schools and Johns Hopkins and Morgan State Universities - one memo states: "To support the American Journalism Review's series of articles on the crisis in American journalism with a focus on, among other things, coverage of federal agencies and state governments, including Maryland /$200,000/Strategic Opportunities Fund/2009." A second part of that memo states: "Throughout its 15-year history, U.S. Programs has complemented its national work with state and local grant-making. The Emma Lazarus Fund, the Southern Initiative, the Program on Reproductive Health and Rights, and the Youth Initiative all had a strong presence in states like Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas, New York, and California. In this way, U.S. Programs has not only advanced core priority issues at the national level, but it has also worked to enable local and state actors to play a more critical role in shaping discussions around criminal justice, drug policy, immigrants' rights, government security, and other key issues at the state level." Obviously, given the enormous size of the document cache published by DCLeaks, an untold number of other Soros manipulations will likely be revealed in the weeks to come.
Soros Hack
- Top 10 Machinations of a Master Manipulator -
by Makia Freeman
August 23, 2016
from Freedom-Articles Website
The Soros hack has revealed
the vast and stunning influence of
NWO master manipulator George Soros.
Soros hack - the hacking and release of 2500+ emails and documents release by Hungarian-born Jew, multi-billionaire, top The recent- the hacking and release of 2500+ emails and documents release by DCLeaks - shows black-and-white proof of the machinations, manipulations and massively long reach of, multi-billionaire, top Hillary Clinton George Soros. donor, arch manipulator and big-time New World Order insider
The MSM ( Mainstream Media ) is ignoring the Soros hack, which is to be expected, but those coming to it with little or no knowledge of the man will be blown away by the extent to which Soros directs world affairs.
This man is extremely influential and deserves to be focused upon in the same way that the Rockefellers and Rothschilds have been. He has been behind some extremely important political movements in the U.S. (e.g. BLM or Black Lives Matter) and geopolitical events around the world (e.g. the U.S.-funded Ukrainian coup which installed a Neo-Nazi puppet government).
Soros' favorite method is to fund color revolutions (fake grassroots uprisings) through his numerous NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) which specialize in propaganda and the overthrow of democratically elected foreign governments in coups.
Soros and his NGOs were banned last year in 2015 by Russia as a threat to national security, and the Soros hack shows us why Russian leaders don't want the man near their nation.
If There's a Movement, Good Chance Soros is Behind It
So just what do these emails reveal about Soros?
He has an incredible array of Open Society Foundations (OSFs) in numerous countries across the world, all of which are pushing his particular agendas, such as,
open borders
unfettered migration
welfare and support for illegal migrants
"social justice" (a loaded term which means many different things to different people)
the "humanitarian" spreading of U.S. "democracy" around the world (more loaded terms and doublespeak)
The leaked documents include proof that Soros has been involved in all of the below top 10 machinations. Soros is actively intervening and interfering on a colossal scale.
He is causing problems and chaos (including murder and war) to reshape the world in his view (ordo ab chao):
NGOs - Domination through Subversion and Infiltration
It is no wonder that nations now view NGOs very suspiciously.
No doubt, there are many good NGOs doing important work for the benefit of humanity, but on the darker side, NWO manipulators like Soros have seized upon them as a vehicle of infiltration and subversion, as a way to covertly influence, control and dominate a country without needing to overtly go to war with it.
Today's battles are being fought with NGOs and electronics, rather than armaments and nukes. We are in the middle of a giant propaganda war.
The Soros hack completely vindicates the prescient words of JFK , who made a famous speech where he mentioned that:
"…we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence - on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections…"
For anyone familiar with key conspiracy documents, this approach of Soros and his minions also echoes what is found in Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars :
" Everything that is expected from an ordinary weapon is expected from a silent weapon by its creators, but only in its own manner of functioning: it shoots situations, instead of bullets
propelled by data processing, instead of chemical reaction (explosion)
originating from bits of data, instead of grains of gunpowder
from a computer, instead of a gun
operated by a computer programmer, instead of a marksman
under the orders of a banking magnate, instead of a military general" " The public cannot comprehend this weapon, and therefore cannot believe that they are being attacked and subdued by a weapon." " When a silent weapon is applied gradually, the public adjusts/adapts to its presence and learns to tolerate its encroachment on their lives until the pressure (psychological via economic) becomes too great and they crack up. Therefore, the silent weapon is a type of biological warfare. It attacks the vitality, options, and mobility of the individuals of a society by knowing, understanding, manipulating, and attacking their sources of natural and social energy, and their physical, mental, and emotional strengths and weaknesses."
Conclusion - The Soros Hack Exposes a Vast Hidden Influence
Like so much conspiracy theory that turns out to be conspiracy fact, the Soros hack now proves the nefarious and heretofore hidden influence that rich NWO billionaires like George Soros have on world affairs, foreign and domestic, due to their practically unlimited funds.
If you want to change the world, $25 billion goes a long way and will buy you a lot of influence over government policy and law.
The Soros hack is yet more evidence that we do not live in a world where our leaders are elected; they are selected , and on top of that, they rarely represent the common people, because they are beholden to moneyed interests, to the point where they are emailed and told how to intervene and directed what to do.
The Soros hack is yet more proof that the real truth of who runs the world is to be found in conspiracy research, and thankfully, as more and more leaks and hacks surface, we are beginning to put the full picture together. | {
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INDIANAPOLIS — In his home in Scotland, Dario Franchitti has a room dedicated to Jim Clark memorabilia. Check that. More than a room. “It’s getting close to an entire floor now,” Franchitti says with a laugh.
Such is Franchitti’s devotion to the famed Scottish driver, who 50 years ago won the Indianapolis 500 — just one of many milestones in a legendary racing career — that he’s one of five patrons of the Jim Clark Memorial Room, a museum honoring Clark in Duns, Scotland.
The museum is undergoing an expansion that will house even more Clark memorabilia, including some of Franchitti’s collection of cars, uniforms, helmets, trophies and other keepsakes.
But on Sunday morning, a few minutes before the start of the race Franchitti won three times, he’ll do something that can’t be placed under glass in a museum. He’ll drive Clark’s Ford-powered Lotus 38/1 — the car that won the 1965 Indianapolis 500 — around Indianapolis Motor Speedway before the Indy 500. It’s a chance to honor his countryman and hero, and connect with a driver he never met but is fascinated by.
MORE: Apprehension over crashes precedes 2015 Indianapolis 500
“It’s the mystery of it,” Franchitti told USA TODAY Sports. “Jimmy died five years before I was born. I never got to meet him. There aren’t many films of him talking, which adds to that mysterious thing and the fascination, maybe. It’s more his personality, I think, as much as the fact that he was one of the greatest drivers. To me, personally, he was the greatest.”
Franchitti’s interest in Clark, who was killed in a Formula Two race in Hockenheim, Germany, in 1968, began in earnest in 1993, when Franchitti’s mentor, Scottish racing legend Jackie Stewart, invited Franchitti to a dinner commemorating the 25th anniversary of Clark’s death.
“That started the whole thing,” Franchitti said. “I started thinking, ‘Who was this guy?’ I started reading books about him. My friends gave me some pictures of him, and that started the collection. Then I got more and more, and now it’s completely out of control.”
Clark won Formula One world championships in 1963 and 1965, winning 25 of 73 F1 races from 1960 to 1968. In 1963, he tried his hand at the Indianapolis 500 with a Lotus 29 that had a distinct European flair. His win at Indy in ‘65 revolutionized the race, making the rear-engine car of the future the car of the present.
When Franchitti drives it Sunday, he won’t be pressing.
“If you ask me what the chassis handles like, I wouldn’t be able to tell you, because I haven’t driven the thing anywhere near the limit,” he said. “That’s just not what it’s about. This car is a time warp from 1965. Apart from two pieces, it’s completely original. It did one race and they parked it. In 2009, when they started to restore it, it still had the original oil in it.”
Since being forced to retire because of a concussion and other injuries sustained in a crash at Houston in 2013, Franchitti has taken a role with Chip Ganassi Racing that’s best described as part consultant, part coach and part mentor. He works with all four Ganassi drivers — pole winner Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Charlie Kimball and Sage Karam — but he spends most of his time working with Kimball and Karam.
MORE: Decade after Danica Patrick’s debut, can IndyCar regain momentum?
He’s comfortable in his new role, even if it means he won’t get a chance to tie the Indy record of four victories shared by A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears.
“Would I have loved to have had a go at four? Yeah,” Franchitti said. “But after the accident, regardless of the direction from (Dr. Steve) Olvey, I think I ended the last desire to do what was required to win, particularly on an oval but certainly also on a street course. I knocked that last bit out.”
Now, Franchitti is seen enjoying the work with the team and the opportunities — like Sunday’s — to engage fans in the history of racing.
“I really enjoy it,” he said. “I get satisfaction out of it. I don’t get the massive highs, but I don’t miss the lows you got if you had a very bad day. But I like being here. I like being at the speedway, and I love still being a part of this team.” | {
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VISITING a supermarket in Venezuela is like entering Monty Python’s cheese-shop sketch. “Do you have any milk?” The shop assistant shakes her head. Sugar? No. Coffee? No. Soap? No. Cornflour? No. Cooking oil? No. Do you in fact have any of the products that the government deems so essential that it fixes their prices at less than what it costs to make them? No.
This is hard cheese for the masses queuing outside in the hope that a truck carrying something, anything, will arrive. Yesenia, a middle-aged lady from a village near Caracas, got up at midnight, rode a bus to the capital, started queuing at 3am and is still there at 10am. “It’s bad, standing here in the sun. I’ve had no breakfast, and no water.” Why does she think there are such severe shortages? “Bad administration.”
That is putting it mildly. The Venezuelan government spends like Father Christmas after too much eggnog, subsidising everything from rural homes to rice. It cannot pay its bills, especially since the oil price collapsed, so it prints money.
Cash machines in Caracas spit out crisp new bills with consecutive serial numbers. The last time your correspondent saw such a thing was in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s. The IMF predicts that inflation will be 720% in Venezuela this year, a figure Zimbabwe hit in 2006. By 2008 Zimbabwe was racked by hyperinflation so crippling that beggars who were offered billion-Zimbabwe-dollar bills would frown and reject them (see chart). Might Venezuela go the way of Zimbabwe? They are culturally very different, but the political parallels are ominous. Both countries have suffered under charismatic revolutionary leaders. Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980. Hugo Chávez ran Venezuela from 1998 until his death in 2013. His handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, continues his policies, though with none of Chávez’s—or Mr Mugabe’s—political adroitness. Mr Mugabe seized big commercial farms without compensation, wrecking Zimbabwe’s largest industry. Chávez expropriated businesses on a whim, sometimes on live television. He sacked 20,000 workers from the state oil firm, PDVSA, and replaced them with 100,000 often incompetent loyalists, some of whom were set to work stitching revolutionary T-shirts. Mr Mugabe lost a referendum in 2000 but rigged the subsequent election to keep the (more popular) opposition out of power. The chavistas lost a parliamentary election in December but have used their control of the presidency and supreme court to neuter the (more popular) opposition.
Mr Mugabe recruited a ragtag militia of “war veterans” to intimidate his opponents. Chávez recruited gangs from the slums, known as colectivos, to terrorise his. On March 5th gangsters on motorbikes rode around the (opposition-controlled) National Assembly and sprayed pro-government slogans such as “Chávez vive” on its walls. Police stood and watched.
Yet the key similarity between the two regimes is not their thuggishness but their economic ineptitude. Both believe that market forces can be bossed around like soldiers on parade. In both cases, the results are similar: shortages, inflation and tumbling living standards.
Mr Mugabe, who like the chavistas professes great concern for the poor, fixed the prices of several staple goods in the early 2000s to make them “affordable”. They promptly vanished from the shelves. The subsidies that are supposed to make price controls work have often been stolen in both countries. Suppliers, rather than giving goods away at the official price, prefer to sell them on the black market.
Retail riot police
Ana, a young hawker in Caracas, explains how it works. She holds a bag of washing powder that is supposed to be sold for 32 bolívares. She bought it for 400 and will sell it for 600. Her business is illegal, but she conducts it openly in a crowded square. Nearby, hawkers from the countryside haggle over illicit nappies. The bus ride to Caracas was 13 hours; the hawkers say they come every two weeks.
Outside a state-owned supermarket, a dozen national guardsmen equipped with body armour, truncheons and tear-gas are stopping a pregnant woman from coming in. It’s not one of her designated days of the week for shopping, they explain. (You get two.) Shoppers must show their identity cards to enter the store and have their fingerprints scanned before buying their ration of price-controlled goods.
Yet such measures are no match for the law of supply and demand. Suppose you are driving a tanker of subsidised petrol. You can sell the cargo legally in Venezuela for $100, or drive across the border to Colombia and sell it for $20,000. The pitifully paid border police will be easy to square.
Wily entrepreneurs find ways around price controls without violating the letter of the law. When bread was price-controlled in Zimbabwe, bakers added dried fruit and called it “raisin bread”, which was not price-controlled. Venezuelan firms have added garlic to rice, called it “garlic rice” and sold it at unregulated prices. | {
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Ludum Dare 23 is done, and here are my results:
I really doubt that I am going to win any awards for graphics… or gameplay… or sound.. BUT!
It is multiplayer
It has persistent state
It is HTML5
And it actually works!
How cool is that? Pretty amazing what you can do in a weekend. I’m not sure if this is the first successfully completed MMO made for Ludum Dare, but I daresay that it is not something which is frequently attempted (possibly with good reason). The tools I used to create this monstrosity were node.js, mongodb and crafty. In terms of development, here is what went right:
Node.JS is a fantastic platform for making multiplayer games. Event driven concurrency is basically the model most games use anyway, and I have yet to see any system which does this better.
Even though it would not be my first choice of language, if you are doing web programming you are stuck using javascript. Being able to use the same language on the server (and share code) is a huge advantage. The result was I didn’t have to write, debug and maintain two different versions of A-star while doing the development.
MongoDB is also quite a nice tool for game programming. While in most situations I would say the lack of a structured column format is a disadvantage, it actually turns out to be a real help for gamedev and rapid prototyping. In particular, it was very convenient to make a table with player stats and just keep adding fields to it while developing without worrying about it. Of course you could probably get similar results by just making a raw string column in a SQL table, but this is a bit ugly and does not integrate as well with node.js.
Nodejitsu is a very nice host. Nuno Job graciously offered me a coupon earlier, and I have to say I was very impressed with their service. Compared to nodester, one of their best features is the automatic database set up and configuration.
Making a click based system for navigation is a cheesy way to handle latency, but it works.
Now for what went wrong:
Unfortunately, I was not very disciplined with the amount of time I spent programming. For me coding stuff is the most fun, and I tend to procrastinate on the drawing side of things. As a result, the graphics in the game look pretty terrible. The grass texture in particular turned out eye-bleedingly bad 😦
The other consequence of over indulging in coding was that I didn’t spend much time on the game itself. There is really only one type of enemy (a rat), and not much to do in the game besides kill people. The map is also very empty/boring. (Though there is a boss battle/final secret.)
No sound
This was my first time using crafty.js, which I selected using the “deliberative” method of random google search for “HTML 5 game engine”. As a result, I spent some time up front trying to figure out how to get everything working. Crafty itself seems like a fine piece of technology, but the documentation and examples really need some work. In particular the “RPG tutorial” is out of date and doesn’t work with the latest version. This cost me maybe 2-3 hours trying to get it to work, which I would say was the low point of the whole competition. In the end I just gave up with the docs and read the source code directly, which turned out to be much easier to understand. However, despite this setback, using crafty was still a net savings over doing everything from scratch, especially taking into account debugging and portability issues.
In the end, I had a lot of fun making this (although the final game is kind of terrible). Once again, if you want to give it a try here is the link:
http://ludumdare23.nodejitsu.com/ | {
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To help our supporters better understand this global problem, we have sought to compile the latest available statistics on the challenges faced by people around the globe.
The last time a global survey was attempted – by the United Nations in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. As many as 1.6 billion people lacked adequate housing (Habitat, 2015). | {
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on Wednesday faced a long fight for the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, with Obama promising to get tougher on his rival and Clinton hinting the two could team up in November against Republican John McCain.
McCain won the endorsement of President George W. Bush in a White House ceremony that capped the Arizona senator’s rise to the party’s nomination after his campaign nearly collapsed last year.
While McCain turned his attention to the November election, Democrats faced more of the grueling state-by-state nominating duel between Obama and Clinton that threatened to extend into June or beyond.
Clinton dodged another possible knockout blow from Obama on Tuesday, coming back from a series of losses to win the big states of Ohio and Texas and revitalize her campaign. The New York senator said the wins showed she had the type of broad support needed against McCain.
Obama promised to more aggressively confront Clinton, who hammered him in Ohio and Texas with questions about his readiness to be commander in chief, his commitment to renegotiating U.S. trade deals and his strength in a general election campaign.
“I think that over the coming weeks we will join her in that argument,” Obama told reporters. “She has made the argument that she is thoroughly vetted, in contrast to me. I think it’s important to examine that argument.”
His campaign renewed demands that Clinton release tax returns filed with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, since they left the White House. Clinton aides said she would release the returns “on or around April 15.”
Obama, an Illinois senator, pointed to his substantial lead in pledged delegates who will select the nominee at the party’s convention in August, and said he was on the way to the nomination.
Under Democratic rules allowing the losers in each state to win a proportional number of delegates, Clinton must win most of the remaining contests by big margins to have a shot at significantly closing the gap with Obama in the delegate race.
An MSNBC count gave Obama 1,307 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 1,175, with most of the delegate apportionment from Tuesday’s contests still being calculated.
But both candidates are liable to remain short of the 2,025 needed to win the nomination without substantial help from the party’s 796 “superdelegates” -- party officials and insiders who are free to back any candidate.
They could heavily influence the race if they began moving in a bloc toward either Obama or Clinton.
Slideshow ( 24 images )
CLINTON, OBAMA ON SAME TICKET?
The battle also renewed attention on Florida and Michigan, which were stripped of delegates in a dispute with the national party. Clinton won contests in both states, although the candidates did not campaign there, and officials in both states renewed talks about whether the contests should be redone.
Amid the uncertainty, Clinton acknowledged the prospect the two might wind up on the same ticket as presidential and vice presidential candidates.
“Well that may be where this is headed, but we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket,” Clinton, who usually dodges the topic when asked, said on CBS’s “The Early Show.”
Slideshow ( 24 images )
Clinton and Obama both said later it was “premature” to discuss a joint ticket.
Up next are Democratic contests in Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi on Tuesday, and Obama will be favored in both. The next stop is a big showdown in Pennsylvania on April 22.
“I think that voters are finally focused on who they think would be the best commander in chief and who would be the best president to turn the economy around,” Clinton, 60, said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.
Obama, 46, said he was still in control of the Democratic race. “I’m pretty confident that we’re going to end up with more delegates, having won more states, won more primaries, won more caucuses, and have more of the popular vote,” he said.
McCain’s big victories in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont on Tuesday drove his last major rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, from the race.
“John showed incredible courage and strength of character and perseverance in order to get to this moment,” Bush said in offering his support in a Rose Garden endorsement.
“That’s exactly what we need in a president -- somebody who can handle the tough decisions, somebody who won’t flinch in the face of danger,” said Bush, who defeated McCain in a bitter 2000 battle for the Republican nomination.
Despite Bush’s low approval ratings, McCain said he would welcome the president’s help on the campaign trail.
“And I will be very privileged to have the opportunity being again on the campaign trail with him, only slightly different roles this time.” the former Navy fighter pilot and former prisoner of war in Vietnam added.
(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Caren Bohan and Jeff Mason, Deborah Charles and Donna Smith; Editing by David Storey) | {
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It doesn't look like much editing was needed as the new 'Transformers' movie trailer showed the Pontiac Silverdome in its current ravaged state.
"Transformers: The Last Knight" is the 5th installment in the franchise. Paramount began filming in and around Detroit on June 20, 2016. Crews shot scenes in the area for about 8 weeks. You can see one of the Optimus Prime sightings in the link below.
The Pontiac Silverdome currently sits in ruins. The 82,000 seat dome opened in 1975 and became the home of the Detroit Lions. The Silverdome closed in 2006 and re-opened for a few years in 2010. It will likely be demolished in the near future.
Here is the new trailer for "Transformers: The Last Knight." You can see the Pontiac Silverdome for a few seconds at the :28 second mark.
Mark Wahlberg is returning to reprise his role as Cade Yeager in "Transformers: The Last Knight." The movie also stars Josh Duhmel and Anthony Hopkins. It was directed by Michael Bay and is scheduled to be in theaters on June 23, 2017. | {
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Spectacular blond Angel, astonishing honey – Angie Koks is bashing once more. This night, nipper’s together with her fresh paramour and they are having ardent hook-up. He commences unclothing her and smooches her assets, getting down until he reaches her saucy coochie. After awesome pussy eating, nipper takes his manstick and offers him a super-hot oral pleasure. Being all prepped for the principle act, he will get inwards of her muff and porks blond dame in numerous postures until the highly finish, when he decorates her along with his super-hot nectar. | {
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The awkward efforts of Republicans to embrace their party’s standard-bearer Donald Trump looked particularly painful in Congress this week as lawmakers ducked into elevators, dashed away from reporters, ignored questions or, worse, tried to answer them.
Republican U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Gilley's in Dallas, Texas, U.S., June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Brandon Wade
Only days after a furor over his criticism of a Mexican-American judge, the presumptive presidential nominee sent Republicans reeling again by renewing his call for a ban on Muslim immigration after a gunman who pledged allegiance to Islamic militants killed of 49 people at a Florida nightclub.
Then former reality TV star Trump waded into two sensitive topics for social conservatives by embracing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and suggesting the country may need certain new gun control measures.
For lawmakers accustomed to well-crafted talking points and predictable lines of questioning, the week marked a chaotic flurry of contorted responses or terse, tight-lipped replies.
Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming walked away when asked about Trump’s embrace of the LGBT community, saying: “I don’t know what the latest is. I haven’t read anything. I haven’t been watching.”
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a former Trump adversary in the presidential primaries, had to bat away two Trump questions before he could announce that he is considering running for re-election – a decision that could determine whether Republicans retain control of the Senate in the Nov. 8 election.
Senator Ted Cruz, another rival in the primaries, refused to respond directly to the speech in which Trump hardened his line on Muslims while Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr called it “an OK speech” before stepping into an elevator and refusing to respond to any more questions.
Slideshow ( 6 images )
The Trump challenge is obvious even for seasoned Republicans.
“I’m spending my days commenting on everything that Donald Trump says,” lamented John McCain, chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee.
Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, ricocheted from rejection of Trump’s comments on Muslims to doubts about the legality of his proposed immigration ban to bafflement over the billionaire’s response to the Orlando shootings.
‘YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP’
Trump controversies have also overshadowed House Speaker Paul Ryan’s rollout of a policy agenda, a campaign document that was supposed to help bring Trump’s position more into line with mainline party doctrine.
Asked on Thursday whether he was bothered by having to contend with Trump’s remarks, Ryan called Trump “a different kind of candidate...(in) a different kind of year.”
Asked how many more times he would be called on to do so, Ryan said: “I don’t know the answer to that question either.”
In an ironic message to his critics among the Republican leadership this week, Trump had this to say: “Be quiet, just please be quiet. Don’t talk. Please be quiet. Just be quiet.”
Ryan’s response? “...You can’t make this up sometimes,” he said.
A political neophyte who has never held elected office, Trump has also said he may not need much from his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill anyway.
“We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself. I’ll do very well,” he said in a CNN interview. “A lot of people thought I should do that anyway, but I’ll just do it very nicely by myself.” | {
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I want to quit my job But it pays way too much
165 shares | {
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Fuel delivery bypassed the Palestinian Authority, which has threatened retaliatory measures if deliveries continue.
Qatari-bought fuel arrived at the Gaza Strip’s only power station after entering through Israel, sources said, in a bid to alleviate conditions in the besieged enclave and stem any escalation in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
A Palestinian source at the Karam Abu Salem border crossing, also known as Kerem Shalom, in southern Gaza said six trucks monitored by the United Nations and carrying 450,000 litres of fuel crossed there on Tuesday.
“The Qatari fuel to the Gaza Strip’s power plant today is aimed at partially improving electricity (supply) in Gaza,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP news agency.
The delivery could help ease months of protests and clashes along the border between Israel and Hamas-run Gaza, which has been under a crippling Israeli and Egyptian blockade for more than a decade.
The blockade has deprived the strip’s roughly two million inhabitants of several vital commodities, including food, fuel and medicine.
{articleGUID}
The trucks that entered Gaza brought the first delivery of a $60m fuel donation by Qatar meant to provide the power plant with enough fuel to operate for six months, local sources said.
For months, Gazans have been receiving only four hours of mains electricity a day on average.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, voiced disapproval of the fuel delivery.
“Any international financial aid to the Gaza Strip should be through, or with the coordination of, the Palestinian government,” he said, in order “to preserve Palestinian unity” and to stop any plans to separate Gaza from the West Bank.
In a statement on Tuesday Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior official close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, threatened retaliatory measures if the fuel deliveries continued.
‘Humanitarian disaster’
The United Nations has warned that Israel’s 11-year blockade of the strip has resulted in a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation.
Under the UN-brokered deal, Qatar pays for the fuel which is then delivered through Israel with United Nations monitoring, a diplomatic source said.
A Qatari official, speaking to Reuters news agency on Sunday, said Doha planned to help with Gaza’s power crisis “at the request of donor states in the UN, to prevent an escalation of the existing humanitarian disaster”.
Israel’s energy minister, Yuval Steinitz, told Reuters on Monday that Qatar “was trying to help” prevent a Gaza flare-up.
Hamas seized control of Gaza from Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in a 2007 civil war, a year after it unexpectedly won elections in the coastal enclave, triggering a crisis in Palestinian politics.
Multiple reconciliation attempts aimed at restoring the PA to power in Gaza have failed.
Hamas spokesman Qassem said that the deliveries were facilitated “through the United Nations because of the vacuum left by the PA.”
Abbas says that making deals with Hamas amounts to recognising their control over Gaza in place of the PA.
Much of the international community considers Hamas a terrorist organisation.
Israel says its blockade of Gaza is necessary to isolate Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since 2008. | {
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Publisher Nintendo and developer Monolith Software have announced Xenoblade Chronicles remake Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition for Switch. It will launch in 2020.
Here is an overview of the game, via Nintendo.com:
Monolith Soft’s epic Xenoblade Chronicles game, which originally launched in 2012 on the Wii system, is destined to be reborn on Nintendo Switch as Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. The game, which chronicles the adventures of Shulk and Fiora, is scheduled to launch for Nintendo Switch in 2020.
Watch the announcement trailer below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery. | {
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Offering a 17+1 capacity, IWI’s polymer framed striker-fired Masada pistols, new for 2018, are being exhibited overseas.
Featuring a low-profile barrel as well as fully ambidextrous controls and enhanced ergonomics, the Masada is intended for civilian, law-enforcement and military markets.
Shlomi Sabag, IWI’s CEO, explained in a statement the new pistol has been in development for years and was designed with input from customers.
“The new Striker-based line places special emphasis on operational safety and simplicity of maintenance, as well as a high level of ergonomics and ease of use,” said Sabag.
Some 7.49-inches long in its full-size introductory model complete with a 4-inch barrel, the combat-style handgun tips the scales at 23-ounces unloaded. Features include an integral MIL-STD 1913 Picatinny rail for accessories, front and rear slide serrations and a cold hammer-forged polygonal rifled barrel. Offerings in Sniper Gray, OD Green, Black, and Flat Dark Earth are on the table.
The Masada comes as a striker-fired alternative to IWIs popular Jericho 941 pistol line, which has long been available in both steel and polymer framed variants.
Exhibited this month at defense shows in Colombia, France, and Thailand, you can be sure the Masada will pop up at SHOT Show next January. | {
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Did You Know?
Personal Quote: The meaning of life is to live, love, learn, and let go in harmony with God, nature, mankind, and the universe. | {
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It's hard not to view Google as an 800-pound gorilla, beating competitors at every turn thanks to its vast mountains of cash and engineering talent. But there's one field where the Mountain View-based search giant has frequently stumbled: repeated attempts to build a foothold in the biomedical realm have either failed or not borne fruit yet. Now it's trying again.
Earlier today, Bloomberg Business reported that Google is developing what it calls a "health-tracking wristband"—in other words, a fitness band. But this one isn't going to be marketed at the general public. Nope, Google's aiming for the academic crowd and wants the device to be used in clinical research. Based on Google's history, should we expect it to catch on?
The history starts back in 2008 with Google Health. Aimed squarely at Microsoft's HealthVault, Google Health was a patient-level electronic medical record. It was designed to be a one-stop shop in the cloud (before we called it that) where users could store their medical records, prescription records, and other important health data. We were skeptical of Google Health's prospects for longevity back then, and so it proved three years later when Google Health went the way of Google Reader—albeit without anything like the same public outcry.
Then there's Calico, a biotech focused on "aging and associated diseases." Founded in 2013 by Google and Art Levinson (a former head of biotech giant Genentech and an Apple board member), Calico seems like a natural move from a group of billionaires hitting middle age and concerned about their mortality. It's too soon in Calico's brief life so far to judge it. It's main action came last year when it signed a deal with the pharma company AbbVie, each investing $250 million to build a SF Bay Area research lab.
Last year we got news of more Google biomedical activities. A 'smart contact lens' is under development in conjunction with pharmaceutical giant Novartis. Different functions have been suggested for this device, including monitoring glucose levels (important for diabetics) as well as working like an aftermarket 'autofocus' for people who have difficulty switching from near to far vision. Then there's Baseline Study, Google's answer to the quantified self. Baseline Study is an attempt to create a database that would, if successful, give one a granular and quantitative look at human health.
Baseline Study is a perfectly reasonable approach to a pressing problem in biomedical research. Although DNA sequencing is faster and cheaper than ever, genomic information on its own can be of questionable value without good phenotypic (i.e. expressed characteristics) and biometric data. For example, just looking at genome sequences would suggest that quite a few of us ought not to be alive, since we're walking around with loss-of-function mutations in genes that we'd thought were essential for life.
Getting good quality phenotypic data and linking it to each individual's genome is a solid approach, and Google is not alone in studying what some have dubbed the narcissome (the less snarky call it personal genomics). The problem with the Baseline Study may be the small sample size. Google announced it would start with 175 volunteers, which sounds like a lot until you consider the vast number of variables it will be tracking (Google has told is this is just the first phase and it will increase the study size in due course).
Google Genomics is an entirely separate product, this one focused on hosting biological data. You can view it as Mountain View's answer to the popularity of Amazon's S3 and EC2 cloud services among biologists, who use it for storing and analyzing large genomic data sets. (If each genome is 6 billion base pairs and you have 100,000 genomes in your study you can imagine how much data is there.) It's not an exaggeration to say that Google Genomics has barely registered among that research community.
(It should also be noted that many have linked Google to genomics through 23andMe, the personal genomics company co-founded and currently run by Anne Wojcicki, the spouse of Google's Sergey Brin, but there's no sign of Google doing anything more than investing in the company.)
With that history, what can we make of health tracker? We reported last year that the company planned to take on Apple's HealthKit developer framework with Google Fit. This new product would take on Apple's ResearchKit, as well as wearables that monitor biometrics like heart beat, skin temperature, and so on. It's a potentially lucrative market. In his February State of the Union address, President Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative, a multi-agency research program that wants to enroll a million Americans into a longitudinal health study, and mobile health and biometric trackers have figured prominently in planning discussions.
The difficulty about playing in this space is that it's extremely regulated compared to the consumer tech sector. Medical devices (including lab tests) are the domain of the FDA, whether you want to commercially market your device or simply use it in clinical research on human subjects. Speaking to Bloomberg Business, Google's head of life sciences, Andy Conrad, said the company was planning on seeking regulatory clearance in the US and Europe for the health band. Conrad also mentioned the need to engage with researchers, presumably to make up for ground lost to Apple since it showed off ResearchKit earlier this year.
With so many swings, one might have thought Google would have, if not a biomedical home run, then at least put some players on the bases. But there are vast differences between the tech and biomedical industries. Sure, both are home to lots of very smart people, many of whom have PhDs. But Google isn't the first bunch of engineers to take a look at a cell and think they could do better than the people already in the field, something Derek Lowe explains well as the "Andy Grove fallacy." Lowe also did a good job dissecting the problems facing tech companies in this area: unlike a microchip, our biology is the product of evolution, which results in all sorts of weird stuff we still don't fully understand. Compared to that, optimizing search result ranking or delivering targeted advertising seems like child's play.
Update: we may have dismissed Google Genomics just a little too soon. Today Google just announced it's collaborating with a powerhouse of genomics research, the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA. Together, they are offering one of the Broad's informatics pipelines—Genome Analysis ToolKit, or GATK—as a service hosted on Google's cloud. Because of the way we sequence DNA requires a lot of data wrangling (physically chopping it into short strands and stitching all the data together with computers), the informatics side of things is often more challenging for research labs than the sample work. It's early days for this partnership but offering a stable, validated pipeline to the research community sounds like a significant step. | {
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Details from that affidavit correspond to an invitation-only social media network known as The Base, which caught the attention of extremism watchdogs last year. The network was founded by a purported veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the goal of uniting white supremacists across the country and inspiring them to carry out violent attacks. | {
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As a Rammstein fan – even more than that, a Till Lindemann fan – I had a lot of expectations for his side project, Lindemann. While I don’t particularly know his co-conspirator in music, one Mr Peter Tägtgren of PAIN and Hypocrisy fame, he is quite clearly an incredibly talented industrial and death metal musician, and it’s hard to imagine a better pairing really.
Warning: This review would probably be considered NSFW (depending on your W), so for a less personal and totally (maybe) objective version, head over to Soundsphere Magazine
This isn’t an album for those who are easily offended, squeamish, or particularly prudish. If song titles including “Golden Shower”, “Fat” and “Ladyboy” put you off, you probably shouldn’t listen to it. Many fans of Rammstein have never bothered to look up their lyrics, but those who have know that this kind of theme isn’t new for Till – it’s just easier to ignore when it’s in German. God knows I’m glad my parents couldn’t understand it.
Skills in Pills is the perfect starting track with its dance-inducing synths (seriously, it’s impossible not to dance to this song). According to an interview with Till, the title is a reference to his days back in East Germany when alcohol was illegal and to get high they had to mix together different prescription drugs. You needed “skills” to be able to do this though, as if you got it wrong you’d end up with some pretty serious damage. Actually, that explains a lot.
In tone, the song is pure industrial but with elements of the pop-synth side of the genre. It’s got its catchy synths, its heavy breakdown and Till’s heartbreakingly beautiful voice belting out with such passion – it works really, really well.
Ladyboy for example is, lyrically, almost the same as Zwitter, although about another person. For those who aren’t familiar, “Zwitter” means “hermaphrodite”, and the song is about how happy he feels to be both genders. Similarly in Ladyboy he sings about a passionate love for his ladyboy, in what is actually a really beautiful way – combined with the fury of not being able to express his love when he growls out “Why should I laugh when I can’t have fun with my Ladyboy?” This was the first song the duo wrote, and came from the German-speaking Till trying to explain his feelings about the subject to the Swedish/American Tägtgren – English was the only language they both knew, however little.
I’m not trying to say that Lindemann are going to win any LGBTQ awards or anything, but this theme of open-minded acceptance is prevalent on this album. “Fat”, which could have been an insulting song, is actually a roaring dancing industrial number about a man’s passion for heavily overweight women. It’s grotesque, and goes against the messages we are always taught about what is beautiful, but it’s actually lovely. When Till shouts “fat!” it’s with passion, not disgust. Complimenting these lyrics with tense violin music, church organs and heavy industrial beats gives you a real headbanger of a song, with a fantastic anthemic element. I expect it would be a real treat to see this played live.
Before you go ahead thinking that Till Lindemann is some kind of fetishistic sex pest, remember kids – songs don’t always have to be autobiographical! Till himself has noted in an interview that he enjoys getting inside the minds of others, finding what they want and hate – although to be fair, he also said that he wouldn’t object to an overweight woman approaching him (knowing that makes me feel a lot better about my chances if I should ever meet him).
Ladyboy has the same kind of classic industrial breakdown that appears later in the form of Praise Abort, the album’s single. Praise Abort is a clear leading single – it’s industrial-metal enough that it could be one of Rammstein’s stranger songs (think Pussy or Amerika) but also has an excellent tongue-in-cheek electronic element.
Songs like Fish On, Cowboy and Golden Shower are just insanely fun. The first begins with a strong electronic dance vibe and is a ridiculous and slightly gross kind of a song – the lyrics are pure Till, while the tune is clearly a result of Tägtgren’s experience with electronic industrial. The crude sexual imagery is hilarious, and the ethereal female singing adds a wonderful juxtaposition to it all. Cowboy was one of the first leaked songs of the album and it’s obviously going to be a hit as it’s just such good fun to dance to!
The lyrics are based on that childhood dream to be a cowboy – with perhaps a little cynicism for America for good measure – and the failure of not living up to that dream. It’s funny, sexual, and once you know the lyrics it’s surprisingly hard not to sing along; another song that would go down very well at a live show! Also, there’s a banjo interlude.
In the middle of the album it falls back to that real Rammstein feeling – slow, headbanging industrial with Till’s terribly creepy voice. In terms of tone, Children of the Sun and Home Sweet Home are almost pure Neue Deutsche Härte, a very specific genre of music which covers bands such as Megaherz, Oomph!, Emigrate, Eisbrecher and – of course – Rammstein. It’s usually used to describe a heartfelt industrial-metal sound and on these songs in particular it’s a much more pronounced sound.
These songs are also gentle reminders that Till Lindemann is a poet at heart, and Home Sweet Home is especially emotive, reminding me of the Rammstein song Nebel which always had a profound effect on me. Like Nebel, it’s the kind of song that makes you feel nostalgic and homesick, with just a touch of hope or, at least, a glimmer of happiness in the memory, and it’s almost certainly appreciated best with your eyes shut. Home Sweet Home could easily be a Rammstein song, although I don’t mean to diminish Tägtgren’s influence and incredible production skills.
Golden Shower particularly shows off Tägtgren’s style, starting slowly and dramatically before suddenly launching into some fairly serious metal – it especially feels like his death metal influences are coming through here. The lyrics to the song are disgusting – I won’t go into details as I’m sure you can guess – but if it were in German instead of English, the singing would probably sound something like Du Riechst So Gut. He also makes prolific use of the c-word, which is bound to put off a few people because trust me, you’ll be shouting it along with him after a listen or towo. The music veers between heavy metal and electronica with that driving industrial drumbeat backing it all up.
Yukon harkens back to that Neue Deutsche Härte style but with an 80s goth-pop synth that turns the catchy tune into something reminiscent of Gary Numan or Depeche Mode. Yukon is the name of a major river running through British Columbia, Yukon and Alaska that was the site of a mass prospector migration – hence “I want your gold but you want my life.” It was the last great gold rush, and of the 100,000 stampeders only around 30 – 40,000 made it, while the others died or gave up and turned back. It seems to be really about the unstoppable power of river, although he certainly ascribes the river female attributes.
Fun fact: while most people accept that the source of the Yukon is the Llewellyn Glacier in British Columbia, others believe it to come from Lake Lindeman. Coincidence? I think so!
I’ve already mentioned Praise Abort, but it deserves its own little section. There’s a very good reason why this was the lead single of the album – it’s probably the best song on the album, especially at first listen. If you couldn’t tell from the song title, it’s not going to be for everyone, and apparently the band have a crew of lawyers on hand just waiting for someone to kick off about it. Also, like Golden Shower, you will find yourself gleefully shouting “p-p-p-praise abort!” when Till does, so watch for that in public.
It’s a great mix of music though – pop-industrial synths interspersed with heavy chugging industrial guitars and a weirdly groovy tone running underneath every hate-filled word that spills from Till’s mouth. Later on in the breakdown we get a haunting female backing track to compliment Till’s gravel-like growling. Again, this song isn’t about him, and his two children are okay with it! The video is also something pretty special – pregnant ballerinas and Till doing the moonwalk are just two especially good bits.
That’s My Heart is the final song on the album, and one I wasn’t sure whether to discuss. It’s certainly one I needed to listen to a few times to really “get it” – it might not be the same for everyone but I’ve always needed more time to appreciate the slower, more sincere Rammstein songs and this is no different.
Basically, Till Lindemann can do virtually anything and make it beautiful, and it seems like he’s met a musical match in Peter Tägtgren. It may not be Rammstein (who are incidentally starting to work on another album this year – hooray!) but it’s not meant to be. It’s a thoroughly interesting experiment that came about as a result of two incredibly strange men wanting to make bizarre music together, and it’s a freaking masterpiece.
Fingers crossed for a second album! | {
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All of us face hard choices in life. My hardest was how to find the time to write my presidential election manifesto for 2016. Luckily, Simon & Schuster provided the money and three interns were assigned to remember the thoughts I may have had during my four years as secretary of state.
It was the evening of 5 June 2008, and I was heading to a meeting with Barack Obama – not the one I had hoped for or expected. I'd lost the race to be party leader and he'd won, but now was not the time to dwell on the fact that he had run a particularly unpleasant personal campaign against me and my family. Now was the time to unite the Democratic party for the sake of the United States of America in its time of need.
"I'm not going to kid you," said Barack. "I don't much like you or your husband. But you are dangerous enemies, so I'd like to keep a close eye on you – which is why I am appointing you secretary of state." My first inclination was to sulk and say no, but then I remembered it was my duty to self-serve my country. I talked it over with Bill. Or Billionaire as I sometimes called him in bed. [Nice intimate detail, Hills. More of these, please.] Bill was as supportive as he had always been throughout my career. "It's going to be tough, babe," he said. "But were broke before when I left office, and I don't mind if we're broke again. If I have to cut down my $200,000-per-hour speaking engagements to twice a week, then so be it."
My first assignment was to go to Beijing. I'd noticed China was well on its way to becoming a global superpower, and it was important to let them know there was nothing to fear from relaxing state control. "Just because I live in the world's greatest liberal democracy," I told President Hu Jintao, "doesn't mean I have to mention anything about the Whitewater scandals, Vince Foster, or my husband's inability to keep his pants on." Hu was extremely reassured.
As I flew on to Burma, I decided I couldn't be bothered to use hair conditioner. [Nooo! That's fab, Hills. Gold dust.] The press called me Hillary au Naturel! I loved that, and so did the Burmese women who seemed to instinctively relate to my natural womanliness. The first time I met Aung San Suu Kyi, we were both wearing white dresses, which we agreed was a coincidence. We also agreed that the Burmese military authorities had a long way to go to improve their human rights record! We departed firm friends, and I later sent her a catalogue for Victoria's Secret, for which she thanked me.
Relations with Iraq and Afghanistan have been tricky ever since I voted in favour of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I sometimes felt Barack didn't fully understand how complex the situation really was, but I expect he had a lot of other things to think about. Many nights I laid awake, pondering the best humanitarian solution for the poor, embattled folk of these countries, before launching another drone strike in the morning. These were hard choices, but someone had to make them.
It's been brought to my attention that, if I hope to flog this book in the UK, I ought to include some insights into Brit politicians. [Don't worry, Hills. We're on it. We've just googled David Miliband, and he has a much tighter butt than David Cameron.] I always felt David Miliband was extremely perceptive, and boy did he make my legs go wobbly!
Barack was somewhat naive in welcoming the Arab spring. In hindsight, I'd always felt there was room for things to go wrong, though it was only with great reluctance that I gave the orders to invade Libya. Obviously, I deeply regret the death of the US ambassador in Benghazi, but I acted absolutely correctly given the information available. Any failures were entirely due to military intelligence and Barack not taking matters as seriously as he should have. Though he did have a lot of other things on, so it must have been hard to keep fully abreast.
After Barack was re-elected in 2012, I felt it was time to stand down, because I wanted to spend time with my fabulous husband Bill, of whom I am so proud, and enjoy being a grandparent to Chelsea's child. [Remind me whether it's a boy or a girl. Thanks!] It was only after I had stepped down that I realised I now had time to plan my presidential campaign. Fancy that!
Digested read, digested: Don't order new curtains for the White House just yet, Hills. | {
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Taco Bell announced today that is has teamed up with the NBA for the return of the brand’s popular “Steal A Game, Steal A Taco” promotion for the 2019 NBA Finals.
For the fourth year running, everyone in America has a chance to score a free Doritos Locos Tacos when and if the road team “steals” a win from the home team.
The 2019 NBA Finals start on Thursday, May 30 and could run through a possible Game 7 on June 16, 2019.
Here’s what you need to know to score a free Doritos Locos Tacos:
The first game the road team wins will automatically win everyone in America a free Doritos Locos Tacos on Tuesday, June 18 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. (local time) at participating Taco Bell locations nationwide, while supplies last.
This time around, Taco Bell is making it even easier for fans to score their free taco by offering all day pickup on orders placed through the app or website. Just take note that the offer excludes delivery. There’s also a limit of one free Doritos Locos Tacos per person or registered account.
2019 NBA Finals: Steal A Game, Steal A Taco Promotion
Images – Taco Bell | {
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Mark Landler said his newspaper received a telephone call today (May 15) from an unnamed Israeli official who threatened more airstrikes against Syria and warned that if the Assad regime retaliates it would face “crippling consequences.” When contacted by the newspaper, Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesperson, refused to comment on the allegation.
Later in the day, Landler quoted these threats in a column titled, “Israel Hints at New Strikes, Warning Syria Not to Retaliate,” in which the Israeli official said that a Syrian military response could lead to the overthrow of the Assad regime.
The Israeli official said: ‘Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah. The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region.’ ‘If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies,” the official said, “he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.’ The Israeli official, who has been briefed by high-level officials on the Syria situation in the past two days, declined to be identified, citing the need to protect internal Israeli deliberations. He contacted The New York Times on Wednesday. The precise motives for Israel’s warning were uncertain: Israel could be trying to restrain Syria’s behavior without undertaking further military action, or alerting other countries to another strike.
I question the newsworthiness of this column, attributed to an unnamed and uncorroborated source. After all, Israel has recently attacked Syria and has repeatedly made this threat after the last airstrike. As Landler states, Israel may be warning Syria against taking some action that the Assad regime is contemplating. If this is the case, is it the role of Landler and his paper to make this threat public when the Israelis refuse to do so?
There is no mention that the Israeli attack, never mind the overthrow of a foreign government, is an act which violates international law. Even threatening such aggression is contrary to agreed-upon rules governing member states of the UN.
It seems to me that Landler’s column is an instance of The New York Times inappropriately acting as an agent for the Israeli government.
I guess this would not be the first time.
Update: Within hours after the Landler column appeared, his story became the lede on the Israeli Internet site of the daily, Ma’ariv. The headline: Israel threatens Assad: If you react, you would lose your government. | {
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Chilling effect (Image: Popperfoto/Getty)
Allied bombing raids during the second world war inadvertently experimented on the weather by producing huge contrails over south-east England. A study of one 1944 raid offers a rare opportunity to check our models of how contrails change temperatures.
After listening to a radio programme in which an elderly woman recalled seeing a wartime sky “turn white with clouds” as fleets of bombers took off, Roger Timmis of Lancaster Environment Centre in the UK realised that the planes could have affected the weather.
Contrails are known to have several effects on climate. On the one hand, they act as a blanket, trapping heat that would otherwise escape into space. On the other, during the day they reflect incoming sunlight, cooling the Earth below more than it is warmed by the other effect. But overall, the consensus among climatologists is that they warm the planet.
In the 1940s – unlike today – there was hardly any civilian air traffic, so historical records offer an opportunity to test the daytime effects. “Pilots cared about contrails a lot,” says Rob MacKenzie, formerly of Lancaster University, and now at the University of Birmingham, UK. “Aircraft were tracked using contrails and shot down. So pilots would report them.”
Using operational records from the US Army Air Force and the British Royal Air Force, and archived weather data, Timmis and MacKenzie realised they could compare temperatures immediately beneath a raid’s flight path to those several kilometres upwind, where there would have been no contrails.
Clear May morning
Conditions were ideal as one particular raid took off on the morning of 11 May 1944, with clear skies and enough moisture for contrails to form.
Timmis and MacKenzie found that where the aircraft circled and assembled into formation it was significantly cloudier and 0.8 °C cooler than the area upwind of the bases.
“It’s innovative to use these historical records,” says David Lee of Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He says the documented cooling due to daytime contrails is “entirely consistent” with what is already known.
Field studies of contrails are rare, says David Travis of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Most of our understanding of their effects is based on model studies.
Travis says studies like this MacKenzie’s study could help change that. He previously found that temperatures were more variable when planes were grounded in the aftermath of 9/11, but faced criticism because the contrail effect couldn’t be separated from natural variability in the weather. By comparing temperatures on the same day, but some kilometres apart, the bomber raid study was able to get around this problem.
Journal reference: International Journal of Climatology, DOI: 10.1002/joc.2392 | {
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This series of gorgeous, detail-packed photographs, by itinerant photographer William T. Clarke, records the faces and landscapes of the lumber industry in north-central Pennsylvania during the late 19th century. In the span of a few brief decades, lumber companies rapidly processed large areas of old-growth forest, employing men—and some families—who lived in the backwoods in thriving, temporary camps and towns. A book out this month, Wood Hicks and Bark Peelers: A Visual History of Pennsylvania’s Railroad Lumbering Communities, collects 131 of Clarke’s images.
In the 1880s and 1890s, Clarke, the son of Irish immigrants, appears to have carved out a living as a freelance photographer willing to undertake rough travel through the state’s north-central lumbering region. “Much of his income likely came from contracting with lumber companies,” Linda A. Ries writes in the book’s introduction. Clarke made images that might illustrate promotional campaigns or company literature, explaining how timber was harvested and processed. He appears to have supplemented this income with individual commissions from local residents; some of the glass plates reproduced in this book depict family homesteads in the woods or children posed in outdoor settings.
In the early 20th century, reformers interested in protecting Pennylvania forests used Clarke’s images of the thick old forest and the stripped-down hillsides of the present day to argue that lumber companies needed to be held accountable for the destruction of the forests in the state. We know little about Clarke’s personal feelings on the matter, but in a 1912 letter to one such reformer, folklorist and journalist Henry Wharton Shoemaker, Clarke wrote:
As you mention the last of the hill forest are about gone And this is the last of it (Around this vicinity) Even at that what a hurry for the fastest mill ever run in this country in now eating up the rees at a rate of 275,000 to 300,000 per 24 hours Why? When the Hemlock can not last there more than 7 or 8 years at most [punctuation in the original]
Clarke stored many of the glass plate negatives he made during his career in a barn, where a large number of them were destroyed when the roof sprang a leak. The images in Wood Hicks and Bark Peelers, which Clarke stored separately, were saved by descendants Lois and Bob Barden. In 1974, the Bardens discovered a crate of glass plates in a toolshed owned by a recently deceased family member. Recognizing their value, but not knowing their provenance, the Bardens held onto the plates for years, before working with the book’s co-author, photographer Harry Littell, to salvage the images and identify their locations when possible. | {
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. won the dismissal of a lawsuit over toxic mortgage-linked investment sales that were criticized by some members of a Senate panel investigating the 2008 financial crisis.
Investors in the collateralized debt obligations failed to show the bank structured the notes, from so-called Hudson Mezzanine Funding deals, to fail or that it hid material, nonpublic information about them, a U.S. judge ruled.
In 2010, the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, then led by Democrat Carl Levin, examined whether Goldman and its competitors had inappropriately bet against clients while the subprime-mortgage market melted. The panel released e-mails related to the bank’s deals, including one of the Hudson transactions, that suggested it had.
“The CDO imploded within two years: Your clients lost; Goldman profited,” Levin said in an hearing during which he questioned Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein about the Hudson deal and other CDOs. “To go out and sell these securities to people and then bet against those same securities, it seems to me, is a fundamental conflict of interest and is -- raises a real ethical issue.”
While Goldman Sachs selected the assets in the Hudson deal, it was also the only investor buying protection against losses through the transactions, documents released by Levin’s committee showed.
Goldman Employees
The class-action suit, in which hedge fund Dodona I LLC represented more than 70 investors in $2 billion of Hudson Mezzanine Funding 2006-1 and 2006-2, had also targeted former Goldman employees Peter L. Ostrem and Darryl K. Herrick. After the pretrial sharing of potential evidence between parties, known as discovery, the plaintiffs failed to submit “any specific information” suggesting Goldman hid important facts, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said.
"We are pleased with the decision," said Michael DuVally, a spokesman for New York-based Goldman Sachs.
The case is Dodona I LLC v. Goldman Sachs & Co., 10-cv-07497, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
— With assistance by Michael J Moore | {
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A South Side scuffle recently caught on camera shows a nail salon owner kicking a female customer and the manager tussling with her after they say she took off without paying her bill.
Community activist Ja'mal Green brought protesters to "Nails Show Design" Wednesday on 103rd and Saint Lawrence. Green says the woman in the video has mental difficulties.
He confronted the owners, as police watched the tense talk.
The manager of the salon says the video doesn't show the first part of the confrontation. She says an employee pulled out a taser just in case, then the woman threw the first punch.
"She punched the girl in the face and then hit me too on this side," said Phuong Nguyen, Salon Manager. "And my glasses fell off on the ground.
Nguyen says the salon owner was wrong to kick the woman. Her talk with protesters only seemed to inflame racial tensions in the Roseland neighborhood.
"We just trying to live here and be part of the community but it seems like, I've never experienced this before, it feel a little bit threatened to me," said Nguyen.
"They should feel threatened by the fact that we going to stop the cash flow going up in there," said Green. "They need to take their shop back to their own neighborhood. If you can't respect us when we allow you to be here and make money off us, take your shop back to where you come from."
The salon says someone else paid the woman's bill of $40, shining a spotlight on neighborhood friction. | {
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was only told to kill myself twice Today was a good day
218 shares | {
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If you get with a friend while you are drunk You're gonna have a bad time
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Not even walls can stop Disney’s and ETH Zurich’s new four-wheeled robot called VertiGo that can quickly transition from rolling on the ground to climbing obstacles like a gecko—and without those sticky feet.
So how does the VertiGo seemingly defy gravity? Atop the robot is a pair of steerable propellers that generate thrust, which pushes the vehicle against the wall. and keeps it from falling.
The propellers work similar to spoilers and other aerodynamic features on cars, which generate downward forces to help keep a race car pressed to the road to improve traction. But because the propellers on top of VertiGo can be steered, the robot can easily transition from horizontal to vertical surfaces, and back again. And neither surface has to be smooth for the robot to be able to ‘stick’ to it. As long as it has enough batteries to keep those props spinning, gravity doesn’t have a chance.
[Disney Research] | {
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This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala.-Thursday night Huntsville City Council approved the ridesharing service Lyft within the city limits. The company asked for approval to operate within the city earlier this year.
Before approval the council held a public hearing to get the public’s input on the rideshare program.
Lyft will operate in a similar way to Uber, which received approval and started service in Huntsville in March 2016.
Lyft currently operates in 200 cities in the United States. | {
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Donald Trump kicked off Wednesday with a series of tweets announcing that the U.S. military would no longer accept transgender service members, due to the “burden” of their medical costs and the “disruption” their presence supposedly causes. To many, the move seemed like a distraction from the G.O.P.’s protracted failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, or from Russia, or from any number of other controversies. Regardless, the result was the same: Trump threw trans people, whom he once said he would fight for, under the bus.
It’s no surprise, then, that almost every late-night comedian found his own way to tear into the president on Wednesday night. In fact, Trump’s bigotry inspired one of the most innovative lineups that late night has seen in recent months.
Perhaps the most bizarre part of the president’s message was the tweet storm’s last two words: “thank you.”
“Thank you?” Stephen Colbert said with disbelief on The Late Show. “Fuck you!”
Lest we forget, Colbert pointed out, Trump avoided fighting in the Vietnam war with four deferments and a medical disqualification for bone spurs in his foot. “And let’s talk about those tremendous medical costs,” Colbert added.
“To put that number in perspective, the military spends five times as much on Viagra. And if your erection lasts for more than four hours, that’s too bad, because you’re stuck on a submarine for the next six months. Why so much Viagra?! Is that why they don’t use bayonets anymore? . . . So clearly, it’s not about the money—or the military.” Colbert was also amazed to learn that the Pentagon itself was apparently unaware of Trump’s plan to ban transgender military personnel. “So the Pentagon didn’t even know?” Colbert said. “Wait a second; Trump said that he consulted with ‘my generals.’ Oh, I know. That must be a typo. He meant ‘my genitals.’”
On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon came armed with jokes of his own. But he also decided to share his platform with someone who could speak to the president more personally: trans comedian Patti Harrison. | {
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Ripple (XRP) is up 2.6 percent
Footprints in the Middle East and Southeast Asia highlight Ripple’s advantages
SWIFT is dominant, but Ripple’s progress is noticeable. Even though most of their partners use xCurrent, clarity in the future will ease their transition to xRapid. That will drive demand for XRP and therefore prices above the current 20 cents consolidation.
Ripple Price Analysis
Fundamentals
Blockchain companies cannot flourish in isolation. It is even more challenging when the startup is ambitious. As per their statement, Ripple is one such company. Cementing its position as a cheaper but complementing platform for SWIFT, Ripple is recording positive progress.
Over the years, SWIFT has roped in more global banks thanks to the efficiency it brought. Given the demands of globalization and end-users in a never-ending search for more, SWIFT is undoubtedly lagging in several aspects.
Theoretically, Ripple should be the perfect option since their solutions are speedy, secure, and above inexpensive. But that’s not the case. Regardless, there is progress. Presently, Ripple has a foothold in South East Asia with Yoshitaka Kitao’s SBI Group hellbent on seeing Ripple succeed.
In the Middle East, The Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority (SAMA), following their successful piloting of xCurrent is promoting Ripple’s solutions to local banks. Similarly, banks in Kuwait are interested with some already using xRapid.
Candlestick Arrangements
Changing hands at 31 cents, XRP is neutral and ranging. At the time of writing, prices are up 2.6 percent in 24 hours. Considering the resilience of buyers in the last couple of days, XRP is bullish with Q1 2019 support at 30 cents being significant.
Notice that not only do we have a double-bar bullish reversal pattern with higher highs from the lower Bollinger Bands (BB) with increasing volumes, but the divergence away from the lower BB is hinting.
Therefore, while bears could be in control, risk-off traders, in line with previous XRP/USD trade plans, can buy the pullback with stop limits below 30 cents.
As a result of this, the first target will be at 34 cents and later 40 cents if demand picks up over the weekend. However, assuming sellers flow back, driving prices below 30 cents, this trade plan will be null.
Technical Indicators
Confirming bears will be a spike of participation, exceeding trading volumes of June 22 of 113 million or 187 million of May 14. Similarly, a break out bar with equally high trading volumes lifting prices above 40 cents could open the door for 50 cents and later 80 cents.
Chart courtesy of Trading View. Image Courtesy of Shutterstock | {
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Timothy Lavin writes editorials on politics, economics, taxation and defense for Bloomberg Opinion. He was a senior editor at the Atlantic. Read more opinion SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email
Photographer: BRUCE WEAVER/AFP/Getty Images Photographer: BRUCE WEAVER/AFP/Getty Images
From the ground, it didn't really look like an explosion. Standing at a press site about four miles from the launchpad, amid the rippling, crackling sound waves generated by the rocket's chemical propulsion -- a disturbance so great it sent fish leaping from the river in front of us -- all systems seemed to be go.
There was a puff of white smoke overhead. A lengthy silence. And then a NASA rep on the PA, befuddlement in his voice, pronouncing what had happened a "non-nominal" event. For SpaceX, the aerospace startup that had been supplying the International Space Station without incident for some time, the explosion of its Falcon 9 rocket was surely a shock -- all the more worrisome because the company intends to start ferrying humans to space come 2017.
"It happens," said our bus driver, distilling the essence of the event. It does happen: Of all our scientific pursuits, perhaps none is more prone to spectacular failure than space travel. Yet the impulse to explore seems to endure. The occasional tragedy is the cost of the larger triumphs.
SpaceX embodies that grimly intrepid ethos. As Bloomberg's Ashlee Vance details in his new book on SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the company's short history brims with failure and redemption -- a microcosm of the longer history of spaceflight. Its efforts to build workable rocket engines ended in flames many times. Three iterations of its Falcon 1 rocket blew up between 2006 and 2008. Then, out of options and nearing bankruptcy, the company finally nailed a do-or-die launch from the Kwajalein atoll in September 2008. NASA contracts, public esteem and profitability soon followed.
Since then, SpaceX has had a nearly perfect record in its commercial launches. And it has made steady progress in modifying its Dragon capsule for passengers, with all the most sophisticated safety enhancements. If a crew had been sitting atop the rocket that expired Sunday, the company's president reassuringly said afterward, they would have escaped easily.
Yet history still advises caution. Another calamity -- an unforeseen problem, a counterintuitive failure -- is always lurking in rocketry. Even if SpaceX can build the Volvo of spacefaring, there will be more non-nominal events, more anomalies. And yet the pursuit will go on, farther and farther into the galaxy. Elon Musk, SpaceX's enigmatic spirit guide, wants to go to Mars. He wants to die on Mars, in fact. NASA plans to get there too, sometime in the 2030s. Russia and China still want to get to the moon.
It's hard to say why traveling to space -- risking so much to reach a lonely, irradiated vacuum -- remains so alluring. But I think Tom Wolfe was probably on to something in "The Right Stuff," his book about the Mercury astronauts and the early days of the American space program: "Everyone who felt the spirit of NASA at that time wanted to be a part of it. It took on a religious dimension that engineers, no less than pilots, would resist putting into words. But all felt it."
After the launch, with a late-afternoon Florida thunderstorm gathering, I stopped at the Astronaut Memorial at Kennedy Space Center. It's dominated by a shimmering granite edifice divided into 90 panels, two dozen of them bearing the names of American astronauts who died in the line of duty. It's a pretty stark reminder that exploration has always been a death-haunted pursuit. But the monument's most arresting statement, the one that stuck with me long after leaving, was implicit. There are an awful lot of empty panels on that wall, awaiting more names.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg View's editorial board or Bloomberg LP, its owners and investors.
To contact the author on this story:
Timothy Lavin at [email protected]
To contact the editor on this story:
Francis Wilkinson at [email protected] | {
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Mike Kneupfel, a student at NYU's Interactive Technology Program, made a 3D model showing the keys he presses most frequently when typing, composed of raised keys on a keyboard. It's a fun and eye-catching way of visualizing data by using the thing whose data you're analyzing.
Conclusions – This was just a first go at trying to create a data driven 3d sculpture. I wound up scaling the keys a little bit too much in the vertical direction. The weight of the tall keys caused the towers to tilt at an angle. I plan on showing this prototype to a few people that will hopefully give me more ideas for new data sets to look at. I want to try and use the CNC for future data driven sculptures. I also want to try and include color into the sculpture somehow. | {
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On Detroit's Belle Isle Park this afternoon, Chevy finally pulled the wraps off its next-generation Camaro — a hotly anticipated upgrade that GM has been teasing bit by bit over the past several weeks. It'll go head-to-head against the recently revamped Ford Mustang when it hits dealers in the coming months.
In general, Chevy has hewn closely to the look and feel of the outgoing model, and that's not necessarily a bad thing: the musclebound lines of the car have aged well over the past several years.
There will be six — yes, six — engine-transmission combinations offered, ranging from a 455-horsepower 6.2-liter V-8 all the way down to a 2.0-liter turbocharged four, with either a manual or automatic. An equally big story might be the new interior — unlike the exterior, the cockpit looks all-new, featuring something Chevy is calling "Interior Spectrum Lighting" that shines a light pipe in any of 24 selectable colors across the dashboard. (It looks awesome.) There's even a "show mode" that will randomly cycle through all the colors, just for effect.
There's a reason that GM took to Belle Isle for this particular unveiling: besides the fact that GM headquarters can be seen a mile away on the Detroit skyline, Belle Isle is hosting a Grand Prix in two weeks' time where IndyCar drivers will negotiate the twists and turns of the island's road course. This weekend, Chevy is using that same course to demonstrate the new Camaro's chops on the track. (Stay tuned for those impressions in the coming days.)
Correction: The Camaro has six powertrain combinations available, not six engines.
Grid View
Grid View
Grid View
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So Persona 5 Has a Perfect Horror Crossover With Identity V
This is certainly a crossover I would have never expected, but in my mind, it’s a certainly welcome one. NetEase’s asymmetrical horror Identity V will feature a Persona 5 themed crossover event. You can check out a bit of the gameplay showing off some of the unlockable Phantom Thieves skins here. As of now, there has been no promotional material showing off Makoto Niijima, Haru Okumura, and Goro Akechi which leads me to believe they won’t be making a debut in this crossover.
As an interesting side note, the Joker Studio copyright that can be seen at the bottom of the screen of the new trailer below coincidentally happens to be an internal studio of NetEase, the developers of Identity V. Furthermore, the upgrading system in Identity V is literally called ‘Persona,’ and considering how the phrase ‘Identity V‘ on a literal level means the exact same thing as ‘Persona 5,’ this crossover makes a lot of sense weirdly enough.
This crossover event will launch on August 8th; in the meantime, you can check out a bunch of promotional materials below, as well as Identity V‘s Twitter here.
[Source]
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Trump anuncia taxas contra México por imigração ilegal (foto: EPA)
08:12, 31 Mai • WASHINGTON • ZCC
(ANSA) - O presidente dos Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, anunciou que irá sobretaxar em 5% todos os produtos importados do México até que o governo de Andrés López Obrador tome medidas contra a imigração ilegal no território norte-americano.
Segundo comunicado divulgado pela Casa Branca na noite desta quinta-feira (30), a decisão entrará em vigor a partir do próximo dia 10 de junho.
O republicano ainda afirmou que a taxação irá aumentar gradualmente caso a entrada clandestina de mexicanos em seu país não seja eliminada ou reduzida drasticamente.
Com isso, a sanção será reajustada em 15% a partir de 1 de agosto; 20% em 1 de setembro; 25% em 1 de outubro; e após essa data irá permanecer em 25% de maneira indefinida.
No entanto, o magnata prometeu remover as taxas "se a crise de imigração ilegal for aliviada com atitudes eficazes tomadas pelo México".
No texto, o presidente norte-americano ainda acusou o governo mexicano de "não tratar de maneira justa" o seu país, principalmente porque pode anunciar medidas para reduzir o fluxo de imigrantes de forma "rápida e fácil".
Trump ainda ressaltou que se o país vizinho "falhar", o que consequentemente manterá as taxas em 25%, muitas empresas localizadas no México "podem começar a retornar aos Estados Unidos para fabricar seus bens e produtos". "As companhias que se mudarem de volta aos Estados Unidos não vão pagar as tarifas ou serem afetadas de maneira alguma", acrescentou.
Desde as eleições presidenciais de 2016, Trump tenta endurecer a política migratória nos Estados Unidos. A construção de um muro na fronteira com o México foi uma de suas principais promessas durante sua campanha.
Ontem (30), o mandatário voltou a acusar os democratas, que controlam a Câmara de Representantes, de barrar qualquer iniciativa sobre a fronteira, porque querem "as fronteiras abertas, querem ter crimes, querem que as drogas ingressem no país, querem que tenha tráfico de pessoas", ressaltou. Em fevereiro, Trump, inclusive, chegou a declarar emergência nacional na fronteira entre os Estados Unidos e o México afirmando que era preciso combater a "crise". Depois do anúncio das taxas, Obrador pediu para "aprofundar o diálogo" na tentativa de evitar qualquer confronto. (ANSA)
Todos los Derechos Reservados. © Copyright ANSA | {
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That Facebook profile picture is crucial. At the very least, it's your image, a semi-public glimpse into who you are. It can also be a branding tool or a peek at what potential employers can expect. And of course, as the first Facebook iteration had it, the profile picture can serve as a subjective indicator: hot or not.
For some (or arguably all) of the above reasons, keeping up appearances is a social media consideration. Obviously, you choose how you represent yourself. And perhaps for that very reason, profile pictures on the free social network are getting more complicated — and much pricier — in India.
SEE ALSO: FaceTime Facelift: Surgeon Wants to Make Video Chats Beautiful
India is reportedly experiencing a growing trend in which social media users in their 20s and 30s go under the knife to get the optimal profile picture. Facebook users, per a video originally posted on Vocativ (watch the full video below), are getting laser skin treatment, chin augmentation and rhinoplasty, among other procedures, to enhance their romantic chances.
Dubbed "Facebook Facelifts," plastic surgeon Dr. Anip Dhir explains that the trend is not only growing, but he's expecting it to spike exponentially. Laser work and chemical peels cost roughly $500, and chin augmentations (most popular with men) can cost upward of $2,000.
Facebook user Jasmeet Singh says in the video that he wants to have liposuction because his friends that use Facebook say he should look thinner. He's using the social media site to look for a mate.
"If you don't look good on Facebook, then how will you make contacts?" says another user in the video. "I got laser surgery and ... I'm getting a lot of marriage proposals since the stitch marks were fixed."
SEE ALSO: 15 Outrageously Funny Group Face Swaps
Why not simply dress up your pics via Photoshop? Not good enough. Users and doctors explain that altering with your pictures can only go so far. When an in-person meet-up is scheduled, other users are keen on experiencing the real deal.
"The country that invented the first rhinoplasty in the world, the nose job, or the country which started the piercing of ears and noses?" Dhir says. "We are very much accepting of looking good through so-called artificial means."
What do you think about the costly Facebook trend? What does a Facebook profile picture mean to you? Watch the videos above to learn more, and discuss in the comments.
Image courtesy of YouTube, VocativVideo | {
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Our most fundamental doctrine includes the knowledge that we are children of a living God. That is why one of His most sacred names is Father—Heavenly Father. This doctrine has been clearly taught by prophets through the ages:
When tempted by Satan, Moses rebuffed him, saying: “Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God.” 1
Addressing Israel, the Psalmist proclaimed, “All of you are children of the most High.” 2
Paul taught the Athenians on Mars Hill that they were “offspring of God.” 3
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon received a vision in which they saw the Father and the Son, and a heavenly voice declared that the inhabitants of the worlds “are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” 4
In 1995, the 15 living apostles and prophets affirmed: “All human beings … are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.” 5
President Thomas S. Monson testified: “We are sons and daughters of a living God. … We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power.”6
This doctrine is so basic, so oft stated, and so instinctively simple that it can seem to be ordinary, when in reality it is among the most extraordinary knowledge we can obtain. A correct understanding of our heavenly heritage is essential to exaltation. It is foundational to comprehending the glorious plan of salvation and to nurturing faith in the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus the Christ, and in His merciful Atonement.7 Further, it provides continual motivation for us to make and keep our indispensable eternal covenants.
With few exceptions, everyone participating in this meeting could right now, without written lyrics or music, sing “I Am a Child of God.”8 This beloved hymn is one of the most often sung in this Church. But the critical question is, do we really know it? Do we know it in our mind and in our heart and in our soul? Is our heavenly parentage our first and most profound identity?
Here on earth, we identify ourselves in many different ways, including our place of birth, our nationality, and our language. Some even identify themselves by their occupation or their hobby. These earthly identities are not wrong unless they supersede or interfere with our eternal identity—that of being a son or a daughter of God.
When our youngest child was six years old and in the first grade at school, her teacher gave the children an in-class writing assignment. It was October, the month of Halloween, a holiday observed in some parts of the world. While it is not my favorite holiday, I suppose there may be some innocent and redeeming aspects of Halloween.
The teacher passed out a piece of paper to the young students. At the top was a roughly drawn picture of a mythical witch (I told you this was not my favorite holiday) standing over a boiling cauldron. The question posed on the page, to encourage the imaginations of the children and to test their rudimentary writing skills, was “You have just drunk a cup of the witch’s brew. What happened to you?” Please know that this story is not being shared as a recommendation to teachers.
“You have just drunk a cup of the witch’s brew. What happened to you?” With her best beginner’s writing, our little one wrote, “I will die and I will be in heaven. I will like it there. I would love it because it is the best place to be because you are with your Heavenly Father.” This answer likely surprised her teacher; however, when our daughter brought the completed assignment home, we noted that she was given a star, the highest grade.
In real life, we face actual, not imagined, hardships. There is pain—physical, emotional, and spiritual. There are heartbreaks when circumstances are very different from what we had anticipated. There is injustice when we do not seem to deserve our situation. There are disappointments when someone we trusted failed us. There are health and financial setbacks that can be disorienting. There may be times of question when a matter of doctrine or history is beyond our current understanding.
When difficult things occur in our lives, what is our immediate response? Is it confusion or doubt or spiritual withdrawal? Is it a blow to our faith? Do we blame God or others for our circumstances? Or is our first response to remember who we are—that we are children of a loving God? Is that coupled with an absolute trust that He allows some earthly suffering because He knows it will bless us, like a refiner’s fire, to become like Him and to gain our eternal inheritance?9
Recently, I was in a meeting with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. In teaching the principle that mortal life can be agonizing but our hardships have eternal purpose—even if we do not understand it at the time—Elder Holland said, “You can have what you want, or you can have something better.”
Five months ago, my wife, Diane, and I went to Africa with Elder and Sister David A. Bednar. The sixth and last country we visited was Liberia. Liberia is a great country with a noble people and a rich history, but things have not been easy there. Decades of political instability and civil wars have worsened the plague of poverty. On top of that, the dreaded Ebola disease killed nearly 5,000 people there during the latest outbreak. We were the first group of Church leaders from outside the area to visit Monrovia, the capital city, since the World Health Organization declared it safe to do so after the Ebola crisis.
On a very hot and humid Sunday morning, we traveled to a rented meeting facility in the center of the city. Every available chair was set up, totaling 3,500 seats. The final count of attendees was 4,100. Almost all who came had to travel by foot or some form of inconvenient public transportation; it was not easy for the Saints to gather. But they came. Most arrived several hours before the appointed meeting time. As we entered the hall, the spiritual atmosphere was electric! The Saints were prepared to be taught.
When a speaker quoted a scripture, the members would say the verse aloud. It did not matter—short scripture or long; the entire congregation responded in unison. Now, we do not necessarily recommend this, but it was certainly impressive that they could do it. And the choir—they were powerful. With an enthusiastic choir director and a 14-year-old young man at the keyboard, the members sang with vigor and strength.
Then Elder Bednar spoke. This, of course, was the anticipated highlight of the gathering—to hear an Apostle teach and testify. Clearly with spiritual direction, partway through his remarks, Elder Bednar stopped and said, “Do you know ‘How Firm a Foundation’?”
It seemed that 4,100 voices roared in response, “YES!”
He then asked, “Do you know verse 7?”
Again the entire group answered, “YES!”
The arrangement of the mighty hymn “How Firm a Foundation” sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for the last 10 years has included verse 7, which was not sung much previously. Elder Bednar instructed, “Let’s sing verses 1, 2, 3, and 7.”
Without hesitation, the choir director jumped up and the Aaronic Priesthood–bearing accompanist immediately began to energetically play the introductory chords. With a level of conviction I have never felt before in a congregational hymn, we sang verses 1, 2, and 3. Then the volume and spiritual power was elevated when 4,100 voices sang the seventh verse and declared:
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!10
In one of the most remarkable spiritual events of my life, I was taught a profound lesson that day. We live in a world that can cause us to forget who we really are. The more distractions that surround us, the easier it is to treat casually, then ignore, and then forget our connection with God. The Saints in Liberia have little materially, and yet they seem to have everything spiritually. What we witnessed that day in Monrovia was a group of sons and daughters of God who knew it!
In today’s world, no matter where we live and no matter what our circumstances are, it is essential that our preeminent identity is as a child of God. Knowing that will allow our faith to flourish, will motivate our continual repentance, and will provide the strength to “be steadfast and immovable” throughout our mortal journey.11 In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. | {
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"It's one of the things that limits the ability of the city of Detroit to attract larger-scale convention business," Andrew Leber, vice president of hospitality at Bedrock, said in an interview on the Crain's "Detroit Rising" podcast. "And that business is hugely impactful to the economy. It creates jobs, it creates tax revenue and we need to focus on that opportunity."
Bedrock, the real estate arm of billionaire Dan Gilbert's business empire, "would love to explore" being part of developing a convention hotel, Leber said.
"It's something we would absolutely explore," he said.
Leber made those comments in a podcast interview at Detroit Homecoming last month before my colleague Kirk Pinho first reported Sunday in Crain's that Detroit-based Sterling Group is nearing a deal to redevelop the site of nearby Joe Louis Arena, which is being torn down.
One of the stipulations of New York City-based Financial Guaranty Insurance Corp.'s 2014 acquisition of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit's bankruptcy was to redevelop the site with at least a 300-room hotel.
"Ideally," Leber said, a new convention hotel would be situated between Hart Plaza and TCF Center on the riverfront — on the opposite side of the former home of the Detroit Red Wings.
"But the location of Joe Louis and the potential connectivity could be really unique," said Leber, a 2018 Crain's 40 Under 40 honoree.
Leber is not the first business leader to decry Detroit's shortage of large hotels to handle big conventions and major sporting events.
Detroit Sports Commission Director Kris Smith has said Detroit was snubbed from hosting the NCAA's Final Four in 2023-26 because the city doesn't have enough hotels with 400 rooms or more for each team to stay in separate hotels. | {
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Ethereum 2.0 in the Pipeline
For a while now, Serenity, the next step in the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, has been somewhat of a quixotic dream for developers. But, the upgrade, which developers say will dramatically increase the efficiency and decrease the power consumption of the network, is rapidly nearing.
Revealed Monday by Danny Ryan, a leading developer at the non-profit Ethereum Foundation, the specifications of Phase Zero of Serenity, dubbed “Beacon Chain”, were recently ‘frozen’. This means that much of the upgrade’s changes have been somewhat finalized. Per trade publication CryptoSlate, however, there are still a number of “significant” changes slated to be made to the specifications. Regardless, this is still an important tidbit of news for Ethereum bulls, which have become few and far between as ETH has struggled against market leader Bitcoin.
For those unaware, founder of the blockchain Vitailik Buterin claims that Serenity could simply be explained as “a way to bring technical improvements, like PoS and sharding, together to improve the Virtual Machine, Merkle Trees, the efficiency of the protocol, and a whole bunch of small technical things that you have never heard of.” Per the industry insider, this is all being done in a bid to create a “next-generation blockchain” to be hundreds of times faster and scalable than Ethereum’s current iteration.
Booming On-Chain Analytics
This news comes hot on the heels of analysis that the Ethereum blockchain is doing rather well from a transactional volume and activity standpoint. Per previous reports from this outlet, the number of transactions seen on the popular blockchain network recently surpassed one million per day — a figure not seen since December 2017. This figure is over 2.5 times higher than it was when Ethereum transactions/day count bottomed in late-2018 at around 380,000. But, 1,000,000 is still shy of the 1,300,000 all-time highs seen in January 2018.
That’s not all. Block times are at their lowest ever, sitting at 13.3 seconds, all while the chain’s hash rate is rapidly swelling, nearing all-time highs once again. Simultaneously, open interest for Ethereum on futures platforms has broken yearly highs, implying increased speculative interest. There is an upcoming hard fork, dubbed “Istanbul”.
Ethereum facts:
– TX count broke yearly highs
– Block time consistently lowest ever (13.3 seconds)
– Hashrate is growing
– Open interest broke yearly highs
– Upcoming Constantinople hardfork
– Largest dev base
– Most decentralized SC network
Check: https://t.co/c1TxEe4o0W pic.twitter.com/hcP8Xlp09U — //Litecoin 𝕵ack 🐐 (@BTC_JackSparrow) July 1, 2019
Interestingly, in spite of all this, some analysts are rather bearish on ETH. As SalsaTekila points out, the ETH/BTC chart is about to print a quintuple bottom, which he claims is a sign of a “slow bleed”.
With each bottoming pattern, the support level which Ethereum bounces off on becomes weaker. This means that unless there is a strong bounce, ETH may be susceptible to dwindle to lower lows against Bitcoin, implying that investors should cash out of their positions.
https://twitter.com/SalsaTekila/status/1145144175337312256
Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash | {
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Manchester City lost Pablo Zabaleta with a recurrence of the medial knee ligament which kept him out for the opening two months of the season.
Zabaleta had never had such a lengthy lay-off, and now he is praying that the damage is not as severe – the club will send him for a scan when the swelling goes down in the next couple of days.
More on City
Said manager Manuel Pellegrini: “Pablo had the same injury he had one month ago - the same ligament, the same knee. We cannot know until tomorrow.”
On a brighter note, Raheem Sterling missed last night’s game after feeling his hamstring at the end of a Tuesday evening training session at the stadium.
Pellegrini decided not to risk him, but he should be OK to return for the game against Norwich on Saturday. | {
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Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko swung hard for challenger Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a highly charged debate before more than 20,000 noisy spectators, but probably failed to land enough blows to win their election run-off on Sunday.
At Kiev’s Olimpiyskiy Stadium on Friday evening they traded jabs for an hour over the incumbent’s alleged failure to fight graft and the popular comedian’s political inexperience.
Poroshenko kept the challenger waiting for a few minutes as he strode through the stadium, punching the air and waving to supporters, but then failed to seriously unsettle an accomplished performer who has a strong leads in the polls.
Zelenskiy swiftly went on the attack with a barrage of questions on the president’s record since 2014, when he took power after Ukraine’s Maidan revolution and Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and start of a proxy war in the eastern Donbas region.
Corruption
After asking why Poroshenko had failed to end high-level corruption, improve living standards and ensure officers responsible for military failures in Donbas were punished, he said: “I’m not your opponent – I’m your sentence.
“I voted for Poroshenko in 2014. But I made a mistake. Could I have imagined that ‘living in a new way’ would mean ‘trying to survive’?” Mr Zelenskiy (41) said.
“That’s why I’m here with my team. I’m not a politician, I’m just an ordinary person who came to break this system... I am the result of your mistakes and your promises.”
To cheers and boos from their respective supporters, the pair reiterated their key campaign messages, with Poroshenko warning that the comedian would be manipulated by the Kremlin and his business associate, oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, and Zelenskiy pledging to clean up Ukraine’s murky politics.
“You have stressed that you are ready to learn as president... Would you board a plane whose pilot got behind the controls to learn? Would you go under the knife of a surgeon who came to the operating room to learn?” Poroshenko asked.
Unpleasant surprises
Having dubbed Zelenskiy “a cat in a sack” – Ukrainian for a pig in a poke – the president said on stage: “You’re not a cat in a sack – you’re the sack, and in the sack there are devils and cats,” suggesting he would be full of unpleasant surprises.
“Better a cat in a sack than a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Zelenskiy replied.
As the stage filled up with both men’s supporters – including their wives and soldiers on Poroshenko’s side and members of Zelenskiy’s comedy troupe on his – they debated a war that has killed 13,000 people, displaced 1.6 million and left a swath of Ukraine’s industrial heartland in the hands of Russian-led separatists.
Zelenskiy rejected criticism over his 2014 offer to “go down on his knees” before Russian president Vladimir Putin to end the war, and said he was ready to kneel before all Ukrainians who had lost relatives in five years of fighting.
He then asked Poroshenko (53) if he was prepared to do the same, and both candidates kneeled on stage, with the president facing camouflage-clad troops who had come to support him, and the comedian facing spectators.
The crowd in the 70,000-capacity stadium was smaller than expected: officials said 22,000 people were in the arena, and about 10,000 police officers were stationed around the city centre to maintain order.
Bigger margin
Zelenskiy won the first round of the election last month with 30 per cent of votes, ahead of Poroshenko on 16 per cent in a field of 39 candidates. Surveys suggest the challenger will win by a bigger margin on Sunday.
“I’m very scared for my country and strongly support our current president,” Ira Troshkina (24) from Kiev said on her way into the stadium.
“My husband is a soldier and I know what a breakthrough we’ve made in the last five years. Look at how we’ve made progress in the international arena, and how I can now go to the EU without a visa and find opportunities there, and people look well on Ukraine, ” she added.
“I know that the uniform, equipment and pay that a soldier gets are much better now... It hasn’t been 100 per cent good [under Mr Poroshenko] but it’s the best we’ve had in 25 years.”
‘No decent roads’
Alexander (26), who declined to give his surname, saw things differently. “I’ve come here to listen to them live and hopefully hear some truth. Although we’ve heard the ‘truth’ from one of them for five years and that’s enough,” he said.
“I’m in the building trade and drive all over Ukraine. It’s tough – he’s been in power five years and we still have no decent roads. And corruption is everywhere.”
“Poroshenko can’t say anything tonight to change my mind. I lived in Sweden for six months but came home because he said things would be better, and nothing’s changed.” | {
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In May of 1989, Steve Blackman was days away from beginning his career with World Wrestling Entertainment. A week later, he was in sub-Saharan Africa on the brink of death.
"I was supposed to start with WWE, but I promised this guy I would go over to South Africa for three weeks," Blackman told WWE.com. "I went over there to keep my word and I wound up getting dysentery and malaria and was on my death bed."
At the time, Blackman was a rising star in Calgary's Stampede Wrestling. A physical powerhouse, the Pennsylvania native had set an east coast record by curling 315 pounds as a 19-year-old. He was also a dangerous martial artist, highly skilled in Shotokan karate, jiu-jitsu and various other disciplines. But a single bite from an Anopheles mosquito was enough to nearly kill him. (PHOTOS)
"It was a nightmare," Blackman remembered. "But I said, 'I'm not going to die in this country. I'm not going to make my family fly halfway around the world to come retrieve my body.'"
Crippled by intense abdominal pain, exhaustion and dehydration, Blackman made a harrowing 46-hour journey to his home in Florida. Then, with no other choice, the competitor opted out of his contract with WWE and returned to his parents' house in Pennsylvania where he began a grueling recovery process that lasted for six long years.
"For the first two and a half years that I was sick, when I went to bed at night I didn't think I would wake up in the morning."
It would take three years of intense physical therapy, doses and doses of antibiotics and endless hours of sleep before Blackman began to feel even close to normal. Eventually, the big man was able to take a job as a prison guard and slowly started his training routines, preparing himself for a return to the ring.
It would be a long journey for Blackman to get back to where he had once been. Originally trained by Tony Altomare, a former tag team partner of Captain Lou Albano, Blackman had truly cut his teeth in the rough-and-tumble rings of Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling where he competed with some of the most talented performers of the era.
"Dynamite Kid and The British Bulldog were up there with us in Stampede," Blackman recalled. "Brian Pillman was there. There were a lot of good [wrestlers], so it was a good place to learn."
Despite this great background, the 6-foot-2 grappler hadn't set foot in the squared circle in years and needed to get back into fighting shape. Setting up a ring in his backyard, Blackman spent a year training aspiring wrestlers in the Pennsylvania area until he felt he was ready to return to the big leagues.
"I started getting better as long as I trained hard and ate healthy," Blackman said.
Finally, in 1997, a revived Blackman contacted an old friend and asked for a favor.
"I called Brian Pillman and some of those guys and they put in a word for me with [Mr. McMahon]," Blackman remembered. "He was hesitant, but they gave me a shot."
In November of that same year, Blackman finally made his WWE debut after an eight-year hiatus, jumping over a guardrail on Raw to help Vader in a brawl against Bret Hart's Hart Foundation. The act would inject the martial artist directly into a rivalry between WWE's Canadian and USA factions, but the grappler had some difficulty bringing the fight to his rivals.
"The first year on the road was tough for me," Blackman admitted. "I still fought relapses of fatigue, but I would just fight through it. I felt pretty rotten a lot of the time."
It wasn't until Blackman began to butt heads with Ken Shamrock that he started to find his footing in the ring again. A former star in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Shamrock could match Blackman in the tough guy department and both men were more than willing to show the other how hard they could hit.
"We would lay into each other," Blackman admitted. "I know one night I had one of my brand new sticks, I had bought it that morning, and I actually broke it over his ribs in the ring."
This use of dangerous weapons, including nunchucks and rattan sticks used in the Filipino martial art of eskrima, earned Blackman the nickname "The Lethal Weapon."
"I did a lot of martial arts training," he said. "Using the weapons, it just came natural to me."
Blackman's martial arts skills would also serve him well in WWE's controversial Brawl for All tournament. Held during the summer of 1998, this unique contest pitted Superstars against one another in matches that were more akin to mixed martial arts brawls than traditional WWE bouts.
"They put me in the first match with Marc Mero," Blackman recalled. "Now Marc Mero has always had good boxing skills, I think he won the New York Golden Gloves for five years, but I took him down like 13 times in three minutes."
Although he won the match, The Lethal Weapon would have to withdraw from the tournament when he suffered an injury during a training session. After sitting on the sidelines for several months, the deathly serious Blackman returned to the ring in a much different light, teaming with the bizarre Al Snow in a mismatched duo known as Head Cheese.
"Al and I were so different," Blackman said. "He was always laughing and outgoing and I was so straight-laced. It just made it comical."
Snow, one of the most oddball Superstars in WWE history, was infamous for talking to a disembodied mannequin head and once wrestled himself. Looking to bring out the same zaniness in the stoic Blackman, the strange Superstar dragged The Lethal Weapon on memorably wacky trips to places like a cow farm and a retirement community.
"Some old woman in there, she was like 90-years-old, and every time I would say something she just started yelling, 'Blackman...you suck!'" the former Superstar said with a smile. "Al and I kept laughing like hell because we couldn't believe this woman kept yelling at me."
While the team became fan favorites due to their odd couple appeal, they failed to capture the WWE Tag Team Championships and split up in 2000.
"I felt like some of the tag stuff, some nights it clicked and some night it didn't," Blackman admitted. "But the vignettes were hard to beat, because it was pretty funny stuff."
With the Head Cheese jokes now behind him, Blackman returned to singles action with a newfound focus. Dusting off his kendo sticks, The Lethal Weapon prepared for war. Things were about to get hardcore.
____________________________________________
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Adorable Ludwik is a 'skinny guinea pig', a special hairless breed of guinea pig. Ludwik Guinea Pig/Facebook
A bald guinea pig from Warsaw has become an Instagram sensation after stealing the hearts of over 200,000 fans.
Quirky snaps showing the hairless Ludwik posing with his favourite foods, dressed as a variety of characters and holding up signs has seen the adorable four-year-old’s popularity soar to an astonishing 275,000 followers, with an additional 40,000 on Facebook. Ludwik Guinea Pig/Facebook
The social media star’s rise to fame began after owner Agata Nowacka rescued poorly Ludwik in 2015 from what she called 'a very bad pet store.'Agata Nowacka/Facebook
Finding him suffering from weight loss, pneumonia, a fungal infection and conjunctivitis, Agata lovingly nursed the ‘skinny pig’ back to health. Ludwik Guinea Pig/Facebook
Now Ludwik uses his fame to promote positive messages and encourage his followers to support good causes such as adopting animals or using cruelty free products. Ludwik Guinea Pig/Facebook
Ludwik fully embraces the ‘no hair, don’t care’ lifestyle’. Ludwik Guinea Pig/Facebook | {
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A tax cut hailed as a boost for Britain’s army of self-employed people has been shelved, in another Government U-turn.
Class 2 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) were due to be scrapped next April, but will now stay in place until 12 months later, the Treasury said.
The move is expected to save the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, around £200m, just weeks before a crucial Budget and as he tries to plug a yawning financial “black hole”.
However, the Treasury insisted the delay was to avoid “unintended consequences for the lowest paid”, by allowing further consultation to take place.
Mr Hammond has been under pressure to step back from a confrontation with the lowest-earning self-employed who would lose out from the shake-up.
More than 3m workers would gain more than £130 a year – but tens of thousands of people earning under £6,000 a year faced a fourfold hike in the cost of their pension contributions.
A statement to MPs insisted the Government remained “committed to abolishing Class 2 NICs to simplify the system”.
Nevertheless, the delay is certain to spark speculation that the U-turn will become permanent, after Mr Hammond was forced to axe other national insurance hikes on the self-employed last year.
Former Chancellor George Osborne, who announced the change in 2016, tweeted his displeasure, saying: “Not sure why the Government have delayed this tax cut for self-employed people.”
And Labour claimed the announcement “highlights the chaos that there is at the centre of government right now”
“Clearly these proposals had not been thoroughly thought through before they were announced,” said Peter Dowd, the Shadow Treasury Chief Secretary.
"The government needs to makes sure that those currently paying Class 2 NICs, including many low-earning self-employed people, are not hit hard as a result of their abolition and replacement."
When Mr Osborne announced the abolition of Class 2 NICS, in March 2016, it was promoted as the death of an “outdated levy”, paid at a flat rate unrelated to profits
The system requires those who work for themselves to fill out forms and pay around £2.60 a week on average.
Abolition would benefit self-employed workers earning between £6,025 and £8,164, who would automatically get the pension rights from Class 4 contributions, without having to pay more.
But critics protested that those earning under £6,000 a year would see their pension contributions quadruple, from £2.85 to £14.45 a week in order to later receive the full state pension.
In a statement to MPs, Treasury minister Andrew Jones said a National Insurance Contributions (NICs) Bill would now be brought forward in 2018, delaying implementation until April 2019.
He said: “The Government has decided to implement a one year delay to allow time to engage with interested parties and parliamentarians with concerns relating to the impact of the abolition of Class 2 NICs on self-employed individuals with low profits. | {
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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about the production process and operation of the JL MAG Rare-Earth Co. Ltd. as well as the development of the rare earth industry in the city of Ganzhou in east China's Jiangxi Province on May 20, 2019. Xi Jinping visited Jiangxi Province Monday on an inspection tour. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about the production process and operation of the JL MAG Rare-Earth Co. Ltd. as well as the development of the rare earth industry in the city of Ganzhou in east China's Jiangxi Province on May 20, 2019. Xi Jinping visited Jiangxi Province Monday on an inspection tour. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)
A visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to a rare-earth company in East China's Jiangxi Province on Monday offered huge support to the critical industry that has been widely viewed as a form of leverage for China in the trade war with the US, but one that also faces issues that need to be addressed.Xi visited JL MAG Rare-Earth Co, a Ganzhou-based high-technology company specializing in research and development (R&D) into rare-earth permanent magnetic materials, to learn about the company's operations and the development of the rare-earth industry, the Xinhua News Agency reported.Ganzhou is known for its rare-earths mining and processing industry.The visit, seen as a sign of backing from the top leadership for the domestic rare-earth industry, immediately lifted the company's shares and those of several other companies. JL MAG 's stock closed up by the 10 percent daily limit on Monday at 25.96 yuan ($3.75).Xi's trip also drew much attention, coming at a time when China and the US are locked in trade and technology battles. Many have suggested that China should limit rare-earth exports to the US as a countermeasure to the US decision to slap tariffs on Chinese goods and cut supplies of semiconductors for Chinese companies. Rare-earth minerals were among the few items excluded from the latest US tariff list."It is normal that the top leader investigates relevant industrial policies," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang during a briefing on Monday, while expressing the hope that the media would not relate the rare-earths visit too closely to the China-US trade war."I've said that China-US economic and trade relations must be built on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit," said Lu.China is the world's biggest producer of rare-earth elements, which are necessary for many advanced products from planes to semiconductors, accounting for more than 90 percent of global supply, according to media reports.Though US and Japanese companies dominate many advanced technologies in the manufacturing sector, China's supply of rare earth is "indispensible," Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Monday.However, experts said that in China, the industry remains largely trapped in overcapacity in the upstream exaction of rare-earth elements, and is in dire need of moving up the industry chain to higher-end production. Xi's trip was meant to boost that process."China's rare-earth industry structure is very imbalanced and profit margins have been squeezed in the international market," Lin said.Apart from illegal rare-earth mining and smuggling that dilutes the industry's profitability, much of the profit squeeze is attributable to the low threshold and low added value in the difficult and dangerous process of extracting rare-earth elements from ore. This part of the industry chain imposes high environmental cost but yields limited profits, analysts said."Consequently, although China is the biggest exporter of rare-earth elements in the international market, we are not making as much profit as we should," Chen Zhanheng, a vice secretary-general of the Association of China Rare Earth Industry, told the Global Times on Monday.The trade war between China and the US also highlighted the urgency for China to speed the upgrading process. "To secure and improve our independent R&D ability in the area is meaningful to the development of key industries, and increasingly crucial given the trade friction that is going on between China and the US," Lin said.In recent years, the Chinese government has been making efforts to reshape the industry and encourage companies to improve their R&D ability in the advanced processing of rare-earth elements.In a statement released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2016, the government pooled the sector's resources by merging numerous rare-earth companies into six large ones to dominate the industry. As of 2016, some specific rare-earth products, including hydrogen storage materials, reached 70 percent of global production.China has also been the country with the most rare-earth related patent filings in recent years, showing its determination to upgrade its production techniques. According to statistics released by Three Consulting, a US-based rare-earth element advisory company, as of August 2018, China had accumulated 23,000 more rare-earth patent filings than the US. | {
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By Daren Mueller, Extension Plant Pathologist
This study, funded by the United Soybean Board (USB), was conducted to understand the potential for cover crops to perform in a corn and soybean rotation, and to collect data on the performance of cover crops in those rotations in relation to the timing of termination.
The research showed winter cereal rye that grew an extra three weeks prior to soybeans produced about 300-400% more biomass (Fig. 1) with a 100% increase in nitrogen retention (Fig. 2), when compared with early terminated cover crops.
Results from this study showed no difference in soybean yield following a cover crop killed 3 weeks prior to soybean planting compared to a cover crop that was killed one day before soybean planting.
Experiments
The study consisted of three major experiments that included corn and soybean systems with and without the cover crop, winter cereal rye. The cover crop prior to corn was terminated about seven to 10 days before corn planting, while the cover crop prior to soybeans was terminated at two different times. | {
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It would have almost been easier to process if Anthony Divers had died in a car accident, his family says.
“At least we would have had some answers,” said his eldest sibling, Yvonne Alexander.
Divers, 36, was shot and killed around midnight Sept. 30 by a Hamilton police officer, who was responding to a call about a man who had committed an assault and was reportedly armed with a gun, according to Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, which is investigating.
“There was an interaction and the officer discharged his firearm,” said a brief news release issued by the SIU at the time.
More than two months later, Divers’ three siblings are left with little additional information. One thing of which they are convinced, however, is that Divers was not armed that night.
An eyewitness who spoke to Alexander said Divers, who was standing outside, took his hands out of his pockets when ordered to do so, after which he was shot, although he did not appear to be holding a weapon. Two witnesses interviewed by the Hamilton Spectatorsaid he did not appear to have a weapon.
“I knew in my heart of hearts that he wasn’t armed, and to hear that confirmed was good,” Alexander said in a recent interview with the Star in her Hamilton home, along with her brother Edward Divers and sister Leslie Wilson.
A Hamilton police spokeswoman referred all questions about the case to the SIU, which refused to comment on the specifics of the ongoing investigation.
Anthony “Tony” Divers, described as a man who always put his family first, was the fourth person shot dead by Hamilton police in five years.
The case offers a window into how a family grapples with the grief over losing a loved one to a police shooting, and also the kind of public scrutiny that comes with it.
When initial stories emerged about Divers’ shooting, they inevitably mentioned his conviction for manslaughter stemming from the 2002 stabbing death of Ryan McDonald during a home invasion. Divers’ siblings had to deal with the online comments that his death was “an eye for an eye.”
“We have always kept that family in our thoughts,” Wilson said of McDonald.
As Edward puts it, the officer responding on Sept. 30 was most likely not even aware of Divers’ criminal background, and the shooting still raises the very important question of how police deal with individuals in crisis.
Divers’ siblings — who are angry and frustrated with what they see as a sluggish pace in the SIU’s investigation and lack of answers so far — are sharing their story with the public for the first time.
An SIU spokeswoman said she could not offer a timeline as to when the probe would be completed.
“While we attempt to conclude investigations as quickly as possible, our priority is to conduct a thorough investigation,” Monica Hudon said in an email.
“The SIU has been in regular contact with two of Mr. Divers’ siblings. All communications have been prompt, courteous, professional and as transparent as possible given the limitations during an ongoing SIU investigation.”
Lawyer Roy Wellington, who has been assisting the family, described as “unfortunate” the lack of information being shared by the SIU.
“To learn that your loved one has died in such a sudden and violent way is difficult enough, and it’s worse when you get to know absolutely nothing,” he said. “From the information that has come out thus far, everyone should be concerned about what took place that evening.”
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Like other families who have gone through a similar ordeal, the Divers siblings say they’ve lost confidence in the police as well as the civilian oversight of police in Ontario.
They set up a Go Fund Me page, called Justice for Tony, to raise money in order to hire their own investigator and legal counsel.
Divers, who had mental health issues, was clearly in crisis that night, his family says. From what Alexander heard from the eyewitness, there appears to have been no attempt at de-escalating the situation before Divers was shot in the chest.
“Maybe I was guilty of this too in the past, when reading these kinds of stories, but when it does happen to you and you realize it’s happened to other families before, it just seems people don’t seem interested that police are killing people for no reason,” said Edward.
The siblings say they approached Chief Eric Girt following a police services board meeting in November, demanding answers to questions including: Why wasn’t a Taser used? What about de-escalation tactics?
They say the chief responded by saying he wasn’t there.
“The one killer thing is when he turned to us, a grieving family who has lost their brother to police homicide, and said how this cop must feel right now,” said Alexander.
(Hamilton police did not respond to questions from the Star about this encounter, deferring to the SIU.)
Wellington, the lawyer, said the Divers case highlights the need for police to have a clear plan when responding to a call of a person with a weapon, including being ready for the possibility that the individual is actually not armed.
“When police enter into a situation that they themselves are told is likely to be dangerous, they need to be coming up with some sort of planning, rather than reacting, because their actions are shaped by the perceptions that they have,” he said.
Bullied aggressively as a child due to his height — he was nearly six-foot-five — Divers also suffered later in life from post-traumatic stress disorder, his family said. It was mostly as a result of losing his parents — his “best friends in the whole world,” said Edward — within weeks of each other while he was incarcerated.
His family had tried to get him help where they could, but also found mental health resources lacking. Recently, he was ready to chart a new path in his life, as he was planning to move out west “and start over,” his siblings say.
He was passionate about bodybuilding and personal training, and wanted to work on his modeling portfolio. He had a mutual “undying love” with his six nieces and one nephew, said Wilson, and would have wanted to start a family of his own.
“All of these things with my brother could have been avoided,” Edward said. “I just hope that this time is going to be different, that this cop will be held accountable.”
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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Police on Saturday were desperately searching for a missing music teacher from Queens after his vehicle was found off a trail in update New York.
His gray 2006 Hyundai Elantra, with a New York license plate DSU6632, was found by police in Shodack, N.Y., just south of Albany.
Public school teacher Keith Johnson, 46, was last seen last Saturday, May 4. On that day, upstairs neighbor Ken Achan bumped into him outside their apartment building in Kew Gardens, reports CBS2’s Dave Carlin.
MISSING PERSON: Help us locate Keith Johnson of Kew Gardens. He was last seen on Saturday, May 5th, 2018. He’s 46 years old, 5’7, 170 lbs. Anyone with information please call NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS
case# 2018-768 #Queens pic.twitter.com/4mlzY7VvSI — NYPD 102nd Precinct (@NYPD102Pct) May 11, 2018
Achan says Johnson told him he was leaving the city for a short trip.
“He told me he left a lot of food out for the cats and not to worry for crying that he’s going camping,” he said.
Days went by, the mail and garbage piled up, but there was no sign of Johnson. The school’s principal at PS 29 in College Point alerted police after Johnson didn’t show up to work for several days.
Friends say any absence without a call is very unusual for Johnson, and police said he has no known history of drug abuse or mental health issues.
“He’s highly responsible, highly loved by his students,” said friend Brian Kastan. “He loves his students, he’s a great guy and that’s why people are looking for him.”
Now police are scouring the woods and the teacher’s brother has arrived from his home in Vancouver to join the search.
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74682). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. | {
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“Devereux has zero tolerance for any staff member who does not fully align with our philosophy of care,” Executive Director Steven Murphy said in a statement. “We never forget the tremendous responsibility we undertake every day and will remain vigilant in providing high-quality services.” | {
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Mr. Robot is a dystopian drama series on the USA Network, centered around a vigilante hacker group known as fsociety. In early 2015, the network’s parent company NBCUniversal challenged us to create a unique and engaging series of promotional campaigns for the series.
With little to no information about the show revealed to the public at this point, we used that mystery to our advantage and created a tactically elusive guerilla marketing stunt at SXSW. The experience not only launched the show to the public, but also promoted the pilot screening at SXSW, ultimately garnering rave reviews and driving interest for the series.
But that was just the beginning. Over the next few weeks, we executed a one-of-a-kind, live-streamed campaign for the show’s linear launch of the premiere season. NBCUniversal was so impressed with the results, they approached us again in 2016 to promote the show’s second season. Each season’s campaign spanned across both the digital and physical spectrums, resulting in an immersive viewer experience that defied expectations. | {
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Writings of someone that does too much stuff.
Ask me things! | Archive | RSS | {
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Temutul dictator Mobutu Sésé Seko obișnuia să-și schimbe guvernul o dată la șase luni, fără motiv, doar pentru a demonstra că el este șeful. „În tradiția africană nu acceptăm niciodată doi șefi“, așa explica fostul lider al Zairului (Congo-Kinshasa) necesitatea dictaturii. Și tot el le dădea lecții publice norocoșilor sau ghinioniștilor din anturajul său: „Dacă vreți să furați, furați frumos, fiindcă dacă furați prea mult dintr-o dată și deveniți bogați peste noapte, veți fi prinși“.
La fel ca Mobutu Sésé Seko, liderul PSD vrea brusc să-și schimbe guvernul, deși lucrurile tocmai se liniștiseră după nefericita Ordonanță 13, care a scos oamenii în stradă aproape toată iarna. Nu e clar ce-l nemulțumește pe Liviu Dragnea la propriul său premier. Firește că-l deranjează destul de mult că Sorin Grindeanu are o cotă de încredere (33,9%) cu aproape 10% mai mare decât a sa (Liviu Dragnea, 24,3%), conform unui recent sondaj IMAS. Îl enervează și faptul că premierul și ministrul Justiției s-au coalizat împotriva schimbării procurorilor-
șefi după evaluarea făcută de Tudorel Toader, în urma căreia fruntașii PSD se așteptau să fie înlăturați Augustin Lazăr și Codruța Kövesi. Lui Dragnea nu-i convine nici că Guvernul nu a modificat încă legile Justiției și Codurile Penal și de Procedură Penală. Omul vrea nu doar să scape de dosarul penal pe care îl are pentru abuz în serviciu, ci și să-și asigure o oarecare imunitate viitoare, mai cu seamă că el a știut cum să facă lucrurile chiar fără să fi aflat despre sfaturile lui Mobutu.
Liviu Dragnea nu a înțeles, însă, că într-o democrație nu te poți purta ca Mobutu la Kinshasa în urmă cu 20 sau 30 de ani. Că, spre deosebire de faimosul dictator, în România trebuie să ai motive serioase pentru a întoarce țara cu fundul în sus. Că doar interesele personale și dorința de putere nu sunt suficiente pentru a înlocui un guvern. PSD are o majoritate consistentă cu ajutorul căreia poate modifica rapid orice lege, dar, cu toate acestea, nu are un plan și niște obiective concrete pe termen lung.
Descotorosirea de propriul premier fără niciun motiv serios ar fi a treia mare greșeală a lui Dragnea, după nominalizarea unui premier incompatibil (Sevil Shhaideh) și după Ordonanța 13, ce l-a făcut popular în toată lumea pentru felul în care vrea să scape de dosarul penal.
Schimbarea Guvernului la nici șase luni de la instalare ar putea arăta incapacitatea PSD de a administra țara și inconsistența unui lider care nu știe care sunt pârghiile pe care trebuie să apese pentru a folosi puterea în limite rezonabile. Liviu Dragnea pare să se autosaboteze, din nepricepere, din grabă sau poate din pricina Reflexului Mobutu. | {
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2. Measure yourself
It's easy to take your measurements. Just follow the instructions and you will get a perfect fit. | {
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