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Metro Vancouver Bubble Tea/Coffee: One App does ALL?
Background:
My friends and I (SFU and UBC new grads) are considering developing an app that stores all your point/ stamp cards and have all the promo from BBT/ coffee shops in Metro Vancouver. If the result is positive, it could convince shop owners to gather at one platform where there's a big community of BBT and coffee lovers (you!).
The app might expand to bring in dessert and restaurants if it gets popular.
* Erforderlich | {
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To get to the air-traffic-control tower at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, you have to walk through Concourse D in the Central Terminal, past the shiny shops and fat pretzels and premium brews, into and back out of streams of travelers yammering wirelessly at wives, lovers, brokers. You come to a thick steel battleship-gray door, shove it open with your hip. Step inside. You are now in…Leningrad? Bucharest? Cinder-block walls washed in dingy fluorescent light, a cramped elevator, slow and rickety, up to the tenth floor—Sorry it’s so cold, but this thermostat hasn’t worked for shit in years—through another gray door, up a knee-creaking set of concrete stairs: Welcome to the LaGuardia tower cab. Would you like a doughnut? Check out the view! The skyline demands all of you first, Manhattan spreading unobstructed like a mural written on the bottom of the sky. Airplanes everywhere, white, silver crawling. Rikers Island sits alone on the upwind leg of runway 31. Shea Stadium, on the opposite end, is mere skeleton and guts, just now on a crisp fall morning coming undone. You don’t see a view like this every day. Never mind the furniture, the duct-taped Archie Bunker couches in the break room, the ragged fold-up tables and the ancient, empty vending machine advertising Mike and Ike for twenty-five cents. Never mind the missing ceiling tiles, the warped paneling, the chipped Formica, the spectacular curls of peeling paint. Taped to the handset of a red phone is a sign reading BLACK PHONE. Some of the computer equipment brings to mind the days of Tandy and Heathkit. Some sections of the control console bring to mind the golden age of telephone operators wearing pointy bras. For a long time the roof here leaked so badly they had giant diapers hanging, tarps tacked from here to there to catch the water; a garden hose took the water down a flight of stairs to a janitor’s sink. Sometimes the bathroom plumbing goes, and when it goes it really goes; some controllers keep an extra shirt in their lockers in case of explosion. (Others have learned to flush with their foot and duck.) But check out the view! people here say with pride—intent or not intent on masking the obvious. Yeah, this place is a dump. This is the center of the universe, a tower serving 23 million passengers a year as they fly in and out of the most congested airspace in the world, and yeah, this tower, built in 1962, one of the oldest in America, is a dump.
The FAA promises a new tower next year. You can see it emerging next to the parking garage. It’s right there. Some LaGuardia controllers remember hearing about a-new-tower-next-year as far back as 1984. “Next year.” “Next year.” “Why fix up the old tower when a new tower is coming next year?” A quarter of a century of no next-years is enough to make any worker with a spare shirt in his locker in case of toilet explosion feel…skeptical.
Cali loves it here; it sounds crazy at first, but he does love it. (In fact, most LaGuardia controllers kiss the mud-colored carpet tile they walk on. They could tell you about the alternatives. Stick around and they’ll tell you about the alternatives.) At the moment, Cali is on Ground. It’s 8:20 A.M. on a Friday, rush hour, every forty-five seconds another airplane landing, then another launching, then another landing, relentless as throbs of a throbbing headache. Twenty-six departures wait in line, all stoked up, backed up on Bravo clear down to Foxtrot. Twelve controllers maneuver the chaos. Brian is on Local, clearing for takeoff and clearing for landing, while Cali, on Ground, is managing the taxiways—a constantly moving puzzle of airplanes loaded with thousands and thousands of souls. Of all the positions, almost everyone here loves Ground most, because it’s so fucking complicated. LaGuardia Airport is tiny compared to its sleek modern counterparts, like Atlanta or Denver with their endless parallel runways spread over thousands of acres. LaGuardia is jammed into just 680 urban acres; taxiways are tight; runways intersect; you can’t launch a departure until the arrival on the other runway crosses the threshold or else the airplanes will…collide. There’s also water on three sides to avoid falling into. There’s also adjacent behemoths Newark and (especially) Kennedy airports, each launching and landing one plane every thirty-six seconds, constantly breathing down LaGuardia’s neck. Kennedy, just twelve miles south, is obnoxious. If Kennedy goes into delays, it’s LaGuardia that has to change its runway configuration to help Kennedy get out of delays. All in all, the complications make this place so much more awesome than a place like Atlanta or Denver. This, anyway, is the LaGuardia mystique. This dump rocks.
Cali sends a Dash 8 into the departure lineup, feels the thunder of a launching 757 soaring past the tower windows. He’s keeping an eye on an Embraer jet and gate Charlie 9. He has a lot on his mind. His first name is Tom, but the guys call him Cali. He plays hockey. He used to be a short-order cook. He is proud of his gardens, especially his enormous orange canna lilies. His hair is buzzed, and his eyes are smart, and his nose is prominent, and his accent is Long Island. His movements are impatient gesticulation, yadda yadda yadda. His headset cord is long, enabling him to wander practically the full circle of the cramped tower cab. Like nearly everyone else here, he stands when he’s on position. It’s not a sit-down kind of job. “Swivelheads” is a nickname for tower controllers, because they’re constantly scanning in all directions, like owls. | {
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One of the world’s top female goalkeepers is being prevented from playing soccer for the Calgary Foothills FC men’s soccer team because of her gender.
Stephanie Labbé, 31, is the goaltender for Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Team and has played at an elite level since she was a teenager.
She says that after last season, where she played in the United States, she wanted to have a change and try something different. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to progress to another U.S. team because of restrictions placed on her because of her coach.
"I was kind of in limbo and lost control of my own destiny, so I really wanted to take that control back. I started looking at other options and, at the time, going overseas wasn't really pulling at my heart strings. I just felt there was something else out there for me."
The Edmonton native tried out for and won a spot on the Calgary Foothills FC team, which is part of the Premier Development League (pdl), but soon found out she will not be allowed to play in regular season games because she is a woman.
Labbé says the situation surprised her because she had such high hopes for gender equality after her tryout sessions with the club.
"He told me that you'll come in and we'll judge you on your ability to play soccer and your ability to keep the ball out of the net and that, for me, was the most amazing thing; just knowing that I was going to come in and they would look at me as a soccer player and not as a female."
She says that the situation changed when the league began to be asked the questions about whether or not she could play alongside men. So far, it's not great news.
"The league is saying that it's in the bylaws, it's in the league rules that this is a male league and no women are allowed. That's where we're at now but we've challenged it and we've the put the challenge to them to revisit those rules because I think it's really important, especially for females in Canada."
The most difficult thing, she says, is that the league has disqualified her for something that she has no control over.
"It's tough when it's something out of your control. I can't control the fact that I'm a female. If it's because you're not good enough, you're not quick enough, if it's a little bit above your level, that's one thing. You can go home at the end of the day knowing that it's something that you can work towards."
Labbé blogged about her experience online on Wednesday and says she won’t give up her push to play for the team and says ‘being part of the squad has been an eye opening experience.’
She is allowed to practice with the team and wrote in her blog that the club and the players have made her feel welcome.
“I can’t say enough about this group of guys. I truly feel like they treat me like one of their own. They added me to the players private chat if that says anything. The staff and club opened up their door to this opportunity and made me feel so welcome.”
Marco Carducci, a goalkeeper on Calgary Foothills FC, says Labbé has no problem at all keeping up with the guys.
"She's been in the group for quite a while now, I work with her every day," he says. "She pushes me hard in training just as hard as I want to push her as well. She fits in with the group."
The club says it is looking at ways to support her and ‘stretch her game'.
In the meantime, Labbé says she has long-term goals for her career as well.
"I'm just as motivated as ever. I have a long-term goal which is to win a World Cup and win an Olympics with Canada and this is just another step in the journey."
If it turns out that she can't play in Calgary at all, Labbé could consider signing with a European club in the next little while or sign with a U.S. team, but only if a spot opens on one of those rosters.
Click HERE to read Labbé’s blog 'Forging your own path'. | {
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The Peshawar High Court's (PHC) Abbottabad circuit bench on Tuesday suspended the three-year jail terms handed to 25 people in the Mashal Khan lynching case during a hearing on appeals against the Feb 7 Anti Terrorism Court verdict in the case and ordered their release till the appeals are heard.
Read more: 'Stop us if you can': Religious parties in Mardan protest conviction of 31 men in Mashal's murder
Mashal Khan, 23, a student of Mass Communications at Mardan's Abdul Wali Khan University, was beaten and shot to death by an angry mob on April 13, 2017 after he was falsely accused of blasphemy.
The lynching took place within the premises of the university and was caught on video, which later circulated widely on social media.
The horrific incident had shocked the nation and sparked a debate over the misuse of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan.
On Feb 7, a Haripur Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) had handed the shooter, Imran Ali, two death sentences, five persons multiple terms of life imprisonment, and 25 others jail sentences, but acquitted 26 others for want of sufficient evidence.
The 25 people were each given two concurrent sentences; three years in jail under Section 297 read with Sections 148 and 149 of the PPC along with a Rs50,000 fine; and one year in jail under Section 11-WW ATA along with a fine of Rs50,000.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government and Mashal's family had previously petitioned the PHC against the verdict, calling for the conviction of those acquitted and stricter jail terms for those convicted in the case.
The convicts had, however, challenged their convictions in the PHC. At least 13 appeals were registered against the ATC's verdict by all three parties ─ the KP government, the victim's family, and those convicted.
The two-member circuit bench comprising Justice Lal Jan and Justice Atiq Shah while hearing appeals against the verdict filed by those convicted, today suspended the punishments handed to the 25 and ordered their release from jail on bail.
Syed Akhtar, the lawyer representing the convicted men, in today's hearing argued that there is a provision in the law under which those sentenced to less than five years in prison can be released on bail, according to DawnNewsTV.
After the hearing, Akhtar told reporters that the bench had accepted the argument and issued a short order for the release of the men.
He said he was waiting for a detailed order after which the men will be released from Haripur jail, where they were imprisoned after the Feb 7 verdict. He added that they had already moved bail applications along with appeals against the ATC verdict. | {
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People's Park in Berkeley, California, USA is a park off Telegraph Avenue, bounded by Haste and Bowditch Streets and Dwight Way, near the University of California, Berkeley. The park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s.
Today People's Park serves as a free public park. Although accessible to members of the larger community, the park serves mainly as a daytime sanctuary for Berkeley's large homeless population who, along with others, take advantage of meals offered by East Bay Food Not Bombs. Public restrooms are available, and the park offers innovative demonstration gardens, including organic community gardening beds and areas landscaped with California native plants, all of which were user-developed by volunteer gardeners. Many students make regular use of the basketball courts. A wider audience is attracted by occasional rallies, concerts, and hip-hop events conducted at the People's Stage, a wooden bandstand designed and built on the western end of the park by volunteers organized by the People's Park Council. Nearby residents and those who attempt to use the park for recreational purposes sometimes experience conflict with the more aggressive homeless denizens of People's Park.
The mythology surrounding the park is an important part of local culture. The surrounding South Campus neighborhood was the scene of a major confrontation between student protestors and law enforcement during May, 1969. A mural near the park, painted by Berkeley artist and lawyer Osha Neumann, depicts the shooting of James Rector, a student who died from shotgun wounds inflicted by law enforcement on May 15, 1969.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History
o 1.1 Origin of the park
o 1.2 "Bloody Thursday" and its aftermath
o 1.3 People's Park Annex/Ohlone Park
o 1.4 Subsequent history
* 2 Current events
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 Bibliography
* 6 External links
[edit] History
[edit] Origin of the park
In 1956 the Regents of the University of California earmarked a 2.8-acre (11,000 m2) plot of land containing residences for future development into student housing, parking and offices as part of the University's "Long Range Plan for Expansion." At the time funds were lacking to purchase the land, and the plan was shelved until June 1967, when the University acquired $1.3 million to take the land through the process of eminent domain. After taking control of the land, neighbourhood residents were evicted, and demolition of the existing homes began.[5]
By 1967 the University had altered its plan; the new plan was to build student parking lot and a playing field on the land. Demolition of the existing residences took over a year, and the University ran out of development funds, leaving the lot only partially cleared of demolition debris and rubble. It remained in this state for over a year, and as winter began the muddy site became derelict with abandoned cars.[6][5]
On April 13, 1969, local merchants and residents held a meeting to discuss possible uses for the derelict site. Michael Delacour presented a plan for developing the under-utilized University-owned land into a public park. This plan was approved by those attending the meeting, but not by the University. Stew Albert, a co-founder of the Yippie Party, agreed to write an article for the local counter-culture newspaper, the Berkeley Barb, on the subject of the park, particularly to call for help from local residents.[5]
Michael Delacour stated, "We wanted a free speech area that wasn't really controlled like Sproul Plaza was. It was another place to organize, another place to have a rally. The park was secondary."[7] The University's Free Speech microphone was available to all students, with few if any restrictions on free speech. The construction of the People's Park involved many of the same people and politics as the 1964 Free Speech Movement.[8]
On April 18, 1969, Albert's article appeared in the Berkeley Barb, and on Sunday, April 20, 1969 over 100 people arrived at the site to begin building the park. Local landscape architect Jon Read and many others contributed trees, flowers, shrubs, and sod. Free food was provided and community development of the park proceeded. Eventually, approximately 1000 people became directly involved, with many more donating money and materials. The park was essentially complete by mid-May.[5][7][6]
Frank Bardacke, a participant in the park's development, stated in a documentary film called Berkeley in the Sixties, "A group of people took some corporate land, owned by the University of California, that was a parking lot and turned it into a park and then said, 'We're using the land better than you used it; it's ours'".[8]
On April 28, 1969, Berkeley Vice Chancellor Earl Cheit released plans for a sports field to be built on the site. This plan conflicted with the plans of the People's Park activists. However, Vice Chancellor Cheit stated that he would take no action without notifying the park builders. Two days later, on April 30, he decided to allocate control over one quarter of the plot to the Park's builders. On May 6, 1969, Chancellor Heyns held a meeting with members of the People's Park committee, student representatives, and faculty from the College of Environmental Design. He set a time limit of three weeks for this group to produce a plan for the park, and he reiterated his promise that construction would not begin without prior warning.[5][9]
[edit] "Bloody Thursday" and its aftermath
During its first three weeks, People's Park was enjoyed and appreciated by University students and local residents alike. Telegraph Ave. merchants were particularly appreciative of the community's efforts to improve the neighborhood.[10][11] Objections to the expropriation of University property tended to be mild, even among school administrators.
Governor Ronald Reagan had been publicly critical of University administrators for tolerating student demonstrations at the Berkeley campus, and he had received enormous popular support for his 1966 gubernatorial campaign promise to crack down on what was perceived as the generally lax attitude at California's public universities. Reagan called the Berkeley campus "a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters and sex deviants."[12]
Reagan considered the creation of the park a direct leftist challenge to the property rights of the University, and he found in it an opportunity to make good on his campaign promise.
Governor Reagan overrode Chancellor Heyns' May 6, 1969 promise that nothing would be done without warning, and on Thursday, May 15, 1969 at 4:45 a.m., he sent 250 California Highway Patrol and Berkeley police officers into People's Park. The officers cleared an 8-block area around the park while a large section of what had been planted was destroyed and an 8-foot (2.4 m) tall perimeter chain-link wire fence was installed to keep people out and to prevent the planting of more trees, grass, flowers and shrubs.
Beginning at noon, approximately 3,000 people appeared in Sproul Plaza at nearby U.C. Berkeley for a rally, the original purpose of which was to discuss the Arab-Israeli conflict. Several people spoke, then Michael Lerner ceded the Free Speech platform to ASUC Student Body President Dan Siegel because students were concerned about the fencing-off and destruction of the park. Siegel said later that he never intended to precipitate a riot; however when he shouted "Let's take the park!,"[13] police turned off the sound system.[14] This angered some people, and the crowd responded spontaneously, moving down Telegraph Avenue toward People's Park chanting "We want the park!"[15]
Arriving in the early afternoon, the protesters were met by the remaining 159 Berkeley and University police officers assigned to guard the fenced-off park site. The protesters opened a fire hydrant, the officers fired tear gas canisters, some protesters attempted to tear down the fence, and bottles, rocks, and bricks[16] were thrown. A major confrontation ensued between law enforcement and the crowd. Initial attempts by the police to disperse the protesters were not successful, so more officers were called in from surrounding cities.
At least one car was set on fire.[16]
Reagan's Chief of Staff, Edwin Meese III, a former district attorney from Alameda County, had established a reputation for firm opposition to those protesting the Vietnam War at the Oakland Induction Center and elsewhere. Meese assumed responsibility for the governmental response to the People's Park protest, and he called in the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies, which brought the total police presence to 791 officers from various jurisdictions.[12]
Under Meese's direction, the police were permitted to use whatever methods they chose against the crowds, which had swelled to approximately 6,000 people. Officers in full riot gear (helmets, shields and gas masks) obscured their badges to avoid being identified and headed into the crowds with nightsticks swinging.
The most aggressive were the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies —later dubbed "The Blue Meanies"—who resorted to using shotguns loaded with "00" buckshot. "00" buckshot consists of lead pellets that are much larger, and thus more lethal, than the birdshot that is occasionally used for crowd control.
After people on the roof of an adjacent building threw bricks at the police[17], the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies used shotguns to fire "00" buckshot at people sitting on the roof at the Telegraph Repertory Cinema, fatally wounding student James Rector and permanently blinding carpenter Alan Blanchard. According to Time Magazine, Rector was a bystander, not a protestor.[17] The University of California Police Department (UCPD) claims Rector threw steel rebar down onto the police, however that claim has never been substantiated.[16] The Alameda County Sheriff's deputies fired at bystanders on roofs even as they were leaving.[5]
As the protesters retreated, the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies chased them several blocks down Telegraph Avenue as far as Willard Junior High School at Derby Street, firing tear gas canisters and "00" buckshot into their backs as they fled. At least one tear gas canister landed on the school grounds[citation needed]. Many people, including innocent bystanders, suffered permanent injuries, some with as many as a hundred lead pellet wounds in their scalps, necks, backs, buttocks and thighs. One man, John Willard, lived for years in intractable pain with lead pellets lodged near his spine.
At least 128 Berkeley residents were admitted to local hospitals for head trauma, shotgun wounds, and other serious injuries inflicted by law enforcement. The actual number of seriously wounded was likely much higher, because many of the injured did not seek treatment at local hospitals to avoid being arrested.[18] Many more protesters and bystanders were treated for minor injuries. Local hospital logs show that 19 police officers or Alameda County Sheriff's deputies were treated for minor injuries; none were hospitalized.[19] However, the UCPD claims that 111 police officers were injured, including one who was knifed in the chest[16].
The authorities initially claimed that only birdshot had been used as shotgun ammunition. When physicians provided "00" pellets removed from the wounded as evidence that buckshot had been used,[20] Sheriff Frank Madigan of Alameda County justified the use of shotguns loaded with lethal buckshot by stating "... the choice was essentially this: to use shotguns—because we didn't have the available manpower—or retreat and abandon the City of Berkeley to the mob."[21] Sheriff Madigan did admit, however, that some of his deputies (many of whom were Vietnam War veterans) had been overly aggressive in their pursuit of the protestors, "as though they were Viet Cong."[22][23]
Governor Reagan declared a state of emergency in Berkeley and sent in 2,700 National Guard troops— ironically some Guardsmen were students called to active duty.[12] The Berkeley City Council voted 8-1 against the decision to occupy their city,[19][22] however this vote was ignored. For two weeks the streets of Berkeley were barricaded with rolls of barbed wire, and freedom of assembly was denied as National Guardsmen sent tear gas canisters skittling along the street toward any group of more than two people together.
On Wednesday, May 21, 1969, a midday memorial was held for student James Rector at Sproul Plaza on the University campus. Rector had suffered massive internal injuries from his shotgun wounds, finally dying at Herrick Hospital on May 19. In his honor, several thousand people peacefully assembled to listen to speakers remembering his life. Without warning, National Guard troops surrounded Sproul Plaza, donned their gas masks, and pointed their bayonets inward, while helicopters dropped CS gas directly on the trapped crowd. No escape was possible, and the gas caused acute respiratory distress, disorientation, temporary blindness and vomiting. Many people, including children and the elderly, were injured during the ensuing panic. The gas was so intense that breezes carried it into Cowell Memorial Hospital, endangering patients, interrupting operations and incapacitating nurses. Students at nearby Jefferson and Franklin elementary schools were also affected.[17][19]
During the Peoples Park incident, National Guard troops were stationed in front of Berkeley's empty lots to prevent protestors from planting flowers, shrubs or trees. Young hippie women taunted and teased the troops, on one occasion handing out marijuana-laced brownies and lemonade spiked with LSD.[17] A few stripped to the waist and danced for the young recruits, who tried to hide their smiles from superiors. Initially, Guardsmen were occasionally seen walking hand in hand with young Berkeley women, and they often expressed sympathy with the protesters. After about a week, however, local National Guardsmen were sent home and replaced with National Guardsmen from the more conservative Orange County south of Los Angeles; this "fixed" this problem in the view of the governor's office. Citizens who dared ask questions of National Guard commanders, or engage them in debate, were threatened with violence.
A curfew was established, and protestors jumped fences after dark to plant flowers in the guarded lots. Guardsmen destroyed the flowers each morning. Some protestors, their faces hidden with scarves, challenged police and National Guard troops. Hundreds were arrested, and Berkeley citizens who found it necessary to venture out during curfew hours risked police harassment and beatings. Berkeley city police officers were discovered to be parking several blocks away from the Annex park, removing their badges/identification and donning grotesque Halloween type maskes (ironically including pig faces) to go inflict violence upon citizens they found in the park annex.
Flower Children vs.The Establishment; these differing perspectives mirrored widespread 1960s societal tensions that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war in Vietnam, race relations, sexual mores, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, experimentation with psychedelic drugs and opposing interpretations of The American Dream.
In a University referendum held soon after, the U.C. Berkeley students themselves voted 12,719 to 2,175 in favor of keeping the park.
On May 30, 1969, 30,000 Berkeley citizens (out of a population of 100,000) secured a Berkeley city permit and marched without incident past barricaded People's Park to protest Governor Reagan's occupation of their city, the death of James Rector, the blinding of Alan Blanchard and the many injuries inflicted by law enforcement. Young girls slid flowers down the muzzles of bayoneted National Guard rifles, and a small airplane flew over the city trailing a banner that read, "Let A Thousand Parks Bloom."
Almost a year after 'Bloody Thursday' and the death of James Rector, addressing the California Council of Growers at Yosemite, Reagan defended his actions, saying: "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." Less than a month later, on May 4, 1970, similar violence erupted at Kent State University, killing four students and seriously wounding nine.
Rodney Allen Ritchie, of the Alameda County Sheriif's Deputies, was accused of firing the shots that killed James Rector. No police officers, Alameda County Sheriff's deputies or National Guardsmen were disciplined for their actions in the Bloody Thursday incident.
People's Park Annex/Ohlone Park
Another lasting outcome of the confrontation over People's Park was the establishment of "People's Park Annex" on a strip of land called the "Hearst Corridor," located adjacent to Hearst Avenue just northwest of the University campus. People's Park Annex was eventually enlarged to become the City of Berkeley's Ohlone Park. At 9.8 acres (40,000 m2), Ohlone Park is several times larger than People's Park itself.
In the immediate aftermath of the May, 1969 People's Park demonstrations, and consistent with their goal of "letting a thousand parks bloom," People's Park activists began gardening a two-block section of the Hearst Corridor, between McGee Ave. and Sacramento Ave. The Hearst Corridor was a strip of land located along the north side of Hearst Ave. that had been left largely untended after the houses had been torn down to facilitate completion of an underground subway line by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART).
During the 1970s local residents, especially George Garvin, pursued gardening and user development of this land, which became known as "People's Park Annex." Later on, additional volunteers donated time and energy to the Annex, led by David Axelrod and Charlotte Pyle, urban gardeners who were among the original organizers of the People's Park Project/ Native Plant Forum. The Forum is a student and community group of gardeners and park volunteers sponsored by the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) and dedicated to the principles of user development and community control.
As neighborhood and community groups stepped up their support for the preservation and development of the Annex, BART abandoned its original plan to build apartment complexes on Hearst Corridor. The City of Berkeley negotiated with BART to secure permanent above-ground rights to the entire five block strip of land, between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Sacramento Ave. By the early 1980s, this land had become a city park comprising 9.8 acres (40,000 m2), which residents decided to name "Ohlone Park" in honor of the Ohlone band of native Americans who once lived there.
Today the Berkeley Parks and Recreation Commission mediates neighborhood and community feedback with regard to issues of park design and the maintenance, operation, and development of Ohlone Park amenities. These amenities—which include pedestrian and bicycle paths, children's playgrounds, a dog park, basketball and volleyball courts, a softball/soccer field, restrooms, picnic areas and community gardens—continue to serve the people and pets of Berkeley.
Subsequent history
After the peaceful May 30, 1969 march in support of People's Park, the University decided to keep the 8' tall perimeter chain-link wire fence and maintain a 24-hour guard over the site. On June 20, the University of California Regents voted to turn the People's Park site into a soccer field and parking lot.
In March, 1971, when it seemed as though construction of the parking lot and soccer field might proceed, another People's Park protest resulted in 44 arrests.
In May, 1972, an outraged crowd tore down the 8' tall perimeter chain-link wire fence surrounding the People's Park site after President Nixon announced his intention to mine North Vietnam's main port. In September, the Berkeley City Council voted to lease the People's Park site from the University. The Berkeley community proceeded to rebuild People's Park through user-development, mainly with donated labor and materials. Various local groups contributed to managing the park during rebuilding.
In 1979 the University attempted to convert the west end of the park, which was already a no-cost parking lot, into a fee lot for students and faculty only, excluding community members. Significantly, the west end of the park was (and remains) the location of the People's Stage, a permanent bandstand that had just been erected on the edge of the lawn within the no-cost parking lot. Completed in the spring of 1979, it had been designed and constructed through user-development and voluntary community participation. This effort was coordinated by the People's Park Council, a democratic group of park advocates, and the People's Park Project/ Native Plant Forum. Park users and organizers believed[citation needed] that the University's main purpose in attempting to convert the parking lot[citation needed] was the destruction of the People's Stage in order to suppress free speech and music, both in the park and in the South Campus neighborhood as a whole. It was also widely believed that the foray into the west end presaged the expropriation of the entire park for the purpose of University construction.
A spontaneous protest in the fall of 1979 led to an occupation of the west end of the park that continued twenty-four hours per day throughout December, 1979. Park volunteers proceeded to tear up the asphalt and heap it up as barricades next to the sidewalks along Dwight Way and Haste Street. This confrontation led to negotiations between the University on the one hand and the park users and activists on the other. The park users and activists were led by the People's Park Council, which included park organizers and occupiers, as well as other community members. The University eventually capitulated. Meanwhile, the occupiers, organizers and volunteer gardeners transformed the former parking lot into a newly cultivated organic community gardening area, which remains to this day.
The People's Café, a house trailer configured and decorated as a café, was mysteriously installed in People's Park one night in 1988, with no one claiming responsibility. It appeared overnight, and volunteers from the Catholic Worker Movement and elsewhere began serving food from it the next day, distributing approximately 100 breakfasts per day. It lasted a few months, then the University ripped it out early one morning after an inspection by the Berkeley Health Department.
The University built sand volleyball courts at the south end of the park in 1991, which set off demonstrations. After the university police began trying to clear the park of protesters and arrested some demonstrators, riots began. Opponents saw the building of volleyball courts as yet another attempt by the University to transform the park's open space into eventual housing, parking, or other possible University-managed projects. They were dismantled in 1997. There had been little use by community members, and the costs of maintaining them were extraordinarily cost-ineffective.
Current events
People's Park is now co-managed by the University and by various community groups. During subsequent years, the 2.8-acre (11,000 m2) plot of land known as "People's Park" has remained a focus of controversy between the University, and disparate elements of the Berkeley community. Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates has stated that "over time, people have come to realize that the park has not become what they had hoped it would be...I love the idea of having some kind of memorial recognition there, but right now it is not a place that a lot of people are comfortable going to."[1] Current UC Berkeley students experience People’s Park in a much different way than did UC Berkeley students from the 1960s and 1970s.[28] Now, during welcome orientations, freshmen students living in dormitories in the vicinity of People’s Park are warned to stay away for safety concerns, especially at night.
Dan Siegel has said recently that the park "has now become this somewhat forlorn urban park... It's a place that no longer reflects the will for independence of the campus community. I think today if the university turned off its Wi-Fi, they’d get bigger demonstrations than they would for People's Park."
In an April 2000 referendum, UC Berkeley students reaffirmed their preference for People Park remaining a park rather than having another use such as housing.
In October 2005, some park supporters attempted to rebuild the Free Box, a clothes donation box, after it had been burned down for the second time in 2 years by persons unknown. When park supporters came to rebuild, they were videotaped by the University police and threatened with arrest. The supporters started rebuilding anyway, and no arrests were made, although the University police returned during the early hours of the morning and destroyed what had been built. Subsequent rebuilding attempts were also dismantled.
A group of interested community members are working towards improving the children’s play area.
On January 8, 2007, at his retirement ceremony celebrating 50-plus years in law enforcement, outgoing Alameda County Sheriff Charles Plummer remained unrepentant about his role as a Berkeley police officer during the People's Park riots:
"I wish I would have hit some people harder during the riots," said Plummer, speaking of the riots in Berkeley in the late-1960s. "I regret that."
In 2007, the university hired consulting firm MKThink to assess the park, and its draft report was published in October 2007.
In a January 13, 2008 San Francisco Chronicle article, People's Park was referred to as "a menacing hub for drug users and the homeless" and also as "perfectly safe, clean and accessible". The article quotes Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley director of community relations, as saying, "A lot of people's attitudes about the park have changed, and we wanted (referring to the MKThink report) to take a fresh, comprehensive look at the issue.", as well as Jason Colson, a park regular, as saying "I've been here at all hours of the day and night, and I don't think it's unsafe at all. I don't have any problem with the park as it is. Rich people are welcome here as much as poor people, but if rich people want to change the park to make poor people feel uncomfortable, that's obviously a problem." | {
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Airbus unveiled a new concept airplane called “Bird of Prey,” which seems fitting because this thing seems designed to prey on your deepest fears. The bird-like conceptual airline design features multiple propellors, a rudder branded with the Union Jack, and something called “feathered wings” which I can’t seem to unsee.
The body of the plane is bronze-colored and looks more fish-like than anything else. The addition to the tendril-tipped wings, though, make it clear that Airbus’ designers had birds on the brain when they came up with this one.
Airbus unveiled the concept at the Royal International Air Tattoo air show in the UK. The French aerospace giant thankfully has no plans to build or manufacture this chimeric monstrosity, which is probably for the best.
The ‘#BirdOfPrey’ is taking wing! This sleek new concept takes inspiration from eagles to create a hybrid-electric design with individually controlled feathered wings. We’re always looking for pioneering new ideas – what would your aircraft be inspired by? https://t.co/HOfecb8X06 pic.twitter.com/0zXOr5znJv — Airbus (@Airbus) July 19, 2019
More intriguing is the propulsion system undergirding this fantastical experiment. Using technology now under development, the Bird of Prey could provide a 30-50 percent reduction in fuel burn compared to equivalent aircraft today — a major leap in efficiency.
“One of the priorities for the entire industry is how to make aviation more sustainable – making flying cleaner, greener and quieter than ever before,” Martin Aston, a senior manager at Airbus, said in a statement. “We know from our work on the A350 XWB passenger jet that through biomimicry, nature has some of the best lessons we can learn about design. Who can’t help but be inspired by such a creation?”
making flying cleaner, greener and quieter than ever before
Hey, if designing some weird bird-plane is what it takes to “inspire” the airline industry to ditch fossil fuels in favor of more clean-burning energy, I’m all for it. I’ll strap on a pair of Hawkman wings myself like I’m in a Terry Gilliam movie. But the adoption of hybrid and battery-powered propulsion systems in aviation is taking its sweet time because putting planes in the air is heavy stuff.
Flying requires an incredible amount of energy, and presently, batteries are too heavy and too expensive to achieve liftoff. Energy density — the amount of energy stored in a given system — is the key metric, and today’s batteries don’t contain enough energy to get most planes off the ground. To weigh it out: jet fuel gives us about 43 times more energy than a battery that’s just as heavy.
Airbus’ idea of biomimicry, which it defines as “the design and production of materials, structures and systems inspired by nature,” is certainly intriguing. And Airbus isn’t alone in thinking that airplane wings, traditionally thick and sturdy, could use an upgrade.
A team of NASA researchers are working on a new type of flexible wing that morphs as it flies. Measuring 14 feet or four meters wide, the new wing is constructed from thousands of 3D-printed reinforced polyetherimide units that fit together and function in a similar way to a bird’s wing. | {
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Played 0 times
famous prophets (demo)
i guess im going to use my tumblr to post really rough embryonic demos? thats probably all i’ll be recording for a while in any case | {
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Weasel words (Image: Chris Batson/Alamy)
IT’S getting harder to trust what you read on Wikipedia. An army of shadowy fake accounts is manipulating the online encyclopedia’s entries for money and damaging the site’s credibility.
Last month, Wikipedia announced that it had blocked some 250 “sock puppet” accounts – fake accounts set up by users who are often paid by companies to edit articles in their favour. Now, Ragib Hasan at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and his colleagues have developed a tool that analyses the way articles are written and spots if they are edited by the same person.
One of the big problems for Wikipedia editors trying to uncover such accounts is that the IP addresses of users can only be accessed by a few administrators because of the need for privacy, says Hasan. So editors have to rely on their own experience to determine whether multiple accounts are actually the work of a single individual.
Hasan’s team wanted to know if they could use algorithms to unmask the sock puppets by analysing the language they use. The challenge in spotting similarities in writing styles is that, in Wikipedia editing, as in much of social media writing, the articles are so short that there is little material to work with, says team member Thamar Solorio.
They looked at the editing notes for more than 600 of Wikipedia’s sock-puppet investigations. These were used as the training material for an algorithm that scanned some 230 features of the writing, such as grammatical quirks. The team showed the algorithm could predict which accounts were puppet accounts with a 75 per cent accuracy rate – defined as agreeing with the decision of Wikipedia’s investigators (arxiv.org/abs/1310.6772).
“Sock-puppet investigations are incredibly time consuming for Wikipedia editors, so anything that can help reduce the workload should be welcome,” says Hasan.
Mor Naaman at Cornell Tech in New York likes the team’s work, but says the algorithm needs to become more accurate: “The authors mostly relied on syntactic features, and used only a few other linguistic markers, so there is definitely room for improvement.”
The fake accounts problem is just the latest issue to plague Wikipedia. It has been criticised because its editors are predominantly white, Western and 90 per cent male, which skews both the articles it covers and their content.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Unmask the Wiki sock puppets by the way they write” | {
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WEBVTT AND BARTENDERS. KCRA 3’S BRANDI CUMMINGS EXPLAINS WHAT IT MEANS FOR CUSTOMER REPORTER: THEY ARE T PEOPLE YOU MAY NEVER SEE IN A RESTAURANT. THE DISHWASHERS, PREP AND LINE COOKS. CONSIDERED BACK HOUSE STAFF AND NOW THEY ARE FRONT OF MINE. A BROKEN AND FLAWED SYSTEM. REPORTER: IT’S A SYSTEM HE IS WORKING TO FIX. >> WE FEEL THE BEST WAY TO DO THAT IS INCLUDE THE KITCHEN STAFF. REPORTER: RIGHT NOW CUSTOMERS GET THE OPTION TO LEAVE GRATUITIES FOR SERVERS AND BARTENDERS. IN 2019 THAT WILL CHANGE OF THIS RESTAURANT. >> WE MADE SURE TO MAKE THAT IMPACT A MINIMAL IMPACT. REPORTER: 2.5% OF YOUR TOTAL WOULD AUTOMATICALLY BE ADDED TO YOUR BILL FOR ONLY THE KITCHEN WORKERS. THEN THAT REGULAR TIP WILL BE SPLIT BETWEEN ALL EMPLOYEES. RIVERA ADD -- REVERE ANTICIPATES IT WILL ADD A 10 TO THE PERCENT INCREASE IN PAY -- 10% INCREASE IN PAY. CUSTOMERS WE SPOKE TO DON’T MIND PAYING THE EXTRA GRATUITY. >> THEY ARE DOING AS MUCH WORK TO MAKE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE GOOD. THEY DESERVE MORE MONEY AND TIPS. >> SHE IS VISITING THE U.S. FROM LONDON AND SAYS THEIR TIPS ARE ALREADY INCLUDED IN THE BILL. >> I THINK IT’S A GREAT WAY TO REMEMBER THAT WE KNOW SOMEONE IS BACK THERE. REPORTER: IS AT LEAST ONE OTHER RESTAURANT THAT ALLOWS TIPS FOR THE BACK HOUSE STAFF. MAGPIE HAS THE OPTION ON THE RECEIPT. THAT RESTAURANT OWNER SAYS THEIR BACK HOUSE STAFF GET ANYWH
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A Sacramento restaurant is making a big change to the way money gets shared between employees. Starting next year, kitchen workers at Hook and Ladder on S Street will get tips in addition to the servers and bartenders. “The system is broken. It’s a flawed system that needs to be corrected,” Hook and Ladder general manager Rafael Jimenez Rivera said. It’s something he and the owners of Hook and Ladder are working to fix. “We feel that the best way to do that is to include the kitchen staff,” Rivera said. Earlier this year, when Congress passed its budget bill, tip-pooling was added to allow restaurants in certain states like California to pool tips with kitchen staff.Right now, customers get the option to leave gratuity for servers and bartenders. Beginning Jan. 1 that will change at the Midtown restaurant.“In our research, we made sure to make that impact minimal impact,” Rivera said.Here's how it'll work: 2.5 percent of the total will automatically be added to the bill for only the kitchen workers. Then, the regular tip customers often give will be split between all employees. Rivera anticipates the tips will add a 10 to 15 percent increase in pay for kitchen staff. “We'll have a higher standard, a higher quality of food, the kitchen staff will be held more accountable in their execution of products,” he said. Several customers said they don't mind paying the extra gratuity. “The people who work behind the scenes are doing as much work to make the customer experience good as the people who are serving, potentially, so I think they 100 percent deserve more money and tips,” Kristen Kozlowski said.Carla Josephson, who is visiting the U.S. from London, said tips are already included in the bill in the U.K.“It’s very easy to kind of just think about the front of house servers and people who are interacting with you personally," she said. "So, I think it’s a great way to make sure that we all just remember that somebody is back there. That somebody is cooking the food and bringing out lovely food for us to eat."Magpie Cafe on 16th Street also allows tips for the back-house staff. The option has been available to customers for more than three years. Restaurant owner Janel Inouye said on average their back-house staff gets anywhere from 3 to 5 percent additional pay through tips. | {
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By RICARDO CASTILLO
There’s an old Mexican adage that says that it is cheaper to make a poor deal than to fight a great fight.
This might seem to be exactly what happened in the negotiations headed by Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) Director Manuel Bartlett Díaz and seven gas pipeline companies that signed contracts for gas ducts with the CFE, as announced on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
Coming up with an arrangement with three out of four pipeline construction companies to fizzle out the possibility of having costly and very long suits became a mandatory deal for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who on Sunday, Sept. 1, will be presenting his first State of the Nation Address. Surely, the gas fix will be among the successes announced.
But since last February, Bartlett Díaz warned AMLO that the contracts signed by the four companies, including seven gas pipelines, had been “leonine” in cost. They were all signed under former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s “Energy Reform” and allegedly were full of corrupt practices – including kickbacks to CFE negotiators. Worse yet, the ducts, which were financed by the CFE, would have ended up being owned by the companies.
(For further background, check my July 18 article “Pemex and the CFE in Eye of a Political Hurricane” in Pulse News Mexico.)
Hearsay has it that even as late as Sunday, Aug. 26, Bartlett was haggling with the companies at the same time that he was filing suits at the London Court of International Trade, but was finally dissuaded by AMLO, who by now it is clear has opted to stay out of the danger path and settle all old debts, which after all, are not from his tenure.
The announcement of the fix at the National Palace looked like a court parade, featuring Mexico’s top tycoon Carlos Slim, whose Carso Energy was one of the companies in conflict with Bartlett’s CFE. Also joining the settlement newscast was the president of the Business Coordination Council, Carlos Salazar Lomelí, and Antonio del Vale Perochena, head of the Mexican Business Council.
AMLO said: “It is very important to recognize Carlos Slim here, who was the first to reach an agreement with the CFE. This set the pace to achieve agreements and the companies acted with great responsibility.”
With this agreement – the one pending is supposed to be announced on Wednesday, Aug. 27, or later this week – AMLO said that the administration is saving $4.5 billion, thus lowering gas transportation charges, and that CFE “guarantees electricity supply so that we don’t have outages for many years, thus fostering national industry. We will be gas sufficient in Mexico for the next 20 years.”
Also, for the home use of electricity, there will be no price hikes for the years to come.
But despite Bartlett’s willingness to continue fighting the pipeline construction companies, he said that the agreement that he’d come to was “reasonable, definitive and equitable,” but not easily forged since it only happened after 19 business negotiations meetings with companies Carso Energy, TransCanada Energy and IEnova, all of which agreed to lower their gas carrying rates by 28 percent and, in some specific cases, given high volume, by as much as 38 percent. All sides agreed to forego any legal action in courts.
The company that is still negotiating is Farmaca, which Bartlett Díaz expects to fall into line “just the way it happened with the other three companies,” and to come up with a similar agreement.
Beside the stiff pressure that came from the international ratings companies over the health of the CFE, AMLO is said to have received “advise” from the Trade Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and also directly from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his last meeting with Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. AMLO also received a letter from Texas Governor Greg Abbott – Texas is Mexico’s main gas supplier – as well advising him to avoid resorting to the London Court of International Arbitration.
A key turning point for reaching an agreement came when AMLO was advised by his legal counselors that since the contracts had already been signed – some as far back as 2014 – the chances of winning at the London Court of International Arbitration were slim, if none at all.
Apparently, for a while Bartlett Díaz sought to cancel out the contracts, very much in tune with the socialist ideology of his political Labor Party, but in the end, AMLO had the last word and he said it publicly on Tuesday, Aug. 27:
“There will be no expropriations of private companies during this administration.”
And as a result, AMLO announced that the newest of the pipelines and definitely the most ambitious, the Texas-Tuxpan gas line, will start very soon. It will come as no surprise if that happens Sunday, during AMLO’s State of the Nation Address. | {
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As Texas continues discouraging women from having abortions by making them jump through hoops, volunteer-led groups are springing into action to help women navigate the state’s unjust system. This summer, the Supreme Court will rule on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, which is being called the most important abortion case since Roe v. Wade. The case will determine the constitutionality of the Texas Omnibus Abortion Bill known as HB 2 – which is designed to shut down 75 percent of health clinics providing abortions because they aren’t ambulatory surgical centers. If it stands, women will continue needing to travel far distances for access to one of the few remaining shelters in the state. This, coupled with a February 2012 sonogram law that makes women wait at least 24 hours after seeing a sonogram and hearing a heartbeat to have an abortion, has given rise to abortion access groups like La Frontera Fund.
“Many women and families are forced to travel away from their homes, and take off several days of work to meet the requirements of the 24- to 48-hour waiting period of HB2,” said Rockie Gonzalez, founding board member of La Frontera, to Remezcla in a message. “Some families have been forced to sleep in their cars in the parking lot of the clinic because they cannot afford hotel accommodations on top of procedure cost, travel cost, child care, food, and the loss of income from not working.” For lower-income people in Texas it’s just too many obstacles to overcome, which is why La Frontera Fund is providing “practical support” in the form of lodging.
The non-profit organization launched on May 7 to serve Rio Grande Valley residents – especially undocumented immigrants – who travel to Whole Women’s Health clinic in McAllen, according to the Texas Observer. In the last two years, clinics in Corpus Christi and Harlingen closed because they couldn’t meet the hospital-style health standards required under HB 2. Women’s Health McAllen, which can’t afford to make the changes it needs to become an ambulatory surgical center, may close. When it temporarily closed in 2014, La Frontera Fund’s Sofia Peña said that women tried to take measures into their own hands. “When the clinic was closed, we’ve heard of patients calling and asking about self-induction methods,” she told the Observer. “It’s very clear that the need here is dire.”
La Frontera Fund has a starting budget of about $20,000 and can provide as much as $175 for hotel costs, but they can only help a limited number of people. The Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) reports that about 30 percent of women who try to get an abortion, spend more than $100 of their own money on transportation, hotels, and child care. And for many Texans, an average of 85 miles stands between their home and an abortion center.
From now until May 22, you can buy a T-shirt to support La Frontera Fund’s efforts (buy here), but you can also head over to the org’s site and donate here. To learn more about La Frontera Fund, as well as other abortion access groups Lilith Fund, Texas Equal Access Fund, and West Fund, visit Texas Observer. | {
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Trump fired off one of his social-media news releases on Tuesday, shortly after the Post-ABC poll went live. His excuse, as any close Trump observer might have predicted: Polls were and are wrong and rigged.
An experienced Twitter user, Trump packed a lot into those 140-odd characters. Most of it was wrong.
As our pollster Scott Clement pointed out at the end of last year, descriptions of 2016 polling as universally wrong are inaccurate. Nationally, polling broadly predicted that Hillary Clinton had more support — and she did, winning the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. The final average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics estimated that Clinton would win by 3.2 points nationally; she won by 2.1. Both that average and the average compiled by Clement in his piece ended up closer to the mark in 2016 than in 2012, when President Obama's victory was widely underestimated.
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Where the polls were wrong was in the states. Pollsters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania had Hillary Clinton winning those states even late in the cycle, but she didn't. (Some of those pollsters conducted an autopsy of their misses with our Dave Weigel.) It was narrow wins in those states and Michigan — for a total of fewer than 78,000 votes — that handed Trump his electoral college margin, and the White House.
The Post-ABC and Quinnipiac polls Trump wanted to rebut on Tuesday were national polls. Quinnipiac didn't poll nationally in the last few weeks of the campaign, but we did. We gave Clinton a four-point edge nationally — 1.9 points higher than it actually was. The margin of error in the poll was plus-or-minus 2.5 points. If the new favorability numbers are similarly wrong, it means that Trump's viewed positively by 42 percent of Americans — still 16 points worse than any president in 40 years.
More broadly, Trump's tweet tries to depict the polling as “phony” and “rigged.” This is a broader strategy by the incoming president than applies solely to poll results: He continually seeks to undercut news reports and media coverage as biased or inaccurate because it provides him the opportunity to suggest that accurate corrections or critical coverage are actually part of a sweeping conspiracy to make him look bad. (Since he declared his candidacy, it has proven easier for Trump to try to undercut criticism than to avoid it.)
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Claims that polls are rigged or fake are simply nonsense. Read Weigel's autopsy: Those pollsters who missed state results are clearly troubled by the problems that yielded those bad results. Those polls and ours follow established, proven methodologies for assessing popular opinions, a methodology that is subject to variations and errors (noted in the fine print of the results) but which usually get close to the mark. Unfortunately for pollsters, it's when they miss that they get the most attention.
In our newest poll, we asked 1,000 Americans for their opinions on a wide range of issues. Those questions were posed by real people, calling landlines and cellphones. (We've described our methodology in detail previously.) The replies are compiled and weighted to match the population of the United States using statistically proven tools. And the consistent accuracy of the results — as in our national polling — demonstrates that this system works, even if it's subject to small margins of error.
But it's not enough for Trump to say that polling is subject to mistakes, which it is. Instead, he has to posit a grand conspiracy meant to undercut him.
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The grand conspiracy is that Americans are skeptical of him as president-elect, more so than they have been of any other recent person in that position. They are skeptical of him now as they were skeptical of him during the campaign. Over the past year-and-a-half, his favorability rating has seldom been at or above 50 percent. Here, too, Trump has a choice: Build a bridge to those who dislike him or simply to wave those people away. | {
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Tom Hardy, the British actor recently seen on screen as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, has signed on for an upcoming adaptation of video game franchise Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Publisher Ubisoft has confirmed to Variety that Hardy will take the role of special operative Sam Fisher in the movie, which will be written by The International scribe Eric Warren Singer. There's no studio attached as of yet, but Ubisoft has reportedly been in talks with both Paramount and Warner Bros.
Like the upcoming Assassin's Creed adaptation, Prometheus star Michael Fassbender is on board to co-produce Splinter Cell, though it's unclear if he has an acting role in this one. Hardy seems like a solid casting choice, though — after managing to mumble through Bane's mask for an entire movie, Sam Fisher's iconic night vision goggles should be no trouble at all. | {
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Ayano YanDere By xXKawaipieXx Watch
23 Favourites 8 Comments 265 Views
Character Yandere Simulator Ayano Aishi
Another drawing of Ayano Aishi ( Yandere-chan ) from Yandere Simulator 💕💕💕. I think this is one of my best drawigs so far 😁. Sorry for the poor light...
This is mostly a fusion of the two Yandere-chans from the home page ( of Yandere Simulator's page ). She has a love letter in her right hand that covers half of her face and the bloddy knife în the other hand. If I told that this is a fusion between the two Yandere-chans than why she doesn't features blood on her uniform ? This is not a fusion between the drawings that can be found on the home page, it's a fusion between Yandere-chan's lovely side ( dere ) and her violent one ( yan ). However, I somehow copied the legs pose. I couldn't find a pose that could fit her.
I love this drawing. It's one of my favorites. But it also has it's flaws too. For exemple :
•even if this is how I make the hair, I shouldn't make it like this here. I firstly made the main colouring and it looked cool. I realised the mistake I was making after I started making the shaddows. I could make it simple instead. Conclusion : I shouldn't add shading where is not necessary
•I made her skirt too short. I wanted to make it longer, but I realised that I'll destroy the drawing if I'll try so it remain like this.
•now I've seen how wrong I placed the Saiko logo. It looks too thick.
•her left leg tho.
I modified the design of the uniform a bit. There is this tie thing that bothers me. În the original design the tie looks like it has contour ( no insults to the designer. This is my favorite uniform from the game ) Than I've seen how plain looks like when I removed the contour thing, so I added a "v" line to full it a bit. Than I was thinking adding the Saiko logo on the uniform. In some of the schools, there is a mark on the uniform that shows where the student that beats the uniform comes from what school. I was thinking about adding it on the shirt but I've seen another deviant doing the same thing and I didn't wanted to copy them. So, I added on the tie. I should put it higher.
On the background, I painted hearts. I start liking this watercolor stuff. Originally, I wanted to draw letters. Than I realised that it would be tippical to Midori Gurin.
I have metal markers. It would look cool on it. And a few cerry petals..
IMAGE DETAILS Image size 2160x3840px 1.92 MB Make ALLVIEW Model A9_Lite Shutter Speed 60000/1000000 second Aperture F/2.4 Focal Length 4 mm ISO Speed 368 Date Taken Jan 30, 2020, 7:46:41 PM Show More | {
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An Oscar what-if for the ages. Photo: Warner Bros.
The Academy Awards are many things: They’re a diversion, they’re a business; they’re an occasion to be dazzled by our most photogenic citizens, they’re an open-mic night for you and your friends to roast Ansel Elgort; they’re a reflection of what’s good and bad about the film industry. But they’re also a history. An imperfect history, to be sure, but there are few better, more accessible ways of tracking Hollywood through the years than by perusing the annual Oscar nominees and winners. And what’s even better than history? That’s right, you Tarantino stans: historical fiction.
The Oscars lend themselves well to speculation and alternate-timeline fantasies, mostly because what happens one year often depends on what happened the year before it — or several years ago, in fact. Would the drumbeat behind Brad Pitt and Laura Dern’s 2020 Oscar nominations be so loud if they’d been more recently recognized by the Academy? Does Renée Zellweger’s potential second Oscar win seem that much sweeter because her first was in the Supporting category? These Oscar narratives are like carefully constructed Jenga towers: When one brick gets pulled out, will the others fall? What if “X” had won the Oscar that year instead of “Y”? What else would have gone differently as a result?
The example I like to use to explain this phenomenon goes as follows: Say Al Pacino won Best Actor in 1974 for The Godfather: Part II instead of the sentimental career nod for Art Carney in Harry and Tonto. That means that in 1992, the narrative isn’t “Pacino’s finally gonna win one” for Scent of a Woman, and so Denzel Washington is more likely to win Best Actor for Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. Which means that Washington maybe doesn’t win in 2001 for Training Day, and instead Russell Crowe wins back-to-back Best Actor trophies for Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind.
Which brings me to Sandra Bullock. We’re coming up on ten years since America’s erstwhile rom-com queen finally got the industry respect she’d long deserved … in a movie of dubious quality. John Lee Hancock’s The Blind Side is a well-meaning and deeply watchable movie that leans on the most tired of white-savior clichés. In this case, it’s the based-on-a-true-story tale of a frosty-haired, take-charge southern lady who brings a black teenager into her home, teaches him how to play football, and sets him on a path to NFL stardom and paychecks. The movie never met a cliché it didn’t like. But in addition to all its shortcomings, it was a leading-actress turn for the ages, with Bullock employing every ounce of her charisma to make the movie work. And to Oscar voters, that’s often just as good as capital-A Acting. So despite stiff competition from Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Meryl Streep (who won raves for embodying Julia Child in Nora Ephron’s final film, Julie & Julia), Bullock won the Oscar for Best Actress and gave the following speech (in which she unfortunately speaks rather highly of her soon-to-be-revealed-as-a-dirtbag husband while his cheating eyes filled with tears in the front row):
In the decade since her win, Bullock’s name is the one that tends to come up most often during discussions of Oscar triumphs that weren’t fully “deserved.” Whatever that means. As somebody who’s been following the awards for a long time, I say you can do far worse than recognizing an actress for a lifetime of star power, especially one who elevated middling pap into a massive hit. But we’re going to indulge the Sandy Skeptics today, because playing the What-If game with Bullock’s Oscar win takes us to some cool places.
Here’s what happens in the mirror universe where Sandra Bullock lost the Best Actress Oscar in 2009:
1. Meryl Streep wins Best Actress for Julie & Julia. Carey Mulligan was there to announce herself as an exciting new talent, and Helen Mirren barely realized she was a nominee. Gabby Sidibe could have realistically won, what with a year’s worth of momentum since Sundance and the Oprah endorsement. But Streep’s the one who won the Golden Globe and tied with Bullock at the Critics’ Choice Awards and had all the “When’s she winning her third?” momentum.
2. Viola Davis wins 2011’s Best Actress for The Help. With Streep’s third Oscar win taken care of, there’s no momentum to give it to her for her (frankly inferior) work in The Iron Lady. Instead, that honor goes, for the first time, to Viola Davis, who had won the SAG Award that year. Davis becomes the second black woman to win Best Actress, after Halle Berry, and she and Octavia Spencer become the first Best Actress–Best Supporting Actress winners from the same film since Gwyneth Paltrow and Judi Dench for Shakespeare in Love.
3. Viola Davis submits as a lead actress for Fences in 2016. With the pressure off Davis to finally win one, what with her pedigree as a leading actress already cast in gold, Davis submits as a lead for Fences, just as she was when she won the Tony Award for the same role in August Wilson’s play. Her nomination in the far more competitive Best Actress category either bumps off her old pal Meryl (for Florence Foster Jenkins) or, more likely, since Streep’s nomination came on the wings of a barn-burner speech at the Golden Globes just as Oscar ballots were being cast, the comparably lesser known Ruth Negga, for Loving.
4. Michelle Williams wins 2016’s Best Supporting Actress for Manchester by the Sea. With Davis stashed away in Best Actress, the Supporting Actress contest likely comes down to Octavia Spencer, for her inspirational performance in the surging-late-in-the-race Hidden Figures, and Michelle Williams, for what boiled down to one wrenchingly sorrowful scene in Manchester by the Sea. In our timeline, Spencer and Hidden Figures had way more momentum toward the end of Oscar season, but without Davis to contend with, my guess is that Williams’s case for the win solidifies over the course of the fall film festivals, and her “four nominations and no win yet” narrative takes over and powers her through to the Oscar stage.
5. Bullock wins 2013’s Best Actress for Gravity. After losing such a neck-and-neck contest to Streep, Bullock goes from “rom-com actress who isn’t Oscar’s flavor” to “snubbed actress who is overdue for a prize.” That prize comes after her essentially one-woman show in Alfonso Cuarón’s dazzling Gravity. With such a great narrative (and also that crumbum of an ex-husband) behind her, Bullock proves to be unbeatable, even by the likes of Cate Blanchett doing her best Blanche DuBois for Woody Allen in Blue Jasmine.
6. Cate Blanchett wins the 2015 Best Actress award for Carol. Having won her second Oscar so recently is one of the few reasons why Blanchett didn’t just storm through awards season collecting trophies for her career-best work in Todd Haynes’s Carol. Without the threat of overabundance, Blanchett does just that, leaving all competition, including breakthrough ingenue Brie Larson, in the dust.
7. Rooney Mara wins the 2015 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Carol. The uptick in Blanchett’s Best Actress buzz is met by a corresponding uptick for Mara in the Best Supporting Actress race (we won’t say anything about the category fraud here, since no one seemed to care then anyway!). Alicia Vikander has a strong base of support, but after a neck-and-neck race, Mara comes out on top. She and Blanchett become the first Actress–Supporting Actress winners from the same film since Davis and Spencer in The Help, leading Oscar prognosticators to erroneously surmise that Oscar voters prefer their actress winners in tandem, causing any number of subsequent squabbles on Twitter.
8. Rooney Mara is cast as Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel. Okay, this is a stretch. But hear me out: Brie Larson was cast as the MCU’s first leading lady mere months after her Oscar victory for Room. Without that victory, yes, she’s still a nominee. And yes, Jennifer Lawrence was cast in both the Hunger Games and X-Men franchises after merely being Oscar nominated for Winter’s Bone and losing to Natalie Portman. But maybe the winds shift in this alternate timeline. Maybe the Oscar win for Mara reminds Kevin Feige how great she was in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Suddenly, rewrites for Captain Marvel begin to accentuate Carol’s stoic, whispery, fragile-bird qualities. And before you know it, it’s Mara taking the Infinity Gauntlet handoff from Peter Parker in Endgame and leading the phalanx of MCU women into battle.
All because Meryl Streep’s Julia Child bested Sandra Bullock’s white savior. | {
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(Content warning: racial slurs)
Many people considered Donald Trump’s campaign a joke at first – but now he’s the Republican Presidential nominee. So how in the world did we get here?
This comic reveals the truth about how Trump didn’t appear out of thin air – and how everyone in White America had a role in getting him so close to the presidency.
These are snapshots of your classrooms, your family dinner tables, the microaggressions you’ve witnessed and committed, and more. They all add up to create a climate in which an unapologetically racist, xenophobic, and sexist man can get a shot at the most powerful position in the United States.
Does any of it look familiar?
Here’s a chance to reflect on how to do the right thing next time, so we can stop people like Trump – even before they seem like a threat to you.
With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism
Click for the Transcript Panel 1 Text: Dear white America, Trump wasn’t born out of thin air. (A picture of Trump looking up from a podium with the “Trump: Make American Great” slogan below him.) Panel 2 Text: He has always been with you. (A white woman is grabbing her child away from a Black man walking on the street.) Panel 3 Text: In every one of your classrooms. (Three children sitting on the floor. One white child is speaking to another white child saying “Why can’t you play Uno with a Mexican? Because they steal all the green cards!” with a Mexican student looking upset with tears in his eyes.) Panel 4 Text: At every one of your Thanksgiving tables. (Scene of a family at the dinner table. A white man is shouting angrily “If they didn’t have so many babies, they wouldn’t need handouts!”.) Panel 5
Text: In each and every moment fear and love tugged at your heart so strongly… [A white man is pounding his fist on a table, with a paper that says “laid off” in front of him. He is shouting “These damn wetbacks will pay for stealing our jobs!” Panel 6 Text: they poured out of you in the form of violence. (The teenager from Panel 5 is shown at a Trump rally shouting “Build the wall!” while others in the crowd yell “Deport them all!” Across from that scene is a scene showing the mom from Panel 5 at a Bernie rally shouting “Boooo! All lives matter!” while people in the crowd yell “Get off the stage monkeys,” “Shut up you thugs!!” and “Booooo!”) Text: He is continuously born and reborn through each and every injustice…
Panel 7 Text: your actions, (A white woman is crying and saying “But I didn’t mean for it to be racist—“ while a white man comforts her saying “It’s okay, don’t cry.” A Black woman to their left looks upset and says “But that’s not the point.”) Panel 8 Text: inactions, (A white man is walking past a mosque graffitied with the words “Islam Is Terrorism.”) Panel 9 Text: and silences allow to pass. (“Je Suis Charlie” written in big thick white letters on a black background.) Panel 10 He wasn’t a problem when he was only coming after us, (A picture of Trump with a large speech bubble with three of his racist quotes, one from 2000, 2013, and 2015 each claiming Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans are criminals and that he’d ban muslims if he becomes president.] Panel 11 Text: but now that he’s become a threat to you and the entire country, now he’s a problem? He is your creation and your responsibility. You can no longer afford to ignore us, erase us, and stand by as our rights, dignity, and lives are taken away. Panel 12 Text: Each injustice builds upon the last, until no one is left unharmed. (An image of the not too distant future where a Muslim woman, a Mexican man, a disabled black woman, a Native trans person, and other marginalized people are being rounded up and deported, a sign beside them reading “Deportation: Class A undesireables this way —>.”) Panel 13 Text: When the next moment arises and the next and the next, will you find the courage within you to do the right thing? Will you?
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Josette Souza is the Program Coordinator for Everyday Feminism. She’s a working-class Afro-latinx and recent first-generation college graduate who just moved back to the US from Mexico. Her favorite things in the world are Black liberation, intersectional feminism, and offering her condolences to the people who failed to bring her down by telling her that getting a degree in Africana studies would mean never getting a good job. | {
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An earthquake rocked Mexico Tuesday afternoon, just 12 days after the country suffered the strongest earthquake in a century, the Associated Press reports.
Tuesday’s quake registered as a magnitude 7.1 and struck about 70 miles southeast of Mexico’s capital, according to an independent earthquake monitoring organization.
No injuries have yet been reported. The earthquake caused entire office buildings to empty into the street, according to the AP.
Video shows a crowded building swaying from the impact. Hanging lights swing wildly and flicker off as alarms can be heard in the background.
Mexico is still recovering after it was hit by a 8.1 magnitude earthquake earlier in the month. The disaster was felt by tens of millions and leveled thousands of buildings, The New York Times reported.
“It was brutal, brutal. It was like a monster, like a train was passing over our roofs,” one resident told Reuters at the time.
Follow Tim Pearce on Twitter
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | {
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An actual sensation for OTK slapping admirers. A youthfull dame in milky undergarments will get an OTK slapping from a chick elderly than mite is. The elderly chick blushes the youthfull dame's hips, then pulls down her underpants and blisters her glutes, which promptly get larger identically crimson. Afterwards, the elderly chick makes use of the again of a hairbrush, and we’re handled to an overhead glance of the youthfull dame's highly highly blushed glutes because the elderly chick produces suck after nibbling suck. Subsequent comes a spanking paddle, after which barehanded slapping once more. The youthfull dame sobs in anguish and whines as mite lies via the chick's knee at the bed, docilely accepting her penalty. | {
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It can be hard living next to history’s greatest cultural, military and economic superpower. But that doesn’t mean the United States is best at everything. As Canada celebrates its 146th birthday we dig into the numbers to find some of the many ways Canada is better off–from sports and sex to politics and entertainment.
Life & well-being
1. We live longer: Canadians born today will live an average of three years longer than Americans (81 years in Canada versus 78.7 south of the border). Not only that, the gap between life expectancy in the two countries is widening with each passing decade—it was less than a year in the late 1970s.
2. We’re more satisfied with our lives: According to the Better Life Index, an international quality of life comparison by the OECD each year, Canadians enjoy a higher level of life satisfaction than Americans, scoring 7.4 out of 10, versus 7.0 in the U.S.
3. Saying “Sorry” is good for you: Canadians are mocked for always apologizing, but it’s not a character flaw. Saying sorry has been found to boost happiness and strengthen relationships. Researchers at the University of Waterloo even found apologizing to a cop when pulled over for speeding can get fines reduced an average of $51. True, scientists did recently claim that refusing to apologize for your actions leads to a sense of empowerment, but such short-sighted thinking would only appeal to self-centred Americans. (Sorry, that was mean.)
4. Our kids are all right: Canada’s schools take heat from all sides, but they must be doing something right. Our 15-year-olds routinely score in the top 10 of 65 countries that participate in the OECD’s reading, math and science tests. Last time around, in 2009, we were sixth, just behind Singapore and ahead of New Zealand. American teens? A lukewarm 17th. Ouch.
There’s more: (5) We have a lower rate of suicide (11.1 per 100,000 people, versus 12 in the U.S.), (6) a lower rate of infant mortality (5.1 per 1,000 live births, versus 6.1 in the U.S.), (7) and our health care costs per person are much lower (US$4,445 per capita in Canada, versus $8,233 in the U.S.). (8) New parents who work are better off (maternity-parental leave in Canada is 50 weeks, versus just 12 unpaid weeks in the U.S.). (9) More of our marriages last: For every 1,000 population in the U.S., 3.6 marriages end in divorce annually, compared to 2.1 in Canada. (10) Poor kids are more likely to attend university or college here: By age 19 to 21 roughly 54 per cent of Canadian youth from low-income families are enrolled in post-secondary education, compared to just 30 per cent of the poorest youth in America. (11) We’re less prudish: An Angus Reid poll found 83 per cent of Canadians believe sex between an unmarried man and woman is acceptable, versus just 59 per cent of Americans.
12. We’re better educated: 48.3 per cent of Canadians have a post-secondary degree, compared to 40.3 per cent in the U.S.
13. We’re fitter: The percentage of American adults who are obese is 35.9. In Canada, it’s 24.2.
14. We have more sex: According to a survey by condom-maker Durex, 59 per cent of Canadians say they have sex weekly, versus 53 per cent of Americans.
15. We drink less: Our alcohol consumption is 8.2 litres a year, compared to 8.7 in the U.S.
16. We’re richer: Canada’s average household net worth of $363,000 is higher than America’s, at $320,000.
17. We accept homosexuality: 80 per cent of Canadians say society should accept gays and lesbians, versus 60 per cent in the U.S.
18. More of us give to charities: Roughly 64 per cent of Canadians donate money to charities, compared to 60 per cent in the U.S.
19. We have better work-life balance: More than 11 per cent of U.S. employees regularly clock 50-hour workweeks, compared to 3.9 per cent here.
20. We brave the cold better: Our climate is colder and our population smaller, but relatively fewer of us succumb to the cold. Where Canada has 5,644 excess winter deaths (relative to average non-winter deaths), the U.S. sees 108,500.
21. We live in bigger houses: We have 2.6 rooms per person in Canada, versus 2.3 in the U.S.
Money & work
22. Canada has greater economic freedom: So says the U.S.-based Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom. Canada scores 6th place, while America comes in 10th. Credit our sounder public finances.
23. We have less income disparity: While the gap between rich and poor has become more marked in both countries, it’s more like a canyon in the U.S. Between 1966 and 2011, the average inflation-adjusted income of the bottom 90 per cent of American workers grew by a negligible $59. Meanwhile, the income of the top 10 per cent of workers soared by $116,071. Among OECD countries ranked for worst income disparity, the U.S takes fourth place, behind only Chile, Mexico and Turkey. Canada comes in 12th out of 34 nations.
24. Our young workers are doing better: Yes, Canada has a lower unemployment rate than the U.S., but while the overall gap is narrowing, young workers here are more likely to find work. Canada’s youth unemployment rate is 13.5 per cent, compared to 16.8 per cent in the States.
25. Our banks are better: Earlier this year Bloomberg ranked the world’s strongest banks. Four of the top 10 were Canadian, and all scored higher than the top U.S. bank, Citigroup, which came in 9th.
26. We have more social mobility: If you want to live the American Dream, move to Canada. Social mobility, measured by intergenerational changes in income between sons and their fathers, is twice as high in Canada as in the U.S. In other words, a son born to a poor father in the U.S. is twice as likely to remain poor throughout his life than had he been born in Canada.
27. The money in your wallet is safer: Canadian currency once had a terrible reputation for being easy to counterfeit, but new polymer bills introduced by the Bank of Canada have hi-tech features that make them almost impossible to reproduce. Of the 500 million notes circulated since 2011, only 56 fakes have been seized. In the U.S., out of every one million bank notes in circulation, an estimated average of 6.5 are fakes.
There’s more: (28) Our corporate taxes are lower (PricewaterhouseCoopers ranks Canada 8th out of 185 countries for its advantageous corporate tax structure while the U.S. is 69th). (29) We embrace transit: Seven of the 10 North American cities with the most people taking transit to work are in Canada. (30) We get more paid holidays: America has no mandated paid holidays or vacation time, so 23 per cent of U.S. workers get no paid time off, compared to Canadian workers who get at least two weeks and nine paid public holidays. (31) More women work here: For most of the past 40 years more American women have been in the labour market than in Canada, but after 2000 that changed—62 per cent of Canadian women are in the labour market, compared to 57 per cent in the U.S. (32) More of our immigrants strike it rich: In both the U.S. and Canada the majority of millionaires are self-made, but a larger number in Canada are immigrants, according to a BMO study—in Canada nearly half of millionaires are immigrants or second-generation residents, compared to just one-third in America.
Arts & entertainment
33. The biggest summer movies of 2013 have Canadian DNA: Aside from the Canadian-packed comedy This is the End, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim was filmed in Toronto. The Wolverine features everyone’s favourite mutant Canuck. Kick-Ass 2 features the dark return of Jim Carrey of Newmarket, Ont. And really, Star Trek Into Darkness would be just a glimmer in J.J. Abrams’s eye if it weren’t for William Shatner, native of Côte Saint-Luc, Que.
34. Our opera house is tops: There’s no city in North America with an opera house to compare to the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto. Jack Diamond, who built it, was promptly handpicked by Valery Gergiev to build the new Mariinsky II theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.
35. The best small-screen sci-fi is secretly Canadian: Revolution may be keeping on the lights at NBC and The Walking Dead may be an American creation, but the best small-screen science fiction—the series that thrill both critics and audiences—are secretly Canadian. Continuum, Lost Girl, Haven and Orphan Black are all capturing both record ratings and critics’ notoriously fickle hearts—and all are filmed here, funded by our networks and starring a host of talented Canadian actors (albeit some of whom are masked in layers of monster makeup).
36. Our broadcast TV doesn’t have to treat adults like children: Maybe it’s because Americans are such sensitive folk, or it’s our ill-defined role as cultural bridge between the U.S. and Europe, but Canadian TV regularly gets away with showing things broadcast networks south of the border can’t: nipples, F-bombs and the like. When The Sopranos aired unedited on CTV, executive producer David Chase said that could never happen on U.S. network TV: “It’s just not possible, we have rules against that.”
37. We’re funnier: Hollywood and American network television have known it for decades. Wayne and Shuster, Lorne Michaels, Catherine O’Hara, John Candy, Mike Myers, Jim Carrey—all examples of our comedy supremacy. And a new generation of Canadian comics is keeping the tradition alive. Vancouver slacker Seth Rogen has become one of Hollywood’s most bankable comedians, along with Brampton, Ont.’s Michael Cera and Montreal’s Jay Baruchel (all three star in this summer’s apocalyptic comedy This is the End).
38. We’re better at special effects: While demand for blockbuster visual effects in movies skyrockets, California’s special effects industry is collapsing. Why? They can’t keep up with Canada (or Britain or Asia or New Zealand, but that’s beside the point). In Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Winnipeg, visual effects artists have been taking over the design of explosions, gore and CGI monsters as our technical schools pump out skilled graduates, and movie studios outsource to take advantage of Canada’s generous tax breaks.
39. Hollywood is taking advice from . . . Quebec? Not content with ripping off their own ideas, Hollywood is now so desperate for fresh-ish material that it’s turning to the biggest and brightest Quebec auteurs for help. Montrealer Ken Scott is currently remaking his 2011 Québécois hit Starbuck, this time called Delivery Man and starring Vince Vaughn. Scott is so in demand that he was originally hired to direct the English-language remake of Jean-François Pouliot’s comedy La grande séduction, now being filmed by fellow Canadian Don McKellar, and starring B.C. native Taylor Kitsch.
There’s more: (40) Canadian musicians rule the charts: Michael Bublé, Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen—and those are just the mildly tolerable pop stars Canada has produced recently. This year will also see releases from Arcade Fire, the Weakerthans and the reunited critical darlings, Death from Above 1979. (41) Our filmmakers are wilder: David Lynch, eat your heart out. Canadian movies are wilder and weirder–necrophilia in Kissed, David Cronenberg’s car-crash fetishism and twin gynecologists, and Atom Egoyan’s films about father-daughter incest, a schoolgirl stripper, and a wife who hires a young hooker to test her husband. (42) Our filmmakers are more worldly, too: Unlike Americans, who wait for the rest of the world to learn English, Canadians get Oscar nominations for foreign-language films, and not just ones in French—Deepa Mehta’s Hindi-language Water was nominated in 2007. (43) We know our art: When museums want to tour their blockbuster exhibits, they know to stop here first. From the Picasso show at the AGO to Sebastião Salgado’s work at the ROM, Canada is the stop for top-tier North American premieres. (44) Our festivals rule: TIFF is by far North America’s most important film festival, and the world’s second-biggest after Cannes. Hot Docs is North America’s biggest documentary festival. Contact is the continent’s biggest photography festival. Just For Laughs is the biggest comedy festival. Montreal’s Jazz Festival is still the largest, with the most free concerts, the largest purpose-built downtown outdoor concert space and the most audacious programming. And Toronto’s Caribana is the continent’s biggest Caribbean carnival.
Sports & leisure
45. We dominate hockey: Stanley Cups aside, hockey is still Canada’s game. While the percentage of Canadians playing in the NHL has declined since the 1980s, Canadians still make up more than 50 per cent of all players in the league, compared to Americans, who account for just one-quarter of players.
46. Better football: Since the late 1970s, the National Football League has been tweaking its rules to encourage more passing—that is, to make the U.S. game more exciting. Up here, we got it right the first time: a three-down game on a great, big field. So on second and 10, you can bet that ball will be in the air.
47. We’re actually better at tennis now: While most Canadians have been preoccupied with hockey, a young man from Thornhill, Ont., has quietly become one of the most successful men’s tennis players in Canadian history. As of June, Milos Raonic’s ranking was No. 15 among singles players and, statistically speaking, he has the strongest serve in the world, serving more aces per match than any other professional player in 2012. America’s current top male singles player is Sam Querrey, whose ranking, as of June, was No. 19.
48. We were first to the races: When it comes to sporting events, Canada got off to an early start. Established in 1816, the Royal St. John’s Regatta is North America’s oldest annual sporting event. Hamilton’s Around the Bay Race is North America’s longest distance road race, which began in 1894, beating Boston by three years. And this July Toronto plays host to the 154th running of the Queen’s Plate, the oldest continuously run stakes race on the continent.
49. We have better skiing: Canada’s most popular ski resort, Whistler, trumps America’s most-visited resort, Vail, with more trails (200 vs. 193), longer runs (a total of 36,960 feet vs. 15,840 feet) and more snow (469 inches vs. 348 inches)
50. We see more of the world: Last year Canadians took close to 10 million trips abroad to countries other than the U.S. Despite having a population nearly 10 times that of Canada, Americans made just 30 million trips overseas. The poor showing from U.S. travellers shouldn’t be a surprise. While 65 per cent of Canadians hold a valid passport, only 35 per cent of Americans do.
There’s more: (51) We’re more plugged into the Internet: In Canada, 83 out of every 100 people surf the web, compared to 77.9 per cent in America. (52) We invent more sports: Canadians invented lacrosse, ice hockey and basketball. Oh, and five-pin bowling. What did Americans invent? Baseball. (Football doesn’t count since it’s just a mutated form of rugby). (53) We get outdoors more: A survey by the Canadian Tourism Commission found that more Canadians (30 per cent) consider themselves outdoor adventure enthusiasts than Americans (26 per cent). (54) We spend less time on the couch: Americans watch 34 hours of TV each week, four more than Canadians.
Environment & geography
55. Canada has earned a poor reputation when it comes to fighting climate change, but if you believe the globe is about to undergo a catastrophic shift in weather patterns, Canada is the best place to ride it out. UCLA geographer Laurence Smith has argued that by 2050 warming will unlock vast new resources and transform Canada into an economic superpower.
56. Carp-eh diem: We do not yet have to contend with the dreaded Asian carp, a species of fish that has invaded U.S. waterways, killing off competing species wherever it goes. The fish are big—up to 40 kg—and they’re crazy, literally throwing themselves into passing boats. Natural resources officials believe we’ve so far avoided the onslaught, but really, if this mini-monster reaches the Great Lakes, our rivers are doomed.
57. Less spin: Americans mock our weather, but come late spring, we can only look south with pity. We average just 60 reports of actual tornadoes per year compared with the 1,200 confirmed tornado strikes in the U.S., the most of any country in the world. Only five per cent of our storms reach the EF-3 category of intensity, the level where winds of more than 220 km/h start tearing up buildings and trees. The U.S. gets about 37 such tornadoes annually, costing the country 80 lives.
58. We help them repopulate their endangered species: When the U.S. wants to help an animal species come back from the brink, they call on Canada. In 1995, dozens of grey wolves were captured in Alberta and shipped south to be let free in Yellowstone National Park, 72 years after the park’s last wolf den was destroyed under a federal extermination plan. Next year Alaska will reintroduce wood bison, North America’s largest living land mammals, into the wilderness. The animals come from a captive herd started with Canadian animals.
59. Niagara Falls: Canada’s horseshoe falls vs. the American side. Enough said.
60. Water, water everywhere: With less than half a per cent of the world’s population, we have seven per cent of its renewable water supply—the most per inhabitant of any developed country. The supply for an average American is just 11 per cent of what’s available to us.
There’s more: (61) We have more beautiful coast to enjoy: 243,000 km of shoreline compared to 153,000 km in the U.S. (62) According to the OECD Better Life Index our air is cleaner (16 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic metre here compared to 18 in the U.S.) and (63) . . . so too is our water (89 per cent of Canadians report being satisfied with the quality of local water, versus 87 per cent in the U.S.).
Politics
64. We’re more peaceful: This year, Canada was ranked the eighth most peaceful country in the world. The U.S is ranked 100th.
65. Our election turnout is more fair: While voter turnout may be higher in the United States, it’s much more equitable in Canada, with broad social inclusion of both high-income and low-income voters. In Canada, voter turnout for the richest 20 per cent of the population is roughly 63 per cent, whereas the participation rate of the bottom 20 per cent is only slightly less, at 60 per cent. In the States, roughly 79 per cent of the wealthiest voters turn out to cast ballots, compared to just slightly more than half of the poorest voters.
66. Federally, our politicians are (slightly) more representative of the gender divide: Federally, women make up 24.7 per cent of Parliament, compared to the U.S. Congress where women account for just 17.8 per cent of representatives.
67. Provincially, our leaders are (much) more representative of the gender divide: The governments of Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nunavut are all led by females who are responsible for governing more than 87 per cent of Canada’s population. By comparison, America has just five female governors, and the vast majority of Americans live in male-governed states.
68. We have far fewer assassinations: Since Confederation, only three Canadian politicians have been assassinated, including two Fathers of Confederation: Thomas D’Arcy McGee was shot by a Fenian sympathizer in 1868; George Brown was shot in the leg by a former Globe employee in 1880 (the wound led to a fatal infection). Quebec minister of labour Pierre Laporte was kidnapped and assassinated by the FLQ in 1970. In the United States, a staggering 44 politicians have been assassinated, including four sitting presidents.
69. We’re fine with gay politicians: While former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey might be called the first (and only) “openly gay” governor in American history, it doesn’t really count if you resign as soon as you come out of the closet. In Canada, not only is Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne openly gay, but her sexual orientation barely factors into coverage of Ontario politics. With all the scandals to beset Queen’s Park, the premier’s personal life is the least shocking thing about Ontario’s government.
There’s more: (70) We attract more immigrants: Canada gets 5.65 per 1,000 people, compared to the U.S., with 3.64 per 1,000. (71) We have fewer lobbyists: We’ve seen an explosion in lobbying, but in Canada the ratio of lobbyists to senators and MPs is still 12 to 1, while in the U.S. the ratio of lobbyists to members of Congress is 23 to 1. Some estimate the U.S. ratio is as high as 65 to 1 since many lobbyists don’t register. (72) We mandate a time for holding the government’s feet to the fire: Sure, question period has degenerated in recent years, but nothing like it exists in the U.S. political system. (73) You don’t have to be rich to run for the highest office in the land: U.S. presidential elections cost an estimated $7 billion to mount, while Canada’s top five parties were allowed to spend a combined $90 million, thanks to Elections Canada spending limits.
Science & Technology
74. We have the “most social astronaut”: Eight North Americans have commanded the International Space Station over the last four years, but only Canada’s Chris Hadfield became a household name worldwide. His photos, duets from space and that cover of Space Oddity helped catapult @Cmdr_Hadfield to one million Twitter followers. @TheRealBuzz (Aldrin) has 806,000.
75. Holy crap, we’re discovering a miracle cure: Canada is a leader in fecal transplant therapy (it’s exactly what it sounds like). By transferring healthy bacteria from a donor’s stool into patients suffering from potentially fatal gut infections like C. difficile, doctors believe it could one day cure all sorts of ailments, maybe even obesity and allergies.
76. We lead in quantum computing: What’s that, you ask? Rather than calculating with ones or zeros as conventional computers do, quantum computers can theoretically harness subatomic particles to process more complex calculations in a fraction of the time. And scratch the word theoretical. In May, Burnaby, B.C.-based D-Wave said one of its quantum computers, the only such machines commercially available, will be installed at the new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, a collaboration between Google, the Universities Space Research Association and NASA.
77. We’re wiring the oceans like no one else: Canada’s NEPTUNE and VENUS projects off the coast of B.C. have installed fibre-optic cables that transmit data from the bottom of the ocean. In 2011, Popular Science named NEPTUNE one of humankind’s “top 10 most ambitious science projects” alongside the Large Hadron Collider and the International Space Station.
78. Our dinosaur discoveries are cooler: Not only did archaeologists uncover the largest-ever bed of dinosaur bones near Medicine Hat, Alta., in 2010, since then scientists re-examining old fossils identified a new species of spiky-headed dinosaur called Xenoceratops foremostensis—or “alien horned-face from Foremost.” Wired recently listed the world’s 10 best new dinosaur discoveries. Four came from Canada, while just one was dug up in America.
There’s more: (79) We’re more rational: Most Canadians (61 per cent) accept evolution, compared to just 30 per cent of Americans. Incidentally, the same percentage believe Bigfoot is “definitely” or “probably” real. (80) We’re world leaders in space robotics: There’s the Canadarm, of course, but also Dextre, which lives on the International Space Station and is the most advanced space robot ever built–a “space handyman” that fixes up the station. In January, Dextre performed the first demonstration that a robot could refuel a satellite in orbit, which could give our satellites longer lives in space.
Crime & calamity
81. We don’t have out-of-control prison sentences: Last year 38,700 people were serving time in Canada, roughly 114 for every 100,000 citizens. That’s nothing. In the U.S. 2.24 million Americans are locked up—716 for every 100,000 citizens, the highest incarceration rate in the world. Canada ranks 136th.
82. Our government doesn’t kill people: Canada officially abolished capital punishment in 1976, but no Canadian inmate has been executed since 1962. By contrast, the U.S. put 43 prisoners to death last year alone, while 3,125 inmates continue to wait on death row.
83. Our judges are appointed, not elected: While some believe Canadian judges should be picked directly by citizens, as is common in American courts, the idea has largely been written off as inconsistent with the Constitution, which could be for the best. Studies show judges have difficulty being impartial on the bench, when, as candidates, they rely heavily on donors and special interest groups for support. As well, a study showed judges increase their sentences when facing re-election. In fact, electoral zealousness added six per cent to overall prison time for aggravated assault, rape and robbery sentences. That helps explain America’s crowded prisons.
84. We’re more relaxed about pot: In both countries, support for legalizing marijuana is at all-time highs. In 2012, 66 per cent of Canadians supported legalization or decriminalization, compared to half of Americans.
85. Mass shootings here are rare: Since 1982 in the U.S. there have been at least 45 shootings in which at least six people were killed. In total, 434 people were murdered in those incidents, and another 384 injured. During that time, there were two such events in Canada—the bodies of eight Bandidos gang members were discovered in a Ontario farmer’s field in 2006, while in 1989, 14 women were gunned down at the École Polytechnique.
There’s more: (86) We have far fewer murders: Our homicide rate is 1.73 per 100,000 people, compared to 4.7 in the U.S. (87) Our roads are safer: The number of fatalities from traffic accidents in Canada is 8.8 for every 100,000 people, compared to 13.9 in the U.S. (88) Our youth are safer: America has the highest mortality rate for young people ages 10 to 24 among developed countries, with a death rate of 60 per 100,000 of the population, compared to less than 40 in Canada. (89) We’re less likely to get robbed: Canada’s robbery rate is 86 per 100,000, far below America’s rate of 114.
General Canadian awesomeness
90. We’re more popular: Backpackers knew it for years, but studies confirm the Maple Leaf really is beloved around the world. In 2012, the Canada brand held top spot in the Reputation Institute’s ranking of countries based on people’s trust, admiration and affinity for them. America’s reputation rank: 23rd.
91. Our taste in chocolate is better: Everyone knows we have loads of chocolate candy varieties you can’t get in the U.S.—Coffee Crisp, Aero, Smarties—but earlier this year Hershey’s said it re-engineered its chocolate recipe to better appeal to Canadian palates. A Hershey’s spokesperson said Canadians prefer smoother and sweeter chocolate compared to the “grittier or even cheesier flavour” chocolate found in America.
92. Our national symbol is a worthier animal: Yes, eagles soar high, have incredible eyesight and razor-sharp talons. They’re also carrion-eating louts. As Ben Franklin once noted, “I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly . . . like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy . . . a rank Coward.” The beaver, on the other hand, is a rugged, humble and industrious little creature (okay, rodent).
93. Roadside wonderland: Canada has more than 1,200 roadside attractions. The U.S. may have more in sheer numbers, but nothing compares to our giant duck, perogy, sausage, Easter egg, hockey stick, moose, apple, dinosaur, nickel or lobster.
94. Our Canadian bacon is better than their Canadian bacon: This can get confusing, but try to follow along. When Americans buy “Canadian bacon,” they get a package of fully-cooked processed slices of ham, which Canadians don’t actually eat. Canadian bacon, on the other hand, isn’t called that by Canadians. Instead it’s peameal bacon, a Toronto creation of pickle-brine-cured pork loin rolled in cornmeal. It’s a travesty most Americans can’t tell the difference.
There’s more: (95) Giant American corporations associate with our unofficial mascot: Up to 80 per cent of the world’s polar bears are in Canada—Americans have to make do with polar bears in Coke commercials and on pop cans. (96) Our lobsters taste better: It’s an endless debate between fishermen and chefs in the Maritime provinces and Maine. We claim the cooler waters of Canada spawn tastier crustaceans. Americans disagree. But most Maine lobster is processed in Canada anyway, so we dominate both ways. (97) Better sea monsters: Both Ogopogo and the lesser-known monster in Lake Champlain have been captured on video in recent years. The U.S.’s most famous sea monster, Jaws, isn’t even real. (98) We’re record-setters: For our population size, no other country breaks more Guinness world records. (99) Our national anthem is better: Musicologists in Britain analyzed eight anthems to see which drew listeners to join in most—O Canada ranked 5th ahead of the Star-Spangled Banner (6th) | {
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Hi there I'm back, as you can see I'm wearing a very sexy black bikini covered with little gem stones. I'm here on my bed feeling really horny, I cant wait anymore for my boy toy to get here, so I'm going to get primed up before he arrives. Watch as I play with my big round tits and sexy lil pussy for you. Then it's time for my favorite toy, don't you know.... READ MORE>>> | {
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Microsoft has been granted a patent on a privilege escalation system which appears to cover the functionality of PolicyKit, which is used for fine grain authorisation on Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and other Linux systems. The patent claims in 7,617,530 appear to be for system software which, when an application needs a higher privilege level, displays a graphical list of users with the privileges required to perform the task. Selecting one of the users and entering that user's password allows the task to be performed with that users privilege.
This behaviour is very similar to that of PolicyKit, with the only apparent difference being that PolicyKit requires applications to request privileges, whereas the 7,617,350 patent allows the operating system to block a privileged action and then offer the user a way to raise their privileges.
Reports that Microsoft had patented sudo, the privilege raising utility which is used by Linux, Unix and Mac OS X operating systems, appear to be incorrect. Microsoft were previously granted a patent on sudo-like functionality in 2004 with the patent 6,775,781. Microsoft has not, to date, brought any infringement cases based on this patent.
When evaluating a patent, it is worth remembering that a patent is not based upon its abstract, but on its claims, differentiated from prior art and other patents by the references cited in the patent. The references are are added by the patent's applicants and examiners.
In the 7,617,350 patent, the references cite the sudo manual pages, Debian manuals, KDE and GNOME utility documentation and various FAQs. The previous 6,775,781 patent is not referenced. As we have been unable to find any patent case where an infringement action was brought against items referenced in the patent itself, this would suggest that any hypothetical action against sudo and users of sudo would fail at the first hurdle.
Software patents such as this one would likely be invalidated or fail in court if the "machine or transformation" test was adopted. This is the test which is at the centre of the Bilski case which is currently before the US Supreme Court.
See also:
In re Bilski - Let us get back to work, a feature on software patents and the Bilski case from The H.
(djwm) | {
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VANCOUVER–He saluted his supporters crowded in a Vancouver courtroom to see him off, told his wife he loved her and then the self-proclaimed Prince of Pot gave one last defiant rallying cry.
"Plant the seeds of freedom. Overgrow the government, everyone," Marc Emery yelled out as sheriffs led him away to jail.
After years of flouting marijuana laws in Canada, openly smoking bongs in public and making millions off a marijuana seed empire that funded a magazine and an unsuccessful political party, Emery turned himself in to police in Vancouver Monday.
He pleaded guilty earlier this year and made a deal to serve a five-year prison term in the U.S. after being pursued by American authorities for selling seeds through the mail.
Emery, 51, will be in Canadian custody before being turned over to American authorities in Washington state. But he's making a last-ditch attempt to get his supporters to lobby federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson to stop the extradition or allow him to serve his sentence in Canada.
Emery, who called himself the most visible face of cannabis culture, said his incarceration will motivate millions of Americans to back him.
There were rallies last weekend to protest his arrest in various cities and countries, but nearly all of them drew small crowds. In Vancouver, where Emery's business is based, only 150 people showed up.
"I've probably run the largest-scale revolution that has had no bodies. There are no victims, no dead people, in my revolution," said Emery. "This is a revolution fronted by a beautiful plant. The world's most beloved plant."
Emery has been arrested 18 times and served three months in a Saskatoon prison. | {
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With so many different writing instruments available today that are both easy to use and inexpensive, you might ask, “Why use a fountain pen?”. You have ballpoint pens, rollerball pens, gel pens, mechanical pencils, Sharpies, markers… all very capable writing instruments that only cost a few dollars and do the job. What makes fountain pens so special that many people will spend tens, hundreds or even thousands of dollars on one?
Why Use A Fountain Pen? What Are The Benefits?
Fountain pens have many different benefits. While they are ultimately just pens that put ink to paper, to the people who use them they are so much more than that. Some benefits might be physical, while others might be mental. I’ll run through a quick list of benefits so you can get an idea of what all the fuss is about.
If you’ve never used a fountain pen, before going any further you might want to familiarize yourself with some fountain pen terminology and fountain pen basics.
They Can Be Easier To Write With
Many people use fountain pens because they find them easier to write with than other types of pens. They come in many different diameters, weights and lengths, which offers quite a bit of flexibility when choosing a pen. Fountain pens also require less pressure to write with. Since the ink is pulled out of the pen via capillary action, it takes little to no pressure to put ink on paper, which can reduce hand fatigue during prolonged periods of writing.
Different fountain pens have different sizes. You can see the difference in the barrel, nib and grip size, all of which factor into how a pen feels.
They Have Different Sizes and Shapes Of Nibs
Fountain pens come with different shapes and sizes of nibs. This allows you to choose the perfect nib for what you are writing. While some people prefer one type of nib, others prefer a variety. While a fine nib might be useful for jotting down notes, a flexible nib might be preferred for a letter because it can add more character to your writing. Regardless of which type of nib you prefer, the ability to have different pens that have drastically different writing characteristics are one of the major attractions of fountain pens.
You can see that different sized nibs can make your writing look very different, even when using the same ink.
There Are Countless Different Colors Of Ink
Just as nibs can give character to your writing, inks can as well. The number of different inks that are available today is overwhelming. Each ink has unique characteristics and a unique color, and each will look and perform slightly differently depending on which pen you use it in. This means that with just a few different pens and inks you can have quite a few different writing options. Compared to the standard blue and black that are typically available with rollerballs and ballpoints, you can see how attractive it might be to have a variety of colors to spice up your writing.
There are many different colors of fountain pen inks, so you’re sure to find many that you love.
They Are Not Made To Be Disposable
Most fountain pens are not meant to be disposable. Whether you are someone who cares about the environment and cringes every time you toss a piece of plastic into the garbage or are someone who prefers to spend their money on high quality items that will last for many years, a fountain pen should satisfy you. Even fountain pens that are disposable can easily be refilled.
They Are Collectible
Whether you decide to use vintage or modern fountain pens, you will find that they are all highly collectible. From limited editions to special releases to vintage pens that are hard to find, there are many different ways to collect fountain pens. For example, many manufacturers such as Pelikan, Lamy and TWSBI release special colors every year. Montblanc releases numbered limited editions that are extremely valuable. Even if you’re not into spending a bunch of money on limited edition pens, you can always focus your collection on a particular brand or even a specific color of pen!
This is a collection of pastel Esterbrooks, pens that were made in the 1950s and are getting harder to find in good condition.
There Is An Amazing Community Of Fountain Pen Users
Once you get into the world of fountain pens, you’ll find that it is full of amazing people. Online forums are full of individuals who are more than happy to answer any questions you might have. Most larger cities have pen meetups where you can meet other fountain pen enthusiasts and try out pens, inks and paper that you’ve always wanted to try. Pen shows are one of the best ways to immerse yourself in pen culture, meet new people, take a class or two and walk away with that pen you’ve had your eye on.
What Are The Drawbacks To Using A Fountain Pen?
Although there are many benefits to using a fountain pen, there are some drawbacks as well. While they don’t necessarily leak all over the place like many stereotypes would have you believe, there are a few things that might make you think twice before buying your first fountain pen.
They Cost More Than Most Other Types Of Pens
One of the main reasons ballpoint and rollerball pens are so popular is because they are cheap. Fountain pens, on the other hand, are not. Even some of the least expensive fountain pens out there will cost between $10-$20 each. While it is possible to pick up some inexpensive Chinese pens for a few dollars each, the average that you’ll spend on a fountain pen will probably be somewhere between $20-$50. I even know some people who have been using them for less than a year who aren’t phased by a $200 or higher price tag. Of course, you don’t have to spend that much to get a good pen, but it is very easy to do so if you want to.
This Sailor Pro Gear typically sells for around $250.
They Need To Be Cleaned
As I mentioned earlier, fountain pens work via capillary action. This means that there needs to be a clear path for ink to flow out of the pen and onto paper. If the ink dries out between fillings or you change from one ink to another, you’ll need to clean out your pen. Proper and regular cleanings will keep your pen working great, but if you don’t clean your pen very often you might run into issues and have trouble writing with it. While cleaning a pen might only take a few minutes, it’s still an extra step that you’ll never have to worry about if you use a rollerball.
They Have A Cap
It might seem very minor and insignificant, but most fountain pens have a cap. If you’re used to a pen where you can click a button on the top to extend and retract the tip, especially in situations where you have to quickly jot something down, a cap might be more of a hassle than you want to deal with. Of course, there are many rollerballs and even ballpoints that have caps, but losing one isn’t really a big deal. You lose the cap, throw the pen away and grab a new one. With a fountain pen, if you lose the cap you’re in trouble. Not only will the pen dry out and essentially be useless without a cap, but you won’t want to throw away your $20 or $200 pen.
Most fountain pens come with a cap, so if you don’t want to worry about dealing with one, a fountain pen might not be a good fit for you.
They Don’t Work Well On Some Types Of Paper
Fountain pens can be a little picky about which types of paper they work well on. If you regularly write on inexpensive copy paper, you probably won’t have a very good writing experience with a fountain pen. The ink will likely feather and bleed and you’ll want to switch back to a rollerball. They also don’t write very well on paper that is used for receipts (it’s too slick) or with carbon-copy checks (you don’t press hard enough for the copy to work). Even on good, high-quality paper that is fountain pen friendly, you’ll have to be careful you don’t smudge the wet ink before it has completely soaked into the paper.
You can see that the ink has feathered on this cheap paper. You wouldn’t want to use a fountain pen if this was the only paper you write on.
Conclusion
Hopefully this article helped answer the question “Why use a fountain pen?”. While they take more effort than most other pens, are more expensive and are a little more picky than a rollerball or ballpoint pen, for most people the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. It doesn’t matter if you’re a collector, an environmentalist, someone with hand pain or just someone who wants a wonderful writing experience, a fountain pen is one of the best writing instruments around. | {
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SEE HOW IT ALL STARTED
It's been our honor and privilege to have helped DIYers, crafters, and entrepreneurs fulfill their creative needs and goals through candle making since 2005. We've gotten to know many of you over the years, and thought it was time you got to know us a little better, too!
Watch to discover more about us, our culture, and the CandleScience origin story. | {
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A collection of things to keep me entertained and warm during cold Minnesota winters.
Collapsible shot glass for a quick warm up on the go. Desktop hockey to keep me entertained at work.
Wait, what's this? Two anthropomorphic stuffed pieces of toast? No! Well, yes, but not just that! They're USB powered hand warmers! How cool (hot?) is that?! They even have a temp control built into the cable. Very awesome.
Thank you so much Santa! | {
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Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison, who is highly regarded as one of the finest in the biz, is poised to release a solo set, Cheating the Polygraph, April 14. Fans will be delighted to realize the record is actually eight Porcupine Tree songs in a set of vivid and vibrant new arrangements as imagined by Harrison himself.
The tracks are some of Harrison’s own favorite Porcupine Tree jams from over the years. Completely abstract in nature, the songs only slightly resemble the originals – but reportedly, some Porcupine Tree fans have claimed to actually like these versions better!
Yahoo Music is pleased to premiere the video for “Hatesong/Halo.” If it sounds a little foreign to those who appreciate Porcupine Tree, Harrison notes, “Music is about listening and opening your mind. Feel the world around you. Don’t get distracted by letting your eyes focus on unrelated things. Let the music create the images in your mind.“
To preorder Cheating the Polygraph, visit here. | {
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The Great Famine of the 1990s changed North Korean society so profoundly that we are still trying to understand the breadth and depth of that change. During and after the famine, millions of North Koreans grasped at any survival strategy necessary to feed themselves. Those who did not change, and whom the state did not feed, died. For thousands of North Korean women, prostitution was the survival strategy of last resort to feed themselves, and often, their children.
In Kim Il Sung’s North Korea, the sex trade was invisible to the outside world. That began to change when Chinese traffickers and johns forced thousands of female famine refugees into the sex trade. By the end of the great famine, prostitution had become stealthily ubiquitous inside North Korea. It also became more organized and more predatory, with state officials playing a growing role its patronage and protection.
In Hamheung in 2008, a number of high-ranking party officials were accused of patronizing a tea house that also sold sex, and for protecting it against police interference. In Hyesan in 2009, the manager of a state-run inn frequently patronized by central party officials was arrested for pimping women and girls, some in their mid-teens. North Korea’s 2009 currency “reform” drove more women into the sex trade. By 2010, prostitution in Chongjin had been organized by “couple managers” who matched customers, often soldiers, with sex workers, often female university students, and sometimes women who had become dependent on drugs. Last year, the manager of a North Korean factory in China was accused of pimping out female factory workers.
The reports do not suggest that the state has consciously chosen to tolerate or profit from the sex trade as a matter of policy. The security forces periodically crack down on the sex trade, but inevitably, when corrupt authorities attempt to police a profitable trade, the authorities begin to see that trade as just another way to supplement their pay. More fundamentally, in a society where officials are the law, where enforcement is arbitrary, and where the state profits from trade at least indirectly, it can be hard to tell the difference between corruption and state policy. Today, the Daily NK reports that prostitution is increasingly run by well-connected businessmen and protected by the officials they’re connected with:
The sex industry in North Korea is becoming more systematic in large cities, as the number of pimps who lure in young workers is on the rise, and Ministry of People’s Security [MPS] officials who are tasked with cracking down on sex work are looking the other way, leaving the door open for prostitution around the clock, Daily NK has learned.
This is the first report I’ve seen of organized prostitution in the capital.
“In Pyongyang and other major cities, more professional prostitution rings that use young women to make money are surfacing,” a source in South Hamkyung Province told Daily NK on Wednesday. “People who run these operations bribe everyone from MPS agents to night patrol members under the same unit so they can do business.”
As is the case in South Korea, prostitution in North Korea tends to congregate in neighborhoods near train stations.
“In areas like Hamheung, Chongjin, and other large cities, if you go to train stations and areas around the marketplace, you’ll easily see older women approaching men and asking if they’d like ‘temporary lodging,'” he said. “They usually go up to well-dressed officials who seem to be on business trips or military officials, telling them they have full amenities (code for room and board and women of all ages).” Although the price differs by region, mostly for women in their early teens and 20s, it costs roughly 40,000 to 50,000 KPW [5-6 USD], while for those in their 30s, it’s about 20,000 to 30,000 KPW [2.5-3.7 USD] The women who direct customers to the facility typically get a 30 percent cut, while the homeowner and sex worker split up the remaining sum. The latter two will for the most part make at least 10,000 KPW [1.2 USD] per case, according to the source. “These days since sex businesses receive protection from crackdown agents, the industry has been growing, leading to squabbles over customers,” the source said. “With more operations up and running, there are even allotted schedules. During the day, all businesses run together, while at night, the hours are divided into early and late operations.
Yet again, the reports suggest that regime officials both patronize and protect the sex trade:
Party cadres and officials in the judicial system are frequent clients of sex services, and many venture out to places like Pyongyang’s Munsuwon and high-end public bathhouses such as ‘Eundeokwon’ with prostitutes, said the source. In the North, there are baths designated specifically for married couples and can only be used after national IDs are verified.
Some officials also use the sex trade to entrap and extort johns.
Also profiting from the business are safety officials, who not only receive bribes for turning a blind eye, they sometimes use pretty women to draw customers into the ‘temporary lodging’ facility and catch them in the act, he asserted. Then, they blackmail the clients for large sums of money or in some cases, call up for regular bribes. If customers do not comply, the officials report them and use it as an opportunity to add more ‘points’ and get a leg up at work.
North Korean society’s acceptance of prostitution will probably remain until long after unification; after all, prostitution still carries on more-or-less openly in South Korea, under terms that can also be very exploitative. Different societies take different views on whether the sex trade, at least between consenting and unmarried adults, is inherently evil, but the conditions in which North Korean women must sell their bodies is unquestionably evil. Their working conditions are horrible — for the obvious reasons, of course, but also for the general lack of health care available to those who became pregnant, or contract STDs. Some turn to addictive drugs, in the false hope that they can protect them from contracting disease.
The role of state officials in organizing and profiting from the sex trade is repellant, but still not as repellant as the state’s role in creating the conditions that force women into prostitution to begin with. Women who ought to be doctors should not be sex workers. Of North Korea’s many tragedies, there may be none greater than all the human potential destroyed by its unjust and unequal political system. | {
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We Start a new series of Digital Art Inspiration, In this series we’ll gather a collection of beautiful and stunning digital art, 3D Art, photo manipulations, digital illustration art, Drawing Art, Fine Art and Comic Characters design Inspiration. All artwork is collected from different Artist all over the world. | {
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Bingo.
Silver created this town of 10,000, its mines yielding 125 tons before closing early in the last century. We were enticed by the town’s history, its art scene, nearby cave dwellings, outdoor adventures, stargazing and 339 bird species in the national forest. Plus, chile-infused vodka.
We flew to Tucson and rented a car for the three-hour drive into southwest New Mexico. As we left the city behind, the landscape grew less cluttered — just the full-on open blue sky and ribbons of road beckoning to distant mountains. Our minds, too, began to untangle, and our spirits expanded.
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In Silver City, at 6,000 feet above sea level, we found a town that loves its history as much as it loves color and art, and combines all three in vivid murals. More than 20 galleries line the streets, and graceful hollyhocks brighten corner gardens. Outdoor art installations seem more common than traffic lights.
The historical district, which includes eight blocks along Bullard Street, calls for a slow walk. At one corner, mosaic murals cover the windows of the old Masonic Temple, telling local stories, about the Apache leader Geronimo; Billy the Kid, who grew up here; the Mimbres people, who left behind their distinctive pottery; and the Chinese who made a home here as miners and later as shop owners. These, and about 70 others in town, are the work of the Mimbres Region Arts Council Youth Mural Program.
Originally a program that paired at-risk kids with artists, the mural project also helped connect those kids to their community, said Diana Ingalls Leyba, a local artist and gallery owner who helped start the program in 2003. Now, students and adults throughout the city participate. Syzygy Tile, a local company, provides the clay (almost two tons already this year, said Syzygy owner Josh White ) and the glazes. The result is a city bursting with vibrant color and living history.
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A big part of that history involves a very large ditch that used to be the town’s main street. In July 1895, thunderstorms generated a 12-foot wall of water, which roared from the mountains into the town’s main thoroughfare, smashing hotels and stores, saloons and offices. Surviving businesses began operating out of their back doors, making Bullard the main street. The Big Ditch is now a park 55 feet below the rest of the town, where the San Vicente Creek flows by cottonwood trees and walkways. As we strolled, we spied one of the town’s newest mosaics, the story of the flood. To create it, school kids and residents formed clay pieces into hundreds of raindrops, lightning bolts, building facades, and the words of an 1895 newspaper account of the disaster, “The long prayed-for rain came and came in torrents . . . ”
Along with the public art, Silver City is full of galleries, including Wild West Weaving, focusing on textiles; Leyba & Ingalls Arts, representing more than a dozen artists; and the Blue Dome Gallery, featuring pottery, folk art and paintings. Those galleries and almost two dozen more are spotlighted during Red Dot Weekend at the Galleries every October.
In 2012, drawn partly by that active art scene, D.C. native Kyle Durrie moved her letterpress company to Silver City. “I kind of broke up with fine art 10 years ago,” said Durrie, 38, who runs Power & Light Press, which uses vintage presses. Her company went viral in early 2017 with a simple canvas tote bag in support of Planned Parenthood. Sales exploded, and proceeds in excess of $90,000 have gone to the organization, she said.
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For our anniversary getaway, we booked a room at Bear Mountain Lodge, a 1928 Pueblo-style guesthouse at the edge of the Gila National Forest that was built as a school for delinquents and is now owned by a group of artists. A quick drive from downtown, nestled in high desert dotted with pinyon, juniper and sage, the lodge offers 11 rooms and breakfast. During our four-day stay, we fed carrots to the resident horses, tracked the moon above our balcony and woke to the yipping of coyotes.
On our first morning, up before dawn, we hiked for two miles on Sunrise Ridge, one of three trails on the lodge property. Afterward, we enjoyed a bountiful breakfast: yogurt, homemade granola, bacon and French toast. We lingered over coffee, watching hummingbirds flit among several feeders on the sunny portico.
Linda Brewer and her partner, John Rohovec , are Bear Mountain’s majority owners. A potter who also owns a gallery in town, Brewer has filled the lodge with art: in the rooms and lobby, on the porticos and throughout the grounds — even the trails. The newest outdoor art here is One Million Bones, a powerful statement about genocide that was displayed on the Mall in 2013 and now has a permanent home in a meadow on the lodge property. It’s a work in progress: boxes upon boxes of bones — fashioned from clay by people all over the world — are still awaiting transport to the meadow. We joined the effort one morning, filling our backpacks with bones and trekking up a steep mile. We were not prepared for the vast, silent expanse of white. Skulls. Ribs. Femurs. Vertebrae. Some carefully arranged, others gathered in large piles. The bones seemed real, the meadow endless.
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On our second day, we drove 45 miles north on a winding state highway, part of the 93-mile Trail of the Mountain Spirits . The trail hits 10 sites, including a Geronimo memorial — the legendary leader was born nearby — an open pit mine and the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. We climbed a switchback trail to the caves, where, in the 13th century, the Mogollon (pronounced MUG-e-on) people turned them into rooms, using rock, mortar and wood. They stayed for only about 25 years — as long as our marriage has lasted, just a blink in historical time.
The inhabitants left behind pictographs, sooty ceilings, piles of 700-year-old desiccated corn cobs and original wooden beams. Core samples revealed the wood came from trees felled around 1280. As we started back down the trail, I recalled our recent trip to Poland, where we visited medieval castles — also built from rock, mortar and wood, also from the 13th century, also still (mostly) standing, reminding us of the commonality of disparate cultures.
Late that afternoon, we stopped in the old gold-mining town of Pinos Altos. We had heard about the Buckhorn Saloon, built in the 1860s, but we wondered whether we were in the right place. No people, no cars in a dusty parking lot. A weather-beaten adobe front, the painted name barely visible. Was this a ghost-town movie set? But inside — ah! The rich dark wood and mirror of an ornate back bar and welcoming leather-topped bar stools. Perched above was a mannequin gussied up in a red sequined bustier and elbow-length black gloves, a gun and a liquor bottle nearby. “All the old places used to be brothels,” bartender Terry Decanditis said.
It was 4 p.m. on a Monday, which explained the empty parking lot. We sat at the bar, the better to talk to Decanditis and watch as our food was prepared in the kitchen. Michael raved about his 16-ounce New York strip, perfectly medium rare and smothered in Hatch green chile sauce — the green chiles grown in the nearby Hatch Valley are a state treasure. I settled on a Buckhorn burger. By the time we left at 6, the parking lot and the dining room were getting crowded.
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For our anniversary the next night, we chose farm-to-table Revel. The daily special of grass-fed meat from nearby Gila River Ranch was braised goat shoulder — lightly charred, amazingly tender, with roasted carrots, yogurt, figs and lemon preserves — all for $21. Those green chiles made another appearance in butter that came with our cornbread.
And still more green chiles! After dinner, we walked down Bullard to the Little Toad Creek Brewery, lured by the promise of Diablo Verde: green chile-infused vodka. Predictably, that vodka comes with a bite. We also tried the Little Toad Creek straight whiskey, which we thought needed more aging, as it was raw and sharp.
We had hoped to end our anniversary stargazing at the 3.5-acre Cosmic Campground, the first place in the northern hemisphere designated a Dark Sky Sanctuary. But it was 70 miles away, and we had no camping gear. Instead, we found our own semi-dark skies back at the lodge, where we used phone apps to identify Jupiter, Saturn — and finally Venus — high among the constellations.
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Venema is a freelance writer based in Baltimore.
More from Travel:
If you go
Where to stay
Bear Mountain Lodge
60 Bear Mountain Ranch Rd.
575-538-2538
Bed-and-breakfast lodging in 1928 Pueblo-style inn. Located 15 minutes outside of town, it is surrounded by hiking trails, labyrinths and lots of art, inside and out. Some rooms are pet-friendly. Rooms from $160.
Murray Hotel
200 West Broadway
575-956-9400
Built in 1938 as a luxury inn but shuttered for 25 years, the Murray was recently renovated with attention to its art deco roots and reopened in 2012. Continental breakfast included. Rooms from $84.
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Palace Hotel
106 West Broadway
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575-388-1811
An 1882 building just down the street from the Murray, the Palace was restored in Victorian style in 1990. A large painting of Jane Russell as she appeared in “The Outlaw” dominates the lobby, along with photos of historic Silver City. Continental breakfast included. Rooms from $58.
Where to eat
The Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House
32 Main St., Pinos Altos, N.M.
575-538-9911
Built in 1865, it boasts a century-old potbelly stove, a carved wooden bar and paintings that suggest its history as a one-time brothel. Green chiles served every which way — in stew or as a sauce on burgers and steaks. Entrees start at $19.
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Revel
304 N. Bullard St.
575-388-4920
Made-from-scratch, locally sourced food that’s creative, adventurous and yummy. Vegetarian and vegan offerings available. Entrees start at $18.
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Diane’s Restaurant & Parlor
510 N. Bullard St.
575-538-8722
A local favorite, Diane’s offers a varied and interesting beer list with local drafts. Menu items include Italian and Thai offerings. Lunch and dinner, plus a weekend brunch (try the Hatch Benedict, with a dose of Hatch green chiles for $12). Entrees start at $16.
What to do
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
26 Jim Bradford Trail, Mimbres, N.M.
575-536-9461
Drive 45 miles north of Silver City along the Trail of the Mountain Spirits (Highway 15) to see this mysterious and elaborate complex of rooms built into high cliff faces more than 700 years ago by the nomadic Mogollon people. Open daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission $10; free with senior lifetime pass, military pass or other federally issued passes.
Syzygy Tile
106 N. Bullard St.
575-388-5472
Named for a celestial phenomenon, Syzygy creates colorful and unique handmade tiles and mosaics. Free tours of the factory. Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Silver City Art Association
Multiple locations
Look for the large red dot with “ART” in white letters, and stroll more than 20 colorful galleries that line the town’s business district. The association’s annual Red Dot Weekend at the Galleries features tours of galleries, plus music, food and a fashion show. Every spring, the association sponsors a studio tour where visitors can meet local artists.
Silver City Museum
312 West Broadway
575-538-5921
Learn about Geronimo, the Apache chief born near the Gila River, and outlaw Billy the Kid, who grew up in Silver City as Henry McCarty. Artifacts from the town’s mining history, a collection of prehistoric Mimbres pottery, plus more than 20,000 photos documenting the history of Silver City. Open Tues.-Fri., 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Sat. and Sun. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Suggested donation $5.
Western New Mexico University Museum
1000 West College Ave.
575-538-6386
The university museum already housed the largest permanent display of historic Mimbres pottery in the world when in 2012 it received a gift of the distinctive black-and-white pottery excavated from a site in the Mimbres Valley. Visitors can’t see the collection until July 2019, as the museum is undergoing a $3.2 million renovation.
Gila National Forest and Gila Wilderness
3005 E. Camino del Bosque
575-388-8201
Gila National Forest includes the nation’s first wilderness area, established in 1924. Its 3.3 million acres offer backpacking, kayaking on the Gila River, mountain biking, horseback riding and natural hot springs. Hikers can connect to the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. Forest is open to the public all year except in extreme conditions. Office open Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. No fees for hiking and camping; other activities may require permits.
Information | {
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The Elysian Membership Program is a fantastic way to get involved in the Elysian community. The three-tiered reward program incentivizes members of the blockchain community to contribute to the Elysian vision. Users will have the ability to receive customized rewards. Elysian emphasizes community engagement and growth, which is something the cryptocurrency market lacks. Many projects in the space are solely concerned with raising money and their tokens are strictly speculative investments; this is a detrimental way to operate.
Community engagement is an integral part of success for companies in any industry. Elysian allows participants to communicate directly with the team in various ways in the Membership Program:
Access to the VIP Telegram Group
Paid access to the annual Elysian Summit
Access to the quarterly online meeting
Through these methods, Elysian strives to build a sense of community that is scarcely evident in the current industry. Contributors are arguably the most important aspect of a blockchain project’s success. It is unreasonable to disregard this aspect and still expect to receive optimal support for company growth. Elysian combines this with their forum to not only provide community members with direct contact, but also ways to earn rewards by providing feedback on how to improve the project in its quest to be one of the most successful coins of 2018.
The Membership Program is broken down into three tiers:
Gold
30,000 ELY required Elysian Merchandise Package Access to the VIP Telegram Group
Platinum
300,000 ELY required Elysian Merchandise Package Access to the VIP Telegram Group Paid access to the annual Elysian Summit
Diamond
3,000,000 ELY required Elysian Merchandise Package Access to the VIP Telegram Group Paid access to the annual Elysian Summit First-Class airfare to the annual Elysian Summit Access to the quarterly online team meeting
The Elysian Membership Program differs from many other membership programs because the rewards are specifically designed to be unique and are unable to be bought by fiat currency. The element of exclusivity of aspects such as invitation to the annual summit appeals to community members since these are infrequent, intangible rewards. Members will feel comfortable with their integration into the community due to the availability of the team to be directly linked to its core supporters.
The program is a useful technique to incentivize contributors to hold ELY tokens and prevent market manipulation. This is a recipe for an active community and successful project. The primary objective of the Membership Program is to build the strongest community in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. Consequently, Elysian is poised to become an industry leader and provide a community growth model for future projects to emulate.
Direct interaction between the team and community builds a vital level of trust that is somewhat nonexistent in the space at this point. This is partially the reason that some outsiders are still skeptical of blockchain-related projects. This is one of the first large steps necessary to improve the overall trust level that is important in order for mass market adoption to occur for blockchain technology.
Important Links
Website
Telegram
Reddit
Twitter
GitHub
Disclaimers:
1. The merchandise package contains several items with Elysian branding and will be shipped at the end of July.
2. The Telegram VIP group is only accessible for gold, platinum and diamond rank investors who invested during the TGE.
3. Access to the annual Elysian summit will include a 5-star experience at our yearly event.
4. The following countries are restricted from participating in our membership program: United States, China, Canada, Iran, North Korea.
5. The required amount of Elycoins will vary with each of our TGE-stages.
6. Elysian reserves the right to change or cancel the promotion at any time if deemed necessary due to irresponsible behavior from participants or Force Majeure. | {
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Donald Trump’s first fundraising email wasn’t the hit that he claimed it was because nearly 60% of the emails he sent were automatically listed as spam.
Ad Age reported:
Nearly 60% of those first-ever fundraiser emails, however, never reached inboxes. Instead, they were automatically relegated to recipients’ spam folders, according to Return Path, which evaluates email campaigns using estimates based on its panel of 2.5 million active email users.
The email tracker also reported that just 12% of recipients opened the email, and 6% deleted it without reading it.
In May, 7.9% of the emails sent by the Trump camp were caught up in spam filters, according to Return Path. Even that nearly 8% spam rate is considered very high by industry standards.
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The Trump fundraising email was only sent to people who signed up to be on Trump’s mailing list a.k.a. supporters. The fact that only 12% of the recipients opened the email casts doubt on the campaign’s claims that they raised $3.3 million from a single email.
One of the reasons for Trump’s emails being listed as spam could be that Donald Trump’s sales pitch style of campaigning reads more like an ad for an online payday lender than a message from a candidate for president.
Trump is using sales techniques to run for president, which is why the spam filters are so confused. The filters can’t tell the difference between the Nigerian prince offering to send you $2 million and the Republican Party’s nominee for president.
Both the prince and Trump are running scams, and only a sucker would open an email from either of them. | {
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Fortnite for Android is getting very close to release, and we’ve already learned a lot about Epic Games’ plans for the game on Google’s platform. Now, an APK has leaked out early, and it reveals a few more details.
An APK for Fortnite obtained by an XDA Forums member (via XDA-Developers) reveals a few key details about the game’s release. To address the elephant in the room, no the APK doesn’t actually allow the game to be played on Android yet. As you can see in this video, an error message occurs during the set up process, not allowing users to actually access the game itself.
Version 5.20 of Fortnite for Android reveals firstly that Samsung’s exclusivity period with the game may also initially include the recently launched Galaxy Tab S4. We first reported last month that the Galaxy Note 9 would have a 30-day exclusive on Fortnite, but these strings hint that the Tab S4 may also be able to play the game during that time period. The game will apparently be downloadable on all recent Samsung hardware during that time, but will only actually run on the Note 9 and Tab S4.
We also already know that Samsung may have worked out a 4-month exclusive on the game to its phones and tablets only. While the wider public release of the game is confirmed to skip over the Google Play Store, it may still arrive in Samsung’s own app store. Another set of strings in the leaked APK reveal that Epic is using Samsung’s in-app purchase API, hinting that it will likely be available through Samsung’s store.
For Samsung users, this could be a huge plus, as it would negate the need to sideload the APK and open the device up to security risks, as well as making updates a far easier process. Of course, take that will a grain of salt, as Epic’s stance on “middleman” app stores wasn’t just about the 30% cut Google takes. It’s largely expected that we’ll get some official information about the release later this week at Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9 event, so stay tuned.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news: | {
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The official Twitter account for the Magia Record : Puella Magi Madoka Magica Gaiden smartphone role-playing game announced on Tuesday that the game will get a manga adaptation by Fujino Fuji that will launch in the October issue of Hobunsha 's Manga Time Kirara Forward magazine on August 24. The manga will have a color opening page. The September issue of the magazine, which shipped on Tuesday, contains a preview for the manga.
The game's story, a spinoff of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime, takes place in the burgeoning city of Kamihama. Guided by a strange power, magical girls gather in this town and battle with a new power drawn from witches. Iroha Tamaki arrives in this town and joins other magical girls to search for her missing younger sister Ui. Before long, Homura Akemi also arrives in the town. "If I can understand the mystery of this town, maybe I can save Kaname."
The new character Iroha Tamaki (voiced by Momo Asakura ) becomes a magical girl with a wish to save her sister from illness. Madoka Kaname (again voiced by Aoi Yūki ) also arrives in Kamihama to search for her missing friend Homura.
The game launched for iOS and Android devices in August 2017. The game is inspiring a stage play adaptation that will run from August to September. The cast members are all members of the Keyakizaka46 idol group. | {
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As a young girl, Chelsea Clinton learned to keep secrets. But she also learned to call the Secret Service 'pigs.'
That's a claim from former White House florist Ronn Payne, retold in a new book based on interviews with more than 100 members of the presidential mansion's domestic staff.
As he walked into the second-floor kitchen one day, he saw Chelsea talking on the phone. A member of her Secret Service protective detail came in behind him to take the Clintons' only child to school.
'Oh, I’ve got to go. The pigs are here,' she told her phone pal, according to Payne – using a 1960s-era epithet for law enforcement.
'Faced with an angry agent who reminded her in no uncertain terms that it was his job to protect her, Chelsea replied: 'Well, that’s what my mother and father call you.'
Scroll down for video
'PIGS': Chelsea Clinton (right, in 1995) allegedly referred to the Secret Service with an offensive counter-culture epithet, and said she learned it from her parents
SHAME: Chelsea (center) accompanied her parents and their dog to the Marine One chopper in 1998, just a day after the president admitted to marital infidelities
Chelsea now shares leadership of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which wouldn't respond to questions about the 'pigs' episode
While the political world was focused Tuesday on Republican Rand Paul's presidential coming-out party, Politico published an excerpt of 'The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House.'
The book that could prove problematic for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state.
The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation did not respond to a request for comment about whether Payne's recollection is accurate. Chelsea now runs the family philanthropy along with her parents.
But that snippet from America's hidden history is just the tip of the iceberg.
Skip Allen, a Clinton-era White House 'usher' – a high-ranking butler – said in the book that Bill and Hillary were 'about the most paranoid people I'd ever seen in my life.'
'PITCHED BATTLES': Hillary (left, with the former president in August), once threw a 'heavy' object – believed by staff to have been a table lamp – across the room, Kate Andersen Brower writes in her new book (right)
Allen, who served under multiple presidents, told author Kate Anderson Brower that he preferred to work for first families he genuinely liked, rather than pretending he had warm feeligns for his employers.
'But we pretend very well,' he added.
Another usher, Chris Emery, found himself uncerimoniously fired for helping former first lady Barbara Bush with technical computer questions. He had taught her how to use a PC during President George H. W. Bush's one term in office.
When the Clintons saw a log of his calls, they feared he was leaking their secrets to the Bush clan – something he insists he never did.
'I was out of work for a year,' Emery says in the book. 'They ripped the rug right out from under me. You wonder what they'd do to someone who's really powerful.'
At the height of the sex scandal that saw Bill Clinton admitting he frolicked with intern Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, one White House maid was astonished to find the first couple's marital bed drenched in blood, according to Brower.
Explaining an injury, the president claimed publicly that he had 'hurt himself running into the bathroom door in the middle of the night.'
But one White House domestic told Brower that 'we’re pretty sure' Hillary 'clocked him with a book.'
DISPUTES: White House domestic employees said they heard Hillary 'clock him with a book' during the Monica Lewinsky scandal
'There were at least 20 books on the bedside table for his betrayed wife to choose from,” she writes, 'including the Bible.'
For at least three months in 1998, according to 'The Residence,' the leader of the free world 'slept on a sofa in a private study attached to their bedroom.'
'Most of the women on the residence staff thought he got what he deserved.'
For three or four months [Bill Clinton] slept on a sofa in a private study attached to their bedroom... Most of the women on the staff thought he got what he deserved Kate Andersen Brower
And Brower;s research surfaced White House residence staffers who described how the first couple sometimes got into 'pitched battles' during their eight years in Washington, 'shocking staff with their vicious cursing.'
Payne once came upon two butlers listening to a particularly aggressive dispute through a doorway. He heard Mrs Clinton yell: 'g*ddamn b*stard,' he told Brower.
Hillary subsequently threw a 'heavy' object at him, in Brower's telling.
'The first lady's temper was notoriously short' during the early months of the scandal, according to the book.
When Butler James Hall was serving tea and coffee during a reception for a foreign leader and another employee forgot to clear the china, she snapped
'You must have been staring into space!' he recalled Mrs. Clinton saying. 'I had to take the prime minister’s wife’s cup. … She was finished and looking for some place to put it.'
AFFAIR: Former White House staff revealed their secrets about daily life inside the presidential mansion, including how they knew Bill Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky (seen together) were sexually involved
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT: When Jackie Kennedy was away, a White House worker stumbled across her husband, John F. Kennedy (pictured, right, speaking to Marilyn Monroe in 1962), swimming naked in the pool with other women
Hall sais he wasn't asked back to perform his duties for a month.
Other presidents figure in Brower's book, including John F. Kennedy.
When then-first lady Jackie Kennedy was away at the couple's farm in Virginia, a White House worker apparently stumbled across her husband swimming naked in the mansion's pool.
And JFK was not alone: He was apparently joined by several female White House secretaries. Naked women were also sighted on the second floor of the building when Mrs. Kennedy was away.
Other revelations in the book include Jimmy Carter's sons' passion for bongs – their rooms were constantly filled with smoke – and their father's 'uncontrollable sobbing' after losing the election. | {
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"Looks like Tweedledum and Tweedledee coming, Boss," announced Stan as he looked out of the Model Garage's front window.
"Strangers to me," said Gus Wilson. He opened the door, admitting two men who were remarkably alike -- both middle-aged, rotund of face and figure, with pug noses and sandy eyebrows. They wore black windbreakers and hunting caps.
"I'm Mike Kessler," said one. "Got the electric fuel pump I ordered?"
"My name's Robbins," put in the other. "Grabbed a ride to bring you the trade-in on that rebuilt carb I phoned you about."
"Oh, yes," said Gus, "I've got 'em both."
He took a carton from Robbins and lifted out a two-barrel Rochester carburetor, stained and worn, but otherwise identical to a gleaming rebuild on the workbench.
"There's the new one," said Gus. "It's guaranteed. Know how to make the adjustments?"
"My friend doesn't know much about cars," said Kessler. "I'll check it out."
Gus produced another carton. "Here's your fuel pump, Mr. Kessler. You'll probably want to reroute your fuel line and mount the pump on the firewall."
"I know that," snapped Kessler. "Already bought the tubing and fittings."
"We're retired," added Robbins, " and like to do little jobs like this. Keeps us busy until hunting season. Six of us leave day after tomorrow in Mike's car and mine."
"Can't risk breakdowns in the back country," said Kessler. "My old Chrysler's in top shape except that the fuel-pump cam is worn. It doesn't move the pump full stroke, so I don't get enough gas at high speeds. Been getting vapor lock in hot spells, too. Going to an electric pump will kill two birds with one stone."
"Mike was a standards man on a Detroit assembly line," explained Robbins. "Isn't much he doesn't know about cars."
Gus nodded amiably and handed both men their bills. They paid and left.
"What's a standards man, anyway?" asked Stan. "Some kind of inspector?"
"Some kind of," returned Gus with a chuckle. "He's a time-and-motion man who keeps assembly-line workers on their toes."
The following afternoon a '63 Chevrolet V-8 limped into the shop. Low down on its grille a bulb glowed brightly. Gus recognized it as a running light, favored by some drivers on the theory that it makes a car in motion more noticeable. The bulb winked out as the driver cut the engine.
"I put that carb on this morning," said Robbins, climbing out. "Been trying ever since to get the engine to run smooth. It idles rough and hasn't any pep."
Gus opened the hood. "Did your friend help you set the idle-speed adjustment."
"No. He's laid up with something. Hope he'll be in shape for our trip tomorrow."
Gus asked Robbins to start the engine again. It ran at a rocking, uneven idle. Making certain the automatic choke was open and the manifold valve in the "heat-off" position, Gus cautiously turned the two idle-mixture screws. The roughness persisted at every setting.
"Did it idle all right with the old carburetor?" he asked, cutting the engine.
"Yes. Ran okay too, except at high speeds. Then it sometimes missed. Didn't have pep for passing, or on hills. That's why Mike suggested a new carburetor."
Might be a fouled plug, or worn points, Gus mused, but the obvious thing to check first was the installation of the rebuilt carburetor. He got a 1/2" wrench and pulled on two of the mounting nuts, noting that the new gasket was in place. The nuts were tight. He tried a third, leaning lightly on the carburetor with his other hand.
Had it moved? Gus tugged at the carb. It did seem to give a trifle. When he pushed, it moved a fraction of an inch. Moving up the droplight, he peered at the nuts.
"I tightened those good," said Robbins.
"They are tight," agreed Gus. "But the carb's loose. How about the washers?"
"The ones that were under those nuts? One was split, and they weren't lock washers, so I figured they didn't really do much. I chucked them out."
Gus went to the stockroom, returning with four flat, copper-hued washers.
"You see," he explained as he unscrewed the nuts to place a washer under each, "these stud threads stop a little above the carburetor-mounting flange. When you tightened the nuts, you ran out of threads before they pinched down the flange. That left the carburetor loose enough to draw air in at the joint."
Gus retightened the nuts evenly, then started the engine. With slight adjustments of idling mixture and throttle stop screws, it idled smoothly. Robbins apologized profusely before he drove out.
"You shipped out Tweedledee," called Stan, "and Tweedledum's on the blower."
"Looks like that fuel pump you sold me is no good," said Kessler brusquely on the phone. "Better bring me a good one. I can't come for it -- the car won't run."
"I don't often sell those," replied Gus, "so I checked that one myself. It works."
There was a long silence.
"You better come -- but not in a tow truck," begged Kessler. "I don't want my wife to think I'm running up a big bill."
On the way -- in his own car -- it occurred to a mystified Gus that Kessler had made a quick recovery from being "laid up."
Inside the garage at Kessler's stood a big Chrysler. The owner emerged from behind the open hood, perspiring heavily.
"Now watch," he said. He got in the car and turned the key. The electric pump chuckled several times before the engine caught. "Now try to drive it off."
Gus got in, put the car in gear, and let out the clutch. The engine coughed. Gus eased the clutch back, revved up a bit more. With an enormous pop, the engine died.
"I've blown out the filter, checked the ignition, cleaned the line," said Kessler. "It has to be the pump!"
"Does sound like it isn't getting gas," said Gus, noting the gauge read "full."
"I've got to meet the fellows at six a.m. tomorrow," said Kessler desperately.
Under the hood, Gus saw that the fuel-pump opening in the block was neatly blanked off. The firewall where the pump was mounted had been scraped clean for a good ground. New tubing ran from the pump to the carburetor, and to the flexible hose coupling on the tank line.
Maybe an air leak on the suction side? Gus opened the joint at the pump, saw that the brass gland was in place, and retightened the nut.
A wire was securely fastened to the pump terminal. Its other end was attached to one terminal of the ignition coil, which had a secured wire on it as well. Gus disconnected the pump wire there.
"Got another pump in stock, or can you get one in a hurry?" asked Kessler.
"Won't have to," returned Gus. He ran the wire he had disconnected to the ignition resistor, fastening it to the terminal that received current from the switch.
"Now, you try it," he told Kessler.
Again the pump chuckled before the engine fired up. Putting the transmission in gear, Kessler revved the engine. The car rolled halfway out of the garage as he let out the clutch. Hastily he drove back in.
"Well, it runs," he confessed grudgingly. "Why change the wiring? There's plenty of juice at the coil -- enough for the whole ignition system."
"But not enough for the pump, too," said Gus. "In a 12-volt system, the coil gets full voltage only at starting. With the key at 'run,' a resistor gets into the act, cutting down voltage to save the points."
"But I hooked up a running light there once. You couldn't see any difference in its brightness," Kessler insisted.
"A fuel pump's more critical," explained Gus. "Getting juice through the resistor, at less than 12 volts, it was so starved for current it could only deliver enough gas for idling. Any time you opened the throttle, the engine simply ran out of gas.
"It's mighty tempting to connect accessories to that coil terminal, especially if you want them switched on automatically whenever the engine is running. But they won't get full power. Besides, there's an even more important reason not to use that coil as a terminal board."
Kessler paid without demur.
"Call me when Tweedledee shows up, Stan," said Gus, back at the Model Garage.
Robbins drove in an hour later. "That miss is still there," he complained.
Gus got out is plug-testing oscilloscope and hooked its four leads to the battery, the center distributor tower, and one spark-plug cable.
With the engine running, he adjusted the instrument until an eight-spiked pattern steadied on the tube.
Then he pulled one cable off its plug and sped up the engine. The corresponding spike lengthened, but didn't reach the top.
"Spark voltage is low," said Gus, cutting the engine. "Be fixed in a jiffy."
He disconnected the extra wire he'd expected to find on the coil terminal and hooked it up to the ignition resistor's switch side. The lagging trace on the scope rose to the top of the tube face.
"You have full ignition voltage now," Gus remarked. "That should end your high speed miss. It was only a bum connection."
"You fixed that car this morning," remarked Stan after Robbins left. "How come you expected friend Tweedledee back?"
"Something Tweedledum told me. He had connected his pal's running light through the ignition resistor, same as he did his own fuel pump, which didn't work. The bulb did, but it draws enough current to drop voltage to the coil about 15 percent. That reduced spark voltage -- say, from 25,000, to about 22,000, volts. At high speed or heavy load, when compression is up, the reduced voltage didn't fire reliably."
"Kessler thinks he's a car expert!"
"He went all out to keep Robbins from knowing about his pump trouble -- told him he was sick, asked me to come in my own car. He just couldn't stand losing face."
"I'd like to see his face," snorted Stan, "when his buddy tells him how he goofed."
"He won't," said Gus, grinning. "I never told him. Why spoil a hunting trip?"
END | {
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Romantic honeymoon… in London?
Do you consider London to be an official city ? I think you don’t. Otherwise you are mistaken. London is a unique city and is known not only as a magnificent capital. It is interesting for many things. And if you want your honeymoon vacation to be memorable, don’t waste your time!
Tourists come to this majestic city from all over the world . Honeymoon resorts are very attractive . You can enjoy yourselves in different luxurious restaurants and cafes. Sport grounds and gyms, pools and special training centers with super facilities.. .
The best thing about London is the parks. There are five of them in the city center. Parks of London are those places where Londoners and visitors can escape from the noise of the city streets and relax under the canopy of park bushes and trees.
In London one meets the past and the present, the old and the modern. Perhaps one cannot but visit the oldest part of the city – the City itself. Only 10 thousand people live here, but in the daytime millions of people come here. You can be convinced of having a lot of lovely conversations between you and Londoners, because they are great talkers. Be sure, you’ll make friends here!
Nothing can take you from going shopping. Don’t forget to visit such shops as Harrods, Marks and Spencer, where you (for sure) will buy everything you have dreamt about. Cheap honeymoon packages will be fantastic for you if you stay in one of the honeymoon resorts of London.
Have you already decided where to go for honeymoon? If you’ve not made your decision yet, think about London! | {
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Some parents of a Connecticut high school were upset when first daughter Ivanka Trump made an unannounced visit to the school. HLN's Robin Meade has the story. | {
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Is Paris trying to copy London or something? There’s new evidence that the French capital has caught London’s skyscraper bug, at least. Yesterday, the Conseil de Paris approved the first tall tower to be built within the city since 1973, ending the longstanding habit of banishing them to the outlying Défense district in order to keep inner Paris’s late-19th-century appearance intact.
The just-approved 180 metre (600ft)-high Tour Triangle – a glass pyramid already being dubbed “the Toblerone” – is no one-off either. This May, the foundation stone was laid for the stacked slabs of Renzo Piano’s new 160 metre (525ft)-high Palace of Justice. On Paris’s south-eastern edge, leaning twin towers designed by Jean Nouvel are planned for completion in 2020, sticking up like two metal fingers over the Seine quays.
Business-friendly sections of the French press have looked wistfully at London, with its forest of new towers
Meanwhile, in the city’s heart, a controversial plan was voted through this June for a (lower, but scarcely less striking) revamp of the historic Samaritaine department store, with a new translucent facade that resembles a “giant shower curtain”. While these projects are mostly on the fringes of the inner city, they still suggest that Paris’ days as a bastion of architectural conservation and micromanaged preservation might be over.
Those days won’t be mourned by everyone. For decades, there has been talk of Paris as a ville musée, an architectural showcase whose 19th-century appearance has been fixed as immutably as an insect trapped in amber: intricate, gorgeous – and dead. The more business-friendly sections of the French press, meanwhile have occasionally looked wistfully across to London, with its forest of new towers, its open doors to big money – even its rather less demure nightlife – as an example of a city truly embracing the 21st century.
Paris councillors back plan for first new skyscraper in 40 years Read more
Is this really fair? Certainly the immaculate preservation of inner Paris seems to have gone hand in hand with an indifference to anything further out. Looking at the noxious sprawl around the city’s péripherique ring road gives the impression of a city that has turned itself smugly inward. The truth is that, following the unpopularity of the early 1970s Tour Montparnasse, Paris hasn’t yet built towers in its centre partly because it doesn’t really need them. Built consistently up to heights of four to six storeys, inner Paris is already one of the most densely populated spots in the western world. The city proper has a density of over 21,500 people per square kilometre within its narrow limits, while the suburbs of Levallois-Perret, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais and Montrouge are denser still. Nowhere in any UK city comes remotely near this. Britain’s closest equivalent is the London borough of Islington, which comes in at a mere 13,886 residents per square kilometre.
Paris is currently trying to up this residential density yet further, while largely sticking within its current height limits. The city has partnered with France’s national railways SNCF and the city transport body RATP to build 2,000 homes (50% for social rent) on unused railway land within Paris proper, part of a projected (if ambitious) plan for 10,000 new flats every year. By 2020, the city also plans to have converted 250,000 square metres of office space into homes, much of it in under-used Haussmann-era buildings originally built as residences. Add to all this plans to keep the city affordable by introducing rent controls next month and the bold move of allowing skyscrapers within Paris comes to look like a bit of a sideshow.
Seen in this light, London’s current yen for building office and luxury housing towers isn’t a sign of a city leading the way towards true modernity. London’s tower frenzy is essentially a way to counteract years of building low. It’s a pathetically misguided attempt at that, presented as essential for a growing city but actually doing almost nothing to ease the city’s acute housing shortage for anyone but the rich. Admittedly, a few shiny glass insertions into the Paris skyline may make the city look a little different – and more London-like – when seen from high up. But it’s London that needs to get real and catch up with Paris, not the other way round. | {
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Contemplative Rubio. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
Let’s not beat around the Bush (vague, lazy pun intended): The No. 1 reason that Marco Rubio is considered one of the front-runners for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination is that he’s Hispanic. Yes, he’s a good speaker and he’s adorable and he has accomplished … something, presumably, as a senator, but what sets him apart from the rest of the pack is that, theoretically, his appeal to Hispanic voters makes him a more viable general election candidate. As of now, however, when he’s matched up against Hillary Clinton, Rubio’s pull with Hispanics barely nudges the dial.
According to a (caveat: very, very early) Quinnipiac poll, 60 percent of Hispanic voters would support Clinton in 2016, compared to a mere 24 percent for Rubio. Chris Christie, who is not Hispanic, pulled in 23 percent of the Hispanic vote to 62 percent for Clinton. So Rubio only improved upon Christie’s share of the Hispanic vote by three percentage points, which is not nearly enough to make up for his much weaker support among independents. As it now stands, current party pariah Chris Christie is obviously the GOP’s best shot at defeating Clinton.
The silver lining for Rubio is that there’s still plenty of time for his standing with Hispanics to improve — if, for example, he ends up playing a central role in enacting comprehensive immigration reform. Also, Hillary Clinton won’t necessarily run for president. (But she will.) | {
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“People with low or moderate incomes do not get the same medical attention as those with high incomes. The poor have more sickness, but they get less medical care,” so said the president of the United States in a message to Congress.
No, that wasn’t President Donald Trump in 2020. It was President Harry Truman in 1945, laying out his plan for a national health insurance program and starting a debate that continues today, more than 70 years later. Shortly after Truman’s proposal, Republicans gained control of Congress and, along with the powerful American Medical Association, quashed any prospects of national health insurance.
President Dwight Eisenhower provided tax credits to businesses that offered insurance to their employees. This corporate welfare, sending taxpayer money to private insurance companies, laid the foundation for the current system.
President John F. Kennedy pushed for single-payer health insurance for older Americans, but, again, the AMA defeated it. In a 1961 debate between United Auto Workers union president Walter Reuther and Dr. Edward Annis, a spokesman for the AMA, Annis argued: “This, sir, is socialism, whenever the government provides for the people, whether they need it or not, and it calls the terms under which this provision is made. This is socialism.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson won a landslide victory over Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964. His electoral mandate enabled him to push through legislation creating Medicare and Medicaid.
Johnson signed the bill in Truman’s home in Independence, Missouri, and less than a year later he hand-delivered the first two Medicare member cards to President Truman and his wife, Bess. Medicare and Medicaid have proven to be among the most successful and popular government programs in U.S. history.
Which brings us to today. Central to the Democratic party’s pitched presidential nomination battle is single-payer health care, also known as “Medicare for All.”
Of the candidates remaining in the race, both Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren support Medicare for All. In the simplest terms, this would remove the eligibility age for Medicare, currently 65 years and older, making the benefits available to all.
Most other candidates support an expansion of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, while ex-Mayor Pete Buttigieg is promoting a hybrid, “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan.
When Sanders says, “I wrote the damn bill,” he’s referring to S. 1129, the Medicare for All Act of 2019. Warren is among 14 Senate Democrats who have co-sponsored the bill. Medicare for All would cover all residents of the U.S., including undocumented immigrants, from cradle to grave.
The medical journal The Lancet recently published an analysis of the bill from the Yale School of Public Health, describing the enormous savings and improved care that would result if enacted. The Yale study found that Medicare for All would save $450 billion annually, from current costs of just over $3 trillion (that’s trillion with a ‘T’).
Improved health care delivery would also save the lives of an estimated 68,000 people per year, people who die simply because they can’t afford to see a doctor.
In addition to costing less, overall health outcomes would improve, most notably for the 38 million currently uninsured people, and the additional 41 million people who are “underinsured,” prevented from accessing their insurance because of deductibles, co-pays, out-of-pocket expenses and so-called out of network costs.
Sanders is constantly asked on the debate stages if he would have to raise taxes to fund Medicare for All, then he’s denied enough time to provide a complete answer. As the Yale study explains, taxes would go up, primarily for the richest 1% of the population. But overall health care costs would go down. Individuals, families and employers would never have to pay a health insurance premium again. Co-pays, deductibles and other costs would be eliminated.
Single-payer health care would essentially put the U.S.’s for-profit health insurance corporations out of business, cutting hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful overhead and profit-taking. It would also allow the U.S. government to negotiate pharmaceutical costs, which it currently is legally barred from doing, saving tens or hundreds of billions more.
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released results of national polling on single-payer health care, which found that more than half of Americans support such a plan. Among Democrats, the support jumps to 87%.
The United States health care system currently costs twice as much per capita as any other industrialized country. Yet, health outcomes are worse, with the U.S. ranking lower than over 30 other countries, with higher rates of infant mortality and lower life expectancy.
From Canada to Costa Rica, universal health care is a reality. Perhaps when the reality TV show of the U.S. presidential election is over, sensible national health policy can become a reality here, too. | {
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chinese hackers who used a previously unknown iPhone security flaw to target ethnic minority Uighurs also went after Tibetans in exile, according to a report published on Tuesday.
It was the first detected use of malicious software against exiled Tibetans that required only a single click on a mobile device to work, said Citizen Lab, a Canada-based academic research group.
Citing the technical similarities in the attacks and ones uncovered by U.S. tech firms against Uighurs, the report suggested that forces likely working with the Chinese government may be upgrading their surveillance efforts against key minorities more broadly. The Tibetans are protesting Chinese rule of the mountainous region inside China.
Asked in Beijing about the report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China resolutely opposed and cracked down on any form of internet attacks, and that any accusations needed to be backed up by cast-iron proof.
Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto, said it had worked with the recently established Tibetan Computer Emergency Readiness Team (TibCERT), a coalition of Tibetan organizations working on digital security, to probe cyber attacks that occurred between November 2018 and May 2019.
In the attacks, people posing as human rights workers or journalists contacted unnamed senior figures in Tibetan groups over Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service, according to screenshots featuring their phone numbers posted in the Citizen Lab report. Reuters was not able to independently confirm the authenticity of the screenshots or details of the report.
Among the groups targeted in November 2018 were the private office of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Parliament, and human rights organizations, the report said.
Using well-crafted cover stories, the attackers tried to entice the targets to click on links to websites that would have installed spyware on Apple or Android devices, the report said.
Eight of the 15 Tibetans known to have received the tainted links recalled clicking on them to open them, the researchers said. All their devices were protected by patches that had been issued for the security flaws, but the researchers followed the links themselves to determine what would have happened.
Citizen Lab said the spyware aimed at the Tibetans had also been used to target Uighurs, a mostly Muslim minority group considered a possible security threat by Beijing, in two campaigns revealed in the past month. One was discovered by Google, and another by security company Volexity.
An Apple spokesman said the company had consulted with Citizen Lab and confirmed that the attack tools would not have worked against the Tibetan targets who had updated their iPhones.
“We always encourage customers to download the latest version of iOS for the best and most current security enhancements,” said spokesman Todd Wilder.
China is facing growing international criticism over its treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang. It has repeatedly denied involvement in cyber attacks or any mistreatment of the Uighur people.
Although lead Citizen Lab researcher Bill Marczak said Citizen Lab found “a very clear nexus with China,” he acknowledged that “it doesn’t automatically mean it’s the government, it’s kind of hard to say from a technical point of view.”
Lobsang Gyatso, secretary of TibCERT, said that the group would use the report to spread awareness of hacking tactics and promote better defense. | {
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With #BirdOfTheYear off to a flying start, science communicator Ellen Rykers investigates how some of our native birds could be affected by climate change.
We all know that climate change threatens the existence of the polar bear. Haunting images of one balancing on thin ice means it has become the poster child for melting ice and a warming world.
But while the plight of polar bears is sad, their story doesn’t quite connect with life on our South Pacific archipelago. Here in little old New Zealand, we’re more likely to hear about rising sea levels inundating cities, and changing weather patterns affecting agriculture. Aside from humans, there is an array of unique New Zealand wildlife that is threatened by climate change.
We don’t know exactly how climate change will affect each species in the future, but scientists can make some pretty good predictions based on what we know about ecology, how our planet’s systems function, and historical changes.
So while we’re out here celebrating our fabulous native birds, let’s spare a thought for those of our feathered friends facing immense challenges as our Earth changes. Forget polar bears for a sec, and get up to speed with the climate stories of these five native birds:
1. Albatross (toroa)
New Zealand is the seabird capital of the world, with few as majestic and breathtaking as soaring albatrosses. Fourteen different varieties make their home in the New Zealand region. This includes the famous mainland breeding colony of toroa/northern royal albatross, at Taiaroa Head near Dunedin.
Rising temperatures threaten this particular colony. Here, the sheltered conditions create a ‘hot spot’ where ground temperatures can reach 50 °C. The extreme heat forces nesting albatrosses to stand up as they desperately try to cool off, leaving their chicks vulnerable to fly strike and their eggs prone to overheating.
The climate-related problems continue as albatrosses head out on the wing in search of food. These ocean wanderers spend 85% per cent of their time at sea, but now they have to travel further to forage.
Food availability is shifting with the changes in ocean circulation, rising sea surface temperatures, and ocean acidification. Will albatrosses remain ‘large and in charge’ above our wide oceans, or will climate change get the better of the original ‘Big Birds’?
2. Rock wren (pīwauwau)
These tiny feather-spheres spend their days hopping from boulder to rock in the mountains of New Zealand. Dwelling exclusively above the tree line, between 900 and 2,500m above sea level, rock wrens are our only ~true~ alpine birds.
Under a climate change regime, New Zealand’s alpine habitats are predicted to shrink by up to 80 per cent as the tree line marches upwards. This leaves rock wrens without much of a home, and their limited flight ability suggests they’re not able to easily move house.
More worrying, however, is the prospect of increased predation. The alpine zone has cool weather with plenty of rain and snow, which has limited the ability of rats and stoats to eat rock wrens. Warmer temperatures will increase the range of these predators – which could spell disaster for our tiny avian mountaineers.
3. Black stilt (kakī)
Kakī are the ultimate ‘All Blacks’ with a heartwarming comeback story. In 1981, there were just 23 kakī left. Today, these avian supermodels remain critically endangered, but there are now 103 wild birds strutting their stuff down the braided river-runways of the Mackenzie Basin.
As kakī nest along the rocky beds of braided rivers, their eggs and chicks are vulnerable to 4WD hoons, predation by introduced mammals, and spring floods. Many river edge habitats have been altered, leaving the kakī with no option but to breed on islands in the braided rivers, making their offspring even more susceptible to floods. Spring flooding is expected to increase under predicted climate change scenarios, adding to the strains of this struggling species. Will kakī get the happy ending they deserve, or will they succumb to the rising floodwaters?
4. Rockhopper penguin
These fierce tubsters sport a spiky hairdo that screams ‘This is not a phase, mum. This is who I really am.’ Of course, if your species’ population had declined by 94 per cent since the early 1940s, you’d probably be emo too.
Eastern rockhoppers are at home winging underwater, but when they visit the subantarctic islands to breed, they scale rocky slopes with their stumpy legs as if they were Alex Honnold free-soloing El Capitan.
There’s no single explanation for the precipitous decline of rockhoppers, but scientists reckon that climate change has a major role to play. Specifically, warmer oceans lead to reduced food abundance, especially at key times in their breeding and moulting phases, which eventually leads to fewer punk-rock penguins.
5. Bar-tailed godwit (kuaka)
The understated appearance of the bar-tailed godwit disguises their insanely badass feats of endurance. Every year, 75,000 of these speckly shorebirds fly non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand: a journey of around 12,000km completed in just eight or nine days.
But at every stage of their epic migration, bar-tailed godwits face new challenges thanks to climate change. In Alaska, the advancing tree line threatens to invade their tundra breeding habitat. The seasonal emergence of invertebrates may also change, disrupting their breeding strategy where eggs hatch just as insect food supply peaks. Climate change may alter wind patterns, which underlie the godwits’ migration strategy across the Pacific.
Here in New Zealand, the greatest climate change threat to godwits comes from rising sea levels. In normal conditions, intertidal ecosystems would adjust naturally by forming further inland. However, we humans like to live around estuaries, and we don’t like to move. Instead of creating space for the habitat to shift inland, we’re likely to build barriers and infill encroaching wetlands, squeezing out our godwit neighbours. Will we leave anywhere for these avian marathoners to live?
It can be disheartening and overwhelming when we learn about the plight of our precious native birds. But it’s important to remember that saving our birds means more than just trapping predators and planting trees. Although these actions are fantastic, we’ll need to fight for real climate action if we want to see our nature thrive. | {
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Number of Russian citizens applying for refugee status in the United States reaches a record high Thursday, May 3, 2018 7:00:42 PM
The number of asylum applications by Russian citizens in the United States hit a 24-year high in 2017, jumping nearly 40 percent from the previous year, as reported by Radio Liberty. Applications have been increasing since the return of Vladimir Putin to power in Russia in 2012.
The US government received 2,664 new asylum applications from Russian nationals in fiscal year 2017 ending on September 30, which was a 39-percent increase compared to 2016. The 2017 figure is more than double the number of first-time applications by Russians since 2012. It also eclipsed the previous high set in 1994 when 2,127 Russian asylum seekers applied for the first time.
Human rights activists and immigration attorneys say the surge in the number of Russian asylum applications in the United States has been driven in part by the 2013 law concerning sexual minorities, which banned "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors.
Successful applicants must demonstrate "persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."
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The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) announced Thursday it endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a major blow to rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.
AFGE is the largest federal workers union in the country with 670,000 members. Union leadership conducted a poll finding the vast majority of members support Clinton. The endorsement is the latest in a surge of union support going to Clinton over Sanders. AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. believes Clinton will help to strengthen the federal workforce.
“Secretary Clinton shares AFGE’s vision for a strong and vibrant government workforce that has the necessary tools and support needed to deliver vital programs and services to the American public,” Cox says in a statement. “The American people count on government employees to keep their streets safe, deliver their Social Security checks on time, and care for our nation’s heroes at veterans’ hospitals, and AFGE can count on Hillary Clinton to help us get it done.”
Clinton struggled early on to gain traction with the labor movement. She lost favor with many unionized workers for her opposition to the Keystone Pipeline and her hesitance to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Unions, especially local, seemed more keen on Sanders, but that all changed when Biden announced Oct. 21 he would not be running. The move allowed Clinton to acquire major unions fearful that Sanders is not a viable candidate.
AFGE is not the biggest union to endorse Clinton, she won her biggest union endorsement Nov. 17 from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Unions are powerful political forces because of their ability to mobilize crowds and they also contribute heavily into political campaigns.
Sanders has still been able to gain a lot of union support. Labor for Sanders held rallies across the country in support of the Vermont-Democratic socialist. It includes several local chapters of the SEIU as well as other unions. The coalition has since condemned SEIU leadership for endorsing Clinton.
Though the coalition consists mostly of local unions, American Postal Workers Union, United Electrical Workers and National Nurses United also joined in. Former Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen is helping to lead the group.
Clinton was also able to secure support with The American Federation of Teachers back in July and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in August. Despite his own union’s hesitance toward Clinton, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a memo to the leaders of associated unions in July telling them not to endorse Sanders.
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It’s a story that has dominated mainstream media over the last few weeks, and it shows no signs of slowing down either.
Although many claim it was common knowledge anyway, WWE fans are making a strong case for the company to release current SmackDown LIVE commentator, John Bradshaw Layfield.
BULLYING CLAIMS
Stories about his apparent bullying have been circulating online for years but now it seems as if fans are determined that WWE takes action, mainly because of the situation surrounding Mauro Ranallo.
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Sources such as the Wrestling Observer have claimed that JBL’s comments towards Ranallo – who suffers from bipolar disorder – triggered a bout of depression, and it’s why we haven’t seen him on WWE television for a few weeks now, and probably won’t as his contract expires in August.
Although nothing factual has emerged about that, he hasn;t exactly shot down those claims, so what else are people supposed to believe?
Many are starting to believe that is the case because of some incidents former WWE writer Justin Roberts shared in his new book, and JBL has also started to take action on Twitter on the whole matter.
He’s blocking anybody that criticises him over the Mauro situation, while he’s also blocking that anyone that follows them both along with those that have tweeted support to Ranallo.
While all of this is going on, Mauro himself hasn’t spoken out about the rumours and confirmed what’s going on, although it’s clear by his tweets that he’s aware of what’s circulating – but there’s apparently a reason why he hasn’t spoken out yet.
KEEPING MAURO QUIET
According to F4WOnline, WWE is supposedly paying Mauro to keep quiet about the ongoing fiasco involving JBL, although an official settlement hasn’t been agreed at this point.
Dave Meltzer went on to note that the company is actively working on a settlement which will include a clause that will prevent Mauro from talking about the issues publicly – and his current contract with the organisation doesn’t allow him to participate in unauthorised interviews.
It’s a shame WWE has decided to take this stance rather than take appropriate action, with Jerry Lawler believing JBL will keep his job.
They even decided to escort a fan out of the arena on SmackDown this week as he held up a ‘JBL bullied me’ sign, so it’s almost as if they are turning a blind eye to it, and that doesn’t look good on them or their Be A Star initiative, which supposedly promotes anti-bullying.
It was quite convenient this week, though, that JBL toned down comments he makes to guys like Byron Saxton and James Ellsworth.
Fans won’t stop showing their support to Mauro - who will be commentating at the RIZIN MMA event this weekend - and this is a situation WWE probably won’t be able to brush under the carpet quickly.
What do you make of WWE reportedly paying Mauro Ranallo to not talk about the JBL situation? Have YOUR say in the comments section below.
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Even before Brett Kavanaugh was nominated Monday evening by President Donald Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court, activists in Alaska were urging that any nomination be carefully vetted.
A news conference outside the federal building in Anchorage, and then a demonstration at a downtown building that houses offices for Alaska’s two U.S. senators, focused on the role of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the appointment process.
Considered a moderate, Murkowski was urged at the news conference to carefully vet the new judge.
ACLU of Alaska on Monday concluded a “six-figure” television ad buy that urged her to demand that the nominated justice take a “clear public position” on abortion rights.
The right to an abortion has been the law since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark case Roe v. Wade. But abortion foes have urged the decision be overturned, and that could happen if the court’s ideology undergoes a significant shift.
At the news conference at the federal building, other issues besides abortion arose.
Native rights attorney Heather Kendall-Miller said subsistence could be at risk.
The Supreme Court, for instance, could throw out the precedent set in the subsistence fishing cases of elder Katie John, she said, because Katie John was the basis for an appellate court decision against John Sturgeon, the man cited by federal authorities for running a boat in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.
With the Sturgeon case accepted by the Supreme Court, a decision in his favor could reduce or eliminate subsistence fishing if rivers are determined to be subject to only state and not federal jurisdiction.
“If that decision is overturned, all the waters in the state will turn back to state management and we will see civil disobedience on a huge scale next summer as well as Native people coming out and contest the fact that subsistence should be a priority for rural Alaskans,” Kendall-Miller said.
Youth leader Emma Potter urged people to consider the future.
“This nomination will last for decades, long past the careers of those politicians in power today, and impact the lives and careers of my generation as the leaders of Alaska’s tomorrow,” Potter said, citing marriage rights for same-sex couples and immigration laws as other issues that the nominee could affect.
Retired Superior Court Judge John Reese said the new justice could rule on matters pertaining to the Pebble mining project near Bristol Bay.
Roe v. Wade, however, was the central focus of the demonstration, called by an organization called Indivisible.
More than 30 protesters milled in front of the entrance of Peterson Tower, the building on L Street housing the Senate offices of Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan.
While Sullivan has pledged a “rigorous” nomination process, Murkowski was the main target of the demonstrators.
Media accounts said she declined to attend the nomination announcement at the White House, and a statement she issued said she intended to review Kavanaugh’s past decisions and his writings.
Planned Parenthood issued a statement urging Murkowski to protect women’s rights.
“We are counting on Sen. Murkowski to stand up once again and ensure that people across the country, no matter their zip code or income, will have access to a full range of reproductive health care,” the organization said.
“She’s obviously one of the so-called moderates,” said demonstration leader Shoshanah Stone. “On one hand, she has said that she supports Planned Parenthood and women’s issues, but on the other hand she has voted for all the radical judges that have been put forward.” | {
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Lib Dem civil liberties minister Simon Hughes told Westminster today the British public had got the misleadingly named "Right to be Forgotten" ruling badly wrong – and queried why a report from the BBC's Robert Peston was "top of the pile" when Google began deleting entries from its search results.
Google has since restored the "deletions" it made last week.
Hughes urged Google to remind the public they had no "right" to get data removed just because they asked, and wanted Google to remind people of this. He also said he wanted Google to publish how many delink requests it turned down, in the hope people realised most would be unsuccessful.
However, Hughes said he would put the UK's weight behind moves to draft more Google-friendly legislation currently under discussion in Europe.
Hughes was speaking at the House of Lords' Home Affairs, Health and Education sub-committee session today about the consequences of the European Court of Justice's ruling that Google is not exempt from European data protection legislation.
Thanks to misleading initial reporting - for example by Channel 4 News and the BBC - this had led people to ask for information to be deleted from Google's search results for specific queries simply because they found it a bit embarrassing.
But this was flat out wrong, he told the committee.
"There is no Right given by the Justices for people to have their personal data deleted from search engine results - there is no new right. It was a very focused judgment and the phraseology is actually inaccurate, and gives it an unhelpful gloss," explained Hughes.
What many of the delinking applicants didn't realise, he said, was that the public interest, the right to know, had to be weighed up in any decision, either by Google at the first stage, or ultimately by the Information Tribunal.
"There's a right to request the information is removed - but this is not a right to have the request complied with… there is no 'Right to be Forgotten," said Hughes.
"This doesn't mean people who want a criminal conviction to be deleted are going to be successful; that's clearly unacceptable. And it's not just criminal records - somebody standing for public office who had done something in the past that might be thought to render them inappropriate for public office - there would be a public interest in the public knowing that, if it was factually correct.
"We need to get out the message out that this isn't what people think it should be."
The select committee MPs quizzing Hughes appeared to be as confused as anyone. This was particularly the case since the government (and the UK's information commissioner) support the CJEU ruling but oppose ex-Commissioner Viviane Reding's sweeping "Right To Be Forgotten", a measure that would attempt to see information obliterated from the internet.
Hughes said Reding's vision was not just impractical, but impossible, given the global nature of the internet.
"We think the 'Right To Be Forgotten' is wrong," said Hughes.
However the CJEU's narrow ruling was quite different, he said. It balanced the right to know and meant privacy "is not just the right of the rich and their expensive libel lawyers".
One peer, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, even cited figures for copyright takedown requests culled from Google's Transparency Report - a very large number indeed. (Don't worry. Faulkner also sits on three other Select Committees).
"This is clearly unworkable, isn't it?" he asked.
Breaking the internet
Google wants people to think European judges made a far-reaching decision that "broke the internet". But last week, the UK's Information Commissioner Steve Wood answered the Committee's questions [transcript] and said something similar to Hughes: that the "crisis" was synthetic, and he expected the number of requests to peak as people actually twigged what it was about.
"They have to be geared up to deal with those volumes, but we expect that the volumes will reach a peak as the awareness reaches a high level among members of the public. Over time it will become more routine."
"There will be some work to do to dispel the myths," said Wood.
So what should Google do? Hughes said it should be clearer about what the ruling entitled the citizen to ask for.
"Google should make it clear how many people they are turning down, as well as how many succeed. If people get the impression they are all succeeding, that will encourages others to think they might succeed.
"My plea to Google would be … to share the robust message that something about somebody's record cannot disappear because somebody requests it. The louder they say this, the better."
Hughes reminded peers that if Google declined a de-linking request, it was up to the citizen to appeal. The ICO could then decline it. Only then would a judicial procedure begin.
"I would hope and expect the majority would not be successful."
Hughes also wondered aloud why Google had de-linked to a BBC blog post by Robert Peston, and a selection of newspaper articles last week - which has since resulted in an embarrassing climb-down. A Committee peer wondered if Google's choice of a Robert Peston blog post was accidental.
"I'd better be careful what I say here," chuckled Hughes, who explained he had visited Google 10 days ago, when it had not yet processed a de-linking request.
"Mr Peston appeared to be on the top of Google's pile," he noted.
"That sort of series of events suggested to me that, quite understandably, people want to make sure their positions are known - and that they think the implications of the [CJEU] judgment might be a) extreme and b) it needs to be reined-in as soon as practically possible."
That's a diplomatic way of saying it could have been a PR stunt. Hughes continued:
"The judgment, however, is actually a very limited judgment."
Think of the startups
Hughes fell down in one area - when a peer worried that the CJEU ruling would have a disproportional impact on startups, such as a new search engine "in a garage in Newark".
This is something Google-funded lobby groups, such as one called Coadec, have advanced.
In fact, the CJEU explained its thinking in its ruling: Google has a massive reputational influence, it's ubiquitous in society, and is effectively republishing the same information over and over again. However a search engine with no users does not - and so could not be said to be invading anyone's privacy.
Hughes said he anticipated an increased workload for the ICO but then moving money around to meet demand would not create a crisis, remarking, "[D]iverting money is normal Government business."
He did offer Google a bone, promising to help it as new laws are written. (See our Special Report, here).
Google wants an exemption from EU privacy law - but even its own lawyers admit it doesn't have much of a chance, given the strength of feeling on data protection and privacy issues in Europe - and particularly in Germany.
"Google wants the law changed as quickly possible, and we will collaborate with them to achieve that. But we have to be careful - Google are an important company, but they're not the only company we have to look after," Hughes said. ® | {
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Whilst you are here?
We are asking those of you who are interested in Oxford Open Doors to help make sure that it can come back fully next year and for FREE.
Oxford Open Doors is your chance to get behind Oxford’s closed doors to celebrate our wonderful City as we invite you in to the colleges and university buildings together with a range of the City’s other varied and hidden heritage across gown and town.
The OPT team put together the programme and want to keep it free by raising the money needed to put it on with all the of work organising, health and safety, advertising, printed material, website etc.
Like many other charities Covid-19 has had a huge impact and we have seen our income fall, but we are determined to bring Oxford Open Doors back in 2021 and we are asking you to support so please JOIN now or DONATE.
‘Did you know OPT kept all our green spaces open for everyone to enjoy throughout the lockdown.’
Your support will mean that we can:
• Run Oxford Open Doors in 2021 and keep it free to everyone.
• Look after OPTs 1,000 acres of green space, making it publicly accessible, and all free of charge
• Help us to support local specialist heritage contractors working on heritage at risk.
• Help us to champion good design and planning at a time of pressure to change across Oxford/Oxfordshire.
• Support our education and outreach work for young people, including our award winning education scheme at Oxford Castle & Prison.
THANK YOU SO MUCH - knowing that we have your support means a great deal.
Donate
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Tybee Island beaches back open following governor's order Friday Governor Kemp's order reopens the state's beaches, despite the coronavirus. Share Shares Copy Link Copy
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BUSINESSES ARE BEING ASKED TO CONSIDER. YOU CAN FIND THAT INFORMATION ON OUR WEBSITE AT WJCL-DOT-COM. FOLLOWING CONFUSION OVER GOVERNOR KEMP'S SHELTER IN PLACE ORDER .. BEACHES ON TYBEE ISLAND ARE OFFICIALLY RE- OPEN. WJCL'S STEPHEN MOODY JOINS US NOW LIVE FROM TYBEE. STEPHEN WHAT'S THE REACTION TONIGHT FROM CITY LEADERS? MAYOR SHIRLEY SESSIONS IS NOT HAPPY WITH THE BEACHES REOPENING. SHE SAYS THAT SHE'S DISAPPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR'S DECISION. BEACHES ON TYBEE ISLAND HA BEEN CLOSED FOR WEEKS AFTER AN ORDER BY MAYOR SHIRLEY SESSIONS. HOWEVER, THE GOVERNOR'S ORDER OVERRIDES THAT. "WE ARE VERY, VERY DISAPPOINTED AS A COMMUNITY". MAYOR SESSIONS SAYS THE CITY DOESN'T HAVE THE RESOURCES TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF RESIDENTS WHO DECIDE TO VISIT THE BEACH. "TYBEE DOES NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO ENFORCE A SIX-FOOT SEPARATION AND LESS THAN 10 PEOPLE IN GATHERINGS. WE EXPERIENCED THAT IN MARCH. THAT'S WHY WE CLOSED THE BEACH. WE KNEW THAT WE WERE NOT PREPARED TO HANDLE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE". ACCORDING TO MAYOR SHIRLEY SESSIONS IS NOT HAPPY WITH THE BEACHES REOPENING. SHE SAYS THAT SHE'S DISAPPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR'S DECISION. BEACHES ON TYBEE ISLAND HAD BEEN CLOSED FOR WEEKS AFTER AN ORDER BY MAYOR SHIRLEY SESSIONS. HOWEVER, THE GOVERNOR'S ORDER OVERRIDES THAT. "WE ARE VERY, VERY DISAPPOINTED AS A COMMUNITY". MAYOR SESSIONS SAYS THE CITY DOESN'T HAVE THE RESOURCES TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF RESIDENTS WHO DECIDE TO VISIT THE BEACH. "TYBEE DOES NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO ENFORCE A SIX-FOOT SEPARATION AND LESS THAN 10 PEOPLE IN GATHERINGS. WE EXPERIENCED THAT IN MARCH. THAT'S WHY WE CLOSED THE BEACH. WE KNEW THAT WE WERE NOT PREPARED TO HANDLE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE". ACCORDING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, THE GOVERNOR'S ORDER OVERRIDES ANY LOCAL ORDINANCES. SO THERE'S NOTHING THE CITY CAN DO TO KEEP THE BEACHES CLOSED. MAYOR SESSIONS SAYS THE CITY IS ALREADY AT A DISADVANTAGE. SESSIONS SENT A LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE ASKING HIM TO RECONSIDER THIS ORDER. "WE HAVE FIVE POLICE OFFICERS WHO ARE SELF- QUARANTINED. ONE OFFICER IS BEING TESTED. WE FEEL THAT NOT ONLY ARE WE PUTTING THE COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC AT RISK, BUT ALSO OUR STAFF". AND NOW SHE'S PLEADING WITH EVERYONE ELSE. PLEASE STAY OFF OF THE BEACH. "DON'T COME OUT TO TYBEE IF YOU'RE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR HEALTH, OR YOUR FAMILY'S HEALTH, AND THE HEALTH OF THE COMMUNITY. WE'D LOVE TO HAVE THEM OUT HERE WHEN ALL IS SAFE. WE'RE ENCOURAGING OUR RESIDENTS TO STAY AT HOME. WE JUST HOPE THAT OTHER PEOPLE WILL TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS". THE MAYOR SAYS DUE TO TH TIMING OF THIS, THEY DIDN'T HAVE STAFFING AVAILABL FRIDAY TO TAKE DOWN THE SIGNS AT THE ACCESS POINTS. REPORTING LIVE ON TYBEE ISLAND, STEPHEN MOODY WJCL 22 NEWS. WHILE BEACHES ARE OPEN-- CHAIRS, TENTS, AND UMBRELLAS ON THE BEACH ARE BA
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It’s been more than 50 years since President John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Since then, hundreds of conspiracies surrounding the shooting have emerged--fueling debates over who was responsible, why it happened and more.
But with President Donald Trump’s promise to release the final batch of documents, which will be posted online Thursday by the National Archives, conspiracy theorists and historians alike could finally have answers to the questions they have long asked about that tragic day in American history.
The release comes 25 years after the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was signed into law, mandating the release by a specific deadline of all JFK files that are currently held by the government.
Here are three questions the JFK files could help answer:
Was there a second shooter?
Many conspiracy theorists believe that Oswald did not act alone.
Indeed, the theory -- better known as the “grassy knoll” hypothesis -- posits that another shot was fired from an area to the right of the president's motorcade. Conspiracists argue that Oswald, who was perched on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository with a Carcano Model 91/38 infantry rifle, could not have delivered such a fatal shot from that angle.
Shortly after the assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president, signed an executive order to create the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, more commonly known as the “Warren Commission,” named after Chief Justice Earl Warren, who led the panel.
Ten months after its creation, the Warren Commission found no evidence of a second shooter. However, to further investigate JFK’s murder and look into this theory, the House voted to establish a U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976, according to the Washington Post. The committee concluded that there was “probably” a second shooter on the grassy knoll.
Even one acoustical study, which analyzed two police channel recordings from that day in relation to a gunshot-like sound from the grassy knoll, concluded that “the gunshot-like sound occurred exactly synchronous with the time of the shooting.”
While both findings have been discredited -- forensic evidence convinced experts that this wasn’t true, historian and best-selling author Doug Wead told Fox News on Thursday -- conspiracists continued to grow the theory.
“It would be wonderful if this theory could be resolved-- hopefully we will see some of that in the documents,” Wead said, but added that this information may be redacted.
"Anybody who thinks this is going to turn the case on its head and suddenly show that there were three or four shooters at Dealey Plaza -- it's not the case,” Gerald Posner, the author of "Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK," told CNN.
Instead, the files could clarify exactly what happened after the first shots were fired.
What was Lee Harvey Oswald doing in Mexico City two months prior to Kennedy’s assassination?
Experts think that the some 3,000 documents could shed light on Oswald’s six-day trip to Mexico City shortly before Kennedy’s assassination.
While conspiracists argue that Oswald was ordered by Soviet or Cuban agents to kill Kennedy, especially because the one-time Marine defected to the Soviet Union, the same 1976 committee did not find any evidence of Soviet, Cuban or CIA involvement in his assassination, according to the Washington Post.
JFK ASSASSINATION FILES SET FOR RELEASE, BUT WHAT THEY REVEAL REMAINS A MYSTERY
Additionally, both the CIA and the FBI did not find any evidence of Cuban or Soviet involvement, according to the Post.
However, the most recent batch of JFK files, which were released in 1993, revealed that Oswald not only visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City in 1963, but also met with Valeriy Kostikov, a KGB officer who worked for KGB’s Department 13, which, according to a Washington Post article from 1993, is the “department charged with sabotage and assassination.”
What’s more, the documents could reveal that Oswald was a “false flag” used by the Mafia, Wead said.
In other words, if the documents reveal that someone from the Mafia was present during Oswald’s trip, it could add to the long-held theory that Oswald thought he was working on behalf of the Soviets but was actually recruited by the Mafia to kill Kennedy.
“I don’t think the documents will immediately reveal much. But my interest will be if there was a Mafia presence in Mexico City,” Wead said. “While I tend to not believe the Mafia theory, I would like to eliminate it.”
At one time, there was enough evidence to suggest that the Mafia had ties to Kennedy’s assassination to prompt the House Select Committee to hold the belief for a number of years. Eventually, however, the Committee rejected it.
The documents released Thursday could reveal what Oswald’s meetings in Mexico City entailed.
An inside job?
Some conspiracists argue that the CIA and even Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president, were behind the assassination.
While the House Select Committee on Assassinations also ruled out any CIA involvement, some conspiracists believe that the CIA was behind the assassination because they opposed Kennedy’s handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 -- a CIA-sponsored mission to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Other theorists argue that Oswald was set up by the CIA as a scapegoat.
Still, experts argue that the documents released Thursday will do nothing but challenge this theory.
“There’s going to be no smoking gun in there,” Posner told CNN of the documents.
“I rate this theory extremely low,” Wead said, adding that the possibility of a rogue organization within the CIA carrying out a task like this is highly unlikely.
“And to make sure that participants who knew about it retained the secret--I don’t see that happening,” he said.
Wead also discredited the theory that LBJ was involved.
Wead does believe, however, that Americans in the coming generations will have answers to JFK’s assassination.
“Much like how we now know more about FDR than we ever did before, I think we will eventually have the answers to JFK.”
But until then, “the mystery is always more seductive than the reality,” he said. | {
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Well one could argue that it was inevitable since Nintendo was the only one advertising a videogame and not a F2P whale trap. Plus, it was mainly a Zelda commercial, so much of the buzz was people asking "Wait is that a new system or what?" It was clearly meant to make people aware of the Switch more than purchase one on launch day. This will be a slow run-up to the Fall blitz alongside Mario to try and make it the hot Christmas item. | {
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Content originally published at iBankCoin.com
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Le Fly reporting to you live from his nuclear bomb shelter. I've been planning for this day all of my life. Ever since I was a baby, I knew the world would be destroyed by thermal nuclear detonations. It will be an ironic end to this perfidious way of living, with bombs raining down upon us by way of technology given to North Korea from our own government. But enough of that. We do not have time to blame one another for misdeeds. After all, this is the end. The world is ending and you're going to hell. At the front of this war is the tiny island of Guam. They'll be smoked inside 10 minutes flat. North Korea's MIRV guided missiles will turn that paradise into a literal hell, ssomething you might see while watching your favorite teevee show after a dragon attack. Here's the Congresswoman of Guam, Rep. Bordallo, chimping the fuck out on CNN. She thinks our THAAD interceptors can save her. Silly moron.
CNN is reporting LIVE from a nuclear bomb bunker in Hawaii, enlightening people to some very key pieces of information. For example, in the event of nuclear war, THERE WILL BE SURVIVORS.
'A lot of people on this island think if they're hit with a nuclear warhead that everyone is going to die. And the emergency folks here say THAT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. NOT TRUE. There will be lots of survivors.'
Watch.
GOOD NEWS FOR HAWAII. CNN is reporting 'there will be LOTS OF SURVIVORS' in the event of nuclear war. Hide in caves. pic.twitter.com/CiJxEtcop6 — The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) August 9, 2017
Full clip
This all comes in response to the President's very real threat, saying he'd rain 'fire, fury, and quite frankly power' down upon the heads of N. Korea -- if they so bothered to look at us sideways. N. Korea responded, in kind, suggesting they'd turn Guam into an ashtray.
It was nice knowing all of you. I expect N. Korea's missile guidance systems will veer off a bit, generously depositing nuclear missiles all across the US, including the Northeast corridor where I am presently domiciled. It was an honor and privilege to shit-post for you all of these years. As for the stock market, I expect it will trade up 0.3% tomorrow on this world ending news. | {
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A video posted online by Ahrar al Sham “suggests that at least three distinct rebel groups were involved in the attack in Malula,” Syria this week, The New York Times reports. In addition to Ahrar al Sham, al Qaeda’s Al Nusrah Front and a Free Syrian Army brigade from Homs took part in the fighting. But it is not clear “how closely they cooperated with one another,” according to the Times.
Malula is an ancient town northeast of Damascus and is known for its Christian population. The Times previously reported that the town is one of the few places left in the world where Aramaic is spoken.
Ahrar al Sham is an extremist rebel group that frequently fights alongside the Al Nusrah Front. The group posted at least two videos online showing its participation in the fighting in Malula.
In one of the videos, according to the Times, the cameraman says the attack was “coordinated” with the Al Nusrah Front.
Other videos posted by a Free Syrian Army brigade show its fighters also participating in the assault.
According to the Associated Press, the Al Nusrah Front launched the dawn raid on Sept. 4 when a suicide bomber “blew himself up at a regime checkpoint at the entrance to the village.” The rebels “seized the checkpoint, disabled two tanks and an armored personnel carrier and killed eight regime soldiers in” the fighting that followed.
The AP cited a Syrian regime official and the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) in its reporting on Al Nusrah’s role. Residents took sanctuary in a village convent.
Condemning Western intervention
Separately, an umbrella group of Salafi rebels led by Ahrar al Sham condemned any possible Western intervention. “The true goal behind this military operation – if it happens – is to achieve the interests of its perpetrators,” the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF) said in a statement released on its Facebook page. “This operation is a prelude to political projects that are imposed and connected to these interests,” SIF warned.
The SIF statement was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. The group goes on to stress the “obligation of unifying ranks” against Assad’s regime.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.
Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here. | {
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Record low daily Arctic ice extents continued through most of January 2017, a pattern that started last October. Extent during late January remained low in the Kara, Barents and Bering Seas. Southern Hemisphere extent also tracked at record low levels for January; globally, sea ice cover remains at record low levels.
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2017 averaged 13.38 million square kilometers (5.17 million square miles), the lowest January extent in the 38-year satellite record. This is 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) below January 2016, the previous lowest January extent, and 1.26 million square kilometers (487,000 square miles) below the January 1981 to 2010 long-term average.
Ice growth stalled during the second week of the month, and the ice edge retreated within the Kara and Barents Seas, and within the Sea of Okhotsk. After January 16, extent increased at a more rapid pace, but the rate of ice growth was still below average for January as a whole. For a few days towards the end of the month, the extent was slightly greater than recorded in 2006, a year which also saw many record low days in January, but by the 30th it was tracking below 2006. Through most of January the ice edge remained north of the Svalbard Archipelago, largely due to the inflow of warm Atlantic water along the western part of the archipelago. However, by the end of January, some ice was found to the northeast and northwest of Svalbard. At the end of January, ice extent remained well below average within the Kara, Barents, and Bering Seas.
Conditions in context
January air temperatures at the 925 hPa level (approximately 2,500 feet above sea level) were above average over nearly all of the Arctic Ocean, continuing the pattern that started last autumn (Figure 2b). Air temperatures were more than 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1981 to 2010 average over the northern Barents Sea and as much as 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in the northern Chukchi and East Siberian Seas. It was also unusually warm over northwestern Canada. Cooler than average conditions (up to 3 degrees Celsius, or 5 degrees Fahrenheit below average) prevailed over the northwest part of Russia and the northeast coast of Greenland.
Atmospheric circulation over the Arctic during the first three weeks of January was characterized by a broad area of below average sea level pressure extending over almost the entire Arctic Ocean. Higher-than-average sea level pressure dominated over the Gulf of Alaska and the North Atlantic Ocean south of Iceland. This set up warm southerly winds from both the northern North Atlantic and the Bering Strait areas, helping to explain the high January air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean. According to the analysis of NASA scientist Richard Cullather, the winter of 2015 to 2016 was the warmest ever recorded in the Arctic in the satellite data record. Whether the winter of 2016 to 2017 will end up warmer remains to be seen; conditions are typically highly variable. For example, during the last week of January, the area of low pressure shifted towards the Siberian side of the Arctic. In the northern Laptev Sea, pressures fell to more than 20 hPa below the 1981 to 2010 average. This was associated with a shift towards cooler conditions over the Arctic Ocean, which may explain why ice extent towards the end of the month rose above levels recorded in 2006.
January 2017 compared to previous years
Through 2017, the linear rate of decline for January is 47,400 square kilometers (18,300 square miles) per year, or 3.2 percent per decade.
Amundsen Sea nearly free of ice
Extent is tracking at records low levels in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is currently summer. As shown in this plot for February 5, this is primarily due to low ice extent within the Amundsen Sea, where only a few scattered patches of ice remain. By contrast, extent in the Weddell Sea is now only slightly below average. This pattern is consistent with persistent above average air temperatures off western Antarctica.
Further reading
Cullather, R. I., Y.-K. Lim, L. N. Boisvert, L. Brucker, J. N. Lee, and S. M. J. Nowicki. 2016. Analysis of the warmest Arctic winter, 2015-2016. Geophysical Research Letters,43, doi:10.1002/2016GL071228. | {
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Release Notes are available from our Documentation page.
This release introduces 2 new features, 5 bug fixes, 10 improvements and 1 component upgrade, including:
Remote EJB Tracing
Developer Metrics in the Monitoring Console
Domain Red, Amber, Green (RAG) status in the Monitoring Console
Removed Notifiers & Connectors
(Published 17th of August 2020) | {
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this offer is expired
Get ready to spend your Schrute Bucks and Stanley Nickels, because we're giving you an exclusive first look at the Best Buy Canada Black Friday 2017 flyer and you can view all 75 pages now on RedFlagDeals!
The sale officially starts online at 12:01 AM EST on November 24, with physical stores opening that same day at 6:00 AM local time.
We've combed through every page and listed a few deals to help prepare you for the big sale -- note that flyer pricing will not reflect on product pages until the sale begins.
Appliances and Kitchen
Automotive
Beauty and Wellness
Cameras
Cell Phones
Computers, Components and Tablets
Home Theatre and Audio
Kids and Baby
Peripherals and Accessories
Smart Home
Televisions
Toys
Video Games
Wearables
The Best Buy Black Friday sale is effective online and in Best Buy stores (where available) from November 24 to 30. BestBuy.ca offers free shipping with orders over $35.00, with the exception of oversized items and major appliances. | {
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With wage and economic growth at historic highs, and the unemployment rates among all major demographics at or near record lows, Americans have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Turkey and stuffing with family and friends taste better when enjoyed with today’s job security, economic opportunity, and rising standards of living that are partially a result of the pro-growth policies enacted over the past two years.
Unfortunately, this prosperity is threatened by the new Democratic House majority, whose policy priorities feature new regulations, higher taxes and reduced access to credit. Chief in Democrat policy crosshairs are small businesses, which create two-thirds of new jobs, and have seen a resurgence under President Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE, reinvigorating Main Streets in the process.
ADVERTISEMENT
Take one of the top priorities of House Democrats: passing a national $15 minimum wage. The presumptive incoming speaker, Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiHoyer: House should vote on COVID-19 aid — with or without a bipartisan deal Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose at Supreme Court McCarthy threatens motion to oust Pelosi if she moves forward with impeachment MORE, has vowed to pass this wage floor in the first 100 hours of the new Congress. The fact that the shopworn, discredited idea of wage controls is on the front page of the Democratic policy playbook demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of their agenda.
A $15 minimum wage would dramatically increase labor costs for small businesses and swamp the tiny profit margins on which most operate. Given that this proposed minimum wage increase is so big — more than double the current federal minimum wage — it’s likely that the majority of small businesses in the country would be negatively affected.
And despite what the media say, employee prospects rise and fall with small businesses. Even in wealthy Seattle, which passed a $15 minimum wage in 2014, independent researchers at the University of Washington revealed that entry-level jobs and hours worked fell as a direct consequence. As a result of reduced hours, entry-level wages actually fell by $1,500 a year, on average.
A minimum wage increase that reduces wages? Just more proof that you can’t fight economics. If the $15 fallout was this bad in Seattle, think of the consequences to Main Street and entry-level employees in poorer cities such as Shreveport, Sioux Falls and South Bend.
Of course, even economic realists recognize the hardships of living on minimum wage and want employees to earn far above it. But rather than trying to achieve this goal through a counterproductive and controversial $15 minimum wage, Democrats and Republicans should come together to advance the bipartisan cause of a fight for $50 — as in a fight for $50,000 annual salaries — the level at which Americans can solidly enter the middle class and begin to live the American Dream.
Sound far-fetched? More like farsighted. There are 7 million unfilled jobs in the country, roughly half of which pay $50,000 a year or more, according to the Labor Department. Young and less-skilled workers should aspire to fill these positions, not hold out hope that their wages will be artificially raised by fiat.
The open jobs aren’t all for computer programmers or engineers. In fact, the bulk are for semi-skilled positions in manufacturing, trades and health care. It’s true that to land these positions, applicants require some skills. But these mostly can be acquired by completing one- or two-year certification or apprenticeship programs. In other words, they don’t require a four-year college degree (or its associated student debt load).
Employees also learn the skills necessary to get a $50,000 a year job in their entry-level jobs, which often are on the chopping block in $15 minimum wage environments. Preserving these first jobs — the first rung on the career ladder — is an integral part of the fight for $50.
Dramatically increasing entry-level wage costs is, of course, not the only anti-small business and anti-growth policy House Democrats are pursuing. They’ve proposed repealing President Trump’s tax cuts, which bring long overdue tax relief to small businesses, including a new 20 percent tax deduction, which most small business owners have described as a “game changer.”
And just last week, Rep. Maxine Waters Maxine Moore WatersPowell, Mnuchin stress limits of current emergency lending programs Pelosi: House will stay in session until agreement is reached on coronavirus relief Omar invokes father's death from coronavirus in reaction to Woodward book MORE (D-Calif.), the presumptive incoming House Financial Services Committee chair, implied that there would be no further reforms to increase access to credit — the lifeblood of small businesses.
The Job Creators Network is putting House Democrats on notice that such policy proposals that threaten the small business, economic and labor market success of the past two years will be exposed to their constituents. Only by fighting for small businesses can we ensure that the economic climate of this Thanksgiving has many happy returns.
Alfredo Ortiz is the president and CEO of the Job Creators Network. | {
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Adding Storybook Style Guide to a Create React App
Elijah Manor • over 2 years 1375 words • 7 min read
In this post (and the above 6 minute embedded video) we’ll look at how to add the Storybook style guide to a React web app boostrapped by create-react-app .
Installing Storybook
Let's quickly bootstrap a web app with create-react-app . From the command line we'll use npx to kick off create-react-app and name our project playground . create-react-app will then generate our app and proceed to install all its necessary node dependencies. Once that's done, we'll change directories to our new app and proceed to install storybook into the app by typing npx storybook . At this point, storybook detects the type of app, notices that it was bootstraped by create-react-app , and then proceeds to install its necessary dependencies.
➜ npx create-react-app playground-storybook ➜ cd playground-storybook ➜ npx storybook
Investigating Generated Storybook Files
Once storybook has finished, we can open up VS Code and check out what has changed. You can notice a hidden folder called .storybook that contains 2 files.
import '@storybook/addon-actions/register' ; import '@storybook/addon-links/register' ;
The addons.js file imports any addons that you might need. In this case, it's importing the actions and links addons. We will look at how those are used in another file.
Next, we have the config.js file. This is where we tell storybook where to find our story definitions, in this case they are in the ../src/stories folder.
import { configure } from '@storybook/react' ; function loadStories ( ) { require ( '../src/stories' ) ; } configure ( loadStories , module ) ;
Now, let's take a look at the index.js file that storybook created in our src/stories folder. At the top, we import several items from storybook and our related addons.
import React from 'react' ; import { storiesOf } from '@storybook/react' ; import { action } from '@storybook/addon-actions' ; import { linkTo } from '@storybook/addon-links' ; import { Button , Welcome } from '@storybook/react/demo' ; import App from '../App' ; storiesOf ( 'Welcome' , module ) . add ( 'to Storybook' , ( ) => ( < Welcome showApp = { linkTo ( 'Button' ) } / > ) ) ; storiesOf ( 'Button' , module ) . add ( 'with text' , ( ) => ( < Button onClick = { action ( 'clicked' ) } > Hello Button < / Button > ) ) . add ( 'with some emoji' , ( ) => ( < Button onClick = { action ( 'clicked' ) } > 😀 😎 👍 💯 < / Button > ) ) ;
We have stories for two main components listed in this file, Welcome and Button . Both of these are samples that came from the storybook repo to get you started.
In the Button 's case, there are two examples stories listed for the Button component.
The linkTo addon can redirect to other components (such as the Button listed here) and the action addon lets you log actions of a component to a custom panel (in our case Button clicks will be logged).
Let's briefly switch gears to the package.json file before we kick up the web server. You'll notice that storybook added a couple of npm scripts for us to use. There is a storybook script that'll kick up a developer server and a build-storybook script that'll build a version of the style guide that you can host somewhere. As for dependencies, storybook added storybook/react , storybook/addon-actions , and storybook/addon-links to our devDependencies .
{ "name": "playground", "version": "0.1.0", "private": true, "dependencies": { "react": "^16.2.0", "react-dom": "^16.2.0", "react-scripts": "1.1.1" }, "scripts": { "start": "react-scripts start", "build": "react-scripts build", "test": "react-scripts test --env=jsdom", "eject": "react-scripts eject", + "storybook": "start-storybook -p 9009 -s public", + "build-storybook": "build-storybook -s public" }, "devDependencies": { + "@storybook/react": "^3.3.13", + "@storybook/addon-actions": "^3.3.13", + "@storybook/addon-links": "^3.3.13" } }
Kicking up the Storybook Dev Server
Okay, let's move on to see what the style guide looks like. Back in our terminal we can type npm run to see all the scripts we have available, and as I mentioned earlier there is a storybook entry. So, to kick off a developer server we will execute npm run storybook . This will use webpack to build your react app and then start a web server on port 9009.
And now, you can open up a browser to navigate the style guide. The welcome page has some summary information with helpful information to get started. As we noted earlier, the links addon should redirect us to the Button component when we click on the "stories" link. Also, as we saw before, when we click on the Button... we will see the event logged in the panel below as a result of the action addon. Here we have another story for Button that shows using emojis instead of text. If we click on the button, it'll also log it's action in the panel below.
Adding a New Component Story
Now, let's try adding our own story to storybook . Seeing that we just created our React app, there aren't many components, however, there is the main App component that create-react-app generated, so let's use that.
We will start by importing App from the App compoennt. And then we'll copy the Welcome set of stories and rename it to "App" instead. Let's name our first story as "default" and instead of the Welcome component we will reander the App component.
import App from '../App' ; storiesOf ( 'App' , module ) . add ( 'default' , ( ) => < App / > ) ;
Now, when we come back to the browser we should see our new App component, and if we open it, we'll see our App rendered!
However, the App component doesn't support any customizable props , so let's fix that. We'll come back over to VS Code and edit our App component. Let's destructure the title prop from the component's props and use it to dynamically render the title , instead of always saying "Welcome to React". Before we move on we will give title a default value in case one is not passed to the component.
import React, { Component } from "react"; import logo from "./logo.svg"; import "./App.css"; class App extends Component { render() { + const { title } = this.props; return ( <div className="App"> <header className="App-header"> <img src={logo} className="App-logo" alt="logo" /> <h1 className="App-title">Welcome to {title}</h1> </header> <p className="App-intro"> To get started, edit <code>src/App.js</code> and save to reload. </p> </div> ); } } + App.defaultProps = { + title: "React" + }; export default App;
Now, we'll switch back over to our src/stories/index.js file and add another story to the App component. We'll call this one, "title" and pass it a title prop of "My World".
import App from "../App"; // ... more code ... storiesOf("App", module) .add("default", () => <App />) + .add("with title", () => <App title="My World" />);
If we come back to the browse, we will see a new entry under the App component listing hte new "with title" story and it'll show "Welcome to My World".
At this point, the stories are pretty static, but there are ways you can make your stories much more interactive. However, we won't go into those in this blog post. If that interests you, please let me know on Twitter at @elijahmanor.
Building Storybook and Serving Locally
Now, let's focus on building our style guide. We will cancel our dev server and type npm run build-storybook in the terminal. This will build a version of the style guide to a folder called storybook-static . Once it's done you can kick up a simple http server to run the web app. In our case running npx serve storybook-static will suffice. And now we can navigate to localhost:5000 to see our static style guide. And sure enough, it works just great!
➜ npm run build-storybook ➜ npx serve storybook-static
Conclusion | {
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WASHINGTON — Adm. Karl L. Schultz was named the 26th commandant of the Coast Guard on Friday, taking over a military service that is in the midst of a fleet modernization as it juggles homeland security priorities like intercepting drugs and migrants and responding to disasters.
President Trump attended Admiral Schultz’s change of command ceremony, held on the first day of the annual hurricane season.
“I envision our heading remaining generally steady,” Admiral Schultz said.
It was a compliment to his predecessor Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, who had directed the fleet modernizing effort and steered the first budget increase in years to the Coast Guard, the 227-year-old military branch that is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security.
Admiral Schultz had commanded the Coast Guard’s Atlantic area and last year oversaw the fleet’s response to Hurricanes Irma, Maria and Harvey. The service rescued nearly 12,000 people along the East Coast and in Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands during the deadly 2017 hurricane season. | {
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This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
The TSA posted this photo to Instagram Sunday, capturing the one and only time airport security allowed something besides a suitcase to go through the scanner not in a plastic bin.
The old guy didn't even have to take his shoes off.
According to the post, this charmer is a prop from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and presumably the newest installment, Leatherface, out 2016. Not the first person you want to sit next to on a three-hour flight from Atlanta, but at least he wouldn't talk your ear off.
Maybe just chew on it a little.
[H/T: Daily Intel
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io | {
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Federal Conservatives and New Democrats are battling over national energy policy with competing economic claims.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver told the Vancouver Board of Trade early Wednesday that Canada is in a global race to secure markets for our oil and gas — an opportunity the Conservative described as "perishable."
Oliver said time is of the essence and warned against a proposed NDP overhaul of the environmental review process, calling it "a recipe for instability and uncertainty at the very moment when businesses are deciding whether to make multibillion-dollar investments in the B.C. natural gas sector."
The National Energy Board has approved three export licences for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, that clear the way for exporting 36 million tonnes of LNG a year, Oliver noted.
Those exports could begin as early as 2015, and another five west coast applications for LNG exports are under review.
'A false choice'
Mulcair, speaking Wednesday to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa, called the energy sector "the motor of the Canadian economy," while arguing the Conservatives are squandering export opportunities by not shoring up the country's environmental credibility.
He said the Conservative rhetoric pitting economic development against environmental stewardship is short-sighted and "a false choice. It's an approach that's stuck in the past."
Mulcair accused the Harper government of "dismantling every major piece of environmental protection, and hurting Canada's economic development at the very same time."
The New Democrats are proposing binding environmental assessment reviews of major resource projects, reversing Conservative legislation that puts the final call in cabinet's hands.
Both the Conservatives and Liberals pounced on Mulcair's proposal as incoherent, given the NDP's staunch opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
A Canadian environmental review panel gave Keystone the green light in 2010 — yet Mulcair remains on record as being opposed to the $5.4-billion project, Oliver said.
New Democrats also oppose the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, B.C., which remains under review, but support the proposed West-to-East pipeline from Alberta to Atlantic Canada, for which a review has not yet begun.
Mulcair: Invest in clean energy
"Incoherence does not inspire confidence," Oliver said in Vancouver.
"The bottom line is that no project will proceed unless it is safe for Canadians and safe for the environment.... However, unlike critics who say 'no' to resource projects before hearing from our regulators, we do not make decisions until independent, scientific reviews are complete."
Mulcair would also revive the popular home retrofit program and is reiterating long-standing NDP policy to put a price on carbon through a cap-and-trade system.
"A New Democratic government will redirect a billion dollars a year in fossil fuel subsidies, and re-invest that money in clean energy," he added. | {
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Results
The best answer to the question "Was the Elden Ring destroyed by someone or something? " is shown on the poll results page. | {
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Blogger Russ Racop has obtained the dashboard camera footage of the Jan. 24, 2016, DWI arrest of Asa Hutchinson III, the son of Governor Hutchinson. The younger Hutchinson was convicted of DWI, careless and prohibited driving and refusal to submit to testing on Nov. 30, 2016, but the conviction was overturned last week by a Washington County judge. The original citation issued by the Arkansas State Police indicated that it was daylight when the younger Hutchinson crashed his truck into a guardrail on an exit ramp off Interstate 49 near Fayetteville around 2:55 a.m. A state trooper later voided that ticket and indicated it was dark, but Hutchinson’s attorney said Hutchinson never received the second citation and the statute of limitations had expired.
Hutchinson appears to be disoriented in the dash cam footage. He tells the officer he thinks he’s heading north when he was, in fact, traveling south. After he’s handcuffed, the state trooper asks Hutchinson, “Anything on you you’re not supposed to have?” After mumbling unintelligibly, Hutchinson tells the trooper he has a gun. Hutchinson is asked if he has a concealed carry license, and he responds that it has expired.
Bill Sadler, a spokesman for the Arkansas State Police, said Hutchinson was not charged with carrying a firearm, a class A misdemeanor, but his weapon was held by state police “until such time it could be released pursuant to applicable laws and criminal procedure.”
Asked why he wasn’t charged, Sadler said, “It would have been up to the discretion of the trooper.”
A Freedom of Information Act exemption enacted several years ago keeps the public from knowing anything about concealed carry holders in Arkansas. One of the state police’s listed reasons in its administrative rules for concealed carry for revoking a license is if a permit holder has been found guilty of an alcohol-related offense while carrying a handgun. | {
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Fox News host Sean Hannity Sean Patrick HannitySunday shows preview: Justice Ginsburg dies, sparking partisan battle over vacancy before election Cruz: Trump should nominate a Supreme Court justice next week Ex-Pence aide: Trump spent 45 minutes of task force meeting 'going off on Tucker Carlson' instead of talking coronavirus MORE is calling on Rep. John Boehner John Andrew BoehnerLongtime House parliamentarian to step down Five things we learned from this year's primaries Bad blood between Pelosi, Meadows complicates coronavirus talks MORE (R-Ohio) to step down as Speaker of the House.
Hannity, who has criticized Boehner in the past, said it's “time for new dynamic leadership” for Republicans and threw his support behind Rep. Trey Gowdy Harold (Trey) Watson GowdySunday shows preview: Election integrity dominates as Nov. 3 nears Tim Scott invokes Breonna Taylor, George Floyd in Trump convention speech Sunday shows preview: Republicans gear up for national convention, USPS debate continues in Washington MORE (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Benghazi attacks.
“Trey Gowdy is my choice for speaker," Hannity told Breitbart News. “He has the ability to articulate and implement the changes needed to get the country on the right path.”
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Hannity cited the federal budget, border security, energy independence and Gowdy's opposition to ObamaCare for backing the South Carolina Republican.
“John Boehner has snubbed and ignored conservatives for too long as evidenced by the recent ‘cromnibus’ budget deal he made with Obama, Reid and Hoyer,” Hannity added, referring to senior congressional Democrats. “It’s time he step aside for the good of country and the conservative movement.”
The $1.1 trillion “cromnibus” was an end-of-year spending bill opposed by many conservatives, which passed the House with Boehner’s support earlier this month.
Hannity did not mention the controversy surrounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise Stephen (Steve) Joseph ScaliseHouse GOP slated to unveil agenda ahead of election House panel details 'serious' concerns around Florida, Georgia, Texas, Wisconsin elections Scalise hit with ethics complaint over doctored Barkan video MORE (R-La.) in his comments.
It was revealed this week that Scalise spoke to a white supremacist group in 2002, and there have been calls for him to resign. Boehner offered Scalise his support on Tuesday.
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Other conservatives have weighed in on Scalise and argued for more changes to the GOP leadership team in the House.
“GOP establishment a disastrous mess. Clean them out. Time for new leaders with conservative principles,” conservative radio host Mark Levin wrote on Facebook on Tuesday, linking to a story about Scalise.
Conservative blogger Erick Erickson also criticized Scalise on Monday, arguing his story that he didn’t know about the supremacist’s group’s message was implausible. | {
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Hello and welcome to the 255th installment of the SWD .
Military events/news are listed below by the governorates:
Aleppo:
Demonstrations were held in the TFSA ‘s city of Al-Bab, around 500 people called for the overthrow of the President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Bashar al-Assad and lifting of the siege of the East Ghouta.
The Shura council of the Free Syrian Army’s Firqat al-Sultan Murad (Sultan Murad Division) announced Mahmoud al-Hajj Hassan as the successor of Fehim Issa, as the new commander of the group. Fehim Issa was falsely announced as the commander of the second corps of the general staff of the Free Syrian Army, after resigning from the group.
Syrian Democratic Forces released three rebel fighters belonging to the Al-Jabhat al-Shamiyah’s Kataib al-Sajidun Allah, after eight months of being imprisoned. The fighters are from Tell Rifaat and were captured about eight months ago in Al-Ghandoura village, after they got lost on the road from Azaz to Jarabulus. Syrian Democratic Forces released the fighters without any agreement or exchange deal. Reports suggest that SDF still has around 120 more prisoners accused of belonging to the Free Syrian Army, mainly from Tell Rifaat.
Military council of Al-Bab and its countryside arrested an Islamic State’s cell in the city of Al-Bab, consisting of six women and three men. The arrested cell was planning on carrying out assassinations of rebel elements across the Al-Bab. According to the commander of the military council, Muhammad al-Tawil, the group will be handed over to the National Police Court. Al-Tawil also added that they are closely monitoring and planning the arrestal of several other cells in the city of Al-Bab, belonging to the Syrian government and the Islamic State.
Idlib:
Faylaq al-Sham’s element was wounded by an improvised explosive device, which exploded on the road close to Kafruma, as the element was passing by on a motorcycle. The injured individual was transferred to a hospital in Turkey for treatment.
Homs:
Thirty Ahrar al-Sham’s fighters graduated from the “commandos” (Al-Maghawir) camp in Al-Houlah area, Northern Homs pocket. The commandos will be deployed to several fronts in the northern Homs, with the primary mission to address SAA ‘s infiltration attempts on the pocket.
Hama:
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s Ibaa News Agency claimed destruction of three SAA ‘s technicals and death of several soldiers, after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s targeting of Al-Zaghba village, in the northern Hama.
Islamic State officially captured Abyan, Abu Maru, Abu Khanadq, Al-Samairiya, Al-Jadida, Al-Midaqah, Al-Shilou, Abu al-Khair, Al-Zajafi, Rasm al-Tawl al-Sharkiyah, Buyad al-Saffaf, and Tawal Dabaghini from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the northeastern Hama. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham repelled IS’ attack on Al-Shayhah.
Situation in the northeastern Hama governorate. Source: Emmanuel
Deir al-Zour:
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the Islamic State recaptured Al-Quaraya from the Syrian Arab Army, after the latter captured it yesterday. Islamic State allegedly recaptured the several points in Al-Quaraya and Al-Ashara that SAA managed to capture under the cover of the Russian Air Force.
Syrian Arab Air Crescent in cooperation with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent and the United Nations delivered relief aid convoy to the civilians in Al-Bukamal (Albu Kamal).
Damascus:
Ahrar al-Sham’s spokesman for the East Ghouta, Mundhir Fares stated that AAS maintains the control of its positions in the ‘Army Armored Vehicle Base’ in Harasta. Clashes continue between SAA and AAS in the area, as the AAS ‘ spokesman denied rumors about the group’s retreat from its positions.
Sharia Council of Damascus and its countryside cancelled the Friday prayers in the rebel-held localities of East Ghouta. The council stated that the prayers were cancelled in order to preserve the lives of civilians.
Syrian Arab Army’s shelling of Jisreen reportedly destroyed a two-storey building, killing one and wounding several civilians.
Daraa:
Syrian Arab Army and Hezbollah are reinforcing their positions in the “Triangle of Death” area located between the Damascus, Daraa, and Quneitra governorates. The aforementioned forces erected earth mounds near Umm al-Aeusij in the direction towards Tell al-Hara. The defenses were also reinforced in Khirbet Koum, north of Jidiya village. These developments were confirmed by the commander of the Free Syrian Army’s Jaysh al-Ababil, who stated that the group’s fighters deployed on the front lines noticed the newly-erected barriers.
Demonstrations were held by the people of Inkhil demanding the lifting of the siege of the East Ghouta. Around 300 people participated in the demonstrations.
Iraq
Mosul:
Iraqi Joint Operations reported the capture of 45 villages spanning more than 2400 square kilometers (888 square miles) by the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Federal Police, and Al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units) from the Islamic State in Nineveh and Salah al-Deen governorates.
Iraqi forces destroyed a dozen of IS’ vehicles, five SVBIED s, two bulldozers, and detonated more than 450 improvised explosive devices during the second phase of the operation to clear desertous area of Nineveh, Salah al-Deen, and Anbar governorates.
Situation south of Al-Hadher showing the advances of the Iraqi forces. Source: Iraq War News
Baghdad:
Al-Hashd al-Shaabi’s Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba will reportedly hand over its weapons to the Iraqi Army after the defeat of the Islamic State. Al-Nujaba’s secretary general, Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi said that the IS fell militarily in Iraq and Syria, but pockets of the Islamic State still remain in the two countries. Al-Kaabi pointed out that the group formed Liwa Tahrir al-Joulan (The Golan Liberation Brigade) in Syria. Al-Kaabi finished the television interview by saying that Al-Nujaba will participate in repelling any forms of Israeli aggression aimed at Hezbollah.
CJTF-OIR :
Between the 20th and the 23rd of November 2017 CJTF-OIR has conducted two strikes in Syria. CJTF-OIR ‘s main focus in Syria at the moment is Deir al-Zour-Albu Kamal region where they did two strikes supporting SDF ‘s operations against IS destroying two IS vehicles.
Full report on CJTF-OIR strikes conducted in both Syria & Iraq can be found here.
Amaq Agency:
Pakistan:
Two Islamic State’s improvised explosive devices killed a senior police officer and two elements of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police in Hayat Abad street, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Furthermore, six elements of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police were wounded in the two explosions.
Other:
Intellectual credited property used may vary from an edition to edition.
Feel free to voice your opinion in the comments section below, constructive criticism is welcomed.
For those of you interested, you can follow us on an official Twitter account @SyrianWarDaily, or me personally on my biased twitter @joskobaric where I occasionally tweet some things. | {
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Just when you thought we were done talking about the feminist virtue signaling of “Captain Marvel,” the superhero is back with a woke extended scene that has liberals swooning and everyone else cringing.
In a scene that (to no one's surprise) didn't make the final cut of the film, Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) pauses in a strip mall to look at a map. A guy creepily approaches her and offers to help, telling her to give him a smile. “People call me ‘the Don,’” he says. No relation to any other Dons or Donalds of the world, I'm sure.
Then Danvers shakes his hand, burning it with her powers, and steals his jacket, helmet, and motorcycle. It's a stunt to make Gloria Steinem proud. The scene has been lauded as a takedown of toxic masculinity, but it's actually just an unnecessary addition to an already slow film.
"Captain Marvel" didn't need any filler scenes, especially not this one. Rather than empowering, it wastes viewers' time with an unnecessarily aggressive message. Ben Shapiro was actually right about it:
Man, it is so empowering to watch a woman with superpowers physically hurt and then threaten to break a man's hand -- and steal his motorcycle and jacket because he said something rude to her! So empowering! Empowerment! https://t.co/g0XRPzgd1i — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 24, 2019
If one of the film's goals is to position "Captain Marvel" as a role model for young women, depicting her as an angry, threatening thief isn't going to serve the cause. Some fans disagreed, however.
All the guys offended by Captain Marvel defending herself from a creepy dude, see themselves in that guy. They don't like that a woman can retaliate if they assault her. They identified with the abuser. — GingerBels (@FleckerdGirl) May 27, 2019
One fan wrote, "All the guys offended by Captain Marvel defending herself from a creepy dude, see themselves in that guy. They don't like that a woman can retaliate if they assault her." But "the Don" wasn't assaulting anyone. Did he deserve some payback for his creepy, sexist ways? For sure. Was Captain Marvel's reaction commensurate to his actions? No.
The scene underscores a subtle but persistent theme in the film. Yes, Danvers has faced some sexism in her life, just as all girls watching "Captain Marvel" someday will. But the scene is less about character development and realism and more about signaling to woke liberals that the film is the patriarchy smasher for which they were hoping.
"I wonder if this is going to be the new thing," one viewer wrote. "Instead of a Director's Cut we'll have a Woke Cut where they put in all the stuff they promised their woke actors to do and then cut out of the theatrical release..."
I wonder if this is going to be the new thing. Instead of a Director's Cut we'll have a Woke Cut where they put in all the stuff they promised their woke actors to do and then cut out of the theatrical release lmao — neontaster (@neontaster) May 24, 2019
There's no doubt that "Captain Marvel" actress Brie Larson loved the scene. But it's just another example of a story muddied by virtue signaling, and it doesn't mean you're part of the patriarchy if you're smart enough to recognize that. | {
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The Triumph Scrambler looks pretty good straight out of the box. But a few well-judged tweaks can lift it to a whole new level.
As much as we love radically modified Triumphs, it’s subtle custom jobs like this Gothenburg-based machine that really get our motors running. It’s the kind of build that mixes practicality with traffic-stopping looks.
This Scrambler belongs to Andy Olsson, who manages the Vans brand in Sweden. “I wanted to convert my stock Scrambler to something a lot more city-oriented,” he says. So he handed it over to Mikael, Olof and Daniel of Mod Moto. “I told them I commute every day, and I ride 12 months out of the year. That was the only brief.”
As expected, Mod Moto’s execution is delightfully Scandinavian—minimalistic and highly functional. Take the headlight, for example: a strong LED that blasts through the darkness of Sweden’s winter months, when the sun is only out for a few hours a day.
To improve the ergonomics, Mod Moto have installed MX-style handlebars and footpegs, along with Biltwell grips and a set of shorter, machined levers.
The rest of the bike received equally thoughtful consideration. To shed visual weight, the Mod Moto crew fitted a slimmer saddle—one that’s also long enough to accommodate Andy’s wife or son on the back.
According to Mod Moto, Andy’s requirements for the exhaust were specific: “He wanted a child-friendly exhaust—since high pipes and short legs don’t go that well together.”
Rather than build it themselves, they chose a tried-and-tested system—a British Customs 2-into-1—and coated it black.
To get maximum effect from the new exhaust, Mod Moto also fitted a set of K&N filters. For smoother running, they’ve removed the oxygen sensors and modified the ECM with a new map from Triumph Twin Power.
Rear-wheel-horsepower has risen from around 50 to 70—a remarkable 40% increase, with a boost in tractability too.
Mod Moto have binned the restrictive stock airbox, and used the space to hide the battery and electronics. They’re concealed behind a set of drilled side panels—which go with the stock Triumph bash plate like meatballs and lingonberry jam.
To keep the visuals as minimal as the layout, the Scrambler has been refinished in a metallic grey—and all the shiny metallic parts have been blacked out or toned down to a matte finish. Keeping things tidy are a smaller rear fender and taillight, and a set of tiny turn signals.
It’s a Triumph that’s still lightly scrambled, but much tastier.
Mod Moto website | Facebook | Instagram | Images by James Holm | Instagram
Triumph Scrambler product page | {
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"Guns in the hands of the bureaucrats"
Our own tax dollars being spent to enslave us
(NaturalNews) The federal government is becoming increasingly militarized, with numerous agencies now employing their own SWAT teams to conduct raids on raw milk producers, beekeepers, lemon growers - or anyone else who runs afoul of agency policies.The trend has increased during Obama's presidency and is not only costing taxpayers enormous amounts of money, but also terrorizing citizens who could hardly be considered dangerous criminals by any sane estimation.The USDA is just one example. From BlacklistedNews.com:The militarization of agencies that have nothing to do with national security is disturbing, particularly when it involves non-violent innocent citizens being bullied and intimidated by lethal force in the name of protecting corporate interests.As Ron Paul said in 1997:No doubt the founders of this country are rolling in their graves as we slip deeper into an authoritarian system that serves the interests of a corporate fascist state.It's difficult to imagine any possible justification for supplying the SSA or the NOAA with hundreds of thousands of hollow-point bullets, or have I missed something?Over the past ten years, 44 "traditionally administrative" federal agencies have spent more $71 million on military equipment, including cannon launchers, firearms and ammunition.As the federal government increasingly encroaches on Second Amendment freedoms, it is also arming itself to the teeth. And that's not even mentioning the fact that law enforcement agencies are also becoming more militarized by the day.As Adam Andrzejewski, founder of OpenTheBooks.com, told theIt's time we recognize the threat we face from our own government. The increasing militarization of federal agencies and the simultaneously increasing restrictions on citizens' rights to own guns should send a clear signal that the principles our nation was founded upon are being systematically undermined.If we fail to heed the warning signs, we can say goodbye to the freedoms our founding fathers worked so hard to establish and that so many have died for since to protect. | {
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We create, develop and publish apps for iOS.
Bulbapps is experienced in mobile development and launches new digital products through the application of advanced technologies. | {
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Two years ago, developers went to the city with plans to build 20-plus new units of housing in place of the old auto shop at 3140 16th Street, between Valencia and Guerrero.
New developments usually end up whittling down their proposed number of homes a bit throughout the entitlements process. In this case, however, the presumably final figure is even lower than usual: zero.
Texas-based developer Mx3 originally wanted to demolish the existing building in favor of a new, BAR Architect-designed structure.
But the city ruled that the circa 1926 auto shop retained some historical significance, and that any redevelopment would have to preserve it.
That chopped the new building’s potential housing element down to just four units. So back in July, Mx3 proposed converting the auto shop into a restaurant with a few condos up top.
Now, however, a neighbor sent Curbed SF a copy of an upcoming community meeting notice that suggests that the housing element has been thrown out entirely, in favor of simply a two-story restaurant instead.
Mx3 told Curbed SF they couldn’t immediately comment on plans for the site, though they may make a statement later in the week.
It seems likely that, with the original 20-plus homes scuttled, four homes alone didn’t promise a big enough return to justify construction.
After all, the developer paid $8.7 million for the Mission parcels in 2014, which at the time came out to about $350,000 per buildable unit.
That was probably a record already, but just imagine doing the books on a $2.7 million/unit building instead.
Note that this latest version of the proposed building is the same height as the previous one—roof deck and all—so Mx3 will still have to convince the neighborhood to accept roughly the same building proportions they would have anyway. | {
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It’s time to tackle another big area of spending – food!
Hopefully we can help cut some fat in this area, providing a boost to your savings rate. And as with our spending as a whole, the lower it is, the less investments we need and the sooner we can become financially independent.
Since frugal folks tend to spend a bit more time at home versus their restaurant hopping peers, groceries are an important topic to cover. Especially because what we eat has a strong bearing on how healthy we are and how we feel too.
So let’s get stuck in…
Food is not expensive!
In the beginning, we were spending around $150-$180 per week on food for 2 people. So my belief was that food is indeed, expensive.
But now we spend half that amount! And this includes most of our dog’s food.
Despite the regular moaning from the media, grocery prices have been declining for a number of years now.
For example, a Wesfarmers (owner of Coles) presentation in June, saw the company tell shareholders:
“Coles continues to invest in price, (with) over 8 consecutive years of price deflation”.
The supermarket price-war is real. And it hasn’t gone away yet. In fact, with Aldi expanding and the prospect of its German rival Kaufland coming, food prices may even fall a little further. Not to mention if Amazon gets into the grocery business like it has in the US.
So, the ever-escalating cost of food is somewhat of a myth. Just like the cost of living.
Then comes the next complaint…
Healthy is expensive
This deserves an entire post in itself, and I’ve noted it down for a future article.
Look, it can be. As with everything, things can cost as much we’re willing to spend. But to say there’s no way to eat a reasonably healthy diet without it crushing our savings rate, sounds like an excuse to me.
Good nutrition doesn’t have to consist of 100g punnets of blueberries for $6, pre-packed salads for $5.50 and superfood snack-bars at $4 each.
By the way, the superfood marketing trick, is just that. We seem to have an unrelenting urge for the new, the magical, and the one thing to cure our ails. To make us healthy, attractive and trendy all at the same time.
Don’t bother, it’s nonsense! Forget the fancy pre-packed rubbish. Instead, spend your money on real, whole foods that are just as filled with nutrition, just a little less exotic because we’ve known about them for 100 years.
OK, on to some strategy…
Planning
Without some type of food plan or rough idea what you’ll eat during the week, your grocery costs are destined to blow out.
Day-to-day shopping is not only a waste of time, but it creates extra driving, short-term thinking and impulsive unhealthy food choices.
It also means you lean towards the lazy options of pre-packed food, even ready-made food which is going to cost you an arm and a leg, while likely lacking in nutrition too.
So make a rough food plan for what you’ll eat during the week. Just a few good ideas for bulk dinners will do. Be repetitive.
The more you can plan out your meals for the week, the better choices you’re going to make. It’ll cost less. It’s healthier. And you’ll feel better for it. It’s also one less thing to think about. Job done!
Preparing
Of course, because you’re planning these meals, you’ll be cooking them too!
And now that we’re getting organised and efficient, here’s where it comes together.
I really mean prepare your own food. Dice the veggies. Chop the salad. Cut the meat. Whatever it is. You’re now getting paid to be a chef!
Don’t believe me?
Think about it this way. By buying ingredients that’s already cut, sliced and diced, you end up paying quite a bit extra for it. But chopping it yourself means a lower grocery bill and more money in the bank.
See, you’re getting paid to prepare your own food!
It still blows me away if I see people paying a premium for things already cut up. Are you joking me? Unless you don’t have arms, this is ridiculous.
I’m not buying the “I don’t have time” argument. Rubbish! Especially considering Aussies still watch an average of 17.5 hours of TV content per week.
Your health is worth spending time on. So a little extra effort in the area of food will pay dividends, and we know how nice dividends are 😉
Shopping
So far, we’re cooking and preparing our own food. The next layer of efficiency is getting those ingredients in a cost-effective way.
One of the best ways to do that is measuring cost per kilo, per gram and per litre. This is probably the next best habit of getting into at the shops.
Smaller items and packets may look cute and also carry a small price tag. But when measured on a ‘per gram’ basis, the costs are often obscene!
You know those tiny figures at the bottom of price tags – ‘$0.72 per 100g’. Use these as your guide.
Whether it’s coffee, spices, veggies, it doesn’t matter. Rather than look for the lowest total price, look for the best value. That’s the difference between being cheap and frugality.
The frugal shopper will happily pay more overall for a larger quantity today, based on saving more over the longer term.
The cheap shopper will simply go for the lowest total cost item, regardless of quality or value, making a short-term choice, based solely on the amount they need today.
Buying in bulk where possible is often a good way to get the best value ‘per kilo’ and ‘per gram’.
And buying a week’s worth of food allows you to plan better and cook in bulk. For us, we tend to cook up big meals that is enough for 2-3 days. This saves time, automates your nutrition and reduces power and gas costs.
Name-brand vs Store-brand
For most people, they’ll buy at least a certain amount of home-brand/store-branded products. But for some products, they may be loyal to a premium brand out of habit, or tried the store-brand and been disappointed.
All I can say here is, try again. I’m serious.
Ten or fifteen years ago, store-branded products left much to be desired. In short, they were pretty crap. But in recent times, stores have upped their game and really overhauled their own-brand products.
We probably used to buy around half name-brand items and half store-brand. Now I’d say it’s more like 80% or more, store-branded stuff.
Slowly we started trying the store-branded products and for the majority of things, there’s little difference in quality or taste, yet still a large difference in price. We’re still regularly trying store-branded items as they get rolled out and have been pleasantly surprised on a regular basis.
Keep in mind, Coles and Woolies also have a policy that if for any reason you don’t like their own products, just take it back for a full refund. And Aldi’s products tend to be very good, some of which they’ve even won awards for.
So there’s really nothing to lose and large savings to gain!
The stores don’t actually make their own products anyway – they outsource them. This means that quite often, the name-brand stuff and the store-branded stuff are made in the same factory!
Specials and stocking up
Surely everyone can agree that when something you buy is on special, you buy more of it, right?
Well, I hope so!
Usually, a good approach is stock up as much as you think will last you until the next time the item goes on special. These things tend to be somewhat predictable, as you may have noticed.
That’s because it can make a huge difference to the overall cost of your groceries. And it’s something I take seriously.
How seriously?
Well, here’s a little story and you be the judge…
Since we do most of our shopping at Coles, we have a flybuys card and are regularly receiving offers by email.
Sometimes the offer will be like this: Spend $70 per week for 4 weeks at Coles and get 10,000 bonus points.
Now for those unaware, each 2,000 points can be redeemed for $10 off your shopping at Coles (or certain other shops). So this offer is essentially $50 cash for spending $280 on groceries. Pretty good. But it gets better.
Because we both signed up, we each get similar deals. So double it. Spend $140 a week for 4 weeks and get 20,000 points, worth $100.
But our shopping at Coles is probably only half that each week, since we get a bit of stuff from Aldi too. So what to do?
Well, it’s easy. All you do is bring forward your future purchases. Essentially, anything that stores well and you normally pay full price for anyway – just buy multiples of it.
What’s the limit? Whatever you can store in your house for as long as the food or products will keep!
This is what we did recently, buying $560 worth of groceries in a few weeks to get $100 flybuys dollars for future groceries!
As evidence of how stocked up we are, here’s what we’re storing currently…
— 56 cans of sardines (for our dog)
— 24 cans of beans (cannelini, kidney and chickpeas)
— 10 bags of frozen veg (broccoli, peas, corn, baby green beans)
— 7 bags of frozen fruit (blueberries, mango, strawberries)
— 4 jars of coffee
— 8 tubs of butter/spread
— 17 packets of peanuts
— 4 packets of all muesli supplies (oats, shredded coconut, pepitas, sunflower seeds, dried apricots, dried dates)
— 85 rolls of toilet paper
I could go on. But these are the best examples. Haha yes, I’m that guy!
These are all examples of food that we normally pay full price for. So all we’ve done is bring forward the purchases without increasing the cost. And now we’ve got $100 of future grocery money!
For other foods that are still much better value at Aldi, we’ll typically ride our bikes there once a week and grab what we can.
We’ve been gaming this system for quite a few months now. Rather than lower prices further, it seems that the likes of Coles and Woolies are trying to lure us in with loyalty programs like this.
Do the old switcheroo
Another strategy is to simply substitute or switch to foods that are similar yet offer better value.
Things like frozen berries vs fresh. Lower priced cuts of meat. Peanuts vs almonds. Apples and oranges instead of mangos (for non-tropical states). And a house deposit instead of avocados. Haha just kidding with that one, avocados to eat at home are fine. But be careful, in many places they’re still stupidly priced.
Often we’ve found frozen fruit and veg to be just as fresh, if not better than the fresh stuff. Typically it’s frozen at a stage of freshness anyway, whereas the store stuff might be a bit old.
To boost savings, try to change your habits over time by moving to lower-cost foods to get roughly the same taste and nutrition.
Eat less meat and more veg
This is a contentious issue. Some people will be unwilling to alter their meat consumption.
We used to be quite heavy meat-eaters, myself especially. And I was damn sure not looking to make any changes. But over the last couple of years, we did change our diet to focus more on other foods.
The primary reason for this was seeing a few documentaries (which I can’t remember now) on where our food comes from. And also doing further research on farming practices and the way animals are treated (hint: appallingly). Being an animal lover, it was hard to watch and although I tried to shrug it off, eventually it really got to me.
I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen anymore. And after becoming more interested in health, it was clear, the longest living people tend to eat a plant-based diet with very little animal products.
Anyway, it wasn’t an overnight change.
We first tried vegetarian meals – say a curry with beans or tofu for protein, instead of meat. I was surprised that it was just a different texture, but tasted the same. Then I realised, it’s how you flavour food that makes it taste good or not!
Combine these new outlooks with the realisation that eating less meat is massively better for the environment and I became compelled to push on and feel good with the changes.
Also, while not given a single thought at the time, it ended up slashing our grocery bill!
So if for no other reason, consider doing one vegetarian meal per week. Then try one day per week. And see how you go from there.
Now we eat a mostly vegan diet, and our optimised grocery bill went from around $120 per week, to around $80 per week. That actually surprised me. So it’s probably fair to call this our unfair advantage!
We also feel better about the food we eat and have more energy in general.
I don’t want to bang on about this too much. But it’s been such a great choice from lots of angles, so I felt compelled to share.
What do we eat?
Amusingly, when people learn you don’t eat meat, the first question is “well, what do you eat?”.
Basically everything else, is the answer! But what they really mean is, what do you substitute for meat in dishes and how do meals still taste good?
What does a plain boiled chicken breast taste? Well, not much really. It’s when you start adding other things, that stuff starts tasting good.
For protein in curries, stir-fry’s and other dishes, we use beans, lentils or tofu as the protein source. And it works pretty well, absorbing all that flavour from spices, seasonings, oils and sauces.
Here’s roughly what a day of food looks like for us…
— Morning: A nice, strong coffee. I use a french-press.
— Mid-morning: Home-made muesli with the ingredients from earlier and soy milk (the packet muesli is far too sweet for our liking).
— Early afternoon: Salad with peanuts or home-made vegetable soup (cooked in bulk of course) with greens and herbs from the garden.
— Late afternoon: Fruit smoothie with soy milk, banana, berries and protein powder.
— Dinner: Lentil/Bean/Tofu Curry with vegetables, herbs, spices.
— Snacks: Other fruit. Nuts. Home-baked sweets that we shouldn’t be eating!
That all looks pretty healthy. Plenty of vitamins, minerals and protein. But don’t get me wrong, we do eat some junk too!
One of my favourite meals is a stacked plate of fried hash browns and baked beans on a Saturday morning. And I also devour toast with honey or jam on the weekends, alongside my caffeine fix.
Admittedly we now have the luxury of spending a little more time on preparing food than before we retired. While we were still at work, we’d likely have 1 less meal per day, but bigger serves, or we’d double up and eat leftovers for lunch.
I’m quite the creature of habit so I have no issue with eating the same stuff regularly. Actually I enjoy it!
All we need is a good list of dishes to rotate through for dinners, with breakfast and lunch mostly on auto-pilot.
Try delivery
This is one of our extremely un-frugal habits. We mostly get our weekly shop delivered these days. And I actually think it can save you money. Hear me out…
I hate going to the shops. It’s always busy, there’s too many bright lights and people and noise – it’s just not fun anymore. So we tried delivery which is $4 with Coles and it’s been great.
Prices are exactly the same and there’s never been a mistake with our orders.
It saves us around 1.5 hours per week, cuts down car use and avoids an unpleasant experience.
We also tend to buy only what we need, rather than what we see and then think we need. In short, we have a list, and with a few taps it’s all ordered. No unnecessary extras!
I recommend trying this out, if delivery costs are low in your area. Do it right and you’ll come out ahead.
The time saved can be spent on planning and preparing healthy meals with whole foods, instead of short-cutting nutrition or paying a premium on the pre-cut, pre-packed stuff to save time.
Grow your own
If you have the space or the interest, you can try growing your own food too.
Start off with the simple stuff like a few herbs or greens. This stuff alone can save you a surprising amount, as detailed well in this post by Pat the shuffler.
Then you can move on to small fruit trees or a little veggie patch and scale up from there.
Although it’s sometimes not cheap (feels like we’re always going to Bunnings), the main benefits are fresh produce, a connection with nature, and a productive hobby that can be cost neutral, while providing exercise and a happiness boost.
Adding it up
As stated earlier, our cost of food has essentially been cut by 50%. Half the benefit came from optimisation, and the rest from the diet change.
In dollar terms, this has translated to savings of around $80 per week. Invested at a return of 8% per annum, means we’re around $60,000 richer after 10 years.
It also means that because our expenses are $4000 lower each year, we then needed $80,000 less in investments to retire.
So a few tweaks here and there, do make a difference. And with the average household spending around $150 a week on food, there’s plenty of room for improvement.
Final thoughts – frugality and food philosophy
This was a monster of a post, because clearly there’s many ways to optimise this category of spending.
And it’s how you approach these things that makes all the difference.
Whether you decide that it’s too hard and it’s another one of life’s categories that is doomed to be expensive.
Or whether you seek out the challenge of gaming the system. Thinking how to get the most nutrition for the lowest cost, to further fuel your growing pile of investments.
Often the answer to that is plant-based eating with some protein content.
Now it’s your turn!
Remember, this area deserves special attention. So get started putting some frugal food habits into place, and reap the rewards of increasing health and expanding wealth, at the same time!
I’ll leave you with a parable that you may or may not have heard before. And think about how well this fits with frugality and financial independence!
The Monk and the Minister
Two close boyhood friends grow up and go their separate ways. One becomes a humble monk, the other a rich and powerful minister to the king.
Years later they meet. As they catch up, the minister (in his fine robes) takes pity on the thin, shabby monk. Seeking to help, he says:
“You know, if you could learn to cater to the king you wouldn’t have to live on rice and beans.”
To which the monk replies:
“If you could learn to live on rice and beans you wouldn’t have to cater to the king.”
Enjoy this post? You’ll find more articles about frugality and saving on this page. And to get all future Strong Money content, simply subscribe below… | {
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But now, Ms. Bickel said, young people in Munich, Bavaria’s capital, just grab a thickly buttered pretzel with coffee on the way to work.
“It’s like Starbucks,” she said. “There are pretzel chains in every neighborhood.” But older people stick to the tradition. “You see grandmas in the beer garden, having weisswurst and a pretzel at 11 a.m. with their first beer of the day,” she said.
Image Ms. Kulchinsky at Sigmund Pretzel Shop. Credit... Evan Sung for The New York Times
In Baden-Württemberg, in southwest Germany near France and Switzerland, the pretzels are known for their fat “bellies” and skinny, intertwined arms. That’s the style at Prime Meats in Brooklyn; Frank Castronovo, an owner, learned to make pretzels there.
“The goal is to have two distinct eating experiences, one crunchy and one fluffy, in a single pretzel,” said Jeffrey Hamelman, director of the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vt.
Mr. Hamelman’s first professional baking experience, in 1976, was an immersion course in pretzels. “I worked at a stellar German bakery in Northampton, Mass., when most Americans were still eating Wonder bread out of plastic bags,” he said. “The owner was German, but her bakers were French, and none of them wanted anything to do with pretzels. So she hired me just for that, and taught me all the secrets.”
The defining “secret” of pretzels is lye, a powerful alkali that gives them their defining contrast between a creamy white interior and a crunchy, dark-brown, lightly bitter crust. Just before baking, pretzels are dipped into a bath of water and lye, which transforms the starch on the surface so that it can brown quickly, while the interior remains moist. Cold lye solution can burn the eyes or skin, but the chemicals are neutralized by the heat of the oven. | {
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Click the below image to view the full-size visualization (2,995x4,265)
Click here to download the visualization in PDF format to print or use to easily zoom and view the data.
Click the below image to view the full-size visualization (2,995x4,265)
Click here to download the visualization in PDF format to print or use to easily zoom and view the data.
The United States Census is a decennial census that is mandated by Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution. As the country developed and expanded, statistics were needed to aid with planning, and the census has evolved through the years to fulfill different needs. By 1850, questions about social issues, taxation, churches, pauperism, and crime were added.
The first census of the entire United States occurred on Aug. 2, 1790. It discovered that the population of the United States was 3,929,214. At the time, the most populated state was Virginia (747,610 people), and the most populated city was New York City (33,131). New York City has remained the most populous city throughout the decades, reaching a total population of 8,175,133 by the 2010 census. That means the population of NYC has increased by 24,675% in 220 years!
Check out more about this topic from the video
The top ten most populous cities in 1790 were as follows:
New York, New York (33,131) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (28,522) Boston, Massachusetts (18,320) Charleston, South Carolina (16,359) Baltimore, Maryland (13,503) Northern Liberties Township, Pennsylvania (9,913) Salem, Massachusetts (7,921) Newport, Rhode Island (6,716) Providence, Rhode Island (6,380) Marblehead, Rhode Island (5,661)
The top ten most populous cities in 2010 were as follows: | {
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En ny dokumentarfilm "Det mørke Århus - når politik har en pris" er her til aften udkommet på nettet.
Filmen belyser, hvordan volden fra det yderste højre har sat sit præg på byen og på nogle af de mennesker, som volden er gået ud over. Blandt andet hvordan flere af unge venstrefløjsaktivister de senere år har måttet flytte fra byen for at undgå overfald.
- Med filmen har vi ønsket at skabe en samlet fremstilling af historien om det yderste højres voldskampagne i Aarhus. Vi vil gerne rette fokus på dette problem, som vi ikke mener bliver taget alvorligt af det officielle Århus, fortæller Rasmus Preston, en af producenterne bag filmen.
Et politisk indlæg
Gruppen bag "Produktionskollektivet Opbrud" kommer alle fem fra forskellige grupperinger på venstrefløjen. Alligevel mener talsmand, Rasmus Preston ikke, at dokumentarfilmen skal ses som politisk indlæg.
Men ville den yderste højrefløj ikke kunne lave en tilsvarende dokumentar om vold begået af den yderste venstrefløj?
- Nej. Den påståede vold, kan vi ikke genkende. Langt fra. Det lyder ofte i medierne, som om der her er tale om to parter, der er lige gode om det. Det er ikke tilfældet. Jeg kender til tre-fire tilfælde af vold fra venstrefløjen, men jeg kan opremse 40 tilfælde af vold fra White Prides side uden problemer. Alene i 2012 var der 12-13 tilfælde af politisk vold mod venstreorienterede og minoriteter i byen, siger Rasmus Preston.
Den politiske vold i byen var på sit højeste i nullerne. Det var også i denne periode, at en kvinde ved navn Charlotte Johansen gik undercover i White Pride og afdækkede både gruppens nazistiske tilhørsforhold og voldelige togter mod dele af venstrefløjen i sin bog "Forklædt som Nazist". | {
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Mexico City (CNN) Jorge Matadamas is a Mexican citizen, but at 23 years old, everything about the country is brand new to him.
From the time he was 4 years old, when he says his undocumented parents took him across the border into the United States, he lived in Phoenix. "I had lived there for so long that I considered it my home," he said.
Then, on March 7, he was deported.
Now he's living with his uncle and aunt in La Paz, a suburb about an hour and a half drive from the center of Mexico City.
The house, considered to be middle-class in the area, is small compared to the one where he grew up in the United States. His aunt runs a "deposito," or small snack and soda shop, attached to the front of the property.
Jorge Matadamas
"The first couple of days I think were the hardest," he said, "because they were the most emotional for actually realizing that I am not going to go back (to America) anytime soon."
"I didn't show it, but I was homesick."
When it comes to speaking Spanish, Matadamas can generally hold his own in a conversation, he said. He usually has to think of what he is going to say in English first, then translate it in his head.
But he speaks what is often called "Pocho," an unflattering term for Americanized Spanish, and a word that's used to describe Mexicans who have lost their culture.
Matadamas' aunt and uncle's house in La Paz. The "deposito" can be seen out front.
'They return without knowing their country'
As the national director of Somos Mexicanos, created by Mexico's immigration department three years ago to help repatriate Mexicans deported from the United States, Dalia Gabriela Garcia Acoltzi said she has seen thousands of people like Matadamas.
"They return speaking better English than Spanish," she said. "They return to Mexico without knowing their own country. They may know they were born here but that is about all they know."
Her organization helps them get proper identification, any required medical attention, and advises them about the various government programs that can assist them as they reassimilate into Mexico.
She said their knowledge of English is actually a great strength. "We are going to need better English teachers," Acoltzi said. "Who better than a Mexican citizen who has learned it as their native language?"
While a few become teachers, she said most get their first jobs at one of the many English call centers in Mexico, or work in the tourist industries that cater to Americans.
Acoltzi said she has seen a decrease in the number of people coming to her agency compared to this time last year. But President Donald Trump's recent executive orders broadening immigration officers' enforcement authority, coupled with his rhetoric about taking a tougher line on unauthorized immigration, have sparked fears among immigrant communities that deportations will rise -- and that more people who have largely known the United States as home will find themselves in Matadamas' situation.
A chance to stay legally, lost after arrest
Matadamas entered the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , or DACA, program in 2014, a measure that granted protections and work privileges to about 750,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
But last August, police stopped and arrested him for drunk driving.
"It was a stupid thing to do, and I made a mistake," Matadamas said, saying he takes responsibility for his actions.
Before that incident, he said he had never broken the law, other than getting a few traffic tickets.
Matadamas spent a month in the county jail before he was able to bond out. But before he was able to leave, ICE officials detained him.
He spent six months in an ICE detention center in Eloy, Arizona. While he was there, he married his longtime girlfriend, Iman, who is a US citizen and still living in Phoenix. But the criminal charges will keep his new wife from being able to petition for Matadamas' citizenship.
After his appeal to the deportation judge was denied, he was bused over the border into the Mexican town of Nogales.
It began to sink in then that Mexico was a foreign country for him in every sense of the word. "I'm actually leaving what I thought home was at one point in life, and going to a complete new country that I had never seen or been to," he said. "It was kinda frightening."
Matadamas has two younger brothers, both US citizens, who still live in Phoenix with his mother and stepfather. The middle brother, who is 18 years old, was able to bring him his clothes and personal items before he was taken over the border.
He only had $120 in his pocket when ICE dropped him off in Nogales. He used some of it to rent a hotel room that first night, before family members were able to get there and bring him back to Mexico City.
Matadamas said he is very appreciative of the small bedroom his aunt and uncle gave him, and wants to furnish the room more when he can. For now the room just contains a bed and a side chair doubling as a nightstand. Along one wall are cardboard boxes filled with supplies that his aunt uses for her business.
"I'm very grateful to them," he said. "They didn't have to take me into their home. They really treated me like one of their own. So I really just want to say thank you."
Getting a job
Matadamas, left, and his cousin, Daniel Velasco, eating at a taco stand.
Last Friday, Matadamas and his 28-year-old cousin, Daniel Velasco, visited another organization that may be able to help Matadamas find a job.
They walked through the Zòcalo, the square that is at the heart, physically and culturally, of the sprawling capital city. Thousands of locals and tourists crowded the open square; a large Mexican flag flew above their heads.
With Velasco sometimes acting as his translator, they stopped by an organization called Sederec, which helps repatriated Mexicans and newly arrived immigrants connect with employers and sometimes provides financial help for transportation costs during the job search.
Matadamas said he hopes his knowledge of English will be a skill he can market to potential employers.
In the United States, he had been working toward a managerial position at a restaurant chain, and said it would be an easy transition into a similar role here. Eventually, he said, he'd like to run or own a business.
"Perhaps with my cousin Daniel," who has a business degree, he said.
In the next few weeks Somos Mexicanos will bring Matadamas back in to interview with hotel representatives who are coming in from the Cancun area.
He said he could also see making a career in the hospitality industry and is looking forward to the appointment.
"I hope in a few years I can have a manager position," he said.
Looking to the future
The La Paz neighborhood where Matadamas' family lives.
Matadamas said that despite initially feeling down, he decided not to "beat himself up" about what has happened to him. He said he wants to use the experience to help him mature and stay out of trouble, and is determined to remain upbeat and positive despite the changes and the challenges ahead.
"I just have to be strong and keep my head up," he said.
He's hoping his wife will visit in April and see if she can adapt to living in Mexico.
"She wants to come and have the struggle with me," he said.
Matadamas has also been trying to come back to the United States. He said he and his mother have applied for U-Visas, usually given to people who can prove they were a victim of crime or abuse. He claims that both were physically abused by his late father.
But that process can take two to four years, and there is no guarantee he will receive a visa. In the meantime, Matadamas said he knows that Mexico will be his home while he waits, and that he is going to have to make it work here.
"It's not what I had in mind when I was thinking about my future," he said. "But things happen for a reason."
While he misses his family and wants to visit them at some point, he's aware that getting back to the United States will be tough. With his criminal record, getting a tourist visa to visit his family would be difficult to impossible. Both his mother and stepfather are undocumented and unlikely to take the risk of coming to Mexico. The threat of not being allowed back into the United States is too great.
He also concedes that if he can get a good job and make a good living here, he might abandon his attempts to go back.
"I had a really good life back in the United States," he said. "I had my family. I had all the stuff a normal American would. Now that I'm here, why not accomplish those goals here? It might be a little hard at first, but anything is possible." | {
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Ultra Music Festival, you have completely outdone yourself this year.
Phase one of the massive lineup has dropped featuring headliners Armin Van Buuren, Destroid, Eric Prydz, Hardwell, Kaskade, Martin Garrix, Nero, DJ Snake and Tiësto just to name a few…and oh, how dare we forget to mention the return of Pendulum (YES you read that right!)
A few of the many supporting acts come from Duke Dumont, Galantis, Jauz, KSHMR, Mashmello, Snails and Tchami.
If you were on the fence about heading down to Miami in March for Ultra, this stacked phase one should help you make your decision. Tickets can be purchased here.
We are thrilled to announce the first phase of the Ultra Music Festival 2016 lineup! #Ultra2016 pic.twitter.com/aQSG9m1gxG — Ultra Music Festival (@ultra) December 17, 2015
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Simplenote
Back in November, I held up Apple’s own Notes app as a great example of iPhone software design. I wrote:
I’ve looked at several note-editing apps available in the App Store, and most of them seem to have been designed without any recognition of just how clever and well-designed Apple’s Notes app is. Notes exposes its core functionality clearly and obviously, launches very quickly, requires very few taps to use, and uses just two simple levels of hierarchy (the flat list of notes, and the notes themselves).
But I noted three significant shortcomings:
Syncing Search Rotation
All three shortcomings were addressed in iPhone OS 3.0. In short, the updated version of Notes is emblematic of Apple’s steady, iterative approach to improving the iPhone — start with the basics, then add the most-requested new features over time. However, the one area I’m not satisfied by is syncing. Notes only sync via iTunes over USB, rather than over-the-air via MobileMe like calendars, contacts, and bookmarks. On the Mac, they sync to Apple Mail; on Windows, Outlook (which is part of Office, and therefore not free — Windows-using iPhone owners who don’t have Office can’t sync notes).
For me at least, over-the-air Internet syncing is an order of magnitude more appealing than USB or Bonjour syncing. For one thing, iPhone-to-iTunes USB syncing can be time consuming, especially when performing a backup. I often go several days without syncing my iPhone to iTunes. That means that if I were to use the built-in Notes app, my notes would only be in sync between my Mac and iPhone once or twice per week.
So I don’t use Notes. Since November, shortly after posting the aforementioned article, I’ve been using a splendid iPhone app called Simplenote. I’ve tried a slew of iPhone note editing apps, and not only is Simplenote my favorite, it might be my favorite third-party iPhone app, period. It’s that good.
First, unlike most of the other iPhone note apps I’ve tried, Simplenote shows an appreciation for just how good the built-in Notes app is. Cloud Factory (Simplenote’s developers) clearly studied what is good about Notes and thought about how to make something that is good in the same ways, but improves upon its major shortcomings.
Anyone who’s used the built-in Notes app will feel right at home in Simplenote. There are no folders, just a single, simple date-sorted list of notes. There are no fields associated with a note — just like with Apple’s, a note’s “title” is simply taken from the first line of the note. Simplenote launches quickly, offers full-text search, and supports horizontal screen rotation.
The list of all notes:
An individual note:
In short, Simplenote improves upon Notes in two significant ways:
Over-the-air syncing, which, in eight months of my use, works splendidly. Helvetica.1
What Simplenote syncs to is this simple web app, reminiscent in style and scope to the Mac app Notational Velocity, which I wrote about in a footnote to my “Untitled Document Syndrome” piece back in February. Several of the online-syncable iPhone note apps I’ve tried and discarded are designed to use existing web apps like Google Documents; but Google Documents offers all sorts of features and assumptions that don’t map well to a simple plain-text iPhone notes app. The Simplenote web and iPhone apps were designed to work with each other. They are of a piece.
The Simplenote web app is hosted on Google App Engine. In my eight months of using it, it has always been fast and syncing has been perfectly reliable. It just works.
Regarding Basic Syncing Strategies
There are two main strategies for an iPhone app to sync data to your Mac or PC.
The first is direct client-to-client sync. iTunes’s USB syncing is an example of that. A third-party example is Things, from Cultured Code, which syncs directly between the iPhone and Mac version of Things over Wi-Fi. An example of an iPhone notes app that does this is Polar Bear Farm’s Note Pad, which syncs to a native Mac and Windows desktop app named Sync, which Polar Bear Farm wrote specifically to serve as a syncing client for Note Pad.
The other strategy is to use a server on the Internet as a hub for syncing. That’s how MobileMe works, and that’s how Simplenote works.
There are several advantages to using a central web app/web service for syncing. One is that you can access your synced data from any computer with a web browser. Whereas with an app like Things, you can only access your data from your own Mac — and it must be a Mac, because there is no Windows client.
Another advantage for web-based syncing is that your data is always up to date everywhere, almost instantly. As with MobileMe, you don’t need to manually initiate a sync with Simplenote. When you launch it, Simplenote checks with the server for changes. When you make changes on the iPhone, they’re sent back to the server seconds later. The only way your data can get out of sync is if you make changes on the iPhone while there is no network available; in that case you simply need to relaunch Simplenote once network access is available.
With client-to-client syncing a la Things, you often need to initiate syncing manually. A scenario I’ve run into with Things is that I’ll jot a few shopping items using the Mac app, then, later on when I’m actually at the store, take out my iPhone and realize that I hadn’t synced. Every time you make changes, your data is out of sync until the next time you launch the iPhone and Mac clients together on the same Wi-Fi network.
The same goes for iTunes’s USB-based syncing for calendar events and contacts — if you don’t remember to manually initiate a sync (and wait for it to complete) before leaving the house, the data on your iPhone is out of date.
With Simplenote and MobileMe, so long as you have a network connection, your data is never out of sync.
To be clear, though, there are important trade-offs. The biggest downside to web-based syncing is the implicit lack of privacy. Your data resides on a server that someone else controls. I’m willing to accept this because the convenience is worth it, and the privacy issues with Simplenote are no different than with any web-based service. (It’s also worth pointing out that Simplenote uses HTTPS rather than regular HTTP, so network communication between the iPhone app and web site is encrypted. I would not use or recommend Simplenote if it didn’t use SSL to encrypt network traffic.)
With something like Things or Note Pad, your data exists only on your own machines. And with something like OmniFocus, you can sync to your own WebDAV server, if you have one. It’s a trade-off between (a) convenience and universal access and (b) the privacy advantages of your data residing only on your own devices. (And even so, keeping your data private to your own machines is no panacea. Computers and phones — especially phones — get lost and stolen.)
The Bottom Line
Amazingly, Simplenote costs just $2 — including ongoing access to the web app. On the one hand, yes, App Store prices tend to be very low, and Simplenote is very much competing against the free built-in Notes app from Apple. But when I bought Simplenote back in November, it cost $3, and I thought that price was crazy low.
What gives me pause about the low price is that I want Cloud Factory to thrive and for them to be able to maintain the web-based Simplenote component for the foreseeable future. The flawless syncing is central to Simplenote’s appeal. Yes, Google App Engine hosting is relatively inexpensive, and iPhone-sized text notes are by nature relatively tiny in terms of a service whose bandwidth quotas are measured in gigabytes, but Cloud Factory is only charging a one-time fee of $2. I’d feel better spending more — my thought back in November was that the low one-time fee was too good to be true.
On the other hand, though, the low price means there’s no reason not to try it. It’s hard for me to imagine how you could get more for $2 than you will by buying Simplenote. | {
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On the eve of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and days before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam predicts a widening wealth gap and points a finger at lobbying for much the of wealth accumulation at the top. The world’s wealthiest 1 percent is likely to control over 50 percent of global wealth by next year, according to Monday’s report.
In 2014, the 1 percent held 48 percent of global wealth. But that doesn’t mean the other 52 percent was for the rest of us; most of it was controlled by the 20 wealthiest percent, leaving just 5.5 percent of global wealth for 80 percent of the world.
It used to be that the total wealth of the world’s billionaires and of the bottom half of the globe increased at roughly the same rate. That changed in 2010. Total wealth for the poorest 50 percent has actually decreased from what it was in 2009, while wealth at the top has doubled (in nominal terms). Just 80 billionaires now control the same wealth as 3.5 billion people.
So who are these billionaires and how’d they get so much more money? Forbes listed 1,645 billionaires in 2014, one-third of whom started their lives wealthy. Ninety percent are male and 85 percent are over age 50. According to Oxfam, the top 80 billionaires have seen their collective wealth grow by $600 billion between 2010 and 2014.
Growing wealth inequality certainly isn’t a new phenomenon, and almost a year after the Thomas Piketty sensation, chatter about its causes and consequences hasn’t dulled. The Oxfam report zeroes in on the political influence affordable to the ultrarich: lobbying, specifically in the financial and pharmaceutical and health care industries.
Twenty percent of Forbes’ 2014 billionaires had some stake in the financial and insurance sectors, with the richest 10 possessing familiar names like Buffett, Soros and Bloomberg. More campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties come from the financial sector than any other source, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And with American finance billionaires experiencing a one-year wealth increase of 17 percent, they’ve had money to spend.
The financial sector spent $400 million on lobbying in the United States, and another estimated $150 million in the European Union in 2013. In the last U.S. presidential election year, the industry spent $571 million.
But the billionaires who saw the greatest increase in wealth were those with “interests and activities” in the pharmaceutical and health care sectors. They’re not the household names their elite cousins in finance are, but with a 47 percent collective wealth increase between 2013 and 2014, and health care at the center of America’s political debate, they’ve had significant clout.
The pharmaceutical and health care sectors spent more on lobbying in 2013 than any other sector in the U.S., dishing out more than $487 million. Their influence has been felt in Europe, too, where these sectors spend an estimated $50 million each year.
Budget and tax issues are the biggest targets of these industries’ heavy spending, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. A “calculated investment,” Oxfam argues, their spending helps industry gain favor in Washington and Brussels at the expense of the public interest.
Update: Not everyone who believes wealth inequality is a problem is behind Oxfam’s numbers and the way they aggregate wealth. Felix Salmon writes a strong critic of the Oxfam report, an excerpt of which is below:
The second lesson of this story is broader: that when you’re talking about poor people, aggregating wealth is a silly and ultimately pointless exercise. Some poor people have modest savings; some poor people are deeply in debt; some poor people have nothing at all. (Also, some rich people are deeply in debt, which helps to throw off the statistics.) By lumping them all together and aggregating all those positive and negative ledger balances, you arrive at a number which is inevitably going to be low, but which is also largely meaningless. …Wealth, and net worth, are useful metrics when you’re talking about the rich. But they tend to conceal more than they reveal when you’re talking about the poor.
Read Salmon’s full piece: “Oxfam’s Misleading Wealth Statistics.” | {
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SAN DIEGO, CA — Controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone and French film director Luc Besson made appearances at Comic-Con International Thursday as the annual celebration of the popular arts got under way at the San Diego Convention Center.
It was Stone's debut at Comic-Con International, where he showed clips of his latest film, "Snowden," in Hall H and took part in a question-and-answer session with actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley and Zachary Quinto. Gordon-Levitt plays title character Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who divulged U.S. National Security Agency secrets before fleeing to Russia. "Snowden" is scheduled to open in theaters Sept. 16.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Stone was also expected to conduct a secret screening of the film for invited guests. Besson returned to Comic-Con to show new exclusive footage for his upcoming film "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets." The event in Hall H had actors Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, and producer Viginie Besson-Silla on hand for a question-and-answer session.
DeHaan and Delevigne star as Valerian and Laureline, respectively, who are special operatives for the government of the human territories charged with maintaining order throughout the universe.
Other first-day highlights were expected to include a world-premiere screening of the USA series "Falling Water," the 75th anniversary of Captain America, the 19th annual Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza and the Cartoon Network Costume Ball.
Comic-Con puts the cap on a big month for San Diego tourism, in which thousands of visitors were lured to town by the July 4 holiday weekend, baseball's All-Star Game, the Over-the-Line Tournament and the San Diego Pride Parade and Festival. Officials are urging the use of public transit because of the huge crowds of attendees and gawkers expected in downtown San Diego over the next few days. The Metropolitan Transit System will run Blue and Green line trolleys every 7 1/2 minutes during peak periods, with the last trains leaving downtown after midnight. The Convention Center and Gaslamp stops provide access to the venue. The MTS has also printed a limited quantity of commemorative Comic-Con day passes. North County Transit District officials said they will add a northbound Coaster train Saturday that will leave the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego at 9:15 p.m. Amtrak will not accept Rail-to-Rail service with Coaster fares during Comic-Con. | {
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Milestone: A Game of Thrones #1 NYT Best Seller
We recently noted on Twitter that the New York Times weekly column on their bestseller list, “Inside the List”, mentioned George R.R. Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire, as the novels held four of the top ten positions on their Mass Market Paperback list.
Well, the New York Times bestseller list has been updated, and fully fifteen years after it was first published A Game of Thrones is now the #1 best seller, while the rest of the novels still hold positions on the top ten. It’s quite an amazing achievement, probably last matched by Charlaine Harris and the boom in sales that her Sookie Stackhouse have enjoyed after True Blood became a phenomena. A Game of Thrones is also #1 on the Publishers Weekly list for the first time, to our understanding, with two other books in the series in the top six.
Congratulations to George and to Bantam (as well as to Voyager in the UK, who’ve seen similar rises in sales), and a big thank you to HBO and the cast and crew of Game of Thrones, who helped kick the doors wide-open for hundreds of thousands new fans!
Thanks to olafkeith for the tip! | {
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RANCHO SANTA FE, California — Even though more states are legalizing medical marijuana, and federal officials have claimed that the prosecution of pot smokers is no longer a priority, the “war on drugs” continues to destroy the lives of Americans suffering from dire medical conditions.
Sean Kiernan is a U.S. Army veteran from Rancho Santa Fe, California, who, along with his wife, pleaded guilty earlier this year to felony charges related to growing marijuana for other veterans.
Kiernan attempted suicide in 2011, nearly becoming part of a horrifying statistic: Although the figure is disputed, some estimates suggest that an average of 22 veterans commit suicide each day. Still struggling two years later, Kiernan was involuntarily committed by officials at a Veterans Affairs hospital, an experience which he says led him to embrace the benefits of cannabis over pharmaceutical drugs.
California, like 22 other states and Washington, D.C., has legalized medical marijuana. Yet even in states with medical marijuana, veterans may not be able to access the drug without endangering their benefits, though this policy is slowly changing. In July, a judge dropped charges against Kristoffer Lewandowski, a Marine Corps veteran, who had faced life in prison in Oklahoma for using cannabis to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to a report from 2013, nearly one in 10 prison inmates is a veteran. Recent data shows over 13,200 veterans are now in treatment through “Veterans Treatment Courts,” an alternative to the criminal justice system that’s coming under increasing pressure as more veterans struggle with substance abuse, mental health issues or other trauma.
In an interview with MintPress News, Kiernan said he’s being targeted because of his frequent appearances in the media touting the benefits of medical marijuana for veterans and his support of a controversial scientist who wants to study its effects on PTSD.
Reflecting on the struggle for access, Kiernan said, “Marijuana is illegal because it makes people rich.” Indeed, the war on drugs brings in billions every year to police and the prison-industrial complex. According to a 2013 report from MSNBC, over a trillion dollars has been spent since the war on drugs began.
Despite facing a felony charge, Kiernan is determined to continue to spread awareness of the drug’s potential in treating America’s veterans. In fact, he’s planning to celebrate Veterans Day in Washington surrounded by people with similar experiences.
A veteran of war and the war on drugs
Before we spoke, Kiernan shared a written account of an incident during his service in Panama. He joined the Army in 1990 and was eventually stationed with the 87th Infantry at Ft. Davis in Panama. While he encountered numerous traumas during his service, one particular incident that stands out for him is the death of his friend and fellow soldier, Cpl. Zak A. Hernandez.
Hernandez died in 1992, when his Jeep was ambushed by men armed with automatic rifles outside of Panama City. His passenger, Sgt. Ronald T. Marshall, was also severely injured, in what may have been an act of revenge for the invasion of the city in 1989 and its continued occupation by U.S. soldiers. Kiernan and other soldiers had actually competed to make the trip, only for the task to fall to Hernandez.
“Death is part of the military, I donʼt know why this one hit me so hard vs. others,” he wrote.
After being honorably discharged from the Army in 1993, Kiernan began experiencing symptoms of PTSD. Before discovering the treatment that benefits him most — marijuana — Kiernan told MintPress he suffered from insomnia, severe nightmares, and aggressive behavior he found difficult to control. He also abused a variety of drugs before recognizing the potential of marijuana, he said. In 2011, overwhelmed by hopelessness, Kiernan was hospitalized after taking an almost fatal dose of GHB, a narcotic sedative, and Lamictal, a PTSD drug.
At the urging of his family, Kiernan sought help through conventional medicine at a VA hospital in 2013, only to experience the additional trauma of being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward. In another written account he shared with MintPress, Kiernan described his breakdown in an overcrowded reception area
“A tremendous anxiety came over me as I started to remember so much I had tried so long to forget, I started to break down and cry, quietly at first, but tears started to stream down my face uncontrollably and I became overwhelmed with emotion. I was wearing a hoodie, which I pulled over my head and face and my sobbing only got worse. Memories, fears, and anger filled me like a floodgate had been opened.”
Although he says some of the staff were compassionate toward him, a doctor recommended he be admitted to the psychiatric ward for observation. When Kiernan refused and tried to leave, police arrested him and forced him to stay on an involuntary hold. Kiernan said the hospital was on “high alert” because Chris Kyle, the veteran of “American Sniper” fame, had been shot recently by another soldier suffering from PTSD at a Texas gun range.
The hospitalization marked a turning point for Kiernan. He said it “allowed me to see the horrific over-medication of our veterans and soldiers. That is what motivated me to become active.”
‘We got our guy back’
Kiernan had been prescribed a lengthy list of medications that came with side effects of their own that he found unbearable. For example, he was prescribed Prazosin, a drug meant to treat high blood pressure which can also be prescribed for anxiety, but on his second day home from the hospital, he said: “Chrissy, my wife, noticed I was talking nonsense and she soon realized I was dreaming while awake which — surprise, surprise — is a stated side effect of Prazosin.”
The VA’s guide to pharmaceutical treatment for PTSD includes dozens of possible drugs, ranging from antidepressants to mood stabilizers and antiepileptic drugs, each with a range of potential side effects. Possible side effects of serotonin selective reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants most commonly used for PTSD treatment include from insomnia, nausea, dizziness, and sexual dysfunction. Lamictal, an antiseizure medication used as a mood stabilizer, can cause insomnia, headaches, tremors, and occasionally blurred vision.
By contrast, Kiernan says marijuana helps him feel more in control of his symptoms and it carries far fewer side effects. He realized its potential from talking to other veterans as he sought help through conventional medicine. He says a common refrain among the wives of veterans, describing the effect of marijuana on their families, is: “We got our guy back.”
Watch Veteran Sean Kiernan Speaks in Favor of Marijuana for PTSD Research:
After experiencing firsthand the benefits of cannabis, Kiernan sought to help others access the drug. He went public as a medical marijuana user in 2014 to defend Sue Sisley, a former researcher at the University of Arizona, who was fired under controversial circumstances just months after receiving approval to study the benefits of marijuana on veterans suffering from PTSD. His support for Sisley led to an appearance on “Weed 3: The Marijuana Revolution,” a documentary released by CNN in April.
“It’s a civil rights movement,” he told MintPress. “People need to come out of the closet, show it’s not all hippie surfers.”
As chief financial officer of the Weed For Warriors Project, Kiernan organizes a monthly BBQ in California that offers bags of donated medical marijuana to veterans. But his other efforts to help veterans gain access to this crucial herbal medicine have strayed beyond the boundaries of the law.
In November 2014, close to the time the CNN documentary was first announced, Kiernan says he literally ran into a DEA agent surveillancing his property one morning. In January, agents raided his house. During the raid, an agent told him he’d been targeted because of his defense of Sisley.
Kiernan and his wife pleaded guilty to felony possession of marijuana with intent to sell and will be sentenced in December. He told MintPress that he’s accused of helping veterans in states without medical marijuana laws access the drug at rates far below what they’d pay on the black market. Because of the active charges against him, he was reticent to describe exactly what this entailed, but it’s clear that he remains unrepentant.
“When something is unjust, we have a duty to break that law,” he said.
Kiernan emphasized that the war on drugs is destroying lives. People are imprisoned who led productive lives and were “otherwise adding value to the economy.”
Cannaball Run: Taking the struggle to Washington
Despite growing evidence that cannabis can be beneficial in the treatment of a host of ailments, government officials remain reluctant to acknowledge its potential. In September, Chuck Rosenberg, the acting chief of the DEA, admitted that marijuana is less dangerous than heroin, but said he wouldn’t allow it to be legally reclassified as a less dangerous drug. And in a Nov. 4 briefing with reporters, he called medical marijuana “a joke,” dismissing its effectiveness outright.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also denies the medicinal potential of cannabis. A report published on the VA website claims, “[T]here is no evidence at this time that marijuana is an effective treatment for PTSD. In fact, research suggests that marijuana can be harmful to individuals with PTSD.”
In the hopes of changing these attitudes, Kiernan, along with other members of Weed For Warriors, embarked a cross-country journey called the Cannaball Run, an awareness campaign that began on Oct. 17 in Santa Monica, California, and is scheduled to end on Wednesday, Veterans Day, in Washington, D.C.
“We’re going to march from Ben Franklin Park to the Veterans Administration to the White House, laying out empty pill bottles as we go,” he told MintPress.
In addition to educating the public about marijuana, he hopes the event will bring attention to the shocking suicide rate among veterans, which Kiernan fears could be much higher due to the common problem of under-reporting of suicides. The war on drugs exacerbates the problem, he explained. “People say, ‘Marijuana worked for him and then they took it away in jail and he committed suicide.’”
“The people who are benefiting are a few rich families from the pharmaceutical industry, and the under-educated thugs in the prison guard population, we’ve got to change something here,” Kiernan concluded.
Watch a “Weed For Warriors” introductory video: | {
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Image copyright Getty Images
Ministers should tighten the UK's official climate change target - or face the courts, the government's former chief scientist has said.
Prof Sir David King is supporting a legal case forcing ministers to shrink carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
He says the current government goal - an 80% emissions cut by the same date - is too weak to protect the climate.
Ministers have promised more ambitious climate policies in their forthcoming and long-delayed Clean Growth plan.
But Prof King told BBC News the government knew the 80% target cut behind that plan was too weak.
Some 18 months ago, Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom promised a 100% emissions reduction to keep the UK on track with its obligations under the 2015 Paris climate deal.
But ministers have failed to enshrine that 100% cut within the Climate Change Act.
Potential catastrophe
"This is crazy," Prof King told the BBC. "The government knows very well what needs to be done - but it isn't doing it.
"If it takes legal action to force ministers to behave properly, then so be it - I'll support it."
Prof King is backing a preliminary legal action by a tiny group, Plan B, run by former government lawyer Tim Crosland.
It argues that Business Secretary Greg Clark is obliged under the act to tighten targets if the science shows it is needed. This is the basis of the case.
Mr Crosland has written to Mr Clark and says if there is no satisfactory reply after 14 days, he will take the case to the High Court for judicial review.
"The science has clearly hardened since the Climate Change Act was agreed," he said.
"If scientists are telling us our current course of emissions potentially takes us to catastrophe, then to stick to the current course is irrational.
"The best available science tells us the risks of crossing tipping points rise very sharply between 1.5 and 2C. And that means the UK cutting emissions to zero."
Counter-productive?
His case would be argued in court by Jonathan Crow, Attorney General to Prince Charles, and a former senior Treasury lawyer.
Mr Crosland says his co-claimants are a rabbi "who learned not to ignore a humanitarian crisis"; young people fearing for the future; and a supporter from Mauritius representing island states at risk from rising sea water.
Other groups are similarly frustrated with long delays in the government's climate strategy, and some are also considering legal action.
There are fears, though, that pushing for a zero emissions strategy when the government cannot yet reach its lower target may be counter-productive.
ClientEarth, one of the UK's most successful environment groups over the past decade, has pioneered the use of the courts to deliver environmental policies.
Jonathan Church, a climate lawyer with the group, said: "We hope that Plan B's claim will help draw attention to the urgency of the challenge we face and ensure that our government keeps its eye on the goals agreed in Paris.
"But targets do not on their own reduce emissions."
He added that the focus now should be ensuring that the Climate Change Act fulfils its purpose.
The government said it would consider Plan B's letter and respond in due course, adding: "The UK is a global leader on climate change".
A spokesperson said the forthcoming Clean Growth plan, which will outline how reduce emissions will be reduced, would be "ambitious and robust... and build on the economic opportunities across the country".
Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin | {
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Courtesy of the NAACP, with over 37,000 likes and 23,000 retweets. But this meme isn’t limited to them, it originates with a Washington Post article, based on research by political science professors at the University of North Texas. From there, it got picked up by countless media outlets, including The Hill, Business Insider, Vox and SF Gate. The amount of shares on social media are too numerous to count, but include major and influential voices like Joy Reid, Arianna Huffington, Will Bunch and Joe Scarborough, who repeated this claim as fact. Did hate crimes really rise 226% where Trump held his rallies? Let’s examine the evidence.
The Flawed Washington Post Study
Since this statistic originates with the Washington Post article, let’s look at their methodology. The professors examined the counties which hosted 275 Trump campaign rallies in 2016 and used the Anti-Defamation League’s “HEAT map” to compile data about hate crimes in the subsequent months. They found that hate crimes rose 226% in relation to “comparable counties” that did not host a rally. However, there are serious flaws with this study.
The ADL’s HEAT map is not a good source to analyze hate crimes, because it’s not a list of hate crimes. It includes a list of “extremist and anti-Semitic incidents,” which are often not crimes at all. If you download their data (click on “download selected data”) you can see all the events they include. A great many are simply examples of free speech and/or rude and offensive behavior. Here are some examples:
They list literally hundreds of instances where (generally far right) activist groups distributed fliers or other propaganda material. Some of these had slogans which were fairly benign (“America First,” “Defend America,” “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Victory,” “Better dead than red”) while others were outright racist or anti-Semitic (“Join the KKK and fight for race and nation,” “European roots, American greatness”).
Approximately two dozen League of the South members held a flash demonstration on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
A juvenile received images of Hitler to her cell phone from an unknown number.
Anti-Semitic comments made in a Snapchat group.
In a soccer game, a 13 year old was told “stop following me Jew” by another player.
During a sermon, a priest made anti-Semitic comments about Jewish liturgy.
However offensive one might find these events, they are not hate crimes. So long as groups and individuals are just distributing material, protesting or being jerks they are within their first amendment rights. Hate crimes involve credible threats or damage to persons or property, and include acts like vandalism, intimidation, burglary and assault. While the ADL’s list includes these acts, they also include many things that don’t qualify as crimes, just read through the list yourself. More than half appear to be examples of offensive speech, not crimes.
The purpose of the ADL map is to identify what they feel are disturbing racist or anti-Semitic acts, but this is not at all the same as identifying hate crimes. For that, the FBI data on hate crimes should be used, yet it wasn’t used in the study. Thus, the study cited in the Washington Post is based on flawed data for its stated purpose.
The study also says they compared counties with Trump rallies to “comparable counties”. They don’t explain how they do this, but it’s very suspect. For example, what is a comparable city/county to Las Vegas/Clark County? Vegas is by far the largest city in Nevada, and there’s no city of equivalent population for hundreds of miles. What ever is chosen will certainly not be “comparable” by any reasonable standard. Trump tended to have rallies in urban areas, which one would assume would have higher instances of these acts than the “comparable counties” around them. A far better method would be to compare the same city/county before and after a Trump rally, a method which will be done here.
In order for a study on hate crimes to be taken seriously, it must use the FBI Hate Crime database, or an equivalent (which doesn’t yet exist). The Washington Post article does not use such data, and I could find no other source which attempted to check Trump rallies with such data. Which meant I had to do my own study.
The Meme Policeman Methodology
For this analysis, I took the list of Trump’s presidential campaign rallies. These began in 2015, but only the ones during 2016 up until the election were used, as that’s what the meme references.
There were 275 total rallies, but some cities were visited multiple times, giving us 223 total cities/counties to analyze.
The hate crimes data was taken from the FBI database from 2015 and 2016 in order to compare hate crimes for each year for every area. If you click on Table 13, it breaks down each state’s reported hate crimes by the local reporting agency. If the thesis of the meme is correct, the rhetoric of the Trump rallies would register a noticeable uptick in the amount of hate crimes in these areas during 2016 compared to 2015.
FBI hate crimes statistics come from various participating law enforcement agencies around the country who provide them with data. Generally, it’s cities providing the data, although some states also have counties listed, and occasionally other agencies like universities, parks, highway patrol or airports will also report. Thus, it’s often a bit complicated to find data for a particular campaign rally’s area as there could be multiple reporting agencies.
For each rally, I included data for the city, county and any other relevant reporting agency nearby. Sometimes this was simple, as in New Hampshire, where only cities are listed. Other areas were more complex. For example, for Trump’s rally in Miami I included data from Miami Beach, North Miami, North Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County.
In some cases, Trump had two rallies in nearby towns or cities in the same county. For those, I only included the county once, as to avoid double counting.
If this sounds like a lot of work, it was! There was no way to automate the process, as each rally location had to be researched for county and possible universities, airports and parks. For more info on how to find and sift through FBI hate crime data like a ninja, see my instructional video.
Results
Of the 223 cities and towns Trump had rallies in, over 1/3 (86) reported zero hate crimes for all of 2016. Over half (127) reported one or less. Considering the relatively low frequency of these crimes, statistics for a given area can be wildly misleading. For instance, Tampa, which Trump visited more than any other city, had hate crimes rise by a whopping 300%! But this is because it went from 1 incident in 2015 to 4 in 2016. Meanwhile, hate crimes in Las Vegas, where Trump visited 4 times, plummeted by 40% (48 in 2015 to 29 in 2016). Thus, beware anytime you see hate crimes stats for a local area or even state, as these can fluctuate dramatically. The amount of Trump rallies evens out these fluctuations a bit, but it should still be taken with skepticism.
Here are the combined results for all the cities and counties Trump had campaign rallies for in 2016:
2016: 1,450 hate crimes
2015: 1,433 hate crimes
Far from the meme’s and Washington Post’s claim, the increase in hate crimes in cities/counties where Trump had rallies was just 1%. Furthermore, it could be credibly argued that hate crimes actually declined in these areas when factoring increased reporting and population. If you click on the “participating agencies” section of the FBI data, it shows the number of agencies reporting the data and population covered. In 2016, there were 257 more reporting agencies than 2015 (15,254 vs. 14,997) covering a population of 5.9 million more people (289.8M vs. 283.9M).
This means that the 2016 data included 2% more people, so we’d assume a 2% increase in hate crimes all things being equal. It’s sort of like comparing real and nominal prices. So a 1% increase is arguably a 1% decline.
Either way it’s looked at, hate crimes remained essentially flat. This data proves nothing about the influence Trump rallies have on hate crimes, except that they appear to have no influence.
Overall, hate crimes increased by 4.6% throughout the country from 205-16. This means that the areas Trump visited actually fared better than the rest of the country on average. Of course, this small statistical correlation can’t be attributed to Trump, but it further knocks down the narrative of the meme and Post article.
More Context
If one is inclined, just about any narrative can be created by examining hate crime statistics. For example, anti-Hispanic hate crimes increased 15% from 2015-16, which out of context could be attributed to Trump’s rhetoric. But anti-black crimes declined by 1%, and anti-white crimes increased by 17%. The Trump rhetoric narrative also collapses when we see that white offenders actually declined by 3% in 2016, while Hispanic offenders increased by a whopping 40%!
However, lest the pro-Trump crowd get too excited, many of these narratives flipped in 2017 (the latest data available). Anti-Hispanic crimes rose at an even faster pace (24%) than anti-white crimes (3%) and this time white offenders increased by 20%, although Hispanic offenders increased again more than any other group by 38% (but still committed far fewer hate crimes than whites). Of course, we also need to factor in the increased reporting agencies in 2017, which covered 6% more people, which tempers these numbers a bit. It becomes clear that things get quite complicated and nuanced!
One interesting narrative that is never reported is that the least amount of hate crimes happen in some of the deepest parts of Trump country. Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas all had less than 10 hate crimes reported in the entire state during 2017, with Mississippi registering just 4, a decline of 60% from the year prior. These are supposedly the most racist areas of the US, yet have the fewest hate crimes. Compare them with Democrat strongholds like California, with a whopping 1,270 hate crimes in 2017 or Washington with 613, a strikingly high number considering their population. Yet, even this narrative collapses when we look at other red states like Kentucky (432) and South Carolina (94), who had huge percentage increases in hate crimes in 2017.
Historical context on hate crimes (not adjusted for population)
Conclusion
The purpose of pointing out these different narratives is to show how manipulative these sorts of statistics can be. Depending on one’s agenda, almost anything can be hyped up without context. But if we step back, the reality is that hate crimes are far lower today than they were two decades ago, particularly when factoring in increased population, and are not at alarming levels historically. This could change in the future, of course, but for now the fear is not based on facts, but media hype.
Regarding this particular claim, it’s completely detached from reality and the facts. Any researcher who understands hate crimes should know to use the FBI database, not the ADL’s. The fact that this was published by one of the nation’s largest newspapers and shared heavily by the media elites is shameful. | {
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The resolution specifically takes aim at Trump’s stated goal of “leaving soldiers to secure the oil” in northeast Syria. It would require Trump to withdraw all troops from Syria within two months unless they are “engaged in operations directed at al-Qaeda or associated forces.”
The 1973 War Powers Act allows any lawmaker to force a vote requiring the president to withdraw troops from any conflicts not authorized by Congress. The law allows Gabbard to call up a vote on the US troop posture in Syria as soon as Dec. 11.
Hoyer’s opposition, coupled with a lack of buy-in from some progressive Democrats and anti-war groups, could significantly hamper Gabbard’s ability to pass the legislation.
“I intend to vote no,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told Al-Monitor today. “We haven’t whipped this, but I think our members think an immediate withdrawal would not be appropriate.”
Presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, could force a House vote next week that would require President Donald Trump to withdraw the roughly 1,000 remaining US troops from Syria. But there’s just one problem — the House’s No. 2 Democrat firmly opposes her effort.
“President Trump’s deployment of US troops to secure Syrian oil fields that do not belong to us, with talks of welcoming in private oil corporations to take the oil, is unconstitutional and a violation of international law,” Gabbard said in a statement last week.
Trump reversed course on a full withdrawal from northeast Syria in October, redeploying some 900 troops to secure oil fields in the area and stating that the United States “should be able to take some.” Shortly thereafter, Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters that US troops would primarily guard the oil fields from the Islamic State despite the territorial defeat of the caliphate.
Gabbard, who is leaving Congress in 2021, centered her campaign around opposition to what she labels "regime-change wars.” But she has also developed a checkered reputation on Syria due to her past statements widely viewed as supportive of President Bashar al-Assad.
This is her second stab at a Syria war powers bill, and negotiations over the resolution’s final language remain ongoing.
She introduced a new version of the bill last week after an Al-Monitor report detailed concerns about her initial bill that were raised by some key anti-war groups. Still, several of the activists remain unsatisfied, arguing that the current language could still be construed to authorize military action against the Islamic State.
The resolution’s latest language tracks more closely with a Yemen war powers resolution introduced by her 2020 presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. Sanders and Khanna succeeded in passing that resolution, which was intended to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, but they did not have enough support to override Trump’s veto in April.
Khanna struggled to get his Yemen war powers resolution passed when he first introduced it in 2017. But the effort gained significant traction after Hoyer and other Democratic leaders backed his legislation last year.
Nonetheless, even Khanna has not committed to voting for Gabbard’s resolution, which still does not have any co-sponsors.
“I still have some concerns as to some of the groups, and we’re trying to work it out,” Khanna told Al-Monitor.
However, the resolution does boast support from two of the dozens of advocacy groups involved in the Yemen war powers push coalition: Just Foreign Policy and Demand Progress.
“It should be an easy yes vote for anyone who believes in the US Constitution and laws, which state that only Congress — not the president — can authorize deployments of troops into harm’s way,” Erik Sperling, the executive director for Just Foreign Policy, told Al-Monitor. “Congress has clearly not authorized our forces to take Syria’s oil, which is illegal, unconstitutional and extremely damaging to our nation’s image abroad.” | {
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South Bay commuters looking to avoid the 405 Freeway have long taken an alternate route through Playa del Rey, passing the coastline and the Ballona Wetlands to reach Santa Monica.
The route is popular — with more than 24,000 vehicles per day — but some residents complained that harried commuters speeding through the neighborhood put pedestrians and children at risk.
For the record: A headline on an earlier version of this article referred to narrowed streets in Playa Vista. That neighborhood’s streets did not have lanes of traffic removed.
The friction came to a head this month, when Los Angeles officials eliminated 9.4 miles of traffic lanes and added 4.3 miles of bike lanes in an effort to reduce collisions.
The restriping led to bumper-to-bumper traffic, sending drive times and tempers soaring. Opponents have drafted an online petition calling on City Councilman Mike Bonin to reverse the “one-lane madness,” as well as a fundraising campaign for a formal appeal to the City Council — and a lawsuit to reverse the project, if it comes to that, organizers say.
The fight offers a glimpse of future battles as Los Angeles officials roll out dozens of similar projects over the next decade. Two sweeping initiatives — Vision Zero and Mobility Plan 2035 — call for reducing traffic deaths and improving transit and bike infrastructure across the city, changes that will frequently come at the expense of travel lanes on major thoroughfares.
Traffic in the Playa del Rey neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 15. (Los Angeles Times)
“Change is hard, and people’s first reaction to change is the most negative,” said Seleta Reynolds, the Transportation Department’s general manager. It helps, she says, if the public is involved in the process.
That was not the case for Vista del Mar, one of the few major streets that bypasses Los Angeles International Airport and connects the South Bay and the Westside. Last month, with little warning, the city narrowed the beachfront street to one lane in each direction in an effort to reduce liability for fatal traffic collisions.
The other lane reductions — on Pershing Drive and Culver, Jefferson and Venice boulevards — were advertised for months through meetings, social media and Bonin’s newsletters to constituents, officials say.
The traffic should calm down in a few weeks, city officials say. The narrower streets are expected to spare about 16 people each year from severe injuries in car crashes.
Change is hard, and people’s first reaction to change is the most negative. Transportation Department general manager Seleta Reynolds
More than 5,800 people from Los Angeles and several South Bay cities have signed the petition, and the fundraising campaign, “Fight L.A. Gridlock,” has generated nearly $16,000.
“We support street safety,” said John Russo, a 43-year-old Playa del Rey resident who started the fundraiser. “We just want to be brought to the table. And we want to try to find a solution that doesn’t punish people in cars who want to go home and have dinner with their families.”
Frustrated commuters have vented about delays on social media. Others have flooded Bonin’s phone lines and Facebook page with complaints, insults and threats to recall him from office.
The changes, Bonin said, have sparked “some very ugly reactions.”
We want to try to find a solution that doesn’t punish people in cars who want to go home and have dinner with their families. John Russo, Playa del Rey resident
The Vista del Mar redesign followed the Los Angeles City Council’s decision in April to pay $9.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the parents of a 16-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a taxi driver as she crossed the street.
At the advice of City Atty. Mike Feuer, transportation employees rushed to redesign the street before summer crowds began descending on Dockweiler Beach, Reynolds said. (A Feuer spokesman said he could not comment on “confidential advice that may or may not have been given to our client.”)
To speed up the project, the city truncated the public outreach process. That was a mistake, Reynolds said, because “people were caught by surprise.”
Vista del Mar was “by far the largest restriping project that the department has ever done,” she said. The city shifted all parking to the west side of the street, to discourage people from darting across traffic, and narrowed the route to one lane in each direction.
Removing parking entirely, as some commuters have suggested, would have put the city at odds with the California Coastal Commission, which has traditionally held that removing parking in the coastal zone is a form of denying access to public beaches, Reynolds said.
Tom Krenzke, 35, commutes to work through Playa del Rey on Thursday. “I used to ride elbow-to-elbow with cars,” he said. “Now I have a whole lane to myself.” (Christian K. Lee / Los Angeles Times)
The changes to Culver, Pershing and Jefferson began with a group of Playa del Rey residents who approached Bonin’s office with concerns about safety more than two years ago.
One was Ryan Wewers, a 35-year-old drone pilot, who said he stopped crossing the street as he walked his dog because commuters drove recklessly.
“One of the first things I noticed here was not feeling safe walking around,” said Wewers, who moved to California from Kansas. “Everybody wants to be able to walk their dogs and give their kids a safe place to play in the yard without traffic flying through.”
Still, he said, he would be open to modifying the projects, provided the changes can keep drivers, pedestrians and cyclists safe.
“Everybody in Southern California wants to go as quickly as possible from Point A to Point B,” Bonin said. “But by the same token, nobody wants people speeding through their neighborhood. Playa del Rey is also somebody’s neighborhood.”
Nobody wants people speeding through their neighborhood. Playa del Rey is also somebody’s neighborhood. Westside Councilman Mike Bonin
Advocates have filed an administrative appeal against the Vista del Mar project with the City Council. If that fails, a lawsuit will likely follow, alleging that the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act while implementing the project, said Ed McPherson of Manhattan Beach, another member of the fundraising group.
“We’re ultimately going to try to reverse this horrible situation,” McPherson said.
The changes to Vista del Mar have sparked outrage among some movers and shakers in L.A.’s tech community, which has a growing presence in Playa Vista.
“There are thousands of people who drive that way every day, but we’re not their constituents, and we’re not their voters,” said Peter Pham, the co-founder of a venture capital firm and business incubator, who lives in Manhattan Beach. “We don’t understand how this decision can be made without thinking of the impact that it will have on the region.”
Bonin pushed back against that idea, saying other cities, including Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach, have narrowed their roads without consulting Los Angeles.
“More regional is better, but let’s not make the argument that Playa del Rey is the only community that has the burden of working with others,” Bonin said.
The narrowed streets are mostly lines of paint and changes to signals, and can still be modified, Reynolds said. But removing the projects entirely “would be problematic and unusual.”
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For more transportation news, follow @laura_nelson on Twitter.
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Haiti’s Gold Rush: An Ecological Crime in the Making
Show me a corporate boss who calls Haiti the “poorest country in the western hemisphere,” and I’ll show you a con artist preparing to fleece Haiti. Likewise, show me a western technocrat who bemoans Haiti’s “dramatic deforestation due to charcoal production” and I’ll show a bio-pirate or vandal preparing to wreck the country’s remaining cloud-forest and mangrove-forest ecosystems.
It turns out that the real plan for Haiti’s northeastern region — especially the Caracol Bay area — is one that was hatched by U.S. and Canadian mining corporations, with the U.S. and South Korean sweatshop zone being a side project and distraction. If this mining plan is given a green light while Haiti is under foreign occupation, it will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth.
In a May 1, 2012 interview with Canada’s Financial Post, Majescor Resources Inc. CEO Dan Hachey was effusive about Michel Martelly’s installment as president because he expects Martelly’s policy of mimicking the Dominican Republic (DR) to be a boon to the mining sector. Hachey enthusiastically noted that “thirty years ago, there was no mining sector to speak of in the Dominican Republic…. In that short period of time they’ve seen the development of the Pueblo Viejo Project [of Barrick and Goldcorp’s], which is one of the world’s largest gold deposits — and is pretty much a neighbour of ours…. They’re going to be coming on with production this year.”
This glowing picture omits the fact that Barrick and Goldcorp have come under strong popular opposition in the DR. In a country where 20 percent of the population lacks access to drinking water, these companies are accused of polluting 2,500 cubic meters of water per hour with the vast quantities of cyanide needed to process 24,000 tons of ore a day by opencast (or open-pit) mining. Open-pit mining is banned by the European Union. Activists in the DR have joined forces with a broader group called Observatorio de Conflictos Mineros de América Latina (OCMAL) that launched a campaign to end this practice in the region. These problems are compounded by the damages from the more intense tropical storms due to climate change. For example, in the Philippines, the largest gold mine had to be suspended due to an unexpected spillage of waste into a major river. In the DR, there is great concern that the country’s biggest water reservoir, which is close to the mining operations, is continuously at risk of cyanide contamination, since stories of spills and massive fish die offs caused by mining companies are legion. Barrick and Goldcorp have also been accused of dynamiting mountains and destroying Taino Indian archaelogical sites.
Like the Pueblo Viejo region of the DR currently under exploitation, the spot being eyed for mining by Majescor in Haiti — a 50-square-kilometer area called the SOMINE property — belongs to a broader region, replete with archeological sites, situated along a metal-rich mountain ridge running from southeastern DR to northern Haiti. This was formerly known simply as Le Massif du Nord but has become the “Massif du Nord Metallogenic (or Mineralization) Belt.”
SOMINE is an acronym for Société Minière du Nord-Est S.A. and is described in the mineral trade sheets as a “Haitian affiliate mining company.” It is 66.4 percent owned by Majescor, with the rest being owned by unidentified members of Haiti’s elite. Majescor is still a relatively small company that conducts mineral surveys. The SOMINE property is surrounded by other mining properties owned jointly by Majescor and much larger concerns like the Vancouver-based Canadian company Eurasian Minerals Inc. (EMX) and the Colorado-based US company Newmont Ventures Ltd. Once Majescor’s surveys are complete, it plans to find a big partner, like EMX, Newmont or Barrick (or some partnership of these like EMX-Newmont), to handle the extractive part of the project.
Curiously, the area of the SOMINE property was initially surveyed as early as “the 1970s by the UN Development Program, with some very good results [but the project was not pursued. Then] there was a feasibility study done by the Germans [Bundesanstalt fur Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR)] in 1980, and there was further drilling done in the 1990s by Canadian junior [mining companies],” recalled Hachey. During the 1980’s, the area was explored again by the UNDP and also surveyed by the French Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minière (BRGM), both of which reported finding only copper. The official story is that an abundance of copper had until 2012 obscured the fact that the area’s ore is also rich in silver and gold, and this was discovered from Majescor’s recent prospects of Douvray, Blondin and Faille-B. However, the story could just as well be that the mining executives were biding their time and waiting for a “stable” non-nationalistic government to take effect before initiating their projects.
Indeed, the issue of gold mining could have been one of the undeclared motivations behind the February 2004 removal of Aristide. The post-coup government immediately went to work signing away Haiti’s mineral rights without any knowledge of the public. For example, the mineral rights to the SOMINE property were quietly assigned under a Mining Convention executed between this company and the coup government on May 5, 2005 and presumably valid until March 9, 2020. In any case, after the coup, Haiti’s mountains suddenly began to glitter. For example, an exploration of the Faille-B prospect in 2007 reported a gold vein that averaged 42.7 grams of gold per ton of ore (g/t) over 6 meters, including values of 107.5 g/t of gold over one meter.
According to Hachey, April 11, 2012 assays from Blondin found:
0.45 percent copper over 96.5 meters;
0.3 percent copper over 12 meters, including 0.61 percent copper over 1.5 meters; 154 grams of silver per ton (g/t) over 12 meters, including 869 g/t silver over 1.5 meters.
March 13, 2012 results from Blondin discovered:
72.4 g/t silver over 15 meters;
16.9 g/t silver over 113 meters, including 6.2 g/t silver over 1.5 meters; 0.43 percent copper over 113 meters, including 4.44 percent copper over 1.5 meters.
February 1, 2012 results from Douvray discovered:
255 g/t silver over 13.5 meters, including 2,069 g/t silver over 1.5 meters; 0.35 percent copper over 13.5 meters, including 0.52 percent copper over 1.5 meters; 0.02 g/t gold over 13.5 meters, including 0.04 g/t gold over 1.5 meters;
277 g/t silver over 13.5 meters, including 1,428 g/t silver over 1.5 meters; 0.18 percent copper over 13.5 meters, including 0.52 percent copper over 1.5 meters; 0.04 g/t gold over 13.5 meters, including 0.04 g/t gold over 1.5 meters.
These highly concentrated deposits of copper, silver and gold should reasonably represent a new found wealth for Haiti during a dire need of resources for the country’s reconstruction. But if the DR is to serve as an example, Haiti will not benefit from its minerals. In the DR, Barrick owns 60 percent of the Pueblo Viejo gold mine and Goldcorp Inc. owns the remaining 40 percent. To get a sense of the scale of the greed, one need only consider that, while gold currently costs over $1,700 per ounce, the Pueblo Viejo mine is slated to produce one million ounces of gold per year at a cost of only $20-50 per ounce, making it one of the lowest-cost gold mines in the world.
Hachey comments with evident enthusiasm: “What we’re most excited about is that we found some silver which was never really realized before. It’s the first silver discovery in Haiti…. Part of the reason why it was never really discovered was that historically there was so much copper prevalent — there’s a lot of outcropping at the surface. The people who did the work before did not do much testing, even for gold…. The geology is a little complex for a copper porphyry, but in a good way. The surprises that we’re getting are all good ones.”
As major draws for a big mining partner to this next phase of the project, Hachey is advertising that, unlike Port-au-Prince, which was destroyed by the earthquake, Cap Haitien is a pleasant place for a Canadian mining executive and his family to come to. In addition, he notes that there are plans for “the construction of a deep-water port at Caracol,” only 15 kilometres from the SOMINE property and near Cap-Haitien. Indeed, on May 7, 2012 Martelly announced that the construction of a port would soon start in Fort-Liberte (near Caracol), in the Northeast. The port will cost $179 million and is supposed to be “built with the U.S. government’s help,” but it will likely be entirely owned by U.S. concerns. This first official announcement of a deep-water port for Caracol explains in part why there has been no effort to mitigate the ecological effects of the massive free-trade (sweatshop) zone inaugurated in October 2012 in that area: the textile factories’ contributions to the degradation of Caracol Bay should be trivial compared to the damage from opencast gold mining and construction of a deep-water port.
UPDATES on December 21 and 28, 2012, Associated Press, VCS Mining. Under cover of the holidays, Haiti’s Mining Director Ludner Remarais issued a gold exploitation permit to VCS Mining LLC (and its wholly-owned subsidiary Delta Societe Miniere S.A.), a U.S. company based in North Carolina, and gold and copper exploitation permits to SOMINE S.A. SOMINE is 66.4 percent owned by Canada’s Majescor Resources Inc and 33.6 percent owned by a group of unidentified, and possibly nonexistent, Haitian investors. According to Majescor CEO Dan Hachey: the permit “allows us to finally produce and make money, at least get to that step…. It’s also a great step forward for the mining industry in Haiti.” SOMINE engineer Michel Lamarre said he expects exploration to start in 36 to 42 months, and VCS CEO Angelo Viard expects his company to enter into “production” within 29 to 38 months. The gold permits are for five years and renewable for up to 25 years, with a possible renewal for another 10 years if new resources are discovered. These permits were issued by Remarais without any environmental-impact assessment (EIA).
UPDATE on January 24, 2013, Defend Haiti. After a meeting of Haiti’s Senate Committee on Public Works and Communication, Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Communication Jacques Rousseau, and Director General of Mining and Energy Ludner Remarais on Tuesday, January 22, 2013, the Senate met and rejected the agreements made by Remarais with the U.S. and Canadian mining companies in December 2012, pending a review of the companies and the agreements.
UPDATE on April 10, 2014, Miami Herald. Plans to dig a deep-sea port in Fort-Liberte, near Haiti’s Caracol Bay area, have been scrapped. If the plans had gone ahead, they would have destroyed a rare hotspot of biodiversity in the Caribbean with Haiti’s largest remaining mangroves and such a breathtaking variety of corals that the area had been slated to become a World Heritage Site and marine park. Apparently the controversy around the project discouraged potential investors. Instead of destroying Fort Liberte Bay, the existing port in Cap Haitien will be expanded, despite its current operations being ten-fold under capacity.
UPDATE on March 5, 2015, Breitbart. The teaser to a new book titled Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, by Peter Schweitzer, reveals that Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, as well as a former Haitian Prime Minister, Jean Max Bellerive, sat on the board of VCS Mining when it was granted its mining permit without an environmental impact assessment (EIA), under cover of Christmas 2012.
UPDATE on November 10, 2015 (Eurasian Minerals: http://www.eurasianminerals.com/s/haiti.asp). Under the cover of the Haitian elections, the US began to consolidate its mining interests in Haiti. The Canadian company, Eurasian Minerals Inc. (EMX) announced, on November 2, 2015, that it sold to the US mining company, Newmont Ventures Limited, all their joint-venture interests. Eurasian received $4 million (CAD $ 5.3 million) in cash from Newmont for the deal, along with a 0.5 percent net smelter return (NSR) royalty on 45 of the permit applications Eurasian got in the area. Eurasian will continue to control 100 percent of the Grand Bois gold-copper project in Haiti.
Editor’s Note: News Junkie Post co-Editor in Chief, Dady Chery, broke this story on May 2, 2012. She is the author of We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation. Photograph one by Sky Truth; photographs two, five and six by United Nations Photo. Photograph four by Stormy Dog and photograph seven by Andrew Kuznetsov. Photographs eight, nine and ten by Alex Proimos.
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"There are going to be a lot of people there because that sounds like the best restaurant ever," my 9-year-old dinner companion told his mother.
Pile all the foods you like best into a big bowl and bring it to a showman chef at a giant grill in the center of the room to be sizzled up real good. If you're still hungry, you can go back for more.
To a child, the concept at the flaming core of Boston's FiRE + iCE sounds like the greatest advancement in dining culture since the invention of the free bread basket.
He was half-right.
On a recent Saturday night a host was turning away groups without reservations, and warning of three-hour waits. Other eateries that focus first on entertainment have closed — Medieval Manor, Melting Pot, even the original FiRE + iCE location in Harvard Square, extinguished this year after a two-decade run. But on high-rent Berkeley Street in Back Bay, the FiRE still burns.
[J. Geils Band and the Cars are Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees]
This is all the more remarkable because FiRE + iCE is, by the standards of 21st-century dining, a catastrophe. It's bewildering and stressful and not particularly clean, dishing out food that a barely competent home cook would decline to serve to company. Nobody you know has been here since college; everybody who packs the place appears to love it.
Like Mongolian barbecue turned up to 11, the FiRE + iCE concept is enough to make a freshman football team, a pack of wild animals, or a city health inspector salivate. Bottomless bowls of raw meat are piled so high that chunks of chicken and pork occasionally fall onto the counter. Boston's new rating system for restaurant health inspections requires posting a letter grade in the window; FiRE + iCE should post an exclamation point.
Food stations at FiRE + iCE. The Boston Globe/Globe Freelance
Meanwhile, the menu offers no particular insight into how one might successfully assemble a meal from, say, shaved beef, raw pollock, lo mein noodles, and any of a couple dozen sauces ranging from alarmingly sweet to upsettingly salty. You are given a bowl, a brief tour of the facilities, and a giant laminated menu from which to order appetizers and drinks — traditional and scorpion bowl-style cocktails the size of a toddler's head.
The dark, deafening dining room — it's on the second floor, but it feels like a basement — is all sharp angles and oversaturated colors, like a supervillain's lair. From the dark recesses of a window booth, you can see a silhouetted ring of people lustily shifting their weight from one foot to the other in the cone of bright light that engulfs the grill. This must be what it feels like to have dinner adjacent to a cockfight.
[The Forbes Under 30 Summit brought a lot of celebs to Boston]
FiRE + iCE is a restaurant in the way a room full of broken guitars is a rock concert, where the band hands you a guitar pick and wishes you luck. It's the casino buffet at the third-nicest slots parlor in hell, where the amiable cooks shovel food haphazardly onto your plate like a croupier sweeping away the pot. When I trudged upstairs on a second visit, the sound system was playing a Britney Spears jam from 2003: "Toxic."
And yet.
On a crowded Saturday night and on a slightly more mellow weeknight, nearly everyone at FiRE + iCE is ecstatic. A pack of tween girls grazes and chatters happily at the noodle bar about what they'll concoct. Couples on dates and groups of young men crowd around the doughnut-shaped grill, laughing and joking with cooks who twirl their spatulas and toss hamburger buns around like frisbees.
Waiting at the downstairs bar — underFiRE — the bartenders huddle and, against all odds, mix up a respectable Old Fashioned. Locations in Providence, Anaheim, and Lake Tahoe have been open for years, apparently going strong. "Tomorrow, THE WORLD!," FiRE + iCE's website boasts or threatens, depending on your perspective.
[Trump supporters walk out on Amy Schumer]
"I'm going to fill my bowl with cheeseburgers this high!" the 9-year-old you brought says, and then he does it. He fills the bowl with raw burger patties and wedges in two hot dogs. The hot dogs, he reports, are cooked well.
An adult dining companion returns with a plate of meat and fish so ghastly that it appears to have been attacked by raccoons, and announces, "Surf and turf!," and the table dissolves into laughter.
Meats, vegetables, and noodles on the grill. The Boston Globe/Globe Freelance
A girl who couldn't have been older than 10 sets her bowl on the counter for one of the cooks. He stoops slightly to talk to her, then invites her back behind the counter to hold a spatula and give her food a few whacks. When he goes on vacation, he tells the beaming child, she'll have to come fill in.
On some level — a level that actually matters — a cook who is that sweet to a child is not a bad cook. So how can a restaurant that is filled to capacity with people unapologetically enjoying themselves be a bad restaurant?
For all the joy on display here, FiRE + iCE seems hellbent on finding out.
A small selection of appetizers, mostly deep-fried and prepared by the kitchen rather than on the flat-top, is something less than an afterthought. Seemingly straightforward Buffalo calamari — deep-fried calamari with Buffalo wing sauce and blue cheese dressing on the side — is aggressively terrible, the squid so tough that chewing it into submission is a challenge. Sweet potato tots have either been fried in oil no hotter than bathwater or removed far too quickly, turning them into a sad, sodden clod of orange gnocchi.
[Love letters: After divorce, why can't I find 'the one?']
A carefully assembled vegetable Alfredo bowl with peas ends up with a stranger's pork chops hitching a ride — a mismatch only uncovered when the chops' teenage owner protests.
Why would you put hunks of pork on an Alfredo? The cooks here do not question such things. They dutifully grill and chop whatever horrible mess arrives in the bowls like overzealous trash collectors who empty your cans and then uproot your mailbox because everything that's sitting in the right-of-way is damn sure going to the dump.
Frankly, it doesn't much matter. Everything that emerges from the hot-tub-size flat-top tastes the same. The grill operates on a sort of infinity pool system, with a tray to catch anything that falls off the side. This creates a horrific ring of detritus that festers in full view of anyone waiting for their food: half-cooked vegetables, broken hot dogs, soiled napkins, and buns that overshot their targets.
In the center of the grill is a hole into which all the seared-on sauces and particles of food are scraped. However much they're paying the person who has to clean that hole, which by the end of each service must resemble the pit that ate Boba Fett in "Return of the Jedi," it's not enough.
Despite all this, cooks flip and juggle their spatulas, laughing and joking with everyone who arrives at the counter. Servers gamely race around, delivering apps and drinks to abandoned tables. The line to get to the grill backs up almost to the sauce bar, but nobody's complaining.
For not the first time, shout-singing erupts all over the restaurant: Somehow, it's everybody's birthday.
More food coverage:
Recipe for healthy(ish) apple muffins
Hermit Thrush Brewery puts Vermont in the bottle
Diana Henry on the joy of simple cooking: 'I'm quite lazy, you see'
FiRE + iCE
205 Berkeley St., Back Bay, Boston, 617-482-3473, www.fire-ice.com
All major credit cards accepted. Wheelchair accessible.
Prices Appetizers $6-$13. Lunch $11.99. Dinner $19.99. Dessert $6-$9.
Hours Mon-Thu 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri-Sat 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Noise level Escalating calamity
What to order Ordering? What even is that?
Nestor Ramos can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @NestorARamos. | {
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When printing, select LANDSCAPE and enable background colors for the best results.
DCI Southwestern Championship presented by Fred J. Miller, Inc. Saturday, July 18, 2015 - San Antonio TX Chief Judge: George Oliviero
World Class General Effect Visual Music Sub
Total Total General Effect 1 General Effect 2 Visual Proficiency Visual - Analysis Color Guard Music - Brass Music - Analysis Music - Percussion Penalties J. Howell M. Kelly K. Turner D. Davis S. Adamo D. Torchia R. Solomon S. Page G. Fugett J. Ausdemore M. Mullinix T. DiCarlo Rep Perf Tot Rep Perf Tot Tot Rep Perf Tot Rep Perf Tot Tot Tot Cont Achv Tot Comp Achv Tot Sbst Achv Tot Tot Cont Achv Tot Cont Achv Tot Cont Achv Tot Cont Achv Tot Tot Tot Pen Tot The Cadets 88 2 89 1 17.70 1 89 2 89 1 17.80 1 17.75 1 86 1 89 1 17.50 1 91 1 89 1 18.00 1 17.75 1 35.50 1 89 2 88 2 17.70 2 87 2 85 3 17.20 3 84 5 85 3 16.90 4 25.90 2 88 2 87 1 17.50 1 88 1 88 1 17.60 1 85 1 84 3 16.90 2 90 1 88 1 17.80 1 17.35 1 26.225 1 87.625 1 0 0.00 87.625 1 Blue Devils 89 1 86 4 17.50 2 90 1 87 2 17.70 2 17.60 2 85 3 89 1 17.40 2 88 3 88 2 17.60 3 17.50 2 35.10 2 90 1 89 1 17.90 1 88 1 88 1 17.60 1 88 1 86 2 17.40 2 26.45 1 87 3 86 2 17.30 3 86 3 86 3 17.20 3 83 3 81 5 16.40 5 89 2 87 2 17.60 2 17.00 3 25.75 3 87.300 2 0 0.00 87.300 2 Carolina Crown 85 5 87 2 17.20 4 88 3 87 2 17.50 3 17.35 3 85 3 88 3 17.30 3 86 5 86 4 17.20 4 17.25 4 34.60 4 88 3 84 4 17.20 4 85 4 84 4 16.90 4 87 2 88 1 17.50 1 25.80 3 89 1 85 3 17.40 2 87 2 87 2 17.40 2 83 3 82 4 16.50 4 87 4 84 5 17.10 5 16.80 5 25.80 2 86.200 3 0 0.00 86.200 3 Bluecoats 87 3 87 2 17.40 3 86 5 85 5 17.10 5 17.25 4 86 1 85 4 17.10 4 90 2 87 3 17.70 2 17.40 3 34.65 3 86 5 82 5 16.80 5 86 3 87 2 17.30 2 86 3 84 4 17.00 3 25.55 4 85 4 84 4 16.90 4 85 4 85 4 17.00 4 82 5 85 2 16.70 3 86 5 86 3 17.20 4 16.95 4 25.425 4 85.625 4 0 0.00 85.625 4 Santa Clara Vanguard 86 4 85 5 17.10 5 87 4 86 4 17.30 4 17.20 5 83 5 85 4 16.80 5 87 4 83 6 17.00 5 16.90 5 34.10 5 87 4 86 3 17.30 3 84 5 83 5 16.70 5 85 4 83 5 16.80 5 25.40 5 84 5 82 5 16.60 5 84 5 84 5 16.80 5 85 1 86 1 17.10 1 88 3 86 3 17.40 3 17.25 2 25.325 5 84.825 5 0 0.00 84.825 5 Blue Knights 84 6 83 6 16.70 6 85 6 84 6 16.90 6 16.80 6 82 7 82 7 16.40 8 84 7 84 5 16.80 6 16.60 6 33.40 6 82 7 81 6 16.30 6 79 9 78 9 15.70 10 80 9 79 8 15.90 8 23.95 8 82 7 80 7 16.20 7 83 6 82 6 16.50 6 81 6 80 6 16.10 6 84 7 83 6 16.70 7 16.40 6 24.55 6 81.900 6 0 0.00 81.900 6 The Cavaliers 81 8 81 8 16.20 8 85 6 83 7 16.80 7 16.50 7 83 5 82 7 16.50 7 85 6 81 8 16.60 7 16.55 7 33.05 7 83 6 79 7 16.20 7 82 6 78 9 16.00 7 82 7 82 6 16.40 6 24.30 6 83 6 81 6 16.40 6 82 7 81 7 16.30 7 80 7 77 7 15.70 7 85 6 83 6 16.80 6 16.25 7 24.475 7 81.825 7 0 0.00 81.825 7 Phantom Regiment 82 7 82 7 16.40 7 84 8 82 8 16.60 8 16.50 7 82 7 84 6 16.60 6 83 8 82 7 16.50 8 16.55 7 33.05 7 81 9 77 10 15.80 10 81 7 81 6 16.20 6 83 6 80 7 16.30 7 24.15 7 81 8 79 8 16.00 8 81 8 80 8 16.10 8 74 11 73 11 14.70 11 83 8 79 11 16.20 10 15.45 11 23.775 8 80.975 8 0 0.00 80.975 8 Madison Scouts 80 9 80 9 16.00 9 82 11 82 8 16.40 10 16.20 9 81 9 81 9 16.20 9 82 9 80 9 16.20 9 16.20 9 32.40 9 79 11 77 10 15.60 11 78 10 80 7 15.80 9 75 13 77 10 15.20 12 23.30 11 80 9 78 9 15.80 9 79 10 77 10 15.60 10 75 9 73 11 14.80 10 82 9 82 8 16.40 8 15.60 9 23.50 10 79.200 9 0 0.00 79.200 9 Boston Crusaders 79 10 78 10 15.70 10 84 8 81 10 16.50 9 16.10 10 76 11 74 14 15.00 13 79 11 76 11 15.50 11 15.25 13 31.35 10 82 7 78 9 16.00 8 77 12 75 11 15.20 12 79 10 79 8 15.80 9 23.50 10 77 12 73 14 15.00 13 77 12 75 13 15.20 13 76 8 74 9 15.00 9 81 11 80 10 16.10 11 15.55 10 22.875 11 77.725 10 0 0.00 77.725 10 Crossmen 77 13 77 11 15.40 12 83 10 80 11 16.30 11 15.85 11 76 11 78 11 15.40 11 77 12 75 12 15.20 12 15.30 12 31.15 12 80 10 79 7 15.90 9 80 8 79 8 15.90 8 78 11 75 12 15.30 11 23.55 9 76 13 75 12 15.10 12 78 11 76 11 15.40 11 72 15 68 16 14.00 17 80 12 79 11 15.90 12 14.95 12 22.725 13 77.425 11 0 0.00 77.425 11 Blue Stars 76 14 74 15 15.00 15 80 13 78 13 15.80 13 15.40 14 75 13 77 12 15.20 12 81 10 77 10 15.80 10 15.50 10 30.90 13 76 15 73 15 14.90 15 75 14 73 14 14.80 14 81 8 76 11 15.70 10 22.70 13 79 10 77 10 15.60 10 80 9 78 9 15.80 9 75 9 76 8 15.10 8 82 9 81 9 16.30 9 15.70 8 23.55 9 77.150 12 0 0.00 77.150 12 Troopers 78 11 77 11 15.50 11 81 12 79 12 16.00 12 15.75 12 80 10 80 10 16.00 10 76 13 74 13 15.00 13 15.50 10 31.25 11 77 13 74 13 15.10 14 74 15 72 15 14.60 15 75 13 72 15 14.70 15 22.20 15 78 11 76 11 15.40 11 77 12 76 11 15.30 12 73 13 72 13 14.50 13 78 14 76 13 15.40 13 14.95 12 22.825 12 76.275 13 0 0.00 76.275 13 Colts 78 11 75 14 15.30 13 79 14 77 14 15.60 14 15.45 13 72 15 75 13 14.70 14 74 16 72 15 14.60 16 14.65 14 30.10 14 78 12 74 13 15.20 13 78 10 75 11 15.30 11 76 12 74 14 15.00 13 22.75 12 74 14 74 13 14.80 14 76 14 74 14 15.00 14 72 15 74 9 14.60 12 79 13 74 14 15.30 14 14.95 12 22.375 14 75.225 14 0 0.00 75.225 14 The Academy 75 15 76 13 15.10 14 78 15 76 15 15.40 15 15.25 15 71 17 71 17 14.20 17 76 13 71 16 14.70 15 14.45 16 29.70 15 77 13 76 12 15.30 12 76 13 74 13 15.00 13 74 15 75 12 14.90 14 22.60 14 73 16 70 17 14.30 17 75 15 72 15 14.70 15 72 15 69 15 14.10 16 76 15 74 14 15.00 15 14.55 15 21.775 15 74.075 15 0 0.00 74.075 15 Spirit of Atlanta 74 16 70 17 14.40 16 75 16 73 16 14.80 16 14.60 16 72 15 72 16 14.40 16 75 15 73 14 14.80 14 14.60 15 29.20 16 74 16 68 18 14.20 17 71 16 70 16 14.10 16 73 16 69 16 14.20 16 21.25 16 74 14 72 15 14.60 15 74 16 71 16 14.50 16 67 18 66 18 13.30 18 71 18 68 18 13.90 18 13.60 18 21.35 17 71.800 16 0 0.00 71.800 16 Mandarins 70 17 71 16 14.10 17 72 17 70 17 14.20 17 14.15 17 73 14 73 15 14.60 15 73 17 67 19 14.00 18 14.30 17 28.45 17 70 19 65 20 13.50 20 68 18 67 18 13.50 18 68 19 66 19 13.40 19 20.20 19 72 18 66 20 13.80 19 68 19 67 18 13.50 18 73 13 70 14 14.30 14 73 16 71 16 14.40 16 14.35 16 20.825 18 69.475 17 0 0.00 69.475 17 Oregon Crusaders 69 18 68 18 13.70 18 68 19 66 19 13.40 19 13.55 18 66 19 69 18 13.50 18 72 18 70 17 14.20 17 13.85 18 27.40 18 73 17 71 16 14.40 16 67 19 64 20 13.10 19 71 17 68 17 13.90 17 20.70 17 73 16 71 16 14.40 16 72 17 70 17 14.20 17 74 11 68 16 14.20 15 72 17 69 17 14.10 17 14.15 17 21.375 16 69.475 17 0 0.00 69.475 17 Pacific Crest 64 20 63 20 12.70 20 70 18 67 18 13.70 18 13.20 19 63 21 64 21 12.70 21 71 19 68 18 13.90 19 13.30 20 26.50 19 71 18 69 17 14.00 18 69 17 68 17 13.70 17 70 18 67 18 13.70 18 20.70 17 71 19 70 17 14.10 18 69 18 64 20 13.30 19 64 19 63 19 12.70 19 69 19 66 19 13.50 19 13.10 19 20.25 19 67.450 19 0 0.00 67.450 19 Cascades 65 19 65 19 13.00 19 66 20 62 20 12.80 20 12.90 20 67 18 67 19 13.40 19 68 20 66 20 13.40 20 13.40 19 26.30 20 69 20 67 19 13.60 19 65 21 65 19 13.00 20 59 22 61 20 12.00 22 19.30 20 67 21 63 21 13.00 21 67 20 65 19 13.20 20 55 22 51 22 10.60 22 59 21 55 22 11.40 22 11.00 22 18.60 21 64.200 20 0 0.00 64.200 20 Jersey Surf 61 22 62 21 12.30 21 65 21 61 21 12.60 21 12.45 21 65 20 66 20 13.10 20 64 21 64 21 12.80 21 12.95 21 25.40 21 67 21 63 21 13.00 21 66 20 62 21 12.80 21 64 20 60 21 12.40 20 19.10 21 69 20 68 19 13.70 20 65 21 63 21 12.80 21 58 20 57 20 11.50 20 61 20 56 21 11.70 20 11.60 20 19.05 20 63.550 21 0 0.00 63.550 21 Pioneer 62 21 58 22 12.00 22 62 22 59 22 12.10 22 12.05 22 61 22 60 22 12.10 22 61 22 58 22 11.90 22 12.00 22 24.05 22 61 22 59 22 12.00 22 64 22 61 22 12.50 22 62 21 59 22 12.10 21 18.30 22 63 22 57 22 12.00 22 59 22 58 22 11.70 22 56 21 52 21 10.80 21 58 22 57 20 11.50 21 11.15 21 17.425 22 59.775 22 2 -2.00 57.775 22
* Total reflects factored subcaptions | {
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Understanding rasterization and the painter's algorithm might help.
One way of rendering vector graphics (graphics defined by polygons, instead of pixels) to pixels is to rasterize the polygons while running the painter's algorithm.
The painter's algorithm is a bottom-up process where you first put down the background, then draw on top of that background with each layer of color until you reach the top layer.
When you deposit a layer, you pay attention to its coverage (usually stored in an extra channel, the alpha channel), and use it to mix the added color with what is already there.
If your new layer covers a pixel by 50%, and it is blue, you average the current color of that pixel with blue and draw that there instead.
Things get a bit more complex if you are creating an image with transparency, but not fundamentally.
Rasterization is the process of turning a polygon into pixels. Here, we work out how much the polygon covers a given pixel using some algebra, then calculate a coverage amount.
If you have two edges of a polygon that are coincident -- exactly on top of each other -- but both half-cover a given pixel, what happens is a problem.
Suppose the bottom polygon is red and the top blue and the background is white.
First we paint the red. This mixes with the white, leading to 50% white 50% red.
We then paint the blue. This mixes with the 50% white 50% red and we get 25% white 25% red 50% blue. The same thing happens if red and blue meet in the middle, or if blue covers red completely.
But "in reality" the blue polygon completely covered the red one, so why are we seeing it? Because the algorithm forgets sub-pixel positioning details.
So long as there is 100% coverage of one polygon, this isn't a problem.
Now, this problem is not fundamental. You can do polygon rendering with a ray-tracing like approach (where you over-render by a factor of N^2 at points), or even a pure-vector like approach (where you subtract blocking shapes from the geometry of the shapes under them, cutting them out). In neither case do "hidden" colors leak through to the output image.
The painter's algorithm isn't the only case where "hidden" geometry can leak through. If you are printing with opaque media, sometimes the color layers are not perfectly aligned. So under-layers leak through when the top layer should be covering it completely.
As you don't know how your vector image will be output, notches like that let you make images that are more robust against imperfect printing/display techniques. | {
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I love it when people can still see what a hucow I am even when I put clothes over my udders
curiousssser FOLLOW 1 10282 VIEWS SHARE FLAG CONTENT | {
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Pramod Muthalik, the chief of the Sri Ram Sene, was far from remorseful yesterday when he called the verdict "the victory of truth" in a video statement.
"My aim was only to protest against the increasing pub culture. This judgement is the answer for those who opposed us and called us goons," said the Sene Chief. "For nine years, Pramod Muthalik and Sri Ram Sene were defamed. I thank the court."
In the assault that was caught on camera, the women at the pub on 24 January, 2009, were accused of "loose morals." It inspired many more attacks in Mangaluru in the name of moral policing and reinforced Dakshin Kannada's reputation of a volatile region.
But video proof is not admissible in court, say lawyers, explaining how the case collapsed.
Very few of the women were willing to testify against the Sri Ram Sene men as they didn't feel safe. The prosecution could not produce the three main women who were attacked, before the magistrate.
The court also said the recording of witness statements before a magistrate was not done properly.
Muthalik and his outfit are notorious for their medieval-style diktats against what they believe is "cultural invasion."
A group called the Citizens Forum for Mangalore Development has demanded that the state government appeal the ruling to ensure that the assaulters are punished.
With state elections a few months away, the state's Congress government may be inclined to challenge the order; the pub attack took place when the opposition BJP was in power. "It is a big setback... Legal departments and the police should look to see if an appeal is possible," said Dinesh Gundu Rao, who heads the Congress in the state. | {
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The Pacific Northwest and the state of California are ground zero for the Pac-12’s top talent in 2017. Oregon and Washington take the top two spots on Athlon’s All-Pac-12 team for 2017, as the Ducks and Huskies combine for 27 overall selections. Oregon’s 14 picks are the most of any team in the conference. Washington State isn’t far behind its North counterparts, as coach Mike Leach’s team checks in with 11 selections. Stanford features 12 selections on the All-Pac-12 team, headlined by first-team cornerback Quenton Meeks. USC features 11 picks this season, including first-team quarterback Sam Darnold and linebacker Iman Marshall.
Athlon Sports has released its top 25 for 2017. Now, it’s time to take a look at the best of the best and honor the top players in the league with a release of first, second, third and fourth all-conference teams for 2017.
An important note on the all-conference teams: These are based on how players will perform in 2017. Career statistics and awards matter in the evaluation, but choosing players for the 2017 all-conference team is largely based on predicting and projecting the best for the upcoming year.
Pac-12 Football 2017 All-Conference Team
First-Team Offense Second-Team Offense Third-Team Offense Fourth-Team Offense QB Sam Darnold USC Jake Browning Washington Luke Falk Wazzu Josh Rosen UCLA RB Royce Freeman Oregon Ronald Jones USC Bryce Love Stanford Nick Wilson Arizona RB Myles Gaskin Washington Ryan Nall Oregon State Demario Richard Arizona State Tre Watson California AP Phillip Lindsay Colorado Charles Nelson Oregon Kalen Ballage Arizona State James Williams (RB) Wazzu WR Dante Pettis Washington Deontay Burnett USC Tavares Martin Wazzu Jamal Morrow (RB) Wazzu WR N'Keal Harry Arizona State Darren Carrington* Oregon Demetris Robertson California Darren Andrews UCLA TE/ WR Shay Fields (WR) Colorado Dalton Schultz (TE) Stanford Daniel Imatorbhebhe (TE) USC Jake Breeland (TE) Oregon C Coleman Shelton Washington Jake Hanson Oregon Jesse Burkett Stanford Toa Lobendahn USC OL Trey Adams Washington Jeromy Irwin Colorado Jacob Alsadek Arizona Gus Lavaka Oregon State OL Cody O'Connell Wazzu Cole Madison Wazzu Kaleb McGary Washington Sam Jones Arizona State OL Tyrell Crosby Oregon Nate Herbig Stanford Tim Lynott Colorado Calvin Throckmorton Oregon OL Scott Quessenberry UCLA Viane Talamaivao USC Salesi Uhatafe Utah David Bright Stanford
First-Team Defense Second-Team Defense Third-Team Defense Fourth-Team Defense DL Vita Vea Washington Rasheem Green USC James Looney California Scott Pagano Oregon DL Lowell Lotulelei Utah Kylie Fitts Utah Jacob Tuioti-Mariner UCLA Kenny Bigelow USC DL Greg Gaines Washington JoJo Wicker Arizona State Filipo Mokofisi Utah Tashon Smallwood Arizona State DL Hercules Mata'afa Wazzu Harrison Phillips Stanford Porter Gustin (LB) USC Cameron Saffle (LB) California LB Azeem Victor Washington Keishawn Bierria Washington Manase Hungalu Oregon State D.J. Calhoun Arizona State LB Cameron Smith USC Koron Crump Arizona State Joey Alfieri Stanford Kavika Luafatasaga Utah LB Troy Dye Oregon Kenny Young UCLA Peyton Pelluer Wazzu Ryan Moeller (S) Colorado CB Iman Marshall USC Isaiah Oliver Colorado Xavier Crawford Oregon State Arrion Springs Oregon CB Quenton Meeks Stanford Alijah Holder Stanford Darrien Molton Wazzu Jalen Thompson (S) Wazzu S Chase Hansen Utah Taylor Rapp Washington Brenden Schooler Oregon JoJo McIntosh Washington S Justin Reid Stanford Jaleel Wadood UCLA Afolabi Laguda Colorado Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles Arizona
First-Team Specialists Second-Team Specialists Third-Team Specialists Fourth-Team Specialists K Matt Anderson California Aidan Schneider Oregon JJ Molson UCLA Erik Powell Wazzu P Mitch Wishnowsky Utah Jake Bailey Stanford Nick Porebski Oregon State Dylan Klumph California KR Charles Nelson Oregon Kalen Ballage Arizona State Bryce Love Stanford Jordan Lasley UCLA PR Dante Pettis Washington Charles Nelson Oregon Adarius Pickett UCLA Isaiah Oliver Colorado
Team-by-Team Breakdown of Athlon's All-Pac-12 Team
First Second Third Fourth Arizona Offense: 0 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Arizona State Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 2 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 0 California Offense: 0 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 0 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 1 Colorado Offense: 2 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 1 Oregon Offense: 2 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 3 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 2 Offense: 0 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 2 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 0 Oregon State Offense: 0 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Stanford Offense: 0 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 2 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 2 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 UCLA Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 2 Offense: 2 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 1 USC Offense: 1 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 3 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Utah Offense: 0 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 0 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Washington Offense: 4 Defense: 3 Special Teams: 1 Offense: 1 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 0 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Washington State Offense: 1 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 1 Defense: 0 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 2 Defense: 2 Special Teams: 0 Offense: 2 Defense: 1 Special Teams: 1
* Carrington was dismissed from the team in July. | {
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MV-julkaisu kärjisti itsensä karikatyyriksi nykymedian ongelmista, nousi aallonharjalle ja upposi – torstaina käräjäoikeus antaa tuomion sen päätoimittajaksi itseään kutsuneelle Ilja Janitskinille
Syyttäjän mukaan Ilja Janitskin kopioi sivustolleen muista medioista artikkeleita ja kuvia, joihin hänellä ei ollut tekijänoikeuksia. LEHTIKUVA / RONI REKOMAA Katso isompi kuva
STT
Sosiaalinen media, turvapaikkaryntäys Eurooppaan vuonna 2015 ja perinteisen median irvokkaimpien piirteiden parodiointi mahdollisti MV-julkaisun suosion nousun vuosina 2015–2016. Näin arvioi tutkija Elina Noppari Tampereen yliopistosta.
– Ne lukijamäärät olivat tosi isoja, mutta siitähän on tultu aika lailla alaspäin. Nythän näyttää siltä, että koko MV-lehti on kuopattu tai ainakin siellä kuopan pohjalla, julkaisua tutkinut Noppari sanoo.
Tutkija uumoilee, että Suomessa ei enää välttämättä nähdä MV-julkaisun kaltaista ilmiötä. Toisaalta sellaisen perustaminen on teknisesti niin helppoa, että syntymiseen riittää tarpeeksi kuuma poliittinen aihe ja riittävä määrä aktiivisia ihmisiä.
MV-julkaisusta syntyi spektaakkeli, joka henkilöityi perustajansa Ilja Janitskinin ympärille. Janitskin oli jo aiemmin tunnettu henkilö, jonka kujanjuoksua myös perinteinen media seurasi jutuissaan.
– Janitskin vastasi hyvin voimakkaasti MV:n sivuilla sekä häneen että lehteen kohdistuvaan kritiikkiin. Hän varmasti lietsoi tietoisestikin tällaista sotaa ja vastakkainasettelua perinteisen journalistisen median ja MV-lehden välillä.
Aiemmin Janitskin kutsui itseään MV-lehden päätoimittajaksi, mutta käräjillä hän kiisti päätoimittajuutensa.
– Kukaan ei vastannut mistään. Suurin osa MV-lehden jutuista on lukijapostina tullutta. Puhutaan sadoista kirjoittajista ennemmin kuin kymmenistä. Ainoa joka toimi omalla nimimerkillä olin minä, Janitskin sanoi.
Rajoja haetaan käräjiltä
Helsingin käräjäoikeus antaa torstaina tuomionsa juttukokonaisuudessa, jossa MV-julkaisun Janitskinia syytetään muun muassa törkeästä kunnianloukkauksesta, tekijänoikeusrikoksista, rahankeräysrikoksista, rahapelirikoksista, laittomasta uhkauksesta, kiihottamisesta kansanryhmää vastaan ja salassapitorikoksista. Janitskin on kiistänyt syytteet.
Nopparin mukaan MV-julkaisussa unohtuivat sananvapauden käyttämisen rajat, jotka laki määrittelee.
– Tässä haetaan sananvapauden rajoja suhteessa uuteen verkkojulkisuuteen, missä amatööritekijät ovat astuneet tietyssä mielessä journalismin tontille ja tuottavat julkista keskustelua. Ratkaisulla on varmasti merkitystä siihen, minkälaisia vastamedioita uskalletaan lähteä tekemään.
Tutkijat ovat nimenneet MV-julkaisun ja muut samaan lokeroon sujahtavat julkaisut median populistiseksi vastamediaksi.
– Ne tuottavat hyvin populistisella tavalla eroa kansan ja eliittien välille. Ja eliiteiksi lasketaan tässä tapauksessa myös perinteinen journalismi.
Pidempi jatkumo mediakentässä
Nopparin mukaan MV-julkaisu hyödynsi amatööritekijöitä ja poimi tekstejä sosiaalisesta mediasta. Lisäksi julkaisu myös lainasi materiaalia perinteisestä mediasta, minkä jälkeen tekijät otsikoivat juttuja uusiksi. Jutut myös paketoitiin netille tyypilliseen ironiseen, sarkastiseen ja satiiriseen kerronnan tapaan, jossa mikään ei ole pyhää.
Nopparin mukaan yksi tapa hahmottaa populistiset vastamediat on nähdä ne karikatyyrinä siitä, mitä koko tämän hetken mediakulttuuri ilmentää. Kyse on hänen mukaansa esimerkiksi sensaatio- ja skandaalihakuisuudesta, iltapäivälehden ja Seiska-lehden yhdistelmästä potenssiin kymmenen.
– Myös journalismi itse ilmentää sitä, vaikkakin hienovaraisemmin. Esimerkiksi räikeät otsikot, joille ei ole vastetta tekstissä.
Nopparin mukaan MV-julkaisu on ollut perinteiselle medialle myös hyvä vihollinen, vaikka populistiset vastamediat ovat lainanneet esitystapoja erittäin paljon perinteiseltä journalistiselta medialta.
– Kuinka paljon tällainen viihteellinen, kaupallinen ja journalistinen media on halukas korjaamaan omia prosessejaan ja tekemään niitä vaikka yleisön kannalta luotettavimmaksi sen sijaan, että se paikallistaisi ongelmat tällaiseen hyvään ulkoiseen viholliseen? Noppari pohtii.
Tutkijan mukaan yksi keskeinen syy siirtyä MV-julkaisun pariin oli myös kokemus siitä, että lukijakunta ei kokenut tulevansa kuulluksi. Esimerkiksi konservatiivinen maailmankuva ei Nopparin mukaan tullut MV-julkaisun pariin hakeutuneiden mielestä tarpeeksi hyvin esiin.
– Miten perinteisessä mediassa pystyttäisiin paremmin tuottamaan vielä moniäänisempää keskustelua, jossa ihan vastenmielisinäkin pidetyt maailman kuvat ja näkökulmat saataisiin keskustelemaan keskenään? Että ihmisille ei tulisi tarve etsiytyä jonnekin journalismin ulkopuolelle, vaan se keskustelu voitaisiin käydä journalismin yhteydessä. | {
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New Texans WR Bruce Ellington hits ground running
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WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. -- Bruce Ellington didn't have a lot of time to get acclimated, hitting the Texans' practice field as soon as he got out of the car for a tryout.
The former San Francisco 49ers and New York Jets wide receiver had a successful audition and was signed to a contract Friday, practicing for the first time Saturday morning.
"It was a little strange at first," Ellington said. "This is the game you played all your life. After you get off the plane, it was a long ride to get here."
Ellington was recently cut by the Jets when he failed a physical after being claimed off waivers by the 49ers. He tore his hamstring last August and missed the entire season.
Ellington is healthy now.
Wide receiver Bruce Ellington (10) signed a contract with the Texans on Friday. He was drafted by the 49ers in 2014. Wide receiver Bruce Ellington (10) signed a contract with the Texans on Friday. He was drafted by the 49ers in 2014. Photo: Tony Avelar, Associated Press Photo: Tony Avelar, Associated Press Image 1 of / 87 Caption Close New Texans WR Bruce Ellington hits ground running 1 / 87 Back to Gallery
"Not knowing where you're going is tough," Ellington said. "Everything worked out. It feels good to be back playing football. Just the opportunity to be able to play football, the game that you love that God gave me the ability to play, I'm happy to be doing it."
Ellington has 19 career receptions for 215 yards and two touchdowns since being drafted in the fourth round by the 49ers out of South Carolina.
"Just my ability to go out and get open, to be in the slot, to make plays," Ellington said. "To be a playmaker and be accountable out there and rely on the quarterbacks to throw it to you."
Ellington averaged 25.6 yards per kick return and 7.7 yards per punt return with the 49ers. The Texans like that Ellington has speed and experience working in his favor.
"He's played a little bit," Texans coach Bill O'Brien said. "Had some injuries, but he's played. And when he's played, he's been somebody that we think can fit what we do.
"So, we want to get him in there and get him acclimated as soon as possible (to) see what he can do. He's been in the pros, so maybe it's a different language, but all the plays are about the same. He looked like he was kind of ready to go." | {
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A crowd breaks out into a spontaneous rendition of Oasis' Don't Look Back in Anger following a one-minute's silence in St Ann's Square in central Manchester. | {
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