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An autopsy report from the state Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his cause of death as “complications of vertobrospinal injuries due to blunt force trauma.”
When asked what’s changed between the time of the deposition and now, Robinette said she had reviewed the “totality of the investigation,” whereas her comments then were based solely on video from inside the jail.
Robinette added that she is less critical of her staff now than she was at that time.
She said detention officers acted appropriately by alerting medical personnel when they learned of Williams’ claims of a neck injury while in the holding cell. A nurse told the officers that Williams was faking his paralysis, which Robinette indicated is why an ambulance was not called.
Smolen asked Robinette whether she currently believes Williams’ injuries were legitimate, and she responded, “I don’t know.” He directed her to the answer she gave to the same question in the earlier deposition in which she seemed “confident” that he was not faking. | {
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The author of “Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of "The View" said the ABC News daytime talk show benefits from President Trump and the show even foreshadowed that he could outshine Hillary Clinton years before they faced off in the 2016 election.
“I think that the presence of Donald Trump has absolutely helped ‘The View.’ It’s given the show a reason to exist in terms of being able to react to all the big headlines in the news,” author Ramin Setoodeh told Fox News. “That is a notion that I’ve heard from executives and producers. It’s good for the show that Trump is president.”
“Ladies Who Punch" is the explosive inside look at the daytime gabfest created by Barbara Walters that forever changed the way debate programs are presented to viewers.
‘THE VIEW’ HOST MEGHAN MCCAIN SAYS HER LATE FATHER WOULD LAUGH THAT TRUMP IS ‘SO JEALOUS OF HIM’
“Women at the table often saw themselves through the lenses of Hillary Clinton. She was like a phantom sixth co-host and Donald Trump, in some ways, was like a nemesis to the ladies on the show,” Setoodeh said.
Veteran entertainment journalist Ramin Setoodeh has been covering “The View” for roughly a decade, establishing relationships with the show’s key figures in the process. He decided that the behind-the-scenes story needed to be told because it “started to feel like a Shakespearian saga” when a battle for post-Walters control started to bubble up during the journalism legend’s final seasons – but not everyone agreed that the material would result in a successful book.
“It was rejected by more than 20 publishing houses,” Setoodeh said. “It’s a bias in the publishing industry, because they saw this as a book about the media and they didn’t understand how important these women were. They didn’t understand how powerful these women are.”
'THE VIEW' CO-HOST JOY BEHAR SAYS LINDSEY GRAHAM 'NEEDS TO FIND HIS TESTICULARITY'
He interviewed 150 people for the book, including 11 of the show’s past and current co-hosts over three years. At least 20 publishers are presumably kicking themselves this week, as “Ladies Who Punch” is among the hottest new releases in America, according to Amazon. The book details everything from tales of Walters allegedly bullying other panelists to “underlying lesbian undertones” between co-hosts.
Setoodeh said that Trump is the gift that keeps on giving to the ABC News daytime talk show, as he provided the show with nonstop content long before entering the world of politics. The former reality star had a long-running public feud with O'Donnell and he was even asked about running for president during a 2011 appearance on the show – four years before Trump actually announced his candidacy.
GET THE FOX NEWS APP TODAY!
“Nobody actually looked at that as a political interview, but when you look back on it now… it was a political interview. I was actually there that day and it got so heated that they expanded it to another segment,” Setoodeh said.
He explained that "everyone is doing town halls now, but the ‘The View’ is really one of the first platforms" where presidential candidates would come and do interviews on daytime television.
"That was completely groundbreaking. The fact that, if you wanted to run for president, the road to the White House went through ‘The View,’ was a completely groundbreaking phenomenon. There had to be a stop, not only in Iowa and New Hampshire, but also ABC’s studio at ‘The View,’” Setoodeh said.
'THE VIEW' STARS MEGHAN MCCAIN, JOY BEHAR CLASH OVER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, SOCIALISM
Just this week, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-OH, announced his 2020 presidential candidacy on the show and industry insiders have long speculated whether or not the show’s popularity, combined with falling under the ABC News umbrella, could eventually result in panelists such as Joy Behar being involved in town hall events.
ABC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The “Ladies Who Punch” author said that one of his favorite stories is the result of Hillary Clinton attempting to soft launch her 2008 campaign by doing a “Very, very conversational” interview with ‘The View’ right before Christmas in 2006. But, in a bit of foreshadowing, she was eclipsed by Trump.
“Hillary went on to discuss opening Christmas presents with Bill and Chelsea, why she’s thinking about running for the White House. It was supposed to be a soft launch of her campaign, to see how she’s doing with these questions and sort of test how she did on daytime show. And that was the day that Rosie O'Donnell did her roast of Trump and Hillary’s appearance was completely overshadowed,” he said. “It’s ironic because Hillary and Trump, there are connections to them that date back to ‘The View.’”
“Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump also both attended Star Jones’ wedding and sat at the same table in 2004. The show has been this strange bridge between the two candidates, and I think that shows it’s cultural importance,” he said.
JENNY MCCARTHY DISHES ON CO-HOSTING 'THE VIEW,' RIPS CREATOR BARBARA WALTERS: 'I WAS MISERABLE'
O'Donnell, Jones, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Debbie Matenopoulos, and Jenny McCarthy are among the rotating panelists that have made headlines over the years, but the politically charged Behar is arguably the most polarizing of the group.
“I think she’s really established herself as the resident liberal on ‘The View,’ having done the show for more than 20 years,” Setoodeh said. “Sometimes the politics of the other co-hosts aren’t as clear… with Joy you always know that she is the most liberal person on the panel.”
Behar’s star power has increased during the Trump administration, as she attacks the president and his allies on a regular basis with comments that often go viral. In recent memory, she has mocked Vice President Mike Pence’s Christian faith, declared Sen. Lindsey Graham needs to “find his testicularity” and frequently sparred with conservative co-host Meghan McCain.
SHERRI SHEPHERD REVEALS SHE ‘CRIED FOR 3 YEARS STRAIGHT’ WHILE WORKING ON ‘THE VIEW’
The formula is working, as “The View” finished the first quarter of 2019 as the fourth most-watched syndicated daytime talk show with an average of 2.9 million viewers, trailing only “Dr. Phil,” “Ellen” and “Live with Kelly and Ryan” in the category.
As a result of the show’s popularity, “Ladies Who Punch” has created buzz throughout the media industry, landing Setoodeh an onslaught of promotional appearances in the process. He credits Trump for supplying the content the show needs to thrive, as the president has emerged as Behar’s personal punching bag.
“I don’t think ‘The View’ would be as popular, or as watched, if Joy Behar wasn’t on the show during the Trump administration,” Setoodeh said.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG MAKES SURPRISE 'VIEW' APPEARANCE AFTER NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE
While many would argue that Behar is the second most important “View” panelist after pioneer Walters, Setoodeh thinks O'Donnell has a strong case for that title herself despite a short stint on the show.
“What she did in her season was the template that the show adopted. She made it must-see TV, she made it really political, she was really passionate and she sort of blurred the line between fights on TV versus fights backstage,” Setoodeh said. “Everything that Rosie did on that show was very personal and she made it really dramatic but really watchable and fun."
Setoodeh put his money where his mouth is and ended up selecting only Goldberg, Walters and O'Donnell for the book’s cover. He said Behar was discussed as a potential fourth illustration and joked that she could possibly pop up on the paperback. | {
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Scientists have for the first time unveiled the unusual genetic make-up of the Australian platypus.
According to the study released this morning in the journal Nature, the semi-aquatic animal is a genetic potpourri - part bird, part reptile and part lactating mammal.
The task of laying bare the platypus genome of 2.2 billion base pairs spread across 18,500 genes has taken several years, but will do far more than satisfy the curiosity of just biologists, say the researchers.
"The platypus genome is extremely important, because it is the missing link in our understanding of how we and other mammals first evolved," explained Oxford University's Chris Ponting, one of the study's architects.
"This is our ticket back in time to when all mammals laid eggs while suckling their young on milk."
Native to eastern mainland Australia and Tasmania, the semi-aquatic platypus is thought to have split off from a common ancestor shared with humans approximately 170 million years ago.
The creature is so strange that when the first stuffed specimens arrived in Europe at the end of the 18th century, biologists believed they were looking at a taxidermist's hoax, a composite stitched together from the body of a beaver and the snout of a giant duck.
But the peculiar mix of body features are clearly reflected in the animal's DNA, the study found.
The platypus is classified as a mammal because it produces milk and is covered in coat of thick fur, once prized by hunters.
Lacking teats, the female nurses pups through the skin covering its abdomen.
There are reptile-like attributes too; females lay eggs, and males can stab aggressors with a snake-like venom that flows from a spur tucked under its hind feet.
The bird-like qualities implied by its Latin name, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, include webbed feet, a flat bill similar to a duck's, and the gene sequences that determine sex. Whereas humans have two sex chromosomes, platypuses have 10, the study showed.
"It is much more of a melange than anyone expected," said Ewan Birney, who led the genome analysis at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge.
The animal also possesses a feature unique to monotremes, an order including a handful of egg-laying mammals, called electroreception.
With their eyes, ears and nostrils closed, platypuses rely on sensitive electrosensory receptors tucked inside their bills to track prey underwater, detecting electrical fields generated by muscular contraction.
"By comparing the platypus genome to other mammalian genomes, we'll be able to study genes that have been conserved throughout evolution," said senior author Richard Wilson, a researcher at Washington University.
In captivity, platypuses have lived up to 17 years of age.
In the wild, they feed on worms, insect larvae, shrimps and crayfish, eating up to 20 per cent of their body weight everyday.
Males grow to a length of 50 centimetres (20 inches) and weigh about two kilos, with females about 20 per cent shorter and lighter.
The genome sequenced for the study belongs to a female specimen from New South Wales nicknamed Glennie and can be accessed at http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/Genbank.
Jenny Graves from the Australian National University says by mapping the genome, the scientists also found the platypus has an unusual genetic sexual make up.
"In fact the platypus does sex like a bird, we know that other mammals have an X and a Y chromosome and there's a gene on the Y chromosome that makes you male, that's SRY and we found there is no SRY in a platypus," she said.
"In fact, the platypus sex chromosome is derived not from other mammal sex chromosomes but from bird sex chromosomes."
The genome mapping also revealed the platypus venom produces some useful chemical compounds which may eventually help develop human medicines such as painkillers and potent antibiotics.
- ABC/AFP | {
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LLVM Weekly - #233, June 18th 2018
Welcome to the two hundred and thirty-third issue of LLVM Weekly, a weekly newsletter (published every Monday) covering developments in LLVM, Clang, and related projects. LLVM Weekly is brought to you by Alex Bradbury. Subscribe to future issues at http://llvmweekly.org and pass it on to anyone else you think may be interested. Please send any tips or feedback to [email protected], or @llvmweekly or @asbradbury on Twitter.
News and articles from around the web
The 2018 LLVM Developers' Meeting has been announced for October 17th-18th in San Jose. Registration is now open.
zapcc, a caching C++ compiler based on Clang is now open source. It claims substantial speedups for heavily-templated C++. See this previous cfe-dev post for an overview of the technology.
On the mailing lists
Hal Finkel is arranging a poll on the date to hold a webinar on the proposed rewrite of Flang, "Clang for Fortran".
Alex Bradbury kicked off an RFC thread on the lowering of atomic LL/SC loop in LLVM. This revisits a topic raised by James Knight in 2016. Most architectures have restrictions on the form of an LL/SC loop (e.g. number and type of instructions, presence of other memory accesses) in order to guarantee forward progress. This thread proposes a late expansion lowering strategy for the inner LL/SC loop, while expanding anything else at the IR level. Tim Northover is concerned about possible performance loss, and Krzysztof Parzyszek comments that Hexagon actually has no real restrictions on LL/SC loops.
Pavel Labath has given an update on efforts to add DWARF5 accelerator table support to LLVM, while Paul Robinson gave a broad update on DWARF v5 support.
Paul Robinson started a discussion on bug-closing protocol.
LLVM commits
A new compact binary format is supported for sample profiles, reducing the size by about 2/3rds. r334447.
Codegen support for atomics has started to land for RISC-V. r334590, r334591.
The microMIPS size reduction pass has been extended to transform SW/LW pairs to SWP/LWP. r334595.
There is now a default SelectionDAG expansion for rotates. r334497.
A new merge-git.sh script has been added, performing similar functionality to the svn-based merge.sh script. r334568.
Clang commits
The new -fforce-emit-vtables option forces the emission of vtables even in modules where it isn't necessary, which increases opportunities for devirtualisation. r334600.
clang-format gained a new BreakInheritanceList option. r334408.
Other project commits | {
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Apple本社会議室で米時間水曜朝、男性の遺体が見つかりました。男性は頭から血を流して死んでおり、遺体のそばには銃がありました。
最初に異変を報じたのはKTVU記者。本社にはサンタクララ郡保安局のパトカーも出動しました。
Sheriff investigation at #Apple headquarters in Cupertino. A body was found in a conference room. pic.twitter.com/HC7UBPWROM — Matt Keller (@MattKellerABC7) April 27, 2016
保安局への出動要請の無線をTMZが入手して公開したのですが、そこにはこうあります。
Infinite LoopのApple本社で1056を試みた人がいる模様。[...]社員が頭部から血を流しています。銃を所持している可能性あり。ウェストサイドのビルで出口まできました。会議室に銃と遺体があるそうです。関与した人数はまだ不明。
警察署によっては、｢10-56｣は自殺を意味するコードということです。
地元紙サンノゼマーキュリーがサンタクララ消防から聞いた情報によると、朝の出動要請では｢ヒスパニック系の男性で頭部にけが｣という通報だったそうです。現着したときには既に息を引き取っていました。
以下は、現場に駆けつけたABCニュースのMatt Keller記者からのツイート。｢本社会議室で男性の遺体。遺体のそばから銃が見つかった｣とあります。
#Breaking- Person found dead in conference room at #Apple Headquarters is a man. A gun was found nearby. pic.twitter.com/PKgnFy7MRh — Matt Keller (@MattKellerABC7) April 27, 2016
保安官から｢遺体の男性は社員｣と確認がとれました。
Sheriff spokesperson confirms person found dead in conference room was #Apple employee. No one else involved. pic.twitter.com/rLic0WGTo7 — Matt Keller (@MattKellerABC7) April 27, 2016
Apple社員には1日お休みをとってもいいという連絡が回ってるそうです。死因が気になりますね…。
Alissa Walker - Gizmodo US［原文］
（satomi） | {
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ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences
The infamous "Sainsbury's cat" has returned to the Brockley supermarket.
The stubborn feline first hit the headlines back in November, after he was spotted by shoppers strutting through the supermarket's aisles.
The ginger moggy was snapped sitting on a shelf surrounded by packets of sweets and glaring ferociously as though daring anyone to try to move him.
When he was removed by security the cat, called Olly, simply sauntered straight back in.
Regular customers have said they have recently seen Olly hanging around the supermarket in the evening, when staff reduce the fresh fish.
Olly was back again on Wednesday, when shopper Nigel Thornberry saw him perched atop a chiller cabinet and staring down at the customers below.
After he tweeted two pictures of the grumpy cat, twitter users joked that he looked to be judging shoppers' food choices.
The cat has come back to Brockley Sainsbury's. pic.twitter.com/2AKRosiEGM — Nigel Thornberry (@J_Tema) January 6, 2016
Olly's owner Adam Oliver, an academic at the London School of Economics, said the six-year-old Tomcat often visits the Sainsbury’s, which is near his home, and is also known to frequent a nearby café.
@KateSLP Lives close to shop, 6yrs old, had him since he was 6 wks old, name is Olly Oliver & he has a blue brother. pic.twitter.com/eHZieOT2mX — Adam Oliver (@1969ajo) November 12, 2015
When asked about Olly's disgruntled appearance, he said: "That's just his face." | {
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Biggest Farms In The World
By Amber Pariona on April 25 2017 in World Facts
Large Scale Cattle Farming Practices Pose Some Of The Greatest Environmental Threats Today
Farming Around the World
Humans have been cultivating crops for thousands of years becoming experts at producing more yield over time. Agriculture is vital to feeding the world population and is a key component to the economy in many countries. The British Agricultural Revolution led to the mechanization of farming, the 20th century brought the gas-powered tractor and around the same time, the development of factory farms or concentrated animal feeding operations. Since that time, farms have continued to grow and focus efforts on producing more for less to meet the increasing global demand for fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, and meat. In fact, some have grown so big that they are now considered mega-farms. The following article inspects some of the biggest farms in the world all of which can be found in the two countries of China and Australia.
Chinese Farms
By far, the biggest farm in the world (in terms of acreage) is the Mudanjiang City Mega Farm in Heilongjiang, China. This astounding farm manages 22,500,000 acres. The Mudanjiang City Mega Farm specializes in dairy and has around 100,000 cows. For reference, that is 50 times bigger than the largest dairy farm in Europe. Its expansion happened in 2015 as a response to the Russian ban on dairy products from the EU. China has stepped up to fulfill that need.
The second largest farm in the world is also situated in China. The Modern Dairy is located in Anhui and has an area of 11,000,000 acres which is about half the size of the Mudanjiang farm. This farm began in 2011 and at that time was the largest farm in the world with 40,000 cows. By 2014, Modern Dairy suffered market losses as it was accused of having sold bovine tuberculin positive cows.
Australian Farms
The remaining big farms in the world are all in Australia. The third largest in the world and largest one in Australia is Anna Creek in South Australia. Anna Creek oversees 6,000,000 acres, a land size that is larger than Israel. Over 17,000 heads of cattle are reared here to keep up with demands for beef, making this farm the largest beef cattle producer in the world.
Number 4 on the list is Clifton Hills farm which is also located in South Australia and works on 4,200,000 acres. This beef cattle graze-land was established in 1876 when it only reared 1,000 cows.
Following Clifton Hills, is the Alexandria farm with 4,000,000 acres. This cattle producing farm is located in the Northern Territory and has been owned by the North Australian Pastoral Company since 1877. 50 employees live on the property and tend to the 55,000 cows that graze here. In recent years, the property has suffered flooding on two separate occasions.
Other farms in Australia that are considered the biggest in the world include: Davenport Downs in Queensland (3,700,000 acres), Home Valley in Western Australia (3,500,000 acres), Innamincka in South Australia (3,340,000 acres), Wave Hill in Northern Territory (3,330,000 acres), and Marion Downs in Queensland (3,070,000 acres).
Environmental Concerns
Large scale dairy and beef farming such as this brings many criticisms from environmentalists and small farmers alike. The latter claim that this is not farming but rather a business and environmentalists naming the ways in which these large farms lead to environmental degradation. And they are right. Factory farms are the biggest threat to the global environment. These mega farms are responsible for chemical fumes, toxic runoff, and unsustainable water use (to name a few). The runoff pollutes local waterways with pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, phosphate-rich fertilizer, and bacteria-infested manure which effectively strips communities of clean water sources and safe-to-consume fish. The number of animals that this land must support is unsustainable, reducing soil fertility, and increasing desertification as local plant species are lost. Indirectly, these farms demand deforestation for animal feed production. The practices of factory farms are responsible for 34% of methane emissions, a gas with more global warming potential than carbon dioxide. No matter how it is viewed, factory farming is an unsustainable food production practice that has turned the age-old tradition of agriculture into a mass, profit-turning business that is only concerned for the bottom line. A revision of agriculture and food policy will be necessary if this environmental degradation is to be curbed.
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Sen. John McCain announced in July that he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer. | John Shinkle/POLITICO McCain's office says he has returned to Arizona
The office of Arizona Sen. John McCain said Sunday the Republican senator is returning to Arizona for "physical therapy and rehabilitation."
McCain has been undergoing treatment for brain cancer.
“Senator McCain has returned to Arizona and will undergo physical therapy and rehabilitation at Mayo Clinic," the statement said. "He is grateful for the excellent care he continues to receive, and appreciates the outpouring of support from people all over the country. He looks forward to returning to Washington in January.”
His doctors said the senator is "responding positively" to ongoing treatment.
"Senator McCain has responded well to treatment he received at Walter Reed Medical Center for a viral infection and continues to improve," said Dr. Mark Gilbert, chief of Neuro-Oncology at the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute. "An evaluation of his underlying cancer shows he is responding positively to ongoing treatment."
Meghan McCain, the senator's daughter, tweeted Sunday: “My father is doing well and we are all looking forward to spending Christmas together in Arizona.”
Earlier Sunday, President Donald Trump said that McCain was returning to Arizona to recover. “I wish John well. They’ve headed back [to Arizona]," Trump told reporters. "But I understand he’ll come if we ever needed his vote, which hopefully we won’t."
McCain's statement did not indicate whether the senator, part of the GOP's slender majority, would return to Washington if his vote were needed.
Trump added that McCain is "going through very tough time, there’s no question about it." McCain announced in July that he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer.
Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
The senior Arizona senator and Trump have traded barbs since the latter was a presidential candidate, but McCain announced that he would vote for the GOP's tax plan. Trump and congressional Republicans are hoping to finish up the legislation this week. The House is scheduled to vote on Tuesday with the Senate following shortly thereafter, though both McCain and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) are battling health issues.
Vice President Mike Pence has delayed his trip to the Middle East in case he is needed to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
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The Japanese city of Iga is suffering from a ninja shortage.
The city, which is about 280 miles from Tokyo in central Japan, claims to be the birthplace of the ninja.
The mayor is hoping to bolster tourism by drawing on the city's ninja heritage.
There's just one problem: There aren't enough ninjas.
You may have heard about Japan's demographic crisis, but the country is facing another, lesser-known crisis as well.
Japan does not have enough ninjas.
In an episode of NPR's "Planet Money" podcast, Sally Herships visited Iga, a small city in central Japan that claims to be the birthplace of the ninja.
Each year the city of about 100,000 swells by about 30,000 as tourists come to experience the annual ninja festival.
Iga, however, is suffering from depopulation. "It's facing a shortage of those two key things you need to keep an economy humming: stuff to sell and people to buy the stuff," Herships' cohost Stacey Vanek Smith says.
Iga is also losing young people who don't want to live in the rural countryside. To revive the local economy, the mayor of Iga, Sakae Okamoto, is promoting the city's ninja heritage with the aim of drawing more tourists.
Women dressed as ninjas throwing "shuriken" during a ninja festival in Iga. REUTERS / Kim Kyung-Hoon
"Right now in Iga, we are working very hard to promote ninja tourism and get the most economic outcome," Okamoto told Herships. "For example, we hold this ninja festival between late April to around the beginning of May. During this period visitors and also local people come here. Everybody will be dressed like a ninja and walks around and enjoys themselves — but recently I feel that it's not enough."
Japan is experiencing a major tourist boom — the United Nations World Tourism Organization estimates that almost 29 million tourists visited Japan in 2017. That's an increase of almost 20% from the year before.
While some cities are benefitting economically from the influx of tourists, rural ones like Iga are apparently being left out.
With the hope of encouraging tourists to stay longer than a day in Iga, Okamoto is relocating city hall and building a second ninja museum in its place. While the budget is not disclosed, Okamoto has received funding from the central government from the public — "Japan's government is funding ninjas," Herships says.
The project faces some hurdles, though. Iga needs to attract labor forces to work and live in the rural city as the ninja tourism scheme is extended.
Atsushi Kobayashi a staff member of Bujinkan Training Hall watches foreign tourists train during a class which allows tourists the opportunity to experience life as a Ninja in Tokyo, Japan, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008. Foreign visitors have always flocked to old tourist spots in Japan like Kyoto, the Sapporo Snow Festival, hot-springs baths and Mount Fuji. These days, they're also checking out new offbeat ways to experience Japan like ninja classes, geek gadget stores and "manga" animation museums. AP Photo / Junji Kurokawa
This means not just builders and planners but also ninjas themselves. "There's a ninja shortage," Herships says, "or — to be accurate — a ninja-performer shortage."
This issue is especially difficult given Japan's extremely low unemployment rate, which is just 2.5%.
It is therefore hard to find workers in Japan, let alone highly specialized ninja performers.
"Ninja is not an inheritable class. Without severe training, nobody could become a ninja. That's why they have silently disappeared in history," Sugako Nakagawa, the curator of the local ninja museum, told Reuters in 2008.
"But this job does have a lot to offer," Herships says. "First of all, the pay is quite competitive. Today, ninjas can earn anything from $23,000 to about $85,000 — which is a really solid salary, and in fact, a lot more than real ninjas used to earn in medieval Japan."
Herships quotes the International Ninja Research Center, which states that in Iga, the typical ninja earned an inflation-adjusted $8,000 to $17,000 a year.
Okamoto faces an uphill battle, though. The Mie Prefecture, where Iga is located, as a whole attracted just 43 new young residents last year; Iga alone lost 1,000 residents. | {
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Jeremy Maclin's short tenure with the Baltimore Ravens appears to be over, and the Philadelphia Eagles should welcome him back with open arms. Maclin is a strong candidate to be released by the Ravens in the coming weeks (per the Baltimore Sun), due to the $7.5 million salary he is set to make in 2018...the final year of a two-year contract he signed last summer.
The Ravens, currently $10 million under the salary cap, will look to clear cap space with some of their overpriced veterans. Releasing Maclin will shed $5 million in cap space, an easy decision for a player who had a career-low 40 catches for 440 yards last season, finishing with just three touchdowns, 11 yards per catch and 55.6 catch percentage.
So why would the Eagles entertain the possibility of bring Maclin back? Maclin has a strong relationship with Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, which makes a reunion possible. Pederson was on the Eagles coaching staff when Maclin was there from 2009 to 2012 and the Kansas City Chiefs' offensive coordinator during Maclin's first season in Kansas City two years ago.
Maclin was very close to signing with the Eagles once he was released by the Chiefs last June. He chose the Ravens over the Eagles based on the expanded role in Baltimore (Maclin was a starter with the Ravens).
Maclin worked with Pederson before and understood the offense, which is based off what Chiefs head coach Andy Reid uses and based in Philly from 2009 to 2012 (the same years Pederson was on Reid's coaching staff). When Pederson was the Chiefs offensive coordinator in 2015, Maclin was the primary target, catching a career high 87 passes and a 70.2 catch rate. He also had 1,088 yards and eight touchdowns.
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Maclin wouldn't be the No. 1 wide receiver in Philadelphia, but could compete with Mack Hollins for the No. 2 spot. At worst, the two would split snaps. The Eagles could also interchange Maclin and Nelson Agholor in the slot, moving them around and giving Carson Wentz more options across the board. With the Eagles having Zach Ertz as the only proven tight end on the roster heading into 2018, another outside threat would help spread the field.
Maclin isn't the same player he once was with the Eagles, but the soon-to-be 30-year old still has value to an offense, especially in a system he has played in the majority of his career. He won't garner much money on the open market either, which his expected after just 84 catches for 976 yards and five touchdowns over the last two seasons. Maclin also has missed eight games over the last two years due to knee, groin, and back injuries...including a concussion.
Jeremy Maclin had a career-low 40 catches for 440 yards for the Ravens last season.
Simply put, Maclin is injury prone. Don't expect the Maclin from his first stint with the Eagles, catching 343 passes for 4,771 yards and 36 touchdowns in 75 games (missed all of 2013 with an ACL injury). In 2014 and 2015, Maclin was one of the elite receivers in the NFL, catching 172 passes for 2,406 yards and 18 touchdowns.
That Maclin may be gone, but the Eagles can still find a quality veteran replacement if they do decide to move on from Torrey Smith...and won't cost them much in bringing him back.
Wouldn't hurt the Eagles to bring in Maclin for another stint, especially in a low-risk, high-reward situation.
To follow Eagles reporter Jeff Kerr on Twitter: @JeffKerr247 | {
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Oshkosh, WI — After 10 years under the destructive, divisive policies of Scott Walker, Wisconsin Democrats are ready for a change. Over a thousand intrepid Democrats made their way to Oshkosh this weekend to listen to the ten candidates competing in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, which will be held August 14, 2018. The candidates printed their lit and polished up their speeches hoping for a “breakout” moment. But when all was said and done, for many voters, indecision won the day.
Below we summarize some of the top priorities of the Democratic field:
Kelda Roys
Kelda Roys, an attorney and former state legislator who famously dragged her massive wooden desk onto the capitol lawn to meet with her constituents during the 2011 Wisconsin Uprising, was the first of the 10 to speak.
Roys, 38, made it clear that she thought it was time “for a new generation of leaders” in Wisconsin, and she hit themes sure to appeal to that generation.
“In our Wisconsin, it’s time to reinvest in higher education and address the student loan debt crisis. Too many Generation Xers and Millennials have had every one of life’s milestones delayed or denied because of debt incurred before we were old enough to drink a Spotted Cow,” she said. It’s time to for “student loan refinancing, expanding our public service repayment, and making 2-year colleges at UW tuition free.”
Addressing a set of issues that got little attention at the convention, Roys said: “It’s time to stop the shame of being the worst state in the nation for African Americans, to end mass incarceration, end voter suppression, end the racial disparities infant mortality.”
And she was the only candidate to address retirement: “It’s time to make sure that all workers — from family farmers to health care workers to the self-employed — earn a living wage, have affordable healthcare, and can opt in to a stable, secure public retirement system.”
Before becoming a legislator, Roys was the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. She now runs a tech firm designed to help people sell their homes called Open Homes. The youthful-looking Roys made national headlines when she cut her first campaign ad while breastfeeding her four-month-old baby.
Tony Evers
Taking the stage to Alice Cooper’s classic “Schools Out,” Evers, the state’s superintendent for public education — who fortunately bears little resemblance to Alice Cooper — made a strong case as to why he was the front runner.
Evers, 66, reminded the crowd that he had run and won three times statewide, that he has a double-digit lead in the polls over the other Democratic candidates, and that he was beating Governor Walker in the polls by four points.
As an educator, who has worked in school systems all over the state, Evers made the case that he could win rural Wisconsin. “Rural, red communities that Scott Walker won three years ago, like Elkhorn, Clinton, Howard-Suamico, and Marshfield, have overwhelmingly passed school referendums in the last two years. As state superintendent, I won these communities just one year ago. As your governor candidate, I will win these communities next November.”
Evers noted that unlike the other candidates, he had “run things,” including a school, a school district, and a statewide school system with 860,000 kids and 100,000 employees.
“You know, I frequently am asked why I’m running for Governor. ‘Tony we need you to stay where you are, we need to you to keep fighting for our public schools.’ Frankly folks, that is WHY I am running for governor. I am running for governor because I am goddamn sick and tired of Scott Walker gutting our public schools, insulting our hard-working educators and destroying higher education in Wisconsin,” he told the crowd.
Mahlon Mitchell
Mahlon Mitchell, 41, is the current President of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin (IAFF). Although the union was not directly covered by Walker’s 2011 Act 10 union-busting bill, it stood in solidarity with other impacted unions and played an essential role in the popular uprising against the bill. Mitchell quickly garnered key union endorsements from the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, AFSCME, UFCW and SEIU before the convention, and attended with a crowd of burly firefighters.
Rather than citing a laundry list of issues, Mitchell told the story of a young man, a veteran and a firefighter, who was in a terrible snowmobiling accident that left him paralyzed. According to Mitchell, firefighters from around the state rallied to help him “in his greatest time of need.”
“But I often think in our state what happens when someone doesn’t have a that kind of support system in our state; when you don’t have brothers and sisters there to help you build a house like we did for Casey; when you don’t have access to the best health care that you deserve; the best wheelchair money can provide… Well, I believe that we can do better in our state; we can we help all citizens in our state… but we can only do that together and that’s why I am running for governor,” he said.
Mitchell embraces a $15 minimum wage: “Fifteen dollars is just the floor and then we’ll go from there,” he said, concluding “we can make history. We could have our first African-American governor.”
Andy Gronik
Andy Gronik, a 60-year-old Milwaukee businessman, talked up his outsider credentials.
He asked the crowd, “Who thinks politics as usual is working? Raise your hand. It’s not working. We have a lot of wonderful candidates running for office… but the fact is that Scott Walker has beaten the establishment candidate three times in a row. So I want to ask every single one of you, do you expect to do something over and over and over again and have different results? Well, it’s time to do some things different.”
Gronik’s literature table held a basket full of fake oversized dollar bills emblazoned with Walker’s face which drew attention to some of the huge contributions Walker garnered from billionaires like Diane Hendricks ($5 million), special interests like the NRA ($3.5 million), and corporations like Pfizer. “People are dying taking opioids. Walker is dying to take $40,000 from Pfizer” reads one bill.
“I can’t wait until he throws out 2.9 unemployment. Well you know what Scott? Go knock on the doors in the state and what you are gonna find is that people are not home, because people are working that 2nd, 3rd or 4th job, and they are barely getting by,” said Gronik.
Josh Pade
Josh Pade, a 38-year-old attorney, Kenosha native and political newcomer, promised to travel the state for a “My Wisconsin Idea” listening tour and “bring a new face to Democratic politics and progressive economics.”
Pade, whose literature announced “the revolution will be civilized,” referenced Scott Walker’s recent claim that Democrats were driven by anger and hatred. “I don’t know who they are talking about, because I have been walking around this convention center all day and there is no anger here. We are excited, we are refocused… Democrats are united for a change and we are going to make that change happen,” said Pade.
Kathleen Vinehout
Kathleen Vinehout, 59, is a state senator from western Wisconsin. She was one of the 14 senators to leave the state in 2011 in an attempt to prevent the passage of Walker’s union-busting Act 10 bill. She was one of the Democratic candidates who challenged Walker in the Democratic primary in 2012.
She made Scott Walker’s deal with the Taiwanese firm Foxconn Technology Group the centerpiece of her talk. Vinehout likened the $3 million Foxconn deal to a path of $100 dollar bills that would stretch mile after mile through state after state, before arriving in San Francisco. She compared the huge taxpayer handout to the income of one Wisconsin voter named Rachel.
“Rachel is a single mom, she works forty hours a week, 52 weeks out of the year on a minimum wage job in Racine. On a path of a hundred dollar bills, laid end to end, how far does she travel on a minimum wage? In two weeks, she takes one step. In one year, she gets from her front door to the sidewalk. After a lifetime of working from 16 to 70, Rachel will be less than a mile down the street she lives on. Our priorities are upside down!” she said. “Foxconn doesn’t need a handout, but people in our state like Rachel need a hand up.”
She concluded with a list of other fixes she would implement, including “let’s fix the UW, hire back the scientists, put them to work helping us deal with climate change.”
Paul Soglin
A button being sold at the conference had a photo of Madison’s long-time mayor, Paul Soglin, looking a bit like Albert Einstein with the formula E=mc2 floating above. Soglin, 73, has overseen an era of enormous expansion and prosperity in Madison. He had a lot of positive accomplishments to talk about, but his speech was a blunt, dark assessment of the state of the state starting with “climate change threatens the planet” and “your wages suck.”
“We have the unprecedented attack on families from Walker and Trump. In our cities and on our farms, our middle class is shrinking. All Wisconsin counties are losing a generation of 20-year-olds, the valuable Millenials. And they will not return with jobs so bad and underpaid and schools so inadequate to educate their children and grandchildren. This election is about the Wisconsin family, and its too bad Scott Walker didn’t stay in school long enough to get that.”
Soglin listed a number of other priorities including public schools, high-speed internet, public transit system and a health care system meeting “your standards and not the Koch Brothers.”
Mike McCabe
Mike McCabe, the former head of the campaign finance reform group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, took to the stage next. McCabe, 58, is known for his enthusiastic supporters who show up at community events with handwritten signs and for his populist speeches. He too opened on a dark note.
“We gather here tonight at a dangerous moment for our state and our country. I know people in this hall are counting on a blue wave to change the political landscape of our state. But this election will be decided by people outside this hall who are struggling to keep their heads above water. There are too many forgotten people living in forgotten places, some live in the inner city, some live way out in the country where I am from, but we have a government that is catering to the wealthy and well-connected privileged few at the top, ignoring the wishes of so many people in this state. And that’s got to change if Wisconsin is going to become the state it has the potential to be.”
“This state has lost its way and is becoming a shadow of its former self. We used to be a state of firsts; first kindergarden; the first state to create a vocational technical and adult education system. Workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation were invented here. Social Security was invented here,” McCabe said. “But now we have levels of economic inequality not seen in our state since the Great Depression.”
He challenged the crowd to “dream of a different state,” but first we needed to “cut out the cancer” of legalized bribery and achieve campaign finance reform. “We will never get living wages from a dying democracy!” he said.
Mike Flynn
Milwaukee attorney Mike Flynn, 71, served in the United States Navy from 1969-72 and went to law school on the GI bill. He became a partner at the Milwaukee law firm of Quarrels and Brady and was the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from 1981 to 1985, when Democrat Tony Earl was governor.
“Wisconsin used to be known for clean water, high wages and honest government,” said Flynn. “Now it is known for dirty water, low wages and corrupt government, and that has got to change!”
Flynn said Walker had a lot to answer for. “Most of all he has got to answer for Foxconn, it’s a crooked deal and I am going to end it.”
“Our state motto is ‘Forward,’ but for 10 years we have gone backwards,” said Flynn. “It’s time to make the waters of a blue wave wash over our state capitol, wash out the Republicans, wash out the corruption. It’s time for action. It’s time to move Wisconsin Forward again.”
Dana Wachs
Dana Wachs, 61, is an attorney and state representative from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He has been a leading voice against the Foxconn deal in the legislature and a champion of civil rights, including rights for transgendered.
In his convention speech, Wachs called for scrapping Foxconn and putting more money toward schools, fixing roads, health care and he supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“In Walker’s Wisconsin, public schools are shortchanged, and teachers are leaving for Minnesota, and students are falling into the achievement gap. In our Wisconsin, we’re gonna fully fund public education. We’re gonna respect our teachers. We’re gonna pay them a fair wage, and give them the resources they need to educate the next generation,” said Sachs.
“In Walker’s Wisconsin, people are drowning in student loan debt and our young folks, like even my own three children, have moved to other states. But in our Wisconsin, we’re gonna refinance student loan debt. We’re gonna build a Wisconsin that brings our young folks home.” With regard to gun violence, Wachs said: “We’re going to do a hell of a lot more than offer up thoughts and prayers.”
Challenges Ahead
At the end of the day, Kelda Roys, won the straw poll with 184 of the 789 ballots cast — about double the support for Mahlon Mitchell (93) and Tony Evers (91). The straw poll is sure to give Roys a boost in fundraising and could bring big money into the race if Emily’s List endorses her.
But political observers know that a Democratic win over the well-financed Walker won’t be easy. Walker retains a passel of seasoned political operatives, and the bottomless stash of Koch cash has yet to be deployed in the race.
The nation’s unpredictable president may also play a big role in the race. Gwen Moore, a Milwaukee representative and a veteran member of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, advised the crowd in Oshkosh to not worry about Trump or get so caught up in the daily Trump drama that they forgot about the hard work that needed to be done.
“I know you all are watching the news every night seeing what new charges come up. Trust me. The people in charge have made their Faustian bargain. They have decided that transferring wealth from hard-working, struggling families like yours is more important than protecting our democracy,” said Moore.
“Our problem is not Stormy Daniels, our problem its not NFL players taking the knee,” she said. “Look at the 33 mansions they occupy, look at the two-thirds of state legislatures they occupy, that is our problem people!”
Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) summed it all up: “You can’t catch a blue wave without a surfboard and some very hard work.”
Here are the results of the convention’s straw poll: | {
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At least two people have been killed and several, including babies, wounded, in an air strike on a maternity hospital in Syria's Idlib province, according to the international charity Save the Children, which supports the facility.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said on Friday the hospital in the rebel-held town of Kafar Takharim was heavily damaged and left barely operational.
Save the Children said the strike hit the front of the hospital building, at a time when two operations were under way and a woman was in labour.
"Several babies were injured when their incubators crashed to the floor, and a woman who was six months pregnant had her leg severed," Save the Children said in a statement.
"Two other women have shrapnel wounds to the stomach and a number of patients and staff have suffered light injuries."
Our partners confirm two people have been killed and several injured in the hospital bombing. #Idlib #Syria pic.twitter.com/PS9Ewvlm4u — SavetheChildren News (@SaveUKNews) July 29, 2016
A spokeswoman for the charity told Al Jazeera that the hospital "is the biggest in the area, serving over 1,300 women monthly".
Save the Children also published a 15-second-long video from the hospital in the immediate aftermath of the attack, showing the level of destruction caused by the bombing.
It is not yet clear who was behind the air strike.
"Bombing a maternity hospital which is helping women living under the shadow of war to give birth safely is a shameful act, whether it was done intentionally or because due care was not taken to avoid civilian areas," Sonia Khush, Syria director for Save the Children, said.
"There is no excuse, and unfortunately this is only the latest in a series of strikes on health facilities in Syria."
The hospital, which was set up in June 2014, delivered about 340 babies in June, according to Save the Children.
"Around 61 percent of the patients at the hospital are mothers," the spokeswoman said, and "39 percent are children."
"This is the only hospital specialising in maternity and children in the northern western side of rural Idlib."
Friday's bombing was the latest in a series of attacks targeting hospitals in Syria.
Syrian government air strikes put four makeshift hospitals and a local blood bank in Aleppo out of action last week, according to local rescue workers and a monitor. | {
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Since the end of the Cold War, foreign policy has become much more challenging. In a post-bipolar world where nonstate actors pose real threats and disrupters (good and bad) are everywhere, the issues are knottier and unforeseen developments often yield difficult options. In the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush chose not to come to terms with this fundamental change. Instead, he opted for a blunderbuss policy dominated by a misguided invasion of Iraq. President Barack Obama inherited a helluva cleanup job. And as he had handled the details—such as winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—he has had tried to articulate an overall strategy. His latest stab at this was the speech he delivered to West Point graduates this morning.
Early in the address, Obama noted, “you are the first class to graduate since 9/11 who may not be sent into combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.” The young men and women before him cheered. It was a poignant moment. Then Obama proceeded to outline a larger vision. He summed up his stance in these lines:
[S]ince George Washington served as commander in chief, there have been those who warned against foreign entanglements that do not touch directly on our security or economic well-being. Today, according to self-described realists, conflicts in Syria or Ukraine or the Central African Republic are not ours to solve. Not surprisingly, after costly wars and continuing challenges at home, that view is shared by many Americans. A different view, from interventionists on the left and right, says we ignore these conflicts at our own peril; that America’s willingness to apply force around the world is the ultimate safeguard against chaos, and America’s failure to act in the face of Syrian brutality or Russian provocations not only violates our conscience, but invites escalating aggression in the future. Each side can point to history to support its claims. But I believe neither view fully speaks to the demands of this moment. It is absolutely true that in the 21st century, American isolationism is not an option. If nuclear materials are not secure, that could pose a danger in American cities. As the Syrian civil war spills across borders, the capacity of battle-hardened groups to come after us increases. Regional aggression that goes unchecked—in southern Ukraine, the South China Sea, or anywhere else in the world—will ultimately impact our allies, and could draw in our military. Beyond these narrow rationales, I believe we have a real stake—an abiding self-interest—in making sure our children grow up in a world where schoolgirls are not kidnapped, where individuals aren’t slaughtered because of tribe or faith or political beliefs. I believe that a world of greater freedom and tolerance is not only a moral imperative—it also helps keep us safe. But to say that we have an interest in pursuing peace and freedom beyond our borders is not to say that every problem has a military solution. Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures—without thinking through the consequences, without building international support and legitimacy for our action, or leveling with the American people about the sacrifice required. Tough talk draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans. As General Eisenhower, someone with hard-earned knowledge on this subject, said at this ceremony in 1947: “War is mankind’s most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men.”
This is not new. Obama chooses no specific camp. He does not truck with so-called realists and isolationists who do not want the United States to be involved with overseas conflicts that do not directly and immediately threaten the United States. Nor does he side with interventionists who call for US military engagement in trouble spots around the world. Cognizant of the costs of war (money, lives, and more), he does not want to overcommit the United States. Citing the costs of nonaction and the interconnectedness of today’s world, he does not want to remain on the global sidelines. He’s certainly no neocon eager to deploy US military resources overseas to intervene in Syria or to up the ante with Russia regarding Ukraine. (Obama announced he would boost efforts to help Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, deal with refugees and cross-border terrorists from Syria, and “ramp up” support for elements of the Syrian opposition “who offer the best alternative to terrorists and a brutal dictator.” He said he would keep working with the IMF and allies to bolster Ukraine and its economy and isolate Russia.) But Obama did defend his use of drone strikes. He noted, “In taking direct action, we must uphold standards that reflect our values. That means taking strikes only when we face a continuing, imminent threat, and only where there is near certainty of no civilian casualties. For our actions should meet a simple test: We must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield.” (Yet his administration has not always met this standard.)
For years, Obama has been trying to form and sell a balanced approach that justifies certain military interventions and limits others—while redefining national security interests to include climate change and other matters. That’s a tough task. The world is not a balanced place. It’s likely that Obama’s handling of foreign policy will continue to be judged on a case-by-case basis and less on the establishment of an integrated doctrine. Given the global challenges of this era, a grand plan may not be realistic. | {
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Samsung has three words for owners of its brand-new, $2,000 folding smartphone: Handle with care.
The Galaxy Fold, whose launch was delayed for months after gadget bloggers reported that their review units were malfunctioning, now comes with a list of rules to follow to not break the phone — including not touching it with your fingernail.
“Do not press the screen with a hard or sharp object, such as a pen or fingernail, or apply excessive pressure,” instructions on the $1,980 phone’s packaging advise, according to a reviewer from CNBC.
Samsung also advises, “tap lightly to keep it safe.”
Users are further warned to keep “any objects such as cards, coins, or keys” well away from the screen.
The original problem was that a thin protective layer — meant to keep the phone’s screen together when folded or unfolded — had only gone up to the screen’s edge. That led tech reviewers to peel it off, thinking it was a screen protector.
When the phone is booted up, it shows a warning screen, which informs users of the protective layer in a bold font.
It also reiterates that the phone is not dust or water resistant, and that users should not attach screen protectors to its 7-inch display.
Samsung offers a concierge service to replace the Fold’s screen for $149 if it breaks once.
Any future breaks — or a break once the phone is out of warranty — will cost $600 to repair, according to Samsung. | {
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Why a cap-and-trade system can be bad for your health
Daniel Gros
The purpose of a cap-and-trade system is to help in the fight against global climate change. This column warns that a unilateral approach could increase global emissions by shifting production to more carbon-intensive methods abroad. Acting alone, the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme may be doing more harm than good.
The purpose of a cap-and-trade system is to help in the fight against global climate change by putting a cap on domestic emissions. It is clear that a binding cap on emissions will restrict the supply of all energy-intensive goods. This implies that the global price of these goods must increase, and therefore production abroad will increase, which will lead to higher emissions abroad. A carbon tax will have the same effect, which is called “carbon leakage” in the parlance of the climate change community.
Most existing analysis of carbon leakage focuses on a small subset of energy-intensive sectors (steel, cement, etc.) whose products are often traded intensively. The EU has actually defined sectors exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage mainly in terms of their openness to trade and found that about 60% of all Emission Trading Scheme sectors (accounting for about 75% of emissions) are “at risk” (see Appendix).
A recent study based on a large general-equilibrium model concludes that about 40% of any reduction in the production of energy-intensive goods in the EU would be offset by higher production abroad (Veenendaal and Manders 2008).1
A cap-and-trade paradox
In recent work, I argue that this focus in much of the literature on energy-intensive industries is misguided because it focuses on the wrong issue (competitiveness of particular sectors) and neglects the fact that the output of these industries (especially energy and steel) is used throughout the economy (Gros 2009). Most products that are traded intensively incorporate thus substantial amounts of emissions via the energy and energy-intensive inputs used in their production. Given that it is usually assumed that the supply of exports from China and other emerging market economies is rather price elastic, even small changes in relative prices could have a considerable impact on trade flows.
It is well known that carbon leakage undermines the effectiveness of any national cap- and-trade system in reducing global emissions. But it is not widely realised that, under certain conditions, carbon leakage could paradoxically cause the imposition of a cap-and trade–system like the Emission Trading Scheme to increase global emissions and thus reduce (global) welfare.
The mechanism through which this can happen becomes clear once one distinguishes between production and carbon leakage.
“Production” describes the displacement, at least partially, of domestic production to the rest of the world.
“Leakage” refers to the amount of emissions avoided when domestic production falls relative to the increase of emissions in the rest of the world where production goes up.
For example, if production leakage were only 50% (i.e. foreign production increases only by one half of the fall in domestic production), global emissions would still increase if the carbon intensity abroad is more than twice as high as at home. The general point is that the displacement of production, even if partial, can lead to an increase in overall emissions if the carbon intensity of production in the rest of the world is much higher than at home.
Differences in carbon intensity
A key parameter in any judgement of the efficiency of the Emission Trading Scheme (and the national carbon taxes in France and Sweden) is thus the difference in carbon intensity between the EU and its major trading partners. How large is it?
Estimates of the emissions embodied in international trade have to be based on input-output matrices in order to taken into account the way energy inputs are used throughout the economy. On this basis Weber et al. (2008) suggest that (on average for all sectors) each $1000 of exports from China contains about 2-3 tonnes of carbon, about 4 times more than the 0.5 tonnes of carbon embodied in $1000 of exports from the EU or other OECD countries. The same sources also show that exports from other emerging markets have sometimes even higher carbon intensities than those of China.
Another way to provide a crude estimate of differences in carbon intensities is the carbon intensity of GDP, which is ten times higher in Russia than in the EU and six times higher in China (see Table 1). Of course, the higher carbon intensities of emerging markets are partially due to their different output mix. However, this does not change the basic fact that a dollar unit increase in exports from China in general embodies four times as much CO2 emissions than a dollar of exports from the EU or the US. Moreover, higher exports in general lead to higher income, and higher GDP growth in China is associated with a very higher growth rate of emissions.
Table 1. Countries’ carbon intensities
CO2 intensity of exports CO2 intensity of GDP 2005 EU27 0.47 0.43 USA 0.72 0.53 China 2.46 2.43 India 2.67 1.78 Brazil 1.05 0.5 Russia 3.85 4.4
Source: Author’s calculations based on IFM data and Weber et al. (2008). Carbon intensity of exports is based on 2002 data. Both intensities are measured as tons of carbon per 1000 dollars.
If one accepts as a benchmark that Chinese production is in general about 4 to 5 times as carbon-intensive as that of the EU, it follows that the Emission Trading Scheme might have led to an increase in global emissions if production leakage had been only somewhat above 20-25%.2
A proper welfare evaluation of the economic impact of a cap–and-trade system like the Emission Trading Scheme (or of the more wide-ranging recent French proposal to tax all energy inputs, not only in the energy-intensive (Emission Trading Scheme) sectors) should take into account also the fact that the displacement of consumption and production leads to standard welfare effects (producer and consumer surpluses). Figure 1 shows the equilibrium conditions for a (possibly composite) good whose production creates emissions and thus an externality.
Figure1. Effect of Emission Trading Scheme with higher carbon intensity abroad
The introduction of a domestic carbon price (via a 'cap and trade' system or otherwise) has two effects:
It reduces global production, from QFTno ETS to QFTETS.
This reduction in global production increases welfare because at the margin the social cost was higher than the (private=social) benefits from consumption. The net welfare gain is given by the area (covered by little rectangles) enclosed by the points OADE (loss of consumer surplus under the line OE but gain of social cost of production below the line DG).
The fact that the domestic price of carbon is higher than the price for carbon abroad leads to an increase in the social cost of production beyond the point at which the domestic “cap” or ceiling is reached.
From this point onwards, the social cost is not only above the one for the unconstrained case (i.e. the case without a domestic cap on emissions) but also steeper because any additional production has to take place abroad. This increases the social cost for two reasons: first, the private cost of production is higher because the supply from domestic producers cannot increase. Secondly, the external effects from producing abroad are higher because the carbon intensity abroad is higher. This implies that the (global) social cost of producing the reduced quantity QFTETS is higher by the shaded trapezoid enclosed by the points BCDG.
As drawn, it is clear that an ETS-like cap–and-trade system can actually make the world worse off. Whether or not this is the case depends of course on the slopes of the demand and supply functions relative to the difference between domestic and foreign carbon intensities.
Gros (2009) shows in the context of a standard fully specified model that a domestic price on carbon can be counterproductive in terms of global welfare under the following condition:
This condition is more likely to be satisfied the lower the sum of the domestic and foreign elasticities of demand and the higher the foreign elasticity of supply, adjusted for the size of the foreign country. In other words, the introduction of a cap-and-trade system in a small country that is much less carbon-intensive than the rest of the world has a high probability of being counterproductive. Moreover, the longer the time horizon, the higher should be the elasticity of supply. This implies that while carbon leakage might not be important in the short run, it could become much more relevant as time goes on.
This analysis would of course be relevant, mutatis mutandis, also for the general carbon tax recently proposed in France. Given that France is small relative to the rest of the world and that the carbon intensity of the French economy is rather low, this measure could thus very well have a negative impact on global welfare. Adopting a domestic carbon tax at the EU level would not change the conclusion much since the EU accounts also for only a limited share of global GDP.
Conclusion
Given that the developing world has now openly declared that it is not willing to accept any binding cap on its own emissions at the Copenhagen summit, it is time to rethink the European approach to combating climate change. The unilateral approach followed so far might do more harm than good. In my next column, I will outline a unilateral approach that will benefit the environment with certainty.
References
Gros, Daniel (2009), "Global Welfare Implications of Carbon Border Taxes", CEPS Working Document No. 315/July.
Gurria, Angel (2009), “Carbon has no place in global trade rules”, Financial Times, November 4 2009.
Renaud, Julia (2008), “Issues Behind Competitiveness and Carbon Leakage, Focus on Heavy Industry”, International Energy Agency, October.
Tirole, Jean (2009a), “Politique climatique: une nouvelle architecture internationale”, Conseil d’Analyse économique.
Tirole, Jean (2009b), "Climate change negotiations: Time to reconsider", VoxEU.org, 16 November.
Veenendaal, P. and T. Manders (2008), “Border tax adjustment and the EU-ETS, a quantitative assessment”, CPB Document No. 171, Central Planning Bureau, The Hague.
Weber, Christopher L., Glen Peters, Dabo Guan and Klaus Hubacek (2008), “The contribution of Chinese exports to climate change”, Energy Policy, Vol. 36, No. 9, pp. 3572-3577.
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Appendix
Article 10a of the revised Directive states that a sector or sub-sector is "deemed to be exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage if:
the extent to which the sum of direct and indirect additional costs induced by the implementation of this directive would lead to a substantial increase of production cost, calculated as a proportion of the Gross Value Added, of at least 5%; and
the Non-EU Trade intensity defined as the ratio between total of value of exports to non EU + value of imports from non-EU and the total market size for the Community (annual turnover plus total imports) is above 10%." A sector or sub-sector is also deemed to be exposed to a significant risk of carbon leakage:
if the sum of direct and indirect additional costs induced by the implementation of this directive would lead to a particularly high increase of production cost, calculated as a proportion of the Gross Value Added, of at least 30%; or
if the Non-EU Trade intensity defined as the ratio between total of value of exports to non EU + value of imports from non-EU and the total market size for the Community (annual turnover plus total imports) is above 30%. See: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/emission/carbon_en.htm which concludes: 151 of 258 NACE-4 sectors (≈ 60% of all sectors) deemed at Significant Risk of CL (SRCL). Sectors deemed exposed to SRCL account for ≈ 75% of GHG emissions of industries covered by ETS.
This study arrives, however, at much lower estimates for overall carbon leakage for reasons that are not clear. See also Renaud (2008). For a different point of view see Gurria (2009).
2 It is of course impossible to determine the marginal carbon intensity for exports from emerging economies that are related to the imposition of the Emission Trading Scheme in Europe. However, the burden of proof should be on those who argue that this marginal carbon intensity is much lower than the average measured by aggregate statistics. | {
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Ethics statement
Peripheral blood mononulear cells was obtained at the University of California, Los Angeles in accordance with UCLA Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved protocols under written informed consent using an IRB-approved written consent form by the UCLA/CFAR Virology Laboratory and was distributed for this study without personal identifying information. Human fetal tissue was purchased from the UCLA/CFAR Gene Therapy Core, was obtained without identifying information and did not require IRB approval for use. Animal research carried out in this manuscript was performed under the written approval of the UCLA Animal Research Committee (ARC) in accordance to all federal, state and local guidelines. Specifically, the experiments were performed strictly according to the guidelines in The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health and the accreditation and guidelines of the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AALAC) International under UCLA ARC Protocol Number 1997-176-53.
Cells
U1 cells (NIH AIDS Reagent Program) are a subclone of the promonocytic cell line U937 that is chronically infected with HIV and makes replication competent virus upon activation53. J.RT3-T3.5 (ATCC, Manassas, VA) are a subclone of leukemia T cell line Jurkat mutated in the T cell receptor beta chain locus such that these cells fail to express surface CD3 and TCR. U1 and J.RT3-T3.5 cells were maintained in culture media containing RPMI 1640 (Invitrogen, Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (Omega Scientific, Tarzana, CA) and 100 U/ml penicillin and 100 μg streptomycin (GIBCO, Life Technologies).
Virus stocks
For all the studies, we used HIV-1 89.6 , a dual tropic HIV strain that infects cells expressing CXCR4 and/or CCR5 co-receptors. The strain was selected to ensure infection of all susceptible cell populations. Stocks of HIV-1 molecular clone 89.6 were obtained from 24-h harvests of supernatants from infected CEMx174. Supernatants were filtered and treated with DNase (2 μg/ml) (Worthington, Lakewood, N.J.) for 30 min at room temperature in the presence of 0.01 M MgCl 2 . Viral infectivity was determined by limiting dilution titration on GHOST (3) X4/R5 (NIH AIDS Reagent Program). Lentiviral vectors expressing a TCR specific for the HIV Gag epitope SL9 were produced by calcium phosphate transfection of 293FT cells with the pCCL.PPT.SFFV.1.9.IRES. dLNGFR54 in conjunction with the lentiviral packaging vectors pMDLg/pRRE and pCMV-VSV-G. Supernatants were harvest on day 2 and passed through a 0.45 micron filter and concentrated by ultracentrifugation. Infectivity was assessed by titration of lentiviral vectors on J.RT3-T3.5 cells and flow cytometric analysis for the co-expression of SL9TCR (SL9 iTAg MHC Class-I tetramer-PE, Beckman Coulter, Brea, CA) and dLNGFR (CD271-FITC, Stem Cell Technologies, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada).
Flow cytometry
Fluorochrome-conjugated mAb, specific for human CD4, CD8, CD25, CD38, CD45, CD69, CCR5, CXCR4, HLA-DR were obtained from BD Biosciences (San Diego, CA). For each analysis, cells were labeled with mAb, fixed with 2% paraformaldehyde and analyzed using BD LSRII Fortessa flow cytometer (BD Biosciences) using FACSDiva software. Gating on human anti-CD45-stained cells was used to exclude contaminating murine cells. Subsequent analyses were performed using FlowJo software (Tree Star, Ashland, OR).
Serum cytokine assay
Blood samples from our cohorts were recovered via puncture of the retro-orbital venous plexus using EDTA coated capillaries. Samples were spun at 3000 rpm for 5 min and serum was collected. Cytokine levels were determined using a cytometric bead array assay (BD CBA Human Th1/Th2/Th17 Cytokine Kit, BD Biosciences) specific for human IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TNF, IFN-γ and IL-17A. Samples were acquired on a BD LSR Fortessa flow cytometer (BD Biosciences) with FACSDiva software and subsequent analyses were performed using FCAP Array software.
Generation of BLT mice and treatment
NOD.Cg-Prkdcscid Il2rgtm1Wjl/SzJ (NSG) mice were initially purchased from Jackson Laboratories and bred and maintained under laminar flow conditions in the Mouse/Human Chimera Core Facility at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Humanized mice were prepared as previously described44. Mice were then monitored for human cell engraftment 6 - 10 weeks post-injection. Upon reconstitution the animals were treated with cocaine for 5 days. Cocaine hydrochloride (5 mg/ml in saline) was obtained from the National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA; National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD] and diluted in saline prior to use. This dose of cocaine was selected on the basis of prior dose/response experiments (0.1, 5 or 10 mg/kg)7,55 in which the 5 mg/kg dose was shown to have no effects on engraftment yet significantly enhanced HIV infection22. Cocaine was delivered by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection beginning 5 days pre-infection (4 - 8 weeks post human tissue implantation). After the 5-day pretreatment, a subset of animals was infected with HIV-1 89.6 , followed by continuous cocaine administration until day 14 post-infection when the animals were sacrificed. Each experiment utilized humanized mice that were made from human tissue from the same donor and the donor tissue was unique experiment to experiment. Animals exhibiting any symptoms of graft versus host disease (GVHD) are removed from our analyses.
Viral load assay
Peripheral blood was collected by cardiac puncture and transferred into microcentrifuge tubes containing 330 mM EDTA. Viral RNA was extracted from plasma using the QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit (Qiagen). Quantitative RT-PCR was performed using the following primers/probe specific for gag sequences: NG1F (position 453–480) 28 bp (5′-GAGCTAGAACGATTCGCAGTTAATCCTG-3′), NG1R (position 570–534) 37 bp (5′-ATAATGATCTAAGTTCTTCTGATCCTGTCTGAAGGGA-3), NG1Z probe (position 482–520) 39 bp (FAM-5′ -CCTTTTAGAGACATCAGAAGGCTGTAGACAAATACTGGG-3-BHQ). Reverse transcription was performed using the Superscript II kit (Invitrogen). Real-time, quantitative PCR was performed on a BioRad CFX96 thermocycler. Results from samples were interpolated within the quantitation derived from the RNA standards.
Tat/rev real time RT-PCR
Expression of viral genomic RNA was measured by quantitative real-time RT-PCR and compared to in vitro-transcribed RNA standards specific for multiply spliced Tat-Rev RNA as previously described56. The 18S primer/probe set was obtained from Applied Biosystems specific for eukaryotic 18S rRNA as an endogenous control to allow relative gene expression quantification. The reaction conditions were carried out using the iScript One-Step RT-PCR Kit for Probes (Bio-Rad)56.
Quantitative real time PCR
We used quantitative real-time PCR to detect the presence of viral DNA as previously described56. Briefly, cells were harvested and DNA was subsequently isolated to be used in a quantitative real time PCR using primers specific for HIV-1 sequences56. A primer-probe pair specific for the human β-globin gene was utilized to determine the input of cellular DNA as an endogenous control to allow relative gene quantification56. The reactions were carried out using the TaqMan Core Reagents Kit (ABI Biosystems)56.
Intracellular cytokine assay
1 × 106 cells/well were seeded in 48-well plates in RPMI-10 media and stimulated for 6 hours with PMA/Inonomycin at 37 °C, 5% CO2. Following incubation, the cells were washed and stained with antibodies against CD3, CD4, CD8, CD45, CD56 and IFN-γ (BDBiosciences) to measure levels of cytokine release. Samples were run on an LSRII Fortessa (BD Biosciences) and analyzed using FlowJo.
Generating HIV-specific CTL
CD8+ T cells were isolated by magnetic bead isolation (EasySep Human CD8+ Selection Kit, Stem Cell Technologies) from the PBMC of healthy donors obtained by the UCLA CFAR Virology Core and activated overnight in 50 ng/ml anti-CD3 (clone OKT3, Imgenex, San Diego, CA) and 300 U/ml IL-2 (NIH AIDS Reagent Program). Activated CD8+ were then transduced with a lentiviral vector containing HIV SL9-specific TCR and cultured in AIM-V media (Invitrogen, Life Technologies) supplemented with 5% human AB serum (Omega Scientific), 20 ng/ml IL-7 and 20 ng/ml IL-15 (both Invitrogen, Life Technologies). CD8+ T cells expressing the SL9-specific TCR were purified by magnetic bead separation based on dLNGFR expression (EasySep Human CD271 Selection Kit, Stem Cell Technologies) and confirmed >85% by flow cytometric analysis.
Cytotoxicity Assay
Purified SL9TCR-expressing CD8+ T cells were incubated in culture media (described above) for 3 days with 10 μM cocaine (NIDA Drug Supply Program) or not. On the second day, they were labeled with 2 μM Vybrant CFDA-SE (Invitrogen, Life Technologies) according to manufacturer’s suggested protocol and maintained in fresh culture media with 10 μM cocaine overnight. On the same day, target U1 cells were labeled with 5 μM CellTrace| Violet (Invitrogen, Life Technologies) according to manufacturer’s suggested protocol and activated to produce HIV with 10 μM prostratin (LC Labs, Woburn MA). The following day, cocaine or mock treated CTL were co-incubated with prostratin-activated U1 cells for 4 hr at the described effector to target ratios. Target cell sensitivity to CTL was assessed by the intracellular expression of cleaved caspase 3 via flow cytometric analysis. Percent specific killing was assessed by subtracting the %cleaved caspase 3 in target cells cultured with CTL from the %cleaved caspase 3 in target cells cultured alone. Conjugates of effector CTL and target U1 cells were assessed by flow cytometric analysis of Vybrant CFDA-SE and CellTrace Violet double positive for cells.
IFN-γ Production and CD107a Degranulation Assays
Purified SL9TCR-expressing CD8+T cells were incubated in culture media (described above) for 3 days with 10 μM cocaine or not. On the second day, they were labeled with 2 μM Vybrant CFDA-SE (Invitrogen, Life Technologies) according to manufacturer’s suggested protocol and maintained in fresh culture media with 10 μM cocaine overnight. On the same day, target U1 cells were labeled with 5 μM CellTrace Violet (Invitrogen, Life Technologies) according to manufacturer’s suggested protocol and activated to produce HIV with 10 μM prostratin (LC Labs, Woburn MA). The following day, cocaine or mock treated CTL were co-incubated with prostratin-activated U1 cells for 6 hr at an 1:1 effector to target ratio in the presence of GolgiStop and GolgiPlug (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA) and PerCP/Cy5.5-anti-CD107a (1:50, Biolegend, San Diego, CA). Some CTL were also treated with phytohemagglutinin, PHA, (10 μg/ml) and IL-2 (100 U/ml) to induce maximal expression of CD107a and IFN-γ. After 6 hr, IFN-γ expression was assessed by intracellular cytokine staining.
Statistical analysis
All statistical analyses were carried out using GraphPad Prism 6. For two groups, we used Mann-Whitney test or one-tailed Student’s t-test, while for groups of 3 or more we used a Kruskal-Wallis (with Dunn’s multiple comparisons test) or one-way ANOVA (with a Tukey post-test). For most of our analysis, unless otherwise indicated, we ran non-parametric tests. For our proportion analysis, we used a Fisher’s exact test. | {
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Happy Black History Month! Lots of great stuff on the interwebs this week we wanted to highlight. Check out this fantastic feature at the New York Times, “Overlooked,” which highlights inspiring humans that the newspaper has neglected over the years now finally being brought into focus. This month’s “Overlooked” features the incredible Gladys Bentley, a queer artist who was a sensation during the height of the jazz era in Harlem.
Gladys was an openly gay performer known for her explicit and brilliant performances in Harlem: | {
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top-stories,
A fake Facebook post in which Opposition Leader Alistair Coe appeared to label climate change a "conspiracy" was shared by high profile Canberrans before being deleted. Mr Coe said he had contacted Elections ACT about the post, which has come during an election year. The post said people like Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Greens leader Adam Bandt had attempted to bring "cheap politics into the devastating (bushfire) crisis by blaming the climate change conspiracy rather than the real cause". It was originally posted on Reddit before being widely shared on Twitter on Sunday, including by politicians and Unions ACT. Greens ACT leader Shane Rattenbury was among the people to be caught out by the fake post. Mr Coe said it was disappointing high profile people had shared the post without seeking to verify it first. "The dirty tricks for this campaign have unfortunately started very early," he said. "We're still eight or nine months away from polling day yet the fake posts and fake news is unfortunately alive and well in the ACT. "Who knows who will be a victim of it tomorrow. "The reality is there is a need in integrity in all reporting, be that by journalists or of course in the promotion of social media posts." Mr Coe said the Canberra Liberals contacted people who were promoting the post, who removed it and apologised. He said the party would contact Elections ACT about how future situations could be managed. "Everyone in the ACT expects a higher standard from public officials and I hope this serves as a very valuable lesson for everybody, that you've got to be somewhat skeptical about what you read online and if it seems like it's a falsehood, there's a fair chance it is." Mr Rattenbury said it was not a surprise the tweet was widely shared considering the Liberals' climate change policies. But he said everyone needed to be more careful to authenticate information. "Sadly, 'fake news' is a global trend, and it's disconcerting to see this emerge in local politics," he said. "Ahead of an election year, it's clear we'll all need to be more vigilant in verifying third-party sources. "'Fake news' works best when it cuts close to the truth. "Given the stance of the Liberals locally and nationally when it comes to climate change, it's no surprise that this tweet spread so quickly." Mr Coe has also been the subject of a campaign against him from a new Facebook page, Let Coe Know; Time to Act Scomo. But Mr Coe maintains his leadership is safe and the party is united. It came after a group of disaffected Liberal MLAs made a leadership coup attempt in November, amid fears Mr Coe was too socially conservative for the Canberra electorate. Moderate Elizabeth Lee was touted as a possible alternative.
https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/uKjMY4e5Mbar2wCa46ayu4/9cbe3afb-eca2-4430-8dc7-83536f8b50a6.jpeg/r0_0_1240_701_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg | {
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Michigan State football practice - August 6
Michigan State defensive coordinate Pat Narduzzi gives Oregon QB Marcus Mariota a great deal of credit for the Ducks' win, but he's disappointed by the breakdown in execution on his defense and indicated changes on the depth chart are ahead.
(Mike Mulholland | Mlive.com)
EAST LANSING — Pat Narduzzi had his Michigan State defense dialed in at Oregon, the Xs matched up with the Ducks’ Os at most every turn.
Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, however, had more than one great escape, leading the No. 2-ranked Ducks to the 46-27 victory over the No. 13 Spartans last Saturday.
Narduzzi gave credit to Mariota, comparing him to a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, but Michigan State's defensive coordinator also made it clear he was displeased with his unit's inability to execute the game plan consistently.
“We did some good things, but we didn’t finish, we didn’t finish the game, we didn’t finish plays when we had the opportunities,’’ Narduzzi said following Thursday’s practice. “There will be some moves on the depth chart before the next game.’’
Michigan State has a bye this Saturday before returning to action at noon Sept. 20 against Eastern Michigan at Spartan Stadium.
Narduzzi had plenty to say about how his Michigan State defense, which has led the Big Ten and ranked in the top six nationally in total defense each of the past three years, let last Saturday’s game slip away.
“We missed too many sacks,’’ Narduzzi said. “We had three sacks and we could have had seven more. You have to give him (Mariota) credit, he made us miss, he’s the best quarterback we’ve faced since (Seattle Seahawks/former Wisconsin QB) Russell Wilson in my opinion.
“The guy can hurt you with his arm and his feet, and I was impressed.’’
Narduzzi said the Spartans forced Oregon to go three-and-out on seven offensive series, and it should have been nine.
Mariota had miraculous third-down scrambles on consecutive possessions, dodging no less than two would-be tacklers on each, in a pivotal third quarter that saw the Ducks rally from 27-18 down.
“We had a couple of busts, and they had two pick routes on us, and there’s no call, and you’ve got to live with it and you’ve got to stay on your guy,’’ Narduzzi said. “Sometimes they do (get called), but (in this game) they let the offensive guys do whatever they wanted, and we didn’t execute.’’
Narduzzi said he was disappointed with how his defense allowed Oregon’s run game to get more than 100 yards rushing in the fourth quarter after the Spartans had held the Ducks to 13 yards rushing in the first half and 56 yards through three quarter.
“There was a couple of bad run fits, they started running some power — a play our offense runs every day out there — and Taiwan (Jones) didn’t read his keys, to be honest with you,’’ Narduzzi said. “ … and RJ (Williamson) didn’t get down a couple times (against the run), and that’s what happens, two guys.’’
Narduzzi said in hindsight he probably should have left his first-team defense in against Jacksonville State for three quarters instead of pulling them at halftime, just so the six new starters could have gotten more experience before the Oregon game.
Secondary coach Harlon Barnett said the Spartans' defensive backs, the self-described “No Fly Zone,” will bounce back but it never should have come to the loss.
“Really some of the things, missed coverages, missed assignments, missed tackles, we felt like we coulda, shoulda won the game,’’ Barnett said. “No disrespect to Oregon, but we blew some opportunities.
“Our guys have seen their mistakes and where we need to improve, and I think we will do that.’’
* True freshman defensive tackle Craig Evans would have played, but Narduzzi said the 335-pound Evans was not well-suited to match up against the Ducks' spread and uptempo attack.
* Narduzzi said there was an occasion he wanted to get Shilique Calhoun out of the game (Calhoun had a wrist injury), but the Spartans' couldn't make the substitution on account of Oregon's no-huddle uptempo offense.
* Middle linebacker Taiwan Jones has played "pretty solid through two games,'' according to Narduzzi.
Download the MSU basketball on MLive app for iPhone and Android
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Like MLive's Michigan State Spartans Facebook | {
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People were counting days until Google Pixel 4 went on sale, and forums were flooded with debates over the potentialities of this device. The Pixel series is populous for the bunch of problems it has faced right after launch.
The new Pixel 4 and XL users have already reported various issues from clicking noises to miserable battery life. Pixel 4 has some cutting-edge features that make it impressive, but it has a terrible battery. Although the Pixel 4 XL provides a little more stamina, still the battery doesn’t last for a longer time.
Not only the battery performance is weak, but users have reported several other issues in Pixel 4 and XL in various forums. Here in this guide, you will get a detailed review of 5 problems in Pixel 4, including camera issues and a low battery.
Problem #1: Poor battery life
Battery life is probably the most usual problem with the new Pixel 4, and you are not alone for having a phone with lousy battery life. To say that Pixel has a weak battery might be a drastic understatement. But leaving the phone as it is and running the phone typically will not make it last a day long with a single charge.
Yes, it’s really annoying to change your habits about using the device or tweaking a few things so that it can get a whole day charge. However, it is still possible to adjust things to extend the battery life of Pixel 4.
Possible solutions
Make sure to turn on the Adaptive Battery
This tweak is as easy as it gets with every Pixel 4 owner must ensure that the Adaptive Battery mode is turned on. Go into the phone and head on to the settings by tapping. Select battery, and there you will find the adaptive battery mode. Make sure the toggle is on; if not, then activate it.
The adaptive battery makes an in-depth study about how you use the phone and monitors the inactive or less used apps. Then it limits those less frequently used apps running in the background. The company says this system only gets better over time. It will permanently sleep those apps you are not using for a prolonged time and lists them on this setting screen.
Turn on battery saver mode
Your phone will make several battery saving changes as soon as you toggle it on from the notification area. This mode will turn off location services when the display is off, limits apps from refreshing in the background, “OK Google” is turned off, and the dark theme is activated.
Uninstall the unused apps
Android 10 restricts apps you don’t use often. Still, you can make that even better by uninstalling them completely. Remember that you can always install whenever you feel the need for it.
Restrict location access
Android 10 allows you to give access to locations to other apps, and it can help to reduce battery life. Open Settings, Privacy, then Permission Manager, and lastly Location, where you can find each app that has access to a location. Restrict the ones you don’t need. You can also turn off the location completely in case if you have a very little battery remaining and you don’t have a charger with you.
Motion Sense can be turned off
You can do this, but your phone will not be able to sense and get a little slow to respond.
Change ambient display setting
You can turn this thing off by toggling every option in Display and Lock Screen Display.
Turn off 90Hz refresh
The phone’s display is great, but that requires an extra 50 percent battery usage than other phones. Get into the phones Settings, Display and then Smooth Display, toggle it, and you are done.
Problem #2: Motion Sense gestures do not work
No matter how good your gestures are, the Motion Sense isn’t going to have a 100 percent acceptance rate. You need to know the right way of holding up your hand and swiping.
Possible solutions
You may find it natural to wave your palm facing the display screen, but Motion Sense will accept only if you put your palm in a perpendicular direction. Just wave your hand casually over the display without rotating the wrist so that the phone can read your gesture at an exact angle.
Also, try not to raise your palm above the top bezel of the phone. Although the phone doesn’t expect such accuracy, it is good not to go beyond the top bezel area. You are not alone to find Motion Sense clumsy. After many rehearse, only a few have maneuvered these gestures perfectly but nowhere near the hundred percent mark.
If you are still finding that this thing isn’t working, make sure that Motion Sense function is enabled on the device. Get into Settings, System, and then Motion Sense. This is the area where you can make sure the individual settings for various gestures are turned on.
Problem #3: Face unlock doesn’t work
Google’s new face unlock technique is really amazing because it can identify anyone’s face in different lighting conditions. It can even perform smoothly if you are wearing glasses, a scarf, a hat, or having different hairstyles or even having your eyes closed. It’s a pretty robust system. Therefore if you are facing problems with the face unlock system, that’s not expected.
Possible solutions
The easiest and simplest way of overcoming this issue is by un-enrolling and re-enrolling your face data. Exactly like using the fingerprint sensor, the next time you want to enroll your face data, it will be a bit more measured and methodical. The phone will take care of the situation that has failed in taking a proper means of registering your face the first time.
Reach out for Settings, Security, and then Face Unlock and tap Delete face data and start all over again. It is important to give your phone the best-scanned image of your face. Perform this action when you are not in a rush by taking a few moments in a room that has a good light. Don’t put your glasses or hat either. Follow the on-screen prompts as it will guide you on how to position your head by tilting in a correct posture.
Problem #4: The camera got serious white balance issues
The company has been putting a lot of effort into photo processing on its phones since the beginning. In the latest Pixel 4 and XL, Google has added many intelligent camera features to produce natural-looking images in any conditions.
This problem is going to impact many users. According to reports from various forums, the camera in Pixel 4 has serious issues with colored lights. It seems that the camera is trying to shoot with extreme colors but ends up in a complete color tone, which is also inaccurate. Many are asking for the return of manual white balance control.
Possible solutions:
At present, there is no fix for this, but the company might make adjustments with future updates. That being said, the issue surrounding inaccurate coloring can be tweaked after a detailed observation. The same issue of discoloration is not present in the RAW image files.
Therefore if you need to dodge this issue until the latest system updates arrive, a simple tweak is required. Open the camera app and enter the settings, then tap on Advanced and turn on RAW+JPEG control. Enabling this setting will save your RAW file images separately, which you can later export and work on the PC. You can also use a compatible app in Pixel 4 for processing those images.
Problem #5: The smooth display does not remain on all the time
You have probably noticed that the 90Hz refresh rate Pixel smooth display isn’t activated all the time. More specifically, when the ambient light conditions are not bright, or screen brightness is set to low. The company has reduced the refresh rate in certain conditions. The screens are not employing the said refresh rate so as to help in reducing the battery drain and to save your eyes.
By default, the highest refresh rate only turns on when the screen brightness is above 75%. The company said that it would release an update soon that will enable a 90Hz refresh rate so that it can work with different brightness levels. Although it is not clear what that might look like.
Possible solutions:
You can overcome this issue by tweaking some settings in Developer Options and force 90Hz all the time. It is recommended to stay away from Developer Options, but you should proceed carefully. Open the Settings, About phone, then scroll down to the Build Number and tap seven times on it.
Now go back to System, Advanced, and then Developer options. Search for “force 90Hz refresh rate”, turn it on. It will affect battery life alongside other problems.
In conclusion:
Do not allow these problems to hamper you from buying one of the greatest Android smartphones available. These are all software related issues and will be fixed in due course of time. | {
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Matt Franchak, Stack's chief of staff, defended the spending reimbursements. In a statement Wednesday night, he said that although the Stacks owned their Philadelphia property along Wayside Road until early last year, they had moved their furniture and their belongings to the 2,400-square-foot lieutenant governor's residence in Fort Indiantown Gap, outside Harrisburg, right after he was inaugurated. | {
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President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE returned to the White House on Sunday after spending his first Father's Day weekend in office at Camp David. This was also his first weekend at the presidential retreat in Maryland, after eschewing it for nearly five months in favor of staying at mostly Trump-owned properties.
Arriving in the Marine One helicopter at the White House late Sunday afternoon, Trump, joined by first lady Melania Trump Melania TrumpThe Hill's Campaign Report: Trump faces backlash after not committing to peaceful transition of power FBI director casts doubt on concerns over mail-in voting fraud Trump: 'We could hardly hear' boos, chanting at Supreme Court MORE and the couple's 11-year-old son, Barron, told reporters that Camp David was"incredible," as well as "beautiful" and "very nice."
The first lady also tweeted on Saturday that she and her husband were enjoying themselves at the camp.
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In a second tweet on Sunday, Melania Trump wished the president a happy Father's Day.
The president also tweeted about Camp David, saying it was "an honor to have spent the weekend there," and praising the military.
Camp David is a very special place. An honor to have spent the weekend there. Military runs it so well and are so proud of what they do! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017
For the Trumps, Camp David is a more rustic alternative to the palatial resorts where they often spend their weekends. Trump's presence has long been a staple at his own golf courses and plush private clubs.
Early in his presidency, Trump often visited his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
When the club closed for the summer, Trump turned to his golf club in Bedminster Township, N.J. On weekends when he has remained in Washington, he has often ventured out to his golf course in Sterling, Va. | {
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PARIS — More than a million people joined over 40 presidents and prime ministers on the streets of Paris on Sunday in the most striking show of solidarity in the West against the threat of Islamic extremism since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Responding to terrorist strikes that killed 17 people in France and riveted worldwide attention, Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists and people of all races, ages and political stripes swarmed central Paris beneath a bright blue sky, calling for peace and an end to violent extremism.
The Interior Ministry described the demonstration as the largest in modern French history, with as many as 1.6 million people. Many waved the tricolor French flag and brandished pens in raised fists to commemorate those killed Wednesday in an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, as well as four others killed at a Jewish supermarket on Friday. Thousands hoisted black and white signs bearing three words that have ricocheted through social media as a slogan of unity and defiance: “Je suis Charlie.”
The crowd included Pascale Trager-Lewis, 45, a lawyer, and her husband, Christian Chevalier, 45, who brought their two daughters because they wanted them to witness a historic event. “We came because my husband is an authentic French person; I am Jewish,” Ms. Trager-Lewis said. “My elder daughter’s godmother is a Muslim, and my closest friend almost became a nun. I came for the Jews who were killed, for the freedom of speech, for religious tolerance.” | {
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“We need to go out and get investment and be able to get money and funding from both the government and private sector to turn this into reality,” says Glen Johnston, VP of Regulatory Affairs for GEVO INC. | {
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JetBrains Web UI components open-sourced
Posted on by
Please welcome Ring UI, an open-source library full of Web UI components!
Ring UI library gives you the power of complex UI controls that have been developed at JetBrains over the years. It contains over 50 React controls, ranging from simple links and buttons to sophisticated controls, such as Date Picker or Data List. This library is extensively used inside YouTrack, Hub, Upsource, and other products, and we are committed to developing and maintaining it for many years to come.
One example of how you might use Ring UI library would be to create custom widgets for your dashboard in Hub so that you can match the style of your favorite JetBrains user interfaces. Please follow the Quick Start Guide to explore the library.
Your feedback is really appreciated, so please share it with us in the comment section below or report bugs in our tracker.
We are thrilled to see what you will create using Ring UI! | {
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こんばんは！
ゆいさんと共に5月より準メンバーになりました
はなです(^-^)
先輩方のブログにもたくさん書かれていましたが、改めましてファンクラブイベント本当にありがとうございました！
応援して下さる皆様のおかげで毎日ステージに立たせていただけているんだなと心から実感しました
実はしゅくさんが演出構成をして下さいましたが、しゅくさんはメンバーに何を歌いたいかアンケートとって下さいました！！
私が提案したのは
「元気印歌合戦」と「未来の君へつなぐ歌」
なんと！！どちらも披露させていただきました！ 笑
メンバーとしても！ファンとしても！最高のセットリストでした
大好きな虎姫一座。もっともっと有名にするぞ！！！
これからもよろしくお願い致しますm(_ _)m
ファンクラブイベントも無事終了致しまして、最近はと言いますと、ゆいさん家でみんなで昭和の映画を観て勉強したり、のもさんとお泊まりしたり、ななかさんとあさくさんぽしたりと....
ずっとメンバーといますね^^;笑笑
明日はみんなと会えませんが...(T . T)
学校頑張ってきます！
では！また明後日お待ちしています。
明日も素敵な1日になりますように
おやすみなさい | {
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Despite the worldwide use of tramadol, few studies have been conducted about its effects on memory and mitochondrial function, and controversial results have been reported. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in physical exercise as a protective approach to neuronal and cognitive impairments. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of physical exercise on spatial learning and memory and brain mitochondrial function in tramadol-treated rats. After completion of 2-week (short-term) and 4-week (long-term) treadmill exercise regimens, male Wistar rats received tramadol (20, 40, 80 mg/kg/day) intraperitoneally for 30 days. Then spatial learning and memory was assessed by Morris water maze test (MWM). Moreover, brain mitochondrial function was evaluated by determination of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), mitochondrial swelling and cytochrome c release from mitochondria. Chronic administration of tramadol impaired spatial learning and memory as well as brain mitochondrial function as indicated by increased ROS level, MMP collapse, increased mitochondrial swelling and cytochrome c release from mitochondria. Conversely, treadmill exercise significantly attenuated the impairments of spatial learning and memory and brain mitochondrial dysfunction induced by tramadol. The results revealed that chronic tramadol treatment caused memory impairments through induction of brain mitochondrial dysfunction. Furthermore, pre-exposure to physical exercise markedly mitigated these impairments through its positive effects on brain mitochondrial function. | {
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Correlated noise in the two LIGO gravitational-wave detectors may provide evidence that the universe is governed by conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC). That is the claim of Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford, who is proposing that the apparent noise is actually a real signal of gravitational waves generated by the decay of hypothetical dark-matter particles predicted by CCC.
Last month, physicists at the Niels Bohr Institute pointed out that some of the noise in the two LIGO detectors appears to be correlated – with a delay that corresponds to the time it takes for a gravitational wave to travel the more than 3000 km between the instruments.
Writing in a preprint on arXiv, Penrose argues that a significant amount of this noise could be a signal of astrophysical or cosmological origin – and specifically CCC.
Infinite aeons
First proposed over a decade ago by Penrose, CCC assumes that the universe consists of a succession of aeons. Each aeon begins with a big bang and proceeds into an unending future in which the universe expands at an accelerating rate. As this expansion becomes infinitely large, Penrose argues that it can be transformed back into the next big bang.
He says that a “reasonably robust implication of CCC” is that dark matter consists of particles called erebons – the name deriving from the Greek god of darkness Erebos. As dark matter goes, erebons are extremely heavy and have masses of about 10–5 g. This is roughly the Planck mass and on a par with a grain of sand and about 22 orders of magnitude heavier than a proton.
Near-instantaneous impulses
Penrose says that when an erebon decays, it deposits all its energy into a gravitational wave. While such waves have frequencies well above the detection capabilities of LIGO, their arrival at the detectors would be recorded as near-instantaneous impulses that could be mistaken for noise. | {
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'Living corpses': Why Colombia's national tree is at risk By Lucy Sherriff
Cocora Valley, Colombia Published duration 5 November 2018
image copyright Lucy Sherriff image caption The Cocora valley in Colombia is one of the few places where the Quindío Wax Palm grows
"They are essentially living corpses," says Colombian scientist Rodrigo Bernal of Colombia's national tree.
The ceroxylon quindiuense, a distinct species of palm tree which was declared the country's national tree in 1985, is on the verge of extinction and most Colombians are not even aware of the problem.
That is because it takes decades for the palms to show signs of decay, even when they have already reached the end of their lifespan and scientifically they are dead, explains Mr Bernal.
He is one of the scientists who has been studying the trees over the past two decades and he is more than a little worried.
Tourist attraction
Thousands of tourists travel to the Cocora Valley in Colombia's coffee region every year to marvel at the towering palms. But even in this area famous for its wax palms, the trees are few and far between.
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"The trees live for up to 200 years and because of their long lifespan, their decay will only be seen by younger generations," Mr Bernal told the BBC.
"This is why so many Colombians do not realise our national tree is dying out."
image copyright Felipe Villegas/Instituto Humboldt
Since 1989 the number of trees in the region has declined by 78% and there are now only about 2,000 palms left in the Cocora Valley, a group of scientists which has been monitoring the population says.
The wax palms are not only a tourist attraction but a key component in the region's ecosystem. The fruits produced by the trees feed a large number of insects, birds and mammals.
But according to Mr Bernal, the palms in the Cocora Valley are at risk. Much of the valley's once lush dense forest has been cut down to make way for cattle grazing.
This poses problems for the seeds of the wax palm. They either get burned in the sun or they get eaten by the cows.
image copyright Lucy Sherriff image caption Cows eat the seeds and there are no new saplings to replace those trees which have reached the end of their lifespan
Although the living trees are relatively healthy, when they start to decay naturally there are no young saplings to take their place.
New threats
The Quindío Wax Palm grows in very few areas in Colombia. Apart from the Cocora Valley they can be found in Tochecito, an area in Valle del Cauca province.
The little-known Tochecito is thought to hold the largest number of trees - an estimated 70% of the national total.
image copyright Rodrigo Bernal image caption In Tochecito the density of wax palms is higher than in the Cocora valley
But the fact that parts of the area were occupied by the now largely disbanded Farc guerrilla group means that research there was almost impossible. Scientists hope the number of trees may actually be bigger.
Mr Bernal and his fellow scientists have turned their attention to Tochecito in the hope that they can preserve its wax palms before it is too late.
With the area now safer and more accessible following the 2016 peace deal with the Farc rebels, farmers are moving back and the scientists fear for the future of the national tree.
"We predict we could see half the wax palm population disappear in as little as 50 years' time," says Luis Santiago Castillo Martínez of the Humboldt Institute, an environmental research organisation.
"Tochecito is our best opportunity to protect the palms," he says of the 42 sq km (16 sq mile) area.
Uphill struggle
The palm trees are legally protected under a law passed in 1985 which prevents their branches being cut off for use during religious celebrations such as Palm Sunday but there are few repercussions for those who completely fell the trees.
Tochecito currently belongs to 40 private landowners and Mr Bernal along with the Humboldt Institute has been asking the Colombian government to declare the area a national park, but so far with little success.
image copyright Felipe Villegas/Instituto Humboldt image caption The landowners could be key to the palms' conservation
"The most we could achieve was to encourage the owners to declare their farms private reserves," says Mr Bernal.
Unfortunately there is a loophole to that status, he adds.
"This just means your land is a protected area but it's an empty status as you can use your land however you see fit. If these landowners decide they want to clear their land, they can."
Mr Bernal and his fellow scientists have for years been urging the government to buy up the land - a move they estimate would cost $10m (£7.7m) - but so far no action has been taken.
"It's not a huge amount. It's cents for a nation like Colombia. The government has the authority to buy this land, and protect the trees, but refuses to do so. It is incredibly frustrating," he says.
image copyright Felipe Villegas/Institute Humboldt image caption The wax palms have so far been thriving on the steep hillsides in Tochecito
Colombia's 58 national parks are managed by the National Parks Systems and while the number of areas designated as protected in Colombia has been growing, the budget has only increased by 3% each year over the past four years, Wilfredo Cuestas says.
Mr Cuestas oversees the budget of the body managing Colombia's national parks. "Although the budget for each fiscal year has not been cut, the allocations made are not enough to cover our needs," he told the BBC. "The money assigned is for basic operations," he said, pointing out that more than double that amount was needed to sustain its work.
Mr Castillo also thinks money is key: "The first step to protecting the palms will be to allocate the proper amount to the environmental sector."
Mr Bernal and his fellow scientists have developed a management plan to save the species but the budget cuts mean their strategy is unlikely to be enacted.
"I'm so disappointed," Mr Bernal says. "This tree is beloved by Colombian people, everyone knows it is our national tree, But nobody knows we are about to lose it."
Update 7 November 2018: The government body overseeing Colombia's national parks has since responded clarifying its budget and our article has been updated to include that. | {
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While most of the focus of US operations in Syria is further north in a pair of towns under ISIS control, US warplanes attacked the border town of al-Bukamal on Sunday, hitting a residential area and killing a family of five. Two children were among the slain.
Details are still scant on why the airstrike was launched in the first place.There were no reports of fighting in the town, and the attack seems o have just hit a bunch of buildings, causing a lot of damage.
Al-Bukamal is the main border crossing between Syria and Iraq, and has been under the control of the Syrian government since seizing it from ISIS in late 2017. There have been a few fights as ISIS tried to push back in, but rarely long fights.
The US rarely launches airstrikes in support of the Syrian government in the first place, and strikes into Syrian government-controlled territory tend to be controversial. With Syria already complaining about US strikes killing civilians, this will only add to anger about the US presence in the country. | {
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Troubleshooter is a JRPG scenario game play and turn-based tactics based on-line PC platform game. Please check our latest video out!
Posted by LeeKiHoon on Sep 23rd, 2016
Hello everybody!, DandyLion development news has arrived.
Five months has passed since Troubleshooter received Steam Greenlight.
To receive more feedback, suggestions and criticism(to improve the game), we've decided to submit out project 'Troubleshooter' to Square Enix Collective(SEC).
So we have made a video that filled with full of in-game play. We are waiting for SEC's approval. But before that, we want to share our new video at here.
There are still lots things to do. But we are small indie studio and there is a limit to what we can do. IndieDB has many users with diverse gaming experiences and those experiences can be of great help to us. Please, don't be hesitate to write down your suggestion, feedback or criticism.
Thank you for watching our video. | {
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Israel Adesanya sat down in a crowded room at the UFC's Las Vegas training center and greeted the crowd in English and Mandarin. He apologized for his relative lack of proficiency in the second language, which he learned during his kickboxing career in China.
“If I'd had a Chinese girlfriend back then, maybe I'd be fluent,” Adesanya said with a grin. “But if you don't use it, you lose it.”
The Nigeria-born, New Zealand-raised UFC middleweight champion has never lost in the cage. He is also a charismatic, multilingual citizen of the world who appears to be the next fighter in line for superstardom with the UFC, which would love to capitalize on his potential for global appeal.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
Yet Adesanya (18-0, 14 KOs) knows his aspirations hang in the balance on every fight. He intends to stay on course when he takes on fearsome Brazilian veteran Yoel Romero (13-4) on Saturday night in the main event of UFC 248 in his first defense of an undisputed title belt.
“A lot is on the line in this fight,” Adesanya said. “I don't know what the odds are, but I feel like the underdog. I feel like a lot of people want to see me fall in this fight. This is the nature of what we've created. We like to build people up, and we like to tear them down because we see inadequacy in ourselves from the way they're shining.”
Adesanya actually is a solid favorite in the main event of the UFC's latest pay-per-view show at T-Mobile Arena. The penultimate bout also has global appeal, with new Chinese strawweight champion Zhang Weili defending her belt against former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk of Poland.
Although Adesanya is telling himself that he's the underdog, most everyone else is expecting an impressive performance from the champion who has taken over the UFC division long dominated by Anderson Silva. Adesanya won his title with a knockout of Robert Whittaker last October, establishing himself as the world's top 185-pounder — and picking up all the distractions and challenges that come along with the distinction.
Adesanya speaks about the downside of success just as openly as he discusses his plans to thrash Romero.
“The leeches are everywhere,” Adesanya said. "The snakes, the vultures. They usually circle around dead, deceased creatures, but I'm thriving. I'm living. I've tightened my circle. There's definitely been a lot of people I've cut off as recently as this week. It's unfortunate, because not all your homies can grow with you."
Romero turns 43 years old next month, and the famously musclebound fighter has lost three of his last four bouts by decision. This matchup is his first chance to fight for an undisputed UFC title belt.
Zhang (20-1, 10 KOs) and Adesanya both burst onto the UFC scene in 2018 after years of toil in smaller promotions. Their talents became undeniable, and both capitalized on their first title shots with victories that boosted the promotion's visibility outside North America.
Zhang became the first Chinese champion in UFC history last August with her impressive stoppage of Jessica Andrade. Her first defense is a difficult matchup with Jedrzejczyk, who held the strawweight title from March 2015 to November 2017, when Rose Namajunas dramatically stopped the previously unbeaten champion.
Jedrzejczyk lost three of four fights, including a failed flyweight title shot against Valentina Shevchenko, in a rough 13-month span that she attributed to trouble in her personal life. She claims to be refocused and determined to recapture her belt, and she has been notably confrontational in her promotion of this fight with Zhang.
Jedrzejczyk also got in trouble with the UFC and insulted Zhang when she posted a meme on social media linking the Chinese champion to coronavirus.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I like it,” Jedrzejczyk said. “This is how I motivate myself. Soon I'm going to retire. I made my money. Stepping in there and fighting for the title, I feel like a winner already.” | {
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Victor Guevares rented apartments and saved money for 12 years, hoping eventually to buy a home for his family. Now, the foreclosure market might make the New York man's dream come true.
Victor Guavares discusses his plans with his wife, Yajaira, to bid on a foreclosure at an auction Sunday in New York.
Guevares went to Sunday's USHomeAuction.com's foreclosure sale at in New York City's Jacob Javits Convention Center.
Banks and other lenders were unloading foreclosed houses, and they were selling at 50 percent to 60 percent below their highest values.
Guevares figured it was now or never for his family of four.
"I just have a feeling that in six to nine months, we're going to start to see a resurgence in the market. So, I think now is the time for us to get into it, if we can," he told CNN.
About 2,000 potential buyers went to Sunday's auction, ready to vie for 375 foreclosed properties at what they hoped would be bargain prices.
The auction drew about 1,400 people, twice as large as the crowd last year, when the California-based Real Estate Disposition Corporation held its first foreclosure auction in New York City, according to The New York Times.
Guevares did his homework before the event, checking out three foreclosed houses listed in a catalog. But he really had his heart set on one of them, which is not far from his father's home.
"I'm nervous because I want the house so bad," Guevares said. "I really, really want this property." Watch CNN's Susan Candiotti report on the auction »
It's a two-story, three-bedroom house in the Queens neighborhood of Woodhaven. Less than a year ago, it was listed at $527,000. Now, the auction house was asking for an opening bid of $89,000.
Guevares said he'd never considered that someone else's misfortune may be his ticket to home ownership.
"I could empathize, I could sense the dread it would cause families. [But] you should have seen where we started ... a studio apartment with a mattress on the floor," he said. "This [home up for auction] would be my dream house."
It hasn't been easy to sock away enough money to get this far.
The Brooklyn native's college career was interrupted when he was shot the summer after his freshman year. After recovering, he didn't return to the school, working instead to pay off the loans he'd received. Eventually, he went to another school and earned an associate degree in telecommunications.
For the past few years, Guevares has been saving for a down payment while working for a chemical company.
At Sunday's auction, he tried to keep the knots in his stomach in check.
It was a madhouse at the convention center, where speakers blasted bids throughout the room. Finally, after more than four hours, Guevares' dream house came up for bids.
An auctioneer barked out bids and tuxedoed assistants ran up and down the aisle. Guevares made the opening bid, but in a heartbeat, at least two other competitors jumped in.
The bids climbed. They went past $100,000, and eventually $200,000.
Guevares looked shell-shocked, but he ended up with the winning bid: $230,000.
Although he put down about $12,000 in cash, he's not the home's proud owner just yet. He might have to bring the house up to code before he can apply for a loan. He has 30 days to seal the deal, and the clock is ticking.
Still, he said he can "see the light at the end of the tunnel."
"It's just wonderful. I feel I'm a part of the American experience now," Guevares said.
Before the auction, his 8-year-old son, Devon, had a chance to look over his possible new home and what would be his second floor bedroom and his own back yard.
"It would be nice," he said. "You won't need to pay rent."
All About Personal Finance • New York City | {
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Exclusive: Police Officer Darren Wilson Explains How He Feared for His Life ABC News' George Stephanopoulos spoke to the Ferguson police officer.
-- Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson has spoken out to ABC News for the first time publicly since fatally shooting a black teenager, Michael Brown, and he said that he would not do anything differently.
Speaking exclusively to ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Wilson said that Brown reached into his police car and grabbed for his gun, causing Wilson to fear for his life.
"All I wanted to do was live," said Wilson, who the grand jury declined to indict in connection with the fatal shooting in August.
He told ABC News about the struggle he faced with Brown as the teen allegedly punched Wilson in the face.
"I didn't know if I'd be able to withstand another hit like that," Wilson said.
"I had reached out my window with my right hand to grab onto his forearm 'cause I was gonna try and move him back and get out of the car to where I'm no longer trapped," Wilson said.
"I just felt the immense power that he had. And then the way I've described it is it was like a 5-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan. That's just how big this man was," Wilson said. | {
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The EA Desktop app is currently in Beta, so only some players have access. Find out more in our article.
If you're having trouble with any of these steps for EA Desktop, you can switch back to Origin while we're still in Beta testing. | {
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Meet Bengaluru boy Niranjan Mukundan, a para-athlete making waves for India
Niranjan has made it to the Forbes U30 list and won medals at the World Series in Brazil.
news Sports
All of 24, para-athlete Niranjan Mukundan's indomitable grit is taking him places. And clearly, 2019 is his year. After making it to the Forbes U30 List, and clinching 1 gold in 200m I.M and 1 silver in 50m Butterfly events at the World Series 2019, Sao Paulo, Brazil, he has his sights set on a bigger innings: Para-Swimming World Championships to be held in London in September.
Wise beyond his years, Niranjan has a sense of calm and the aura rubs off on you. Soaking up all the praise that's coming his way post his recent feat at the World Series in Brazil, Niranjan says, “Well, I have clocked the MET ("B" Qualifying Time) for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics as well, so my main aim at the World Championships would be to achieve the MQS ("A" Qualifying Time) so that I will have one full year to train for the Paralympics."
Niranjan’s journey hasn't always been smooth. Diagnosed with spina bifida, a neural tube defect which affects the spine, and having had to wade through a series of complex surgeries since birth, the Bengaluru boy had a slew of difficult decisions to make. But, that’s what made the pursuit all the more worthwhile.
“If you’re really invested in your dream, challenges only make you want to push harder. One of my goals is to help the next generation of sportspeople, and most importantly, para sports athletes,” avers Niranjan, who’s armed with a Masters' degree in Sports Management.
As the pressure mounts with every milestone that he crosses, the Bengaluru youngster is pinning all his hopes on focused training for his forthcoming pursuits. "I would be training at my overseas train base (Thailand) for a while before I come back to India for some final fine-tuning,” he adds.
Like most true blue Bengalureans, Niranjan has a penchant for filter kaapi, idli-sambar, cricket and movies. While most know him owing to his swimming and para-olympic endeavours, not many are aware that this sportsperson massively roots for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Bengaluru Bulls Pro Kabaddi Team. These are some of the things he often makes time for, while taking a break from work.
Elaborating on his passions, he says, “Whether we win or lose, I’ll always be a die-hard RCB fan. And of course, nothing beats the comfort that a plate of piping hot idli-sambar offers, or a cup of filter coffee. Maybe these are just very Bengalurean things! I'm also an ardent movie buff, so whenever I am in India and I am free, I love to go and watch movies with friends.”
Coming from a modest family, Niranjan attributes all his success to his family and inner circle. “They have never said a 'No' to me for anything. Also, that passion towards my sport has always driven me. Sometimes I win and other times I have so much to learn. The sense of pride in representing my country at the highest level keeps me motivated and inspired. It's the passion that plays out, in the end,” he says.
The social media-verified sportsperson, who’s quite active (though not acutely anxious about experiencing FOMO) believes that the medium is more a boon than a bane. “I love spending time on all the social media platforms. I think it’s a great way to stay connected, and I often spend a lot of time scrolling through my feed, whenever I can. Don’t we all?” he chuckles.
With so much in his kitty, we wonder if there’s a bigger plan in the making. Has Niranjan ever considered writing a book or starting something on his own? And well, turns out, quite like his peers and other sportspersons in the industry, Niranjan too harbours lofty entrepreneurial pursuits. “I am planning to start off with my own foundation, and then an academy of my own in the long run.”
He has his agenda set: To inspire those who want to start from scratch, sans a godfather. “One of my biggest goals is to help the next generation of sportspeople, narrowing it down to para sports.”
Staunchly believing that inspiration is all around, Niranjan adds, “But I’ve always looked up to Rahul Dravid (The Wall Of Indian Cricket) and Michael Phelps (Greatest Olympic Swimmer Of All Time) for their nature and composure on and off the sporting arena."
Sporting victories aside, it’s also been a year of uber-satisfactory media attention. Speaking of an added feather to his cap - on being listed in the Forbes 30 U30 (April, 2019 Issue) Niranjan elatedly says, "That was such a sweet surprise, I still remember that morning when I woke up to hundreds of messages, then I realised that I was one among the 2 Indians under the sports category to be named in the Forbes 30 U30 list. It gives more responsibility and a sense of pride to try and inspire more people and particularly, people with disabilities, in the world."
Niranjan is crystal clear about where he sees himself next.
"It's every athlete's dream to represent his/her country at the Olympics and that's my dream too. I am a few microseconds away in achieving that dream and I am very positive and hopeful in achieving it by the end of this year and also to see the tricolor go up at major competitions,” he signs off. | {
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WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Voters on the Navajo Nation overwhelmingly supported Vice President Jonathan Nez and his running mate, Myron Lizer, for the tribal presidency and vice presidency today.
As of 10:30 p.m., Nez and Lizer had 39,290 votes, followed by former president Joe Shirley Jr. and his running mate, Buu Nygren, with 19,799 votes, according to unofficial results reported by 108 out of 110 chapter precincts to the Navajo Election Administration.
Shirley and Nygren were unable to dent the large deficit at any point.
"It feels great. I see that the Navajo people have spoken — overwhelmingly — for change, and that's what this campaign is all about," Nez said. "I think after tonight, I ask for all of us to come back together as one Navajo family and start tackling the issues that we heard throughout the Navajo Nation."
The mood at the party for the Shirley-Nygren campaign at Nakai Hall began as celebratory, then turned somber as the unofficial results were reported.
"What can I say — the numbers are what they are," Shirley said. "I'm sorry the numbers aren't the other way. But I feel like we didn't lose. We gave it a good shot. It is what it is."
Earlier in the day, voter turnout at the Shiprock Chapter remained steady as chapter members, like others in the 110 chapters on the Navajo Nation, cast ballots to decide the presidential race and other offices.
While chapter members voted in the chapter house, others visited campaign stands for Nez and Shirley, and for Eugenia Charles-Newton and Vern R. Lee, both of whom are candidates to represent Shiprock on the Navajo Nation Council.
The chapter's current delegate, Tom Chee, was a presidential candidate in the primary election, finishing third.
More:Rocinante High School students urge citizens to vote
Tuesday was the first time Aguilera Toney had voted, and he decided to support Shirley and his running mate, Buu Nygren, because the pair have been focusing on Navajo young people.
"I believe that they'll be the change us youth need," the 18-year-old said while working at the Shirley-Nygren campaign operation.
Toney said he thinks young Navajos will benefit from Nygren's professional experience.
"Schools across the Navajo Nation lack technology, like computers and tablets, and I believe that Buu will bring that to the Navajo Nation because he knows a lot about technology," he said.
He added that he could not support Nez because he views the vice president as not having finished his work in that capacity before seeking the presidency.
"Growing up, I was taught finish what you started," Toney said.
Vergil Nakai carefully shaped a handful of dough while cooking frybread at the stand for Charles-Newton. Nakai voted for Nez and his running mate, Myron Lizer, at the Red Valley Chapter house in Arizona before driving to Shiprock.
"Well, we need communication, and we need to change," Nakai said about his choice.
The issues of job creation and opportunity weighed on Nakai's mind, especially when he talked about his son seeking employment in Alaska.
"There's no job around here. I wish the Navajo Nation had good jobs," Nakai said.
He views Nez as a leader who will change the tribe, including developing and executing ideas that will attract employment.
More:Navajo Nation voters to elect new president on Tuesday
Voters like Thelma Levaldo said the election provides time to complete a civic duty and to visit with community members.
"I came out to vote so I can make a difference," the Shiprock resident said.
Levaldo, along with her mother and brother, brought donations of coffee, soda, water and doughnuts to the stand for Lee.
She said she voted for Shirley and Nygren because they serve as an example of members of two different generations working together.
She also remembers the Shirley administration bringing important initiatives to the Navajo Nation, including a cellular phone program that helped her.
"At that time, I didn't have any income, but people with low income were approved for a free phone. They called it 'the Joe Shirley phone,' and I remember that assistance helped me get a phone," Levaldo said.
Progress like that is needed today, she added.
Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636 or by email at [email protected]. | {
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Texas Governor Rick Perry said recently that even after the massive fertilizer plant explosion last month, voters in his state really aren't that interested in tighter workplace safety rules. That would infringe upon freedom.
Having lived in Texas for most of my life, I can tell you this makes a strange sort of sense. Despite the state's history with populism, Texas is home to one of the most rare and powerful creatures on the political tundra: NIMBY's, in numbers you wouldn't believe.
Whole armies of them swarm city councils and leave members in rotting heaps for buzzards and property developers to pick clean. When business and political leaders say, "All politics is local," what they really mean is don't cross the "Not In My Back Yard" folks.
I've seen Texas NIMBYs bring even the almighty Home Depot to a standstill, leaving company representatives pleading with local activists -- okay, we'll drop our whole brand's unique color scheme if you'll just stop stacking the zoning board meetings already -- and it's astonishing. This is the backdrop to what happened in West. It was all kept so quiet for so long that nobody even really knew a bomb twice the size of the blast that leveled the Oklahoma City federal building was just waiting to go off mere miles from Interstate 35. Aside from the near constant smell of cow shit, this fertilizer depot was not out of the ordinary, so the NIMBYs stayed at home.
Here we see how the real power behind Texas Republicans perpetuates itself: through the unthinking, unknowing capitulation of the NIMBYs. Keep things quiet and we should be fine, is the mantra. Texas is the headquarters of corporate America's moral authority. It's the place where they can say, Yes, Everything's Working Fine, just like we told you. It's a place where an awkward, grandstanding suit like Perry can shoot off automatic rifles on camera, then lick his lips and declare economic dominance, even though his state's battalion of former used car salesmen barely survived the recession by getting jobs managing the local McDonalds. That's sadly what the state's economic "recovery" has amounted to: a boom in low-wage service jobs, very few of which offer even basic health care at prices workers can afford.
The problem with this corporate moral authority is that it's the same complete bullshit as the moral authority of globalism today: it places convenience and profits above survival, and makes undercutting your own working class to steal a few jobs away from a neighboring state seem like a net positive, not the shameful cannibalism it really represents. As we peel away the layers of this Banana Republic, it becomes clear that the only thing keeping it from spoiling entirely is blind faith.
In a nutshell, that's the problem with Texas: We're the biggest cannibal of them all right now, for a variety of reasons. First, if you're a corporation, we literally do not care what you're doing, and the apathy runs so deep that we'll abdicate even the most basic oversight.
This is why the facility in West was not inspected since 1985. You could be storing enough explosives to take down the tallest skyscraper in Dallas and, as this episode has proved, that's quite alright with us. Hell, we'll even consider paying you to come set up shop here, provided you make the right political contributions.
The shamelessness is right out in the open, too: Perry's campaign has benefitted to the tune of $2 million from companies that suck on the taxpayer-created Texas Enterprise Fund, where businesses get free venture capital provided they catch the attention of one of the state's three top Republicans. And that's just scratching the surface.
So when Perry goes in front of the cameras and tells corporate America they don't have to worry about us, they can keep on running roughshod over Texas citizens, the environment and even federal freaking law, please be sure that he's serious -- because, how else can one create jobs? This is the magic of America's corporate moral authority: the more we eat our own, the more it just tastes like steak. And if our own spokesperson does not believe in this GOP magic-sauce hard enough, why, the whole damn banana will go rotten.
Consider the quandary of West in a different light: When an arsonist burned down the Texas governor's mansion, we caught him on tape, but not with enough detail to identify him and the investigation remains open years after the fact. Instead of taking reasonable steps to secure the area around the governor's mansion once it reopened, what does Perry do? He makes a bunch of black lawmakers undergo criminal background checks just to enter the building, then prances around before the National Rifle Association claiming that pushing background checks for gun buyers is anti-American heresy. Yet, nobody seems to have noticed that you can still throw objects through the governor's mansion fence to the front porch, just like the arsonist did with a Molotov. Good thing we addressed those 16 giant goddamn caches of unguarded explosives that dot the state, right?
For an outsider touring Texas political affairs, it must be like taking a peek into a futuristic corporate dystopia, where urban sprawl happens and, eh, who gives a shit about infrastructure? Why should we raise taxes on the company that's causing all the lung cancer when we can just privatize health care and give the money we saved to the coal industry?
While we're at it, why not privatize our roads and bridges too? (We have.) And by golly, we could do that to the schools, police forces, emergency responders... Even whole towns! (Seriously, there's a corporate-owned "master planned community" in the Dallas area called Lantana that's admittedly quite nice until you get involved in the local decision-making process.) And let's not even begin talking about the state's water planners, who are ideologically opposed to the latest weather prediction models, mainly because they anticipate a rash of droughts over the next 25 years driven by climate change. Stare at it long enough and you'll realize the infiltration is so rife, even Texas churches are now being run by megacorp executives. Keeping the faith, morals be damned.
So it was and so it is in the weird wonderland of Texas, where your average voter rages against big government, then spends thousands of dollars every year just trying to get to and from work, breathing in some of the worst air pollution in the nation while listening to right wing radio that tells them Mexicans and environmentalists are the Real cause of their problems.
Yes, God Bless Texas. But God bless Rep. George Miller (D-CA) even more, for proposing a bill after the explosion in West that would take workplace safety inspections and accountability out of these irresponsible leaders' hands and give it to the feds. People like the volunteer firefighters in West, who were willing to run into burning structures at all hours of the day for nothing but gratitude in return, deserve better than closed-casket funerals paid for by a company that traffics in cow shit.
Now, if only House Republicans agree | {
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Non bisogna dare una patente di guida alle donne perché, rispetto ad un maschio, "hanno la mente incompleta" ed il loro cervello è grande non più di "un quarto" del cervello di un uomo. Questo il parere dello sceicco Saad al Hajari, contro cui si è sollevata un'ondata di polemiche. Costui presiede la locale "Casa della Fatwa", istituzione religiosa riconosciuta dallo stato. Solo una frase maschilista? No, perché in Arabia Saudita alle donne è vietato guidare per legge. | {
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Are allergies linked to depression?
Do allergies play a role in depression? A new study suggests that depressed people who are allergic to pollen are more likely to experience a worsening of their symptoms during allergy season.
Partam Manalai of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore and colleagues studied 100 volunteers who had been previously diagnosed as suffering from depression. The researchers assessed their mood during allergy season and compared it to another part of the year. They also took blood samples.
In a report being presented this week at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in New Orleans, Manalai reported that the subjects' depression worsened when they were suffering from the stuffiness, sneezing and coughing caused by their allergies. But even those who did not have symptoms, but whose blood samples showed their immune systems were responding to pollen experienced more depression.
The findings indicate that allergies can make depression worse in those who suffer from both conditions. It's the first time that's been shown. While more research is needed to understand how allergies may make depression worse, the findings also indicate that treating a depressed person's allergies may help improve their mood, even if they aren't actually experiencing symptoms of an allergic reaction.
The findings are important, the researchers say, because half of people are estimated to suffer from allergies, including about one in five who are believed to be allergic to pollen. The results also fit with previous research that has shown an increase in suicides during the spring and fall allergy seasons. | {
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We heard rumblings about this nearly a year ago, but gaming peripheral company Razer has finally made an official announcement. The company will be using community feedback to craft what they are calling “the ultimate arcade stick for the Xbox 360®”. You can read the full press release below, but please note that the included image is just a preliminary design, and that the final product is likely to be quite different.
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Teachers are calling for pupil climate protestors to escape detention and exclusions over their unauthorised absences while “on strike” in February.
Thousands of pupils across the country walked out of lessons in a protest that politicians are not doing enough about climate change.
And the NEU teaching union’s annual conference in Liverpool next week will debate a motion calling on the government to do more against climate change, including raising awareness through the school curriculum and recognising that every school should have zero-carbon emissions by 2030.
Read: ‘The climate strikes threaten the safety of our pupils’
Read: 'It's short-sighted to dismiss the pupil strikes'
Joint-general secretary Mary Bousted told a pre-conference briefing this morning: “It’s absolutely the number one issue and it’s wonderful to see young people so energised. We support the cause absolutely, but we couldn’t support them walking out of lessons because that could have put those young people in danger.”
However, an amendment to the motion by the Coventry branch of the NEU calls on the union’s executive to “oppose any reprisals against students taking action to fight climate change, such as detentions and exclusions.”
It states: “The rights to strike and protest are fundamental democratic rights for students and workers alike. To call on schools not to take action against students. We pledge to support student defence campaigns as necessary.”
The conference will also include a new survey on asbestos, and will feature a fringe meeting about air pollution around schools where the headline speaker will be Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whose nine-year-old daughter died of an asthma attack in South London. | {
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La imagen es producto de un concurso abierto donde participaron más de 500 personas de todo el país. El jurado eligió a 10 finalistas cuyos trabajos fueron sometidos a votación pública a través de las redes sociales de la institución.
El Parlamento ya hace eco de su nuevo diseño, donde la cúpula del Palacio, ocho estrellas doradas y la bandera tricolor del país resaltan en medio del nombre de la institución.
El ganador del concurso es Gabriel Alberto González González, un Diseñador Gráfico venezolano de 37 años de edad.
“Este cambio de imagen tiene que ver con devolverle la prestancia a la simbología nacional, usando el escudo y cúpula que históricamente ha identificado a la institución. Todo este intenso trabajo es parte de la agenda de apertura que hemos llevado adelante desde la Dirección de Comunicaciones Estratégicas”, precisó Oliver Blanco, Director de Comunicaciones Estratégicas y Relaciones Públicas e Institucionales.
El ganador
Gabriel Alberto González González visitó este miércoles la sede del Palacio Federal Legislativo. Al ser recibido por el presidente de la institución, Henry Ramos Allup, explicó que la imagen con la que ganó es una síntesis gráfica de la cúpula del Salón Elíptico del Palacio Federal Legislativo. Agregó que todo fue producto de su propia inspiración.
“Me pareció pertinente agregar las ocho estrellas y el escudo que está colocado en el Salón del Hemiciclo. A título personal considero que la cúpula del Salón Elíptico, más estos dos símbolos patrios, es lo más emblemático de la Asamblea Nacional”, precisó González González.
Agregó el diseñador gráfico que utilizó el color dorado porque representa riqueza, valor y sentimentalismo. “Considero que con esta imagen le estoy devolviendo el valor histórico e institucional que tiene el Parlamento venezolano”.
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As the French elections loom, threatening to elevate ultra-nationalist Marine le Pen to power alongside Donald Trump, the eyes of the world are turned to France. In this situation, we don’t look to other French politicians for salvation, but to the ungovernable social movements that have rocked France over the past several years. The only surefire way to block neoliberal austerity measures, nationalist violence, and state repression is by building grassroots networks powerful enough to put a stop to them directly. In vivid firsthand accounts, the following retrospective traces social unrest in France from the declaration of the state of emergency in 2015 through the street riots and plaza occupations of 2016 up to the present moment. This is the first installment of a two-part series on the situation in France we are publishing in the lead-up to this weekend’s elections; the second will follow tomorrow.
March 9, 2016.
After the attacks claimed by ISIS in January and November 2015 and the declaration of a state of emergency, no one could have predicted that France was about to experience several months of upheaval. This is an attempt to offer an overview and analysis of the disruptions that followed the El Khomri work reform proposal (known as the “Loi Travail”). It is neither a comprehensive account nor a universal perspective, but a true story from the perspective of some who joined in the clashes. Although the events took place all over France—in Nantes, Rennes, Lille, Toulouse, Lyon, and elsewhere—we will focus on some of the actions in Paris in which we actively participated.
On the Eve of the Work Reform Proposal
At the end of February 2016, France was a powder keg. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that the political instability of the preceding years, coupled with deepening distrust of the government, gave anarchists the opportunity to play a leading role in the movement against the Loi Travail.
The ISIS attacks of 2015 offered the French government an excuse to intensify control of the entire population. Taking advantage of the shock that followed each attack and the fear of future attacks, the authorities passed a new surveillance law and declared a state of emergency. This enabled them to apply new “temporary” and “exceptional” laws, such as forbidding demonstrations in the name of national security, regulating people’s movements and residence, and carrying out house searches without a judge’s authorization. This state of emergency was only supposed to last three months; in fact, it is still in effect as of April 2017. For more information about the state of emergency, consult the 2015 dialogue between CrimethInc. and Lundimatin.
Meanwhile, the situation of migrants in France had been worsening since September 2015. The local authorities intensified their strategy of daily harassment, sending police forces to expel and dismantle several makeshift camps in Paris. The idea was clearly to ensure that groups of refugees would not be able to gather or organize effectively. Near Calais, the French government took drastic steps to reduce the number of people living in the “Jungle,” the refugee camp near the border crossing to the UK. They stepped up violent policing, created a militarized and highly secured “humanitarian camp,” and evicted the southern part of the Jungle on the morning of February 29, 2016. For more information on the plight of refugees in Calais, consult Calais Migrant Solidarity, which is close to the European No Border movement.
Moreover, in the course of the preceding years, political discontent had crystalized around a few specific environmental issues, also known as “projets inutiles” (useless projects), and the resulting ZADs (“zones to be defended”). These include a new train line between Lyon and Turin (the notorious TAV), the dam project in Sivens where police brutally murdered the young activist Rémi Fraisse in November 2014, and the new airport at Notre-Dame-Des-Landes, regarding which the French government gave authorization to begin construction October 2016.
In this context, it was not surprising that when the government invoked the state of emergency to shut down the official demonstrations during the international summit on climate change (COP 21) in Paris beginning on November 30, 2015, we decided to take the streets to defy them. The clashes with the police that took place at Place de la République the day before the opening of the COP 21 were a foretaste of what was to occur regularly on those streets few months later.
All this explains why the French government faced an impasse at the beginning of 2016. Its popularity was low; people criticized its decisions, feeling betrayed by the openly neoliberal and repressive agenda of the traditional “Parti Socialiste.” However, desiring to continue the economic restructuring that followed the international financial crisis of 2008 and to keep presidential promises such as reducing unemployment rates, President François Hollande sought to revitalize his presidency by reshuffling his cabinet on February 2016. A few days later, Myriam El Khomri, the newly appointed Minister of Labor, presented the government’s new work reform as a way to facilitate employment and boost economic recovery. Despite this framing, it was easy to see that the primary objective of the law was to facilitate corporate flexibility at the expense of workers’ rights. In a nutshell, this law would make working conditions more precarious than they already are.
Soon after the reform was announced, some people started mobilizing via online videos asking viewers to sign a petition against the law. Meanwhile, some radical groups appealed to people to take the streets and go on strike. Little by little, other organizations joined these calls until a national day of action against the Loi Travail was planned for Wednesday, March 9. Trade union leaders did not want to take part in this day of action, as they were not behind the call. However, after realizing that they were losing authority among their ranks as numerous trade unionists decided to attend the national demonstration as individuals, some major trade unions (including the CGT, FO, Solidaires, and FSU) decided at the last minute to join the festivities.
We, too, decided to participate in the action. But we did not take the streets because we were opposed to this specific law or wanted a better one. Rather, we went because we consider capitalism and work itself to be illegitimate, alienating, and obstructive to our research and emancipation. On the eve of the first national mobilization, we had no idea that these calls would lead to four continuous months of mobilization.
March 9, 2016.
Sowing the Seeds of Revolt
March 9, 2016 – Early in the morning, students decided to block access to their high schools. Meanwhile, in several universities, students were gathering to prepare their banners for the afternoon march. Later that morning, hundreds of students and activists converged at Place de la Nation to demonstrate without any political affiliations, official organizations, or trade unions. Taking advantage of a surprisingly low police presence, this large group of people took the streets, blocking traffic and throwing projectiles and paint bombs at a McDonald’s restaurant. This inspired some participants to begin tagging billboards and walls and smashing the windows of cell phone stores, real estate and insurance agencies, and banks, not to mention ATMs and cameras.
This continued without interruption for more than 30 minutes until we reached Place de la Bastille. There, several brigades of riot police (CRS and/or Gardes Mobiles) were blocking the most direct access to the touristic sites and stores of downtown Paris. Some people threw projectiles at the police as a distraction so the rest of us could continue our march along another unblocked boulevard. Nevertheless, just before we reached a bridge that would have lead to another district of Paris, several riot police squads and their vehicles blocked our path. This successfully reduced our numbers, as some students left the action in order to avoid confrontation. The morning ended in a cat and mouse game, as small groups of protesters walked through the narrow streets of the Saint Paul district to avoid police control and arrest.
That afternoon, people converged at Place de la République for the official demonstration. When we arrived on site, it was a great pleasure to see the square and its surroundings full of people. We were surprised to see so many people gathering in the streets under the state of emergency, considering that few months before, during the COP 21, only a few thousand people had gathered at Place de la République.
At the beginning of the protest, information started to circulate that an autonomous group would form somewhere in the middle of the trade unions and official organizations. This marked the emergence of a large group of individuals from different backgrounds (anarchists, appelistes/tiqqunistes, insurrectionists, antifascists, etc.) that later came to be known as the “cortège autonome” (“autonomous procession”) or “cortège de tête” (“leading procession”).
As during the morning action, people within the autonomous group started targeting major symbols of capitalism; this continued from République to Nation. Again, every single bus station, bank, and real estate or insurance agency saw its façade smashed and tagged. Although the autonomous group welcomed such actions with cheers and anti-capitalist chants, other demonstrators criticised them, and some even tried to personally interpose themselves to obstruct these actions. Surprisingly, during the hours that the demonstration lasted, the police made very few appearances.
March 17, 2016: Police inside Tolbiac university.
March 17, 2016 – Only a week after the first demonstration against the Loi Travail, we had another appointment to continue the struggle on Thursday, March 17. That same day, the Conseil d’Etat—an institution responsible for advising the French government on the lawfulness of law projects—was due to present an opinion on the proposed law. Once again, we decided to join hundreds of students at Place de la Nation for another morning action.
That day, more people attended the morning action, probably due to the increase of blockades at high schools and general assemblies in universities. The atmosphere among the crowd that rushed into the main boulevard was a pleasant mix of joy, friendship, and determination. Nevertheless, it was immediately clear that events wouldn’t play out the way they had the previous week. After only ten minutes in the streets, we saw the first riot police show up in force. As soon as we saw their vehicles passing in front of us, we knew that confrontations would be inevitable. Their orders were probably to avoid any kind of public loss of control, and to make specific and targeted arrests.
The first projectiles were thrown at the police vehicles; some of us picked up tools from a nearby construction site to attack them. Others took up stones and barriers to create a more offensive bloc to confront the police. The police eventually blocked the boulevard in front of us. The confrontation escalated for several long minutes as we tried to press forward and create a breach in their lines. People threw stones, glass bottles, and all kinds of projectiles at riot police, who answered with tear gas canisters, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets.
Recognizing that we could not maintain the pressure any longer, we retreated in hopes of finding another route to our intended destination. After running through narrow streets, we arrived at another boulevard, only to see police trucks blocking our path once again. Taking advantage of the fact that we could not advance, police officers in plain clothes who had been following us throughout the action carried out several violent arrests. Many of us left the action as soon as we saw the first arrests, recognizing the police trap slowly closing on us.
A couple hours later, we attended the afternoon protest organized by student unions and organizations. As soon as we found the “cortège autonome,” we realized that this was not a good idea. Indeed, to our surprise, this segment of the march was small and isolated from other groups of people. Moreover, on each side of the boulevard, police officers in plain clothes and members of the anti-criminality brigade (BAC) were following us.
The first part of the demonstration was quiet and passive, as we were all concerned about the police observing us. Nevertheless, we managed to outwit police vigilance by dividing the “autonomous procession,” joining the mass of students within their organization- and union-free procession. Being among students allowed several of us to take action, especially against the main police station of the 13th district. Several arrests were made just before we arrived at Place d’Italie, the end of the demonstration. The square was completely surrounded by police forces; luckily for us, we entered the metro without being searched or controlled.
Earlier in the afternoon, an invitation spread by word of mouth suggested that an occupation and a general assembly to discuss the perspectives of this emerging movement would take place at the university of Tolbiac later that night. Several activists and students sneaked into the closed university and started the occupation. Unfortunately, members of the university administration called the police. After only several minutes, hundreds of CRS and BAC members entered the university, charging and expelling the occupants.
The attempted occupation of Tolbiac University.
The events that took place on Thursday, March 17 represent a key moment in the mobilization against the Loi Travail. The violent interventions made by law enforcement authorities showed that the government was determined to suppress the budding youth movement by any means necessary. With hindsight, this strategy was a mistake—for the stronger the repression, the more people joined the “autonomous” group, chanting “everyone hates the police” and confronting them. From a more positive point of view, these first two days of action and mobilization showed some of our potential to go on the offensive—prepared to fight back, to improvise, to organize, and to take initiatives collectively.
During the last two weeks of March, the mobilization against the work reform intensified. Several general assemblies took place in universities and among radical circles. This is where the first disagreements about strategy, objectives, and “agenda” emerged. For some of us, the priority was to take the lead during protests and confront police forces, while others thought we should also take advantage of this new social movement to diversify our strategies by sharing our ideals with others. The difficulty of finding common ground we experienced during our first general assemblies was not an isolated case. In Paris, some radical groups always try to defend their own image and interests by imposing their point of view on others. We often face this problem in autonomous circles: the challenge of dealing with power dynamics and the hegemony of certain groups or individuals.
March 24.
March 24.
On March 24, students and workers took the streets again. Despite the fact that numerous high schools and universities were blocked during the day, the afternoon demonstration gathered fewer people than before, as most of the official calls had been made by student organizations. The lower number of participants did not affect the determination of some of us, as evidenced by several offensive initiatives, confrontations with the police, and attempts to rescue arrestees. The official march ended with a spontaneous uncontrolled protest in the district of the Eiffel Tower, leading to a game of hide-and-seek with riot police in the Champs de Mars.
March 24.
March 24.
Earlier that day, video footage of police officers surrounding and punching a teenager had spread across the internet. This had occurred that morning near the Bergson high school in the 19th Arrondissement while students were blocking their school. The following day, students organized a wild demonstration leaving from Bergson high school in response to the numerous cases of police violence since the beginning of the movement. While wandering in the streets, some of them sought revenge by attacking several police stations.
March 24: Beneath the paving stones, the police.
Finally, another national call against the Loi Travail was made on March 31. This demonstration was one of the largest that took place in Paris that whole spring. Despite the heavy rain, hundreds of thousands people marched on the streets of the French capital city. That day, the “cortège autonome” took the lead, and kept its position to the end of the event. For the first time since the beginning of the movement, a kind of cohesion appeared among the autonomous groups: a solid black bloc asserted itself as a single force despite being composed of many different affinity groups. At the end of the protest, responding to a call made earlier that week, hundreds of people converged at Place de la République with a specific goal and lots of ambitions.
Nuit Debout—A Failed Attempt to Build a French Occupy Movement?
Nuit Debout began the evening of Thursday, March 31, when, following that afternoon’s demonstration, activists from a variety of political and social backgrounds gathered at Place de la République with the idea of occupying the square. That night, the first tents and plastic tarps appeared—things we had not seen since refugees were occupying the square in November 2015. Numerous people attended the first general assembly of what was intended to be the French Occupy movement. In fact, Nuit Debout and the occupation of the République had been planned carefully in advance by people close to the French alternative Left. This movement was not as spontaneous as it was intended to appear.
Nuit Debout at Place de la République.
Over the following days, new initiatives and collectives joined Nuit Debout. During the day, workshops (woodworking, gardening, etc.) and discussions on various subjects (direct democracy, environmental issues, anti-speciesism, police violence, etc.) took place. People were regularly invited to form small groups, sit down, and start to exchange their opinions and views on a selected topic. Activists and anarchist publishers set up their tables to provide radical literature, raising money to cover the lawyers’ fees of comrades. At night, Place de la République was filled up with people attending the daily general assembly and related activities such as documentary projections, outdoor shows, and artistic projects. A do-it-yourself restaurant offered food in exchange for donations, and people stayed out until really late at night. Nuit Debout became a logical rendezvous point for radical activists and anarchists to exchange, debate, organize, and take action.
At first, Nuit Debout brought a new dynamic to the movement against the Loi Travail and to activism in general. During its first month of existence, the occupation at Place de la République was essential in enabling us to meet new people, extend our relationships, develop our capacities, and take more initiatives. Some people were curious to learn about new political theories; others finally felt the need to get involved and organize. Every night of April, we could feel this mix of joy, love, excitement, effervescence, and power emanating from each one of us while we waited for the next opportunity to take action. There was a naïve feeling in the air that something new and radically different was at hand.
Nuit Debout provided us with a fixed location, which enabled us to initiate both spontaneous and planned actions. If you were at Place de la République at night during April or May, you could be sure that several times a week you would participate in wild demonstrations and confrontations with riot police. However, this occupation movement that had initially gathered thousands of people progressively lost attendance throughout May. The various efforts to evict the Place de la République initiated by local authorities in the name of maintaining social order succeeded in discouraging some of the occupants of the square. By the end of June, the movement and its daily general assembly only gathered a maximum of a hundred people.
Orchestra performing at Nuit Debout.
The Strengths and Limits of Nuit Debout
From an interview conducted with anarchist participants:
Why did “Nuit Debout” take place in 2016, rather than 2011?
After the 2008 international financial crisis, several European countries, such as Greece and Spain, saw their economies faltering or collapsing. In order to recover from the crisis and to maintain its economic and geographic power, the European Union and the governments that compose it began to impose austerity measures. Three years later, in 2011, the situation remained precarious. Countries such as Greece and Spain were still experiencing increasing poverty and astronomical unemployment rates. The global context at that time, but also the fact that these governments made the population “pay” for their crisis, generated defiance against politicians and the global economic system, producing movements such as the 15 de Mayo in Spain and the anti-austerity movement in Greece, not to mention Occupy Wall Street in the US.
However, as Pierre Haski explains, the context in France was different. Compared to Greece and Spain, France was still in better “health,” maintaining its leading influence in Europe alongside Germany. In the collective imagination, the Greek and Spanish situations were unthinkable in France. But the main reason an Occupy movement did not emerge in France then, despite several attempts, was due to the French electoral calendar: 2011 marked the last year of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency. Consequently, most public attention was turned to the upcoming 2012 presidential election and the hopes represented by the socialist François Hollande.
Of course, once elected, he did not create the improvements people wanted to see in their lives.
So France followed a different trajectory than Greece and Spain. While the fierce movements in those countries were ultimately, albeit temporarily, pacified by the ascension of “alternative” political parties such as Podemos and Syriza, part of the French population gave the Socialist party a chance before becoming absolutely disillusioned by François Hollande and government in general.
It was strange for us in the US to witness French people employing a strategy and rhetoric that we imagined had been thoroughly exhausted four years earlier, when many people in the US tend to think of France as the avant-garde of radical theory and practice. How were the idea of occupying public space and the rhetoric of democracy and demands able to gain so much traction on the popular imagination in France?
First, concerning the image some people in the US have of France, we have to say that unfortunately it is related to some kind of romanticism. Yes, in the past, France had its avant-garde moments in radical theory and practice; but like in every country, radical theory and practice face moments of inefficiency and failure. Living in France, we have a more critical opinion of radicalism and its capacity to change things here. Luckily, events like the ones during the first half of 2016 revitalize our circles and create new momentum.
Now to answer your question: we can trace the popularity of democratic rhetoric and the idea of occupying public space in France to multiple origins. For one thing, France has a longstanding connection with the concept of democracy itself. A significant part of the population believes that we should not criticize the democratic system, as it is supposedly the only alternative to fascism or dictatorship. This notion is so deeply rooted that even leftist protesters criticize democracy only to reform and improve and thus reinforce it.
Another source of enthusiasm for building an Occupy movement could be the popularity of concepts such as “civil disobedience,” “non-violence,” and “participatory democracy” among the French alternative Left. Mainstream activism has an unfortunate tendency to imitate what has already been done rather than learning from past mistakes to create something new. Of course, the people who initiated Nuit Debout might have had a complete different vision of the effectiveness of such a movement, and fewer criticisms regarding the limits and failures of the Occupy movements than we do as anarchists.
In other words, French activists also fall into the trap of romanticism regarding foreign actions, and this admiration towards Occupy movements could be an example of it.
What is the significance of the Place de la République, where the first clashes took place after the declaration of the State of Emergency and the Nuit Debout occupations later began?
The decision to occupy the Place de la République likely had more to do with geographical convenience and traditional political symbolism than revolutionary history, imagery, or strategy. The square is served by five major metro lines, easily accessible by foot, and at the junction of three of the 20 districts of Paris. All these criteria make Place de la République one of the most important central places of the French capital city. Moreover, since its renovation in 2013, the square includes a large pedestrian space, which enables crowds to gather for all kinds of occasions: outdoor shows, demonstrations, gatherings, and the like. However, the new setup of the Place de la République also serves those who aim to maintain social order. As people are concentrated in the center of the square, police forces can be strategically positioned in every single adjacent street and boulevard, easily surrounding, controlling, and containing the crowd.
Nevertheless, there is much to say regarding the history and symbolism of Place de la République. First, as its name suggests, the Parisian square pays tribute to the political regime under which we are living—the Fifth Republic. However, the origin of its name dates back to the end of the 19th century. The Second Empire ended on September 2, 1870 after the defeat of the French army in Sedan and the capture of emperor Napoleon III by Prussia. On September 4, the Third Republic was proclaimed as a desperate attempt to reestablish political stability within the country. Contrary to the French government’s hopes, the first years of the Third Republic included the events of the Paris Commune, a failed attempt to restore the Monarchy, and numerous political crises. Political stability did not return to France until Jules Grevy was elected President in1879. In 1883, a large statue to the glory of the Republic was inaugurated at the center of the square, then called the Place du Chateau d’Eau, renamed Place de la République in 1889.
As for other symbolism, the traditional Left is also historically associated with the Place de la République. When the traditional Left or trade unions take the streets for demonstrations, the République square is usually a central location on their route. For example, every year, the May Day protest starts from Place de la République. More recently, just after the Paris attacks in 2015, politicians and part of the population used the square as a mourning site.
Finally, if the square has significance for anarchists, it is because since September 2015, Place de la République has been the site of many struggles, including refugees’ camps, defying the “state of emergency” by demonstrating against the COP 21, and more.
Wildcat march during Nuit Debout.
How did the situation in Paris compare with those in other regions? What kinds of coordination existed, formal or informal?
At some point, the situation in Paris felt really good, as more and more people were attending the general assembly and activities. However, to be realistic, the number of people who took part in Nuit Debout, even if they were several thousand at its climax, represents only a small proportion of the population of the Paris region. International media coverage of Nuit Debout made the movement seem bigger than it actually was. We were far short of the massive occupations seen at the Puerta del Sol (Madrid), Tahrir Square (Cairo), or Taksim Square and Gezi Park (Istanbul).
What is certain is that, like other Occupy movements, Nuit Debout gained power and popularity via the internet. Using the tools offered by social media, Nuit Debout was able to multiply its initiatives and communicate widely about its aspirations. Social media and new technologies also enabled people to coordinate general assemblies in their own cities and regions.
How much influence did the discourse of democracy really have in Nuit Debout? How did that discourse and the practices associated with it interact with more traditional French Ultraleft practices and values? Did the visits paid by David Graeber and other Occupy Wall Street participants to Nuit Debout make any impact?
As we mentioned previously, the discourse of democracy was central to Nuit Debout. The French Occupy movement was hard-pressed to detach itself from traditional democratic discourse and practices. From the beginning, Nuit Debout stood for a reformist leftist alternative to the system and traditional parties rather than a strong revolutionary movement. Some participants in Nuit Debout were more passive, asking for change rather that acting to bring it about. The most commonly heard demands included a better and fairer democracy in France; less corrupt politicians; and ending the 5th Republic and starting a 6th Republic, an idea already defended by the Front de Gauche political party.
In its practices, Nuit Debout reproduced systems that already exist in our society such as making decisions by majority vote of the people attending the general assemblies and establishing security groups in charge of maintaining “order” at Place de la République. Among the numerous workshops and activities offered at Nuit Debout, the discourse of democracy was omnipresent—for example, people asking you to sign petitions for specific issues, or, more surprisingly, a workshop about writing a new Constitution.
However, the interaction between Nuit Debout participants and the Ultraleft generally went well, in the sense that everyone was free to organize, participate, or not participate in any action or general assembly according to their personal values and beliefs. If you did not agree with a decision, you could simply leave the assembly or not take part in the action. All the same, tensions repeatedly appeared between reformists and radicals. As always, the issue of pacifism divided us, as some reformists were obsessed with creating a “legitimate,” “likeable,” and “righteous” image for the movement. Once, some Nuit Debout security members tried to extinguish a bonfire that some of us had started, on the grounds that they had decided that bonfires were forbidden—but above all because they wanted to avoid any trouble with police. Yet despite these few moments of tension, participants in Nuit Debout generally did well in respecting a diversity of actions and values.
Finally, we have no idea if advice from Occupy Wall Street participants made an impact on Nuit Debout, as we were not present during these discussions. However, unfortunately, it is certain that Nuit Debout was not able to distance itself from the traditional political masquerade, as evidenced by the warm welcome addressed to Miguel Urban Crespo (the European Deputy of Podemos), and the former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, when they made their speech at Place de la République. Once again, we see how “romanticism,” denial, or simply a lack of understanding of foreign social and political contexts can impact a social movement. It is still surprising for us that these international figures from the so-called “alternative left” were taken seriously rather than openly confronted or criticized by the crowd at the general assembly—especially considering the social and political situation of their respective countries.
What limits did Nuit Debout reach, and why?
The main limit that Nuit Debout encountered was its failure to continue expanding. By the end of June, the movement was only drawing a few dozen people to its daily general assemblies. How can we explain this phenomenon?
First, it seems that Nuit Debout did not succeed in reaching many people from outside the Alternative Left or Ultraleft circles. This represents a major problem, especially when the movement claimed to embody a “convergence of struggles.” Many people who experience the violence of our system at a higher level due to their social background must not have felt any interest in the proposals made by Nuit Debout, or simply did not feel included by the movement. These failures contributed to a lack of diversity. As a result, the French Occupy movement sometimes felt more like an activists’ microcosm than an inclusive movement in which everyone could feel welcome.
During discussions at Nuit Debout, some of us experienced resistance to anarchist and revolutionary ideas. Even if we were allowed to speak our minds, some people were not ready to challenge their own beliefs, habits, or comfort. It was challenging to argue to people that reinventing our relationships and ourselves should not be limited to Nuit Debout, but should become a widespread practice.
Finally, some of the practices and power dynamics integral to Nuit Debout contributed to its decline. In an effort to approximate “democratic equality,” the “official” moderators allowed everyone present to address the crowd about subjects of their choosing, giving each speaker the same amount of time to develop their thoughts—just a couple minutes. Although appealing in theory, this practice rapidly revealed its shortcomings, as imposing the same speaking time on each orator did not achieve the expected effects. Instead, this decision ended up preventing spontaneity and serious discussion. Furthermore, because the moderators deliberately refrained from directing or reframing, the conversation moved arbitrarily from one subject to another without any closure. While attending general assemblies at Place de la République, it was not uncommon to have the impression that one was participating in group therapy—in which everyone could express their frustration in public—rather than taking part in a constructive discussion that would lead to important decisions for the movement and our future.
Ultimately, the fatigue resulting from weeks of activism and occupation—the feeling of constantly going around in circles in the general assembly—the incapacity to rally more people to the movement—the lack of interest in preparing for what would come next—and increasing police harassment at the square put an end to the French Occupy movement.
Police searching bags on April 5, 2016.
Increasing the Pressure
April 5, 2016 – That Tuesday morning, students and activists gathered at Place de la Nation for another autonomous and offensive demonstration. That day, several affinity groups decided to join forces and work hand in hand for strategic purposes. Police forces were already controlling access to the main square by searching the bags of potential “threatening protesters.” These security measures did not stop many of us from participating in the action. As soon as the crowd of demonstrators rushed into the street, a large black bloc appeared at the front bearing several reinforced banners. Less than ten minutes after the beginning of the protest, numerous police forces began to encroach on the back of the march. To stop this, part of the bloc confronted them.
After long minutes of intense confrontation, the riot brigades charged us and succeeded in splitting the march in two, isolating the head—where the black bloc was—from the rest of the crowd. Several arrests took place during the police charge, and the majority of us ended up cornered between police lines and a large wall. This marked the end of the action. After more than an hour of waiting, the police received the order to search and arrest as many people as they could. As a result, more than a hundred people were sent to police stations to get their IDs checked before being released.
There are several ways to understand the failure of this morning action: first, the crowd was not compact enough, which enabled the police to separate the “potential threats” from other demonstrators. Also, the confrontations lasted longer than they should have, allowing us to make more mistakes and to become more vulnerable. Finally, the bloc remained completely static, as most of us were only focusing on the clashes; there would have been no real obstacle or danger if we had continued moving through the streets.
April 5, 2016.
April 5, 2016.
April 5, 2016.
Later that day, some of us met at Place de la République during Nuit Debout. Some comrades were still detained after the morning events; they could be facing criminal charges. To show solidarity, we initiated a prisoner support action. We appealed to others at Nuit Debout to gather in front of the police station where our friends were detained. Many people left the République and started converging in the Saint Michel district where, decades earlier, students had created barricades during the uprising of May 1968. A spontaneous demonstration began blocking traffic as we approached the police station on rue de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève. About fifty people joined us in front of the station, chanting in unison, “Free our comrades!”
In the meantime, other people began blocking the major intersection next to the station, employing various components from a nearby construction site as barricades. Due to the traffic this created, the police called for reinforcements, which had great difficulty reaching our location. Knowing that the reinforcements were finally approaching the police station, the crowd decided to leave the intersection and began another wild march towards the cathedral Notre-Dame. Near the cathedral, police tried to block some of us, but without any real success. Indeed, more and more people from Nuit Debout were already converging in front of the police station. This solidarity action lasted until early the next morning, gathering more than a hundred people.
If we can draw conclusions from this action, we would argue that spontaneity, motion, and determination took the police by surprise and gave us a clear advantage against them that night. This also shows how Nuit Debout was used as a platform to inform protesters about planned initiatives.
April 5, 2016.
April 5, 2016.
April 9, 2016 – Following a major demonstration, thousands of people gathered as usual at Place de la République to spend another night at Nuit Debout. The first action that took place that night was against borders. Around 9 pm, several hundred people left the occupied square and went to Stalingrad. Once there, protesters destroyed all the fences that prevented migrants and refugees living in this district from setting up their tents and building a camp under the elevated metro station. Afterwards, the group improvised a wild march back to République.
A bit later, during the general assembly, three speakers made the same funny proposal: why not invite ourselves to get a quick drink at our Prime Minister’s house? His house was located on rue Keller in the Bastille district, not too far from République. After walking around the square to initiate the action, we could hear from the crowd different voices shouting “Aperitif at Valls’!”
Wildcat demonstration, April 9, 2016.
As a result, about 3000 people left the square and entered the only boulevard that was not blocked by the police. At a quick pace—mobility being our chief asset against police squads—the crowd made its way through the streets, happily chanting the already famous “Paris, debout, soulève toi!” (“Paris, stand up, rise up!”) and “Tout le monde déteste la police!” (“Everyone hates the police!”). During our advance on the Prime Minister’s address, several quick confrontations with police took place, the police station of the 11th district was attacked, police cars parked outside were destroyed, and small barricades appeared in the streets. Access to the Prime Minister’s building is well-guarded, and police reinforcements showed up rapidly. Reaching Manuel Valls’ apartment would have not changed anything, anyway, as he was in Algeria. Police troops surrounded part of the remaining crowd; after half an hour, they decided to let everyone go, pepper spraying everyone one last time for good measure.
On their way back to République, the remaining couple hundred people, joined by some new supporters, initiated another offensive action. Surprisingly, traffic had not been interrupted on the main boulevard leading to the occupied square, and police forces were totally absent. Activists took the streets again, smashing advertising billboards and every single front window of the banks and insurance agencies on their way. At Place de la République, there were still a good thousand people present and a bonfire was lit. The rest of the night was spent in riots. People started putting barricades into the streets, some surveillance cameras were sabotaged, projectiles were thrown at law enforcement units, and an AutoLib car—the name given to the electric car-sharing service operated by the industrial holding group Bolloré—was set on fire. Police responded by charging the square, using flash-bang grenades, and shooting rubber bullets, inflicting several arrests and injuries.
April 14, 2016 – After more than a month of national mobilizations against the Loi Travail et son monde, the French government was ready to do whatever it took to bury the movement once and for all. The authorities gave police more material and human resources, but also more freedom to impose “social order” in the streets.
A national coordination of students organized a protest for the afternoon of April 14. The initial route was to connect Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad to Place de la Bastille. As usual, groups of students, anarchists, and members of the Ultraleft met in the morning at Place de la République with the intention of initiating a wild action that would end by joining the afternoon’s authorized demonstration. On their way to Stalingrad, the march attacked numerous symbols of capitalism and the state. Upon reaching Stalingrad square, the march faced numerous police squads that were already surrounding part of the afternoon demonstration. It seemed that the police had received orders to contain the crowd and to block or delay the protest’s departure. Deciding not to let the police divide us, we started confronting the closest police lines in order to create a breach that would allow all the demonstrators to join together.
The police ultimately retreated under increasing pressure and the action finally started. The tension was palpable. Confrontations erupted as soon as the head of the demonstration reached Place de la République. Looking at the police presence at the square, it was obvious that they had received the order to stop the protest by any means necessary. They emptied the entire square by throwing tear gas canisters and flash-bang grenades.
That night, President François Hollande was invited to a live political TV show to talk with a panel of selected citizens. Nuit Debout decided to project the debate. As usual, we went to the square to “take the temperature” of the crowd and see if there would be any opportunities. After the events of the afternoon, police forces had increased their presence all around the square. During the discussion, President Hollande clearly stated that the Loi Travail would not be withdrawn, but some modifications could be made during dialogues with trade union representatives.
Wildcat demonstration on April 14, 2016.
Soon after the debate ended, we gathered with other radicals and started walking around the square as an attempt to initiate something. Quickly, people lit torches and some of us started chanting “Si on ne marche pas, ça ne marchera pas!” (“If we don’t take action, no change will come!”) while others discussed whether to go to the Presidential Palace.
Hundreds of people set out for the Boulevard Saint-Martin, but were stopped by police lines. While a group of us confronted the men in blue, the rest decided to continue the action by entering the Boulevard Magenta, where, once again, police forces were waiting for us and started shooting flash-bang grenades and tear gas. However, while focusing on the small group confronting them, police forces made a strategic mistake: they neglected to secure an adjacent street. We took advantage of the situation by entering the rue Léon Jouhaux and unleashing the storm.
The first target attacked was the regional Customs’ building. At the end of the street, we all crossed the bridge of the Saint Martin canal, then turned on the Quai de Jemmapes, increasing our pace and covering the walls with our thoughts, dreams, and desires. A bit further, some people smashed the front windows of a corporate grocery store, then rushed inside to loot everything they could. Ahead, we could see numerous police vehicles coming our way. Taking advantage of their lack of mobility, we took a narrow street, heading north to the Boulevard de la Villette. Along the way, we expressed our rage by destroying banks, real estate and insurance agencies, AutoLib cars, bus shelters, billboards, and a Pôle Emploi agency—an administrative institution in charge of employment that actively participates in maintaining the conditions of exploitation by providing a desperate workforce, reinforcing social inequalities, and destroying people’s lives by denying or reducing unemployment benefits.
At Colonel Fabien, we took the Avenue Mathurin Moreau, leading to the Buttes Chaumont Park. Again, several AutoLibs were destroyed, and hasty barricades were erected in the street to slow police vehicles. As a wink to the COP 21 decision to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some of us decided to assist by destroying a luxury car dealership located nearby. Once in front of the park, what remained from the hundreds of people who had left République continued walking towards the 19th district’s City Hall.
However, feeling that the wind would sooner or later turn, we decided that it was the right moment for us to leave the action—which ended few minutes later anyway, when the first police squad showed up just after the crowd reached City Hall. Indeed, as we were withdrawing through another avenue, we passed dozens of riot cops who were trying to reach the demonstration.
Nevertheless, the arrival of numerous police reinforcements in the area—a desperate attempt to regain control of the situation—did not change the course of the evening. That night, the storm raged in the streets of Paris, and we were part of it.
April 21, 2016 – While taking part in Nuit Debout at Place de la République, we got word that an initiative to help migrants and refugees was planned for later that night. The idea was to open a new squat somewhere in Paris for migrants to occupy. To succeed, such an action would require support from outside to prevent the police from intervening. We were informed that the location was already selected, and that, at the appointed hour, we would receive the address. In the meantime, other activists would lead a group of refugees to the location.
We eventually received the address, left République, and took the metro to our destination. The squat was an unoccupied high school on Avenue Simon Bolivar, near the Pyrénées station, in the northeast of Paris. After waiting in small groups outside fast food restaurants or cafés to look less suspicious, we learned that the group of migrants was close. The crowd converged in front of the building, occupying the entire sidewalk and hiding the main entrance from sight. Several activists sneaked inside the high school, opened the main entrance for the migrants, and then, a few minutes later, closed and locked the doors from inside. Altogether, the entire action only took several minutes.
Unfortunately, the authorities were warned that something unusual was happening in the neighborhood, and the first police car patrol showed up just after the doors were closed. We decided to stay near the squat, ready to respond to police intervention. Police reinforcements stopped in front of the squat, but in the end they did nothing more than try to see if the building was occupied and threaten us.
Despite several actions to support this initiative, the squat only lasted for two weeks. On Tuesday, May 3, late at night, we received a last-minute appeal to gather in front of the squat early the next morning, as an eviction was imminent in consequence of a decision of the Administrative Court of Paris. Unfortunately, the large crowd that responded to the appeal could not do much to stop this massive police operation. As expected, on May 4, early in the morning, polices entered in the squat and violently evicted almost 300 migrants.
Police evicting migrants from the squatted high school.
May 1, 2016 – For many countries around the world, May Day is the international day of workers, paying tribute to the workers’ struggles of the late 19th century and the introduction of the eight-hour workday. However, it has a different connotation in France. In 1941, Marshal Pétain—fervent anti-Semite, head of the French government during the occupation, and one of the main people responsible for state collaboration with the Nazis—enacted new legislation stating that May Day would be called “la fête du Travail et de la Concorde sociale” (“the day of labor and social harmony”). The objective of the law was to create a rupture with socialism and Marx’s theory of class struggle. Since that law, Labor Day in France continues to bear the name “Fête du Travail,” paying tribute to Pétain’s maxim “Travail, Famille, Patrie” (“Work, Family, Fatherland”).
How ironic and exciting it was for us to take the streets on Labor Day, then, when we had been fighting for almost two months against a new work reform—but also against the concept of work itself and the political and economic system as a whole. We were absolutely determined to see how this day would unfold.
Every May Day, during the morning, traditional anarchist unions such as the CNT, the Fédération Anarchiste, and Alternative Libertaire gather at Place des Fêtes for an anarcho-syndicalist demonstration to pay tribute to the events of the Haymarket and its martyrs. Unfortunately, these protests are purely symbolic—they are more akin to a nice Sunday family outing under black and red flags than a passionate, offensive anarchist action. Nevertheless, alongside with other autonomous anarchists and insurrectionists, we decided to join their ranks to participate in the festivities—and who knows, maybe make the event more effective than usual.
Hundreds of people took part in the demonstration from Place des Fêtes to Place de la Bastille, the official departure point of the national Labor Day demonstration. The anarchist march was more fun and offensive than we had expected: the walls of a church were spray painted, specific stores, windows, and ATMs were redecorated, and firecrackers and other projectiles were thrown at some police squads. As a whole, the action went without a hitch, as police kept their distance from us most of the time. The only discordant aspect of the morning was that someone who identified with anarcho-syndicalism started threatening some of us for attacking symbols of the capitalist system. His main arguments were that such actions were stupid and dangerous because they would get us all arrested. This example highlights some of the conflicts between different schools of thought in anarchism—but mostly, it shows how deeply rooted skepticism towards a plurality of tactics remains among many activists.
As had become usual since the beginning of the movement, anarchists, autonomous radicals, and non-affiliated individuals took the lead in the demonstration. What a great pleasure it was to do this on Labor Day, relegating trade unions—political traitors and pawns of established political power—to the end of the procession where they belong, behind those who refuse any kind of political hijacking or representation.
The least we can say is that the “autonomous procession” on May Day was incredible. We had never seen thousands of people of all ages, genders, and social backgrounds interacting in such a powerful and chaotic harmony.
Because police had often shot tear gas canisters, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets at demonstrators since the beginning of the movement, numerous people came to the protest with protective equipment: safety or swimming goggles, face masks, gas masks, scarves, first aid medical kits, and more. As soon as the demonstration started, we set the tone by attacking the isolated police units positioned along our route. All kinds of projectiles were thrown at them: glass bottles, stones, firecrackers, fireworks. Despite the imposing police presence—from police officers in plain clothes (recognizable from miles away) following us on each side of the march to riot squads at each intersection and in front of potential targets—we managed to remain offensive, compact, and in constant motion.
Unfortunately, the situation changed once we reached the intersection of the Boulevard Diderot and the rue de Chaligny. There, police forces succeeded in blocking us, and, to some extent, disorienting us by attacking the march from several directions at once. After long minutes of confrontation, riot police squads slowly gained the upper hand, dividing the head of the demonstration into two parts. Again, we paid the price for our failure to stay mobile, a mistake we had already made in the past and failed to learn from. The first part of the group was completely surrounded by police lines only half a mile from our destination, Place de la Nation. Again and again, we confronted the police lines in hopes of creating a breach, but without success.
However, the second part of the “autonomous procession,” which remained all that time behind police lines, refused to disperse or to continue demonstrating without us. In solidarity, hoping to reunify the head of the demonstration, they increased the pressure around the police lines by getting closer and collectively screaming anti-police chants. After almost an hour without moving, police brigades finally backed down, as they were completely surrounded and could not handle the pressure anymore. When the two crowds reunited, we all joined in long cheering and the protest resumed its course. During the half mile that remained to our destination, we spray painted almost every wall, smashed billboards, and some of us attacked a small group of riot police in a nearby street. All these initiatives received acclamations from the crowd. Then, suddenly, thousands of people began chanting in unison “Nous sommes tous des casseurs” (“We are all rioters”) until we reached Place de la Nation.
This last event might seem trivial; in reality, it represents an extremely important ideological shift in the movement. Since the beginning of the movement against the Loi Travail et son monde, media figures and politicians had worked hand in hand to make a distinction between the “legitimate, good, respectful, and non-violent demonstrators” and the “casseurs” or other “rioters” belonging to the notorious “black bloc,” who supposedly had no legitimacy or place in the movement. Unfortunately for them, the events of May Day broke their spell. People realized that the so-called “rioters” were just demonstrators like everybody else. Moreover, during the confrontations, they experienced mutual aid and solidarity, as the “rioters” were there to provide assistance wherever it was needed, to reassure people who were scared about the situation, to protect others during police charges, and to throw tear gas canisters back at the police who shot them. After experiencing disproportional police oppression on May Day, more and more people became critical of the police as an institution.
May 1, 2016: Black bloc versus police.
May 1, 2016: Fireworks.
May 1, 2016: Riots.
May 10, 2016 – Due to the increasing unpopularity of the Loi Travail among part of the French population, but also as a consequence of the difficulty the government had in containing the anger of the social movement, Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced that after consulting his ministers he had decided to invoke article 49:3 of the Constitution. This article allows him to engage the responsibility of the government in adopting a law. By doing so, the law is considered already adopted without passing through the traditional debates and vote at the Assemblée Nationale. The only way to counter such a process is by presenting a motion of no confidence within 24 hours. Using article 49:3 to impose the work reform by force has the merit of revealing the true face of representative democracy.
When this was made public, people converged in front of the Assemblée Nationale, the lower house of the French Parliament. For the occasion, Nuit Debout also relocated its general assembly in front of that building. Upon arriving, we discovered that an imposing police deployment was already waiting for us. Police squads and vehicles could be seen everywhere around the area. Some were guarding the front of the National Assembly; others were standing by, waiting for orders, ready to attack us from the rear if needed. However, the police presence did not intimidate the thousands of people who gathered that night in front of the building to show their opposition to the government.
May 10, 2016: People gathering in front of the National Assembly.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the action remained static, as police lines carefully contained the expanding crowd by blocking strategic accesses or surrounding groups of demonstrators, like on the Concorde Bridge. Frustrated by such inaction, and knowing that sooner or later police reinforcements would show up to secure the entire area, some of us decided to pay a visit to the Parti Socialiste headquarters located a couple streets away. When our group finally decided to join them, it was already too late, as police were coming our way. To avoid being surrounded, we went down to the docks and ran the opposite way until we reached a safe location. After this short jog, we decided to cross the Seine River and relocated to the Quai des Tuileries. From where we were standing, we saw a large group of demonstrators leaving the site of the Assemblée Nationale and heading towards the Orsay Museum. Instantly, tear gas canisters were shot at the crowd.
At the same time, on our side of the river, police started evicting groups of demonstrators from the Concorde Bridge. As it was obvious that police were becoming distracted dealing with all these different situations, we decided to take the opportunity to start our own action. We shouted for demonstrators to join us and began walking rapidly towards the Louvre. As expected, the spontaneity of our action and our mobility rapidly gave us precious advantages against our pursuers. Near the Pont Royal Bridge, as police vehicles were gaining ground, we threw barriers and construction equipment into the middle of the road. We crossed the Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre, and then found ourselves face to face with the statue of Joan of Arc, freshly decorated with wreaths of flowers. It took us only few seconds to profane and vandalize this place of worship so dear to the National Front, fascists of all kinds, and other traditionalists. As soon as police vehicles showed up, we rushed into the narrow streets of the wealthy districts of Paris. We continued our pleasant night stroll by passing near the Opera, then headed towards the old Bourse du Commerce, our equivalent of the US Stock Exchange, leaving sporadic marks of our passage before finally vanishing into the silence of the night. Later that evening, we learned with enthusiasm that several similar actions had taken place in other parts of the city.
May 12, 2016: Riots.
May 12, 2016: Riots.
May 12, 2016: Riots.
May 17, 2016 – Desperate to finally muzzle the social movement against the Loi Travail, the authorities decided to make use of the “state of emergency.” Several persons received official documents prohibiting them from taking part in the major demonstration scheduled for May 17. However, these bans were cancelled after that an administrative judge declared that such documents represented a violation of the freedom to demonstrate.
The least we can say is that the entire march, from Ecole Militaire to the Place Denfert-Rochereau, was odd. First, to reach the demonstration itself, we had to cross several security cordons, where police officers carefully searched our bags to confiscate all types of equipment that could be useful during confrontations. For the first time, we felt like all this was some kind of a trap. However, some of us managed to join the march without being searched, finding opportunities to get around several security checkpoints.
Another strange aspect was the fact that the police were leading the procession, which did not bother trade unions and demonstrators at all. Looking at the crowd of demonstrators, it really seemed like we were nothing but a flock quietly following its shepherd, emptied of any passion. Luckily for us, the wind finally turned once we entered the Boulevard du Montparnasse. Groups of people dressed in black began to appear among the crowd of students; shortly after, the first provocations against police lines occurred. The autonomous group was back, ready and determined to interrupt the lethargy of this protest.
Long confrontations took place until the end of the demonstration. At some points, the streets were literally full of tear gas. Nevertheless, we managed to reach our destination, Place Denfert-Rochereau. Once on the square, we saw that most of the exits were closed and controlled by police. Our best chance to avoid being trapped was to exit the square the same way we had come in. This meant making our way out through the various trade unions represented in the march. While we were heading towards the entrance of Boulevard Raspail to exit the square, the closest trade union march stopped. Suddenly, the trade union members in charge of security opened the trunk of a car and armed themselves with baseball bats, iron bars, and pickaxe handles, forming a line in front of us, closing the only safe exit from the square and helping the police to accomplish their goal of controlling the crowd. After long minutes of bitter arguments during which demonstrators and trade union security members exchanged threats, they finally opened their lines so that people could leave the square.
This event illustrates the tensions that exist between the trade unions and the non-affiliated part of the movement. It is not easy to identify the reasons some trade unionists decided to arm themselves to assist the police that day. We can only assume that they were exasperated from having no legitimacy in the social movement and no control over it, and expressed their frustration against those they accused of ruining their political image.
May 17, 2016: Armed trade unionists, tear gas, police leading the demonstration.
May 18, 2016 – On Wednesday, May 18, the conservative and reactionary police union Alliance organized a protest at Place de la République to denounce the “anti-cop hatred” that had been increasing during the movement. Of course, everyone understood that this victim rhetoric was purely strategic. Having such a meeting for police unionists and officers to speak about the difficulty of their work was a way to divert attention from the daily violence perpetrated by the men in blue. Concerning the Loi Travail, it would be impossible to count how many people had been beaten, injured, or arrested since the beginning of the movement. Finally, the fact that the gathering was organized at République, where the French occupy movement started and where people had confronted the police together many times, represented an open provocation from the police. The police were engaging in a territorial war in order to reassert dominance.
As soon as we heard about the police gathering, we decided that we would also converge at Place de la République to disrupt their protest. Due to the nature of this event, we knew that reaching the square would be difficult—and perhaps dangerous, as the police officers joining the demonstration would not be at work, and therefore even more free from regulations than police officers usually are. Early in the morning, some us met away from the square, with the intention of approaching it casually in groups of two or three.
Unfortunately, this strategy didn’t work at all. As we headed towards République, two of us passed by two unmarked police vehicles that we had previously spotted, and as soon as we crossed the next street, officers in plain clothes stopped us to search and interrogate us. After several failed attempts to learn what we were doing in the area and whether we were involved with the “autonomous left-wing movement,” the leader of the squad lost his patience and started to threaten us. They had nothing they could use against us, so we left them.
In the meantime, at République, a few hundred people were gathering for the “anti-cop hatred” protest. Some politicians showed up to support the angry crowd of police officers and sympathizers. The crowd warmly welcomed several members of the Front National who joined the protest. Some of us succeeded in gathering not to far from the square, but as all the entrances were heavily guarded, we decided to start our own action near the police gathering. While walking on the Quai de Valmy, demonstrators fortuitously encountered a police patrol. Without a second thought, they attacked the police car stuck in traffic, smashing its windows and throwing a lit torch in the back seat. The police officers exited their vehicle and impotently watched it go up in flames.
Whether or not we agree with the way the events unfolded, setting a police car on fire—while only half a mile away, police officers were protesting against “anti-police hatred”—is a beautiful political act, full of poetry and symbolism. However, after this event, the authorities carried out witch-hunts, arresting six people altogether. During the subsequent trials, judges said that some of those charged had been identified by an undercover police officer—which is quite surprising, considering that the protesters who attacked the police car had masked their faces. Under the pressure of the police unions, the judges incarcerated four of our comrades under the following charges: attempted voluntary manslaughter of a person holding public office, destruction of property, group violence, and participating in a masked armed group. Some of them are members or sympathizers of the Paris and suburbs Antifascist Action; another is Kara Wild, an anarchist comrade and trans person from the United States.
May 18, 2016: Law enforcement officers gather to denounce “anti-cop hatred.”
May 18, 2016: Members of the fascist National Front at the demonstration against “anti-cop hatred.”
May 18, 2016: A police car on fire near the demonstration against “anti-cop hatred.”
June 4, 2016 – While the French government and much of the population were waiting for the opening of the European Football Cup tournament in France on June 10, we were all focused on keeping the movement against the Loi Travail et son monde alive. On June 4, as every year since 2013, an antifascist demonstration took place to commemorate the death of the young activist Clément Méric, who was murdered by neo-Nazis on June 5, 2013.
Hundreds of people gathered at Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad, some German comrades joined us for the occasion, and after a long wait, the crowd started leaving the square. We heard that the police had made it clear that as soon as any property destruction or confrontations took place, they would immediately stop and disperse the procession—as if we cared about their threats!
The antifascist and autonomous crowd crossed the Boulevard de la Villette and took the Quai de Valmy. It was not a coincidence that authorities changed our route at the last minute to redirect us onto the same street where the police car had been set on fire a couple weeks before. However, as soon as we entered the street, the black wave got to work. Windows were smashed, walls were spray-painted, and torches were lit as people chanted anti-capitalist and antifascist slogans. Every single symbol of gentrification on our path was redecorated to our liking.
After a little less than a mile, some of us decided to leave the action, while the rest of the march found itself face to face with police forces at precisely the location where the police car had been set on fire. Considering their presence a deliberate provocation, some people responded by attacking them. Unfortunately, after a while, police squads succeeded in surrounding what remained of the march.
June 4, 2016: Confrontations.
June 4, 2016: Confrontations.
June 4, 2016: After the storm.
June 14, 2016 – There were nationwide appeals to join the afternoon demonstration in Paris on this special day. We heard that for the occasion, several hundred buses were supposed to converge in the capital city. It seemed that people were more determined than ever to confront the government. The demonstration was supposed to start from the Place d’Italie and take main boulevards to the Esplanade des Invalides. Choosing that location as the point of arrival brought back good memories of riots during a demonstration against the CPE law in March 2006—for some of us, our first experiences of rioting. Could we consider this some kind of sign?
Unfortunately, some of us joined the demonstration pretty late. As a result, we missed some really intense confrontations with police, especially the one at the metro station Duroc, near the children’s hospital Necker. While moving through the crowd to get closer to the head of the march, we realized a few things. First, an impressive number of people were in Paris to demonstrate; it was impossible to see both ends of the protest at once. It has been said that about one million people walked in the streets of Paris that day. Second, we experienced real cohesion, solidarity, and trust among the people who formed the now classic non-affiliated autonomous procession. Whether a trade unionist, a student, or an anarchist, everyone was free to act as she or he wanted, and everyone was taking care of each other. For example, we saw groups of trade unionists confronting police lines, and some of them even helped us to de-arrest comrades.
The intensity of confrontations peaked during this demonstration. The streets were covered with projectiles of all kinds: stones, broken glass bottles, torches, empty tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades. The walls were covered with painted messages; the symbols of the old world were destroyed, the windows smashed. For the first time since the beginning of the movement against the Loi Travail et son monde, the authorities used a water cannon to disperse the crowd. Police violence also intensified. During the hour we spent in the demonstration, we saw about ten people injured or laying on the ground receiving assistance from demonstrators, street medics, or emergency personnel.
As planned, the demonstration ended at the Esplanade des Invalides. While the march was slowly entering the esplanade, the classic closing confrontations began. Protesters started attacking the water cannon and the closest police lines. Riot police responded, covering the esplanade with tear gas. Coming from the sides, groups from the anti-criminality brigade (BAC) in plainclothes approached the confrontation zones. Police forces were progressively gaining control of the entire zone. After more than half an hour of chaos, after witnessing a distress flare from police lines, we decided that it was time to leave the esplanade before the authorities managed to close all the exits.
While withdrawing from Invalides, we learned that some people were gathering near the Senate in the Sorbonne district for a “picnic and soccer” party. Curious to know what it was about, we decided to go there. About a hundred people were there, holding a discussion in some kind of assembly. After minutes of waiting, doing absolutely nothing as the access to the Senate was heavily guarded, we finally decided to continue the day of protest against the Loi Travail by stopping traffic and taking the streets for a nice walk. We first took the direction of the Panthéon, going up the rue Soufflot. Then, as police vehicles were following us, we accelerated our pace and took the rue Saint Jacques. We turned in front of the prestigious Collège de France, took the first narrow street, and climbed up the hill as police vehicles were really close to us. Unfortunately, as soon as we reached the Panthéon again from another side, we had to disperse as police were exiting their vehicles.
After this quick but fun wild action, we went to Place de la République. The square was surprisingly crowded, and a bit after 9 pm some of us decided to improve the setting by setting a metro security car on fire. Police squads rapidly arrived at the square. The tension was palpable. We knew that more confrontations were going to occur. Then about a thousand people decided to leave the square for a wild march, followed close behind by police vehicles. That was when we decided to leave the action and République.
June 14, 2016: Tout le monde deteste Starbucks.
June 14, 2016: Demonstrators.
June 14, 2016: Police surrounding demonstrators at the end of the demonstration.
After that day, the government changed its strategy regarding demonstrations. First, the authorities canceled a major demonstration that was planned for June 23. Their justification for doing so was that, due to the past events during the previous demonstration, they were not able to ensure the safety of property or individuals anymore. What an interesting statement, the government acknowledging its complete loss of power! However, due to the objections of trade unions, the authorities reconsidered their decision. Finally, the demonstration was authorized for June 23, on two conditions: the authorities would impose its route, and police would intensify their control of demonstrators.
Naturally, trade union leaders accepted these conditions. We decided not to take part in this demonstration. There was no reason for us to rush straight into a trap.
Shortly before June 23, we learned that the march would make a mile-long loop around the Parisian marina, leaving Place de la Bastille to finally reach… Place de la Bastille. To prevent property destruction or confrontations, the authorities covered every potential target with wooden planks, established a large number of security checkpoints, and carefully positioned their troops all around the route, so that wherever you went during the demonstration, police squads would be facing you. Despite all these measures, the demonstration gathered more than 30,000 participants; it seems that some people really love walking in circles and being monitored. On June 28, another demonstration was organized between Place de la Bastille and Place d’Italie, but as the authorities were once again imposing the rules, we decided to stay home.
However, we continued taking part in less official initiatives at night at République. On the evening of July 2, after attending a barbecue organized by some people close to the appelistes, about a hundred people left the party to enjoy a nice walk in the warm summer night. People left Ménilmontant and took the Boulevard de Belleville. We reached the Belleville metro station after several detours through adjacent streets where people destroyed trashcans, wrote on walls, and chanted joyfully. There, some of us attacked the CFDT headquarters, destroying all its front windows. Several minutes after, as police forces were finally showing up, we left the boulevard and disappeared into adjoining streets.
It was not the first time that trade union buildings were targeted during the movement against the Loi Travail. The CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail, French Democratic Confederation of Work) was regularly targeted for refusing to take a stand against the law.
June 14, 2016:
Time to Learn from Our Mistakes and Move toward the Future
What happened next was predictable. As always occurs during confrontational social movements, the government contained popular discontent as much as it could while playing for time. This strategy seems to have been fruitful: as the summer holidays were approaching, officials knew that the movement against the Loi Travail et son monde would die down. France has a regrettable tendency to give up struggles as soon as the summer holidays are in sight. Naturally, politicians are aware of this and take advantage of it by passing “sensitive” laws when no one is around to resist.
As expected, after two more applications of article 49:3 of the Constitution, the Assemblée Nationale adopted the Loi Travail despite the months of mobilization against it.
Since the law was adopted, more events have occurred in France. First, frightened by the appeals that insurrectionists and anarchists made to prevent the traditional summer meeting of the Parti Socialiste, the government decided to simply cancel the event. On August 31, Nuit Debout gathered several hundred people at Place de la République for their first general assembly since summer break. Then, to celebrate students going back to school, there was another national demonstration against the Loi Travail et son monde on September 15. As usual, there were intense confrontations with the police; several petrol bombs were thrown at the riot squads. Unfortunately, since then, no more major demonstrations against the Loi Travail have occurred.
The demonstration on September 15.
In the meantime, fascists, religious traditionalists, conservatives, and police forces have also been mobilizing. The Manif Pour Tous, an organization gathering religious traditionalists, homophobes, and fascists that became notorious after demonstrating against same-sex marriage in late 2012-2013, took the streets again in October 2016 to denounce gender theory, Medically Assisted Procreation, and third-party reproduction. The demonstration gathered tens of thousands of people, far exceeding their earlier numbers. Moreover, in Paris, an accommodation center for homeless people has been attacked several times since its construction. The last attack occurred on November 5, at night, when someone tried to set the center on fire while 27 adults and 24 children were inside it. Finally, in late October, police officers took the streets after one of them was injured by a petrol bomb while on duty in a case not related to the movement against the Loi Travail. They were demanding more equipment and assistance from the government, but also that the conditions justifying self-defense should be reviewed.
As the next Presidential elections were to take place in spring 2017, the government decided to accelerate its pace of decision-making by authorizing the complete destruction and eviction of the “Jungle,” the migrant camp in Calais on the way to Britain. The operation began on October 24. While bulldozers and excavators protected by police were destroying tents and other hand-made habitations, migrants were forcibly sent to other accommodations. The truth is that, for some of them, the journey ended in French detention centers. A week later, the dismantlement of the “Jungle” concluded as the last shelters were destroyed on the afternoon of October 31. More than 6000 migrants and refugees were evicted during this operation. On Monday, November 14, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Nantes rendered its decision, authorizing the construction of the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes airport, ignoring the proofs of potential environmental impact presented a week before by its own public rapporteur.
Dismantlement of the Jungle.
Dismantlement of the Jungle.
In view of the overall political and social situation in France, we can see that the upcoming months will be crucial in shaping our future. This is why we took the time to analyze what happened during the months of social upheaval against the Loi Travail et son monde, to make a self-criticism and raise questions. Such reflections should be made collectively, so that they benefit from many different experiences and analyses.
To offer our own contribution to this process, we would like to discuss how the glorification of “insurrection” in our circles could end up alienating us. Of course, we have all shared this dream at least once—that people would suddenly rise up to overthrow the government together. Unfortunately, it seems to us that during the events related to the Loi Travail, this obsession mostly resulted in concentrating our efforts on directly confronting police forces. These confrontations became a kind of routine—for some of us, they became the only reason to participate in a demonstration.
Over time, this approach showed its limits, as police squads ceased to be surprised by our attacks. Several times, it was obvious that they were expecting us to attack, that they actually wanted us to. Those were the moments when we missed important opportunities to diversify our tactics and implement new strategies in order to continue taking them by surprise. Once again, we are convinced that spontaneity, mobility, and the element of surprise are the key elements that can give us a clear advantage.
This tendency to focus on confrontation alone is interrelated with the problem of becoming integrated into the same spectacle that we criticize. We all know that media outlets are partial to sensational and spectacular images of “rioters” attacking police forces. Nowadays, we are not only under the cameras of mainstream media and police officers, but also of other activists who are documenting every moment of our actions. Like it or not, we too are becoming prisoners of our image. By actively participating in reinforcing the culture of the spectacle, we feed and reinforce our own obsession with rioting and insurrection. Even if we criticize this trend, we also acknowledge that such footage might have some utility for presenting events to other activists.
Finally, we believe that we should distance ourselves from the current obsession with insurrection and its rhetoric. If we do not do so, we may end up distracting ourselves from our true objectives. Instead, we should keep our minds clear, work together on new projects, and find new and subversive ways to liberate ourselves from the old world. Several months ago, appelistes claimed that there will be no presidential election in 2017; with the benefit of hindsight, this strikes us as a bit optimistic. All the same, it is time to learn from our mistakes, but also from our victories, to acknowledge our limits and our capacities to exceed some of them. All this, in order to advance upon the future and prepare ourselves for new horizons.
June 4, 2016: From the storms of last year to the tempests to come.
Postscript: On the Eve of the Presidential election
We will conclude with a brief overview of several events that took place in France since we drafted this article at the end of 2016. We hope that it will give a clearer picture of the situation in France before the upcoming elections, but also demonstrate that, alone or in affinity groups, people are still organizing, attacking, and resisting the old world and the pawns that serve it.
Since the end of the mobilization against the Loi Travail et son monde, the French government has intensified its investigations of those identified as “threats.” This is why, while several comrades were already in custody for taking part of some of the events described above, the authorities arrested another comrade in early December 2016. Since then, Damien has been accused of taking part in several attacks during the night of April 14, 2016, when an autonomous march resulted in thousand of euros in property destruction. After going to trial on January 19, 2017, he has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and 14,000€ of restitution.
However, several solidarity actions took place since Damien’s arrest: in mid-December, several bank ATMs were destroyed in Besançon and Marseilles; on December 26 (Damien’s birthday), a luxury car was set on fire in an upper-class district of Paris; finally, at the end of December, in Brussels, several billboards and a security car were destroyed, while on New Year’s Eve a Vinci car and a Bam car—both companies known for building prisons—were set on fire.. Several actions also took place in front of the Fleury Mérogis prison, where some people who actively took part of the mobilization against the Loi Travail are detained.
Meanwhile, at the end of March 2017, Antonin, a member of the Paris and Suburbs Antifascist Action, was released from prison after spending 10 months in custody on account of the police car set on fire on May 18, 2016. Unfortunately, some other comrades remain incarcerated: Kara, Nico, Krème, and Damien.
In the meantime, actions of resistance have intensified throughout France in the different ZADs against the several useless projects. While Notre-Dame-des-Landes remains the best known example of activist resistance in the name of environment preservation in France, another conflict is gaining in importance. For about 20 years, the ANDRA (the National Agency for the Treatment of Radioactive Waste) has intended to establish its new treatment site near Bure, a small village located in the Meuse region of France. The purpose of the ANDRA is to study the soil in the region to find the perfect location for burying high-level nuclear waste. There is no need to explain the environmental consequences of such a project. This is why, for several years now, activists have been organizing resistance in the region through legal objections, protests, occupations, direct action, and sabotage. Last February, activists succeeded in tearing down the fences surrounding the ANDRA laboratory.
In order to weaken the resistance against this project, French authorities employed the tools offered by the “state of emergency,” issuing numerous “inadmissibility” documents that forbid activists to be physically present in the region of Bure However, these threats did not have the expected effect, as some activists publicly expressed their will to continue the struggle in the field.
Finally, during the last months, some tragic events involving police violence and murders have led to several protests and riots.
Last summer, on July 19, 2016, 24-year-old Adama Traoré was found dead after being arrested by the police. Quickly, authorities decided to cover the incident by providing the result of an autopsy, explaining that the death of the young man was not related to the conditions of his arrest but due to personal health problems. However, further autopsies and testimony revealed new information and a whole different story than the one presented by official authorities. After Adama’s death, his family organized numerous protests and gatherings, alongside other organizations, to denounce police violence and impunity.
More recently, on February 2, 2017, after a police control, 22-year-old Théo was hospitalized on account of a long wound inside the anal canal and a lesion of the sphincter muscle. Théo explained that during the police control, one officer penetrated him with his telescopic baton. The first official statement made by authorities did not mention any of this. This tragic event received widespread media coverage, revealing once more how the authorities try to cover up evidence and deny obvious facts.
Politicians saw this event as an opportunity to reinforce their positions in view of the upcoming elections. For example, reaffirming once more her commitment to authority and law enforcement, Marine Le Pen gave all her support to the police officers involved in the case.
However, despite promises to solve the case and uncover the truth behind this so-called “police burr,” the French government did not succeed in containing popular anger and thirst for vengeance. Riots and clashes with police immediately broke out in the suburbs. At Aulnay-sous-Bois, the police shot live rounds to disperse rioters. These events remind us of 2005, when the deaths of Zyed and Bouna—two teenagers who were chased by the police—moved part of the population living in these territories called “suburbs” to revolt. On February 11, 2017 thousands of people gathered in front of the Bobigny Court to show their solidarity with Théo and his family. The massive presence of police forces near the Court and in nearby streets exacerbated the frustration of the crowd, who chose to attack and confront them until late that night..
Numerous protests against police violence and in solidarity with Théo were also organized in Paris, Rennes, and Nantes, which brought back some of the atmosphere we had experienced a year before during the Loi Travail: uncontrollable demonstrations, property destruction, confrontations with police.
Then, on March 26, 2017, members of the anti-criminality brigade (BAC) killed Liu Shaoyo while he was preparing dinner for his family. As always, the authorities tried to explain away this “accidental” death by giving their own version of the event. The Shaoyo family itself contests this version, as they were present during the police raid. Again, this murder led to several gatherings and protests in front of police stations.
The least we can say is that, on the eve of the Presidential election, the supreme example of political spectacle, the climate in France is tenser than ever. During the last presidency and especially since the Loi Travail, part of the population has lost faith in the prevailing political system. Others see in the Alternative Left an option that will deliver us from our miseries. Still others, reinforced by the xenophobic discourses of the “migrant crisis,” the election of Donald Trump, and the Brexit success, seek a solution in the Front National, which promises to defend a supposed “French identity” and national interest against globalization.
On account of its dangerous agenda and its popularity, activists have disrupted some of the electoral meetings of theFront National, including one in Nantes and another more recently in Paris. Moreover, for the first time in the history of the 5th Republic, the two traditional parties might not see one of their leaders elected as President. The outcome of the upcoming election remains more uncertain than ever; it is possible that a fascist, populist, and xenophobic government will come to power on May 7, 2017.
Yet in the face of all these uncertainties, one thing remains certain: whoever is elected, we will remain ungovernable!
Further Reading and Viewing
Paris: Sous les Pavés la Rage, by Taranis News offers an overview of events throughout the protests against the Loi Travail. | {
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LGBT+ advocates facing far-right opponents (WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP/Getty)
Urine, rocks, firecrackers and eggs have all been thrown by anti-Pride protesters this year at Poland’s LGBT+ community, all while the country’s ruling party dubbed queer people a “threat”.
And it seems that the openly homophobic party is on track to hold onto power, exit polls show.
The Law and Justice Party is expected to be swept into power once again by swaying voters – with turnout being at its highest since records began – with a campaign of aggrieved nationalism and anti-LGBT sentiment.
As the exit polls were released, party chairman Jaroslaw Kaczyński, who once told Polish people to resist the “travelling theatre” of Pride, yesterday told reporters: “We have reasons to be happy.
“The good change,” he said, “will continue.”
Exit polls: Law and Justice Party on track to secure a majority.
Voters headed to the polls in record numbers with more than 61 percent taking part – the highest turnout since the first, partly-free election of 1989 in Poland.
The PiS are on track to secure a mandate with 43.6% of the vote, which if correct, would score the party 239 out of 460 seats in the Polish Sejm. The party have deep ties with the country’s influential Catholic Church.
The opposition Civic Coalition, a liberal centre-right grouping, was predicted to receive 24.1%, or roughly 130 seats. Squashing hopes from liberal lawmakers to swing power through coalition, exit polls conducted by research centre Ipsos show.
While snap election polls results are not always reliable, if the results prove to be accurate, a party with a severely homophobic record will continue to be in power for a further four years. Plunging the community in unease about what direction their rights and safety will go.
What will this mean for Poland’s LGBT+ people?
In the last four years since the party was elected to power in 2015, activists and critics have argued that the PiS have fermented hate.
Multiple Prides in Poland this year – with many of then being the town’s first ever – were descended upon by hundreds of protesters.
Several towns and villages have declared themselves as “LGBT-free” while religious leaders have called the community a “rainbow plague”.
Moreover, for a time, a government-aligned newspaper Gazeta Polska distributed anti-LGBT stickers before the courts ruled it was illegal.
And critics argue that Kaczyński’s re-election campaign has only added fuel to the fire.
PiS leader: LGBT+ people are ‘real threat to Polish state’.
By placing LGBT+ rights in the centre of public debates and depicting them as a dangerous Western idea that undermines traditional Catholic values, the leader described his party as fighting in an “ideological war”.
Meanwhile, the southern city of Lublin recently gave awards to local officials who have opposed: “LGBT ideology, which goes against the family, the nation and the Polish state”, according to local media.
While Polish policy-makers have been sluggish to enshrine LGBT+ people with rights, activists have pressed them to enact change.
Tireless campaigners have proved successful in the past by pushing parliament to introduce positive measures, such as enabling gay men to donate blood.
However, marriage equality, legal protections in the area of gender identity and adoption remain far off in the distance. | {
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Consumers currently pay tens of millions annually in overdraft charges on such prepaid credit cards. Much of that money goes to one Georgia firm, Netspend, whose parent company is the Columbus-based Total System Services.
Perdue has received $17,500 in campaign donations from Total System Services’ political action committee since the 2014 election cycle. He also accepted a similar amount from the company’s current and former top executives in the runup to his election, according to the money-in-politics site Open Secrets.
Bureau in the cross hairs
A businessman before he entered politics, Perdue has made fiscal issues a central part of his portfolio since arriving on Capitol Hill in 2015.
He holds particular disdain for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Like many Republicans, Perdue says the watchdog has been overzealous, and he's twice introduced legislation to overhaul it dramatically by giving the legislative branch control of its funding like a typical federal agency.
When it comes to the agency’s prepaid credit card regulation, Perdue says it’s overly broad and too burdensome. The hundreds of millions it would cost for industry to implement it would likely be passed onto consumers, he said, thus “hurt(ing) the very people it intends to protect.”
"These consumers, who simply want to manage their finances at a low-cost rate, cannot afford a sweeping new rule that would impose higher costs," he and U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, wrote in a recent Forbes op-ed.
The duo also said the regulation would hamstring the growing financial technology market, including digital payment giants PayPal and Venmo. Indeed, several technology companies, including Google and PayPal, have lobbied against aspects of the rulemaking.
Perdue said Congress should scrap the rule and approach the issue in another way.
Supporters of the the rule see things differently.
They frame Perdue’s bill as a naked attempt to aid Netspend. They point to competitors such as the Green Dot that have been supportive of the rule.
Compared with its competitors, Netspend is said to have a business model that relies heavily on overdraft fees. American Banker reported that the CFPB’s rule, if implemented, could cut into the company’s annual revenue by up to 12 percent, or $85 million a year.
The bureau’s new rule, which is scheduled to go into effect next spring, would not ban overdraft charges outright, but it would give consumers three weeks to repay their debt before being charged a late fee. It would also require companies issuing such cards to consider a would-be customer’s ability to pay his or her debts before moving forward.
In a written statement provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a Netspend spokesman said the company “supports smart regulation of our industry that promotes financial inclusion and empowerment for Americans, including those without access to traditional financial services.”
“We and many others outlined our reservations with the CFPB prepaid rule during the public comment period including thousands of concerned citizens, highlighting the important role prepaid products and electronic accounts play in their lives,” according to the statement.
Allied Progress, a liberal advocacy group that pushes for tougher rules on Wall Street and payday lenders, is planning to kick off a television and digital ad campaign in the days ahead to pressure GOP senators to vote against Perdue’s bill. The six-figure campaign will likely focus on states represented by Republicans who have been critical of the prepaid credit card industry in the past such as Alaska, Maine and Nevada.
“What Senator Perdue is counting on is that people will not be talking more about this subject and that it will happen under the radar and the only people that will know are his donors,” said Karl Frisch, Allied Progress’ executive director. “We’re going to make sure that’s not the case, that people hear about this.”
The ad campaign is likely to skip Georgia outside of some limited internet ads, since U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson has also signed onto Perdue’s effort.
Ticking clock
Allied Progress’ effort is looking to peel away three Republican senators, which would be enough to kill Perdue’s effort. Most Democrats have banded together to vote against previous Republican attempts to nullify leftover regulations from the Obama administration.
Perdue has the backing of at least 31 GOP senators.
The Republican is looking to stop the CFPB rule using a special type of legislation he’s never deployed before. Created by then-U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, the procedure allows Congress to retroactively nullify any federal regulation within 60 legislative days of it being finalized — while also permanently blocking agencies from moving forward with the same rulemaking at a later date.
The maneuver was rarely used successfully before President Donald Trump came into office. But now that a united Republican government has taken over, GOP leaders in Congress are rushing to undo many Obama-era regulations using the procedure while they still have time.
Perdue’s office estimates that Congress has until May 9 to act on the prepaid credit card rule, which is why the Republican moved to expedite his bill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not indicated if or when he would be willing to bring up the legislation on the floor before then, but the Kentucky Republican did sign off on Perdue’s effort to fast-track the measure.
A companion bill in the House is backed by Georgia Republican U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter, Doug Collins, Drew Ferguson, Tom Graves and Barry Loudermilk. | {
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In Oer-Erkenschwick hat es an einer KFZ-Werkstatt eine Schießerei gegeben.
Schießerei in Oer-Erkenschwick mit 20 Beteiligten: Polizei warnt vor Flüchtigen. Sie könnten bewaffnet sein
Schießerei in Oer-Erkenschwick
SEK und Hubschrauber waren im Einsatz
Mindestens vier Personen verletzt
Polizei fahndet nach Flüchtigen
Schüsse fielen während einer Schlägerei
Oer-Erkenschwick. Nach der Schießerei am Dienstagabend in der Ludwigstraße in Oer-Erkenschwick hat die Polizei noch keine neuen Erkenntnisse. Nach den Flüchtigen wird weiterhin gefahndet.
Gegen 18:44 Uhr sollen durch mehrere Schüsse mindestens vier Männer zum Teil schwer verletzt worden sein, wie Ramona Hörst von der Polizei Oer-Erkenschwick mitteilt.
Die Schüsse sollen laut Polizeisprecherin während einer Auseinandersetzung zwischen mehreren Personen gefallen sein. Ein SEK-Team ist angerückt und blieb am Abend einsatzbereit. Zwischenzeitlich war auch ein Hubschrauber im Einsatz.
Ein Video der Tat auf, dass sich insgesamt zwei Personen mit einem schwarzen Kleinwagen vom Tatort entfernten. Die Flüchtigen könnten bewaffnet sein.
Die Polizei nahm bis zur Nacht zehn Personen fest. 20 Personen waren laut Polizei an der Auseinandersetzung beteiligt.
Hintergründe unklar
Warum es zu dem blutigen Konflikt kam, ist derzeit ebenfalls noch völlig unklar.
Keine der beteiligten Personen konnte bislang von der Polizei vernommen werden, da alle Verletzten mit einem Rettungswagen ins Krankenhaus gebracht werden mussten.
Schlägerei und Schüsse
Die vier Verletzten seien nicht in Lebensgefahr, so ein Polizeisprecher am Mittwochmorgen. Ihr Zustand sei stabil. Zwei der Opfer erlitten demnach Schussverletzungen.
Wir berichten weiter.
Weitere Themen:
Dieses Video zeigt die Schießerei von Oer-Erkenschwick
Anzeige von Todkranker: Wer nimmt nach ihrem Tod den Hund?
Junge Männer belästigen 72-Jährigen in Essen - und prügeln ihn dann krankenhausreif | {
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Ester Dean, center, has written smash hooks for Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. Illustration by Michael Gillette
On a mild Monday afternoon in mid-January, Ester Dean, a songwriter and vocalist, arrived at Roc the Mic Studios, on West Twenty-seventh Street in Manhattan, for the first of five days of songwriting sessions. Her engineer, Aubry Delaine, whom she calls Big Juice, accompanied her. Dean picked up an iced coffee at a Starbucks on Seventh Avenue, took the elevator up to Roc the Mic, and passed through a lounge that had a pool table covered in taupe-colored felt. Two sets of soundproofed doors led to the control room, a windowless cockpit that might have been the flight deck of a spaceship.
Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen, the team of Norwegian writer-producers professionally known as Stargate, were waiting there for Dean. Both are tall and skinny ectomorphs with pale shaved heads who would not look out of place in a “Matrix” movie. Dean, who is black, is neither skinny nor tall; she reached up to give them big hugs, which is how she greets almost everyone. They chatted for a while. Dean has a comical, Betty Boop-ish speaking voice, which will be featured in the upcoming animated film “Ice Age: Continental Drift.” (Sid, the giant ground sloth voiced by John Leguizamo, is finally getting a girlfriend, Dean’s Sloth Siren.) After ten minutes or so, she pronounced herself “ready to work.”
Most of the songs played on Top Forty radio are collaborations between producers like Stargate and “top line” writers like Ester Dean. The producers compose the chord progressions, program the beats, and arrange the “synths,” or computer-made instrumental sounds; the top-liners come up with primary melodies, lyrics, and the all-important hooks, the ear-friendly musical phrases that lock you into the song. “It’s not enough to have one hook anymore,” Jay Brown, the president of Roc Nation, and Dean’s manager, told me recently. “You’ve got to have a hook in the intro, a hook in the pre-chorus, a hook in the chorus, and a hook in the bridge.” The reason, he explained, is that “people on average give a song seven seconds on the radio before they change the channel, and you got to hook them.”
The top-liner is usually a singer, too, and often provides the vocal for the demo, a working draft of the song. If the song is for a particular artist, the top-liner may sing the demo in that artist’s style. Sometimes producers send out tracks to more than one top-line writer, which can cause problems. In 2009, both Beyoncé and Kelly Clarkson had hits (Beyoncé’s “Halo,” which charted in April, and Clarkson’s “Already Gone,” which charted in August) that were created from the same track, by Ryan Tedder. Clarkson wrote her own top line, while Beyoncé shared a credit with Evan Bogart. Tedder had neglected to tell the artists that he was double-dipping, and when Clarkson heard “Halo” and realized what had happened she tried to stop “Already Gone” from being released as a single, because she feared the public would think she had copied Beyoncé’s hit. But nobody cared, or perhaps even noticed; “Already Gone” became just as big a hit.
A relatively small number of producers and top-liners create a disproportionately large share of contemporary hits, which may explain why so many of them sound similar. The producers are almost always male: Max Martin, Dr. Luke, David Guetta, Tricky Stewart, the Matrix, Timbaland, the Neptunes, Stargate. The top-liners are often, although not always, women: Makeba Riddick, Bonnie McKee, and Skylar Grey are among Dean’s peers. The producer runs the session and serves as creative director of the song, but the top-liner supplies the crucial spark that will determine whether the song is a smash. (When I asked Tricky Stewart to define “smash,” he said, “A hit is just a hit; a smash is a life changer.”) As Eric Beall, an A. & R. executive with Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., a music publisher, puts it, “The top-line writer is the one who has to face a blank page.” Stargate works with about twenty top-liners a year, and creates some eighty demos. These are sent out to A. & R. departments at record labels, to artists’ managers, and, finally, to the artists, for approval. Around twenty-five of Stargate’s songs end up on records each year.
Dean has a genius for infectious hooks. Somehow she is able to absorb the beat and the sound of a track, and to come out with its melodic essence. The words are more like vocalized beats than like lyrics, and they don’t communicate meaning so much as feeling and attitude—they nudge you closer to the ecstasy promised by the beat and the “rise,” or the “lift,” when the track builds to a climax. Among Dean’s best hooks are her three Rihanna smashes—“Rude Boy” (“Come on, rude boy, boy, can you get it up / Come on, rude boy, boy, is you big enough?”), “S&M” (“Na-na-na-na COME ON”), and “What’s My Name” (“Oh, na-na, what’s my name?”), all with backing tracks by Stargate—and her work on two Nicki Minaj smashes, “Super Bass” (“Boom, badoom, boom / boom, badoom, boom / bass / yeah, that’s that super bass”) and David Guetta’s “Turn Me On” (“Make me come alive, come on and turn me on”).
“Talk That Talk,” a Dean-Stargate song that’s the title track of Rihanna’s most recent album, is built around one chord progression—F-sharp minor, E minor, B minor, D. The music combines genres that, twenty years ago, were distinct: the hard beats of hip-hop and the big melody “money notes” sung by nineties stars such as Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion. The first hook comes right away, in an abbreviated chorus that precedes a Jay-Z rap. Then comes the main hook: “One and two and three and four / come and let me know if you want some more,” a salacious-sounding bit of rhythm singing, backed by dirty-sounding synths, which opens the chorus. Then there’s a verse, which delivers the third hook: “Say what you want, say what you like / Say what you want me to do and I got you.” The chorus rolls around again, this time with the lift, followed by the bridge, which delivers yet another hook: “What you say now, give it to me baby / I want it all night, give it to me baby,” sung over a nasty-sounding snare drum (which, like all the instrumental sounds, is machine-made). The bridge also conveys the “breakdown,” when the song’s momentum pauses momentarily. Then comes the chorus for a final time. The song is neither clever nor subtle—we are a long way from Cole Porter here—but it is deeply seductive all the same.
Dean’s preferred method of working is to delay listening to a producer’s track until she is in the studio, in front of the mike. “I go into the booth and I scream and I sing and I yell, and sometimes it’s words but most time it’s not,” she told me. “And I just see when I get this little chill, here”—she touched her upper arm, just below the shoulder—“and then I’m, like, ‘Yeah, that’s the hook.’ ” If she doesn’t feel that chill after five minutes, she moves on to the next track, and tries again. | {
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A Drop-In Barrel That Delivers Custom Pistol Performance
Brownells Edition barrels for Glock® are built to rigorous specifications set by noted self-defense instructor Matt Jacques. Proprietor of Victory First, a company providing real-world training to law enforcement personnel, a U.S. Marine, and a retired law enforcement officer himself, Matt knows a thing or two about what makes a reliable, consistent-shooting, accurate pistol barrel. At the same time, Brownells Edition barrels are designed to right drop into factory Glock slides.
Brownells Edition / Victory First Barrels are machined from high-grade 416R stainless steel by skilled American craftsmen and are thoroughly tested to ensure impressive accuracy and reassuring reliability in your Glock® pistol.
For maximum compatibility with the Glock® you already have in your gun safe, our barrels are compatible with Gen1 through Gen4 Glocks.
Drop-in fit to most Glock® slides
1-10" right-hand twist
Durable, non-reflective Black Nitride finish
Models available for G17, G19 and G43
Does not come with thread protector
All Brownells Edition / Victory First Barrels for Glock® come with an 11° recessed crown to protect the critical rifling near the muzzle. You can also choose 1/2" x 28 tpi muzzle threads for easy mounting of a compensator or sound suppressor.
Big Book Catalog, Issue:72, Page:220 | {
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Join us as Street Team Movement is formally introduced to the downtown Orlando community.
Featured on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel, come meet the staff that started it all! Network with other entrepreneurs and business owners as well as find out more about this amazing cause!
Cover will be a $10 donation which gets you:
Free appetizers 1 raffle ticket Happy Hour Drink Specials
| {
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Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reports the foreign ministry has summoned France's ambassador to Tehran over remarks made on Twitter by his colleague in Washington.
Ambassador Philippe Thiebaud was being asked Sunday to explain why the French ambassador to the U.S., Gerard Araud, had tweeted that "sanctions could be reimposed" on Iran once the 2015 nuclear deal expires after 10 years.
Araud said Saturday that because "Russia is providing enriched uranium" to Iran, Tehran shouldn't need to be "massively enriching uranium after the JCPOA," using the acronym for the nuclear deal signed with world powers, including France.
ISNA says Iran's foreign ministry has called Araud's remarks "unacceptable" and in "open violation" of the nuclear deal.
Under the nuclear deal, Iran capped its uranium enrichment activities in return to ending sanctions. | {
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Ahead of Mother’s Day next weekend, Apple’s weekly Apple Pay promotions have made a return. This time, Apple is offering $15 off at 1-800-Flowers when you shop the “Mother’s Day Collection” and checkout with Apple Pay.
The promotion applies to both the 1-800-Flowers website as well as the app, with Apple Pay being available as a checkout option in both places. The offer is valid from May 2nd through May 10th and cannot be used in conjunction with other discounts or promotions.
Here are the full terms and conditions for the promo:
Get $15 off special Gift Collection purchases when you use Apple Pay in the 1-800-Flowers app or on 1800Flowers.com. Offer valid May 2, 2019, through May 10, 2019, until 11:59 p.m. ET. Some restrictions and exclusions apply (based on availability or other factors). Terms apply to special Gift Collection and cannot be combined or used with other discounts or promotions.
Apple Pay offered a similar promotion for Mother’s Day last year, so it’s nice to see the offering continue this year. Mother’s Day is on May 12th this year. Head to 1-800-Flowers on the web or download the app from the App Store to lock in these savings.
Read more:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
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Parliament on Tuesday approved a resolution to support a European initiative by the Szekler National Council on the protection of national regions.
The proposal by green opposition LMP, supported by the ruling parties, right-wing opposition Jobbik and by the Socialists, was approved unanimously with 158 votes in favour.
The decision has symbolic significance given 2020 has been declared a year of national cohesion one hundred years after the Trianon Treaty was signed, the resolution states.
The Szekler National Council fought for six years to achieve a European court ruling which obliged the European Commission to consider a proposal submitted for the European initiative.
In line with the resolution, Parliament welcomes the initiative dubbed European Citizens’ Initiative for the Equality of the Regions and Sustainability of the Regional Cultures which aims to convince the European Union to pay special attention to regions whose national, ethnic, cultural, religious and ethnic characteristics are different from those of the surrounding regions.
Parliament calls on Hungarians inside and outside Hungary to support the initiative with their signature.
For the initiative launched on May 7 last year to be successful, at least one million supporting signatures are needed from seven member states by May 7 this year.
After the vote, Katalin Szili, the prime minister’s commissioner, urged public support for the European initiative.
She said that Europe has 400 ethnic minorities and one out of seven EU citizens belongs to an indigenous or regional minority, and called on ethnic Hungarian communities and organisations in the diaspora to promote the initiative.
Featured photo illustration by Balázs Mohai/MTI | {
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According to a new survey of world penis size by Mandatory.com, a factual look at penis size offers a wake-up call for a universally size-obsessed culture.
There’s just one problem: The data in the infographic is largely the result of blatantly flawed methodology and horrifically racist research.
The Mandatory infographic is just one of many infographs in recent years that have attempted to divide the world in terms of penis size. According to Mandatory’s quick survey, the average world penis size is 5.5 inches. Out of the 80 countries referenced in the survey, the U.S. hovers near the bottom, clocking in at No. 61 with an average of 5.1 inches, while Congolese men of the DRC have the largest average penis length at 7.1 inches.
The attempt to generate a cross-section of global penis size involves looking at numerous previous infographics and surveys. But when we look closer, most of the, erm, hard evidence used to generate this and other global size charts turns out to be utter bollocks.
Most of the data used to generate “global” statistics about size comes from faulty or unreliable reporting. In many instances, the sources Mandatory and other websites used to generate statistics about international dick size relied on self-reporting or estimates given by men about the sizes of their own penis. In scientific studies, self-reporting is extremely unreliable, even when you’re not reporting something as highly fraught as penis size. Some studies have even shown that men perceive their own penises to be smaller than they actually are.
And there’s an even bigger problem. (Sorry.) Many of the research studies in the field have been built off the inherently flawed racist work of a researcher named J. Philippe Rushton.
Rushton, whose theories flourished during the ’80s, created a line of research to justify his belief that various cultures evolved to prioritize various systems of reproduction. He argued that Asian cultures evolved small penises because the cultures emphasized smaller families and higher intelligence, while boorish African cultures evolved larger penises in order to emphasize rapid reproduction rates and low intelligence rates.
Not only is this theory an obviously false stereotype, but it’s based on flawed research. In order to find arguments for his racist theories, Rushton cited everything from decades-old obsolete research to issues of Penthouse magazine. But as appalling as this might seem, his research has been built on and added to as recently as 2012, in a roundly criticized study from researcher Richard Lynn that used irrelevant studies on rats to argue that testosterone levels differed for men around the globe.
In both the Rushton and Lynn research, the happy middle between “most evolved” and “least evolved” was, of course, European and American societies. Psychology Today, in roundly criticizing both Rushton and the new theory, dubbed this the “Goldilocks Effect,” because of the way it positions white culture as the perfect medium between two extremes. How convenient.
One thing the Mandatory chart does make clear, apart from perpetuating racist myths about size, is that the global average really is smaller than most men think. One study, which lasted 60 years and included results from more than 50 international research efforts, concluded that the average penis size, regardless of country of origin, is 4.7 to 5.1 inches.
Proper self-measurements are taken from the tip of the penis to the base of the shaft. A quick glance at the popular Tumblr measureyourcock, dedicated to self-measurements, shows that most penises submitted fall into the average five-inch category.
So, for the record, all the racist jokes you’ve ever heard about penis size are still false and degrading stereotypes.
And trying to argue national superiority based on an inaccurate chart on the Internet makes you the biggest dick of all.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 3.0) | {
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US
AIPAC
AIPAC
If there is something unique about this story it is the level of interest that it has generated. Neither spying, nor the influence peddling is new; but until professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt broke the silence on the lobby’s influence, few were willing to discuss either. Things have moved on considerably since. Many fine books have come out in recent years that have shed light on the lobby’s operations, specifically on its frequently decisive role in shaping US Middle East policy. No analyst however has been as tenacious as Grant F. Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP) who in a series of books has brought crucial new information to light through the use of the Freedom of Information Act. His latest, America’s Defense Line: the Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government, focuses on an important aspect of the lobby’s origins that has implications for how it operates today.
Supporters of the Israel lobby have long maintained that the reason it does not have to register as an agent of a foreign government is that its funding and composition are indigenous to the US. Even critics such as Mearsheimer and Walt have declared its operations “as American as apple pie.” However, as Smith reveals, the lobby was only able to turn into the powerhouse it is today because of the start-up funding it received from Israel and its ability — through stonewalling, deception and subversion of the legal process — to stave off the State Department and the Department of Justice’s attempts to have it registered as a foreign agent. In fascinating detail supported by hundreds of declassified documents (reproduced in the Appendix) Smith reveals the various mechanisms it employed to avoid the purview of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The lobby’s greatest success — to propagate the myth that Israel and the US have identical interests and common enemies — would not have been possible had the Department of Justice succeeded in securing its compliance with FARA. This law requires entities registered under it to mark all their informational material with the disclaimer that their author is the agent of a foreign government.
Central to Smith’s investigation is the person of Isaiah L. Kenen, the Canadian-born founder of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose brief stint as a journalist segued into his long lobbying career. (It is from Kenen’s 1980 history of the lobby, Israel’s Defense Line: Her Friends and Foes in Washington, that Smith draws the title of his book. If for Kenen the lobby was Israel’s defense line, for Smith the US judicial system is America’s.) Kenen began as the director of information for the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs but after the creation of Israel he went on to work for the Israeli embassy’s Office of Information as a press officer.
Already in the late 1940s, writes Smith, Kenen began probing the FARA unit for weaknesses, keenly aware that its restrictions would never allow him “to properly ‘frame’ issues in a sophisticated way that transformed and sold their presentation from Israeli needs to perceived American interests.” He therefore left the Office of Information and joined the American Zionist Council (AZC) as Israel’s domestic lobbyist. The AZC had recently delegated the activities previously carried out by the Jewish Agency at David Ben Gurion’s suggestion in order to bolster the appearance of “indigenous American control.” However, it faced a formidable challenger in the anti-Zionist American Council of Judaism (ACJ), which rejected “all those self-appointed spokesmen who presume to make their partisan claims in the name of all Americans of the Jewish faith.” It was the ACJ that finally took the AZC’s case to the Justice Department, eventually forcing it to register under FARA. This led Kenen to form the American Zionist Public Affairs Committee, soon to be subsumed by AIPAC, as a means of escaping FARA regulations. He also founded a biweekly publication, Near East Report, which introduced many of the themes familiar from the Israel lobby’s recent propaganda. The publication was underwritten by the Jewish Agency, the executive arm of the World Zionist Organization headquartered in Jerusalem.
The Justice Department’s drawn-out struggle to register the lobby under FARA is chronicled by Smith in remarkable detail. These efforts were given a boost first by the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration (deeply resented by Kenen), which would withdraw the AZC’s tax-exempt status, and subsequently by John F. Kennedy, whose Justice Department would eventually lead the AZC to register under FARA. Throughout this period the AZC had to rely on funding from the Jewish Agency. The growing scrutiny only spurred the lobby to devise more sophisticated means of masking this funding through the use of various offshore shell corporations which laundered back tax-exempt aid first raised in the US. Once these mechanisms were revealed during the Fulbright hearings, however, the lobby finally switched to domestic funding. The dogged attempts by Department of Justice officials such as Irene Bowman and Nathan Lenvin eventually came to naught when the assassination of Kennedy led the new Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to go with the prevailing winds (decidedly pro-Israel under president Lyndon Johnson) and scrap the investigation.
Smith also details the strong anti-Zionist current that characterized American Jewry before it was eventually overwhelmed by the better resourced Zionist factions. The initial charge against the Israel lobby was led by the American Council of Judaism, which was headed by reform rabbis such as Elmer Berger, and Jewish universalists such as the philanthropist Lessing Rosenwald. When The Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was concerned about offending “Jewish opinion,” he was deluged with letters from American Jews rejecting the notion as a myth. They saw themselves first and foremost as Americans and they wanted Kennedy to do all that he felt was necessary to protect US interests, including registering the lobby as a foreign agent. However, after the 1967 war, Jewish anti-Zionism would go into hibernation until its revival four decades later by the Iraq war and the role of the mostly Jewish neoconservatives in instigating it.
Despite a 90 page appendix including useful profiles of the various organizations, key declassified documents, samples of racist cartoons published by Near East Report, and a history of incidents related to FARA enforcement, the book could have benefited from adding a concise chronology of events. Better editing could have also eliminated some of its repetitiveness and reduced the confusion that results from the sometimes non-linear narrative style. Nevertheless, the writing remains engaging throughout and the analysis is invariably sharp.
In the wake of the Harman-AIPAC spy affair, calls have intensified for the leading Israel lobby institution to be registered as an agent of a foreign state. The lobby, as one of its stalwarts colorfully put it, is like a “nightflower” which wilts in the sunlight. Those seeking justice for the Palestinians and accountability for the disastrous course of foreign and domestic policy under the lobby’s tutelage could do worse than to ensure constant sunlight. Given the nature of the scandal, the Department of Justice is susceptible to public pressure and thanks to Smith’s indispensable work, we are privy to the means employed by the lobby to thwart similar investigations in the past. Armed with this information, it may finally be possible to uphold what Smith calls “America’s defense line” — the US laws that govern the operations of foreign agents.
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is the co-founder of Pulsemedia.org. He can be reached at m.idrees A T gmail D O T com.
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Immigration is the most pressing concern for Europeans, overtaking the economic situation and unemployment, according to a new Eurobarometer survey.
Thirty-eight percent of Europeans regard immigration as their main policy priority, the spring Eurobarometer poll published on Friday (31 July) found, a 14 point increase from last autumn.
Student or retired? Then this plan is for you.
Migration has been pushed up the political agenda as thousands of migrants from north and sub-Saharan Africa cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life in Europe.
According to Frontex, the EU’s border agency, 153,000 migrants had landed in Europe by the end of June this year, a 150 percent increase on 2014. The largest numbers of migrants have come from Syria, Eritrea and Somalia.
Data published by the UNCHR in June estimated that Greece is the most popular landing-point, with the number of migrants reaching the country by sea soaring to 63,000 this year, slightly higher than the 62,000 who arrived in Italy by sea.
Migrant deaths at sea this year stood at 1,865 in June, the International Organisation for Migration said.
The location of the EU’s smallest member state, Malta, in the south Mediterranean Sea, makes the island a popular entry point for would-be migrants from north Africa, and 65 percent of Maltese respondents cited immigration as their main concern.
Despite the humanitarian crisis, and the large administrative burden for entry-point countries, governments have struggled to accept EU-commission proposals on reallocating asylum-seekers, eventually agreeing a number smaller than originally proposed.
A total of 31,868 people were interviewed across the EU’s 28 member countries and five candidate countries.
Economic prospects, unemployment and public finances continue to dominate concerns in the minds of Europeans, although a 48-42 percent majority agreed that unemployment levels have hit their peak and will gradually fall.
Meanwhile, there was a slight increase in public optimism about the EU’s future and public trust in its institutions.
Trust in the EU’s institutions has now hit 40 percent, nine points higher than at the time of last May’s European elections, fractionally higher than the 40 percent who believe the EU has a positive image.
Public support for economic and monetary union and the euro remains unchanged at 57 percent. However, 69 percent of Greeks say they are in favour of euro membership, a six percent increase on last autumn.
The survey took place between 16-27 May, more than a month before Greece’s referendum on whether to accept its creditors’ bailout terms and the introduction of strict capital controls in the country.
Cyprus is the only eurozone country where a majority of respondents did not support euro membership. However, the survey suggests a big divide in public opinion between the euro ‘ins’ and ‘outs’. Romania was the only non-eurozone country where a majority supported membership of the single currency.
Eighty-three percent of Estonians, whose country joined the euro in 2012, supported the currency bloc, the highest level in the EU. | {
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"Rothbard's approach to monetary history does not focus on measurement but on motives."
In this volume, Murray Rothbard has given us a comprehensive history of money and banking in the United States, from colonial times to World War II, the first to explicitly use the interpretive framework of Austrian monetary theory. But even aside from the explicitly Austrian theoretical framework undergirding the historical narrative, this book does not "look" or "feel" like standard economic histories as they have been written during the past quarter of a century, under the influence of the positivistic "new economic history" or "cliometrics."
The focus of this latter approach to economic history, which today completely dominates this field of inquiry, is on the application of high-powered statistical methods to the analysis of quantitative economic data. What profoundly distinguishes Rothbard's approach from the prevailing approach is his insistence upon treating economic quantities and processes as unique and complex historical events. Thus, he employs the laws of economic theory in conjunction with other relevant disciplines to trace each event back to the nonquantifiable values and goals of the particular actors involved.
In Rothbard's view, economic laws can be relied upon in interpreting these nonrepeatable historical events because the validity of these laws — or, better yet, their truth — can be established with certainty by praxeology, a science based on the universal experience of human action that is logically anterior to the experience of particular historical episodes. It is in this sense that it can be said that economic theory is an a priori science.
In sharp contrast, the new economic historians view history as a laboratory in which economic theory is continually being tested. The economic quantities observed at different dates in history are treated like the homogeneous empirical data generated by a controlled and repeatable experiment. They are used as evidence in statistical tests of hypotheses regarding the causes of a class of events, such as inflations or financial crises, that are observed to recur in history. The hypothesis that best fits the evidence is then tentatively accepted as providing a valid causal explanation of the class of events in question, pending future testing against new evidence that is constantly emerging out of the unfolding historical process.
One of the pioneers of the new economic history, Douglass C. North, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, describes its method in the following terms:
It is impossible to analyze and explain the issues dealt with in economic history without developing initial hypotheses and testing them in the light of available evidence. The initial hypotheses come from the body of economic theory that has evolved in the past 200 years and is being continually tested and refined by empirical inquiry. The statistics provide the precise measurement and empirical evidence by which to test the theory. The limits of inquiry are dictated by the existence of appropriate theory and evidence…. The evidence is, ideally, statistical data that precisely define and measure the issues to be tested.
This endeavor of North and others to deliberately extend the positivist program to economic history immediately confronts two problems. First, as North emphasizes, this approach narrowly limits the kinds of questions that can be investigated in economic history. Those issues that do not readily lend themselves to formulation in quantitative terms or for which statistical data are not available tend to be downplayed or neglected altogether. Thus the new economic historians are more likely to seek answers to questions like, What was the net contribution of the railroad to the growth of real GNP in the United States? Or, what has been the effect of the creation of the Federal Reserve System on the stability of the price level and real output? They are much less likely to address in a meaningful way the questions of what motivated the huge government land grants for railroad rights of way or the passage of the Federal Reserve Act.
In general, the question of "Cui bono?" — or "Who benefits?" — from changes in policies and institutions receives very little attention in the cliometric literature, because the evidence that one needs to answer it, bearing as it does on human motives, is essentially subjective and devoid of a measurable or even quantifiable dimension. This is not to deny that new economic historians have sought to explain the ex post aggregate distribution of income that results from a given change in the institutional framework or in the policy regime. What their method precludes them from doing is identifying the ex ante purposes as well as ideas about the most efficacious means of accomplishing these purposes that motivated the specific individuals who lobbied for or initiated the change that effected a new income distribution. However, avoiding such questions leaves the quantitative data themselves ultimately unexplained. The reason is that the institutions that contribute to their formation, such as the railroads or the Fed, are always the complex resultants of the purposive actions of particular individuals or groups of individuals aimed at achieving definite goals by the use of specific means. So the new economic history is not history in the traditional sense of an attempt to "understand" the human motives underlying the emergence of economic institutions and processes.
The second and even more profound flaw in the new economic history is the relationship it posits between theory and history. For North, history is the source of the "empirical evidence" — that is, "ideally, statistical data" — against which the economic theory is tested. This means that the claim to validity of a particular theorem is always tentative and defeasible, resting as it does on its nonfalsification in previous empirical tests. However, this also means that economic history must be continually revised, because the very theory that is employed to identify the causal relations between historical events can always be falsified by new evidence coming to light in the ongoing historical process. In other words, what the new economic historians characterize as "the intimate relationship between measurement and theory" is in reality the vicious circle that ensnares all attempts to invoke positivist precepts in the interpretation of history. For if the theory used to interpret past events can always be invalidated by future events, then it is unclear whether theory is the explanans or the explanand in historical research.
Rothbard's approach to monetary history does not focus on measurement but on motives. Once the goals of the actors and their ideas about the appropriate means for achieving these goals have been established, economic theory, along with other sciences, is brought to bear to trace out the effects of these actions in producing the complex events and processes of history that are only partially and imperfectly captured in statistical data. This is not to say that Rothbard ignores the quantitative aspects of historical monetary processes. Indeed, his book abounds with money, price, and output data; but these data are always interpreted in terms of the motivations of those who have contributed to their formation. For Rothbard, a particular price datum is, no less than the Spanish-American War, a historical event, and its causes must be traced back to the subjective aims governing human plans and choices.
In flatly rejecting the positivist approach to economic history, Rothbard adopts the method of historical research first formulated by Ludwig von Mises. In developing this method, Mises correctly delineated, for the first time, the relationship between theory and history. It is Rothbard's great contribution in this volume — and his earlier America's Great Depression — to be the first to consistently apply it to economic history. It is worth summarizing this method here for several reasons. First, Mises's writings on the proper method of historical research have inexplicably been almost completely ignored up to the present, even by those who have adopted Mises's praxeological approach in economics. Second, familiarity with Mises's method of historical research illuminates the source and character of the remarkable distinctiveness of Rothbard's historical writings. In particular, it serves to correct the common but mistaken impression that Rothbard's historical writings, especially on the origin and development of the US monetary system, are grounded in nothing more substantial than an idiosyncratic "conspiracy theory of history." Third, it gives us an opportunity to elucidate the important elaboration of Mises's method that Rothbard contributed and that he deploys to great effect in explicating the topic of this volume. And finally, we find in Mises's method a definitive refutation of the positivist's claim that it is impossible to acquire real knowledge of subjective phenomena like human motives and that, therefore, economic history must deal exclusively with observable and measurable phenomena.
To begin with, Mises grounds his discussion of historical method on the insight that ideas are the primordial stuff of history. In his words,
History is the record of human action. Human action is the conscious effort of man to substitute more satisfactory conditions for less satisfactory ones. Ideas determine what are to be considered more and less satisfactory conditions and what means are to be resorted to to alter them. Thus ideas are the main theme of the study of history.
This is not to say that all history should be intellectual history, but that ideas are the ultimate cause of all social phenomena, including and especially economic phenomena. As Mises puts it,
The genuine history of mankind is the history of ideas. It is ideas that distinguish man from all other beings. Ideas engender social institutions, political changes, technological methods of production, and all that is called economic conditions.
Thus, for Mises, history
establishes the fact that men, inspired by definite ideas, made definite judgments of value, chose definite ends, and resorted to definite means in order to attain the ends chosen, and it deals furthermore with the outcome of their actions, the state of affairs the action brought about.
Ideas — specifically those embodying the purposes and values that direct action — are not only the point of contact between history and economics, but differing attitudes toward them are precisely what distinguish the methods of the two disciplines. Both economics and history deal with individual choices of ends and the judgments of value underlying them. On the one hand, economic theory as a branch of praxeology takes these value judgments and choices as given data and restricts itself to logically inferring from them the laws governing the valuing and pricing of the means or "goods." Therefore, economics does not inquire into the individual's motivations in valuing and choosing specific ends. Hence, contrary to the positivist method, the truth of economic theorems is substantiated apart from and without reference to specific and concrete historical experience. They are the conclusions of logically valid deduction from universal experience of the fact that humans adopt means that they believe to be appropriate in attaining ends that they judge to be valuable.
The subject of history, on the other hand, "is action and the judgments of value directing action toward definite ends." This means that for history, in contrast to economics, actions and value judgments are not ultimate "givens" but, in Mises's words, "are the starting point of a specific mode of reflection, of the specific understanding of the historical sciences of human action." Equipped with the method of "specific understanding," the historian, "when faced with a value judgment and the resulting action … may try to understand how they originated in the mind of the actor."
The difference between the methods of economics and history may be illustrated with the following example. The economist qua economist "explains" the Vietnam War–era inflation that began in the mid-1960s and culminated in the inflationary recession of 1973–1975 by identifying those actions of the Fed with respect to the money supply that initiated and sustained it. The historian, including the economic historian, however, must identify and then assign weights to all those factors that motivated the various members of the Fed's Board of Governors (or of the Federal Open Market Committee) to adopt this course of action. These factors include ideology; partisan politics; pressure exerted by the incumbent administration; the grasp of economic theory; the expressed and perceived desires of the Fed's constituencies, including commercial bankers and bond dealers; the informal power and influence of the Fed chairman within the structure of governance; and so on.
In short, the economic historian must supply the motives underlying the actions that are relevant to explaining the historical event. And for this task, his only suitable tool is understanding. Thus, as Mises puts it,
The scope of understanding is the mental grasp of phenomena which cannot be totally elucidated by logic, mathematics, praxeology, and the natural sciences to the extent that they cannot be cleared up by all these sciences.
To say that a full explanation of any historical event, including an economic one, requires that the method of specific understanding be applied is not to diminish the importance of pure economic theory in the study of history. Indeed, as Mises points out, economics
provides in its field a consummate interpretation of past events recorded and a consummate anticipation of the effects to be expected from future actions of a definite kind. Neither this interpretation nor this anticipation tells anything about the actual content and quality of the actual individuals' judgments of value. Both presuppose that the individuals are valuing and acting, but their theorems are independent of and unaffected by the particular characteristics of this valuing and acting.
For Mises, then, if the historian is to present a complete explanation of a particular event, he must bring to bear not only his "specific understanding" of the motives of action but the theorems of economic science as well as those of the other "aprioristic," or nonexperimental, sciences, such as logic and mathematics. He must also utilize knowledge yielded by the natural sciences, including the applied sciences of technology and therapeutics. Familiarity with the teachings of all these disciplines is required in order to correctly identify the causal relevance of a particular action to a historical event, to trace out its specific consequences, and to evaluate its success from the point of view of the actor's goals.
For example, without knowledge of the economic theorem that, ceteris paribus, changes in the supply of money cause inverse changes in its purchasing power, a historian of the price inflation of the Vietnam War-era probably would ignore the Fed and its motives altogether. Perhaps, he is under the influence of the erroneous Galbraithian doctrine of administered prices with its implication of cost-push inflation. In this case, he might concentrate exclusively and irrelevantly on the motives of union leaders in demanding large wage increases and on the objectives of the "technostructure" of large business firms in acceding to these demands and deciding what part of the cost increase to pass on to consumers. Thus, according to Mises,
If what these disciplines [i.e., the aprioristic and the natural sciences] teach is insufficient or if the historian chooses an erroneous theory out of several conflicting theories held by the specialists, his effort is misled and his performance is abortive.
But what exactly is the historical method of specific understanding, and how can it provide true knowledge of a wholly subjective and unobservable phenomenon like human motivation? First of all, as Mises emphasizes, the specific understanding of past events is
not a mental process exclusively resorted to by historians. It is applied by everybody in daily intercourse with all his fellows. It is a technique employed in all interhuman relations. It is practiced by children in the nursery and kindergarten, by businessmen in trade, by politicians and statesmen in affairs of state. All are eager to get information about other people's valuations and plans and to appraise them correctly.
The reason this technique is so ubiquitously employed by people in their daily affairs is because all action aims at rearranging future conditions so that they are more satisfactory from the actor's point of view. However, the future situation that actually emerges always depends partly on the purposes and choices of others besides the actor. In order to achieve his ends, then, the actor must anticipate not only changes affecting the future state of affairs caused by natural phenomena, but also the changes that result from the conduct of others who, like him, are contemporaneously planning and acting. Understanding the values and goals of others is thus an inescapable prerequisite for successful action.
Now, the method that provides the individual planning action with information about the values and goals of other actors is essentially the same method employed by the historian who seeks knowledge of the values and goals of actors in bygone epochs. Mises emphasizes the universal application of this method by referring to the actor and the historian as "the historian of the future" and "the historian of the past," respectively. Regardless of the purpose for which it is used, therefore, understanding
aims at establishing the facts that men attach a definite meaning to the state of their environment, that they value this state and, motivated by these judgments of value, resort to definite means in order to preserve or to attain a definite state of affairs different from that which would prevail if they abstained from any purposeful reaction. Understanding deals with judgments of value, with the choice of ends and of the means resorted to for the attainment of these ends, and with the valuation of the outcome of actions performed.
Furthermore, whether directed toward planning action or interpreting history, the exercise of specific understanding is not an arbitrary or haphazard enterprise peculiar to each individual historian or actor; it is the product of a discipline that Mises calls "thymology," which encompasses "knowledge of human valuations and volitions." Mises characterizes this discipline as follows:
Thymology is on the one hand an offshoot of introspection and on the other a precipitate of historical experience. It is what everybody learns from intercourse with his fellows. It is what a man knows about the way in which people value different conditions, about their wishes and desires and their plans to realize these wishes and desires. It is the knowledge of the social environment in which a man lives and acts or, with historians, of a foreign milieu about which he has learned by studying special sources.
Thus, Mises tells us, thymology can be classified as "a branch of history" since "[i]t derives its knowledge from historical experience." Consequently, the epistemic product of thymological experience is categorically different from the knowledge derived from experiments in the natural sciences. Experimental knowledge consists of "scientific facts" whose truth is independent of time. Thymological knowledge is confined to "historical facts," which are unique and nonrepeatable events. Accordingly, Mises concludes,
All that thymology can tell us is that in the past definite men or groups of men were valuing and acting in a definite way. Whether they will in the future value and act in the same way remains uncertain. All that can be asserted about their future conduct is speculative anticipation of the future based on specific understanding of the historical branches of the sciences of human action…. What thymology achieves is the elaboration of a catalogue of human traits. It can moreover establish the fact that certain traits appeared in the past as a rule in connection with certain other traits.
More concretely, all our anticipations about how family members, friends, acquaintances, and strangers will react in particular situations are based on our accumulated thymological experience. That a spouse will appreciate a specific type of jewelry for her birthday, that a friend will enthusiastically endorse our plan to see a Clint Eastwood movie, that a particular student will complain about his grade — all these expectations are based on our direct experience of their past modes of valuing and acting. Even our expectations of how strangers will react in definite situations or what course political, social, and economic events will take are based on thymology. For example, our reservoir of thymological experience provides us with the knowledge that men are jealous of their wives. Thus, it allows us to "understand" and forecast that if a man makes overt advances to a married woman in the presence of her husband, he will almost certainly be rebuffed and runs a considerable risk of being punched in the nose. Moreover, we may forecast with a high degree of certitude that both the Republican and the Democratic nominees will outpoll the Libertarian Party candidate in a forthcoming presidential election; that the price for commercial time during the televising of the Major League Soccer championship will not exceed the price for commercials during the broadcast of the Super Bowl next year; that the average price of a personal computer will be neither $1 million nor $10 in three months; and that the author of this paper will never be crowned king of England. All of these forecasts, and literally millions of others of a similar degree of certainty, are based on the specific understanding of the values and goals motivating millions of nameless actors.
As noted, the source of thymological experience is our interactions with and observations of other people. It is
acquired either directly from observing our fellow men and transacting business with them or indirectly from reading and from hearsay, as well as out of our special experience acquired in previous contacts with the individuals or groups concerned.
Such mundane experience is accessible to all who have reached the age of reason and forms the bedrock foundation for forecasting the future conduct of others whose actions will affect their plans. Furthermore, as Mises points out, the use of thymological knowledge in everyday affairs is straightforward:
Thymology tells no more than that man is driven by various innate instincts, various passions, and various ideas. The anticipating individual tries to set aside those factors that manifestly do not play any concrete role in the concrete case under consideration. Then he chooses among the remaining ones.
To aid in this task of narrowing down the goals and desires that are likely to motivate the behavior of particular individuals, we resort to the "thymological concept" of "human character." The concrete content of the "character" we attribute to a specific individual is based on our direct or indirect knowledge of his past behavior. In formulating our plans, "We assume that this character will not change if no special reasons interfere, and, going a step further, we even try to foretell how definite changes in conditions will affect his reactions." It is confidence in our spouse's "character," for example, that permits us to leave for work each morning secure in the knowledge that he or she will not suddenly disappear with the children and the family bank account. And our saving and investment plans involve an image of Alan Greenspan's character that is based on our direct or indirect knowledge of his past actions and utterances. In formulating our intertemporal consumption plans, we are thus led to completely discount or assign a very low likelihood to the possibility that he will either deliberately orchestrate a 10 percent deflation of the money supply or attempt to peg the short-run interest rate at zero percent in the foreseeable future.
Despite reliance on the tool of thymological experience, however, all human understanding of future events remains uncertain, to some degree, for these events are generally a complex resultant of various causal factors operating concurrently. All forecasts of the future, therefore, must involve not only an enumeration of the factors that operate in bringing about the anticipated result but also the weighting of the relative influence of each factor on the outcome. Of the two, the more difficult problem is that of apportioning the proper weights among the various operative factors. Even if the actor accurately and completely identifies all the causal factors involved, the likelihood of the forecast event being realized depends on the actor having solved the weighting problem. The uncertainty inherent in forecasting, therefore, stems mainly from the intricacy of assigning the correct weights to different actions and the intensity of their effects.
While thymology powerfully, but implicitly, shapes everyone's understanding of and planning for the future in every facet of life, the thymological method is used deliberately and rigorously by the historian who seeks a specific understanding of the motives underlying the value judgments and choices of the actors whom he judges to have been central to the specific event or epoch he is interested in explaining. Like future events and situations envisioned in the plans of actors, all historical events and the epochs they define are unique and complex outcomes codetermined by numerous human actions and reactions. This is the meaning of Mises's statement,
History is a sequence of changes. Every historical situation has its individuality, its own characteristics that distinguish it from any other situation. The stream of history never returns to a previously occupied point. History is not repetitious.
It is precisely because history does not repeat itself that thymological experience does not yield certain knowledge of the cause of historical events in the same way as experimentation in the natural sciences. Thus the historian, like the actor, must resort to specific understanding when enumerating the various motives and actions that bear a causal relation to the event in question and when assigning each action's contribution to the outcome a relative weight. In this task, "Understanding is in the realm of history the equivalent, as it were, of quantitative analysis and measurement." The historian uses specific understanding to try to gauge the causal "relevance" of each factor to the outcome. But such assessments of relevance do not take the form of objective measurements calculable by statistical techniques; they are expressed in the form of subjective "judgments of relevance" based on thymology. Successful entrepreneurs tend to be those who consistently formulate a superior understanding of the likelihood of future events based on thymology.
The weighting problem that confronts actors and historians may be illustrated with the following example. The Fed increases the money supply by 5 percent in response to a 20 percent plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average — or, perhaps now, the Nasdaq — that ignites fears of a recession and a concomitant increase in the demand for liquidity on the part of households and firms. At the same time, OPEC announces a 10 percent increase in its members' quotas and the US Congress increases the minimum wage by 10 percent. In order to answer the question of what the overall impact of these events will be on the purchasing power of money six months hence, specific understanding of individuals' preferences and expectations is required in order to weight and time the influence of each of these events on the relationship between the supply of and the demand for money. The ceteris-paribus laws of economic theory are strictly qualitative and only indicate the direction of the effect each of these events has on the purchasing power of money and that the change occurs during a sequential adjustment process so that some time must elapse before the full effect emerges. Thus the entrepreneur or economist must always supplement economic theory with an act of historical judgment or understanding when attempting to forecast any economic quantity. The economic historian, too, exercises understanding when making judgments of relevance about the factors responsible for the observed movements of the value of money during historical episodes of inflation or deflation.
Rothbard's contribution to Mises's method of historical research involves the creation of a guide that mitigates some of the uncertainty associated with formulating judgments of relevance about human motives. According to Rothbard, "It is part of the inescapable condition of the historian that he must make estimates and judgments about human motivation even though he cannot ground his judgments in absolute and apodictic certainty." But the task of assigning motives and weighting their relevance is rendered more difficult by the fact that, in many cases, historical actors, especially those seeking economic gain through the political process, are inclined to deliberately obscure the reasons for their conduct. Generally in these situations, Rothbard points out, "the actor himself tries his best to hide his economic motive and to trumpet his more abstract and ideological concerns."
Rothbard contends, however, that such attempts to obfuscate or conceal the pecuniary motive for an action by appeals to higher goals are easily discerned and exposed by the historian in those cases "where the causal chain of economic interest to action is simple and direct." Thus, for example, when the steel industry lobbies for higher tariffs or reduced quotas, no sane adult, and certainly no competent historian, believes that it is doing so out of its stated concern for the "public interest" or "national security." Despite its avowed motives, everyone clearly perceives that the primary motivation of the industry is economic, that is, to restrict foreign competition in order to increase profits. But a problem arises in those cases "when actions involve longer and more complex causal chains." Rothbard points to the Marshall Plan as an example of the latter. In this instance, the widely proclaimed motives of the architects of the plan were to prevent starvation in Western European nations and to strengthen their resistance to the allures of Communism. Not a word was spoken about the goal that was also at the root of the Marshall Plan: promoting and subsidizing US export industries. It was only through painstaking research that historians were later able to uncover and assess the relevance of the economic motive at work.
Given the propensity of those seeking and dispensing privileges and subsidies in the political arena to lie about their true motives, Rothbard formulates what he describes as "a theoretical guide which will indicate in advance whether or not a historical action will be predominantly for economic, or for ideological, motives." Now, it is true that Rothbard derives this guide from his overall worldview. The historian's worldview, however, should not be interpreted as a purely ideological construction or an unconscious reflection of his normative biases. In fact, every historian must be equipped with a worldview — an interrelated set of ideas about the causal relationships governing how the world works — in order to ascertain which facts are relevant in the explanation of a particular historical event. According to Rothbard, "Facts, of course, must be selected and ordered in accordance with judgments of importance, and such judgments are necessarily tied into the historian's basic world outlook."
Specifically, in Mises's approach to history, the worldview comprises the necessary preconceptions regarding causation with which the historian approaches the data and which are derived from his knowledge of both the aprioristic and natural sciences. According to Mises,
History is not an intellectual reproduction, but a condensed representation of the past in conceptual terms. The historian does not simply let the events speak for themselves. He arranges them from the aspect of the ideas underlying the formation of the general notions he uses in their presentation. He does not report facts as they happened, but only relevant facts. He does not approach the documents without presuppositions, but equipped with the whole apparatus of his age's scientific knowledge, that is, with all the teachings of contemporary logic, mathematics, praxeology, and natural science.
So, for example, the fact that heavy speculation against the German mark accompanied its sharp plunge on foreign-exchange markets is not significant for an Austrian-oriented economic historian seeking to explain the stratospheric rise in commodity prices that characterized the German hyperinflation of the early 1920s. This is because he approaches this event armed with the supply-and-demand theory of money and the purchasing-power–parity theory of the exchange rate. These "presuppositions" derived from praxeology lead him to avoid any attribution of causal significance to the actions of foreign-exchange speculators in accounting for the precipitous decline of the domestic purchasing power of the mark. Instead they direct his attention to the motives of the German Reichsbank in expanding the money supply. In the same manner, a modern historian investigating the cause and dissemination of bubonic plague in 14th-century Europe would presuppose that the blossoming of religious heresy during that period would have no significance for his investigation. Instead he would allow himself to be guided by the conclusions of modern medical science regarding the epidemiology of the disease.
The importance of Rothbard's theoretical guide is that it adds something completely new to the historian's arsenal of scientific preconceptions that aids him in making judgments of relevance when investigating the motives of those who promote or oppose specific political actions. The novelty and brilliance of this guide lies in the fact that it is neither a purely aprioristic law like an economic theorem nor an experimentally established "fact" of the natural sciences. Rather it is a sociological generalization grounded on a creative blend of thymological experience and economic theory. At the core of this generalization is the insight that the state throughout history has been essentially an organization of a segment of the population that forsakes peaceful economic activity to constitute itself as a ruling class. This class makes its living parasitically by establishing a permanent hegemonic or "political" relationship between itself and the productive members of the population. This political relationship permits the rulers to subsist on the tribute or taxes routinely and "legally" expropriated from the income and wealth of the producing class. The latter class is composed of the "subjects" or, in the case of democratic states, the "taxpayers," who earn their living through the peaceful "economic means" of production and voluntary exchange. In contrast, constituents of the ruling class may be thought of as "tax consumers" who earn their living through the coercive "political means" of taxation and the sale of monopoly privileges.
Rothbard argues that economic logic dictates that the king and his courtiers, or the democratic government and its special-interest groups, can never constitute more than a small minority of the country's population — that all states, regardless of their formal organization, must effectively involve oligarchic rule. The reasons for this are twofold. First, the fundamentally parasitic nature of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled by itself necessitates that the majority of the population engages in productive activity in order to be able to pay the tribute or taxes extracted by the ruling class while still sustaining its own existence. If the ruling class comprised the majority of the population, economic collapse and systemic breakdown would swiftly ensue as the productive class died out. The majoritarian ruling class itself then would either be forced into productive activity or dissolve into internecine warfare aimed at establishing a new and more stable — that is, oligarchic — relationship between rulers and producers.
The second reason why the ruling class tends to be an oligarchy is related to the law of comparative advantage. In a world where human abilities and skills vary widely, the division of labor and specialization pervades all sectors of the economy as well as society as a whole. Thus, not only is it the case that a relatively small segment of the populace possesses a comparative advantage in developing new software, selling mutual funds, or playing professional football; it is also the case that only a fraction of the population tends to excel at wielding coercive power. Moreover, the law of comparative advantage governs the structure of relationships within as well as between organizations, accounting for the hierarchical structure that we almost invariably observe within individual organizations. Whether we are considering a business enterprise, a chess club, or a criminal gang, an energetic and visionary elite invariably comes to the fore, either formally or informally, to lead and direct the relatively inert majority. This "Iron Law of Oligarchy," as this internal manifestation of the law of comparative advantage has been dubbed, operates to transform an initially majoritarian democratic government, or even a decentralized republican government, into a tightly centralized state controlled by a ruling elite.
The foregoing analysis leads Rothbard to conclude that the exercise of political power is inherently an oligarchic enterprise. The small minority that excels in wielding political power will tend to coalesce and devote an extraordinary amount of mental energy and other resources to establishing and maintaining a permanent and lucrative hegemonic bond over the productive majority. Accordingly, since politics is the main source of their income, the policies and actions of the members of this oligarchic ruling class will be driven primarily by economic motives. The exploited producing class, in contrast, will not expend nearly as many resources on politics, and their actions in the political arena will not be motivated by economic gain to the same degree, precisely because they are absorbed in earning their livelihoods in their own chosen areas of specialization on the market. As Rothbard explains,
the ruling class, being small and largely specialized, is motivated to think about its economic interests twenty-four hours a day. The steel manufacturers seeking a tariff, the bankers seeking taxes to repay their government bonds, the rulers seeking a strong state from which to obtain subsidies, the bureaucrats wishing to expand their empire, are all professionals in statism. They are constantly at work trying to preserve and expand their privileges.
The ruling class, however, confronts one serious and ongoing problem: how to persuade the productive majority — whose tribute or taxes it consumes — that its laws, regulations, and policies are beneficial; that is, that they coincide with "the public interest" or are designed to promote "the common good" or to optimize "social welfare." Given its minority status, failure to solve this problem exposes the political class to serious consequences. Even passive resistance by a substantial part of the producers, in the form of mass tax resistance, renders the income of the political class and, therefore, its continued existence extremely precarious. More ominously, attempts to suppress such resistance may cause it to spread and intensify and eventually boil over into an active revolution whose likely result is the forcible ousting of the minority exploiting class from its position of political power. Here is where the intellectuals come in. It is their task to convince the public to actively submit to state rule because it is beneficial to do so, or at least to passively endure the state's depredations because the alternative is anarchy and chaos. In return for fabricating an ideological cover for its exploitation of the masses of subjects or taxpayers, these "court intellectuals" are rewarded with the power, wealth, and prestige of a junior partnership in the ruling elite. Whereas in preindustrial times these apologists for state rule were associated with the clergy, in modern times — at least since the Progressive Era in the United States — they have been drawn increasingly from the academy.
Politicians, bureaucrats, and those whom they subsidize and privilege within the economy thus routinely trumpet lofty ideological motives for their actions in order to conceal from the exploited and plundered citizenry their true motive of economic gain. In today's world, these motives are expressed in the rhetoric of "social democracy" in Europe and that of modern — or welfare-state — liberalism in the United States. In the past, ruling oligarchies have appealed to the ideologies of royal absolutism, Marxism, Progressivism, Fascism, National Socialism, New Deal liberalism, and so on to camouflage their economic goals in advocating a continual aggrandizement of state power. In devising his theoretical guide, then, Rothbard seeks to provide historians with a means of piercing the shroud of ideological rhetoric and illuminating the true motives underlying the policies and actions of ruling elites throughout history. As Rothbard describes this guide, whenever the would-be or actual proprietors and beneficiaries of the state act,
when they form a State, or a centralizing Constitution, when they go to war or create a Marshall Plan or use and increase State power in any way, their primary motivation is economic: to increase their plunder at the expense of the subject and taxpayer. The ideology that they profess and that is formulated and spread through society by the Court Intellectuals is merely an elaborate rationalization for their venal economic interests. The ideology is the smoke screen for their loot, the fictitious clothes spun by the intellectuals to hide the naked plunder of the Emperor. The task of the historian, then, is to penetrate to the essence of the transaction, to strip the ideological garb from the Emperor State and to reveal the economic motive at the heart of the issue.
In characterizing the modern democratic State as essentially a means for coercively redistributing income from producers to politicians, bureaucrats, and special-interest groups, Rothbard opens himself up to the charge of espousing a conspiracy theory of economic history. But it is his emphasis on the almost-universal propensity of those who employ the political means for economic gain to conceal their true motives with ideological cant that makes him especially susceptible to this charge. Indeed, the Chicago School's theory of economic regulation and the public-choice theory of the Virginia School also portray politicians, bureaucrats, and industries regulated by the state as interested almost exclusively in maximizing their utility in the narrow sense, which in many, if not most, cases involves a maximization of pecuniary gain. However, economists of both schools are inured against the charge of conspiracy theory because in their applied work they generally eschew a systematic, thymological investigation of the actual motives of those individuals or groups whose actions they are analyzing. Instead, their positivist methodology inclines them to mechanically impute to real actors in concrete historical circumstances a narrowly conceived utility maximization.
James Buchanan, one of the founders of public-choice theory, writes, for instance, that economists pursuing this paradigm tend
to bring with them models of man that have been found useful within economic theory, models that have been used to develop empirically testable and empirically corroborated hypotheses. These models embody the presumption that persons seek to maximize their own utilities, and their own narrowly defined economic well-being is an important component of these utilities.
George Stigler, who pioneered the theory of economic regulation, argues, "There is, in fact, only one theory of human behavior, and that is the utility-maximizing theory." But for Stigler, unlike Rothbard or Mises, the exact arguments of the utility function of flesh-and-blood actors are not ascertained by the historical method of specific understanding but by the empirical method. Thus, Stigler argues,
The first purpose of the empirical studies [of regulatory policy] is to identify the purpose of the legislation! The announced goals of a policy are sometimes unrelated or perversely related to its actual effects and the truly intended effects should be deduced from the actual effects. This is not a tautology designed to gloss over a hard problem, but instead a hypothesis on the nature of political life…. If an economic policy has been adopted by many communities, or if it is persistently pursued by a society over a long span of time, it is fruitful to assume that the real effects were known and desired.
By thus discounting the effect of erroneous ideas about the appropriate means for achieving preferred goals on the choices made by historical actors, Stigler the positivist seeks to free himself from the task of delving into the murky and unmeasurable phenomenon of motives. Without doubt, if the historical outcome of a policy or action is always what was aimed at by an individual or organization — because, according to Stigler, "errors are not what men live by or on" — then there is no need to ever address the question of motive. For Stigler, then, there is no reason for the historian to try to subjectively understand the motive for an action because the actor's goal is objectively revealed by the observed result. Now, Stigler would probably agree that it is absurd to assume that Hitler was aiming at defeat in World War II by doggedly pursuing his disastrous policy on the Eastern front over an extended period of time. But this assumption only appears absurd to us in light of the thymological insight into Hitler's mind achieved by examining the records of his actions, policies, utterances, and writings, and those of his associates. This insight leads us to an understanding that cannot be reasonably doubted by anyone of normal intelligence: that Hitler was fervently seeking victory in the war.
Rothbard insists that the same method of specific understanding that allows the historian to grasp Hitler's objectives in directing the German military campaign against the Soviet Union also is appropriate when attempting to discern the motives of those who lobby for a tariff or for the creation of a central bank. Accordingly, the guide that Rothbard originates to direct the economic historian first to a search for evidence of an unspoken economic motive in such instances is only a guide. As such, it can never rule out in advance the possibility that an ideological or altruistic goal may serve as the dominant motivation in a specific case. If his research turns up no evidence of a hidden economic motive, then the historian must explore further for ideological or other noneconomic motives that may be operating. Thus, as Rothbard points out, his approach to economic history, whether it is labeled a "conspiracy theory of history" or not, "is really only praxeology applied to human history, in assuming that men have motives on which they act." This approach also respects what Mises has called "historical individuality" by assuming that "[t]he characteristics of individual men, their ideas and judgments of value as well as the actions guided by those ideas and judgments, cannot be traced back to something of which they would be the derivatives." In sharp contrast, the positivist methods of Stigler and Buchanan attempt to force participants in historical events into the Procrustean bed of homo economicus, who ever and unerringly seeks for his own economic gain.
We can more fully appreciate the significance of Rothbard's methodological innovation by briefly contrasting his explanation of the origins of the Federal Reserve System with the explanation given by Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz in their influential work, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Since its publication in 1963, this book has served as the standard reference work for all subsequent research in US monetary history. While Friedman and Schwartz cannot exactly be classified as new economic historians, their book is written from a strongly positivist viewpoint and its methods are congenial to those pursuing research in this paradigm. For example, in the preface to the book, Friedman and Schwartz write that their aim is "to provide a prologue and a background for a statistical analysis of the secular and cyclical behavior of money in the United States, and to exclude any material not relevant to that purpose." In particular it is not their ambition to write "a full-scale economic and political history that would be required to record at all comprehensively the role of money in the United States in the past century." Thus, in effect, the behavior of the unmotivated money supply takes center stage in this tome of 808 pages including appendices. Indeed, the opening sentence of the book reads, "This book is about the stock of money in the United States."
Now Friedman and Schwartz certainly do not, and would not, deny that movements in the money supply are caused by the purposeful actions of motivated human beings. Rather, the positivist methodology they espouse constrains them to narrowly focus their historical narrative on the observable outcomes of these actions and never to formally address their motivation. For, according to the positivist philosophy of science, it is only observable and quantifiable phenomena that can be assigned the status of "cause" in a scientific investigation, while human motives are intensive qualities lacking a quantifiable dimension. So, if one is to write a monetary history that is scientific in the strictly positivist sense, the title must be construed quite literally as the chronicling of quantitative variations in a selected monetary aggregate and the measurable effects of these variations on other quantifiable economic variables, such as the price level and real output.
However, even Friedman and Schwartz's Monetary History must occasionally emerge from the bog of statistical analysis and address human motivation in order to explain the economic events, intellectual controversies, social conflicts, and political maneuverings that had an undeniable and fundamental impact on the institutional framework of the money supply. Due to the awkward fit of motives into the positivist framework, however, Friedman and Schwartz's forays into human history tend to be cursory and unilluminating, when not downright misleading. For example, their two chapters dealing with the crucial period from 1879 to 1914 in US monetary history comprise 100 pages, only 11 of which are devoted to discussing the political and social factors that culminated in the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. In these pages, Friedman and Schwartz suggest that the "money ‘issue'" that consumed American politics in the last three decades of the 19th century was precipitated by "the crime of 1873" and was almost exclusively driven by the silver interests in league with the inflationist and agrarian Populist Party. This movement, moreover, was partly expressive of the 1890s, a decade that, according to C. Vann Woodward as quoted by the authors, "had rather more than its share of zaniness and crankiness, and that these qualities were manifested in the higher and middling as well as lower orders of American society." In thus trivializing the "money issue," the authors completely ignore the calculated and covert drive by the Wall Street banks led by the Morgans and Rockefellers for a cartelization of the entire banking industry, with themselves and their political allies at the helm. This movement, which began in earnest in the 1890s, was also in part a reaction to the proposals of the silverite and agrarian inflationists and was aimed at reserving to the banks the gains forthcoming from monetary inflation.
Friedman and Schwartz thus portray the drive toward a central bank as completely unconnected with the money issue and as only getting under way in reaction to the panic of 1907 and the problem with the "inelasticity of the currency" that was then commonly construed as its cause. The result is that they characterize the Federal Reserve System as the product of a straightforward, disinterested, bipartisan effort to provide a practical solution to a purely technical problem afflicting the monetary system. Nowhere in their discussion of the genesis of the Federal Reserve System do Friedman and Schwartz raise the all-important question of precisely which groups benefitted from this "solution." Nor do they probe deeply into the motives of the proponents of the Federal Reserve Act. After a brief and superficial account of the events leading up to the enactment of the law, they hasten to return to the main task of their "monetary history" which, as Friedman expresses it in another work, is "to add to our tested knowledge."
For Friedman and Schwartz, then, the central aim of economic history is the testing of hypotheses suggested by empirical regularities observed in the historical data. Accordingly, Friedman and Schwartz describe their approach to economic history as "conjectural history — the tale of ‘what might have been.'" In their view, the primary task of the economic historian is to identify the observable set of circumstances that accounts for the emergence of the historical events under investigation by formulating and testing theoretical conjectures about the course of events that would have developed in the absence of these circumstances. This "counterfactual method," as the new economic historians refer to it, explains the historical events in question and, at the same time, adds to the "tested knowledge" of theoretical relationships to be utilized in future investigations in economic history.
Friedman and Schwartz exemplify this method in their treatment of the panic of 1907. During this episode, banks swiftly restricted cash payments to their depositors within weeks after the financial crisis struck, and there ensued no large-scale failure or even temporary closing of banks. Friedman and Schwartz formulate from this experience the theoretical conjecture that, when a financial crisis strikes, early restrictions on currency payments work to prevent a large-scale disruption of the banking system. They then test this conjecture by reference to the events of 1929–1933. In this case, although the financial crisis began with the crash of the stock market in October 1929, cash payments to bank depositors were not restricted until March 1933. From 1930 to 1933, there occurred a massive wave of bank failures. The theoretical conjecture, or "counterfactual statement," that a timely restriction of cash payments would have checked the spread of a financial crisis, is therefore empirically validated by this episode because, in the absence of a timely bank restriction, a wave of bank failures did, in fact, occur after 1929.
Granted, Friedman and Schwartz do recognize that these theoretical conjectures cannot be truly tested because "[t]here is no way to repeat the experiment precisely and so to test these conjectures in detail." Nonetheless, they maintain that "all analytical history, history that seeks to interpret and not simply record the past, is of this character, which is why history must be continuously rewritten in the light of new evidence as it unfolds." In other words, history must be revised repeatedly because the very theory that is employed to interpret it is itself subject to constant revision on the basis of "new evidence" that is continually coming to light in the ongoing historical process. As pointed out above, this is the vicious circle that characterizes all attempts to apply the positive method to the interpretation of history.
As if to preempt recognition of this vicious circle, Friedman and Schwartz take as the motto of their volume a famous quote from Alfred Marshall, which reads in part,
Experience … brings out the impossibility of learning anything from facts till they are examined and interpreted by reason; and teaches that the most reckless and treacherous of all theorists is he who professes to let facts and figures speak for themselves.
But clearly, reason teaches us that the observable — and, in some cases, countable, but never measurable — events of economic history ultimately are caused by the purposive actions of human beings whose goals and motives can never be directly observed. In rejecting the historical method of specific understanding, Friedman and Schwartz are led not by reason, but by a narrow positivist prepossession with using history as a laboratory, albeit imperfect, for formulating and testing theories that will allow prediction and control of future phenomena. Of the underlying intent of such a positivist approach to history, Mises wrote, "This discipline will abstract from historical experience laws which could render to social ‘engineering' the same services the laws of physics render to technological engineering."
Needless to say, for Rothbard, history can never serve even as an imperfect laboratory for testing theory, because of his agreement with Mises that "the subject matter of history … is value judgments and their projection into the reality of change." In seeking to explain the origins of the Federal Reserve System, therefore, Rothbard focuses on the question of who would reasonably have expected to benefit from and valued such a radical change in the monetary system. Here is where Rothbard's scientific worldview comes into play. As an Austrian monetary theorist, he recognizes that the limits on bank-credit inflation confronted by a fractional-reserve banking system based on gold are likely to be much less confining under a central bank than under the quasi-decentralized National Banking System put in place immediately prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. The praxeological reasoning of Austrian monetary theory also leads to the conclusion that those who stand to reap the lion's share of the economic benefits from a bank-credit inflation tend to be the lenders and first recipients of the newly created notes and deposits, namely, commercial and investment bankers and their clients. Guided by the implications of this praxeological knowledge and of his thymological rule about the motives of those who lobby for state laws and regulations, Rothbard is led to scrutinize the goals and actions of the large Wall Street commercial and investment bankers, their industrial clientele, and their relatives and allies in the political arena.
Rothbard's analysis of the concrete evidence demonstrates that, beginning in the late 1890s, a full decade before the panic of 1907, this Wall Street banking axis and allied special interests began to surreptitiously orchestrate and finance an intellectual and political movement agitating for the imposition of a central bank. This movement included academic economists who covered up its narrow and venal economic interests by appealing to the allegedly universal economic benefits that would be forthcoming from a central bank operating as a benevolent and disinterested provider of an "elastic" currency and "lender of last resort." In fact, what the banking and business elites dearly desired was a central bank that would provide an elastic supply of paper reserves to supplement existing gold reserves. Banks' access to additional reserves would facilitate a larger and more lucrative bank-credit inflation and, more important, would provide the means to ward off or mitigate the recurrent financial crises that had brought past inflationary booms to an abrupt and disastrous end in bank failures and industrial depression.
Rothbard employs the approach to economic history exemplified in this treatment of the origins of the Fed consistently and dazzlingly throughout this volume to unravel the causes and consequences of events and institutions ranging over the course of US monetary history, from colonial times through the New Deal era. One of the important benefits of Rothbard's unique approach is that it naturally leads to an account of the development of the US monetary system in terms of a compelling narrative linking human motives and plans that oftentimes are hidden and devious to outcomes that sometimes are tragic. And one will learn much more about monetary history from reading this exciting story than from poring over reams of statistical analysis.
This essay originally appeared as the introduction to History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II. | {
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We learn how to apply the concepts of The Pragmatic Programmer to teams while Michael uses his advertisement voice, Joe has a list, and Allen doesn’t want anyone up in his Wheaties.
In case you’re using your podcast player to read these show notes, you can find this episode’s full show notes and join the conversation at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode114.
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Survey Says …
Anonymous Vote Sign in with Wordpress What's your favorite type of swag? Stickers, because they make my laptop go faster.
Shirts, because I wear them pretty often and they make me look pretty.
Water bottles. Gotta stay hydrated. And then run to the bathroom inbetween talks.
Coffee cups. Coding requires coffee.
Hats, because everyone has a bad hair day every now and then.
Socks. Everyone loves super cute socks. Except Florida man.
Bags, because they cost the most.
Pens/notebooks, in case I need to write something down super quick! vote
News
A big thank you to those that took a moment out of their busy lives to leave us a review: iTunes: SimplyManuel, Eric Shin Is Strong, WwHG10 Stitcher: AwesomeWithLawson, Glen Moyes, SimplyManuel, codesfrcoffee, RedPeril, TGibson, Lecherouscthulhu
Come see us at Atlanta Code Camp 2019. Allen will be giving his Real Time Data with Kafka Streams talk, And Joe will be giving his What’s this crazy JAMstack? talk.
Joe was a guest on episode 10 of the Backend Bear.
Building Pragmatic Teams
The methods learned so far from this book can be applied to teams in addition to the individual.
By working on a “pragmatic team”, the advantages of practicing the methods of the book are multiplied many times over.
However, these methods are only a starting point. Pragmatic teams will evolve, adapt, and refine these practices to best fit their environment.
No Broken Windows
Everyone on the team should care about quality.
Pragmatic teams can not accept broken windows.
Quality needs to come from every team member.
Boiled Frogs
It is easy for an individual to overlook the overall big picture environment while in the heat of a project’s development. It’s even easier for teams. Team members can easily assume that someone else is addressing a bug, or that some environmental change was OK’d. Keep in mind, environment changes don’t necessarily have to mean hardware or configuration. It could mean, bringing in a new technology for example.
Everyone should be on the lookout for changes to the environment. The authors suggest appointing a chief water tester to monitor scope creep, timelines, and environments … anything that wasn’t originally agreed upon.
Keep metrics on new requirements.
Pragmatic teams shouldn’t reject new feature requests outright. Instead, be aware when and that they occur. Otherwise, you might be the one boiling.
Communicate
Pragmatic teams need to communicate clearly to the everyone else as one voice.
The worst teams are those that bad tempered or difficult to get information from. Their meetings have no structure. No one wants to talk. Their documentation is awful. No two documents have the same format and each use different terminology, i.e. no ubiquitous language.
Great teams have a personality. You look forward to meeting with them because they are organized. Their presentations are well-prepared. Their documentation is consistent. Current. Accurate. Concise. All members of the team use the same ubiquitous language and speak with one voice. Externally. Internally, they have lively debates, where strong opinions are expressed. Good developers are passionate developers.
The simple marketing trick to communicate as one: generate a brand. Create a team name and logo. When communicating with others, use the name/logo. It builds an identity for your team to build on. As well as something memorable for others to associate your work with.
Don’t Repeat Yourself
Duplication is wasted effort.
This duplicated effort can create maintenance headaches.
Good communication between teams can help reduce duplication.
A project librarian can coordinate documentation and repositories. Other’s can go to the librarian when they’re looking for something. And the librarian can spot duplication when they’ve been given something new.
However, if the project is too big for one librarian, appoint a few people as the primary contacts for various functional areas of the project.
And don’t forget the value of online user groups, mailing lists, forums, wikis, etc. for archiving questions/answers, and discussions.
Orthogonality
Traditional teams are organized such that individuals are assigned roles based on their job function. The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction (Amazon) identifies 27 different roles within a project!
Roles have an implicit hierarchy: the closer the role is to the user, the more senior the role.
Some development environments have strict divisions of responsibility. You might not be able to talk to the testers or the chief architect, for example. To make matters worse, some organizations might have different sub-teams report to different management chains.
Don’t fall victim to thinking that the various tasks for a project can happen in isolation, because they can’t.
Analysis, design, coding, testing – These are all different perspectives of the same problem.
Developers that are two or three levels removed from the user will likely not be aware of how their code is used and therefore not able to make informed decisions while developing it.
Tip 60
Organize Around Functionality, Not Job Functions.
Team Division
The authors prefer to split teams up by functionality.
Each (small) team should be responsible for a small aspect of the overall system.
And each team is responsible to each other.
Commitments change with each project and so do the people per team.
Splitting the teams up by functionality doesn’t need to translate to use cases though. The DB can count as a team. The help subsystem can count as a team.
Look for largely self-contained groups of people. This is similar to how we’d break up code into modules. Use the same techniques, such as by contract, decoupling, and orthogonality. By doing so, we help isolate the entire team from changes outside it.
When done properly, this can reduce interactions, reduce time scales, increase quality, and reduce bugs.
Developers will be more committed.
Teams will feel more ownership because they know they alone are responsible for their part.
But this approach will only work with responsible developers and strong project management.
Two heads
Each project has two heads: one technical and other other administrative.
The technical head is responsible for the development style, assigns responsibilities, and arbitrates discussions. All that while always keeping an eye on the big picture, removing unnecessary commonality among teams to maintain high orthogonality.
This person is the lead architect.
The administrative head is the project manager. They schedule necessary resources, monitor and report on progress to the stakeholders, and might also act as the PR representative when communicating outside of the teams.
Additional Resources for Larger Teams
Librarian – Indexes and stores code and documentation.
A tool builder – Someone that provides the tools, environments, and support.
Automation
The best way to ensure consistency and accuracy is to automate everything that can be automated. That bash script, makefile, etc. isn’t going to change itself. Typically. And it can be versioned.
Automation is an essential element of a Pragmatic Team.
Appoint one or more people as the tool builders to build and deploy tools that automate the project’s boring parts.
Know When to Stop Adding Paint
Pragmatic teams give each member the opportunity to shine.
They provide team members with enough structure to support them and ensure the project delivers against those requirements.
And then resist the urge to add more paint.
Resources We Like
The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt, David Thomas (Amazon)
The Pragmatic Bookshelf (pragprog.com)
lagniappe (Wikipedia)
Spotify engineering culture (part 1) (labs.spotify.com)
Tip of the Week
Git tips: Undo your last commit: git reset HEAD~ (Stack Overflow) Undo all of your current changes and reset the environment back to the last commit: git reset --hard HEAD Remove all untracked files: git clean -f Remove untracked directories, too: git clean -f -d
Joe’s reasons to use Kotlin (in no particular order): Reason #147 – Using natural language test function names with backticks (discuss.kotlinlang.org) Reason #136 – Higher-Order Functions and Lambdas (kotlinlang.org) Reason #17 – fold, reduce, Map
Overview of Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) (docs.microsoft.com) | {
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Cillessen: I want to play in the league, in the Champions League and in everything Valencia Ready to be a starting goalkeeper
Valencia will head into the 2019/20 season with a new goalkeeper and Jasper Cillessen is ready to return to life as a first-choice stopper.
Having spent most of his Barcelona career as deputy to Marc-Andre ter Stegen, the Dutchman has found regular football hard to come by and is relishing the chance to play every week.
"I'm motivated, I want to play for Valencia," Cillessen explained in a press conference.
"I want to play league matches, Champions League matches, everything.
"I've been at Barcelona for a few years, but I was desperate to play.
"This is a club with a great history."
At 30 years old, the former Ajax stopper couldn't afford to spend any more time on the Blaugrana bench, hence his haste to move.
"Now I'm 30 years old, after three years on the bench I want to play," he intimated.
"I'm also ready to play for the Netherlands again.
"I spoke with the coach, I'm here to play, that's my motivation." | {
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Remember then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” video from the 2008 campaign? Well, Iran’s president has his own version too, albeit five years late.
The video was made by supporters of newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who has billed himself as a moderate reformer. But is Rouhani really willing to change Iran?
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) and freelance journalist Ali Gharib (@AliGharib) discussed the video on AMERICA with Jorge Ramos. | {
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Very cool. Question: If you were to give him the right number of limbs, would you consider that to be ten in total or count the "human" arms as extras and make it twelve, like centaurs get six limbs? | {
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Calgary police say the number of commercial trucks that fail roadside inspections has nearly doubled in the past couple of years.
Police are in the midst of conducting an inter-agency three-day vehicle inspection at locations around the city.
Const. Chris Moriarity, who oversees these inspections, says the numbers are concerning.
"Oh, absolutely there's danger, I mean if the cargo's insecure, if the trucks are not fit to be on the road, if they get involved in a large crash, it could be catastrophic," he said.
In the past couple of years, Moriarity says the number of vehicles that fail has doubled from about 30 to 60 per cent, as drivers scramble to make money in a worsening recession.
"If they don't have the money to put into the truck, that's the last thing they're going to put money into is the repairs, because the only way they make money is if they have that truck on the road."
Calgary police operate weekly commercial vehicle inspections through the year, with more thorough ones conducted in the fall and spring. | {
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Feb. 20, 2011 -- An average adult can touch as many as 30 objects within a minute, including germ-harboring, high-traffic surfaces such as light switches, doorknobs, phone receivers, and remote controls. At home, you do all that you can to keep the germs at bay. But what happens when you step out the door to go to dinner, do some grocery shopping, or visit the doctor's office? Know where germs are most likely to lurk, as you'll find out here.
Restaurant menus
Have you ever seen anyone wash off a menu? Probably not. A recent study in the Journal of Medical Virology reported that cold and flu viruses can survive for 18 hours on hard surfaces. If it's a popular restaurant, hundreds of people could be handling the menus--and passing their germs on to you. Never let a menu touch your plate or silverware, and wash your hands after you place your order.
Lemon wedges
According to a 2007 study in the Journal of Environmental Health, nearly 70% of the lemon wedges perched on the rims of restaurant glasses contain disease-causing microbes. When the researchers ordered drinks at 21 different restaurants, they found 25 different microorganisms lingering on the 76 lemons that they secured, including E. coli and other fecal bacteria. Tell your server that you'd prefer your beverage sans fruit. Why risk it?
Condiment dispensers
It's the rare eatery that regularly bleaches its condiment containers. And the reality is that many people don't wash their hands before eating, says Kelly Reynolds, PhD. So while you may be diligent, the guy who poured the ketchup before you may not have been, which means his germs are now on your fries. Squirt hand sanitizer on the outside of the condiment bottle or use a disinfectant wipe before you grab it. Holding the bottle with a napkin won't help; napkins are porous, so microorganisms can pass right through, Reynolds says.
Restroom door handles
Don't think you can escape the restroom without touching the door handle? Palm a spare paper towel after you wash up and use it to grasp the handle. Yes, other patrons may think you're a germ-phobe--but you'll never see them again, and you're the one who won't get sick.
Soap dispensers
Grocery carts
***
More from Prevention:
Surprising Places Allergies Lurk
12 Health Lessons Straight From The Lab
10 Worst Germ Hot Spot
Airplane bathrooms
Doctor's office
1. Take your own books and magazines (and kid's toys, if you have your children or grandchildren with you).
2. Also pack your own tissues and hand sanitizers, which should be at least 60% alcohol content.
3. In the waiting room, leave at least two chairs between you and the other patients to reduce your chances of picking up their bugs. Germ droplets from coughing and sneezing can travel about 3 feet before falling to the floor.
***
More from Prevention:
Surprising Places Allergies Lurk
12 Health Lessons Straight From The Lab
10 Worst Germ Hot Spot | {
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Posted on September 11, 2011 in Articles
The President ordered from Costco for the Osama Bin Laden watch party. Turkey pita sandwiches, cold shrimp, potato chips. The White House’s comfort food of choice to witness the end of the world’s most wanted man.
“Now entering Pakistan,” CIA director Leon Panetta narrated over the big screen. Joe Biden kneaded rosary beads. Hillary Clinton covered her face in shock. But President Obama looked on. Stone-faced.
“GERONIMO. EKIA.”
Geronimo. The code name for Osama Bin Laden.
EKIA. Enemy Killed In Action. Osama Bin Laden had been shot in the head.
A hushed silence. “We got him,” President Obama said finally, quietly. A pause. Then the backslapping, the high-fiving all around. “We got him.”
With that Obama grabbed a sandwich to go and marched upstairs to tell the nation.
****************************************
Osama Bin Laden was irrelevant by 2011. Al Qaeda, decimated by Drone attacks from above, infighting from within, and reviled across most of the Muslim world. But the visceral joy was still there. That sneering, bearded mug of barbarity was shot in the head. By an American bullet.
The mystique died next. Turns out, Osama Bin Laden was not a hardened ascetic denouncing the West from a snow-capped mountain pass. Instead, he reclined on the third floor of a million dollar compound forty miles from Pakistan’s capital. He was a vainglorious media junkie who dyed his beard for his next video. He spent his time looking at a) himself on TV and b) porn.
Osama Bin Laden was protected not by legions of hardened Mujahideen fighters but two well-to-do Pakistanis and their children. A private family that kept to itself with no phone-lines. They burned their trash indoors lest anyone riffle through the refuse.
He spent his final days listening to the pitter patter of children’s feet. Buffalo crowning a yard over. And that cloudless night the incoming roar of four U.S. helicopters and then gunfire. He was shot once in the head, once in the back, before his body was unceremoniously dumped somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
A decade after September 11, Osama Bin Laden was not the savior of the Muslim world but its scourge. His name sneered, not chanted. A decade later, Osama Bin Laden was no longer the bearded totem of resistance to American imperialism. He was the crutch of Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi and the region’s other loathed strongman who argued they alone could safeguard against him.
A decade after 911, America rebuilt the World Trade Center taller than ever. It is the façade of Arab strongmen that tumbled. The rusted rebar and rubble expose depraved men clinging to fists full of petro-dollars. Their towering walls of brick and mortar no match for the pixellated Facebook walls of ones and zeroes. Social media did not topple Mubarack. The audacity of Tahrir Square did. But social media helped the rage go viral. Skyping, tweeting its way from Tunis to Hama. They were felled by students, lawyers, and bloggers who knew simply there must be another way.
In the end, Osama Bin Laden felled two skyscrapers in New York but no governments. He is survived by three wives, a moribund al Qaeda network, and an Arab world freer in spite—not because—of his cruelty.
****************************************
You know where you where when you first heard the news.
Blackberry-faced New Yorkers peered up from their smart-phones and asked strangers simply, “Did you hear?” Mets and Phillies fans cast aside their divisional rivalry and chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!” NBC pulled away from Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice”.
Ten years after 911, we have not had our The Naked and the Dead. Or our Apocalypse Now, though The Hurt Locker comes the closest. The pain is still too visceral. The timing, still too soon.
Instead, Hollywood churns out a lineup of souped-up but ultimately forgettable war flicks. Jarhead, The Green Zone, The Kingdom, Body of Lies, etc.—box office disappointments rich in sparkling CGI explosions but light in historicity. Again and again, they depict testosterone junkies defusing IEDs, battling terrorists and themselves. Troops enduring ephemeral moments of action in between months of endless wait.
We placate ourselves with 23 minute episodes of mindless voyeurism. Guys fantasize living like Vince. Girls keep up with the Kardashians. Vicarious living remains our flash-bulbed escape of choice from years of interminable war and unemployment.
Satire became our coping mechanism of choice. The Onion and Comedy Central spoofed every hue of the color-coded alarm system. Only fake news could make sense of the jangled last decade of ours. When Walter Cronkite passed away in 2009, Time Magazine polled who was this generation’s equivalent. Answer: Jon Stewart (44%) throttling the Big 3’s real newscasters Brian Williams (29%), Charlie Gibson (19%), and Katie Couric (7%).
Trey Parker and Matt Stone skewered bombastic American jingoism with puppets and a rock ’em sock ’em soundtrack to match:
****************************************
President George W. Bush didn’t feel like eating. He was in a booth in a Dallas restaurant when the Secret Service agent whispered in his ear. He felt no joy. His steak lost its flavor.
He thought back to that impromptu U-S-A rally on the Ground Zero rubble. He remembered his crackling fastball right down the pike at Yankee Stadium. Most of all, he remembered that Oval Office speech to the nation.
His Texan twang became the voice of certainty to a superpower that saw red. He ordered the world to pick sides with a “You’re either with us or against us” Manichaeism. And the world did not pick terrorism, but the world did not pick President Bush either. The War on Terror polarized into us vs. them, black vs. white absolutes.
But what followed was a slippery slope decent into the murky underworld of secret CIA prisons and the grayish nether reaches of legality and morality. Water-boarding, suspending habeas corpus, Abu Ghraib, torture—the lasting buzz words of the War on Terror smacked more of a Medieval Inquisition than that of the world’s lone super power in the early 21st century.
Everything Iraq was supposed to be—an Islamic threat to regional stability, hell-bent on nuclear power—Iran was. The CIA learned Saddam Hussein fabricated his WMD bluster out of fear towards Iran. But Bush was chastened. His political capital spent. He listened to Condoleezza. He fired Rummy and talked Israel down from a bombing run. And the centrifuges in Nawaz kept on spinning…
And the WMDs finally did go off in New York City. But they were the ones Warren Buffett warned us about. They were the ones concocted, not in bunkers outside Baghdad, but in AIG and Citi boardrooms throughout midtown Manhattan. Built not out of yellow cake but of the mortgages on yellow houses, unbridled derivatives, and money our homes weren’t worth.
Now President Bush resigns himself to a lifetime of swatting away knowing-what-you-know-now hypotheticals. Of warding off regret. And clinging to that Churchillian argument: I kept us safe.
President Bush had enough. He pushed his plate aside, settled up, and went home to reflect. Alone. | {
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Manchester United are relaxed about potentially entering the season without a technical director despite it being almost a year since the search to fill the role began.
Ed Woodward, the club’s executive vice-chairman, is understood to be content at how Ole Gunnar Solskjær and the manager’s assistant, Mike Phelan, have dovetailed with the recruitment department and the board regarding transfers this summer.
Swansea City’s Daniel James and Crystal Palace’s Aaron Wan-Bissaka have been bought – for a combined £60m – and a renewed bid for Harry Maguire closer to Leicester City’s £75m-plus valuation could be forthcoming as the final two weeks of the window near.
Paul Pogba, who had expressed a desire to depart, is expected to stay and there is a firm hope that David de Gea will finally agree a new six-year contract that may make him United’s highest-paid player, placing him beyond the £390,000-a-week basic wage paid to Alexis Sánchez.
Romelu Lukaku is set to leave should Internazionale markedly raise their €60m bid for the striker, with United wanting at least the £75m paid to Everton for him in summer 2017 given the inflated market. Should the Belgian be sold it would help finance any deal for Maguire.
All of this means that the need for a technical director is no longer at the top of the club’s priorities. United’s opening Premier League match is the visit of Chelsea on 11 August, exactly a year since the Observer revealed that United wanted their first director of football in the club’s history. The job description has since changed to someone who would work alongside the manager and recruitment department rather than take an overarching position.
Rio Ferdinand, who had been considered for the role, is no longer thought to be a serious contender.
Nicky Butt’s promotion from head of academy to the newly created role of head of first-team development will entail him having a focus on developing and coaching players making the transition from the youth set-up to the senior side but he will have no input on transfers. | {
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Speculation has long swirled about exactly what is on top of the president’s head – the answer may be less than meets the eye
This article is more than 2 years old
This article is more than 2 years old
As Donald Trump wages war with Democrats over a budget deal, a video has emerged highlighting another battle – the fight the president’s hair is waging to stay attached to his head.
Footage, widely shared on Wednesday, showed Trump’s hair being dramatically swept about in a blustery wind, revealing what appeared to be a large hairless patch at the rear of his head and adding to longstanding speculation about the exact nature of Trump’s mane.
The film was captured as Trump boarded Air Force One. As Trump clambers up the stairs to the aircraft he appears to be struck from behind by a forceful gust. The wind cleaves his hair in two, revealing what appears to be a bare scalp.
Dr Alan Bauman, CEO and founder of Bauman Medical, a hair restoration clinic, said Trump had probably undergone some sort of hair procedure, although Bauman added that the video could have been doctored.
“In my professional opinion I do believe he has had some previous hair transplantation to the frontal part of his hairline,” Bauman said.
“He probably also has access to potent prescription topical medication like Formula 82M Minoxidil, which would be used twice daily, or a laser therapy cap, which could easily be hidden underneath a baseball hat.”
A laser therapy cap is a device that subjects the scalp to laser beams in an attempt to promote hair growth.
Bauman said he had met Trump personally and believed the president’s hair “is firmly growing from his scalp and is not a hairpiece”.
“He does, however, use quite a bit of hairspray to maintain his preferred style,” Bauman said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for information.
Trump doctor reveals secret to US president's hair Read more
Trump’s hair has long been the subject of speculation and ridicule. The Michael Wolff book Fire and Fury reported that Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump is among the hair’s critics.
Ivanka “often described the mechanics behind it to friends”, Wolff wrote.
“An absolutely clean pate – a contained island after scalp reduction surgery – surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray.”
Trump has occasionally addressed the issue himself. At a campaign rally in August 2015, shortly after Trump had denounced Mexican people seeking immigration to the US as “rapists”, he promised to put the issue of his hair to bed.
“If it rains, I’ll take off my hat, and I’ll prove once and for all that it’s mine,” Trump told a crowd in Alabama.
A month earlier the then candidate had promised to change his signature hairstyle if elected.
“I would probably comb my hair back. Why? Because this thing is too hard to comb,” Trump said at an event in Winterset, Iowa. “I wouldn’t have time, because if I were in the White House, I’d be working my ass off.”
The promises are among a number of campaign pledges that are yet to be fulfilled.
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From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, edited by Charles Dudley Warner, 1896
In 1692 the small Puritan village of Salem, Massachusetts, was plagued by a sudden and brief cloud of witchcraft accusations. After young girls Betty Parris and Abigail Williams exhibited severe convulsions and other strange symptoms, village doctor William Griggs diagnosed them as having been bewitched. Soon after, other townspeople began showing similar symptoms. That’s when the accusations started flying. The town quickly decided that they were going to search for, and execute, all the witches of Salem. By the end of the trials in May 1693, 19 people had been hanged, one had been crushed by stones, and four had died in prison—all accused of being witches. Three hundred years later, we’re still asking: Did witches really haunt the town of Salem? Or was another devil at work?
In 1976 Dr. Linnda Caporael of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found evidence that supported the latter hypothesis. Caporael proposed that perhaps the brief and intense illnesses suffered by so many of the townspeople were not bewitchment but rather ergotism, a disease commonly contracted by rye. Later, other historians agreed: ergotism was not only an interesting theory but also had some footing. Could all of the crazy happenings in Salem really be explained by some rotted rye?
Surprisingly, a lot of them can. With the exception of a few events (which are typically attributed to groupthink and the power of suggestion), the behavior exhibited in 1692 fits the bill of rye-induced ergotism. Ergotism forms in rye after a severe winter and a damp spring—conditions that Caporael and other historians claim were present in 1691 and therefore affected the rye harvested for consumption in 1692. After the rye plant contracts ergot, the fungus grows and replaces shoots on the grain with sclerotia. Ergot sclerotia are purple-black growths that contain lysergic acid and ergotamine. Since medical knowledge was sparse, the presence of darker shoots on rye was probably thought to be the product of overexposure to the sun, so it was most likely eaten despite being poisonous.
Once contracted from rye bread, ergotism (also called St. Anthony’s fire) causes severe convulsions, muscle spasms, delusions, the sensation of crawling under the skin, and, in extreme cases, gangrene of the extremities. Severe hallucinations can also be a symptom, as lysergic acid is the substance from which the drug LSD is synthesized. These symptoms were the same as those shown by the accused in Salem: mostly young girls whose immune systems had not fully developed, leaving them susceptible to diseases such as ergotism. The village doctor, being religious and, so the theory goes, unaware of ergotism as a disease, attributed the strange symptoms to a known evil: witchcraft. He claimed that the girls had fallen victim to the evils of witchcraft, and the girls went along with it. The rest of the townsfolk fell victim to suggestibility, and thus the trials commenced, with accusations of witchcraft being targeted at the outcasts of society by those who were afflicted. According to this theory, the abrupt end of the witch trials in May 1693 happened, quite simply, because Salem ran out of ergot-contaminated grain.
There is, however, still much debate over whether or not this theory should be accepted. Many social psychologists insist that the actions of the girls can be attributed to social and political unrest and that ergotism doesn’t factor into certain social aspects that could explain what really happened. Such aspects include Reverend Parris’s possible ulterior motives and the immense amount of stress put on the population during 1692 due to a smallpox outbreak and a quickly expanding population. Unfortunately, we will probably never know exactly what happened in Salem during the witch trials. All sides of the argument agree, however, that there was probably nothing supernatural at work. According to some people, the real evil might have been on the supper table. | {
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I was/he is/she is ‘In The Zone’.
We’ve all heard the term – used most often in an athletic context – but what exactly is ‘The Zone’? And how does one get there- and stay there? All three questions are addressed in this second installment of Disc Golf in a Vacuum.
If you haven’t read Part 1 of Disc Golf in a Vacuum yet, it recounts how I discovered (or maybe re-discovered is more accurate) the primal essence of what is most compelling about disc golf: controlling the path of a flying disc. More importantly it explains why that realization also enlightened me to the fact that true enjoyment and contentment playing disc golf can and does exist in a ‘vacuum’ totally void of things like score, player rating and luck.
For some, that alone is enough reason to embrace Disc Golf in a Vacuum. But others – myself included – enjoy competing against others and the course, and have a genetically coded need to measure performance and results. To this group I’m happy to say that playing Disc Golf in a Vacuum most likely will also generate better scores in addition to a better experience. That, friends, is what is know as having your cake and eating it too. Or maybe in disc golf terms, having your collectible first run night shift Destroyer and throwing it too. And that brings us back to being In The Zone.
First of all, I think everyone understands that being in the zone is a good thing. Someone who is in the zone while playing disc golf is throwing all her shots exactly as intended, and nailing all her putts. She is playing at the absolute peak of her abilities, and intensely focusing on each shot seemingly without any conscious effort.
When I did a Google search using the phrase ‘definition of being in the zone’ the most relevant result was a Wikipedia entry for a psychological term called flow. The concept was originally proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who said “Flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate experience in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning.” Sounds like being in the zone to me. Japanese martial artists are said to sometimes achieve ‘mushin’, translated in English as “no mind”, which sounds like much the same thing.
Reading descriptions of both flow and mushin made me realize that those terms as well as ‘in the zone’ are all pretty accurate (and similar) descriptions of what I experienced during that round described in Part 1 of this series. There was the pure joy in what I was doing, the lack of anxiety connected to expectation or results, and most relevant to Part 2, heightened performance (despite the lack of emphasis on score). So – no big surprise – what I termed Disc Golf in a Vacuum is nothing new. But it was good to see that there is agreement on the best ways to get In The Zone and stay there as much as possible.
Getting In the Zone
Achieving the state of flow/In The Zone is desirous for many reasons (again, see Part 1), but right now we’re focusing on only one; improved performance. However, there is a paradoxical relationship at play that mades this a hard concept to grasp. Optimal performance levels are attained when one is In The Zone, but to get in The Zone one cannot be focusing on or even thinking about performance as it is typically measured.
That is the reason Csíkszentmihályi chose the term flow and it’s why the word vacuum seemed most apt to me. It represents the state of total immersion in the moment, which in disc golf means thinking of nothing but the upcoming shot. Reduced to that throw and only that throw, all value in terms of scoring is stripped away and what is left is the simple desire to make the disc do exactly what you want it to do. And the focus can’t even be on the hoped-for flight, because that is also a form of measuring performance. Instead, conscious thought must be reduced to what needs to be done to achieve the desired outcome. Thoughts of the outcome itself – and this is really the key – can’t possibly exist In the Zone.
Ideally we can get to the point where we have no conscious thoughts in this state at all (“no mind”, and in the Japanese mushin), but that is easier said than done. It’s practically impossible while playing a game as social as golf. However, I’ve discovered a few tactics that at least give me a better shot, and get me back on track when my mind wanders in the wrong direction.
The most specific of these is to not keep track of score- or at least remain as much as possible in ignorance of the current total score during a round. It was hard for me at first, but whenever that thought came up I’d just try to think about something else. Now I’m at a point where towards the end of a round I won’t have any idea of my exact score- even though I use UDisc to record all my scores. I’ll enter the score for the hole but not look at the total (which thankfully in UDisc is in a smaller font).
By the end of the round I’ll usually have an idea of how I’m doing within a couple strokes, but not knowing the exact total makes a big difference in keeping my mind on just the shot at hand. I think more than anything else it provides a specific framework (objective: be uncertain of total score by the end of the round) for the more important goal of not thinking about score during the round. And even before using UDisc, I never had trouble recounting my score on each hole after the round. By focusing intently on each shot, every one was clearly imprinted on my memory. That hasn’t always been the case.
Another exercise that was difficult for me at first but came to be fairly natural (most of the time) is controlling emotional reactions to the results of throws. At first this meant not letting any kind of emotion show outwardly, regardless of whether I was seething inside over a bad shot or bad luck, or pumped up about something good. Even though I wanted badly to let it out, I’d just take deep breathes until it passed, and remind myself that the next shot was all that mattered now. After awhile, I noticed that the ‘zen-like’ non-reaction became natural, and my thoughts would be more reflective, detached and inquisitive (as in, ‘hmmm, what just happened there, and why?’) rather than reactionary and emotional.
Finally, I just keep reminding myself that when it’s my turn to throw any thoughts other than those required to properly execute the shot need to be expelled. If I’m lining up a putt and start thinking of how much I need this birdie, or standing on the tee and focusing on the tree I sometimes hit – and am able to recognize those thoughts as the impediments to proper execution that they are – I will step back and use a visualization technique to remove that thought and get back on the proper track. The key of course is realizing the presence and harmfulness of that wrong thought before taking the shot, and doing something about it. Seems like we always recognize those after the shot, right? Nabbing and removing them beforehand takes practice, but stick with it and it’ll become more natural. My favorite visualization technique for removing those rogue thoughts, but the way, is a squeegee that wipes the slate clean, enabling me to start fresh.
Ideally I’m in that state of flow or mushin where my disc golf game is on autopilot and I’m not conscious of any thoughts. But in reality Disc Golf in a Vacuum is more of an objective- a place to steer back towards when I get off track. Being In the Zone for any prolonged period of time is pretty rare. But I see it as a target, with The Zone being the bullseye. Most of the time the best I can do is make sure I stay close to the center of the target by using the tactics listed above. At the end of the round, I gauge my performance more on how well I played Disc Golf in a Vacuum than how I scored- but there is usually a close correlation between the two. | {
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Former USC coach Lane Kiffin is visiting Alabama this week to evaluate the Crimson Tide's offense, a source told ESPN on Monday.
Kiffin is a guest of Alabama coach Nick Saban, the source said, and will be in Tuscaloosa "to share ideas and exchange ideas and [for] professional development," the source said.
Kiffin was fired by USC athletic director Pat Haden on Sept. 29 at the team's private airport terminal in Los Angeles after returning from a 62-41 loss to Arizona State. His overall record in four years with the Trojans was 28-15.
He went 7-6 in one season at Tennessee before leaving the SEC school for USC. | {
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Movie and park lovers can bring a blanket and a picnic basket to watch current and classic flicks for free during the Movies in the Parks series. View Full Caption Chicago Park District
EDISON PARK — The hit animated flick "The Lego Movie" will light up the night sky in Edison Park this weekend as part of the Chicago Park District's Movies in the Parks series.
Starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman, "The Lego Movie" tells the story of an ordinary Lego mini figure named Emmet destined to save the Lego universe from the tyrannical Lord Business who plans to use the Kragle to glue everything in place.
Movie and park lovers can bring a blanket and a picnic basket to watch current and classic flicks for free.
The schedule for the next month is:
"The Lego Movie" at 8 p.m. Friday at Olympia Park, 6566 N. Avondale Ave.
"Monsters University" at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Portage Park, 4100 N. Long Ave.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" at 8 p.m. June 27 at Wilson Park, 4630 N. Milwaukee Ave.
"Despicable Me" at 9 p.m. June 28 at Oriole Park, 5430 N. Olcott Ave.
"Frozen" at 8 p.m. July 9 at Portage Park, 4100 N. Long Ave.
"Free Birds" at 8:30 p.m. July 10 at Wildwood Park, 6950 N. Hiawatha Ave.
"Frozen" at 8:30 p.m. July 11 at Jefferson Park, 4822 N. Long Ave.
"Ghostbusters" at 8:30 p.m. July 11 at Dunham Park, 4638 N. Melvina Ave.
"The Smurfs 2" at 8:30 p.m. July 18 at Brooks Park, 7100 N. Harlem Ave.
For information or to check for weather-related cancelations call 312-742-1134.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: | {
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Oculus is on fire with its latest hardware offerings, and the Rift S may be the company’s most impressive VR headset yet.
Although, it’s hard to call this a traditional review, due to the fact that the Rift S is the default Oculus Rift system from here on out. The older models have been discontinued, so anyone buying a new headset from this week forward will get the Rift S instead of the existing consumer model. That’s a smart play that should help limit customer confusion, but the real question is: If you already have VR headset, should you upgrade into the Rift S?
The short is yes, I think upgrading is a wise decision for most players. The longer answer can be read below.
What Oculus has improved
The biggest change in the Rift S is the loss of the external sensors; I only need to connect the headset to my PC through a single DisplayPort and USB 3.0 connection, touch the controller to the floor, and trace my play area to get everything calibrated. The original Rift used two desk- or wall-mounted sensors for a sitting or standing experience, or three sensors for a true 360 degree, room-scale environment.
Putting that all together, including the nearly mandatory use of USB extension cables and hubs, was always one of the worst aspects of the original system, and it only got worse when someone bumped into one of the sensors, which could send your virtual world spinning a gut-churning manner.
But those weaknesses are all gone thanks to the inside-out tracking, which uses sensors mounted on the headset to track your environment, and the two included Touch controllers. This new approach makes the headset much easier to set up, tracking is just as strong as the original, and moving the system from room to room or even from PC to PC is a snap. Everything about getting into VR is made simpler now that I don’t have to fuss around with sensor placement or cable management outside of the single tether. This shift is nearly enough to justify the new hardware on its own.
Related The Oculus Rift review
It may not even be a shift that feels all that important at first, but the more I use the Rift S and the more I take it other places to show to friends and family, the more the lack of sensors feels like sweet, sweet relief.
The rest of the design upgrades and adjustments are a bit more subtle. The headset is easier to put on and take off due to the large, PlayStation VR-like knob on the back of the strap, and the built-in headphones of the previous system have been replaced with an open-ear design that lets you play without blocking out ambient sounds. A jack allows you to use your own headphones if you’d like, but I’ve found that nearly everyone prefers the standard arrangement so they can hear, and speak with, those around them as they play. It helps keep you from feeling completely isolated.
The original headset offered a dual-screen design that gave the player an effective resolution of 1080 by 1200 per eye, and the Rift S uses a single display that runs at 2560 by 1440 total so, while it’s hard to give a true apples-to-apples comparison, the new display looks noticeably crisper.
The drop to a 80 hertz refresh rate from the original’s 90 hertz was, to me at least, unnoticeable. It’s a detail I never would have suspected without going over every detail on the fact sheets of both headsets. The change in approach to the display does mean that there’s no longer a physical control for adjusting inter-pupillary distance and that adjustment is now handled by the software, but again I didn’t notice any drop in quality due to this shift.
The downside is that all of these things feel like iterative steps when compared to the original Oculus Rift, even if the new tracking solution is a really large iterative step. But there’s nothing here to make the Rift S feel like a truly next-generation product compared to existing VR headsets on the market, and the tether feels even more restrictive now that I’ve grown accustomed to the self-contained — and rather amazing — Oculus Quest.
And the external design is so bland and unremarkable — especially in contrast to the impressive technology that drives the Rift S — that it feels like a missed opportunity. There’s nothing wrong with how it looks or feels, but there’s nothing about it that jumps out and suggests you’re using cutting edge technology, either. The PSVR remains the gold standard when it comes to eye-catching, if slightly retro-futuristic, design.
Having read that back to myself, however, I realize just how spoiled I’ve become when it comes to affordable virtual reality technology. The optics on the Rift S lead to fewer “god rays,” the shining, tracer-like patterns of light that can slide across the lenses during moments of high contrast, and the updated display makes text easier to read and colors seem much more vibrant. The ability to peer at your real world surroundings using the pass-through camera is also welcome, and I strongly suggest using the option in settings that makes this possible at any point by pumping the Oculus button on either controller twice in rapid succession.
Combine those improvements with the significantly reduced complexity in setup and use and you have a headset that’s a very easy sell at $399, even though current Rift hardware will likely be sold for much less on the secondary market once the Rift S is released. It’s worth paying more for a platform that performs this much better, and removes so many annoyances when it comes to actually playing games in VR.
I’m looking forward to spending time with the Valve Index at some point in the future, but if the Oculus Quest and now the Rift S have taught me anything, it’s that achieving the highest levels of visual fidelity is much less important than removing barriers to play and increasing ease of use. And there’s no friction in moving from a previous version of the Rift to the Rift S; all your existing games and software will continue to work on the new hardware.
The Rift S offers a sharper and more immediately impressive image than the Quest due to the added power of an external gaming PC, but I prefer the freedom and flexibility offered by the Quest if I want to play a quick game for fun or to fit a surprisingly effective workout into a busy day. Oculus is aggressively moving toward making setup and play both quicker and easier than the competition, and the results speak for themselves. | {
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A former president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union and strong anti-Brexit campaigner may run for a seat in the Seanad, following an approach from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, it has emerged.
Ian Marshall, a farmer and former president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, currently works in Queen’s University Belfast in the Institute for Global Food Security.
Currently, the Seanad has two vacancies. One has been left by the resignation of Labour senator Denis Landy last year, and the other following the resignation of former Sinn Féin senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh.
He has been a dairy farmer for the past 30 years. Mr Varadkar approached Mr Marshall about taking the seat left vacant following Mr Ó Clochartaigh’s resignation, it is believed.
However, the Taoiseach does not have the numbers of his own to guarantee Mr Marshall’s election and would be dependent upon support from Fianna Fáil and others.
‘Honoured’
Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Marshall said he was “privileged and honoured” to have been considered by the Taoiseach.
“[I] am honoured to have even been considered. It’s obviously subject to support from TDs and Senators but I will be more than happy to try and contribute to the function of the Seanad,” he said.
“It’s hugely important as agriculture and food is the backbone of the Irish economy. With Brexit looming, it has led to uncertainty in the industry, so careful management and co-ordination are needed to prepare for it,” he added.
“I am a strong Remainer and I believe the UK and Ireland are best served by remaining in the EU. I don’t think people realised exactly what Brexit would entail, so I hope the UK gets a chance to go back to the electorate and to the ballot box based on what they know now.”
Mr Marshall said he was not affiliated with any political party and would be an Independent if got a Seanad seat.
“I was born into a unionist, Protestant family but I am not affiliated with any political party. I have been involved in agri-politics for the last 25 years but it has been non-partisan.”
“I feel frustrated sometimes by the type of politics we have in Northern Ireland where it is divided between green and orange,” he said.
“I’d like to think I would bring a fairly objective opinion about what I think needs to happen for the agrifood industry and the country and economy. You look at Dublin and see how forward-thinking and cosmopolitan it is and I want that to be extended to the rest of the island.”
A spokesman for the Taoiseach confirmed Mr Marshall was considering standing as an Independent.
“Given his background as an Ulster farmer at this time of Brexit, if he receives a nomination then Fine Gael would be interested in supporting him as an independent voice in the Seanad,” the spokesman added. | {
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The Nick Ut / AP file
From a fetid, foot-long rod of earwax, extracted from the skull of a dead blue whale, scientists have unspooled an in-depth life story of one member of the largest mammals on earth. These waxy diaries could give marine biologists a new way to study the lives of a free-swimming species, and a window into the health of the ocean at large.
This 10-inch-long blue whale earplug was extracted from a beached whale in 2007. Stephen Trumble
"It might be the only life history of any free-ranging animal," Stephen Trumble, a marine biologist at Baylor University, told NBC News.
Each year, as the whale's ear lays down a new layer of fats, native and foreign chemicals in the marine mammal's body are archived with it."It's keeping a journal," said Trumble.
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The 10-inch plug, recovered from a 12-year-old male whale that beached on the California coast in 2007, looks like a piece of striped bark, but feels firm, like a candle. Twenty-four alternating bands mark six-month phases of a whale's life, alternating between feeding and fasting seasons. And it smells ... "Oh my gosh, I can't even explain it," Trumble said, "They smell terrible."
Marine biologists have estimated that blue whales hit puberty between the ages of 5 and 15, but thanks to the earplug, Trumble and company have a clearer marker for the first time. This animal reached puberty at 9 years and a few months, they explain in a study in the Sept. 16 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Up next: the earplug from a female bowhead whale, extracted in 1964. Stephen Trumble
At that age mark on the earplug, the researchers saw a spike in testosterone levels, followed quickly by a spike in cortisol, a hormone released when an animal is stressed. "I saw that and I just chuckled," Trumble said. "It was mixing with the big guys trying to mate, and probably getting a rough time from the other males."
Also, in the first months of its life, this whale was exposed to unusual levels of pollutants, the earplug record showed, confirming that baby whales absorb toxins from their mothers while they're in the womb.
The chemicals trapped in the earwax also indicate the quality of the environment that the whale is swimming in. The researchers noted a spike in mercury levels that suggested that the whale encountered a polluted patch of ocean during a few months of its life.
A selection from the 400-plug-strong whale earplug collection at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian. Maya Yamato / Smithsonian
Since blue whales cover thousands of miles of ocean during their lifetimes, they witness more of the ocean than researchers can ever hope to see — let alone study. "The large whales ... you can't ask for any other kind of steward to let us know what's going on." It's like a "really large canary."
The earplug method's been so successful, Trumble and his colleagues are already making plans for their next conquest.
"We have a female earplug from 1964 we're really excited about," he said. The chemical signatures could indicate how many calves the whale had, and at what age she gave birth to them.
And at museums across America, hundreds of earplugs are waiting to be decoded — the Smithsonian alone has over 400 plugs from fin, sei, humpback and gray whales in its collection.
If all goes well, the earplugs will provide a rich (if stinky) account of our changing ocean, not to mention decades upon decades of whale tales.
Stephen Trumble, Eleanor Robinson, Michelle Berman-Kowalewskic, Charles Potter, and Sascha Usenko are authors of "Blue Whale Earplug Reveals Lifetime Contaminant Exposure and Hormone Profiles," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nidhi Subbaraman writes about science and technology. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. | {
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Bacon is delicious to many, as is belly of pork. But is it good for you - or should it be a no-no food? 10 multiple choice questions on bacon and pork belly. No spelling and no fill in the answer questions. Average score for this quiz is 4 / 10 . Difficulty: Difficult . Played 1,701 times. As of Sep 29 20. | {
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The Democratic National Committee has had just about enough of Nancy Worley and Joe Reed.
A scathing email sent Monday from Harold Ickes and Yvette Lewis, the co-chairs of the DNC’s credentials committee, lays out a litany of missteps, wasted money, outright lies and what appears to be a long-term scheme perpetrated by Worley and Reed to stack the State Democratic Executive Committee with almost exclusively African American at-large members in order to maintain control of the state party.
The email from Ickes and Lewis was sent in response to Alabama Democratic Party chairwoman Worley and Reed, the vice-chair of minority affairs, moving forward at last Friday’s SDEC meeting with the election of a new minority at-large member, despite a clear directive from the DNC to hold off on such selections until the state party’s bylaws could be amended.
That DNC directive came in response to a long series of issues, which culminated in a hearing in February in D.C. before the DNC’s credentials committee. Following that hearing, the August elections for the Alabama Democratic Party’s leadership were invalidated.
There were many reasons for the invalidation, but chief among them was an issue the DNC found with ADP’s bylaws — they conflicted with the national party’s and lacked an affirmative action and outreach plan for all recognized minority groups.
The bylaws dictate that a state party’s executive committee’s makeup must reflect the voting demographics of the state, and a number of very specific groups are listed. If those groups, which in addition to African Americans include Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, youth, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities, can’t be accurately represented in the votes, the state party needs to demonstrate a comprehensive outreach program.
The DNC already believed that ADP was falling short in its outreach efforts to all groups except black voters, but Monday’s letter indicates that party officials believe that the lack of outreach was intentional and that Worley and Reed have lied to cover up their true intentions.
Public Service Announcement
During a series of emails and conference calls over the last few weeks, DNC officials have repeatedly asked Worley to send them ADP’s affirmative action plan that meets DNC standards. This is something Worley has repeatedly told the DNC was in the state party’s bylaws, and she has promised repeatedly to provide a copy to the DNC’s credentials committee.
But then, last Friday, Worley informed the Ickes and Lewis that the approval of an affirmative action plan and outreach program would be voted on during the March 29th SDEC meeting.
“We are very surprised (by the agenda item) because during our conference call you had asserted several times that the State Committee had an affirmative action plan and outreach program, and you promised to send us those specific provisions of the State Committee’s Bylaws that constituted such policy and procedures,” the email from Ickes and Lewis read. “By your statement in your email, it now seems clear that, other than for Blacks, the State Committee does not have such a policy and procedure.”
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Such a failure to recruit minorities other than African Americans would give extreme power to Reed, who, as vice-chair for minority affairs, is allowed to handpick at-large members in order to meet the minority numbers needed to meet demographic percentages. During the August meeting, at which Worley was re-elected, Reed was able to select 35 at-large delegates, all of them black.
Ickes and Lewis said the recent actions of Worley, coupled with the facts of that August election, now “raises serious questions” about not only the elections of Worley and vice-chairman Randy Kelley, but also the “filling of vacancies from legislative districts.”
The email takes Worley to task for a variety of missteps mostly related to her definitions of minority outreach and her attempts to make contact with minority groups other than African Americans.
For example, the email notes that in 2017, the SDEC passed an amendment that called for five Hispanic people to be on the committee — a number that Ickes and Lewis said should probably be closer to 10, judging by Alabama voting demographics — but in over a year, not a single Hispanic candidate had been presented for nomination prior to Friday’s meeting.
At that meeting, the Hispanic wife of an executive board member was approved.
“That the Executive Board could only find one (1) Hispanic woman in the whole state of Alabama to elect at yesterday’s Executive Board meeting graphically underscores the lack of effective, broad affirmative action outreach,” the email read. “And since no mention was made at yesterday’s meeting of affirmative action outreach to youth, LGBTQ + individuals, or individuals with disabilities, we assume that none was conducted.”
As for Worley’s decision to move forward with the nomination of that lone Hispanic candidate, despite explicit instructions from the DNC not to do so, Ickes and Lewis didn’t mince words.
“The deliberate flouting by the Executive Board, at your urging, of the instructions of the DNC likely will result in another challenge and more legal fees incurred by the ADP,” they wrote. “Such easily avoidable actions are inexplicable and completely contrary to the best interests of Democrats in Alabama and of the ADP.”
Moving forward, the DNC is asking Worley to provide it with her clear plans for outreach for all minority groups, and also asking that she explain the calculations she’s used to arrive at the appropriate percentages of each minority group.
“The DNC has ordered the ADP to do nothing more than what every other state party undertakes to ensure compliance with the basic requirements of National Party’s long standing Charter and Bylaws,” Ickes and Lewis wrote. “So far, however, certainly including yesterday’s Executive Board meeting, it does not appear that your leadership group is interested in achieving those ends. We certainly hope that you will change your mind.” | {
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ASSOCIATED PRESS On recense un 12e cas de contamination au Covid-19 en France, Buzyn évoque une "éventuelle diffusion pandémique" (Photo prétexte)
CORONAVIRUS - Un sixième Britannique a été testé “positif” au coronavirus au sein du groupe hospitalisé après la découverte d’une contamination groupée dans un chalet en Haute-Savoie, ont annoncé samedi 15 février les autorités sanitaires. Cela porte à douze le nombre de cas confirmés en France depuis l’apparition de cette épidémie de maladie Covid-19 en Chine, précise dans un communiqué le ministère de la Santé.
Agnès Buzyn a évoqué pour la première fois une potentielle propagation du virus en France, rapporte Franceinfo. “Il nous faut préparer notre système de santé à faire face à une éventuelle diffusion pandémique du virus, à une circulation du virus sur le territoire national”, a-t-elle déclaré.
La moitié de ces cas concernent des Britanniques, tous contaminés par un de leurs compatriotes de retour de Singapour et côtoyé dans un chalet des Contamines-Montjoie (Haute-Savoie), quelques jours fin janvier.
Un décès en France, sept personnes toujours hospitalisées
Il y a une semaine, les autorités sanitaires avaient annoncé cinq cas confirmés au sein de ce groupe - quatre adultes et un enfant de 9 ans - hospitalisés dans la région lyonnaise. Six autres personnes, qui avaient séjourné dans le même chalet, avaient été également hospitalisées et placées sous surveillance et en isolement. C’est l’une d’elles qui s’est avérée positive ce samedi.
Ce patient, dont l’âge n’a pas été communiqué, “est demeuré en isolement strict dans un hôpital référent à Lyon depuis samedi dernier (8 février), conformément à la procédure de surveillance renforcée des cas contacts”, rapporte le ministère.
“Depuis son arrivée à l’hôpital, il était régulièrement évalué et testé. Un prélèvement s’est révélé positif ce jour au coronavirus”, selon le communiqué qui assure que “son état n’inspire pas d’inquiétude ce jour”. “Cela souligne la pertinence des mesures d’isolement préconisées pour les personnes contacts à risque élevé mises en place en France”, fait valoir le ministère.
Parmi les douze cas confirmés en France, un touriste chinois âgé de 80 ans est décédé vendredi. Quatre sont désormais guéris et sortis de l’hôpital et sept au total sont hospitalisés (les six Britanniques ainsi que la fille du patient décédé).
Deuxième levée de quarantaine dans le sud de la France
Du côté de Carry Le Rouet où sont en quarantaine les voyageurs rapatriés de Wuhan, un deuxième groupe de personne a été autorisé à partir. Vers 7h, une navette a quitté le centre, a constaté une journaliste de l’AFP, et d’autres devaient la suivre dans la matinée. Au total, 44 personnes doivent partir de Carry-le-Rouet, selon la préfecture des Bouches-du-Rhône. Ils étaient arrivés le 2 février en France.
En revanche, 35 autres personnes arrivées via Londres le 9 février resteront confinées jusqu’au 23 février à Aix-en-Provence.
Après les départs de dimanche, le centre de vacances de Carry-le-Rouet réquisitionné pour cette période de confinement sera vide. “Personne n’était malade finalement, donc, oui, on va nettoyer et appliquer les procédures de désinfection mais comme à l’arrivée, pas plus”, a précisé Marc Zyltman, chef du dispositif pour la Croix-Rouge.
À voir également sur Le HuffPost: En Chine, la mort du médecin lanceur d’alerte sur le coronavirus provoque la colère des citoyens | {
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Under the Gang of 8’s backroom immigration deal with Senators Schumer, Corker and Hoeven, formerly illegal immigrants who are amnestied will be eligible to work, but will not be eligible for ObamaCare. Employers who would be required to pay as much as a $3,000 penalty for most employees who receive an ObamaCare healthcare “exchange” subsidy, would not have to pay the penalty if they hire amnestied immigrants.
Consequently, employers would have a significant incentive to hire or retain amnestied immigrants, rather than current citizens, including those who have recently achieved citizenship via the current naturalization process.
The issue is really an “interaction effect” of the immigration proposal and ObamaCare itself.
Beginning in January, businesses with 50 or more full-time employees, that do not currently offer healthcare benefits that are considered “acceptable” by the Obama administration, must pay a penalty if at least one of their workers obtains insurance on a new government-run “exchange.” The penalty can be as much as $3,000 per employee.
Many employers have been preparing to cope with the new regulations by slashing the hours of full-timers to part-time status. Since “full-time,” in the language of ObamaCare, is averaging 30 hours per week, employers will, in general, receive the penalty if they have 50 or more employees who are working an average of 30 hours per week.
If the immigration bill becomes law, many employers could receive incentives of hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire amnestied immigrants over American citizens. In addition, these newly legalized immigrants could work “full-time,” an advantage for companies and businesses as well, while employers could lay off or diminish to “part-time” status, American workers.
Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner explains that he spoke with Alex Conant of Sen. Marco Rubio’s staff in April about the wrinkle, and was told that this was an issue that could be addressed during the legislative process.
“[T]he scenario you raise illustrates both the absurdity of ObamaCare, and why we have insisted on a lengthy process to review this legislation before any votes are taken,” Conant emailed Klein. “We always expected there might be a need for amendments to fix technical problems, and we’ll be interested in seeing what sort of amendments might be offered to improve this part of the legislation without giving ObamaCare to illegals- something Sen. Rubio has always said he will not support.”
However, as Klein said a couple of weeks ago, the issue has not been addressed and, in fact, the Schumer-Corker-Hoeven deal carries out what appears to be a major complication for American workers. Klein said that Conant did not respond to further requests for comment on this issue.
As for Conant’s comment in April about Rubio insisting on a “lengthy process to review this legislation before votes are taken,” that seems to have gone with the wind as well. | {
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Just B
A little girl who had a stroke and all that came after. | {
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The first information about the next version of Microsoft's Web browser was revealed at PDC on Wednesday. The announcement described three main areas of improvement: JavaScript, Web standards, and graphics technology. IE9 will contain a new, significantly faster JavaScript engine, it will have richer support for Web standards like CSS 3, and it will use the new Direct2D and DirectWrite technology for its graphics and text rendering.
Both the new JavaScript engine and the new graphics technology will improve the browser's performance. Microsoft made the point that different websites place different performance demands on a browser. Some are more scripting intensive, others more graphically intensive; some have complex layouts, others are simple. This has the consequence that to improve performance across the board, a wide range of optimizations and improvements are needed. With IE9, Redmond intends to not just improve performance in limited benchmarks (that focus on a single aspect of browser performance), but to ensure that real-world websites become faster.
Rendering the webpage in IE8 is performed predominantly on the CPU. Direct2D is a new Windows API that uses hardware Direct3D acceleration to accelerate 2D graphics, available in Windows 7 and as a patch for Windows Vista. Through the use of Direct2D, IE9 will perform all graphics rendering on the GPU, providing quicker page rendering, faster, smoother animation, and high quality image scaling. For graphically intensive applications like Google Maps, this should result in better performance and an improved user experience.
JavaScript performance has become an increasingly important concern for Web applications. As Web apps have become more capable and more fully-featured, JavaScript engines have had an ever-greater burden placed on them. Whereas once they might only run a few dozen of lines on a page, today's rich applications (Google Apps or the Office Web Apps, say) now run tens or hundreds of kilobytes of scripting on every page. To meet these needs, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have all seen a lot of development effort on their scripting engines to speed up these usage scenarios.
Though IE's JavaScript engine has got faster—the widely used SunSpider benchmark takes about half the time to run in IE8 as it does in IE7—it still lags behind other browsers quite considerably. IE9 is getting a brand-new engine that should take IE's JavaScript performance to the proverbial next level. Technical descriptions of the new engine made it sound quite similar to the V8 engine used in Chrome; the new IE9 JavaScript engine will compile JavaScript into native code, just like in V8, and the technique it will use to speed up the object-oriented nature of JavaScript also sounded similar to the approach V8 takes.
Early results suggest that the current IE9 engine performs in the same ballpark as betas of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. IE is still the slowest, but the difference now ranges from 10% slower (compared to Firefox) to 100% slower (compared to Chrome), rather than 5-600% slower as is presently the case for IE8. The IE team does not want to be trailing any more, and performance is now clearly a big deal.
Over the years, standards compliance has been the Web development community's biggest complaint about Internet Explorer. Though IE was once highly competitive in this area—during the days of the browser wars—its stagnation after the release of IE6 left it far behind. IE7 made some small improvements, and IE8 did achieve some kind of parity, at least when looking at the fundamental HTML 4.01 and CSS 2.1 specifications. Microsoft made a significant effort with IE8 and arguably its CSS 2.1 compliance was best in class.
However, there is considerable demand among developers for new features: CSS 3, HTML 5, SVG, and Canvas. Many of these standards are still themselves in flux, being in the draft stages of development rather than finalized specifications, but many of their features are so compelling (HTML 5's native support for embedded video, CSS 3's rounded corners, Canvas's extensive graphical capabilities) that developers want them right now. At PDC, Microsoft would not commit to supporting any particular features or specifications with IE9. The company did state that its focus would be on providing the features that were actually most useful to developers, and ensuring that those features had robust test suites.
IE9 is still in its early days, and there is no hint of a date at which a beta might become available. Many questions, especially about standards support, remain unanswered. The switch to Direct2D may also mean an end to XP support (Direct2D is unavailable on that OS). Nonetheless, the announcements give a strong indication that Microsoft is taking its browser seriously, and wants it to be a viable alternative to its competitors. | {
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Could this also mean we're going to get a Soul Calibur pro circuit?
Going into 2019, it was becoming unclear where some of the biggest fighting game titles would stand from community and eSports perspectives with a number of players announcing plans to step back from competition and events having tournaments cancelled or games not showing up on the lineup at all.
Katsuhiro Harada, known as the long-time director and producer for the Tekken series, released an open letter to the fighting game community to address these concerns where he announced that he has become the leader and supervisor of Bandai Namco's Fighting Game eSports Strategy team and that support for all three of their major titles will continue into next year.
Dragon Ball FighterZ, Tekken 7 and Soul Calibur 6 will all feature "as many official tournaments as possible" in 2019 with continued support for smaller / community events according to Harada.
The letter also states that Bandai Namco are also dedicated to finding ways to assist community activities in the future with Harada asking anyone looking to hold a tournament to contact their regional Bandai Namco office.
These statements come after Dragon Ball FighterZ was revealed to have been left off of EVO Japan's main lineup and has had multiple community events cancelled which has EVO's Joey 'Mr. Wizard' Cuellar worried it might be "one and done" for the world's largest FGC event despite DBFZ having the highest viewership peak of EVO 2018.
Many in the community have been pointing towards Toei Animation or perhaps another entity in control of Dragon Ball's rights for the current issues and questions surrounding FighterZ's current competitive status which the prior company has since said they "have no knowledge of" impeding anything in that regard.
You can check out Harada's full letter in the screen-cap below or the text after the jump.
Click images for larger versions
Harada's open letter to the FGC To everyone in the "Dragon Ball FighterZ", "Tekken", and "Soul Calibur" community, I wanted to notify everyone that I have become the leader and supervisor of the Bandai Namco Fighting Game eSports Strategy team today (Of course, I'll continue producing the game as well). And first I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who held and/or participated in various tournaments this year. We at Bandai Namco are committed to expand the horizons of both tournament and community scenes of these 3 franchises. We are already planning to have as many official tournaments as possible for next year—while continue supporting tournaments held by the community. Furthermore, we are dedicated to figure out ways where we can assist tournaments and community activities in the future. If you have any questions or inquiries about holding or participating in a tournament in your area, please contact the local Bandai Namco office in your respective region. (The conditions and languages might differ between areas, so contacting your local Bandai Namco offices is highly recommended.) We will continue to bring you the ultimate experience through Bandai Namco Fighting Games next year. Thank you.
Sent in by GodComplex, lelouch345, Ramusu20, SqueakyBloom and ParabolaBeam. | {
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At the Television Critics Assn. gathering in Pasadena last weekend, NBC Entertainment Chairman Paul Telegdy reflected on a subject many of his peers wished to avoid: the prospect of reliving another writers’ strike.
“So far we’ve been told that we should be cautious, as always, but that a strike is something we will always be prepared for,” Telegdy told journalists at the Langham Huntingon hotel. “It’s a different world...I just need to make sure there are things people want to watch and we’ve got plans that could sustain us.”
More than a decade after writers shut down Hollywood, studios and networks are once again preparing for another potential walkout that could disrupt Southern California’s highest profile industry. But the circumstances have radically changed since the last strike, which began in fall of 2007 and lasted 100 days.
Then, Hollywood was just entering a digital revolution that would upend old distribution models, with Netflix just starting its pivot from DVD to the internet and Hulu going live as the strike ended. Today, the streaming revolution has accelerated to a degree few could have imagined then, creating a new golden era in TV production.
Much more is at stake for both the studios, which are in the throes of launching new direct-to-consumer services such as NBC’s Peacock and AT&T’s HBO Max., and the writers, who could miss out on a production surge. HBO Max is due to launch the same month the Writers Guild of America contract ends with the studios expires May 1. NBC plans to roll out Peacock nationally by July 15.
“The bottom line is, we are in a really different context than we were in 2007 and 2008,” said Ivy Kagan Bierman, an L.A.-based entertainment lawyer who has represented production companies on labor issues. “The emergence of Netflix and similar platforms has really changed the landscape.”
Studios, production companies and guild members are all eager to avoid a sequel to the last major disruption that cost the state an estimated 37,700 jobs and $2.1 billion in lost output from late 2007 through the end of 2008, according to a 2008 Milken Institute report.
Even L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti is worried about the potential effect of a work stoppage on the city.
“It’s troubling because this doesn’t just hurt the industry, it hurts main street,” Garcetti said in an interview to promote a new initiative to increase Latino employment in Hollywood. “It hurts the dry cleaner and the bakery and those dollars that are recycled here. I hope that as models change, that people can also figure out a way to keep that production here because fighting for something better, the last thing we want to see is for that production to leave altogether.”
The continued spread of filming to Georgia, New York and other film hubs could lessen the economic hit of a strike on L.A., but the “impact on individuals could be just as bad, especially if there is a protracted strike, because of the higher cost of living,” said Kevin Klowden, executive director of the Milken Institute’s Center for Regional Economics and California Center.
At TCA last week, FX Networks Chairman John Landgraf described the landscape as a “mad race to keep the massive conveyor belt of content going.” The industry’s networks and streaming services together produced 532 scripted dramas, comedies and limited series in 2019, doubling the number of scripted shows produced a decade ago.
The problem is, the content bumper crop hasn’t benefited writers the way it should, according to the WGA. Employment for film writers has reached levels not seen for 20 years, with about 1,000 screenwriters reporting more than $100 million in earnings each quarter (up from about 700 writers in prior years) and nearly 5,000 members working in TV for the last five years. Nonetheless, “too many members” are working at, or close to, minimum, the WGA told members in December.
As streaming takes over the traditional broadcast network TV model, studios are commissioning shorter seasons and writers also are losing out on revenue from what would have been syndication or reselling of their shows.
“We are in a completely new world of how people consume entertainment,” WGA West President David Goodman said in an interview. “There is intense competition between the companies to launch their streaming services and hold on to their libraries. The question for the Writers Guild is, how are our members being compensated? Are we keeping up with this enormous growth and how do we make sure to protect our members in this new business model?”
But Goodman said the whirlwind of speculation about a strike was “part of a game to try to put us on our heels.”
He dismissed the widespread perception that the union’s months-long fight with major talent agencies over industry practices foreshadows a bigger labor fight. He noted that the union voted to strike only once out of the last four rounds of bargaining.
“We will identify the issues. ... The members will decide how hard they want to fight for it,” Goodman said. Union leaders have conveyed that message in a series of routine meetings in writers’ rooms across Hollywood.
At the end of January, the WGA leadership will disclose to members a so-called “pattern of demands,” the key issues that will frame upcoming negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major studios such as Walt Disney and Warner Bros. but also Amazon and Apple. The AMPTP declined to comment.
The uncertain outcome has many writers on edge.
“Everybody is very stressed about it,” said Dan Fogelman, creator of the hit NBC show “This Is Us,” at the Pasadena conference. “People are still making money, so there’s a lot to figure out between guilds and studios [about] how that money is going to be spread fairly around.”
Even the industry’s insider newsletter, The Ankler, launched an index called “Strike-O-Meter 2020,” though for now it had the probability of a strike at just 20%.
Several industry executives declined to publicly discuss strike plans but privately said they were taking contingency measures, including ordering extra episodes of existing shows or potentially holding back programs for later in the year.
One executive described creating a schedule, akin to a football playbook, with various alternative programming plans depending on the length of a strike, whether it be one week or several weeks.
“There are companies that are doing their strike contingency plans and looking at what they have in development and production,” said Kagan Bierman. “They’re appropriately and strategically analyzing their slates so that a strike doesn’t cripple the entertainment business. It is not simply about stockpiling scripts, which often has a negative connotation. It is also about whether to move forward with projects in development and what type of programming to focus on developing and producing.”
The streaming revolution has brought new tech giants into the Hollywood market, such as Amazon and Apple. They are hungry for new content but don’t have a history of dealing with unions.
Then there’s Netflix, which is not a member of the producers alliance. The Los Gatos company has already started forging its own labor deals, including a landmark contract with SAG-AFTRA this summer, that could give it a competitive advantage in the event of a work stoppage
The ability to negotiate a separate deal with Netflix also gives WGA and other talent unions some leverage with the studios. Contracts for SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America expire June 30.
Another change over the past decade is the consolidation among legacy media companies, with the formation of AT&T-Warner Media, Viacom-CBS, Disney-Fox and Comcast-NBC. These corporate behemoths may take a harder line with unions and have more resources to fight the WGA and other guilds. At the same time, they need talent more than ever to feed their new streaming pipelines in order to compete with Netflix.
“They both need each other in the end, but when there is some consolidation it can lead to a little more leverage,” said David Smith, a professor of economics at the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School. “There is almost a frenzy in terms of production and the need for writers during these times, so that dynamic is at play.”
Said Fogelman: “My hope is that very smart people who don’t want a strike can get together and come up with an arrangement that makes everybody happy.”
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The card, which appears to have been written by a white spectator to his parents, is signed “your son Joe.” He refers to the horrific murder in which the victim’s ears, fingers and sexual organs were severed as the “barbecue we had last night.” He identifies himself in the crowd by placing a mark in ink about his head.
By permitting images like this one to move through the mail at all, the government tacitly endorsed lynching, along with the presumption that African-Americans were less than human. The mailings also aided a propaganda campaign that was intended to terrorize the black population in the nation as a whole, not just in the South.
Joe from Waco is no doubt long dead. But many of the people who attended lynchings as children in the 1930’s and 40’s must be still alive and walking the streets of the principal states of the lynching belt. They include Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, all of which voted against the first black president.
The nearness of the past was fully evident not long ago in Atlanta, when the collectors James Allen and John Littlefield were trying to mount an exhibition of lynching images that had drawn a huge audience and international attention when shown at the New-York Historical Society’s “Without Sanctuary” exhibition of 2000.
Influential Atlantans equivocated. As a person familiar with the issue told me recently: “There were concerns that people in crowds were still alive. And of course, family members and relatives of those people might come in and have to say, ‘That’s my dad’ or ‘That’s my mom.’ ” | {
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Oct 8, 2008 -- The McCain campaign has made no secret of its plans to spend these final weeks of the election going negative -- attacking Sen. Barack Obama on his judgment, questioning his associations and unleashing self-described "pitbull" Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to do much of the dirty work.
"For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off," she told a group of Republican donors in Naples, Fla., on Monday.
As the rhetoric at Palin's rallies has ratcheted up, so too has the language of supporters in the crowds coming to see her. At rallies in Florida, supporters were heard yelling "treason" and "traitor" when Obama's name was mentioned.
At a rally on Monday in Clearwater, one man shouted "Kill him," according to the Washington Post, after Palin mentioned Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers. It was not clear who made the comment or if the man was referring to Ayers or to Obama, but the Secret Service says it will investigate.
"One of [Obama's] earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said Monday, eliciting boos from the crowd. "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she said to more boos and the one man's call to "kill him."
Palin's speeches and a series of recently released negative ads, some pundits say, are all par for the course in the waning days of a closely fought contest. Now questions are being raised, by the opposition and by outside observers, about whether Palin is stoking people's worst natures and, more broadly, about when a candidate should take her supporters to task when they go too far.
"At some level, negative rhetoric is part of the game. But is it truly dangerous?" asked Kimberly Gross, a professor of political communication at George Washington University. "Is someone going to kill Barack Obama because they went to a Palin rally? Probably not, and if they do it is more likely because they're crazy than because they heard someone tell them to do it at a Palin rally. It is dangerous in a bigger sense that it is bad for politics."
Making the rounds on today's network morning shows, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden of Delaware called Palin's attempt to link Obama and Ayers "mildly dangerous," on CBS's The Early Show
On ABC News's "Good Morning America" he said: "This really is a case where when you don't have anything to talk about, attack -- and I think that's really over the edge"
"Some of the stuff she's saying about Obama and some of the stuff people are yelling from the crowd, if she hears it she should be able to say 'Whoa whoa whoa, that's overboard.' This is volatile stuff and I thought we were kind of beyond this place," he said.
Gross said politicians had a responsibility to call out their supporters when they say offensive things, not only for the good of their own electoral chances but for the good of the political system.
"In my opinion candidates have a responsibility to say something," she said. "Negative campaigning per se is not absolutely a bad thing, and can be informative. But candidates do us disservice when they create the conditions that can allow a crowd to get out of hand. It just reinforces a cynicism about politics."
Though much of the negative campaigning has fallen to Palin and the crowds who attend her rallies tend to come from the further right wing of the Rupublican base, McCain had a moment recently in Albuquerque, N.M., when a member of the crowd shouted a smear, which the candidate appeared to hear but said nothing about.
"In short," McCain asked the crowd, "who is the real Barack Obama?"
"A terrorist," yelled someone from the crowd, eliciting a laugh from others in the hall and a perplexed look from McCain, but he continued his speech without comment.
On NBC's "Today" show, Biden called some of the language being used by crowds at Republican rallies "semi-vile" and said Palin should have condemned those who shouted provocative epithets.
"Heard that a couple of people hollering from the audience, you know, semi-vile things about, you know, 'terrorist' and things like that. And the idea that a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop mid-sentence and turn and condemn that, you know, I just -- this is -- this is a slippery slope. This is a place we shouldn't be going," he said.
Calls for comment from the McCain-Palin campaign were not yet returned.
Reporters following McCain and Palin say that crowds have become increasingly hostile towards them, yelling at them as they get off the press bus to cover events. The Palin crowds, they say, are typically more aggressive than those found at McCain-only events, especially since Palin's interview with CBS's Katie Couric in which she appeared to be uninformed on major policy issues.
In Clearwater, reporters were taunted by the crowd of about 3,000 people. Palin blamed Couric for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media."
One Palin supporter used a racial slur against an African-American sound technician working with a television crew and told him to, "sit down, boy." | {
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india
Updated: Jan 26, 2019 23:29 IST
The Union health ministry has written to all states to conduct a special drive to raise awareness about leprosy, especially in villages, after the number of cases saw a marginal rise in 2017-18.
According to government data available till March 2018, about 0.9 lakh leprosy cases were reported, as compared to 0.86 lakh cases in 2016-17 and 0.88 lakh cases in 2015-16.
Although India declared leprosy eliminated in 2005 after reaching the World Health Organization (WHO) target of less than one case per 10,000 population, more than half the world’s leprosy numbers are from India.
Also, some states and Union territories that earlier achieved the elimination target of less than one case per 10,000 population are now reporting a higher prevalence rate -- Odisha (1.38), Bihar (1.18) and Lakshadweep (2.25). At present, India’s overall leprosy prevalence rate is 0.70 per 10,000 population, up from 0.66 previously.
“The numbers have seen a rise lately because of the massive campaigns we launched to track cases and put them on treatment. In such a scenario, there is always an initial rise in numbers,” said Manoj Jhalani, mission director, National Health Mission, Union health ministry.
“But the numbers stabilise after a point and start coming down eventually,” he said.
“Leprosy-related discrimination, stigma and prejudice are the most powerful barriers to ending leprosy for good, especially given the disease is 100% curable when detected early,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO regional director for South-East Asia, in a statement. | {
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Looking at Photographs of Marilyn Monroe Reading
February 25, 2019
There are more photographs of Marilyn Monroe reading than there are of her naked. Almost always, these images are captioned with a kind of perky can-you-believe-it paternalism. “Those books aren’t just for show!” “Despite her reputation as a blonde…” The public seems permanently surprised at her literacy, even when we are making a show of not being surprised. Just as Freud said every negative statement includes the wish of its positive, every Instagram post that insists hotness does not prevent intellect only reasserts the unreliability of its claim.
Beauty is a lot easier to prove than intelligence. And as Marilyn Monroe reading continues to be breaking news—a constant buoy for the shipwrecked listicle or uplifting aside—her nudity, once news that threatened to break her, remains established, endlessly familiar. I’m not sure why we insist that her reading scandalizes, even though by now, nearly sixty years after her death, it has become common knowledge.
In 1999, Christie’s auctioned off nearly 400 books from Marilyn’s personal library, a roster of classics ranging from Proust to Hemingway, which publicly solidified her intellectual identity and provided hard evidence against all those who claimed the plentitude of reading photographs were staged.1 But staged, of course, they were. They are hardly a homogenous document of fact; taken across decades, their only consistent element is the subject (Monroe), the act (reading), and the light, the aura that emits from the promise, the flattened proof, that beauty is real. Some call this being photogenic. Feminist accounts of Marilyn Monroe often take great trouble to declare the photographs’ candid status as a way to defend her ability to think, as if to pose with a book is to admit one cannot read it. But it is the slipperiness of their authenticity that make these photographs so mesmerizing.
To understand why there is such sustained, cultivated disbelief in her smarts, we must first understand how we came to believe she was dumb—iconically so. The dumb blonde trope is now a convenient schtick many actresses can slip on and off at will, winking at a lineage of platinum predecessors with every breathy “Oops!”, but then, in the late ’40s and early ’50s, Marilyn Monroe was pasting together a public identity of bit parts, pin-ups, and gossip rags, with hardly a cliché to rely on. Jean Harlow’s Bombshell (1933) and Betty Grable’s war-time success had paved the way for a busty blonde sex symbol through times of conflict, but post-war desire had yet to be pinned down.
The sex appeal of Harlow and Grable were both keyed to the subtle historical shifts of their moment: Harlow, a dangerous vamp, oozed through the sticky moral dilemmas of Depression-era glamour and excess, whereas Grable skipped into the next decade with the energetic pep of state sponsored nationalism, a girl next door who rooted for the good guys as the U.S. joined WWII in 1941. Neither blondes were particularly dumb, although Grable’s wide-eyed enthusiasm sometimes verges on the childlike. So why did Marilyn take on the mantle of artfully eroticized stupidity?
The archetype Monroe would come to define was barely sketched out as she began acting. Her first appearances are mostly as one-note sex objects: she swans in, heads turn, she introduces herself (already, though, her cadence and speech pattern are slanted, tilting, put-on), a joke is made at her desirability’s expense, and she swans away again. She doesn’t have enough lines to be intelligent, or stupid; at first, she is nothing but there.
In 1952, Howard Hawks cast her in Monkey Business, starring Hawks’ favorite Cary Grant and an Astaire-less Ginger Rogers. She plays scientist Grant’s sexy secretary, in the first example of what “would become her fixed type: the dumb, childish blonde innocently unaware of the havoc her sexiness causes around her.”2 Monkey Business was co-written by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, and I.A.L. Diamond. Charles Lederer would go on to write Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I.A.L. Diamond would write Some Like It Hot, and highly political Ben Hecht would ghostwrite Marilyn Monroe’s autobiography My Story, which wasn’t published until 1974, after both were dead.3 Hecht’s version of Monroe’s life set a cultural precedent for every future biography.
The intersection of voices that would mold the public Monroe began through the easily ignored, screwball antics of Monkey Business, and a group of friends who, on the surface, seemed to be the opposite of Monroe’s public persona: markedly male, Jewish, whip-smart. The next year, Hawks would direct her in the epoch-defining Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: this time, however, the dumb blonde is the star.
The earliest photograph of Marilyn Monroe reading is undeniably staged. It is 1948, Monroe is still surviving entirely off of modeling despite an acting contract at Columbia, and her hair is still a honey-colored blonde, shoulder length with syrupy curls. She has yet to bleach out her markers of age, the platinum that combines both the feathery soft hair of toddlers and pale tresses of the elderly. With every brush of peroxide, linearity burns away. She’s only 22 here, and she still looks it. She stands on a sound stage, with a plywood vista behind her, rolling California hills. A miniature street sign comes up to her hips: Los Angeles City Limits. This is a girl on the edge of something. Monroe, in shorts, holds a phone book open in her hands, but she’s not looking at it, she is smiling into the distance, as if surveying the unknown city before her.
The title of the photo, taken by Ed Cronenweth, is “Marilyn Monroe reading an L.A. telephone directory near the Los Angeles city limits.” Reading is a loose term, as is city. She is clearly not reading, just as she is clearly not at the corner where desert road meets incorporated pavement. She is not a Hollywood newcomer—she was born Norma Jeane at Los Angeles County Hospital, right off where the 10 meets the 5. She’s probably listed in the phone book she’s holding. It is not the fiction of the image that interests me—when did we ask pin-ups for realism? —but rather, the flagrant neglect of the image’s duty to convince us of anything.
There are two photographs of Marilyn Monroe reading Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, taken roughly a year apart, by two different photographers, each presumably unaware of the other. The first, by Dave Cicero in 1951 for Love Nest publicity, shows Monroe lying on her stomach on a lawn, with her arms propped up, supporting her head, her legs bent and crossed, soles towards the sky—it’s the way I used to read on the living room floor as a child, rocking my feet back and forth (fig. 2). A blade of grass is in her mouth, her hair tousled. She is reading with concentration. Her brow is almost furrowed. The complete shoot includes a photograph presumably taken right after this one: there, she is lying on her back on the same lawn, rolled over and splayed out, smiling, her thumb still holding the Whitman open, but we can no longer see the title. The book mirrors her body: spine up or pages outstretched, she has only two modes, closed or open.
The second photograph was taken by John Florea in 1952. Monroe is at the Beverly Carlton Hotel, where she lived at the time (fig. 3). A plush, satin quilt covers the sofa bed where she reclines like a cloud; behind her is a shelf full of books, framed photos, small treasures. The cover of Leaves of Grass is more obvious here. She holds it at an angle out from her face, directly turned to the camera. Her expression is a little forlorn as she reads. It’s the same copy—hers.
Both photographs circulated widely at the time, promoting the seven different movies she appeared in between 1951 and 1952. Yet Walt Whitman’s place in Monroe’s public image continues to waver. Speculative biographer Sam Staggs wrote in his fictional account of Monroe, “Walt Whitman was her favorite poet… She often read Whitman for relaxation. The rhythm of his long free verse lulled and stimulated her at the same time.”4 The jubilant sexuality of Whitman’s content is overlooked for the “rhythms” of his form: for Stagg, she reads the sounds of the words, not the meanings.
Arlene Dahl, an MGM contract actress who reached brief fame in the early 1950s, has been quoted telling a Monroe-Whitman anecdote across decades: Dahl is at a party, in the corner with Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, and sometimes JFK, the story reliably changes with every re-telling, and the group is discussing Walt Whitman. Dahl laughs, “Marilyn happened to overhear the name ‘Whitman’ so she slunk over to the three gentlemen standing there… and she said, ‘Oh! Whitman! I just love his chocolates!’”5
Whitman (poet) becomes Whitman’s (chocolates), and Monroe shows her hand of blank cards. It’s impossible to know whether or not Dahl’s story is true, but it’s a good story, good and mean, and Monroe’s familiarity with Whitman only reinforces her role in its creation. As Sarah Churchwell points out in her book, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn’s dumbness was often “comedy based on wide-eyed literalism, on non sequiturs and misinterpretation.”6 The best examples of her “literal-mindedness,” as Churchwell puts it, are sexual (What does she wear to bed? Chanel No.5. What did she have on during the photo shoot? The radio).
The Whitman/Whitman’s misinterpretation is witty, not only as word play, but as meta-comment on her own body as a symbol of national excess and desire. While the men discuss American poetry, she is eating American bonbons. In a different post-post-war moment, twelve years after 9/11 and a four-trillion-dollar War on Terror later, Lana del Rey releases an Americana-saturated short film, Tropico (2013). Adam and Eve (played by a male model and Lana herself) meet Elvis, Jesus, John Wayne, and Marilyn impersonators in a Technicolor Garden of Eden.7 Lana sings, “I sing the body electric,” quoting Whitman,8 swaying under the tree of knowledge, “Diamonds are my bestest friend,” she sings, quoting Monroe.9 Lana del Rey re-packages Walt Whitman like he’s Whitman’s chocolate, electric bodies wrapped in the pink cellophane of pop music. The distinction between poetry and commodity has collapsed. Marilyn questioned if it was ever there at all.
By 1955, the corrosive spiral of her playing with and against her own self-created stereotype reached critical mass and, in a radical and unprecedented move, she broke her contract with 20th Century Fox, relocated to New York City, and embedded herself within a thriving community of East Coast Jewish leftist intellectuals. In many ways, she was going back to the source. Monroe’s spacious capacity for escape and resurrection now seems fearless and alchemical: she made something out of nothing, and then turned around and nothing-ed all that something she made.
She fled the castle, or she kept conquering territory, depending on who you ask. From the height of Hollywood, she went to the theatrical stage; from the beloved baseball star, she went to the acerbic playwright; from the front page tell-all interview, she went to the psychoanalytic couch. The press, the public, and the studios all thought she had gone crazy. In the United States, in 1955 and now, nothing screams insanity like shacking up with a Marxist, believing Freud, and reading Dostoevsky.
The first significantly researched and comprehensive biography of Monroe, published in 1956 by Pete Martin, was titled Will Acting Spoil Marilyn Monroe?10 It was structured entirely around the open-ended risk of her decision to “be serious,” an innately untrustworthy aspiration in American culture. Martin’s title defines ‘acting’ as stage-acting only, implying that the twenty-four filmic appearances Monroe had accumulated in the past nine years of working was only an example of her ‘being.’ As the ditz, she was, in many senses, an obtuse form of working-class-hero: someone even the most uneducated could feel smarter than.
This new allegiance to the New York literati was a betrayal beyond a simple disturbance of sexual fantasy; she was no longer just “a little girl from Little Rock, [who] lived on the wrong side of the tracks,”11 a class identity and origin story upon which her gold-digger bimbo persona relied. Like gender, class is an embodied system of discipline: Monroe’s passage from pop culture to high culture is named by Martin as a transgression that spoils, as if she were a petulant child, or a piece of fruit.
This fear of intellectualism was a lingering effect of McCarthyism, which had purged Hollywood and New York of perceived dissenters in a shocking spectacle of power just a few years before. In 1955, the FBI opened their file on Monroe, which they would keep actively updated until her death: “Subject’s views, very positively and concisely leftist,” it notes.12 The words “positively and concisely” evoke a kind of alacrity and sureness—this is a rare gleam of lucid resolution in one of the most indeterminate public figures of all time. It is no coincidence that the spectacle of Monroe’s mental illness, drug addiction, and tragic fate gains ground in the public consciousness at precisely the moment she begins to identify as an auto-didact and politically aware person.
Her marriage to Arthur Miller was made out to be an unthreatening and cartoonish case of odd couple in the press (“The Genius and the Goddess,” “The Brain got the Blonde,” “Egghead weds Hourglass”) to distract from what was essentially political identification and intellectual self-fashioning by way of romantic partnership. If Marilyn Monroe was only ever understood in the terms of sexual desire, then who she chose to sleep with became one of her primary modes of communication to the public. Post-Freud yet pre-Foucault, she, of all people, understood that who and how you desire has material consequences.
The most famous photograph of Marilyn Monroe reading relies on the iconicity of both reader and book (fig. 4). In 1955, on an impromptu photo shoot in an empty Long Island playground, Eve Arnold captured Marilyn perched on a rusty children’s round-about, reading James Joyce’s Ulysses.13 She is near the end, where the novel culminates in Molly Bloom’s embodied stream of consciousness. This section is also notoriously sexually explicit. Joyceans, historians, fans, feminists, and film theorists have spent decades in the thrall of this photograph: what does it mean to have two such legendary symbols of the “history of sexuality, its censorship and its contestation, its inscription and its representation” meet unexpectedly in a candid shot at an abandoned playground by the beach?14
In many cases, rather than proving Monroe’s intellectualism, the image’s “naturalness,” is used conversely to extrapolate on her naiveté: she couldn’t have comprehended her own meaningfulness, she must have stumbled into this iconic convergence of cultural objects. The background of children’s playground doesn’t help. Anyone can hold a book open. In a 2014 interview with Time magazine, Richard Brown, Joycean scholar, was asked if he believed she was “actually reading it” (emphasis in the original). He responds, “If you see someone in a picture reading a book, then they are reading that book.”15
The question snags on the shared problem of not knowing exactly what reading feels like for other people. Is it something one can fake? Is reading the same thing as understanding? Is understanding sufficient? Where, in the body, is such a process held?
In the photograph, I see three women, even though only one is visible: Eve, Marilyn, and Molly Bloom. Together, half-way home in the liminal space between city and country, fiction and reality, image and body, they merge in a document of pleasure. My best friend has a postcard of this photo up in her bedroom; I once had it as my phone background. I looked at it every day. It promised that beauty and meaning were not mutually exclusive, that fantasy didn’t have to compromise. It offered a set of paradoxes: glamorous, desirable, and well-read. Adult, yet childlike. A woman, intellectual. We could be all these things!
This was a false promise, in many ways, and so we countered by cultivating the fictional within ourselves. Tending to our impossibilities, we offered those around us both the negative, the zero, and its accompanying wish. That’s what Marilyn gave us: the “not” and its opposite. Pretending to read, and reading, all at once. | {
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Scientists have long suspected that an asteroid impact 66 million-years-ago was responsible for the extinction event which killed the dinosaurs. New research has suggested that volcanoes may also have played their part in the elimination of the planet’s dominant species.
Two new studies published in the journal Science have indicated that an asteroid alone may not have been responsible for triggering the mass extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs along with a great deal of the Earth’s species 66 million-years-ago. Both studies agree that volcanic activity also played its part in the event, but the researchers are uncertain how great a role it played.
It seems increasingly likely that the asteroid impact in the Caribbean Sea triggered massive volcanic eruptions in India. The two catastrophes contributed to the near-simultaneous mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs and many other forms of life.
Layered lava flows within the Wai Subgroup from near Ambenali Ghat, Western Ghats (Courtney Sprain)
The research sheds light on huge lava flows that have erupted periodically over Earth’s history, and how they have affected the atmosphere and altered the course of life on the planet.
In the study, University of California, Berkeley, scientists report the most precise and accurate dates yet for the intense volcanic eruptions in India that coincided with the worldwide extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period, marked in the geological record by the so-called K-Pg boundary. The million-year sequence of eruptions spewed lava flows for distances of at least 500 kilometers across the Indian continent, creating the so-called Deccan Traps flood basalts that in some places are nearly 2 kilometers thick.
Paul Renne, a professor-in-residence of earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley, director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center and senior author of the study, says: “Now that we have dated Deccan Traps lava flows in more and different locations, we see that the transition seems to be the same everywhere. I would say, with pretty high confidence, that the eruptions occurred within 50,000 years, and maybe 30,000 years, of the impact, which means they were synchronous within the margin of error.
“That is an important validation of the hypothesis that the impact renewed lava flows.”
The new dates also confirm earlier estimates that the lava flows continued for about a million years, but contain a surprise: three-quarters of the lava erupted after the impact. Previous studies suggested that about 80 percent of the lava erupted before the impact.
Map outlining exposed areas of the Deccan Traps in modern day India (Courtney Sprain)
If most of the Deccan Traps lava had erupted before the impact, then gases emitted during the eruptions could have been the cause of global warming within the last 400,000 years of the Cretaceous Period, during which temperatures increased, on average, about 8 C.
During this period of warming, species would have evolved suited to hothouse conditions, only to be confronted by global cooling from the dust or by climate cooling gases caused by either the impact or the volcanos. The cold would have been a shock from which most creatures would never have recovered, disappearing entirely from the fossil record – the observed mass extinction.
But if most of the Deccan Traps lava emerged after the impact, this scenario needs rethinking.
Lead author, Courtney Sprain, a postdoc at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, says: “This changes our perspective on the role of the Deccan Traps in the K-Pg extinction.
“Either the Deccan eruptions did not play a role – which we think unlikely – or a lot of climate-modifying gases were erupted during the lowest volume pulse of the eruptions.”
The hypothesis that climate-altering volcanic gases leak out of underground magma chambers frequently, and not just during eruptions, is supported by evidence from present-day volcanos, such as those of the gas-spewing Mt. Etna in Italy and Popocatepetl in Mexico, the researchers said. Magma stewing below the surface is known to transmit gases to the atmosphere, even without eruptions.
“We are suggesting that it is very likely that a lot of the gases that come from magma systems precede eruptions; they don’t necessarily correlate with eruptions,” Renne said. In the case of the K-Pg extinction, the symptoms of significant climate change occurred before the peak in volcanic eruptions.
Flood basalts and dating methods
Renne, Sprain and their colleagues are using a precise dating method, argon-argon dating, to determine when the impact occurred and when the Deccan Traps erupted to clarify the sequence of catastrophes at the end of the Cretaceous Period and beginning of the Tertiary Period – the K-Pg boundary, formerly referred to as the K-T boundary.
In 2013, using rocks from Montana, they obtained the most precise date yet for the impact, and in 2018, they updated that to 66,052,000 years ago, give or take 8,000 years. Then, in 2015, they determined from a handful of samples in India that, in at least one spot, the peak of the Deccan Traps eruptions occurred within about 50,000 years of that date, which means, in geologic time, that the incidents were basically simultaneous.
Now, with three times more rock samples from areas covering more of the Deccan Traps, the researchers have established that the time of peak eruptions was the same across much of the Indian continent. This supports the group’s hypothesis that the asteroid impact triggered super-earthquakes that caused a strong burst of volcanism in India, which is almost directly opposite the impact site, the Chicxulub crater in the Caribbean Sea.
Sprain and Renne argue that the coincident catastrophes likely delivered a one-two punch to life on Earth, but the details are unclear. Volcanic eruptions produce lots of gases, but some, like carbon dioxide and methane, warm the planet, while others, like sulfur aerosols, are cooling. The impact itself would have sent dust into the atmosphere that blocked sunlight and cooled the Earth, though no one knows for how long.
Lead author Courtney Sprain standing in front of an inflated sheet lobe in the Jawhar Formation in a quarry north of Mumbai, India. (Vanderkluysen)
Sprain says: “Both the impact and Deccan volcanism can produce similar environmental effects, but these are occurring on vastly differing timescales.
“Therefore, to understand how each agent contributed to the extinction event, assessing timing is key.”
Which gases in the Deccan Traps are emitted when is a question that’s hard to answer, because there are no flood basalt eruptions going on today, despite numerous ones in Earth’s history. The most recent, near the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, dwindled 15 million years ago after 400,000 years of eruptions.
The paucity of information about flood basalts is one reason Renne and Sprain are interested in the Deccan Traps, which are still young enough to contain information about the sequence, effects and scale of the eruptions, and perhaps the cause.
“It makes we wonder whether we may see some external forcing mechanism, like the impact for the Deccan Traps, for other flood basalts that lead up to major peaks in eruptions, like the Columbia River basalts or the Siberian Traps,” Renne said. “Could a major earthquake in nearby subduction zones or the accumulation of pressure due to rising magma unleash these major episodes in flood basalts?”
Sprain noted that, in the same issue of Science, a research group at Princeton University also will publish new dates related to the Deccan Traps, some of which differ from those of the Berkeley group. Whereas the Berkeley group dated the mineral plagioclase from the actual lava flows, the Princeton group dated zircons in the sediment deposited between flows. Because it’s unclear where the zircons came from, however, those dates provide only a maximum age for the lava, she said.
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In Tansania ab sofort verboten: Gleitgel
23. Juli 2016, 16:33h,
Für die Regierung ist das Verkaufs- und Einfuhrverbot für Gleitmittel eine Maßnahme zur Aids-Prävention.
Das ostafrikanische Land Tansania hat die Einfuhr und den Verkauf von Gleitmitteln für sexuelle Kontakte verboten. Dies bestätigte Gesundheitsministerin Ummy Mwalimu am vergangenen Dienstag. Mit der Maßnahme solle gleichgeschlechtlichen Sex unter Männern bekämpft werden.
Durch den Verkauf und das zum Teil kostenlose Verteilen von Gleitgel würde Homosexualität befördert, kritisierte die Ministerin gegenüber lokalen Medien. Durch das Vertriebsverbot solle die Ausbreitung von HIV gestoppt werden. Schätzungen der Regierung zufolge haben sich 23 Prozent der HIV-positiven Männer in Tansania beim Sex mit anderen Männern infiziert. Das Geld zum Kauf von Gleitgel sollte besser in Betten für Entbindungsstationen investiert werden, forderte Mwalimu.
Aktivisten kritisierten das Gleitgel-Verbot als kontraproduktiv. Schwule und bisexuelle Männer würden lediglich auf andere Schmiermittel wie Öl ausweichen, die jedoch Kondome angreifen und damit die HIV-Infektionszahlen erhöhen können.
Schwuler Sex ist in Tansania strafbar
Homosexuelle Handlungen unter Männern sind in dem ostafrikanischen Staat illegal. Es drohen Haftstrafen von bis zu 30 Jahren. Auf der zu Tansania gehörenden Insel Sansibar steht auch auf lesbischen Sex eine Haftstrafe von fünf Jahren, im Rest des Landes gibt es dagegen kein Gesetz gegen Frauen.
Laut dem Flüchtlingskommissariat der Vereinten Nationen werden LGBT in Tansania verfolgt, misshandelt und gedemütigt. Mehrfach wurden schwule und lesbische Aktivisten verhaftet. Erst in diesem Monat startete Presseberichten zufolge der neue Generalkommissar der größten Stadt Daressalam Paul Makonda eine gezielte Kampagne mit Razzien und Festnahmen in Gay-Clubs sowie dem Verbot von Online-Netzwerken. Der Lokalsender Cloud TV musste sich wegen eines Interviews mit einem 28-jährigen Schwulen auf Anordnung der Medienaufsicht fünf Tage in Folge bei den Zuschauern entschuldigen.
Tansania gehört zu den ärmsten Ländern der Welt. Jeweils zwischen 30 und 40 Prozent der Bevölkerung sind Christen und Muslime, der Rest verteilt sich überwiegend auf Anhänger von Naturreligionen. (cw) | {
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Two surveys came out on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
One of them was about inequality.
Even as Davos saw a record 1,500 private jets arrive this year, 50 percent more than last, and Oxfam reported that the richest 26 people in the world now own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, that half—some 3.8 billion—saw their wealth decline by 11 percent. According to Axios, wealth held by the world’s billionaires has grown from $3.4 trillion in 2009, right after the Wall Street-generated market crash, to $8.9 trillion in 2017.
...As former U.S. Federal Reserve vice chair Alan Blinder once told me, when historians look back on the late 20th century, “they will marvel at the equanimity” with which those in power accepted “the shift from labor to capital, the almost unprecedented shift of money and power up the income pyramid.”
In response, the sycophants at Bloomberg rushed to the defense of the wealthy.
Their reason to doubt Oxfam? 2018 economic growth numbers "look healthy".
So how can things be bad if the GDP is going up?
So far in Davos -a room full of billionaires laughed tauntingly at @AOC’s 70% marginal tax prop.
-Bill Gates scoffed at notion the system was broken, hinted critics were communists
-Tony Blair laughed at idea his cohort was responsible for any global malady Uh, keep it up guys pic.twitter.com/sCAZoZorH1 — Brian Merchant (@bcmerchant) January 23, 2019
The other survey to come out was by a shameless group of corporate brown-nosers.
Amid low confidence that politicians will fix the problems, these people are turning to companies, with 75 percent saying they trust “my employer”, compared to 48 percent for government and 47 percent for the media. “CEOs now have to be visible, show personal commitment, absolutely step into the void, because we’ve got a leadership void in the world,” Richard Edelman, head of the communications marketing firm that commissioned the research, told Reuters.
A "study" comes out on the eve of Davos saying that people are in love with CEOs and want them to run the world. What are the chances of that?
The survey had a separate category for the better-educated, higher-earning “informed public”.
You have to contact the firm to get the methodology of the study. It isn't publicly available.
When you are surrounded by yes men, eager to tell you whatever you want to hear, it's easy to believe pretty much anything.
On the other end of the spectrum are the Yellow Vests in France who have an interesting new strategy.
France’s anti-government “yellow vest” protesters are to put forward a list of candidates to run in upcoming European Parliament elections, it said on Wednesday.
I'm not sure whether this is a good thing, or a bad thing, but it shows that the movement still has legs. This isn't gonna go away.
Interestingly, the tax policies of the anti-globalist/populist Trump and the globalist/neoliberal darling Macron have the exact same outcome, benefiting the exact same 1%.
What does that have to do with Davos?
Davos is the capital of the McResistance.
If you are looking for the central hub or nexus of opposition to Donald Trump's presidency and insight into the minds of his most vocal critics at home and abroad, look no further than the 2019 meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
I have written previously that Davos serves as an annual reminder that the smartest people in the world are actually all morons. This was putting it too kindly.
That covers the fake #Resistance, but what about the fake populism?
Well, Davos has that covered too.
So when Schwab publicly throws globalism under the bus, sounding like a leftist university professor while he’s at it, it’s worth paying attention. In the run-up to the 2019 World Economic Forum, Schwab wrote an article in which he declared that “Globalism is an ideology that prioritizes the neoliberal global order over national interests.” Schwab, like the broader Davos set, is trying to adjust to the age of populism. But that’s not to suggest they’re surrendering to it. Quite the opposite: Schwab’s anti-globalist shift is a hijacking attempt. It shows how corporate elites are trying to accommodate nationalist populism while still maximizing their own personal gains—which, of course, come at the expense of the very masses they’re attempting to appeal to.
The theme of WEF is “Globalization 4.0”.
Do you think these people have any interest at all in compromise? In sharing a tiny share of their wealth?
As professor Mark Blyth explained, the Hamptons are not a defensible position. | {
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Ever fathom how the Internet works? What it really means to upload a selfie or submit an online survey? How the entire digital landscape interconnects, putting the world, as they say, at your fingertips?
There are many convoluted elements involved in answering this question; like mapping the brain, it can be a headache. And much like the brain, the internet is built upon a series of connections. Consider fiber optic cables. These bundles of glass or plastic threads are the pulse of modern day telecommunications, linking up internet connections around the world as an increasing number of people get online. Think broadband.
Currently there is enough fiber optic cable under the oceans to circle the earth 22 times, with the longest cable spanning 24,000 miles. Together the 550,000 miles of cable transmit 99% of international digital data. Undersea cables have been linking up telecommunications for over 150 years, and now a new human-caused global phenomenon is altering their trajectory, for better or worse.
< The First Submarine cable In 1854 the first transatlantic submarine telegraph cable was laid between Newfoundland and Ireland. Four years later it sent its first message:“Laws, Whitehouse received five minutes signal. Coil signals too weak to relay. Try drive slow and regular. I have put intermediate pulley. Reply by coils.” Cable Landing stations There are over 983 landing stations across the world. Cutting the cables In 2013, three men attempted to cut the SMW4 cable off the coast of Alexandria. The head of Egypt Telecom said the incident caused a 60 percent drop in Internet speeds. Cableless antarctica Antarctica is the only continent that has not been reached by a submarine telecommunications cable. Satellite communications are the only way to communicate, and are unreliable. The Cable The cable will run over 9,600 miles connecting Japan and the UK. Once the cable is connected it will take the 154 milliseconds for data to reach either side, 24 milliseconds faster than what is currently available. >
As climate change warms and acidifies the world’s oceans—causing great shifts in marine habitats and presenting myriad challenges for the wildlife relying on ecosystem stability to survive—the melting effect of climate change on the Arctic is having the opposite effect for fiber optics by instead giving them even more room to grow. In remote parts of the world, such as the Arctic Circle, impenetrable Arctic sea ice has made setting up certain extremely sought-after cable routes inconceivable until recently. But now, with sea Arctic ice cover on a diminishing trajectory, it may soon be possible to connect London and Tokyo directly via fiber optic cable for the first time.
Toronto-based Arctic Fibre is the company poised to take on this monumental task, which will involve laying nearly 10,000 miles of undersea cable along the sea floor. The final course of the cable will run through the Northwest Passage, a perilous, ice-ridden waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Surrounded by more than 50,000 icebergs, the route is located some 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle and just over 1,000 miles from the North Pole. Consisting of a complex web of channels that navigate Arctic islands and icebergs, the entire passage is nearly 1,000 miles long. Scientists have predicted that the continued melting of Arctic sea ice could make the entire Northwest Passage ice-free by summers in the middle of this century. This will impact not only cable routes, but shipping routes, allowing vessels to shave nearly one-third of the distance off journeys that would otherwise require a trip through the Panama Canal.
NASA has monitored annual Arctic sea ice growth and retreat since 1978. September 2002 marked a watershed year, in which the minimum sea ice extent since 1979 was reached. Since then a number of record of near-record low years have occurred as the rate of decline has quickened in the 21st century. In September 2012, Artic sea ice reached a new all-time low of 3.39 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles)—only around 56% of the amount present in 2000 and 1990 and less than half of what was recorded in September 1980.
< 1985 Ice area 1985 1985 Ice area 1990 1985 Ice area 1995 1985 Ice area 2000 1985 Ice area 2005 1985 Ice area 2010 1985 Ice area 2010 Ice area 2011 1985 Ice area 2010 Ice area 2012 1985 Ice area 2010 Ice area 2013 1985 Ice area 2010 Ice area 2014 >
The projected price tag of this next stage in underwater cable proliferation being led by Arctic Fibre is estimated to be $620 million for the just the “backbone”, which could be completed as soon as the end of 2016. Separate branches will connect Seattle, Ireland, and Tomakomai, Japan.
What makes such a daunting and expensive project worthwhile?
The link between Asia and Europe will provide a shorter route for data delivery, which translates to a number of benefits, including faster stock market transactions that can yield a competitive advantage. There would also be security benefits, especially when compared to other overland cables connecting the two regions—these cables run through the volatile Middle East or the Caucuses, especially disruption-prone regions, according to Buzzfeed. The cable will also eschew many of the other service disrupting human-related risk factors that fiber optic cables are subject to, such as fish trawling and ship anchorages, which according to the International Submarine Cable Protection Committee make up almost 70% of outages. For the Artic Fibre line, ice will be the biggest risk factor.
Tens of thousands of Canadians and Alaskans also stand to gain access from the project as well, including those living in remote villages, oil and gas exploration and extraction units, and Arctic research facilities. Without a reliable connection to the grid, up to this point these outposts have relied on slow and unpredictable satellite connections.
According to Arctic Fibre, the cable will bring “virtually unlimited bandwidth” to some 26,600 Alaskans as well as a handful of Canadian communities. It will also reduce wholesale bandwidth costs by as much as 85%.
The difference in speed between Artic Fibre’s proposed cable and existing connections between London and Tokyo can be measured in milliseconds—24 milliseconds to be exact. The new Arctic Fibre cable will decrease communication time between the U.K. and Japan from 179 milliseconds to 154 milliseconds. This minuscule time difference can feel like eternity when it comes to algorithmic stock market trading, i.e. high-frequency trading, where a difference of a few milliseconds can be the difference of millions of dollars.
On top of the additional branches, Arctic Fibre’s new cable will have several landing points, where connections to the greater grid are established: Ajigaura, Japan, Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada, and Highbridge in the United Kingdom. Of the entire 10,000-mile route, only around 17 miles will be laid above ground along an area known as the Boothia Peninsula in the northern Canadian Arctic. | {
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I re-read The Gods Themselves because it was 1972’s Hugo winner, and all I could remember about it was three gendered aliens, which didn’t really seem fair. The part of the book I remembered is the middle. It does indeed have three gendered aliens feed on energy. Their genders are left, right, and mid, or parental, logical and emotional. Their sex is very weird but it’s described in detail—it’s as if Asimov read that Tenn story about alien amoeba porn and thought “I could write that!”
Asimov didn’t often do aliens, but he does them very well here. It’s almost Tiptree-esque, and when I say that I am thinking of “Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death.” They feel alien and they feel like people and they have odd weird lifecycles. I could have lived without the emotional one being “she” but since the parental one is “he” and making up pronouns gets clunky fast I guess it’s reasonable. This really is a good novella about three gendered aquatic aliens. It’s a pity it’s buried in the rest of the book, which turns out to be deeply disappointing.
Everybody who complained about the physics in Anathem? I hope you complained just as loudly about the physics in The Gods Themselves, because it’s wrong in exactly the same ways and much less entertainingly. I checked this with two actually scientist type people, because Asimov was a chemist and a hard science fiction writer and I didn’t want to trust the evidence of my own lying eyes, but here we have alternate universes with different physics in contact with each other and with different atoms and energy and messages and actual physical metals being exchanged between them, and this is really scientifically silly. Pu-187? I think not.
But you know if I’m complaining about the science that means there’s something else wrong, because if I like a book I’m prepared to overlook the most ridiculous scientific errors. What’s wrong here is that the human parts are boring. The first part is about squabbling scientists and the discovery of the pump shuffling energy between universes. This is frankly dull, and its one redeeming feature is that it’s fairly short. The third part is set on the moon, and it’s somewhat more interesting than the first part but it has a kind of deus ex machina solution to the problem, which makes it all seem pointless. (I also thought it had been visited by the sexism fairy.)
I do like a lot of Asimov, but this is far from being his best work. However, it won the Hugo and the Nebula and the Locus Award, so an awful lot of people must have loved it in 1973. I’ve tried to see what’s good in it—but really, it’s just the aliens. Maybe the aliens were enough to carry the whole book for some readers? They’re certainly the memorable part. And they’re still worth reading—that section grabbed me. I kept reading the rest in the hope that we might see them again before the end, and was disappointed. So I shake my head and disagree with the voters of 1973.
If you like it, like the whole book as a novel, not just the alien section as a standalone story, I’d be very interested to hear you explain why.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two poetry collections and nine novels, most recently Among Others, and if you liked this post you will like it. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied. | {
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Longtime Detroit radio host Mike Clark has died at 63
Melody Baetens | The Detroit News
Detroit radio legend Mike Clark of "The Drew and Mike Show" fame has died.
His longtime co-host and friend Drew Lane confirmed his death to The Detroit News on Tuesday, saying Clark, 63, died in his sleep Monday night.
"He had some medical issues the past couple years, but I'm still very surprised because we were texting yesterday and he was in typically good humor," Lane said.
Clark and Lane's "Drew and Mike" show on Detroit rock station WRIF (101.1-FM) was the top talk-radio program in the market for many years. When it ended five years ago, the jokes and observations about pop culture, sports and music soon returned in the form of an independent podcast hosted by Lane and sometimes featured Clark.
"I can't believe I'm not going to hear his laugh anymore," Lane said. "He had an incredible, incredible laugh. And he was very self-deprecating. The biggest laugh was always when he shared something from his own life like when he drove out of his garage with the garage door down."
Lane said just that just one instance has brought him "a decade of laughs" and it's silly things like that that he will miss the most about Clark.
Lane said Clark, who loved to fly airplanes, was married to wife Trish for more than 40 years and he added, "I don't think they were apart for more than a couple days. He loved her dearly."
The "Drew and Mike" show left WRIF in 2013 after more than 20 years on the air. After the show ended, Lane said Clark still enjoyed being in touch with fans on social media.
"I don't think he ever got over the popularity of the show; he just enjoyed it so much."
[email protected]
Twitter: @melodybaetens | {
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As Kate Sheppard reported last week, July 26th marked the start of yet another oil spill in the US. A 30-inch pipeline owned by Calgary-based Enbridge Energy Partners burst in southwest Michigan, dumping more than a million gallons of oil into a creek feeding into the Kalamazoo River.
Now, the communities of Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties begin the process of cleaning up. Homes surrounding the site remain evacuated per the recommendation of the Calhoun County Health Department due to the airborne presence of benzene—a known carcinogen that is released when oil comes in contact with the air. Signs reading “Recent contamination as a result of the Enbridge Energy oil spill have made this river unsafe to use” line the Kalamazoo River.
Sort-of-good news came earlier this week: The oil had stopped flowing by the end of last week. And on Tuesday, Enbridge, having already launched a spill response website, offered to pay full market value for the more than 200 homes that lie within the spill “red zone,” or within 200 feet of the river, that were already for sale.
But the picture is far from rosy. Eighty miles of the 160-mile long Kalamazoo River is already deemed an EPA Superfund site for PCB contamination caused by paper mill, and reports now show that the oil has already reached this area of the river. The EPA disapproved a series of containment and recovery plans that Enbridge set forth last week, saying they were insufficient. But no matter how solid the plans, the clean-up is likely to take months.
The EPA claims that it will seek full liability against Enbridge for the spill, which, under the Clean Water Act, could amount to $1,100 to $4,300 for each of the 24,000 barrels spilled. The company has pledged to pay all fines in full. But even its own spokesman Alan Roth admits that “there’s still a tremendous amount of work to do.” Jay Wilson, a biologist with the state of Michigan said, “We probably won’t know the full effects for weeks or months or years.” | {
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The law would represent “a disproportionate interference in the freedom of expression and media freedom,” Harlem Désir, the representative on freedom of the media for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in a statement last month. “It may have a considerable chilling effect on journalists, as well as on bloggers, experts, or other individuals publishing information, particularly online.”
The lawmakers said they were responding to foreign agent laws in other countries, pointing to the case of Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist deported from the United States in October after being convicted of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government.
Like many of Russia’s laws restricting freedom of expression, the new amendments appear likely to be applied selectively in order to serve as a deterrent. A lawmaker who helped draft the law, Vasily Piskarev, said he expected the amendments to apply to “a small circle of individuals.”
But in theory, any Russian who is paid by foreign news organizations, or simply posts on social media while receiving money from abroad, could be forced to register under the new law. Compliance would require stating publicly that one is a foreign agent and filing financial reports with the government.
Foreign organizations like the MacArthur Foundation have shuttered their offices in Russia in recent years in response to the foreign agent law. Some Russian organizations that get foreign funding, like the human rights group Memorial, have faced hefty fines for noncompliance — for instance, for failing to spell out their foreign agent status in an Instagram account. | {
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After nearly five years of debate the European parliament has finally approved a new law that will allow EU nations to restrict or ban the cultivation of GM crops within their borders. While supporters of the new opt out law applauded it as the best possible compromise solution on GM for Europe, the staunchest proponents and opponents of GM cultivation are both sharply critical of the legislation.
‘This is a bad move for Europe,’ the agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto said in a statement. ‘It undermines science, it undermines European farmers and it raises prices for European consumers.’
Bert Staes, the Greens’ parliamentary food safety spokesman, said: ‘Despite a majority of EU member states and citizens being consistently opposed to GMOs, the real purpose of this new scheme is to make it easier to wave through EU authorisations of GM crops.’ In the past, Staes has called the opt out law a ‘Trojan horse’ that will be used to open the door for GM cultivation in Europe.
The new law, first proposed in 2010, still needs formal final approval from the EU council. But council approval is considered a mere formality and is expected to be granted in spring.
Policy workaround
Under the law, EU nations will be allowed to ban GMOs on the grounds of environmental policy, town and country planning, socio-economic impact, avoiding the unintended presence of GMOs in other products and on farm policy objectives. The law does not allow bans based on risks to health or the environment from GMOs that have been approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Currently, the insect resistant maize MON810 is the only GM crop cultivated in the EU, grown mainly in Spain and Portugal. Since MON810 was approved for EU cultivation in 1998, no additional GM grains have won approval, with MON810 cultivation banned in Germany, France, Italy and other nations, undermining the concept of a single European market.
GMO opponents who want an EU wide cultivation ban, fear that opposition to new authorisations will weaken with a law that gives nations firm legal footing to opt out of EU approved GM crops. Some GMO opponents speculate that new GM crops could be approved and in the ground as early as 2016.
‘All of that is utter rubbish,’ Monsanto spokesman Brandon Mitchener tells Chemistry World. ‘We will almost certainly not see any new biotech crops grown in Europe for the next 10 years. It costs around $100 million (£66 million) in field trials and lab tests and years of waiting to get a crop approved for commercial sale in Europe, and very few companies can or are willing to invest this amount of money.’
Beat Späth, director for agricultural biotechnology at the Brussels-based industry association EuropaBio, agrees with this assessment, saying that the law ‘merely makes it easier for member states to ban EU approved products. These EU level authorisations almost never take place, despite the fact that the products are routinely confirmed to be as safe as conventional crops.’ Späth adds that most applications to market GM crops for cultivation in the EU have been withdrawn by firms frustrated with delays. ‘There are only a handful of GM crops for cultivation still pending in the system—seven to be precise,’ he says.
Mitchener and Späth say that GM seed companies in recent years have abandoned most research in Europe and do not expect the new law to bring research back to Europe. Richard Breum, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience, says: ‘Our research and development work is mainly conducted in the places where the resulting products are actually used, and in the case of GM that is not in Europe. That will not change with the new law.’
This article is reproduced with permission from Chemistry World. The article was first published on January 15, 2015. | {
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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal isn’t expected to announce his candidacy for president until June 24, but he’s already firing shots at future competitors.
In response to Sen. Rand Paul’s comments in late May on the origins of ISIS, Jindal called him "outlandish," "illogical," and "unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief."
Paul advisor Doug Stafford shot back at Jindal, saying, "It’s ironic Gov. Jindal would level such a charge when he flip-flops on crucial issues like Common Core and national security, and he has cratered his own state’s economy and budget."
This is not the first time critics have accused of Jindal for doing a 180 on Common Core — the state-based educational standards aimed at improving student readiness for college and the workplace. (Read our past fact-checks of claims and flips relating to Common Core.)
In light of his upcoming candidacy, we wondered: How does Jindal’s position on Common Core register on our Flip-O-Meter? It’s important to note that we are not making a value judgment about flip-flopping; we're just noting whether a change of position has occurred.
Jindal support
Common Core was launched in June 2009 as a collaboration between 49 states and territories. Louisiana adopted the standards in 2010 with Jindal’s blessing.
In 2012, he handpicked John White, a strong supporter of Common Core, as state superintendent of education. At an event for business leaders in January of that year, Jindal lauded the Common Core standards as a step forward for education in his state that "will raise expectations for every child."
Jindal echoed the sentiment early into his second term. Jindal stood by Common Core at a groundbreaking ceremony in 2013, amid an ongoing fight over the standards in his state and even after the Republican National Committee renounced the program. Though he never mentioned the initiative by name, Jindal said that "too many" governors, teachers, students and parents "have fought too hard for too many years to put Louisiana on that map (toward more rigorous education standards). And we're not going backwards."
Then, he disowned the initiative.
Jindal opposition
Jindal himself acknowledges his change of heart, which he says is due to the federal government’s stepping in.
His spokesperson Mike Reed told us, "Gov. Jindal supported (Common Core) when he believed it to be a state-led effort. Later, when he discovered it was a centralized federal effort, he opposed it and began working to remove Common Core from Louisiana."
We’ve fact-checked several statements that suggest Common Core is a federal program or mandate. It’s not. States can improve their chances of winning federal money if they adopt educational standards; the Obama administration included that as criteria for its "Race to the Top" program. But Common Core itself remains a state-based, voluntary program.
Nevertheless, by April 2014, Jindal was clearly in the opposition camp.
"I'm from the school that believes education is a matter best left for local control," Jindal wrote in an op-ed for USA Today. "The notion of Washington determining curricula is something most states are simply not interested in. It's a non-starter."
A month later, Jindal grew more emphatic in his distaste for Common Core, comparing it to centralized planning in Russia. He also tweeted:
We will not be bullied by fed govt. Common Core advocates claim it not a fed takeover, but Sec. Duncan's comments & actions prove otherwise. — Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) June 17, 2014
Beyond rhetoric, Jindal has actively tried to rock the schoolhouse standards.
He sued the Obama administration over the national implementation of Common Core in 2014 (and he’s been sued for his repudiation). He asked Common Core to withdraw from the state. He broke with his own education head, an "exceptional" and "unusual" move, according to Ashley Jochim, who studies Common Core at the Center for Reinventing Public Education. He proposed an opt-out option for students in early 2015. He issued an executive order to repeal Common Core in Louisiana in 2014 and came up with a legislative plan as well.
In late May, Jindal signed off on a compromise between Louisiana legislators that allows state review and revision of the federal standards with public oversight. But, according to his spokesperson, that doesn’t mean Jindal’s done with his efforts to permanently give Common Core the boot in the Bayou.
"We support the compromise because it ensures we have local control going forward. The next step will be to elect leaders who are committed to getting rid of Common Core," Reed told us, noting that Jindal’s lawsuit against the Obama administration is moving forward.
Experts say there’s no question Jindal reversed his position on Common Core.
"Gov. Jindal has clearly flip-flopped on the issue. He went from singing the praises of Common Core to leading the charge for removing the standards in Louisiana. Because of Jindal, the state has made almost a complete U-turn on the standards," said James Shuls, a professor of education and policy at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.
Jindal’s change of position has also been noted by CNN, the Huffington Post, the Washington Times, the Washington Post’s editorial board and the Times-Picayune.
Our rating
Jindal was once an ardent supporter of Common Core (and one of the first adopters of the initiative) but has since become one of its staunchest critics, mounting lawsuits and legislation against the initiative. Despite his endorsement of a compromise in his state, Jindal remains an opponent to the core.
We rate Jindal’s position on Common Core a Full Flop. | {
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A well-designed Domain Specific Language (DSL) can help you be more productive as a developer, thus making you, your team and your clients happier. In this post, I’ll guide you through the design and creation of a simple DSL to create EPUB files. We’ll start with a regular API and refactoring until we get to a DSL solution.
A short into to DSLs
At it’s very core, DSL is a fancy term for a very simple language designed to solve something in particular. It’s domain-specific because it works in a very particular use-case, the most common ones being configuration files and APIs. If you are a Ruby developer then you have most likely used a DSL already. RSpec is one of the most popular:
describe "Something" do subject { SomeClass.new } it { is_expected.not_to be_nil } it "passes" do subject.greet eq "Hello!" end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 describe "Something" do subject { SomeClass . new } it { is_expected . not_to be_nil } it "passes" do subject . greet eq "Hello!" end end
That code is in a language designed to helps us write tests in a more natural way following the BDD testing methodology.
The result is code that is more understandable to you as a human — programmer or otherwise. Even if you’ve never used Ruby before, or don’t know about RSpec, you get an idea of what it is, it describes the functionality of Something.
The biggest drawback of DSLs is that you need to learn a new language every time — it’s easier to always use the same interface for all libraries. The advantage, though, is that the API is much more friendly and easier to use in the long-run. It’s an investment, the easiest the library, the lesser bugs consumers have, and everyone loves having less bugs. 🙂
So let’s get starting building a DSL. I’ll guide you through the design and creation of a simple DSL to create EPUB files. Starting with a regular API, we’ll refactor until we get to a DSL solution.
The design
EPUB is a format for digital books used by iOS and macOS. It’s basically a bunch of HTML files zipped together, following certain naming rules and ceremony. Without getting too deep into the file format specification, let’s just assume for now that all EPUBs must have a title, a description and at least one chapter. Initially, one could think of an API design as follows:
generator = EPUBGenerator.new(title: "My Awesome Book", description: "An awesome book, really.") generator.chapter = Chapter.new(title: "Chapter 1", contents: "Once upon a time...") book_path = generator.generate puts "The book was created, it now lives in #{book_path}" 1 2 3 4 5 generator = EPUBGenerator . new ( title : "My Awesome Book" , description : "An awesome book, really." ) generator . chapter = Chapter . new ( title : "Chapter 1" , contents : "Once upon a time..." ) book_path = generator . generate puts "The book was created, it now lives in #{book_path}"
That looks good, right? If the problem is that simple, then we are done. But what if the generator needs more than just a title and a description. Let’s say we now also need an author and a URL. We could just add more arguments:
generator = EPUBGenerator.new(title: "My Awesome Book", description: "An awesome book, really.", author: "Federico Ramirez", url: "http://blog.beezwax.net") 1 2 generator = EPUBGenerator . new ( title : "My Awesome Book" , description : "An awesome book, really." , author : "Federico Ramirez" , url : "http://blog.beezwax.net" )
You might say “Meh it’s not that bad”. And you would be right! But we are taking an unnecessary risk, four arguments for a method is a red flag — it can get out of hand quite easily.
There are many ways to solve that issue, the most common of which is to “extract it into an object”. Let’s create a Book model. We just add the arguments as attributes, make sure the data is always consistent and just inject that object into our generator. Now our code is not only more solid and easier to maintain, but we have the added benefit of testability.
Now we are done… well, not really. Consider now that our EPUB generation library is a Ruby gem. We’ll force all our users to know all the class names: EPUBGenerator , Chapter and Book .
If the library is this small, it’s not really a big deal. If we know we’ll need to expose the user to more classes, then we might want to consider a better solution. This is where a DSL comes handy.
A DSL gives us yet another layer of abstraction. In this example, with a single class name, the user can easily use the library to create a new EPUB:
generator = EPUBGenerator do |g| g.title "My Awesome Book" g.description "An awesome book, really." g.author "Federico Ramirez" g.url "http://blog.beezwax.net" end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 generator = EPUBGenerator do | g | g . title "My Awesome Book" g . description "An awesome book, really." g . author "Federico Ramirez" g . url "http://blog.beezwax.net" end
The way that looks is arbitraty, that’s just a common format for DSLs. With domain-specific languages it’s easier to start with “how it looks” and then move into the implementation, as the other way around might be harder if you have never made a DSLs before.
Now that’s a good enough solution. The code is simple and easy to read. We are still missing a few things though. What would a chapter definition look like? Easy!
generator = EPUBGenerator do |g| g.title "My Awesome Book" # ... g.chapter do |c| c.title "Chapter 1" c.contents "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 generator = EPUBGenerator do | g | g . title "My Awesome Book" # ... g . chapter do | c | c . title "Chapter 1" c . contents "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." end end
You start to notice a pattern here, if chapters needed some dependency, we just pass a new block:
generator = EPUBGenerator do |g| g.title "My Awesome Book" # ... g.chapter do |c| c.title "Chapter 1" #... c.footnote do |f| f.contents "Hello! I'm a footnote." end end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 generator = EPUBGenerator do | g | g . title "My Awesome Book" # ... g . chapter do | c | c . title "Chapter 1" #... c . footnote do | f | f . contents "Hello! I'm a footnote." end end end
Good! We now have our general design, let’s make it happen!
The implementation
Ruby’s yield is what makes it so easy to write DSLs. You can think of it as a function which gets called with whatever arguments we give it.
class EPUBGenerator def self.generate book = Book.new yield book generator = Generator.new(book) generator.generate end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 class EPUBGenerator def self . generate book = Book . new yield book generator = Generator . new ( book ) generator . generate end end
In the code above, pass book , an instance of Book to a block of code. We don’t know what the code-block will do with it, that responsibility is up to the caller. The generate method call looks like this:
generator = EPUBGenerator.generate do |book| puts "I have a book! #{book}" end 1 2 3 4 generator = EPUBGenerator . generate do | book | puts "I have a book! #{book}" end
We’ve abstracted away the Book class name dependency! We’ve also reduced the ceremony for creating books, it’s much simpler now. Let’s repeat this process of yieding code blocks for the Book model:
class Book attr_reader :chapters def initialize @chapters = [] end # getter/setter def title(text = nil) return @title if text.nil? @title = text end def chapter chapter = Chapter.new yield chapter chapter.id(chapters.count + 1) chapters << chapter end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 class Book attr_reader : chapters def initialize @ chapters = [ ] end # getter/setter def title ( text = nil ) return @ title if text . nil ? @ title = text end def chapter chapter = Chapter . new yield chapter chapter . id ( chapters . count + 1 ) chapters < < chapter end end
Nice! Our generator now looks like this:
generator = EPUBGenerator.generate do |b| b.title "My Awesome Book" b.chapter do |c| # ... do something with chapter object end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 generator = EPUBGenerator . generate do | b | b . title "My Awesome Book" b . chapter do | c | # ... do something with chapter object end end
We are still lacking functionality, but the important thing is to realize that every time we write b.<something> in the generator, we are actually calling a method on a book instance.
That’s it! The hard part is done! From now on, it’s quite straightforward to implement the missing functionality. For the sake of completeness, let’s make another model, the Chapter :
class Chapter attr_reader :title def initalize @title = "Not defined" end def title(text = nil) return @title if text.nil? @title = text end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 class Chapter attr_reader : title def initalize @ title = "Not defined" end def title ( text = nil ) return @ title if text . nil ? @ title = text end end
The generator can now add titles to chapters:
generator = EPUBGenerator.generate do |b| b.title "My Awesome Book" b.chapter do |c| c.title "Chapter 1" end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 generator = EPUBGenerator . generate do | b | b . title "My Awesome Book" b . chapter do | c | c . title "Chapter 1" end end
Wrapping up
We’ve built our own DSL. And it wasn’t even hard! If you are curious and want the full source code, you can see a fully working gem on GitHub. The complete DSL looks like this:
path = Epubber.generate do |b| b.title 'My First EPUB book' b.author 'Ramirez, Federico' b.description 'This is an example EPUB' b.url 'http://my-url.com' b.cover do |c| c.file File.new('my-image.jpg') end b.introduction do |i| i.content '<p>This is an introduction.</p>' end b.chapter do |c| c.title 'Chapter 1' c.content '<p>This is some content!</p>' end b.chapter do |c| c.title 'Chapter 2' c.content '<p>Some more content this is.</p>' end end 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 path = Epubber . generate do | b | b . title 'My First EPUB book' b . author 'Ramirez, Federico' b . description 'This is an example EPUB' b . url 'http://my-url.com' b . cover do | c | c . file File . new ( 'my-image.jpg' ) end b . introduction do | i | i . content '<p>This is an introduction.</p>' end b . chapter do | c | c . title 'Chapter 1' c . content '<p>This is some content!</p>' end b . chapter do | c | c . title 'Chapter 2' c . content '<p>Some more content this is.</p>' end end
BONUS TIP
Yielding blocks is used everywhere in Ruby. It is particularly useful for making sure resources are beeing handled properly, the most common example is file manipulation. In order to write to a file we have to open it for writing, write stuff, and then close it.
file = open_file('my_file.txt', 'w') file.write("Something") file.close 1 2 3 4 file = open_file ( 'my_file.txt' , 'w' ) file . write ( "Something" ) file . close
If we forget to close the file, we won’t get any errors, but it might lead to unexpected behavior. That’s not good, we want all our users to always close the file after they write to it. We can easily solve this with yield : | {
"pile_set_name": "OpenWebText2"
} |
Save
Diet, lifestyle outweigh genetic impact on gut microbiome
Genetics play a surprisingly minor role in shaping the gut microbiome, while environmental factors like diet and lifestyle appear to have the greatest impact, according to new research published in Nature.
These findings provide strong new evidence supporting the concept of modifying the gut microbiota to improve human health, investigators from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel concluded.
“We cannot change our genes, but we now know that we can affect — and even reshape — the composition of the different kinds of bacteria we host in our bodies,” study investigator Eran Segal, PhD, of the departments of computer science and applied mathematics, and molecular cell biology at Weizmann, said in a press release. “So, the findings of our research are quite hopeful; they suggest that our microbiome could be a powerful means for improving our health.”
To test the hypothesis that differences in gut microbiota composition between individuals is largely determined by their genes, Segal and colleagues analyzed genotype and microbiome data from 1,046 healthy Israelis who participated in a longitudinal nutrition study. As the Israeli population is highly diverse, the study included participants with varied genetic ancestry, making this setting ideal for the genetic aspect of the study, investigators noted.
They found that the gut microbiome did not significantly correlate with genetic ancestry, and that an individual’s genes play only a minor role in determining their gut microbiota composition, accounting for just about 2% of the variation observed between populations.
Genetics play a surprisingly minor role in shaping the gut microbiome Photo Source: Shutterstock.com
Further, they found genetically unrelated people who lived in the same household showed significant similarities in gut microbiota composition, while relatives with no history of living together shared no significant similarities in their microbiomes.
In contrast, they found that environmental factors like diet, drugs and anthropometric measurements accounted for more than 20% of the gut microbiota variation observed between individuals. They also showed that gut microbiome composition was as good or superior to genetics for predicting clinical measures like BMI, fasting glucose levels, glycemic status, high-density lipoprotein levels, cholesterol, waist and hip circumference, waist-hip ratio and lactose consumption.
“Our results demonstrate that the gut microbiome is predominantly shaped by environmental factors, and is strongly correlated with many human phenotypes after accounting for host genetics,” Segal and colleagues concluded. This suggests that modulating the microbiome to improve clinical outcomes should work across diverse genetic backgrounds, they added. – by Adam Leitenberger
Disclosures: The authors reported no relevant financial disclosures. | {
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On january 10, Buzzfeed posted a story under the byline of Ken Bensinger, Mark Schoofs and Miriam elder titled “these reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia” and posted a link to a document alleging, among other things, that russia has been cultivating trump for 5+ years, that trump has been in constant contact with the kremlin for information on his opponents, and perhaps most inflammatory, that there are many recorded instances of blackmail of trump in sexual misconduct. A prominent claim is that trump rented the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in moscow, where he knew that the Obamas had slept in; he them hired a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden shower' (pissplay) on the bed and in the room. https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.jdyKR56pj#.skw2lK8Nd
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.pdf
Noted #nevertrump voice Rick Wilson later commented on twitter, stating that the report “gave a new meaning to Wikileaks” (https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/818982395202379777) and that the report was the reason everybody was fighting so hard against the election of Trump. (https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/818983514335047680)
The remarkable thing? It's all fake. And not only fake; it's a prank perpetuated by 4chan, on Rick Wilson himself. A post on 4chan on october 26 stated “mfw managed to convince CTR and certain (((journalists))) on Twitter there'll be an October surprise on Trump this Friday” along with a picture of a smug face with a hash name. http://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/94704894/#94705224
on november 1, a person without a picture but is assumed to be the same person posted “So they took what I told Rick Wilson and added a Russian spy angle to it. They still believe it. Guys, they're truly fucking desperate - there's no remaining Trump scandal that's credible.” https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329
on january 10, moments after the story broke and began to gain traction on social media, a person with the same smug grin face, and the same hash title for the picture, stated “I didn't think they'd take it so far.” http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/106514445#p106520376 | {
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World Oceans Day took place last Thursday. Today, there are about 5,000 more metric tons of plastic waste in the ocean than there were yesterday. That’s about the equivalent of every San Franciscan heading down to Ocean Beach and chucking a 13-pound trash bag full of plastic into the surf every day. Worse, this is only the amount of plastic coming from the world’s ocean-bound rivers, not total output. (Add other outflow sources, like aquaculture, shipping, and direct dumping, and those trash bags get much heavier.)
This is all according to a new peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Nature Communications by Ocean Cleanup, the Dutch foundation that has been on a mission to eliminate half of the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch by 2020.
The Cleanup’s study quantifies, for the first time, global plastic input from rivers into oceans. Lead researcher Laurent Lebreton, along with the Cleanup’s founder Boyan Slat and four other co-authors, looked at 182 countries and 40,760 ocean-bound rivers, crunching data on population density, mismanaged plastic waste, and natural and built drainage patterns around those rivers. They also looked at seasonal patterns, determining the different frequencies of input throughout the year. According to their findings, just 20 of those rivers contribute two-thirds of total plastic input. The worst polluters are the Yangtze, in China, followed by the Ganges, in India.
“[The paper] is an important aspect of our trying to get the best possible picture of the problem that we are trying to solve,” Lebreton told me in an email, “and that so far has only been sparsely studied and described.”
While the paper’s statistics are staggering, they’re not surprising, given ever-intensifying coverage of the oceans’ plastic crisis. (You’ve heard the one about more plastic than fish by 2050, right?) What was not anticipated is that the Cleanup broached the subject of plastic emissions from rivers at all.
[The study]looked at 182 countries and 40,760 ocean-bound rivers, crunching data on population density, mismanaged plastic waste, and natural and built drainage patterns around those rivers.
Since 2013, the Cleanup has grown to a staff of 65, which has been focused on Slat’s original vision: a 62-mile-wide boom moored in the Pacific, which would collect plastic flotsam and store it for retrieval and, eventually, recycling. Just last month, the Cleanup completed its most successful ever crowdfunding campaign for the project, raising $21.7 million from high-profile donors like Silicon Valley titans Marc and Lynne Benioff and Peter Thiel.
The lucrative 2017 campaign, coupled with the Cleanup’s announcement days later that it would start extracting plastic from the Pacific within the next 12 months—and have half of the Garbage Patch cleaned up in just five years time—reignited criticism [[CRITICISM REP BELOW]] from the scientific community, which has long accused the foundation of approaching the ocean plastics crisis completely wrong.
“My criticism has been [the Cleanup’s] lack of pragmatism and willingness to listen to the science and focus on upstream mitigations to solve the problem,” Marcus Eriksen, cofounder of the 5 Gyres Institute and outspoken critic of the Cleanup, wrote in an email to me last week. He was writing in-between events at the Ocean Conference, which was held at the United Nations, in New York. The Cleanup, Eriksen continued, has been “hell-bent on putting that giant net in the middle of the Pacific when most scientists and environmentalists agree it’s not a good idea.” Like most other critics, Eriksen points to microplastics—the broken-down particles of larger plastics that can choke the digestive tracts of birds and fish—which are difficult to capture and largely elude surface boom systems like the Cleanup’s.
Eriksen also worries that the Cleanup’s new paper could work against the effort to change the governmental policies on land that are exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis. “There exists the potential that [the plastics industry] will look at this paper and use it to justify blaming the consumer for littering, and cities for not managing their plastic trash, and continue to deflect and reject any conversations about eliminating high polluting throwaway products or regulating smarter design standards.” But, Eriksen concedes, the fact that the Cleanup has acknowledged the problem of plastic pollution sources is a step in the right direction.
In response to the question of whether this paper is a direct response to critics like Eriksen, with whom Lebreton has worked in the past, Lebreton said, “We did not need any specific advice to do this. The initial motivation was to work on designing better sources for our oceanic model.” He went on, “For our work to be successful, we need to understand how plastic pollution flows around the world, [and] better mapping its sources is a logical part of that work.”
I was reminded of something Slat had told me last June, when I joined him on the North Sea for the launch of the Ocean Cleanup’s first prototype of Slat’s boom. I had asked him about the blowback from Eriksen and others. “It’s not either or,” he had said agitatedly. “We should do both.” So, was anything in the works? Always careful to keep the Cleanup’s plans close to his chest, Slat suggested there wasn’t, which I remember thinking was unfortunate. But, he added, “I think eventually we’ll be able to develop spin-off systems of what we’re doing in the ocean, which can go closer to land, or maybe in rivers.” In fact, at that moment, the paper was well in the works. | {
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DENVER—“In five years, everyone will know the Earth is flat,” Scott Simons tells me as we wait in line for the second annual Flat Earth Conference.
Scott, holding the Utah license plate “ITSFLAT,” is explaining how the Flat Earth revolution will bring “societal collapse” because the bulk of our knowledge comes from Round Earth institutions.
“It’s globalism,” his wife Julie interjects. The term, a favorite of President Donald Trump, has become an anti-Semitic euphemism, attached to a far-right conspiracy about Jews controlling the world. I make what must be a funny face, because Julie tries to clarify.
“Globalism,” she repeats, and draws a circle with her hands to illustrate.
Ah. Globe. Yes.
Thousands of years after ancient Greeks began referencing Earth as a sphere in mathematical proofs, people who believe in a flat Earth have become a movement. They’ve found their voice in the disinformation age, fueled by YouTube videos. For true believers, it’s more than just a conspiracy theory. It’s whole world view, a level plane onto which hucksters, trolls, and Christian fundamentalists can insert their own ideologies.
In an age of rising conspiracy theories—voter fraud, QAnon, anti-vaxxers, chemtrails—Flat Earth might be the most foundational conspiracy theory of them all.
Under the Dome
The conference that drew hundreds took place Thursday and Friday at the Crowne Plaza, a Denver airport hotel and convention center. It’s located on an unfriendly bit of highway, so few of us leave, opting instead to mill about in this enclosed world of hotel and restaurant and conference center. At the hotel bar, a Flat Earther tells me about the supposed nonexistence of certain intercontinental flights, two of which I have personally taken within the past four years.
It seems incredibly easy, even natural, to go insane here. Both clocks in my hotel room are an hour ahead, even though Daylight Saving Time ended 11 days ago. Someone keeps walking around whistling the theme music to Westworld, the TV show about a fake world inside a dome. Not even the whole song, just the opening bit over and over, around and around the place. Eventually I Google “time in Denver” to confirm my phone is in the correct time zone. It is. Of course it is. There’s a persistent needling at reality.
Conference organizers have been teasing a surprise guest, a real A-lister. He appears on stage the second morning. It’s Logan Paul, the mega-popular YouTuber and prankster who last year gained notoriety for making a video of a dead man in Japan’s “Suicide Forest.”
“I consider myself a man of truth, someone who hates being ignorant,” Paul tells the crowd, spouting off some stats about the moon landing. “I guess I’m not ashamed to say my name is Logan Paul and I think I’m coming out of the Flat Earth closet.” He ends his address with a mic drop.
Conference organizer Robbie Davidson returns to stage, excited. He wants to impress on the audience “the magnitude of what Logan Paul represents. He has 18 million subscribers on YouTube.” The crowd goes “ohhhh!” “He has over four billion views on his videos.” The crowd breaks into cheers and applause.
“This is the first step: someone with a very big following putting their name on the line and saying ‘you know what, I’m almost there. There’s a lot of compelling evidence,’” Davidson says. He says he gave Paul a 30-minute interview for a forthcoming YouTube video on the conference. “I have a very good feeling he’s genuine,” Davidson says.
I can say this with confidence: Logan Paul does not believe the Earth is flat. I spoke with him outside the convention center the previous morning, where he tried giving the same Flat Earth stump speech through giggles.
“To me it’s just so obvious that obviously the Earth is flat obviously,” Paul tells me. It’s his second attempt at the speech. The first time through, he had to stop for a laugh break.
“Facts,” a team member tells him. “That was really solid. That was more compelling than the first time, I think.”
They’re filming for their YouTube video. Paul probably doesn’t know it, but he’s part of his own conspiracy theory. In 2016, he starred in a YouTube-produced movie called “The Thinning,” about a dystopian world in which the United Nations kills children as part of a population-reduction project. Truther communities ate it up, and people still post the trailer in Facebook groups for various conspiracy theories.
A YouTube Revolution
On the first day of the conference, I ask Flat Earthers when they converted. When did they chuck out the globe, renounce outer space as fake, and decide we live on a flat plane covered by a dome?
The answer, for most, is three years ago. That’s when some of the movement’s biggest names launched YouTube channels with hours-long videos explaining not so much why the Earth is flat (it isn’t) but why elements of the “globe model” are suspicious, particularly when they clash with a literal reading of the Bible.
“August 2015,” Ginny, a California woman tells me. That’s when a friend forwarded her a video series on Flat Earth. “I spent like three nights wide awake and then I was hooked.”
This is the real currency in the Flat Earth community. Between speeches, everyone is showing each other YouTube videos on their phones. People reference each other by their YouTube names, and twice when I leave my seat I return to find advertisements for YouTube channels on the chair. A panel on Women in Flat Earth is more of a how-to on running a Flat Earth YouTube channel while female.
YouTube wants you watching videos, as many as possible, for as long as possible. It’s the rare conspiracy on which conference-goers and I are in complete agreement. In order to maximize views, the Google-owned video giant recommends videos based on those you already watched. Videos with attention-grabbing titles and hot-button keywords often turn up high in the recommendation algorithm. Start watching videos for less extreme conspiracy theories like 9/11 trutherism or moon landing hoaxes, and YouTube will eventually recommend you a Flat Earth video.
Conference speaker Joshua Swift tells me a popular Flat Earth video “woke him up” to the movement. “It came on autoplay,” he says. “So I didn’t actively search for Flat Earth. Even months before, I was listening to Alex Jones.”
Unlike most families here, brothers Michael and Daniel Flores are divided on the Flat Earth debate. Mike says it’s flat. Daniel, just tagging along to the conference, says Mike watches too many YouTube videos.
“Your YouTube feed is just confirmation bias,” Daniel tells him. “You’re not getting any astrophysicist videos.” “It’s what you look up,” Mike says.
“It’s getting reinforced,” Daniel says.
Despite the centrality of YouTube algorithms and Facebook discussion groups, a good number of conference-goers believe tech companies are censoring them.
Nathan Thompson is the moderator of Facebook’s largest Flat Earth group, with more than 127,000 members.
“I’ve never experienced censorship like what I experienced since starting the Flat Earth group… [Facebook] ban me all the time,” he says. “YouTube, they’re removing [subscribers] from channels, stopping your view count to make it look like your video’s not popular.”
That his video might be authentically unpopular is out of the question. Someone out there is acting against him, he says. It’s just not clear exactly whom.
World War Flat Earth
Mike “Mad Mike” Hughes is one of the biggest stars on the Flat Earth scene. His conference exhibit—a limousine he used for a world-record stunt jump, and a homemade rocket he rode this year—occupy the coveted space in the center of the Flat Earth Conference vendor room.
A self-taught rocket stuntman who doesn’t believe in science, he’s a hard man to mimic.
So why is someone trying to steal his identity?
“He’s got a fake website of mine: madmikehughes dot live,” Hughes tells me of a website an impostor set up in his name. “I’m Mad Mike Hughes. He’s selling merchandise on it.”
The person has also set up GoFundMe accounts in Hughes’ name. The impostor website solicits donations, advertises Infowars, and claims to be run by a “Tim Ozman.”
“ Flat Earth is weird, but this is weird-weird. This is shitposting into oblivion. This is the information equivalent of clear-cutting a forest. ”
The trouble is that a cluster of characters in the Flat Earth community all claim to be the same Tim Ozman (or Osman, depending on their preferred spelling). Hughes, who ties the name to a 9/11 conspiracy theory, says the real Tim Ozman is his business partner, Jack.
Somewhere in this mess of Tims is a bomb threat and a fake FBI raid. Two months ago, one of the alleged Ozmans uploaded a video accusing Jack of threatening to bomb the Flat Earth conference. In late October, a different YouTube channel claiming to be Ozman uploaded a video purportedly showing an FBI raid on his home in relation to the bomb threat. He claimed the bomb threat was a hoax to silence him.
But the footage is originally from a California CBS affiliate and it’s from May. The video is a hoax about the FBI responding to a hoax between warring Flat Earth factions. Hughes says both channels—the one that reported the bomb threat and the one that reported the raid—are fake. I show Hughes a picture of a man I suspect to be Jack/Tim, and Hughes confirms his identity. But that picture comes from footage of a New Mexico town hall meeting, where the man introduced himself as Mark Sargent, a well-known Flat Earth YouTuber who is several decades older.
All these men are impersonating each other.
Hughes’ table in the exhibition hall is stocked with amateur newspapers authored by Jack/Tim. Most of the broadsheet is a screed against his alleged impersonator, whom he claims has stolen his and Hughes’ identities. Hughes suggests the impersonator is an actor, whom truthers link to conspiracies about the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
“He hasn’t been beat up yet or taken to court,” Hughes says of the impersonator. But the paper suggests another possible explanation for this intricate web of fraud. Hughes and his Ozman are members of a Flat Earth group that describes itself as “anti-media” “autohoaxers.” “We are the ONLY opposition to the controlled opposition,” the paper says of the group.
“Controlled opposition” is a truther term for efforts to undermine conspiracy groups. “Autohoaxers” are a movement that reflexively declares every significant event a hoax, sometimes just for argument’s sake. The group’s manifesto, then, is an appeal to seed confusion and dismantle established facts, in order to let conspiracy run rampant.
Days before the conference, I try entering the group’s chat channel on Discord, a messaging app. Before I’m banned (almost immediately, by users who announce “spy!” when I join) I notice most people have adopted near-identical usernames bashing one of the Flat Earth community’s Tim Ozmans. They’ve taken up Fepe, a Flat Earth-specific variant on the alt-right meme Pepe. Flat Earth is weird, but this is weird-weird. This is shitposting into oblivion. This is the information equivalent of clear-cutting a forest.
Off the Deep End
So why do it? Who benefits from the void of facts?
I ask a number of Flat Earthers about their politics. Many are politically disengaged (“your vote doesn’t count,” three people tell me), but loosely conservative. Most are Christian. Some, if you inquire long enough, say they’ll have to completely rebuild society after everyone realizes the world is flat.
This crowd isn’t necessarily far right. But the openness to extremes and a tendency toward conservative Christianity means far-right language leaks into conversation throughout the conference.
The Globebusters, a Flat Earth YouTube crew, give a presentation linking NASA to the Nazis. The initials of a NASA space-training program spell out the name of a son of Zeus, the Greek god who threw lightning bolts, which clearly are similar to the lightning bolt insignias worn on SS uniforms.
A hundred feet from the mainstage where Globebusters are imagining Nazi symbols, a man named Mike Dees is selling Flat Earth books and apparel. He’s wearing a pewter necklace with a crooked-spoked wheel: a Sonnenrad. The ancient symbol was appropriated by the Nazis and features heavily in neo-Nazi culture today.
“It’s an ancient symbol of the stars. The 24 positions of the Big Dipper,” he says of the symbol. He knows about its other meaning as “the more popularized, misinterpreted trigger symbol” but still wears it because he sees it as “an ancient, cosmic symbol of peace.”
Two tables over, vendors are selling a weighty book on Flat Earth. “Zionist Jews control the educational system,” begins Chapter 33 (“Mind Control”). The second paragraph is a block-quote from the wildly anti-Semitic and fabricated conspiracy text Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which the Flat Earth author concludes is proof that Jews are trying to hide the Flat Earth, in order to undermine God and control the world.
At the table between Dees’ Sonnenrad and the book on Jewish mind control, Andrea Berglund is selling Flat Earth maps. “The CIA, the FBI,” she tells me when I ask who’s behind a series of alleged cover-ups. “The Jews are involved too.”
Presenter Robert Sungenis, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has accused of anti-Semitism, prefaces a Hebrew word with “as Jews say” and makes a exaggerated, phlegmy-sounding gutternal noise.
Religious conspiracy (some people I speak to at the conference accuse the Freemasons, not the Jews of covering up Flat Earth) and political uncertainty go hand in hand. Embittered by Germany’s loss in World War I, fascists falsely accused the country’s Jews of “stabbing Germany in the back” during the war. The conspiracy theory contributed to the Holocaust under Nazi rule. The ongoing genocide of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in Myanmar, during a period of political strife has been fueled by a dramatic increase in anti-Rohingya hate speech and conspiracy on Facebook. In a period of political unrest in America, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and subsequent murders of Jews are on the rise.
When the entire world feels uncertain, it’s no wonder people look for an easy culprit. Flat Earthers say the planet is a stationary disk that does not rotate or orbit the sun. But I speak to enough to suspect they still feel off-balance in the world.
Friends at the End of the World
In the vendor hall, Deb Hamm is selling engraved knives. She gets one out of the display box for me. “Flat Earther Gutting The Hoax One Proof At A Time,” its blade reads. It costs $68.
“I’ve changed a number of people’s lives,” Hamm says of Flat Earth belief. Converting people is “hard, but I know enough from studying full-bore for three years that it doesn’t take long.”
“I can’t talk to my daughter,” she said, “but I have three or four friends I’ve made come over and have a beer and let’s watch this video.”
Disavowal by friends or family is a common topic of discussion, especially during question-and-answer panels.
Ginny, the California woman who converted after three straight days of Flat Earth videos, asks how she might “come out” as a Flat Earther on Facebook. The conference is particularly important to her, she says, as she’s just lost her home in the ongoing California wildfires.
After the panel, I catch up with Ginny and her friend Suzanne, who tells me she’s probably also lost her house. It’s located in an evacuation zone, so she can’t be certain. Her mother, who lives in the zone, is missing. If she’s dead, Suzanne hopes she went quickly. She’s heartbroken, she says. At first she felt “a little guilty” coming to the Flat Earth conference amid all that ruin, but there’s nothing she can do until the evacuation order lifts, anyway. Being here among like-minded people is helping, Suzanne says.
Conference-goers are exceedingly kind. A family invites me to breakfast, where they tell me that druids are real and the Sandy Hook massacre was fake. This is just what she’d tell me if I were her kid, the mother explains.
Most presentations I watch follow a similar pattern. The speakers makes some reference to the ridicule Flat Earthers face. On the first morning, conference master of ceremonies Rick Hummer asks what insults the audience has heard. “Crazy,” someone shouts. Others: “Retard!” “Flattard!” (Hummer repeats the routine on the conference’s second day.) The speakers go on to discuss the joy of being around like-minded (“open-minded”) people. As for the substance of the presentations, many are excerpted from YouTube videos the audience has already seen.
Sure there are schisms. Multiple YouTubers make snipes at other YouTubers during their presentations. Trolls like one or more of the Tim Ozmans make bomb threats. All the major speakers are at odds with the Flat Earth Society, whom many describe as “controlled opposition.” The first night concludes with a formal debate between a Christian literalist who believes Earth is flat and a Christian literalist who believes Earth is round but that the solar system orbits Earth, not the sun.
But overall, the conference is a barrage of reinforcement. Earth is flat and you’re here with your Flat Earth family. Earth is flat and you’re here with your Flat Earth family .
I take a break from a presentation to type in the lobby. Two strangers, a man and a woman, sit down across from me, and over the course of a long conversation, scooch closer and closer to each other until I relocate to another couch. For all the presenters’ talk of open-mindedness and debate, people are really looking for others like them.
“My question is, we know the Earth is flat,” a conference-goer named Melody asks speakers during a question-and-answer panel. “What do we do now?” | {
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Subsets and Splits